Faculty Profile

Andrew Mayock Joined CU to Accelerate Climate Solutions

Anna Tolette — Mon, 10 Nov 2025 18:08:00 +0000

Andrew Mayock Joined CU to Accelerate Climate Solutions Anna Tolette Mon, 11/10/2025 - 11:08

Christie Sounart

In March 2025, Andrew Mayock joined ��ɫ��Ƶ as its first vice chancellor for sustainability. Mayock previously served as chief sustainability officer for the United States government, where he led the Biden administration’s efforts to decarbonize federal operations and accelerate clean energy adoption.

What spurred you to work in higher education?

I see it as a really critical piece of my work to help grow the next generation of leaders in climate sustainability. At ��ɫ��Ƶ, it is a great opportunity to do that at scale. In considering this role, I found CU has an extraordinary foundation of sustainability work that goes back decades, and pent-up demand to build on that legacy.

Where do you see ��ɫ��Ƶ already excelling in sustainability?

We have extraordinary existing efforts and assets across research, education, operations and community engagement — for instance, the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research’s (INSTAAR) work in critical longitudinal atmospheric carbon studies, the Mountain Research Station, the two sustainability master’s degrees recently approved through engineering and business, eliminating single-use plastic beverages campuswide and much more. Also, the kind of progress we’re making in embedding sustainability in the curriculum is taking it right back to where it all belongs — with the students.

What opportunities do you see for improvement?

There were places where we were once at the frontier, but we haven’t kept pace. It’s time for a recharge in these areas, so we can be a leader again. And then there’s areas where we’re at the frontier, and we need to accelerate and define a new frontier. The newly created Buckley Center for Sustainability Education is redefining leadership opportunity, for instance. The Buckley Center is going to help us respond to student demand for more sustainability in the curriculum and experiential learning, and it is also going to serve students interested in non-sustainability-related majors and disciplines across campus.

How do you see ��ɫ��Ƶ leading the way in sustainability to become recognized globally?

One clear initiative is to gain more recognition in work that we’re already doing. I’m thinking of engineering professor Evan Thomas (AeroEngr, Jour’06; MEngr’06; PhD’09) and the Mortenson Center in Global Engineering & Resilience’s work improving clean water supply in east Africa, for example. Here, through many others’ work, we’re having an outsized global impact across the planet, and we plan to amplify this work in places such as November’s COP 30 climate conference in Brazil and September’s Climate Week NYC.

What role do students have in CU sustainability?

Students are at the center of the efforts. My draw to Boulder included seeing the efforts already underway by the student community, like Ralphie’s Green Stampede or the EcoVisits. Now, it’s time to take it to the next level. The vision is to make this university more of a living lab, bringing research to education on campus and enabling students to help make progress on the Climate Action Plan.

Are there specific innovations or technologies you’re excited to explore at CU?

Boulder startups are moving cutting-edge research from lab to market, like the carbon-negative cement company Prometheus Materials. Their innovation and dynamism are helping solve the climate crisis through research-driven products. [Bill Gates’] Breakthrough Energy’s selection of the university as a new partner is another example of this work. Boulder is approaching the quality and vibrancy of Stanford.

What else should we know about campus sustainability?

It’s a top priority of the chancellor and our office to double down on how ��ɫ��Ƶ delivers sustainability solutions for Colorado communities. We have an ability and obligation, due to the talent and programming we have here, and we have a need in this urgent moment to be an even stronger partner to our state communities.

What are your interests outside of work?

I generally try to keep up with my 10- and 12-year-olds in their many pursuits, like soccer and the arts. We’ve also had the opportunity to get to the mountains, including Eldora and Snowmass, and experienced some of the great hiking and birding and rafting Colorado has to offer.

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Photos by Glenn Asakawa

Andrew Mayock has joined ��ɫ��Ƶ as the university’s first vice chancellor for sustainability, aiming to elevate its global leadership in climate action.

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��ɫ��Ƶ in the Spotlight: Rankings, Research and Innovation

Anna Tolette — Mon, 10 Nov 2025 18:06:50 +0000

��ɫ��Ƶ in the Spotlight: Rankings, Research and Innovation Anna Tolette Mon, 11/10/2025 - 11:06

Julia MacLean

Herd

A Leader in Free Speech

��ɫ��Ƶ ranked fifth nationally for its free-speech climate, the highest in the state. The assessment, based on input from more than 68,000 students, comes from the 2026 College Free Speech Rankings by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression and its survey partner College Pulse.

