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Solar panels

News

Trading some corn-ethanol land for solar offers ‘tremendous opportunity’

In the U.S., strategically converting a small fraction of land used to grow corn for ethanol to solar facilities could vastly increase energy production per hectare, as well as provide ecological benefits and financial resiliency for farmers.

  • Natural Resources and the Environment
  • Energy
  • Solar
Lady holding a horse and smiling

News

Faces of Extension: Ann Janson
Ann Janson has been involved with New York State 4-H for nearly 60 years. First, as a youth in Columbia County and later, as a volunteer involving her own children in the program. She has served as the Horse Bowl Chair and mentored many youth...
  • Cornell Cooperative Extension
Dominique Holtappels headshot

Spotlight

Meet our faculty: Dominique Holtappels
Academic focus: Ecology and evolution of plant pathogens in controlled environment agriculture (CEA) Research summary: I study how biotic drivers such as the plant virome are shaping the ecology and evolution of plant pathogens. My lab aims to...
  • Cornell AgriTech
  • School of Integrative Plant Science
  • Plant Pathology and Plant-Microbe Biology Section
Manoj Karkee Headshot

Spotlight

Meet our faculty: Manoj Karkee
Academic focus: Artificial intelligence (AI), automation and robotics in agriculture Research summary: My research program focuses on innovating AI, machine learning and robotics solutions for agricultural applications, aiming to reduce resource...
  • Biological and Environmental Engineering
  • Agriculture
Brent Sinclair Headshot

Spotlight

Meet our faculty: Brent Sinclair
Academic focus: Insect environmental physiology Research summary: I study how insects survive and thrive in harsh environments. Although we center our research on the insect, we follow mechanisms all the way to molecular biology and consequences...
  • Department of Entomology
  • Entomology
  • Physiology
Beatriz Willink Headshot

Spotlight

Meet our faculty: Beatriz Willink
Academic focus: Trait evolution, genomics and phylogenetics Research summary: I study why and how phenotypic traits evolve in insects. I focus on traits that often differ between the sexes, such as color patterns, and try to understand how...
  • Department of Entomology
  • Entomology
  • Genomics
Melissa Guzman Headshot

Spotlight

Meet our faculty: Melissa Guzman
Academic focus: Biodiversity big data and insect conservation Research summary: The goal of my research is to help improve insect conservation by developing statistical methods that better use all available data. While the distribution of some...
  • Department of Entomology
  • Entomology
  • Pollinators
Erik Enbody headshot

Spotlight

Meet our faculty: Erik Enbody
Academic focus: Evolutionary and conservation genomics Research summary: I study evolution in natural populations. I am motivated by questions that help us understand biodiversity on a fundamental level. What are the origins of biodiversity...
  • Computational Biology
  • Animals
  • Genomics
Rosa Santomartino Headshot

Spotlight

Meet our faculty: Rosa Santomartino
Academic focus: Biotechnologies for sustainable solutions in space and on Earth Research summary: In the coming decades, space exploration will take us beyond Earth’s orbit, demanding highly efficient closed-loop systems to reduce costs and...
  • Biological and Environmental Engineering
Samantha Willden Headshot

Spotlight

Meet our faculty: Samantha Willden
Academic focus: Controlled environment insect ecology Research summary: My research explores how abiotic and biotic factors drive invertebrate communities in controlled environment agriculture (CEA). CEA is a dynamic and rapidly evolving field...
  • Cornell AgriTech
  • Agriculture
  • Entomology
Headshot of Hannah Marx

Spotlight

Meet our faculty: Hannah Marx
Academic focus: Alpine botany, biodiversity, museum science Research summary: My research aims to understand the ecological and evolutionary processes that generate and maintain biodiversity across space and time in alpine “sky islands” on...
  • School of Integrative Plant Science
  • Plant Biology Section
  • Plants
A bumblebee on a blossoming plant outside Warren Hall in spring.

News

Meet our new faculty - spring 2025

a woman stands in front of a class, talking

Field Note

New course tackles complex nutrition disorders in cats and dogs
Despite nutrition’s essential role in pet well-being, most nutrition courses focus solely on basic dietary needs for growth, overlooking the complexities of nutrient metabolism disorders. Nathalie Trottier, professor of animal nutrition in the...
  • Animal Science
  • Animals
Graphic representing the collaborative framework of CROPPS decoding plants’ internal biological processes, STEPS improving sustainable management of phosphorus, and a two-way collaboration with diverse stakeholders.

News

Growth across fields: Scientific collaboration tackles farming challenges

A new study, published in Global Change Biology, presents five case studies that demonstrate how deep collaboration can transform crop monitoring, fertilizer use and water management to tackle the most significant challenges facing farming...

  • School of Integrative Plant Science
  • Plant Biology Section
  • Agriculture
Anne Thompson of NBC News, Fred Krupp, president of Environmental Defense Fund, and David Lodge, the Francis J. DiSalvo Director of the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability"

News

Cornell Atkinson at 15: celebrating science, fostering hope

The Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability’s 15th-anniversary conference addressed past successes and future efforts to support climate and sustainability.

  • Cornell Atkinson
  • Agriculture
  • Environment
Students are checking plants in a field

News

Cover Crop Challenge lets students compete and grow
How better to learn with classmates than to soil your undies together? Students in the Cover Crops in Agroecosystems (PLSCI 4125) course learn about the importance of soil nutrient cycling by, among other things, burying a new pair of cotton...
  • Campus Area Farms
  • Cornell University Agricultural Experiment Station
  • School of Integrative Plant Science
large group poses in comm hallway with some students squatting in front

News

COMM Updates - 4/16/2025
Conferences & Symposia Assistant Professor M. Cornejo will be participating in a panel entitled “ Margins and Mobilization: Migrant Worker Precarity and Power in the Trump-era Economy.” Bringing together scholars and activists, the panel will...
Atkinson Hall ribbon cutting

News

Atkinson Hall opens as a hub for research, collaboration

Atkinson Hall officially opened its doors with a ribbon-cutting ceremony April 9, realizing its benefactors’ vision of the facility as a home for impact-driven research across grand challenges in sustainability, cancer biology and immunology...

  • Cornell Atkinson
  • Computational Biology
Nora Catlin in a greenhouse.

News

Nora Catlin appointed director of LIHREC
The Long Island Horticultural Research and Extension Center (LIHREC), part of Cornell University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS), is pleased to announce the appointment of Nora J. Catlin as director, effective April 21...
  • Cornell AgriTech
  • Cornell University Agricultural Experiment Station
Two men stand on either side of a rainfall simulator in a lab.

News

Investigating the impact of rainfall on nutrient movement
by Madeline Hanscom Master’s candidate Carlos Irias and Zamorano intern Greivin Fernandez Benavides are currently conducting rainfall simulation experiments, studying nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) loss in runoff and infiltrate. Manure is a...
  • Animal Science
  • Agriculture
  • Field Crops