Stony Brook, NY; Stony Brook University: Science on Stage member Heather Lynch
It’s time to support a great cause. The Three Village Community Trust (TVCT) will host its 20th Annual Fall Gala Fundraiser on Wednesday, November 13th at the Old Field Club in East Setauket, an event that brings together many of the area’s most prominent leaders from government, business, cultural organizations, educational institutions, and civic groups for one special evening.
This year’s Gala features two “rock stars” — the internationally renowned scientist and honored guest Heather Lynch, and the celebrated classical and jazz guitarist Steve Salerno. Attendees of the Gala will have the opportunity to hear and see both luminaries in one place.
Dr. Lynch is an acclaimed author, researcher and lecturer, who was recently named the Inaugural Director of the Collaboration for the Earth at Stony Brook University. A recipient of many academic honors, she is a well-known captivating speaker, and a leading voice in climate science.
Music by Steve Salerno will feature jazz and classical tunes.
Steve Salerno is a world recognized classical and jazz guitarist. His wide ranging musical talents are a special feature of this year’s Gala. The Trust feels fortunate to have Steve take time off from his busy performance schedule to provide “tunes” for the evening!
The Fall Fundraising Gala is the Trust’s most important source of funding to “Protect the Places You Love.” As an all-volunteer, not-for-profit, the Trust depends on the Gala to support its projects throughout the upcoming year.
Every Trust site benefits by this event —Patriots Rock Historic Site, The Immigrant Factory Houses, The Hawkins Homestead, the Smith/deZafra House, the Tyler House, the Setauket to Port Jefferson Station Greenway, the Steven D. Matthews Preserve and the Bruce House. Additionally, this event helps fund the Dr. Robert and Julia deZafra Acquisition Fund which helps the Trust purchase historical properties in the future.
Like in the past, the Gala offers attendees amazing lite bites, wine, spectacular raffle baskets and great company and is a festive way to kick off the holiday season. The winner of this year’s art raffle, a Gamecock Heirloom Chest created by Master Craftsman William Solan in his Stony Brook workshop, will also be announced. Available on the Trust’s website, the raffle tickets are $50 each and only 100 raffle tickets will be sold. The winner does not need to be present at the gala.
This unique chest at 30”long, 18”wide and 16”high was designed and built by Solan using repurposed wood from the iconic Gamecock Cottage at Shipman’s Point in Stony Brook. During the first restoration of the Gamecock cottage more than thirty years ago, Bill was the lead carpenter. Today, Bill is helping with the current renovations of the cottage by handcrafting the detailed moldings for installation on the building’s Swiss-chalet exterior.
The chest is made from quarter-sawn Douglas fir that weathered the elements at Shipman’s Point for more than half a century. Douglas fir is known for its strength and stability, and was likely sourced in Canada, and shipped to Stony Brook from the west coast. The classic box joinery is ‘fitting’ for this remarkable chest. Antique handles complete the overall design.
“This is always a fun event that brings the community together to help ‘Protect the Places We Love!’ A wonderful time for all!!” said Herb Mones, President of the TVCT.
It’s back, bigger than ever, with an added Peter-and-the-Wolf style musical debut.
This year’s version of Science on Stage at Stony Brook University, which brings together the research and life experiences of three scientists with the artistic interpretation and creative talents of three playwrights, focuses on the theme of climate change.
Before the reading of the plays at the free October 28th event at the Staller Center’s Recital Hall, a group of eight high school students and two graduate students will perform an original piece of music composed by Professor Margaret Schedel called “Carnival of the Endangered Animals” (see accompanying story below).
Christine Gilbert with graduate student Emily Gelardi. Photo by Conor Harrigan
The event, which has a seating capacity of 379, which is almost triple the potential audience size from last year, and requires advance registration, is sponsored by the Collaborative for the Earth (C4E).
The organizers of Science on Stage “want people to be thinking about [climate change] from new ways or with new perspectives,” said Heather Lynch, inaugural director of the C4E and Endowed Chair for Ecology and Evolution at Stony Brook’s Institute for Advanced Computational Science and Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution.
In these performances, professional actors, directed by Logan Vaughn, share a dramatic reading of the scripts, titled “Ghost Forest,” “Counterfactual,” and “Resplendence.” After the performance, the scientists and playwrights will participate in a question and answer session led by Lecturer J.D. Allen, who is managing editor of NPR affiliate WSHU.
Provost Carl Lejuez, whose office provides funding for the C4E, celebrated the ongoing collaboration between the humanities and the sciences.
“Science on Stage is one of our true interdisciplinary gems,” Lejuez explained. “In a time of such misinformation, the arts provide such a powerful vehicle to communicate science in accessible and inspiring ways.”
Indeed, in addition to hearing an original piece of music and listening to a reading of the plays, audience members will have the opportunity to share their perspectives on climate science before and after the performance.
Christine Gilbert, who holds a joint appointment at the School of Communication and Journalism and the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences and is one of the participating scientists, is conducting a study of the effect of the experience with audience members.
Attendees can participate in a short mobile-based survey before the plays and immediately afterwards. A social scientist, Gilbert will follow up with those members who are willing to engage in individual interviews in the weeks after the performance.
Event organizers wanted to know “what is it that’s so magical in the intersection between science, humanity and art” that drew a crowd so large last year that the fire marshal had to turn people away, said Gilbert.
By polling the audience, Gilbert, who was one of the people who couldn’t watch the show last year, hopes to explore the effect of teaching complex science in this forum.
She also hopes to assess how audience members feel after hearing more about climate change and plans to share what she learns with Stony Brook and with the broader scientific community through a published paper.
Heavy and humorous
The scientists and the playwrights appreciated the opportunity to learn from each other and to engage in a creative effort designed to use science, or the life of scientists, to appeal to audiences.
