Graduate students

Study probes the ‘new normal’ for older adults, post-COVID

Rachel Sauer — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 14:30:42 +0000

Study probes the ‘new normal’ for older adults, post-COVID Rachel Sauer Mon, 03/16/2026 - 08:30

Bradley Worrell

Researchers from CU ��ý�� find that the pandemic reshaped how people age 55 and older interact with their communities while highlighting the importance of ‘social infrastructure’

The COVID-19 pandemic reshaped how people interact with their communities, but its effects on older Americans have been especially complex—altering daily routines, social connections and how people move through their communities even years later.

Those changes are at the center of a five‑year longitudinal study led by researchers at the ��ý�� and the University of Michigan. Hayes Hart‑Thompson (they/them), a graduate student and researcher in the CU ��ý�� Department of Geography, helped analyze how older adults adapted their lives during and after the pandemic.

In a recent paper, “A New Normal. Not Bad, Just Different,” Hart-Thompson and study co-authors provided a long-term view of how disruption turns into adaption, based upon survey responses from the same study participants since early 2020, all of whom are 55 or older.

Hayes Hart-Thompson is a graduate student in the CU ��ý�� Department of Geography whose recently published research helped analyze how older adults adapted their lives during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

“What really stood out,” Hart‑Thompson explains, “was that people weren’t just responding to COVID itself. They were responding to the after‑effects—how the world had changed and how their routines had to change with it.”

Following routines over time

The study began in the early months of the pandemic, when participants were surveyed every month. As the crisis continued, Hart-Thompson says the research shifted to annual surveys, allowing researchers to track how people’s habits, perceptions and social lives evolved. The research focuses primarily on data from the fourth year of the study, although the research team has since received a fifth year of responses.

That fifth year added a reflective dimension, says Hart-Thompson. Participants were asked to look back over the previous five years and consider what they had learned, what they wished they had done differently and how their relationships with their neighborhoods and communities had changed. Hart‑Thompson says many people used that opportunity to rethink whom they spend time with, how they engage socially and what they value most.

“It gave us insight not just into what people are doing now,” they say, “but how they understand those changes in hindsight.”

What is social infrastructure?

A key concept in the research is “social infrastructure”—a term that Hart-Thompson says goes beyond physical buildings to describe the places that support social interaction and community life.

“A library is a great example,” they say. “It’s a physical space but it also supports relationships, routines and access to resources. The same can be true for community centers, parks or even coffee shops. They’re physical spaces where relationships happen and routines take shape.”

The idea overlaps with what geographers and sociologists often call “third places”—spaces that are neither home (first place) nor work (second place) and that support community, connection and informal care. Third places captures both public and private spaces and reflects the full range of places people mentioned when describing how their routines changed during the pandemic.

Faith‑based organizations, in particular, played an important role for many participants, Hart-Thompson says.

“Especially with this older population we surveyed, churches provide consistent, low-cost—or no-cost—opportunities to see the same people regularly, which is incredibly important for maintaining social routines,” they say. “When concerns about disease spread or mobility made returning difficult, that loss was significant—even if services moved online.”

Aging: not a one-size-fits-all experience

The study focused on adults 55 and older, but Hart-Thompson says the researchers found that age alone did not determine how people experienced the pandemic. Instead, perception mattered just as much as chronology.

“How people felt about their age really shaped how they talked about their lives,” Hart‑Thompson explains. “Someone who felt old at 60 described their experiences very differently from someone who felt young at 80.”

Retirement status also made a major difference. Hart-Thompson explains that participants who were still working navigated different social environments than those who were retired. Health, mobility and daily obligations also influenced how much choice people felt they had in shaping their routines, they add.

Rather than finding a clear age‑based trend, Hart-Thompson says the researchers saw a mix of social and structural factors shaping each person’s experience.

Health, mobility and daily obligations also influenced how much choice people felt they had in shaping their routines during and following the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, says CU ��ý�� researcher Hayes Hart-Thompson.

Not all changes were negative

“COVID-19 reduced in‑person social interaction for many older adults—but the impact was not uniformly harmful,” Hart-Thompson says. In fact, some participants described positive or neutral changes, particularly when technology expanded access.

For individuals with limited mobility, tools like Zoom opened doors that hadn’t existed before. Others found new routines they enjoyed, such as online exercise classes or increased time for solitude.

“At the same time,” Hart‑Thompson says, “there was a lot of avoidance—people staying away from spaces because of health fears or political tensions. It really depended on the activity and the individual.”

In many cases, they say, declining health or aging‑related challenges were already influencing routines even before the pandemic. “COVID-19 just intensified those trends and brought them into sharper focus,” Hart-Thompson adds.

A specific, but meaningful, sample

The study’s participants were predominantly white, female and college educated, with many living in the Midwest. While the sample included both rural and urban residents across the United States, study participants are not representative of the population as a whole, Hart-Thompson acknowledges.

They emphasize that the research team is mindful of those limitations. Rather than treating the data as universally generalizable, the focus is on what this specific group can tell researchers, particularly as an important group of voters. That’s because, in the fifth year of the study, researchers added questions about democracy and political perceptions to explore that dimension more directly.

“There’s also a real issue of privilege in survey research,” Hart‑Thompson says. “Who has the unpaid time to respond year after year? That shapes who shows up in the data.”

Politics, isolation and policy lessons

One unexpected finding was the degree to which the study retained participants from across the political spectrum, Hart-Thompson says. Despite the politicization of COVID-19 and growing mistrust in institutions, respondents with very different views continued to participate in the research, they add

That diversity complicated the narrative. Participants disagreed sharply on whether COVID-19 was a serious health threat, but those disagreements didn’t erase shared concerns about isolation and access.

Hart‑Thompson sees a clear lesson for policymakers: Adaptability matters more than uniformity.

“There’s never going to be a one‑size‑fits‑all solution,” they say. “But universal access to social spaces—both physical and digital—is crucial. Isolation is harmful regardless of political ideology.”

Hybrid events, online access and inclusive design can help ensure people aren’t left behind during future crises—particularly those who are older or immunocompromised, Hart-Thompson adds.

Living in a new normal

Perhaps the clearest conclusion from the research is that most older adults have not returned to their pre‑pandemic routines—and many don’t expect to, Hart-Thompson says.

“There’s never going to be a one‑size‑fits‑all solution. But universal access to social spaces—both physical and digital—is crucial. Isolation is harmful regardless of political ideology.”

They say participants frequently described living in a “new normal.” Some realized they value solitude more than they once thought. Others became more intentional about spending time with close friends and family. Even when routines resembled the past, people understood that the world had changed.

“There wasn’t this expectation that things would go back to exactly how they were,” Hart‑Thompson says. “Adaptation is the reality.”

That perspective, they believe, challenges the idea that recovery means returning to a previous state. Instead, it highlights how people reshape their lives in response to long‑term change—especially later in life.

