Stony Brook University President Maurie McInnis, pictured above, during her State of the University address on Oct. 12. In a statement, she said the state’s support ‘will help to propel Stony Brook to even greater heights.’ Photo from Stony Brook University
As a part of her State of the State address last week, Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) proposed providing additional financial support to Stony Brook University’s research effort.
The governor proposed adding $200 million in capital funding for research labs at SBU and the University of Buffalo to invest in new and renovated research buildings, labs, and state-of-the art instrumentation.
In the proposal, the state would also match up to $500 million in state funds for SBU and three other university centers.
In the technical arena, the state would also provide $200 million in digital transformation and IT infrastructure across the State University of New York system, including SBU.
In a statement, Stony Brook President Maurie McInnis said “Governor Hochul’s announcement providing support for an endowment match, research labs, and innovative programs will help to propel Stony Brook to even greater heights.”
The SBU president added that the match would inspire “our philanthropic supporters to secure our long-term future while supporting current research and student scholarships. We are grateful to Governor Hochul for her visionary leadership and for providing the flexibility and mission-specific resources needed to advance our transformational goals of doubling research expenditures and moving into the top 25-ranked public research universities nationally.”
SBU officials added that the additional research funding will allow the university to grow its technology-transfer and business-incubation programs, which foster New York’s entrepreneurs.
“More robust research and entrepreneurship infrastructure will allow us to accelerate the commercialization of medical, engineering and other technologies generated from our faculty to start and grow companies across the state,” SBU officials explained in an email.
The university appreciates the governor’s support and officials look forward to seeing the final executive budget proposal with related details and working with the legislature to enact these proposals.
Previous recognition
The proposed funds come a year after the governor designated SBU and The University of Buffalo as New York State’s flagship universities as part of her plan for “A New Era for New York.”
The governor proposed additional funding for several efforts. The funds would help construct a multidisciplinary engineering building on campus. She also supported a partnership between SBU and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory for NeuroAI, an initiative that combines neuroscience and artificial intelligence.
She suggested expanding the Stony Brook Center for Clean Water Technology research to include wastewater treatment technology and creation of the Suffolk County Wastewater Management District, both with the goal of protecting Long Island’s aquifer system.
The state could also support the modernization and repair of scientific labs and could fund “Grand Challenges” that will encourage cross-disciplinary research.
With additional funds, these universities would also have the ability to continue to hire top-rated faculty and researchers.
SBU and Buffalo are members of the Association of American Universities.
Annual research expenditures at the two universities are also a combined $663 million, including affiliated institutions.
A scene from last Saturday's game. Photo by Troy Herring/Stony Brook Athletics
The Stony Brook men’s basketball team (7-11, 3-2 CAA) led for over 32 minutes on Jan. 14 against the North Carolina A&T Aggies (8-11, 3-3 CAA), but ultimately fell, 61-59, at Corbett Sports Centerin Greensboro, NC.
The Seawolves had a chance to tie the game in the final seconds, but just did not finish on their final opportunity.
Senior guard Tyler Stephenson-Moore paced the Seawolves in scoring in the game. He dropped 18 points, dished out four assists, and grabbed three rebounds in 39 minutes.
Graduate forward Frankie Policelli totaled his seventh double-double of the season and second in as many games. For the second-straight game he scored 16 points and grabbed 14 boards. Policelli helped Stony Brook get out to a 10-point lead in the first half. He nailed three three pointers in the first frame and had nine points at the break.
The Aggies got off to a great start in the second half. They were led by sophomore guard Kam Woods, who came into the game as the third leading scorer in the CAA. He scored 19 points in 39 minutes. North Carolina A&T also received a 15-point second half effort from redshirt junior forward Marcus Watson.
Then with just over four minutes remaining, Policelli grabbed an offensive rebound and got fouled on his way back up, scoring through contact for the and-one. This extended Stony Brook’s lead, but the Aggies went on a late run.
Stony Brook led 30-26 at halftime but was outscored 35-29 in the second frame.
“Tough one because we led for over 30 minutes. We couldn’t make any big offensive plays down the stretch. We had wide open threes, some post isolations and free throws that we couldn’t convert. It goes without saying that I’m sure the long travel and short rest didn’t help us today. We need a good week of practice as we turn to a Northeastern team that will come in with a chip on their shoulder Thursday night,” said head coach Geno Ford.
The team will return home to face Northeastern, for the second time this season, tonight, Jan. 19. Tip-off is set for 7 p.m. and the game will be broadcast live on FloHoops. Call 631-632-WOLF for tickets.
Anastasia Warren during last Friday's game. Photo from Stony Brook Athletics
The Stony Brook women’s basketball team (10-6, 4-1 CAA) returned to Island Federal Arena on Jan. 13 with a victory against Monmouth (8-8, 3-2 CAA), 69-59. After leading, 47-45, heading into the final frame, the Seawolves went on a 13-3 run to end the game and did not allow a basket for the final 4:50 of the game to secure the victory.
