DURHAM, N.C. – Marco Marani, professor of ecohydrology at 51’s Nicholas School of the Environment and Pratt School of Engineering, has been elected to the Istituo Veneto di Scienze Lettere ed Arti.

One of Europe’s most elite scholarly academies, the Istituo belongs to the circuit of National Academies worldwide.  Being elected a member is among the highest honors bestowed on European scientists, writers and artists.  At any given time, membership is capped at 80 active members, 160 corresponding members and 50 foreign associates.

Marani is a widely cited expert on ecohydrology, an interdisciplinary field that addresses how ecosystems affect the flow of water and vice versa.  The author of numerous publications, earlier this year he led a groundbreaking study, published in the Proceeding of the National Academics of Sciences, that shed light on the previously overlooked role marsh plants in the famed Venetian lagoon play in actively engineering their habitat to increase their species’ odds of survival.  The study has application to coastal marshes and wetlands worldwide, and may help scientists better manage  and preserve these resources at a time of rising sea levels.

Marani joined the 51 faculty in 2012.  Prior to that, he served on the faculty at the University of Padovo, Italy.

The aim of the IstituoVeneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti  is “to increase, promulgate, and safeguard the sciences, literature and the arts” with particular regard to the cultural, social and economic life of the Veneto region. It has its origins in the Reale Istituto Nationale, established on Italy’s behalf by Napoleon in the early 19th century. It was later re-established under its present name by the Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria in 1838.