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Stony Brook University

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SBU Uses Up Half of Rainy Day Fund to Balance Budget

Stony Brook University is facing a huge financial hole in 2020. File photo from Stony Brook University

The COVID-19 crisis has exacted a heavy toll on Stony Brook University’s finances, creating a $109.6 million deficit on the academic and research side.

Maurie McInnis was named SBU’s sixth president. In a stunning letter made public on her president’s web page, she details the huge financial hole the school will have to navigate in the near future. Photo from SBU

The pandemic cost the hospital and clinic an estimated $58 million, while it also cost the academic and research campus over $74.6 million in the past financial year, which includes $35 million in refunded fees, $12 million in lost revenue from cultural programs and facilities rentals, and $8.5 million in extra expenses, including cleaning and supplies, student quarantine costs and technology costs, according to message from new Stony Brook University President Maurie McInnis published on her SBU president web page Aug. 12.

Through a number of steps, including hiring freezes, the university has attempted to offset these costs, but that won’t be enough. The school is tapping into its central reserve fund, essentially the university’s rainy day pool, reducing it by over 50% in one year. McInnis, in an open letter on her web page, said this “is completely unsustainable.”

Starting today, McInnis will hold a series of virtual campus conversations to provide more details and address questions, while she and university leaders search for long-term solutions to address a host of challenges that have presented a serious headwind to the school’s future budget.

In disclosing detailed information, McInnis wrote that she believes such disclosures will help the campus work together towards solutions.

“I believe that it is only by being open and candid and providing clear information that we can come together as a community to tackle our shared challenges,” she wrote in her letter.

In her letter to the campus, McInnis detailed specific costs, while she also outlined the steps Stony Brook has taken to offset some of these financial challenges.

For starters, she wrote that the university has been “told to expect a 20-30% cut in state funding this year, or $25 million.” The school also had its allocation for last year retroactively cut by $19 million.

“It is unclear when, if ever, our funding will return to current levels, let alone the levels of support we ideally receive as a top research institution in the region,” she wrote in her letter.

Federal government restrictions on travel and visas, along with COVID impacts, have created a 17.5 percent drop in out-of-state and international students, which not only reduces diversity but also creates a $20 million drop in revenue.

The number of campus residents will also decline by 40% for next semester, from 10,000 to 6,000, creating an estimated $38.9 million revenue loss.

The bottom line, she explained, is that the $109.6 million deficit on the academic and research side. This she predicts, could become significantly worse.

The measures the university has taken offset some of that decline, saving the school an estimated $55 million, but the measures still do not close the budget gap and are not sustainable.

A hiring freeze for new positions and for those that become open from staff and faculty attrition will save $20 million.

Student housing refinancing will save $31.1 million in fiscal year 2021.

An ongoing freeze on expenses covering costs for service contracts, supplies and equipment and travel will save about $2.3 million

A cut to the athletic budget will save $2 million.

Senior campus leadership, meanwhile, has voluntarily taken a 10% pay cut along with a permanent hold back of any 2% raise for all Management Confidential employees.

At the same time, the university faces longer-term financial challenges.

State support has declined since 2008, from $190.4 million to $147.7 million last year. That will be even lower this year. On a per-student basis, state support in 2020 was $6,995, compared with $9,570.

This year’s expected increase in tuition and the Academic Excellence fee have not been approved by the SUNY Board.

The multi-year contracts that govern faculty and staff pay have not been fully funded, McInnis wrote in her president’s message. That has created an additional cost of $10 million for the 2020 fiscal year. Over the next five years, that compounds to $54 million.

The rainy day fund is picking up $9.7 million of that scheduled contractual salary increase raise.

The Tuition Assistance Program has been set at 2010 tuition levels, which creates a $9 million financial gap in fiscal year 2020. That is expected to rise in 2021. Stony Brook also recently learned, according to McInnis’s letter, that TAP will be funded at 80 percent of what the school awards to New York State students who rely on the program to access higher education.

At the same time, the Excelsior Program, which began in the fall of 2017 and allows students from families making up to $125,000 to attend school tuition free, may not accept new students this year.

McInnis concluded with her hope that the university will come together in the same way it did during the worst of the pandemic in New York to address these financial challenges.

“I fully recognize that you are operating in one of the most difficult environments any of us has experienced,” she wrote. “And, we are going to have to bring the same level of collaboration and innovation that you brought at the height of the COVID-19 response to our systemic budget challenges.”

McInnis urged the staff to “work together, share the best ideas, challenge assumptions, and build on the excellence of Stony Brook University in order to continue to move this great institution forward.”

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Klaus Mueller (third from left) with Akai Kaeru co-founder Eric Papenhausen (right) and interns Shenghui Cheng (second from left), on whose PhD thesis the software was based and Darius Coelho, who earned his PhD in Mueller’s lab. Photo courtesy of Akai Kaeru

By Daniel Dunaief

About 40 percent of the counties in the United States are at high risk for COVID-19 and related death rates, according to a new computer program created by Stony Brook University Computer Science Professor Klaus Mueller.

