Cornell professor: investigator, comedian, genius, friend

Rob Raguso is highlighted as one of Cornell’s top professors.  Go Rob!

CALS professor of neurobiology and behavior Robert Raguso collects scents with a student in the Mundy Wildflower Garden.
Robert Raguso, a professor in the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior and winner of last year's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Young Faculty Teaching Excellence Award, gives an example of the "mutualistic relationship" between classroom teaching and cutting-edge research. Several years ago when he was a junior faculty member at the University of South Carolina, he had to take over the teaching of Introductory Botany for a colleague.
"We were covering the life cycles of primitive plants, and so I was reviewing that chapter in the textbook. I turned the page and there in front of me was the most beautiful plant, a kind of moss, in brilliant, canary yellow. I thought, 'Oh! A moss pretending to be a flower!'" That encounter led Raguso on a global investigative journey and brought him a major grant from the National Geographic Society. "Teaching really empowers your research and requires a mastery of the subject. There's a real synergy," he says.

Cornell professor: investigator, comedian, genius, friend