Introducing the Imaging Hall of Fame Induction Class of 2013

Last night was the Imaging Hall of Fame (cue fanfare)! So, who were this year's honorees? Luckily for you, I've updated our Imaging Hall of Fame webpage to include the etchings and biographies for this year's three honorees: Heilmeier, Ng, and Toepler.

Actually, I've created a new PDF format for the profiles, so that we aren't making new webpage nodes for every inductee; this is partially in preparation for the new website. When I have a chance I will have to go through all the previous inductees and turn their profiles into PDFs, as well... eventually...

Anyways, you can also check the seminars website in the next few days for a recording of the entire ceremony and keynote. It is worth a watch, particularly because we had one of the inductees, Dr. Ren Ng, present to accept a duplicate of his plaque which now hangs in the Hall of Fame!

Dr. Ng accepts his Hall of Fame plaque. (Photo by A. Sue Weisler)

This was only the second time we've had an honoree present for their induction (Steve Sasson last year being the other time), so that was pretty exciting. He flew all the way from California to join us! Actually, we are especially lucky that he made it, because of course there had to be a rather significant storm this week to disrupt everybody's travel. Flight cancellations affected both Dr. Ng and our keynote speaker Dr. Koonin; thankfully, they both made it in time for the big event (phew!), though at the expense of their scheduled agendas.

Oh, and another reason to watch the video? Apparently there was a rather comical interruption about half way through the keynote presenation (I unfortunately was not present because I had to leave early in order to set up for the after party). Fun fact #1: did you know the podium in the auditorium has a telephone in it? Neither did we, until it started ringing! Which brings us to fun fact #2: Did you know that whatever is on the podium phone goes out over the auditorium speakers? Once again, neither did we! Joe attempted to pick up the receiver to make the ringing stop, and some robocall came on that apparently related to surveillance - how appropriate, given the keynote presentation all about big data. Then it was apparently impossible to get the phone to actually hang up. Anyway, that's the best I can describe it since I wasn't there, but when the video is posted, fast forward to around 38 min to see it all go down.

Meanwhile, I'm guessing the snow had a negative impact on our audience as well, because both the ceremony and the reception were more lightly attended than we had anticipated. In fact, a bunch of the people who were at the ceremony and registered for the after party did not actually attend. On top of the weather, today was the last class day of the semester - tomorrow is a "reading day" and then finals start on Friday, so that may have impacted people's availability too (particularly students). Thankfully, enough other people arrived at the after party to make up for those who had RSVP'd and did not actually show up, so we still had a relatively sizable crowd of around 30 people (not bad, but not bumpin like last year). Although I was somewhat disappointed by the turnout, we had a great after party. Both Dr. Koonin and Dr. Ng attended, so there were opportunities to talk with them (actually a benefit of a smaller crowd). Dr. Ng was really nice and had some great insight into innovating in the imaging industry, and the roles our students can play in that. (I'm hoping we can get him to be our keynote speaker next year.) And, it's always nice to get out of the office and socialize in a different way with the folks you see every day.

View some pictures from the Hall of Fame ceremony and after party here!

Despite some of the challenges (late promotion; flight cancellations; snowy conditions; new semester schedule), we were still able to pull off a pretty darn excellent Hall of Fame ceremony and after party. I think we can feel proud of how everything went, and confident in our ability to make events such as these go smoothly even in the face of complications. However, the fact that so many complications arose leads me to wonder whether we should think about changing the timing of next year's Hall of Fame. At the very least, I think we should avoid the night before reading day in the future. I think we might also save ourselves some hassle if we avoid winter travel. Some things to think about...

And not a moment too soon

I told you to stay tuned, and now here it is: confirmation of our speaker, and an abstract and bio posted on our seminars website! With less than a week to go before the Hall of Fame, I hope this is enough time to promote successfully and get RSVPs on the event page. Thankfully I sent out that link last Wednesday in an effort to get people signed up, even in the absence of any information about our keynote... But with that being the day before Thanksgiving, and people's inherent nature to put things off to the last minute, we don't have too many people signed up yet.

Here's a new teaser that should get people interested, though: one of last year's inductees, Steve Sasson, will be attending, as will one of this year's inductees!!! Who will it be? Well, you'll just have to wait until next Wednesday to find out...

Save the Date: 8th Annual Imaging Hall of Fame

I realize this is a bit late for a Save the Date, but nonetheless: Announcing....

So, why the delay? Well, I promise you it's not me being lazy (after all, how hard is it to simply update the poster I use every year?). The secret truth is, we're not sure whether our scheduled keynote speaker is actually going to make it or not. I had been waiting to put out posters due to lack of keynote presentation info, but at this point, I needed to get SOMETHING out there - so I made a Save the Date announcement that will just have to hold us over until we get the rest of the information we normally use for promotions. So for now, mark your calendar on December 11th (back to our regular schedule of the last seminar of the calendar year), and stay tuned!

The results are in! How loud did we ROAR?

Remember the exciting presumed-success that was ROAR Day 2013? Well, the numbers are in - and I can indeed confirm that ROAR Day was a huge success for our Microgrant, Major Impact Challenge!!!

• ROAR Day student, faculty and staff gifts/pledges to the CIS Student Microgrants Fund totaled over $3,000
• Based on the ROAR Day matching gift for student, faculty and staff gifts (offered by the team of five administrators who matched gifts $5-$50), the fund will receive an additional $1,780
• 35 Faculty/Staff participated, which is over 50%, thereby reaching our participation goal and earning Stefi's personal match! (We also had 16 students participate!)
• To date, the total potential money raised for the fund, including gifts/pledges, both matching gift challenges, and Stefi's match, amounts to $9,324!

