College of Engineering News

Since opening six years ago, RIT’s Battery Prototyping Center has nearly doubled its research and development projects with battery manufacturers from Boston to Silicon Valley. More industries are exploring designs for commercial quality lithium-ion batteries and seeking experts at the center to provide research about the development of different styles of batteries.

As an expert in microfluidic devices—tiny labs able to decipher bioparticles—Blanca Lapizco-Encinas and her research partners uncovered a mystery in how these particles can be better differentiated. As she has moved her own research forward, she is influencing a new generation of scientists to do the same.

RIT has an emerging new hotspot for interdisciplinary research about 25 minutes from the main campus. The Tait Preserve includes a 60-acre lake and a private mile of Irondequoit Creek adjacent to Ellison Park, offering endless opportunities for research, education, and conservation activities.

RIT has been recognized for offering some of the best online programs in the nation, including Saunders College of Business Executive MBA program, which leaped to No. 9 in the latest rankings.

Scientists look to space for origins of the solar system; chemical engineers like Poornima Padmanabhan are searching for the origins of life based on minute systems of molecules. Padmanabhan recently received a National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award for “Chirality and polymer thermodynamics: frustration and amplification.”

January 15, 2022 is the application deadline for the Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering program. 

Professor Santosh Kurinec will represent RIT on the American Semiconductor Academy—an extensive, national consortia being established to meet the challenges of computer chip shortages.

RIT Associate Professor Michael Schrlau and Ian Dickerson from the University of Rochester Medical Center have received a patent to deliver biomolecules into cells through carbon nanotube arrays.

Forbes has identified a few of the RIT alumni set to define the next decade—and beyond. Two RIT alumni—and a third just a few months shy of the age cut-off—were named on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for 2022. Jackie Wiley ’16 (game design and development) was honored in the Games category, and Dylan Ayrey ’15 (computer engineering) was named in the Enterprise Technology category.

RIT students have never had as many ways to pursue their love of performing arts than they do now. From scholarships, new clubs and classes, private music lessons, community partnerships, and exciting new venues being built on campus, performing arts for RIT students is literally becoming a show stopper.

The sixth annual event featured presentations on the latest virtual, augmented and mixed reality technologies that are driving various fields, from health care to theater to education. 

RIT appointed two new members — who are also alumni — to its board of trustees. Kathy Yu ’91 has more than 20 years of experience in the technology and semiconductor manufacturing sectors. Nick Schneider ’10, ’10 MS is a principal at Boston Consulting Group, where he is a lead in the company’s technology, media, and telco sector.