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Photo from Stony Brook Athletics

The Stony Brook University men’s cross-country team registered a fourth-place finish at the ECAC Cross Country Championships on Saturday, Nov. 20. Colin Ross (pictured above) led the way placing second with Carlos Santos following closely behind in third place.

Ross and Santos were joined in the top 50 by teammates Nick Cipolla, Timothy Weber, Ryan Dearie, and Eric Shu, aiding the Seawolves to a top five men’s finish.

Ross took second as he crossed the finish line in 25:23. He ran at an average 1K pace of 3:11. Santos placed third as he crossed the finish line closely behind Ross in 25:24 and ran the same average 1K pace of 3:11. Cipolla secured a top 25 finish by placing 20th as he clocked a time of 26:05. Weber, Dearie, and Shu all finished the race in the top 50. Weber finished in 36th with a time of 26:34. Dearie took 40th with his time of 26:41 and Shu crossed the line in 26:53 to take 49th place.

“Today for the most part was a worthwhile exercise as we nearly came with away with 2 individual titles. Fiona and Colin fell just short of the win. The team’s performances were solid. We mainly competed on the men’s side to give the guys that didn’t compete at the conference and regional meets plus the freshmen one more run over the 8k distance go gain experience for next fall,” said  head coach Andrew Ronan.

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#24 Leighah-Amori Wool during Saturday's game. Photo from Stony Brook Athletics

The Stony Brook women’s basketball team continued its red-hot start to the Ashley Langford era, holding off Iona on the road to earn a 53-46 win at the Hynes Athletics Center on Nov. 20.

Leighah-Amori Wool and Earlette Scott led the way, with the two combining for 31 points and six of Stony Brook’s seven triples on the afternoon. 

India Pagan finished one point short of a double-double, hauling in a game-high 11 rebounds to go along with nine points. 

The Seawolves’ lead was cut to one with 1:56 to go, but they were able to hold Iona off the board the rest of the way, scoring the game’s final six points to make sure the fifth-straight victory was secured.

Head Coach Ashley Langford has now taken the Seawolves to 5-0 in her first five games at the helm. She improves her record as the first head coach in Stony Brook women’s basketball history to begin her career at 5-0, and has the team tying their best start to a season since 2017-18 when the team also began 5-0.

The Seawolves have held their last two opponents to under 50 points scored. 

Wool led the way with 16 points on 6-of-10 shooting, including going 3-of-4 from deep including a three-pointer with 14 seconds left to hold off Iona’s comeback. She also pulled down five boards.

Pagan finished just shy of a double-double with nine points and 11 rebounds, and moved into 13th-place on the all-time scoring list with 1,148 points scored, passing Janet Travis (1,144). Pagan is also now 12 rebounds away from tying Brittany Snow for ninth-place in career rebounds.

Scott finished second on the team with 15 points on 4-of-10 shooting, going 3-of-5 from beyond the arc, and 4-of-6 from the free-throw line. She pulled down five rebounds, dished out two assists, and added three blocks.

Senior guard Annie Warren helped facilitate the offense, scoring seven points, put up a team-high three assists, while also grabbing five rebounds in a team-high 37 minutes on the court. Warren is eight made three-pointers away from tying Theresa LoParrino for eighth all-time. Sophomore forward Kelis Corey put in work down low, grabbing eight rebounds in 20 minutes of play.

“We had a good test today. Iona was physical, resilient, and executed their game plan well. I am proud of our team’s defensive effort – it won us the game.  I’m also very pleased with our ability to remain poised during the fourth quarter to get a road win,” said head coach Ashley Langford. 

“I thought Leighah and E-Scotty made huge offensive plays in the fourth quarter when we needed it. India and Kelis were active on the glass and we needed every extra possession we could get. Annie and Gigi struggled shooting today, but both continued to be solid defensively and Gigi made great decisions during the last two minutes of the game. Again, I am proud that we had a collective effort from everyone and players are stepping up when necessary,” she said.

The team played one more game before the Thanksgiving holiday, taking on Columbia at 1 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 24 afternoon in New York City. Results were not available as of press time.

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Photo by John Griffin/UPP

Stony Brook University workers held their Rally for Respect and Fair Wages Nov. 17 in front of the school’s Administration Building.

