Stony Brook University SUNY Korea

  Nadine Areikat ’23 — the URECA Researcher of the Month for December — is double majoring in biology and psychology and is completing her biology honors thesis on “Characterization of Apoptosis During Murine Fracture Repair” under the mentorship of Dr. David Komatsu, Department of Orthopaedics, Renaissance School of Medicine. Surprisingly, she met her faculty mentor through a freshman 102 seminar course on science fiction that Dr. Komatsu was teaching, and she subsequently joined his research laboratory in Spring 2020. “For me research was really a pillar in my education; it was such an integral component of learning at Stony Brook University,” said Areikat. Click here to read the original article.

Patients suffering from Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, more commonly known as ALS, experience limited mobility and communication, leading to less personal freedom and a lower quality of life. However, two Stony Brook University professors are working to advance a multifunctional eye-gaze-based app that can help ALS patients gain back some of their lost independence.   According to Fusheng Wang, an associate professor in the Department of Computer Science in the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences (CEAS), motor disability can be caused by ALS as well as other illness or trauma, including multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy, spinal cord injury, traumatic brain injuries and stroke, and muscular dystrophy.   Click here to read the original article.

College of Arts and Sciences Profs Share Their Expertise With the midterm elections upon us, several faculty members from Stony Brook University’s College of Arts and Sciences share their thoughts on how to best approach difficult political conversations, behave civilly and ethically, and all just get along: Don’t Make It Personal   “During elections and beyond, many people damage their relationships with family, friends, and peers over political disagreements,” said Peter DeScioli, associate professor in the Department of Political Science, who conducts research in moral and political psychology. “So I try to caution students that fighting over politics is usually a bad idea, just like other kinds of fighting. Fighting, whether with fists or insults, hurts everyone.”   In contrast, DeScioli said, we can debate difficult issues more peacefully and intelligently if we restrain ourselves from trying to insult, blame, and punish each other personally. “Civil discussion means that the debaters agree to focus on the issues, to take turns speaking, and not to stoop to insults and name-calling.”   Click here to read the original article.  

As the brisk days of autumn roll in, Stony Brook University students were able to appreciate a day of warmth with a one-day, music mini-festival presented on the Staller Steps.   The student-run event, known as “The Bash,” is quickly gaining a reputation as one of the most unique and lively events on campus, and the positive feedback it has received could place it among well-known campus traditions like the Roth Regatta and Brookfest. Five bands performed: Strange Neighbors, Crooked Arrows, Shining Hours, Big Stuff, and Arahmus Brown. Alongside the main performances, there were also tables set up to advertise the SB Press and sell merchandise from the featured performers.   The well-attended event on October 15, held for just the second time, was hosted by WUSB-FM, which is both the campus radio station and the largest commercial free radio station on Long Island. Last spring, in an effort to bring an element of live performance to campus, students within WUSB decided to host the first-ever Bash on the Staller Steps. WUSB often helps provide up-and-coming musical artists with a platform on the radio, so the transition to organizing a live sequence of performances was natural.   Click here to read the original article.    

    For the second straight year, Stony Brook University won first place in 511NY Rideshare and Transit Solution’s annual Car Free Day Long Island pledge contest. Car Free Day is an international event celebrated every September in which people are encouraged to get around without cars and instead ride a train, bus, bicycle, carpool, subway or walk. Stony Brook’s Commuter Student Services and Off-Campus Living (CSS/OCL) team secured 573 pledges this year from across the campus community. Commuter assistants, who are seasoned student leaders and role models committed to helping commuter students acclimate to campus, led the pledge drive and were responsible for a majority of the pledges received. “It was through their commitment to peer engagement and bettering their community that we were able to be victorious for the second year in a row,” said CSS/OCL coordinator Victoria Hughes. “This goes to show how impactful peer-to-peer outreach can be, and how much of a difference students can make within their own communities.”   Click here to read the original article.

