The New York City Department of Transportation (DOT) launched the Open Streets program during the COVID-19 pandemic, allowing schools to use the street in front of their building to offer safe outdoor spaces for recess, outdoor learning, lunch, and safe pick-ups and drop-offs. Even with growth, it services only a fraction of NYC's 1,700+ public schools. Dr. Michael Cassidy, a professor at Mount Sinai, is working with DOT to evaluate the health and educational effects of the program, which may support the case for future expansion.

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Annual springtime growth of diatom algae has impacted production efficiency in New York City’s drinking water system. Sometime in the next few years, part of the system will be shut down for repairs, making it critical that the remainder of the system operates at maximum production to meet the city’s water demand. Dr. Andrew Juhl, a professor at Columbia University, is helping the New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) investigate the causes of this algal growth and define strategies to mitigate its impact.

The New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) spends significant resources raking and hauling leaves from the 1,000 acres its buildings occupy. NYCHA piloted a program to save staff time and substitute raking with leaf mulching, but it needed scientific evidence of soil health benefits to justify expansion. Dr. Joshua Cheng of Brooklyn College analyzed soil samples in the mulched vs. raked lawns, which showed that leaf mulching improved most soil health indicators. This research supported NYCHA’s case for investment, helping secure a $400,000 grant from USDA that funded additional mulchers and continued soil analysis.

The New York City Department of Youth and Community Development (DYCD) hosts a public-facing platform to help New Yorkers search for and locate its programs throughout the city. Launched in 2015, discoverDYCD is now being redesigned. A Fellow led a human-centered design process to improve how parents, youth, and community members search, evaluate, and apply to programs. The Fellow conducted surveys, focus groups, and usability tests to inform interactive prototypes for developer handoff. DYCD leadership approved the designs and internal staff capacity to implement them.

As the nation’s largest municipal public health agency, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) sought to bring attention to lead-containing consumer products—like spices and cookware—identified during lead poisoning investigations. A Fellow developed a prototype platform to aggregate and visualize NYC’s open‑source data on lead-containing products. Already, 16 U.S. jurisdictions have committed to sharing their own data, launching a first‑of‑its‑kind multijurisdictional partnership. Through this, DOHMH aims to encourage corrective action in the products’ countries of origin.

The New York City Department of Transportation (DOT) conducts regular assessments of pavement conditions utilizing a manual inspection process, but the implementation of over 250 miles of protected bike lanes has made inspection more complex, as views are blocked by parked cars or concrete barriers. Dr. Kaan Ozbay and Dr. Jingqin Gao from New York University developed and deployed a vision-based deep learning model using cameras, GPS, and accelerometers to automatically assess pavement conditions. Now DOT is exploring issuing a procurement for a commercial solution, informed by the results of this pilot.

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