If this opportunity interests you, apply today. employment.udayton.edu/en-us/job/50...

This inaugural endowed chair will have the opportunity to conduct impactful work on the application of plant or crop science and to join an active and diverse research landscape at the University of Dayton to increase food security in regions of the world with the greatest need.

One of the best parts? This research grew out of a collaboration between a graduate student and undergraduates in a class I taught—proof that impactful, publishable science can happen in the classroom.

This study highlights a fascinating intersection of renewable energy and wildlife behavior—and how animals creatively adapt to novel, human-made structures.

We found that robins nesting on tilting PV arrays built taller nests with different attachment angles than those on fixed-tilt panels. Why? We think it’s to keep their eggs secure as the panels move throughout the day to track the sun.

If science has impacted your life—even indirectly through the medicine you take, the food you eat, or the devices you use—please consider reaching out to your representatives and senators. Science needs your voice.

The proposed cuts to NSF funding will not only slow the pace of discovery, but will also have direct consequences for people’s lives. The research funded by NSF touches everything from food and health to technology and climate resilience.

NSF’s support of basic science isn’t abstract. My work, for example, on how nutrients influence insect populations has helped develop new strategies for managing grasshoppers that damage crops and threaten food security.

Later, an NSF grant I received as an early-career researcher supported undergraduate and graduate students, as well as a postdoc. That grant didn’t just fund science—it launched careers, including my own.

Early in my career, I also had the opportunity to organize two NSF-funded workshops that led to impactful publications on how invertebrates—especially insects—affect people and the planet.

As a graduate student, I was funded through the Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) program to study how herbivores and detritivores influence ecosystem processes in diverse subtropical forests.