Barry Chernoff’s Second Nature
Profile written for James Gorman, Former Editor of the NY Times Science Section
December 19, 2018
“Every novel idea flies in the face of contemporary theory. We need to learn to evaluate groupthink and the domino effect, and look at alternative theories. To see things that aren’t belief systems. The earth heating up is not belief,” Professor Barry Chernoff says, motioning to his bay window confining the unseasonably warm Connecticut air just outside.
Walking into Wesleyan’s College of the Environment department building, a quaint dusky-blue house with unkempt but beautifully luscious flora surrounding it, I had a clear image of Professor Barry Chernoff in my mind, an expectation of a soft-spoken tree-hugger with a penchant for teaching. Chernoff, however, is everything but soft- in his work ethic, lifestyle, and passionate devotion to environmental studies.
I grew to understand this not 5 minutes after he ushered me into his dust-less and incredibly organized office. Chernoff may initially give off an air of casual indifference, but he is the head of one the most scientifically demanding programs at Wesleyan. How someone wearing a navy blue UnderArmour t-shirt and black gas-station mug with “TERLINGUA TEXAS” written on it in crimson could be the head of one of the most scientifically lucrative and demandingly pre-professional programs at Wesleyan, I had yet to find out.
Chernoff is not only head of the College of the Environment, but works in the Biology and Environmental Science departments at Wesleyan, teaching a four- to five-course rotation per semester. Somehow, he manages to serve as Member on the Inland Fish Commission as a protector of endangered and threatened species, while entertaining a vigorous social and extracurricular life. Just how Professor Chernoff manages to do it all is a constant wonder to his many colleagues and students.
After introducing myself as a journalism student, with no prior experience in Chernoff’s departments or any of his classes, his eyes lit up. Rather than being taken aback at my ignorance in his subject, he jumped animatedly into an in-depth explanation of the birth and growth of his brain-child, the very building we were occupying- the College of the Environment.
Professor Chernoff joined the Wesleyan staff in 2003, after having held the highly sought-after Curator of Fishes at the Field Museum in Chicago (a division of the museum responsible for the upkeep of just under 2 million fish specimens), and serving as a head faculty member in the Environmental Studies department at the University of Chicago. Chernoff joined the Wesleyan staff after the opening of a new position, to direct the Environmental Studies certificate program in 1999. At the request of then-Environmental Studies professor Robert Schumann to bring in a new director, Chernoff was offered the job.
“So I took it. We started with the certificate, built for 3-4 years, and when Roth came he began his Presidency by saying he would like to fund a number of big initiatives- he had a panel of judges to determine what would pass. [Roth wanted] people with big ideas to submit 2 pages, and so I submitted 3 pages,” Chernoff laughs, his piercing blue eyes drifting back to a fondly remembered time behind his prescription Aviators.
The College of the Environment took off as a linked major, Chernoff explains. His passion, among countless others, was to create an interdisciplinary approach to studying the environment. “Since its creation, the Environmental Studies major has been combined with 38 of the 42 majors,” he mentions excitedly, twirling a spoon in his coffee as the steam rises to the seafoam-green ceiling. His work in the College encompasses the major program, the Environmental Studies Thinktank, and environmental public outreach of countless varieties. “[My work] is like a fork with 3 tines”.
Talk to any student of Chernoff’s and they’ll tell you something like this: “He gets excited about people being excited; the College, in many ways, is his beloved child,” one of the five undergraduate Thinktank members, and a current student of Professor Chernoff’s, Ruby Lang, tells me. The ForthComing ThinkTank of the College of the Environment was started by Chernoff in 2010, and has since brought in a new distinguished fellow to teach an Environmental course every year. The ThinkTank brings a celebrity presence to Wesleyan’s campus, and not only recognizable to environmental science geeks: Allison Orr, a top choreographer and dancer, and Henry Adams, former curator of Fine Arts at the Carnegie Institute, have both collaborated with Chernoff and his students to bring a new approach to understanding environmental science issues.
