During the Fall 2017 semester, undergraduate students in Dr. Donovan Finn‘s course EDP 404: Environmental Design Project developed designs for an organic garden located on the Stony Brook University campus. This is the capstone course for students majoring in Environmental Design, Policy and Planning requiring them to analyze and propose solutions to a real-world policy or design challenge.

This semester the students partnered with the Stony Brook Faculty Student Association to develop conceptual designs for an organic garden that FSA hopes to install in the open field between the new Chavez and Tubman residence halls. FSA plans to create a garden that will supply herbs to East Side Dining to help offset the $100,000 they spend annually on fresh herbs.

In multiple meetings with FSA staff and campus chefs, the students also learned that there was a desire to grow “superfoods” to be served in the dining halls, create a community gathering space, provide the opportunity for students to gain experience with organic gardening techniques and partner with faculty who could conduct research on innovative gardening techniques and related topics.

The students developed precedent studies of other campus organic gardens across the country, conducted an online survey of Stony Brook students, and worked individually and in teams to propose site plans for the layout of the garden, as well as branding recommendations, programming options, and simple business plans for operating and funding the garden.

Posters highlighting some of the recommendations from the team portion of the project were presented to the public on Thursday, December 7, 2017 in the atrium of East Side Dining.

View the photo album on Google Photos

The student posters are displayed below:

The Toll Terrace:  Campus Garden Proposal

Madeline Schoenfeld, Amy Su, Stephen Schiavetta, Jiwon Kim

The Freight Farm will be renovated with solar panels and art decorations on the sides. The glass windows will also provide natural light for the crops growing inside. The Freight Farm will become a public space where student art can be displayed. This will give the community the chance to connect with the garden as well as make the area more lively.

Seasonal Events & Partnerships with local farms, summer camps, and child care centers will serve to educate local youth as well as to integrate community into the garden. Field trips to the garden will allow children to learn about farming and agriculture in an engaging, hands-on experience.

The Toll Terrace will be a bastion for sustainability education in the heart of one of the University’s newest student residential communities. It will contain a campus garden for use by East Side Dining, as well as a social space for students living in the surrounding dormitories.

Wolfie’s Garden

Michael Iorizzo, Vivian Chokry, Sijia Lu, Zhiying Zhao

Wolfie’s Garden is CHEMICAL FREE– implementing practices such as mulching and composting to develop healthy soils for growing crops.  Wolfie’s Garden “provides a sustainable lifestyle through education and experience, while building a sense of community to create  culture, inspiration and connectivity.”

Wolfie’s Garden is centered around the SUPERFOOD CIRCLE which contains amphitheater style seating from which garden beds form a radial pattern around. The garden features different aspects of gardening including a freight farm, greenhouse, composting area and 35 raised beds. Wolfie’s garden features a pond at the entrance and not only serves dining food purposes, but also as space people can go to for relaxation, socializing, learning, and exploration.

WG SBU: A Proposal for Wopowog Garden at Stony Brook University

Angelica Apolinaris, Daniel Panko, Shauna Wright

Wopowog is known to be the original name of the hamlet of Stony Brook as far back as the late 17th century. The name and design of the garden focuses on Native American language and culture: seasonal crops, architecture, and educational events will aim to recreate aspects of Native American culture.

Freight Farm: The freight farm design allows for a year-round growing season for the herbs. The safety of the crops will be ensured by using locking mechanisms on the doors. In order to establish the theme of Native American culture, the freight farm will be transformed into a replication of a longhouse using wood paneling and straw. The picture on the left shows the inside structure of a freight farm, which utilizes hydroponic techniques to save space and resources.

Geodesic Dome: Geodesic domes are an effective greenhouse structure because they contain the greatest volume for the least surface area. The structure is constricted from a number of latticed triangles. Biodomes are exceptional insulators, allowing us to extend the growing season of most every crop to almost a full year. The geodesic dome would focus on the three sisters crops: corn, beans, and squash. Initial conversations with Stony Brook chefs indicated a desire to grow super foods such as acai berries or avocados which can be easily accommodated in the temperature and humidity controlled environment of a biodome.

