John Jay Senior Wins 1st Place For Climate Change Study

CROSS RIVER, NY — A John Jay High School senior was recognized for her hard work and research on climate change. Ashley Stagnari’s original research won first place in the Earth and Environmental Science category of the Westchester-Rockland Junior Science and Humanities Symposium, held recently at John Jay High School.

Stagnari will present her research at the Upstate JSHS March 25-26, competing for a spot to go to the national symposium.

She credits much of the success of her science research project to her mentor, Dr. Todd Walter, professor in the Department of Biological and Environmental Engineering at Cornell University.

“Dr. Walter was so willing to talk about a lot of projects with me and connect me with other scientists. He also helped me specify my interests into a tangible study,” Stagnari said.

She worked in Cornell’s lab for a week analyzing the soil samples with the help of a graduate assistant. Throughout the summer they did the data analysis and reviewed the results with Walter.

“It was amazing to have a professor at his level to be so supportive of a high school student,” Stagnari said.

She spent hours last June in Jamaica Bay's salt marshes, shoveling mud from specific sites into gallon bags. She’d chosen the urban estuary specifically because of the sewer overflows that regularly pour in from parts of Brooklyn, Queens, and Nassau counties.

The next day, Stagnari drove the soil samples to a lab at Cornell University. There, alongside graduate assistants and in collaboration with Walter, she analyzed the greenhouse gas emissions of the wetlands polluted by carbon and nitrogen. The data suggests that in the face of increased pollution, wetlands have the potential to become greenhouse gas sources rather than sinks.

Looking at wetlands’ role in climate change is part of Stagnari's broad interests in environmental issues. As a middle school student, she started a petition to halt the Canadian government-led action to euthanize wolves. Stagnari now interns with Maggie Howell, executive director of the Wolf Conservation Center. She’s also a member of the high school sustainability club led by Steven Zoeller and pitched an idea to repurpose plastic at Bedford2020’s Greenlight Awards.

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