A science teacher at R.C. Murphy Jr. High School in theThree Village Central School District is now on leave after posting an incendiary political post on Facebook.
The teacher, Pamila Pahuja, wrote in the post, “To all Trump supporters – hope the next time you take a drink it doesn’t swallow right and you go get help but no one is there and you slowly wither away while struggling to gasp and you suffer long.”
The post has sparked outrage from some parents. Others feel Pahuja did nothing wrong.
“I always like to put the shoe on the other foot,” former teacher and Hauppauge resident Dan Simon said, noting that teachers still have the freedom of speech. He added, however, that what she posted was a mistake.“Should she be doing that? Probably not.”
A father of a middle-school child, Doug said, “Just saying that about another person – it’s not right.” His child does not go to a district school.
He said that middle-schoolers are still learning right from wrong, and to “say stuff like that, you are kind of brainwashing them. It gets them thinking differently.”
Litigator Andrew Lieb said that there is a case to be made under labor law 201-d, which protects against discrimination for participating in certain activities including political activities outside of working hours and off the employer’s premises. Lieb has worked on similar cases pertaining to teachers.
“That is a hyperbole that wasn’t a specific threat,” Lieb said. “As long as she was off working hours off working premises, she is allowed to do this stuff. She is working for the government and the government can’t block speech.”
“Imagine all these teachers wanting to speak and not being able to have a voice,” he said. “That’s what this does and that’s why these laws are so important.
Pahuja also wrote, “To all my friends and their families worried, stay safe. America is no longer the land of the free – we are prisoners of the governments. Only a matter of time before they come for all women. Welcome to gilead, it’s on the way.”
On Jan. 26, the district released a letter to parents notifying them of Pahuja’s absence.
“Please be assured that we have taken steps to ensure a smooth transition and continued high-quality instruction in science. A qualified and certified science teacher will be assigned to your child’s class in her absence,” the letter, signed by Principal Michael Jantzen, reads.
The Three Village BOE and the Three Village Teachers Association would not comment on matters of personnel.
The Vice President for Research at Stony Brook University, who started working on Long Island on the same day as interim President Richard McCormick, is encouraging researchers to pursue interdisciplinary grants.
“We have a very robust office of proposal development,” said Gardner in an interview from Washington, DC when he was meeting on Capitol Hill with the New York delegation prior to the holidays. “Our strategy is to focus on growing larger grants.”
With a team prepared to help faculty across the university, Gardner hopes to drive innovation and discovery while building the university’s research budget.
The total funds from the top 1.6 percent of grants at the university account for 23 percent of the university’s research expenditures, which means that winning additional awards in this top tier could have a material effect on the funds that enable research.
The team that works with Gardner does considerable administrative work, reducing the burden for scientists focused on directing and overseeing research. Stony Brook also provides project management support.
Faculty members “can’t write these giant grants without that kind of support,” Gardner said. Stony Brook wants to get to that rarefied air where universities receive large, ambitious funds for comprehensive interdisciplinary work.
Going after these larger grants predates Gardner’s arrival.
“This is something that has been in the making for a couple of years,” said Gardner. He has seen an uptick in applications for these kinds of projects.
Stony Brook started research town halls this fall, with the first describing and encouraging collaborations between the east and west campuses.
Gardner has renamed his office the Office for Research and Innovation.
“This was done to more formally combine the offices of the Vice President for Research and Economic Development,” he explained. “Innovation speaks to new technologies, new approaches, and we have important roles in helping Long Island businesses innovate and continue to be successful. This is true for startups but equally true for manufacturing companies (through our Manufacturing Extension Program) and through our Small Business Development Center, among others!”
Enhancing an entrepreneurial culture
Hannah Estes
At the same time, the university is building and expanding efforts to encourage entrepreneurial initiatives among students and faculty.
Stony Brook recently hired Hannah Estes to become Director of Student Innovation.
Estes, who previously worked with Gardner at the University of Louisville, officially started at Stony Brook on January 6th.
She is focused on the entire school, as she hopes to help encourage students from a range of disciplines pursue various business ideas.
“Entrepreneurship can be found in any school or department,” said Estes, as she has seen new ideas originate in schools of social work, music and education.
She wants students to recognize problems and find ways to solve them.
Estes plans to reach out to students through newsletters and social media and hopes to spend her first semester at Stony Brook listening to students and getting a sense of their interests and ideas.
In her work at the University of Louisville, she partnered with art school students who were able to get credit and helped coordinate financial aid to get them paid $20 per hour.
“It works and students are able to get away from their desks and get into the community,” Estes said.
As for local students on Long Island who are not members of the Seawolf community, Estes suggested the doors would be open to supporting with them as well.
Working with area high school students can create momentum that can develop into an interest in their business ideas and in joining Stony Brook.
As with the bigger university projects among faculty, the student efforts will also focus on interdisciplinary teams.
“The whole concept is to get out of your bubble and hear new perspectives,” said Estes. “It’s important for students to know that there are different ways of thinking.”
Gardner hopes the student-driven ideas can help engage a culture change among faculty as well.
“It is my sense that students are effective agents of change on a university campus,” Gardner explained. “And beyond that, these types of experiences are incredibly valuable for students during their education. “
In July, Stony Brook hired Dr. Michael Kinch as the inaugural Chief Innovation Officer, who is part of the university’s council and reports to Gardner.
At the same time, Andrew Wooten, the Executive Director of Long Island High Tech Incubator, has been taking inventions and ideas through a proof of concept to launch new companies. Wooten reports to the board of LIHTI.
Computing initiatives
In addition, Stony Brook has started an initiative to create an enclave for a computing environment that provides controlled unclassified information computing.
Such computing power, which is on the road towards classified work, is necessary to apply for funding from the Department of Defense and other agencies.
This effort requires a greater level of security and compliance.
As for high performance computing, the university does not have the level of capacity that the research community needs.
