Northeastern College of Science Catalyst Magazine Spring 2023

Catalyst

SPRING 2023

MESSAGE FROM DEAN SIVE THE DEAN’S FUND 2023 COMMENCEMENT HIGHLIGHTS

CREATING SUMMER JOBS FOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS

STUDENT ACHIEVEMENTS

FACULTY ACHIEVEMENTS

MAKING DISCOVERY POSSIBLE PARTNERING WITH THE COLLEGE OF SCIENCE

PRIORITIES FOR THE NORTHEASTERN COLLEGE OF SCIENCE

• Commit to a Culture of Respect and Action toward Equity

• Communicate the Good Power of Science

• Solve the Greatest Research Challenges

• Promote Innovative and Global Education

• Reinvent the PhD

• Increase Undergraduate Research

• Build an Entrepreneurship Landscape

• Define Space and Work for the Future

Message from Dean Sive

Dear Northeastern families, alumni and friends, Mrs. Rubin, a substitute Biology teacher during high school, opened my eyes to hands-in education. We had been learning Ecology by rote-memorization, a large number of animal groups, eating one other, up the food chain. One morning, Mrs. Rubin gave each of us four stakes, a ball of twine, a ruler and some containers, instructing us to mark off a 2-foot square plot anywhere we chose on the school grounds. We were to conduct an inventory on our plot to understand how the food chain animals were distributed. We obeyed with glee. I put my plot in the library garden, thrilled to rout around, collecting small beetles, worms, snails, tiny jumping springtails, a spider, and a praying mantis. I have no recollection of what we did with the inventory. Perhaps we realized that most of the animals were herbivores near the bottom of the food chain, and only the lone spider and mantid were carnivores. But the transcendent power of moving from textbook to the real thing has stayed with me across decades, and the immeasurable valuable of learning hands-in.

We do hands-in at Northeastern really well. (It’s usually called hands-on, but my term better reflects the immersive participation involved.) We call it Experiential Education, that leads every student to understand why their academics are so useful. Experiential is in Northeastern’s deepest history, starting with work as a way to pay for college, morphing into work (Co-op) as a way to understand what college is for. This semester, our College of Science Co-op unit hosted a Spring Mixer in Curry Ballroom, with hundreds of undergraduates and graduate students and many employer-partners. The employer-partners told me over and over how pleased they were to connect with our outstanding students. Hands-in Experiential Learning at Northeastern also extends into important research, entrepreneurship, service, and global experiences.

College of Science undergraduates have been enormously successful this year, due to hands-in experiences. As you will read in this issue of Catalyst, COS students are recipients of the prestigious Goldwater Scholarship, Mitchell Scholarship, Fulbright Award and Senior Leadership Award. Our outstanding faculty have taught, mentored, and provided valuable research experiences. I am immensely proud of this effort and achievement.

Every day, College of Science students have opportunities way beyond a two-foot square plot, but the idea is the same. Learn by routing about, hands-in, each student exploring where to put their talent and time.

Thank you, our wonderful alumni, families, and friends for contributing to this experiential landscape. I am deeply grateful for your interest and support, and for your connection with the Northeastern College of Science.

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.

Highlights from 2023 Commencement

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Your own path should always be respectful, ethical and legal, and allow you to move through your life and your career in ways you find interesting and useful. I am quite confident that each of you will find a pathway through life that makes great use of your talent and your time, and that draws upon the Good Power of Science you’ve experienced in our College.”

Meet the College of Science Student Giving the 2023 Undergraduate Commencement Address

Reporting by Cyrus Moulton

Read the full story on Northeastern Global News:

Clara Wu, a behavioral neuroscience major, was chosen to address her classmates at the 2023 commencement exercises that took place at Fenway Park in Boston. Her success at Northeastern is plenty inspiring. Originally from the Bay Area of California, Wu says she was attracted to Northeastern by its size, its proximity to the hospitals of Boston and, of course, its co-ops.

