News by Topic: Partnerships

WHEC-TV reports on a partnership between the Urban League of Rochester and RIT.

Residents of a homeless shelter in Rochester are continuing to receive therapy during the coronavirus pandemic from a team of therapists in a clinical internship program at RIT. The doctoral training program began as an exercise in using telepsychology to deliver care to a marginalized and underserved population. When New York shut down in March to stem the spreading virus, the therapists were already prepared to apply the telehealth protocols in the crisis.

RIT is among 15 colleges and universities that have joined the Public Interest Technology University Network (PIT-UN), a program of the think-tank New America. The network unites colleges and universities committed to building the field of public interest technology and growing a new generation of civic-minded technologists.

Nabil Nasr, RIT’s associate provost and founding director of the Golisano Institute for Sustainability, has been appointed a Trustee by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, formed in 2010 to inspire a generation to rethink, redesign and build a positive future through the vision of a circular economy. 

The Clean Energy/Fuel Cells for Electricity Generation program offered by RIT’s School of Chemistry and Materials Science provides high school science teachers with experiments, assignment descriptions, papers and other materials to incorporate into their curriculum.

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.