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Distinguished Professor Arie Kaufman demonstrating two applications in the FlexiCAVE. On the left is a protein volume (inner pivot ~10 degrees, outer pivot ~30 degrees), and on the right side is Submerse application – visualization for extreme weather flooding in urban environments (on a flat FlexiCAVE section). Photo from SBU

Technology Can Be Used in Multiple Areas Including Healthcare, Climate Change, Managing Natural Disasters, Architecture, Urban Planning and Drug Design

Stony Brook University’s Center for Visual Computing has completed construction of the FlexiCAVE—the world’s largest flexible, dynamically reconfigurable high-resolution stereo display facility. Housed on the first floor of the New Computer Science (NCS) building, the FlexiCAVE comprises 40 tiled, high-pixel-density monitors capable of rendering about 83 million pixels, all while physically transforming its shape to support a wide range of scientific and data-driven applications, improving  immersive visualization technology.

“We envisioned a display that would adapt to the data—not the other way around,” said Arie Kaufman, distinguished professor of Computer Science and the principal investigator behind the project. “With FlexiCAVE, we’re enabling researchers to literally shape their workspace to the needs of their analysis.”

Innovative Interaction and Applications

Unlike traditional static visualization walls or even curved displays, the FlexiCAVE is built on a modular architecture with rotatable display columns. The system can seamlessly transition between flat, L-shaped, U-shaped, or semi-circular configurations in real time. These transitions are not only cosmetic.  They directly influence the visualization, the user experience and the type of data interaction enabled.

A custom-built rendering engine powers the design that synchronizes stereo views and dynamically updates visualizations as users physically adjust the screen layout. The team calls this new interaction paradigm —PIVoT, which is an acronym for  Physical Interaction to Virtual Transformation.

“It’s more than a screen. It’s a physical and tangible interface for virtual exploration where users are immersed in the data, and the layout of the FlexiCAVE anchors their sense of whereness, helping them stay oriented as they navigate complex visual spaces,” noted Principal Research Scientist Dr. Saeed Boorboor, co-author of the recently submitted VIS 2025 paper which details the system.

Real-World Applications

Immersive virtual colonoscopy showing on the FlexiCAVE, where radiologists navigate inside the patient’s colon model to locate and analyze polyps (all pivot angles are ~40 degrees). Photo from SBU

The team has already demonstrated real-world applications in many areas including healthcare. For example, virtual colonoscopy shifts the layout from a flat 2D overview of the patient’s colon to a curved immersive 3D endoluminal view (see Figure 2). In medical imaging visualization, radiologists can tangibly move the FlexiCAVE displays to virtually “slice” through brain MRI or abdominal CT scans.

And in situations like in  urban flood simulations, emergency planners can  orient and navigate flooding scenarios spatially by reconfiguring the display (see Figure 1).

In addition, researchers are using FlexiCAVE to experiment with multivariate data visualization, dynamically switching between scatter plots and parallel coordinate plots by physically bending screen segments. This hands-on interaction transforms the way users explore complex datasets. In an early user study, participants preferred the flexibility of the system and reported improved spatial perception over traditional static layouts. Other areas that can be enhanced  include architecture, urban planning, geospatial data, biological systems, drug design, and many others.

Why Now?

As datasets continue to grow in both size and complexity—ranging from volumetric brain scans to climate models—there is a pressing need for immersive tools that allow researchers to explore data from multiple angles and scales. The FlexiCAVE, part of a  growing trend in large high-resolution tiled displays,takes a bold step forward by combining stereoscopy, dynamic curvature, and tangible interaction into one unified system.

With backing from the New York State and Federal agencies, the FlexiCAVE’s development represents years of engineering insight, including customized aluminum framing, inclinometer-equipped hinges, and powerful GPU clusters capable of real-time image updates in a noise-canceling cabinet.

Looking Ahead

While the current version requires manual adjustment of the display columns—a design challenge acknowledged by the team—future updates may introduce motorized column rotation for ease of use. The research group is also exploring new applications in collaborative analytics and adaptable visualization workflows.

“We hope FlexiCAVE becomes a blueprint for the next generation of immersive environments—not only here at Stony Brook, but also globally,” said Professor Kaufman.

 

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This image captures bioprinted structures created with TRACE. Clockwise from the top left: structures mimicking the heart, intestine, kidney, and a vascular tree. Photos by Michael Mak, Xiangyu Gong, and Zixie Liang

A team of biomedical researchers led by Michael Mak, PhD, in the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University, has developed a new method of bioprinting physiological materials. Called TRACE (Tunable Rapid Assembly of Collagenous Elements), the method solves previous problems of bioprinting natural materials of the body. It is also a highly versatile biofabrication technique, will help advance drug development and disease modeling, and potentially impact regenerative medicine.

