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Stony Brook University

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Stony Brook University: Entrance sign

Stony Brook University recently announced the launch of the Pre-College Summer Program, a new residential summer program for rising high school sophomores, juniors, and seniors.

The Pre-College Summer Program is a week-long program that offers high school students the opportunity to engage in the campus experience, take courses, participate in workshops, and access resources across campus, including bridging connections with Stony Brook faculty and industry experts. Throughout the program, students will connect with like-minded program participants, while learning to transition to college life.

“There is a rich history at Stony Brook of outstanding rigorous summer programming aimed at high school students,” said Peter Diplock, vice provost for Continuing, Professional, and Executive Education. “We are thrilled to be able to extend those opportunities and make them available to in-state and out-of-state high school students looking for a residential academic program experience.”

Participating students can take courses, led by Stony Brook faculty, in topics ranging from biomedical informatics to multimedia journalism to sustainability all while living on the Stony Brook campus. Students also have the opportunity to participate in recreational activities held on campus. In addition, the program is supplemented by participation in college readiness workshops.

“I am beyond excited to kick off the Pre-College Summer Program at Stony Brook University this year. Participants can expect to make memories that will last a lifetime. They’ll get first-hand experience in subjects that they’re passionate about with the support from SBU Faculty,” said Breanne Delligatti, director of the Pre-Summer College Program. “Beyond the classroom, they’ll make friendships and connections with peers who share their interests and ambitions. Plus, they’ll get a taste of college life on Stony Brook’s beautiful campus.”

Courses will be held across three sessions throughout the month of July, beginning on July 7.

Participants who register before April 1 will receive a cost savings of $100 and interested applicants can apply through May 15. The application process involves submitting the applicant’s high school transcript, a reference, a short essay, and a $45 application fee. A limited number of scholarships are also available for need-based applicants to offset the cost of the program.

Learn more about the Pre-College Summer Program at stonybrook.edu/precollege-summer.

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Stony Brook, NY; Stony Brook University: Department of Mathematics Assistant Professor Theo Drivas was named a 2024 Sloan Research Fellow.

Stony Brook University Assistant Professor Theodore Drivas, PhD, in the Department of Mathematics has been selected as a 2024 Sloan Research Fellow and awarded $75,000 toward his research investigating the mathematical characteristics of fluid motion.

Sloan Research Fellows are marked as the most auspicious scholars in their fields and are projected to become the next generation of scientific leaders across the United States and Canada. The funding granted to each fellow may be spent over a two-year term on any research-related expenses of choice. Professor Drivas is one of 126 early-career scholars honored in 2024 and the 71st Stony Brook faculty member to receive the distinction since 1961.

“Congratulations to Dr. Drivas for this extraordinary accomplishment that recognizes exemplary early career performance,” said SBU President Maurie McInnis. “As a Sloan Research Fellow, Dr. Drivas is among the top researchers in his field who is also an inspiring educator and mentor to our students. It is a proud moment for Stony Brook, and I look forward to watching the continued evolution of his research and scholarly work in the years to come.”

Drivas, who joined Stony Brook University in 2021, has also received a Charles Simonyi Endowment from the Institute for Advanced Study as well as several awards from the National Science Foundation, including a Faculty Early Career Development grant. He currently teaches an upper-division undergraduate course and a graduate course and has contributed to dozens of studies on fluid dynamics, turbulence theory, differential equations and more.

“This is a tremendous honor for Dr. Drivas, placing him among a select set of researchers recognized for their potential to significantly advance their fields,” said Provost Carl Lejuez. “These prestigious awards are cause for celebration, both for the acclaim they bring to the individual researchers, and for the further elevation of Stony Brook’s reputation as an institution that promotes excellence and innovation in all that we do. I am thrilled for Dr. Drivas to be recognized with a Sloan Fellowship.”

“This has been an exciting year for Theo Drivas, having also recently received an NSF CAREER award in support of his research,” said Scott Sutherland, professor and chair, Department of Mathematics. “In addition to his research program, which is of the highest caliber, Theo has been an exemplary member of the Stony Brook Department of Mathematics. He joins a cohort of distinguished faculty in our Department who have been honored with this prestigious award, and I am exceedingly pleased that the Sloan Foundation has recognized his outstanding achievements. We are very fortunate to have Theo as a member of our Mathematics faculty.”

Before joining Stony Brook University, Drivas was Assistant Professor of Mathematics at Princeton University, where he completed his postdoctoral fellowship. He holds a PhD in Applied Mathematics & Statistics from Johns Hopkins University and a BS in Mathematics & Physics with honors from the University of Chicago. Professor Drivas resides in Stony Brook.

