Growing up in a Japanese German American family, Anna Kazumi Stahl enjoyed playing word games, savoring the subtle but culturally precise differences in meaning across languages. It’s no surprise then that writing came to play a significant role in her life.
Anna Kazumi Stahl
When Stahl decided to study abroad in Argentina as a college student, she’d never visited the country before. But there, she discovered an unexpected creative energy in its literary culture—and she found it inspiring. “Studying abroad can open up more opportunities than you can rationally know beforehand,” Stahl reflects. “Especially when you are traveling to a culture that is new, unfamiliar, and potentially full of revelations.” Today, Stahl has lived in Argentina for 20 years, where she serves as NYU Buenos Aires’ program director and teaches the course Creative Writing: Argentina.
NYU: In your view, what can studying creative writing teach us about ourselves and the world?
Stahl: Words are a very special instrument for transmitting experience. They can communicate a message clearly to a broad, diverse audience and yet also preserve and highlight the individual voice, mood, and moment. Moreover, communicating effectively with your words and your storytelling is a key skill today, more relevant than ever in this fast-paced, multimedia, and multicultural age. In my class students work on expanding their knowledge about styles and techniques for writing. In the process they become more empowered to apply those tools to their own purposes.
NYU: What is unique about studying creative writing in Buenos Aires?
Stahl: Being in a foreign environment heightens your perceptions; you are exploring and adapting to new local realities. At the same time, because reflection and inner processing are also part of writing as an art, you hone your self-awareness. You strengthen your own voice and its range; you stretch it to be able to encompass the new experiences you’re having abroad.
Kazumi Stahl leading her creative writing course at NYU Buenos Aires
My course provides a structure for each student to begin and sustain a personal writing practice and find their own style and interests. In general, everyone is putting words to the experience of living abroad. So everyone is creating stories or poetic pieces and sometimes even multimedia narratives around what they are seeing, hearing, tasting, and experiencing every day. Whether going about their new routines or heading out to travel, writing becomes part of completing any given experience: it captures the moment, delves below the surface, and makes more sense of the ephemeral first impressions.
Plus, there’s another dimension in the course: I want my students to meet people who can connect them to the profession of being a writer. So we meet with published authors, publishers, and agents. They demythologize some aspects and also give their personal perspectives and advice. Every spring is special because our Creative Writing: Argentina course often gets a slot at the International Book Fair of Buenos Aires, where students read a piece of their own original work to a local audience.
NYU: When it comes to studying away, what one piece of advice would you give students?
Stahl: Be open-minded.
NYU: As a lecturer, what goal do you hope all your students achieve as a result of studying with you?
Stahl: My core goal is for all students to find and strengthen their voice—and to do so in an environment that values difference and respects spaces of dialogue and exchange.
NYU: What three things do you encourage your students to do to deepen their understanding of Buenos Aires?
Stahl: Try the shared ritual of drinking maté. Learn to recognize the terms from Indigenous languages that are woven into the Spanish of Argentina—maybe even take up one of the 15 Indigenous languages still spoken here. Ride a bus, any bus, on its whole route, and let the city as it rolls by show you its incredible diversity, contrasting neighborhoods, wide-ranging socioeconomic realities, and vibrantly unique cultural enclaves, all flowing together as you ride end-to-end through this massive, major Latin American megacity.
Professor Li Li’s career has taken her across the globe, from Lanzhou to Beijing and Rhode Island to Hong Kong. As a professor of neural science and psychology at NYU Shanghai, she’s worked in academia, at NASA, and in the private sector all while raising two daughters. Recently, she met with the NYU Shanghai News team to reflect on her journey across continents and industries—and share how she found her way back to academia in Shanghai.
You started your academic career as a Psychology major at Peking University (PKU). How did you settle on neuroscience as your field of study?
I followed a very typical growth path of a good Chinese student back in high school in Lanzhou, Gansu. I was good at taking exams and got a good grade on the gaokao [the national college entrance exams] to get into PKU. When deciding on my major, I picked Psychology because it seemed the most interesting and could provide me with opportunities to interact with people.
Psychology has many subareas, and I felt most interested in using experimental and computational methods to study rules and mechanisms underlying our cognition, which is also known as cognitive psychology. I still remember the shock I experienced when I entered the Perception, Action and Cognition Lab at Brown University for the first time about 20 years ago. Researchers in the lab were using these visual displays and virtual reality techniques to conduct scientific experiments and expand the boundaries of knowledge with so much passion. It made me say, “Wow, this is so cool!”
As a typical “science person,” the most attractive aspect of scientific research for me is that it allows data to speak for itself. I initially focused on memory and representation, but later on, I found that it was not strongly driven by data in many ways. So I shifted my focus to perception and action. I enjoy using scientific methodologies to study brains, and I am obsessed with the beauty of the logic, precision, and scientificity of research. I’m always searching for the keys to unaddressed questions through research.
You’ve worked in both academia and industry. How did you finally settle on university research and teaching as your life’s work?
After obtaining my PhD from Brown University and working as a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard Medical School, I gradually lost confidence in my career as an academic. I foresaw the entire career path, which lacked surprises and dampened my enthusiasm. I wanted to explore more possibilities, so I went into industry.
I worked as a human factors scientist at an engineering and scientific consulting firm in the Bay Area of California. But I soon became bored with the simple and repetitive procedural work I was assigned to do every day. More importantly, I felt I was wasting my graduate and postdoctoral training. Though the university salary was not as competitive as that in industry, I realized my true joy comes from figuring out the essence of the world and deciphering the mystery of the brain.