Details of the method are explained in a paper published in Nature Materials.

Bioprinting positions biochemicals, biological materials, and living cells for the generation of bioengineered structures. The process uses biological inks (bioinks) and biomaterials, along with computer-controlled 3D printing techniques, to construct living tissue models used in medical research. While 3D printing technologies are newer to medicine and biomedical research, their applications are prominent in industries such as automotive manufacturing.

Researchers point out that despite the potential of bioprinting, achieving functionality in bioprinted tissues and organs has been challenging because biological cells in traditional bioprinted tissues are unable to perform their natural activities in the body – thus rendering most bioprinted tissues unusable for clinical purposes and advanced medical applications.

Mak and colleagues hope TRACE will help rectify this problem in future medical research.

“Our method is essentially a novel platform technology that can be used to print wide-ranging tissue and organ types,” says Mak, Associate Professor in the Department of Pharmacological Sciences. “With TRACE, we figured out how to fabricate and manufacture complex user-designable tissue and organ structures via 3D patterning and printing using the body’s natural building blocks, particularly collagen, as bioinks in a highly biocompatible manner and with direct incorporation of living cells,” he explains.

Collagen (especially Collagen Type I) is the most prominent and abundant protein in the human body. It is a key building block in tissues including skin, muscle, bone, tendon, and vital organs such as the heart. Collagen acts as the “glue” to many tissues and organs and is crucial as the body’s natural scaffolding material for holding cells and tissues in place. It also helps direct cells to perform their functions.

According to Mak, because of each of these attributes of collagen in physiological processes, it is a top candidate to be used as a bioink material.

In the paper, titled “Instant Assembly of Collagen for Tissue Engineering and Bioprinting,” the authors explain how with TRACE they can bioprint physiological materials by rapidly accelerating the gelation process of collagen. Their method is mediated by macromolecular crowding, a process in which an inert crowding material is used to speed up the assembly reaction of collagen molecules.

By doing this, they can create tissues composed of the same basic elements as those found inside the body. Then they apply TRACE to generate functional tissues and “mini organs” such as heart chambers.

On the overall results of the work, Mak and his co-authors summarize: “TRACE offers a versatile biofabrication platform, enabling direct 3D printing of physiological materials and living tissues, achieving both structural complexity and biofunctionality. This work broadens the scope of controllable multiscale biofabrication for tissues across various organ systems, using collagen as a key component.”

 

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Ellen Pikitch as a delegate for Monaco at the United Nations in April.

By Daniel Dunaief

To borrow from the show Hamilton, Ellen Pikitch was in the room where it happens.

The Endowed Professor of Ocean Conservation Science at Stony Brook University, Pikitch traveled to the United Nations on the east side of Manhattan last month to serve as a delegate for Monaco during the Preparatory Commission for the High Seas Treaty, which is also known as Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction.

The meeting, the first of several gatherings scheduled after the passage of the historic High Seas Treaty that is designed to protect 30 percent of the oceans by 2030, started to create a framework of rules and procedures.

Pikitch, who has advanced, developed and implemented Marine Protected Areas globally, was pleased with the early progress.

“I came away feeling optimistic that we are going to have a functional High Seas Treaty within a couple of years,” said Pikitch. “These details are being hashed out before the treaty comes into force.”

Indeed, 60 nations need to ratify the treaty for it to come into force.

At this point, 20 of the 194 countries that are member state of the United Nations have ratified the treaty. Each country has its own procedures for providing national support for an effort designed to protect biodiversity and natural resources.

Numerous representatives and members of environmental organizations are encouraging leaders of countries to ratify the treaty before the United Nations Oceans conference in Nice from June 9th to June 13th.

Award winning actress and activist Jane Fonda gave a speech at the meeting, urging countries to take the next steps.

“This isn’t just about protecting the oceans. It’s about protecting ourselves,” said Fonda. “Please, please, when you go back to your capitals in the next few days, remind your ministers of what we’re working toward. Remind them that we have a chance this year to change the future.”

Getting 60 ratifications this year is going to be “another monumental achievement,” Fonda continued. “We know it isn’t easy, but we also know that without the level of urgency… the target of protecting 30 percent of the world’s oceans will slip out of our grasp.”

Pikitch expects that the first 60 countries will be the hardest and that, once those agree, others will likely want to join to make sure they are part of the decision making. The treaty will form a framework or benefit sharing from biodiversity discovered as well as the resource use and extraction at these high seas sites.

“New discoveries from the high seas are too important for countries to ignore,” Pikitch said.

The members who ratify the treaty will work on a framework for designating protected areas on the high seas.

Pikitch shared Fonda’s sense of urgency in advancing the treaty and protecting the oceans.

“There is no time to waste,” Pikitch said. In the Stony Brook Professor’s opinion, the hardest part of the work has already occurred, with the long-awaited signing of the treaty. Still, she said it “can’t take another 20 years for the High Seas Treaty to come into effect.”

