Emphasis on the "M"

So yesterday I coordinated the visit of an undergraduate class from the Department of Communications here at RIT who wanted to learn more about eye tracking. Basically I set up a presentation and demo in the Fishbowl (Carlson Learning Center) downstairs, with Karen of MVRL (The Multidisciplinary Vision Research Lab) doing the actual presenting. The class was really interested in how eye tracking works, and the best part was when the students started brainstorming how they could use such technology in their communications research. That's one of the things that's so cool about MVRL: its multidisciplinary aspects. There are so many different people from such different academic backgrounds that all have an interest in being there and advancing the technology and applications of eye tracking and visual perception research. Pretty awesome, huh?

Meanwhile, the whole way this demo came about was kind of interesting. There was one day this quarter for the class I'm taking that my professor wasn't going to be there, so he had another professor lead the class that night. Us students went around the room and introduced ourselves, and I mentioned working in the Center for Imaging Science (and included the usual disclaimer that we are not the same as photography). The substitute professor then mentioned that she had actually been trying to get in touch with someone from the eye tracking lab about getting a tour for her undergraduate class, but she hadn't heard back. Once I got over the shock of having an unrelated person actually understand what Imaging Science is (all my hard work is paying off!!!), I told her I could help, and... well you can guess the rest. Okay so I guess that doesn't sound all that exciting, but I always think it's cool when random connections come up in unexpected environments. (And I feel like I'm getting to be one of those people that knows tons of different people from a wide variety of areas on campus, which is awesome!)