While making all these job shifts, I constantly asked myself what on earth I was working for. Did I work for intellectual challenges or monetary reward? The majority of people will choose to go into industry, leaving only a small group of people who can endure loneliness and stick to research. I eventually realized that the “lonely” research path fits me better.
Li (middle) leading experiments with VR equipment in the Perception and Action Virtual Reality Lab
Since joining NYU Shanghai, you’ve spent a lot of time and effort on building three different labs. Could you tell us more about them?
The first lab, the Perception and Action Virtual Reality Lab, focuses on using virtual reality techniques to study perception, control of self-motion, and eye–hand coordination. The second lab is the Perception and Action Neural Mechanism Lab, which focuses on examining the related underlying neural mechanisms. The third lab is the Neuropsychology Lab at Shanghai Ruijin Hospital. We study visuomotor and locomotion control in patients with neurodegenerative motor deficits, such as Parkinson’s disease.
Recently, we conducted a series of fMRI experiments and identified the areas of the brain where motion and form information are integrated for the perception of self-motion. We also examined baseball players’ basic visuomotor abilities and found that their basic eye-tracking ability could predict their potential to hit baseballs. Moreover, we discovered that visuomotor control ability becomes impaired and brain structure changes during the incubation period of neurodegenerative diseases.
As a teacher, what particular skills and traits do you encourage your students to cultivate to become more successful in the classroom or lab?
I’d like to share two things. First, the details are of paramount importance and play a decisive role in yielding extraordinary results in scientific experiments. As rigor and credibility lay the foundation for scientific research, I always ask students to pay more attention to the details, put more effort into the experimental design and the comprehension of logic, take the initiative to explore the reasons behind each step in the experiment, and prevent themselves from forgetfulness, carelessness, and taking anything for granted.
Second, long-term development in research should be supported by proficient academic writing skills. I urge my students to read more and practice their writing as much as possible so they can strengthen their sensitivity in using the English language and improve the logic and organization of their writing.
Lastly, what advice do you give to aspiring neuroscientists?
I think students who aim to study neuroscience should have intrinsic curiosity and thirst for knowledge about the nature of the brain. Thinking critically about the relationship between experiments and theory is also necessary. I suggest all students who want to make a career in science never give up or give in. In all areas of life, a successful person is not always the smartest person, but they are certainly the one who can stick it out until the end. As a perfectionist myself, I always hold an “excelsior” attitude toward work and research, and I hope that students will not be satisfied with their current situation. Only excellence can make endless progress.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
NYU researchers use “resurrection genomics” to sequence genome of extinct date palms germinated from 2,000-year-old seeds
In a recent study for the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers from NYU Abu Dhabi’s Center for Genomics and Systems Biology—along with their research colleagues in Israel and France—used a technique called “resurrection genomics” to successfully sequence the genome of 2,000-year-old date palms. This study marks the first time researchers sequenced the genomes of plants from ancient, germinated seeds. The research team, led by NYU biology professor Michael Purugganan, germinated date palm seeds that were radiocarbon-dated from the 4th century BCE to the 2nd century CE to yield new, viable plants that they could, in turn, use to conduct whole genome sequencing.
A date palm germinated from a 2,200 year old seed growing in Israel Photo credit: Marcos Schonholz/The Arava Institute for Environmental Studies
What Did They Learn?
By examining the genome of a species called Phoenix dactylifera that thrived millennia ago, Purugganan and his team determined how these previously extinct Judean date palms evolved over time. Between the 4th century BCE and 2nd century CE, they observed that date palms in the eastern Mediterranean region showed increasing levels of genes from another species, called Phoenix theophrasti, which grows in Crete and other Greek islands as well as southwestern Turkey today due to the hybridization between species. The team concluded that the increasing levels of genes from P. theophrasti during this time signifies the increasing influence of the Roman Empire in the eastern Mediterranean region.
New Possibilities with Resurrection Genomics
Resurrection genomics is an alternative approach for sequencing DNA that is particularly useful for studying ancient and extinct plant species, the researchers note. Ancient plant DNA can be tricky to study, as it easily degrades without the protection of material like bone and only small quantities are usually found. But regrowing the whole plant offers new possibilities.
“We are fortunate that date palm seeds can live a long time—in this case, more than 2,000 years—and germinate with minimal DNA damage in the region’s dry environment,” says Purugganan, who is also affiliated with NYU Abu Dhabi and the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World. “This ‘resurrection genomics’ approach is a remarkably effective way to study the genetics and evolution of past and possibly extinct species like Judean date palms. By reviving biological material, such as germinating ancient seeds from archaeological and paleontological sites or historical collections, we can not only study the genomes of lost populations but also, in some instances, rediscover genes that may have gone extinct in modern varieties.”
To read the full study from Purugganan and his team, titled “The genomes of ancient date palms germinated from 2,000 year old seeds,” head to pnas.org.
Content adapted with permission from NYU News by Samantha Jamison.
At the intersection of entertainment and environmentalism sits the Hollywood Climate Summit. Produced by NYU Los Angeles, along with the social impact agency Young Entertainment Activists (YEA!) and Netflix, this year’s conference brought activists, performers, content creators, and young creatives together to address the entertainment community’s role in combating climate change.
