of the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering
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Celebrate, Promote, Inform in Service to CT
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Volume 38, 6 / December 2023
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A message to our readers... |
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Happy Holidays and here’s to a great 2024!
During 2023, the Academy continued to build positive momentum in expanding our efforts to serve the State, the mission envisioned in the special act that formed us in 1976. Increased support from the CT General Assembly has allowed CASE more opportunities to expand our services. Importantly, an additional full-time staff member for CASE in 2024 is expected to provide the increased bandwidth needed for CASE to contribute even more to the State and to involve more of its membership in service activities.
CASE remains fully committed to continuing to serve its other mission of honoring those who have distinguished themselves in their STEMM professions and through service to the people and state of Connecticut on issues of science and technology. A major highlight in 2023 was a return to our in-person annual meeting and dinner. For three years the annual meeting tradition was maintained, albeit virtually, but the return to the in-person meeting last year was energizing. The opportunity to be together, chat with colleagues, hear from students about their research projects, and meet new members and many other people who attended as guests added to an enjoyable evening. Planning is underway for the 49th CASE Annual Meeting and Dinner to be held Tuesday, May 21, 2024, at the Woodwinds in Branford. We will announce soon which CASE Member will present the keynote address, and we will meet to honor the Academy’s newest members and honorary members, the state medalists in science and technology, and the middle and high school STEM student awardees. You will receive in early March an invitation to join us in this evening of STEMM celebration.
There were several different news stories from around the planet in 2023 that justifiably were and continue to be a source of considerable anxiety. Nevertheless, a bright spot from the news cycles was a more general recognition and broader acceptance that climate change is a real threat, and many more tangible actions are being discussed in more forums. I take this as evidence that eventually science can prevail and help society work for the benefit of everyone and that CASE will play an important role in Connecticut. If you wish to become more involved, reach out to Terri Clark.
Wishing you a productive and healthy New Year!
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John Kadow, President CT Academy of Science and Engineering (CASE) Celebrate, Promote, Inform in Service to CT
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ANNUAL MEETING |
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CASE Annual Meeting & Dinner |
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Save the date for the 49th CASE Annual Meeting and Dinner, to be held Tuesday, May 21, 2024, at The Woodwinds in Branford.
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SOCIAL MEDIA |
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CASE LinkedIn Page
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We encourage the Bulletin’s readership to follow the Academy’s LinkedIn page. It will connect you to news on the Academy, its members, and science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine topics of interest to Connecticut. Please click the blue "follow" button on the page to stay up to date.
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LEGISLATION |
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Engage with STEMM Policy |
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The Connecticut Strategy Scholars Network is partnering with Representative Jaime Foster (CT-57: Ellington, East Windsor, and Vernon) to host the inaugural “Moving Beyond Implications: Research into Policy” conference January 9 at the Legislative Office Building. The conference will bring together academics, legislators, and other policymakers in advance of the 2024 Connecticut legislative session to create an opportunity for researchers to present their policy-relevant scholarship to policymakers and generate connections to inform evidence-based policymaking in Connecticut. Click here for more information and to register.
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In Memoriam |
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CASE Member Robert J. Hermann, Senior Vice President, Science and Technology (ret), United Technology Corporation, passed away on October 5, 2023.
Dr. Hermann was an active member on several CASE studies commissioned by the state. We are grateful for his service.
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To learn more about the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering, please visit ctcase.org.
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Science and Engineering Notes from Around Connecticut
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Agriculture, Food, and Nutrition |
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Recognizing that the average age of Connecticut farmers is 60 years old, and the industry needs young workers, the New London County Farm Bureau, with funding from the Department of Agriculture, is starting a new grant program to encourage young people to become farmers. The grants are available to people 19 years and younger and provide seed money to encourage youth involvement in the industry. Read more.
The Connecticut Department of Agriculture is accepting grant proposals for the 2024 Farm Transition Grant to assist Connecticut farmers and agricultural cooperatives in the diversification of existing operations and to transition to value-added agricultural production and sales. Read more.
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Biomedical Research & Healthcare |
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A course of teplizumab (Tzield) may slow beta-cell loss early in Type 1 diabetics. However, the drug does not reduce insulin dose requirements, improve glucose control, or reduce hypoglycemia events, according to CASE Member Kevan C. Herold, of Yale University and colleagues. Their research was reported in the New England Journal of Medicine. Read more.
