The report finds President Joe Biden’s and Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaigns together outspent now President-elect Donald Trump on Facebook and Instagram by about 6-to-1 ($140 million to $24 million) between Sept. 1, 2023, and the Nov. 5, 2024, election. Meta owns the social media platforms Facebook and Instagram.����

The fourth quarterly report from Syracuse University’s  (IDJC) also identifies more than $6 million in negative ads from groups backed by Elon Musk that accept unlimited sums from anonymous donors, a source of financing known as “dark money.” The ads, which undercut Harris, aired during the closing weeks of the campaign.����

The world’s richest man, Musk is CEO of Tesla and owns social media platform X. He has emerged as a close advisor to Trump.����

• The report looks at spending on Meta Platforms related to Musk-backed Progress 2028, Building America’s Future PAC, Future Coalition and FC PACs, Duty to America, Fair��Election Fund, RBG PAC and America PAC.��

• In addition to messaging about the economy and illegal immigration, the ads aim to erode support for Democrats among Black Americans who smoke menthol cigarettes;, and send conflicting, targeted messages about the Israel-Hamas war. For instance, in Michigan, ads played up Harris’ support for Israel to erode Arab and Muslim voters’ support for the vice president; while in Pennsylvania, ads emphasized Harris’ sympathy for Palestinians to turn off Jewish voters.��

��The ElectionGraph report provides a powerful—though only partial—measure of the volume of election-related messaging on social media, whether ads originated from the candidates’ own campaigns or the vast web of outside groups that range from truthful and transparent, to murky and conspiracy-minded, and everything in between.����

This is the final installment in a yearlong research project that seeks to identify misinformation trends in the U.S. presidential election. The project is supported by a grant and the use of analytics software from , the world’s leading graph database and analytics company.��

The ElectionGraph team’s efforts include pinpointing origins of messages and tracing misinformation by collecting and algorithmically classifying ads run on Facebook and Instagram. ElectionGraph also has developed a publicly accessible dashboard to explore its findings.��

“In the closing days of the election, shady groups with unclear motives ran duplicitous ads meant to manipulate the public’s understanding of candidate Harris’ policies,” says Jennifer Stromer-Galley, a professor in the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University and ElectionGraph’s lead researcher. “The fragmented information environment combined with weak regulation around campaign finance and disclosures on digital ads leaves the public vulnerable to actors who will say anything to try and win elections.”��

While Meta allows approved organizations to access ad data, such data is not required to be made available—and is not similarly trackable—on TikTok, Google, YouTube or Snapchat. The findings nevertheless provide a framework to visualize the fire hose of information and misinformation targeting voters from groups with a jumble of motives, ties and trustworthiness ahead of the 2024 election.��

Graph databases have emerged as a formidable ally in unmasking coordinated misinformation campaigns this election cycle, says Jim Webber, chief scientist at Neo4j. ��

“Using Neo4j, IDJC ElectionGraph researchers have illuminated vast networks of accounts acting in unison to amplify false narratives, even when those accounts tried to maintain a veneer of independence,” Webber says. “They were able to quickly see the forest through the trees and map out an intricate structure of this problematic content, which had the potential to deceive voters.”��

The Institute for Democracy, Journalism and Citizenship is a joint University initiative of the  and the .��

“Election ads on social media in the closing weeks of the campaign can be particularly influential, but also difficult in terms of voters’ ability to see whose money and influence is behind them, given lag times in reporting requirements,”says IDJC Kramer Director , a journalist and professor of practice at the Newhouse School.  ��

Course Highlights

The NSF I-Corps program is nationally recognized for helping researchers bridge the gap between laboratory discoveries and commercial applications. Through hands-on activities and expert mentorship, participants will engage in the critical process of customer discovery, learning to identify the best product-market fit for their technology or research project. The program opens the door to government grant programs such as (fund investments of up to $2 million with no equity to help bring research to market), as well as private investments.

The program includes a combination of live virtual sessions and one-on-one meetings offering teams an opportunity to receive additional guidance from the course instructors and refine their discoveries.

Participants will gain:

• Firsthand experience with customer discovery
• Feedback and mentorship from NSF-trained instructors
• A clearer understanding of the product-market fit for their innovations; and
• The potential to be nominated for the NSF I-Corps Teams program, which offers additional resources and support.

Schedule

One-hour virtual class sessions are offered at convenient times for participants. Two days are scheduled for 1:1 mentoring sessions.

• Session 1: Monday, Feb, 17, 2025
• Session 2a: Wednesday, Feb. 19, 2025 — (1:1 mentoring meetings)
• Session 2b: Friday, Feb. 21, 2025
• Session 3: Monday, Feb. 24, 2025
• Session 4: Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2025 — (1:1 mentoring meetings)
• Session 5a: Wednesday, March 5, 2025
• Session 5b: Monday, March 10, 2025
• Session 6: Wednesday, March 12, 2025

NSF I-Corps programming is co-led by Linda Dickerson Hartsock, strategic initiatives advisor at the Libraries; Jeff Fuchsberg, director of the Syracuse Center for Advanced Systems and Engineering (CASE); and Cristiano Bellavitis, assistant professor of entrepreneurship in the Martin J. Whitman School of Management, who serves as project research lead. Whitman Interim Dean Alex McKelvie serves as principal investigator for the University’s NSF I-Corps grant.

For more information about the upcoming NSF I-Corps course, contact Hartsock at ldhart01@syr.edu or Fuchsberg at jrfuchsb@syr.edu.

About the NSF I-Corps Program

The NSF Innovation Corps (I-Corps) is a program designed to help researchers in the STEM fields transition from fundamental research to the commercialization of their ideas. Through a national network of training programs and partnerships, I-Corps provides the knowledge and skills needed to evaluate the commercial potential of scientific and technological innovations.

The course is offered through Syracuse University as a partner in the��, funded by the NSF, led by Cornell University, with other collaborators, including Dartmouth College, Rochester Institute of Technology, SUNY Binghamton, SUNY Buffalo, University of Pittsburgh, University of Rochester, University of Vermont and West Virginia University. The hub is part of the , connecting researchers, entrepreneurial communities and federal agencies to help commercialize research.

Through a new initiative called Lender Global, each year one of the University’s abroad centers will be designated as the Lender Global Partner. In addition, three research fellowships will be awarded to students studying at that location.

Lender Global begins in Spring 2025 at with a focus on social and environmental justice. The student fellows will examine the themes of biodiversity and the rights of nature; climate justice for people of the global majority; and meaningful engagement with ethical travel.

Lender Center Director says the extension of the Lender Center’s social justice initiative via the Syracuse Abroad platform makes sense because most social justice issues exist beyond the United States. “This initiative aligns with the University’s goals of preparing students to be responsible global citizens and addressing the social and scientific issues that affect people everywhere. It helps raise awareness that social justice issues don’t begin and end at a country’s borders and that solutions can come from innovative thinkers and dedicated researchers anywhere in the world.”

Assistant Provost and Syracuse Abroad Executive Director says, “We are pleased to partner with the Lender Center on this innovative concept that enhances our current programming and supports experiential learning, innovative research and human thriving. It’s an excellent way for students to include unique research opportunities while they study abroad.” ��

Climate Research

Students will be mentored and guided in their research by , an environmental activist-academic who is Syracuse Abroad’s London-based community engagement specialist, and Maggie Sardino ’23, a graduate of the College of Arts and Sciences and the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs and a Marshall Scholar. The fellows will be affiliated with Syracuse London’s Environment, Sustainability and Policy learning community, which allows students to take classes, live, intern, volunteer and engage in other activities alongside peers with similar interests.

In addition to working on their research and participating in the learning community, fellows will also collaboratively develop communication tools for future Syracuse Abroad students about how to be mindful of their ecological footprint and meaningfully engage with ethical travel, according to Farnum.

Spring 2024 students in the Syracuse Abroad London center program visit the Big Pit National Coal Museum in Wales as part of their examination of sustainable energy transitions and environmental heritage. (Photo by Syracuse London staff)

Farnum says London is an ideal location to study how major cities can creatively solve sustainability challenges. “London regularly ranks as one of the world’s Top 10 Sustainable Cities, is home to many of the world’s greenest buildings and is technically classified as a forest given its extensive green spaces, which comprise 47% of the city’s area. That’s why London makes a wonderful ‘living lab’ for this topic and why the London center provides a natural home for environmental, sustainability and policy studies.”

Troy Gordon, Syracuse Abroad director of global teaching and learning, says the social and environmental justice program is one of the Syracuse London center’s strengths. That focus comprises about 15% of the center’s curriculum—including a pre-semester traveling seminar on sustainability in Scandinavia, a course on climate change and environmental activism and a studio-based course on urban sustainability, in addition to its Learning Community for Environment, Sustainability and Policy. Students are also able to engage and learn in an exciting, green urban environment where social and environmental justice is a focal point and a true strength of the center, he says.

Students enrolled in the Spring 2025 London abroad program will be invited to apply for the fellowship.

Fall 2023 students from a geography course on environmental racism in the Syracuse London program volunteer at Calthorpe Community Garden. It is a green space in the heart of London supporting food security and cultural connection for migrant populations. (Photo by Syracuse London staff)

Lender Center Support

The Lender Center for Social Justice, made possible by a gift from , seeks to foster proactive, innovative and interdisciplinary approaches to social justice issues of equity and inclusion. The Lender Global program is designed to prompt development of novel approaches and creative solutions to global challenges while considering the needs and capacities of the partner program and its host community, Phillips says.

Syracuse Abroad shares many of the Lender Center’s values and commitments, according to Wilkens. Consistently ranked among top study abroad programs in the U.S., Syracuse Abroad has a long history of meaningful community engagement, experiential learning and cultural exchange around the world. Quality academic experiences across professional and liberal arts disciplines are offered at six overseas centers in Florence, London, Madrid, Santiago (Chile), Strasbourg (France) and through a program in Central Europe.

Phillips and Wilkens say Syracuse Santiago will likely be designated as the 2025-26 Lender Global Partner, which would enable students to do research in English, Spanish or both languages.

Eva Legge has been named a Mollie Beattie Visiting Scholar by the Society of American Foresters and was also awarded a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. (Photo courtesy of Eva Legge)

Legge will receive a $10,000 scholarship to pursue her research on the role mycorrhizae play in boosting forest resilience. Mycorrhizae are fungi that grow on the roots of trees and plants and provide mutual benefits. As a Mollie Beattie Visiting Scholar, she will gain valuable professional development and networking opportunities. In addition to connecting with SAF members across the country, she can also submit her research to an SAF journal and collaborate with staff and partners at the SAF headquarters in Washington, D.C.

This latest award comes on the heels of Legge winning a����from the National Science Foundation over the summer. Like the Mollie Beattie award, the NSF fellowship includes a stipend and access to professional development opportunities. According to the NSF program, its mission is to “help ensure the quality, vitality and diversity of the scientific and engineering workforce of the United States.”

Legge is part of A&S biology professor����Mycorrhizal Ecology Lab and SUNY ESF Professor����Applied Forest and Fire Ecology Lab. As a member of these teams, she studies how climate-adaptive forest management, such as timber harvest, assisted tree migration and prescribed fire, affects the symbiotic relationship between fungi and forests. Their goal is to devise strategies to safeguard these crucial yet delicate symbioses, ultimately aiding in the development of effective forest management practices.

“Climate change will likely add to the many stressors facing eastern U.S. forests. However, the positive benefits of fungal partnerships with tree roots can, in certain contexts, increase a forest’s stress tolerance,” Legge said in an��.

With this funding, she will continue her research exploring the connection between forest management, mycorrhizal symbioses and seedling success. She hopes to improve management practices and maximize the advantages mycorrhizae offer to “future-adapted” seedlings, thereby enhancing the resilience of America’s forests.

Eva Legge (second from left) and her team have been conducting their latest field research in Huntington Forest, located in the Adirondacks. (Photo courtesy of Eva Legge)

“Eva is an exceptionally driven graduate student motivated by addressing critical knowledge gaps in forest ecosystem resilience to global change,” says Fernandez. “Her research focuses on the crucial role of belowground dynamics in forest resilience, bridging fundamental ecological research with applied forest management. Her multidisciplinary approach promises to advance both basic scientific understanding and sustainable land management practices in a changing world. I am thrilled to see her outstanding work recognized with these prestigious awards.”

Learn more about the��and��.

is one of three postdoctoral fellows who are involved in the center’s examination of the in America. That initiative explores the gap’s causes and consequences and aims to create effective solutions to counter it through social collaborations that help dismantle the root causes of racial wealth disparities.

Before coming to Syracuse University, Christophe was a research fellow focused on this area at the at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Before that, she earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in finance and business administration from Florida Memorial University and a Ph.D. in management from Morgan State University.

We sat down with Christophe to hear about her interest in understanding the critical stages of entrepreneurial journeys, the psychological factors and resource needs that drive entrepreneurial success and the dynamics between individual entrepreneurs and social institutions.

Students present research at SOURCE Explore 2024

The program takes place on Jan. 24, Jan. 31, Feb. 7 and Feb. 14, with the final presentation on Feb. 28 from 2 to 4 p.m. All cohorts, except “Mapping Stories, Making Change with Syracuse Community Geography” take place from 2 to 4 p.m. The Community Geography cohort will meet on Fridays from noon to 2 p.m.

The six SOURCE Explore programs being offered are:

• “Mapping Stories, Making Change with Syracuse Community Geography:” Learn how maps help us visualize and share pressing stories like the impacts of climate change, the global pandemic, housing inequalities and ongoing racial injustice (among many more).
• “Analyzing Media and Popular Culture Through a Social Justice Lens with Newhouse’s CODE^SHIFT Lab:” Learn how to examine media texts (such as news stories, social media posts, movies, TV shows, music videos or advertisements) from a social justice lens to become more mindful media users.
• “Culture Clubs: Researching Communities of Interest:” Explore traces of human culture, activity and ideas through archival materials like photographs, scrapbooks and diaries, homemade fliers and pamphlets, notes and ephemera to better understand what constitutes “community” from mainstream offshoots to counterculture and subculture groups, to organizations of extreme niche interest. This cohort will be offered through the Libraries’ Special Collections Research Center.
• “3D Printing and Advanced Manufacturing*:” Learn how to utilize computer aided design (CAD) and 3D printers in academic research for precise modeling and rapid prototyping of complex structures.
• “Discovering Connections: Using Graph Theory to Solve Real-World Network Challenges*:” Learn how to model networks as graphs and apply key concepts like shortest paths, network flows and connectivity to explore how mathematical models can help solve real problems.
• “Exploring the Building Blocks of Life*:” Learn how DNA, the building block of life, is a key component of life science research through Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR), a common laboratory technique that amplifies DNA sequences of interest.

The three STEM Explore programs* are offered in partnership with the����program; students meeting the LSAMP����are strongly encouraged to apply.

Of the SOURCE Explore experience in spring 2024, one student shared that they learned “how to be more open-minded and adaptable when doing research,” including “how to navigate looking at archival, first-hand sources.” The student explained, “I didn’t have much experience with this prior, as I mainly used online databases and second-hand sources to complete projects. This led me to a third skill that I developed, which was how to narrow down my search and ask relevant questions.”

Interested students should by Dec. 5.

The event, “Lender Conversation in Los Angeles: Seeking Racial Equity in the Entertainment Industry,” was hosted by the and was held at the NeueHouse Hollywood. It was attended by about 100 Southern California-area alumni, entertainment industry leaders and other invited guests.

Moderating the panel was journalist and TV host ’99, an alumna of the (VPA) and its Communication and Rhetorical Studies program. Nottingham has worked as a reporter covering national and international breaking news, entertainment and politics. She was joined by four alumni panelists:

• ’88, president of domestic marketing at Universal Pictures and previous president of domestic theatrical marketing for Sony Pictures Entertainment. Caines is an alumnus of the Newhouse School of Public Communications and an instructor in the school’s Newhouse LA program
• ’85, an Emmy-nominated writer for film and television and a VPA alumnus
• ’07, an actress, writer and producer who graduated from VPA. She is known for her recent comedic role on the hit NBC sitcom “A.P. Bio”
• ’20, an associate attorney in the entertainment transactions group at Mitchell Silberberg & Krupp, LLP. She earned her undergraduate degree from VPA’s Bandier Program for Recording and Entertainment Industries.

, Lender Center director, says the conversation “provided valuable insights into how racial inequity continues to exist within the entertainment industry, as well as offering promising paths towards reducing these barriers. We hope to use what we’ve learned here to help craft new paths towards closing the racial wealth gap in other industries.”

The Los Angeles event was the fourth in a series of conversations hosted by the Lender Center to bring experts and thought leaders together to improve understanding of and present ideas to help mitigate the racial wealth gap’s community impacts. Those events and other research initiatives are made possible by a $2.7 million grant from MetLife Foundation. The funding has also supported three research symposia, three postdoctoral scholars and 15 faculty grants for research on the topic.

“Lender Center’s work with support from MetLife Foundation generated important new thought leadership, boosted awareness of racial wealth equity issues and created valuable new partnerships with key institutions and organizations,” says Phillips. “We have discovered many new possibilities for addressing how the wealth gap affects communities, and those ideas have provided worthwhile new understandings.”

These photos show highlights of the event.

Lender Center for Social Justice Director Kendall Phillips, far left, who is also a professor in the Communication and Rhetorical Studies program at VPA, introduces the conversation panelists, all entertainment industry executives and alumni of the University. From left are Danielle Nottingham ’99, Lyric Lewis ’97, Rob Edwards ’85, Bryse Thornwell ’20 and Dwight Caines ’88.

The event drew 100 guests, including numerous alumni and entertainment-�� industry guests. Panelist Dwight Caines ’88, at left, speaks with David Oh G ’00, ’07, now an associate professor of communications at the Newhouse School of Public Communications; and Joan Adler, G’76, assistant vice president of regional programs at the University’s Los Angeles center.

Jason Poles ’99, the University’s director of advancement for the Southwest region, speaks with fellow alumnus and basketball team player Antonio “Scoop” Jardine G’12.

Tari Wariebi ’10, enjoys a reception conversation. The alumnus graduated with dual majors in communication and rhetorical studies from the College of Visual and Performing Arts and writing and rhetoric in the College of Arts and Sciences.

The panel provided opportunities for attendees to hear directly from entertainment leaders about their experiences with the racial wealth gap in that industry. Rob Edwards ’85, left, an Emmy-nominated writer and an adjunct instructor for the Newhouse School of Public Communications, spoke with this guest.

Jason Poles, ’99, left, the University’s advancement director for the Southwest region, chats with alumni attendees Christina Ledo ’11, center, an international relations major at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs; and Tiffany Bender-Abdallah ’11, a communication and rhetorical studies major in the College of Visual and Performing Arts.

The Los Angeles event brought together faculty, staff, entertainment industry panelists and alumni. Kendall Phillips, Lender Center director, at left, and David Oh G’00, ’07, second from left, an associate professor for the Newhouse School of Public Communications, met with Anna Proulx, Visual and Performing Arts program director for the Syracuse University Los Angeles semester program, and right, Allison Gold ’15, a College of Visual and Performing Arts graduate.

Tyler Gentry ’25, a Syracuse University student in the ��Bandier Program for Recording and Entertainment Industries, spoke during the question segment of the evening’s event. Seated behind him is Tiffany Bender-Abdallah ’11.

Posing for a finale photo on the stage as the event concluded are, from left, Leonard Garner Jr., Kendall Phillips, panel moderator Danielle Nottingham and panel members Lyric Lewis, Rob Edwards, Bryse Thornwell and Dwight Caines.

Science festivals offer a platform for researchers to demystify complex scientific phenomena and help the public better understand the relevance and importance of their work. By making science accessible to broader audiences, it can also inspire future scientists to pursue careers in STEM.

Syracuse University postdoctoral researcher Graeme Eddolls (left) and his collaborator Andrew Spencer (right) presenting their research on gravitational waves during the Orkney International Science Festival.

Graeme Eddolls, a postdoctoral researcher in the College of Arts and Sciences (A&S) who works with the (CGWAA), recently attended the in Scotland. The festival regularly draws prominent scientists, historians and experts who share their research with the public in approachable ways. Notably, when it was founded in 1991, it was the world’s second ever science festival, following the renowned Edinburgh Science Festival, which was established in 1989. Eddolls and his collaborators, Andrew Spencer, a lecturer at the University of Glasgow, and Leon Trimble, an audiovisual artist and honorary research associate at the University of Birmingham, presented their “Swimming with Gravitational Waves” project, which includes creative and interactive experiences that connect water, sound and gravitational waves. During the week, they also showcased their “Music of Deep Time” project and hosted booths at an Orkney Festival family event as well as a workshop at Kirkwall Grammar School.

About the Project

Leon Trimble performing at the Swimming with Gravitational Waves event.

To a general audience, the concept of gravitational waves may seem complex and challenging to understand. However, as Eddolls explains, gravitational waves follow similar physics principles as those we observe in everyday phenomena like light, water and sound waves.

Gravitational waves are produced in the aftermath of some of the most energetic processes in the universe, like when black holes or neutron stars collide. These events produce ‘ripples’ in spacetime, a concept which was first predicted by Albert Einstein in his general theory of relativity. By the time these signals reach Earth, they are extremely faint. To detect them, researchers measure laser interference using detectors known as laser interferometers.

When a gravitational wave passes through a detector, it alters the distance that laser light travels along the detector’s two arms, changing their interference pattern. This technology, used by some of the most advanced detectors like the (LIGO) in the U.S., helped scientists make the first direct observation of gravitational waves in 2015, a monumental discovery made by an international team of physicists, including several researchers from Syracuse.

Eddolls points out that a fascinating aspect of gravitational waves is that their vibration frequencies fall within the range of human hearing.

The team brought their rubber spacetime demonstrator to the cliffs of Orkney to capture a scenic photo during the festival.

“While we can’t directly hear gravitational waves with our ears, we can take the signal from our detectors and turn it into sound,” he says. “You can actually to the converted signal of the first ever gravitational wave detection.”

Participants enter a swimming pool, where they can hear sound waves through speakers positioned above and below the water. This setup creates a unique auditory experience, mimicking how gravitational waves are produced everywhere in the universe. Furthermore, by swimming in the pool, participants can experience water waves through sight which gives the audience a good physical intuition of what waves are, how waves move and how waves interfere when they pass through each other.

Doctoral student Cijun Zhang explains his research to BioInspired Symposium attendees. Zhang studies in the Xiaoran Hu functional organic materials lab.

The event featured poster presentations by 79 undergraduate and graduate students and postdoctoral scholars. Several researchers presented “lightning talks” on topics such as how and how the human body reacts; fabricating and creating and new technologies to address��problems from clean energy to robotics to medicine. Guest speakers from several universities made special presentations. Awards were presented to recognize researchers in multiple ways.

Three recipients were chosen in the Best Overall Poster category:

• ’25, a dual mathematics and physics major in the (A&S), for “.” (Principal investigators are , physics professor, and Antun Skanata, research assistant professor of physics.)
• , a doctoral student in physics in A&S, for “.” (Principal investigator is , William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Physics.)
• , an M.D./Ph.D. student in cell and developmental biology at SUNY Upstate Medical University, for “.” (Principal investigator is , associate research professor of biology.)

Two presenters were recognized as Stevenson Biomaterials Poster Award winners:

• , a biomedical and chemical engineering doctoral student in the (ECS), for her work on “.” (Principal investigator is , associate professor of .)
• G’21, a mechanical and aerospace engineering doctoral student in ECS, for “.” (Principal investigator is , associate professor of .)

Two researchers received awards recognizing Best Lightning Talks:

• , a doctoral student in chemistry in A&S, whose topic was “.” Her work involves testing to find an improved diagnostic biomarker��for prostate and other cancers. (Principal investigator is , professor and director of biochemistry.)
• , a doctoral student in biomedical and chemical engineering in ECS, for her research on bone tissue, described in “.”(Principal investigator is , professor of biomedical and chemical engineering.)

A project by , “,” was recognized as having the best commercialization potential. Can is a biomedical and chemical engineering doctoral student in ECS. (Principal investigator is Mary Beth Monroe.)

Receiving honors for her “social impact” initiative was , G ‘22, an assistant teaching professor in the , for her work, “ The project explored an interdisciplinary collaboration between the University’s Departments of Chemistry and Architecture that aimed to foster societal impact through sustainable innovation in architectural materials.��(Her collaborator was , associate professor of chemistry in A&S.)

Winston Oluwole Soboyejo, SUNY Polytechnic Institute President, asks Alexia Chatzitheodorou, a graduate research assistant, about her work on “Shape Morphing of Twisted Nematic Elastomer Shells.” Soboyejo was one of several university representatives to speak at the symposium.

