Goalkeeper Rushon Sandy. Photo courtesy of Stony Brook Athletics
The Stony Brook University men’s soccer team played to a scoreless draw with the Northeastern Huskies on Sept. 27 at LaValle Stadium. The result brings the Seawolves’ overall record to 1-4-3 on the season.
Stony Brook started quick offensively, creating their first chance of the day in the opening five minutes of play. A shot from Jonas Bickus forced Northeastern’s Colby Hegarty to make an early save. The Huskies responded with a shot of their own in the 15th minute, Rushon Sandy to make one stop to keep the match level.
Opportunities were plentiful as Alex Fleury in the 31st minute had a brilliant shot that bypassed Hegarty, but the Northeastern defense was able to make the team save. Despite another pair of first half chances as Moses Bakabulindi and Trevor Harrison each fired on net, the match would remain scoreless heading into the second half.
Fleury would tally another shot to get things started in the final 45 minutes, while Bakabulindi followed behind with one of his own in the 82nd minute. Stony Brook controlled possession and tried to get ahead as Bickus and Harrison each had an opportunity in the final two minutes of play.
Neither side could generate a score in the match, sending both sides home with a point in the conference standings.
“We got the clean sheet and defended well, I thought we created some good chances. Disappointed though to not get three points out of the game. I thought both halves we were the better team, but we’ve got to do better in front of goal. I think we have the opportunity to create even more chances, but from a performance standpoint it was a good performance. We put ourselves in a position to win the game, but we’ve got to do more to get those three points,” stated head coach Ryan Anatol postgame.
Ellen Pikitch at the United Nations when she spoke at the 9th International Day of Women and Girls in Science back in February. Photo from E. Pikitch
By Daniel Dunaief
Even as Covid threatened the health of people around the world, a group of 30 leading researchers from a wide range of fields and countries were exchanging ideas and actions to ensure the sustainability of ocean fisheries.
Starting in 2020, the researchers, including Stony Brook University’s Endowed Professor of Ocean Conservation Science Ellen Pikitch, spent considerable time developing operating principles to protect the oceans and specific actions that could do more than ensure the survival of any one particular species.
Earlier this week, the researchers, who come from fields ranging from biology and oceanography to social sciences and economics, published a paper titled “Rethinking sustainability of marine fisheries for a fast-changing planet” in the Nature Journal npj Ocean Sustainability, as well as a companion 11 golden rules for social-ecological fisheries.
The researchers, who were led by first author Callum Roberts, Professor of Marine Conservation at the University of Exeter, plan to share their framework with policy makers and government officials at a range of gatherings, starting with Brussel’s Ocean Week and including the United Nations Ocean Conference in Nice.
“We felt something like this was needed in order to reach these audiences effectively,” said Pikitch.
The extensive work, which included two series of workshops, outlines ways to regenerate the ocean’s health and to put people before profits.
The authors suggest that fisheries need to address their contributions to the climate crisis through activities that are polluting, such as dumping fishing gear or plastics in the ocean, carbon intensive or destructive, through the disturbance of sediment carbon stores.
The paper suggests that lost or discarded fishing gear often make up the largest category of plastic waste in the open sea. This gear is not only polluting, but leads to ghost fishing, in which fish die in abandoned or discarded nets.
The authors suggest that labelling fishing gear could encourage better stewardship of the ocean. They also argued that fisheries management has historically focused on economic output, without considering social value and effects.
“We take the view that marine life is a public asset, and its exploitation and management should work for the benefit of local communities and the public,” the authors wrote in their paper.
Pikitch described the work as an “urgent” call to action and added that the researchers will be “meeting with policy makers, retailers, fishery managers and others to discuss these results and how they can be implemented.”
The researchers engaged in this effort to find a way to compile a collection of best practices that could replace a hodgepodge of approaches that overlook important elements of sustainability and that threaten fish species as well as ocean habitats.
“Fisheries are in bad shape worldwide and are degrading rapidly with overexploitation and climate change,” Philippe Cury, Senior Emeritus Researcher at the Institute of Research for Development in Marseille, France, said in a statement. “Efficient and renewed fisheries management can really help to restore marine ecosystems and to reconcile exploitation and biodiversity.”
Pikitch anticipated that some might offer pushback to the suggestions. “If you don’t get pushback, you’re probably not saying something that is important enough,’ she said.
