As you prepare for the new academic year, here is some news around NYU that you may have missed over summer break.
Student sues roommate for stealing over $50,000 in luxury items
In June, a first-year student filed a lawsuit against her roommate and her mother for stealing over $50,000 worth of handbags and jewelry from their dorm room in Founders Hall. Plaintiff Aurora Agapov accused Kaitlyn Fung of reselling some of her belongings on The RealReal, an online marketplace for designer items.
According to the lawsuit, Agapov discovered that several of her expensive belongings were missing and later found Fung’s receipt from The RealReal including the sale of several of her missing items. The New York City Police Department told NBC News that Fung was arrested and charged with third degree grand larceny after Agapov reported Fung’s theft the next day.
The suit detailed that Fung sold a Chanel bracelet for $175 and a Bvlgari necklace for about $2,500. Other stolen items, which had not been sold yet, included a ruby ring worth almost $24,000, a $3,300 Celine tote bag and a $4,000 Chanel purse.
When Agapov went to The RealReal’s location in SoHo to report the theft, a store employee told her that Fung’s mother asked for items that had not yet sold to be sent to her home, the lawsuit stated.
NYU spokesperson John Beckman told NBC News that stealing from one’s roommate is a “lousy thing to do” and that the defendant would “typically face serious consequences, such as suspension.”
NYU receives $6 million to create Center for Mind, Ethics and Policy
The university received $6 million in donations to establish the Center for Mind, Ethics and Policy and expand research on nonhuman brains and their coexistence with human life. Set to open this semester, the endowed center will replace the Mind, Ethics and Policy Program at the College of Arts and Science.
Researchers at CMEP will study the potential consciousness of nonhumans, including artificial intelligence and how humans can support their “sentience and moral status” as their populations grow. Environmental Studies professor Jeff Sebo, director of NYU’s Center for Environmental and Animal Protection, founded and will direct the center.
“We have a responsibility to examine how we might be affecting nonhumans so that we can build a better future for humans and nonhumans alike,” Sebo said in the press release. “I’m thrilled that CMEP will now have a permanent runway for conducting and supporting this work on these issues.”
The Navigation Fund, a nonprofit that funds initiatives in areas including animal welfare and AI safety, donated $5 million to support the center. Nonprofit Polaris Ventures, which invests in projects that build “compassion for all sentient beings,” donated $1 million.
NYU Langone conducting new COVID-19 vaccine trial
NYU Langone Health is one of three hospitals nationwide conducting a clinical trial for a COVID-19 vaccine that aims to improve protections against mild infections and new variants. The first phase of the trial — which the National Institutes of Health announced on July 1 — will take around one year to complete.
Martin Bäcker, a clinical assistant professor at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine, will lead the trial. Bäcker told The Island 360, a local publication in Long Island, that the vaccine is administered via the nostrils to deliver its “message” directly to the respiratory system, rather than to the arm muscles as current COVID-19 vaccines do.
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases designed the vaccine, marking it as the first trial as part of its Project NextGen initiative, which aims to expedite the process for upcoming vaccines and therapeutics to gain Food and Drug Administration approval and commercial availability.
“While first-generation COVID-19 vaccines continue to be effective at preventing severe illness, hospitalizations, and death, they are less successful at preventing infection and milder forms of disease,” NIAID director Jeanne Marrazzo said in the NIH press release. “With the continual emergence of new virus variants, there is a critical need to develop next-generation COVID-19 vaccines, including nasal vaccines.”
The clinical trials are also held at the Baylor College of Medicine in Texas and the Hope Clinic of Emory University in Georgia. Each of the three cohorts receives a different dosage of the vaccine to test volunteers’ immune response in the nose and blood over seven follow-up visits throughout one year.
Tandon details seven different initiatives with IIT Kanpur
NYU’s Tandon School of Engineering and the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur announced their preliminary catalog of collaborative research, which will collectively focus on bridging technology and AI with security and health, among other fields.
The scholastic itinerary — comprising seven individual projects — is part of Tandon and IIT Kanpur’s partnership announced last September. Shortly after the announcement, President Joe Biden and Indian prime minister Narendra Modi endorsed the institutions in a press release, calling for similar university collaborations in science and technology.
Several of the projects will focus on the medical field, including one aiming to improve cancer treatment, one focusing on brain monitoring for neuroscience research and one protecting medical record security. Other initiatives will include projects to improve the efficiency of four-legged robots in various environments, further integration of traffic systems and AI, and the implementation of renewable energy techniques into electric vehicle charging.
The research will take place at a joint research center in Kanpur and formally inaugurate Tandon and IIT Kanpur’s partnership. The institutions’ collaboration — a result of the American Association of Universities’ urge to expand academic collaborations between the United States and India — came a year after NYU formally agreed to work with the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology and incited the development of a joint campus in New York.
Rory Meyers receives $5 million toward geriatric nursing in the Bronx
NYU’s Rory Meyers College of Nursing will use a $5 million grant to train 5,000 health care students and professionals to work with older adults in the Bronx. The grant, which was provided by the Health Resources and Services Administration, is part of a broader initiative to support medically-underserved parts of the borough.
The university will partner with the Jewish Association Serving the Aging — a New York-based organization aiming to help older adults remain in their communities via legal, medical and other resources — to facilitate trainings. The programs will begin in 2025, when Rory Meyers students work with students at the Montefiore School of Nursing to begin clinical rotations at two nursing homes in the Bronx.
Tara Cortes, executive director at the Hartford Institute for Geriatric Nursing and the project’s leader, emphasized a scarcity of health professionals focused on aging populations, specifically within the Bronx. In a press release, she said the initiative aims to expand the workforce among a new generation of nursing students. Amy Ehrlich, chief of Montefiore’s Division of Geriatrics, and Kathryn Haslanger, CEO of JASA, echoed concerns over a growing elderly population and a lack of resources.
Contact Aashna Miharia, Dharma Niles, Liyana Illyas, Mariapaula Gonzales and Rory Lustberg at [email protected].