This is incredibly exciting!!! But we aren't off the hook yet - the challenge still isn't over. We still have some room to maximize Stefi's match limit of $5,000 before the Challenge ends in February. But, at least we already have two major successes under our belt: faculty/staff participation, and a huge surge of generosity benefiting our student microgrant program! No matter what the final tally, we are already winners. Yeah!

Predictably insert Katy Perry ROAR lyrics here

Today was ROAR (Raise Our Annual Responses) Day! I mentioned ROAR day just a few days ago when I posted about our Microgrant, Major Impact Challenge. Well, today was the BIG day when we could triple our impact!  

Good for one free ice cream cone! YEAH!

I decided this morning that I could even raise the stakes by offering a free CIS SWAG item to anyone who showed me proof that they donated to the Microgrants fund. Little did I expect that this would mean my day would be all-consumed by ROAR Day. But, that's okay, because it was fun to see so much spiRIT going around!

I gathered up some troops and we made our pledges right after the table outside CIS in the Unity Quad opened. I was very happy to see that they even had their own flyer for the Microgrant challenge prominently on display! As a gift for pledging we received small clip-on reflective blinking lights with "RIT" printed on them, so we turned them on and wore them as we used our stickers to get our free small ice cream cones from Ben & Jerrys (mm-mm!). I can certainly say that we were... attention-getting...

I should note, this all feels pretty funny for me, considering how incredibly anti-school spirit I have been for most of my life. This dissent lessened while I was in college since I actually loved RIT and took great pride in being here, but they didn't have spirit events when I was a student! I've tried participating in some events since I've been back as staff (eg Tiger Walk), but suffice it to say, I'm still no cheerleader.

Anyways, the rest of my available day ended up being devoted to ROAR Day, between getting the word out, helping people with pledge forms, handing out SWAG, et cetera, and then I had Staff Council and class. So note for next year: Do not expect to get anything else done on ROAR Day.

It's too soon to tell yet what kind of participation we got, but I do know I had about 25 people collect their CIS swag, so that's a pretty good indicator! (Especially assuming that there are probably people out there who did donate but don't care about getting a free bottle opener branded with the CIS logo.) I was especially pleased to see how many students participated, it was awesome!

Meanwhile, the icing on the cake came at the end of the day when I was CC'd on the following email:

MVRL'rs
Congratulations! A total of 21 students, staff, and faculty from the Multidisciplinary Vision Research Lab participated in the MVRL challenge, raising over $1,200 that will be doubled again by matches from Stefi Baum and the RIT administration.
The students exceeded their goal, donating $138, which the MVRL staff and faculty matched 2:1 for $276. With the directors' 2:1 match, the MVRL's total contribution was $1,242.00  After matches from Stefi and the administration, the students' contribution will grow to over $3,700!
Thanks to all who participated,
   Anne, Andy, and Jeff

WHOA! I did not even know that MVRL issued their own challenge in addition to Stefi's AND to RIT's! How cool is that?!? I am so impressed with how MVRL embraced the challenge, and their efforts resulted in a major positive impact for the Microgrant fund. What a shining example of ROAR Day spiRIT!

I do know that overall, RIT exceeded its ROAR Day goal early this afternoon. From what I can tell, this was also a very successful ROAR Day for CIS. I can't wait to see the final numbers!

Announcing: The CIS Microgrant, Major Impact Challenge

For my first time ever, I have been involved with the planning and support of a fundraising campaign. Over the past couple months, we have been working with RIT Development to develop a campaign the raise money for the CIS Microgrants program. In the past, microgrants were funded mostly by donations from Kodak. For obvious reasons (unless you have really been living under a rock), that funding has since run out; so in order to continue fostering cutting edge research performed by students, CIS has had to look for other sources of funding. Towards that end, we have developed an internal campaign whose main goal is to maximize faculty and staff participation: so long as 50% of faculty and staff donate some amount, Stefi will match all raised funds, up to $5,000. The hope is that by challenging Stefi to pony up some cash out of her own pocket, more faculty/staff will want to participate. We also hope that students will participate, too. Then, later on, we will take the campaign out to external collaborators and alumni - but it is imperative that we first demonstrate how committed we are to our own cause (hence why it is starting out as an internal campaign).

I mentioned last week that the Fall Picnic was supposed to include the kickoff for the campaign, but unfortunately that momentum got a bit muddled because of the fast-approaching ROAR day at RIT. Our hope is to have as many people as possible donate to the microgrant fund on ROAR day, since their impact can potentially be tripled. For any amount donated between $5 and $50, RIT upper administration will match it; and then if we get the 50% faculty/staff participation, Stefi will match donations as well. Hopefully we can get a lot of people participating on Thursday so that things will snowball!

To help promote both the Challenge and ROAR Day, I made up a quick poster detailing the challenge:

I know it's wordy (just like this blog post...), but there wasn't really any way to explain it in fewer words. This campaign is also the reason I teased a while ago about why I was asked to update the microgrants webpage. 

