Stony Brook women’s basketball team wrapped up its seventh straight win led by an 18-point, 13-rebound performance from Khari Clark in a 68-55 victory over UNCW at Island Federal Arena on Jan. 7.
Clark was one of three double-figure scorers for the Seawolves with Shamarla King adding 13 points and Gigi Gonzalez helping out with 12. Gonzalez added seven rebounds, a game-high nine assists and four steals on the afternoon.
Stony Brook out-rebounded UNC Wilmington 54-35 in Sunday’s game, paced by Clark’s 13 boards, which marked a career high. The Seawolves also collected 17 offensive rebounds, led by four from King, and scored 14 second chance points.
Stony Brook’s defense held UNCW to only 14.3% shooting from beyond the arc and 29.7% overall from the field. This included limiting the visitors to just 2-for-15 (13.3%) shooting from the field in the fourth quarter.
After falling behind 9-4, Stony Brook went on a 6-0 run with 4:03 left in the first to take a 10-9 lead. The Seawolves maintained the one-point edge at the quarter break with a 12-11 advantage.
Stony Brook extended things to 29-22 before going on a 6-0 run starting at the 2:41 mark in the second period, highlighted by a bucket from Zaida Gonzalez to increase its lead to its largest of the half at 35-22. SBU went into the break up 35-27. Stony Brook dominated in the paint, scoring 16 of its 23 points close to the basket in the quarter.
Up 40-37 in the third, Stony Brook extended the lead with a 12-0 run over 2:55 to grab a 52-37 advantage. UNCW cut the lead to nine at by the end of the quarter, with Stony Brook holding a 54-45 edge. The Seawolves knocked down three three-pointers in the quarter.
The Seahawks got as close as seven in the fourth, but Stony Brook scored seven of the game’s last eight points to put the game away in the final minutes. Kelis Corley scored eight of the Seawolves’ 14 points in the quarter.
The teamhits the road next weekend, beginning with a matchup with Towson on Jan. 12 at 7 p.m. Stony Brook split last year’s meetings with the Tigers, as the home teams won both matchups. The event will be streamedlive on FloHoops.
Theo Everest Costa. Photo from Stony Brook Medicine
Alicia DelliPizzi and Daryl Costa with their New Year's baby. Photo from Stony Brook Medicine
Alicia DelliPizzi and Daryl Costa welcomed their son Theo Everest Costa to the world on New Year’s Day at Stony Brook University Hospital.
Weighing eight pounds, twelve ounces, the new baby boy was born at 2:09 am, about two hours into the start of 2024. Theo was delivered by Kathleen Sharrott, CNM and Catherine Leonard, RN.
“This New Year surpasses all others because we’re stepping into it with you in our arms,” said the couple from Medford as they celebrated the arrival of their third child.
Stony Brook University Professor ChristianSchnell from the College of Arts and Sciences Department of Mathematics, has been named a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society (AMS) for 2024. Professor Schnell is among 40 mathematical scientists selected worldwide. The AMS Fellows program honors the excellence of members who have made outstanding contributions to the creation, exposition, advancement, communication, and utilization of mathematics. Fellows are recognized by their peers for their contributions to the profession.
“The Department of Mathematics is very happy to see the accomplishments of ChristianSchnell recognized by the American Mathematical Society” said Scott Sutherland, professor and chair of Department of Mathematics at Stony Brook. “Christian has been doing outstanding work for many years, and we are lucky to have him in our Department.”
Schnell received his PhD from Ohio State University and was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Illinois at Chicago and at Kavli IPMU near Tokyo. He joined the Department of Mathematics at Stony Brook in 2012. Schnell is a past recipient of a Centennial Fellowship from the American Mathematical Society, a CAREER grant from the National Science Foundation, and a Simons Fellowship from the Simons Foundation. His research is in the field of algebraic geometry, a branch of geometry that is one of the strengths of the Department of Mathematics.