Wolfie’s Garden: A community garden for Stony Brook University

Bryan Benitez, Stephen Boncimino, Tingyu Lai, Shenglin Wang

ORIGIN: Medicine garden for pharmaceutical company Novartis in Sweden.
PURPOSE: The garden lined with herbs and flowers creates a beautiful effect in the recessed garden. The elevated walkways cut diagonally over the planting area. Also, the site filled with benches, tables, and chairs, with a border of greenery, to give it a park like setting. The design resembles an ancient physic garden. The symbolic nature of the garden is a tribute to the history of medicine.

FUNCTIONALITY: Serves as garden with Long Island-compatible moisture & self-sustaining drainage system Designed as a large rectangle with rows upon rows. Two elevated walkways cut diagonally over the planting area, more for visual effect than function.

Advantages: (1) no need to build extra infrastructures to build raised-bed (2) A sunken garden is designed to capture maximum rainfall and retain moisture, so they dry out less quickly, keep roots cooler, and lessen the need for irrigation.

Stony Brook Wolfie Garden

Bowen Chai, Bryan Gimler, Joseph Carney, and Tina Chen

The Blue Flag Iris is a flower that has the exceptional ability to absorb pollutants from the soil while adding aesthetic value to the space.

The Freight Farm is refitted shipping container that uses hydroponic gardening in order to minimize the resources needed to grow large quantities of produce.  The sides of the structure could also act as a billboard.

Sun Loungers allow individuals to lie down and have a short rest.  These allow for a full view of the garden.

A Vertical Garden draws attention to an area or disguises an unattractive view.  Use structures or columnar trees to create vertical gardening rooms or define hidden spaces ready for discovery.  The vertical garden grows tomatoes, cucumbers, peas, grapes, melons, strawberries, apples and squash.

Interim Dean Larry Swanson thanks everyone who joined us at our Retrospective Event:

This wonderful event brought us all together to reminisce, reflect, and look hopefully to the future.”

Many thanks to our colleagues who helped put the evening together. They include:

• Steve Ortega
• Ginny Clancy
• Stefanie Massucci
• Mark Lang
• Mark Wiggins
• Diane Vigliotta
• Christina Ozelis
• Molly Graffam
• Tom Wilson
• Justin Bopp
• Karin Schweitzer
• Karen Warren
• Hanne Tracy
• Malcolm Bowman
• Hyemi Kim
• Yadira Fernandez

I particularly want to call attention to all the organizational work that Steve Ortega undertook, to Mark Wiggins for not only helping to arrange the room, but in cleaning up Friday night and today. Mark even shoveled the walkway on Friday night to assure all could get safely to their cars. Of course a special thanks to Santa. Yadira Fernandez was also hard at it early this morning to make sure the room was ready for our next dean candidate.

Photos from the event are available on Google Photos.

The School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (SoMAS) of Stony Brook University seeks applicants for a Postdoctoral Researcher (PR) position to work with an interdisciplinary team of biological and physical oceanographers under Assistant Professor Janet Nye’s supervision.  The PR will work on an exciting project funded by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to develop indicators to monitor the health and status of the New York Bight ecosystem. The PR will be responsible for collecting and analyzing data on carbonate chemistry in the New York Bight, publishing in scientific journals and communicating findings to decision makers. A PhD in chemistry, oceanography, or other related field, experience with statistics and modeling, strong written and oral communication skills and experience on oceanographic vessels.

Required Qualifications:  (As evidenced by an attached resume)
PhD or foreign equivalent degree in hand by August 31, 2018.  Knowledge of carbonate chemistry. Experience with chemical assays.

Preferred Qualifications:
PhD in chemistry, oceanography, environmental science or related field.  Experience with advanced statistics, databases, programming in Matlab, R,or other statistical languages.  Experience working with oceanographic data. Prior experience working on oceanographic vessels.