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Jacob L Houghton, PhD, in his Stony Brook Cancer Center laboratory. Photo by John Griffin

Stony Brook University signs licensing agreement with Perspective Therapeutics

Image-guided radionuclide therapy uses radioactive molecules designed to specifically target and kill cancer cells while sparing non-cancerous tissues. This form of targeted therapy can be effective against cancer, but traditional methods for applying this therapy can also result in significant adverse effects related to off-target radiation toxicity. A team of Stony Brook University researchers developed a new method for image-guided radionuclide therapy that uses a two-step process with specially-modified antibodies to target the cancerous tumors, followed by a radioligand designed to bind specifically to the modified antibody.

Preliminary studies have shown that the approach can drastically reduce adverse effects while remaining extremely effective at targeting and killing the cancer cells. The promise of this technology has led to an exclusive licensing agreement with Perspective Therapeutics, Inc., headquartered in Seattle, WA.

The licensing agreement with Perspective Therapeutics is through the Research Foundation for State University of New York’s (SUNY), a private, non-profit,  education corporation that manages research administration and intellectual property for and on behalf of SUNY.

Nuclear imaging and targeted radionuclide therapy with biological molecules are a rapidly growing approach for the diagnosis, staging, and treatment of cancer and other pathologies such as inflammation and infection. Traditionally, the therapy has primarily been used in specific diseases such as thyroid cancer, bone cancer metastases, and neuroendocrine cancer. However, a major potential drawback of existing technologies is a resulting high radiation dose to healthy tissues from the combination of long-lived radionuclides and long biological half-life of the targeting molecules.

Stony Brook University radiology researchers Jacob L. Houghton, PhD, and Vilma I.J. Jallinoja, PhD, developed a new technology that overcomes these hurdles to more widespread use of radionuclide therapy. The platform involves using a small molecule that is labeled with a therapeutic radionuclide known as a radioligand, along with a modified monoclonal antibody – such as those used in immunotherapies to target cancer cells – in a two-step process. The platform enabled them to use the specificity of monoclonal antibodies to target cancer  and take advantage of a small molecule radioligand in a manner that retains the efficacy of the therapy while substantially improving the safety through a reduction in radiation toxicity.

Houghton, an Assistant Professor in the Department Radiology in the Renaissance School of Medicine (RSOM), and researcher in the Stony Brook Cancer Center, conducts research on targeted radionuclide therapy for diagnosing and treating cancer. He will continue to collaborate with scientists at Perspective Therapeutics as they further develop the technology. Jallinoja is no longer at Stony Brook.

“Our technology allows the use of such molecules for imaging and therapy while abrogating the concerns of radiation toxicity by using a pre-targeting technique which enables us to ‘label’ the biological molecule after it has been delivered to the target tissue and cleared from peripheral tissues,” explains Houghton.

Specifically, the pre-targeting radionuclide approach involves these steps: an antibody that has been modified to include an artificial binding group is administered to target to the tumor; then the radioligand carries the radionuclide to the tumor which binds specifically to the artificial binding group on the antibody. The radioligand rapidly accumulates in the tumor via this highly-specific interaction, and the unbound radioligand clears the body quickly. This process allows for optimal delivery of the radioactivity to the tumor, with little interaction with healthy tissue and organs.

This method differs from traditional approaches to targeted radionuclide therapy that directly attaches the radioactive payload to the targeting antibody, which can take days to accumulate in the tumor, leading to increased exposure to healthy tissues.

“By embracing a strategy that leverages the precision of monoclonal antibodies and the versatility of small molecules, Perspective is poised to redefine the landscape of radiation therapy,” says Thijs Spoor, Chief Executive Officer at Perspective Therapeutics. “One of our core missions as a company is to deliver safe and effective radiotherapies to patients.”

The team at Stony Brook University’s Intellectual Property Partners (IPP) worked to create the license with Perspective and develop a partnership to bridge new radiopharmaceutical technologies into eventual diagnostics and treatments.

“We are excited to partner with Perspective Therapeutics to advance this novel CB7-Adma pre-targeting platform toward clinical use. The combination of Perspective’s propriety radionuclide chelators and our pre-targeting platform has the potential to significantly improve clinical outcomes in a variety of cancer indications,” says Sean Boykevisch, PhD, Director of the IPP. “This partnership is a great example of how IPP works with Stony Brook inventors, helping them bridge their innovations with societal benefit in collaboration with industry partners.”

Perspective Therapeutics is a radiopharmaceutical development company that is pioneering the delivery of powerful radiation specifically to cancer cells via specialized targeting peptides. The Company is also developing complementary imaging diagnostics that incorporate the same targeting peptides. This “theranostic” approach  is designed to see the specific tumor and then treat it to potentially improve efficacy and minimize toxicity associated with cancer treatments.

