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Daniel Knopf and Josephine Aller. Photo by John Griffin/Stony Brook University

By Daniel Dunaief

The ocean often serves as an enormous reflecting pool, showing a virtual image of migrating and water birds soaring on the wind, planes carrying people across continents, and clouds in multiple layers sporting various shades of white to grey.

Those clouds have more in common with the ocean below than just their reflection. In fact, some of the ice nucleating particles that help form the clouds come directly from the phytoplankton in the water below.

Daniel Knopf, Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry at Stony Brook University, and Josephine Aller, microbial oceanographer in the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook University, have been teaming up to study the effect of sea spray aerosols on cloud formation in the ocean for 15 years.

Recently, the duo published a paper in the journal Science Advances, in which they simulated sea spray aerosols in laboratory tanks to reflect ocean conditions. They found that organic compounds released by marine microorganisms become ice nucleating particles.

“We performed ice formation experiments in our lab using particles generated from our tanks to determine under which conditions (of temperature and relative humidity) they form ice,” Knopf explained in an email. 

During specific temperature and relative humidity conditions, these sea spray aerosols, which are released when bubbles at the surface containing the materials burst or when wind carries them from the ocean into the air, initiate ice crystal formation.

Previous studies revealed that the water contains organic material from biological activity, but the researchers could not identify the specific type of nuclei.

“The current study closes this gap and identifies polysaccharides and proteinaceous matter” as the ice nucleating particles, Knopf explained.

Through work in the lab, Knopf and Aller showed that the particles produce ice crystals through two different pathways under typical atmospheric conditions. Ice can form either by water vapor onto the aerosolized particles or from liquid aerosol droplets.

From x-rays to climate models

Aller and Knopf explored the composition of individual particles using x-ray microscopy technology at the synchrotron light source at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. 

After digitally marking particles, the researchers transferred the particles to the x-ray microscope to determine their shape and composition.

“This allowed us to unambiguously examine the ice nucleating SSA particles and compare their organic signature with reference spectra of organic/ biogenic matter,” Knopf wrote.

Aller added that the research provides a clear picture of the conditions necessary for freezing.

“This study not only identifies the ice nucleating agent, but also provides the first holistic parameterization to predict freezing from SSA particles,” she said in a statement. “This new parameterization includes immersion freezing, as the INP is engulfed in a liquid, usually water, and the deposition ice nucleation where ice forms on the INP without any visual water.”

The parameterization can be applied in cloud-resolving and climate models to determine the climatic impact of ice crystal containing clouds, Aller added.

This type of modeling can help with climate models of the polar regions, which is heating at a rate faster than other parts of the world.

At this point, Knopf said the Stony Brook researchers have collaborated with scientists at NASA GISS who work on climate models to improve the understanding of mixed-phase clouds.

“We will make use of the newly developed ice formation parameterization in cloud-resolving models and compare the results to observations,” Knopf wrote. “Those results, ultimately, will be useful to improve climate models.”

Competition in the clouds

As for any surprises, Knopf added that it is “astonishing how biological activity in surface waters can be related to cloud formation in the atmosphere.” Additionally, he was amazed that the organic matter that nucleated the ice was similar independent of the water source.

Spectroscopically, the ice showed the same features, which allowed the researchers to combine the various data sets.

This means that different parts of the ocean do not need local freezing parameterization, which makes modeling the impact of oceans on cloud formation easier.

While sea spray aerosols can and do act as ice nucleating particles, the Stony Brook scientists added that other airborne particles also contribute to the formation of clouds. A heterogeneous mix of particles creates a competition among them for activation. Dust and certain fly ash serve as more efficient ice nucleating particles compared to sea spray aerosols.

During periods when sufficient water vapor is in the area, the sea spray aerosols can also be activated. When these organic particles do not become a part of clouds, they form supercooled droplets or float around as interstitial aerosols and get transported to other areas, Knopf explained.

As for the impact of global warming, Knopf suggested that such increases may first change the microorganisms’ activity and breakdown of chemical species in the ocean surface waters. “How this impacts the source of sea spray aerosols and ice nucleating particles, we do not know that yet,” he said.

The particular species of planktonic communities may change, as differences in nutrient levels could select for cyanobacteria over the normal mix of algal groups. That could cause a change in the exudates produced.

