University President Tania Tetlow said Fordham is well poised to nurture the next generation of leaders in STEM. 

“For centuries, the Jesuits have been world-class scientists and mathematicians, always connecting those fields to what it means to be fully human. Fordham will stand out for integrating science and technology with ethics, humanities, and our other strengths in the professions,” Tetlow said.

The envisioned building is a 200,000+ gross-square-foot facility that will bring together a range of STEM disciplines, and will feature wet and dry teaching labs, research space, classrooms, and student lounges, with a large, open green space in front. It will be located along Southern Blvd. on the Rose Hill campus’ eastern edge across from the New York Botanical Garden, replacing existing surface parking to create a vibrant gateway at the intersection of Xavier Way and Matteo Ricci Circle.

Fordham’s broader STEM vision also includes expanding computer science programs at Lincoln Center, strategically repurposing book storage space (Quinn X), and increasing enrollment capacity for both graduate and undergraduate students. In addition, Fordham plans to launch a new full-time M.S. program in physician associate studies at the Westchester campus. 

“Mo and Carolyn’s extraordinary gift is a testament to the transformative power of investing in Fordham’s vision for STEM education and research that also lifts the rest of the University,” said Roger A. Milici Jr., vice president for development and university relations. “This is philanthropy at its best.”

Laying the Groundwork for Progress

Mo and Carolyn Cunniffe have been longtime supporters of the University. The couple made a $20 million gift in 2016 to establish the Maurice and Carolyn Cunniffe Presidential Scholars Program, which was the second-largest gift in Fordham’s history at the time. Their generosity has been recognized with the naming of Cunniffe House and the Carolyn Dursi Cunniffe Fountain on the Rose Hill campus.

Mo Cunniffe’s parents were Irish immigrants. He graduated from Fordham Prep and Fordham College with a degree in physics, followed by graduate studies in economics and finance at NYU. Mo had successful careers as a scientist, a consultant with McKinsey, an investment banker, and an entrepreneur. He served on Fordham’s Board of Trustees from 1995 to 2004, and then from 2005 to 2014. He is now a trustee emeritus. 

He expects the gift will help Fordham remain a “world-class university” by attracting talented students and teachers capable of solving the most pressing problems of our time. 

“The future seems to be in the AI arena … and the computer science arena,” Mo said. “Aren’t those the people most likely to change the world so that your great-great-grandchildren will live a better life than you did?”

Carolyn Dursi Cunniffe also served on Fordham’s Board and is a trustee emerita. She grew up in a family of eight with two brothers who graduated from Fordham. She studied at the Sorbonne in Paris and the University of Perugia and earned her masters and Ph.D. at Fordham in French literature. Carolyn had a successful career for many years as a vice president at Revlon then Chanel, and as a senior vice president at Cablevision. 

Carolyn said she believes it is vital for the school to offer a strong STEM curriculum and that investing in STEM education will offer students the opportunity for a well-rounded educational experience.

A World-Class Science Program for a World-Class University 

Expanding the sciences is a key priority for Fordham. Nearly half of college-bound high school students say they want to major in STEM fields, and STEM-related jobs are projected to grow significantly faster than non-STEM positions over the next decade. This gift will allow Fordham to invest in meeting the demand for STEM education, and to provide state-of-the-art facilities for teaching as well as research. Of the $30 billion the government dispersed for research and development in fiscal year 2023, approximately 95% went to STEM disciplines including the health sciences. 

“This gift opens up extraordinary possibilities for students and faculty, and allows us to scale our programs and move into areas in the sciences that haven’t even been developed yet, fields that may appear 10 years from now that we can’t even anticipate,” said University Provost Dennis Jacobs. “We’re all so grateful to Mo and Carolyn for their extraordinary generosity and their belief that Fordham can be one of the nation’s greatest institutions of higher learning.” 

Two prescient voices for the future of STEM at Fordham have been trustee Kim Bepler and her late husband, Steve Bepler, FCRH ’64, dedicated supporters of the University’s science programs for years, who established four science chairs and a super chair through major gifts. 

The Beplers funded the preliminary study to explore what was possible for the STEM expansion—a study that helped to inspire the Cunniffe’s giving. Now, seeing Steve’s vision for the sciences at Fordham come to life, Kim is thrilled. “My late husband believed a world-class university deserves a world-class science program,” she said. “I only wish he were here to see this. But he is in my heart, and I hope he’s proud.”

