In this Issue
Vice President's Message
Good News and Coming Events
•
News
•
Events
Opportunities and Sponsor Information
•
Outstanding New
Environmental Scientist Award
•
NIH Loan Repayment
Programs
•
NCRR Shared Instrumentation Grant Program (S10): Transition to the
SF424 (R&R) Form and Electronic Submission through Grants.gov
•
Upcoming Funding Opportunities
•
Interdisciplinary Seminars
•
Music for Meetings
Essential Policies, Procedures
and Resources
•
Reconstructed 1918
Pandemic Influenza Virus Added to Federal Select Agent List
•
Potential Protein
Lounge License
•
2005 Important Updates to SBU's Human Subject Protections Program (HSPP)
•
Spring Semester 2006 Tuition Waiver Program
•
Open Enrollment for
Research Foundation Employees
For More Information
Vice President's Message
I attended
another Washington, D.C., meeting last week--this time the
annual meeting of the National Association of State Universities
and Land Grant Colleges (NASULGC) where I am a member of the
Council on Research Policy and Graduate Education (CRPGE).
Overall, the biggest concern among the research oriented
attendees is the decline of American competitiveness especially
as evidenced by the decline in participation in the STEM
disciplines (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics)
by U.S. students. Only 6% of college age students in the U.S.
earn degrees in science and engineering. The National Academies
Press is about to bring out a new report on this issue and its
profoundly disturbing implications,
Rising Above The Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing
America for a Brighter Economic Future.
Arden Bement,
newly installed Director of the National Science Foundation,
discussed NSF's role in creating a cyberinfrastructure (CI)
which he envisions as supporting research and development in
much the same way that the Interstate Highway system supports
commerce or the electric power grid addresses nationwide energy
needs. To guide this initiative he has created an Office of
Cyberinfrastructure (OCI) that reports to the Director. It will
be guided by the CI Council. Further information may be found
at :
http://www.nsf.gov/attachments/102806/public/NSFCyberinfrastructureVisionDraft-4.0.pdf
An oncoming
challenge for the research community is the management and
stewardship of data and information. We are faced with the
"data deluge." Who will store it and in what form? Will it be
accessible in 20 years? The fragility of data and research
materials was emphasized by the destruction experienced during
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. What are universities doing to
prepare ourselves for disasters? While not all institutions are
located in hurricane, tornado or earthquake prone areas, all are
subject to electrical power outages. We need to be better
prepared.
Harold Varmus,
former Director of the National Institutes of Health and
currently President and Chief Executive Officer Memorial
Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, described his vision for the
Global Science Corps (GSC) where educators act as international
ambassadors. He wants scientific talent to address the growing
gap between rich and poor, to improve health care in poor
countries, to develop programs for studying diseases prevalent
in poor countries (complementing the Gates Foundation grand
challenges in global health), improving access to information
(Public Library of Science) and establishing modern technologies
in developing countries. More information may be found at:
http://www.globalsciencecorps.org/
The old model
for research funding is changing. Federal representatives
talked about the transition from "federally funded to federally
seeded." This is especially true for large centers created with
NSF funds. Only one center has ever been fully funded for more
than two five year cycles, a fact that many researchers suppress
as they apply for a third cycle. Investigators contemplating
developing a center or institute using federal funding should
have a plan for "institutionalizing" the center after federal
funding expires. This requires a lot more planning and involves
more parts of the university than usually occurs at the time of
grant submission.
The challenges
facing the university research enterprise are not diminishing!
--Contributed by
Gail Habicht,
Vice President for Research, Phone: (631) 632-7932
Funding Outlook for NSF
NSF
Representatives Tom Cooley, Chief Financial Officer and Jean
Feldman, Head, Policy Office presented their predictions
regarding the FY06 budget for NSF and discretionary funding
across the federal government in general at a recent National
Council of University Research Administrators Meeting. In short,
the message is that discretionary funds allocated for R&D are
going to shrink. Without rescinding tax cuts, the cost of
hurricane relief can only be met by increased borrowing and
rescissions in discretionary spending, including NSF. Cooley
predicts a 3% rescission to the NSF budget, keeping it flat.
