John Fitzpatrick, Emeritus Professor, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Cornell University, Emeritus Director, Cornell Lab of Ornithology

Wild Birds Are Canaries, and Our Planet is the Coal Mine

Date: October 17, 2024
Time: 2pm
Place: Kendal at Ithaca and via Zoom

Description: My talk emphasizes the unique powers that birds have for scientific discovery, ecological monitoring, and humans’ appreciation of nature. I will touch on some paradigm-shifting developments that have emerged from various programs at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. I will emphasize our pioneering role in the growth of participatory science, with particular attention to our global eBird enterprise, our AI-powered Merlin Bird ID app, and our use of weather radar to reveal amazing secrets of bird migration. I will credit the many brilliant people behind eBird’s technological wizardry, now rapidly making bird conservation more locally precise and globally effective. I will close with the admonition that we must keep striving to achieve our sustainable place in the overall grandeur of nature.

Bio: John W. Fitzpatrick

Fitz is an ornithologist and watercolor artist born in 1951 in St. Paul, Minnesota. He received his B.A. magna cum laude from Harvard University (1974) and his Ph.D. from Princeton University (1978). From 1978 through 1989 he was Curator of Birds and Chairman of Zoology at Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History, studying ecology of South American birds, when he led numerous expeditions to eastern Peru including discovery of 7 bird species new to science.

From 1988 to 1995 he was Executive Director of Archbold Biological Station, a private ecological research station in central Florida that manages over 20,000 acres including both pristine native habitat and a full-scale working cattle ranch. At Archbold, Fitzpatrick continues to lead a 50+ year collaborative study of ecology, behavior, landscape genomics, and conservation of the endangered Florida Scrub-Jay.

As Director of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology (1995-2021), Fitz oversaw development of the Lab into a world-renowned center for ornithology, bioacoustics, conservation media, conservation biology, and citizen science. He has authored more than 160 scientific articles, and co-authored four books including a leading college-level ornithology textbook. Together with colleagues at the Cornell Lab, Fitzpatrick co-invented eBird, now the world’s largest citizen-science project and a global standard for ecological monitoring, and fostered development of Merlin, today’s leading mobile app for identifying birds by sight or sound. He also established Birds of the World as the premier online encyclopedia of the world’s 11,000+ bird species, and Bird Academy, an online portal for lifetime learners interested in birds and natural history.

Fitzpatrick’s honors in science and conservation include awards from the American Ornithological Society, The Nature Conservancy, Linnean Society of New York, National Audubon Society, and Princeton University. He has served as President of the American Ornithological Society (2000 – 2002), Board of Governors of The Nature Conservancy (1995-2006), Trustee of the National Audubon Society (1995 – 2001), and on three U. S. Endangered Species Recovery Teams. In 2020 he was elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Fitzpatrick lives with his wife, Molly, on a forested hillside in Ithaca, NY and winters near the Atlantic Coast in Vero Beach, FL.

Chris Earls, Professor of Engineering at Cornell University

Pioneering AI-Human Partnerships to Advance Science and Technology

Date: November 21, 2024
Time: 10:30am
Place: Kendal at Ithaca and via Zoom

Description: Science has always been a uniquely human enterprise: its theories are essentially stories that appeal to human intelligence and tell about mechanisms and principles that govern the universe; ultimately allowing for the predictions that enable our technology. In so far as these scientific theories are precise, they are mathematical in nature. It is a great mystery why human brains, armed with mathematical formalism, can uncover deep scientific insights about the universe that far exceed our daily experiences. In this talk we will explore how machine intelligence (AI) can be employed in meaningful way; to add richness to our scientific theories and to advance the frontiers of discovery. How can we align human and machine intelligences within the context of science? How might lessons learned help in aligning human and machine intelligences as the prospect of an artificial general intelligence fast approaches.

Bio: Earls is the J. Preston Levis Professor of Engineering at Cornell University and the Director of the ONR-funded SciAI Center. He is a faculty member in the graduate fields of Mathematics, Physics, Applied Mathematics, Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, and several others. Earls received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, and his M.S. and B.S. degrees from Virginia Tech.

Bruce Reisch and Tim Martinson

Sustainability for Wine Grapes

Date: December 12, 2024
Time: 2pm
Place: Kendal at Ithaca and via Zoom