Locally, Knopf and Aller are working with Chris Gobler, Professor in the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook, in Lake Agawam in Southampton, which is prone to harmful algal blooms. The Stony Brook scientists are working to understand if the toxins produced by these algae are becoming airborne in sufficient mass.

“It may imply a health-related issue when aerosolized and one is close to the source,” Knopf explained. “There won’t be toxic clouds due to dilution and aerosol mass constraints.”

Knopf and Aller hope to continue to develop these models by combining their lab work with field data.

“This is an ongoing process,” Knopf said. “The more data we acquire, the more accurate the parameterization should become.”

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Photo from Stony Brook Athletics

The Stony Brook men’s cross country team returned to competition today, at the 2022 NCAA Regional at Van Cortland Park. Six of the seven Seawolf runners finished within the top 80 of the field, with four student-athletes recording top 40 finishes, including two Seawolves placing inside the top 20.
 
As a team, the Seawolves finished sixth overall for the best finish out of any CAA team that competed at the NCAA Regional race. Northeastern came in eighth and Hofstra rounded out the conference teams in 27th.
 
The squad was led by senior Evan Brennan and graduate Robert Becker, as both All-CAA runners capped off their season with NCAA All-Region honors after their performances in the race.
 
For the second year in a row at the NCAA Regional Championship, Brennan was the top finisher for the squad and Becker finished second-best for the Seawolves. The senior took 12th-place after crossing the finish line in 29:45.9. Coming in shortly after Brennan to round out the top 20 was Becker completing the race in 20th (29:57.7).
 
Carlos Santos Jr., Shane Henderson, Conor Malanaphy, and Michael Fama all placed within the top 80 as they helped the Seawolves pick up a sixth-place finish in the Regional Championship.
 
HIGHLIGHTS

  • Brennan took 12th-place as he crossed the finish line in 29:45.9. He ran at a pace of 4:48 per mile.
  • Becker finished in 20th-place overall as he clocked a time of 29:57.7 and ran an average mile of 4:50.
  • Santos Jr. came in shortly after Becker in 36th-place with a time of 30:26.8.
  • Henderson took 39th-place with a time of 30:29.6, Malanaphy finished in 57th at 30:54.4 and Fama took home 70th with a time of 31:10.5.
  • Over 227 runners competed in the championship race on Friday.

“The men’s team closed out the season with another competitive performance in the Regional Championship; the goal going in was to challenge for a top four finish. They came up a little short taking sixth-place but it wasn’t for lack of effort, led by two very good runs from Evan and Rob, who earned All-Region honors. All seven guys that lined up gave it all they had on the day and can be proud of the effort they gave, not only today, but throughout the season,” said head coach Andy Ronan.

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Photo from Stony Brook Athletics

The Stony Brook football team put forth a valiant battle, but was narrowly edged by Towson, 21-17, on Nov. 12 at LaValle Stadium. The back-and-forth game was decided in the final seconds as the Seawolves nearly found the end zone as time expired, which would have lifted them to a thrilling finish.

Redshirt freshman quarterback Daron Bryden earned his fifth career start for the Seawolves and tossed a career-high 273 passing yards including a career-high two touchdowns. Stony Brook got on the board with 25 seconds left to play in the first quarter when Bryden found redshirt junior wide receiver Shawn Harris Jr. for a 70-yard touchdown pitch and catch. The score tied the game up at 7-7, and was the Seawolves’ longest play from scrimmage this season.

The Seawolves and Tigers were all knotted up at 7-7 after the first 30 minutes of play, which was highlighted by strong defensive efforts on both sides. Stony Brook struck first in the second half as Bryden threw his second touchdown of the day with 7:54 left to go in the third quarter when he found graduate wide receiver Khalil Newton for a 30-yard strike. For Newton, it was his fourth touchdown catch of the season and sixth of his career.

Towson tied the game up on the ensuing drive when Tyrrell Pigrome found Darian Street for a 36-yard touchdown. The game remained tied at 14-14 until redshirt junior kicker Angelo Guglielmello gave the Seawolves a 17-14 advantage when he knocked in a 26-yard field goal with 2:32 to play in the game.

Guglielmello cashed in on a Stony Brook drive that went 11 plays for 42 yards and consumed 7:13 of the clock. Towson responded on its next possession with a three-yard touchdown run that gave it a 21-17 lead, which it held on to down the stretch.

