of the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering

Celebrate, Promote, Inform in Service to Connecticut

Volume 41, 1 /  February 2026

As I write my first message of the new year, there are reasons to celebrate. Young scientists have been hard at work completing exciting research projects, while members of the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering (CASE) continue our work to inform evidence-based policymaking.

Throughout its history, an important focus of CASE has been on supporting science fairs and recognizing outstanding student participants. We encourage our readers to attend and become involved with fairs such as the Connecticut High School Science and Humanities Symposium (CT HSSHS), the Connecticut Science & Engineering Fair (CSEF), and the Connecticut Invention Convention (CIC). Engaging the next generation is critical to fostering an environment in Connecticut where scientific and technological excellence thrive.

The Call for Nominations for the Connecticut Medal of Technology was also released in January. Awarded by the Office of the Governor and administered by CASE, this is the State’s highest honor for technological achievement. This medal recognizes individuals, teams, and organizations that have made remarkable contributions to the economic, environmental, and social well-being of Connecticut and the nation. Nominations are due by March 9. I encourage all to consider submitting nominations and to help us recognize outstanding contributions across our community. You can find additional information about the medals and past recipients here.

As a final note, last month several Academy members presented at the Third Annual Moving Beyond Implications (MBI) conference at the Connecticut State Capitol. The conference brought together academics, legislators, and other policymakers to discuss how scientific and technical expertise can be effectively translated into policy-relevant insights. The full MBI program and briefings, including those by CASE members, can be found here.

Thank you for your continued commitment to CASE and its mission. I look forward to meeting the science fair winners at our Annual Dinner on May 19. For me, it is always a highlight of the program to see these young scientists present their research.

Warm regards,

Amy R. Howell, President
Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering (CASE)
Celebrate, Promote, Inform in Service to Connecticut

Comments about this edition of the Bulletin are welcome via jorszak@ctcase.org.

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Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering, please visit ctcase.org.

Science and Engineering Notes from Around Connecticut

The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station continues to find growing populations of the spotted lanternfly (SLF) in Connecticut and has renewed the quarantine order for 2026. First detected in 2020, the SLF — an invasive sap-feeding planthopper - has spread to seven of Connecticut’s eight counties, posing threats to the agricultural ecosystem. Read more.

CASE Member Bodhisattwa Chaudhuri, a professor of pharmaceutics at UConn, was one of only eight fellows worldwide inducted as a Fellow of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists. Chaudhuri was recognized for his global leadership in pharmaceutical powder technology and multiscale modeling, as well as his pioneering research in electrostatics, 3D printing, heat transfer in granular media, and continuous manufacturing platforms. Read more.

Obtaining a clear view of the complex connections between cells and structures throughout the brain has been challenging for researchers studying neurological conditions. However, a Yale team led by CASE member Joerg Bewersdorf, the Harvey and Kate Cushing Professor of Cell Biology, and Aaron Kuan has now introduced the power of a new imaging technique to aid in this effort. The technique, known as pan-expansion microscopy—which was developed by Bewersdorf’s lab in 2020—allows scientists to examine tissue in detail, revealing both the location of specific molecules and the appearance of surrounding cellular structures. Read more.

CASE Member Andrew L. Goodman, the C.N.H. Long Professor of Microbial Pathogenesis and Director of Microbial Sciences Institute at Yale, has been named to the 2025 class of Innovation Fund investigators from the Pew Charitable Trusts. Goodman will collaborate with a colleague at Columbia University on interdisciplinary research projects exploring key questions about human biology and disease, testing whether medical drugs and gut microbes can activate antimicrobial peptides in the mammalian gut to reshape the gut microbiome. Read more.

A study by CASE Member Linda Pescatello, Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor in the UConn Department of Kinesiology (CAHNR), highlights the effectiveness of exercise as medicine for lowering blood pressure and the positive effects for many of high blood pressure’s comorbidities and other cardiovascular disease risk factors. Read more.

