“Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars” could well be the lyrics to the life of Dr. Edward Belbruno. His recent publication, co-authored with James Green, former chief scientist at NASA (where Dr. Belbruno used to work), outlines a NASA mission that could analyze, for the first time, dark matter in the universe. A fitting mission for a man who once used his art (he is a renowned painter) to trace a mathematical trajectory to recover a lost satellite. Truly a player among the stars.

Dr. Radhashree Maitra, associate professor of biology at Yeshiva University and a Senior Scientist at Montefiore Medical Center, is working diligently to combat a deadly form of colorectal cancer by targeting a mutant gene with a therapy that induces the self-destruction of the gene. Her life-saving research, recently supported by a two-year grant from the National Institutes of Health, is crucial because there is no FDA-approved treatment option for this aggressive disease.

Take a passion for numbers, add a love of teaching, and you have Dr. Marian Gidea, an expert in dynamical systems and applications who has co-authored two books, published dozens of articles and spoken at more than 50 conferences around the world. In 2021, the National Science Foundation appointed him as a program director in the Mathematical Sciences Division, a position awarded only to the most accomplished researchers. Dr. Gidea has received over $900,000 in research funding since he joined YU in 2013. Now that’s an impressive number.

In an increasingly complicated world, Dr. Jordan Bate’s important work is helping to make the lives of our most precious resource, our children, happier and healthier. Dr. Bate is assistant professor in the Combined School-Clinical Child PsyD Program at Ferkauf and is world-renowned for her research — much of which is focused on applying attachment theory to child and parent-child psychotherapy. Beyond demonstrating treatment outcomes, she is also interested in exploring questions about what makes psychotherapy interventions effective, and how to effectively train clinicians and disseminate new treatments.  

“Contrarian” and “integrationist” are good adjectives for Dr. Steven Fine, director of the YU Center for Israel Studies, because he works within YU’s tradition of Torah U’madda, a synthesis of Torah and secular knowledge. His recent project, The Samaritans: A Biblical People, is a pure distillation of this tradition: a documentary, a lovely companion book, and a top-notch art exhibition, making stops over the next year in New York City; Washington, D.C.; and Frankfurt, Germany. The tradition lives on.

Professor Myriam Gilles’ paper trail is more like a paper highway, full of articles and essays on many law-related topics. She is an expert on forced arbitration, having written extensively against it and even testified about it before several House Judiciary Committees in Washington, D.C. But despite all her accomplishments, the one of which she is most proud is being voted Best First Year Professor by the graduating class of 2019.

Recognized for his work on the psychology of diabetes, Dr. Jeffrey Gonzalez’s driving passion for behavioral medicine leads him to focus his research on helping those impacted most by this insidious disease, such as people of color and those with lower socio-economic status. The importance of this work was recently certified by a $4 million grant from The National Institutes of Health to support the research he and his collaborators are conducting at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

Dr. Seamus O’Malley’s Making History New: Modernism and Historical Narrative was widely praised for challenging the claim that modernism is anti-historical and how that shaped the way he reassessed literary modernism. In his soon-to-be published book, Irish Culture and the People: Populism and Its Discontents, he takes a deep dive into Irish literary culture and how the country’s long history of populism has shaped it. As for a third book? Perhaps one that indulges his scholarly interest in underground comics.

If it weren’t for Isaac Bashevis Singer, Dr. Joshua Karlip might have led an entirely different life. But his boyhood discovery of the author led to an academic career studying the relationship between traditional and modern Jewish movements. Fellowships from Harvard University and Leipzig University have supported his work, and a recent grant from the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center in Moscow will help him complete his latest book project, Rabbis in the Land of Atheism: The Struggle to Save Judaism in the Soviet Union.

If you’re getting older—and who isn’t these days—Dr. Roee Holtzer, an expert in the cognition and motor function of older adults, can help ease your way. Along with co-authoring numerous studies on aging-related topics, he is a dedicated and beloved professor supervising graduate student research and training future neuropsychologists. If that’s not enough, he’s also a licensed psychologist in New York State. Dr. Holzer is definitely a busy man doing crucial work to help humanity age with grace.

The study of fun and consumer behavior is the basis of research done by Dr. Travis Tae Oh, assistant professor of marketing at Sy Syms School of Business. His article was selected as the Editor’s Choice article for the June 2022 issue. His research shows that having fun is driven by two key psychological drivers: liberation and hedonic engagement, and offers insights for marketers and consumers to understand the dynamics of a fun experience in business contexts.

Drawing insights from classical, medieval and modern sources, Dr. Moshe Sokolow’s latest book presents a new understanding of the many religious and secular holidays throughout the Jewish year—from Rosh Hashanah and Thanksgiving to Yom HaAtzmaut and Tisha b’av. A renowned Bible educator and scholar, Dr. Sokolow also discusses a variety of subjects both traditional and unconventional, including Jewish angelology (the study of angels), and the rebuilding of the Temple and reinstitution of sacrifices according to significant modern Jewish personalities. Much of the book was compiled from study guides he produced for day-school teachers.

Five years in the making, this ground-breaking computer science textbook involved dozens of Stern College for Women students, who provided feedback to early drafts and wrote software for the companion website that provides visualization of the topics covered in the book. A #1 New Release on Amazon, Data Structures and Algorithms in Python is the first mainstream object-oriented book available for the Python data structures, and it embodies both Professor Broder’s expertise and well-honed teaching skills—noted one reviewer: “It’s clear, easy to understand, and intuitive, just what I need!”