Newsmakers | Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences

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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September 2025

September 10, 2025

Luke Whited, a first-year game design and development MS student, recently published REDSHIFT, a miniature game described as a first-person psychological horror short story. REDSHIFT has sold over 20,000 copies in its first two weeks, and it reached the top of the charts for “new and trending” games on Steam. The game was developed as part of Whited’s entrepreneurial co-op. He created his own indie games studio under the guidance of Sean Boyle, principal lecturer in the School of Interactive Games and Media, and collaborated with other RIT students in areas such as sound design and digital art.
September 10, 2025

Joe Geigel, professor in the Department of Computer Science, presented the talk “XRLive: A Vertically Integrated Project (VIP) Using Extended Reality in Live Performance to Motivate Interdisciplinary Education and Scholarship” at the SIGGRAPH 2025 Educator's Forum in Vancouver, British Columbia. The talk focused on the details of the XRLive VIP, which is part of the newly created VIP program at RIT.
September 5, 2025

Chao Peng, associate professor in the School of Interactive Games and Media, presented the game VR Lunar Roving Adventure at the ACM SIGGRAPH Conference in Vancouver, British Columbia. The annual conference brings together researchers, artists, developers, filmmakers, scientists, and business professionals with a shared interest in computer graphics and interactive techniques. Pioneers in VR, as well as developers from companies like NVIDIA and Meta, explored the team's VR game during the conference.
September 5, 2025

Andy Meneely, associate professor in the Department of Software Engineering, recently published an opinion piece in Communications of the ACM titled "Stop Using Vulnerability Counts to Measure Software Security." The piece touches upon the importance of nuanced measurement in an age where data, measurement, and human society intersect.

August 2025

August 29, 2025

Kristen Shinohara, associate professor in the School of Information, received an award from the National Science Foundation for her research project "Bridging the Accessibility Skills Gap: Connecting Industry and Computing Faculty for the Adoption of Evidence-Based Teaching of Accessibility."
August 18, 2025

Hanif Rahbari, assistant professor of cybersecurity, was recently invited to present at the IEEE Silicon Valley Cybersecurity Conference 2025 where he discussed his research in post-quantum cryptography. He was joined by other speakers from Google, NIST, and Juniper Networks.
August 8, 2025

Zhiqiang Tao, assistant professor in the School of Information, received a National Science Foundation award for the paper “ERI: A New Uncertainty Modeling Framework for Snapshot Compressive Imaging.” Tao’s research focuses on studying smart, scalable, and secure machine-learning algorithms through optimization and inference techniques for a wide range of fields.
August 8, 2025

Naresh Kshetri, lecturer in the Department of Cybersecurity, and students published and presented the paper “detectGNN: Harnessing Graph Neural Networks for Enhanced Fraud Detection in Credit Card Transactions” at the IEEE International Symposium on Digital Forensics and Security in Boston. Their research shows that Graphical Neural Networks can provide a powerful, accurate, and a scalable solution for detecting credit card fraud.

July 2025

July 30, 2025

Edith Hemaspaandra, professor in the Department of Computer Science, has earned a three-month research award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for a return visit to Germany to continue her collaboration with specialist colleagues. The award is a follow up from her 2011-2012 sabbatical which was, in part, supported by a Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award recognizing her career achievements in computational social choice. The research period begins Sept. 1.
July 29, 2025

Ersin Uzun, Katherine Johnson Endowed Executive Director of RIT's ESL Global Cybersecurity Institute, co-authored the book The AI Advantage: Thriving Within Civilization's Next Big Disruption. In its first week of release, the book became the No. 1 bestseller in Amazon's Business Technology Innovation category in the United States. Gathering insights from more than 30 global AI experts, the book offers readers a practical guide to understanding and using AI in a world that is rapidly transforming.