Year in Review 2025 – 2026
nyit.edu/academics/arts-and-sciences
LETTER FROM THE DEAN Dear Alumni, Friends, Colleagues, and Students, Welcome to the 2025–2026 College of Arts and Sciences Year in Review. We are dedicated to fostering academic excellence, intellectual curiosity, and a vibrant scholarly community. Through our diverse programs, we aim to inspire creativity, innovation, and a passion for learning.
This has been an exciting year. Our Ph.D. program in
research through grants have smaller budgets.
Chemistry enrolled its first students. Several faculty
Artificial intelligence has changed how and what we
researchers were awarded grants, increasing external
teach. We have responded to these forces and
research support in the College to about $6.6 million.
continue to thrive.
In this publication, we will also showcase the College’s student achievements and honors, faculty honors, faculty and student research, community activities, public events, alumni engagement, curriculum development, and new degree programs.
In the coming year, we will continue our commitment to making NYIT graduates successful professionals who are adaptable to the changing workplace. Our alumni are a resource that can help us achieve this goal — through financial support, the alumni mentoring
These are challenging times for universities. The
program, involvement with university events, and
number of college-age students is declining, public
advising our curriculum. Please contact me if you are
skepticism of the value of higher education is on the
interested, and I would be happy to tell you of all the
rise, fewer international students are choosing to
exciting things happening in the College and how you
come to the U.S., and agencies that support our
can help.
Sincerely,
Charles Moore
Dean, College of Arts and Sciences New York Institute of Technology
THE DEAN'S OFFICE · 2025–2026 Charles Moore, Ph.D. Dean
Jennifer Griffiths, Ph.D.
Estefania Baerga
Kristina Haase
Manager
Director of Administration & Operations
Associate Dean NEW YORK TECH · COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
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— CONTENTS —
Inside this
VOL. 01 · 2025–2026
volume
Science, Humanities & Tech Intersect Here. A year of student achievement, faculty scholarship, alumni connection, public-facing work, and interdisciplinary discovery across science, humanities, and technology.
I
Supporting Student Wins →
4–6
Student Achievement · Faculty-Mentored Research
II
Enduring Connections →
7–9
Young Alumni Showcase · The CAS Advisory Board
III
Innovating in the Classroom →
10–12
Current Programs & General Education · What's New · Pathway Minors
IV
Engaging Our Community →
13–16
Responding Responsibly to AI · Faculty Honors · Events · Communities of Practice
V
Discovering What's Next in Knowledge →
17–19
Thematic research highlights · Working across disciplines.
—
Looking Ahead · 2026–2027 →
20–21
Strategic priorities for the year ahead.
—
Closing →
22
A final reflection, with gratitude.
§
The Scholarly Record →
23–31
Grants & Funding · Publications & Presentations · Faculty Directory
§
Academic Offerings →
32
Degrees, minors, certificates & accelerated (4+1) pathways
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Supporting Student Wins
I
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SECTION I · SUPPORTING STUDENT WINS
Student Achievement
A Best Oral Presentation award in Puerto Rico. A Psi Chi research grant. A path to an Applied Math Ph.D. The university's first student-hosted governance summit. CAS students are leading across disciplines.
STUDENT-LED GOVERNANCE The inaugural Student Government Association (SGA) Summit — founded in February 2025 by CAS students Marina Moussa (Biology) and Ridge Tawdrous (Life Sciences, B.S./D.O.) — made New York Tech a host for regional student governance, drawing 80 students from more than 20 institutions across the region. This year, Biology major Audrie Saad carried the work forward, hosting the second annual SGA Summit, The Leadership Playbook, in February 2026.
STUDENT VOICE
“
This project helped me connect the experiences of individual patients with broader public health trends. The study reinforced for me how environmental factors influence patient health.
— JUSTIN TIN, BIOLOGY, CLASS OF 2026 Tin was lead investigator on a published metaanalysis on ultra-processed foods, obesity, and colon cancer.
RESEARCH AWARDS
Tin J, Lee H, Gonzalez Trejo A, Tin K. World Journal
PUERTO RICO · BEST ORAL PRESENTATION
Talia Lilikakis · Life Sciences, B.S./D.O. Best Student Oral Scientific Presentation, Society of Thoracic Radiology Annual Meeting, Feb 2026.
$1,500 · PSI CHI RESEARCH GRANT
of Gastrointestinal Oncology, 17(2):101211 (Feb 15, 2025). DOI: 10.4251/wjgo.v17.i2.101211.
READ JUSTIN’S STORY AT NYIT.EDU/NEWS → FLAGSHIP SHOWCASE
Studying diagnostic-expertise development in ENT
23rd Annual SOURCE Symposium
specialists.
New York Tech's juried, university-wide showcase of
NEW HAMPSHIRE · APPLIED MATH PH.D.
student research and creative work, open to all
Ayesha Mulla · Psychology
Kyle Stephens · Mathematics
Headed to UNH's Applied Mathematics Ph.D. (also admitted to RIT and Johns Hopkins); selected for the NSF Summer School on Modeling & Simulation with PDEs, Texas A&M.
majors. Founded in 2004 by CAS Dean Emeritus Roger Yu, Ph.D.; now run by the Office of Sponsored Programs and Research (OSPAR) with an interdisciplinary team he chairs.
330+
STUDENT PRESENTERS
ALUMNI — MENTOR A STUDENT
165
2004
ORAL & POSTER FOUNDED PRESENTATIONS IN CAS
Wins like these begin with mentorship. Guide a research project, review student work, or share your career path with a CAS student — learn more and express interest at nyit.edu/mentorship →
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SECTION I · SUPPORTING STUDENT WINS
Presenting beside their mentors At CAS, research is taught by doing it together. Students don't simply assist faculty — they design studies, run the analyses, and present the results in their own names at regional and national meetings. This year that work reached vision scientists in Florida, cancer researchers in Connecticut, and nuclear astrophysics at Texas A&M.
VISION SCIENCES SOCIETY · ST. PETE BEACH, FL
SIGMA XI NORTHEAST REGIONAL · DANBURY, CT
B.S./D.O. students Zainab Faisal and Nancy Mahfouz
Biology and biotechnology students Soham Raval, Ryan
presented two studies from Robert G. Alexander's
Dong, and Winnie Yao carried their study of the
Human Factors and Neuroscience lab — each supported
anticancer compound curaxin CBL0137 to Western
by a competitive NIH National Eye Institute travel grant.
Connecticut State University, mentored by Niharika Nath,
Their posters, on fixational eye movements in
Ph.D. Beside them, chemistry Ph.D. student Zakir
neurological disease and the vision science of medical-
Hossain presented Subhabrata Chaudhury's group's
imaging displays, grew from a four-year NIH grant to
work on a new class of pyruvate-carboxylase inhibitors
Alexander studying how radiologists interpret AI-assisted
as leads for future cancer therapeutics.
images.
A YEAR IN THE LAB · SUSTAINED RESEARCH FRONTIERS IN NUCLEAR ASTROPHYSICS · TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY
For B.S./D.O. student Luke Jacob, a one-semester project
Chemistry major and physics minor Dhriti Rathod
chemistry lab, advancing synthetic routes to pyruvate-
presented research on matter-density fluctuations in
carboxylase modulators and presenting at SOURCE and
solar and supernova models. Working under Chinmoy
an American Chemical Society regional meeting. By
Bhattacharjee, Ph.D. with the nuclear astrophysics group
spring he was training newer students himself — the
at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, she used
model CAS prizes.
became a full year and more in Chaudhury's medicinal-
neutrino flavor evolution to probe them — earning coauthorship on a forthcoming manuscript.
“
Undergraduate research is not a singular intervention, but a complex and interconnected ecosystem. Niharika Nath, Ph.D. · Introduction, Scholarship and Practice of Undergraduate Research 9(3), Spring 2026 · doi.org/10.18833/spur/9/3/8
A roster of mentored student presentations continues in The Scholarly Record.