Andrew Solar-Greco at the Nov. 17 rally. Photo by John Griffin/UUP

The state employees belong to four campus union chapters, CSEA Local 614, GSEU-RAU-CWA Local 1104, United University Professions and UUP Health Sciences Center, that make up SUNY Stony Brook Labor Council.

Andrew Solar-Greco, UUP Stony Brook chapter president, said in a phone interview that the Nov. 17 rally had a turnout of nearly 200 people. SBLC represents 10,000 members. The union chapters were joined by the Long Island Federation of Labor and the Building and Construction Trades Council of Nassau and Suffolk. Members from the two latter labor unions have been standing outside on Nicolls Road the last few weeks.

Solar-Greco said the SBLC and trade unions decided to show solidarity.

“Our goal was to essentially bring attention to many of the labor issues happening on campus,” Solar-Greco said. The union president presided over the rally.

In addition to calling for a living wage, he said attendees have issues on their minds such as the Civil Service Employees Association working without a contract and fighting for hazard pay. UUP HSC is also fighting for hazard pay for all of its members in health care at the hospital.

Solar-Greco said university center campus members are currently dealing with staffing shortages as well as more students than average in classes due to increased enrollments. He said members feel that the shortage of faculty and increase in class sizes affect the quality of education the students receive.

“We want to be there for our students,” Solar-Greco said. “We want to set them up for success. We want to propel this institution forward, but we need more staff — we’re understaffed.”

He added that adjunct and graduate students, which make up most of the instructional labor, are paid wages that are below Suffolk County’s poverty level, and also depending on how many credits they teach may not get health insurance.
In an email statement after the rally, SBU officials said contracts are negotiated with the state, and that the university works “every day to foster a positive work environment where all employees are valued and respected.”

The statement also said officials supported the union members’ right to rally.

“At Stony Brook, we value the skilled work of every member of our staff. We support the unions’ right to express themselves, as they did at Wednesday’s rally. Contracts are negotiated between the state and the respective bargaining units rather than at the campus level.”

Photo from UUP

SBU officials added, “Where we have the opportunity to add to our graduate student employee stipends we do.” The university recently has done so, according to a message from SBU President Maurie McInnis that was emailed to the university’s community and posted to its website Nov. 15.

Graduate students and teacher assistants, who made less than $22,500 and have an academic year obligation, or make less than $27,875 with an annual obligation, were brought up to the dollar amount, retroactive Oct. 1. Those who made those amounts or more will receive an additional $500 for an academic year or $619 more for an annual obligation.

“Every graduate student employee will receive some measure of a stipend increase, proportionate to their appointment,” McInnis said in the email. “The approximate total cost for funding this additional raise for these part-time appointments is $1.3 million.”

Solar-Greco said representatives of UUP meet once a semester with McInnis, and find she is open to discussions and hearing members’ concerns.

After keeping the university going through the pandemic, Solar-Greco added that the workers should be commended for a job well done.

“Through all the trials and tribulations and still being there for our students, we feel we deserve respect and fair wages and dignity in the workplace and movement on the issues that we have,” he said.

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Photo courtesy of Stony Brook Medicine

Stony Brook Medicine team performed a life-saving surgery on a Long Island football coach just a few days before the championship game to take place on Saturday, November 20.

Kyle Moodt, 38, a Bellport High School Varsity Assistant Football Coach, 5th grade general education teacher, father, and husband, battled debilitating headaches daily since July 2021. He and his wife Michelle have three children ages 3 (Emma), 5 (Brody) and 7 (Kayla), and live in Center Moriches.

The chronic headaches were isolated in one area, the front right side of his head. Kyle said “they were constant from wake up to bedtime. I’ve had two back surgeries in the past and I would probably take that sciatica pain over the headaches. The headaches never went away. It was hard to function with a headache all day long. Took a lot of Tylenol. At times, I would have to lay down whether I had practice or even in school. It was affecting my teaching in the classroom. I was teaching more from my desk than I have in most of my years. When I went home, after work, I was very tired. I felt like I wasn’t able to contribute to the household as much and more fell on my wife’s shoulders.”