 

Caption: Jacob L Houghton, PhD, in his Stony Brook Cancer Center laboratory.

Credit: John Griffin

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Salvatore Capotosto hugs his wife Federica Bove at Stony Brook Medicine Match Day 2024. Kristy Leibowitz

 

By Daniel Dunaief

A former professional soccer player from Italy, Salvatore Capotosto recently experienced a different kind of pressure, this time in front of his wife and her parents.

Joining the rest of the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University class of 2024, Capotosto awaited the countdown for Match Day to learn where he would serve his residency. 

Capotosto, who already knew he’d matched with one of the hospitals on his list for an orthopedic surgery residency, opened the same kind of envelopes medical students around the country were opening at noon Eastern Standard Time.

After the countdown, Capotosto learned he matched with his first choice, Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York City.

“It’s a very great dream for us,” said Capotosto, referring both to the opportunity for him and his wife Federica Bove to live in the city and to the excitement his extended family in the small town of Itri felt. Reading where he was going was “an explosion of emotion.”

Capotosto and Bove shed tears of happiness as they pondered the next step in an American journey that began eight years ago when they started college at Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, Texas. While Capotosto received medical training at Stony Brook, Bove earned her Master of Business Administration at Pace University.

The first member of his family to become a physician,  Capotosto said he spent considerable time explaining the lengthy residency and matching process to his family.

“It doesn’t matter how many millions of times” he shared the medical steps with them, he said, “they will still ask” about the next steps.

Humble origins

The son of cafe owner Luigi, the future orthopedic surgery resident didn’t always set his sights on either a high-powered athletic career or on becoming an American doctor.

“I used to walk to school and stop at my dad’s cafe and eat a croissant and drink cappuccino for breakfast and I would scream that I didn’t want to go to school and that I wanted to work at the cafe,”  Capotosto said. His father kicked him out of the cafe and told him to “go study.”

The Capotosto son said he learned his work ethic from his extended family, for whom work is a responsibility and a passion. Watching his father put time and effort into his work helped him put in 100 or more hours some weeks to meeting his responsibilities and mastering medical material.

Capotosto hasn’t been able to convince his father visit him in New York since he arrived on campus. This year, however, his parents booked a trip to see their son graduate.

Packages from home supported him through school and helped reduce the distance from his close family, who sent olives and olive oil every few months that were made from the 200 olive trees on his grandfather Pietro Mancini’s property.

A rising soccer star

Capotosto developed a passion for soccer when he first started playing the game at the age of six. He poured considerable energy into developing as a goalie.

He achieved considerable success, playing in front of crowds of over 4,000 people for professional and semi professional teams. In Naples, he trained with his idol, goalkeeper Morgan De Sanctis.

Capotosto was in the academy of the professional Napoli team for four years, including training with the first team.

When he played soccer, Capotosto suggested he was a “perfectionist,” honing his technique through hard work and preparation.

During his playing days, Capotosto sustained several injuries that took him off the field, including a scaphoid bone injury that ended his career.

Unsure of the next steps in his life, Capotosto appreciated not only the help and support of the doctors who came to his aid on the field, but also the career inspiration.

“I like to say that orthopedics saved my life,” Capotosto said. “Without the flame to push me to stand up and find a new purpose, I would have taken wrong turns in those dark moments. I’m really grateful to this field.”

Some of Capotosto’s mentors at Stony Brook, in turn, appreciate the considerable positive energy the former goalie brings to medicine and the way he relates to everyone from hospital staff to patients.

“He’s immediately disarming,” said Dr. James Penna, orthopedic surgeon and Chief of Sports Medicine at the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University. “Even patients who are scared or who are dealing with pain” relax when they are around him.

Dr. Edward Wang, Chief of Shoulder/Elbow Surgery and Clinical Professor in the Department of Orthopedics at the Renaissance School of Medicine, recalled that he offered Capotosto the opportunity to shadow him in the operating room early in his medical school career.

Capotosto picked up the do’s and don’ts of the operating room quickly, while the members of the team recognized his dedication and commitment.

“The staff took a real liking to him immediately,” Dr. Wang said. “Orthopedics is lucky he chose” the field.

In the last few months, Capotosto, who is 29 years old, has reached several milestones. He and Bove received green cards in February, which allow them to live and work permanently in the United States. The couple, who met when Capotosto was 18, also got married on April 22 in Central Park. They are planning a religious ceremony in Italy in May at Bove’s childhood church.

