Noteworthy

Cheryl Andam published a study in the journal Nature Communications that used data from across New York to explore how genetic exchange mechanisms shape diversity and adaptability among the bacterial pathogen Listeria monocytogenes. 

Ethan Caiazza, biology research support specialist in the Scimemi lab, presented research at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting, showing that the Alzheimer’s protein Ab42 causes neurons to produce excess glutamate transporters leading to memory deficits. Caiazza’s attendance was supported by a Trainee Professional Development Award from the Society for Neuroscience.

The newly launched AI & Society College and AI & Society Research Center have awarded fellowships to UAlbany faculty and students dedicated to exploring and guiding AI’s societal impact. Meet the Faculty Innovation Fellows working to expand UAlbany’s AI curriculum, the Dissertation Fellows conducting research at the intersection of AI and society, the Research Fellows connecting technical innovation to human and societal needs and the Faculty Engagement Fellows bringing investigations into AI ethics and social impact into teaching environments, policy spaces and the public sphere.

Marlene Belfort received the Association for Women in Science’s Zenith Award, presented in recognition of Belfort’s lifetime of innovative scientific achievements and her deep commitment to expanding workplace diversity and building programs to support young researchers.

Bring Judgment Day: Reclaiming Lead Belly’s Truths from Jim Crow’s Lies (Cambridge University Press, 2024) by History Professor Sheila Curran Bernard received a Special Recognition Award in the category of pop music for the 2025 Deems Taylor/Virgil Thomson Book Awards, presented by the ASCAP Foundation. 

Alain Diebold and Ezra Pasikatan, PhD '24, co-authored an article in the Oct. 28 issue of the Journal of Applied Physics that examines non-destructive lateral cavity etch measurements of 8-superlattice layer nanowire test structures.

Lijun Ni received a $114,371 National Science Foundation grant for her project, “Building Capacity for Teacher and Student AI Fluency in Middle Schools in Texas and New York.” Ni also received funding from the University of Minnesota for a project that helps teacher educators integrate computer science into pre-service teacher courses.

Learn about the latest happenings in UAlbany’s Biology Department in this year in review article. Explore the companion newsletter for a comprehensive look at the department’s recent accomplishments including publications, grants, research stories, faculty news, student achievements and more.

Melanie Wilcox and colleagues received the 2025 Outstanding Article Award from The Counseling Psychologist for their article, “Structural competencies: Re-grounding counseling psychology in antiracist and decolonial praxis.”

Hung-Bin Sheu has been named a Fellow of APA Division 45, Society for the Psychological Study of Culture, Ethnicity and Race, for outstanding contributions and national impact to the field. Sheu is also a Fellow of APA Division 17, Society of Counseling Psychology.

Jonathan Foster received a $349,516 National Science Foundation grant for his project, “Developing an AI-supported Tool to Analyze and Assess Mathematical Argumentation in Elementary Classrooms,” which will include two studies over three years.

Aaron Benavot received a $149,191 grant from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization for his project, “A global mapping of the inclusion of greening, global citizenship and gender equality in national curricular frameworks and syllabi in primary- and secondary-level education” to assess the extent to which this is done, explore how it is done and develop strategies for building a global indicator.

Terrell Rabb and Stefan Brooks were recognized by the Research Foundation for SUNY for being selected to co-author a new course on Authorized Organizational Representatives for the Society of Research Administrators International's LevelUP Micro-credential Program. SRAI offers professional development to the essential research administration staff who support faculty across campus.

P.D. Magnus, Alessandra Buccella and Jason D’Cruz co-authored an article in the October issue of AI and Ethics titled, "Chatbot apologies: Beyond bullshit," that explores the apologies produced by LLM-based chatbots and whether they can be considered morally serious.

Jessica Martin received a $24,584 New York Council on Problem Gambling grant for a “College Gambling Prevention Project” to gather data on student gambling across seven New York colleges and universities to inform, educate and encourage campuses to implement problem gambling screening assessments into their health and wellness centers.