A Yale-led study by CASE member Markus Müschen, director of the Yale Center of Molecular and Cellular Oncology and the Arthur H. and Isabel Bunker Professor of Internal Medicine (Hematology) at Yale School of Medicine, has identified a therapy—previously developed for Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases—as an effective treatment for B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia, the most common form in children and young adults. Read more.

Will Connecticut pass AI legislation this year? Without federal legislation, state legislatures — in Connecticut and elsewhere — face pressure to address issues from AI ethics to data center environmental impacts and concerns about a dot-com-like “bubble.” With the 2026 legislative session, state lawmakers see a chance to shape Connecticut’s future approach to the technology. Read more.

Survey data show that, in general, public trust in science has fallen recently. Over the last half century, Americans overall have expressed high levels of confidence in science—particularly compared with other major societal institutions, such as the mainstream media and the federal government, which experienced notable declines in trust during that time. Today, although 76% of the public still expresses a “great deal” or a “fair amount” of confidence in scientists to act in the public’s best interests, according to the Pew Research Center, that number has fallen by 11 percentage points since the pandemic began in 2020. Read more.

Reflecting the state’s investment in quantum technologies, the Connecticut State Colleges & Universities (CSCU) Center for Nanotechnology is now the CSCU Center for Quantum and Nanotechnology (QNT), with an expanded mission and a strengthened partnership with QuantumCT. Led by CASE Member Christine Broadbridge, Professor of Physics and Executive Director of Research and Innovation at Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU) and a member of the QuantumCT leadership team, QNT will be based at Southern Connecticut State University and serve as Connecticut’s hub for quantum workforce development. Read more.

Connecticut demonstrates how policymaking can be more effective when it is grounded in research. Increasing efforts—including the Moving Beyond Implications: Research into Policy conference—connect legislators directly with research, removing barriers such as paywalls and timing gaps so evidence can guide policy more swiftly and efficiently. The outcome: better-crafted laws and a possible national example for evidence-based governance. Read more.

Despite challenges, UConn startup companies and entrepreneurs managed to set records and milestones. UConn’s Technology Commercialization Services (TCS) reported 117 invention disclosures in FY 2025, a 30% increase over the previous year. Its Technology Incubation Program (TIP) achieved record-setting fiscal growth, doubling revenues over the past two years. Read more.

Since its founding in 2011, the Connecticut Green Bank has invested over $3B in the state’s green economy, including clean energy and environmental infrastructure projects that have supported the creation of more than 30K jobs and lowered energy costs for 75K families and businesses. Read more.

Six supply chain companies in key Connecticut industries — including manufacturing, information technology, biomedical instruments, clean energy, artificial intelligence, and quantum computing — have received $7.6 million through the Strategic Supply Chain Initiative to boost production and establish new operations in the state. Read more.

The Connecticut Area Health Education Center Network at UConn Health will host the Connecticut High School Science and Humanities Symposium (CT HSSHS) on Saturday, February 28, 2026. It mirrors the Junior Science and Humanities Symposia (JSHS) program, which is currently on hold due to federal funding cuts. Overall, CT HSSHS will be very similar to CT JSHS from previous years, but it will not include a national component. The event aims to challenge and engage students in grades 9-12 in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM). Individual students will compete for scholarships and recognition by presenting their original research results to a panel of judges and their peers. Read more.

The University of New Haven has established a corporate partnership council to promote strategic collaborations, provide immersive student experiences, and foster innovative research, aligning with the University’s strategic plan and supporting the growth of its pioneering Center for Innovation and Applied Technology. Read more.

A new partnership between the University of Hartford and the Connecticut Science Center links students to real-world STEM experiences, creating pathways into science and tech careers. Read more.

Six Connecticut high school students have been chosen among the top 300 scholars in the 2026 Regeneron Science Talent Search by The Society for Science, the country’s oldest and most prestigious science and math competition for high school seniors. The scholars were selected based on their exceptional research, leadership abilities, community involvement, dedication to academics, creativity in posing scientific questions, and remarkable potential as STEM leaders demonstrated through their original, independent research projects, essays, and recommendations. Read more.

