Dr. Lawrence Brown Jr. ’74, an addiction specialist and public health advocate, grew up in the Van Dyke Houses, Brownsville projects of Brooklyn, where he witnessed the consequences of addiction. After the Vietnam War, he decided to pursue a career in medicine. He graduated from ������Ƶ, NYU School of Medicine, and Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. This was followed by an internal medicine residency at Harlem Hospital and a fellowship in neuroendocrinology at Columbia’s College of Physicians and Surgeons. Dr. Brown has had a distinguished career, serving on the board of the United States Anti-Doping Agency, serving as the CEO of START Treatment and Recovery Centers in Brooklyn, and as a medical adviser to the NFL. Here, Dr. Brown, a clinical associate professor at Weill Cornell Medicine, discusses his journey from Brownsville to becoming a sought-after expert in addiction medicine and public health.

Why did you choose ������Ƶ?

My parents were second-generation New Yorkers whose parents made the Great Migration from the South in search of opportunities. My father was a truck driver. My mother—who is now 92—worked part-time at the post office and, at other times, as a director of a local community center. She was the guiding star of the family home. She wanted something different for her children—I am the oldest of four—than what she had. That is why I decided to go to college. I chose ������Ƶ because it was close to home and tuition was free—my parents could not provide financial support for me to attend college.

Can you tell us about your time at ������Ƶ?

There was a pause in my education. I was at ������Ƶ for one year and was on the cusp of deciding to take a leave of absence to pick up more hours at my part-time job—making my own money for the first time went a bit to my head—when Uncle Sam grabbed me. I was drafted and sent to Vietnam. After I finished my military service, which included receipt of a Bronze Star for merit, I came back to school. Before my senior year, I was fortunate to be admitted conditionally to NYU School of Medicine. The condition was that ������Ƶ would award my bachelor’s degree in mathematics if I completed the first year of medical school at NYU. That explains why when you look at my résumé, you will see that the time between ������Ƶ and NYU is only three years.

Addiction and public health are your specialties. How did you go from a math major to a medical doctor and addiction specialist?

I was motivated to be a physician to help my grandmother, who had heart disease and diabetes. In fact, I wanted to be a doctor from the age of 12. I knew that I had to take math and science, which I liked. I come from a neighborhood where addiction was prominent and still is. Unless there is going to be a change in this society, it will continue being a feature in the Brownsville community.

So, when it was time to choose a specialty in medical school, you decided on addiction medicine.

I thought I wanted to be a private practitioner and hang my shingle in Brownsville; I discovered the reality of health care in this country after my second year of medical school. I had also returned from Vietnam to see some of my friends in my neighborhood addicted or dead from drugs. I wanted to focus on what I call macroscopic issues of community rather than microscopic ones of individual patients. So, I attended Columbia for a master’s in public health. Public health is more than giving a prescription or an injection: it is about discovering the underlying reasons why patients in your community continue to suffer disproportionately excess morbidity and mortality. When I went to Harlem Hospital for my residency, I saw more folks who looked like me engaged in providing health care and addressing these unmet health care needs.

You are the medical adviser for the National Football League (NFL).

I have been since 1990. I was conducting clinical and behavioral health research on the relationship between addiction and HIV for the Addiction Research and Treatment Corporation, a nonprofit organization in Brooklyn that provides comprehensive services for substance use disorders and concurrent mental health and medical disorders, including HIV and hepatitis. The NFL approached me to provide oversight of their policies and programs to reduce substance use. While this relationship has evolved over the decades, initially I served as a medical adviser overseeing clinical care, drug testing, and the league’s prescription drug program. This consultancy led to a role during the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympics as volunteer, and because of my expertise in addiction medicine, ultimately as a board member of the United States Anti-Doping Agency, the national anti-doping organization in the United States for Olympic, Paralympic, Pan American, and Parapan American sport.

Tell us what you consider some of your more significant research.

One was increasing the knowledge of the relationships between HIV transmission and addiction via drug injection and/or unsafe sexual behaviors. Second was demonstrating the efficacy of interventions in preventing transmission or treating infected patients. Another is when the NFL asked me to assist the league in developing its HIV testing policy. In that case, I reached out to the CDC, with the permission of the NFL, to conduct studies of the prevalence of bleeding injuries to estimate the risk of contracting HIV through these types of injuries. We conducted a two-year study with physicians standing on the sidelines, capturing bleeding injuries. The conclusion, published in peer-reviewed journals, was that the risks were quite remote.

What advice would you give students today on choosing their field and following through?

I would focus on three areas. One is to choose a path that you enjoy. Secondly, build relationships and do what you can to maintain them, no matter what field you choose. What you know is important, but who you know is equally important. Finally, ask yourself if you are enhancing the lives of persons and communities who are underserved. If not, are you paying forward the sacrifices made by others on your behalf? At the end of the day, can it be said that you provided value and not just to those who you love or who love you, but for the greater good of those who are suffering?