Anyways, that's the main gist of the Challenge. I'll be honest, I'm not sure what to expect. Some people expect it to do very well, while some people don't expect it will go successfully at all. I have witnessed a lot of mixed reactions... It is very difficult to ask people to give during a time when so many of us feel stretched so thin already. I certainly hope that the campaign goes well, not because of my involvement or the hard work I've had to put into it, but because I don't want to see the microgrants program suffer. We have been lucky to be able to offer such a special program for our students, and I would hate to see it be diminished in any capacity; there already wasn't enough funding to award every great idea that was submitted, and it would be a shame for the program to have even fewer resources. At the same time, I feel incredibly awkward working on the campaign and trying to encourage my fellow staff and faculty to participate... I am more than happy and proud to sing the praises of CIS and encourage students to come here and alumni to reconnect, but soliciting donations is definitely outside of my comfort zone. I also hope that this doesn't damage all the work I've done over the past 4 years trying to convince alumni that I am only asking for connections and involvement, not money. Thankfully I haven't been asked to put the "hard sell" on anyone, but I can't help but feel nervous about how my involvement might reflect on my position and the promises I have made. At least my work has essentially been behind-the-scenes, and really, it's not like this is some kind of dirty work - we are trying to do something very positive here! But you never know how some people might react. I guess all I can do is keep thinking positively, do my part, and ROAR loudly on Thursday... 

CIS Fall Picnic 2013

Yesterday was the annual CIS Fall Welcome Back picnic! It seems like each year we try something a little different. A few years ago, we did an Imaging Bash-style event. Then we returned to a more laid back cookout event out in front of the building. Even that started to get a little stale (and difficult logistically since we didn't have tables or chairs), so we changed things up a bit this year and went off campus to nearby Black Creek Park. Apparently, many years ago (even before I ever got here), the picnic was always held off campus. Everybody - and I mean everybody, according to legend - went, had a great time, knew each other's names, played all sorts of games, and morale was at an all-time high. It didn't really seem to me like the last couple picnics fostered the same kind of environment... In fact, they didn't even feel like the picnics I remember as a student (oh no, am I really old enough to be reminiscing about "the good ol' days"?). So, taking things off campus was our first step towards rekindling the spirit that used to thrive.

Meanwhile, there were some grand ideas of also incorporating some sort of a field day/homecoming vibe, with teams and partners and competition and multiple events. Unfortunately, that was way too much for just li'l ol' me to organize on my own, so without any support this never really got off the ground. Phooey. Maybe another time...

Anyways, despite the change in venue, other traditions remained the same: cookout food, raffles, the trusty old PA system, and volleyball. However, now we had the benefits of expansive green lawns, places to explore, and tables and chairs! Also, we really lucked out with the weather (as it seems we almost always do) as it was a gorgeous day. I'm not sure which of these factors, or maybe it was all of them together, contributed to the overall success of the picnic; but we had upwards of 70 people in attendance, which is the most I have ever witnessed in my (million-or-so) years of being connected with CIS!

Does it get much more perfect than this?

My roles in the event were to help with the organizing, make announcements over the PA, control music, and raffle off some swag. Sounds easy enough, but this still took a surprising amount of preparation leading up to the picnic itself, and there was a fair amount of setup (and later, takedown) involved. Thankfully other people took on the responsibilities of the food and the volleyball net. Meanwhile, I may have gone a little overboard on the swag...

What was I thinking? There was enough swag there for every other person to walk out with something.

There was so much stuff to raffle off that I spent basically the entire allotted time of 4-6PM on the PA reading off ticket numbers, many of which no one claimed because they didn't actually bring their ticket, or they weren't listening, or they just didn't care. Sigh. This was one of those, "Why do I bother?" moments. It was exhausting (not to mention it prevented me from being able to eat, or chat, or participate in volleyball or kan jam). Anyways, I did things a little differently this time by having a bag full of paper slips that represented each item, so that when a winner was picked they randomly selected a prize. Seems like a lot of extra work, but it takes any blame off me when someone gets a prize they're not so excited about, so it was worth it for me. If I do any raffles next time I'll probably do them the same way. (Notice how I put that "if" in there?)

Oh yeah, and there was one other new thing for this year: the kickoff to our new microgrants campaign that I teased previously - or, well, sort of. The picnic was going to be the kickoff, but then just before Stefi was going to make the announcement, our RIT Development officer told us about ROAR day, during which all contributions between $5 and $50 are matched by five of RIT's upper administration. So... Stefi ended up announcing the campaign, but telling people not to actually pledge anything for another week, so the whole kickoff ended up being a lot less climactic than anticipated. Nonetheless, it is a secret no more: introducing, the CIS Microgrant, Major Impact Challenge. Actually, I suppose I'll tell you more about it some other time, since this post is already awfully long winded, and we don't want anyone participating yet, anyways. So... stay tuned, I guess.

At any rate, the picnic ended up being a smashing success overall. Some other highlights include Sue Chan and Roger Easton playing volleyball (have you ever seen Roger when he's had too much sugar?), running jokes about some students trying to play volleyball, and some children who ended up being better than pretty much all of us at volleyball. Also, two of this year's summer interns came, ate with the students, and joined in the games too, which was awesome!!!! Oh, and let's not forget Jeff Pelz running around the parking lot dodging moving cars and eventually driving off in his Mini. We didn't end up packing up the volleyball net until close to 8PM, and only because it was getting dark... I think that's a good indicator of how well everything went.

See more pictures (including some amusing raffle wins) here: https://picasaweb.google.com/RITImagingScience/CISWelcomeBackPicnic2013#

ZOMG semesters!

Wait, what do you mean, classes start today? But it's still August! Welcome to semesters, RIT.