Putting together data from the over 3,000 counties throughout the United States, Mueller used a computer program he created with a start up company he co-founded, called Akai Kaeru LLC, to search for counties that present factors that would put them at greater risk for an increase in COVID-19 deaths.

Analyzing data from 500 factors, the scientists found that death rates increased in communities with a combination of traits that are catalytic for the spread and fatality rate of the virus. These include sparsely populated counties with a poor and aging population; counties with sleep-deprived, low-educated, low-insured residents; and wealthy counties with high home ownership and increasing housing debt, among other factors.

Many of the counties are in the southern United States. In June, Mississippi, Louisiana and Georgia had the highest density of high-risk counties at a coverage of 80 to 90 percent.

Mueller said he considered this approach in late April. When the data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention came online, the group did its first test run on May 10th, which ended on June 10th.

When he looked at the June 10th mortality rates throughout the country, he was amazed at how effectively the patterns based on the conditions from the computer algorithm predicted increases.

To be sure, not all of the counties that fit one or more of these sets of conditions had high death rates in May, but others that were similar had. The preconditions existed, but the spark to cause those deaths hadn’t occurred, Mueller said.

“In June, some of these so far untouched counties caught the virus and they flared up like a tinderbox,” Mueller explained in an email. “This phenomenon continued in July for other counties that had escaped it so far but had the critical condition sets.”

In June, some of the counties that had characteristics that made them vulnerable caught the virus, Mueller explained.

Mueller anticipates a rapid increase in August in counties in Florida and Texas, in which the virus has spread and the conditions for increased mortality are prevalent.

“There are counties in these states that from the socio-economic perspective look a lot like those that already experienced great tragedy,” he wrote.

Mueller explained that people in many counties think they’re not at risk even if their neighbors are. The danger, however, comes from a spark, such as a visit by someone carrying the virus, that increases the infection, hospital and mortality rates.

Indeed, in wealthy counties where residents are stretched thin by the costs needed to maintain their homes, the incidence of illness and death is also higher. In part, that reflects how some of the people in these communities cut corners in terms of health insurance.

Mueller said Akai Kaeru, which means “red frog” in Japanese, is working on a dashboard that will be accessible from a web browser where users can click on a map of counties and see the risk and the patterns that define it. The staff at Akai Kaeru, which includes three principals and four interns, have virtual team meetings each weekday at 11 am. The dashboard they create can help residents see the other counties that share similar characteristics. Users can also compare the death rate in these counties to the average death rate in the United States.

While the observations of trends linking characteristics of a county with COVID-related health challenges could be useful for county and state planners, Mueller acknowledged that these observations are “just a start. Now, you know where to look, which is way better than before.”

The data could be useful for policy and law makers as well as for actuaries at life insurance companies.

Mueller believes this artificial intelligence tool acts like a magnet that pulls out the proverbial needle from the data haystack.  Local leaders can use the dashboard to see the critical conditions for their counties. They can try to find solutions to remove those conditions.

Demonstrating how the health care system in similar areas became overwhelmed can increase compliance with social distancing and mask-wearing guidelines.

Mueller added that the predictions from the model are only as good as the data he used to analyze trends across the country. He and his team aren’t making these observations or collecting this information themselves.

He said some counties have a lower likelihood than the average of developing a wider contagion. While the entire state doesn’t have the same lower probability of the disease spreading, areas like Montana and Indiana have fewer of the variables that typically combine to create conditions that favor the spread of the virus.

Mueller suggests that the risks from COVID-19 are tied to compliance with policies that reduce the spread of the disease and to the development of a vaccine.

Despite the high infection rate through April and May and the deaths during those unprecedented months, Suffolk County isn’t at the same level of risk as some regions in the south. “Suffolk is much better than those counties in the South and even Westchester, Rockland and adjacent counties in Connecticut and New Jersey,” Mueller said. “But it is not without risk.”

Prior to developing a program to analyze epidemiological trends with COVID, Mueller worked with medical visualization, which included the three-dimensional data of human parts that were generated through computed tomography, or CT.

In his work, the Computer Science professor seeks to find ways to communicate high-dimensional data to the lay population. He has routinely worked on clustering and has partnered with Pacific Northwest, Brookhaven National Laboratory, and health care companies.

Mueller has been at Stony Brook University since 1999. He earned his PhD from Ohio State University. Originally from Germany, he has done considerable work online, including teaching.

He and his wife Akiko, who works on marketing for his company, have an eight-year-old daughter named Nico.

Readers interested in learning more about his research with COVID can find information at the following link: https://akaikaeru.com/covid-19-1.

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Stock photo

People are using too much hand sanitizer. That’s one of several observations from Sharon Nachman, chief of the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Stony Brook Children’s Hospital.

Sharon Nachman of SBU’s pediatrics department. Photo from SBU

Nachman suggests that sanitizer requires only a small amount on people’s hands. If, after applying it, someone has wet and sticky hands, they have overdone it.

