September-December, 2025- Issue 24 | | |
The City University of New York Remote Sensing Earth Systems Institute
(CUNY CREST) bulletin is an initiative to keep you up-to-date on the Institute’s success stories, events, opportunities, highlights, and more. Happy reading!
| | From the Desk of the Executive Director | | |
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As we enter Fall 2025, I am pleased to reflect on a season of growth, engagement, and impact across the CUNY CREST community. The year 2025 witnessed many meaningful collaborations, exciting new research directions, and a continued commitment to training the next generation of scientists and scholars.
One of the highlights of the year was our 4th Annual CREST Retreat, which provided an invaluable opportunity for faculty, students, and staff to come together to reflect on our progress and chart future directions. We were also grateful for the guidance and insight shared during the CREST External Advisory Board Meeting, which continues to align with our vision and strengthen our strategic vision. Our engagement extended beyond campus through events such as the UNU-Hub October Open House and Research Exchange and active participation in CUNY Climate Week, reinforcing CREST’s role as a hub for interdisciplinary research and community engagement.
We welcomed new research scientists, faculty members, and doctoral students to CREST this fall. Their diverse expertise and perspectives are already enriching our research environment. In support of our PhD students, we hosted research proposal development sessions, helping students strengthen their proposals and advance their scholarly trajectories. We also successfully delivered two D4 seminars, which fostered dialogue around data-driven discovery and interdisciplinary collaboration.
A delegation from CREST attended the 2025 AGU Meeting in New Orleans, showcasing our research on a global stage. Closer to home, the NY-13 Representative Adriano Espaillat’s 2025 Harlem River Watershed Revitalization Boat Tour and CREST's meaningful participation in several events during the 2025 NYC Climate week offered a powerful learning experience that connected research, policy, and environmental justice. Together, these activities underscore CREST’s mission to advance impactful research, support student success, and engage meaningfully with our communities.
Thank you to all our faculty, students, partners, and supporters for making this a productive and inspiring year. I look forward to the continued momentum & shared accomplishments ahead.
| | A Glimpse into CREST's 4th Annual Retreat | | CREST hosted its 4th Annual Retreat on October 20, 2025, at the CCNY Center for Workers Education (CWE), located at 25 Broadway in Manhattan. The retreat convened 35 participants, including 8 students and 27 CREST members, representing CREST-affiliated faculty, researchers, staff, graduate students, Board members, Associate Directors, affiliated Center Directors, and CREST leadership and management. Designed as a day-long convening, the retreat provided a collaborative forum to reflect on CREST’s progress since 2024 and to co-design a forward-looking strategy that strengthens the institute’s research, education, community partnerships, innovation, workforce development, and international engagement. The outcomes of the retreat provided a clear roadmap for strengthening CREST’s impact across CUNY and beyond. | | |
Charting a Greener Future:
CREST Joins Rep. Adriano Espaillat’s 2025 Harlem River Watershed Revitalization Boat Tour
| | The CUNY CREST Institute was honored to participate in Rep. Adriano Espaillat’s 2025 Harlem River Watershed Revitalization Boat Tour on October 2, 2025. The tour provided a valuable opportunity to engage with community members and partners while learning more about impactful initiatives shaping the future of the Harlem River and surrounding neighborhoods. Members of the CREST community in attendance included Dr. Shakila Merchant, Dr. Vartika Chandra Saman, Mr. Cesar Ortiz, Ms. Srishti Tyagi, and students Ms. Mame Diarra Gueye, Ms. Carolina Perez, and Ms. Anais Ortega. Speakers shared updates on key projects focused on greenways, waterways, water quality, and environmental resilience, highlighting collaborative efforts to strengthen the region’s environmental health. CREST is proud to contribute to these important conversations and efforts supporting the Harlem River watershed and beyond. | | R-SIRUS in Collaboration with The CUNY CREST Showcases Innovation and Collaboration Through October Events | | The United Nations University (UNU) Hub at CCNY-Remote Sensing & Sustainable Innovations for Resilient Urban Systems (R-SIRUS), in collaboration the CUNY CREST, hosted two inspiring events in October 2025 that highlighted the hub’s growing role in advancing sustainable, resilient urban systems through research, education, and collaboration. These included an open house, where attendees learned about ongoing R-SIRUS projects, global research and internship opportunities, and pathways to engage with the hub’s expanding community, as well as a visit from Dr. Kaveh Madani, Director of the UNU Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH). Together, these events underscored R-SIRUS’s commitment to fostering interdisciplinary collaboration, empowering students, and translating research into real-world impact. | | |
CREST Engages in Global Climate Action at
New York Climate Week 2025
| | | | CREST and R-SIRUS actively participated in The 2025 New York Climate Week held from September 20-27, 2025. CREST & R-SIRUS leadership, faculty, researchers, and students including Dr. Reza Khanbilvardi, Dr. Shakila Merchant, Dr. Naresh Devineni, Dr. Karin Sjöstrand, Dr. Liubov V. Kreminska, Dr. Vartika Chandra Saman, and Ali Haider engaged in a wide range of panels, workshops, and collaborative sessions throughout the week. Discussions and activities spanned critical topics such as climate justice, sustainable energy transitions, biodiversity, and international partnerships. | | CREST Welcomes New Graduate Researchers | | |
Marc Crampe
Ph.D. in Civil Engineering-Water Resources at CCNY,
CUNY CREST and UNU Hub-R-SIRUS
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Dhrijesh Chauhan
Ph.D. in Environmental & Water Resources Engineering at The CCNY,
CUNY CREST and UNU Hub-R-SIRUS
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Niloufar Soheili
Ph.D. in Water Resources and Environmental Engineering at The CCNY, CUNY CREST
| | Welcoming New Expertise in Safe and Intelligent Autonomous Systems: Dr. Aliasghar Arab | | |
CREST is pleased to welcome Aliasghar Arab, Ph.D. who has joined the institute as an affiliate and the CCNY as a Research Associate. He also serves as an Adjunct Assistant Professor at New York University.