Offering support in crisis . . . and in everyday life

As the research team begins analyzing five full years of data, Hart‑Thompson is particularly interested in how overlapping crises—also known as “polycrises”—shape everyday life. That’s because COVID-19 did not happen in isolation—and neither do its effects, they add.

Across all of it, one theme remains constant: the importance of adaptable, accessible social infrastructure.

“If we center access and adaptability,” Hart‑Thompson says, “we’re better equipped to support people—not just in crises, but in everyday life.”

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Researchers from CU ��ý�� find that the pandemic reshaped how people age 55 and older interact with their communities while highlighting the importance of ‘social infrastructure.'

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Students blend suds and science at Earth on Tap

Rachel Sauer — Tue, 03 Mar 2026 23:17:41 +0000

Students blend suds and science at Earth on Tap Rachel Sauer Tue, 03/03/2026 - 16:17

Rachel Sauer

The March 9 event at Rayback Collective in ��ý��, open to all, invites scientists and non-scientists to gather for discussions of climate research

It started, as good things often do, with CAKE. In this case, that’s the Climate Action Knowledge Exchange, a group formed by ��ý�� atmospheric and oceanic sciences (ATOC) graduate students Max Elling, Dora Shlosberg and Josh Gooch. They noticed, the further they progressed in their studies, that there are “a lot of different people working in climate, but not necessarily working together,” explains Shlosberg, a PhD student.

If you go

What: Earth on Tap

When: 5:45-7:30 p.m. Monday, March 9

Where: Rayback Collective, 2775 Valmont Road in ��ý��

Who: All are invited

Learn more

So, they formed an interdisciplinary outreach group, CAKE, to break down silos and build partnerships between scholars, industry professionals and community members. From there, CAKE began collaborating with ATOC’s existing Outreach Committee, a group dedicated to educating the public on Earth science through engaging and interactive learning. Outreach teaches children through their SEEDS program, bringing live demonstrations on Earth-system science to local elementary schools.

Then, last semester, they began discussing what more they could be doing to involve adults in science, particularly those who aren’t professional scientists but are science curious.

Earth on Tap organizers express that there has been a lot of misinformation spread about science, and there is sometimes an element of mystery among the public as to what it is local scientists do. Earth on Tap aims to break down these barriers and connect people of all backgrounds to the science being done in their own backyard.

The key is to make it fun, says ATOC PhD student Maggie Scholer. But how?

The answer: Beer.

Not to make the science go down easier, but as a tool to bring science out of the lab and field research sites and into spaces where all are welcome, where community grows, where learning can happen with a chocolate stout and a shared plate of sliders. So, that’s how Earth on Tap came to be.

An event at which all ages are welcome—though you’ll have to show ID if you want that beer—Earth on Tap features climate scientists discussing their research with a focus on how it applies to and affects the broader community.

The second Earth on Tap will be from 5:45-7:30 p.m. Monday, March 9, at the Rayback Collective in ��ý��. Nels Bjarke, a hydrologist with Western Water Assessment and CU ��ý�� PhD alumnus, and McKenzie Larson, an ATOC PhD student and researcher in the Synoptic Meteorology Research Group, will discuss the impacts of low seasonal snowfall and the development of downslope windstorms.

Telling science stories

Monday’s Earth on Tap topic is especially timely, Josh Gooch says, because he and his ATOC colleagues frequently discuss how “to communicate how abnormal this winter has been and contextualize it to the future. Each week we have a weather discussion that one of our professors leads, and we get these branching discussions of, ‘If we make up the precipitation deficit in the future, what does that mean in terms of more fuel for wildfires?’ So, one of our goals (with Earth on Tap) is to set the context of what current weather events that are occurring on the Front Range may lead to in future seasons. That’s a concern that a lot of people share.”

Max Elling, an ATOC PhD student and researcher in the Oceans and Climate Lab, notes that the ��ý�� area is interesting because of its large population of scientists as well as its population of non-scientists, who are nevertheless involved in Earth science, yet there still can be a disconnect between the research that’s happening in this area and what community members know about it.

“With Earth on Tap, we’re learning more about what people are curious about,” Elling says, adding that he and his colleagues are learning to better understand their audiences and tailor their outreach style accordingly.

“We have an inherent language that we use as scientists, certain acronyms, and we’re taught to present at conferences where everyone is aware of this language,” Gooch says. “We need to be more aware of situations where an audience member might not be as familiar because they don’t interface with these things every day.”

Jonah Shaw, a post-doctoral associate at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) who spoke at the inaugural Earth on Tap in January, adds that all of his communication training in graduate school was in a conference environment, which doesn’t necessarily translate to climate discussions over beers at the Rayback.

“Something that I think is really important when you’re communicating within a scientific field is a story, but it becomes even more important when you’re communicating with the general public,” Shaw says. “It’s meeting people where they are, so for me, instead of talking about what I do on a day-to-day basis, I talked about a satellite mission I worked on, the story of that mission. I was talking about the narrative aspects and connecting with people’s experiences, and I was incredibly excited to see how well attended it was by non-scientists. Everyone is in their own realm and able to connect (with the science) in their own way.”

Scholer says that Earth on Tap organizers learn from event to event how to better involve audience members in the presentation, including trivia questions with prizes and QR codes that people can scan to submit questions if they’re not inclined to raise their hand. Ideally, she adds, people will come to Earth on Tap and have a great time and be more inclined to take climate action when opportunities arise.

“I think, especially in atmospheric science, ideally the outcome of what we do in the field is actionable for policy makers,” says ATOC PhD student Lucas Howard. “I think having the public more informed about not just the science in terms of outcomes, in terms of uncertainty, but the process of what goes into generating the science, can only have good downstream effects.”

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The March 9 event at Rayback Collective in ��ý��, open to all, invites scientists and non-scientists to gather for discussions of climate research.

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CU ��ý�� launches research initiative with Israeli and German partners

Rachel Sauer — Tue, 18 Nov 2025 23:13:49 +0000

CU ��ý�� launches research initiative with Israeli and German partners Rachel Sauer Tue, 11/18/2025 - 16:13

Collaboration between the Department of History, Open University of Israel and Berlin’s Center for Research on Antisemitism brings scholars and graduate students together in joint research

Scholars in the ��ý�� Department of History recently launched a first-of-its-kind international research initiative to bring U.S., Israeli and German graduate students and scholars together to partner on collaborative research.

The partnership is between CU ��ý��, the Open University of Israel (OUI) and the Center for Research on Antisemitism (ZfA) at the Technical University Berlin (TU Berlin), and this semester the three institutions launched a tri-university graduate course on modern German-Jewish ego-documents, or autobiographical writings, team-taught by faculty across all campuses.

The course, which is currently underway, brings together students and professors from the United States, Israel and Germany in a hybrid format that blends synchronous Zoom meetings and asynchronous Canvas Networks coursework with an intensive, eight-day in-person seminar in Berlin that ended last week.