Authors Earn Spotlight

Historical horror novel The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by ��ɫ��Ƶ English professor Stephen Graham Jones made former President Obama’s 2025 summer reading list. Meanwhile, Ann Schmiesing’s The Brothers Grimm: A Biography earned acclaim as one of The New Yorker’s Best Books of 2024 and a New Statesman Best Summer Read of 2025. Schmiesing is senior vice chancellor for strategic initiatives and professor of German and Scandinavian Studies.

Water Reckoning

Emerging ��ɫ��Ƶ research shows that human pollution, including greenhouse gases and aerosol emissions, has been driving the prolonged megadrought in the U.S. Southwest by altering the Pacific Ocean’s natural cycles that normally bring rain to the region. As a result, the Southwest is experiencing its driest period in over 1,000 years. Study author Jeremy Klavans, a postdoctoral researcher in the atmospheric and oceanic sciences department, suggests that water planners need to prepare now by building stronger water systems and exploring new options, such as desalination plants.

Campus Talk

“I want people to understand that a first-gen student like me — who didn’t have much — can do it if [they] bring passion, grit and skills to the table.”

-Marco Campos (CivEngr’98) and the Campos Foundation donated $5 million to support the Campos Student Center, formerly the BOLD Center, in the College of Engineering and Applied Science. The gift will secure the center’s long-term future and bolster its programming to help amplify student success.

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Photo by Casey A. Cass

Digits

Elimination of Plastic Single-Use Beverage Containers

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Start of ��ɫ��Ƶ’s elimination of plastic beverage containers from campus

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All single-use, sealable plastic beverage containers to be eliminated from campus, including vending machines

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Pouring agreement with PepsiCo Beverages

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Intended percentage of campus emissions by year 2050, per the CU Climate Action Plan

��ɫ��Ƶ news on free speech, faculty author recognition, megadrought research and sustainability initiatives.

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The Age of AI Ghosts

Anna Tolette — Mon, 10 Nov 2025 18:04:41 +0000

The Age of AI Ghosts Anna Tolette Mon, 11/10/2025 - 11:04

Lisa Marshall

People can experience a digital afterlife with a loved one.

Each day, AI plays a greater role in our lives. Soon, it could also transform the way we interact with the dead.

“Today, you might interact with a Facebook memorial page for grandpa after he dies. But what would it feel like to actually sit down with grandpa by the fire and have a conversation with him?” asked ��ɫ��Ƶ information science professor Jed Brubaker.

In a spring 2025 research paper, Brubaker predicts a future in which individuals routinely create custom “AI agents” to interact with the living after they’re gone. And he and his students have already begun beta testing their own “AI ghosts” to gauge how people feel about them.

Rudimentary versions have been around for years, he noted. After musician Lou Reed died in 2013, his life partner created a text-based chatbot (trained with Reed’s writings, songs and interviews) that she still, reportedly, converses with. And, in 2019, a grieving mother famously used a virtual reality set-up to play with an AI version of her young daughter, who had died years earlier.

Startups like Re;memory and HereAfter AI already help the living create posthumous digital versions of themselves, using pre-recorded video and audio clips.

But Brubaker is most intrigued by what’s coming in the next innovation wave: Powered by tech features that enable autonomous next-gen bots to understand language, remember and make decisions, forthcoming “AI ghosts” could do far more than regurgitate old stories.

For instance, they could have a live conversation about current events, write a new poem or help their kids manage their estate. But along with promise comes peril.

Can interacting with an AI ghost become unhealthy? How can one be sure no one will make a ghost out of them, against their will? When and how should a generative ghost die?

Brubaker doesn’t have the answers yet, but he hopes his research will get tech companies and policymakers thinking.

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Illustration by Hokyoung Kim

Researchers are exploring the potential for “AI ghosts,” digital versions of the deceased that can hold conversations and even make decisions.

