New theater to open next year

RIT is joining an international group of campuses in adopting the Okanagan Charter, pledging to prioritize health and well-being across campus. The Okanagan Charter, established in 2015, provides a framework for colleges and universities to transform their campuses into health-promoting environments. Recognizing that human and planetary health are interconnected, Health Promoting Campuses use a holistic approach that emphasizes improving individual and collective well-being, creating supportive physical and social environments, and advancing sustainability. “Our adoption of the Okanagan Charter reflects our commitment to making RIT a place where everyone can thrive, not just academically or in the workplace, but more broadly,” said RIT President David Munson. “This is more than an opportunity—it’s a responsibility to think more holistically about the well-being of everyone on campus.” In October 2024, representatives from RIT Student Affairs, Academic Affairs, Human Resources, and Strategic Planning and Sustainability attended the U.S. Health Promoting Campuses Network Summit, hosted by the University at Albany, to learn how other schools have been working to realize the vision of the Charter. RIT has outlined a phased approach to advance this vision. A community well-being working group has been established to support the Middle States accreditation process. The group’s focus is on understanding the current state of well-being at RIT and identifying gaps and opportunities to enhance holistic well-being at RIT. Their findings will inform RIT’s strategic plan 2025-2035. By embedding the principles of the Okanagan Charter into systems, structures, programs, and practices, the university aims to make holistic well-being a hallmark of the RIT experience.

RIT recently hosted the AI and Data Science Summit in collaboration with Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT) in Chennai, India, Jan. 7-9. The three-day event included topics such as AI applications in healthcare, ethical AI in language models, AI in education, harnessing AI for industry, and others. A diverse group of RIT faculty and staff were in attendance, representing the College of Art and Design, College of Science, Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences, Kate Gleason College of Engineering, National Technical Institute for the Deaf, College of Liberal Arts, Saunders College of Business, and College of Engineering Technology. The interdisciplinary group showcased RIT’s commitment to study, build, and test the possibilities of AI. The summit focused on the ambitious goal of establishing a joint Center of Excellence in AI between the two academic institutions. The center would be a hub for pioneering research, innovative education, and significant industry associations in AI and data science. “The resounding success of the AI and Data Science Summit is a testament to our commitment to advancing global education and research in AI,” said RIT Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs Prabu David. “By working together, we can address some of the most pressing challenges of our time and nurture future technology leaders. RIT and VIT will continue to pave the way for a future where technology serves as a force in transforming lives and communities.” By leveraging the expertise of faculty and researchers from both institutions, the proposed collaboration aims to address critical issues and empower students with the skills required to excel in a rapidly evolving technological landscape. “Collaborating with a renowned international university such as VIT on one of the most important technological advances of the age enhances RIT’s status as a global leader in the technology, arts, and design, while expanding international research opportunities for our faculty and students,” said James Meyers, associate provost for international education and global programs. The partnership adds to the diverse, worldwide reach of RIT. As of the fall 2024 semester, international students come from 103 different countries, with more than half of those students coming from India. Enrollment at RIT’s global campuses in Dubai, Croatia, Kosovo, and China have seen a steady increase, providing many worldwide opportunities for RIT students and faculty to enhance their education and research. "RIT’s collaboration with VIT underscores our commitment to building a truly global educational experience,” said Kathleen B. Davis, vice president for Enrollment Management and associate provost. “By partnering with an institution that shares our passion for experiential learning and technological advancement, we are creating pathways for students from both universities to actively engage with new cultures, ideas, and innovations. These international collaborations enrich the academic journey and prepare our students to lead and excel in a global marketplace." André Hudson, dean of the College of Science, remarked on the professional and personal growth the experience provided. “The summit itself showcased groundbreaking advancements and thought-provoking conversations that deepened my understanding of the rapidly evolving world of AI,” said Hudson. “In addition, the cultural experience in Chennai was absolutely fantastic. I returned with new ideas, connections, and inspiration to bring back to our work at RIT.”

