Eagle’s Nest, the Mansion of William K. Vanderbilt II. Vanderbilt Museum photo
The Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum has received assistance from the Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation – a grant of $2,000 from its Reimbursement Operating Support (ROS) program.
Elizabeth Wayland-Morgan, executive director of the Vanderbilt, said the Gardiner grant helped with the cost of the Museum’s service contract for website and IT support.
“The pandemic created an immediate need for increased technical support for our Education Department,” Wayland-Morgan said. “Our educators needed to transition quickly from on-site educational programs to virtual learning. Their expertise in instruction and program creation allowed them to produce new videos and collections-based projects for learning in school and at home.”
“We were able to creatively increase our capacity to serve schoolchildren, families, and other constituents throughout Long Island and well beyond. The Gardiner grant gave us necessary support to make that happen,” she added.
Kathryn Curran, executive director of the Gardiner Foundation, said it created the ROS program to counter the financial impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on “Long Island’s historic stewards.” The awards were for reimbursement for institutional expenses incurred in 2020.
The Gardiner Foundation, established in 1987 in Hampton Bays, supports the study of Long Island history, with an emphasis on Suffolk County.
Earl L. Vandermeulen High School’s Brian Veit and Brennyn Veit with News 12’s Kevin Maher. Photo from PJSD
Earl L. Vandermeulen High School freshman Lucy Kwon and art teacher Lauren Lewonka took part in the Suffolk County Art Leaders Association annual Invitational Show, which celebrates the very essence of art education.
The online exhibition was an opportunity for member art teachers and their selected students to exhibit alongside them, potentially highlighting a creative path and/or link between them.
Kwon’s graphite pencil still life was showcased with Lewonka’s “Grandma’s Recipes” acrylic paint over collage.
As part of its mission, SCALA recognizes the importance of highlighting the physical manifestations that develop out of the mentor/mentee relationship from both perspectives. The exhibit is an opportunity to give visual voice to imagination, exploration and discovery.
VFW Post 5796 hosts a blood drive in the Main Hall, 40 Church Road, Kings Park on Tuesday, Jan. 19 from 1:30 to 7:30 p.m. All presenting donors will receive a T-shirt. Appointments preferred; walk-ins allowed if capacity permits. To schedule an appointment, please call Michelle at 646-983-0661.
A distinguished teacher from the Middle Country Central School District has shown that a little change makes a big difference. Selden Middle School teacher, Ms. Marrero, organized the district’s Shop with a Cop, a program that rewards children with the opportunity to purchase clothing and other necessities while shopping with a police officer. Several students from the district’s elementary, middle and high schools were paired with a volunteer to shop the aisles of Walmart for 60 minutes.
From left, Pasquale Buffolino, Lorelei Tripp, Rebecca Pashman and Peyton McQuade, pictured on the smartboard. Photo from HCS
Two teams representing Thomas J. Lahey Elementary School in Harborfields Central School District achieved Highest Honors in the 2020-2021 “WordMasters Challenge,” a national vocabulary competition involving nearly 125,000 students annually. The school’s fifth grade team scored an impressive 171 points out of a possible 200 in the first of three meets this year, placing third in the nation. In addition, the fourth grade team scored 186 points to finish fourth nationwide.
Competing in the difficult Blue Division of the challenge were TJL fourth grade students Dylan Basile, Claire Bernstein, Sophie Clayton, Aaron Hardy, Abigail Kelly, Elise Larson, Nora McCloskey, Charlotte Storm, Ariel Tripp and Emma Waldren. Each achieved outstanding results in the meet.
Fifth graders Pasquale Buffolino, Peyton McQuade, Rebecca Pashman and Lorelei Tripp were in the top 2% nationwide. Additionally, fifth graders Ben Cammarota, Olivia Drew, Lucy Meindel, A.J. Mercuri, Michael Palermo, Belen Ramos, Annabelle Saylor and Charlie Smith achieved outstanding results, contributing to the team’s success. The students were coached in preparation for the challenge by TJL Enrichment teacher Christine Mayr.
Each year, the WordMasters Challenge exercises students’ critical thinking skills and encourages contestants to become familiar with a set of interesting new words, considerably harder than their grade level. Participants are then challenged to use those words to complete analogies, expressing various kinds of logical relationships.Working to solve the analogies helps students learn to think both analytically and metaphorically.
“Having worked with these students before, and knowing full well their commitment to excellence, along with our work in the classroom, they were well prepared,” Ms. Mayr said. “As you can see from the results, they excelled and should be proud of their efforts.”
Both teams have already begun preparing for the second challenge scheduled for Feb. 22 and 26
Congratulations to Elwood-John H. Glenn High School senior Rithika Narayan who has been selected as a 2021 Regeneron Science Talent Search Scholar, with her project titled “Machine Learning on Crowd-Sourced Data to Highlight Coral Disease.” Rithika is among 300 high school seniors who were selected as scholars from 1,760 applications.