Monaco connection

Pikitch has had a connection with the small nation of Monaco, which borders on the southeastern coast of France and borders on the Mediterranean Sea, for over a decade.

Isabelle Picco, the Permanent Representative to the United Nations for Monaco, asked Pikitch to serve as one of the two delegates at the preparatory commission last month.

Pikitch is “thrilled” to be working with Monaco and hopes to contribute in a meaningful way to the discussion and planning for the nuts and bolts of the treaty.

Other meetings are scheduled for August and for early next year.

Most provisions at the United Nations require unanimous agreement, which, in part, is why the treaty itself took over 20 years. Any country could have held up the process of agreeing to the treaty.

To approve of a marine protected area, the group would only need a 2/3 vote, not a complete consensus. That, Pikitch hopes, would make it more likely to create a greater number of these protected places.

Scientific committee

The meeting involved discussions over how the treaty would work. Once the treaty has come into force, a scientific committee will advise the secretariat. The group addressed numerous issues related to this committee, such as the number of its members, a general framework for how members would be selected, the composition of the committee in terms of geographic representation, how often the committee would meet and whether the committee could set up working groups for topics that might arise.

Representatives of many countries expressed support for the notion that the scientific committee would make decisions based on their expertise, rather than as representatives of their government. This approach could make science the driving force behind the recommendations, rather than politics, enabling participants to use their judgement rather than echo a political party line for the party in power from their country.

Several participants also endorsed the idea that at least one indigenous scientist should be on this committee.

Pikitch, who has also served at the UN as a representative for the country of Palau, was pleased that the meeting had considerable agreement.

“There was a spirit of cooperation and a willingness to move forward with something important,” she said. By participating in a timely and meaningful way in this process, [the countries involved] are behaving as though they are convinced a high seas treaty will come into force” before too long.

Ultimately, Pikitch expects that the agreement will be a living, breathing treaty, which will give it the flexibility to respond to fluid situations.

As Fonda suggested, the treaty is about “recognizing that the fate of humanity is inextricably linked to the health of the natural world.” She thanked the group for “giving me hope.”

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Heather Lunch, professor in SBU’s Department of Ecology and Evolution, speaking at the May meeting of the League of Women Voters at Comsewogue Library. Photo by Sabrina Artusa

By Sabrina Artusa

For a research-focused doctoral university like Stony Brook University, federal cuts to grant funding creates uncertainty for research faculty relying on the money either for potential projects or current ones. 

As one of only 187 universities in the nation designated as having a very high research spending and doctorate production, according to Carnegie Classification, the university is highly active in academic research. 

Funding is commonly sponsored by federal departments like the Department of Defense, the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation and NASA. Federal sponsors account for the majority of funding for research awards – over 50% of research and development in higher education fields was financed by the federal government according to 2021 NSF data. 

Salaries and staff

This money not only supports the faculty at R1 schools whose priority is research and are classified as having Very High Research Activity, but also the various other components of the project such as materials, postdoctorate students, graduate students and overhead. Stony Brook University Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution Heather Lynch likens research to “running a small business.” Indeed, principal investigators (PI) are usually responsible for the salaries of the research scientists and postdocs working below them. 

In a 2022 letter, Stony Brook University leadership revised the salary ranges for postdoc researchers. They write, “We understand that many postdoc and research scientist positions are supported by externally sponsored awards, which are typically fixed in their total amount, and therefore salary increases are subject to the availability of funds.”

Some faculty are paid by the university in 9- or 6-month appointments. These researchers are then responsible for supplementing their salary for the rest of the year through grant funding. Since research is the primary function of their position at R1 universities – teaching is secondary – Lynch said that she and other faculty are responsible for supplementing their salary through grants. “The PI is not out there necessarily wanting to take on more research, but you have a lot of employees working for you and you want to keep them employed, so you are constantly hustling,” Lynch said.

Researchers that are part of university faculty receive a base salary; however, it is typical that “soft money” staff, usually medical researchers who don’t do much teaching, do not receive any salary from the university they work for and have to pay themselves through grants. 

Due to the loss of funding, many researchers, postdocs and graduate students are considering leaving the U.S. to pursue their studies. According to a Nature  poll, around three-quarters of over the 1,500 postgraduates, grad students and scientists that answered were exploring international opportunities, as of March. 

Some grant programs were specifically intended for young researchers. Now, universities are limiting their acceptance of graduate students as they reorient resources to support current students amid the diminished indirect cost funding.

Impact of research

Grants usually take months to create; in addition to detailing the project plan, research strategy  and the equipment needed, the document can have broader impact sections, which usually includes the opportunities for engagement for underrepresented groups. With the expiring of DEI, “they changed the way broader impacts are defined,” Lynch said. Key DEI words relating to gender or words leading to blocks, even for research already in progress. 

