Prof. Aaron Turkewitz’s passion for birds migrating through Hyde Park influenced campus building standards
By Maureen McMahon
When Prof. Aaron Turkewitz arrived in Hyde Park to interview for his first faculty position in 1992, he sat across the desk from preeminent biologist Hewson Swift to discuss his future in molecular genetics and cell biology.
“I recall his face was framed by a Gothic arch of an open window—and beyond that, a tree was filled with the birdsong of warblers,” Turkewitz said. “I was so totally distracted by the warblers I actually asked to stop the interview!”
“I explained to him I was coming from UCSF, an area rich in seabirds, but that while in the Bay Area I found myself longing for the songbird migrations that occur in the Midwest and Eastern Coast.”
Luckily, Swift was also a passionate birder and met his enthusiasm. “It felt like a good sign about joining UChicago,” he said.
Prof. Aaron Turkewitz uses binoculars to view a yellow warbler in front of a favorite oak tree on Wooded Isle, 2025. Credit: Sydney Steinbach
The following year Turkewitz set up his lab in the Department of Molecular Genetics & Cell Biology to probe how cells compartmentalized their internal space using membranes over evolutionary time. His wife, Anna DiRienzo, would also join the faculty of the Biological Sciences in the program in human genetics, and they moved to a beloved old house on South Blackstone Ave.
He established himself as an educator known for the creativity and joy he brought to research and teaching and was awarded the 2001 Faculty Award for Excellence in Graduate Teaching.
In time, a favorite activity of life in Hyde Park was joining the weekly Wooded Isle Bird Walks in nearby Jackson Park that have been going since 1972. The walks were often enriched by Karin Cassel, a charismatic interpreter who was fondly remembered by the group’s historian Patricia Durkin as “our Sibley’s,” comparing her knowledge to what could be found in David Sibley’s celebrated birding field guide.
Each walk brought the group into a deeper understanding of the ecosystem: “Learning a habitat through intense observation is a great privilege. And Karin knew every nest,” he said.
“What began as a boy, with my parents taking me birding throughout the parks in the Bronx where I grew up—became a lifelong source of great joy,” he said.
“It’s taught me to be a better observer of the natural world and a better listener, which are helpful to a biologist. And, it made me passionate about birds migrating through Hyde Park.”
Shaping campus sustainability
“When I came to UChicago in the mid-90’s, I was shocked there was no system for recycling on campus, having come from California where curbside aluminum, glass, and newspaper collection had been standard for years,” he said.
He joined a group of concerned faculty and staff to advocate for Facilities Services to make the change, which they did starting around 2010.
He was moved to take action again beginning in 2013. “Over my thirty years walking to campus, I’ve seen a lot of changes,” he said. “One large set of changes was the construction of new buildings with glass or the replacement of brick in old buildings with glass.”
Expanses of glass look like open space to birds, who cannot detect the surface barrier and can therefore strike the glass.
Hyde Park lies under The Mississippi Flyway, part of a larger migration route that extends from northwest Canada, along the Great Lakes, and down the Mississippi River Valley. Each year, more than 250 species of migratory birds use this flyway to travel between their winter habitats in the southern U.S. and Central and South America, and their summer habitats in North America.
For the 8 million birds that fly through Chicago during the migratory seasons, which run mid March until early June and late August until late October, glass façades are treacherous, even causing events where thousands of birds die in one night due to collisions.
In 2015, the new all-glass William Eckhardt Research Center (ERC) had just opened. Every day people walking past found birds, sometimes up to dozens, stunned or deceased around the perimeter of the building.
They carried the birds to Turkewitz and other faculty, and shared photographs of where on campus the strikes were worst. “I was depressed that whole season, I mean really depressed. I was used to looking up to see birds, not down. I had to speak up,” he said.
He approached Facilities Services with another avid birder on campus, Ingrid Gould of the Office of the Provost, plus other concerned faculty, staff, and students, about galvanizing a bigger, researched response to bird safety. They worked with Alicia Berg, assistant vice president of Campus Planning + Sustainability, who spearheaded the committee on behalf of Facilities Services. Together, they met for years to make progress.
The committee was charged with researching bird-safe materials for retrofitting existing buildings that posed the highest threats to birds as well as optimal materials for new construction.
Facilities Services funded a campus study conducted on the days of migration seasons that was designed and run by Prof. Greg Dwyer in ecology and evolution and Dr. Alison Hunter in biological sciences. Rigorous statistical analysis ranked a dozen different campus buildings on the risk they pose to birds. These rankings then became a targeted list for upgrades.
At first, solutions like hanging acopian curtains across the windows of ERC were tried— essentially draping a series of long cords across windows that helped deter birdstrikes.
Then Katie Martin Peck, associate director for Campus Environment, identified a solution for ERC and other existing buildings on campus: applying a decal product with opaque patterning to the east and south facing glass façades to make them more visible to birds. This same product was also applied on the aerial passageway to the Gordon Center for Integrative Science and on the Laird Bell Law Quadrangle.
Martin Peck explained, “The specific pattern on the decals selected as our new campus standard—a three-inch grid of small dots—was selected because of its balance of high effectiveness in bird safety with minimal area of opaque patterning, which is achieved by a simple architectural grid.” People can see past the dots and through the glass, making the decals minimally noticeable to humans but very obvious to birds.
“Our bird safety committee saw the numbers of bird collisions decrease drastically where there were decals,” reported Turkewitz.
The committee also suggested putting lights on timers to lessen light pollution at night and having new campus buildings incorporate fritted—or patterned and less reflective—glass into designs. The iconic glass dome of the Joe and Rika Mansueto Library, for example, has frit glass.
Due to the passion of Turkewitz and the leaders of Campus Planning, in 2016, bird-safe design became codified as a performance-based guideline for construction projects in Facilities Standards (FS)2.
The standards state the Bird Safety Checklist “provides the opportunity for the University to become a leader in bird safe environments throughout the campus including buildings, landscaping and respect for bird habitats. Project management teams should use the Bird Safe Project Checklist in tandem with the LEED checklist to review design considerations.”
“We owe Aaron a debt of gratitude for elevating this concern and helping us find ways to protect birds,” said Berg. “We have come a long way from those terrible days of 2015, which I will never forget—and just this summer had the design for our most recent major construction project endorsed and praised by the Bird Friendly Chicago Alliance.”
Dawn Young, writing on behalf of the Alliance of more than 20,000 members and supporters, endorsed the plan for the building going up next to ERC: “Responsible development is not just an environmental priority—it’s an economic and reputational imperative for our city’s future. Incorporating bird-friendly glass on curtain walls, guard rails, and all other windows is crucial for the protection of migratory birds, and we’re pleased to see that this plan includes bird-safe fritting on its curtain walls as a Sustainable Development Policy strategy.”
Turkewitz commented in an email, “For me the inspiring and joyful core of the story is that passion and perseverance, taking advantage of the talents of a whole community of people here, produced meaningful change that is saving lives of hundreds of birds. It makes our world richer and is something worth celebrating!”
He and his wife have both retired as of this summer, after over 32 years of service to the University and the community, and will be moving to Italy.