https://www.ccny.cuny.edu/ en https://www.ccny.cuny.edu/news/ieee-photonics-society-presents-top-international-laser-award-ccnys-robert-alfano Dr. Robert R. Alfano, Distinguished Professor of Science and Engineering at The City College of New York and one of the world’s pre-eminent researchers in the field, is the recipient of the IEEE Photonics Society’s (IPS) 2024 Laser Instrumentation Award. The honor is for Alfano’s “discovery of supercontinuum light source as an enabling technology for diverse applications and tunable Cr4 and Cr3 lasers," IPS said. He’ll receive the award at the 2024 IEEE Photonics Conference, Nov. 10-14, in Rome, Italy. Karen A. Mergner, the Society’s senior governance and awards administrator, said the Laser Instrumentation Award recognizes key contributors to the field for developments of laser-based and electro-optical instruments, “which lead to the development of innovative systems enabling major new measurements or process capabilities of relevance to applications in industrial, biomedical, avionic and metrology fields.” The Supercontinuum laser source has been used in diverse applications in various areas of Science and Engineering. The IEEE Photonics Society is the professional home for a global network of engineers and scientists who represent the photonics community. In addition to Alfano’s research in supercontinuum, he has been focused on using ultrafast and steady state spectroscopy and optical properties of materials for direct measurements of optical phonon, vibrations, spin relaxation time, hot carrier effects, inter valley scattering in semiconductors and decay routes of vibrations in organic liquids. In biology and biomedical optics areas, his research has involved measuring primary events vision and photosynthesis under light excitation. He has pioneered in the field of optical biopsy by contributing to the development of methods to detect cancer using Raman and fluorescence spectroscopy and two photon microscopy and methods to improve optical imaging in scattering media (tissues, fog and clouds). He introduced the concept of Ballistic and Snake-like photons propagating random scattering media with carry information. Most recently, he explained the mechanism for higher harmonic generation (HHG) and attosecond laser pulses using universal EM Optical Kerr effect using n2 for odd HHG and n1 for even HHG frequencies. A member of the CCNY faculty since 1972, Alfano is founding director of CUNY’s CCNY-based Institute for Ultrafast Spectroscopy and Lasers (IUSL) established in 1984. He’s raised $63M in photonics research funding over the years Alfano holds 133 patents and has author credits on more than 730 research articles. His work has been cited in other papers more than 49,500 times and H-index of 105. He is an Alfred P. Sloan Fellow as well as a fellow of APS, Optical Society of America (OSA), IEEE and the New York Academy of Sciences. His honors include the OSA Charles Hard Townes Award (2008); the SPIE Britton Chance Biomedical Optics Award (2012); the APS Arthur L Schawlow Prize in Laser Science (2013); the OSA Michael S. Feld Biophotonics Award (2016); Inventor of Year from ENYIPLA  (2018); and the SPIE Gold Medal (2019). Thu, 25 Jul 2024 13:25:38 -0400 Jay Mwamba /news/ieee-photonics-society-presents-top-international-laser-award-ccnys-robert-alfano https://www.ccny.cuny.edu/news/seaside-prize-honors-ccnys-architecture-professor-june-williamson-rethinking-suburbia The Seaside Institute has bestowed the 2025 Seaside Prize upon The City College of New York’s architect and Professor June Williamson and her writing and research partner Professor Ellen Dunham-Jones. Williamson is director of Graduate Architecture at the Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture. Dunham-Jones is director of the master’s in urban design at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. The Seaside Institute’s award attests to the tremendous impact the duo have had on the built environment via their books and teachings. Co-authors of the groundbreaking “Retrofitting Suburbia” series of books, for over 20 years they have documented and advocated for successful redevelopment, reinhabitation, and regreening of dead shopping malls, aging office parks and other parking-lot-dominated real estate into more resilient, just, and community-serving places.   Their first book “Retrofitting Suburbia: Urban Design Solutions for Redesigning Suburbs,” won the Association of American Publishers PROSE Award for best architecture and planning book of the year.   