Page 25 - RFCUNY-2010AnnualReport

Michael Seliger, Associate Dean of Planning and Program Development

Bronx Community College

The Center for Sustainable Energy: Facility Development Phase I initiated from discussions among local congressional, transportation, and utility group members interested in addressing increasing asthma rates in the Bronx. Professor Seliger oversees the seven-year, $462,000 U.S. Department of Energy award, which serves to address environmental justice issues by exploring and identifying alternative vehicle fuel options. “The center has become a hub for providing sustainability training and technology for all of CUNY and works with local high schools and CBOs on a variety of sustainability projects.”

Simone Rodriguez-Dorestant, Executive Director for Academic and Curriculum Planning

Medgar Evers College

Learning to Work Programs—Young Adult Borough Centers (YABC), is a five-year $819,000 NYC DOE award. Professor Rodriguez-Dorestant and program director LeHendro Gadson facilitate learning through YABC, a program designed to serve older, under-credited high school youth. The program helps students develop college skills and expands their knowledge of career and college options. Professor Dorestant notes that students remain engaged in the program and are motivated by the unique curriculum that incorporates teaching modalities, technology, and skill sets that interest them. “The key to our success is that we listen to students,” states Mr. Gadson.

Jianbo Liu, Assistant Professor, Physical & Analytical Chemistry and Nanotechnology

Queens College

As aging occurs, radical oxygen species increase in the body, prompting disease onset. Professor Liu applies physical methods to study molecule oxidation in his five-year $590,000 NSF award Reaction Dynamics Study of Biomolecular Ions with Electronically Excited Singlet Molecular Oxygen Using Guided-Ion-Beam Scattering and Direct Dynamics Trajectory Methods. Using ion-beam scattering, he creates radical molecules in the gas phase to understand how a single molecule reacts with oxygen to become oxidized. “We use technology to understand how changes occur in molecular structure and determine the types of drugs we can use to slow down the reaction.”

Jorge E. Gonzalez, Professor, Mechanical Engineering

City College

Professor Gonzalez studies climate models on a global scale in his four-year $130,000 NSF project, Understanding Impacts of Climate Change on Energy Infrastructure in Urbanized Coastal Areas. Bridging engineering with climate science, he discovered that global warming is causing a cooling effect (reverse reaction) rather than a typically warm effect in western Pacific coastal regions. His innovative investigation will provide an understanding of the impli-cations of coastal cooling in terms of energy demands. “The high resolution numerical mod-els we use are unique in representing the interaction of fluid mechanics with the climate.”

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