Lynch, who participated in the Science on Stage effort last year, suggested that this year’s plays are powerful and evocative.
“These are deep, adult serious issues,” she said, cautioning that the language includes some cursing and that the themes include loss, parenthood and grief. “This is not Disney.”
To be sure, the plays blend a wide range of emotions.
“With short plays that deal with heavier topics, playwrights will gravitate towards humor,” said Ken Weitzman, Founder and Associate Professor of Theater at Stony Brook, who started Science on Stage virtually in 2020. “It’s how we engage” and commune with an audience.
Counterfactual
Playwright Mat Smart
Author of the play “The Agitators,” about a true narrative describing the 45-year friendship between suffragist Susan B. Anthony and abolitionist Frederick Douglass, Smart said he has taken long Uber rides with people whose views differ from his, leading to spirited conversations.
When Smart described his experiences to Reed, they discovered they had similar interactions.
While much of the script involves a combination of conversations and ideas, Smart explained that part of the dialogue in the play came from a discussion he and Reed had about food choices and climate change.
The interaction about cheeseburgers is “based on something [Reed] said to me,” Smart said. Reed explained the high carbon footprint of a cheeseburger, although he urged Smart to cut back rather than eliminate them from his diet.
“The play is about two people who see things very differently who choose to have a dialogue and to have a tough conversation,” said Smart. “They’re both affected by it.”
Ghost forest
Playwright Gab Reisman
Elizabeth Watson, Associate Professor in the Department of Ecology & Evolution, teamed up with Gab Reisman, who wrote “Ghost Forest.”
In this play, a climate researcher’s subjects spring to life as she writes an important grant proposal.
While it doesn’t reflect how field research or grant writing typically goes, it does capture “some things that have happened to me,” Watson said.
Her field work has involved considerable challenges, including getting stuck in the mud, being covered in ticks, crawling across mudflats, and being abandoned on a raft in a lagoon.
Watson appreciates how the artistic effort allows her to connect with people who probably aren’t the same ones who would read a publication she wrote or come to a presentation.
She also added that the world has what it needs to deal with climate change and that people need to understand the kinds of partnerships and actions that make a difference.
Resplendence
Playwright Kareem Fahmy
After speaking with Gilbert, playwright Kareem Fahmy wrote “Resplendence,” which follows three generations of a family who try to save their island off the coast of Maine.
The New England State is an important setting for playwright and scientist.
“Maine has such a special place in my heart,” said Gilbert, who has family in the state and attended college at the University of Maine. The pull of the “wild, eastern coast of Maine is so ubiquitous.”
Gilbert appreciated how Fahmy did a “great job of personalizing the context” of the state.
The challenge of preserving destinations, particularly those close to sea level, will likely persist.
“When you do any research about climate change, you have to be aware that this is not just a problem for people living today, but for people 200 years from now,” Gilbert said.
Weitzman said the play was an epic despite its short running time and thought it was “quite touching.”
Beyond the performance
Weitzman suggested that the plays can provide an educational component beyond the confines of the Staller Recital Hall.
While people can’t produce the plays as part of paid entertainment, teachers can read and use them in the classroom. Actors Bill Heck, April Matthis, Tina Benko, Mandi Masden and Taylor Crousore will provide dramatic reading of the plays.
In a short time, the actors are “practically off the book,” as they embrace the opportunity to bring the words to life, Weitzman said.
He suggested the plays offer a glimpse into researchers’ lives. “Here is this person on the front lines. I’m surprised at the angles that are taken” in these plays.
Stony Brook University’s Staller Center for the Arts, 100 Nicolls Road, Stony Brook will present this year’s Science on Stage: Climate Edition on Monday, Oct. 28 at 4 p.m. Doors open at 3:30 p.m. The event is free and open to the public but reservations are strongly recommended.
To register, go to: https://bit.ly/4dcDtsi or click here.
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SBU’s Margaret Schedel brings endangered species to life through musi
Margaret Schedel discusses the ‘Carnival of the Endangered Animals’ with the band and conductor Justin Stolarik during rehearsal. Photo by Heather Lynch
Science on Stage at Stony Brook University added a new dimension to the performance this year, as Margaret Schedel, Associate Professor of Music, composed “Carnival of the Endangered Animals.” The original music, which will debut on Oct. 28 at 4 p.m. at the Staller Center’s Recital Hall, is a recreation of the sounds of a wide range of animals who are in danger of becoming extinct.
“It’s melodic, interrupted by moments of trying to translate” the calls from these animals, Schedel said.
Ken Weitzman, Founder and Associate Professor at Stony Brook, appreciates how quickly music can resonate for audiences.
“Music appeals to the emotions,” said Weitzman. “I’m jealous of how quickly music can do in 10 seconds what it takes me hours to do.”
The animals featured in the piece, along with the instrument that captures their sounds, are: the Atlantic Right Whale (Marimba); the A’kikiki bird, which is a Hawaiian honeycreeper (flute); Sumatran Tiger (trumpet); sage grouse (clarinet); Bajii, which is a Yangtze river dolphin; and the Jiangtun, which is a Yangtze finless porpoise (four-hand piano); gorilla (french horn); African bush elephant (trombone); Koala (bassoon); and the penguin (oboe).
Schedel plans to share information about each piece, which eight area high school students and two graduate students will perform, with the audience through a QR code, so they can connect the sounds with the message or visuals she was conveying.
Schedel tried to use a logical progression of the instruments, mixing up the woodwinds, percussion and brass.
Threatened by land development, the sage grouse includes high and low notes from the clarinet that gets covered up by the sounds of a flute and trumpet, imitating the sounds excavators make when they back up and develop McMansions.
Endangered by the spread of avian malaria carried by mosquitoes, the Hawaiian A’kikiki bird had been able to evade these insects by traveling higher up the mountain, where the colder temperatures kills the mosquitoes. That is not happening as much because global warming is enabling the blood sucking creatures to survive at higher elevation.
