As temperatures rise and climate disasters surge across the globe, earth science research matters more than ever. At City College, The CUNY CREST Institute’s mission is to advance remote sensing, earth system sciences, addressing environmental challenges and climate change.
CUNY CREST initially began in 2001, under a grant from The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Center for Earth System Sciences and Remote Sensing Technologies (NOAA-CESSRST). CCNY was approved to be 1 of 5 CESSRSTs in the country, focusing on satellite remote sensing.
Eight years later, after developing a sustainability plan, the center was approved to become what is now known as the CUNY CREST Institute. Today, it is a leading hub for remote sensing in the Northeast.
While headquartered at CCNY, CUNY CREST’s work extends beyond Hamilton Heights. Since its founding, CUNY CREST extends across 9 CUNY campuses, including Bronx Community College, LaGuardia Community College, and The New York City College of Technology.
In addition to NOAA support, the institution has secured funding from NASA, the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Areas of research include snowmelt, soil moisture, precipitation estimation, flooding, and air pollution in both urban and coastal environments. CUNY CREST also develops models and algorithms for risk maps and forecasting extreme weather.
“We were able to not only secure funding, but almost triple our funding structure by becoming [an institution], because we [broadened] and were able to attract and recruit a number of highly visible scientists in the country to come to City College,” CUNY CREST Director Dr. Reza Khanbilvardi said.
“We became the hub of remote sensing globally and in the Northeast, one that has capability to look at areas of forecasting for snowmelt, soil moisture, precipitation estimation, flooding, forecasting and mapping the air quality of the New York City metropolitan area.”
Photo: Courtesy of Dr. Reza Khanbilvardi
CUNY CREST also collaborates with other universities nationally and globally, including New York University, University of Texas at El Paso, Howard University, Tufts University. the National Institute for Disaster Management in India, the University of Cordoba in Argentina, and the University of Lund in Switzerland. It is the first and only U.S. university system to work with the United Nations.
Recently, it worked with the University of Puerto Rico to study island flood risk and resilience, gathering data in a collaborative effort, as CUNY CREST also empowers local populations to participate in citizen science.
“We try to engage the community in collecting some data for us,” Dr. Khanbilvardi said. “For example, in some of the projects that we do in Caribbean and Puerto Rico and US Virgin islands, we have developed apps that can help us identify flooded areas, and also identified not only the location, but the magnitude and the length of the flood, because we’re going to use those data in our models to improve our forecasting.”
Dr. Khanbilvardi has noticed that students are interested in climate issues affecting their community.
“I have students that say, ‘I want to work on flooding, because that’s where I’m living, and I have been faced with that, who can I work with?’ And we match their interests with some of our scientists and faculty that they can work with directly.”
Not only does CUNY CREST create research opportunities for students, it has also developed curricula for undergraduate and graduate study. In 2006, it was instrumental in creating the Earth System Science and Environmental Engineering program, which expanded into an MS program in 2013. Prior to this, the college did not have a degree focused on remote sensing, energy development, and water resource management.
“We have been able to create a number of new courses, both in the undergraduate level and the graduate level, that all the students benefit from, not only those that work with us, but those that are not necessarily working with CUNY Crest,” Dr. Khanbilvardi said.
While the institute centers on CUNY students and researchers, it plans to provide outreach to outside professionals. An academy to train and certify external researchers to its research tools is in the works.
This summer, it held its 11th annual High School Initiative in Remote Sensing of the Earth Systems Engineering and Sciences program. Every year, CUNY CREST invites high schoolers from underprivileged backgrounds to participate in paid STEM research at CCNY.
Despite the recent federal cuts to research funding, the institution is looking to continue growing. With the help of the United Nations, Dr. Khanbilvardi is looking into projects that the U.N. Development Program, the World Bank Group, and other international agencies could fund.
“Right now, there are some shifts in federal funding, which has a manageable impact on us. We are trying to start working with private, state and local industries instead of just depending on the federal. With the help of our advisory board, we are being connected.”
Mia Euceda is an alumna of Baruch College, where they studied journalism and served as an editor for The Ticker newspaper and Refract Magazine. Their work has been published in The New York Review of Books and Treble Zine.