- [Narrator] Funding for this edition of Think Tank with Steve Adubato has been provided by Valley Bank.

Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey.

Atlantic Health System.

Making healthy easier.

PSEG Foundation.

Newark Board of Education.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

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NJM Insurance Group.

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PSE&G.

Powering progress.

And by Johnson & Johnson.

Promotional support provided by The New Jersey Business & Industry Association.

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[MOTIVATIONAL MUSIC] - Hi everyone, Steve Adubato.

We kick off the program with an important compelling conversation about spinal cord research and rehabilitation with Dr. Steven Kirshblum, Chief Medical Officer at Kessler Foundation.

Good to see you again, doctor.

Thanks for joining us.

- Thank you so much for inviting me.

- So I’ve, over the years I've done a fair amount of research, excuse me, leadership coaching with researchers and scientists at Kessler Foundation who do important work.

But it's very difficult sometimes to communicate to folks who have not gone to the same schools at the same level and done that kind of research and are not scientists.

What in layperson's language, doctor, is the spinal cord research and rehabilitation that you're involved in that is so important?

Let me also disclose that you are in fact Christopher Reeve's physician and were featured in the documentary on CNN about the great Christopher Reeve.

Please, doctor.

- It certainly was an honor and a privilege to be the physician taking care of Christopher Reeve amongst the entire team that helped him and certainly the relationship with him and what I've learned from him.

The Center for Spinal Stimulation at the Kessler Foundation is really dedicated to finding ways to enhance function after spinal cord injury.

This function could be movement, it could include other things such as blood pressure control, such as bladder control.

And let me explain a little bit about what happens after a spinal cord injury to really understand what spinal stimulation does.

Under normal circumstances, the brain sends messages through the spinal cord.

These messages are disrupted by the injury.

The communication is interrupted and isn't going as well as it should, but it's also important to recognize that there's information coming from the environment that comes back up through the spinal cord that may go to the brain.

Even more important is that the spinal cord is not just a passive relay system of wires going back and forth.

Spinal stimulation sensitizes, makes the spinal cord more receptive to work the way that it normally would.

- Okay, but this breakthrough surgery that you and your colleagues have developed, explain what that does to impact the process you just described, doctor.

- Okay, so there are a couple of different ways to stimulate the spinal cord.

We can stimulate the spinal cord by using transcutaneous across skin type of stimulation.

- Compared to?

- Compared to a surgical approach called epidural spinal stimulation.

Were we replace the electrodes during a surgical procedure directly onto the spinal cord.

Now naturally there are pros and cons of each.

What we did that was really special was we're first in the northeast to do this where we implanted the spinal cord stimulator into the person with spinal cord injury, to then be able to work with that individual in enhancing multiple different functions for them.

- What kind of impact could that have on the quality of that person's life who's dealing with a spinal cord injury?

And I know it depends.

It's case by case, patient by patient.

- Sure.

But after a spinal cord injury, there's so much that changes for a person.

We oftentimes think about walking and certainly walking is important, but it's certainly every daily activities that are impacted.

I mentioned before, just the ability to control urine or bowel or spasticity or just control blood pressure where the person just sort of never feels fully awake By stimulating the spinal cord at the right site with the right stimulation, frequency and other aspects with the right physical rehabilitation training, we can allow the spinal cord to start to work like it normally would.

It is sort of like a functional reorganization of the spinal cord so that it could regain certain functional activities and this could lead to significant changes for a person's quality of life.

- My understanding, and again, working with a fair number of your researchers and scientists, I often think I understand the research process, but I realize I don't meaning it's much more complex.

This research that was done to develop this surgery, how complex meaning how many patients over how much time and what had to be proven before you actually started to move forward with the surgery?

- So it certainly takes a lot of time.

So we're not the first in the world to do this.

We collaborate with people who have been doing this for a while.

We work together.

We've been collaborators for over a decade.

And we've been learning together how to perform this and bring it to New Jersey and then be able to perform it.

So there have been in...

The group that we are working with, over 50 patients that have now been implanted and each one has regained certain different functional activities.

And from each participant we learn much more and this is how we continue to advance the science and the opportunities for the people that- - Is that a clinical...

Sorry to interrupt, doctor.

But is that a clinical trial?

- So we are doing a clinical trial.

It's an NIH sponsored clinical trial.

- National Institutes of Health, been in the news a little bit lately.

Go ahead, doctor.

- Yes, no doubt that the primary investigator of that is Claudia Angeli.

She's the assistant director of our program.

Gail Forrest is the director of the program.

And this is specifically for a person who is injured less than one year, which is really very novel to implant them and then be able to help them regain certain activities including bladder function, blood pressure, standing, et cetera.

- So last question.

People say, oh, the NIH, I hear about them all the time in the news.

There are major cutbacks and I have no interest in discussing politics because that's not what we do here.

