CSTEP and STEP are programs that provide support to New York high school and college students from underrepresented backgrounds, including academic support and counseling, scholarships, and research opportunities. (CSTEP is for undergraduates, while STEP is for middle and high school students.) 

Fetal Development, Eel Health, and Neurodegenerative Disease 

Students in Fordham’s programs presented their research to judges at the programs’ regional student conferences and were recognized for the quality of their projects. 

Three CSTEP students, who are all undergraduates at Fordham College at Rose Hill, were honored at the 29th annual CSTEP statewide student conference on April 16 in Lake George, New York: Daphne Buitron, a May graduate who earned her bachelor’s degree in sociology, won honorable mention in the natural sciences category for her project “Influence of COVID-19 Infection during Pregnancy on Infant Neurodevelopment,” conducted through a summer scholars program at the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine; Latif Diaoune, a rising senior who studies general science and sociology, won 4th place in the natural sciences category for his project “H(eel)ing Our Rivers: An Assessment of River Health and a Survey of the American Eel,” conducted through Project TRUE; and Isaac Mullings, a rising senior who studies psychology on the pre-med track, won third place in the health sciences category for his project “Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and Biomarkers of Disease Progression,” conducted through Columbia University’s PrIMER program. 

In addition, Laura Maca Vela, a high school senior at West End Secondary School in Manhattan, won third place in the biological sciences category for her research project “TLS Polymerase Activity in B. Subtilis in MMS” at the 23rd annual STEP statewide student conference in Albany on March 26. She conducted her research with Elizabeth Thrall, Ph.D., an assistant chemistry professor at Fordham. 

A Bronx Native Studies the Bronx River 

Diaoune, a Bronx native and commuter student, studied the Bronx River, the only freshwater river in New York City. In a project conducted with Project TRUE, he researched the impact of macroplastics and other pollutants on the American eel, a keystone species that lives in the Bronx River. 

“We saw the result of accelerated plastic production combined with [poor]waste disposal management, which is ultimately causing the oceans and rivers to suffer,” said Diaoune, who caught and measured local eels and plastics. “These consequences are felt by marine species like the American eel.”

The purpose of his project was to get his hands wet with research, said Diaoune, a pre-med student who is considering becoming a surgeon. He learned how to run his own experiment and mentor younger scientists. (Diaoune supervised several research assistants who are high school students in the Bronx.) 

Diaoune has presented his research before, at a Project TRUE symposium held at the American Museum of Natural History, but he said the CSTEP symposium was different. 

“I realized how big CSTEP really is,” said Diaoune. “It’s a huge community.”

“Everyone brings something important to the table, regardless of the level of education you have,” said J.D. Lewis, Ph.D., a biological sciences professor who is leading the Fordham team in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Inclusive Excellence 3 Learning (IE3) Community. “Through this collaborative effort, we want to figure out how to teach STEM in a way that is accessible, relevant, and interesting to all our students.” 

Fordham is among more than 100 institutions involved in the IE3 Community. The goal of the initiative is to improve STEM teaching and learning in higher education, especially for first-generation college students, transfer students, and students from underrepresented backgrounds. 

More Inclusive Intro STEM Classes

After applying to be part of the initiative in 2019, Fordham was accepted into the inaugural cohort in 2021. The institutions were grouped into seven clusters, each with an assigned goal. The goal of Fordham’s cluster is to make introductory STEM course content more inclusive. Ultimately, Fordham wants students who better reflect the racial and intersectional diversity of the Bronx community to enter STEM disciplines and graduate at rates comparable to those of majority students, said Lewis. 

Lewis leads Fordham’s IE3 leadership team, which is currently planning the details of the project. They are joined by Dean of Fordham College at Lincoln Center Laura Auricchio, Dean of Fordham College at Rose Hill Maura Mast, Associate Professor of Chemistry Robert Beer, Associate Professor of Biological Sciences Patricio Meneses, and CSTEP Director Michael Molina.

