CREST Engages in Global Climate Action at New York Climate Week 2025
CREST and the UNU-Hub at CCNY-R-SIRUS actively participated in The 2025 New York Climate Week held from September 20-27, 2025. CREST & R-SIRUS leadership, faculty, researchers, and students including Dr. Reza Khanbilvardi, Dr. Shakila Merchant, Dr. Naresh Devineni, Dr. Karin Sjöstrand, Dr. Liubov V. Kreminska, Dr. Vartika Chandra Saman, and Ali Haider engaged in a wide range of panels, workshops, and collaborative sessions throughout the week. Discussions and activities spanned critical topics such as climate justice, sustainable energy transitions, biodiversity, and international partnerships.
CREST and Hub members also engaged with attendees by sharing insights into the Institute and the Hub during events such as Building Climate Jobs and Research: Universities, Communities, Startups & Job Seekers.
Some of the engagements that underscored CREST’s strong commitment to advancing sustainability, equity, and innovative climate solutions through research, education, and global collaboration included What Now, What Next? Tackling Spent Nuclear Fuel for a Sustainable Future Panel Discussion. This panel was hosted by the City College of New York in collaboration with the American Nuclear Society at the Grove School of Engineering.
On Thursday Sept. 25th, Dr. Reza Khanbilvardi and Dr. Shakila Merchant attended the day-long event hosted by CUNY C3 under the leadership of Dr. Jennifer Cherrier, Professor and Associate Director of Science Resilience Institute, Jamaica Bay, Brooklyn College, CUNY and other CUNY faculty members, hosted a special day-long symposium, ‘Ten Years of Climate Collaboration: Lessons Learned and Opportunities for the Future’
The morning session of this interactive symposium, co-hosted by the NYC DEP, the City of Copenhagen and the CUNY-C3/Science and Resilience Institute, kicked off with an update on the New York and Copenhagen collaboration – how it has evolved, lessons learned, and next steps with an interactive discussion on the Cloudburst Programs implemented in each city – how it has grown in Copenhagen over the years, and how it is being adapted for implementation in NYC.
The afternoon session, co-hosted by Ramboll, C40 Cities, and the CUNY-C3/Science and Resilience Institute, focused on leveraging these lessons-learned, with an eye toward the future.
The event ended with active engagement and participation of all members and ideating future community-driven projects, and a reception hosted by Ramboll and the CUNY-C3/Science and Resilience Institute.
On September 29, 2025, Dr. Shaklia Merchant and Professor Nir Krakuer also attended the Bronx Council for Environmental Quality hosted event – Lowering the Temperature with Nature The Low-Cost Alternative to Mitigating Severe Weather Events in New York City.
The event speakers were NYC city officials – Iris Rodriguez-Rosa Commissioner, NYC Department of Parks and Recreation Liam Kavanagh former 1st Deputy Commissioner, NYC Department of Parks and Recreation Angela Licata Deputy Commissioner of Sustainability at NYC Department of Environmental Protection. The event brought together NYC community members, researchers, stakeholders and city officials. Led by the Bronx Council for Environmental Quality this community-driven conversation focused on using nature, green infrastructure to improve ecosystem services through sustainable steps to reduce the high cost of increasing electricity to cool residents in response to managing heat waves. The event concluded with the walk through of the Tibbetts Brook Daylighting project – the newly constructed Living Shoreline in the Van Cortlandt Park, Bronx, NY, a NYC DEP Pilot project. The event was sponsored by ConEdison and coordinated by Harlem River Coalition, Van Cortlandt Park Alliance New York City Soil & Water Conservation District.