“When I see people using hand sanitizer, they glop it on,” Nachman said in an interview. She recommends not using more than the standard volume, even amidst a return to school during the ongoing fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a wide-ranging conversation about the health of students who are returning to campus, Nachman urged students to pay closer attention to their health, to keep themselves and their classmates safe.

Students can tell if they’re too close to each other if they both reach out and can touch each other’s fingers.

The signs of COVID-19 in older teenagers and young 20-somethings are similar to the ones that occur in adults. They include fever, fatigue, feeling ill, loss of taste, and dry coughs. College students also have a high rate of being asymptomatic, which makes it difficult to find and isolate sick students.

While multi-symptom inflammatory disease in children, or MSI-C, cropped up during the worst of the pandemic in Suffolk County, the overall numbers of cases and infection rate on Long Island have fallen enough to reduce the likelihood of this COVID-related illness among children.

“Its all about how big the hit is in the community,” she said. “If you go to Texas or Florida, they are clearly seeing it. On Long Island, we aren’t seeing it” because of the way residents have helped flatten the infection curve among the population.

Nachman urged college students to be responsible when a contact tracer reaches out to them. In college campuses throughout the country, contact tracing will help mitigate the spread of the infection by quarantining people who might have been exposed to an active form of the virus. Isolating people will keep the spread of the virus in check.

Students, faculty and university administrators are well aware of the possibility that schools will need to return to an all-remote education model if infections reach a high enough level. Indeed, Nachman urged students to develop a plan for what they would pack and take home and where they would go if campuses closed. By being prepared for change, students can react to altered circumstances. High school students also need such preparation, in case any school that open need to close to protect students, faculty and staff.

As for the potential overlap of the flu and COVID, Nachman suggested students should get the flu shot by October, before the flu season begins.

Nachman is an advocate for masks.

“The smartest thing people can do is really wearing their masks,” she said. “Come to college prepared with enough masks that you can wash and wear them.”

The ideal number of masks is nothing fewer than two per day. She likes the washable ones, which are easy to put in the laundry and wash with the rest of a student’s clothing. The two-ply cloth masks work well and can be “personalized to reflect someone’s mood, to match clothing or to make a statement.”

Masks are important not only to protect other members of the student body, but also to protect the wearer.

“This idea that I’m wearing it to protect you is half right,” she said. “It’s protection for both of us.”

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Colby Rowe and Roseanna Ryan making a delivery of over 100 iPads for patient-family communication. Photo by Scott Lamarsh

While Stony Brook University Hospital staff were taking care of the sickest residents in the midst of the pandemic in Suffolk County, residents did what they could to return the favor.

Colby Rowe’s truck is filled with 3M N95 masks. Photo by Colby Rowe

In addition to cheering for health care workers, first responders and essential employees each night at 7 p.m., numerous residents and businesses made donations of everything from lifesaving N95 masks to food to comfort care.

After 10 weeks of accepting donations from March through early June, Stony Brook had collected nearly one million pieces of personal protective equipment, including masks, gloves and head and food coverings, 33,500 comfort care items such as snacks, hand lotion, puzzles and coloring books, 18,000 meal donations, 575 video messages of support and 435 iPads for telemedicine.

These donations bolstered the spirits of the staff and provided vital comfort during everything from the process of conducting COVID-19 tests in the South P Lot to the recharging breaks doctors, nurses and hospital staff took after caring for patients.

“The comfort piece was a bit more striking for the patients and the staff,” said Roseanna Ryan, director of Patient Advocacy & Language Assistance Services at SBU Hospital. “The need for the staff to have a respite area to recharge during this extremely challenging time was something that we might not have initially anticipated. The donations we were able to use went such a long way.”

Indeed, even some of the smaller items helped the masked men and women health care heroes throughout the hospital system.

During testing, some of the medical professionals worked 12-hour shifts, administering test after test for reeling residents. Items such as breath mints, ChapStick and even eye coverings that would help health care workers take a nap in their car before returning for the next shift proved incredibly helpful, said Colby Rowe, Trauma Center Education & Prehospital outreach coordinator. Rowe worked with the emergency management team at the university, primarily coordinating the donation center.

“I received lots of text messages from people on the receiving end saying, ‘Thank you so much.’ They felt appreciated by the community, Rowe said.

Rowe added that the hospital performed ably in ensuring that the staff had sufficient PPE equipment to help them with their dangerous but important work.

The university took a wide range of assistance. Some donations, like snack food, found a home in the break room. Others, however, wound up helping people in different locations.

Stony Brook received more than 400 Easter baskets. Rowe was on the phone with a civilian friend from the U.S. Department of Defense, who told him that Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn had to postpone an Easter event.

Rowe loaded up his truck and drove the Easter baskets to Brooklyn. That’s not where the community spirit stopped. On the way, several baskets blew out of his truck on Route 347.

Snacks from the hospital break room at SBUH. Photo from Stony Brook University.

“I had about four cars pull over to help me” retrieve the boxes, Rowe said. “That’s a sign of the times.”
None of the boxes, which were donated to the children of soldiers, sustained any damage.

Rowe also said the university worked to make sure support staff, including housekeeping and the people moving the carts to usher patients around the hospital, benefited from these gifts.