“It is my pleasure to congratulate and welcome the new class of AMS Fellows, honored for their outstanding contributions to the mathematical sciences and to our profession,” said AMS President Bryna Kra. “This year’s class was selected from a large and excellent pool of candidates, highlighting the many ways in which our profession is advanced, and I look forward to working with them in service to our community.”
The American Mathematical Society is dedicated to advancing research and connecting the diverse global mathematical community through our publications, meetings and conferences, MathSciNet, professional services, advocacy, and awareness programs.
They have little in common. One studies deep inside cells to understand the difference between diseased and healthy states. The other explores models that represent distant thermonuclear reactions.
What Stony Brook University’s Dima Kozakov, Professor in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics, and Michael Zingale, Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, share, however, is that both led teams that recently won a Department of Energy grant that will allow them to use the fastest publicly available supercomputer in the world, at DOE’s Oak Argonne and Oak Ridge National Laboratories.
Kozakov and Zingale, who are both members of the Institute for Advanced Computational Sciences, are recipients of the DOE’s grants through its Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment (INCITE) program.
“It’s a huge recognition of computation” not just at the IACS, but also for Stony Brook in general, said Robert Harrison, Director of the IACS and Professor in the Department of Mathematics & Statistics. Kozakov and Zingale are the “point persons on world-class teams [which] positions Stony Brook at the forefront of the scientific community.”
Harrison suggested that the astrophysics group at Stony Brook was already world class when he arrived a decade ago and the university has been pushing to move Stony Brook to take advantage of all the modern powerful tools for simulation and data driven discovery.
Disease states
Kozakov, who is also an affiliate of the Laufer Center for Physical and Quantitative Biology,plans to model enormous numbers of molecular interactions to compare how they function in diseased cells with how they work in healthy cells.
He and his team will get the data on important proteins and interactions in disease compared with healthy cells from high throughput but noisy experiments and validate those computationally.
By studying diseases such as cancer, diabetes and Alzheimer’s, Kozakov plans to look for clues about what occurs at the level of the atomic structure of protein interactions, hoping such an analysis points to the creation of new types of therapies.
Kozakov will use a combination of publicly available data and information from some of his experimental collaborators to identify new targets that small molecules may alter amid a diseased state. He feels the tight integration between the theoretical and the experimental nature of the team will enhance its effectiveness.
A supercomputer “allows you to try many approaches in parallel” such as training deep learning models that require trying many options to get the best possible ones, he said.
The pilot work the team has done created the kind of momentum that increased the chance of securing funds and time through the INCITE program.
Kozakov and co-investigators including Assistant Professor Pawel Polak at Stony Brook, Professor Andrew Emili at OHSU, Associate Professor Matthew Torres at Georgia Tech and Julie Mitchell, the Director of Biosciences Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, were “very happy” when they learned they’d won the award. he said. “It’s good to know that people appreciate the [work] we are doing.”
Starry, starry explosion
In the meantime, Zingale’s project, called “Exascale Models of Astrophysical Thermonuclear Explosions,” was renewed for a second year in the INCITE program.
Zingale leads a team that explores two types of astrophysical thermonuclear explosions to understand these physical processes and their broader implications. The computational work is focused mostly on whether a particular model for a thermonuclear explosion is viable.
“We really want to just understand: does it explode or not?” Zingale explained. His work focuses on the explosion mechanism and on the design of algorithms that can efficiently model these explosions.
Graduate students Zhi Chen, Alexander Smith Clark, Eric Johnson, Melissa Rasmussen, and Khanak Bhargava will be working with the supercomputer in the next year, Zingale added.
“Each student is working on separate questions, both on this problem and on related problems (novae and x-ray bursts),” said Zingale. “The goals are the same — in each case, we want to produce a realistic model of the burning that takes place in these events to understand how these explosions unfold.”
Models help connect to the observations astronomers make. While the work doesn’t produce new physics, it allows researchers to gain a greater understanding of supernovae.
Numerous other groups around the world are pursuing similar simulations, which Zingale explained is favorable for the science.
“If we all get the same result using different codes and techniques, then it gives us confidence that we might be understanding what is actually taking place in nature,” he said.
