COMM Updates - 9/24/2025

News

September 24, 2025 Awards Graduate student Rosie Nguyen received the Adam Smith Fellowship from the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. This one-year fellowship is aimed at doctoral students from any university and discipline who are...
group of students stand in front of poster boards, smiling

Striving to support sustainable ag around the globe: Aidan Villanueva

Field Note

Originally from Belize, Aidan Villanueva was finishing up his studies at Zamorano University in Honduras when he joined the Nutrient Management Spear Program (NMSP) for a 3-month internship. Later, he returned to work with the team from January...
  • Animal Science
  • Agriculture
  • Environment
Two people standing in a field with equipment.

Meet our faculty: Courtney Davis

Spotlight

Academic focus: Global biodiversity and ecoinformatics Research summary: My research addresses the accelerating biodiversity crisis by developing scalable, data-driven approaches to guide global conservation and sustainability efforts. My lab...
  • Natural Resources and the Environment Section
  • Biodiversity
Courtney Davis headshot

Meet our faculty: Lirong Xiang

Spotlight

Academic focus: Robotics and artificial intelligence in agriculture, controlled environment agriculture (CEA) Research summary: My research focuses on developing smart cyber-physical systems that integrate cutting-edge robotics, computer vision...
  • Biological and Environmental Engineering
  • Agriculture
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Meet our faculty: Aaron Sexton

Spotlight

Academic focus: Urban ecology Research summary: I am an urban ecologist attempting to understand the processes and patterns that form urban plant and animal communities. Across systems, plants, insects, fish and birds, my lab uses data collected...
  • School of Integrative Plant Science
  • Plants
  • Horticulture
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Meet our faculty: Ruben Portugues

Spotlight

Academic focus: Mechanistic understanding of cognition Research summary: I am fascinated by how the brain represents a model of the world and how it can use this to plan and decide what to do. This structuring of knowledge and information...
  • Neurobiology and Behavior
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Meet our faculty: Varsha Pathare

Spotlight

Academic focus: Crop ecophysiology under environmental change Research summary: My research focuses on developing fundamental, mechanistic understanding of how CO2 and water move through the complex internal spaces inside leaves during...
  • School of Integrative Plant Science
  • Soil and Crop Sciences Section
Varsha Pathare headshot

Meet our faculty: Camilo H. Parada-Rojas

Spotlight

Academic focus: Field crops pathology Research summary: We study diseases of major field crops in New York state with one goal: better decisions for growers. We ask how pathogen populations change under selection from host resistance, fungicides...
  • School of Integrative Plant Science
  • Plant Pathology and Plant-Microbe Biology Section
Camilo H. Parada-Rojas

Meet our faculty: Patrick Murphy

Spotlight

Academic focus: I will be the lecturer for Genetics BIOMG 2800, which introduces students to basic principles in genetics and genomics, and provides an in-depth presentation of both classic and modern genetics mechanisms. I strive to inspire...
  • Molecular Biology and Genetics
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Meet our faculty: Amelia Moore

Spotlight

Academic focus: Environmental anthropology; ocean and environmental justice Research summary: Situated at the intersection of the social sciences, natural sciences and humanities, I am a holistic scholar focusing on research, pedagogy and...
  • Natural Resources and the Environment Section
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Meet our faculty: Una Miller

Spotlight

Academic focus: Physical oceanography, air-sea interaction Research summary: I am an oceanographer who uses observational data to study the physical processes that drive fluxes of heat, momentum and biogeochemical tracers in the ocean. My work...
  • Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
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Meet our faculty: Kade Keranen

Spotlight

Academic focus: Environmental change in terrestrial and aquatic systems Research summary: My research integrates geophysical methods with computational approaches to study environmental and ecological change across terrestrial and aquatic...
  • Natural Resources and the Environment Section
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Meet our faculty: Reem Hajjar

Spotlight

Academic focus: Forest governance and livelihoods, community-based natural resource management, social-ecological systems, conservation social science, environmental justice Research summary: I lead the Forests, Livelihoods, Institutions and...
  • Natural Resources and the Environment Section
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Meet our faculty: Katalin Fejes Toth

Spotlight

Academic focus: Regulation and function of transposable elements, small RNA biology, chromatin biology Research summary: My research focuses on how transposons – genetic elements that are able to jump around and propagate in our genome and...
  • Molecular Biology and Genetics
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Meet our faculty: Jasmine Dillon

Spotlight

Academic focus: Sustainability of livestock and food production systems Research summary: I study the role of animals in sustainable food systems at the farm, ranch, region, landscape and supply chain scale. My lab combines modeling and field...
  • Animal Science
  • Animals
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Meet our faculty: Collins Bugingo

Spotlight

Academic focus: Seed pathology, integrated pest management and seed microbiomes Research summary: My research bridges science and practice in crop production, with a focus on seed germination, disease diagnostics and management, seed microbiome...
  • Cornell AgriTech
  • School of Integrative Plant Science
  • Plants
  • Crops
  • Horticulture
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Meet our faculty: Jelena Bradic

Spotlight

Academic focus: Causality and robustness in statistics and data science Research summary: I study how we can make statistical and machine learning methods more reliable for understanding cause-and-effect relationships in the real world. My work...
  • Statistics and Data Science
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Meet our faculty: John Benning

Spotlight

Academic focus: Evolutionary ecology Research summary: Our research group seeks to understand the interplay between evolutionary processes and ecological patterns. We mainly work with plants and insects but dabble in microbes, too. Our interests...
  • Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
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Meet our faculty: Lindsey Becker

Spotlight

Academic focus: Plant microbiomes Research summary: Plants coexist with dynamic and complex microbial communities. I study how host genetics and environmental stressors collectively influence microbiome composition and function. By studying crop...
  • School of Integrative Plant Science
  • Plant Pathology and Plant-Microbe Biology Section
  • Agriculture
  • Plants
  • Crops
Headshot of Lindsey Becker

Meet our faculty: Casey Barickman

Spotlight

Academic focus: Vegetable physiology and climate resilience Research summary: I conduct research in vegetable physiology with a strong focus on enhancing climate resilience. My research centers on understanding how environmental stressors such...
  • School of Integrative Plant Science
  • Horticulture Section
  • Crops
  • Horticulture
Casey Barickman Headshot