“I wanted to get started doing stuff,” Wu says. She took advantage of the opportunity. She completed four co-ops as an undergraduate. She split her time in spring 2021 between working as a newborn hearing screener at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and as a clinical research assistant focusing on pediatric stroke victims in the Boston Children’s Hospital neurology department. She worked at George Mark Children’s House in San Leandro, California, as a pediatric palliative care assistant for the first part of the spring 2022 semester, then she headed to Tubingen University Hospital in Germany where she observed neurosurgery and shadowed staff in neuropediatric clinics—as well as ate a lot of gelatos.

The experiences solidified her interest in neuroscience, which she first encountered as a high

school student while attending a summer lecture series. She knew she wanted to continue to explore the subject at Northeastern.

“Everything we do, I can link to something physically happening in my brain,” Wu says. “Everyday stuff, you can see how it works because of neuroscience. It’s the science of everything.”

The co-ops also confirmed her interest in medicine. She says she is in the process of applying to medical schools for fall 2024.

‘Ihave an education, and I will not waste it.’

Undergraduate student speaker, Clara Wu, tells classmates to turn knowledge into action

Watch Clara Wu’s 2023 Commencement Address

Northeastern creates 135 summer jobs for high school students

By Ian Thomsen, Northeastern Global News

Northeastern University is creating 135 summer jobs for students of high school age in Boston and Oakland, California, as part of a larger move to increase working and learning opportunities that were disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The university is creating 125 employment opportunities on the Boston campus for young people this summer in partnership with the City of Boston’s SuccessLink summer jobs program. Another 10 jobs will be available at Mills College at Northeastern—a program that may be extended in future years to other locations in Northeastern’s global campus network.

Bridge to Calculus is part of the City of Boston’s Learn and Earn program, which includes opportunities for students to take courses while being paid. It was created in 2020 with Northeastern’s input to generate opportunities for young people during the COVID-19 pandemic, Modestino says.

Lynn Saunders, a city leader who helped design Learn and Earn, recently joined Northeastern to help implement the university’s summer jobs program as part of an effort to expand community-engaged research.

“This year, young people who participate in Bridge to Calculus will be paid to learn calculus,” Modestino says. “Among youth employed in the Boston summer jobs programs, our research has shown that half pay some kind of household bill—rent, utilities, groceries—which means they often have to choose between an educational opportunity and a job that helps their household. This year we’re able to provide them with the opportunity to prepare for AP Calculus this summer and get paid for it.”

“There is an urgency to doing this work coming out of COVID,” says Alicia Sasser Modestino, an associate professor of public policy and urban affairs and economics, as well as research director for the Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy at Northeastern. “There has been tremendous loss for young people in terms of learning, connection, well-being and mental health that we’re still seeing. The more that we can do to provide these young people with what they need to get back on track with their education and their careers, the better for their futures.”Employment in Boston will include work opportunities in university departments to support communications, administration and student services, as well as Northeastern’s Bridge to Calculus program, which empowers young people from underserved communities to succeed in advanced math classes.

The effort is part of an initiative by Boston Mayor Michelle Wu to invest an unprecedented $18.7 mil-

Boston Public Schools students in the Bridge to Calculus program in Dodge Hall in July, 2022.

‘As an experiential university, this is exactly what we do.’

Alicia Sasser Modestino Associate Professor of Public Policy and Urban Affairs; Economics Research Director for the Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy at Northeastern.

lion in support of 7,000 youth jobs. Five thousand of those opportunities are being generated in partnership with community organizations and nonprofits, including Northeastern.

David Madigan Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs

ness skills that lead to higher employment and wage rates in the year following their summer jobs.

“The research evidence is clear: Having a summer job through the SuccessLink program produces transformative positive impacts for youth both during the summer and beyond,” Modestino says.

The benefits for young people transcend the paycheck they take home, Tobin says.

“For the kids it’s observational, learning about office etiquette and all of those things that they don’t necessarily teach you in school,” Tobin says. “You’re learning in real life. It’s almost a mini model of our co-op program.”

David Madigan, provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at Northeastern, is leading a consortium of colleges in the Greater Boston area that are following Northeastern in offering summer jobs on campus.

