Northeastern University College of Science Catalyst Fall 2022

FALL 2022

MESSAGE FROM DEAN SIVE THE DEAN’S FUND EXPERIENCE POWERED BY NORTHEASTERN BRIDGE TO CALCULUS

MAKING DISCOVERY POSSIBLE PARTNERING WITH THE COLLEGE OF SCIENCE

PRIORITIES FOR THE NORTHEASTERN

Message from Dean Sive

Dear Northeastern families, alumni and friends,

One time, I was on a flight from Seattle to Phoenix, when darkness started moving down my head – from the top, into my forehead and approaching my eyes. I felt pressed into the seat, and it was hard to breathe. My first thought was that I was ill, but a glance at my neighbor showed she was feeling the same. A flight attendant was running up the aisle. Without warning the plane went into a steep descent and in seconds we could breathe, and the darkness was gone. Sometime later there was an announcement that we had lost pressure, and that both primary and backup systems had failed. Aha. My second thought was where were the oxygen masks? It seemed the perfect opportunity for these to deploy. Maybe something there failed also. Then the pilot came on, explaining that we were now at 10,000 feet where we could breathe outside air and we would be flying at this height until we reached our target of Denver. With the greater air density the plane could only achieve 250 mph, so it took a couple of hours to fly there, with a stunning view of the mountains close below. Our landing was accompanied by emergency vehicles and afterwards by an emergency cappuccino. A few hours later we were somewhat alarmingly re-loaded onto the same plane, now repaired, with the same pilot, who had not deployed the oxygen masks. Apart from a good excuse to arrive late at the grant review panel in Phoenix, the incident was a life lesson in a situation out of my control.

Of course, life is packed with events out of our control, and they can be frightening. Sometimes we need to hope for the best. Sometimes we can do something to wrest back control – we can get expert care for body and mind, look after family members, seek help as needed, draw on the comfort of religion, the beauty of nature, the diversion of entertainment, the embrace of friends, the kindness of colleagues.

It helps me every day to know that we have control over our work here in the College of Science and that our research, education and innovation is unequivocally important. It helps me every day to know that you, our families, alumni and friends contribute to this control by supporting excellence in the College of Science. Our Northeastern University Campaign: Experience - Powered by Northeastern will support undergraduate students, graduate students in MS and PhD tracks, and faculty at all levels, and we look forward to introducing the landscape to you.

Thank you for your crucial contributions, and for helping to fly the plane.

Best regards, Hazel Sive PhD Dean, College of Science Northeastern University she/her/hers

The Dean’s Fund

The College of Science Dean’s Fund is the driving force behind the integration of discovery, use-inspired research and global networks, converging to improve the human condition. This fund supports the existing and emerging priorities of the College of Science, affording Northeastern students and faculty the opportunity to expand their knowledge through invaluable experiences.

Your generous support of the Dean’s Fund is integral to the promotion of leadership in areas such as the development of scientific entrepreneurship programs, and access to global experiences. In addition to supporting the success of current students and faculty, your gift allows the college to deepen our unwavering commitment to diversity, inclusion, and community building.

The Dean’s Fund has also made possible exciting international coop opportunities for some of our most promising students, as well as NUSci, a vibrant student run science magazine, and more than 18 other science-based student organizations.

LEARN MORE

By Cody Mello-Klein

“Northeastern’s extraordinary momentum has been fueled by experience as the lifeblood of learning and discovery. Today, the deep well of energy, talent, and spirit within our global community inspires us to celebrate and amplify the power of experience worldwide.”

Northeastern University kicked off its next major fundraising campaign, Experience Powered by Northeastern, as excitement builds for the next stage of the university’s evolution as a global, experiential research institution.

“Northeastern’s extraordinary momentum has been fueled by experience as the lifeblood of learning and discovery,” President Joseph E. Aoun wrote to the university community. “Today, the deep well of energy, talent, and spirit within our global community inspires us to celebrate and amplify the power of experience worldwide.”

Experience Powered by Northeastern is “the largest and most ambitious” fundraising campaign in Northeastern’s history, says Diane MacGillivray, senior vice president for university advancement. Over the next five years, the campaign aims to raise $1.3 billion in philanthropic support. It is also embracing the communities across its 13-campus global university system, from Boston to London to Oakland, California, and aims to reach every student, faculty member, parent and graduate, no matter where they are.

Northeastern University President Joseph E. Aoun

“What is really important and exciting about Experience Powered by Northeastern is that it is unlike any other university campaign because Northeastern is unlike any other academic institution out there,” MacGillivray says.

“For a global university with a network that has 13 campuses across 13 cities and two continents, how you think about raising support for that network, for those communities, for our faculty and our students wherever they are, whether it’s on one of those campus platforms or anywhere else in the world, is an exciting challenge,” she adds. “No one has really done that before. But it’s also an enormous opportunity to think in a way that’s more out of the box and in a more innovative way.”