Dr. Arab’s research sits at the intersection of physical and embodied artificial intelligence and classical control theory, with a focus on safety-critical decision-making for autonomous and robotic systems. With a background spanning both academia and industry in robotics and control systems, Dr. Arab joined CREST to help explore new frontiers in robotics that support large-scale, high-impact applications, including environmental monitoring, Earth systems safety, and resilience.
Looking ahead, Dr. Arab aims to advance robust and resilient AI-augmented safety and security frameworks, with an emphasis on explainable, reliable, and human-centered AI.
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Celebrating Arthur Paul Pedersen’s Promotion
to Tenure-Track Faculty at CCNY
| | | | Arthur Paul Pedersen, faculty research scientist with the CREST Institute, has been promoted to tenure-track Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the CCNY and the Graduate Center at the CUNY, starting during the fall 2025 semester. Pedersen is co-director of the intel investigations Lab (i2Lab) at the CCNY, which, in partnership with Syracuse University’s Maxwell School, is dedicated to advancing intelligence research and workforce development through interdisciplinary scholarship, applied research and practice. CREST congratulates Dr. Pedersen on this well-deserved milestone. | | CREST Hosts External Advisory Board Meeting at CCNY | | |
CREST hosted its External Advisory Board (EAB) Meeting on December 4, 2025, at the Grove School of Engineering, CCNY. The meeting brought together distinguished board members whose strategic guidance and collaborative engagement have been instrumental in shaping CREST’s ongoing mission and initiatives.
During the meeting, CREST shared updates on its expanding research, training, and science portfolio, highlighting its growing contributions to CCNY, the broader CUNY community, and global partnerships. A special focus was placed on the newly established UNU Hub at CCNY-R-SIRUS, the first of its kind in the United States.
EAB Members’ insights on visibility, partnerships, workforce development, and sustainability, along with their engagement with students and faculty, will help guide CREST as it continues to advance its mission locally and globally.
| | The Deliver, Dialogue, Discuss, and Discourse (D4) Series | | |
CREST continued its D4 Series in November 2025 at the CCNY with two engaging seminars that bridged cutting-edge research, entrepreneurship, and sustainable engineering.
Bridging Research and Entrepreneurship: Pathways from University Innovation to the Startup World: On November 13, 2025, CREST welcomed Asmod Karki, Head of Global Strategy at FedTech, who led an interactive seminar exploring the evolving landscape of innovation and entrepreneurship. Drawing on his extensive experience at FedTech, a global leader in deep tech commercialization, Asmod discussed how students, researchers, and technologists can navigate the journey from university research to launching impactful startups.
Engineering Sustainability: India's Govardhan EcoVillage as a Global Model for UN Sustainability Goals: The November 21, 2025 seminar spotlighted Govardhan EcoVillage (GEV), an award-winning rural sustainability initiative in Maharashtra, India, offering a compelling case study for integrated engineering solutions aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The session, led by Guru Mohanvilas Das, Sustainability Director at GEV, engaged students, faculty, and researchers in exploring how holistic engineering approaches can foster resilient, regenerative communities.
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CREST at the 2025 American Geophysical Union
Annual Meeting
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From December 15 to 19, 2025, CREST participated in the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Annual Meeting held in New Orleans, Louisiana. Representing CREST were leadership members Dr. Reza Khanbilvardi and Dr. Shakila Merchant, CREST Research Scientist and 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 Kyle C. McDonald, CREST Stakeholder Engagement and Community Outreach Pillar Associate Director Dr. Hamidreza Norouzi, and CREST doctoral students Mr. Ali Haider (Civil Engineering), Ms. Shima Kamali (Water Resources Engineering), Ms. Ana M. Mejia Manrique (Civil Engineering), Ms. Niloufar Soheili (Civil Engineering), and Ms. Fatemeh Yavari (Civil Engineering).
