Twenty-one new business-university research projects are underway across Upstate New York, backed by $3 million in innovation vouchers from the (C3).

That is a big step up from February’s first round of funding, which delivered $350,000 to five companies. C3 has since built a pipeline of 60 engagements with regional tech firms, says , vice president for research and principal investigator for C3.

C3 is the “front door� for companies across the Syracuse-Rochester-Buffalo corridor that need university expertise and equipment to develop and commercialize semiconductor technologies. Syracuse University leads C3 and administers its voucher program on behalf of partners including the University at Buffalo, Rochester Institute of Technology, Cornell University, University of Rochester and Alfred University. C3 is part of the $40 million NY SMART I-Corridor award from the .

Companies in Syracuse Labs

Syracuse faculty are research partners on seven of the 26 C3 projects funded so far.

“These partnerships put real industry problems inside Syracuse labs, and that opens doors for our students. They can work on technology companies are taking to market and graduate with the experience and the connections that employers across this region are hiring for. That is what research should mean for a Syracuse education,� Brown says.

Faculty Partnerships

Five new projects pair companies with (ECS) faculty:

• works with Distinguished Professor and Professor , both of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. The company combines AI, bioacoustics and behavioral science to decode how wildlife communicates.
• partners with , assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science, to test BQPhy QuantumNOW, software that uses AI to speed up and improve chip manufacturing.

• and , assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, are testing whether a ceramic component from Shi’s lab can help Conamix’s lithium-sulfur batteries last longer.

• provides plant-based raw materials to , assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, whose lab is turning them into filters that clean wastewater from chip production.
• Syracuse-based ., which designs and prototypes a low-power, energy-saving, higher-speed chip that keeps memory and processing functions together, is working with four ECS faculty: Distinguished Professors and , and Professors and

Two first-round partnerships with ECS faculty continue:

• , a soft-shell robotic gripper startup co-founded by , associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering; the company tests prototypes of tunable soft robotic grippers for advanced electronics manufacturing.
• , a global manufacturer of mission systems, radio frequency components and microwave/microelectronic assemblies, partners with , William T. Frantz Endowed Chair in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. TTM is a manufacturer of technology products, including mission systems, radio frequency components, RF microwave/microelectronic assemblies and technologically advanced interconnect products.

The Micron Effect

Many of the companies seeking C3 funding are positioning for the wave of chip-industry demand they expect from Micron Technology’s $100 billion , now under construction in Clay, just north of Syracuse, Brown says. Micron says the site will be the most advanced memory manufacturing facility in the world, built to meet AI-driven demand.

“Micron’s investment is bringing new companies and new federal funding into the region. Our job is to make sure Syracuse researchers and students are part of that work, whether we are administering the program or partnering on the research,� he says.

The NY SMART I-Corridor is a federally designated Tech Hub of more than 100 businesses and higher education, economic development and community-based organizations positioning Upstate New York as a global leader in semiconductor manufacturing, innovation and workforce development.

The U.S. Economic Development Administration was established by Ìıthe and provides funding for regional technology development with matching support from the .

Three Syracuse Architecture faculty members contributed projects and programming to , the annual art and architecture festival held at on the historic grounds of the 1969 Woodstock festival in Bethel, New York.

The 2026 festival launched “Acts of Construction,” a new three-year curatorial initiative exploring how architecture can adapt, evolve and support future uses, performances and forms of public engagement. The first installment, “Act One: Staging,” features faculty, students, architects, artists and designers from institutions across the country who constructed large-scale architectural prototypes, installations, interventions and activations designed to serve as infrastructure for future activities and public engagement.

Hannibal Newsom Collaborates on ‘Wildflowers’

Assistant Professor contributed to BuildFest 2026 through “Wildflowers,” a collaborative installation created with and , both of whom are former Syracuse Architecture faculty members and now teach at .