Prior to the game, Stony Brook honored its senior class which is comprised of Seba Nekhet, Eric Black, Khalil Newton, Carthell Flowers-Lloyd, John Corpac, Carson Tebbetts, Sam Howson, Cameron Lucas, Larry Ross Jr., Matt Mirabito, Damien Caffrey, Delante Hellams Jr., Reidgee Dimanche, Randy Pringle, and Kyle Nunez.

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#22 Keenan Sarvan was on fire Friday night, scoring 29 points for the team. Photos from Stony Brook Athletics

The Stony Brook men’s basketball team found their way to an 86-65 win over Miami Hamilton as they opened at home at Island Federal Arena on Nov. 11. 

Junior forward Kenan Sarvan led the offensive effort, finishing the game with a career-high 29 points and a career-high four assists, while also adding three rebounds. Sarvan exploded in the second half, registering 19 of his 29 points in the second half. 

Graduate forward Frankie Policelli led the team in rebounds, totaling 10 on the night. The New Hartford, N.Y. native went 5-of-10 from the field and 3-of-6 from three-point range. Graduate center Keenan Fitzmorris was a force on the offense, marking a career-high 10 points and shooting 5-of-6 from the field. 

Stony Brook took control with nine minutes left in the first half, going on a 10-0 run that started with Sarvan dishing the ball to senior guard Tanahj Pettway who then finished the driving layup. The Seawolves biggest lead came in the final 27 seconds of the contest when they increased the deficit to 24. The 21-point win is the first 20-point win since the Seawolves defeated Farmingdale State, 87-57, on December 29, 2021. 

The team headed to Rhode Island to take on both Rhode Island and Brown over the course of three days, facing-off with Rhode Island on Nov. 15 and Brown on Nov. 17. 

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The team celebrates their win on Monday night. Photo from Stony Brook Athletics

The Stony Brook women’s basketball team erased a 26-point deficit and came from behind to defeat Iona in thrilling fashion, 73-71, on Nov. 14 at Island Federal Arena.  After being down 38-12 with 6:14 to play in the second quarter, the Seawolves outscored the Gaels 61-33 to earn their second win of the season.

Sophomore forward Sherese Pittman grabbed an offensive rebound with less than 10 seconds left in the game and went back up over four Iona defenders to score and give Stony Brook a 73-71 lead.

The Seawolves’ defense stood strong as Pittman locked up Iona’s Ketsia Athias on the final possession and held off the Gaels’ final chance to secure the win for Stony Brook. The team was led by graduate guard Anastasia Warren and senior guard Gigi Gonzalez, who both had career nights.

With less than one-minute remaining in the third quarter, Warren drilled a three-pointer to cut Stony Brook’s deficit back to six points. It got her up to 23 points on the night, as she eclipsed the 1,000-career point mark. Warren is the 19th player in Stony Brook women’s basketball program history to score at least 1,000 points in her career. She finished the game with a game-high 28 points, along with seven rebounds, three steals, and two assists. Gonzalez scored a career-high 24 points with three rebounds, three assists, and three steals.

Graduate forward Nairimar Vargas-Reyes put forth a valiant effort with her second career double-double. She scored 10 points and hauled in 11 rebounds.

Stony Brook led for just 31 seconds, but was able to come out victorious with its astounding comeback. The Seawolves now hold a 10-5 record over Iona in the all-time series. Stony Brook has won five-straight games against the Gaels. 

The team hits the road again to take on the St. John’s Red Storm at Carnesecca Arena in Queens on Nov. 19. Tip-off is set for 2 p.m. and the game will be broadcast live on FloHoops.

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A study of more than 8,000 women from seven countries revealed that at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, stress experienced by pregnant women predicted more frequent anxiety and depressive symptoms. Photo provided by Marci Lobel, Stony Brook University
Published study of more than 8,000 women from seven Western countries reveals mental health risks at onset of pandemic

A study that assessed stress, anxiety and depressive symptoms in pregnant women from seven Western countries during the first major wave of the Covid-19 pandemic (April 17 to May 31, 2020) shows that stress from fears about Covid-19 led to anxiety and depressive symptoms above normal levels. Led by Stony Brook University Professor Marci Lobel, PhD, the findings are part of the International Covid-19 Pregnancy Experiences (I-COPE) Study and are published in Social Science & Medicine.