Mauricio Rodriguez, a first-semester doctoral student in cognitive psychology working with Professor Jeanette Altarriba, received the New England Psychological Association’s 2025 Donnah Canavan Honorary Undergraduate Scholar Award at the association’s 65th annual meeting last week. The award acknowledges Rodriguez’s research productivity, grades and involvement in extracurricular and service activities.

Jerold Gauriloff in UAlbany’s Sponsored Programs Administration office recently led a professional development session for the Research Foundation for SUNY focused on leading people responsibly by applying lessons and key insights from Jim Collins’ book Good to Great.

Jennifer Thompson Burns was awarded the 2025 Resourceful Woman of the Year by the YWCA of the Greater Capital Region. The award honors women whose community and professional pursuits advance the empowerment of women, in step with the YWCA’s mission to eliminate racism, empower women, and promote justice and dignity for all.

The International Sociological Association awarded Zai Liang’s book, From Chinatown to Everytown: How Chinese Immigrants Have Expanded the Restaurant Business in the United States, honorable mention for the 2025 Best Scholarly Book Award.

Sujata Murty was awarded $119,998 from the National Science Foundation to study the drivers behind the Australian and Asian monsoons. Murty is collaborating with researchers from six institutions and will focus on analyzing coral samples to better understand monsoon variability over the last two millennia.

Timothy Weaver published a new book on the political development of New York City since the 1970s. Inequality, Crime, and Resistance in New York City was published in March by Temple University Press, as part of the “Political Lessons from American Cities” series.

UAlbany President Havidán Rodríguez was featured in City & State’s inaugural Latino Trailblazers list. He was recognized for his work on the University’s new artificial intelligence supercomputing initiative, Seal of Excelencia designation and forming a cutting-edge nanotech college aligning with the federal CHIPS and Science Act. 

Mustafa Aksoy has been named an associate editor for the IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, the flagship journal in the field of electrical and electronics engineering that focuses on science and engineering as applied to sensing the land, oceans, atmosphere and space.

Gerald Marschke is the principal investigator on a $575,573 grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to study how U.S.-trained PhDs affect the broader economy. With researchers from Kenyon College, The Ohio State University and the U.S. Census Bureau, the project links detailed data on PhD graduates to the businesses that employ them.

Marina A. Petrukhina, Distinguished Professor and Carla Rizzo Delray Professor of Chemistry, received the 2026 George A. Olah Award in Hydrocarbon or Petroleum Chemistry, presented by the American Chemical Society. This prestigious national award recognizes chemists who are pioneering basic science using hydrocarbons for industrial implications. See past recipients.

Professor of Psychology James Stellar coauthored a new book with Siena's Brandy Eggan, released last week, titled Professional Wisdom: What a College Student's Brain and Career Need (Ideapress Publishing). The work explores the value of experiential learning for college students as examined through a neuroscientific lens.

David Hoffman published a new article in Annals of Bioethics & Clinical Applications earlier this month. The work underscores the necessity of preventative care and the role of policy in ensuring access to essential services across the healthcare spectrum. 

Mary DePascale was awarded an $8,500 grant from the American Psychological Association for her project, “Do #PreschoolMath Activities Support Math Learning?: Examining Caregivers' Perceptions, Use, and Implementation of Early Math Activities Posted on Social Media.”

Melissa Tracy received $156,500 from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to study long term-health consequences arising from intimate partner violence and to support the development of a methodological approach for predicting and preempting delayed consequences of this type of harm.

As a new member of the NYS Coordinating Council for Services Related to Alzheimer’s Disease and Other Dementia, David Hoffman will advise the governor and the Department of Health on programs and policies relating to Alzheimer's disease prevention, early identification, support and care, including long-term care and Medicaid. 

Tianlin Wang has been awarded a $4,490 grant from the American Psychological Association for her research project, “Use of AI-based Scaffolding in Writing: Longitudinal Impact on Critical Thinking Research Background and Rationale."

Kaalak Reddy and Gabriele Fuchs were awarded $420,000 from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to study fatal inherited ITPase enzyme deficiency. Their research will investigate the cellular mechanisms that underlie brain and heart dysfunction, leading to death, as a result of the genetic loss of the ITPase enzyme.

