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Stony Brook University

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BeLocal winners from left, Yuxin Xia, Luke Papazian, Manuela Corcho, Johnny Donza and their thesis advisor Harold Walker. File photo

In its inaugural year of facilitating student engineering projects to improve the quality of life in Madagascar, BeLocal Group had an enviable problem.

The organization, which was founded by husband and wife team Jeff and Mickie Nagel of Laurel Hollow and Eric Bergerson of Forest Hills, had so many high-quality projects with the potential to solve daily challenges in Madagascar that they had trouble selecting the winner of the $2,500 prize.

“We had really robust debates amongst the entire BeLocal team,” Jeff Nagle said, referring to about eight projects that met several important criteria, including an expectation of impact, innovation and quality of engineering.

Luke Papazian, left, and Johnny Donza, two of the members of the winning team, along with a model of their da Vinci bridge. Photo from Mickie Nagel

Indeed, the BeLocal Group is highlighting the winner and seven finalists on its website, BeLocalGrp.com.

“We saw so many good projects,” Bergerson said. “It’s ultimately about the transfer of knowledge and empowerment.”

The nine members of the judging panel awarded the BeLocal Prize for Student Innovation May 2 to a team that worked on a bridge to cross a stream near the village of Mandrivany. Led by Johnny Donza, the team, which includes Yuxin Xia, Luke Papazian and Manuela Corcho, designed a da Vinci bridge, so named after the famed Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci, who sketched a design for a similar bridge in 1502.

Villagers had been using a log to cross the stream. A broken log was difficult to replace because the island nation is confronting significant deforestation.

Instead of using valuable trees to construct the bridge, the Stony Brook University team turned to the plentiful bamboo.

Donza came up with the idea for the design after watching a video on YouTube of the Rainbow Bridge in China. A few clicks later, he said he stumbled on the da Vinci bridge, which is a simpler concept.

Stony Brook students produced a range of designs. Many homes in Madagascar cook their food inside, where they produce smoke from briquettes. The children who stay inside during cooking time struggle with breathing problems, as the particulates from the briquettes create a hazard.

Jeff Nagel said they don’t have a lot of aeration in their homes. Inhaling the fumes from briquettes made of raw wood or poorly made charcoal causes respiratory disease.

Michael Downey led a team that presses a mash made by another Stony Brook team including Timothy Hart into briquettes using biowaste from rice husks and casaba peels.

“Most people, when [they] graduate, they start working or go into an office and sit behind a computer. This is a chance to go to the opposite side of the world and help people.”

— Johnny Donza

The device, which is made of bamboo, PVC tubing and some nuts and bolts, can produce four briquettes in a minute, Downey said. The other members of Downey’s team were Robert Michael, Adam Smith and Arie Spiel.

“The charcoal burns cleaner than regular wood,” Downey added.

The ideas for specific needs came from a trip BeLocal coordinated last summer in which graduate students Acacia Leakey and Leila Esmailzada traveled with Mickie Nagel to Madagascar with video cameras to learn about local needs.

This summer, BeLocal will send a larger contingent of students to Madagascar. Hart, Donza and Downey will travel with Sean Peters, Sunny Cheng and Robert Myrick. The team will build four prototypes of various designs. Donza and Downey were excited about their postgraduation trip to the island of lemurs.

“Most people, when [they] graduate, they start working or go into an office and sit behind a computer,” Donza said. “This is a chance to go to the opposite side of the world and help people.”

Downey added that the “whole point of becoming an engineer is to change the world.”

While the students are exploring new areas with their designs, BeLocal is also planning to broaden out its work. The organization is looking to gather information and foster innovation in other countries next year. It has also spoken with faculty at several other universities, as well as with nongovernmental organizations.

“It is the goal of BeLocal to provide the leverage of global innovation to challenges sourced around the globe,” Bergerson said in an email.

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Co-Director of Stony Brook University's Center for Clean Water Technology Howard Walker demonstrates how sand is used in a prototype of a new Nitrogen Reducing Biofilter at press conference in Shirley April 26. Photo by Kyle Barr

Scientists and engineers from Stony Brook University are planning to use two plentiful Long Island resources to save its coastal waters from nitrogen pollution: sand and wood chips.

Members of the New York State-funded Center for Clean Water Technology at Stony Brook University unveiled their nitrogen-reducing biofilter April 26 at a Suffolk County-owned home in Shirley.

“We have made a huge commitment to protect and preserve our land as we are protecting the groundwater below,” said New York state Sen. Ken LaValle (R-Port Jefferson). “We are zeroing in on our water, and we are making a major commitment with systems like these.”

“The results that we’ve gained have been very exciting.”