Every federal agency’s grant programs, according to Cooley, will
be similarly affected. A House and Senate conference committee
is currently working out the differences between the House and
Senate version of the FY06 NSF budget. Even if the President
signs the proposed 4.3 billion dollar NSF budget it is likely to
be the subject of an across-the-board rescission. The shrinking
NSF budget will mean that the average success rate will approach
1 in 5 for new proposals submitted to NSF. The odds are somewhat
better for new investigators who show institutional commitment
and "broader impact"-that is, the impact on undergraduate and
graduate students who will be the next generation of scientists.
--Contributed
by Martin
Schoonen, Associate Vice President for Research, Phone: 631-632-8007
University Hospital Media Relations Director
We are pleased
to join in welcoming Lauren Sheprow, who starts today as the new
Director of Media Relations for Stony Brook University Hospital,
with responsibility for all Hospital media outreach and integration
of Hospital media efforts into the overall University media
relations strategy. We wish her well.
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Good News and Coming Events
News
Please join us in rejoicing with
colleagues for achievements that have become known since last issue.
Mathematics
A week
ago today, President George W. Bush announced that Distinguished
Prof. Dennis Sullivan was one of eight recipients of the 2004
National Medal of Science, the nation's highest honor to individuals
for pioneering scientific research across the disciplines. Prof.
Sullivan has made major contributions in topology, geometry, and
dynamical systems and in cross-disciplinary explorations including
topics in algebraic topology inspired by string theory, which have
enriched the conversation between mathematicians and physicists. He
is currently studying the relation between algebraic topology and
quantum theory. A member of the National Academy of Sciences,
Prof. Sullivan is also on the faculty of the CUNY Graduate Center
and has taught at Princeton, MIT, the Institut des Hautes Etudes
Scientifiques in France, and Queens College. He received the
doctorate from Princeton. Prof. Sullivan is the second Stony Brook
faculty member to receive the National Medal of Science in two
years: Distinguished Prof. James Glimm, Chair of Applied Mathematics
and Statistics, was a recipient of the 2002 award.
Political Science
Distinguished Professor and Chair Mark Schneider was confirmed by
the U.S. Senate last month as the Commissioner of the National
Center for Education Statistics (NCES) for the remainder of a term
expiring June 20, 2009. NCES is one of the four centers of the
Institute of Education Sciences of the U.S. Department of Education.
Prof. Schneider, who is on leave from the University, is currently
working on education policy and his most recent book, Choosing
Schools: Consumer Choice and the Quality of American Schools (2000), with Paul Teske and Melissa Marschall, won the Aaron
Wildavsky best book prize from the Policy Studies Organization.
Neurology/National Pediatric Multiple Sclerosis Center
On November 11,
the National Pediatric MS Center was designated one of six Regional
Pediatric MS Centers in the country, part of a first-of-its kind
network of Pediatric MS Centers of Excellence™ being established by
the National MS Society. These centers, which will work with
children under 18 who have MS and other central nervous system
demyelinating diseases, are intended to set the standard for
pediatric MS care and offer optimal medical and psychosocial support
to children and their families. Over the next five years, the
Society will invest $10.6 million in implementing these Pediatric MS
Centers of Excellence. Dr. Lauren Krupp, Professor of Neurology,
directs the newly-designated Pediatric MS Center and co-directs the
Adult MS Center. More information on the National Pediatric MS
Center may be obtained at -
http://www.pediatricmscenter.org/
New
York State Center of Excellence in Diagnostic Tools and Sensor
Systems
Last Wednesday
Governor Pataki announced a $1.9 million CAT Development Award to
the Center for Advanced Technology in Diagnostic Tools and Sensor
Systems to support the development of high-efficiency, high-power
electrically pumped semiconductor lasers that can be used in a wide
range of industries in products including displays, communications
and optical storage devices. Project partners include EDO, Northrop
Grumman and Power Photonic. The CAT Development Award program seeks
to support research that will produce significant technological
improvements leading to substantial future economic development in
New York.
