Meet our faculty: Megan Greischar

Spotlight

Academic focus: Within-host ecology and the evolution of parasite traits Research summary: My research focuses on parasite life history within the host — that is, the timing of replication and transmission — traits that are not easy to...
  • Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
  • Disease
  • Biology

Meet our faculty: Louis Longchamps

Spotlight

Academic focus: I research how precision agriculture, on-farm experimentation, data science, and soil, crop and environment sensing can improve the way we manage our crops — to the benefit of farmers and the environment. Research summary: I did...
  • Cornell Institute for Digital Agriculture
  • School of Integrative Plant Science
  • Soil and Crop Sciences Section
  • Agriculture
  • Digital Agriculture
  • Field Crops
  • Crops
  • Soil
Louis Longchamps standing outside against a ivy-covered brick wall

Meet our faculty: Flavio Lehner

Spotlight

Academic focus: Climate variability and change Research summary: I study the statistics and mechanisms of climate variability on regional to global scales. Our focus is on atmospheric processes, but since many weather and climate phenomena...
  • Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
  • Environment
  • Planet
  • Climate Change
Flavio Lehner standing outside in front of water and green trees

Meet our faculty: Elad Tako

Spotlight

Academic focus: Nutrigenomics, trace mineral bioavailability, dietary mineral deficiencies, physiological biomarkers, bioactive compounds, the microbiome, and the functionality and morphology of the small intestinal brush border membrane (which...
  • Food Science
  • Food
  • Health + Nutrition
Elad Tako standing in a black sweater with his arms folded against a white wall

Meet our faculty: Courtney Murdock

Spotlight

Academic focus: Ecology and evolution of infectious diseases, eco-immunology, life history, mosquito-borne disease transmission, host-pathogen interactions Research summary: A main driver of vector-borne disease transmission is the ecology of...
  • Northeast Regional Center for Excellence in Vector Borne Diseases
  • Entomology

Farmers’ organizations can reduce poverty and promote sustainability

Spotlight

For more than a century, farmers’ organizations have assisted agricultural producers in accessing credit, negotiating for needed inputs, and ensuring a higher price for farm goods. In the face of climate change, these organizations may also be...
  • Global Development Section
  • Global Development
  • Plants
Farmers harvest rice

Ceres2030 project aims to help smallholder farmers cope with climate change

Spotlight

In academic publishing, one measurement of a work’s importance is how many other academics have cited it. This long-standing system has the benefit of simplicity and helping to form a common knowledge base. But especially for those working to...
  • Global Development Section
  • School of Integrative Plant Science
  • Plant Pathology and Plant-Microbe Biology Section
  • Global Development
  • Plants
A woman harvests in a valley

To make agriculture sustainable, governments must prioritize policy

Spotlight

The rich biodiversity of the Ecuadorian cloud forests has fascinated naturalists and tourists for generations, which is why the region has also served as a laboratory for an array of conservation programs and policies. Protecting ecosystems...
  • Global Development Section
  • Global Development
  • Plants
Looking down on fields and a stream

Livestock are integral to the livelihoods of smallholder farmers

Spotlight

Most of us have heard the statistics about how livestock are bad for the climate and the environment: within agriculture, livestock production is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions; over-grazing can harm wildlife habitats and reduce...
  • Animal Science
  • Global Development Section
  • Global Development
  • Animals
Two cows standing in a barn

Vibrant, inclusive food systems crucial to ending hunger

Spotlight

In just one generation, the food system in developing regions has transformed. Urbanization and increased incomes have led to diversifying diets, including more animal proteins as well as processed and packaged foods – all of which have...
  • Global Development Section
  • Food
  • Global Development
  • Plants
A woman stands in a food stall

Addressing world hunger by reducing postharvest food loss

Spotlight

When we think about how to feed an estimated 8.5 billion people by 2030, a natural first reaction is: we’ll have to grow more food. But in reality, about one-third of all food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted — roughly 1.3...
  • Global Development Section
  • Food
  • Global Development
  • Plants
Harvested food on display

Youth employment key to addressing world hunger

Spotlight

Across the developing world, the youth bulge means more mouths that need to be fed, but also more hands that need to be kept busy. According to the World Bank, in order to accommodate population growth and existing unemployment issues, countries...
  • Global Development Section
  • Global Development
A young man looks out over a bustling street

Waterless world

Spotlight

For decades, everyone from the United Nations to the New York Times quoted the same agricultural statistic: “70 percent of all the world’s food is produced by small-scale farmers.” Working in international development in places like Cambodia...
  • Global Development Section
  • Global Development
  • Water
Water droplet falling

Benjamin Z. Houlton: Investing in agriculture for a climate resilient future

Spotlight

If all goes as planned, the addition of rock dust — rich in potassium, iron and zinc — will help increase the crop’s overall yield, nutrient density and sequester carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere. “Each time these natural rock particles...
  • Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
  • Agriculture
  • Global Development
  • Plants
  • Crops
  • Soil
  • Environment
  • Planet
  • Ecosystems
  • Climate Change
a man and a woman stand in a farm field looking at a tractor in the distance

Alireza Abbaspourrad: From gummies to water purification filters

Spotlight

Ensuring food products meet with consumer expectations isn’t easy. Take vitamin C–infused gummies: keeping the vitamin C stable is so tricky that gummy manufacturers regularly add up to 200 percent more vitamin C to the product than they list on...
  • Food Science
  • Food
  • Health + Nutrition
A man in a lab coat holds a slide up to the light.

Corrie Moreau: Sharing 7 million insects with the digital world

Multimedia

Spotlight

As director and head curator of the Cornell University Insect Collection, Corrie Moreau has numerous tasks on her to-do list, including one that could last her entire career: digitizing the collection’s 7 million specimens. Digitization is a...
  • Department of Entomology
  • Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
  • Biology
  • Evolution
  • Entomology
  • Organisms
  • Nature
Two yellow and green moths pinned to a box

Johannes Lehmann: Leading the Soil Carbon Revolution

Spotlight

Johannes Lehmann, School of Integrative Plant Science, Soil and Crop Sciences, is leading a revolution. Over the past two decades, he has been instrumental in overturning a long-held scientific belief regarding the fundamental nature of soil...
  • Cornell Atkinson
  • Global Development Section
  • School of Integrative Plant Science
  • Soil and Crop Sciences Section
  • Soil
  • Environment
  • Planet
  • Climate Change
hands hold black ashes

In podcast, outgoing CALS dean reflects, ponders trends

Multimedia

Spotlight

Before she moves on to new roles – as dean of the Cornell Graduate School and vice provost for graduate education – Boor joined Cornell Cooperative Extension’s “Extension Out Loud” podcast to reflect on her journey through agriculture, as both...
  • Cornell Cooperative Extension
  • Food Science
  • Agriculture
Dean Kathryn J. Boor

Candid cameras: The avian world, up close and personal

Spotlight

With a network of more than a dozen live-streamed cameras located as far away as New Zealand, the Lab of Ornithology’s Bird Cams project offers a constant dose of eye (and ear) candy — from the breeding habits of a bonded pair of Bermuda petrels...
  • Lab of Ornithology
  • Animals
  • Environment
Four people with binoculars look at a bird in the distance