RIT honors 387 researchers

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Elizabeth Lamark/RIT Production Services

RIT honored 387 researchers who secured funding for fiscal year 2015, serving as either principal or co-principal investigators on active research, including the 16 recipients of Seed Funding Awards.

Rochester Institute of Technology honored 387 researchers who secured funding for fiscal year 2015, serving as either principal or co-principal investigators on active research.

RIT honored its researchers at an April 21 reception, during which it also recognized the 16 recipients of Seed Funding Awards and eight new inductees in RIT’s PI Millionaires.

“RIT continues to gain momentum as a research university, which is an important pillar in our 2025 Strategic Plan,” said David Bond, director of Sponsored Research Services. “Our researchers are conducting work that is getting noticed, which has resulted in three, straight strong years of awards.” RIT investigators’ efforts led to a record $62 million in research funding last fiscal year, up from $52.7 million the previous year.

The event, which opened with an overview of RIT’s Strategic Research Initiatives, highlighted “Seed Fund Awards,” $5,000 grants awarded by RIT to researchers who completed its Grant Writer’s Boot Camp last fall. Each participant came with a proposal for seed funding which was reviewed by peers.

The 2016 Seed Fund award recipients are:

• Daniel Ashbrook, assistant professor in the B. Thomas Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences, for “Towards Universal Access for Wearable Computing Devices”
• Anju Gupta, assistant professor in the Kate Gleason College of Engineering, for “Enhancing Fluorescent Emission in Thin Films Using Lithographically Controlled Substrate Structure”
• Elizabeth Ruder, assistant professor in the College of Health Sciences and Technology, for “NEEDs for Tots: Using the division of responsibility in feeding to prevent childhood obesity”
• Jerrie Hsieh, associate professor in the College of Applied Science and Technology, for “The short-term impact of workplace exercise intervention on hotel housekeepers’ work-related musculoskeletal pain and stress: an exploratory study”
• Zhijian (James) Huang, assistant professor in Saunders College of Business, for “Price Limited Trading After IPO”
• Viet Le, instructional support faculty at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf, for “Specific Dopaminergic Uptake and Toxicity Mechanism of 1-methyl-4 phenylpryidium (MPP+): Model for Parkinson's Disease”
• Panos Markopoulos, assistant professor in the Kate Gleason College of Engineering, for “Practical L1-norm principal component analysis: enabling tools for reliable data analytics”
• Parsian Mohseni, assistant professor in the Kate Gleason College of Engineering, for “Selective Area Epitaxy of III-V Nanocrystals on Graphene and MoS2 for Flexible Optoelectronics Applications”
• Michael Murdoch, assistant professor in the College of Science, for “Light Lab: Understanding Dynamic Color Perception”
• Carlos Rivero, assistant professor in the B. Thomas Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences, for “Efficient Query Engines using State of the Art Subgraph Matching Algorithms”
• Charles Roberts, assistant professor in the B. Thomas Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences, for “Visualization in Live Coding Performance”
• Torrence Sparkman, assistant professor in the College of Applied Science and Technology, for “Identifying workplace competencies for entry level laboratory positions”
• Josephine Wolff, assistant professor in the College of Liberal Arts, for “Black-market purchase of stolen digital personally identifying information by victims and authorized intermediaries”
• Ke-an Wu, assistant professor at Saunders College of Business, for “Enquiries into the relation between stock repurchase and accounting conservatism”
• Yang Yu, assistant professor at Saunders College of Business, for “eWOM Emotions and Consumer Information Search Behavior on Purchase Decision Making: A Text Analytics Approach”
• Michael Zemcov, assistant professor in the College of Science, for “A data analysis pipeline simulator for a millimeter-wavelength imaging spectrometer”

Also recognized was a new group of PI Millionaires, a designation awarded to RIT researchers who have achieved funding of $1 million or more since 2000. Inducted as PI Millionaires were:

• Andrew Phelps, professor and founder and director of the Center for Media, Arts, Games, Interaction and Creativity (MAGIC)
• Jay Yang, professor and head of the Department of Computer Engineering in the Kate Gleason College of Engineering
• Richard Notargiacomo, interim director of RIT’s Venture Creations incubator
• Daniel Johnson, professor and chair of the Department of Packaging Science in the College of Applied Science and Technology
• Poorna Kushalnagar, associate professor in the Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science in the College of Science
• Richard DeMartino, RIT’s Albert J. Simone Endowed Chair for Innovation and Entrepreneurship and director the Simone Center for Student Innovation and Entrepreneurship
• Grover Swartzlander, associate professor in the Carlson Center
• Callie Babbitt, associate professor at RIT’s Golisano Institute for Sustainability

The event, in RIT’s Student Innovation Hall, was hosted by Sponsored Research Services, which has recognized 106 PI Millionaire researchers since 2001.

A new group of PI Millionaires, a designation awarded to RIT researchers who have achieved funding of $1 million or more since 2000, was honored at a reception on Thursday. Elizabeth Lamark/RIT Production Services