The scrupulous application process includes eliminating any potential conflicts of interest, which includes anyone the principal investigator has worked with the previous 48 months. Then, a panel of experts meet to study and analyze the proposal. For a proposal Lynch created, she assembled a list amounting to over 180 conflicts of interest. The process is designed to prevent bias or corruption.

Lynch believes cuts were enabled by a societal misunderstanding of the value that lies in the research. Obscure to the less scientifically-versed, these projects aren’t often recognized for their discoveries, at least not in wide public spheres. 

Having been  a PI herself, Lynch has done environmental research on Antarctic penguins that won her a Golden Goose Award for federally funded and underrecognized research that had tremendous impact in scientific communities, potentially paving the way for further discoveries and innovations. Other Golden Goose winners include a team whose research led to artificial intelligence advancements. 

“These grants are not a gift, they are payments for services,“ Lynch said.

Indirect costs

Funding dedicated to operating the university and thereby enabling this research are factored into the proposal under facilities and administrative rates, otherwise known as indirect costs. Direct costs include salaries and equipment – costs that are necessary for the specific project. Indirect costs are specific to the university; therefore, each project that is associated with the school and is benefiting from its services must include an additional amount that goes back to the school.  

The rate was capped at 15% by the NIH, DOE and NSF. The NIH and DOE caps are enacted retroactively. The cap is universal across the country. Previously, indirect cost rates varied depending on the university. R1 universities, which typically have larger research facilities, had higher rates. Stony Brook had a rate of 56%, and previously applied for rate renewals with the Department of Health and Human Services. 

IDC limited the amount researchers can use while raising the overall grant request. Previously, researchers complained about this, but now, Lynch said “these IDC rates mean you are not going to have money to maintain equipment, you are going to have to reduce staff to core faculties, you will not be able to build new research faculties, you will have to fire people who do permits and lab safety.”

“These cuts can make it very hard for these PIs like myself to keep postdocs and graduate students paid, and these layoffs in the talent pipeline will create long-term damage to our scientific competitiveness,” Lynch said. She said she does not speak on behalf of the university. 

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Angelika Drees at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Drees is pointing to the pipe that runs clockwise, while, on the other side of that pipe, is another one (marked in yellow tape) that runs counterclockwise. Photo by Daniel Dunaief

By Daniel Dunaief

Finely tuned accelerators, constructed underground in rings that are over 1.5 miles long, can reveal secrets about the smallest parts of matter. At the same time, the work researchers do, which involves accelerating electrons, ions and other sub atomic particles, operates at a level considerably smaller than a human hair, using sensitive equipment under tightly controlled, high energy conditions.

Indeed, at this scale, researchers need to account for energies and changes that wouldn’t affect most human activities, but that can have significant impacts on the work they are doing and the conclusions they draw.

Over the years, accelerator physicists have encountered a wide range of challenges and, for a time, unexplained phenomena.

Accelerator physicist Angelika Drees has worked at Brookhaven National Laboratory since 1997 and has experience and expertise with several accelerators. She is currently working on the Electron Ion Collider (EIC), a unique instrument that will explore quarks and gluons — particles inside the atomic nucleus — that will have applications in medicine, materials science, and energy.

Drees does luminosity calculations. She tries to ensure more collisions. At the same time, she seeks to protect the equipment while keeping the backgrounds as low as achievable.

Drees works with a loss monitor and is responsible for that system, which includes over 400 monitors. The majority of these are installed between two beam pipes.

Lost signal

Drees has worked since 1997 at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), which is in its last experimental runs before it provides some of the materials for the new EIC.

As an accelerator, the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider has beam position monitors that are comprised of two opposing striplines inside the beam pipe that measure the position of the beam. These striplines, which are on either side of the beam, look at the difference in induced signal amplitude. Equal amplitude, with a difference of zero, implies that the beam is in the center.

While the engineers knew that the material for the cables, which transmit signals from the beam position monitor to the system that sees its location, would shrink when exposed to temperatures of 4 degrees Kelvin, they hadn’t adjusted the design to prepare for the change.

When the electronics shrunk after being exposed to temperatures close to absolute zero, which help make the magnets superconducting, they pulled themselves out of their power source.

“We could not see the position of the beam,” Drees explained. “This was during the so-called sextant test, and the beam was not (yet) circling.”

The magnets operated independent of the beam position monitors.

For about a year they could see the beamline 20 meters downstream. Before Drees arrived, the team updated the cables, putting kinks that allowed them to shrink without interfering with their operation of pulling themselves out of the power source.

“It was repaired and, ever since, there has been no further issue,” she said.

