RIT - Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences

FirstByte, our first-year experience program, is back again for its fourth year!

What to expect from this program:
🎳 Events & activities
🐯 Community connections
💡 Resource sharing
🍩 Tasty treats

There are plenty of opportunities to get involved - whether attending events, volunteering, or simply staying informed.

Learn more at rit.edu/computing/firstbyte-and-orientation
📸: FirstByte Fall Events Calendar and photos from past events

This week at our annual AT&T ROC Junior Game Dev Camp, AT&T surprised 25 campers with *free* Chromebooks! 💻

This remarkable commitment to bridging the digital divide made for an unforgettable ending to a rewarding camp experience.

Many thanks to Timothy Tapia and AT&T for their ongoing support for this camp, Senior Lecturer Luis Bobadilla Sotelo for leading and inspiring these young students, and Rochester Deputy Mayor Michael Burns for joining us at the event!

By ensuring students have access to the tools needed to thrive in our digital world, we're continuously committed to "improving lives through computing" at RIT.

Learn more here: https://brnw.ch/21x4z1Q
📸: 1- RIT, 2- Timothy Tapia/AT&T

Happy Pride from Rochester! 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

Why do we celebrate Pride in July? 👀 It started when folks from the Gay Liberation Front hosted the first annual Gay Community Picnic in 1972 (now known as ROC Pride Picnic). Today, our city continues to celebrate in July to honor this over 50-year tradition.

Learn more about Rochester's LGBTQ+ history at: rochester.lgbt/roclgbtqhistory/timeline

And if you see any of us at the parade or festival today, be sure to say hi!! 👋🤩

📸: 2025 Rochester Pride Parade by Scott Hamilton // RIT

We are excited to welcome Dr. José P. Zagal, respected author and professor of game design and game literacy, as the new director of School of Interactive Games and Media at RIT

In this new role, Dr. Zagal will lead some of the highest-ranked game design programs in the country, including our undergraduate program (3rd: U.S. News & World Report) (4th: Princeton Review).

"I can't wait to work alongside colleagues I deeply respect and help shape what this program becomes next,” said Professor Zagal.

Learn more about the new director of IGM at the link below and join us in welcoming Dr. José P. Zagal to RIT!

🔗: https://brnw.ch/21x3Z7P

Photos from this past June 🌞

Here on campus, we've been busy preparing for the upcoming academic year, hosting 2nd - 12th graders at Camp Tiger, and trying our best to soak up the sun!

What have you been up to so far this summer? 👀

The Department of Software Engineering recently held its annual Senior Project Excellence and Creativity Awards, honoring two student teams that exhibited impactful, innovative, and creative projects. 🏆

Students Joe Baillie, Jade Condez, Will Hoover, Erik Langdon Potts, and Chase Elliott received the Excellence Award for their project, Cancer Connect - Adolescent or Young Adult Cancer CARE App 💻

The Creativity Award was given to Mason Bausenwein, Dan Corcoran, Aiden Kennedy, and Kevin Sakowicz (pictured) for their project, BAE Systems – Natural Disaster Dog Rescue 🐕

Join us in congratulating them! To learn more about their projects and SE’s Senior Project Awards, visit https://brnw.ch/21x3uxo

MAGIC Maker Applications are OPEN!! Deadline to apply is July 10th!

The goal of the MAGIC Maker program is to provide students with the funding and support to manage their own digital media (games, film, digital media, interactive experiences, digital design, and more) projects and prepare them for publication and investment-readiness.

Ready to apply?? Visit https://brnw.ch/21x3qyW

👩: Kendyl Greer, Game Design and Development BS
📸: Traci Westcott/RIT

The Computing Organization for Multicultural Students (COMS) received the 2025-2026 ALANA Collegiate Association (ACA) Community Impact Award. 🏆

This award is given to an ACA affiliate organization that has made the most significant impact in its community, whether by growing the most, transforming the most, or making outstanding contributions to its students.

"COMS is grateful to receive this award from RIT ACA,” remarked Jacquis Webb, assistant director of student engagement and belonging in the College of Computing. “This award is a testament to the hard work our E-board and active members put in each week. I am excited to see what COMS can do in the future.”

ICYMI - For three semesters, students in professor Billy Brumley’s cybersecurity course have been patching issues with OpenSSL—a free and open-source library and toolkit that provides encryption for computer networks.

“OpenSSL is kind of the backbone of the internet, and even if you didn’t know about it, you’ve most likely used it to protect data when accessing a website,” said Jose Luis Gonzalez, a fourth-year cybersecurity major.

For the main class project, students find open issues on OpenSSL’s GitHub and write code that could be integrated into the system. At any time, there are more than 1,000 open reported issues on OpenSSL that anyone can help fix.

Read more about OpenSSL and Brumley’s class at https://brnw.ch/21x2UMw

Weijie Zhao, an assistant professor of computer science at RIT, wants to shine a light on AI design and make sure that machine learning models are not embedded with hidden vulnerabilities or dangerous exploits. His research will help build machine learning models that are more secure and interpretable.

“As we use AI and agentic AI more, this really is a public concern,” said Zhao. “We want to make sure that there is no false information or misinformation and that decisions are not being manipulated.”

Zhao recently earned a prestigious National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award and grant for his work. His five-year project is titled “Defending Machine Learning Models from Adversarial Threats via Unified Interpretability and Attribution.”

Learn more: https://brnw.ch/21x2JiF