Just a couple of days ago it was revealed that three of Stony Brook’s professors, Dr. Russell A. Mittermeier, Dr. Carl Safina, and Dr. Patricia C. Wright, made up three out of the six finalists in the running for the Indianapolis Prize, which is generally recognized as “the world’s leading award for animal conservation,” according to Morgan Lyle’s article in Newsday.com.

First off, congratulations to these three doctors. This is one of the greatest achievements in animal conservation on the planet, and obviously their hard work and dedication has paid off since they have made it to the final round for this prestigious award.

To add to this, we, the student body, should think of this achievement in another light. We should see this as the betterment of our school in an area outside of medicine/medicinal research, since that is what Stony Brook is basically renowned for throughout the United States and in other countries, such as China, Korea, New Zealand and more.

For so long Stony Brook, has been referred to as the university where half the population is pre-med, a biology major, or both, so to see Stony Brook being recognized for something besides medicine/medicinal biology is a nice change.

By having award-winning/finalist faculty as well we have the benefit of now having yet another department that has top-ranked professors that can help many students with research, can develop ideas on how to conserve the local environment, or just facilitate learning more on the topics. Who knows, maybe a future world-leading conservation scientists will even be sitting in one of the classes taught by one of these three professors.

On top of all of this, all three professors have said that, should they win the prize, they will use the money that they win from the award to further their own conservation work, which will be extremely beneficial to any habitat that receives the aid.

This award is just one more shining example for Stony Brook’s quickly growing repertoire of academic achievements. While Stony Brook as a university excels in so many areas, it never hurts to stop at just “great.” Stony Brook’s commitment to achieving so many academic feats each and every school year have led to our university being named as the Best Expected ROI (return on investment) school in the Northeastern United States, which helps each and every one of us for after we graduate and move on with our lives.

So thank you for all your work, Mittermeier, Safina and Wright, and for helping Stony Brook become an even brighter beacon of academic success in America.