News by Topic: Gifts

RIT President David Munson this morning welcomed back the community, saying that the university is positioned for another exciting academic year.

RIT will welcome the 10th class of Destler/Johnson Rochester City Scholars, a program that has provided more than 200 graduates of the Rochester City School District and Rochester charter schools with the opportunity to attend RIT tuition-free since 2010. RIT will also welcome the first two recipients of the Mark and Maureen Davitt Graduate Education Endowed Scholarship.

The National Science Foundation awarded RIT a grant to conceptualize a new institute that would be at the forefront of quantum science and technology. RIT received $150,000 in funding from the NSF’s Quantum Leap Challenge Institutes program to create a plan for an institute that would expand quantum science and technology capabilities through quantum photonic integrated circuits.

Cybercrime is costing the world trillions of dollars, and analysts say that there aren’t enough qualified professionals to prevent those attacks. To address this problem, RIT is creating the Global Cybersecurity Institute (GCI), aimed at meeting the demand for computing security and artificial intelligence professionals, while developing future technologies, protocols and human understanding needed to address the global cybersecurity crisis.

RIT’s genomics research capabilities have evolved significantly over the past year. The university has invested heavily in revamping and equipping its Genomics Research Lab Cluster. The overhauled genomics facilities will boost capabilities for researchers in multiple disciplines, including bioinformatics, biotechnology and environmental science.

Kevin J. Surace ’85 (electrical engineering technology) will be honored for his support of the university with the Outstanding Alumnus of 2019 award at the Presidents’ Alumni Ball on Oct. 18 during Brick City Homecoming and Family Weekend. The award is the highest honor RIT can bestow upon an alumnus.

Three deaf and hard-of-hearing students in business-related majors at NTID received a new scholarship funded by the Frank B. Sullivan Memorial Foundation.

In an effort to expand science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education for all, RIT is developing a new program to help other colleges compete for federal government funding that supports programming for talented, low-income students.

Steve Hoover, former chief technology officer and senior vice president at Xerox and former chief executive officer of the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), has been named to the newly created position of endowed Executive Director of RIT’s Global Cybersecurity Institute.

RIT will use a $5.5 million federal grant to grow a program that trains the next generation of cybersecurity professionals who will help secure the nation. The National Science Foundation awarded RIT the five-year grant that will renew funding for the CyberCorps: Scholars for Service program.

Brittney Teed and Mitchell Hitchcock, seniors at Livonia High School, and Maggie Dempsey, a senior at Avon High School, are recipients of this year’s annual E. Philip Saunders Endowed Business Scholarship at RIT. The students have been accepted at RIT’s Saunders College of Business where they will begin classes in the fall.

Larwan Berke, a computing and information sciences Ph.D. student at RIT, was one of only 11 outstanding doctoral students selected to receive the 2019 Microsoft Research Dissertation Grant.