“High performance computing is a challenge at most campuses, particularly now keeping up with needs for AI-related computing,” Gardner explained. Stony Brook has a “very significant level of AI expertise,” which makes keeping up with their computational needs challenging.
Research andDevelopment Park
Stony Brook is looking at how they can make the Research and Development Park an even greater asset to the university and the community.
“Everything we do serves our mission, so we need to make sure our neighbors in [Stony Brook] and our partners across the state share in a vision for how that R&D park can change and serve our mission and our community even better,” Gardner said.
He is energized by the opportunity to work at Stony Brook, where he feels that he has the ongoing support of colleagues who are working well together. As for his visit to Capitol Hill, Gardner travels to meet with the delegation and federal agencies around once a month.
“We want to make sure not just that they are advocates for us (which they most certainly are), but also to make sure we know what we can do for them,” he said. Stony Brook needs to “make sure that we are good partners for them.”
Echoing recent comments from Interim President Richard McCormick, Gardner recognizes the need to add more wastewater treatment to meet the university’s goals for expansion.
The university, which has seen state, national and international interest climb among students as Stony Brook rises in the rankings of universities and attracts major funding, is limited by several factors, including available wastewater facilities.
The university can’t bring in additional students because they don’t have the housing for them and “we can’t have the housing without the wastewater capacity,” Gardner said. “As an environmental engineer, I get it.”
Thieves come in all shapes and sizes, robbing people of valuable possessions or irreplaceable personal keepsakes.
Diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease and forms of dementia also rob people, taking away their memories, connections to their past and even their sense of themselves.
At times, however, people who are battling these conditions can emerge from its clutches, offering a fleeting, or even longer, connection to the person their loved ones knew, the passions they shared, and the memories that helped define a life.
In a study published in November in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, Stephen Post, Director of the Center for Medical Humanities, Compassionate Care and Bioethics at Stony Brook University, gathered information from surveys with 2,000 caregivers who shared their reactions to unexpected lucidity from forgetful people.
“Caregivers can find inspiration in these fleeting moments,” Post wrote in a summary of the conclusions of the study. “The research aims to guide caregivers and enhance the understanding of the enduring self-identify of deeply forgetful people, promoting compassionate care and recognizing the significance of our shared humanity.”
Such moments of clarity and awareness, at levels that can be more engaging than the typical behaviors for people suffering with various levels of forgetfulness, can be rewarding at any point, but can offer a particular gift to caregivers and families around the holidays.
Possible triggers
Post suggested that these moments of lucidity can be purely spontaneous and surprising. Theycan also arise during an intervention, when a caregiver or family member provides some specific stimulation or memory trigger.
“Caregivers can sing a song that their loved ones identify with from earlier in life,” said Post. “We’ve done that here at the Long Island State Veterans Home on the Stony Brook campus.”
Several years ago, Post wrote about a room of 50 veterans, many of whom spent a good part of their days in a haze without acting or interacting with others.
When they heard “The Star Spangled Banner” or other patriotic music, as many as 70 percent reacted and started to sing the song. The duration of participation varied, with some saying a few words or a line, others singing a verse, and still others making it through the entire song,
After the song, people who might have seemed out of reach could react to closed-ended questions. This could include choices such as whether they preferred toast or cereal for breakfast.
“A good half of them were able to respond and sometimes even carry on a brief conversation,” Post said.
Art can also help draw out forgetful relatives. Groups around the country are taking forgetful people and their caregivers to art museums in small groups. Looking at a famous or particularly evocative piece of artwork, people might express appreciation for the magnificence of a painting.
Poetry can also serve as a stimulus. Forgetful people who listen to the poems of Robert Frost or other familiar writers can respond with the next line to words deeply ingrained in their memory.
“Their affect picked up,” said Post. “They were smiling, they were excited and enthusiastic. That’s great stuff.”
These moments can provide a connection and offer joy to caregivers.
Other possible triggers include smells, such as the familiar scent of a kitchen; interactions in nature, such as the feel of snow on someone’s face; or playing with pets.
The forgetful can “respond joyfully to dogs,” said Post. “It can remind them of [a particular] dog from 30 years ago.”
Additional research
Caregivers who help forgetful people through their daily lives sometimes struggle with the question of whether “grandma is still there,” Post said. That metaphor, however, can miss the “hints” of continuing self identity.
The National Institute on Aging has funded Post’s study on what’s happening with the brain during these moments of lucidity.
A challenge in that research, however, resides in doing PET scans or collecting other data when those moments are spontaneous and unpredictable.
The work from Post’s recent study indicates that these periods of clarity are important for the morale of caregivers, with many of them feeling uplifted from the interaction.
Post sees further opportunity for study. In his next project, he hopes to cover how to operationalize this information into an intervention. “It’s very practical, very real and can do a heck of a lot” for the forgetful and their caregivers, he said.
To be sure, some forgetful people may not respond to some or all of these cues, as the damage from their diseases may have made such outreach and actions inaccessible.
When these moments, fleeting though they may be, occur, they can be rewarding for caregivers, family members and the forgetful themselves.
Jean Mueller with her late mother Geraldine and her father Daniel. Photo courtesy of Jean Mueller
Jean Mueller, Assistant Director of Nursing/ Project Manager in the Department of Regulatory Affairs, Patient Safety & Ethics at Stony Brook, recently spent time with her father Daniel, 95. The elder Mueller lost his wife of 74 years Geraldine several weeks ago and is in an assisted living facility.
Taking her father out was too difficult, as it could cause agitation and confusion.
“We went and had Thanksgiving dinner with him there,” Mueller said. “He seemed to really enjoy it, in the moment. He knew the food and he knew it was a holiday. He didn’t ask me where my mom was.”
The interactions can be challenging, as she sometimes feels like she’s pulling “all the strings and you don’t know what you’re going to get” when she interacts with him, she said.
