Brookside Elementary School fourth-graders learn about some principles of physics during a June field trip to Binghamton University.
10
Work in the age of AI
How and when should we use artificial intelligence in our jobs?
18
Driving drug discovery
Finding the treatments of tomorrow requires perseverance.
24
Misinformation’s power
Extreme views dominate online, but it’s possible to fight back.
30
The climate crisis
How can Binghamton survive, and even thrive, in a warmer world?
36
Virtual healing
Innovative technologies could reshape rural healthcare.
42
Student research
A prestigious NSF grant supports doctoral candidates’ quests.
3 / Messages from the President and Vice President 4 / News briefs 7 / Faculty accolades 47 / Inventors 48 / In the news
FEDERALLY DESIGNATED RESEARCH CENTERS
New Energy New York
An Economic Development Administration Build Back Better Regional Challenge awardee, Regional Tech Hub designee
Upstate New York Energy Storage Engine
National Science Foundation Regional Innovation Engine designee
Center for Energy-Smart Electronic Systems
A National Science Foundation Industry/University Cooperative Research Center
Developmental Exposure
Alcohol Research Center
A National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism Alcohol Research Center
New York Node of the Next Flex Flexible Hybrid Electronics Manufacturing Institute
A Department of Defense Manufacturing Innovation Institute New York State Center of Excellence
BINGHAMTON’S S3IP CENTER OF EXCELLENCE INCLUDES THE FOLLOWING CENTERS:
Center for Advanced Microelectronics Manufacturing Center for Autonomous Solar Power
Center for Energy-Smart Electronic Systems
Center for Heterogeneous Integration Research in Packaging Integrated Electronics Engineering Center
BINGHAMTON UNIVERSITY
ORGANIZED RESEARCH CENTERS
Center for Advanced Magnetic Resonance Imaging Science
Binghamton Biofilm Research Center
Center of Biomanufacturing for Regenerative Medicine
Center for Biotechnology
Center for Cognitive Applications
Binghamton Center of Complex Systems
Center for Development and Behavioral Neuroscience
Center for Healthcare Systems Engineering
Center for Information Assurance and Cybersecurity
Center for Imaging, Acoustics and Perception Science
Bernard M. & Ruth R. Bass Center for Leadership Studies
Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies
Center for Research in Advanced Sensor Technologies and Environmental Sustainability
Center for Writers
Decker College of Nursing and Health Sciences Office of Research and Scholarship
Natural Global Environmental Change Center
Public Archaeology Facility
Tick-borne Diseases Center
BINGHAMTON UNIVERSITY
INSTITUTES FOR ADVANCED STUDIES
Center for Israel Studies
Center for Korean Studies
Human Rights Institute
Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities
Institute for Asia and Asian Diasporas
Institute for Evolutionary Studies
Institute for Justice and Well-Being
Harriet Tubman Center for the Study of Freedom and Equity
Watson Institute for Systems Excellence
Binghamton University offers students a broad, interdisciplinary education with an international perspective and one of the most vibrant research programs in the nation. Binghamton, designated an R1 “very high research” institution by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, is consistently ranked among the top 50 public colleges in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. The campus serves more than 18,000 students annually and has more than 150,000 alumni.
EDITORIAL
EDITOR
Rachel Coker, researchmag@binghamton.edu
ART DIRECTION AND DESIGN
Martha P. Terry
PHOTOGRAPHERS
Jonathan Cohen and Van Zandbergen Photography
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Shawn Ammann, Anthony Borrelli, Ethan Knox, Chris Kocher, Jennifer Micale and Scott Sasina
COPY EDITORS
Eric Coker, Carolyn Haley and John Toon
MAGAZINE TEMPLATE DESIGN
Binghamton University Creative Services Department
ILLUSTRATORS
Martha P. Terry and iStock.com artists Leontura, FangXiaNuo, Natalya Burova, Afry Harvy, Pavel Naumov, vectornation, 13ree_design, davit85, pe-art, Sensvector, Pilawan Rapeepunpienpen, gremlin, natrot, DrAfter123, PeopleImages, vectorwin, filo, Nadiinko, Giorgi Gogitidze and Warchi
POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Binghamton Research, Office of Research Advancement, PO Box 6000, Binghamton, NY 13902-6000.
Member of University Research Magazine Association
Welcome
FROM THE PRESIDENT
When I talk to faculty and staff across the University about their work, I’m always amazed by the breadth of research that’s happening on campus. I think you’ll find that to be true in this issue, with stories on topics such as drug discovery, misinformation, climate change and the use of artificial intelligence in fields ranging from art to engineering.
There are different ways to measure a university’s success and capability in providing an environment in which research activities thrive. Binghamton checks some of those boxes in impressive ways, with its R1 “very high research activity” designation from the Carnegie Classification and a record $68.5 million in research expenditures in 2023–24.
I am, however, most proud of the boundless curiosity, energy and innovation that come directly from Binghamton’s faculty and staff. They are doing the vital work that’s going to lead to new discoveries that make our world better, more equitable and more prepared to take on the challenges of the future. The creativity of Binghamton’s researchers is their greatest asset and I’m excited to see where their quest for knowledge leads us next.
Harvey G. Stenger
FROM THE VICE PRESIDENT FOR RESEARCH
I became a researcher in part because I wanted to do work that would benefit society in some way. And as I consider the kinds of projects highlighted in this year’s research magazine, I think it’s fair to say that a similar inspiration drives many members of our innovative community at Binghamton as well. That’s the impetus for our work related to battery R&D. It animates our efforts to improve rural healthcare access. It’s also evident in the patents received by faculty researchers and in the projects our doctoral candidates are pursuing with support from the National Science Foundation.
When you see all of these people come together, it’s hard not to be hopeful about the future. Potentially life-saving treatments are percolating in labs all over campus. Artists and economists and social workers are dreaming up creative responses to the challenges of our warming planet. And we’re welcoming new generations of researchers into the whole enterprise, too.
I invite you to learn more about research at Binghamton, and I hope you’ll feel smarter and more optimistic after spending some time with this publication.
Bahgat Sammakia
BATTERY INNOVATION AT BINGHAMTON
Q&A with Nobel laureate M. Stanley Whittingham
Several exciting new federal initiatives aim to put upstate New York on the map as a hub for battery innovation and manufacturing. They have roots in the lithium-ion battery research of M. Stanley Whittingham, a SUNY distinguished professor and Nobel laureate in chemistry.
Q: What’s the key concept behind the battery innovation projects here?
Whittingham: We’re moving a lot of our research away from fundamental to how do we build an American economy? And how do we make it sustainable? No nasty chemicals, recycling everything. I call my lab “focused.” It’s not fundamental for fundamental’s sake. The R&D is what’s called use-inspired. You have some target.
Q: Are you encouraged by what you see happening nationally?
A: Built in America by Americans. That’s really our goal. What I’m pushing is a sustainable ecosystem. That includes EVs and clean energy generation, which means grid storage. We’re trying to make things cleaner. Trying to remove elements out of the batteries that give us problems, like cobalt. And one of the driving forces these days is batteries that use minerals that are available in the continent. So, each continent should supply its own minerals.
Q: What distinguishes the efforts at Binghamton from other projects?
A: One thing we’re doing is providing a prototyping, testing facility. It’s a service organization between pioneering research, whether it’s academic or industry, and full commercialization. If a company has a great new idea, they want to make a thousand batteries to test or give to potential customers. They’ll do it here instead of in South Korea or China.
Q: What technology challenges are you addressing?
A: What we’re looking to do is put more energy density in a given volume and weight, which would make the battery cheaper and smaller. We also want to get rid of the graphite in the anode, because it takes up half the volume of the cell. A lot of people are looking at putting maybe silicon in there; we’re looking at putting pure lithium in there again. Bottom line, we want to improve national security and economic development here.
— RACHEL COKER
Binghamton University-led initiatives focused on battery innovation and manufacturing include:
Designation as one of 10 inaugural National Science Foundation Regional Innovation Engines in January 2024.
A U.S. Economic Development Administration (EDA) designation as a federal Battery Tech Hub in October 2023.
An EDA Build Back Better Regional Challenge award in September 2022.
Binghamton is the only university in the country to receive all three designations. The projects, undertaken with dozens of academic, industry and government partners, aim to advance the U.S. as a global competitor in lithium-ion batteries, strengthen the battery supply chain and expand jobs across a wide swath of upstate New York.
Find the Upstate New York Energy Storage Engine online at upstatenyengine.org and look for the Tech Hub and BBBRC projects, named New Energy New York, at newenergynewyork.com.
Binghamton’s battery innovation efforts are rooted in the expertise of M. Stanley Whittingham, winner of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
STUTTERING BIAS AFFECTS CAREER ADVICE, SURVEY FINDS
People are less likely to recommend someone who stutters for a job if they believe the position requires strong communication skills, according to a study conducted by researchers in Binghamton’s Decker College of Nursing and Health Sciences.
People unfamiliar with stuttering tend to think that people who stutter are less intelligent, confident and capable communicators. This perception limits career opportunities for people who stutter, says Cody Dew, an assistant professor of speech and language pathology and the study’s lead author.
Rodney Gabel, professor and founding director of Decker’s Division of Speech and Language Pathology, co-authored the study, “How Perceived Communication Skills Needed for Careers Influences Vocational Stereotyping of People Who Stutter,” published in February 2024 in the Journal of Fluency Disorders. Dew and Gabel gathered data from 192 Binghamton
Cody Dew, himself a person who stutters, conducts research related to discrimination faced by those with fluency disorders.
faculty, staff and students who completed a survey, rating the communication skills required to be successful in 43 careers.
The study found that people who stutter were advised against pursuing work that is frequently seen to involve communication in stressful situations, such as judge, attorney, parole officer and physician. Instead, careers with fewer communication demands were recommended.
The research suggests that openness and selfdisclosure play significant roles in countering job-related stereotypes.
“We know that things like humor and self-disclosure — telling people ‘I stutter’ and then educating them about what that means — can change a person’s perspective,” Dew says. “Research shows that we can shift a person’s perspective from: ‘Oh, this person is stuttering because they are very anxious and not a good talker’ to ‘Oh, this person stutters, and that’s just the way they talk.’”
Study reveals nuances of modern courtship
“Are you two dating?”
“No, we’re just talking.”
It’s a common phrase used by college students to describe a relationship, but what exactly does “just talking” mean?