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Chancellor Schwartz on What Makes Buffs Bold

Anna Tolette — Mon, 07 Jul 2025 20:13:24 +0000

Chancellor Schwartz on What Makes Buffs Bold Anna Tolette Mon, 07/07/2025 - 14:13

Maria Kuntz

Chancellor Schwartz at the AAPI graduation ceremony this spring.

Coloradan editor Maria Kuntz sat down with Chancellor Justin Schwartz to gather his perspective on what makes Buffs so extraordinary and bold.

You’ve worked and studied at several of the nation’s most respected institutions. What is it about CU students and faculty that sets them apart?

They’re not only focused on their disciplinary interest but also deeply committed to using whatever disciplinary expertise they have to create real impact on the world. In particular, [there’s] a core underpinning — a commitment to sustainability that is really genuine. It’s not an item on a list. It’s very much embedded into the culture of our community.

Alumni are leading space missions, launching startups and advancing climate science. What do you think is happening here that produces such bold, purpose-driven people?

Decades ago, a culture of excellence, doing big things and taking on leadership roles developed in Boulder. And it’s just continued to feed on and develop itself. Now, we naturally attract people with that mindset and core values so that the culture becomes self-propagating.

Tell me about a moment from this past year, maybe involving a student, alum or a faculty member, that genuinely surprised or moved you.

One of the moments that stands out was the first time [my spouse, Dr. G, and I] worked out with the Ralphie handlers in the gym. We witnessed how much camaraderie and esprit de corps there was between them, and then they brought us in seamlessly and naturally. It’s a truly energetic, dedicated and ridiculously hard-working culture.

You’re a year into your tenure. What’s your boldest hope for what people will say about ��ɫ��Ƶ five years from now? Not just as a university, but as a force in the world.

Five years from now, we want to be known for having transformed how higher education institutions across the country approach sustainability in terms of academics, implementation and knowledge transfer. I hope we will become a resource for our peers across the country.

When you’re talking to someone who’s never been to Boulder, what do you say to help them understand what’s special about this place?

I would start by saying: Until you’ve experienced it, it’s hard to explain. There are so many people I’ve heard say, ‘I came to visit and knew right away that this is where I was going to stay.’ These are alums who are now 70, who came from out of state 50 or 60 years ago. It’s not just the natural beauty of the environment. There is something energetic and inspiring about the community itself.

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Photo by Glenn Asakawa

Chancellor Justin Schwartz shares how ��ɫ��Ƶ’s culture of boldness, sustainability and community drives students and faculty to make a meaningful impact on the world.

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The Secret Life of Mary Rippon

Anna Tolette — Mon, 07 Jul 2025 20:07:42 +0000

The Secret Life of Mary Rippon Anna Tolette Mon, 07/07/2025 - 14:07

Christie Sounart

Mary Rippon in 1882.

In September 1877, the University of Colorado began its first academic year. Joseph Sewall served as the university’s president, and 55 students were enrolled. Old Main was the sole building on campus.

While looking for faculty to staff the school, Sewall sent a letter to 27-year-old Mary Rippon, whom he met while teaching at her high school, the Illinois State Normal School. He offered her a position teaching French and German language and literature.

Rippon accepted and traveled West via train. She was enamored with Colorado’s beauty, which she likened to Switzerland, where she’d traveled previously.

In January 1878, she became CU’s first female professor and was among America’s first female professors to teach at a state university. The regents offered her a salary of $1,200 a year.

For over 30 years, Rippon worked for CU, gaining respect and admiration from students, faculty and the Boulder community. When she retired in 1909 as head of the Department of Germanic Languages and Literature, the CU newspaper Silver and Gold stated, “By her untiring energy as a teacher and her lovable personality, she has brought the German Department to its present high standing and popularity, and all who knew her will be sorry to learn of her departure from the University.”

In 1936, CU dedicated the Mary Rippon Outdoor Theatre in recognition of her contributions to the university, especially in the arts and humanities. The theater remains home to the second-oldest Shakespeare Festival in the United States.

Yet, despite her revered standing at CU, there was more to Mary Rippon’s story — she lived a double life driven by a deeply personal secret.

Very few people knew Rippon’s secret while she was alive. But in 1993, Boulder historian Silvia Pettem (Psych’69) began digging into her past life to unearth the whole story.

