Stony Brook University SUNY Korea

Zhenhua Liu, from the Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics in the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences (CEAS), has received the prestigious National Science Foundation (NSF) Early CAREER Research Award. He will receive a total of $533,000 to develop his project, “An adaptive framework to accelerate real-time workloads in heterogeneous and reconfigurable environments.”     Artificial intelligence and machine learning are enabling real-time decisions based on live data for interactive scientific discovery and mission critical applications such as autonomous driving and smart grid. They are increasingly powered by heterogeneous and even reconfigurable accelerators. Today, managing heterogeneous and reconfigurable systems for diverse workloads with high resource utilization and performance guarantee is an extremely challenging task and can slow down scientific discovery and waste computing resources and energy.     Liu’s research aims to design an adaptive framework that automatically detects, profiles, and analyzes both workloads and accelerators on the fly. The developed framework will provide provable performance even with partial information in unknown environments, which is urgently needed due to the ever-increasing system complexity and volatility in workloads.     “This technology has the potential to improve the efficiency of costly computing systems, which saves energy, makes better use of existing investments, and leads to a net savings to taxpayers,” said Joe Mitchell, chair of the Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics. “Zhenhua’s research will have broader impacts too, bringing educational innovations, outreach, and opportunities for both academic and industrial participants to train the next generation of researchers and practitioners for society as a whole.”     “The NSF CAREER award is one of the most prestigious honors for junior faculty members,” said Jon Longtin, interim dean, College of Engineering and Applied Sciences. “Zhenhua’s well-deserved accomplishments fuel our research enterprise with scientific discoveries that address today’s biggest societal challenges while enhancing the opportunities we provide to our students. I wish to extend my heartfelt congratulations to Zhenhau and look forward to his future contributions to CEAS!”     Liu’s research interests include sustainable computing and networking systems, cloud platforms for big data applications and energy management, and renewable energy integration. He develops and applies techniques from distributed systems, nonlinear optimization, game theory, and online algorithms for these systems. In particular, his research combines rigorous analysis and system design, and goes from theory, to prototype, and eventually to industry to make real impacts. In addition to the CAREER award, Liu was recently awarded the IBM 2020 Global University Program Academic Award, ACM SIGMETRICS 2021 Rising Star Research Award, ACM SIGMETRICS 2021 Test-of-time Paper Award, and INFOCOM 2020 Best Paper Award.     The NSF’s Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award is a Foundation-wide program that offers the NSF’s most prestigious awards in support of early-career faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through research and education. The awards, presented once each year, include a federal grant for research and education activities for five consecutive years.

Susan Y. Lee, MD, associate professor of clinical medicine at Stony Brook’s Renaissance School of Medicine, is an inaugural winner of the INSPIRE Award from the American Medical Women’s Association (AMWA). She received the award — along with her colleague Dr. Ankita Sagar from the Zucker School of Medicine Hofstra/Northwell Health — for starting a Women in Medicine Series for the New York Chapter of the American College of Physicians (ACP). Dr. Lee is also governor of the ACP New York Chapter.     The AMWA Leadership Council established the INSPIRE Awards to recognize women physicians who personally and/or professionally provide inspiration to other physicians or students through expert and compassionate patient-oriented medical care, or through mentorship, or service to the community. INSPIRE recipients were nominated by their peers, or their students, and selected by AMWA leaders. A total of eight accomplished women physicians who exemplify the highest values in vision, integrity, service, and collaboration in medicine received the award.     Dr. Lee is an internist and medical director of Stony Brook Primary Care, an accredited Patient Centered Medical Home. She received her MD from New York University School of Medicine and completed post-doctoral training at New York Hospital Cornell Medical Center.