The Regeneron Science Talent Search provides students with an opportunity to present their research on a national stage while celebrating the hard work of young scientists.
Rithika researched how machine learning, which focuses on the development of computer programs and artificial intelligence, can be used to address environmental concerns. In this case she modified the Facebook algorithm, Mask R-CNN, to detect the presence of different coral diseases.
Her dedication to the project, which she began researching in summer 2019, has since earned her several noteworthy accolades. She recently won first place in Environmental Science in the 2020 Long Island Science and Engineering Fair, was named a 2020 Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair finalist as well as a national delegate to the Junior Science Humanities Symposia Program.
Her project has also been recognized by the Journal of Emerging Investigators.
Rithika hopes that her research, which she is currently expanding upon to recognize other infectious diseases, can lead to industry advancements with the help of institutions like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Forty of the 300 scholars will be chosen as finalists later this month. Finalists will then compete for more than $1.8 million in awards from Regeneron.
Brookhaven Lab Scientist Guobin Hu loaded the samples sent from researchers at Baylor College of Medicine into the new cryo-EM at LBMS. Photo from BNL
On January 8 the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory welcomed the first virtually visiting researchers to the Laboratory for BioMolecular Structure (LBMS), a new cryo-electron microscopy facility. DOE’s Office of Science funds operations at this new national resource, while funding for the initial construction and instrument costs was provided by NY State. This state-of-the-art research center for life sciences imaging offers researchers access to advanced cryo-electron microscopes (cryo-EM) for studying complex proteins as well as the architecture of cells and tissues.
Many modern advances in biology, medicine, and biotechnology were made possible by researchers learning how biological structures such as proteins, tissues, and cells interact with each other. But to truly reveal their function as well as the role they play in diseases, scientists need to visualize these structures at the atomic level. By creating high-resolution images of biological structure using cryo-EMs, researchers can accelerate advances in many fields including drug discovery, biofuel development, and medical treatments.
During the measurement of the samples, the LBMS team interacted with the scientists from Baylor College of Medicine through Zoom to coordinate the research. Photo from BNL
This first group of researchers from Baylor College of Medicine used the high-end instruments at LBMS to investigate the structure of solute transporters. These transporters are proteins that help with many biological functions in humans, such as absorbing nutrients in the digestive system or maintaining excitability of neurons in the nervous system. This makes them critical for drug design since they are validated drug targets and many of them also mediate drug uptake or export. By revealing their structure, the researchers gain more understanding for the functions and mechanisms of the transporters, which can improve drug design. The Baylor College researchers gained access to the cryo-EMs at LBMS through a simple proposal process.
“Our experience at LBMS has been excellent. The facility has been very considerate in minimizing user effort in submission of the applications, scheduling of microscope time, and data collection,” said Ming Zhou, Professor in the Department of Biochemistry of Molecular Biology at Baylor College of Medicine.
All researchers from academia and industry can request free access to the LBMS instruments and collaborate with the LBMS’ expert staff.
“By allowing science-driven use of our instruments, we will meet the urgent need to advance the molecular understanding of biological processes, enabling deeper insight for bio-engineering the properties of plants and microbes or for understanding disease,” said Liguo Wang, Scientific Operations Director of the LBMS. “We are very excited to welcome our first visiting researchers for their remote experiment time. The researchers received time at our instruments through a call for general research proposals at the end of August 2020. Since September, we have been running the instruments only for COVID-19-related work and commissioning.”
LBMS has two cryo-electron microscopes—funded by $15 million from NY State’s Empire State Development—and the facility has space for additional microscopes to enhance its capabilities in the future. In recognition of NY State’s partnership on the project and to bring the spirit of New York to the center, each laboratory room is associated with a different iconic New York State landmark, including the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, the Stonewall National Monument, and the Adam Clayton Powell Jr. State Office Building.
“By dedicating our different instruments to New York landmarks, we wanted to acknowledge the role the State played in this new national resource and its own unique identity within Brookhaven Lab,” said Sean McSweeney, LBMS Director. “Brookhaven Lab has a number of facilities offering scientific capabilities to researchers from both industry and academia. In our case, we purposefully built our center next to the National Synchrotron Light Source II, which also serves the life science research community. We hope that this co-location will promote interactions and synergy between scientists for exchanging ideas on improving performance of both facilities.”
Brookhaven’s National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II) is a DOE Office of Science User Facility and one of the most advanced synchrotron light sources in the world. NSLS-II enables scientists from academia and industry to tackle the most important challenges in quantum materials, energy storage and conversion, condensed matter and materials physics, chemistry, life sciences, and more by offering extremely bright light, ranging from infrared light to x-rays. The vibrant structural biology and bio-imaging community at NSLS-II offers many complementary techniques for studying a wide variety of biological samples.
