CUNY Research 2026 Mentor Profiles

Dmitry Y. Brogun is a molecular evolutionary biologist. He holds an M.A. in ethology from Brooklyn College and M.Phil. and Ph.D. degrees in Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Genetics from the Graduate Center (CUNY). He received his graduate research training from Michigan State University, as well as doctoral and postdoctoral research training from CUNY and Rockefeller University. His research interests include molecular evolutionary biology and algology, with an emphasis on genes and biochemical pathways that lead to secondary metabolite production in algae. Prof. Brogun received an NSF grant allowing him to implement and pilot an online course where students did pathogen surveillance in public metagenomic datasets. This was done collaboratively, involving individuals from CUNY, SDSU, NIH, NLM, and NCBI. Above all, Dr. Brogun has been educating students in general biology, microbiology, anatomy, and physiology at CUNY since 2007. At Kingsborough Community College, he has served as a Metagenomics Discovery Program (MDC) PI and mentors students in the CUNY Research Scholars Program (CRSP) and Collegiate Science and Technology Entry Program (STEP).

Sue Burgher is a hospital administrator, adjunct, trainer, and ECE consultant. Her background is in Public Health Nursing, Early Childhood Education, Community health, and doctoral studies in curriculum and instruction. She started her career at Kingsborough Community College in 2005. Additionally, she teaches workshops mandated for professional licenses, day care center operations, and culture. She teaches in the Behavioral Science department of Kingsborough College. She also trains hospital staff to ensure quality of care and ensure that every staff member incorporates ICARE values into their practice. She attended Kingsborough College, Medgar Evers College, York College, Stonybrook, and Liberty University. Professor Burgher research effects on Culture and trauma in children and how support can change the outcome. She also believes in cultures being conducive for humanity and growth.

Steven Jaret is geologist and planetary scientist originally from Atlanta, GA. He has a B.S in Geology from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, an M.A. in Earth and Planetary Science from Harvard University, and a Ph.D in geology from Stony Brook University (2017). Before coming to Kingsborough Community College in 2018, Steven was a postdoctoral research and teaching fellow at the American Museum of Natural History.

His research topics center in 2 areas of geology: i) meteorites and meteorite impact craters on Earth and ii) the geology of New York City and southern New England. Since 2018, he has been the lead investigator on a series of projects understanding the geologic history of rocks in all five boroughs, and has published a new geology field guide of Central Park. He also is the principle investigator on two NASA-funded grants to understand how rocks and minerals change during large-scale meteorite collisions.

Professor Mariani is a molecular biologist. He received his Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the University of Rome “Sapienza”. During his career he worked in both academic and pharmaceutical environments and published several scientific peer-reviewed articles. He joined the Department of Biological Sciences at Kingsborough Community College first as Adjunct in 2018 and then as a full time Assistant Professor of Biology in 2019. At KBCC he currently teaches Anatomy and Physiology, General Biology, and Microbiology for Health and Diseases. Previously, he taught as Adjunct Professor, General Biology, Molecular Cell Biology at CUNY CityTech and Molecular Biology at St. Francis College in Brooklyn, NY. He was a postdoctoral fellow at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, NY where he had an extensive training in virology, molecular biology, and developed animal models for diseases. He then joined as a Research Scientist, the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center (ADARC), The Rockefeller University, NYC, NY, an organization completely dedicated to HIV research. Later he was appointed Staff Scientist at The Salk Institute, La Jolla, CA where he supervised and directed programs focused on innate immunity response to HIV infection. He then moved to the biotechnology industry as Senior Scientist and Consultant where he managed and developed programs for antivirals, diabetes, and antibodies therapeutics to treat asthma. Back in New York City, he joined a startup biotechnology company as Director where he was responsible to supervise and develop several viral vaccines programs, this collaboration led to a recent publication in Nature Communication. His scientific activities are mostly focused on virology and to understand molecular mechanisms related to diseases. His extensive activities in several fields of Biology, gave him the opportunity to coordinate the laboratory sections of different Biology courses.

