Author Archives: Binghamton University

For this Alum, it’s all about the Apps

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Watson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences alumnus Ankesh AroraAnkesh Arora ’09, MS ’11, was nurturing a startup in Binghamton — providing marketing strategies for businesses in college towns — when a new opportunity caught the entrepreneur’s eye.

That’s how his current venture, Mobile Universal, got started. Arora and Zia Siddiqui are co-founders of the company that makes custom apps for businesses such as restaurants, hotels and schools. It has clients in New York, Pennsylvania, Florida, California, Europe and South America.

“We had to completely stop the old business and focus on apps because there was such a narrow window for apps,” Arora says. “If we had gotten into this venture two or three months later, we would have missed our opportunity.”

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Recent Graduate Receives Gates Cambridge Scholarship

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Natalia Chapovalova, an undergraduate and Harpur FellowNatalia Chapovalova has become the first Binghamton University student to receive a prestigious Gates Cambridge Scholarship to study at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom.

Chapovalova, who graduated in December 2012 with a degree in psychology, is one of only 39 U.S. scholars chosen for the 2013-14 academic year. She also is one of two students from New York schools to earn the scholarship (the other recipient is from New York University). She will pursue a PhD in polar studies at Cambridge.

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The Binghamton Buzz: Baxter the Bearcat

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Everyone loves SUNY mascots, as we witnessed during the first SUNY Mascot Madness tournament. Included in this group is Binghamton‘s own Baxter the Bearcat. In this segment of The Binghamton Buzz, the university’s student-run video series, students were asked the question, “What would you do with Baxter for a day?”

Watch the video after the jump to see the responses.

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In the Company of Crows

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Crows flying and Anne Clark of Binghamton UniversityTo the uninitiated, the birds all look the same — shimmering black feathers, with eyes, beaks and feet to match. They sound the same, too, their calls collapsing into cacophony as they rise and fall on the wing.

Not so for behavioral ecologist Anne Clark. Binoculars at the ready, the Binghamton University associate professor of biological sciences sees enough intrigue and drama among a murder of crows to one day fill a novel. There is the peanut hound abandoning her nest for a treat, the devoted father driven from home in his dotage — by his sons — and the orphaned juveniles insinuating themselves into a new family. Hear the alarm call? The territorial declaration?

Clark has devoted the past decade of her research career to deciphering the biological and social relationships among a population of some 2,000 American crows in Ithaca, N.Y. “I’m interested in social behavior,” she explains, “and these birds are not only long-lived, they have a very complex social life.”

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Binghamton Students Build a House for Themselves

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Psychology major Ashley L. Haugstatter and mechanical engineerin

Michael Zella and Ashley Haugstatter of Binghamton University in the house they built for themselves.

At 119½ East Wendell St., Endicott, sits a 345-square-foot home built by two Binghamton University students.

Michael Zella and Ashley Haugstatter, who attended high school together in Long Island, were inspired by the small house movement to build their own home 15 minutes from campus. The movement encourages downsizing to save money and have a smaller environmental footprint.

“I like the fact that you can own something free and clear with no mortgage and still have a high quality of living, just on a smaller scale,” Zella said. “Last winter we were sitting around talking about it, and we decided we were going to buy land and build a house.”

Zella said his parents were skeptical at first.

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