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PAGE 29 →
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Enduring Connections
II
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SECTION II · ENDURING CONNECTIONS
Young Alumni Showcase ALUMNA SPOTLIGHT · RESEARCH
Yllka Valdez
First-generation graduate (B.A. ’24) · Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine A first-generation college graduate, Valdez credits her interdisciplinary CAS education for the lens that now drives her research at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where she studies barriers to accessing automated insulin delivery (AID) systems for patients with Type 1 diabetes — finding that patients wait nearly 90 days to begin treatment. Her path reflects a college-wide commitment: CAS supports first-generation students from their first writing seminar to their first published paper.
FIRST-GEN
JOHNS HOPKINS MEDICINE
DIABETES CARE RESEARCH
ALUMNI FOUNDERS · CAME BACK TO TEACH
Ryan Ahmed & Pari Patel
Ryan Ahmed (B.S. ’25) & Pari Patel (B.S. ’24) · Co-founders, Niura · NESTS Instructors · Ph.D. students in Engineering Ryan and Pari built Niura, a neurotechnology startup, earning a place among the TechCrunch 200 and ranking #34 on the FoundersPress Top 100 Startups of 2024. Then they came back to build the course that trains the next student founders, both returning as instructors for Necessary Eleven Steps to Tech Startup (NESTS). Ryan was selected as the College's Class of 2025 commencement speaker.
TECHCRUNCH 200
#34 FOUNDERSPRESS TOP 100
NESTS INSTRUCTORS
2025 COMMENCEMENT SPEAKER
ALUMNAE SPOTLIGHT · INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH
Amy Patel & Josey Spiers
Psychology (B.S. ’25) · European Congress of Psychology, Paphos, Cyprus Recent psychology graduates Amy Patel and Josey Spiers carried their undergraduate research abroad, presenting at the European Congress of Psychology in Paphos, Cyprus. Their oral presentation on social burnout and academic success grew from research mentored by Robert Alexander, Ph.D., while their roundtable on TikTok's grip on spending and well-being was mentored by Melissa DiMartino, Ph.D.
EUROPEAN CONGRESS OF PSYCHOLOGY
PAPHOS, CYPRUS
FACULTY-MENTORED RESEARCH
A LU M N I — W E WA N T TO H E A R F RO M YO U
Your news may appear in next year’s review.
Submit an Alumni Note
Share a Publication or Research
Honors & Recognition
A new role, a move, a milestone — tell us where you’ve landed.
Published a paper or led a study? Send us the citation.
Awards, promotions, fellowships — we’d love to celebrate them.
SUBMIT YOUR NEWS AT NYIT.EDU/ALUMNI →
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SECTION II · ENDURING CONNECTIONS
The CAS Advisory Board
Convened in 2025 by Dean Charles Moore, the Advisory Board is a standing body of CAS alumni and industry leaders who advise the College on educational direction, partnerships, and student opportunity. The founding cohort spans a range of industries — from life sciences and pharma to media, technology, advertising, and communications. The board continues to grow; alumni interested in service are invited to reach out via the Dean's office.
CAS ADVISORY BOARD · FOUNDING MEMBERS Robert Anderson Communication Arts (B.F.A. ’88) · Lakeshore Advisors Michael Cronin English (B.A. ’86) · Software Development Consultant Maciej Domaradzki, Ph.D. Life Sciences (B.S. ’06) · Vice President, R&D, Advanced Biotech Kevin Fried Advertising (B.S. ’99) · Google
Mark Grossman Communication Arts (M.A. ’83) · Mark Grossman Public Relations; Adjunct Faculty, Nassau Community College Nanda Lahiri-Mushtaq, Ph.D. Life Sciences (B.S. ’05) · Principal Scientist, Novartis Karen Magovern Life Sciences (B.S. ’79) · McKesson Corporation (retired) Chris Manteria English (B.A. ’96) · CTO, Coldwell Banker American Homes
Lorraine Mead Communication Arts (B.F.A. ’85) · Google (retired) Mario Monello Communication Arts (B.F.A. ’89) · Amazon Web Services Linda Stasi Communication Arts (B.F.A. ’70) · Columnist, TV Host, and Author Madiha Tariq Life Sciences (B.S. ’11) · Investigator-Initiated Trials PM / Medical Writer, Northwell Health
THE BOARD IN ACTION · SPRING 2026 From formation to function. This spring, the Advisory Board moved from formation to function. The Careers in Drug Development & Research Panel (April 29, 2026), organized by the Dean's office, brought students into direct conversation with industry leaders in pharma and life sciences — including board member Nanda Lahiri-Mushtaq, Ph.D. (Principal Scientist, Novartis), faculty Jole Fiorito, Ph.D. and Subhabrata Chaudhury, Ph.D., and Berin Mayack-Karaman, Ph.D.; moderated by Harsh Shah (Dassault Systèmes).
FREE FOR ALUMNI Applied AI Microcredential — a free online certificate in real-world AI. nyit.edu/alumni/lifelonglearning →
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Innovating in the Classroom
III
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S E C T I O N I I I · I N N OVAT I N G I N T H E C L ASS RO O M
The Curricular Foundation At New York Tech, every undergraduate degree rests on a foundation that CAS designs, teaches, and assesses. The college's faculty teach the heart of the university's General Education curriculum — the writing, interdisciplinary-seminar, and mathematics-and-science requirements that every undergraduate completes, regardless of college or major. Whether a student is studying architecture, engineering, management, or the health professions, the habits of mind they carry into their profession — critical thinking, quantitative and scientific reasoning, ethical judgment, and clear communication — are built in CAS classrooms, as requirements woven into every degree, not electives.
“
General Education courses develop students’ communication skills and foster humanistic thinking, preparing students to succeed in professional settings as well as to become thoughtful and responsible citizens. — LISSI ATHANASIOU-KRIKELIS, PH.D., CO-CHAIR, GEN ED STANDING COMMITTEE, ACADEMIC SENATE
CAS IN GENERAL EDUCATION · THE REQUIREMENTS WE TEACH Writing & Communication
Interdisciplinary Seminars
Mathematics & Science
First-year college writing
Four IC seminars across at least three
The mathematics requirement and two
(FCWR 101/151) and a junior-year
areas — literature, behavioral science,
laboratory sciences across biology,
professional communication course
social science, and philosophy & ethics.
chemistry, and physics.
(FCWR 301–304), taught by CAS faculty.
WHAT EVERY GRADUATE CARRIES FORWARD · EIGHT LEARNING OUTCOMES 1 Critical and creative thinking
5 Distinguishing opinion, fact, and inference; building sound arguments
2 Quantitative, qualitative, and scientific analysis 3 Technological competency 4 Finding, evaluating, and communicating information
6 Applying ethical and moral frameworks 7 Multidisciplinary, socially-aware problem-solving 8 Collaborating effectively in teams
responsibly
FIVE DEPARTMENTS Biological & Chemical Sciences FULL LIST
Humanities
Mathematics
Physics
Psychology & Counseling
Every degree, minor, certificate, and accelerated (4+1) pathway appears in the Academic Offerings directory on page 32.
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S E C T I O N I I I · I N N OVAT I N G I N T H E C L ASS RO O M
What's new in 2025–2026
A year of new programs, concentrations, and courses — the current catalog and General Education foundation appear on the facing page.
New Major: Technical Communication with AI Solutions
Three New Interdisciplinary Studies (IDSP) Concentrations
An interdisciplinary major combining technical writing, communication design, and applied AI —
New concentrations in Artificial Intelligence, Exercise Science, and Technology Ethics & Society let students
launching in 2027 in two tracks: Business and Healthcare.
build fluency across fields.
Eight New Courses
New Ph.D. in Chemistry
New offerings span the sciences and humanities —
The college's first research doctorate in chemistry
from Foundations of Machine Learning and Applied Statistics for Data Science to Biological & Medical Debates and Theory of Science.
launched Fall 2025, expanding graduate teaching and faculty-mentored research.