Still, Mueller suggested that it doesn’t matter whether he remembers her visits.
“In the moment, he matters, it matters and he’s still a person,” she said. ‘When you get to the point where everything has been taken away from you, and you lost your independence, even if it’s for a short period of time, you can feel valued again.”
She considers it an honor to be able to share that with her father.
A former inspector in the Suffolk County Police Department and a commander of homicide, Mueller’s father has a well-known sweet tooth.
When she visits, Mueller brings an iced coffee with hazelnut syrup and half and half, a crumb cake, croissant or donut. “He’s in seventh heaven,” she said.
When he sees his family, his face “lights up,” said Mueller.
“Even if the memories of our visit is fleeting, for those moments in time, he’s a devoted father and a valued father and grandfather who still feels our love.”
Brookhaven National Laboratory Director JoAnne Hewett. Photo by Jessica Rotkiewicz/BNL
By Daniel Dunaief
Instead of flying a plane through clouds and gathering data during a three to five second window of time, researchers at Brookhaven National Laboratory are one of three teams proposing constructing a cloud chamber.
This new research facility would allow them to control the environment and tweak it with different aerosols, enabling them to see how changes affect drizzle formation.
“This is fascinating,” said JoAnne Hewett, Director of BNL and a self-professed “science geek.”
Hewett, whose background is in theoretical physics and who came to BNL from SLAC National Accelerator Lab in Menlo Park, California, has been the director of the Upton-based lab since April of 2023.
In a celebrity podcast interview, which will be posted on TBR News Media’s website (tbrnewsmedia.com) and Spotify, Hewett addressed a wide range of issues, from updates on developing new technologies such as the Electron Ion Collider and the construction of buildings, to the return of students to the long-awaited reopening of the cafeteria.
The U.S. Department of Energy is currently considering the proposals for the cloud chamber and has taken the first steps towards initiating the project.
Hewett, who is the first woman to lead the national lab in its 77-year history, is hoping the winner will be announced this year.
More x-ray tools
In a discussion about the National Synchrotron Lightsource II, which is a circular electron accelerator ring that sends x-rays into the specialized beamlines, Hewett described a study at the recently opened High Energy X-ray Scattering beamline, or HEX.
The state-funded HEX, which is designed for battery research, recently hosted an experiment to examine the vertebrae from Triceratops.
The NSLS-II, which opened a decade ago and has produced important results in a range of fields, will continue to add beamlines. BNL recently received approval to build another eight to 12 beamlines, depending on available funding. The lab will add one beamline in 2025 and another two in 2026.
Electron-Ion Collider
BNL, meanwhile, is continuing to take important steps in planning for an Electron-Ion Collider (EIC), an ambitious $2.8 billion project the lab won the rights to construct.
The collider, which will reveal secrets of the quarks and gluons that make up atoms, will start construction in 2026 and is expected to generate data sometime in the early 2030’s.
As groups of scientists develop plans for the EIC, they apply to the government to reach various milestones.
In March of this year, the lab met a hurdle called CD3A, which provided $100 million in funding for long lead procurements for some of the parts for the 2.4 mile circumference particle collider.
The next review, called CD3B, will be in early January and will involve $50 million in funding.
The funding for these steps involves ordering parts that the lab knows will be necessary.
The EIC will address five key questions, including how does a proton acquire its spin, what is the nature of dense gluon matter, how do quarks and gluons interact within a nucleus, what is the role of gluons in generating nuclear binding energy, and how do the properties of a proton emerge from its quark and gluon constituents.
Researchers expect the results to have application in a wide range of fields, from materials science, to medicine, to creating tools for complex simulations in areas including climate change.
Return of students
After the Covid pandemic shut down visits from area primary schools, students are now returning in increasingly large numbers.
In 2023, around 22,000 students had a chance to find scientific inspiration at BNL, which is starting to approach the pre-pandemic levels of around 30,000.
School buses come to the science learning center on the campus almost every day.
In addition, BNL hosted a record number of student internships, which are typically for college-age students.
In addition to inspiring an understanding and potentially building careers in science, BNL is now opening a new facility. The science users and support center, which is just outside the gate for the lab, is a three-story building with meeting room space.
“It’s going to be a one-stop-shop” for visiting scientists who come to the lab, Hewett said. Visiting scientists can take care of details like badging and lodges, which they previously did in separate buildings.
Additionally, for staff and visitors, BNL reopened a cafeteria that had been closed for five years. The cafeteria will serve breakfast and lunch with hot food.
“That’s another milestone for the laboratory,” Hewett said. With the extended time when the cafeteria was closed, just about everything will be new on the menu. The reopening of the facility took years because of “all the legalese” in the contract, she added.
A new vision
Hewett spent the first nine months of her tenure getting to know the people and learning the culture of the lab.
She suggested she has a new vision that includes four strategic initiatives. These are: the building blocks of the universe, which includes the Electron-Ion Collider; leading in discovery with light-enabled science, which includes the National Synchrotron Lightsource II; development of the next generation information sciences, including quantum information sciences, microelectronics and artificial intelligence; and addressing environmental and societal challenges.
As for the political landscape and funding for science, Hewett suggested that new administrations always have a change in priorities.
“We’re in the business of doing science,” she said. “Science does not observe politics. It’s not red or blue: it’s just facts.”
She suggested that generally, traditional basic research tends to do fairly well.
The BNL lab director, however, is “always making a concerted effort to justify why this investment [of taxpayer dollars] is necessary,” she said. “That’s not going to change one bit.”
After a recent visit to Capitol Hill, Hewett described her relationship with the New York delegation as “great.” She appreciates how the division that affects people’s perspectives in different parts of the world and that has led to conflicts doesn’t often infect scientists or their goals.
In the field of particle physics, “you have Israelis and Palestinians literally working together side by side,” she said. “It all comes to down to the people doing the science and not the government they happen to live under.”
