Enzo Biochem, Inc
The Ram's Horn Award for Corporate Leadership
Accepting for Enzo Biochem, Inc., Kara Cannon - Chief Operating Officer
Kara Cannon is a P&L leader with deep marketing, sales, and operations skills. She has over 30 years of experience in the life sciences industry at Enzo Biochem, Inc., Pall Corporation, and Dynal Biotech. Ms. Cannon’s technical expertise combined with her ability to connect international teams has delivered powerful results throughout her career.
Currently, Ms. Cannon is the Chief Operating Officer of Enzo Biochem (NYSE: ENZ), a publicly traded life sciences company with global operations (2022 to present). Previously, she was the Chief Commercial Officer of Enzo Biochem (2017-2022) and joined Enzo Biochem in 2010 as the Head of Global Commercial Operations for the Life Sciences Division (2010-2017).
After earning a Bachelor’s degree in biology from Franklin and Marshall College, Ms. Cannon started her career at Dynal Biotech (1990-2000), joining this start-up business as it launched operations in the US. This foundational experience exposed her to myriad corporate disciplines, including marketing, sales, operations, product development, and technical support.
She held progressive commercial roles at Pall Corporation (2000-2010), where she led global marketing, as well as the diagnostics and biotechnology segments.
Ms. Cannon is passionate about fostering talent for the future and serves of the Board of Directors for Farmingdale State College and acts as an advisor to the School of Health Professionals at New York Institute of Technology.
Enzo Biochem, Inc
Global Life Science Company Servicing the Community for over 45 Years
Enzo Biochem has been a leader in innovation and product development to support a diverse range of needs in biomedical research and healthcare for over 45 years. With a comprehensive portfolio of 20,000 high-quality products including antibodies, genomic probes, assays, biochemicals, and proteins, Enzo supports the work of academic research centers and industry partners who are shaping the future of healthcare around the world. The company’s proprietary products and technologies play central roles in all areas of translational research and drug development, including genomic analysis, protein analysis, cellular analysis, tissue analysis, and small molecule chemistry. Enzo has a broad and deep intellectual property portfolio, with patent coverage across a number of key enabling technologies. During the pandemic, executed under Enzo’s School and Institution Testing (“SIT”) Program, Enzo provided the necessary level of safety for students, staff, and faculty to return to campus, with Farmingdale State College being the first academic institution to leverage Enzo’s expertise.
Clyde Vanel ’97
The President's Award for Alumni Leadership
NY State Assemblyman - District 33
Assemblyman Clyde Vanel serves as the Chair of the Subcommittee on Internet and New Technology and Chairs the Committee on Oversight, Analysis and Investigation. He has sponsored numerous landmark bills, such as legislation to create a robotics, automation and artificial intelligence commission; license high-risk AI systems; and create a cryptocurrency and blockchain study task force. He is focused on emerging technologies and works to close the digital divide among marginalized communities.
Vanel is an attorney, entrepreneur, and pilot from Queens. He is the owner and operator of Vanel Law Firm, P.C., where he practices intellectual property and business law. Vanel is also an internet entrepreneur operating TrademarkReady.com, a service focused on trademark filings and intellectual property protection. Vanel has extensive entrepreneurial experience, including owning and operating a restaurant and lounge, Vanel on First, in Lower Manhattan for five years. Vanel works to expose the next generation to STEM careers. Vanel is also the founder of the New York Metro chapter of the Black Pilots of America, Inc. The organization trains and exposes the community and youth to the field of aviation.
Vanel serves as a member of the MIT AI Policy Forum and frequently lectures and presents on issues including artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency and blockchain technology, international policy, and intellectual property.
Vanel earned a Juris Doctor from Boston University School of Law, where he was the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Science & Technology Law. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Aviation Administration and an Associate of Applied Science in Aerospace Technology from Farmingdale State College, where he served as the Student Government President.
Serving as the Assembly Member for the 33rd District of New York since November 8, 2016, his district includes Cambria Heights, St. Albans, Hollis, Queens Village, Bellerose, and parts of Floral Park. Vanel was raised in Cambria Heights, New York, with nine siblings, Vanel is a member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc.
This past year, Assemblyman Vanel secured two allocations of funding totaling $500,000 to support Farmingdale State College Professional Pilot students with scholarship funding to reduce the financial burden of flight time instruction fees.
