RIT’s physician assistant program celebrated its 30th graduating class this year, and now its biggest champion, former director and founder Heidi Miller, is preparing to retire at the end of June after nearly 32 years. Miller developed the PA program and introduced a unique major focused on direct patient care. In the late 1980s, Miller worked at Rochester General Hospital as a physician assistant specializing in emergency medicine. Her reputation for mentoring younger PAs led to an invitation to join an RIT task force considering a new major for the College of Science. In 1993, Miller wrote the PA curriculum, prepared the program for approval, and became the program’s first director. The following year, Nancy Valentage joined the program to help navigate clinical partnerships, and together they graduated the first class in 1995. Recognition of the profession in the late 1980s and early 1990s as an accessible and affordable healthcare option gave the field, established in the mid-1960s, a boost as the next medical profession. “RIT jumped on that,” Miller said. “We were the 54th program in the country, and right now there are over 300. We were right on the cusp of a significant growth and expansion of the profession.” As the medical program gained momentum, prospective students vied for a limited number of seats. (Enrollment is tied to available training opportunities at clinical partnerships.) In 2011, the PA program helped anchor RIT’s new College of Health Sciences and Technology. The college grew from a strategic partnership between RIT and Rochester Regional Health. The RIT-Rochester Regional Health Alliance, which includes Rochester General Hospital, strengthened collaborative opportunities with Miller’s former employer. “It was a full-circle moment for me,” she said. Below, Miller shares reflections from her time at RIT and looks forward to the future. What are you most proud of when looking back at your time at RIT? We have always had a team approach, even from the first years of training students, to recognize that they were entering the field of medicine as part of a team. Everybody has to work closely together for the best care of the patient, which was the core philosophy that we tried to impart onto the students. What are some of your fondest memories? Certainly, graduating the first class, moving the undergraduate program to a five-year BS/MS in 2016, and creating the Annual Awards and White Coat ceremony. I think, for many students, getting their long white professional coat is probably more meaningful than graduation. I also have fond memories of the many dedicated colleagues who have advocated, supported, and helped create and grow this program. We couldn’t have prepared our students without the support of the medical community—RIT-RRH Alliance and the University of Rochester—in training, recruiting, and employing a lot of our alumni. It ‘takes a village’ to train competent, compassionate, and hard-working patient care providers. Many of our alums have stayed in the area and work in the two big health systems, as we know it now, so I think our program has contributed to the workforce. What are your retirement plans? I’m a member of the Rochester Academy of Medicine Board of Trustees, and I hope to increase my volunteer time. I also do a fair amount consulting with New York State Department of Health in professional practice areas. I am an avid reader, and I also hope to do more writing. I’m involved with the PA History Society, based out of Atlanta, and I am currently finishing a historical dissertation on the profession. In a different area, I have a soft spot for animals, and so volunteering at animal sanctuaries is high on my list. My family and I are planning a trip to Italy in August, and we’re looking forward to it. Both of our daughters recently graduated from graduate programs, and so this is kind of a big celebratory trip for all.

In the early 20th century, American painter Rockwell Kent made several trips to Greenland to document what he called an “earthly paradise.” Nearly a century later, Denis Defibaugh felt inspired by Kent and made his own pilgrimage to the island in 2016. Like Kent, Defibaugh fell in love with the culture and landscape of Greenland. His passion and the photos he captured helped earn him a 2025 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship. According to the foundation, this year marks the 100th class of Guggenheim Fellows, which includes 198 individuals working across 53 disciplines. Fellows were chosen from a pool of nearly 3,500 applicants. Defibaugh, professor emeritus in RIT’s School of Photographic Arts and Sciences, explained that he has been interested in Greenland and Kent’s work for as long as he can remember. During a chance meeting with the director of the Rockwell Kent Gallery and Collection, located at the SUNY Plattsburgh State Art Museum, Defibaugh came across a collection of photographs on lantern slides that Kent took during one of his visits to Greenland. Before then, Defibaugh had no idea Kent documented his visits in this way. “When I pulled the first one out, I said ‘wow, this is like a diamond.’ I was so blown away by them,” said Defibaugh. “Kent used the slides when he came back from Greenland to do lecture tours. Almost every lecture sold out, so he lectured until he made enough money to go back to Greenland for another year. It was a constant cycle.” ‌ Denis Defibaugh Katrina Zeeb in a traditional Greenlandic outfit worn for special occasions. When Kent lived in Illorsuit, this was the normal attire for women. After this discovery, Defibaugh planned his first trip to Greenland. He received a National Science Foundation grant to support his travel after several application attempts, and the photographs and observations he made during his 16-month stay were documented in his book North By Nuuk: Greenland After Rockwell Kent. The Guggenheim Fellowship will enable Defibaugh to return to Greenland, continue his study of native culture, and build upon his current body of work. Defibaugh said he will return to some of the villages he saw in 2016, including Uummannaq, Nuuk, and Sisimiut, but not Illorsuit. Unfortunately, the waterside village was abandoned in 2017 after a landslide caused a megatsunami on the Karrat Fjord just two months after Defibaugh returned to the United States. “Illorsuit was this little settlement on a beautiful, horseshoe-shaped black sand beach. On one side of the town was the fjord, and on the other was this giant black mountain. When the tsunami hit, the villagers had to evacuate and they were told they couldn’t go back,” said Defibaugh. “I thought a good reason for me to return to Greenland would be to see how people’s lives have changed since then.” ‌ Denis Defibaugh Nuka-Sofie Fleishcher Lovstrom reclining in front of her son’s painting. Defibaugh will travel to Greenland for roughly one month, from mid-July to mid-August this year. He said the knowledge and connections he gained during his first trip will give him an advantage when planning what he wants to capture during his upcoming visit. “I want to try to be a little more experimental with this trip,” he said. “I’d like to do something that evolves the whole North by Nuuk project. I just have to figure out what that looks like.” Later this year, photographs from North by Nuuk will be exhibited in the Rose Lehrman Art Gallery at Harrisburg Area Community College. The exhibition will be open to the public Oct. 6 through Nov. 7, and Defibaugh will give a lecture about his work on Oct. 16. More information about Defibaugh’s first visit to Greenland can be found on his portfolio website. Go to the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation website for more details about the fellowship.