The sage grouse music starts with a melodic theme on the flute and as it goes higher, the theme becomes compressed. The buzzing brass, meanwhile, gets louder and louder as the mosquito pursues its meal, infecting the bird with a lethal parasite.
Reflecting the struggle for survival these creatures face, the Yangtze river dolphin, which had about 20 members when Schedel first started composing the music, may have become extinct by the time of the performance. That is, in part, why she combined the dolphin and the finless porpoise on the four hand piano.
As for the sounds of the elephant, Schedel recalled a safari she had experienced when she had been in South Africa. Elephants charged at Schedel and her group, who had come too close to the younger ones in the herd.
The elephants growled at Schedel and her companions.
“You can feel it in your chest, the sound waves moving,” she said. “Little by little, the younger ones put up their trunks and eventually a big momma elephant with a broken tusk put up her trunk, which is a symbol of, “we are calm,’” she said. With the trombone representing the elephant, the bass drum connotes its growling sounds.
When she was growing up, Schedel listened to the Leonard Bernstein version of “Peter and the Wolf” so many times that the recording is “nearly dead,” she laughed. She hopes people enjoy her piece with the same energy and excitement, connecting the sounds and the stories with the endangered animals.
Schedel described the experience of creating the music as a “labor of love.”
SBU's Elizabeth Watson, second from right, and her team coring.
By Daniel Dunaief
Daniel Dunaief
I used to liken the process to sitting on a highway divider where the speed limit was 70 miles per hour, holding a notebook and trying to read and record as many license plates as I could, sometimes in the pouring rain, under a bright sun, or in thick fog.
Working for a wire service, with its 24-hour news feed and its endless space for stories, was exhilarating and exhausting. My editors sometimes called me at 4 a.m. to tell me about an important story that was breaking and to encourage me to come into the office to get to work.
Oh, and every three months, when the companies I covered reported earnings, I’d arrive at work for at least a week around 7 in the morning, wait for the numbers to come out, and then spend the day reading the reports, talking with analysts and investors, getting on media conference calls with top executives and watching the stock price of the company rise and fall.
My job was to search through all that information to anticipate how people would react to piles of electronic news.
It was a great opportunity to write on deadline and to experience the absurd. One day, I helped write a few headlines and then had to use the bathroom. As I pushed the door open, my editor, following uncomfortably closely behind me, hovered.
“Can I help you?” I asked, as I stopped and turned around.
“Yeah, how long are you going to be in here?” he asked in his usual staccato, urgent tone.
“As long as it takes,” I shrugged.
“Yeah, well, there’s a headline out there and you need to send out the first version of the story within 15 minutes,” he reminded me, as if I didn’t know our rules.
“I know,” I said, “and I’m sure my system will comply with the requirements.”
Those were tough days at the office.
I’m sure everyone has difficult days at work, whether it’s a police officer dealing with someone who is in an altered, drug-induced state who may be a danger to himself or others, a teacher helping a high-stress student prepare for a standardized test, a truck driver taking a long detour around a crash site, or any of the many other possible strains or obstacles between the start of the day and the workload.
Recently, I spoke with several climate scientists who are a part of the Science on Stage free celebration at Stony Brook University’s Staller Center, which is coming up on October 28th at 4 p.m. (see related story in the Arts & Lifestyles section).
These scientists endure everything from creature discomforts, to resistance to the work they’re doing, to their own deadlines and the need to conduct their studies, publish their results and apply for funding.
Indeed, Elizabeth Watson, Associate Professor in the Department of Ecology & Evolution at Stony Brook University, shared several challenging moments.
“I’ve gotten stuck in the mud, covered with ticks, I’ve gotten Lyme, crawled across mudflats, pushed boats across mudflats, had to row our power boat back to the launch ramp more than once, [and] got forgotten about on a raft in a lagoon,” Watson wrote in an email.
Each of those challenges could have become the focal point of action for a biopic about a scientist.
Heather Lynch, Professor in the Department of Ecology & Evolution, explained that her research on penguins in Antarctica requires considerable advanced planning.
“The main challenge of working in Antarctica is really the uncertainty imposed by the weather and logistics,” she explained in an email. “It’s not enough to have Plan B, it’s more like Plan B through Plan F and then some. Covid and now avian flu have made an already difficult situation even harder.”
Still, at their most challenging moments, waiting for the weather to change, hoping someone will remember to pick them up, or living without creature comforts, these researchers find joy and derive satisfaction in doing valuable and constructive work.
“I’m like a bricklayer, adding more bricks to an enormous wall of knowledge that was started long before I started working on penguins and will continue to be built long after,” Lynch wrote.
Or, to put it another way, Watson wrote that “I love my job! No regrets.”
Heather Lynch with Emperor penguins. Photo by Evan Grant
Stony Brook University Professor Heather J. Lynch, PhD, a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution in the College of Arts and Sciences, and the first Endowed Chair for Ecology and Evolution at the university’s Institute for Advanced Computation Science (IACS) has been awarded the 2024 Golden Goose Award for Unconventional Research that Yielded Unexpected and Impactful Discovery.
Caption: Heather Lynch with an Adélie penguin. Photo by Ron Naveen
Professor Lynch’s project, “From Poop to Protection: Satellite Discoveries Help Save Antarctic Penguins and Advance Wildlife Monitoring” which was funded by the National Science Foundation and NASA, looks at a way “to track penguin populations via satellite imagery, leading to the discovery of 1.5 million previously undocumented Adélie penguins and a whole new way to track wildlife.“ Professor Lynch shares this award with former IACS postdoctoral fellow Christian Che-Castaldo, PhD and Mathew Schwaller, PhD. Lynch also serves as the inaugural director of Stony Brook’s Collaborative for the Earth.