Ecosystem focus
Using research Pikitch led in 2004 from a paper in Science, the group constructed one of the 11 actions around developing a holistic approach to the ocean habitat.
Pikitch’s expertise is in ecosystem based fishery management.
“Fish interact with one another, feed on one another, compete with one another and share the same habitats,” Pikitch said. “For those reasons alone and more, we need to stop managing species one at a time.”
Some policies currently protect ecosystems, including the spatial and temporal management of the Canadian lobster fishery to protect whales and the no-take marine reserves to protect artisanal reef fisheries in the Caribbean.
Still, these approaches need to be applied in other contexts as well.
While some people believed that researchers didn’t know enough to create and implement holistic guidelines, Pikitch and her colleagues suggested that it’s not “necessary to know everything if we use the precautionary principle.”
Pikitch suggested that the Food and Drug Administration takes a similar approach to approving new medicines.
The FDA requires that researchers and pharmaceutical companies demonstrate that a drug is safe and effective before putting it on the market.
Fisheries are making some headway in this regard, but “much more is needed,” she said.
Subsidy problem
The authors highlighted how government subsidies are problematic.
“Many fisheries are highly carbon intensive, burning large quantities of fossil fuels often made cheaper by capacity-enhancing government subsidies,” the authors noted in the paper. “Among the worst performers in terms of fuel burned per tonne of landing gears are crustacean fisheries, fisheries that operate in distant waters, deploy heavy mobile gears like trawls, or target high value, low yield species like swordfish; most of them propped up by subsidies.”
When overfishing occurs, companies switch to catching less exploited species, even when they don’t have any data about new catches. The new species, however, soon become overfished, the authors argued.
In urging fisheries management to support and enhance the health, well-being and resilience of people and communities, the scientists add that abundant evidence of widespread human rights abuses occurs in fishing, including coercive practice, bonded, slave and child labor and unsafe, indecent and unsanitary living and working conditions.
“Abuses at sea continue and more needs to be done to stop this,” Pikitch explained.
Additionally, the authors hope to give a voice to the global south, which is “often ignored in many of these discussions about how to appropriately manage these fisheries,” she suggested.
A beginning
While the paper was published, Pikitch explained that she sees this as the beginning of change and improvement in creating sustainable fisheries policies. She anticipates that the collection of talented scientists will continue the work of protecting a critical resource for human and planetary survival.
“This group will continue to work together to try get this work implemented,” she said. “I’m enormously proud of the result.”
The team celebrates their victory after Sunday's game. Photo courtesy of Stony Brook Athletics
Stony Brook women’s soccer earned its fourth consecutive clean sheet and victory, topping Charleston 3-0 to begin CAA play on Sept. 22 at LaValle Stadium.
The Seawolves improved to 6-2-1 with their fourth straight victory. Stony Brook has outscored the opposition 13-0 during its winning streak, which began back on September 9. Stony Brook continued its dominance at LaValle Stadium, improving to 4-0 at home this season.
Stony Brook took a 1-0 lead when Gabby Daniels scored her second goal of the season in the 30th minute, assisted by Emanuelly Ferreira on a set piece from the far corner. The Seawolves dominated much of the possession in the early going, making good on the constant pressure by scoring the opening goal of the match.
The Seawolves quickly added to their lead when Ferreira and Leah Rifas combined on a goal. Rifas’ throw-in led Ferreira perfectly, who patiently waited to sneak one past Charleston’s keeper to tally the first goal of her collegiate career.
Stony Brook padded the lead early in the second half on Linn Beck’s strike in the 50th minute. Luciana Setteducate and Gabrielle Cote assisted on the goal.
Charleston upped its tempo and pressure offensively late in the contest, finishing with a 9-6 advantage in second-half shots. Despite the nine shots and five corners in the second half, Nicolette Pasquarella was up to the task. Pasquarella made four of her five total saves over the final 45 minutes of play to earn her sixth win of the season and lead Stony Brook to its fourth straight clean sheet victory.
“I’m very happy, it was a great performance by the team. I truly believe that Charleston is one of the best offensive teams in the CAA, obviously that stats say that too. I thought we did a good job trying to minimize their good chances,” head coach Tobias Bischof noted postgame. “But more importantly we did what we wanted to do, which was create chances and score some goals.”
