Research

The only way to build environmental leadership and solve complex environmental problems is to synthesize research and education. Perhaps no place in the world can such a synthesis be so readily achieved as at the Center for Environmental Research and Conservation (CERC), where five long-standing, prestigious institutions that have worked with one another for nearly a century, formerly formed a consortium 12 years ago thanks to the V. K. Rasmussen Foundation's grant to Don Melnick.  Each member of the consortium has a variety of education and research programs.

The consortium researchers, volunteers, interns, students, faculty, and staff have been involved in such key discoveries as finding new species of plants and animals in biodiversity hotspots, charting the course of wildlife and zoonotic diseases, studying the evolution of primate behavior, examining how forests respond to disturbance, studying ecosystem processes and ecosystem services like carbon storage by tropical trees and grasslands, understanding how to develop participatory conservation programs, working on restoration of damaged habitats, exploring models for sustainable development through a balance of good economics, governance, and conservation, and much more.

Collectively, the consortium's research covers the globe with programs in over 60 countries.

CERC benefits directly by being part of this extraordinary collective of world-class institutions. In some cases it facilitates the development of research programs between consortium partners, such as Columbia University and the Wildlife Conservation Society's Translinks project. Sometimes it directly benefits by offering science courses at the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology (E3B) or in the Evening Certificate Program whose instructors are faculty and staff at the consortium institutions. Often the consortium provides research opportunities for Columbia's undergraduates, Master's, and PhD students, especially those in E3B.

Some activities are consortium-wide, representing all the institutions, such as the New York Biodiversity Database (NYBD) and the Overbrook Conservation Fellows Program, which is both education and science in its orientation.

Equally important is the network of the many CERC scientists—all members of the consortium institution granted adjunct status at Columbia University—providing a unique way to bring conservation scientists from around the world into contact with one another.

Over the next few months, we will be populating this site with more information about the growing science programs either representing CERC or the consortium— we look forward to the growth of the content on these pages.