CUNY Research Newsletter Fall2010 FINAL€¦ · Research Newsletter Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research HIGHLIGHTS Page 3 Charles Vörösmarty (City College) Human Activity

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Research NewsletterOffice of the Vice Chancellor for Research

HIGHLIGHTS

Page 3Charles Vörösmarty (City College)

Human Activity Poses a Serious

Threat to Global Water Security

Page 4-5

Faculty SpotlightsProbal Banerjee (CSI)

Niloufar Haque (City Tech)

Mitchell Goldfarb (Hunter)

Page 6

CUNY Energy InstituteEnergy Institute Awarded

$4.6M from ARPA-E Program

Page 10

Andrea Boyar (Lehman)

Food, Best Choice to Stay Healthy

Page 12

University-wide

First Summer Undergraduate

Research Program (C-SURP)

Page 14Irving Robbins (CSI)

CSI Scientists Identify Two New

Minor Planets

Page 17

University-wideEnvironmental Sciences Forum

Page 21

George John (Hunter)

Novel Method to Clean Oil Spills

Page 24Marco Tedesco (City College)

Three Decades of Global Cooling?

Page 25

Hiroshi Matsui (Hunter)

New Sensor to Detect Cancer

Page 26

University-wide

7th Annual Fall IRB Symposium

VOLUME 5, ISSUE 3 FALL 2010

From the Vice Chancellor

Over the past year, the University has been spotlighting some of our women scientists. On September 24th, my office partnered with the Feminist Press to host a forum “Inspiring Women Scientists”. This was an exciting and informative event – see above for more details. Building upon this, the theme

of the CUNY Women’s Leadership Conference this year is “Breaking Boundaries in Science and Health”. This conference is on October 29, 2010 at Hunter College.

The story of women in science, both at CUNY and in academia in general, is one of remarkable accomplishments. Currently, women outnumber men attending college; they earn more Master’s degrees and have reached

parity in numbers with men in many doctoral and professional degree programs. Of course—there are great variations depending on the discipline

On Friday, September 24, the CUNY Office of the Vice Chancellor for

Research, the CUNY Graduate Center and The Feminist Press co-

sponsored a forum, Inspiring Women Scientists. The purpose of the

forum was to support women students, faculty, and professionals in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The forum brought together faculty, staff, and students from institutions across the NY metropolitan area, in addition to attendees from Johns Hopkins University and the University of

Texas, El Paso.

The forum featured keynote speaker, Dr. Elaine Fuchs, the Rebecca C. Lancefield Professor in Mammalian Cell Biology and Development at The

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Physics doctoral student Reem Jaafar (CUNY Graduate Center and Lehman College) has developed a new quantum theory to measure the movement of magnetic molecules, the smallest possible magnetic devices, in an electrical circuit. This research has the potential to significantly improve the technology of magnetic information storage, which in turn may lead to faster computers with larger amounts of memory. Jaafar’s research, published in the prestigious journal EPL (Europhysics Letters), was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation.

In a study co-authored with two Physics faculty members at Lehman College, Distinguished Professor Eugene Chudnovsky and Associate Professor Dmitry Garanin, Jaafar analyzed the spin-rotation effects in a magnetic molecule that is bridged between two conducting leads. The researchers showed that the coupled dynamics of the molecular spin and the mechanical rotation of the molecule induce a modification of the Landau-Zener dynamics. The Landau-Zener spin transition produced by the time-dependent magnetic field generates a unique pattern of mechanical oscillations that can be detected by measuring the electronic tunneling current through the molecule.

Because of the high potential impact of the results, the article was selected among over 60 international articles as an EPL’s “Editor's Choice”. In addition, the findings of the study have been featured in Europhysics News, which aims to provide physicists at all levels with a balanced overview of the scientific and organizational aspects of physics and related disciplines.

Europhysics News. 2010. 41(3).

Rockefeller University. Following her speech, Dr. Fuchs (right) was expertly interviewed by New York

Times science reporter, Claudia Dreifus. Dr. Janna Levin, Associate

Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Barnard College of Columbia

University and best-selling author was the afternoon guest speaker.

A morning panel, Science In Academe presented CUNY

women scientists from various disciplines and at different stages

of their careers: Maribel Vasquez (Biomedical Engineering,

City College); Jill Bargonetti-Chavarria (Biology, Hunter

College); Lesley Davenport (Chemistry, Brooklyn College);

and Ilona Kretchscmar (Chemical Engineering, City College).

The panel was moderated by Dr. Myriam Sarachik,

Distinguished Professor of Physics, City College (below center).

A second panel, Career Options in Science, had women scientists, who work outside of academia, discuss their careers and views on the opportunities available today for young women interested in science. Participating on the panel were Jane

Snowdon, Senior Manager, Industry Solutions and Emerging Business Department, Tal Rabin, Head of the Cryptographic Research Group, both at the IBM TJ Watson Research Center,

and Sandra Brown, patent attorney, Hewlett Packard. Carol Hymowitz, reporter for the Wall Street Journal and Forbes magazine moderated this discussion.

The forum included a networking reception and poster session that presented institutional programs and projects that support the development of women scientists, promote exchange of ideas and lead to collaborations.

New Quantum Theory May Improve Computer

Technologies

L to R: Garanin, Jaafar, and Chudnovsky


Continued from Page 1




INVESTOR NEWSLETTER ISSUE N°3 FALL 2008VOLUME 5, ISSUE 3 FALL 2010

A pioneering analysis of threats to fresh water systems has found that nearly 80 percent of the world’s population lives in areas where either human water security or biodiversity is in severe trouble. To reach this conclusion, the research team, led by CCNY Professor of Civil Engineering and Director of the CUNY Environmental Cross-Roads Initiative, Dr. Charles Vörösmarty (below), integrated maps of 23 different environmental stressors and merged them into a single index.

“Our focus is on rivers, which serve as the chief source of renewable water supply for humans and freshwater ecosystems,” says the authors. “We use river networks to redistribute the distinctive impacts of stressors on human water security and biodiversity along a continuum from headwaters to ocean, capturing spatial legacy effects ignored by earlier studies.”

Among the stressors analyzed were the effects of pollution, water overuse, dam construction, agricultural runoff, conversion of wetlands, and the introduction of invasive aquatic species. The study is unique in its design as it integrates both human water security and biodiversity perspectives.

“We can no longer look at human water security and biodiversity threats independently. We need to link the two. The systematic framework we’ve created allows us to

look at the human and biodiversity domains on an equal playing field,” explains Dr. Vörösmarty, an internationally recognized expert on global water resources.

The study, published in the September 30 issue of Nature, reveals that water scarcity is a major problem in much of the United States, virtually all of Europe, and large portions of Central Asia, the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent, and eastern China. The findings also indicate that massive investments in water technology have allowed rich nations to offset high stressor levels without remedying their underlying causes, whereas less wealthy nations remain vulnerable.

“We uncovered a broad management principle operating at the global scale,” says Dr. Vörösmarty. “In the industrialized world, we tend to compromise our surface waters and

then try to fix problems by throwing trillions of dollars at the issues. We can afford to do that in rich countries, but poor countries can’t.”

According to the researchers, the state of fresh water resources is unlikely to improve anytime soon. “Given escalating trends in human population, climate change, water use, and development pressures, freshwater systems will remain under threat well into the future. Without major policy and financial commitments, stark contrasts in human

water security will continue to separate rich from poor.”

Human Activity Poses a Serious Threat to Global Water Security

Vörösmarty C.J. et al. 2010. Global Threats to Human Water Security and River Biodiversity. Nature 467, 555-561.




Dr. Niloufar Haque can remember clearly an article

she read as a teenager about how lipofuscin collects like dust over cells in an aging brain. The article, written by a famous neuroscientist Dr. Mahdi Hasan, appeared in a popular weekly magazine in India, where Dr. Haque grew up. What struck her most, and spurred her interest in science from that day, was the way Dr. Hasan made the aging memory come alive, “If you could remove the dust, the brain cells may get a chance to breathe,” she recalls.

Dr. Haque earned her undergraduate degree and PhD from the Aligarh Muslim University in India, where she studied the effects of organophosphate pesticides on brain lipid metabolism.

After her PhD, Dr. Haque took an opportunity to teach science at Al Arab Medical University in Benghazi, Libya. This was her first trip away from India, and it was an eye opener in many ways. Like her students, she was faced with many obstacles—inadequate language skills, cultural differences, and poor learning conditions—but she was determined to succeed and she met them head on. She even struck a deal with her students—in exchange for teaching them science in English, they would teach her Arabic.

VOLUME 4, ISSUE 2 WINTER 2008

FACULTY SPOTLIGHT

PROBAL BANERJEEPROFESSOR

CHEMISTRY, COLLEGE OF STATEN ISLAND

FACULTY SPOTLIGHT

NILOUFAR HAQUEASSISTANT PROFESSOR

BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES,

NEW YORK CITY COLLEGE OF TECHNOLOGY


In this issue, we highlight three neuroscientists from across the University



Though a self-described “hardcore organic chemist,” there is mounting evidence at the College of Staten Island (CSI) that

Dr. Probal Banerjee may have gone soft. For the past 15

years, he’s been massaging brain tumors with spices and calming a lab full of anxious mice. Well, molecular biologist street cred [sic] be damned, his research is shaping up to produce some of the most exciting and far-reaching implications in the treatments of cancer and emotional disorders.

After earning his PhD in Bio-organic Chemistry at the India Institute of Science in Bangalore, India, Dr. Banerjee began his slow move over to neurochemistry when he did his postdoc at the University of Chicago. Then in 1994, he joined the Department of Chemistry at CSI, where his principle research has focused in two main areas.

Primarily, Dr. Banerjee is interested in how aberrations in our brain circuitry — in particular, the serotonin 1A receptor — lead to emotional and cognitive disorders like depression and schizophrenia. This is where the anxious mice come in.