Have an accomplishment you’d like to share? Fill out this form to be featured in the next edition of Fordham’s Achievements and Recognition. 

Sameena Azhar, Ph.D., GRADUATE SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SERVICE, associate professor of social work, had her article, “‘I Would Prefer to Be Dead Than to Live This Way’: Lived Experiences of Stigma and Discrimination Against Khwaja Sira in Swat, Pakistan” highlighted in Cambridge Prisms Global Mental Health as one of 10 noteworthy articles in its 10th anniversary special collection. 

Christopher Koenigsmann, Ph.D., ARTS AND SCIENCES, associate professor of chemistry, is a co-author on the 12th edition of General Chemistry by Ebbing, Gammon, Koenigsmann, and Wu. The book will be published by Cengage on March 7.

Joshua Schrier, Ph.D., ARTS AND SCIENCES, professor of chemistry and Kim B. and Stephen E. Bepler Chair in Chemistry, co-authored the research paper “Explainable Synthesizability Prediction of Inorganic Crystal Polymorphs Using Large Language Models,” published in Angewandte Chemie on Feb. 13. 

Nicholas Tampio, Ph.D., ARTS AND SCIENCES, professor of political science, became an associate editor of the Journal of Politics on Jan. 1.

The new exhibition is called “The Magis Sculpture Exhibition,” and it’s made possible thanks to the generosity of Fordham Trustee Kim Bepler in collaboration with Cavalier Galleries. In total, Fordham received 11 new pieces of sculpture on loan from the gallery, which has a location in Nantucket where Bepler has a home. While chatting with gallery owner Ron Cavalier one day, she learned that he was about to de-install an exhibition in Stamford, Connecticut, and that all of the sculptures would be put into storage temporarily. 

“I asked if he would be willing to bring them to our Lincoln Center campus instead, and that’s how we got started,” Bepler said. 

Fordham’s Sculpture Walk

As part of the exhibition, Fordham received three large-scale sculptures that were installed along 62nd Street: two towering male figures by Jim Rennert, called “Inner Dialogue” and “Timing,” both over 12 feet tall, as well as a 15-foot Bjørn Skaarup sculpture called “Hippo Ballerina,” an iconic two-ton hippopotamus wearing a tutu that visitors may recognize from her various appearances around town. 

The eight additional new pieces are featured on the campus’ plaza—one flight above street level and open to the public. These include four bronze female figures by American artist Jane DeDecker and Italian artist Bruno Luchessi; and four more whimsical creatures sculpted by Skaarup, a Danish artist. 

These new pieces join the ten existing sculptures on Lincoln Center’s campus, which include several pieces that highlight Fordham’s identity: A ram on the upper plaza, a nod to Fordham’s mascot that was sculpted by Harry M. Stierwalt, Jr.; the statue of St. Ignatius, which stands outside the steps to the upper level along Columbus Avenue, sculpted by Chris Vilardi; and the statue of St. Peter called “Peter the Fisherman,” on the plaza near the entrance to McKeon Hall, sculpted by Frederick Shrady. 

To showcase all of the sculptures, Fordham is creating a walking tour called “Fordham’s Sculpture Walk.” Students and members of the public are invited to participate in the free walking tour, scan the QR codes on each sculpture, and learn more about these works of art. 

Educating the Whole Person

Together with her late husband, Steve Bepler, FCRH ’64, a longtime Fordham supporter and trustee, Kim Bepler has been a dedicated and generous donor to Fordham for many years. Her prior philanthropic efforts have focused on enhancing Fordham’s STEM programs—the University established five science chairs with major gifts from her and Steve’s estate—in addition to campus beautification efforts, Fordham’s sailing program, a fund for Ukrainian students, and more. 

Bringing these sculptures to campus reflects her commitment to the arts as part of a well-rounded Jesuit education.  

“My motivation comes from my love for my late husband and his love for his Fordham education,” Bepler said. 

“Jesuit education is the education of the whole person—the soul, the inspiration, the arts …  I hope these sculptures will be inspiring, and that they’ll give people a moment to pause and reflect as they wander through campus, studying and enjoying our outdoor space.”