The Covid-19 pandemic has had unprecedented impact on public health, including mental health, and has affected social and economic conditions of people worldwide. The onset of the pandemic was especially stressful for pregnant women because of the initially unknown effects of the virus on fetuses, and because prenatal care and labor and delivery practices were greatly altered. The I-COPE Study is the first major research project to compare stress and mental health in pregnant women across these Western countries.

The study involved 8,148 pregnant women (on average about 27 weeks pregnant) from the United States, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Poland, Italy and Israel. While the countries varied in magnitude of pandemic-related pregnancy stress – likely because of cultural differences and the specific impacts of the pandemic in each country – anxiety and depressive symptoms among the cohort were strongly predicted by pandemic-related and pregnancy-specific stress – a result the authors found was replicated within the individual countries.

”Our findings show that the stress experienced by pregnant women predicted more frequent anxiety and depressive symptoms, including symptom levels above clinically defined thresholds for poor mental health,” explains Lobel, Director of I-COPE, and a Professor in the Department of Psychology and the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Medicine at the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University.

Among the seven countries, rates of moderate and severe anxiety symptoms ranged from 14.2 percent to 36 percent, and rates of likely depressive disorder ranged from 10.8 percent to 30.5 percent. Rates of both types of mood disturbance among women in Germany, Poland and the U.S. exceeded global ranges reported by analyses prior to the pandemic. Pregnant women who were younger or pregnant with their first child, those with high risk conditions, and those with limited access to the outdoors reported higher stress, and high stress in turn predicted the mood disturbances examined in this study.

Lobel and colleagues point out that many pre-pandemic studies – including those centered around other traumatic communal events such as the aftermath of natural disasters or terrorist attacks – also find evidence that prenatal stress is a risk factor for adverse maternal, fetal, infant, and child outcomes. Yet comparisons of these effects across multiple countries are rare, and the ability to examine them in the context of a global health crisis, when stress and its consequences are heightened, is unparalleled.

In 2021, Lobel and colleagues showed in another published study of women in the U.S. that prenatal stress during the pandemic onset also predicted worse birth outcomes, including greater likelihood of preterm birth or delivery of a newborn small for gestational age.

The authors conclude that results of the I-COPE Study confirm that stress from the pandemic is a strong, common predictor of anxiety and depressive symptoms in pregnant women. They add that the results “can be used to inform research and clinical interventions to protect against adverse consequences of prenatal stress, anxiety, and depression, as these mental health impacts pose longer-term threats to the health and well-being of women and their offspring.”

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Stony Brook’s LCM facility will use $3 million of NIH funding for equipment and structural upgrades

The Laboratory for Comparative Medicine (LCM) at the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University has received a $3 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for facility upgrades and new instrumentation to support advanced research on virulent and emerging pathogens.

David Thanassi, PhD, Scientific Director of the LCM. Photo from SBU

The grant was in response to a call for “Emergency Awards: Biocontainment Facility Improvements and Building System Upgrades to Support Pandemic Preparedness” from the NIAID. The one-time NIH funding allotment will help support research on the current COVID-19 pandemic and future investigations centering on antiviral programs, antimicrobial approaches, and therapeutic measures to prevent or mitigate infectious disease outbreaks or future pandemics.

The LCM is engaged in basic, translational, and preclinical research on SARS-CoV-2, the viral agent of COVID-19, as well as other infectious agents. During the past five years, researchers at Stony Brook University have conducted work investigating three different RNA virus families relevant under the American Pandemic Preparedness efforts. In addition, the LCM is being used for research on tick-borne pathogens, which are critical to our area, and for studies on tuberculosis, a global infection.

“This award enables us to make infrastructure improvements and acquire new scientific instrumentation to expand our capabilities to perform research on highly pathogenic agents,” says David Thanassi, PhD, Principal Investigator, Scientific Director of the LCM, and Chair of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology. “This is truly a key step toward pandemic-preparedness and provides enhanced resources to not only Stony Brook researchers from multiple school of medicine and other scientific departments, but also state and regional investigators working to combat current and future pandemic threats.”

