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Mechanical Engineering BS

Keegan Evans will take his place this summer among a group of young Air Force officers from around the globe who have been selected for the Euro-NATO Joint Jet Pilot Training program. The RIT Air Force ROTC cadet was selected from among hundreds of ROTC students for one of the U.S. Air Force’s most elite flight training programs.

Joining the RIT Board of Trustees are Clayton P. Turner, director of NASA’s Langley Research Center, and James P. Swift, president and CEO of Cortera.

Intersections: The RIT Podcast, Ep. 39: Nicole Scott, director of RIT’s Native American Future Stewards Program, and Abigail Reigner, a second-year mechanical engineering student who is the regional student representative for the American Indian Science and Engineering Society, discuss life as Native Americans in higher education, learning about Native cultures, and some of the unique ways RIT partners with tribal nations and organizations.

Engineering Design Tools, a first-year course, is an example of how RIT’s most applied programs have managed to keep learning as close to hands-on as possible in the age of COVID-19.

Cosimo X invests in businesses that use digital assets and blockchain protocols to advance the digital economy. According to industry experts, the investment by RIT marks the first time that any university in the United States has directly invested in a tokenized venture fund. The fund’s parent company, Cosimo Ventures, was co-founded six years ago by RIT alumnus Robert Frasca ’88 (mechanical engineering).

Atlas Obscura features Ian Kurtz '18 BS/ME (mechanical engineering); Matt Nygren '19 BS/ME (mechanical engineering); Steven Galbraith, curator, Cary Graphics Arts Collection; and Juilee Decker, associate professor, Department of History.

Two visionaries in the fields of advertising, marketing and communications have been named co-recipients of the 2020 Herbert W. Vanden Brul Entrepreneurial Award, presented by RIT’s Saunders College of Business. Sue Butler and Tracy Till are the first joint female recipients in the award’s 35-year history.

As businesses look to reopen and jumpstart the COVID-19 stalled economy, RIT alumnus Jim Swift finds himself a much sought-after adviser. Swift ’88 is president and chief executive officer of Cortera, a national business intelligence company that is providing analytics on an estimated $1.5 trillion annual business-to-business transactions — data that businesses need to determine their future.

RIT honored its 2020 class of Distinguished Faculty—Manuela Campanelli, Satish Kandlikar and James Perkins. The Distinguished Professor designation is given to tenured faculty who have shown continued excellence over their careers in teaching, scholarly contributions, lasting contributions in creative and professional work and service to both the university and community.

Friday’s celebration of the Class of 2020 certainly cannot replace the atmosphere of a traditional commencement, which RIT plans to host on campus when it’s deemed safe. But many of graduates say they won’t let the pandemic, or the circumstances surrounding the virtual celebration, define them or their feelings about their time at RIT. (Pictured: Bradley Speck, who will finish his classes online this summer, has a job waiting for him at GE Aviation in Cincinnati, where he completed four co-ops.)

Jeff Benck ’88 (mechanical engineering) is the president and CEO of Benchmark, a global provider of engineering, design and manufacturing services. Benchmark is working with about 10 clients who are making products that will help treat patients infected with COVID-19.

Ke Du and Blanca Lapizco-Encinas, both faculty-researchers in RIT’s Kate Gleason College of Engineering, worked with an international team to collaborate on the design of a next-generation miniature lab device that uses magnetic nano-beads to isolate minute bacterial particles that cause diseases. This new technology improves how clinicians isolate drug-resistant strains of bacterial infections and difficult-to-detect micro-particles such as those making up Ebola and coronaviruses.