www.cuny.edu/research Page 1

On February 14th 2010, Dr. Joseph Birman (Cum Laude, '47), Distinguished Professor of Physics at City College received the prestigious Andrei Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought at the “April in February” meeting of the American Physical Society (APS) in Washington DC for his nearly 35 years of advocacy in defense of the human rights of scientists worldwide. In 2006, he received the Heinz Pagels Award from the New York Academy of Sciences, and his efforts were also honored by the 1994 publication, Theories of

Matter: A Festschrift for Professor Joseph Birman (World Scientific Pub.).

When you perform a broad search for “collaborative research” on the National Science Foundation website, you will get more than 20,000 hits. This is just a single indicator that many federal funding agencies such as the NSF and the NIH are making the promotion and expansion of collaborative research initiatives one of their primary objectives. This is not news to most researchers who are very familiar with this trend towards funding collaborative projects—which often require the inclusion of faculty from multiple disciplines and sometimes from across multiple institutions. This trend will only gain momentum as we tackle emerging complex problems that necessitate a multi-pronged approach such as global warming, future energy sources, and the neurological problems associated with aging to name but a few.

HIGHLIGHTS

Page 1Human Rights Advocacy

Distinguished Professor Joseph

Birman receives Sakharov Prize

Page 2-3

FACULTY SPOTLIGHTSFlor Henderson

Brett Sims

Vicki Flaris

Tak Cheung

Page 4New Undergrad Research Program

Research Office has started the

new CUNY Summer Undergrad

Research Program (C-SURP)

Page 10CAREER Grant Incentive Program

Research Office to provide 10%

supplement to 2010 CAREER

Awards winners at CUNY

Page 11Harvesting Energy from Air Flow

Yiannis Andreopoulos (CCNY) et

al. use piezoelectrics to harvest

electricity from exterior of planes

Page 13CUNY Nobel Science Challenge

BMCC Sophomore Kimberly

Thompson wins Grand Prize

Page 16

Deforestation not cause of Mayan collapse?

Cameron McNeil (Lehman) et al.

find evidence that forests

increased near Copal during Fall

Page 22Sticky Nature of Amyloids

Peter Lipke (Brooklyn) and

colleagues patent new method of

‘declumping’ biofilms

Greetings from theVice Chancellor

VOLUME 5, ISSUE 2 SPRING 2010

CUNY’S JOSEPH BIRMAN HONORED

FOR HUMAN RIGHTS ADVOCACY

Continued on Page 20

Research NewsletterOffice of the Vice Chancellor for Research

Continued on Page 23

www.cuny.edu/research Page 2

FACULTY SPOTLIGHT

FLOR HENDERSONASSISTANT PROFESSOR

BIOLOGY, HOSTOS COMMUNITY COLLEGE

VOLUME 4, ISSUE 2 WINTER 2008

FACULTY SPOTLIGHT

BRETT SIMSASSOCIATE PROFESSOR

MATHEMATICS, BOROUGH OF MANHATTAN COMM. COLLEGE

VOLUME 5, ISSUE 2 SPRING 2010

In this issue, we highlight four Community College faculty with creative research programs

Continued on Page 16

Joe

Fili

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Dr. Flor Henderson has a personal as well as a

professional mission at Hostos Community College in the Bronx, where she has been an Assistant Professor of Biology for the past seven years. Most of her students are immigrants who face certain challenges in their schooling, like language barriers. Dr. Henderson is all the more willing to put in the long hours to make sure they are well prepared for their futures in the sciences.

“Working here has meaning because I’m also an immigrant. I recognize the struggles, “ she said.

Dr. Henderson grew up in Peru and studied biology as an undergraduate at Universidad Nacional San Antonio Abad del Cusco. During her final year of study, she was invited to

participate as a field research assistant with a Smithsonian group in Manu National Park in southeast Peru. It was a pivotal moment in her career as a scientist. During a three-day canoe ride up the Manu river, Dr. Henderson was so struck by the palms that lined the river that she ended up dedicating the rest of her career to studying them.

She eventually came to the United States and earned a Ph.D. in Biology from the CUNY Graduate Center. Her research has focused on the evolutionary developmental biology of palms, with the goal of gathering new information of the palm family to

Continued on Page 17

Dr. Brett Sims sees math everywhere. Sure, he’s

been a theoretician for a decade and a Professor of Mathematics at the Borough of Manhattan Community College for the past eight months, but his ability to model complicated systems extends far beyond his field of mathematical electrophysiology. Sims has a theory about higher education and the true role of the undergraduate student that, for him, is as simple as two plus two.

“The idea for me has always been to cultivate the minds of students, leading them toward a research paradigm,” Sims says. “Above all, I want to lead them in a direction that exercises their ability to discover.” Sims manages this by encouraging his remedial math students to help him conduct research in some of the most advanced and perhaps consequential topics within

mathematics — the study of electrical flow through organic tissue.

Sims points out that most students have more trouble with the definition of a derivative than they do creating a model and composing a formula to describe a traveling heart pulse. For the mathematicians out there, there exists a non-trivial solution to this problem: Use language that students can identify with and give them opportunities to exercise their intuition.

Lor

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er

www.cuny.edu/research Page 3

Through her direct experience in the materials science

industry, Dr. Vicki Flaris, Assistant Professor of

Chemistry, maintains a strong research program in her classroom at Bronx Community College.

Before joining the faculty at BCC, she worked for over 15 years at ICI, BASF, Huntsman, and DuPont Canada. In 2007, she was named President of the Society of Plastics Engineers — a position generally not considered for community college professors. Although she's quite busy with her teaching and research responsibilities, Dr. Flaris realizes that maintaining her industry contacts only strengthens her research goals at BCC.

The relationships that result from attending conferences, being president of the Society of Plastics Engineers, and generally stepping outside of the classroom, can open doors for research collaborations. Recently, Dr. Flaris took six of her students to the

Canadian National Research Council in Montreal. The students were exposed to new innovations in the field through two company visits. A collaborative project between Dr. Flaris and the Research Council also resulted — focusing on determining the efficiency of a mechanical device in extruding plastic membranes to create more holes, increasing porosity.

Dr. Flaris' research focuses on environmentally-friendly membranes and the physical properties of these membranes, such as pore size distribution and surface porosity. Her goal is to demonstrate to her students that this type of research is possible on the Bronx campus — albeit without a true laboratory,

VOLUME 4, ISSUE 2 WINTER 2008

FACULTY SPOTLIGHT

VICKI FLARISASSOCIATE PROFESSOR

CHEMISTRY, BRONX COMMUNITY COLLEGE

Dr. Tak Cheung admits, “I never imagined a career

like this,” reflecting on his career of 20 years at Queensborough Community College. But just as his work focuses on fluctuations and discerning patterns from seemingly random behavior, perhaps his particular academic track wasn’t such a random walk. In fact, a closer look at Dr. Cheung’s research interests, teaching methods, and career path, reveals an unmistakable pattern — the clear portrait of a dedicated teacher begins to emerge.

The Physics Department at QCC currently has 12 full-time faculty who have worked out a particularly efficient arrangement that benefits both professor and student, even within the narrow window of two-year associates degrees. By fully incorporating their research into their course work, Dr. Cheung and his QCC colleagues have been able to sustain a rigorous research

program that also engages students and gets them excited about science applications.

“Queensborough has a non-traditional program that gives students something extra that they wouldn’t get normally (at a community college),” Dr. Cheung said, “and it’s a good direction for our program.”

Understanding the demands of instruction and research, the physics faculty at QCC have created an advantageous and unique arrangement in which they cover each other’s classes when a research opportunity presents itself. This allows each of them to conduct strong research programs in light of the high

FACULTY SPOTLIGHT

TAK CHEUNGPROFESSOR

PHYSICS, QUEENSBOROUGH COMMUNITY COLLEGE

VOLUME 5, ISSUE 2 SPRING 2010

Continued on Page 18

Continued on Page 19

Joe

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Dan

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www.cuny.edu/research Page 4

No single topic drives the health care reform debate more than the number of uninsured Americans. But what do we really know about those 47 million who are without healthcare coverage? A new study by Baruch College Economics Professors June and Dave O’Neill provides fresh insights into who the uninsured really are, and how the lack of coverage affects them. These insights can be very valuable for policy makers currently engaged in reforming the American health care system.

Using data from a number of surveys and focusing on the 38 million of the uninsured ages 18-64, Drs. O’Neill determined that at least 16 million (43%) have incomes at or above 2.5 times the poverty line, indicating that they likely have the means to obtain healthcare coverage – thus may be classified as “voluntarily” uninsured. The remainder are the involuntarily uninsured, those with incomes that are low enough to make it unlikely that they could afford health insurance if they wanted to purchase it.

