The CUNY CREST Bulletin

The City University of New York Remote Sensing Earth Systems Institute 

(CUNY CREST) quarterly bulletin is an initiative to keep you up-to-date on the Institute’s success stories, events, opportunities, highlights, and more. Happy reading!

Dr. Reza Khanbilvardi

CREST hosted its first External Advisory Board Meeting on December 3, 2024 at the Grove School of Engineering, City College of New York (CCNY). The meeting was attended by CREST EAB members, Board of Directors, leadership & management, and graduate students. The goal of the meeting was to help the new advisory board members learn about CREST’s community, its history, operations, collaborations, activities, and short and long term strategic plans. During the meeting, attendees engaged in constructive discussions that resulted in curiosity-driven questions about the institute and preliminary suggestions. Several productive ideas and action items emerged from the meeting that the institute plans to work on and develop.

CREST hosted the first United Nations University (UNU) Hub —Remote-Sensing and Sustainable Innovations for Resilient Urban Systems (R-SIRUS) retreat at the CCNY on February 13, 2025. The goal of the retreat was to deliberate, brainstorm and develop the R-SIRUS’s short-term (0-2 years) and long-term (2-5 years) strategic plan. It served as a great opportunity to gather input and feedback from all CCNY Stakeholders and participants to finalize our goals and objectives, develop new initiatives in research, education, and policy; design and launch R-SIRUS website; and identify collaboration with national and international organizations and experts.

Dr. Shakila Merchant represented the CREST at the 34th International Institute of Safety and Security Management Global Conclave on Total Risk Prevention - Risk to Resilience in December 2024 held at New Delhi, India. The overarching topics that were discussed during the conclave included climate change, disaster management, sustainability, security & safety, and women, children, and specially abled empowerment and skill development. During the conclave, Dr. Merchant served as a panelist on various sessions and showcased CUNY CREST’s research capabilities through her presentation. While in India, Dr. Merchant was also invited to visit the Indian Public School in Dehradun headed by chairman Dr. Ravindra Kishore Sinha. During the two-day visit to the school, Dr. Merchant shared about the CUNY CREST HIRES USA program and the learning & professional development opportunities it offers with the IPS high school student and academic community.

CREST participated in the American Geophysical Union annual meeting from December 9 to 13, 2024 in Washington, DC. Dr. Reza Khanbilvardi, CREST Faculty affiliate and Professor of Civil Engineering at CCNY, Dr. Naresh Devineni, and CREST doctoral students, Mr. Ali Haider (Civil Engineering), Ms. Shima Kamali (Water Resources Engineering), and Ms. Fatemeh Yavari (Civil Engineering), attended the meeting. It was a great opportunity for the students to present their research, network with other researchers from varied fields such as urban flooding, flash flood trends, and climate resilience, exchange ideas and gather inspiration from other presenters, gain access to a plethora of resources such as company booths in the exhibition, that could lead to future collaborations.

Dr. Arthur Paul Pedersen, faculty research scientist with the CUNY Remote Sensing Earth Systems Institute and faculty doctoral lecturer of computer science at City College, is the lead author of a paper that appeared in the January 2025 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The paper is a critical essay on measurement literacy in scientific discourse. Pedersen co-authored this paper with colleagues from Syracuse University, University of Washington, University of Missouri, University of Western Australia, The Johns Hopkins University, University of Texas at Austin, University of Trento, Italy, and University of Potsdam, Germany.

Dr. Shakila Merchant served as a co-panelist on the Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (CMOS) - UPEC panel discussion held on January 23, 2025. The session focused on the evolution of careers in disruptive environments. The overarching question discussed at the panel was: “In light of the themes discussed on day 1 of the workshop (advances in AI/machine learning, climate change, EDI in the disrupted environment), in what ways do we anticipate careers in the weather and climate enterprise to evolve?.”

CREST Faculty affiliate and Professor of Civil Engineering at CCNY, Dr. Naresh Devineni welcomed his new Postdoctoral Research Scientist, Dr. JaeUng Yu on January 2, 2025. Dr. Yu’s research focuses on Statistical Analysis between rainfall and Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO). He aims to use Bayesian regression methods to conduct his research.