Starting in the Spring 2024, Western Connecticut State University will be offering a new degree for students interested in health, wellness, and fitness, as well as business. The B.S. in Health and Wellness Management caters to students who want to start or manage a business that focuses on the health, wellness, and/or fitness industries. Read more.
President Biden announced the launch of the first-ever White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research, an effort to be led by first lady Jill Biden and the White House Gender Policy Institute. The initiative will be chaired by CASE Member Carolyn M. Mazure, founder and director of Yale School of Medicine’s Women’s Health Research. Read more.
CASE Member Craig Crews, the John C. Malone Professor of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology and professor of chemistry, of pharmacology, and of management at the Yale School of Medicine, and the executive director of the Yale Center for Molecular Discovery, is the recipient of the 2024 Kimberly Prize. The Prize bestowed by the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and the Simpson Querrey Institute for Epigenetics is an annual biochemistry and molecular genetics award recognizing a scientist whose molecular discovery has improved human health. Read more.
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Communication & Information Systems |
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Central Connecticut State University has achieved the designation of National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense (CAE-CD), joining three fellow national centers in Connecticut: The United States Coast Guard Academy, Quinnipiac University, and Sacred Heart University. The Center’s collaborative cybersecurity educational program partners with higher education to establish cybersecurity curriculum standards; integrate cybersecurity practices across academic disciplines; and find solutions to challenges facing cybersecurity education, among other goals. Read more.
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A recently released report, “Strengthening the Behavioral Health Workforce for Children, Youth, and Families: A Strategic Plan for Connecticut,” was developed by the Child Health and Development Institute in collaboration with the Connecticut Children’s Behavioral Health Plan Implementation Advisory Board. The report is intended to guide the State in building a sustainable workforce capable of meeting the behavioral health needs of Connecticut's children, youth, and families. Read more.
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Energy Production, Use, and Conservation |
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A new Danbury commercial fat-to-fuel plant is the first in the world to make biodiesel from waste grease. CASE Member and Professor Richard Parnas with UConn, patented his reactor mixes used at the facility to refine brown grease with methanol to produce the biodiesel. Read more.
A new UConn project received a US Department of Energy grant to deploy real-time electrical grid-enhancing technologies. As part of a national effort to improve grid reliability, optimize electricity infrastructure, and facilitate grid connection with renewable resources, CASE Member Emmanouil Anagnostou, the Eversource Energy Chair in Environmental Engineering and director of the Eversource Energy Center, stated that the project also contributes to Connecticut’s overall strategic initiative to accelerate and grow the State’s offshore wind economy. Read more.
CASE Member Y. F. Khalil, associate director and chief of product safety and reliability engineering at Collins Aerospace, participated in the 96th Executive Committee (ExCo) Meeting of the Hydrogen Technology Collaboration Program (H2 TCP) of the International Energy Agency (IEA), held in November. IEA hydrogen-based technologies and their applications are of interest to Connecticut’s industries, including Pratt & Whitney and Collins Aerospace. Read more.
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A previously undiscovered and genetically unique strain of the invasive weed Hydrilla has proven to be just as troubling as its southern relations. It was unknown in Connecticut two decades ago and has spread so explosively since that there is concern it could threaten the fifty years of environmental progress that has made the Connecticut River a $1 billion-plus-a-year contributor to the state’s economy. Read more.
Studies show that communities with access to trees and green spaces are associated with improved health outcomes, reduced crime, lower average temperatures, and an influx of other kinds of investments and new economic opportunities. The U.S. Forest Service selected eight grant proposals from Connecticut entities that are working to increase equitable access to trees and green spaces and the many benefits they provide. Read more.
A new paper, co-authored by CASE Member Gene Likens, Distinguished Research Professor in UConn’s Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, reveals that human activities are disrupting the natural salt cycle - making Earth’s air, soil, and freshwater saltier. Mining, land development, agriculture, construction, water and road treatment, and other industrial activities can intensify salinization, which harms biodiversity and makes drinking water unsafe. Read more.
