Notable Alumni
Breadcrumb
- RIT/
- Alumni Association/
- Alumni/
- Notable Alumni
You will find prominent RIT alumni making their mark in a variety of fields including government, science, technology, arts, media, business, engineering and more. Know an alumnus/alumna who could be listed here? Tell us about them now!
Art
Glass artist; member of Glass Art Society Board of Directors.
Founding partner and CCO of award winning interactive agency Threespot. Based in Washington, DC, Threespot works for organizations creating positive change in the world such as Amnesty International USA, BBC America, Kennedy Center/ARTSEDGE, several philanthropic foundations, and the Smithsonian Institution, to name a few.
Joon-yong Kim is a leading glass artist in South Korea’s emerging glass scene. He is a professor at Kook-min University and owner of the Joon glass studio in Seoul, South Korea. In 2013, Kim won silver in the annual International Exhibition of Glass Kanazawa, a prominent platform for contemporary glass, in Kanazawa Japan.
Comic book artist known for his work for publishers such as Marvel Comics, Dark Horse Comics, and DC Comics, including work on Ultimate X-Men, Ultimate Fantastic Four, The Incredible Hulk, Wolverine, Spider-Man and Superman. Kubert was rated by Wizard magazine as one of the "Hot 10 Writers and Artists" in the industry in 2008.
Studio artist and associate professor of art at Southern Illinois University, where he has headed the glass program since 2005. Lee served as a member of the board of directors for the Glass Art Society from 2009 until 2015. He has won a number of honors, including the Emerging Artist Award from the Glass Art Society.
Currently the Glass faculty head and studio coordinator at San Jose State University in California. She presently serves as President of the board of directors for the international Glass Art Society and her work has been exhibited nationally.
Illustrator and nationally recognized caricaturist who is known for lampooning political and business figures. She has illustrated for Time, The Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, The Village Voice, The New York Times, Comedy Central, The Atlantic, Fortune, Rolling Stone, GQ, Entertainment Weekly, The Los Angeles Times, and The Boston Globe.
Founder and director of Ezra Glass Studio; professor of Glass Department, Osaka University of Arts, Osaka, Japan. He has instructed and lectured throughout the world, including at the Tokyo Glass Institute and the Pilchuck School of Glass, as well as serving as guest artist in Waterford Crystal in Ireland in 1998.
Design
Founder of Staach, furniture company that focuses on functional sustainable design. Its products can be found around the world, including in Shake Shack locations and at the Google offices in Mountain View, Calif
Director of Visual Strategy and Presentation, National Basketball Association. Oversees visual strategy for NBA events including The Finals, NBA Draft and NBA All-Star Games, and interiors for the NBA’s corporate offices and retail stores. Lead product development and design for Fleer Trading Cards and has designed for a wide range of brands including the Walt Disney Company, Hasbro, Lysol and French’s.
Founder and principal designer of Chicago-based MINIMAL, a studio creating brand-building products and experiences that connect emotionally with users producing brand icons and new ecosystems for companies like Xbox, Microsoft, Google, Dell, Nike, and Apple. Former global creative director at Nike, and former design leader in organizations such as IDEO, Thomson Consumer Electronics, Fortune Brands and Motorola.
Photography
Celebrity and political photographer; photos have included Hollywood stars like Will Smith and Robert Downey Jr., sports stars like Shaquille O’Neal, and President Barack Obama and the First Family during the historic 2008 campaign for the presidency. His work includes editorial and advertising photography for top companies like Crate & Barrel, Coca-Cola, and Target, and top publications like Sports Illustrated and Time.
Noted civil rights photographer; former Guggenheim Fellow; first photographer to receive a National Endowment for the Arts grant; recipient of the Outstanding Contribution to Photography Award at the 2011 Sony World Photography Awards.
New York-based photographer whose wide-ranging practice is informed by a fascination with historical painting and sculpture. His portraits appear regularly in The New Yorker, where he was appointed the magazine’s youngest ever staff photographer in 2013. Dukovic works across the fields of portraiture, fashion, beauty and documentary photography for magazines including Vanity Fair, Time, Rolling Stone, Wired and The New Yorker, as well as commercial clients such as Dior, Rag & Bone and MAC Cosmetics.
Advertising and art photographer; only American to be named in the top 10 of Adweek's 2011 top 100 illustrator, graphic artist, art director, design shop, photographer and student portfolios.
Sr. staff photographer during Eastman Kodak Company’s “golden age.” Montanus was the photographer for the iconic portrait of Walt Disney still used by The Walt Disney Company in many of their facilities, and the official White House photo of former president Gerald Ford. During his career with Kodak, Montanus took 55 of the 565 Colorama photos.
Contemporary media artist, associate professor of art at The Cooper Union. His works include video, photography and literary essays dealing with the contemporary history of Lebanon, with particular emphasis on the wars between 1975 to 1991. In 2001, he received the Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography award granted to "a photographer recognized for major achievements."
Four-time Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist; former Director of Photography, Dallas Morning News.