With its emphasis on empowering a global network of students, parents, faculty and alumni changemakers, Experience Powered by Northeastern will support the vision set out in Northeastern’s academic plan, Experience Unleashed. The campaign’s six fundraising priorities are designed to continue building on the university’s strengths while launching it into the future.

Richard D’Amore, chairman of the university’s Board of Trustees, echoed the sentiment around the momentous campaign.

“I am excited by everything going on at the university, and I am incredibly proud to support all Northeastern will continue to do for the world through this campaign,” D’Amore says.

Much like previous campaigns, the foundation of Northeastern’s fundraising efforts is supporting the experience of students. In a global network, the student experience can mean something different depending on where someone is located, and the campaign aims to pursue resources that will allow every student–no matter where they are–to benefit from Northeastern’s global network.

In addition to offering transformative experiences for students across the globe, as well as competitive financial aid and diverse forms of support, Experience Powered by Northeastern will build on the university’s faculty excellence, with innovative teaching and faculty-led research.

“As we think about where President Aoun and his leadership team want to take the university and the expansion that he wants to have, it’s not only buildings and physical infrastructure,” says Alan McKim, co-chair of the campaign and member of the Northeastern Board of Trustees. “More importantly, it’s the expansion of faculty. It’s about how we continue to bring on world-class faculty as we grow the university.”

The campaign will also help to drive and accelerate the university’s innovative research; continue building Northeastern entrepreneurship; foster diverse connections by empowering every member of the Northeastern community through continued dedication to diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging; and embrace global exploration to solve truly global problems.

“I think what I am most excited about is how this truly shows how we are a global institution,” says Curtis Burgh, a 2006 graduate and alumnus of Northeastern’s Young Global Leaders. “A lot of universities say they are or make that claim, but to actually see Northeastern with campuses around the world––diverse and unique campuses in their own right––that are also linked I think truly represents what we claim to be. And that’s exciting considering what the school was when I was a student 20 years ago.”

“What excites me about Northeastern is it’s always pushing forward. The status quo is not OK. Being involved with that gives me excitement, and I think it does for everybody on the team. … It’s one thing to have excitement; there’s another thing about having excitement with results. And Northeastern has those results.”

Todd Manganaro, ‘95

The thread tying together every element of the campaign is the idea that drives Northeastern as an institution: experience. From students to parents to faculty, having that common value provides a north star for every effort made at the university, including a campaign as ambitious as Experience Powered by Northeastern.

Fifth-year student Rowan Van Lare knows better than most how empowering it can be to embrace Northeastern experiential education. She started off as an English and media and screen studies major before forging her own path with an independent major that spans journalism, communications, media and screen studies and English. She took full control of her Northeastern experience and it led her to co-ops at the Boston Globe and House of Representatives.

“I have never had a bad experience because I’ve always known that it’s about the experience,” Van Lare says. “The word ‘experience’ to me is permanently entangled with the word ‘Northeastern.’”

Northeastern’s kickoff to the campaign embodies the concept of “experience.” The university is launching Experience Powered by Northeastern with a global “ball drop:” a series of four interactive events held in four global cities–London, Boston, Oakland and Bangkok–across a 72-hour period from Thursday to Saturday.

The activation is indicative of the campaign as a whole. The mantra for Empower was “show, don’t tell;” the vision for Experience Powered by Northeastern is “experience, don’t hear.” For Todd Manganaro, co-chair of the campaign and Board of Trustees member, that idea has kept him engaged with the university since he graduated Northeastern in 1995. What keeps him excited is

how the campaign takes that idea in an innovative, global direction.

“What excites me about Northeastern is it’s always pushing forward,” Manganaro says. “The status quo is not OK. Being involved with that gives me excitement, and I think it does for everybody on the team. … It’s one thing to have excitement; there’s another thing about having excitement with results. And Northeastern has those results.”

Northeastern’s ‘Bridge’ Helps Boston Public School Students Traverse Calculus Chasm

by Noah Lloyd

In 1994, Northeastern mathematics professor

Robert Case noticed something: high schools in the Boston suburbs had Advanced Placement calculus programs, while innercity schools did not. So Case decided to do something about it.

Inspired by the work of civil rights activist Bob Moses, Case proposed a Bridge to Calculus, a summer program that would offer students, who might not have access to AP math curricula, a free summer program at Northeastern.

The goal from the beginning has been “to mirror the high school student population in the Boston public schools,” says professor Egon Schulte, chair of the Northeastern Mathematics Department.

But there was a problem: Many of the students interested in the course also needed to hold down jobs to support both themselves and their families. The solution? Ask them to come in at 7:30 a.m. The Bridge to Calculus program runs three hours a day, Monday through Friday, for six weeks each summer.