Yale Center for Natural Carbon Capture (YNCC) and the Yale School of the Environment Researchers were awarded $5M through the Department of Energy’s Earthshot Initiative and will be examining the impact of natural carbon-capture methods to reduce global warming. “There’s no time to sit around and twiddle our thumbs,” said CASE Member David Bercovici, the Frederick William Beinecke Professor of Earth & Planetary Sciences and co-director of the YNCC, “This project is really connecting the models for soils and enhanced weathering to rivers and estuaries and all the way to oceans.” Read more.
CASE Member Mark Urban, an environmental ecologist and director of the UConn Center of Biological Risk, has been in the Arctic conducting experiments with colleagues at I-Minus Lake, in far northern Alaska. The lake is surrounded by permafrost that is now rapidly warming and melting, releasing its material to the unfrozen world around it. Each warm season, the area is losing 20 to 30 feet of its permafrost: frozen soil, rocks, and ice that have been encased for 10,000 years. Read more.
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Human Resources and Education |
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The National Science Foundation awarded Southern Connecticut State University a five-year, $3.2 million grant designed to recruit, retain, and graduate students currently underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. SCSU will lead the effort, along with faculty partnerships at Central, Eastern, and Western State Universities. Nutmeg State LSAMP will target the three major causes of attrition in the STEM fields: success in math and other gateway courses, financial need, and sense of belonging. Read more.
Launched this semester at Wesleyan, the new College of Design & Engineering Studies (CoDES) is home to the Integrated Design, Engineering, Arts & Society (IDEAS) minor and linked major created by CASE Member Francis Starr, Foss Professor of Physics. The new college is focused on challenging students to think and respond critically to the complex social, technological, cultural, and environmental conditions that surround them. Read more.
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Yale School of Public Health Dean Megan L. Ranney testified before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, urging Congress to support a public health approach to the nation’s gun violence crisis, “It is because I have had a front row seat to our nation’s growing firearm injury epidemic that I have worked to define and implement a public health approach to this crisis,” she said. Watch her testimony here.
A pilot study, run by the SEICHE Center at Yale – a joint venture between the Yale School of Medicine and Yale Law School - provides direct cash assistance to recently incarcerated and now released people in New Haven and Bridgeport. The purpose is to test whether providing these individuals with cash assistance will result in better health outcomes. Researchers say it’s one of the first interventions focused on health impacts for this demographic in the U.S. Read more.
Researchers at the Yale School of Medicine discovered distinct immune and hormonal responses in long COVID patients compared to those without the condition. The study involved 268 individuals and indicated significant differences in antibodies and cortisol levels, shedding light on potential treatments. The findings were published in the journal Nature by CASE Member Akiko Iwasaki, Sterling Professor of Immunobiology at Yale School of Medicine, and co-senior author of the paper. Read more.
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The 2023 winners of the Marcum Tech Top 40 have been announced. Now in its 16th year, the program recognizes Connecticut’s fastest-growing technology leaders in six industry sectors that reflect the state’s technology landscape: 1) advanced manufacturing; 2) energy, environment, or green technology; 3) IT services; 4) life sciences; 5) new media, internet, or telecommunications; and 6) software. Read more.
The U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration awarded a Tech Hub Strategy Development Grant to the Connecticut and Rhode Island Model-Based Enterprise Tech Strategy Development Consortium, with the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development serving as the Lead Agency. The funding supports a plan to advance the regional framework to scale the adoption of Model-Based Definition (MBD)—which uses high-performance computing, automation, and cybersecurity to manage the product lifecycle with three-dimensional, semantic digital representations—in the commercial manufacturing sectors of aerospace, medical devices, and clean energy. Read more.
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The Connecticut Department of Transportation is advancing its Greater Hartford Mobility Study, which is aimed at reimagining and reconnecting neighborhoods between Hartford and East Hartford. The study, launched in 2020, has a community-driven vision for creating a vibrant, equitable, and sustainable multimodal transportation network. The goal is to improve the movement of people and goods, increase transportation options, accessibility, reliability, and safety, as well as accommodate future needs and emerging technologies, prioritize social equity, and minimize environmental impacts. Read more.
CASE Member Igor Cherepinsky, Director of Sikorsky Innovations, was named a 2023 Hartford Business Journal Innovator for this work on autonomous helicopter research and technology. Hired out of graduate school, he began his Sikorsky career as a flight-controls engineer on the company’s iconic Black Hawk. During his career, Cherepinsky has been tasked with “solving the toughest problems in vertical flight by introducing new technologies, processes and products.” Read more.
