Faculty and Staff News and Accomplishments: Fall 2017

Photo: Some of the NYIT faculty members making news with their recent accomplishments. From left to right, top to bottom: Nicholas Bloom, Susana Case, Dong Zhang, Satoru Kobayashi, Ziqian (Cecilia) Dong, Fang Li, Sarah Meyland, Melda Yildiz, and Christian Pongratz.

From studying the safety of Long Island’s waters to presenting on surviving the rise of machines, read the most recent news and accomplishments from NYIT faculty members, including from:

• College of Arts and Sciences
• College of Osteopathic Medicine
• School of Engineering and Computing Sciences
• School of Interdisciplinary Studies and Education

The NYIT Office of Academic Affairs regularly posts news and accomplishments updates on its web pages. If you are a staff or faculty member with news you would like to share with the NYIT community, please follow this procedure.

College of Arts and Sciences

Nicholas Bloom, Ph.D., associate professor of social sciences, and Matthias Altwicker, M.U.P., associate professor of architecture, were two of three co-authors of “Yes, There is Room to Build More Housing in New York City,” an op-ed in Crain’s New York Business, September 2017, challenging the city to offer middle-income families the same developmental opportunities as public-housing residents.

Susana Case, Ph.D., professor of behavioral sciences, had a new book of poetry, Drugstore Blue, published by Five Oaks Press in July 2017. It is an “edgy yet compassionate and sometimes racy” woman-coming-of-age odyssey where blue eye makeup takes center stage.

Terese Coe, Ph.D., adjunct instructor of English, had her poem, “Idomeni,” titled after one of the refugee camps in Greece, published by Able Muse in summer 2017. And in July, The Hopkins Review published her translation from the German of Heinrich Heine’s “The Devil Take Your Mother.” Additionally, in September 2017, EverseRadio.com published her Shakespeare cento, “Love is Merely a Madness.”  

Anthony DiMatteo, Ph.D., professor of English, had three poems published in the international journal, Levure Littéraire, titled “Les Mots et Les Choses,” “Mimicry,” and “Black Day—April 20, 1989.”

Amanda Golden, Ph.D., assistant professor of English, had an excerpt from her new book posted in “Discussing Anne Sexton: An NYPL Roundtable and Excerpt from This Business of Words” on The Florida Bookshelf, a blog by the University Press of Florida (September 7, 2017). Golden also presented a paper, “On Manuscripts: Virginia Woolf and Archives,” in Reading, England at the Annual Conference on Virginia Woolf, June 29–July 2, 2017.

Walter’s Way, co-written by John Hanc, M.A., associate professor of communication arts, was one of four books that received top honors in the Literary Classics International Book Awards, announced July 1, 2017. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Walter’s Way won the Lumen Award for Literary Excellence, which honors “extraordinary youth nonfiction literature annually.” Additionally, the book won the gold medal in the Nonfiction category of the overall Awards competition. While not aimed at young audiences specifically, the book, a rags-to-riches memoir of Walter J. Scherr, a prominent Long Island corporate executive and philanthropist, was one the authors—and judges—felt would resonate with teen and young adult audiences. Also in July, Hanc wrote a cover story, “From LI to France: a Soldier’s Illustrated Letters of WWI,” for the features section of Newsday. It tells about the illustrated letters of Salvador Cilia, a young (and talented) World War I soldier from New York’s Lower East Side who did his basic training on Long Island before being deployed to France.

Kevin LaGrandeur, Ph.D., professor of English, was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grant to participate in a workshop offering guidance and strategies for addressing how scholars and nonfiction authors write for broader audiences while maintaining intellectual rigor. LaGrandeur also gave a compelling presentation at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy’s Science, Technology, and Public Policy Lecture arguing the strong possibility that many of today’s jobs will soon be completed more inexpensively by artificial intelligence.

Lynn Rogoff, M.F.A., adjunct associate professor of English, and CEO of Amerikids USA, was featured in an interview, “VR Adventure Games for Young Adults,” on July 27, 2017, the final day of “Virtual Reality Games & Entertainment Extravaganza,” a free “multi-day online event of speaker presentations, 1-on-1 interviews, panel discussions and online exhibitors.” The event was hosted by Crowdcast, a new Internet site for creating webinars and live video experiences to connect, teach, and sell online. In August, Rogoff participated in “Creating VR to Impact the Planet with a Purpose Drive Generation,” a virtual reality and higher education event at Cool Blue Media.

College of Osteopathic Medicine

Jonathan Geisler, Ph.D., chair of the department of anatomy, and Brian Beatty, Ph.D., associate professor of anatomy, had research findings published in the June 29 issue of Current Biology. Their findings suggest that an early species of toothed mysticete (the scientific name given to precursors to baleen whales that retained teeth) called Coronodon havensteini retains a key evolutionary stage that gave rise to today’s baleen whales.