— Howard Walker

Through the system, waste from the home is first pumped into a septic tank. After the septic tank the effluent is moved into a separate system that trickles down by gravity, first going through a sand layer where bacteria turns the nitrogen into nitrite and nitrate. The waste then goes through another layer of sand and wood chips designed to turn the nitrite/nitrate into nitrogen gas that will go into the atmosphere, instead of into the ground and thus Long Island’s water.

The system being built in Shirley is one of three the center is testing as part of Suffolk County’s bid to create a nitrogen reducing home wastewater system.

“We have outstanding professionals who are helping to guide these efforts,” Deputy County Executive Peter Scully said. “We should be able to involve ourselves in the designing of the next generation of this technology, bringing the cost down [and] making the technology more effective.”

One of the biggest problems for Long Island’s coastal waters has been hypoxia, a state caused by excess nitrogen, where the oxygen level in water is below the necessary levels to support life. It affects fish, clams and any underwater plant life. Last year co-director of the Center for Clean Water Technology, Christopher Gobler and other researchers from the Long Island Clean Water Partnership, concluded there were cases of hypoxia in Stony Brook Harbor, Northport Bay, Oyster Bay, Hempstead Bay as well as waters all along both the North and South shores.

In 2015 Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone (D) called nitrogen pollution the county’s “environmental public enemy number one.” Since then the county has worked with local scientists and engineers to craft technology that could replace Long Island’s old cesspool and septic tanks.

The benchmark for total amount of nitrogen allowed from any of these new systems is 19 milligrams of nitrogen per liter. Co-director at the Center for Clean Water Technology, Howard Walker, said that initial tests of the system have reached well below that threshold.

“We’re seeing less than 10 milligrams per liter of total nitrogen coming from the systems in the prototypes we’ve been testing for the past year and a half,” Walker said. “The results that we’ve gained have been very exciting.”

“We are zeroing in on our water, and we are making a major commitment with systems like these.”

— Ken LaValle

The purpose of the prototypes is to gauge the effectiveness of the system as well as find ways to reduce the price and size of the filter. The center hopes the system will be affordable since all the parts could be bought from plumbing or pool supply stores. Gobler said the system currently costs several tens of thousands of dollars in its prototype stage, but he hopes the cost will come down with more tests.

“This is nonproprietary — all other systems are built off of Long Island and then brought here, this one is using Long Island materials, Long Island labor,” Gobler said. “Ultimately without having to run a company or without having to buy something off the shelf, there’s a promise to make these highly affordable.”

Other nitrogen filters have problems when it comes to people flushing any kind of bleach, pharmaceuticals or other harmful chemicals because they kill off the bacteria that remove the nitrogen from the effluent, according to Gobler. He said the design of SBU’s nitrogen-reducing biofilter will be less prone to failure because the waste is spread over a large area, and because it seeps through the layers of sand at a slower rate the killing effect of chemicals would be reduced.

“One bad flush is not going to upturn the apple cart,” Gobler said. “We’ve tested more than 30 different organic compounds, pharmaceuticals, personal care products, drugs, and in all cases its removing 90
percent of those compounds, sometimes 99 percent. In certain cases, it’s just as good or even better than a sewage treatment plant.”

The Center for Clean Water Technology hopes to have concrete results on its prototypes in a year’s time. After that a provisional phase would take place where the center would install another 20 filters in other parts of Long Island.

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Sheryl Cohn stands in her home’s guest bedroom where the ceiling crashed and fell onto the bed during Hurricane Sandy. Photo by Kyle Barr

Though it’s been more than five years since Hurricane Sandy ravaged Long Island, many people, including Huntington Station resident Sheryl Cohn, are still feeling its effects like the storm only happened yesterday.

Black mold in the basement of Cohn’s home is an aftereffect of Hurricane Sandy. Photo by Kyle Barr

In an interview after the April 11 public hearing at Stony Brook University conducted by the Suffolk County Legislature’s Superstorm Sandy Review Task Force, Cohn said her roof was ruined in the wake of the storm, and her house is falling apart around her. The ceiling in her guest bedroom fell and crashed onto the bed, and black mold has sprouted in many rooms around her house. The masonry on the outside of her home — finished only a few months before Sandy hit — fell to pieces on her driveway. She lives in fear that a piece of ceiling will fall on her head while she sits or sleeps.

“My grandson, he turned five in March, he has never been here,” Cohn said. “I would never be able to forgive myself if, God forbid, he contracted something or a piece of sheetrock fell on his head. It makes me feel horrible. He lives a half an hour away, and he’s never been to Nana’s house.”

