Ovations
Dr. Emral Devany, Associate Professor
Recently promoted to associate professor, Dr. Emral Devany has enjoyed a rewarding teaching experience in the biological sciences department at Kingsborough for seven years. She additionally works as KCC liaison of National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded CUNY-wide project: The STEM Career Exploration Laboratory Network (STEMCEL). “Our main goal is to build a consortium to break career stereotypes and empower undergraduate STEM majors,” she said.
Emral’s laboratory research is in mRNA biochemistry. “The current view is that gene expression in different conditions and cell types is mainly regulated at the transcriptional and post-translational levels. Together with my collaborators, our research seeks to change this paradigm and aims to understand how cell-specific profiles are generated from mRNA 3’ processing and mRNA stability regulation. We study the effect of RNA binding proteins on mRNA profiles in different cellular conditions such as apoptosis, DNA damage response (DDR), Alzheimer’s disease (AD), cancer, etc. Other projects I am currently working on are increasing learning outcomes in General Biology I by open education resources adoption and STEM career exploration at CUNY,” she adds.
The most challenging aspect of her experiences at Kingsborough have been accepting that there is always more that she can do. “In addition to improving course content and delivery, mentoring students and my own research and publishing, I find many workshops, faculty groups, collaborations, different committees and initiatives interesting and get excited about being a part of many of these on the campus and at CUNY,” she said. “Drawing boundaries on how many tasks I can do effectively at a time and deciding which ones to postpone for next semester/year was a challenge at the beginning.”
In addition to the beautiful campus, Emral loves the KCC community. “I feel like I belong here and I am enjoying the support and friendship of my colleagues and teaching and learning from my students. Over the past 7 years, so many of my students surprised and impressed me in many different ways. I acknowledge and appreciate all I learned from the whole community at KCC.”
Emral believes she is a part of something special. “What we do here at KCC has a purpose and meaning to me and I try to do my best to contribute. I love our community and have collaborated with colleagues from KCC and other CUNY colleges. In return, I feel appreciated and encouraged which helps me try harder and do more.”
“My students amaze me all the time. I enjoy being able to meet so many different individuals with different backgrounds, different stories, different strengths and challenges. I like listening to their stories and building connections and actually getting to know them. Then, I can share their excitement, happiness, disappointment or frustration better. I am grateful to my students for sharing their stories with me.”
On her personal time, she enjoys her family: her husband and their two daughters. “We love traveling, ice skating, movie nights, learning new things (recently photography), cooking and eating, swimming, reading and enjoying every moment.”
Emral is not short of praise when it comes to her time spent at Kingsborough. “It has been a wonderful journey. It has been very busy but a lot of fun. I am grateful for such a great and supportive environment here at KCC.”