C.J. Yeh, assistant chair of Illustration and Interactive Media, has been named Featured Artist of the Week by Taiwan Contemporary Art Archives, a database established by the Association of the Visual Art in Taiwan.     Screenshot of a figure facing a screen with thumbs-up symbols     Yeh’s featured work, an installation titled “LikeMe777,” is a satire on the narcissistic practice of using social networks for the purpose of self-promotion. This interactive software program tracks and “likes” every movement the viewer makes within the view of the camera. Once a random “magic number” of likes has been accumulated, a kitschy visual celebration explodes onto the screen commemorating this achievement and showering the viewer with blatant, artificial praise. This visual love-fest concludes with a shameless self-promotion of the artist’s own Facebook page (facebook.com/cyeh777), urging the viewers to return the favor and become his fan on the platform.

Title : Blessing Blossoms X Jeong-nam Seong Hat Exhibition Duration : October 2021 – The end of the semester Content : About 10 hats and headpieces designed for costumes displayed at the Blessing Blossom exhibition. It consists of elaborate headpieces produced by Jeong-nam Seong, using traditional hat materials and techniques such as feather, hair horse mesh, wool felt, and harmony.

Prof. Bruce Jo received a contract of $100,000 worth project “Magnetic and Inertial Sensing Fusion for the Space Localization and Navigation”.     Read more ➡️ http://www.businesskorea.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=80349

Robert (Bob) Fisch, founder and former chairman and CEO of rue21, award-winning author of Fisch Tales: The Making of a Millennial Baby Boomer, and a member of the FIT Foundation board of directors, has launched the Bob Fisch Graduate Student Award Program.     The program, which includes a $300,000 gift and an intergenerational mentoring strategy, features an award for entrepreneurial excellence, thesis project grants, and graduate scholarships for students in FIT’s Fashion Design MFA and Global Fashion Management MPS programs. Fisch—widely recognized as a pioneering merchant for his bold and successful innovations in value-priced, fast fashion retailing—will mentor students for an extraordinary one-on-one experience.     “Thanks to Bob’s commitment to nurturing creativity in the next generation of industry leaders, FIT is the proud recipient of this $300,000 gift,” said FIT President Joyce F. Brown. “It will establish an unprecedented series of opportunities that will benefit students in our graduate Global Fashion Management and Fashion Design programs.”     “I am delighted to present this gift to FIT to help nurture the careers of future leaders in the retail space,” Fisch said. “As the leading college of its kind in America, FIT serves as a major talent pipeline, which I hope to help enrich through the establishment of this new program. I’m a firm believer in the benefits of intergenerational bonding and mutual mentoring as there is much I can learn from the students’ questions and curiosity, just as they can learn from my answers and experience. I teach them business—they teach me life.”     The program includes:     a $25,000 award for entrepreneurial excellence, given to one standout recipient for the best business plan and design presented during the graduate capstone ceremony 10 graduate scholarships for academic excellence, awarded to students in the Global Fashion Management and Fashion Design programs 33 thesis-project completion grants for students in the Global Fashion Management MPS and Fashion Design MFA programs In addition to establishing this awards program, Fisch is an active member of the FIT Foundation, guest lecturer, and mentor/advisor at FIT. Under Fisch’s leadership, rue21 was also the subject of FIT’s Fashion Merchandising Capstone Project in 2016.

Visitors to Bloomingdale’s 59th Street flagship have been enjoying a visual treat courtesy of FIT’s Illustration Department: chalk murals celebrating six Broadway shows playing now, including Dear Evan Hansen and The Lion King. FIT students and alumni conceived of and painted the murals (using a chalk suspension) to coincide with a September 9 shopping event promoting the reopening of Broadway.     Because the event took place two days before the 20th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, the artists included a mural recognizing that tragic event. In addition, they painted three panels depicting sushi-based flights of fancy to acknowledge a restaurant sponsor.     The project was similar to ChalkFIT, the college’s annual outdoor art display created by seniors studying Illustration. Dan Shefelman, chair of the Illustration and Interactive Media Department, chose these artists based on whose ChalkFIT murals had impressed him in recent years. Alumni mentored students to conceive of and execute each mural.     Mural of saxophone player, runner, and others     Bloomingdale’s not only paid the artists, they donated to the FIT Foundation. Shefelman hopes the project can be a model for future art installations, providing an income source for working artists.     “My goal is to offer murals as a business that produces projects all over and hires exclusively FIT students, alumni, and faculty,” he says.     Bloomingdale’s execs were thrilled with the results.     “We know they had a bump in sales that day,” Shefelman says. “A lot of credit goes to the Broadway stars at the store, but we were part of it, by engaging with the public and welcoming them inside.”