Stony Brook has a long history of conducting microbial pathogenesis research on emerging pathogens and those that cause common and widespread infection globally. The LCM is a biocontainment facility working on a variety of microbial agents, including viruses and bacteria. Research in the LCM serves multiple academic investigators and groups, as well as biotechnology companies, both within and outside of Stony Brook University.

 

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Ke Jian Liu

By Daniel Dunaief

Ke Jian “Jim” Liu, who arrived at Stony Brook University in late July, plans to help build effective, interdisciplinary research teams.

Ke Jian Liu

Most recently at the University of New Mexico, Liu joins Stony Brook as a Professor in the Renaissance School of Medicine’s Department of Pathology and Associate Director of Basic Science at the Stony Brook Cancer Center.

“In my mind, Stony Brook, research wise, is outstanding,” Liu said in an interview. “The quality of the faculty is excellent.”

Liu will rely on the team building experience he honed while serving as Distinguished Professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Associate Dean for Research in the College of Pharmacy at the University of New Mexico. He also worked for eight years at Dartmouth Medical School, where he focused on developing larger collaborations.

“I really enjoy working with people and building teams,” Liu said.

In a note announcing Liu’s arrival, Kenneth Shroyer, chair in the Department of Pathology, recognized Liu’s multidisciplinary approaches in his research. Shroyer explained that Liu has used techniques ranging from chemical to biochemical to biophysical, and from the molecular and cellular level to animal models, to answer specific biological questions.

Shroyer wrote that Liu would focus on opportunities for grant development within several programs. 

At the Cancer Center, Liu said he plans to continue the effort to help Stony Brook earn National Cancer Institute designation.

To achieve that designation, Stony Brook will need to continue to provide outstanding medical care, demonstrate community engagement and highlight what makes Stony Brook different from everyone else, he said.

“It takes a village to do that,” Liu said.

He praised the efforts of current Cancer Center Director Yusuf Hannun, who recently announced his plans to step down as head of the center, triggering a nationwide search for a replacement.

Liu said an ideal candidate for that position would have clinical experience.

Player coach

With a busy research effort and lofty leadership goals, Liu explained that he’s able to tackle numerous challenges at once.

“I consider myself a player coach,” he said. “I enjoy research. I have my own research grant and am working with my students and post docs.”

Liu typically maintains a lab with five to six people at different levels. His research has two branches, cancer and stroke, that most people likely consider unrelated, but for which he has found connections.

“People always think, ‘Cancer is cancer and stroke is stroke and they are two entirely different diseases,” Liu  said. As a basic researcher, however, he looks at the cells and the molecules involved in both conditions.

“At a molecular level, a molecule doesn’t care where it is,” he said. “When a disease develops, the biological fundamental process is the same. For me, it’s interesting to look at [whether] certain processes that occur in the brain also occur in cancer.”

Liu’s cancer research focuses specifically on the molecular processes that become carcinogenic when metals like arsenic enter people’s bodies. A well-described poison in numerous murder mysteries, arsenic can contaminate drinking water, get incorporated into crops like rice, or can appear in fruit juices.

When metal enters the body, it doesn’t just cause damage everywhere. It has to find a certain molecular target with which to interact.

What Liu and researchers in his lab have discovered is that the target for arsenic is often the same pathways the body uses in zinc. A transition metal, zinc provides an important element as a part of transcription factors that are critical in biological processes.

Arsenic, however, replaces zinc, which is “one of the major mechanisms for carcinogenesis,” Liu said.

Fortunately for residents of Long Island, arsenic isn’t as prevalent as it is in the midwest and the southwest.

“Long Island doesn’t have too much arsenic in drinking water,” Liu said, although people are still exposed to it through fruit juices, rice and other products.

Arsenic also causes vascular disease issues and anemia. People who develop these other conditions in response to arsenic are also at higher risk to develop cancer. The specific types of cancers arsenic causes are lung, skin and bladder cancer.

“Arsenic is the dirty bomb” in the body as it creates multiple problems, Liu said. “Arsenic interacts with those key zinc molecules.” 

Overlap between stroke and cancer

In highlighting the overlaps between the two fields of research, Liu related how the brain has one of the highest concentrations of zinc in the body.

When people have strokes, their brain cells have oxidative stress, which causes a flood of zinc into the brain tissue that also damages cells.

“We are trying to understand how zinc is released and how zinc causes damage to the brain,” Liu said.

