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!

Happy Anniversary, Xerography!

It was just brought to our attention that Tuesday marks the 75th anniversary of Chester F. Carlson's invention of xerography! (Hello, why wasn't anyone paying attention? We are the Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science...) Anyways, better late than never, I quickly made up a banner that will hang in the building:

Also, we were able to get DVDs of locally-produced documentaries about Chester F. Carlson and Xerox, so we will be showing one of them during our normal seminar time slot:

It's not much, but at least we are doing something to celebrate the anniversary of this momentous breakthrough!

Turn on, tune in

Right around a year and a half ago I took control of the screen downstairs in the lobby so that it would display a slideshow of various CIS media - videos, announcements, seminars, important dates, etc. Over that time I have added content and kept it up to date, but it was becoming an arduous process since the method to remotely take control of the desktop was clunky and laggy. Content was updated more slowly than it should have been, and seminar announcements went the wayside. Well, I am happy to announce that thanks to some really serious help from Carl and Phil Salvaggio, we now have a new and improved kiosk!

Actually, I suppose the user experience will be more or less exactly the same. But my process for uploading content has now greatly improved, so the display will now include more timely information, as well as the return of important dates and seminar announcements (so long as the speakers actually send me their info... but that's another story.). I'll have to get back into the groove of remembering to add new content, but expect to see some good (new!) stuff to start appearing on the screen at any time. Don't just walk by assuming it's the same old things you've seen before!

Look who's back... Important Dates!

Oh, and I also acquired one of those hanging wall files, which I hope to mount so that I may leave some Imaging Science brochures inside for the taking. You never know when someone might stop to watch the kiosk, get really interested in Imaging Science, and wish they had more information they could take with them...

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.)

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!

"So in terms of your tuition dollars you're never going to find a bargain like this anywhere else on the RIT campus, so thank you all for coming tonight"

Last night was the 2011 Imaging Science Hall of Fame Ceremony, Keynote, and After Party (cue fanfare)! It was finally revealed who this year's inductees were: Alhazen, Thomas Edison, Harry Nyquist, and Felix Nadar. You may be wondering, who are these guys? (Well probably not for Edison.) You're in luck: check out the etchings of our winners and read their citations by visiting our Imaging Hall of Fame webpage that I just updated. You can also view a video of the entire ceremony and keynote at our seminars webpage by scrolling down to December 14 in the calendar and clicking "presentation video" on the right. (Though, the video unfortunately crops out yours truly, doing my best Vanna White impression while unveiling the plaques as the winners were revealed. Oh well, I know you really wanted to see that.)

The only recorded evidence of my Vanna skills.
It looks like Thomas Edison and I are giving each other the stare down.

We had a pretty good turnout for the ceremony and keynote!

The keynote presentation for this year was really interesting (I definitely suggest you check out the video mentioned above), but I had to duck out early to set up for the AFTER PARTAYYY, woooo! This year we celebrated at Lovin' Cup in Park Point, and we had a fantastic turnout - I think we got even more attendees than when we did the after party last year. We had 38 people (undergrads, grad students, faculty, staff, alumni, and the keynote speaker himself) sign in, and there were plenty more people who joined us but didn't actually check in. So: big success! We definitely spilled outside of our little reserved area (not my fault; only 20 people pre-registered as requested, so I told Lovin' Cup 25-30 people...) and munched on a huge variety of tasty appetizers. The party didn't break up until 7:30 or so finally, and even that's mostly because Lovin' Cup needed to free up space for their "12 Beers of Christmas" tasting that was coming up at 8, which I think a few of our folks actually stuck around for. 

Everyone you can see in this picture was part of our party - and there were way more that I couldn't fit in the frame (despite hiding behind that table annoyingly in the foreground).

Overall, it was a great event. I wonder whether I should start planning something for spring so that we start getting together on a seasonal basis?

See the rest of the pictures from last night here.

Drumroll, please

So I've been hard at work this week getting everything organized for the Imaging Science Hall of Fame (cue fanfare)! And now that all the details are finalized, promotions are underway. Here are the posters I've put together and plastered all over our webpage, Facebook page, email, and within CIS itself:

If you want to know more, just click on those posters to view a larger size, and/or click on the link up above. Oh, and by the way - you should join us! You can Register Here.