The explosions Zingale is studying differ from those on Earth because they are far larger and can reach higher densities in stars, which produces elements up to iron in explosions. The tools he uses to model these explosions have “similarities to the techniques used to model chemical combustion on Earth,” he said. “We work with applied mathematicians that study terrestrial flames and can use the techniques” in the astrophysical setting.
Zingale explained that he was always interested in astronomy and computers, so this field of work serves as the bridge between the two.
For students interested in the field, Zingale added that it teaches people how to solve complex problems on computers.
“Even if you don’t stay in the field, you build skills that are transferable to industry (which is where many of my graduate students wind up),” he said. He urges people to study something they enjoy. The main code he uses is called Castro and is freely available online, which means that “anyone can look at what we’ve done and run it for themselves,” he explained.
Student opportunities
For Stony Brook graduate students, these INCITE awards offer opportunities for additional learning and career advancement.
“The excitement is infectious,” said Harrison. “The students see not just the possibility to be at the frontier of discovery and the frontier of technology [but also to have] the career opportunities that lie beyond that.”
Students trained to make effective use of these platforms of cutting-edge science are “heavily recruited, going into industry, national labs, working for the likes of Google and so on,” Harrison added.
Stony Brook University Director of Athletics Shawn Heilbron and Stony Brook University President Maurie McInnis have named Billy Cosh the third head coach in Stony Brook football’s Division I era, as announced on Dec. 13.
“This is an incredibly exciting day for Stony Brook and the future of our football program as we welcome Billy Cosh to Long Island as our new head coach,” said Heilbron. “Billy is an innovative coach who will bring energy, intensity and a specific plan for building a championship-level program at Stony Brook. More importantly, he genuinely cares about creating a positive environment for our student-athletes, and I am so happy that he is joining our Seawolves family along with his wife Kelsey and daughter Charli.”
“We’re so thrilled to welcome Coach Cosh and his family to ours here at Stony Brook. As a former accomplished student-athlete himself, he understands the importance of being a coach, as well as a teacher and mentor for his players to excel at the highest levels of competition. During the interview process, it was evident Billy is a dynamic leader and innovative coach who cares deeply about student-athletes contributing on the field as well as in the classroom and in the Stony Brook community. Today marks the beginning of an exciting chapter in Stony Brook’s football history,” said President McInnis.
Cosh joins Stony Brook for his first career head coaching job after spending the 2023 season at Western Michigan as the Broncos’ offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach.
“My family and I are excited for this opportunity to join the Stony Brook family and to lead this football program to new heights moving forward! I want to thank President McInnis, Director of Athletics Shawn Heilbron, and the search committee for giving me this tremendous opportunity,” said Cosh. “Great location, academics, athletics and, more importantly, people really excites me about being the head football coach here. Being a FCS coach over the years, I have always admired Stony Brook from afar. I know we will develop these young men the right way and play a brand of football that will return us to the top in a great league in the CAA! I am ready to get to work and build the trust that is needed to have success.”
#5 Aaron Clarke looks to pass the ball during Sunday night's game.
Photo courtesy of Stony Brook Athletics
The Stony Brook University men’s basketball team topped Army, 78-74, in overtime on Dec. 17 at Christl Arena at West Point. Aaron Clarke returned to the lineup, pacing a group of four double-digit scorers with 21 points to lead the Seawolves past the Black Knights.
The Seawolves started fast on both ends of the floor, racing out to a 12-1 lead. Army was held without a field goal for nearly eight minutes to open the contest and managed just two points on a pair of trips to the charity stripe before Josh Scovens’ basket at the 12:09 mark of the first half.
Stony Brook extended its lead to 14 points, 23-9, more than halfway through the first half of action, but the Black Knights offense came to life in the final nine minutes of the half. Army ripped off 17 unanswered points in less than five minutes to turn a 14-point deficit into a three-point lead. When the dust settled after the first half, the contest was tied at 36-36 heading into the intermission. The Black Knights ultimately ended the half on a 27-13 run, shooting 10-of-14 from the floor and a perfect 5-for-5 from three-point range over the final nine-plus minutes of the opening stanza.