The sequel, “Case Studies in Retrofitting Suburbia: Urban Design Strategies for Urgent Challenges,” won a Great Places Book Award from the Environmental Design Research Association. Williamson is also the author of “Designing Suburban Futures: New Models from Build a Better Burb” which contextualizes and documents an innovative urban design ideas competition for re-envisioning suburban areas of Long Island. Williamson and Dunham-Jones continue to inspire architects, planners, urban designers, developers, and community leaders to retrofit aging, underperforming suburban properties to address urgent challenges, disrupt automobile dependence, improve public health, support an aging society, leverage social capital for equity, compete for jobs, and add water and energy resilience. Their work has been widely featured, including in the New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, PBS, and TED. Williamson also serves on the board of directors of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture. The Seaside Prize is an annual award presented by the Seaside Institute to individuals who have made significant contributions to the fields of architecture, urban planning, and community development. The recipients are selected based on their exceptional achievements, commitment to design excellence, and their positive impact on communities around the world. Williamson and Dunham-Jones receive their award February 8, 2025, from Seaside, Florida, founder Robert Davis, amidst a weekend of festivities beginning Feb. 7, 2025. The Seaside Institute was founded in 1982 as a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing the ideas of community, education, and design. Its roots lay in the iconic town of Seaside, Florida, birthplace of new urbanism, and serves as a collaborative hub for architects, urban planners, and community leaders.   Tue, 23 Jul 2024 19:08:11 -0400 Thea Klapwald /news/seaside-prize-honors-ccnys-architecture-professor-june-williamson-rethinking-suburbia https://www.ccny.cuny.edu/news/spitzer-architecture-schools-laura-wainer-earns-urban-design-forum-global-exchange-fellowship Professor Laura Wainer, of The City College of New York’s Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture is to participate in the newly created Urban Design Forum Global Exchange. The fellowship, themed “Big Swings,” will build bridges between leaders in New York and other cities taking “big swings” at their housing crises.   Born in Argentina, Wainer is known for her academic work on the intersection between housing policy, design politics, and urban governance. She concentrates on housing inequality among migrants in NYC and the nine-month Fellowship dovetails perfectly with her work.   She is one of 40 across design, development, policy, law, advocacy and journalism invited to liaise between New York City and the peer cities, seeking out cutting-edge projects for inspiration to hard-won lessons.   At the Spitzer School, Wainer is developing a seed project, "Mi Casa, Mi Futuro," a collaboration with Make the Road New York (MRNY), the largest community-based organization representing immigrants and working-class people of color in New York State. Part of a wider initiative to foster innovation and creative solutions in housing, over the past two years, Wainer’s students have conducted research and developed demonstration projects on alternative housing models, challenging conventional views on housing, land, and migration in the city. They received funding from CCNY’s Experiential Learning Office (ELO) to produce a publication to serve as an advocacy tool for MRNY to establish a Social Housing Program. The publication is set to be released in Sept. 2024.   As part of the wider initiative, the Fellowship will help Wainer develop a model of community engagement in architecture by integrating local knowledge and bridging the gap between academia, communities, and architectural practice; building capacity for civic leadership by strengthening the skills and abilities of future architects engaged in social well-being and housing justice; and  consolidating a research agenda by amplifying the immigrant perspective in public housing debates and reshaping the discourse on housing equity.   Wainer holds a Ph.D. specializing in Urban Sociology from the School of Architecture and Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she was a fellow in the Special Program for Urban and Regional Studies in 2016. She earned a master’s degree through a Fulbright Scholarship in International Development from The New School and holds a dual B.A. in Architecture and Urbanism from the University of Buenos Aires. She taught at MIT for seven years and has also taught at Harvard and The New School. Wainer comes to CCNY with much international experience, having taught at the University of Cape Town, Buenos Aires University, and Di Tella University. In Argentina, Laura co-founded the Colectivo Urbano, an interdisciplinary group of practitioners and academics dedicated to providing design and planning solutions to