Dr. Yu graduated with a Ph.D. from Sejong National University in September 2024, South Korea. Most of his studies in Korea focused on floods. The research included updating design rainfall, reevaluating dams, and analyzing rainfall-runoff.

CREST Doctoral student in Civil Engineering at the CCNY, Mr. Said A Mejia Manrique successfully defended his dissertation on December 6, 2024. Mr. Manrique conducted research on Deep Learning Architectures for Improving Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Precipitation Estimates and Landslide Susceptibility Mapping: A Case Study of Puerto Rico under the mentorship of Dr. Reza Khanbilvardi.

Mr. Manrique embarked on a new journey by joining CCNY as a postdoctoral fellow on January 2, 2025. He will conduct research on GSX Science Collaboration and Establishing a GXS Baseline Retrieval Algorithm. CREST Research Scientist and NOAA CESSRST II Distinguished Research Scientist, Dr. Mitch Goldberg serves as Mr. Manrique’s primary supervisor while Dr. Reza Khanbilvardi and NOAA GEOXO program Scientists including Dr. Andrew Heidinger are co-collaborators. 

In January, Dr. Reza Khanbilvardi visited Argentina with the goal of fostering partnerships and advancing scientific collaboration between the USA and South America. The trip focused on connecting with key academic institutions and government agencies to explore potential areas of cooperation in satellite remote sensing, advanced technologies, and disaster response. During his visit, Dr. Khanbilvardi engaged in productive discussions with President Julia Oliva Cuneo and Director of International Relations at the University Provincial of Cordoba (UPC), Dr. Maria Laura Chauvet. This is asignificant step towards building lasting academic and research partnerships between the CREST, the University Provincial of Cordoba, and CONAE, creating new opportunities for innovation in remote sensing, disaster management, and scientific collaboration.

Dr. Naresh Devineni received a $2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to develop a holistic research and training program for its Reaching a New Energy Sciences Workforce (RENEW) initiative. Dr. Devineni is excited about this new project as it has the scope of blending AI/ML methods with traditional computational methods to create more robust and scalable natural hazards risk management tools for the next generation of energy science workforce. 

L-R-  Mr. Juan Martinez, Dr. Alex de Sherbin, Steven L. Goldstein, Dr. Vartika Chandra Saman, Dr. Shakila Merchant, Dr. Michael J. Passow

Dr. Shakila Merchant and CREST Research Scientist, Dr. Vartika Saman visited the Lamont- Dohert Earth Observatory at the Columbia Climate School in New York on February 19, 2025. During the visit, the CREST team met with Steven L. Goldstein, Interim Director, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO), Dr. Alex de Sherbinin, Director, The Center for Integrated Earth System Information (CIESIN) at Columbia Climate School, and Dr. Michael J. Passow, Adjunct Associate Research Scientist, LDEO to explore potential collaborations. The discussion focused on training students with limited access to high-quality STEM education, jointly pursuing grant writing and funding opportunities, creating internship programs, and conducting research on global environmental change.

Dr. Linda Y. Tseng. joined CCNY as Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering in the Earth System Science & Environmental Engineering (ESE) Program at the CCNY, and joined the CREST institute as its faculty member in Fall 2024. She teaches CE 31500 Computer Methods in Civil Engineering (current), CE H7900 Water Reuse and Reclamation (Fall 2025). Dr. Tseng’s research interests include microplastic, plastic additives, contaminants of emerging concern (CECs), wastewater treatment, extracellular polymeric substances (EPS).

Mr. Ali Haider, a CREST PhD student in Civil Engineering at CCNY, is building AI-based machine learning models to anticipate and forecast urban flooding situations in Mumbai, India. From mid-December 2024 to mid-January 2025, Ali traveled to India to collect important meteorological and flooding data, establish collaborations, and better understand local challenges. This field visit was an invaluable experience filled with interesting talks, possibilities to collaborate, and the chance to directly engage with specialists in the subject.

CREST hosted a seminar on Nature Water- New Journal in the Nature Portfolio at the CCNY on January 30, 2025. Dr. Karin Sjöstrand, Senior Editor of Nature Water served as the speaker. She discussed the lead-up to and launch of Nature Water, how it fit within the wider Nature family, and the editing and publishing processes at Springer Nature. The seminar was well attended by CCNY, CESSRST II, and CREST students, professionals, faculty, and management. Attendees were engaged throughout the talk and asked curiosity driven questions. 

