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Newsletters January 22, 2021

No. 562: Neurons, Paris and polka dots – and that time Apple took down Big Brother

  Well, THAT was exciting: Not just another week, dear readers, but certainly one more workweek in the books, as we reach Friday and the precipice of a well-earned winter weekend. It’s Jan. 22 out there – just three days into the Biden Administration, but now Amanda Gorman is a household name and already the world is feeling better. See spot, run: And you probably will, on National Polka Dot Day. Too tame? Spice things…

Newsletters January 20, 2021

No. 561: Beginnings, endings and end-arounds – and dammit, Jim, I’m 101 today

  Hold on to your potatoes: Welcome, dear reader, to Jan. 20, 2021. Today, of course, is the series finale of “The Apprentice President,” which promises to be as somber as the “M*A*S*H” coda, as pointless as the “Seinfeld” sendoff, as inconclusive as the conclusion of “The Sopranos” … and as serious as a heart attack. Whatever happens on this monumental Wednesday in our shining City on a Hill, consider this: You may praise President…

Economic Development January 18, 2021

‘Harvestable energy’ fuels second CEBIP graduate

By GREGORY ZELLER // A waste-not biotech with a true sense of sustainability has become the second company to graduate from the Clean Energy Business Incubator Program, despite logistical challenges exacerbated by the dreaded scourge of COVID-19. Just weeks after saluting 2012 startup ThermoLift as its first-ever graduate, CEBIP – Stony Brook University’s unique business-formation gauntlet, designed to push clean-energy innovators from concept to commercialization – is now tossing mortarboards for Re-Nuble, a 2015 startup…

Opinion December 30, 2020

After rocky 2020, Island startups set to rock in 2021

By DAVID HAMILTON // What a challenging and tumultuous year! If you’d told the December 2019 me what was going to transpire, I’d have called you crazy – and suggested you’d read one too many sci-fi novels by our favorite Innovate LI editor. There was no way to see this coming: a never-ending pandemic, an unprecedented economic collapse, social upheaval on a national scale, political turmoil unlike anything we’ve ever seen, endless Zoom calls, three…

Startups December 22, 2020

With Next Cryo, a startup that’s really cooling its jets

By GREGORY ZELLER // The Stony Brook University scientist who came in from the cold is getting some serious chills – and this time, he’s really got something to cryo about. Slowa Solovyov, a multi-patented, 23-year veteran of U.S. Department of Energy collaborations, is diving into the coldest environments man can create on a quest to improve quantum-level efficiencies. The longtime SBU adjunct professor of electrical engineering is flipping the switch on Next Cryo, a…

Newsletters December 18, 2020

No. 556: On missing links, adventurous socialites and phased inoculations – and partying with Jett and Joel

  Winter wonderland: You had Friday on your mind, dear readers, and neither school closures, power outages nor blizzard-like conditions were going to stop you – and now here you are, on the brink of an especially well-earned weekend. It’s Dec. 18 out there, and as we wrap up another week of socioeconomic innovation, let us be the first to offer you mabrook – that’s “congratulations” in Arabic (phonetically), apropos on the U.N.’s World Arabic…

Newsletters December 16, 2020

No. 555: Pace pact, time travel and immunization, Island-style – plus, a big first finish for CEBIP

  You asked for it: Admit it, dear readers – you griped about last winter’s lack of snow and the little tyke buried deep in your pragmatic soul is tingling with excitement. Or maybe you hate snow. Either way, get your milk and bread, ’cause here it comes. The parents strike back: It’s Wednesday, Dec. 16, and as we await Long Island’s first significant snowfall in nearly two years, we’ll issue a heartfelt apology to…

Clean Energy December 15, 2020

In ThermoLift, SBU commercialization done right

By GREGORY ZELLER // The shining star of Stony Brook University’s commercialization ecosystem is all growed up – and ready to reshape the global heating-and-cooling landscape. As a client of Stony Brook’s Clean Energy Business Incubator Program and a resident of the university’s Advanced Energy Research and Technology Center, 2012 startup ThermoLift – co-founded by current Director Paul Schwartz and international engineering stalwart Peter Hofbauer – has advanced the principles of the extreme-temperature Vuilleumier thermodynamic…

Opinion September 24, 2020

Life lessons from my own big, fat international crisis

By SHRUTI SHARMA // Following my passion for science to the United States has been a life-defining moment for me. Leaving my parents and everything familiar behind – it’s one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make. Coming to a new country is exciting. You are experiencing new culture, visiting beautiful places and growing personally and professionally. However, some of these very things can make being “international” difficult at any given time. You…

Biotech March 5, 2020

Team effort pushing Allied Microbiata toward pay dirt

By GREGORY ZELLER // Raymond Sambrotto is knee-deep in toxic waste in Delaware, and pretty happy about it. It’s been nearly three years since Sambrotto and co-founder Frana James launched Allied Microbiata, a now-Stony Brook-based biotech with a taste for environmental remediation, and about four months since the startup engaged its most ambitious field test to date, setting its PCB-eating microorganisms upon thousands of pounds of contaminated soil and sediment at a site in Delaware….

Technology January 30, 2020

At CEWIT tech conference, the future is in their hands

By GREGORY ZELLER // Stony Brook University will flex its innovation muscle in March, bulking up its Technology Commercialization Conference with an entire campus worth of creativity. The university’s Office of Economic Development is inviting students and faculty to showcase new technologies for possible commercialization, with an audience of potential investors and industry insiders expected to fill SBU’s Center of Excellence in Wireless and Information Technology. The Technology Commercialization Conference is not to be confused…

Invention January 9, 2020

Now batting for Hoplite Power, an innovation veteran

By GREGORY ZELLER // A regional rookie with major-league aspirations – literally – has teamed up with a heavy-hitting innovation all-star to knock its next-gen “power hubs” out of the park. Actually, into the park. Hoplite Power, a Long Island City-based startup and client of Stony Brook University’s Clean Energy Business Incubation Program, has enlisted the help of Hauppauge-based product-design expert Intelligent Product Solutions – specifically, IPS President Mitch Maiman – as it prepares to…

Startups January 8, 2020

After successful seed, Qunnect set for ludicrous speed

By GREGORY ZELLER // Marking another quantum leap for cybersecure long-distance communications, a high-tech Stony Brook University spinoff has completed a key financing round. Qunnect LLC, a 2017 startup launched by a Stony Brook PhD and the head of the university’s Quantum Information Technology Group, has closed its $800,000 seed round, an oversubscribed financing cycle backed by the Accelerate NY Seed Fund, French venture-capital fund Quantonation – the first VC fund dedicated to quantum technologies…

Newsletters September 20, 2019

No. 439: On iron thrones, pepperoni pizzas, pool parties – and best efforts, wasted

  No kidding: You’ve done it again, dear reader – another five-day gauntlet run, another well-earned weekend reached. Well played. It’s Friday, Sept. 20, a good one for the young and the young at heart, marking both National Youth Day in Thailand and Germany’s Universal Children’s Day. Let’s not go there: It’s also Independence Day in South Ossetia, but that’s a whole big thing. Thought for food: And since we dropped the bun and failed…

Sustainability August 20, 2019

Albany plugging $79M into SBU campus efficiency

By GREGORY ZELLER // A variety of state-funded efficiency upgrades – including new lighting, ventilation and operations-management systems – are included in a new Stony Brook University infrastructure-improvement plan. Governor Andrew Cuomo on Tuesday announced a comprehensive $79 million strategy to bring additional energy-efficient improvements to the Long Island jewel of the State University system. Financed and implemented by the New York Power Authority “in partnership with SUNY,” the upgrades target several SBU facilities –…