Professor Parker is a sociologist and educator. He received Master’s degrees in Sociology (Boston University) and Urban & Environmental Policy (Tufts University) and an EdD. in Educational Leadership (Fielding Graduate Institute). He spent 25 years in the urban Pre-K public school arena, teaching, developing new programs and leading alternative and vocational high schools. He joined the faculty at Kingsborough in 2012 where he is currently the Chair of the Behavioral Science department. He has taught courses in all five areas of the department which includes; Education, Criminal Justice, Anthropology, Psychology and Sociology. His research focuses on urban education, race and ethnicity and cognition in classroom learning. He is currently working on a project on the Brown v. Board of Education decision of the US Supreme Court and another on the integration of the Knowledge in Pieces (KiP) model of cognition in college teaching.

Dr. Polizzotto is a paleobiologist—a paleontologist who focuses on the biology of extinct organisms. She earned a B.S. in Zoology from Brigham Young University (1995) and a Ph.D. in Zoology from Cornell University (2003).

While she would love to be an expert in zoos, zoology really just means studying the biology of animals (rather than plants or other organisms). She joined the Department of Biological Sciences at Kingsborough Community College in 2004, and had no idea at the time what a stroke of exceptionally good fortune this would turn out to be. Dr. Polizzotto teaches general biology (focusing on evolutionary biology, ecology, and organismal biology), comparative anatomy, and marine biology. Previous research has focused on 1) evolutionary change in gastropods; 2) soft-tissue anatomy of ammonoids (an extinct relative of squid); and 3) population variation in ammonoids. Current projects focus on the biodiversity of shallow subtropical marine ecosystems from the upper Devonian (372-382 million years ago) of south-central New York State.

Anupam Pradhan, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology at City University of York’s Kingsborough Community College (KCC), Brooklyn since 2017. Dr. Pradhan is a molecular biologist, parasitologist and a microbiologist by training. At KCC Dr. Pradhan teaches Microbiology of Health and Diseases (BIO051) and Anatomy and Physiology I (BIO11). Prior to joining KCC Dr. Pradhan served as Research Associate in the infectious disease and drug discovery group at University of South Florida (USF), College of Public Health (2007-2015) and The University of Mississippi, College of Pharmacy (2004-2007). Dr. Pradhan has worked with world’s top experts on malaria and other parasitic diseases. Dr. Pradhan received a B.S. and M.S. in Zoology from Cotton University, India (formerly Cotton College) in 1994 and 1997 respectively. Dr. Pradhan did his dissertation work in Toxicology for which he received Ph.D. in Zoology in 2004 from Indian Institute of Toxicology Research (IITR), and the C.S.J.M. University, India jointly.

Dr. Pradhan has made over 20 scholarly contributions in highly acclaimed peer-reviewed research journals like Nature, PNAS and Scientific Reports (RI score=789.6; h-index = 14; Jan 2025). His research interests are: 1. survey of pathogenic microbes in produce from local farmer’s market and, 2. smoking induced neurodevelopmental changes in cord blood cells. Dr. Pradhan believes in high impact teaching practices and he implements authentic research in lab sections of his microbiology class.

Professor Tamari is a molecular geneticist. He received his Master’s (M.Sc.), and Ph.D. from the Department of Biology at York University in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He completed a three-year post-doctoral fellowship in the Department of Human Genetics and Genomic Sciences at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York and joined the Department of Biological Sciences at Kingsborough Community College in 2009. He teaches Anatomy and Physiology (Bio 11), Introduction to Biology (Bio 13 and 14), Genetics (Bio 59), and Biostatistics (Bio/Mat 91) and leads grant-funded biotechnology/bioinformatics workshops for students as well. Currently, Professor Tamari’s research revolves around four main areas: 1. Technical aspects of DNA extraction and its optimization in plants, 2. The molecular aspects of reproductive organ development in Petunia hybrida and Primula vulgaris, 3. Bioinformatics studies of specific genes of interest, and 4. Pedagogical studies to determine best classroom/lab practices.