A I I N T E AC H I N G & T H E C U R R I C U LU M The college's work on AI spans teaching and the curriculum, including classroom pilots, faculty practice, and policy. See Section IV · p. 14 →
S P O T L I G H T · S T R E N G T H E N I N G F U T U R E S PAT H W AY M I N O R S
Eight humanities credentials, at no added cost or time. Technology Ethics & Society
15
CREDITS · WITHIN REQUIRED GEN ED
Shape how emerging tech
Social Enterprise & Community Innovation
Strategic Communication & Media Integrity
Civic Futures: Policy, Justice & Advocacy
actually gets built and used.
Build ventures that do good
Tell true stories that people
Get into the systems that
and last.
trust.
run public life.
Health Systems & Cultural Competence
Global Resilience & Sustainable Futures
Creative Intelligence
Human-Centered Leadership
Design for a connected,
Bring real aesthetic and
Lead with the judgment a
Care for people in ways that
changing planet.
cultural sense to tech work.
system can't supply.
fit their lives. Each minor stacks onto a student's major inside the General Education courses they already take — so graduates leave with the human skills employers want most: communication, ethical reasoning, and critical thinking.
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Engaging Our Community
IV
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SECTION IV · ENGAGING OUR COMMUNITY F E AT U R E D S T U D E N T- L E D P R O G R A M
Responsible Tech Ambassadors
A student-led model for ethical AI and public-interest technology — grounded in Shannon Vallor’s technomoral virtues and the national PIT movement. Ambassadors trained in facilitation and research lead campus convenings, peer studies, and faculty workshops, collaborating across the New York Tech community. CAS is now a member of both PIT-UN, the Public Interest Technology University Network (Georgetown, Princeton, NYU, and 60+ institutions), and PIT-NY, the regional tristate hub connecting NYIT with CUNY, Columbia, and Fordham.
STUDENT-LED RESEARCH
IN PUBLIC · CIVIC TECHNOLOGY
241
participants
83%
use AI to study
69%
intermediate
79%
find it helpful
Includes a Campus Groups survey and IRB-compliant, peerled focus groups in DATA 101: ambassadors designed the questions, ran the sessions, and led the analysis.
Key finding: students recognize AI’s limits and the stakes for academic integrity — and want to help shape responsible-use policy, not just follow it.
NYC PIT POP-UP · OCULUS · RESPONSIBLE TECH AMBASSADORS
TECHNOMORAL VIRTUES FRAMEWORK
PIT-UN MEMBER
PIT-NY REGIONAL HUB
IRB-APPROVED RESEARCH
AI IN TEACHING AND THE CURRICULUM IN THE CLASSROOM · SCIENCES GitHub Copilot in RStudio helps statistics students in Biological & Chemical Sciences write and debug analyses they couldn't attempt by hand. In BIOL 315, students probe where artificial neural networks fall short of physician judgment.
WRITING PROGRAM SPEAKER Nov 13, 2025
IN THE CLASSROOM · MATHEMATICS In Math 330, Wolfram's Notebook Assistant pairs Mathematica with an LLM toolkit, letting students develop and test algorithms conversationally — keeping the focus on reasoning while automating routine computation.
FACULTY PRACTICE & POLICY Writing in the Age of AI, a faculty community of practice, is rethinking how writing is taught; findings were shared at two Faculty Development Days. CAS faculty also serve on the Academic Integrity and AI-in-the-Classroom task forces.
Models of the Author: AI's Copyright Crisis Avery Slater, Ph.D. (University of Toronto; Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society) asked whether generative AI will erode or expand the incentives for creative authorship — weighing the legal and economic challenges GenAI poses to copyright and to the artists whose work trains it.
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SECTION IV · ENGAGING OUR COMMUNITY
Recognized for their work 1
6+
NATIONAL ACADEMY OF INVENTORS INDUCTEE
HONORS & FELLOWSHIPS
4
STATE & NATIONAL BOARD APPOINTMENTS
5
FACULTY AS ACE ACADEMIC COACHES
37
FACULTY IN SERVICE & LEADERSHIP ROLES
CAS faculty are recognized by national institutions in their fields — inducted into national academies, elected to fellowships, and appointed to the state and national boards shaping education and technology policy. They also give their time where it matters most to students: as one-on-one academic coaches, and as the colleagues trusted to lead the work that keeps the university strong.
O N T H E C OV E R · C H E M I C A L P H YS I C S L E T T E R S
Giovanni Meloni, Ph.D.
Cover article · Chemical Physics Letters, Vol. 895 (August 2026) · a high-impact international journal Research from Dr. Meloni's group was chosen for the journal's cover — a study quantifying brominated organics by photoionization mass spectrometry, by Yilan Lori Chen, Ameyali Tapia, Craig A. Taatjes, and Giovanni Meloni, conducted at New York Tech.
“Having our work selected for the journal cover is a wonderful recognition of the quality and impact of the research being carried out at our institution — and valuable visibility for both our research program and the university.”
Selected Honors →
2025–2026
Claude E. Gagna, Ph.D.
Robert G. Alexander, Ph.D.
Stan Silverman, M.S.
Inducted into the National Academy of Inventors (NAI).
Fellow, Psychonomic Society; VP for the Americas, Int'l Society for Clinical Eye Tracking; Supervisor of the Year.
Appointed to the NYS Board of Regents Technology Policy & Practices Council.
Michael Hadjiargyrou, Ph.D.
Niharika Nath, Ph.D.
Jonathan Ezra Goldman, Ph.D.
Distinguished Professor; invited lectures at ASBMR and national meetings.
GIAN International Visiting Lecturer, Tripura University, India.
Appointed to the Advisory Board of Joyce Studies Annual (Fordham University Press). Honored by NYIT as a Distinguished Professor for a three-year term beginning Sept. 2026.
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Donna Potts, Ph.D. Acting Chair & Secretary, MLA 20th/21st-Century English & Anglophone Forum; Honors College Faculty Fellow.
Kevin Horton, M.A. Named Outstanding Faculty Member of the Year by the New York Tech student body. An NYIT alumnus, he is the beloved advisor to The Manhattan Globe (NYC) and The Campus Slate (LI) student newspapers.
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SECTION IV · ENGAGING OUR COMMUNITY
Events & culture
A flagship lecture series. A joint Math-Physics seminar. A faculty book launch. Faculty communities of practice. The college's calendar in 2025–26 was a working laboratory for ideas in public.
SPOTLIGHT LECTURE SERIES · 2025–2026 SEASON
COORD. WILLIAM LETSOU, PH.D.
The Dean's Digital Café PHYSICS
MATHEMATICS
Sophia Domokos, Ph.D.
Baole Wen, Ph.D.
Black holes, symmetry and duality in physics.
WATCH THE SERIES
Asymptotic transport in thermal convection.
BIOLOGICAL AND CHEMICAL
PSYCHOLOGY AND COUNSELING
Zakir Hossain
Fanita Henderson, Ph.D.
Pyruvate carboxylase inhibitors.
A mindful approach to racial discourse.
The four talks above are a representative sample. Recordings of the full Dean's Digital Café series — every talk, across all five departments — are available at nyit.edu/academics/arts-andsciences/deans-digital-cafe-lecture-series.
MORE PROGRAMMING · 2025–2026 HUMANITIES · SPRING 2026
Faculty Books in the Humanities Two New York Tech events spotlighted Humanities faculty authors. The New York Tech Libraries organized a book celebration (April 21, 2026) featuring Amanda Golden (The Poems of Sylvia Plath) and Jonathan Ezra Goldman (Hidden Histories of Jazz Age New York); and the Writing Program's Life Writing conversation (April 2, 2026) joined Goldman with Heather Clark, Julie Goodspeed-Chadwick, and Michael Schiavi.
JOINT SEMINAR SERIES · 2025–26
Math-Physics Seminars Six expert talks across the year, culminating in the Student Conference on Dec 4, 2025 — four student research talks:
QUARK–ANTIQUARK INTERACTIONS · ADS/CFT
Maleshia Motillall, Adriana Oleksak, Aris Dontis
NON-MARKOVIAN MULTI-QUBIT DYNAMICS
VIRTUAL PUBLIC EVENT · JULY 1
AI as a Platform for Creativity Jim Martinez, Ph.D. (Interdisciplinary Studies) co-hosted Freedom from Drudgery — a free public session on AI as a creative tool, with Nick Gross, Ph.D. (Boston University).