“We use genetically altered mice that don’t have the serotonin 1A receptor, which makes them very nervous. We understand the important players and we keep an eye on the pathways that lead from this missing receptor.” Then they inject an agent into the hippocampus to trick the downstream players of this pathway into thinking the receptor is there and working




VOLUME 4, ISSUE 2 WINTER 2008

FACULTY SPOTLIGHT

MITCHELL GOLDFARBPROFESSOR

BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES, HUNTER COLLEGE


The National Science Foundation’s Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program is the most prestigious NSF award offered to faculty members in the sciences and social sciences who are newly embarking on their independent research and teaching careers. The program is specifically designed to provide junior faculty with secure financial support at a sufficient level and duration to enable them to excel as researchers and educators who effectively integrate teaching, exploration, and innovation.

Earlier this year, the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research announced a new University-wide initiative to encourage CUNY's junior faculty to apply to the CAREER program: any funded CAREER proposal will be provided with a 10% supplement up to a maximum of $50,000. In response to this initiative, CUNY faculty rose to the challenge and submitted a record number of CAREER proposals for the July 2010 deadlines. A total of 33 proposals were submitted from 13 CUNY colleges, including all ten senior colleges and three community colleges. Good luck to all of our faculty who submitted proposals.

UPDATE ON THE 2010 CUNY NSF

CAREER AWARD INCENTIVE PROGRAM

Dr. Mitchell Goldfarb is leading some of the most

exciting advances in neuroscience in his lab at Hunter College. Yet, one can often hear him saying, “I’ve never grown up.” What he’s really referring to is his unique sense of experimentation that has led him to discover certain proteins associated with a range of neurological disorders. Dr. Goldfarb joined the Department of Biological Sciences at Hunter in 2003, and since then has given his students, mainly PhD candidates, intense personalized training in advanced research.

Dr. Goldfarb has been experimenting with science for as long as he can remember. He grew up in New York City and attended the prestigious Bronx High School of Science. After high school, he left New York for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to earn his undergraduate degree and PhD, followed by a postdoc in cancer biology.

For nearly two decades, Dr. Goldfarb’s work focused on the discovery of fibroblast growth factors (FGFs). But in the late 90s at Mt. Sinai, Dr. Goldfarb discovered a new set of proteins that led him to a number of breakthroughs. These new proteins looked like FGFs, but were in fact something else, and he wanted to know more about their function. These proteins, called fibroblast growth factor homologous factors (FHFs), bind to sodium channels (the excitable channels in the nervous system)

and they change the way the channels fire action potentials. In other words, FHFs control how many times a nerve cell will fire. Rapid neuron firing is required for many aspects of brain function, but excess firing can be associated with disorders such as epilepsy and chronic pain. Studying the function and the physical mechanism of FHF actions has led Dr. Goldfarb into a whole new field of research, one that’s not only relevant to common human disorders, but has spurred him to design an entire course around electrophysiology at Hunter.

Dr. Goldfarb ultimately wants to work to develop therapeutic drugs for aforementioned disorders. His FHF research has also led to another discovery—the protein, IB2, in brain neurons—he believes IB2 may be linked to a specific form of autism: Phelan-McDermid Syndrome. The IB2 gene is located on a chromosomal segment deleted in patients with this behavioral disorder. When his lab deleted IB2 in mice, they found that the mice exhibited the core symptoms of autism. At the moment, his team is conducting more experiments to support the argument.




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NYC Non-Profits Face Bad Times Is Worse Yet to Come?

Krauskopf, J. et al. 2009. The helpers need help: New York City’s nonprofit human service organization persevering in uncertain times. Baruch College (CUNY), School of Public Affairs.

A study of New York City’s non-profit human service organizations conducted by Baruch College’s School of Public Affairs and the Human Services Council of New York City has revealed a distressing irony—social service charities, which people turn to in times of hardship, are themselves experiencing great operating stress during the current economic climate. Indeed, many human service organizations are being forced to cut staff, reduce employee benefits, and freeze salaries in order to survive. The study, conducted in June 2009, is based on the opinions and experiences of 244 non-profit social service leaders of organizations that provide a range of social services to people in need.

The findings reveal that 73% of social service organizations have experienced drops in private donations, and 62% have seen dips in public funding. Seventy-five percent lack either an endowment or a line of credit with which to weather this

uncertain economic climate, and 21% have neither. Fifty-three-percent of charities have laid off staff over the past year, with nearly 1 in 7 organizations having lost over 15% of their workforce. On a more positive note, in spite of the sizable reduction in financial resources, 62% of charities surveyed have been able to avoid eliminating any programs over the past year, and 75% have maintained their services in the face of growing needs.

Beyond these measures of organizational stress, many social service leaders expressed frustration and concern over their inability to plan for the future or reassure staff member that their jobs are safe. “The most difficult part is the uncertainty and last minute decision-making on the part of all funders – foundations, government and individuals,” said one survey respondent. “We do not want to lay off staff or cut services,” but “it is very difficult to plan without a clear sense of direction.”

CUNY ENERGY INSTITUTE AWARDED

$4.6M FROM ARPA-E PROGRAM

On July 12, the Department of Energy (DOE) announced that two CUNY Energy Institute projects were selected to receive Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) awards for cutting-edge research projects on grid-scale energy storage and power electronics.

The Director of the Energy Institute, Dr. Sanjoy Banerjee, along with Daniel Steingart (CCNY), and Stephen O’Brien (CCNY) have been awarded $3 million for their project, “Low-cost Grid-scale Electrical Storage using a Flow-Assisted Rechargeable Zinc-Manganese Oxide Battery.”

Drs. Stephen O’Brien and Daniel Steingart are also lead PIs—in collaboration with Banerjee, Alex Couzis (CCNY), Seth Sanders (University of California at Berkeley), Ioannis Kymissis (Columbia University), and Peter Kinget (Columbia University)—on the “Metacapacitors: Innovation in

Power Conversion and Energy Storage” project, which has been awarded nearly$1.6M from ARPA-E.

According to Banerjee, the selection process was extremely competitive; the Energy Institute projects were among only

43 awards given out of more than 500 submissions. In addition, CUNY is the only university in New York

State to have received an award in this round.

Authorized by the America Competes Act in 2007, ARPA-E was established as an agency within the

DOE to encourage and support transformational energy research that private investors and industry

deem as too high risk. ARPA-E was without a budget until it received $400 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funds in April 2009. Since then, the agency has selected 117 projects for $349 million in funding to accelerate innovation in how the U.S. generates, stores, and uses energy.




Defining a New Field of Study in Materials Science


Dr. Jeffrey Morris (Chemical Engineering, City College), is leading an interdisciplinary team of physicists, mechanical engineers, and chemical engineers in a five-year research project with the goal of developing new methodology that will allow the description of Material Dynamics to become a new field of study as an emerging branch of Materials Science.

“While Materials Science usually looks at substances in a static state, Materials Dynamics examines them while in a state of flow during the manufacturing process in man-made systems, or the process of formation for natural materials,” explains Dr. Morris. “The field has application to the manufacture of pharmaceuticals, petroleum-based products, chemicals, and personal care products.”

The research is supported with a $3 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), which establishes a Partnership in Research and Education Materials (PREM) at CCNY in collaboration with the University of Chicago’s Materials Research Science and Engineering Center. In addition, the grant provides funds for the hiring of two postdoctoral research fellows and the support of up to ten graduate students, particularly from underrepresented groups.

The collaboration combines CCNY’s strengths in simulation and modeling, with the University of Chicago’s expertise in experiment design and theory to develop design principles for next generation materials. Researchers will study the role of dynamics in creating new materials in both heterogeneous and particulate systems. Topics for study will include the dynamics of droplets during impact (i.e., how they spread on a surface), novel assembly techniques using micron-sized particles and bio-molecules, and assemblies of colloidal and granular particles.

The project will provide students at different educational levels with mentoring and research opportunities, and the projects will be organized so that students play a central role. “Students and faculty members will interact up and down the chain,” says Dr. Mark Shattuck, co-principal investigator and Associate Professor of Physics at CCNY. “High school students will be able to see the entire path to becoming a professor.”

The program emphasizes the multidisciplinary interest in material dynamics, as the PIs in Chemical Engineering and Physics are joined by other faculty in the program: Drs. Joel Koplik (Physics), Charles Watkins (Mechanical Engineering), Ilona Kretzschmar (Chemical Engineering), Raymond Tu (Chemical Engineering), and Taehun Lee (Mechanical Engineering).

Did You Know?

CUNY has University-wide site licenses for many popular scientific software titles from vendors

including Maplesoft (Maple), ESRI (ArcGIS), Wolfram Mathematics (Mathematica), Cambridge Soft

(ChemBio Office suite), and SAS. Each college has a software site license coordinator to assist faculty

and staff with licensed software installations. A link to a list of CUNY site license coordinators can be

found on our Faculty Resources page: <www.cuny.edu/research/faculty-resources.html>

Co-investigators Shattuck (L) and Morris (R) examining a rheometer in Steinman Hall at CCNY

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http://www.cuny.edu/research/faculty-resources.html

http://www.cuny.edu/research/faculty-resources.html


Personality characteristics play a significant role in determining who succeeds in medical school, according to a new study conducted by Dr. Stephan Dilchert, Assistant Professor of Management at Baruch College, in collaboration with Filip Lievens (Ghent University) and Deniz Ones (University of Minnesota). The study, featured in the Journal of Applied Psychology, followed over 600 Belgian medical students through seven years to determine the impact of personality characteristics on their academic performance.

The team investigated how several personality traits, including neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness, contributed to a student’s performance in medical school. Their findings indicate that personality characteristics can reveal a lot about how students will perform during the different demands and emphases of a student’s medical studies.

“For example, traits such as conscientiousness, self-discipline, and achievement orientation were good predictors of learning success throughout the medical studies of the Belgian students,”

said Dr. Dilchert. He noted that though the study was carried out in Belgium, both personality factors and modern medical practices are similar around the world, and therefore personality should consistently relate to performance in medical education, including in the U.S.