Senior guard Gigi Gonzalez led the Seawolves’ offense with 23 points on 8-of-21 shooting and 7-of-7 from the line. The Floridan captured a career-best eight boards and tallied two assists.
Following a defensive affair in the first quarter by both teams allowing a combined 18 points, Stony Brook found its rhythm as it outscored Monmouth, 17-8, in the second frame to take a 26-18 lead into the break. Gonzalez and junior guard Shamarla King each tallied five points in the final 5:22 of the second quarter and the defense did not allow a point over the stretch to give the Seawolves a 10-0 run heading into the break.
The Hawks did not let up after the break, as they outscored the Seawolves 27-21 in the third quarter.
With Stony Brook holding a 47-45 advantage heading into the final quarter, the Seawolves started to cause havoc on both sides of the floor. After the Hawks cashed in on a three-pointer to give themselves a 51-49 lead, Stony Brook surrender the lead for the remainder of the game following a made jumper by graduate guard Anastasia Warren.
Later in the quarter, Warren knocked down a clutch three-pointer to give the Seawolves a 59-56 lead with 3:14 left to play in the game. On the defensive side of the ball, Stony Brook held the Hawks without a field goal for the final 4:50 and went on to win by the final score of 69-59. Warren and Gonzalez combined for 11 of the team’s final 13 points of the evening to secure the win.
The team returns to the court Jan. 20, as they head to East Greensboro, N.C. to take on North Carolina A&T.
Nandita Kumari at the 53rd Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Woodlands, Texas in March of 2022.
Photo by Delia Enriquez Draper from the Lunar and Planetary Institute
By Daniel Dunaief
Some day in the not too distant future, an astronaut may approach rocks on the moon and, with a handheld instrument, determine within minutes whether the rock might have value as a natural resource or as a source of historical information.
That’s the vision Nandita Kumari, a fourth-year graduate student in the Department of Geosciences in the College of Arts and Sciences at Stony Brook University, has.
In the meantime, Kumari was part of a multi-institutional team that recommended two landing sites in the moon’s south polar region for future Artemis missions.
Nandita Kumari at a San Francisco Volcanic Field, where she was doing stress and strain measurements of cinders. Photo by Saurabh Subham.
The group, which included students from the University of Arizona, the University of California Los Angeles, and the University of Buffalo, used several criteria to recommend these two sites.
They looked at the resources that might be available, such as water and rocks, at how long the areas are in sunlight and at how the features of the land, from the slope of hills to the size of boulders, affects the sites accessibility.
“These two sites ended up fulfilling all these criteria,” Kumari said. Models suggest water might be present and the regions are in sunlight more than 80 percent of the time, which is critical for solar-powered devices.
The group used high-resolution data from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter to create a map of all the rocks and to model the geological diversity of the site. They used infrared images to gather data from areas when they were dark. They also added temperature readings.
To the delight of the team, NASA selected both of the sites as part of a total of 13 potential landing locations.
Planetary scientist David Kring advised the group during the process. Kring has trained astronauts and worked on samples brought back from the Apollo missions.
At the end of the first year of her PhD, Kumari received encouragement to apply for the virtual internship with Kring from Stony Brook Geosciences Professor Tim Glotch, who runs the lab where she has conducted her PhD work.
Putting a number on it
Kumari said her thesis is about using machine learning to understand the composition of resources on the moon. She would like to use artificial intelligence to delve deeply into the wealth of data moon missions and observations have been collecting to use local geology as a future resource.
“Instead of saying something has a ‘little’ or a ‘lot’” of a particular type of rock that might have specific properties, she would like to put a specific numerical value on it.
An engineer by training, Kumari said she is a “very big fan of crunching numbers.”
Since joining the lab, Kumari has become “our go-to source for any type of statistical analysis me or one of my other students might want to conduct,” Glotch explained.
The work Kumari has done provides “large improvements over traditional spectroscopic analysis techniques,” Glotch added.
In examining rocks for silicic properties, meaning those that contain silicon, most scientists describe a rock as being less or more silicic, Kumari said.
“It’s difficult to know whether 60 percent is high or 90 percent is high,” she added. Such a range can make an important difference, and provides information about history, formation and thermal state of the planet and about potential resources.
With machine learning that trains on data collected in the lab, the model is deployed on orbiter data.
The machine learning doesn’t stop with silica. It can also be extended to search for helium 3 and other atoms.
Understanding and using the available natural resources reduces the need to send similar raw materials to the moon from Earth.
“There has to be a point where we stop” transporting materials to the moon, said Kumari. “It’s high time we use modern practices and methods so we can go through really large chunks of data with limited error.”
The machine learning starts with a set of inputs and outputs, along with an algorithm to explain the connection. As it sorts through data, it compares the outputs against what it expects. When the data doesn’t match the algorithm, it adjusts the algorithm and compares that to additional data, refining and improving the model’s accuracy.