Sports and medicine

The field of orthopedics has attracted athletes from numerous sports, as former competitors have turned their focus and dedication towards preparing for games to the challenging world of helping people recover from injuries.

“A large percentage of applicants have some sorts of sports background,” with numerous doctors sharing stories about injuries such as a torn anterior cruciate ligament or about a relative who received knee replacement surgery, said Dr. Penna, who was not a college athlete.

“We have a lot of former athletes in our program,” added Dr. Wang, who swam competitively in a Division 1 program at the University of Miami. “Athletes like orthopedics because of the physicality and definitive nature and the exposure in the past.”

While Dr. Wang suggested that a range of character-defining elements helped shape Capotosto, he added that the former soccer star’s injuries enhanced his ability to connect.

“Being on the other side [as a patient] gives you empathy,” said Dr. Wang.

While Capotosto enjoyed his time in soccer, he is pleased with the current chapter in his life.

“Playing was a great opportunity, but, I think being an orthopedic surgeon is way better from my standpoint right now,” he said. “I believe in the mission.”

The Stony Brook medical staff, meanwhile, believes in him. 

“There will be a lot of disappointed attendees” when Capotosto leaves the school, said Dr. Penna. “The janitors knew who he was.”

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Kelly Ng and Adelaide Matthews. Photo by Lynn Hallarman
Stony Brook University pre-health students step up as volunteer EMTs

By Lynn Hallarman

Stony Brook University master’s student Kelly Ng didn’t intend to be an emergency medical technician. Then, a friend took her to a training as part of the Port Jefferson Emergency Medical Services volunteer program.

“At first, I was tagging along,” Ng said. Her friend eventually quit the program, but Ng discovered she loved emergency care and the adrenaline rush of helping people. 

 I met with Ng and her fellow EMT, Adelaide Matthews, a junior also at Stony Brook, at the headquarters of the not-for-profit PJEMS, based in Mount Sinai. Both live at the station as part of the “bunk-in” program open to full-time university students. Matthews decided to undergo EMT training because “it seemed cool,” and thought it would be a good way to get hands-on experience in medicine. Both are planning on applying to either physician assistant school or medical school. Ng has been with the program for almost four years, and Matthews for two years. 

PJEMS developed the bunk-in program as part of an organizational initiative to engage pre-health care university students as volunteer EMTs. “We had an urgent need to get creative in our approach to recruiting and retaining volunteer EMTs,” said Mike Presta, paramedic and deputy director of special operations for PJEMS. Presta saw the initiative as a win-win: Pre-physician assistant, pre-medicine and pre-nursing students would get the volunteer hours they need as part of their application process, and the organization would have a pipeline of volunteer EMTs.

In 2015, the Port Jeff organization started the College Student EMS Program. Students train to be full-fledged New York State-certified EMTS and respond to calls in the community alongside paid professionals. “They get invaluable experience as primary patient-care providers” Presta said. 

At first, the organization focused on recruiting from the pre-PA program since they have the largest hourly volunteer requirement. “Then it just spread like wildfire because there weren’t a lot of opportunities like that around for the students,” Presta said. 

In 2016, the bunk-in program was added. Students must be willing to commit to three eight-hour shifts per week. In return, the students get free room and board at the station and the opportunity to serve in leadership positions in their mentorship program. The bunk-in program is the first in New York state, according to Presta. “A couple of EMS upstate have replicated their program, but none locally,” he said. The Port Jeff College Student EMS Program currently has about 135 student volunteer EMTs, 15 of whom participate in the bunk-in program.

Over the years, Presta has seen a massive increase in the total number of calls per year as the population density in their coverage area has increased: “When I started here in 2007, I remember we broke 1,000 calls a year. And that was a big deal. But now, I can’t believe how busy it is. Last year, we did about 3,500 runs.” 

A visit to Port Jeff EMS

The day I met with Ng and Matthews, the station was quiet. A cluster of unassuming low-slung buildings houses PJEMS on the corner of Route 347 and Crystal Brook Hollow Road. A row of ambulances sits in front of the garage, repurposed as a makeshift gym. 

The rear of the building has been extended with a trailer unit to make room for the bunk-in program, which now replaces the spaces in the main building once used for offices. The largest space in the building is part command control and part community center, with a circle of comfy oversized recliners meant for weary bodies in need of rest between runs. A spotless kitchen overlooks a fenced-in backyard designed for the canine unit. Big screens line a wall, tracking deployed crews. EMT students — “probies” (shorthand for “on probation”) — lounge around a conference room table in Uggs and sweatpants, waiting for a teaching session to start. 