In a back-and-forth second half, Stony Brook led by seven points with 3:29 to play before another surge from Army’s offense that saw the Seawolves squander another lead. The Black Knights used a 9-0 run to grab a 61-59 lead with less than a minute to play, but a pair of late free throws from Clarke and a defensive stand sent the contest into overtime, despite Stony Brook being held without a field goal for the final seven-plus minutes of regulation.
Tyler Stephenson-Moore did not register a field goal made in regulation, notching his only three points at the charity stripe over a 10-second span in the final four minutes of the second half. He made the most of the extra period however, connecting on a pair of trifectas on the opening two possessions and added another basket on Stony Brook’s fourth possession of overtime, putting his squad on top, 69-66. The Seawolves never trailed in overtime, converting on 7-of-8 from the free throw line to earn its first road victory of the season.
“Great win against an Army team that played at a really high level,” head coach Geno Ford noted. “We really appreciated the huge amount of Stony Brook fans that made the drive over for the game today. We’ve put a nice win streak together with some confidence heading into Michigan State.”
The team wraps up road, non-conference action at Michigan State on Dec. 21. Tip-off between the Seawolves and Spartans is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. at Breslin Arena with the contest streaming live on BTN+. It will be the second-ever meeting between Stony Brook and Michigan State.
Alexander Orlov, PhD, Professor of Materials Science and Chemical Engineering at Stony Brook University, has been elected chair of the American Chemical Society’s (ACS) Environmental Division. With a four-year term starting January 1, 2024, Orlov will lead the Division’s extensive community of scientists toward the goal of applying concepts in chemistry to address the world’s leading environmental and sustainability issues.
Orlov, a Middle Island resident and professor at Stony Brook since 2008, has contributed significantly to environmental protection and sustainability efforts throughout his career. His work as an educator earned him the 2017 ACS Award for Incorporating Sustainability into Chemistry Education and the 2018 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Sustainable Engineering Forum Education Award. He is a member of the US-EU working group on Risk Assessment of Nanomaterials supported by the U.S. White House and European Commission cooperative program on nanotechnology research. In 2022, he was a chair of the Environmental Division at the American Institute of Chemical Engineers.
For years Orlov has contributed to the United Nations Environmental Program and has helped lead several reports coming out of the program. From 2007 to 2014, he was appointed by two UK Secretary of States to advise the government on environmental issues such as hazardous substances and environmental impact of nanotechnology.
Orlov’s interdisciplinary research seeks to develop new materials for clean energy generation, structural applications, and environmental protection. He currently co-directs two Centers at Stony Brook — the Center for Laser Assisted Advanced Manufacturing and the Center for Development and Validation of Scalable Methods for Sustainable Plastic Synthesis and Processing.
At more than 150,000 members, the ACS is one of the largest scientific societies in the U. S. Approximately 3,000 scientists nationally and internationally are in the Environmental Division. The Division is dedicated to addressing all 17 Sustainable Development Goals outlined by the United Nations with an emphasis on issues surrounding climate change.
The Stony Brook women’s basketball team kept Longwood to just 15.4 percent from deep in a 2-for-13 shooting performance on the way to an 85-49 victory against the Lancers at home on Dec. 11.
The Seawolves (8-1) had three players score in double figures, led by Khari Clark, who had 16 points and three steals. Zaida Gonzalez tacked on 16 points and two blocks and Gigi Gonzalez chipped in as well with 16 points, six assists and three steals. Stony Brook grabbed 45 rebounds in Monday’s game compared to Longwood’s 38, led by 10 boards from Shamarla King.
Stony Brook’s defense held Longwood to only 15.4 percent shooting from beyond the arc and 26.2 percent from the field.
Stony Brook started out the scoring by going on a 9-0 run, culminating in a bucket from Clark, to take an early lead with 7:27 left in the first quarter. The Seawolves then added three points to that lead by the end of the period and entered the quarter break with an 18-6 advantage. Stony Brook did most of its first quarter damage in the paint, scoring 12 of its 18 points close to the basket.