A love for puzzles
Kumari, who grew up in Biharsharif, India, a small town in the northern state of Bihar, said this work appeals to her because she “loves puzzles that are difficult to solve.” She also tries to find solutions in the “fastest way possible.”
Kumari was recently part of a field exploration team in Utah that was processing data. The team brought back data and manually compared the measurements to the library to see what rocks they had.
She wrote an algorithm that provided the top five matches to the spectroscopic measurements the researchers found. Her work suggested the presence of minerals the field team didn’t anticipate. What’s more, the machine provided the analysis in five minutes.
The same kind of analysis can be used on site to study lunar rocks.
“When astronauts go to the moon, we shouldn’t require geology experts to be there to find the best rocks” she said. While having a geologist is the best-case scenario, that is not always possible. “Anyone with a code in their instruments should be able to decide whether it is what they’re looking for.”
As for her interest in space travel, Kumari isn’t interested in trekking to the moon or Mars.
While she believes the moon and Mars should be a base for scientific experiments, she doesn’t think people should focus on colonizing either place.
Such colonization ideas may reduce the importance of working on the challenges humans have created on Earth, including climate change.
“You can’t move to Mars,” Kumari said. The litmus test for that occurred during Covid, when people had to isolate.
“If we couldn’t stay in our homes with all the comfort and everything, I do not see a future where this would be possible with stringent constraints on Mars,” she added.
An advocate for women in STEM fields, Kumari said women should pursue scientific careers even if someone else focuses on their mistakes or tries to break their confidence.
“The only way to stop this from happening is to have women in higher places,” she explained. “We should also be supportive of each other and grow together.”
Arianna Maffei, left, and lead author Hillary Schiff, in Maffei’s Neurobiology lab at Stony Brook. Photo by Josh F. Kogan
Findings from a Stony Brook University research team published in Science Advances
Have you ever thought about how your food preferences came to be? Food preferences arise as a consequence of experience with food and shape eating habits and cultural identity, as Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin nicely summarized in this quote from his work “The Physiology of Taste” published in 1825: “Tell me what you eat: I will tell you what you are.”
A new study by Stony Brook University researchers brought this concept to the scientific level and showed there is indeed a strong relationship between what we eat early in life, as babies or young children, and food preferences in adults. This relationship depends the effects of our early experience with food has on the brain. The research, published in Science Advances, highlights the importance of early exposure to a variety of tastes and identifies the neural basis regulating preferences for favorite foods, providing important new information about the relationship between nutrition and brain function.
Previous investigations of human infants hinted at the effect of early taste experience on food preference later in life. However, no previous study examined the neural bases of this phenomenon. This study looks at the neural bases of taste preference and provides findings that could form a basis to understanding the neural processes involved in taste preference.
The biology of the gustatory system is similar across all mammals. By using a murine model, the research team from the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior in the Renaissance School of Medicine exposed groups of mice to a variety of taste solutions for one week. They exposed groups as either weanlings (early exposure) or as adults (late exposure). After the one week experiencing a variety of tastes, they returned the groups to their regular diet, which is contains balanced nutrients but with is not rich in taste. For comparison, a control group of mice was raised only on the regular, blander diet.
“Our research is directed at assessing whether and how the gustatory experience and diet influence brain development. This study shows that the gustatory experience has fundamental effects on the brain. The next steps will be to determine how different diets such as a high fat, or a high sugar or high salt, may influence taste preferences and neural activity, ” explains Arianna Maffei, PhD, Senior Author and Professor in the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior.
Maffei, lead author Hillary Schiff, and colleagues increased taste variety in the healthy diets of mice and found that the development of neural circuits and taste preference are influenced by all aspects of the gustatory experience: sensations in the mouth, smell, and gut-brain relations.
Several weeks after exposing the groups to the one-week taste variety, the investigators measured preference for a sweet solution compared to water. Mice who experienced taste variety early in life had a stronger preference for sweet tastes in adulthood compared to the control group. This change preference depended on a combination of taste, smell, and gut-to-brain signals, and was specific to early exposure taste. Mice exposed to taste variety as adults did not show different sweet preferences from their age-matched control group. These results indicated that taste experience influences preference, but only if given within a restricted time window.
The researchers also recorded the activity of neurons in the gustatory cortex of all the subjects. This part of the brain is involved in taste perception and decisions about ingesting or rejecting foods. The recorded activity showed that the shift in sweet preference was associated with differences in the activity of inhibitory neurons of adult mice.
This led to the question of whether manipulating these inhibitory neurons in adulthood can re-open the window of sensitivity to the taste experience.
To answer this question the research team injected a substance into the gustatory cortex that breaks down perineuronal nets, which are webs of proteins that accumulate around inhibitory neurons early in life. Once established, these nets play a key role in limiting plasticity – the ability to change in response to stimuli at inhibitory synapses.