Chaynj Jason, a second-year computer science major from Philadelphia, is an event manager for RIT’s College Activities Board (CAB), which is hosting the annual FreezeFest, Jan. 27 through Feb. 8. She helped plan all of the off-campus events for CAB this year, including visits to a corn maze, smash room, amusement park, and a Buffalo Bills game. Since its inception in 2010, FreezeFest has brought students and the RIT community together for an assortment of winter-themed programs and events. Most of the events are not dependent upon snow and, unless mentioned, are free and open to all RIT students. What are some of this year’s events planned for FreezeFest? We’re planning Icy Escapades in the Gordon Field House on Feb. 8. We have a vendor coming in and installing two ice rinks for skating, an inflatable obstacle course and bounce house, crafts, and a petting zoo. We have two buses filled to go to Swain Resort for skiing and snowboarding. There are already 40 people on that waiting list. And we have a movie night, Polar Express, in the Fireside Lounge with hot chocolate, goodie bags, and charm bracelets. And we’ll have a murder mystery in the Davis Room, with CAB members as actors, and the people showing up have to solve the murder. An ice sculpture will also be displayed in front of the Student Alumni Union. Why should students attend FreezeFest? It is a great place to make friends who have similar interests. As a freshman, I wouldn’t go to a lot of events because I didn’t want to go by myself. But people should go with their friends, or by themselves, and just talk to people you don’t know. Everything on campus is free. And you can get some free swag! How did you end up at RIT? It came down to going to RIT or a college in Florida. So I asked myself, do I want snow or do I want possible hurricanes? I do like the winter, but if snow was not cold, that would be the best! I came to RIT because I like the co-op opportunities and the accelerated programs. I didn’t know anybody when I came and in my first year, I was pretty isolated. This year, I’m pretty much involved in everything and have a lot of friends. What do you enjoy doing? I do a lot of gaming, napping, and hanging out with friends. I fidget a lot, so I collect fidget toys, squeeze toys, fluffy balls, spinning pens, and dragons. I’m on the e-board for COMS, the Computing Organization of Multicultural Students, and I’m on the e-board for RIT Esports. And now I’m planning events for SpringFest in April. What would you like to do after graduation? I would like to do something that will add a diverse viewpoint to the field of software engineering. With AI, I can add a diverse perspective.

Linguists face a resource gap for studying visual prosody and its grammatical and emotional functions in sign languages, and for creating AI systems capable of processing visual prosody. Cecilia Alm and Allison Fitch, College of Liberal Arts faculty members affiliated with RIT’s Ph.D. program in Cognitive Science, aim to fill that gap through Deaf scientist-centered research. ‌ Jillian Guyette/RIT Cecilia Alm, professor in RIT’s Department of Psychology and joint program director for RIT’s master’s program in artificial intelligence in the School of Information. The project’s goal is to create an American Sign Language (ASL) data resource that focuses on documenting visual prosody, which includes, for example, non-manual markers that convey meaning and structure of signed utterances in ASL. By capturing and annotating these characteristics, which can range from facial expressions, mouthing, to velocity or spatial aspects of signs, the team hopes to deepen linguists’ understandings of ASL and provide a method for representing and analyzing these characteristics in future research studies. Alm and Fitch received funding to support the project through the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Early-concept Grants for Exploratory Research (EAGER). “This project will provide a much-needed resource for language scientists to study visual prosody and for computational linguists to create novel machine learning-based technology for ASL, while providing research experiences for students fluent in ASL,” said Alm, professor in RIT’s Department of Psychology and joint program director for the master’s program in artificial intelligence in RIT’s School of Information. In any language, prosody affects the meaning of the message being conveyed. In ASL, prosodic cues manifest visually, while in spoken language, prosody involves voice inflection. An example in English is the phrase, “stop, Avery!” The utterance changes meaning depending on whether a pause is perceived or not between stop and Avery. In this example, the variation in prosodic cues indicates who is being addressed. Prosody also plays an important role for expressiveness and emotion in language. ‌ Elizabeth Lamark/RIT Allison Fitch, assistant professor in RIT’s Department of Psychology. Alm, principal investigator on the grant, previously studied prosody in spoken language using computational methods, such as machine learning, to examine these characteristics. Fitch, co-principal investigator and assistant professor in the Department of Psychology, has studied sign language interactions for