According to new research from Binghamton University, “just talking” allows college students to build intimacy in an environment where openly seeking emotional connection and romantic relationships is stigmatized. It’s not a hookup it’s about getting to know each other.
“Nearly everybody is familiar with the phrase ‘just talking,’” says Melissa Hardesty, co-investigator at Binghamton’s Human Sexualities Lab. “Some of the common themes are that ‘just talking’ is ‘a label without a label,’ it’s ‘not exclusive,’ and it’s a way of getting to know somebody, possibly for the purpose of starting a relationship or, conversely, for the purpose of avoiding a relationship while still engaging in relationship-like activities.”
The study reveals that romantic relationships may be more important to college students than what people may assume, says Hardesty, an associate professor of social work.
To investigate what “just talking” means, the lab surveyed 403 undergraduates. The results allowed the researchers to identify broad themes before they held a set of focus groups.
“It’s striking to me that students have difficulty recognizing courtship, which is a process rather than a status,” Hardesty says. “I think this may be because a sex and gender-integrated social environment allows people to meet potential partners without a formal courtship strategy in place.”
The research team’s paper was published in February 2024 by Emerging Adulthood.
Melissa Hardesty
Engineer Seokheun
“Sean” Choi and his team aim to develop bacteria-powered biobatteries with a 100-year shelf life.
Self-powered
‘bugs’ could run on bacteria
Futurists predict that more than a trillion autonomous nodes will be integrated into human activities by 2035 as part of the “internet of things.” Soon, pretty much any object — big or small — will feed information to a central database without the need for human involvement.
But 71% of the Earth’s surface is covered in water, and aquatic environments pose critical environmental and logistical issues. To consider these challenges, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has started a program called the Ocean of Things.
Seokheun “Sean” Choi, a professor of electrical and computer engineering, along with Anwar Elhadad, PhD ’24, and doctoral student Yang “Lexi” Gao, developed a self-powered “bug” that can skim across the water, and they hope it will revolution ize aquatic robotics.
During the past decade, Choi has received funding from the Office of Naval Research to develop bacteria-powered biobatteries with a possible 100-year shelf life.
The new aquatic robots use similar technology. A Janus interface, which is hydrophilic on one side and hydrophobic on the other, lets in nutrients from the water and keeps them inside the device to fuel bacterial spore production.
“When the environment is favorable for the bacteria, they become vegetative cells and generate power,” Choi says, “but when the conditions are not favorable — for example, it’s really cold or the nutrients are not available — they go back to spores. In that way, we can extend the operational life.”
The Binghamton team’s research showed power generation close to 1 milliwatt, which is enough to operate the robot’s mechanical movement and sensors that could track environmental data such as water temperature, pollution levels and behaviors of aquatic animals.
EXPERIMENTAL FILMMAKER ARIANA GERSTEIN
WINS GUGGENHEIM FELLOWSHIP
Binghamton filmmaker Ariana Gerstein received a 2024 fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.
The awards are highly competitive; this year’s 188 fellows were selected from among some 3,000 applicants. Gerstein has tentative plans to complete two projects during the fellowship: a film and an installation linked to an unpublished manuscript by her grandfather Elias Sevillia.
A native of Athens, Greece, who lived from 1905 to 1979, Sevillia was from a large Sephardic Jewish family with few resources. The manuscript details his experiences, and those of Gerstein’s grandmother, who had an
Austrian and Catholic background, between, during and after major wars and civil conflicts.
“The ensuing work will not be an illustration of the manuscript,” Gerstein says. “Rather the work will be in dialogue with it and an exploration of a process of understanding.”
Gerstein, who joined Binghamton’s faculty in 1999, earned her bachelor’s degree from Binghamton and her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
She uses nontraditional methods for making movies. Doing so, she says, offers opportunities to digress, reconsider, recycle, complicate and slow down — affecting the way
we represent our world and our relationships.
She anticipates creating an experimental documentary with a variety of media approaches — from 16mm film to digital video — with different camera technologies, paper collage and sewn animation on fabric. The installation component will use projection in some way.
“Engaging in an artistic process that allows for distillation, new connections and expression is so important,” Gerstein says. “Media frames an argument and transforms information. It isn’t just an invisible delivery system. There is no ultimate truth or blank slate.”
Ariana Gerstein draws on family history for her new documentary project.
KARIN SAUER NAMED FELLOW
OF AMERICAN ACADEMY OF MICROBIOLOGY
Binghamton University researcher Karin Sauer is among 65 scientists elected as Fellows of the American Academy of Microbiology this year.
Fellows are elected by their peers based on their scientific achievements and contributions to the field of microbiology.
Sauer’s lab aims to find ways to control communities of bacteria called biofilms and to curb their extraordinary resistance to antimicrobial agents. The team’s findings could impact a wide range of healthcare practices, from ear infections to wound care.
“I’m honored and excited by this recognition of my career to date,” says Sauer, co-founder of one of the largest American biofilm research groups. “I think the next decade will see some tremendous progress in applying our work to improve human health, especially for people who have surgically implanted medical devices.”
Sauer, who earned a doctorate from the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology in Germany, joined Binghamton’s faculty in 2003. A recent Stanford University study that looks at the impact of scientists worldwide named Sauer among the top 2% of researchers in her field. Sauer has brought about $13 million in research grants to Binghamton.
A first-generation immigrant scholar, she says mentoring the next generation of scientists is especially important to her. She’s a founding faculty member of Binghamton’s First-year Research Immersion program, co-director of a Research Experiences for Undergraduates summer program, and a mentor for students in the Bridges to the Baccalaureate and McNair Scholars programs.
“My approach to mentoring and to diversity is simple,” Sauer says. “It’s about cultivating a culture where all can bring their authentic selves to work.”
Karin Sauer’s research centers on biofilms and curbing their resistance to antibiotics.
Siyuan Rao’s research may help people living with spinal cord injuries.
ENGINEER SIYUAN RAO WINS NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION CAREER AWARD
Siyuan Rao, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, received a National Science Foundation CAREER Award in fall 2023. It’s the agency’s most prestigious award for early-career researchers.
Her project is titled “CAREER: Multifunctional Soft Neural Probes for Elucidating Spinal Cord Injury Pathophysiology.” She aims to create a soft device technology to study the spinal cord system using light, electricity, drug and virus gene carriers. Rao also plans to establish
methods to investigate the nervous system and develop therapeutics for nervous system dysfunction.
“Most of the current neurotechnology for the spinal cord system relies on directly injecting electricity into the tissues,” she says. “However, this type of electrical approach is inadequate to find out which type of cells contributes to injury recovery because electricity affects all the neurons in certain areas without selection.”
Rao, who earned her doctorate in materials physics and chemistry at Beihang University in China, was a postdoctoral fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology before joining Binghamton’s faculty in 2023. She is also a recipient of the National Institutes of Health’s Pathway to Independence Award and Air Force Office of Scientific Research Young Investigator Award.
Her latest research, published in Nature Methods and Nature Communications, outlines a durable hydrogel for light delivery in mouse models as well as the chemistry and fabrication methods for miniaturizing and integrating multiple components into brain bioelectronics. Hydrogels resemble living tissue because of their water content, softness, flexibility and biocompatibility.
“Using this soft material, we are creating a multifunctional neural probe that can deliver light into brain tissue and also record neural activity,” Rao says. “A new technology called optogenetics uses light to control neural cells. By activating or inhibiting brain activity, we hope to dissect the mechanism of neurological disorders.”
artificial intelligence age of in the work
whose jobs are at risk? than you might think.
the answer is more complicated
by chris kocher
for years, workplaces have relied on a certain level of artificial intelligence to perform specific tasks, such as analyzing data, predicting patterns or automating routine processes.
The rise of generative AI, which can create new content, has accelerated both business investments and interest from society at large. Rather than just sorting preexisting information, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s DeepMind and other contenders can generate new text, images and video based on written prompts.
Many corporations, especially tech giants, see AI as a path to increased efficiency and higher profits. Critics point to concerns about fake results (known as “hallucinations”), copyright infringement (due to large-scale data scraping of text and images that are recombined into “new” results), and how workers will cope in this new environment. If AI can
produce something as good as what humans do, how many of us will end up unemployed?
Binghamton University researchers are examining AI from a variety of angles — how to improve it, the best ways to implement it and what we’re getting out of it.
a new landscape for this AI ‘boom’
Carlos Gershenson-Garcia, a SUNY Empire Innovation Professor, has studied AI, artificial life and complex systems for the past two decades. When surveying the current “AI boom,” he steps back for a moment and offers some historical perspective: “There always has been this tendency to think that breakthroughs are closer than they really are. People get disappointed and research funding stops, then it takes a decade to start up again. That creates what are called ‘AI winters.’”
Carlos
Gershenson-Garcia, a SUNY Empire Innovation Professor at Binghamton, says people tend to think technological breakthroughs are closer than they really are.
He points to frustrations with machine translation and early artificial neural networks in the 1960s, and the failure of so-called “expert systems” — meant to emulate the decision-making ability of human experts — to deliver on promised advances in the 1990s.
“The big difference is that today the largest companies are IT companies, when in the ’60s and ’90s they were oil companies or banks, and then car companies. All of it was still industrial,” says Gershenson-Garcia, a faculty member in the School of Systems Science and Industrial Engineering, part of the Thomas J. Watson College of Engineering and Applied Science. “Today, all the richest companies are processing information.”
With breakthroughs in large language models such as ChatGPT, some futurists have speculated that AI can do the work of secretaries or law clerks, but Gershenson-Garcia sees that prediction as premature.
“In some cases, because this technology will simplify processes, you will be able to do the same thing with fewer people assisted by computers,” he says. “There will be very few cases where you will be
able to take the humans out of the loop. There will be many more cases where you cannot get rid of any humans in the loop.”
As for generating images and doing design work, GershensonGarcia compares AI to the rise of photography in the mid-19th century. For centuries, painters would try to capture a true likeness of the subject. Once photos could do that, it freed 20th-century artists to explore more radical ideas, such as Impressionism or Cubism, and photography evolved into an art form of its own.
“I don’t think it will be the end of art, but more an exploration of art in areas that technology still cannot reproduce properly,” he says. “On the other hand, there also will be new art in collaboration with computers. It will be the same in other disciplines — science, gaming, entertainment, medicine. I think it will be interesting.”
re-evaluating the creative process
What would a good working relationship with AI look like? Christopher Swift, an assistant professor in Binghamton’s
“in some cases, because this technology will simplify processes, you will be able to do the same thing with fewer people assisted by computers. there will be very few cases where you will be able to take the humans out of the loop.”
