Science

Research scientist Farah Benyattou in a lab at NYU Abu Dhabi.

NYU Abu Dhabi's research program continues to evolve, thus helping Abu Dhabi become a recognized world center for scientific discovery and innovation.

NYUAD has established scientific labs and centers that address issues of local, regional, and global significance such as predicting sea level change, better understanding of Arabian Gulf ecosystems, and improving public health in the UAE. Significant investments have been made in research equipment and instrumentation, with core facilities established in critical research areas like imaging and microscopy, genetic sequencing, and materials science.

Arabian Coral Reefs Conference

Click here to find out more about the conference and to register.

Glimpses Exhibition

Click here to find out more and upload your submission.

Latest News

Antje von Suchodoletz, Assistant Professor of Psychology

Antje's research is broadly focused on optimizing children's development. In her research, she emphasizes the interactional and contextual nature of learning and development. Her current work focuses on helping schools develop their readiness to implement effective teaching strategies and to improve young children's learning-related skills (including self-regulation and social competence). She is also interested in physiological and biological foundations of self-regulation and how classroom processes and teacher-child-relationships relate to these processes.

Visit the Lab

March 2019
Assistant Professor of Psychology Antje von Suchodoletz recently published a manuscript entitled Examination of Teacher-Child Interactions in Early Childhood Education Programmes in the United Arab Emirates. Suchodoletz, A. v., Barza, L., & Larsen, R. A. A. (2019). International Journal of Early Years Education.

Another paper, Associations Between Effortful and Automatic Aspects of Self-Regulation in Kindergarten Children, presented at the Cognitive and Behavioral Psychology Conference 2019 in Singapore, received the Best Paper Award. Suchodoletz, A. v., Larsen, R. A., & Nadyukova, I. (2019).

In addition, Professor von Suchodoletz recently received the Global TIES for Children NYU Abu Dhabi Faculty 2019 Seed Award for the project 'Exploring the Feasibility of Physiological Measures in the Study of Caregiver-Child Interactions in Humanitarian and Fragile Settings', together with Dr. Rana Dajani, Founder and Director of We Love Reading and Professor at Hashemite University Jordan.

February 2019
Associate Professor of Chemistry Panče Naumov published a manuscript in Nature Communications, entitled Thermochemiluminescent Peroxide Crystals. Schramm, Stefan; Karothu, Durga P.; Lui, Nathan M.; Commins, Patrick; Ahmed, Ejaz; Catalano, Luca; Weston, James; Moriwaki, Taro; Solnstev, Kyril M.; Naumov, Panče*. (2019). Nature Communications, 10, 997.

"This paper highlights the Naumov Group’s work with new materials for alternative approaches to energy transduction. We made a solid material that converts heat into light by using a chemical reaction. It emits light, similar to a little lantern when you heat it to ~100 C," explains Naumov.

Professor Naumov and his research group published another manuscript, Direct Quantification of Rapid and Efficient Single-Stroke Actuation by a Martensitic Transition in a Thermosalient Crystal. Khalil, Abdullah; Karothu, Durga Prasad.; Naumov, Panče*. (2019). Journal of the American Chemical Society, 141, 3371—3375.

"The robots of the future will be soft and organic. In this paper, we determined for the first time the work that rapidly moving organic crystals can perform when they are heated over their phase transition temperature. These materials could become moving parts in future all-organic soft micro/nanorobots."

Panče Naumov, Associate Professor of Chemistry

The general research interests of the Naumov Research Group span a broad range of advanced materials science topics, and the specific research foci are related to four directions:

1. Smart materials for energy transduction in electronics and soft robotics
2. Functional molecular solids, dynamic crystalline materials, actuators
3. Organic and molecular solid materials, crystallography
4. Petroleomics (chemistry of oil)