Shortly after Kyle saw Stony Brook Medicine doctors, the medical team quickly identified that these were not normal headaches from reading a computed tomography (CT) and a computed tomography angiogram (CTA) scan. David Fiorella, MD, PhD, Neurointerventional Radiologist; Director, Stony Brook Cerebrovascular Center; and Co-Director, Stony Brook Cerebrovascular and Comprehensive Stroke Center and Michael Guido, MD, Neurologist; Director, Stony Brook Neurology Stroke Program; and Co-Director, Stony Brook Cerebrovascular and Comprehensive Stroke Center determined Kyle had a life-threatening malformation of the arteries in his brain. The diagnosis was arteriovenous fistula, or DAVF. This dangerous increased pressure in his head was a risk for fragile veins bursting which would cause a life-threatening brain bleed.

On November 11, Dr. Fiorella was able to use an angiogram to map out the malformation and make a treatment plan to allow him to be at the football team’s playoff game. And, subsequently treated Kyle’s complex brain malformation on November 16 through a small puncture site in his right wrist, performing a minimally invasive surgery that took less than one hour. The special procedure Kyle had was embolization of a dural fistual with a material Onyx. The goal of the procedure is to block off the abnormal arteries while preserving the normal arteries and veins.

Kyle is ecstatic. “Dr. Fiorella said I’m going to get this taken care of and I feel great 24 hours later after the successful surgery. It’s amazing. I don’t have brain fog. Had a good night’s sleep. I slept through the night. Woke up without a headache. I haven’t taken any medicine or Tylenol in 24 hours. The headaches that I’ve had for months are not there. Luckily, we were able to get to the bottom of this.”

“His angiogram showed the cure after the treatment and his MRI and MRA of his blood vessels indicated his brain is completely normal. He is neurologically perfect,” said Dr. Fiorella.

Kyle is grateful for Dr. Fiorella’s expertise and quality of care received at Stony Brook University Hospital. “About a year ago, he performed surgery on my father who had a stroke. I was very happy to know I was going to him for care. I remember, he put me, my mom, my brother, my sister at ease, talking and dealing with my father’s illness. So, if he’s confident, then I’m confident. And, they set the standards pretty high at Stony Brook.”

This positive outcome couldn’t be more timely as Kyle will not miss the opportunity to coach the offensive and defensive line as his Bellport Clippers face off against the Lindenhurst Bulldogs for the DII Suffolk County Championship at Stony Brook University’s Kenneth P. LaValle Stadium on Saturday at 7pm. Bellport last won a Suffolk title in 2010.

In sharing what it means for Stony Brook doctors to urgently treat Kyle with very little recovery time needed and getting him back to his “two families” touches him on a very emotional level. “Football is a passion of mine, but my main goal is the three kids I have at home. Definitely, I wanted to make sure that I would be able to make it to the game as the team gets ready for one of the biggest moments in their life but more importantly, family and my well-being came first. But the football team is family too. Some of these kids I’ve known since fifth grade. Some I played with their fathers or uncles as an offensive lineman for three years between 1998 and 2000. My parents are still very involved. Football brings the community together. We have all walks of races and socioeconomic backgrounds. My wife will cook for the lineman dinners at my house with 10 to 15 kids. We’re building a community and camaraderie between the team and this leads to our success. Kids care about each other. As coaches, we care about them too on and off the field. It’s why I love the district and where I am. It’s a big family affair.”

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Above, DeLorenzo (in blue) at a Multiple Sclerosis benefit in which she and a group of friends climbed the stairs at Rockefeller Center. Photo from C. DeLorenzo

By Daniel Dunaief

Her colleagues highlight the joy, passion and optimism she brings to her work, which can be the opposite of the way people she is eager to help feel. 

Dr. Christine DeLorenzo, Professor of Psychiatry and Biomedical Engineering at Stony Brook University, studies depression.

A disease with numerous symptoms that likely has a wide range of causes, depression presents an opportunity for Dr. DeLorenzo to bring not only a relentless energy to her work, but also an engineer’s perspective.

“Engineering is all about examining a complex problem and thinking, ‘I bet we can fix that,’” explained Dr. DeLorenzo in an email. “Biomedical engineering takes it to a new level.”