Photographer and one of the first masters of color photography. PDN voted Turner as one of the 20 Most Influential Photographers of All Time; American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP) awarded Turner its Outstanding Achievement in Photography honor in 1981; and he has been named a Nikon Legend Behind the Lens.
Photographer who also received an Emmy Award in 1991 for his collaboration with award-winning filmmaker Karl Kernberger on the PBS documentary En Divina Luz: The Penitente Moradas of New Mexico. Varjabedian’s photographs have been exhibited and collected by museums including the William Benton Museum of Art, the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, and the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin.
Film
Founder and principal designer of Chicago-based MINIMAL, a studio creating brand-building products and experiences that connect emotionally with users producing brand icons and new ecosystems for companies like Xbox, Microsoft, Google, Dell, Nike, and Apple. Former global creative director at Nike, and former design leader in organizations such as IDEO, Thomson Consumer Electronics, Fortune Brands and Motorola.
One of the team of engineers working on the imaging for NASA’s Lunar Orbiters for the Apollo 11 moon landing. Received a personal Emmy Award in 1998 for leading an international research team for Philips Digital Video Systems and Eastman Kodak's Spirit DataCine to get movies into High Definition Television in the 1990s. Also represented Eastman Kodak on the Television Standards Committee's that created the Digital Television Standards (ATSC) the Advanced Television Systems Committee, based in Washington, D.C. Today the ATSC has created the ATSC-3 broadcast standard being introduced around the country today.
3-D layout and character animation artist, founder and CEO of The Third Floor, now the largest international previs company. The Third Floor film credits include The Avengers, X-Men, Men in Black 3, Game of Thrones, Iron Man 2, and Avatar.
American cinematographer who collaborated with film director David Lynch on Eraserhead and Blue Velvet. Other film credits include River's Edge, Wild at Heart, Night on Earth, Hulk, and HBO’s Olive Kitteridge. He has won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Cinematography twice, for Wild at Heart and Night on Earth.
Visual development artist on Disney’s Frozen, which as of 2015 was the highest grossing animated film of all time. Lee helped bring the snow queen’s magic to life and is behind the interior of the ice palace Elsa builds while singing “Let It Go.” She designed the snowflake that emits from Elsa’s foot and the columns, ceiling, balcony and chandelier of the palace.
Princess Grace Award Recipient.
Animator on Coraline, Tangled, Wreck-it Ralph; associate technical supervisor on Zootopia.
Visual effects artist; part of the team of VFX artists that created the Bengal tiger in the Oscar winning Life of Pi.
Business and Entrepreneurship
CEO and chair of Papercone Corporation, the largest privately held specialty envelope manufacturer in the U.S. He is an active member of the Chief Executives' Organization, the World Presidents' Organization and the Young Presidents' Organization.
CEO of Centara Hotels and Resorts, Thailand, operating 51 four- and five-star properties in nine countries throughout Asia and Africa.
Co-founder, president and CEO, Concord Hospitality Enterprises Company, one of the largest hospitality companies in North America with hotels in both the US and Canada.
Formerly served as treasurer of Cisco Systems. In that role, Mr. Navas was instrumental in launching Cisco's initial public offering in 1990, listed as one of the 11 greatest IPOs of all time by BusinessInsider.com.
Recipient of the “25 Women of Vision” award sponsored by the Information Security Magazine; managing director at The International Information Integrity Institute; formerly senior vice president in Corporate Information Security with Bank of America, and prior to that served as chief information security officer (CISO) at Xerox.
Founder, President and CEO of Worldwide Speakers Group, a professional lecture services firm, providing speakers to corporate, trade, education, and commercial customers worldwide. Prior to founding Worldwide Speakers Group, Mr. Thomas helped lead the Washington Speakers Bureau.
Engineering, Science, Technology, and Computing
Global CEO of Sotio (Czech Republic), a biotechnology company that specializes in active cellular immunotherapy for the treatment of cancer and autoimmune diseases.
Computer programmer, one of the designers of the original Apple Macintosh computer; chief architect and Apple Fellow for the Newton from 1987-1996; user interface architect at Microsoft from 1996-2001, resulting in the Internet Explorer Search, History, and Favorites panes. He was also a co-founder of the MSN Explorer project.
Humanities and Academia
Founding Academic and Executive Director of the Turner School of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Bradley University. Under Hills’ guidance, Bradley was ranked in the top 20 national universities for entrepreneurship programs by the Princeton Review and Entrepreneur magazine. Hills has been named one of the elite Babson College Entrepreneurship Research Conference Lifetime Award Members.
Recipient of the 2012 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award. Paz is a leader in the New York State farmworker human rights movement, and a former farmworker.
Law, Military and Politics
United States Marine Corps retired, Navy Cross recipient.
Senior Intellectual Property counsel for GE Power & Water's Thermal business. Leads and manages all patenting operations for Thermal's large international IP portfolio. He is also an accomplished GE inventor holding several patents related to the reduction of carbon emissions and power plant efficiency.
Partner, Smith, Gambrell & Russell, LLP, intellectual property practice.
Senior partner, The Marbury Law Group, Reston, Va.; specializing in security clearance law, patents, copyrights and trademarks.