Over fifteen organizations sponsored the 2021 Hollywood Climate Summit
From September 23 to 26, 2021, attendees gathered to discuss the industry’s collective responsibility to enact more sustainable practices and increase accountability in the face of the climate crisis. The summit, now in its second year, combined virtual and in-person events, examining topics such as climate storytelling, eco-influencing, and sustainability across film, music, and gaming. However, NYU Los Angeles’ Program Director Nina Sadowsky notes, “The Hollywood Climate Summit is not just for Hollywood people. It’s about how anyone can advocate anywhere. In today’s world, NYU students aren’t just hoping to succeed in the industry—they’re trying to change it.”
NYU Los Angeles, launched in the fall of 2019, is the newest NYU global site—but its students are determined to make an enduring impact. Each semester, the program welcomes advanced students interested in pursuing careers in entertainment, media, music, technology, and broadcasting. Through a combination of rigorous coursework, experiential learning opportunities, and one-on-one mentorship, NYU Los Angeles acts as a professional bridge for students launching their entertainment careers.
The program’s partnership with YEA! provides students with networking and career-building opportunities that support social justice and global transformation. The greater NYU arts community is also involved in a variety of environmental efforts, having recently joined the Green Film School Alliance, a collaboration of leading film schools dedicated to incorporating industry-level sustainable production practices into their programs. As an alliance member, the NYU Tisch School of the Arts made a commitment to take specific actions to reduce the impacts of physical production on the environment, share best practices, and further sustainable initiatives. Moreover, Tisch is set to pilot a green production program this fall.
The first Hollywood Climate Summit was an exercise in creativity. Launched mere months into the COVID-19 pandemic, it quickly shifted from an in-person event to an online one. Despite a few technical hiccups, the event was a great success. “We were only able to accommodate maybe 150 people in person,” Sadowsky explains. “But, and here’s the really beautiful thing, by doing it virtually, we actually reached over 15,000.”
This past year, summit highlights included interactive panels with filmmakers, environmentalists, and politicians as well as an outdoor screening of the documentary Youth v. Gov, directed by Christi Cooper. Small workshops, one-on-one networking with industry leaders and activists, and virtual vendors and job fairs rounded out the four-day event.
Panelists and guests included actor Rosario Dawson, Netflix sustainability officer Emma Stewart, and Democratic Senator of Massachusetts Ed Markey. The summit also featured several eco-influencers, known for their eco-friendly social media posts. These included Leah Thomas, founder of @intersectionalenvironmentalist, and Isaias Hernandez, environmental educator at @queerbrownvegan. “Storytellers have a unique power to shape the culture,” Sadowsky concludes. “You’re not powerless. Every single one of us can do something that will affect change. And art can change minds and hearts in a way that argument cannot.”
Content adapted with permission from MeetNYU by Dana Guterman.
Last fall during International Education Week, NYU hosted an array of events that explored the benefits of international study away programs. One of those programs—a virtual roundtable discussion featured four NYU site directors. NYU Tel Aviv’s Benjamin Hary, NYU Accra’s Chiké Frankie Edozien, NYU Berlin’s Gabriella Etmektsoglou, and NYU London’s Catherine Robson discussed the lessons COVID-19 taught them, how they used those lessons to reconstruct their programs, and their hopes for future study away students. NYU’s Associate Director of Study Away Student Support Alejandro Marti moderated the panel.
Site directors, Chiké Frankie Edozien (top left), Gabriella Etmektsoglou (top right), Catherine Robson (bottom right), and Benjamin Hary (bottom left)
Using the Past to Reshape the Future
When the pandemic first began in 2020, the faculty and staff at NYU’s global sites quickly adjusted. They adopted Zoom technology for virtual classes, planned online events for cultural immersion, and reimagined the scope of their curricula. Unsurprisingly, the lessons they learned in 2020 influenced the trajectory of their programs in 2021. For Chiké Frankie Edozien (NYU Accra), this meant creating new experiential learning trips and adopting new wellness guidelines for students.
“We tried a lot of things during the time of restrictions with our Go Local students who were primarily Ghanaian,” said Edozien. “We tried new excursions based on topics like climate change, taking students to the sea defense wall construction site. We weren’t able to (and we’re still not able to) do overnight trips, so we tried to think of ways we could teach students about Accra outside of the classroom—ways that allowed them to come back safely without the need for excessive travel or hotels. Sometimes we held classes outside so students and professors could be out in the sun, rather than in a confined space, and feel a bit more safe. We also encouraged our faculty to implement what we call ‘mask breaks’ so students can remove their masks for a short time before continuing their work.”
Similar to NYU Accra, Benjamin Hary and his team at NYU Tel Aviv spent the first part of the pandemic redesigning their curriculum to accommodate COVID-19 regulations. They now invite a range of guest lecturers to the classroom, and they developed a robust orientation for students who might need to quarantine upon their arrival in Israel.
“As we prepared for last semester, we created ways to connect students with one another and staff,” said Hary. “What my staff did for orientation, which was totally online because students were in quarantine, is a good example of this. We usually take the students to the famous Tel Aviv market, but since we couldn’t do that, my staff created a video of the market instead. They went to each specific ethnic food place and actually bought all the same food for the students. We delivered it to their doors so when they were watching the video, we could tell them about the food, and they could follow along. They loved it.” In addition, he noted, “With Zoom, it is very easy to invite people, such as guest lecturers and other experts, to participate in our programming, regardless of their physical location.”