Thomas Pegelow Kaplan (standing, wearing glasses) and students from CU ��ý��, Open University of Israel and the TU Berlin work with ego-documents at the archives of the Jewish Museum Berlin last week. (Photo: Thomas Pegelow Kaplan)

The initiative originated in spring 2024 discussions between Thomas Pegelow Kaplan, professor and Louis P. Singer Endowed Chair in Jewish History, and Guy Miron, OUI vice president for academic affairs and faculty member in the Department of History, Philosophy and Judaic Studies. They envisioned creating a research program that would connect U.S. and Israeli students and scholars through collaborative, cross-cultural study, Pegelow Kaplan says.

He adds that OUI, which was founded in 1974 with an open admissions model and a distance-learning structure intended to democratize access to higher education, is an ideal research partner because it serves one of Israel’s most diverse student populations, ranging from ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities to Druze and Israeli Arabs. In the wake of the upheavals following October 7, 2023, he says, this diversity made OUI an especially compelling partner for a project aimed not only at academic cooperation but also at fostering understanding among students from different backgrounds.

The CU ��ý�� Graduate School and Department of History were early champions of the partnership, Pegelow Kaplan says, and discussions soon expanded a dual partnership between CU ��ý�� and OUI to include the ZfA at TU Berlin. Established in 1982 and rooted in a university founded in 1770, the ZfA is one of the world’s leading centers for the study of antisemitism. Its recent launch of an interdisciplinary MA program added further momentum to the emerging partnership, Pegelow Kaplan says.

Expanding a research network

A key piece of the initiative is the recently completed in-person seminar in Berlin, which is home to Germany’s largest Jewish community and is a global center for Jewish and Holocaust studies and served “as a living classroom,” Pegelow Kaplan says. Participants worked directly with archives and institutions, including the Jewish Museum Berlin and the New Synagogue Berlin–Centrum Judaicum. Students met with leading scholars, archivists, memory activists, city officials and Jewish community representatives for learning and broad-ranging discussion.

The seminar coincided with Germany’s annual commemoration of the November 1938 anti-Jewish pogroms, also known as Kristallnacht —events that marked a turning point in the Nazi regime’s persecution of Jews. Students served as “participatory observers,” analyzing contemporary memory practices during the commemorations as part of their research.

The CU ��ý�� Department of History, Graduate School, Research and Innovation Office and Benson Center, as well as several new donors who joined the trip as auditors, contributed to student travel costs for the Berlin seminar.

Pegelow Kaplan emphasizes that the Berlin seminar was the first step of many. Plans are already underway for future course offerings, an international conference in Berlin in June 2026, expanded research trips—including, once conditions allow, to Jerusalem—and broader disciplinary participation extending beyond the humanities and social sciences into fields such as engineering.

The initiative also aims to establish exchange pathways to bring Israeli and German students and faculty to ��ý�� and to send CU affiliates abroad for both short- and long-term stays. More ambitious possibilities, including joint degree programs, are being explored, Pegelow Kaplan says.

Throughout its development, the project has remained closely aligned with CU ��ý��’s mission, he says, to be “a global research and education leader intent on transforming individuals, communities and the entire human experience.”

As this international partnership grows, Pegelow Kaplan says he and his colleagues in Israel and Germany are aiming to make it not only a model of collaborative scholarship but also an avenue for fostering meaningful connections among students navigating a rapidly changing world.

Professor G. Miron (left, gray jacket) of Open University/Yad Vashem introduces students to the most pertinent debates at the House of the Wannsee Conference Memorial in Berlin. (Photo: Thomas Pegelow Kaplan)

Program participants at the Gleis 17 Memorial in Berlin, which commemorates the 50,000 Berlin Jews deported to their death in the East. (Photo: Thomas Pegelow Kaplan)

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Collaboration between the Department of History, Open University of Israel and Berlin’s Center for Research on Antisemitism brings scholars and graduate students together in joint research.

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Top image: CU ��ý�� MA students working with archival collections at the Centrum Judaicum in Berlin. (Photo: Thomas Pegelow Kaplan)

Students learning dam good lessons from nature's busy builders

Rachel Sauer — Fri, 31 Oct 2025 13:54:40 +0000

Students learning dam good lessons from nature's busy builders Rachel Sauer Fri, 10/31/2025 - 07:54

Rachel Sauer

In a capstone project partnership with the ��ý�� Watershed Collective, Masters of the Environment students study what it means to live alongside beavers

Beavers are so much more than nature’s most eager builders. In many ecosystems, they play a key role in nature-based solutions to flood control, habitat restoration and fire mitigation.

They are a keystone species that can increase biodiversity in suitable habitats, according to Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW), but they also are a source of human-wildlife conflict in Colorado. For example, beavers have been known to build dams and inadvertently flood areas that ranchers or homeowners don’t want flooded.

Jack Carter, Amanda Opp and Colin McDonald (left to right) completed a Masters of the Environment capstone project studying beavers and how they live alongside humans in partnership with the ��ý�� Watershed Collective. (Photo: Masters of the Environment program)

The question for conservationists, land managers and any human who cares about wildlife, then, is how to live alongside this native species that broadly engenders mixed feelings. It’s a question that ��ý�� Masters of the Environment (MENV) students Amanda Opp, Jack Carter and Colin McDonald addressed in their capstone project, which they will publicly present today at the 2025 MENV Capstone Symposium.

Partnering with the ��ý�� Watershed Collective (BWC), Opp, Carter and McDonald examined the social perceptions and ecological impacts of beavers via surveys, research and data collection. They talked with land and wildlife managers across the Front Range to study how public agencies make beaver management decisions, and they participated in two beaver reintroductions, developing a monitoring plan to measure ecological metrics at the sites where the beavers were reintroduced.

“I think we all read the book ‘Eager’ by Ben Goldfarb, about beavers in America and how there was a high reduction in numbers from trapping in the 19^th century,” McDonald explains. “Now there’s a movement to reintroduce them, and we have this thing about ‘coexistence’ as one of those kind of trigger words. We tried to come up with multiple things like ‘living with beavers’ in place of ‘coexistence’ or ‘reintroduction,’ which somehow give off the vibe that your life is going to change by the presence of these animals coming back, which isn’t necessarily the case.”

Back from the brink

Not too long ago, the North American beaver was on the verge of extinction because of 19th-century fashions that required the under fur of beaver pelts. At their population peak before the fur trade began in earnest, there were anywhere between 60-400 million North American beavers, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), but by 1900 there were fewer than 100,000.

As beaver populations began to rebound in subsequent decades thanks to conservation and reintroduction efforts, another issue emerged: Humans had moved into beaver habitat, converting “wildlife-rich wetlands into agricultural lands” and building towns nearby, according to USFWS.