She first looked into a contractor to fix her roof, but the firm she hired disappeared with all of the money she had already given them. She said the NY Rising Community Reconstruction Program, the state program that was created to provide aid to people whose homes were damaged during the storm, has constantly told her wrong information and switched caseworkers with her multiple times. Now she says they have stopped returning her calls and emails. Five and a half years later she still has no progress on acquiring any financial aid.

As some of the effects of Sandy linger on, Legislator DuWayne Gregory (D-Amityville), the Legislature’s presiding officer, helped to create the Superstorm Sandy Review Task Force, a 27-member committee of government representatives, scientists, engineers and other experts to make recommendations on how to deal with the lasting effects of Sandy as well as prepare Suffolk County for the next big storm.

“My grandson, he turned five in March, he has never been here. I would never be able to forgive myself if, God forbid, he contracted something or a piece of sheetrock fell on his head.”

— Sheryl Cohn

The task force is divided into four working groups including emergency response, resiliency, recovery and infrastructure.

“As we go and narrow down the issues they want to focus on, we want to look at what went wrong, what are the recommendations, what are the solutions,” said Joshua Slaughter, Gregory’s aide. “We don’t want to reinvent the wheel, but we want to come out with things to make it better.”

The task force plans to have more meetings and come up with a document by December that will provide recommendations for the county.

While much of the focus of the task force is focused on the South Shore, where the damage was much more severe, problems from the North Shore not only deal with damaged property but the severe risk of beach erosion and property loss for people living close to the shore.

Professor of oceanography at Stony Brook University and task force member Malcolm Bowman said there is not enough solid data to say that “storm of the century” Sandy won’t be repeated in the near future and that rising sea levels will make each new storm do more damage.

“Five, 10, 25 years from now it will take less of a storm to do the same amount of damage,” Bowman said. “That is the challenge that we have to think about and be prepared for.”

Malcolm Bowman discusses ways to fix Long Island’s receding beachline at a Superstorm Sandy Review Task Force public hearing held April 11 at Stony Brook University. Photo by Kyle Barr

There are both natural solutions and engineered solutions up in the air for trying to fix Long Island’s receding beachline, according to Bowman. Natural solutions include planting seagrass and reestablishing oyster beds to hold the land in place, while engineering solutions include barriers and other human-made structures. Bowman said that both will come into play when preparing for upcoming storms.

Regarding aiding those who are still affected by Sandy navigate their recovery, Slaughter said the task force was thinking about recovery advocates, somebody who can be hired by the state to work with people on a consistent basis.

“I know it will be difficult, there are a lot of cases, but if you leave it to that one on one, people will be running forever, and not every consumer can get out as well as others,” Slaughter said.

“The vast, vast majority of our contractors did the best to their ability, but of course the ones we hear about are those who put people in a bad position or were unscrupulous,” chair of the task force Dave Calone said. “Our job as a governmental entity is to make recommendations to limit that as much as possible.”

Another task force meeting took place April 18 at the Southampton Town Hall. Two more meetings are scheduled for April 26 at Patchogue-Medford High School and May 2 at Babylon Town Hall.

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Maurizio Del Poeta. File photo from SBU

By Daniel Dunaief

Sometimes, fixing one problem creates another.

People with multiple sclerosis have been taking a medication called fingolimod for a few years. The medicine calms immune systems that attack the myelin around nerve cells. Fingolimid decreases the lymphocyte number in the bloodstream by trapping them in the lymph nodes.

In a few cases, however, the drug can reduce the immune system enough that it allows opportunistic infections to develop. Cryptococcosis, which is a fungal infection often spread through the inhalation of bird droppings or from specific trees such as eucalyptus, is one of these infections, and it can be fatal if it’s not caught or treated properly, especially for people who have weakened immune systems.

Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis contacted Stony Brook University fungal expert Maurizio Del Poeta, a professor in the Department of Molecular Genetics & Microbiology, to understand how this drug opens the door to this opportunistic and problematic infection. He is also exploring other forms of this drug to determine if tweaking it can allow the benefits without opening the door to problematic infections.

Most of the human population has been exposed to this fungus. In a study in the Bronx, over 75 percent of children older than 2 years of age had developed an antibody against Cryptococcus neoformans, which means they have been exposed to it. It is unknown whether these people harbor the fungus or if they have just mounted an immune reaction. Exposure may be continuous, but infections may only occur if a person is immunocompromised.

Fingolimid “inhibits a type of immunity” that involves the movement of lymphocytes from organs into the bloodstream,” Del Poeta said. “Because of this, there are certain infections that can develop.”

Through a spokeswoman, Novartis explained that the company was “happy to have started a scientific collaboration” with Del Poeta to understand the role of a specific pathway in cryptococcus infections.