No rest for the weary, I suppose, because immediately following the conclusion of the 2013 intern program on Friday we are now facing the start of classes AND the very first attempt at a new "Imaging Science Immersion" program for imsci grad students. I guess the idea is, instead of taking their typical classes on the first few days, all grad students are participating in an Imaging Science bootcamp to provide some perspective and try to get everyone on the same page. At least that's my understanding of it, as I have been surprisingly un-involved in the whole thing since I was busy with the interns right up until now. Basically the extent of my involvement was helping print out nametags for the event today, the "Imaging Science Immersion Reception". I really had no clue what this was, but apparently everybody - and I mean everybody- from CIS faculty/staff-wise was going, so I figured I should probably be there.

The reception was in the nearby Vignelli Center and featured hors d'oeurves and beer/wine.

I suppose the point of it was to be a socialization opportunity for the new graduate students to get to know each other and folks from the Center better. While I always enjoy an opportunity to kick back with some CIS-ers and chat about things non-work-related, I must admit I wasn't really feeling this event and did not stick around for too long. I am frankly too exhausted still from the excitement of the culmination of the intern program, and anyways we have the annual fall picnic coming up in a few weeks which will serve basically the same purpose, don't you think? Sorry, please forgive my crankiness, I am just trying to come to terms with the fact that summer is basically over and I don't have a chance to rejuvenate.

Oh and, I start taking a class tomorrow - my  first semester course ever! I have no idea what to expect and am not really sure I'm ready for the extra workload. But it's not like I can put off taking more classes until February (man, semesters are long!), so off to class I shall go. In August. Man, this feels weird.

DC-area Reunion, 7th ed.

Yesterday was the 7th annual Imaging Science DC-area reunion! Typically this is our best attended event, as very many CIS alumni settle in Washington, DC and the surrounding area. Well, except for last year, that is, when we tried to coordinate with SPIE DSS and NO ONE came. The year before that was the mega 24 hour adventure that included a reception that was relatively well attended, but could have been more successful if the venue was actually accessible and not so difficult to find. Previous to that, in 2010 we followed a more traditional approach and had an excellent turnout; so in an attempt to reclaim past glory, we went with the tried-and-true Tysons Corner Marriott for this year. (Which had the extra benefit of beautifully renovated facilities, but the totally bogus addition of paid parking, whaaaaat!)

Greetings from Assoc. Dir. of Alumni Relations for COS, Lauren Sauer, with the welcome table and raffle prizes

Leading up to the event we had around 26 people RSVP, but as is to be expected we had a bunch more alumni show up on the day-of - which is totally okay, except for that it makes us nervous that there won't be enough food (but that rarely ends up being a problem anyways since there is almost always too much food... but even so, TSK TSK for not registering!). The cost of registration covered 1 drink and the heavy hors d'oeurves, which included cheeses, crackers, spinach artichoke dip, and a pita station with all kinds of dips and hummus and olives.

The beau of the ball was without a doubt John Schott, whom we were celebrating for his sort-of-retirement. Part way in to the party Lauren got everyone's attention and showed the Monica video and John's Innovation Hall of Fame video, after which John put down a baby in order to get up to say a few words and update everyone on recent happenings at the Center.

Turns out every shot of Schott is an Action Schott.

Some of the crowd, during John's update.

Overall the event went very well. We ended up having around 40 alumni in attendance, which is great! Even better, graduation years spanned a wide range, so we had a really nice mix of alums. One of the attendees was even a distance learning graduate, so it's fantastic to have them connecting with RIT on a personal level! We also welcomed COS Distinguished Alumnus John Roberts, as well as upcoming summer intern Calvin Salacain. Together we celebrated engagements, weddings, new babies, new houses, recent graduations, and retirements. And a great time was had by all! Hope to see you next year!

PS: More pictures here

What WILL we think of next?

IMAGINERIT 2013 IS TOMORROW!!!! Check out this website I made today with all the CIS-related exhibits and their information listed on it (we have no fewer than 17 incredible exhibits this year!!!). And if you have no idea what I'm talking about (is that even possible?) check out my blog post from last year.

Hope to see you tomorrow! (If that's even possible... with the weather forecast for tomorrow, I'd be really surprised if we didn't have another record-shattering attendance this year. Luckily my pink hair helps me stand out from the crowd of 30,000 a bit...)

I give it two thumbs up

It's almost that time of year again...

Today I updated the flyer for the summer movie series and created a new online schedule with links to all the videos for 2013: http://www.cis.rit.edu/movies Enjoy!

I thought I was the Big Shot around here.

I have just returned from the first official CIS participation in the RIT Big Shot! For those who are unfamiliar, each year the RIT School of Photographic Arts and Sciences coordinates and produces a long-exposure photograph whose only source of illumination is handheld light (flashlights, camera flashes, etc.) provided by volunteers. The process is called "painting with light", since volunteers move their lights around like paintbrushes to illuminate the whole object evenly over the length of the exposure. The resulting photo is striking and rather eerie, and achieves and effect otherwise not possible at night or with a typical long exposure. You can view a few past examples and read more of the history here.

Although the Center for Imaging Science (now housed in the College of Science) grew out of the school of Graphic Arts and Photography (now Photographic Arts and Sciences) way back when, there has never been an "official" CIS component to the annual Big Shot tradition. Various CIS'ers have participated as volunteers, sure; but the show really belongs to CIAS. This year, it was decided to get more involved - and so CIS was going to add a 3-D reconstruction to the Big Shot repertoire, something that (to our knowledge) had never been attempted before. And what a year to do it, as Big Shot #28 was to be of the biggest subject yet attempted by RIT: Cowboys Stadium!!

