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Susan Lane, MD, MACP. Jeanne Neville, Stony Brook Medicine

The program is dedicated to preparing women for senior leadership roles in academic medicine

Susan Lane, MD, MACP, SUNY Distinguished Service Professor and Professor of Medicine in the Renaissance School of Medicine (RSOM) at Stony Brook University, has been named to the 2025-26 Class of Fellows for the Hedwig van Amerigen Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine (ELAM) program. An initiative at Drexel University College of Medicine, the program is dedicated to preparing women for senior leadership roles in schools of medicine, dentistry, public health and pharmacy.

According to Drexel, the ELAM program is specially developed for senior women faculty at the associate or full professorship level who demonstrate the greatest potential for assuming executive leadership positions at academic health centers within the next five years. To be accepted into the program, each fellow much be nominated and supported by the dean or another senior official at their institution. Dr. Lane received multiple senior level nominations and support.

ELAM centers on developing both the professional and personal skills for women to lead and manage in a complex healthcare environment, with a particular focus on the unique challenges of women in leadership positions.

“I am honored to be selected to this 2025-26 Class of ELAM Fellows, and during my career at Stony Brook Medicine I have endeavored to support women in their individual academic journeys and pave the way for them to serve in educational leadership positions,” says Dr. Lane, also Vice Chair of Education in the Department of Medicine and Associate Dean for Clinical Faculty Development for the RSOM.

Work for the incoming class of ELAM fellows begins in June 2025 with online assignments and community-building activities. Each fellow will be expected to develop an Institutional Action Project. A symposium in 2026 will feature the various projects completed from around the nation.

A resident of East Setauket, Dr. Lane, a RSOM faculty member since 2000, says she hopes to create a longitudinal development program for junior faculty at Stony Brook Medicine during their pivotal transition from the role of trainee to faculty member, with the goal to help them thrive as they juggle professional and personal responsibilities.

The effectiveness of ELAM’s distinctive approach to leadership preparation is broadly recognized within the academic health community. ELAM alumnae number more than 1,600 and serve in leadership positions at some 300 academic health centers worldwide.

Tara Huston, MD, Professor of Surgery and Dermatology in the RSOM’s Department of Surgery, is a current ELAM fellow.

For more about the ELAM and its curriculum, see this link.

 

 

 

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METRO photo

By Daniel Dunaief

Symptoms can range from dizziness and lightheadedness on standing to an inability to get out of bed.

These symptoms, which are characteristic of several medical conditions, are at the heart of a condition called Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome, or POTS.

Affecting considerably more women than men, POTS, which is caused by a sudden and sometimes dramatic increase in heart rate when people stand, can be anything from a nuisance to a debilitating condition.

On Saturday, April 26, at 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., several doctors, working with Dysautnomia International, will present information at a continuing medical education course at the MART auditorium at Stony Brook University about POTS, which people can also attend virtually. Details and registration can be found below. This course is designed for medical professionals, but patients and caregivers are welcome to register too.

The condition is triggered by a problem with the autonomic nervous system, which controls heart rate, blood pressure, digestion and temperature regulation among other functions.

“I’ve had patients who were previously athletes who can’t exercise anymore,” said Dr. Jeffrey Boris, a pediatric cardiologist with a private practice, an expert in POTS, and one of the speakers at the course at Stony Brook. 

In a previous study Boris conducted, he found that two out of three of his POTS patients had at least 10 symptoms, while half of them had at least 14 symptoms and 30 percent had at least 26 symptoms.

“The degree of debility can vary from some exercise intolerance to pretty much unable to get out of bed,” said Boris, who sees patients exclusively through telehealth and who is licensed to practice medicine in 18 states, not including New York.

An estimated one to three million Americans had some form of POTS before Covid. That number has increased to as many as six million.

Often triggered by an infection like the Epstein Barr virus, which causes mononucleosis, by Lyme Disease or even by concussions, POTS has no specific standard of care, as doctors have used a variety of pharmacological and non pharmacological treatments to help people suffering with these symptoms.

Some studies suggest that genetics plays a role in contributing to the disease.

Several high profile women have shared their battles with POTS, including Olympic gold-medal swimmer Katie Ledecky and Tori Moore, the wife of Super Bowl winning quarterback Nick Foles. Some doctors recommend swimming to POTS patients.