The Golden Goose Award celebrates federally funded research that may at first seem obscure or unconventional but has led to major breakthroughs in science and honors the importance of basic research, which aims to investigate unknown phenomena and advance current knowledge. The awards are hosted annually by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
“This is a tremendous honor for Professor Lynch. The Golden Goose recognizes that scientific discovery may not always follow a conventional path. Innovation is a hallmark of Stony Brook research, and Professor Lynch’s extraordinary research and dedication to addressing climate change is a stellar example,” said Carl Lejuez, Provost and Executive Vice President
“I’m hugely honored to have our work recognized in this way, and I remain as excited about the potential of satellite imagery as I was when we started this more than a decade ago,” said Heather Lynch. “I think we’ve only just scratched the surface of its potential for research and conservation.”
Professor Lynch’s research focuses on distribution and abundance of Antarctic wildlife, particularly on the development of remote sensing approaches to monitoring Antarctica’s penguin populations. She works closely with Antarctic policymakers to make sure they have the best available science at hand when deliberating measures for the area’s protection, and her discovery (with co-awardee Mathew Schwaller) of a major population of penguins in the Danger Islands directly led to the creation of a new Antarctic Specially Protected Area. She holds a doctorate in organismic and evolutionary biology from Harvard University and earned a master’s degree in physics from Harvard University and a bachelor of arts degree in physics from Princeton University.
To see more about Professor Lynch and her collaborators’ Golden Goose award-winning research, go to YouTube.
Heather Lynch, above, is the inaugural director of the Collaborative for the Earth at Stony Brook University. File photo courtesy Rolf Sjogren/National Geographic
Heather Lynch is hoping to take a few pages out of the Coke and Pepsi playbook, which is rarely, if ever, used in the fields where she works.
A penguin expert who has traveled more than 9,000 miles to Antarctica to monitor populations of these flightless water foul, Lynch, who is the IACS Endowed Chair of Ecology & Evolution, plans to use her new role as the inaugural director of the Collaborative for the Earth at Stony Brook University to accomplish several tasks, including shaping the way people think about environmental issues like climate change.
“Coke and Pepsi understand the importance of psychological research and persuasion,” Lynch said. “The environmental community has not used any of the tools to get at the hearts and minds” of the public.
Scientists have been trying to reach people in their heads when they also need to “reach them in their hearts,” she added.
Lynch hopes to figure out ways to bring in people who are experts in psychology and persuasion instead of adding another model of climate change consistent with so many others that have made similar predictions.
Lynch, whom a steering committee chose from among several qualified tenured faculty at SBU to take on this new role, will also help organize forums in which researchers and participants worldwide discuss pressing environmental issues.
In the forums, Lynch plans to encourage debate about challenging topics on which researchers disagree, such as the role of nuclear power in achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions. She also hopes to address the concept and moral hazard of geoengineering.
In recent years, scientists have debated whether geoengineering, in which scientists use chemical means to cool the atmosphere, could exacerbate the problem or give people false hope that taking steps to reduce emissions or mitigate climate change may not be necessary.
Lynch also suggested other “third-rail topics” as population control may be fodder for future Stony Brook forums.
Scientists “don’t discuss controversial things,” said Lynch. “There tends to be an echo chamber in the scientific community. The forum will help us air these issues.”
To be sure, Lynch believes the issue of climate change and the urgency of the climate crisis is well established. The differences she hopes to discuss relate to various potential solutions.
“I’m hoping to focus on things where we disagree,” she said. “We need to get at the root of that.”
SBU Provost Carl Lejuez, to whom Lynch is reporting in this role. File photo
The right candidate
As a candidate, Lynch met numerous criteria for the search committee and for Provost Carl Lejuez, to whom Lynch is reporting in this role.
“Her research is and has been squarely placed to understand climate change and the climate crisis and how we try to move forward toward a healthier planet,” said Lejuez.
Lynch is also a “creative, entrepreneurial thinker” who has an “exciting vision for what the Collaborative can be,” Lejuez said. “She has a real strength in leadership and is very good at bringing people together.”
Lejuez has several goals for the Collaborative in its first year. He would like Lynch to start creating forums that can “live up to the potential of being a leader in creating that academic conference that brings rigor to real-world problems” and is connected to policy, industry and politics and that has clear deliverables.
Additionally, Lejuez would like the Collaborative to move toward an understanding of Stony Brook’s role in the future of climate science, climate justice and sustainability.
New podcasts
Lynch plans to dedicate considerable energy to this effort, cutting back on some of her teaching time. She plans to conduct podcasts with people on campus, speaking with them about their work, what keeps them up at night, what technologies excite them and a host of other topics.
She also hopes to bring in the “brightest lights” to big-stage events at Governors Island and on Long Island.
She is pondering the possibility of creating a competition akin to the entrepreneurial TV show “Shark Tank.” At Stony Brook University, faculty judges could evaluate ideas and advance some of them.
The Shark Tank could give students an opportunity to propose ways to create a greener Stony Brook campus.
As for the psychology and social science of environmental efforts, Lynch plans to work with the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science to explore ways to understand how people think about these issues.
The evidence and impact of climate change increases the urgency of this work and the potential contribution of the university to debating, addressing and proposing solutions.
Earlier this year, Hurricane Otis intensified within 12 hours from a tropical storm to a deadly Category 5 hurricane, slamming into Mexico.
The potential for future storms with intensification that occurs so rapidly that forecasts might not provide warnings with sufficient time to take emergency measures should ring alarm bells for area residents.
Hurricane Otis, whose intensification was the second-fastest recorded in modern times, “should scare everybody on Long Island,” said Lynch. “People think toddling along with business as usual is an option. That is not an option.”
