The NYU Monthly Roundup: November 2019

An NYU Stern School of Business alumna donated $5 million to help advance women in business. Entrepreneur Elizabeth Elting’s gift will provide 20 female-led businesses with seed capital and fund the Elizabeth Elting Women’s Leadership Fellowship. Through her donation, Elting hopes to get more women in board positions and help fight structural sexism in business.

NYU Shanghai’s brand-new Re-Makerspace is an on-campus lab where students can learn how to repair, recycle, and create their own products. It is also a space where students can connect with local sustainability-focused organizations and businesses. Re-Makerspace hosts lectures, workshops, and field trips to educate students on creative reuse and to bolster NYU Shanghai’s sustainability community. This semester’s events include a Trash Fashion exhibit, a conversation with a Shanghai trash collector, and a talk by Neil Patkar, president of Green Shanghai, NYU Shanghai’s environmental student club. The project is funded by a Green Grant from the NYU Office of Sustainability.

Can the body use an element it generates naturally to both fight cancer and prevent new cancers from forming? NYU London biology professor Valerie Wells is a senior coauthor of a study published in the British Journal of Cancer that shows how beta GBP—a molecule that’s a natural component of the human immune system—doesn’t just target and kill cancer cells but also encourages the immune system to fight the occurrence of future cancers.

The majority of NYU students in New York City will head home for Thanksgiving recess to celebrate the national holiday with family and friends. Many international students studying in New York City join their classmates, traveling with them and spending some time in their hometowns. Oftentimes, faculty and staff in New York City invite students who stay in the city to celebrate with them. In addition, NYU’s global sites plan events for students who are studying abroad. For example, NYU Paris hosts a special Thanksgiving dinner for its students.

The Tisch New Theatre presents Legally Blonde: The Musical at NYU’s Skirball Center for the Performing Arts. Legally Blonde tells the story of Elle Woods’ journey from sorority girl to Harvard lawyer as she deals with sexism, stereotypes, and complicated relationships, like the one with her newly engaged ex-boyfriend. Tisch New Theatre is a student organization whose members work on all facets of theatre production, including set design, direction, and performance. NYU student tickets are just $15.

On Sunday, November 10, children and their families sang songs and carried lanterns while parading through Washington Square Park and the Washington Mews for the annual NYU Deutsches Haus Sankt Martin Celebration. Before the parade, children decorated their own lanterns as they learned about St. Martin, a symbol of modesty and altruism in German culture. Located on NYU’s Washington Square campus, Deutsches Haus is one of the University’s nine international houses that celebrate the cultures of different countries around the world.

NYU Tandon electrical and computer engineering professor Matthew Campisi codeveloped iBreastExam, a handheld, wireless device that health-care workers can use to perform breast examinations in under five minutes. While it’s not meant to replace mammograms, iBreastExam can help with early detection of breast cancer in developing countries and in areas of the United States where access to radiologists is limited.