Marcelo Ardon Sayao

Assistant Professor

Forestry and Environmental Resources

We believe it is important to involve the public in both the process and outcomes of the research we do. We involve the public in the process of science through citizen science projects. One project seeks to measure the health of bald cypress trees along the NC sounds (Sentinels of the Sounds, http://sentinelsnc.weebly.com/). Another project is within iNaturalist and seeks to collect information about dragonflies in La Selva Biological Station in Costa Rica. We involve the public in the outcomes of our research by giving talks to the general public, publishing in open access journals, and making our data publicly available in data repositories (such as Dryad Data Repository).

We also use citizen science in teaching. Last fall I took 300+ students in my Introduction to Environmental Science course out to Rocky Branch on campus to collect observations using iNaturalist.

Marcelo Ardon Sayao