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...

Hey, you never know

Today was the last of RIT's Fall Open Houses. On the whole, our Open House attendance this year has been abysmal - one or two here or there, or none. Granted, the College of Science as a whole has not gotten large numbers, and ImSci never gets a whole lot, but this is really low. On par for the course, we had two signed up for today, and only one showed. Disappointing as that may sound, we were in for a nice surprise - this kid was great!

As it turns out, this student actually participated in the STEP Saturday NOVA Academy that I was a part of this past January. He actually was not in my group, but one of the others; and he thought the presentation my group did on the last day was SO cool, that he became interested in Imaging Science! Whaaaaa! Carl was giving him a tour of the building when I globbed on, and it was clear that this student was really interested. (It didn't hurt that Carl was giving a particularly interesting tour.) After not too long, we had already piqued his interest and answered all his questions. It just so happens that he has actually already applied to RIT for Imaging Science, he is just waiting to hear from Admissions - woo hoo! So, I made sure I supplied him with a tshirt. Another cool thing is that his brother went to RIT for some type of engineering, and has already graduated and gotten a job - nice family connection. So, I think we have a pretty good chance of getting this kid, which would be fantastic because I could tell that he was really into it. Yeah!

Later in the afternoon was the "college fair" (I'm not sure what it's actually called, but it is basically a college fair) where all of RIT's colleges get tables staffed by representatives for each program. This is a new thing for RIT Open Houses this year, taking the place of a second academic program meeting. I think this is a step in the right direction, because it allows undecided students to browse around and look into multiple other majors besides the one they signed up for. This is an important opportunity for Imaging Science, since so few students know about us to sign up for us in the first place. Unfortunately (in my opinion), the fair is organized according to college - so, there may be a student that is perfect for the Imaging Science program, but they're off at the engineering or applied science & technology or computing or arts tables. If it were up to me, I would organize clusters by similar interests rather than by the somewhat-arbitrary college structure that exists for administrative (and political?) purposes - but, that's just me. No need to step up on my soap box right now.

At any rate, this event would be a good opportunity for us - if anyone came. I couldn't believe how few prospective students came through - probably fewer than 25? It was really quite a small number, and of that number the amount that came over to the College of Science could be counted on one hand. Joe started dragging people out of the general no-man's-land in the center of the room to make them sit down and watch our video about the freshmen class (we had a nice little "viewing gallery" set up with a stool and a desk). Faculty/staff were mostly talking to each other to pass the time.

There was one bright spot, though - one prospective student had heard of Imaging Science and wanted to know more. I read from his name tag that he was from Honeoye Falls, so I started asking questions about HF-L, but it turns out he actually goes to R-H - ah, my alma mater! Not only that, but his dad, who happens to work at Xerox, is friends with my parents' neighbors across the street (which is particularly noteworthy because very few people live out there, and the people that do don't exactly socialize; it's rural living, not like neighborhoods). Small world! Anyway, this student was interested in Imaging Science AND physics AND mechanical engineering, so he's trying to figure out how he can best create the ultimate trifecta of the three. I was able to have a nice conversation with him, and gave him one of our brochures and USB drives to keep. Hopefully he ends up connected with us to some degree!

The rest of the time at the "fair" was predictably slow. Towards the end it looked like we were going to get a surge of traffic, but it turned out to be a wave of people looking for the financial aid presentation across the hall (I called that one). Well, at least we got one student to watch the video and I was able to give away a couple brochures. You never know what might come out of it - after all, I got the surprise of having attracted the student from STEP!

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...

Fall Imaging Connection now available!

The latest issue of the CIS Imaging Connection Newsletter is available! (Finally, I am back on schedule...)

Highlights in this issue include:

• New CIS Faculty 
• Xerox 75th Anniversary 
• First Annual ImSci Immersion 
• ROAR Day 
• Our latest video about the Freshmen class

...and more! Check it out!

Meanwhile, I'm hoping to someday soon update the formatting to be true HTML and CSS (thanks to all my newly acquired official skills learned in the class I'm taking this semester). Hopefully the intersession will allow me a chance to develop a refreshed look in time for the winter edition!

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!

And presenting my sidekick, Sr. Laboratory Engineer Matt!

Today was Palmyra-Macedon's 8-9-10 Career Day, and what made this event different for me was that I got to share the stage with my husband (and fellow Imaging Scientist) Matt! The format of the day was to have professionals present in groupings of similar careers. Imaging Science is so unique, however, that there wasn't really going to be anyone for me to share the spotlight with - which would have been okay, actually, but I thought it might be fun and more interesting if I upped the ante a little. I asked Matt whether he would be willing to go and talk about his job as a Sr. Lab Engineer at the UR Laboratory for Laser Energetics, and although he was a little nervous, he agreed. (I knew he'd do just fine, though - he talks about LLE all the time!)

I made us a Powerpoint presentation that we polished up last night but we also brought along the FLIR to add in a little interactive component (boy was it nice to have someone there to help me carry equipment!). We were given access to the classroom computer which allowed us to present our Powerpoint using the Smartboard, but we brought a separate projector for the FLIR (which was good thinking, because we wouldn't have been able to connect it up to the classroom projector). I wish I had remembered from my past presentations at Pal-Mac that their outlets are a little lacking (ah, yes, now I remember - I had several surge strips daisy chained together last time - sshhhhh), but we made do with what we had.

