Stony Brook University SUNY Korea

  As Stony Brook University’s Student Health Services continues to add new services for students, it is also not resting on its laurels. The department recently received accreditation through the Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Services (AAAHS) after a challenging and thorough review of its facilities and offerings.  “[This is] not required but we do this to raise the bar,” said Marisa Bisiani, associate vice president of Health, Wellness and Prevention Services in the Division of Student Affairs. Bisiani explained that this rigorous accreditation surveys a multitude of things, including quality metrics and student satisfaction, and looks at services offered to students. “They survey every single facet of our operation from a medical perspective, our policies, how we practice, how well we practice,” she said. “They also look at our environment of care — is the environment safe and clean. Everything.” Click here to read the original article.

Photo by Jez Coulson, used with permission   Nine students and alumni from the School of Communication and Journalism (SoCJ) were part of a team that won one national and one regional award for a series of stories that aired on WSHU Public Radio earlier this year. The students were part of a 13-person team at WSHU to create a multi-part story, Trash Talkin’, about waste and environmental justice on Long Island.  The awards were a Folio Award, given by the Fair Media Council, and a Continuing Coverage Award, from the Public Media Journalists Association. Click here to read the original article.  

  It is said that the most important quality of a good game is its “replayability.” The same might be said about Stony Brook’s annual Game Programming Competition, presented by the Department of Computer Science in the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Not only did the event recently celebrate its 20th anniversary, but it has maintained relationships that go all the way back to the very first one in 2004.  On May 10, the SAC Auditorium hosted the 2024 event before a live crowd and was broadcast with the help of Stony Brook TV live on Twitch. Richard McKenna, lecturer in the Department of Computer Science and founder and coordinator of the competition, said the event grew out of the game programming course he first taught in 2004.  Click here to read the original article.

EDP 404 students present their capstone project.   During the Spring 2024 semester, students in the Environmental Design Project class (EDP 404) worked with the Faculty Student Association (FSA) as their client to apply the skills they learned into a real-world context of reimagining an outdoor patio space for West Side Dining and the Shore Club at the Student Activities Center (SAC). The project presented a thrilling blend of simplicity and complexity. The challenge: transform the West Side Dining patio into a vibrant, welcoming haven for students to spend their time while ensuring the space is easy to maintain. Meanwhile, for the Shore Club patio, the task was to envision a dynamic space next to the food trucks that serves as a cheerful entry point for students arriving by bus and to craft concepts for extending the Shore Club’s ambiance outdoors for special events and socializing. The SBU Eats dining program is eager to expand these outdoor dining areas and plans to use the innovative ideas from the EDP 404 students to shape future construction projects. Students met with FSA Executive Director Diana Kubik to obtain context about these sites, why these spaces are not functioning up to their full potential, possible constraints, and the plans for the future. As the project progressed, students were provided feedback to develop their ideas further. Click here to read the original article.  

Stony Brook University’s 64th annual Main Commencement Ceremony took place Friday, May 17, attended by the largest number of graduates ever. Photo by Isabel Epstein.   More than 7,700 Degrees and Certificates Conferred Stony Brook University’s Class of 2024 celebrated in front of an enthusiastic crowd full of family and friends at the 64th annual Commencement Ceremony May 17 at Kenneth P. LaValle Stadium. Four years ago, many of the undergraduate students had their high school graduation exercises minimized or canceled due to the Covid-19 pandemic, which also affected the start of their college years. So for many of the students receiving their degrees, this was the first time they could be recognized for their academic achievements in front of the people who helped and supported them along the way. And support them they did — the largest-ever main commencement ceremony crowd filled the seats at LaValle Stadium surrounding the candidates gathered on the field. An overflow area in Frey Hall was provided to allow guests the option to watch the festivities via livestream. Click here to read the original article.

Lily McInerney, a senior journalism major with a multidisciplinary cultural analysis concentration, placed seventh in the nation in a recent Hearst Journalism Awards competition. McInerney placed in the multimedia category for a story that she began working on in January 2023. Humanity behind History tells the story of a 92-year-old Holocaust survivor and how she came to terms with and shared her experiences. The piece goes beyond the term survivor and seeks to humanize subjects by explaining the interests and hobbies of those who suffered deeply.  Click here to read the original article.  

Graduate students Ava Nederlander (left) and Jennifer L. O’Connor with the first issue of The SBU Graduate Arts & Sciences Magazine. Photos by John Griffin. An eclectic group of attendees gathered in the Shore Room in the Student Activities Center for the May 1 unveiling of The Stony Brook University Graduate of Arts and Sciences Magazine, the first magazine and platform of its kind at Stony Brook. The aim of the project is to showcase the academic and creative endeavors of graduate students, including academic articles, poetry, and student spotlights from more than 20 departments. The first issue, titled The Human Connection, highlights the threads of commonality that bind us together.  Click here to read the original article.

SUNY Chancellor John B. King Jr. addresses the ceremony honoring the 2024 Chancellor’s Award for Student Excellence (CASE) winners in Albany. Photo by Valerie Caviness/SUNY   Thirteen Stony Brook University students were honored by the State University of New York (SUNY) with the 2024 Chancellor’s Award for Student Excellence (CASE) — the highest honor awarded to SUNY students who have best demonstrated academic excellence and leadership. The awards ceremony was held April 11 in Albany, NY. The Chancellor’s Award for Student Excellence was created in 1997 and acknowledges students who have received recognition for distinguished achievements. This year, 193 students from 62 campuses received this award. Nominations are sought for students who have best demonstrated the integration of SUNY excellence within many aspects of their lives, including academics, leadership, diversity, equity, inclusion and justice, campus involvement, community service, research and development, and the arts. Click here to read the original article.   

A rendering of The New York Climate Exchange on Governors Island in New York City.   Stony Brook University students are invited to compete in the first-ever Climate Exchange AI Innovation Challenge, where teams from eight universities will present cutting-edge solutions to stormwater management challenges faced by New York City. The Challenge is presented by The New York Climate Exchange along with its partners: Stony Brook University, City University of New York, Duke University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Good Old Lower East Side (GOLES), IBM, Moody’s, New York University, Pace University, Rochester Institute of Technology and the University of Washington. Students will develop stormwater management solutions using IBM’s watsonx.ai technology and the Call for Code platform, Moody’s insights and datasets, and GOLES’s community touchpoints. Stormwater management is critical in enabling coastal resiliency efforts and an important component of New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ recently announced Green Economy Action Plan. Click here to read the original article. 

  The QS World University Rankings — a leading organization for international rankings — rated the world’s top universities by subject area, and once again placed Stony Brook University’s Physics and Astronomy program in the top 100, coming in at #99. Eight other subjects placed in the top 300 globally: Natural Sciences (#191), Mathematics (#151-200), Geology (#201-240), Geophysics (#201-240), History (#201-230), Biological Sciences (#201-250), Computer Science and Information Systems (#251-300) and Psychology (#251-300). To produce the rankings for this year, QS analyzed the reputation and research output of almost 5,000 institutions. From this group, 1,561 were ranked across 55 narrow subjects and five broad subject areas, creating more than 19,100 entries. Click here to read the original article. 

  Daniel Julian ’25 — the URECA researcher of the month for April — is an Honors College junior double majoring in physics and applied mathematics. Since January 2023, he has been working under the mentorship of Assistant Professor Jesús Pérez-Ríos on using machine learning for atomic and molecular physics, and was listed as a co-first author for his contributions to a Journal of Molecular Spectroscopy article titled, “The database of spectroscopic constants of diatomic molecules (DSCDM): A dynamic and  user-friendly interface for molecular physics and spectroscopy.”   Click here to read the original article.   

Students from Stony Brook University’s Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) program spent two Saturdays with scientists from Brookhaven National Laboratory. Photo by David Rahner/Brookhaven National Laboratory.   Women in Science and Engineering students got a glimpse into life as a scientist at BNL As part of an ongoing collaboration between Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) and Stony Brook University, students in Stony Brook’s Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) program spent two Saturdays at BNL completing hands-on activities with scientists from the lab’s Physics Department and the Nuclear Science and Technology Department, and engaging in conversations with scientists about the passions, triumphs, and difficulties that come with a career in STEM. Click here to read the original article. 

  For the 11th consecutive year, Stony Brook University has been named a Tree Campus Higher Education Institution for efforts conducted during the 2023 calendar year. Tree Campus Higher Education, a national program launched in 2008 by the Arbor Day Foundation, honors colleges and universities, and their leaders, for promoting healthy trees and engaging students and staff in the spirit of conservation. Click here to read the original article. 

Stony Brook student Vignesh Subramanian ‘24 founded One More Option, which hosted the rally at Stony Brook University for suicide awareness and prevention. Photos by John Griffin.   The struggle of young adults with anxiety, depression, and other mental health challenges becomes more prominent with each passing year. For Vignesh Subramanian ‘24, a senior biology and psychology double major, the battle hit close to home after witnessing peers’ struggles with suicidal thoughts and experiencing the trauma of losing a loved a one to suicide. On February 23, student leaders from seven colleges across Long Island rallied at Stony Brook University for suicide awareness and prevention. Subramanian said he was thrilled to lead an event in which student leaders, county and state lawmakers, and university administrators came together in a show of unity behind efforts to enact a statewide student suicide prevention law. Click here to read the original article.   

  Undergraduate and graduate students and postdocs at Stony Brook University continue to showcase their work on a global scale. Although final award announcements will come through later this spring, with more than 85 applicants for the 2024-2025 cycle, there is no sign of slowing down. In December, the Graduate School’s External Fellowships unit held an “I Hit Submit!” celebration for those who had submitted their fellowship applications. The event featured a few student speakers who spoke about their fellowship experiences at the undergraduate and graduate level.   Click here to read the original article.