A. Martin Gerdes, Ph.D., chair of the department of biomedical sciences, has been elected as a Fellow of the International Academy of Cardiovascular Sciences, effective September 1, 2017. The exclusive fellowship is awarded to a maximum number of 250 Fellows at any given time, and includes individuals from all over the world who have shown great commitment in promoting cardiovascular activities in the fields of Science, Medicine, and Surgery. Gerdes was also presented with the prestigious Hans Peter Krayenbuehl Memorial Award from the International Academy of Cardiology for his contributions to the field of cardiac function at the 22nd World Congress on Heart Disease in Vancouver in July 2017. The award recognizes his longtime dedication to structural remodeling of the heart related to function.

Satoru Kobayashi, Ph.D., instructor of biomedical sciences, was selected as one of four finalists for the Roberto Bolli Competition for Young Faculty in Translational Science at the Fifth Annual Meetings of the International Academy of Cardiovascular Sciences (IACS): North American Section, on September 1, in Orlando, Fla. At the conference, Kobayashi presented his latest research in diabetic heart disease, “Lysosomal Membrane Permeabilization and The Ensuing Ectopic Expression of Cathepsin D Mediates Hyperglycemia-Induced Cardiomyocyte Death.”

Dong Zhang, Ph.D., associate professor of biomedical sciences, had research regarding the treatment of ALT cancers published in a July issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). His team’s findings that suggest new synthetic lethal interactions could inhibit the growth of ALT cancer tumors without posing the same toxic effects as the conventional chemotherapy drugs.

School of Engineering and Computing and Sciences

Reza K. Amineh, Ph.D., assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, co-authored a journal paper with Abhishek Patel, a graduate assistant at NYIT, titled “Sub-Diffraction Holographic Imaging with Resonant Scatterers,” which was published in Progress In Electromagnetics Research M, Vol. 59, July 2017. The article proposes a novel technique to overcome the well-known “diffraction limit” in the resolution in holographic imaging.

Robert Amundsen, Ph.D., associate professor and chair of the Department of Energy Management, authored an article, “Green Duel: Trees vs. Solar Farms,” on August 3, 2017, for Energy Central, an online network of nearly 200,000 utility professionals.

Babak Dastgheib-Beheshti, Ph.D., associate dean and professor of telecommunications and electrical and computer engineering technology, presented “Linux Kernel OS Local Root Exploit” at the 2017 IEEE Long Island Systems, Applications and Technology Conference (LISAT2017), May 5, 2017, in Farmingdale, N.Y.

Ziqian (Cecilia) Dong, Ph.D., associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, along with co-author Sarah Meyland, Ph.D., associate professor of environmental technology and sustainability, had a journal paper, “FEW: A Case Study of an Autonomous Wireless Sensor Network System for Environmental Data Collection,” published in Environmental Progress & Sustainable Energy, Food, Energy and Water Special Issue, August 2017. Dong also oversaw NYIT’s 10-week Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program, which provides opportunities for motivated, talented undergraduate students to collaborate with faculty members and graduate students on cybersecurity research for smartphones and their networks.

Fang Li, Ph.D., assistant professor of mechanical engineering, working in partnership with X-wave Innovations, Inc (XII), Gaithersburg, Md., recently received a $125,000 NASA Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I grant to develop a passive, wireless, high-temperature embedded sensor system that is capable of providing high-bandwidth measurements of temperature, pressure, and strain on both rotating and non-rotating propulsion engine components. This system will provide a highly flexible instrumentation solution to monitor remote or inaccessible measurement locations for NASA’s rocket propulsion test facilities. In this one-year Phase I project, Li and XII will prototype an embedded sensor system and demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed technique for passive, wireless, multi-parameter measurements.

Aydin Farajidavar, Ph.D., assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, has received $142,200 from National Institutes of Health to supplement his previously funded award for “An Implantable Wireless System to Study Gastric Neurophysiology.” The award will allow Farajidavar to provide an enhanced dataset to the SPARC Data and Resource Center. The dataset includes gastric slow waves recorded from human subjects and large animals, acquired from subjects using devices developed at the Integrated Medical Systems Laboratory at NYIT. Including this recent supplement, Farajidavar has secured $696,731 through the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering to conduct this research.

Wenjia Li, Ph.D., assistant professor of computer science, published an article, “Policy-Based Secure and Trustworthy Sensing for Internet of Things in Smart Cities,” in IEEE Internet of Things (IoT) Journal (2016 SCI Impact Factor: 7.596). He also co-authored an article titled “Effective Social Relationship Measurement and Cluster Based Routing in Mobile Opportunistic Networks,” in MDPI Sensors Journal (2016 SCI Impact Factor: 2.677). In addition, he co-authored a paper titled “Energy-Efficient Contact Detection Model in Mobile Opportunistic Networks,” which was presented and published in the proceedings of 12th International Conference on Wireless Algorithms, Systems, and Applications (WASA 2017) in Guilin, China in June 2017.