It started when Pettem was poking around the Norlin Library archives in search of ideas for Boulder’s Daily Camera newspaper, where she worked as a columnist. A librarian presented her with intriguing information about Mary Rippon.

“I thought it would be my next article,” said Pettem. “It ended up being a five-year project.”

Rippon pictured in her CU classroom.

A Secret, Kept

In 1986, a man named Wilfred Rieder claimed to be Rippon’s grandson and donated her diaries and account books, which itemized Rippon’s financial expenses, to CU. Seeing as Rippon had always been known to be unmarried and childless, the revelations within puzzled many in the university community. The librarians hoped a researcher could delve into the works to sort out the story. Pettem was hooked.

As she began her research, Pettem learned something shocking: In spring 1888, at age 37, Rippon fell in love with a 25-year-old student, Will Housel, and became pregnant with his child. When the semester ended, the pair married privately and returned to Rippon’s home state of Illinois for the summer.

CU’s regents then approved a year-long sabbatical request from Rippon, in which she stated she hoped for time to focus on her health. No one at the university knew she was pregnant. In the fall, Housel returned to CU to complete his studies, and Rippon traveled to Germany to stay with a trusted friend. In January 1889, Rippon gave birth to their daughter, Miriam.

Pettem learned that Rippon would hide Miriam and her relationship with Housel from the public, but financially support them for the remainder of her life.

The story captivated Pettem, who decided to write Rippon’s biography.

“She was a very well-respected and well-loved professor,” said Pettem, who was influential in obtaining an honorary doctorate for Rippon, which was conferred at commencement in 2006.

“I didn’t want to tarnish her reputation in any way,” she said. “I wanted to know: Was this a tragic story? Was it a happy story? Did she like her life? Did she hate her life?”

Living a Double Life

William Housel, Rippon’s former husband and father to her daughter.

Pettem’s years-long journey took her through countless artifacts and across the country to Rippon’s hometown in Illinois. She poured through newspaper articles and photographs. And she had Rippon’s own words in her hands.

“She had a real delicate handwriting with purple ink,” Pettem said.

As reported in Pettem’s biography Separate Lives: Uncovering the Hidden Family of Victorian Professor Mary Rippon (first self-published in 1999, with a second updated version released by Lyons Press in 2024), Rippon loved Boulder’s wildflowers, had great rapport with her students and was meticulous with journaling her expenses — including the ways she divided her meager university wages to support her small family.

During the Victorian era, Pettem said Rippon would have almost certainly lost her job if people had known she had a child. It was considered a woman’s duty to care for her husband and child at home, Pettem explained. Her position at the university would have been given to a man who would likely provide for a wife and children.

And so, to keep her job at the university and to care for her students (many female students referred to her as “mother”), Rippon chose a life of secrecy.

“As a writer, I couldn’t pass judgment on her. I just reported on her,” said Pettem. “I admired her determination. She did what she wanted to do.”

Supporting a Child From Afar

Pettem’s book sheds light on Rippon’s life after giving birth to Miriam.

This photo is most likely Miriam Housel, Rippon’s daughter.

Rippon spent the remainder of her sabbatical in Europe, and Housel joined her after graduating from CU. However, since Housel had no money or job, and Rippon was returning to teach at CU, the couple decided to place Miriam in a Catholic orphanage in Geneva, Switzerland, where Rippon could afford her care. Housel remained close to the orphanage while taking graduate courses at the University of Geneva, also paid for by Rippon.

When Miriam was two years old, Housel moved back to Boulder, leaving Miriam at the orphanage. Housel and Rippon saw each other twice weekly, but never publicly as husband and wife.

Two years later, Housel traveled to Europe to bring Miriam to the United States. She most likely lived in a Denver girls’ home, Pettem wrote, financially supported by Rippon, who saw her daughter only occasionally. Miriam called her “Aunt Mary,” unaware of their true relationship until Rippon told her as an adult.

Eventually, Rippon and Housel divorced. Between the secret marriage and living separately, they were unable to maintain a close relationship. Housel moved permanently to Michigan with Miriam and remarried. Rippon continued to provide money to the pair, occasionally sending funds to support Housel’s new wife and their children.

Meanwhile, Rippon lived alone at 2463 Twelfth Street in downtown Boulder, a home she’d bought after boarding with Boulder families for nearly two decades. She could walk to campus. She planted lilies of the valley in her garden. Students visited her home frequently for stimulating conversations about literature or language.

