Location – Old Westbury, NY, USA
CT Scanner – Bruker SkyScan 1173
Facility Contact – Kelsi Hurdle, Lab Manager, khurdle@nyit.edu
Written by Simone Hoffmann, Julia Molnar, and Kelsi Hurdle
Facility Overview
What inspired the creation of an open access facility?
Over the last few decades, CT scanning has been widely adopted across archaeological, biological, and materials sciences, playing a critical role in advancing new research avenues. Despite its vast use in the scientific community, there is a large gap between supply and demand. This is particularly true for Long Island, which is one of the most academically dense areas in the U.S.A., with more than 50 universities and colleges (including those in Queens and Brooklyn) serving an enormous and diverse research community. While some institutions in the area have microCT systems, their requirements put many out of reach for local researchers. Early career faculty, postdocs, and students are disproportionally impacted by inaccessibility to these resources especially those from smaller non-R1 universities or colleges. All these factors came into play when we applied for the NSF major research instrumentation grant to support the Visualization Center (NSF MRI #1828305).
How is the facility able to support CT scanning without charging for services?
The NYIT Visualization Center is currently fully supported by NYIT. NYIT covers the annual maintenance fee as well as full salary for our Lab Manager. The acquisition of the microCT, maintenance for the first 3 years as well as 20% of the salary for the lab technician was covered by the NSF MRI grant.
Is there anyone who cannot use the facility or any special conditions a user must meet to receive their data for free?
We allow free scanning for all educational users whether they are internal or external to the university. We currently do not accept commercial users, except when there is an ongoing collaboration with a non-profit organization. We specifically support and encourage student and postdoc use of the microCT.
What do you like best about the facility?
Hoffmann – Seeing it being used by a large community of early-career researchers and students. Seeing it being used for dissertation projects. Being able to provide those opportunities is what I like best.
Molnar – When users don’t have to worry about costs, it frees them to be creative and try out new things.
Hurdle – I love seeing how passionate and excited our users are. Everyone is so eager to do research whether they are training on the microCT or receiving data to analyze for a project. The enthusiasm is contagious and working with our users is extremely enjoyable, especially when they return with new experiments.
Recommendations for Others
Any recommendations for others who might be interested in starting their own open CT facility?
Buy-in might be one of the most important factors. To stem the cost of such a facility, it might be good to find a tangible benefit for the institution. Further, don’t shy away from applying for funding. If you are interested in further information on our NSF MRI application or tips and tricks that we discovered in the process, feel free to reach out.