Supported by Syracuse University’s Coca-Cola sponsorship, “Wildflowers” begins with a custom-designed, recyclable 3D-printed PETG joint that enables multidirectional wood-to-wood connections. The joints connect dimensional lumber into cross-shaped columns that rise from the ground like wildflowers after rain and brace the structure together, creating a layered field of thresholds and frames that draws the eye across the landscape. Inspired by the resilience of wildflowers, the pavilion was designed to go up quickly and yet be easily disassembled and rebuilt year after year. Relying only on simple hex bolts, the connections can be removed, reorganized and reattached while leaving the wood largely intact for future use. Shaped like a four-petaled flower, the open theater-in-the-round pavilion features fabric wings that tint the sunlight and sway in the wind. The installation will host a year of performances before being disassembled and repurposed for future performances and activities at next year’s festival, as part of the next phase of “Acts of Construction.”

“Wildflowers” brought together students and faculty from both institutions to fabricate and install the pavilion. Seven Lehigh University students and four Syracuse University students worked alongside Newsom, Scott and Zhang throughout the fabrication and construction process. The project was also supported by Lehigh University’s Hammerschlag Design-Build Initiative, which helped provide funding for student participation.

The Syracuse Architecture student team included Danna Ochoa Cardenas ’29, Mia Mueller ’27, Selina Peh ’27 and Carson Probert G’28, while the Lehigh University student team included Chloe Cheng ’26, Shenandoah Dawn DeNardo ’28, Mitchell Ertle ’27, Jacob Hammer ’27, Teniece Harris ’28, Aimi Saloum ’27 and Catherine Sanchez ’28. The project also involved Syracuse students throughout its development: architecture research student Mingrui Xie ’26 helped develop design models and prototypes for the project submission, while Yicheng Zhou ’28 worked in the shop over the summer to prefabricate the 3D-printed components and prepare the lumber for installation.

“This project gave our students the opportunity to be involved in every step of the design-build process, from developing models and prototypes to prefabricating components and completing the final installation,� says Newsom. “Working alongside students from Lehigh University, they learned to collaborate, adapt and problem-solve in real time as they brought the pavilion to life.�

Benjamin Vanmuysen Explores Reuse with ‘Flying Buttruss’

Instructor participated in BuildFest 2026 with “Flying Buttruss,” an intervention that reimagined materials from a previous BuildFest project to explore themes of adaptation, reuse and performance in construction.

ÌıWorking alongside 10 students—six from Syracuse University and four from the (RPI)—Vanmuysen mined lumber, hardware and LED lighting components from “Stacked & Strapped,” a 2025 BuildFest installation, and reconfigured them into a lightweight illuminated truss suspended between trees on the Bethel Woods site. Through a process of disassembly, reconfiguration, relocation and reconstruction, the project transformed the compact, monolithic bench into an elongated truss.

Like its predecessor, the new intervention explores the relationship between compression and tension, with the pressure-treated studs and ratchet straps working together to create the structure. Its appearance also changes throughout the day and into the night as the LED rope lights illuminate the truss from within. Conceived on the historic camping grounds and raised in the woods, “Flying Buttruss” responds to the site’s history while transforming the construction process itself into a form of performance.

The Syracuse Architecture student team included Gabriela Casciani G’29, Hallie Meyer ’27, Michael Papagni G’29, Katherine Tang ’27, Daniel Antonio Velasquez G’29 and Chelsea Zhang ’27, while the RPI student team included Allyson Devine ’27, Abby Lagana ’27, Nihar Menon ’27 and Jack Zhang ’27.

“‘Flying Buttruss’ revolves around a series of acts, including disassembly, pre-tensioning and finally the raising of the truss,” says Vanmuysen. “In the last act of construction, the structure became the protagonist of the building performance.”

Ekin Erar Hosts Design-Build Workshop

Instructor participated in BuildFest 2026 by leading “Froggo Bench,” a hands-on design-build workshop offered as part of the festival’s public programming.

