Alum heads Mellon Foundation’s higher education program

Phillip Brian Harper, M.F.A. ’85, M.A. ’86, Ph.D. ’88, is now the program director for higher learning at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. 

Ezra

Around Cornell

Two Cornell graduate students receive DOE grants

Christopher Morrison Pierce, M.S. ’19, a doctoral candidate in physics, and Brennan Hyden, a doctoral candidate in plant breeding, have been chosen for the Office of Science Graduate Student Research Program.

‘One Health’ a key focus of COVID-19 Summit

The “One Health” approach is perfectly suited to tackling the COVID-19 pandemic, the most serious public health crisis in recent history, Cornell researchers said during the university’s COVID-19 Summit, a virtual event held Nov. 4-5.

Engineer to model sunshine deflection for cooling planet

Thanks to $1 million in new grants, Cornell scientists will model adding reflective aerosols into the stratosphere, which may deflect enough sunbeams to reduce Earth’s temperature and limit climate change.

Poet’s book finds words for ‘things that leave us speechless’

Poet Valzhyna Mort has been a voice in news outlets and on social media during pro-democracy protests in her native Belarus. But the poetry collected in “Music for the Dead and Resurrected” is not about a specific political or social subject.

Fulbright winners hope for global research, teaching in 2021

Seven Cornell students and recent alumni received Fulbright U.S. Student Program awards to conduct research or teach abroad in 2020-21. Fulbright activities are currently suspended until January 2021.

Climatologist Warren Knapp, acid rain expert, dies at 82

Warren Knapp, 82, professor emeritus of meteorology and climate in the Earth and atmospheric sciences, and the second director of Cornell’s Northeast Regional Climate Center, died Oct. 3 in Ithaca.

Clay subsoil at Earth’s driest place may signal life on Mars

Earth’s most arid desert may hold a key to finding microbial life on Mars, in new research published Nov. 5 in Nature Scientific Reports.

Kerry imparts experience, hope to the ‘next generation’

Former Secretary John Kerry discussed foreign relations, climate change, political polarization and other immediately relevant topics Oct. 29 during the Belnick Family LaFeber/Lowi Presidential Forum.