The Year in Review: Top 10 Stories of 2018 The Year in Review: Top 10 Stories of 2018 Stony Brook University
MART building overhead

Stony Brook Medicine Ushers in New Era of Healthcare

students walking on campus

University Surges in U.S.News & World Report’s Rankings

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SBU Earns Prestigious Award for Excellence in Campus Internationalization

womens lacrosse team

Women's Lacrosse: A Season for the Record Books

dorothy lichtenstein

2018 Gala Secures $7.1 Million in Funding for the Arts, Student Aid

land in turkana basin

Digging Up the Past, Looking to the Future

Group of researchers with penguins

Researchers Explore Climate Change’s Impact on Wildlife, Weather

professor in research lab

Stony Brook Research Park Powers Future Energy Options

dancer on one leg

Doctors Save 12-Year-Old Dancer’s Dream With Innovative Surgery

grid of students

Stony Brook Students Lead the Way Academically and Socially

Stony Brook Medicine Ushers in New Era of Healthcare

students with laptops

Stony Brook University and Stony Brook Medicine celebrated a major milestone in November with a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new Medical and Research Translation (MART) building and Stony Brook University Cancer Center, scheduled to open to patients in 2019 and built for the singular purpose of investigating, discovering and driving innovations in cancer treatment. The University also ushered in a new era with the naming of Stony Brook University School of Medicine as the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University. The naming recognizes the University’s long-standing relationship with the families of Renaissance Technologies, a local hedge fund firm founded by James Simons, former chair of the Department of Mathematics. Since 1982, these families have donated more than $500 million in support of students, faculty and research in life sciences and medicine. Read how these advanced facilities will improve the quality of medical education at Stony Brook and enable us to contribute even more to global healthcare in the future.

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University Surges in U.S.News & World Report’s Rankings

professor in classroom

Stony Brook University rose to its highest-ever ranking among U.S. colleges and universities, according to U.S.News & World Report. The ranking’s methodology focuses on both qualitative and quantitative data with 16 metrics of academic excellence, including student outcomes, faculty resources, expert opinions, financial resources and student excellence. Read how improved graduation rates, smaller class sizes and higher reputation scores from peers and high school counselors lifted Stony Brook University further into the upper echelon of American universities.

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SBU Earns Prestigious Award for Excellence in Campus Internationalization

award logo Stony Brook University was one of only a handful of recipients honored for its innovative work and accomplishments in bringing international education to campus, receiving the prestigious 2018 Simon Award for Comprehensive Internationalization by NAFSA: Association of International Educators in March. Named after the late U.S. Sen. Paul Simon of Illinois, the award recognizes outstanding work in integrating creative international initiatives and ideas in education throughout all facets of university and college campuses. The award is granted to a limited number of institutions every year and Stony Brook was one of only five recipients recognized in 2018. Read how the University’s leadership, vision and faculty and staff expanded its global landscape to provide transformational experiences for students.

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Women's Lacrosse: A Season for the Record Books

womens lacrosse team The Stony Brook women's lacrosse program had a historic 2018 season that featured a school-record 20-game winning streak and brought the Seawolves their 6th straight America East title, tying a league record. Heading into NCAA Tournament action, the Seawolves had been ranked No. 1 nationally in all three major Division I polls for 11 straight weeks, and finished the year leading the nation in six major Division I categories: points per game (29.28), scoring margin (+10.80), assists per game (11.23), shot percentage (.547), turnovers per game (12.00) and team defense (7.09 goals-allowed per contest). Graduating senior Kylie Ohlmiller broke the NCAA scoring/assists records and was nominated for the 2018 NCAA Woman of the Year Award. Read about the Seawolves record-breaking journey to the NCAA Tournament.

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Gala Honoring Lichtenstein Raises $7.1 Million for Writing, Film Programs and Scholarships

gala group photo The 2018 Stars of Stony Brook Gala honored Dorothy Lichtenstein, one of America’s most dedicated art and education benefactors, raising a record $7.1 million in the process. That total included a $5 million donation from Lichtenstein, wife of the late renowned artist Roy Lichtenstein, earmarked to support Stony Brook Southampton’s creative writing and film program. The program is a vital incubator for students as well as established writers and artists. Read how these funds will help further a host of arts, cultural and science initiatives at Stony Brook University.