Medical education

The health care field hasn’t focused as much on POTS as it does on other diseases or conditions.

Doctors don’t always recognize POTS because they never learned about it in school, don’t believe it exists or didn’t train for this in their specialty work, Boris said.

The combination of these factors makes it harder for patients to receive a diagnosis.

Additionally, several other conditions have similar symptoms, including thyroid disease, low vitamin D, low iron and Addison’s Disease, among others.

The average patient takes four years to get an accurate diagnosis, according to Lauren Stiles, founder and president of Dysautonomia International (DI) and Research Assistant Professor of Neurology at the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University. Stiles is the course co-chair for the POTS.

Indeed, Jennifer Samghabadi, who works as a registered nurse for neurologist Dr. Mark Gudesblatt, had symptoms of POTS as early as 2004, but didn’t receive a diagnosis until after her symptoms worsened in 2012 following a bout with swine flu.

POTS “is often misdiagnosed,” said Samghabadi, who is a resident of Port Jefferson Station. “Symptoms mimic so many other things. Your autonomic nervous system is misfiring in every which way.”

Stiles, who founded DI in 2012 and has created support groups in over 80 countries for people who suffer from this condition, has been working with medical schools around the country to create more training for doctors.

Patients are typically treated through a combination of pharmacological and non pharmacological approaches. The medicines they have used, including ivabradine, have been approved for the treatment of other conditions and are used in an off-label basis.

Boris is planning to talk to doctors about various types of treatments he’s used that work.

“I can’t routinely predict what therapies are going to help,” Boris said. “It’s really variable from patient to patient. It can be a lot of trial and error.”

Non-pharmacological treatments include elevating the head of the bed frame about six to eight inches. That can cause the kidneys to hold onto salt and water, which can lesson symptoms, Boris explained.

Additionally, doctors recommend a high salt, high liquid diet, which can include three liters or more of water each day.

Boris has had some success working with abdominal binders, which he has found are more effective than compression stockings.

To be sure, some patients have gastrointestinal issues, including nausea, bloating and constipation. For those patients, as well as people who have autism spectrum disorder, abdominal pressure won’t likely provide any relief and may make some symptoms or discomfort worse.

In the talk Boris is giving, he would like doctors to recognize that the disease exists, it’s validated and it’s something that, if health care professionals are creative and thoughtful, they can find possible treatment options for patients who are often suffering through different levels of symptoms.

At this point, federal funding for research into POTS stands at about $4 million per year, which is up from $2 million per year before Covid, but is still short of what doctors and advocates would like to see for a potentially debilitating disease.

Boris hopes that further research will provide a better idea of what is leading to POTS, which may lead to a Food and Drug Administration-approved treatment.

People who wants to learn more about the condition can visit the web site CurePOTS.org. Dysautonomia International offers a list of doctors skilled in diagnosing and treating POTS as well as other autonomic disorders.

Samghabadi, who is on the board of DI, urged medical care professionals to attend the course.

“It’s going to teach you everything you need,” she said. “It’s practical, evidence-based strategies for diagnosing and treating dysautonomia and is immediately applicable to patients.”

Even doctors who don’t think they can treat these patients should be aware of it so they know where to send patients, she suggested.

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DETAILS AND REGISTRATION: 

Dysautonomia International and Stony Brook University School of Medicine invite you to join us for a Continuing Medical Education course, Updates in Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome Clinical Care & Research, on Saturday, April 26, 2025, 9am-4pm ET, held at the Stony Brook University MART Auditorium.

A networking reception with light refreshments will be held from 4 to 5 p.m. after the course.
Advanced registration is required. Up to 5.50 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™ are available for online or in person CME registrants. Please see the event website for details on CME credits. The lectures will be recorded and made available to all registered guests after the live event. CME credit is only available by watching the live broadcast or attending in person.
In Person Registration Fees:
Stony Brook University Students, Faculty & Staff (with CME credit): FREE
Community Physicians (with CME credit): $100
RN, PT, OT, Allied Health: (with CME credit): $75
Patients & Caregivers/Public (no CME credit): $25
Livestream Registration Fees:
Stony Brook University Students, Faculty & Staff (with CME credit): FREE
Livestream with CME credit: $100
Livestream with no CME credit: $25
If you are unable to attend in person or watch the livestream, but would like access to the recorded lectures, you can register for the “Livestream with no CME credit” option.