For many years along the Front Range, beavers and humans have lived in an uneasy and sometimes nonexistent détente, so one of the goals of the students’ capstone project was to gather data that might help inform CPW’s beaver conservation and management strategy, which is currently being developed.

Some of the points of conflict that Opp, Carter and McDonald learned about as they collected data included ranchers concerned about losing rangeland to flooding and homeowners who were “very concerned about mosquitoes and thinking that if beavers are creating marshy areas, the risk for West Nile increases,” Opp says.

One of the beaver releases on private land near Nederland in which Amanda Opp, Jack Carter and Colin McDonald participated for their MENV capstone project. (Video: Colin McDonald)

Working with the ��ý�� Watershed Collective, they learned the nuances of effective conservation, which must include education, collaboration and partnership between stakeholders, Carter says: “Due to conflicts over public infrastructure and Colorado water law, reintroducing beavers is not as easy as it may seem.”

At the beginning of the 20th century, the North American beaver was on the verge of extinction because of 19th-century fashions that required the under fur of beaver pelts. (Photo: Amanda Opp)

“I think BWC, and a lot of people involved with conservation, when they’re conveying the message of ‘Hey, these are beneficial animals,’ they have to meet people where they’re at,” Opp says. “One of biggest concerns in Colorado is fire mitigation, so when we’re thinking about unique solutions, nature-based solutions that might not have been considered in the past, beavers have been a really important pitch: ‘If you have a wet environment with wet soil and healthy grass, you’ll probably have reduced risk of fire reaching your property.’”

Not just a cute animal

The two reintroductions in which Opp, Carter and McDonald participated happened on private land near Nederland, with the landowners inviting BWC to release beavers in ponds or wetlands on their land. Several of the reintroduced beavers came from Aurora, where they had been causing problems, McDonald says, so BWC and Aurora wildlife officers worked together to ensure that the beavers were trapped in families so they could be released together.

“Beavers aren’t endangered anymore, so there’s zero protection for them,” Carter explains, adding that the areas in which the beavers were released are far from settlements, hopefully giving the beavers the greatest chance to thrive.

At one of the relocation sites, the beavers had monitors attached to their tails, enabling researchers and wildlife officials to track their movements, Opp says. And at both locations, the landowners are reporting their visual observations of beaver movement to BWC, which is included in the MENV students’ monitoring plan. Their plan also includes measuring how wide the bodies of water into which the beavers were released become.

For the students, each of whom came to the MENV program as committed conservationists, their work with beavers for their capstone project was about more than busy, charismatic rodents.

“I’m really passionate about conservation and passionate about protecting animals in the wild, and this project instilled in me how rewarding this work is,” Opp says, a sentiment that McDonald echoed, adding that he appreciated learning how to build community partnerships and how to maximize impact at small nonprofits.

“Before this, I don’t think I really appreciated beavers,” Carter says. “I didn’t realize how important they are to an ecosystem. One of the biggest things that’s happening right now is biodiversity loss, and beavers create essential habitats for moose, for certain amphibian species. A lot of amphibians are going down the drain, especially in a state like Colorado, and beavers can help solve that problem.”

“The best way to move forward with all the damage humans have done is to realize we’re not separate from our environment,” Opp says. “We have to do everything we can to protect it, and beavers are a really awesome keystone species that’s not just this cute animal; they can play an important role in solving the climate crisis.”

Jack Carter, Colin McDonald and Amanda Opp (left to right) on their way to release a beaver on private land near Nederland. (Photo: Amanda Opp)

A beaver after being released on private land near Nederland. (Photo: Amanda Opp)

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In a capstone project partnership with the ��ý�� Watershed Collective, Masters of the Environment students study what it means to live alongside beavers.

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Top photo: Amanda Opp

Scaling stream restoration across Colorado

Rachel Sauer — Thu, 16 Oct 2025 19:36:49 +0000

Scaling stream restoration across Colorado Rachel Sauer Thu, 10/16/2025 - 13:36

Leah Bilski

How a unique partnership is mapping the future of riverscape restoration in the state

Colorado’s streams face mounting pressures from climate change, development, and over a century of historical degradation. While the recent passing of Senate Bill 23-270 (SB23-270) allows six categories of minor stream restoration activities to move forward exempted from water rights administration, practitioners across the state still face challenges when getting projects off the ground.

The missing piece? A comprehensive understanding of Colorado’s “restoration landscape” – who’s doing what, where, and what barriers stand in their way. This has prompted an innovative partnership between Audubon Rockies, Water for Colorado and ��ý�� students to map Colorado’s restoration landscape and identify opportunities for scaling impacts for functioning and healthy riverscapes. This work builds on Audubon’s commitment to shaping Colorado’s water future for people, birds and the habitats that we all depend on.

Leah Bilski is a graduate student in the interdisciplinary CU ��ý�� Masters of the Environment Graduate Program. (Photo: Leah Bilski)

A proven solution is gaining ground

Process-Based Restoration (PBR) offers a spectrum of cost-effective approaches for addressing climate and drought resilience for healthy riverscapes while furthering Colorado’s Water Plan objectives. From simple, hand-built structures using natural materials to more sophisticated engineering solutions, these techniques focus on addressing stressors and boosting natural stream processes that allow rivers to heal themselves. The passage of SB-270 created unprecedented opportunities for implementing Low-Tech Process-Based Restoration (LTPBR) across Colorado by providing legal clarity for six categories of minor stream restoration activities.

Despite these advances, critical questions remained unanswered:

Which stakeholders are leading restoration efforts, and where?
What motivates organizations to pursue stream restoration projects?
Most importantly, what barriers prevent or slow down implementation, and how has SB-270 influenced restoration practices on the ground?

CU Masters of the Environment: the perfect partner

Enter CU ��ý��’s Master’s of the Environment (MENV) program. Each year, MENV students are paired with organizations addressing pressing issues in the fields of environmental policy, renewable energy, and sustainability. The students work as student consultants while simultaneously completing their master’s capstone project. The program’s focus on practical, need-driven solutions makes it an ideal partner for Audubon’s efforts to elevate stream restoration in Colorado.

Three dedicated students—Pearl McLeod, Josie Rivero and Leah Bilski—have brought fresh perspectives and social science expertise to complement Audubon Rockies’s experience as a leader in policy and project implementation for stream restoration. This collaborative approach ensures that research directly serves the needs of the restoration community while building the next generation of conservation and stream restoration professionals.

By combining Audubon’s on-the-ground experience with the students’ in-depth analysis, the partnership can reach across Colorado’s eight major water basins to engage everyone from NGOs and federal agencies to private consultants and watershed groups.

Mapping Colorado’s stream restoration efforts

The project’s primary objective is ambitious yet essential: create a comprehensive map of LTPBR projects across Colorado to identify gaps in geographic coverage and stakeholder engagement. This foundation will inform where resources and support are most needed to scale effective restoration approaches statewide.

