Faculty Research Fellow Richard Primack Authors Article on Impact of COVID-19 on Field Work for The Conversation

Richard Primack, a professor of biology and a Faculty Research Fellow at the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, recently authored an article published in The Conversation on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the ability to conduct field work.  

In the article, Prof. Primack reflects on the necessary yet costly measures to protect scientists and students by canceling or scaling back field research on many long-term, multi-year studies, leading to what he calls “irreplaceable losses to science.”

“Collecting data over many years allows scientists to detect gradual trends and short-term anomalies in the health of forests, bays and other ecosystems and biological communities,” he says. “Long-term research has informed policies addressing air and water pollution and wildlife conservation in ways that would have been impossible through short-term studies alone.”

Read the full article here.