The Academic Minute from 02.17 – 02.21
Monday, February 17th
Azhar Ilyas – New York Institute of Technology
Early Detection of HIV
Azhar Ilyas is an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering. Prior to joining New York Institute of Technology, he was a post-doctoral fellow at Texas A&M University in the Department of Biomedical Sciences. He received his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of Texas at Arlington in 2013. His research experience and interests are in the general areas of biomedical engineering, nanoscience, and nanotechnology, with a particular focus towards their application in disease diagnostics and bone regeneration.
Tuesday, February 18th
Marcella del Signore – New York Institute of Technology
Collaboration and Digital Spaces
Marcella Del Signore is an architect and the principal of X-Topia, a design-research practice that explores the intersection of architecture and urbanism with digital practices. Her work concentrates on the relationship between architecture and urbanism by leveraging emerging technologies to imagine scenarios for the future of environments and cities. Her background in architecture and urban design has led her to explore and implement projects that investigate the relationships between contemporary architectural practice and the public/social/cultural scale in dialogue with technologically mediated systems. In her practice, she has been focusing on inter-scalar approaches to design, from small scale interventions, installations, and prototypes to buildings to the urban scale. This approach has led her to work across scales and protocols from material, morphological, spatial, and performative dimensions to the larger interlacement of spatial and urban systems. She holds a Master in Architecture from La Sapienza University in Rome and a Master of Science in Advanced Architectural Design from Columbia University in New York.
Wednesday, February 19th
Navin Pokala – New York Institute of Technology
Treatment of Psychiatric Illnesses
Navin Pokala’s interests are at the intersections of experiment and computation, and science and engineering. As a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, he developed and experimentally tested algorithms for designing protein molecules. As a postdoctoral researcher at The Rockefeller University, he developed several computational and experimental tools for better understanding how nervous systems generate behaviors.
Thursday, February 20th
Alexander Lopez – New York Institute of Technology
Changing Brain Performance in Kids with Autism
Alexander Lopez, J.D., received his Bachelor of Science in Occupational Therapy from Kean University in 1997 and a Juris Doctor from New England Law in 2004. As a licensed occupational therapy practitioner and attorney, he has engaged in several community-based initiatives focused on under-served groups. In addition, Lopez has been instrumental in bringing non-traditional services to governmental and private community-based organizations. In 2007, he founded PAR FORE, a golf mentoring program that utilizes the occupational activity of golf as a medium for developing valuable life skills. Since its inception, PAR FORE has grown from serving a handful of adolescents in New York to serving children in Utah, New Jersey, and Nevada.
Friday, February 21st
Bernadette Riley – New York Institute of Technology
Physicians and Social Media
Dr. Riley, a graduate of Fordham University (2001) and New York College of Osteopathic Medicine (2005), started her training as an ENT/Facial Plastic surgery intern and completed two years of residency at Union Hospital/Newark Beth Israel/St. Barnabas Medical Center before switching specialties. She finished her Family Medicine and Osteopathic Manipulative Treatment residency at Long Beach Medical Center, where she served as Chief Resident, and Family Medicine Resident of the Year.
