Ten SBU Faculty Win Seed Grants for Research Conferences
With support from university seed grants, 10 faculty members will make Stony Brook a destination this year for researchers from a wide range of disciplines.
“The Spring 2025 Research Conference and Workshop Seed Grant Program is a strategic investment in our faculty’s capacity to lead, convene, and educate,” said Kevin Gardner, vice president for research. “By investing in faculty-led research events, we hope to create safe spaces for vibrant intellectual dialogues on some of the most innovative ideas across campus that will serve as launchpads for high-impact research. Our goal is to bring scholars together to explore ideas, form sustainable connections, and shape the future of research.”
The seed grants, worth up to $5,000 each, will help faculty host research conferences on campus over the next 12 months.
“As a public flagship, Stony Brook has a role and responsibility to support our researchers in combining their strengths across disciplines and departments,” said Interim President Richard L. McCormick. “Empowering our faculty to host workshops and conferences sparks innovative research and meaningful partnerships while expanding Stony Brook’s excellence beyond our campus. The possibilities are endless when researchers explore new directions together.”
The grants are funded by the Office of the President, the Office for Research and Innovation, the Office of the Provost, and the Office of the Executive Vice President for Health Sciences.
“I am proud to see our faculty demonstrating such strong commitments to making Stony Brook a destination for cutting-edge discussions, and to building bridges across and between disciplines,” said Carl W. Lejuez, executive vice president and provost. “In our complex world, no longer can we anticipate the solutions we need will come solely from one field or one group of researchers. Stony Brook faculty are eager to work and learn from each other, and efforts like these help make us the number one public institution and a state flagship.”
The following faculty received funding.
Abena Ampofoa Asare, associate professor, Department of Africana Studies, CAS
‘We See You:’ A Retrospective for Dr. Annie Mae Walker
With her seed grant, Asare will publicly remember and celebrate Dr. Annie Mae Walker, a life-long educator and scholar who was integral to the development of New York state’s Head Start program and the first chairperson of Stony Brook’s Black Studies program, now the Department of Africana Studies. Asare’s roundtable meeting will convene Walker’s biographer, her students and colleagues, archivists, community members, and family to discuss Dr. Walker’s pioneering life and legacy.
Stephen Baines, associate professor, Department of Ecology and Evolution, CAS
Common Ground: Building Community around Ecosystem Resilience
Research has found that the most significant barrier between community efforts to combat local impacts of climate change is not the science, but creating a sense of buy-in and responsibility. To help overcome that, Stony Brook faculty will convene a workshop with colleagues from New York University and the Pratt School to develop experiential platforms, including art and computer-generated interfaces, that Manhattan residents can engage with to deepen their sense of connection to the natural environments around them. This workshop is a continuation of work begun earlier this year.
Agnieszka Bialkowska, associate professor, Department of Medicine, RSoM
In collaboration with Aleksandra Krajewski, clinical assistant professor, Department of General Surgery, RSoM
The 20th annual Women in Medicine and Science Research Day 2026
This annual conference, planned to coincide with the globally celebrated International Women’s Day, is a timely tribute to women’s achievements in science and medicine. It also showcases current medicine and science research by Stony Brook students, fellows, residents, postdoctoral scholars, faculty, and clinicians. In recent years, the conference has attracted growing numbers of attendees from Stony Brook and area partners, including high school students engaged in campus research.
Valerio Dao, assistant professor, Department of Physics and Astronomy, CAS
QCD@LHC25
This conference, which is preparing for its 15th annual meeting, brings together researchers working in theoretical and experimental aspects of collider physics from Stony Brook, Brookhaven National Lab, and other researchers from leading universities, labs and research centers. The conference is organized by the C.N. Yang Institute for Theoretical Physics; the ATLAS experiment group, which recently won a Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics; the theory nuclear group; and the Center for Frontiers in Nuclear Science.
