The event was a collaboration between Scientista — an organization aimed at providing content, resources and networking opportunities to preprofessional women in STEM — members of the Society of Women Engineers (SWE), Women in Tech (WIT) and the Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM). The panel consisted of four Binghamton University faculty members in engineering, math and neuroscience, who discussed their careers and gave advice for women aspiring to work in STEM fields.

Bing Si, an assistant professor in systems science and industrial engineering, explained her reasoning behind switching fields in between her undergraduate and graduate years.

“[In math,] we assume that everything is in a perfect environment,” Si said. “I just really wanted to do some real-world applications, to see how my skills could be used to cope with real-world problems, so that’s why after my undergraduate I decided to move fields and get a Ph.D. in industrial engineering.”

Megan Johnson, a visiting professor in mathematics and statistics who will be moving to SUNY Fredonia in the fall, discussed how influential strong family support was when she was completing her degree.

“My aunt is a mathematician at SUNY Fredonia, so I’m actually going to be her coworker, and she’s always been a huge inspiration to me,” Johnson said. “One thing that always brings a little tear to my eye is that she dedicated her Ph.D. to my great-great-grandmother, who was actually surprisingly studying mathematics and wanted to get her Ph.D. in the early 1900s. She had to choose between settling down to care for her family and getting a Ph.D. in mathematics, which was kind of unheard of at the time.”

In addition to discussing personal motivations and inspirations, panel members discussed and critiqued current barriers for women working in STEM fields — noting the decrease in the number of women as the education level increases. Panel members also highlighted the importance of outreach to younger students and suggested advocacy tips for current students.

Johnson explained the importance of reaching out to young girls at an early age in order to support them in developing a strong STEM foundation.

“[The study] showed that boys and girls mapped capabilities relatively the same until a particular time period in elementary school, where suddenly it dropped,” Johnson said. “And so I think we, in the future, we need to target those young girls and get them more interested in STEM.”

Ayesha Patel, a member of Scientista and junior majoring in biology, explained some of the initial goals of the organization.

“We created this organization our freshman year of high school to help women in STEM, but for each discipline in STEM,” Patel said. “We knew that each school at [BU] had a club that was catered toward women in STEM, but only for that specific department or major.”

The organizations often hold other career-focused events. SWE offers a variety of professional panels and social events for women aiming to go into engineering fields, as stated on their website. WIT is open to students of all majors who want to learn more about opportunities in the technology field available both during and after graduation. AWM is a national organization that aims to provide similar opportunities for women and other underrepresented groups in mathematical fields.

Past events with Scientista have included internship informational events and study sessions. Their intent, as stated on Scientista’s Instagram, is to empower “a community of women in STEM through networking opportunities and professional resources.”

Yuktha Chiguripati, a junior double-majoring in biology and English, said that she wanted this event to give people the opportunity to build their network and find mentors.

“I just want people to feel like they have a community here,” Chiguripati said. “At my high school, we didn’t really have any women in those kinds of clubs, or anything, so it was kind of like every man for himself. I came here and realized that college was just so different and everyone wanted to support each other. Our goal is that everybody has someone to go to, and everybody can make a friend or find a mentor.”

Gershenson is the first of several professors hired by the Thomas J. Watson College of Engineering and Applied Science as part of the SUNY Empire Innovative Program (EIP), a SUNY-wide initiative focused on hiring faculty with a strong research background. According to BingUNews, this program provides funding for the hiring and retention of faculty with strong research backgrounds. As part of the program, the college plans to hire three professors who research AI systems as a tool to help improve the health care system.

The SUNY EIP program was originally put into place to expand research capacity in specific priority areas, as well as to strengthen areas that SUNY already has a recognized leadership position in, as stated on its website. Areas emphasized include multidisciplinary research collaboration, entrepreneurial activities and contributions to New York State public and economic health efforts.

Gershenson shared some of the research he has conducted, focusing on health care.

“Health care has the advantage that it has practical applications,” Gershenson said. “I mean, we will all die, but how we die, and how long we stay alive can vary depending on many things. Of course it can depend on health care systems or individual choices, but it can also depend on social aspects.”

