Pictured left to right: Undergraduate lab members Sharada Rao, Winston Chien, Kristie To, and Sofia Loayza display their award plaque.
Grants
Professor Bruce Lewenstein and graduate student Amanda Vilchez served as Co-Principal Investigators, alongside Raina Plowright and Rachel Bezner, on a project awarded a $10,000 Rapid Response Fund grant from the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability. The grant supports their research project, “Tradition as Innovation: Collaborative Evaluation of the Ancestral Use of Vampire Bat Guano,” a co-produced agroecological study that brings together farmers, agronomists, and ecologists to evaluate the effectiveness of vampire bat guano as both a maize seed protector and fertilizer. The project aims to support community decision-making about the future of this traditional practice and explore ways to carry it out more safely.
Publications
Associate Professor Neil Lewis, Jr., & Jamila Michener, January 2026, “Introducing the Futures Forum: A Place to Envision Equitable and Just Futures,” Center for Racial Justice and Equitable Futures.
The Center for Racial Justice and Equitable Futures launched the Futures Forum, a new space that will offer written reflections, visual art, podcasts, and video content geared toward building an equitable and just future. This initial post is an introduction to the forum and an invitation to contribute to it.
