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, 1 / February 2023
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A message to our readers... |
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The record-warm days are a pleasant reminder that spring is around the corner, and with a new season comes the Academy’s 48th Annual Meeting and Dinner to be held May 24, 6:00 pm – 8:30 pm. The evening will be a celebration of science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine. We’ll recognize top STEMM professionals elected to the Academy this year, the best of the middle and high school student winners from the state’s science and engineering competitions, and pay tribute to the state’s 2023 Medal of Science recipient. If you are interested in attending, send an email to Terri at tclark@ctcase.org and she’ll include you on the invitation list.
Also, please help us disseminate the Call for Nominations for the CT Medal of Science. Your assistance with this will allow us to reach a larger audience, with the goal of broadening the number and diversity of the nominees to be considered this year.
Lastly, if you know of someone who would be interested in receiving the Bulletin, they can subscribe here or by emailing Terri.
On behalf of the members, enjoy this edition and I hope to see you at the Annual Meeting.
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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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CT MEDAL OF SCIENCE |
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Call for Nominations |
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Connecticut’s highest honor for scientific achievement in fields crucial to Connecticut’s economic competitiveness and social well-being recognizes one individual who has made extraordinary contributions to the advancement of science in Connecticut. Nominations due March 9th.
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MEMBERSHIP |
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CASE Elects 35 New Members
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CASE announced the election of 35 of Connecticut’s leading experts in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine to membership in the Academy. The new members will be introduced at the Academy’s 48th Annual Meeting and Dinner to be held on May 24, 2023. Read more.
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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, Wednesday, May 24, 2023, at The Woodwinds in Branford. If you are interested in attending, send an email to Terri at tclark@ctcase.org to be included on the invitation list.
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PODCAST |
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Learning and Living STEMM
in Connecticut |
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Watch for the Academy's new podcast series - premiering March 27th on the CASE website and wherever you get your podcasts.
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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, 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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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 Connecticut Department of Agriculture awarded 32 grants from the Connecticut Grown for Connecticut Kids Grant to develop and enhance farm-to-school programs. These awards will increase the availability of local foods in child nutrition programs, allow educators to use hands-on educational techniques to teach students about nutrition and farm-to-school connections, sustain relationships with local farmers and producers, enrich the educational experience of students, improve the health of children in the state, and enhance the state’s economy. Read more.
The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station (CAES), in cooperation with USDA, announced the renewal of the Spotted Lanternfly (SLF) quarantine for Connecticut for 2023. Multiple adult SLF populations were detected in the state from 2020 to 2022 and the distribution has expanded, posing a threat to agriculture and forests in Connecticut. The public is urged to report sightings of this invasive pest when they become active again this spring. Read more.
The Connecticut Milk Promotion Board (CTMPB), administered by the Connecticut Department of Agriculture, has up to $660,000 available in funding opportunities to support partnerships with retail, educational, and professional organizations to positively impact dairy farmers’ economic viability by increasing the purchase of Connecticut milk and dairy products. Read more.
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Biomedical Research & Healthcare |
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CASE Member Harlan Krumholz, founding director of the Yale University/Yale New Haven Hospital Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation (CORE), supports the efforts of patient advocates to push health providers to adhere to the 21st Century Cures Act and the Medical Records Access Fairness Act. These acts require that providers give patients their medical records free at least once a year and assign a unique patient identifier (UPI). Read more.
CASE Member and UConn Professor Cato Laurencin was honored with the Shu Chien Achievement Award at the Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering (CMBE) conference, held by the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES). This award is the most prestigious honor bestowed by the CMBE Group, recognizing Dr. Laurencin’s exceptional contributions to the cellular and molecular bioengineering field and his dedication as a mentor to others. Read more.
CASE Member Daniel C. DiMaio, the Waldemar Von Zedtwitz Professor of Genetics and Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry and of Therapeutic Radiology, Yale University School of Medicine (YSM), received the Yale Cancer Center Lifetime Achievement Award. Working with CASE Members and Yale colleagues George Miller and Joan Steitz, DiMaio was the Principal Investigator of the longest-running program project grant in YSM history. Read more.