Robert Harrison, professor, Department of Applied Math and Statistics, College of Engineering and Applied Sciences; endowed director of the Institute for Advanced Computational Statistics
In collaboration with Eva Siegmann, lead research scientist, IACS; Joseph Schuchart, senior research scientist, IACS
Expanding Horizons in AI Workshop
Building from a large annual meeting of a network of high performance computing experts hosted by Stony Brook, Harrison will convene a smaller group to discuss how high performance computing can support advances in artificial intelligence. As AI models become more complex and data-intensive, regular computers struggle to meet their demands. Harrison’s workshop will convene experts to discuss what role advanced computing can and should play in supporting the growing needs of and demand for AI.
Jeffrey Lipshultz, assistant professor, Department of Chemistry, CAS
In collaboration with Benjamin Levine, IACS endowed professor of chemistry, IACS, Department of Chemistry, CAS; Christopher Johnson, associate professor, Department of Chemistry, CAS; Quinton Bruch, assistant professor, Department of Chemistry, CAS; Hyowon Seo, assistant professor, Department of Material Science and Chemical Engineering, CEAS
Spring 2025 SBU Photochemistry Supergroup
The seed grant will allow this group’s third annual meeting to expand significantly, giving researchers more chances to explore possible collaborations. The meeting will bring together graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, and faculty who work in diverse sub-disciplines of photochemistry from Stony Brook, Brookhaven National Lab, several CUNY and SUNY schools and other Long Island universities. It will alternate between research talks, poster presentations, and coffee breaks to give researchers a chance to hear others’ work and have informal conversations.
Luis Medina, lecturer and IDEA fellow, School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences
In collaboration with Jaymie Meliker, professor, Program in Public Health; Lokesh Padhye, research associate professor, SoMAS and associate director, Center for Clean Water Technology; and Christine Gilbert, assistant professor, School of Communication and Journalism and SoMAS
Contaminants of Emerging Concern, Perspectives from Stony Brook University
Researchers and environmental professionals from Stony Brook and beyond will come to campus to talk about the impact of certain contaminants and the risks they pose to the environment and human health. Medina and his colleagues aim to engage active researchers and others to help build connections and collaborations across disciplines.
Heidi Preis, research associate professor, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Renaissance School of Medicine
In collaboration with Cassandra Heisalman, Assistant Vice Chair of Research, Clinical Assistant Professor, Maternal-Fetal Medicine, Director, Resident Research Day, Associate Program Director, Fellowship in Global Women’s Health, Co-Medical Director, Coordinated Fetal Care Program, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Medicine, RSoM; Marci Lobel, distinguished professor, Department of Psychology, CAS; Petar Djuric, distinguished professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, CEAS
Stony Brook Women’s Health Research Conference
This interdisciplinary conference will bring together faculty researchers, clinicians, and students who study health issues unique to women and how various conditions differ between women and men. In addition to showcasing ongoing research, the conference will foster collaboration about creating more regular and effective connections between research teams. It will be held in March 2026.
Gabrielle Russo, associate professor, Department of Anthropology, CAS; deputy director, Turkana Basin Institute
In collaboration with Gregory Henkes, associate professor, Department of Geosciences, CAS and research grants officer, TBI; Marine Frouin, assistant professor, Department of Geosciences, CAS
2025 TBI Research and Education Conference
To mark the 20th anniversary of the founding of Dr. Richard Leakey’s founding of the Turkana Basin Institute, TBI researchers Russo, Henkes, and Frouin will host a conference to give Stony Brook students, faculty, and administrators the chance to learn about the groundbreaking work on humankind’s past, present, and future carried out in the Turkana Basin in northern Kenya, and to explore opportunities for research and educational engagement with this landmark research center. The sessions will establish new collaborative relationships, initiate topical workshops, and seed grant proposal ideas among faculty and students across disciplines and areas of campus.
Javier Uriarte, associate professor, Department of Hispanic Languages and Literature, CAS
In collaboration with Tamara Fernando, assistant professor, Department of History, CAS; Michael Rubenstein, associate professor, Department of English, CAS
Global Waterways: Between the Natural World and the Built Environment
Uriarte will convene scholars of history, literature, architecture, cultural studies, anthropology, and related fields to examine and discuss the role water plays in culture, economies and politics as well as threats posed by climate change and overuse. The conference will examine this truly global resource from diverse perspectives from Asia and North and South America.