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Iris Rivero

Researchers at RIT and Texas Tech University will be incorporating more critical thinking and empathy skills into engineering curricula to prepare students to meet societal challenges today. The team, led by Iris Rivero, also includes Andrew Herbert and Michael Laver.

The Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers has named Nabil Nasr, associate provost and founding director of RIT’s Golisano Institute for Sustainability, and Iris Rivero, head of RIT’s Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, as Fellows, an honor that recognizes outstanding leaders of the profession who have made significant, nationally recognized contributions to industrial and systems engineering.

RIT engineering professor Iris Rivero will be part of the newest class of the Executive Leadership in Academic Technology, Engineering and Science, also known as ELATES. The national program based at Drexel University is intended to prepare senior women faculty into leadership roles within their respective institutions.

Several RIT research labs are ramping up work after several months of down time due to COVID-19. With the approval to reopen and prepare for fall classes, faculty-researchers have put in place some of the recommended guidelines for lab usage—from occupancy to cleaning protocols.

Iris Rivero, an engineering professor at RIT, has found that compatible combinations of polymers and biomaterials can be successfully used to fabricate “scaffolds,” 3D-printed structures that signal the body to begin its own tissue regrowth. This research moves a step closer to the possibility of “smart,” 3D-printed bone, skin and cartilage tissue replacement.

Iris Rivero, a faculty-researcher at Iowa State University and expert in additive and hybrid manufacturing, was recently named department head of industrial and systems engineering at RIT.