The study findings indicate that predicting which individuals have the ability to be successful in medical school can be greatly improved by adding a personality assessment to entrance requirements.

“Personality traits predict the acquisition of knowledge, persistence on tasks, and performance in patient interactions, and thus should also be considered in medical school admissions,” said Dr. Ones of the University of Minnesota. “Standardized tests have typically been found to be more reliable, objective, and valid measures of personality compared to other methods such as unstructured interviews or reference letters. As such, they would be useful tools to supplement already existing tests of cognitive ability that are currently being used in making medical school admissions decisions.”

The yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae is a classic model system for studying cell biology. Now, a team of biologists from Queens College and Queensborough Community College has succeeded in describing a new mechanism of activating a transcription factor. The study focused on proteins called molecular chaperones, whose job is to protect newly made proteins and help them to fold. They do this without interfering with the final function of the protein, but the underlying mechanisms have always remained obscure. For example, do proteins fold while actually bound to the chaperone, or after their release in a controlled reaction that prevents aggregation with other unfolded proteins?

To address these questions, recent graduate Fulai Ran (Biochemistry doctoral program, CUNY Grad Center), Assistant Professor Nidhi Gadura (Biological Sciences and Geology, QCC), and Distinguished Professor and Chair Corinne Michels (Biology, QC) studied the Hsp90 chaperone system, in particular the ‘co-chaperone’ protein, Aha1. They showed that deletion of the gene for Aha1 resulted in greater activation of the transcriptional activator Mal63, suggesting that Aha1 acts as a

negative regulator. The authors propose two possible explanations. Since this deletion resulted in greater retention of Mal63 with Hsp90 itself, the results could imply that a greater ‘dwell-time’ on the chaperone itself improved folding. But their study also showed that Mal63 interacts with Aha1, suggesting greater complexity in the process than was thought previously. Perhaps Aha1 cochaperone acts early in the chaperone process controlling the sorting of proteins to alternative fates – folding versus misfolding or degradation.

The Hsp90 chaperone system is under intense investigation as a target of novel chemotherapeutics currently in clinical trials, and appears to be important for understanding cystic fibrosis. The study of this QC/QCC team, published in the April 30, 2010 issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry, provides an important step towards further understanding the relationship between chaperone action and transcriptional activation.


Novel Mechanisms of Transcriptional Activation via a Chaperone Complex

Ran, F., N. Gadura, and C.A. Michels. 2010. The Hsp90 cochaperone Aha1 is a negative regulator of the Saccharomyces MAL-activator and acts early in the chaperone activation pathway. Journal of Biological Chemistry 285, 13850-13862.

PERSONALITY CHARACTERISTICS CAN PREDICT SUCCESS IN

MEDICAL SCHOOL

Lievens, F., D. Ones, and S. Dilchert. 2009. Personality scale validities increase throughout medical school. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94(6) 1514–1535.





The American Society of Criminology (ASC) Division of International Criminology has awarded the 2009 Distinguished Book Prize to Dr. Jock Young, Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Criminal Justice at John Jay College and the Graduate Center, and colleagues, Jeff Ferrell (Texas Christian University), and Keith Hayward (University of Kent) for their book, Cultural Criminology: An Invitation.

Lively, innovative, engaging, and accessible, Cultural Criminology documents and discusses the history, methodological innovations, current configuration, and future trajectories of cultural criminology, mapping its terrain for students and academics interested in this exciting field.

The book includes vignettes, case studies, and visual materials to analyze issues of representation, meaning, and politics in relation to crime and criminal justice. It covers areas such as crime and the media, everyday life and everyday transgression, popular culture, consumerism, globalization, and social control.

“It gives us great pleasure to receive this international award which both commends the book and the recognition of cultural criminology as a major new approach to the study of crime and deviance,” commented Dr. Young.

CRIMINOLOGISTS WIN DISTINGUISHED AWARD FOR INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH

Ferrell, J., K. Hayward, and J. Young. 2008. Cultural Criminology: An Invitation. Sage Publications.

TEAM TO DEVELOP REVOLUTIONARY COMPUTATIONAL TOOLS

Lehman College’s Dr. Nancy Griffeth (Mathematics & Computer Science) is part of a national team of researchers working on a new $10 million project that promises to advance science on many fronts, from developing new cancer treatments to designing safer aircraft.

With funding from NSF, the team, led by Carnegie Mellon professor Edmund Clarke, plans to combine “Model Checking” and “Abstract Interpretation”- two independently developed techniques that have been successful, for instance, in detecting errors in systems used to control satellites and railway systems, as well as in other computer circuitry and software.

In related research, Dr. Griffeth has studied how to test and manage computer networks. For the new project, she will examine how computers can learn to create models of a system from observations of its behavior. The computer-generated models can then be used to help scientists determine the properties of the system.

The researchers believe that combining the techniques of Model Checking and Abstract Interpretation could provide insights into other complex systems, both biological and technological. To wit, the findings of the project could benefit

pancreatic-cancer modeling, atrial-fibrillation detection, distributed automotive control, and aerospace control software, among other areas.

“Lehman College is proud to be a partner, through Dr. Griffeth, in this important research, which can potentially open the door to major breakthroughs in medicine and industry,” says Lehman President Ricardo Fernández. “We're also very pleased that she will be able to introduce our own students to this theoretical area.”

As part of the grant, Dr. Griffeth will be involved in the organization of yearly undergraduate workshops on modeling complex systems. These workshops will be open to all CUNY senior college undergraduates, and they will be held at Lehman College each January. For the 2010 workshop, students from Lehman College, Hunter College, Brooklyn College, and Stony Brook University developed and studied properties of models of cellular signaling pathways involved in cell division. In 2011, the workshop will focus on atrial fibrillation; in 2012, on automotive safety; and in 2013, it will focus on aerospace issues. The workshop home page is at http://www.lehman.edu/academics/cmacs.



http://www.lehman.edu/academics/cmacs





The American Dietetic Association (ADA) has released an updated position paper on nutritional supplementation that concludes that, while supplements can help some people meet their nutrition needs, consumption of a wide variety of nutritious foods is the best way to stay healthy and prevent chronic diseases. ADA's revised position paper was written by Dr. Andrea Boyar, Associate Professor of Dietetics, Foods, and Nutrition and Chair of the Department of Health (Lehman College), together with nutrition consultant, Melissa Ventura Marra.

The paper, published in the December 2009 issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, reaffirms the importance of obtaining nutrients from the consumption of a variety of nutrient-rich foods, while acknowledging that some people might need nutrient supplements to help them meet their daily nutritional needs. The paper discusses the effectiveness of nutrient supplements in helping to fill dietary gaps as well as the potential for nutrient excesses. It also provides a list of resources available to assist dietetics practitioners in evaluating the potential benefits and adverse outcomes regarding the use of nutrient supplements.

The paper highlights that dietetic practitioners play an important role in educating consumers on the safe and appropriate use of nutrient supplements, emphasizing that dietetic practitioners should position themselves as the first source of information on nutrient supplementation. To accomplish this, they must keep up-to-date on the efficacy and safety of nutritional supplements and the regulatory issues that affect the use of these products.

According to the authors, “the dietary intakes of many Americans do not meet recommended nutrient intake levels. It is among the roles and responsibilities of dietetic practitioners to help educate the public on healthful dietary patterns and on the safe and appropriate selection and use of nutrient supplements to meet their nutrient needs and optimize health.”


FOOD, NOT SUPPLEMENTS, BEST CHOICE TO STAY HEALTHY

American Dietetic Association. 2009. Position of the American Dietetic Association: Nutrient Supplementation. Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 109 (12) 2073-2085.

Did You Know?CUNY has recently updated its subscription to the

Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI) to

include two new “courses” – Responsible Conduct of

Research (RCR) and Animal Care and Use (IACUC).

All students and postdoctoral research fellows actively

engaged in research at CUNY are required to complete

appropriate modules determined by their faculty

supervisor. The new IACUC modules offer the minimum

required training serving as a baseline for those working

with animals.

For assistance with CITI, contact Patricia MacCubbin, Exec.

Director of Research Conduct at (212) 794-5428.

http://www.cuny.edu/research/compliance.html

Do you have research-related news that you wish to be considered for an upcoming issue

of the CUNY Research Newsletter?

Submit news topics to:

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Dr. Patricia Broderick, Medical Professor in Physiology and Pharmacology at Sophie Davis School of Biomedical Education (CCNY) and Adjunct Professor in Neurology at NYU Langone Medical Center, has developed new bio-imaging sensor technology. This novel technology, patented as the BRODERICK PROBE®, provides an effective way to study the neurochemical nature of the brain in patients with brain diseases and disorders. The technology is the result of nearly twenty years of in-depth research and clinical trials involving patients suffering from a wide range of diseases, including depression, epilepsy, anxiety, schizophrenia, and Alzheimer’s disease.

One of the most innovative aspects of the new sensor technology is that it allows monitoring in real time the release of neurotransmitters in the brain of patients undergoing surgery. “The sensor provides a clear picture of neuronal release activities while the cells are actually working in the patient,” says Dr. Broderick. “All recordings by the sensor are made in real

time, so minute changes in the release of neurotransmitters can be documented.”

According to Dr. Steven Pacia, epileptologist at NYU Langone Medical Center, “The BRODERICK PROBE represents a significant shift in the way that physicians and scientists study the chemistry of the brain. The neurological community has been in search of an effective way to study the neurochemical nature of the brain in humans, and the ability to study neurotransmitter release in the conscious human is a dramatic breakthrough”.

The novel technology will influence clinical research, services, and therapies for patients undergoing treatment for epilepsy, tumors, or spinal cord stimulation. It will soon be tested in patients with Parkinson’s disease, as well as other movement disorders and brain trauma. In addition, the sensor will be used to study aspects of metabolic, neurodegenerative, and neuropsychiatric disorders.