Indeed, Dr. DeLorenzo specializes in brain imaging, using positron emission tomography, among other techniques, to understand and differentiate the factors that might contribute to depression and to develop ways to treat specific subtypes of the mental health disease.

Dr. Ramin Parsey, who mentored Dr. DeLorenzo and is professor and Della Pietra Chair of Biomedical Imaging at Stony Brook, believes she will help define the subtypes of depression by imaging the brain.

For Dr. DeLorenzo, the abundance of discussion in the popular and scientific literature that currently attributes the progression of depression to a host of causes, from eating the wrong foods to not exercising enough to not getting the right amount of sleep, doesn’t offer much clarity.

“We see a million articles about what causes depression and they don’t all agree,” said Dr. DeLorenzo. “Depression is caused by a bunch of different things, which is not all that helpful when you’re the person suffering.”

In her brain studies, Dr. DeLorenzo has looked at inflammation and neurotransmitter systems. The goal of her work is to find “whatever is outside the normal range in the person with depression and treat” that potential cause, she said. High levels of inflammation might suggest an anti-inflammatory treatment.

When people receive a major depressive disorder diagnosis, they often are prescribed a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, or SSRI. This enables the neurotransmitter serotonin to remain in the brain for a longer period of time.

“It’s great that it works in a subset of people” for whom it is effective, Dr. DeLorenzo said. “We would like to know beforehand if we give this medication will it work for you, specifically.”

In one of her studies, Dr. DeLorenzo uses positron emission tomography, or PET scans, to search for signs of inflammation. She is looking for translocator proteins, which is a marker of inflammation. Reactive glial cells in the brain, which are an important supporting part of the nervous system that don’t have axons and dendrites like nerve cells, increase the production of these proteins during some depression and other disorders.

The level of these translocator proteins increase in glial cells when the brain is having an inflammatory response, which likely occurs in a subtype of depression as well as in other diseases.

Dr. DeLorenzo has a PET tracer that sticks to that protein and that gives off a signal to the camera, which enables her to quantify the inflammation.

At this point, she and her collaborators, including co-Principal Investigator Dr. Parsey and Dr. Stella Tsirka, Professor of Pharmacological Sciences at Stony Brook, are recruiting a collection of patients with depression. They are testing the idea that people with higher inflammation are better treated with an anti-inflammatory. They are using PET to see who has high or low inflammation prior to treatment. During the study, the researchers will determine if those with the highest inflammation had the best response.

Dr. Tsirka’s lab uses animal models to understand mechanisms of disease and experiment on treatment, while Dr. DeLorenzo uses neuro-imaging in human patients to understand and treat pathology.

“Our preclinical results certainly support the idea of the neuro-inflammation hypothesis of depression” and suggest potential ways to interfere with the process in preclinical models, Dr. Tsirka explained in an email.

Dr. Tsirka, who has been working for Dr. DeLorenzo for over three years, described her colleague as “enthusiastic, rational creative and hard working” and believed imaging could provide a way to verify efficient treatment of depression.

By understanding the biology of the brain, Dr. DeLorenzo hopes to address a range of questions that might affect the disease.

In other work, Dr. DeLorenzo is exploring the possibility that a disruption in glutamate leads to circadian and mood dysfunction in a subtype of depression.

In some studies with glutamate, researchers assessed mood before and after sleep deprivation. They found that sleep deprivation provided an antidepressant effect in about 40 percent of patients with Major Depressive Disorder.

A healthy person would typically become tired and angry after staying awake for 36 straight hours. Some people with this form of depression, however, see an improvement in their mood after staying up for so many hours.

“Something about sleep deprivation causes an antidepressant effect in some people,” Dr. DeLorenzo said. “We don’t know what that is.”

The antidepressant effect can be short lived, although about 10 percent of people have benefits that last as long as a few weeks.

To be sure, Dr. DeLorenzo cautioned that no one is “advocating just doing sleep deprivation” or even a continuous cycle of partial sleep deprivation.

Born and raised in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, Dr. DeLorenzo earned her undergraduate and Master’s Degrees at Dartmouth College. She earned her PhD from Yale University, where she started her brain imaging work.

When Parsey left Columbia to join Stony Brook in 2012, Dr. DeLorenzo moved with him, even though her commute from Queens was three hours each way.

