Current Winners
2025-2026
Mini-Grant Title: Building Bridges: Advancing Multidisciplinary Care for DSD/Intersex Patients
Project Coordinator: Michael Ernst
Department: Urology
Project Summary: We will use this grant to support the creation of a multidisciplinary DSD/Intersex care team. This initiative will bring together specialists in pediatric urology, endocrinology, genetics, neonatology, gynecology, and psychology to enhance collaboration and improve patient care. By strengthening expertise and coordination, this project will establish a foundation for comprehensive, evidence-based, and patient-centered care for individuals with DSD/Intersex variations.
Mini-Grant Title: Optimizing the Weight Loss Patient Treatment Pathway: A Pilot Study
Project Coordinator: Christina Chopra
Department: Division of Plastic Surgery
Project Summary: Massive weight loss, whether achieved through bariatric surgery, lifestyle modification, or pharmacotherapy, often results in excess skin that can impair physical function and diminish psychological well-being. Despite the prevalence of these challenges, education regarding and access to post-weight loss body contouring remains inconsistent—limited by fragmented care models and a lack of robust, longitudinal data to guide treatment planning. It has been demonstrated that when body contouring is pursued, patients have improved quality of life through sustained long-term weight loss and improved physical and mental function.
This pilot study seeks to collect comprehensive, standardized data across the weight loss continuum—before, during, and after significant weight change—to inform evidence-based, interdisciplinary care for the treatment of this growing patient population. Through collaboration between the Departments of Plastic Surgery and Obesity Medicine, the study utilizes rigorous data collection methods to better understand patient trajectories and optimize the massive weight loss treatment pathway.
By leveraging an interdisciplinary framework and involving trainees in research and care delivery, this initiative will not only improve quality of life for a growing patient population, but also help establish Stony Brook as a leader in holistic, post-weight loss care.
Mini-Grant Title: Empowering ENL Educators: A Professional Development Series for Inclusive, Informed
and Innovative TESOL Practice
Project Coordinator: Tatiana Luchkina
Department: Linguistics
Project Summary: This proposal seeks funding for a two-part professional development and networking workshop series designed for MA TESOL graduate students preparing to become English as a New Language (ENL) teachers in New York State. The workshops will enhance students’ readiness for the classroom through exposure to real-world challenges and best practices, while reinforcing Stony Brook University’s role as a regional leader in TESOL innovation, inclusion, and community partnership.
This initiative directly supports the MA TESOL program’s strong emphasis on applied field experience and equips graduates to address the most urgent instructional, legal, and inclusivity challenges facing ENL educators across Long Island and the broader New York State area.
Each of the workshops will focus on a high-impact area of ENL teaching specific to the Long Island context and will feature expert panelists from regional public-school districts. Through deep dives into evidence-based classroom practices and student support strategies, these sessions will offer students practical insights into the current realities of public school ENL instruction.
Mini-Grant Title: B.I.R.T.H. Initiative - Building Inter-Professional Resources for Transforming Health
Project Coordinator: Lisa Benz Scott, with Melissa Wilson Corbin
Department: Program in Public Health
Project Summary: B.I.R.T.H. Initiative – Building Inter-Professional Resources for Transforming Health, led by Stony Brook University public health students and supervised by faculty, aims to address the maternal morbidity and mortality crisis by creating an interprofessional maternal and infant health student interest group and together plan a series of educational events to promote maternal health related interprofessional team-based education and collaborative practice competencies.
Mini-Grant Title: Providing Access to Wellness (PAW) Program
Project Coordinator: Patrick Toscano
Department: Student Support Team
Project Summary: The Providing Access to Wellness (P.A.W.) Program aims to provide students in need with toiletry items and hygienic staples.
The program allows students the agency to select their preferred products, and is designed to provide students with access to these items for weeks at a time. This access will allow students to focus on learning and growing as Seawolves.
Mini-Grant Title: The Community Connection Grant
Project Coordinator: Jacqueline Romero
Department: Career Center - Center for Service Learning and Community Service
Project Summary: The Community Connection Grant aims to expand access to service projects by removing the financial and logistical barriers that often prevent Stony Brook students from participating in service projects. Through the 2025–2026 Presidential Mini-Grant, this initiative will provide transportation, supplies, and resources for both individual students and unfunded student organizations to participate in impactful service projects with community partners such as Habitat for Humanity of Long Island, Island Harvest, and many more. Over the course of the academic year, the Center for Service Learning and Community Service will coordinate both off- and on-campus projects designed to engage students, build leadership skills, and strengthen Stony Brook’s culture of community service. By fostering meaningful connections between students and community organizations, the grant will help address real community needs while empowering students to become lifelong changemakers.
