BY Kara Dunn for Cornell University's Chronicle Online

Ithaca, NY, April 18, 2012 - New York Sea Grant Extension at Cornell and the Great Lakes Research Consortium (GLRC) are partnering to broaden their outreach and resources to the consortium's 18 colleges and universities in New York and nine affiliate campuses in Ontario, Canada.
 
GLRC coordinates Great Lakes research and learning opportunities among its member college and university campuses in all aspects of Great Lakes science. Nearly 350 GLRC member faculty and their students work on research projects spanning across the Great Lakes basin to improve understanding of the Great Lakes ecosystem.
 
New York Sea Grant (NYSG), a cooperative program of Cornell and the State University of New York, is one of 32 university-based programs under the National Sea Grant College Program of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
 
"We share GLRC's interest in assuring strong research connections among the various scientific disciplines studying the Great Lakes ecosystems," said Katherine Bunting-Howarth, NYSG extension associate director. "Sea Grant will assist the consortium in raising citizen awareness about the Great Lakes environment and the groundbreaking research that our institutions conduct."


Paul Juette, left, a biology graduate student at Buffalo State, talks with Kathy Bunting-Howarth, associate director of New York Sea Grant, about his scholarly poster — co-authored with Alexander Karatayev and Lyubov Burlakova — on zebra mussels March 30 in Lanigan Hall. The exhibition was part of the Great Lakes Research Consortium conference March 30-31 at SUNY Oswego. Students can apply to the GLRC for internships and travel awards to attend and present their research at national and international conferences. New York Sea Grant, which has an office on campus, is a statewide network of integrated research, education and extension services promoting coastal awareness, sustainability and responsibility. (Photo by Jim Russell)


"The consortium's broad collaborations and interdisciplinary teams statewide compete for federal funding," said Gregory Boyer, GLRC's director. "With President Obama pledging nearly $3 billion toward Great Lakes restoration over the next 10 years, this new partnership with New York Sea Grant will help the consortium and its member campuses ensure that New York state receives its share of those dollars."
 
To help build partnerships, the GLRC administers the New York Great Lakes Protection Fund Small Grants Program in cooperation with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and the New York Great Lakes Basin Advisory Council.
 
The GLRC's participating academic institutions are the University at Albany; Binghamton University; Buffalo State College; the University at Buffalo; Clarkson University; Cornell; Hobart and William Smith Colleges; the Rochester Institute of Technology; St. Lawrence University; Syracuse University; the State University of New York at Brockport, Cortland, Fredonia, Geneseo, Oswego, Plattsburgh and Potsdam; and the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry.

New York Sea Grant (NYSG), a statewide network of integrated research, education and extension services promoting coastal vitality, environmental sustainability, and citizen awareness about the State’s marine and Great Lakes resources, has been “Bringing Science to the Shore” for more than 40 years. NYSG, one of 32 university-based programs under the National Sea Grant College Program of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, is a cooperative program of the State University of New York and Cornell University. The National Sea Grant College Program engages this network of the nation’s top universities in conducting scientific research, education, training and extension projects designed to foster science-based decisions about the use and conservation of our aquatic resources.