August 16, 2023

Submit Your Comments to the Strategic Plan 

Please be sure to visit the Strategic Plan page to find ESF’s working draft, a one-page overview, and access to an input form where you can provide comments and feedback. Please note the deadline to offer comments is Aug. 27.

Top Stories

ESF Welcomes New Faculty to Department of Landscape Architecture

ESF welcomed four new faculty members to the Department of Landscape Architecture. Dr. Nazanin Ghaffari, Deborah Ku, Dr. Ellen White, and Jean Yang will join as assistant professors starting the fall semester.

Dr. Susan Anagnost Receives Distinguished Service Award

Dr. Susan Anagnost, Professor Emeritus and Visiting Professor in the Department of Sustainable Resources Management, received the 2023 Distinguished Service Award from the Society of Wood Science and Technology.

Connect with Nature and ESF at the NYS Fair

Take time to connect with nature at the New York State Fair with ESF through hands-on activities at their exhibit Aug. 23-Sept. 1.

How wet was July? Record-breaking.

Rainfall in July was one for the record books, according to Natasha Karniski-Keglovits, research analyst at ESF’s Adirondack Interpretive Center. ESF’s extensive data sets show last month’s rainfall broke the previous record set in 2021. 

Adirondack Explorer

The years-long journey to save a tiny snail you've never

heard of

ESF’s work to save the Chittenango ovate amber snail was featured on NPR's All Things Considered. Researchers Cody Gilbertson and Ally Whitbread talk about the work to save the snail and species conservation.

NPR – All Things Considered

SUNY ESF hosts environmental education day for immigrant and refugee SCSD students

Approximately 70 students from the Syracuse City School District who are former refugees and immigrants participated in some hands-on activities at ESF to learn about sustainability, pollination, and the environment of Central New York to welcome them to the community. The event was also covered by SpectrumNews.

CNYCentral

Northern Light

Dr. Andrew Vander Yacht talks about unprecedented weather events, wildfires, and how forest management can increase forest resiliency. His segment begins at the 4:33 mark.

NCPR

Road work following floods continues in Long Lake, Newcomb

“The exact thing we should be studying, a storm unprecedented in living memory, or at least in hundreds of years,” has made it nearly impossible for researchers to get to their sites and document what happened, according to Stacy McNulty, associate director and research associate at ESF’s Newcomb Campus. 

Adirondack Explorer

Babatunde Olagunju and Dr. José Giner published “Sterol methyltransferases in uncultured bacteria complicate eukaryotic biomarker interpretations” in Nature Communications to show that bacteria were capable of synthesizing 24-ipc.

Kailyn Wright, Div Kirti, and Gaby Wemple

Office of Opportunity Programs, EOP, and LSAMP

Kailyn Wright, Div Kirti, and Gaby Wemple have been amazing ambassadors for ESF and have been working very hard to bring the five-week summer program to life! New and exciting programs have been added this year, and as students are gearing up for fall they are building strong connections across campus and with each other. They are amazing professionals who are incredibly dedicated to the success of students at ESF and deserve to be recognized for going above and beyond! 

Amelia Hoffman, Director of Student Success and Engagement

Rowan Nothnagle, Admissions Ambassador



Rowan is a volunteer student ambassador and tour guide. Most recently, they have supported our office by providing campus tours twice a day all summer! Rowan goes above and beyond to make sure all our visitors feel welcome and have a positive experience when they visit campus. By luck, we found Rowan providing a tour to a prospective student that showed up on campus after hours (after they had already finished giving a tour to another family). Rowan’s friendly personality and willingness to help others make them an exceptional representative of the ESF community. 

Kialey Day, Admissions Assistant 

Ellen Brown, Senior Personnel Associate

I would like to give a shout-out to Ellen Brown. I am a new hire, and her guidance and patience with the benefits process have been invaluable! Many thanks to her!



Olivia Whitmarsh, Open Academy, Outreach Coordinator

Give a Shout-Out!

Know someone making an impact on campus? Tell us and we'll feature them in an upcoming issue! This could be an ESF student, faculty member, or staff member (or a department, office, or group) who:

• Goes above and beyond
• Demonstrates ESF’s mission to “Improve Your World”
• Contributes to our community in a positive way

Events

People can't come to your events if they don't know when they are! Remember to add them to the campus events calendar. And to find out what’s happening on campus this week visit the ESF Calendar and ESF Engage!



Download the CORQ app and stay up-to-date on all the events in Engage no matter where you are!

ESF News is the College's summertime source for all ESF news, information, and events. During the summer, this newsletter will be issued biweekly on Wednesdays.