David Rogala
THERMAL CONVECTION SIMULATIONS
Kyle Stephens, Dayshaun Kalra, Reyna Montilus
WAVE EQUATIONS · HILBERT EXPANSION
Ameen Afroz, Neifry De La Cruz Vasquez, Pietro Larosa, Daniel Levit, Uthso Paul
CAS-LED COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE · CENTER FOR FACULTY EXCELLENCE BRYAN GIBB, PH.D.
ROBERT ALEXANDER, PH.D.
Communicating with Nonexperts
Supporting Students Through Engagement
Strategies for translating expert knowledge to lay audiences across today's social-media and AI landscape.
Building empathetic, sustainable mentoring relationships that foster student belonging, trust, and success.
NEW YORK TECH · COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
AMANDA GOLDEN, PH.D. & JESSICA HAUTSCH, PH.D.
Writing in the Age of AI Teaching writing as thinking, with AI as a tool and academic integrity at the center.
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Discovering What's Next in Knowledge
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S E C T I O N V · D I S C OV E R I N G W H AT ' S N E X T I N K N O W L E D G E
What CAS Faculty Discover
The pages that follow group the year's research into themes, then turn to the cross-college collaborations reshaping how that work gets done.
Understanding the Brain and Body
Technology in Teaching and Learning
CAS researchers study the body from molecule to clinical
CAS faculty bring technology into the classroom with
encounter. This year Hesham Tawfeek, MBBCh published
intention. Minaz Fazal, Ph.D. leads funded research
on restoring bone structure after spinal-cord-injury
bringing technology into K–12 STEM classrooms; Kate E.
immobilization (FASEB Journal) and gave a plenary
O'Hara, Ph.D. examines learning and student success in
poster at the ASBMR National Meeting; Subhabrata
the age of AI (AAC&U Conference; invited talks in India);
Chaudhury, Ph.D. identified the Hsp90β isoform as a
John Misak, D.A. designs educational games to teach
target for cancer drug development (Medicinal Research
Shakespeare; and Jennifer Griffiths, Ph.D. presented the
Reviews); and Jole Fiorito, Ph.D. advanced multi-target
student-led Responsible Tech Ambassadors initiative at
ligands for Alzheimer's disease (ACS Middle Atlantic
IEEE ETHICS-2025.
Regional Meeting).
Language, Story, and Culture
Health, Behavior, and the Human Experience
CAS humanists explore how stories shape identity and
Psychology and counseling faculty study how people
how language, ideas, and culture carry power. Eugene
cope, connect, and recover. Nayoung Kim, Ph.D.
Kelly, Ph.D. published a chapter on personhood and
published on discrimination, social support, and wellness
moral responsibility in Max Scheler and Edith Stein (Edith
among BIPOC counseling students (Counselor Education
Stein and Max Scheler in Dialogue, Bloomsbury
and Supervision); Cameka Hazel, Ed.D. examined career
Academic); Elaine Brown, Ph.D. led a narrative medicine
transitions and mental health among highly skilled
workshop at the University of Kentucky College of
Caribbean immigrants and New York State school-
Medicine; Lynn Rogoff, M.F.A. was featured in USA
counseling policy; and Henry Ruiz, Ph.D. presented
Today’s Native American Heritage Month 2025 edition for her film Bird Woman and New York Tech–funded AI
metabolic-physiology research (Metabolic Physiology 2026 Meeting).
chatbots; Michael Izady, Ph.D. led a Constitution Day discussion on the constitutionality of sanctuary cities and federal troop deployment; and Jessica Hautsch, Ph.D. published two chapters on learning through educational role-playing games.
CONTINUE IN THIS ISSUE
For the complete record of faculty scholarship, grants, and funding by department, see The Scholarly Record beginning on p. 23. Full faculty bios at nyit.edu/academics/arts-and-sciences →
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S E C T I O N V · D I S C OV E R I N G W H AT ' S N E X T I N K N O W L E D G E
Working Across Disciplines
The hardest questions don't respect departmental lines. CAS faculty increasingly pursue them alongside colleagues in engineering and medicine — sharing data, methods, and students across the university.
F E AT U R E D · C R O S S - C O L L E G E C E N T E R
Biomedical Data Science Center
Directed by Leonidas Salichos, Ph.D. · Department of Biological and Chemical Sciences A new center uniting more than 20 faculty across the Colleges of Arts and Sciences, Engineering and Computing Sciences, and Osteopathic Medicine to advance interdisciplinary research and collaboration. In its first year, the Center launched a new course in Biomedical Data Analysis — with a minor to follow — and held its inaugural Summer Retreat (August 2025), featuring a keynote by William Letsou, Ph.D. (BCS) and a student poster session.
INAUGURAL SPEAKER SERIES
ON THE HORIZON
Gamze Gursoy, Ph.D. · Columbia University
Student training, external grant proposals, expanded
Quantifying Privacy Risks Across the Genomic Pipeline —
seminars, colloquia, and small conferences, and
October 2025
scientific outreach as the Center continues to grow.
Aristotelis Tsirigos, Ph.D. · NYU Langone Health
Machine Learning Across Biological Scales — March 2026
CIVIC DATATHON · NYC
Whole Health Community Datathon
FEDERAL FUNDING · CAS + ENGINEERING
Competitive Federal Awards
MATHEMATICS, PHYSICS & ENGINEERING
Foundations of Discovery Andrew Hofstrand, Ph.D. probes
Led by the Responsible Tech
Three projects totaling $1.47M across
discrete breathers in nonlinear lattices.
Ambassadors with the NYC Civic
CAS and the College of Engineering and
Through NASA’s MOSAICS program,
Engagement Commission (March
Computing Sciences. Hesham
physicist Ben Ovryn, Ph.D. advances
2026), students from CAS, Engineering
Tawfeek, MBBCh leads a $1.05M
optics for the Habitable Worlds
and Computing Sciences, and
Department of Defense study of spinal-
Observatory with NASA Goddard’s
Osteopathic Medicine tackled
cord-injury bone loss with bone
Breann Sitarski, Ph.D. — mentoring
participatory-budget community data.
biologist Michael Hadjiargyrou, Ph.D.
undergraduates across Physics,
Winning teams were showcased at the
(NYT) and Jeffry Nyman, Ph.D.
Electrical & Computer, and Mechanical
NYC PIT Pop-Up in the Oculus and the
(Vanderbilt), mentoring CAS student
Engineering.
BetaNYC School of Data Conference.
researchers.
Supported by the U.S. Department of Education FIPSE program.
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NEXT → 2026–2027
Looking Ahead
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Looking Ahead · 2026–2027 01 Growing the Ph.D. in Chemistry CAS's first research doctorate, launched in Fall 2025,
02 Scaling the Strengthening Futures Pathway Minors
enters its second year with expanded faculty
The eight humanities-grounded pathway minors —
mentorship, new graduate courses, and its first
built into General Education at no added cost or time
cohort presenting at national meetings — positioning
— move from launch to scale.
CAS as a research-intensive partner to industry and government labs.
03 Expanding Public-Interest Technology Building on the Responsible Tech Ambassadors
04 Deepening the Advisory Board → Student Pipeline
model and our PIT-UN membership, the College will
The CAS Advisory Board moves from founding
deepen civic and community partnerships, host the
cohort to working partnership — convening student-
next Whole Health Community Datathon, and bring
facing panels each semester, opening internship and
student research on ethical AI into the curriculum.
mentoring channels with alumni, and advising the Dean on emerging program directions.
05 Strengthening Research Mentoring
06 Reinforcing the Foundational First-
A faculty working group focused on strengthening
Strong math and communication skills underpin
support for research at every career stage — from
success in every discipline. Through intensive new
early-career start-up through established programs
teaching strategies and expanded academic support,
— and on leveraging institutional resources for
the College will help more students thrive in first-year
maximum benefit.
courses and stay on track to graduate on time.
and Advising
07 Growing the Pre-College Recruitment Pipeline
Year Experience
Building on successful programs like Math Day and the H.S. MiniResearch Grant Award, the College will expand its outreach to bring prospective students onto campus.