Gershenson, who has been working on AI research since his undergraduate years, said his career started when he was working on automating triage systems in Mexico City. One of the projects he has participated in, Gershenson explained, was run by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), in collaboration with the Social Security Institute in Mexico and the Ministry of Health studying the H1N1 pandemic. He and the team were working toward finding the types of health care that could be provided by a CVS Minute Clinic and research.

Gershenson further explained how non-transmissible diseases can act like transmissible ones under certain circumstances.

“Recently, people have found that the risk factors for non-transmissible diseases are socially transmissible,” Gershenson said. “If I have the habit of going with my buddies for breakfast every morning to have tamales and atole every week, that might lead to an overweight circle around me, and that’s a factor for many of these non-transmissible diseases.”

The spread of healthy and unhealthy behaviors can be tracked and studied using computer models based on real-world data, Gershenson explained. He said his ultimate goal is to promote the spread of healthy behaviors and prevent the spread of unhealthy behaviors.

Gershenson said he plans to work with other BU faculty and schools when he takes on the new position.

“I hope to collaborate with colleagues from the [BU School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences] because I’m sure they have experience with particular problems,” Gershenson said. “Collaborating with them could help to improve the situation, combining our experiences.”

Jewel Jenkins, a sophomore majoring in computer science, said that they believe hiring more research-based faculty will have a positive impact on the University.

“I feel that since we are a research university, having more faculty with a research background is very important,” Jenkins said. “As of right now, there are only two paths for the masters program, cybersecurity and artificial intelligence, and I feel like expanding the type of people the school hires can bring in different classes so different programs can be added to the masters track.”

According to BingUNews, a second hire has been selected and will be announced soon, and the search for a third hire is currently underway.

Jesse La Scala, a sophomore double-majoring in English and environmental science, also felt that an emphasis on research when hiring faculty was important.

“I appreciate that the University wants to hire more faculty with a strong research background,” La Scala said. “As someone who wants to go into research, I have found it helpful when I can turn to my professors for advice.”

The discussion — titled “Cultural Evolution for the Regeneration of Earth” — was hosted by Joseph Brewer, the founder of Earth Regenerators, a company seeking to restore ecosystems through a network of projects. According to Brewer, he and his team work to revitalize ecosystems through a series of hands-on projects and a study group, as well as educational activities for children to encourage them to be more connected to the natural landscapes around them.

During the seminar, Brewer emphasized the importance of viewing environmental issues on a planetary level, rather than working within geographic or project boundaries.

“When I realized that there were all these different levels and that no one was able to get to the planetary scale, it became apparent to me that it wasn’t about doing it at any one level,” Brewer said. “What actually matters is to understand the interactions between the levels. If we can understand the interactions between the levels, then we might find our way to a systemic pathway into the holistic health of each part, all the way up to the whole.”

Due to the complex web of interdependencies that interact on this planet, Brewer explained that attempting to solve part of the problem may cause issues elsewhere. Organizing landscapes into natural boundaries such as watersheds, could solve issues with organizing on a large scale, according to Brewer.

“It’s interesting to notice that every place has power to it,” Brewer said. “If you look at something as large as the African continent, with 55 nation-states, it’s huge — you can’t even imagine how big it is. But then if you look at the way that water organizes itself across the land, you see that there are 400 rivers.”

Several of Earth Regenerator’s on-ground projects involve restoring watersheds through digging retention ponds and regenerating rivers, as explained by Brewer. Other projects, including planting trees and restoring forests, building regenerative farms and creating teaching spaces for children to teach nature connections.

Brewer explained that the main goal of Earth Regenerators is to create a system of projects such as these with the goal of revitalizing entire ecosystems.

“The earth is filled with beautiful places,” Brewer said. “What we’re doing is we’re working to create a design school that can heal the entire landscape.”

In addition to the seminar series, the EvoS program website states that they offer classes in anthropology, biology, psychology and environmental science. Future seminar topics listed on the website include “Human Evolution in Africa: Evidence from the Central Highlands of Kenya” and “International Ocean Discover Program Expedition 371: How tiny fossils can answer large questions about our Earth system.”