Winner of the People’s Choice Award was , a biomedical and chemical engineering doctoral student in ECS. His project, “”

His research examines how hemostatic materials with antibacterial and antibiofilm properties can reduce infection rates and enhance the healing of traumatic wounds. (Principal investigator is Mary Beth Monroe.)

Best Publication Awards went to:

• G’22, a graduate of the applied data science program who is now a doctoral student in bioengineering and biomedical engineering in ECS. He is exploring the use of hiPSC-CMs to study and understand cardiomyocyte biology through biology with artificial intelligence. His paper, “,” published in Cell Reports Methods in June, presented new methods for investigating the physiological functioning of cardiac organoids using machine learning algorithms.

• , a doctoral student in bioengineering at ECS, studies wound healing and tissue regeneration. His paper, “,” was published in the journal ACS Applied Biomaterials in February.
• , a doctoral student in bioengineering at ECS, received an honorable mention. His paper, “” was published in the journal ACS Biomaterials Science and Engineering in June.

Maloney, a researcher who investigates fundamental questions in theoretical physics and quantum information theory, comes to Syracuse from in Montreal.

Alexander Maloney

“I am delighted by the opportunity to work with the outstanding students and faculty at Syracuse University to help push the forefront of research in quantum science,” Maloney says.

The Walters Endowed Professorship was established by a $2.5 million gift from Syracuse University Board of Trustees Chair Emeritus Kathy Walters ’73 and her husband, Stan ’72. Their gift was made as part of the , which supports the recruitment and retention of high-caliber faculty.

“The commitment of the Walters family has allowed us to recruit a world-class leader for Syracuse University’s quantum science program,” says , vice president for research. “Professor Maloney will bring together outstanding faculty from the and the and provide new opportunities for our students to engage in cutting-edge research.”

Maloney’s research focuses on connections between quantum information theory, field theory, statistical mechanics and quantum gravity.

“Over the last century, advances in our understanding of the quantum world have underlain some of the most important scientific and technical advances that have changed both our society and our understanding of the universe,” Maloney says. “This includes deep questions ranging from elementary particle physics and black holes to materials science and engineering. Many of the most exciting current directions lie at the intersection of quantum science and information theory, where a new field of science is being created that may have profound implications, both for our understanding of fundamental physics and for the construction of quantum computers and precision devices.”

A&S Dean Behzad Mortazavi notes that health care is another area of promise in quantum information science. “For example, we can imagine the potential for much earlier detection of diseases like cancer through quantum sensing, and the creation of highly personalized, more effective treatments for those diseases based on analysis of massive amounts of DNA data,” he says. “With Professor Maloney bringing his internationally recognized expertise to join the other top researchers in A&S physics, we are excited to be on the leading edge of this frontier.”

Maloney’s previous positions include James McGill Professor of Physics and Sir William Macdonald Chair in Physics at McGill University, where he was honored with the John David Jackson Award for excellence in teaching. He was a member of the in Princeton, New Jersey, and a research associate at the . He was selected as a Simons Fellow in Theoretical Physics in 2013. He earned a Ph.D. in physics from Harvard University and an M.Sc. in mathematics and B.Sc. in physics from Stanford University.

At Syracuse, Maloney will work with four new researchers—now being recruited by the University with support from and —who will grow teaching and research in quantum science, providing opportunities for students to advance understanding of nature and design the next generation of quantum technologies.

From left: Professors Bing Dong, Jackie Anderson, Ian Shapiro and Jensen Zhang (Photo by Alex Dunbar)

The University has received funding from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to create new Building Training and Assessment Center (BTAC) to train undergraduate and graduate engineering students and build a clean energy workforce. The SU-BTAC, aligned with the vision of the DOE BTAC program, will educate and provide hands-on training for engineering students to perform assessments focused on reducing the energy burden for commercial and institutional buildings with a focus on disadvantaged communities.

The SU-BTAC will be housed at the (SyracuseCoE), New York State’s Center of Excellence in Environmental Energy Systems which engages more than 200 private companies, organizations and academic institutions to create new products and services in indoor environmental quality, clean and renewable energy, and water resource management.

With SyracuseCoE, the SU-BTAC will create relationships and company screening opportunities to connect commercial and institutional buildings with existing programs in the region relating to unions, apprenticeships, trade organizations, community programs and others.

“I see the SU-BTAC as an expansion of the Syracuse University Industrial Assessment Center (SU-IAC), now SU-ITAC, and as a great experiential learning opportunity for our students. Not only are we able to help commercial and institutional buildings with reducing their energy burden, but we are also able to teach and mentor the next generation of energy engineers,” says , director of IAC and associate teaching professor in mechanical and aerospace engineering.

SU-BTAC will be led by faculty from Syracuse University and supported by faculty from the City University of New York. The center will be co-directed by Professor , with involvement from professors and .

Researchers also found continued patterns of “coordinated inauthentic behavior” among some outside organizations, including a large network of Facebook pages running ads aimed at scamming the public. The analysis found an estimated $5 million spent on ads that are potential scams, or roughly 4% of the overall ad spending by outside organizations. This translates into about 234 million impressions.

The ElectionGraph project seeks to identify misinformation trends in the U.S. presidential election and other top 2024 contests.

These are among the findings in the third quarterly report from the at the University’s����(IDJC). The report examines ads on Meta platforms, which include Facebook and Instagram, mentioning primary and general election presidential candidates between Sept. 1, 2023, and Aug. 31, 2024.

The latest report found the Democratic ticket (Biden-Harris, then Harris-Walz) outspending the Trump campaign 10-to-1—or roughly $50 million to $5 million—on Facebook and Instagram between September 2023 and August 2024. That gap expanded to 12-to-1 in the crucial swing state of Pennsylvania. But Trump outpaced Biden’s and Harris’ campaigns combined by about 5-to-1 in ads categorized as “uncivil.”

The data shows a 4-to-1 difference in impressions on the social media platforms, or about 1 billion impressions for the Democratic ticket compared with 250 million impressions for the GOP. This gap doesn’t take into account Trump-related spending on messaging on social platform X, Trump’s Truth Social network or other media platforms.

In addition to campaigns’ spending, nearly 3,500 Facebook pages from outside organizations have spent $55 million over the past year in an effort to influence the public this election season.

ElectionGraph seeks to identify misinformation trends in the U.S. presidential election and other top 2024 contests. The project is supported by a grant and use of analytics software from , the world’s leading graph database and analytics company.

The ElectionGraph team’s efforts include pinpointing origins of messages and tracing misinformation by collecting and algorithmically classifying ads run on Facebook and Instagram. ElectionGraph also has developed a publicly accessible dashboard to explore its findings.

While Meta allows approved organizations to access ad data, such data is not required to be made available—and is not similarly trackable—on TikTok, Google, YouTube or Snapchat. The findings nevertheless provide a framework to visualize the fire hose of information and misinformation targeting voters from groups with a jumble of motives, ties and trustworthiness ahead of the 2024 elections.

The Institute for Democracy, Journalism and Citizenship is a joint University initiative of the and the .

“My concern with the ongoing scams running on Facebook and Instagram is that they look like legitimate advertisements, but they are full of falsehoods and even deepfakes, further polluting the information environment and deceiving voters,”��says , a professor in the School of Information Studies and ElectionGraph’s lead researcher.

Social media scams that exploit heightened sentiments during important moments like elections have become widespread, says Jim Webber, chief scientist at Neo4j.

“This important research, enabled by Neo4j, can help voters and policymakers to distinguish legitimate actors from malicious ones hidden within complex networks,” Webber says. “Without this technology, achieving such insights would be almost impossible.”

Adds IDJC Kramer Director : “Real, bipartisan concerns about election-related violence—accentuated by assassination attempts against former President Trump—have proved no match for the magnetic pull of negative, uncivil and attack-ad campaigning that Trump himself and his rivals consider too useful to set aside.” Talev is a journalist and professor of practice in the Newhouse School.

Graduate students from the Experimental Neutrino Physics group with Syracuse-area high school students who took part in the Syracuse University Physics Emerging Research Technologies Summer High School Internship Program in summer 2024.

It takes sophisticated technology to study the behavior of invisible particles like neutrinos and cosmic rays, which pass through our bodies every second before zooming back off into the universe without us even knowing. While they might be tiny, these particles have massive importance, as understanding their interactions could help scientists determine why our universe exists and why all of the “stuff” in the universe, including stars, planets and people, are made out of matter and not antimatter. Faculty and students in the ��group in Syracuse University’s College of Arts and Sciences (A&S) are part of an international effort to explore the secrets of neutrinos.

So, what’s the buzz about neutrinos? Neutrinos and other invisible particles such as cosmic rays are produced by some of the most extreme events in the cosmos, like the Big Bang nearly 14 billion years ago or when massive stars end their life cycles in a blaze of glory known as supernovae explosions. Neutrinos come in three flavors (electron, muon and tau) and have some mysterious characteristics, such as puzzlingly low masses and the ability to oscillate, or change from one type of neutrino to another. Scientists use cutting-edge particle detectors to study the information embedded in neutrinos and make definitive determinations of neutrino properties.

Physics Professors ��and����are working with undergraduate and graduate students, and postdoctoral researchers on everything from detector construction to operation and analysis, both at Syracuse and at larger detection sites like��. Fermilab is one of the few places on Earth where a focused beam of neutrinos can be created and aimed at a detector.

Through Fermilab’s����(DUNE), particle detectors are being constructed one mile underground in a former gold mine in South Dakota right in the path of a neutrino beam originating from Fermilab in Illinois. Once operational, DUNE scientists will be able to study a phenomenon called “neutrino oscillation,” which looks at how the three different flavors of neutrinos that make up the Standard Model (electron, muon and tau) change between types as they travel. These insights could reveal why the universe is dominated by matter and whether a fourth type of neutrino (sterile neutrino) exists, which would go beyond the Standard Model, indicating that there is more to the universe’s fundamental particle makeup than we currently understand.

Prototype Paves the Way

Physics graduate student Tom Murphy (right, in orange hard hat) working on a DUNE prototype. (Photo by Dan Svoboda)

DUNE, currently under construction, will be the most comprehensive neutrino experiment in the world. But before it comes online, scientists have been testing prototype equipment and components in preparation for the final detector installation. Members of Syracuse’s Experimental Neutrino Physics group have been part of the��, which recorded its first��. While the final version of the DUNE near detector will feature 35 liquid argon modules, the prototype has four modules arranged in a square and allows scientists to validate the design.

“Our group members who are resident at Fermilab, including postdoctoral researcher Luis Zazueta and graduate student Tom Murphy, have helped with final detector construction, installation and operations,” says Soderberg. “Zazueta was the inaugural “deputy run coordinator” for the 2×2 effort, which is a leadership role important to the operation of the detector. We are anticipating more involvement in the full-size DUNE detector that the 2×2 is a prototype for.”

Exploring the Cosmos on Campus

Physics Ph.D. student Sierra Thomas is another one of the A&S scientists who has been involved in the DUNE collaboration. She is currently setting up the equipment to make observations of cosmic events at Syracuse using the new prototype “pixel” Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber detector. Located on the third floor of the physics building, this hi-tech device allows researchers to make observations about the universe from the comforts of campus. What’s more, the experiments conducted with this equipment are contributing to the enhancement of larger detectors at Fermilab.

Watch the video below for Sierra’s take on the detector.

A Search for Oscillation

In addition to the DUNE project, Fermilab also hosts the Short-Baseline Neutrino Program, which is a chain of three particle detectors—ICARUS, MicroBooNE and the Short-Baseline Near Detector (SBND). SBND is the near detector for the Short Baseline Neutrino Program and the newest of the three. ICARUS, which started collecting data in 2021, is the far detector. SBND will measure the neutrinos as they were produced in the Fermilab beam and ICARUS will measure the neutrinos after they’ve potentially oscillated. The neutrino interactions collected from these detectors play a critical role in performing searches for neutrino oscillations, which could provide proof of the elusive fourth kind of neutrino.

The Short-Baseline Near Detector and ICARUS are the near and far detectors, respectively, in the Short-Baseline Neutrino Program. (Photo courtesy of Fermilab)

Rohan Rajagopalan standing in the SBND building near the detector.

SBND, the final element that completed Fermilab’s Short-Baseline Neutrino Program, recently reached a key milestone as scientists identified the detector’s����earlier this year. Members of Syracuse’s Experimental Neutrino Physics group played integral roles in��constructing and commissioning the detector, whose planning, prototyping and construction took nearly a decade. Current group members Amy Filkins, a postdoctoral researcher, and Rohan Rajagopalan, a graduate student, are currently based at Fermilab and working on SBND, having made major contributions to SBND’s first operations.

Amy Filkins (in yellow hard hat) working on the Short-Baseline Near Detector’s data acquisition rack.

The collaboration will continue operating the detector and analyzing the many millions of neutrino interactions collected for the next several years.

“I’m proud of the work that our team has been undertaking,” says Whittington. “I find the process of building, understanding and operating these experiments very engaging, and I’m excited to see them come to fruition over the next few years.”

Students interested in hands-on, international research and exploring the secrets of neutrinos can learn more by visiting the����group website.

The and the co-hosted the annual appreciation dinner to celebrate the postdoctoral community and to celebrate the scholars with their guests, faculty mentors and University leaders and staff. The evening included recognition of three postdoctoral scholars as the first recipients of the new Vice President for Research’s Postdoctoral Award for Excellence in Research and Creative Work.

“The dinner is meant to express appreciation for and highlight the important contributions postdoctoral scholars make to Syracuse University’s research and creative activities,” says , associate director of postdoctoral affairs. “The event provides an opportunity for our postdoctoral scholars and their family, friends,�� mentors and collaborators to applaud these contributions and to socialize.”

, vice president for research, says postdoctoral scholars are essential to the University’s research and creative mission. “Postdocs are critical to the success of the University. As they grow their own skills, they contribute intellectual vigor to their fields and enrich the experiences of our undergraduate and graduate students through their mentoring. As faculty, we rely on our postdocs in many ways. This event and the new awards provide a way for us to show our appreciation for people who are key members of our research teams.”

The recipients of the Vice President for Research’s Postdoctoral Award for Excellence in Research and Creative Work were chosen based on the outstanding quality and impacts of their research and creative activity. Winners received awards of $750 and presented summaries of their work to dinner attendees. They are:

• , a researcher in the in the
• , who works in the in the College of Arts and Sciences
• , a scholar in the in the

Duncan Brown, far left, vice president for research, congratulates the winners of the new postdoctoral recognition award. From left are David Fastovich, Dustin Hill and Kyung Eun Kim.

Kim’s research predicts the structure and mechanics of biological tissue and its composition and outer shell using computational and analytical modeling techniques. She works with , professor of physics, to examine the mechanical response and changes cells undergo when the tissues are compressed. The research pertains to a trait that is a hallmark of inflammatory disease in the body. She is also studying how tissue compression affects other disease conditions. Her research has applications in developmental biology, cancer research and tissue engineering.

Fastovich works with faculty mentor , Thonis Family Professor of Paleoclimate Dynamics and assistant professor of Earth and environmental sciences. He studies Earth’s past climate to understand current climate changes, predict future rainfall changes from climate warming, determine what mechanisms affect climate changes and assess the impacts on biological systems over time and geographies. The work helps provide an understanding of how climate and ecosystems interact, knowledge that is crucial to preparing nature and human society for worldwide changes as the planet continues to warm.

Hill is an environmental epidemiologist and��data scientist who studies environmental inequality, pollution and human health. He has worked with the and , Falk professor and public health department chair, since 2021. Hill has provided advanced statistical modeling of wastewater data, surveyed local health departments on data use and mapped disease spread based on social equity. He is now using wastewater surveillance data for viral pathogens to create statistical models to predict future disease spread. He also works with co-mentor and Falk professor , Falk Family Endowed Professor of Public Health, on the child health impacts of exposure to industrial air pollution in Syracuse.

The Office of Postdoctoral Affairs, which is part of the Office of Research, was formed last fall. It provides centralized resources and dedicated staff to serve the interests and well-being of postdoctoral scholars across the University. The office supports postdoctoral professional and career development in close collaboration with the�� and other campus partners. The office also collaborates with staff across the University to facilitate administrative processes related to hiring and onboarding postdocs. The launch of the new office is intended to uphold the University’s commitment to a quality campus experience and positive career outcomes for postdoctoral scholars while advancing the University’s research and creative mission.

Elizabeth Carter (left), assistant professor in civil and environmental engineering, received a water resource grant from the United States Geological Survey to develop a sensor network that measures flooding.

After Hurricane Katrina ravaged the southern coastline of the United States in 2005, found herself on the Gulf Coast following the tropical storm’s aftermath. Witnessing the devastating impact of the hurricane on infrastructure and communities, she decided to place her undergraduate education on hold and join the efforts to rebuild—an experience that would be the catalyst for her future research.

“It was pivotal a time in U.S. history. It exposed a lot of the ways that structurally our publicly funded infrastructure is shunting risk down socioeconomic gradients,” Carter says. “As a young person figuring out what I wanted to do in the world, I didn’t think I could walk away from something like that and retain my humanity.”

Ignited with a passion for the environment, Carter returned to school and received her bachelor’s degree in soil science, a master’s in environmental information science and a Ph.D. in environmental engineering with a concentration in water resources.��Now working as an assistant professor in civil and environmental engineering in the����with a joint appointment as an assistant professor in Earth and environmental sciences in the , Carter is a computational hydrologist who studies the movement of water from space. Using data from satellites, these observations of water movement allow her to develop ways to respond to natural disasters and manage water resources.

She and her research team at Syracuse University have received a water resource grant from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) to develop a sensor network that measures flooding. This sensor network will help predict different types of flooding caused by natural disasters, particularly flooding in areas where people live, which is referred to as urban flooding. This project is known as the Urban Flood Observing Network.

Elizabeth Carter (far left) is working on a sensor network that will help predict different types of flooding caused by natural disasters, particularly flooding in areas where people live, referred to as urban flooding.

“We’re hoping to build a sensor network for better urban flood response and labels for satellite images so they can map urban flooding everywhere,” says Carter.

Fatemeh Rezaei G‘25 (environmental engineering), Huantao Ren G’21, Ph.D. ‘27 (computer science), Manu Shergill ‘24 (computer science) Nhy’ere Scanes, Ike Unobhaga, Kaitlyn Gilmore and Sharif Jafari are students from Syracuse University and Onondaga Community College (OCC) who have helped with the development of the Urban Flood Observing Network. Collaborators on the project include electrical engineering and computer science professor and , associate professor in the .

“It’s been a great way to engage a lot of different students from different backgrounds and stages in their careers in hardware design, 3d printing, algorithm design, and photogrammetry,” Carter says.

Shergill is the primary developer leading the project and has been working on the sensor network since 2021. During a summer internship in his freshman year at OCC, he assembled the initial version of the water sensor camera. He’s also been working on adding higher-quality sensors, wireless communications, machine vision, and other features to the water sensor camera. He hopes to install it on the roof of Syracuse’s Center of Excellence for testing.

“The next thing I’m tackling is a remote start function, so we can trigger continuous data collection when a storm is moving into the area the sensor is monitoring,” Shergill says.

Carter has hopes the USGS will install these sensor networks in different locations where quick responses to flood events are needed which can help manage future flood events.

“It’s been great to collaborate with different students on this project and make an impact on tackling natural disasters that are a result of climate change,” Carter says.

The network’s expanded reach is the result of its recent designation as a (CDC) Northeast Region Center of Excellence. The designation recognizes the network’s exemplary performance in the early detection and monitoring of communicable diseases as well as the innovative research coming from Larsen’s group. It also provides the new Center of Excellence with $1 million in CDC funding. Approximately $500,000 of that amount will support the University’s continuing affiliated operations and research.

David Larsen

, public health department chair and professor in the��, is gratified by the recognition, which is a nod to the program’s vast potential.

“I had a vision for the New York State Water Surveillance Network, but to be named a federal CDC Center of Excellence is just a real honor,” Larsen says. “What we’re doing now is building systems that will keep people healthier; operational processes that let people live more freely and improve the public health response are the ultimate goal.”

Larsen, members of his research team and their partner in the network, the ) and its , met earlier this month to formalize goals for their work with the CDC.

Early Response

Not long after COVID-19 was named a global pandemic, Larsen assembled a team of researchers from the Falk College, the , the and to begin developing the wastewater surveillance technology that would eventually become critical to New York State’s response to the disease. The team built a grassroots network that included sewage treatment plant operators, lab technicians and public health program workers to collect sewage samples, test for coronavirus, and report and share results.

The initiative first benefited Onondaga County and the University and soon expanded through the NYS DOH partnership. Today, the New York State network operates in all 62 counties and covers a population of more than 15 million. Testing has expanded beyond COVID to aid response to polio, mpox, influenza, RSV, hepatitis A, norovirus and antimicrobial-resistant genes.��

Essential Partnership

A total of $43 million, including $28 million from the CDC and $15 million from New York State, has already been invested in the state’s disease wastewater surveillance efforts, according to Daniel Lang, NYS DOH deputy director of the . He says the program’s efficacy and extensive operational network distinguished it for selection as a CDC Center of Excellence.

“Our partnership with Syracuse University was essential right from the start of the pandemic,” Lang says. “We worked with Dave Larsen’s team to establish a comprehensive statewide wastewater surveillance program, an impressive tool we didn’t have before. It provides universal coverage to assess disease trends and detect where variants are popping up, plus a system that reports back to community participants. Now, we’ll be able to expand the expertise we’ve developed here to other jurisdictions around the country.”

Professor David Larsen, standing, addresses workers from the New York State Department of Health who visited to plan strategy with the University’s research team for their work with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Photo by Cathleen O’Hare)

Bryon Backenson, NYS DOH director of the , says the detection of communicable disease spread through wastewater surveillance is groundbreaking science “because it doesn’t rely on the fickleness of whether people go to the doctor or not when they’re sick. We can only affect what we find out about. Awareness of the presence of disease allows us to sound the alarm, to take action and notify others to take action, allowing us to minimize the spread of disease.”

Backenson says the CDC designation “shows that we are a leader in this, and it allows us the resources to train others in what we do. Now, we’ll be teaching other cities, counties and regions.��We’re proud to be part of it.”

As the CDC Northeast Region Center of Excellence, the team’s work will support several New England states plus Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The researchers and health officials also want to coordinate with the CDC’s five other wastewater surveillance Centers of Excellence comprising the . They plan to share research and offer education and training on their operating protocols, efforts that could benefit communities throughout the U.S. and potentially impact disease-detection work globally.

Global Potential

Larsen’s research on infectious disease surveillance and the public health response to these threats will also help people around the globe.��He recently completed a program in Austria at the Medical University of Innsbruck where he worked with the Austrian wastewater surveillance network. He also spoke about the approach at a technology roundtable at the White House last month.

Wastewater testing research was underway by Larsen’s research team in the early days of COVID-19.

Larsen’s team is now transitioning program operations to NYS DOH, which will permit the researchers to refocus on how these systems can support public health responses to infectious diseases and “dive deeper to maximize the benefits of the systems,” he says.

“Public health functions dealing with infectious disease surveillance alert us to when a community is at increased risk and also confirm when a community is no longer at risk,” Larsen says. “Wastewater test results provide awareness of both aspects and key information needed to decide whether to close down community operations or keep them open and operating. Wastewater is a great way to gauge these elements and may be one of the most cost-effective ways to confirm levels of community risk.”

Researchers increasingly analyze gigantic volumes of digital information to understand how and why individuals and groups of people conduct their lives the way they do, both during ordinary days and under extreme stress such as disease outbreaks or social unrest. A program at the National Science Foundation (NSF) develops and employs methods that could help unearth fundamental principles of human behavior. Now one of Syracuse’s own is providing critical guidance for this federally supported research.

Psychology Professor Amy Criss will serve a year-long appointment as a program director for the NSF’s Human Networks and Data Science Program.

, professor of psychology, recently began a year-long appointment to the NSF as a program director for the (HNDS). She will oversee the merit review process for $8 million in annual federal funding and help to guide the direction of basic research in the social, behavioral and economic sciences across the United States and partner nations.

“The NSF funds research on big theoretical questions, thinking about what’s next for the future of science,” Criss says.

The goal of HNDS is to help future investigators identify human phenomena that have been previously hidden from view, using new hardware, software and investigative approaches to analyze “big data” or vast volumes of digital information from the internet and other resources.

There are two types of HNDS projects. HNDS-I research proposals seek to develop and improve scientific infrastructure and other tools for future big-data studies.

“These proposals aim to maximize all the data available for a research question,” says Criss. “The researcher community may need new hardware, new software or new ways of approaching large, dynamic, complex datasets. These proposals develop and improve supporting data networks and infrastructure that researchers can use in the future to understand human behavior. These innovations could allow scientists to ask questions they could not have asked because they didn’t have the tools to address them.”

