Photo Spotlights

Amanda Phillips, a second-year mechanical engineering student, came to RIT by way of the San Antonio rodeo as a bull rider. She is a member of the Oneida Indian nation and a part of the RIT Future Scholars Program, one of the campus programs for American Indian students.

Students in Gary Skuse’s Advanced Applied Genomics class are annotating fruit fly DNA this quarter as part of the Genomics Education Partnership run by Washington University. The students’ painstaking work will help make sense of the species’ genetic blueprint. The study of fruit flies as model organisms has helped scientists understand human biology since the early 1900s.

John Ahearn, sculptor, painter and printmaker, spoke about his work and met with RIT painting students on Jan. 13. Ahearn’s work is included in major museums and collections around the world.

RIT hockey fans watched the men’s hockey vs. the University of Connecticut game on Jan. 9. The result was RIT’s sixth straight win, 5-3 over Connecticut.

Michael Polimeni, second-year mechanical engineering student and RIT Pep Band conductor, performed at the hockey game on Jan. 9. Playing at various times during the hockey game, the band of 60 students energized the crowd and added to school spirit.

Live music by Something Else will be featured at Lovin’ Cup at Park Point, 9 p.m.-2 a.m. Jan. 10, as part of RIT College Activities Board’s Senior Night Out.

Children are among the fans of an interactive landscape installation of flowers, trees and insects created by RIT professor Roberley Bell. Flower Blobs Bloom is one of the inaugural exhibits at the Burchfield Penney Art Center at Buffalo State College. Bell invites her audiences to rest on a flower petal made of astro turf or even create their own garden. Her exhibit is open to the public through March 15. Lorrie Frear, professor of graphic design, designed and painted a wall mural of flowers that accompanies Flower Blobs Bloom.

Professor Joel Kastner and his team discovered a disk of molecules orbiting twin suns in the constellation Sagittarius. Their findings, reported in the December 2008 issue of Astronomy and Astrophysics, suggest that Jupiter-like planets could form around binary star systems.

President Destler took time out to read a story to kindergarten children from Margaret’s House on Dec. 17. No ordinary story, it was a special book produced in collaboration with the kindergarten students and RIT students in the arts and imaging studies program at NTID/RIT. A Curious Friend Visits RIT is the story of Curious George’s walk at RIT and the adventures he had along the way. Many children asked President Destler to sign their copies, making them even more special.

Students return from their holiday break and resume classes on Jan. 5, 2009.

RIT’s Center for Religious Life hosts a “Pasta Night” on the first and third Tuesday of the month as a way to bring the RIT community together. Jeff Hering, director of the Center for Religious Life, says the dinner has become “something of an institution.” The next dinner will be Jan. 20, 2009.

RIT President Bill Destler announced on Dec. 18 that RIT has entered into a strategic alliance with Rochester General Health System. An agreement between the two institutions will include RIT becoming the health system’s official academic affiliate and RGHS becoming the university’s official affiliated medical center. The partnership will add capabilities and provide opportunities for both organizations.