“He is Fordham Lincoln Center,” said Elizabeth A. “Betty” Burns, FCLC ’83, a Fordham trustee fellow and one of many speakers at the event who lauded Father Grimes, dean of the college from 1998 to 2018. “Bob, thank you for all you’ve done for this school.” (See related story on the dedication ceremony.)

The fundraising effort behind the creation of the five practice rooms, which opened to students this year, was full of heartfelt gifts. Many came from the members of Father Grimes’ former advisory board, including Burns, as well as members of his family.

Fordham Trustee Kim B. Bepler, who attended the event, donated a Steinway piano for one of the practice rooms. And the rooms themselves were named for other donors—including Burns as well as Margitta Rose, a FCLC ’87, a longtime benefactor of the college and former advisory board member who supported the project because of “my great admiration for Father Grimes” as well as their shared love of music.

“Music, more than any other art form, reaches you at a level that … you can’t even express,” she said.

Love for music also motivated Maria del Pilar Ocasio-Douglas, FCRH ’88, and her husband, Gary J. Douglas, to support the project. Music is a creative outlet for both of them, and for their son, James, a Fordham junior majoring in film, who taught himself piano during the coronavirus pandemic, she said.

When told about the project, she loved the idea of “giving the students a place where they can play, not be heard, and really pour themselves into it,” she said.

‘A Significant Space’

Rose also lauded the efforts of Father Grimes’ successor, former FCLC dean Laura Auricchio, Ph.D., who initiated the music rooms’ creation, and spearheaded the fundraising, soon after coming to Fordham in 2019.

Dedicated music practice rooms were “a must-have,” said Auricchio, who attended the event. It was her idea to name them for Father Grimes—because “there were a lot of people … who felt that he deserved to have a significant space devoted to him,” said Auricchio, now vice president of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

The naming also made sense because of Father Grimes’ music background, she said. An ethnomusicologist by training, he is a tenor soloist who sang for decades with the Fordham University Chorus, Bronx Arts Ensemble, and other organizations.

Setting the Tone at Lincoln Center

One donor, Delia Peters, FCLC ’85, longtime chair of Father Grimes’ former advisory board, recalled how Father Grimes set a friendly and happy tone at the college—in part, through his personal attention to students.

“I liked his style of ‘deaning,’” said Peters, who played a key role in reaching out to donors for the music rooms. “I would be walking with him down a hallway, and he would know every student’s name. And whatever was needed, he somehow found the money to fund it.”

In an interview, Father Grimes, a 1975 alumnus of Fordham College at Rose Hill, said he was “absolutely amazed” by Fordham College at Lincoln Center soon after arriving there as a music professor, and “started dreaming about the possibilities of what might be.”

When he became dean, he did whatever he could to “prompt and encourage” others—along with raising funds—to realize those possibilities, he said..

The results included the creation of an early set of music practice rooms; the Franny’s Space rehearsal space and Veronica Lally Kehoe Theatre; a faculty and student exchange program with the nearby Juilliard School; and the Fordham College at Lincoln Center Chamber Orchestra, among many other initiatives in the arts arena alone.

“It’s quite an honor” to be the namesake for the new music suite, he said. “And Fordham College Lincoln Center is very, very close to my heart. I loved my time there. And so if I’ve left a little of my sense there, I’m very happy for that.”

Lead supporters of the Robert R. Grimes, S.J. Music Studios project:

Kay Yun, PAR, and Andre Neumann-Loreck, PAR 
Maria del Pilar Ocasio-Douglas, FCRH ’88, and Gary J. Douglas
Margitta Rose, FCLC ’87
Mark Luis Villamar, GABELLI ’69, and wife Esther Milstead
Elizabeth A. Burns, FCLC ’83
The Grimes Family
Patricia A. Dugan Perlmuth, FCLC ’79
Delia L. Peters, FCLC ’85

The editors of Commonweal, an acclaimed journal of religion, politics, and culture, said they chose to honor Tetlow because of her trailblazing lay leadership and commitment to justice.

“Her attention to forming and informing the next generation of Catholics and all people of goodwill, and her spirit of knowledge-seeking and creativity exemplify the values Commonweal continues to embody,” they said. 

For Tetlow, receiving an award from the renowned publication was an honor. “Commonweal embodies the best of the Catholic intellectual tradition, asking the critical questions, pushing on assumptions, seeking truth for a century,” she said. It “continues to lovingly push our church to read the signs of the times and to keep striving towards the truth of the Gospel.” 