But what we do wanna understand is and for the average person watching right now, that average person is pretty above average in terms of concern and interest in public policy that impacts people's lives and research like the type you're talking about, NIH's role in this process a minute or less, what is it and why does it matter?

- Well, it matters because you need funding in order to move science.

Science discovery takes a lot of time, effort, knowledge, and financial backing.

We've been very lucky that Tim and Caroline Reynolds are the sponsors of our Center for Spinal Stimulation.

They really helped us get off the ground and learn.

But this study, for example, is funded by the NIH, which allows us to be able to pay for all the expenses.

Our neurosurgeon, Dr. Robert Heary who's a leader in the field is working with us, Overlook Hospital.

These things cost money and investment, there will be a great return on investment if we continue to discover these things and not only, and hopefully that we not only help people with spinal cord injury, but be able to look beyond for people with other neurologic disorders once we fully understand the mechanism of how these things work.

- 30 seconds before I let you go.

Christopher Reeve and Dana Reeve were and continue to be so important because?

- Well, they really moved everybody.

He was a relentless optimist.

He wanted to push boundaries and what was really important is he made people think that what the potential could be.

Sometimes you think about that you have to have wild dreams if you want to exceed your wildest dreams.

And what he did is he pushed everyone to think greater than they currently did.

Everyone thought the spinal cord couldn't repair itself, and now we know that there are ways to really modulate the spinal cord to perhaps bring function back to people with injuries.

- Thank you, doctor.

We appreciate it, particularly coming to us from Israel.

We wish you and your team all the best moving forward.

Thank you, doctor.

- Thank you so much.

Have a great day.

- You got it.

Stay with us.

We'll be right back.

- To watch more Think Tank with Steve Adubato, find us online and follow us on social media.

- We are joined by one of the great leaders in higher education, Dr. Teik Lim, who is president of NJIT.

That's the New Jersey Institute of Technology.

Good to see you, doctor.

- Good to see you, Steve.

Thanks for having me here.

- You got it.

NJIT is one of our higher ed partners.

And one of the issues that you don't need me to tell you about because parents, particularly students and faculty members and others in higher ed are dealing with it every day.

AI and higher ed.

In fact should we be concerned, is it an opportunity?

What is it?

Talk to us.

- Sure yeah.

Before I get into AI, I'll do a deeper dive.

Let me just say, you know, in spite of all the headwinds from geopolitical landscape, dropping high school graduating demographics, public procession of the value of higher ed, session that you've done before, we are doing really great, especially in the field of AI, we continue to rise in enrollment.

Our research, our reputation, our ranking, all those are arising and doing great.

In AI, we have been doing AI, before AI was a buzz word.

You know, we are a faculty member, about 30 or so of them are working on AI.

We have, we do about $50 million in AI research.

We have numerous initiatives in AI that all involve students.

So we're doing a lot in AI.

In addition to that, we are also looking at the impact of AI in our day-to-day life.

You ask a question about where the students and parents are concerned.

- Right.

- Rightfully so, there is concern because with any tools, there's always gonna be people are bad actors.

Someone, a professor actually asked me, what do I think about ChatGPT?

You know, one of the tools of AI.

I say ChatGPT is nothing more than just like a pen.

You know, you have a pen here, I'm gonna show you.

Okay a pen.

A pen is a tool you can write, you can use it to sign checks and make somebody happy.

Or you can use to poke in somebody's eye.

Don't do that right?

Same with AI.

And someone asked me if ChatGPT would encourage more cheating.

Not really- - Yes.

That's where I was going doctor.

- Yeah.

- So you're saying ChatGPT does not encourage cheating.

It's the cheater who chooses to cheat.

- Yes that's my opinion, because ChatGPT is another tool that the cheater can use.

And with any tools, you know, we are able to counteract with that.

So I remember when I was in my younger days when I was a professor, a student used Xerox machine to cheat.

They would take someone's homework, xerox it and turn it in.

I actually flunk both of that because I say, you know, not that because you cheat because how stupid you can in cheating.

- So this is a more sophisticated cheating tool, but it's not as if higher education hasn't had to deal with plagiarism and cheating before.

- Right and the truth is that, Steve, we have not seen a significant or any kind of measurable rise in cheating since AI came into picture.

We have not seen it.

- Shift gears for us, Dr. Lim.

Talk to us about the PSEG Foundation.

A long time underwriter of public broadcasting, and frankly, a whole range of educational initiatives.

There is a grant that I believe happened in 2022.

This was a grant from the PSEG Foundation to NJIT to promote STEM science, technology, engineering, and math career pathways.

Now we're three years into this.

What progress has been made and what needs to be done Dr. Lim?

- That's a good question Steve.

Now PSE&G obviously is one of our greatest corporate partners.