PJEMS is the primary ambulance service for the village of Port Jefferson, Belle Terre and Mount Sinai. According to its website, the coverage area comprises several schools, hospitals, medical facilities, a ferry terminal, two harbors and 6 miles of residential and commercial waterfront on the Long Island Sound. 

The organization is one of the region’s few “station-based” response units, meaning every shift has two professional paramedics and a crew of volunteer EMTs on site 24/7. The system is tightly designed with checks and oversight. Paramedics are trained in advanced lifesaving techniques beyond the basic skills learned by EMTs. No Port Jefferson volunteer EMT is left on their own or without backup from a paramedic. 

PJEMS, which has existed since 1959, started as 100% volunteer. However, as the area’s population grew and demand increased, the service added paid staff. According to Presta, community residents represent only about 10% of the 150 total number of EMT volunteers, with the rest mostly university students — including those in the bunk-in program. Still, Presta wishes more residents were interested in volunteering. “But there is no sell,” he said. “A person must have a strong intrinsic motivation to serve.”

New York State EMS crisis 

In 2019, a NYS Emergency Services Medical Council report identified insufficient EMS workforce reaching critical levels. EMS agencies statewide identified workforce shortages as impairing their ability to respond to need, causing delayed response times or resulting in missed calls. 

The report identified a tsunami of circumstances that have led to the workforce shortage, including the aging of volunteer EMTs, lack of pay equity for professional EMTs and antiquated insurance reimbursement models. Add in an uptick in mental health calls, older patients with complex care needs plus drug and alcohol-related calls, EMS programs across the state started showing signs of critical strain. These problems worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic, with an alarming overall drop in volunteerism to today’s levels, characterized by the NYS Association of Counties as a crisis. 

I was surprised to learn from state Sen. Monica Martinez (D-Brentwood) that EMS are not designated as essential services by New York State. I met with the senator at her office in Hauppauge to better understand the statewide response to the EMT crisis. Martinez has been at the forefront of advocating for policy changes at the state level as part of a legislative initiative called Rescue EMS. She has sponsored or co-sponsored several bills meant to bolster the volunteer EMT workforce, including increases in tax credits for volunteer EMTs, establishing a “Vets to Vollies” program which encourages veterans to join their local EMS or fire department and establishing a 90-day death benefit payment for volunteer EMTs and firefighters. 

Martinez loves what PJEMS is doing with its student program, and imagines replicating the program in her 4th District at perhaps the high school level or as part of their junior leadership program. 

Ng and Matthews are happy to be part of the Port Jefferson EMS first responder community. “It’s not just the medical knowledge we learn, it’s about how to talk to people and get them to trust us,” Matthews said. “And I really like the crew I work with.”

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Photo courtesy of COPE

The Brain Injury Association of New York State (BIANYS) and the New York State Athletic Trainers’ Association (NYSATA) will host a Concussion Outreach Prevention & Education (COPE) seminar at Stony Brook University’s Charles B. Wang Center, Lecture Hall 1, 100 Nicolls Road, Stony Brook on Tuesday, March 19 at 7 p.m.

COPE provides valuable information for educators, nurses, coaches, athletic trainers, students, and parents/guardians on how to create a plan for a successful return of a concussed student back to youth sports and the classroom as well as many ways to prevent concussions.

Guest speakers will include:

Mark Harary, M.D., CAQSM – Sports Medicine Physician, Orthopedic Associates of Long Island

Lisa Komnik, MS, ATC – Clinical Assistant Professor, Athletic Training Program at Stony Brook University

Michelle Kellen, MEd – BIANYS Professional Development Manager

The event is open to the public. No registration necessary.

COPE is a program designed by NYSATA and BIANYS, two well-known and established statewide organizations with expertise in concussion. NYSATA plays a strong role in recognizing concussion, managing recovery and eventual return to play. BIANYS helps victims of concussions and has a history of concussion education, including its Supporting Students Recovering from Concussion: Return to Learn program. To date, BIANYS has brought their Return to Learn training to over 150 schools and/or districts, educating over 2,100 school personnel. Stony Brook University has an excellent athletic training program. To learn about it, click on this link:

https://healthprofessions.stonybrookmedicine.edu/programs/at/graduate

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 ABOUT NEW YORK STATE ATHLETIC TRAINERS’ ASSOCIATION 

NYSATA, founded in 1976 and incorporated in 1989, stands to advance the profession of athletic training for the purpose of enhancing the quality of healthcare for the physically active in New York State. Comprised of over 1,500 Certified Athletic Trainers, NYSATA (www.gonysata2.org) is the statewide affiliate of the regional Eastern Athletic Trainers’ Association (EATA) and District Two of the National Athletic Trainers’ Association (NATA).