Rajini Jesudason, Bridge to Calculus program director, says that you might expect high school students to balk at the prospect of a summer math class, let alone a voluntary one so early in the morning, but that hasn’t been the case.

The program, which began with about 20 students, has grown to include 14 schools and nearly 100 participants, almost 20 years later.

Math teachers sometimes “come with a little bit of a reputation,” says Robert Ellis, a math teacher at Boston’s New Mission High School, who graduated from Northeastern’s College of Professional Studies

with a master’s in education in 2010 and who taught in the Bridge to Calculus program for the first time this year.

But because the Bridge to Calculus program is taught by teachers from the Boston Public Schools and not by college professors, students get to know their math teachers over the summer, which helps remove the stigma that can sometimes cloak math instructors, Jesudason says.

Since the program is taught by BPS teachers, students can’t get college credit for the program—but this is a feature, not a bug. “We don’t want them to check out of AP calculus,” Jesudason says. By returning to the public school system with their new skills, the students improve the quality of the whole system, from the inside.

It’s a benefit for the teachers, too, who gain experience working closely with university mathematics faculty, not to mention summer employment. Mathematics

Boston Public Schools teacher Rob Ellis helps a student in the Bridge to Calculus program with his work in Dodge Hall in July, 2022.

Bridge to Calcuclus (cont.)

department faculty, like Jesudason, serve as substitutes when needed.

Jesudason has noticed that some of the teachers take the Bridge to Calculus program as an opportunity to observe other classes and come in to watch Northeastern faculty teach their courses. This means that a whole cohort of high school teachers are also getting more training.

The program has had an impact not only on the students and teachers directly involved in the course, but on their classmates, and even on the high schools they return to.

For Ellis, who first observed Bridge to Calculus classes in 2008, the program forced his school to reflect on its own math offerings. “Bridge to Calculus really helped us make the leap… now that we know we want to get kids to calculus, how do we do it internally?”

Students who come to Northeastern to study precalculus material return to their own schools not only more knowledgeable, but equipped to help their

classmates with the material, thus raising the bar for an entire classroom.

The result? More AP calculus courses taught in Boston schools, and more students getting into—and getting prepared for—college.

And it all goes back to Case’s insistence that, if students were offered an opportunity, they would take it and flourish, Jesudason says.

“Bob’s design is so simple, but so thoughtful,” she says. “You bring students from the school system into a university, and then they go back into the school system. [The Bridge to Calculus program] provides kids an opportunity, and they take it from there. And the whole system changes.”

Students who come to Northeastern to study pre-calculus material return to their own schools not only more knowledgeable, but equipped to help their classmates with the material, thus raising the bar for an entire classroom.

Making Discovery Possible

After my first co-op the trajectory of my career after college changed. I fell in love with biotechnology and the implications that it has on improving the outcomes of sick patients and their lives. I have always been adamant about changing the world. We, as humans, must leave the world better than we found it, and part of my college search was to find the best way I could contribute to improving mankind. I know now that I can achieve that through biotechnology, which will also help me in some of my future endeavors.

I plan to attain a master’s in biotechnology through the PlusOne program offered at Northeastern. I also plan to work in biotech— specifically in immunology, because I have a passion for helping cancer patients. Eventually, I would like to launch my own start-up and run a biotech company myself.

Erin W.

Major: Cell and Molecular Biology

Graduation Year: 2023

With your continued support, I have accepted an offer for my first unpaid co-op opportunity in the Early Psychosis Research Program at Harvard Medical School’s Psychosis Research Program, where I will pariticipate in activities for the CEDAR Clinic— one of only a handful of specialized programs for youth at clinical high-risk for psychosis across the country. This opportunity will be instrumental in gaining the skills I’ll need as a future graduate student carrying out my own research.

The impact of your financial support also allows me to take on an independent study as a teacher’s assistant in Dr. William Sharp’s upper division Theories of Personality class! I cannot thank you enough for your compassion. It enables my career growth and promotes my aspirations in psychological research.

Joey R.

Major: Psychology (BS) and Philosophy (BA)

Graduation Year: 2023

Northeastern provides a community in which many ambitious and hardworking students gather and work together to achieve goals that some might consider too high or far-reaching to attain. Being here this past year has encouraged me to walk confidently and dream even bigger because it is possible. I just have to step on that path and not look back (or at least not too often).

Lois N.

Major: Biomedical Physics

Graduation Year: 2025

The impact of the generosity of donors is felt throughout education experiences at every level of the College. Here are a few stories from our students and leadership.

“Meeting full demonstrated financial need is critical in attracting students from all walks of life, which results in a classroom setting where students bring diverse ideas and push the status quo.”

- Satyajit Dattagupta, chief enrollment officer at the university

Making Discovery Possible (cont.)

