Photo Spotlights

The first Rochester Technology Symposium, hosted Nov. 29 by RIT and Freescale Semiconductor Inc., drew 170 attendees from industry and academia to RIT’s Kate Gleason College of Engineering for product demonstrations and presentations on breakthrough semiconductor technologies. Shown above are Andy Mastronardi, Freescale Semiconductor’s university program director (left) and Ken Hsu, RIT professor of computer engineering and the primary organizer of the symposium.

E. Philip Saunders College of Business third-year student Michelle Franchi (far left) and alumnus Brett Daly '03, '05 (MBA) of BCC Software have met weekly since September with students in Rhonda Neal's Virtual Enterprise class at the School of Business, Finance and Entrepreneurship at Edison. The students are preparing for competition against other high school teams. Neal is pictured at the far right. Daly is not pictured.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., calls on members of Congress to renew the college tuition tax deduction during a news conference at RIT on Nov. 29. The plan will allow families of middle-class college students to deduct $4,000 a year from their taxes. Schumer used his visit to RIT to outline a variety of initiatives that will be addressed as Democrats take control of Congress early next year.

Members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local Union #86 and various local electrical contractors come together to make payment on a $25,000 commitment to the Facilities Management Services Endowed Scholarship at RIT. The scholarship was established in 2003 to recognize students who have worked for FMS over the years. Many of these students have gone on to work with FMS as consultants, contractors or suppliers after their graduation.

Sarah Gordon, left, president of Student Government at the National Techincal Institute for the Deaf, celebrates the grand opening of the CSD Student Development Center. The facility now centralizes student clubs, NTID Student Government, meeting rooms, commuter lockers and a variety of informal spaces. About 500 people enjoyed the Mardi Gras-style festivities on Nov. 9. Joining Gordon are, from left to right, Alan Hurwitz, NTID CEO and dean; Benjamin Soukup, CSD CEO; Albert Simone, RIT president; and Michael Morley, president of RIT's Board of Trustees.

It mysteriously appeared during Brick City Homecoming, but then it disappeared almost as quickly as it came. The tiger's sweater is back in the custody of Stevie Hegge, the student who knitted the garment that briefly adorned the sculpture along RIT's Quarter Mile. The sweater was swiped during homecoming. But, in a strange turn of events, an anonymous tip led to its retrieval. Read the details in John Follaco's latest entry to The Tiger Beat blog.

RIT President Albert Simone, center, receives the 2006 Civic Award from Paychex senior vice president Martin Mucci and Rochester Business Alliance president and CEO Sandy Parker. The award, created in 1965 to honor community leaders for their profound contributions to the quality of life in Greater Rochester, was last presented in 2000. Simone will retire July 1 after 15 years as president of RIT.

Sam McQuade, graduate program coordinator in RIT's Center for Multidisciplinary Studies, presented his book, Understanding and Managing Cybercrime, Nov. 9 in Wallace Library as part of the “Meet the Authors” series. McQuade engaged the RIT community in a discussion on the history and the complexities of cybercrime.

Kathy Routly and Thaddeus Hopkins were two of the volunteers who helped continue the tradition of “Midnight Breakfast” Friday, Nov. 10. The breakfast, created as a way for faculty and staff to demonstrate support to students as they prepare for their final exams, was held from 10 p.m. until midnight at Gracie’s in Grace Watson Hall.

Steven Davis, an RIT computer engineering major, watches his opponent’s move in a game of LAReGo, as teammates Seth Groder and Elizabeth Fehrmann observe. The updated game, a computerized version of Go—a centuries-old board game developed in Asia—uses a camera and computer to track and log players’ moves. It was developed as a computer engineering senior-design project and was demonstrated on Nov. 2. Other projects included a computer-assisted puzzle solver, an interactive piano tutor, a real-time floor-plan generator, virtual target practice and others. For more information, visit www.ce.rit.edu/research/projects/2006_fall.

Twenty-one middle and high school girls visited RIT for the annual Expanding Your Horizons conference on Oct. 21. They took part in hands-on activities showing how engineering is used in the real world — including projects related to bioengineering, bridge design, manufacturing process simulation and rock climbing. Above, participants work on an exercise in which they built structures made out of paper and tested them to determine how much weight they would hold (one team’s structure supported 68 pounds). Sponsored by WE@RIT, Expanding Your Horizons aimed to encourage and nurture girls’ interest in engineering, science and math. Workshops for parents helped them support their daughters' studies. For more, visit www.rit.edu/~women/EYH.php3.

State-of the art manufacturing machinery was showcased at an open house for RIT’s Brinkman Manufacturing Lab on Nov. 2. Shown above is Shane Wing, an applications engineer with Morris TriState, a Lancaster, N.Y.-based machine tool distributor.