Supporting team-based science
Existential global challenges like climate change and food insecurity involve interconnected systems that require us to mobilize across—and even transcend—conventional academic disciplines. They demand a concentration of the best ideas and techniques from across Cornell University and its College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (Cornell CALS), developed and implemented every step of the way with external outcomes in mind.
Through our strategic Transdisciplinary Moonshots, Cornell CALS is assembling collaborative teams of faculty to unlock holistic solutions through visionary research, teaching, outreach and innovation. With a focus on real-world outcomes, we’re connecting constellations of experts to pursue scientific discoveries and breakthroughs that can address our world’s most dire threats. This is the “solutions century,” and CALS is leading the way by connecting agricultural, life, environmental and social sciences for practical, real-world impact.
Six Transdisciplinary Moonshots
The moonshots connect constellations of experts to pursue scientific discoveries and breakthroughs that can address our world’s most dire threats.
Accelerating Livestock Innovations for Sustainability
Livestock methane emissions are a potent and significant contributor to climate change worldwide. Cutting methane can reduce global warming by ~0.5 degrees C in the next decade, thereby slowing the rapid pace of climate change.
CALS is leading in methane reductions through our innovative approach to fostering collaborations among researchers, educators and industry that aim to reduce these emissions while protecting food production, animal health and farmers’ livelihoods.
Advancing Environmental Justice
The climate and sustainability challenges we face are broadly understood as linked social-environmental problems. CALS is launching a collaboration centered around environmental justice for people and the planet, with a focus on advancing innovations from historically marginalized groups and redefining the technology of the future.
The new wave of sustainable innovations must be inclusively considered and accessible so that clean air and water are equitably available to all people.
Creating a Climate-Resilient Future
The accelerating pace and compounding effects of climate change and extreme weather on people, food, energy, infrastructure, industry and ecology demand practical solutions that are rooted in innovations, creating real-world resilience.
CALS is promoting transdisciplinary partnerships to navigate transitions to climate-resilient futures in three interdependent areas: renewable energy, sustainable cities and agrifood systems. This approach will ensure that we are building a robust and resilient society that not only adapts to extreme weather but slashes greenhouse gases and empowers communities and industry.
Empowering Biodiversity for People and Planet
Biodiversity loss is occurring at a pace that threatens the planet’s basic life support systems — air, water, soil — worldwide. CALS has experts who span the full panoply of biodiversity imperatives — from genomics to the emergence of diverse life forms, and the policy innovations that are essential to a sustainable future.
We aim to curb this loss of species and understand the untapped potential of diverse life forms to solve challenges in human health, design and the environment through our vast biodiversity collections and refugia and by building field-based research and teaching programs that directly address the crisis from local to global scales.
Harnessing the Power of Synthetic Biology
Through synthetic biology — the harnessing of genes, proteins and biological machinery — scientists can design and program new organisms to sustainably produce fuels, food and medicines. CALS researchers are harnessing the potential of this emerging field as they explore the development of processes and materials that can fight disease, power society, feed communities, slash greenhouse gas emissions and protect the environment for future generations.
Revolutionizing Controlled Environment Agriculture
Food networks must adapt to feed an expanding global population while coping with the challenges of a warming planet. Through controlled environment agriculture, CALS is helping specialty crop producers become more agile and productive to help ensure a nutritious, accessible, equitable and sustainable food supply — leaving no one behind.
We’re hiring solutions-focused faculty
Over the next three years, CALS plans to hire more than 25 new faculty into the following six team-based cohorts.