The most consistent donated items were the three-dimensional printed face shields and hand sanitizer, which faculty who stayed to help frontline workers made on campus. In total, the university received more than 14,000 face shields and 509 gallons of hand sanitizer.

Ryan and Rowe said the hospital was grateful and humbled by each donation they received.
Several groups offered consistent gifts. The Three Village Coronavirus Forum Facebook group, which Three Village resident Michael Ehrlich led, raised hundreds each week through membership donations. They shopped at Target and Walmart to buy comfort care items.

Frito-Lay donated a couple of truckloads of chips to stock the respite room, while the Three Village Dads Foundation raised money to feed frontline workers.

The donations helped fill in some gaps during the year as well. National Nurses Week and National EMS week both occurred in May. While the hospital typically honors these professionals with gifts to show their appreciation, the response to COVID-19 was the priority during those times. The donations, however, provided material for care packages.

The pandemic triggered needs the hospital never had before, Ryan said.

“We had to identify different ways to allow our patients to communicate with their loved ones, while there was no visitation or limited visitation,” Ryan said. The hospital redeployed nursing staff into family liaison roles to provide friends and family with updates.

Rowe delivers Easter baskets to the families of soldiers at Fort Hamilton. Photo by Colby Rowe.

For the patients, the hospital put together comfort bags, which included activities like word searches, crossword puzzles, stress balls, aroma therapy, eye masks, and dry erase boards to allow patients who were able to write to communicate with nurses outside a door, which helped preserve PPE.

At this point, the university has some supplies left over, which it will likely use during the current, planned reopening of the university side of Stony Brook.

In addition to receiving donations from the community, Stony Brook also benefited from donations from people in other countries, including China, Korea and Germany.

“People sent really moving and emotional notes,” Rowe said. “We saw a lot of good in people” during a difficult time.

Ryan was also grateful for all the support from the university.

“The planning and preparation from senior leadership put us in a position where we were able to be successful in getting to the other side of this,” Ryan said. “Leadership at the state level also helped tremendously with that.”

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Dean Sotiropoulos. Photo courtesy of SBU

By Daniel Dunaief

Too much of a good thing can be a problem. That’s true even for offshore wind farms.

Fotis Sotiropoulos

Using the flow of air to move blades, wind farms convert motion into electricity. The process of gathering energy has numerous costs, including the strain that builds up on the blades, which causes the kind of wear and tear that can reduce the efficiency of the process. The more often companies have to maintain the turbines, the higher the cost of the energy.

Fotis Sotiropoulos, the Dean of the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences and Ali Khosronejad, an assistant professor of Civil Engineering at Stony Brook University, are using computers to reduce the cost and increase the efficiency of these wind farms.

Experts in computer modeling and the flow of everything from water to air to blood through the body, Sotiropoulos and Khosronejad recently received a $1.1 million award from the National Offshore Wind Research and Development Consortium to use computational tools to create the best layout and operations for turbines for offshore wind farms.

By controlling the turbine through computer modeled yawing and/or pitching the blades, the scientists will try to optimize the annual energy production and minimize the structural loads, which reduces the need for maintenance.

“We don’t want too much pressure and turbulence, but at the same time, we want to generate maximum energy from the wind,” explained Khosronejad from Stony Brook University Hospital two days after his second daughter Amytis was born.

Ali Khosronejad

Khosronejad and Sotiropoulos, who worked together for seven years at the University of Minnesota before they came separately to Stony Brook, project that the insights that they gain through virtual modeling that uses enormous data streams over large areas of the ocean can reduce the so-called levelized cost of energy (LCOE) by as much as 15 percent.

The LCOE represents the net present cost of electricity generation for an energy plant over its lifetime. Any such reduction in these costs increases available resources for companies like Equinor, a Stavanger, Norway-based leader in offshore wind development that is a partner in this work, to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of generating energy.

Sotiropoulos suggested that virtual models that use high performance supercomputers can enable simulations that can lead to the construction of more efficient and effective wind farms.

“The more you keep cycling and fatiguing [the blades] with high bursts of wind, the more likely you are to develop micro cracks,” which require companies to shut down the facility to repair or replace the blade, Sotiropoulos said.

Companies have developed programs that allow the blades to sense the forces and that can orient or pitch the blades to minimize the loads. “What has never been done before, however, is to incorporate the effect of these control strategies into the design of an entire wind farm,” Sotiropoulos wrote in an email.

The addition of artificial intelligence tools is a new element to previous work. Training artificial intelligence models that use state-of-the-art algorithms will be computationally efficient for optimization studies, he explained.

Over the last 10 years, Sotiropoulos has received over $13 million of the $37 million in total research funding he received for wind and tidal energy. Indeed, when he was at the University of Minnesota, which will serve as a partner on the current project, Sotiropoulos received one of three Department of Energy grants across the nation to build a 2.5 megawatt turbine to conduct research that also provided power.

When he arrived at Stony Brook University as dean, he knew “Long Island had tremendous off shore wind potential,” Sotiropoulos said. Long Island has the only offshore wind farm in the United States, with a 30 megawatt facility off of Block Island.