HNDS-R proposals are the second type. They aim to answer important theoretical questions with large or highly complex datasets, diverse scales of measurement across time and space and multi-scale, multi-level network data and techniques of network analysis. These projects would make innovative use of NSF-supported data networks, databases, centers and other forms of scientific infrastructure.

“Researchers on these projects seek to understand data that are highly dynamic in time or reflect interconnected systems,” Criss says.

Both types of basic research support conditions for future scientists to generate novel ideas about people and their societies.

According to Criss, the goal is to understand different types of human behavior. “We look under the hood to learn how a person or groups of people operate,” she says. “With that understanding, we could develop better tools to solve practical problems.”

This story was written by John H. Tibbets

Shikha Nangia

is professor and interim chair of biomedical and chemical engineering in the (ECS). is a distinguished professor of physics in the (A&S). They succeed outgoing co-directors and .

Nangia joined the University in 2012 as a tenure-track professor. Her work involves the creation of computational models to examine the body’s blood-brain barrier at the molecular level. Those findings help develop drugs that can penetrate the barrier to advance medicinal treatments for neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.

Marina Artuso

Artuso is an experimental physicist who works in experimental particle physics. Her research focuses on interesting properties of beauty and charm quarks and on the novel instrumentation needed to study their decay properties. She came to the University as a research assistant professor of physics in 1993, was appointed a professor of physics in 2005 and recently was named a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

WiSE faculty co-directors serve as advocates, engaging with university leadership, the campus community and external audiences. They also develop strategic vision for the organization, offer budget input, and actively participate in programming. WiSE was created by and is led by faculty. Its goals are to increase the representation and retention of women faculty members in STEM fields, to highlight women scholars and to develop advising and mentoring programs.

WiSE serves members across 18 departments in six colleges and schools: A&S, ECS, , , and the .��It presents social, academic and professional development programming for undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral scholars and faculty in tenure, tenure-track and non-tenure-track positions.

One of the programs WiSE hosts is the career-focused Future Professionals Program (top).

Faculty present workshops, act as mentors, offer portfolio reviews and serve in many capacities to support learning and teaching, says WiSE director Sharon Alestalo.

“Their active involvement helps direct how we can support faculty success. We do that through programming for them and by providing activities and events that support the students and scholars they work with,” Alestalo says.

WiSE also supports the recruitment of women faculty in STEM. When the program was founded, there were 18 women faculty members teaching in 10 A&S and ECS departments. Today, there are 174 tenure, tenure-track and non-tenure women faculty members working in 18 areas, Alestalo says. STEM women faculty in WiSE have also attracted more than $104 million in research funding during the last five years, she says.

WiSE also supports programming for Women of Color in STEM.

The organization is open to all. Undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral scholars and faculty women and their allies of any gender, race, ability and identity who work, study or are interested in the STEM fields are welcome.

Eduardo Kac

, an internationally recognized contemporary artist and poet, will speak on��, at 4:30 p.m. in the Life Sciences Complex atrium. His talk, “Rockets for the Sake of Poetry,” will feature highlights of his 40-year artistic career, his development of bio art and insights about his space artworks. This year’s lecture is hosted by the and its research focus group.

‘Bio Art’ Developer

Kac uses biotechnology and genetics to create and explore scientific techniques. In the early 1980s he created digital, holographic and online works that anticipated today’s global culture of information that is constantly in flux. In 1997, he coined the term “bio art,” which launched a new art form.

“GFP Bunny,” a rabbit bred to glow a fluorescent color under special lights

Among his famous works are the transgenic rabbit , for which he used and a jellyfish protein to create a live rabbit that glows a fluorescent green color under blue light.��In “,” he combined his own��DNA with that of a petunia flower to form a new “plantimal.”

“Natural History of the Enigma,” transgenic flower with artist’s own DNA expressed in the red veins

His pieces have been shown around the world and, in one��instance, out of this world: his , “,” was . Kac’s “” was also realized in outer space with assistance from French astronaut Thomas Pesquet.

His career also spans poetry, performance, drawing, printmaking, photography, artist’s books, early digital and online works, holography, telepresence and space art. He is a professor of art and technology at the and a Ph.D. research fellow at the Centre for Advanced Inquiry in Interactive Arts at the University of Wales in Newport, Wales.

BioInspired Focus

As an institute for material and living systems, BioInspired hosts researchers who examine topics in complex biological systems and develop and design programmable smart materials to address global challenges in health, medicine and materials innovation. They include faculty, undergraduate and graduate students, and postdoctoral scholars from life sciences, engineering, physics and chemistry who work in three focus areas: �� and��

Last year, the institute added a fourth focus area, Posthumanities: Arts and Sciences, to push the boundaries of traditional scientific inquiry through activities and collaborations between the arts and humanities and the science-based disciplines.

The Posthumanities’ focus area coleaders, Boryana Rossa, of the College of Visual and Performing Arts, and G. Douglas Barrett, of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, spearheaded the proposal to invite Kac as the 2024 Wali Lecture keynote. They worked with BioInspired leaders Jay Henderson, institute director; Heidi Hehnly-Chang, associate director, and Jeremy Steinbacher, operations director.

The Wali Lecture represents a partnership of the Department of and the Syracuse University . It is part of the 2024-25 Syracuse Symposium “.”

Kameshwar C. Wali

The lecture was established in 2008 by his daughters to commemorate Wali’s vision and leadership to recognize their parents’ dedication and contributions to the University and the greater community. Wali was the Steele Professor of Physics Emeritus in the College of Arts and Sciences and internationally recognized as a theorist for research on the symmetry properties of fundamental particles and their interactions, as well as for his work as an author. He joined the University in 1969. He previously was at Harvard and Northwestern Universities, the University of Chicago, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel, Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques in France and the International Center for Theoretical Physics in Italy. As a fellow of the American Physical Society, whose India Chapter named him Scientist of the Year in 2022, he received Syracuse’s Chancellor’s Citation for exceptional academic achievement and was one of the founding members of the .

Selected from submissions made at the foundation’s annual application deadline in February 2024, these projects—exhibitions, publications and other public presentations—expand understanding, methods and platforms of contemporary architecture discourse and feature work by architects, archivists, artists, curators, designers, educators and other professionals working with organizations worldwide in cities such as Johannesburg, Cape Town, Pittsburgh, New Orleans, Nashville, Athens, New York and Chicago, where the Graham Foundation is based.

‘Ethical Narratives: Essays by Richard Ingersoll (1949–2021)’

Richard Ingersoll

School of Architecture faculty , associate professor (lead editor), and , architecture field studies coordinator at Syracuse Abroad Florence; along with , and have been awarded funding to support their publication, “Ethical Narratives: Essays by Richard Ingersoll (1949–2021).”

The book, under contract with Actar Publishers, assembles key texts, drawings and images by and of Richard Ingersoll, the prominent architectural historian, critic and educator who wrote prolifically for the world’s leading architectural publications from the 1980s until his passing in 2021.

Ingersoll was a rare voice in the field, admired for his global and ethical perspective that relentlessly challenged architects and students to consider the environmental and social impacts of their work. He rigorously contextualized his topics within larger historical and cultural frameworks, tying them to today’s pressing ecological and political imperatives.

“Ingersoll’s writing was characterized by its gentle persistence and foresight, setting him apart in his field. This book seeks not only to capture his nimble intellect but also aims to underscore the creative, playful and generous aspects of his life and personality,” says Davis.

This compilation of more than 30 of Ingersoll’s most impactful texts (selected from over 350 essays and lectures) are organized thematically, centered on Ingersoll’s primary polemics, including social justice and climate change. Observations and recollections offered by his colleagues, friends and students, including Margaret Crawford, Luis Fernandez-Galiano, Liane Lefaivre, Pippo Ciorra and others, offer additional insight into the extraordinary man behind the words.

Richard Ingersoll, “Istanbul,” ca. 1982. Watercolor on paper, 18 x 12 inches (Photo courtesy of the Ingersoll Estate)

“Professor Ingersoll, a long-time faculty member of our Florence program, was an impressive intellectual figure and this collection of essays—which also includes reflections by some of the most important architects and critics in contemporary architecture—will be of great interest to anyone interested in architecture’s ethical and political impact on late 20th and early 21st century culture,” says Michael Speaks, dean of the School of Architecture.

“Congratulations to Associate Professor Lawrence Davis and the entire team of architects and editors on receiving a prestigious Graham Foundation organizational grant to support the publication of this important collection of essays by Richard Ingersoll,” says Speaks.

“Our international editorial team is extremely grateful for this vital funding from the Graham Foundation,” says Davis. “The book editors would also like to thank Caroline Bowling, graduate research and design intern, for her ongoing work and Dean Speaks for his support.

The new grantees join a worldwide network of organizations and individuals that the has supported over the past 68 years. In that time, the Foundation has awarded more than 44 million dollars in direct support to over 5,100 projects by individuals and organizations around the world.

The faculty are and of (ECS); and of the ��(A&S); and of the .

, vice president for research and Charles Brightman Endowed Professor of Physics, says the awards demonstrate the exceptional promise of junior faculty in both research and education. “It is exciting to see such a diverse range of research projects recognized by the federal government and philanthropic foundations,” Brown says. “The awards provide funding that will help our researchers find ways to reduce inequality, develop new forms of energy, build better aircraft, secure computer systems and advance the frontiers of mathematics.”

Endadul Hoque, Yiming Zhao��

Hoque, assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science in ECS, and Zhao, assistant professor of mathematics in A&S, both earned Awards—the NSF’s most competitive award for early-career faculty.

Endadul Hoque

Hoque will use the to enhance computer network security by developing an innovative technique known as “fuzzing.” Fuzzing injects invalid or unexpected inputs into a system to find security vulnerabilities in software, but current techniques have limitations. His work involves creating a language to encode complex structures of inputs that change depending on the context and creating techniques that can mutate inputs to systems without losing their context sensitivity. The research will create new methods to find loopholes in real-world security-critical systems. Hoque also plans to hold workshops for K-12 students to promote cybersecurity awareness and support students from historically marginalized communities to pursue careers in STEM.

Yiming Zhao

Zhao, a mathematician who specializes in convex geometry, geometric analysis and partial differential equations, will use the to explore new variations of two of geometry’s oldest problems: the isoperimetric problem and the Minkowski problem. These problems focus on recovering the shape of geometric figures from their geometric properties, such as their volume and surface area. Applications of the techniques developed can be used to create new solutions to science and engineering problems ranging from antenna reflector design to urban planning. He will host special educational sessions at the Milton J. Rubenstein Museum of Science and Technology for K-12 students to encourage them to think about math as discovery, not just as applying a set of formulas on an exam.

Yiyang Sun

Yiyang Sun��

Sun was presented with a from the , the basic research arm of the Air Force Research Laboratory. That program enhances career development for outstanding young researchers who advance the Air Force’s mission in science and engineering. Only 48 scientists and engineers received the award in 2024.

Sun’s grant of $446,360 is for her project, “Multi-Modal Interactions in Three-Dimensional Unsteady Flows.” Her research uses a cutting-edge technique to analyze multi-modal interactions in fluid flows to analyze and understand unsteady aerodynamic problems. The research outcomes could have a significant impact on advancing the designs of aircraft with improved aerodynamic performance for challenging operation conditions.

Craig Cahillane

Craig Cahillane��

Cahillane was awarded an��by the . He was one of only 23 researchers selected nationally in the first class of IGNIITE fellows and received the award at a The program supports early-career innovators who are working to convert disruptive and unconventional ideas into impactful new energy technologies.

The $500,000 award supports two years of work in fusion energy optimization on the project, “Ultra-High Power Photoneutralization Cavity for Neutral Beam Injection in Fusion Reactors.”��Cahillane is developing a prototype that has the potential to make fusion reactors nearly twice as efficient as they are with current technology. His lab will develop an ultra-high power laser cavity designed to help efficiently reheat and refuel a fusion reactor.

Ying Shi

Ying Shi

Shi received $350,000 from the Scholars Program for her exploration of Asian American students’ exposure to victimization and hate crimes in school. That program supports early-career researchers who are working to reduce inequality in youth outcomes and improve research evidence in decisions that affect young people in the United States.

Only four to six scholars are selected for this award each year, and Shi is the first scholar��from Syracuse University to receive it. Shi’s project, “School Victimization and Hate Crime Exposure Among Asian Students: An Evidence Base to Reduce Well-Being Inequality,” is funded for five years. Shi plans to use administrative data from studies across multiple U.S. cities and states to collect information on the prevalence and consequences of exposure to school victimization and hate crimes for Asian students, as compared with their peers.

Saba Siddiki

The funding is provided by the NSF’s Smart and Connected Community program and aims to foster a Community-Responsive Electrified and Adaptive Transit Ecosystem to tackle challenges that arise in the planning, operations and management of public bus fleet electrification.

According to Siddiki and fellow project researchers, public bus fleets—including transit and school buses—represent a prime opportunity for transportation electrification and associated improvements in environmental quality and health benefits in impacted communities.

The widespread adoption of electric buses has been hindered by an array of complex and interrelated planning, operational and managerial challenges, they say. Among them are range limits, long charging time, expenses, low bus utilization ratios, equipment downtime, an underdeveloped workforce, and diverse stakeholder interests and priorities.

The research team seeks to overcome these hurdles with a holistic approach that includes the integration of intelligent technology development with community needs. Sustainability and transportation access will be focal points in their research and solution design.

The project will involve the development of intelligent tools for effective and data-driven decision-making regarding bus electrification. The project will also assess collaborative governance in public bus fleet electrification planning and policymaking. In addition, in collaboration with industry and community partners, the project will contribute to the development of a workforce to facilitate a sustainable future for electrified public bus transportation.

“Through these various activities, the project aims to support a scalable, transferable and sustainable path for bus electrification,” says Siddiki.

Siddiki co-authored a paper published in Renewable and Sustainable Energy Transition in August 2023 that presented findings on research related to the topic of transportation electrification. She and fellow writers examined pathways in American cities with varying degrees of plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) adoption and policy activity took to encourage PEV adoption in the late 2010s. They found that transportation electrification in cities was streamlined through the work of PEV advocates that collaborated across sectors.

This recent work builds on previous projects Siddiki has conducted examining public sector policies to encourage electric vehicle adoption as well as factors informing individual vehicle uptake.

Siddiki is the Chapple Family Professor of Citizenship and Democracy and director of the master of public administration program and the Center for Policy Design and Governance. Her research focuses on policy design, collaborative policymaking, institutional theory and analysis, and regulatory implementation and compliance.

“Professor Siddiki’s leadership of the Center for Policy Design and Governance and her broader interdisciplinary work, collaborations and scholarship elevates the visibility and relevance of the research being done as well as the diverse audiences that are impacted by the outcomes and the external funding being prioritized to support evidence-based policy and implementation,” says Dean David M. Van Slyke.

The project research team is led by principal investigator Jie Xu of George Mason University. In addition to Siddiki, it also includes Wenying Ji, Ran Ji, Vivian Motti, David Wong and Fengxiu Zhang, all of George Mason University, and Jundong Li of the University of Virginia.

Five students will be selected to form an interdisciplinary research team. They will work with , the 2024-26 faculty fellow and an assistant professor of public health in the .��Her research project examines how Black adults who reside in historically redlined neighborhoods can experience a disadvantaged occupational life course and subsequent health consequences. She wants to raise awareness about the lasting effects of discriminatory practices as basic determinants of health and use those findings to inform policymakers and community leaders.

Miriam Mutzambudzi

Working with Mutambudzi, student fellows will conduct data analysis, gather literature on social and economic disparities and health outcomes for residents of those areas and synthesize findings. They will also engage with community residents and grassroots organizations that are examining the impact of redlining practices in Syracuse.

Students from any discipline and background who are interested in community advocacy and social justice are encouraged to . They will spend two years on the project and present their findings at the 2026 Lender Center for Social Justice symposium. Participants receive a��$2,000��stipend, with opportunities for additional funding. Program details are available on the��Lender Center’s .

Information Session Sept. 18

An information session is scheduled on Wednesday, Sept. 18 at 4 p.m. in Bowne Hall 207, when Mutambudzi will provide more details about the project and how the fellowship program works.

Applications Due Oct. 4

The deadline for applications is 5 p.m. Friday, Oct. 4. Students can apply through the��.

The program, NRT-URoL: Emergent Intelligence Research for Graduate Excellence in Biological and Bio-Inspired Systems (EmIRGE-Bio), will support the integration of research and education on emergent intelligence in both biological and bio-inspired systems and allow doctoral students to work and experience team-building across disciplinary and departmental boundaries.

Lisa Manning speaks at a previous BioInspired Symposium. (Photo by Angela Ryan)

“Many of society’s most pressing challenges—including food security, sustainability and supporting aging populations—will require breakthroughs in biotechnology and bio-inspired science,” says , William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Physics in the College of Arts and Sciences (A&S), who is principal investigator (PI). “This program will train a new generation of scientists and engineers who can evaluate and harness complex systems, such as biological tissues or next-generation materials, to drive intelligent responses such as sensing, actuating and learning, leading to breakthrough technologies.”

Co-PIs are , associate professor of biology and chemistry in A&S; , associate director of BioInspired and Renée Crown Professor in the Sciences and Mathematics and associate professor of biology in A&S; , Samuel and Carol Nappi Research Scholar and associate professor of biomedical and chemical engineering in the College of Engineering and Computer Science (ECS); and , associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering in ECS.

BioInspired director , professor of biomedical and chemical engineering in ECS, says, “the Research Traineeship Program is currently one of—if not the most—competitive funding programs at the National Science Foundation. Receipt of the award speaks to the existing strength of graduate education in BioInspired fields at Syracuse University and to the exciting new opportunities and programming that Lisa and the team designed and proposed and now stand poised to deliver.”

The EmIRGE-Bio program will feature advanced core disciplinary courses in areas foundational to biotechnology and bio-inspired design; the development of two new courses utilizing team-based learning paradigms; and a longitudinal professional development program. It will also include a STEM entrepreneurship course offered by the Martin J. Whitman School of Management, an internship program and a co-curricular workshop series on project management and technology transfer.

Some 115 Ph.D. students from fields that span the life and physical sciences and engineering are expected to take part in the training, which the research team says will address a STEM workforce gap identified by local and national partners in industry and academe.

“Emergence in biology and bio-inspired design is one of the University’s signature areas of strength, and we have seen that borne out by the success of BioInspired since its founding in 2019,” says Interim Vice Chancellor, Provost and Chief Academic Officer . “This initiative draws on that strength and supports our long-term strategic goal to transform STEM at Syracuse and enhance graduates’ potential for success in a swiftly evolving marketplace.”

Adds , vice president for research: “The NRT award will advance BioInspired in ways that are core to Syracuse University’s identity: recruiting and retaining a diverse student population, advancing cutting-edge interdisciplinary research and education and providing our students with the entrepreneurial skills needed in the 21st century workforce.”

Erin Cuevas

The has announced that architect Erin Cuevas is the Harry der Boghosian Fellow for 2024-25. Cuevas will succeed current fellow, Christina Chi Zhang.

The Boghosian Fellowship at the School of Architecture—established in early 2015 in memory of Harry der Boghosian ’54 by his sister Paula der Boghosian ’64—is a one-of-a-kind program designed to give emerging independent creatives the opportunity to spend a year developing a body of design research based on an area of interest while teaching at the School of Architecture.

Fellows play a significant role at the school by enhancing student instruction and faculty discourse while supporting both research and the development of research-related curriculum valuable to architectural education and the discipline.

During the 2024-25 school year, Cuevas will teach an architecture studio and two professional electives focusing on her research project, Redefining Performance, which aims to advance independent, progressive and emerging design practice, stretching architecture into adjacent artistic realms and localities, bridging disciplines and communities alike. Students will push boundaries of animated mixed media representation and discover design opportunities within the unique Venn diagrams of their own interests.

‘Redefining Performance is a growing body of scenographic practice at the intersection of performance art, interactive digital media and architectural installation, participating in the evolution of theater into immersive experiences that blur the line between audience and performer,” says Cuevas. “The interdisciplinary and highly collaborative nature of the research embodies collective creativity and thought exchange between diverse participants across phases of researching, designing, capturing and experiencing the work.”

Like the eight previous Boghosian Fellows, Cuevas will work closely not only with faculty and students at the School of Architecture but will also explore interdisciplinary collaborations within the University and its various centers and colleges. Her research will culminate in a participatory public performance, expanding the School of Architecture beyond traditional bounds of the studio environments, activating spaces on campus, and engaging students, faculty and local artists and communities in a collective scenography.

Dismantling the privileged view in lieu of a shared stage, advances the inclusive potential of scenography by employing storytelling of underrepresented voices, site-specific public community events and accessible emerging technology. Often in collaboration with Jana Masset Collatz, as part of their co-founded design practice, CMLA, Cuevas’s work has been showcased in venues such as L.A. Dance Project Studios, the A+D Architecture and Design Museum, ACADIA and Architektur Galerie Berlin. Her practice has also received recognition through residencies, grants and published work spanning disciplines, including the Northwest ByDesign Film Festival, Cultured Magazine’s Young Architects list, Goldsmiths’ motion capture residency program and the World Stage Design conference, where CMLA received the first-place design award in 2022.

Prior to joining Syracuse Architecture, Cuevas was the director of global retail story design at Nike Inc. in Beaverton, Oregon, where she provided design direction of new global retail and seasonal concepts—most recently focusing on the installation for the 2024 Olympic Games. She received a graduate degree with distinction from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Southern California (USC). Cuevas taught architecture and digital media at the USC School of Architecture from 2017-2022.

“Having followed the work of Boghosian Fellows over the past years, I am inspired by the program’s dedication to elevating diverse emerging talent and fostering new perspectives in the field of architecture,” says Cuevas. “The Boghosian Fellowship is an opportunity for me to expand the traditional architectural discipline through a unique and highly personal concert of elements—dance, architecture, storytelling and creative technology.”

The Boghosian Fellowship has helped the School of Architecture attract the best and the brightest emerging professors. Previous fellows include Maya Alam (2016-17), Linda Zhang (2017-18), James Leng (2018-19), Benjamin Vanmuysen (2019-20), Liang Wang (2020-21), Leen Katrib (2021-22), Lily Chishan Wong (2022-23) and Christina Chi Zhang (2023-24).

To learn more about the Harry der Boghosian Fellowship, the .

A public health professor whose research focuses on social determinants of health has been selected as the 2024-26 faculty fellow.

will explore how Black adults who reside in historically redlined neighborhoods can experience a disadvantaged occupational life course and subsequent health consequences. Redlining was a discriminatory practice of designating certain neighborhoods, especially predominantly Black ones, as being poor credit risks.

Mutambudzi is an assistant professor of public health at the She is also a faculty affiliate of three centers at the : the ; the ; and the .

In addition to Mutambudzi, an interdisciplinary team of will work on the project. Students from any discipline and background who are excited about community advocacy and social justice are for the two-year fellowships. Applications are accepted through early October and fellows are chosen before the end of the fall semester. The faculty-student group will present their findings at a community symposium in 2026.

We recently sat down with Mutambudzi to learn more about her project.

Why is this topic important?

This research tackles the ongoing challenges faced by Black communities from the legacy of historical discriminatory housing practices and the subsequent impact of those practices on community members’ employment and health.

While the was enacted as federal law, it failed to fully dismantle racial discrimination in housing resulting from the practice of redlining. Redlining is a discriminatory practice that began in 1930s America [where] banks and insurance companies refused or limited loans, mortgages and insurance to residents of specific geographic areas—primarily neighborhoods with predominantly Black residents. Residents of redlined areas had limited access to credit and other financial services and were hindered in their efforts to own homes, invest in property or improve their neighborhoods. The results were often urban decay and a perpetuation of poverty in those areas.

While redlining is a historical concept, its effects are very much present today. Its legacy continues to limit many life opportunities, and neighborhoods with predominantly Black residents where that occurred still face social and economic disadvantages.

How do limited employment prospects—or the lack of a good job—affect health issues?

Both employment and discriminatory policies are key factors contributing to racial��disparities in health outcomes. Job insecurity, precarity, lower wages and periods of unemployment—which occur more frequently among Black workers—all contribute to income gaps and limit access to good health insurance and quality healthcare.

Young adults from disadvantaged neighborhoods enter the workforce at a significant disadvantage. Job prospects within their communities are scarce, limiting their ability to find work that pays well, offers stability and provides a path for advancement.

This lack of good-quality jobs in their immediate surroundings creates a vicious cycle and the absence of good-quality, stable employment nearby creates a double-edged sword. Not only are opportunities limited, but these young adults also miss out on crucial skill-building and networking chances that come with these jobs. Those factors further restrict their potential, hindering their ability to compete for better opportunities.

In addition, involuntary employment interruptions are more frequent for these young adults and further disrupt their career trajectories. This disparity perpetuates a system where economic mobility becomes nearly impossible for those starting from behind. The cascading constraints imposed by limited job opportunities in disadvantaged neighborhoods have a profound impact on residents’ access to health-promoting resources, creating a cycle that undermines well-being.