Stroke and cancer also have molecular overlaps regarding oxygen. In a stroke, a blood clot causes a blockage of blood flow. Without oxygen, a situation called hypoxia, neurons start to die.

By contrast, a tumor grows in a hypoxic environment, using energy from sugars like glucose, rather than relying on oxygen for its growth.

Liu emphasized the importance of continuing to provide oxygen to brain regions around a clot even before trying to remove the clot or restore blood flow.

A goal for his 100th year

Originally from Beijing, China, Liu and his wife Jiao Ding enjoy traveling. Their daughter Sarah Liu is a resident at Vermont Medical Center and their son Evan Liu is a PhD student at Stanford.

An avid tennis player who plays the sport at least twice a week, Liu is looking forward to attending his first U.S. Open next year.

He and his former tennis partner in New Mexico joked that their goal is to be in the top 20 in the United States when they are 100 years old.

Liu chose the American name “Jim” because it sounds similar to the second syllable of his given name, Ke Jian.

“If people can’t pronounce your name, they shy away,” he said. He believes it’s important to “make yourself adaptable.”

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Stony Brook University Hospital

Stony Brook University Hospital (SBUH) has been recognized by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) at the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) for pledging ongoing action to decarbonize the health care sector and make health care facilities more resilient to the effects of climate change. SBUH has formally committed to pursuing the White House’s climate goal of reducing emissions by 50 percent by 2030 and achieving net zero emissions by 2050 and has already begun:

“I’m delighted that Stony Brook University Hospital has signed on to the White House/HHS Health Sector Climate Pledge as we continue to be recognized locally and nationally as a leader in sustainability efforts,” said Hal Paz, MD, Executive Vice President for Health Sciences, Stony Brook University and Chief Executive Officer, Stony Brook University Medicine. “We remain focused on these initiatives and accelerating the health system’s progress toward a climate-conscious approach to care.”

“At Stony Brook University Hospital, we have made it our mission to support sustainable healthcare initiatives and reduce our carbon footprint,” says Carol Gomes, MS, FACHE, CPHQ, CEO of Stony Brook University Hospital. “We look forward to working with the Department of Health and Human Services to continue to make environmental changes that benefit not only our planet, but also our patients, employees and communities for years to come.”

A September 2021 consensus statement from more than 200 medical journals named climate change the number one threat to global public health. It exposes millions of people in the United States to harm every year—with disproportionate impacts on historically disadvantaged communities—through increases in extreme heat waves, wildfires, flooding, vector-borne diseases and other factors that worsen chronic health conditions. The healthcare sector also contributes to climate change, accounting for approximately 8.5 percent of U.S. domestic emissions.

The HHS Office of Climate Change and Health Equity (OCCHE), part of the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health, developed the White House/HHS Health Sector Climate Pledge to help focus industry response to climate challenges. In addition to reducing their carbon footprint, signatories also commit to producing detailed plans to prepare their facilities for both chronic and acute catastrophic climate impacts.

One hundred and two prominent health companies in the U.S. have signed the White House/HHS Health Sector Climate Pledge, including organizations representing 837 hospitals as well as leading health centers, suppliers, insurance companies, group purchasing organizations, pharmaceutical companies, and more. Federal systems like the Indian Health Service (IHS), Veterans Health Administration (VHA), and Military Health System (MHS) are working together to meet similar goals to those the private sector organizations have embraced. Combined, over 1,080 federal and private sector hospitals have made such commitments, representing over 15 percent of U.S. hospitals. 

“HHS returns this year to COP27 to report great progress,” said Admiral Rachel Levine, Assistant Secretary for Health for the Department of Health and Human Services. “Through the efforts of the Office of Climate Change and Health Equity and several other HHS agencies, we have made significant strides in introducing resources and support to help communities and care providers accelerate their work to reduce harmful emissions and increase climate resilience in the health sector.”

This year, SBUH was also named among the Top 25 in the nation for Environmental Excellence, which is the highest honor awarded by Practice Greenhealth. The hospital was previously honored for Environmental Excellence in 2021 and presented with the Top 25 award in 2020.

For more information about how Stony Brook University Hospital is responding to our nation’s climate challenges, visit stonybrookmedicine.edu/sustainability.