Online and in person registration options are available at bit.ly/StonyBrookCME

 

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Clare Beatty. Photo by Fred Marcus Studio

Clare Beatty, a PhD student and National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow in Clinical Psychology at Stony Brook University, is one of 100 doctoral students in the U.S. and Canada selected to receive a prestigious $25,000 P.E.O. Scholar Award from the P.E.O. (Philanthropic Educational Organization) Sisterhood. She was sponsored by Chapter N of New Canaan, CT.

The P.E.O. Scholar Awards were established in 1991 to provide substantial merit-based awards for women of the United States and Canada who are pursuing a doctoral-level degree at an accredited college or university. Scholar Awards recipients are a select group of women chosen for their high level of academic achievement and their potential for having a positive impact on society.

Beatty grew up in Darien, CT and is a 2018 graduate of Vanderbilt University, where she completed a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology, graduating summa cum laude and as a member of Phi Beta Kappa. As an undergraduate, she received multiple academic excellence awards and merit-based scholarships.

Beatty’s doctoral research examines why some people are more vulnerable to anxiety and depression than others, particularly in response to uncertainty. “Uncertainty is an inevitable part of life—from small things like the weather to major events like a global pandemic,” Beatty explained. “My research investigates how our brains respond when facing unpredictable situations.”

Using advanced neuroscience techniques, she studies how different patterns of brain activity might help identify adolescents at higher risk for developing mental health challenges. This work aims to improve early intervention and personalized treatment approaches for young people.

Beyond her research, Beatty serves as a consultant for several digital mental health companies that aim to improve access to evidence-based therapy and treatment. She works as a therapist for individuals across the lifespan and is also dedicated to teaching and mentoring aspiring psychology students. Beatty plans to graduate in May 2026 and will complete her final year of clinical training at Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York.

Beatty has been an author on over 20 published articles in prestigious scientific journals. Her accomplishments have been recognized by the Society of Clinical Psychology (American Psychological Association, Division 12) and the Society of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology (APA, Division 53), among several other honors.

 

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Photo from Staller Center Facebook
Katie Stockhammer

The Staller Center for the Arts at Stony Brook University has announced the creation of a new leadership position–Assistant Director–and the appointment of Katie Stockhammer to the role. This move underscores the Center’s commitment to strengthening its operational structure and ability to better serve its community.

As Assistant Director, Katie will take on significant responsibilities overseeing the day-to-day functionality of the Center, including production operations, and will play a key role in managing staff and resources. The creation of this role comes at a time of growth for Staller, allowing for more focused leadership and streamlined operations as the venue continues to evolve.

Katie, who joined the Staller team in 2011, brings a wealth of experience to this new role. Over the years, she has held various leadership positions, including Development Director, Financial and Executive Director of the Friends of Staller, and Director of Finance and Operations. Throughout her time at Staller, Katie has been instrumental in managing the center’s finances and supporting staff development, contributing to numerous operational improvements. Her appointment to Assistant Director follows her commitment to the success of Staller, as well as Staller’s dedication to nurturing talent within its ranks.

“Katie has been the backbone of the center for several years,” said Alan Inkles, Director of Staller Center. “I am tremendously confident in her abilities to manage our exceptional team and grateful to her for her over a dozen years of service. I am very proud to have her as the first ever Assistant Director at Staller Center. Please join us in congratulating Katie on her new position and continued success in helping guide Staller Center to even greater heights.”

