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.


For microbes in harsh environments, it’s survival of the meekest

Cornell researchers have found that peaceful microbes are more likely to thrive, and their more aggressive peers perish, if their environment is harsh or experiences violent disruptions.

Cornell, Wegmans partner to train growers in food safety

In an increasingly complex food system, ensuring the safety of fruits and vegetables requires collaboration between grocery chains like Wegmans, Cornell and government agencies.

Faculty-led startup is using AI to reimagine software reliability

Cornell Tech Assistant Professor Raaz Dwivedi has co-founded Traversal, a startup emerging from stealth this week with a mission: to transform how modern software systems detect and resolve outages using artificial intelligence.

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Inside the medical crash cart robot: Designing for urgency, collaboration, and clarity

Cornell Tech researchers unveiled a robot that helps emergency room teams locate life-saving supplies faster, revealing how design can shape collaboration under pressure.

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Microbes that extract rare earth elements also can capture carbon

Cornell geochemists and synthetic biologists have collaborated to improve the efficiency of microbes that can dissolve rocks to extract critical minerals while speeding carbon sequestration from air.

New ‘Thought Summit’ series welcomes proposals on data science and AI

Cornell faculty are invited to submit proposals for fully funded Thought Summits to spark interdisciplinary collaborations in data science and AI, with applications due June 16.

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Cover Crop Challenge lets students compete and grow

Cornell AES manages farms and greenhouses that support research but are also unique teaching resources for over 40 courses. This is the sixth story in a series about on-farm teaching; in Cover Crops in Agroecosystems, students explore the uses of cover crops and assess their benefits.

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Century-old mystery of plant communication solved

Researchers at the Center for Research on Programmable Plant Systems have taken a major step toward advancing two-way communication with plants.

Students help city of Ithaca earn LEED Gold certification

A Cornell University Sustainable Design student team worked with an array of municipal departments to assemble the extensive data needed to demonstrate that the city of Ithaca met the stringent requirements for LEED certification.