BREAKTHROUGH IN STUDYING NEUROCHEMICAL

NATURE OF THE HUMAN BRAIN

Broderick P.A. & E.H. Kolodny. 2009. Real Time Imaging of Biomarkers in the Parkinson's Brain Using Mini-Implantable Biosensors. II. Pharmaceutical Therapy with Bromocriptine. Pharmaceuticals 2(3) 236-249.

Spammers advertising weight loss products have a receptive audience, says a study by Dr. Joshua Fogel, Associate Professor of Behavioral Sciences and Business at Brooklyn College, and former Brooklyn College student Sam Shlivko. The researchers analyzed data from 200 surveys completed by undergraduate students at Brooklyn College. The results of the study, published in the Southern Medical Journal, indicate that spam emails are particularly successful among individuals sensitive to weight concerns, but are also looked at by those who do not have such concerns.

So, how much attention do “weight loss” spammers get? According to the researchers, over 40% of the survey respondents that perceive themselves as having weight issues had opened and read at least one weight loss spam email during the year prior to the survey. In addition, nearly half of these individuals had actually bought at least one product advertised in one of these emails after reading it. Respondents with self-perceived weight problems were about four times more likely to buy weight loss products offered in spam emails than those that did not see themselves as having weight problems.

“This pattern of buying behavior from spam e-mail is of concern,” said Dr. Fogel. “It appears that many young adults are turning to spam e-mail as a way to address their weight problem concerns. Even among those with no weight problems, over 5% bought something. It may be that young adults are hypersensitive to weight issues and they think, this can’t hurt.”

But it can hurt, as some products advertised in spam emails should only be taken as prescribed by a doctor, while other advertised products are actually dangerous and should not be taken at all. The study recommends that health care providers discuss with their patients the potential risks of opening and/or purchasing from spam email. The researchers recommend that those who assess, counsel, and treat individuals with weight issues “should emphasize to their patients the importance of working together with a health care professional in coordinating care when considering the use of weight loss products.”

Fogel, J. and S. Shlivko. 2010. Weight Problems and Spam E-mail for Weight Loss Products. Southern Medical Journal, 103(1), 31-36.

(Un)wanted Spam E-mails?




In 2010, CUNY held its first University-wide summer undergraduate research program (C-SURP). Nineteen students—representing 10 CUNY senior and community colleges as well as several other 4-year colleges in the New York City area—attended the 8-week program which ran from June 7 through July 30.

Each student was paired with a faculty mentor for hands-on research training spanning a number of the scientific disciplines including, biomedical engineering, biology, chemistry, geography, electrical engineering, physics, astronomy, and psychology. The program supplemented the lab experience with a weekly seminar series that addressed diverse faculty research interests, professional development, and responsible conduct in research. The students also attended the World Science Festival and were given a behind-the-scenes tour of the labs at the American Museum of Natural History.

In addition, each student was provided with a MetroCard and a cultural passport to enable them to visit sites of interest all over New York City. C-SURP culminated in a reception and poster session when the students proudly presented their projects to a distinguished group of CUNY faculty and administrators.


STUDENT RESEARCH: HIGHLIGHTS FROM SUMMER

PROGRAMS SPONSORED BY THE OFFICE OF RESEARCH

Front row: Zhewei Jiang, Joanna Ma, Nnaemezue Obi-Eyisi, Itrat Fatima, Aimee He, Andre Smithson, Evgeny Zagorko Second row: Aida Abbasiazam, Joshua Petimar, Hyeondo "Luke" Hwang, Dan Feldman, Eugene Gonzalez-Lopez, David Kim Third row: Matt Tracey, Frank Aline, Sining Leng Back row: Vahram Andreasyan, Jonathan Rosario, Dr. Jonathan Levitt (Director), Evelyn Okeke

2010 SEES FIRST UNIVERSITY-

WIDE SUMMER UNDERGRADUATE

RESEARCH PROGRAM (C-SURP)

For a third year as part of the New York City Science and Engineering Fair (NYCSEF), CUNY College Now has run a six-week summer research internship program designed for high school juniors and seniors interested in pursuing college degrees in science and engineering. This year, College Now placed 10 student interns, each from a different NYC high school, in 9 labs on four CUNY campuses. On Thursday, August 12th, the students presented their research at the Macaulay Honors College.

College Now hopes to continue expanding the program to other CUNY colleges for summer 2011. For more details about serving as a faculty mentor in next summer’s program, contact Jeannie Song at College Now [email protected] or go to <www.collegenow.cuny.edu/sciencefair>

NYCSEF SUMMER RESEARCH

INTERNSHIP PROGRAM

Front: Spencer Kim, Stephanie Anciro, Kamila Kudelska, Bishoy Ghobryal, and Savera Dhanraj. Back: Jonathan Kim, Enrique Medrano, Edward Aminov, and Mridul Sharma (Shomir Uddin, Not Pictured)





http://www.collegenow.cuny.edu/sciencefair

http://www.collegenow.cuny.edu/sciencefair


Three students from City College took prizes in the poster competition at the Junior Science Conference, held in April 2010 at the Technical University of Vienna (Austria). The Junior Science

Conference, held every two years, presents student research in four areas: computational science and engineering, materials and matter, information and communication technology, and energy and environment. The goal of the conference is to give young researchers the opportunity to present the results of their scientific work to an international audience.

This year, the conference attracted over 200 students from colleges in 14 different countries. CCNY had the second largest delegation after the host university, with 23 undergraduate and graduate students. All CCNY students who participated in the conference received financial support from the Grove School of Engineering, the Division of Science, and the Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LS-AMP) program.

Summa cum laude graduate student Igor Labutov (Computer Engineering) won first place in the master-level competition for his poster “Generating Near-Spherical Probabilistic Range Panoramas Using a Single Camera Catadioptric Stereo Rig”, describing new sensors he helped develop for flying robots. These sensors allow the robots to see in almost every direction and to sense depth. The other winners from CCNY were Xiaodong Yang (Electrical and Computer Engineering) and Magdalini Katehis (Environmental Sciences and Engineering), who won fourth place in the PhD-level competition and fifth place in the masters-level competition, respectively.


In the third year of the Summer Undergraduate Research program at the Systems Biology Center of New York (SBCNY) 10-week fellowships were awarded to seven undergraduates from five CUNY colleges. These students were selected for their strong mathematics skills and their expressed interest in research careers as PhDs or MD/PhDs. This year's fellows included a Finance major from Hunter College.

The Systems Biology Center of New York is a consortium funded by a grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) of the NIH, and housed at the

Mount Sinai School of Medicine. As a SBCNY partner, a portion of CUNY's award specifically provides funding for undergraduate research opportunities for students to examine how the effects of molecular interactions are propagated across scales of organization from cells to tissues and organs, and how these interactions affect physiology and pathophysiology.

CUNY's 2010 SBCNY Summer Fellows are:

Anam Ahmed (Biochemistry, Queens College)

Dmitriy Gorenshteyn (Finance, Hunter College)

Syeda Hussaini (Biology/Biochem., College of Staten Island)

Bijay Kharel (Biomedical Engineering, City College)

Guangyang Li (Biomedical Engineering, City College)

Victor Nnah (Biology, Lehman College)

Pedro Pagan (Biology, Hunter College)

CITY COLLEGE STUDENTS WIN PRIZES AT

INTERNATIONAL JUNIOR SCIENCE CONFERENCE

Seven CUNY Undergrads among Summer Research Fellows at SBCNY

STUDENT RESEARCH




Astronomy students and faculty at the College of Staten Island (CSI) have found two new minor planets in our Solar System. This discovery is being hailed as a major achievement for the CSI Astrophysical Observatory, which beat out many major observatories across the world. The International Astronomical Union (IAU), the world’s leading astronomical organization, has given credit for the discovery to the CSI Observatory Director and Associate Professor of Engineering Science & Physics Irving Robbins. The newly spotted minor planets have temporary coded names containing the date of discovery, 2009 VH24 and 2009 XN07, but Dr.. Robbins will have the honor to name them differently.

With the robotic telescope located at the Willowbrook campus, CSI students and faculty have made themselves an integral part of the global efforts to measure data on Potentially Hazardous Objects (PHOs). The IAU uses CSI’s detection and tracking of potentially hazardous asteroids and comets that could cross Earth’s orbit, as well as Main Belt asteroids, to calculate their orbits around the Sun. With the help of NASA grants, the CSI asteroid group uses robotic telescopes in the mountains of Arizona to further their work. These objects are detected by taking a series of images and then using specialized computer software to find them. They show up in the images as moving objects relative to the distant stars. Dr. Robbins used a few subtle (and secret) tricks to beat out the major asteroid hunting observatories in this latest find.

Asteroids and comets are considered dangerous and labeled Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHA’s) if their Minimum Orbit Intersection Distance (MOID) with respect to Earth is less than 0.05 Astronomical Units (AU) and their diameter is about 500 ft. Since the start of serious searches for these objects in 1988, it is known that more than 1300 known PHA’s will pass this close to the earth from now till the year 2178.


Each year, high school students from throughout the five boroughs of New York City compete in the New York City Science and Engineering Fair (NYCSEF). CUNY College Now and New York City Department of Education organize NYCSEF, the city's only research competition for the high school students from the 290+ public high schools.

In 2010, the Preliminary Round was held on Sunday, March 7 at City College’s Shepard Hall. The top 25% of student researchers from each subject category, a total of 178 projects, were selected to participate in the Finals Round on March 23, held again this year in the Milstein Hall of Ocean Life at the American Museum of Natural History. This year, 14 projects (17 students) were selected to represent NYC at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) in San Jose California on May 9-14. The 17 students came mainly from NYCDOE schools, with one student from Brearley School and one from Hunter College High School. Six of the 14 projects worked with faculty from CUNY.