— Carlos Gershenson-Garcia, School of Systems Science and Industrial Engineering
Department of Art and Design, focuses his research on human and nonhuman collaborations in the creative process. His latest project, “Speculative Anthropology of the Unknown and Maybe,” explores creating with machine learning models as a new collaborative process that decenters the graphic designer as the primary maker.
“Very often, creative people see themselves as a unique, fantastic idea machine, as opposed to being part of this incredible network of collaborators, the history of culture and the tools we use,” he says. “Very often, we’re not as central or at the top of the hierarchy as we think we are. My work encourages people to look at this wider ecology where we exist and be a little bit more humble.”
Unlike some artists and writers, Swift is not focused on copyright issues, since even humans “don’t come up with ideas from nothing.” He also disagrees that something generated by AI has less value than a piece made by human hands: “The idea that the text given to an image generator or large language model can’t produce something I would call ‘creative,’ that captures my
imagination and makes me think in a different way, is a misunderstanding of the creative process and our role in it.”
Swift points out that AI and robots have been taking jobs from humans for the past few decades, mainly in the manufacturing and warehouse sectors. Only now that creative roles are threatened — such as writing, editing, photography and design — are white-collar professionals concerned about their future employment.
“Most of the critiques I’ve heard about AI and how it’s going to affect the workplace are not about AI — they’re critiques of capitalism in general,” he says. “Yes, it’s going to take away people’s jobs, and we have nothing in place to ameliorate that. It is going to devastate entire industries — that is 100% true. But it’s a mistake to say that is because of AI, as opposed to saying this is what corporations do with any new technology.”
cutting jobs vs. optimizing the workforce
Surinder Kahai, an associate professor in the School of Management, agrees that how business leaders
implement AI is at least as important as what it can do, if not more so.
Over his 33-year career at Binghamton, Kahai has focused on the intersection of leadership and technology through the lens of management information systems (MIS). During that time, workplaces have evolved from local area networks (LANs) all in one room or building to employees working remotely from all over the world using the internet and supported by powerful computing platforms, many of which rely on AI.
Kahai says managers see two choices regarding AI: Cut jobs to boost the bottom line in the short term, or optimize AI as a tool that can improve productivity and quality in the long term.
Who will be at risk? The answer is more complicated than you might think.
“Companies may believe they do not need as many higher-skilled people,” he says. “Very often, we think that AI will affect lower-skilled people, but lower-skilled people cost less. If you can make them more effective and move them up the learning curve more quickly, then why hire higher-skilled people?
“ai systems distribute the knowledge of higher-skilled people to lower-skilled people. if the work situation does not change, then the knowledge you have harvested from higher-skilled people can be used and reused for eternity.”
— Surinder Kahai, School of Management
This way, you save money.
“The downside is that AI systems distribute the knowledge of higherskilled people to lower-skilled people. If the work situation does not change, then the knowledge you have harvested from higher-skilled people can be used and reused for eternity. If the world and the business situation change, you still need those higher-skilled people — but maybe you need fewer of them.”
While generative AI raises some ethical concerns — especially when it lifts content from copyrighted sources or presents “hallucinations” as facts — it also can be a tool for roleplay situations to develop ourselves as leaders.
“You can go to ChatGPT and say: ‘Pretend you are an employee who has proven to be difficult,’ then give it a scenario and ask it to engage with you,” Kahai says. “You can practice how to be a good leader in such a situation, and then you can ask it to evaluate you. It can do that quite effectively.”
when humans and robots work together
If humans and AI are going to get along well, they need a
common language, or must at least share common ground about problem-solving.
Shiqi Zhang, an associate professor at Watson College’s School of Computing, studies the intersection of AI and robotics, and he especially wants to ensure that service robots work smoothly alongside humans in collaborative environments.
There’s just one problem — and it’s a big one: “Robots and humans don’t work well with each other right now,” he says. “They don’t trust each other. Humans don’t know what robots can do, and robots have no idea about the role of humans.”
Zhang and his team focus on everyday scenarios — such as homes, hospitals, airports and shopping centers — with three primary themes: robot decisionmaking, human–robot interaction and robot task-motion planning. Zhang uses language and graphics to show how the AI makes decisions and why humans should trust those decisions.
“AI’s robot system is not transparent,” he says. “When the robot is trying to do something, humans have no idea how it makes the decision. Sometimes humans are too
optimistic about robots, and sometimes it’s the other way round — so one way or the other, it’s not a good ecosystem for a human–robot team.”
One question for software and hardware designers improving AI–human collaborations is how much information needs to be shared back and forth to optimize productivity. There should be enough so that humans can make informed decisions, but not so much that they are overwhelmed with unnecessary information.
Zhang is experimenting with augmented reality (AR), which allows users to perceive the real world overlaid with computer-generated information. Unlike the entirely computer-generated experience of virtual reality (VR), someone on a factory floor stacked with boxes and crates could pull out a tablet or put on a pair of AR-enhanced glasses to learn where the robots are, so that accidents can be avoided.
“Because these robots are closely working with people, safety becomes a huge issue,” Zhang says. “How do we make sure the robot is close enough to provide services but keeping its distance to follow social norms and be safe? There is no
standard way to enable this kind of communication. Humans talk to each other in natural language, and we use gestures and nonverbal cues, but how do we get robots to understand?”
when it comes to AI, specific is best
If your workplace falls under the science or research realm, or if you do anything that involves combing through large amounts of data, AI can be a valuable tool for sorting everything at lightning speed. That is, if the algorithm is designed correctly.
Alexey Kolmogorov, a professor of physics, has been developing the Module for Ab Initio Structure Evolution (MAISE) simulation package for 15 years. At the intersection of physics, materials science and computer science, MAISE uses an evolutionary algorithm for finding stable crystal structures and a neural network module for modeling interatomic interactions.
Kolmogorov recalls that using AI for materials research hit a wall in the early 2000s because it proved difficult to translate information about atomic structure into something that the learning machine would understand. Later in the decade, the materials modeling community figured out how to parse structural information and feed it to neural networks. Those AIs, inspired by the human brain, offered the flexibility to construct general interaction models automatically with little human input.
“Whenever we come up with a machine-learning prediction, we still check it,” he says. “Once you narrow down the pool of possible candidates, now it becomes feasible to test it with the best possible available methods. In my group, we published papers that I believe to be the first examples where neural
Shiqi Zhang, an associate professor in the School of Computing, wants to ensure that service robots work smoothly alongside humans in collaborative environments.
network potentials were used to predict compounds that are truly stable.”
Exploring the chemical world guided by machine-learning models has the potential to change the way we discover new materials.
“Neural networks developed with MAISE accelerated the traditional structure search process a hundred fold,” Kolmogorov says. “This enabled us to screen over 3 million compounds in a year and identify dozens of previously overlooked materials.”
While he is enthusiastic about the possibilities for accelerated exploration using AI designed for
specific purposes like chemistry, accounting or healthcare, Kolmogorov remains doubtful of general AI models.
“It is incredible to see how far machine learning has advanced since I first used it in my Ph.D. research over 25 years ago,” he says, “but major breakthroughs are needed to make artificial general intelligence a reality.”
AI merely adding ‘more noise and detail’
Stephanie Tulk Jesso, an assistant professor at Watson College’s SSIE School, shares those doubts. She researches human–AI interaction
and more general ideas of humancentered design — in short, asking people what they want from a product, rather than just forcing them to use something unsuitable for the task.
“I’ve never seen any successful approaches to incorporating AI to make any work better for anyone ever,” she says. “Granted, I haven’t seen everything under the sun — but in my own experience, AI just means having to dig through more noise and detail. It’s not adding anything of real value.”
Tulk Jesso believes there are many problems with greater reliance on AI in the workplace. One is that
State initiative aims to advance AI research
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul launched an initiative named Empire AI in April 2024. A consortium of public and private universities in New York will establish a state-of-the-art artificial intelligence computing center at the University at Buffalo. With $400 million in public and private funding, the effort will facilitate innovation, research and development of AI technologies.
The Empire AI partnership includes the State University of New York (of which Binghamton and Buffalo are a part), the City University of New York, Columbia University, Cornell University, New York University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the Simons Foundation.
Binghamton faculty members are already working on a number of projects that use AI to tackle important societal issues. These range from protecting power systems from malicious attacks to developing a robotic seeing-eye dog for people who are blind.
Jeremy Blackburn, associate professor in the School of Computing at Binghamton, studies what he calls “socio-technical problems,” things like mis- and
disinformation, harassment campaigns, extremism and online risks to children.
“We leverage AI to gain large-scale, quantitative understanding of these problems,” he says. “Empire AI is particularly helpful in my research because it has become impractical to manage the hardware necessary to perform analysis on the billions of data points my work explores at the lab or even university level. Empire AI will allow us to use cuttingedge models and techniques to gain in-depth understanding that would otherwise be impossible.”
Empire AI aims to enable New York’s research institutions to pioneer safe, equitable and accessible AI R&D that will benefit the public good and the state economy. It’s the first time this kind of computing power will be in the hands of public and research-focused institutions.
Jeremy Blackburn
Stephanie Tulk Jesso, an assistant professor of systems science and industrial engineering, has concerns about greater reliance on AI in the workplace.
many tech experts are overselling — AI should be a tool, rather than a replacement for human employees. Another is how it’s often designed without understanding the job it’s meant to do, making it harder for employees rather than easier.
Lawsuits about copyrighted materials “scraped” and repurposed from the internet remain unresolved, and environmentalists have climate concerns about how much energy generative AI requires to run. Among the ethical concerns are “digital sweatshops” in developing countries where workers train AI models while enduring harsh conditions and low pay.
Tulk Jesso also sees AI as too unreliable for important tasks. Earlier this year, for instance, Google’s AI suggested adding glue to pizza to help the cheese stick better, as well as eating a small rock daily as part of a healthy diet.
Fundamentally, she says, we just don’t know enough about AI and how it works: “Steel is a design material. We test steel in a laboratory. We
know the tensile strength and all kinds of details about that material. AI should be the same thing, but if we’re putting it into something based on a lot of assumptions, we’re not setting ourselves up for great success.”
Despite AI’s limitations, corporations worried about keeping pace with competitors — and, of course, making a profit — are ramping up AI integration, regardless of whether it’s shown to have any great benefit. Because technology moves faster than legislation, it’s also unclear how AI should be regulated.