several years using psycholinguistic research methods. This grant helps facilitate a natural coalescence between their research areas. While Fitch is fluent in ASL and both researchers are well versed in the science of language, a priority for the project is centering Deaf scientists. Fitch explains that hearing perspectives on ASL are those of outsiders looking in, while Deaf perspectives are rooted in a culture and experience that hearing people don’t always understand. “Much as you wouldn’t want to learn about Japanese from an American who took some Japanese classes and visited Japan once or twice, we should be learning about ASL from Deaf folks,” she said. “Deaf perspectives have historically been left out of the linguistics and scientific fields, and it is long past time that this changes.” As part of this collaborative research project, Fitch and Alm are collaborating with Raja Kushalnagar, professor and co-director of the Accessible Human-Centered Computing program, Patrick Boudreault, associate professor in the American Sign Language program, and James Waller, assistant professor in the Psychology and Accessible Human-Centered Computing programs at Gallaudet University. Kushalnagar is the principal investigator on the corresponding NSF EAGER grant awarded to the team at Gallaudet, which will support their contributions in this inter-institutional research project. “Gallaudet is a bilingual university in ASL and written English, which is woven into the fabric of daily life on campus. This environment provides researchers with unparalleled access to signers—both native and late learners of ASL—who can participate in studies and share linguistic insights,” said Kushalnagar. One reason for the lack of resources for studying visual prosody in ASL, Fitch explained, is that it is time-consuming research. The openly accessible corpus of annotated sign productions created through this project, as well as new guidance and computational techniques for annotating ASL prosody, can help reduce the burden of data collection and contribute to reducing the resource gap in this area of linguistics. In addition to their collaboration with Gallaudet University, Alm and Fitch seek to hire a doctoral student fluent in ASL, who will start in Fall 2025. Interested prospective Ph.D. students should contact Alm and Fitch at cecilia.o.alm@rit.edu and ahfgsh@rit.edu as soon as possible. Interested in learning more? Go to the project’s website for research updates and more information.

A human’s way of processing information can be used as a model to train next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) systems, according to research published Jan. 22 in Nature. Cory Merkel, an associate professor of computer engineering at Rochester Institute of Technology, was one of more than a dozen researchers from around the world who contributed to the findings. Merkel is an expert at using brain-inspired processes called neuromorphic computing to develop solutions that will improve processing power and energy consumption for AI applications.  “The ability to have efficient AI on constrained devices will also open the door to many new application domains in areas like brain-computer interfacing, space exploration, health monitoring technologies, and autonomous surveillance systems, for example,” said Merkel. His work in neuromorphic computing processes will address the growing market for AI systems in size, weight, and power-constrained applications, such as wearable technology, mobile phones, robots, unmanned aerial vehicles, and satellites. It will significantly improve processing and mass storage requirements. Lead author Dhireesha Kudithipudi, founding director of MATRIX AI Consortium and Neuromorphic AI lab at the University of Texas-San Antonio, brought together researchers from academia, national laboratories, and industry to provide a comprehensive review of neuromorphic computing technology. According to article authors, neuromorphic designers apply the principles of bio-intelligence discovered by neuroscientists to design efficient computational systems. These applications require more robust computing intelligence, and the human brain is providing a model of how complex networks can work faster and better. Merkel and Suma George Cardwell, principal member of the technical staff at Sandia National Laboratory’s Center for Computing Research, detailed in the new paper the role of emerging memory, such as RRAM and Spintronics, needed for mass storage devices. Both emerging technologies are appealing for neuromorphic computing systems at scale, and the authors provide examples of using these devices in learning and how to use or offset device variabilities. As the electricity consumption of AI is projected to double by 2026, neuromorphic computing emerges as a promising solution. The authors also say that neuromorphic systems are reaching a “critical juncture,” with scale being a key metric to track the progress of the field. Kudithipudi and Merkel have been long-time collaborators from when she was a professor in RIT’s Kate Gleason College of Engineering. As director of the Brain Lab in the Kate Gleason college, Merkel continues his focus on scaling up deep learning models through neuromorphic computing.

