This month, Farmingdale State College (FSC) was elated to bring together its campus community to honor the scholarly achievements of its diverse faculty body.  

Hosted by the Office of the Provost, Celebration of Scholarship 2025 marks the College’s 10th annual tradition of promoting faculty dissemination of research findings and creative works, fostering interdisciplinary collaboration, and showcasing the development of innovative projects and programs across its academic departments. Attended by more than 110 FSC faculty, staff, and students, this was the event’s first return to an in-person format after several virtual celebrations.  

“This is a critical period for our state and our nation in research and innovation,” said Senior Vice President and Provost Sean Lane, PhD. “But when obstacles appear, that's the opportunity for creativity. That's the opportunity to push, to look for new directions, and new ways of doing what we do. And, over the next year, we have some exciting things that we will be rolling out to expand opportunities to do research, both in your own work as faculty as well as with students. We look forward to what’s to come.” 

Throughout the daylong event, held in the Campus Center Ballroom, more than 70 FSC faculty members shared recent research findings, creative works, and community-focused programming through multiple poster sessions and four 2025 Celebration of Scholarship Award speaker presentations.  

“I took a peek at the various talks and posters that we're going to hear and see today and it reminded me how incredibly lucky we are to be in an arena where we get to pick and choose the disciplines that we're interested in, to spend a lifetime studying, and to mentor the next generation of professionals, who will follow in our footsteps and ask those important questions,” said FSC President Robert S. Prezant, PhD. “I thank all of you for your scholarship, for sharing the excitement of research, the excitement of discovery, and really importantly, for bringing students into the fold. It’s going to be a great day.”  

In his keynote address, Melur K. “Ram” Ramasubramanian, PhD, State University of New York (SUNY) executive vice chancellor for academic affairs and provost and president of the SUNY Research Foundation, talked about types of scholarship, the importance of critical evaluation by one’s peers, the value of "tinkering," the role of research integrity when ensuring public trust in scholarship, and the correlation between the quest for fundamental understanding and its practical use.  

“With the famous Donald Stokes paradigm, we have four quadrants of research. On the vertical axis, the drive towards discovery of new ideas. And on the horizontal axis, it has meaning,” said Ramasubramanian. “If you consider that I wanted to generate a lot of knowledge, whether it has immediate applications or not--it's good scholarship. It's a human mind wanting to discover. For example, ‘Why is the sky blue?’ was a question asked by scientists. And they spent years and years and once they figured out the elastic scattering of light, all of a sudden it became application. But it all started with asking a question. It was just a curiosity. 

“We all live in a world that's doing something good,” added Ramasubramanian, who shared an instance in his own published research where his curiosity about mosquito bites lead to a breakthrough microneedle design for painless vaccinations. “If something interests you, yes, you should pursue that...Human capacity is beyond what we think we have. We just have to look at our resources, look at the problems we are trying to solve, and in a way that is productive, direct all our energy into it and then some."

Faculty perspectives  

“[Sharing our research today] is very good because, any research, applied research, basic research, or any other, it is good to disseminate it,” said Associate Professor of Business Management Mengsteab Tesfayohannes-Beraki, PhD, who presented his research regarding producing educated business professionals through effective blending of liberal arts and business education. “When sharing with people, or an audience, or stakeholders at large, it means there is a potential for collaboration within the community, government, or private sector.” 

Professor of Economics Xu Zhang, PhD, who presented her research on the role of artificial intelligence in financial education, agreed.  

“It’s a very nice community here at Farmingdale,” she said. “And it’s actually wonderful sharing what everyone is doing in terms of their research. There is a freedom in picking topics of your interest. I’ve been developing my line of research, and I feel like this is really a good community to share and hopefully find more collaboration opportunities as well.”   

“My research shows that we can use recycled material to produce comparable strength concrete,” said Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering Technology Shohana Iffat, PhD, who presented her research engaging sophomore engineering technology students in experimental research. “But many students find engineering technology can be challenging. So, to retain the students, we need to balance between active learning and reflective learning. My project promotes project-based learning, and it was very rewarding. At the end of this project, my students--who at the beginning felt that the mechanical properties of the materials were very difficult to understand--did so well on the exam. I look forward to continuing my research into the future.” 

Assistant Professor of Business Management Maryam Badrizadeh, PhD, was pleased to have the opportunity to present her novel research on artificial intelligence (AI) optimization for efficiency measurement. 

“Each investment fund has its own characteristics, such as different government regulations and taxation systems,” she said. “So, to get reliable results you need to incorporate these characteristics into your calculations. For my research, I developed a mathematical model that provides more realistic comparisons using AI to remove all the complexities. 

“It’s great to be here today because AI is a very interesting topic and I saw that many of my colleagues have studied AI as well, and I was able to talk with them,” added Badrizadeh. “We all have different schedules, so it was a very good opportunity for us to talk about our scientific research and what we are interested in doing.”  

For Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice Monique Sosnowski, PhD, who presented her research on assessing organized crime and the illegal wildlife trade, the shared academic discourse was a highlight of the day.  

“It’s so nice to see the diversity of research going on at Farmingdale,” she said. “I’m connecting with [faculty in the Biology Department] who are doing some cool work with wildlife. And my background is in conservation science so it’s wonderful to chat with them. In my department, we’re talking about recidivism policing, and they are talking about reproductive statuses. It’s really awesome to have a day to feature all the different research going on here and to be able to connect with other faculty that you would have otherwise not connected with.” 

For more information about research at FSC, please visit the Commitment to Research webpage. 

To view more photos of Celebration of Scholarship 2025, please visit our Flickr Gallery. 

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