I first heard about this a few months ago when I was asked whether I thought there would be value in going for outreach purposes. There was the potential for interaction with high schools, presenting to a photo society filled with high school-age photographers, and other various avenues to reach out to prospective students in an area not very familiar with RIT. Besides, there is always a huge media machine surrounding the Big Shot, especially for #28 since it was to be in an unfamiliar area yet would require the greatest number of volunteers so far. With all this press for photography at RIT, we could hope to attract those science and math-minded photogs through the Imaging Science 3-D component. That sounded good to me, and hey it was worth a try (it was about time, in fact), so I was on board.

So, how did it turn out? Well, I have to say I have mixed feelings about my personal participation. I flew down last Thursday morning, in preparation for a seminar to be given to high school students. The presentation was to consist of history and information about the Big Shot, with a brief introduction to the 3-D reconstruction theory and an even briefer introduction to CIS. I must admit, I was hoping for a little more stage time than that, but it didn't matter anyways. Why? Because nobody. showed. up. Nobody. Letters were sent out to 150 schools. Arlington Camera (a store that apparently has a lot of pull in the area schools) also had an announcement to help promote the talk. Plus whatever other media whirlwind the organizers had going on.... Nobody showed. Wow. This was a major blow to me, as this seminar seemed like the most relevant event for me to be there for. This was the only educational component that ended up materializing, out of all the outreach I was hoping for, and even it didn't actually materialize. (Maybe because it was buried in an auditorium that was difficult to find on a college campus within what seemed to be their athletic center? But that's besides the point.) At this point I started to feel an overwhelming sense of guilt - why was I there? What useful function would I be serving? I couldn't help feeling like I was going to result in a disappointing return on investment, and I started blaming myself. Maybe I should have looked up some schools to try to visit on my own (though getting into schools is hard enough to do around here with schools I actually have a relationship with). Maybe I should have tried to help with the organization and promotion of the talk (though I have no idea how I could have done that - but maybe if I pushed the organizers harder?).

At this low point, I decided it would be my role to promote the heck out of CIS's participation in the Big Shot. The remainder of my week/end was to be spent following the 360 Team (as the 3D CIS folks dubbed themselves) around and documenting their every relevant move. The CIS Twitter and Facebook were going to see a rate of updates unlike any they had ever experienced. Anybody who cared to follow would get a detailed play-by-play as if they were there and part of the action. And that is what I, Senior Associate of Outreach and Communications, was going to bring to the table. That's enough to make the expense of sending me to Texas all worth it.... Right....? :-\

You never would have known no one was at our talk. Unlike my brutally honest blog, I make sure to only highlight the positive when I'm posing as CIS online.

And the Tweeting frenzy begins.

Friday was basically a free day (thus intensifying my guilt even more), though I had been told we were invited to tour Cowboys Stadium in the afternoon along with the RIT CIAS crew that was arriving that morning. Matt and I (oh yeah, did I mention Matt was there too? He tagged along- on our own dime, for the record) went off and did our own thing, but around 4:30 I cleverly posted a status about being a part of the tour, since I assumed the rest of the 360 team did go....

The infamous update... You'll see why.

6:30PM rolls around and there is a "planning dinner" scheduled that we were definitely supposed to be a part of, so we rendezvous there but no one had shown up yet. A bus-load of who was obviously RIT art students (no, I'm not reinforcing stereotypes... they were all wearing matching shirts) started spilling in, but I still didn't see my fellow CIS'ers. Eventually they showed, and the first thing I hear is, "Well, we hope you enjoyed the stadium!" To which I scoffed because I didn't want to go, anyways. Turns out they saw the status update and thought that Matt and I were there (a-ha! My plan worked!) - and they were jealous because they were told that they were not actually allowed to go due to space constraints, and they were wondering how I weaseled my way in. Now, this story is different depending on who tells it, and I have no idea what the real story is since I was not a part of it nor was I very privy to any of the organization - I am only repeating what I heard. But that was pretty awkward. Are we welcomed to be a part of this, or not? I already felt like enough of an outsider, since my role had been reduced to following the 360 team around; but now they were feeling like outsiders, too. Were we even supposed to be at this dinner? Jury's still out on that one, since it did turn out there weren't enough seats for everyone...

Anyways, at this dinner they had something like 50 or 100 or what seemed like an endless stack of posters, which we were supposed to each sign and pass along assembly line-style so that at the end of the Big Shot we'd all receive a souvenir poster with everyone's signature on it. This made me feel like even more of an outsider - nobody knows who I am, or why I'm there, and why would they care about my signature? I'm not a part of their crew... I can only imagine how Matt felt. We started out each only signing every other one and using the name "Mathany" to encompass us both - who would know the difference, anyways - and that way we each only had to do half as much work. The exercise was tedious, and the insignificance of our participation did not escape us, so our signatures dwindled down to instead saying "That Guy", and then eventually to nothing as we stopped signing altogether. So if you happen to see one of these posters and wonder who "Mathany" or "That Guy" was, the secret's out. I can tell you, though, one place you will not be seeing one of those posters is in my office. I never ended up receiving one. Guess that serves me right.

At any rate, the dinner was delicious, and the venue was interesting and seemingly authentic. There was a cowboy band that would play at regular intervals, and people would go out on the dance floor. The Big Shot crew of course took advantage of this many times, and also made sure to publicly embarrass various CIAS heavy-hitters as often as possible. They also snagged the microphone at one point to promote the Big Shot and encourage everyone to come out the next day. (I don't think the wedding reception also present was very happy about having to share the spotlight.) Meanwhile, Carl went down a slide.

