Green Light: Richard Murdocco Recognized for Sustainability Efforts

Richard Murdocco has worked in the environmental realm for more than 15 years, harboring a passion about land use since his college days. Those efforts were rewarded when the Stony Brook University adjunct professor was honored at the recent Long Island Herald's GreenBIZ Awards.

Murdocco, a faculty member in the Department of Political Sciencein the College of Arts and Sciencesand the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, was one of three people honored in the Education category. The awards were presented by Herald Community Newspapers, a group of local newspapers serving Long Island and New York City with a focus on community news.

The inaugural event recognized executives and Long Island community members who have significantly shaped how organizations do business with global impact. The Herald cited Murdocco's role at Stony Brook University and his efforts to advance the conversation around renewable energy, responsible land use and environmental policy, as well as inspiring future leaders to understand the critical intersection of economic development and environmental protection.

Murdocco said he's always had an environmental leaning, but was attracted to the field as an undergraduate at Fordham University.

"That came from studying the interrelationship between land use and water quality," he said. "I wrote my undergraduate thesis on land use and development on Long Island, and it really opened my eyes to how what we do on top impacts the water we drink on the bottom."

After earning degrees in political science and urban studies at Fordham, Murdocco came to Stony Brook in pursuit of a Master's in Public Policy, the same program he now teaches in. Murdocco studied under the late Lee Koppelman, a longtime member of the Stony Brook faculty who became a friend and mentor. Koppelman was an important figure in the campaign for sustainability on Long Island and was one of the first to embrace the idea of preserving space in the interest of health and future generations.

"Ever since then I've been arguing for the balance between development and growth and the need for environmental preservation," he said. "His work was formative in shaping my own."

Murdocco has spent his entire life in the Stony Brook area, growing up in nearby Setauket. His father, also named Richard, has taught in the Department of Family, Population & Preventive Medicine at the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook since the 1980s.

"When I was younger, I would sit in and watch him teach, and now I'm teaching," he said. "It still feels kind of weird."

The younger Murdocco has been teaching at Stony Brook since 2016, when he was brought in to help the public policy graduate program and develop some of the online course offerings. Today, all the classes he teaches are either on land use development or environmental policy. Looking to expand his capabilities even further, he's currently attending Long Island's Touro Law Center in pursuit of a Juris Doctor degree.

"My plan is to eventually get into real estate law," he said. "I should have done this 20 years ago, but as my wife says, there's a reason why I didn't. Now I'm surrounded by 22-year-olds and it's humbling. You reach a point where your career becomes an echo chamber but it's different when you're in the classroom. Sometimes it's refreshing to be smacked down a little bit."

Murdocco says that while the current political environment is challenging, he tries to stay grounded and keep to long-term views.

"I tell my students all the time, the pendulum swings both ways on the politics side," he said. "Sometimes we have policies that are more green, and sometimes it's more pro-business and less regulation. But I remind them that elections still happen. The system has persevered and for 250 years we've had slow-moving democracy. The system still works, for better or for worse, it's just slow in a time we're used to having what we order delivered to our stoop by day's end. But that's not how government works. Between the market correcting and legislative elective pressure, that's how you get movement."

As for his experience at Stony Brook, Murdocco says he's very lucky to be able to teach the best and brightest torch-bearers of the future.

"A lot of people say that, but it is true," said Murdocco. "I've had students go on to work for the FDIC. Others are legislative aides. Some of them run for office. And I've been teaching long enough now that I meet people in meetings and they say 'hey, you taught me!'"

Looking ahead, he hopes to continue to inspire those to carry forward this important work.

"I sincerely hope to give students the tools they need to effectuate good policy change and leverage the law to help people make more informed decisions," he said. "That could be municipalities, that could be real estate developers… I try to achieve the balance that I learned about all those years ago in my own classes at Stony Brook. It's my hope that all those lessons come to fruition. It's cyclical. Today I'm talking about trends as a teacher that I spoke about when I was a student."

- Robert Emproto