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Discover CALS

See how our current work and research is bringing new thinking and new solutions to some of today's biggest challenges.

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Research

We accelerate purpose-driven science by supporting inquiry that crosses disciplinary boundaries and stretches from discovery to invention.

Purpose-driven science? We literally wrote the book on it.

The first undergraduate textbooks in mammology, ornithology and food science? Check. The first successful integration of botany and zoology in 1967’s Biological Science? Check. A 1925 handbook of nature study that is still a primary resource on the subject? Check.

The research of Cornell CALS scientists, students and staff hasn’t just informed discovery and innovation, but it is also the foundation upon which fields of study have been built.

In this section

Undergraduate research

Discovering new genes

Cameron Xu ’26 is using biometry and statistics to help Cornell CALS animal science professor Vimal Selvaraj identify new genes. Together, they’re investigating how steroid hormones regulate the body’s processes, uncovering new knowledge that could advance cancer research and solve other human health challenges.

Explore synthetic biology at CALS
Play CALS Undergraduate Research Experience: Cameron Xu '26

Latest news, discoveries and breakthroughs

Explore the work we’re doing today and discover how it’s reshaping tomorrow.

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News

US communities are getting older – and more livable

Communities tracked by AARP's Livability Index made progress becoming more age friendly, but housing affordability and health care access remain challenges.

  • Global Development
Lab bottles labled hydrogen peroxide

News

A cleaner, less toxic way of making a staple chemical

Hydrogen peroxide plays a key role in paper bleaching, wastewater treatment and electronics manufacturing, and it can be made in an entirely new way.

  • Food Science
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News

Ancient dirty dishes reveal decades of questionable findings

An interdisciplinary team of researchers determined that organic residues of plant oils are poorly preserved in calcareous soils from the Mediterranean, leading decades of archaeologists to likely misidentify olive oil in ceramic artifacts.

  • School of Integrative Plant Science
  • Soil
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Research in lab

Undergraduate opportunities

Plant Science researchers working in a lab.
Graduate student grants

Opportunities include Andrew W. Mellon Student Research Grants, Arthur Boller Research Fund, Kieckhefer Adirondack Fellowships and Grant Proposal Application Instructions

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Faculty research support