Memorial Art Gallery

Randall Cook, building and project manager for River Campus Libraries, turned a hobby used to relieve the stress of his previous job as a software engineering into the art quilts featured in the Memorial Art Gallery's "Hidden Passions" series.

URMC's Kishan Pandya kicks off this season's “Hidden Passions: Inspiring Conversations about Hyphenated Lives,” a series sponsored by Memorial Art Gallery to showcase Rochesterians whose lives feature intriguing and unusual creative outlets.

Stories of love written by biochemistry graduate student Karl Smith—whose hobby is writing stories for strangers on his 90-year-old Underwood typewriter and charging 10 cents per story—are paired with vintage Valentines from the libraries collections.

Engineering students Omar Soufan ’17 (above) and Ibrahim Mohammad ’17 share a "hidden passion" that has led them to create 3-D printed prosthetics for Syrian refugees.

Like many Rochester students who thrive on the school’s open curriculum, Dan Hargrove ’17 pursues multiple interests with equal vigor. The international relations major is an accomplished artist who has a "hidden passion" for coral reefs, and has maintained one in an aquarium at home since he was 14 years old.

Erik Rosenkranz ’18 is a mechanical engineering major who hopes to pursue a career as a civil engineer. He is captivated by bridges, looking at them and analyzing them. But his "hidden passion" is for woodworking, especially the longboards that he builds and rides.

This year’s winners were chosen from among five nominees who were recommended by their colleagues for their commitment to diversity.

In a partnership between the University's Memorial Art Gallery and the College's Writing, Speaking, and Argument Program, art objects become teaching tools to help students think and communicate critically.

2017: Celebrating 100 Years of New York State Women’s Right to Vote is a year-long celebration of women's suffrage in the state.

Seymour Schwartz, the University’s Distinguished Alumni Professor of Surgery, is also a renowned map historian whose collection has become one of the most acclaimed collections of rare maps in North America.