Dr. Laura Joseph, EdD
The President's Award for Academic & Professional Leadership
Senior Vice President and Provost
Laura Mueller-Joseph, EdD, Senior Vice President and Chief Academic Officer, has served as Provost of Farmingdale State College since 2021.
A prolific scholar, educator and academic leader, Dr. Joseph has had a distinguished tenure at Farmingdale State College. Prior to her role as Provost, she served as Associate Provost for Academic Affairs, and also as Acting Assistant Dean of the Theresa Santmann School of Health Sciences. Dr. Joseph began her academic career at Farmingdale State College in 1991 as a faculty member in the Department of Dental Hygiene and served as Department Chair from 2003-2013.
In addition to her work in health promotion and disease prevention, Dr. Joseph has been actively engaged in accreditation and institutional assessment. She served as FSC’s liaison to the Middle States Commission on Higher Education and Commissioner for the American Dental Associations' Commission on Dental Accreditation. She continues to serve as an accreditation consultant and has led FSC's Assessment initiative.
Dr. Joseph is a recipient of the prestigious SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching and Old Dominion University's Alumni Award for Outstanding Educator as a result of her passion for active learning and innovative pedagogy. She is actively engaged with the SUNY Chief Academic Officers’ Association serving as chair from 2021-2023 and has contributed to SUNY operations through her work on various working groups and task forces.
Prior to FSC, Dr. Joseph was a clinical research investigator at Fairleigh Dickinson University's Research Center where she conducted research in oral health and disease prevention. Dr. Joseph served as a national and international consultant on clinical calibration. Additional activities of scholarship include grants as well as publications on allied dental education.
Dr. Joseph earned an EdD in Higher Education and Academic Leadership from Columbia University, and BS and MS degrees in Science from Old Dominion University.
Dr. Michael Goodstone, Ph.D
The President's Award for Academic Leadership
Professor/Department of Psychology/School of Arts & Sciences
Michael Goodstone joined the faculty of Farmingdale State College over 25 years ago as the college was transitioning to a baccalaureate granting institution. He began his Farmingdale career as one of the three architects of FSC’s Applied Psychology major and ultimately succeeded in winning approval for the College to offer its first psychology major in 2008. Dr. Goodstone served as that program’s first director, later the Psychology Department Chair and then as the College’s Associate Provost from 2015 - 2021. Additional roles within the College include having served as an interim dean, chair of multiple committees, task forces and initiatives and heading up FSC’s most recent ten-year accreditation review. Following the highly successful conclusion of the College’s last accreditation cycle, Dr. Goodstone returned to the Psychology Department to pursue his first love at Farmingdale – teaching and working with FSC students.
Dr. Goodstone has served as a consultant developing and advising management regarding human resource systems including employee selection, performance appraisal and employee training systems for a wide variety of industries. He has extensive experience as an assessment psychologist determining fitness for duty of prospective and current employees in critical job functions such as public safety. He is a former recipient of a Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching and a Farmingdale Foundation Excellence in Teaching Award.
Michael and his wife Lori love spending time with their two adult children and three grandchildren as well as boating and fishing on the ocean off of the south shore of Long Island.
Dylan Gafarian, Ed.D
The President's Award for Professional Leadership
Director Research Aligned Mentorship (RAM) Program
Dr. Dylan Gafarian is a higher educational professional, counselor, professor, ideator, creative thinker, and student advocate. Dylan has been a proud member of the Farmingdale State College community for the last 5 years, specifically within the prestigious Research Aligned Mentorship (RAM) Program, where he currently serves as Director. RAM is a uniquely designed program that serves first-generation, low-income, and historically minorities students in the pursuit of undergraduate research and academic excellence. Dylan and the outstandingly dedicated RAM Squad currently advises and mentors over 1,200 scholars within all academic disciplines and curriculum years.
As well as overseeing the RAM Program, Dylan also has the distinct honor and privilege to serve Farmingdale as the main liaison and Institutional Coordinator for the Sillcox Scholarship and The Dream.US Scholarship, two of the institution's largest privately funded student scholarship programs. In 2022, FSC became the first SUNY institution to partner with The Dream.US, the nation’s largest scholarship program for undocumented youth, and has since doubled in size and impact. This summer, Dylan was responsible for securing an additional $45,000 in funding for Dream.US Scholars for paid research and internship opportunities. An effort Dylan has worked closely with Dr. Christopher Malone, Associate Provost, to effectively execute.