The workshop introduced students to reversible and iterative construction methods that do not rely on conventional hardware. Using a CNC-milled, mono-material system, participants assembled a bench through dry-fit connections and wooden pegs, gaining firsthand experience with joinery techniques and material behavior through the act of building.

Rather than creating a fixed piece of furniture, the workshop explored assembly as an open-ended design process. The adaptable joinery system allows “Froggo Bench” to be repeatedly disassembled and reconfigured, enabling new arrangements to emerge over time. In this way, the bench’s final form is not predetermined by the original design but can be continuously reshaped by those who assemble and use it.

“Froggo Bench” was developed as a furniture-scale prototype of the assembly logic used in the 10â�¶ mirrored pavilion, which Syracuse Architecture students previously constructed at Bernheim Forest and Arboretum. By working at full scale, students connected digital fabrication techniques with hands-on construction, using the building process itself as a tool for exploration and design. The workshop emphasized construction not simply as the execution of a finished concept, but as a creative process through which students tested, adapted and reimagined an open-ended assembly system.

“The open-ended assembly system developed through “Froggo Bench” operates simultaneously as a building and a design method, allowing students to produce rapidly deployable architectural interventions while developing an understanding of the potential of reversible, monomaterial assemblies designed with future reuse, disassembly and recycling in mind,â€� says Erar.

The work created during “Act One: Staging” will provide the foundation for the next two editions of “Acts of Construction,” with the installations produced this year serving as the starting point for “Act Two: Choreography” in 2027 and “Act Three: Performance” in 2028. Learn more about BuildFest 2026 and the “Acts of Construction” initiative at .

On a lab bench at SUNY Upstate Medical University, Victoria Alwar ’27 spent her summer running tests to explore how a single genetic mutation disrupts electrical signals in the brain and heart. Gabriella Garcia ’26 explored challenges in behavioral therapy for children by testing setbacks through a video game simulation for adult participants. Annie Knobloch ’26 studied how different cannabinoid compound structures interact with human cannabinoid receptors.

All three Syracuse University students spent their summer down the road from campus, as participants in the . The 10-week fellowship, founded in 1994, draws nearly 40 students from across the country and works closely with . The two programs align their calendars, share social and professional development events and send students to present together at a joint Summer Research Symposium each year.

Over the past 10 years, 25 Syracuse undergraduates have taken part, making up as much as a fifth of the SURF cohort in some years. This year, it’s 14%.

, director of the SURF program, says Syracuse students have served as ambassadors for out-of-town participants over the years, and many continue working in their SURF labs throughout the academic year.

“There is no doubt that SU undergraduates play a vital role in the success of the SURF program, and in turn, they immensely benefit from the biomedical research environment at Upstate,� Herberg says.

SOURCE director Kate Hanson says the partnership contributes to a vibrant cross-institutional summer research community, bringing together students from Syracuse University’s five NSF- and NIH-funded programs, Syracuse University and SUNY College of Environmental Science and ForestryÌıstudents and a small number of visiting high schoolers for shared activities that culminate in the Summer Symposium.

“Students learn from each other and are able to explore a broad range of the incredible research being done on the hill,� she says.

Gaining a Sense of their ‘Future Self’

As part of the SURF program, students get hands-on time in a working biomedical lab, often collaborating for the first time with a graduate student or postdoctoral fellow alongside the principal investigator/mentor in one of six research pathways. Through the mentorship, students learn to design and run rigorous experiments, analyze data and read and interpret scientific papers.

Weekly seminars also expose them to the range of research happening across campus and to their mentor’s personal career stories. A journal club—the program’s only formal course—gives them practice presenting and critiquing scientific papers in small peer groups.

Herberg says all SURF students are passionate about research but many are unclear on the nuances between a Ph.D. and an M.D./Ph.D. program—which is where career-focused workshops and “meet the dean” luncheons come in.