The researchers analyzed the socio-economic characteristics of the uninsured, which can provide valuable insights to those working on health policy. The results indicate that the uninsured, and particularly the involuntarily uninsured, have very different features from the privately insured population. The researchers determined that roughly one-third of the involuntarily uninsured are high school dropouts, compared to approximately 7% of the privately insured population. A disproportionately large percentage of them are young, a third are immigrants, close to half are single without

children, and close to 40% were not employed during the last twelve months.

In order to determine whether lack of coverage means lack of access to healthcare services, Drs. O’Neill estimated the dollar amount of healthcare resources received by the uninsured. The estimates indicate that, on a per-capita basis, the consumption of health resources of those without insurance is about 40% of the amount consumed by people with insurance. This estimate includes both the voluntarily and involuntarily uninsured. However, as researchers point out, “it is likely that the involuntarily uninsured receive more than half of the total and the voluntarily uninsured less, because “safety net” providers generally distribute resources to lower income people.”

In terms of access to primary care, the researchers also found that a significant proportion of the uninsured received checkups and screening for cancer. For example, 65% of uninsured women received mammograms in the past 5 years which while lower than the 86% received by insured women, is about the same as the percentage received by Canadian women covered by national insurance.

Finally, in line with previous research, Drs. O’Neill found that lack of health insurance is not likely to be the major factor causing higher mortality rates among the uninsured. According to them, “the uninsured— particularly the involuntarily uninsured—have multiple disadvantages that in themselves are associated with poor health.”

INVESTOR NEWSLETTER ISSUE N°3 FALL 2008VOLUME 5, ISSUE 2 SPRING 2010

Who Are the Uninsured?

O’Neill, J. and D. O’Neill. 2009. Who are the uninsured? An analysis of America’s uninsured population, their characteristics and their health. The Employment Policies Institute. <http://www.epionline.org/studies/oneill_06-2009.pdf>

Did You Know?The Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research has established the CUNY Summer Undergraduate Research Program (C-SURP). City College Associate Professor of Biology and

Director of CCNY’s MARC and RISE programs, Jonathan Levitt, has been named the Director of the C-SURP program. For the inaugural round, the program received over 100 applications, including a dozen from outside of CUNY. For more

information, visit the CUNY Summer Undergraduate Research Program homepage at:<http://www.cuny.edu/research/sr/csurp.html>

www.cuny.edu/research Page 5

VOLUME 5, ISSUE 2 SPRING 2010

BROOKHAVEN NATIONAL LABORATORY COMES TO CUNY

Last summer, Vice Chancellor Gillian Small visited the Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York to explore the potential for greater collaborative relationships with CUNY scientists. On January 21st, a contingency of Brookhaven researchers and administrators led by Dr. Doon Gibbs, the Brookhaven Deputy Director for Science returned the favor, welcomed at City College by a group of researchers from across the University. The CUNY group was treated to an overview of Brookhaven’s mission in photonics, nuclear and particle physics, and energy/climate sciences. Subsequent breakout sessions attended by researchers from both BNL and CUNY focused on what each side had to offer in each of these key areas. Additional breakout sessions addressed other potential collaborative opportunities in structural biology and cyberinfrastructure.

THE CHEMISTRY OF ART

Researchers from City College (CCNY) and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, together with collaborators from the New York Police Department and Duke University, have established an unusual partnership that has succeeded in applying forensic-like analysis to uncover the chemical structure of invaluable pieces of artwork. Their work has sparked intense interest among museums and research chemists, as the new method allows performing historical or authentication analysis of the artwork with little damage to the examined pieces of art.

With a three-year $300,000 grant from the Department of Justice, the multidisciplinary team, headed by Dr. John Lombardi (Chemistry, CCNY) in collaboration with Dr. Marco Leona (Metropolitan Museum of Art), has cross-validated newly developed techniques for surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) analysis – a procedure utilized for the rapid and non-destructive analysis of materials, such as paints, inks, fibers, mineral residues, pharmaceuticals, and controlled substances, and has developed a much needed reference database of spectra for forensic applications.

Lombardi’s lab, which includes two postdoctoral research fellows, two graduate students, and four undergraduates at City

College, has succeeded in demonstrating that SERS is a valuable technique for the identification of organic colorants used in inks and in the dyeing of textile fibers, as well as for tracing analysis of pharmaceuticals and illicit drugs.

According to the researchers, the techniques developed are “especially suited for handling microscopic samples: textile dyes

were successfully identified from samples as small as a one-millimeter section of a single silk fibril of fifty-micrometer diameter and even from textiles severely degraded by burial.”

During the three years since their collaboration began, the team has successfully identified and catalogued nearly 50 molecular compounds in centuries-old pigments and dyes from all over the world. “Before, we could say, ‘I think this was painted with this material, but I can’t tell you because I can’t remove

enough of it to study with available techniques and without destroying it.’ Now we can take an essentially invisible piece of a work of art and say it was dyed with carminic acid, which comes from cochineal bugs, which are used in lipsticks and pink sodas,” says co-PI Leona, Scientist-in-Charge at the Met.

(L-R) Doon Gibbs, BNL Deputy Director for Science; Gillian Small,

CUNY Vice Chancellor for Research; Creighton Wirick, BNL Deputy

Director for Life Sciences; Ken White, BNL Deputy Director of

Education Programs

www.cuny.edu/research Page 6

DID WATCHING TELEVISION PUT AMERICANS IN DEBT?

A new study conducted by researchers at Hunter College reveals that the role of advertising in household consumption and debt may be greater than suggested by existing research. Drs. Matthew Baker and Lisa George (Economics) analyzed the effect of television penetration on debt using household finance measures drawn from the annual Survey of Consumer Finances covering years 1946 to 1958. Their results indicate that the appearance of television was associated with higher levels of debt for durable goods.

With a grant from the Professional Staff Congress-City University of New York (PSC-CUNY) Research Award Program, Baker and George evaluated whether television played a causal role in changing household finances or was simply correlated with unobserved market factors responsible for these changes. Exploiting exogenous variation in the timing of the spread of television across different U.S. markets, they tested whether households with early access to television saw steeper debt increases than households with delayed access.

The study finds a positive link between mass media advertising and the tendency to take on household debt. The results indicate that television exposure is associated with a higher tendency to borrow to purchase consumer goods and a higher tendency to hold non-mortgage debt. The authors also offer suggestive evidence that markets with early access to television saw higher male labor force participation compared to markets with delayed access to television.

One possible reason for the link between television and debt is that exposure to new products on television alters the tradeoff between consumption and leisure. Households may wish to both work more and purchase more consumer goods. But if they cannot adjust labor supply in the short term, they may borrow to increase consumption in the present and work more in the future.

INVESTOR NEWSLETTER ISSUE N°3 FALL 2008VOLUME 5, ISSUE 2 SPRING 2010

New Research Compliance Efforts across CUNY

Baker, M.J. and L. M. George. 2009. The Role of Television in Household Debt: Evidence from the 1950's. Hunter College Department of Economics Working Papers, 427.<http://arrow.hunter.cuny.edu/research/papers/HunterEconWP427.pdf>

As stated in the Federal Register (Vol. 76 No. 160), a new Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) training requirement became effective as a result of NSF's implementation of Section 7009 of the America Creating Opportunities to Meaningfully Promote Excellence in Technology, Education, and Science (COMPETES) Act.

This section of the Act requires that “each institution that

applies for financial assistance from the Foundation for science

and engineering research or education describe in its grant

proposal a plan to provide appropriate training and oversight in

the responsible and ethical conduct of research to undergraduate

students, graduate students and postdoctoral researchers

participating in the proposed research project.”

CUNY'S plan to meet NSF's educational requirement for RCR can be found under ‘RCR Training’ on the CUNY Research Compliance webpage:<http://www.cuny.edu/research/compliance.html>

The RCR training modules to be taken by all students (graduate and undergraduate) and postdoctoral researchers at CUNY who are supported by sponsored projects, regardless of sponsor are the Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI) RCR modules available under ‘CITI RCR Training’ on the CUNY Research Compliance webpage: <http://www.cuny.edu/research/compliance.html>

www.cuny.edu/research Page 7

A new and timely study headed by Hunter College Economics Professor Partha Deb revealed that job losses due to business closures can make the fat fatter and drinkers drunkards. In a working paper entitled “Job loss: eat, drink, and try to be merry?” Dr. Deb and colleagues from Yale University analyzed how unemployment influenced the eating and drinking habits of 6,726 laid-off workers. The study focused on workers nearing retirement, for whom high consumption of food and alcohol is more likely to lead to serious health consequences than for younger individuals, and for whom job loss leads to substantially longer periods of unemployment.

The data were drawn from the nationally representative Health and Retirement Survey, which was designed to investigate health and economic characteristics of individuals as they advance from work to retirement. Focusing on workers aged 50 or older, the researchers studied the effect of job loss on body mass index (BMI) and alcohol consumption. They exploited information on business closings as a measure of job loss, thus alleviating concerns that the layoffs in their sample might actually be related to preexisting bad health habits. The researchers employed finite mixture models in order to capture heterogeneity in the effects of job loss on health.