Brief Description of Duties: 
The postdoctoral associate will monitor carbonate chemistry in the New York Bight and analyze carbonate chemistry data collected. The selected candidate will report findings to the NYDEC in a timely manner and maintain a database of observations collected as part of this project. The postdoc will prepare manuscripts for publication in peer-reviewed journals and present at scientific research conferences.

• Collect and analyze carbonate chemistry data.
• Assist with preparation of manuscripts for publications in scientific journals.
• Participate in oceanographic cruises.
• Present at conferences, NYDEC and other management agencies.
• Communicate results to PIs and other collaborators.

For a full position description or to apply online, visit: www.stonybrook.edu/jobs (Req. # 1703364)

Special Notes:
This is a full time appointment. FLSA Exempt position, not eligible for the overtime provisions of the FLSA. Minimum salary threshold must be met to maintain FLSA exemption.

*Please note requisitions 1703371 and 1703364 are for one vacancy. The title/rank (Postdoctoral/Senior Researcher) will be contingent upon the selected candidate’s skills and experience in their area of expertise.

Stony Brook University is 100% tobacco-free as of January 1, 2016. See our policy and learn more at stonybrook.edu/tobaccofree.

Pursuant to Executive Order 161, no State entity, as defined by the Executive Order, is permitted to ask, or mandate, in any form, that an applicant for employment provide his or her current compensation, or any prior compensation history, until such time as the applicant is extended a conditional offer of employment with compensation.  If such information has been requested from you before such time, please contact the Governor’s Office of Employee Relations at (518) 474-6988 or via email at info@goer.ny.gov.

About Stony Brook:
Stony Brook University, home to many highly ranked graduate research programs, is located 60 miles from New York City on Long Island’s scenic North Shore.  Our 1,100-acre campus is home to 24,000 undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral students and more than 13,500 faculty and staff, including those employed at Stony Brook Medicine, Suffolk County’s only academic medical center and tertiary care provider. The University is a member of the prestigious Association of American Universities and co-manager of nearby Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), a multidisciplinary research laboratory supporting world class scientific programs utilizing state-of-the-art facilities such as the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, the National Synchrotron Light Source, and the Center for Functional Nanomaterials, and the New York Blue IBM BG/L+P supercomputer, owned by Stony Brook and managed by BNL.  Stony Brook is a partner in managing the Laboratory for the Department of Energy, and is the largest institutional scientific user of BNL facilities. As such, many opportunities exist for collaborative research, and in some cases, joint appointments can be arranged.

Stony Brook University is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity employer. We encourage protected veterans, individuals with disabilities, women and minorities to apply.

If you need a disability related accommodation, please call the University Human Resource Services Department at (631) 632- 6161 or the University Hospital Human Resources Department at (631) 444-4700. In accordance with the Title II Crime Awareness and Security Act, a copy of our crime statistics is available upon request by calling (631) 632- 6350. It can also be viewed on line at the University Police website at http://www.stonybrook.edu/police.

Ecosystem indicators of the New York Bight and Northwest Atlantic
The School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (SoMAS) of Stony Brook University seeks applicants for a Senior Researcher (SR) position to work with an interdisciplinary team of biological and physical oceanographers under Assistant Professor Janet Nye’s supervision.  The SR will work on a project funded by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to develop indicators to monitor the health of the New York Bight ecosystem.  The SR will be working with existing large datasets on oceanographic and atmospheric conditions, nutrient dynamics, carbonate chemistry and living marine resources on the Northeast U.S. Shelf and with new data collected in the New York Bight.

To apply please visit www.stonybrook.edu/jobs/ and follow the postdoctoral link. Positions 1703371 and 1703364 are for one vacancy, title contingent upon skills/experience.  Contact Janet Nye or Lesley Thorne for further information.