One of the team’s goals is to build on the University’s previous successes with mentoring and early research experiences, especially Project TRUE, the ASPIRES Scholars program, the Calder Summer Undergraduate Research Program, and Fordham’s Collegiate Science and Technology Entry Program, said Lewis. For example, they are currently working with CSTEP to include more CSTEP students in research opportunities earlier on in their time at Fordham, said Lewis. 

The team will also assess the University’s data on students taking STEM classes, starting with the biology department. They are planning on studying student outcomes, including the DFW rate—the number of students who earn D’s or F’s or withdraw from the course, said Lewis. They may also interview introductory biology instructors and students to understand the support they might need, said Lewis. 

“From them, we can get a sense of what’s working, what isn’t, what they’re struggling with, what they’re concerned about, and where and why they may not feel included,” Lewis said.  

Earlier Research Opportunities Built Into the Curriculum

In addition, the team is working on integrating student-directed research earlier in the STEM major. Upperclassmen typically conduct their own research in labs on campus, said Lewis, but their team is revising the curriculum so that they can introduce research to students as early as their first year of college. For example, the biology department recently introduced “research modules,” a new component in an introductory biology lab that gives students more creative freedom, said Lewis. 

“Instead of students simply following a manual type of lab activity, they are doing research where we don’t know the answer beforehand. They are experiencing those eureka moments, while still learning biology skills,” Lewis said. “Instead of waiting to work in a lab as a junior, they’re doing research that is yielding an unknown result—now, as a second-semester first-year student.” 

This fall, Fordham will finalize its project plan in collaboration with 14 other universities. Over the next six years, they will work together to achieve their goal through nearly $8 million in shared funding from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, a science philanthropy organization founded by aviator and industrialist Howard R. Hughes. 

“We want all Fordham students and prospective students to see and feel that they can be successful in a STEM major and career,” Lewis said. “I hope that our data will lead us to what that should look like.”

For the past year, Natalie Ward, a math major at Fordham College at Rose Hill and a George and Mary Jane McCartney Research Fellow, has been exploring the link between PM 2.5—an air pollutant smaller than the cross-section of a human hair—and pediatric asthma in the Bronx.

“Millions of New Yorkers are breathing in this harmful pollutant, but have no clue it might be really affecting their lungs,” said Ward, whose research was funded by a Fordham undergraduate grant.

Studies have shown that long-term exposure to PM 2.5, which originates from vehicle exhaust and fuel combustion, is linked to increased rates of pediatric asthma. And high particle concentrations are a bigger problem in the Bronx, where asthma death rates are three times higher than the rest of the United States.

Last summer, Ward examined air quality in the borough. Using a Temtop air quality detector, a TV remote-sized device that measures PM 2.5 levels, she collected air samples from different public parks located along major roadways in the Fordham and University Heights neighborhoods of the Bronx. Ward recorded PM 2.5 concentrations during three time periods—peak traffic hour from 7 to 10 a.m., 12 to 2 p.m., and rush hour from 5 to 7 p.m.—nearly every day for two months. Then she compared those numbers to their “green” equivalent at the New York Botanical Garden and Edwards Parade on the Rose Hill campus—spaces located more than 300 meters from a major roadway.

Her solo study provided a better picture of air conditions in the borough, said city health experts and environmentalists in a recent AM New York profile of Ward’s work.

“I found overwhelmingly that the farther I am away from the roadways, the smaller the PM 2.5 concentration, meaning healthier air quality,” Ward said, after using Python programming language and math modeling techniques to analyze her data. “But the closer I am to highways, large diesel trucks standing and idling—things of that nature—the PM 2.5 [levels are]consistently very toxic for vulnerable populations.”

Particle concentrations were in the “good” to “moderate” range in the green spaces, as classified by data from the Environmental Protection Agency. But the Bronx park locations near major roadways, including Noble Playground, had particle concentrations categorized as “unhealthy for sensitive groups” to “unhealthy,” Ward said.

