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$2 Million NSF Award Represents Huge Payoff for CCNY’s City Seeds Grants Promoting Interdisciplinary Collaboration Wearable sensors that allow the blind to "see" with their hands, bodies or faces could be on the horizon, thanks to a $2 million award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to researchers at The City College of New York and Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech). The grant, through the NSF "Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation" program, will fund a multidisciplinary team investigating devices for "alternative perception" and the principles underlying the

In 1999, the City University of New York began training PhD candidates in biomedical engineering, three years before its engineering school, the Grove School at The City College of New York, even had a biomedical engineering department. Fast-forward 12 years to 2011 and the program is now one of the nation’s best, according to National Research Council (NRC) rankings. Using NCR’s “S” measure, which is based on 20 quantitative criteria that are ranked and weighted by survey participants, the CCNY program is tied with The Johns Hopkins University and University of Pennsylvania in 11th place out

One wants to be an astronaut. Another aspires to be a surgical oncologist. A third City College of New York freshman, who spoke no English when she arrived from the Dominican Republic four years ago, is planning a medical career. These students, all high achievers, are among nine recipients of the 2011 City College President’s Community Scholarships. Awarded strictly on academic merit, the scholarships provide $5,000 support renewable for up to five years. Scholars are required to perform community service and maintain good academic standing as a condition for renewal. “There’re so many

“The Struggle for Free Speech at the City College of New York: 1931-42,” an exhibition documenting student and faculty political activism at CCNY in the 1930s, will be on display at The City College Division of Interdisciplinary Studies at the Center for Worker Education, seventh floor, 25 Broadway, September 6-October 28, 2011. Carol Smith, a retired CCNY faculty member, curates the exhibition, which was made available courtesy of City College Libraries. The Puffin Foundation and Yip Harburg Foundation provided additional funding. “This exhibit addresses an important time in history,” said Dr

Climate Control and Energy Storage Systems Have More Than Twice the Efficiency of Best Available Products A unique structure in the urban landscape has arisen on a plaza of The City College of New York campus over the past few months. Designed and built by CCNY students, faculty and team sponsors, it is meant to be installed on the roofs of commercial and residential buildings in high-density urban centers. Dubbed the Solar Roof Pod, it showcases cutting-edge green technology inside and out, including a novel heating and cooling system with more than twice the energy efficiency of conventional

The CUNY Dominican Studies Institute (CUNY DSI) at City College is developing an online resource to study four centuries of Spanish writing styles. The project is supported by a $50,000 start-up grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Office of Digital Humanities. A prototype of the Spanish Paleography Digital Teaching and Learning Tool is scheduled to go live in spring 2013. Having the system will bring CUNY DSI in line with major museums and libraries that apply digital technology to the study of Spanish script. CUNY DSI, which was founded in 1992, is the first and only

Team New York Raises $1.4 Million from Energy Firms, Building Industry, Alumni When The City College of New York was selected from more than 100 entrants as one of 20 finalists in the U.S. Department of Energy 2011 Solar Decathlon, it faced a huge challenge: Could this urban, public college assemble the resources needed to design and build the students’ prototype solar house and compete against well-heeled, private and public institutions large and small? The answer has been a resounding “yes.” Team New York, with more than 100 students and 10 faculty members from the Bernard and Anne Spitzer

The aesthetics that emerge from the spiritual practices of “African-derived” religions will be the focal point of The City College of New York Division of Interdisciplinary Studies Fall 2011 Book Talk Lecture Series. Presenters include Guggenheim Fellows Donald Cosentino and Colin Dayan. The series of nine lectures, which runs September 12 through December 12 and begin 7 p.m. Mondays, covers such topics as visual arts, anthropological methods, spiritual practices, dance, music, literature of Vodou, Santería and Candomblé, and Brazilian film. Seven of the lectures will be presented at the

CCNY Physicists Map Spiraling Light to Harness Untapped Data Capacity Physicists with the Institute for Ultrafast Spectroscopy and Lasers (IUSL) at The City College of New York have presented a new way to map spiraling light that could help harness untapped data channels in optical fibers. Increased bandwidth would ease the burden on fiber-optic telecommunications networks taxed by an ever-growing demand for audio, video and digital media. The new model, developed by graduate student Giovanni Milione, Professor Robert Alfano and colleagues, could even spur enhancements in quantum computing and

The New York Academy of Sciences Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists acknowledge and celebrate the excellence of the most noteworthy young scientists and engineers in the tri-state New York metropolitan region. This year, a member of The City College of New York faculty, Associate Professor of Biology Robert P. Anderson, was chosen as a finalist in the competition. Professor Anderson is the first CCNY – and first CUNY – faculty member selected as finalist for the awards, which recognize research that is innovative, impactful, and interdisciplinary. He was picked for his work in developing