NYC Audubon’s Dustin Partridge wants New York City to become more livable for both people and wildlife—and green roofs, he says, are key to that effort.

As you walk through the apple orchard, with Honeycrisps and GoldRushes at your feet, a swallow flies by, then a kinglet and an Eastern phoebe, whose presence signals the start of the fall migration. Not far off, grape vines grow along a trellis, native wildflowers buzz with insect activity, and ripe tomatoes and ears of corn wait to be picked.

Taking it all in, you could easily imagine being on a bucolic farm in upstate New York, far from the hustle of the city. But if you listen closely, you can hear the cars whizzing by on the West Side Highway 60 feet below. And if you turn around, you can see the Empire State Building to the east.

This is the scene atop the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in midtown Manhattan, home to nearly eight acres of greenery, from short, low-maintenance sedum to tall grasses—making it one of the largest green roofs in the U.S. and a habitat for more than 60 bird species. On a cool, sunny August morning, Dustin Partridge, Ph.D., GSAS ’20, director of conservation and science at NYC Audubon, is walking from section to section, stopping often to look through binoculars at birds he spots out of the corner of his eye.

Partridge began studying the benefits of urban green roofs for wildlife not long after he began his biology graduate studies at Fordham in 2009. As his research expanded and he decided to go beyond his master’s program to pursue a doctorate, he became one of the first researchers on the Javits Center green roof following its installation in 2014, and he and his staff have continued to monitor its animal and insect activity closely ever since.

For Partridge, it’s a critical part of making New York City more hospitable to humans and wildlife—and more resilient amid heat waves and other effects of climate change.

A Look at the Main Building’s Roof

Dustin Partridge stands on the main roof’s sedum.

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Protecting Birds and Boosting Biodiversity

NYC Audubon is one of more than 450 independent chapters of the National Audubon Society, a network designed to “protect birds and the places they need” throughout the U.S. (NYC Audubon has announced its plan to change its name in 2024, due to John James Audubon’s legacy as a slave owner; the national organization has not announced a similar plan.)

To understand why birds need protection broadly, consider this: North America has lost nearly 25% of its bird population in the past 50 years, according to research published in Science magazine. The causes range from climate change and habitat loss to toxic pesticide use—and the research points to wider disruptions of ecosystems vital to both humans and wildlife.

To understand why birds need protection in New York City, consider two factors: The city lies squarely on the Atlantic flyway migration route—an air path for transient birds that stretches from Greenland to South America and includes ground areas where birds stop to find food to fuel their journey. The city is also home to more than 8 million people—and an infrastructure that has not only replaced natural habitats but is often hostile to the wildlife still around. It is a city of glass skyscrapers, one in which up to 230,000 birds die each year in window collisions, according to NYC Audubon research.

It’s within this setting that Partridge and his colleagues at NYC Audubon—along with a dedicated cast of volunteers—are working toward protecting wild birds and their habitats in the five boroughs. They do this through initiatives ranging from bird-friendly building campaigns like Project Safe Flight that aim to help birds migrate through the city safely, to community science bird surveys in which amateur birders and experts alike can submit data based on their local observations. The organization’s work, though, is not only about benefiting wildlife, according to Partridge.

“Biodiversity is important for humans,” he says. “It helps reduce the impacts of climate change. It can lead to ecotourism. Everything we do for wildlife and for birds is also very much for people, especially when it comes to quality of life in the city.”

And while biodiversity is both apparent and expected at other sites where NYC Audubon conducts research—from coastal wetlands like South Brother Island in the Bronx to large green spaces like Central Park—it can also thrive in places fewer people see or know about, like at the Kingsland Wildflowers green roof atop the Broadway Stages film and TV studio in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, or within the Justice Avenue bioswale in Elmhurst, Queens, a vegetated ditch that catches dangerous combined sewer overflow and holds it until it can be absorbed by the underlying soil.

Of all the projects NYC Audubon has worked on, though, the Javits Center, with its midtown Manhattan location, stands as one of the organization’s most distinctive research hubs, one that is fertile for both biodiversity and human collaboration.

Wildlife on the Javits Center Roofs

Herring gulls flying above the Javits Center

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A Green Roof ‘Role Model’ in Midtown Manhattan

As the Javits Center green roof neared completion in 2014—just two years after New York state announced plans to raze the building—Partridge began working as an ecologist and green roof program manager at NYC Audubon. By that time, he had decided to turn his research on urban green roofs into a doctoral dissertation, working closely with Fordham biology professor J. Alan Clark, Ph.D.

Along with Clark and master’s student Kaitlyn Parkins, GSAS ’15, who was studying bat foraging activity on green roofs, Partridge spent hours atop the building’s springy sedum carpet setting up bird monitors and collecting insect samples to track food availability.