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“This is the world I want to live in. The shared world.” N AO M I S H I H A B N Y E · “G AT E A - 4 ”
What follows is the record of our shared world — the grants, the scholarship, and the people of the College.
THE SCHOLARLY RECORD →
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— T H E S C H O L A R LY R E C O R D —
Grants and Funding RESEARCH FUNDING BY AGENCY
NYSED
NSF
DoD · USAF
NIH
NASA + Other
$2.77M
$1.57M
$1.21M
$794K
$274K
4 AWA R D S
6 AWA R D S
2 AWA R D S
3 AWA R D S
8 AWA R D S
Total: $6.6M in active external research funding across 23 federal, state, and national awards.
M AT H E M AT I C S
P H YS I C S
Andrew Hofstrand, Ph.D.
Chinmoy Bhattacharjee, Ph.D.
Coherent Structures on Topological Lattices
Nonlinear Neutrino Flavor Transformation for Nuclear
USAF / AFRL · $203,679
Astrophysics
NSF RUI · $360,000 Ranja Roy, Ph.D., Baole Wen, Ph.D., and Andrew Hofstrand, Ph.D.
Yusui Chen, Ph.D.
High School Mathematics Research Enrichment Program
Analog Quantum Simulation of Non-Markovian Multi-
MAA Dolciani · $8,000
Qubit Systems
NSF ExpandQISE · $650,000 Baole Wen, Ph.D. Invariant Solutions in Strongly Nonlinear Thermal
Yusui Chen, Ph.D.
Convection
Quantum Computing and Cybersecurity Training
NSF LEAPS-MPS · $249,955
NSF CyberTraining · $149,999
Baole Wen, Ph.D.
Sophia Domokos, Ph.D.
Research Enhancement Grant for PUI Faculty
Field Theories and Holography
AMS–Simons · $10,800
NSF RUI · $135,000
John Zweck, Ph.D.
Ben Ovryn, Ph.D.
Stability of Periodically Stationary Nonlinear Waves in
Pathways from Undergraduate Research to the Habitable
Fiber Lasers (Collaborative)
Worlds Observatory
NSF · $28,247
NASA · $243,949
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— T H E S C H O L A R LY R E C O R D · C O N T I N U E D —
Grants and Funding
(continued)
Continued external research funding by department for the 2025–2026 academic year.
B I O LO G I C A L A N D C H E M I C A L S C I E N C E S
E D U C AT I O N
Subhabrata Chaudhury, Ph.D.
Minaz Fazal, Ph.D.
Mitsunobu Strategy for Pyruvate Carboxylase Inhibitors
Smart Start Program Grant
ISRCS · 2026
NYSED / Nassau BOCES · $188,718
Jole Fiorito, Ph.D.
Stan Silverman, M.S.
First-in-Class PDE5/HAT Ligands for Synaptic Plasticity
CSTEP — Collegiate Science and Technology Entry
NIH · $438,583
Program
NYSED · $556,975 Jole Fiorito, Ph.D. Antimicrobial Activity of Pyocyanin in M. smegmatis
Stan Silverman, M.S.
ISRCS · 2026
Smart Start Program Grant
NYSED / Freeport UFSD · $99,444 Berin Karaman Mayack, Ph.D. Broad-Spectrum Antivirals for Honey Bees in Crisis (Co-
Stan Silverman, M.S.
PI)
STEP — Science and Technology Entry Program
USDA-NIFA SBIR · Phase I
NYSED · $1,923,865
William Letsou, Ph.D.
HUMANITIES
Haplotype-Aware Neural Network for Prostate Cancer
Jonathan E. Goldman, Ph.D.
Risk
ISRCS · 2026 Henry Ruiz, Ph.D. Zinc Finger Protein 949 and Adipocyte Hypertrophy
NIH R03 · $223,997 Hesham Tawfeek, MBBCh
James Joyce Fellowship
UB Libraries · $3,000
PSYC H O LO GY A N D C O U N S E L I N G Robert G. Alexander, Ph.D. Effects of Cue Precision on Medical Imaging Interpretation
NIH R16 SuRE · $131,800
Sympathetic Disruption in Bone Loss with Spinal Cord Injury
U.S. Dept. of Defense · $1,004,426
Nicole Calma-Roddin, Ph.D. A Narrative Game for Learning About Neuron Communication
APS · $4,100
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T H E S C H O L A R LY R E C O R D · 2 0 2 5 – 2 0 2 6
Faculty Scholarship
PUBLICATIONS · PRESENTATIONS · INVITED LECTURES
Across the College's five departments, CAS faculty published books, journal articles, and chapters; presented at national and international conferences; and were invited to lecture from New York to Pittsburgh, Chicago, and India. The complete record follows by department.
FOLLOW FACULTY ACCOMPLISHMENTS THROUGHOUT THE YEAR AT NYIT.EDU/FACULTY-AND-STAFF/ACCOMPLISHMENTS →
HUMANITIES
C O N F E R E N C E Jonathan Ezra Goldman, Ph.D. "A Black Coney Island, Erased." New York History Conference,
B O O K Amanda Golden, Ph.D. Co-editor, The Poems of
Poughkeepsie, N.Y. (June 2026).
Sylvia Plath. Faber and Faber (May 2026).
C O N F E R E N C E Lissi Athanasiou-Krikelis, Ph.D. "Autofiction
B O O K Jonathan Ezra Goldman, Ph.D. Hidden Histories of
in Children's and YA Literature: Does It Exist?" Children's
Jazz Age New York. Excelsior / SUNY Press (2026).
Literature Association Conference, Pittsburgh (May 2026).
Reviewed in Kirkus Reviews and The Arts Fuse.
I N V I T E D T A L K Kate E. O'Hara, Ph.D. Flame University, Pune
C H A P T E R Donna Potts, Ph.D. "Teaching Irish Poetry and
(Sept 2025).
Trauma Theory." MLA (2026).
O P- E D Jonathan Ezra Goldman, Ph.D. "Columbia's
C H A P T E R S Jessica Hautsch, Ph.D. Two chapters in
Cooperation With ICE Calls Back to KKK Days." The
Education and Role-Playing Games, Vol. 1 (CRC Press, 2025) and Roll with Advantage (Play Story Press, 2025).
C H A P T E R John Misak, D.A. & Kevin LaGrandeur. "Designing an Educational Game for Shakespeare's Hamlet." In New
Indypendent (May 2026).
C H A P T E R Eugene Kelly, Ph.D. "A Stormy Ride through the 20th Century." In Between Philosophy and Phenomenology
of Value. Brill (April 2026).
Technologies and Renaissance Studies IV. Iter Press.
E V E N T Amanda Golden, Ph.D. Spoke at the Sylvia Plath
C O N F E R E N C E Amanda Golden, Ph.D. Modernist Studies
Society's launch event for The Poems of Sylvia Plath (May
Association Conference, Boston (Oct 2025).
L E C T U R E Donna Potts, Ph.D. BITS-Pilani, Goa (March 2026).
C O N F E R E N C E Kate E. O'Hara, Ph.D. AAC&U Conference on
2026).
M E D I A Amanda Golden, Ph.D. Guest on the Booked and Banned podcast, discussing Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar (April 2026).
Learning and Student Success (April 2026).
M E D I A Michael Izady, Ph.D. Interviewed on The Manny
C O N F E R E N C E Jonathan Ezra Goldman, Ph.D. "New York's
relations (April 2026).
James Joyce: Multiculturalism and the Irish Cultural Diaspora." American Literature Association, Chicago (May 2026).
Munoz Show on the Straits of Hormuz and Iran–U.S.
M E D I A Lynn Rogoff, M.F.A. Interviewed on Australian news network Ticker about her AI-assisted film Bird Woman,
Sacajawea (March 2026).
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SCHOLARSHIP · 2025–2026 · CONTINUED
MATHEMATICS · PHYSICS · EDUCATION · PSYCHOLOGY
Faculty Scholarship · continued MATHEMATICS A R T I C L E Andrew Hofstrand, Ph.D. "Families of discrete breathers on a nonlinear Kagome lattice." Physical Review E 111, 064212 (June 2025).
