InSPIRing Growth

By Liza N. Burby 

Alexander Sokolov BS/MS ’21

Alexander Sokolov BS/MS ’21, was an undergraduate student dual majoring in computer engineering and computer science with a minor in mechanical engineering at Stony Brook University (SBU) while he was also gaining critical professional engineering experience. He wrote code, looked at schematics and algorithm designs, and worked closely with the electrical team at Intelligent Product Solutions (IPS), where he was interning. The Hauppauge-based general engineering contractor then hired Sokolov full time while he was still earning his master’s in engineering at the university. 

As a bonus, the software engineer said that because IPS paid for his graduate degree, he and his fiancée Julia Stone ’20, a mechanical engineering major, were able to buy a house locally three years ago. That means they can both stay on Long Island where workforce development is vital among companies hoping to retain talented employees in the area, Sokolov said.

What made it possible for him to avoid the frustration of employers requiring hands-on work experience before considering hiring someone postgraduation is the Strategic Partnership for Industrial Resurgence (SPIR) at Stony Brook’s Office for Research and Innovation. Since 1994 SPIR has made that connection possible for more than 3,000 College of Engineering and Applied Sciences (CEAS) students, enabling them to add substantial expertise to their résumés before graduation, according to Director Lisa Chichura, PhD. 

That’s because SPIR helps companies solve engineering and technical problems using State University of New York (SUNY) resources, including undergraduate and graduate students, postdocs, faculty, laboratories and specialized facilities. Chichura said that SBU was the lead institution in getting funding from SUNY, but other SPIR programs are located at the University at Albany, Binghamton University and University at Buffalo. Since its start, SBU SPIR has helped companies in New York create and retain jobs, with a total of 17,614 combined statewide as of 2024.

 “The SPIR program at Stony Brook provides critical resources for training because we help students who are coming from a purely academic place where they may have limited lab experience,” she said. “With SPIR they have the opportunity to work on a real-world project with a company that’s a for-profit center, where their parameters include deadlines, cost containments and all different kinds of boundary conditions. It’s really valuable for our students to be able to have that experience.”

In fact, over the past 31 years, Stony Brook’s SPIR program, which is located at the university’s Center of Excellence in Wireless and Information Technology (CEWIT), has completed more than 4,000 projects with more than 610 companies, Chichura said. Her office has done so with the help of roughly 80 to 100 undergraduate and graduate students a year, from CEAS departments including Applied Mathematics and Statistics, Materials Science, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Biomedical Engineering and Computer Science.

“That’s a lot of experience for students to have available to them,” she said. “For example, if they want to be an electrical engineer, working at a company on an actual project makes that goal more real for them and they can add it to their résumé. Depending on the company, some will hire them once the project is finished and the student graduates. Regardless, the firsthand experience provided generally gives students a significant advantage when applying for jobs after graduation. The students always tell us that putting that project on their résumé gave them extra points in a job interview.”

At the helm of SPIR, Lisa Chichura drives collaborations that give SBU students hands-on experience while fueling workforce growth.

Retaining Local Talent
In the high-tech, competitive marketplace SPIR’s experiential learning mission also contributes significantly to innovation and economic development in the state, Chichura said, helping companies bring in $3.15 million (2025) to the region through funding sources like the Small Business Administration’s SBIR/STTR program and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority.

“Generally, we fill a gap where the company may have a project that is not big enough to hire a person with a specific background, but we can provide a graduate or an undergraduate student to help them complete that project,” she said. “Grad students  receive a stipend and  graduate tuition scholarships are provided to support students in engineering disciplines.”

Chichura, who has been with SPIR since 1999 and director since 2022, said the program sponsors industry projects through cost-sharing arrangements across a wide range of scientific and engineering disciplines, providing services including research and development, prototype and new product development, testing and evaluation, manufacturing process improvement and quality assurance, and failure analysis. SPIR also collaborates on joint projects to seek federal and other external funding.

That all has an impact on the region by connecting Stony Brook students like Sokolov with Long Island-based companies — from industries including aerospace and defense, medical and software companies, to name a few — in mutually beneficial internships. Chichura said for the most recent completed fiscal year, SPIR supported 90 projects over the academic year working with 49 companies — 14 of which were new to the SPIR program. SPIR also created an estimated additional 251 jobs through projects involving 82 students and 23 faculty, she said.

Faculty Participation
Stony Brook faculty can also act in a supervisory capacity to help students navigate through projects, since SPIR requires that each has a campus principal investigator (PI) with technical background, Chichura explained. They also require there to be a technical person at the company to act as a mentor.

This is particularly true for startups that were born out of academic research, said Danny Bluestein, SUNY Distinguished Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering. He said the SPIR program allows students to continue their research, often in conjunction with these companies. They’re able to work on the company and/or on the academic side. 

For example, Bluestein serves as the PI in collaboration with PolyNova Cardiovascular Inc., which he said is developing innovative prosthetic heart valves that are polymer-based rather than derived from animal tissue. In this case, students are working on the academic side, he said. “The work they’re doing is directly related to either their master’s thesis or PhD dissertation.”

SPIR also helps with academic funding gaps. Stan Uryasev, a professor and Frey Family Endowed Chair of Quantitative Finance in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics, has been actively involved in the SPIR program for nearly six years. He said it has been crucial for funding his PhD and master’s students, as traditional grants are scarce in his field of quantitative finance.

 “Usually employers seek people who already have industrial experience. But if you don’t get the experience while you’re a student, how will you get the job?” Uryasev said. “My students are trying to get internships during the summer and there’s a lot of competition. So the SPIR program is a huge relief because they can do the internship during the school year, getting both a salary and tuition assistance. Then the student has a much better chance to find a job because they’re now graduating with experience.”

