Photo Spotlights

Eric Avar ’90 (industrial design) signed a sneaker for Adam Horeth from Rochester during the Distinguished Alumni networking event Friday at The Wallace Center. Avar, vice president of design innovation at Nike, is the 2016 Distinguished Alumnus from the College of Imaging Arts and Sciences. He is the creator of all designs within Kobe Bryant’s signature footwear line. Ten people were honored last week as part of this year’s class of Distinguished Alumni.

Intermedia artist Marc Tasman, a senior lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, was among the speakers at the 2016 William A. Kern Conference in Visual Communication. The conference focused on using selfies, self-portraiture and social media.

Attractive Nuisance, the current exhibit at Gallery r, is on view through April 17. The work of six senior fine art students is featured.

Students, faculty and staff—including Thomas Sosa, a fourth-year electrical engineering student from Bronx, N.Y.—participated in the 16th PB Jam sponsored by RIT’s Center for Religious Life and Hillel. During the four-hour event, 2,000 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches were made and then delivered to local shelters. More than 100,000 sandwiches have been made at RIT PB Jams over 16 years.

RIT Senior Lecturer Dawn Carter talks with some interested students during the Learning Assistant Recruiting Fair held in Gosnell Hall on April 8. The Learning Assistant Program, housed in RIT’s College of Science, pairs students with faculty mentors to gain experience developing curriculum, a class or a series of recitation sections.

The Graduate Thesis Two exhibit is on view through April 17 in Bevier Gallery. It includes work by MFA students in the School of Art, the School of Design and the School for American Crafts.

The RIT Juggle-In included workshops and shows in Clark Gym April 8-10. In its 39th year, the event is one of the longest running juggling festivals in North America.

The 2015-2016 Outstanding Undergraduate Scholars were celebrated with a reception and awards ceremony April 7. In order to receive the scholars designation, students must have earned a GPA of 3.85 and completed more than two-thirds of the credit hours required for a bachelor’s degree. Selection is also based on factors complementing their academic achievement, including creative work, independent research and community service. More than 100 students were honored at the event.

The eighth annual Graduate Research and Creativity Symposium was held April 8 at RIT, giving graduate students a chance to present their research with poster and oral presentations. The keynote address was delivered by Jennifer Schneider, a professor in RIT’s College of Applied Science and Technology and the Eugene H. Fram Chair in Applied Critical Thinking.

Five teams of RIT student entrepreneurs pitched their business ideas to a panel of Rochester-area investors on April 6 during the annual Tiger Tank competition held in Ingle Auditorium. The five student teams—selected from more than 60 that submitted proposals—competed for a chance to win $4,750 in cash prizes and up to $160,000 in scholarships for graduate studies at RIT’s Saunders College of Business, as well as the opportunity to launch their products or businesses. The winning team was AWARE, a fatigue detection and alert system designed to combat drowsy driving. The system uses video-based monitoring of a user’s head position, eye movement and blink rate to detect physiological signs of fatigue. AWARE team members are mechanical engineering students Teryn Rynone and Claiborne Grosshans; electrical engineering students Zach Moxley and Emmanuel Dodoo; and Amanda Murray, a biomedical engineering student.

As part of the third annual Graduate Education Week at RIT, a reading of the award-winning play Photograph 51 was held April 6. Written by Anna Ziegler, the play is about the working life of Rosalind Franklin and her involvement in the discovery of DNA. Tina Chapman DaCosta, a senior lecturer in RIT’s Department of Performing Arts and Visual Culture, read the main part of Rosalind Franklin. After the reading, Ziegler joined a panel of RIT scientists via Skype, to discuss the gender issues involved with the play.

Manhattan-based office furniture retailer Poppin was the industry partner for Metaproject 06. The project assignment for RIT industrial design students was to create innovative accessories for Poppin’s office furniture that accent, improve or add to their use. On April 5, students presented their projects to Poppin designers. Here, Sara Schult described her nesting cup and carafe set to the group. On left, Jonathan Hopkins interprets. The venue for student output is the 2016 International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF) in New York City this May.