For CREST doctoral students, the event was an invaluable opportunity to present their research, network with experts in fields such as urban flooding, flash flood trends, and climate resilience etc, exchange ideas, and draw inspiration from fellow presenters. Dr. Merchant gave an oral presentation on Exploring Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) through Gender and Water Ecosystems among the Mi'kmaq Tribal Nation in Maine, USA. along with co-authors - Dr. Smita Ekka Dewan, Dr. Vartika Saman and Mik’maq tribal Chief Ms. Sheila McCormack and Mik’maq Tribal Planner Dr. Dena Winslow.
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| Water is Memory: An Intergenerational Workshop on Storytelling, Healing, and Sustainability | | As part of the UCAR funded project entitled - Enhancing Water Ecosystem Resilience Through Revitalizing Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK), led by PI Dr. Shakila Merchant and Co-PIs Dr. Smita Ekka Dewan, Dr. Vartika Saman, and Dr. Naresh Devineni, an indigenous community-led workshop on Water is Memory: Intergenerational Storytelling Across Waters was hosted by CUNY CREST team and led by Ms. Delilah Ramos, Program Director, Urban Indigenous Community (UIC) to honor water as a living source of memory, healing, and sustainability. | | |
CREST Students Present PhD Research Proposals
on Urban Flood Prediction
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We are delighted to announce that two CUNY CREST and UNU-Hub at CCNY-R-SIRUS researchers successfully presented their PhD research proposals in December, marking important milestones in their academic journeys.
Ali Haider
Ph.D. Candidate, Civil Engineering, CCNY
Proposal Title: AI-Driven Multi-Sensor Modeling Framework for Urban Flood Prediction and Mapping in Data-Scarce Environments
Shima Kamali
Ph.D. Candidate, Civil Engineering, CCNY
Proposal Title: Integrative Urban Flood Modeling for New York City: Advancing LISFLOOD-FP and Surrogate Machine Learning for Real-Time Prediction
| | Explore Our Story: Newly Launched Institutional Videos | | Learn more about the impactful work of the CUNY CREST and the UNU-Hub at CCNY- R-SIRUS through our newly launched institutional videos:
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CREST is pleased to announce the award of two most recent significant research grants supporting advanced environmental monitoring and urban sustainability:
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Enhancing Air Quality Analysis and Forecasting for Cities using TEMPO (EnAACT): Funded by NASA’s Minority University Research and Education Project (MUREP) Earth Science Systems Research Program, this project received $1,118,431. Principal Investigators are Prathap Ramamurthy, Naresh Devineni, Nathan Hossanah, Wenge Ni-Meister, and Shakila Merchant.
- Sustainable and Resilient Communities, funded by National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, in Collaboration with NYC WaterFront Alliance, $60,000. CUNY PI - Shakila Merchant.
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CREST members Participated in the Future of the Higher Education Workshop hosted by The Indus Entrepreneurship (TiE) and MIT World Peace University, India.
On Oct 9, 2025, Dr. Shakila Merchant and Dr. Tarendra Lakhankar were invited to participate in a joint Global Visioning Conference titled 𝗖𝗼-𝗖𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗙𝘂𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗛𝗶𝗴𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗘𝗱𝘂𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻, held by Dr. Vishwanath Karad MITWPU (Maharashtra Institute of Technology World Peace University, India) in collaboration with New Jersey Institute of Technology, TiE New Jersey and Choose New Jersey, Inc..
Dr. Shakila Merchant, CUNY CREST Deputy Director invited to serve as Chair of the UCAR Research Application Lab (RAL) Science Advisory Board, Boulder CO.
Dr. Merchant was invited to serve as UCAR’s RAL Science Advisory Chair in October 2025. The 2-day RAL Science Advisory Panel meeting was held on October 28-29, 2025, at UCAR, Boulder CO.
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| Upcoming Learning Opportunity | | |
Professional Development Workshop in Digital Earth & AI for Sustainability at CCNY
Dates: January 12-16, 2026 | Location: CCNY, NYC (with online participation available)
This five-day micro-credential workshop provides hands-on training in Earth remote sensing and artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) for forecasting and policy support. Participants will gain experience working with satellite data, applying machine learning techniques, and building reproducible workflows using Python and open science datasets. The program culminates in a capstone project designed to deliver real-world impact. Participants will receive a certificate of completion.
Read this brochure to learn more and register here. We encourage everyone to take advantage of this unique learning opportunity and share it widely with others who may be interested!
| | Glimpse from the CREST Thanksgiving and Holiday Party | | CREST wishes everyone had a wonderful holiday season with moments of connection and renewed joy. May 2026 bring you continued good health, inspiration, and opportunities that enrich both your personal and professional journeys. Below are glimpses from the CREST, CESSRST II, ESE degree program, and UNU-hub at CCNY-R-SIRUS Thanksgiving and holiday parties! | | UNU-Hub at CCNY (R-SIRUS) | | | | |
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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.
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