Jim Russell/SUNY Oswego

Buffalo State biology graduate student Paul Juette talks with Katherine Bunting-Howarth, New York Sea Grant associate director, about the poster presentation he co-authored for the Great Lakes Research Consortium Faculty-Student Forum in March 2012 at SUNY Oswego.

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."

"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.

Kara Dunn is a freelance writer in Mannsville, N.Y.