On top of feeling like a loser outsider, I was disconnected from pretty much everything as I was trying to keep the tweets coming and also to get the video of Carl on the slide posted to the Facebook page (which you would think would be easy, but it's not. How many Imaging Scientists does it take....). I found a respite from my discomfort in that the 360 team was peacing out to go do a final nighttime test shot, so obviously I had to go with them to document this on social media. However, I was presented with a new discomfort in that, despite being in Texas, it was only like 45º and none of us had brought appropriate clothing for the surprisingly chilly weather. Not only that, but I didn't have a whole lot to contribute besides the status updates, which was killing me inside because I wanted to be a more useful part of the team. I am an imaging scientist too, of course.... Sigh. Is this what it feels like to be a Roadie?

Saturday was to be the big day. There was some promo event in the morning at Arlington Camera, but although I was told about it I wasn't really invited... so I guess it was just a Big Shot show, and I didn't want to step on anyone's toes. In the afternoon I was slated to man a booth at the Art on the Greene festival, who had donated table space to us. The weather this day was particularly unattractive... Misty rain in the morning, chilly temperatures, and incessant wind to boot. Oh, and did I mention that Art on the Greene is an outdoor festival? Great...

At least our booth had a wind screen.

Throughout my 3 hour shift, I was only visited by a handful of people, and they weren't really that interested in hearing what I had to say about the Big Shot, much less RIT and even less so Imaging Science. Whenever I asked, "So, will we see you tonight?" every single person said no. Every. One. Excuses ranged from blaming the weather to saying they already had plans. We did at least get some attention from a well-intended, seemingly homeless guy who kept bringing various vendors from the food trucks over to the booth to tell them about how cool the Big Shot was; but they were all working the festival until 9PM so they couldn't come out to participate anyways (but they did keep offering us discounts on their food....). Adding to my frustration was the fact that a plea for help had been sent out to many people to volunteer for this event, and only three people (and that's including me) stepped up. So not only did we not have multiple people at the booth at once, we had to each take longer shifts. And the most miserable part of all was that it was SO COLD. Thank goodness there was a U2 cover band that seemed to play endlessly so that I could dance around in place to keep myself warm without looking totally insane. Meanwhile, could you really blame people for not wanting to come out for the festival (or the Big Shot that night, for that matter)?

At the conclusion of my shift, I went to rendezvous with the 360 team in case they needed anything. They didn't, so I took what spare time was left to go to a store and pick up some leggings to wear under my jeans and a blanket to snuggle in for later. After sitting out in the cold wind at the festival for three hours, I was chilled to the bone and didn't want to take any chances later when we were going to have to be outside again. I tried to also buy gloves (which seems so silly, coming from the cold white north... I should have brought some with me to begin with) but apparently no one in the entire state of Texas sells any (why would they need them?). We returned to Cowboys stadium with a bag stocked full of flashlights, blankets, cameras, and various gear (including a solar-charged battery that did indeed end up coming in handy when my phone started dying - Can't let the tweeting stop!!!!) and headed in for the Alumni Reception.

Welcome to the STAR CLUB

The Reception was pretty cool - we had the whole stadium to ourselves, and the main event was in the swanky "AT&T Star Club". I realize this is probably the only opportunity I will ever have to be in such a place, especially with no one else around, but... meh. I don't care about football in the least, so, this wasn't really my bag. (Apologies to all the football fans out there who are no doubt infuriated about my lack of appreciation.) The food was very, very excellent, though. To my knowledge there were no ImSci alumni there; in fact, the reception seemed to be mostly the groups who came down from RIT, with just a few TX alumni sprinkled here and there... So the 360 team sat at a table by ourselves in the back like the high school outcasts at lunch, and just like the night before I made my escape by joining them for early setup. However I again felt awkward as I did not have much to do, so I spent my time posting pictures and wandering around looking for something interesting to take pictures of. I spotted this guy walking in with a ridiculously over-the-top setup, so I followed him in to take his picture. Well, turns out he wasn't all set up yet, and since I was polite enough to ask if I could take his picture he roped me in to helping him get all his rigging together and equipment hooked up and on and on, which took upwards of 20 minutes or more. You're welcome... Finally, I snapped a picture -

What can I possibly even say about this.

- and although it was blurry, someone else started asking him about his setup so I had to seize my chance to skeedaddle out of there. At this point it wasn't long before the first shot was supposed to go off, so I headed over to, well somewhere; really I wandered around among the select 12 photographers helping out the 360 team like a lost puppy, in case someone wanted me. I settled near one who used to be an imsci student (hooray! someone I know!) and readied for the first shot. I already gave a pretty detailed play-by-play on Facebook/Twitter, so I won't bother repeating myself...

For complete coverage, visit https://www.facebook.com/RITimagingsci

During the first shot, I hid behind a transformer in the parking lot and took pictures backwards of the crowd painting the stadium with light. These pictures didn't come out that well, though, so for the remainder of the shots I joined the crowd and did my part to illuminate. This was a pretty funny experience - we had to wave our flashlights around while shuffling to the left throughout the duration of the exposure. It was a little disorganized, and not everyone was successful at waving their lights around randomly enough while avoiding the 360 team photographers in front of us and while shuffling, but whatever. There would be more chances to get it right, and in the digital age, there isn't really any possibility of failure...

During one of the shots, we left a camera standing to capture video of the stadium being painted with light - you can watch it here. (By the way, those 2-3 bright lights you see going perfectly vertically straight up and down the side of the stadium? Yeah, they're doing it wrong. Not to mention they kept going well after the "Lights off!" command was yelled several times...)