“When I go to the public parks and see soccer teams, kids playing, moms and babies in strollers, and see the PM 2.5 [levels]as harmful,” said Ward, “it’s a staggering difference that tells a lot about environmental injustices taking place right in the borough.”  

An Alarming Discovery on the D Train

Her project was inspired by a program called Project True—a collaboration between Fordham and the Wildlife Conservation Society, where Ward worked on an urban ecology research project in 2017. It sparked her interest in how the natural landscape interacts with people and cities. It also made her think about a topic closer to home: the pediatric asthma crisis in the Bronx, her home for the past four years.

“It’s a disease that will be affecting cities as they grow in population, as more cars are added to the roads, and also as the EPA continues to deregulate air pollution,” Ward said.

She added that her preliminary subway data is “scary,” too.

Last September, she said she stood on the uptown subway platform at 59th Street and, on a whim, decided to measure the air quality. A “good” PM 2.5 concentration is 0 to 12 micrograms per cubic meter of air, according to the EPA. Ward’s measurement, however, was nearly 120—a number deemed “unhealthy for sensitive groups,” she said. And the further underground she ventured into the subway station, the higher the PM 2.5 concentration became.

“At every stop along the D train route, levels have been harmful to human health in general—not just for those who already have lung conditions or children,” Ward said, adding that other subway lines could have similar levels. “The levels are twice what I see typically at roadside locations … That ultimately could tell a lot about the health of subway workers and the millions of people who ride the MTA every day.”

Using Science to Push for Change

Ward will graduate with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics this May. She is currently enrolled in Fordham’s five-year master’s program in humanitarian studies, where she will continue conducting research that blends science and math with social justice. Right now, she is in the process of submitting her research article for publication. But over the next few years, Ward said she’s planning on collecting and comparing more quantitative data, particularly between the D and Q subway lines, with a better air quality detector.

She said her research is dedicated to the memory of Fordham first-year student Nicholas Booker, who died after a severe asthma attack last fall.

“Science can be used as a tool to enact change and advocate for justice,” Ward said. “Ultimately, it can be that tipping point to make lawmakers and policymakers see that there is a problem.”

The more crowded the neighborhood, the more social the bird. Such are the findings of an interspecies study by Fordham College at Rose Hill junior Lindsay Thomas.

Thomas, who is majoring in biology and minoring in sociology, unveiled her research at the Sixth Annual Bronx Science Consortium Poster Symposium on Wed., Oct. 3. Her work focused on observing birds, and how humans interact with them, in New York City parks. She hypothesized that birds live in different “avian communities” across the city, and, just like their human counterparts, their behavior often reflects the environment of their neighborhood.

In crowded parks, like Central Park, Thomas found that birds and humans interacted closely. People could get close to birds before the birds would take off and seek refuge in nearby woods—and not even that far into the woods. In less crowded parks, like Pelham Bay Park in the Bronx, birds flew away much sooner when people approached them, and they fled much deeper into the wooded areas.

“In Central Park the birds are competing for the same areas of the park as humans so they tend to hang out in areas such as footpaths and fountains,” said Thomas. “Unfortunately, birds also tend to use humans as easy food sources due to frequent hand feeding.”

Thomas wasn’t alone in tracking bird-human observations; she was supported by New York City high school students recruited for the study through Project TRUE (Teens Researching Urban Ecology), a program funded by the National Science Foundation that pairs teens with educators from the Wildlife Conservation Society and Fordham researchers.

One of the students, Angel Torres, riffed on Thomas’ work. Out in the field he noticed that birds were more vocal in crowded parks where they were competing with humans and city noise; they were less vocal in quieter parks. However, regardless of the park, when the same species of bird was observed in close proximity to others of the same species, vocalization rates increased.

