David Burney, Ph.D., left Fordham for Hawaii in 2004 to become director of conservation at the National Tropical Garden. Now Burney, a former professor of biology at Rose Hill, will return to the University for a pair of lectures on Thursday, Dec. 2.
“Paleontology Reshapes the Future in the Hawaiian Archipelago,” which Burney will deliver at 11:30 a.m.at Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus and at 4:15 p.m. at the Rose Hill campus, will recount his exploration of a cave system on the island of Kaua’i.
In his Back to the Future in the Caves of Kaua’i: A Scientist’s Adventures in the Dark, (Yale University Press, 2010) Burney, an adjunct professor at the University of Hawai`i-Mānoa and the Université d’Antananarivo (Madagascar), chronicled thousands of years of cultures and creatures that were revealed in the caves.
This knowledge from the island’s distant past is now informing an ambitious program to restore rare plants beyond their current habitats and rebuild landscapes not seen in a millennium.
Burney will speak at room 816 at the Lowenstein Center at the Lincoln Center campus and the Flom Auditorium at the Walsh Family Library at the Rose Hill campus. For more information, call (212) 636-6310.