Marine
Sciences Research Center
The Council of the
American Meteorological Society voted at its recent meeting to award
to Professor Robert Cess the Jule G. Charney Award for 2006. The
award recognizes highly significant research or development
achievement by an individual in the atmospheric or hydrological
sciences. Prof. Cess’ citation will read "for his outstanding
contributions to our understanding of the science of atmospheric
radiation and climate change and the role of clouds in climate
models." His work has been supported primarily by the U.S.
Department of Energy. The formal presentation will be made in
February, 2006, during the Society’s 86th annual meeting.
Electrical and Computer Engineering
The Board of
Directors of the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics
Engineers) has elected Profs. Petar Djuric and Thomas Robertazzi as
IEEE Fellows, effective January 1, 2006. Prof. Djuric's citation
acknowledges his role in application of Monte Carlo based methods to
signal processing; Prof. Robertazzi was recognized for his
contributions to parallel processor scheduling. With more than
365,000 members in over 150 countries, the IEEE confers the status
of Fellow upon persons with extraordinary records of accomplishment
in any of the IEEE fields of interest, which embrace computer
engineering, biomedical technology, telecommunications, electric
power, aerospace engineering, consumer electronics, and many others.
Physics and Astronomy
Senior undergraduate Melissa Friedman has been named the winner of a Marshall Scholarship which, along with the Rhodes Scholarship, is considered one of the nation's most
prestigious academic awards given in the U.S. She is the first Marshall Scholarship winner in the University’s 48-year
history. The award includes two years of funding for
post-baccalaureate study in the United Kingdom. Friedman, who is
majoring in Physics, plans to pursue a doctorate in the Department
of Atomic and Laser Physics at the University of Oxford.
Applied
Mathematics and Statistics
James Glimm,
Distinguished Professor and Chair, has been elected the
President of the American Mathematical Society. In January 2006 he
will become President-elect and one year later he will become
President. Founded in 1888, the Society has over 30,000 individual
members and 540 institutional members worldwide. Its leading
publication is Mathematical Reviews (MR)--a database of over
two million reviews of mathematics publications. MathSciNet, the MR
database on the web, covers mathematical literature in over 1,800
journals. Professor Glimm is a member of both the National Academy
of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a past
recipient of the National Medal of Science. Areas benefiting from his major contributions include shock wave
theory, quantum field theory and
statistical mechanics, where his work has had a major impact on
mathematical physics and probability.
Recent Research
Some of the
challenges posed by Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath are being
addressed members of four campus departments. With funding from the
National Science Foundation, an interdisciplinary research team
consisting of Profs. Martin Schoonen, Geosciences and Center for
Environmental Molecular Science (CEMS), Sanford Simon, Pathology and
Biochemistry, and Richard Reeder , Geosciences and CEMS, are
studying the distribution of metals and possible health effects of
sediments deposited as a result of Hurricane Katrina. The team is
collaborating with several scientists at the US Geological Survey.
Profs. Leonie Huddy and Stanley Feldman, Political Science and
respectively Director and Associate Director of the Center for
Survey Research, have received funding from NSF and the Russell Sage
Foundation to study whether negative white racial attitudes shaped
reactions to the victims of the hurricane, affected evaluations of
the government’s response to the disaster, and influenced support
for proposed government reconstruction policies. They will
re-interview respondents who participated in their national study on
racial attitudes.
Events
Provost's Lecture Series: Democracy in Europe
When:
Monday, November 21, 4:00 pm
Where: Wang Center, Lecture Hall 1
Giovanni Di Stasi is President of the Congress of Local and
Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe, working to strengthen
democracy in the Council of Europe member countries. He has
supported the processes of decentralization of public authorities
and institutional reforms aimed at strengthening local democracy.