The team returns to the road to continue conference play at Elon on Sept. 26. The Seawolves and the Phoenix meet at 7 p.m. with the contest streaming live on FloFC.
Stony Brook football never trailed en route to its third straight victory, taking down Campbell, 24-17, in the 2024 CAA opener on Sept. 21 in North Carolina.
The Seawolves used a huge, 227-yard showing on the ground, including 179 yards from Roland Dempster to go along with three rushing touchdowns. The Seawolves improved to 3-1 on the year and picked up their first win over a CAA foe since 2022.
Dempster led all Seawolves rushers with 179 yards and two touchdowns in the contest, averaging 5 yards per carry. Malachi Marshall finished with 157 yards through the air, completing passes to six different Seawolves’ receivers. The rookie quarterback added 24 yards on the ground.
Cole Bunicci, paced all of Stony Brook’s receivers in yardage, catching two passes for 35 yards. Dez Williams reeled in a team-leading four catches, totaling 27 yards. Jayden Cook and RJ Lamarre were efficient as well, finishing with more than 30 yards receiving.
The Seawolves won the turnover battle in Saturday’s game, forcing two turnovers while avoiding any giveaways. Stony Brook turned those takeaways into seven points. Jayson Allen and Nick Capazzola recovered fumbles and Kris Caine had 1.0 TFL and a sack in the win. Jordan Jackson secured a team-high five solo tackles, totaling six tackles. Shamoun Duncan-Niusulu and Anthony Ferrelli added five tackles while AJ Roberts and Chayce Chalmers racked up four apiece.
The Stony Brook offense did a good job extending drives, converting on 57.1 percent of third-down attempts and finishing 12-for-21. The Seawolves were also successful on their lone fourth down conversion attempt. The Seawolves took care of business in the red zone, scoring three times on three trips inside Campbell’s 20-yard line.
“First and foremost, I’m proud of our guys for getting a tough win on the road against a really good team in Campbell,” said head coach Billy Cosh said. “We ran the ball well and controlled the game by running the ball today, which was awesome. Our defense stepped up in critical moments; they had some lapses, but they finished and played hard.”
In the last 18 months, Stony Brook University has generated positive headlines for a host of wins, from receiving a record donation from the Simons Foundation to climbing academic rankings to winning the bidding for a climate solutions center on Governors Island.
This year, those gains not only helped attract a larger applicant pool, but also led to a record high enrollment for first-year students in the university’s 67 year history. The total number of undergraduates is also at a record high of 18,263, exceeding the previous high of 18,010 in the fall of 2010.
The downstate flagship university received about 55,000 applications for first year students, with an acceptance rate of about 49%.
“Stony Brook has now become a premier destination for so many students” in the state, country and world, said Richard Beatty, Senior Associate Provost for Enrollment Management. The increasing applicants and the largest ever class size of 4,024 students reflects the “fruit of all the work the campus has been doing.”
Stony Brook ranked 58th in the 2025 US News and World Report rankings this week, up from 93 in 2022. Stony Brook was also ranked the top public university in New York.
Just over half of the first-year students, or 50.5%, are women, while 49.5% are men. These statistics don’t include people who chose not to disclose their gender.
The university didn’t change its admissions standards to accept this larger class.
“We had the same academic quality as in previous years,” said Beatty, as each student has had high quality experience inside and outside the classroom.
Additionally, for the class entering its second year this fall, Stony Brook had a 90% retention rate, which is also an all-time high. The university typically loses 11 or 12% of students from the first to the second year.
“We want the student [who matriculate at Stony Brook] to graduate with us and we want them to graduate in a timely manner,” said Beatty.
New hires
Recognizing the increased interest in attending Stony Brook from in and out of state, the university started hiring additional staff to provide students with the same level of education and university services.
The ratio of faculty to students “didn’t change that much” because of the university’s staffing efforts, Beatty said. “We are keeping the educational quality the same even though we have a larger [freshman] class.”
The enrollment of students who identify as Black and LatinX also increased, even as universities such as Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have experienced a decline in such enrollments.
The first-year class at Stony Brook includes 433 people who identify as black, which is an increase of 19% over the total from the previous year and represents about 10.7% of the incoming class.
LatinX, meanwhile, rose 28% to 633 this year from 496 in the previous year.