Paul Morgan was awarded $157,000 from the U.S. Department of Education for his project titled “Who receives and benefits from special education in the U.S.? Analyses of three national representative datasets.” The work will examine factors that shape disparities in special education across the U.S., with a focus on the extent to which systemic bias in disability identification contributes to these disparities.

Under the leadership of Distinguished Professor of Biological Sciences Tom Begley, the RNA Institute has secured $1.8 million from the National Institutes of Health to support 35 RNA Fellows over the next five years. The positions will fund graduate students in the College of Arts and Sciences, the College of Integrated Health Sciences and the College of Nanotechnology, Science, and Engineering. Associate Professor of Biological Sciences Gaby Fuchs, Associate Professor of Chemistry Alan Chen and Assistant Professor of Nanoscale Sciences and Engineering Arun Richard Chandrasekaran are co-PIs and will coordinate the program across the three colleges.

Annalisa Scimemi, associate professor of biological sciences, received $565,000 from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke to support her project titled “Presynaptic modulation of synaptic inhibition onto hippocampal pyramidal neurons.” The proposed work will explore neuronal circuits in the brain involved in perceiving space, and could support the development of future treatments for diseases associated with hippocampal neural circuit dysfunction like epilepsy and autism spectrum disorder.

Professor of Nanoscale Science & Engineering Susan Sharfstein has been awarded a four-year, $2.9 million grant from the National Science Foundation for her project, "FMRG: Bio: Manufacturing Multi-dimensional Culture Systems with Integrated Measurement and Manipulation Technologies.”

Weilan Zhang, assistant professor in the Department of Environmental and Sustainable Engineering, has been awarded a three-year, $419,942 award from the National Science Foundation for his project, "Investigating PFAS Bioaccumulation Behavior, Uptake Mechanisms, and Food Quality Implications in Edible Crops."

RNA Institute researchers received $1,048,300 from the National Institutes of Health to purchase an advanced imaging device that will allow them to study interactions between and within biomolecules, cells and other nano/micro scale materials in real time. By enabling research capabilities currently unavailable within a 100-mile radius, the instrument will offer a unique window into biological and biochemical mechanisms that regulate processes in healthy and diseased cells – insights needed to facilitate new disease treatments.

A new study published by Melissa Piper and Ryan Torn in the Department of Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences found that hurricane forecasts incorporating data from NOAA’s Gulfstream IV jets were as much as 24 percent more accurate than forecasts without the data. The study was mentioned in Scientific American on Friday.

Carlo Cafaro, associate professor in the Department of Nanoscale Science & Engineering, earned a Springer Nature Editorial Contribution Award and Springer Nature Author Service Award for his work as an associate editor for the International Journal of Theoretical Physics, as well as an Honorable Mention from the Gravity Research Foundation for an essay he penned with SUNY Polytechnic Institute's Christian Corda titled “Universality of black hole thermodynamics beyond the thermal approximation." Cafaro also recently co-authored an article with UAlbany students Emma Clements and Abeer Alanazi titled "Aspects of complexity in quantum evolutions on the Bloch sphere," that was published in The European Physical Journal - Plus.

Sociology Professor Joanna Dreby has authored a new book, Surviving the ICE Age: Children of Immigrants in New York, which draws on her interviews with young adults with foreign-born parents to better understand what it was like to grow up during a time of heightened U.S. migratory control. The book, published by the Russell Sage Foundation, was released earlier this month. For more information see www.joannadreby.com.

Center for Technology in Government researchers Mila Gascó-Hernandez, Aryamala Prasad, J. Ramon Gil-Garcia and Theresa Pardo have edited the Research Handbook on Open Government (2025), a comprehensive overview of scholarship on open government, with insights into novel concepts, approaches and trends.

CTG UAlbany researchers Mila Gascó-Hernandez, J. Ramon Gil-Garcia and Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy doctoral student Zong-Xian Huang presented on “How Could Public Libraries Empower Communities to Participate in Government AI Initiatives?” for the 26th Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research in Porto Alegre City, Brazil in June.