“She never complained” about her travels, Dr. Parsey marveled. In fact, Dr. DeLorenzo uses the commuting time to read papers and prepare emails.

Dr. Parsey admired Dr. DeLorenzo’s dedication to teaching and mentoring students in her lab. In her first summer, she took on 17 interns. “This is the kind of stuff that nobody else I know does,” Dr. Parsey marveled.

As for her work, Dr. DeLorenzo believes understanding sub-categories of mental health will follow the same pattern as cancer research. “Back in the day, we used to say, ‘Someone has cancer or a tumor.’ Now, we say that that tumor has this genetic marker, which is what we’re going to target when we treat it.”

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The team celebrates after Sunday's game. Photo from Stony Brook Athletics

The Stony Brook University women’s basketball team (3-0) had not defeated a current Big East member since Dec. 7, 2004, that changed on Nov. 14 as it toppled St. John’s (1-1), 72-60, to improve to (3-0) on the young season. With the win, head coach Ashley Langford became the first Stony Brook head coach in program history to start their career with a (3-0) record.

The Seawolves and Red Storm played an all but even first quarter as St. John’s led, 21-20, after the first 10 minutes of play. Stony Brook took full control of the game in the second quarter as it outscored St. John’s, 20-8, in the stanza. The Seawolves used a 9-0 run early in the second quarter to create separation.

Stony Brook took a 40-29 lead into the halftime break as it was firing on all cylinders. The Seawolves were locked in on the defensive end as they limited St. John’s to 29.7 percent shooting from the field and 18.2 percent shooting from three in the first half. In the second quarter, Stony Brook held the Red Storm to 19.0 percent shooting from the floor and did not allow a three-pointer (0-of-6) in the frame.

The Seawolves carried that first half momentum into the third quarter as they added to their lead through the duration of the stanza. Stony Brook went on to outscore St. John’s, 19-17, in the third quarter as it took a 59-46 lead into the fourth. The Seawolves’ lead grew to as large as 21 points, 72-51, with 4:18 to play in the game.

Stony Brook used a balanced scoring attack to knock off St. John’s as it had six student-athletes score eight or more points in the contest. Senior guard Anastasia Warren led the way with 19 points as the Seawolves went on to close out the Red Storm by the final score of 72-60.

“We came out ready to play today. I really got on them about transition defense and that was the key to the game – really keeping St. John’s from fast break points and we did that. I told them from the beginning defense is going to win us games. I’m really happy with the intensity that we came out with and it was a collective group effort, it wasn’t just one person. Everyone’s stepping up; we got some people in foul trouble that couldn’t play in the first quarter, and our bench was ready to go,” said coach Ashley Langford.

“Everybody’s contributing and I know that makes them feel good, everyone’s got their back, and everyone’s ready to go. I am really pleased with our effort and happy with our team that we were able to realize this win because they deserve it,” she said. 

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Three long-finned pilot whales. Photo by Andrew Sutton/ Shutterstock
From left, Lesley Thorne, Eleanor Heywood and Julia Stepanuk. Photo by Julia Stepanuk
Lesley Thorne on a research ship in the Antarctic. Photo from Lesley Thorne
Lesley Thorne in the Antarctic. Photo from Lesley Thorne
Lesley Thorne with black-browed albatross in the Falkland Islands. Photo from Lesley Thorne

By Daniel Dunaief

Long-finned pilot whales can’t stand the heat, so they are heading north.

Amid increases in ocean temperatures caused by global warming, long-finned pilot whales have moved the center of their range to the north, according to a 25-year study Lesley Thorne, Assistant Professor in the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook University and Janet Nye, Associate Professor at the University of North Carolina Institute of Marine Sciences and Adjunct Professor of SoMAS, recently published in the journal Scientific Reports.

What’s more, these whales are swimming farther north despite the fact that some of their prey, including fish and invertebrates such as squid, aren’t shifting as far north, while others are moving into deeper offshore waters.

That could have broad ecological consequences for both regions, as whales may head towards areas to compete against other predators for the same prey, while some fish populations in deeper waters offshore may increase, putting pressure on the creatures that live in those areas.

“We know that different species are responding in different ways to climate change,” Thorne said. “That will impact all the dynamics” including food webs and competition. 

