The Academic Minute from 05.23 – 05.27
Monday, May 23rd
Unal Tatar – University at Albany
The Economic Cost of Critical Infrastructure Disruptions
Dr. Unal Tatar is an assistant professor at the College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security, and Cybersecurity at the University at Albany. Dr. Tatar served as the head of the National Computer Emergency Response Team of Turkey and as an academic advisor at the NATO Center of Excellence Defense Against Terrorism. Dr. Tatar has three main lines of research: the economics of cybersecurity and risk management, critical infrastructure protection and national security, and cybersecurity capacity building and workforce development. Dr. Tatar’s research has been funded by NSF, DOD, NSA, ONR, AFRL, NATO and several foundations.
Tuesday, May 24th
Jerry Brotzge – University at Albany
Improving Weather Operations
Dr. Jerry Brotzge is a Research Scientist and Program Manager of the New York State Mesonet (NYSM; http://nysmesonet.org) at the University at Albany. Jerry completed his undergraduate work in meteorology at Saint Louis University in St. Louis, MO, and his MS and PhD graduate work in meteorology at the University of Oklahoma. Upon graduation in 2000, he began work for the OU Center for Analysis and Prediction of Storms (CAPS), which assimilates data from new systems in an effort to improve storm- to mesoscale numerical weather prediction. Jerry moved to the University at Albany in fall 2014 to lead the design, deployment and operation of the New York State Mesonet. Dr. Brotzge has over forty formal publications, with a focus on observations, high-impact weather, and warning operations.
Wednesday, May 25th
Tomoko Udo – University at Albany
Suicide Attempts Are Common in U.S. Adults With Borderline Personality Disorder
Tomoko Udo, Ph.D is an Associate Professor at Department of Health Policy, Management, and Behavior, School of Public Health, University at Albany. Prior to joining UAlbany SPH, Dr. Udo was an Associate Research Scientist and Junior Faculty Scholar for Yale Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women’s Health (BIRCWH) program at Department of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine. She also completed postdoctoral training at Center of Alcohol Studies, Rutgers University.
The overarching goal of Dr. Udo’s research program is to identify ways to improve health of individuals with various addictive behaviors, including drug abuse and behaviors partly overlap with drug addiction such as binge eating/obesity, as well as other mental health problems. She is also interested in understanding the impact of social stress on health, such as discrimination, incarceration, and childhood adversity. Dr. Udo uses a wide range of research approaches, from basic laboratory behavioral experiments, survey methods, quasi-experimental studies, mixed methods, to secondary data analysis of epidemiological data. She is currently involved in multiple funded projects aiming to evaluate innovative programs targeting substance users that are implemented by the New York State Department of Health, community health organizations, and law enforcement.
Thursday, May 26th
Erika Martin – University at Albany
Racial and Ethnic Disparities Persist in HIV Diagnoses
Erika Martin is an associate professor in the Department of Public Administration and Policy at the University at Albany. As an applied health policy researcher, she uses mixed methods to evaluate issues related to the allocation of scarce public health resources, the adoption and impact of public health policies, and ways to improvdapheny-stavzioe the sustainability and impact of open health data platforms. Her work in HIV policy includes examining the fairness and flexibility of the federal allocations for HIV care and prevention, interstate variation in state HIV programs, the budget impact of expanded HIV screening on public programs, how the Affordable Care Act will affect HIV care, the impact of New York’s HIV testing law and Ending the Epidemic policy strategies, and the evolution of New York’s policy response to opioid overdose. In addition to her HIV policy research, she studies how public health agencies can release open data in a way that is more usable and fit for public health research. She has considerable experience working with government clients to translate evidence-based research into practice.
Friday, May 27th
Daphney-Stavroula Zois – University at Albany
Using Artificial Intelligence to Air Farmers in Africa
Daphney-Stavroula Zois is an assistant professor with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, University at Albany, State University of New York.
Her research interests include decision making under uncertainty, machine learning, detection and estimation theory, intelligent systems design, and signal processing.
She directs the IMAgINE Lab at UAlbany.
Previously, she was a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Coordinated Science Laboratory at the University of Illinois, Urbana–Champaign, Champaign, IL, USA. Zois received her bachelor’s degree in computer engineering and informatics from the University of Patras, Patras, Greece, in 2007, and a master’s of science and PhD in electrical engineering from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, in 2010 and 2014, respectively.
Dr. Zois has received the Viterbi Dean’s and Myronis Graduate Fellowships and the National Science Foundation CAREER Award. She has served and is serving as Co-Chair, Technical Program Committee Member, or Reviewer in international conferences and journals, such as AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing, IEEE Global Communications Conference, and the IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing.