Pettem reports that in 1907, students wrote under her yearbook photo: “Earth’s noblest thing — a woman perfected.”

She appeared, Pettem said, content.

Duty or Love?

If Pettem were to meet Rippon today, there’s one thing she’d want to know first.

“I’d say: ‘I hope you don’t mind me asking this, but how did it all start with Will?’”

Rippon in 1906.

She mused that the pair could have shared a love for languages, authors or the beauty of the Colorado outdoors. (Housel had a farming background and rode to campus on a horse.)

Whatever drew them together, it created a bond that defined Rippon’s private life — forever.

But how did her dual lives affect Rippon internally?

Pettem has her ideas.

“Did she feel guilty? Possibly,” she said. “Maybe this was all out of duty ... or maybe it was love.”

While her writings were often cryptic, Rippon left one small clue to how she felt about it all in a diary entry written before she died in 1935 at the age of 85, Pettem said.

Rippon wrote: “Conventionality is the mother of dreariness.”

“I think with that statement,” Pettem said, “she felt she had lived the life she wanted to.”

Photos courtesy Carnegie Library for Local History/Museum of Boulder Collection; Mary Rippon Papers, Cou: 1353, Box 2, Folder 1, Rare and Distinctive Collections, ��ɫ��Ƶ Libraries; Heritage Center

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Mary Rippon, ��ɫ��Ƶ's first female professor, lived a remarkable double life, teaching students while secretly supporting a hidden child born from a forbidden love with her former student.

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How a Fish Proved a Mathematical Breakthrough

Anna Tolette — Mon, 07 Jul 2025 20:06:33 +0000

How a Fish Proved a Mathematical Breakthrough Anna Tolette Mon, 07/07/2025 - 14:06

Alison Van Houton

On a March day in 2023, Ben Alessio, then a research assistant at ��ɫ��Ƶ, was wandering around the Birch Aquarium in La Jolla, California, when he clocked a surprising sight: a male ornate boxfish undulating in the water, tessellating with violet and tangerine hexagons. It was dazzling — but more importantly, it was vindicating.

The rare fish’s markings were a real-life example of something that he and Ankur Gupta, ��ɫ��Ƶ assistant professor of chemical and biological engineering, had previously only modelled mathematically. It confirmed that they were onto a scientific breakthrough.

Turing Patterns

To understand Gupta’s research, one must first understand morphogenesis. Morphogenesis is the process by which cells, tissues and organisms develop their shapes.

Nearly 75 years ago, the famed British mathematician Alan Turing published a paper titled “The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis.” Since then, Turing’s work has been key to our understanding of how many — but not all — patterns form in nature.

“That’s sort of the foundational thinking, mathematically speaking, for this area of work,” said Gupta.

Turing had an uncommonly innovative mind — his ability to think beyond the status quo and make connections between various fields of thought led to breakthroughs in electronic computing, artificial intelligence, code breaking in WWII and, in this case, mathematical biology.

When it came to morphogenesis, Turing was interested in how heterogeneity, or diversity, arises out of homogeneity, which is when something is composed of all one type of thing. In other words, why does a zebra have both black and white stripes instead of a coat with hairs that are all one solid color, like gray?

The reason is diffusion — which is central to Turing’s theory. Diffusion is the movement of molecules from areas of higher concentration to areas of lower concentration; molecules tend to spread out until there’s an even distribution (much like people in an elevator). In chemistry, diffusion often dominates systems, especially when particles are tiny.

“Diffusion essentially promotes homogeneity,” said Gupta.

What he means is that if you drop blue dye into clear, still water, for example, it will slowly diffuse, in a gradient, until the whole container is equally blue. Similarly, when mixing red and blue dye in a diffusion-dominated system, one expects the colors to blend, ultimately yielding a homogenous purple hue. However, when a chemical reaction also occurs, something different may happen. In certain conditions, even a diffusion-dominated system can promote heterogeneity from homogeneity.

“Essentially, what [Turing] argued was that under the right conditions, if there is diffusion as well as [a chemical] reaction between different components — if I have five or six dyes, or three or four dyes, and they’re reacting with each other — then essentially it’s just a delicate dance between these two processes.”

