CIDER: A New Environmental Initiative for Stony Brook University

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CIDER A New Environmental Initiative for Stony
Brook University

• Nicholas Fisher, Director of CIDER
• and Professor, Marine Sciences Research Center

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Consortium for Inter-Disciplinary Environmental
Research (CIDER)

• Goals
• bring together faculty who are conducting (or
  have an interest in) environmental research from
  diverse departmentshelp merge natural sciences
  (e.g., Geosciences, MSRC, Ecology Evolution,
  Chemistry), social sciences (e.g., Economics,
  Sociology, Anthropology), medicine, and
  engineering so that new multi-disciplinary teams
  can be created to tackle large complex
  environmental issues.
• Help facilitate collaborations that would make it
  more efficient for SBU to approach funding
  agencies to develop new center-type grants at
  Stony Brook that address big environmental issues.

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CIDER advisory committee members

• Nicholas Fisher, MSRC (Director)
• Daniel Bogenhagen, Pharmacology
• Clare Grey, Chemistry
• Arthur Grollman, Pharmacology
• Gary Halada, Engineering
• Jeffrey Levinton, Ecology Evolution
• Stephan Munch, MSRC
• Richard Reeder, Geosciences
• Warren Sandersen, Economics
• Martin Schoonen, Geosciences
• Michael Schwartz, Sociology
• Creighton Wirick, BNL

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New hires in this academic year (3 FTEs 6
tenure-track positions)

• Three areas highlighted
• Environmental medicine, relating human health to
  contaminants in air, water, food patterns of
  disease, societal impacts on different groups
• Global climate change, including changes in
  biogeochemical cycles, spread of animal and plant
  diseases, effects on human living conditions
• Environmental remediation, land use planning and
  conservation issues

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Additional CIDER activities anticipated

• Sponsor think-tank type workshops on select
  issues
• Sponsor inter-disciplinary seminar speakers
• Promote collaborative inter-disciplinary research
  to address complex environmental problemsattract
  significant funding to help make this happen at
  Stony Brook

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Two workshops were working on

• Metals, Environment, and Human Health Bridging
  the Gaps (sponsored by Center for Environmental
  Molecular Science, 3MT IGERT, and CIDER)
• one-day conference in Wang Center, Lecture Hall
  2, 27 April 6 seminar speakers plus
  round-table discussion on where we go from here

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April Workshop confirmed speakers

• Max Costa (Professor in Department of
  Environmental Medicine Professor in Department
  of Pharmacology, New York University School of
  Medicine, New York)
• Scott Fendorf (Professor in Department of
  Geological and Environmental Sciences, Stanford
  University, Stanford)
• Karl Kelsey (Professor in Department of Genetics
  and Complex Diseases Professor in Department of
  Environmental Health, Harvard School of Public
  Health, Cambridge, MA)
• Howard Mielke (Research Scientist, Center for
  Bioenvironmental Research, Tulane University, New
  Orleans)
• Lisa M. Miller (Senior Scientist at National
  Synchrotron Light Source, Brookhaven National
  Laboratory Professor in Department of Biomedical
  Engineering, Stony Brook University Professor in
  Department of Medicine, Albert Einstein College
  of Medicine, New York)
• Kirk G. Scheckel (Research Scientist,
  National Risk Management Research Laboratory,
  U. S. Environmental Protection Agency, Cincinnati)

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Anticipated workshop

• Biomarkers and Environmental Disasters
  Indicators of Problems Yet to Come
• Follow-up on clinical work on first responders to
  the World Trade Center disaster, led by Dr. B.
  Luft.
• Anticipated for 3 days, starting September 11,
  2007.