Professor and Vice President of Research
SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry
Dr. John C. Stella serves as Vice President of Research and is a professor in the Department of Sustainable Resources Management at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF). He is also an adjunct professor in Geography at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Public Policy. As VPR, Dr. Stella oversees ESF’s sponsored research that tallies $16 million in expenditures annually. Since his appointment in 2021, he has instituted new strategic initiatives including faculty research clusters in ESF’s core research areas and significantly expanded the recruitment of new research development and sponsored programs staff. He is also strengthening research partnerships with Syracuse University and Upstate Medical University, with whom ESF is creating new research centers and facility sharing agreements. Previously, he served as chair of ESF's Academic Governance Committee on Research from 2019–2021 where he expanded the scope and advisory role of the committee with the VPR’s office.
Dr. Stella joined ESF’s faculty in 2006. An ecologist by training, his interdisciplinary research encompasses global change in river ecosystems, forest ecohydrology, river and riparian restoration, and tree-ring isotope studies, with more than 50 peer-reviewed publications. He has secured >$7.5 million in collaborative research funding from the National Science Foundation, Department of Defense, USDA Forest Service, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, and the French National Research Agency, among other sponsors. He serves on the boards of The Nature Conservancy - Central and Western New York Chapter and Onondaga Earth Corps, a Syracuse youth development and environmental program.
Prior to his academic career, Dr. Stella worked for nearly a decade in environmental consulting, developing restoration plans for rivers in California. He received his BA from Yale University, and his master’s and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, in environmental science, policy and management.