A R T I C L E John Zweck, Ph.D., Y. Latushkin, and E. Gallo. "A regularity condition under which integral operators with operator-valued kernels are trace class." Boletín de la Sociedad Matemática Mexicana 31, Art. 38 (2025).
PHYSICS A R T I C L E A. Ablimit, A. Abliz, Yusui Chen, Ph.D., and Z. Wang. "NonMarkovian Dynamics of Open Quantum Systems in a Squeezed Thermal Bath." Quantum Information Processing 24, 102 (2025).
A R T I C L E Chinmoy Bhattacharjee, Ph.D. "Gravitomagnetic plasma battery II: Impact of vertical disk structure on seed magnetic field generation." Fundamental Plasma Physics (June 2026).
I N V I T E D T A L K Roger Yu, Ph.D. "Finding future bio-electronical nanoscale materials with engineered properties." International Conference on
PSYCHOLOGY AND COUNSELING
A R T I C L E Dahir C., Fiersen R., Cameka
A R T I C L E Melissa DiMartino, Ph.D.
Journal of School-Based Counseling Policy and Evaluation (2026).
"The Impact of Smartphone Use on Course Comprehension and Psychological Well-Being in the Middle School Classroom." Journal of
Educational and Developmental Psychology (2026).
A R T I C L E Nguyen A., Robert G. Alexander, Ph.D. (co-first), Venkatakrishnan A., Macknik S.L., Martinez-Conde S. "Magician patter does not boost deception in the Three-Card Monte." Scientific Reports (2026). Featured in New York Tech News.
P R E P R I N T Kurzawski J.W., Robert G. Alexander, Ph.D. (co-first), et al. "A case study of sudden-onset cortically mediated visual impairments in a 12year-old." Research Square preprint (2025).
P R E P R I N T Robert G. Alexander, Ph.D., Abozid O., Botlero M., Kostova Y., Rahman A., Swift A. "Improving Undergraduate Research with a Student Progress Tracker." EdArXiv preprint (2025).
A R T I C L E Nayoung Kim, Ph.D., et al.
Biophysics and Medical Physics (ISBMP), Osaka, Japan (Nov 2025).
"Discrimination, social support, and wellness among BIPOC counseling students." Counselor Education and
EDUCATION
Supervision 64(2), 208–219 (2025).
T H I S Y E A R Education faculty — Minaz
Hazel, Ed.D., Reid C. "Highly Skilled
Fazal, Ph.D. and Stan Silverman, M.S. — advanced funded K–12 and pedagogy initiatives, including the Smart Start Program (NYSED / Nassau BOCES; see Grants and Funding, p. 23).
Hazel, Ed.D. "New York State's Revised School Counseling Policy: What Will It Take to Make It Work?"
A R T I C L E Cameka Hazel, Ed.D., Leheste P., Blanchard R. "Multicultural Counseling Course Instructors' Cultural Background and Diversity Teaching Approaches." Journal of
Counselor Preparation and Supervision (2025).
C H A P T E R Cameka Hazel, Ed.D., Barrows S. "Training Future Counselors for Community College Settings." In Addressing the Mental
Health Needs of Community College Learners (2026).
C H A P T E R Cameka Hazel, Ed.D., BrownSmythe C.A. "Tech Awareness and Decision Making." In Integrating
Telemental Health Practice into Counselor Education Training. Wiley (2025).
C H A P T E R Cameka Hazel, Ed.D., BrownSmythe C.A. "Online Career Counseling Approaches to Enhance Career Decision Making." In
Integrating Telemental Health Practice into Counselor Education Training. Wiley (2025).
A R T I C L E Brown-Smythe C., Cameka Caribbean Immigrants' Career-Related Transition Issues: Mental Health Implications." International Journal for
the Advancement of Counselling (2025).
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SCHOLARSHIP · 2025–2026 · CONTINUED
BIOLOGICAL AND CHEMICAL SCIENCES · PUBLICATIONS
Faculty Scholarship · Biological and Chemical Sciences A R T I C L E Hesham Tawfeek, MBBCh,
C H A P T E R Jacqueline Keighron, Ph.D.,
"Attenuation of TGF-β Signaling
A R T I C L E S Claude E. Gagna, Ph.D. Three articles in the Journal of Biological Chemistry (May 2026),
Promotes Complete Recovery of
including "A Novel Omics Platform
Molecular Learning." In Methods in
Trabecular Bone Structure
for Nucleic Acid Structural Spatial
Molecular Biology vol. 3043.
Following Immobilization with
Genome Organization
Humana, 2026.
Traumatic Spinal Cord Injury." FASEB
('Genomesorganizomics')," co-
J 2026; 40(4):e71531.
authored with Michael Nizich, Ph.D.
A R T I C L E Giovanni Meloni, Ph.D., et
R E V I E W Hesham Tawfeek, MBBCh.
P E R S P E C T I V E Michael Hadjiargyrou,
Sections of Bromine Organics and
"Disuse Bone Loss After Spinal Cord
Ph.D. "The Scientific Case for
an Effective C–Br Bond Cross
Injury: Scope, Mechanisms,
Animal Models: A Perspective From
Section." Chem. Phys. Lett. 895,
Treatment, and Future Directions." J
Musculoskeletal Researchers."
142874 (2026).
Endocr Soc 2025; 10(2):bvaf221.
FASEB BioAdv 2026; 8(2):e70090.
A R T I C L E Michael Hadjiargyrou, Ph.D.
S E R I E S Michael Hadjiargyrou, Ph.D.
"Investigation of O(³P) Initiated
"Single-cell transcriptional mapping
Chronic oral methylphenidate and
Oxidation Products of 2,3-
of Mustn1." JBMR Plus 2026;
fluoxetine — three studies on D2R
Dimethylfuran Using Synchrotron
10(2):ziaf193.
levels, neuroinflammation, and
Photoionization." J. Phys. Chem A
A R T I C L E Michael Hadjiargyrou, Ph.D.
striatal NMDA receptor binding.
130(4), 812–822 (2026).
Neurochem Res (2025–26); Neurosci Lett (2025).
A R T I C L E Niharika Nath, Ph.D.
expression during skeletal muscle
A R T I C L E Subhabrata Chaudhury,
Ecosystem: Aligning Design,
regeneration." Physiol Rep 2026;
Ph.D., D'Amico T., Blagg B.S.J. "The
Access, and Support." Scholarship
14(4):e70772.
Hsp90β Isoform: An Attractive
A R T I C L E Michael Hadjiargyrou, Ph.D.
Target for Drug Development."
and Practice of Undergraduate Research, Spring 2026 (in press).
Michael Hadjiargyrou, Ph.D., et al.
"Mustn1 ablation in male mice alters fiber type and gene
"Hydrogels for Bone Regeneration."
Gels 2025; 11(11):914.
Medicinal Research Reviews 2025, 45, 1452–1465.
et al. "Biochemistry in 3D: A Virtual Reality Museum Approach to
al. "Absolute Photoionization Cross
A R T I C L E Giovanni Meloni, Ph.D.
"Undergraduate Research as an
A R T I C L E Roy S.D., Mohanta A., Edema T., Niharika Nath, Ph.D., Bhowmik M.K. "Classification of Multiclass Pap Smear Image and Asymmetric Characterization of Cervical Abnormality." Int. J.
Biomedical Imaging 2025; 9860677. PRESENTATIONS & INVITED LECTURES CONTINUE ON P. 28 →
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SCHOLARSHIP · 2025–2026 · CONTINUED
BIOLOGICAL AND CHEMICAL SCIENCES · PRESENTATIONS
Presentations & Invited Lectures P R E S E N T A T I O N Jole Fiorito, Ph.D.
P R E S E N T A T I O N William Letsou, Ph.D.
I N V I T E D Niharika Nath, Ph.D.