“From the feedback we receive, these sessions provide critical advice that has helped many SURF students clarify or substantiate their future plans,� he says.

The Final Piece of the Puzzle

Alwar, a dual major in biology and neuroscience in the College of Arts and Sciences, says she came into the summer with “two pieces of the puzzle”: bench research through fellowships at SU and Upstate and clinical exposure from an internship at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in 2025. But she hadn’t yet seen how a physician-scientist operates between the lab bench and the clinic.

“The specific structure of this program around dual identity (being paired with both a faculty mentor and a current physician) allowed me to get direct clinical experience alongside my bench work,� Alwar says.

She started the program thinking it would clarify what she wanted to study or which career path to pursue. Instead, she realized what kind of work environment she thrives in: one built on guidance and collaboration, where mentorship is within reach, but she’s given agency, too.

“One that can still allow me to be trusted with real independence and responsibility and treated as a capable emerging scientist rather than a closely supervised individual,� she says.

Broadening Interests

For Garcia, a biology major with a gerontology minor who is graduating in December, the path to SURF started at the Biology Research Fair in the Life Sciences Complex. That led to a mentorship with at Upstate, who connected her to work at a specialized behavioral clinic and later recommended the SURF program.

During the 10 weeks with the SURF Health Science pathway, Garcia worked in two specialized behavior clinics. Her project tackled a real clinical problem from a safe distance. Children with developmental disabilities often relapse into harmful behaviors once they leave the clinic’s structured environment, but testing that relapse directly would be unsafe. Garcia used a video game created by , a psychologist and pediatrics professor at SUNY Upstate, that simulates the three-stage progression of real-world therapy. The game allowed Garcia and fellow researchers to study how different reward strategies affect how well those skills hold up outside the clinic.

“This video game is a form of translational research that allows us to safely model these high-stress behavioral dynamics in a controlled lab setting through a video game,� she says. “Ultimately, this work helps build a foundation for clinicians to design stronger, more resilient treatment plans.�

Confirming a Path to a Ph.D.

Knobloch, a neuroscience and psychology major graduating in December, went into the SURF program on the heels of doing research at Upstate for about a year. She spentÌıthe 10Ìıweeks in a cannabinoid pharmacology research lab studying how small structural changes in a compound alter its functional effect on the human brain’s cannabinoid receptors.

The experience allowed her to learn more about neuropharmacology in depth and confirmed her love of biomedical research. She knows after the fellowship that she wants to pursue her doctoral degree.

“I learned so much from my new friends and hearing about their research projects,â€� she says. “The faculty are so great and the research done here is so fascinating. It’s a great trial run of a grad school program.â€�

Applications for the 2027 SURF cohort open in late fall.

As a fourth-year student in the (ECS), Ruben John thought learning state-of-the-art robotics and controls with faculty experts was too good an opportunity to pass up. So he applied to and was accepted into a new summer Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program that let him do just that. This fall, he built on that experience by becoming a research assistant in his faculty mentor’s robotics lab.

John was one of eight undergraduates who participated in the new Robotics and AI for Advanced Manufacturing REU program over the summer. The eight-week, hands-on research experience was developed by , associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at ECS and co-founder of the robotics startup .

“I wanted to join Dr. Shan’s lab because I wanted to continue working with and learning from him,” John says. “I really admire his work ethic, the person he is and the way he mentors students. He would talk with us not only about our research, but also about life, business and how to think about our future. It felt like more than just a research experience.”

Students in the program were divided into eight teams composed of an undergraduate student, a Ph.D. scholar and a faculty mentor, each tackling different areas of cutting-edge robotics research. Shan designed the program so undergraduates could learn from and be mentored by Ph.D. students. Faculty members met with the undergraduates and Ph.D. students every week.