You know, part of our strategic plan is to really engage the corporate world because education today is very holistic, and we need the engagement with corporation to help us educate students better, to make students the best version of themselves when they leave here okay?

And this particular grant does exactly that.

The grant is benefiting in part, The Center for Pre-College programs at NJIT.

And the award is about $800,000 over five years, to STEM, as you say, STEM career pathways.

It has several components to this grant.

Number one okay The PSE&G, what we call the PSE&G Opportunity Scholarship, funds that support scholarship for underserved and underrepresented students to enroll in early college and preparatory program, summer offering.

That includes the ExCITE Program that talks about energy, sustainability, environmental science and engineering.

That's part of our strength here.

Electrical and computer engineering, chemical and materials engineering.

If you look at all these area, these are the areas that are germane to PSE&G business, - Excuse me, doctor.

And many of these students are from the Newark Public Schools.

- Many of them are from Newark Public School, not exclusively, but many of them from Newark Public School.

In fact, the last few years, even when Dr. Bloom was here, we have seen- - Dr. Joel Bloom.

- Dr. Joel Bloom yes.

We have seen an increase in the number of Newark students studying at NJIT.

And really the goal is that we want to double that at some point in time.

And this grant does help that.

- And, and in many ways, doctor, sorry for interrupting again, but many of these students would not have the opportunity to have that higher ed experience, if not for that support, is that fair?

- I think so.

Of course, you're preaching to the choir.

I think this grant makes it possible, especially for students that come from limited means family.

A scholarship makes it a whole lot of differences because parents might say, okay, you're gonna go to school and we have to pay.

Well, maybe you should go rather than go to school.

But with the scholarship, and again, I think parents are more willing to send their kids to school, especially at NJIT.

- Doctor, before I let you go, let me ask you this, you said earlier, 'cause look, look, you don't need me to tell you that people are questioning, some people are questioning the "value" of higher education and the value of a college degree.

Minute or less make the case.

- Yes.

- What's the payoff?

- Right.

The value, part of the issue with the value of higher education is we're lumped together with all of higher education.

Obviously with any sector there are bad actors, people who are, so a program that really doesn't lead to a job or something that they can use to support themselves.

But at NJIT, you know, we're the greatest technological talent and knowledge producer.

Almost every one of our graduates get multiple job offers when they leave here.

And the fact that enrollment is increasing here, even though we are experiencing nationwide a demographic cliff, okay, our undergraduate enrollment is just skyrocketing each year, every year, is because people see the value of an NJIT STEM education.

- Doctor listen, there's so much more to talk about, we'll continue talking about higher ed issues moving forward with you.

Dr. Teik Lim is president of New Jersey Institute of Technology.

Thank you Dr. Lim.

We appreciate it.

- Well, thank you Steve.

Anytime.

- You got it, stay with us.

We'll be right back.

- To watch more Think Tank with Steve Adubato, find us online and follow us on social media.

- Continuing our series, Making a Difference.

We have a leader making a difference every day.

Michael Andreas is the Chief Executive Officer of JVS, that's Jewish Vocational Services of MetroWest New Jersey.

Good to see you, Michael.

- Thank you, Steve, great to see you today.

- You got it.

JVS of MetroWest as the website is up, does what for whom?

- JVS is a workforce development agency and a human service agency.

We work with about 5,000 people a year in New Jersey.

Primarily the northern part of the state, but also as far down as Middlesex.

We operate out of two different locations, one in East Orange and one in Montclair.

Most of our clients come from overburdened communities, which is a state definition.

And there's three components of that.

You know, individuals who are low income.

Okay, about 85% of the people who we serve are low income individuals making less than $30,000 a year.

75% are below the poverty line.

40% of the people identify as minority.

40% of people have some type of English proficiency issue within, you know, in the household.

GVS has a very robust ESL program and we serve a lot of people in terms of providing ESL classes.

- You also, Michael, work closely with employers, to do what?

To do, design training programs?

- We do a lot of training programs.

We do, the way we wanna work our training programs is the old workforce models tended to be a, you would get a grant, you train people, and then you'd pray that an employer would hire them.

- Right.

- The way we go about, it's a little different.

We start with employers at the beginning of our model, we get input from the employer as to what are the goals and skills that are required for an employer to hire somebody once a training is done.

So what we do is we develop the curriculum, we do the vetting, we do the recruiting, we bring people in, we do the training, and, you know, with the understanding that we already know what the employer's going to need in terms of job skills.

It makes it a lot easier for an employer to hire people once, you know, they already know that the program that we're doing, right, has a lot of the needs that they have to hire.

- Michael, how do folks find JVS of MetroWest, How do they find you?

I mean, they'll put up the website right now, but how would they even know you were there?

- I'll tell you, it's, we have so much demand for our offerings, for our programs, and for all our services.