The free event will be held on Oct. 30 at 4 p.m.at Stony Brook University’s Staller Center for the Arts, Theater Two, 100 Nicolls Road, Stony Brook.
By Daniel Dunaief
Want to hear characters from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein discussing artificial intelligence? Or, perhaps, get an inside look at an interaction between a scientist studying penguins and a potential donor? Maybe you’d like something more abstract, like a thought piece on aspects of memory?
You can get all three at an upcoming Science on Stage performance of three one-act plays written by award-winning playwrights that feature the themes of cutting edge research from Stony Brook University.
Ken Weitzman Photo courtesy of SBU
On October 30th at 4 p.m. at Staller Center for the Arts’ Theater Two, which holds up to 130 people, professional actors will read three 10-minute scripts. Directed by Jackson Gay, topics will include research about artificial intelligence, climate change in Antarctica and collective memory. Audience members can then listen to a discussion hosted by Program Founder and Associate Professor of Theater Ken Weitzman that includes the scientists and the playwrights. The event is free and open to the public.
Funded by a grant from the Office of the Provost at Stony Brook University and supported by the College of Arts and Sciences and the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science, the performances are an “amuse-bouche,” or an appetizer, about some of the diverse and compelling science that occurs at Stony Brook University, said Weitzman.
“The hope is that [the plays] generate interest and get people to want to ask the next question or that [the plays] stick with audience members emotionally or intellectually and makes them want to discover more.”
The upcoming performance features the writing of two-time Tony Award winning playwright Greg Kotis, who wrote Urinetown; Michele Lowe, whose first play made it to Broadway and around the world; and Rogelio Martinez, whose plays have been produced around the U.S. and internationally.
The short plays will feature the scientific work of Nilanjan Chakraborty, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering; Heather Lynch, Professor of Ecology and Evolution, and Suparna Rajaram, Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Science in the Psychology Department.
“It’s a good example of what we are doing and the opportunities for us as we continue to put funding in the arts and the humanities and also in the intersection of that from an interdisciplinary perspective,” said Carl Lejuez, Stony Brook Provost, in an interview. This kind of collaborative effort works best “when it’s truly bi-directional. Both sides benefit.”
Lejuez credits President Maurie McInnis with setting the tone about the importance of learning the humanities and the sciences. Lejuez said McInnis talks during her convocation speech about how she had intended to become a physician when she attended college, but took an art history course that was part of a general education curriculum that changed her life. The sixth president of Stony Brook, McInnis earned her PhD in the History of Art from Yale University.
Lejuez highlighted a number of interdisciplinary efforts at Stony Brook University. Stephanie Dinkins, Professor in the Department of Art, bridges visual art and Artificial Intelligence. She has focused her work on addressing the shortcomings of AI in understanding and depicting black women.
The Simons Center for Geometry and Physics has an arts and culture program, while the Collaborative for the Earth has faculty from numerous disciplines. They are starting a new Tiger Teams to develop key areas of study and will offer seed funding for interdisciplinary work to tackle climate change.
Lejuez plans to attend Science on Stage on October 30th.
“I feel an almost desperation to learn as much as I can about all the aspects of the university,” he said. Not only is he there to “show respect for the work and give it gravitas, but it’s the only way [he and others] can do [their job] of representing and supporting faculty and staff” in science and the humanities.
An enjoyable experience
The participants in Science on Stage appreciate the opportunity to collaborate outside their typical working world.
Heather Lynch, who conducts research on penguins in Antarctica and worked with Lowe, described the experience as “immensely enjoyable” and suggested that the “arts can help scientists step out of their own comfort zone to think about where their own work fits into society at large.”
Lynch explained that while the specific conversation in the play is fictionalized, the story reflects “my aggregate angst about our Antarctic field work and, in that sense, is probably more literally true than any conversation or interaction with any real life traveling guest.”
Lynch believes the play on her work is thought provoking. “Science is a tool, what matters is what you do” with that science, she said.
Lynch was thrilled to work with someone new and believes Lowe probably learned about Antarctica and the challenges it faces.
Bringing talent together
The first iteration of Science on Stage occurred in 2020 and was available remotely in the midst of the pandemic. Weitzman had reached out to scientists at Stony Brook to see who might be willing to partner up with playwrights.
Heis eager to share the diverse combination of topics in a live setting from this year’s trio of scientists. “I did some nudging to make sure there were a variety” of grand challenge topics, he said.
Weitzman explained that bringing the humanities and arts together in such an effort generated considerable enthusiasm. “There’s such incredible research being done here,” he said. “I want to engage for this community.”
He hopes such a performance can intrigue people at Stony Brook or in the broader community about science, theater writing or science communication.
While the plays are each 10 minutes long and include actors reading scripts, Weitzman said the experience would feel like it’s being performed and not read, particularly because professional actors are participating.
He also hopes one or more of the playwrights sees this interaction as an opportunity to create a longer piece.
“I would love it if [this experience] encourages a playwright to think it justifies a full length” script, Weitzman said.
Lynch wrote a pilot screenplay herself called “Forecast Horizon” that she describes as an intellectual exercise. If Netflix calls, however, she’s “definitely interested in having it live on,” she said. Writing the screenplay gave her a “better appreciation for how much more similar science is to the arts than I would have thought. Both involve solving puzzles.”
As for future funding, Lejuez suggested that the University was still figuring out how to allocate available funds for next year and in future years.
He would like to see how this first time in person goes. Depending on the interest and enthusiasm, he could envision a regular source of funds to support such future similar collaborations.
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Some of the ways SBU combines arts and humanities with science
By Daniel Dunaief
The southern flagship State University of New York facility, Stony Brook University seeks ways to bring the best from the arts and humanities together with science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
Provost Carl Lejuez. Photo from SBU
Indeed, the school provides a home for the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science, where researchers tap into famed actor Alda’s improvisational acting skills, among other techniques, to connect with their audiences and share their cutting-edge work and discoveries.
