The Pitt Green Spotlight is a monthly series highlighting people advancing sustainability, including Pitt Green Ambassadors and Pitt’s Green Offices & Labs!
We hope these spotlights will inspire you to try out new sustainable practices in your own campus experience! Want to be included in our next highlight? Contact us.
Pitt Green Spotlight:
Miranda Kosowsky, Laboratory Manager, Richards-Zawacki Laboratory
The Richards-Zawacki Lab is an amphibian ecology and evolution research lab in the biology department. We are interested in many aspects of the ecology, evolutionary biology, and conservation of amphibians. The ongoing research in our lab has two main goals: (1) understanding adaptation and speciation in amphibians and (2) studying the emerging amphibian fungal pathogen, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis.
What got you interested in sustainability and acting on climate change?
As an ecology lab, we have always been interested in sustainability and the environment. So much of our work depends on amphibians and the natural world. We directly relate environmental issues like warming climates and habitat fragmentation to impacts on amphibians. Our work is deeply entwined with sustainability and a large part of our research is trying to understand how climate change will affect amphibian communities.
How would you recommend those just getting started with sustainability on campus get involved?
For labs just getting started, we recommend looking for small things first. Some things you can start doing right now are talking about sustainability at a lab meeting or participating in pipette tip box recycling. As a lab it can sometimes feel difficult to know where to start, especially when things (like the amount of single use plastic) feel overwhelming. We would encourage labs to look for more straightforward ways to start thinking about sustainability first, then tackle the larger problems after you have a solid foundation.
What sustainability challenge would you like to tackle next, and what would you like to see the university address?
We would like to continue seeing developments on how to recycle or reuse lab plastics. The pipette tip box recycling program is awesome, and we’d love to see more programs like it!
Thanks to Miranda and the whole lab team for all your efforts to advance sustainability at Pitt!