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Scene from the Long Island Youth Climate Summit. Photo by William Stieglitz
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Scene from the Long Island Youth Climate Summit. Photo by William Stieglitz
Scene from the Long Island Youth Climate Summit. Photo by William Stieglitz
Scene from the Long Island Youth Climate Summit. Photo by William Stieglitz
Scene from the Long Island Youth Climate Summit. Photo by William Stieglitz
Scene from the Long Island Youth Climate Summit. Photo by William Stieglitz
Scene from the Long Island Youth Climate Summit. Photo by William Stieglitz
Scene from the Long Island Youth Climate Summit. Photo by William Stieglitz
Scene from the Long Island Youth Climate Summit. Photo by William Stieglitz
Scene from the Long Island Youth Climate Summit. Photo by William Stieglitz
Scene from the Long Island Youth Climate Summit. Photo by William Stieglitz
Scene from the Long Island Youth Climate Summit. Photo by William Stieglitz
Scene from the Long Island Youth Climate Summit. Photo by William Stieglitz

By William Stieglitz

Approximately 300 students from 17 local high schools and at least one middle school gathered April 4 for the first Long Island Youth Climate Summit at Stony Brook University. Organized by Students for Climate Action and Renewable Energy Long Island, the event centered on environmental education and advocacy, with students encouraged to get involved with grassroots.

“It’s really important that students remember that they have a voice, that they have power, that there’s a lot they can do locally,” said Harrison Bench from S4CA. “We are teaching students about the science behind climate change, the science behind renewable energy, but we’re also giving them practical tools in advocacy. … They go back to their towns, their communities, their schools, and they have the actual skills necessary to continue to push for change, where change matters most.”

Speakers at the event came from a variety of organizations. Adrienne Esposito, executive director of Citizens Campaign for the Environment, taught how to distinguish misinformation from environmental fact. Energy and construction organizations, such as the Haugland Group and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, spoke on the benefits of offshore wind and solar projects, while also encouraging careers in climate and energy. And Monique Fitzgerald, a climate justice organizer at Long Island Progressive Coalition, shared information on New York’s 2019 Climate Act, which aims to lower greenhouse gas emissions but has not been fully funded, and encouraged calling on Governor Kathy Hochul (D) “to double down on investments in New York State.”

Additionally, there was a panel with six elected officials — Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine (R), Suffolk County legislators Steven Englebright (D, Setauket) and Rebecca Sanin (D, Huntington Station), Southold Town Supervisor Al Krupski (D), East Hampton Town Deputy Supervisor Cate Rogers (D) and New York State Senator Monica Martinez (D/WF, Brentwood) — who all spoke on the importance of advancing clean energy. Bench expressed that he would have liked an even larger turnout of representatives, saying “it would have been really great to have more Republican elected officials on the town board,” but also that he hopes to increase the number for next year.

The student response to the event was positive, with the teens saying they especially appreciated learning about offshore wind and hearing from keynote speaker Christopher Gobler, from the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook University. “I like that it brings attention to a lot of the issues right now,” said a student from Westhampton Beach High School. “It’s super, super important, especially in our political climate, with the pulling out of the Paris Climate Agreement.”

“I feel like it was very empowering,” said another student, who does local beach cleanup each summer. “Before, I thought that maybe I wouldn’t have had as much of a difference, like, just one person at a time. Now I’m hearing that there’s 300 other students here that are all here for the same reason. We can all go out together and all make an impact and that together, I feel like, [we] can really make a difference in the world, which is what I really care about the most.”

After about 4 hours of learning, students took a break for pizza and to meet with exhibitors from organizations such as PSEG Long Island, the New York League of Conservation Voters and Drive Electric Long Island. They then reconvened for action items, starting with making postcards to send to their congressional representatives. Students wrote letters on one side and got creative with designs on the other. Among the colorful images of wind turbines and the globe were messages such as “Only One Planet Earth,” “Use your brain power! Support wind power!” and “Please support renewable energy before we go under water.” Afterward, the students started petitions to bring back to their schools, focusing on crafting their asks, arguments, methods of distribution and timeline.

Melissa Parrot, executive director of ReLI, said the summit “exceeded our expectations.” She wanted the event to be solution oriented rather than just restating the problems. “We know we wanted climate science. We know we wanted action. We know we wanted careers. We know we wanted elected officials to be part of this process. So it kind of just figured itself out.”

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Caption: Professor John Pardon. Photo by John Griffin/Stony Brook University

Stony Brook University Professor John Pardon is a co-recipient of the New Horizon in Mathematics prize which is part of the Mathematics Breakthrough prizes that are awarded annually. This award is given to early-career researchers who have already produced important work in their fields. The prize will amount to $100,000.