Tetlow is the first woman and the first layperson to lead Fordham, and according to Commonweal editor Dominic Preziosi, that’s part of what made her an ideal candidate for the Centennial Award.

“She’s an inspiring example who really aligns with Commonweal’s mission, and our belief in the importance of laypeople in matters of faith and leadership,” said Preziosi, a Fordham alumnus. He said Tetlow, who recently appeared on the Commonweal podcast, is “the perfect expression of the kind of community we’re building around as we launch into our second century.”

Fordham Board Chair Armando Nuñez and Kim Bepler, a Fordham trustee, were co-chairs of the dinner. “Tania is a gifted and charismatic leader who is both entrepreneurial and a fierce advocate for Fordham and Jesuit traditions,” said Nuñez. “As president, she is a faith-first leader, called to the service of the University community every day.”

Several other friends of Fordham were on hand for the ceremony. Timothy Shriver, the disability rights activist, presented Tetlow with the award. Shriver received an honorary degree from Fordham in 2019 and delivered the keynote address at that year’s commencement.

Elizabeth Johnson, C.S.J, professor emerita of theology at Fordham and an award-winning author, delivered the invocation and touched on Tetlow’s unique role as a layperson leading a Jesuit institution. 

“Thank God for the laity,” she said. “Thank God that in an era when the expected lay role was to pay, pray, and obey, some few decided to raise their distinct lay voices to explore how Catholic faith could intersect with culture and politics—critically and fruitfully.”

Commonweal, which was recently profiled in the New York Times on the occasion of its centennial, produces a print magazine, podcasts, live and virtual events, and local community gatherings centered on reflective discussions of faith, public affairs, the arts, and the common good. Its past contributors include Dorothy Day, W.H. Auden, Hannah Arendt, John Updike, and Graham Greene. 

The campaign officially closed over the summer with $371 million raised, exceeding its goal by $21 million. That success reflects the generosity of the Fordham community and the Jesuit principle of magis that for 183 years has prompted Fordham to go beyond expectations in serving students, said Tania Tetlow, president of Fordham.

“Today, more than ever, Fordham is attracting students who are passionate about engaging with the great issues of our time and building a better future for humanity,” she said. “With this campaign, we have shown that their desire to make a difference is more than matched by our community’s willingness to support them in every way possible. To all who gave, no matter the size of your gift, thank you, and I hope you will take pride in what you have accomplished for our students.”

Educating the Whole Person

The Cura Personalis campaign—named for the Jesuit principle of educating the whole person—was formally launched in 2021. Its four pillars were access and affordability, academic excellence, student wellness and success, and athletics, and embedded within each pillar was the overriding imperative of fostering a sense of welcome and belonging throughout the University.

Visit our Cura Personalis campaign site for stories of students who benefited from donors’ gifts.

Varied gifts both large and small propelled the campaign. Thirty-five percent of the gifts were less than $100. Thirty-one donors gave $1 million or more for the first time. Bequests and planned gifts account for 29% of the total. And 37% of the campaign total was contributed by members of the Fordham University Board of Trustees.

“Through this campaign, the entire Fordham family of alumni, parents, faculty, staff, students, and friends of the University has shown the depths of its generosity,” said the board’s chairman, Armando Nuñez, GABELLI ’82. “And I’ve never been prouder to serve on the board with this extraordinary and generous group of trustees.”

Among the campaign contributions was the largest gift the University has ever received: a $35 million gift to the Gabelli School of Business from Mario Gabelli, a 1965 alumnus for whom the school is named, and his wife, Regina Pitaro, a 1976 alumna of Fordham College at Rose Hill.

Impacts Large and Small

The campaign left its mark across the University—perhaps most prominently with the creation of the Joseph M. McShane, S.J. Campus Center on the Rose Hill campus. The project combined an 80,000-square-foot addition with existing buildings, providing vastly greater space for student activities and University events. It also provided bigger, upgraded spaces for the Career Center, Campus Ministry, and the Center for Community Engaged Learning, enabling students to gather, socialize, and take greater advantage of their resources.

A ‘W’ for Students

In the athletics arena, the campaign supported a host of new and improved facilities as well as the New Era Fund for the basketball program, which boosted the number of wins by the men’s team and helped with revving up Ram spirit on campus.

