Community

“The best research you can do is talk to people”

– Terry Pratchett

Throughout my research career, I have made a consistent effort to engage with communities at home and in the field. In Africa, I worked to help local parataxonomists establish foundling conservation organizations that are still in operation today – like the Navilla Naramat Local Warriors Youth Group.

Kenya would also provide me the first opportunity to get involved in conservation technology. My drone photography and videography would be incorporated in developing Wildbook and other AI-based image recognition programs. You can see some of my drone footage (observing the endangered Grevy’s Zebra) here, in a Microsoft commercial from 2017.

Today, in the local upstate NY community, I am involved in a sustainable development project designing a homestead to replace a historically agricultural field in the Hudson Valley. At the site, we are interested in both the sustainable production of grass-fed dairy (a collaboration between the local land-owners and Chaseholm Farms) and in establishing the ‘best-case’ development plan for the increasing number of rural landowners looking to renovate land.

At Cornell, I am the treasurer and former president of our departmental graduate student association. I’ve also worked to help undergraduates establish the Cornell SEEDs (https://www.esa.org/seeds/) chapter. SEEDs, founded in 1996 as an undergraduate-focused wing of ESA, is dedicated to increasing minority representation in Ecology. I have been involved in SEEDs since early 2018 when I founded the Princeton University chapter as an undergraduate.