The Connecticut Department of Transportation is awarding $11.7M in grants to 17 towns and cities across Connecticut under the state-funded Community Connectivity Grant Program, an infrastructure improvement initiative that provides funding for local projects that improve safety and accessibility for pedestrians, bicyclists, and transit users in urban, suburban, and rural communities. Read more.
CASE Member Lee Langston, Professor Emeritus, University of Connecticut, has penned two articles in the December 2023 / January 2024 issue of Mechanical Engineering, a publication of The American Society of Mechanical Engineers. Jet Web – The Origin of the Turbojet shares a review of, Jet Web, a comprehensive account of turbojet history from 1920-1950. In A Single-Minded Pursuit, Langston writes about Josiah Willard Gibbs, of New Haven, and his remarkable impact on thermodynamics. Read here and here.
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Items that appear in the In Brief section are compiled from previously published sources including newspaper accounts and press releases.
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From the National Academies |
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The following is excerpted from press releases and other news reports from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (nationalacademies.org).
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Since 1790, the U.S. census has been a recurring, essential civic ceremony in which everyone counts, reaffirming a commitment to equality among all, as political representation is explicitly tied to population counts. This publication looks at the quality of the 2020 Census and its constituent operations, drawing appropriate comparisons with prior censuses, and acknowledges the extraordinary challenges the Census Bureau faced conducting the 2020 Census. Additionally, the report encourages research and development as the goals and designs for the 2030 Census are developed, urging the Census Bureau to establish a true partnership with census data users and government partners at the state, local, tribal, and federal levels. Read more.
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In March of 2023, the UK Royal Society and Academy of Medical Sciences, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Medicine, and UNESCO-The World Academy of Sciences held the Third International Summit on Human Genome Editing. This publication highlights the presentation and discussions at the 2023 summit – the scientific advances that have occurred since the previous summits and the need for global dialogue and collaboration on the safe and ethical application of human genome editing. Read more.
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Addressing climate change is essential and possible, and it offers a host of benefits - from better public health to new economic opportunities. The United States has a historic opportunity to lead the way in decarbonization by transforming its current energy system to one with net-zero emissions of carbon dioxide. This publication provides a comprehensive set of actionable recommendations to help policymakers achieve a just and equitable energy transition over the next decade and beyond, including policy, technology, and societal dimensions, and presents a suite of recommendations for the electricity, transportation, built environment, industrial, fossil fuels, land use, and finance sectors. Read more.
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Complementary feeding refers to the introduction of foods other than human milk or formula to an infant’s diet. In response to a request from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Academies Health and Medicine Division convened the Committee on Complementary Feeding Interventions for Infants and Young Children under Age 2 to conduct a consensus study scoping review of peer-reviewed literature and other publicly available information on interventions addressing complementary feeding of infants and young children. This report summarizes the evidence and provides information on interventions that could be scaled up or implemented at a community or state level. Read more.
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The Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering |
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The purpose of the Academy is to "provide guidance to the people and the government of the State of Connecticut... in the application of science and engineering to the economic and social welfare."
OFFICERS OF THE ACADEMY
John Kadow, President Alphina Therpeutics
Sten Vermund, Vice President Yale School of Public Health
Eric Donkor, Secretary UConn
Edmond Murphy, Treasurer Lumentum (ret.)
Christine Broadbridge, Past President Southern Connecticut State University
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Terri Clark
EDITORS Leon Pintsov, Executive Editor - Engineering Pitney Bowes, Inc. (ret.)
Mike Genel, Executive Editor - Medicine Professor Emeritus of Pediatrics Yale University School of Medicine CASE President, 2008-2010
Amy R. Howell, Executive Editor - Science Department of Chemistry University of Connecticut
COMMUNICATIONS CONSULTANT Rebecca Mead, INQ Creative
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The Bulletin is published by the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering, Inc, 222 Pitkin Street, Suite 101, East Hartford, Connecticut, 06108. 860.282.4229, tclark@ctcase.org. To subscribe, visit ctcase.org.
The Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering is a private, nonprofit public service organization established by Special Act No. 76-53 of the Connecticut General Assembly.
COPYING PERMITTED, WITH ATTRIBUTION
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