For example, limited financial resources often translate to poor housing conditions, which may be overcrowded, poorly maintained and may lack essential amenities. Nutritious and organic foods are generally more expensive and less readily available in “food deserts,” leading to a reliance on cheaper, processed unhealthy foods. The jobs in which Black workers are disproportionately employed may contribute to these health issues, as their work is more likely to be physically and psychologically demanding. All of these factors also combine to contribute to increased risks of health conditions such as obesity, diabetes, respiratory illness and hypertension.

Miriam Mutambudzi, assistant professor of public health at the David B. Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamics, with a mural that depicts the College’s public health program history.

What questions are shaping your research?

There’s much we don’t know about how historically racist policies such as redlining��continued to affect the employment trajectories of Black Americans. People can work for 45 years or more in their lives, so it’s essential that we understand the factors that shape occupational trajectories and the subsequent impacts they have on a person’s health.

This project looks at three areas: developing an understanding of historically��redlined neighborhoods as predictors of racial disparities in long-term employment��trajectories: seeing how employment trajectories may be predictors of chronic health conditions and determining how education might moderate those relationships.

In what ways will the student fellows be involved?

They will contribute to data analysis and management and will conduct literature reviews to gather relevant reports on social and economic disparities and health outcomes. They’ll help synthesize findings to inform the study’s background and contextual understanding. Students will also have opportunities to engage with the local community since my goal is to work with grassroots organizations that are already addressing the adverse effects of redlining in Syracuse.

What do you hope to accomplish with this research?

My goal is to illustrate how the historical discriminatory redlining policy that systematically marginalized Black communities still adversely impacts work and health for those communities today, regardless of residents’ educational attainment.

Ultimately, we want to raise awareness regarding the lasting effects of discriminatory��practices as fundamental social determinants of health that require much attention, and inspire policymakers, community leaders and the public to drive meaningful action.

The SyracuseCoE Faculty Fellows program supports and honors faculty members who demonstrate a strong commitment to interdisciplinary research and scholarship in the areas of energy, environmental quality and sustainable design, with additional support available for projects engaging New York state-based companies. These projects were selected from a pool of faculty proposals submitted during a funding solicitation issued by SyracuseCoE earlier this spring. Since 2015, over $1 million has been awarded to advance research and development projects led by SyracuseCoE Faculty Fellows.

“We are excited to include these exceptional faculty members in SyracuseCoE’s growing network,” says SyracuseCoE Executive Director , professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering in the College of Engineering amd Computer Science. “Their diverse expertise across disciplines and, in many instances, collaboration with local entrepreneurs will be critical in supporting our mission of promoting innovative solutions for human health, global energy and environmental challenges.”

“This is an excellent program for energy and environmental research and development,” says , associate dean for research in the College of Engineering and Computer Science. “The support from SyracuseCoE addresses a critical gap in aligning the technical needs of regional and national companies with the expertise of faculty and students at Syracuse University.”

Lindi Quackenbush, interim vice president for research at SUNY ESF, says, “SUNY ESF is a longstanding partner institution of SyracuseCoE, and the SyracuseCoE Faculty Fellows program provides important support for SUNY ESF faculty, often working in collaboration with regional companies and communities, to develop and expand their research capabilities and expertise while addressing global challenges.”

2024 Faculty Fellow awards include:��

• Bing Dong, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, College of Engineering and Computer Science, Syracuse University, “Smart Energy Recovery Ventilator (ERVs) for Schools”
• Scott Erdman, associate professor of biology, College of Arts and Sciences, Syracuse University, “Metal Doped Fungal Biomass as Material for Energy Storage Devices”
• Sevgi Erdogan, associate professor, School of Information Studies, Syracuse University, “Smart Cities Research Network Development for Sustainable and Resilient Communities”
• Jennifer Goff, assistant professor of chemistry, SUNY ESF, “Characterization of Bimetallic Nanoparticles for Usage as Air Filter Antibacterials”
• Mohammad Uzzal Hossain, assistant professor of sustainable resources management, SUNY ESF, “Revitalizing Local Waste Material in Low Carbon Construction Materials Through Materials Circularity for Decarbonizing the Built Environments”
• Tong Lin, postdoctoral research associate, Building Energy and Environmental Systems Laboratory, Syracuse University, “Enhanced Cooling Fan Design Coupled with Advanced Mixed-Flow Fan Rotor for Improved Efficiency and Compactness”
• Ericka Redmond, assistant professor of chemical engineering, SUNY ESF, “Innovative Nano-Sawdust Composites for Sustainable Thermal Insulation”
• Yilei Shi, associate teaching professor of civil and environmental engineering and undergraduate civil engineering program director, College of Engineering and Computer Science, Syracuse University, “A Pilot Study on Simulated Hygrothermal Behavior of a Novel Sustainable Roof System for Green Buildings”
• Endong Wang, associate professor of sustainable construction, SUNY ESF, “Facilitating Market Penetration of Sustainable Building Retrofitting Through Persuasive Technology”
• Yeqing Wang, assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, College of Engineering amd Computer Science, Syracuse University, “Renewable and MOF-Coated Highly Porous Delignified Wood Composite for Gas Separation”
• Weiwei Zheng, associate professor of chemistry, College of Arts and Sciences, Syracuse University, “Solid Oxide Fuel Cells for Emission Control Application”

The awards were made possible by funding to support SyracuseCoE activities, awarded by Empire State Development’s Division of Science, Technology and Innovation (NYSTAR).

One of 13 New York State Centers of Excellence, SyracuseCoE strategically brings industry partners together with researchers and students in a thriving culture of collaboration and innovation, ultimately creating new businesses and jobs, strengthening regional and state economies. SyracuseCoE supports growth and innovation through companies and researchers. Since 2002, more than 200 firms and institutions have been engaged in SyracuseCoE collaborative projects, in addition to more than 75 faculty in Central New York. For more information, .

Story by Kai Volcy

Green Teaching Summit attendees gathered beside the lake at Minnowbrook Conference Center in the Adirondacks.

Can religion, philosophy, history, English and writing help tackle issues of climate change, environment and ecology? Absolutely, says , professor of English and outgoing William P. Tolley Distinguished Teaching Professor in the Humanities. Through his Tolley professorship, a role designed to support enhancement of the pedagogical experience and to boost effectiveness in the classroom, he made it a goal to show how the humanities subjects are vital to helping society understand and respond to today’s complex ecological challenges. Here are just four of many ways humanists are engaged in research relating to climate:

A. More Than Just a Map: While maps depict selected data about a place, humanists play a key role in translating and communicating what maps say about power, representation and climate urgency—crucial insights for leaders making decisions about the allocation of resources and implementation of policies.

B. Losing Languages: Climate change doesn’t just affect the physical world. It affects human culture too. When climate change causes people to leave their homeland, they often also lose their language. Through the study of language endangerment, humanists examine the causes, processes and consequences of languages becoming extinct and work on ways to preserve them.

C. Religion and Ecology: Religion scholars might explore the environmental consequences of festivals and pilgrimages that draw millions of people to a concentrated area. Or, research on sacred texts can delve into how the texts shape environmental consciousness in different faith traditions, highlighting political issues and raising doctrinal concerns.

D. Human-Animal Entanglement: Bestiaries, or works about mythical animals, can spark discussions about human-animal entanglements in different countries and contexts.

A main component of Goode’s professorship was highlighting opportunities for faculty and staff across campus to share resources to help students respond to the implications of the climate crisis and to think ecologically.

Inspired in part by the success of a collaboration with the Syracuse University Art Museum where Goode teamed up with staff and students to explore the ways in which objects and artworks in the museum’s collection could be utilized as , he wanted to see how others at the University could forge partnerships to elevate their own research and teaching around ecology. In May, he convened a team of faculty from numerous humanities disciplines at the Green Teaching Summit at University’s Minnowbrook Conference Center in the Adirondacks. The three-day conference provided a space for scholars to discover shared interests and forge collaborations, set in a location that itself is ecologically vulnerable.

Arts and Sciences Communications (A&S) sat down with Goode to talk about his motivation for the summit and how the humanities play a crucial role in sparking ecological discussions.

Why is now such a critical time for humanists to focus on ecology and climate?

When doing my English Ph.D. in the early 1990s, I remember one of my professors, Homi Bhabha, declaring that whatever our training and expertise in the humanities, every humanities course would soon need to engage in some way with the histories of colonialism and empire. His comment encountered considerable audience skepticism at the time, but it turned out to be prophetically accurate. We’re facing a similar turning point in the humanities. Whatever our training or expertise, we are likely less than a decade removed from a time when every one of our courses will need to engage with ecology, climate and environmental justice in some way. As the Tolley Professor, I focused on trying to help the humanities at Syracuse University lean into this coming shift and to increase their visibility on campus for doing so.

In between presentation sessions, faculty mingled with one another to discuss collaborations on the shores of Blue Mountain Lake.

What was the inspiration for the Green Teaching Summit?

Since the Tolley professorship is charged with expanding and improving humanities teaching, I wanted the summit to be a humanities-focused event with faculty from various environmental disciplines. I wanted as many of the most recently hired tenure-track humanities faculty as possible to attend along with staff who could highlight ways to further leverage campus resources, so the next generation of humanities scholars are empowered with the critical perspectives necessary to help raise awareness, inspire action and help shape policies that are socially just and culturally sensitive.

What do you hope that faculty can take away from this experience?

I had three goals:

1. Have people on campus who already teach in these areas connect with one another, describe what they do in the classroom, learn more about how different subjects get taught from different disciplinary vantage points and plant the seeds for future initiatives and collaborations.
2. Highlight campus resources, centers and offices with which to collaborate on experiential learning, student success and professional development related to ecology, climate and environmental justice concerns.
3. Bridge generations, connecting the newest tenure-track hires in the humanities at Syracuse to senior faculty on campus already teaching and researching in these areas, so we could mutually inspire, learn from and collaborate with each other moving forward.

What are the benefits of having a group of scholars (and administrators) come together at a summit like this? Do you think that the setting was/is particularly important?

One bit of feedback I have received repeatedly from attendees is that they did not realize just how many other people on campus were teaching in these areas and were thrilled to meet faculty with shared interests who they might not have met otherwise. The Adirondacks setting, however aesthetically pleasing, also probably contributed to a sense of urgency, since some of the weekend’s talks touched on the region’s ecological vulnerability and its connection to histories of environmental injustice through Native American displacement and dispossession.

Understanding that you are wrapping up the two-year Tolley professorship this summer, what do you hope the legacy or potential of the Green Teaching Summit will be at SU?

I’d love it if a dedicated environmental humanities chair could be created on campus to continue expanding and sustaining this kind of environmental humanities-focused programming, network-building and resource-sharing. We need people and resources to spearhead more humanities-centered working groups and to develop new campus collaborations related to ecology and climate. The Art, Ecology, and Climate Project (that I founded while Tolley Professor) is already being used in many different instructional contexts on campus, and I hope that it can eventually be grown to include holdings at repositories like SCRC and the Belfer Sound Archive. Unfortunately, climate change is the shared future of all of us, and every single faculty member needs to be positioned instructionally to grapple with it. I certainly hope that the newest humanities faculty on campus walked away from the summit energized to lean into that project more in their own teaching moving forward.

For more on the Green Teaching Summit, visit the .

Lauryn Gouldin (Photo by Marilyn Hesler)

, Crandall Melvin Professor of Law and a 2022-25 Laura J. & L. Douglas Meredith Professor of Teaching Excellence, is one of three researchers on the��project, “.”��She and , assistant professor of computer science at the University of Virginia (formerly of Syracuse University) and , associate professor of computer science and engineering at Washington University in St. Louis received a $600,000 National Science Foundation (NSF) grant for the research. They are examining three issues: the uniformity and fairness of criminal court-date scheduling processes, if individual circumstances are considered when setting court dates, and whether a “smarter” computerized system can produce more equity and efficiency in those processes.

Ensuring that defendants who are released before trial return to court as scheduled is one of the primary goals of the pretrial process, Gouldin says. “Fortunately, data across jurisdictions suggest that most defendants show up for court as required. With bail reform efforts in many jurisdictions leading to higher rates of pretrial release, courts are focused on ensuring that pretrial appearance rates remain high,” she says.

Scheduling court appearances on dates and at times that work for defendants will help keep pretrial appearance rates high and avoid court system inefficiencies, she believes. Many factors—often legitimate hardships—can influence whether a defendant appears in court when scheduled. Gouldin says those factors are not consistently considered by courts and there is little uniformity in how appearance dates are scheduled from court to court.

The researchers are working to produce a system that predicts dates and times when defendants are more likely to appear versus being assigned an arbitrary court date or time. They believe having that knowledge, along with more flexibility in scheduling court dates—such as setting evening or weekend appearance dates—could improve pretrial appearance rates and create a more equitable scheduling process overall.

No-Show Factors

“Whether a defendant can appear in court when assigned depends on individual circumstances. Some may have work or school obligations or need to find childcare or arrange transportation. Others having substance addictions or mental health issues may be more at risk to miss dates; some defendants just don’t understand the court system; and people with disabilities may face specific challenges getting to court on time. In addition, some defendants who must repeatedly return to court can wait all day for their cases to be called, then find out the proceedings are postponed for a month,” Gouldin says.

But criminal courts can be inflexible, she adds. “Maintaining a perfect attendance record under these circumstances, and when so many court appearances are adjourned seems especially unreasonable. I believe courts can likely improve pretrial appearance rates by developing more flexible scheduling practices that account for these challenges.”

Data Input

This summer, Gouldin is working with research assistants to develop partnerships with judges, court administrators, pretrial service offices and criminal defense organizations in Syracuse and across New York State to collect data on the information that courts consider and the processes they use to schedule criminal cases.

Fioretto and Yeoh will take that data and apply what they call “” a scheduling approach that integrates machine learning algorithms with mathematical optimization and computerized logical reasoning. The AI-based approach aims to predict dates and times when an individual would be more likely to be able to appear in court. The researchers will incorporate defendants’ potential constraints into the date predictions and then develop mechanisms to ensure that court appearances are scheduled fairly for defendants of different races and genders.

Time, Money Costs

Fairness is an important consideration because judges can impose consequences for missing scheduled appearances even when defendants have justifiable reasons for not showing up, according to Gouldin. “Judges often make high-stakes decisions that implicate fundamental liberty interests, such as detaining defendants before trial or imposing bail, electronic monitoring, pretrial supervision or curfews. Failures to appear also become part of a defendant’s court record and may impact future pretrial liberty.”

The researchers are also mindful of the court’s administrative efficiency goals. Missed court dates mean inconveniences and costs of time and money for judges, attorneys, court personnel, witnesses and other defendants whose cases may be delayed as a result, as well.

Phase 2

Gouldin hopes eventually to gather court appearance data that will include defendants’ demographic details to assess whether specific factors affect the ability or inability to meet a pre-set court appointment. That step could reveal further ways to increase fairness in scheduling, she says. Having individuals return for their court appearances is more important than ever now, Gouldin says, because pretrial reforms in the U.S. over the past 10 years have overhauled traditional money bail systems so that more defendants are released before trial.

Gouldin’s pre-trial appearance work has been cited in federal court decisions, in state and federal amicus briefs and in testimony to the House Judiciary Committee. In 2022, she served as a consulting expert for federal litigation where a Tulsa County, Oklahoma money bail system was eventually deemed unconstitutional. Her article, “Keeping Up Appearances,” an analysis of law and policies governing pretrial appearance, which has been developed in part with the support of the NSF grant, is due to be published in the University of California Davis Law Review later this year.

The students were part of the Significant Disabilities: Shifts in Paradigms and Practices (SPE 644) course taught by , associate professor in the School of Education, who was the Libraries’ 2023-24 Special Collections Research Center .

The students presented their findings at a public showcase in spring 2024 and their work is available online as a digital exhibition. “” explores disability as a cultural construction by examining historical developments in special and inclusive education, as well as the development and later closures of institutions and asylums for individuals with intellectual disabilities. The archives—and exhibit—show details of how Americans in past decades regarded disability, including information about eugenics (the selective breeding of humans) as the basis for institutionalization; letters exchanged between institutions and individuals about certain individuals and situations; and striking images collected by those who advocated for disabled individuals and disability rights.

Graduate students held a public showcase last spring describing their research and capping their course, “Significant Disabilities: Shifts in Paradigms and Practices.” From left are Associate Professor Julia White and students Neil Boedicker, Kayla Cornelius and Raquell Carpenter. (Photo by Martin Walls)

White says the primary source materials provided the students with particularly rich and informative records, in part due to Syracuse University’s long history as a vanguard for disabled individuals and a leader in inclusive education and disability rights. Today, the Center on Disability and Inclusion continues the legacy of the , founded in 1971 by Dean Burton Blatt, a groundbreaking disability rights scholar. Blatt and other individuals at the University were involved in disability rights lawsuits during the 1970s and developed language surrounding the creation of special education law. All of that history—and dozens of associated original documents and artifacts—are preserved for viewing and research.

Julia White

“We at Syracuse have really reconceptualized how to think about people with disabilities, especially intellectual disabilities. The University is known for its forefront advocacy on inclusive education and all that work is evident in the archives,” White says. “There are so many things to investigate and so many lessons we can get from this; it’s a gold mine waiting to be explored.”

A former special education teacher, White now researches national and international special education policy and inclusive education as a human right. But she “was always interested in how law and policies could be applied to different people under different circumstances. I noticed how some students could be placed in segregated or self-contained classrooms while others were in resource rooms and were more integrated. Very little was different about their learning profiles other than their race or socioeconomic profile. I wondered why, if some students had more significant disabilities, they were held to very few or no academic standards.”

Based on her experience as both a doctoral student and a teacher, White says, “I had a pretty strong sense of the racial and economic injustice inherent in U.S. society and always considered inclusive education a civil rights issue.” Yet it was her experience in a Fulbright teacher exchange program in the Slovak Republic and later work for the Landmine Survivors Network for the United Nations Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities, that cemented her perspective of inclusive education as a broader human rights issue.

Cover of “.” (Photo: Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Libraries)

‘Fantastic’ SCRC Process

The time she spent examining materials and working with staff at SCRC “was a fantastic process all around,” White says. “Sometimes, an artifact had very little to do with what I was interested in—Syracuse University’s role in deinstitutionalization, inclusive education and disability activism—but there were many�� ‘aha’ moments that sent me down rabbit holes and that was a lot of fun. The discovery of so many amazing contributions of folks affiliated with the University was the best part of this fellowship. And the staff were phenomenal; they had great insights. I came into this knowing little about archival work and hadn’t done any myself, but they were so gracious and so helpful.”

SCRC staff were also readily available to the , discussing their readings, helping them categorize materials and offering advice on how to formulate the exhibit, White says. , instruction and education librarian, was involved with the class almost every time they met. , humanities librarian and digital and open scholarship lead, helped them create the digital exhibit.

Gratifying for Students��

The experience of using primary source documents and finding so much relevant information to work with was gratifying for the students, two of the class members say.

Sierra Eastman ’20, G’25 teaches math to seventh- and eighth-grade students in the Syracuse City School District. Her review of archive materials helped her gain a better understanding of the perspectives of people with disabilities, Eastman says. “I have students with various disabilities in my classes and I wanted to get an understanding of them that I didn’t have as an able-bodied person. We tried to put ourselves in their shoes and see how we could make sense of how this [institutionalism] happened, how they were personally impacted and the larger societal reasons that it occurred.”

A “Fight Handicapism” poster provides a historic perspective about the word’s definition. (Photo: , Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Libraries)

Kionna Morrison G’24 is an algebraic reasoning teacher in the Syracuse City School District who completes the inclusive special education (grades 7-12) program this month as a scholar. She wanted to understand the experiences that people of color, especially Black children, had in institutions for the intellectually disabled. “I could see how disability, institutionalization and racism can be traced to the pre-Civil War and Reconstruction eras. I gained insight on how certain bodies have been consistently institutionalized.��Now, I want to continue to learn about the intersectionality between race and special education and how people from multiple marginalized communities navigate their experiences with disability,” she says.

White believes there has been a significant change in the public’s views on disability, and particularly on intellectual disability, in recent years. “The U.S. has much farther to go in terms of changing society’s perception of disability, intellectual disability and breaking down barriers for any group of marginalized people,” she says. “We need to recognize how far we’ve come in changing attitudes in society, making places accessible, and providing higher education opportunities for disabled people, such as Syracuse University’s program. That’s a good start to thinking differently. Although attitudes are something that we still have to change, the civil and human rights of people with intellectual disabilities are routinely denied in the U.S. and worldwide, and I hope that this project helps shed some light on the history of the continuing fight for disability rights.”

��

��

Presenters and attendees at the 2023 SOURCE Symposium

Hua, a nutrition science major in the , has investigated the effects of fish oil on paternal obesity and its impact on offspring muscle function. Ross, a neuroscience and psychology major in the , has studied the impact of Cited2 excision and maternal folic acid supplementation among mice on neurodevelopment. And Lu, a music composition major in the (VPA), has worked with music ensembles and experienced the premieres of two of his original compositions.

They are among the more than 250 students who have actively participated in research this summer—both in-person and remotely—through initiatives of the Syracuse Office of Undergraduate Research and Creative Engagement (SOURCE) and other programs, including the Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP); Chemistry, iSchool, and BioInspired Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) programs; the SUNY Upstate Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) program; the McNair Scholars Program; the psychology SPARC and STAHR programs; Renée Crown University Honors Program; Women in Science and Engineering (WISE)-supported students and others.

As a culmination of their experiences, the —a poster session featuring more than 110 undergraduate research students, will be held Thursday, Aug. 8, from 10 a.m. to noon in the Schine Student Center’s Panasci Lounge. A picnic will follow on the patio of Huntington Beard Crouse Hall. .

Some of the posters that will be presented include:

• Mercury Release From Alaskan Permafrost
• The Role of the Kit Tyrosine Pathway in Primordial Follicle Formation and Cyst Breakdown
• The Effects of the Post-Mating Immune Response in Drosophila on Female Fecundity
• Syracuse Policy Legacy Project
• Testing the Hydropathy of Synthetic RNA
• Polyurethane Foams for Hemorrhage Control
• Supporting Healthcare Outcomes and Access for Refugees
• Effects of I-81 Highway Construction on Freshwater Streams in the Valley Neighborhood of Syracuse
• Role of Rab GTPase-Mediated Ciliary Cargo Transport in Cilia formation and Cellular Polarity
• Validating Hydraulic Flood Control Risk Assessment Using High Resolution Satellite Imagery

“Summer research students make great strides in their research skill-building during these few short months; they explore fascinating topics, engage with existing work, try new methods and techniques and experience deep immersion and focus in their work,” says SOURCE Director Kate Hanson. “We are thrilled to learn about research at the Summer Symposium and grateful to the mentors that have supported them.”

Xuezhu (Stephanie) Hua ’25

Stephanie Hua

Hua’s research is inspired by the obesity epidemic. “Obesity is a growing concern, with two in five people in the U.S. affected. It not only diminishes quality of life but also has lasting effects on the health of future generations,” Hua says. “In our research explores the potential of fish oil supplementation in mitigating the detrimental, we focus on using fish oil as a dietary intervention for obese fathers.”

Hua and her colleagues have found that a father’s high-fat diet during the preconception period significantly impacts the muscle health of their offspring, potentially decreasing muscle function. Conversely, when the father follows a low-fat diet during the preconception period, the offspring’s muscle health is more influenced by their own diet. “Moving forward, I will employ an analysis of variance test to determine if fish oil supplementation can reverse the adverse effects of a father’s high-fat diet on offspring,” she says.

“I would like to express my gratitude to the SOURCE, Renée Crown University Honors Program and WiSE for sponsoring my research. This invaluable experience has allowed me to ask scientific questions, grapple with challenges and find solutions,” Hua says. “What drives me is the potential impact of my research on people’s lives. To me, research is about serving the community. This experience has been instrumental to me in preparing for my Ph.D. studies in obesity and metabolism.”

Hua’s faculty mentor is , assistant professor of nutrition and food studies in the Falk College.

Edward Lu ’26

Lu says his music composition research this summer has provided him with some of the most artistically fulfilling experiences in his career. He attended the Connecticut Summerfest and the Imani Winds Chamber Music Festival at the Juilliard School as a part of their Emerging Composers Program.

Edward Lu (photo by Isaac Schwalbe)

“Both of these festivals were incredible, and they each provided a diverse array of insights into the business of composition and chamber music,” Lu says.

He traveled to Connecticut in June for a week of lectures, presentations, rehearsals, concerts and recording sessions. “I was paired with ~Nois, a saxophone quartet based in Chicago, who were an absolute joy to work with,” Lu says. “They premiered my piece, ‘Leaf Litter,’ and we also shot a separate professional video/audio recording with the Kinsmen Sound Studio. I loved how much creative liberty I was given during this process, and how much they valued my artistic input. Additionally, I enjoyed getting to know the other ensembles-in-residence.”

