2022 - 2023 Distinguished Alumni Awardees

John Traver BS ’10
Co‐founder / Senior Principal Scientist at Frame.io

When RIT alumnus John Traver launched his own production company, he found the video editing process to be cumbersome in how editors and clients review and provide feedback on all aspects of video production. Recognizing these challenges led Traver to build a better solution. Frame.io enables online workspaces where video, photo, and audio assets are uploaded for clients and others to provide real-time feedback. As a result, Traver and Frame.io have reshaped the creative industry.

Frame.io is a video review and collaboration platform designed to unify media assets and creative conversations in a user‐friendly environment. Headquartered in New York City, Frame.io was developed by filmmakers, VFX artists and post production executives. Today, they support nearly 1 million media professionals at enterprises including Netflix, Buzzfeed, Turner, Nasa & Vice Media, and are backed by leading investors such as Firstmark, Accel Partners, Signal Fire and Jared Leto. Frame.io was acquired by Adobe in November of 2021.

William J. Collins III BT ’83 
President of Airframe Services, HAECO Americas 

Bill Collins is President of Airframe Services Company, HAECO Americas. HAECO is a global, commercial aircraft Maintenance, Repair, Overhaul and Modification (MRO) company and part of the 200 year old, $32B Swire conglomerate.

Bill has more than 30 years’ experience in the aviation industry, leading large manufacturing and service companies that support commercial and military aircraft, and the space industry.

Prior to joining HAECO, Bill developed the MRO practice at ICF, a global advisory and technology services provider. Prior to ICF, Bill led Bristow Group as Chief Operating Officer and was with American Airlines as Corporate Vice President of Technical Operations. Bill led a $5B division of GE Aviation prior to the airline and began his career with Texas Instruments in integrated circuit design and manufacturing.

Shortly after the coup in the former Soviet Union in the early 1990s, Bill led teams of business and technology leaders in the former Soviet hot spot cities as part of the US Department of Defense and Department of Energy nuclear nonproliferation program.

Bill holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering Technology from the Rochester Institute of Technology and attended the Kellogg School of Business at Northwestern University in their Executive MBA program.

Anna S. Cameron BS ’84
Global Market Access and Pricing Breast Cancer and Early Asset Lead, Sanofi

Anna joined Sanofi in March of 2020 and is currently the Market Access and Pricing Team Lead for Sarclisa, a treatment for Multiple Myeloma.

Anna has over 30 years of diverse commercial experience which spans global and US value and access, pricing, US managed markets, marketing, product development, and sales across the entire product life cycle of pharmaceutical and vaccine businesses.

Prior to joining Sanofi, Anna worked at a variety of pharmaceutical companies, including GSK as the Global Market Access Franchise Partner leading the development of Market Access and pricing strategies for pre-commercial Oncology/Hematology assets resulting in Research & Development and commercial prioritization of Immunotherapy (IO), Epigenetic, and cell therapy assets.

While at BMS, Anna leveraged  Global Market Access, Value and Pricing Strategies to drive coverage and reimbursement for Empliciti and Eliquis before departing to consulting. In this latter role, Anna focused on commercial, global market access and US Managed Market strategies in Oncology and Hematology.

Anna spent 23 years at Merck where she held a number of positions with increasing responsibility which included US New Product Development, negotiating US contracts with high control Managed Care Organizations, leading US Marketing team for CV products and launching oncology supportive care product Emend.

Anna has a BS in Medical Technology from the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) and MBA in Health Care Administration from Temple’s Fox School of Business.

Luiz Freitas BS ’07

Vice President of Experience Personalization at Fidelity Investments

Luiz Freitas is Vice President of Experience Personalization at Fidelity Investments. Prior to this role, he held analytics and leadership positions at Google, Amazon, and Digitas.

While attending RIT, Luiz was a member and Vice President of the Honors Program and was honored at the COLA annual Kearse Student Honor Awards. He has remained involved with the university, speaking at events for accepted students in the Boston area, mentoring RIT students and sitting on the Alumni Association Board of Directors. 

In addition to his economics degree from RIT, Luiz holds an MS in environmental economics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and completed graduate courses in predictive analytics at Northwestern.