Special Provost's Lecture: Searching Scholarly Literature: A Google
Scholar Perspective
When:
Monday, December 5, 11:00 am
Where: Berkner Hall, Brookhaven National Laboratory
Anurag Acharya,
Distinguished Engineer at Google, will give a talk titled,
"Searching Scholarly Literature: A Google Scholar Perspective," in
Berkner Hall at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Sponsored by
Brookhaven Science Associates, the entity through which the
University manages the Laboratory in partnership with Battelle
Memorial Institute. Anurag Acharya earned his Ph.D. in computer
science from Carnegie Mellon University in 1994. In 1997 he became
an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science at the
University of California, Santa Barbara, a position he held until he
joined Google. In his talk, Acharya will describe the key challenges
that Google Scholar overcame in designing the search engine and the
general principles that underlie its design. The talk is free and
open to the public. All visitors to the Laboratory age 16 and over
must bring a photo ID. Please call 631 344-2345 for more
information.
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Opportunities and Sponsor Information
Opportunities for
Postdoctoral Researchers:
Outstanding New Environmental Scientist Award
This award is intended to assist
outstanding scientists, identified early in their careers, in
launching an innovative research program focusing on problems of
environmental exposures and human biology, human pathophysiology and
human disease. Approximately $3.6 million in FY 2006 funding is
expected to be available for six awards. Applicants may request a
project period of up to five years and a budget for direct costs of
up to $400,000 in years 1-2 and up to $275,000 in years 3-5.
Applicants must have a Ph.D., M.D., or equivalent graduate degree. Applications are due December 21, 2005.
More information is available at:
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-ES-05-005.htmlml
Please bring these graduate support opportunities to the attention
of students in your department:
NIH Loan Repayment Programs
The NIH
Loan Repayment Programs (LRP) Application Cycle will close on
December 1, 2005. The five LRPs offered by the NIH
include the Clinical Research LRP, Clinical Research LRP for
Individuals from Disadvantaged Backgrounds, Contraception and
Infertility Research LRP, Health Disparities LRP, and Pediatric
Research LRP. Through these programs, the NIH offers to repay up to
$35,000 annually of the qualified educational debt of health
professionals pursuing careers in biomedical and behavioral
research. The programs also provide coverage for Federal and state
tax liabilities.
To
qualify, applicants must possess a doctoral-level degree, devote 50%
or more of their time (20 hours per week based on a 40-hour work
week) to research funded by a domestic non-profit organization or
government entity (Federal, state, or local), and have educational
loan debt equal to or exceeding 20% of their institutional base
salary. Applicants must also be U.S. citizens, permanent residents,
or U.S. nationals to be eligible.
All applications for
2006 awards must be submitted online by 8:00 p.m. eastern time, on
Thursday, December 1, 2005. The online application and detailed
information about the LRPs are available at
http://www.lrp.nih.gov or by
calling 866-849-4047. Please call your department’s Sponsored
Programs representative in the OVPR to obtain the required
institutional sign-off. The departmental assignments list may be
found
here.
NCRR Shared Instrumentation Grant Program
(S10): Transition to the SF424 (R&R) Form and Electronic Submission
through Grants.gov
The purpose of
this notice is to inform applicants who plan to submit applications
under the Shared Instrumentation Grant (SIG) Program (S10) that they
will be required to submit their applications online to the NIH through
Grants.gov (
http://www.grants.gov/ ) using the SF424 Research and
Research Related (R&R) form. The next receipt date for this program
is March 22, 2006 .
NIH
Guide for Grants and Contracts . NIH also expects this funding
opportunity announcement to be available in
Grants.gov "Apply" in December.
Applicants
are encouraged to prepare themselves now to participate in
electronic submission through
Grants.gov.