Phase one involved launching a statewide survey to capture the broad restoration work happening across the state, while phase two will focus on in-depth case studies to understand how successful projects overcome barriers. The collaborative approach ensures findings focus on learning from both challenges and successes.

An innovative partnership between Audubon Rockies, Water for Colorado and ��ý�� students maps Colorado’s restoration landscape and identifies opportunities for scaling impacts for functioning and healthy riverscapes. (Photo: Attie Heunis/Pexels)

Early success: education efforts are paying off

Initial results reveal encouraging trends and some surprising insights. Audubon’s educational efforts regarding SB-270 have been largely successful across many regions of Colorado, with 38% of survey respondents reporting that SB-270 has benefited their stream restoration projects, while only 4% report it as a barrier.

The data shows that hydrology is the primary motivation driving most restoration projects, followed closely by wildfire recovery efforts, reflecting Colorado’s recent fire impacts and ongoing drought concerns. Restoration work is happening across all of Colorado’s major river basins, though with varying intensity, and projects consistently involve multi-partner teams applying diverse techniques to meet multiple goals simultaneously.

However, significant barriers persist, despite SB-270’s passage. Permitting challenges remain the top concern, followed by limited funding and agency coordination issues. These findings suggest that while legal clarity has improved, practitioners still need support navigating implementation processes and securing adequate resources.

The restoration community has demonstrated strong engagement and willingness to participate in research that could benefit their work. Practitioners are actively sharing knowledge and experiences, building a foundation for a deeper understanding of Colorado’s restoration landscape.

Looking ahead: supporting Colorado’s restoration community

This research will help address specific needs identified by practitioners, such as connecting isolated restoration workers with peer networks, creating guidance for navigating restoration implementation, and identifying which regions need additional technical support or funding. By identifying non-policy barriers, such as limited technician capacity and technical implementation concerns, that limit restoration work, Audubon and partners support stream restoration stakeholders in better addressing their challenges, shifting social perceptions, and ultimately restoring healthy stream habitat throughout the state. The findings can also inform potential sound policy moving forward, ensuring that future legislation builds on SB-270's success.

Through continued partnership, community engagement and support, and innovative restoration techniques, we’re working to revive Colorado’s streams for generations of birds, wildlife, and people who depend on them.

Join the effort

We are continuing to capture important data about restoration projects throughout Colorado and challenges faced through our survey. Participation helps build a complete picture of Colorado’s restoration landscape and ensures that findings reflect the full diversity of approaches and challenges across our state. Share your restoration experience through our survey (open until midnight on October 12th, 2025) and help us identify exactly what Colorado’s restoration community needs to succeed.

Leah Bilski is pursuing a master's in environmental and natural resource policy in the Masters of the Environment Graduate Program.

Essay reproduced with permission from Audubon Rockies. Read the original here.

How a unique partnership is mapping the future of riverscape restoration in the state.

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Top photo: Tricia Pionzio/Audubon Photography Awards

Why do some thoughts refuse to leave?

Rachel Sauer — Tue, 09 Sep 2025 23:38:52 +0000

Why do some thoughts refuse to leave? Rachel Sauer Tue, 09/09/2025 - 17:38

Cody DeBos

CU ��ý�� graduate student researcher Jacob DeRosa delves into the brain’s ability to remove unwanted thoughts

Imagine trying to fall asleep, but your brain won’t cooperate. You tell yourself to let go of the embarrassing conversation from earlier in the day that keeps looping through your head, for example, but you can’t stop thinking about it.

Why are some thoughts so hard to dismiss?

It’s a question ��ý�� psychology and neuroscience graduate student Jacob DeRosa has been pondering for years. Now, with a newly published study in NeuroImage. Clinical, DeRosa and his co-researchers may be closer than ever to understanding what makes some brains better at letting go of unwanted thoughts—and why other brains tend to get stuck.

Jacob DeRosa, a CU ��ý�� psychology and neuroscience graduate student, studies the question of why some thoughts are so hard to dismiss.

“Why is John really good at getting a thought out of his mind and going on with his day and I’m not?” DeRosa says. “This thought just seems to get stuck up in my head, and I’m thinking about it over and over and over again.”

That puzzle—why some people can suppress a thought and move on while others can’t—drove DeRosa to design a study that explores the neuroscience behind thought control.

The findings point to specific brain patterns and networks that may explain why some of us struggle to quiet our internal noise.

A question of control

Before tackling the nuances of thought control, DeRosa wanted to define what it actually means to “control” a thought. He and his team focused on four mental operations that are performed in working memory—the brain’s active thinking space.

The distinct tasks they studied included maintaining a thought, replacing it with a new one, suppressing it entirely or clearing the mind completely.

“What am I doing when someone tells me a phone number? Am I switching it with other information? Am I suppressing it? Or am I clearing my mind completely?” DeRosa asks.

To get to the bottom of it, study participants were asked to view and manipulate words in their working memory while undergoing functional MRI scans. This allowed researchers to observe when different parts of the brain activate and determine whether those patterns vary between people with and without self-reported difficulties in controlling unwanted thoughts.

They found that participants who reported more trouble controlling their thoughts showed less distinct neural activity across the four control operations.

“We’re basically creating a map of the brain,” says DeRosa, “and we’re looking at, well, how organized are these networks when someone is removing information?”

Hoping to better understand which regions play a role in thought removal, the team started looking closer at how they were recruited during different operations.

“What we found is that people who are really good at controlling their thoughts have really distinct color patterns for each operation. People who aren’t have a similar color pattern across the four operations, which tells us there’s not a lot of distinct activity happening,” DeRosa explains.

That lack of distinctness, when the brain isn’t clearly switching between tasks like suppression and replacement, could be why some people struggle to get rid of unwanted thoughts.

“It’s going to take some time to get more organization in your brain and get it working together to remove those thoughts, but it’s definitely possible,” says CU ��ý�� researcher Jacob DeRosa. (Photo: Pexels)

“There seems to be more of this blending across the brain in terms of what’s happening when someone is trying to remove a thought. What it tells us is that these individuals aren’t able to precisely implement a certain operation,” he adds.

In other words, your brain might try to use the same mental tool for every task—like using a hammer for every job, when what you really need is a screwdriver.

But perhaps more importantly, DeRosa’s study found that this neural blending didn’t show up when people were at rest. It only emerged when they were actively engaged in trying to remove or control a thought.

DeRosa says the nuance matters.

“It’s not that people’s brains are just disorganized in general. It’s actually when it comes time to remove the information where we see them having a harder time,” he notes.

Bridging brain scans and mental health

Although anyone can have difficulty controlling thoughts, it’s also a common symptom of a range of mental health conditions, including depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). DeRosa believes that mapping out the brain mechanisms responsible for thought control can help researchers identify objective markers for these disorders and even ways to track how treatments are working.