The first pieces of a massive, historic theater pipe organ built more than 90 years ago have been installed at Rochester Institute of Technology’s music performance theater, currently under construction. About 240 feet of galvanized steel piping that will take air from the organ’s blower to its chambers was installed in December by Carlton Smith, a professional theater pipe organ restorer who has been helping bring the historic instrument back to life in his Indiana workshop since March 2020. Several more trips to Rochester will be needed to complete the installation prior to the theater’s grand opening in 2026. The organ is unique, so the theater’s pipe chambers were designed specifically for it, mimicking the chambers from its original home, the Hollywood Theatre in Detroit. Components of the organ, a Barton Opus 234, are two-stories tall and can fill a tractor trailer. It has thousands of parts, including pipes, wind-chests, keyboards, and pneumatic mechanisms of metal, wood, and leather, producing a diverse array of sounds that can simulate an orchestra in surround sound. The organ was built in 1927 and had a list price of $75,000. It features hundreds of pipes— ranging from inches to many feet tall—and four keyboards that could play notes sounding like dozens of instruments, from sleigh bells to a marimba harp, xylophones, trumpets, and drums. News about the restoration and the organ’s future destination was featured by the Associated Press last summer, and the story made headlines around the world. “This magnificent instrument will not only serve as a centerpiece for our new music performance theater, it will also help our students appreciate the relationship between music and mechanics. They will literally be able to walk through a working instrument and see how sounds are produced,” said RIT President David Munson. With more than 2,000 students in the past five years receiving performing arts scholarships, RIT continues to lure more students involved in performing arts—something that may sound strange for a college with "technology" in its name and no performing arts majors. But Munson points out that abilities in music and math are highly correlated, so most of these students are majoring in STEM disciplines, bringing creativity, out-of-the-box thinking, and collaborative skills to campus. The organ was one of more than 7,000 installed in American and Canadian theaters between 1908 and 1929, and more than 130 were in Detroit alone. The organs provided music during showings of silent films and vaudeville acts. ‌ Roger Mumbrue The console of the Barton Opus 234 pipe organ when it played at the Hollywood Theatre in Detroit, from 1927 to 1956. The massive instrument, which has thousands of pieces that are two-stories tall when assembled, will be the centerpiece of RIT’s new music performance theater, set to open in 2026. Luminaries such as Bob Hope, Jack Benny, and Sophie Tucker performed in the 3,436-seat Hollywood Theatre, which was described as opulent and gargantuan, with velvet curtains, mirrored niches and ceilings covered with large medallions drizzled with gold and shimmering silver. A news report at the time said it was “one of the most beautiful, most comfortable theaters in the universe.” But with the advent of television, most grand movie houses eventually closed, as did the Hollywood Theatre in 1956. Few organs survived intact, but this one was purchased at auction for $3,150 by Henry Przybylski, an engineer and organ buff from Dearborn Heights, Mich. It took five months to remove the components of the organ before the building was demolished in 1963. The organ remained stored in thousands of pieces for the next 40 years—longer than it had been in the theater—in Przybylski’s garage, attic, and basement. After Przybylski died, his widow agreed to sell professional organist Steven Ball the entire instrument. “Getting it playing again would be such a massive undertaking, and she was quite concerned others would take it for parts, or scrap,” Ball said. “Here I was, a young 20-year-old who was part of the organ culture in Detroit, but I wanted to make sure it someday returned to a home as it was. I liquidated my life savings and sold my car. I used everything I could to secure the organ and buy enough lumber for packing. Imagine an 18-wheeler semi fully packed from floor to ceiling. That’s how much space this undertaking took.” Ball taught organ and carillon at the University of Michigan, where Munson was dean of the College of Engineering prior to becoming RIT president. While at UM, Ball proposed and led the development of a cross-disciplinary course in music, engineering, and art, focused on the design and production of a small carillon. “The purpose was to teach freshmen about bells and bell tuning, to make bells at their bronze foundry at the school and explain what a carillon bell is,” Ball said. “So, in 16 weeks, students go from beginning freshmen to engaging in a musical performance.” Ball said he received an email from Munson in 2019 asking about significant theater organs that might be available, knowing that Ball, earlier, had one in storage with no prospects for a final home for long-term preservation. Ball still had the Barton, so he came to RIT to meet with Munson about the prospect and made arrangements to donate it to RIT. “My goal was to house this in a public place where it would be exactly what it was and give it back to the world because what it had to offer was so culturally different,” said Ball. “I felt so strongly about preserving the organ as an American art form. This instrument is so different than anything these students would normally be exposed to. It’s so radical and extreme. It’s not your typical church organ.” Munson would like Ball to play it on opening night when the theater opens. “I couldn’t possibly be happier that the organ found a good fit,” Ball said. “It’s not just going to a public venue. This is going to an environment where you have some of the brightest minds who hold the future of the world in their hands. This will help to specifically engage those minds, and they will see that the inside technology is a compilation of physics, arts, and engineering. The interaction is what makes this exceptionally cool. This instrument has the potential to inspire these students who are going to change the future.”