‘Weird variation’

Before she arrived at BNL, Drees conducted her PhD work at the Large Electron-Positron Collider, or LEP, which has now become the site of the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, Switzerland.

The LEP was 27 kilometers long and was between 30 meters and 160 meters underground. It stretched below France and Switzerland. Some part of it was in soil that is affected by Lake Geneva. Half of the LEP was embedded below the Jura bedrock and the other half was embedded in softer sedimentary deposits close to the lake.

Scientists saw regular variation in their results, with a peak to peak beam energy of about 250 parts per million. By studying the timing of these peaks to a regular 28-day and daily cycle, they connected it to the moon.

“The moon not only affects Earth’s oceans, but the actual crust and thus the LEP ring inside it,” Drees explained.

The moon wasn’t the only outside influence on the LEP. Rainwater penetrated the tunnel.

The magnet yokes had concrete between metal laminations. The concrete absorbed the humidity and expanded, increasing pressure on the metal laminations.

That changed the magnetic permeability and the transfer function, which indicates how much bending magnetic field researchers get out of a magnet with a specific electric current.

Rain took about two weeks to show up in the data, as the water took that long to reach and alter the concrete.

During her PhD on the LEP beam energy measurement and calibration, Drees searched for environment effects as a part of her thesis.

While others discovered the moon tides before she arrived, she and other researchers couldn’t account for a ground current that was penetrating into the equipment.

Acting like an extra and inexplicable power source, this current changed the magnetic field.

The extra energy invalidated earlier results. The error bar was four times larger than they originally thought, causing the LEP working group to withdraw a paper and commit to redoing the analysis.

The energy disappeared from midnight to 4 am. Back then, researchers at the LEP were so eager for an explanation that they posted a message on a TV screen, offering an award, like a bottle of champagne, to anyone who could explain what was happening.

Suspecting planes might be contributing, Drees sent a student to the airport to monitor flights. The police, however, weren’t too pleased with this data gathering, initially questioning, then sending the student away.

Drees met with the power authority, who had measured ground currents in the area for years that stopped during those same post midnight hours.

That provided the necessary clue, as the trains — and, in particular the French ones — had contributed this unexplained energy.

Unlike the Swiss trains, which operate with alternating current, the French trains use direct current, which had affected their experiments.

Looking forward

Angelika Drees on her horse Pino.

Originally from Wuppertal, Germany, Drees balances the mentally demanding and inspirational challenges of working at these colliders with manual labor.

She earned money during her undergraduate and graduate school days by shoeing horses.

Drees currently owns a horse and works regularly on a horse farm, throwing hay bales and repairing fences.

“I like physical labor,” she said.

Several years ago, she traveled to Portugal, where she stopped at a farm with a Lusitano stallion. The horse had a loose shoe. While she couldn’t speak Portuguese with the person leading the stallion, who, as it turned out, was the national riding coach, she let him know that she could help.

After she repaired the shoe, he asked if she wanted to ride. She found riding this stallion in the back woods of Portugal “amazing.”

“Very brainy work and very physical work balances each other well,’ she said.

As for the colliders, Drees is looking forward to the construction of the EIC, even as she has bittersweet sentiments about RHIC closing down.

Ultimately, building the EIC presents challenges that she is eager to face.

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Photo courtesy of StatePoint

Ancient civilizations had hieroglyphics, we have QR codes: the patterned graphic boxes prompting you to access restaurant menus, pay for parking, find out information about a package and more.

Generally, quick response (QR) codes are safe, but they can be used to redirect you to malicious websites, so caution is important. Here’s how it works.

• You get prompted to use your device’s camera.

• You scan the code and a link pops up.

• You click the link, exposing you to threat actors.

• You’re directed to apps, websites, locations using your maps and much more.

Bad actors understand people are in a rush, so this is an appealing form of attack. It’s a cost-efficient scam because these codes are easy to generate and distribute. And they are creative in finding new ways to make them appear legitimate. In public places, criminals can cover an official code with a sticker or printout showing a fraudulent code. Some of the more prevalent and convincing scams include:

• Parking Ticket Scams. Criminals place fake parking tickets with QR codes on windshields, causing unsuspecting victims to scan the code and click the link to learn of their offense and digitally pay the alleged fine.

• Brushing Scams. A criminal will ship goods you never ordered, then require you to scan the QR code and click the link to see who sent you the gift.

• Payment Scams. Criminals cover a legitimate QR code with a sticker that has a fraudulent code that directs to a malicious site. This can happen at gas pumps, bank windows, parking lots, etc.

• Crypto Scams. Crypto transactions are often made through QR codes associated with crypto accounts, making this an appealing target for fraudsters, especially since once crypto payments are made, it’s unlikely those funds will be recovered.

To stay safe when using QR codes:

• Check the URL: Once you scan and the link pops up, stop! Examine it for unusual domain names or shortened URLs before clicking.