Thomas’ groundwork for the research began after Tiffany House, her counselor from CSTEP (Fordham’s Collegiate Science, Engineering, and Technology Program), encouraged her to apply for a summer research internship with Project TRUE. As Thomas lives in Rockland County, CSTEP funded her housing for the internship.

Through the Wildlife Conservation Society, she was matched with Jocelyn Harrison, a conservation educator from Central Park who helped her iron out research methods and questions. She was also mentored by Fordham graduate student Emily Casper. By July, she was explaining research methods to three teens and working in the field gathering data with them.

Observing her own mentors opened up new possibilities for Thomas.

“It was great seeing people who were more along in their careers, like Jocelyn. I didn’t know that her job even existed,” she said of the conservation educator. “And I didn’t know we had such a diverse graduate program in biology until I met Emily. Her research is in marine biology! I thought you had to go somewhere else to study that.”

After college, Thomas hopes to pursue fellowship opportunities. Her interests lie at the intersection of policy, public health, and the sciences.

And as inspired as she was by her mentors, Thomas was also inspired by her mentees.

“One of the major takeaways,” she said, “was just working with the high school students and seeing how smart and driven they were.”

Thomas said she went to a low-income high school where budget cuts led to reduction of advanced placement classes.

“When I started this program, my main goal was to provide the students with guidance that I didn’t have at their age,” she said. “If I heard they were interested in college, I would be really on to it and encourage them.” Last month one of the students sent her a college essay to read.

“I tried to offer support beyond the program, support that I didn’t get,” she said.

Funded by the National Science Foundation, Fordham University, and the Wildlife Conservation Society, the program consists of both a social science research study and a youth development program. Members are chosen from New York city area high schools, and tutors are supplied by the University.

“We are taking the kids out of the classroom and putting them into nature. They are able to see the complexity between nature and human behavior through Project True and we hope that that will get them thinking about how everything is intertwined and how the decisions they make are connected to so many other things,” said program director Jason Aloisio.

This year, its participants include 50 high school students (coming from all boroughs of New York City as well as Long Island, Westchester, and New Jersey), 13 Fordham undergraduate students, and three graduate students from Fordham’s biology department. They will conduct research all around New York City, working heavily with teams that are stationed at the Prospect Park Zoo, Central Park Zoo, and the Bronx Zoo.

Lexie Neffinger, an undergraduate senior and environmental science major at Fordham College at Rose Hill, saw many benefits in joining Project TRUE for the younger students, as well as herself.

“I wanted to jump into the field aspect of research, since I’ve mostly been doing research in the lab,” she said. “I think it’s great for New York City kids [to]see the intricate and really diverse green spaces that actually exist in the city. It’s not something that should be foreign to them, because they are here.”

Michael Romero, a junior at Cardinal Spellman High School in the Bronx, was excited for his future endeavors with Project TRUE.

“It’s as a great opportunity to learn and see how things work, especially in ecology. With the research I do here, I hope to contribute to society [and]to the science world.”

At the end of their seven weeks, the students will present their research at the annual Bronx Science Consortium Poster Symposium, hosted at the Bronx Zoo on Sept. 27.

–Veronika Kero

Jason M. Aloisio, Ph.D., GSAS 17, has been awarded one of six Graduate Student Policy Awards (GSPA) from the Ecological Society of America (ESA).

Aloisio, who was chosen along with students from Princeton University, Michigan State University, University of Miami, University of California and Columbia University, will use the award to travel to Washington, D.C. later this month for policy and advocacy training. He won the award in January, when he was a student.

In addition to learning about the legislative process and federal science funding, Aloisio will hear from ecologists working in federal agencies. He will participate in Congressional Visits Day, a capitol hill event co-organized by ESA and sponsored by the Biological and Ecological Sciences Coalition.

There, Aloisio said he hopes to meet New York Senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, and Congressman Adriano Espaillat, who represents New York’s 13th Congressional District.