"PDE and histone acetyltransferase
"Noncontiguous haplotype patterns
"Biological Cell Imaging for
multi-target directed ligands for
at 13q12 associated with prostate
Diagnosis and Early Prediction of
Alzheimer's disease." ACS MARM
cancer risk." AACR Annual Meeting
Cancer." Tripura University, India
2026, Hershey, Pa.
2026, San Diego.
(GIAN, Oct 2025).
PA N E L Jole Fiorito, Ph.D. Careers in
P O S T E R Giovanni Meloni, Ph.D.
P R E S E N T A T I O N Henry Ruiz, Ph.D.
Drug Development and Research
“Using synchrotron light to quantify
Metabolic Physiology 2026 Meeting,
panel, New York Tech (April 29,
combustion products and
Hilton Head Island, S.C.
2026).
halogenated pollutants.” Presented
P L E N A R Y P O S T E R Hesham Tawfeek,
P O S T E R Subhabrata Chaudhury,
by Ph.D. student Lori Yilan Chen.
Ph.D. "1,3-disubstituted imidazolidine-2,4,5-triones as pyruvate carboxylase inhibitors."
Long Island Photochemistry Symposium, Stony Brook, N.Y. (May 2026).
MBBCh. "Inhibition of TGF-β signaling restores trabecular bone structure after prolonged immobilization with spinal cord
National Organic Symposium, RPI
P O S T E R Niharika Nath, Ph.D. "Meta-
injury." ASBMR National Meeting,
(June 2025).
CDMTransNet: Cross-Domain Multi-
Seattle, Wash. (Sept 2025).
P R E S E N T A T I O N Jacqueline Keighron,
Scale Transformer Meta-Learning
I N V I T E D Michael Hadjiargyrou, Ph.D.
Ph.D. "Electrochemical Approaches for High-Resolution Neurotransmitter Detection in Vivo."
for Few-Shot Breast Histopathology." IEEE/CVF CVPR 2026, Denver, Colo.
Long Island Meeting of the ACS, St. John's University (Sept 2025).
Three invited lectures: ASBMR (Toronto), TriBeta Honors (Nassau CC), and SARS at Stony Brook.
I N V I T E D Navin Pokala, Ph.D. Invited lecture, Trinity College Department of Biology (March 2026).
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T H E S C H O L A R LY R E C O R D · 2 0 2 5 – 2 0 2 6
STUDENT PRESENTATIONS · MENTORED RESEARCH
Student Presentations · Mentored by CAS Faculty Student presentations reached regional and national conferences this year — each developed under a CAS faculty mentor. These presentations are representative of mentored undergraduate and graduate research across the college’s laboratories; read the stories behind several of them under Faculty-Mentored Research (p. 6).
William Letsou, Ph.D.
CURLI · MACUB
Niharika Nath, Ph.D.
SIGMA XI NE REGION
Polygenic Risk Scores for Psychiatric Disorders in the All of Us Research Program
Differentially Expressed Genes Involved in NF-κB Inhibition in Cancer Cells in Response to Curaxin
M. Oz · CURLI, Apr 2026
Soham Raval, Ryan Dong, Winnie Yao · Sigma Xi NE Region, Apr 2026
eQTL Analysis of MIPEP Expression in Prostate Cancer Cases from The Cancer Genome Atlas M. Boghani · CURLI, Apr 2026
Giovanni Meloni, Ph.D.
Secondary Meningioma Risk in Childhood CNS Tumor vs.
Using Synchrotron Light to Quantify Combustion Products and Halogenated Pollutants
Hodgkin's Lymphoma Survivors
LI PHOTOCHEMISTRY
Lori Yilan Chen · Ph.D. student · LI Photochemistry Symposium, Stony Brook, May 2026
B. Han · CURLI, Apr 2026
Differential Gene Expression & RNA-Seq Analysis of Chromosome 13 Variants Linked to Prostate Cancer M. Boghani, A. Nori, P. Patel · MACUB, Oct 2025
Subhabrata Chaudhury, Ph.D.
Correlation Between rs76959412 at 9p21 and Central
A New Class of Pyruvate-Carboxylase Inhibitors as Leads for
Nervous System Tumor Risk
Cancer Therapeutics
B. Han · MACUB, Oct 2025
Zakir Hossain · Ph.D. student · Sigma Xi NE Region, Apr 2026
Admixture Analysis of Prostate Cancer Risk Across Ancestral
Synthetic Routes to Pyruvate-Carboxylase Modulators
Populations
Luke Jacob · SOURCE & ACS Regional Meeting
SIGMA XI · SOURCE · ACS
D. Galvin Gusmano · MACUB, Oct 2025
Jacqueline Keighron, Ph.D.
MACUB · MOLLOY UNIV.
Enhancing Neurotransmitter Detection at Carbon-Fiber Microelectrodes S. Thomas, A. Soni, A.-R. Hussain, M. Ahmad, S. Naaem, A. Menachery · MACUB, Oct 2025
Robert G. Alexander, Ph.D.
VSS · EUR. CONGRESS OF PSYCHOLOGY
Fixational Eye Movements in Neurological Disease Zainab Faisal, Nancy Mahfouz · Vision Sciences Society 26th Annual Mtg, St. Pete Beach, FL · NIH NEI travel grant
The Vision Science of Medical-Imaging Displays
Nanoscale Curvature Modulates Glucose Oxidase Activity at the Electrode Interface
Zainab Faisal, Nancy Mahfouz · Vision Sciences Society, St. Pete Beach, FL · NIH NEI travel grant
J. Youssef, G. Lipkovich, R. Mulakandov, A.-R. Hussain, M. Ahmad · MACUB, Oct 2025
Social Burnout and Academic Success Amy Patel, Josey Spiers · European Congress of Psychology, Paphos, Cyprus
TikTok’s Grip on Spending and Well-Being (roundtable) Amy Patel, Josey Spiers · European Congress of Psychology · comentored with M. DiMartino, Ph.D.
