of the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering
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Celebrate, Promote, Inform in Service to CT
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Volume 37, 5 / October 2022
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A message to our readers... |
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I’m excited to share that CASE’s annual call for nominations for the election of new members is underway. I know through this yearly call nominations will be received for extraordinary, well-deserving CT-STEMM professionals who have made significant contributions in their fields, added to our state’s workforce, started new or strengthened existing businesses and industries, supported public policy decision-making, and ultimately supported the social and economic well-being of our state’s residents.
To be eligible, nominees must be recognized for scientific distinction achieved through significant original contributions in theory or applications and/or unusual accomplishments in the pioneering of new and developing fields of applied science or technology. Additionally, CASE Leadership charges the membership to consider the importance CASE places on diverse and inclusive participation in its membership and activities.
You may be or may know of someone who meets the eligibility criteria. If you are interested in learning more about the Call for Nominations, contact Terri Clark. Our new members will be recognized at the 48th Annual CASE Meeting and Dinner to be held on Wednesday, May 24, 2023, at WoodWinds in Branford.
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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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MEMBER NEWS |
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CASE Members Elected to the National Academy of Medicine |
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Yale faculty members, Peter M. Glazer and Saad B. Omer have been elected to the prestigious National Academy of Medicine. Elected by current members through a process that recognizes individuals who have made major contributions to the advancement of the medical sciences, health care, and public health. Read more.
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MEMBERSHIP |
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CASE Nominations for Membership |
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Academy members will receive the Call for Nominations for CASE Membership in early October. If you are interested in the process of becoming a CASE member, please contact Terri Clark at tclark@ctcase.org or visit the Academy's website for more information.
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ANNUAL MEETING |
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CASE Annual Meeting & Dinner |
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Save the date for the 48th CASE Annual Meeting & Dinner, Thursday, May 24, 2023, at WoodWinds in Branford.
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SOCIAL MEDIA |
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CASE LinkedIn Page |
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The Academy has an active LinkedIn page that we encourage the Bulletin’s readership to follow. The page will connect you to news on the Academy, its members, and science, engineering, medicine, and technology topics of interest to Connecticut. Please click the blue "follow" button on the page to stay up to date.
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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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The USDA Food and Nutrition Service awarded the Connecticut Department of Agriculture a $250k grant as part of the Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program Benefit Delivery Modernization Grants. The grant’s purpose is to improve equitable access to locally grown fruits and vegetables for participants of the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, commonly known as WIC. Read more.
A new USDA-National Institute of Food and Agriculture funded project was awarded to UConn Extension – including UConn College of Agriculture, Health, and Natural Resources faculty, in partnership with Learning Games Laboratory, New Mexico State University (NMSU). 4-H youth cohorts from both campuses will participate in experiential lessons and industry field trips and hear from guest speakers in the field of biotechnology. NMSU will develop games with the cohorts. The project’s purpose is to provide youth with an understanding of the field and information about biotechnology career opportunities and to build public confidence in the safe use of biotech in agriculture and the food system. Read more.
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Biomedical Research & Healthcare |
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The National Human Genome Research Institute awarded CASE Member Brent Graveley, Department of Genetics and Genome Sciences Chair and UConn School of Medicine Professor, and his team $5.6 million to continue to work on an enormous encyclopedia of human RNA molecules and the proteins that bind to them. Read more.
CASE Member Michael Cappello, Yale University School of Medicine professor of pediatrics and a board-certified infectious diseases clinician, was appointed as chair of the Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases Department. Additionally, Cappello serves as an associate director of the Yale MD-PhD Program and as an attending physician in the Pediatric Infectious Diseases section at the Yale-New Haven network of affiliated hospitals in Connecticut and Rhode Island. Read more.
A team led by CASE member Edison Liu and his colleague, research scientist Francesca Menghi, from The Jackson Laboratory, used patient data, patient-derived xenograft mouse models, and engineered cancer cell lines to investigate and discover a mechanism for chemotherapy resistance in patients with BRCA. Their work was published in Science Translational Medicine. Read more.
CASE Member David G. Schatz, Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale University will be awarded the 2023 Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize for raising knowledge of the development of the immune system to a new level. Read more.
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Communication & Information Systems |
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CASE Member David Ferrucci, Founder and CEO of Elemental Cognition, announced the launch of a sponsored research partnership with the Penn Brain Tumor Center to advance therapeutic drug development by embedding their Collaborative Research Assistant (CORA) into the preclinical research pipeline. CORA aggregates information across data sources to accelerate research. This new partnership will integrate next-generation artificial intelligence into the research process with the goal of dramatically expiditing the development of cancer treatments. Read more.
