Every Month as part of our CUNY CREST Monthly Bulletin, the CUNY CREST Institute Executive Director, Dr. Reza Khanbilvardi, sends a message to the CUNY CREST Community on updates of the organization. The Director’s Message is a way for readers to know a summary of any major updates, news, and events that occurred during the Month. Click below to read the Monthly Director’s Message!


March & April 2023 Director’s Message

In celebration of Women’s History Month, we’d like to congratulate and extend my heartfelt gratitude to the resilient women of CUNY CREST, City College of New York, Brooklyn College, NYC College of Technology, Bronx Community College, Hunter College, Queensborough Community College, LaGuardia Community College. Your dedication, passion, and contribution to advancement of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Social Science is truly inspiring.

This issue of the bulletin features- CREST’s Scientists participation in 2023 United Nation Water Conference held from March 22 to 24, 2023 in New York; CREST Institute faculty, Prof. Paramita Sen and Prof. Neal Phillip led two key events – Water Issue in India and Urban Stormwater, at the UN Water Side Symposium at City University of New York facilities, focused on the topic “Conference was Climate Resilience: Addressing Drought and Flood”.

We are also happy to share that CREST had the opportunity to meet Tshilidzi Marwala, the newly appointed Rector of the United Nations University (UNU), at CCNY. We aim to advance this initial meeting into a working collaboration between CREST and UNU in developing educational degree/certification programs in the areas of Water, Climate, Sustainable Development. Further, CREST’s Scientists successfully submitted various proposals to agencies such as National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Sanitation Foundation (NOAA NSF) and Department of Education (DOE).

CREST’s collaboration with National Institute for Disaster Management (NIDM) of India has progressed into the next phase of finalizing the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and action items in interest of a robust future engagement between India’s NIDM affiliated universities and CUNY-CREST.

In the near future, we are looking forward to the graduation of several of our students from across CUNY campuses. We applaud the perseverance and hard-work of our students as well CREST’s faculty and staff who are working tirelessly to support them in their academic journey. 


May & June 2022 Director’s Message

The Spring Semester has come to an end and the CUNY CREST Institute would like to congratulate the Graduating Class of 2022. We are proud to announce that many of our students have graduated and are now preparing for their next steps in their academic and professional journey.

During May, we celebrated Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, by featuring our scientists of Asian American descent, by sharing their voices with the community of partner, stakeholders, and students.

In June, our dedicated affiliated scientists submitted proposals to the National Science Foundation (NSF), Department of Energy, and NOAA. We encourage our scientists to continuing applying to grants.


April 2022 Director’s Message

Throughout the month of April the CUNY CREST Institute celebrates Earth Day and uses this time to focus on different environment issues. One of the Institute’s focuses this month was Environmental Justice. Through environmental justice, we advocate for knowledge to be spread to different communities, especially to underserved communities.

This month, Reza Khanbilvardi, Kaveh Madani, Farshid Vahedifard, Alireza and Ermagun received a new grant from NOAA- Collaborative Science, Technology, and Applied Research (CSTAR) Program with proposed project, “Integrating Environmental Justice into NWS Services to Reduce the Vulnerability of Historically Underserved Socially Vulnerable Communities (HUSVCs) to Extreme Weather Events”. We plan to share the value and importance of Environmental Justice education and create awareness among the underserved communities…


March 2022 Director’s Message

March is Women’s History Month in the U.S. It is a time to celebrate women’s contribution to history through their many successes and achievements and recognize the vital role women play to society.

To kick-off the first month of spring, the CUNY CREST Institute celebrated and honored the influential women scientists and engineers to our community of students, partners, colleagues, and stakeholders. We have created a special featured highlight only a few women scientists within the CREST community…


February 2022 Director’s Message

CREST Institute began the month of February by joining the tradition of celebrating and recognizing the Black History Month (BHM). We acknowledged the 2022 BHM Theme – Black Health and Wellness. We salute the Black Americans across the country and in CREST Institute, who have achieved many laurels through their contributions to various fields including science, health, and technology. Black History Month is a time to not only acknowledge, but also to educate our community of the Black/African American individuals who play a vital role in the CUNY CREST institute.

We are grateful to have a diverse pool of scientists that strive to achieve the Institute’s mission of advancing remote sensing and earth systems, transforming science into innovative products, training scientists and leaders, nurturing business opportunities, fostering inclusive partnerships, and promoting environmental and climate justice…


January 2022 Director’s Message

Welcome to the third issue of the CUNY-CREST Institute Monthly Bulletin.

On behalf of the CUNY CREST Institute, I welcome our scientists, faculty, staff, and stakeholders to the New Year. 2021 was a great success as it pushed us to continue to triumph into 2022, despite the challenges. In this issue of the CUNY CREST Institute Monthly Bulletin, we take the opportunity to look back on some of the victories that 2021 bestowed upon us, and update our readers on accomplishments achieved by our CREST Institute members, and share with you and our students, new opportunities to explore…