A team of researchers from the laboratories of CASE Member W. Mark Saltzman, Yale School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS), and Raman Bahal, UConn School of Pharmacy, developed a cancer treatment that merges two technologies aimed at fighting glioblastoma. The treatment uses bioadhesive nanoparticles that adhere to the site of the tumor and then slowly release the synthesized peptide nucleic acids that they’re carrying. The study’s authors include CASE Member and Yale SEAS Professor Rong Fan. Read more.
Two CASE members are among seven Yale faculty named as fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Enrique De La Cruz, chair of the department of molecular biophysics and biochemistry and head of Branford College, and Erika Edwards, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and curator of botany at the Peabody Museum of Natural History, are being recognized in the largest group of fellows from Yale in over a decade. AAAS is the world’s largest multidisciplinary scientific society and annually recognizes remarkable scientists, innovators, and engineers from a variety of disciplines to be fellows. Read more.
Two Yale labs will lead projects tasked with developing new approaches to understand and combat pathogens. Funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s (HHMI) Emerging Pathogens Initiative, one team, headed by Richard Flavell, will explore the development of vaccines that do not directly target microbes. Another team, led by Anna Pyle, will investigate how RNA biology and new biosafety technologies can be merged to create new RNA vaccines that can combat a wide spectrum of viral infections. CASE Members Akiko Iwasaki and Paul Turner are on teams led by collaborating universities to study how brain function is affected by viruses such as SARS-CoV-2 and explore how phage therapy can combat antibiotic-resistant infections respectively. Read more.
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Communication & Information Systems |
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Connecticut joins 45 states in adopting a new statewide health information system to improve communication within healthcare and cut down on delays in care. Connie, the state’s official health information exchange, lets medical professionals and patients share medical information electronically. Healthcare providers must connect with Connie by May 3, 2023. Read more.
A team of researchers, led by CASE Member Hong Tang, Yale School of Engineering and Applied Science, has developed the first chip-scale titanium-doped sapphire laser—an innovation that could lead to new applications ranging from atomic clocks to quantum computing and spectroscopic sensors. Read more.
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Connecticut Innovations launched the $50-million Future Fund to support disruptive, early-stage companies in a growing market that exhibits high growth potential. Investments will range from $250,000 to $1.5 million, with an emphasis on companies led by underrepresented populations. Read more.
UConn School of Engineering has launched an Entrepreneurship Hub offering courses, programs, and activities to facilitate the process of technology commercialization, from the early stages of ideation and conceptualization to licensing and fully launching and scaling businesses for growth. All members of the UConn community who have a technology-based idea, whether students, faculty, staff, or postdocs, are welcome to use the eHub’s resources. Read more.
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Energy Production, Use, and Conservation |
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SmartBuildingsCT, a program developed by UConn professor Amy Thomson, and supported by Energize CT, provides technical support, education, and training for Connecticut municipal leaders, town managers, and school administrators on how readily available technologies can help guide and improve energy efficiency and sustainability efforts within their towns. Read more.
The Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection announced a cooperative effort between all the New England states to pursue funding to encourage transmission infrastructure improvement. The US Department of Energy is seeking proposals to grow the region’s supply of clean, reliable, and affordable energy. Read more.
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UConn ranked 6th overall – and one of 12 platinum-rated schools - in the Sustainable Campus Index by STARS (Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System), a program of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE). The self-reporting system measures college and university performances in 17 sustainability impact areas. UConn excelled in campus engagement, curriculum and learning opportunities, public engagement, water conservation, and food and dining. Read more.
Listen to a recent episode of Connecticut Public Broadcasting Network Where We Live on Connecticut’s waste management crisis – an issue on the agenda for the CT General Assembly’s Environmental Committee. With one-third of Connecticut’s waste being transported out-of-state, the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection is offering grants to support pay-as-you-throw programs and food collection services. Read more.
The Rockfall Foundation will present a free presentation on Connecticut’s only wild cat – the bobcat – with Gail Cameron, a Master Wildlife Conservationist volunteer with CTDEEP. “Connecticut’s Secretive Cat,” will detail the biology of the bobcat, how it almost disappeared from our state, and how the population is now recovering. March 21, 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. in Middletown. Read more.