Indeed, New York State has made considerable investments in wind energy in general and in Stony Brook’s efforts in particular. Early this year, Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) announced an investment of $20 million in a new offshore wind training institute hosted by Stony Brook and SUNY Farmingdale. The institute plans to train 2,500 workers over the next five years.

New York State is moving forward to develop 9,000 megawatts of offshore wind by 2035 and will lead the nation, Sotiropoulos said. “All of that is going to happen around here because of these activities” focused in the area. “The work done here will set the standard for how to develop offshore wind in the rest of the country.”

Specifically, Khosronejad, who joined Stony Brook in September of 2016, described the artificial intelligence that he and Sotiropoulos will use as being similar to the cognitive development of a child. As the scientists add data to their algorithms, the programs begin to learn how any given input can lead to a specific output.

Through parallel supercomputing, they can look at the flow of wind in an area that is 100 miles by 100 miles and that has a height up to one mile above the surface of the water.

“We want to solve for small pockets of air,” Khosronejad said. This can be done with a resolution of about a foot, depending on the availability of CPU on the supercomputing cluster.

On a laptop, that kind of data analysis would take at least 1,000 years to complete. By using supercomputers, they can model the wind flows, which inform their artificial intelligence models, in a week.

The scientists introduce new scenarios that the model didn’t experience during training, which has an error rate that is below one percent.

“It’s a very intelligent system that is affordable to use and that a practitioner can install on their cell phone,” Khosronejad said.

A native of Tehran, Iran, Khosronejad has been in the United States for 12 years. He didn’t speak much English when he arrived and said he took about five years to master it.

Khosronejad and his wife Sanam Ghandehari, who practices family and immigration law, have a 12-year old daughter, Aramis. The family lives in the village of Port Jefferson.

Ghandehari teaches at Touro Law School. Khosronejad described his wife as “incredibly strong” and so smart that he feels intellectually dwarfed when he sits next to her.

As for the next step in their work, Sotiropoulos suggested they would partner with scientists specializing in meso scale weather predictions from the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences to look at weather patterns over different parts of the year.

Photos courtesy of SBU

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Stony Brook University Hospital

Suffolk hospitals are slowly getting back to some normalcy as the number of COVID-19 patients continue to decrease on Long Island. As hospitals have gotten past the peak of the pandemic, they are now facing the challenge of reassuring the public that their facilities are safe. 

“I think it is incredibly important that people feel comfortable and safe whether it’s seeing their personal physician or coming to the hospital,” said Dr. Susan Donelan, medical director, Department of Infectious Diseases, Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University. 

Nancy Axelrod, of Old Field, braved post-COVID Huntington Hospital to get knee replacement surgery.
Photo from Axelrod

Donelan said SBU Hospital has implemented a number of protocols to ensure worker and patient safety. For individuals that are going to outpatient centers and physician offices, they are advised to remain in their vehicles and complete their normal check-in process using their cellphones. Waiting rooms are arranged to allow for optimal social distancing. 

The medical director said they hope to quell any fears patients may have. 

“Patients shouldn’t suspend any routine health procedures — I think it is a safe and a good time to come back,” Donelan said. 

For those that come to the hospital for a procedure, patients will have a conversation with a triage nurse over the phone before they come in. They will undergo temperature checks and screened for COVID symptoms. Patients suspected of having coronavirus are separated from other patients. 

“We’ve increased our cleaning frequency, we want to make sure our patients and workers are entering a safe environment,” Donelan said. 

Like other facilities, SBU Hospital has made adjustments to its visitor policy in an effort to limit potential exposure. Currently, only one visitor can visit a patient and are only allowed a three-hour time window. 

Donelan said the feedback they’ve gotten from staff and patients on their safety measures has been positive. 

“We’ve been pleased with the feedback, they have appreciated our aggressive approach and attention to detail,” she said.

Dr. Nick Fitterman, executive director of Huntington Hospital, said they are trying to get word out to the public that its facilities are safe and stressed the need for individuals to seek out medical care. 

“March and April, we were all hands on deck,” he said. “We went from having around 300 COVID-19 cases to now only having six.”

Fitteram understands the public concerns of returning but said they have created essentially a “hospital within a hospital,” where COVID patients are isolated in another section of the building away from non-COVID patients. 

“COVID patients are assigned nurses and doctors that only treat them, they do not see any other patients,” Fitterman said. 

The hospital has implemented thermal cameras used to help check temperatures of staff, patients and visitors. Workers are screened daily for COVID symptoms. Fitterman said that they are limiting visiting hours and allow only one visitor per patient.  

“It is important not only to protect the patients but to protect our staff as well,” he said. 

Nancy Axelrod, of Old Field, said she can attest to the hospital’s safety protocols. With elective surgeries allowed again, Axelrod was able to get right knee replacement surgery last month. She underwent left knee replacement surgery right before COVID hit Long Island. 

“It was something I needed to get done, I’ve suffered from severe arthritis,” she said. “From talking to the doctors, I felt strongly that I was safe.”