At ISEF 2010, eight NYCSEF projects received awards. Notably, Andrei Nagornyi, a senior at Stuyvesant High School, won $1000 for 3rd Place in the Grand Award in

Computer Science, plus a $1000 1st Place Priscilla and Bart Bok Award and travel to the next American Astronomical Society meeting. For their team project, Israt Ahmed, Stephanie Chen, and Cathy (Xiao) Zhou, all juniors at Francis Lewis High School or Stuyvesant High School, won a $1000 3rd Place Grand Prize in Earth and Planetary Sciences.

Other NYCSEF finalists to win awards at ISEF 2010 include: Jack Greisman (Stuyvesant High School) won a$250 5th Place Award in Microbiology; Manjinder Kandola (Queens High School for the Sciences at York College) won a $1500 2nd Place in Biochemistry; Soo Kyoung Kim (Bronx High School of Science) won a $1000

3rd Place in Energy and Transportation; Katrina Koon (Stuyvesant High School) won a $1000 3rd Place in Cell and Molecular Biology; Yevgeniy Rudoy (Stuyvesant High School) won a $500 4th Place in Mathematics; and Angela Lee and Klaudia Kluzinski (Forest Hills High School) won a $500 4th Place in Behavioral and Social Sciences. We wish to congratulate all of the 2010 NYCSEF participants and winners.

CUNY NYCSEF FINALISTS WIN

AWARDS AT ISEF 2010

CSI SCIENTISTS IDENTIFY TWO NEW MINOR PLANETS

For further information, see <http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/neo/>



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OUR ANCESTORS BORN 3.6 MILLION YEARS AGO

COULD WALK UPRIGHT – JUST LIKE US

A new study carried out by Will Harcourt-Smith (Assistant Professor, Anthropology, Lehman College) and researchers from the University of Arizona and the University at Albany–SUNY has contributed to stirring up scientific debate about the evolution of upright walking, or bipedalism. Until recently, the scientific community had been unable to ascertain whether early bipeds walked with extended hind limbs like modern humans or with flexed hind limbs like apes. But now, thanks to Dr. Harcourt-Smith and his colleagues, we have compelling evidence that early hominins could walk with a modern human-like striding gait as early as 3.6 MYA.

The team made this conclusion after analyzing three-dimensional scans of experimental footprints of modern humans and comparing them to early hominin footprints found in Laetoli, Tanzania, preserved in volcanic ash. The work was particularly innovative as it used GIS mapping techniques to assess the shape of the prints.

“We compared footprints made by subjects walking with a normal, extended limb gait, and with a bent-knee, bent-hip, apelike gait at their preferred speeds with sand water content of 6 to 8%. These substrate conditions match those of Laetoli, which are described as similar to damp, fine to

medium grained sand,” the researchers report in PLoS ONE, an online, peer-reviewed open access scientific journal. “We compared our experimental data with Laetoli footprint depths calculated from contour maps of the footprint trails. Additionally, we captured kinematic and kinetic data to

determine how walking biomechanics influence footprint morphology.”

Based on morphological measurements of the analyzed footprints, the researchers found that the relative depth of the Laetoli footprints at the heel and toe is about equal to that of modern humans walking with erect gait. These results support the conclusion that the natural selection for energetically-economical bipedalism occurred within the first three to four million years of hominin evolution, long before the appearance of our genus, Homo.

“Although the Laetoli prints have been looked at by scientists before, our study has been able to experimentally show what

previous researchers could not” said Dr. Harcourt-Smith. “This is exciting when you think of the broader implications. We plainly

have very human-like locomotion earlier in the hominin record than we thought. If we have such energetic efficiency at 3.6 million years ago, we probably had pretty decent forms of bipedalism well before 4 MYA!”

Raichlen, D.A. et al. 2010. Laetoli Footprints Preserve Earliest Direct Evidence of Human-Like Bipedal Biomechanics. PLoS ONE 5(3): e9769.

Dr. Harcourt-Smith in Tanzania

Did You Know?The CUNY Postdoctoral Association has started a LinkedIn group. This group was

created as a portal to facilitate an inter-campus network among our postdoctoral

researchers and to serve as a place for current and previous CUNY postdocs to

communicate and network on topics such as

professional training, grant writing, and career

opportunities.





Faculty Project Title

Barbara Berney (Hunter)

Gerald Oppenheimer (Brooklyn)

Jonathan Rosenberg (Hunter)

Tami Gold (Hunter)

The Rapid Desegregation of US Hospitals under Medicare: How was it done? What did it take?

Carlos Meriles (City)

Lev Deych (Queens)Optical Detection of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance in Organic

Fluids via Cavity-enhanced Faraday Rotation

Ying Li Tian (City)

Bon Sy (Queens)Privacy Preserving Video Surveillance in

Complex Environments

Shirzad Jenab (Hunter)

Benjamin Kest (Staten Island) Methamphetamine neurotoxicity

Maria Hartwig (John Jay)

Joshua Freilich (John Jay)

Improving Credibility Judgements in Counterterrorist Settings: Experimentally testing a new approach

to law enforcement training

Jason Dictenberg (Hunter)

Nancy Greenbaum (Hunter)Structural Characterization of the FMRP/Fmr1

mRNA interaction

ROUND 17 (2010)

This year, sixty-two proposals were submitted from

researchers at fifteen CUNY colleges. Among these,

the six projects below were selected for funding this

round.

The research supported in this round includes Health

Care, Photonics, Homeland Security, Drug Toxicity,

Criminal Justice, and Biochemistry.

COLLABORATIVE INCENTIVERESEARCH GRANT PROGRAM




The Advanced Science Research Center (ASRC), currently under construction, will provide laboratory space and core facilities to support the research efforts of scientists from across the CUNY colleges working in five key areas: photonics, structural biology, nanotechnology, neuroscience, and water and environmental sensing. In order to build community among CUNY faculty working in these areas, the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research is sponsoring a series of networking workshops. A retreat for Photonics faculty was held in January 2010, and our next event, The CUNY Environmental Sciences Forum, will be held at the Graduate Center on November 8th. Four outside speakers, including Dr. Franco Einaudi, former head of the Goddard Space Flight Center; Dr. Anna Kerttula de Echave from the National Science Foundation; Dr. Robert

Corell, Chair of the Climate Action Initiative; and Dr. Eric Sanderson, Associate Director of the Living Landscapes Program will provide insight into future research opportunities. Participants will be able to directly communicate with each other about their research during thematic breakout sessions led by CUNY faculty in the afternoon. These breakout sessions will be organized around the broad topic areas of energy, remote sensing and technology, aquatics, sustainable cities and human dimensions. The breakout discussions will be followed by a poster session, in which any interested faculty member or student can participate.

Attendance will be limited to 200 on a first-come-first-served basis – visit www.cuny.edu/research for registration information.

Who would have thought that even in the densely populated New York Metropolitan Area there are still thousands of acres of undeveloped coastal land? Assistant Professor of Geology and GIS at Lehman College, Dr. Yuri Gorokhovich, together with his colleague from NYU, Andrei Voustianiouk, have succeeded in mapping over 740 individual parcels of such undeveloped land. In fact, the researchers identified as many as 122 continuous clusters that together form large parcels of vacant land, with a total area of 15,000 acres. To identify the vacant areas suitable for conservation purposes, Drs. Gorokhovich and Voustianiouk analyzed tax maps from the counties bordering Long Island Sound. The study combined GIS-based multi-criteria analysis and statistical methods. The study was published in the Journal of Coastal Conservation.

The results of this study offer valuable insights for New York State officials in their quest to design new conservation

strategies. Armed with these new data, the conservation of the identified continuous clusters could help reduce non-point source pollution loads into oceans and estuaries, retain natural areas, as well as save ecological communities from change and eventual disappearance.

“The presented method will help coastal managers draw attention to specific vacant parcels and, moreover, explain why a particular parcel received a high priority score (and, therefore, deserves attention). It can also help in situations when coastal conservation priorities or management criteria change, as it permits running new decision-making scenarios and receiving results in a consistent manner.”


CUNY ENVIRONMENTAL

SCIENCES FORUM

IS THERE A GREENER

FUTURE FOR NEW YORK

METRO AREA?

Gorokhovich, Y. and A. Voustianiouk. 2010. Prioritization of Coastal Properties for Conservation in New York State. Journal of Coastal Conservation 14(1) 41-51.

Underwater parcels in the Bronx created with expectation that they would be eventually filled in or developed.







An international team of researchers headed by Dr. Thomas Plummer (Archeology, Queens College) has succeeded in uncovering a large assemblage of artifacts and well-preserved faunal remains in a unique paleoenvironmental setting, which has allowed them to shed new light on the life of human ancestors. The team found evidence suggesting that grassland-dominated ecosystems existed already over two million years ago, and that these ecosystems were populated by Early Stone Age hominins, almost certainly of our same genus, Homo.

In the open-access journal PLoS ONE, Dr. Plummer and his colleagues present the results of excavations at the approximately two-million-year-old archeological site of Kanjera South, located in western Kenya. The site preserves Oldowan tools, the oldest-known type of stone technology, as well as bones from animals butchered by hominins. These findings demonstrate that the site of Kanjera South was located in a grassland-dominated ecosystem during the time interval known as the Plio-

Pleistocene (~2.5-1.5 MYA). The study documents what was previously speculated based on indirect evidence – that grassland-dominated ecosystems did, in fact, exist during the

Plio-Pleistocene and that early human tool-makers were active in open settings.According to researchers, “at least one species of tool-making hominin, almost certainly of the genus Homo, was repeatedly using the open setting.” Artifacts made from a wide variety of raw materials are abundant, as are animal bones. A comparison with other Oldowan sites indicates that by 2 MYA hominins lived in a wide range of habitats in East Africa, from open grassland to riparian forest. This shows that early humans were flexible in their habitat use, suggesting that the ability to find resources in both open and wooded habitats was a key part of their adaptation. This appears to signify an important shift in early humans’ use of the landscape and strongly contrasts with the more woodland focus of the precursors of Homo, species of Australopithecus, who were widespread throughout

Eastern and Southern Africa between 4.2 and 3.0 MYA.

New Evidence on our Tool-making Human Ancestors

Plummer T. et al. 2009. Oldest Evidence of Toolmaking Hominins in a Grassland-Dominated Ecosystem. PLoS ONE 4(9): e7199.

Workers processing the material in 1m x 1m grids at Excavation I (above). In situ fossils and stone tools discovered by Dr. Plummer and

colleagues at Kanjera South, in southwestern Kenya (below).




Exposure to violent video games increases the likelihood of aggressive and antisocial behavior, thoughts, and feelings, according to an international team of researchers that included Dr. Hannah Rothstein (Baruch College, Management) and Dr. Craig Anderson (Iowa State University). To reach this conclusion, the team analyzed 130 video game research reports on more than 130,000 individuals, ranging from elementary school-aged children to college undergraduates. The study was published in the Psychological Bulletin, a journal of the American Psychological Association.

The researchers used six independent meta-analyses - statistical techniques employed to synthesize research results from separate but related studies - to test the effects of violent video game play on young participants from the United States, Europe, and Japan. The evidence suggests that exposure to violent video games is a causal risk factor for increased aggressive behavior, aggressive cognition, and aggressive affect, as well as for decreased empathy and prosocial behavior. In

addition, the team’s analyses revealed that the effects of violent video game are significant in both Western and Eastern cultures, independent of the sex of the participants.

“We can now say with utmost confidence that regardless of the research method - that is experimental, correlational, or longitudinal - and regardless of the cultures tested in this study, you get the same effects,” said Dr. Anderson. “And the effects are that exposure to violent video games increases the likelihood of aggressive behavior in both short-term and long-term contexts.”

“Although the effects may appear modest by some standards, they are just as strong as effects from deliberate interventions that are considered successful. In addition, the highest quality studies in our analyses showed the strongest effects. It is reasonable to conclude that we must take the impact of violent video game exposure very seriously,” said Dr. Rothstein.


IS PLAYING VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES MAKING OUR

CHILDREN MORE AGGRESSIVE?

CITY COLLEGE BIOLOGISTS IDENTIFY A NEW SPECIES OF

SPINY POCKET MOUSE IN VENEZUELA

Dr. Robert Anderson (Biology, City College) and CUNY PhD student Eliécer Gutiérrez have identified a new species of spiny pocket mouse. This latest find has been named the Overlook Spiny Pocket Mouse or Heteromys catopterius, a name derived from Greek meaning a “height that commands a view.” The name refers to the species’ presence on four wet and mountainous forest regions of the rugged Cordillera de la Costa, along Venezuela’s northern coast. The new species is described in the Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History.

“Most people are surprised to learn that new species of mammals are still being discovered,” Dr. Anderson said. “Sometimes they are discovered based on genetic work, but this is a case where anatomy made it clear a species existed that had never been recognized by biologists before.”

The Overlook Spiny Pocket Mouse can be differentiated from the more common Caribbean Spiny Pocket Mouse (H.

anomalus) by darker colored fur, a wider and less elongated skull, and less rounded ears. In addition, their habitats differ markedly with the Overlook Spiny Pocket Mouse found at elevations ranging from around 350 to 2500 m above sea level, whereas the Caribbean Spiny Pocket Mouse resides mostly in the surrounding lowlands.

To take the research one step forward, Dr. Anderson and his colleagues are using computer mapping and DNA sequencing to study the geographic distributions of species of the genus Heteromys and determine the evolutionary relationships among them. The results of this research will answer questions regarding species diversification and colonization of South America, assess the conservation status of spiny pocket mice, and predict their future distribution under scenarios of global climate change. For his doctoral dissertation, Mr. Gutiérrez is conducting similar research with mouse opossums Marmosa.

Anderson, C. et al. 2010. Violent Video Game Effects on Aggression, Empathy, and Prosocial Behavior in Eastern and Western Countries: A Meta-Analytic Review. Psychological Bulletin, 136(2) 151-173.

Anderson, R. P. & E. E. Gutiérrez. 2009. Taxonomy, distribution, and natural history of the genus Heteromys (Rodentia: Heteromyidae) in central and eastern Venezuela, with the description of a new species from the Cordillera de la Costa. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, 331:33-93.





NEAR REAL TIME MAPPING OF URBAN AND

ENVIRONMENTAL FEATURES FROM SATELLITE DATA

Urban environments are dynamic and complex systems constantly undergoing physical, environmental, and socioeconomic transformations. Management of these environments requires timely acquisition, analysis, and modeling of spatio-temporal geospatial data that covers both natural and human dimensions. With this goal in mind, Dr. Sunil Bhaskaran (Bronx Community College and York College) and CUNY undergraduate students Shanka Paramananda and Maria Ramnarayan tested the suitability of very high resolution (VHR) satellite images for mapping urban and environmental features. The study area included the five boroughs of New York City.

“The main goal of our study was to develop spatial and spectral algorithms programs for the automated extraction of different terrestrial features, such as roof types, vegetation, agricultural areas, infrastructure, and water bodies,” explains Dr. Bhaskaran. “To do so, we processed, orthorectified, and

classified spatial data by a new technique that combines traditional per-pixel parametric and object-based classification methods. Whilst the per-pixel approach produced reasonable overall accuracy, specific classes with near similar spectral characteristics registered low user’s accuracy. We were able to improve the accuracy of these classes by using an object-oriented classification method.”

Given the high spatial accuracy but limited spectral resolution of VHR satellite images, such as IKONOS or GeoEye-I, the team concluded that “the combined approach using per-

pixel and object-oriented classification methods may prove useful in the analysis of VHR satellite

data, since it results in higher per class accuracy.” The robustness of the new model for classifying and modeling the urban environment and its cost-effectiveness are significant features of this methodology. The model results may be used in environmental sensing, urban planning, energy and disaster management, as well as other applications.

Site map for this study including portions of Brooklyn and Queens

Bhaskaran, S., S. Paramananda, & M. Ramnarayan. 2010. Per-pixel and object-oriented classification methods for mapping urban features using Ikonos satellite data, Applied Geography, doi:10.1016/j.apgeog.2010.01.009.

Did You Know?With the support of the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and the campuses, CUNY has

recently purchased a University-wide subscription to Science Direct, one of the largest repositories for

online journal resources, with over 1,750 titles available. These titles are accessible through your

campus online journal catalog.




properly. Dr. Banerjee’s most recent paper addressed the efficacy of Clozapine — a drug that works to mimic the serotonin 1A receptor in exactly this manner.

When he’s not dueling developmental disorders, he’s battling tumors with turmeric. Dr. Banerjee’s other line of research involves the molecule curcumin, which gives cancer cells a run for their money as well as the popular Southeast Asian spice turmeric its yellow hue. Early studies showed that curcumin is responsible for statistically significant lower incidence of certain types of cancer in countries where turmeric is a dietary staple. The difficulty is that this strong anti-bacterial and anti-cancer agent is insoluble in water, so the body usually metabolizes it before it can go to work protecting the brain.

So Dr. Banerjee implants cancer cells in the brains of mice and then injects soluble curcumin into the tumor. Early results

have shown these tumors shrink. The next step is to link curcumin directly to an antibody to make the molecule more stable and deliverable to cancer cells. Though the results are unproven in humans, this research has caught the attention of patients living with brain cancer seeking experimental treatment. Dr. Banerjee has published nearly 50 papers thus far, many of which co-authored with his CUNY undergrad, masters, and doctoral students.


FACULTY SPOTLIGHT

PROBAL BANERJEE“ We use genetically altered mice that lack the serotonin 1A receptor, making them very

nervous. Then we keep an eye on the pathways that lead from this missing

receptor.”– Dr. Probal Banejee

College of Staten Island


Since capping their leaking oil well on September 17, 2010, British Petroleum continues to struggle to clean up the spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Many are voicing concerns about the toxicity of the chemical dispersants that are being used in the clean-up process. Since the spill began on April 24, Associate Professor of Chemistry at City College Dr. George John (left) has been contacted by several multinational companies and numerous media outlets, such as the Discovery Channel, MSNBC, Associated Press, and National Public Radio, thanks to a new class of sugar-based solidifiers synthesized by his research team. With this new gelator in hand, we are now one step closer to finding an eco-friendly alternative to the methods currently used to clean up oil.

Indeed, Dr. John and his team have developed a new oil recovery agent that turns oil spilled on salt water into a gel-like substance. Within five minutes, the oil-swollen gel (right) is thick enough to be scooped up like a layer of congealed fat. The researchers have tested the gelling abilities of the newly developed material on various types of oils, including diesel, mineral, and silicone oils.

As the team reports in a cover article in Angewandte Chemie, one of the world’s leading chemistry journals, the new gelator is environmentally benign. This new class of amphiphiles is based on compounds synthesized from natural sugars using biocatalysis. Intriguingly, the gelator, and the oil trapped in it, can be reused: the gel can be liquefied by heating, allowing the oil to be separated from the remaining mass through vacuum distillation. After separation, both the oil and the gelator can be used again.

So far, the new oil recovery agent has only been tested in the laboratory, but researchers are optimistic that their “sugar-based gelators provide an approach for the development of new materials to combat oil slicks on water.” This optimism is shared by several companies, which have expressed interest in developing a process to scale up the gelator so that it can be used in an oceanic setting. Since its publication, their work has been highlighted in Nature Chemistry, Chemical and Engineering News (C&EN), and Science Daily.

To view a short video of their new gelator in action, visit <http://www1.ccny.cuny.edu/advancement/news/CCNY-Led-Team-Develops-Non-Toxic-Oil-Recovery-Agent.cfm>

Jadhav S. R. et al. 2010. Sugar-Derived Phase-Selective Molecular Gelators as Model Solidifiers for Oil Spills. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 49, 1-5.