Climate change may change the predator-prey dynamics in unexpected ways, Nye explained in an email. “We know that it would be wrong to assume that all species would shift at the same rate in response to changing environmental patterns, but this is one of a growing number of papers to illustrate that the rate at which individual species” in different feeding groups changes can be different, which alters the way ecosystems function.

Nye explained that researchers don’t yet have a good sense of how such mismatches would affect productivity of fisheries or the ecosystem as a whole, but they are “working on answering those questions with food web models and climate models.”

To be sure, Thorne indicated that the researchers would need considerably more data to validate any ecological conclusions, as they only looked at one species of whale and four main prey species.

“Understanding the specifics of the broader implications for a location would require looking at a range of important predator and prey species and assessing how the strength of interactions” might be affected by their responses to climate change, she said.

According to Thorne, this study and others suggested that species characteristics such as body size, mobility, thermoregulatory strategy and longitudinal range, in addition to the speed of change in the climate, can help predict the responses of marine species to climate change.

Whales such as the long-finned pilot whale examined in this study are challenging to observe because they have wide geographic ranges, could be difficult to track, and spend most of their time underwater, where they are difficult to see or track.

Additionally, even people with considerable maritime experience sometimes have difficulty differentiating between the long finned pilot whale and the short finned pilot whale, which are different species.

To address the central range of these long-finned pilot whales, Thorne and Nye used two data points: strandings, when whales strand on land, and bycatches, when people catching other fish with bottom trawls also bring up these whales in their nets.

Bycatches occur in part because pilot whales and other cetaceans depredate fishing gear, removing fish from fishing lines or trawls, which presents an easier meal than searching for food themselves. These whales, however, sometimes get caught in the nets themselves. 

People in the fisheries business sometimes use acoustic deterrents to keep the whales away. These efforts, however, can backfire, as the whales hear these sounds as something akin to a dinner bell and head for nets that could inadvertently trap them.

Strandings data is useful for looking at trends in the distribution of cetaceans because networks provide standardized observations throughout the coastline, dating back for decades.

Thorne is in the process of looking at strandings data more broadly. Her team is also looking at strandings of odontocete, or toothed whale, species along the east coast of the United States more broadly. She will also examine whether short-finned pilot whales, which are adapted to warmer waters, show similar trends.

“We are already examining the strandings data and testing our hypothesis that fish species may be shifting both horizontally (latitudinally or north-south) and/or shifting vertically (in depth),” Nye wrote. “I suspect that are doing a bit of both.”

Strandings represented about two thirds of the data in this study, while bycatch constituted the rest.

The shift in the central range represents a fairly dramatic geographic change in the center of the whale range and was considerably higher than that observed for their prey species.

Nye, who worked at Stony Brook from 2012 to 2020, said she was “shocked” that pilot whales were shifting much faster than the fish species, mostly because she knows how much the distribution of many species has changed over the last half century in the northeastern United States.

Whales are heading in the opposite direction that Thorne took in her career path. Thorne grew up in Kingston, Ontario and did her undergraduate work at the University of Guelph. She earned her PhD from Duke University and started as a lecturer at Stony Brook and was offered a tenure track position three years later.

During college. Thorne spent three years at the Huntsman Marine Science Center on the Bay of Fundy. Seeing the impact of the tides in the bay and taking field courses was “amazing,” she said. She first started working with whales at a research station on Grand Manan Island in the Bay of Fundy in future years.

Married to Bernd Distler, who is a surface materials engineer, Thorne and her husband have a four-year- old daughter Annika and two-year- old daughter Franka.

As for what her work tells her about the changing world, Thorne said it was sobering to see first hand the rapid changes in temperature occurring in the Northeast and, specifically, in New York.

This kind of study, along with others that highlight the increases in temperature, should be “more than enough information” to encourage action, she said.

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Stony Brook University Hospital

As the flu and COVID-19 are expected to circulate at the same time this season, getting a flu vaccine is more important than ever. Although the flu vaccine will not prevent COVID-19, it will help decrease the risk of you and your family getting sick and needing flu-related medical care. Every year, about 2,000 New Yorkers die of seasonal flu and pneumonia, which can develop as a complication of the flu. Meanwhile, over 56,000 New Yorkers have died from COVID-19 since the pandemic began last year. Vaccination is the best way to protect against both the flu and COVID-19.

