Amy Chen — the URECA researcher of the month for October — is an information systems major in the WISE honors program, minoring in environmental studies. In March 2025, she began doing research under the mentorship of Guanyu Huang, an assistant professor in the Program in Public Health and the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, which was supported in Summer 2025 through the SUNY SOAR undergraduate research program.
Chen’s research project began with establishing an ozone bioindicator garden, collecting leaf samples, photographing foliage across multiple sensitive plant species and documenting damage progression throughout the growing season. She then worked on developing an AI-based system to detect ozone injury on plants using observations from the ozone garden.
Chen presented her research on “Development of an Ozone Bioindicator Garden and Automated Detection of Ozone-Induced Leaf Damage Using Convolutional Neural Networks” at the Summer Symposium 2025 at the end of the 10-week program. She continued with her research and went on to present at the 106th American Meteorological Society Annual Meeting in Houston, Texas, where she won a best student poster award.
This past August, Chen gave an oral presentation in Boulder, Colorado, at the National Ozone Garden Network Conference. She is now working with her research group on preparing a manuscript on U-Net segmentation of ozone injury across four bioindicator species. Her research with Huang will also be the basis of her WISE senior thesis.
When Chen was asked what advice she has for other students interested in pursuing research, she said, “Research can be intimidating when you’re a newcomer. Keeping an open mind and not being afraid to make contact — whether it’s with the URECA office, or other professors — is essential. You have to let people know that you’re interested in doing research and follow through.”
Chen’s long-term plans are to pursue a PhD in environmental studies. She is active on campus as secretary of the Stony Brook Sailing Club. This past summer, she held an environmental engineering position with the Department of Environmental Conservation. She also interned in Fall 2025 with the Landmarks Preservation Commission in Manhattan to update maps of New York City historic districts using ArcGIS.
Read the full interview with URECA Director Karen Kernan.
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