In addition to the October 30th Science on Stage production at Staller Theater 2, Provost CarlLejuez recently highlighted numerous additional interdisciplinary efforts.
This past spring, the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics presented artwork by Professor of Mathematics Moira Chas. Chas created artwork that combines yarn and wire, clot and zippers to illustrate mathematical objects, questions or theorems.
The Office of the Provost has also provided several grants to support interdisciplinary work. This includes two $25,000 grants that promote the development of new research teams to explore interdisciplinary areas of scholarly work and address challenges such as Digital Futures/ Ethical Artificial Intelligence, Sustainability, Critical health Studies/ Health Disparities, Global Migration, and other areas.
Additionally, the Collaborative for the Earth brings together faculty from the arts, humanities and social sciences with behavioral science and STEM faculty. The university is starting a new Tiger Teams that will develop key areas of study and offer seed funding to tackle climate change. The funding will explore ways to create solutions that policy makers and the public can adopt, as well as ways to address disparities in the impact of climate change and ways to support people who are disproportionately affected by this threat.
SBU added interdisciplinary faculty. Susannah Glickman, Assistant Professor in the Department of History, has interests such as computing, political economy, 20th century US and world history and the history of science.
Matthew Salzano, IDEA Fellow in Ethical AI, Information Systems and Data Science and Literacy, meanwhile, has a joint appointment with the College of Arts and Sciences and the School of Communication. He studies rhetoric and digital culture, emphasizing how digital technology, including artificial intelligence, impacts and interacts with social justice.
Through course work, members of the university community can also address interdisciplinary questions. Associate Professor in the Department of Art Karen Lloyd teaches an Art and Medicine course, while Adjunct Lecturer Patricia Maudies, also in the Art Department, teaches Art + The Brain. Both of these courses bring in guest lecturers from STEM and medicine.
Stony Brook also hosts centers aimed at interdisciplinary research, such as the Institute for Advanced Computational Science (IACS).
One of the current goals and objectives of the IACS strategic plan is to advance the intellectual foundations of computation and data, with high-impact applications in engineering, in the physical, environmental, life, health and social sciences, and in the arts and humanities.
Clare Flynn conducts a census count of gentoo penguins at Neko Harbour in Antarctica in January 2023.
By Daniel Dunaief
Humans may have nothing on penguins when it comes to viral marketing. Almost immediately after the Covid pandemic shut down tourism in parts of Antarctica, some gentoo penguins likely altered their choice of nesting sites.
Clare Flynn with her award- winning poster at the Pacific Seabird Group annual meeting in Feb. 2023. Photo by William Kennerly
As if the penguins got an avian email alert indicating that tourists eager to send a post card from the only post office in Antarctica weren’t coming, these flightless birds quickly divvied up desirable real estate, which, for a gentoo penguin, means bare rock on which they make nests out of pebbles.
“Antarctica is seen as a mostly pristine place where humans have very little impact,” said Clare Flynn, a PhD student in the lab of Heather Lynch, the Institute for Advanced Computational Sciences Endowed Chair for Ecology & Evolution at Stony Brook University.
Flynn used a combination of ground counts from researchers and drone footage to tally the nests during the Covid years. Based on these numbers, she concluded that tourism has been “depressing the population sizes at Port Lockroy” and nearby Jougla Point.
The study suggests that even limited human visits to remote locations can alter decisions by wildlife, affecting the kind of reproductive choices that could, over time and with greater numbers of people coming, affect population sizes.
Pomona College Biology Professor Nina Karnovsky, who is an undergraduate thesis advisor and mentor for Flynn but didn’t participate in this research, suggested that this kind of analysis highlights the need for greater awareness of human influence.
“It shows that people even visiting the colony can have impacts,” Karnovsky said. “Tourism is a double-edged sword. You want people to experience Antarctica and see how precious life there is.” At the same time, researchers don’t want any such visits to have negative side effects.
Nest numbers
The number of penguin nests in Port Lockroy surged to 978 in the 2021/ 2022 breeding season. That is considerably higher than the 535 nesting pairs in the 2018/2019 season, according to data compiled and analyzed by Flynn. What’s more, when the post office returned to normal operations, bringing back tourists in 2022 and 2023, the nest number at Port Lockroy returned to its earlier levels, at 529.
The overall number of nesting gentoo penguins didn’t change dramatically in a cluster of gentoo penguin colonies around Wiencke Island during Covid, as many of these birds likely shifted their breeding locations from nearby sites that don’t have as much human activity, such as Damoy Point.
“It’s shocking how quickly [the changed nesting sites] happened,” Flynn said, occurring over the course of two years, not generations. “Tourism is just ramping up when the penguins are choosing nesting sites.” The shifting nest sites accounted for most of the increase in Port Lockroy and Jougla Point. Some of the gentoo penguins who may have skipped a breeding season, however, also might have decided to give it a go amid the pandemic closure.
Post office attraction
Flynn and Lynch have a few theories about what caused these nesting patterns.
Flynn suggested the nesting sites at Damoy Point and Dorian Beacon, where the number of nesting colonies declined during the lockdown, may have been close to carrying capacity, which means that prospective penguin parents found the equivalent of No Vacancy signs when they searched for places to build their nest.
Sites near the post office were not at carrying capacity prior to the pandemic. From visual inspection of the drone images, these sites had available bare rock, which is a limiting factor for gentoo penguins.
Flynn believes that pedestrian traffic may have dissuaded penguins from creating nests.
Human disturbance
Boat traffic may also be dissuading gentoo penguins from nesting. While there is a limit to the number of people who can land at any given time, people often cruise around the area in zodiacs, which increases the noise and could create a physical barrier for swimming penguins.