“What’s nice about this initial study is that it gives us a baseline. Now we can begin to compare between high- and low-internalizing populations and eventually move on to even more specific psychiatric populations like depression, anxiety and PTSD,” he says.

The good news for everyone is that thought control isn’t necessarily a fixed trait.

“Our biggest takeaway is that it’s possible for anyone to practice getting better at thought control. I think beginning to practice these operations when unwanted thoughts come in is helpful for people because they can begin to differentiate what’s working for them,” says DeRosa.

That idea reframes thought control not as a matter of brute force willpower or something in our genetics. Rather, it’s a skill that can be trained and supported, whether through mindfulness, cognitive behavioral techniques, journaling or simply paying attention to what works for you.

For anyone who’s ever felt stuck in a spiral of unwanted thoughts, DeRosa’s research offers a glimpse of both clarity and hope. Of course, he also cautions that improvement doesn’t happen overnight.

“It’s going to take some time to get more organization in your brain and get it working together to remove those thoughts, but it’s definitely possible.”

Researchers Harry Smolker, Hyojeong Kim, Boman Groff, Jarrod Lewis-Peacock and Marie Banich also contributed to this study.

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CU ��ý�� graduate student researcher Jacob DeRosa delves into the brain’s ability to remove unwanted thoughts.

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Students are shaping (and leading) CU’s climate response

Rachel Sauer — Tue, 27 May 2025 18:12:47 +0000

Students are shaping (and leading) CU’s climate response Rachel Sauer Tue, 05/27/2025 - 12:12

Cody DeBos

Fueled by a passion for climate justice and a commitment to student involvement in the university’s future, interdisciplinary graduate student team designs and teaches undergrad course on climate action planning

As the ��ý�� continues to advance its Climate Action Plan (CAP), an interdisciplinary group of graduate students has championed a new way to involve students in shaping a more sustainable future.

Initially, the CU steering committee creating the CAP did not involve students. In response to the exclusion of student voices, a group of graduate students began work to give students a seat at the table and engage the undergraduate community in CU’s climate-planning work. First, the group launched a petition calling for student participation in the drafting of the CAP. Then the group helped pass a resolution through student government to grant student seats on the committee implementing the CAP in the future.

“Students have always been key drivers of sustainability and climate action on campuses across the U.S., including at CU ��ý��,” the team says. “As young people, our futures are jeopardized by the climate crisis, so we have a collective stake in rapidly reducing our greenhouse gas emissions.”

The graduate students and faculty who co-designed and now teach an undergraduate course on climate-action planning include (left to right) Brigid Mark, Nadav Orian Peer, Jonah Shaw, Sean Benjamin, Mariah Bowman and Sara Fleming.

But the group didn’t stop there. Fueled by a shared passion for climate mitigation and the belief that students should help shape the university’s future, the group of five graduate students from four different departments spent hundreds of hours co-designing and now teaching an undergraduate course on climate-action planning.

The course gives undergrads hands-on experience with CU’s campus emissions data, collaboration opportunities with university stakeholders and a chance to develop sustainability strategies that could be implemented campuswide.

Their efforts recently earned the group CU ��ý��’s 2025 Campus Sustainability Award for Student Leadership. The group also won a $5,000 scholarship from the women-led nonprofit Zonta Foothills Foundation, in recognition for their groundbreaking work in climate education and advocacy. The CU School of Engineering, following advocacy from generous faculty members David Paradis and Carol Cogswell, was also gracious enough to provide funding for their work.

A more engaging climate classroom

The group of graduate instructors brings an interdisciplinary approach and myriad perspectives to the classroom.

The teaching team includes Mariah Bowman (law), Sara Fleming (geography), Sean Benjamin (mechanical engineering), Brigid Mark (sociology) and Jonah Shaw (atmospheric and oceanic sciences). Each has worked to tackle climate-related issues through the lens of their expertise, from Indigenous environmental justice to climate-change modeling.

The team’s diverse makeup is reflected in the design of their course and has fueled their success. But the road to this point hasn’t been easy.

“This is a labor of love,” the team says. “We are doing this because we care. Funding and the time required have been challenges.”

Before the course launched, each graduate instructor spent many unpaid hours creating the syllabus, listing the course and building campus partnerships to access emissions data. During the semester, they spend many hours a week on teaching responsibilities that come in addition to their regular duties.

Financial support from the School of Engineering and the Zonta Foothills award has helped, but long term, the team hopes to see the course institutionalized and funded.

The team says, “Institutionalizing the course so that it runs each year and guaranteeing funding for instructors and teaching assistants would ensure the longevity and sustainability of this course. It would ensure continued involvement of students in the Climate Action Plan, and a more robust, actionable plan.”

An interdisciplinary group of graduate students (holding plaques) who worked work to give students a seat at the table and engage the undergraduate community in CU’s climate-planning work received CU ��ý��’s 2025 Campus Sustainability Award for Student Leadership.

Hands-on climate action

From the start, the group has viewed student involvement as essential, not symbolic.

At the start of the semester, students gain foundational knowledge on topics like climate justice, global carbon budgets and emissions accounting. From there, they split into teams to tackle different emissions categories on campus: commuting, waste, business travel and student/parent flights.

“Students work in four teams, each focused on a different category of campus emissions. They’re developing strategies to reduce emissions for their category, adding depth and student perspective to the high-level strategy suggestions in the CAP,” the instructors say.

Guest speakers, including administrators and national experts, round out the curriculum. Students have heard from Stanford University’s sustainability team and CU ��ý�� faculty like Professor Karen Bailey (environmental studies) and Professor Nadav Orian Peer (law). They also meet with stakeholders across campus to refine their proposals.

The team believes this approach is the best way to facilitate opportunities to create actionable, equity-centered climate strategies grounded in real data.

“Involving students in climate initiatives enables them to apply knowledge about climate change to their own institution, experience they will carry to become leaders in climate action in their future workplaces and communities,” says Mark.

The results are already visible on campus.

One student team is working with CU’s transportation specialist to revise the campus commuting survey. Another is working on a survey for better tracking of student and parent air travel. Others are collaborating with dining services and facilities to reduce waste and consulting with faculty to provide more accurate emissions calculations of flights taken by faculty and staff.

“Students often learn about the gravity of climate change without learning about solutions, which can be quite depressing,” says Mark.

An interdisciplinary team of graduate students teaches the climate-action planning course for undergraduate students.

“Involving students in climate-action planning and implementation can combat feelings of hopelessness and enable participation in creating real change.”

Impact on both sides

This student-led course has already sparked engagement on both sides of the classroom. One undergraduate took the initiative to launch a campus club to raise awareness about the CAP. Others hope to join implementation committees or pursue careers in sustainability.

“To me, this demonstrates that students are hungry for interdisciplinary courses that enable them to apply their skills and creativity to issues on campus and engage with solutions to the climate crisis,” Fleming says.