On Wednesday, September 22, the Couture Council of The Museum at FIT hosted its annual luncheon, honoring Wes Gordon, creative director of Carolina Herrera, with the 2021 Couture Council Award for Artistry of Fashion. This year’s celebration, sponsored by Nordstrom and held at Cipriani South Street,  was reimagined as a smaller, more intimate event and held in accordance with New York City vaccine guidelines. With approximately 240 people in attendance—nearly half the usual size—the event still raised nearly $700,000.     Wes Gordon and Carolina Herrera Carolina Herrera and Wes Gordon. Gordon eloquently shared his gratitude to Herrera, who was in attendance and won the prestigious award herself at the 2014 luncheon: “To the queen of New York, the empress of elegance, I dedicate this award to you. I have only been the caretaker of the magical house you have built.”     “I cannot think of anyone more suited for the occasion than Wes Gordon” said Dr. Joyce F. Brown, president of FIT, during her remarks. “Vibrant, bold and dramatic, the party dresses and dinner suits, the day dresses and red carpet gowns that make up his collections are themselves celebrations, filled with exuberance and joy.”     The award was presented to Wes Gordon by Shanina Shaik. Other attendees included Martha Stewart, Indre Rockefeller, Stacey Bendet Eisner, Nicole Miller, Julie Macklowe, Jean Shafiroff, Ramy Brook, Gillian Hearst, B. Michael, Alina Cho, Young Emperors, and Ramona Singer, Fern Mallis, and Dr. Valerie Steele, director and chief curator of The Museum at FIT.     FIT student John Paul Jang received The Museum at FIT Student Award, which recognizes outstanding initiative and great professional promise in the museum field. Jang is the second student to receive this notable recognition since the award was created in 2019.     Proceeds from the luncheon benefit The Museum at FIT, which is free and open to the public. The museum recently reopened with the exhibition Ravishing: The Rose in Fashion, which is on view through November 28.

FIT announced that model, actress, and activist Amber Valletta has been named the college’s first sustainability ambassador, further solidifying FIT’s commitment to expanding sustainability education and awareness to address the challenges facing the creative industries. One of the most celebrated supermodels of the modern era, Valletta has also found extraordinary success as an activist, lending her voice to the issues of sustainable fashion. Valletta’s ambassadorship is a natural extension of her ongoing contributions to FIT, all of which have focused on sustainability. In addition to serving on the FIT Foundation board, she delivered the keynote speech at the 2019 Sustainable Business and Design Conference and hosted the 2019 and 2021 awards galas, both of which were focused on sustainable solutions and innovation.     In her role as FIT’s sustainability ambassador, Valletta will work closely with the FIT community, alumni, and partners throughout the 2021–2022 academic year and beyond. During this year’s Sustainability Awareness Week, which will take place virtually October 4–8, she will moderate a student roundtable discussion among previous FIT Biodesign Challenge winners to discuss the significance of biotechnology in fashion, how brands can incorporate sustainable materials into their products, and the overall impact biotechnology will make on the future of fashion. Valletta will also collaborate with the current Biodesign Challenge—mentoring students, helping recruit industry mentors, and other support—as well as spearhead fundraising efforts for the FIT Sustainability Fund, and help with planning the 2022 Sustainable Business and Design Conference, among other partnerships and programming opportunities.     “Over the years, Amber has been deeply involved in FIT’s sustainability initiatives both on and off-campus, and has quickly become a close friend of the college,” said President Joyce F. Brown. “She is also a dedicated and respected advocate and activist, which makes naming her our first official sustainability ambassador a natural and easy decision. We are proud to have her represent our community and help us continue to make a lasting impact on the world around us.”     “I am thrilled to have the opportunity to collaborate and learn from the students, educators, and the entire FIT community,” said Valletta. “At FIT, they have made sustainability a focal point that directs both their fundraising efforts and curriculum, which will undoubtedly bring about positive changes for the future of creative industries.”     FIT holds sustainability as a pillar of its strategic plan and within its community. In addition to the creation of the sustainability ambassador role, the college offers many courses and programs that focus on sustainability, including Sustainability in Fashion Merchandising, a minor in Ethics and Sustainability, Sustainable Packaging, International Corporate Responsibility, and more. The college also offers various extracurricular activities for students to get involved in sustainability, such as the Ethics and Sustainability Club, Sustainability Council, and the Student Government Association. Current projects include a student-run program to install and maintain beehives on the college’s rooftop, developing sustainable textiles through participation in the annual Biodesign Challenge, promoting sustainable and eco-friendly dyeing practices, and the Loop for Good pop-up, among other initiatives.     To find out more about the sustainability initiative at FIT and the upcoming Sustainability Awareness Week, please visit fitnyc.edu/sustainability. 

