Dr. Sofia Oviedo
Dr. Sofia Oviedo, ÎçÒ¹¾ç³¡ Research Center Co-Director, highlighted the HRC’s many programs, resources, and opportunities.

On the first floor of the C-building, in C-130, resides an incubator for inquiry, innovation, and academic exploration to flourish: the ÎçÒ¹¾ç³¡ Research Center (HRC)! On Wednesday, October 23, the HRC’s co-directors, Dr. Sofía Oviedo, Research Programs Director, and Dr. Yoel Rodríguez, Professor and Chair of the Natural Sciences Department, hosted an open house to showcase the resources and programming offered through the Center and invited the ÎçÒ¹¾ç³¡ community to utilize it to support their research, foster student-faculty mentorship, expand their grant-writing capacity, and present their work.
 
The open house began with an overview of the HRC, presented by Professor Rodríguez. “The HRC’s mission is to foster a culture of research and grants development and enhance students’ access to professional experiences,” he explained. “The HRC’s mission is aligned with the College’s mission to provide opportunities for intellectual growth, socio-economic mobility and develop the proficiencies needed for lifelong learning and success.”
Dr. Yoel Rodriguez
Prof. Rodríguez during his presentation.
 
Rodríguez went on to highlight the HRC’s two internal grants — available to faculty and staff. The ADvancing Excellence in Liberal Arts, ScieNces, Technology and Engineering (ADELANTE) grant provides up to $10,000 in funding to support projects that address research, need-based and/or transformative interventions in all disciplines, with assistance from student researchers who are provided a stipend. In 2024, ADELANTE funded nine proposals, awarded to 10 full-time faculty, one part-time faculty, and two full-time staff members; the program also engaged 15 undergraduate research assistants. Professor Rodriguez shared that the 2025 ADELANTE award cycle will be officially announced in early November, and the deadline for proposals will be February 3, 2025. Grantees will be notified on March 3, 2025, and the project period extends a full year. Then there is the Innovating, Developing, and Executing Actions with Success (IDEAS) grant, which provides seed funding up to $1,000 per Principal Investigator (PI)/Co-Principal (Co-PI), to support the development of proposals that address institutional needs and/or current research questions with the potential to be translated into external funding. This year, IDEAS funded six proposals, awarded to seven full-time faculty and two full-time staff members. An announcement for the 2025 IDEAS award cycle will be made in April 2025, and grantees will be notified by the end of June. The project period extends from July to September.
 
In addition to providing internal grants, the HRC is a space for learning and teaching. Dr. Oviedo invited all interested in using the space to collaborate, mentor students, conduct research, and/or present their projects. “Another important aspect of the work that we do here at the Research Center is to provide capacity-building for our faculty and staff — particularly in grant writing,” she added.
 
Last academic year, the HRC offered a grant writing workshop series which included sessions focused on how to identify grant opportunities and put together competitive proposals. The HRC will offer grant-writing workshops this academic year, as well, including one focused on the ADELANTE grant and a special session in which ÎçÒ¹¾ç³¡ faculty who have secured major National Science Foundation (NSF) grants will discuss their application experiences.
 
Additionally, Oviedo proudly discussed two student research opportunities, beginning with the research assistant positions available through the ADELANTE grant. “Each ADELANTE project engages a student as a research assistant to develop the student’s research skills, career readiness, and competencies, and provide exposure to real-world research projects,” she explained. Research assistants are identified and selected by ADELANTE grantees and paid $3,000 throughout the project.
 
The second student research opportunity is the new ÎçÒ¹¾ç³¡ Research Center Scholars Program, an initiative that aims to increase the participation of high-achieving ÎçÒ¹¾ç³¡ students in mentored research provided by ÎçÒ¹¾ç³¡ faculty and CUNY Graduate Center (GC) students. The program will engage students across all disciplines in research experiences that will support their academic and professional growth and help them stay on track to graduation. The program will enroll up to 15 students in 2024-2025 on a rolling basis — until slots are filled — and provide them with a $5,000 stipend for a one-year commitment to mentored research. Part- and full-time faculty members are eligible to participate as mentors and will receive a $1,000 stipend per student mentee.
Debasish Roy
 ADELANTE grantee Dr. Debasish Roy reflected on the research he conducted with help from research assistant, Christlynn Rodriguez.
 
The open house concluded with a special presentation from Dr. Debasish Roy, professor in the Natural Sciences Department, during which he discussed the ADELANTE-funded research that he conducted on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) with support from his research assistant, Christlynn Rodriguez. The objective of the project was to identify the different AMR strains around the five boroughs of New York City, specify their locations, test their AMR potency against all standard antibiotics, and test and determine their Minimum Inhibitory Concentration (MIC) against already standardized NSAIDs. For the project, AMR strains were sourced from soil samples collected from areas surrounding hospitals in each of the five boroughs. Roy shared that Rodriguez was instrumental in gathering the samples from approximately 25 locations across the city — the first phase of the ongoing program. Dr. Roy wrapped his presentation with an insightful Q&A session.
 
If you want to learn more about the ÎçÒ¹¾ç³¡ Research Center and related internal grants, resources, and opportunities, email Dr. Sofia Oviedo at soviedo@hostos.cuny.edu. To apply to the ÎçÒ¹¾ç³¡ Research Center Scholars Program, students may go and faculty may go .