Required Qualifications: (As evidenced by an attached resume)
PhD or foreign equivalent degree in hand by August 31, 2018.  Three years of experience working with environmental data, or excellence in the field as demonstrated by a fellowship within environmental science. Experience with carbonate chemistry analytical techniques and statistics.

Preferred Qualifications:
PhD in chemistry, oceanography, environmental science, or related field.  Experience with advanced statistics, databases, programming in Matlab, R or other statistical languages.  Experience working with oceanographic data, pC02 sensors, pH sensors, alkalinity sensors. Prior experience working on oceanographic vessels.

Brief Description of Duties: 
The Senior Researcher will monitor carbonate chemistry in the New York Bight and analyze carbonate chemistry data collected.  The incumbent will report findings to the NYDEC in a timely manner and maintain a database of observations collected as part of this project.  The Senior Researcher will prepare manuscripts for publication in peer-reviewed journals and present at scientific research conferences.

• Collect and analyze carbonate chemistry data.
• Prepare manuscripts for publication in scientific journals.
• Plan and participate in oceanographic cruises.
• Present at conferences, NYDEC and other management agencies.
• Write proposals for external funding.
• Other duties or projects as assigned as appropriate to rank and departmental mission

Special Notes:
This is a full time appointment. FLSA Exempt position, not eligible for the overtime provisions of the FLSA. Minimum salary threshold must be met to maintain FLSA exemption.

*Please note requisitions 1703371 and 1703364 are for one vacancy. The title/rank (Postdoctoral/Senior Researcher) will be contingent upon the selected candidate’s skills and experience in their area of expertise.

Stony Brook University is 100% tobacco-free as of January 1, 2016. See our policy and learn more at stonybrook.edu/tobaccofree.

Pursuant to Executive Order 161, no State entity, as defined by the Executive Order, is permitted to ask, or mandate, in any form, that an applicant for employment provide his or her current compensation, or any prior compensation history, until such time as the applicant is extended a conditional offer of employment with compensation.  If such information has been requested from you before such time, please contact the Governor’s Office of Employee Relations at (518) 474-6988 or via email at info@goer.ny.gov.   

About Stony Brook:

Stony Brook University, home to many highly ranked graduate research programs, is located 60 miles from New York City on Long Island’s scenic North Shore.  Our 1,100-acre campus is home to 24,000 undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral students and more than 13,500 faculty and staff, including those employed at Stony Brook Medicine, Suffolk County’s only academic medical center and tertiary care provider. The University is a member of the prestigious Association of American Universities and co-manager of nearby Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), a multidisciplinary research laboratory supporting world class scientific programs utilizing state-of-the-art facilities such as the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, the National Synchrotron Light Source, and the Center for Functional Nanomaterials, and the New York Blue IBM BG/L+P supercomputer, owned by Stony Brook and managed by BNL.  Stony Brook is a partner in managing the Laboratory for the Department of Energy, and is the largest institutional scientific user of BNL facilities. As such, many opportunities exist for collaborative research, and in some cases, joint appointments can be arranged.

Stony Brook University is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity employer. We encourage protected veterans, individuals with disabilities, women and minorities to apply.

If you need a disability related accommodation, please call the University Human Resource Services Department at (631) 632- 6161 or the University Hospital Human Resources Department at (631) 444-4700.  In accordance with the Title II Crime Awareness and Security Act, a copy of our crime statistics is available upon request by calling (631) 632- 6350.  It can also be viewed on line at the University Police website at http://www.stonybrook.edu/police.

Above: Professor Pavlos Kollias, center/back, and colleagues at Stony Brook’s Radar Observatory. From left: Zeen Zhu, SoMAS graduate student; Mariko Oue, postdoctoral research associate, SoMAS; and Alexander Sneddon, SoMAS engineer. Credit: Stony Brook University

From “Future Weather Forecasting: It’s all in the “MRI” of Clouds” on Newswise, January 12, 2018

Newswise — Stony Brook, NY, January 12, 2018 – Analyzing and determining the structure of clouds remains a challenge for scientists trying to forecast weather. A team of researchers at the Stony Brook University School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (SoMAS), led by Professor Pavlos Kollias, is using new types of radar in combination with current meteorology technology to take an “MRI” of clouds. In the same way an MRI and other imaging techniques help physicians visualize and understand what is happening within human body parts, an MRI of clouds helps scientists better understand what happens inside clouds.