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Archaeologists Uncover Human History With Discovery of Ancient Kenyan Cemetery

bones from dig Groundbreaking studies in Eastern Africa and Madagascar uncovered new data on the history of mankind. In Lake Turkana, Kenya, a study led by Elisabeth Hildebrand, associate professor in the Department of Anthropology, found that early pastoralists lived without major inequalities and hierarchies, contradicting long-standing narratives about early civilizations. In Madagascar, a study led by Distinguished Professor of Anthropology Patricia Wright found evidence of hunting and butchery in ancient Madagascan elephant birds, indicating that humans arrived on the island more than 6,000 years earlier than thought. And in the first comprehensive study of the forefoot joints of ancient hominins, an international team including members of the SBU Department of Anthropological Sciences concluded that adaptations for bipedal walking in primates occurred as early as 4.4 million years ago. Read how these studies helped shed new light on the origins of mankind.

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‘Supercolony’ of Adélie Penguins Discovered in Antarctica

weather maps

On the Antarctic Peninsula, the Adélie penguin population has been steadily declining for the past 40 years — or so biologists thought; ecologist Heather Lynch and her colleagues from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, however, used drone technology to offer telling new insights on the species this past year. Despite previous thinking, the penguin doesn’t appear to have been affected by population declines associated with climate change plaguing other populations on the peninsula — a discovery that, among other things, will help scientists in supporting proposed Marine Protected Areas. Meanwhile weather experts tracked Hurricane Florence this past September. Kevin Reed, an assistant professor in the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, experimented with a climate model to produce near real-time forecasts of Hurricane Florence to assess how much human-induced climate change altered the storm’s intensity, rainfall and size. Read about Stony Brook’s environmental work in the Antarctic Peninsula and the important insights gained from it.

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SBU Takes Giant Step Toward Cleaner, Greener World With Gas Institute

building The Stony Brook Research Park is working to spark the region’s economy and bolster the eastern end of a 65-mile technology corridor. The University and National Grid launched the country’s most comprehensive Institute of Gas Innovation and Technology (I-GIT) in the Research Park in February. The initiative focuses on finding clean, affordable energy solutions to meet the nation’s growing energy challenges. Other energy researchers and entrepreneurs are tackling a “$1 trillion challenge:” How to curb energy use and push users toward sustainable power sources. Scientists at the Research Park’s Advanced Energy Research and Technology Center are taking on more than 30 projects including self-cleaning solar panels, a natural gas-fired heat pump and water heater, and fast-charging electric car batteries. Another new facility, the Innovation and Discovery Center, designed to house companies ready to graduate from startup incubators, is expected to open in July 2019. Read what Stony Brook’s Research Park is doing to tap into the power of tomorrow’s energy.

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Helping a Girl To Keep Dancing With a Novel Reconstructive Surgery

dancer at news conference

Stony Brook doctors and researchers conducted a life-changing medical procedure to restore the mobility of a 12-year-old dancer diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer. It looked like Delaney Unger might never walk on her own again, let alone dance. But a radical procedure called “rotationplasty” restored function in her leg, giving her new hope and putting her back on the dance floor. Read how this innovative surgery at Stony Brook Children’s Hospital gave her back her mobility and the chance to practice and perform again.

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SBU Students and Alumni Sweep State Department Awards

trophey As a SUNY flagship recognized as one of the nation’s important learning centers, the University works to create a campus of equality and tolerance that fosters well-rounded growth and success among students. Exemplifying this, Stony Brook had six Fulbright honorees at the national level in 2018, including the first-ever Fulbrights to Norway and South Korea. The University also received the highest number of Gilman scholarships in its history. Elsewhere on campus, the Red Watch Band CARE Team won the Caron Foundation’s Community Youth Leadership Award for its efforts in preventing toxic drinking deaths. What’s more, SBU topped the 455 universities that participated in the national All In Challenge with more than 1,300 students pledging to vote in the 2018 Midterm Elections. Read how Stony Brook is leading the way academically and socially.

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