Team projects mirrored the University’s portfolio in AI, robotics and advanced manufacturing, Shan says. That includes the Center for Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing, Dynamic Locomotion and Robotics Lab, A-STAR Lab, LINKLab and Autonomous Systems Policy Institute, plus the University’s lead role in the NY SMART I-Corridor Tech Hub and affiliation with Micron’s regional tech-jobs creation engines.

The teams designed algorithms for vision-guided robot arm control, developed robotic maneuvers for aerospace vehicles, translated spoken instructions into machine-interpretable programs for industrial robots and created soft grippers and stretchable sensors that enable robots handle delicate objects.

Though each team worked on separate projects, they came together once a week to share research insights, discuss project progress and attend workshops featuring experts in entrepreneurship. Along with conducting research, students participated in cohort-building and social activities, including touring the Museum of Science and Technology and a robotics firm.

The entrepreneurial focus was designed to give students a look at startup life as an alternative to the more traditional career routes in academia and industry, Shan says. For John, that orientation prompted him to pursue his next step in both research and entrepreneurship. In Shan’s lab, he continues to study gripper design and performance while also observing new steps in in product development underway at TunaBotics.

“My goal has always been to become the best possible version of myself, whether through engineering, entrepreneurship or a combination of both,” John says. “Meeting Dr. Shan and being in the program helped guide me toward that goal. It gave me a different outlook on what I want to do in the future and opened my mind to opportunities beyond the traditional engineering path.”

Three hundred years after the birth of James Hutton, the Scottish scientist known as the father of modern geology, Syracuse University students from theÌıÌı(EES) walked the same landscapes that inspired many of his groundbreaking ideas. Hutton’s observations of rock formations along Scotland’s coast helped transform scientific understanding of Earth’s history, laying the foundation for today’s discoveries.

Joined by EES faculty and alumni, the students trekked across Scotland’s dramatic glens, crags and coastlines, visiting some of the world’s most important geological sites as part of an international field study. Opportunities like these are central to the (A&S) educational journey, where students across majors and academic disciplines are encouraged to move beyond the classroom and build hands-on research and analytical skills in their field.

In the Footsteps of Geology’s Pioneer

The trip marked the fourth international EES excursion in recent years, following previous visits to British Columbia, Iceland and Newfoundland. Led by professorsÌıÌıandÌı, the program took students to three key locations: Glasgow, the Isle of Arran and Edinburgh.

The trip gave students the opportunity to visit the places where Hutton observed rock formations during the late 18th century, revealing Earth’s relentless, ongoing geological processes. These observations led Hutton to argue that the planet was far older than commonly believed, and that its history could be explained by processes we can see or infer through observation of the natural world, ideas that transformed scientific understanding of Earth’s evolution.

“He is to geology what Darwin is to biology and what Isaac Newton is to physics and mathematics,” Samson says.

A major destination was the Isle of Arran, often described as a geological miniature of Scotland because of the diversity of rock formations and geological features found across the island. Students were based for four days in the village of Lochranza, where they stayed at a field station and worked closely with a local geology expert who guided the group through important field sites.

Building Skills Through Experience

Students prepared for the trip by reading scientific literature related to the locations they would visit. Once in Scotland, however, the learning shifted from theory to direct observation—as it did for Hutton so long ago as he searched for field observations to support his revolutionary Theory of the Earth.

The group examined rock formations, geological structures and historic outcrops that have helped shape scientific understanding of Earth’s history. Among the highlights was a visit to the most famous angular unconformity described by Hutton, known as Siccar Point, a geological feature east of Edinburgh that demonstrates vast spans of geological time.

“This set of rocks changes your whole world view,� says Ivany.

At Siccar Point, Hutton saw evidence that Earth continually renews itself through cycles of sedimentation, uplift, mountain building and erosion, challenging the idea of a static world with a fixed endpoint. This insight led to his famous conclusion, “We find no vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an end,� capturing his view of Earth as a dynamic planet shaped by continuous cycles of change over immense spans of time.

“His insight completely transformed the study of our planet,” says Ivany. “This place is why we came on this trip.”