Their findings indicate substantial heterogeneity in the effect of job loss for both BMI and daily drinking behavior. While the majority of workers experienced no behavioral effect after being fired, the study revealed that “at risk” individuals tended to increase their unhealthy behavior after being laid-off. Indeed, for both BMI and alcohol consumption, the researchers found evidence that those individuals who are more likely to respond to job loss by increasing unhealthy behaviors are already in the problematic range for these behaviors before losing their jobs. While being unemployed, the average laid-off food lover gained the equivalent of more than 7 pounds for a 5’-10” man weighting 180 pounds before job loss. Similarly, the average frequent drinker almost doubled his or her daily alcohol consumption.

To summarize, the results suggest that health effects of job loss could be concentrated among “at risk” individuals and could lead to negative outcomes for the individuals, their families, and society at large. The results from this paper are of particular importance given the current era of high job loss. Behavioral health responses to job loss may aggravate an already stressful situation for this vulnerable population of older workers. Identification of this issue may pave the way for methods to better protect the health of those who respond particularly negatively to job loss.

INVESTOR NEWSLETTER ISSUE N°3 FALL 2008VOLUME 5, ISSUE 2 SPRING 2010

Deb, P. et al. 2009. Job loss: Eat, drink and try to be merry? National Bureau of Economic Research, NBER Working Paper Series, Working Paper 15122. <http://papers.nber.org/papers/w15122.pdf>

GENERATING POLYMER FILMS WITH EMBEDDED METAL NANOPARTICLES

Drs. George John (City College) and Lynn Francesconi (Hunter College) have conceived a novel approach to obtain polymer-like films from cardanol-based multi-armed molecules with self-cross-linkable unsaturated chains. This newly developed technique is expected to have a broad impact on developing custom-designed monomeric molecules, in which it would be possible to incorporate desired functionalities in hybrid materials as well as to generate polymer-like films with embedded metal nanoparticles. One important advantage of this new approach is that it does not require complex polymerization processes.

“We report multi-armed/dendritic molecules having unsaturated side chains for generating scratch-free, self-

standing cross-linked transparent films with embedded metal nanoparticles via autoxidation induced in situ synthesis,” write the researchers in the journal Chemical

Communications. “The autoxidation induced in situ synthesis of metal nanoparticles has not been exploited to any significant extent; thus we envisage that this method will have a significant impact in developing nanoparticle embedded hybrid materials for device-oriented applications.”

This research was partially supported by a CUNY-Collaborative Incentive Research Grant through the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research.

OBESITY AND ALCOHOLISM:

ARE BUSINESS CLOSURES

TO BLAME?

Jyothish, K. et al. 2009. Self-standing, metal nanoparticle embedded transparent films from multi-armed cardanol conjugates through in situ synthesis. Chemical Communication, 36, pp 5368-.5370

www.cuny.edu/research Page 8

Former US Surgeon General Richard Carmona has called obesity the greatest threat to public health facing our country today. It kills more Americans every year than AIDS, all cancers, and all accidents combined. And it is causing problems in children that were unthinkable 25 years ago.

In a short span of time, childhood obesity has emerged as a growing public health issue in New York City and London. On both sides of the Atlantic, the rates of childhood obesity have more than doubled in the past 25 years, posing a serious threat to the well-being of hundreds of thousands of children and placing an ever-growing financial burden on families, health care providers, and governments. To help combat this alarming epidemic, authorities in New York City and London have implemented a variety of policies and programs aimed at stemming the rise in the number of overweight children, but few believe that the current responses are adequate to reverse the trend.

To increase the understanding of the risk factors associated with overweight problems in children, a team of researchers at City University of New York and London Metropolitan University have analyzed childhood obesity in the two cities. In particular, the researchers compared municipal responses aimed at promoting weight loss, and evaluated each city’s efforts to improve opportunities for children to find healthy food and increase physical activity. A new report, “A Tale of Two ObesCities: Comparing responses to childhood obesity in London and in New York” draws on the findings and presents a comprehensive strategy for the cities to decelerate the rise of childhood obesity and related inequalities in health.

The report shows that in New York City and London, overweight and obesity rates are alarmingly high. In both cities, nearly 40% of school-aged children are overweight (body mass

index [BMI] ≤ 25.0); more than half of these overweight

children are medically obese (BMI ≤ 30.0). According to the report, such factors as child poverty, high mobility of populations, widespread marketing of unhealthy food, and poor living conditions have significantly contributed to rising obesity

rates. The report shows that the two cities are dealing with the obesity epidemic in different ways, which provides an opportunity for them to learn from each other’s experiences.

“Our report shows that while childhood obesity affects all groups, it is becoming increasingly concentrated among low income children and neighborhoods in both cities,” says Dr. Nicholas Freudenberg, Distinguished Professor of Public Health at Hunter College, and co-author of the report. “To bring childhood obesity under control, New York and London need to find new ways to make it easier for low income families to find healthy food and safe places for physical activity and

to avoid unhealthy food.”

On February 1, 2010, Dr. Freudenberg discussed “A Tale of Two ObeCities” at Serving Science, the CUNY Science Café. You can watch and listen to other stimulating presentations by Dr. Freudenberg on CUNY-TV and CUNY Radio podcasts.

VOLUME 5, ISSUE 2 SPRING 2010

City University of New York and London Metropolitan University. 2010. A Tale of Two ObesCities: Comparing the Response of New York City and London to the Epidemic of Childhood Obesity. <http://web.gc.cuny.edu/che/childhood_obesity.pdf>

Did You Know?CUNY hosts over 190 postdoctoral research fellows at seven CUNY colleges, in addition to postdocs working with CUNY faculty at the American Museum of Natural History, the New York Botanical Gardens, and Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Our postdocs are studying in a wide variety of research areas including photonics, environmental

sensing, soft materials chemistry, plant science, biogeographic modeling, neuroscience, and speech & language sciences. Visit the CUNY Postdoctoral Development Program homepage at: <http://www.cuny.edu/research/postdoctoral-development-program.html>

CHILDHOOD OBESITY - A TALE OF TWO OBESCITIES

www.cuny.edu/research Page 9

INVESTOR NEWSLETTER ISSUE N°3 FALL 2008VOLUME 5, ISSUE 2 SPRING 2010

While it is not always easy for cancer patients to talk about their disease, a new study headed by Dr. Catalina Lawsin (Baruch College, Psychology) with colleagues from NYC-area medical centers, suggests that health care providers should consider cancer patients as a valuable conduit to promote cancer screening among family members. The study, featured in the journal Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers &

Prevention, examined psychosocial factors influencing colorectal cancer patients’ communication with their immediate family members regarding the relatives’ colorectal cancer risk. Colorectal cancer is the second leading cause of cancer-related death in the U.S.

The study was based on the analysis of questionnaires from 127 colorectal cancer patients with siblings who were members of the Mount Sinai Colon Disease Family Registry. Participants, 62 men and 65 women, completed questionnaires regarding their psychosocial functioning, perceived risk of sibling’s development of colorectal cancer, and communication of this risk with their siblings. Participants ranged in age from 29-83, with a mean age of 60.

The study found that 60% of the patients in the study discussed colorectal cancer risk with their sisters and brothers. Consistent with previous studies, the researchers determined that patients’ perception that their siblings have a heightened

risk for the same type of disease was associated with their willingness to discuss cancer risk with them. Interestingly, however, when considered together with the other significant factors, perceived risk no longer contributed to the model of communication. These findings suggest that perceived risk of sibling cancer is a relevant but not a primary factor influencing when and how patients communicate with relatives about their disease. Rather, the age at which cancer patients are diagnosed with their illness remained a significant factor influencing communication of cancer risk. Indeed, the researchers found that those diagnosed with colorectal cancer before the age of 45 were more likely to communicate with their siblings about cancer risk, which led them to conclude that colorectal cancer patients may serve as a valuable tool for promoting screening for colorectal cancer.

According to the researchers, these data suggest that colorectal cancer patients may serve as an effective vehicle to promote colorectal cancer awareness and screening. “Health care providers would benefit from adequately educating all colorectal cancer patients regarding risk factors for colorectal cancer and screening recommendations for individuals at increased risk for the disease, particularly those diagnosed before the age of 45 years considering the increased familial risk for colorectal cancer among this subgroup of patients.”

CANCER PATIENTS AS A VALUABLE TOOL FOR

PROMOTING CANCER SCREENING

Lawsin, C. et al. 2009. An Examination of the Psychosocial Factors Influencing Colorectal Cancer Patients' Communication of Colorectal Cancer Patient Risk with Their Siblings. Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers & Prevention, 18 (11), pp. 2907-2912.

Did You Know?The CUNY Technology Commercialization Office

(TCO) now hosts a searchable database of CUNY

technologies available for licensing. Areas where CUNY

researchers have generated recent technologies, includes

energy storage, medical devices, and advanced solar cells.