Preparing Intentional Coursework for All Circumstances
During the early months of the pandemic, NYU’s global staff worked hard to create a future curriculum that could span multiple formats: in person, online, and/or hybrid. By preparing for various circumstances, NYU’s global locations worked to ensure students never missed a beat in their education.
“Without our faculty, we would not have been able to offer such a good experience for our students,” said Gabriella Etmektsoglou (NYU Berlin). “They showed adaptability and flexibility. They developed so many different options for their courses within a semester. In Berlin, for example, we had times when we were teaching in person and hybrid, and we had times when we had to lock down the site for a few weeks. If you had planned trips to museums or nongovernmental organizations during those weeks, you had to totally rethink your class. The faculty really embraced, very intentionally, the values of equity, diversity, belonging, inclusion, and accessibility when rethinking their sessions. It wasn’t simply, ‘I can’t go to this museum. What do I do now?’ It was, ‘Why was I going to this museum to begin with? Is there any way I can bring this museum to my class?’”
Eagerly Awaiting Cultural Immersion
The pandemic forced educators across the globe to rethink and reimagine the ways in which students learn. While some tactics will remain in place moving forward, such as expanded access to guest lecturers, increased collaboration between study away sites, and new experiential learning opportunities, other tactics will likely fall to the wayside, like learning a new language online or participating in a remote internship—both of which are challenging to accomplish without full-blown cultural immersion.
“In orientation we always talk about immersion in your new culture,” said Catherine Robson (NYU London). “Only by doing that do you start to think deeply about the place you come from. When you’re remote, you’re still in your usual place. You don’t have that experience of sort of turning inward, of being challenged to think about your own country, your own region, your own locality. Only by being in that different environment do you really start to reflect because it defamiliarizes what was deeply unquestioned by you before. And so that is why actually being in person in that different country is so key to what we do.”
And that’s why NYU’s global staff are eager to welcome more and more students back to their centers this year in 2022.
What’s Ahead: Embrace the Unexpected
For students preparing to study abroad in the coming semesters, all four site directors encouraged them to maintain an open mind and a positive attitude.
“Right now I think students need to be adaptable and have a little bit of trust in the future,” said Etmektsoglou. “Twelve years ago when I started at NYU Berlin, it was so much more about traveling. Now it’s about your professional career and your development as a young researcher. Yes, you might miss some traveling, but it’s not the key. Because of the pandemic and because of the way we used the time, the quality of our classes increased. They’re much more focused on addressing the career skills and needs for professional competencies. They’re about applied research; they’re about becoming entrepreneurial young professionals. Students will benefit from the diversity, the guests, and all the things we embraced during the pandemic.”
“What we saw in this period of scarcity was the emergence of creativity,” said Robert Bahar and Almudena Carracedo, Emmy-winning filmmakers and lecturers at NYU Madrid, who described their experience moving Madrid Stories, a location-based course, to an online format.
Madrid Stories is a semester-long class at NYU Madrid that encourages students to look, listen and explore Madrid with a documentarian’s gaze, to represent the city from new perspectives, and to seek out stories that explore and question pre-existing notions of Madrid (and Spain more broadly). Jim Fernandez, site director of NYU Madrid and professor of Spanish Literature and Culture, explained that the nature of the course made it challenging to adapt for remote learning. “In some ways, Madrid Stories, rooted as it is in Madrid, was the most difficult course to adapt to an online format, when the COVID-19 crisis abruptly forced us to teach and learn remotely. But Rob, Almudena and the students did an amazing job, making some delicious lemonade from the lemons they were given, as it were. Each of the thirteen films, produced in quarantine, captures the strange rhythms of confinement, and tells a story about the impossibility of returning home.”
Some students felt that the creative process of film production might be a meaningful outlet and a means for making sense of the unprecedented situation they were facing.
Robert Bahar
Bahar explained that in early March “our students had just begun work on their film projects and were offered the option to go home, and then leaving the site quickly became mandatory.” He explained that a decision had to be made about how to adapt the course curriculum, by either shifting toward an analysis of documentaries or keeping the focus on the production process. They sought input from their students, who responded with clear enthusiasm for wanting to continue creating their own films. In fact, some students felt that the creative process of film production might be a meaningful outlet and a means for making sense of the unprecedented situation they were facing.
“The students had little in terms of production equipment, but they did have iPhones and family. They created something absolutely amazing by scavenging any available resources to create a final product — all within two weeks. They had to reimagine their lives, the course, and the project. Their lives took a turn, but in the process of doing so, the class served as a mirror on themselves, and a mirror into themselves. The process of making their films was reflective of where they were in the quarantine,” explained Carracedo.
“We all learned to use digital tools to serve the production process,” noted Carracedo. “They had to learn new editing programs, and we taught them how to edit by sharing our screens and providing demonstrations.” The feedback process was also adapted to an online format. Zoom’s breakout room function allowed the students to work in small groups where they could view each other’s work and offer the critique and feedback that are essential to fine tune a film. “The difference between good and great is the last push of the editing and polishing,” said Bahar, “which is also the most difficult part of producing a film. We always push students toward great. We want to help them achieve their visions and be proud of their work.”
In addition to learning new technical tools to support the filmmaking process, students also had to develop new strategies to enable them to complete their work remotely. For Jack Seibert, a rising senior at Tisch School of the Arts, said he had to learn to remind himself “that artistic processes always encounter unforeseen bumps in the road — large or small — and it is our job as creatives to develop innovative solutions to those problems while staying on schedule. I found pursuing a creative process during this time to be incredibly beneficial to my future artistic career — whether working in theater or film — because I discovered personalized tools to recognize when I feel motivated or unmotivated, and how to either encourage myself to keep working or give myself breaks.”