When adult mice without perineuronal nets in the gustatory cortex were exposed to the taste variety, they showed a similar change in sweet preference as the group exposed earlier in life. This manipulation “rejuvenated” inhibitory synapses in the gustatory cortex and restored plasticity in response to taste experience, which confirmed the importance of maturation and plasticity in inhibitory circuits for the development of taste preference in the experimental model.
“It was striking to discover how long-lasting the effects of early experience with taste were in the young groups,” says Schiff. “The presence of a ‘critical period’ of the life cycle for the development of taste preference was a unique and exciting discovery. The prevailing view from other studies prior to this finding was that taste does not have a defined window of heightened sensitivity to experience like other sensory systems such as vision, hearing, and touch.”
The authors maintain that while the study was done in mice, the results inform scientists on the fundamental biological aspects of experiences with taste that extends beyond animal models and to humans.
“The development of taste preference requires a full gustatory experience,” adds Maffei. “This includes the detection of taste in the mouth, its association with smell and the activation of gastrointestinal sensations. All these aspects influence the activity of brain circuits, promoting their healthy development.”
Regarding humans, Maffei points out that we often favor food from our childhood, highlighting important cultural aspects of our taste experience. Additionally, in the public health realm several neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disorders are often associated with hyper- or hyposensitivity to gustatory stimuli, suggesting links between taste and brain function in health and disease .
“Expanding our knowledge of the developmental neural circuits for tastes – as studies like this do – will contribute to our understanding of food choices, eating disorders, and diseases associated with brain disorders,” emphasizes Maffei.
Schiff, Maffei, and collaborators conclude that their overall experimental results establish a fundamental link between the gustatory experience, sweet preference, inhibitory plasticity, circuit function, and the importance of early life nutrition in setting taste preferences.
The research was supported by several grants from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders and from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke at the National Institutes of Health.
Joan Dickinson, left, and Suffolk County Legislator Kara Hahn. Photo by Leah Dunaief
For Joan Dickinson, the new year will be a little less hectic after her retirement — which officially began on Jan. 6 — from Stony Brook University.
The Three Village Chamber of Commerce awarded Joan Dickinson, second from left in front row, with its Harold Pryor Award for her community service. Photo from Three Village Chamber of Commerce
Dickinson retired after 25 years with SBU. For the past year and a half, she was assistant vice president of university and hospital community relations. Before her most recent position, she was community relations director in government and community relations for a decade after first working in the university’s communications department for 15 years.
Dickinson entered the world of academia in 1997 with a background in the corporate sector. While she found it to be different initially from her prior work experience, she tackled various roles, grew professionally and faced and met several challenges successfully.
Among the lessons she has learned during her tenure was the importance of listening.
“Every person has a story, and I became fascinated with hearing them,” she said. “That helped me become better at mediation and negotiation.”
She also discovered her leadership skills when “putting ideas and people together to solve a problem or create a program.”
Through the years, she interacted with people at SBU, local businesses and the university’s neighbors and worked to connect them with the right department at the college.
“I had the benefit of working with every corner of the campus community, and relationships with so many departments,” Dickinson said. “They are the ones who helped me get the job done.”
Relations with the community
One of the biggest challenges SBU encountered during her tenure was issues with off-campus housing in the Three Village area. University officials became involved with improving rental conditions for students and helping to make them better neighbors by working with former Town of Brookhaven Councilwoman Valerie Cartright (D-Port Jefferson Station), the town’s Law Department, Suffolk County Police Department and the grassroots organization Stony Brook Concerned Homeowners. Dickinson said it was a good opportunity for the campus to work with the community.
“We all got together and came up with a plan, and I think that’s why that worked,” she said. “It was a very good town-gown solution.”
‘Every person has a story, and I became fascinated with hearing them. That helped me become better at mediation and negotiation.’
Tackling the issue led to better guidelines for rentals in Brookhaven, SBU programs to educate students on how to be good neighbors and what a legal rental as well as a rental agreement looks like. She said it was vital to teach students that tenants have rights, too. The program is still offered each semester.
“Some of the landlords were just in it for the money, and some of the students were put in unsafe conditions,” she said.
Dickinson is proud of the K-12 program she ran while at SBU, which brings thousands of students from primarily underserved communities to the university for campus tours, hands-on learning activities, also empowerment and inspirational talks. The activities include a wide range of programs, including about health and STEM careers as well as art crawls. Dickinson worked with the Long Island Latino Teachers Association and several local school districts.
“The opportunity to bring students who never thought college was within their reach, bring them to campus and show them what’s possible, that was a lot of fun,” Dickinson said.
Besides interacting with the SBU community, Dickinson has been connected with local chambers of commerce and other organizations in surrounding communities such as Three Village, Smithtown, Middle Country, Port Jeff and Ronkonkoma.
“It was important to see how the communities live, because every community is different,” she said. “So, you find the best solutions to problems when you understand where the people are coming from.”
She said residents from various areas would call her when they had a problem with students or the university at large.
“I think that’s why having the community relations office is such an important part of the conversation between the campus and the community, because they did know they could call me at any time,” Dickinson said.