Visit the Lab

News In Brief

Biology
Chemistry
Math
Physics
Psychology

Associations for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography	February 27, 2019 - Assistant Professor of Biology Shady Amin gave an invited presentation entitled: "Roseobacteria Dominate Interactions Between a Diatom and its Microbiome" at the Associations for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Genetics and Identity Conference	February 19, 2019 - Professors Stephane Boissinot, Youssef Idaghdour, Piergiorgio Percipalle and Kirsten Sadler-Edepli co-organized an international symposium on the topics of genetics and identity. This symposium brought to campus distinguished scientists and social scientists to discuss the issues raised by recent progress in genetics. This symposium was co-organized by colleagues in the Division of Social Science.
weSTEM Conference	February 16, 2019 - NYU Abu Dhabi's weSTEM student interest group hosted its annual High School Conference at NYUAD. More than 80 girls from over 15 Abu Dhabi high schools attended a day of STEM-related events at NYUAD. Associate Professor of Biology and Vice Provost for Faculty Development and Diversity Kirsten Sadler Edepli served as the faculty sponsor, gave the introductory remarks and hosted two workshops.
Coral Algal Paper	February 11, 2019 - Associate Professor of Biology John Burt and Research Scientist Edward Smith published an article entitled SymPortal: a novel analytical framework and platform for coral algal symbiont next-generation sequencing ITS2 profiling. Hume, B. C., Smith, E. G., Ziegler, M. , Warrington, H. J., Burt, J. A., LaJeunesse, T. C., Wiedenmann, J. and Voolstra, C. (2019). Mol Ecol Resour. This paper introduces a novel analytical platform for the analyses of genes of coral-associated symbionts to identify hidden diversity.
New Species of Frog Paper	February 12, 2019 - Professor of Biology Stephane Boissinot published a manuscript entitled A New Species of Puddle Frog from an Unexplored Mountain in Southwestern Ethiopia (Anura, Phrynobatrachidae, Phrynobatrachus). Goutte, S., Reyes-Velasco, J., & Boissinot, S. (2019). Zookeys, Vol. 824, pp.53-70. The article describes a new species of frog that was previously unknown to science. It was discovered in an unexplored forest in the southwest of Ethiopia.
Reptile Genomes Paper	February 9, 2019 - Professor of Biology Stephane Boissinot published a manuscript entitled The Mobilome of Reptiles: Evolution, Structure and Function. Boissinot, S., Bourgeois, Y., Manthey, J.D., & Ruggiero, R.P. (2019). Cytogenetics and Genome Research, 157:21-33. This is the first review of the genomic era on the evolution of transposable elements in reptile genomes.
Genomes Presentation	February 3, 2019 - Associate Professor of Biology Kourosh Salehi-Ashtiani gave a presentation entitled Genomes and Metabolomes of Coastal UAE Microalgae at a bioengineering workshop at The American University of Sharjah.
Travel Award	February 1, 2019 - Postdoctoral Associate Basma Radwan from the Chaudhury Lab won a travel award for the meeting Advances in Sleep and Circadian Sciences held in Clearwater Florida February 1-4, 2019. She presented a poster and was also asked to present a two-minute Data Blitz as a result of her travel award.

National Academy of Science Award	February, 2019 - Research Scientist Dinesh Shetty, an organic chemist working in the Trabolsi Research Group received a prestigious National Academy of Science Early Career Fellowship for his research on developing novel materials for water purification. As part of the award, he will travel to Penn State University, PA to exchange his ideas and learn about new developments in the field.

Inverse Continuity Paper	February, 2019 - Professor of Mathematics Ilya Spitkovsky published a paper entitled Inverse Continuity of the Numerical Range Map for Hilbert Space Operators: Spitkovsky, I. M. & Lins, B. (2019). Operators and Matrices Journal. In this paper, the strong and weak continuity criteria, established by the authors in the finite dimensional case in their earlier work, are treated in an infinite dimensional setting.
Hong Kong Probability Seminar	February, 2019 - Associate Professor of Mathematics Federico Camia gave a presentation entitled Limit Laws and Conformal Ensembles in the Planar Ising Model at the Hong Kong Probability Seminar.

Inverse Continuity Paper

February, 2019 - Professor of Mathematics Ilya Spitkovsky published a paper entitled Inverse Continuity of the Numerical Range Map for Hilbert Space Operators: Spitkovsky, I. M. & Lins, B. (2019). Operators and Matrices Journal.

