This fall, she began a master’s degree program in higher education and student affairs at the New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. Along with her coursework, she was matched with a graduate assistantship at Columbia University’s Office of Student Life. “Everybody in the Office for Student Involvement [at Fordham]helped me cultivate my own understanding of what student affairs means and find my passion,” Peay says.

What are some of the reasons why you decided to attend Fordham?
One of the things that really resonated with me were the Jesuit tenets of education and what it meant to be part of a Jesuit community. I had the opportunity to come with both of my parents. My mom and I are sitting next to each other listening to [former Fordham College at Lincoln Center dean]Father Grimes speak about what it meant to have a Jesuit education and what it meant to be involved at Fordham and what it meant to just generally be a student of New York City. He is a wonderful speaker and just really blew us both away. So it was kind of a combination, I guess, of Jesuit education, being in the city, knowing that [Fordham offers] a lot of different majors, knowing that I could be part of a small community, and really just some of the things that Father Grimes said about the power of the Fordham community at Lincoln Center, specifically.

What do you think you got at Fordham that you maybe would not have gotten elsewhere?
I think the biggest thing that I got out of Fordham that I couldn’t have gotten anywhere else was just the breadth of mentorship network. I got the best of both worlds knowing and participating in academics and student involvement at both Lincoln Center and Rose Hill, and a lot of people were really invested in me as a student and invested in my academic career. I am still in touch with a lot of the administrators I worked with in the Office for Student Involvement. We chat about grad school and classes and all of these things. That’s one of the things that I think I cherish the most out of my Fordham experience: the number of people I met who genuinely care about students.

Who is the Fordham professor or person you admire the most, and why?
I would probably say Zein Murib in political science. I had four classes with them [Murib]—American Social Movements, Interest Group Politics, Judicial Politics, and Politics of Sex and Sexuality in the United States—and they were all very, very interesting classes. I think I learned the most in those classes because of the ways the topics were so far-reaching and applicable to so many different things. They really gave me a deeper appreciation of living in New York.

Was there one particular moment when you realized you had a certain talent for student affairs work, and how did that feel?
It took me sitting back and thinking about the things that really did bring me joy and what I was really interested in and excited about at Fordham. Under the guidance of some of the people from the Office for Student Involvement, I started exploring the idea of getting a master’s in student affairs in higher education, because I realized that the things that I was most passionate about were giving back to the community and helping students find their place at Fordham and build their own community. It was something that I had struggled with freshman year, so I wanted to be a vehicle and vessel of knowledge for them at Fordham rather than just kind of move on.

What are you optimistic about?
I would say the thing that I’m most optimistic about is kind of personal; it’s more the possibilities of community building in the time of COVID, because we’re in a time where so many people are remote and so many people are digital, and not everybody is in the place that they feel most comfortable or the place that they call home. I’ve really found that, especially with my friends who are still juniors or seniors at Fordham or who have just graduated, we all are really looking for community and time to spend with each other. I think coming out of this time, we will all be a lot closer.

I would say I’m also optimistic about the state of New York City as a whole. I love being able to go outside and see people dressed up in their COVID getups, and they’re really taking it seriously, just remembering that we are part of a community as a city that is handling this all together and working together to make it better. I feel so much better and happier about being in New York than I did when I was in California, because you can feel that energy and feel the community support that is here.

A physicist treks to the South Pole to map light left over from the Big Bang

Joshua Sobrin is well acquainted with frontiers, and not just because of the time he’s spent at the South Pole. As a cosmologist, or someone who studies the origins of the universe, he’s part of a scientific field that has undergone its own “Big Bang” of sudden expansion since 1964.

That’s when scientists discovered the Big Bang’s leftover radiation, providing evidence for what was once considered a “crazy theory” and kicking off a new era of research projects in cosmology, Sobrin says.

As a doctoral student in experimental cosmology at the University of Chicago, he’s working on one of those projects, helping to upgrade a radio telescope at the South Pole so it can study the heavens with greater acuity.

The South Pole’s dry, untroubled atmosphere is one of the best on Earth for studying the cosmic microwave background, the term for omnipresent radiation left over from the Big Bang 14 billion years ago, Sobrin says. This background once seemed uniform, but better technology has teased out disturbances that indicate what was happening when the universe was just 380,000 years old.

