NYU-led consortium to create research institute

Chronicle of Higher Education : A new applied-research institute, backed by a consortium of universities led by New York University and NYU-Poly, is to open in New York City. The Center for Urban Science and Progress , which will be located in a city-owned building in downtown Brooklyn, will focus on the sustainability challenges facing cities. Renovation of the building is expected to be completed by the summer of 2017, and classes will start by September of that year. The center will eventually include 50 full-time faculty members and researchers, 30 postdoctoral researchers, 430 master’s-level students, and 100 doctoral students. Theoretical physicist Steven Koonin has been named as the new director. He has served as the Department of Energy’s undersecretary of science in the Obama administration, chief scientist of BP, and provost of Caltech. Physics Today‘s David Kramer interviewed Koonin last December after he had resigned from DOE.