CUNY Graduate Center

New York’s Revolutionary Past Comes Alive by CUNY Graduate Center

In this episode of The Thought Project, host Tanya Domi speaks with Eno Agolli, assistant director of the Saul Kripke Center at the CUNY Graduate Center, about bringing philosophy out of the ivory tower and into public conversation. Agolli is helping expand the reach of the Saul Kripke Center, named for the late Saul Kripke, a former distinguished professor at the Graduate Center who is considered...

In this episode of The Thought Project, host Tanya Domi speaks with Mordechai Levovitz, M.S.W., a Ph. D. student in the Social Welfare program at the CUNY Graduate Center, about being queer and Jewish, and about the search for safety, support, and acceptance within Orthodox and Hasidic Jewish communities. Levovitz founded and served as executive director of JQY, Jewish Queer Youth, a nonprofit org...

Professor Robert C. Smith of the CUNY Graduate Center and Baruch College and Manuel Castro, the former New York City commissioner of immigrant affairs and a Baruch graduate, join The Thought Project for a timely conversation about immigration policy at a moment of deep uncertainty. Smith draws on decades of research on Mexican migration, legal status, and intergenerational mobility, as well as his...

From mushroom leather to algae-based garments, Elizabeth Wissinger, a professor of Liberal Studies at the CUNY Graduate Center and of social sciences at Borough of Manhattan Community College, explores whether bio-based materials can offer a real alternative to synthetic fabrics, fast fashion, and clothing waste. On this episode of The Thought Project, she discusses the rise of bio-couture, the en...

As Earth Day approaches, Ashley Dawson returns to The Thought Project for a sobering conversation about climate politics at a moment of global instability. Dawson, a distinguished professor of English at the CUNY Graduate Center and the College of Staten Island, is a member of Public Power New York, a movement for a just, publicly controlled energy transition in New York. He was also the 2025 Clim...

What does it mean when immigration enforcement begins to look and feel like policing, but operates under a different set of rules? On this episode of The Thought Project, host Tanya Domi speaks with criminal justice scholar and lawyer Candace McCoy, a professor emerita at the CUNY Graduate Center and John Jay College of Criminal Justice, about ICE’s expanding role in carrying out U.S. immigration...

In this episode of The Thought Project, CUNY Graduate Center and Brooklyn College Professor David Bloomfield reflects on the political, legal, and structural pressures confronting public education in New York City and across the nation. He examines the pandemic’s aftereffects on schools, including staffing shortages, student well-being, and the continued dominance of high-stakes testing, while arg...

Abortion attitudes can look deeply personal, but sociologist Amy Adamczyk’s research suggests they are also powerfully shaped by the places we live. On this episode of The Thought Project, host Tanya Domi speaks with Adamczyk, a professor of Sociology at the CUNY Graduate Center and John Jay College, about her award-winning book Fetal Positions: Understanding the Cross-National Public Opinion Abou...

In this episode of The Thought Project podcast, CUNY Graduate Center social media coordinator Coralie Carlson reflects on a career that has spanned the Associated Press, NBC New York, and the classroom at Hunter College. A journalist since her teens, Carlson sees her work on the Graduate Center’s channels as reporting in a new format, one with its own fast, shifting news cycle. She describes how e...

In this episode of The Thought Project podcast, CUNY Graduate Center Mathematics Ph. D. student Emma Hasson shares her passion for mathematics and her mission to make it more engaging and accessible. A Scientific American puzzle writer and recipient of a prestigious American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Media Fellowship, Hasson describes math as creative, beautiful, and univer...

In this episode of The Thought Project, CUNY Graduate Center Dean for the Sciences Brian R. Gibney discusses how the Graduate Center is positioning itself at the forefront of the AI revolution. Gibney outlines the transformative impact of the Simons Foundation’s historic $75 million gift, including $50 million to launch the Martin S. Spergel Initiative in Computational Sciences at the Graduate Cen...

Allegations of sexual misconduct by police officers rarely make headlines, yet emerging research shows the problem is far from rare. On this episode of “The Thought Project,” host Tanya Domi speaks with Priscilla Bustamante, a Graduate Center Psychology Ph. D. candidate, whose dissertation examines how New Yorkers experience, resist, and heal from sexual violence by police outside prisons and jail...