“Few people have ever seen it in person,� Samson says. “But this set of rocks is in every single geology textbook ever published in the entire world.�

Fieldwork challenged students to apply what they had learned in the classroom to direct observation. They were tested on their ability to identify and sequence rock samples based on evidence they had gathered in the field.

“They had to put specimens in order from oldest to youngest based on what we had learned at the geological outcrops,� Samson says.

The exercise required students to analyze, interpret and defend their conclusions using real geological evidence, mirroring the work performed by scientists working in the field.

The trip provided students with a valuable first opportunity to study geology at a professional field scale. Rather than examining samples in a laboratory or viewing photographs in a textbook, they worked directly with landscapes, rock formations and geological structures.

For Christopher Paradis ’28, an environmental geoscience major in A&S and an environment, sustainability and policy major in the , the expedition reinforced his passion for field-based science. After hearing about the opportunity from faculty, he was immediately drawn to Scotland’s rich natural history and globally significant geology.

“This experience has absolutely confirmed for me that I want to study a science that puts me out in the field as often as possible,� Paradis says. Exploring rocky riverbeds, rolling pastures and coastal cliffs gave him a firsthand look at landscapes shaped over hundreds of millions of years, bringing the geologic history he’s learned about through his coursework to life.

Student researchers participating in the 2025-26 fellowship in , will discuss their cultural experiences and research findings at a campuswide symposium .

The researchers took part in the program, which pairs Ìıselected fellows with academic programs offered at locations. The center has offered student-faculty research fellowships on social justice issues for eight years and began offering shorter-term global research opportunities two years ago.

Students will share findings from their research on human rights issues arising from the in Chile.

Ohemaa Asibuo ’27 analyzed archived lists of victims of political retribution from records at Santiago’s . The international relations and Spanish dual major in the Ìı and the analyzed data regarding Chileans who once supported Pinochet’s leadership but were later labeled as traitors.

Mauricio Paredes, director of Syracuse Abroad’s program, says Asibuo’s research of presenting the victims by demographic categories broke new ground and set the stage for further museum staff findings.

Asibuo regards her commemorative education work as “extremely important in preventing these types of things from occurring again. I hope to continue to advocate for using past historical events as warnings to help us navigate how we approach our futures.�

Jherlyn Brady ’27, a communication and rhetorical studies major in the , learned that Chile’s educational system “was used by the dictatorship to raise nationalism and neoliberalism. They closed institutions responsible for educating teachers; elites and the military created and governed their own schools. That exacerbated economic disparities that still affect Chileans today.� The experience “let me see the institution of education in a different context,� she says. “It can be either a source of social control or a tool of liberation.�

College of Arts and Sciences and Maxwell School political philosophy major Laila Terrell ’27 analyzed the rhetoric of , a women’s organization run by Pinochet’s wife. Though the group taught women skills for work and involvement in their communities, it also promoted the regime’s mantras and ideas about what women should be, Terrell says.

She observed that “these women could genuinely benefit from CEMA while also being part of an organization that helped support a violent dictatorship, making the idea of ‘empowerment’ much more complicated than it first appears.�

Sophia Ortiz-Heaney ’27, a Maxwell School economics and international relations dual major, says chatting with local residents and visiting former clandestine detention centers helped her “understand Chilean society on a more profound level. [They] pushed me to think about how history and movements shape the built environment…[and] understand the true extent to which the dictatorship has and still does impact the experiences, opportunities and everyday lives of Chileans.�

Also presenting are Mason Rosenbaum ’27 and Grant Montonye ’28, both international relations majors in the Maxwell School. Rosenbaum recalls conversations with Museum of Memory staff as “a particularly moving experience.� Montoye studied how Chilean constitutions were developed to justify Pinochet regime actions.

Madiou Bah ’27, a broadcast and digital journalism major in the , analyzed the use of propaganda and how governments use fear and media to control and maintain power.

