Photo Spotlights

RIT hosted the Kern Communication Conference on visual communication, visual rhetoric and visual media technologies April 10-13. Here, Paul Lester, California State University at Fullerton, spoke about the contrast between teaching in the traditional classroom and using the online program Second Life.

Linda Sanford, senior vice president at IBM and co-chair of the Business Council of New York State, gave the lunchtime address at the fourth annual IT Collaboratory Research Symposium, held April 14. The event focused on research and technology development in microsystems materials, devices and systems.

RIT’s IT Collaboratory will host its fourth annual research symposium 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday, April 14, in the Center for Integrated Manufacturing Studies. The event will focus on research and technology development in microsystems materials, devices and systems and will feature a keynote address from Linda Sanford, senior vice president at IBM and co-chair of the Business Council of New York State.

IMAGINE RIT DISPLAY—Archeologist Bill Middleton purchased these replicas of Zapotec funerary urns at a regional market in the southern Mexican state Oaxaca. Middleton, acting chair of the Department of Material Culture Sciences and professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, won grants from National Geographic and NASA to study how the Oaxaxan economy and environment changed as the region formed into the first state-society in Mexico and then collapsed into smaller city-states. At the Imagine RIT festival, Middleton will display satellite imagery obtained from NASA to look at the Oaxacan landscape. The data will provide the most accurate and most detailed landscape map that exists for the region.

Dozens of interactive design and development companies from across the country met with the next generation of designers and developers on April 3. RIT students pursuing new media design, new media development, computer graphics design and graduate design degrees had the opportunity to network with new media industry professionals and have their portfolios reviewed. Yahoo, Fantasy Interactive, Scripps Networks and BEAM Interactive were among the companies represented. Here, Andrea Perry showed her work to reps from American Greetings, Dan Weiss and Lisa Valendza.

Nano Days took place at RIT, March 31-April 4, with a lecture by Dr. Davide Mariotti, visiting professor from the Kate Gleason College of Engineering, on April 1.

Park Point is scheduled to open for business in August 2008, featuring a Barnes & Noble bookstore, several ethnic restaurants, a hair salon and upscale housing.

Bharat Joshi, a graduate student in material science and engineering, demonstrated a use for liquid crystals during Nano Days at RIT, March 31-April 4.

Area high school students took part in the 2008 Youth Workforce Innovations Conference March 27. Workshops led by RIT faculty introduced students to careers in future growth industries in the Rochester region such as agribusiness, alternative energy, biotechnology, hospitality, information technology and optics and imaging. The event was held in conjunction with the Workforce Innovation for Regional Economic Development.

The College of Liberal Arts’ first Faculty-Student Research Forum on March 25 featured research from nearly every department within the college. Here, David Vaughn, a fifth-year engineering technology major in the College for Applied Science and Technology, presents his findings of recycling habits at RIT. He conducted the study for the class Garbage Archeology taught by Martha Morgan, at left, an assistant professor in the Department of Material Culture and Science.

Organic food selections, local cheeses and wines and slow food will be featured at the 23rd annual ‘Puttin’ on the RITz’ dinner, March 29, held at the RIT Inn & Conference Center. The feast is organized, prepared and served by students in RIT’s School of Hospitality and Service Management. Proceeds from the dinner will benefit the RIT Hospitality Education Fund. Here, Yarley Parker, a third-year student, prepares chocolate for dipping fresh strawberries.

PAETEC representatives greeted RIT students and recent alumni at the annual Spring Career Fair on March 26. Two hundred thirty employers attended the spring event, filling the arena within the Gordon Field House and Activities Center to capacity.