Huntington Hospital had about 1,000 surgeries that were put on hold. In an effort to keep patients safe, they have installed a separate “pathway” for them when they get to the hospital. 

Axelrod said she had to go through a number of tests and screening before the surgery. 

“I would tell people not to put off seeing your doctor or getting an important surgery,” she said. “The time to do it is now — I feel that the hospital is doing an awful lot to ensure patient safety.”

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Camille Abruscato was honored for Excellence in Teaching.

Twenty-seven of Stony Brook University’s esteemed faculty and staff members have received the 2019-2020 State University of New York (SUNY) Chancellor’s Awards for Excellence. These awards acknowledge the dedication and accomplishments of instructional faculty, librarians, and professional staff across SUNY campuses and encourage the ongoing pursuit of excellence. The awards are presented annually in seven categories including Librarianship, Scholarship and Creative Activities, Professional Service, Faculty Service, and Teaching.

“The SUNY Chancellor’s Awards for Excellence are an important acknowledgement of the tremendous talent I am honored to be surrounded by at Stony Brook University,” says University President Maurie McInnis. “I add my personal congratulations and note of appreciation to all of our 27 outstanding recipients for the 2019-20 Awards and look forward to significant accomplishments ahead.”

Michael Bernstein, Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs, adds, “The tremendous contributions of these 27 staff and faculty members are a testament to the excellence of our Stony Brook community. I extend my hearty congratulations to this year’s recipients on this well-deserved honor.”

The following are the honorees from SBU:

Excellence in Scholarship and

Creative Activities

• Dr. Carlos Simmerling, Professor, Laufer Center for Physical and Quantitative Biology

• Dr. Jacobus Verbaarschot, Professor, Department of Physics and Astronomy

Excellence in Adjunct Teaching

• Zachary Dowdy, Lecturer, School of Journalism

• Jeffrey EcklundLe, Lecturer, Undergraduate Biology

Excellence in Classified Service

• Lorraine Carroll, Office Assistant, Center for Excellence in Learning & Teaching

• LaShawne Jones, Administrative Assistant, Student Health Services/Infirmary

• John Lomando, Recycling Specialist, Recycling and Resource Management/Facilities Operations

Excellence in Faculty Service

• Dr. Mary Jo Bona, Professor, Department of Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies

• Dr. M. Ete Chan-Lo, Research Assistant Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering

• Dr. Marie Huffman, Ph.D, Department of Linguistics

• Dr. Hoi-Chung Leung, Professor, Department of Psychology

• Dr. Marcia Simon, Professor, Department of Oral Biology and Pathology

Excellence in Librarianship

• Yuet Clara Tran, Associate Librarian, Science Engineering Library

Excellence in Professional Service

• Charles Beier, Student University Assistant Director, Department of Activities and Facility

• Joan D. Dickinson, Senior Staff Associate, Department of Government Relations

• Diane Englot, Instructional Support Technician, Department of General Library Public Service

• Jennifer L. Green, Senior Staff Assistant, Department of Integration of Research, Education and Professional Development

• Laura S. Hawryluk, Staff Associate, Department of Microbiology and Immunology

• Jessica L. Klare, Staff Associate, Department of Honors College

• Jeremy D. Marchese, Staff Associate, Department of University Scholars

• Elizabeth-Anne Tolson, Senior Staff Assistant, Department of European Languages

• Donna Tumminello, Assistant Director, Department of Research Administration

Excellence in Teaching

• Camille Abbruscato, Lecturer, College of Business

• Dr. Michelle Ballan, Professor, School of Social Welfare

• Dr. Steven Glynn, Associate Professor, Department of Biochemistry

• Dr. Sohl Lee, Assistant Professor, Art Department

• Dr. Marci Lobel, Professor, Department of Psychology

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Eric Yee. Photo by Felicia Allard

By Daniel Dunaief

In the second of a two-part series, Times Beacon Record News Media will feature the work of Eric Yee, who, like his wife Felicia Allard who was featured last week, is joining the Pathology Department at Stony Brook University.

Eric Yee

Eric Yee, who started as an Associate Professor and Director of Surgical Pathology at Stony Brook Renaissance School of Medicine on July 1, described the focus of his scientific research as translational.

He consults with and helps science researchers put together ideas for experiments, while he and his wife Felicia Allard focus on bringing that work into the clinical setting.

“We provide expertise mainly in clinical gastrointestinal and hepatobiliary pathology,” Yee explained in an email. “We also give insights and perspectives as practicing pathologists to help [with the] analysis of data and how that data in the lab or in animal models may be relevant to clinical medicine.”

Yee completed a gastrointestinal pathology fellowship, working on collaborative research projects and publishing manuscripts with investigators.

As one of the newest members of the staff at Stony Brook, he has worked on some studies looking at certain kinds of inflammatory diseases in the liver. He collaborated with senior investigator Zhenghui Gordon Jiang of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center to look at mediators of inflammation in the disease steatohepatitis. He has also worked on different cancer research projects, which is part of the appeal of Stony Brook.