Developing their film projects also helped some students cope with the sense of uncertainty brought about by the pandemic and they noted that the experience was cathartic and therapeutic. Claudia Picado, a rising senior at Steinhardt School of Education, Culture, and Human Development, explained that her film, Meires en Cuerentena, enabled her to process her experience through “self expression, while also creating something that represented my family and how we came together during quarantine.”
Colin Donahue, a visiting student at NYU Madrid from Swarthmore College, created a film entitled, In an Instant, that detailed idyllic scenes of life in Europe. It is a portrait of travel to Rome and Paris and all of the things you imagine global students doing. Donohue explained that when he first returned to the United States, he “spent the first two weeks of quarantine in my childhood bedroom reflecting on my past experiences and feeling grateful for the health and safety of my family. After looking back on the footage from my study abroad experience, I knew I wanted to use this project as an opportunity to not only remember Spain but to document how I experienced this international public health crisis.”
Donohue said that for him and many of his classmates, the creative process became “a philosophical reflection on the lockdown and quarantine, and the feeling of going back in time when one returns to their childhood home,” said Carracedo. They used the experience to produce introspective glimpses into what life was like during uncommon times.
While the final screenings of student productions are typically held in-person at a closing event at NYU Madrid, this year’s films were screened online, which allowed families and friends to participate.
As classes began on September 14 – live for students in Shanghai and online for students around the world still waiting for visas to enter China – NYU Shanghai welcomed 34 new full-time faculty members from 10 countries for the 2020-2021 academic year. The new members span 20 academic fields from Finance to Art History to Journalism, including the university’s first faculty member in the field of Global Public Health.
An additional 28 new faculty have joined the university this fall to help deliver in-person courses to the NYU and NYU Abu Dhabi students taking part in the NYU Global Network’s “Go Local” program at NYU Shanghai.
“We are thrilled that NYU Shanghai continues to attract a remarkable group of faculty across the disciplines, people whose research is stellar and whose dedication to teaching is exemplary,” says Provost and Julius Silver Professor of History Joanna Waley-Cohen. “I know they will greatly enrich our expanded academic community, and am very much looking forward to getting to know them all over the next few weeks.”
NYU Shanghai’s full-time faculty has more than doubled from just 102 members in 2014 to 226 members this year, representing 25 nationalities.
Among this year’s newcomers is Yufeng Professor of Social Science Wu Xiaogang, who will serve as the founding director of NYU Shanghai’s newest research center, the Center for Applied Social and Economic Research (CASER). Wu, whose scholarship examines inequality and social stratification in China, most recently led a team of researchers investigating how family and community ties supported individuals’ well-being under anti-coronavirus quarantine restrictions in Wuhan. “NYU Shanghai offers a perfect environment for scholars to conduct first-rate China research that can have both local reach and global impact,” Wu says.
This fall, the university also welcomes Brian J. Hall as Associate Professor of Global Public Health. Hall, who leads the Global and Community Mental Health Research Group, focuses on interdisciplinary approaches to population health challenges, particularly among migrant worker groups in the Asia-Pacific region.
“My work in China has been ongoing for more than eight years, and I view NYU Shanghai as an excellent home and platform for this work to continue and expand,” Hall says. “I am excited about the university’s intimate scholarly community, the exceptional students, and the emphasis on interdisciplinary research, which I believe is absolutely essential to address even the most protracted public health challenges.”
Hall says he is looking forward to teaching several courses for undergraduate students this academic year, including a global mental health course and a capstone seminar for seniors producing original scholarship.
Despite the unique challenges posed by the ongoing pandemic and closure of national borders, many new faculty members, including Senior Lecturer in the Writing Program Marcos Martínez, expressed enthusiasm about their students’ and colleagues’ flexibility and adaptability.
“The university’s Writing Program has been so supportive and willing to explore new modes of teaching and ways of building connections with our students,” Martinez says. “I look forward to working with my colleagues and learning from their experiences.”
Visiting Associate Professor of History Jacqueline Armijo, who will take part in NYU Shanghai’s “Go Local” program, says she appreciates the program’s ability to confront some of the problems caused by the pandemic.
“When the opportunity arose to teach students face to face in Shanghai, I could not resist,” Armijo says. “I have been very impressed with NYU Shanghai’s conscientious COVID precaution policies, and I very much appreciate the opportunity to be able to teach safely in a classroom with students face to face, or at least masked-face to masked-face.”
New faculty are also looking forward to connecting with the campus and the city’s uniquely dynamic international community. “I’ve been living in Shanghai for a few years now, and I really love the city’s cosmopolitan energy,” says Clinical Assistant Professor of Spanish Allen Young. “At NYU Shanghai, that energy is more palpable than almost anywhere else.”
Sun Wenting, who joins NYU Shanghai as Assistant Arts Professor of Dance, concurred. “I think the campus reflects the city with its international broad spectrum of nationalities and its drive towards success,” says Sun. “I was fortunate to previously guest teach at NYU Shanghai and was instantly exposed to the positive and engaging environment and the up-beat community, so I already have a really clear vision that this will be a great place to work.”
Others are eager to explore the city’s potential as a hub of research and innovation, including Instructor of Operations Management Zhang Jiding.