For Bowman, the most rewarding part of the experience is the students themselves. “They are passionate, knowledgeable, interested, hardworking and fun to be around! It has been deeply meaningful to get to train them on something I care so much about, and have them care about it in return,” she says.

And for Fleming, designing and teaching the course has also given her much. She adds, “Team teaching is so much fun, and I’ve learned so much from each of my teammates on both content and pedagogical skills.”

As for the future, the graduate instructors each plan to continue fighting for climate action in their respective fields, using their knowledge and experience to make a difference on campus, in state government and in the community.

They also hope CU continues what they started so future students can participate in a course that gives them a voice in the climate conversation through data, creativity and real-world collaboration.

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Amazing grads share advice and reflect on key lessons

Kylie Clarke — Fri, 02 May 2025 16:10:11 +0000

Amazing grads share advice and reflect on key lessons Kylie Clarke Fri, 05/02/2025 - 10:10

Earning high praise from faculty and staff, students offer words of wisdom and more

Each year, students leave their mark on the College of Arts and Sciences. Their choices, hard work and determination leave a legacy for the next generation.

As graduation approaches, the nostalgia of first days, the pride of achievement and the excitement of what is to come replays in the buzzing minds of almost-graduated students.

To celebrate amazing grads, we asked faculty and staff to nominate remarkable students.

Each nominee answered one of the following questions:

What is your best advice for other students?
What will you carry with you into the next chapter of life?
What does graduating represent for you?

Each nominator answered this question:

In your view, what makes this student amazing?

Q&A
Q: What does graduating represent for you?
Salomé Carrasco, EBIO ‘25: Graduating from college is a representation of the personal commitment and determination I have as a student from a diverse intercultural background, but also the community support and dedication my professors, peers and others have provided for me. This success also represents that students are capable of pursuing higher education despite financial, social and structural inequalities.

Q: What makes Salomé amazing?
Nominator: Salomé transferred to CU ��ý�� from community college during the fall of 2023. I had the good fortunate of having Salomé in my Art of Science Communication class that term. Since then, Salomé has been an incredibly engaged member of our lab group. She participated in a month-long sampling expedition to western Canada during the summer of 2024 and just defended her honors thesis! Her growth and progress have been outstanding on so many fronts! Our lab is in awe of her artistic and scientific skills. We feel so honored that she has been a part of our research community during her time at CU.

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Earning high praise from faculty and staff, students offer words of wisdom and more

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Cetacean science: A new understanding of humpback whale genetics

Rachel Sauer — Mon, 02 Dec 2024 16:44:47 +0000

Cetacean science: A new understanding of humpback whale genetics Rachel Sauer Mon, 12/02/2024 - 09:44

Blake Puscher

How a team of CU ��ý�� PhD students produced the first chromosome-level reference genome for humpback whales

Humpback whales are striking animals, not only because of their size, but also because of their complex vocalizations, acrobatic swimming and thousand-mile migrations.

Moreover, they hold a vital role in marine ecosystems, as their fecal matter, which is released as floating plumes, fertilizes the upper layer of the ocean and stimulates the growth of the photosynthesizing plankton there. These plankton are the basis of the marine food chain and are major contributors to the global carbon cycle.

PhD student Maria-Vittoria Carminati worked with colleagues to create the first chromosome-level reference genome for humpback whales.

Despite the importance and charisma of humpback whales, research into the species has been limited by the lack of complete genetic information.

Maria-Vittoria Carminati, a PhD student in the ��ý�� Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, changed this when, along with Associate Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Nolan Kane and a team of fellow graduate students*, she created the first chromosome-level reference genome for the species.

Moving the needle

Carminati became an attorney in 2008 and worked in that field until recently. “I came to the realization that I wanted to do something more meaningful with my brain power,” she says. “That’s why I switched to science: I thought it would allow me to make greater contributions to society.

“So, three years ago, I went back to college and got my bachelor’s in ecology and evolutionary biology.” After that, she started her PhD at CU ��ý��. There remained the question of what she would do to “move the needle forward,” but Carminati knew it would probably involve the ocean.

“I’m a diver, I’m a dive instructor, I like to sail even though I’m not very good at it,” she continues. After seeing a humpback whale in person one day, she started reading about them and found a paper that mentioned they were splitting into different subspecies. “I thought the paper was trying its best, but I don’t think it had the tools it needed to be assertive about what it was saying.”

One of those tools is a reference genome. So, Carminati went to experiment.com for funding and to Cantata Bio for the sequencing. She got a permit to sequence the humpback DNA sample from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and obtained the sample itself from the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

The sample was from the kidney of an orphaned whale calf that was beached and died on the shore of Hawaii Kai.

Cantata Bio’s sequencing yielded half a terabyte of data, which Kane tasked a class to help Carminati process.

A humpback whale swimming off the coast of Moorea, French Polynesia. (Photo: Charles J. Sharp/Wikimedia Commons)

The basics of genome sequencing

Genome sequencing is the process scientists use to determine a large amount, if not the entirety, of an organism’s DNA, which is packaged in threadlike structures called chromosomes. Because the entire length of a chromosome cannot be sequenced at once, several strips are sequenced and then combined in what is known as a genome assembly.

The product of the researchers’ work is called a reference assembly. According to Carminati, this means that the chromosomes are represented well enough to be used in comparison with the DNA of other organisms. “It’s like having the full book of an organism’s DNA,” she says. “In our case, we are only missing 0.0003% of the entire genome.”

This level of accuracy distinguishes their assembly from others, such as the scaffold-level assembly of the humpback whale genome that already existed. To continue the book analogy, this level of assembly can be compared to a collection of passages that cannot be definitively ordered or associated with a particular “chapter,” or chromosome.

Such uncertainty is partially the result of short read lengths. “Short reads are cheaper, so often, labs will do short reads,” Carminati says. “The problem with a short read is that you are only getting, say, a couple of sentences from each page in the book.” These few sentences are less distinctive than longer passages, which leaves more doubt in the final genome assembly.

The DNA in the researchers’ assembly was created from long reads, which allows it to be organized into chromosomes. Their assembly also had a high depth, which is to say that reads were performed 30 times to ensure accuracy, consistent with the platinum standard introduced by Philip Morin of the Cetacean Genomes Project.

Insight and annotation

While this chromosome-level genome was created too recently for researchers to have made discoveries by using it, Carminati says that the resource can be expected to provide insights into interesting traits of humpback whales, such as their cell regulation, large size and cancer resistance, as well as the formation of subspecies and other elements of genetic variation.

A humpback whale breaches off the coast of Tahiti. (Photo: Jérémie Silvestro/Wikimedia Commons)

“We are right at the beginning of this process,” Carminati explains, “but the reason that you can start making those insights is because if you have a platinum-level assembly, you have a far greater degree of certainty of what genes are and are not there.” This will allow scientists to tell with certainty whether a gene exists, does not exist or exists and is expressed multiple times.

