I will be participating in the 2019 NCEP Teaching & Learning Studio

Image Source: Wikimedia Commons I am very excited to be a participant in the American Museum of Natural History‘s Network of Conservation Educators and Practitioners (NCEP) program’s 2019 Teaching and Learning Studio. This year’s theme is “Effective Teaching by Design”, which describes a lot of the scholarship that I have been doing over the years and Read More

Break not the ungulate culture of migration

Science “Is ungulate migration culturally transmitted? Evidence of social learning from translocated animals” Wow, this is super cool. We often think of humans as exclusively cultural, but it is only the extent to which we rely on culture that makes us unique. That doesn’t mean that culture’s not crucial to the learning of other animals, whose Read More

Humans arrive, other mammals shrink

Scientific American “Mammals Shrink When Humans Migrate In” Another really cool infographic from Scientific American. What I really find interesting here is the difference between the recent arrival of humans (Australia, the Americas) and places where humans just innovated culturally (Africa, Eurasia). Those large mammals species that coevolved with our emergence as a highly-cultural species seem Read More

Both primates have their own uses for the same land

PNAS “Small room for compromise between oil palm cultivation and primate conservation in Africa” This study reaches what is probably not a surprising conclusion: if we want to grow tropical plants for food, we are likely to displace tropical mammals. Palm oil is particularly frightening because it seems to like to grow in areas where endangered Read More

Alan Rabinowitz, 1953-2018

Photo of Alan Rabinowitz speaking in 2010 courtesy of Kris Krüg via Wikimedia Commons It was with great sadness that I learned that Alan Rabinowitz died of cancer on August 5th. There’s a great tribute to him on the National Geographic site: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2018/08/alan-rabinowitz-big-cat-champion-news/ A Brooklyn-born kid who used frequent Bronx Zoo visits to overcome a severe stuttering Read More

I will present my EnviroAtlas class activities at NCSE 2018

I guess that some people are really good at planning out where they are going with their careers, but for me serendipity seems to play a really big role. Rather than charting a particular course and then plotting my expedition from “now” to “future goal”, I seem to be more apt to catch a wave Read More

BK BioReactor visualizes Gowanus Canal microbial communities

Gowanus Canal images courtesy All-Nite Images via Wikimedia Commons My colleague Romie Littrell referred me to a really interesting project of the BK BioReactor group that visualizes microbial community diversity in the Gowanus Canal: http://www.bkbioreactor.com/visualization/ For those who are not familiar with the Gowanus Canal, an historically-important Brooklyn shipping lane that is now a Superfund Read More

BLUE WEEK 2017 comes to Pratt Institute

Once again, Pratt Institute will sponsor its annual Fall celebration of everything aquatic: BLUE WEEK. Starting on Sunday, September 24th, 2017, a series of events on- and off-campus will help members of the Pratt community become more aware of their relationship to our freshwater and marine ecosystems. There’s a chance to give back by cleaning Read More

Hey, ho, Portland Oregon ESA 2017, let’s go!

Mount Hood on the descent into Portland, Oregon Ah, what a privilege it is to get to go to academic conferences! A whole week during which I get to re-connect with old academic friends, make new connections, and do the backstroke in science. And it does not hurt a bit when the conference is in Read More

Pratt News features short piece on Dr. Roland Kays’s campus visit