SBU Interim President Richard McCormick. File photo
“Stony Brook today exemplifies dramatically all the most important developments in modern American higher education – a growing and highly diverse student body, an expanding research enterprise, and research achievements that are contributing mightily to the economy and society,” Interim President Richard L. McCormick said in a statement.
While the number of foreign students increased over last year, the total number has still not recovered to its 2019 level, prior to the pandemic.
Stony Brook leads the SUNY system in the highest number of Educational Opportunity Program applications. The state-funded program provides financial support to New York students who have financial and academic barriers, helping them attend and graduate from a SUNY college.
Storm challenges
At the same time that the university welcomed its largest ever first year class, the campus and the area endured a sudden and violent storm that not only damaged the historic Stony Brook Grist Mill, but also made some dormitories uninhabitable.
“It was an unbelievable concerted effort throughout campus” to find places for students amid the clean up, said Beatty. “The housing team came up with solutions” that included housing some students in hotels.
Two of the residence halls, Ammann and Gray, are still undergoing repairs, although the university has found places for its students.
The university has 52 sophomores who are living at an off-campus hotel, where they are expected to remain through the semester. They should be able to return to campus in the spring.
Expanded food services
The Starbucks in SBU’s Melville Library. Courtesy facebook.com/SBUDining
Amid higher enrollment, Stony Brook expanded the hours for dining facilities this year, compared with last year.
Starbucks opened at the Melville Library with expanded hours. The foods trucks have a consistent schedule Monday through Friday and Stony Brook added a Nathan’s Famous truck to the food truck fleet.
The university launched new franchises and dining concepts this fall, such as Popeyes, Carvel and Iron Waffles.
Academically, Stony Brook has had a wide range of potential interests from its incoming students. Beyond the typical strengths in physics and math, the university also experienced a growth in the numbers of students applying for journalism, political science and economics.
“We ended up not being over enrolled in any of our programs,” Beatty said.
McCormick suggested the increased interest in the school reflects recent higher visibility.
“This historic enrollment of first-year students is a testament to Stony Brook University’s steadfast commitment to providing an exceptional educational experience and its rise in reputation as one of the nation’s most prominent public flagship research universities,” McCormick said in a statement.
The State University of New York schools have seen an increase overall in the number of applicants.
Stony Brook’s admissions process, which remains test optional for standardized tests like the SAT and the ACT, has become considerably more holistic.
The admissions committee looks beyond the grade point average or whatever test scores candidates submit, while weighing the student achievement in the context of the options available at their high schools.
The larger class size amid a greater interest in the school also has positive implications for the local economy and for the community.
More students shop at stores and restaurants and also contribute to extracurricular activities such as theatrical performances and to community service projects.
These students, who come from all over the world, add to the diversity of the area, start new clubs and present the findings of their own research while attending college, Beatty added.
As for future applications and class sizes, school officials anticipate greater numbers of interested students in the coming years.
“We expect applications to continue to rise,” said Beatty.
Caption: Pictured (left to right): Amol Pophali, Jinwon Choi, Michal Luchowski, Taejin Kim, Mohammed Sifat, Krishnakumari Pamula, Leah Landron and Hyeonji Park. Photo from Dr. Taejin Kim
The United States Chapter of the Korean Institute of Chemical Engineers (KIChE) has selected Stony Brook University Professor Taejin Kim of the Department of Materials Science and Chemical Engineering at the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences as the recipient of the 2024 James M. Lee Memorial Award.
The James M. Lee Memorial Award honors the founding and first president of the KIChE U.S. Chapter by recognizing Korean and Korean-American scientists and engineers who have demonstrated exceptional leadership at the frontiers of scientific knowledge in the field of chemical engineering.
“We are immensely proud of Professor Taejin Kim for being selected as the recipient of the 2024 James M. Lee Memorial Award by the United States Chapter of the Korean Institute of Chemical Engineers (KIChE),” said Dilip Gersappe, Chair of the Materials Science and Chemical Engineering Department. “This award is a testament to Professor Kim’s exceptional leadership and groundbreaking contributions in the field of chemical engineering. His work on heterogeneous catalysis in environmental and energy fields not only advances scientific knowledge but also has significant real-world applications.”