“There needs to be some kind of enforcer. I don’t know if that’s coming from lawmakers right now, and I don’t know if it ever can be codified into laws,” Tulk Jesso says. “We may need to rely on social laws — the way that we say, ‘No, you’re not putting that into my workspace, and if you do that, I’m going to quit, or I’m going to unionize and I’m going to fight this. I need to have some way to control my own environment.’”
“steel is a design material. we test steel in a laboratory. AI should be the same thing, but if we’re putting it into something based on a lot of assumptions, we’re not setting ourselves up for great success.”
— Stephanie Tulk Jesso, School of Systems Science and Industrial Engineering
CRAFTING CURES THE SCIENCE OF DRUG DISCOVERY
By Scott Sasina
From Aspirin to Zyrtec, every medication we use today started in the same place — it had to be discovered. Simply put, drug discovery is the process of identifying and characterizing molecules that have the potential to treat diseases safely. That process is a marathon, not a sprint. It might take 10 or even 20 years to bring a drug to the public. A pair of Binghamton researchers recently made it all the way to the finish line with a muscular dystrophy treatment. Others are conducting studies that could improve outcomes for cancer patients. And across campus, even undergraduates are being introduced to this painstaking work.
In October 2023, a new drug called vamorolone, developed by professors from Binghamton’s School
of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, received Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for the treatment of patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, or DMD.
Kanneboyina Nagaraju, dean and professor of pharmaceutical sciences, and Eric Hoffman, professor of pharmaceutical sciences and associate dean for research, spent nearly two decades developing vamorolone. In December 2023, vamorolone became the first drug to receive full approval for treating people with DMD throughout Europe.
DMD, a genetic disease, affects about one in 5,000 baby boys worldwide. Characterized by a loss of the dystrophin protein in muscle tissues, the disease leads to progressive weakness and challenges in everyday life. DMD is caused by a gene on the X chromosome that mothers can pass on to their sons.
“DMD is the most common genetic disease affecting all world populations,” says Hoffman, who began working on translational research on DMD in 1985. He first identified dystrophin as a postdoctoral fellow at Boston Children’s Hospital.
In a double-blind, placebocontrolled trial in 121 boys with DMD, ages 4 to under 7 years, vamorolone increased strength and mobility relative to a placebo.
“When Eric and I started on this process
about 20 years ago, we focused on children’s muscular dystrophy because there wasn’t a drug approved to treat these children,” Nagaraju says. “There was a real need to help them and we wanted to make a difference. I believe we’ve done that.”
Dissociative steroidal drugs retain the anti-inflammatory and immunosuppressive effects of steroids. Vamorolone is the first of these drugs able to separate the benefit of the glucocorticoid class of drugs from some of their key side effects, such as bone and growth disturbances, Nagaraju says.
“My laboratory tested vamorolone in mouse models of DMD over 10 years ago,” he adds, “and this provided the preclinical data to advance the drug to human trials.”
Nagaraju says early treatment of a progressive disease such as DMD is critical.
“If I have to develop a treatment, it is hard to treat somebody who has already lost the ability to walk and try to help them regain it versus treating them before they lose that ability,” Nagaraju explains. “For example, when they’re 8 months old, there may be two things wrong, but when they’re 8 years old, there may be a million things wrong. The earlier you can start the treatment, the more likely you are to see success.”
Kanneboyina Nagaraju, dean and professor of pharmaceutical sciences at Binghamton, worked with colleagues for nearly two decades to develop a medication that recently won FDA approval.
“Drug discovery requires collaboration between many different scientists with different expertise. It’s never just one scientist working alone in their lab.”
— NathanTumey, associate professor of pharmaceutical sciences
It takes a team
The drug development process includes much more than just testing: It involves preclinical research, clinical research, FDA drug review and FDA post-market drug safety monitoring. Each step requires different teams of people to ensure a drug is safe and effective.
“Drug discovery requires collaboration between many different scientists with different expertise. It’s never just one scientist working alone in their lab. It’s always a team of people,” says Nathan Tumey, an associate professor of pharmaceutical sciences at Binghamton with more than 20 years of experience in the field.
“Even within my team, for example, we have immunology experts, we have synthetic chemists, we have bioanalytical chemists and we have students from biomedical engineering,” he says. “It’s a wide variety of different people, even within the little niche of drug discovery that my lab is involved in. We have a broad area of expertise, and all of us have to work together on a given project.”
Tumey came to the University in 2017 after more than a dozen years in the pharmaceutical industry. For 15 years, his research has focused on antibody-drug conjugates. This technology uses an antibody to bind to a protein on the surface of a cancer cell. Upon binding to the cell, the antibody conjugate is processed by cancer cell machinery to release the toxic drug — which ultimately kills the cancer cell — similar to a molecular Trojan horse. Tumey’s lab focuses on applying this technology to immune-modulating drugs that may have applications beyond cancer, including rheumatoid arthritis, lupus and Crohn’s disease.
While a lot of good ideas are being discovered at universities like Binghamton, Tumey says, they all need a helping hand from industry partners to get off the ground.
“Drug discovery can only go so far in an academic world,” Tumey says. “You can look at Nagaraju and Hoffman’s work with vamorolone and say, ‘They invented this drug.’ Yes, but it was really put forward through a company they founded and then partnered with. It wouldn’t have happened without that support. There’s no way that academia alone is going to be able to get therapeutic products on
“Drug discovery is a complicated and difficult process. That’s one thing we’re trying to teach the students early on.”
— Patricia Wolfe, research educator with Binghamton’s First-year Research
the market. We have to partner with these private-sector entities.”
Tumey collaborates with several companies internationally.
“Developing relationships with these companies and fostering those industrial collaborations is really critical for the success of our projects but it also opens up opportunities for our students,” Tumey says. “Most of our students in the pharmaceutical sciences program want to find jobs in the pharmaceutical industry. Having those collaborations now while they’re still in academia, that’s something I never had back in grad school, but it’s really a nice opportunity for them that may open the door for unique and exciting biopharma careers.”
Revolutionizing chemotherapy
Across campus, Ming An looks to improve chemotherapy by using pH-sensitive linkers to enhance targeted drug release and reduce cardiotoxicity, or heart damage arising from cancer treatment.
“I’m trying to reverse the pH profile of doxorubicin or really any immediate drug,” says An, an associate professor of chemistry. “The central idea of the project is that I have a linker; I link the chemotherapy drug with something polar to try to keep it out of the cell. But that’s easier said than done.”
While chemotherapy has proved effective for treating cancer, An says the long-term side effects and cardiotoxicity limit its therapeutic window.
“If I have a drug, in this case doxorubicin, a well-known chemotherapy drug used by more than a million people per year basically with significant side effects, especially cardiotoxicity, that limits its therapy — the therapeutic window or therapeutic index,” he explains. “It’s practically nonexistent because the dose you need for efficacy causes severe cardiotoxic effects for the rest of the individual’s life.”
If An’s research, which is still in its early stages, is successful, it could help millions of people worldwide.
“The idea is to have a technology platform to improve existing chemotherapy using an ultra-acid-sensitive linker that will release the drug in response to tumor acidosis, and most tumors are acidotic,” he says.
Introducing undergrads to the process
Faculty and graduate students aren’t the only ones doing drug discovery research on Binghamton’s campus. The First-year Research Immersion (FRI) allows undergraduates to combine academic studies with real research experience.
FRI students work in “research streams,” series of courses dedicated to fields in science or engineering. They’re led by a research educator and a team of three to five faculty collaborators. Each research stream has a dedicated laboratory equipped for its work.
This three-semester program begins with a research methods seminar in the fall of the first year, which is followed by two courses during which students learn research techniques, acquire background on a research
THE ETHICS OF MEDICATION ACCESS
While drug discovery research is vital, it’s also important that drugs reach those who need them. Nicole Hassoun, a professor of philosophy at Binghamton, has studied and written about the ethics of medication access.
“We need to address the social determinants of health — those are the factors that make it so that people are kind of at high risk in the first place,” Hassoun says. “Hospitals and workers need to have all the supplies and infrastructure to actually get the vaccines in arms when a pandemic hits. You can’t just create a vaccine and then give it to people who can’t distribute it.”
Help should start by looking at the basics of what it means to have a healthy community and environment. The economic status of a country also plays a large role, according to Hassoun.
“Most of the research and development dollars are going toward drugs or diseases that affect people in rich countries because we can continue to purchase things like allergy medicines forever. Even HIV gets a lot more funding than tuberculosis or malaria because people in richer countries suffer from those diseases,” she says. “So that’s not in line with the global burden of disease; it’s is not aligned with the need. And that’s true even for international aid efforts. Knowing that is really important, and it’s important to hold companies to account.”
Using the COVID-19 pandemic as an example, Hassoun highlights the difference between rich
question and follow through on the initial phases of a real research problem.
“Drug discovery is a complicated and difficult process. That’s one thing we’re trying to teach the students early on,” says Patricia Wolfe, research educator for the FRI drug discovery research stream.
Wolfe adds that students in the drug discovery stream are looking for different places where a drug that has already been approved for one illness might be used to treat a different condition.
“We could add to the arsenal that physicians have with fewer, shorter timeframes because these drugs have already been approved
“Some of the problems of vaccine equity probably increased total global death rates.”
—
Nicole Hassoun, professor of philosophy
and poor countries in their ability to vaccinate their populations quickly.
“Some of the problems of vaccine equity probably increased total global death rates,” she says. “How can we prevent that in the future? How can we ensure that everyone has timely access to vaccines? I think that’s what the Pandemic [Preparedness] Treaty is and what it’s aiming to do. How can we create a mechanism that will actually succeed in that?”
Hassoun says we need to recognize both our successes and failures in addressing various global diseases.
“If we don’t know where we’re succeeding and failing, we can’t ask questions like, ‘Why are we succeeding in some places and not in others? What can we do to enhance global health impact? Can we come up with more effective medicines or should we expand treatment coverage? Are we targeting the biggest problems because there’s a great mismatch in terms of impact and funding?’”
by the FDA,” she says. “Some students are looking into common combinations, looking for synergy that might be helpful with autoimmune disease or cancer.”
Among other lessons, the undergraduates in Wolfe’s stream learn that perseverance and patience are critical to the work.
“Drug discovery is not an easy process,” Nagaraju says. “It takes dedication and can be very frustrating at times. But our students are some of the brightest minds in the country. I have no doubt they have the passion and drive to be successful and make discoveries that will change the world.”