School's a brick and I'm drowning slowly

Okay, that title is too dramatic, but WOW what a crazy week this has been. For being a short week (thanks to Labor Day), it sure has felt looooong. I feel like I am barely treading water to keep myself afloat! The start of the school year means a number of things:

• *POOF!* Welcome back, thousands of students! The campus goes from a ghost town to a bustling metropolis in a single day. Orientation does little to prepare for this, especially because freshmen can't park anywhere near where I do, and have all their own activities to participate in that don't involve our building. But I welcome the activity, and am excited to have students back :-) ...even though I have lousier parking (more exercise!).
• TONS of RIT emails.
• The restart of the Seminar Series. Not only does the series starting back up mean quite a bit of maintenance on my part, but other schools are now back in session also - which means a number of future presenters are getting their abstract/bios/et cetera to me simultaneously right now.
• The start of classes - which does impact me since I am continuing to take a graduate class each quarter. (I feel like I just finally recovered from my class over summer!)
• Regular Staff Council meetings. Since my tenure on Staff Council started in June, meetings have been irregular during the summer months. Now it's time for me to adjust to a regular meeting schedule... And since I'm on the Executive Committee, that means I am now busy from 2-4 every Thursday from now until forever. Plus there's the Ad-Hoc Outreach Committee that I am liaison for - we only meet once per month, but our one meeting so far has generated a fair amount of action items. Oh, AND there's Institute Council meetings once/month.
• Regular IS&T (Imaging Science & Technology Club) meetings every Friday.
• Espresso Cart socials 4 days a week
• And last but not least, my personal favorite: Noon-time skating every day!!!! Woo hoo!!!!!

On top of all of this going on this week, some other things happened to coincide:

• We have a new Assoc. Director of Alumni Relations for COS - which is GREAT news! It has been difficult to organize alumni events in the absence of a dedicated person over in Alumni Relations. So this is wonderful, but just happened to coincide with everything else busy going on in this short week - so I have planning upcoming receptions now on my plate with everything else.
• New CIS Promotional Items - which in turn need their own promoting, kind of. I'm advertising our new SWAG to entice people to participate with our Foursquare and Ambassador Program initiatives.

So all of those have been the major themes of my week, with even some more little things here and there - getting promo materials together for the Office of Graduate & Part Time Enrollment to use on their recruiting trips; promoting the espresso cart and seminar series; putting out fires regarding the seminar series live feed (or rather, an unannounced lack thereof...); getting in the hang of our foursquare presence; making connections with new people across campus; so on, so on. Oh my! And I really, REALLY need to get the next CIS Imaging Connection newsletter finished. I have been trying to get it done now for 2 weeks but between meetings, more pressing/urgent matters, and the not-quite-decided-on elements of the newsletter (namely, upcoming events and receptions), it remains incomplete. This is stressing me out quite a bit.

It has been a difficult week because I feel like I have been so busy, and yet I feel like I have gotten so little accomplished. For everything I can check off of my to-do list, 3 more things get put on! I don't mean to vent or sound negative; I am just trying to objectively and accurately illustrate how my week has been. I don't let it get me down - I prefer being busy because I love my job! Well, TGIF!

The Calm Before the Storm

So in this strange lull between interns being gone and students coming back, I've been fixing up some little things here and there:

• Updated the CIS YouTube Channel to include more videos and have an RIT color scheme, and added a link to the channel on the CIS Image Galleries page (seemed the best place to put it...)
• Fixed the tellmemore portal to have a link to YouTube, so that iPhone/iPod/iPad users can still watch the intro video
• Created new images for the image slideshow banner on the front of the CIS website
• Gotten everything in order for the 2011-2012 Seminar Series, website/promotions-wise
• Created a flyer for RIT Young Professionals (not strictly Imaging Science, but getting the word out there will get me more exposure which will then give Imaging Science more exposure)

And I've gotten started on a few more-involved projects:

• Webpage for a new reading group for grad students
• Summer issue of Imaging Connection Newsletter for alumni
• "Outreach That You Can Do" website with resources for other people to do Imaging Science outreach

It sure is quiet around here... It is the calm before the storm, before students start returning to campus. And speaking of storm, I hope everybody stays safe from impending hurricane Irene!! We have a lot of alumni and families of students in her projected path. My thoughts are with them this weekend.

Variety was the name of the game this week! (Every week?)