Hewett also continues to believe in the value of diverse experience in the workplace. “We need the best and the brightest,” she said. “I don’t care if they’re pink with purple polka dots: we want them here at the laboratory doing science for us. We want to develop the workforce of the future.”
Adding key hires
As Hewett has settled into her role, she would like to fill some important staff functions. “This is really two or three jobs that I have to get done in the time it takes to do one job,” she said. “A chief of staff is very much needed to help move some of these projects along.”
Additionally, she is looking for someone to lead research partnerships and technology transfer. “As you do the great science, you want to be able to work hand in hand with industry in order to do the development of that science,” she said.
She said this disconnect between research and industry was known as the “Valley of Death.” Institutions like BNL “do fundamental science and industry has a product, and you don’t do enough of the work to match the two with each other.”
Bruce Stillman, CEO of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Photo courtesy of CSHL
By Daniel Dunaief
The Oscars could learn a thing or two from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. The facility, which conducts research in cancer, neuroscience, genomics, quantitative biology and plant biology, hosted its 19th annual Double Helix Award Dinner on Nov. 14.
Front row from left, 2024 Double Helix Medals honorees Dr. Katalin Karikó, Daniel and Alisa Doctoroff. Back row, from left, CSHL Chair Marilyn Simons, President & CEO Bruce Stillman, and Grace Stillman. Photo courtesy of Patrick McMullan Company
Held at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City and emceed by CBS journalist Lesley Stahl, the dinner, so named for the twisting ladder structure of the genetic material DNA, raised $7 million while honoring Nobel Prize winner Katalin Karikó, and Daniel and Alisa Doctoroff, a husband and wife team who are leaders of Target ALS.
Bruce Stillman, CEO of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, recently discussed the awards dinner, an innovative and potentially revolutionary study on aging, science funding, and a host of other topics in an exclusive interview.
The honorees at this year’s dinner were “really fantastic,” Stillman said.
Originally from Hungary, Karikó thrived in work that helped lead to BioNTech and Pfizer’s work using messenger RNA to create a vaccine for COVID-19 despite setbacks including four demotions while a scientist at the University of Pennsylvania.
Her experience shows how “a scientist can do Nobel prize winning research despite adversity,” Stillman said. She had an “idea she wanted to stick with.”
Through Target ALS, the Doctoroffs have helped generate progress in research on amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Daniel Doctoroff, who has ALS, had been Deputy Mayor for Economic Development and Rebuilding and CEO and president of Bloomberg LP.
The dinner has raised over $67 million since its inception and has honored scientists and public figures, including the late boxer and inaugural winner Muhammad Ali, baseball Hall of Fame right fielder Reggie Jackson and Nobel Prize winner and co-discoverer of gene editing tool CRISPR Jennifer Doudna.
As a part of the celebration, the lab produces videos of the honorees, who have made significant contributions to philanthropy or to research or who have been advocates for health.
A week after the dinner, Stillman had written a letter to potential honorees for next year.
“It’s a lot of work to do this properly,” said Stillman. “We have a time limit on the evening. We want everyone out by 9:30 p.m. We timed this whole thing down to the minute and it worked out very well.”
An important aging discovery
While the lab produced a large volume of research studies that could have implications in a range of fields during the year, Stillman highlighted the work of Corina Amor Vegas as being “probably the most impactful down the road.”
Corina Amor Vegas. Photo ourtesy of CSHL
Amor Vegas used a technology developed to treat cancer to address the effects of aging.
She produced chimeric antigen receptors on the surface of the immune system’s T cells to attack senescent cells, which have aged and are not functional but could otherwise cause aging related problems such as diseases.
In a mouse model, Amor Vegas found that treating these aging mice with modified forms of their own T cells, through car-T immunotherapy, improved metabolic dysfunction and exercise capacity. Indeed, even a single treatment was enough to provide long term benefits for these mice.
The work attracted considerable venture capital interest and the lab is in discussions about how to pursue a business approach that taps into the potential use of this discovery.
As for businesses, the lab has a number of companies that are “under the radar screen” but that will have an impact in their fields.
Professor Partha Mitra started a company called Clarapath that will make “a major splash” with its automatic slides for pathology, Stillman said. A machine can do the work automatically that is otherwise labor intensive.
Down the road, scientists could apply artificial intelligence to analyze the samples. The laboratory has several faculty that are doing machine learning or AI in their research in areas such as neuroscience or genetics.
Through a neuro-AI scholars program, CSHL brings in people who have had a high level of training in computer science related to machine learning. The scholars come to CSHL for one or two years, where they work in a neuroscience lab.
Meetings
Stillman was pleased with the meetings on site this year, including one on epigenetics and CRISPR.
At the end of May in 2025, CSHL plans to have a symposium called Senescence and Aging.
The lab has invited scientists to speak from Germany, Israel, Japan and the United Kingdom as well as from Harvard, Brown and Yale. Locally, Amor Vegas, Assistant Professor Semir Beyaz and Professor Lloyd Trotman have also received invitations to share their work.
Stillman anticipates the publication of compelling findings from CSHL next year, including in autism.
At the same time, the lab is building a new Neuroscience Research Complex that should be finished in 2026. The 36,347 square-foot facility will include three modern buildings that focus on neurodegenerative diseases, brain-body physiology and quantitative biology and NeuroAI.
The construction has been going “very well,” Stillman said.
Science and politics
Amid talk of a rationalization of the research budget next year when the former and future president Donald Trump takes office, Stillman cautioned against a heightened focus on translational studies.
“If we knew what basic science would be translational, we would be doing it,” Stillman said. “If you go back and look at fundamental discoveries of how a disease can be cured, like Spinraza, people would have said, ‘Don’t study this or that.’”
Professor Adrian Krainer developed the drug Spinraza at CSHL, which is an effective treatment for an otherwise debilitating childhood disease called spinal muscular atrophy.
The development of CRISPR came from a study of bacteria that grow in a marine environment.