ABOUT THE BRAIN INJURY ASSOCIATION OF NEW YORK STATE

The Brain Injury Association of New York State (BIANYS) is a statewide non-profit membership organization that advocates on behalf of people with brain injuries and their families. Established in 1982, BIANYS promotes prevention as well as provides education and community support services that lead to improved outcomes for children and adults with brain injuries. www.bianys.org.

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Georgios Moutsanidis, Photo by Ram Telikicherla

By Daniel Dunaief

In the best of times, water provides a serene background, offers an escape from searing summer heat, serves as a livelihood for the fishing industry, and supports a range of aquatic life that shimmers just below the surface.

In the worst of times, that same water can threaten communities that line coasts, bringing a powerful surge of destructive force that takes lives and destroys homes, buildings and infrastructure.

Recently, Georgios Moutsanidis, Stony Brook University Assistant Professor in the department of Civil Engineering, received a $500,000, five-year Faculty Early Career Development grant from the National Science Foundation to conduct research that could increase the resilience of coastal structures.

Rigoberto Burgueño, who is the chairman of the Civil Engineering department and who helped recruit Moutsanidis to Stony Brook in 2020, is pleased with the recognition from the NSF.

It is “one of the highest achievements for an individual investigator in terms of their potential as future leaders in their field and future mentors and teachers,” Burgueño said. The prestige from the award “will provide opportunities and bigger audiences to communicate his findings and his work.”

Amid climate change, the need for efforts to improve resilience from a range of water-driven forces increases, as rising sea levels encroach on coastlines and stronger storms driven by higher ocean temperatures threaten buildings and infrastructure.

“What we are trying to do with this project is to develop state-of-the-art computational tools that engineers and other researchers will use to incorporate in their work and study the resilience of structures against extreme hydrodynamic events” such as storm surges and tsunamis, said Moutsanidis.

Engineers, city planners and builders have used what Moutsanidis described as mostly outdated empirical models to test the resilience of structures. Moutsanidis, however, hopes to enhance those models by taking a physics-based numerical approach to understanding the damage a surge of water could do to various structures.

Moutsanidis is using established and well-known equations. He will contribute to solving them more accurately and efficiently.

Other models “could simulate water hitting a structure, but they were unable to capture the detailed response of the structure, with cracks, fractures, fragmentation and collapse,” Moutsanidis said. He hopes the new computational methods he will develop will predict the type and extent of damage more accurately.

The model he plans to create, with the help of graduate students he will hire who will use new high-performance computers he expects to use the funds to purchase, can address site-specific features of an area that would affect the likely speed, amount and force of any water surge.

Burgueño described Moutsanidis as being “at the forefront of very advanced computational simulations that take into account interactions of water with a structure.”  

By generating better estimates of the actual loads imposed on a structure, “we will be better prepared as engineers to either strengthen existing structures or to design future ones better,” Burgueño said.

Checking his work

While the information he’s using to construct these models relies on physics and deploys established equations, the Stony Brook Assistant Professor and his students will perform verification and validation. They will compare their results with existing experimental data and other computational approaches.

In addition, Moutsanidis’s lab will conduct experiments in a flume, which is a water tank in which he can vary the amount and speed of water approaching models of coastal communities. With a high-speed camera, he can evaluate how these simulated structures respond. In buildings that might collapse or fracture, he can test a slightly different fortified design, run a similar analysis and determine if the modifications led to a better outcome.

At this point, Moutsanidis has completed a proof of concept article in the journal Engineering with Computers, where he demonstrated the idea and the equations he’s solving. He hopes to produce a useful package that engineers and the public can use within the next four to five years, which he will release through an open source platform such as GitHub.

Moutsanidis is “very eager to start this work” as storm surges, flooding and tsunamis threaten coastal communities every year.

Larger context and other projects

In the bigger picture, Moutsanidis seeks to use computational methods and software to solve problems of engineering driven by physics. He has also worked in the aerospace community, studying the interaction of solids with hypersonic flow.

The goal is to “design more efficient aerospace vessels” that can withstand high temperatures and pressure as they travel five times the speed of sound or more, he said. The temperature is so high that the air undergoes a chemical reaction.

Moutsanidis has also worked with the impact of blast waves on structures, simulating the response to the shock wave or blast.

The goal is to make structures “more resilient or resistant to extreme events” such as a terrorist attack or an accident that triggers an explosion.

From Karditsa to Queens

Born and raised in a small town in the center of Greece called Karditsa, Moutsanidis is the son of two engineers. “In my early childhood, I was influenced by them, but I chose a different engineering path,” he said.