Fresh off Sunday's alumni reception, I'm already knee deep in helping put together another reception for this coming Tuesday in Orlando to correspond with the SPIE conference happening there next week. CIS has a number of professors, students, and alumni attending and presenting, so we thought it would be a good idea to have a happy hour-type celebration to go along with it. Unfortunately, being only 1 week after the DC reception posed some difficulty in planning. Hopefully everything will come together in time before Tuesday... I'm confident a group of people will get together and have a good time, no matter what the attendance numbers turn out to be.

As this was break week for local schools, we had a number of visits this week from potential students. Campus had a funny dynamic, as RIT itself was rather quiet and a lot of people took vacation, yet we were all abuzz with campus tours and potential future students. I had an accepted student visit on Thursday who was very engaged and enthusiastic, and seemed to take quite a liking to the freshmen class. I hope that she chooses to join us this fall! I also had a potential transfer student visit on Thursday whom I enjoy meeting with. She's really not sure what she wants to do (which actually makes her a great fit for Imaging Science), but I'm pretty sure her future will involve Imaging in some capacity, whether it be major, minor, or masters. Yay!

I have also been busy starting to organize next year's seminar series. Part of the responsibilities of the series are actually going to someone else for next year, but I want to make sure all the materials and spreadsheets I pass along are clear and concise so that the transition can be as smooth as possible. I am nearly finished assembling everything, but I don't think that will get finished until Monday.

Intern applicants have all been notified of their status! We've already had 1 applicant who was accepted drop out, meaning we got to dip into the alternate pool. I actually love it when that happens! The accepted applicants are now letting us know whether or not they accept their positions, and it's a lot of fun to see their excited responses come back. This is going to be a fun summer, I can sense it already.

Oh yeah - I've been nominated for a Staff Recognition Award :-). So another thing I'm working on is an essay I need to submit to Staff Council about myself.

The Hunt is tomorrow!!!! (What is the Hunt?) Oh, and Kurt no longer has dreads. He got them shaved today for charity - Joe and I observed. And far in the distance, I thought I heard a melancholy trumpet playing Taps...

Bye Bye, Beaker

If you've walked through the lobby of Carlson 76 anytime in the past 5 years or so, you've probably noticed the monitor that aimlessly displays a screen saver of a bunch of seemingly random people's pictures (and 1 or 2 in there of the popular Muppet Beaker) - or maybe you've never taken note of it, since it was indeed so seemingly aimless. If you ever actually fingered the little touch pad below, you may have seen the CIS website - though more likely you probably saw an error, or the monitor froze, or some other disappointing catastrophe took place. Well, aimless broken screen saver no more! Our little screen now displays a slide show of useful information with some eye candy mixed in. Announcements for the weekly seminars and special events like career fairs and ImagineRIT are interspersed with high speed videos of lighters igniting and balloons popping, as well as some Imaging Science Quickies thrown in there. It's a meager start, but at least it's something! And, the content is continuing to expand (feel free to send stuff along to me).

Not to say there isn't still the occasional freeze from time to time... But at least it freezes on something other than, "Network Error"...

The world record for juggling balls is 9

Today was one of those days that represented practically every aspect of my job as an Outreach Specialist here at CIS:

1. Got to work planning some alumni receptions for 2011 (Watch out, Boston!)
2. Fielded questions and followed up with several alumni on subjects ranging from gift matching to professional recruitment
3. Edited images for what will soon be a new website layout for CIS
4. Finished the cover for the 2010 CIS Annual Report (below)
5. Followed up with several prospective students
6. Created new job postings and added them to our job opportunities website
7. Created new abstracts/bios and added them to the seminars website
8. Prepared mailings for 2 additional people who have inquired about Imaging Science @ RIT
9. Signed up for Gates-Chili HS "An Evening of Career Exploration" on March 10 (which will be a loooong day, since that is also Greece Apollo Non-Traditional Occupations Day)

What a day - I'm getting out of here!

2010 Annual Report Cover

Random Side Note: One thing I don't mind about working late is that I become very popular after 5:15 when the mail room is locked and folks need access. :-)

Thursday Rituals

My work the past few days has been consumed with creating this blog and its subpages, as well as organizing upcoming speakers for the CIS Seminar Series. One might be surprised how much it takes to organize speakers, format their abstracts and bios to our template, find a corresponding image (even though this is Imaging Science, we often are not supplied images!), add these all to the website, create a corresponding event on the CIS page, print and hang the abstracts on our bulletin boards scattered across campus, and do it all again week after week. Phew! These have become my Thursday rituals :-)