Many gifts were tailored to the goal of inclusion—including those made to the Trustee Diversity Fund for economically disadvantaged students from historically underrepresented backgrounds, a fund spearheaded by Fordham Trustee Valerie Rainford, FCRH ’86. Another new fund, the LGBTQ Student Wellbeing Fund, was led by Joan Garry, FCRH ’79.

Scholarships, Advising, Internships, and More

Students benefited in numerous other ways: Campaign contributions created 153 new financial aid funds, supported student-faculty research, fueled an expansion of community engaged learning courses, helped create the Fordham College Advising Center, and funded the popular Serving the City internships with local cultural institutions. The campaign also supported an emergency fund and other resources for student veterans who often live on tight budgets while pursuing their studies.

Susan Conley Salice, FCRH ’82, one of five co-chairs of the campaign, noted one of the through lines connecting this and other Fordham fundraising campaigns: financial aid.

“Fordham was founded by an immigrant, and the University has a proud tradition of serving students of limited means, including first-generation college students,” said Conley Salice, a first-generation college graduate herself. “Thanks to all who supported our campaign, Fordham is well positioned to sustain its tradition of welcoming the most talented, committed students, regardless of their financial need.”

Supporting STEM

Campaign gifts provided new resources in the STEM fields, such as research fellowships, a new laser for optics research, and an endowed professorship, one that evokes the legacy of one of the University’s most involved and generous alumni.

With a $5 million gift, Fordham Trustee Kim Bepler, recipient of a 2022 honorary doctorate from the University, created a chair in the natural and applied sciences in honor of her late husband, Stephen E. Bepler, FCRH ’64. It was the fifth endowed chair in the sciences created by gifts from Kim Bepler and the estate of her husband, who served as a Fordham trustee and gave generously to many areas of the University before he died in 2016.

The campaign’s success bodes well for future fundraising efforts, noted Roger A. Milici Jr., vice president for development and university relations, who leads Fordham’s fundraising division.

“The pace and level of support for this campaign are a reflection of the energy and passion for Fordham’s Jesuit and Catholic mission in a fractured world desperately in need of hope,” he said.

Milici noted that Fordham just completed its second-best fundraising year ever, with more than $80 million in total gifts and pledges. “With the successful closure of this campaign,” he said, “we are also building a more mature advancement operation capable of greater impact, thanks to so many mission partners.”

That’s the question driving the summer research of Jackson Saunders, a rising senior at Fordham College at Rose Hill. In a Fordham lab, he’s building chambers to split and direct the flow of sound, pursuing research that could impact not only acoustics but also bulletproofing, rocket design, and more.

Innovative Acoustics

Saunders, a physics and philosophy double major, is working under the guidance of Camelia Prodan, Ph.D., the Kim B. and Stephen E. Bepler Professor of Physics at Fordham. Supported by a summer fellowship from Fordham’s Campion Institute, Saunders is building on Prodan’s research into acoustic techniques inspired by topological materials.

First discovered around 1980, these materials intrigue scientists because of their internal configurations, or topology, that guide electricity into precise streams separated by gaps that block current. A topological insulator, for instance, can channel electricity along its surface but keep it from passing through to the other side.

Since then, scientists have found that such segmented flows can be seen beyond electricity.

Prodan published research in January showing that acoustic materials can be designed to guide the flow of sound in a similar way.

Building Sound Chambers in the Lab

Based on that research, Saunders is building a series of sound chambers that mimic the internal symmetries of topological materials, perfecting a design that will split sound in the same way that topological materials direct electricity into discrete streams.

It’s a project that showcases physics that dates back to Isaac Newton, Saunders said, with the behavior of atoms and electrons being recreated in larger objects like the sound chambers he’s making with a 3D printer.

“We’re taking a very well-studied quantum mechanical effect and realizing it” with classical physics, he said. “What’s novel about what we’re doing is we’re showing that we can create specific applications … using this classical mechanical approach.”

Through the project, he’s helping to build knowledge that could have many uses, from making better soundproofing materials to reducing urban noise pollution to designing rooms that contain all the sound generated within them—even if one side is open.