Moutsanidis, who completed postdoctoral research at Brown University before joining Stony Brook, lives in Queens. 

Moutsanidis is impressed with the students at Stony Brook, whom he described as “very engaged.” As for his work, he explained that his field is “quite competitive” and he was surprised and pleased to receive this award.

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Dean Laura Lindenfeld, Stony Brook University. Photo by Conor Harrigan/SBU

Stony Brook University’s Laura Lindenfeld, Dean of the School of Communication and Journalism (SoCJ) and Executive Director of the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science, was recently named as the finalist for the Scripps Howard Fund Administrator of the Year award.

The Scripps Howard Awards, an annual contest hosted by the Scripps Howard Fund and the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, is one of the nation’s most prestigious American journalism competitions. Nominees are judged by a panel of experienced communications professionals and journalists. The winner and finalist of the Administrator of the Year award, which honors leaders in higher education who work to train and inspire up-and-coming journalists and communications professionals, will be recognized at the Awards. Lindenfeld was nominated for the award by a group of faculty members from the SoCJ.

“This is a well-deserved honor for Laura. Our School of Communication and Journalism is thriving at Stony Brook under her leadership. I am so pleased to see her recognized with this prestigious award,” said Carl Lejuez, provost and executive vice president.

Since joining Stony Brook University in 2016 as Executive Director of the Alda Center and a professor in the School of Communication and Journalism, Lindenfeld has helped contribute to the school’s success by winning re-accreditation from the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications for the undergraduate journalism program, increasing student enrollment in the SoCJ by more than one third, doubling the size of tenure-track faculty at the school, and bringing in more than $15 million in funding opportunities. She was also nominated for her contributions in streamlining the Alda Center with the SoCJ as a collaborative unit, helping attract top talent.

“For the past five years, it has been my joy and my honor to lead the SoCJ and the Alda Center,” said Laura Lindenfeld. “These two organizations have a critical role to play in bridging science and society through effective, engaging communication, and in helping to create a fairer, more just, more rational world. I am truly honored by this recognition, and proud to be working alongside the incredible people at the SoCJ and Alda Center, and across the Stony Brook community.”

Dean Lindenfeld has also served as Vice Provost for Academic and Strategic Planning at Stony Brook and Director of the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center, University of Maine and professor of communication and journalism there. She worked as a copywriter for DDB Needham Worldwide and screenplay writer for RTL Plus in Dusseldorf, Germany. She holds a PhD in Cultural Studies from the University of California Davis and an MA from the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn in Germany.

The Scripps Howard Awards will air on Scripps News in October 2024.

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This graphic summarizes shifts in public attitudes about AI, according to the Stony Brook-led survey. Image by Jason Jones

A Stony Brook University study suggests that on average, U.S. adults have gained confidence in the capabilities of AI and grown increasingly opposed to extending human rights to advanced AI systems.

In 2021, two Stony Brook University researchers – Jason Jones, PhD, Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology, and Steven Skiena, PhD, Distinguished Teaching Professor in the Department of Computer Science – began conducting a survey study on attitudes toward artificial intelligence (AI) among American adults. Some of their recent findings, published in the journal Seeds of Science, show a shift in Americans’ views on AI.

The researchers compared data collected from random, representative samples in 2021 and 2023 to determine whether public attitudes toward AI have changed amid recent technological developments – most notably the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot in late 2022. The new work builds on previous research into how AI is perceived in society, by way of the Jones-Skiena Public Opinion of Artificial Intelligence Dashboard and similar survey studies conducted with varying demographics.

The new study sampled two unique groups of nearly 500 Americans ages 18 and above, one of which was surveyed in March 2021 and the other in April 2023. Participants shared their opinions on the achievability of constructing a computer system able to perform any intellectual task a human is capable of, whether such a system should be built at all, and/or if that system – referred to as Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) – should be afforded the same rights as a human being.

Google Surveys was originally used as the platform for this research due to its capability of delivering random, representative samples.

“What we truly wanted to know was the distribution and average of public opinion in the U.S. population,” says Jones, co-author and also a member of Stony Brook’s Institute for Advanced Computational Science (IACS). “A random, representative sample is the gold standard for estimating that in survey research. Google shut down their Google Surveys product in late 2022, so we used another platform called Prolific to do the same thing for the second sample.”

Once the samples were collated, a statistically significant change in opinion was revealed regarding whether an AGI system is possible to build and whether it should have the same rights as a human.

In 2023, American adults more strongly believed in the achievability of AGI, yet were more adamantly against affording such systems the same rights as human beings. There was no statistically significant change in public opinion on whether AGI should be built, which was weakly favored across both samples.