This resource is available through the TCO homepage at:

<http://www.cuny.edu/research/ovcr/tco/TCO-Industry/

AvailableTech.html>City Climber: a new generation of mobile

robot with wall-climbing capability(Jizhong Xiao, CCNY)

www.cuny.edu/research Page 10

INVESTOR NEWSLETTER ISSUE N°3 FALL 2008VOLUME 5, ISSUE 2 SPRING 2010

The Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research is pleased to offer a new University-wide initiative to encourage junior faculty to apply for funding through the National Science Foundation’s Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program.

For any funded CAREER proposal, CUNY will provide a 10% supplement to the entire award up to a maximum of $50,000. This one time opportunity will apply to any CAREER application submitted for the upcoming deadlines (July 20-22, 2010).

The CAREER grant 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.

This incentive hopes to build upon the past success that CUNY faculty have had with winning this important award. Currently, thirteen NSF CAREER scholars are flourishing at four CUNY colleges. The awardees include: Laurie Rubel (Education) at Brooklyn College; Gautam Chinta (Mathematics), Ilona Kretschmar (Chemical Engineering), Carlos Meriles (Physics), Despina Stylianou (Education), and Jizhong Xiao (Electrical Engineering) at City College; Neepa Maitra (Physics) and Benjamin Ortiz (Biological Sciences) at Hunter College; and Matt Huenerfauth (Computer Science), Seogjoo Jang (Chemistry), Heng Ji (Computer Science), Alexey Ovchinnikov (Mathematics), and Hoeteck Wee (Computer Science) at Queens College.

THE OFFICE OF THE VICE CHANCELLOR FOR RESEARCH

ANNOUNCES THE 2010 CUNY NSF CAREER AWARD

INCENTIVE PROGRAM

COMPUTING THE THEORETICAL PREDICTIONS FOR

SCATTERING OF PARTICLES 

Faculty can visit the Research Office website <http://www.cuny.edu/research/faculty-resources/NSFCAREERaward.html> for more information about this program and for helpful resources to aid in the preparation of applications.

City Tech Assistant Professor of Physics Giovanni Ossola is P.I. of an NSF-funded project entitled “Automated Computation of One-Loop Scattering Amplitudes.” The goal of this project is to develop new theoretical tools for the computation of theoretical predictions for the scattering of particles, that will lead to a more precise analysis of the actions of subatomic particles, the smallest forms of matter.  This work is particularly important in the light of the largest and most powerful particle accelerator ever built, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN in French) with the intention of testing various predictions of particle physics. The LHC will collide protons at very high energies with the hope of producing and discovering new particles, thus helping physicists understand the birth of the universe and examine matter’s smallest components. 

Particle physicists have a challenging task ahead of them.  Over the next two years, they will have to process large

amounts of data, analyze them, and compare their results with theoretical models and predictions.  Always keen on involving students in his research, Dr. Ossola hopes to obtain funding to help his students take part in the project. “Some students will be involved directly in small research projects that will allow them to be exposed to the challenges of fundamental research, and, hopefully, to share their enthusiasm for exploration and discoveries,” he explains.  

Dr. Ossola hopes that this project will forge stronger research ties between CUNY and CERN.  “From a scientific point of view, it is important to have a connection between the research work that we do at City Tech and those taking place at CERN. This connection can be reinforced by visiting CERN, inviting speakers to the College, and giving presentations for faculty and students about the various themes of the LHC experiment.”

Nancy Bareis

www.cuny.edu/research Page 11

City College researchers, Dr. Yiannis Andreopoulos (Professor and Pope Chair of Energy Research of the Grove School of Engineering), Dr. Niell Elvin (Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering), and Dogus Akaydin (doctoral student), are envisioning a future in which tiny devices mounted on the exterior of airplanes and automobiles would generate enough current from the airflow to power on-board systems such as batteries and small electronic equipment. This new way of harvesting energy is based on materials known as piezoelectrics, which convert the kinetic energy of motion into electricity.

The devices Andreopoulos’ team designed are nearly flat, about a half-inch by one inch in size (see Right). These small devices could be mounted on an airplane fuselage or on the roof or tail of an automobile, where the air flow would make them vibrate, thus producing electricity.

“The voltage we got out in laboratory testing in our wind tunnel is between 20 and 30 volts which is huge in comparison to the size of the device - 30mm x 16mm x 0.2 mm,” explains Dr. Andreopoulos. “It’s a small amount of energy to do little things. We’re not in the megawatts or kilowatts range. So you can power a few small devices, some electronic equipment, or maybe you’ll charge your cell phone with this amount of energy. But if we multiply them, there will be more energy.”

The researchers are currently attempting to optimize these devices by modeling the physical forces to which they are subjected in different air flows, and expect to be able to increase the energy output by 100 times. The team hopes that if the current stage of research is successful, a device could be available commercially within two years.

VOLUME 5, ISSUE 2 SPRING 2010

Harvesting Energy from Air Flow

A retreat for CUNY photonics faculty and students was held at the Graduate Center on January 14th. Over 90 scientists attended the full day event that

featured outside speakers as well as CUNY faculty presentations. Invited speakers included Dr. Steve Forrest, VP of Research at the University of Michigan; Dr. Nasser Peyghambarian, University of Arizona; and

Dr. Robert Trew, a National Science Foundation program officer. In addition, there were short oral presentations from 20 CUNY faculty and more than 20

posters presented by CUNY students and postdocs.

The retreat was developed as part of an ongoing effort to build community among scientists whose disciplines will be flagship areas at the Advanced

Science Research Center (ASRC). The day was a great success and brought together faculty who had a chance to discuss their work in a casual setting. More workshops are planned in the future to highlight other

programs that will be promoted at the ASRC, including an environmental sciences retreat in Fall 2010 and a structural biology event in the Spring 2011.

A piezoelectric generator consisting of Polyvinylidene

Fluoride layer and a Mylar substrate

2010 CUNY PHOTONICS RETREAT

Andreopoulos, Y., D. Akaydin, and N. Elvin. Harvesting energy from turbulence in boundary layers by using piezoelectric generators. American Physical Society, 62nd Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Fluid Dynamics, November 22-24, 2009, abstract #GA.005

www.cuny.edu/research Page 12

How do our active-duty soldiers listen to music? What kind of music do they listen to? And how does it affect them? These are some of the questions raised by Dr. Jonathan Pieslak, a music theorist and Associate Professor of Music at City College, in his new book, Sound Targets:

American Soldiers and Music in Iraq. Featuring interviews with American soldiers who served in Iraq, Dr. Pieslak offers a novel insight into contemporary American military culture. The book establishes a connection between music and the soldiers’ military experience, evaluating the role of music from recruitment campaigns to its use during war operations.

As many would expect, he found that the musical qualities of metal and rap make these two music styles especially attractive to soldiers preparing for a mission. Both styles are popular among combatants because of their

lyrical and timbral association with power, destruction, violence, and chaos. Based on an analysis of interviews, documentary films, and web-based research materials, Dr. Pieslak argues that these same styles of music can be used as tools for a wide range of purposes, from helping to express oneself and establish contacts with others, to coping with stress, trauma, indoctrination, and even interrogation.

However, during downtime, soldiers listen to a wide variety of styles that ranges from country and gospel to punk and new wave. Dr. Pieslak was particularly surprised by this variety: “Civilians have a notion that members of the military are uniform in beliefs - they are all lined up in rows, wear

the same clothes, and have the same haircut.” That homogeneity might be true when soldiers are on a mission, but back on base, diversity rocks.

UNDERSTANDING THE POWER OF MUSIC

VOLUME 5, ISSUE 2 SPRING 2010

WHY DO STRUCTURED LIQUIDS FLOW?

Pieslak, J. 2009. Sound Targets: American Soldiers and Music in the Iraq War. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

In our daily lives, we are surrounded by yield stress fluids: materials that behave as solids under small stresses but flow like liquids beyond some critical stress. As an example, paint flows under the brush, but remains fixed in a vertical film despite the force of gravity. In a Perspectives article published in the 12 June 2009 issue of Science, Drs. Morton Denn (Albert Einstein Professor of Science and Engineering and Director of the Levich Institute, City College) and Daniel Bonn (University of Amsterdam) offer a review of the most recent advances in our understanding of yield stress fluids, based on their own work and that of other researchers in the field.

Consumer products, such as mayonnaise and toothpaste, and construction materials, such as concrete, exhibit yield stress. The yield stress may serve to keep particulate fillers from settling or determine whether bubbles remain trapped in cement. In addition to being very important in the food and cosmetics industry and in construction, yield stress fluids play also a significant role in oil drilling. For all these applications,

and many others, it is paramount to know the stress at which the materials start to flow.