Economic volatility, policy shifts in Washington, and rapid advances in AI are reshaping work and the risks workers face. Occupational health psychologist Andrea Bazzoli, a professor of Psychology and Industrial-Organizational Psychology at the CUNY Graduate Center and Baruch College, joins host Tanya Domi to examine how economic stressors intersect with workplace safety, with a focus on vulnerabl...

Prithi Kanakamedala, professor of history at Bronx Community College and faculty member in the CUNY Graduate Center’s Liberal Studies master’s program, joins The Thought Project to explore the evolving role of historians and other scholars beyond the archive. As coordinator of the Graduate Center’s new Advanced Certificate in Public Scholarship, she describes how the program empowers scholars to w...

Luke Waltzer, director of the Teaching and Learning Center at the CUNY Graduate Center, joins The Thought Project to discuss his leadership of the Critical AI Literacy Institute, a three-year initiative funded by Google.org. The project brings together CUNY faculty to explore the impact of generative AI on teaching and learning, while creating space for reflection and experimentation in the classr...

When Joel P. Christensen stepped into his role as CUNY Graduate Center provost last month, he brought with him a deep commitment to public higher education and to knowledge as a public good. A classicist by training, he has spent his career studying language, politics, and democracy. But it is his lived experience — as a first-generation college student from rural Maine, a teacher at a Hispanic- a...

In this episode of The Thought Project, CUNY Graduate Center Distinguished Professor Cathy N. Davidson reflects on her 11 transformative years at the City University of New York. Calling CUNY “an educational miracle,” Davidson explains why she believes it’s the greatest university in the world: low-cost, high-impact, and driven by an extraordinary mission to serve “the whole people.” She shares ho...

In a time of backlash against LGBTQ+ individuals, Jean Halley, a professor at the CUNY Graduate Center and College of Staten Island, takes a powerful stand by addressing graduates at her home campus’s Lavender Ceremony honoring LGBTQ+ students. Halley joins The Thought Project to talk about why showing up as her full, queer self is an act of courage — and why visibility from those in leadership ma...

In this episode of The Thought Project, Maura Smale, chief librarian of the CUNY Graduate Center’s Mina Rees Library, explores how academic libraries empower research and uphold democratic values in a time of growing censorship and disinformation. Smale highlights the Graduate Center library’s vital role as a research hub, connecting scholars across CUNY and beyond through expansive interlibrary l...

In this episode of The Thought Project podcast, education policy expert David Bloomfield discusses the ongoing recovery of New York City’s public school system after the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic. Bloomfield, a professor of Educational Leadership, Law, and Policy at Brooklyn College at Brooklyn College and of Urban Education at the CUNY Graduate Center, explores how New York managed a re...

Zachariah Mampilly, the Marxe Endowed Chair of International Affairs at Baruch College and professor of Political Science at the CUNY Graduate Center, joins The Thought Project to unpack the effects of the new world order on Africa and the Global South. Mampilly explains that outdated racial and colonial frameworks continue to shape international relations and discusses how countries in Africa and...

On this episode of The Thought Project, philosophy professor Michael Brownstein joins host Tanya Domi to unpack the sweeping rollbacks of long-standing U.S. social programs and the lessons history offers in fighting back. Brownstein, chair of philosophy at John Jay College and professor of Philosophy at the CUNY Graduate Center, draws on themes from his forthcoming book, Somebody Should Do Somethi...

Historian Benjamin Carter Hett, a professor at the CUNY Graduate Center and Hunter College, joins The Thought Project for a timely discussion of the rise of autocracy in America and its unsettling parallels to Europe in 1938. Hett is the author of The Death of Democracy, which examines Hitler’s rise to power and the fall of the Weimar Republic, and he brings his deep knowledge of history to analyz...

The CUNY Graduate Center has launched a timely new Advanced Certificate in LGBTQ Studies. Its director Laura Westengard, a professor of English at New York City College of Technology, joins The Thought Project to discuss the years-long effort to establish the 15-credit program, how it provides students with a formal credential in LGBTQ studies, and its role in bridging academic research with real-...