Improving and sustaining aquatic ecosystem health

We live on a big blue marble – with more than 70% of Earth bathed in water. However, we are only beginning to understand the importance of healthy aquatic environments. We urgently need to train more veterinary students in aquatic animal health, particularly as it relates to conservation, as well as undertake vital research and community engagement to understand, improve, and sustain aquatic ecosystem health.

FishTracker: Engaging Communities with Citizen Science

FishTracker is a student-oriented citizen science project based at Cornell University and funded by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture Hatch Project. New York teachers and students play a critical role in monitoring a range of invasive fish species, such as the round goby.

Investigating Deadly Emerging Diseases in Fish

One of our primary research areas has been on investigating emerging diseases, such as the deadly viral hemorrhagic septicemia (VHS) of fish, which impacts Great Lakes conservation efforts, and the Novirhabdovirus, which can infect the brain of many fish species and has killed millions of fish in the Great Lakes region.