From Better Bulletproofing to Quantum Computing

Studies of topology-based sound flows could have implications for other innovative materials as well, he said. These could include bulletproof vests that dissipate a bullet’s impact along their surface or a rocket built to channel vibrations along its surface during takeoff without rattling the electronics within.

Topological materials could also be applied in the development of quantum computers that have vastly greater processing power. “Any field that has computation, quantum computing will benefit,” so it’s exciting to be working on questions related to that, no matter how tangentially, Saunders said.

In his research, he has an eye on the past as well as the future. “I’m doing work that is at the leading edge of a 400-year legacy of scientists, and that’s motivating,” he said. “You want to be part of that.”

Today, they’re helping Fordham build its own.

When they learned about the waterfront center that Fordham is planning, “it was something that we felt really strongly that we’d like to be able to help create,” Laura Ekholm said.

They’re doing just that with a major gift toward the project, for reasons that have a lot to do with their children’s experience at Fordham.

Support for Sailing and Other Aquatic Sports

The waterfront center will be built on Eastchester Bay in the Bronx, four miles east of the Rose Hill campus, to serve the varsity women’s rowing team as well as men’s crew, co-ed sailing, and women’s sailing. The first phase, construction of docks, is expected to be completed in time for the fall 2024 season.

Fordham donors and supporters have been moving the project along for years, led by Fordham Trustee Fellow Dennis Ruppel, FCRH ’68, and his wife, Patricia Ann Ruppel, who are making another major gift to the project this year. In October, Fordham Trustee Kim Bepler hosted and underwrote a fundraising dinner for the project at the New York Yacht Club in Manhattan.

The event raised $1.3 million for the project—with $1 million of that coming from the Ekholms.

‘Something of Great Value’

The Ekholms raised their family on Minnesota’s Lake Minnetonka, and their children grew up sailing on it, so when two of them—Anders, FCRH ’17, and Annika, FCRH ’20—went to Fordham, it was no surprise that they signed up for sailing.

They were impressed at the strength of the classroom education their children received, as well as the tight-knit sense of community in the sailing program and its rigors that hone time management and other life skills.

Today, Anders Ekholm is a team lead with TransPerfect, a translation and language services company in New York, and Annika Ekholm is involved with the sailing program full time. In addition to volunteering as a coach, she works for the Fordham Sailing Association, helping to set up a community sailing program in conjunction with the Villa Maria Academy, a Catholic elementary school next door to the waterfront center’s site.

She’s excited to see how the center could support other programs for area youth as well. “Sailing has given me and so many other people in the Fordham sailing sphere so much,” she said, “and anything that we can do to spread that, to give that to the community, will be a great, great thing for all involved.”

Being involved with the sailing program has been “a ton of fun,” Laura Ekholm said. “It’s just a fabulous community.”

She and Paul are investing in the waterfront center not only because of its immediate benefits but also to advance the University generally. “Giving money away is something to do when you find something of great value,” Paul Ekholm said. “For me and Laura, the great value of Fordham was the education they got, and we feel like we should support Fordham beyond sending our kids there.”

Gifts in support of the Fordham waterfront center advance the University’s $350 million fundraising campaign, Cura Personalis | For Every Fordham Student. Learn more about the campaign and make a gift.

Prodan published a paper in PhysRevLett that explored how a microtubule’s structure and its ability to store energy along its edges could be useful in areas like cancer research.

“My hypothesis is that through evolution, cancer-derived microtubules actually found a way to get rid of these energy storage methods,” she said.

One of her goals is to research ways to physically manipulate a cancerous microtubule into one that is noncancerous.

“Then you have another method to treat cancer,” she said.

Connecting Fields

Prodan’s work connects biology with materials science, a field that combines areas like physics and biology to better understand the properties of different materials and how they can be used. This field is useful in areas like engineering, energy conversion, and telecommunications.

“I have two areas that seem disconnected, cancer research and engineering new materials, but they are highly interconnected,” said Prodan, who came to Fordham from the New Jersey Institute of Technology this fall. “The main relationship between them is physics.”

In the course of researching microtubules, Prodan began noticing similarities between them and a new type of material, topological insulators. A topological insulator is a material whose surface behaves as an electrical conductor while its interior behaves as an electrical insulator, she said.

The possibilities of topological insulators became even more clear in 2016, when a team of scientists was awarded the Nobel Prize for its work on topological materials that “could be used in new generations of electronics and superconductors, or in future quantum computers.”