In July, Lu spent 10 days in New York City, attending lectures and masterclasses with Imani Winds and the composer-in-residence, Jessica Meyer, as well as other visiting composition faculty. “I was paired with Nimbus Winds, a student wind quintet, and we spent the week rehearsing and workshopping my piece ‘Cloud Shapes,’ which was premiered at Juilliard’s Morse Recital Hall on Aug. 3.” He also had the opportunity to present “Leaf Litter” in a masterclass and share his work from Connecticut Summerfest, bringing his summer research full circle.

“At both festivals, I met a lot of amazing people and built lasting and meaningful relationships while learning important skills such as outreach and finding my musical voice and message,” Lu says. “Additionally, I now have two new pieces and recordings to add to my portfolio. Most importantly, I’ve made colleagues and friends in the field of chamber music that will last my entire lifetime. I’m eternally grateful to SOURCE for making these experiences possible for me.”

Lu’s faculty mentor is , associate professor and chair of music composition, theory and history in VPA’s Setnor School of Music.

Kaniya Ross ’25

Ross’s project is specifically investigating the impact of Cited2 excision and maternal folic acid

Kaniya Ross

supplementation among mice on neurodevelopment. Loss of Cited2 (knockout) has been known to cause disruptions in brain development such as neural tube defects, reduced cortical thickness that can lead to microcephaly, and heart and lung defects.

“Based on preliminary research, prepartum folic acid supplementation has been linked to a reduction in�� neural tube defects like exencephaly. It has also been linked to rescuing reductions in cortical thickness seen with Cited2 knockout,” says Ross. Her team uses immunohistochemistry (IHC) analysis and cell counting to measure whether reduced cortical thickness is due to increased cell density or decreased cells overall following Cited2 knockout and maternal folic acid supplementation. As microcephaly is linked to learning and memory deficits, they also do novel object recognition testing to measure changes in both following maternal folic acid supplementation.

“This project is deeply connected with my future endeavors as a pediatric neurologist who will continue doing research on neurodevelopmental disorders as well as providing affordable care and treatments in my own private practice,” Ross says.

Ross has worked with faculty mentor , associate professor of biology in the College of Arts and Sciences, and graduate student Sara Brigida.

Additional events featuring undergraduate research include the 2024 McNair Summer Research Symposium, which will be held Aug. 9 from 10 a.m.to 3 p.m. in 331 Sims Hall. The Psychology SPARC-STAHR & iSchool REU Program Symposium was held on July 25.

The awardees are:

• , professor and director of the graduate program in magazine, news and digital journalism in the Newhouse School of Public Communications
• , assistant teaching professor of writing studies, rhetoric and composition in the College of Arts and Sciences
• , assistant teaching professor of writing studies, rhetoric and composition in the College of Arts and Sciences

They are among 400 faculty and professionals awarded fellowships to work in more than 135 countries in the coming year.

Harriet Brown

Brown, who is also a longtime magazine writer and author of several nonfiction books, plans to travel��to Israel in the spring to continue her research and reporting about families whose children use medically prescribed cannabis to treat health issues such as seizures, cancer and autism spectrum disorder. She wants to learn more about the cutting-edge research taking place there and connect to the strong network of parents who advocate for medically prescribed cannabis to treat their children’s conditions. She will also teach a course on how to report and write accurately on scientific topics at the .

In addition to research contacts, Brown believes that it is important for Americans to maintain academic, citizen and government connections with Israel, given the call by some to sever all ties in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war. She says that, as a Jewish academic on an American campus, she has been negatively affected by that perspective. “Change doesn’t come from simply shutting people down,” Brown says. “Part of the reason I want to do this is because I feel like maybe I can build some bridges and dispel some myths about life in Israel. I feel strongly that there is a need for those connections, especially for academic ones.”

Robin McCrary

McCrary will visit the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, in the spring to teach and conduct research about how public health humanities education can help close trust gaps between health care practitioners and marginalized patients and populations. He hopes interactions with faculty, students and health care professionals in a different country with a different health care system will enhance how he teaches health humanities to Syracuse student who are preparing for careers in health care and medicine.

He will also teach Cross-Cultural Care Traditions, a course designed to improve two-way dialogue between patients and providers by exploring how different cultures understand and influence health care and illness, including differing attitudes toward medical treatment, varying perceptions on living and dying, Indigenous and non-Western forms of care and diverse spiritualities. He aims to help students better understand the disability, minority, non-Western, gender identity and sexual-orientation contexts patients bring to their health care provider interactions.

Volunteering with immigrant, newcomer and refugee populations in Syracuse has helped McCrary formulate the course content, he says. “Given their different backgrounds, those groups have provided me with insight regarding the context of how they understand care traditions. For those entering the health professions, I believe it’s not just about what our students can learn but also how they bring themselves to the contexts of the care that they provide patients.”

Amy Murphy

Murphy will be in the Slovak Republic from September through January 2025 to research how the communist government’s suppression of literature during its 40-year rule impacted Slovak society and citizens.

Her research will include looking at the underground movement that helped Slovak people obtain literature and maintain high literacy levels during that time. She will work with faculty��at ��and speak with students, faculty and families to understand how Slovak citizens maintained literacy and continued to access information at a time when it was dangerous to do so. “We��take for granted the educational freedoms we have here, but the people who were part of that movement could have gone to jail for helping others obtain information at that time,” Murphy says.��She will also teach a course for students who plan to become teachers of English or translators. The art writing course��has a broad cultural component, and she wants to see how students��interpret various aspects of American culture.

Murphy applied for the fellowship after learning that her great-grandfather, who came to the U.S. at age 15 to mine coal and silver in Colorado, was from Slovakia, and not Austria, as her family had always thought. “I wanted to understand his story, more about the people who stayed there and the whole underground literature movement. It is part of what has helped that country maintain a very high level of literacy,” she says.

The program is for university-based science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) researchers and early-stage startup founders who are interested in exploring the market potential of their work and learning entrepreneurial skills. Participants will learn to apply discovery methodology to help translate technology innovation from the lab into a successful product and/or service through a better understanding of how to achieve product-market fit.

The monthlong virtual course is offered through the University as a partner in the , funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), led by Cornell University, with other collaborators, including Dartmouth College, Rochester Institute of Technology, SUNY Binghamton, SUNY Buffalo, University of Pittsburgh, University of Rochester, University of Vermont and West Virginia University. The hub is part of the , connecting researchers, entrepreneurial communities and federal agencies to help commercialize research.

Course Overview

This virtual course combines self-directed online learning activities, with six Zoom-based class meetings (one to two hours long) and one-on-one instructor check-ins. The course is technology-agnostic, and any sufficiently developed (i.e., beyond ideation) tech innovation team is welcome to apply.

In the first half of the course, teams learn how to identify target customer segments, develop hypotheses about the value proposition offered to each customer segment and effectively interview potential customers about their problems/needs. In the second half of the course, teams will conduct customer discovery and join personalized calls with instructors to share progress and receive coaching. In the final class, teams present their findings, receive additional coaching, learn about other local entrepreneurship programs and receive information about applying for the national I-Corps Teams program and Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer grants.

Applicant Information

Successful applicants should have an early-state technology innovation, with either a prototype or some form of scientific validation. Teams of one to three people may apply. All team members are required to attend and participate fully in every course session and complete all coursework to be considered for NSF lineage and a nomination for the national I-Corps Team.

While all applicants are welcome, preference is given to those with University-affiliated technology (i.e., faculty working with the Office of Technology Transfer), as well as post-docs, graduate students and undergraduate students who are commercializing research. Applications are also encouraged from researchers and early-stage founders engaged with other campuses as well as community incubators and accelerator programs.

Course Schedule

• The program opens for precourse work on Friday, Aug. 30.
• Session 1: Monday, Sept. 9, 1-3 p.m.
• Session 2a: Wednesday, Sept. 11, individualized coaching
• Session 2b: Friday, Sept. 13, 1-3 p.m.
• Session 3: Monday, Sept. 16, 1-3 p.m.M
• Session 4: Wednesday, September 18, individualized coaching
• Session 5a: Wednesday, Sept. 25, 1-2 p.m.
• Session 5b: Monday, Sept. 30, 1-3 p.m.
• Session 6: Wednesday, Oct. 2, 1-3 p.m.

The programming is being co-led by Linda Dickerson Hartsock, strategic initiatives advisor, Syracuse University Libraries, who was founding director of the Blackstone LaunchPad; Jeff Fuchsberg, director, Syracuse Center for Advanced Systems and Engineering (CASE); and Cristiano Bellavitis, assistant professor of entrepreneurship at the Martin J. Whitman School of Management. Both Hartsock and Fuchsberg led the Syracuse Tech Garden before joining the University. NSF certified instructors will be teaching the course modules.

More information

Read more about��Syracuse University’s participation in the new NSF I-Corps Interior Northeast Region Hub��(IN I-Corps) Consortium and its $15 million STEM innovation program. The new initiative aims to create a cohesive innovation ecosystem through inclusive models of education and workforce training designed to catalyze innovation in economically underserved areas.

Partners in the University’s NSF I-Corps programming are resource providers across campus, including the Office of Research, Office of Technology Transfer, Syracuse University Libraries, the College of Law’s Innovation Law Center, the College of Engineering and Computer Science and its Center for Advanced Systems and Engineering, and the Whitman School of Management.

For more information about the upcoming NSF I-Corps course, contact Linda Dickerson Hartsock,��Ldhart01@syr.edu; Jeff Fuchsberg,��Jrfuchsb@syr.edu; or Cristiano Bellavitis, crbellav@syr.edu.

Pardha Sourya Nayani

Pardha Sourya Nayani G’28, a Ph.D. student in electrical engineering and computer science (EECS), has received the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Antennas and Propagation Society (AP-S) Fellowship Award. The award is for his research on “Unleashing Bandwidth: Passive Highly Dispersive Matching Network Enabling Broadband Absorbers with Record-High Bandwidth-to-Thickness Ratio.”

The AP-S Fellowship Program aims to support graduate students and postdoctoral fellows worldwide interested in antenna analysis, design, development and other research areas related to AP-S.

Nayani joined EECS Professor Younes Radi’s research group in the Radiation Laboratory in the summer of 2023. “I am deeply honored to receive this award and look forward to making significant contributions in the field of electromagnetics and microwave engineering,” Nayani says.

“As a faculty member at Syracuse University and the prior institutions I have been involved with, I have had the opportunity to see and work with many talented students and researchers,” says Radi. “Rarely have I had the opportunity to work with a student as passionate, talente, and hardworking as Pardha. I am happy and proud that IEEE awarded him this prestigious fellowship.”

The workshops, open to all faculty, students and staff, will be held mornings (10 a.m. to noon) and afternoons (1:30 to 3:30 p.m.) from Aug. 12 through Aug. 15 in 114 Bird Library. Participants must bring their own laptop. There is no cost to attend, but space is limited and is required.

Collin Capano

, OSPO director, says the workshops are part of the office’s ongoing effort to educate the campus community on open-source tools and to promote open-source culture on campus.

“The idea for the workshops came out of discussions with faculty. There was a desire for cross-disciplinary educational opportunities on campus that cover basic computing know-how so that anyone can acquire the skills they need to develop open-source software. This will help individuals in the research environment on campus, and for students in particular, be an asset in the job market after they graduate,” Capano says. “We hope to offer more of these workshops in the future.”

The sessions, which are a combination of lectures and labs, will be conducted in two parts. Part 1, “Computing Basics,” is scheduled for Aug. 12, and Aug. 13. Part 2, “Introduction to Python,” is planned for Aug. 14, and Aug. 15.

Topics being covered are:

Monday, Aug. 12:
Morning: Operating systems; basic terminal usage
Afternoon: Simple bash; text editors; GitHub

Tuesday, Aug. 13
Morning: More advanced bash; environment variables; conda
Afternoon: ssh and computer clusters

Wednesday, Aug. 14
Morning: Python: variables, assignments, types, operations, containers
Afternoon: Python: control-flow (if/else); intro to functions

Thursday, Aug. 15
Morning: Python: for/while loops; functions (continued)
Afternoon: Python: libraries; numpy/scipy/matplotlib

The OSPO team will be available from 9 to 10 a.m. on Monday and Wednesday to help participants set up their computers. That step is especially recommended for Windows users, Capano says.

Champions Park Catwalk (Credit: @Paris2024)

The 2024 Paris Olympics is almost underway. The glory for the world-class athletes and the excitement for the spectators make for a riveting Games—crucial for the success of these Olympics and, more importantly, for the longevity of the Games.

That sustained legacy is considered high priority for host countries and the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

, associate professor of sport management in the , studies Olympic sport legacy, specifically how young people are drawn into the games as sport participants and viewers.

With the median age of viewers of the Olympics in their 50s, Kim says now is a critical time for the IOC to take opportunities to create excitement around the games for younger people, including adding in new sports, such as this Olympics’ newest event: break dancing.

For the 2018 Games, Kim was awarded funding by the IOC’s Olympic Studies Centre to better understand the impact of the games and develop strategies for drawing in young people, for her project “Building a Sport Participation Legacy Through the 2018 Winter Olympic Games.” Kim found that “social influence” from friends and family played the biggest role for younger people in Asia to be drawn into the Games.

Kim, who worked for the Korean Olympic Committee, assisting in its bid for the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics, more recently will present in August in Paris at the International Sport Business Symposium on her research on the Youth Olympic Games.

In this Q&A with SU News, Kim shares information about her research and getting youth involved and engaged with the Olympics.

What is the research around the Youth Olympics that you will be presenting at the 11th International Sport Business Symposium in Paris?

It is an abstract titled “Investigating the Legacy Governance Process of YOG (Youth Olympics Games) Organizing Committees for Building a Sustainable YOG Legacy.” It is an interview-based case study (e.g., 2016 Lillehammer, 2018 Buenos Aires, 2024 Gangwon) investigating how Youth Olympic Games Organizing Committees manage its Youth Olympics’ legacy throughout the bidding, planning, execution and post-games phases.

What impact does the Youth Olympic Games have on participation in Olympic sports?

The hope for Olympic sport participation legacy is grounded on the “trickle-down effect” (i.e., watching Olympians compete will inspire youth to participate in sport).��For the Youth Olympics, the event can also be a stepstone for younger athletes to compete at the international stage and grow to become Olympians.

Additionally, the Youth Olympics offer many grassroots-level sport opportunities, such as sport camps and collaboration with local schools, to encourage the general youth to learn about Olympic sport.

How important is it to get and keep youth interested in the Olympics/Olympic sports for the sake of the Games’ longevity?

Medals of the 2024 Paris Games (Credit: @Paris2024)

Not garnering enough attention among the youth has been a critical issue. The median media viewership’s age in the North American market is in the mid-50s. The IOC is very aware of the situation and has been putting in a lot of efforts to tackle the issue (e.g., addition of new sport such as breaking, changing event formats to be more entertaining, incorporating esports).

This is a critical period for the IOC and the games’ longevity, but also with great opportunities as the upcoming games will be hosted in traditionally strong sport markets where there are a lot of room for growth in Olympic interest (2024 Paris, 2026 Milan-Cortina, 2028 Los Angeles).

Could the inclusion of break dancing or other new and upcoming “sports” be seen as a way to be more inclusive, to get younger people’s attention on the Games?

Paris 2024 will be the first Olympics to include breaking in the official program. We will have to see how the event turns out. But, so far, looking at the Olympics qualifiers series and the ticket popularity of breaking (currently, very, very popular), it seems like there is a lot of interest garnered for the sport.

What is your favorite summer Olympic game to watch?

Personally, archery. Korea has been very strong in the sport historically, and it is always fun to watch a sport where my team does well (I will be attending the women’s individual archery finals event at the 2024 Paris Olympics).

Check out a as she answers questions about the Olympics.

His latest role is another opportunity to break new ground, and it’s also a homecoming for the double alumnus.

The OSPO is a multidisciplinary, cross-campus initiative intended to accelerate research and creative work by leveraging the use of open-source software code and adherence to open-source best practices. It is one of only about a dozen such offices operating at U.S. universities, so offers a chance to make high impact in that academic space and enhance the University’s research reputation through information and transparency, Capano says.

Capano earned bachelor’s and doctoral degrees in physics at Syracuse University. (Photo by Jeremy Brinn)

Also a physics research associate professor in the , Capano will continue his research in gravitational-wave astronomy while he directs OSPO, he says.

After earning bachelor’s and doctoral physics degrees at Syracuse, he gained more than a decade of experience in open-source code development and extensive experience in multi-messenger data analysis, statistics and high-performance computing. He has worked as a member of the LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) Scientific Collaboration as a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Maryland and as a high-performance computing facilitator and affiliate physics and math faculty member for the at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth.

Perhaps his most distinctive “right place/right time” opportunity came in 2015 at the in Hannover, Germany, the largest research institute in the world specializing in general relativity, where he did postdoctoral research. Serendipitously, he was among the first scientists to observe the first from a long-ago collision of black holes in space. It was a monumental discovery that confirmed part of developed 100 years prior.

Capano, who grew up in the Adirondack town of Corinth, recently discussed plans for OSPO, his current research and what that breakthrough gravitational wave detection moment was like.

What led you back to Syracuse?

I was invited to apply for the OSPO director position and it sounded very interesting. It also presented a great opportunity to be closer to family again and for my daughter to grow up near her grandparents. And the things going on in Syracuse right now—Micron coming in and the Route 81 redevelopment—are exciting. The region is beginning a Renaissance, and the University is on an upswing too. ��I’m excited to be part of the changes and see how the investment and growth plays out. It seems like a once-in-a-century thing.

What has been accomplished at OSPO so far? What’s ahead?

Over the past year, I got the office up and running. Now, I’m promoting open-source culture across the University and encouraging faculty and researchers from all disciplines to make their source code and research data available beyond campus and to the public. That transparency helps instill confidence in their research results and can gain wider recognition for the work.

We’re now developing workshops for faculty, students and staff on coding processes and tools; campuswide seminars and speaker presentations; perhaps a student code hackathon. I’m also working to have open-source code development as part of the standard considered for faculty promotions.

How did you become interested in physics research? What drew you to astrophysics and gravitational wave research?

My dad, who had a master’s degree in physics and was an electronics engineer, used to tell me fascinating things about relativity and quantum mechanics, and that piqued my interest.

In my second year of graduate school, I needed to pick a research advisor. I was a teaching assistant for a course on electricity and magnetism, but I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. It was also ’s first semester as a professor here, and one night we sat together as we graded exams. Duncan [now a world-renowned gravitational wave expert, the University’s vice president of research and Charles Brightman Endowed Professor of Physics] asked if I’d like to do an independent study. I did, and I’ve stayed with it.

I already knew of the gravitational wave group and the idea of doing experimental gravity appealed to me. If it weren’t for the two of us grading exams that night, I might have gone an entirely different route. I’m very glad I didn’t; I have been part of some once-in-a-lifetime experiences.

What do your two National Science Foundation research projects examine?

My research focuses on testing basic principles of gravity and nuclear physics using gravitational waves.

explores Einstein’s theory of relativity by testing it in extreme conditions near black holes using data from the to see whether the waves match Einstein’s predictions or if they reveal unexpected patterns. involves creating a cluster of Apple computers to accelerate the search for gravitational waves using LIGO data. That can help make gravitational wave research less costly, allowing for more ambitious searches, and making it possible for more researchers to contribute to the field.

Capano says his father’s interesting stories about relativity and quantum mechanics helped develop his interest in the field of physics. (Photo by Jeremy Brinn)

What was it like at the front line of the first gravitational wave detection—one of the greatest physics discoveries of all time?

I was at , which was affiliated with LIGO and worked closely with the Syracuse gravitational wave analysis group. On that day a couple of colleagues in the office next to mine got an automated alert about a detection of the in space. They excitedly banged on my wall; I came over and they showed me a plot of the data that showed the characteristic “chirp” signal.

We were some of the , and the moment was surreal. My first reaction, and that for many others, was that it was a mistake. The lab could simulate those signals and did so regularly to test the infrastructure. When the control room confirmed that they hadn’t done a test, that’s when the reality sank in. The whole thing was a whirlwind! As co-chair of the LIGO subgroup devoted to exactly that type of signal, I was later in charge of compiling the data analysis on the event.

[Capano was one of 1,000 LIGO-affiliated scientists whose contributions were recognized for detection of the waves, earning them the and the . In 2017, three LIGO scientists were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics for the discovery.]

What next for gravitational wave research?

It’s a very bright and exciting future. Syracuse is a big part of it. We are laying the groundwork to build the next-generation detector, Cosmic Explorer, that will be able to detect every black hole merger occurring in the universe.

Pushing the frontiers of physics can lead to new, practical things in life—like how the discoveries surrounding magnetism and electricity affected the entire modern world. My hope is that future discoveries about gravitational waves will do the same and that over the next 20 years, we’ll uncover new fundamental findings about the universe.

When she first started thinking about a career in design while in high school, her father suggested space architecture—a field that combines her love of both science and design—“and it clicked,” she says. Those interests brought her first to the University’s , where she earned a bachelor’s degree in architecture in 2023.

Doctoral student Andrea Hoe examines one of several compressed regolith cylinders she is testing.

Starting With SOURCE

Now, Hoe is a graduate research assistant in Assistant Professor�� Yeqing Wang’s in the . (ECS). She first contacted Wang in spring 2022 regarding her interest in research on lunar regolith, the dry, loose soil found on the Moon. Wang encouraged her to apply for an undergraduate research grant from the (SOURCE). She was awarded a grant, and, with Wang as her sponsor, began working in his lab that summer.

After Hoe completed her undergraduate degree, Wang encouraged her to pursue graduate studies at ECS, starting as a master’s student in the program. That allowed her to continue her work on lunar regolith composites.

Based on her excellent academic record and outstanding research experience, Wang says, he offered her a graduate research assistant position, a role that covers tuition, living expenses and insurance. The position was co-sponsored by Jensen Zhang, executive director of the Syracuse Center of Excellence and professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering. In addition to researching lunar regolith composites, Hoe has collaborated with Zhang and Wang on developing metal-organic-framework materials and devices for air purification applications. In fall 2023, Wang encouraged Hoe to apply to pursue a doctoral degree.

The NASA award was presented for Hoe’s proposal, “,” with Wang serving as principal investigator. The recognition provides her with a prestigious designation as a NASA Space Technology graduate research fellow, Wang says.

Compression Testing

In her research, Hoe uses urea and carbon nanotube additives and integrates them into the lunar regolith material with an acidic solution, then compresses the composite cylinder that forms from the substances to test how varied compositions affect its strength. The lunar regolith and urea can be sourced on site in space, a factor that significantly reduces the payload required to transport the materials from Earth to space.

Soon, Hoe will add experiments that examine the impact of lunar freeze/thaw cycles on the composite and test mechanical strength to gauge fabrication ability. Ultimately, she wants to identify an optimum formulation of the composite that is sufficiently strong and remotely mixable so it can be extruded from 3D printers to form lunar habitats. NASA believes the technology will permit structures to be built in outer space for use by humans on the moon and Mars, Hoe says, and its Marshall Space Flight Center is conducting regolith research for that purpose. She also believes the push for space exploration now being made by several companies will create a need for the habitats.

Regolith material, like what is found on the Moon, is used in Yeqing Wang’s Composite Materials lab.

Hoe has already sketched some designs for those space pods, envisioning small, connected, 3D-printed modules. Her ideas are partially inspired by biomimicry and her work with School of Architecture Assistant Professor . Biomimicry design takes its cues from nature, such as the way ants or bees build colonies.

Two Perspectives

Hoe believes her dual perspectives and the expertise she is developing will be particularly appealing to employers in the future. “We see the architecture aspect, the engineering aspect and the commercialization aspect to space structures. What we don’t commonly see right now is an architect who also has an engineering degree. That’s where I hope to fit in and meet the industry—between the architectural side that considers design for human comfort and the engineering side that incorporates the practicality of how to fabricate the structures. I am hoping that by the time I’ve completed my doctorate there will be more opportunities for space architects, and NASA is definitely where I want to be,” she says.

Wang says the NASA award “provides an exciting opportunity to collaborate closely with our NASA partners on researching composite material systems for space habitation. It also acknowledges our talented graduate student for her pioneering research in lunar regolith composites and allows her to continue pursuing her dream of materials research for space habitation.”

Hoe prepares to test a compressed regolith cylinder to assess the strength of the material.

Out-of-the-Box Pursuits

The student researcher has a history of out-of-the-box pursuits and believes that motivation and persistence can pay off. She is accustomed to others thinking that her goals may be unattainable, but most people have a positive reaction to her research, she says.