Clouds are complex, fast evolving, occur over vast areas and as such are difficult to characterize using current technologies. But with these new radar technologies and forecasting techniques, Kollias and colleagues at Stony Brook University and Brookhaven National Laboratory are completing cloud and precipitation research at the SoMAS Radar Observatory that may evolve into a new way to better forecast weather.

“Using these technologies, we can pinpoint and highlight different components of the interior of clouds,” says Kollias. “We can see how precipitation forms and grows in clouds and better predict not only if it will rain or snow, but how much rain or snow may accumulate on the ground.”

He says the goal of the research is to use data from MRIs of clouds to improve the ability of weather modeling to forecast the type of precipitation and amount on the ground with a level of accuracy and precision not reached previously by meteorologists.

The SoMAS Radar Observatory contains a large array of sensors with different viewing perspectives and different sensitivities allowing observation of the horizontal distribution as well as vertical structure of clouds and precipitation. Moreover, the Observatory is uniquely geographically positioned in the center of the Northeast and coastal for study of winter storms.

For more details about Stony Brook’s use of radar and the MRI of clouds, see this video.

About Stony Brook University Stony Brook University is going beyond the expectations of what today’s public universities can accomplish. Since its founding in 1957, this young university has grown to become a flagship as one of only four University Center campuses in the State University of New York (SUNY) system with more than 26,000 students and 2,600 faculty members, and 18 NCAA Division I athletic programs. Our faculty have earned numerous prestigious awards, including the Nobel Prize, Pulitzer Prize, Indianapolis Prize for animal conservation, Abel Prize and the inaugural Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics. The University offers students an elite education with an outstanding return on investment: U.S. News & World Report ranks Stony Brook among the top 50 public universities in the nation. Its membership in the Association of American Universities (AAU) places Stony Brook among the top 62 research institutions in North America. As part of the management team of Brookhaven National Laboratory, the University joins a prestigious group of universities that have a role in running federal R&D labs. Stony Brook University is a driving force in the region’s economy, generating nearly 60,000 jobs and an annual economic impact of more than $4.6 billion. Our state, country and world demand ambitious ideas, imaginative solutions and exceptional leadership to forge a better future for all. The students, alumni, researchers and faculty of Stony Brook University are prepared to meet this challenge.

Souper Bowl IV continued as a gustatory and financial success, raising $349.00 for the Nuria Protopopescu Memorial Fund.

Congratulations and thanks to the culinary contributers:

Josie Aller – Turkish Lentil Soup.
Megan Hahn – Kale, Sausage, and Bean Soup.
Christina Heilbrun -Minestrone with Chard
Maureen Murphy – Irish Soda Bread
David Taylor – Caldo Gallego (Spanish White Bean Soup).
Hanne Tracy – Vegetable Garden Chicken Soup.
Karen Warren – Vermont Cheddar Bread and Coconut Blondies.
Tatiana Zaliznyak – Kharcho (Georgian Lamb and Rice Soup)

After a tasteful evaluation by all attendees, the following entries were chosen by secret ballot for special recognition:

David Bowman was presented the Bronze Ladle for Creamy Mushroom Soup.

Karen Warren received the Silver Ladle for Sweet Potato, Carrot, Apple, and Red Lentil Soup.

and Tom Wilson was awarded the Gold Ladle for Minestra Maritata (Italian Wedding Soup) vindicating his decision to hand roll hundreds of tiny meatballs (which is not happening again anytime soon).

Thanks to all who attended and volunteers/organizers Chris Crosby, Steve Ortega, and Alex Sneddon.

Mark your calendars for Souper Bowl V, scheduled for lunchtime on Thursday January 31, 2019!