“Shanghai is one of the most dynamic cities around the globe, and it is a place where some of the most innovative business practices have been born. As a researcher, I am eager to learn from these practices and study the drivers of such innovations,” says Zhang. “As an educator, I am thrilled to convey what I have learned to my students, and to prepare them for their future leadership in the fast-changing world.”
Almudena Carracedo (left) and Robert Bahar (right)
Award-winning filmmakers and lecturers at NYU Madrid Robert Bahar and Almudena Carracedo’s documentary, The Silence of Others, won an Emmy for Best Documentary at the virtual awards ceremony last week. The film, executive produced by Pedro Almodovar, examines the experiences and traumas of victims of Spain’s 40-year dictatorship under General Franco and the decades-long journeys of individuals seeking justice for egregious crimes committed under the General’s rule. The Silence of Others sheds light on the amnesty law created two years after Franco’s death in 1975 that protects the perpetrators of crimes and prevents victims from pursuing justice in Spain.
Bahar and Carracedo followed several victims and survivors for a period of six years as they organized the “Argentine Lawsuit” in order to fight the amnesty law. The legal battle illuminates the country’s fascist history and how the crimes against humanity perpetrated by Franco’s regime continue to affect victims and their families.
Along with receiving the Emmy for Best Documentary, it was also awarded an Emmy for Outstanding Politics and Government Documentary.“We are incredibly happy,” wrote Bahar and Carracedo in an email. “These two awards help culminate the 2.5-year impact campaign of The Silence of Others and show that the issues we highlight in Spain resonate powerfully all over the world. We dedicate these awards to the protagonists in the film and to everyone, all over the world, who have fought and are fighting for truth, justice and redress.”
The Silence of Others premiered at the 2018 Berlinale (widely considered to be one of the top 5 festivals in the world) where it won both the Panorama Audience Award and the Berlinale Peace Film Prize. The film’s awards and prizes include being shortlisted for Best Documentary Feature for the 91st Academy Awards and it won a 2020 George Foster Peabody Award for Documentary and a 2019 Goya Award for Best Documentary Film. It has been seen by more than 1.5 million viewers and has been credited for increased dialogue about the past and the legacy of crimes. The Silence of Others has generated press across the political spectrum and has been acknowledged in op-eds, essays, books and other sources as helping to change public opinion, generate support for the victims, and reframe the debate around “historic memory” issues.
Read more about Bahar and Carracedo’s Emmy win here, and watch the film here.
When Johileny Meran went to study at NYU London in the fall of 2018, she knew the experience would change her life. But she did not anticipate that her experiences there would directly lead to a meaningful career opportunity. Meran, a global public health major who graduated in 2019, is now working with Mobility International USA (MIUSA) to support students with disabilities who are considering studying abroad or other forms of international exchange. Meran served as NYU London’s Global Equity Fellow (GEF) while there and bolstered NYU’s commitment to addressing diversity, equity, and inclusion abroad by creating an access guide for NYU London.
According to Meran, “Student life experiences on campus can differ based on disability. In the fall of 2018, as a GEF, I created a guide to London’s accessibility culture in an effort to help future students understand what to expect from a student perspective. It is all-encompassing in terms of including a diverse group of resources. I was committed to being a resource and helping improve diversity resources at NYU. Through my role, I learned that my experience informs my work rather than limits the scope to which I can do it.”
Meran not only made a lasting contribution to NYU London during her time at NYU by creating the NYU London Access Guide, but also to issues of disability awareness and accessibility abroad more generally. We had the chance to catch up with Meran and ask about her experiences at NYU London and her current work.
Can you tell me about your NYU career? How did you decide on your study plans?
One of the things that had me most excited about NYU was the fact that it was a global network and I wanted to know about the world and I thought being at NYU would offer a great start. The Arthur O. Eve Higher Education Opportunity Program also provided me with a support system from the start.
I entered NYU undecided about my major. At the time, I was still holding onto a life-long dream of becoming a doctor. During my first and second years, I realized that there was so much more that I could learn. I am a first generation college student, and college really opened doors for me in terms of learning what else was possible in the world. When I took one of my first classes in global public health, I immediately fell in love with the entire concept. I also thought it was important to think about the various influences on public health globally. Additionally, I noticed that there was not a lot of conversation around people with disabilities in public health and believed I could make a contribution there.I got hooked on global public health, and I just went for it.
Why did you decide to study abroad and why NYU London?
I knew I wanted to study abroad from my first year. I came to the United States from the Dominican Republic at a young age and I wanted to know more about what the world looked like and I thought studying abroad would be a great way to do that. I also knew that an NYU study abroad experience would provide a great environment to learn via studying rather than just traveling. I was also interested in exploring disability rights in different places and access in general.
I studied abroad very late in my NYU career compared to my peers. I traveled as a senior, rather than as a junior or sophomore. The reason for that was that, having come from a different country myself, I knew that access and disability rights are very different from one country to another. I did a lot of research because I wanted to know that not only would I be in a new place, but that I could do more than just go from my dorm to the academic center. NYU London was a great choice partly because of the accessibility of London as a city and partly because I was curious to explore the differences between British and American English. I already speak two languages so learning a new language was not a priority for me. But I knew London offered a chance to learn more about language in a different context.
You were the NYU London Global Equity Fellow in Fall 2018. Can you share what inspired you to participate in the GEF program? What were your priorities in that role?