The lure of the ‘misinformation funnel’
Researchers examine impact of extreme views
By Anthony Borrelli
oliticians make an incendiary remark that’s replayed and discussed on TV news networks for days. Over-the-top social media posts rack up reactions and a flow of sometimes-heated commentary. Misleading headlines entice readers to click or even share a link without having read the article at all.
In crowded mediums driven by clicks and shares, extreme or eccentric content and viewpoints can easily dominate the conversation. But is being the proverbial “loudest in the room” always a good thing?
Researchers from the Watson College of Engineering and Applied Sciences and the School of Management at Binghamton confronted this question in a study examining
the power of extreme or eccentric viewpoints. Specifically, researchers focused on how society, social interactions, and information exposure play dominant roles in building or altering opinions.
Sriniwas Pandey, a lecturer in Binghamton’s School of Computing who helped lead the research, says the study demonstrated that more-eccentric opinions can be necessary to maintain popularity among those who share such beliefs, even if the topic of discussion is not traditionally extreme.
“If you want to get attention about anything, not even a political or religious subject, you will get attention if you say something that’s kind of extreme,” Pandey says. “The
more you see others sharing similar opinions, the more likely it will start cementing your belief in that particular direction.”
The two-year study, supported by the National Science Foundation and later published in the journal Scientific Reports, mostly centered on a spectrum of “eccentric ideas” that could be shared through personal social media channels. But it also found examples in nationally debated subjects such as vaccinations or gun ownership and their impact in areas that include:
• social policy and the increasing desire by people on social networks to be viewed as popular or influential
• the democratic process and how voters respond
• the best ways for groups to collaborate in professional or academic settings
“Just because someone says something crazy or very far to one side, they may get more attention or ‘likes’ on social media, though that doesn’t always mean what they said is meaningful or even true,” Pandey says. “It is very difficult to keep track of eccentricity in a scenario when we are getting caught up in a social bubble, and our neighbors are moving with us together on this ‘eccentricity elevator.’ One of the solutions is to keep checking where you stand by asking yourself, ‘What is happening to my own opinions? What was I saying last year, and where am I right now?’”
Trust but verify
Whether it’s being applied in professional contexts or social media,
Pandey says one of the easiest ways ideas can become more and more eccentric and go astray is when people get swept up in back-andforth commentary by making or responding to statements without verifying their truthfulness.
Thi Tran, assistant professor of management information systems in the School of Management, conducts research about reducing harms from misinformation. He says people generally gravitate toward social media or news content that essentially reaffirms their existing viewpoints. This can make it difficult for people to think critically about what’s being shared.
“When you’re ‘cherry-picking’ a fact, you’re trying to grab only those that you’re in favor of, and that can be made worse when people find that it’s backed up by many similar points online,” Tran says. “This will help make it seem more conventional to readers, even if it’s extreme or untrue, and more readers will jump on board by spreading that information.”
Tran’s research shows there are two types of people who share misinformation: those who spread it intending to mislead and those who do so inadvertently, for example by passing along updates about a developing news event that later are proven inaccurate.
“We should be more concerned about misinformation that will cause harm and understand a person’s motive for spreading it,” Tran says. “Is it because of their bias, political affiliation, or personal experiences? Maybe they had a bad experience from a vaccine that shaped their perception and because of that,
“If you want to get attention about anything, not even a political or religious subject, you will get attention if you say something that’s kind of extreme.”
— Sriniwas Pandey
only want to share bad news about any vaccine. If so, they’ve fallen into the trap: They’re spreading misinformation while influenced by their own situation.”
Putting theory into practice
While it was evident to Pandey and fellow researchers that some high-profile and politically divisive issues lent themselves to generating increasingly stronger opinions, they also wanted to examine if the same could be true of other topics.
Yiding Cao, MA ’16, PhD ’23, who worked on the study while a doctoral student at Watson, says they aimed to translate their subject from a personal setting into a professional one by understanding how a social network structure could affect the collaborative process of an organization.
“We learned how ideas generated from experiment participants could converge or diverge over time from beginning to end,” Cao says, “and that added to our overall understanding of effective collaboration.”
The researchers began by designing an experimental social media platform that bore similarities to Twitter (X). They recruited teams of Binghamton University students from different majors to use it over the course of two weeks.
Students were given two collaboration-based tasks: writing marketing taglines and short fictional stories. They could only see and add comments to ideas posted by those they were linked with.
The study revealed that if someone posts a “normal” idea, it might not gain much traction within the social media network, Cao says.
Sriniwas Pandey, a lecturer in Binghamton’s School of Computing, encourages people to ask themselves: “What is happening to my own opinions? What was I saying last year, and where am I right now?”
assistant professor of management
But if that person posts something unique — an eccentric idea, for instance — it’s more likely to attract responses.
How does this notion fit into the context of collaboration? Cao says it boils down to time management and curating group dynamics.
“Think about accomplishing a task within your own organization and whether you want to talk to everyone or just a limited number of people,” Cao says. “It depends on how long you want to work on a collaboration-based task and whether you think spending a longer amount of time or a shorter amount of time with that group might produce a better result.”
With this research in mind, Pandey says that organizations could find ways to analyze how their members communicate, and educational
“When you’re ‘cherrypicking’ a fact, you’re trying to grab only those that you’re in favor of, and that can be made worse when people find that it’s backed up by many similar points online.”
— Thi Tran
institutions could scrutinize how students behave in classrooms more closely. This could create more opportunities for early intervention before any social conflicts become irreparable.
“Following similar-minded people on social media can result in an ‘echo chamber’ effect because everyone is basically saying the same thing,” Pandey says. “The drive for increased attention compels us to pursue more-eccentric opinions or approaches. We don’t realize that the ‘heat’ is increasing until either we become a victim of some hate or until we become attackers ourselves.”
Thi Tran,
information systems at Binghamton, conducts research about reducing harms from misinformation.
HOW CAN I AVOID FALLING PREY TO MISINFORMATION?
With extreme or eccentric viewpoints dominating digital and social media, misinformation spreads easily. How can you avoid being sucked into the misinformation funnel?
Consult additional sources: If an item on social media appears to be “super interesting,” it’s important to confirm the validity of the content from a few nonsocial media sources, says Sriniwas Pandey, a lecturer in Binghamton’s School of Computing.
“Dive into the fine details without getting carried away by the catchy headlines and flashy thumbnails,” Pandey says. “Stay true to your convictions. Chart the course of your opinions and beliefs over time to catch any unexpected shifts.”
Would-be influencers sometimes mimic the names of credible sources, making it critical that people learn to recognize clickbait, says Thi Tran, an assistant professor in Binghamton’s School of Management.
Don’t be quick to click: A common trick used to lure readers
into misinformation traps or steal personal information and device controls is to include hidden links in emails or social media posts, Tran says. He recommends not clicking on any embedded links without first viewing the full online content. The longer and more complicated that content is, with many sections and links embedded in the text, the more likely it is that those links contain viruses or other malware.
Remain skeptical: Do the message claims make sense? Are they backed by science or reasoning? Would following those claims benefit certain individuals?
Before sharing information, consider the consequences. Could sharing messages hurt the privacy or personal information of people you know? Letting people in your social network know about possibly false information can help prevent it from spreading.
Ensure that the title of an article matches the content, whether it’s text or video. Binghamton researchers discovered that misinformation evokes emotional responses that can lead readers to overlook critical reasoning, while accurate information often uses neutral language in headlines and content.
GROUP AIMS A LOCAL LENS ON THE GLOBAL CLIMATE CRISIS
Binghamton 2 Degrees explores ways that communities can survive, even thrive, in a warmer world
By Jennifer Micale
The research questions that fuel Binghamton 2 Degrees emerge in response to a harsh reality: the climate crisis and the lack of large-scale, coordinated efforts to address it. How can communities prepare for an uncertain future, one built on local support networks? What role do universities, researchers and artists have in shifting public perceptions on climate change? Is there a way we can survive and even thrive in a changed world?
The stakes have never been higher. To keep global warming to no more than 1.5°C above the
preindustrial norm — as called for in the Paris Agreement — emissions need to be reduced by 45% by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050, according to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. But for a brief period in November 2023, figures from the European Copernicus Climate Change Service indicate that global temperatures passed the 2° threshold, a benchmark that scientists warn could lead to catastrophic consequences.
These trends prompted Andreas Pape, an associate professor of economics at Binghamton, and
One of the questions Binghamton 2 Degrees asks is: How can this New York community at the confluence of two rivers prepare for future natural disasters and even climate refugees?
Andreas Pape, right, an associate professor of economics, and Leslie Heywood, a professor of English, hope to apply the University’s expertise to the surrounding community through Binghamton 2 Degrees.
colleague Leslie Heywood, a professor of English, to consider a method to apply the University’s expertise to the surrounding community, and foster new, collaborative ways of thinking that encompass the sciences, technology, the arts and the humanities.
Since its start in 2023, Binghamton 2 Degrees has played host to multiple events on campus and in the community. Organized according to monthly themes, these events serve as a locus for Binghamton professors to share their findings with the community and have sparked additional research trajectories around climate resilience.
“Often climate change is really hard for us to think about, myself included, because we have a tendency to think about things more in a near-term kind of way,” says School of Management Associate Professor Rory Eckardt, who researches how U.S. business schools incorporate climate change into their teaching, research and service activities. “Research suggests we can hold four or five ideas in our mind at one time, and climate change is longer-term, involves nonlinear changes and can be complex.”
Binghamton 2 Degrees has sought funding from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency, and has already received a $10,000 grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The questions Binghamton 2 Degrees poses are challenging and uncomfortable: What are the community resources for renewable energy, such as wind and solar, and how can these resources be improved? How can Binghamton — an upstate New York community that has already endured several episodes of catastrophic flooding since the turn of the century — prepare for future natural disasters and even climate refugees, when federal resources are overtaxed and unavailable? Can local farms and food distribution networks diversify to ensure food security?
“It’s very much an action research project; we are part of making the change,” says Pamela Mischen, an environmental studies professor who is the University’s chief sustainability officer. “I hope we’ll be able to work with our partners over the coming years to make this community more adaptive and resilient.”
From research to response
Binghamton is surprisingly ideal as a working experiment in climate resilience. As a small city, it faces a different range of challenges than those confronted by high-population centers, notes David Mixter, a research assistant professor of environmental studies. Mutual aid networks in neighborhoods and across the region can make a difference in terms of awareness and preparation.