underserved municipalities in the country. She has consulted for IGC at Oxford University, Habitat for Humanity, the World Bank, InterAmerican Development Bank and Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. Tue, 23 Jul 2024 12:37:27 -0400 Thea Klapwald /news/spitzer-architecture-schools-laura-wainer-earns-urban-design-forum-global-exchange-fellowship https://www.ccny.cuny.edu/news/colin-powell-school-establishes-bloomberg-lab-ccny The Economics and Business Department at the Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership at The City College of New York received an investment to establish the Bloomberg Lab at CCNY. The new lab, located in the Tech Center on the first floor in CCNY’s Cohen Library in the North Academic Building, will feature 12 Bloomberg Terminals©. It is made possible in part by a generous donation by Liz Weikes, a managing director at J.P. Morgan Wealth Management and a member of the Colin Powell School’s Board of Visitors. “Bloomberg Terminals© are part of the lifeblood of finance and business today,” she said. “Our students’ professional success requires that they become expert in how to use them. I am thrilled to be able to help bring them to our students at the Colin Powell School and CCNY.” In addition to Weikes’s donation, the terminals are supported by educational innovation funds from the City University of New York. The Bloomberg Lab moves The City College closer to its goal of launching an undergraduate degree in business administration in 2025. The new B.B.A.  degree will offer three tracks: finance, management, and entrepreneurship. The finance track’s curriculum will be comparable to what is offered at other CUNY colleges with Bloomberg Labs, including Baruch, Brooklyn, and Lehman. In the meantime, CCNY continues to develop and expand its finance program, which offered five new finance courses in Spring 2023, and hired faculty with experience in both academia and the private sector. Many of the program’s new courses will rely on the Bloomberg Lab to train students. The Bloomberg Lab is central to the finance program’s ambitions, said its director, Paul D. Clifford, a lecturer in economics and business who previously worked in the financial sector. “The Bloomberg Terminal© is an integral tool within the finance industry that is used to access, compile and analyze financial information,” he said. “Most of the finance courses which form the new program will entail financial and data analysis and involve experiential learning using Bloomberg Terminals©. Hence, the need to secure a Bloomberg Terminal© Lab to ensure the new degree’s finance track was fit for purpose and able to deliver the optimal pedagogical outcomes for students.”  The terminals organize data and research across a vast range of fields beyond business and finance to include health sciences, law, journalism, and public policy. They are of use to undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty. Access to the terminals in the lab will be open, subject to availability and to the needs of classes. Six rising juniors have been selected as Bloomberg Ambassadors to support the new terminals. Students can receive training and obtain Bloomberg Terminal© certifications through the Bloomberg Market Concepts and the Bloomberg Finance Fundamentals programs. “Students entering the worlds of business and finance need to know how to use Bloomberg Terminals©,” said Andrew Rich, the Richard J. Henley and Susan L. Davis Dean of the Colin Powell School. “My sincere thanks for Liz Weikes for making this Lab a reality for our students at the Colin Powell School.” About the Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership Established in April 2013, the Colin Powell School is home to the social science departments at CCNY as well as the core leadership development and public service programs of the College. With almost 4,000 students, and graduating the most CCNY students annually, the Colin Powell School mission is to transform the nation’s most diverse student body into tomorrow’s global leaders. Half of our students are immigrants; more than seventy percent are first-generation college students. Eighty percent are people of color. Most come from lower income backgrounds. The Colin Powell School and City College remain among the most effective engines of economic and social mobility in the United States. The School is led by a faculty dedicated to the highest standards of research and to the university’s democratic and public obligations. Read more about the Colin Powell School. Mon, 15 Jul 2024 08:52:29 -0400 /news/colin-powell-school-establishes-bloomberg-lab-ccny https://www.ccny.cuny.edu/news/ccny-jazz-graduate-ensemble-wins-outstanding-perfomance-award-downbeat-magazine The City College of New York Jazz Studies Graduate Ensemble 1 won the category of Graduate College Outstanding Performance by “Downbeat” magazine. Saxophonist Steve Wilson, director of CCNY Jazz Studies and associate professor, led the Ensemble to the win. The Ensemble included graduate students Matthias Meyer, Julian Brezon, Martin Locken, Nicolai Daneck, Nitzan Gavrieli, Daniel Nagel and Antonio Cerfeda. CCNY Jazz Studies is in the Division of Humanities and the Arts.   