How-to manual codifies successful textiles partnership between designers, engineers     When MIT and the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) joined forces to advance textile research and to develop and employ sustainable fabrics of the future, they found that their work was so synergistic that they were compelled to write an instruction manual about their multi-year partnership so that other organizations could replicate their process and benefit from their work.     Transdisciplinary Innovation Playbook: How to build a virtual workshop that collapses walls between design and engineering and kick-starts collaboration to solve real world problems codifies the partnership between MIT, FIT, and the Advanced Functional Fabrics of America (AFFOA), which supported the work, into something of a template that other institutions can follow in order to develop their own innovative programs.     The document was officially released August 23 and will be followed by a webinar on September 9 at 10:00 am introducing the manual.     The playbook – based around MIT and FIT’s design and engineering synergy – is a model for successfully embarking on innovative partnerships. The manual offers step-by-step considerations for how to build interdisciplinary workshops that prepare students to think beyond their specializations and to tackle real-world problems together. It covers how to find an industry partner and what matters in a successful partnership, how to build an effective challenge, how to recruit faculty, how to plan a budget, and how to create a curriculum. “Use our story to write your own,” the playbook encourages.     Multi-Year Partnership In 2017, after a meeting between FIT President Dr. Joyce F. Brown and MIT President Rafael Reif, Joanne Arbuckle of FIT and Gregory C. Rutledge of MIT created a plan to build a bridge between design and engineering—and to help boost the textile industry along the way. On the surface, the institutions seemed incompatible. How—and why – might their two missions merge? (Arbuckle is former deputy to the president for Industry Partnerships and Collaborative Programs at FIT, while Rutledge is the Lammot du Pont Professor in Chemical Engineering.)     MIT scientists are advancing textile research that could change the world, while FIT designers, long renowned for their creativity, are developing the sustainable fabrics of the future. The overlapping synergies seemed destined for collaboration. What unexpected discoveries might occur if these students worked together? FIT and MIT wanted to find out and approached AFFOA to help realize this vision.     The playbook is an outgrowth of the resulting multi-year partnership. Since 2018, students from each institution have participated in three workshops during which they gather in small teams to develop product concepts exploring the use of advanced fibers and fabric technology. The workshops—which have pivoted to a remote experience since the COVID-19 pandemic—have been held collaboratively with AFFOA. AFFOA is a Cambridge, Massachusetts–based non-profit public-private partnership whose mission is to rekindle the domestic textiles industry by leading a nationwide enterprise for advanced fiber and fabric technology development and manufacturing, enabling revolutionary system capabilities for national security and commercial markets. A key part of AFFOA’s mission is to inspire, prepare, and grow the next-generation workforce for the advanced fiber and fabric industry.     Part of the students’ work has been the opportunity to respond to a project challenge presented by footwear and apparel manufacturer New Balance, a member of the AFFOA network. Students spent their first week in Cambridge learning new technologies at MIT and the second at FIT, working on projects and prototypes.     “Collaboration and teamwork are DNA-level attributes of the New Balance workplace,” says Chris Wawrousek, senior creative design lead in the New Balance Innovation Studio. “We were very excited to participate in the program from a multitude of perspectives. The program allowed us to see some of the emerging research in the field of technical textiles. In some cases, these technologies are still very nascent but give us a window into future developments.”     Many Ideas Over the years, teams of students have developed innovative and forward-thinking projects that have moved the needle on design and technology. A few examples of the teams are:     TeamNatural Futurism, which presented a concept to develop a biodegradable lifestyle shoe using natural material alternatives, including bacterial cellulose and mycelium, and advanced fiber concepts to avoid use of chemical dyes. Team CoMIT to Safety Before ProFIT, which explored the various ways that runners get hurt, sometimes from acute injuries but more often from overuse. Team Peacock, which prototyped athletic apparel with color-changing material to highlight an athlete’s movement and quickly analyze motion through an app. Team Ecollab, which designed apparel and footwear using PE (polyethylene) and color changing material that is multi-faceted and environmentally conscious. Team Laboratory 56, which created footwear to enhance longevity of product and reduce waste using PE, while connecting with the community through a recycling app program. “We’re excited to see how the release of this playbook opens up the minds of students across the country to the possibility of working in an interdisciplinary environment, and in advanced textiles. We see a continuing need for a workforce that is agile, innovative, and able to apply higher order thinking to develop the future of the industry, and believe this playbook will play a part in that development,” says Sasha Stolyarov, CEO of AFFOA.     “These kinds of partnerships are so valuable for both teams—the design students get to work in a team environment engaging in the latest technologies while the engineering students use their creativity in a new way,” says Arbuckle. “So, if the MIT/FIT collaboration can be a model for other institutions to do something similar, then these kinds of interactions and the invention of products they create together can help define our future.”     “When designers and engineers come together and open their minds to creating new technologies that ultimately will impact the world, we can imagine exciting new multi-material fibers that reveal a new spectrum of applications,” said Yuly Fuentes Medel, PhD, MIT Materials Research Laboratory project manager for fiber technologies. “Being able to share what we’ve learned through this playbook brings this process to a different level and makes it possible that this kind of thinking will become more widespread.”