“Northeastern has always been recognized as the leader in summer jobs research,” says John Tobin, Northeastern’s vice president of city and community engagement. “This catapults us into a new dimension while encouraging other colleges and universities in Boston to follow suit.”

Modestino has led Northeastern’s partnership with Boston’s summer jobs programs since 2014. Her research has found that participants graduate from high school and enroll in college at higher rates than their peers, largely because exposing them to new career paths raises their academic aspirations.

They become more engaged in their community while learning to resolve conflicts with peers and developing other soft skills that are linked to a reduction in criminal justice involvement. Their work habits improve—as do their resumes, along with the answers they give at interviews and other job-readi-

Modestino’s work as a senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston from 2005 to 2014 informed her appreciation for summer employment among young people, especially in underserved communities. Its significance has been borne out by her research at Northeastern over the past decade.

“This summer we have an opportunity to provide meaningful employment experiences for these young people. After the past three years, they deserve to have the chance to develop skills and explore a career pathway,” Modestino says. “As an experiential university, this is exactly what we do.”

The campus at Mills College at Northeastern, Oakland CA

Student Achievements

College of Science students awarded 2023 Goldwater Scholarships

The Goldwater Scholarship is the most prestigious undergraduate science fellowship in the country — awarded only to the top sophomores and juniors nationwide, who are engaged in academic work in math, science or engineering.

Gillian McClennen, biology and data science

Gillian McClennen has been conducting microbiology research in associate professor of biology Yunrong Chai’s lab over the past several years.

“I study bacterial communication in biofilms, which are three-dimensional structures that bacteria build and live in to protect themselves from external threats like antibiotics,” she says. “After graduation, I plan to continue this research in a Ph.D. program.”

Ethan Wong, biology and data science

As a rising senior, Ethan Wong has worked with Assistant Professor Mathew Yarossi and Professor Eugene Tunik at Northeastern’s Movement Neuroscience Lab, where he’s conducted research on cognitive decline and the development of “novel screening tests” for mild cognitive impairment and dementia.

“I hope to use [the Goldwater Scholarship] to broaden my perspective on the cutting-edge research happening in many diverse fields all around the world,” he says.

Read more about these scholarship recipients on Northeastern Global News.

Northeastern student dreams to revolutionize precision medicine, wins Mitchell Scholarship

Northeastern student wins Fulbright Scholarship to teach English and love for the environment in Laos

It was during his time at Northeastern that Michael Nelson explored his interests in meditation and the outdoors. Those linked devotions inspired him to apply for—and win—a prestigious Fulbright Scholarship. The Fulbright U.S. Student Program offers a variety of growth opportunities in more than 140 countries to graduating U.S. college seniors, graduate students and young professionals. Nelson will use his Fulbright Scholarship to teach English in Laos, enabling him to visit Southeast Asia for the first time.

Vivek Kanpa was awarded the 2022 George J. Mitchell Scholarship and will travel to Ireland in August with the other 11 awardees to do a year of graduate studies in artificial intelligence for medicine and health-related research at University College Dublin.

Kanpa is especially interested in cancer research because it currently has large datasets of high quality, which he is hoping to use in his own research. Using machine learning and AI, he wants to create tools that would match a patient to a specific treatment, most beneficial for them.

“There are so many drugs that have variable effectiveness in each patient, but what if I could use each patient’s own genetic data to predict the drug that would be the most effective for them?”

Kanpa wrote in an essay for his Mitchell scholarship application.

Vivek Kanpa graduated in 2023 with degrees in data science and biology and minor in mathematics.

Read more on Northeastern Global News

“Laos really struck out as a cultural crossroads that had a rich history of Buddhism and was often overlooked by the typical tourist,” says Nelson, a 2020 Northeastern graduate in physics and computer science. “When I was a Northeastern student, I was lucky enough to cross paths with meditation techniques that eventually changed my life. Laos is home to the cultural and spiritual influences that allowed these practices to spread across the world and I feel obligated to give back to the land and the people that helped me as best I can.”

