News by Topic: Women

Cecilia Alm, an associate professor in RIT’s College of Liberal Arts, was awarded nearly $2 million by the National Science Foundation to lead a team of RIT faculty addressing a lack of diversity in the artificial intelligence research community and gaps in AI curricula.

As an expert in microfluidic devices—tiny labs able to decipher bioparticles—Blanca Lapizco-Encinas and her research partners uncovered a mystery in how these particles can be better differentiated. As she has moved her own research forward, she is influencing a new generation of scientists to do the same.

When the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)—the long-awaited successor to the Hubble Space Telescope—becomes operational this year, Jeyhan Kartaltepe will co-lead a team of nearly 50 researchers to map the earliest structures of the universe.

Essay by Lauren Hall, professor and chair of the political science department, published in the U.S. News and World Report.

Chonte’ Martin, Atlanta’s facility management director of operations, started her career 25 years ago after learning electrical work in technical school. She received her advanced graduate certificate in project management from RIT’s School of Individualized Study and continued her online study to complete her master’s degree in facility management.

Intersections: The RIT Podcast, Ep. 55: Meet Jackie Nicholson, who became just the fifth athletic director in RIT's history last summer, and the first woman to ever hold the position. She talks with Lauren Zeglen, co-captain of RIT's women’s soccer team and president of the university’s Student Athlete Advisory Council (SAAC) about the future of RIT Athletics, the experience of student athletes on campus and the role of sports in creating a more equitable university.

Essay by Maureen Ferran, associate professor in the Thomas H. Gosnell School of Life Sciences, published by The Conversation.

The Rochester Beacon features Caroline Easton, director of the RIT Priority Behavioral Health and Clinical Psychology program.

RIT’s School of Communication has appointed Tracy Worrell, professor of communication, as its new director. The previous director, Kelly Norris Martin, is now associate dean of faculty and staff affairs in the College of Liberal Arts.

Scientists look to space for origins of the solar system; chemical engineers like Poornima Padmanabhan are searching for the origins of life based on minute systems of molecules. Padmanabhan recently received a National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award for “Chirality and polymer thermodynamics: frustration and amplification.”

Greater Rochester Chamber of Commerce and its Women’s Council have named three RIT community members as finalists for the 2022 ATHENA International Young Professional Award, which recognizes emerging female leaders in the 30- to 45-year-old range who demonstrate excellence, creativity, and initiative in their business or profession and serve as a role model for young women.

WXXI features Jeyhan Kartaltepe, assistant professor in the School of Physics and Astronomy, and the program she is leading to use the James Webb Space Telescope to study thousands of the earliest galaxies in the universe.