Our Powerpoint was basically an overview of Imaging Science, with our intertwined stories of how we got into it and what our experiences have been, what our subsequent careers are, and concluding with a brief demo of the FLIR. It was going to be tricky though, because the sessions were only 40 minutes, and that's a lot of material to cover. I was especially unsure what to expect since I was sharing presenting duties for the first time, and Matt admits he doesn't have a lot of practice. Still, I knew that no matter what, we'd be fine.

It's a good thing I went in with such confidence, because what do you know but our presentation froze half way through the first session. I was more glad than ever that we bothered to lug in and set up the FLIR, because while Matt fixed the classroom computer I started the demo. Although in the end it meant that our presentation was interrupted, and we didn't get to finish it, it was useful for me to see how the overall flow was impacted by breaking up the presentation with the FLIR. Despite our awkward flubs, the students were good sports and were well engaged (especially with the FLIR, of course). We did get the presentation back up and running, but like I said, we didn't have time to go over the remainder of it in as much detail as we had intended.

For session two, we sped up our delivery of the Powerpoint to make up for time constraints. Even so, we definitely hit our groove after having gotten the first one out of the way. Our presentation had a nice back-and-forth with the two of us, and told a nice story (if I do say so myself). Matt did a really great job presenting and I was proud to share with him. However, I think it was a disadvantage to put the FLIR off until the end. Just as the students were loosening up with us, our time was suddenly over. It even worked out perfectly that the student I picked to go in front of the camera because he was wearing glasses, was also wearing a knit cap, which threw the other students off on a red herring. Ha-HA! Although we got through all of our presentation and were able to spend a few minutes with the camera, ultimately we ran out of time.

It's nice that we only had two sessions, because even after that I am totally exhausted. Though, more opportunities would have been welcome too, especially since Matt and I were getting our routine down. Overall, I think it went really well. The students were all really well behaved (even without other adult supervision present! Impressive!), attentive, and engaged. I even had a number of them come up to me after it was time to leave to make sure they got brochures to take home. In the end, I'm very happy with how the event went, and I would definitely do it again (and hopefully convince Matt to join me again, too).

I would change the flow of the presentation, though - I would probably change the order to be ImSci overview, career info, FLIR demo, and then the rest of our backstories. I had thought about doing it that way (especially because I normally put the demo in the middle, for loosening-up reasons stated previously), but because of the career-focus (whereas my presentations are usually more science-lesson oriented) I decided to do something a little different. Now I know better, but even so I think things went really well and I'm glad I tried it the way I did. Here's hoping we get to do this again in the future so I can put my lessons learned to good use!

I wish I had a corresponding image for today - especially because Matt was up there with me - but unfortunately we were too busy (either presenting, or fixing the computer) and there weren't teachers in the room with us, so we didn't get any pictures :-(

Being a scientist is all about experimentation, right?

You may recall that when I posted about my efforts to redesign the summer intern application, I vaguely mentioned that there would have to be some changes to the program moving forward in order for it to continue. Well, I am happy to say that my work towards a new application was not done in vain, as the program will continue next year. However, in 2014, all intern positions will be unpaid.

Yes, that's right - unpaid. I'm sure this will not be a popular change. I'll readily admit that the opportunity to receive a salary definitely influenced my interest back when I applied to be an intern. This internship was my first job, my first responsibility, my first time clock, my first income. It was a major turning point in my life that influenced my entire education and career path. And I'm not alone in that.

Be that as it may, our current situation simply does not afford the luxury of monetary compensation this year. RIT is undergoing cost containment, and budgets are tight. Labs can't help support the program with anything more than the work involved with taking in an intern. Industry sponsorship was waned to a point where we can only cover the costs of a single intern - and for the past few years, we have around 14 interns per cohort. When you consider that the price of a single intern is around $3,000 (including administrative costs), times fourteen, that is a significant investment. Granted, if we get even just one student enrolling in Imaging Science as a result of their experience in the intern program (and for the past few years we've been getting more than one), the return on investment easily makes it all worth it. But, to be perfectly honest - we just can't do it on our own anymore.

So, for 2014, we'll be asking interns to volunteer their time. This isn't to say they won't still be rewarded for all their hard work. Even though they won't get a salary, they will still get to work in real research labs, interact with college students and professors, gain significant skills and experience, participate in professional development activities, go on field trips, and meet students from other schools who have similar interests. We'll also provide interns with letters of recommendation, and we're still looking into the possibility of offering some additional form of compensation (though I'm unsure at this point what form that may take). These are all pretty significant benefits, especially in a world where competition among applicants, be it for college or for jobs, is ever-increasing.

Overall I feel pretty conflicted about the whole thing. I am afraid that we will miss out on some really good students. But then again, there are a lot of really good students. Just look at the massive applicant pool we had last year - there are way more deserving students out there than we have positions to accommodate them. Not to mention, the demand was getting out of control to handle. I suppose a few fewer applications wouldn't be such a bad thing... Also, there are still so many benefits to participating even without money. I would hope that if a student is passionate about getting this kind of experience, that they could overlook the lack of salary. Maybe this will automatically filter out those students who were looking at our internship as an opportunity to score some cash while beefing up their resume to go elsewhere, and we'll only get those who are genuinely interested in being here. But let's get real for a minute - there are a lot of people feeling strapped for cash, and it may not be realistic to expect that they could devote 40 hours a week to us when they could be spending that time making bank.

One could argue that this is unfair, while another could argue that we're under no obligation to offer the program at all. I think it is pretty easy to see both sides of the issue, but I find it extremely difficult to sort out my feelings about it all, especially because the program has had such an impact on me personally. But I suppose when it comes down to it, it really doesn't matter what I feel, because the bottom line is that we don't have a choice. I guess we'll just have to see how it all plays out.