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(Left to right) Nana Kiziriya and Lise Augustin.

Augustin earned the People’s Choice Award for her poster, “The Relation Between SO(3) and SU(2),” while Kiziriya received Honorable Mention for “The Real, the Rational, and the Endlessly Approximable.”

The CUNY Directed Reading Program pairs participants are paired with graduate student mentors, attend math-focused events, and engage with a community of fellow math enthusiasts.

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The formal induction ceremony was held on March 27, 2025. There were many students, faculty, and staff from the math department and the School of Natural and Behavioral Sciences in attendance, as well as national Pi Mu Epsilon President-Elect Professor Thomas Wakefield of Youngstown State University.

������Ƶ’s chapter of this society, New York Gamma Chapter, was originally chartered in 1933, but had been inactive for nearly 40 years. Mathematics lecturer Mark Gibson led the reactivation of our chapter with the help of the ������Ƶ Math Club.

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Their research partnership began in spring 2024, and the research lies in the fields of number theory and arithmetic geometry. Specifically, they proved several new results for a family of curves over finite fields. In January 2025, Hoque will present this research at the in Seattle, the largest math conference in the world.

Student Rezwan Hoque (left) called the Tow Mentoring Initiative one of the best experiences he’s had at ������Ƶ.

“We proved some interesting new results about this family of curves that will lead to a better understanding of them,” Goodson said. “Rezwan was a great collaborator, enthusiastic and with a keen mathematical mind, and I look forward to seeing his future mathematical work. I’m grateful to the Tow Mentoring Initiative for supporting our collaboration.”

Hoque credited the initiative for expanding his research opportunities.

“The Tow Mentoring Initiative stands out as one of the best, if not the best, experiences I’ve had at ������Ƶ,” Hoque said. “In my field of pure mathematics—the study of abstract mathematical concepts and theories—undergraduate research opportunities are often unattainable. However, the Tow Mentoring Initiative has broken this spiral of inaccessibility and has helped me and others become more effective researchers, collaborators, individuals, and leaders.”

The Tow Mentoring Initiative creates student/faculty collaborative research teams where students receive mentoring plus additional workshops on applying for graduate school and awards, coaching on professional presentations, and other personalized training.

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Anderson is an associate research analyst at the Flatiron Institute’s Center for Computational Quantum Physics and a senior majoring in Physics and Computational Mathematics.

Anderson’s presentation, titled “Localized Superatomic Wannier Functions for Superatomic Solids,” overviewed her work modeling interactions between clusters of atoms dubbed ‘superatoms’ that mimic the behavior of single atoms.

“We extend our gratitude to the undergraduate presenters for generously showcasing their work,” the APS said in its announcement. “Their presentations explored a diverse range of physics topics, highlighting the valuable contributions and innovative spirit that undergraduates bring to the physics community.”

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At age 4, Suborno received recognition from then-President Barack Obama for his accomplishments in math and science. At age 6, he was recognized by Harvard University for his problem-solving abilities and was accepted into New York City’s gifted and talented program.

At just 10 years old, Suborno scored 1500 on his SAT and is the world’s youngest perfect scorer in AP Calculus ������Ƶ. He is a Laureate at the Da Vinci Institute, a Ph.D.-granting institution in South Africa, and is also affiliated with all 21 Indian Schools in Oman.

Suborno is the author of two books, The Love and Manish, both of which advocate for a world without terrorism. Suborno is currently a 12^th grader at Malverne High School, a visiting graduate student at Stony Brook University, and a CMT Scholar at NYU Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. He has applied to Columbia University for early decision. He also applied to all Ivy League schools as well as MIT, Stanford, and Caltech.

������Ƶ President Michelle J. Anderson sat down with Suborno to discuss his experiences on campus, his appreciation of the iconic Lily Pond, and what he would like to do in the future.

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“Annette is the backbone of the SEEK program,” says Clarke. “She has uplifted several directors, a long list of advisers, and countless students. Her support often transcends her position as she has filled gaps helping with advisement and assisting with recruitment and enrollment efforts—and the list goes on.”

Nesbit, who earned a master’s degree in math education while working at ������Ƶ, finds connecting with students especially rewarding. From among the countless students she has assisted over the years, two particular encounters stand out.

“There was a student who came to me crying because she was told not to take a certain course because she would fail it,” says Nesbit. “I told her to prove the person wrong by doing her best to pass the course. She came back at the end of the term; she passed with an A. “

Nesbit recalls that another student had a math phobia. “I worked with her from freshman year until she graduated to overcome that fear,” she says. “She contacted me this month to let me know she completed her first semester in nursing school and to thank me for helping her conquer her fear of math.”

