Once a week, Rio Harper ’26 walks from his classroom in Newhouse III to a suite of offices on the lower level of Hendricks Chapel. There, his mother, Dara Harper G’26, often has a mug of hot chocolate waiting for him.
“It’s nothing special, just powdered mix from a packet,” he says modestly. “She recently convinced me to add chai tea to my hot chocolate. Now it’s my drink of choice at the chapel.”
A visual communications major in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Rio lives for these moments, which are as much about bonding as recharging his social battery.
Some of that will undoubtedly change in May, when he and Dara, a graduate student, take the stage at Syracuse University’s Commencement ceremony.
Both are proud members of the Newhouse School and have the same near-perfect GPA. Only Rio is completing his four-year degree program in three years; his mother, in the customary two.
“I’m really proud of us,” gushes Dara, whose M.S. program specializes in strategic communications. “I feel like our family’s academic journey has led to this point.”
With expertise in robotics, artificial intelligence and cinematography, Rio is seeking a job in industry.
Dara plans to continue translating academic knowledge into advertising and public relations skills as Hendricks Chapel’s communications manager.
“I’m proud of us,” says Dara Harper G’26, with son, Rio ’26 (far left), and husband, Ken. She and Rio are graduating together on May 10.
For the Harpers, school is a family affair.
Husband Ken also has ties to the Newhouse School, serving as an associate professor of visual communications and directing the M.S. program in multimedia, photography and design.
Daughter Amélie is a first-year student in the College of Arts and Sciences.
“I was raised by a schoolteacher—that’s probably why I love learning so much,” Dara admits. “Studying and getting good grades come naturally to me. Skill wise, I’m sharper than I’ve ever been.”
Rio agrees, noting his mother’s infectious enthusiasm and abiding belief that a degree is a credential, not a measure of capability.
“She’s shown me, time and time again, that being curious is more important to my education than anything else,” he continues. “For my entire life, I’ve been experimenting because, well, I can.”
A Dialectical Thinker
Rio at the biannual Newhouse Impact Symposium. His expertise includes robotics, artificial intelligence and cinematography.
The first to graduate from his program’s cinematography track, Rio considers himself a builder. “I apply theories and techniques involved with motion picture and television production to other forms of visual storytelling,” he says.
In April, Rio presented at the biannual Newhouse Impact Symposium, where his project, A Conundrum on Purpose: Interdisciplinary Work in the Age of AI, argued that Newhouse students are at a cultural inflection point.
“Our ability to communicate why something matters is just as important as the engineering that builds it,” he told a packed audience.
Since his freshman year, Rio has worked as a humanoid robotic engineer in the School of Information Studies under the guidance of Professor Jamie Banks. There in The LinkLab, he has designed and assembled 3D-printed robotics to support research into how humans and robots interact.
All three Harpers are affiliated with the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, where, Rio observes, students are at a cultural inflection point.
Rio’s flair for robotics teleoperation led to his first published paper and a recent appearance at the Hawaii International Conference on Systems Sciences. He’s currently writing a second paper.
Most of Rio’s research has been funded by the Renée Crown University Honors Program and the Syracuse Office of Undergraduate Research and Creative Engagement (SOURCE).
His acceptance into the prestigious Fulbright Canada-Mitacs Globalink Research Internship program led to a semester at the University of Alberta. “I worked on a robotic device that helps stroke survivors regain neuroplasticity as well as hand and limb function,” he says.
For his senior capstone project, Rio built and designed CineWave, a six-degree-of-freedom robotic arm. The device, he explains, aims to “democratize advanced motion control” for student and indie filmmakers.
“I usually don’t have a problem putting things into words, but Rio often leaves me speechless,” says Ken with a trace of emotion. “He’s a dialectical thinker, flexible and adaptable. And downright brilliant.”
Love Made Visible
“Work is love made visible,” says Dara, shown here with Ken, an associate professor of visual communications in the Newhouse School.
Ken and Dara have come a long way—literally and figuratively—from their first date in Louisville, Kentucky, in 2002.
“We met at a restaurant during a snowstorm,” remembers Dara, then the owner of a popular yoga studio. “Ken turned out to be a cool guy with a motorcycle.”
Sparks flew—“being with Dara was so natural, it was like breathing,” Ken recalls—and they wed two years later. Rio and Amélie followed in 2005 and ’06, respectively, amid job changes and relocations.
In 2008, the Harpers settled in Cazenovia, New York, where their children were initially homeschooled. The living room became a gathering place for writers, photographers and artists of all kinds.
“When you’re part of a campus community, you’re always learning,” says Dara, who regularly shuffled Rio and Amélie from one academic event to another.
She holds a special place in her heart for Scott Yaruss G’91, G’94 and Sujini Ramachandar G’99, then members of the Gebbie Speech, Language and Hearing Clinic who helped young Rio overcome a persistent stutter. “Today, he is a confident public speaker who never misses a beat,” Dara says.
“When you’re part of a campus community, you’re always learning,” says Dara, a popular yoga instructor and Wellness Champion. She’s been Hendricks Chapel’s communications manager since 2022.
By the time she joined Hendricks Chapel in 2022, Dara was a well-known quantity, a sought-after communications expert, entrepreneur, social justice advocate and yoga instructor.
“Working at a multifaith chapel with 15 chaplains who cover six world religions is just the place for me,” says Dara, who periodically attends meditation sessions, led by the Buddhist chaplaincy, across the hall from her office.
She radiates positivity, noting the occasional “sitcom potential” of her job. “Sometimes a rabbi, a priest, an imam and a sensei are in my office all at once.”
Whether teaching a one-credit yoga course for the exercise science department in the David B. Falk College of Sport, serving as a Wellness Champion for the University or chaperoning the Hendricks Chapel Choir abroad, Dara is a beloved figure at Syracuse. And a natural-born leader.
Small wonder that campus is like an extension of home, where the lessons are academic, personal and social.
“Work is love made visible,” says Dara, quoting Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet. “And it just so happens that I love to work.”