I applied to be a Global Equity Fellow because of my experience as a student at NYU in New York. In a sense, I stumbled into disability advocacy on campus. I personally found that the best way to find community was to participate in NYU clubs and student life. Without a community, it can sometimes seem like a very big and vast place. I immediately started participating in and going to events organized by NYU clubs that aligned with my identity – the Latino Student Union LUCHA (Latinos Club), the Black Student Union, the First Generation Club. In those clubs and in those meetings, there was something missing for me because disability was never part of the conversation. So I decided to start bringing disability to the conversation and got a positive response from my peers. They wanted to know more and asked how they could help me tofounda disability community.
By the time I was studying away, I was already president of the NYU Disability Student Union. I was also one of the chairs of an accessibility committee, along with faculty and administrators at NYU. I had established a great relationship with the Moses Center – it was an important source of support for me. The GEF program was a great opportunity to continue that work while in London. It was not just about disability, but diversity and equity and inclusion in general. I was inspired to apply to be a GEF so that I could further explore these issues and discover what more I could bring to the table.
One of your many contributions as a GEF was the NYU Access Culture Guide. Can you talk about working on that and what making that lasting contribution to NYU meant to you?
In the beginning, I was very hesitant to do a disability-focused project. I considered taking a more general approach to diversity issues and not focus on disability. I had a few conversations with the GEF Student Advisor in NY about why I was holding back about bringing disability into the work and it dawned on me that this was something I could bring to the table. One of the nice things about arriving at NYU London was that there were so many pamphlets to orient students to the city. I realized that I could bring an accessibility lens to the information that is available to incoming students. One of the things that I really enjoyed about the project was that not only were the staff excited, but the students as well. When I shared that I was looking to put information together about what access was like in London, there were so many contributions. I also reached out to Emely Recinos, another student with a disability who was studying in NYU Buenos Aires at the time, to get her perspective about what access issues she wished she knew about before going to Argentina. The guide is not meant to be definitive; students are welcome to change it in later years.
I appreciated being able to give future NYU students something that I didn’t have. I relied on information from the Moses Center and the NYU London staff before I traveled, but there was still more I wish I knew in advance. So it felt good to know that I was giving future students more information to go in with. Much of the information in the guide elaborates on topics, like transportation, that were already covered in the existing student guide. I put it all together because I wanted more people to realize that the accessibility information for disability is so similar to the information that students already get. It actually does not need to be separate, but just included as an extra layer to the information already provided. After I finished the project, I felt really accomplished in the sense that another student interested in studying abroad would have this great information.
I understand that you are now working with Mobility International USA as a Program Coordinator for the National Clearinghouse on Disability and Exchange (NCDE). As I understand it, NCDE is a project focused on increasing the participation of people with disabilities in all types of travel with a purpose. What is your focus?
The National Clearinghouse on Disability and Exchange (NCDE) is a project under the organization I work for, MIUSA, and it is sponsored by the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. When I learned about this project, I was just so excited – beyond excited – because there is so much information available to anyone through the website. NCDE provides detailed information about preparing to go abroad, including creative ways to get around, and information about attitudes on disability that you may encounter during your exchange.
One of my favorite aspects of the project is also the personal stories. We collect and share personal stories from students with disabilities who have studied abroad in a range of places around the world. I love reading about their experiences. Sometimes you have moments of thinking that access is so hard in a particular country, why would someone go? But in reality it is a lot about the challenge you want to put on yourself as a student. I realized that the information shared via NCDE was a lot like the information I included in the access culture guide.
In my role, I focus on a variety of projects as part of the NCDE team of four, including the Inquiry and Referral Service. Anyone with a disability or any international exchange professional can submit a question and we do research to answer it. After receiving an inquiry, I immediately consider what the best resources are that I can offer this person – tip sheets, personal stories, etc – and then I also consider whether there are country-specific resources that I can offer. We provide meaningful support for both professionals trying to support a student with a disability or students with disability looking for information.
I also conduct interviews with students about their experiences and compile resources for the NCDE newsletter, Access to Exchange. It includes personal stories about experiences abroad, stories about disability access, and funding opportunities, among other things.
Finally, I regularly speak on panels or in other contexts to provide information about the services and opportunities we offer. The intent of this outreach is to encourage more students with disabilities to study abroad and participate in international exchange in general. Similarly, we also offer information and support to international students looking to come to the United States. We hope to see a more inclusive approach to exchange with disabled students participating along with their non-disabled peers.
How did your time at NYU London inform your decision to work with Mobility International on NCDE?
I met someone from Mobility International right after I returned from London. During the spring semester of my senior year, I was recruited by a summer camp I used to attend to come work for them for the summer. I went for my training during my last semester at NYU and it happened to be family day at the camp and one of the organizations presenting was Mobility International. I introduced myself and shared that I had just come back from London and that I wanted to learn more about their work.
After finishing my summer job, I was invited to by Mobility International USA to present with them at the 2019 Council on International Educational Exchange Conference. Actually, I later repurposed that presentation in my first blog post for Mobility International, 4 Takeaways from my Study Abroad Experience for Exchange Professionals.
While I was still looking for work, I learned that a position had opened up with MIUSA. I was in awe of the work that they have done and the NCDE project, I thought it could be a great place to start my career. I immediately saw so many connections between what I had done at NYU London and what I could do and learn at Mobility International that I just knew it was right.
What would you say to other students with disabilities, whether at NYU or elsewhere, who might be hesitant about studying abroad?