Other students in the Syracuse Abroad Santiago Center program will now continue exploring those themes using teaching and learning materials developed by the Lender Global fellows, particularly those in the new .

As ÌıturnsÌı15 this year,ÌıitÌıis marking its own coming of age by exploring one of the most cherished traditions across Latino cultures: theÌı,Ìıthe celebration of a girl’s 15^thÌıbirthday.

La Casita was founded in 2011 by College of Arts and Sciences Dean’s Professor and former faculty member , working with other University faculty, staff, and community leaders. Its development grew out of a two-year participatory process of community dialogues, workshops and focus groups where Syracuse residents helped shape what the center would become.

OverÌı15 years,ÌıLa CasitaÌıhas served thousands ofÌıstudents and local residentsÌıand has become “much more than aÌıcultural center,” saysÌı, executive director of the University’sÌı. “It is simultaneously a community resource, a learning environment, a research site and an archive of Latino life in Central New York.â€�

AmongÌıLa Casita’s most significant achievementsÌıare theÌıdocumentation and preservation ofÌıits viaÌıtheÌıNew York Heritage Digital CollectionsÌıandÌıa partnership with theÌıÌıthat explores Ìımigration, family, identity and cultural memory in Latino communities.

As an experiential learning and research environment, La Casita hasÌıhosted more than 2,600 students from the University andÌıother regional institutions as interns, researchers and volunteers who often remain connected with the center long after graduation.

Last year,Ìı34 students held internships or assistantships;Ìı170 students logged 2,000+ hours of volunteer or service-learning activity;Ìı11 University courses integratedÌıLa Casita programming;ÌıandÌı12 student researchersÌıused its materials and programs.

Eighty youths enjoy weekly after-school programs and 30 women are engaged in adult programming. A new collaboration with Buena Vida of Central New York extends programming to elders.

A Forefront Role

After 15 years of building trust and reciprocal relationships between the University and Syracuse’s Latino communities, Paniagua sees an opportunity to position theÌıUniversity at the forefront of research on Latino communities, cultural memory and community-engaged learning.

“La Casita is at an important moment,” Paniagua says. “We want to continue strengthening the programs that have become central to our mission: youth arts and education, arts and cultural programming, community-engaged research and opportunities for students. We also want to think ambitiously about its role in the next 15 years. Our programs have generated thousands of photographs, oral histories, research projects, exhibitions, student experiences and community stories. Examining those materials for this anniversary has made us realize how important that institutional history has become.”

Anniversary EventsÌı

Two eventsÌımarkÌıLa Casita’s anniversary. An exhibition, “SueñosÌıdeÌıQuinceañera/QuinceañeraÌıDreams,”Ìı opensÌı.

Argentine-American authorÌıÌıwillÌıpresent a talkÌıaboutÌıher books,Ìı“” and “,” on .

Both events are free and open to the public and are part of this year’s Syracuse Symposium, “.�

, professor of biomedical and chemical engineering in theÌıÌı(ECS), has been named director of the University’sÌı.

“My vision is to build a trust-based community where we elevate our research together. I am optimistic about securing center-scale and collaborative funding and championing new entrepreneurship and industry partnerships,” Soman says.

He also plans to help incubate a new generation of Syracuse University-based entrepreneurs in BioInspired’s core focus areas.

Soman succeedsÌı, senior associate dean for faculty affairs in ECS, whoÌıhasÌıled the instituteÌısince 2023 andÌıremains an active member.

Soman joined the Syracuse faculty in 2013 as a member of the Biomaterials Institute and later as a BioInspired affiliate. He also servedÌı as a program director for the .

His lab builds light-based tools to grow lab models of organs, print living tissue at scale and study how biological systems process information. The work could transform how scientists model disease, build replacement tissue and understand the limits of biological intelligence.

Institute founding directorÌı, William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Physics in the College of Arts and Sciences, says Soman brings valuable perspective to the role.