“That goes to cell regulation and cancer resistance,” Carminati says, “because, for example, if you have a lot of genes that relate to cell regulation, cell repair and cell control, that indicates a cancer-preventing or cancer-halting mechanism because cancer is the result of the misregulation of cell division.

“So, if you have multiple genes like this, that might be one way that these enormous, 40-ton creatures are able to get so big and have so much cell division but not develop cancer.”

Other insights could be provided by synteny analyses, which are comparisons between sets of chromosomes. According to Carminati, these comparisons can help identify conserved areas: regions of genes that are unlikely to be rearranged between generations. When genes are together in a conserved area, this could indicate that they work together or are necessary for each other’s function.

The researchers performed a synteny analysis between the chromosomes from the humpback whale reference genome and the chromosomes of a blue whale. Synteny analyses can also indicate evolutionary relationships, and their analysis showed that there is a high level of consistency in the evolutionary relationships between the two species.

They also used BUSCOs (benchmarking universal single-copy orthologs), which are genetic reference guides developed in Switzerland, to evaluate genome completeness. BUSCO genes for mammals correspond to common mammalian traits, Carminati says, like lactation, placentas and live births. This analysis showed high completeness, too, but also represents another possible application of the reference genome: comparing whales to other mammals.

“We said, ‘What genes within this mammal BUSCO reference list do both of these creatures [humpback and blue whales] have, but more interestingly, which ones do they not have?’” Spending more time with this sort of analysis in the future could provide information about the evolution of whales, since missing mammalian genes would have either served no purpose to whales or even been counterproductive.

Finally, the researchers asked Cantata Bio start to annotate the reference genome. “Annotation tells you what genes are where,” Carminati says, and it is a necessary part of genome analysis. The annotation has not been made public yet, since the process is ongoing.

However, the research has already drawn attention, since Carminati presented it at the International Marine Conservation Conference in Cape Town, South Africa, last month. “So,” Carminati says, “I went from seeing a humpback whale in Hawaii to presenting a genome in Cape Town. Four years ago, I was trying cases. It is a very surreal trajectory.”

*Contributing graduate students are Vlonjat Lonnie Gashi, Ruiqi Li, Daniel Jacob Klee, Sara Rose Padula, Ajay Manish Patel, Andy Dick Yee Tan and Jacqueline Mattos.

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How a team of CU ��ý�� PhD students produced the first chromosome-level reference genome for humpback whales.

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Humpback whale with calf off Moorea, French Polynesia (Photo: Charles J. Sharp)

Student-curated exhibit focuses on labor and the work of art

Anonymous — Fri, 09 Feb 2024 18:23:56 +0000

Student-curated exhibit focuses on labor and the work of art Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 02/09/2024 - 11:23

Rachel Sauer

‘(Art)work: Systems of Making’ opens with a celebration Friday afternoon at the CU Art Museum

As the 12 graduate students gathered around a long table discussing art, over several weeks their conversation eventually wound its way to labor. They were inspired by the labor movements happening in the United States and around the world.

“These movements inspired wage-related discussions for us as students at CU ��ý��,” explains Rachel DeNagy. “We empathize with labor rights groups, because we feel both underrepresented in society and underpaid as student-workers for our labor.”

The conversations began as brainstorming the theme for an exhibition they would curate at the University of Colorado Art Museum and grew into “(Art)work: Systems of Making,” which opens with a celebration from 4:30-6:30 p.m. Friday at the CU Art Museum and runs through March 22.

"The Artist Eroticized (Alina)" (2020), an oil on linen by Jenna Gribbon that is included in "(Art)work: Systems of Making."

“(Art)work: Systems of Making” features artworks that offer different perspectives on labor and the workplace. Some of the featured themes include artist collaborations and networks of creation, the coding of labor according to gender and race, labor movements and the connections between labor and nationalism.

It is the culmination of a graduate-level curatorial practicum taught by Hope Saska, acting director, chief curator and director of academic engagement for the CU Art Museum.

“Our focus has been curating from a social justice perspective,” Saska says. “The students guided the discussion to topics and issues around labor, and I’m really impressed by how they took this key topic and expanded it in a lot of really innovative ways.”

Focusing on labor

In discussing how to approach the various issues and topics relating to labor, the students “felt there were a lot of ways to use the museum's collection, and the format of an art exhibit, to cover ‘labor’ as a theme, ways that would intersect the museum's collection with this broad concept from different angles,” says dani wasserman, giving as an example the labor of artmaking, “or hidden or underrepresented labor in society—what people might immediately think of as ‘blue collar labor.’ There's a lot of interesting interpretive and curatorial work that can be done around depictions of this kind of work in art, especially with a collection as broad and eclectic as CU Art Museum’s.”

The students delved into the CU Art Museum’s collections, as well as those of University Libraries, to curate an exhibit that includes works as varied as manuscript pages on vellum from the early Renaissance paired with inexpensive magazines produced by the Guerilla Girls activist and artist collective.

There are works that address how labor intersects with race and gender, posters for labor unions and works—such as Japanese wood block prints—produced by artist collectives.

"Henequenero" (1945), a lithograph by Alfredo Zalce that is part of "(Art)work: Systems of Making."

“Given my research focus on Japanese art, I was immediately drawn to the Japanese artworks,” explains Kat Bertram. “Collaborating with another art history graduate, Sam Hensley, who shares a Japanese focus, we centered our discussions around the theme and identified Ukiyo-e (a genre of Japanese art from the 17th-19th centuries; its artists produced woodblock prints and paintings) as a fitting subject. Our interest lay in exploring the collaborative dynamics within art creation, particularly in the context of Ukiyo-e, where the traditional emphasis on the designer overlooks the contributions of carvers, printers and publishers.”

‘More than a stroke of genius’

Because the exhibition is happening in a post-COVID-lockdown world, Saska says, a lot of the students’ discussion also focused on how labor does or doesn’t define people.

“I hope that, at best, people might leave the show with an impression of how labor is really central to our lives and our society,” wasserman says. “How through analyzing our attitudes about work, whether that be through art— that's just one way— we can ask some really interesting questions about how we got to this world we are in and maybe even start to consider how reimagining that relationship to labor and to work can help us imagine a different, more equitable future. At the least, I think people will leave with a new concept of how much labor goes into artmaking itself.”

DeNagy adds that another goal for the exhibit is for “people see how art is layered. An artwork that we see in a gallery is a product of hours spent ideating, planning, laboring and fine-tuning.

“Art is more than a stroke of genius,” DeNagy says. “I hope that people see art as a group effort. There is more to a painting, a sculpture, a poster or a print than what first meets the eye. Art is a collective process, between an artist and their work, or between multiple people working together to create a finished product.”

Top image: "Men of Steel" (1939) by Samuel L. Margolies; the work is included in "(Art)work: Systems of Making"

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‘(Art)work: Systems of Making’ opens with a celebration Friday afternoon at the CU Art Museum.

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