New York City may be a huge metropolis, but students at FIT are very safe, according to a recent ranking. FIT came in first in a 2021 survey of the Safest College Campuses in America by YourLocalSecurity.com. The site analyzed campus safety from the 395 U.S. undergraduate institutions that: (a) offer two- or four-year degrees, (b) have at least 5,000 students, and (c) submitted campus crime statistics to the FBI. Then they crunched data from the U.S. Department of Education’s Campus Safety and Security site and the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report, focusing on three categories of crimes that colleges must report: violent, property, and those that are classified as hate crimes or violence against women.     FIT’s top position was largely due to its very low number of crimes in that third category—just one per 10,000 people.     Tan bald man with goatee in button-down shirt Mario Cabrera, director of Public Safety. Mario Cabrera, FIT’s director of Public Safety, believes his team’s presence on campus is a major reason crime has remained low. Public safety officers patrol the streets, staff the Seventh Avenue gate that restricts vehicular access, and conduct “vertical patrols” of the academic buildings by walking every floor of every building. Key units—staff members who unlock doors for classes and events—add extra sets of eyes and ears.     “We’re checking all our corners 24 hours a day,” Cabrera says. “People from blocks away will come here to walk their dog because there is always a uniformed presence here.”     FIT takes these additional measures to ensure student safety:     Everyone who enters any building must present ID, which gives Public Safety important information if an incident does occur. Every visitor and incident is logged in a sophisticated database that disseminates important information to all officers seamlessly. Public Safety also works with the New York Police Department when appropriate. Officers are given a full week of orientation and training when they are hired, which is significantly more than most other colleges. They learn procedures in place for evacuations and shelter in place, and they gain CPR certification if they don’t have it already. Visitation rules in the residence halls put student safety first. Any visitor must receive prior approval 24 hours in advance of a visit, and the host student must accompany guests when they leave. The Department of Student Life includes an educational component called Safe and Sound in the orientation given to incoming students. Topics include bystander intervention and affirmative consent. Through the Title IX office, incoming students also take a comprehensive online training called SMART: Sexual Misconduct Awareness and Response Training, which goes into detail about prevention and reporting of sexual misconduct. When high school and middle school students are on campus for FIT’s Precollege Programs, officers step up their vigilance so that no student leaves the buildings unsupervised. Cabrera admires the rapport his staff has built with students—and as the father of a current FIT student, he feels good about the amount of care that goes into protecting them. “Our officers look out for the students like they would for their own kids.”

