The ASRC’s Environmental Sciences Initiative welcomes its newest members

The CUNY Advanced Science Research Center’s Environmental Sciences Initiative is excited to welcome several new members, each of whom will be working with ASRC Professor Peter Groffman on new research projects. These projects will contribute greatly to our understanding of human-dominated and natural systems, particularly those across the eastern and northeastern U.S.

Julie Weitzman, a postdoctoral researcher will be working on denitrification studies in agricultural sites in Missouri, Pennsylvania and Georgia funded by the USDA. She is also participating in an experimental ice storm manipulation project that is part of the National Science Foundation (NSF) funded Hubbard Brook Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) project in New Hampshire.

Amanda Suchy, a postdoctoral researcher is working on studies of biophysical and social controls of nitrogen runoff from residential landscapes funded by a Coupled Natural Human systems grant from the NSF.

Laura Templeton has been hired as a Research Assistant to work on this project as well as another Baltimore-based project investigating alternative ecological (wildlife, water quality) futures for residential landscapes funded by the NSF Macrosystems Biology program.

Xiangyin Ni is a PhD student visiting from the Institute of Ecology and Forestry at Sichuan Agricultural University in China, working on soil:atmosphere trace (greenhouse) gas emissions from urban forests in Baltimore.

Bernice Rosenzweig, who has long worked with the Environmental Crossroads Initiative, is now working on urban resilience studies in Jamaica Bay and in Baltimore as part of an NSF funded Urban Sustainability Research network project focused on Urban Resilience to Extreme Events such as drought, heat waves and coastal and urban flooding.

Several students pursuing an M.S. in Earth and Environmental Science at Brooklyn College have also joined.  Jason Smith and Ratha Perinparaja are carrying out ecological restoration research in Highbridge Park in Manhattan and Deneisha Cox is researching the potential for chicken production in New York City urban gardens.  Groffman is also helping to advise two Ph.D. students based at Brooklyn College, Sara Perl Egendorf and Anya Paltseva, who are researching soil dynamics in urban agriculture.

For more information, please contact:
Anthony Cak, Associate Director, Environmental Sciences Initiative
anthony.cak@asrc.cuny.edu
CUNY Advanced Science Research Center
85 Saint Nicholas Terrace
New York, NY 10031
Phone number: 212.413.3141
asrc.gc.cuny.edu/environment