NEW METHOD TO CLEAN OIL SPILLS



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Faculty Project Title

Igor Balsim (Kingsborough CC)

Theresa Mastrianni (Kingsborough CC)Agent Based Models in Marketing and Data Representation

Brahmadeo Dewprashad (BMCC)

Wesley Pitts (Lehman College)Value of Cogenerative Dialogues in STEM Learning

Bronislaw Czarnocha (Hostos CC)

Olen Dias (Hostos CC)

Vrunda Prabhu (Bronx CC)

William Baker (Hostos CC)

Problem Solving in Remedial Mathematics: A Jumpstart to Reform

COMMUNITY COLLEGE INCENTIVE RESEARCH GRANT

ROUND 7 (2010)

For 2010, 20 proposals were submitted from investigators at all

CUNY community colleges. This year, three projects were

selected based on technical merit and their potential to attract

external funding opportunities.

Collaborative research efforts made by our faculty are rich and

varied in discipline and subject, the projects below are

representative of the unique opportunity CUNY faculty have to

create innovative projects that link investigators together in ways

which yield vital data, important advances, and community

building across the CUNY campuses.

After Libya, Dr. Haque made her way to the US. First as a visiting scientist at the National Institute of Science in Bethesda Maryland, with a brief stint at the Georgetown University, and finally to New York City, where she worked for twelve years at the Institute for Basic Research in Developmental Disabilities on Staten Island. In 2004, Dr. Haque came to City Tech, and has since received tenure.

Today, Dr. Haque is the one influencing young minds about the mysteries and complexities of the brain. Her two lines of research: biodiversity in Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal and stem cell research in neurodegenerative disease—specifically Alzheimer’s and Parkinson's—has led to invitations to international and national conferences, and many scientific publications in peer-reviewed journals.

FACULTY SPOTLIGHT

NILOUFAR HAQUE

“ If you could remove the dust (lipofuscin), the brain cells may get

a chance to breathe.”

– Dr. Niloufar Haque

New York City College

of Technology





A team of researchers including Drs. Luisa Borrell (Lehman College, Health Sciences) and David Rindskopf (CUNY Graduate Center, Educational Psychology) found that, of adults undiagnosed with diabetes, 93.4% of those with periodontal (gum) disease, compared to 62.9% of those without gum disease, are at risk for diabetes, meeting American Diabetes Association guidelines for diabetes screening.

Among those individuals with periodontitis who would have received this recommendation to screen for diabetes, 33.9% saw a dentist in the past 6 months, 50.0% saw a dentist in the past year, and 60.4% saw a dentist in the past 2 years. Thus, a large number of persons with periodontal disease at risk for diabetes have had recent contact with a dental professional. This led the team headed by Dr. Shiela Strauss, New York University Associate Professor of Nursing who received her Ph.D. from CUNY Graduate Center, to conclude that dentists should consider offering diabetes screenings in their offices.

Their research, published in the Journal of Public Health Dentistry, was based on data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2003-2004. The team used data collected from 2,923 individuals aged 20 years or older, who reported that they were never informed that they had diabetes, had a periodontal examination, and had available body mass index data. Together with other collected data, this allowed the authors of the study to determine whether they were at risk for diabetes.

According to the researchers, dentists could screen patients for diabetes by evaluating them for risk factors such as being overweight, belonging to high-risk ethnic groups, having high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and family history of diabetes. Alternatively, dentists could use a glucose meter to determine the approximate concentration of glucose in the blood, an approach currently being implemented in some Minnesota dental practices.

GUM DISEASE LINKED TO

DIABETES RISK


Dr. Margaret Bull-Kovera is Professor of Psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, where she has been on the faculty since 2004. Her research is focused on enhancing our knowledge of how legal decision makers evaluate scientific evidence. As part of her research, Dr. Kovera has surveyed judges and attorneys, randomly presenting some of them with valid evidence and others with evidence containing methodological flaws. Her findings indicate that the two groups of legal decision makers showed a similar inability to identify flawed evidence. Dr. Kovera’s other projects include analyzing the effects of jury selection on jury decisions, as well as the effects of double-blind lineups on the reliability of eyewitness identifications.

As an internationally recognized expert in the field of forensic psychology, Dr. Kovera has received numerous honors and awards, including the Ursa Major Award for Outstanding Professional Contributions, the Award for Outstanding Teaching and Mentoring in the Field of Psychology and Law, and the Saleem Shah Early Career Award for Excellence and Achievement in Research.

Dr. Margaret Bull-KoveraPsychologyJohn Jay College

Judge and Jury: Psychology in the Courtroom

Monday, November 1 2010Kouzan Japanese Restaurant

Amsterdam at 93rd St

Other upcoming Serving Science events

Dr. Ofer Tchernichovski (City College) & Dr. Diana Reiss (Hunter College)

Monday, Dec. 6, 2010Bird Culture and Dolphin Intelligence: How We Learn from Animal Behavior

Follow Serving Science

on Facebook and Twitter

Strauss, S. et al. 2010. The dental office visit as a potential opportunity for diabetes screening: an analysis using NHANES 2003-2004 data. Journal of Public Health Dentistry, 70(2), 156-162.




Predicting changes in the Earth’s climate is a dreadfully complex challenge. If predicting the future is a daunting task, analyzing changes in the Earth’s climate during the recent past has turned out to be no easy task either, due to the huge number

of confounding effects that impact our climate. Two recent studies co-authored by City College Associate Professor of Earth & Atmospheric Science, Marco Tedesco (above), provide new insights into some of these recent changes. Using satellite microwave observations during a 30-year period, Dr. Tedesco and his colleagues found that, on average, the ice melt at both South and North Poles slowed down in the past 30 years. Both studies have been published in the peer-reviewed journal Geophysical Research Letters.

In the first study, Dr. Tedesco and colleagues from the National Snow and Ice Data Center and Lehigh University used a modified version of an algorithm based on Diurnal Amplitude Variations to study trends of melt onset dates, melt end days, and the melt season length for areas at latitudes above 60°N. The results, based on spaceborne microwave observations for the 1980-2009 period, indicate that, on average, during the past 30 years melting in areas above 60°N has been starting and ending sooner, and that the length of the melting season has shortened. The researchers then linked these snowmelt trends with the Arctic Oscillation (AO), the dominant pattern of non-seasonal sea-level pressure variations north of 20°N latitude. According to Dr. Tedesco’s team, the AO index variability explains nearly 50% of the melt onset variability over Eurasia and some 10% of that over North America.

In the second study, co-authored with Andrew Monaghan (National Center for Atmospheric Research), Dr. Tedesco analyzed snowmelt in the South Pole during the years 1979-2009. The results indicate that snowmelt in the Antarctic region has been below the average level for several years, and that a 30-year minimum Antarctic snowmelt record occurred during the austral summer of 2008-2009. According to the researchers, low melt years during the 1979-2009 satellite record were related to the strength of the westerly winds that encircle Antarctica, known as the Southern Hemisphere Annular Mode (SAM). When the SAM is in a positive phase – meaning that the belt of winds is stronger than average – it has a cooling effect on Antarctic surface temperatures. The SAM was especially strong during the austral spring and summer of 2008-2009, and subsequently the 2008-2009 snowmelt hit a low record.

The findings of this second study have been featured in a cover article in Eos, the newspaper of the American Geophysical Union. In this article, Drs. Tedesco and Monaghan emphasize that “efforts to understand the relative roles of the natural and anthropogenic mechanisms that influence Antarctic climate variability will be crucial for projecting future melt in Antarctica and subsequent impacts on ice sheet mass balance and sea level.”

Recently, National Geographic photographer, James Balog, accompanied Dr. Tedesco to Greenland and the resulting photo essay on Dr. Tedesco’s research was featured as the cover story in the July 2010 issue of National Geographic magazine. Finally, the audience of Serving Science—the CUNY Science Café had the pleasure of hearing Dr. Tedesco discuss this fascinating research on Monday, October 4, 2010 at Kouzan Restaurant.


THREE DECADES OF GLOBAL COOLING?

Tedesco, M. et al. 2009. Pan arctic terrestrial snowmelt trends (1979– 2008) from spaceborne passive microwave data and correlation with the Arctic Oscillation. Geophysical Research Letters, 36, L21402.

Tedesco, M. and A.J. Monaghan. 2010. Climate and melting variability in Antarctica. Eos, Transactions, American Geophysical Union, 91(1).

Icebergs in Ilulissat, Greenland





CITY TECH STUDENTS’ WATER QUALITY RESEARCH

YIELDS SURPRISING RESULTS

While their peers were going to beaches and lakes to get a respite from the summer heat, a group of New York City College of Technology (City Tech) students were going to the water, too — to the Gowanus Canal and the Hudson River — as part of an interdisciplinary summer project that allowed them to get hands-on experience conducting and analyzing research.

Under the direction of City Tech Professors Urmi Ghosh-Dastidar (Mathematics) and Liana Tsenova (Biological Sciences), the nine students found that one of the Hudson River sites had significantly high levels of E. coli.

The project, “Bio-Math Mapping: Water Quality Analysis of the Hudson and Gowanus,” allowed the students, all but one of whom are majoring in applied mathematics at City Tech, the opportunity to combine mathematics with Epidemiology, Microbiology and Environmental Studies through a four-week investigation of water quality in nearby bodies of water. In

addition, they were given a crash course in Statistics and Microbiology by Drs. Ghosh-Dastidar and Tsenova.