When Camerin Stoldt, Fashion Design MFA ’21, found herself inside for an extended period last year along with everyone else, she observed that she was not only dressing for comfort, function, and how she wanted to be perceived, but also that her language and relationship to clothing had changed.     So she wanted a way to manifest that change in her work. Enter Mimaki, a Japanese company that provides workflow solutions for the sign graphics, textile and apparel, industrial, and 3D markets. FIT partnered with Mimaki to work with first-year Fashion Design MFA students in March of this year. Stoldt’s project was studying a traditional poster artist, but what interested her most was how imagery was put on fabric, and she used the Mimaki technology to develop her own sartorial language.     The Mimaki technology allowed Stoldt to experiment with opposites by printing to transform existing garments into something new—for example, she printed an image of heavy duty Levi’s onto soft virgin wool pants, and an image of a blue oxford cloth shirt off-kilter onto a white sateen shirt. The prints became, she said, almost a conversation with the garments they were printed on.     “I see it as this idea of presenting and being seen, along with wearability and being very practical,” Stoldt says. “Also, I was learning a skill and wanting to know everything about that skill, which was really cool.”     Stoldt’s thesis collection comprised old items which she made new in a way “that’s not forcing them or having to reconfigure them or overwork them,” she explains, “but rather just sort of taking my clothes, copying them and printing them out and calling them new again.”     Since leaving FIT, Stoldt has gone on to consult with a luxury ready-to-wear design company, which she declined to name, but she remains driven by her love of the same process she mastered while earning her MFA. “I don’t know what the next thing is, but the process is the most important thing because I kind of created a method of questioning and studying and research and making that works for me,” she says. “So even in the future, if what I do make next looks different, it comes from the same place.”

Craving the Coney Island Boardwalk     Melanie Reim, MFA, Acting Associate Dean, School of Art and Design:     A day at the Coney Island Boardwalk and Luna Park feels like coming home to me. The bright sun, the smell of the ocean air, mixed with hot dogs and fried clams, and the roar of the bumper cars with the Parachute Jump looming from every view, all evoke vivid memories of my childhood, visiting my grandparents every weekend.     When I travel these days, it is always with a sketchbook by my side, documenting what I see and experience, creating new, vivid memories. The lure of drawing a crowd of people, set against the wild abstractions of shapes of the boardwalk, with those same seductive smells, have brought me to Coney Island over and over again. Every time, I see it a different way, with a different focus.     This body of drawings are some of those rich impressions. Culled from my sketchbooks, they are enlarged and printed on Hahnemuhle German Etching Paper, enhanced with gouache, graphite, and pastel, making each one a monoprint.     My love for line, and creating theatre with it, is inspired by the work of Picasso, Rico Lebrun, Max Beckman and Ralph Steadman.     One cannot find better theatre than a day at the Coney Island Boardwalk.     The Art of Coney Island: A Juried Exhibition Exploring the Spirit of Coney Island, is on view at the Brooklyn Waterfront Artists, 499 Van Brunt Street, Door #7A, in Red Hook, through August 15.

