Environmental Studies and Sustainability News

Intersections: The RIT Podcast, Ep. 14: Growing up in India, Shahana Althaf thought earning a doctorate was a distant dream. Despite potential roadblocks, she persevered and will receive her Ph.D. from RIT’s Golisano Institute for Sustainability on May 10. Shahana talks with Associate Professor Callie Babbitt about how she overcame cultural pressures and the challenges of balancing home life with a young child to fulfill her dreams.

Five alumni from RIT’s College of Engineering Technology were honored with Rising Star awards during a campus reception last month. Given to alumni who graduated from CET within the past five to 10 years, the awardees were recognized for outstanding achievements early in their careers, for significant public service contributions and in helping to advance the careers of new professionals.

Images of plastic bags and bottles clogging beaches and oceans have some calling for a ban on all such products. But packaging experts say it’s not that easy to eliminate a highly effective material. Instead, researchers at RIT are looking to strike a balance: Find a way to produce plastics that retain their best qualities and yet are more environmentally friendly.

Imagine RIT visitors interested in learning about electric and hybrid-electric bikes get to participate in an interactive exhibit and discussion on the growing travel mode inside the Golisano Institute for Sustainability on April 27.

Meet Brady Smith, a fourth-year civil engineering technology student and captain of this year’s Concrete Canoe team.

A uniquely designed magnetic coil piston that will improve suspension systems in on- and off-road vehicles took first place in RIT’s semi-annual Tiger Tank entrepreneurship competition. Sponsored by RIT’s Saunders College of Business and hosted by RIT’s Simone Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Tiger Tank gives students the opportunity to pitch a business idea to a panel of judges with a chance to win cash prizes.

Concrete canoes float—really. And bridges are more complicated to construct than putting up a few steel beams. Student-engineers who build both the unusual—yet attractive—canoes and complex bridge spans will display their designs at the 2019 Upstate New York Regional Student Conference taking place April 19-20 at RIT.

WXXI’s “Connections” program features Nana-Yaw Andoh, assistant professor of architecture.

Mahany Welding Supply donated two gas metal arc welding cells and two gas tungsten arc welding cells to be used within an advanced manufacturing degree program in RIT’s College of Engineering Technology to provide needed workforce skills.

The Times Union features RIT students Patrick Finnerty and Catherine Krawiec, part of a team that won second place in the CREATE Symposium.

Point2Homes talks to Nana-Yaw Andoh, assistant professor in the Master of Architecture program, about the ways in which growing cities expand. 

Some people see massive environmental issues as unsalvageable, but Kristen Denninger Snyder ’10 sees them as motivation to keep working toward environmental conservation. Later this year, she will open the Research and Innovation for the Serengeti Ecosystem (RISE​) in Tanzania and serve as the center’s head scientist.