A one-time
registration is required for institutions at both:
Investigators
who plan to submit a SIG application should work with their
institutions to make sure they are registered in the NIH Commons.
See Preparing for Electronic Submission at
http://era.nih.gov/ElectronicReceipt/preparing.htm for
more details. Please direct questions regarding the Commons
registration process to the NIH eRA Commons help desk at phone:
301-402-7469/866-504-9552 (Toll Free); 301-451-5939 (TTY) business
hours M-F 7am-8pm Eastern Standard Time.
Updates on the status of the transition to
electronic submission and the new form set will be posted in the NIH
Guide for Grants and Contracts and on the
NIH eRA Electronic Receipt of Applications Web site.
Inquiries
For general
information concerning the transition to the 424 R&R form, please
contact:
Grants Info
Office of Extramural Research
National Institutes of Health
Phone: 301-435-0714
E-mail:
GrantsInfo@nih.gov
Normal
programmatic inquiries concerning the SIG program that do not deal
with the transition to the 424 R&R form should be directed to:
Marjorie A.
Tingle, Ph.D.
Shared Instrumentation Grant Program
National Center for Research Resources
6701 Democracy Boulevard
Room 958, MSC 4874
Bethesda , MD 20892-4874 (20817 for overnight delivery services)
Telephone: (301) 435-0772
FAX: (301) 480-3659
Email:
SIG@mail.nih.gov
Upcoming Funding Opportunities
For a complete list of
upcoming deadlines, please go to -
http://www.stonybrook.edu/research/fndopp/deadlcal.html
Interdisciplinary Seminars
Please remember that,
in an effort to encourage interdisciplinary research on campus, this
office will supply $100 toward a speaker's luncheon when your
department invites a Stony Brook colleague from an unrelated
discipline to give a seminar. Please contact Ann-Marie Scheidt
amscheidt@notes.cc.sunysb.edu to determine eligibility. You will
be asked to provide a copy of the seminar notice annotated with the
number of attendees and a brief description of any anticipated
collaborations with the speaker's department.
Music for Meetings
Please remember that
the OVPR would like to assist those of you who are planning a
research meeting on campus by providing musical interludes. If you
would like to have Stony Brook student musicians play at the
reception for your meeting it can be arranged by contacting
Ann-Marie Scheidt
amscheidt@notes.cc.sunysb.edu. OVPR will make a payment to the
Department of Music and the Department in turn pays the students.
You get to listen to some nice music.
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Essential Policies, Procedures and
Resources
Reconstructed
1918 Pandemic Influenza Virus Added to Federal Select Agent List
Please note that the Department of Health and Human Services has
published an interim final rule that requires, as of October 20,
2005, the registration of anyone possessing, using, or transferring
"Reconstructed replication competent forms of the 1918 pandemic
influenza virus containing any portion of the coding regions of all
eight gene segments" or intending to possess, use or transfer this
agent.
If you possess this agent, you MUST contact the Department of
Environmental Health and Safety (EH&S) immediately to register this
agent with the federal government. Failure to do so is a federal
offense with both criminal and civil penalties. If you wish to
obtain this material for research purposes you must receive
authorization from the Department of Health and Human Services
through Stony Brook University EH&S. Contact EH&S at 2-6410 to
register or for further information. More information on the Federal
Select Agent Program can be found at -
http://www.cdc.gov/od/sap/index.htm
Potential Protein Lounge License
The Center for Information Technology of DHHS is currently in
process of negotiating a site license from Protein Lounge. This site
license will allow NIH, CDC and FDA researchers to access the online
Protein Lounge databases and tools and will also provide access to
the soon to be released Complete Systems Biology (CSB) Package which
will be available on CD. The CSB tool is a desktop version of the
entire Protein Lounge online site. Additionally, the CSB tool will
include a Pathway Illustration tool, which will allow the user to
create new pathways as well as modify all of the ~600 Protein Lounge
pathways and adjacent protein data.