Presenter Gregson Pigott,
MD, MPH
Commissioner,
Suffolk County
Department of Health Services

This Tuesday, November 16 at 7 p.m. join trusted health experts and Health Commissioners from the Suffolk and Nassau County Departments of Health, for a FREE Zoom webinar “The Flu and COVID: A Conversation with Your County Health Commissioner” at 7 PM. They will answer your questions about COVID-19, the flu vaccine and provide advice for maintaining you and your family’s health. Some topics experts will discuss include:

  • How to prevent the spread of flu and COVID this year.

  • What the Department of Health in each county is doing to help Long Islanders.

  • What you should know about vaccine safety, the Delta variant, and how other variants can be prevented.

  • Why booster vaccines are important and who should get them.

  • How to safely get both the flu vaccine and the COVID-19 vaccine.

Questions can be submitted in advance and real time Spanish translation will be available. To register for this FREE event visit, https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_-SUVMjnORoWTfYU52MS-Gw

PRESENTERS:

  • Gregson Pigott, MD, MPH, Commissioner of the Suffolk County, Department of Health Services

  • Lawrence Eisenstein, MD, MPH, FACP, Commissioner of the Nassau County, Department of Health

Presenter Lawrence Eisenstein, MD, MPH, FACP, Commissioner of the Nassau County, Department of Health

MODERATOR:

SPANISH TRANSLATOR:

  • Héctor E. Alcalá, PhD, MPH, Core Faculty, Program in Public Health; Assistant Professor, Department of Family, Population and Preventive Medicine, Renaissance School of Medicine, Stony Brook University

This event is co-sponsored by Suffolk County Department of Health Services, Nassau County Department of Health, Stony Brook Program in Public Health, Department of Family, Population and Preventive Medicine, Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University. With support from the Stony Brook University Alumni Association.

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Photo from Stony Brook Athletics

The Stony Brook University football team (4-6, 3-4 CAA) was topped by No. 8/11 Villanova (8-2, 6-1 CAA), 33-14, on Saturday, Nov. 13 at Villanova Stadium in Pennsylvania.

Both teams battled through inclement weather condition in the first half as rain and wind affected the pace of play over the first 30 minutes of the contest. After an all but even first half, Villanova pulled away in the second half by outscoring Stony Brook, 19-7, en route to sealing the result in its favor.

After Villanova scored the first touchdown of the game with 5:17 to play in the first quarter, Stony Brook responded immediately as it put together a 12-play, 71-yard drive that resulted in a touchdown to tie the game up at 7-7.

Graduate quarterback Tyquell Fields faked a handoff to redshirt junior running back Ty Son Lawton, pulled the ball down, and rushed it into the end zone from nine yards out. The rushing touchdown was Fields’ seventh of the season, which are the second-most on the team.

The Wildcats were able to find the end zone with 26 seconds to play in the second quarter and they took a 14-7 lead into the halftime break. An 83-yard run by Justin Covington sparked Villanova in the second half as it capitalized on the big play and scored a touchdown on its second drive of the third quarter.

Villanova scored 19 unanswered points in the second half until redshirt freshman running back Jayden Cook punched in a one-yard touchdown run for the Seawolves with 17 seconds to play in the game. The drive was setup by a pair of completions by redshirt junior quarterback Joshua Zamot.

Fields found the end zone with a nine-yard touchdown run in the first quarter. The touchdown run marked his seventh of the season and 13th of his career.

Lawton recorded 19 carries and rushed for 71 yards. The Staten Island, N.Y. native has rushed for 70 yards or more in six out of 10 games played this season. Cook registered five carries for 27 yards and a touchdown. The touchdown run was his first of the season and the second of his career. Both of Cook’s touchdown runs have come against Villanova. As a team, Stony Brook rushed for 106 yards. It marked the ninth time this season and the 34th time in their last 38 games dating back to the start of the 2018 season that the Seawolves rushed for over 100 yards as a team in a game.