She added she always tried to relay to residents the value the university brings to the region as everyone is welcome to the campus to walk through the paths, look at art in some of the art galleries and more.
Overcoming the pandemic
She also created CommUniversity Day at SBU, which she called one of the highlights of her career, despite the event being stalled due to COVID-19. Before the pandemic, she said the university was able to organize three of the annual events, the last one being held in 2019, that invited local residents to campus.
‘It was important to see how the communities live, because every community is different.’
Dickinson said she was disappointed when COVID brought it to a halt as each year she was building on the event to make it bigger and better, with more departments participating. By the third year, she described it as “a well-oiled machine” with a wide variety of activities.
As for the pandemic, during the earlier months, Dickinson pulled together a team and headed up a PPE drive for hospital workers that not only included personal protection equipment for employees but also donations of iPads, comfort care items, chewing gum and tissues from the community.
The first few months of the pandemic were an unpredictable and intense time at Stony Brook University Hospital, she said. “We didn’t know from minute to minute what was happening, and I credit the leadership of the institution for getting us through that.”
The retiree said she will never forget the 2020 Easter season when store owners called to say they wanted to donate items because no one was buying anything. They donated flowers, chocolates, eggs that wouldn’t be used for holiday egg hunts and other seasonal items. Dickinson and a team organized the donations for hospital workers to take whatever they needed if they celebrated Easter.
“I will never forget this woman who stood there and looked at me and was crying, and she said, ‘I haven’t had a chance to go shopping for my son for Easter. Now he’s going to get something.’”
She added the hospital workers were working around the clock.
“I credit the hospital with saving our community,” Dickinson said.
Looking ahead
The SBU alum, who lives in Lake Grove with her husband, isn’t saying goodbye to the university altogether. She will teach two classes this semester in the honors college, after teaching at the university for 10 years. But with more free time, Dickinson, who said she is a writer at heart, plans to spend time on various personal projects.
Her former position, which she described as a “dynamic job” is still open as a replacement has not been found.
“Part of the reason why I liked it is I always said I never walked into the same office twice,” Dickinson said. “I never knew from one day to the next what was going to be on fire or put on my plate. It was always changing, and I found that that was just fun to me. That was just captivating. You never knew, and it kept you on your toes. I was never ever bored.”
Dickinson had some advice for whoever takes her place.
“I would recommend that the person, whoever takes over this position, that they have a clear understanding of where we’ve come from,” she said. “How has the university changed? How has the campus culture changed? And, understanding where we are now at this point in history.”
The Brown Mouse Lemur (Microcebus rufus) is recognized as a vulnerable species on Madagascar. Photo by Chien C. Lee
A new study by a team of international scientists including Liliana M. Dávalos, PhD, of Stony Brook University’s Department of Ecology and Evolution, reveals that it would take three million years to recover the number of species that went extinct from human activity on Madagascar. Published in Nature Communications, the study also projects that if currently threatened species go extinct on Madagascar, recovering them would take more than 20 million years – much longer than what has previously been found on any other island archipelago in the world.
From unique baobab species to lemurs, the island of Madagascar is one of the world’s most important biodiversity hotspots. Approximately 90 percent of its species of plants and animals are found nowhere else. After humans settled on the island about 2,500 years ago, Madagascar experienced many extinctions, including giant lemurs, elephant birds and dwarf hippos.
Yet unlike most islands, Madagascar’s fauna is still relatively intact. Over two hundred species of mammals still survive on the island, including unique species such as the fossa and the ring-tailed lemur. Alarmingly, over half of these species are threatened with extinction, primarily from habitat transformation for agriculture. How much has human activity perturbed Madagascar away from its past state, and what is at stake if environmental change continues?
The team of biologists and paleontologists from Europe, Madagascar and the United States set out to answer this question by building an unprecedented new dataset describing the evolutionary relationships of all species of mammals that were present on Madagascar at the time that humans colonized the island.
As a co-author of “The macroevolutionary impact of recent and imminent mammal extinctions on Madagascar,” Daválos helped design the study, interpret a previously published lemur phylogeny, and analyzed prospects for new species discovery in Madagascar.
The dataset includes species that have already gone extinct and are only known from fossils, as well as all living species of Malagasy mammals. The researchers identified 249 species in total, 30 of which already are extinct. Over 120 of the 219 species of mammals that remain on the island today are currently classified as threatened with extinction by the IUCN Red List, due to habitat destruction, climate change and hunting.
Using a computer simulation model based on island biogeography theory, the team, led by Nathan Michielsen and Luis Valente from the University of Groningen (Netherlands) and Naturalis Biodiversity Center (Netherlands) found that it would take approximately three million years to regain the number of mammal species that were lost from Madagascar in the time since humans arrived.
The research team also determined through the computer simulation that if currently threatened species go extinct, it would take much longer: about 23 million years of evolution would be needed to recover the same number of species. Just in the last decade, this figure has increased by several million years, as human impact on the island continues to grow.