Cryptococcal meningitis is one of several infections that can develop. Others include herpes meningitis and disseminated varicella zoster. Before starting fingolimid, patients need to receive immunization for varicella zoster virus. At this point, doctors do not have a vaccine for cryptococcosis.

To study the way this drug and its derivatives work, Del Poeta recently received a $2.5 million grant over a five-year period from the National Institutes of Health.

Yusuf Hannun, the director of the Cancer Center at SBU, was confident Del Poeta would continue to be successful in his ongoing research.

Del Poeta “does very important and innovative work on fungal pathogenesis and he is a leader in the field,” Hannun wrote in an email. “His work will enhance our understanding of the molecular mechanisms.”

Fingolimid mimics a natural lipid. Years ago, Del Poeta showed that this sphingolipid, which is on the external surface of the membrane, is important to contain cryptococcosis in the lung. If its level decreases, the fungus can move from the lung to the brain.

While people with multiple sclerosis have developed signs of this infection, it is also prevalent in areas like sub-Saharan Africa, where people with AIDS battle cryptococcosis. About 40 percent of this HIV population develops this fungal infection, Del Poeta said. About 500,000 people die of cryptococcosis every year.

In certain areas of the United States, such as the Pacific Northwest, this fungus is also endemic. On Vancouver Island, about 19 people died from Cryptococcus gattii infections between 1999 and 2007. Most of those patients were immunocompromised.

When the fungus migrates from the lung to the brain, it is “very difficult, if not impossible in most cases, to eradicate,” Del Poeta explained in an email. If the diagnosis is made early enough before the infection spreads to the brain, the recovery rate is high, he suggested. In people whose immune systems are not compromised by drugs or disease, “death is rare.” 

Del Poeta plans to study the interaction between the drug and the fungal infection through a mouse model of the disease. The mouse model mimics the human disease and will provide insights on how to control the infection, particularly when the fungus reaches the brain.

Some of the derivatives Novartis has developed do not cause a fungal infection. Del Poeta is working with Novartis to study other forms of fingolimid that do not reactivate cryptococcosis. Del Poeta said Novartis is currently in Phase III clinical trials for another drug for multiple sclerosis. The new drug acts on a different receptor.

“We think the reason the fingolimid reactivates cryptococcosis is that it is blocking one receptor, which is important for the containment” of the fungus. The other drug doesn’t allow the disease-bearing agent to escape.

“This is a hypothesis,” Del Poeta said. He is waiting to corroborate the cell culture data in animal models.

Del Poeta has been working with Novartis for over three years. The Stony Brook scientist used some preliminary studies on the way fingolimid analogs behave as part of the research grant application to the NIH that led to the current grant.

Del Poeta said he is excited about the possibility of contributing to this area.

“Not only will this work contribute to the field of MS, but it will also have a contribution to the field of cryptococcosis,” he said. “This will have important implications for MS patients [and] for the entire HIV population.” He said he believes patients may have some other defect. If he is able to discover what that is, he may be able to protect them from a cryptococcosis infection.

Ultimately, Del Poeta hopes this work leads to a broader understanding of fungal infections that could apply to other pathogens as well.

“Mycobacterium tuberculosis causes a granuloma very similar to the one caused by the cryptococcosis and we could potentially study whether the same molecular mechanisms involved in the control of the infection in the lung are similar between the two infections,” he explained in an email.

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Gretchen Carlson. Photo by Brigitte Lacombe

Hundreds came out to hear a former TV anchor at the forefront of the #MeToo movement at Stony Brook University April 17.

Gretchen Carlson, the television anchor who forced Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes of Fox News to resign in July 2016, helped create the backdrop for the #MeToo movement. As the most recent in the “My Life As” speaker series offered by the School of Journalism at SBU, she described in graphic detail how she came to play that role in what has been called “The Year of the Woman.”

Carlson filed her lawsuit July 6, 2016, alleging sexual harassment after being let go by Fox June 23of the same year. She described being harassed, and said Ailes “spoke openly of expecting women to perform sexual favors in exchange for job opportunities.” Subsequently, other women came forward to similarly accuse Ailes, and by Sept. 21, Century Fox, Fox News’ parent corporation, had settled the lawsuit for $20 million. More important than the money to Carlson was the public apology.

That is just the bottom line on the exceptional life of Carlson. Born and raised in Minnesota, she is the granddaughter of the pastor of what was then the second largest Lutheran congregation in the country. She too was used to being in the spotlight. A child prodigy, she was a violin soloist with the Minnesota Orchestra at age 13, was the valedictorian of her high school class and entered the Miss America pageant in 1989 at her mother’s suggestion and won. She was the first classical violinist to wear that crown. The money that came with the honor went toward her senior year’s tuition at Stanford University, from which she graduated with honors. She also managed to fit in a year of study at the University of Oxford in England, where she focused on the writings of Virginia Woolf.