The Seawolves built that first quarter lead to 30-14 before going on a 6-0 run starting at the 2:45 mark in the second period, highlighted by a three from Victoria Keenan, to increase its lead to 36-14. The squad proceeded to tack on three points to that lead and enjoyed a 43-18 advantage heading into halftime. Stony Brook dominated in the paint, scoring 14 of its 25 points close to the basket.
Following intermission, Stony Brook continued to expand its advantage, pushing it to 50-23 before going on a 14-0 run, punctuated by a basket from King, to expand its lead further to 64-23 with 4:14 to go in the third. Before the conclusion of the third period, the Lancers had cut into that lead, but the Seawolves still entered the fourth quarter with a 68-28 edge. Stony Brook played dominated near the basket, scoring 18 of its 25 points in the paint.
The Seawolves then held on for the victory in the fourth quarter, 85-49.
The team will return to the court next week when they head to New Rochelle to battle Iona at 1 p.m. on Dec. 21. The game will be live on ESPN+.
“I was really pleased with the win today. [The team} was able to stay locked in and focused and disciplined. … I’m excited for them to get some rest in these 10 days and study for finals,” said Coach Ashley Langford after the game.
#24 Jared Frey Jared Frey connected on five three-pointers, a new career-best for the sophomore, during last Saturday's game. Photo courtesy of Stony Brook Athletics
The Stony Brook University men’s basketball team came from behind to defeat Bryant, 86-75, on Dec. 9 at Island Federal Arena. The Seawolves knocked down 16 three-pointers and shot 66.7 percent from the field in the second half to beat the Bulldogs.
Stony Brook found itself down 17-5 out of the gate after Connor Withers made his first five shots, including four from beyond the arc. Bryant maintained a double-digit lead for a majority of the opening 13 minutes of the contest, thanks to hot shooting from three-point range. The Seawolves made it a one-possession game on two occasions down the stretch in the first half, but would go into the locker room facing a 36-31 deficit.
The second half told a much different story, seeing the Seawolves flip the script on the Bulldogs. Stony Brook shot better than 65 percent from the floor and 73.3 percent from downtown in the second half to overcome a 12-point, first-half deficit and overcome Bryant.
Momentum began swinging in the Seawolves’ favor early on in the second half, and by the 12-minute mark the game was tied for the first time since the opening tip. Dean Noll’s trifecta made it 47-47, capping off a 9-0 run by Stony Brook.
Stony Brook then grabbed its first lead of the evening, 51-49, on a Tyler Stephenson-Moore trifecta. Chippiness between the two sides followed, seeing a pair of double-technicals assessed to players from either side.
With the contest tied once more at 55-55, Withers struck again from downtown, but an extended celebration directed towards Stony Brook’s bench earned him a technical foul. Bryant’s three-point lead then turned into a seven-point deficit after the Seawolves went on a 10-0 run after the tech, punctuated by another Stepheson-Moore triple.
The Seawolves never trailed again, though the Bulldogs came within a possession of the lead with just under five minutes to play. The Seawolves buckled down however, expanding its lead to double figures with under two minutes to play and closing things out at the charity stripe to earn its biggest victory of the season to date.
“Tonight … we needed everybody to play well … and the eight guys that went in there made key contributions. It was a great win for us,” said Coach Geno Ford after the game. “At the end of the day, we showed a level of toughness and resolve that we need to show to win a game against a really good team.”
Predicting extreme heat events is at least as important as tracking the strength and duration of approaching hurricanes.
Ping Liu
Extreme heat waves, which have become increasingly common and prevalent in the western continental United States and in Europe, can have devastating impacts through wildfires, crop failures and human casualties.
Indeed, in 2003, extreme heat in Europe caused over 70,000 deaths, which was the largest number of deaths from heat in recent years.
Recently, a trio of scientists at Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (SoMAS) received $500,000 from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration to study heat events by using and analyzing NOAA’s Seamless System for Prediction and EArth System Research, or SPEAR, to understand heat waves and predict future such events.