Aloisio coordinates the urban ecology research immersion program Project TRUE (Teens Researching Urban Ecology) for the Wildlife Conservation Society. He co-developed the project, which prepares high school students to pursue degrees and careers in STEM fields, in 2011. It receives funding from the National Science Foundation.

He said he is eager to meet Espaillat because he lives in the congressman’s district and because Espaillat sits on the Committee on Education and the Workforce, and a subcommittee focused on higher education.

For his doctoral degree Aloisio studied the ecology of green roof ecosystems,; he said he’s come to understand more fully the interconnectedness of policy and science.

“The Wildlife Conservation Society is widely involved with national and international regulations in different countries, and it’s become increasingly apparent how important it is to be involved in the policy process,” he said. “Decisions at the policy level have dramatic implications for conservation and the environment.”

ESA Executive Director Katherine McCarter said that by training ESA members to effectively communicate science to lawmakers, the gap between science and policy can be bridged and help fill the critical need for science-informed policy decisions.

“This valuable, hands-on experience provides these young ecologists with essential science communication skills that will enable them to successfully engage in the policy realm,” she said.

Fordham University students gathered in the Schiff Family Great Hall to take part in the 4^th Annual Bronx Science Consortium Poster Symposium. The event was a presentation of student research on the high school, undergraduate, graduate, and post-doctoral levels.

“What is really so great about this symposium is the diversity of the projects,” said Ron Jacobson, Ph.D., associate vice president in the Office of the Provost and one of the event’s organizers. “It shows all the interests of our students and the many things the consortium has to offer.”

J. Alan Clark, Ph.D., associate professor of biology and an avian expert, shared his doctoral study on penguin vocalizations. He documented the calls of feeding and mating Spheniscus penguins and tested the penguins’ responses to the calls.

He also gave the students important advice:

“Look for something that interests you, and when you see something weird, question it. There’s a wonderful world to explore, so always keep exploring,” he said, adding in jest they should “become rich and famous” as well.

Project TRUE Students Chasing Opportunity

One of the groups of high school students from Fordham’s Project TRUE (Teens Researching Urban Ecology) presented a project on what kind of small mammals live within the Zoo’s enclosure.

The project is the result of a $2.6 million grant Fordham received with the Wildlife Conservation Society in order to teach and train local high school students in ecology and other STEM subjects.

The study discovered seven species of mammals that roam free within the zoo, the most prominent being white-footed mice.

“Everyone was so welcoming. I come from a small school where there’s not a lot of interest in stuff like this,” said Stephanie Blackwood of North Salem High School. “It’s great that I got to meet kids my age who are interested in the same subjects.”

“It was much better than sitting at a desk all summer,” added Anye Frimpong, of the Bronx Academy of Software Engineering. “I got to try something new. It makes me want to pursue a liberal arts education.”

HPV Research and the Benefits of Catnip

Fordham undergraduate and graduate students were also in attendance.

Fordham senior Victoria Sieverson’s project addressed the positive benefits of catnip for humans. In her study, she tested the effectiveness of pantolactone, an active ingredient in catnip, as a repellent against black-legged ticks.

“The catnip was effective in repelling the ticks away from human skin for about two hours. When I eventually come back to this project, I want to increase the concentration levels to see if I can get it to last longer,” said Sieverson.

(The ingredient, she said, has no negative side effects on cats.)

Jacqueline Heffner, a Rose Hill junior majoring in physics, discovered a way to detect the presence of the HPV virus without long, drawn out tests.

By creating a microsphere, she was able to decipher whether the virus was present based on shifts in the air’s frequency near the sphere’s edge. By testing for HPV infections this way instead of using biosensors, Heffner believes that diagnosis and treatment can begin more quickly.

“In developing countries, instead of wasting time taking tests and sending them miles away to a facility to get results, doctors can take samples and test the frequency right where they are,” said Heffner. “It speeds up the process and allows those who need help to get it faster.”