You know, if we run a new training class, like let's say we run a pharm tech class, it's a 15 to 20 cohort class- - Ho-ho, back up, a pharm tech class, explain that?

- So, workforce development, we run these, we run a couple different job skills programs.

One is pharmacy technicians.

There's two tracks for a pharmacy tech.

You know, they're the people working retail in the retail pharmacy, CVS, Walgreens.

And they're the ones behind the counter, you know, filling the prescriptions, you know, under the supervision of the pharmacist.

So that's one track, the other track is in the hospitals.

Hospitals have a huge need for pharmacy technicians.

We also run home health aid programs.

You know, there's a gigantic need in New Jersey for home health aids.

- So they go on your website, what should they be looking for?

- You know it depends what they want.

You know, we believe in the, a continuum of service for people.

So, you know, people come into JVS, they, you know, they let us know where they are.

They let us know what skills they need.

You know, whether we're doing a, an ESL program, whether we're doing a GE program- - English as a second language.

- Yes.

- Why is that?

- That's correct.

- Why is that so important?

- In state of New Jersey, the immigrant population is huge.

JVS or the state of New Jersey has the fifth largest immigrant population in the country.

- That's right.

- Only behind California, Texas, Florida, New York.

We're the fifth, you know, 29% of the people in New Jersey identify as being foreign born, so there is a huge need for ESL.

What we're finding also with our workforce partners, our employer partners, is ESL is a big thing that is needed.

It's a barrier to employment.

We always talk a lot about barriers to employment.

So barriers to employment could be, you know, legal status.

Could be ESL, could be not having a high school degree, could be transportation issues, could be not having access to technology.

- Could it also be someone's status?

- Legal statuses, definitely one of them.

You know, and that's a big issue right now.

You know, the other thing too is if you're a parent, you know you think about, you know, most of the people we serve, you know, have at least one of those barriers to employment.

If you're a parent, you know, now you have might have a child care issue.

You know, so all these things are what we call "barriers to employment."

And, you know, the staff here at JVS in our programs are designed to help clients, you know, overcome these barriers to employment.

- How'd you get into this?

- My story's a little different.

I worked on Wall Street for many years as a trader and a chief operating officer.

This was not where I thought I would be, I have to admit.

But I will say that, you know, when I got into this, I came in as a finance person, because that was really my background.

And JVS was having some financial issues at the time, some leadership issues.

I came in, I was here for about, you know, a year or so, the CEO left.

They asked me if I'd become the CEO and I did.

It is the greatest job I've ever had.

I mean- - Because?

- Because you're dealing with people one-on-one, you're helping people, you're seeing a future for people.

You know, it's, you know, working on Wall Street's different, you know, you make money working on Wall Street, but this is to really impacting human lives every day.

And, listen, I'm the CEO, I have a great staff, I have a wonderful staff who has a connection to this population of people, and they work really hard to help people.

And I have a great board, you know, board also, you know, we have a wonderful board of trustees who help us do all of this stuff.

- Before I let you go.

Michael, the importance of serving people with disabilities, helping people with disabilities as it relates to their employment opportunities.

Got a minute, go ahead.

- In New Jersey, and what we try to do is our mandate for our program as is our funder, which is the division of vocational rehabilitation is CIE, competitive integrated employment.

- Right.

- So that means to give people skills to get them into the workforce.

There's lots of challenges for employers to hire individuals with disabilities.

We work every day to work with our clients to make sure that they have the skills, you know, that we can, that they can utilize on a job.

Our goal with our employer partners is to make sure we train people so they're adding value to an employer on day-one to hire.

That's our goal.

We really get one shot with employers.

As a nonprofit, you know, we really have to provide a good, well-trained employee, you know, and we provide a lot of, you know, soft skills to make sure that people understand what it's like to work in a, you know, in an environment, you know, in a competitive environment.

So, you know, we do a lot of work with that also.

- Michael Andreas, and by the way, this has been part of our Making a Difference series.

Which you wonder, make a difference in what?

We feature not-for-profit organizations who are making a difference in their communities.

And these not-for-profits run the gamut in terms of who they serve, what they do, what their funding sources are, but we are a not-for-profit media production company.

We feature not-for-profit organizations making a difference, and Michael Andreas is the Chief Executive Officer of JVS of MetroWest New Jersey.

The website has been up to find out more.

Hey, Michael, thank you so much for joining us.

We appreciate it.

- Thank you, Steve.

- I'm Steve Abubato, thanks for watching.

See you next time.

- [Narrator] Think Tank with Steve Adubato is a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Funding has been provided by Valley Bank.

Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey.

Atlantic Health System.

PSEG Foundation.

Newark Board of Education.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

NJM Insurance Group.

PSE&G.

And by Johnson & Johnson.

Promotional support provided by The New Jersey Business & Industry Association.

And by New Jersey Globe.