“Some research suggests that Binghamton will be something of a climate haven,” Pape points out. “Upstate New York isn’t a bad place to be relative to climate change; we’re far enough from the coast that we won’t face direct coastal issues and have plenty of water.”
But Binghamton’s good fortune on the climate front could spark its own set of crises, such as an influx of climate refugees from regions inundated by rising sea levels or afflicted with drought or catastrophic heat. The coronavirus pandemic was a harbinger of future migration, reversing traditional patterns as urban dwellers sought refuge in upstate New York and rural New England.
Long-term, increasing levels of carbon dioxide will decrease the productivity of such staple crops as corn, soybeans, wheat and rice, while weather changes will hit the current breadbasket with drought and strain aquifers in the west, Mischen says. That will likely prompt changes in New York state’s agricultural industry.
“In terms of the agricultural production, you’re going to see a shift northward,” says Barrett Brenton, faculty engagement associate for Binghamton’s Center for Civic Engagement and a biocultural anthropologist who recently co-edited the book
Transformations of Global Food Systems for Climate Change Resilience. “People are looking to places like upstate New York for farm production beyond dairy, apples and turf.”
However, upstate terrain makes large-scale farms, such as those in the Midwest, impractical, he acknowledges. Wetter and warmer conditions also bring new pest risks that could challenge productivity, from insects to fungal blight. Food insecurity, in other words, isn’t off the table — even in a climate haven.
Monica Adams, an assistant professor of social work, already researches food insecurity and its impact on marginalized populations; her involvement in Binghamton 2 Degrees inspired her to broaden that focus, she says. She serves on the initiative’s food working group, which educated summer festivalgoers on the link between food waste, food insecurity and climate change, and she has taken part in panel discussions that link climate change with access to housing, medical care and food.
“Food insecurity is a two-headed beast. You have the things that create food insecurity, such as poverty and holes in the social safety net. But in the meantime, you have people who are actually experiencing it,” she explains. “I study it from that end: How are people experiencing and managing food insecurity? What can we do to support them in their everyday life?”
Climate change not only impacts food availability through drought and crop failures, but also access to culturally appropriate foods that people are accustomed to eating, Adams says. Consider, for example, an early case of climate refugees: those who fled New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and settled elsewhere in the country, never to return.
The impact of climate change on food and food insecurity is just
You have the things that create food insecurity and you have people who are experiencing it. I study it from that end: How are people experiencing and managing food insecurity? What can we do to support them in their everyday life?
— Monica Adams, assistant professor of social work and part of the Binghamton 2 Degrees food working group
one of the themes showcased by Binghamton 2 Degrees in monthly community meetings, which have brought together residents, local government officials and other institutions. Themes have also included health, energy, flooding and housing.
The spring 2024 semester culminated with a two-day Climate Change Summit, co-sponsored by the United Way of Broome County, Southern Tier 8, the Broome County Department of Planning and the Southern Tier Chapter of the American Red Cross. The first day brought community organizations together to discuss climate change impact and preparation, while the second focused on individual efforts. Attendees took part in a climate change policy simulator.
The hope, Mischen says, is that the breakout groups will blossom into persistent working groups in infrastructure; social services and refugees; health, food and agriculture; housing; and energy. During the next two years, Binghamton 2 Degrees will help these working groups put their preparation plans in place for the larger community.
“Climate change is really a global issue, but we can have a tangible impact in shifting public opinion,” says Hiroki Sayama, distinguished professor of systems science and industrial engineering. “If people are more comfortable talking about climate change in a local setting, they will discuss the practical actions they are taking or plan to take.”
Don’t get the impression that Binghamton 2 Degrees is limited to community outreach and related activities, however.
“It involves serious scientific research,” he points out.
Sayama became involved in the initiative early on, drawn by its focus on adaptation and resilience. He has worked with Pape before through Binghamton University’s Center of Complex Systems, which explores how a group of entities — whether individuals, societies or biological organisms — behave over time.
media posts to document how its programming potentially impacts public attitudes and behaviors.
Graduate assistant Ancilla Marie Inocencio, a doctoral student in economics, is involved with data analysis on the survey project. More than 400 people completed the initial survey, which explores how people’s deeper motivations influence their behaviors surrounding climate change.
“We’re still crunching the numbers, but generally, I can say that worldview plays an important role in how people behave related to climate change, whether by adopting green technology, avoiding meat or preferring to use a bicycle rather than driving,” Inocencio says. “These behaviors aren’t as highly linked to other demographic characteristics as we would imagine.”
Climate creativity
Rory Eckardt, associate professor of strategy, studies how American business schools incorporate climate change into their teaching, research and service activities.
“Even if individual components are much less sophisticated, through interaction, something really sophisticated might arise at the macroscopic scale. Our market society is one such example, as is the human brain,” says Sayama, whose research interests include mathematical and computational modeling and analysis of various complex systems, including human social systems.
Can shifting community perspectives on climate change work in a similar way? Research through Binghamton 2 Degrees seeks to answer this question, using surveys, interviews and analysis of social
One unusual aspect of Binghamton 2 Degrees is its emphasis on the arts and humanities in addition to the sciences. Organizers say creative expression allows participants to confront the realities of climate change in a way that speaks to their hearts and imaginations. That’s why the initiative kicked off with a community arts festival, which drew more than 800 people and featured poetry, storytelling, painting and music.
“Artistic productions have a direct way of reaching audiences and motivating them to see themselves in relation to these issues,” Heywood says. “Art gives you a more direct form of communication with what people really care about.”
Heywood, who has taught creative nonfiction and memoir for 30 years, uses storytelling to engage people with climate issues. She had early exposure to environmentalism; her father served as director of development for Rensselaer Polytechnic
Binghamton 2 Degrees
What will it mean to live in Binghamton under two degrees of warming and what can we do now to prepare? Those are the questions Binghamton 2 Degrees aims to answer.
Institute’s Darrin Fresh Water Institute in the 1970s, and she grew up hearing about acid rain and a grim future in which the American West runs out of water.
At a March event on flood preparation held in conjunction with the Red Cross, Heywood led a mini climate-storytelling workshop, in which she asked participants to jot down their personal experiences.
“Not just intellectually, but with our bodies, with our hearts, everything that we believe and feel and which motivates us,” she explains of the storytelling process. “Our intellectual minds are only a part of that.”
Climate change has also inspired artistic creation, from music and poetry to theater. Nathan Wheatley, a lecturer and lighting designer in the Theatre Department, has partnered with Musical Theatre Director Tommy Iafrate on Pedal-Powered Theater, in which audience-directed hand-crank and pedal devices trigger stage effects such as an alarm clock, lamp or bubble machine.
The project, still in its proofof-concept phase, drives home
what power generation entails in a memorable and fun way. After all, some sort of process must generate electricity, whether feet on pedals, coal in a power plant or sunlight on a solar panel, Wheatley explains. An awareness of this makes us less likely to waste power and more likely to opt for sustainable sources.
During the planning phase, Wheatley studied the campus’ energy dashboard, which charts energy use throughout the day in different buildings. As a lighting designer, he is also aware of the significant amount of power drawn by the campus’ performing arts venues during major productions. In Watters Theater, for example, technicians may install between 250 and 300 lighting units for a show, each ranging from 575 to 1,000 watts; a handful are even more powerful. It’s enough to power part of a city block, he acknowledges.
Wheatley would eventually like to expand his show with additional cranks, pedals and effects, and take it on tour in schools and the community.
“Art isn’t some shiny thing that
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hangs on a wall or is in a showcase; it’s a robust tool to achieve substantial outcomes,” he says.
That, too, is a subject of study: Binghamton 2 Degrees’ art and narrative side is an experiment in its own right, according to Mixter, an anthropologist who also serves as the vice president of the Broome County Arts Council. In addition to the survey research, he is involved in a more qualitative, interview-based project that aims to understand the emotions and ideas that underpin individuals’ reactions to climate change.
The researchers, scientists, artists and writers involved in Binghamton 2 Degrees would like to see the initiative expand to other communities in New York and across the country.
“From the beginning, we were hoping that this would serve as a good proof-of-concept for expansion to other areas,” Eckardt says. “Collectively, we can start to think more about what climate change means for my community, whatever that community is, and what we should be doing to prepare for that now.”
VIRTUAL HEALING: BRIDGING RURAL
HEALTHCARE GAPS
By Ethan Knox
More than 80% of American counties lack some form of healthcare infrastructure. These areas, known as “healthcare deserts,” have inadequate access to primary, emergency, mental health or dental care, and they lack public transportation and public health services, according to the 2021 report by GoodRx. About 30 million people nationwide do not have access to the services needed to maintain their health.
Binghamton University experts work to enhance accessibility to healthcare for rural and underserved communities across the globe through telehealth and mobile applications and by bringing more providers to rural areas. These researchers believe a greater focus on interdisciplinary approaches and innovative technology will reshape the rural healthcare landscape, fostering a future where distance no longer impedes access to quality care.
“Access is a major concern. Technology will help improve access, but it won’t completely solve the problem,” says Pamela Stewart Fahs, associate dean and professor of nursing at the Decker College of Nursing and Health Sciences.
Fahs, who holds the Dr. G. Clifford and Florence B. Decker Endowed Chair in Rural Nursing, edits the Online Journal of Rural Nursing and Health Care. For more than 30 years, her research has highlighted inefficiencies and inadequacies within the field.
“The closures of rural hospitals and the absence of maternity units in rural areas are significant. Transportation presents a challenge. While most research acknowledges a transportation problem, it often fails to pinpoint the specific transportation issues,” she says. “This aspect is not covered in many federal grants. I believe that transportation will continue to be a major issue in rural areas for the foreseeable future.”
Fahs’ work focuses on cardiovascular disease and stroke. These are two of the causes — along with cancer, chronic lower respiratory disease and unintentional injury — that people living in rural areas are at a greater risk of dying from, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Her research shows that faster access to care reduces debilitating outcomes for rural women who suffer strokes. One of her studies measured the effectiveness of a program designed to improve knowledge about strokes. A key takeaway: Both education and transportation are essential.
THE RISE OF TELEHEALTH
For people living more than 30 miles from a healthcare provider and unable to reach one by foot or public transportation, the lack of access to preventative services is not just an inconvenience — it’s a matter of life or death. Telehealth, which has existed for decades but became prominent during the COVID-19 pandemic, can bring care to patients earlier in the disease process. Time-sensitive treatments require quick diagnoses.