If Trump’s administrators think they can predict that every dollar will be productive, “they are nuts,” Stillman said. “We should have a discussion before they start pronouncing what should be done.”
Converting the National Institutes of Health into a directed translational research institute will push down American competitiveness.
China is planning to spend large sums of money in basic research. If the United States cuts back in these areas, this is a “recipe for the country to become a second class citizen to those that are “investing in basic science.”
The Human Genome Project cost $3 billion over 25 years. The returns exceed $1 trillion, Stillman said.
“That’s an enormous payoff,” he added.
Despite concerns and a watchful eye on research funding, Stillman shared a positive outlook.
“I’m not pessimistic about the future,” he said. “The United States economy is very strong.”
Kimberly Christian. Courtesy Rocky Point Union Free School District
The Rocky Point School District welcomes Kimberly Christian, as its new director of math, science, technology, business education, career and technical education, and family and consumer sciences. Dr. Christian will continue to advance initiatives in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics for the district.
Christian earned an undergraduate degree in biology from Cornell University, a Master of Arts in Teaching Biology, a doctorate in science education, and certification in school district leadership from Stony Brook University.
In her new role,Christian aims to provide all students with a comprehensive, 21st-century education to develop information literacy, critical thinking, and analytical skills. She is known for her motivation, innovation, and problem-solving skills. She hopes to foster productive, collaborative relationships among colleagues, parents, students, and community members.
“I am pleased to join the Rocky Point community,” Christian said. “It is a privilege to work alongside our talented educators, supportive staff, and enthusiastic students and families. I look forward to advancing initiatives that will drive student success and inspire a passion for learning.”
Christian has been a science teacher at Smithtown High School East since 2004, where she taught AP Biology and Project Lead the Way: Medical Interventions, as well as Regents Living Environment and Oceans. She contributed to curriculum development and implementation and maintained innovative instructional practices, integrating technology and differentiation.
For the past decade, Christian has served as an instructional specialist at Smithtown High School East, where she facilitated dialogue between colleagues and district leadership. Her work included participating in the science curriculum committee, aligning K-12 science instruction with NYSSLS, and coordinating standardized testing administration, including local and state exams. She also collaborated with the district’s science director on master scheduling, managed materials acquisition, and provided professional development during conference days and department meetings.
She co-authored “NGSS-Based Teacher Professional Development to Implement Engineering Practices in STEM Instruction,” published in 2021 in the International Journal of STEM Education, and “NGSS Teacher Professional Development to Implement Engineering Practices in Science Instruction,” presented virtually at the 2020 International Conference of the National Association of Research in Science Teaching in Portland, Oregon.
Stony Brook University named physician-scientist Dr. Imoigele “Imo” Aisiku as chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine at the Renaissance School of Medicine, starting Aug. 15.
A national leader who has dedicated his career to critical care and neurocritical care in emergency medicine, Aisiku worked for more than a decade at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
Aisiku, who was born in Nigeria and raised in Brooklyn and Auburn, Massachusetts, found several factors appealing about the Stony Brook role.
“My immediate family is predominantly in the Northeast” stretching from New York to Richmond, Virginia,” he said. Additionally, he suggested that numerous aspects of the role were “right in my area of expertise.”
His experience at Brigham and Women’s Hospital involved integrating systems, and he recognizes the opportunity to deploy that skill set at Stony Brook, where he will help integrate the emergency department at different hospitals.
He also has considerable experience in critical care, which is a strength at SBU.
“There are some natural synergies that you couldn’t script” he added, including strong clinical interest in stroke, telehealth, critical care and a desire to develop a systems integration model
Indeed, before he came to Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Aisiku worked at the University of Texas at Houston. UT Houston/Memorial Hermann was one of the earliest to be named a JCAHO Comprehensive Stroke Center.
Aisiku was the medical director of their neurosurgery intensive care unit, which had one of the first mobile stroke units in the country. The unit was a collaboration between EMS, neurology, the stroke division, EM and the ICU.
A mobile stroke unit can provide critical and timely diagnostics and care for people having a stroke, which can not only save lives but can also lead to a dramatic improvement in the outcome after a stroke event for patients.
Stony Brook currently has two mobile stroke units and is working on adding a third.
“I hope to leverage what is the strength of Stony Brook with my experiences” and strengthen any weaknesses in a bidirectional manner, said Aisiku, who will report to Peter Igarashi, dean of the Renaissance School of Medicine.
For his part, Igarashi was eager to welcome the new addition to the emergency department.
“We are thrilled that Dr. Aisiku will lead Stony Brook’s remarkable team of emergency physicians,” Igarashi said in a statement. “As a pioneering physician-scientist in neurocritical care, and as an emergency medicine scholar and researcher, Dr. Aisiku will help advance our capacity to save lives and care for critically ill patients in the years to come.”
Evolutionary change
The new emergency department chair is hoping to learn more about Stony Brook’s strengths and weaknesses before implementing any changes.
“I hope to make a change and a difference,” Aisiku explained in an email. “I believe it is prudent to aim for evolutionary change and, if there is an opportunity, for positive revolutionary change.”
His goal is to see the department grow from a regional strength to a national and even an international strength.
He plans to develop partnerships with other chairs and departments and hopes to enhance programmatic and faculty development.
Aisiku also hopes to develop opportunities for faculty at Stony Brook, including in areas that involve research. He would like to see the department earn more National Institutes of Health and federal funding.
DEI experience
An accomplished physician, researcher and administrator, Aisiku also has considerable experience building and encouraging opportunities for underrepresented groups in medicine.
Aisiku was the founder and director of the Offices of IDEaS, which stands for Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Social Justice, in Emergency Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where he credits a team of faculty administrative staff and supportive chair for the success of that effort.