Recent studies have determined that in many soft materials, the appearance of yield stress is due to an internal structure that may be broken down by fluid flow. This yield stress response is time-dependent. That is, at high shear stresses the structures of soft materials break down faster than they can rebuild, and thus the materials become liquid. As the microstructure is degraded, the viscosity of the material may drop rapidly, and the stress required to initiate flow may then be much higher than that required to maintain solid form, which can lead to an avalanche behavior at high imposed stresses.

This new understanding has opened avenues for a wide range of applications, from developing new consumer products to solving difficult engineering problems and improving techniques for dealing with radioactive waste and other hazardous compounds in the form of sludge.

Bonn, D. and M. Denn. 2009. Yield stress fluids slowly yield to analysis. Science, 324 (5933), pp. 1401–1402.

www.cuny.edu/research Page 13

With a deft touch and plain prose, sophomore Kimberly Thompson from Borough of Manhattan Community College, was awarded the $5,000 grand prize

during the Nobel Science Challenge Award Ceremony. The ceremony was held Thursday February 25th 2010, at CUNY’s 80th Street Central Office. The CUNY Nobel

Science Challenge was the brainchild of Vice Chancellor for Research Gillian Small,

who wanted CUNY’s students to contribute to science literacy in New York City. The challenge was to write an essay describing the

work that went into the 2010 Nobel Prizes in Chemistry, Economics, Physics, and Physiology/

Medicine. Each essay had to communicate the science in a way that could be understood by the

general public. More than 100 essays were submitted from undergraduates across the CUNY system.

A CUNY Distinguished Professor in each field (Ruth Stark, Chemistry; Fred Naider,

Physiology & Medicine; Myriam Sarachik, Physics; and Robert Schwartz, Economics) was asked

to form and head a committee of CUNY faculty to review the essays in their category. These committees

selected first, second and third place prize winners in each category, and these awards (including Apple iMac computers, Dell netbooks, and Kindle eBook readers)

were presented at the ceremony. As a bonus, the New

York Academy of Sciences (NYAS) awarded a 1-year membership to the four first place winners. For full details of all winners and to download winning essays,

visit the Nobel Science Challenge homepage: <http://www.cuny.edu/research/sr/nobel-science-challenge.html>.

The first place essays in each

category were then reviewed by a committee of outside experts (Brian Greene, co-Founder of the World

Science Festival and Professor of Physics at Columbia University; Stacie Bloom, Vice President and

Scientific Director of NYAS; and Deborah Mowshowitz, Director of Undergraduate Programs and Lab Operations at Columbia University)

to identify a Grand Prize winner. The external committee unanimously selected Ms. Thompson

for the Grand Prize.

The award ceremony was an impressive display of commitment

to the ideals of science from both our students and faculty and paved the way for future science literacy endeavors in our local communities.

To show support for the winners surrounded by their families and friends, were CUNY Board of

Trustees member Rita DiMartino, BMCC President Antonio Pérez,

Associate University Dean of Academic Affairs at the

Macauley Honors College Sylvia Tomasch, a number of CUNY provosts, and several faculty mentors.

VOLUME 5, ISSUE 2 SPRING 2010

BMCC SOPHOMORE WINS GRAND PRIZE AT FIRST ANNUAL CUNY NOBEL SCIENCE CHALLENGE

2009 Nobel Science Challenge First Prize

winners (L-R): Grand Prize winner Kimberly Thompson, Sophomore at BMCC; First Place

Chemistry: Hyeondo "Luke" Hwang,

Freshman at City College; First Prize Physiology

& Medicine: Angela Preda, Senior at Hunter

College; Not pictured - First Prize Physics:

Rakefet Ben-Ari, Junior at Hunter College.

www.cuny.edu/research Page 14

VOLUME 5, ISSUE 2 SPRING 2010

On January 8th, 2010 the Office of the Vice Chancellor in collaboration with the Community College Caucus of the University Faculty Senate presented a Grant Writing Workshop for Community College Faculty.

Marking its fourth year, the annual workshop brings junior faculty together for a full day of practical advice, presentations, and small group sessions geared towards helping attendees learn about writing individual and collaborative proposals, building on internal awards to obtain external funding, and submitting successful grant proposals. This year, for the first time, junior faculty from two senior campuses, Medgar Evers College and New York City College of Technology, were invited to attend.

Morning speakers from both community colleges and senior campuses at CUNY offered information on a variety of topics, such as “Crafting a Successful CUNY Community College Collaborative Incentive Research Grant Proposal” and “Grant Writing from a Reviewer’s Point of View.”

Breakout sessions at this year’s workshop offered discipline-specific advice in Mathematics and Computer Science; Behavioral Sciences; Health, Physical Education & Recreation; Social Sciences; Education; and Natural Sciences. Several of those who participated in the workshop have gone on to compete in this year’s Community College Collaborative Incentive Research Grant Program.

For information on this and other events and workshops offered by the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, please visit <http://www.cuny.edu/research/news-events.html>

2010 COMMUNITY COLLEGE

GRANT WRITING WINTER

WORKSHOP

On March 1st 2010, Queens College unveiled a new, three-story, 26,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art extension to the Ira Remsen Hall. Begun renovations in 2006, the $30 million renovation will include seven teaching labs, four advanced research labs, and new preparation areas for lab technicians which all feature high-tech equipment. The 60-year-old building has been transformed into a cutting-edge teaching and learning environment, and a three-story glass-tile mosaic ornaments the renovated interior. “Electromagnetic Fall,”the mosaic created by artist Carter Hodgkin (right), who used algorithms to design a simulated atomic particle collision that adorns the wall on the top floor atrium with the particles to fall dramatically three floors to the bottom.

Interim Dean of the Division of Mathematics & Natural Sciences, Dr. Robert Engel, noted that “Remsen Hall will house many chemistry teaching and research labs.” Queens College President James Muyskens added that the renovations to Remsen Hall were necessary, as the labs were quite old. “Many of our students come here specifically to study science, so we wanted state-of-the-art labs for them.”

QUEENS COLLEGE OPENS EXPANDED STATE-OF-THE-ART

REMSEN HALL SCIENCE BUILDING

Nancy Bareis

www.cuny.edu/research Page 15

INVESTOR NEWSLETTER ISSUE N°3 FALL 2008VOLUME 5, ISSUE 2 SPRING 2010

THE OFFICE OF RESEARCH CONDUCT

WHAT’S NEW?

NEW POLICIES & PROCEDURES GOVERNING CUNY HUMAN RESEARCH PROTECTIONS PROGRAMIn November, 2009, the CUNY Board of Trustees adopted revised Policies and Procedures governing the CUNY Human

Research Protections Program. Most of the information in the document is directly related to the federal regulations for the Protection of Human Subjects (45 CFR 46). The revised document can be found at on the Office of Research Conduct homepage:<http://www.cuny.edu/research/ovcr/human-subjects-research/>

ELECTRONIC SUBMISSION OF IRB APPLICATIONS HAS GONE LIVECUNY went live with an electronic submission system for IRB applications on March 1, 2010. The electronic application is

available on a separate site for each CUNY campus, as well as for the CUNY-Wide IRB. The electronic system is called IRBManager. IRBManager is accessed at <https://irbmanager.becirb.com/>

This new form is designed to solicit sufficient specific information from the researcher to reduce the requests from the IRB for more information. Please be sure that you have completed your CITI training (www.citiprogram.org) before you submit your application because you must attach a copy of the CITI completion certificate before the system will accept your application.

For instructions on how to submit the electronic application, you can go to the following link:<http://www.cuny.edu/research/ovcr/human-subjects-research/forms-research.html>

NEW CITI TRAINING MODULES AVAILABLECUNY has added CITI Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) modules to the CITI subscription. For more information regarding these new CITI modules, visit the CUNY Research Compliance F.A.Q. at <http://www.cuny.edu/research/compliance/FAQ.html>

We also expect to have Animal Research/IACUC modules added to the CITI subscription late March/early April. There will be instructions on the CUNY website once the new modules are added. Accessing the modules will be similar to accessing the Human Subjects Protection (IRB) and RCR modules.

SAVE THE DATE – HUMAN RESEARCH PROTECTIONS SYMPOSIUM The Office of Research Conduct will be offering the Sixth Annual Fall IRB Symposium on Wednesday, September 29, 2010. The

full day conference will be held at the CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue, NYC, on the Concourse Level. Stay tuned to the Office of Research Conduct website for more information: <http://www.cuny.edu/research/ovcr/human-subjects-research.html>

SAVE THE DATE – ANIMAL WELFARE WORKSHOPThe Scientists Center for Animal Welfare (SCAW) will be offering a full day workshop on Monday, September 27, 2010, at

Rockefeller University. CUNY is a proud sponsor of the event. For more information and to register, go to the SCAW website<http://www.scaw.com/>

www.cuny.edu/research Page 16

The collapse of the southern Classic Maya cities has long been one of the greatest mysteries of the ancient world. Although no one knows exactly what triggered the collapse, scientists have until recently viewed deforestation as an important factor in the destruction of this highly advanced civilization. The deforestation hypothesis has been held up in archaeological and high school textbooks as a lesson of the dangers of our own environmental abuses, and the ancient Maya city of Copan, located in western Honduras, has been widely promoted as the archeological "type site" for this hypothesis. But new research, led by Dr. Cameron McNeil (Lehman College, Anthropology), argues that large-scale deforestation did not cause the collapse of Copan, as many had believed

Based on the analysis of a sediment core from a pond located near the ancient city of Copan, Dr. McNeil and her colleagues, paleoecologists David Burney and Lida Pigott Burney, concluded that the area forested in the Copan Valley actually increased during the years when so many Maya cities were collapsing. This finding refutes the established dogma that the Maya society responded to their growing population and enlarged urban centers by exhausting, rather than

conserving, natural resources. On the contrary, their research suggests that it is very likely that, despite a rising population and shrinking land base, the Copan Maya were skilled managers of their landscape, implementing effective techniques of sustainable land use even during times of hardship.