“Telehealth research related to patient outcomes has grown exponentially. In many cases, it has been viewed by patients as equal to or even better than an in-person visit,” says Ann Fronczek, associate professor and director of Decker’s undergraduate and doctoral nursing programs. “In particular, telehealth offers a significant benefit to individuals with chronic illnesses like heart failure, COPD, diabetes, asthma and those who need neonatal or HIV care. It can also benefit primary and urgent care visits, as many issues can be addressed through a video visit and careful history taking.”
Fronczek works with Stephanie Tulk Jesso, an assistant professor of systems science and industrial
engineering at Binghamton, to design mobile health clinics in collaboration with United Health Services, a local healthcare system. The idea is to integrate telehealth and bring more providers to rural areas.
“In nursing, there is always a bit of worry that too much technology can affect the caring relationships between a provider and a patient and, therefore, become a potential net harm,” Fronczek says. “Nurses and patients both need some choice as to how the technology will be used to support health.”
LEVERAGING MOBILE APPLICATIONS
Researchers in Binghamton’s School of Management hope to improve healthcare from an
SOUTHERN TIER TELEHEALTH CENTER CONTINUES BINGHAMTON’S FOCUS ON RURAL POPULATIONS
Binghamton’s nursing program has been dedicated to rural health since its establishment in 1969. In 1999, what is now the Decker College of Nursing and Health Sciences introduced the first doctoral program in nursing with a focus on rural and underserved populations. In line with its commitment to serving rural and underserved
areas, Decker College teamed up with Binghamton’s Thomas J. Watson College of Engineering and Applied Science to establish the Southern Tier Telehealth Center. The center was set up before the COVID-19 pandemic, when using the technology in healthcare became essential due to isolation restrictions. Ann Fronczek, co-project director,
operations perspective. Though telehealth technology has grown significantly in the past decade, it is rarely used correctly or efficiently, says Saligrama Agnihothri, professor of operations and business analytics. His research focuses on treating cardiovascular health — particularly patients with hypertension, which affects an estimated 121.5 million Americans ages 20 and older. The current model typically has patients seeing providers once every six months or so to have their blood pressure measured. The problem: Readings can vary significantly even within one day, especially for those with unmanaged chronic illness.
says the center’s two main functions are to enhance R&D in telehealth, telemedicine and mobile technologies used by healthcare institutions, and to establish a framework for healthcare workforce development. The Southern Tier Telehealth Center was created with funding from the Southern Tier Regional Economic Development Council.
“Providers take one or two measurements and decide whether you have a problem and how to intervene,” Agnihothri says. “Office visit readings are a periodic measurement that is not generalizable to the patient’s steady state of health. It’s not a reliable measure to take the most accurate action.”
Agnihothri believes if healthcare providers had better knowledge of a patient’s behavior through regular readings, they could educate the person toward behavioral changes and better manage medication dosage and other therapies. With an app on their smartphone and a blood pressure cuff, patients easily can track their data, which can then be communicated to the provider’s decision-support system to
assist with interventions — including education — as needed.
One of Agnihothri’s doctoral students is developing the app. “They’ve added exercise and diet; you can take pictures of what you eat, and the app automatically converts that into calories and protein,” he explains. “They recently incorporated a Wi-Fi-enabled stethoscope. You can record heart sounds, and that is a part of the data as well. It even has a chat tool where patients can ask questions.”
Agnihothri adds that the most pressing problem isn’t the technology; it’s the current medical payment model, which doesn’t incentivize providers to make changes that could improve care.
Understanding the differences in the payment models comprising the healthcare markets and how those motivate providers is another arm of Agnihothri’s work, and his findings show that adopting “capitation reimbursement” could improve care. Under this plan, an insurance company pays a provider a fixed amount per month, per patient, whether those patients visit the provider or not.
Agnihothri says it is in the provider’s best interest to focus on disease prevention under such a system. If nobody comes to the office, the provider earns the same amount.
One of Agnihothri’s recent papers shows that when payers encourage patients to upload their data from mobile apps, it benefits all parties involved. This information allows healthcare providers to prescribe more effective and timely interventions, leading to better patient outcomes and resulting in higher profit margins for insurance companies.
“Even if you upload your data once a week, the doctor knows what is happening during this period and can take action to intervene sooner rather than later,” he says. “It is almost like having a private doctor at home who continuously monitors you, and the cost is much less compared to the cost of actually seeing the provider.”
BRINGING PROVIDERS INTO THE HOME
Rachel Klosko, clinical associate professor of pharmacy practice at Binghamton’s School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, also serves as a clinical cardiology pharmacy specialist at Guthrie Robert Packer Hospital in Sayre, Pa. She and a team at the hospital are developing a paramedicine program that brings paramedics into patients’ homes for comprehensive examinations. The paramedics then connect with a pharmacist like Klosko to discuss the patient’s chronic disease management, including medications.
Klosko says that while access is still a concern — many patients live in areas so rural they have no cellphone or network service — she has caught many medication discrepancies that could endanger lives.
“When you ask patients about their medication in a hospital, they will just read from their list of medications,” Klosko says. “Sometimes what’s on their list is not always what they have at home and what they’re taking. We can coordinate care to help patients — educating and reviewing medications and side effects.”
Klosko believes healthcare will improve by prioritizing population health. She agrees with Agnihothri that addressing the underlying
POTENTIALLY EXCESS DEATHS IN RURAL AMERICA
The percentage of preventable premature deaths among Americans under age 80 increased for stroke and unintentional injury (including drug overdose, car accidents and falls), decreased for cancer and chronic lower respiratory disease, and remained stable for heart disease from 2010-2022. Percentages of preventable premature deaths in the most rural counties were consistently higher than in the most urban counties.
Many
deaths in rural America in 2022 were potentially preventable, including:
Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention FROM HEART DISEASE AND STROKE FROM UNINTENTIONAL INJURIES
IN RURAL AMERICA 46M
causes of poverty and illness is essential. This approach is evident in the heightened attention to the social determinants of health and their effects.
INDIVIDUALS RESIDE
“Social determinants of health will encompass anything that can impact the patient’s healthcare and well-being — what their health literacy is like, what access to transportation they have, their access to water, what their education has been like,” Klosko says. “I think a lot of upcoming research in the rural health space is going to be targeted in how we can bridge some of these gaps to make care more accessible to all.”
GLOBAL ACCESS ISSUES
NEARLY 15% OF U.S. POPULATION
Of course, many countries have healthcare deserts. Sometimes entire populations lack technological infrastructure and face the same chronic healthcare needs. Some countries in the Pacific Islands are among the world’s poorest and are particularly susceptible to infectious diseases and health issues related to climate change.
Koji Lum, a professor of anthropology and biological sciences at Binghamton, studies these populations, most notably the people of the archipelago of Vanuatu in the South Pacific. He has examined the malarial epidemiology of Melanesia, Southeast Asia and Africa. Using this experience, his recent studies have focused on how the disease’s progression has affected the health of the inhabitants of the Vanuatu island chain.
Chronic disease is prevalent in Vanuatu. Lum and his team, which includes student researchers, noted a correlation between malarial control and health. With the World Health Organization successfully controlling malaria in the archipelago, the islanders have been able to focus more on growth and development. Consequently, the age of menarche, the onset of the first menstrual period, has decreased, while obesity rates for women have significantly increased.
“As malaria is controlled, we’re watching what happens to people’s bodies. We found that the men are almost the same as they were 10 years ago, but the women have been getting bigger,” Lum says.
Compounding the problem is a lack of healthy foods thanks to the European tourist market on the islands.
“The only thing women can control is food — so they overeat. There’s also a lot of sexual violence … and bigger may mean safer,” Lum suggests. “But the high blood pressure is terrible, the obesity rates are terrible.”
MOVING FORWARD
The Association of American Medical Colleges projects a shortage of 54,100 to 139,000 healthcare practitioners in the United States by 2033. To make matters worse, the Health Resources and Service Administration shows that 60% to 80% of “medically underserved” areas are rural, and that the average
Source: Health Resources and Services Administration
age of existing physicians in these areas is already older — nearly a quarter are likely to retire by 2030. For nursing, there are only seven nurse practitioners per 10,000 people in rural areas.
Despite these statistics, the future of healthcare is constantly expanding. Turning toward the newest innovations is just one way the industry can meet the need for better access and patient care. Researchers say it’s essential to keep up with these technologies and their implementation as rural areas continue to see decreases in physical facilities and providers.
Looking ahead, Fronczek emphasizes the need to continue exploring technological options.
“Telehealth is not a replacement for in-person care,” she says. “I don’t want to put that bias out there. But it is another way of reaching very difficult access populations. We need to consider it as we’re entering a world of a two-channel health system, where we have the traditional in-person care, but we’re also going to have the telehealth avenue available to us. There’s a lot of value in reaching people that wouldn’t necessarily come to the office, because of the convenience of the technology.”
TRUST BRINGS CARE TO UNDERSERVED
COMMUNITIES
Rachel Klosko leads The Rural and Underserved Service Track (TRUST) at Binghamton University. The program brings together students from nursing, pharmacy, public health and social work at Binghamton and medical students from Upstate Medical University to provide care for rural and underserved populations through interprofessional teamwork.
The two-year micro-credential program includes learning retreats where TRUST scholars discuss eight underserved patient groups: LGBTQ+ people, women, the elderly, veterans, immigrants and refugees, individuals with substance use disorder, individuals with intellectual or developmental disabilities and rural residents.
“Students from all disciplines come together and learn from each other,” Klosko says.
In addition, students engage with community members to complete service projects. Firstyear scholars complete at least five projects. In the second year, they lead and organize these projects, collaborating with community partners and organizations.
TRUST scholars offer direct patient care in free clinics, promote health literacy and cultural competency, and participate in community education and outreach to provide much-needed care to underserved and rural populations.
Student projects range from hosting healthcare careers discussions to providing naloxone training on Binghamton’s campus. Klosko hopes the program will continue to grow.
Rachel Klosko
Sage Sanders will pursue a doctorate in chemistry at Binghamton with support from the NSF’s Graduate Research Fellowship Program.
Some elite researchers discover the topic they want to study early on. But three Binghamton scholars who won the NSF’s Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) award this year say their academic career paths have been less direct.
“I didn’t know what anthropology was until I was signing up for my first semester of classes as an undergraduate,” says Kailee Behunin, who studies biological anthropology. She ended up finding the topic interesting. During an osteology class senior year, she fell in love with bones as they relate to anthropology.
