The Center for Environmental Research and Conservation (CERC), a leading provider of cutting-edge environmental research, education, and training, has grown into two institutions – an Earth Institute center and the Secretariat for a major environmental consortium. The center’s new name is the Earth Institute Center for Environmental Sustainability (EICES, pronounced “i-sees”).

Rae Wynn-Grant and Robert Muscarella are this year’s GK-12 Fellows funded through the NSF LEEFS Program, or Learning through Ecology and Environmental Field Studies.

EICES’s Director Shahid Naeem co-authored a scientific paper in the journal Nature regarding research on the loss of biodiversity and environmental changes that result. Read a summary of the paper on the State of the Planet.

The Earth Institute Center for Environmental Sustainabiliy (EICES) recently completed three Summer Ecosystem Experiences for Undergraduates (SEE-U) programs in Brazil, Dominican Republic, and Jordan. In Brazil, students studied at the Atlantic Forest, one of the most endangered areas in the world.

Undergraduate students from the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology (E3B) joined Professors Shahid Naeem and Matt Palmer, and Alex Varga, program manager, on a research exchange trip to China in May.

The Earth Institute Center for Environmental Sustainability (EICES) completed programming for the 2012 class of the Inquire Institute under the auspices of the National Science Foundation (I-TEST Division Project #0929796, PI: Degnan) as part of the Technology, Research, Ecology and Exchange for Students (TREES) Program.