She has, no doubt, healthy self-esteem. Interested in a career in broadcast journalism, she worked her way up the ladder as reporter and anchor from smaller to larger stations, reaching CBS in 2000. She became cohost of the Saturday edition of “The Early Show.” In 2005, Fox News made her an offer she couldn’t refuse, and she became cohost of the morning show “Fox and Friends.” Then, in 2013, came “The Real Story with Gretchen Carlson.”

Along the way, she was subjected to sexual harassment of varying degrees. She finally complained to Fox’s human resources department, and when her contract was up in 2016, she was let go. That was shortly after she repulsed the alleged sexual advances of Ailes, setting up her grounds for the lawsuit.

Since she lost her job and won the lawsuit, she has been working hard to stand up for other women who may be faced with similar circumstances. She has spoken to many groups across the country, mentioning a recent talk at an all-boys high school. Carlson ardently believes that sexual harassment is not just a women’s problem. She posits that it is a men’s problem, and that boys at a young age need to be taught by the men in their lives to respect — and how to act with — women. She is using money from her lawsuit toward foundation to give young women leadership training and call out their courage.

On Jan. 1, Carlson was elected chairwoman of the board of the Miss America Pageant. She said to expect some significant changes.

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Sherif Abdelaziz. Photo by Juliana Thomas, SBU

By Daniel Dunaief

When the temperature drops dramatically, people put on extra layers of clothing or rush inside. At the other extreme, when the mercury climbs toward the top of thermometers, they turn on sprinklers, head to the beach or find cold drinks.

That, however, is not the case for the clay that is often underneath buildings, cliffs or the sides of hills on which people build picturesque homes. Clay shrinks after heating-cooking cycles in summer and also after freezing-thawing cycles in winter. “We want to understand why and how this behavior happens,” said Sherif Abdelaziz, an assistant professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at Stony Brook University.

Sherif Abdelaziz. Photo by Juliana Thomas, SBU

Abdalaziz recently received a prestigious Young Investigator Program award from the U.S. Army Research Office, which will provide $356,000 in funding over three years to study these properties. While the work will explore the basic science behind these clay materials, his findings could have a broad range of applications, from providing potential early-warning systems for future landslides or mudslides to monitoring coastal bluffs to keeping track of the soil around high-temperature nuclear waste buried in the ground.

Miriam Rafailovich, a distinguished professor in the Department of Materials Science at SBU who is beginning a collaboration with Abdelaziz, suggested that Abdelaziz’s work is relevant in multiple areas. “It applies to shoring infrastructure,” she wrote in an email. “The collapse of roadbeds under heavy traffic is a very common problem.”

Additionally, the clay around nuclear waste is subjected to very high temperatures during the period the waste is active. These temperatures recover to initial temperature with time, which will mainly subject the clay to a heating-cooling cycle that is part of this study, Abdelaziz explained. He is pleased to have the opportunity to explore these kinds of questions.

The Young Investigator Program award is “one of the most prestigious honors bestowed by the Army on outstanding scientists beginning their independent careers,” explained Julia Barzyk, a program manager in earth materials and processes at the U.S. Army Research Office, in an email. Abdelaziz’s research “is expected to contribute to improved approaches to mobility and siting and maintenance of infrastructure, especially in cold regions such as the Arctic.”

The field in which Abdelaziz works is called the thermomechanical behavior of soil. The challenge in this area, he said, is that the scientists are often divided into two groups. Some researchers focus on the heating effect on soil, while others explore cooling. In the real world, however, soil is exposed to both types of conditions, which could affect its ability to support structures above or around it.

In general, Abdelaziz has focused on clay. So far, scientists have looked at a piece or chunk of clay to see how it behaves. They haven’t done enough exploration at the microscale level, he said. “Our scientific approach crosses between the scales,” he said. In conducting experiments at SBU and at Brookhaven National Laboratory, he starts at the microscale and looks at the larger macroscale.

At the National Synchrotron Light Source II at BNL, Abdelaziz and his partners at BNL, including Eric Dooryhee, the beamline director for the X-ray Powder Diffraction beamline, change the temperature of the clay and look at the microstructure.

The challenge in the experiments they conducted last year was that they could change the temperature, but they couldn’t mimic the pressure conditions in the ground. Recently, they conducted the first experiments on a sample environment that involved a change in temperature and pressure and they got “good results so far,” Abdelaziz said in an email. He is looking for more beam time in the summer to finish the development of the sample environment. He is also seeking funding for a project to develop an early-warning system for coastal bluff stability.