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Nikita Nekrasov. Photo by Nina Mikhailyuk

AIP and the American Physical Society has announced that Nikita Nekrasov as the recipient of the 2023 Dannie Heineman Prize for Mathematical Physics “for the elegant application of powerful mathematical techniques to extract exact results for quantum field theories, as well as shedding light on integrable systems and non-commutative geometry.”

The annual award acknowledges significant contributions to the field of mathematical physics and will be presented at an upcoming APS meeting.

Nikita Nekrasov. Photo by Nina Mikhailyuk

“We are so pleased to recognize Nikita Nekrasov with this award,” said Michael Moloney, CEO of AIP. “His work has taken abstract principles in mathematics and proved them essential for theoretical physics, building upon our fundamental knowledge of how the universe works — the pondering on which has been an inspiration to generations of scientists.”

Nekrasov, a professor at Stony Brook University’s Simons Center for Geometry and Physics and Yang Institute for Theoretical Physics, used techniques from topology to solve important problems in theoretical physics, namely, exactly calculating the effects of the strong force holding together nuclei.

Complex problems in quantum physics are often broken into two pieces: an explicit solution of a simpler system, and the analysis of a “perturbation” that reflects the small difference of a realistic model from that simple system. As an example, in a simplified picture, freely propagating particles occasionally meet and interact with other particles along their way. Having many successive interactions is less likely, which makes the perturbation terms mathematically manageable. However, some natural phenomena, such as the strong force, do not follow this rule and require a different approach.

“One needs better understanding of how to account for the effects of strong force,” said Nekrasov. “I found a class of theories for which this can be done exactly, but you have to bring in a novel type of mathematics: topology and non-commutative geometry.”

The mathematics can also be used for exactly solvable models describing many-body interactions, be it planets in the solar system, cold atoms, or electrons in a quantum Hall effect. Nekrasov discovered that, under the assumption of supersymmetry, the mathematics of strong interactions is the same as the mathematics describing many particles living on a line and interacting with some repulsive force.

“Instead of trying to visualize the quarks and gluons inside an atomic nucleus, which we cannot see directly, you could set up a laboratory with quantum wires, do some measurements, and then try to translate that result to the world of elementary particles,” Nekrasov said. “That’s the amazing fact about physics and mathematics. There are unexpected connections between different fields.”

A French-Russian national, Nekrasov grew up in Russia, where he became hooked on string theory and mathematical physics after reading a Scientific American article by Prof. Michael Green (recipient of 2002 Dannie Heineman Prize for Mathematical Physics). He earned his Ph.D. at Princeton University and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University as a Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows. After briefly returning to Princeton University as a Dicke Fellow, he became professor at the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques in France. Since 2013 he has been a professor at the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics and Yang Institute for Theoretical Physics at Stony Brook University.

“It’s an honor to receive this award, and in some sense, it’s a way to shake hands with a lot of my heroes, the people who inspired me in my work,” said Nekrasov.

Nekrasov hopes to continue connecting abstract mathematics to theoretical physics and is currently interested in finding applications of quantum field theory to number theory.

###

ABOUT THE HEINEMAN PRIZE

The Heineman Prize is named after Dannie N. Heineman, an engineer, business executive, and philanthropic sponsor of the sciences. The prize was established in 1959 by the Heineman Foundation for Research, Education, Charitable and Scientific Purposes, Inc. The prize will be presented by AIP and APS on behalf of the Heineman Foundation at a future APS meeting. A special ceremonial session will be held during the meeting, when Nekrasov will receive the $10,000 prize. http://www.aps.org/programs/honors/prizes/heineman.cfm

ABOUT AIP

The mission of AIP (American Institute of Physics) is to advance, promote, and serve the physical sciences for the benefit of humanity. AIP is a federation that advances the success of our 10 Member Societies and an institute that operates as a center of excellence supporting the physical sciences enterprise. In its role as an institute, AIP uses policy analysis, social science, and historical research to promote future progress in the physical sciences. AIP is a 501(c)(3) membership corporation of scientific societies.

ABOUT AMERICAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY

The American Physical Society is a nonprofit membership organization working to advance and diffuse the knowledge of physics through its outstanding research journals, scientific meetings, and education, outreach, advocacy, and international activities. APS represents more than 50,000 members, including physicists in academia, national laboratories, and industry in the United States and throughout the world. https://www.aps.org/

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