• Mars Rovers: Energizer Bunnies of Planetary Exploration

The Mars Exploration Rover project of 2004 succeeded well beyond the most optimistic expectations. In the spring of 2005, NASA recognized that Spirit and Opportunity had both completed their one year anniversary of activity on Mars — four times their original design life — achieving all primary mission objectives for numbers of locations examined in detail, distances traveled and scientific measurements with all instruments — accumulating persuasive geologic evidence of the past presence of water. Data returned by Opportunity indicate that Meridiani Planum site was once the location of a highly saline body of water from which mineral salts precipitated.  As Spirit has begun to climb into the Columbia Hills in Gusev Crater, the rocks have taken on a different character with growing evidence that they too were influenced by interactions with liquid water.

Stony Brook’s members of the Rover scientific team, led by Geosciences Prof. Scott McLennan, a sedimentary geologist, participated with their team colleagues in analyzing and interpreting the unexpectedly rich streams of data and reporting mission results to the public. The mission extension made it possible to add graduate students Nicholas Tosca, Joel Hurowitz and Brian Hahn as student collaborators and they sojourned at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena and took an active role in mission operations, including the design and implementation of science plans for Rover activity, giving them the unparalleled educational opportunity to work at the absolute cutting edge of planetary exploration.

• Bringing Back Iraq's Universities

As Iraq continues its difficult transition to restored nationhood, Stony Brook is leading one of five US AID-supported American consortium partnerships with Iraqi universities to help revitalize what UNESCO ranked as one of the most distinguished higher education systems in the Middle East. After the first Gulf War in 1991 and the imposition of UN sanctions, Iraqi scientists had virtually no contact with the outside world. A $4.1 million renewable grant is enabling the provision of tools for four Iraqi institutions in three cities — Basra, Baghdad and Mosul — to develop modern academic programs and up-to-date curricula in archaeology and environmental health, two of the country’s most critical talent needs. The program, co-directed by Profs. Wajdy Hailoo, Occupational and Environmental Medicine/Preventive Medicine — a graduate of the University of Mosul — and Elizabeth Stone, an anthropologist who has done field work in Iraq for three decades, involves faculty from Arts and Sciences, Medicine, Marine Sciences, and University Libraries.

The 2003 war’s impact on the archaeological heritage and cultural patrimony of the country was widely reported. Less familiar is the severe damage to the water supply infrastructure, which had devastating effects on public health, dropping Iraq 76 places in the last decade on the U.N. Human Development Index to a ranking of 126th out of 174.

Prof. Hailoo and his team established Iraqi Environmental Health Resource Centers at Baghdad, Mosul and Basra Universities, providing extensive training to their directors at Stony Brook. Prof. Stone and her team conducted intensive summer sessions in Jordan for several dozen Iraqi faculty and students and installed computer labs at the Iraqi campuses, while four students were admitted to Anthropology for doctoral studies that will receive USAID support. Another major initiative, led by library director Chris Filstrup, seeks to upgrade partner institution archaeology libraries and create a digital library of materials relating to Iraq’s cultural patrimony.