CASE member Daniel Spielman, a Yale University Sterling Professor of Computer Science, Statistics and Data Science and Mathematics and Applied Mathematics, won the Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics for “multiple discoveries in theoretical computer science and mathematics.” The foundation cited several of Spielman’s achievements, including his role in solving the Kadison-Singer conjecture, a problem that had gone unsolved by mathematicians for more than 50 years, and cited his contributions to spectral graph theory, numerical linear algebra, optimization, and coding theory. Read more.
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BioCT is inviting nominations for Entrepreneur of the Year. The award recognizes individuals who are imaginative, passionate, and game-changers in Connecticut and whose accomplishments enrich the greater bioscience community. Read more.
VISTECH was highlighted in the CT Technology Council’s September newsletter for the company’s implementation of software solutions for the most complex business solutions. The company is headquartered in Hartford and provides software development, business services – including managed IT and website – and eCommerce Software as a Service (SaaS) products. Read more.
The 2022 Yale Faculty Innovation Awards recognized the significant contributions of faculty investigators who bring their discoveries to market and launch Yale innovation into the world. The inaugural class of 12 awardees represent 60 new ventures that have generated over 3.7 billion in venture capital investment. CASE Members receiving awards include John Krystal, Aikiko Iwasaki, Anna Marie Pyle, and Craig Crews. Read more.
GE Appliances, a Haier company, opened its newest manufacturing operation in Stamford, with the first appliance rolling off the line in July. The company is committed to bringing small manufacturing back to Stamford and is supporting the workforce development needed through CoCREATE Stamford, which is working in partnership with UConn and the CSCU system. Read more.
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Energy Production, Use, and Conservation |
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Connecticut will receive $52.2 million in federal funding from the new Infrastructure Law to deploy convenient, reliable, and affordable electric vehicle chargers along the state’s highways. Read more.
Energize Connecticut, an initiative of the Energy Efficiency Fund, the Connecticut Green Bank, the state, and local electric and gas utilities, helps homes and businesses save energy through rebates, financing and services for energy efficiency and clean energy improvements. EnergizeCT’s website includes Connecticut’s official rate board, which allows consumers to compare generation supplier rates. Read more.
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The Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) launched the Climate Resilience Fund, a state grant program that will help communities in the state plan and prepare for the effects of climate change. The initial round of grants from DEEP includes $10 million for planning and project concept design that can support the development of competitive federal grants to substantially fund implementation and construction. Read more.
UConn, R/GA Ventures, and CTNext are collaborating to launch the Future Climate Venture Studio, which will identify and accelerate companies working in the critical areas of climate and sustainability. The studio will support startups at any stage of growth with a unique and comprehensive set of partners, assets, and opportunities that reflect the commitment of UConn and the state to lead nationally and globally in efforts to address the climate crisis. Read more.
Connecticut is being awarded $453+ million in funding from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for water infrastructure improvements. Plans include lead line replacement projects in New London and Waterbury, as well as PFAS treatment projects in New Fairfield and Danbury. Read more.
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Human Resources and Education |
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The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded Sacred Heart University’s School of Computer Science & Engineering $1.5m to fund STEM scholarships over the next six years. The scholarships will benefit students from underserved communities and in various majors - from computer science and game design to electrical engineering and cybersecurity. Read more.
CASE Student Awardee Snigtha Mohanraj has been named a Rise Global Winner for her scientific research on using modified biochar to remove specific harmful contaminants in water sources. Rise is a global program supported by Schmidt Futures, in partnership with the Rhodes Trust. She is one of 100 students ages 15-17; applications were received from over 170 countries. The program finds brilliant people who need opportunity and supports them for life as they work to serve others. Read more.
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Emily Wang, director of the SEICHE Center for Health and Justice, won a 2022 MacArthur Foundation’s “Genius Grant.” The Center is a collaboration between Yale School of Medicine and Yale Law School, and bridges the disparate domains of health, law, and criminal justice to study how specific policies and interventions affect the well-being of individuals and communities impacted by mass incarceration. Read more.
In a September 16 press release, the CT Department of Public Health announced that a second Connecticut resident tested positive for West Nile virus. The male patient is a resident of New Haven County. CT Department of Public Health Commissioner Manisha Juthani stated that the virus is spread through mosquito bites and the risk for human infection will continue through the first hard frost. Read more.
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CASE Past President Christine Broadbridge was elected for a three-year term on the Board of Directors for the Materials Research Society. She will participate at the international level in setting strategic priorities for major society activities. Read more.
UConn TIP startup LambdaVision has been working with the International Space Station, NASA, and Space Tango to explore how microgravity could improve the manufacturing process for their protein-based artificial retina. Read more.
A recent report by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) examined and identified the types of clean energy technologies and the deployment needed to achieve 100% clean electricity in the U.S. by 2035. The exact technology mix and costs will be determined by research and development, manufacturing, and infrastructure investment decisions over the next decade. Read more.
