Baruch College Awarded Mellon Foundation Grant for Baruch’s Black and Latino Studies

Shelly Eversley, Interim Chair of Black and Latino Studies, and Baruch student Keshon McNeil

Pablo Soberón Wins National Science Foundation CAREER Grant

Pablo Soberón, Assistant Professor in Baruch College’s Department of Mathematics, has won a prestigious Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Grant from the National Science Foundation for $416,784. The CAREER grant is distinguished from a standard NSF research grant in that it is awarded over the course of five years rather than the typical three, can be given only to pre-tenure assistant professors, and requires a strong educational component in addition to the research. They are widely viewed by the NSF Division of Mathematical Sciences as the highest distinction that the organization can bestow on early-career researchers in the mathematical sciences. 

The research proposed in Professor Soberón’s award is to study the connections between combinatorics and topology using problems in discrete geometry. Combinatorics is the branch of mathematics which studies the enumeration, combination, and permutation of sets of elements and the mathematical relations that characterize those properties. "This is a very interdisciplinary area of research within pure mathematics,” said Soberón “which I think the reviewers really liked.” 

But the research plan does not only concern applications to computational geometry. Like so many of Baruch’s diverse research practices, this project reaches beyond its discipline and into the lives of students. “The strongest real-world benefits of the grant will most likely come from its educational component,” Soberón said. “That educational plan is aimed to benefit Baruch College and CUNY students directly.”

While the Math Department at Baruch currently runs a tremendously successful “Research Experience for Undergraduates“ (REU) summer program (see our recent article on the REU here), which helps students advance toward graduate degrees in mathematics, one goal of Soberón’s grant is to establish a summer program that will help prepare CUNY students to be competitive candidates for such REU experiences around the US. It therefore includes support for groups that have been historically minoritized in the field and connects with Baruch’s mission to provide a high-quality education in the arts and sciences to all people.

With this win, Soberón joins the three other active CAREER grants at Baruch College. Baruch’s other recipients include Andrew Obus, Louis-Pierre Arguin, and Jean Gaffney of the Department of Natural Sciences. Soberón credits this vibrant community with helping him secure his own win. “The supportive environment in the Mathematics Department at Baruch College has been a perfect place to form my career,” he said.

Coal

by Charles Simic

Dismembered angel

In whose heart the earth is still on fire,

The moon still has not been split-off;

Here is the message

Your long night announces:

Everything my eye encompasses this instant:

This fire, the cupped-hand, this window

With trees and miles of snow beyond it,

Even this thought, this poem,

Will be compressed

Into a lump of your sleep

For some other awakening.

From February 6-24, the Mishkin Gallery will be transformed into a

cinema that hosts weekly screenings, conversations and convenings featuring Caribbean, Latin American, and diasporic communities and their political engagements with Carnival. Masquerade, the processional, race, gender and class are all taken up as starting points within these films, but when seen together, they provide a nuanced and complex geography of how Carnival has played a central role in the protagonists’ world. While films will be on view throughout the day, one evening per week will host invited filmmakers and scholars from the Weissman School of Arts and Sciences to discuss the

films in more depth.

Anya Ballantyne, The Earth Talks, photography, 2022. Image courtesy of the artist. 

Denatured dissects the composition of nature and humanity. At their intersection, nature and humanity are malleable, mutating and melding as they are broken down and reconstructed. Nature borrows traits from humans; humans take assets from nature; and somewhere in between, in the space left by unequal exchanges, something “other” evolves.

• Antisemitism/Anti-Judaism: a conversation between Professor David Nirenberg, Tenth Director and Leon Levy Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ, and Professor Magda Teter, Professor of History and the Shvidler Chair of Judaic Studies at Fordham University- February 7 at 6:00 pm on Zoom. Contact: carina.pasquesi@baruch.cuny.edu

• Schedule of Screenings and Talks for Carnival on Film:

February 6-10

William Sabourin O'Reilly’s Lázaro and the Shark: Cuba Under the Surface (2022, Cuba)

Tuesday, Feb 7, 6pm

Filmmaker William Sabourin O'Reilly and Professor Ted Henken in conversation. In partnership with Centro Cultural Cubano de Nueva York

February 13-17

Rhea Storr’s Here is the Imagination of the Black Radical (2020, Bahamas/London)

Wednesday, Feb 15, 6pm

Filmmaker Rhea Storr and Professor Keisha Allan in conversation via Zoom

February 21-24

Marcel Camus’s Black Orpheus (1959, Brazil)



Thursday, Feb 23, 6pm

Introduction to the film by Professor Tshombe Miles

• CUNY 1969: What We Learn from a Year of Unrest, Student Activism, and the Struggle for Black and Puerto Rican Representation at CUNY - The panelists (Dr. Karanja Keita Carroll, Professor Dasharah Green, and Dr. Kashema Hutchinson) will lead a discussion on the legacy of 1969 at CUNY, its survival within various CUNY archives, and how they bring it into their classrooms. More information here and RSVP here. February 8, 4:00–5:30 pm  

• Baruch College (In-Person) Study Abroad Fair, Thursday, February 16, Time: 12:30-2:30 pm Place: Auxiliary Gym (NVC Level B2)

• An in-person reading and discussion with Jane Saginaw, author of the memoir Because the World is Round - February 23 at 6:00 pm Contact: carina.pasquesi@baruch.cuny.edu

• A Tour of the World in 6 Artworks: Ndary Lô’s Délit de surcharge: Art, government, and global commerce at Dak’Art 2004 - The prevalence of récupération—recovery, reclamation and recycling—has characterized the work of many contemporary Senegalese artists since the 1990s. In the late 1980s and early ‘90s artists took to the streets to rescue the city from the destruction of a waste management crisis. This presentation aims to illuminate the deepening connection between contemporary artistic production, sustainability, and the globalized nature of modern commerce. The lecture series offers the Baruch community an opportunity to discover the interconnections between art, business and cultures through six lectures on artworks throughout the world and through time. Register for any of the remaining lectures at https://bit.ly/3viFJuX. - February 23, 1-2 pm. Zoom.

• The Paula Berggren Enrichment Fund - This fund has two main purposes: to assist students who wish to enroll in courses in the humanities at Baruch but lack the financial means to do so; and to enable classes in the humanities at Baruch to participate in extra-curricular activities that enrich students’ intellectual experience and understanding of their coursework. Applications from faculty for course activity support should be made no later than Friday, February 24.

• Research & Creative Inquiry Expo 2023 -The Research & Creative Inquiry Expo aims to promote undergraduate research and creative expressions at Baruch College by allowing students to showcase their work and knowledge beyond their classrooms. Undergraduate students in all majors may submit either an individual or group project. The Expo will take place on Thursday, May 11, and projects will be due on Tuesday, May 2. For more information, please visit the Expo website.

• Upcoming DEI Fridays:

Register for DEI Fridays HERE; Find recordings and resources from last year's DEI Fridays HERE.

In the January issue, the following errors were made:

• Professor Emeritus of History Bert Hansen's last name was misspelled.

• His department was erroneously listed as Natural Sciences. It is History.

• Sidney Harman was misspelled as "Sydney" Harman.

Please send all future corrections and requests to baruchwsas@baruch.cuny.edu