The first objective is to evaluate simulations in the SPEAR model, by looking at how effectively this program predicts the frequency and duration of heat events from previous decades, said Ping Liu, who is the Principal Investigator on the project and is an Associate Professor at SoMAS.
Liu was particularly pleased to receive this funding because of the “urgent need” for this research, he explained in an email.
The team will explore the impact of three scenarios for increases in overall average temperature from pre-Industrial Revolution levels, including increases of 1.5 degrees Celsius, 2 degrees Celsius and four degrees Celsius, which are the increases the IPCC Assessment Reports has adopted.
Answering questions related to predicting future heat waves requires high-resolution modeling products, preferably in a large ensemble of simulations from multiple models, for robustness and the estimation of uncertainties, the researchers explained in their proposal.
“Our evaluations and research will provide recommendations for improving the SPEAR to simulate the Earth system, supporting NOAA’s mission of ‘Science, Service and Stewardship,’” they explained.
Kevin Reed, Professor, and Levi Silvers, research scientist, are joining Liu in this effort.
Liu and Reed recently published a paper in the Journal of Climate and have conducted unfunded research on two other projects. Liu brought Silvers into the group after Reed recommended Silvers for his background in climate modeling and dynamics.
Reed, who is Interim Director of Academic, Research and Commercialization Programs for The New York Climate Exchange, suggested that the research the heat wave team does will help understand the limitations of the SPEAR system “so that we can better interpret how the modeling system will project [how] blocking events and heat will be impacted by climate change.”
An expert in hurricanes, Reed added that blocking events, which can cause high pressure systems to stall and lead to prolonged heat waves, can also lead to unique hurricane tracks, such as Hurricane Sandy in 2012.
“A longer term goal of many of my colleagues at Stony Brook University is to better understand these connections,” said Reed, who is Associate Provost for Climate and Sustainability Programming and was also recently appointed to the National Academies’ Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate.
Liu will use some of the NOAA funds to recruit and train a graduate student, who will work in his lab and will collaborate with Reed and Silvers.In the bigger picture, the Stony Brook researchers secured the NOAA backing in the same year that the university won the bidding to develop a climate solutions center on Governors Island.
Reed suggested that the “results of the work can be shared with our partners and can help to inform future societally relevant climate research projects.”
Focus on two regions
The systems that have caused an increase in heat waves in the United States and Europe are part of a trend that will continue amid an uneven distribution of extreme weather, Liu added.
Heat waves are becoming more frequent and severe, though the magnitude and impact area vary by year, Liu explained.
The high pressure systems look like ridges on weather maps, which travel from west to east.
Any slowing of the system, which can also occur over Long Island, can cause sustained and uncomfortable conditions.
Over the past several years, Liu developed computer algorithms to detect high pressure systems when they become stationary. He published those algorithms in two journal papers, which he will use in this project.
Personal history
Born and raised in Sichuan, China, Liu moved to Stony Brook from Hawaii, where he was a scientific computer programmer, in November of 2009.
He and his wife Suqiong Li live in East Setauket with their 16-year old daughter Mia, who is a student at Ward Melville High School anda pianist who has received classical training at the Manhattan School of Music. Mia has been trained by award-winning teacher Miyoko Lotto.
Outside of the lab, Liu, who is five-feet, seven-inches tall, enjoys playing basketball on Thursday nights with a senior basketball team.
Growing up in China, Liu was always interested in weather phenomenon. When he was earning his PhD in China at the Institute for Atmospheric Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, he had limited computer resources, working in groups with IBM and, at times, Dell computer. He built several servers out of PC parts.
With air trapped inside the basin surrounded by tall mountains, Sichuan is particularly hot in the summer, which motivated him to pursue the study of heat waves.
Liu appreciated how Stony Brook and Brookhaven National Laboratory had created BlueGene, which he used when he arrived.
As for the future of his work, Liu believes predicting extreme heat waves is increasingly important “to help planners from local to federal levels cope with a climate that is changing rapidly and fostering more frequent and more severe heat events,” he explained.
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