• Verify the source: Only scan QR codes from trusted sources, like official websites or apps. Codes from unfamiliar sources are more likely to be malicious.

• Check for tampering: Look for signs of tampering, like altered graphics, design flaws or stickers placed atop original codes.

• Be suspicious: Treat sites asking for a password or login information as a red flag.

• Be wary of promotions: Be cautious of offers that seem too good to be true.

• Use a secure connection: Look for a secure connection (HTTPS) or padlock.

• Confirm validity of request: Before taking action, like making a payment or entering personal information, confirm a request to scan with the company. If you receive a QR code from someone you know, reach out to them through a known number or email to verify they sent it.

• Protect your device: Use antivirus and antimalware software.

• Report. If you identify a suspicious QR code or fall victim to a QR code scam, notify your bank and report it to law enforcement and the Federal Trade Commission.

If you scan a fake QR code, your bank account, email and identity could all be at risk. For actions to take, consult PNC Bank’s Reporting Fraud page on pnc.com.

Cyber criminals are always finding new ways to defraud their victims, and QR codes are no exception. With a little caution however, you can better protect yourself. (StatePoint)

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Photo courtesy of Optimum

Optimum, a provider of fiber internet, mobile, TV, and phone services, recently announced the winners of the sixth annual Optimum Innovator Awards, which recognizes FIRST Robotics Competition teams for their innovation and efforts in areas such as community engagement, technology, inspiration, diversity, and sustainability. This year, Optimum is distributing over $25,000 worth of grants to five winners, five runners-up, and 18 honorable mentions to support their continued growth, creativity, and innovation.

With the 2025 season of FIRST competitions completed, the Optimum Innovator Awards recognizes the drive and hard work that teams have displayed throughout the year – from donating Braille STEM kits to launching a “Protect the Pollinators” project that aims to spread the word about pollinators. As FIRST students prepare for the next competition season, the Optimum Innovator Awards further supports their efforts to find new and innovative ways to design and engineer their robots as well as inspires them to create a positive change in the world.

As a long-time supporter of FIRST, an organization that provides students with mentor-based programs to build science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) skills, Optimum is committed to deepening its community presence as well as championing local programs that help inspire and educate future innovators. Optimum’s continued partnership with FIRST is a concrete example of the company’s dedication to celebrating what makes each of its local communities unique and making a positive impact for the residents, businesses, and organizations that call these places home.

This year, Optimum demonstrated its unwavering commitment to FIRST by sponsoring over 70 teams and six regional competitions within its footprint. These efforts helped provide essential resources and tools for FIRST teams to build and program their robots. Furthermore, Optimum employees actively participated by volunteering at regional competitions and mentoring FIRST students. The company also awarded $1,000 grants to 18 of their sponsored teams that qualified to compete in the prestigious FIRST Championship, a four-day international event that marks the culmination of the robotics competition season.

Optimum Innovator Award winners will receive grants of $2,000; runners-up will receive $1,500; and honorable mentions will receive $500. To continue celebrating the winners’ accomplishments, Optimum will host recognition events with local officials and key community partners joining to show their support.

2025 Optimum Innovator Award Winners

Inclusion Award 

  • Winner: Delta Overload Robotics (Indianola, MS)
  • Runner-up: Rebel Robotics (Great Neck, NY)

Excellence in Technology Award 

  • Winner: Horsepower (Kingwood, TX)
  • Runner-up: Ossining O-Bots (Ossining, NY)

Community Impact Award

  • Winner: POBots (Plainview, NY)
  • Runner-up: Bionic Bulldogs (Kingman, AZ)

Inspiration Award 

  • Winner: The Soaring Colts (Dix Hills, NY)
  • Runner-up: Regal Eagles (Bethpage, NY)

Sustainability Award

  • Winner: Putnam Area Robotics Team (Winfield, WV)
  • Runner-up: Bionic Panthers (Liberty Hill, TX)

Honorable Mentions

  • Brooklyn Blacksmiths (Brooklyn, NY)
  • MEGALODONS (Brooklyn, NY)
  • FeMaidens (Bronx, NY)
  • 8 Bit RAMs (Clarkstown, NY)
  • Tech Devils (Denville, NJ)
  • Warhawks (Edison, NJ)
  • Hauppauge Robotics Eagles (Hauppauge, NY)
  • Hicksville J-Birds (Hicksville, NY)
  • SWLA Tech Pirates (Lake Charles, LA)
  • Westerner Robotics (Lubbock, TX)
  • Longwood RoboLions (Middle Island, NY)
  • Bomb Squad (Mountain Home, AR)
  • Knightronz (Nanuet, NY)
  • Cybercats (Old Westbury, NY)
  • Full Metal Jackets (Rockwall, TX)
  • The Mechanical Bulls (Smithtown, NY)
  • SMART (Sylva, NC)
  • uNReal (Thiells, NY)

Click here to learn more about Optimum’s long-standing partnership with FIRST and the Optimum Innovator Awards.