The Nuria Protopopescu Award Committee
Bob Aller * Christina Heilbrun * Tom Wilson – Qingzi Zhu

Dr. Charles Flagg took another flight over the Breach at Old Inlet on Fire Island on January 27, 2018.  The flyover mosaic is available below.

In case you missed it, Dr. Charles Flagg’s research on the breach was featured on an episode of PBS’s SciTech

Mark Lang has assembled all the geo-referenced photo mosaics into a kml file that can be viewed using Google Earth.  By clicking between images and using the fade in-out button you can clearly see how the inlet is changing with time.  An offline version of the KML file is available as KMZ. The full size image is also available.  Additional photos are available on Google Photos.

For more information, please visit Dr. Charles Flagg’s website.

The School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook University hosted the 2018 Bay Scallop Bowl on February 3rd, 2018 at the Student Activities Center.  This year, twelve teams competed for a chance to move on to the National Ocean Sciences Bowl to be held in Boulder, Colorado:

• Huntington High School
• Churchville-Chili Senior High School
• Massapequa High School
• Locust Valley High School
• Midwood B High School
• Half Hollow Hills HS East
• Woodlands High School
• Midwood A High School
• Mount Sinai High School
• Ward Melville High School
• Ossining High School
• Hunter College High School

Mount Sinai High School came into round 10 having lost one match and went up against undefeated Huntington High School.  Mount Sinai won the round (47 to 33), giving them each one loss. In Round 11, the score after the 2 TCQ’s was Mount Sinai 37, Huntington 10.  Huntington was unable to recover and the final score was Mount Sinai 55, Huntington 2.  This was the furthest Huntington High School has gotten in the competition–congratulations on an awesome job!

Above: The 2018 Bay Scallop Bowl Winners – Mount Sinai High School.  Back row – left to right – Coach, Glynis Nau-Ritter, Arielle Mule, Clare Dana, Assistant Coach Andrew Matthews, Joshua Goodman, SoMAS Interim Dean Larry Swanson, Coordinators Kim Knoll and Ping Liu. Front row – left to right – Julia McElheron, Johnathan Yu

The First place Mount Sinai will proceed to Boulder, Colorado where they will represent NY.  Each student will receive $250.  The Second place team was Huntington High School who will each receive $100; and the third place team was Massapequa High School who will receive a trip to The Riverhead Aquarium including beyond the scene passes.

In addition to the 12 teams, the event was honored to have Provost Michael Bernstein open the day along with Congressman Lee Zeldin, Assemblymen Steve Englebright, Legislator Kara Hahn, and Councilwoman Valerie Cartright.  Bill Wise introduced all of the teams and coaches and reviewed the game rules.

Many thanks to our Regional Coordinators Ping Liu and Malcolm Bowman and a huge THANK YOU to Kim Knoll and Kaitlin Willig, who did the heavy lifting to make sure the day was a huge success.

This will be Bill Wise’s last Bay Scallop Bowl as he will be retiring from the University in June. Bill was instrumental is getting SoMAS involved 17 years ago and made the Bay Scallop Bowl one of the best such events in the country. Bill’s Bowl expertise will certainly be missed.

This event would not happen without the assistance of all the outstanding volunteers. Thank you to all the faculty, students, staff, alumni, and friends that help us make this event a great tradition at Stony Brook University.

School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences Interim Dean Larry Swanson noted that he is “always impressed at how much the participants know and how enthusiastic they are.”

This was the first year volunteering for SBU freshman Sarah Whelan, who had previously participated in the competition with her high school over the last three years. The two winning coaches, Glynis Nau-Ritter (MS, 1980) and Andrew Matthews (MS, 1995) are Stony Brook University alumni from SoMAS/MSRC. The Bay Scallop Bowl has a strong connection at Stony Brook University with both the participants and competitors.

The opening ceremonies are available on Facebook.

Photos of the event were taken by Joseph Dlhopolsky are available on Google Photos