Lukas Shriver, a senior majoring in biology, described how the discussion related to some of the readings he did for the seminar class.

“It made me think about cultural evolution differently,” Shriver said. “I never really thought about it as a process similar to genetic evolution. I thought of them as completely different processes, but seeing how they are intrinsically related was interesting to me, because learned behaviors really are like genetic traits that can be traced, and I think that’s so cool.”

Seminars are held on Mondays from 5:15 p.m. to 7:15 p.m. and are open to the campus and local community, according to the EvoS web page. Some will be held on Zoom, while others are held in person in the Science II, room 259.

Connor Celeste, a senior majoring in integrative neuroscience, said that a major takeaway of his was about attitudes around hope.

“The biggest part for me was realizing that there were actually communities who are thinking about global economic change,” Celeste said. “There was also this talk about hope, and talking about how sometimes you can’t necessarily have hope. Sometimes there are hopeless moments, and you have to still keep doing what you think is the right thing.”

Tracy Hookway, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering, received the five year grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to learn more about different relationships between cells that control heartbeat speed, according to an article published by BingUNews. This grant was given through the Early Career Development (CAREER) program, an NSF program that aims to support early-career academics who “have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education,” as described on their website.

Hookway, who works in the biomedical engineering department, received the grant for her work in interactions between neural and cardiac cells. She spoke about how the research could help to advance the treatment of cardiac diseases.

“Long term with this project, we can have models with healthy hearts, or diseased hearts and people who have different neuropathy where the neurons actually don’t connect to the heart very well, or they force the heart to behave in an unwanted way,” Hookway said. “With something like arrhythmia, the neurons are firing at an inappropriate rhythm, and that would lead to disease. We can understand a lot more about that, and maybe help develop drugs.”

In addition to research, the grant statement includes plans for education and community outreach. Aimed at high school and undergraduate students, the goal of the program is to combine research and educational interests by designing lessons involving stem cell function and cardiovascular anatomy, as well as tissue engineering and biomanufacturing, as stated in the grant. Specifically, Hookway said she plans to develop science-based games as a “centerpiece” in community outreach efforts in local school districts, according to a statement from BingUNews.

Hookway discussed what initially brought her to cardiovascular research.

“I have been interested in cardiovascular research for a long time,” Hookway said. “I have several family members who have been affected by various forms of cardiovascular disease, and that sort of kick-started my interest in trying to study what goes wrong and how we can fix it. And so within the context of my lab here at [BU], I’ve been interested in engineering these models.”

In order to supply the body with enough blood during times of activity and times of rest, the heart modulates pumping speed as determined by neural cells, Hookway explained. In order to research how these two cell types interact, Hookway’s lab places cardiomyocytes — cells that control the contraction of the heart — and neural cells in 3D-engineered structures, the grant statement explained. According to Hookway, in the past, bioengineered models of human tissue have tended to be limited to singular cell types, and as a result, understanding of how these cell types interact is limited.

Hookway described how she would address these gaps.

“Our body is filled with complex cell types,” Hookway said. “Each one of our tissues, heart included, is made up of many different types of cells, and, when the field right now is trying to build these engineered models, they only have one single type. My interest in cardiovascular tissue and seeing this gap in the field is why I wrote this grant, to try to bring neurons and cardiomyocytes together.”

According to the statement, the research aims to gain a clearer understanding of how neurons connect to heart cells and examine how the neural cells improve heart functionality. Hookway plans to grow cardiac tissue under variable electrical conditions to see if this electrical stimulation improves stress tolerance.

Hookway’s research aims to use bioengineering solutions to create future therapies for heart problems and develop a drug screening program, the grant stated.

Marshia Mizan, a sophomore majoring in nursing, connected the research to what she is currently studying in class.

“We’re learning about the heart right now in anatomy,” Mizan said.

Nigel Slon, a junior majoring in mathematics, weighed in on how he thought the research would affect the University as a whole.