Sarah Meyland, M.S., associate professor of environmental technology and sustainability, gave a public testimony in person and in writing at the hearing by the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) for New York City regarding the opening of NYC wells in Jamaica, Queens on June 2017. Meyland also co-authored a paper with Ziqian (Cecilia) Dong, Ph.D., “FEW: A Case Study of an Autonomous Wireless Sensor Network System for Environmental Data Collection,” that was published in Environmental Progress & Sustainable Energy, Food, Energy and Water Special Issue, August 2017.

Radomir (Bill) Mihajlovic, Ph.D., visiting professor of computer science, worked on the book Emerging Trends and Applications of the Internet of Things, which is now available for purchase. In addition, on August 7, 2017, Mihajlovic appeared on Radio-televizija Srbije, to speak on a one-hour talk show on the potential threats artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Marta Panero, Ph.D., director of strategic partnerships, was awarded a grant of $24,783 from the 100,000 Strong in the Americas Innovation Fund, sponsored by NAFSA: Association of International Educators and CAF Development Bank of Latin America. Panero won the grant for NYIT’s Innovation Across Borders study-abroad program, in collaboration with Instituto Tecnológico de las Americas in the Dominican Republic. Additionally, Panero presented her paper, “Linking Education to Water Sustainability and Lower Carbon Footprint in Latin America,” during the Association for Environmental Studies and Sciences Annual Conference in Tucson, Ariz., June 21-24, 2017. She also convened a meeting to explore research collaborations around food, energy, water, and related topics on May 15, 2017 with participants from NYIT, HFT Stuttgart, and CUNY partners.

Xun Yu, Ph.D., associate professor of mechanical engineering and department chair, was selected as an associate editor for the new ASME Journal of Engineering and Science in Medical Diagnostics and Therapy. He also published three papers: “Highly Stretchable Miniature Strain Sensor for Large Dynamic Strain Measurement” in IEEE Sensor Letters, vol. 1; “Enhancing Mechanisms of Multi-Layer Graphenes to Cementitious Composites” in Composites: Part A, vol. 101; and “Reactive Powder Concrete Reinforced with Nano SiO2-coated TiO2” in Construction and Building Materials, vol. 148.

School of Interdisciplinary Studies and Education

Hui-Yin Hsu, Ph.D., associate professor and chair of the Department of Teacher Education, and Shiang-Kwei Wang, Ph.D., associate dean, published a peer-reviewed research paper entitled, “New Literacy Implementation: The Impact of Professional Development on Middle School Student Science Learning,” in the International Journal of Information and Communication Technology in June 2017. Hsu and Wang also presented the paper, “The Impact of New Literacy Practices Professional Development on Students’ Reading and Science Learning Outcomes,” at the American Educational Research Association (AERA) annual meeting in San Antonio, Texas, in April. In addition, Hsu presented a second research paper at AERA entitled “Impact of Teachers’ Uses of the Stanford Mobile Inquiry-Based Learning Environment (SMILE) to Enact Student-Generated Questioning Practices in Science Classrooms.”

In the spring of 2017, Melda N. Yildiz, Ed.D., associate professor and chair of the Department of Instructional Technology, taught EDIT 624 (Mathematics Science and Technology I) and EDIT 695 (Practicum and Seminar) courses at the NYIT campus in Abu Dhabi. While visiting the Abu Dhabi campus, Yildiz met with local students in the MSIT program and with program alumni.

Jim Martinez, Ph.D., assistant professor of interdisciplinary studies and education, published a new book, The Search for Method in STEAM Education, in July 2017. It “explores various approaches to building a positive interdisciplinary STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and math) learning environment, as described by educators across the K-20 educational ladder.” In August 2017, Psychology Today published a review of the book, praising Martinez as “a pioneer in bringing playful and performatory learning to higher education and to service learning.”

Christian R. Pongratz, M.Arch., professor and interim dean, wrote the foreword to the book Architectural Stone Elements, Research, Design and Fabrication, published by Presses des Ponts, Paris, France. In it, he explains questions of versatility and sustainability in the combined use of advanced fabrication technology and natural stone applications in building construction. Pongratz also wrote the foreword for the book Mater(i)a: Conoscenza e Progetto, Nuovo Polo Museale multifunzionale per Matera 2019, published by La Stamperia Edizioni, Matera, Italy. His introduction discusses student design proposals in the form of new urban and architectural ideas for the city of Matera in the Basilicata region of southern Italy, which has been selected as the European Cultural Capital for 2019. In September, Pongratz was a panel speaker in “WHAT: StN | Behind the Rock (tectonic alchemy),” at the Center for Architecture, New York, organized by the AIA NY Global Dialogues Committee, where he presented his professional design work and discussed the latent potentials in the design with stone as a performative but also emotional building element.