These days, the term “Turing pattern” is generally applied to any reaction-diffusion pattern. This natural pattern forms when chemicals react with one another and spread out, often resulting in wavy lines or spots. A notable example of a Turing pattern in nature is the sparkling blue zebra fish, a slender creature that’s gilded with horizontal, blurry-edged golden stripes.

However, some wild animals feature very crisp markings.

“Why would a diffusion model describe something that is so striking and sharp?” Gupta wondered.

An Accidental Discovery

Gupta didn’t initially set out to answer that question. His focus was on diffusiophoresis, which is the combination of diffusion, described earlier, and phoresis, which describes how ultra-small dissolved particles — around a tenth or even a hundredth the width of a single human hair — can sometimes drag other things along with them in a solution. So, if diffusion is the way that blue dye spreads through clear water, phoresis is the movement of particles that happens because they’re temporarily dragged by that dye.

Alessio, who was doing computational research at the time, had been running mathematical simulations of reaction-diffusion systems that also had a diffusiophoretic element. The resulting visuals were notably defined, unlike the fuzzier ones that emerge from reaction-diffusion models (as seen in the zebrafish). And it was the striking violet and tangerine hexagon boxfish pattern that caught his attention in the Southern California aquarium.

“I was just literally simulating something like this on my computer,” thought Alessio when he saw it. He snapped a slew of photos and messaged Gupta excitedly. “I have something exciting to show you.”

Until that point, Gupta and Alessio had the models, but they didn’t have an example of them in nature.

“I didn’t have any sort of idea about this fish or anything like that,” said Gupta. “He showed me this, and then we sort of reverse-engineered the missing link.”

They dove into existing research and realized that chromatophores — cells that create pigment in the bodies of fish, reptiles and some other animals — can be carried by dissolved chemicals. In other words, they can move diffusiophoretically (like the particles temporarily dragged by dye).

In late 2023, Gupta and Alessio published a paper titled “Diffusiophoresis-Enhanced Turing Patterns” in the peer-reviewed journal Science Advances. Their research advances Turing’s theory by describing how more precise patterns — like the one seen on the ornate boxfish — come to exist.

While Alessio is now working on a PhD in mechanical engineering at Stanford, Gupta intends to continue researching how diffusiophoresis factors into Turing patterns.

“On the pattern-formation side, it would be useful to see if we can replicate some of this synthetically,” he said.

It’s a tall order, but more investigation can potentially help us understand how to control things synthetically.

Gupta is now investigating this phenomenon at an individual-cell level, which he likens to studying a single human versus a population of people.

“If I’m thinking about a population, then one option is to track individual people, and one is to say, ‘What is the population density?’” he said. “It was the population density approach that we were taking in our first paper. But now, we’re examining individual cells, and that has been interesting, because now what we start to see is imperfect Turing patterns.”

While mathematical models tend to be perfect, in reality, you often see imperfections: deformed hexagons or hexagons sliced in half. Taking an individual-cell-level approach to diffusiophoretic Turing patterns could provide more insight into why patterns sometimes don’t appear as expected based on mathematical models.

“We think it’s exciting, because real systems actually are not perfect,” Gupta said.

A Pilgrimage

In October 2023, before the “Diffusiophoresis-enhanced Turing patterns” paper was published, Gupta’s wife was traveling to a conference in San Diego. With anticipation, he packed his bags, hoping to set eyes on the ornate boxfish that inspired their discovery.

Inside the Birch Aquarium, he did a lap around the right side, where most of the fish seemed to be. But he wasn’t sure exactly where to look, and he struggled to spot its telltale scales.

“I couldn’t see it,” he said. “It was hidden.”

Ten minutes passed, then 20. Increasingly worried, he considered enlisting a staff member to help him track it down. Finally, in a last-ditch effort, he ventured off in the direction of the children’s area, toward the other side of the building. There, at long last, he caught his glimpse of the elusive fish.

Eureka.

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Illustration by Petra Péterffy

��ɫ��Ƶ's Ankur Gupta’s discovery of sharper, more precise natural patterns expands on Alan Turing’s mathematical theory.