According to the researchers, “Copan cannot be used as a case study to demonstrate that deforestation was an important factor in the collapse of the ancient Maya cities. At the close of the city’s Classic period, the hills above Copan were more densely forested than when the Maya first built their polity center. The collapse of the ancient Maya cities may have numerous causes in common, but deforestation was not among them.”

VOLUME 5, ISSUE 2 SPRING 2010

FACULTY SPOTLIGHT: BRETT SIMS Continued from Page 2

Primarily, Sims invites students to work on problems within his field of expertise, creating mathematical models of electrical impulses that flow through complex human organs, such as the heart and brain. “By giving students projects, even in a calculus class, to study something in mathematical electrophysiology, it enlightens them to see math in a way they never really thought of,” he says.

Though Sims is fairly new to CUNY, his dedication to instilling students with a deeper appreciation of math has been a constant. After he earned his Associates and Bachelor degrees from SUNY Farmingdale, Sims began tutoring his peers in Math as well as Physics, Chemistry, and Engineering. He earned his Masters from Clark Atlanta University in 1993 and then officially began his teaching career at Morehouse College where he taught Introductory Math to undergraduates. Then, while he worked toward his PhD in Applied Math and Statistics at SUNY Stony Brook, Sims also taught remedial math courses at his alma mater SUNY Farmingdale. This was followed by four years as the Chair of Mathematics at Grambling State University in Louisiana before returning to New York in 2009.

While at GSU, Sims published several papers in Mathematical Electrophysiology. And since settling in at CUNY, he has focused on modeling cell membrane dynamics, studying regulation of ionic current and the role proteins play in this process.

Recently, Sims was invited to do research outside his specialty on a three-year project supported by the US Department of Energy. He will work with the Mathematics Department at SUNY Stony Brook to investigate mathematical models of recycling nuclear waste. Already, Sims has plans for his BMCC students to get their hands dirty.

“Teaching is the realest profession because you are cultivating another human being,” Sims says. “Theoretically, each one is like a stem cell where the initial conditions are set and then all you can do is give them the opportunity to grow.”

Spoken like a true mathematical electrophysiologist.

DEFORESTATION: NOT THE CAUSE OF THE MAYAN COLLAPSE

www.cuny.edu/research Page 17

FACULTY SPOTLIGHT: FLOR HENDERSON

VOLUME 4, ISSUE 2 WINTER 2008VOLUME 5, ISSUE 2 SPRING 2010

contribute to a future global database on palms. Dr. Henderson is known in particular for her findings on palm seedling anatomy—in the early stage of development.

She’s spent many hours observing germination and first leaf patterns, analyzing their anatomy using comparative methods.

When she started teaching at Hostos in 2003, Dr. Henderson—like all new faculty—received 12 hours for personal research. After three years, however, she was required to cut down that time significantly.

Through chance, she realized it was possible to combine her teaching with research. Dr. Henderson has always been interested in the relationship between plants and people. A few years ago, she received a CUNY Community College Collaborative Grant (CCIRG) to study medicinal plants used by the New York City Dominican community. She invited three Dominican students from Hostos Community College to participate in the research, and two of the students eventually went on to pursue careers in science at the graduate level. The experience inspired Dr. Henderson to advocate even more for minorities and immigrants in scientific research.

Since she’s been teaching at Hostos, she’s working with students in the Alliance for Minority Participation Program. This program encourages the participation of minority students in scientific, engineering, and mathematical disciplines. This year, two students from Hostos will be interning at the New York Botanical Gardens thanks to a collaboration with that institution and Lehman College. Her on-going research in palm anatomy has been supported by two PSC-CUNY awards.

During the past year and a half, Dr. Henderson and her colleagues have been experimenting with designing assignments more methodically, with the aim of publishing the results. The goal is to strengthen the department, since everyone will be working toward the same educational goals while focusing on their individual research interests. In return, the students will be better prepared to carry on in their studies.

Dr. Henderson is able to put in long, hard hours because of the rewards she receives at Hostos. Her students appreciate her efforts and look up to her as a successful immigrant woman, and her ideas are heard and respected within her department.

“In a community college you have a voice. Your ideas can become a reality.”

Getting her ideas heard in other departments is another story. One day, she’d love to have a greenhouse at Hostos. It is actually her dream.

Continued from Page 2

“Working here (Hostos Community College) has meaning because I’m also an immigrant. I recognize the

struggles (of my students)”– Dr. Flor Henderson

www.cuny.edu/research Page 18

FACULTY SPOTLIGHT: VICKI FLARIS

VOLUME 4, ISSUE 2 WINTER 2008VOLUME 5, ISSUE 2 SPRING 2010

just the necessary equipment to perform the experiments. She is currently trying to remedy this environment through several collaborative CUNY grants.

Since starting at BCC, Dr. Flaris has applied for 12 grants (both internal and external), and awarded funding through nine of these solicitations. These include an NSF grant in the Mathematics, Engineering, Technology, and Science Scholarship Program, a CUNY Community College Incentive Research Grant, and several BCC Presidential Grants to fund student travel. In January 2008, she started a student chapter at the India Institute of Technology, and joint advisors are setting up an international student exchange program. Last year, she also set up a Society of Plastics Engineers Student Chapter at BCC with $700 in grant money. This year, they received $1200 of additional funding.

Dr. Flaris dedicates one day per week for her research, and even when she is teaching, she’s always thinking of ideas and involving students in her research. For example, she has assigned students the task of developing dialysis membranes in the most environmentally-friendly way for diabetes patients. Dr. Flaris wants her students to be innovative in their work.

Dr. Flaris has mentored eight students over the past year. It not only benefits her students, but also her research. She has recently been asked by the National Science Foundation to participate on a special Diversity Metrics project for college students called, “Assessing Participation and Advancement in Engineering and Science of Individuals and Institutions Underrepresented as Federal Grantees.”

When she mentors, she presents her students with the idea of co-writing and publishing a paper together. It’s a foot up for them in continuing in the field and further advances in her own research.

Dr. Flaris gets her students excited about science, and most go on to purse careers in the field.

“Most students have a one track view and then they come in. Then they see the potential of plastics and they see how it affects the area of science they are interested in,” she said.

Continued from Page 3

Dr. David Sarno, Associate Professor of Chemistry at Queensborough College (QCC), was honored with the 2009 "Outstanding Service Award" from the American Chemical Society (ACS)-New York Section. The ceremony took place on January 16, 2010 at St. John’s University. The award which originated in 1976 recognizes the awardees efforts and excellence.

During his years of membership, beginning in 1997, Dr. Sarnos has worn many hats serving as Secretary of the Executive Board, General Co-Chair, and in his current as Director-at-Large for the New York Section.

In the Spring of 2008 though the efforts of Drs. Sarno and Paris Svoronos, QCC hosted The 40th Middle Atlantic Regional Meeting (MARM) of the

ACS. The event marked both first time the event was held at a community college and the first time the event was held on any CUNY campus. The four-day regional meeting was attended by

over 1,000 professionals, educators and students and featured speakers from industry, education, and government at a variety of technical and poster sessions.

Dr. Sarno joined the QCC faculty in 2004, and was actively involved in the creation of the fist QCC Chemistry Department laboratory dedicated to student-faculty research.

In accepting his award, Dr. Sarno shared his feelings of respect for those who have done exceptional work in years prior “While I am honored to receive this award, it should be shared by several

people who were instrumental in creating exceptional programs and presentations throughout the years,”

ACS 2009 SERVICE AWARD HONORS QCC CHEMIST

www.cuny.edu/research Page 19

VOLUME 5, ISSUE 2 SPRING 2010

FACULTY SPOTLIGHT: TAK CHEUNG

them to conduct strong research programs in light of the high number of teaching hours seen by community college faculty.