A multi-year study by researchers from UConn’s Outage Prediction Modeling (OPM) team, including Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor and director of the Institute of Environment and Energy, CASE Member Emmanouil Anagnostou, is the first of its kind to analyze combined weather events and county-level outage data across the United States. The goal is to improve energy resilience by understanding the nuances of power outages. Read more.

In a recent study, authored by CASE Member Nilay Hazari, the John Randolph Huffman Professor of Chemistry, and chair of chemistry, in Yale’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences, discovered that chemical catalysts containing manganese — an abundant, affordable metallic element — are highly effective in converting carbon dioxide into formate. Formate is seen as a potential key contributor of hydrogen for the next generation of fuel cells. Read more.

The Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, along with the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources, Maine Public Utilities Commission, and Green Mountain Power in Vermont, has collectively selected new clean energy projects totaling 173 megawatts (MW) of additional solar generation. Designed to take advantage of federal clean energy tax credits, these selections will enhance the reliability of the state and regional electric grid, reduce costs for Connecticut ratepayers, and increase the state’s electricity supply with clean, emission-free resources. Read more.

Extreme flooding events from hurricanes that used to occur once every 100 years in the northeastern U.S. may become annual occurrences by the end of this century, according to a new study. Rising sea levels and storm surges from hurricanes will increase the frequency of extreme flooding in northeastern U.S. states, including Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey. Read more.

A study from Yale School of Public Health, led by senior author and CASE Member Susan Busch, the Susan Dwight Bliss Professor of Public Health, finds that Medicaid reimbursement boosts access to opioid treatment at new facilities, while existing ones lag behind. This offers important insights for policymakers seeking to improve access and quality of care. Read more.

New research led by CASE Member Ruslan Medhitov, the Sterling Professor of Immunobiology at Yale School of Medicine, finds that early exposure to microbe-diverse environments helps prevent allergies. The study’s findings may guide better strategies for allergy prevention, encouraging early exposure to natural environments and new therapies that enhance protective immune responses rather than simply suppressing symptoms. Read more.

The lab of CASE Member Guoan Zheng, professor of biomedical engineering and director of the UConn Center for Biomedical and Bioengineering Innovation, has developed a new image sensor that achieves optical super-resolution without the use of lenses. Inspired by the telescope array that captured the first black hole image, the device uses multiple sensors working in concert, computationally merging their observations to see finer details. Read more.

CASE Member Victor Bastista, the John Gamble Kirkwood Professor of Chemistry in Yale’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences, working with researchers from Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, has developed an AI-powered platform of digital “experts” called MOSAIC. MOSAIC generates experimental procedures for chemical synthesis, including for compounds that don’t currently exist. Read more.

CASE Member Ivana Milanovic, a professor of mechanical, aerospace, and acoustical engineering at the College of Engineering, Technology, and Architecture, University of Hartford, has received the 2026 Ben C. Sparks Medal from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. This society-level award recognizes significant contributions to mechanical engineering education. Read more.

The University of Connecticut and Voyager Technologies will establish a regional hub for space-based research and technology commercialization, creating a Connecticut location for VISTA, the Voyager Institute for Science, Technology, and Advancement. It aims to foster in-space research, manufacturing, and services. The collaboration will focus on research and commercialization in metamaterials, microgravity, and quantum technologies. Read more.

After a pilot program at Electric Boat in Groton, technology company Palantir has won a $448 million contract to accelerate the adoption of artificial intelligence across the U.S. Navy’s shipbuilding base to bring modern best practices to the complex, data-heavy environment of shipbuilding. During the pilot deployment of the foundry and artificial intelligence platform at the Groton submarine yard, schedule planning was reduced from 160 manual hours to under 10 minutes. Read more.

Will widening I-95 in Stamford help traffic? A proposal to widen the highway is one of several concepts CT transportation officials have put forward to address congestion. Read more.

The Connecticut Department of Transportation (CTDOT) is highlighting the progress made in 2025 to improve safety, accessibility, and reliability across the state’s transportation networks for drivers, transit riders, cyclists, and pedestrians. Read more.

