Newsmakers

Highlighting the professional and academic accomplishments of College of Computing and Information Sciences students, faculty, and staff.

Newsmakers are a quick and easy way to acknowledge the professional and academic accomplishments of RIT students, faculty, and staff, such as publishing an article in a scholarly journal, presenting research at a conference, serving on a panel discussion, earning a scholarship, or winning an award. Newsmakers appear in News and Events as well as the "In the News" section on faculty/staff directory profile pages.

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December 2025

  • December 3, 2025

    Sanjay Charitesh Makam, a fourth-year computing and information technologies major, and Naresh Kshetri, lecturer in the Department of Cybersecurity, presented their secRNNlong project at the 26th annual ACM Conference on Cybersecurity and Information Technology Education on Nov. 7 in Sacramento, Calif. The project presents and proposes a robust and adaptive framework for effective malware detection via Recurrent Neural Networks with Long Short-Term Memory and Transformers for Improved Cybersecurity.

  • December 3, 2025

    W. Michelle Harris, associate professor in the School of Interactive Games and Media, will have the opening reception for her new work, Nia Panes, at Rochester Contemporary Art Center on Dec. 5. Showcasing the intersection of technical skill and profound social commentary, Nia Panes reimagines memorial stained glass to honor Anna Murray Douglass, Hester Jeffrey, and Austin Steward, celebrating their enduring legacies in abolition, suffrage, and community organizing.

November 2025

  • November 21, 2025

    Billy Brumley, Kevin O’Sullivan Endowed Professor in Cybersecurity, presented “Constant-Time BIGNUM Is Bollocks” at the OpenSSL Conference 2025, Oct. 9, in Prague. Brumley discussed the challenges of designing and implementing a truly constant-time arbitrary-precision integer arithmetic software library, why the cryptographer’s mantra “just make it constant time” is a pipe dream, and radical alternative approaches. It was noted as the second most popular talk at the conference.

  • November 12, 2025

    Reynold Bailey, professor in the Department of Computer Science, delivered a public lecture at the University of the West Indies, Five Islands Campus in Antigua. His talk, “Back to the Brain: Rethinking Fundamental AI Research and Building Research Capacity in the Caribbean,” highlighted his work in human-centered computing and eye-tracking research and explored how brain-inspired approaches can inform artificial intelligence. He also discussed strategies for advancing research capacity and building research collaborations in the Caribbean region.

  • November 12, 2025

    Ashique KhudaBukhsh, assistant professor in the Department of Software Engineering, was recognized with the Outstanding Senior Area Chair Award at the 30th annual Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing, in Suzhou, China. KhudaBukhsh was among nine chairs selected from a group of 168 for the honor, which recognizes his service to the research community.

  • November 7, 2025

    Greyson Pasiak, Student Success Liaison Librarian for GCCIS, presented at the Integrations: AI in Education Summit, hosted by Monroe 2 Orleans BOCES. The group discussed the creation of the library's AI Instruction framework and how it is put into practice when teaching library instruction to first-year University Writing classes.

October 2025

  • October 27, 2025

    Dave Schwartz, director of the School of Interactive Games and Media, and Chad Weeden, director of Esports and CyberSecurity Range, were a part of the panel “Cybersecurity and Defense: Strategies for Critical Infrastructure in an Interconnected World” at VDS.tech in Valencia, Spain. 

  • October 15, 2025

    Jye Cocker, a game design and development student, and his team's game Sector Down, have been selected as a finalist for the 2025 Serious Games Showcase & Challenge at December's Interservice/Industry Training Simulation and Education Conference in Orlando, Fla. Students and faculty developed Sector Down in partnership with the Army Cyber Institute at West Point, as part of an effort to educate users about responding to cyberattacks.