Director of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, John W. Fitzpatrick, will emphasize the role of birds and citizen science in understanding how humans and natural systems can begin coexisting more stably than we do today. He will show some very new and remarkable data about bird populations, gleaned from some unexpected sources. This talk is geared toward very general audiences of all ages, and is accessible even to individuals with only passing interest in nature.

At Cornell, Fitzpatrick has led the dramatic growth of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology into a world-renowned center for ornithology and conservation biology. With his colleagues, he pioneered the development of citizen science, most recently including eBird, an internet-based platform that has become the world’s largest citizen-science project and a revolutionary, global standard for ecological monitoring.