  Collaborative National Research Centers on Integrating Tectonics, Climate and Mammal Diversity Stony Brook University is leading a research project that focuses on the interplay between the evolution of the landscape, climate, and fossil record of mammal evolution and diversification in the western United States. A little explored aspect of this geosciences research is the connection between gravitational forces deep in the Earth and landscape evolution. In a newly published paper in Nature Communications, the researchers show by way of computer modeling that deep roots under mountain belts (analogous to the massive ice below the tip of an iceberg) trigger dramatic movements along faults that result in collapse of the mountain belt and exposure of rocks that were once some 15 miles below the surface. The origin of these enigmatic exposures, called metamorphic core complexes, has been hotly debated within the scientific community. This study finding may alter the way scientists attempt to uncover the history of Earth as an evolving planet.   Click here to read the original article.

    Marrcela Muricy ’23  — the URECA Researcher of the Month for October — is in the University Scholars honors program, double majoring in biology and women’s gender and sexuality studies. For the past year, she has been doing research under the mentorship of Steven Glynn, associate professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, on a project to purify and characterize Tafazzin, an important mitochondrial lipid metabolizing enzyme. Muricy was one of 10 STEM students selected to participate in the inaugural Frances Velay Women in Science Fellowship program for Summer 2022, and she presented a research poster at the 2022 Summer Symposium on campus. Previously, she was selected as a Giuliano Global Fellow and had the opportunity to conduct research in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on the impact of a universal healthcare system; she explored class issues and quality of care. Click here to read the original article.

    There were an estimated 18 million cancer cases around the world in 2020. Though treatment methods have improved greatly in recent years, there is still a long way to go in combating many types of cancer. “Right now we don’t have a cure for everything,” said Mei Lin (Ete) Chan, an assistant professor in biomedical engineering in the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences.  “But CAR-T cell therapy is a very special cancer treatment with a lot of possibilities.” Click here to read the original article.  

  This post is written by Sara Ruberg ’22, winner of the Wall Street Journal Fellowship offered through the School of Communication and Journalism’s Marie Colvin Center for International Reporting. From the day I started at the Wall Street Journal, I was treated like another member of the business and corporations desk. I was immediately assigned a story that took me traveling around the UK talking to people and volunteers at food banks about the cost of living crisis while working on a story about Russian oligarchs suing the European Union over sanctions — on top of a couple of spot news stories of the week. Click here to read the original article.  

    Evan Trommer — the URECA Researcher of the Month for September — is a senior majoring in physics and mathematics who has been exploring experimental plasma physics under the mentorship of Navid Vafaei-Najafabadi from the Department of Physics and Astronomy. He participated in the 2022 URECA summer program and presented a poster on “Probing the Electromagnetic Field Structure in Plasma Wakefields Using Relativistic Electrons” at the Summer Symposium on August 4. Trommer’s research project built on his extensive programming skills and his combined academic training in physics and mathematics, and has since led to analytical and numerical simulations that will soon be tested at the Accelerator Test Facility at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Click here to read the original article.

Noah Khalsa and Lisa Crawford, master’s and PhD candidates, respectively, in the Stony Brook University School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, have been chosen as finalists in the John A. Knauss Marine Policy Fellowship program, which matches highly qualified graduate students with “hosts” in the legislative branch, executive branch, or appropriate associations/institutions located in the Washington, DC area, for a one-year paid fellowship. Click here to read the original article.

  The State University of New York (SUNY) Board of Trustees has approved the criteria for allocating $113 million in direct funding from New York State in an investment that will support campus programs designed to increase services to SUNY students, bolster enrollment at SUNY institutions and support college completion rates. Click here to read the original article.  

  On July 27, the Long Island Cranx Foundation completed its “Epic Rides For A Cause,” biking to Stony Brook Children’s Hospital where members of the charitable organization delivered a check for $22,000 in support of Stony Brook Children’s Hospital Child Life Program and the hospital’s Pediatric Emergency Department Expansion project. Click here to read the original article.  

    Six Stony Brook University students are among the 20 students in the State University of New York’s second class of its Pre-Medical Opportunity Program, established last year to help Educational Opportunity Program (EOP) students interested in pursuing a medical career prepare for, apply to, enroll at and graduate from one of the system’s top medical universities. Click here to read the original article.

Stony Brook University College of Business researchers Gary Sherman, Stacey Finkelstein and Paul Connell, along with coauthors at American University, Villanova University, and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, won the Best Paper Award for 2021 from the Journal of Consumer Affairs.   Click here to read the original article.