A striking aspect of Chernoff’s approach to Environmental Studies is that “Nobody else is doing anything like the program right here. The question I ask myself every day: What is needed and what can you do that other people aren’t doing to make a difference- the same thing is true working in any science. What’s gonna matter!” he emphasizes. Chernoff tells me that “Distinguishing between what is a good question, and what is a beautiful question, and what is a beautiful question that can be answered, that’s what we need”.
It’s sometimes hard to separate Professor Chernoff’s many professional avenues from one another; they all seem to meld together with an unbelievable cohesiveness. His teaching at Wesleyan, outside research on endangered fish in South America, student trips to protect watersheds funded by the College, and professional avocation for environmental conservation all represent Chernoff’s passion equally well.
“I bring two packets of Burpee seeds to every environmental science conference I speak at, one from the 1950’s and one from today- the backs of them show the growing zones in Connecticut. We have become two zones warmer- these packets are not biased. They are just trying to sell seeds,” he says. “The reason is that, the data coming from the scientists, people have heard it. They need to feel it,” he explains. “They need to experience the data emotionally, then they can begin to change their attitudes. It literally moves people.”
Surrounding the spotless tabletops in Chernoff’s office are ten-odd ruled posters with a complex web of outlines for future projects. Paragraphs detailing “Sustainability Theory” and “International Relations Trends”, alongside one another, are so dense that I can’t begin to read or comprehend their association. I probe, and his eyes light up. “I have been planning this new project for some time. We are still in the process of developing a potential new master’s program that would be international: between our College and the Institute of International Relations in Kiev, to develop a dialogue between student cohorts on environmental issues”.
On May 2 of this year, these two schools will host an international teleconference and discuss the meaning of earth to them, hoping to find cross-cultural linkages in environmental opinion, and develop solutions to these problems.
Such a project seems mildly underwhelming to Chernoff, as he swirls his coffee once more. “I’ve had a few success stories with student involvement- a group of two students worked in Shiradi, Tanzania, who built a 400-gallon water tank to attach to a school, collecting rainwater. This relieved women and children from having to literally schlep dirty water cans 10 kilometers from Lake Victoria to bring contaminated water back to Shiradi, which was 40 miles worth of walking,” He explains. “Max still works there; he fell in love with it.”
Chernoff’s passion for environmental studies originated from a happy fluke during his years at Stony Brook University in New York. The first of his family to go to college and son of a factory worker in a lower-middle class family, Chernoff originally pursued a Pre-Med undergraduate degree, hoping to direct his affinity for science into a lucrative career. “I wasn’t enjoying it. In my junior year I took a course in invertebrate zoology, and it opened my eyes and allowed me to find my passion in working in biology, and the natural world. For someone who grew up part in Brooklyn, part in Long Island, this was complete anathema to my family. Opened up the whole world to me,” Chernoff says.
Years later, he refers to his work fondly as a “schizo” career, a term somewhat abrasive at a school like Wesleyan, which prides itself on political correctness. Such language is representative of Chernoff’s dissonance from the liberal arts culture- his passions come first while self-awareness takes a backseat.
“I’ve spent years in ecology and conservation and on environmental projects at the same time,” Chernoff says. Beginning with the creation of AquaRAP, an environmental group he created with South American scientists to study the quality of ecosystems in the Neotropics, Professor Chernoff has been involved in conservation efforts and research on fish habitats for most of his post-grad career. His projects in aquatic ecosystems in Connecticut and the Caribbean have spurred a new research program in the Carpathian Mountains at the border of Romania and Slovenia, beginning just this summer.
When I ask Chernoff the question that has been on my mind since our introduction- how he does so many projects so fast and all at once- he answers candidly. “I can’t wait- I’m 66 years old, and if I ain’t gonna do it now, right? I’m already living on the error term of life. If you look at the average years white males live, I’m statistically dead,” Professor Chernoff explains without hesitation. “My ex- wives know all about my error terms of life. I’ve been living here for a while now.”
It may be in everyone’s best interest, including the environment, that Chernoff continues to live on his “error term” for quite some time.
