By GREGORY ZELLER //
State University of New York flagship institution, endless superlatives for your burgeoning medical system, the only statewide campus with two Empire State Development-stamped Centers for Advanced Technology, an ambitious new president with a glittering Ivy League résumé … when your educational reputation and research-institution credibility are this strong, what’s left to do?
Begin training the next generation of top-tier scientific investigators, of course.
And so, Stony Brook University has been selected to lead the SUNY Research Leadership Academy, a multifaceted effort to enhance science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine leadership and communication throughout the State University system.
Starting with an inaugural class of 30 STEMM faculty members from across the SUNY system, the academy will help develop research-related skills and impart new-and-improved communication skills – a crucial shortcut to sharing real-world benefits that will win hearts and minds, a best bet for helping next-level, often complex research projects across the finish line.
Andrea Goldsmith: New skills unlocked.
The year-long training effort will be designed and led by the Stony Brook Office of Research and Innovation, home base of the university’s top-shelf intellectual endeavors and vital cog in Stony Brook’s economic-development super-engine.
By leveraging “unique communication techniques” pioneered in the university’s Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science – which opened in 2009 for the express purpose of helping scientists explain (and win public support for) their cutting-edge experiments and programs – the Research Leadership Academy “advances Stony Brook’s mission to empower faculty as research leaders, translate science for broad understanding and drive discoveries,” according to freshly minted Stony Brook University President Andrea Goldsmith.
“To solve the most challenging problems facing humanity, the next generation of research leaders must convene people with diverse backgrounds and perspectives who can effectively communicate with each other and with the general public,” Goldsmith noted. “The Research Leadership Academy will enable SUNY STEMM researchers to hone these invaluable skills.”
That was the basic idea 16 years ago, when Hollywood A-lister Alda collaborated with SBU’s School of Communication and Journalism, Brookhaven National Laboratory and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory to launch the Center for Communicating Science, which was rechristened with Alda’s famous monicker in 2013.
Alda – known best for playing brainy characters on the classic sitcom “M*A*S*H” and the political melodrama “The West Wing” – said the center has made scientists conducting research at SBU and beyond “better leaders.”
Alan Alda: Great communicator.
“The Center for Communicating Science has enabled women and men in STEMM to be better communicators,” he noted.
The Research Leadership Academy – which will aim to build public trust through effective engagement, strengthen scientists’ audience-centered communication skills and deepen SUNY’s capacity for community-engaged leadership – is the perfect expansion of that mission, according to the Academy Award nominee and six-time Emmy Award-winner.
“We’re excited to get started on this wonderful project,” Alda added.
That includes SUNY Chancellor John King Jr., who suggested there’s no time to waste in getting the new academy – which is already accepting application from statewide STEMM staffers, with an eye on welcoming the first cohort later this year – up and running.
“At a time when lifesaving and world-changing research is at risk, and the general public feels a disconnect with how academic research provides real-world benefits, an initiative like SUNY’s Research Leadership Academy has never been more important,” the chancellor said. “As SUNY drives to double research innovation across our system, we need to ensure New Yorkers understand the work taking place on our campuses and what it means to our state and our society.
“The Research Leadership Academy will help our faculty better engage with the public, and more clearly communicate their essential research efforts and purposes.”