“It’s interesting and good for the University,” Nigel said. “The University is trying to take a step toward a research focus, so it’s good that the professor is getting this grant, but I feel like only nursing and pre-med will be directly affected.”

According to a Dateline announcement, individuals using BU’s Google Services will no longer have the ability to make their own Google shared drives starting Jan. 23. The changed policy requires the once unlimited storage model to become a pooled storage model, meaning storage is shared across all users for everything in their shared drives and Google accounts. Instead of making their own shared drives, faculty, staff and students will have to submit requests to Information Technology Services (ITS), who will create new shared drives that are set to a storage limit of 100 GB.

Michael Hizny, the director of Enterprise Systems and Applications, explained the reasoning behind the decision from Google.

“This change was more Google than it was [BU],” Hizny wrote in an email. “It basically comes down to Google trying to control exponential use in Google storage and the costs associated with this.”

In a post on the Google Outreach Initiatives blog, the change is explained as a way to curb storage consumption as Google Workspace for Education expands its services to more schools. Additionally, the blog post said that the new policy aims to promote a more equitable distribution of data storage within and among colleges and universities using the service.

Hizny elaborated on what the cap on storage meant for Google Drive users.

“Once the storage limit is set at 100 GB, the affected shared drive will be fully available to the user and all members but in read-only mode,” Hizny wrote in an email. “Files stored in the shared drive cannot be modified and new content cannot be added until the storage is brought under the 100 GB limit.”

In order to create a new shared drive, students can fill out a request form on the ITS website with information such as the shared drive manager, preferred drive name, impact and urgency.

Ryan Calhoun, a sophomore majoring in mechanical engineering, said the new Google policy could become problematic for the University.

“Whenever I started a group project, the very first step would be creating a drive,” Calhoun said. “Without having that option at the fingertips of students and professors, it seems like a mess of shared folders are, unfortunately, going to become the favored option. Even though the option to make a request to ITS still remains, the hassle and wait times surrounding it will likely deter the majority of people on campus from choosing to use shared drives in the first place.”

Calhoun also said that Student Association (SA) chartered clubs and organizations will still be able to create shared drives for any projects that they are a part of through the @binghamtonsa.org domain email they receive, without having to contact ITS.

Sophie DiScala, a senior majoring in environmental science, said she often uses shared Google drives and is concerned about the policy changes.

“I don’t know how much control the University has over these changes, but I feel like if a lot of students are submitting forms to ITS, it’s probably going to take a long time,” DiScala said. “I know I use shared drives for projects a lot. I’m sure it’s not a problem right now, but I think it’s going to accumulate into one in the future.”

In order to mitigate issues with storage limits, a BU statement recommends that students download any inactive content to another means of storage and delete it off Google Drive. Any questions can be directed to the ITS help desk at 607-777-6420 or helpdesk@binghamton.edu.

Karin Sauer, a professor of biological sciences who works in biofilms research, along with the rest of her team, has been awarded a National Science Foundation Growing Convergence Research grant. According to Sauer, the goal of their research is to reduce, and eventually eliminate, the number of infections caused by biofilms adhering to medical implants. Infections from surgical implants can be chronic and potentially life-threatening, especially since implants can range from heart valves to knee replacements. Currently, it occurs in up to five percent of patients, according to research published in the Journal of Surgical Infections.

In an article published in Nature Reviews Microbiology, the authors state that biofilm formation on implant surfaces protects bacteria from host defenses, as well as human interventions such as antibiotics. The article also reviewed the difficulty of obtaining data about biofilm infections, a topic which Sauer further elaborated on.

“Unfortunately, the biofilm component is not very well-recognized in hospitals, so it’s really hard to track down how many infections really are caused by biofilms,” Sauer said. “But, new statistics indicate that just infections associated by hip and knee replacements that cause a mortality — meaning death of a patient — is as high as those suffering from breast cancer, and that’s a huge number. So there is this silent killer out there that no one has really been paying attention to.”