Nelson’s plans for teaching in Laos will be influenced by his love of nature. Nelson is a crew leader in Ridgecrest, California, with American Conservation Experience, a nonprofit that works with volunteers to “help restore America’s public lands.”

Nelson says his membership in the Northeastern University Huskiers and Outing Club (NUHOC)—which offers hiking, camping, climbing and other outdoor activities—helped him realize that “living outside was something I could turn into a career.”

Read more on Northeastern Global News.

Biochemistry student receives Senior Leadership Award

This new award celebrates a highly select group of seniors not only for their service to the Northeastern community but also for their potential to support and expand the university’s global network while deepening its impact worldwide.

Amanda Mangano (biochemistry) is a member of Tri Beta Biological Honor Society, Psi Chi Psychology Honor Society and Phi Delta Epsilon Professional Medical Fraternity. She has been a presidential ambassador, a College of Science peer ambassador, a Community Service and Civic Engagement Alternative Breaks communications and marketing coordinator, a Biochemistry Club member and a GlobeMed member.

Making Discovery Possible (cont.)

Faculty Achievements

JORGE MORALES wins Rising Star award from Association of Psychological Science for work on visual perception, consciousness

“One goal of my research is to offer empirical answers to questions philosophers have been asking for centuries,” Morales, who runs the interdisciplinary Subjectivity Lab at Northeastern, says.

“My work lies at the intersection of psychology, neuroscience and philosophy, and it aims to understand conscious experiences,” Morales adds. “Some of the questions that we ask include: How do we become aware of our surroundings? What functions does consciousness serve—couldn’t we do things unconsciously just fine? How do we know our own minds? How does our brain experience the world and itself? How can we tell if a patient with disorders of consciousness, for example, in a vegetative state, is conscious or not?”

ALESSANDRO VESPIGNANI receives

‘lifetime honors’ for leadership during COVID-19 pandemic

Alessandro Vespignani, the director of the Network Science Institute and Sternberg Family

Distinguished Professor at Northeastern, was selected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Vespignani’s work in pandemic modeling, and simulating how and when infectious disease outbreaks might take place has received worldwide praise, making him among the most respected researchers in the field with respect to the COVID-19 pandemic response.

Making Discovery Possible

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:

In November, I was lucky enough to attend Neuroscience 2022 in San Diego, CA. This is the largest annual neuro-related conference, hosted by the Society for Neuroscience. Thank you to the Office of Undergraduate Research and Fellowships as well as the BNS Program for the Peak Award and Travel Award that enabled my attendance!

Allie C.

Major: Behavioral Neuroscience

Graduation Year: 2023

I worked with Ocean Genome Legacy Center (OGL) for my first co-op in spring 2021 and returned this past summer and fall to work on research while taking classes. Being involved with OGL has been incredible gratifying because their mission to preserve the genetic diversity of the oceans is so important. It’s devastating to see the rate at which marine organisms are going extinct but working to preserve the valuable genetic information of so many species has felt like a small way I can help.

Ella M.

SRINIVAS SRIDHAR joins prestigious group of medical and biological engineers

Srinivas Sridhar, the director of the Nanomedicine Innovation Center and Nanomedicine Academy at Northeastern as well as a Distinguished University Professor of Physics, was elected a Fellow of American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE). He was cited by AIMBE for “outstanding contributions to nanotechnologies for imaging and drug delivery, developing new training programs and broadening participation in nanomedicine.”

Major: Biology and Mathematics

Graduation Year: 2023

At the American Chemical Society’s Annual Conference, I was exposed to areas of chemistry that are not as prominent in the CCB department at Northeastern, such as food, forensic, and polymer chemistry. Attending presentations and poster sessions, I learned about cutting edge research taking place in these fields which validated my decision to pursue a PhD in polymer chemistry.

Lilly F.

Major: Chemistry

Graduation Year: 2022

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.

There are many ways to support the College

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.

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 cross-disciplinary research, and supports platforms and technologies that accelerate the rate of discovery.

For more information, contact Veronica Jorge-Curtis, Director of Development, College of Science, Northeastern University | v.jorge-curtis@northeastern.edu