The U.S. Department of Transportation announced a new initiative, the Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) National Strategy, designed to accelerate American aviation innovation over the next decade. AAM is an aerospace sector focused on safely and efficiently integrating automated aircraft into U.S. airspace, requiring a modern support system, including a skilled workforce, upgraded infrastructure, and clear regulatory frameworks. Read more.

Convened by TRB, the 2026 NAE Transportation Research Board Symposium on Aviation Innovation and Research will be held June 8 – 11, 2026, in Dayton, OH. Participants will discuss emerging trends and issues to identify research solutions that can forge innovative concepts and strategies for implementation and support the future of the aviation industry. Learn more.

Items that appear in the In Brief section are compiled from previously
published sources including newspaper accounts and press releases.  

The following is excerpted from press releases and other news reports from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (nationalacademies.org).

The scientific community has been studying how human-caused greenhouse gas emissions are impacting the climate for over a century. Much is known today, based on decades of direct Earth system observations and detailed research. This report summarizes the latest evidence on whether greenhouse gas emissions threaten public health and welfare in the United States. The report’s authoring committee concluded that U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) 2009 finding—that human-caused greenhouse gas emissions harm human health and welfare—was accurate, has endured, and is now supported by even stronger evidence. Today, many of EPA’s conclusions are further backed by longer observational records and multiple new lines of evidence. Additionally, research has revealed additional risks that were not evident in 2009. Read more. 

Our current information ecosystem makes it easier for misinformation about science to spread and harder for people to determine what is scientifically accurate. Proactive solutions are necessary to address misinformation about science, given its potential to harm individuals, communities, and society. Improving access to high-quality scientific information can fill knowledge gaps on topics of interest, decreasing the chances of exposure to and acceptance of scientific misinformation. This report offers guidance on interventions, policy, and future research, providing a comprehensive evaluation of existing evidence and adopting a systems perspective that considers the broader historical and contemporary contexts shaping people's experiences and relationships with information. Read more.

While large language models (LLMs) represent one class of artificial intelligence (AI) and dominate public discourse, there are many other AI technologies that can be overlooked. Although LLMs are well-known, numerous complex challenges in the defense sector cannot be fully solved by these models alone. This report summarizes a workshop session that examined the fast-changing landscape of AI models beyond LLMs and highlights important factors for choosing and designing models in the context of national security. It also emphasizes critical AI topics that have received less attention and showcases the wide range of non-LLM AI research happening across academia, industry, and government. Read more. 

The U.S. medicolegal death investigation system is responsible for investigating and determining the cause and manner of death, playing a vital role in the country's public health and criminal justice systems. Recent high-profile deaths in custody have drawn increased scrutiny to the conclusions made by forensic pathologists, medical examiners, and coroners, raising questions about the scientific validity of these determinations. This report assesses how deaths in police custody are handled by the medicolegal death investigation system and suggests actions to improve the country's medicolegal death investigation processes. Read more. 

Obesity remains one of the most urgent public health challenges in the U.S., raising risks of chronic disease, mobility issues, and healthcare costs. While physical activity is generally seen as a key strategy to prevent and treat obesity, questions continue about the best ways to incorporate movement into clinical care and daily routines—especially with new obesity medications, advancing technology, and the diverse needs of individuals. This report highlights the results of a workshop that explored physical activity not only as a means of weight management but also as a vital part of overall health and well-being. The workshop also looked at the effectiveness of physical activity in prevention and treatment settings; how to integrate it into clinical, community, and policy frameworks; and the impact of emerging technologies on obesity care. Read more. 

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

Amy R. Howell, President
University of Connecticut

Mike Ambrose, Vice President
MH Ambrose Consulting,
Ambro Enterprises LLC

Tanimu Deleon, Secretary
General Dynamics Electric Boat

Regis Matzie, Treasurer
RAMatzie Nuclear Technology Consulting, LLC

John Kadow, Past President
Alphina Therapeutics

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Jeffrey Orszak

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR
Kerry Shea

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

Carolyn Teschke, Executive Editor - Science
Department of Molecular and Cell Biology
University of Connecticut

COMMUNICATIONS CONSULTANT
Rebecca Mead, INQ Creative

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, jorszak@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.

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