After 5 attempts, we were done! Or, at least, I was. The Big Shot team and 360 team all went to the Cowboys press room to scramble to get the images processed, while I went back to my hotel room to relax before catching my early morning flight home and to catch my breath after orchestrating the CIS social media frenzy. You wouldn't think it would be that hard, but it was exhausting. And, a little annoying - I was so distracted by constantly having to take and post pictures and updates, and felt so frazzled having to constantly predict and think of what to post next, that I hardly felt like I got to experience and enjoy the whole event. Anybody reading my updates was experiencing it just as much as I was, regardless of their geographical location.

Anyways, let's cut to the chase: without further ado, here they are, Big Shot 2013 and its 3-D reconstruction!

Addendum (May 8, 2013): Check out this article by RIT News all about CIS's involvement in the Big Shot!

Don't forget, it's almost Pi Day!

Sorry we missed both Phi and e days. Again. Maybe next year...

Imaging Hall of Fame 2012

Last night was the 7th annual Imaging Hall of Fame! Now, we couldn't just let this year's event be the same as last year's, so we planned for a couple little special extras. For the first time ever, of of the current honorees was actually present for his induction! And then to take things even one step further, we also decided to honor Dr. Schott for all his years of dedication to CIS - but NOT as a retirement celebration, no sir re bob... (Despite the communication that went out that did indicate it as such. WHOOPS) (Not my fault) Anyways, following the usual ceremony for this year's inductees (Harold E. “Doc” Edgerton, David E. Kuhl, Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, and Steven J. Sasson - click for more info), Dr. Schott was presented with a non-Hall of Fame, but similar, plaque in his own likeness...

After which, special guest (how many special guests are we up to now?) Steve Schultz (VP and CTO of Pictometry) (and former boss of mine!) said a few words...

"Schott: 'Imagine my hair as a black body radiator.'
'Don't you mean a white body radiator?' And that cost me a letter grade." - Steve Schultz

And then we got to the actual keynote speaker, special guest Dr. Ray Jayawardhana...

ALIENS

At this point I actually had to duck out to get to the after party and set up, but Joe stayed behind to snap a few pics of our VIP inductee, Steve Sasson.

Imaging Science 3rd year student Kevin Dickey presents 2012 inductee Steve Sasson with a souvenir plaque in his honor, identical to the one to be hung in the Hall of Fame.
PS: Kevin also got Steve's autograph. Awesome

Congratulations, Steve!!!

Following the ceremony, (and ceremony, and recognition, and keynote,) was the afterparty at TC Riley's! Similar to 2010, when we hosted the very first Hall of Fame afterparty, we reserved TC's Library and stuffed ourselves silly on deliciously greasy finger foods.

This is the only picture I've got of the reception, and I didn't even take it. My camera is out for repair :-( and the backup I was using took pictures so terribly in such low light that I didn't even try.

This year we had our highest turnout EVER, with around 55 CIS students, faculty, staff, alumni, and several VIPs!! It was really exciting to see so many people come out, especially the various VIPs, which included Catherine Carlson, former director Ed Przybylowicz and his wife, Steve Schultz and family, Steve Sasson and his wife, Dr. Schott and his wife, and our keynote speaker Dr. Ray. The party stayed strong for around 3 hours (!) and went incredibly smoothly (well done, TC's!).

Considering how seemingly successful the night was overall, I hope everyone will now plan to make an annual tradition of attending! Or maybe we just peaked by having so many excellent special recognitions and talks all at once. How can we possibly top this next year?!

To see more pictures (except for the afterparty, SORRY), click here. Video of the ceremony and keynote also available.)

I don't even like hockey.

So just to add to the insanity of my to-do list, about 10 days ago it was brought to my attention that some students were asking about going to an Amerks game, and I was asked whether it should be opened up to all of CIS as a chance to get out together. And since I said yes, it became another event for me to have to organize. Why on earth did I say yes??? I wasn't even going to go; I have no interest in hockey games. (Plus I had to write a paper.) 

Anyways, it wasn't all that big of a deal. A few mass e-mails (which I've sent out way too many of this week... I hope people haven't started blocking my e-mail address...), plus some flyers around the building, and we had a nice healthy group of 22 staff and students who wanted to go. It probably helped that CIS was covering part of the cost of the tickets so that seats were only 5 bucks. And by a Christmas miracle, everyone had their payment in before noon on Friday. The Amerks group sales guy was dropping by at lunch (what service!) to take care of the payment and drop off the tickets, and by yet another xmas miracle, everyone picked up their tickets prior to the game. 

Things could not have been going better, and as it turns out, the positive trend continued through the game! Amerks were going to win! Oh, that is, until 10 seconds before the end of the game, when the opponents tied up the game, and then won in a subsequent shootout. Whoops.

Anyways, like I said, I wasn't there, but here are some pics taken by someone who WAS there:

Now that's a motley crew... 

IMSCI REPRESENT

Okay, I guess I'm a little sad I didn't get to go, especially after being the one to organize the whole thing. But either way I still had to write that paper that was due today (which I'm sure I enjoyed even less than watching hockey).

2012 Imaging Bash

Tonight was the Imaging Bash! We had a full house for the event, and even had to bring in additional chairs to fit all 50+ people into the Carlson Learning Center. Meanwhile, I took some pictures. And I made a panorama from a few of them:

Snazzy. Anyways, you can see the rest of the pictures I took here.

What is the Imaging Bash, you may ask? For the answer to your question, I direct you to the Imaging Bash website (which I just updated, how convenient!). 

Announcing: 7th Annual Imaging Hall of Fame

Time to rev up the promotion machine for the 7th annual Imaging Hall of Fame ceremony and keynote... Task #1: make poster. Check!

