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With a 2024-2025 Innovative Teaching & Learning Grant, A&S professors collaborated with others to develope an AI tool to foster student metacognitive skills around teamwork in STEM classes.
Tadpole species that lost their lungs through evolution never re-evolve them, even when environmental change would make it advantageous.
The team found a significant uptick in the number of articles published after 2013 that focused on core concepts and competencies suggested in a seminal report.
With support from Cornell Atkinson, graduate students mentored undergraduates to conduct summer research on methane mitigation, food security and climate forecasting.
Ethan Duvall, an inaugural Semlitz Family Sustainability Fellow, has launched a nonprofit aimed at protecting biodiversity and culture in the Amazon Rainforest.
Ten students who participated in this summer's Nexus Scholars Program share their stories..
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The professorships are made possible because of gifts from alumni, parents and friends.
Through intensive breeding, humans have pushed breeds such as pug dogs and Persian cats to evolve with very similar skulls and “smushed” faces, so they’re more similar to each other than they are to most other dogs or cats.
Expanding aquaculture in the Amazon could provide nutritional and economic benefits at a fraction of the environmental cost of cattle grazing, according to a recent paper in Nature Sustainability authored by a multi-national research team lead by EEB grad student Felipe Pacheco from the Flecker Lab.
Sparks was honored for his distinguished contributions to the fields of ecology and environmental science.
Researchers studying novel traits in organisms and the fundamental understanding of extreme weather are among the five Cornell assistant professors who've received National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Awards.
Former EEB grad student and Schmidt AI in Science Postdoctoral Fellow in the College of Veterinary Medicine, Sebastian Heilpern leads Cornell research team in the Amazon: Smaller fish species are more nutritious, lower in mercury and less susceptible to overfishing. The findings have implications for biodiversity conservation and public health across the globe.
Cornell Atkinson is supporting 36 graduate students – including some in A&S – whose work protects biodiversity, improves health, reduces climate risk and more.
EEB and CUMV researchers Rowher and Vitousek report: new and historical data show birds that nest in cavities are more likely to use shed snake skins in their construction than birds that build open-cup nests, and this practice helps deter predators from eating the eggs.
EEB grad Marisol Valverde Montellano spent the summer focused on freshwater soundscapes and species community structure and dynamics with a focus on fishes, primarily through work at the Mamirauá Sustainable Development Reserve in the Brazilian Amazon.
Steph Tran is a second year doctoral student in our department. Steph earned a B.S. in general biology at the University of Texas at Arlington and now studies how organisms adapt to rapid environmental changes in the Gordon Lab. Steph is broadly interested in natural history and how organisms adapt to rapid environmental changes.
EEB's Flecker, McIntyre and Power research programs among six funded by Cornell Atkinson’s annual Academic Venture Fund. Seed funding will support research teams across five colleges and 11 departments, many with external partnerships that strengthen research and speed pathways from innovation to impact.
EEB's chemical ecologist prof, Andre Kessler, makes an argument for plant intelligence in a recent paper in the journal Plant Signaling and Behavior. Goldenrod can perceive other plants nearby without ever touching them, by sensing far-red light ratios reflected off leaves. When goldenrod is eaten by herbivores, it adapts its response based on whether or not another plant is nearby.
Coming from the University of Toronto, where he was the director of the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, Loewen began his five-year appointment as the Harold Tanner Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Aug. 1.
EEB prof and CUMV curator Bemis co-authors study with fellow Cornell researchers: Foxes’ sharp snouts penetrate snow during "mousing" with little resistance, minimizing potential tissue damage during headfirst dives. When mousing in snow, the fox’s long snout also allows it to reach its prey earlier, as mice are very sensitive to movements in their environment and can quickly escape.
EEB's research and teaching resource, The Cornell Museum of Vertebrates (CUMV), one of 18 institutions taking part in the oVert (openVertebrate) Thematic Collection Network project: a venture to digitize vertebrate collections in museums and make them freely available online for anyone to access
An avid lepidopterist since childhood, Nabokov was known to spend most of his free time on campus in the Cornell University Insect Collection.
Thirty-one graduate students across three colleges, including A&S, have been awarded research grants from the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability.
EEB's Anurag Agrawal, the James A. Perkins Professor of Environmental Studies helps uncover the ways in which human affairs and natural environments are inevitably and inextricably entangled in Nabokov’s imagination. An avid butterfly collector, Nabokov developed theories, recently proven accurate, about the evolution of a group of butterflies known as the Polyommatus blues. But it was his groundbreaking work in the imperiled habitat of the Karner blue butterfly in upstate New York that has had a lasting impact on environmental legislation and action to this day.
Global climate models and predictions rely on accurate accounting of greenhouse gas emissions and carbon storage, reports EEB assistant prof Meredith Holgerson. Holgerson and her research team are beginning to quantify the significant effects that both human-made and natural ponds have on the global greenhouse gas budget, measurements that aren’t well understood.
CALS Dean and EEB prof Ben Houlton part of UC Davis/Cornell research team: Adding crushed volcanic rock to cropland could play a key role in removing carbon from the air. The process, called rock weathering, can take millions of years — too slow to offset global warming. But by crushing the rock into a fine dust, rock weathering speeds up. The study was published in the journal Environmental Research Communications.