Not Just an Internship
That’s why Chichura said SPIR is more than an internship program. 

“Our students are actually working on projects, solving problems, coming up with solutions and delivering a final product to the company,” she said. “It’s not just academic experience. It’s actually being involved with producing a product, whether it be a software package, an AI platform, mechanical device or electrical circuit. So yes, it is technically an internship, but I think it provides a much richer experience.”

This is one of the benefits that still resonates for Sokolov. “While I got a lot of theory and math in the classroom — good general engineering knowledge that could be applicable in specific instances and to specific careers — my internship really gave me a full experience of what it’s like to be an engineer out in industry. It taught me all the things that I actually need to do on a day-to-day basis.” 

In addition to opening doors for Marzia Monty ’12 (pictured above with her children), SPIR even found her a fellow student she could commute to her internship with, since she didn’t have a car at the time. That student, Istiaque Ahmed ’12, eventually became her husband.

Marzia Monty ’12 said that SPIR opened doors for her while she was still earning her undergraduate degree in electrical engineering at SBU. She applied to the program at the end of her freshman year in 2009 and worked at LSI Computer Systems in Melville through graduation.

“It gave me a lot of confidence as a student and provided clarity of what I want to do — and what I want to avoid for a career perspective,” said Monty, who currently works as a patent examiner at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in Alexandria, Virginia. “When I started at LSI, it was a small semiconductor company and they couldn’t afford to have a lot of employees. Because it was a small company, I kept trying different projects, like quality, inventory-related things and layout designing. So during interviews for jobs after graduation I had the confidence to say that I don’t know everything about electrical engineering, but I still can talk about different aspects.”    

Business Incubators
While the SPIR program provides matching funds to support projects with New York state companies, SPIR is particularly focused on startup companies in SBU’s incubator facilities, commercialization of Stony Brook technologies, and faculty and student entrepreneurial activities, Chichura said. “We have companies that have incubator space that is designated company space, but it’s physically located here on site. The Stony Brook campus maintains a number of centers and programs that further promote productive industry-university cooperation.”

These include incubators in the Long Island High Technology Incubator (LIHTI), a nonprofit organization adjacent to the hospital dedicated to helping new technologically innovative companies grow where there are currently 22 companies (including PolyNova Cardiovascular); a designated incubator space in the CEWIT where there are 14 companies; and another six in the Advanced Energy Research and Technology Center (AERTC).  

She added that SPIR also works with professors who start companies and who hold patents “because it focuses on supporting the incubator companies and on supporting Stony Brook technology, helping to move the technology into the marketplace.”

Chroma Labs CEO Jenitta Jolly said two SBU interns helped her achieve important business goals for her startup at LIHTI.

One of the startups is Chroma Labs, which CEO Jenitta Jolly has been running out of LIHTI since 2021. Jolly said her private, for profit company specializes in testing vitamin supplements for contaminants like heavy metals and microbiological organisms. In 2024, Jolly said she wanted to hire student interns from the university so that she could get help in her lab while also giving students related experience. But when she posted to regular job sites, she said the response was more than she could handle as a business owner. SPIR, she realized, could help select the candidates and make recommendations for interviews.

 “This is a different kind of recruitment because we can tell them what kind of candidates we want and they can take my job description and circulate it in a particular department that will be applicable. It’s a big help,” she said.

Jolly said she believes that without her two SBU interns, she wouldn’t have been able to achieve important business goals. “And my interns got to work with sensitive and expensive equipment they wouldn’t have been able to at a bigger company. They’re undergrads who already have a graduate experience with all the lab facilities doing microbiology testing and testing for harmful substances like arsenic in supplements.”

One of the interns is Tina Hong, a senior health science major who expects to graduate in May 2026. She began working for Jolly in March 2024 as a sophomore.

“It’s really difficult to get lab experience as a student since you have no certifications and most places don’t like getting undergrad students,” Hong said. “Working with [Jolly], I’ve been able to connect the dots between my microbiology class and my lab experience. Being able to work in the lab gives me exposure to research and that expert experience can lead to further progress in the future when I apply to jobs.”

Jing Wei Liu agreed. She’s also a senior health science major who expects to graduate in May 2026 and has been working with Jolly since September 2024.

“I value the hands-on lab experience, including microbiome testing and chemical analysis for heavy metals and getting to follow all the safety procedures,” Liu said. “And I was able to get it starting as a junior. It’s a great start for me because I’ve been able to gain hands-on experience in the lab, which gives me an advantage. And [Jolly] has been a good mentor. I can talk to her about my plans for the future.” 

Undergrads Tina Hong and Jing Wei Liu get hands-on, graduate-level lab experience in Jolly’s lab.

Full Circle Opportunities
Chichura said that SPIR is looking forward to continuing to provide meaningful projects for SBU students. And through networking opportunities, like the Lunch & Learn series for engineering students, Chichura also stays in touch with graduates like Sokolov. In fact, he recently participated in the event for the second year.

“I enjoy it because it gives me an opportunity to speak to Lisa’s students and give them a little bit of information about what they might run into as engineers outside of school. I spoke about my perception of working at a smaller company like IPS and how that compares to a larger company,” said Sokolov, who in June 2025 became a senior software engineer at BAE Systems in Greenlawn. 

He added, “And coming back gives me a chance to catch up with Lisa, who was very helpful throughout my entire process with SPIR. She was knowledgeable, kind and a motivational figure. So, I’m planning to connect her with those in charge at my new company so they can also participate in the SPIR program to whatever extent they can.”