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Honoring Alice Eastwood’s Legacy at CU's Herbarium

Anna Tolette — Mon, 07 Jul 2025 20:01:03 +0000

Honoring Alice Eastwood’s Legacy at CU's Herbarium Anna Tolette Mon, 07/07/2025 - 14:01

Julia MacLean

Factoids

Specimen: Primula parryi A. Gray (Parry’s Primrose)

Location: Grays Peak, Colorado
Habitat: Found along streams and in moist meadows in the Rocky Mountain subalpine to alpine regions
Aroma: Has a skunky odor
Collected: July 1888 by Alice Eastwood

The University of Colorado Herbarium houses the world’s most complete documentation of Colorado flora. Located in the basement of the Clare Small Arts and Sciences building, the herbarium’s collection contains nearly 600,000 specimens of vascular plants, bryophytes, lichens and fungi.

The herbarium’s founding collection dates to the 1880s and belonged to Alice Eastwood, a self-taught plant scientist. During her life, she named 395 species — the fourth-highest of any female scientist.

Eastwood, who served as a teacher in Kiowa, Colorado, spent her summers collecting plants in the mountains. In the preface of her 1893 book, A Popular Flora of Denver, Colorado, Eastwood wrote that she created the publication “with the sole aim of helping students to learn the names of the plants that grow around Denver.” Her collection lived in the Colorado State Historical Society until ��ɫ��Ƶ’s herbarium, which is part of the university’s Museum of Natural History, acquired it under curator William Weber in the 1940s.

Today, Eastwood’s specimens, along with hundreds of thousands of others, support research on and of campus — even internationally. The robust collections are often toured by CU students, faculty, botanists, scholars and local plant enthusiasts.

Said botany collection manager Amber Horning: “I believe that natural history collections have the power to inspire an audience of all ages and backgrounds.”

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Photo courtesy University of Colorado Herbarium (COLO)

��ɫ��Ƶ’s Herbarium is a resource for researchers and plant enthusiasts worldwide.

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Saving Endangered Languages

Anna Tolette — Mon, 07 Jul 2025 19:58:24 +0000

Saving Endangered Languages Anna Tolette Mon, 07/07/2025 - 13:58

Sophia McKeown

��ɫ��Ƶ linguistics professors Ambrocio Gutiérrez Lorenzo and Rai Farrelly are working to preserve Zapotec, a family of languages that originated in Southern Mexico and Central America.

For most of human history, the survival of specific languages has relied on one generation passing it on to the next — a process that, in many speech communities, unfolds naturally.

But, according to a study published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, around half of the world’s 7,000 documented languages are currently considered “endangered.”

��ɫ��Ƶ linguistics professors Ambrocio Gutiérrez Lorenzo and Rai Farrelly hope to slow the decline.

“Languages are tied very closely to peoples’ identities and their cultures,” said Farrelly in an interview with KUNC this spring. “We believe that there is tremendous value in working to maintain and revitalize [languages].”

Currently, Farrelly and Gutiérrez Lorenzo are working to preserve Zapotec, a family of languages that originated in Southern Mexico and Central America, spoken mostly in Oaxaca, Mexico. Gutiérrez Lorenzo collaborates closely with members of the Teotitlán del Valle community who are interested in learning more about the Zapotec language and contributing to preservation efforts.

Since 2011, he has held monthly meetings with community members to discuss linguistic aspects of the language and the practical applications of his research, including the creation of small dictionaries and the documentation of local narratives.

“[Zapotec] is the language I grew up speaking, so I don’t want it to be lost with my generation,” said Gutiérrez Lorenzo. “I don’t want to be the generation that let it go.”

Besides creating real-world solutions, Gutiérrez Lorenzo and Farrelly are determined to raise awareness around the issue, both on campus and around the world. The colleagues developed a global seminar for CU’s Education Abroad based in Teotitlán del Valle, which offers ��ɫ��Ƶ students the opportunity to live in a rural Mexican community while learning and practicing Spanish and Zapotec.

“Maintaining languages in a community serves to strengthen intergenerational connections,” said Farrelly. “It brings together youth and elders through oral traditions that have been celebrated in many of these communities for centuries.”

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Photo courtesy Rai Farrelly

��ɫ��Ƶ linguistics professors Ambrocio Gutiérrez Lorenzo and Rai Farrelly work closely with Mexican communities to preserve the endangered Zapotec language and strengthen cultural ties.

