AMS 2026 Venue

Our 2026 AMS meeting on SUNY-ESF’s (State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry) urban Syracuse campus will be an intimate and friendly venue for students and professionals to talk with one another and celebrate our organisms.

See more about ESF at The College Tour.

Longer version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAT85ZGACIY

ESF was recently ranked #4 in the Top 50 Green Colleges by The Princeton Review. It is a Ph.D.-granting, science-focused institution adjoining the Syracuse University campus, and was founded as New York State’s forestry college at Syracuse University in 1911. ESF includes 25,000 acres of field stations across New York State and educates our next generation of environmental leaders. ESF has become notable as the home of the American Chestnut Restoration Project, the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment, founded by acclaimed Indigenous writer and MacArthur Fellow Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of Braiding Sweetgrass, and for its delicious maple syrup, available through the ESF College Bookstore.

Housing

All meeting housing will be provided on the SUNY-ESF campus in Centennial Hall:

Features include:

• Shared and private rooms
• Ensuite bathrooms
• Elevator access
• Heat and A/C control in each room
• Accessible rooms
• Common living spaces
• Laundry facilities

• Free parking via a special meeting parking pass

• BREAKFAST in the Gateway Building meeting venue is included in your housing cost if you purchase housing at Centennial Hall!

Centennial Hall (above) is a short walk to meeting venues in the Gateway Building and Marshall Hall.

Although the meeting housing at Centennial Hall is very close to the presentations and dining location, there are stairs between them. For participants with mobility issues, we are arranging golf cart or vehicle transport each morning and evening. If you have specific concerns, please let us know, so that we can gage how many folks will be in need of transport. Centennial Hall and the presentation/dining location each have elevators within them.

A fitness center, the Barnes Center at The Arch (Syracuse University), is available. This facility features a climbing wall, large swimming pool and warm water spa pool. There is also workout equipment and weights available in Centennial Hall. The workout room in Centennial Hall is free. The facilities at Barnes Center are available by day pass to meeting participants for $8/person.

Food

Breakfasts, lunches, and coffee/snack breaks will be catered by our excellent on-campus venue, The Trailhead Café. Enjoy great food and conversation without the hassle of trying to get back and forth in time. We are aiming to provide affordable meals that fit a diversity of dietary preferences and restrictions. Participating in meeting registration and staying on campus will be helpful for everyone, because the summer months limit walkable food options near campus. Meeting registrants will receive lunch, breaks, and evening reception appetizers as part of their registration. In addition, those participants purchasing housing at Centennial Hall will also receive breakfast as part of that housing cost.

Closing Awards Banquet and museum event will be on the evening of Thursday 18 June at the Museum of the Earth, Ithaca NY. Transportation will be provided, but you are also welcome to drive yourself if you like.

Other evening dinners are on your own. Here are some suggestions:

Alto Cinco
Salt City Market
Lemongrass
Strong Hearts
Dosa Grill
Red Chili
Pastabilities
Inka’s
Darling
Dinosaur Bar-B-Que
Apizza Regionale
Mario & Salvo’s Pizzeria
Wegmans café/prepared foods (“Megawega”)

More about Syracuse: Visit Syracuse

Transportation

You are most welcome in Syracuse, which is easily accessible via Syracuse Hancock International Airport (SYR), and a quick connection from NYC. Amtrak Syracuse Station also serves Syracuse: a train journey down the Hudson River can be a picturesque way to visit New York City post-meeting. Drivers will find Syracuse easy to reach via I-90 and I-81.

Travel to Syracuse

• Syracuse Hancock International Airport (SYR)

• Amtrak Syracuse Station

• Visit Syracuse travel info

Local Transportation

• We plan to provide free on-campus parking to all driving participants. Details will be provided closer to the meeting dates.

• Rideshare services are also available locally (Uber/Lyft)

• Please note that there are no hotels in close walking distance to ESF and public transport is limited, so participants are encouraged to stay on campus at Centennial Hall.

Have Some Fun After the Meeting!

Syracuse and Central New York are excellent launchpads for exploration of Devonian seas, glacial geology, wineries, the Adirondack Mountains, and the Thousand Islands Region. A short drive toward Ithaca and Cornell University will take you through some of the world’s most spectacular Middle Devonian deposits, where you can uncover fossil cephalopods, bivalves, gastropods, trilobites, brachiopods, corals, and even glass sponges. Ithaca’s Paleontological Research Institution (PRI) and its Museum of the Earth boast one of North America’s largest fossil collections, which happens to be focused primarily on marine molluscs (Paleontological Research Institution). Next door to all the fossils are over 100 wineries overlooking Cayuga, Seneca, and Keuka Lakes. The Finger Lakes region produces world-class Riesling and Gewurztraminer wines, as well as breathtaking scenery, including waterfalls and glacially-carved gorges (Finger Lakes Wine Country).

North and East from Syracuse you can camp, hike, canoe, fish, and explore New York’s 6 million-acre Adirondack Park. The Adirondack Park is the largest publicly protected area in the contiguous United States, greater in size than Yellowstone, Everglades, Glacier, and Grand Canyon National Park combined. It is protected in New York State’s constitution to remain a “forever wild” forest preserve. The Adirondacks include over 3,000 lakes, 30,000 miles of rivers and streams, special wetland types, old growth forests, and 46 “high peaks” (>1200 m), some of which host unique alpine and timberline communities (Visit Adirondacks). At the edge of the Adirondacks region is the St. Lawrence River, the only natural outlet to the Atlantic Ocean from the Great Lakes. The Upper St. Lawrence River Ecosystem includes over 1,800 islands, 2,000 shoals, and thousands of hectares of nearshore freshwater littoral habitats and coastal emergent wetlands. This “Thousand Islands” region, about 1.5 hours from Syracuse, has been a popular summer vacation area for Americans and Canadians since the late 1800s (1000 Islands Tourism).

We look forward to welcoming you to Syracuse, New York in June 2026!