L-R: Yana Chen, Everette Joseph, Reza Khanbilvardi, Reginald Blake, Hamid Norouzi, Shakila Merchant, and Julia Rivera

CREST participated in the 105th American Meteorological Society Annual Meeting from January 12 to 16, 2025 in New Orleans, Louisiana. CREST Executive Director, Dr. Reza Khanbilvardi; CUNY CREST HIRES Director, Dr. Shakila Merchant, CREST External Advisory Board Member, Everette Joseph; Director of the CUNY CREST Business Development and Entrepreneurship Pillar, Harry Cikanek; CREST Faculty and NOAA CESSRST II Director, Dr. Fred Moshary, NOAA CESSRST II Distinguished Research Scientist, Dr. Mitch Goldberg; CREST Faculty affiliate and Professor of Civil Engineering at CCNY, Dr. Naresh Devineni; CREST Faculty affiliate and Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at CCNY, Dr. Prathap Ramamurthy; CREST Research Scientist, Dr. Issac Moradi, CREST Stakeholder Engagement and Community Outreach Pillar Associate Directors, Drs. Hamid Norouzi & Reginald Blake; and CREST doctoral student, Ms. Shima Kamali (Water Resources Engineering) attended the meeting.

CREST Institute in collaboration with NOAA-CESSRST II hosted a Python Workshop on February 19, 2025 in the Grove School of Engineering, the CCNY. The purpose of the workshop which was led by Ryan Paul Lafler, Founder, CEO, Chief Data Scientist, and Lead Consultant at Premier Analytics Consulting, LLC, was to Efficiently Access, Deliver, Visualize, and Analyze Big Environmental Data in the Cloud.  The workshop was well attended by NOAA CESSRST II, CREST, & CCNY students, professionals, and faculty. 

Grove School of Engineering Expo 2025 

CREST participated in the Grove School of Engineering Expo 2025 on February 25 at the CCNY. The expo was a great opportunity for attendees to learn about the programs in engineering and computer science at the GSOE, network with students, faculty, and scientists, as well as ask questions. CREST conducted outreach through three booths; CREST including its programs such as CUNY CREST HIRES, United Nations University Hub at CCNY- R-SIRUS, and ESE program at CCNY.

Third Annual City College Experiential Learning and Service-Learning Fair

CUNY CREST Office Manager, César Ortiz and Associate Director for Program Administration and Advising of the ESE Degree Program at CCNY, Dr. Liubov Kreminska participated in fair at the CCNY on Dec 10, 2024. At the CREST booth, Mr. Ortiz and Dr. Kreminska engaged with students to inform them of the opportunities available within the CREST program umbrella such as the CUNY CREST HIRES, Summer Bridge, CESSRST II, and the ESE program at CCNY.

Staten Island Technical

High School Visit

CUNY CREST HIRES Director, Dr. Shakila Merchant and Dr. Liubov Kreminska visited the Staten Island Technical high School on December 4, 2024. The purpose of the visit was to help students at the high school learn about the CUNY CREST HIRES program and the ESE program. Students were curious and asked questions. They received flyers and goodies! 

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Center for Earth System Sciences and Remote Sensing Technologies (NOAA CESSRST) II is one of the four Cooperative Science Centers. The program is funded by the NOAA Educational Partnership Program with Minority Serving institutions (EPP/MSI). It provides the education and training for graduates to form a pathway to workforce opportunities within NOAA and the NOAA mission enterprise. 

About the CUNY CREST Institute

The CUNY CREST institute was officially approved in June 2010 and inaugurated on November 29, 2010. It is a collation of interdisciplinary researchers across CUNY system who are passionate about addressing grand societal challenges through advanced earth system sensing technologies, raising awareness, engaging secondary & postsecondary students & community outreach. The institute is designed to provide a collaborative environment for faculty and scientists from various CUNY campuses to engage in the field of Earth System Sciences and Remote Sensing. This environment helps create opportunities to attract external funding and bring in new resources for the faculty, students, and CUNY as a whole. For additional information, visit crest.cuny.edu.