Episode Details

On this episode of CUNY Laureates, we profile another three Guggenheim Fellows who graduated from the City University of New York.

Ira Eduardovna (MFA, Hunter College, 2011) is a New York–based video installation artist and filmmaker, born in Uzbekistan. Her work draws deeply from her childhood experiences of migration, tracing her family’s relocation from Uzbekistan to Israel following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Through non-linear storytelling, Eduardovna reconstructs autobiographical narratives that explore migration, displacement, and the complexities of identity. She is known for creating immersive, multichannel video installations, including notable works such as The Iron Road (2021) and On Foreign Made Soles (2018). As a filmmaker, she directed the narrative short Tongue Behind Teeth (2025) and is currently developing a feature film exploring themes of migration and belonging. In recognition of her contributions to film and video, she was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship in 2025.

Edward Grant (City College, 1951) became a renowned historian of science over the course of his multi-decade career as a professor at Indiana University. Focusing on the history of science in Medieval Europe, Edward argued that the era’s reputation as a “dark age” was undeserved, and that key events in the Middle Ages laid the groundwork for the scientific revolution that would follow. He wrote over a dozen books on the subject, and, in addition to a Guggenheim Fellowship, was also awarded the George Sarton Medal, generally recognized as the highest honor in the field.

Leonard Kleinrock (City College, 1957) studied computer engineering at both City College and later, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He then moved to California to work at UCLA, where his lifework began to take shape: birthing the Internet. His research and experiments eventually led, in late 1969, to the first digital message being sent through a router (at the time, called a ‘packet switcher’) from UCLA’s node to one at Stanford. After this, the Internet - the digital world - began to take shape. In his later years, Kleinrock bemoaned the commercialization of the Internet, as it was once a space for researchers to share their findings. But the cat was out of the bag, so to speak, and almost 70 years after his first message, the Internet has evolved into Web 2.0, and now, the AI-era. He won a Guggenheim Fellowship for computer science in 1970.

00:00 – Intro
00:48 – Ira Eduardovna
11:09 – Edward Grant
18:27 – Leonard Kleinrock

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