SEISMIC: The Science Mindset Collaborative

Course Instructors

Antonia Florio, PhD

St. Francis College, Brooklyn

Antonia Florio will be helping to implement the Science Mindset Collaborative (SEISMIC) 2016 workshop for the New York Academy of Sciences. Antonia's background is in research, having received a PhD in Comparative Biology from the American Museum of Natural History. During her graduate studies, Antonia researched the processes leading to chameleon diversification in Madagascar, and described several new species. Since this time, Antonia has also become a dedicated science educator because she's found that a great way to conserve the animals she loves is to teach people why those animals are awesome. This has included successfully managing and expanding education programs such as Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory's Urban Barcode Project, which allowed hundreds of NYC high school students to complete DNA barcoding research projects to identify species. Antonia earned her BS in Biology from the Macaulay Honors College at the City College of New York (CUNY). She is currently a Lecturer in the Biology Department at St. Francis College in Brooklyn.

Nathan Leigh, PhD

Nathan Leigh will be working as an instructor at the Science Mindset Collaborative (SEISMIC) 2016 workshop for the New York Academy of Sciences. Nathan is an active researcher in the field of theoretical astrophysics, having received his PhD from McMaster University in Canada in 2011. Since then, he has continued his research into gravitational dynamics through a number of prestigious international fellowships, including an European Space Agency Research Fellowship, a Canadian National Fellowship and, most recently, the Kabfleisch Fellowship at the American Museum of Natural History. Nathan studies high energy gravity in dense stellar environments, such as the nuclei of galaxies harboring super-massive black holes. These interactions can lead to all kinds of exotic astrophysics, including direct collisions between stars, the consumption of stars by massive black holes and the formation hypervelocity stars moving at speeds of up to 1000 miles per second.

Nicole Mihnovets

Nicole Mihnovets will be an instructor at the Science Mindset Collaborative (SEISMIC) 2016 workshop for the New York Academy of Sciences. Nicole is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology at Columbia University. She uses genetic methods to investigate conservation concerns regarding population connectivity, relatedness, and fitness in the endangered Hawaiian monk seal (Neomonachus schuainslandi). She conducted her laboratory work at the American Museum of Natural History, and collaborated with the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service to monitor seals on a small island in the middle of the Papahānaumokuā Marine National Monument. Nicole is as passionate about piquing scientific curiosity through education and mentorship as she is about using science to inform conservation policy and management decisions. She taught at MS-88 in Brooklyn as a National Science Foundation GK-12 fellow in Columbia University's Learning through Ecology and Environmental Field Studies (LEEFS) Program. She is currently a Kluge fellow and Graduate Student Mentor with the Columbia Undergraduate Scholars Program.

Patti Murphy

Patti Murphy will be an instructor at the Science Mindset Collaborative (SEISMIC 2016) workshop for the New York Academy of Sciences. Patti is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania. Her primary interest is nerve regeneration. Before beginning her graduate work, Patti conducted research at Emory University and the Georgia Institute of Technology, where she earned her BS in Biology in 2013. Her early work focused on understanding factors that inhibit nerve regeneration after injury and developing a viral therapy to override this inhibition. As a graduate student, Patti has developed scaffolds for nerve regeneration made entirely of living cells, and she is currently investigating genetic mechanisms of motor nerve regeneration in zebrafish. In the future, she hopes to use our basic scientific understanding of nerve regeneration to engineer cell-based therapies for nerve injury. Patti is a recipient of the Stamps Leadership Scholarship and has been appointed to NIH training grants in Developmental and Systems & Integrative Biology.