And though she began regolith design and testing in an engineering lab as an undergraduate, moving from an architectural focus to an engineering one has had its challenges, Hoe admits.

“It’s been a difficult transition from architecture to engineering since I’ve had to catch up on engineering requirements,” she says, though with her professor’s support and her passion for the work, she knows her goals are achievable. Her three engineering-oriented summer internships have provided learning experiences that have helped her understand how her strong design focus will assist her in engineering work, given current industry norms.

“I was able to demonstrate that an architecture background is useful in many projects and there were times engineering team members changed their opinions based on my contributions,” she says. “That’s why I encourage others to be passionate about something and to not give up on their dreams, even if others are not supportive.”

The work is the result of comprehensive research through the ElectionGraph project from the University’s ��(IDJC). In conjunction with the , IDJC ElectionGraph researchers released a report that found about 2,200 webpages have run ads on Facebook and Instagram between Sept. 1, 2023, and April 30, 2024.

The ads, which mentioned President Joe Biden, former President Donald Trump or other presidential primary candidates, have collectively exceeded 1 billion impressions.

Jennifer Stromer-Galley

Though a majority of the pages analyzed appear tied to legitimate groups, a portion of the pages appear to be “inauthentic influencers” who are secretly coordinating and running identical videos or messages. Several of these groups include false or misleading information in their ads, the report found.

The research also captured evidence of a deepfake featuring manipulated audio of figures, including Trump and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson. And the findings detailed different political issues on which conservative and progressive-leaning pages are focusing their ad spends.

For conservative pages, immigration has been the top issue, surpassing the economy, while the economy was the top issue for progressive pages. Accounting for all pages regardless of leaning, ads related to the economy received the most ad dollars.

This is the second , which seeks to identify misinformation trends in the U.S. presidential election and other top 2024 contests.��The project is supported by a grant and use of analytics software from , the world’s leading graph database and analytics company.

The Institute for Democracy, Journalism and Citizenship is a joint University initiative of the Newhouse School of Public Communications and Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.

The IDJC ElectionGraph team’s efforts included pinpointing origins of messages and tracing misinformation by collecting and algorithmically classifying ads run on Facebook and Instagram, as well as social media posts on Facebook and X, formerly known as Twitter.

Johanna Dunaway

The network of authentic and inauthentic actors identified in the research represents just a fraction of all coordinated pages related to elections. Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, is the only social media group that grants approved organizations access to ad data. This data is not required to be disclosed and is not similarly trackable on TikTok, Google, YouTube or Snapchat, according to the report.

“What this research reveals is the surprising number of actors we know very little about who are spending money targeting voters with messaging on social media where there is little transparency,” says Jennifer Stromer-Galley, professor in the School of Information Studies and lead researcher for the project.

“It underscores that tech platforms need to do more to allow academics and journalists access to platform data so that political actors can be held to account with the American public,” Stromer-Galley says.

Johanna Dunaway, IDJC research director and a professor of political science in the Maxwell School, says that what stands out from the analysis is the reminder that the election information environment is more confusing than ever.

“Even as some things stay the same—like emphasis on the economy and more focus on advocacy and attacks than issues—opaque messaging from��random one-off groups or complex hidden networks with��questionable motives��makes it��increasingly difficult to identify credible messages and sources in��the��cacophony��of campaign-related��information,” Dunaway says.

Margaret Talev

The prevalence of inauthentic groups, scams and deepfake voices just within the parameters of the search shows a massive amount of manipulation and misinformation targeting Americans through the political information consumed online, says Margaret Talev, Kramer Director of the IDJC, professor of practice in the Newhouse School and a journalist.

“This is a situation of ‘voter beware’ but also ‘consumer beware’ because sometimes what looks like a bid for your vote may actually be a bid for your identity or your credit card information,” Talev says.

Jim Webber, Neo4j’s chief scientist, says that covert operations by coordinated networks in digital civic spaces is a dangerous modern reality—while the company’s graph technology is enabling IDJC’s researchers “to uncover the hidden patterns and actions of those covert actors” and identify misinformation and misleading content.

A new $40 million award for the New York Semiconductor Manufacturing and Research Technology Innovation Corridor (NY SMART I-Corridor) was announced yesterday by U.S. Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer at a press conference in Syracuse hosted by INFICON. Syracuse University will lead the NY SMART I-Corridor’s Collaboration and Commercialization Center. (Photo courtesy of Onondaga County)

Syracuse University will play a leading role in advancing Central New York’s semiconductor manufacturing capabilities thanks to $40 million in new funds made available to the Buffalo-Rochester-Syracuse region through the U.S. Economic Development Administration’s . The new award for the New York Semiconductor Manufacturing and Research Technology Innovation Corridor () was announced yesterday by U.S. Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer at a press conference in Syracuse hosted by INFICON. J. Michael Haynie, vice chancellor for strategic initiatives and innovation, spoke at the event, and Duncan Brown, vice president for research, represented the University as principal investigator on Syracuse University’s component of the Tech Hub award.

“This is a monumental victory for the Buffalo-Rochester-Syracuse region as the first major Tech Hub award in the nation, bringing a whopping $40 million from my CHIPS and Science Law. With this major investment, the feds are shining a national spotlight, and confirming what I have long known, that America’s semiconductor future runs through the heart of Upstate NY along the I-90 corridor,” said Senator Schumer. “From the fields near Syracuse that will become Micron’s massive mega-fab to the cutting-edge research labs in Rochester and workers learning these manufacturing skills in Buffalo, this award helps connect the region to seize this once-in-a-generation opportunity and establish Upstate NY as the heart of America’s semiconductor industry. I created the Tech Hubs competition with Upstate NY in mind, and pulled out all the stops to win this award—first proposing this program in my Endless Frontier Act, then passing it into law as part of my CHIPS and Science Act, making the case to bring the region together, advocating at the highest levels and delivering the transformational investment to make today possible. It’s never been more clear: the heart of America’s semiconductor industry runs along the I-90 corridor in Upstate NY!”

Syracuse University will lead the NY SMART I-Corridor’s Collaboration and Commercialization Center (C3), which includes Cornell University, Rochester Institute of Technology, University of Rochester and University of Buffalo. C3 will administer millions of dollars in grants to allow small and medium-sized businesses to collaborate with the region’s universities, bring new ideas to market and accelerate growth of the semiconductor industry in the region.

“Syracuse University is proud to lead this higher education collaboration that will help drive innovation and establish the NY SMART I-Corridor as a world leading entrepreneurial incubator for the semiconductor industry,” says Chancellor Kent Syverud. “I am grateful for Senator Schumer’s steadfast advocacy. This substantial new grant builds on major investments the University is making. It will help create critical high-tech infrastructure and facilities, attract top semiconductor manufacturing researchers and faculty to the region, and develop unique experiential learning and internship opportunities for talented students.”

To support the NY SMART I-Corridor, the University is investing $10 million, which is matched by a $10 million investment from Onondaga County, to create a state-of-the-art advanced semiconductor manufacturing facility. The center is part of a more than $100 million investment in strategically transforming STEM and expanding the College of Engineering and Computer Science (ECS) at Syracuse University over the next five years.

“Together with our regional partners, and with the dedicated support of Senator Schumer, Syracuse University has a key role to play in the revitalization of Central New York,” says Haynie. “Today’s announcement is another exciting milestone in the realization of that goal, and we are gratified by the continuing opportunity to foster collaboration and innovation across the Tech Hub.”

As the NY SMART I-Corridor seeks to become the epicenter for American semiconductor commercialization efforts, C3 will integrate the region’s extensive assets into a single “point of entry” for small and medium-sized businesses, according to Brown.

“In our knowledge-driven society, university-led research and development is central to economic development. C3 will allow businesses of all sizes to partner with universities to develop, prototype and test new products,” Brown says. “Through these partnerships, the NY SMART I-Corridor will accelerate the transfer of ideas from lab to market.”

Modeled on New York State’s Centers for Advanced Technology, C3 will drive innovation in the I-Corridor’s semiconductor supply chain by establishing:

• Innovation Asset/Expertise Engagement Network, an inventory of semiconductor relevant facilities and innovation expertise across the I-Corridor, accessible via a central online portal;
• Knowledge/IP Collaboration Architecture, a new IP architecture for the region that incentivizes cross-collaboration between sectors and institutions and strengthens commercialization efforts in the I-Corridor; and
• Formal Community of Practice, which will facilitate collaboration between businesses, researchers, investors and manufacturers in the region and sponsor programming and internships designed to benefit underrepresented communities.

The federal Tech Hub designation spans Syracuse, Rochester and Buffalo and includes Ithaca, Auburn and Batavia. Key academic partners include Monroe Community College in Rochester, which will lead the hub’s workforce development efforts, and University at Buffalo, which will lead the effort to improve the region’s supply chain for semiconductors.

Schumer created the Regional Tech Hubs competition as part of the CHIPS and Science Bill, and said the three-region consortium beat out hundreds of applications and was one of only 31 regions across the U.S. chosen for the Tech Hub designation.

Each wave of findings from the is based on interviews with roughly 1,000 U.S. adults conducted by Ipsos through its probability-based KnowledgePanel.

Initial findings released Thursday found that Republicans were more invested in watching the first presidential debate between President Biden and former President Trump than Democrats or independents.

Based on a survey conducted May 17-19, 75% of Republicans said they were likely to watch the debate, compared with 61% of Democrats and 58% of independents.

“This project will help IDJC researchers expand our understanding of media consumption and an increasingly polarized electorate in a rapidly changing news climate,” says , Kramer Director of the IDJC and professor of practice of magazine, news and digital journalism at the .

The is a joint University initiative of the Newhouse School and the . Based in Washington, D.C., the institute engages in nonpartisan research, teaching and public dialogue aimed at strengthening trust in news media, governance and society.

“While many polls are focused on the horse race, this gives us the opportunity to understand how this election cycle is shaping Americans’ perspectives about patriotism, partisanship and the importance of democracy,” says , IDJC research director and professor of political science at Maxwell.

, IDJC senior researcher, says “Our hope is that we can learn more about the relationships between identity, trust in media and attitudes toward democracy that shape the stakes of the election—not merely try to predict the election.” Darr also is an associate professor of communications at Newhouse.

The IDJC also offers foundational courses taught in the nation’s capital in civics, media literacy and ethics, and works with the Maxwell and Newhouse schools to facilitate internships, networking opportunities with alumni and other educational experiences for Syracuse University students.

The polling partnership with Ipsos will provide another avenue to teach students about survey research and demographic trends in society, Talev says.

“These are such important tools for aspiring journalists to have in their skillset,” she says. “It’s critical for reporters and writers to understand how voters feel and perceive developments on the trail to cover the campaign with proper context and authority.”

Talev also is a senior contributor at Axios and Thursday.

Severe flooding followed heavy rains in Cranford, New Jersey.

Widespread climate change from global warming has devastating and lasting effects on human health, infrastructure and food production. As temperatures rise, certain areas are dealing with intense droughts and water scarcity, while other regions are experiencing catastrophic rainfall and flooding. The eastern United States is one area that has seen a marked rise in torrential storms in recent years. A byproduct of this was the East Kentucky flood of 2022, which occurred when a storm swept through, dropping four inches of rain per hour, resulting in the tragic loss of 44 lives and the declaration of 13 counties as federal disaster areas.

As the eastern U.S. comes to grips with the changing climate, local and state governments depend on accurate rainfall predictions to help save lives and minimize property damage. But human-caused climate change makes it difficult to isolate processes in the atmosphere and ocean responsible for long-term trends in rainfall. This makes it especially challenging to predict rainfall changes on a local scale. A team of researchers from the University’s Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences (EES) in the College of Arts and Sciences (A&S) has been awarded a $547,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to investigate ancient climate data to help improve the accuracy of climate modeling and future rainfall predictions.

Tripti Bhattacharya (left) and David Fastovich

The project is led by principal investigator (PI) , Thonis Family Professor in EES, and co-PI , a postdoctoral researcher in Bhattacharya’s Paleoclimate Dynamics Lab. Bhattacharya is a leading expert in organic geochemistry and climatology, which involves studying how atmospheric conditions have changed over time. Fastovich, who joined Bhattacharya’s lab at Syracuse in 2022, has particular interest in using the geologic record to better understand future global change.

“This project really brings together David’s and my expertise to tackle a climate question of strong relevance to the northeast U.S., including the Central New York region,” says Bhattacharya.

According to Fastovich, extreme rainfall in the eastern and central U.S. results from a “perfect storm” of conditions in the atmosphere, Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean.

“When oceanic and atmospheric conditions are just right, air laden with moisture from the Gulf of Mexico is directed towards the central and eastern U.S. This air is then quickly lifted by atmospheric processes creating pockets of intense rainfall,” he explains. “We hypothesize that the relative importance of oceanic and atmospheric processes needed to create extreme rainfall are poorly approximated in climate models that are used to make predictions of the future.”

Answers Embedded in Leaf Wax

The team will take measurements of leaf waxes from lake sediments preserved in the last ice age and compare those results to climate models to identify why predictions of rainfall in the central and eastern U.S. are uncertain.

Their research will focus on the period from the Last Glacial Maximum (~20,000 years ago) to the Holocene (last ~12,000 years of Earth’s history). During this time, there was an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide which led to ice sheet retreat and ocean heat transport variability—which refers to the fluctuations in the movement of heat within the ocean.

The leaf waxes that the team will study originate from five lakes across Ohio, Missouri and Florida. Bhattacharya and Fastovich will be applying lab methods that extract, identify and measure leaf waxes stored within the sediments.

Bhattacharya works with a gas chromatograph, a key piece of lab equipment that allows her to quantify the concentrations of leaf waxes in ancient sediments.

“My lab measures leaf waxes, but David’s unique expertise is helping us apply this technique in a new setting,” says Bhattacharya. “This grant is a great example of how postdoctoral scholars enrich the depth and breadth of research expertise here at Syracuse University.”

According to Fastovich, being able to engage in this type of hands-on research with field-leading instrumentation was one of the reasons he chose Syracuse.

“I was really drawn to the expertise and analytical capabilities here in Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences,” he says. “Through this project, we’re using sophisticated equipment to study leaf waxes, which make up the shiny layer that can be seen on plants that prevent them from drying out. They are very robust compounds that are stored in lake sediments and hold a wealth of information about climate.”

Improving Climate Models

The team will measure the different proportions of hydrogen atoms in the compounds from these sediment cores to better understand how rainfall in the central and eastern U.S. changed over the last 18,000 years. With the data collected from the leaf wax biomarkers, the team will develop a network of hydroclimate reconstructions to reveal physical processes like atmospheric circulation, evaporation and condensation. These enable researchers to understand changes in atmospheric circulation and hydroclimate.

“Climate models struggle to capture the historic hydroclimate in the eastern United States, as they overestimate precipitation along the Atlantic coast and underestimate precipitation in the Great Plains,” Bhattacharya says. “With precipitation amount and intensity predicted to robustly increase throughout these regions in the coming century, accurate climate models will be an essential tool for policymakers to make informed decisions about adaption strategies and infrastructure planning.”

Fastovich notes that it will be difficult to alter the rainfall trajectory short of stopping carbon dioxide emissions altogether. It is therefore critical to engage in research efforts that improve climate modeling accuracy to prepare for the future.

“The less carbon dioxide is emitted into the atmosphere, the less rainfall will differ from historical trends to which we are accustomed,” he says. “But it’s important to note that the eastern U.S. is locked in for some rainfall changes because of today’s high carbon dioxide levels, and as extreme rainfall becomes more common, preparing infrastructure for this new normal is imperative.”

The Importance of Postdocs

According to , vice president for research, Fastovich’s contribution to this project exemplifies the significance of postdoctoral scholars to the research mission at Syracuse University. In fall 2023, the University established an to provide centralized resources and dedicated staff to serve the interests and well-being of postdoctoral scholars.

“Professor Bhattacharya and Dr. Fastovich’s award demonstrates the important role that postdoctoral scholars play in pursuing funding, as well as working on research and creative projects,” says Brown.

To help more postdocs win research funding, the Office of Postdoctoral Affairs will be running a series of research development sessions targeted at postdocs starting next academic year.

Macfarlane’s disability law research and advocacy focus on reasonable accommodations in the workplace and higher education. Macfarlane is herself a person with disabilities. She has had rheumatoid arthritis, an autoimmune disease that causes joint deterioration and visual impairment, since childhood. Her lived experience with disability is one reason she’s excited to direct the DLPP program, she says.

Before joining the faculty as an associate professor last August, Macfarlane served as special counsel for disability rights in the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, an appointment supported by a grant from the Ford Foundation’s U.S. Disability Rights Program. She previously was an associate professor at Southern University Law Center and the University of Idaho College of Law. She also was an assistant corporation counsel in the New York City Law Department, where she served as lead counsel in federal civil rights actions and an associate in Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan’s Los Angeles and New York offices. After law school, she served as a law clerk for the District of Arizona and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Katherine Macfarlane (Photo by Marilyn Hesler)

In addition to her disability law research, Macfarlane writes at the intersection of federal civil procedure and civil rights litigation. Her about the modern implications of 42 U.S.C. § 1983, the landmark civil rights law originally passed as part of the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, has been cited twice by U.S. District Court Judge Carlton Reeves, most recently in , an order denying qualified immunity that received national media attention.

New DLPP Initiatives

Macfarlane appreciates that Kanter’s DLPP groundwork has provided an understanding of disability law and policies here.

“The University’s understanding of what it takes to support people with disabilities means I can jump right into the kind of programming I want to do. Things I might have had to fight for at other institutions are a given at Syracuse. That’s so refreshing.”

Through DLPP, Macfarlane wants to empower law students to see themselves as disability law scholars and future academics. She hopes to make this year’s inaugural student scholarship-focused symposium a yearly tradition and continue hosting discussions with cutting-edge disability law scholars and advocates. She plans to spotlight the novel disability law work being done by several law faculty. She will also continue to offer disability knowledge workshops and trainings to departments and faculty at Syracuse and around the country and wants to involve DLPP students in those efforts. She especially hopes to maintain the University’s reputation as a destination for law students interested in disability law and law students with disabilities.

“I want for us as a university to think beyond compliance and consider what it takes to continue to attract students and faculty who have disabilities—how to remain an institution where disabled individuals are supported and succeed,” she says. “That means we need to think through the experience of people with disabilities from the minute they arrive on campus and about how to streamline the process of obtaining a reasonable accommodation, for example. We need to ask how much time, money and health insurance a person with disabilities is required to expend and how we can lessen those burdens. Our conversations should reach far beyond a discussion about accessible design and dive into the day-to-day experience of people with disabilities.”

Early Law Interest

Macfarlane lived in Canada and Italy in her youth and always wanted to go to law school. When she moved to the U.S., she was drawn to and inspired by U.S. civil rights movements and civil rights law. Congressman John Lewis is one of her heroes. Her disability law specialty came about later in her career.

“I have been disabled for as long as I can remember, but in law school, I was too self-conscious to identify with the disability community or focus on disability law,” she says. “Well into my twenties, I lived my medical experience in secret, hiding my constant procedures and chronic pain from even my closest friends. Finding the disability community and disability law has been pretty life-changing for me in that I can finally be myself. I became an expert in disability law because I had to in order to protect my own rights, but then I realized I loved this area of the law and the people doing this work, and I never left.”

People with disabilities are underrepresented in the practice of law and academia, Macfarlane says. “Not only is there a real need for people with disability law experience, there is also an absolute need for people with disabilities to go into this area of law. Having more disabled people in the practice of law is a readily attainable goal. But the spaces they work in have to be accessible, too, so law schools, courthouses and law firms have to constantly audit their physical spaces and their disability-related policies,” she says.

DLPP As Leverage

DLPP provides a forum to leverage both objectives, Macfarlane says. “I also love that I can expose students with disabilities to this area of law and advocacy and help give them the confidence to exist as a person with disabilities that I didn’t have myself as a law student. And this generation of law students makes me so excited! They understand what access requires. I’m very interested to see what this generation of young people do when they enter the practice of law or when they come into positions like mine.”

A focus on the specialty requires careful monitoring of litigation and Supreme Court decisions to guard against a decline in disability rights, Macfarlane says. She cites a recent attempt to narrow the that could allow businesses to forego making their establishments accessible. She finds it concerning that some recent Supreme Court decisions may foreshadow a lowering of America’s commitment to disability rights as well.

That’s why the DLPP’s efforts are essential, Macfarlane says. “I’m always pitching DLPP to students. Disability law is a vital, cutting-edge area of law; it’s always changing. Many of us come to this specialty because we’re fired up about disability rights in our own lives. That’s why I’m so pleased to be here; it’s tremendous that a person with a disability is at the helm of this program.”

The three-year grant supports the creation of a unique oral history archive and course development focused on the history and ethics of public health pandemic response and faculty and doctoral student training that centers humanities knowledge and methods.

From left: Marian Moser Jones, Amy Fairchild and Cheryl Healton

The educational and research resource will create “new, urgently needed, accessible opportunities for the humanities to speak to public health and broaden access to humanities higher learning opportunities,” says , professor at the Maxwell School, who is principal investigator (PI). Co-PIs are , associate professor of health services management and policy at The Ohio State University, and , founding dean and professor of public health policy and management at the School of Global Public Health at New York University (NYU).

The research team has already conducted nearly 100 interviews with state and local health officials, delving into their experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. A planned third phase of the oral history initiative will result in approximately 150 interviews from 40 states and two territories that will become part of a digital archive, “Stewards in the Storm,” housed at Syracuse University’s .

Widespread public and political backlash against protective health measures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic—and against those who were trying to implement those measures—has had a lasting impact on public health, including ongoing staff shortages and attempts to sharply curtail public health authorities needed to preserve life. In their initial rounds of interviews, the research team found that 36 percent of health officials reported receiving death threats, and 24 percent reported serious threats to their families—with women and people of color more likely to receive such threats.

The third round of interviews is important, Healton says, “because it ensures a resource with a broad, nationally inclusive sample that both researchers and instructors can use to conduct reliable, valid research and to develop strong humanities content in courses that reach both public health and humanities students.”

In addition to expanding the interviews, the researchers also plan to establish a hands-on “Backlash Lab” that will introduce students to the history and ethics of public health, oral history interviewing techniques, qualitative coding strategies and techniques, and quantitative analysis. The lab, anchored at Syracuse, Ohio State and NYU, will also create partnerships with colleges that have historically served Black, Hispanic or first-generation students. Students will code interviews and write case studies to be used in undergraduate and graduate courses as well as professional settings.

Additionally, a survey course, Pandemics: History, Ethics, Politics and Policy, will be developed collaboratively and offered at Syracuse, Ohio State, NYU and Cornell University, with the aim of extending it to other collaborating institutions and other schools and programs in public health. The course aims to cut across public health, public policy and the humanities with a focus on history, medical sociology and communications.

In years two and three of the project, the team will run two workshops for scholars teaching public health and humanities at community and four-year colleges and universities across the country, with a focus on institutions that have public health schools or programs. The workshops will introduce teachers to the techniques of oral history, suggest ways to work with the archive and extend the reach of the new course.

The project capitalizes on synergies between public health and the humanities and addresses common gaps in knowledge about public health history. “As important as easy access to primary documents related to pandemic responses are, we can further illuminate broader historical themes that enrich both the humanities and the field of public health by providing insight into peoples’ lived experiences of pandemics and pandemic response,” Moser Jones says.

“This rich body of narrative history does more than create qualitative data through oral history methods,” Fairchild adds. “Rather, it uses the experience of the pandemic as a lens that can clarify and contextualize the continuing climate of pandemic-associated backlash that has ongoing repercussions for pragmatic efforts to confront population health challenges, from reproductive rights to climate change. It is primarily the foundation for humanistic investigation into the ways in which governmental responses to crises are social products and reflect the societies in which people live and die.”

As a leading funder of humanities programs, including several recent grants to faculty in the College of Arts and Sciences (A&S) and the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, the NEH plays a pivotal role in bolstering the work of humanities scholars, educators and students. Through grants to cultural institutions, scholars and educational initiatives, NEH promotes research, preserves cultural heritage and fosters lifelong learning.

NEH Makes an Inaugural Visit to CNY Humanities Corridor

Claudia Kinkela, senior program officer in the division of research for the NEH, discussed the NEH grant evaluation process during her presentation at the Sheraton Syracuse University Hotel and Conference Center.

The arrival of , senior program officer in the division of research for the NEH, marked a milestone for humanities scholars across Central New York. Sponsored by the , the March 1 event at the Sheraton Syracuse University Hotel and Conference Center saw 137 registrants, demonstrating a need and eagerness to hear Kinkela’s insight and guidance on crafting competitive applications for agency funding. Her presentation provided attendees with invaluable knowledge about the NEH evaluation process.