“Dustin was that original researcher on the Javits Center green roof,” notes Clark, who also called his former advisee “a visionary, hard-working man.”

In the years since beginning his research, not only did Partridge attain his doctorate, in 2020, but he became a founding member of the Green Roof Researchers Alliance, a consortium of more than 60 researchers, teachers, and policymakers for which he is currently the managing director. The group advocates for green roofs not only as sites for increasing biodiversity but also as tools that offer energy savings for buildings, increased stormwater capture, and improvements in air quality.

And as Partridge’s role at NYC Audubon has grown, so has the organization’s work with the Javits Center, which opened a large expansion to its north side in 2021. Atop that expansion is where you can find the orchard, pollinator garden, and working farm, all of which are managed by Brooklyn Grange and serve as additional sites for NYC Audubon research.

For Partridge and his colleagues, their field station on the original building roof—a trailer with monitoring equipment and a computer—allows them to dig deeper into the diversity and amount of wildlife populating all those acres, a group that included more than 60 bird species as of October 2023.

All this activity makes the Javits roof a point of interest for others looking to replicate its success—from the mayor of Seoul, South Korea, where a new convention center is being planned, to the New York State Office of General Services, which has shown interest in setting up similar green roofs across its administrative buildings. That success has also led to plenty of positive press for the project, with recent media attention from The New York Times, WNYC, and Gothamist, among other outlets.

“Javits has become quite a role model for the city, both in terms of bird-friendly design and for the green roof,” Partridge says. “We’ve learned so much here and it’s been great for moving the city’s policy forward. It’s a really well-known building to point to: This could be the rest of the city.’”

So, will it be the rest of the city?

Scenes from the North Building’s Roof

Partridge next to the north roof’s pollinator garden

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Legislative Progress—But Work to Be Done

While green roofs are far from ubiquitous in New York City—and while access to them and other green spaces is still unevenly distributed toward wealthy areas—Partridge points to some examples of progress. In 2019, the New York City Council passed Local Laws 92 and 94, both part of the city’s Climate Mobilization Act, which require all new buildings or roof replacements to have a “sustainable roofing zone”—solar panels, a green roof, or a combination—covering 100% of the roof.

Meanwhile, the city’s green roof tax abatement offers property owners $5.23 per square foot of green roof space and $15 per square foot in districts deemed priority areas based on a lack of green space, combined sewage overflow issues, and heat vulnerability. And as for the protection of birds, in 2020, New York City enacted Local Law 15, which requires all new construction and significant renovations in the city to use bird-friendly materials like visible window glazing or UV-reflective patterns.

“It’s so important that as people create these habitats that they use bird-friendly glass surrounding them,” says Parkins, who went on to work and consult for NYC Audubon from 2013 to 2022 and is now the glass collisions program coordinator for the American Bird Conservancy. “The worst thing we can do is lure birds and other wildlife into places that are dangerous for them.”

NYC Audubon and its counterparts at the state organization, Audubon New York, are also advocating for two pieces of legislation—the Lights Out Act at the local level and the Dark Skies Act at the state level. Both laws would curb the use of interior and exterior lights in buildings that are dormant through the night. Those bright lights are a major cause of bird death because they lure migrating birds away from their intended path and cause them to crash.

Partridge says that New Yorkers who would like to see that legislation passed, or who want to see green roofs added to their buildings without a mandate, can call their City Council members and state legislators, and talk to their building owners about the benefits of sustainable roof coverage.

He also encourages both avid birders and more casual, curious parties to volunteer with NYC Audubon or even just to sign up for a free birding tour, which can underscore the importance of protecting New York City’s wildlife and their habitats.

“It’s incredible, the bird life that’s in the city,” he says, “and we have really amazing guides that can take you out. It’s just great to see not only the birds that will spend their summers or winters here but also the birds that are migrating through. It’s a whole new world that so many New Yorkers don’t see, and it’s an amazing aspect of the city.”

A Field Season Like No Other

Suffice to say that after the COVID-19 closures, neither Kornreich nor Pandey, who are studying under the guidance of J. Alan Clark, Ph.D., got the summer of fieldwork that they expected. But thanks to extensive planning and a little bit of ingenuity, both graduate students were able to use what was arguably the safest research facility at the University’s disposal—the woods—to complete crucial data collection.

Clark, an associate professor of biological sciences who specializes in birds, said he was determined to help them salvage the field season, having experienced failed ones twice himself while working on his Ph.D. He credited the center’s director Tom Daniels, Ph.D., and assistant director Alyssa Perrone, with making it possible.