Aisiku “played a crucial role in the development of the office of IDEaS,” Jayelani Hall, administrative manager for Emergency Medicine and the Office of IDEaS at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, explained in an email. Aisiku’s vision for creating an inclusive environment and commitment to equity and diversity were “instrumental in shaping the initiatives and programs that define IDEaS today.”
IDEaS has launched several initiatives, such as the Profile in Diversity Series and the SPAK Grant program, which provides funding to projects that advance diversity, equity and inclusion.
The office established scholarship programs to support underrepresented students pursuing careers in medicine and health care, Hall added.
The president of Brigham and Women’s Hospital named Aisiku endowed Distinguished Chair in Health Equity and Diversity.
The broader Stony Brook area extending to New York City “draws diverse and international people to the region,” Aisiku explained. “While I acknowledge that [DEI] is an area of controversy in our country, I believe continuing to strive for diversity has a significant role for the development of our youth all the way to impacting our patients.”
In speaking with the leadership of the hospital and medical school, Aisiku believes his diversity goals are “aligned in these efforts” as he looks forward to developing strategies that will lead to diverse students, residents and faculty.
In addition to providing opportunities to students in the health care field, a more diverse population of caregivers enhances the patient experience, Aisiku contends.
A diverse health care force provides greater opportunity for patient choice and advocacy, he added.
Aisiku, who has master’s degrees in business administration from Goizueta School of Business and a master’s in clinical research from Rollings School of Public Health at Emory University, would like to partner with the business school and the school of public health, among others, to build diversity, which may broaden and enhance his efforts in this area.
People who have worked with Aisiku appreciate his commitment and openness to those around him.
Aisiku is “known for his compassion and dedication both as a physician and as a leader,” Hall wrote. “He consistently goes above and beyond to ensure that his patients receive the best care possible and his commitment to equity in health care is evident in all his endeavors.”
Hall suggested that the Stony Brook community is fortunate to have Aisiku in this role.
“Given his track record, I fully expect him to engage deeply with students, faculty and community members, fostering connections and driving positive change,” Hall explained.
From left to right, Robert Samuel Decosta Higgins, Jayelani Hall, Imoigele Aisiku, Ron Walls and Mike VanRooyen, at a ceremony for Aisiku. Photo courtesy Imoigele Aisiku
Telehealth experience
Over a decade ago, Aisiku started iDoc Telehealth Solutions, a telemedicine company dedicated to critical and neurocritical care and tele-stroke services, with the goal of providing this type of care to people in areas that didn’t have enough clinicians with that experience.
Since then, he has become co-CEO of a public company called VSEE Health.
He expects to pass the torch on to other executives. His commitment is to the university as his obligation to the company is for about four more months.
To be sure, he wants to ensure there are no conflicts of interest in his roles at Stony Brook and in the decision about how and in what ways the university can continue to build telehealth capacity.
“If there is an opportunity to enhance an area, with full disclosure, there can be pathways to achieve things that improve the patient experience while separating ‘church’ and ‘state’ so to speak,” he explained in an email.
Morana Lasic, interim chief diversity & inclusion officer at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, suggested that Aisiku has served as a personal and institutional resource for a wide range of people.
Aisiku “works with those who are yet to enter the medical field and need mentorship, just as he does with institution presidents,” Lasic explained in an email. “He empowers those on his team and pays special attention to those who are often forgotten in mentorship (such as young administrative staff.)”
Lasic added that Aisiku was generous with his time and has reached out to her with emails and new thoughts and ideas at any time of day.
“Just like the rest of his life, his sleeping schedule is unique and his own, and he wears an Oura ring (which tracks sleep patterns) just to confuse it,” Lasic said.
In his research, Aisiku has focused on three areas: traumatic brain injury, subarachnoid hemorrhages and acute respiratory distress syndrome/sepsis.
Aisiku is living with his wife Diana, who is a nurse, and their 4 1/2-year-old son Myles in Westbury. They are in the process of searching for a home.
Outside of work, Aisiku has a black belt in the martial art of Jeet Kune Do, enjoys working out and played Division 3 tennis and basketball, at Worcester State University. He is also a motorcycle enthusiast.
As for his likely contribution to the Stony Brook community, Lasic, who has been at Brigham and Women’s Hospital for 25 years, suggested that she anticipated he would continue on an impressive journey.
Aisiku is “one of the most innovative leaders in academic medicine I have seen in a long time,” she wrote. “He is a true role model in his ability to connect with those around him.”
Daniel Marx in front of one of the magnets at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Photo courtesy of BNL
By Daniel Dunaief
In a world filled with disagreements over everything from presidential politics to parking places, numbers — and particularly constants — can offer immutable comfort, as people across borders and political parties can find the kind of common ground that make discoveries and innovations possible.
Many of these numbers aren’t simple, as anyone who has taken a geometry class would know. Pi, for example, which describes the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, isn’t just 3 or 3.14.
In classes around the world, people challenge their memory of numbers and sequences by reciting as many digits of this irrational number as possible. An irrational number can’t be expressed as a fraction.
These irrational numbers can and do inform the world well outside of textbooks and math tests, making it possible for, say, electromagnetic radiation to share information across a parallel world or, in earlier parlance, the ether.
“All electronic communication is made up of waves, sines and cosines, that are defined and evaluated using pi,” said Alan Tucker, Toll Distinguished Teaching Professor in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics at Stony Brook University. The circuits that send and receive information are “based on calculations using pi.”
Scientists can receive signals from the Voyager spacecraft, launched in 1977 and now over seven billion miles away, thanks to the ability to tune a circuit using math that relies on pi and numerous mathematical formulas where the sensitivity to the signal is infinite.
The signal from the spacecraft, which is over 16 years older than the average-aged person on the planet, takes about 10 hours to travel back and forth.
“Think of 1/x, where x goes to 0,” explained Tucker. “Scientists have taken that infinity to be an infinite multiplier of weak signals that can be understood.”
Closer to Earth, the internet, radio waves and TV, among myriad other electronic devices, all use generated and decoded calculations using pi.