In this paper, the strong and weak continuity criteria, established by the authors in the finite dimensional case in their earlier work, are treated in an infinite dimensional setting.

Hong Kong Probability Seminar

February, 2019 - Associate Professor of Mathematics Federico Camia gave a presentation entitled Limit Laws and Conformal Ensembles in the Planar Ising Model at the Hong Kong Probability Seminar.

Global Space Congress	19-21 March, 2019 - Students from NYUAD presented work on their cubesat projects at the Global Space Congress 2019 in Abu Dhabi. Hosted by the UAE Space Agency, faculty and researchers from the Division of Engineering and the Division of Physics at NYUAD also participated in the gathering of global space industry leaders. They were one of six local institutions to showcase space projects at the congress. On the final day, as part of the Young Space Leaders Forum, Research Scientist Lowlowa Al Kindi participated as a speaker in the panel discussion "Building a Career in the Space Industry: Traditional and Non-Traditional Education Paths."
Astronomy Paper	February, 2019 - Assistant Professor of Physics David Russell published a paper entitled, Modelling the Compact Jet in MAXI J1836-194 with Disc-Driven Shocks: Péault, M., et al. (2019). Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 482, 2447. The paper presents a model of shocks between jet ejections in an X-ray binary system, and uses the model to fit the evolution of the multi-wavelength data of a black hole system in our galaxy.

Global Space Congress

19-21 March, 2019 - Students from NYUAD presented work on their cubesat projects at the Global Space Congress 2019 in Abu Dhabi. Hosted by the UAE Space Agency, faculty and researchers from the Division of Engineering and the Division of Physics at NYUAD also participated in the gathering of global space industry leaders. They were one of six local institutions to showcase space projects at the congress.

On the final day, as part of the Young Space Leaders Forum, Research Scientist Lowlowa Al Kindi participated as a speaker in the panel discussion "Building a Career in the Space Industry: Traditional and Non-Traditional Education Paths."

Astronomy Paper

February, 2019 - Assistant Professor of Physics David Russell published a paper entitled, Modelling the Compact Jet in MAXI J1836-194 with Disc-Driven Shocks: Péault, M., et al. (2019). Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 482, 2447.

The paper presents a model of shocks between jet ejections in an X-ray binary system, and uses the model to fit the evolution of the multi-wavelength data of a black hole system in our galaxy.

Research Highlights

Science on Film: A Metamorphosis

Arts, Science, Film

Researchers Discover Tiny New Frog Species

Environment, Science, Research

Bright Hot Crystals

Science, Research

Elevated Extinction Risks for Marine Bony Fishes in the Arabian Gulf

Science, Research

UAE Space Prodigy Appointed NYUAD Scientific Research Fellow

Research, UAE

Cytoskeletal Protein "Actin" is Critical in Genome Regulation

Science, Research

Featured Media Articles

NYUAD Abu Dhabi Invites Submissions for Summer Research
NYUAD has opened applications for its Visiting Undergraduate Research Programme, available to undergraduate students from universities across the UAE.
Gulf Today | March 16, 2019

Solid State Thermochemiluminescence Achieved with Crystals by NYU Abu Dhabi
Researchers from the NYU Abu Dhabi’s Chemistry Programme have developed macroscopic organic crystals that emit light when heated, a process referred to as thermochemiluminescence that was previously reported only in solution.
Emirates News Agency | March 02, 2019

NYUAD Scientists Discover Tiny New Frog Species in Ethiopia
Abu Dhabi researchers have discovered a new frog species in a remote Ethiopian jungle, highlighting, they say, the importance of preserving vanishing forests.
The National | February 13, 2019

Academics

The increasingly interdisciplinary nature of modern scientific research requires that biologists, chemists, computer scientists, engineers, mathematicians, physicists and psychologists have a fundamental understanding of one another's areas.

Undergraduate Majors	Global Phd Fellowships in Science
Biology	Biology
Chemistry	Chemistry
Computer Science	Computer Science
Math	Physics
Physics
Psychology

Work at NYU Abu Dhabi

Faculty Positions

Postdoctoral and Research Positions