What Makes us Human?

Mildred Warner, professor of city and regional planning, shows how inequality can be tracked across America simply by looking at ZIP codes.

Noliwe Rooks, professor of Africana studies and director of American studies in the College of Arts & Sciences, explains the history of educational inequities in the U.S.

Anna Haskins, assistant professor of sociology in Cornell's College of Arts & Sciences, explores the impact of incarcerated parents on their children’s education.

Carole Boyce Davies, professor of Africana studies and English in the College of Arts & Sciences, explores global racial hierarchies and their remedies.

Jamie Lyn Perry, assistant professor of management and organization in the SC Johnson College of Business, explores power and status in the workplace.

Peter Lepage, Goldwin Smith Professor of Physics in the College of Arts and Sciences and director of Cornell’s Active Learning Initiative, examines how active learning helps students succeed.

Kelly Musick, director of the Cornell Population Center and professor and chair of policy analysis and management in the College of Human Ecology, examines persistent inequalities in parenting and the earnings penalties that go along with them.

Jeff Niederdeppe, associate professor of communication in the College of Agriculture and Life Science, explores how “sociological” storytelling can change health outcomes.

Historian Maria Cristina Garcia examines how climate change causes economic and political upheaval.

Kiowa filmmaker Jeffrey Palmer, assistant professor of performing and media arts at Cornell University, examines how Indigenous stories are misrepresented by the media.

Thomas Gilovich, Cornell University's Irene Blecker Rosenfeld Chair of Psychology, examines the impact of inequality on psychological well-being.

Linda Shi, assistant professor of city and regional planning, discusses how efforts to adapt to climate change can also worsen inequality.

Ziad Fahmy, associate professor and chair of Near Eastern studies at Cornell University, looks at what the Nile River means to Egypt.

Prabhu Pingali, director, Tata-Cornell Institute for Agriculture and Nutrition, and professor of applied economics and policy and nutritional science in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, explains the impact of clean, piped-in water on women and girls in India.

Jonathan Lunine, astronomy professor and director, Cornell Center for Astrophysics and Planetary Science at Cornell University, examines the origin of our planet’s water.

Athena Kirk, assistant professor of classics in the College of Arts & Sciences, examines Odysseus’ complex relationship with water.

Charles Geisler, professor of development sociology in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, explores the critical question of who owns our planet’s water.

Eric Tagliacozzo, professor of history in the College of Arts and Sciences, explores the critical role the oceans have played in Southeast Asia.

Taryn Bauerle, associate professor in the School of Integrative and Plant Science in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, explores the critical role trees play in the earth’s water cycle.

William Kennedy, Avalon Foundation Professor Emeritus in the Humanities, explains the influence of water on European Renaissance culture.

Catherine Kling, Tisch University Professor of Environmental, Energy and Resource Economics, examines the social costs of water pollution, and how we should make choices about costly water treatment.

Kevin Kniffin,professor in the Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management within the SC Johnson College of Business, explores what influences whom we find attractive.

Andy Bass, professor of neurobiology and behavior, explores the biological basis of attraction.

Lucinda Ramberg, associate professor of anthropology and feminist, gender and sexuality studies, explores marriage between girls and a goddess in South India.

Masha Raskolnikov, Cornell associate professor of English, explains how the invention of courtly love helped prevent warfare in medieval Europe.

Vivian Zayas, associate professor of psychology at Cornell University, explores the behavioral, psychological, and neural components of love -- and its loss.

Marianne Krasny, professor in Cornell's Department of Natural Resources and Director of the Civic Ecology Lab in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, examines what motivates people to care for Earth’s creatures and its places.

Cornell Professor Kathryn LaTour explores why consumers feel love for certain products or brands. LaTour is the Banfi Vintners Professor of Wine Education and Management in the School of Hotel Administration, SC Johnson College of Business.

Durba Ghosh, professor of history and director of Cornell's Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program, examines what love meant for colonial India’s mixed-race families.

Kim Haines-Eitzen, H. Stanley Krusen Professor of World Religions and director of the Religious Studies Program, explores the complex relationship between love, early Christianity, and contemporary wedding practice.

Robert Sternberg, professor of human development, describes his triangular theory of love.

Neema Kudva, associate professor of city and regional planning, examines how to build resilient communities in the face of environmental and economic upheaval.

Stephan Schmidt, associate professor of city and regional planning, asks whether cities can have a positive impact on climate change.

Tasha Lewis, assistant professor in the Department of Fiber Science & Apparel Design, considers what happens to used clothing and asks whether we can add value to what we usually treat as waste.

Natalie Mahowald, professor of atmospheric sciences, looks at the unintended consequences of human actions on our environment.

Cliff Kraft, professor of natural resources, looks at the human actions behind the changes in our environment.

Anindita Banerjee, Associate professor of comparative literature, explores how science fiction can help make sense of climate change.

Steve Osofsky, Professor of Wildlife Health & Health Policy, explores the complex relationships between health and human interaction with the environment.

David Lodge, director of Cornell’s Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future, examines how human population growth and consumption has changed our environment.

Literary theorist and interdisciplinary scholar Laurent Dubreuil examines the borders between human and animal.

Political scientist Mary Katzenstein reflects on what the inhumanities of prison teach us about being human.

Sociologist Trevor Pinch looks at the entanglement of human and non-human today.

Classicist Michael Fontaine takes a new look at mental distress, from an ancient point of view.

Psychologist David Pizarro reflects on what makes us wise.

Nobel Laureate and the Frank H. T. Rhodes Professor of Humane Letters, Emeritus, explains what chemistry teaches us about being human.

Laura Spitz, Vice Provost for International Affairs and a Senior Lecturer and Associate Dean at Cornell Law School examines what role the law plays in the social construction of what it means to be human.

English professor Laura Brown explores whether the nature of love is different when it is towards animals instead of humans.

Professor of Disability Studies Susanne Bruyere spotlights the value of our many diverse ways of being human. Susanne Bruyere is the Director of the K. Lisa Yang and Hock E. Tan Institute on Employment and Disability and a Professor of Disability Studies

Amid the rising waters of climate change, historian Aaron Sachs finds sense in the theatre of the absurd. Aaron Sachs, Professor of History

Roboticist Guy Hoffman describes a future with robots based on relationship, not conflict.

Studies of animal behavior move psychologist Elizabeth Adkins-Regan to ask whether there is even such a thing as “human.”