“All space has an unseen mathematical existence that nobody can see,” said Tucker. “These are heavily based on calculations involving pi.”
Properties of nature
Constants reflect the realities of the world. They have “a property that is fundamental and absolute and that no one could change,” said Steve Skiena, Distinguished Teaching Professor of Computer Science at Stony Brook University. “The reason people discovered these constants as being important is because they are relating things that arise in the world.”
While pi may be among the best known and most oft-discussed constant, it’s not alone in measuring and understanding the world and in helping scientists anticipate, calculate and understand their experiments.
Chemists, for example, design reactions using a standard unit of measure called the mole, which is also called Avogadro’s number for the Italian physicist Amedeo Avogadro.
The mole provides a way to balance equations, enabling chemists to determine exactly how much of each reactant to combine to get a specific amount of product.
This huge number, which is often expressed as 6.022 times 10 to the 23rd power, represents the number of atoms in 12 grams of carbon 12. The units can be electrons, ions, atoms or molecules.
“Without Avogadro’s number, it would be impossible to determine the ratio of particular reactants,” said Elliot Smith, a postdoctoral researcher at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory who works in John Moses’s lab. “You could take an educated guess, but you wouldn’t get good results.”
Smith often uses millimoles, or 1/1000th of a mole, in the chemical reactions he does.
“If we know the millimoles of each reactant, we can calculate the expected yield,” said Smith. “Without that, you’re fumbling in the dark.”
Indeed, efficient chemical reactions make it possible to synthesize greater amounts of some of the pharmaceutical products that protect human health.
Moles, or millimoles, in a reaction also make it possible to question why a result deviated from expectations.
Almost the speed of light
Physicists use numerous constants.
“In physics, it is inescapable that you will have to deal with some of the fundamental constants,” said Alan Calder, Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Stony Brook University.
When he models stellar explosions, he uses the speed of light and Newton’s gravitational constant, which relates the gravitational force between two objects to the product of their masses divided by the square of the distance between them.
The stars Calder studies are gas ball reactions that also involve constants.
Stars have thermonuclear reactions going on in them as they evolve. Calder uses reaction rates that depend on local conditions like temperature, but there are constants in these.
Calder’s favorite number is e, or Euler’s constant. This number, which is about 2.71828, is useful in calculating interest in a bank account as well as in understanding the width of successive layers in a snail shell among many other phenomena in nature.
Electron Ion Collider
The speed of light figures prominently in the development and calculations at Brookhaven National Laboratory as the lab prepares to build the unique Electron Ion Collider, which is expected to cost between $1.7 billion and $2.8 billion.
The EIC, which will take about 10 years to construct, will collide a beam of electrons with a beam of ions to answer basic questions about the atomic nucleus.
“It’s one of the most exciting projects in the world,” said Daniel Marx, an accelerator physicist in the Electron Ion Collider accelerator design group at BNL.
At the EIC, physicists expect to propel the electrons, which are 2,000 times lighter than protons, extremely close to the speed of light. In fact, they will travel at 99.999999 (yes, that’s six nines after the decimal point) of the speed of light, which, by the way, is 186,282 miles per second. That means that light can circle the globe 7.48 times per second.
The EIC will increase the energy of ions to 99.999% of the speed of light. With only three nines after the decimal, the protons will be traveling at a slower enough speed that the designers of the collider will make the proton ring about 4 inches shorter over 2.4 miles to ensure that the protons and electrons arrive at exactly the same time.
The EIC will attempt to answer questions about the mass and spin of the nucleus. They hope to understand what happens with dense systems of gluons. By accelerating nuclei or protons to higher energies, they will get more gluons and will look for evidence of gluon saturation.
“The speed of light is absolutely fundamental to everything we do,” said Marx because it is fundamental to relativity and the particles in the accelerator are relativistic.
As for constants, Marx suggested that its value might look like a row of random numbers, but if those numbers are a bit different, that could “revolutionize” an understanding of physics.
In addition to a detailed understanding of atomic nuclei, the EIC could also lead to new technologies.
When JJ Thomson discovered the electron, he toasted it by saying, “may it never be of use to anyone.” That, however, is far from the case, as the electron is at the heart of electronics.
As for pi, Marx, like many of his STEM colleagues, appreciates this constant.
“Once you look at the mathematical statement of pi, and how it relates in various ways to other quantities in math and physics, it deepens your appreciation of how beautiful the whole universe is,” Marx said.
The Food and Drug Administration last week approved donanemab, or Kisunla, an intravenous treatment for early stage Alzheimer’s disease, adding a second medication for mild stages of a disease that robs people of memory and cognitive function.
Nikhil Palekar, Medical Director of the Stony Brook Center of Excellence for Alzheimer’s Disease and Director of the Stony Brook Alzheimer’s Disease Clinical Trials Program. Photo courtesy Stony Brook Medicine/Jeanne Neville
The monoclonal antibody drug from Eli Lilly joins Leqembi from drug makers Eisai and Biogen as ways to reduce the characteristic amyloid plaques that are often used to diagnose Alzheimer’s.
While the medications offer ways to slow but do not stop or reverse Alzheimer’s and come with potential significant side effects, doctors welcomed the treatment options for patients who are at risk of cognitive decline.
Dr. Nikhil Palekar, Medical Director of the Stony Brook Center of Excellence for Alzheimer’s Disease and Director of the Stony Brook Alzheimer’s Disease Clinical Trials Program, has been in the field for about two decades.
“Only in the last three years have I finally become quite optimistic” about new treatments, said Palekar, who is a consultant for Eisai. “We’ve had so many failures in the last few decades” with the current medications targeting the core pathologies.
That optimism comes at a time when more people in the United States and around the world are likely to deal with diseases that affect the elderly, as the number of people in the United States who are 85 and older is expected to double in the next 10 years.
