person sleeping in a dark room

A trailblazer in the science of slumber

June 7, 2022

Integrative physiology Professor Ken Wright is breaking new ground in the burgeoning field of sleep research, and bringing his students along for the ride, all of which has won him the Mary A. Carskadon Outstanding Educator Award.

Erika Randall

At new conjunction, dancer-turned-dean heralds ‘ampersanding’

June 2, 2022

Erika Randall, a new associate dean for student success, wants students to feel their authentic selves are woven into the campus community. She also belives when people give themselves permission to embrace their disparate interests, they achieve increasingly compelling, creative work—what she calls “ampersanding.”

Students posing with balloon technology.

Student-designed black box rises 101,000 feet, captures data and imaginations

May 2, 2022

The assignment: write and test the code for a microcontroller, design and built an insulated casing to hold a camera and protect electronics and batteries from temperatures of approximately -35° Fahrenheit. Students, many of whom began the ATLAS course without much of a technical background, succeeded.

person planting a plant in a garden

Homegrown community engagement sprouts in Fort Morgan, Colorado

April 26, 2022

With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the uncertainty of international travel, Mortenson Center graduate student Britta Bergstrom pivoted her field-based practicum in Tanzania to a community-engaged garden in her home state.

Shelley Knuth in Antarctica where she conducted weather research and worked on weather stations

The computational scientist who came in from the cold

April 20, 2022

Shelley Knuth, assistant vice chancellor of research computing, brought her research experience working in Antarctica to CU Boulder.

The central figure on the first university seal was a Greek woman.

CU’s symbol is male, but the first version highlighted a female

March 31, 2022

Women’s history snapshot: From 1893 to 1908, the university's Seal featured an image of a Greek female and the ‘Let Your Light Shine’ motto.

Anna Louise Wolcott Vaile was the first female CU regent.

First woman elected a CU regent was a prohibitionist

March 22, 2022

Women’s history snapshot: Anna Louise Wolcott Vaile argued that social ills harming women could only be rectified with political power, which relied on women’s suffrage.

Patricia Rankin

Surprised by depth of bias, physicist works to bring more women to science

March 18, 2022

Women’s history snapshot: Patricia Rankin initially assumed when told she didn’t "look like a physicist," they were complimenting her on being well dressed.

Lucile Berkeley Buchanan

After 100 years, university recognized Lucile Berkeley Buchanan

March 14, 2022

History overlooked Lucile Berkeley Buchanan, the first African American woman to graduate from the University of Colorado. A dogged CU journalist, Polly McLean, brought her back to the fore.

A black and white photo of Old Main Chapel on the CU Boulder campus.

On lonely Boulder ‘prairie,’ Mary Rippon saw glory

March 6, 2022

Mary Rippon was a bona fide pioneer who became a CU icon, but CU almost did not become her home. When CU’s first president, Joseph Sewall, invited Rippon to teach at CU, which had just opened its doors in September 1877, Rippon initially declined.

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