Jonathan Phillips MS ’99
Vice President of Imaging Science at Imatest

Jonathan Phillips is VP of Imaging Science at Imatest, a leading company in image quality testing based in Boulder, Colorado that supports camera development for many of the world’s top companies across many industries, including automotive, mobile electronics, security, aerospace, and medical imaging.

Prior to joining Imatest, he was the leader of image quality in Google’s Android organization from 2015 to 2021, particularly focused on the Google Pixel camera and display image quality.

His experience in Silicon Valley has also included managing the camera image quality lab at NVIDIA, where his work centered on optimizing the Tegra chip ISP for smartphone cameras from 2012 to 2015.

Jonathan worked at Kodak from 1990 to 2012 as a key player in the photography transition from analog to digital, switching from processing in the darkroom to working on digital imaging devices and printers. Kodak sponsored his Master’s and PhD work in color science at Rochester Institute of Technology’s Munsell Color Science Laboratory.

His undergraduate studies in chemistry and music were at Wheaton College (Illinois). Jonathan is the co-author of numerous technical papers, patents, IEEE and ISO photography standards, and his book, Camera Image Quality Benchmarking.

Gleb Reznik BS ’03
Chief Information Security Officer for Consumer & Community Banking (Chase) at JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Gleb has dedicated his career to safely enabling large financial institutions. Gleb is the CISO for Chase at JPMorgan Chase & Co - The number one consumer bank in the United States. Previously, Gleb served as the CISO at Synchrony where he was responsible for leading the Information Security program with focus on protecting key business objectives. Prior to Synchrony, Gleb was the CISO at Capital One for the Shared Technology division where he led the cybersecurity program to enable the rapid digital transformation, and helped establish the enterprise cloud security program to safeguard Capital One’s migration to the public cloud. Gleb continues to focus on developing future diverse leaders in cybersecurity by previously serving as the advisory board member for the International Consortium of Minority Cybersecurity Professionals and the University of Connecticut Technology Park. Gleb is a thought leader in the Venture Capitalist community and is an active advisor to entrepreneurs. Gleb graduated in 2003 with a Bachelors of Science in Information Technology with a concentration in Information Security and Sociology. Gleb, his wife Denise Reznik BS '03 and their two children reside in Connecticut.

Bruce Smith BS/MS ’89, PhD ’95
Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Microelectronic Engineering in the Kate Gleason College of Engineering at RIT

Bruce Smith is an RIT Distinguished Professor, and has been a member of the engineering faculty in the Kate Gleason College of Engineering since joining the Microelectronic Engineering program in 1988.  He received his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from RIT in Imaging Science, concentrating on semiconductor technology, including thin films, materials, and lithography. Prior to joining the RIT faculty, he held R&D positions in semiconductor engineering at Digital Equipment Corporation in Hudson, MA and AMI Semiconductor in San Jose, CA. 

Professor Smith has developed courses in semiconductor lithography, materials, and processing that have been used as the basis for classes at universities worldwide. He has pioneered unique engineering research experiences for both graduate and undergraduate students, and has received recognition through the AVS Excellence in Leadership Award and the SPIE Research Mentor Award. Among numerous grants from federal agencies, research consortia, and industrial groups, he has had over 30 years of continuous funding for student research in semiconductor integrated circuit nanolithography. Professor Smith is a Fellow of the IEEE, a Fellow of the OSA, a Fellow of SPIE, and a member of AVS and ASEE.

Professor Smith and his group carry out research in areas of micro- and nano-fabrication, including nanolithography, semiconductor processing, thin film materials, and optical engineering.  Their work is directed toward leading edge electronic, photonic, micromechanical, and display devices and structures.  He has published over 250 papers, presented over 50 invited talks, authored several book chapters, and his textbook “Microlithography: Science and Technology” has become widely used worldwide.  His publications have been cited over 4000 times and he has a citation h-index of 30. Professor Smith holds over 30 patents in fields of semiconductor lithography and materials, several of which have been licensed for commercialization. He has been recognized for his innovations with awards including the RIPLA Inventor of the Year, the IEEE Technology Innovation Award, the RIT Creator’s Award, and the RIT Innovation Hall of Fame. He has been a key contributor in the development and adoption of deep-UV, immersion, and extreme-UV nanolithography, leading research efforts for technology implementation into semiconductor device manufacturing.

Michael Oshetski BS ’03
CEO of Micatu, Inc.

Michael’s passion is to “Fundamentally Change the Way the World Senses with Light” through solutions that transform operational awareness for the power and industrial industries. As a founder of Micatu Inc, Michael has trailblazed the way to build the first company to commercialize next-generation optical sensing.  Micatu’s innovative technology enables decarbonization of the power grid and provides real-time information for predictive and reactive information, enabling a safer and cleaner power grid of the future.

Michael has over 20 years’ experience in the optics industry in technical and managerial roles.  Including end-to-end management of product development, global sales, P&L accountability, and multi-international manufacturing operations and is considered an expert in the field of optics and sensing by his peers. Michael’s drive for innovation has resulted in numerous patents in the energy, optical and data processing fields.

Active in his community, Michael frequently volunteers his abilities to educate and inspire entrepreneurship.  He is a founding member of the Corning Community College advisory council, Rochester Institute of Technology School of Engineering deans’ advisory council, Rochester Institute of Technology Deans advisory council and is a member of the Rochester Institute of Technology Sentinel Society.  In addition, he is supports local youth hockey programs through volunteering and fund raising.

Some of Michael’s achievements include first place in the 76West Clean Energy Business Competition One Million Dollar Grand Prize, Environment + Energy Leader Top Product 2021, S&P Global Platts Global Energy Awards 2021 Winner and is an honorary inductee at the RIT School of Engineering.

Michael earned his Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering from Rochester Institute of Technology in 2003.

Robert Sidansky BS ’ 77
Retired Administrator for the National Center on Deafness, California State University, Northridge

Robert Sidansky is a retired Administrator of Student Services at the National Center on Deafness at California State University at Northridge. In his previous role, Sidansky was responsible for leading the CSUN student services programs for 200 deaf and hard-of-hearing students, including all interpreting, captioning, counseling, notetaking, and tutoring. Throughout his career at CSUN, he worked as the Coordinator of Student Services and Student Personnel Specialist for academic, personal, career, and student development.

He has served as a member and president of the Greater Los Angeles Agency on Deaf (GLAD) board since 2008, and as a member and president of Tri-County GLAD from 2004 to 2018. He currently serves on RIT’s NTID Alumni Association Board of Directors and was instrumental in creating the first NTIDAA Board in the 1990’s. Sidansky also sits on NTID’s National Advisory Group.

Sidansky earned a bachelor’s of social work from RIT and a master’s degree in counseling and guidance from California State University at Northridge. He and his wife, also an aluma, reside in Los Angeles, California where their adult children, including a daughter who is an RIT alumna herself, live and work.

James G. Gould MS ’85
President & Co-Founder at Alesco Advisors LLC

James is president and co-founder of Alesco Advisors LLC and brings over 30 years of investment advisory experience to his role as leader of the firm. In addition to his leadership responsibilities, he is actively involved in business development and client service, and is a member of the firm’s Investment Committee. Prior to founding the firm, he was President of Clover Capital Management, Inc., a Rochester, NY-based investment advisor. Earlier in his career, James worked as a financial analyst at Xerox, an audit and tax accountant at Peat, Marwick, and Mitchell (now KPMG), and was a large systems sales representative for IBM.

James currently serves or has served on numerous not-for-profit boards, has been an active volunteer for many community events, and coached little league softball and CYO basketball for a dozen years. He is also a member of the Board of Directors for ROC2025, an organization dedicated to making Greater Rochester one of the most dynamic and rapidly growing regional economies in the nation. He has also served as a board member for several privately-owned organizations. In addition he served as Director of Anaren, Inc., a public company headquartered in Syracuse, NY.

James holds a BBA in accounting from St. Bonaventure University, a MS in accounting from RIT, and a CPA certification.

James and his wife Ann reside in Rochester, NY. They have four adult daughters and an ever-growing number of grandchildren.

Nicholas Lemieux BS ’13
CEO of Athlete Studio
Nicholas is the CEO and Founder of Athlete Studio, an eCommerce and Web3 platform for pro athletes. He graduated from RIT’s School of Independent Studies in 2013 then worked for Datto and Jebbit before founding Athlete Studio in 2016. Athlete Studio is a RIT Venture Fund portfolio company and was acquired by Dapper Labs in 2021.