Today her research focuses on cross-population bone density. The project she proposed as a GRFP applicant seeks to compare activity and immune activation levels between people in The Gambia and a group of gymnasts in Syracuse, N.Y. Behunin aims to find reasons why bone density differs between populations and why osteoporosis rates are increasing worldwide.
The National Science Foundation’s GRFP, a highly competitive and coveted grant, provides funding and
professional development opportunities. Winners receive a three-year annual stipend of $37,000, as well as a $16,000 allowance for tuition and fees. About 2,000 students nationwide were selected this year.
As a child, Ahshabibi Ahmed wanted to become Bob the Builder when he grew up. Fast forward many years later, he won the GRFP for his work in analytical chemistry.
Throughout high school and early in his college career, Ahmed pursued biology. But soon a different subject drew his attention.
“In my chemistry courses, I found that talking about how the physical world works was super interesting,” he says.
Understanding things like why a chunk of metal feels colder than a piece of wood at the same temperature inspired him to go into the field.
Ahmed’s research looks at the photo degradation pathways of tattoo pigments. He studies whether tattoos are making any harmful compounds in our bodies. Identifying whether certain inks are irritation-inducing, allergenic or even cancerous is the main objective of Ahmed’s work.
Like their two peers, Sage Sanders, who won the award for environmental biochemistry research, initially had a different career path in mind. Sanders, who attended Binghamton as an undergraduate, was set on becoming a veterinarian until their junior year of college. While taking classes for the environmental sciences minor, Sanders decided that was their calling.
Their main research goal is to develop field-deployable sensors for different pathogen targets in the environment. Down the road, Sanders wants these sensors to be widely available to the general public.
Sanders, unlike Ahmed and Behunin, spent their undergraduate
Chemist Ahshabibi
Ahmed read the NSF fellowship email at 7 a.m. “Usually, I wake up and check my phone and emails to see if there’s anything important that I need to take a look at,” he says. “So, I wake up and I see an email from the NSF. … And the first thing it says is ‘Ahshabibi Ahmed, congratulations’ and I was in shock. I went into it not really expecting that I was going to get the award just because I thought that maybe my undergraduate research and performance weren’t up to par for what they would want. But, it turned out that they loved my research statement and my personal statement.”
Anthropologist
Kailee Behunin opened the message about the NSF award with a friend. “I really had not expected to win because it’s very competitive and I had already applied the year before and been rejected,” she says. “So, I was mostly just opening it with a friend so that I could feel a little bummed about it with someone. Then, I opened the email and my mouth dropped open and my friend said, ‘No way!’ and I was like, ‘Look!’ and they looked at the email and we both started screaming. It’s an honor to win an award like this and it’s hopefully going to set me up for a great career.”
years at Binghamton University. The First-year Research Immersion (FRI) program, which provides students with research experience in their first three semesters of college, was critical to Sanders’ success.
“I didn’t know that I wanted to go to grad school while I was doing the FRI program, but it really showed me how much I love science and the process of doing research,” they say. “I think without the FRI program, my research journey would have been very different.”
Sanders also pointed to the “research culture” at Binghamton that has made their experience enjoyable. They praised Assistant Professor Huiyuan Guo, who specializes in analytical chemistry, environmental chemistry and biochemistry and serves as Sanders’ advisor.
“Once I joined her lab and started doing research in that area, I realized that was absolutely what I wanted to do,” Sanders says.
Guo says she has been fortunate to work with Sanders. Guo describes them as motivated, passionate and inspiring. She admires Sanders’ growth over time, and their ability to overcome challenges.
Guo also hopes Sanders’ story can provide a model for future students.
“Most students think this is a very competitive award,” she says, “and they may be intimidated to try it. So, I think it is very encouraging for students at Binghamton University, whether that is a senior or graduate student, to see the example. Sage really sets a good example for them.”
Ahmed, who attended the University of Rochester as an undergraduate, says the award gives him the ability to pursue research with greater focus.
“I love teaching,” he says, “but the research is really what I’m here for.”
Ahmed says Assistant Professor John Swierk has been a huge influence. Swierk’s style as an advisor is personalized to each student. He’s more hands-on with Ahmed’s labmates who require that attention and takes a step back with Ahmed and his peers who prefer more distance.
“We, as grad students, can put a lot of pressure on ourselves to put out work. That may be because academia, historically, has been about just publishing. Publish, publish, publish; that’s all you need to do,” Ahmed says. “Although John wants us to publish, he understands that we’re also people and we’ll get our tasks done as soon as we can. He’s just supportive. That’s the big word that I can use to describe him.”
Behunin attended the University of Wyoming as an undergraduate. She chose Binghamton for graduate school because she believed Assistant Professor Laure Spake would be the best fit for her out of the potential advisors she researched.
The Binghamton area is different in many ways than where she grew up, Behunin says.
“Wyoming is a very rural place. So, the sort of suburban sprawl is new for me to navigate. Things just also work a little bit differently here,” she says. “The rhythm of going to the doctor or finding an apartment; all of those things are very different in Binghamton than they were in my college town before this.”
Behunin says her advisor and other graduate students helped her succeed with the GRFP application.
“Part of the reason I moved across the country for grad school was to find people interested in the same questions I am,” she says. “The people in Binghamton’s Anthropology Department are not only asking the same questions I am; they’re teaching me how to answer them.”
Chemist Sage
Sanders says news of the fellowship was mind-boggling in the best way possible: “Initially, I was just flabbergasted, honored and speechless,” they say. “I just called my mom on the phone and was silent on the phone for a few minutes because I didn’t know what to say. It was one of those things where I was obviously hoping that I would get it, because I’m very passionate about my work and being able to focus on my research full time would be amazing. But, I was not banking on it all because it is extremely competitive, especially if you’re applying as a current graduate student.”
INVENTORS
Patents awarded to Binghamton University faculty in 2023:
Pritam Das, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, patent 11,689,115: Bidirectional AC-DC Converter With Multilevel Power Factor Correction
Tara Dhakal, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, patent 11,664,172: Performance of Capacitors
Kartik Gopalan, professor of computer science, patent 11,836,515: Multi-Hypervisor Virtual Machines; and patent 11,809,891: Multi-Hypervisor Virtual Machines That Run on Multiple Co-located Hypervisors
Xiaohua Li, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, patent 11,855,813: Integrating Volterra Series Model and Deep Neural Networks to Equalize Nonlinear Power Amplifiers
Kanad Ghose, distinguished professor of computer science, patent 11,809,254: Energy Aware Processing Load Distribution System and Method; and patent 11,741,196: Secure Processor for Detecting and Preventing Exploits of Software Vulnerability
Ron Miles, distinguished professor of mechanical engineering, and Jian Zhou, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, patent 11,792,566: Directional Microphone and System and Method for Capturing and Processing Sound
Karin Sauer, distinguished professor of biological sciences, patent 11,541,105: Compositions and Methods for Disrupting Biofilm Formation and Maintenance
Scott Schiffres, associate professor of mechanical engineering, patent 11,654,635: Enhanced NonDestructive Testing in Directed Energy Material Processing
M. Stanley Whittingham, distinguished professor of chemistry, patent 11,715,829: ε-VOPO4 Cathode for Lithium Ion Batteries
Lijun Yin, distinguished professor of computer science, and Umur Ciftci, research assistant professor of computer science, patent 11,687,778: FakeCatcher: Detection of Synthetic Portrait Videos Using Biological Signals
Lei Yu, former associate professor of computer science, patent 11,568,236: Framework and Methods of Diverse Exploration for Fast and Safe Policy Improvement
Lijun Yin, left, is a globally recognized expert in computer vision, affective computing and biometrics. A distinguished professor of computer science, he recently received a patent with his colleague Umur Ciftci for technology that can detect synthetic portrait videos. Scan this code to search Binghamton University patents available for licensing.
THE ITSY BITSY SPIDER INSPIRED A MICROPHONE
Engineers and scientists have an enduring fascination with spider silk. The material has inspired the invention of lighter and more breathable body armor and materials that could make airplane components stronger without adding weight. Researchers at Binghamton University are even using examples drawn from spider webs to design sensitive microphones that can one day be used to treat hearing loss and deafness and to improve other listening devices.
YOUR TATTOO INK MIGHT CONTAIN HIDDEN INGREDIENTS
Nearly a third of U.S. adults have tattoos, so you can probably rattle off basic guidelines of tattoo safety: Go to a reputable tattoo artist who uses new, sterile needles. Gently wash your new ink with soap and water, avoid sun exposure and apply an unscented moisturizer — easypeasy. But body art enthusiasts might face risks from a source they don’t expect: tattoo inks. Researchers at Binghamton University found that many commercial inks contain ingredients they’re not supposed to.
YOUR UNSUPPORTIVE PARTNER IS HAVING AN IMPACT ON YOUR BODY
Feeling unsupported by your partner can lead to physical stress, as evidenced by higher levels of the hormone cortisol in the body, a study has found. The research, carried out by psychologists at Binghamton University, found that individuals felt more understood and cared for by a partner when shown positive support during communication — and subsequently, they felt less stressed. The researchers examined married couples to see if better communication skills while giving and receiving social support led to lower cortisol levels.
ART OF SCIENCE CONTEST HIGHLIGHTS
BEAUTY IN AND BEYOND THE LAB
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A bold image featuring a swirl of blues and greens took the top prize in Binghamton’s eighth-annual Art of Science competition.
Reethee Antony, an assistant professor of speech and language pathology, won the Visualizing the Unseen Category as well as Best in Show for her entry.
Titled “Neural Art while Solving Calculus,” the image was generated with electroencephalography, or brain recordings. They were captured using an eight-sensor cap while a research subject solved a calculus problem. The image represents the neural processing. “It is the art of neurons at work,” Antony says.
Images are judged in two categories, Visualizing the Unseen, for images captured with the use of optics that extend beyond what the eye can see; and the World Around Us, for pictures in which the subject is visible to the naked eye.
First place in the World Around Us category went to Taylor Graham, a Biological Sciences Department staff member. His entry, “Orange Wave,” shows the beautiful gills of a bright orange fungus.
The contest, organized by the Office of Research Advancement, was sponsored by the S3IP Center of Excellence and Nikon.
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Komla Dzigbede studies public sector financial management. An associate professor in Binghamton University’s College of Community and Public Affairs, he is interested in local government disaster resilience. Dzigbede also focuses on developing countries’ pandemic responses and how they may affect long-term economic growth. He’s among the scholars featured in the Faculty Focus series, created by videographer Greg Schuter.
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