News

RIT President David Munson addressed the crowd at the Gordon Field House during RIT's 134th annual commencement ceremony on May 10.

Keynote speaker John Seely Brown, former chief scientist of Xerox Corp. and director of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), told graduates during this morning's convocation ceremony that they are entering “the Imagination Age, an age that calls for new ways to see, to imagine, to think, to act, to learn and one that also calls for us to re-examine the foundations of our way of being human, and what it means to be human.”

Elena Zambito will graduate this May from RIT’s diagnostic medical sonography program, and she is already finding ways to enhance her new field. Her goal is to land a cardiac sonographer position at a leading research hospital like the Mayo Clinic and discover ways to reduce the high rates of injury among sonographers.

This year, more students will graduate from RIT’s international campuses than ever before. RIT’s campuses in China, Croatia, Dubai and Kosovo are expected to award degrees to more than 500 students, up from 369 degrees granted in 2017-18.

The Reducing Embodied-Energy and Decreasing Emissions (REMADE) Institute has selected 12 new projects for funding, including two involving Rochester Institute of Technology. “The selection process was highly competitive,” said Magdi Azer, REMADE’s chief technology officer. “We received many comprehensive submissions that addressed our technical focus areas. Ultimately these 12 projects, totaling $5.9 million in public-private investments, ...

The Democrat and Chronicle reports on a scientific discovery made by three Rochester Prep High School students working with Andre Hudson, professor and department head of the Thomas H. Gosnell School of Life Sciences.

Samuel Lum found several things in common with his faculty mentor, Robert Osgood, including excitement about research and a project that could save lives. Lum’s background in mechanical engineering technology and Osgood’s microbiology expertise in studying biofilms would be the kind of multidisciplinary approach that could lead to identifying the genes most likely responsible for hospital-associated catheter infections.

A team of RIT students has become one of the best collegiate Hearthstone teams in the nation, making it to the ESPN Collegiate Esports Championship May 10-12 in Houston. RIT beat out nearly 500 other collegiate Hearthstone teams to get to the first-ever ESPN esports event.

When RIT student Austin Obiora Okwudili accepts his diploma on May 11 in front of family and friends, he says that he will fondly remember his late father and the legacy he left behind—always encouraging his children to work hard, be positive, persevere and, most importantly, keep the faith.

Administrators from NTID and a delegation from Changchun University in China signed a Memorandum of Understanding at a ceremony May 6 establishing a cultural and educational partnership between the two institutions. The Memorandum of Understanding will establish student and faculty exchange programs in the art and design fields.

Teams from universities in the United States as well as Canada, India, Mexico, Brazil and Venezuela will compete for the Mike Schmidt Iron Team Trophy, an award given to the overall season champion. More than 1,300 student-engineers, who designed and built off-road vehicles, are expected for the event that will consist of hill and rock climbs, acceleration and maneuverability challenges and a four-hour endurance race.

The main topic of conversation during Scott Brink’s co-op interviews was almost always about cybersecurity competitions. Luckily, Brink has thousands of hours invested in hacking competitions from his time at RIT. Brink, a 2019 graduate of RIT’s computing security program, credits those cybersecurity competitions and student clubs with helping him succeed in the major.