Faculty News: Associate Professor Ted Kinsman Wins Schmidt Medal
Summer 2019
Ted Kinsman, an associate professor of photographic sciences in the School of Photographic Arts and Sciences was awarded the Biocommunications Schmidt medal. Ted was chosen from a worldwide pool of nominees. The Schmidt Medal recognizes outstanding contributions to the progress of biocommunications. The selection was made by a committee of the nine comprised of the most recent winners. Ted is the 71st recipient of the award.
Photo by David Bishop
The award is presented to an individual who has made significant contributions during an extended career. Evidence of this contributions include the following four criteria.
Measurable contributions to the progress of communications; knowledge and science within the life sciences; activities that promote cooperation and further research in the field; a history of ethical practices; and a willingness to share freely technical information and methods.
The committee shared Ted was an outstanding choice. His photographic work explores the boundaries of what is possible using technology to make photographs. His work has been featured in countless books, magazines and in many online publications. His work has appeared on The Discovery Channel, Crime Scene Investigations (CSI), The X-Files, South Park, The Tyra Banks Show, ABC, NBC, PBS, CBS and the British Broadcast Corporation. Recently, he contributed work to The Frozen Planet series and James Cameron’s Avatar movie. He is also a frequent author of “how to” articles and contributed a chapter for Laboratory Imaging and Photography: Best Practices for Photomicrography and More Focal Press, 2016. In the year 2018, Ted published no less than 12 articles in online journals and blogs.
Photo by David Bishop
Additionally, the recipient of numerous awards, Kinsman won the 2015 National Science Foundation’s Imaging Science Contest with an x-ray image of a turtle with eggs.
Kinsman’s recent book Cannabis: Marijuana Under the Microscope / Schiffer Publishing 2018, shares his fresh and visually stunning photographs exploring the extraordinary beauty and diversity of the world’s most controversial plant: Cannabis salvia. Cutting-edge scanning electron microscope images, combined with light micrographs and X-rays, are shared in this beautiful book exploring this plant and the intrigue surrounding it.
Before joining the faculty at Rochester Institute of Technology in 2013, he worked as an optical engineer, a physicist, and a high school physics instructor. Ted was hired in the Photographic Sciences department and teaches classes in high speed photography, photo instrumentation, and scanning electron microscopy as well as other technology and imaging related subjects. As a scientist, Kinsman’s work focuses on using images to teach science related subjects and how to solve problems.
Other RIT photography professors and alums have also been recipients of the Award.
second row, Jim Fosse, Gail, Spring, Bob Turner, Tom Hurtgen, James Hayden, Chip Hedgcock, and Paul Crompton, Photo courtesy David Bishop
James Fosse (PPHB 1980) – awarded 2015
Professor Emeritus Andrew Davidhazy – 2010
Professor Michael Peres – 2007
Samuel Giannavola (PPHB 1978) – 2005
Joseph Ogrodnick (PPHB 1972)
Kenneth Michaels (PPHB 1973)
Thomas Hurtgen (Photo Science 1969)
Professor Emeritus Nile Root 1986