Other researchers on this project include David Davies, a professor of biological sciences, and Claudia Marques, an associate professor of biological sciences. Sauer said that others involved in the project include immunologists, engineers and machine learning specialists, and described the research as highly interdisciplinary.

Sauer explained some of the challenges that came with this type of collaboration.

“It took us a while to form this team and to learn each other’s language,” Sauer said. “This is actually the challenge that we have all experienced — that we all use different terminologies. We may mean the same thing, but it takes a while to figure it out.”

In addition to doing research, Sauer shared that she and her team have been hosting a seminar series called “Approaching Zero” — as in zero infections — for the past two years. Speakers from all over the world come with the goal of having people learn from different disciplines and work together to solve the infection problem, according to Sauer.

“We want for students to also become familiar with the problem, to be aware, but also to learn from each other,” Sauer said. “So to hear actually what would go into fixing the problem from the engineering side, from the material side, from the clinician side [and] from the regulatory side. It turns out a lot of problems are associated with getting approval from new materials, so we had speakers from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, hearing their side.”

In addition to lowering the quality of life, another issue with implant-associated infections is financial cost. An article published in the Journal of Hospital Infections states that infections associated with surgical implants cost nearly $11 billion annually in the United States.

Daniela Bagan, a junior majoring in psychology, said she hopes the implant’s benefits override its financial cost.

“It’s pretty important, because getting an implant is really expensive,” Bagan said. “It sounds like it has the potential to help a lot more people.”

Sauer said the main, long-term goal for the research is to eliminate implant-related infections completely. This would significantly reduce the number of hospital deaths, according to Sauer, allowing people access to safer, more comfortable and more affordable surgeries.

Francesca Varriano, a junior majoring in integrative neuroscience, drew connections between the research Sauer’s lab is doing and the research she is working on in class.

“The research we’re doing is trying to implement testing for children to catch depression early on,” Varriano said. “I see a similarity in trying to make the medical realm a better, easier place for people to navigate.”

In a statement released on behalf of the Binghamton University Libraries, Bryan Field, library communications officer, said that the purpose of the project — which took place from Oct. 19 to 23 — was to remove and replace old mechanical equipment and materials from the third floor of the library. Because the project required a crane, a portion of M lot was blocked off from pedestrian, car and bus use.

Karen Fennie, communications specialist for the Physical Facilities department, provided insight into the third floor construction project as a whole.

“There is a critical need for an extensive mechanical update as well as asbestos removal,” Fennie said. “The renovation project provides the ideal opportunity to redesign the floor to meet the current needs of our campus community. The goal of the third floor redesign is to transform the floor into an innovative and inviting space for study, teaching and research. The new space will include areas for quiet study, collaborative work, instruction, research and our unique collection.”

The overall goal of this project is to provide students with more support resources, according to the Libraries’ statement. When complete, the third floor will host a Digital Resource Center, as well as meeting rooms for collaboration and quiet study spaces.

Fennie explained Physical Facilities’ motivations in conducting construction involving crane work and roadblocks over fall break.

“The goal was to reduce the impact on campus,” Fennie said. “The work required road and pedestrian detours so we worked with the contractor to coordinate dates when there would be less vehicle and pedestrian traffic.”

Despite attempts to avoid significant disruption to students’ schedules, buses and cars were rerouted along a portion of West Drive, requiring people to find alternate routes of access to certain areas of campus.

Noah Zimmer, a senior majoring in geology, expressed some frustration around the road closures and communication issues surrounding the project.

“I understand the need to close down the road at certain times for safety, but the amount of time this road closure was in place seemed longer than necessary, in my opinion,” Zimmer said. “This, plus other experiences previously that day, solidified my feelings that construction workers seem to be operating in a world outside of students and staff. Of course we need to respect their space and safety, but they need to respect ours as well. I really do wish the best for all the workers, but there needs to be more engagement with the environment they’re building in.”

The project coordinators have taken several steps in an attempt to reduce the impact of the renovations on students. Materials normally located on the third floor have been distributed throughout the library, and a virtual Browse Shelf tool can be used to find them, according to library staff.