, associate provost for strategic initiatives, gave welcome remarks and noted the significance of the event, stating, “This was such an important opportunity for all in the humanities and beyond. We will continue to elevate the importance of the work being done across our corridor community.”

As part of the visit, Kinkela engaged in one-on-one afternoon consultations for individuals with existing projects under development.

“Having the opportunity to engage with Claudia Kinkela one-on-one was incredibly valuable,” says , associate professor of English. “Her personalized feedback has not only helped me refine our NEH proposal but also provided me with a deeper understanding of the overall landscape of public funding for the humanities.”

Hailing from 22 regional institutions, the gathering included registrants not only from institutions of higher education, but also representatives from local nonprofit organizations including the , the and . All 11 corridor institutions were in attendance, signaling a unified interest and commitment to advancing the humanities together. Academic institutions within the corridor include Syracuse University, Cornell University, the University of Rochester, Colgate University, Hamilton College, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Skidmore College, St. Lawrence University, Union College, Le Moyne College, and the Rochester Institute of Technology. The provided additional support for the event.

Instrumental in securing this important senior NEH officer site visit was , associate director for research development in the humanities at Syracuse University. Together with her corridor colleagues, including Aimee Germain, program manager for the CNY Humanities Corridor and Vivian May, professor and director of the Syracuse University Humanities Center, Workman led the development of the event’s robust programming and brought the event to fruition.

Rendering of the Syracuse University Center for Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing

Syracuse University today announced its plans to launch the Syracuse University Center for Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing, an interdisciplinary center that will bring together expertise in artificial intelligence (AI), cybersecurity, manufacturing processes, optimization and robotics to advance the science of semiconductor manufacturing. The center will be funded by a $10 million investment from the University, as well as a $10 million grant from Onondaga County. The center is part of a more than $100 million investment in strategically transforming STEM and expanding the College of Engineering and Computer Science (ECS) at Syracuse University over the next five years.

Housed in the University’s Center for Science and Technology and situated within ECS, the new center will position the University and Central New York as a global leader in research and education on the intelligent manufacturing of semiconductors.

“Syracuse University and Onondaga County have a longstanding history of collaborating in ways that are mutually beneficial for our students, faculty and staff; the Central New York community and the economic prosperity of our region,” says Chancellor Kent Syverud. “I am grateful for the county’s support. I look forward to the teaching and research that will occur at this new center as well as the meaningful ways that its educational outcomes will contribute to a thriving advanced semiconductor manufacturing industry in Central New York.”

Today’s announcement comes as Micron Technology continues its $100 billion investment in Central New York, which is expected to create 50,000 new jobs in the region, including 9,000 high-paying jobs directly with Micron. Micron will also invest $500 million in community and workforce development, focusing on assisting traditionally underrepresented and disadvantaged populations while training or retraining the region’s ��workforce.

Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon, who was central to attracting Micron to Central New York, says this new facility will play a significant role in helping to drive economic development, cultivate the talent pipeline, attract federal research and development funding and build the semiconductor supply chain in Syracuse.

“As Onondaga County prepares to become the hub for memory technology chip production, we know that we will need our partners in higher education to help develop the necessary workforce critical to ensuring our success,” says McMahon. “With this historic investment by Onondaga County and Syracuse University to launch the Center for Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing, we are taking a huge step forward in that effort. This new center will serve as a vital workforce pipeline as Micron proceeds with the largest investment in the country at White Pine Business Park. I want to thank Chancellor Syverud and the entire team at Syracuse University for their commitment and partnership in making this important initiative a reality.”

The new Syracuse University Center for Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing will drive progress in manufacturing processes across the semiconductor supply chain. A state-of-the-art teaching and research facility, it will replicate an autonomous-advanced manufacturing floor enabling research and design that will make Syracuse and the United States globally competitive in semiconductor manufacturing technologies. Students will be trained in the manufacturing technologies of today and create the new ideas that will drive the industry tomorrow. This university’s ongoing partnership with Micron and the county will ensure that Onondaga County can deliver chips through the most high-quality and cost-effective manufacturing processes possible for years to come.

“Central New York is about to undergo a once-in-a-generation transformation and Syracuse University will play a critical role as one of the region’s key higher education partners,” says Vice Chancellor for Strategic Initiatives and Innovation J. Michael Haynie. “We are proud to partner with the county, Micron and other community and business leaders to prepare a workforce in a way that capitalizes on all of the economic opportunities facing our region today.”

Rendering of the Syracuse University Center for Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing

The new center is aligned with the University’s academic strategic plan and leverages the investment it has already made in AI, manufacturing, quantum technologies and precision measurement. Over the next five years, the University will hire more than 10 new faculty at various ranks with expertise in manufacturing process engineering and automation, optimization and artificial intelligence, materials science engineering and other related fields.

“Not only will this center support economic and workforce development, it will also generate significant academic opportunities for both our students and our faculty from a teaching, learning and research perspective,” says Vice Chancellor, Provost and Chief Academic Officer Gretchen Ritter. “There is huge demand for trained professionals in and across these fields and Syracuse University will be at the forefront of preparing the next generation of scientists, engineers and leaders in the advanced semiconductor manufacturing space.”

The center’s research will drive the improvements in manufacturing needed to give designers the ability to create tomorrow’s most advanced chips. It will also deliver the skill sets needed by today’s semiconductor industry by educating graduate and undergraduate students in cutting-edge manufacturing and supply-chain technologies.

ECS Dean Cole Smith, who is leading the efforts to expand engineering at Syracuse, says the new center will allow the University to attract and retain diverse and talented student scholars from across the globe who will come to Syracuse to live, learn, study and work.�� The University will also work closely with the county and the City of Syracuse to recruit students from area high schools, including the new STEAM High School. These efforts directly support the College of Engineering and Computer Science’s plan to grow its undergraduate enrollment by 50% by 2028.

“We want to make advanced manufacturing tangible, exciting and accessible for all students, even if they have not yet seen engineering and computer science as a potential career field,” says Dean Smith. “One of the most exciting aspects of this center is in its dual use for research and education. Prospective students, especially those coming from Central New York, will see amazing opportunities for themselves in the field of semiconductor manufacturing. Instead of just reading about the industry, they will both witness exciting research and interact with an automated, intelligent factory floor when they visit the center.”

Work to transform existing space into the new facility is underway.

Three Syracuse University students have been awarded prestigious graduate research fellowships through the National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP), and two students have been recognized with honorable mentions.

The fellowship recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students who are pursuing research-based master’s and doctoral degrees in the U.S. The five-year fellowship includes three years of financial support, including an annual stipend of $37,000 and a $16,000 educational allowance.

The 2024 recipients of the NSF GRFP are the following:

• Edward (Cole) Fluker, a senior chemical engineering major in the College of Engineering and Computer Science (ECS). Fluker will be joining the Ph.D. program in chemical and biomolecular engineering at the University of Pennsylvania upon graduation.
• Dan Paradiso, a second-year Ph.D. student in physics in the College of Arts and Sciences.
• Melissa Yeung, a first-year Ph.D. student in mechanical and aerospace engineering in ECS.

��Edward (Cole) Fluker

Fluker, who was recently named a University Scholar, initially got involved in research in his sophomore year and took on his first significant research project the following summer. Through the University’s Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP) Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program, he worked under Ian Hosein, associate professor of biomedical and chemical engineering, analyzing a gel polymer electrolyte system as an alternative to liquid electrolytes in calcium-ion batteries. The research resulted in a paper, on which Fluker was first author, in the American Chemical Society’s Journal of Physical Chemistry.

That experience led him to pursue more research opportunities in energy storage. In summer 2023, he completed the Internet of Things for Precision Agriculture REU at the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied the power and energy performance of aluminum air batteries (AABs) with Ag-based cathodes.

“By the end of the project, I had successfully fabricated cathodes that resulted in power performance of 70% of the commercial option at less than 1/4,000th of the cost,” Fluker says. “I was especially interested in creative efforts to improve efficient agricultural practices, and I hope to continue contributing to them while at UPenn.”

Fluker says the NSF GRFP will give him financial resources to help broaden his research to be more sustainable and inclusive. “There is a severe underrepresentation of Black students pursuing advanced degrees, and I believe this program will help me launch a pipeline program for African American students to support their advanced degree aspirations,” he says. “On top of my research goals committed to next generation energy storage, I want to pave a path for underrepresented students that opens doors they never thought were meant for them.”

Dan Paradiso

Paradiso’s research is focused on the deaths of massive stars in the universe, known as core-collapse supernovae. These stars, which have masses of around 10 to 100 times the mass of the sun, end their life in a cataclysmic and explosive death that produces light that can be detected with ground and space-based telescopes. Decades of research, however, suggests that not all stars that undergo core-collapse result in a successful explosion and instead the star can continue to implode until a black hole is formed. These events are referred to as failed supernovae, and it is estimated that approximately 20-30% of stars that undergo core-collapse result in a failed supernova.

“In my research I focus on the dynamics of shockwaves, which are ubiquitous with core-collapse supernova physics, using analytical and numerical methods to understand these failed supernova explosions,” Paradiso says. “I then use these techniques to make predictions about observable properties of failed and sub-energetic explosions.”

“As a second-year graduate student, the generous support from the GRFP is very welcome, and I am excited to continue my research with this support,” he says.

��Melissa Yeung

Yeung works in the fluid dynamics lab of Yiyang Sun, assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, where she focuses on supersonic jet engines.

High noise levels have always been associated with supersonic aircraft, restricting their flight range to over sea. “The goal of my work is to alleviate the undesired features through strategically placed small micro-jets of air. I am currently focused on optimizing these micro-jets such that they can continuously modulate themselves to adapt to various flight conditions. By doing so, the flow can be controlled even in off-design conditions and with minimal energy input,” Yeung says. “Understanding these complex flow physics is vital for the development of next-generation high-performance aircraft. Successfully controlling this flow can improve upon the aircraft’s performance and ensure the safety of nearby workers or civilians. This work is one of many steps in pushing supersonic flight for commercial use.”

Yeung says the GRFP fellowship will allow her more flexibility in her research direction, fund her research activities and allow her to attend more conferences.

Yeung also notes the tremendous amount of support she received from Sun, Professor Emeritus Mark Glauser and Gina Lee-Glauser, retired vice president for research, throughout the application process. “Their guidance has been crucial to my success and without them I would have not have the honor of being an NSF GRFP recipient, she says.

Nicholas Rubino and Elizabeth Su

Two students also received honorable mentions in this year’s NSF GRFP competition. Nicholas Rubino, a second-year Ph.D. student in mechanical and aerospace engineering in ECS who is researching robotic devices for physical rehabilitation, and Elizabeth Su, a senior graduating with a bachelor’s degree in bioengineering and neuroscience from the College of Arts and Sciences. Su will pursue a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering at Purdue University, researching enhanced visual prosthetics.

The CFSA will hold an the week of June 10-14. The bootcamp is for rising seniors and first- and second-year graduate students who are eligible for and plan to apply for the NSF GRFP this fall.

Students interested in learning more about or applying for the next NSF GRFP award cycle or any other nationally competitive scholarships and fellowships should visit the����or email��cfsa@syr.edu��for more information.

“Based on feedback from students and faculty, the new award and changes to existing awards will make SOURCE funding more flexible for an even broader population of students,” says Kate Hanson, director of the SOURCE.

The new SOURCE Bridge Award will provide short-term, renewable support up to $2,000 for students at all levels to pursue mentored research experiences. The Bridge Award application cycle will occur three times each year: in July for fall semester funding, in October for spring semester funding and in April for summer funding. To apply, students should identify a faculty mentor and create a research plan for the following semester.

The flexible Bridge Award can support students in any phase of research, from those just getting started with a project or in a lab, to students working on a capstone or thesis, or students traveling to present at a conference, and more.

The SOURCE Fellowship application cycle will be held only in the spring, for $3,200-$7,700 (amount will depend on timeline) to fund summer and/or full academic year research. The fellowship’s guidelines now emphasize advanced student-led or student-designed original research and creative work that will substantially develop skills and culminate in a deliverable appropriate to the discipline.

In partnership with the Center for Fellowship and Scholarship Advising (CFSA), the CFSA-SOURCE Emerging Research Fellows Program (formerly the Young Research Fellows Program) encourages first-year students with a strong interest in research to apply for this two-year program that provides in-depth, guided research development, now including participation in a one-credit course on the research process.

Also new this year are awards to celebrate the wider undergraduate research community at the University. The SOURCE Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Research Mentoring and the SOURCE Award for Innovation in Undergraduate Research Support recognize both a faculty mentor and campus partner office or initiative that have made significant contributions to undergraduate research activity. The CFSA-SOURCE Graduation Recognition, beginning in spring 2025, will provide a cord for students who have participated in undergraduate research and/or national fellowships applications and programs.

Continuing programs include the Faculty Research Assistant Grant, the Explore Program, the Patricia A. Wood, M.D., Ph.D., Spinoza Award, SOURCE Symposia (three times annually) and the ACC Meeting of the Minds Program.

Undergraduate students in all majors are eligible for SOURCE programs.

More information about eligibility, application and other details of the programs can be found at the . Contact SOURCE at ugresearch@syr.edu.

The pathway program, “Roadmap Into Syracuse Engineering Undergraduate Programs and the Profession” (“RISEUP²”), aims to attract academically talented, low-income students from Central New York who historically have been excluded from those types of careers, including adult learners, first-generation students, traditionally under-represented minorities, veterans and students with high levels of financial need.

The grant also allows a multi-school project team to plan for and prepare to submit a later for NSF funding that would provide student scholarships for science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) studies.

That step recognizes the need to educate, grow and retain a diverse and highly skilled STEM workforce in the Central New York region, a realization catalyzed by of plans to build a $100 billion megafab semiconductor manufacturing facility in the region and New York State’s subsequent in community and workforce development, says , Laura J. and L. Douglas Meredith Professor of Teaching Excellence and chair of biomedical and chemical engineering in the College of Engineering and Computer Science (ECS), who is the project’s principal investigator.

Julie Hasenwinkel

“This is a really exciting opportunity for ECS to envision different ways to bring students into our undergraduate program. With the growing regional and national need for engineers, we want to attract students who don’t just come to us straight out of high school. This planning grant gives us the opportunity to dig deeply into assuring that we would give those students the best opportunity to succeed if they come here,” Hasenwinkel says.

The NSF award funds information-gathering, program research and partnership-building efforts that the multi-school, multi-organizational project team is undertaking through spring 2025, when the Track 3 S-STEM NSF grant proposal will likely be submitted, Hasenwinkel says. That type of grant would directly fund scholarships for engineering students and underwrite the support services to help assure the academic, social and career success of RISEUP² program participants, Hasenwinkel says.

Goals for the planning phase include:

• Strengthening current connections between the University and Onondaga and Mohawk Valley Community Colleges and expanding partnerships with additional regional community colleges (potentially Jefferson, Cayuga, Tompkins Cortland and Broome Community Colleges)
• Formalizing transfer agreements with the regional community colleges to provide direct admission to Syracuse University ECS programs
• Conducting a comprehensive needs assessment across all partner institutions to determine what kinds of programming best support low-income engineering students at their two-year college, during their transition to a four-year university and throughout their time at Syracuse
• Developing formal partnerships with Micron and other area STEM employers and strengthening alliances with the Manufacturers Association of Central New York and the Technology Alliance of Central New York to solidify internship and employment opportunities
• Conducting research to better understand how a scholarship-based cohort model focused on workforce development can improve outcomes for low-income community college engineering transfer students

Project team members envision a program that offers a clear pathway to a bachelor’s degree within a “360-degree” system of student support. Beginning in the earliest years of college, it would offer ongoing guidance in financial aid, academic counseling, student success and educational and social programming at both the community college and University campuses. It would also offer living-learning residency opportunities, summer internships, professional development training and ultimately, job placement assistance.

Michael Frasciello

Working with Hasenwinkel are co-principal investigators ,��professor of mathematics at ; , associate professor of higher education in the ; , dean of the School of STEM Transfer and associate professor at ; and , dean of the at Syracuse. Other ECS faculty and staff in admissions, recruitment and enrollment, student success and inclusive excellence are also part of the process, as are their counterparts at the community colleges.

David Pérez

Though the team fully plans to proceed with a Track 3 S-STEM proposal, this year’s planning activity and research will be useful in and of itself, creating knowledge and new information regarding the group of students the proposal aims to help, Hasenwinkel says.

“We’ll also be learning as we go, and we’ll be able to contribute to the educational literature on the most effective practices for supporting this population of students.”

Writing and rhetoric professor Amy Murphy has been awarded a Fulbright to research and teach in Slovakia. The photo is of Murphy during a trip to Slovakia in 2023. She traveled there in search of ancestral information about her great-grandfather.

Genealogy websites like are a popular way for individuals to trace and preserve their family histories. Before this information was widely accessible via the web, people would often learn about their past through stories passed down from older generations.

While a good way for family members to connect with one another and take pride in their roots, these oral histories could be subjective and not provide the full picture of how a family came to be. If certain details about a family’s past were omitted or altered, then inaccuracies could be perpetuated for generations.

For , associate teaching professor of in the College of Arts and Sciences, an unexpected discovery about her family history played a pivotal role in her scholarly pursuits, and ultimately led to her applying for and receiving a prestigious award to teach and conduct research in Slovakia.

Journey to Discovery

The research expedition began in Syracuse in 2023 when Murphy’s husband took a deep dive into her lineage using Ancestry.com. While working to recreate a family tree, he came across a surprising document: a Census record stating that Murphy’s great-grandfather, Anton Plott, listed his home country as “Slovak Land” (a term previously used to denote Slovak-inhabited territories). This came as a shock because the family had always believed him to be of Austrian descent.

“I was just very perplexed because that was not part of any conversation I ever had with my father or my grandmother or any member of that family,” says Murphy, who has taught several different writing and rhetoric classes since starting at the University in 2019. “I was just trying to understand what had happened there and why I never knew about it, and so that sort of began a larger interest that I had in Central Europe and in Slovakia in particular.”

To piece together this complicated puzzle, Murphy knew it would take more than the information available to her on the web. Luckily, she already had a trip planned to Czechia (Czech Republic), a country which borders Slovakia, for an unrelated conference in summer 2023.

“I thought that I might not get to do this again, so I set out to figure out where his village was,” says Murphy. “Since Slovakia is a very small country of about 5 million people, I presumed I’d have a good shot at finding it.”

She contacted Michael Razus, a local historian, and explained that she would be taking the train to Bratislava (the capital of Slovakia) from the Czech Republic and asked if there was anyone who could take her around Kalná nad Hronom, the village where she believed her great-grandfather was born. She was introduced to another local resident, who helped her locate the cemetery where her family’s burial plot was situated and visit the Catholic church where her great-grandfather, Anton Plott, was baptized.

Anton Plott, Amy Murphy’s great-grandfather

After confirming the birthplace of her great-grandfather, the question turned to why this information was kept secret. Murphy believes it probably had something to do with the period when he emigrated to the United States. Anton came to the U.S. in the 1880s at the age of 15, a time when the Slovak people were repressed and struggling to find national identity under the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

“He came to the United States as such a young person by himself,” says Murphy. “It was a very odd time historically and socially because of what was happening in Europe politically. Slovaks did not have a recognized,��national identity because they were subjects of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. For outsiders coming to the United States at that time, they would have never disclosed that they were Slovak.”

Murphy says the experience of uncovering this remarkable untold aspect of her family history was not only emotional, but also inspired her to seek a deeper connection with her Slovak roots through her research and scholarship.

“I just felt really determined that I wanted to find a way to connect to the country, and so the Fulbright seemed the natural place to do that, so I began the application process,” says Murphy.

Connecting With Her Culture

Murphy’s research concentration lies at the intersection of history, language and literature. As a Ph.D. student at the University of Arizona, she focused her dissertation on how women writers were documenting labor in the 19th century. Her longstanding interest in the historical and cultural aspects of language and writing is what led her to apply for a Fulbright, where she will research literacy in the Slovak Republic.

Whereas in the United States people have maintained the freedom to read and learn freely, Slovakia (formerly Czechoslovakia until 1993) was under an authoritarian communist rule from 1948 to 1989, which deeply impacted the literacy of people living in that country. At universities, inquiry and free debate was stifled, and lectures would often emphasize the benefits of communism.

Following the Velvet Revolution in 1989, a protest movement that ended more than 40 years of communist rule in Czechoslovakia, students gained the ability to pursue their own academic interests and learn about the diversity of cultures and perspectives on a global scale.

“When I was in college in the late 1980s, people my age in Slovakia couldn’t read the literary texts that I could because they were banned,” says Murphy. “I’m interested in my generation—people that were born in the 60s and 70s—and want to explore how literacy worked in a former dictatorship in terms of access to materials and how that affected people’s ability to read and think.”

Among the topics Murphy will investigate is samizdat (from Russian sam, “self,” and izdatelstvo, “publishing”), which was literature secretly written, copied and circulated in Czechoslovakia and throughout the former Soviet Union.

“There was a whole underground of people who had typewriters and were making copies of books and manuscripts,” says Murphy. “The government saw books such as J.R.R. Tolkien’s ‘Lord of the Rings’ as being a threat to a communist ideology and people could go to jail for reproducing these books. I’m very interested in finding out more about how people accessed literature.”

As a U.S. Fulbright Scholar, Murphy will teach and conduct research at Comenius University in Bratislava, the largest university in Slovakia.

Murphy will research and teach in the British and American studies program at located in Bratislava, Slovakia. She will work with faculty there to explore the role United States authors and academics played in helping the underground writers to connect to literature and find inspiration.

In addition, she will connect with students, faculty and their families to document their experiences with language, literature and education to examine how Slovaks in former Czechoslovakia expressed themselves artistically despite the difficulties and potential dangers they had in obtaining texts.

As a scholar who specializes in innovative writing pedagogy, Murphy will work with Slovak students who are studying to become teachers of English. Being able to share materials which she has created for the writing studies program at Syracuse with future educators in Slovakia carries great significance, both professionally and personally.

“What I have been able to achieve in my academic and scholarly career was made possible because my great-grandfather came here and took that kind of risk and worked very hard his whole life,” says Murphy. “Having the opportunity to teach abroad and immerse myself in the culture of my ancestors is a huge gift and I’m incredibly grateful for it.”

Murphy will travel to Slovakia for the Fall 2024 semester and says she looks forward to sharing the cross-cultural teaching and research insights she gains during her time abroad with students in her classes and faculty at Syracuse University. She also plans to publish and share the results of her findings at conferences and in a scholarly journal upon her return.

Physics alumna Erin McCarthy ’23, right, was lead author on a study published in Physical Review Letters, which uncovered mechanisms that cause particles to sort spontaneously into different groups. Professor M. Lisa Manning, left, was a co-author.

Erin McCarthy ’23, physics summa cum laude, is a rarity among young scientists. As an undergraduate researcher in the College of Arts and Sciences’ , she guided a study that appeared in March 2024 in . It is the most-cited physics letters journal and the eighth-most cited journal in science overall.

McCarthy and postdoctoral associates Raj Kumar Manna and Ojan Damavandi developed a model that identified an unexpected collective behavior among computational particles with implications for future basic medical research and bioengineering.

“It’s very difficult to get a paper into Physical Review Letters,” says , co-author and the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Physics, as well as founding director of the . “Your scientific peers must judge it as exceptional.”

McCarthy, a New Jersey native, chose Syracuse because of its “tremendous energy,” she says. “The educational and the research side of things was amazing. I came planning to be a physics major who was premed. I loved physics and biology, and I wanted to be involved in healthcare and medicine. And I got lucky in that I met Dr. Manning as a freshman, and she introduced me to computational biophysics. I started in research during my freshman year, which is extremely unusual.”

“Erin learned coding from scratch, and then did hours and hours of simulations, which took a lot of perseverance,” says Manning. “It’s just a fantastic testament to her work ethic and brilliance that this paper appeared in such a prestigious journal.”

Erin McCarthy standing in front of the Physics Building during 2023 graduation weekend.

The research team used computational physics modeling to figure out the underlying mechanisms that cause particles to sort spontaneously into different groups.

Learning how particles behave in physics models could provide insight into how living biological particles—cells, proteins and enzymes—remix themselves in development.

In the early stages of an embryo, for example, cells start out in heterogeneous mixtures. Cells must self-sort into different compartments to form distinct homogenous tissues. This is one of the major collective cell behaviors at work during development of tissues and organs and organ regeneration.

They’re lightweight, durable, flexible, inexpensive. They’re moldable, extrudable, pressable. They’re colored and clear; they’re dinnerware, jewelry, vinyl siding, military supplies, toys and thousands more things. In the early half of the 20th century, the availability of polymers and fossil fuel-based chemicals led to a proliferation of the manufacturing of plastic “things” whose everyday use became enmeshed in America’s social, political and environmental landscapes.

holds the largest academic library resource on the history of plastic. This includes over 70 archival collections relating to plastics, most of which were obtained after the National Plastic Center and Museum closed in 2008. Housed in the , the materials document the rise of plastics, mainly from a plastics-industry perspective, and include papers from innovators , , and . The collection also contains related prototypes, photographs, audio, film, advertisements and blueprints useful for interdisciplinary research, as well as 3,000 objects related to the rise of plastics manufacturing.