“To lose an entire field season is heartbreaking,” he said. “But by working carefully with the Calder staff, they were able to keep moving forward. They were very fortunate; both of them had highly successful summers, and they were able to do it safely.”

For Kornreich, that meant several changes. Because equipment bottlenecks made the Vesper GPS unavailable, they had to use an old-fashioned boom mic and GPS unit to track catbirds, which produce a cat-like mew call that is sometimes mistaken for mockingbirds. Kornreich also had to wait until June—two weeks later than planned—to begin work, when the University granted permission to go ahead. Even then, Kornreich was limited exclusively to outdoor activity—only essential Calder staff was allowed to enter buildings there.

Staking Out A Vocal Visitor

Once safety protocols were established, Kornreich was able to roam the woods, trapping the birds in nets, banding them, and noting where they’d established distinct territories. In two months, they trapped and tracked 45 birds in six distinct areas.

“If we have two territories very close together, or even if we catch them singing to each other back and forth, we can compare the songs from catbirds whose territories are near each other and see to what degree they match,” they said.

“Based on behavioral observations of how they interact when those songs match, we can draw conclusions about how they’re using that mimicry.”

Kornreich had to forego training on trapping and banding birds, due to social distancing requirements. Even so, they said they still learned a lot on their own about recording in the field and has a better sense of how the birds behave now.

“It’s the sort of quick thinking and adaptation that scientists had to do when COVID hit. A lot of people’s field seasons got straight-up canceled, and even though mine wasn’t, it did necessitate a lot of creative thinking to make the season happen. Dr. Clark deserves a lot of credit for it,” they said.

You Trap Mine, I’ll Record Yours

Pandey and Kornreich contributed to each other’s success. Pandey’s fieldwork, which began last summer when she was a master’s student, also involves trapping birds, but Pandey is less interested in the type of bird she catches, and more interested in potential passengers—tick larvae capable of picking up pathogens from bird hosts.

The peak of her season, in August, was at the tail end of Kornreich’s season, so after she helped capture and band Kornreich’s catbirds, Kornreich paid back the favor by recording data on the birds and ticks Pandey caught. That was valuable because, in the end, Pandey caught and released 180 birds and collected 56 blood samples and 250 larvae.

“When most tick larvae are born, they’re pathogen-free, and if they come off the bird infected, it’s most likely the bird is the source of the infection,” she said.

“That’s what I want to confirm, both by testing the ticks and by sampling the blood from the birds.”

Because there were days when the number of birds caught in their nets reached the double digits, Pandey also relied on both an assistant and a volunteer from the Bedford Audubon Society. Even with COVID-19 related restrictions in place, she had more success than last year, when she caught 395 birds, but only collected 50 blood samples and 164 larvae.

“The first two or three times we went out in the field, it was like ‘OK, are we getting too many birds to handle in our social distanced setup? How do we do this safely and effectively for ourselves and for the birds as well?’ We were able to work those kinks out though,” she said.

Depending on the feedback she receives from her dissertation committee, she may have enough samples to move on to lab work.

Grateful For The Opportunity

Both Kornreich and Pandey said the ability to continue their studies greatly helped them weather the challenges of the pandemic.

“I loved helping Medha in 2019. It had been the highlight of my year, and I was really depressed at the idea that I might not be able to do it myself this year,” said Kornreich, who hopes to return to the woods in 2021 with equipment that allows her to play songs back to catbirds.

“I tried to stay optimistic and focus on what I could do, and what options and equipment I did have, rather than what I no longer could do. Trying to balance the craziness of navigating that new reality, navigating your own panic, navigating the panic of everyone around you, and still trying to think straight about science, can be difficult. But the bottom line is, it did work out.”

When Butcher takes her seat among her fellow doctoral candidates on Keating Terrace at commencement, it will be the conclusion of long journey—one that veered from otter conservation in Michigan to rooftop pollination in New York City.

And it all happened because of a chance encounter on the other side of the world.

Butcher, a native of Michigan, was in New Zealand for a conference in 2011, presenting research on green roofs she had conducted as part of her master’s degree in conservation biology at Central Michigan University. Fordham associate biology professor J. Alan Clark, Ph.D., who was there to study penguins at the time, told her about Fordham’s program at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Butcher was skeptical about leaving her family but booked a flight to New York anyway.

“I came out to visit and loved it. I loved the city. I loved the colorfulness of the Bronx. I really loved the Calder Center,” she said.

Her dissertation on pollen dispersal in diverse urban habitats looks at the ways that tomatoes and amaranths reproduce even when they’re stuck on the equivalent of urban islands.

