Royal Comets, Representin'

Recently I've had a series of K-12 outreach-related meetings with some RIT heavy hitters in the Office of the Provost. This has been quite exciting, because it means Imaging Science is getting attention at high levels. One general meeting led to a 1-on-1 meeting to go into more specific detail about all of the outreach programs I do, which actually led to a meeting I had today with the daughter of an Assistant Provost! It just so happens that, after we discussed more about the Imaging Science program, the Assistant Provost thought it sounded like something her daughter might be interested in exploring. It turns out that her daughter is a junior in high school and has wide interests in STEM disciplines, which immediately had me thinking: internship! So today the daughter came to visit so as to learn all about what we do here in CIS and what the internship experience is like.

I've got to point out, she has this amazing bright red hair! It is stunning. We had a little mutual admiration there.

Anyways, we had a great meeting, even though it is dead around here since it's break week. We bonded over our hair and how we both went/go to R-H. She told me about some other experiences she's had on campus that she found really interesting, and I told her more about the internship process. We went around to the Vision lab, which actually had someone in it, and got to see the portable eye tracker and its output. Then we ventured upstairs to the Freshmen lab, where Joe actually happened to be, so he joined in the meeting to talk all about the freshmen class. After touring the 2nd floor Freshmen lab (the "Bat Cave"), we called it a day. I invited her to come back and visit anytime, as it would be worthwhile to see CIS when there are more people around, and it would be an especially good experience for her to sit in on the freshmen class. 

According to her mom, she really enjoyed the visit and has been very talkative about all the things we met about. And - and this is a direct quote- "she’s said about five times now how cool and nice you are." Awww! Anyways, I look forward to receiving an internship application from her for next summer! I think it would be a really great experience.