B.S. Imaging Science

What is Imaging Science?

Imaging Science is a field of study that uses physics, chemistry, mathematics, computer, and cognitive sciences to better understand the many factors that influence and make possible the capture and analysis of imagery.  Where can you turn in society today and not encounter a recorded image?  Your phone, your vehicle, your doctor’s office, your family room, your bedroom, your favorite sports venue; wherever you turn there is a device or printed material that contains recorded or live imagery.  In order to produce these media sources, or even more exciting, to learn about the world through the use of them, imaging science enables future professionals by giving them the theoretical, applied, and working knowledge of how these devices work, what innovative technologies in development today will give us new capabilities tomorrow, and to be a crucial contributor to the coming generation of what we’ll be able to do with imagery.

So what would I study?

The multidisciplinary nature of imaging science demands that your education span a variety of academic fields. Your first two years will consist of courses in fundamental sciences: physics, chemistry, calculus, as well as statistics, computer science, and liberal arts courses. In hands-on imaging science courses you'll study imaging systems and their applications - learning how images are formed, recorded, manipulated, and transmitted - and the important role that imaging science plays in society.

In your third and fourth years, you'll integrate your understanding of science and math with specialized imaging science courses. You'll acquire the tools to analyze any imaging system from end to end. A senior research project gives you the chance to work one-on-one with a professor of your choice researching an aspect of imaging science or an imaging system that intrigues you. If you are interested in graduate work, you can pursue an MS in imaging science or color science. RIT also offers the only Ph.D. in imaging science in the nation!

What does the Center for Imaging Science have to offer?

What makes the Center a wonderful place to study, grow, and learn is the community that it creates on the RIT campus.  Our core faculty and research staff members have their laboratories spread across three buildings, and our extended faculty reach across the rest of the campus with members in nearly every department.  What does this mean?  It means that anyone can find a place where they fit, where their interests are sparked, where they feel comfortable with the people around them.  Undergraduate students in the Center are a crucial factor in the research, discoveries, and innovation that occur every day.  The early involvement with state-of-the-art research makes our undergraduate students some of the most in-demand students on the RIT campus.

The Center has a large number of major laboratories and the number continues to grow each year.  These include the Digital Imaging and Remote Sensing (DIRS) laboratory, the Munsell Color Science Laboratory (MCSL), the Rochester Imaging Detector Laboratory (RIDL), the Laboratory for Imaging Algorithms and Systems (LIAS), the Print Research & Imaging Systems Modeling (PRISM) laboratory, the Visual Perception Laboratory, the Biomedical and Materials Multimodal Imaging Laboratory; as well as laboratories specializing in astrophysics and astronomical imaging, nanoimaging, magnetic resonance imaging, and document restoration.

Our class sizes are small; the number of faculty we have is large; the students receive very personalized attention.

Interested?  Want to learn more?

The links to the left will let you explore the most recent curriculum established by the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee (UGCC) and approved by the entire faculty of the Center for Imaging Science (CIS). The link to the Typical Course of Study describes the traditional path through the undergraduate program while the Alternate Paths link describes some modification that students may find helpful or desirable.

If you have any questions regarding the curriculum or the Imaging Science program in general, please feel free to contact the Center's Undergraduate Coordinator or Academic Coordinator.

Maria Helguera, Undergraduate Coordinator
Sue Chan, Academic Coordinator