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Stony Brook, NY; Stony Brook University: Science on Stage member Heather Lynch

The League of Women Voters of Brookhaven will welcome renowned Stony Brook University scientist Heather Lynch to speak at their monthly meeting at Comsewogue Public Library, 170 Terryville Road, Port Jefferson Station on Friday, May 16 at 1 p.m.

Many of the medicines and products that we rely on have been created by scientists working on research grants from the federal or state government.

Lynch, a quantitative ecologist and a professor at Stony Brook University, will speak on “The role of grants to universities: How are they selected and monitored?” and “How will current changes to grant funding impact our scientific competitiveness?”

Dr. Lynch is the Institute for Advanced Computational Sciences Endowed Chair for Ecology and Evolution and leads the Collaborative for the Earth, which facilitates university-wide research, education, and public policy engagement around global environmental crises. Her research is dedicated to the population dynamics of Antarctic wildlife, with a particular focus on penguins and other seabirds.

Dr. Lynch’s research in Antarctica has been funded by a range of federal and non-governmental organizations, including through a National Science Foundation Career award—the most prestigious NSF award that supports early career faculty. Dr. Lynch was the first ecologist ever to win the Blavatnik National Medal for Life Sciences, the world’s largest unrestricted prize for young scientists.

All are welcome to attend this event. No reservations necessary. For more information, call 631-928-1212.

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Professor Jennifer Cano. John Griffin/Stony Brook University

Stony Brook University Associate Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy Jennifer Cano was named a Chancellor’s Horizon Award for Faculty Research and Scholarship. This inaugural award from the State University of New York (SUNY) Chancellor John B. King, honors early career tenured and tenure track faculty whose scholarly or creative activities have already achieved significant recognition and crucially, hold strong promise for field-defining impact in the future. This award was given to 10 professors throughout the SUNY system.

Professor Cano is a theoretical physicist whose research focuses on the emergent properties of quantum materials; specifically, topological phases of matter. This includes study of the fundamental principles such as classification, as well as predicting new material platforms to realize exotic quantum phases. Professor Cano developed the theory of topological quantum chemistry, which combines group theory, topology and chemistry, to predict new topological materials.

“I am so pleased to see Professor Cano and her work recognized as one of the top early-career researchers in the SUNY system,” said Carl W. Lejuez, executive vice president and provost. “Professor Cano’s ongoing research is a critical part to building a quantum future, and I am proud to say that many of our Stony Brook faculty, across disciplines, are part of this significant ongoing effort to uncover the secrets and possibilities of quantum technologies.”

“While I am exceptionally delighted that Jen is recognized by the SUNY Chancellor’s Horizon Award for her outstanding work in condensed matter physics, I am not surprised by the recognition,” said Chang Kee Jung, Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy. “Jen’s brilliance is so evident that I fully expected she would receive this award. Her work is already shaping and leading her research field and I have no doubt that it will continue doing so. Jen also excels in teaching, mentoring and her presentation at the Stony Brook  Discovery Prize competition was one of the best academic presentations I have ever seen. It is truly a pleasure to have Jen as a colleague and she is an inspiration for all.”

Candidates’ portfolios were reviewed by Distinguished Academy faculty who made recommendations to the SUNY Provost. Going forward, up to 10 awards will be conferred each year.

Professor Cano was also the winner of the Stony Brook University’s Discovery Prize 2025 for her research proposal, “Theoretical Framework for the Discovery of Topological Moiré Materials.” The Discovery Prize is an early-career faculty prize given to those at Stony Brook pursuing innovative and potentially groundbreaking scientific research. It was established and is funded by the Stony Brook Foundation.

The East Setauket resident earned her PhD from the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 2015. She subsequently was a postdoctoral fellow at the Princeton Center for Theoretical Science. She came to Stony Brook in 2018 as an assistant professor and holds a visiting scholar appointment at the Flatiron Institute.

 

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Paul O'Connor. Photo by Roger Stoutenburgh/ BNL

By Daniel Dunaief

The Earth is way too noisy.

The far side of the moon, however, can act like enormous noise cancellation headphones, serving as a barrier to the kinds of signals from sources including Earth’s ionosphere, which carries electromagnetic noises from lightning, solar flares, radio signals, among others to look or, perhaps more appropriately, listen deep into the past.

On Wednesday, May 7, at Napper Tandy’s in Smithtown, three Brookhaven National Laboratory scientists will speak with the public about an unnamed mission expected to take off next year. The free event is part of BNL’s PubSci science café series (www.bnl.gov/pubsci/).