In 2009, Drs. Cheung and David Lieberman (Biological Sciences & Geology) received a 3-year Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) award from the National Science Foundation, “A Community College REU Site for Physics Applications in Astronomy and Biology” – the first REU awarded for research on a community college campus. During summer months, this is a full-time program that accepts only 8 applicants per year. Now six months into the first year of funding, the program lets Dr. Cheung and his students analyze publicly available data from NASA and the NCBI GenBank genetic database to find patterns in the ostensible chaos. After all, Dr. Cheung asserts, “randomness is just where all the information is buried!” And unburying information is the key.

One method that Dr. Cheung incorporates into his Introductory Physics course is a writing intensive component where students must digest science news and perform calculations. By linking disjointed sentences, then paragraphs, and finally, by weaving the scientific data into a narrative, his students demonstrate their grasp of the concepts while improving their writing skills.

“It’s very different at a community college than at a four-year university,” Dr. Cheung explains, acknowledging the unique pedagogical challenges they face at QCC. “Many of our students are older, many have children, most students work, and they haven’t been in a classroom in a while. We don’t necessarily have honor students coming to us,” Dr. Cheung said. “We have to make them.”

“As a community college, we (QCC) have some obligation to serve our students first, so we do our research here,” he said, “but I owe my students more than that.” For Dr. Cheung, his primary goal at QCC is not to churn out physicists, but to get his students asking questions about the world around them — appreciating the order and beauty in what appears to be random — and sharing their newfound knowledge with others.

Continued from Page 3

A new study by an international team of researchers including City College Professor of Civil Engineering and Distinguished Scientist Charles Vörösmarty indicates that most of the world’s low-lying river deltas are sinking due to human activity, making them increasingly vulnerable to flooding from rivers and ocean storms, and putting tens of millions of people at risk.

Using globally consistent and high-resolution satellite data, the team assessed 33 river deltas in countries including India, China, Vietnam, and the United States for their tendency to flooding, trying to understand why deltas are sinking more rapidly than the global sea level is rising. The researchers found that in the past decade, 85% of the deltas experienced severe flooding, resulting in the temporary submergence of roughly 100,000 square miles of land, and that 24 out of the 33 of the world’s major deltas examined are sinking.

The results, published in Nature Geoscience, show that the sinking of deltas is induced by the removal of oil, gas, and water from the deltas’ underlying sediments; by the creation of river dams and reservoirs, where sediment is trapped upstream preventing it from adding to a delta; and by the use of floodplain engineering. All these factors are exacerbated by the current rise in global sea levels.

Syvitski, J. et al. 2009. Sinking deltas due to human activities. Nature Geoscience, 2(10), 681–686.

Wing-Chi Poon

RIVER DELTAS ARE SINKING, AND IT IS OUR FAULT

www.cuny.edu/research Page 20

In most cases, human rights activists attribute their commitment with a connection with one or two individuals that leave a strong and lasting connection. This was not the case with Joe Birman, the grandson of Russian-Jewish immigrants, who found kindred spirits among the Soviet scientists he met in his travels and was acutely aware that he could have easily been in similar circumstances had his grandparents not left for the United States. In 1970s and 1980s, he was one of major forces behind the American Physical Society's Committee on International Freedom of Scientists (CIFS), helping Soviet dissidents by pressing the Soviet Academy of Sciences and individual politicians on more freedom for their scientists. He visited Moscow and established personal contacts with political dissidents and ‘refuseniks’ including CUNY's own Eugene Chudnovsky, Distinguished Professor at Lehman College and Andrei Weissman, Professor Emeritus of the College of Staten Island. Later Dr. Birman helped to secure financial support for refugee scientists in the United States and often focused on assisting individual scientists in securing positions in academia, education, and industry.

"I met Joseph Birman in Moscow in 1987 when I had serious political troubles," says Dr. Chudnovsky, "It is due to Dr. Birman and his colleagues that I did not end up in a Russian gulag and could eventually emigrate to the United States."

Joseph Birman also played a crucial role, along with Dr. Robert Marshak (former CCNY President and then President of APS), in developing an APS program– Chinese-American Cooperative Basic Research Program in Atomic, Molecular, and Condensed Matter Physics (1983-1991) to recover the generation of Chinese physicists lost to the Cultural Revolution. They traveled to Beijing and signed an agreement with the Chinese government whereby more than 60 physicists were sent to labs in the US for 1-3 years. Many of the current leaders of the Chinese physics community are alumnae of these efforts, which led to a close scientific relationship between Chinese and American physicists. The program came to an end in the tragic aftermath of the Tiananmen Square massacres. In 1989, Dr. Birman became one of the first board members of Human Rights in China, a newly formed group of mostly Chinese activists in New York City.

Joseph Birman continues to impact young scientists here and abroad, cultivating the next generation of concerned scientists fighting for the rights of their colleagues working in countries where academic freedom remains out of reach, including Iran, China, and Russia. Dr. Alec Greer, Professor of Chemistry at Brooklyn College, was introduced to the Committee of Concerned Scientists (CCS) by Joseph Birman who remains one of their most active board members. Greer and Columbia College of Chicago Professor Zafra Lerman were among several at the CCS who protested a proposed boycott of Israeli scholars in the UK, Canada, Australia and US, with letter campaigns to academic and scientific journals. The

boycott sought to punish Israeli scientists for the actions of their government, which they may or may not support but certainly don't control. The rationale behind the boycott is equivalent to responding to our current war in Iraq by limiting American scientists in their professional activities and capacities to do science.

"Seeing how Joe and others at Committee of Concerned Scientists apply their thinking to pressing problems in human rights has been an eye-opening experience, says Greer, "It has been admirable to have Joe’s encouragement and see his openness and attitude in science and human rights. Because concerns of human rights can be expressed at a professional and scientific level rather than a political level, I would like to extend an invitation all students and faculty to join the Committee of Concerned Scientists (www.concernedscientists.org) to rejuvenate

interest in championing human rights, especially with younger generation of scientists."

This sentiment is reiterated by Joe Birman. "We need to propagate a feeling of concern and (hopefully) activity with respect to human rights as part of our professional activities as scientists. The University could encourage a culture of activism, especially among physicists. We do not need to reinvent the wheel. A number of prominent agencies –NYAS, CCS, HRIC, CIFS, even the AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science) have human rights programs. Our students should be aware of these issues and the groups involved in aiding scientists in countries where their freedoms of expression are restricted."

VOLUME 5, ISSUE 2 SPRING 2010

JOSEPH BIRMAN - SAKHAROV AWARD Continued from Page 1

“ It is due to Dr. Birman and his colleagues that I did not end up in

a Russian gulag”– CUNY Distinguished

Professor Eugene Chudnovsky

www.cuny.edu/research Page 21

VOLUME 5, ISSUE 2 SPRING 2010

ENERGY INSTITUTE RECEIVES NYSERDA AWARD

FOR RESEARCH IN ENERGY STORAGE

The Energy Institute of the City University of New York has received an award from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) to fund advanced research and development of energy storage applications. The award, totaling nearly $350,000, will help the Energy Institute to further develop innovative sustainable energy technologies with practical and cost-efficient applications. Other recipients of the NYSERDA Awards include General Electric, Ultralife Corporation, State University of New York, Brookhaven National Laboratory, and Rochester Institute of Technology.

With this grant from NYSERDA, the Energy Institute, led by Dr. Sanjoy Banerjee, Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering at CCNY and Member of the NY State Economic Development Task Force, will develop a more efficient nickel-zinc flow battery, with improved charging and discharging properties. Some of the potential applications of this novel battery include storage for automotive use or for solar-generated household electricity. In addition, the Energy

Institute will develop technologies to improve the performance of ultra-capacitors.

“Creating more advanced energy storage technologies is essential for us to achieve substantial reductions in our greenhouse gas emissions and energy use,” said Francis J.

Murray, Jr., NYSERDA president and CEO, at a meeting of the New York Battery and Energy Storage Technology (NY-BEST). “The proposals we

are funding today will not only help meet our energy needs, but will demonstrate New York’s leadership in

energy technology, stimulate world-class research and development, and commercialize products that will help build a clean energy economy and create jobs for the future.”

NY-BEST, of which CUNY is a member, is an industry-focused coalition working to further the development and manufacture of an advanced battery and energy storage sector in New York State. NY-BEST aims to capitalize on New York’s existing broad base of energy storage companies and research centers. In addition, Dr. Banerjee has just been elected to the NY-BEST Board of Directors.

Scientists at the NOAA Cooperative Remote Sensing Science and Technology (NOAA-CREST) Center are currently carrying out a longitudinal field study in Caribou, Maine. The aim of this study is to analyze how the seasonal snow cover affects hydrological processes and to improve forecasts of springtime snowmelt floods. The project makes use of a mobile CUNY-CREST ground-based multi-frequency radiometer to study several snow properties by means of microwaves. This radiometer is part of the CREST-Microwave Observation Unit (CREST-MOU), initiated in 2009.