The rates of Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia is about 13 percent for people between 75 and 84 and is 33 percent for people over 85 according to the Alzheimer’s Association.
The Alzheimer’s Association issued a statement welcoming the addition of Kisunla to the medical arsenal.
“This is real progress,” Joanne Pike, Alzheimer’s Association president and CEO, said in a statement. The approval “allows people more options and greater opportunity to have more time.”
To be sure, Leqembi, which was approved in June of 2023 and Kisunla aren’t a guarantee for improvement and come with some potentially significant side effects.
Some patients had a risk of developing so-called amyloid-related imaging abnormalities, which includes brain edema, or ARIA-E or hemorrhaging, or ARIA-H in the brain.
ARIA can resolve on its own, but can, in rare cases, become severe and life-threatening.
Patients taking these medications receive regular monitoring, including MRI’s before various additional treatments.
Patients are “monitored carefully” before infusions to “go over symptom checklists to make sure they don’t have neurological symptoms,” said Palekar. “If they have any symptoms, the next step is to head to the closest emergency room to get an MRI of the brain, which is the only way to know if a side effect is causing symptoms.”
Nonetheless, under medical supervision, patients who took the medication as a part of clinical trials showed a progressive reduction in amyloid plaques up to 84 percent at 18 months compared to their baseline.
The benefits for Leqembi, which is given every two weeks, and Kisunla, which is administered every four weeks, were similar in terms of slowing the effect of cognitive decline, said Dr. Marc Gordon, Chief of Neurology at Zucker Hillside Hospital in Glen Oaks.
“Neither of them is a cure for Alzheimer’s,” said Gordon. “These medications are not a home run, but at least we’re on base.”
Not eligible
Not everyone is eligible to take these monoclonal antibody treatments.
These drugs are not available for people who have progressed beyond the mild stage of the disease. Clinicians advised those who are showing potential signs of Alzheimer’s to visit their doctors before the disease progresses beyond the point where these drugs might help.
Additionally, people on blood thinners, such as Eliquis, Coumadin, and Warfarin, can not take these drugs because a micro bleed could become a larger hemorrhage.
People who have an active malignant cancer also can’t take these drugs, nor can anyone who has had a reaction to these treatments in the past. The people who might likely know of an allergic reaction to these drugs are those who participated in clinical trials.
Doctors monitor their patients carefully when they administer new drugs and have epinephrine on hand in case of an allergic reaction.
Patients with two alleles – meaning from both parents – of a variant called APOE ε4 have a higher incidence of ARIA, including symptomatic, serious and severe AIRA, compared to those with one allele or non-carriers.
If patients have this variant on both alleles, which occurs in about 15 percent of Alzheimer’s patients, Gordon and Palekar both counsel patients not to take the drug.
“We don’t think the risk is acceptable” for this patient population, Gordon said.
Ultimately, Palekar believes patients, their doctors and their families need to make informed calculations about the risks and benefits of any treatment, including for Alzheimer’s.
Beyond drugs
Palekar added that recent studies have also shown that an increase in physical exercise and activity, such as aerobic activity three times a week for 45 minutes each time, can “significantly help in patients with cognitive symptoms of Alzheimer’s Disease,” he said.
After consulting with a physician to ensure that such activity is safe, patients can use a stationary bike or take walks which can benefit their bodies and their brains.
Additionally, various diets, such as the mind diet that combines the mediterranean diet and the DASH diet, which emphasize eating green leafy vegetables and berries among other things, can benefit the brain as well.
Patients also improve their cognitive health by continuing mental activity through games as well as by retaining social connections to friends, family and members of the community.
Like many other people, Palekar witnessed the ravages of Alzheimer’s first hand. As a teenager, he saw his aunt, who was smart, caring and loving, stare out the window without being able to communicate and engage in conversation as she battled the disease.
As a condition involving amyloid plaques, tau proteins, and inflammation, Alzheimer’s disease may require a combination of treatments that address the range of causes.
“There’s going to be a combined therapy,” said Gordon. “Just like when we’re treating cancer, we don’t have just one drug. It’s going to be important to figure out the sequencing and whether drugs are given sequentially or cumulatively. It has to be a multi-faceted approach.”
The Long Island Explorium hosted its 7th annual Maker Faire on Saturday, June 8, also held at the Village Center and Harborfront Park. The event featured a wide range of activities, from hands-on origami lessons to robotics presentations, drawing a large and diverse crowd.
The Maker Faire has been a popular event well received by various communities. It aims to foster curiosity and provide a platform for people of all backgrounds and interests to share their passions.
The Maker Faire concept originated in San Mateo, California, in 2006, created by the editors of Make magazine. Since then, it has grown into an international event, with Maker Faires held in cities like San Francisco, New York, Berlin and Barcelona as well as Port Jefferson.
Angeline Judex, executive director of the Long Island Explorium, emphasized that the Maker Faire is “a festival of invention and innovation for everybody. Not just for little kids but for adults as well.” She highlighted the event’s diversity, which makes it especially unique. The faire featured an impressive assortment of participants and interests, from radio clubs to robotics and sculptures made from ocean debris.
This year’s Maker Faire on Long Island featured more than 75 exhibitors and 120 presenters.
The Maker Faire is designed to feed curiosity and nurture knowledge. Judex stated that the purpose of the event is “to enhance education, enrich life and to empower minds,” teaching that “learning is lifelong.” She noted the importance of such events in today’s society, especially with the advent of artificial intelligence. By cultivating curiosity and providing a space for the exchange of information, the faire aims to inspire innovation. “The challenges of the future can be changed by innovations from today,” Judex said. “Science is really at the intersection of endless possibilities — we’re talking about infinite possibilities for the future.”
Judex encouraged attendees to “explore, discover, invent and inspire,” sharing the joy and wonder that sustains lifelong learning and curiosity. “There’s no finite end, the exploring always continues,” she said, emphasizing the importance of having fun while learning.