Jones and Skiena stress that more studies must be conducted to better understand public perceptions of artificialintelligence as the technology continues to grow in societal relevance.

They will repeat the survey this spring with the same methods used in 2023 with the hope of  building further on their findings.

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Arthur Grollman. Photo courtesy Grollman Family

Prepared by the Grollman Family

It is with a heavy heart that we announce the passing of Dr. Arthur Grollman, a man whose life was a testament to the pursuit of knowledge and the betterment of humanity. A Renaissance man in every sense, Dr. Grollman’s dedication to justice, science, medical care, and his family was evident in every facet of his remarkable journey.

Dr. Grollman’s academic odyssey commenced with a Bachelor of Arts in Chemistry from the University of California at Berkeley in 1955, followed by a Doctor of Medicine degree from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 1959. His postgraduate years were marked by an internship and residency in Internal Medicine at Hopkins and significant research contributions at the National Institutes of Health.

His illustrious career saw him join the Albert Einstein College of Medicine as Professor of Medicine, Pharmacology, and Molecular Biology, where he also served as Associate Dean for Scientific Affairs. In 1974, he became the Founding Chair of the Department of Pharmacological Sciences at Stony Brook University’s School of Medicine, leading the department to new heights and shaping the future of medical research and education.

Dr. Grollman’s scholarly output was prolific, with over 200 papers that advanced our understanding of molecular biology and cancer research. His work on the biological consequences of DNA damage and the antitumor agent bleomycin was groundbreaking, as were his studies on the three-dimensional structures of DNA enzymes.

A recognized authority on the clinical pharmacology of herbal medicines, Dr. Grollman’s expertise was sought by the White House Commission on Alternative and Complementary Health Policy and Governor George Pataki’s Task Force on Life and Law. His academic influence extended globally, with visiting professorships at prestigious institutions around the world.

In 2003, his contributions were honored with the title of Distinguished Professor of Pharmacological Sciences at Stony Brook. His pioneering work earned him numerous accolades, including an American Cancer Society Scholarship Award and a MERIT award from the National Cancer Institute. The Environmental Mutagen Society recognized his vital research on environmental mutagenesis and his insights into DNA repair mechanisms.

As the world grappled with COVID-19, Dr. Grollman rose to the challenge, dedicating himself to the fight against the pandemic with unwavering commitment.

In 2011, the Environmental Mutagen Society bestowed upon him a prestigious recognition award for his research in environmental mutagenesis, which brought to light the public health crisis of aristolochic acid-induced kidney failure and urothelial cancer. This award also honored his seminal work in elucidating the molecular mechanisms by which DNA repair proteins process oxidative DNA damage.

During the tumultuous times of the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Grollman’s indefatigable spirit shone brightly as he led a consortium of top medical and scientific minds from an off-university chemistry lab. Together, they revisited a drug he had worked on in the 1960s—emetine—and studied its effectiveness and toxicity. His dedication persisted until his final days, culminating in the shipment of newly manufactured pills for the first clinical trial against Covid. His team’s research also demonstrated emetine’s efficacy as an antiviral agent against Zika, Ebola, and herpesviruses.

Dr. Grollman’s investigative prowess was pivotal in discovering the cause of Balkan Endemic Nephropathy, a previously fatal kidney disease. His relentless research and collaboration across nations revealed that the herb Aristolochia, intermingled with wheat crops in the Balkans, was the culprit. His findings led to changes in farming and milling methods that halted the disease’s spread. Moreover, he identified the use of this herb in Traditional Chinese Medicine as the cause of Taiwan’s high rate of urothelial cancer, leading to a cessation in its use and a subsequent decline in kidney failure and cancer cases in the region.

An adventurer at heart, Dr. Grollman’s curiosity extended beyond the realms of science and medicine. He traversed all continents except Antarctica, scaling peaks such as Mt. Whitney and  Mt. Kilimanjaro, as well as the Alps, the Andes, and Mt. Kellas. His journeys took him to Base Camp 3 on Everest and through the Karakoram Mountains, where he and his guide charted a new route. His profound connection with the Himalayas led to a friendship with the Dalai Lama, whom he invited to Stony Brook to receive an honorary degree. Dr. Grollman also established a program at Stony Brook University to support a Tibetan student annually, typically in pursuit of a degree in Public Health.

A champion of justice, Dr. Grollman’s actions consistently reflected his commitment to protecting and supporting those treated unfairly. His leadership and mentorship touched countless lives, leaving an indelible mark on those who had the privilege of knowing him and benefiting from his work. Dr. Grollman’s passing leaves a void in the hearts of many, but his enduring impact on science, medicine, and humanity will forever be cherished and remembered.

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