Lowell Seifter of Raquette Lake and Syracuse, a founding member of Green & Seifter law firm in Syracuse, was named General Counsel for St. Joseph’s Hospital Health Center in Syracuse managing the Hospital’s legal needs in-house. With expertise in healthcare, commercial real estate and business law, he will give up his ownership stake at his Law Firm where he has been for 35 years. He has worked for St. Joseph’s over the last year while the Hospital recognized that its legal needs had become more complex. He also has an active practice in the Central Adirondacks where he has been a resident with his family for many years, and his daughter Miriam was a Summer Intern at the Adirondack Express newspaper in Old Forge when she was a student at Yale University.  

Sherman Craig of Wanakena, St. Lawrence County, was named a Commissioner of the Adirondack Park Agency (APA) after approval by the New York State Senate’s Environmental Conservation Committee for a term that will run through the Summer 2015, and he assumes his seat immediately pending approval by the Senate Finance Committee and then the full Senate this week. Four of the eight citizen members on the 11-member APA Board continue to serve on expired terms and can be replaced at any time but may continue to serve until they are replaced. The positions are unpaid (except for the Chairwoman who receives $30,000 per year) including Art Lussi of Lake Placid/Essex County, Bill Thomas of Johnsburg/Warren County, Frank Mezzano of Lake Pleasant/Hamilton County and Cecil Wray of New York City. Four Commissioners with definite terms include Chairwoman Lani Ulrich of Old Forge/Herkimer County (expires 2012), Dick Booth of Ithaca/Tompkins County (2012), Bill Valentino of Bethlehem/Albany County (2013) and Sherman Craig (2015). The final three members of the APA Board of Commissioners are ex-officio agency directors from the Department of Environmental Conservation, the Department of State and Empire State Development Corporation.   

Dr. Silvana Andreescu of Potsdam, Chemical/ Biomolecular Science Professor at Clarkson University, will lead a team at the University in a collaborative effort with Dr. James Leiter at Dartmouth Medical School to develop a novel sensing technology for real-time monitoring of neurotransmitters.  This research will facilitate study and further fundamental understanding of glutamate and lactate neurotransmission in a variety of other neurological disorders in which oxygen is restricted. The technology will be used to study neurophysiological events in collaboration with neurophysiologists and medical doctors and will be funded in part with a $440,000 grant from the NIH National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke that was announced by Congressman Bill Owens of Potsdam.  

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