“We are pretty good at predicting the weather,” Abdelaziz said. “What we don’t know is how this storm will impact our slopes.” The goal of the work he’s exploring now is to use what he learns from these experiments to predict potential changes in the soil. The purpose of this work is to better engineer mitigation techniques to avoid evacuations.

Abdelaziz’s work has focused on one clay type. He has, however, built a numerical model using experimental data. Once that model is validated, it will be able to predict the behavior of other clay, and he can include the heterogeneity of earth surface material in his numerical studies.

Rafailovich appreciates Abdelaziz’s dedication to his research. “He is very passionate about his work,” she wrote in an email. “He really hopes that he can change the world, one small road at a time.”

A native of Cairo, Egypt, Abdelaziz lives in Smithtown with his wife Heba Elnoby and their children Mohamed, 10, and Malak, 7. The father of two suggested that he “owes every single piece of success” in his career to the support he received from his wife.

The idea to study coastal bluff stability came to Abdelaziz when he was grilling on the beach a few years ago. He saw a sign that indicated that a bluff was unstable and that there was excessive movement. He related that to what he was studying. Abdelaziz is pleased with the funding and with the opportunity to contribute basic knowledge about clay to civil and military efforts. The financial support from the Army suggests that his “work is meaningful to the nation in general,” he said.

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Berlinda crawling before Dr. Wesley Carrion performed surgery on her two clubbed feet at Stony Brook University Hospital. Photo from Steve Kramer

A teen born with two clubbed feet is closer to her dream of walking on her own thanks to the efforts of Long Islanders and Stony Brook University Hospital.

When Steve Kramer, a retired Brookhaven National Laboratory accelerator physicist, traveled to Haiti last year through Life & Hope Haiti, a nonprofit founded by Haitian-American Lucia Anglade, he never knew what a profound impact his trip would have on one student’s life. It was while working at the Eben-Ezer School, built by Anglade in Milot, Haiti, he met 16-year-old Berlinda, who would crawl to get from one spot to another.

Berlinda with Steve Kramer, behind wheelchair, Lucia Anglade, left, and Dr. Wesley Carrion, after her surgery. Photo from Steve Kramer

Moved by her struggles, Kramer reached out to Dr. Wesley Carrion at Stony Brook University School of Medicine’s Department of Orthopaedics about performing surgery to fix Berlinda’s feet. Kramer sent the doctor copies of her X-rays, and Carrion told him he felt he could treat her and rotate the feet. He agreed to do it free of charge, donating his time and equipment.

“We looked at her and felt she had a fairly good chance of standing,” Carrion said.

After Carrion performed surgery on Berlinda in November, fixators — external frames that are attached by pins drilled into leg bones -— were used to rotate her feet to stretch the tendons. After the fixators were in place, Berlinda received outpatient services from the hospital, and she stayed at Anglade’s home on Long Island, according to Kramer.

The fixators were removed March 9 and Berlinda was put in leg casts until March 19. She has been working with physical therapists at the hospital, and while she can stand with braces with help, she has a long way to go before she can stand on her own.

“She was crawling around her village. She was unable to stand, so when we got her up with physical therapy, those were literally her first steps.”

— Dr. Wesley Carrion

Kramer said she has to build up strength, and she feels a lot of pain when she moves her left knee as it is locking up after not being used for months. However, he said she was pleased to be out of the fixators, which caused her pain at times.

Carrion said fixators can be painful, and when Berlinda’s wheelchair would hit bumps, the pain would increase.

“It’s tough when you got these fixator frames on that look like giant tinker toys that you attach to the limbs,” Carrion said. “They’re things that hurt. They’re things that are uncomfortable.”

Carrion said it’s difficult to determine if Berlinda will stand without braces. She had polio and did not receive proper treatment, and also has spina bifida. Carrion said despite a hole in her spinal column, it hasn’t presented any problems.

“If we can get her walking with braces, that’s a huge win,” Carrion said. “She was basically crawling around her village. She was unable to stand, so when we got her up with physical therapy, those were literally her first steps.”

Kramer said the hope is for Berlinda to stay until she completes physical therapy, which will take a few months, since she will receive better treatment in Stony Brook than in Haiti. To help with Berlinda’s airfare and outpatient expenses, Kramer set up a GoFundMe page.

Berlinda and the temporary casts she wore before getting leg braces. Photo from Steve Kramer

He said with money from that account, he can buy physical therapy equipment, like parallel bars so she can practice standing and walking outside of physical therapy treatments.