Stony Brook has “important pancreatic research,” Yee said, adding that. Pathology Department Chair Ken Shroyer is a “renowned investigator whose research team has done great work that has led to important insights into pancreatic cancer biology.”

Pancreatic cancer is of particular interest to Yee in his clinical work and he hopes to explore the variety of research expertise at Stony Brook, to support ongoing efforts and to develop projects of his own.

Relocating to Stony Brook from the College of Medicine at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, where Allard and Yee both worked in the Pathology Department, took some convincing for both of the scientists.

“We were very happy in Little Rock and purchased a home in Arkansas two years prior and were just starting to set down roots,” Yee described in an email. “We made lifelong friendships and very much enjoyed the camaraderie among our peers and other departments.”

Yee and Allard had no plans to leave as they approached their third year and were hesitant to move.

In his first visit, Yee said he was impressed with the amount of research in the Stony Brook department, which, he said, has more researchers compared to other institutions of similar size.

On the other side, however, Yee said he and Allard had to reconcile the higher cost of living in New York. They also weren’t eager to make too many moves in their career, especially when they were happy in Arkansas.

Even after the first visit, Yee said he was hesitant to make a move, which would require time to settle in, build relationships, find a home, learn a new system, and find new opportunities, among other challenges..

Shroyer was “very understanding of my hesitation,” Yee explained. “He’s been one of my mentors since medical school and knew exactly where I was coming from.

Clinically, the couple also believed in the potential for career growth.

“There’s a lot of energy in the department,” Yee said. He also appreciated the opportunity to be the Director of Surgical Pathology, where he could shape the operations that support the clinical mission. He would like to optimize the department by specialization, creating a sub-specialty model.

“This is something I want to do to increase the efficiency in the department,” Yee explained. “I’m hoping as we sub-specialize that we make our clinical work flow more efficient” which will create more consistency. “Part of what I’d like to do is to help [Shroyer] create a department where it’ll allow the clinical faculty to thrive.”

Yee thinks any work efficiencies will provide researchers with more time to build on their teaching efforts, and to develop new lectures and teaching models.

Yee will measure his success through a comprehensive report that includes an analysis of the efficiency of the response to clinical needs. He hopes to create a system that will enable the success of the entire anatomic pathology division. He will also become actively engaged in the academic mission, which is measured in the number of publications as well as in staff appointments to editorial boards or major national societies.

“The more people we can get into the national arena the better it is for the institution,” Yee said. These contributions bring good public relations and expertise to the institution.

Yee and Allard will also contribute to Stony Brook through their efforts in education.

Yee believes the school has an advantage in telepathology and distance learning. He believes the Department of Bioinformatics led by Dr. Joel Saltz facilitates telepathology and distance learning.

With the uncertainty caused by COVID-19, Yee believes maintaining social distancing and finding innovative ways for communication and education will provide valuable alternatives to communicate and collaborate.  Radiology has had digital methods in place to send MRIs and CAT scans for a longer period of time than pathologists, who still produce glass slides.

“There will always be some challenges and limitations that are unique to pathology,” Yee suggested.

A native of San Francisco, where he and his older brother, who now works in Boston, grew up, Yee was interested in medicine during the middle of his college career.

Yee and Allard met in medical school and, among numerous other parts of their lives they have in common, discovered they were both fans of the Star Wars films. Early on when they were dating, the pathology couple saw Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith together.

Yee enjoys tennis, table tennis, riding road bikes and hiking. He has also developed an appreciation for bird watching, which has allowed him to practice amateur photography.

The couple also shares an interest in music, as Yee grew up playing the piano, while Allard played the trumpet.

When he was in medical school, Yee published his first  paper with Shroyer. He has remained in touch with the pathology chair over the years and appreciates the advice Shroyer has offered.

Yee described Shroyer as an “inspirational leader” and appreciates his energy, selflessness and passion, among other qualities.

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Fraternities Kappa Sigma, Tau Kappa Epsilon and Sigma Beta Rho were suspended from SBU over Title IX allegations. Logos from fraternities websites.

Three Stony Brook University fraternities have been suspended after reports of sexual assault and hazing surfaced on social media.

Kappa Sigma, Sigma Beta Rho and Tau Kappa Epsilon were suspended in late June after reports of Title IX violations and hazing were filed with SBU’s Department of Student Engagement and Activities, which oversees fraternities and sororities.

“As a result of these reports, the university put the social fraternities identified in the reports … on interim suspension last week,” SBU said in a statement. “This is consistent with our process, as sexual assault and hazing have no place on college campuses or in our society.”

The ongoing investigations into the fraternities are being overseen by the university’s Office of Equity and Access, which handles Title IX matters, and the Office of University Community Standards, which handles Code of Student Responsibility violations. Title IX of the 1972 Education Amendments Act states that men and women must receive equal treatment and opportunities within education programs.

Two of the fraternities’ national chapters addressed the recent news.

Tau Kappa Epsilon and the Rho-Eta [Stony Brook] chapter is fully cooperating with the university on their investigation,” said Alex Baker, chief information officer for the national chapter, in an email statement. “TKE strongly condemns sexual assault and will hold any responsible members accountable for their actions.”

