Peter Groffman announced as professor with ASRC Environmental Sciences Initiative

Dr. Peter M. Groffman has been named to the faculty at The City University of New York’s Advanced Science Research Center’s (ASRC) Environmental Sciences Initiative.

“I am delighted to welcome Dr. Peter Groffman to CUNY,” said Dr. Gillian M. Small, Vice Chancellor for Research and Executive Director of the CUNY ASRC. “He is an exceptionally talented scientist and distinguished scholar who is committed to our mission of creating a top level research environment at CUNY, being a catalyst for interdisciplinary scientific research and discovery and developing a university–wide integrated scientific research network.”

Groffman, who will also hold a professorship in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Brooklyn College, focuses on terrestrial biogeochemistry with an emphasis on multi-disciplinary, multi-scale research projects addressing nitrogen with an emphasis on gases.

“I am particularly excited that Dr. Groffman will be working with both the CUNY Environmental Crossroads and our colleagues in the Nanoscience and Structural Biology Initiatives,” said Dr. Charles J. Vörösmarty, Director of the CUNY ASRC Environmental Sciences Initiative. “His work studying biogeochemistry and ecosystem metabolism makes him a natural fit with the center.”

His current projects include work at two long-term ecological research sites, the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in New Hampshire and in Baltimore. Past projects include microbial/molecular scale analyses, field/ecosystem scale measurement of fluxes using geochemical and isotope approaches, and landscape and regional scale work using remote sensing, geographic information systems and simulation models.

“Opportunities for collaboration within the Environmental CrossRoads Initiative and with the other groups in the ASRC are truly extraordinary,” Groffman said. “The expertise in modeling, remote sensing and regional analysis within the initiative are an ideal platform for collaboration with my more mechanistic, process-oriented work. At the same time, the ASRC efforts in Nanoscience and Structural Biology provide opportunities for new approaches to understand the molecular scale dynamics that underlie the processes that I have been studying. I am convinced that the CUNY ASRC is indeed ‘at the vanguard of 21st Century scientific exploration and education’ and I am excited to be a part of it.”

Groffman joins the CUNY ASRC from the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, where he served as a researcher in microbial ecology since 1992, ultimately being named a senior scientist in 2005. During his career, he has authored over 300 publications, with more than 85 as primary author. He is also listed as a “Highly Cited Researcher”, a group compiled by the Institute of Scientific Information which comprises less than one-half of one percent of all publishing researchers in a given field.

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About the ASRC: The new CUNY Advanced Science Research Center (ASRC) is a University-wide venture that elevates CUNY’s legacy of scientific research and education through initiatives in five distinctive, but increasingly interconnected disciplines: Nanoscience, Photonics, Structural Biology, Neuroscience and Environmental Sciences. Led by Dr. Gillian Small, Vice Chancellor for Research and the ASRC’s executive director, the center is designed to promote a unique, interdisciplinary research culture. Researchers from each of the initiatives work side by side in the ASRC’s core facilities, sharing equipment that is among the most advanced available. Funding for the ASRC from New York State is gratefully acknowledged.

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