Alumni News

Rochester Business Journal discusses the gift with NTID President Gerry Buckley, and Phil Castleberry, vice president of University Advancement.

RIT has received a gift of $11.1 million through the estate of late alumnus and former trustee Henry Navas and his late wife, Deborah Robbins. Included is a gift of $4.8 million to RIT’s National Technical Institute for the Deaf, the largest gift in its history.

RIT graduate Sebastian Nazario-Colon presented at the Cannes Film Festival. He says documentary filmmaking courses and the RIT in LA study away program paved the way to his success.

RIT scientists were involved in a published paper about new evidence of intermediate-mass black holes, or black holes with masses between 100 and 100,000 times the mass of the sun.

Changes to the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education introduce new criteria for categorizing colleges and universities and link student access and return on investment to institutional excellence.

As a lead product designer for the Walt Disney Company, Becky Yaeger '18 (new media design) and her team focus on the user experience (UX) of browsing, finding, and watching sports content across ESPN's apps and sites. 

The naming of the Dave and Nancy Munson Amphitheater, part of the new Music Performance Theater, was revealed at a celebration on June 12 in the SHED, surprising the couple before a crowd of students, alumni, dignitaries, board members, and family members.

RIT’s physician assistant program celebrated its 30th graduating class this year, and now its biggest champion, former director and founder Heidi Miller, is preparing to retire at the end of June after nearly 32 years.

13WHAM interviews alumnus Jayden Neal '25 (robotics and manufacturing engineering technology) about his family's startup company, UdderWays, and the Vortex, a new udder washing and sterilization system created by Neal.

Sarah Bono '14 (graphic design) oversees the product design for ESPN’s app, website, and living room devices like TVs and gaming consoles. Wherever ESPN content is found digitally, Bono and her team likely had a hand in the creative process. 

Robert Pearson helped make history when RIT began its microelectronic engineering program in the early 1980s. An RIT alumnus of the electrical engineering program and MicroE’s first faculty hire, Pearson reflected on some of that history—and his place in it—before retiring this summer after more than 40 years.

Quantum Zeitgeist features research by Sonia Lopez Alarcon and Cory Merkel, associate professors in RIT's Department of Computer Engineering, and Mark Danza '25 MS (computer engineering).