Kramer said during Berlinda’s stay in New York, it was the first time she saw snow, and he showed her how to make a snowball.

“She knew what to do with it,” Kramer said. “She wanted to throw it at me, and she did.”

Kramer said Berlinda, who will turn 17 April 13, loves learning, and despite attending school for only one year, easily solved basic arithmetic problems when he first met her.

“She never lost that bright smile and willingness to work with whatever she had,” Kramer said, adding that sometimes those with handicaps in her village are shunned and even her siblings have bullied her.

When Kramer first approached Carrion, the doctor informed him that he would also need to get the hospital to donate some of the costs for the November surgery. It was then Kramer reached out to Department of Medicine’s Dr. L. Reuven Pasternak, who serves as vice president for health systems and chief executive officer of Stony Brook University Hospital. Pasternak said requests like Kramer’s to waive charges are not unusual from doctors and members of the community.

“She never lost that bright smile and willingness to work with whatever she had.”

— Steve Kramer

“We do this from time to time, and the way it usually occurs is that a physician encounters somebody, oftentimes overseas, and in the course of doing a medical mission or in their travels,” Pasternak said. “And it’s somebody who has a correctable medical condition that will make a huge impact on their lives.”

While Pasternak was out of town during the surgery and hasn’t met Berlinda yet, he said Kramer and Carrion have kept him informed about her recovery and follow-up treatment.

“It’s a testimony to cooperation and collaboration because it required a lot of people to step up and say that this is important to do and basically volunteer to do it,” he said.

For more information about fundraising efforts to help Berilnda, visit www.gofundme.com/berlindasmiracle. To find out more about Life & Hope Haiti or to get involved, visit www.lifeandhopehaiti.org.

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Students at Stony Brook University organized a March for Our Lives protest. Photo from Amanda DeJesus

While March for Our Lives rallies were scheduled in various towns on Long Island, members of the Stony Brook University community felt it was important that the campus get involved in the movement, too.

Amanda DeJesus, an undergraduate student at the Stony Brook School of Social Welfare, was one of the organizers of a March for Our Lives rally at SBU. The event started at 11 a.m. March 24 and many of the approximately 300 people who attended the university rally went to Port Jefferson Station afterward to take part in that protest.

Local residents joined SBU students and faculty at a March for Our Lives rally March 24. Photo from Evelyn Costello

“As a social welfare student, promoting social justice is the cornerstone of our profession,” DeJesus said. “I believe that demanding common-sense gun laws is a first step in creating a safer society for everyone, so that is why I wanted Stony Brook University to become a part in this very important conversation.”

Alli Ross, from Port Jefferson Station, attended the SBU rally with her fiancé. She said it was the first march she ever attended, and she was amazed every time she looked back and saw more people joining in. While she doesn’t have children yet, she said she has younger sisters and cousins, and ensuring children’s safety is important to her.

“This is just something that really hits hard for me … as it does with a lot of others,” Ross said. “Just being a part of something like that, and everyone coming together and showing that this is something that needs to be done, something that needs to be changed, it makes me feel a little bit better. It makes me feel like there is hope because there are so many like-minded people who care so strongly about it.”

Courtney Kidd, an adjunct professor at the university, spoke at the event and said she was honored when the student-organizers invited her. She said she first thought of declining and suggesting a speaker who would be an expert on gun violence, but then she remembered when she was a student hearing the saying: “One voice can make a difference; I am one voice.”

“I realized that this march is about more than rehearing the statistics that you already know, and instead about making change,” Kidd said at the rally. “It’s not about their voice — it’s about yours. So, if I can help you realize that you don’t always need the years and the title, that we need your voice, then I may be able to say I made a difference.”

DeJesus said she hopes the young people will continue voicing their concerns.

“I believe that we will be able to see change if we continue speaking about it,” DeJesus said. “We must keep the conversation going, never forget all the lives lost due to gun violence, continue walking out and don’t let anyone silence us.”

She said it’s vital to get out and vote.

“The midterm elections are so important and not enough people, especially young people, are registered,” DeJesus said. “The best way to make your voices heard is to vote. You never know if your vote will be the one that makes a difference.”

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Stony Brook Athletics and Uber announced a partnership Feb. 28. Photo from Uber

Stony Brook University’s athletic department and a popular app have partnered, and students and Seawolves fans will reap the benefits.

On Feb. 28 Stony Brook Athletics and Uber announced a three-year partnership which makes Uber, a location-based car-service app featuring private drivers, the “Official Ride of the Stony Brook Seawolves.”

Robert Emmerich, senior associate director of athletics at SBU, said the university has received positive feedback from students since the partnership was announced. He said no official data has been obtained yet to measure the number of rides being called for every day. He said one of the goals is to offer students and staff members discounts during high travel times in the near future.