Kim, who also serves as the graduate program director for the department of Materials Science and Chemical Engineering, studies the fundamentals and applications of heterogeneous catalysis in environmental and energy fields. His research group has explored the structure-activity relationship of catalysts through catalyst synthesis, characterization and catalytic performance evaluation.
The KIChE-US Chapter was founded in 2002 to promote constructive and mutually beneficial interactions among Korean Chemical Engineers in the U.S. and to facilitate international collaboration between engineers in the U.S. and Korea. The KlChE is a scientific, engineering, and professional organization dedicated to the advancement of the theory and application of chemical engineering technology.
Kim joined Stony Brook University in 2013, has been an active member of the KIChE U.S. Chapter and received the KIChE Service Recognition Award in 2023.
He will receive the award and present his research during the 2024 AIChE Annual Meeting in October.
Caption: Christopher Berger, AVP for Procurement. Photo by John Griffin/SBU
Stony Brook University recently announced that Christopher Berger, MBA, has been appointed as Associate Vice President for Procurement. He reports to Vice President for Finance Lyle Gomes.
Christopher Berger brings over 25 years of procurement leadership experience serving local and national organizations, most recently as Chief Procurement Officer for Suffolk County. There, he established a centralized, comprehensive procurement framework for the county. He has also held roles as Chief Procurement Officer at Hearst Media, Global Head of Procurement, Travel, Expense, Vendor Risk and Contracts at Bloomberg, LLP and as Chief Procurement Officer at CA Technologies.
“After completing an extensive search, Chris emerged from a highly competitive pool of candidates as a seasoned, innovative and collaborative procurement leader.” said Lyle Gomes, Vice President for Finance. “Chris has a demonstrated track record of excellence in numerous procurement practices including centralizing procurement functions, implementing cutting-edge technologies and optimizing processes to deliver exceptional service. He has also served as an advocate and champion for cultivating collaborative supplier relationships and using digital infrastructures to enhance operational efficiencies.”
As Associate Vice President for Procurement, Berger will be responsible for the management of all procurement activities, including strategic sourcing, procure-to-pay processes, and utilization of technology systems. In his role, he will craft and implement procurement operations to enhance efficiency and accuracy. Additionally, he will oversee the operations of purchasing, receiving, paying, mail, and property control, with a focus on delivering exceptional customer service to the campus community.
Berger earned his BA in Math & Science and a Master in Business Administration from Dowling College.
Stony Brook University Distinguished Professor of Mathematics Christopher Bishop was awarded the 2024 Senior Berwick Prize by the London Mathematical Society (LMS).
The Senior Berwick Prize is awarded in even-numbered years for an outstanding piece of mathematical research published by the LMS within the last eight years. Bishop was awarded the Senior Berwick Prize for the publication of two papers: ‘Models for the Eremenko–Lyubich Class’, published in the Journal of the London Mathematical Society in 2015, and ‘Models for the Speiser Class’, published in the Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society in 2017. He will formally receive this award in November.
“I was gratified and delighted to hear that I had been awarded the Senior Berwick prize by the London Mathematical Society,” said Bishop. “To be recognized with this highly regarded award is a tremendous honor that I appreciate very much.”
Since its inception, Bishop is the only sitting faculty member from Stony Brook University that has received this prestigious award. Other notable winners include mathematicians John G. Thompson, Louis Mordell, JHC Whitehead, Nigel Hitchen, William Hodge, Ian Agol, and many others.
“Professor Bishop’s groundbreaking work creating the technique of quasiconformal folding and applying it to open questions in transcendental dynamical systems is an important milestone, opening new methods of investigation in this branch of mathematics,” said Scott Sutherland, professor and chair of the College of Arts and Sciences Department of Mathematics. “It is a great pleasure to see the London Mathematical Society acknowledge its importance with this well-deserved prize.”
Bishop joined the Stony Brook University Department of Mathematics in 1991 and was named a SUNY distinguished professor in 2021. Throughout his career, he has participated in several notable conferences and fellowships. In 2018, Bishop was invited to speak at the International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM). He also participated in several fellowships, including as a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow, the Sloan Foundation Fellowship in 1992, was selected as a fellow of the American Mathematical Society Award in 2019, and as a Simons Fellow in Mathematics in 2019.
Bishop received his bachelor’s degree from Michigan State University, a master’s degree from the University of Cambridge where he was a Churchill Scholar, and his PhD from the University of Chicago.