Mini-Grant Title: Culturally Significant Foods Initiatives
Project Coordinator: Ashley Liegi
Department: Seawolves Pantry
Project Summary: The Stony Brook Seawolves Pantry is committed to serving our campus community members who are in need of a reliable and stable supplemental food source, while also providing other essential resources and related referrals. As a University, we serve a tremendously diverse student population, spanning a variety of cultural, ethnic and religious backgrounds, as well as a spectrum of socio-economic circumstances. We strive to reflect this diversity in the goods, programming and resources that we offer. With this mini-grant, we will be able to enhance and grow the number of culturally significant offerings at our pantry to better serve and reflect the diversity across our institution, and increase the sense of belonging and support for our students who utilize the pantry.
Mini-Grant Title: Making Fieldwork Safer: Supporting Gender-Diverse Scientists in the Field
Project Coordinator: Elizabeth Watson
Department: Ecology and Evolution
Project Summary: Fieldwork is often central to training in Ecology and Evolution, yet it can pose safety risks—especially for LGBTQ+ and gender-diverse students, and students conducting research abroad. This project will create a department-wide field safety plan template, purchase safety supplies to support students, and compile resources to support at-risk researchers. Through phased implementation—information gathering, drafting, piloting, and finalization—we will engage students, faculty, and external partners to ensure inclusive, effective safety practices. The project will enhance equity in transformative research experiences, and strengthen our commitment to fostering a safer, more supportive environment for all scientists.
Mini-Grant Title: Cultivating Wellness: Building your Holistic Self in a Sustainable Way
Project Coordinator: Judiann Carmack-Fayyaz
Department: Food Lab - Stony Brook Southampton
Project Summary: Through support from the Presidential Mini Grant, Foodlab and Student Life at Stony
Brook Southampton are launching a student-run community garden designed to enhance
food access, wellness, and sustainability on campus. The project will establish raised
garden beds where students can grow fresh produce while gaining hands-on experience
in horticulture, nutrition, and sustainable agriculture. In partnership with Student
Life, FoodLab, the School of Health Professions, and SoMAS, the garden will host workshops,
wellness activities, and community events that bring students together in meaningful
ways. By integrating healthy food production with experiential learning and stress-relief
practices such as meditation and shared meals, the initiative strengthens both individual
well-being and the campus community. Supported by institutional resources and student
fundraising, the garden will become a lasting hub for collaboration, skill-building,
and resilience at Southampton.
Mini-Grant Title: Code-SBU: Gamifying Resuscitation Training Through Multidisciplinary Collaboration
Project Coordinator: Christian Treat
Department: Emergency Medicine
Project Summary: The goal of our program is to address the critical gap in medical education where procedural preparation skills are overlooked, leading to equipment-related errors during medical emergencies. CodeSBU is a collaborative effort between the Department of Emergency Medicine, Computer Science, and Engineering departments to develop a web-based simulation platform that teaches healthcare learners how to systematically locate and organize trauma room equipment. We developed this gamified platform for students to practice the "mise en place" phase of medical procedures, engage with realistic equipment layouts, and develop spatial memory through deliberate practice principles. This mini-grant will enable us to test the platform with 50 participants across medical, nursing, and paramedic programs, and it will also cover the costs of platform development and user experience evaluation to demonstrate the educational impact of isolating preparatory skills training.
Mini-Grant Title: Unpacking the Myths of Study Abroad: A student-led critical reflection series
Project Coordinator: Yi Wang
Department: Asian and Asian American Studies
Project Summary: Yi Wang’s project, Unpacking the Myths of Study Abroad: A Student-Led Critical Reflection Series, creates space for students to critically examine their study abroad experiences beyond idealized narratives. Through workshops, storytelling, and a student panel, the series highlights how issues of identity, language, and belonging shape students’ time abroad. By amplifying student voices and fostering dialogue, the project challenges myths of fluency and transformation while encouraging more nuanced, inclusive understandings of global education.