News by Topic: Partnerships

Jeff Benck ’88 (mechanical engineering) is the president and CEO of Benchmark, a global provider of engineering, design and manufacturing services. Benchmark is working with about 10 clients who are making products that will help treat patients infected with COVID-19.

An Ohio-based explosives company called Austin Powder has turned to RIT scientists for a creative approach to quantifying nitrogen oxide gases that on rare occasions are released during mining operations.

Members of RIT’s Center for Public Safety Initiatives are doing their part to help combat the opioid epidemic by determining the effectiveness of a dependency treatment program offered to inmates at the Monroe County Jail.

Maria Romero-Creel ’17 (biomedical engineering) and Wendy Salamone ’10 (biotechnology) are just two of the people responsible for the analyzer database update launched by Ortho Clinical Diagnostics on April 14. The team is responsible for ensuring that calibrations, precision fluid information and analyzer settings for new assays like COVID-19 are properly entered and working for analyzers in the field.

A federal grant matched by New York state and RIT is enabling university researchers to study a competitive solution to polyethylene mulch and identify a more sustainable alternative to conventionally used plastics in farming.

In early March, RIT alumnus Corey Mack ’11 (mechanical engineering technology) received an email from the U.S. Department of Defense asking start-ups and entrepreneurs to build emergency ventilators for under $300. Within a few days, his idea became a design that complied closely with the required pieces of emergency ventilators.

With fewer people eating on campus due to alternative delivery of coursework, RIT Dining has decided to serve a different customer. They’re sending packaged meals to Rochester Regional Health, the university’s affiliated partner, to serve its workers who are helping our community during the COVID-19 pandemic.

RIT is leading an effort involving local companies and healthcare experts to produce a prototype ventilator designed to help meet the continuing surge of respiratory cases as a result of the coronavirus.

Many RIT faculty, students, staff and alumni are among the collaborations here and across the nation, providing expertise to improve or create much-needed equipment and protective gear for medical personnel fighting the Coronavirus.

Researchers from RIT’s Future Photon Initiative, in collaboration with the Air Force Research Laboratory, have produced the Department of Defense’s first-ever fully integrated quantum photonics wafer.

The LiveAbility Lab is a partnership between RIT and the Al Sigl Community of Agencies, a collaborative network of organizations in Rochester that serves children and adults with special needs. The lab, which is located on Al Sigl’s Wolk Campus, opened in 2018. The goal is to develop a pipeline of accessible technology projects that are conceived at RIT and take root at the LiveAbility Lab on their way to development in the marketplace. 

RIT’s K-12 University Center is leveraging the university’s strength in experiential learning and career readiness in a new partnership with the Army Educational Outreach Program. RIT will receive $14 million to expand the Army’s apprenticeship programs and cultivate a STEM-literate workforce that reflects the nation’s demographics.