Photo Spotlights

Assistant professor of 3D digital design David Halbstein received the Richard and Virginia Eisenhart Provost’s Award for Excellence in Teaching. The honor is given to faculty who have taught three years or less and who foster excellence in teaching and leadership in the campus community.

RIT students Adrielle de Vasconcelos, front, and Mario Augusto have a photo taken in an Instagram frame during SpringFest. Both students are from Brazil. SpringFest events at Global Village included a pizza sampling competition, chalk art and giveaways.

Melissa Sagen, a fourth-year museum studies student, is completing her 200-hour internship requirement at the National Susan B. Anthony Museum and House in Rochester. Her work involves digitizing and cataloguing precious artifacts of the collection for inclusion in digital archives. To read more, go to rit.edu/news/athenaeum_story.php?id=51206.

Muslims on campus observed the Friday prayer outside for the first time. They have always gathered inside in the Skalny Room. Muslim Chaplain Rauf Bawany delivered a sermon during the Jumuah Prayer.

Sarah Brownell ’98 (mechanical engineering), center, and Hrushikesh Sagar, second from right, were recognized May 6 for their many humanitarian contributions locally and internationally during the Alfred L. Davis Public Service Awards ceremony. Brownell, a lecturer in the Kate Gleason College of Engineering, received the 2015 Four Presidents Distinguished Public Service Award for her volunteer work over 20 years at Rochester’s St. Joseph House and with several community organizations in Haiti. Sagar, a graduate student in the manufacturing and mechanical integration program in the College of Applied Science and Technology, was awarded the Bruce James Distinguished Service Award. He was recognized for his environmental advocacy and dedication to RIT’s student organizations as well as youth educational opportunities while he was an undergraduate in India. Joining them at the event were friends, family and campus colleagues, including James Macchiano, left, RIT President Bill Destler, and M. Ann Howard, right. Macchiano and Howard were selection committee chairpersons.

Matthew Glazer, a fourth-year electrical engineering student, electrifies his longboard in The Construct makerspace, RIT’s communal student-run “garage.” For more information on the facility’s resources and hours, go to rit.edu/research/simonecenter/construct-makerspace.

Fourth-year ceramics student Adam Jennett came to RIT to study graphic design, but after taking an elective ceramics class his freshman year, he switched his major. The School for American Crafts is holding its annual Walkthrough 4–7 p.m. May 18 on the second and third floors of Booth Hall.

Industrial engineering student Kalie Lazarou from North Tonawanda, N.Y., handed out SpringFest T-shirts Tuesday. The annual spring festival runs May 7-10. For the schedule of events, go to rit.edu/studentaffairs/cab/springfest.

As e-cigarettes become more popular, new research into their use and effects is taking place in Professor Risa Robinson’s Respiratory Technologies Laboratory in the Kate Gleason College of Engineering. Data from her testing about behaviors, exposure and effects will be used to provide information to the Federal Drug Administration. Some of the equipment being used for this testing is the first of its kind and was designed and built by Robinson and her students as part of the college’s senior design projects.

Electrical engineering student Tucker Graydon demonstrates his robot in the Multi-Agent Biorobotics Laboratory during the Imagine RIT: Innovation and Creativity Festival. The research activities and projects in the lab, housed in the Kate Gleason College of Engineering, are carried out by students from the undergraduate to doctoral levels. The lab also has a K-12 outreach program called RoboCamp and RoboWeekend, where middle and high school students attend robotics workshops and camps.

It took 50,000 K’Nex pieces to build the Theme Park Engineering exhibit on display in the Gordon Field House. The recently formed RIT Theme Park Enthusiast Club was a first-time exhibitor at Imagine RIT.

Imagine RIT kicked off with an 8:30 a.m. pre-event, Dr. Destler’s Challenge, in the Gene Polisseni Center. Dubbed “RIT Meets the Jetsons: Flying Cars,” the event involved 14 teams participating in a two-part challenge piloting quadcopters around the Polisseni Center.