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The UConn Board of Trustees approved an agreement to sell 105 acres from the Mansfield Depot Campus to a group of investors to develop the site as the region’s first-ever connected and autonomous vehicle test track and research facility. Erik Jackson, associate research professor in UConn’s School of Engineering and director of the Connecticut Transportation Safety Research Center, says the facility will help make UConn a leader in autonomous vehicle research, technology, and safety. Read more.
General Dynamics Electric Boat was awarded a modification of a previously awarded US Navy contract for engineering, technical, design, and planning yard support for operational strategic and attack submarines. The contract modification has a value of over $236m; the work will be performed at Groton headquarters, as well as five other facilities across the country and is expected to be completed by September 2023. Read more.
A new exhibit at Sacred Heart University’s Discovery Science Center & Planetarium is dedicated to Igor I. Sikorsky, founder of Sikorsky Aircraft. The exhibit features memorabilia - courtesy of Sikorsky and the nonprofit Igor I. Sikorsky Historical Archives - of the famed aviator and engineer and will educate visitors on Sikorsky’s life and legacy. Read more.
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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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Digital health has evolved as a broad term encompassing electronically captured data, along with technical and communications infrastructure and applications in the healthcare ecosystem. Revolutionary advances in digital health are transforming health, medicine, and biomedical science, and redefining and re-engineering the tools needed to create a healthier future. These developments promise to drive earlier diagnoses and interventions, improve outcomes, and support more engaged patients. Yet despite important gains in the last two decades, the promise of digital health remains illusory. The ability to use interoperable digital technology to improve the effectiveness, efficiency, equity, and continuity of care remains substantially conceptual. This paper aims to provide a comprehensive review of digital health tools and their promise and to identify critical priorities for cooperation and collaboration among policymakers and industry leaders. Read more.
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More intense heat waves, extended wildfire seasons and other escalating impacts of climate change have made it more important than ever to fill knowledge gaps that improve society's understanding, assessment, and response to global change. The US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) laid out proposed mechanisms and priorities for global change research over the next decade in its draft Decadal Strategic Plan 2022-2031. As part of its work in advising the USGCRP, the National Academies reviewed USGCRP's draft plan to determine how it might be enhanced. Advances in the draft plan include an increased emphasis on social sciences, community engagement with marginalized groups, and promotion of diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice in the production of science. It was suggested that the draft plan could more strongly convey a sense of urgency throughout the plan and would benefit from additional examples of key research outputs that could advance policy and decision-making on global change challenges. Read more.
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New research in psychology, neuroscience, cognitive science, and other fields is published every day, but the gap between what is known and the capacity to act on that knowledge has never been larger. Scholars and nonscholars alike face the problem of how to organize knowledge and to integrate new observations with what is already known. This paper describes how ontologies support science and its application to real-world problems, detailing how ontologies function, how they can be engineered to better support the behavioral sciences, and the resources needed to sustain their development and use to help ensure the maximum benefit from investment in behavioral science research. Read more.
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Measuring and analyzing public opinion comes with tremendous challenges, as evidenced by recent struggles to predict election outcomes and to anticipate mass mobilizations. The Analytic Framework is designed specifically to help intelligence community analysts apply insights from the social and behavioral sciences on state-of-the-art approaches to analyze public attitudes in non-Western populations. The National Academies’ Board on Behavioral, Cognitive, and Sensory Sciences hosted a two-day hybrid workshop to present the Analytic Framework and to demonstrate its application across a series of hypothetical scenarios that might arise for an intelligence analyst tasked with summarizing public attitudes to inform a policy decision. Workshop participants explored cutting-edge methods for using large-scale data as well as cultural and ethical considerations for the collection and use of public opinion data. Read more.
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By mid-2022, the United States had lost more than 1 million people to the COVID-19 pandemic. For decades, the U.S. health system has fallen far short of its potential to support and improve individual and population health. The COVID-19 pandemic has presented death and devastation—but also an unprecedented opportunity to transform U.S. health, health care, and health delivery. To capitalize on this opportunity, the National Academy of Medicine gathered field leaders from all of the major health system sectors to assess how each sector responded to the pandemic and the opportunities that exist for health system transformation. The opportunity is now to capitalize on the lessons of COVID-19 and build a healthcare system that centers on patients, families, and communities; cares for clinicians; supports care systems, public health, and biomedical research to perform at the best of their abilities; applies innovations from digital health and quality, safety, and standards organizations; and encourages health care payers and health product manufacturers and innovators to produce products that benefit all. 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 ViiV Healthcare
Sten Vermund, Vice President Yale School of Public Health (ret.)
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.
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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