Ryne Raffaelle was appointed vice president for research and associate provost at RIT in 2011. He was formerly the director of the National Center for Photovoltaics at the National Renewable Energy Lab in Golden, Colo., the federal government’s central research organization for solar energy development. Raffaelle returns to RIT after serving in a number of different capacities from 2000 to 2009. His many assignments at RIT included an appointment as the first academic director of the Golisano Institute for Sustainability. He also served as the director of the NanoPower Research Lab at RIT. At the National Renewable Energy Lab in Colorado, Raffaelle provided technical vision, strategic leadership, asset stewardship and personnel management for the center. He worked on developing and enhancing technical capabilities relevant to advancing solar energy technologies while delivering world-class quality research and development, testing and validation.