“This partnership is beneficial for many reasons and all were considered while working out the details of the agreement,” Emmerich said. “Providing students and staff with a safe and reliable way to explore Long Island is certainly one of the main focuses of this partnership. In addition, we are excited that Uber can offer our fans the convenience to be picked up and dropped off right next to our athletic facilities, so they can enjoy our games with friends and family.”

Another hope of the partnership is to ease traffic during games. “Having Uber as a reliable option to get to and from our home games will certainly help with parking and provide fans the opportunity to be dropped off right next to our facilities,” Emmerich said.

The university is working on pickup and drop-off zones for Seawolves fans, and the locations will be finalized shortly. Currently, the Competition Automotive Gate #2 of LaValle Stadium is the designated pickup and drop-off point during the university’s lacrosse season, according to Emmerich.

“Teaming up with Stony Brook will allow us to provide an improved and convenient Uber experience for those traveling to and from games and around campus,” said Sarfraz Maredia, Uber’s regional general manager for the Northeast United States in a statement. “Together, we will make sure students, fans, alumni and faculty have access to affordable, reliable rides.”

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A home on Stony Brook Road was condemned after the Town of Brookhaven found the homeowner had the garage and basement illegally converted into apartments that housed Stony Brook University students. Photo from Town of Brookhaven

Town of Brookhaven Supervisor Ed Romaine (R) had a warning for unscrupulous landlords who illegally turn residential homes into rooming houses.

“Don’t do it,” Romaine said. “We’re coming for you.”

One landlord found that Sept. 8 statement to be true March 9 when the Town of Brookhaven Law Department condemned a house at 1423 Stony Brook Road in Stony Brook, where eight people were sharing the home, according to a press release from the Town of Brookhaven. Seven of the residents were found to be students of Stony Brook University. The landlord of the ranch-style house that had been unlawfully converted to include living space in the garage and basement was not named by the town.

“This was one of the worst cases of illegal student housing that we have seen in the Stony Brook area,” Romaine said in a statement. “Off-campus housing that is not in compliance with town building and fire codes threatens the health and safety of the students who reside there and the neighbors who live nearby.”

Romaine attributed the discovery of the violations to the town’s law department and the vigilance of neighbors who contacted the town. He urged students and their families to ensure their housing compiles with town code.

At the Stony Brook Road home, the town found bedroom doors equipped with key locks, and some rooms containing refrigerators and microwaves. In addition to the illegal basement and garage apartments, with two bedrooms, a kitchen and bathroom in each, the basement had a coin-operated washer and dryer.

The law department issued the property owner several housing code violations, including no smoke detectors, no carbon monoxide detectors, no rental permit and illegal use as a rooming house. The owner’s school tax assessment relief property tax exemption was revoked, and both the Suffolk County District Attorney and New York State Attorney General’s offices have been notified for prosecution.

Bruce Sander, president of Stony Brook Concerned Homeowners, said the organization reported the house to the town, calling the members the “eyes and ears of this community.”

“We are glad that this landlord will get the fines, etc. that he or she deserves, and I hope they shut this house down permanently and sell it to a family,” Sander said. “This type of landlord does not belong in any community when they openly violate the laws and put the students at risk as well as destroy property values of the surrounding neighborhoods.”

SBU offered dorm rooms on campus to the displaced students. In the last five years, the university has been working collaboratively with the Town of Brookhaven, the Suffolk County Police Department and local community groups to address safety concerns for students living in off-campus housing, according to a statement from SBU spokeswoman Lauren Sheprow.

Before the house was condemned March 9, the town notified university administration, and a coordinated effort was conducted by the school’s government and community relations, campus residences, dean of students’ office and commuter student services and off-campus living to find rooms for the students, according to Sheprow.

At the Sept. 8 press conference, Judith Greiman, chief deputy to the president of SBU and senior vice president for government and community relations, said the school takes great steps to ensure students’ safety. Among measures the university has undertaken since March 2013 are prohibiting advertisements of off-campus rentals on SBU’s website, unless the landlord can provide a Brookhaven Town rental permit, and prohibiting posting on campus bulletin boards. The university also holds tenants’ rights workshops to help students understand what to look for when renting.

In 2013, Romaine launched a mobile phone app, available on Apple iPhones and Android mobile devices, to help fight illegal off-campus housing in the town. To download the free mobile app, visit www.brookhavenny.gov from a mobile device.

Residents can also call 631-451-TOWN (8696) between 9 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. to report housing violations. For more information or to access the town’s code book, go to www.brookhavenny.gov.

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