News by Topic: Interdisciplinary Studies

Associate Professor Moumita Das is part of a team of researchers that was recently awarded a $1.8 million grant from the National Science Foundation to design and create next-generation materials inspired and empowered by biological cells. The team’s goal is to create self-directed, programmable, and reconfigurable materials—using biological building blocks including proteins and cells—that are capable of producing force and motion.

Professor Christy Tyler from the Thomas H. Gosnell School of Life Sciences and Associate Professor Matthew Hoffman from the School of Mathematical Sciences secured two NOAA Marine Debris Program awards to lead interdisciplinary projects with big environmental implications.

To help address a lack of diversity, as well as gaps in AI curricula, RIT was awarded a grant of nearly $2 million by the NSF to create a new research traineeship program for graduate students

Many only dream of racing the historic oval at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Several RIT engineering and computing students will make that dream come true. Members of RIT’s Autonomous Vehicle team will join partner universities as finalists in the inaugural Indy Autonomous Challenge.

The COVID-19 impact on collegiate sports changed the storyline for many student-athletes, including RIT alumnus Jimmy Spillane ’20 (biomedical sciences), who has found his way back onto the lacrosse field for the 2021-2022 season.

Christopher Kanan, an associate professor in the Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science, received an NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award and grant for his five-year project to expand the capabilities of artificial intelligence systems using new brain-inspired methods.

The $1.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has expanded RIT’s accredited Priority Behavioral Health and Clinical Psychology Internship program to focus on delivering integrated care for young clients who struggle with substance use, mental health issues, and trauma from exposure to high rates of violence within the community.

WROC-TV talks to Ian Stroszeck, a fifth-year computing security BS/MS student, and Andrew Afonso, also a fifth-year computing security BS/MS student, about their project to test a popular voting machine for security issues.

RIT Press turns 20 this year, and the future is bright for the scholarly book publisher at RIT. Expanded partnerships and community-related projects give RIT Press new momentum as it enters its third decade.

As part of new faculty orientation, RIT’s College of Engineering Technology and Kate Gleason College of Engineering hosted a pilot workshop to introduce KEEN: Engineering Unleashed and its entrepreneurial mindset—a national initiative to advance engineering education.

RIT has received the “Peace Corps Prep” designation, enabling its students to take certain classes to better prepare them for service in the Peace Corps upon graduation. RIT is the first university in Western New York to receive the designation, and the fifth in the state.

RIT scientists have uncovered new information about the way coronavirus and several of its variants attach to human cells. The researchers examined how coronaviruses use their spike proteins to attach themselves to the host cells they are attacking.