In November 2024, Columbia University returned ancestral remains to the Rapa Nui people of Easter Island. Their representative, Fr Francisco Nahoe OFMConv., traveled to campus to take possession of a cranium removed from the island in 1916 by an American research expedition. The story of this recovery effort highlights both interdisciplinary teamwork across academic departments at Columbia including Dept E3B, Anthropology and the Rare Book and Manuscript Library and the university’s commitment to the rights and dignity of Indigenous peoples.

See the full story at the following link.

Left to right: Kevin Schlottmann, Head of Archives Processing, Rare Book and Manuscript Library; Dr. Jill Shapiro, Ecology, Evolution & Environmental Biology; Fr. Francisco Nahoe OFMConv, Te Mau Hatu o Rapa Nui; Prof. Zoë Crossland, Anthropology; Prof. Miguel Urquiola, Dean of Social Science

What makes fighting fish so feisty?

E3B Associate Professor Andrés Bendesky was featured in Science!

Bendesky and his team describe how they’ve combined genetics and neuroscience to understand what puts the fight in these betta fish.

Learn more and read the paper HERE.

Lourdes Gautier joined the Columbia community in 2000 working in the Political Science department before becoming the first DAAF of the then brand new Department of Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Biology in the Fall of 2001. This was shortly after 9/11, and despite the excitement of founding a new department at Columbia, the world seemed like an uncertain place. Lourdes’ reassuring competence and good humor were especially appreciated during this time, and remained hallmarks of her work in the department. She put an enormous amount of effort into the new department, which had (at the time) no set ways of doing anything. She really got the department “up and running,” and led it cheerfully. Throughout her time at Columbia, she was known as a fierce advocate for the students and faculty members of E3B. Lourdes ran the department with much grace and aplomb until her retirement in 2019. She will be deeply missed by the students, faculty, staff, and administrators who had the pleasure to work with her.

Congratulations to E3B MA student Myles Davis who won 3rd place at the GSAS Master’s SynThesis competition!

On May 2, 2023, twelve Columbia GSAS Master’s students competed in the GSAS Master’s SynThesis competition. This competition consists of taking a topic that you’ve been researching and thinking about for over a year, and presenting it to the general public in a three-minute talk, with just one visual slide and no notes to help you. Myles (second from left) spoke about human and wildlife activity in NYC during COVID. You can watch his presentation HERE.

E3B PhD student Marie Lilly from the Diuk-Wasser Eco-epidemiology Lab got to go on set of the Today Show yesterday morning and set up deer tick specimens that the lab collected for a segment about ticks and tick-borne disease! You can watch the full segment on ‘How to protect yourself — and your pets — during tick season’ HERE.

You can also check out the Tick App (https://tickapp.us/) for more information about ticks and tick-borne disease, to report your tick encounters, and to help further Eco-epidemiology lab research efforts!

E3B MA student Emma Lauterbach was tasked by Professor Claudia Dreifus to “write a letter to the editor and send it off.”

Emma did that and it was published in the New York Times!

To read Emma’s letter, please click HERE. Congratulations Emma!