CUNY CREST Expands Global Impact Through International Collaboration, Research, and Sustainability Initiatives

Bronx Community College (BCC) has been awarded a U.S. State Department IDEAS Grant (Dec 1, 2025-May 31, 2027) to expand study abroad opportunities through the Project for Sustainable Ecology and Education Development (Project SEED). Joint Principal Investigators and CUNY CREST International Pillar leadership, Paramita Sen and Neal Phillip will lead CUNY students who will gain hands-on experience in organic farming and sustainable forestry on-site at the Govardhan Ecovillage and the Chandrapur Forest Academy in Maharashtra, India.

In addition, CREST’s Paramita Sen, Brian Vant-Hull, and Neal Phillip mentored CUNY’s Team Big Apple during the Indradhanu AI for Climate Change Hackathon at Pimpri Chinchwad College of Engineering in Pune (Jan 28-Feb 5, 2026). The team, comprised of students from BCC, CCNY, City Tech, and the Graduate Center, developed an AI model to predict monsoon rainfall in western and southeastern India, finishing 4th out of 1,003 teams. The CREST team also served as jurors for the hackathon, while Prof. Peter Groffman of Brooklyn College/Advanced Science Research Center (ASR)C delivered the keynote address.

CREST team also participated in a Climate Change Colloquium on Feb 3, 2026 at Thakur College of Science and Commerce in Mumbai and installed a solar-powered weather station, marking the 24th such station installed across eight Indian states through National Science Foundation (NSF) and U.S. State Department Public Diplomacy funding. Both the colloquium and the weather station installation were highlighted in the Times of India and Economic Times.

The team also engaged in sustainability activities at Govardhan Ecovillage, where Paramita Sen and Neal Phillip have served as International Advisors since 2020. The first of these weather stations was installed at GEV in 2019. Read more here.