Radical Collaboration

Cornell faculty are reaching across disciplines to tackle society’s most complex challenges and to make breakthrough discoveries. These radical collaborations—collisions of thoughts and perspectives from vastly different fields—lead to unexpected and unconventional solutions and deepen our thinking.


Cross-college researchers unravel mummy bird mystery

Master’s student Carol Anne Barsody is working with an array of interdisciplinary collaborators to explore the origins of a mummified bird and create a multisensory exhibition that rethinks the way ancient artifacts are presented in museums.

Radical Collaboration initiative adds AI, quantum, design tech

Artificial Intelligence, Design + Technology and Quantum Science and Technology will become part of “Radical Collaboration Drives Discovery,” bringing to 10 the number of initiatives in the provost office’s five-year-old program.

Staff News

Teams take a crack at world food issues at digital ag hackathon

Students from 28 fields across six different schools gathered at the fourth annual Digital Agriculture Hackathon, March 11-13, to find solutions to global food system issues while competing for cash prizes.

Collaboration is a good fit for wearable sensor startup

A Cornell startup is working with the Performance Apparel Design Lab to take its wearable sensor technology, which can track the movement of athletes, and use it to monitor pilots undergoing high-gravitational-force training.

Virtual reality farm tour expands access to urban agriculture

Cornell researchers have created the most advanced virtual reality urban farm tour ever made, an online learning experience that promises to transport urban and rural farmers to New York City’s Red Hook Farms without ever leaving home.

AI apps bring veterinary data to CVM community

The tools of AI and machine learning will soon be at the fingertips of the College of Veterinary Medicine’s faculty, staff and students to mine more than 1.4 million clinical cases and 14.2 million diagnostic tests to assist in clinical research.

AI enables strategic hydropower planning across Amazon basin

Biologist Alex Flecker and computer scientist Carla Gomes co-led a project that employed AI and around 40 researchers in an attempt to determine optimal placement of around 350 hydropower dams in the Amazon river basin.

‘Underground maps’ segment cities using fashion, AI

Cornell computer scientists have developed a new framework to automatically draw “underground maps,” which accurately segment cities into areas with similar fashion sense and, thus, interests.

Academic Integration office reports 15 new seed grants

Cornell's Office of Academic Integration has announced 15 new multi-investigator seed grants, including support for a project on climate change, pollen and asthma attacks and another to develop a microbial delivery system for a unique treatment of colorectal cancer.