Elijah Huggins-English and Dinasty Ly may change the fashion world once they graduate from FIT. Thanks to a major scholarship from Gucci, lack of funds won’t stand in their way.     Huggins-English and Ly are among the 2021 Gucci Changemakers Scholars announced this month. Huggins-English, a rising sophomore studying Fashion Design, and Ly, a rising senior studying Fashion Business Management, specializing in Product Development, each received up to a $20,000 scholarship, in addition to mentorship and virtual internship opportunities through Gucci America.     The Gucci Changemakers Scholarship is a $1.5 million fund over four years, created to provide need-based scholarships to diverse undergraduates interested in fashion. It is one part of Gucci’s multipronged effort to increase diversity in the industry. This year’s class comprises 22 students.     Huggins-English, originally from Atlanta, didn’t attend school last semester because he couldn’t afford tuition. This scholarship was “a tremendous weight off my shoulders, and will allow me to search for other scholarships and be able do my best work,” he says.     The scholarship has also given him the confidence to set more ambitious goals and to show others that they can achieve what they strive for. “I want to work for a fashion house and expand my knowledge so that I can start my own brand,” he says. “The more I put myself out there, the more things come to me, and I want to motivate others to do the same thing.”     Ly, who is originally from Vietnam and now calls Boston home, believes in the power of positive thinking, and had been taking loans out to pay for school, so when she heard about the Changemakers program, “I think I kind of manifested it myself,” she recalls. “I told myself, ‘I’m going to get this scholarship,’ and I actually did!”     Ly, who is trying to figure out her passion while focusing on her school work and internship, will put the scholarship funds toward her final year at FIT.     “This has given me resources I didn’t have before, and will really help with my last year so I don’t have to take out other loans,” she says.

This year, FIT’s Advertising and Digital Design students won eight Young Ones awards from the One Club for Creativity, the preeminent professional association in the field. These awards included a Gold, Silver, and Bronze Pencil, which honor “big ideas paired with quality execution,” as well as an ADC Silver Cube, which symbolizes “meticulous craftsmanship, design, and innovation.”     Based on these wins, the One Club has ranked the Advertising and Digital Design program No. 5 in the U.S. and No. 10 in the world among similar programs in 23 countries—the highest ranking the college has received.     “The One Club competition is like the Academy Awards for advertising,” says Associate Professor Joseph Staluppi. “It’s a really big deal.”     Students could choose from a selection of briefs, for example, to promote Spotify’s Your Daily Drive playlists at a time when few were commuting. The Gold Pencil and ADC Silver Cube went to “Grand Theft Audio,” a tongue-in-cheek campaign to bring the playlist into the massively popular video game Grand Theft Auto. Students Din Terpuni, Ethan Sims, Yuliya Kosheeva, and Margaret Panoti created and executed the concept.     Image of a earthen archway and partly cloudy sky “Spotify Spots” won a Silver Pencil from the One Club for Creativity. The Silver Pencil went to “Spotify Spots,” a campaign to install Your Daily Drive playlists in national parks and at lookout points across America, for road trippers to enjoy. Victoria Orlovskaya and Michelle Kim worked on that project.     Separately, in the New Blood awards, hosted by the British organization D&AD, Advertising and Digital Design student teams won two Wood Pencils, for a campaign promoting an e-waste recycling program (by Matthew Lafergola, Hasibul Islam, and Daniel Persaud) and a Spotify feature that connects listeners to lesser-known artists (by Hasibul Islam, Victoria Jeon and Emily Xia).     The students developed these entries in a course called Student Competition, taught by Staluppi, to prepare work for a range of industry competitions, which can help them land jobs when they graduate.     Staluppi believes this year’s success can be attributed to the Advertising and Digital Design program’s embrace of digital media. After a recent revamp of the curriculum (including a name change from Advertising Design), the program offers nine creative technology courses, including User Experience (UX) Design, Typography for Digital Content Design, and Digital Product Design. FIT was the first school to offer these courses in a BFA program. Students now graduate with a true 360-degree multimedia focus: digital, print, audio, and video.     “The new program really prepares them to do much better work, award-winning work,” Staluppi says, “on par with the top ten schools in the world.”