Within four sites—the green roofs on the Rose Hill campus parking garage and the Javits Center, and ground sites at the Queens Zoo and Fordham’s Louis Calder Center Biological Field Station in Armonk, New York—Butcher tracked the movement of pollen by identifying unique molecular markers in the parent plants, and tracking these markers in the seeds.

“I matched the seeds to their mom. I matched them to their dad. And then I could tell where mom was and where dad was, and then calculate the distance. It’s just like Maury Povich,” she said, laughing.

Butcher said there is a dearth of research on pollen dispersal in roof habitats.

“Pollen dispersal is the most important component of plant gene flow. Gene flow is essential because it can maintain or increase genetic diversity within a population and thus increase a population’s capacity to adapt, and in an urban environment, it’s really important because humans are constantly changing things,” she said.

Butcher said she’ll miss the Calder Center, where she briefly resided.

“Other biological field stations may be bigger and better funded, but Calder has a history that’s so interesting,” she said of the field station—a former estate anchored by a 13,000-square-foot, 27-room stone mansion built in the early 1900s.

Butcher, who served as the Biology Graduate Student Association president for several years and had a Clare Boothe Luce fellowship for two years, also taught at the New York Botanical Garden’s Everett Children’s Adventure Garden during her time at Fordham.

That experience revealed to her a passion for teaching science informally, and going forward, she’s exploring a wide array of potential positions, including teaching at a university.

“I’m casting my net really wide for a job now. I think I’ll know what I want to do when I see it.”

The letter, which was made public on November 16, was written by Catholic Climate Covenant and signed by the leaders of over 150 Catholic colleges and universities, religious congregations, national organizations, and health care providers.

“As leaders of Catholic organizations in the United States, we write with one voice to urge you to reassert U.S. leadership in the global effort to address climate change. On behalf of people who are poor and vulnerable and future generations, we especially ask that you act based upon the best available climate science; fund the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; honor U.S. commitments to the Green Climate Fund; and meaningfully participate in the deliberations of the UNFCCC,” it says.

The letter is the latest in a series of statements that Fordham has issued on climate change. In June, the University joined 180 colleges and universities in pledging its support to the Paris Climate Agreement, and in May, it signaled support for carbon pricing.

Last year, Fordham also joined Catholic Climate Covenant in filing an amicus (“friend of the court”) brief in support of the Clean Power Plan, the first-ever federal standards on carbon pollution from power plants.

Elizabeth Johnson, CSJ, distinguished professor of theology at Fordham and author of Ask the Beasts: Darwin and the God of Love (Bloomsbury, 2015), said the letter shows a willingness of the University be a voice for the earth in a time of crisis, to join with people of good will who are trying to affect policy, and to carry forward Catholic teaching with regard to the issue of the earth.

“I would also say it’s common sense. If the house is on fire, you try to put out the fire. That’s what this is about in terms of climate change,” she said.

“If you believe in a God who created this world, then certainly that carries with it the sense that you need to care for this earth in all its greatness and beauty, which we’re destroying with our behavior.”

The letter was inspired in part by a November 3rd National Climate Assessment from thirteen federal agencies that concludes:

“[B]ased on extensive evidence, that it is extremely likely that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases, are the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century. For the warming over the last century, there is no convincing alternative explanation supported by the extent of the observational evidence.”

The letter requests that the President and Congress:

1. Fund the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

2. Meaningfully participate in the deliberations of the UNFCCC

3. Honor U.S. Commitments to the Green Climate Fund

“We heed the call of our Church, which implores, ‘As individuals, as institutions, as a people we need a change of heart to preserve and protect the planet for our children and for generations yet unborn.’ We hope that you will accept our appeal, so that we may continue to dialogue and work together to manifest this change of heart,” it ends.

J. Alan Clark, Ph.D., associate professor of biological sciences, noted that he and many of his colleagues have had to factor climate change into their own research. Conducting that research at a Jesuit institution that embraces an ethos of cura personalis (care for the whole person) also helps focus efforts on environmental issues that affect humans and non-humans alike, he said.

“The focus is not just on the academic side of intellectual inquiry, but also the persons’ place in the world,” he said.

It’s also in line with Pope Francis’ 2015 Encyclical Ladauto Si,  which called for greater efforts to become familiar with the problem of climate change and the solutions to it.

“The action being called for in this letter are not large; it’s actually small. But it’s important, because it raises an awareness and it places the signatories in a place where they say, ‘We care about this, and we want you to know this.’ Those things matter.”

Read the full letter here.

Every year, millions of birds die from colliding into buildings, glass, oilrigs, and communications towers. While there have been reports about the impact that these man-made structures have had on birds, researchers don’t yet know how bridges are affecting night-migrating birds.

