2025 Year in Review
2025 Year in Review
In 2025, the Cornell men's lacrosse team won the national championship, Cornell's first in 48 years. It was the capstone to a magical season.
A Year of Wins
Cornell also produced cutting-edge AI research, inaugurated a president and advanced agriculture and sustainability. The university’s faculty, staff, students and alumni made the world a better place around the globe and closer to home, welcomed back two Nobel laureate alumni and conducted research that matters.
Research for a better world
The Chronicle’s most-viewed research stories for 2025 spanned disciplines, ranging from a study on the effectiveness of GLP-1 drugs for weight loss to a paper showing strong social connections and support can slow the biological aging process.
Among these top stories was Helioskin, an aesthetically appealing solar-collection fabric, developed by an interdisciplinary team and inspired by the biological mechanisms that enable plants to bend toward the sun.
Helioskin was featured in "Solar Solutions," a five-part multimedia series examining Cornell’s cutting-edge, interdisciplinary contributions to solar energy research.
On AI’s leading edge
AI was everywhere in 2025, with Cornell leading the way. In July, the National Science Foundation announced the new Artificial Intelligence Materials Institute at Cornell, funded by the NSF in partnership with Intel.
Research about AI included a state-by-state analysis of AI’s environmental impact, to help make it more sustainable; a study finding that AI chatbots can effectively sway voters in either direction; and a doctoral student’s assistive technology for people with speech impairments, so they can communicate with more nuance.
Cornell’s 15th president
In March, the Cornell Board of Trustees appointed Michael I. Kotlikoff, who had served as interim president since July 2024, the university’s 15th president. “Mike has demonstrated the leadership and vision that the university needs right now,” said then-Board Chair Kraig H. Kayser, MBA ’84.
Kotlikoff was inaugurated on Oct. 24 in a ceremony without the traditional formal academic procession, but with all the official symbols of the university.
In other campus news, Cornell Engineering announced an historic $100 million investment from David A. Duffield ’62, MBA ’64, to significantly expand Duffield Hall. Alumni rallied to support Cornell in a year that brought in $878 million in new gifts and commitments, the second-highest total in Cornell’s history.
New campus spaces, faces
2025 saw the dedication of Atkinson Hall and the Cornell Bowers Computing and Information Science building, as construction on the new Meinig Fieldhouse included efforts to protect beloved hawk Big Red.
Bird Cam viewers were thrilled this spring when Big Red returned to build her nest at the site – and are eagerly awaiting a new nest in spring 2026.
Also in 2025, a rise in student interest in faith-based organizations helped fuel the addition of a Hindu temple in Anabel Taylor Hall. And the 5,824 students admitted to the Class of 2029 reflect Cornell’s commitment to changing lives through public engagement.
Bees and trees: Advancing agriculture and sustainability
Top agriculture stories included a collaboration with dairy farmers showing how sustainable practices are leading to lower emissions, a warning about avian flu and dairy herds, and a study showing that U.S. investment in agriculture is needed to maintain productivity.
Cornell Botanic Gardens is collaborating with conservation partners to propagate trees resistant to emerald ash borers. If successful, these trees and their progeny could be used to reforest decimated woodlands in New York state and beyond.
Meanwhile, a new Cornell program, with funding from New York state, aimed to support the region’s livestock farmers, beginning with cattle, goat and sheep farmers.
Bee experts are analyzing samples of bees and related material to help identify the cause of unprecedented managed honeybee losses this winter.
And a study examining how a cyanobacteria manipulates its environment offered clues to stopping harmful algal blooms and mats in lakes during hot summers.
Cornell's global reach
A five-part series, Dispatches from Mwanza, documented the success of Weill Cornell Medicine’s collaboration with Weill Bugando School of Medicine to improve health care in Tanzania, the U.S. and around the world.
The 24-year collaboration has helped Weill Bugando graduate more than 2,220 MDs since it was founded in 2003, expanding medical research in both Tanzania and at Weill Cornell Medicine.
The collaboration includes innovative research on fighting hypertension and a devastating tropical parasite that disproportionately affects women.
Community impact
Closer to home, the Chronicle profiled programs aimed to help residents of New York state.
Cornell Cooperative Extension Nassau County and partners engaged more than 200 local kids, often from under-resourced communities, with lessons in marine life and ecology.
In Chautauqua County, an experimental vineyard at the Cornell Lake Erie Research and Extension Laboratory is the university’s first living laboratory of precision, autonomy and sustainability, supporting the grape industry in New York and Pennsylvania.
And here in Tompkins County, the Energy Warriors program provides trainees with a foundation in environmental literacy and hands-on experience that helps them enter the workforce.
Cornellians making headlines
The unveiling of a new leadership institute and student residence, established by alumni brothers of the nation’s first Black fraternity, Alpha Phi Alpha, was the most read Chronicle story of 2025.
The institute and residence were inspired by the principles of the fraternity, which was founded at Cornell in 1906.
In other alumni news, Bill Nye ’77, known by millions as the Science Guy, received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States’ highest civilian honor. The citation praised Nye as “a beloved science educator for the nation.”
Three campus visits from Nobel laureates included Claudia Goldin ’67, Jack Szostak, Ph.D. ’77, and former Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management professor Richard Thaler.
Research matters
A series of stories profiled researchers whose federal funding was frozen in April, illustrating the cost of cuts on research focused on solving society’s most urgent challenges.
Life-saving heart pumps for babies
The most widely cited of these stories profiled a professor who was nearing completion of a life-saving pediatric heart pump. Professor James Antaki’s tiny device has the potential to save tens of thousands of babies with heart defects.
World-changing research
Other projects ranged from protecting national defense from cyberattacks to building our future in space to developing better testing for tick-borne diseases.
For most researchers, including Antaki, the stop-work orders were lifted after the Nov. 7 agreement between the university and the federal government.
Research at Risk: Life-saving heart pumps for babies
This story, photos and videos were developed and produced by Alexandra Bayer, Noël Heaney, Sreang Hok, Susan Kelley, Jason Koski, Eduardo Merchán, Ashley Osburn, Adam Palcich and Ryan Young.
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