In all, some two dozen posters were presented. The projects were created in conjunction with the Bronx Science Consortium, an educational partnership of five Bronx institutions that focuses on bringing together science research and intellectual support from its partners.

–Mary Awad

With two prestigious institutions—the Bronx Zoo and the New York Botanical Garden—sitting across the street from Fordham’s Rose Hill campus, it would seem like a no-brainer to get students involved at them.

That’s certainly how Amy Tuininga, Ph.D., associate professor of biology, sees it.
Tuininga, the associate dean of strategic initiatives, partnerships, and assessment at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, said that she first broached the idea of getting students to do research and teaching with the zoo when she spotted a talented doctoral candidate who had more than a dash of initiative.

“It seemed like he had potential to innovate teaching in nontraditional settings,” Tuininga recalled.

Eventually, the doctoral candidate, Jason Aloisio, worked with Tuininga and Karen Tingley, the city zoos’ director of education, to found Project TRUE (Teens Researching Urban Ecology). It is a tiered mentoring program that works with faculty, undergraduates, and graduate students to teach city kids about urban ecology. The program, sponsored by the Wildlife Conservation Society, was adopted by the Central Park Zoo and even found its way into city parks.

“For many of these kids, reality is a dirty sidewalk and natural areas are perceived as places where you can get mugged,” said Aloisio. “We’re trying to dispel that perception.”
With the success of the zoo relationship established, Tuininga introduced doctoral candidate Chelsea Butcher to James Boyer, Ph.D., the Marian S. Heiskell Vice President for Children’s Education at the New York Botanical Garden.

The garden’s youth program differs from the zoo’s in that it primarily engages teens who already have an interest in urban ecology. These teens are brought in as “teen explainers” to teach kids ages 3 to 10 about plants in an informal manner at the Everett Children’s Adventure Garden. As the teens gain experience and knowledge, they can move on to become “advanced explainers,” said Boyer.

“They all have a passion for the work and it teaches them self-confidence,” he said. “They don’t join the program because they were urban kids without a connection to nature or science. They’re committed.”

The advanced-level explainers get to meet up with Butcher. Boyer said that even though his staff brings plenty of child-studies and educational experience to the table, in Butcher they found someone who can teach plant science as a practice.

“She is constantly correcting misconceptions and gives them a realistic sense of science through experiments,” he said.

Butcher’s background is in urban ecology. She loves field research, but the harsh winter of 2013-14 kept her and the cohort housebound in the garden’s Haupt Conservatory and the laboratory. Beginning in March, she and the teens ran experiments that focused on the adaptation of plants in both rainforest and desert environments. Sample plants from both environments were given water in varying amounts and at varying frequency. Each week the students counted and measured the leaves, and observed whether a plant was getting sick or benefiting from its particular water regimen.

The students presented their observations at the YouthCaN World Conference held at the Museum of Natural History on April 28. The conference brings together students from around the world (in person or via video) to do research presentations about the environment.

Instead of a dry show-and-tell, the garden team presented a sci-fi-infused video intended to capture the attention of their fellow teens. They also presented information they learned from Butcher on ethnobotany—the study of human use of plants for things like food or clothing.
Following their presentation, the teens also implemented a plan to do qualitative research to measure if their lab training paid off.

For this, Tuininga drafted yet another doctoral candidate—this time from Fordham’s Department of Psychology. Sheena Jeswani helped the students develop a survey that will evaluate visitors’ experiences at the Everett Children’s Adventure Garden. When the students complete their 120 hours of internship, they’ll have data that shows whether their research helped improve their skills as explainers. The survey will also teach the teens the difference between quantitative and qualitative research.

While the teens walk away learning a lot, so, too, do the doctoral candidates. Butcher, who just won a Claire Booth Luce Fellowship, said the experience has made her a better scientist.

“As scientists, we get focused on our area and it gets difficult to communicate with people outside of our field,” said Butcher. “But with these teens I have to think about how do I get them excited, and that makes me excited.”