“Pranav has a strong commitment to supporting both fundamental scientific advances and translating those advances into products that help people,” she says. “Those qualities make him an excellent choice to move the institute forward to build an entrepreneurial biotechnology and material science workforce and to champion researchers and trainees in a time of substantial research funding uncertainty.”

During his time as BioInspired director, Henderson has grown the institute on nearly every front. Nine new faculty joined its ranks, and co-located lab space expanded twice over to house five new affiliates in 2023 and five more in 2024. Equipment also kept pace with the acquisition of a new Zeiss Sigma 360 field emission scanning electron microscope, a first-of-its-kind addition to the .

Henderson also pushed the institute into new intellectual territory: an NSF-funded emergent intelligence research training program, led by Manning as principal investigator,Ìı serves 115 graduate students over the program lifetime. A new focus group, Posthumanities: Arts and Sciences, bridges research across the arts, humanities and sciences. Intramural funding from the institute backed projects on polar fungi survival and shape memory polymers.

That momentum is clear at the institute’s annual research symposium, where student poster presentations grew from 79 in 2023 to 115 in 2025, and research distinction awards rose from student poster presentations to 11 in 2025.

Two Syracuse University faculty members have received a (NEH) grant to digitize portions of the —a rare, 54-volume trove of 18^th-century documents charting , and relations in the years surrounding the .

, principal investigator and assistant professor in the , and , co-principal investigator and professor of in the , received nearly $350,000 for their two-year project, “E Pluribus Unum: The American Revolution at the Intersection of Ideas and Interests.� Their project is one of to mark the country’s 250th anniversary, including 33 grants awarded under NEH’s new funding opportunity.

Amherst commanded British forces in North America during the , helping secure Britain’s victory. Housed at the , the 54 volumes span the 1740s to 1790s and include military correspondence, orders and reports from the war, including Amherst’s letters to and from , and .

Three-Way Relations

The collection captures the three-way relationship among British officials, colonial American leaders and the Haudenosaunee Confederacy in the years before the American Revolution. Their content illuminates how ideas of liberty, sovereignty and democracy developed amid diplomacy, conflict and negotiation in that era.

The archived materials have long been largely inaccessible to the public, somewhat because of their bulk and a lack of freely accessible digital surrogates of the materials, apart from some cumbersome digitized WWII-era microfilm, Modrow says.

This project aims to change that. In 2026, Modrow and Arnold will travel to London to photograph each document individually, producing high-resolution digital surrogates. They’ll then tag the images with metadata and use the AI-powered app to make them full-text-searchable by name, date and subject. That will let researchers search tens of thousands of pages in seconds, rather than leafing through folders by hand.

Student Helpers

Once digitized, Modrow will recruit a project coordinator and iSchool and Arts and Sciences students to fact-check the AI-generated transcriptions, comparing the descriptions against the original 18th-century handwriting for accuracy.

After vetting, the collection will be uploaded to an Omeka-based, open-source platform hosted on the iSchool’s servers, Modrow says.

Window to Relations

Amherst’s papers offer an underused window into the alliances, rivalries and negotiations that shaped American independence, Arnold says. While British and colonial-patriot perspectives of this time are well documented, these papers can help remedy missing Haudenosaunee Confederacy viewpoints, material Arnold plans to bring into his classes and offer at public workshops to broaden understanding of the era’s varied perspectives, he says.

“Despite the confederacy’s influence on the era’s diplomacy, conflict and the development of Western democratic ideas, the Haudenosaunee viewpoint has remained comparatively obscure. This is a critically important collection. It is a continuation of many decades of work around the and how Haudenosaunee, British and American actions 250 years ago interacted to create the world we inhabit today.�

Modrow, Arnold and other members of the Doctrine of Discovery research group participated in a British National Archives exhibit about the entire War of Independence, “,� while in London in 2025 to research the Amherst Papers.