Museum scientist Eleanor Sterling has been chosen as a recipient of this year’s Faculty Mentoring Award at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Dr. Sterling, who is the director of the Museum’s Center for Biodiversity and Conservation, serves as the director of graduate studies and as an adjunct professor in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology at Columbia.

The Urban Advantage Science Expo will return to the Museum for its eighth year on Saturday, June 9. More than 300 science projects will be presented by over 500 middle school students. Project topics reflect a wide range of subject areas in the life, Earth, and physical sciences that were investigated by students in connection to their class visits to the Urban Advantage partner institutions, and include projects on the effect of zebra mussels on the Hudson River ecosystem as well as whether music influences plant growth. Watch a video.

In the first Ph.D. defense held by the Richard Gilder Graduate School, Sebastian Kvist today successfully defended his dissertation about blood-feeding leeches, paving the way for him to receive his doctoral degree from the Museum.

The Museum celebrated centenarian philanthropist Kathryn W. Davis at a special ceremony and luncheon today to honor her generous support of the  Museum’s new Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) Program, the first freestanding master’s degree program offered by a museum to prepare science teachers.