“The magnitude of migration through our urban landscape is beyond comprehension,” said J. Alan Clark, Ph.D., an associate professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, who is conducting the study. “You might suspect that there could be a problem because some bridges are quite high [and]some of them are very brightly lit and often isolated.”

The study, which began on April 24 and continues through May 13, will focus on three bridges in Minnesota: the Hastings Bridge in Hastings, MN, a free-standing, tied-arch bridge with linear LEDs; the tied-arch I-494 Bridge where Interstate 494 crosses the Mississippi River; and the Washington Ave. Bridge, a six-span bridge with a glass pedestrian upper deck and a vehicular lower deck that connects the University of Minnesota campus in Minneapolis/St. Paul.

“A lot of bridges are probably not problematic,” said Clark. “None of the bridges in the study are like the Golden Gate Bridge or something that’s gigantic. Nonetheless, it would be really good to know [if they’re affecting migrating birds].”

According to Clark, the study will use small-scale vertical and horizontal avian radar to determine how many birds are flying near the brides and what height and direction they’re flying. The radar will also examine whether the birds are being drawn to the bridges if they change the direction of their flight, and whether their trajectory is actually in a collision course with the bridge.

Clark will also use acoustic recorders to monitor the nocturnal flight calls of night-migrating birds, which will help him to identify the species of birds that are flying over the bridges.

Bird watchers from Audubon Minnesota and the University of Minnesota will serve as volunteers, helping to recover any dead or injured birds on the Washington Ave. Bridge, he said.

If the study reveals that bridges in fact have an impact on migrating birds, Clark believes it can help to inspire action, especially given the large numbers of species that migrate. According to the National Audubon Society, at least 4,000 species of birds are regular migrants, which amounts to 40 percent of the total number of birds in the world.

“It’s hard to retrofit things that already exist, but there are things you can do, including changing the lighting systems on the bridges so they deliver less intense lighting, ” he said. “Just knowing whether or not there is a problem with bridges, is the start of the conversation.”

Fordham University and the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Bronx Zoo has conducted the first known study of bats in an urban area on the East Coast. The study provides evidence of both breeding and migration patterns of several species through the area.

“Bats in the Bronx: Acoustic Monitoring of Bats in New York City,”  published in the journal Urban Naturalist, provides evidence of bat activity in the city and documents the migratory movement of Eastern Red Bats and Silver-Haired Bats through the Bronx in particular.

J. Alan Clark, Ph.D., associate professor of biological sciences and one of the authors of the study, said the biggest surprise was the presence of three bats— Lasiurus borealis (Eastern Red Bat), L. cinereus (Hoary Bat), and Lasionycteris noctivagans (Silver-Haired Bat), during the winter months—a time when it was assumed they’d have migrated away from the area or begun hibernating.

“I was told by some bat experts there would be no winter bat activity, and that I’d be foolish for looking,” he said. “We had no idea how much we’d learn about bats here in the Bronx, so the results are both surprising and exciting.”

To identify bat species and activity levels, the Fordham/WCS team acoustically monitored bats at the Bronx Zoo, Fordham’s Rose Hill campus, the New York Botanical Garden and in the Belmont neighborhood of the Bronx.

Bat activity was recorded using both acoustic-recording devices on building rooftops and with handheld ultrasonic recording units. Using a software program called Sonobat, the team was able to identify different species by the echolocation calls that the bats produce in flight in order to navigate and locate their prey.

The initial study began in May 2012 and identified the presence of five out of a possible nine species found in New York State: Eptesicus fuscus (Big Brown Bat), Lasiurus borealis (Eastern Red Bat), L. cinereus (Hoary Bat), Lasionycteris noctivagans (Silver-Haired Bat), and Perimyotis subflavus (Tri-Colored Bat).

Of the five species detected, the most-represented was Eastern Red Bats. A July increase of its activity, followed by an August peak and sharp decline in September, suggests migratory movement through New York City, as the pattern is consistent with acoustic surveys collected in the Midwest and East Coast. In addition, an increase in Silver-Haired Bat activity occurred in late October—consistent with the timing of coastal migratory movements for this species.

The initial study, published in June 2016 and still ongoing at the Bronx Zoo, hopes to monitor year-round bat activity in the park and to identify any changes in patterns of call activity that could occur as a result of environmental factors.

Additionally, the study has been expanded to include acoustic bat surveying at the three other WCS parks—Central Park Zoo, Queens Zoo and Prospect Park Zoo—using the same monitoring methods. Initial results from the ongoing surveys reveal that the same five species occur in these three boroughs as well, although the call compositions are represented by different species at each park.

Clark has previously documented the positive effects of green roofs on birds in New York; and it’s clear that what is true for fowl is true for bats as well.