Last month, Lynch brought Flynn’s analysis of nesting numbers during the pandemic to the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting in Finland. Policy makers are considering implementing a no-wake zone in Port Lockroy harbor as a first step to reduce disturbance.
While the number of nests typically varies by year at these sites, the dramatic increases and decreases lie outside that normal range, Flynn said. She called the numbers “eye popping,” as Port Lockroy had the largest population size ever recorded in 2021/ 2022 and Jougla Point saw the largest population size in 2021/2022 in over 20 years. Damoy Point and Dorian Beacon, by contrast, had huge drops.
Understanding the effects of tourism is becoming increasingly important, particularly as the appetite for travel to this area increases.
While gentoo penguins are doing well overall, an increase in the kind of tourism that exists at Port Lockroy could affect their breeding success.
“We need to understand how increasing levels of tourism affect these species so that the effects in conjunction with climate change effects don’t cause a disaster” for several penguin species, Flynn added.
Rewarding pivot
Flynn hadn’t intended to study the effects of Covid on the gentoo penguin. Instead, she was using drone images to identify whether penguins nested in the same place from one year to the next.
While Flynn was annotating images from 2018 through 2021, Lynch noticed the changes at Port Lockroy during those years. After Flynn took a deeper dive into the numbers, she made a new poster just one week before presenting her results at the Pacific Seabird Group annual meeting in February.
The “exhausting” effort, as Flynn put it, paid off, as she won runner up honors for best PhD poster at the conference. She has since sent the results out to Biological Conservation for publication.
Ecology spark
Flynn grew up near Baltimore and attended Pomona College, where she anticipated exploring her interest in math. She switched her focus to ecology. An ecology and evolution class she took with Karnovsky cemented her decision and brought her into the world of seabirds.
Karnovsky recalled how Flynn “loved collecting data,” which, in Southern California is “not a walk in the park, literally.” Flynn had to contend with cactus and poison ivy on an owl project.
Karnovsky believes her former student could “go on and do great things in this field.”
At one point about five years ago, Karnovsky told Flynn she might “go to Antarctica one day to study penguins,” Flynn recalled. At the time, Flynn thought the idea sounded “crazy.”
Karnovsky’s suggestion about Flynn’s future was less crazy than it was prescient.
When she’s not following her research calling, Flynn enjoys following recipes. She makes baked goods and is particularly fond of a blueberry muffin recipe she found in Bon Appétit magazine. Instead of putting in too many blueberry, which sink in the muffin, she makes a blueberry compote and sprinkles lemon zest sugar on top.
As for her future, Flynn hasn’t decided on a post PhD plan. This could include becoming a professor or pursuing a data science career.
“I could see her becoming a really wonderful professor because she also sees mentoring as really important,” Karnovsky said.
Sure, the book “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” could be helpful.
Until you’ve gone through pregnancy and had a child, you don’t really know what’s around the corner. Other parents sometimes expect you to follow their footprints to the promised land, which somehow didn’t always seem like the happiest place on Earth for them or their screaming kids.
You hear about terms like first, second and third trimester, which sound like safe little building blocks you might want to play with on the floor, stacking one on top of another while Mozart plays blissfully in the background.
But, really, so much of life, even during those days before childbirth, when moms are expecting, doesn’t follow a script or textbook cue cards.
My wife and I tried to keep at least a month ahead of the “nesting phase” and the “tired phase” among so many others in the books.
We went to Lamaze classes where, despite being in our mid 30s, we felt remarkably young in New York City compared to so many other first-time parents in their late 30s and early 40s who were sharing pregnancy stories and preparing to “breathe, honey,” and to count the time in between contractions.
Our birth plan went out the window when, after my wife’s three valiant days of pushing, our doctor decided to do a C section. How do you make important decisions when you’re beyond exhausted and when your excitement and anxiety seem to be in an extended foot race for your attention?
Just before the doctor started the procedure, she told me that if I passed out at any time, they were going to leave me on the cold, concrete floor, stepping over me to tend to my wife and daughter.
Fortunately, everything worked out, despite the challenges for my wife of recovering from abdominal surgery that made even the simplest of motions, like rising out of a chair, difficult and painful.
So, here we are, over two decades later, and we and others are still maneuvering around playbooks we’ve had to rewrite. It seemed fitting, given that it’s Mother’s Day this Sunday, to reach out to a few successful scientists — I cover science, so these are my peeps — to ask them a few questions.
IACS Endowed Chair of Ecology & Evolution at Stony Brook University Heather Lynch explained some of the best parenting advice she got was to think of “running the household like running a business, and outsource what can be outsourced with zero guilt.”
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Professor and HHMI Investigator Leemor Joshua-Tor, meanwhile, said she learned to trust her gut, especially for the timing of discussions with her daughter. As her daughter enters her teenage years, Joshua-Tor has taken more of an advisory role, letting her have more control over her life while offering a calming presence.
Joshua-Tor wrote in an email that she thought “my daughter would have a good role model with a mom that had a fulfilling career and work life.”
Joshua-Tor was pleased to hear her daughter bragging about her mom’s career.
Lynch, who studies penguins that share parenting duties, credits marrying well for her parental success.
She and husband, Matthew Eisaman, who has a joint appointment at Stony Brook and Brookhaven National Laboratory, “split things 50-50 and if I had to do even 51% of everything, I think this whole house of cards would collapse,” she explained in an email.
Amid the pandemic, which wasn’t in any parenting textbooks (but probably will be in the future), Joshua-Tor said she tried to keep her daughter positive while ensuring her safety.
As a parent, Joshua-Tor added, “nothing was as I expected, but how deep things hit you is a biggy.”
Melissa Cohen with her children Andrew and Alice Turner.
Photo courtesy of Alan Turner
Port Jefferson will likely be greener at this time next year, thanks to the efforts of 59 first graders at Edna Louise Spear Elementary School, their families and village trustees.