Janell Hobson, professor in the Department of Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies, has authored a new piece titled, "The Feminist Leadership Syllabus: Where History, Politics and Pedagogy Meet," in Ms. Magazine. The public syllabus, assembled by Hobson and students in her graduate research seminar, serves as a resource for educators and students on feminist leadership and movements around the globe both currently and historically.

Institute for Social and Health Equity researchers Paul Morgan and Eric Hu published a new study analyzing disparities in disability identification along racial and ethnic lines among U.S. elementary school students. They found that students who are Black or Hispanic, or who live in non-English-speaking households, are less likely to be identified as having disabilities compared to similar peers who are white or live in English-speaking households. The work was published in the journal Educational Researcher earlier this month.

Qingqing Yang, a research scientist at the Institute for Social and Health Equity, received $70,000 from the Spencer Foundation to explore job satisfaction among early childhood teachers. By analyzing large-scale datasets, including one that follows teachers before and after the COVID-19 pandemic, Yang will assess how teacher well-being has changed over time, what factors shape teacher well-being, and how it affects children’s learning and social-emotional development. The work aims to generate steps to promote a more equitable early education system.

Department of Philosophy faculty have published four books this spring. Marcus Adams has published Hobbes's Two Sciences: Politics, Geometry, and the Structure of Philosophy (Oxford), Brad Armour-Garb (with James Woodbridge) has published The Deflationary Approach to Truth (Oxford), Nathan Powers (with Jacob Klein) has published The Oxford Handbook of Hellenistic Philosophy (Oxford) and Ariel Zylberman has published Dignity and Rights Elements in Philosophy of Law (Cambridge).

English Professor Thomas Bass has authored a new book, Return to Fukushima. Published by OR Books, the book is based on his travels to the nuclear disaster site and chronicles the aftermath of the 2011 disaster and resilience of people navigating life amid radioactivity.

Kyra Gaunt, associate professor in the Department of Music & Theatre affiliated with Women’s Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Sociology, shared her thoughts on a new Nike ad campaign featuring A'ja Wilson showcasing the WNBA star's signature shoe in an op-ed and appearance on MSNBC.

Biology PhD student Maurice Petroccione won UAlbany’s 2024-2025 Distinguished Doctoral Dissertation Award, which recognizes the most outstanding dissertation across all disciplines within the College of Arts and Sciences. Petroccione’s dissertation, titled "The multifaceted role of glutamate at excitatory and inhibitory synapses," was nominated by his dissertation chair Annalisa Scimemi.

Annalisa Scimemi, associate professor of biological sciences, recently coauthored The Handbook of Electrophysiology: A Practical Guide for Neurophysiologists, published earlier this month by World Scientific Publishing. Designed to support neuroscientists from students to experienced researchers, the book delves into cutting-edge techniques for studying ion channels, synaptic function and neural circuits. Covered topics include patch-clamp methods, intracellular and extracellular recordings, optogenetics and robotic automation.

Scimemi was also recently awarded $277,500 from the National Institutes of Health to support the purchase of an Evident SLIDEVIEW VS200 research slide scanner. This advanced microscope will enable automated image acquisition using up to five different observation methods (brightfield, phase contrast, darkfield, polarization and fluorescence). To be housed at UAlbany, the instrument will be shared among multiple research institutions throughout the Capital Region and will support cutting edge science in the fields of cellular neuroscience, cell and stem cell biology, and microbial communities in human health, among other research areas. 

UAlbany students are the stars of The Campus Tour, an Amazon Prime show hosted by Alex Boylan. The production crew spent a week at UAlbany last month, touring campus and filming the personal stories and academic journeys of 10 students. The episode will air this fall.

UAlbany’s Cold Case Analysis Center is collaborating with the Rochester Police Department on unsolved homicides. Students will review case files and suggest further investigation or forensic testing to resolve the cases.

Gabriel Hetland authored “Zohran Mamdani Tackles Climate Change and New York City’s Cost-of-Living Crisis” for The Nation. Another article titled, “Capitalism and authoritarianism in Maduro’s Venezuela,” was published in Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal.

Nathaniel Cady has been awarded a 3-year, $1.65 million grant from the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory for his project, “Fabrication of Scalable Nanoscale Electronics.”