Bradley Dirks, James H. Simons Instructor in the Department of Mathematics, and Yichul Choi, PhD student in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, were awarded fellowships at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS). Dirks will complete his fellowship in the School of Mathematics for the 2024-2025 academic year and Choi will complete his in the School of Natural Sciences between 2024-2027.
This prestigious membership allows for focused research and the free and open exchange of ideas among an international community of scholars at one of the foremost centers for intellectual inquiry.
Bradley Dirks
During his stay, Bradley will work on the study of singularities in geometry. Though his research lies in the field of pure mathematics, singularities arise in many adjacent fields, like statistics and theoretical physics. An important point of his project is to attempt to quantify “how singular” a geometric space is. The hope is that spaces that are “not too singular” from this point of view should share many nice properties with smooth spaces.
“It is an amazing honor to spend a year at the Institute for Advanced Study,” said Bradley. “A large proportion of the mathematics that I study was developed by past and permanent members of the Institute. I am especially excited because I will have the opportunity to meet many scholars from various universities and fields of study.”
“Brad Dirks has been doing great work as part of our algebraic geometry group, and the math department has been very fortunate to have him among us for the past year,” said Scott Sutherland, professor and chair in the College of Arts and Sciences Department of Mathematics. “This fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study is a well-deserved opportunity, and the Department looks forward to him rejoining us to continue his Simons instructorship afterwards.”
Yichul Choi
In his time with the IAS, Yichul will study topological and global aspects of quantum field theory. In particular, his research focuses on symmetries, anomalies, and their generalizations. He is interested in applying new generalized symmetry principles to particle physics phenomenology and condensed matter physics.
“The Institute provides an ideal environment for scholars to explore ideas, focus on their research, and collaborate with world-experts coming from all over the globe,” said Yichul. “I am excited to use this opportunity to deeply investigate the physical rules behind our Nature, and to seek new understandings. I am also looking forward to sharing thoughts with leading scientists in the field.”
“I am delighted to learn that Yichul was awarded this prestigious fellowship,” said Chang Kee Jung, distinguished professor and chair of the College of Arts and Sciences Department of Physics and Astronomy. “Last spring, Yichul, working with Stony Brook’s outstanding theoretical physicists, Shu-Heng Shao and Zohar Komargodski at C.N. Yang ITP, was one of the winners of the Stony Brook President’s Award to Distinguished Doctoral Students for his work on Generalized Symmetries in Quantum Field Theory and Particle Physics. So, this news did not come as a big surprise. As the chair of the Department, I am proud of Yichul’s accomplishment and the world-class faculty at C.N. Yang ITP that consistently educates and produces top-notch physicists.”
IAS
Each year, IAS welcomes more than 250 of the most promising post-doctoral researchers and distinguished scholars from around the world to advance fundamental discovery as part of an interdisciplinary and collaborative environment. Visiting scholars are selected through a highly competitive process for their bold ideas, innovative methods, and deep research questions by the permanent Faculty—each of whom are preeminent leaders in their fields. Past IAS Faculty include, Albert Einstein, Erwin Panofsky, John von Neumann, Hetty Goldman, George Kennan, and J. Robert Oppenheimer.
Among past and present scholars, there have been 35 Nobel Laureates, 44 of the 62 Fields Medalists, and 23 of the 27 Abel Prize Laureates, as well as MacArthur and Guggenheim fellows, winners of the Turing Award and the Wolf, Holberg, Kluge, and Pulitzer Prizes.
While the fall provides a break from the summer heat and a respite for exhausted parents who coordinate and carpool for recreational activities, it also can trigger a return to more concentrated time indoors.
Dr. Sharon Nachman, Chief of the Division of Pediiatric Infectious Diseases at Stony Brook Children’s Hospital. File photo
That can trigger the beginning of the flu season, as students and their families share much more than the lessons of the day and stories about teachers and classmates.
Timing shots can be a delicate balance, as the antibody coverage from these shots is typically about three months.
With the peak flu season often occurring during December and January and even into February, Dr. Sharon Nachman, Chief of the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Stony Brook Children’s Hospital, suggested that residents receive their vaccines in a few weeks.
“Getting a vaccine in October is probably the right time,” Nachman said.