Study co-authors also included Fordham’s Kaitlyn L. Parkins, GSAS ‘15 and Michelle Mathios, FCRH, ‘13,and Colleen McCann, Ph.D., curator of mammals at the Bronx Zoo.

Fordham University students gathered in the Schiff Family Great Hall to take part in the 4^th Annual Bronx Science Consortium Poster Symposium. The event was a presentation of student research on the high school, undergraduate, graduate, and post-doctoral levels.

“What is really so great about this symposium is the diversity of the projects,” said Ron Jacobson, Ph.D., associate vice president in the Office of the Provost and one of the event’s organizers. “It shows all the interests of our students and the many things the consortium has to offer.”

J. Alan Clark, Ph.D., associate professor of biology and an avian expert, shared his doctoral study on penguin vocalizations. He documented the calls of feeding and mating Spheniscus penguins and tested the penguins’ responses to the calls.

He also gave the students important advice:

“Look for something that interests you, and when you see something weird, question it. There’s a wonderful world to explore, so always keep exploring,” he said, adding in jest they should “become rich and famous” as well.

Project TRUE Students Chasing Opportunity

One of the groups of high school students from Fordham’s Project TRUE (Teens Researching Urban Ecology) presented a project on what kind of small mammals live within the Zoo’s enclosure.

The project is the result of a $2.6 million grant Fordham received with the Wildlife Conservation Society in order to teach and train local high school students in ecology and other STEM subjects.

The study discovered seven species of mammals that roam free within the zoo, the most prominent being white-footed mice.

“Everyone was so welcoming. I come from a small school where there’s not a lot of interest in stuff like this,” said Stephanie Blackwood of North Salem High School. “It’s great that I got to meet kids my age who are interested in the same subjects.”

“It was much better than sitting at a desk all summer,” added Anye Frimpong, of the Bronx Academy of Software Engineering. “I got to try something new. It makes me want to pursue a liberal arts education.”

HPV Research and the Benefits of Catnip

Fordham undergraduate and graduate students were also in attendance.

Fordham senior Victoria Sieverson’s project addressed the positive benefits of catnip for humans. In her study, she tested the effectiveness of pantolactone, an active ingredient in catnip, as a repellent against black-legged ticks.

“The catnip was effective in repelling the ticks away from human skin for about two hours. When I eventually come back to this project, I want to increase the concentration levels to see if I can get it to last longer,” said Sieverson.

(The ingredient, she said, has no negative side effects on cats.)

Jacqueline Heffner, a Rose Hill junior majoring in physics, discovered a way to detect the presence of the HPV virus without long, drawn out tests.

By creating a microsphere, she was able to decipher whether the virus was present based on shifts in the air’s frequency near the sphere’s edge. By testing for HPV infections this way instead of using biosensors, Heffner believes that diagnosis and treatment can begin more quickly.

“In developing countries, instead of wasting time taking tests and sending them miles away to a facility to get results, doctors can take samples and test the frequency right where they are,” said Heffner. “It speeds up the process and allows those who need help to get it faster.”

In all, some two dozen posters were presented. The projects were created in conjunction with the Bronx Science Consortium, an educational partnership of five Bronx institutions that focuses on bringing together science research and intellectual support from its partners.

–Mary Awad

The discussion, which takes places from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Mertz Library Reading Room, is being presented by the garden’s Humanities Institute, which was established in the spring of 2014 as a way to bridge the divide between the arts and sciences, and bring together scholarship relating to nature, landscape, and the built environment.

It will feature:

J. Alan Clark, Ph.D., associate professor of conservation biology, who will detail how he uses radar, acoustic recordings, and flight tunnels to explore bird migration through urban landscapes in a talk titled, “Bird Migration Through Urban Landscapes;”

Sheila Foster, Albert A. Walsh Professor of Law and Faculty, and co-director of the Urban Law Center at Fordham School of Law, who will explore the urban commons framework as a concept for developing cities that are both revitalized and inclusive in a talk titled “The City as a Common Good;” and

Roger Panetta, visiting professor of history, who will detail how the renewal of the Brooklyn waterfront has caught the attention of politicians, planners and the public here and abroad, and drawn a remarkable concentration of civic energy to the water’s edge, in a talk titled “Whose Waterfront?”

Vanessa Bezemer Sellers, humanities research program coordinator at the NYGB, said the topic is important because the natural environment of cities is being damaged in a myriad of ways in the service of economic interests.

“If a neighboring building is demolished, and it becomes a temporary green spot or a community garden, it’s nilly-willy just taken away for development. Money is always still number one, and that becomes a very serious issue because there’s simply too little space and too much stress [on]human dignity,” she said.