Included online
databases: Signal Transduction Pathway Database, Peptide Antigen
Database, siRNA Database, Kinase-Phosphatase Database, Transcription
Factor Database, Disease Genes Database, Biochemical Compound
Database, Protein Interactions Database and Protein Database.
Included online tools: Pathway Builder tool, Peptide finder tool,
Protein Hydroplotter tool, siRNA creator tool, and many more. The
complete list of database and tools that will be included with the
site license may be viewed at -
http://www.proteinlounge.com/subscriptionDetail.asp
DHHS is seeking to
estimate how many researchers would be interested in accessing the
Protein Lounge databases and tools. The site license cost (per user)
will significantly be reduced as the number of users increases. If
you would be interested in access to Protein Lounge through the site
license, please click on the following link to fill out the survey
form -
http://www.proteinlounge.com/nihsitelicense.asp
2005 Important Updates to SBU's Human Subject Protections Program
(HSPP)
Our Human Subject Protection
Program (HSPP) has many active participants, including Principal
investigators and their study teams, staff of the Office of Research
Compliance (ORC), and the membership of our Institutional Review
Boards (IRB). Our combined efforts continue to help ensure that our
HSPP is solid and effective in keeping safe those individuals who
volunteer to participate in our research activities at SBU.
The ORC and the IRBs are constantly evaluating the program to
assess the need for clarifications of current SBU policies and
procedures, promulgation of new policies and procedures, and
dissemination of new federal guidance and regulations. The following
is a summary of such actions that have been taken or proposed over
the past year, including some clarifications of unchanged policies
and procedures, since our last update in 2004.
Quick Links
--Contributed by
Judy Matuk, Director of Research Compliance, Phone: (631)
632-9036
Spring Semester 2006 Tuition Waiver Program
The application for the B140W Tuition
Waiver Program is now available to all full-time State and Research Foundation employees. The waivers are available on a first-come-first-serve
basis. To find information about the program and the application
process, please click on link
http://naples.cc.sunysb.edu/Admin/HRS.nsf/benefits and click on
State. The information is entitled Employee Tuition Waiver
Program/Spring 2006 Semester. Please check the West Campus Benefits website under Research
Foundation for complete information about the program. An
application may be requested by calling the West Campus Benefits
office at 2-6167 or 2-6136; please include your departmental zip
code with your request.
STATE HOSPITAL/VETERANS HOME/TECH PARK employees must contact
Shirley Menzies at 4-4759 for a waiver form.
--Contributed by
Alessandra White, State Benefits Supervisor, Phone: (631)
632-6167
Health Insurance Open Enrollment
for Research Foundation Employees
Open enrollment for Research Foundation Employees is November 1
through November 30, 2005. During this period you may change from
one health plan to another or from one coverage level to another
(e.g. add or subtract dependent coverage). We are pleased to
announce that the Research Foundation is adding two new
employee-paid benefits to its benefits package, Dependent Term Life
Coverage and Voluntary Short-term Disability coverage.
All Open Enrollment Changes are effective January 1, 2006. To make
one of these changes or to sign up for an additional benefit, go to
the HR website, select forms and publications, click on Benefits and
select the appropriate Benefits Enrollment Forms.
http://www.stonybrook.edu/hr/benefits
--Contributed by Cori
Ribaudo, RF Benefits Administrator, Phone: (631) 632-6163
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For More Information
An abundance of
specific information for the research community is available on our
Website, where past issues of this bulletin can also be found.
Office of the Vice President for Research -
http://www.stonybrook.edu/research/
Monday Memo archive -
http://www.stonybrook.edu/research/monmemo/mmarchive.html
All past issues of Monday Memo are keyword searchable.
And if you are challenged by the embarrassment of riches in the
over 2,000 individual Web pages that comprise the Website, you may
find the alphabetical site index helpful. The index can be accessed
at
http://www.stonybrook.edu/research/sitemap.html.
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