Dr. Tsenova and her students at their Hudson River sampling site

CANCER SENSOR DEVELOPED BY HUNTER SCIENTISTS

A team of scientists from Hunter College and the Barcelona Institute of Microelectronics (Spain) have developed a novel cancer sensor that can detect malignant cells by exploiting the fact that malignant cells increase more in volume than normal cells when placed in deionized water. It takes only about half an hour for this electronic sensor to identify malignant cells, with the goal of detecting them from tissue samples, significantly less time than other more time-consuming detection methods. With further development, the scientists expect that this sensor could be used to prescreen large populations of individuals for cancer. The team was led by Hunter College Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Hiroshi Matsui, in collaboration with Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Charles Michael Drain. CUNY postdoctoral research fellow, Dr. Roberto de la Rica, was lead author of the study published in a recent issue of Analytical Chemistry.

To study the swelling of malignant and normal cells, the researchers first stained the plasma membranes of cancer cells and their respective noncancerous counterparts, with a

fluorescent dye, and then immersed them in deionized water to apply hyposmotic stress. Based on the analysis of these cells, the scientists imaged snap-shots by a fluorescence microscope that showed osmotic pressure had a much greater impact on the size

of malignant cells than on normal cells. Indeed, malignant cells grew in size by an average of 40%, which allowed the team to detect them using micro-electrodes within 30 minutes even in the presence of a vast excess of the respective noncancerous cells.

“This sensor can detect Moloney murine sarcoma cells, human

kidney carcinoma cells, and ovarian cancer cells by measuring their dynamic volume increases under the hyposmotic stress with an

impedance change between interdigitated electrodes. When these cells are exposed to pure water, the internal pressure swells soft cancer cells progressively without bursting in a 2-min time frame, whereas the stiffer normal cells cannot change their volume because their plasma membranes are quickly damaged without swelling.”

Detected change in cancer (top) and normal cells (bottom) in deionized water.

De la Rica, R. et al. 2009. Label-free cancer cell detection with impedimetric transducers. Analytical Chemistry, 81(24), 10167–10171.

New York City College of Technology




QUEENS COLLEGE SCIENTIST MAPS

HUDSON CONTAMINATION

INVESTOR NEWSLETTER ISSUE N°3 FALL 2008

Dr. Gregory O’Mullan (School of Earth & Environmental Sciences, Queens College), has teamed up with John Lipscomb, a patrol boat operator of Riverkeeper, the state’s largest clean water advocacy group, to map contamination points along the Hudson River and its tributaries. With support from colleagues and students at Queens College, Riverkeeper, and Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, the team have spent nearly three years taking samples at various locations from Albany to New York to determine water quality on specific days.

Results from samples obtained from 2006 to 2009 show that the overall water quality of the state’s largest river is highly variable depending on both site location and time of sampling. The researchers found, that during periods of dry weather, conditions in the mid-channel of the river are usually acceptable. However, after wet weather events, the counts of sewage-indicating bacteria far exceed safety standards for recreation involving primary contact with the water, such as swimming and kayaking, particularly along shorelines.

According to O’Mullan, “People should stay out of the Hudson after a storm because large amounts of raw sewage can be washed into the river by even modest amounts of rain. The rain overwhelms the combined sanitary and stormwater sewer systems. During dry weather, the sewer systems carry raw sewage to wastewater treatment plants for processing, but following rain events large volumes of untreated waste are released into the river via sewer overflows.”

“When people ask whether it’s safe to swim in the river, they are told – correctly – that, overall, it is,” says O’Mullan. But that statement fails to tell the entire story. “It doesn’t matter what the water was like over the last 10 years. You want to know what the water is like on the day you are in the water.”

By mapping the extremes of sewage contamination in the city’s waterways, the researchers hope to predict when and where water conditions are safe – and when they are dangerous. They also hope the results of the study will provide communities with practical ways to help improve water quality in the river, to the benefit of people and the Hudson’s flora and fauna.


On September 29, 2010, the seventh annual CUNY Fall IRB Symposium, entitled “New Decade - New Problems or Are They the Same Ones Repackaged?” was held at the CUNY Graduate Center. This event was designed to present topics of interest to social and behavioral, and biomedical IRBs, as well as research administrators and researchers.

The keynote address, "To Consent or Not to Consent: How to Get It and How to Waive It," was given by Ernest Prentice, PhD (Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at the University of Nebraska Medical Center), and set the stage for discussing the changes over time regarding informed consent. The opening plenary addressed new problems with informed consent, data security, and the definition of a human subject while conducting research over the internet.

There were three sets of breakout sessions throughout the day: a basic track, an advanced track, and a hot topics track. One breakout session featured a “Mock IRB” in which an IRB discussed a protocol as if in a real meeting. Given the recent court decision on stem cell research, the breakout session on stem cells was timely and interesting.

The closing plenary session, “Getting the House in Order; Institutional Responsibilities - A Conversation,” featured an informal discussion concerning current topics of interest. This panel included Melody Lin, PhD, Deputy Director of the Office of Human Research Protections, the federal oversight agency.

For information and presentations from this and previous CUNY IRB symposia, visit: <http://www.cuny.edu/research/ovcr/human-subjects-research/events.html>

Seventh Annual CUNY Fall IRB Symposium



http://www.cuny.edu/research/ovcr/human-subjects-research/events.html





—for example, women still comprise less than 10% of full-time, employed doctorates in engineering.1

Nevertheless, over the last two decades women have moved in larger numbers into leadership positions at

academic institutions across the country. In fact, in 2007 women occupied approximately 23% of college and university presidencies in the US. This number was only

9.5% twenty years ago.2 It is noteworthy that, of the 23 CUNY campuses and schools, nine are currently being led by women presidents or deans.

Women are also leading the charge in industry, with executives such as Deborah Dunsire, President and CEO of Millennium Pharmaceuticals, and Tina Nova, co-Founder and CEO of Genoptix Medical Laboratory.

The opportunities for women to excel in a career in science are vast and varied. However, we should also bear in mind that only 15 of the 72 members elected to

the National Academy of Sciences in 2010 were women, and that between 1901 and 2009, the Nobel Prizes were awarded 537 times to a total of 802 individuals—yet

only 40 women in total have been awarded the Nobel

Prize (Marie Curie received the award twice in 1903 and 1911).

It is easy to think of some of the hurdles facing women as the progress through their careers. A 2008

report on why women leave science noted that the average age that a women receives her PhD is 34; therefore the 5-7 years she then spends moving towards

tenure fall right in the middle of her peak years for starting and raising a family.3

A number of issues that bear on the progression of

women (and men) through their careers in research are discussed in a new National Research Council Report, Gender Differences at Critical Transitions in the Careers of Science, Engineering, and Mathematics Faculty.4 This is not the forum

to discuss some of the points raised—but I would encourage you to take a look at this report and we should collectively create opportunities to discuss the findings!

At CUNY our women scientists, faculty and students are excelling—some indeed are highlighted throughout this issue of the Research Newsletter.

INVESTOR NEWSLETTER ISSUE N°3 FALL 2008

from the Vice Chancellor



1 National Science Board, Science and Engineering Indicators 2010. Arlington, VA: National Science Foundation (NSB 10-01). 2010; Commission on Professionals in Science and Technology, Women in Science and Technology: the Sisyphean Challenge of Change. STEM Workforce Data Project: Report No. 2, 2004.

2 American Council on Education, American College President. 2007 edition.

3 Sue V. Rosser and Mark Zachary Taylor, “Why Women Leave Science: Fixing the leaky pipeline has become a matter of national competitiveness.” Technology Review, January-February 2008

4 National Research Council, Gender Differences at Critical Transitions in the Careers of Science, Engineering, and Mathematics Faculty. National Academies Press: Washington DC, 2010




RESEARCH OFFICE

Gillian Small, PhD

Vice Chancellor for Research

Avrom Caplan, PhD

Associate University Dean for Research

Laurence Frabotta, PhD

Director, Special Research Programs

Effie MacLachlan, PhD

Research Programs Manager/Grant Writer

Derek Steele, PhD

Project Coordinator

Nadia Prokofieva, MA

Project Associate

Luz Jimenez, MPA

Executive Assistant to the Vice Chancellor

LaToya Jackson, BA

Administrative Assistant

Office of Research Conduct

Patricia MacCubbin, MS

Executive Director of Research Conduct and

Special Advisor to the Vice Chancellor for Research

Arita Winter, BA

Research Conduct Associate

Tara Smith, BA

Sr. Administrative Assistant

Technology Commercialization Office

Jake Maslow, Esq.

Director, Technology Commercialization Office

Elaine Lu, PhD

Technology Commercialization Associate

Nitin Virmalwar, MIP, SM

Technology Commercialization Associate

Wei Chen, PhD

Technology Commercialization Business Assistant

Newsletter ContributorsLoren Bonner, MA

Faculty Spotlights: Haque, Goldfarb

Joe Filippazzo, MA

Faculty Spotlights: Banerjee

CALENDAR

OCTOBEROctober 4, 2010

Serving Science: the CUNY Science Café

Dr. Marco Tedesco (City College)Glacial Meltdown & the Impact of Global Warming

http://web.cuny.edu/research/Serving-Science-CUNY-

Science-Cafe.html

NOVEMBERNovember 1, 2010

Serving Science: the CUNY Science CaféDr. Margaret Bull-Kovera (John Jay College)

Judge and Jury: Psychology in the Courtroom

November 3, 2010

Furthering your Science Career at the NIH and

CVs and Resumes: Essential Job Search DocumentsDr. Lori M. Conlan, PhD

Director, OPS, OITE, NIH

John Jay College, Room 630T

November 8, 2010

CUNY Environmental Science Forum (see Pg 17)CUNY Graduate Center

DECEMBERDecember 6, 2010

Serving Science: the CUNY Science Café

Dr. Ofer Tchernichovski (City College) &

Dr. Diana Reiss (Hunter College)Bird Culture and Dolphin Intelligence:

How We Learn from Animal Behavior

Do you know someone on your campus who does not receive the CUNY Research

Newsletter?

CUNY RESEARCH NEWSLETTER

Subscription and Suggestions

Via email at [email protected]

The City University of New York Research Office 535 E 80th Street New York NY 10075




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