Dr. Gregson Pigott, Commissioner of the Suffolk County Department of Health Services, added that the timing for Covid vaccinations is somewhat trickier.
“Because the evolution of new variants remains unpredictable, SARS-CoV2 [the virus that causes the disease] is not a typical ‘winter’ respiratory virus,” Pigott explained in an email.
The county health department recommends that residents stay up to date with their vaccinations.
“Individuals should speak with their healthcare providers for advice that is specific to them,” Pigott added.
Simultaneous shots
Doctors generally recommend receiving both shots at the same time, if people are eligible and the timing for each vaccine is right. Residents who are unsure about their eligibility should speak with their healthcare providers, Pigott explained.
Dr. Gregson Pigott, Suffolk County Health Services commissioner. File photo
The flu and Covid are viruses that change over time, creating a battle between the pharmaceutical companies that manufacture vaccinations and the viruses that attempt to evade them.
Each year, the vaccines attempt to provide the best match against the dominant or most likely strains.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “determines if the vaccine will protect against a circulating virus by conducting laboratory studies on circulating flu viruses,” Pigott explained in an email. “Updated 2024-2025 flu vaccines will be trivalent” and will protect against H1N1, H3N2 and a B/ Victoria lineage virus.
Vaccine manufacturers create immunizations based on the flu strain circulating in the southern hemisphere during the recent season.
“We expect that those are what’s going to hit us in our winter,” Nachman said. “The science is there. We know generally what types will be rolling around. We could hit or miss it by a subtype.”
Nachman added that the flu vaccines represent educated guesses about the type of microbe that might cause illnesses.
“The educated guesses are still better than no vaccine, which will, for sure, not cover you at all,” Nachman said
As for the Covid immunization, doctors added that it is also likely to change as the virus that caused the pandemic mutates.
Nachman said people should plan to get the Covid shot around once a year.
“I don’t think we’re going to go to more often” than that, Nachman said.
During the summer, when an infectious strain of Covid surged across the county, state and country, Nachman said the data is not available to determine how much protection a vaccine provided.
“Only on TV do computer models work instantly,” Nachman said.
She suspects that the Covid shot offered some protection for residents, who may not have been as sick for as long as some of those who dealt with a range of symptoms.
Concussion awareness
With the start of a new school year and the beginning of contact sports like football, school districts are continuing to ensure that coaches and athletes follow concussion protocols.
“Schools have done a nice job thinking and talking about it,” said Nachman. “Coaches know you can’t throw [student athletes] out and say, ‘You’ll do fine,’” after a head injury.
Nachman suggested that area athletes may engage in activities that are not connected to the schools and that may involve head injuries that people ignore.
“We know what’s happening with school-regulated” sport, but not with those that are outside the academic umbrella, she added.
As for the emotional or psychological impacts of a divided and bitter electorate during an election year, Nachman said people are under considerable emotional stress.
“The social media echo chamber is making it worse,” she said. The abundance of misinformation on both sides is causing mental anguish.
“Election times are very stressful and I think, in particular, this election may be even more stressful,” Nachman said.
Nachman urges people to minimize their time on social media and to create down time from electronics during meals.
As students move up a grade and into new places, they also can endure stressors, peer pressure and bullying. She suggests that parents understand what their children are seeing online.
Newborn RSV protection
Children born in March or later are eligible to receive an approved shot called Beyfortus, which, in 80 percent of cases during clinical trials, prevents the development of respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV.
The Beyfortus monoclonal antibody will make a “huge difference” for newborns and their parents, Nachman said. Last year, Stony Brook had numerous hospitalizations in children under one year of age.
“We’re not going to have those children coming into the hospital,” Nachman said. “That’s amazing and is a huge step forward.”
When newborns get RSV, doctors don’t have an effective treatment for the virus and typically treat the symptoms.
The mortality rate from RSV is low, but the morbidity is high. Newborns who contract RSV can end up developing chronic asthma.
As with any shot, Beyfortus can have side effects, with the most common including rash and pain, swelling, or hardness at the site of the injection, according to AstraZeneca and Sanofi, which manufacture the antibody.
Beyfortus is covered by insurance and is under the vaccine for children program and numerous private health insurance plans. Parents can opt out of the shot. Nachman suggested they should understand what they are opting out of when they make that decision.
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