The microtubules’ ability to store energy on the outside of their structure, similar to a topological insulator, makes them a promising subject for future research, Prodan said.

Prodan said that physics has an important role to play in serving humanity, such as by assisting in drug discovery and helping run the communication technology behind programs such as Zoom.

Helping to Enhance STEM Efforts

Prodan said that she was drawn to Fordham because of the University’s expanding STEM offerings, particularly in physics.

That’s why she’s teaching an introductory physics course to undergraduates this summer. The hope is that students get excited about STEM at the beginning of their time at Fordham, before moving on to upper-level courses.

Prodan said that her lab is currently under construction but hopes that it will be ready by the summer or sooner, which would allow her to provide hands-on learning and research opportunities to undergraduate students, as well as local high school students.

“If you want people to have a better life, a healthier life, a happier life, physics and STEM in general are really important,” she said.

“In general, the discoveries that happen in physics don’t have an impact right away. It’s a long-term impact, but they’re essential.

“I think it’s very important that Fordham has a window on the water,” said Dennis Ruppel, FCRH ’68, a Fordham trustee fellow who is spearheading efforts to construct a waterfront center on Eastchester Bay in the Bronx, to the east of the Rose Hill campus.

He and his wife, Patricia Ann Ruppel, are leaders among alumni donors who have been moving the project along for years. In addition to covering various costs of the project, they purchased the one-and-a-half-acre plot where the center will be built and donated it to the University.

Now, in a new fundraising push, they’re offering a $1.25 million challenge gift—on top of an earlier $1.25 million gift—to encourage other donations in support of the waterfront center, a project with benefits that will extend beyond Fordham.

In addition to providing a home for Fordham’s waterborne sports, Ruppel said, it will provide year-round opportunities such as summer sailing programs for New York City youth and, possibly, educational programs that shed light on marine biology while fostering a greater appreciation of the natural world generally.

“This waterfront [center]is really about the University having a permanent place to interface with the water,” he said.

Kim Bepler, a Fordham trustee and 2022 recipient of an honorary doctorate of humane letters from the University, is also hosting and underwriting a fundraising dinner for the project on October 16 at the New York Yacht Club in Manhattan, where both she and the Ruppels are members.

Coming in Fall 2024

Fundraising for the waterfront center advances Cura Personalis | For Every Fordham Student, the University’s $350 million campaign to enhance the entire student experience, including athletics. The new center will include fixed and floating docks, boat storage for the sailing and rowing programs, and, later on, a two-story building offering locker rooms as well as educational and event spaces and wide windows for viewing Eastchester Bay.

Architectural work and construction can begin as soon as a final New York City permit is issued and sufficient funding is secured, said Michael Mullarney, FCRH ’68, Ruppel’s former roommate at Fordham and another donor to the project. The docks are expected to be completed in time for the fall 2024 sailing season; temporary facilities will be put in place for the sailing and crew teams while the waterfront center’s main building is constructed, he said.

The facility aims to serve the varsity women’s rowing team as well as men’s crew, co-ed sailing, and women’s sailing, all of them club sports. The waterfront center will free them from having to rent space at various locations on the Harlem River and Eastchester Bay and help student-athletes take to the water more promptly and easily at practice time, Mullarney said.

“This gift from the Ruppels has the opportunity to be truly transformative,” said Fordham’s athletic director, Ed Kull. “Not only will this endeavor enhance the day-to-day lives of Fordham’s rowers and sailors, but we hope the Ruppels’ generosity sparks further giving to support rowing and sailing and other sports as well.”

“This project is a testament to our shared priorities and purpose at Fordham, beginning with the highest levels of University administration,” he said. “I look forward to seeing how the Ruppels’ continued support benefits our student-athletes for years to come.”

In the new facility, Ruppel and other supporters see an opportunity to elevate the sailing and crew programs—making it possible to host regattas and help the sailing program win a national championship.

The waterfront center will be constructed on a plot now occupied by a long-shuttered Westchester Country Club building that was damaged by Hurricane Sandy in 2012. Ruppel and Mullarney, commodore and vice commodore of the Fordham Sailing Association, respectively, found the property seven years ago while searching the area for a suitable site.

