Cornell Atkinson research grants support future sustainability leaders

Forty undergraduate and graduate students will study sustainable strategies to grow coffee and strawberries, use cutting-edge technology to protect pet food and pollinators, and create new systems to conserve energy and ecosystems. The Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability will provide over $325,000 in funding this year for these and other projects, as part of its commitment to educate future conservation leaders.

"Building the next generation of sustainability leaders is central to our mission at Cornell Atkinson," said Verne Thalheimer, associate director of Cornell Atkinson. "Our students are exceptionally talented and highly motivated. Supporting these scholars early in their educational and career paths not only improves the research and solutions we can produce today, it strengthens the network of environmental stewards across industry, government, academia and the non-profit sector into the future."

One of those stewards is two-time awardee Leah Crenshaw, a doctoral student in the graduate field of natural resources and the environment. With support from Cornell Atkinson's Sustainable Biodiversity Fund, Crenshaw is working with coffee growers in Panama to study how agroforestry systems could support biodiversity, wildlife conservation and farmer livelihoods. She has used her funding in part to support two undergraduate interns from Panamanian universities: Josue Justo Beytia and Anyi Ortega Arcia. Crenshaw is a student in the lab of Amanda Rodewald, the Garvin Professor and Senior Director of the Center for Avian Population Studies at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

"Atkinson is one of the rare funding resources willing to support paying undergraduates, and their support enabled me to make this internship opportunity equitable and accessible to students who rely on paid work to support themselves but still need field experiences to get a foothold in their careers," Crenshaw said. "I benefitted enormously from having the support of my two interns, but I also have been able to gain critical skills as a mentor and teacher which I plan to carry forward across my career."

The over $325,000 in awards announced today encompasses three of the Cornell Atkinson funding opportunities available to students: Graduate Research Grants, which provide one to two years of funding for any Cornell doctoral student studying methods to accelerate energy transitions, reduce climate risk, increase food security, or advance the health of people and the planet; Sustainable Biodiversity Fund grants, which support Cornell graduate students who are pursuing projects that preserve biodiversity and its global ecosystem services; and Summer Undergraduate Mentored Research (SUMR) Grants, which support undergraduate researchers mentored by a graduate student and a faculty principal investigator. SUMR is funded in part by Pat and Barbie Murphy's generous philanthropy.

Some of this year's funded projects will explore:

Advancing Organic Thermoelectric Materials and Devices for Sustainable Waste Heat Recovery and Energy Harvesting

Electronics, industry and even human activity create heat, much of which is lost as waste. Simon Shi, a doctoral student in the field of mechanical engineering, hopes to capture some of that heat and convert it into electricity. Supported by a Graduate Research Grant, Shi aims to develop organic thermoelectric devices that can convert waste heat into electricity, enabling greater energy efficiency and supporting sustainable technologies. His project will create flexible, environmentally friendly systems for wearable electronics, industrial heat recovery, and distributed energy, promoting scalable clean energy solutions.

Faculty advisor: Zhiting Tian, the Eugene A. Leinroth Sesquicentennial Faculty Fellow in the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering in the Cornell Duffield College of Engineering.

Shifting Dynamics of Agricultural Technology Adoption in Bangladesh

This project will examine how and why Bangladeshi growers have adopted or not adopted agricultural technologies - such as improved rice varieties and aquaculture - and what impact those adoption decisions have had on growers' livelihoods. With support from a Summer Undergraduate Mentored Research grant, Kushal Kumar, a doctoral student in the field of applied economics and management, will mentor two undergraduate students. Over summer 2026, the group will collaborate with an interdisciplinary team in Bangladesh to investigate how risk perceptions, family migration and remittances (a higher-paid family member sending money back to poorer family members) influence adoption decisions.

Faculty advisor: Kurt Waldman assistant professor of global development in the Ashley School of Global Development and the Environment in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS).

Understanding the Importance of Avian Pollination in Saguaros

The saguaro cactus of southern Arizona and northern Mexico supports a diverse group of pollinators and is largely bird-pollinated, despite lacking plant traits that typically attract birds. Kirsten Keleher, a doctoral candidate in the field of neurobiology and behavior, will study interactions between white-winged doves, Gila woodpeckers and saguaro cacti to determine which floral traits are important in attracting different bird species. Her findings will illuminate the saguaro's reproductive ecology in a changing, urbanizing Sonoran Desert and inform conservation strategies for this keystone species and its complex pollination network.

Faculty advisors: Irby Lovette, Fuller Professor of Ornithology in the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in CALS, and Rob Raguso, professor of neurobiology and behavior in the College of Arts & Sciences.

Descriptions of all funded student research projects are available at the Cornell Atkinson website: Graduate Research Grants, Sustainable Biodiversity Fund, and Summer Undergraduate Mentored Research Grants.

Krisy Gashler is a writer for Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability.