Associate Vice Chancellor and University Vice Provost of Research, Dr. Tamera Schneider, and Christina Ruiz, Executive and Operations Assistant in the CUNY Office of Research, visited the City College of New York on Oct. 20th. Their visit served as listening and learning tours to support the work of faculty and students.
The CCNY tour aimed to support the work of researchers as well as to encourage students to pursue STEM careers and to encourage students and faculty to foster transdisciplinary collaborations. After an introductory meeting with researchers and administrators, they visited the Robotics and Intelligent Systems Lab, the Laboratory for Advanced Electromagnetics and Photonics, and the Laboratory for Nano and Micro Photonics at the Grove School of Engineering.
The Grove School of Engineering offers doctoral programs in engineering, while other doctoral programs at the university are administered by the CUNY Graduate Center. Schneider expressed satisfaction with the variety of scholars and staff she was able to meet during her visit, who range from high school students to graduate and postdoctoral fellows to tenured professors.
“It was great to see so many different kinds of people and across so many career stages, working on important areas like nanotechnology, photonics, and robotics. These areas are key for delivering on the promise of public higher education research to provide needed solutions to the communities that we serve,” she said.
Schneider’s expertise lies in emotional and physiological stress resilience, and emotional intelligence to broaden participation in research. As CUNY’s Associate Vice Chancellor and University Vice Provost of Research she brings decades of experience in both the Psychology and Neuroscience fields.
Her interest in the field first peaked during a psychology class she was taking at a community college, which led to her curiosity about how people interpret the seemingly same thing differently. She then transferred to a 4-year college to study stress and understand how appraisals lead to good versus bad stress and their connection to emotional regulation. Ultimately she earned a Ph.D. in Social and Health psychophysiology.
“Understanding how emotional intelligence can inform the way we individually deal with distress and emotions, and how that affects our psychology, our physiology, our performances, and our teamwork became really important to me,” she said.
AVC Schneider visiting the Robotics and Intelligent Systems Lab accompanied by Dr. Jizhong Xiao, professor in Electrical Engineering and Dr. Rosemary Wesson, Associate Provost for Research at CCNY
She also acknowledged that the international work pursued by CCNY, with a focus in the Physics and Engineering space, was very important and valuable within the CUNY system.
“There are many other labs that I didn’t get to visit because it was not a full day, but I know that City College has many different kinds of scholars, and they do a lot of incredible things,” she said.
Schneider’s vision for research at CCNY and CUNY is to continue supporting students who are interested in pursuing research but also to provide a strategic plan and develop programming following the COVID-19 pandemic so that students who are not able to participate in person can benefit from other opportunities.
During the pandemic, a pivot was already made to research experience in data analytics so that students could work remotely and still be engaged in laboratory research and receive mentoring.
Her hopes are that by participating in research and working in transdisciplinary teams, students will learn to work toward a common goal, ask questions and listen to different colleagues, as well as change and adapt plans toward the larger scholarly goals without taking disagreement personally.
“How we adapt together is really important, and everybody has a role to play in allowing all to participate, listen and learn and elevate our collective work whether it’s through research or education,” she said.
Lylia Saurel is a writer for the RICC and recent graduate from Baruch College, where she was awarded Institutional Investor in Journalism. She holds an AA in Writing and Literature and a BA in Journalism and Intercultural communications. She is a former reporter for Dollars & Sense and copy editor for The Ticker. Her work has appeared in The Ticker, D&S Magazine, Daily Planet online edition and others. In addition to written journalism, she enjoys photojournalism and the visual arts.