Courtney Hicks

Many of these materials are now on display at Bird Library as part of the SCRC exhibit “Plasticized: The Proliferation of Plastics in the 20th Century.” To highlight the exhibit, a panel discussion and reception will be held on Earth Day, Monday, April 22. (See details below.)

Courtney Hicks, SCRC lead curator and curator of plastics and historical artifacts, spoke about the exhibit and some of the fascinating facts to uncover from the collection’s historical documents and artifacts displays.

Nine faculty members received the student-driven award, which acknowledges faculty who have had a significant impact and positive influence on graduate education because of their superior graduate-level teaching, dedication to departmental and community presence and excellence in research and creative activities.

Each year, the honors outstanding professors with the Excellence in Graduate Education Faculty Recognition Award. The student-driven award acknowledges faculty who have had a significant impact and positive influence on graduate education because of their superior graduate-level teaching, dedication to departmental and community presence and excellence in research and creative activities.��

Nine faculty members, whose nominations were reviewed by an interdisciplinary committee of graduate students, are this year’s honorees. They are:������

• , professor of philosophy and political science, College of Arts and Sciences (A&S);
• , associate professor of rhetoric and writing, A&S;
• , associate professor of linguistics, A&S;
• , associate teaching professor, Newhouse School of Public Communications;
• , assistant professor of human development and family science, David B. Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamics;
• , professor of information studies, School of Information Studies;
• , associate professor of English, A&S;
• , professor of mathematics, A&S; and��
• , associate professor of public administration and international affairs, Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.��

Baynes, who is also an associate in the Campbell Public Affairs Institute at the Maxwell School, studies social and political philosophy, critical theory and modern and contemporary German philosophy. He is currently examining the characteristics of rules and practices, the grounding of moral principles within practical reason and the relationship between democracy and basic rights.����

Browne’s interests intersect in the visual arts, vernacular philosophy and the rhetoric and literature of the Caribbean. His research and creative activities encompass digital projects, poetry and essay publications, original fine art, documentary photography, contemporary art and local and international exhibitions. He also researches the theory and practice of rhetoric and poetics that shape the African diaspora. ��

Green’s��linguistics research focuses on African languages, including those in the Mande, Cushitic, Dogon, Jarawan and Bantu families. He recently completed a Somali reference grammar. He has published articles on syllable theory, word structure and the use of tone and rhythm in speech.

Hong serves as the Newhouse School’s public relations graduate program director and teaches introductory courses in graphic design, social media, visual communications theory and multimedia storytelling for undergraduate, graduate and military visual journalism students. She has worked as a marketer, graphic designer for national magazines and editorial assistant for a communications research journal.������

Merrin teaches courses in child and adolescent development and advanced statistical methods. Trained in developmental psychology and applied methodology, he researches developmental processes that contribute to problem behaviors in adolescents. He looks at how experiences with families, peers, teachers and communities, particularly those involving identity-based harassment, may influence behavior.����

Qin teaches and researches the topics of metadata, knowledge and data modeling, scientific communication, research collaboration networks and research data management. She directs a lab using big metadata analytics and metadata modeling and linking, plus manages a team that studies biomedical collaboration networks framed by the theory of collaboration capacity.��

Roylance’s work examines early American literature and culture; nationalism, transnationalism and comparative colonialisms; geography; the organization and perception of time and history; and print culture and the history of the book. She is the author of “Eclipse of Empires: World History in Nineteenth-Century U.S. Literature and Culture,” and is now writing a book that tracks the shifting meanings of cultural literary artifacts.����

Shen’s work focuses on the applied and computational aspects of harmonic analysis, a branch of mathematics that investigates connections between a function and its representation frequency. He also studies how to optimize those applications in imaging science and information processing, including in wavelet analysis and image and signal processing. He holds a patent for a wavelet-enhanced automated fingerprint identification system with four other researchers.��

Siddiki is the Chapple Family Professor of Citizenship and Democracy and director of the Master of Public Administration (MPA) program in the Maxwell School. She also directs the Center for Policy Design and Governance and is a senior research associate for the Center for Policy Research, Center for Environmental Policy and Administration, Program for the Advancement of Research on Conflict and Collaboration and Autonomous Systems Policy Institute. She focuses on policy design, collaborative policymaking, institutional theory and analysis and regulatory implementation and compliance.

The One University Awards Ceremony, an annual event to honor members of the Syracuse University community who are making a difference through academics, scholarship, creative work and dedicated service, will be held Friday, April 19, from 4 to 5:30 p.m. in Hendricks Chapel.

“Every year, we come together to celebrate the outstanding contributions and tremendous success of our students, faculty, staff and broader community,” says Chancellor Kent Syverud. “The accomplishments of this year’s recipients reinforce what it means to be Orange. This ceremony also shines a bright spotlight on the work being done around campus, much of which happens behind the scenes. I thank the many members of our community who organized this event and look forward to recognizing this year’s winners.”

Two major awards—the Chancellor’s Medal and the Chancellor’s Citation for Excellence—will be bestowed. The ceremony will also include the presentation of the Student-Athlete Award, Judith Seinfeld Scholarship, Meredith Professorship for Teaching Excellence, Teaching Recognition Award, Diversity and Inclusion Award, William Pearson Tolley Medal for Distinguished Leadership in Lifelong Learning and Chancellor’s Forever Orange Award.

and�� will also be recognized. This year’s��University Scholars,��, and Remembrance and Lockerbie Scholars will also be honored.

All members of the University community are invited and encouraged to attend. A reception will follow in the lobby of the Heroy Geology Laboratory.

American Sign Language (ASL) interpretation and Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) will be provided at the ceremony. For questions about accessibility or to request accommodations, contact Gabe Coleman at gbcolma@syr.edu.

Award Recipients��

The��Chancellor’s Medal��is the University’s highest honor and is awarded to individuals in honor of their trailblazing and extraordinary contributions to the University, to an academic body of knowledge or to society. This year’s recipient is��, Laura J. and L. Douglas Meredith Professor for Teaching Excellence and professor of electrical engineering and computer science in the College of Engineering and Computer Science.

The��Chancellor’s Citation for Excellence��recognizes individuals who have made outstanding contributions in four overarching categories:

• The award for��Excellence in Student Research recognizes students who have engaged in collaborative research that has the potential to make a deep and lasting impact on greater society. This year’s recipients are Jingjing Ji, a doctoral candidate in chemical engineering in the Department of Biomedical and Chemical Engineering in the College of Engineering and Computer Science (graduate), and Ashtha Singh, an international relations major in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs and citizenship and civic engagement major in the Maxwell School (undergraduate).
• The award for��Outstanding Contributions to the Student Experience and University Initiatives acknowledges faculty and staff who, through their work, enhance the undergraduate experience for students or make invaluable contributions to supporting and advancing the University’s mission and goals. The recipients are��, associate professor of communications in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications (faculty); , chief operating officer for the D’Aniello Institute for Veterans and Military Families (professional staff); , program coordinator of citizenship and civic engagement in the Maxwell School (professional staff) and , events coordinator at Lubin House (support staff).
• The��Faculty Excellence and Scholarly Distinction award is intended for faculty members who are collaborators in work of intellectual richness that has the potential for future impact. The work of these nominees offers possibilities for collaboration within the University and outside in partnership with others. This year’s honorees are��, Distinguished Professor in the Department of Art and Music Histories in the College of Arts and Sciences, and , associate dean of research and professor of Public Health in the Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamics.
• Chancellor’s Citation for Excellence, Lifetime Achievement Award. This award honors those who have made extraordinary contributions toward advancing all four pillars of excellence over the arc of their careers while at Syracuse University and beyond. This year’s recipient is��, Laura J. and L. Douglas Meredith Professor for Teaching Excellence and professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering in the College of Engineering and Computer Science.

The other awards to be presented are:

• The��Student-Athlete Award recognizes the top female and top male student athletes and are presented to the senior student-athletes with the highest cumulative grade point average over the course of their academic and athletic careers. This year’s recipients are Izabela Krakic, an international relations major in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs and College of Arts and Sciences and member of the women’s rowing team, and Julius Rauch, an entrepreneurship and emerging enterprises major in the Whitman School of Management and a member of the men’s soccer team.
• Seinfeld Scholarship: Each year Syracuse University honors the talents of outstanding faculty or students through an��, a distinguished alumna and member of the University Board of Trustees. Awards are made to those who have been determined by their peers to have made outstanding contributions to the beauty of the world, to have added to human values and to ending human abuse anywhere in the world, and to have demonstrated passion for excellence, creativity and originality in academic or artistic fields. This year, the designation is bestowed upon a faculty member,��, associate professor of advertising in the Newhouse School.
• The��Laura J. and L. Douglas Meredith Professorships for Teaching Excellence were created in 1995 to recognize and reward outstanding teaching among faculty. The 2024-27 Meredith Professors are��, professor in the School of Information Studies, and , Bond, Schoeneck and King Distinguished Professor in the College of Law.
• In 2001, the Meredith Professorship Program was expanded to recognize teaching excellence by non-tenured faculty and adjunct and part-time instructors. Awards are given in two categories:��Early Performance and��Continuing Excellence. This year’s honorees in the Early Performance category are��, assistant professor of television, radio and film in the Newhouse School; , associate teaching professor of electrical engineering and computer science in the College of Engineering and Computer Science; , assistant professor of visual communications in the Newhouse School; , assistant teaching professor of Chinese and Chinese language in the College of Arts and Sciences; and , assistant professor in the School of Architecture. The two honorees in the Continuing Excellence category are��, assistant dean of online and distance education and associate teaching professor of social work in the Falk College, and , teaching professor and graduate director of nutrition and food studies in the Falk College.
• The��Diversity and Inclusion Award��recognizes an individual who is integral in helping us achieve academic excellence at a university that is welcoming to all through our investments in a diverse, inclusive, accessible and equitable community. This year’s recipient is��, teaching professor in the College of Law and faculty fellow for the Office of Strategic Initiatives and the Office of Diversity and Inclusion.
• The��William Pearson Tolley Medal for Distinguished Leadership in Lifelong Learning is based in the School of Education and honors national or international leadership in support of lifelong learning. This year’s recipient is ’77, executive director of MidPenn Legal Services, adjunct professor of law at PennState’s Dickinson Law and an alumna of the School of Education.
• The��Chancellor’s Forever Orange Award recognizes individual students, faculty or staff who—by virtue of extraordinary hard work, good values and commitment to excellence—have come to embody the best of Syracuse University. This year’s recipients are , associate vice president of parent engagement and student experience, and , head coach of the men’s soccer team.

While fingerprint powder and microscopes are very important tools in forensics, machine learning is becoming one of the fastest emerging technologies in the field. This involves the use of algorithms and computing to perform efficient and effective investigations by analyzing large and complex sets of data. The College of Arts and Sciences’ (FNSSI) offers customized courses designed to equip students with the skills to examine these problems using computational methods and algorithms.

One specific course, titled “Computational Forensics,” introduces students to coding, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI). Taught by , courtesy research professor and a leading expert in digital forensics, the curriculum teaches students how machine learning and AI are utilized in the field. A highlight for students taking this course is the final project, where they select a real-world problem that they are passionate about and solve it using computational techniques learned in class. The assignment culminates with a presentation where they share their solution to the chosen problem.

Brianna Cardillo

Brianna Cardillo, a graduate student in forensics, focused her work on one of her favorite hobbies – reading. Her project, “What to Read Next? Using Historical Reader Preferences to Promote Books from Marginalized Authors,” aimed to develop a machine learning algorithm that could suggest books, with a specific focus on promoting works by underrepresented writers.

“I’ve been in social media spaces surrounding reading and creatively writing books for a long time now, and I really became aware of just how much diversity people’s reading preferences lacked,” says Cardillo. “I have read so many books from authors like that had such incredible world-building and portrayed such important themes, books that deserved more praise than they got.”

To address this inequity, Cardillo developed an algorithm which suggests books based upon readers’ interests. It takes into account information like genre, length, average rating on the book recommendation site Goodreads, and authors’ race, which she gathered from personal interviews, blog posts and book jackets. She organized this data into Excel spreadsheets and input the information into a machine learning algorithm. Simply put, the algorithm is a content-based filtering system which considers what readers enjoy and calculates whether they will enjoy other books by underrepresented authors based on those interests.

Filipe Augusto da Luz Lemos

“Increasing awareness of marginalized authors requires readers to actively choose and promote diverse stories, especially since we have so much influence over publishing with how we use our dollars,” says Cardillo. “That’s why I wanted to make the algorithm in the first place, with the hope that this could be part of that first step.”

While she primarily focused on race when developing this version of the algorithm, Cardillo would like to one day expand it to include multiple categories of marginalization alongside race, like sexuality or disability status.

“I would love to include authors of many different identities so that everyone can find books where they feel represented,” she says.

The iSchool coursework will enable Murphy to learn how to extract, organize, analyze and visualize large volumes of archival data that has previously been examined through primarily quantitative and demographic lenses. The material includes registries of enslaved people in the 19th-century British Caribbean.

Tessa Murphy

Between Great Britain’s abolition of the transatlantic slave trade in 1807 and the 1833 Slavery Abolition Act, colonial officials oversaw the registration of every individual who was enslaved in the Empire, including more than 700,000 people in the Caribbean. Registers for Crown Colonies—British territories acquired in the late-18th and early-19th centuries and ruled through metropolitan Orders in Council, such as St. Lucia, Trinidad and the colonies that became British Guiana—are particularly detailed.

“Obtaining training to analyze these registries through the lens of social history will allow me to transform seemingly static lists of chattel into rare windows on the experiences of people who lived and labored on Great Britain’s plantation frontiers,” says Murphy, who discussed her research on a recent episode of the��.

The fellowship is one of 10 awarded nationally by the Mellon Foundation this year. It is intended for humanities scholars whose research calls for formal training in a discipline other than the one in which they are expert.

Murphy’s current research grew out of her first book “The Creole Archipelago: Race and Borders in the Colonial Caribbean” (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021), which traced how Indigenous Kalinagos, free and enslaved Africans, and European settlers forged creolized societies that frustrated the colonial plans of the English and French Crowns. The book was awarded prizes from the Association of Caribbean Historians, the Forum on Early-Modern Empires and Global Interactions, and the French Colonial Historical Society. Additionally, it received the James A. Rawley Prize in Atlantic History from the American Historical Association.

Murphy’s areas of expertise include the Atlantic world, comparative history of the early Americas, slavery and race, the colonial Caribbean and the age of revolutions. She offers courses on Atlantic history, slavery and freedom in the Americas, and borderlands and empires from the margins.

Her previous research has been supported by numerous organizations, including the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and France’s Institut National d’Études Démographiques.

This story was written by Michael Kelly

A confluence of social, economic and systemic factors—under resourced communities, weak gun laws, inadequate educational and employment opportunities, and systemic racial inequities—all contribute to this disparity. But to what extent do place-based community factors also contribute to, or protect against, this elevated risk? And how do these factors converge to make our communities of color more or less safe?

Bryce Hruska

A team of researchers, including , assistant professor of public health in the David B. Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamics, , chair and professor of public health at Falk, and Margaret Formica, associate professor of public health and preventive medicine at Upstate Medical University, seeks to better understand these questions as they relate to firearm violence risk and potential urban design solutions in Syracuse.

With over $250,000 of funding from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities over a two-year grant, the team hopes their analysis of the firearm violence landscape in Syracuse will have real-world applications as the city considers its future, especially as it relates to the I-81 Viaduct Project, as well as other urban renewal projects across the country.

In this Q&A, Hruska, the study’s principal investigator, shares more about the research and its potential to influence the development of public policies aimed at reducing firearm violence in Black communities in Syracuse and elsewhere.

It is a job Baker didn’t even believe existed, but it’s the right position at the right time, she says. She’ll join a lab that is situated in the “hard sciences” (STEM and biology), but whose faculty decided they wanted to change the way they teach those subjects. The lab group is now focused on researching and exploring approaches to teaching that are equitable, accessible and inclusive for all students, especially for those who identify as neurodivergent, transgender and queer, Baker says.

That’s where she came in. The lab needed a qualitative researcher as a counterpart to its quantitative focus. Since most biology lab positions involve data crunching or taking samples, Baker says she is especially excited about this unique role.

Emilee Baker, a Ph.D. candidate in special education, is pursuing a unique postdoctoral research role in a biology lab.

“This job aligns with all of my vast and intersecting interests—education and learning, the environment and nature, qualitative research, writing, inclusive education, instruction, social justice issues, neurodiversity, disability and queerness,” she says.

During her time in the School of Education, Baker took advantage of many opportunities to position herself for the career she originally expected to have: assistant professor of inclusive education. She researched the program, a preservice teacher study away experience centering inclusive education and working with diverse students in New York City. She earned certificates of advanced study in and . She completed the Graduate School’s . She was a teaching assistant and a research assistant for the School of Education’s .

When the job market didn’t support her plans, Baker’s own neurodivergent behavior—anxiety—set in, she says. During the job-hunting process, “I was freaking out. People kept telling me I’d find the right position, though I was getting nervous. But I did end up finding what seemingly is going to be a perfect position for me.”

Summer Camp

Baker’s research for her dissertation, “Inclusive Environmental Education: Learning in Relation for Disabled, Genderqueer Youth,” bridges the gap between environmental and inclusive education and centers the voices of multiply marginalized youth learning in nature. As she searched for an environmental context for her work, she found it in a setting that perfectly aligned with her interests: a rare summer camp for queer and disabled students and students of color.

There, Baker was at ease with the students, and they shared a sense of comfort with her, in part because she divulged her own neurodivergent tendencies, she says. “I really understood and wanted to understand these kids and listen to them, and they sensed that, so they very much gravitated towards me,” she says.

The camp provided the kids with a vastly different learning experience than their typical school settings. “It was outdoors, away from families, school and support systems. The students were going through a lot personally, but they were still able to focus and learn in that inclusive and healing space, and that difference was transformative for them,” Baker says.

Formal Training

Baker says her highly interdisciplinary background, qualitative research experience and research with multiply marginalized students across K-12 and higher education earned her the spot in the biology lab. Associate Professor Sarah Eddy, who runs the lab, says she appreciates Baker’s formal training in education and her depth of knowledge. “What I have valued is the depth of knowledge graduates have developed, through their education Ph.D., in quantitative��methods, qualitative��methods and/or both educational theory and also critical theories. I appreciate how my projects are stronger when I partner with colleagues with formal training,” Eddy says.

Though Baker is still analyzing her dissertation findings, she hopes her research will lead to the questioning of arbitrary disability labels now used within K-12 schools, provide critical connections to schooling that takes place outside of formal education settings and reveal deeper meaning behind kids’ learning in relation to nature and STEM education, she says.

And while she’ll be conducting her lab projects remotely, Baker is satisfied that she won’t be working alone. Having new counterparts in a setting where she’s looked to for her unique strengths, skills and characteristics is exciting, she says.

“You can’t do research alone, let alone good research, and the most impactful experiences I’ve had at Syracuse are in lab spaces and collective groups. Being able to focus on a research agenda will allow me to feel comfortable and content about the work I’m doing instead of feeling the ‘mad dash’ to do it all,” she says. “This is allowing me to dip my foot in to see if academia is still the world I want to be a part of, and it seems like this role will support whatever avenue I want to take.”

Quinn Qiao

Their hands-on training is underway in the lab of noted expert , professor in the . Qiao directs the , one of three National Science Foundation (NSF)-supported collaborative research energy storage centers.

That center played a huge part in the University’s recent naming as a core partner in the , one of 10 inaugural projects funded by the NSF. Hosted by nearby Binghamton University, the project aims to make upstate New York “one of America’s battery hubs.” It brings $15 million now and potentially up to $160 million total to supercharge growth and cutting-edge research. Its is to establish sites that produce new battery componentry, conduct safety testing and certification and manufacture, integrate applications and support workforce development. New forms of battery power and energy storage technologies are considered critical .

Qiao will conduct training activities and collaborate with international industry partners and local economic development agencies and governments. He’ll also coordinate with existing entrepreneurship programs for technology transfer and commercialization activities and plan training for students from primary to graduate school and for local industry employees.

New Space

Qiao’s lab is housed in expansive new facilities in Link Hall that is filled with sophisticated and state-of-the-art equipment. The space is part of an extensive renovation designed to accommodate the college’s anticipated 50% growth over the next five years, as outlined in the University’s academic strategic plan, “.” That leap is being driven by emerging technologies in energy storage, computer chip and sensor manufacturing and other technology innovations that are leading new job growth in the Syracuse area.

Five-Student Lab

Students working with Qiao are , , , and .

Li tests lithium-rich cathodes in coin batteries aiming to speed synthesis processes to achieve batteries that can store more energy in the same physical space. He is working to produce materials faster and to lower the costs of production by using microwavereactors to accelerate the rate of synthesis and to monitor temperatures and pressures to observe how varying conditions affect the rate and yield of synthesis.

Hansheng Li, right, and Madan Saud, left, Ph.D. students, in the lab with Professor Quinn Qiao.

Over three years in Qiao’s lab, Li developed testing techniques and methodologies that have strengthened his preparation for a future either in industry or academia, he says. Still, his research hasn’t come without challenges, providing “a mix of pain and gain somehow,” he adds. “You’re not going to have results come out as you’re expecting them to each time, so analyzing the reasons behind those outcomes and proposing how to resolve problems is what’s helpful in building up research methodologies.”

Bilal Sattar, left, uses the ECS’s QiaolLab’s sophisticated equipment for experiments.

Sattar, who is in his second year at the University, worked three years in China before coming to the U.S. His research focuses on the chemical composition of batteries to see how they can be made more environmentally friendly. He also studies nanoscopic photochemical changes that drive instabilities in perovskite semiconductors used in solar cells, light-emitting diodes (LEDs), photodetectors, lasers and other technologies, including solar panels and photo-rechargeable lithium-ion batteries.

He enjoys the lab’s collegial nature and his professor’s “24/7 availability,” and is pleased at the high degree of professional activity he has experienced, he says. Sattar presented at last summer’s American Chemical Society (ACS) conference and at the 2024 American Physical Society (APS) March meeting in Minnesota. He has also been able to publish in scientific journals.

Third-year doctoral student Zhang works with an atomic-force microscope on nanoscale imaging and on mapping thin film organic solar cells and perovskite solar cells for nanoscale measurements.

Yuchen Zhang says his lab work with Professor Qiao, in which he works on solar cells at the nanoscale level, is world-unique.

“What I’m doing is world-unique,�� and no other universities can do it, so I’m very glad I have the opportunity to work here,” he says. Zhang imagines an industry career as a researcher, scientist or engineer, but is also open to an interesting postdoctoral position at a university or national laboratory.

Saud is a third-year Ph.D. student who previously taught secondary-level science in government schools in his home country of Nepal. He is working to develop a solid-state battery to meet the high energy demands of the electric vehicle and grid-scale storage sectors. His goal—and he admits it’s not an easy task—is to create an energy-dense, safer, longer-lasting solid-state lithium metal battery.

To do that, he replaces the liquid electrolytes in current batteries (which can sometimes be flammable) with a non-flammable solid electrolyte. That involves synthesizing a solid electrolyte, characterizing it, measuring its ionic conductivity, testing its stability with Li-metal anodes, then fabricating a full solid-state battery.

He has been able to synthesize a novel sulfide electrolyte that has a significantly higher critical current density at room temperature, he says. He is also working to increase the capacity retention in full solid-state batteries at higher current density. It’s a goal he hopes to achieve before he graduates in 2025.

The battery field is interesting for a researcher now, Saud says. Recognizing the hard work of his parents to assure his education, he hopes to pay his gratitude forward to help others. “The field does require basic knowledge in electrochemistry, but it offers a lot of research scope for a student who is energetic. As society transitions toward a more sustainable and electrified future, developing a new battery technology is a good way to contribute to the world.”

Poojan Kawekar is currently on an NSF intern research program at an industry lab in South Dakota.

Kaswekar, also in his third year, focuses on developing lead-free perovskite solar cells, which have significant cost advantages over conventional solar cells and align with the nation’s clean energy transition. He also works on solid-state batteries and their industrial and commercial applications and nanoscale characterization techniques. He is participating in a study away internship at Daktronics Inc. in South Dakota, supported by an NSF INTERN grant.

He says Qiao “has been an invaluable cornerstone in my pursuit of a Ph.D. He is dedicated to fostering a collaborative and intellectually stimulating environment within our lab and I have grown not only as a researcher but also as a critical thinker under his mentorship.”