First B.R.I.D.G.E.S. Conference Highlights Community and Interdisciplinary Research
After launching Stony Brook’s Graduate Arts and Science Magazine, GradMag, last spring, Ava Nederlander and Jennifer L. O’Connor set about creating a space where graduate students from various departments could collaborate and build new connections. That mission reached new heights January 30 with the inaugural B.R.I.D.G.E.S. Cross-Departmental Graduate Research Conference, which took place in the Student Activities Center.
In September, O’Connor, vice president of GradMag, suggested putting together a conference and Nederlander agreed. B.R.I.D.G.E.S. — Broadening Research efforts to promote Interdisciplinary collaboration for Departments involved in Graduate Engagement for Students at SBU — was born.
“When I first envisioned B.R.I.D.G.E.S., it was just an idea for connecting people where graduate students from different disciplines could come together to network, share their work and engage in meaningful conversations that spark innovation,” said O’Connor, a graduate student in the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior, who also serves as magazine editor. “However, ideas alone don’t build legacies. It’s the people who believe in them, who shape them, and who come together that bring us a way.”
“We knew putting together a conference within three months would be ambitious, but we saw its potential to make a lasting impact on our community,” added Nederlander, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Grad Mag’s founder, president and co-executive editor.
As Nederlander and O’Conner envisioned, the conference included a wide-reaching swath of the Stony Brook University community. The Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science, a founding sponsor of GradMag, hosted a seminar designed to give participants strategies for effectively communicating complex ideas to diverse audiences. The Stony Brook Career Center led a practical workshop designed to help graduate students navigate their career paths within and beyond academia.
“This conference is a testament to the power of graduate students,” said Celia Marshik, dean of The Graduate School and vice provost for Graduate and Professional Education. “I attended a conference of graduate school deans and there was a session on harnessing the power of graduate students to make things happen on campus. I felt like I didn’t need to attend that because I’ve already seen the evidence of that, first with the graduate magazine and now with the B.R.I.D.G.E.S. conference. It’s incredibly selfless labor that they’ve done, and they’ve done it because they believe in two things — the power of community and the power of interdisciplinarity.”
Provost Carl Lejuez delivered the keynote address, addressing the challenges Stony Brook faces in fostering true cross-campus collaboration.
“When we think about interdisciplinarity, we tend to only have it for new faculty or graduate students, and we’re asking them to be in two departments or two colleges,” said Lejuez. “But we don’t have a lot of senior people that are doing that. That sets up a sort of power imbalance, and it creates a situation where it’s not easy to communicate what we’re doing and how it’s working.”
Lejuez also addressed the need to measure success and value regarding collaborative work.
“Being interdisciplinary means you’re stepping into places where there may not be a clear way to measure the efforts of the people crossing department boundaries,” he said. “One of the things we always have to remember is we have to be very vigilant and very proactive about not just saying interdisciplinarity is important, but actually creating structures that support that.”
Creativity took center stage with screenings of six short films by Stony Brook students, providing a look at diverse perspectives and artistic talents. An art gallery further showcased the work of graduate students as did performances by five graduate musicians.
The Graduate Department Fair allowed attendees to explore a range of academic programs and resources, fostering connections and showcasing opportunities for current and prospective students.
The conference also featured 63 research poster presentations from more than 30 graduate departments, where students showcased cutting-edge projects. Nine faculty judges awarded first, second and third place winners, and five honorable mentions.
The first-place poster, titled “Astrocytic FABP5 Mediates Endocannabinoid Transport at Hippocampal Synapses,” was presented by Mohammad Fauzan, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, and will be featured in the next graduate magazine coming in April.
“It was a fulfilling and meaningful feeling to have won first place,” said Fauzan. “It validated how valuable it is to communicate your craft effectively to both experts and non-experts, across disciplines.”
“It was lovely to be part of a conference that celebrated the works of so many graduate students in so many different disciplines,” said Natalie Alfano, a student in the Department of Chemistry, whose poster titled “Elucidating the Role of Histidine Kinase NahK in Pseudomonas aeruginosa” took second place. “I have been working in my lab for two years now and have presented posters at other conferences, but to be one of the winners at B.R.I.D.G.E.S. in my final semester of graduate school truly makes me feel like my hard work is paying off.”
Third-place winner Maryam Azmi, Genetics, and honorable mentions Gurulakshmi Subramanian, Department of Physics, Courtney Kidd, MSW Program (Social Welfare), Brittney Scannell, School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, Joongho Lee, Technology and Society, and Zijin Mei, Department of Civil Engineering, will also be highlighted in the next issue of GradMag.
Nederlander said she enjoys leading and entrepreneurship, and both the graduate magazine and B.R.I.D.G.E.S. are extensions of those passions. “Creating a larger impact and helping others is what drives me,” she said.
Nederlander is currently working on 3D medical imaging under Arie E. Kaufman, distinguished professor in the Department of Computer Science and CEWIT Chief Technologist, and Petar Djurić, distinguished professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
“My work sits at the intersection of technology and medicine, much like the conference, which brings together people from different disciplines to foster new ideas and collaborations,” she said. I am thrilled by this year’s response and am excited to make the event even bigger next year.”
“This participation is what makes B.R.I.D.G.E.S. more than just a conference, it makes this an interdisciplinary, collaborative movement,” said O’Connor. “It’s the backbone of groundbreaking research and industry progress.”
“This whole day gives you the opportunity to find connections across the campus that might help you with your own work and that might help you with your career,” Marshik told attendees. “The people around you today are the network that you will have in the future.”
B.R.I.D.G.E.S. was sponsored by the Stony Brook Graduate School, the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science, the Stony Brook Career Center, the Stony Brook University Graduate Student Organization, and SBU Eats.
— Robert Emproto
Photos by John Griffin and courtesy of Ava Nederlander