As a part of what Trustee Rebecca Kassay hopes will be an annual tradition, first graders will hear a talk in their class this Friday, April 29, on National Arbor Day, by Heather Lynch, IACS endowed chair of Ecology & Evolution at Stony Brook University. At that point, the students will also get coupons for free saplings of white oak, red spruce or winterberry shrubs.
The students and their families can plant the trees or shrubs in their backyards if they have space and clearance or at the Port Jefferson Country Club. The trees planted at the country club will not interfere with any golf games or other activities.
“We want to help foster that relationship between our young, upcoming stewards of Port Jefferson and the natural environment,” said Kassay, who spearheaded the project.
Planting trees will help offset losses incurred during storms and as some of the older trees die.
While sharing games like bird bingo, Lynch also hopes to speak with first graders about the role that native plants can play on Long Island.
“Planting trees is like a gift to their future selves,” said Lynch, who also described the effort as “paying it forward.” She hopes first graders see the role they play in Port Jefferson history by planting trees that will grow as they do and that will become a part of their enduring legacy.
While first grade students will receive saplings for free as a part of the project, Port Jefferson residents can also buy them for $1 at the farmers market on Sunday, May 8, while supplies last.
Kassay is describing the purchase for residents as a “dollar and a dream.”
Planting these trees will strengthen the ecology of the area, providing homes and food sources for local birds and insects and reducing runoff, Lynch added.
The trustees will invite the first graders, as well as community members, to help plant the tree nursery at the country club on Thursday, May 5, between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m., with a rain date of May 6. Residents can park at the country club and follow signage from The Turn restaurant to the tree nursery beyond the driving range.
Family response
For several families in Port Jefferson, this kind of effort validates their commitment and interest in the village.
Nadine and Richard Wilches moved to Port Jefferson last year with their 9-year old son Lucas and their 7-year old daughter Cecilia.
“One of the reasons we moved to Port Jefferson is to experience a closer-knit community that includes taking care of the environment,” Nadine Wilches said. “Planting this tree will be a learning experience.”
Cecilia, who is in first grade at Edna Louise Spear school, shared some of her awareness of trees.
Without trees, “there would be no air,” Cecilia said. “The tree eats carbon dioxide. We eat the opposite, which is air, so the tree does the opposite.”
Cecilia has learned some of what she knows about trees from the work her brother Lucas is doing on photosynthesis in his class.
Lucas was born on Earth Day and also appreciates the connection to preserving the planet, the mother said.
Wilches added that the family tries to be cautious about their carbon footprint and has a hybrid car and an electric car.
She appreciates that the school and the village are “reinforcing our home values around the environment.”
If Cecilia could ask a tree a question, she would want to know if it hurts a tree when it loses its leaves.
First grader Andrew Turner appreciates how trees provide a home for animals. He will join the group planting saplings at the country club, and wants to know how long it takes a tree to grow.
Andrew, who likes woodpeckers and who currently wants to be a paleontologist like his father, Alan Turner at Stony Brook University, enjoys jumping in leaf piles in the fall.
“The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago, and the second best time is today.”
— Rebecca Kassay
Andrew’s mother Melissa Cohen, who is a graduate program coordinator in Ecology & Evolution at Stony Brook University, said she appreciates how this effort will help children in the school develop an understanding of trees and the benefits they bring to the community.
Longer term, Lynch, Kassay and others hope the first graders who participate in this effort develop a connection to the trees they plant.
“We envision these kids growing up with their trees,” Lynch said. “It would be amazing if the kids could all take pictures with their trees now and we can [see] them taking pictures when they graduate high school as a rite of passage.”
Kassay said these trees offer numerous benefits, including lowering heating costs from the shade they produce, increasing property values and stabilizing the soil by soaking up runoff from storms.
“The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago, and the second best time is today,” Kassay said.
As part of its Ecology and Climate Change lecture series, the Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum, 180 Little Neck Road, Centerport will welcome Stony Brook University’s Heather Lynch for a presentation titled Mapping Penguins with Satellites, Drones and Other Technologies in the Charles and Helen Reichert Planetarium on April 14 at 7 p.m.
In Mapping Penguins, with Satellites, Drones, and Other Technologies, Professor Lynch will share insights from her innovative research into the population dynamics of penguins on the Antarctic Peninsula. To better understand rises and falls in this population due to climate change, tourism, and fishing, Lynch marries traditional field work with a range of technologically sophisticated methods including satellite remote sensing, drone imaging, and advanced computational models.
“Penguin populations have been changing rapidly over the last 40 years,” says Lynch. “But understanding why those changes have occurred and what we might expect for the future is a surprisingly difficult challenge. [In this lecture,] I’ll discuss the threats facing Antarctic penguins and how scientists are bringing together new technology, artificial intelligence, and advanced predictive modeling to help guide policymakers in their work to protect one of the world’s last remaining wildernesses.”
Dr. Heather J. Lynch is the Institute for Advanced Computational Sciences Endowed Chair for Ecology & Evolution at Stony Brook University. She earned a B.A. in Physics from Princeton University, an M.A. in Physics from Harvard University, and a Ph.D. in Organismal and Evolutionary Biology from Harvard. She is also a National Geographic Explorer and past winner of the Blavatnik Award for Young Scientists.
Join Lynch as she shares her insight and research. $6 per person, members free. To register, visit www.vanderbiltmuseum.org.
This unique chest at 30”long, 18”wide and 16”high was designed and built by Solan using repurposed wood from the iconic Gamecock Cottage at Shipman’s Point in Stony Brook. During the first restoration of the Gamecock cottage more than thirty years ago, Bill was the lead carpenter. Today, Bill is helping with the current renovations of the cottage by handcrafting the detailed moldings for installation on the building’s Swiss-chalet exterior.
