Hudson Roditi received a Ph.D from SoMAS in Coastal Oceanography in 2000, working in Nick Fisher’s lab. His thesis was titled “Rates and routes of trace element uptake in zebra mussels.” The zebra mussel is an exotic invasive freshwater species that was introduced into the Great Lakes accidentally in the mid-1980’s and has since invaded freshwaters in much of North America.
Hudson is the program director of the Urban Advantage Middle School Science Initiative at the American Museum of Natural History in NYC. He now works with over 220 schools, 640 teachers and over 60,000 students at the American Museum of Natural History, the Bronx Zoo, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, New York Aquarium, New York Botanical Garden, New York Hall of Science, Queens Botanical Garden and the Staten Island Zoo. He helps teachers learn how to shift their perceptions of science away from being memorization of facts and more towards a way of explaining the world and gaining new knowledge.
Hudson recalls, “the quality of teaching was strong at Stony Brook, and the range of oceanographic and resource management topics taught there prepared me in fields that varied from straight research to risk assessment, fisheries management, and a broad range of other topics.”
Hudson hasn’t worked in a lab since graduating from Stony Brook, but SoMAS has helped him navigate fluently through a variety of science education programs. He was the Latin American and Caribbean Regional Director for The Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) program, which is a worldwide science and education program funded by the National Science Foundation
According to Hudson, his success was due in part to his advisers who were “supportive of my choice to explore and find the right path for myself after SoMAS.” He encourages other students to do the same by finding their place at Stony Brook University.