This is the first time a Fordham contingent will speak at the institute. The University and the NYBG pledged to work together more closely in 2012, when both joined the Bronx Science Consortium.

Sellers said she hoped the colloquium, which will consist of panelists speaking for 10 minutes followed by 90 minutes of open discussion, might inspire Rose Hill campus-based students to cross Southern Boulevard more often.

“I see students [jog]around the perimeter here. I thought well, if they run here, it would be nice to have them come on a regular basis and build a rapport with the professors, so that our green environment becomes a regular part of the program of incoming students,” she said.

To RSVP for the colloquium, visit the Humanities Institute’s event page.

At 292,000 square feet, the Jacob Javits Center’s green roof is the second largest in the nation. The center is also bird-friendly; tiny ceramic dots cover the windows, to make them visible to the birds and prevent collisions. From above, the building is an island of green where there once was no green space at all.

On the roof one can immediately see how the birds have taken to the space, as dozens of seagulls hover. A few of the gulls have begun to lay eggs in the roof’s sedum succulents, as have Canada geese and even small falcons have begun using the roof for hunting. Surveying the scene, J. Alan Clark, PhD, associate professor of biology and coordinator of Fordham’s conservation biology program, gestured to the city’s skyline.

“Most birds migrate at night and are negatively impacted by the light and noise. You can’t do too much about noise in cities but if we can do something about lighting, that might be a way to make the skies much safer for migrating birds.”

As the New York City Council contemplates an energy-saving bill to reduce lighting used in buildings around town, Clark wants to research how those lights affect bird migration patterns.

Clark began studying the patterns more than seven years ago in locations that ranged from Central Park to the Bronx Zoo to a nature reserve in Westchester. Through radar and acoustical recording, Clark’s study tracked how birds navigate through urban landscapes vs. green spaces.

He’s looking expand the study to measure the effects of light by installing radar equipment on the Jacob Javits Convention Center’s massive green roof in midtown Manhattan.

Clark is one of several New York City area researchers that are using the roof for research. Completed two years ago, the green roof is relatively new. Yet birds and their food source, arthropods, are already settling in, he said, and are using the space as an oasis in the densely populated region.

When Clark first came to Fordham in 2007, there was very little data on how birds navigate through urban landscapes. Clark began researching their movements in 2009, using recording devices to listen to the birds—which make very species-specific calls during migration to maintain group cohesion. He noticed that birdcalls were three to twelve times higher over urban areas than over nearby green spaces.

Clark said that migrating birds are attracted to artificial light. Communication towers and lighthouses have always been well-known “death spots.”

“During migration birds are attracted to lit structures where they’ll hit the wires, hit the buildings, hit each other, or fly in circles and drop from exhaustion,” said Clark.

This will be the fifth time Clark has studied the effects of light on migration. In 2012, Clark worked with light sculptor Rafael Lozano-Hemmer at a light installation in Philadelphia where the artist regulated color, brightness, and direction of the lights while Clark monitored bird behavior. This time, the migration study would be taking take place over one of the densest urban environments in the world.

Earlier studies led Clark to speculate that brighter urban areas are more stressful for migrating birds. Using a DeTect avian radar tracking system synched with acoustical recordings, his team determined that the same density of birds were migrating over both urban and green areas “but they were calling more and flying higher over urban areas,” he said.

The Philadelphia research further revealed that the color of the light also made a difference. Red light proved the most attractive to the birds, while blue and green were less so. But when the light was intense and white 75 percent flew in circles or in the wrong direction.

“They were supposed to migrate south, but the white light made them go north or circle in the light,” he said. “The reverse was true in blue and green light.”

Clark’s next step is finding funding to move from pilot level studies to a much larger scale experiment built on the earlier research. DeTect is working on a radar design, the parts of which can fit into the center’s elevators and then be assembled on the roof. Clark said that the Javits management has been an exemplary and willing partner, opening the rooftop to biologists from Fordham and New York City Audubon to study birds, as well as bats and bugs.

But first, backers of Mexican-Canadian media artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s “Open Air” project want to make sure they don’t kill thousands of birds in the process.

“Open Air” will feature 24 searchlights aimed into the night sky that will move in response to the sound of human voices, from 8 to 11 p.m., Sept. 20 to Oct. 14.

Since those date coincide with the peak of the fall bird migration, there is a danger that the 250 species of birds that fly through the area will become disoriented and die. A similar phenomenon was documented in 2010 during the “Tribute In Light” at the World Trade Center site.

As it happens, J. Alan Clark, Ph.D., assistant professor of biology at Fordham, studies how migrating birds move through urban landscapes, so “Open Air” is a unique opportunity to study how the birds react to light. Along with Christine Sheppard, Bird Collisions Campaign Manager for the American Bird Conservancy, he’ll be monitoring them via radar from a location north of the city.

