News Stories

In only a few weeks, the SHED will open to the RIT community, and Tiffany Brodner is preparing for her new role overseeing the multi-use facility.

An RIT postdoctoral researcher and an associate professor in the School of Physics and Astronomy, along with a team behind the Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science (CEERS) Survey, have used new observations from the James Webb Space Telescope to confirm the existence of the most distant active supermassive black hole ever found.

Astrophysicists using large radio telescopes to observe a collection of cosmic clocks in our galaxy have found evidence for gravitational waves that oscillate with periods of years to decades, according to a set of papers published Thursday in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Former Saturday Night Live cast member Melissa Villaseñor and Hank Green, an internet icon, are scheduled to appear at RIT’s Brick City Homecoming and Family Weekend in October. Villaseñor got her start as a semi-finalist on America’s Got Talent. Green began making YouTube videos about science in 2007 and now has a social media following of more than 20 million.

There was an extra two weeks of class for some RIT students who ended their semester with a trip to Japan. The trip was the culmination of a Japanese Game Industry course last spring, where students learned about the world’s third largest video game market.

Twelve technical specialists from L3Harris are part of a high-tech workforce development pilot program at Rochester Institute of Technology learning how to build the “brains” inside electronic devices. This first cohort of students is part of the region’s broader economic development initiatives to expand industries such as advanced manufacturing.

Samantha Sorondo, a fifth-year student in the mechanical and industrial engineering Ph.D. program from San Juan, Puerto Rico, has taken on leadership roles in the graduate student community in addition to her research on metal 3D printing.

Greater food options will be available for RIT students, faculty, and staff, as the dining staff explores ways to increase plant-based meal options. Students brought up the subject during meetings with Student Government, as well as student Paw Prints petitions and from members of the RIT Vegan Club.

AT&T is teaming up with RIT to host a video game development program aimed at addressing equality issues in technology education and helping local middle school students impacted by the digital divide.

RIT has named Prabu David as its new provost and senior vice president for Academic Affairs, which is the university’s top academic officer. David, who has served as vice provost for faculty and academic staff development, interim vice provost for Teaching and Learning Innovation, and dean of the College of Communication Arts and Sciences at Michigan State University, joins RIT on Aug. 1.

Dwight M. “Kip” Palmer, a fifth-generation CEO of Palmer Food Services and the Palmer Family of Companies, has been named the 2023 recipient of the Herbert W. Vanden Brul Entrepreneurial Award, given annually to a successful individual or individuals who developed a business that improved the Rochester economy or whose innovative management skills changed the course of an existing business or industry.

Alumnus John Dahms ’71 remembers the photo scavenger hunt of 1970, where he and a team of other photo science students were tasked with uncovering the identity of an unmarked roll of color movie film and which film processing chemistry to use. Unforgettable learning experiences like that have been the driving force behind Dahms’ desire to give back to RIT.