A pair of UUPers got some high profile notice recently—from the White House.

Igor Lednev, a UAlbany associate professor of chemistry, has been named to the White House Subcommittee on Forensic Science’s Interagency Working Group on Research, Develop-ment, Testing and Evaluation.

Purchase professor Joe Skrivanek accepted the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring at a Jan. 27 ceremony at the White House. Purchase College won the honor for its successful Baccalaureate and Beyond mentoring program for community college students, which was established and is led by Skrivanek.

As a member of the White House subcommittee, Lednev will work with a select group of scientists and policymakers selected to shape the course of forensic science research over the next 15 to 20 years. The subcommittee examines policies, procedures and plans regarding forensic science and the implications for national security, criminal justice, and medical examiners and coroners at local, state and federal levels.

Representatives from the FBI, the U.S. Department of Justice, the National Science Foundation, and other scientists from top universities are also on the panel. Lednev recently won a $375,000 Department of Justice grant for developing an easy-to-use approach for crime scene investigators (CSI) to identify body fluid traces at crime scenes. The subcommittee will meet once a month in Washington, D.C.

The Bridges program is designed to attract underrepresented students at community colleges to the sciences by helping students transfer to four-year SUNY schools like Purchase and earn their baccalaureate degrees. Since 2001, 70 percent of the program’s nearly 300 students have earned bachelor’s degrees in the science fields—compared to 17 percent of transfer students nationally. A third of Bridges students are in or have completed graduate school, studying STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) specialties.

SUNY has expressed a strong interest in expanding Purchase’s Bridges program. Representatives from a dozen four-year SUNY schools and 11 community colleges met in Albany in November 2010 to discuss taking Bridges statewide. A second meeting is slated for sometime this spring.

— Michael Lisi