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Stack / Whitney Entomology, Environment and Technology Col(LAB)oratory
SWEET Co(LAB)orative
The SWEET Col(LAB)orative is an environmental studies research group who often, but not always, use insects as a lens onto broader systems. We use a range of quantitative and qualitative tools to study science and society. Global environmental problems necessitate a diverse group of minds, bodies, and lives coming together to imagine (and then achieve!) conserving and sustaining natural and human communities in ethical ways. This work is interdisciplinary and done in community, with a wide range of collaborators across disciplines and institutions.
We do this while also working to:
- create space to be our full(er) selves,
- address positionality and power in our research and teams,
- do "open" research without extraction.
We are located on unceded Seneca Nations (Onöndowa'ga) lands. Learn more here.
Latest News
- April 16, 2025
new chapter published
Dr. Stack Whitney and colleagues, as part of the GLUE (Global Urban Evolution Project) recently published a chapter "GLUEing the World: The GLobal Urban Evolution Project and Its Importance to Urban Biodiversity Conservation" in the edited volume Ecology of Tropical Cities, Volume I. Read it here
- April 4, 2025
students present at AESS symposium
Congrats to Abby, Emma, Jordan, and Julia on their wonderful and informative presentations about their research in progress for the annual Association for Environmental Studies and Sciences Student Symposium on April 4, 2025. Check out their abstracts and archived slide decks here: Abby on accessible climate disaster planning for people with intellectual and development disabilities, Emma on foraging regulations in US states, Jordan on electric tabletop composting machines and Julia on disability rhetoric and representation in college biology textbooks.
- March 25, 2025
new media quote
Dr. Stack Whitney was quoted in a recent article about ticks in the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle newspaper, Warm temperatures mean ticks are active in upstate NY: What to know.
- March 21, 2025
new award
Congrats to Abigail Block on winning the Kearse award for the STS department! Abby won this award for her spring 2024 capstone paper in the STS510 Interdisciplinary Capstone, which explored how people with intellectual and development disabilities are underserved in climate emergency communication campaigns. She builds upon this work in her ongoing Aberg fellowship research. Congrats to Abby!
Research
Environmental dimensions of transportation systems
We are interested in the interplay between policy, bureaucracy, and animals at landscape scales. Our focus is always in systems with human communities, currently with a focus on highways and roadside rights-of-way.
Critical examinations of ecosystem services
Environmental science is a human endeavor, shaped by individual and institutional structures, processes, and biases. Part of my research program centers on understanding how these factors shape contemporary ecosystem service sciences.
Ableism and accessibility in biology and society
In fieldwork and informatics based work, SWEET is committed to inclusion, accessibility, and reproducibility. In particular, we focus on disability access and inclusion (or lack thereof) in open science and beyond.