Clark and Sheppard were featured recently in an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Will the birds swerve to avoid the beams? Fly higher to avoid them? Or ignore them? Only time will tell.

The ceremony, the second of its kind, capped a day-long event, Growing Research at Fordham! Out of the Tower: Fostering the Public Intellectual. The annual event recognizes and promotes research that elevates both Fordham’s profile, and the goals of its Jesuit-centered higher education.

Recipients of this year’s Funded Research Scholar Award were:

J. Alan Clark, Ph.D., assistant professor of biological sciences, for his numerous externally funded projects to preserve species here in the northeast, as well as his work hosted by the University of Waikato in Hamilton, New Zealand. Dr. Clark’s research in New Zealand and Australia is to determine whether these countries’ colonies of little blue penguins demonstrate enough genetic variation to warrant separating them as species, or whether they’re merely distant biological cousins — a question critical to their legal status for conservation.

Qin Gao, Ph.D, associate professor of social work in the Graduate School of Social Service, who has received funding from the Fahs-Beck Fund, New York Community Trust, and the Silberman Fund, explores issues of income inequality caused by rural to urban migration within China, as well as the well-being of Asian American families and children here in New York City. In addition to her expertise in social work and that of her collaborator in economics, Dr. Gao’s work is also inspired by her own experience of having immigrated not only from China to the United States, but also from rural China where she grew up to Beijing.

Maryanne Kowaleski, Ph.D., Joseph Fitzpatrick S.J. Distinguished Professor and director of the Center for Medieval Studies, who received a 2011 Andrew W. Mellon Short-Term Fellowship for research on the Medieval Coastal Properties of Battle Abbey, which she conducted at the presitigious Huntington Library in San Marino, Calif.  Dr. Kowaleski’s current project, and this award, are the continuation of a diverse interdisciplinary research agenda that has placed Medieval Studies under the lens of gender studies, analyses of commerce and trade, and at the forefront of digital humanities.

Faculty members received their awards from Nancy Busch, Ph.D., dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) and the University’s chief research officer.

In presenting the awards, Dean Busch referred to Fordham statutes that cover the importance of research as leading to “the creative expansion of the teacher’s vision,” the training of students in “scholarly inquiry, “ and the fulfillment of “the university’s responsibility to expand the horizons of knowledge to the ultimate benefit of society.”

“At Fordham, I think we do it for a slightly different reason,” Busch said. “Within Fordham’s Jesuit tradition, we believe that research has a special role in serving the greater good. We acknowledged that knowledge applied is crucial in addressing the ills of today’s society, whether related to human misery versus human dignity, or part of environmental degradation versus protection.”

The winners were chosen from a pool of 88 faculty, whose eligibility was determined by having been cited in one of Fordham’s past three annual President’s Letters for having received a new award of external funding in support of their research.  Over 300 almunai, faculty, students and staff then responded the University’s call for nominations from amongst this pool for one award in each of three categories: Humanities, Sciences, and the Social Sciences & Professions.

James Wilson, director of faculty development, said that the nine finalists—three in each category—were identified in consultation with the Office of Sponsored Programs and in accord with a weighting process for these nominations devised by the University Research Council (URC) in order to consider peer commentary, project impact and longevity of funding, among other factors.  Each member of the URC then considered the nine finalists’ career research contributions and/or demonstrated potential before forwarding his or her individual choice to receive one of these three coveted awards.

The final three were chosen by members of the URC, each of whom made his or her individual selections independently.
The remaining finalists were:

David Budescu, Ph.D., Anne Anastasi Professor of Psychometrics and Quantitative Psychology, funded by Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), under the federal Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

Silvia Finnemann, Ph.D., associate professor of cellular biology, funded by the National Eye Institute.

Susanne Hafner, Ph.D., assistant professor of German, funded by the South Central Modern Language Association/Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Sophie Mitra, Ph.D., assistant professor of economics, funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, the Veterans Affairs Department, and the W.E. UpJohn Institute for Employment Research.

Philip Napoli, Ph.D., associate professor of communications & media management in the Fordham University Schools of Business, funded by the Soros Open Society Foundations and the Ford Foundation.

Thierry Rigogne, Ph.D., associate professor of history, funded by the American Society for 18th Century Studies, the Library Company of Philadelphia, and the American Philosophical Society.

The celebration, which was sponsored by the Office of Research, was held at the Rose Hill campus. It included a presentation and workshop by the OpEd Project, a pilot project with universities to help increase the number of women’s and minority men’s voices on the op-ed pages of major publications. The workshop was run by project’s founder and director, Catherine Orenstein.