Each year, RIT presents Distinguished Alumni Awards to graduates from each of the university’s eight colleges. The recipients have performed with distinction at the highest levels of their chosen professions or contributed significantly to the advancement and leadership of noteworthy civic, philanthropic, or service organizations over the course of many years.

A celebration for this year’s honorees took place April 3 at Locust Hill Country Club in Rochester.

The 2009 honorees are:

Kevin Belfield ’81 (College of Science). Belfield received a B.S. in chemistry from RIT and a Ph.D. in chemistry from Syracuse University in 1988. After conducting research in polymer stabilization and degradation at Ciba-Geigy, he worked in the area of synthesis and characterization of functionalized polymers at State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry at SU.

He pursued postdoctoral research at Harvard University and joined the faculty of the Chemistry Department at the University of Detroit Mercy in 1992. He moved to the University of Central Florida’s Department of Chemistry in 1998 to establish a program in functional polymer chemistry and organic photonic materials. Belfield was appointed chair of the Chemistry Department in November 2004, and holds joint appointments in the College of Optics and Photonics, the Biomolecular Science Center, and the Department of Mechanical, Materials, and Aerospace Engineering.