I think it is important for students with disabilities to participate in international exchanges. Doing so is a life-changing experience. To see a different part of the world and learn from a different culture, offers so much to you personally and to your career. Even though there may be challenges, it is a great opportunity to learn.
As a student with a disability, you are not just learning through the experience yourself, but you are also allowing others to learn from you through your experience – peers, future students, educators.
What would you say to administrators or coordinators of international exchange programs, whether at NYU or elsewhere, about how to encourage and ensure access for all students?
I think it is important to note that at Mobility International we have a culture and a thought process of “challenge by choice.” This is the idea that you go to a place and you know that you will be challenged there, but you know that it is a challenge you can take on. Individuals in student advising positions may have preconceived notions about accessibility issues in particular countries. MI believes that students should be prepared to make informed decisions about study abroad opportunities by understanding the realities of accessibility and knowing how they might navigate challenges while abroad.You might think that a country is too inaccessible for a student but the only person to really decide that is the student. Your job is offering and support so that they know what access challenges they might be facing and whether they are willing to navigate those challenges.
It is important to be intentional about encouraging students with disabilities. If, for example, you are recruiting students to participate in a short-term exchange program, consider including language such as“students with disabilities are encouraged to apply.” Not including disability or access information in recruitment materials creates an additional barrier for students.
Is there anything else you would like to share or add?
My time as a GEF really solidified the benefit of student engagement. I would encourage students with disabilities to take on student leadership roles to inform educators and professionals about the information students need. Disability and accessibility are part of diversity. I mean this not just in terms of reasonable accommodations, but in terms of what student life is like.
Over the summer, NYU Abu Dhabi Vice Chancellor Mariët Westermann announced the appointment of Dr. Arlie O. Petters – Benjamin Powell Distinguished Professor of Mathematics at Duke University, and former Dean of Academic Affairs for Trinity College of Arts and Sciences and Associate Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education at Duke – as the Provost of NYU Abu Dhabi, effective September 1, 2020.
The selection follows a comprehensive, wide-ranging, nine-month global search that sought input from across the NYU community to identify a strategic academic leader who would nurture and advance the educational and research mission and build on NYU Abu Dhabi’s bedrock of excellence. The University’s trajectory of academic success was established by Provost Fabio Piano, who will return to genomics research at the Center for Genomics and Systems Biology in Abu Dhabi and in New York after serving as NYU Abu Dhabi’s provost for the past decade.
According to NYU Abu Dhabi Vice Chancellor Mariët Westermann, “Arlie’s distinguished scholarly qualifications, leadership experience, knowledge of international education, research breadth, commitment to equity, diversity, inclusion, and belonging, focus on students, deep understanding of academic excellence, and integrity and energy give me great confidence that he will serve the University well in his role as Provost. He will provide outstanding academic leadership as we embark on NYUAD’s second decade of growth and accomplishment. It will be inspiring and rewarding to work with Arlie as we advance our resolutely international model of liberal arts education and address the complex challenges we face today.”
Petters’ principal research interests include mathematical physics and scientific methods in business administration, with a focus on mathematical finance and entrepreneurship and innovation in STEM fields in developing nations. He is the Benjamin Powell Professor of Mathematics and a Professor of Physics and Economics at Duke University, where he has been on the faculty since 1998.
Before joining Duke, Petters served as an Assistant Professor of Mathematics at Princeton University and an Instructor of Pure Mathematics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He received his PhD in mathematics from MIT, and has a BA and MA in mathematics and physics from Hunter College of the City University of New York.
Petters’ research explores how gravity acts on light. He pioneered the mathematical theory of weak-deflection gravitational lensing, which brought powerful methods from pure mathematics to bear on astronomy. He also advanced applications of gravitational lensing, which included predicting effects that probe the nature of spacetime around black holes and developing tests of Einstein’s general relativity and modified gravity models. He has published fifty articles in peer-reviewed journals as well as five books, including the monograph Singularity Theory and Gravitational Lensing, the textbook An Introduction to Mathematical Finance with Applications, and three problem-solving books on mathematics and scientific reasoning.
“Within a ten-year span,” says Provost Petters, “NYU Abu Dhabi has developed a world-class, innovative liberal arts and sciences undergraduate program and premier interdisciplinary research environment. It has created a collaborative culture of global citizenry among its excellent students, faculty, and staff. It has fostered diversity, inclusion, cultural competency, empathy, and openness. It has become a university in and of the city of Abu Dhabi. This gravitational pull of NYU Abu Dhabi was simply irresistible. I am delighted to serve under Mariët’s amazing leadership driving NYU Abu Dhabi onwards and upwards, to take its place among the world’s great universities.”
Among his many awards and honors are an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, a National Science Foundation Career Award, and the first Blackwell-Tapia Prize in the Mathematical Sciences. He was selected in 2006 by the National Academy of Sciences to be part of a Portrait Collection of Outstanding African Americans in Science, Engineering, and Medicine. In addition to his research, Petters has mentored numerous students, faculty, and professionals, and has consequently received many community-service awards.
In his native Belize, he founded the Petters Research Institute to help develop human capital in STEM fields and foster national development through environmentally sustainable applications of STEM tools in entrepreneurship. In recognition of these contributions, he was made a member in the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in 2008, and appointed in 2010 as the inaugural Chairman of the Council of Science Advisers to the Prime Minister of Belize. In 2009, his birthplace, Dangriga, Belize, honored him with a street in his name.