Olivia Saccamano, a senior majoring in biology, shared her own experiences with the roadblocks.

“I was not on campus for most of the break, actually, because I was with my parents,” Saccamano said. “I did see the ‘Do Not Cross’ sign by Hinman, but it didn’t matter to me because we would just go up to Susquehanna or Hillside [Community] and I would get dropped off there. If we had missed the turn, we would have had to circle back, and that would have been so annoying, but not a major issue.”

More crane work is planned for the coming weeks, according to the Libraries’ statement. Students will be notified by Physical Facilities in the same manner they were notified of this fall break construction — with University announcements in advance and signage at the site.

The research focused on solutions to Europe’s current energy shortfall. In response to sanctions from the European Union (EU) following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Russian government significantly reduced natural gas exports to other European countries, according to the New York Times. The researchers’ article, titled “Europe’s Way Out: Tools to rapidly eliminate imports of Russian natural gas,” was published in Joule, an alternative energy journal, on Sept. 15.

Neha Patankar, a researcher in the project and an assistant professor in systems science and industrial engineering, described the process behind starting the proposal.

“I was working as a research scholar at Princeton [University] then,” Patankar said. “We were all sitting in our lab, and we got to know that this had happened. As soon as my lab got the news of the Russian invasion, our immediate reaction was that energy is going to play the biggest role in this conflict, and it’s going to act as one big lever for political gains.”

Along with Patankar, the research team included Princeton University faculty members Michael Lau, a second-year doctoral candidate in the department of mechanical and aerospace engineering, Wilson Ricks, a fourth-year Ph.D. student in the department of mechanical and aerospace engineering and Jesse Jenkins, an assistant professor in mechanical and aerospace engineering and the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment.

Patankar also explained the results of the research based on the REpowerEU plan, which aims to rapidly reduce dependence on Russian natural gas.

“There are four main levers that Europe can use, and Europe has already started using a few of those levers to reduce pressure on energy supply systems,” Patankar said. “First is the use of non-Russian liquefied natural gas, and they have started doing that. They should introduce flexible gas storage targets. The second lever is that they need to have more coal generation. Europe has also started doing that. The last thing, which is something Europe is not doing, is that they were supposed to reduce natural gas use because expenses are very high, but they ended up increasing natural gas use.”

There are several reasons why this target has not been met yet, according to Patankar, which includes Europe’s “very severely reduced nuclear capacity,” drought and Europe’s low hydropower capacity. The drought poses other problems for energy alternatives, according to the New York Times. In Germany, the Rhine River’s tides are too low to transport coal in some places, making it difficult to find alternatives to natural gas. In France, rivers have warmed due to a combination of low water volume and high heat, making it difficult to flush out nuclear reactors.

Benjamin Wolpow, a senior majoring in environmental science, weighed in on the research with what he had learned in his classes.

“I think this research is important because, in an ever-increasingly politically dominated world, exploring alternate energy pathways could be vital in changing supply chains — which, if done correctly, could reduce our carbon footprint or maintain it while we are in a transitional period of obtaining energy from a new resource,” Wolpow said.

According to the research team’s article, increasing coal use would not necessarily increase carbon emissions. As demand for energy should continue to go down due to price increases from a decline in natural gas supply, overall output would be low enough that increased coal would not increase fossil fuel output, according to the research. However, since coal has been shut down in recent years, starting up the coal supply chain again will take significant time and resources, as will mobilizing labor. Patankar expressed hope that these areas will get more attention in the future.

Future research goals also include examining practicality issues, according to Patankar. Patankar explained that the proposal did not look at cost and supply chain issues, both of which are going to impact the feasibility of the plan.

Nicole Barrett, a senior majoring in chemistry who works in sustainable energy research, drew connections between her own work and the research conducted in the article.

“While my research is targeting the dream of alleviating the need for fossil fuels altogether, it also has some pretty interesting potential geopolitical implications that do relate to this pretty well,” Barrett said. “I think that one important thing that people often don’t consider about clean energy solutions is that, generally, they require very little globalization to work once initiated.”