CURLI — Consortium for Undergraduate Research on Long Island
MACUB — Metropolitan Association of College and University Biologists
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Faculty Directory The scholars, researchers, and practitioners who make CAS the center of New York Tech — across five departments. Full faculty bios at nyit.edu/academics/arts-and-sciences →
BIOLOGICAL AND CHEMICAL SCIENCES Grady Carney, Ph.D., Associate Professor
Subhabrata Chaudhury, Ph.D., Associate Professor
Halina Diener, M.S., Associate Professor
Jole Fiorito, Ph.D., Associate Professor
Claude E. Gagna, Ph.D., Professor Bryan Gibb, Ph.D., Associate Professor
Michael Hadjiargyrou, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor; Director, DO/PhD Program
Chrisoula Kalogiannis, MD, Teaching Assistant Professor
Berin Karaman Mayack, Ph.D., Assistant Professor
Jacqueline Keighron, Ph.D., Assistant Professor
Neelam Lahankar, Ph.D., Teaching Assistant Professor
William Letsou, Ph.D., Teaching
Giovanni Meloni, Ph.D., Professor,
Amanda Golden, Ph.D., Associate
Department Chair
Professor
Niharika Nath, Ph.D., Professor
Jonathan Ezra Goldman, Ph.D.,
Eleni Nikitopoulos, Ph.D.,
Professor
Associate Professor
Jennifer Griffiths, Ph.D.,
Ana G. Petrovic, Ph.D., Associate
Professor, Associate Dean
Professor
Jessica Hautsch, Ph.D., Teaching
Navin Pokala, Ph.D., Associate
Assistant Professor
Professor
Michael Izady, Ph.D., Teaching
Henry Ruiz, Ph.D., Assistant
Assistant Professor
Professor
Lori Jirousek-Falls, Ph.D.,
Leonidas Salichos, Ph.D., Assistant
Associate Professor
Professor
Ellen Katz, Ph.D., Associate
Hesham Tawfeek, MBBCh,
Professor
Research Associate Professor
Jaime (Jim) Martinez, Ph.D.,
Spencer Jay Turkel, Ph.D.,
Associate Professor
Professor
John Misak, D.A., Associate
Mena Youssef, Ph.D., Teaching
Professor; Director, Technical Communications & Professional Writing
Associate Professor
HUMANITIES
Kate E. O’Hara, Ph.D., Associate
Lissi Athanasiou-Krikelis, Ph.D.,
Donna Potts, Ph.D., Professor
Associate Professor
Elaine Brown, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department Chair
Assistant Professor
NEW YORK TECH · COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
Professor
Daniel Quigley, Ph.D., Professor Michael Schiavi, Ph.D., Professor Katherine Williams, Ph.D., Associate Professor
30 / 34
FACULTY DIRECTORY · CONTINUED M AT H E M AT I C S
Gennady Yassiyevich, Ph.D.,
Nicole Calma-Roddin, Ph.D.,
Teaching Assistant Professor
Assistant Professor
Andrew Hofstrand, Ph.D.,
John Zweck, Ph.D., Professor
Daniel Cinotti, Ph.D., Professor
Assistant Professor
Uma Iyer, Ph.D., Teaching Associate Professor
Vitaly Katsnelson, Ph.D., Associate Professor
Hwi Lee, Ph.D., Assistant Professor Laihan Luo, Ph.D., Professor Jungho Park, Ph.D., Associate Professor
Sharon Petrushka, Ph.D., Associate Professor
Yael Roitberg, Ph.D., Professor Ranja Roy, Ph.D., Professor, Department Chair
Anna Silverstein, Ph.D., Associate Professor
Baole Wen, Ph.D., Assistant Professor
Melissa DiMartino, Ph.D.,
PHYSICS
Associate Professor
Chinmoy Bhattacharjee, Ph.D.,
Minaz Fazal, Ph.D., Associate
Assistant Professor
Professor
Yusui Chen, Ph.D., Associate
Cameka Hazel, Ed.D., Teaching
Professor
Assistant Professor
Sophia Domokos, Ph.D., Associate
Fanita Henderson, Ph.D., Assistant
Professor
Professor
Bernard Fryshman, Ph.D.,
Dina Karafantis, Ph.D., Associate
Professor
Professor
Ben Ovryn, Ph.D., Professor
Nayoung Kim, Ph.D., Associate
Roger Yu, Ph.D., Professor & Dean
Professor
Emeritus, Department Chair
Maria LaPadula, Ph.D., Associate
PSYCHOLOGY AND C O U N S E L I N G ( E D U C AT I O N )
Emily Restivo, Ph.D., Associate
Robert G. Alexander, Ph.D.,
Professor, Department Chair Professor
Stan Silverman, M.S., Professor
Assistant Professor
TRANSITIONS · 2025–2026 Retirements
Promotions
Bernard Fryshman, Ph.D. — Physics. At New York Tech since 1963; devoted to students and gifted at making physics clear.
EFFECTIVE SEPTEMBER 1, 2026
Halina Diener, M.S. — Biological & Chemical Sciences. Known for her care and her readiness to help students.
Jacqueline Keighron, Ph.D. — to Teaching Associate Professor.
Daniel Quigley, Ph.D. — Humanities. A scholar of teaching with technology who served as Associate Dean, Dean of CAS, and Faculty Senate President.
EFFECTIVE SEPTEMBER 1, 2025
Anna Silverstein, Ph.D. — Mathematics. Director of the Mathematics Resource Center, known for her clarity and optimism. Kathy Zhou — Administrative Assistant, Mathematics & Physics, Long Island campus.
Amanda Golden, Ph.D. — Humanities, to Professor.
Daniel Cinotti, Ph.D. — Psychology & Counseling, to Professor. Nayoung Kim, Ph.D. — Psychology & Counseling, to Associate Professor with tenure.
Lyubov Nakonechna — Executive Assistant, Dean's Office.
New Faculty
IN MEMORIAM
Berin Karaman Mayack, Ph.D. — Biological & Chemical Sciences (Sept. 2025). Ph.D. in Medicinal Chemistry, Martin Luther University; earlier at Istanbul and Biruni Universities and UC Davis.
Larry Silverstein, Ph.D. (d. January 2026) — A Physics professor since 1975 and a stellar teacher who inspired generations of students. He helped establish the physics major and the University Honors Program and served more than 30 years on the Faculty Senate.
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Academic Offerings Degrees, minors, certificates, and accelerated (4+1) pathways offered across the College’s five departments. Full descriptions and admissions details at nyit.edu/academics/arts-and-sciences →
BIOLOGICAL & CHEMICAL SCIENCES
EDUCATION
PHYSICS
Biochemistry B.S.
Adolescence Education (Initial /
Physics B.S.
Biology B.S.
Professional Certification), M.A.T.
Physics Minor
Biotechnology B.S.
Childhood Education M.S.
Chemistry B.S.
Early Childhood Education M.S.
Chemistry Minor
HUMANITIES
Psychology B.S.
Interdisciplinary Studies B.A., B.S., B.P.S.
Psychology B.S. / School Counseling, M.S.
Chemistry M.S. Chemistry Ph.D. Life Sciences B.S. / Occupational Therapy,
PSYCHOLOGY & COUNSELING Psychology Minor
Technical Writing Certificate
Mental Health Counseling M.S.
M.S.
Civic Engagement Minor
Life Sciences B.S. / Occupational Therapy,
Literature and Culture Minor
OTD
Medical Humanities Minor
Certificate
Life Sciences B.S. / Osteopathic Medicine,
Technical & Professional Communication Minor
Mental Health Counseling Advanced
MATHEMATICS
Student Behavior Management
D.O.
Life Sciences B.S. / Physical Therapy, D.P.T. Life Sciences B.S. / Physician Assistant Studies, M.S.
School Counseling M.S. Bilingual School Counseling Advanced
Certificate Advanced Certificate
Applied & Computational Mathematics B.S. Mathematics Minor
CROSS-DEPARTMENT ACCELERATED (4+1) MASTER’S PROGRAMS Adolescence Education M.A.T.
Data Science M.S.
Paired with Applied & Computational Math, Biology, Biotechnology, Chemistry, Physics, or Interdisciplinary Studies (B.S./B.A./B.P.S.)
Paired with Applied & Computational Mathematics, B.S.
Pharmacy Pharm.D. — Howard University Pathway
Master of Business Administration M.B.A.
Paired with Chemistry, B.S.
Paired with Interdisciplinary Studies (B.A./B.S./B.P.S.) — Business, Finance, Management & Marketing concentrations
Mental Health Counseling M.S.
School Counseling M.S.
Paired with Psychology, B.S.
Paired with Psychology, B.S.
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With gratitude
With gratitude to the donors, partners, and friends whose generosity supports CAS students, faculty, and research — and to the academic advisors, lab managers, and administrative staff who make this College run.
SUPPORT CAS
PA R T N E R W I T H U S
Every gift directly funds student research, mentorship, and
Community organizations, industry partners, and peer
the work in these pages. Give at nyit.edu/giving/cas.
institutions are invited to collaborate on convenings, internships, research, and student-led civic projects.
deancas@nyit.edu
Editor · Office of the Dean Design · CAS Communications Cover Photography · Laura Barisonzi Illustration · Camillo Golgi, Sulla fina anatomia degli
AI USE STATEMENT This publication was designed with Claude Design, an AI tool used for editorial structure, visual design, and page composition. All facts, figures, and program details were provided and verified by the College of Arts and Sciences.
organi centrali del sistema nervoso (1885)
Any writing attributed to a named individual was authored
Type · Oswald · Roboto Slab · Roboto
by that person.
Palette · Catalina Blue · Bear Gold
STATEMENT ON NON-DISCRIMINATION
Volume · 01 · 2025–2026
New York Institute of Technology prohibits discrimination based upon any legally protected status in its programs and activities. The full statement, which includes contact information for the Title IX, Title VI, and 504 Coordinators, is available at nyit.edu/nondiscrimination.
CORRECTIONS We strive for accuracy in every name, figure, and citation. If you notice an error, please write to deancas@nyit.edu so we can correct our records and update this digital edition.
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Science, Humanities & Tech Intersect Here. FOLLOW US College of Arts and Sciences · New York Institute of Technology
nyit.edu/academics/arts-and-sciences