A commitment to students is clearly at the foundation of Nesbit’s work at ������Ƶ, where she has been an adjunct lecturer in the Math Department, teaching SEEK students, and an academic adviser for the ������Ƶ Bound program, which allows qualified students who have earned their GED or TASC high school equivalency certification to enter ������Ƶ as full-time freshmen.

When not on campus, she enjoys watching basketball, traveling, and spending time with her family, including her two sons—“both college graduates,” she proudly shares.

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Assistant Professor Heidi Goodson was an invited speaker at the DIAMANT Symposuim in Utrecht, The Netherlands. She presented her research in a talk entitled “Sato-Tate Groups in Dimension Greater than 3”

Congratulations to Assistant Professor Diana Hubbard who was awarded a 2022 Claire Tow ’52 Award for Excellence in Teaching. This annual award is given to five ������Ƶ faculty members in recognition of their demonstrated excellence in teaching-related activities.

Professor Jun Hu published a peer-reviewed paper this month: “Cubic rational maps with escaping critical points, Part I: Julia set dichotomy in the case of an attracting fixed point” with Arkady, Etkin, Hu. Qual. Theory Dyn. Syst. 21, 70 (2022).

Professor Jun Hu was awarded a PSC-CUNY grant entitled “Regularity in parameter space for one-parameter family of cubic rational maps, and more on Douady-Earle extension of circle homeomorphism with one-point differentiability” for the academic year 2022-2023. Congratulations!

April 2022

Associate Professor Christian Benes was awarded a PSC-CUNY grant entitled “Moderate and Large Deviations for d-Dimensional Simple Random Walk” for the academic year 2022-2023. Congratulations!

Assistant Professor Heidi Goodson was awarded a PSC-CUNY grant entitled “Twisting Sato-Tate groups” for the academic year 2022-2023. Congratulations!

Congratulations to Assistant Professor Diana Hubbard who was recently awarded two grants.

• National Science Foundation grant entitled “LEAPS-MPS: Braids and Mapping Class Groups: Investigating Left-orders, Twisting, and Positivity”. The grant, in the amount of $122,662, will support her research for two years (July 2022 – June 2024).
• PSC-CUNY grant entitled “Left-orders and twisting: from braids to mapping class groups” for the academic year 2022-2023.

March 2022

Assistant Professor Heidi Goodson is a Visiting Scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in Bonn, Germany. Her visit will span the months of March and April of the spring 2022 semester and her research project is titled “Sato-Tate Distributions of Jacobian Varieties.”

Professor Jun Hu published a peer-reviewed paper: Jun Hu and Francisco G. Jimenez-Lopez on Teichmuller spaces of nondiscrete groups has appeared in Annales Fennici Mathematici 47(1): 381-393, 2022 (Doi: 10.54330/afm.114460).

Associate Professor Sandra Kingan published a review of the book “Mind and Matter: A Life in Math and Football,” by John Urschel and Louisa Thomas in the March-April AWM newsletter. (AWM Newsletter 13, Volume 52, Number 2 March–April 2022, page 12-14.)

The Mathematics Department together with the Math Club is hosting a Pi Day celebration *in person* on March 15 from 1:15-2:15 p.m in 1310 Ingersoll Hall. The event will feature a short presentation by Assistant Professor Diana Hubbard, an integration bee, a “pi-ku” writing contest, prizes galore, and free pizza and dessert pie. Please join us!

February 2022

Senior mathematics major Avraham Radin participated in the 82nd William Lowell Putnam Competition — the pre-eminent mathematics competition for undergraduates in the United States and Canada. Avraham was one of 2,975 participants and he scored above the median. Congratulations!

Professor Stephen Preston published a peer-reviewed paper this month: Preston, S.C. Solar models and McKean’s breakdown theorem for the 𝜇CH and 𝜇DP equations. Mathematische Annalen (2022).

January 2022

Associate Professor Diogo Pinheiro recently published a peer-reviewed article – “Refinement of Dynamic Equilibrium using Small Random Perturbations.” (with (A. Araujo, W. Maldonado, D. Pinheiro, A.A. Pinto, M. Choubdar Soltanahmadi). International Journal of Economic Theory, 17 (2021) 258-283.

The Mathematics Department Prize Exams will be in-person again this semester after a one-year hiatus. The exam will take place on February 25, 10 a.m.-1 p.m., in Ingersoll 1146. Please sign up by the end of Friday, February 18.

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Its guest/visiting scientist program is well known, and its aim is to promote the exchange of ideas in an international setting. Prof. Goodson’s main research focus is number theory. Her visit will span the months of March and April of the spring 2022 semester and her research project is titled “”Sato-Tate Distributions of Jacobian Varieties.”

Congratulations to Prof. Heidi Goodson.

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