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Ashley School of Global Development and the Environment

We unite science, innovation, and real‑world engagement to develop leaders who create practical solutions for improving lives, strengthening ecosystems, and driving positive global impact.

A Nexus for Environmental Problem-Solving

The Ashley School at Cornell CALS is a dynamic hub for addressing complex challenges facing people and the planet in the 21st century. Emphasizing education with impact, we contribute our broad interdisciplinary expertise to pioneer practical solutions, emphasizing real-world engagement with communities in New York state and more than 30 countries around the globe to improve lives and livelihoods and promote environmental stewardship. 

This is our global perspective on how we support society.

As the only Ivy League university with a Land-Grant mission, we uniquely integrate world-class research and education with community engagement in service of the public good. Our faculty, students and partners coalesce around urgent themes – from climate resilience and biodiversity loss to sustainable agriculture and food system transformation – working with stakeholders to create solutions that are locally grounded and globally relevant.

Leveraging our two distinguished sections – Global Development and Natural Resources and the Environment – the school takes a transdisciplinary approach to integrate ecological science, social innovation and community engagement to foster sustainable, resilient and prosperous futures.

Collaborating across disciplines

Disciplines coming together to solve problems across the world

With a focus on global development and natural resources and the environment, the new school is a dynamic hub for addressing complex challenges facing people and the planet in the 21st century.

Explore our sections
two people looking closely at plants
A man speaks to students standing in a field of crops
Education

Our dynamic learning atmosphere and academic culture goes beyond purely technical work to provide deep analysis and transformative solutions.

Fragments and sheets of ice breaking apart on Oneida Lake
Research

We bring together faculty, students and partners from across Cornell and beyond to address interconnected environmental and societal challenges.

A dog, dog handler, and researcher inspect a row of grape vines for spotted lanternfly.
Outreach & Extension

Our outreach model centers community stakeholders in every phase of the research process, ensuring relevance and real-world impact.

By the numbers

600

Undergraduate students

140

Graduate students

107

Faculty

News

News

Historic gift endows Cornell CALS Ashley School

The Department of Global Development and the Department of Natural Resources and the Environment have been combined to establish a new school: the Cornell CALS Ashley School of Global Development and the Environment.

Headshot of Stephen B. Ashley ’62, MBA ’64
a person standing on a boat

News

CBFS Saildrone StoryMap
Autonomous drones are taking center stage in fisheries assessments across the Great Lakes. These drones deploy acoustic technology which tracks and quantifies fish populations. Acoustic surveying, which utilizes beams of sound, has traditionally...
  • Biological Field Station
  • Ashley School of Global Development and the Environment
  • Natural Resources and the Environment Section
Kayden Nasworthy, a graduate student at Cornell University, holding a bag of collected mysids. A new New York Sea Grant-funded research project is evaluating long-term trends in mysid shrimp populations in Lake Ontario.

News

Cornell leads a Lake Ontario food web study in $1.5M Sea Grant research suite

Cornell University’s James Watkins and Kade Keranen are leading a nearly $240,000 study to examine the abundance of mysid, small, shrimp-like crustaceans that are critical links in Lake Ontario’s aquatic food web.

  • Biological Field Station
  • Sea Grant NY
  • Ashley School of Global Development and the Environment
Macaw flying in an open landscape

News

Rubber tree agroforestry supports birds, biodiversity in the Colombian Amazon

A doctoral candidate and Semlitz Sustainability Fellow and his Colombian partners seek to protect birds and biodiversity in the Amazon via sustainable rubber tree agroforestry.

  • Cornell Atkinson
  • Ashley School of Global Development and the Environment
  • Natural Resources and the Environment Section