Kaitlin Stack Whitney, Ph.D.
T.H. Gosnell School of Life Sciences
Life Sciences
Office: Eastman 1354
Phone: 585-475-6604
Email: kxwsbi@rit.edu
https://www.rit.edu/liberalarts/directory/kxwsbi-kaitlin-stack-whitney
I have been teaching and conducting research at RIT since 2016. I teach for both the Environmental Sciences program in the RIT College of Science and the Science, Technology & Society department in the RIT College of Liberal Arts. My research focuses on ecosystem services, benefits or harm that humans derive from the natural world (e.g. pollination, pest suppression, bioindicators), and novel ecosystems, environments that have been created or significantly altered by human activity (e.g. farms, roadsides). I use a range of tools to study the reciprocal interactions of humans and insects, ranging from museum specimens to autonomous acoustic recorders to coding big data. Before becoming a professor, I worked as a staff scientist for the US Environmental Protection Agency Office of Pesticide Programs and previous to that as project staff for a contractor managing US Department of Agriculture Farmer to Farmer program in Eastern Europe. My research has been funded by the US Department of Agriculture and the National Science Foundation.
I have a ‘lifelong learner’ framework when it comes to supporting students in my classroom and research lab – I take ongoing formal and informal opportunities to always be learning new and additional information about how to best welcome all learners, understanding that every student has their own needs and goals. I am part of the RIT College of Science’s HHMI Inclusive Excellence inclusive research and inclusive classroom teaching cohorts. An additional ongoing area of my research program is making “open science” accessible to students to all abilities.
I can communicate in ASL and take ongoing ASL coursework through NTID. I have previously supervised DHH student researchers with a range of communication modalities. I'm comfortable communicating about research in ASL, and would be happy to have research meetings in either ASL or English.