The project officially started on February 9, 2010, and will run throughout the snow season. During the field campaign, the radiometer will measure various snow characteristics, such as snow depth, density, water equivalent, grain size, and microwave brightness temperature. Some of these data will be made available to CUNY researchers through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration-National Weather Service (NOAA-NWS) website. Upon completion of these measurements, the researchers will use the radiometer data to

develop new algorithms and to validate previously developed algorithms for snow cover and snow water equivalent estimation.

Microwave remote sensing has advantages over optical or infrared spectra due to its capability to penetrate clouds, offering a great potential to measure the depth and snow water equivalent of snow cover. The microwave radiometer is a sensitive receiver that provides time-series measurements of microwave emission in the form of brightness temperature.

NOAA-CREST is a multidisciplinary center that brings together more than ten partner institutions, including City College, Lehman College, Bronx Community College, and City Tech. These institutions form a broad-based research team that applies remote sensing to earth, atmospheric, environmental, and marine sciences. NOAA-CREST’s research and training focuses on all aspects of remote sensing, including sensor development, satellite remote sensing, ground-based field measurements, data processing and analysis, modeling, and forecasting.

USING MICROWAVES TO IMPROVE HYDROLOGIC FORECASTS

www.cuny.edu/research Page 22

INVESTOR NEWSLETTER ISSUE N°3 FALL 2008VOLUME 5, ISSUE 2 SPRING 2010

Even the earliest observers noticed the differences in fielding abilities among baseball players, but do traditional baseball statistics accurately measure these differences? Apparently not. A recent analysis by Benjamin Baumer, CUNY Graduate Center PhD student in Mathematics and a statistical analyst for the New York Mets, suggests that new sophisticated statistical methods could help better measure the defensive contribution of baseball players. The study was based on the analysis of 4,000 balls played during Major League Baseball games.

In baseball, fielding ability has traditionally been calculated by dividing a player’s number of errors by the total number of opportunities the player had to catch the ball, and then subtracting that number from one. However, this well-established formula does not necessarily show the whole picture about a player’s defensive merits. For instance, this formula does not give credit to a fielder with range, who can successfully run down a ball that would be out of reach for most other players in his position.

In a study co-authored with New York Mets interns Andy Galdi (now a statistical analyst for the NBA) and Robert Sebastian, Baumer assessed the reliability of a new generation of defensive statistics that assign a weight to each catch according to the part of the field on which the ball was caught. Thus players who make particularly difficult plays would be duly rewarded, where they currently are not. These new models assume that players’ positions on the field can be easily and accurately measured. To this effect, the first wave of such models, known as discrete models, divide the field into zones and use league averages to assign responsibility for balls batted to each zone to a specific fielding position. The authors also analyzed a recently developed method that models the playing field as a smooth, continuous surface, and uses advanced statistical analysis to measure the performance of defensive players. Even though this new generation of baseball statistics can still be refined, it seems clear that they represent an important step forward relative to the traditional fielding metrics.

THE STICKY TRUTH ABOUT AMYLOIDS

Amyloids were long thought to be characteristic of chronic neurological problems like Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease. Protein amyloids are stable, insoluble, partly-crystalline fibers of proteins formed from cross-structures of beta sheets in many molecules of the same protein. Recently, a team of Brooklyn College researchers that included a number of CUNY graduate and undergraduate students and lead by Biology Department Chair, Peter Lipke, discovered some natural functions of amyloids. They found that most of the proteins that yeasts use to stick to each other can form amyloid structures, and that these amyloids are important enough to be present in almost all aggregation proteins. The aggregation reactions can be either good or bad. When beer, champagne, or sherry yeasts use amyloid proteins to stick together, brewers and vintners can easily remove the aggregates during the brewing process. On the other hand, the pathogenic yeast, Candida albicans, uses amyloids to form antibiotic-resistant colonies and biofilms when they infect humans. The research also showed that the aggregated yeasts can be “declumped” with simple organic compounds that inhibit amyloid formation. The research is the basis for a patent application sponsored by the CUNY Technology Commercialization Office (TCO). The patent proposes using anti-amyloid treatments to disrupt biofilms that facilitate drug-resistance and that foul biomedical instruments and industrial processes. This work is to be published and “spotlighted” in the March 2010 issue of the journal Eukaryotic Cell.

See Dr. Lipke discuss amyloids at the April 5 Serving Science event.

Are Baseball Fielding Stats Getting It Wrong?

A yeast aggregate, unstained (Top)

and stained to cause amyloids to

fluoresce (below)

Frank, A.T. et al. 2010. Structure and Function of Glycosylated Tandem Repeats from Candida albicans Als Adhesins. Eukaryotic Cell, March 2010, 9 (3), pp. 405-414.

www.cuny.edu/research Page 23

CUNY has actively encouraged cross-campus collaborative research for some time through internal funding programs such as the Collaborative Incentive Research Grants and the Community College Incentive Research Grants. Significantly, interdisciplinary research is also the focus of the Advanced Science Research Center (ASRC). Just recently, a diverse faculty group met for a workshop at the Graduate Center (see article in this newsletter) to bring together chemists, engineers and physicists all working towards a common goal of discovery in photonics research, a focus of the ASRC.

We recognize that many of our faculty members are already participating in collaborative research endeavors. In the past year we have increased our efforts to stimulate research opportunities between CUNY faculty and researchers from external institutions. Examples include the NSF-funded Center for Metamaterials, led by Dr. David Crouse (Director of CUNY-CAT) and founded with the University of North Carolina–Charlotte, Clarkson University, and Western Carolina University, that was initiated by a memorandum of understanding signed between CUNY and Clarkson University in which we pledged to work on collaborative research opportunities. A more recent collaboration between CUNY, New York University, and IBM on a “smarter cities” initiative was initiated to coincide with the launch of the New York IBM

Business Analytics Solution Center. We are in the process of signing a memorandum of understanding with Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) with a goal towards increasing use of the facilities at BNL by CUNY faculty as well as expanding the interactions of CUNY students and researchers at BNL. We recently initiated a small afternoon symposium at Mount Sinai School of Medicine (MSSM), led by Professor John Tarbell, with faculty from the City College Department of Biomedical Engineering and MSSM stem cell scientists. The goal–to find common ground with a view toward establishing collaborations for engineering stem cells for clinical delivery.

CUNY is proud that its research portfolio continues to grow on an annual basis through the efforts of individual faculty. However, as we move into a new era of scientific discovery and globalized concerns, it is becoming clear that our strength as a research institution will be proportional to the amount of cross-disciplinary investigations that we can collectively devise. These collaborative efforts can occur within the University itself and/or between CUNY and other research institutions at both the national and international level.

INVESTOR NEWSLETTER ISSUE N°3 FALL 2008

from the Vice Chancellor Continued from Page 1

VOLUME 5, ISSUE 2 SPRING 2010

Gillian Small, Vice Chancellor for Research

Upcoming Serving Science dates:

April 5, 2010 - 6PM, Kouzan Restaurant

Dr. Peter Lipke (Department of Biology, Brooklyn College)Protein Amyloids in Yeast Infections, Sherry, Mad Cow Disease, Ale, and Alzheimer’s

May 3, 2010 - 6PM, Kouzan Restaurant

Dr. Eleanore Wurtzel (Department of Biology (Plant Sciences), Lehman College)Unlocking Molecular Secrets in Food Crops to Eradicate Global Malnutrition

www.cuny.edu/research Page 24

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, PhDResearch Programs Manager

Luz Jimenez, MPA

Executive Assistant to the Vice Chancellor

Nina Conroy, MPA

Internal Grants Coordinator

Catherine Garcia, BA

Research Programs Coordinator

LaToya Jackson

Administrative Assistant

Nadia Prokofieva, MAAssistant Project Administrator

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 of the Technology Commercialization Office

Elaine Lu, PhD

Technology Commercialization Associate

Nitin Virmalwar, MIP, SM

Technology Commercialization Associate

Wei Chen, PhD

Technology Commercialization Business Assistant

Keith Whiteman

Office Manager

CALENDARAPRILApril 5, 2010

Serving Science: the CUNY Science Café

Dr. Peter Lipke (Brooklyn College)

Protein Amyloids in Yeast Infections, Sherry, Mad

Cow Disease, Ale, and Alzheimer’s

April 15, 2010

Postdoctoral Development Program

Workshop on Sponsored Programs & Funding

Opportunities

CUNY Graduate Center, 1-4 PM

MAYMay 3, 2010

Serving Science: the CUNY Science Café

Dr. Eleanore Wurtzel (Lehman College)

Unlocking Molecular Secrets in Food Crops to

Eradicate Global Malnutrition

May 21, 2010

Postdoctoral Development Program

Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) training

workshop

CUNY Graduate Center, 9 AM -12 Noon

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VOLUME 5, ISSUE 2 SPRING 2010

Research Newsletter Contributors

Loren Bonner, MA

Faculty Spotlights (Flaris, Henderson)

Joe Filippazzo, MA

Faculty Spotlights (Cheung, Sims)