Professor Pardon was recognized for his research that has produced a number of important results in geometry and topology, particularly in the field of symplectic geometry and pseudo-holomorphic curves, which are certain types of smooth surfaces in manifolds.

The Breakthrough Prize honors an esteemed group of the world’s most brilliant minds for impactful scientific discoveries, including a subset responsible for substantial progress in the understanding and treatment of major diseases. The Prize – popularly known as the “Oscars® of Science” – was created to celebrate the wonders of the scientific age by founding sponsors Sergey Brin, Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg, Julia and Yuri Milner, and Anne Wojcicki.

“That John has received this honor so early in his career is a testament of course to his own commitment to unraveling some of the mysteries of geometry and to the incredible research that is going on at the Simons Center and in the math department in the College of Arts and Sciences,” said Carl W. Lejuez, executive vice president and provost. “John is an exemplary of what makes Stony Brook the state’s top public university and a flagship. I sincerely congratulate him on his Breakthrough Prize.”

“John Pardon has produced a broad spectrum of outstanding results in various areas of geometry and topology including as an undergraduate and PhD student. He co-created effective algebraic machinery for computation of symplectic invariants, which brought many new applications. Most recently, John proved a conjecture of Maulik, Nekrasov, Okounkov, and Pandharipande for a large class of complex three-dimensional manifolds, including all Calabi–Yau threefolds.” said  Luis Alvarez-Gaume, director of the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics.

This is the fifth Breakthrough Prize for Stony Brook University’s faculty. Previous to Professor Pardon, winners include C.N. Yang/Wei Deng Endowed Chair and Professor Alexander (Sasha) Zamolodchikov in 2024, Distinguished Professor Emeritus Peter van Nieuwenhuizen 2019, Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy Chang Kee Jung and his group in 2016 and Professor Sir Simon K. Donaldson in 2014.

 

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METRO photo

By Daniel Dunaief

In the typical process of developing cures for medical problems or diseases, researchers explore the processes and causes and then spend years searching for remedies.

Ke Jian Liu. Photo by Jeanne Neville, Stony Brook Medicine

Sometimes, however, the time frame for finding a solution is cut much shorter, particularly when the Food and Drug Administration has already approved a drug treatment for another problem.

This could be the case for hemorrhagic stroke. Caused by a burst blood vessel that leads to bleeding in the brain, hemorrhagic stroke represents 13 percent of stroke cases, but accounts for 50 percent of stroke fatalities.

That’s because no current treatment exists to stop a process that can lead to cognitive dysfunction or death.

A researcher with a background in cancer and stroke, Ke Jian “Jim” Liu, Professor of Pathology and Associate Director or Basic Science at the Stony Brook Cancer Center who joined Stony Brook University in 2022, has found a mechanism that could make a hemorrhagic stroke so damaging.

When a blood vessel in the brain bursts, protoporphyrin, a compound that attaches to iron to form the oxygen carrying heme in the blood, partners up with zinc, a similar metal that’s in the brain and is released from neurons during a stroke. This combination, appropriately called zinc protoporphyrin, or ZnPP, doesn’t do much under normal conditions, but could be “highly toxic” in hypoxic, or low-oxygen conditions.

“We have done some preliminary studies using cellular and animal stroke models,” said Liu. “We have demonstrated on a small scale” that their hypothesis about the impact of ZnPP and the potential use of an inhibitor for the enzyme that creates it ‘is true.’”

These scientists recently received a $2.6 million grant over five years from National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, which is a branch of the National Institutes of Health.

Focusing on a key enzyme

After Liu and his colleagues hypothesized that the ZnPP was toxic in a low-oxygen environment, they honed in on ways to reduce its production. Specifically, they targeted ferrochelatase, the enzyme that typically brings iron and protoporphyrin together.

Iron isn’t as available in this compromised condition because it has a positive charge of three, instead of the usual plus two.

Liu discovered the role of zinc in research he published several years ago.

When a hemorrhagic stroke occurs, it creates a “perfect storm,” as the enzyme favors creating a toxic chemical instead of its usual oxygen carrying heme, Liu said. He is still exploring what makes ZnPP toxic.

