2020

Renowned cultural historian Maurie McInnis, former executive vice president and provost at the University of Texas at Austin, became the sixth president of Stony Brook University on July 1. She is the second woman to head Stony Brook since it was founded in 1957. As chief executive for Stony Brook, McInnis also oversees Stony Brook Medicine, Long Island’s premier academic medical center, encompassing five health sciences schools, three hospitals and 120 community-based healthcare settings, and plays a key role in economic development on Long Island and in Stony Brook’s role as part of the management team of a national laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy — Brookhaven National Laboratory.

Stony Brook University has earned recognition from the Times Higher Education , which ranked it No. 1 among all U.S. institutions and No. 27 internationally in reducing inequalities in higher education. The ranking acknowledges Stony Brook’s efforts in research on reducing social inequalities , policies on discrimination and anti-harassment, and commitment to recruiting staff and students from underrepresented groups. The Times Higher Education also considered the following metrics when ranking institutions: the existence of diversity and equality committees, offices or officers; mentoring, counseling or peer-support programs aimed at students and staff from underrepresented groups; accessible facilities, support services and access for people with disabilities; and accommodation policies or strategies for people with disabilities, including adequate funding.

Stony Brook University President Maurie McInnis recently joined elected officials from New York State and Virginia and representatives from the U.S. Department of Energy, Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) and Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility as plans were unveiled for the Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) project. The state-of-the-art nuclear physics research facility will be built at BNL by a worldwide collaboration of researchers, including those from Stony Brook, over the next decade. Research conducted through the project will open a new frontier in nuclear physics — a field essential to an understanding of the visible universe with applications in national security, human health and more, and serve as a hub of innovation, collaboration and STEM education for decades to come.

On March 20, the Della Pietra family pledged $250,000 in matching funds to ignite the 10-day Coronavirus Crisis Challenge that would underwrite critical supplies and treatments for Stony Brook University Hospital. The community answered the call, so the Della Pietras increased the Challenge to $500,000. Hundreds helped meet the match — in just 24 hours — inspiring the Clarkson and Heintzelman family to increase the challenge’s matching funds to its ultimate goal of $750,000. More than 1,400 friends, alumni, faculty, staff and businesses donated through the crowdfunding website, and the project also inspired major gifts to help University Hospital battle the outbreak. After the challenge was met, gifts continued to pour in, bringing in a total of $6.7 million to support University Hospital. Dollars raised for the Health Crisis Fund and from the Coronavirus Crisis Challenge enabled Stony Brook to order an oxygen farm to expand University Hospital’s reserve and purchase gloves, gowns and N95 masks for healthcare workers on the front lines of the outbreak.

Theoretical particle physicist Rouven Essig, an associate professor in the C.N. Yang institute for Theoretical Physics and Department of Physics and Astronomy, received the New Horizons in Physics Prize from the Breakthrough Prize Foundation. He shares the prize with three colleagues from other institutions. Essig’s research focuses on the search for dark matter and other new particles and forces beyond those that are known. He has helped pioneer several novel detection concepts for finding dark matter and has been a leader in establishing this as a new and important research direction, which is attracting significant theoretical and experimental efforts. 

Stony Brook University students saw continued success in several academic competitions in 2020:

Biochemistry major Erika Nemeth ’21 was named a Goldwater Scholar, one of 396 U.S. students receiving the prestigious annual science award in 2020.

Tying Stony Brook’s institutional record set in 2019, 10 students this year were recognized by the Department of State’s prestigious Fulbright U.S. Student Program, a highly competitive scholarship opportunity that provides funding for American students to conduct research or teach English in more than 140 countries overseas.

Five students received Graduate Research Fellowships by the National Science Foundation.

Kiran Eiden ’20 was awarded the Department of Energy Computational Science Graduate Fellowship, which provides funding for four years of his doctoral program at UC at Berkeley plus an internship at a national laboratory.

The National Institute of Mental Health awarded $3.5 million to a cross-disciplinary team of researchers at Stony Brook University for an imaging study of individuals with depression — a disorder that affects 7 percent to 8 percent of the U.S. population. Co-led by Associate Professor Christine DeLorenzo , Department of Biomedical Engineering and Department of Psychiatry , and Ramin Parsey , chair of the Department of Psychiatry , the project is designed to understand the effects of inflammation in the brain on depression. The researchers will use Positron Emission Tomography to peer inside the brains of those suffering from depression as a way to gauge the degree of inflammation. The research will also explore how targeted intervention can reduce inflammation and, ultimately, any symptoms of depression.

On October 7, Dr. Deborah Birx, head of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, visited Stony Brook University, praising the University for its success in controlling the spread of COVID-19 and emphasizing steps that can be taken to help bring down cases in the future. Birx, who has been visiting universities and other institutions around the country to engage in dialogue about preventative measures, lauded Stony Brook’s strategies for coping with the virus, such as finding innovative solutions to the challenges of patient care and worker safety, surveillance testing of resident students, and requirements that students test negative upon arrival to campus.

A week earlier, State University of New York Stony Brook University Chancellor Jim Malatras visited campus and praised officials at Stony Brook for being able to adapt while keeping infection rates extremely low and for having one of the safest campuses in the state. He credited remote learning and frequent reporting for the low numbers.

The Stony Brook Union — a mainstay of the University campus community since January 1970 — reopened in August after a comprehensive $63.4 million renovation. The 170,000-square-foot building was originally slated for maintenance and an extensive refurbishing in 2015, but the project expanded to a complete remodeling of the three-level facility, with construction commencing in 2017. The reconfigured Stony Brook Union is now a full-service destination for centralized services, programs and initiatives focused on meeting students’ needs, housing administration and academic services that were located elsewhere on campus. It can accommodate more than 40 different student and faculty groups, has ample space for clubs and offers special resources for students, such as the food pantry. It is also the home of the UNITI Cultural Center, a longstanding program that promotes cultural diversity and inclusion on campus.

Stony Brook University Hospital ’s ongoing commitment to high-quality patient care has garnered it recognition: Healthgrades named it one of America’s 100 Best Hospitals for 2020. It is the only hospital on Long Island for the past two consecutive years and among only five hospitals in New York State this year to receive this distinction. The honor places Stony Brook University Hospital in the top 2 percent of nearly 4,500 hospitals assessed nationwide for its consistent, year-over-year superior clinical performance. The ranking has special significance in terms of outcomes: For example, patients treated for stroke in hospitals achieving the award have, on average, a 25.2 percent lower risk of dying than if they were treated in hospitals that did not receive the award. What’s more, if all hospitals nationwide performed similarly to those achieving the Healthgrades America’s 100 Best Hospitals Award™, 170,783 lives could potentially have been saved.