In March of 2023, Dylan successfully led the institution in conceptualizing and executing Farmingdale’s first-ever institutional wild symposium for undergraduate research, applied- learning, and civic engagement; The IGNITE Symposium. The commitment to scholar success is very much at the heart of all programmatic initiatives Dylan seeks to implement. Aside from research forward programs, Dylan is also wildly committed to the development of the next civically minded generation. With programs like RAMdom Acts of Service and Alternative Spring/Summer Break (ASB) trips, Dylan has run more than 50 volunteerism-related projects and led more than 2,000 hours of service for his students. Dylan is also the Co-Chair of the Newman Civic Fellowship committee, Co-PI of the S-STEM Scholars grant, adjunct faculty member for the Science, Technology, and Society department, and a proud member of the FSC Food Pantry Task Force, and DEI Council.
When not working, Dylan is often heard talking about, showing pictures of, or playing with his beautiful and angelic dog, Betty Bite Gafarian… yes, that is a play on Dylan’s other love, Betty White.
Kelly Wylie '25
The President's Award for Student Leadership
Mechanical Engineering Technology major, SGA Vice President, President & Founder of Rambots Club, President of Sigma Delta Tau
From student programming to circuit board programming, Kelly Wylie, ’25, a mechanical engineering technology major at Farmingdale State College (FSC), is a whiz.
What started as a friendly sibling rivalry with her older brother, Joseph Wylie, ’24, an FSC cybersecurity major, has transformed into Wylie’s successful college experience. Now Student Government Association (SGA) vice president, Sigma Delta Tau president, secretary of the RAM Motorsports Club, and a student assistant in the Office of Student Activities, Wylie is also president and founder of FSC’s popular Rambots (robotics) Club.
“My brother, he’s 16 months older than me,” said Wylie, who grew up in Seaford, New York. “I kind of followed a lot of things he did, because we were so close in age. We were a little bit competitive with each other—or at least I was,” she quipped.
Wylie’s “if he can do it, I can do it” mindset and determination would bring her to join several clubs through elementary, middle, and high school, including student government, which she immediately loved, and robotics, which she immediately didn’t.
“At my first meeting I remember very clearly sitting down and saying, ‘This is not for me.’ It just didn’t make sense in my head, and I didn’t think that I was going to like it,” she said. “But I stuck with it anyway, and soon I was like, ‘Oh, this is exactly what I love to do.’”
Engineering runs in Wylie’s family, with her grandfather, her father, and her mother working in locomotive engineering. “I definitely look up to my mom for succeeding in a male-dominated environment as an engineer,” she said. During an FSC open house visit, “I got to see one of the lab rooms in Lupton, and that’s when my mom knew I really wanted to go into engineering too, because she could tell how excited I was,” Wylie added.
Wylie has remained active both on and off campus, serving as a Rambassador campus tour guide and orientation leader for the Office of Admissions, organizing a wide variety of campus events, including student career development workshops, food donation efforts, and fundraising for local charities, and completing a summer internship with Zebra Technologies in Holtsville.
“Kelly epitomizes the essence of an FSC student, seamlessly being involved in activities with grace and purpose,” said Lukas Miedreich, FSC director of the Office of Student Activities. “True achievement is not just about excelling in one area but embracing the holistic experience of campus life. She is involved in all facets of campus life from SGA, to Greek Life, to student clubs and student employment.”
With her “full calendar,” Wylie lauds FSC for welcoming and encouraging her array of interests.
“The reason that I join all these clubs, and started a few, is because I want everyone to find their place where they just feel welcomed and supported,” she said. “I love Farmingdale because I feel like it gives me a lot of opportunities. I always say you can be as involved or uninvolved as you like, so I feel like it caters to a really diverse group of students. It’s mainly a commuter school, but there’s so many different ways to get involved. And I feel like we have really good resources, especially with our Office of Student Activities. I feel like everyone really wants to help you succeed.
“We have a really supportive environment at Farmingdale, especially for women in STEM,” she added.
After graduation, Wylie is gearing up to pursue a master’s degree in engineering management and would like to go into sales engineering or program management. No matter where she goes, Wylie plans to give back to her community.
“I need to be fulfilled and driven by something,” she said. “My mom actually said that to me the other day. She’s like, ‘You’re going to need to find a hobby where you’re giving back in some way.’ Because I feel like something’s missing without that. So, I’m sure wherever I go next, there’s a lot of opportunities to volunteer for different things that I’m really passionate about. I would love to be able to help out a good cause.”