Come one, come all for the 5th annual Imaging Bash

Submit your images now!

Of course you know what remoulade is.

Last night there was an OSA lecture at the George Eastman House about Kodak's contribution to Cold War surveillance. Well it just so happens that the third year undergrads were planning a CIS-sponsored outing for the same evening, so I ran the idea past them that we all hit up the talk before heading out to dinner. I know I was interested in attending, and organizing a group to see the talk gave more relevancy to the outing overall. Lo and behold, they agreed! So around 5:30 we gathered in the lobby of Carlson and caravaned over to the Eastman House. (For the record, I got there first by taking a well planned route and driving the appropriate speed limits, despite SOME student's attempt to beat me with the bright idea of taking a "shortcut" and driving like a banshee at unsafe speeds. NOT well played, sir. Not well played. This time you put the STUD in STUpiD - oohhh, I got you there. You know who you are.) (PS> I'm just kidding but the adult in me still must scold you for acting irresponsibly.)

We arrived early enough to - oh wait, stop everything, there's a photo booth.

We arrived early enough to tour the Eastman House and museum (and Sam of course b-lined for the food, which he says was really good). While we really enjoyed browsing around, there seemed to be quite a crowd forming so we made sure to get to the Curtis Theater in time to all get seats together. So many people showed up that it ended up being standing-room-only, and there were people sitting on the floor. 

The lecture began with a Kodak retiree detailing his time as an optical engineer at Kodak after graduating from the U of R Institute of Optics in the 1950's(!). He was actually Kodak's first employee to hold the title of "Optical Engineer". He showed a bunch of old draft drawings for lenses that were used in the Gambit and Gambit-3 reconnaissance satellites, and had old pictures of Kodak's Hawkeye building and labs. It was fascinating to see the "old way" of doing things, before easy computer models or even simple calculators. I really enjoyed seeing this perspective.

This was then followed up by a Corning optical engineer who had voluntarily gone about a quantitative comparison between the Gambit and Gambit-3 systems. He also detailed a bit more about how the systems worked and compared their layouts, and also explained how imagery was actually delivered back to the ground. This, too, was very interesting. Ah, it felt so good to be wearing my science hat again. Meanwhile, this speaker actually graduated from the U of R Institute of Optics a year after my dad, so I wonder whether they knew each other. (I tried discreetly texting my mom, asking her to ask my dad whether he recognized the name; to which I received the response, "He's asleep." Bear in mind, this was about 7:30PM....)

Overall, I thought the talk was fascinating. I'm not too sure the students felt the same way... Then again I'm not sure I would have felt the same way back when I was a student, either. Interesting how things change.

Anyways, after that it was on to the Distillery for - what's that place with all the goofy stuff on their walls and the mozzarella sticks? Oh yeah,

Basically we ate some tasty food, made fun of what was on the TVs (Summer 2012 flashback with Olympic gymnastics and Kobe Bryant in the NBA playoffs - Why?), blew off steam, and took silly pictures, like this gem:

Aww, all my widdle students, all tuckered out.

And with our bellies too full, we called it a night. Sure, I got thanked because I had the credit card - but really the appreciation should go to our awesome students, because it's thanks to them that I have the best job in the world.

Sorry, no, this food is not for sale... What do we look like, a restaurant?

The CIS Welcome / Welcome Back picnic was last night! We had a great turnout and feedback I've received so far has been really positive. Unfortunately the weather was a bit chilly and it was breezy, but the sun held out at least. Food was ready by 5 and we had a huge crowd of empty stomachs eagerly waiting. I could tell that a bunch of them were completely random people, though, which is super annoying to me. I know that's always apt to happen, but it doesn't help that a class let out right when we started serving food, so students that just happened to be leaving the building thought they would step right up and take advantage. Well since it was my job to emcee, I decided to go ahead and use my little soapbox to not-so-inconspicuously call out the offenders with an introduction that went a little something like...

"Welcome to the Center for Imaging Science Fall Picnic! If you followed instructions and did things the way you were supposed to, you donated a can of food in return for the food you will be enjoying tonight, and also received a raffle ticket for which I will begin doing raffles shortly. For those of you who did not do follow instructions, well, you should be very VERY grateful to the Center for Imaging Science who is giving you food for apparently no reason tonight." 

Yeah, those unrecognized faces definitely had guilty looks on them. Later on into the picnic I got a little more direct with even saying a semi-facetious "Shame on yooouuuuu," but anyways, it's all good I guess... We had way more food than we could possibly eat, anyways.

Unfortunately I barely got enjoy the picnic myself, since I was busy DJing, emceeing, taking pictures, and doing raffles... I had to scarf my food and didn't really get to chat with anyone. I think much of it was the same way with other staff people at CIS... Take a wild guess at who all had to set up, cook, break down, clean up, et cetera... Luckily IS&T is taking on the job of delivering all the donated food to a local food pantry.

BUT ANYWAYS, not to get all downer, because really it was a great picnic. You can see for yourself via the Fall Picnic photo gallery. As for that random picture of me with another girl with fabulously pink everything, that was probably the highlight of the day for me. This girl went walking by, and one of our students said, "Bethany, you should go ask her for a picture together! Here I'll take your camera!" And goofy me thought that was a great idea, so actually I went running after her. After mutual compliments on glorious hairstyles, we got an awesome picture.... And the fact that I actually did such a ridiculous thing prompted the student to admit, "Most people think my suggestions are stupid, but you actually do them. That's why I love you, Bethany." Awwww.

I want to be friends with this girl because clearly she is super awesome. Too bad I didn't even ask what her name was.