Redshirt freshman linebacker Tyler King finished with a game-high tying 11 tackles (four solo, seven assists) and 1.0 tackles for loss. It marked the fourth time this season that King recorded 10 or more tackles in a game. Through 10 games played, King has tallied 89 total tackles (48 solo, 41 assists) and 11.0 tackles for loss. Graduate defensive back Carthell Flowers totaled seven tackles (five solo, two assists) and 1.0 tackles for loss. It was the fifth time this season that he finished a game with seven or more tackles. Redshirt senior linebacker Reidgee Dimanche recorded seven tackles (four solo, three assists) and one fumble recovery.

Redshirt junior defensive lineman Makye Smith recorded a pair of tackles and forced a fumble. Smith chased down Covington and stripped him from behind. Dimanche was there to fall on the football to give Stony Brook its 11th turnover of its last four games. Graduate punter Mitchell Wright totaled nine punts for an average of 40.8 yards per punt. He had three punts of over 50 yards and three punts inside Villanova’s 20-yard line. His longest punt on the day went for 62 yards.

“The game was really two different halves. The first half was quite interesting with the weather and I thought both teams struggled with the weather at times – it was a field position battle. We gave them a score off of a turnover and other than that each team had a drive and it was a pretty even game at the end of the first half with the exception of the turnover. We came out in the second half, the weather cleared up a little bit, still had the wind issue, and they got a big play in a crucial situation early in the second half, but it certainly changed the tide of the game,” said head coach Chuck Priore.

Up next, the team returns to LaValle Stadium for the regular season finale on Saturday, November 20, at 1 p.m., when it hosts UAlbany in the Golden Apple game. Before the game, the Seawolves will honor their senior class for all of their hard work and dedication to the program. The game is set to air on FloFootball. Be sure to purchase tickets now to be a part of the action!

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Baccalaureate student Ben Lee receives his pin and packet from faculty member Dr. Virginia Coletti during the School of Nursing’s first Oath Ceremony. Photo from Stony Brook University
Assembled at the ceremony are all of the participating students and Nursing faculty (front row). Photo from Stony Brook University

Celebrating the Future of Nursing

The Stony Brook University School of Nursing held its first “Oath Ceremony” for students entering its undergraduate programs. The purpose of the ceremony – devised similarly to Medicine’s white coat ceremony – is to welcome students into the profession and highlight the impact that nursing brings to society and patients worldwide. A total of 132 students participated in the ceremony that carried the theme “Keep Healthcare Human.”

Held on October 29 at Stony Brook Medicine, the event was made possible with a grant from the Arnold P. Gold Foundation to support the Gold-AACN White Coat/Oath Ceremony for Nursing.

The American Nursing Association predicts more registered nurse jobs will be available through 2022 than any other profession in the United States. Additionally, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that 11 million additional nurses are needed in the next few years to avoid a further nursing shortage – an issue that has surfaced even more during the 2020-21 Covid-19 pandemic. The Bureau also projects with the aging population and specialized medicine nursing positions will grow at a faster rate (approximately 15 percent) than all other occupations from 2016 to 2026.

“This ceremony marks a milestone in the career path of our students who choose to become professional nurses in the face of a pandemic,” says Annette Wysocki, PhD, Dean of the School of Nursing. “All nurses are called to care for individuals, families and communities using the most advanced scientific knowledge with an ethical human-centered approach, in combination with knowledge of the social sciences to address the biopsychosocial needs of people entrusted to their care.”

Dean Wysocki also points out that the need for nurses will only grow, as the pandemic has driven many older nurses to retire, leaving a gap in the workforce in New York State and nationwide.

Each of the students at the ceremony, upon having their name called,  received a pouch with a nursing pin, nursing code of ethics bookmark and a card about keeping humanism in nursing.

Long-time Stony Brook nurse practitioner and educator Barbara Mills, DNP, was the keynote speaker. Mills received her doctorate in Nursing at Stony Brook in 2009 and has been a key member transforming the hospital’s Rapid Response Team. Her message emphasized keeping healthcare human and treating every patient with dignity, respect, and with cultural sensitivity.

Many of the new students have volunteered during the pandemic for the vaccine rollout and related work at Stony Brook Medicine. Because Stony Brook is an upper division nursing school, students enter the undergraduate program after their sophomore year in college. These students, encompassing two academic years, and those students entering the accelerated 12-month nursing program participated in the ceremony.

 

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