The group, which includes former colleagues of Liu’s from the University of New Mexico, will continue to explore whether ZnPP and the enzyme ferrochelatase becomes an effective treatment target.

Liu was particularly pleased that currently approved treatments for cancer could be repurposed to protect brain cells during a hemorrhagic stroke. Indeed, with over 80 approved protein kinase inhibitors, which could work to stop the formation of ZnPP during a stroke, Liu and his colleagues have plenty of potential treatment options.

“We’re in a unique position that a clinically available drug that’s FDA approved for cancer treatment” could become a therapeutic solution for a potentially fatal stroke, Liu said.

To be sure, Liu and his colleagues plan to continue to conduct research to confirm that this process works as they suggest and that this possible therapy is also effective.

As with other scientific studies of medical conditions, promising results with animal models or in a lab require further studies and validation before a doctor can offer it to patients.

“This is an animal model, based on a few observations,” said Liu. “Everything needs to be done statistically.”

At this point, Liu is encouraged by these preliminary studies as the subjects that received an inhibitor are “running around,” he said. “You can see the difference with your own eyes. We’re excited to see that.”

Earlier hypotheses for what caused damage during hemorrhagic stroke focused on the release of iron. In research studies, however, using a chelator to bind to iron ions has produced some benefits, but they are small compared to the damage from the stroke. The chelator is “not really making any major difference,” said Liu.

The Stony Brook researcher did an experiment where he compared ZnPP with the damage from other metabolic products.

“ZnPP is several times more toxic than all the other things combined,” which is what makes them believe that ZnPP might be responsible for the damage, he said.

Proof of principle

For the purpose of the grant, Liu said the scientists were focusing on gathering more concrete evidence to support their theory. The researchers are also testing a few of the protein kinase inhibitors to demonstrate that they work.

In their preliminary studies, they chose several inhibitors based on whether the drug penetrates the blood brain barrier and that have a relatively high affinity for ferrochelatase.

“This opens the door for a new phase of the study,” Liu said. “Can we find the best drug that provides the best outcomes? We are not there yet.”

Removing zinc is not an option, as it is a part of 2 percent of the proteome, Liu said. Taking it out would “screw up the entire biological, physiological system,” he added.

Liu speculates that any future drug treatment would involve a relatively small dose at a specific time, although he recognized that any drug could have side effects.

In an uncertain funding climate in which the government is freezing some grants, Liu hopes that the financial support will continue through the duration of the grant.

“Our hope is that at the end of this grant, we can demonstrate” the mechanism of action for ZnPP and can find a reliable inhibitor, he said. “The next step would be to go to a clinical trial with an FDA-approved drug, and that would be fantastic.”

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Stony Brook Biomedical Engineer Gábor Balázsi, PhD. Photo by Lynn Spinnato

Gábor Balázsi, PhD, the Henry Laufer Professor of Physical and Quantitative Biology in the Laufer Center at Stony Brook University, has been named a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE).

Balázsi took part in a formal induction ceremony in Arlington, Virginia, on March 31, for AIMBE’s 2025 Class of College Fellows, which includes 171 leading international scientists.

AIMBE Fellows are among the most distinguished medical and biological engineers. Fellows include four Nobel Prize laureates and 27 Presidential Medal of Science and/or Technology and Innovation awardees. Additionally, 233 Fellows have been inducted to the National Academy of Engineering, 120 into to the National Academy of Medicine, and 51 inducted to the National Academy of Sciences.

Balázsi, also a Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and an affiliate member of the Stony Brook University Cancer Center, was nominated, reviewed, and elected by peers and members of the AIMBE College of Fellows “for pioneering contributions to apply engineering principles to design protein-level tuning synthetic gene circuits, and to identify mechanisms for their evolution.”

A professor and researcher at Stony Brook since 2014, Balázsi’s work centers on developing and evolving synthetic gene circuits. The core of the research is to enable a predictive, quantitative understanding and control of biological processes such as cellular decision-making and the survival and evolution of cell populations, such as in metastatic progression and chemoresistance in cancer.

His findings have led to published papers in approximately 50 journals, including Nature Communications, Nature Chemical Biology, PNAS, Cell, and Cell Chemical Biology.

The East Setauket resident is a member of the American Physical Society, the American Association for Cancer Research and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. 

