April 7, 2021
Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability and Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) have announced three Innovation for Impact Fund (IIF) awards for research projects that aim to accelerate problem-solving research and catalyze the rapid integration of recent research into effective policy.
The IIF brings together academic and NGO experts and practitioners to develop and test evidence-based solutions to some of the world s more intractable sustainability problems and addresses urgent environmental and public health challenges.
Cornell Atkinson has supported over 40 IIF Awards since 2012, including more than 20 in partnership with EDF.
“The Innovation for Impact Fund supports research with clear pathways to impact. Partners such as EDF allow for an emphasis on actionable, short-term results,” says Paul Atkinson ’92, Chair of the Cornell Atkinson Advisory Council. “The projects selected this year address the impact of urgent climate issues on humans including
U.S. Department of Energy/Provided
Mary Nichols, former chair of the California Air Resources Board, will be a Visiting Senior Fellow at the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability. Mary Nichols ’66 brings fresh air to Cornell Atkinson
March 10, 2021
In the summer of 1964, Mary D. Nichols ’66 joined 30 other Cornell student volunteers to explain civics and to register Black citizens as voters in a deep-South Tennessee county. She traces her passion for justice and the environment to that moment.
“That experience is what led me eventually to law school and to environmental activism,” said Nichols, now an internationally acclaimed environmental regulator who has spent her career working for California governors and U.S. presidents to cool a warming Earth and to provide fresh air.
Lake Flato Architects/Provided
An artist’s rendering of Atkinson Hall, to be built on the north side of Tower Road overlooking the Cornell Botanic Gardens. The multidisciplinary building will house the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability, the new Master of Public Health Program, and lab and office space for other disciplines. Atkinsons’ $30M gift to name multidisciplinary building
March 8, 2021
A $30 million commitment from David R. Atkinson ’60 and Patricia Atkinson will name a new multidisciplinary building on campus, intended to foster innovative and collaborative research in priority areas of sustainability, public health, cancer biology, immunology and computational biology.
Atkinson Hall, to be built on Tower Road adjacent to Rice and Bruckner halls, will be a four-story building (approximately 90,000 gross square feet) and include space for faculty and staff of the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability and the new Master of Public Health prog
Date Time
Wildlife regulation, ‘one health’ keys to avert more pandemics
Future pandemics can be averted if the United Nations and the world’s governments move to eliminate unnecessary wildlife trade and consumption, and then promote a holistic “one-health” approach focused on tearing down scientific and organizational silos, according to global experts speaking at the Feb. 23 virtual conference, “Emerging Disease, Wildlife Trade and Consumption: The Need for Robust Global Governance.”
The experts tied together seemingly disparate factors and global conditions -wildlife markets, societal inequities and human incursions into what’s left of wild nature – that contribute to pandemics.
Hosted by Cornell’s College of Veterinary Medicine, the World Wildlife Fund and Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability, the webinar was moderated by journalist Thomas L. Friedman of The New York Times, with keynote remarks by conservationist Dr. Jane Goodall.
February 8, 2021
A live virtual event focused on preventing future pandemics, recognizing that human health is inextricably linked to the health of wildlife, livestock and the environment, will be moderated by New York Times journalist Thomas L. Friedman with a keynote address from noted naturalist Jane Goodall.
Jane Goodall
This event is free and open to the public. It will feature public health and conservation experts from Cornell and other institutions, including the World Health Organization and the United Nations Environment Program.
“This virtual dialogue will be a robust exploration on how we as humanity can better govern our behavior to reduce the likelihood of future pandemics,” said Dr. Steve Osofsky, D.V.M. ’89, the Jay Hyman Professor of Wildlife Health & Health Policy and director of the Cornell Wildlife Health Center. “The experts we’ve assembled will be sharing their ideas on how our global community of nations can hopefully come together to prevent what