June 2022

The saying, “when it rains it pours” has increasingly become a harsh reality for many New Yorkers over the past two decades due to climate change. As a recent NY1 article explains, “climate change is causing more cloudburst rain events, when areas as small as a section of a borough see an entire storm’s worth of rain in a short period of time, totally overwhelming the city’s sewer pipes.” A team of researchers, including Ricardo Toledo-Crow, director of the Next Generation Environmental Sensor Lab and a researcher at the CUNY ASRC Environmental Sciences Initiative, and Kendra Kruger, CUNY ASRC’s STEM Outreach and Education Manager, are using DIY sensors to help combat this issue. The team has already installed 28 sensors across the city. Learn why the city is relying on them to install 500 more.

It’s official: The CUNY ASRC Center for Advanced Technology (Sensor CAT) has launched and is ready to further sensor innovation and entrepreneurship in New York State. The CUNY ASRC Nanoscience Initiative recently united local and global leaders and researchers who are invested in strengthening New York’s STEM presence for a two-day symposium celebrating the Sensor CAT’s launch. U.S. Rep. Adriano Espaillat and Estee Lauder’s Senior Vice President of Global Research & Development Lisa Napolione were among the guests. The days consisted of networking, productive conversations about how to develop sensor technology and support STEM entrepreneurship and workforce development in New York State.

When you hear the word “enzyme,” what’s the first thing that comes to mind? If you’re Professor Daniel Keedy, the phrase “masterpieces of evolution, catalyzing biochemical reactions with extraordinary efficiency” sounds about right. Keedy, a member of the CUNY ASRC Structural Biology Initiative, was selected as a 2022 Cottrell Scholar by the Research Corporation for Science Advancement for his novel approach to investigating how enzymes work. Find out how this achievement brings him one step closer to his goal of having an atomic-level understanding of enzymes.

Andrea Alù, the founding director of the Photonics Initiative at the CUNY ASRC and the Einstein Professor of Physics at the Graduate Center, was named a distinguished professor, making him one of the youngest professors to hold the highest professorial rank at CUNY. The title recognizes Alù’s scholarship, service to the CUNY ASRC and the Graduate Center, and dedication to his students. He is best known for his breakthroughs in invisibility cloaking, or making objects transparent to incoming microwave signals, as well as his discoveries in metamaterials and plasmonics.

We often discuss how the climate crisis has or will affect the environment, but what about our brains? The CUNY ASRC Neuroscience Initiative took a deep dive into the impact of the climate crisis on the ecosystem and human health at its recent symposium. Scientists, nurses, and executive officers gathered to discuss four topics: earth science, environmental dynamics, climate effects on the living, and climate change from a funding agency’s perspective. The symposium, which also highlighted the latest work on environmental science at CUNY, served as a steppingstone to create a more prolonged discussion on how to combat the climate crisis.

Congratulations to CUNY ASRC researchers Leandro Pimentel Marcelino and Kelly Veerasammy for being recognized as outstanding recipients of CUNY’s Jonas E. Salk Award for Excellence in STEM Research! Marcelino, a longtime member of CUNY ASRC Structural Biology Initiative Director Kevin Gardner’s lab plans to pursue a tri-institutional Ph.D. Program in chemical biology. He hopes to lead a pharmaceutical-based research group to develop novel cancer treatments one day. Veerasammy, an imaging specialist, intends to utilize her scientific training to become a health advocate and a mentor who helps pave an accessible path to STEM for future generations. Taking advantage of CUNY ASRC’s collaborative environment, Veerasammy has worked with researcher from three initiatives: Neuroscience Initiative professor Ye He,  Structural Biology Initiative professor Rinat Abzalimov, and Nanoscience Initiative professor Tong Wang.

The Surface Science Facility offers access and services to state-of-the art surface analysis instrumentation, including X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (TOFSIMS), atomic force microscopy (AFM), and thermochemical nanolithography (TCNL). With a range of sample preparation chambers, hardware configurations, and in-house expertise, the Surface Science Facility provides researchers in the physical sciences with the capability to prepare and analyze a variety of different sample types, including immobilized biological, organic, inorganic, and mixed composition samples.