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For more than 50 years, the New York State Arthur O. Eve Higher Education Opportunity Program (HEOP) has provided academic support, financial assistance, and advocacy for eligible students who would otherwise be excluded from higher education due to academic and economic disadvantage.

Graduating senior and first responder Bryon Campbell spent his final semester at RIT on the frontline of the coronavirus pandemic. A New York State Emergency Medical Technician and Certified Flight Paramedic, Campbell volunteered more than 35 hours per week with Shortsville Fire and Ambulance in Shortsville, N.Y.

Eight years ago, as a high school junior, Peter Yeung participated in NTID's Explore Your Future, a program that introduces deaf and hard-of-hearing high schoolers to career opportunities. Today, Yeung is an RIT/NTID graduate who has completed three degrees and has started his career as a user experience architect with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency in Springfield, Va.

KayLee Steiner knows her way around a research laboratory. Her extensive undergraduate research experience made her an appealing candidate when she began applying to Ph.D. programs. After receiving offers from top-notch graduate programs including Duke, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and others, she will pursue her Ph.D. at Vanderbilt University’s School of Medicine.

Just because computing security student Jack McKenna is graduating, that doesn’t mean he’s going to stop learning. In his new job as a cybersecurity researcher at MITRE, McKenna, will constantly be on the lookout for new ways to use computing security techniques in order to help strengthen the nation’s cyber defenses.

RIT student John Fox credits his time in the U.S. Marine Corps for teaching him about accountability, focus, and dedication—all while developing his passion for logistics and supply chains. Fox, who is graduating with a bachelor’s degree in supply chain management, will begin his career in July as an area manager in Amazon’s Fulfillment Center in Rochester.

Alyssa Owens is contributing new ways to diagnose breast cancer and Poornima Kalyanram has discovered how fluorescent molecules might help to identify diseased cells. Karen Soule and Fatemeh Shah-Mohammadi are part of breakthrough work in developing carbon nanotubes and cognitive radio networks—advances in technology that will power tomorrow’s electronic devices. All four are on track to graduate with a Ph.D. in engineering.

Keynote speaker John Seely Brown, former chief scientist of Xerox Corp. and director of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), told graduates during this morning's convocation ceremony that they are entering “the Imagination Age, an age that calls for new ways to see, to imagine, to think, to act, to learn and one that also calls for us to re-examine the foundations of our way of being human, and what it means to be human.”

Elena Zambito will graduate this May from RIT’s diagnostic medical sonography program, and she is already finding ways to enhance her new field. Her goal is to land a cardiac sonographer position at a leading research hospital like the Mayo Clinic and discover ways to reduce the high rates of injury among sonographers.

This year, more students will graduate from RIT’s international campuses than ever before. RIT’s campuses in China, Croatia, Dubai and Kosovo are expected to award degrees to more than 500 students, up from 369 degrees granted in 2017-18.

Samuel Lum found several things in common with his faculty mentor, Robert Osgood, including excitement about research and a project that could save lives. Lum’s background in mechanical engineering technology and Osgood’s microbiology expertise in studying biofilms would be the kind of multidisciplinary approach that could lead to identifying the genes most likely responsible for hospital-associated catheter infections.

When RIT student Austin Obiora Okwudili accepts his diploma on May 11 in front of family and friends, he says that he will fondly remember his late father and the legacy he left behind—always encouraging his children to work hard, be positive, persevere and, most importantly, keep the faith.