AIMBE’s College of Fellows is comprised of almost 3,000 individuals who have made significant contributions to the medical and biological engineering community in academia, industry, government, and education that have transformed the world. Most AIMBE Fellows are from the United States but many hail from all over the word and represent more than 30 countries.

 

 

 

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This bar graph shows the various forms of violence victimization over a 24-hour period as reported in more than 12,000 mobile phone surveys of almost 500 adolescent boys. Credit: Rachel Kidman

By Daniel Dunaief

Rachel Kidman

Researchers have long connected exposure to violence, particularly at a younger age, to expressions of violence as people age.

In a recent study of boys between the ages of 15 and 19 years old published in the journal PLOS One, lead author Rachel Kidman, Core Faculty in the Program in Public Health and Associate Professor in the Department of Family, Population and Preventive Medicine in the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University, however, has made a connection between various types of violence adolescent boys witnessed or were subjected to and violence within 24 hours towards intimate partners.

“Those boys who experience violence that day are much more likely to act out and engage in intimate partner violence against their girlfriend or boyfriend,” said Kidman. 

Adolescent boys are getting “trapped in a cycle” in which they experience and then perpetuate violence, Kidman said.

In parts of Africa, in particular, intimate partner violence could be particularly dangerous as the rate of HIV infection — the virus that causes AIDS — is higher.

This study, which was conducted with 498 adolescents living in Soweto, South Africa who responded to cell phone surveys from November of 2020 to June of 2022, expands the understanding of the development of abuse and violence.

Amy Hammock, Associate Professor in the School of Social Welfare at Stony Brook University, who has collaborated on research with Kidman but was not a part of this paper, lauded the work for its “strong design” which relies on surveys that measure violence within 24 hours. The surveys allow for “more accuracy in reporting” than a typical question about violence within the last year.

“Many of the boys in the sample experienced significant violence, both at the community level and the interpersonal level,” Hammock explained.

Previous evidence indicates that men who experienced or witnessed childhood trauma or domestic violence between their parents perpetrate intimate partner violence at higher rates.

“We don’t have a lot of evidence of what happens during the teenage years,” said Kidman. “This could be setting the course for relationships in the future.”

Adolescents could be responding to triggers and may not know how to cope with their own emotions, which leads to their own violent actions.

Working with boys

Public health programs typically focus on ways to protect people in relationships, often women, against violence, by encouraging them to take self-defense classes and to recognize the signs of an abusive relationship. Many of these approaches place the onus on the victim, which seems too narrow, Kidman said. As a next step, “we can work with boys, acknowledge the trauma.”

By exploring the link between physical, verbal and sexual violence perpetrated against adolescent boys, researchers are taking a first step towards developing methods that might help boys cope with their own emotions without lashing out at their partners.

“We need to learn more to design the right intervention,” Kidman explained.

Breaking the cycle

The real-time mobile phone surveys revealed a sharp increase in the odds of intimate partner violence (IPV) when teenage boys were victims of violence within 24 hours, particularly sexual violence. Credit: Rachel Kidman

Kidman chose to work with adolescents in this area of South Africa in part because she had forged connections with researchers in the area in previous studies and in part because of the high levels of HIV and violence for an underserved population.

She feels it’s important to understand the epidemics of violence in low and middle income countries.

“The area we work in has a history of apartheid and racial and economic segregation and a long history of violence and a high rate of HIV,” Kidman said.

To be sure, ideally, these adolescents wouldn’t experience any violence. Many of the adolescents who participated in this study experienced intimate partner violence directed against them as well, which could be initiated by a girlfriend or be used by a girlfriend in self defense.

“Some of this may be in the context of bi-directional violence in the relationship,” said Kidman.

Participants in this study could ask to speak with a counselor. Kidman appreciates the adolescents who shared personal and painful details their lives.

“These are not easy topics to talk about and they get a lot of credit for being so open,” she said. “This gives us insights into how we can help.”

Meaningful semester abroad

The direction Kidman’s research has taken springs from research she did during her undergraduate training at Swarthmore College, particularly during a semester abroad in Zimbabwe. She was interested in the social dimensions of HIV. During her master’s degree at the Harvard School of Public Health, she studied the survival and education of orphaned children.

