Newsmakers | College of Liberal Arts

Highlighting the professional and academic accomplishments of College of Liberal Arts 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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February 2026

February 18, 2026

Kelley Holley, assistant professor of performing arts, published the chapter "Delectable Viewing: Baking, Spectatorship, and Digital Theatre" in the newly published book Performing the Edible Sustenance, Sensation, and Sustainability. The chapter examines how alternative types of audience engagement serve as a response to digital performance, and how these practices establish a sense of shared theatrical space.
February 11, 2026

Rebecca Scales, professor in the Department of History, published the chapter "La politique familiale de la Colonie de Saint-Fargeau, 1919-1939," which explores the history of France's first dedicated polio rehabilitation facility in the new book Histoires des handicaps à travers les siècles: Identifications, trajectoires, institutions et sociabilités.
February 11, 2026

A new book co-authored by Evan Selinger, professor in the Department of Philosophy, and Albert Fox Cahn, founder in residence of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, has already received accolades since being published by Cambridge University Press on Feb. 5. Move Slow and Upgrade: The Power of Incremental Innovation discusses the risks of the pervasive “move fast and break things” ideology of disruptive innovation, while urging readers to lean into upgrades that offer a more sustainable, realistic approach to technological progress. New Scientist praised it as one of the best new popular science books published this month
February 6, 2026

Hinda Mandell, professor in the College of Liberal Arts, has published the anthology Global Craftivism since the Pussyhats: Handcraft Responses to Violence, War, Illness and Isolation with Bloomsbury.
February 6, 2026

Silvia Benso, professor in the College of Liberal Arts, was an invited speaker at the International Conference Vulnerable Lives: Cohabitation, Violence and Difference. Benso's contribution focused on the book Love without Fear: On Friendship and Sisterhood.
February 6, 2026

Muhammad Salar Khan, assistant professor in the College of Liberal Arts, co-authored the paper “Invention complexity, latent innovation capabilities, and economic development in upper middle-income countries” in Technological Forecasting & Social Change. The study offers theoretical and empirical contributions at the intersection of innovation economics, economic complexity, and development economics, with important implications for development policy and strategies to escape the middle-income trap. It shows how latent innovation capabilities drive economic growth among upper middle-income countries.

January 2026

January 30, 2026

Joseph Henning, professor in the Department of History, published the chapter “Fukui’s Role in the Career of William Elliot Griffis” in the book Rutgers Meets Japan: A Trans-Pacific Network of the Late Nineteenth Century.
January 26, 2026

Mitchell Rieder, a fourth-year economics and computer science double major, and Jeffrey Wagner, professor in the Department of Economics, co-presented “The Law and Economics of Tradeable Satellite Debris Permit Market Design” on Jan. 20 at the virtual Space Economics Seminar. The seminar is co-organized by The Ownership Project at Harvard Business School and the European Space Policy Institute.
January 23, 2026

Esa Rantanen, associate professor in the Department of Psychology, has been appointed associate editor of Human Factors, the flagship journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.
January 16, 2026

Amit Ray, associate professor in the Department of English, organized a special session to discuss agnotology (the cultural production of ignorance) in media and culture at the Modern Language Association Conference, Jan. 8-11 in Toronto. Participants from RIT, Vanderbilt, and Michigan-Ann Arbor delivered papers on topics relating agnotology to AI, Brazilian memes, and the prison system in British Colonial India.