Wilson is an award-winning musician and has consistently placed in the “Downbeat" Magazine Critics and Readers Polls in the alto and soprano saxophone categories since 1997.   Students in the ensemble in the Master of Music program need 32 credits, including harmony, history, arranging/composition, ensemble, pedagogy & practicum, private instruction, and a final recital, to graduate.   The announcement was made in the June 2024 issue of the magazine.   Thu, 11 Jul 2024 12:00:32 -0400 Thea Klapwald /news/ccny-jazz-graduate-ensemble-wins-outstanding-perfomance-award-downbeat-magazine https://www.ccny.cuny.edu/news/accepting-new-gift-ccnys-alpha-phi-omega-society-names-2024-endowed-scholar The Foundation for City College has accepted a gift of $25,000 from the estate of Edward Flower ’46 (1929-2022) to be added to the Alpha Phi Omega Endowed Scholarship Fund. The Fund currently provides an annual scholarship of $2,500 to a Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership sophomore or a junior in economic need who possesses a minimum GPA of 3.0 and who demonstrates services to the College and/or the community. The annual scholarship can be divided into two separate awards. “My father felt very strongly about the education he got, and that was reflected in part, by his leadership in this fraternity,” said Andrew Flower, the executor of his father’s estate. “He would be very happy to give to fund scholarships for students who demonstrate leadership qualities.” This year’s Alpha Phi Omega Scholar is junior Safia Hossain, a psychology major with a double minor in English and International Studies. Growing up as a Muslim-American South Asian Bangladeshi, she saw the mental health disparities and lack of resources in her community, and wants to advocate for underrepresented communities. She currently volunteers at the Asiyah Women’s Center, the first women’s emergency center in New York City and New Jersey. The Center creates a safe space for women and children who survive domestic violence, face housing insecurity, and seek refuge. Hossain aspires to work in human resources to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion. The Fund was originated by CCNY alumni of the Gamma Epsilon Chapter of the national service fraternity Alpha Phi Omega. The surviving members of the fraternity (among them: Sheldon Luskin ’55; Don Rosenberg ’53; Walter Rosenthal ’52 MA; Ivan Samuels ’53; Helen Sternheim ’55; Herb Wall ’53; Audrey Wilner, who attends in memory of her husband, Alfred Wilner '53; and Paul Zwilling ’54) meet every first Sunday of the month via Zoom, as they care deeply about the values of the Alpha Phi Omega society and its commitment to community service. Tue, 25 Jun 2024 16:41:12 -0400 /news/accepting-new-gift-ccnys-alpha-phi-omega-society-names-2024-endowed-scholar https://www.ccny.cuny.edu/news/princeton-review-names-ccny-best-value-college-2024 The City College of New York is one of the nation's best colleges for students seeking a great education with excellent career preparation and at a relatively affordable price, according to The Princeton Review®.  The education services company named The City College as one of its Best Value Colleges for 2024 on June 20. The full list of The Princeton Review’s Best Value Colleges for 2024 and the project’s seven categories of ranking lists, as well as the company’s profiles of the schools, is accessible for free. Click here to register.  The Princeton Review chose 209 schools for the 2024 list based on data from its surveys of administrators at more than 650 colleges in 2023-24. Topics covered everything from academics, cost, and financial aid to graduation rates, and student debt.  The company also factored in data from its surveys of students attending the schools as well as data from PayScale.com’s surveys of alumni of the schools about their starting and mid-career salaries and job satisfaction.  In all, The Princeton Review crunched more than 40 data points to tally ROI (Return on Investment) ratings of the colleges that were the bases for the Best Value Colleges school selections.  "The schools we chose as our Best Value Colleges for 2024 are a select group: they comprise only about 8% of the nation’s four-year undergraduate institutions,” said Rob Franek, Editor-in-Chief of The Princeton Review. “We commend their administrators, faculties, staff, and alumni for all they are doing to educate their students and guide them to success in their careers. These colleges are also exceptional for the generous amount of financial aid they award to students with need and/or for their comparatively low cost of attendance.” The Princeton Review gave CCNY an ROI rating score of 88/99. In its profile of  CCNY, the company’s editors praise the school for its “quality and challenging education,” and quote CCNY students surveyed by the company. The students hailed CCNY’s "broad curriculum,” with special mention for its “rigorous sciences” and an engineering school that is “one of the best public schools." Another student noted how CCNY “draws people of incredible intellect who are maybe economically challenged and allows them to excel.” The Princeton Review does not rank the Best Value Colleges hierarchically on a single list, from 1 to 209. Among the project's seven categories of ranking lists, CCNY earned a # 18 ranking on The Princeton Review list: Top 20 Best Schools for Making an Impact (Public Schools). Click here for the Princeton Review’s methodology.  About The Princeton Review The Princeton Review is a leading tutoring, test prep, and college admissions services company. Every year, it helps millions of college- and graduate school–bound students as well as working professionals achieve their education and career goals through its many education services and products. These include online and in-person courses delivered by a network of more than 4,000 teachers and tutors; online resources; more than 150 print and digital books published by Penguin Random House; and dozens of categories of school rankings. Founded in 1981, The Princeton Review is now in its 43rd year. The company’s Tutor.com brand, now in its 24th year, is one of the largest online tutoring services in the U.S. It comprises a community of thousands of tutors who have delivered more than 26 million tutoring sessions. The Princeton Review is headquartered in New York, NY. The Princeton Review is not affiliated with Princeton University. For more information, visit PrincetonReview.com and the company's Media Center. Follow the company on X (formerly Twitter) (@ThePrincetonRev) and Instagram (@theprincetonreview). Tue, 25 Jun 2024 08:59:20 -0400 Jay Mwamba /news/princeton-review-names-ccny-best-value-college-2024 https://www.ccny.cuny.edu/news/us-news-world-report-ranks-ccnys-grove-school-among-2024-best-graduate-schools The City College of New York’s Grove School of Engineering, the only public school of engineering in the metropolitan area, has once again been ranked among the 2024 Best Graduate Schools by U.S. News & World Report. The Grove School ranked #109 in the overall Best Engineering School category. Designed for prospective students looking to advance their education post-college, the Best Graduate Schools rankings evaluate programs in a variety of disciplines, including business, education, engineering, law, medicine and nursing. Other Grove programs ranked nationally by U.S. News are: Best Biomedical Engineering/Bioengineering Programs (tied) #69 Best Chemical Engineering Programs (tied) #59 Best Civil Engineering Programs (tied) #97 Best Electrical/Electronic/Communications Engineering Programs (tied) #102 Best Mechanical Engineering Programs (tied) #106 By collecting graduate school data annually, U.S. News is able to present the latest enrollment numbers, job placement rates, faculty statistics and other essential quality indicators that help prospective students make informed decisions. Find out more about the Grove School’s rankings and how they are calculated on USNews.com.   Tue, 18 Jun 2024 11:24:17 -0400 Ashley Arocho /news/us-news-world-report-ranks-ccnys-grove-school-among-2024-best-graduate-schools https://www.ccny.cuny.edu/news/spitzer-schools-alejandro-estevez-2024-hok-diversity-design-scholarship-winner Alejandro Estevez, a fifth-year student in The City College of New York’s Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture is one of 10 outstanding students nationally awarded $10,000 HOK scholarships. A global design, architecture, engineering and planning firm, HOK presents the scholarships to reinforce its commitment to fostering greater diversity within the architectural profession. The 2024 scholarship presentation marks the fourth year of the Diversity by Design program, which has consistently grown since its inception in 2021. HOK has now invested a cumulative total of $370,000 into the initiative since launching the scholarship program. “Supporting these exceptional students is a key part of our mission to create a more inclusive and representative architectural profession,” said Ami Shah, HOK’s Atlanta-based health education practice leader and a member of the firm’s Diversity Advisory Council (DAC), which oversees the scholarship program. “By providing resources and opportunities, we want to break down barriers and empower the next generation of diverse design leaders.” The scholarships, sponsored by HOK’s U.S. regional practices, are awarded through a competitive selection process to upper-level and graduate students enrolled in NAAB-accredited design programs. About Alejandro Estevez Born and raised in the Bronx, Estevez has excelled in the Spitzer School. He’s been the recipient of the CCNY AAG - Robert E. Markinson Memorial Architecture Award, the Wittes ‘66  Scholarship Fund Award, and has been on the Dean's List since January 2021.  