The amount of time it would take to recover this mammalian diversity surprised the international team of scientists.
“These staggering results highlight the importance of effective conservation efforts in Madagascar. Here at Stony Brook, we can have an extraordinary impact on preventing extinction because of the longstanding biological field research at Centre ValBio and the associated Ranomafana National Park, with ongoing research on conservation while enhancing local livelihoods,” said Dávalos.
“It was already known that Madagascar was a hotspot of biodiversity, but this new research puts into context just how valuable this diversity is,” says leading researcher Luis Valente, Assistant Professor at the University of Groningen. “The time it would take to recover this diversity is much longer than what previous studies have found on other islands, such as New Zealand or in the Caribbean.”
The study findings ultimately suggest that an extinction wave with deep evolutionary impact is imminent on Madagascar, unless immediate conservation actions are taken. The good news – the computer simulation model shows that with adequate conservation action, we may still preserve over 20 million years of unique evolutionary history on the island.
Stony Brook Professor John Fleagle during a paleontology expedition in Ethiopia. Photo by John Shea
His work in the evolution of primate locomotion and adaptation spans 50 years
John Fleagle, PhD, Distinguished Professor of Anatomical Sciences at Stony Brook University’s Renaissance School of Medicine, has won the Charles Darwin Lifetime Achievement Award. Granted by the American Association of Biological Anthropology (AABA), the award will be presented at the association’s annual conference held April 19-22 in Nevada. Known as the AABA’s most prestigious honor, this yearly award recognizes a senior member of the association who has exhibited a lifetime of contributions and commitment to biological anthropology.
Fleagle is only the second Stony Brook professor to receive the Charles Darwin Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2004, it was bestowed upon the late Robert R. Sokal, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Ecology and Evolution.
Professor Fleagle’s presence in the field of biological anthropology spans half a century. Much of his work has centered around investigating primate evolution, primate locomotion, and broad patterns of evolution and adaptation across many taxa. From Argentina to India, his fieldwork has taken him across the world. In Ethiopia, Professor Fleagle directed a groundbreaking study that uncovered fresh insights into the African origin of homo sapiens.
Professor Fleagle has mentored and trained young anthropologists, founded and edited an authoritative review journal called Evolutionary Anthropology, and authored a highly regarded textbook titled Primate Adaptation and Evolution. He is also a member of the Scientific Executive Committee of the LSB Leakey Foundation.
“I’m delighted that John was granted the award,” said AABA President Steven Leigh. “His work is remarkable and has made major impacts across many aspects of our discipline. His textbook set the standard for our field and I consider it one of the best textbooks in any field.
“Personally, John helped me immensely 30 years ago when I was a postdoc at Stony Brook just getting a start in the field,” added Leigh. “It will be a career highlight for me to present the award to him.”
Professor Fleagle is a MacArthur Fellow, a Guggenheim Fellow, and a member of three graduate programs at Stony Brook University – the Doctoral Program in Ecology and Evolution, the Interdepartmental Doctoral Program in Anthropological Sciences, and the program in Anatomical Sciences.
New York State Assemblyman Steve Englebright (D-Setauket) has held elective office continuously since 1983. Englebright’s long tenure now comes to a close.
In a tight state election for District 4 last month, Englebright narrowly lost to his Republican Party challenger Ed Flood (R-Port Jefferson). In an exit interview, the outgoing assemblyman reflected upon his pathway into government, the legislative victories throughout that time and the meaning of public service.
The road to politics
Growing up, the young Englebright spent much of his time in libraries. He found refuge in books, which satiated his curiosity and “compelling interest in how things worked.” He also nourished a lifelong fascination with history through those hours devoted to learning.
Leading up to his first run for office, Englebright said he was deeply disturbed by the environmental degradation characteristic of those times. The “almost daily reports” of overdevelopment and sprawl, oil spills and drinking water contamination, each had left a deep and abiding impression on him.
‘The proper role of government is to protect the people who sent you.’ — Steve Englebright
He was teaching geology at Stony Brook University when he began considering public life. “I realized that drinking water was the first limiting factor for the continued well-being of this Island, and I was not really seeing any meaningful public policy growing out of the reports of chaos,” he said.
The late professor Hugh Cleland, from the SBU Department of History, would prove to be the catalyst behind Englebright’s ascent to politics. Cleland sat down with him at the campus student union. For several hours, the two discussed a possible bid for a Suffolk County legislative seat.
“This was a really serious and credible and well thought-out request that he was making,” Englebright said. “So I didn’t just wave it off. I gave it some thought and, sure enough, I found myself saying, ‘What’s next?’”
After that meeting, Englebright decided to run and was elected to the county Legislature in 1983. He won election after election for the next four decades.
County Legislature
Upon entering the county Legislature, Englebright simultaneously confronted an array of environmental dilemmas. He described the defunct Long Island Lighting Company, the precursor to today’s Long Island Power Authority, as “at that time wanting to build a small galaxy of nuclear power plants on Long Island.” He stressed that the utility company was favoring its shareholder interests at the residents’ expense.