Phi Nguyen, executive director of Sigma Beta Rho, said in an email that the fraternity “is not currently aware of any Title IX investigation involving Sigma Beta Rho fraternity at Stony Brook University. We are currently cooperating with Stony Brook University’s investigation into our new member practices.”

“Regarding online allegations of sexual misconduct, Sigma Beta Rho condemns sexual misconduct in all forms,” Nguyen added. “Sigma Beta Rho is committed to investigating allegations of misconduct against our members and taking appropriate disciplinary action.”

A spokesperson for the Kappa Sigma national fraternity did not respond for comment.

The allegations against the three fraternities and subsequent suspensions came after an Instagram account, @voicesofsb, was created to share stories of sexual assault from students at the university.

In a June 23 post, the account said its goal was to “give sexual assault survivors an anonymous platform to let their voices be heard.” Individuals are able to submit their stories to the account by filling out a Google form.

At least two other similar Instagram accounts were created elsewhere: @shareyourstorybing, and @shareyourstorygeneso. Those accounts have shared anonymous stories of sexual assault and harassment at SUNY Binghamton and SUNY Geneseo.

SBU said in a June 25 Instagram post that it “is committed to the prevention of sexual assault and violence.” The statement was met with backlash. There were over 200 commenters on the post, many criticizing the post as being “performative,” according to The Statesman, and calling on the university to do better and take cases seriously.

SBU students can report incidents to the Title IX office and its coordinator Marjolie Leonard, at [email protected]. Individuals can also contact Samantha August, the survivor advocate and prevention specialist for the school, at 631-457-9981.

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Stony Brook University Hospital. Photo by Rita J. Egan

By Odeya Rosenband 

Stony Brook University’s newest class of medical residents began their careers head first, graduating early to take on the fight with COVID-19.  Renaissance School of Medicine at SBU led a virtual graduation ceremony that took place two months ahead of schedule, in early April. 

SBU Vice Dean for Graduate Medical Education Dr. William Wertheim. Photo from SBUH

In line with other medical schools such as Hofstra University in Hempstead and New York University, SBU resolved to graduate their medical students in early spring in order to readily transition them into the workforce. This decision was “definitely a natural step,” said Dr. William Wertheim, vice dean for Graduate Medical Education at Renaissance School of Medicine at SBU. Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) “took away a lot of roadblocks in helping us utilize the staff that were capable of doing this, so that was really helpful.” 

Starting in April, 52 residents began volunteering at SBU Hospital and predominantly focused on emergency COVID-19 cases, rather than their specialties. While resident education typically consists of 80-hour work weeks, the Renaissance School adopted a shift schedule that included five days off following every five days working, given the heightened emotional difficulty residents were facing. 

Beginning July, Stony Brook Medicine welcomed over 300 medical residents across SBU, Stony Brook Southampton and Stony Brook Eastern Long Island hospitals. This number included the residents who had been volunteering with COVID-19 patients.

“Residents are interesting in that they both are doctors taking care of patients, and they are learners in an educational program,” Wertheim said. Aside from in-person training in personal protective equipment, the residents learned other essential information such as employee benefits and payroll over virtual modules. 

“Top to bottom it’s a different place than we were in one year ago,” the vice dean said.

The continued focus on education was also felt by the new residents. Dr. Kelly Ieong, a urology resident and 2020 graduate of the medical school, said, “Going into my residency, I had the expectation that I’m just going to work, not learn much, and just help out as much as possible. But all of the teams did carve out time for our education and we had virtual meetings over Zoom, even during lunch. I felt very safe during my entire shift, unlike my friends who worked in other hospitals.” Additionally, she said residents were each assigned a specific mentor who provided the residents with an extra layer of support. 

After feeling helpless when some of her family were diagnosed with the virus earlier this year,  Ieong knew she wanted to be a volunteer when given the opportunity. 

“I definitely think volunteering was a helpful experience because a lot of the difficult conversations that I was having with my patients and their family members are something that you can’t learn in the books,” she said. “You don’t learn it in medical school, it’s something you have to learn through experience.” 

Although Wertheim said “everything is a bit slower when you can only put two people in an elevator,” he added that SBU was quick to adapt and optimize their eager students. Online platforms such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams helped meet the demands for educational conferences, especially as residents may be on rotation at other hospitals. It’s clear that these platforms are here to stay, according to him. 

“Medicine in general tends to adopt things slowly unless we have to… and we really had to,” he said.

In thinking about the possibility of a second surge in coronavirus cases, Wertheim noted, “now that we’ve been through this experience once, as hard as it was, it is going to be easier to swiftly redeploy all of those residents as well as all of the other doctors.” Regardless of the future of the coronavirus, there have been benefits for the medical residents, according to the vice dean.  

 “I think the fact that all of these residents from different specialties had to work together to the same end, even though it was an arduous task, gives them a sense of mission that you don’t always get when everyone’s doing their own thing,” Wertheim said. “And I think that that’s definitely a positive that comes out of all of this.”

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