Page 17 - RFCUNY-2010AnnualReport

Steven Romalewski, Director, CUNY Mapping Service

Center for Urban Research Graduate Center

GIS Mapping Services for Funders’ Census Initiative is a one year, $95,000 Horace Hagedorn Foundation award. Steven Romalewski takes data compiled by government agencies and develops interactive mapping systems. “We take data sets and integrate those with other data sets of interest to create an interactive application; simplifying the access of demo-graphic and spatial information for key constituents.” He is in the process of developing an application that will reflect demographic changes from 2000–2011, thereby helping organiza-tions understand population trends and patterns and the implications of redistricting.

Alejandra del Carmen Alonso, Associate Professor, Biology

College of Staten Island

Professor Alonso examines changes occurring in Tau—a protein associated with Alzheimer’s disease. Her three-year, $150,000 NIH award, Tau Phosphorylation and Neurodegeneration, focuses on the structures within Tau that lead to the degeneration of neurons. Applying molec-ular biology techniques, she manipulates the amino acids in the sequence of the proteins in cell cultures to produce proteins similar to those in Alzheimer’s. These abnormal protein cultures are placed in fruit flies to ascertain their effects on neurons. “We use live cell imaging in induc-ible animal models to monitor live processes as they occur.”

Ivica Arsov, Associate Professor, Biology

York College

The Role of Autophagy in T Cell Immune Response is Professor Arsov’s one year, $115,000 NIH award. His genetic research project involves artificially modifying the DNA of mice and comparing the modified cohort to non-modified mice. He endeavors to understand immune system function by examining the effects of genetic mutation. By solving this immunological puzzle, he hopes to be part of a scientific effort that will lead to the development of treat-ments for cancer and vaccines for infectious diseases such as HIV. “Everything we discover will ultimately be put to great use.”

Brett Sims, Assistant Professor, Mathematics

Borough of Manhattan Community College

The recycling of nuclear waste into usable fuel, which is considered to be a safer alternative than storage, can occur when uranium fuel rods are spent. Professor Sims uses Navier-Stokes mathematical equations to examine fluid flow and extraction in his three-year, $27,000 proj-ect funded by Battelle Energy Alliance, Sharp Interface Tracking in Microflows of Solvent Extraction. Since fluid viscosity varies, his challenge is to develop a simulation of the nuclear waste recycling process by formulating solutions to complex equations. “From the mathe-matical solutions we can obtain the optimum mixing parameters and predictor models.”

15