Englebright successfully championed, along with a grassroots movement of LILCO ratepayers, against the construction of the Shoreham Nuclear Power Plant and other nuclear plants to follow. Their resistance efforts were grounded primarily in the risks associated with evacuation.
Another major policy issue during his early political career was the protection of groundwater and surface waters in Suffolk County. “I pushed successfully for the largest county-level open space program in the nation,” he said. He was one of the earliest critics against sprawl.
As a county legislator, he initiated the first plastics ban in the nation. Though ahead of his time on the issue, he admitted that not enough has been done elsewhere to counteract the problem, which he said “has exploded into a worldwide catastrophe.”
He sponsored legislation excising a small fee on hotel and motel rooms, considering the measure as a fee on tourists allowing for their continued enjoyment of the area through reinvestment into the county’s most attractive destinations.
“If you wonder why county Legislator [Kara] Hahn [D-Setauket] is able to have some discretion to provide funding to Gallery North or the Reboli Center, that funding is coming from the hotel/motel room fee,” he said.
State Assembly
New York State Assemblyman Steve Englebright (D-Setauket). Photo from North Island Photography and Films
As a state assemblyman, Englebright quickly picked up where he left off, building upon and expanding his county policies at the state level. Among his earliest actions was the Long Island Pine Barrens Protection Act, a state law ensuring the preservation of the Pine Barrens as open space.
He sponsored some of the original laws in New York state related to solar power and other renewables. “In my first year in the state Legislature, I was successfully pushing for legislation that had paved the way for the electronic age,” he said.
Englebright added that the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act was the most crucial legislation he ever sponsored. This ambitious law aims to reduce statewide greenhouse gas emissions by 85% from 1990 levels by 2050.
Englebright also successfully led a statewide ban on purse seining, a highly efficient fishing technique responsible for the depletion of menhaden, or bunker, in New York’s surrounding waters.
“The marine world all depends on having this abundant fish at the base of the food chain,” the assemblyman said. Purse seining allowed large-scale fishing operations to collect “whole schools of menhaden, millions and millions of fish.”
One of the fondest moments throughout his tenure happened just last summer. On a boat trip off the coast of Montauk Point during early morning hours, the sun rising off the horizon line, he witnessed entire schools of menhaden beneath the water.
“The sea was boiling with fish,” he said. “Menhaden, they were back by the billions.”
Reminiscent of his earliest years in libraries, historic preservation would be a significant point of emphasis for Englebright. “I’m very proud of the many properties that are preserved, the historic sites.” Such sites either preserved or to be preserved include Patriots Rock and Roe Tavern in Setauket and William Tooker House in Port Jefferson, among many others.
Even in his final days in office, Englebright made historic breakthroughs. Though his reelection bid was unsuccessful, Englebright rejoiced in yet another major victory for environmental sustainability. Last month, New Yorkers overwhelmingly approved a recent $4.2 billion environmental bond act, a multiyear investment in clean water, air, wildlife and the environment.
Reflections from his community
During his extended time in political service, Englebright has worked alongside countless public representatives at all levels of government. He maintained “they’re not all scoundrels,” adding that many were “superb public servants.”
In a series of written statements and phone interviews, several public representatives and close Englebright associates and friends had an opportunity to weigh in on his legacy of service and commitment to his community.
Englebright “proved himself to be an environmental pioneer, a champion for the causes and concerns of his constituents and an unflinching fighter for the communities he served,” Hahn said. “For those of us who served in elected office with him during his tenure, irrespective of political persuasion or level of government, Steve proved himself to be a friend and mentor who embodied the role of effective leadership in the lives of those we represent.”
As recently as Dec. 6, the Three Village Community Trust honored the assemblyman by renaming the Greenway trail as The Steve Englebright Setauket to Port Jefferson Station Greenway.
Port Jefferson Mayor Margot Garant commented on the characteristics that set Englebright apart from other politicians. She said his scientific background and wide-ranging interests added depth to his political persona.
“He’s a unique legislator in that he’s so well rounded in those other areas and that he’s not just focused on the hard line of the law,” she said. “He’s involved with his community, he’s approachable, he’s caring, he’s kind. He’s a very unique representative, and we’re going to miss him sorely.”
Like Englebright, Port Jefferson village trustee Rebecca Kassay worked in environmental advocacy before entering government. She discussed Englebright’s ongoing extended producer responsibility legislation, which would require producers of packaging materials, rather than taxpayers, to be responsible for managing post-consumer packaging material waste.
“This can be a step toward addressing a multitude of waste management, environmental and financial issues facing municipalities and individuals,” Kassay said. “I hope to see the assemblyman’s colleagues and successor continue advocating for policies with long-term solutions,” adding, “Englebright is the type of commonsense representative we’d like to see more of in government.”
In a joint statement, George Hoffman and Laurie Vetere of the Setauket Harbor Task Force reflected upon Englebright’s importance to local harbors.
