Energy, Environment & Sustainability

Cornell is a global leader in sustainability and climate change research, teaching and engagement. Our campuses are living laboratories for developing, testing and implementing solutions that address these most challenging issues.


Easy test can see if breeding bulls have the right stuff

Forget sending bull semen out for complicated laboratory tests to learn whether the agricultural animal is virile. Cornell scientists have developed a faster, easier microfluidics method.

Cornell team develops more efficient photocathode

A team of researchers at Cornell’s Center for Bright Beams has developed a technique to address limitations with photocathodes, which are vital to the performance of some of the world’s most powerful particle accelerators.

Deserts ‘breathe’ water vapor, study shows

A Cornell-designed probe shows how water vapor penetrates powders and grains – a finding that could have wide-ranging applications in pharmaceutical research, agriculture and food processing, and planetary exploration.

$6.75M EPA grant to fund Great Lakes food web monitoring

Cornell received the grant to continue efforts to monitor and research the lower part of the food web, particularly zooplankton like Mysis and benthic invertebrates.

Student grants serve communities from New York to Ethiopia

Students aim to reduce aviation emissions, support farmworkers and improve a New York animal shelter with the David M. Einhorn Center for Community Engagement’s Serve in Place awards.

Facing high water, Hudson towns reimagine waterfronts

With the Hudson River rising from a fast-warming climate, the cities and towns along its banks now have an opportunity to save and reimagine their municipal waterfronts.

Family, friends recall Frank H.T. Rhodes’ warmth and grace

More than two years after the death of Frank H.T. Rhodes – Cornell’s ninth president, beloved for his leadership and eloquence – his family and friends gathered March 26 to celebrate his life.

A first: Cornell’s red-tailed hawk lays fourth egg

For the first time since the Lab of Ornithology installed a live camera on the nest in 2012, Big Red, the female red-tailed hawk, has produced a fourth egg during breeding season.

‘Earth is transitioning’: Models suggest more megadroughts

By the end of this century, Cornell’s Flavio Lehner and others said that megadroughts – extended drought events that can last two decades – will be more severe and longer in the western U.S. than they are today.