“At NSLS-II, we build strong partnership with our sister facilities, and we are looking forward to working closely with our colleagues at LBMS. For our users, this partnership will offer them access to expert staff at both facilities as well as to a versatile set of complementary techniques,” said NSLS-II Director John Hill. “NSLS-II has a suite of highly automated x-ray crystallography and solution scattering beamlines as well as imaging beamlines with world-leading spatial resolution. All these beamlines offer comprehensive techniques to further our understanding of biological system. Looking to the future, we expect to combine other x-ray techniques with the cryo-EM data to provide unprecedented information on the structure and dynamics of the engines of life.”
LBMS operations are funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science. NSLS-II is a DOE Office of Science user facility.
Brookhaven National Laboratory is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science. The Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit https://energy.gov/science.
Unity Drive’s Pre-K/Kindergarten Center in the Middle Country School District warmed more than hearts this holiday season. Inspired by Candace Christiansen’s “The Mitten Tree,” Mrs. Gorwitz and her students organized a drive to collect mittens benefiting those in need through the local organization, Lighthouse Mission.
Suffolk County Community College’s Talise Geer is a finalist for a prestigious Vanguard Student Recognition Award that acknowledges outstanding students who are enrolled in career and technical education programs that prepare them for professions that are not traditional for their gender. The Vanguard Award is presented annually by the NET (Nontraditional Employment & Training) Project, an initiative administered by SUNY Albany’s Center for Women in Government & Civil Society in partnership with the New York State Education Department.
Geer is one of 15 state-wide finalists for the award and pursuing a new career in cybersecurity.
Geer, a Wading River, married mom to a six-year-old daughter, was working successfully in sales after earning a bachelor’s degree from SUNY Old Westbury. But, she wanted more.
“I wanted to find a profession with job security,” Geer said, adding “and to do something I loved and with the opportunity for advancement.”
Geer researched emerging professions and settled on cybersecurity. “I needed a school offering a cyber security major, a great faculty, affordability and convenience,” she said, “Suffolk County Community College had everything I needed.”
“Talise started with very little computer knowledge, but she fought through every challenging course, and she has continuously improved substantially with each class. Talise always comes prepared for class, hands in all assignments on time, and shows enthusiasm for every topic,” said Assistant Professor of Cybersecurity Susan Frank.
“Talise fully understands the significance of a nontraditional career,” Frank said, “and she is determined and prepared to succeed in the male dominated field of information technology. Cybersecurity offers her a world of opportunity with a higher salary, quick career advancement and job security. A traditional field could not provide all of these benefits. All of her training, along with her amazing attitude and aptitude, makes Talise Geer one of the most deserving Vanguard Award nominees,” Frank said.
“I’m very thankful for the time I spent at Suffolk, the professors and for Professor Frank nominating me for this prestigious award,” Geer said, and also thanked all of her professors for their help in her journey.
Vice President of Academic and Student Affairs Dr. Paul Beaudin was quick to affirm Talise’s observation about the great faculty at Suffolk. “As in many of our departments at the College, we are richly blessed to have a cadre of men and women in this program who are not only scholars and practitioners, but who are dedicated to student success in the classrooms, the labs, and in experiential learning,” Beaudin said.
Geer’s next stop is the New York Institute of Technology (NYIT) Cybersecurity Master’s program, having demonstrated sufficient knowledge in the courses she took at Suffolk.
Geer said that she applied to NYIT, was accepted and pleased to learn that a majority of her Suffolk courses will transfer over. “I don’t think I could have been accepted unless I had the technical background taught to me at Suffolk, Geer said. “I feel competent and prepared.”
“I hope more girls, more women transition to this field,” Geer said. It’s possible! And I hope to inspire more girls and women to enter cyber security. I’m honored and hope that a girl or woman in a seemingly dead-end job considers cybersecurity as a future career,” Geer said.
This month, Northport High School senior Dillon Heinzman, above, was honored with the Technology and Engineering Student of the Month award and fellow senior Maxwell DeBrino was honored as Science Student of the Month. Both students showed incredible passion for their respective courses and will be recognized during the Jan. 21 board of education meeting.
Maxwell DeBrino
Dillon’s commitment to his technology and engineering courses was apparent throughout high school, having taken both Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate classes as well as Project Lead the Way engineering courses. District Chairperson for Science, Technology and Engineering David Storch said, “Dillon’s diligence and tenacity in all his STEM courses exemplify his determination to comprehend complex and highly specialized concepts along with outstanding computer science and technological skills.”
Similarly, Maxwell DeBrino has had an impressive educational career, starting the school’s Trout Team and a co-captain of the school’s Science Olympiad team. When describing Maxwell, Mr. Storch said, “he is a creative and inquisitive scientist who possesses a passion, commitment and sense of wonder when he is conducting experimental research.”
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