As she conducted that research, Kidman considered the many adversities affecting children, including violence, child abuse, neglect, and living with someone who has substance abuse problems, among others. The current project is exploring how these experiences during childhood and adolescence, including child abuse, verbal violence and bullying, affect youth and their behavior towards intimate partners.

Indeed, when youth with HIV experience violence, they sometimes don’t take their medications, which increases the health risks to themselves and their partners.

Role models

Born and raised in Portland, Maine, Kidman received considerable support for her broader interests in the world from her parents Joan and Bruce Kidman.

“When I announced that I was going to Zimbabwe for the semester, they were absolutely on board,” said Kidman.

Indeed, both of her parents, who met in college, worked together for the Peace Corps in Micronesia after they graduated. When she was in college, Kidman was eager to learn about a different culture.

Kidman and her husband Sean Clouston, Professor in the Department of Family, Population and Preventive Medicine in the Renaissance School of Medicine at SBU, live in Stony Brook with their 10 and 12-year old children Riley and Quinn.

As for her work, Kidman suggested numerous questions remain. She urged further studies that could assist with preventing violence and supporting those people who can be victims and perpetrators.

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Photo courtesy of Stony Brook University Athletics

Stony Brook men’s lacrosse outlasted No. 12 Fairfield, 17-16, on March 29 at LaValle Stadium, handing the NCAA’s last remaining unbeaten team its first loss of the season. Kian McCoy paced the offense with a career-high six points (three goals, three assists) while Jamison MacLachlan made a season-best 20 saves in cage.

The high-scoring contest featured a 10-goal first half, seeing Stony Brook take an early 5-1 lead.

The Seawolves led 6-4 after the opening 15 minutes of action. Six different Seawolves scored a goal in the frame.

Fairfield trailed by four goals early on but scored three of the final four goals of the quarter to trim the deficit to two goals.

A five-goal scoring run that spanned the final three-plus minutes of the first quarter and the first six minutes of the second stanza gave Fairfield its first lead of the afternoon, 7-6.

Brendan Marino snapped Stony Brook’s nearly 15-minute scoring drought with his second of the afternoon to even the score at 7-7. McCoy followed with his second of the contest to put the Seawolves back in front.

The Stags tallied a pair of goals to back ahead by one before Richie DeChiaro scored in the final minute to even the contest at 9-all heading into the intermission.

The lead continued changing hands in the second half. McCoy completed his hat trick to break the ice in the second half and put Stony Brook in front 10-9.

Fairfield notched back-to-back goals to make it 11-10 in favor of the nationally-ranked visitors.

The two sides entered the fourth quarter all even at 13 after Tanner Williams found the back of the net to complete the scoring in the third quarter.

Carson Boyle netted a man-up goal and Collin Williamson padded the Seawolves lead to two goals with one of his own early in the fourth.

Fairfield responded with two more tallies to tie it again, 15-15. MacLachlan held strong in net, stopping a pair of Fairfield shots and keeping it even as the contest entered the final five minutes.

MacLachlan caused a turnover with less than three minutes to play, intercepting a pass to the X. Stony Brook gained possession, cleared and called timeout to set the offense.

Ray O’Brien scored the go-ahead goal, unassisted, sneaking a shot inside, with help from the post, with 2:17 to play.

Robbie Smith won the ensuing face-off, leading to a Caleb Yeung unassisted goal to push the lead to two goals with 1:06 to play.

Smith won the next face-off as well, but Fairfield forced a turnover and scored with 20 seconds to play.

After a Fairfield timeout, the Stags went early on the face-off, giving what proved to be the final possession of the contest to Stony Brook. The Seawolves ran the clock out on their second ranked win of the season, and first in league play.

“I’m so proud of the guys, they played so hard. These last four weeks, we’ve practiced so hard and we’re in these one-goal games. It comes down to play here or there, and we talked all week about finishing. We broke every huddle with ‘finish’ the entire week and every huddle in game today and our guys just made one more play and that was the key,” head coach Anthony Gilardi said postgame.

Up next, the team hits the road to face Delaware on Saturday, April 5. The Seawolves and Blue Hens are set for a noon start in Newark with the contest streaming live on FloCollege.

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