In addition, he has two models on display at the Spitzer School.  Scheduled to graduate in May 2025, he said of his future plans: “I am eager and excited to work with different site conditions, clients, building typologies, and scales. Beyond my interest in design and aesthetics, I am most passionate about using architecture to positively benefit and better represent underserved communities. My experience as a native New Yorker witnessing disparity in design on my day-to-day commute from the Bronx to Manhattan has always made me aware of a clear discrepancy between the architecture that serves Manhattan and other areas in the outer boroughs.  “This quickly became my first interest in architecture as I questioned why certain built environments deserve architecture of quality while others have to live in buildings that are quite literally on the verge of collapse. I understand that this is a very ambitious goal and this is a problem within the urban fabric that is not only a design issue but more importantly a systemic issue. My education at The City College has fostered this interest in justice through architecture and has framed a view that supplemented and supported my initial interests in the existing inequalities in the architecture of New York City."    Sun, 16 Jun 2024 19:36:30 -0400 Jay Mwamba /news/spitzer-schools-alejandro-estevez-2024-hok-diversity-design-scholarship-winner https://www.ccny.cuny.edu/news/ccnys-americas-film-festival-celebrates-11-years The 11th edition of The Americas Film Festival New York opens on June 13 with the New York premiere of “The Extorsion” Martino Zaidelis at the Instituto Cervantes New York. TAFFNY closes on June 21 with its awards ceremony for short films in competition at the National Museum of the American Indian followed by a special presentation of “Frybread Face and Me” by Navajo/Hopi/Laguna Pueblo filmmaker, Billy Luther. A cultural initiative of The City College of New York’s Division of Interdisciplinary Studies at the Center for Worker Education, TAFFNY presents eight feature films and more than 25 shorts, celebrating the rich diversity of the stories, languages and cultures of the Americas.  All events are free and open to the public, and all foreign-language films are subtitled in English. Click here for the full program and showtimes. Juan Carlos Mercado, CCNY’s dean of the Division of Interdisciplinary Studies and TAFFNY’s founder, says of this year’s festival: "As we mark our 11th year, we proudly affirm our status as a beacon of artistry amid the rich cultural tapestry of the city. By selecting these films, we aim to highlight stories often overlooked in mainstream media and to showcase countries rarely featured in major festival lineups, aligning with the mission of CUNY and City College." The Americas Short Film Competition is dedicated to promoting and exhibiting short audiovisual works by emerging filmmakers that portray the contemporary concerns of filmmakers living in the region. This year, TAFFNY has over 25 short films competing for the Americas Award in Animation, Documentary, Experimental, and Fiction categories. The jurors of the Documentary and Animation categories include director Catalina Santamaria, professor and radio host David Little, and Fairfield University Professor Sergio Adrada-Rafael. The jury consists of screenwriter and author Andres Lopera-Sanchez, filmmaker Marina Fernandez, and film critic Armando Russi in the Fiction and Experimental categories. Diana Vargas, TAFFNY’s artistic director, said, “Every year, the filmmakers and their films reflect the endeavors and concerns of their societies. This time, we wanted to emphasize issues such as women's stories of resilience, the power of art as a catalyst for change, and the increasingly powerful voices of native communities demanding visibility. The Americas are home to fascinating and enlightening people and cultures, and TAFFNY’s mission is to bring these to the forefront for New Yorkers to experience—all for free and fun.” Click here for a list of TAFFNY’s partners and supporters. Wed, 12 Jun 2024 12:41:49 -0400 Ashley Arocho /news/ccnys-americas-film-festival-celebrates-11-years