This “baby picture of the universe” could tell us more about the sorts of matter and energy that make up the universe, or answer puzzles about its expansion after the Big Bang, he says.

Sobrin spent 10 weeks at the South Pole in 2016 and plans to return in December. He helped design and integrate the telescope’s new receiver, which contains optics and detectors cooled near absolute zero for maximum sensitivity.

Sobrin double-majored in physics and religious studies at Fordham and earned a master’s degree in the philosophical foundations of physics from Columbia University. He would eventually like to become a physics professor who can also engage with students’ theological and philosophical questions.

While theology and science take entirely different approaches, he says, “you’re sort of as close as you can get to brushing up to theological questions when you start talking about the universe’s beginnings.”

Read more “20 in Their 20s” profiles.

In an April 19 lecture at Fordham’s McGinley Center Commons, Steven Cohen, Ph.D., executive director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, will discuss the nation’s evolution from preservation to sustainability. The talk, which is free and open to the public, will also cover topics related to renewable energy, the sharing economy, and technological advances.

Cohen’s lecture, “Building Sustainable Cities and Living Sustainable Lifestyles,” is part of a series of events for Earth Month, organized by the Bronx Science Consortium, a partnership between the University, the New York Botanical Garden (NYBG), Bronx Zoo, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and Montefiore Health System, and co-hosted by Fordham’s Office of Research.

Though Earth Day is officially on April 22, the consortium has dedicated the entire month of April to environmental literacy.

The consortium’s Earth Month began on April 5 with a presentation about securing funding for scientific research, led by Walter L. Goldschmidths, vice president of and executive director of the Office of Sponsored Programs at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. That same day, the University also held a research forum with guest chair Brian M. Broom of the NYBG. Fordham’s Bronx partner, the Bronx Zoo, hosted a Nature Club Family Event and Bronx Zoo Quest on April 8, which aimed to connect families to nature through activities in different locations around the zoo.

Some remaining events of Earth Month include:

• The NYBG’s dazzling garden exhibition of the artwork of American glass sculptor Dale Chihuly on April 22; On the same day, the garden will also host an Earth Day procession and behind-the-scenes tours of its Plant Research Laboratory, among other Earth Day-centric activities. On April 28, the NYBG will present a science-humanities seminar.

• The Bronx Zoo’s “Earth Fair” on April 22, which will feature products and services that are environmentally friendly; On April 29, the Bronx Zoo will host its annual 5k run/walk Run for the Wild.

Ron Jacobson, Ph.D., associate vice president in the Office of the Provost, said the series of Bronx Consortium events encourages the local community to work together for the good of the environment.

“It’s an opportunity for Fordham scientists and students to interact with other world class institutions in the Bronx,” he said.
(Earth photo by Bruce Irving, Creative Commons)

“This is a great opportunity for Fordham faculty, particularly in light of the increasing emphasis in many disciplines on interdisciplinary, multi-institution research projects,” said J.D. Lewis, Ph.D., chair of the University Research Council.

“The research fellows program nicely complements the ongoing opportunities faculty have through the Bronx Science Consortium, providing faculty with opportunities to develop collaborations that move their research in new directions.”

Faculty members who are interested in the program must submit nominations and self-nominations to the dean of the school of their affiliation by January 30. By March 1, deans from each school will submit their nominations to Z. George Hong, Ph.D., chief research officer and associate vice president for academic affairs.

Fellows will be announced by April 1.

The fellowship will commence on May 15 and continue through August 15, 2017.

In addition to being full-time tenure-track or tenured faculty members, applicants should have demonstrable success in conducting research and strong credentials, including grant activities and publications. Applicants are also required to have a plan for collaborating with a Columbia scholar using resources provided by that scholar either independently or in conjunction with a Columbia research institute.

Benefits include access to Columbia’s research facilities, equipment and workspaces and up to $5,000 in support of the fellow’s professional development and scholarly activities from the Office of Research at Fordham.

After completing the summer program, fellows will deliver a public presentation on their project on the Fordham campus.  Additionally, fellows are also expected to produce scholarly publications, submit external grant proposals, develop interdisciplinary research collaboration, and participate in conference presentations about their research.

“Not only will this allow faculty to leverage their existing research in new ways, it should also help increase the impact and visibility of their research programs,” said Lewis.

For more information on nomination and application procedures, contact George Hong via [email protected].