Recalling the national prominence of Fordham basketball in the 1960s and ’70s, Mullarney spoke about the potential for sailing and crew to generate excitement and draw Fordham students to the site on the Eastchester Bay waterfront, where they would view the Fordham teams competing in high-stakes contests out on the water.

He described the project as an investment in hardworking students who study during the long drive to regattas, study during breaks in competitions, and give their all when out on the water, even during races and practices that take place in punishing wintertime conditions.

“The sport itself is just so amazing—watching these students [with their]total positive attitude,” he said.

Ruppel noted that he and his wife have hosted Fordham’s sailing team members at their Florida home when the team visits the state for competitions. It’s a sport that tends to foster teamwork, attention to detail, and discipline—as well as a longer-term commitment to advancing Fordham sailing, he said.

“We’ve just had some wonderful, wonderful sailors in our program, and they are very supportive and very engaged in wanting to carry that forward,” he said. “So that’s great to see.”

To inquire about giving to the waterfront center project, contact Kara Field, director of athletic development and assistant athletic director, at 973-223-2157 or kfield1@fordham.edu. Learn more about Cura Personalis | For Every Fordham Student, a campaign to reinvest in every aspect of the Fordham student experience, including athletics programs such as sailing and rowing.

Their method for introducing machine learning in chemistry classes has been honored with the inaugural James C. McGroddy Award for Innovation in Education, named for a donor who funded the award’s cash prize. (See related story.)

The recipients are Elizabeth Thrall, Ph.D., assistant professor of chemistry; Yijun Zhao, Ph.D., assistant professor of computer and information science; and Joshua Schrier, Ph.D., the Kim B. and Stephen E. Bepler Chair in Chemistry. They will share the $10,000 prize, awarded in April.

Chemistry and Computation Come Together

The three awardees’ project shows how to reduce the barriers to learning about programming and computation by integrating them into chemistry lessons. The project came together during the COVID pandemic—since chemistry students were working from their computers, far from the labs on campus, it made sense to give them some computational projects, in addition to experiments they could conduct at home, Thrall said.

Because little had been published about teaching machine learning to chemistry students, she got together with Schrier and Zhao to design an activity. Zhao, director of the Master of Science in Data Science program at Fordham, involved a student in the program, Seung Eun Lee, GSAS ’22, who had studied chemistry as an undergraduate.

Their first classroom project—published in the Journal of Chemical Education in 2021—involves vibrational spectroscopy, used to identify the chemical properties of something by shining a light on it and recording which wavelengths it absorbs. Students built models that analyzed the resulting data and “learned” the features of different molecular structures, automating a process that they had learned in an earlier course.

For another project, the professors taught students about machine-learning tools for identifying possible hypotheses about collections of molecules. Machine learning lets the students winnow down the molecular data and, in Schrier’s words, “make that big haystack into a smaller haystack” that is easier for a scientist to manage. The professors designed the project with help from Fernando Martinez, GSAS ’23, and Thomas Egg, FCRH ’23, and Thrall presented it at an American Chemical Society meeting in the spring.

Thumbs-Up from Students

How did students react to the machine learning lessons? According to a survey following the first project, 63% enjoyed applying machine learning, and 74% wanted to learn more about it.

“I think that students recognize that these are useful skills … that are only going to become more important throughout their lives,” Thrall said. Schrier noted that students have helped develop additional machine learning exercises in chemistry over the past two years.

Machine Learning in Education and Medicine

Zhao noted the growing applications of machine learning and data science. She has applied them to other fields through collaborations with Fordham’s Graduate School of Education and the medical schools at New York University and Harvard, among other entities.

The McGroddy Award came as a surprise. “I don’t think that we expected to win,” Schrier said, “just because there’s so many other excellent pedagogical innovations throughout Fordham.”

Eva Badowska, Ph.D., dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at the time the award was granted, said the professors’ “path-breaking interdisciplinary work has transformed lab courses in chemistry.”

There were 20 nominations, and faculty members reviewing them “were humbled by the creativity, innovation, and generative energy of the faculty’s pedagogical work,” she said.

In addition to the McGroddy Award, the Office of the Dean of Faculty of Arts and Sciences is providing two $1,000 honorable mention prizes recognizing the pedagogy of Samir Haddad, Ph.D., and Stephen Holler, Ph.D., associate professors of philosophy and physics, respectively.