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Human Resources and Education |
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Regeneron and Society for Science announced the 300 students named as scholars in the Regeneron Science Talent Search, the nation’s oldest and most prestigious science and math competition for high school seniors. Among the eleven Connecticut scholars are past CASE Student Awardees Ryan Kim of Choate Rosemary Hall (Milford), Gouri Krishnan of King School (Stamford), and Ambika Grover of Greenwich High School. Read more.
Connecticut’s largest employers list is dominated by companies in the healthcare sector. Yale New Haven Health, Hartford HealthCare, and CVS Health are numbers 2, 3 and 7 in a ranking of the state’s largest employers, as published by Hartford Business Journal. Three additional healthcare companies, UConn Health at 13, Trinity Health of New England at 15, and Athena Health Care Systems at 17, also made the list of the 22 largest employers in the state. Read more.
Carolyn Kielma – the science teacher from Bristol Eastern High School who was recently selected as the 2023 Connecticut Teacher of the Year – is one of five finalists under consideration for 2023 National Teacher of the Year, the nation’s highest recognition honoring extraordinary teachers. Read more.
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A recent study published in the JAMA, Journal of the American Medical Association, identified ways that manufacturers, through a loophole in the law, can use unsafe medical devices as a basis for bringing new, related products to market, “While regulators have been aware of this loophole for years, our study is the first to systematically characterize the harms to patient safety,” said CASE Member Harlan Krumholz, the director of the Yale University/Yale New Haven Hospital Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation (CORE) at Yale University School of Medicine (YSM). Read more.
Wastewater surveillance was a valuable component of the U.S. public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and is worthy of further development and continued investment, says a new report from The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. The report offers recommendations to strengthen nationwide coordination and ensure a national wastewater surveillance system that is robust to inform the response to future infectious diseases. Read more.
Megan L. Ranney has been named the next dean of the Yale School of Public Health effective July 1. Ranney will follow interim Dean Melinda Pettigrew, who followed former Dean, and CASE Member, Sten Vermund. Ranney currently serves as the deputy dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, is professor of behavioral and social science, professor of emergency medicine at Brown University’s Alpert Medical School, and the founding director of the Brown-Lifespan Center for Digital Health. Read more.
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The Biden-Harris Administration through the US Department of Energy’s Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office (HFTO) has announced the availability of $47M to accelerate the research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) of affordable clean hydrogen technologies. Funding will focus on RD&D of key hydrogen delivery and storage technologies as well as affordable and durable fuel cell technologies. Concept papers are due Feb. 24, 2023, with full applications due Apr. 28, 2023. Read more.
US Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm invites Energy Innovators to the 13th ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit March 22-24, 2023, at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center, National Harbor, Maryland. ARPA-E expects the summit will bring more than 2,000 experts from government, academia, and business to advance cutting-edge energy technologies. Read more.
CASE Member Meg Urry, Yale University professor of Physics and Astronomy and the director of the Yale Center for Astronomy & Astrophysics, was awarded the inaugural 2023 Distinguished Career Award from the American Astronomical Society’s High Energy Astrophysics Division. Urry was cited “for her remarkable contributions to our understanding of a wide variety of topics in extragalactic high energy astrophysics, for establishing the unification paradigm of active galactic nuclei, her work on the origin of the extragalactic X-ray background, and for her tireless advocacy and support of women and underrepresented groups in science.” Read more.
CASE Member and recipient of the 2012 Connecticut Medal of Technology, Yaakov Bar-Shalom, professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Connecticut, has been selected for the 2022 Institute of Society Electrical and Electronics Engineers Aerospace and Electronic Systems (IEEE AESS) Pioneer Award. Recognized along with Henk Blom of the Delft University of Technology, their award stems from the development of the Interacting Multiple Model (IMM) approach to multi-model estimation and maneuvering target tracking. Read more.
CASE Member Lee Langston, professor emeritus at UConn, authored a recent article published in Mechanical Engineering on philosopher – and civil and mechanical engineer - Henry David Thoreau, and his work as a teacher, editorial assistant, repair man, and gardener, as well as his quest to improve the American pencil through his family’s pencil factory. Read more.
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A grant from the New England Transportation Consortium is funding a UConn project to plant native plant species along New England roadsides to support pollinators and biodiverse ecosystems. Demonstration sites have been established in three New England states, including areas along Interstate 91 since it corresponds with monarch butterflies’ migration route. Roadside flora also provide ecosystem services like runoff filtration, carbon sequestration, supporting biodiverse habitats, and improving aesthetics. Read more.
The Connecticut Department of Transportation, in collaboration with the Connecticut Department of Motor Vehicles and the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, launched a new digital tool detailing Connecticut’s electric vehicle and EV infrastructure. Find out more about EValuatCT, a dashboard created to make data more accessible. 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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Individuals from minoritized racial and ethnic groups continue to face systemic barriers that impede their ability to access, persist, and thrive in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM) higher education and workforce. Without actively dismantling policies and practices that disadvantage people from minoritized groups, STEMM organizations stand to lose much-needed talent and innovation as well as the ideas that come from having a diverse workforce. This report outlines actions that top leaders and gatekeepers in STEMM organizations, such as presidents and chief executive officers, can take to foster a culture and climate of antiracism, diversity, equity, and inclusion that is genuinely accessible and supportive to all. Read more.
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State departments of transportation (DOTs) have various practices for ensuring information security, cybersecurity, and physical security, and for controlling permissions for interactive tools, which can make collaboration, information access, and knowledge sharing difficult. This report presents guidelines for facilitating secure collaboration and information sharing within state DOTs and with other transportation agencies. Read more.
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The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and inundation of the U.S. healthcare system emphasized infrastructural and health professional education vulnerabilities. A planning committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Global Forum on Innovation in Health Professional Education conducted a series of public workshops to explore whether students and trainees should be viewed as members of the health workforce, particularly in times of emergency and/or public health crisis. The workshops explored issues such as identifying evidence on value-added roles for students to serve in the delivery of care and in a public health capacity, and balancing the role of learners as consumers and not licensed providers versus members of the health workforce. This report summarizes the discussions that took place at these workshops. Read more.
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In August 2022, the National Academy of Engineering held a symposium to explore how the support of fundamental engineering and engineering education research by the National Science Foundation has led to positive societal and economic impacts. The symposium - was held as part of a larger effort to develop clear, compelling narratives for the public about the sources and effects of engineering innovations. Speakers at the symposium provided insights into how engineers influence not only technology and the national infrastructure but the economy, population health, manufacturing, disaster resilience, and many other aspects of daily life. This report summarizes the discussions that took place at this symposium. Read more.
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Beginning with the 1990–1991 Gulf War, more than 3.7 million U.S. service members have been deployed to Southwest Asia and exposed to airborne hazards including oil-well fire smoke, emissions from open burn pits, dust and sand, diesel exhaust, and poor-quality ambient air. Many service members, particularly those who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, have reported health problems they attribute to their exposure to emissions from open-air burn pits on military installations. In 2013, Congress directed the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to establish and maintain the Airborne Hazards and Open Burn Pit (AH&OBP) Registry to "ascertain and monitor" the health effects of such exposures. This report serves as a follow-up to an initial review of the AH&OBP Registry completed in 2017, assessing the ability of the registry to fulfill the intended purposes that Congress and the VA have specified for it. Read more.
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The COVID-19 pandemic spurred a rapid expansion of wastewater-based infectious disease surveillance systems to monitor and anticipate disease trends in communities. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) launched the National Wastewater Surveillance System in September 2020 to help coordinate and build upon those efforts. Produced at the request of the CDC, this report reviews the usefulness of community-level wastewater surveillance during the pandemic and assesses its potential value for the control and prevention of infectious diseases beyond COVID-19. Read more.
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Heritable disorders of connective tissue (HDCTs) are a diverse group of inherited genetic disorders and subtypes. Because connective tissue is found throughout the body, the impairments associated with HDCTs manifest in multiple body systems and may change or vary in severity throughout an affected individual's lifetime. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine convened an expert committee that would provide current information regarding the diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis of selected HDCTs, including Marfan syndrome and the Ehlers-Danlos syndromes, and the effect of the disorders and their treatment on functioning. This report presents the committee's findings and conclusions. 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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