With this award, we have been developing a handheld microsurgery tool to improve brain surgery outcomes. In aggressive forms of brain cancer, namely glioblastoma, it can be quite difficult to remove the disease with current methods. We aim to reduce the rate of recurrence in these cases, a problem that is far too common with no real solution as it stands now.

The device that we are designing would allow surgeons to scan the surgical bed and receive video feedback showing the location of cancer deposits that were left behind and may be inaccessible via conventional means.

Furthermore, upon locating these small deposits of cancer cells, the probe can be activated into the ablation operating mode to ablate the cancer cells in view. We have been developing this handheld probe with the intention that it will allow surgeons to further improve their treatment capabilities.

Donor funding can provide immersive academic experiences that allows undergraduate students to engage deeply with the scientific process and experience what a career in science could feel like. While students obtain one-of-a-kind experiences, their efforts are also immensely crucial to the Coastal Sustainability Institute and the Marine Science Center as a whole. Their work enables our faculty and graduate students to push their research further, allowing them to arrive at a deeper understanding of many important questions.

With the funding that we were awarded, we have been able to implement additional imaging capabilities and signal markers that allow us to more directly test a variety of system parameters and much more easily interpret the results of these tests.

Ultimately, we want this device to be one that is commercially available to neurosurgeons around the world in the hopes that we can provide improved outcomes to as many patients as possible. We also see quite a bit of potential for our technology to serve similar purposes in other highly precise surgical procedures as we continue to improve on the details of the design. All this work has been particularly exciting for me as I hope to continue my role in medical device research as my career continues to progress.

Liam P. Major: Physics Class Year: 2023 (PhD)

Thanks to donor investment, we can provide learning opportunities to these bright students, while practicing our important and innovative research to find solutions to the many problems facing our coastal communities.

Dr. Geoffrey C. Trussell Doherty Professor and Chair, Department of Marine and Environmental Sciences Director, Coastal Sustainability Institute/ Marine Science Center Northeastern University

EDUCATION

• Scholarships: The College of Science recruits exceptional students who reflect the diversity of society. Scholarships help us attract top students, and expands access to a Northeastern College of Science education through full and partial awards.

• Support Experiential Learning: The College of Science is broadening access to and scope of work experience-based education at all levels. Support a co-op in research, medicine, and across a broad landscape of opportunities, or subsidize international co-ops. Help make these learning experiences a reality for our students!

• INVEST in Faculty: The College seeks funding to recruit promising PhD candidates directly into tenure track positions, with extensive mentoring and research support. Through this innovative plan, the College will recruit a talented and diverse pool of faculty.

RESEARCH

• Graduate Fellowships: In the College’s new Connected Science PhD, students understand how the PhD opens a vast array of top career options. Students carry out groundbreaking research, explore opportunities for cross-disciplinary research, and connect with outside work experience that may set up their next steps. COS seeks fellowship funding to support the outstanding next generation of science trainees.

PARTNER WITH US

The Northeastern College of Science is a hub of Research, Education and Innovation: Our faculty are pushing research frontiers to solve our planet’s greatest challenges. Through innovative, research-linked, experiential learning, our students are empowered to be confident, entrepreneurial, problem-solvers, with flexible skills for a vast spectrum of careers. And we embrace a culture of respect, equity and diversity, where each person feels valued for their contribution and is treated fairly.

STAY IN TOUCH!

Don’t miss out on receiving important information about what’s happening at the COS, both on campus and around the world. Click here and fill out the form to stay connected with us!

• Undergraduate Research: COS is committed to providing all of its undergraduate students with a labbased research opportunity during their time at Northeastern. Support for undergraduate research will promote the creation of additional opportunities for students to work alongside faculty and graduate student mentors, and gain valuable experience in traditional and emerging fields across the college.

• Summer Research Program: The new College of Science Summer Research Program will bring outstanding undergraduate students to Northeastern where they will benefit from our hallmark experiential educational opportunities. Support will enable the College to place students in research positions, and encourage their future training at Northeastern.

INNOVATION

• Entrepreneurship: The College of Science encourages a culture of entrepreneurship and translational innovation across faculty and students. Support helps the college establish an ecosystem with features such as venture bootcamps, grand challenge focused hack-a-thons, and funding that promotes a startup culture.

• Space of the Future: The College of Science must be at the forefront of providing advanced research space that promotes collaboration and crossdisciplinary research, and supports platforms and technologies that accelerate the rate of discovery.

For more information, contact James A. Poulos, Assistant Vice President, Advancement, Northeastern University | j.poulos@northeastern.edu

There are many ways to support the College

ON THE COVER: Scenes during the Experience Powered By Northeastern event on Northeastern’s Boston campus on Oct. 21, 2022. Photo by Matthew Modoono/Northeastern University