“In his time as our state representative, Steve Englebright never forgot the importance of the harbor,” they said. “Assemblyman Englebright found ways to secure needed dollars from Albany to help the task force in its mission of protecting water quality and the sustainability of Setauket and Port Jefferson harbors.”
Joan Nickeson, community liaison of the Port Jefferson Station/Terryville Chamber of Commerce, credited Englebright for the continued flourishment of her area. She said the hotel/motel tax he sponsored had enabled the chamber to conduct its annual summer concert series at the Train Car Park.
“Assemblyman Englebright has continued to be a friend of the chamber by supporting our local businesses and attending our ribbon-cutting ceremonies,” she said.
Within those 40 years, countless other acts and initiatives have come to fruition with Englebright’s assistance. Reflecting on his time in public service, he outlined his political doctrine.
“The proper role of government is to protect the people who sent you,” he said. “If you keep your eye on the prize, you can achieve things for the people who invested their trust in you.”
On the role of the public representative, he added, “Use the office as a bully pulpit, speak truth to power, identify things that are wrong and right them, and treat the office as an opportunity to do good.”
For wielding his office as a force of good for four decades, TBR News Media dedicates Steve Englebright as honorary 2022 Person of the Year.
Assemblyman Steve Englebright. Photo by John Griffin, SBU
The Stony Brook Council at Stony Brook University has honored New York State Assemblyman, faculty member and alumnus Steve Englebright for his championing of higher education, public service and the environment.At a recent ceremony, Assemblyman Englebright received the University Medal, which recognizes his exceptional achievements on behalf of Stony Brook University.Kevin Law, Chair of the Stony Brook Council, presented the award following passage of aresolution by the full Council.
A geologist by training, Assemblyman Englebright received his Master of Science in Geology (Paleontology/Sedimentology) from Stony Brook University in 1975 and has been a contributing member of the Stony Brook University faculty, teaching numerous courses including the Natural History of Long Island.
Englebright was first elected to the Suffolk County Legislature in 1983, where he served until joining the New York State Assembly in 1992. As the State Assemblyman for the 4th Assembly District, he has represented the Long Island community that includes Stony Brook University, Stony Brook Medicine, and the Long Island State Veterans’ Home throughout his entire tenure in the State Legislature.
Assemblyman Englebright’s accomplishments that were recognized include:
leading the efforts to preserve the Long Island Pine Barrens by articulating the connection between the preservation of the Pine Barrens ecosystem and protection of the sole source;
helping to bring in nearly nearly $5 million towards helping Stony Brook Cancer Center achieve designation as a National Cancer Institute facility by the National Institute of Health;
establishing funding to rehabilitate Stony Brook University’s Student Health Center;
while leading the Assembly Majority Conference, he demonstrated his passion for the environment and was selected to be the Chairman of the Assembly Environmental Conservation Committee where he was at the forefront of every major environmental policy initiative in the State, including providing:
record investment in the Environmental Protection Fund;
the creation of the nation-leading Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act;
countless initiatives related to renewable energies, consumer safety, sustainability, and water quality protection;
policies to protect and promote open space preservation;
legislation designating Flax Pond a Tidal Wetland Sanctuary; and
millions of dollars of support procured for the New York State Center for Clean Water Technology that facilitated the development of innovative and effective strategies to protect Long Island’s water.
The resolution also acknowledged:
Assemblyman Englebright has worked closely with past university presidents John H. Marburger III, Shirley Strum Kenney and Samuel L. Stanley, Jr. as well as present President Maurie McInnis, to ensure that the campus was provided with the necessary tools that have enabled Stony Brook University to become one of the State’s Flagship Universities and for Stony Brook Medicine to provide the best in medical research and patient care all across Long Island.
Assemblyman Englebright’s efforts and successes on behalf of Stony Brook University go far beyond the noted accomplishments that enhanced the lives of countless students and patients who have benefited from the highest quality education and the best health care on Long Island.
Assemblyman Englebright has served the common good, and is hereby recognized for his exceptional achievements on behalf of Stony Brook University.”
“Steve Englebright has always been one of Long Island’s strongest proponents in the areas of the environment and higher education,” said President of the Stony Brook Council Kevin Law. “My association with Assemblyman Englebright has always been a rewarding experience and we share a passion for Stony Brook and the advancement of its role in forging Long Island’s growth.”
“We are incredibly grateful for Assemblyman Steve Englebright’s decades-long advocacy as a public servant in the Suffolk County Legislature and the New York State Assembly that has truly advanced the Stony Brook University community, Long Island and beyond,” said Stony Brook University President Maurie McInnis.
“As Assemblyman Englebright championed issues related to the environment, education, healthcare and so much more, he did so collegially, collaboratively and respectfully. He has always been an admirable role model both inside and outside of the classroom for the many students he has taught and mentored as a member of the Stony Brook faculty. [He] is an extraordinary leader, colleague, alumnus and friend,” she said.
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