Paul O’Connor. Photo by Roger Stoutenburgh/ BNL

Senior Scientist Paul O’Connor, Mechanical Engineer Connie-Rose Deane and Physicist Anže Slosar will discuss a project called LuSEE-Night, which, like so many other efforts at BNL, is an acronym. LuSEE stands for Lunar Surface Electromagnetic Experiment-Night.

The Department of Energy project manager is Sven Hermann at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Slosar is the science lead, while O’Connor coordinated technical and systems aspects of the instrument development.

The scientists collaborated with researchers at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Department of Energy and included scientists at the University of Minnesota and at the University of California, Berkeley.

The Space Science Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley is leading the project. BNL is a collaborating member responsible for delivering hardware components of the payload.

LuSEE-Night, which is a radio telescope, is designed to gather information about the Dark Ages of the universe. This time period, from about 380,000 to 400 million years ago after the Big Bang, occurred before the first luminous stars and galaxies. 

Connie-Rose Deane. Photo by David Rahner/ BNL

As the only signals measurable from the Dark Ages, radio waves, recorded through LuSEE-Night provide a chance to learn how the first non-luminous matter evolved into stars and galaxies.

Over the last several years, scientists at the Department of Energy and NASA have shared their excitement about seeing something they had never seen before.

David Rapetti, Senior Researcher with Universities Space Research Association (USRA) at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, suggested the instrument was a “trailblazer for subsequent potential single telescope experiments for the global signal, also including the Cosmic Down signal at a somewhat higher frequency range.”

Rapetti, who has been with the project since its inception, suggested that this instrument could help with plenty of other science.

“In addition to studies of the sun, planets and exoplanets, the roadmap ahead for low frequency observations from the lunar surface represents a crucial resource to further our understanding of the evolution, content and first luminous objects of the early Universe,” Rapetti explained.

A potential measurement of the global Dark Ages signal could in principle reveal “undiscovered new physics or indeed further validate the current standard model of cosmology,” Rapetti added.

Challenging conditions

When looking for a landing site, the team searched for a flat, level surface that was free of large rocks and craters and that had an unobstructed view of the sky in all directions.

Anže Slosar. Photo by Roger Stoutenburgh/ BNL

They chose the Schrodinger Basin, which is about 250 miles south of the lunar equator at a point “almost exactly opposite the Earth-facing direction,” O’Connor explained. This will keep the telescope as “free as possible from electromagnetic interference from Earth,” he added.

Sending the telescope to the far side of the moon created particular challenges. For starters, the telescope had to endure the forces experienced during launch and landing. Once it was on the moon, it had to tolerate the harsh temperature that could drop as low as minus 280 degrees Fahrenheit, and radiation environment, while staying within the mass and power budgets. The instrument mass is less than 282 pounds.

While the landing site is ideal for minimizing electromagnetic noise, it’s difficult to send the information back to Earth with the moon blocking the communication.

Indeed, the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission, which was led by Commander James Lovell and that orbited the moon without landing, was out of communication for about 25 minutes while it was on the far side of the moon.

To gather data from the telescope, the group is sending a satellite that will orbit the moon, enabling communication that has a 1.3 second time delay in each direction as the signal travels to the moon.

The signal processing chain required a state-of-the-art digital chip that could crunch the data as it comes through small antennas and produces a reduced data set small enough to send back to Earth, explained O’Connor, who worked with a core BNL team of six senior scientists and engineers and about a dozen other engineers, technicians and project staff on a final design that took about 16 months to complete

Additionally, the telescope will only generate solar energy during 14 Earth days a month. During another 14 days, the instrument needs to run without recharging its battery.

To protect the telescope against the harsh, cold environment of the moon, the scientists are wrapping the instrument in many layers of an insulating blanket. The heat from its operation should provide enough energy to prevent damage from the cold.

When the radio telescope launches, the four antennas are coiled into a compact spool the size of a soda can. After landing, the latch is released, allowing the antenna to deploy into self-supporting booms three meters long using their own spring force. At this point, several research and development missions are underway to learn more about the moon in preparation for the Artemis 3 manned mission currently planned for the middle of 2027.

LSST/ Rubin Observatory

O’Connor has also been involved for over two decades with the development of a project called the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope that is now called the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Cerro Pachón, Chile.

Rubin was an astronomer who provided the first evidence of the existence of dark matter.

The much anticipated activation of this observatory, which will allow researchers to look into billions of galaxies, asteroids and even dark matter, will start producing data in July.

O’Connor, who helped with the film part of the observatory’s camera, suggested that the BNL science team is “most interested in what LSST/ Rubin will tell us about the nature of dark energy and dark matter. This will come from analyzing the camera’s images which, paradoxically, reveal the location of dark matter as it ‘bends’ the light traveling towards us from distant regions in the universe.”

More information about the event on May 7 can be found here.

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