The Center for Mathematical Talent (CMT) was established in 2010 at New York University's prestigious Courant Institute for Mathematics.  Its mission is to identify, motivate, and nurture those underserved and underrepresented students in New York City schools who could excel in mathematics.  This grant provides three years of continued support for the activities of the CMT, including partnering with other educational organizations to set up satellite programs for students unable or unwilling to travel to Manhattan, training public school teachers and others to run extracurricular programs like “math circles,” and developing educational materials, like math games, designed to present mathematics in ways that are challenging, fun, and engaging.  In addition, CMT plans over the next three years to double the numbers of students and instructors reached; diversify its sources of support; restructure its website to better serve its core audiences, and refine its data collection procedures so as to better measure program impact.

Funds from this grant provide three years of continued support for two programs at the City University of New York aimed at supporting faculty and students in STEM disciplines. The first, CUNY's Summer Undergraduate Research Program (C-SURP), provides talented undergraduates with the opportunity to engage in hands-on, in-the-lab research, assisting CUNY science faculty with ongoing research projects during the summer. Grant funds will support 10 students in each of 2015, 2016, and 2017, providing a $4,000 housing allowance and a $4,000 living stipend to each student. The second supported program under this grant is CUNY's Junior Faculty Research Award in Science and Engineering (J-FRASE) program, which supports promising early-career STEM faculty at CUNY with a $50,000 fellowship for use in research. Over the course of the next three years, 12 faculty will receive fellowships through this grant.

Infectious disease expert Ian Lipkin, M.D., the John Snow Professor of Epidemiology and Director of the Center for Infection and Immunity at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University studied the microbial profiles of 133 rats in lower Manhattan and determined that they harbor multiple human pathogens.  This grant supports Lipkin as he expands this study to mice.  Lipkin will examine the microflora of 100 mice from each of 16 densely populated areas of New York City in order to determine what bacteria, fungi, and viruses are present in native NYC mice and whether the distribution of these microoganisms  differ by borough, season, or socioeconomic status of the surrounding human population.  The project has the potential to identify both known and novel pathogens in rodent vectors, provide insights into otherwise unexplained diseases by revealing links to infection with rodent-borne pathogens, and build support for rodent control.  The new knowledge will be shared through peer-reviewed publications and presentations at scientific and medical meetings.

This grant provides five years of continued support to the Fund for the City of New York for the administration of the Sloan Awards for Excellence in Teaching Science and Mathematics, an annual awards program that honors exceptional math and science teaching in New York City’s public high schools. Selected by a distinguished independent committee of scientists, educators, and civic leaders, each of seven yearly awardees receive $5,000 with an additional $2,500 going to his or her school to strengthen its science and mathematics program. Grant funds support the administration of the awards, selection of candidates, press and media outreach, and an annual ceremony honoring the winners.

The DNA Learning Center, operated by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, is the world’s largest provider of student lab instruction in molecular genetics, operating six teaching laboratories in Cold Spring Harbor, Lake Success, and Harlem. More than 265,000 precollege students have conducted hands-on experiments at DNA Learning Center locations since its first teaching lab opened, and each year about 30,000 New York area students receive science enrichment during half-day field trips, in-school visits, and week-long DNA camps administered by the Center.   The Center has also popularized several useful methods for delivering laboratory instruction in genetics to large numbers of teachers and students—including equipment-sharing consortia, mobile vans to carry instructional labs to remote sites, and laboratory field trips.This grant provides partial support for the opening of a new DNA Learning Center location in New York City. The new location will bring high-quality molecular genetics education to an estimated 45,000 New York City students annually, and will provide significant educational opportunities to low-income, minority, and underserved student populations.

In 2012, New York University established the Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP), a new center dedicated to conducting research and education in the emerging field of urban informatics. Using vast data sets and new tools and strategies, CUSP plans to address the critical challenges facing cities, including infrastructure, technology integration, energy efficiency, transportation congestion, public safety, and public health. Funds from this grant provide support for the planning of four major CUSP projects: the Quantified Community project, which aims to fully instrument a section of the city to acquire and use the data collected by sensors as well as other data streams; the Urban Microbiome project, which aims to study the city’s microbiological ecosystems; the Urban Observatory project, which aims to develop and deploy new sensor technologies around the city; and the Data Warehouse project, which aims to construct a pioneering computing center to facilitate the storage, management, curation, analysis, and use of urban informatics data. Grant funds will support planning of these four projects, the production of white papers examining benefits, costs, and potential obstacles, and the production of a detailed project timelines, budgets, and workplans.

This grant supports the research of New York University professor Richard Revesz, who is studying the effects of the National Flood Insurance Program, which provides subsidized flood insurance to at-risk communities in exchange for implementing floodplain management ordinances that would make future construction less vulnerable to the damage caused by flooding. Revesz will investigate a series of interrelated issues, including who primarily benefits from the program, how it affects construction decisions, how to estimate costs and benefits, and what “moral hazard” or “adverse selection” problems the program creates. Particular emphasis will be based on investigating consumer, government and firm behavior in the wake of Superstorm Sandy, which caused massive flooding in the New York City metropolitan area in 2012.