The College hosted a new pre-graduation reception in the Groos Family Atrium of Klarman Hall for December graduates and their families.
In sea fireflies’ underwater ballet, the males sway together in perfect, illuminated synchronization, basking in the blue-like glow of their secreted iridescent mucus.
EEB team from the Lodge Lab reports in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: the genetic material a species sheds into the environment (eDNA) can reveal not only the presence of the species but also a broad range of information about the genetics of whole populations. The use of eDNA sampling opens new possibilities for protecting endangered and vulnerable species and managing destructive invasive species.
Holgerson Lab joins multidisciplinary team from CALS at EEB's Experimental Ponds Facility to examine how floating solar panels on the research ponds affect the abiotic and biotic parts of water; and how microbes, macroinvertebrates, aquatic plants and fish fare. The three-year project is funded by the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability.
Sudan Kariuki from the Sparks Lab among Cornell graduate student recipients of a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad award. The Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies – the home of Cornell’s Fulbright program – advises and supports students throughout the application process.
Undergraduate students in scientific field courses often talk about their research with mentors, peers, family and friends and those interactions are important in shaping student views of themselves as scientists, according to research by EEB doctoral student David Esparza from the Smith Lab.
Physicist Carl Wieman will visit campus Sept. 25-29 as an A.D. White Professor-at-Large, working with students and faculty and offering a public talk about his work in science education.
The competitive fellowships send PhD students abroad for up to 12 months to build on their language proficiency, engage with other cultures and complete significant dissertation research on global cultures and societies.
"There is something truly special about on-campus field courses."
The Cornell-led team will conduct studies at two sites – in Hubbard Brook, New Hampshire, and in the Arnot Forest, near Ithaca – to gain a better understanding of the nitrogen cycle.
EEB prof and CALS Dean, Ben Houlton leads new study: state-of-the-art agricultural technology and management can not only reduce that growth, but eliminate it altogether by generating net negative emissions – reducing more greenhouse gas than food systems add. In fact, employing additional agricultural technology could result in more than 13 billion tons of net negative greenhouse gas emissions each year.
Senior author and EEB assistant prof Meredith Holgerson reports: Pond emission measurements improve climate predictions. This new study measures methane and carbon dioxide emissions from 30 small lakes and ponds (one acre or less) in temperate areas of Europe and North America, revealing that the smallest and shallowest bodies of water exhibit the greatest variability over time.
New study published by EEB's Moeller Lab finds that hundreds of bacterial groups have evolved in the guts of primate species over millions of years, but humans have lost close to half of these symbiotic bacteria. Strikingly, the results showed that these ancestral symbionts are being lost rapidly from the human lineage.
Ethan Duvall is a doctoral candidate in ecology and evolutionary biology from North Bend, Washington state. He attended Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington, and now studies how wildlife populations respond to human impacts on ecosystems under the guidance of Alex Flecker at Cornell.
The Clark Lab project: "Developing an endangered equid as an integrative model for understanding species persistence and extinction," among projects awarded as part of the College of Arts and Sciences New Frontier Grant program. The projects span across the sciences, social sciences and humanities in this latest round, for novel investigations ranging from quantum computing to foreign policy development and from heritage forensics to effects of climate change.
On May 16, several Arts and Sciences affiliated graduate students were among those honored for leadership and commitment to diversity, inclusion, outreach, and student engagement.
This summer, 101 students in the College of Arts and Sciences will take part in groundbreaking research on campus with 61 faculty as part of the Nexus Scholars Program. For many of these students, this will be their first research opportunity and they’ll work on projects with faculty across the college – in the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences and mathematics.
A&S faculty members will delve into questions ranging from quantum computing to foreign policy development and from heritage forensics to effects of climate change.
This summer, 101 students in the College of Arts and Sciences will take part in groundbreaking research on campus with 61 faculty as part of the Nexus Scholars Program.
EEB graduate student Ethan Duvall lead author in new study: The mutually beneficial relationship is described in “A Win-Win Between Farmers and an Apex Predator: Investigating the Relationship Between Bald Eagles and Dairy Farms,” which published March 10 in the journal Ecosphere.
EEB assistant professor Leslie Babonis et al., report: Single-cell atavism reveals an ancient mechanism of cell type diversification in the sea anemone, Nematostella vectensis when disabling a gene, called NvSox2 -- this causes a transition from a piercing cell, to a sticky, ensnaring cell.
EEB prof emerita Drew Harvell is among 12 Cornell faculty elected fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’s largest general scientific society. Harvell was honored for distinguished contributions to the fields of ecology and oceanography, particularly for increasing our understanding of disease resistance in marine invertebrates and impacts of climate change, and communicating these findings in award-winning books, including 2019’s “Ocean Outbreak.”
EEB and MBG prof Andrew Clark's Lab and collaborators investigate the expression of genes related to the fruit fly circadian clock: The findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could help explain how this protein, called sex peptide, alters the female’s behavior.
“This one gene controls a switch between two alternative cell fates," said Professor Leslie Babonis.