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Summer 2025

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The Stories that Sustain Us: Phaedra Pezzullo's Unique Approach to Sustainability

Anna Tolette — Mon, 10 Mar 2025 20:30:53 +0000

The Stories that Sustain Us: Phaedra Pezzullo's Unique Approach to Sustainability Anna Tolette Mon, 03/10/2025 - 14:30

Joe Arney

When you’re trying to change the world — in Phaedra C. Pezzullo’s case, by improving the environment — you need more than scholarly publications to create impact.

It’s why one of her favorite stories involves the fact that her first solo-authored book, Toxic Tourism, inspired the lyrics to a punk-rock song by the band The Holland Dutch.

“Something like that reaches people in more profound ways than just talking about policy or politics,” said Pezzullo, ��ɫ��Ƶ communication professor in the College of Media, Communication and Information (CMCI).

In early 2025, Pezzullo opened CMCI’s Sustainability and Storytelling Lab. And while an academic lab in a formal university setting may sound out of step for someone whose work galvanizes protesters and inspires musicians, she sees it as an exciting next step in the shifting conversation around sustainability.

“The lab is already becoming a space where people from a range of disciplines who study sustainability — students, staff, faculty and community partners — can build relationships and consider the role of storytelling in the field,” she said.

“Something like that reaches people in more profound ways than just talking about policy or politics.”

As with any university lab, creating high-impact learning opportunities for students is key.

Activist Becomes Academic

Pezzullo’s formative educational experiences inspired her teaching philosophy. While a graduate student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, she interviewed activists and community members in Warren County — known as the birthplace of the environmental justice movement — where landfill toxins were poisoning the water source serving a predominantly Black community.

Listening to their voices and adding her own to the cause helped Pezzullo to see how a single story could unlock millions of dollars to clean a landfill. Cleanup work began as she completed her studies.

“I became hooked on stories,” she said. “When we put storytelling into practice in service of complex problems, like sustainability, we discover why communication is captivating.”

It’s part of why Pezzullo doesn’t limit her storytelling to scholarly publications. Her public-facing work on sustainability includes a podcast, Communicating Care, where she explores sustainability issues like plastic bag bans, disability justice and environmental treaties with other voices from the field.

One of these voices was Emy Kane (IntlAf’13), managing director of Lonely Whale, an organization that raises awareness about and offers alternatives to problematic plastics through partnerships with brands and engagement with companies, scientists and the global youth movement.

“When we put storytelling into practice in service of complex problems, like sustainability, we discover why communication is captivating.”

“What inspired me most about Phaedra is her commitment to sharing stories borne from empathy and action,” said Kane. “I’m thrilled to see my alma mater support her platform and research so that the next generation of leaders are equipped with the stories they need to reimagine the systems that run our world.”

Conversations on the podcast helped inform Pezzullo’s 2023 book, Beyond Straw Men: Plastic Pollution and Networked Cultures of Care, which won three national book awards. Highlighting success stories, she said, is important to counteract the defeatism and fatalism that typically accompany sustainability stories — and she’s seeing such sentiments rising, even in her classroom.

Oftentimes, in the wake of a victory, “people point out just how much is still wrong with pollution, with our climate, with the world,” she said. “Success isn’t that there won’t be more disasters — it’s that, with more thoughtful choices, future disasters may be less impactful. And that is a more challenging story to tell.”

Science Demands Better Stories

Amid news of rising temperatures, invasive microplastics and melting glaciers, it might seem frivolous to talk about sustainability in terms of good storytelling. But experts argue that we’ve struggled to make progress on environmental issues because the deeply scientific nature of these problems makes it hard for the general public to relate.

Robert Cox — Pezzullo’s mentor at UNC Chapel Hill, where he remains an emeritus professor — credited his protégé with laying the basis for how understandable stories can change the course on climate.

“All the work being done to communicate climate science in the public sphere is now being talked about in terms of relatable stories that demonstrate the impact of climate change,” said Cox, a three-time president of the Sierra Club environmental organization and co-author (with Pezzullo) of a textbook on the discipline. “Those stories resonate far beyond just the pages of an academic article. Phaedra’s work really laid the basis for the importance of narrative, of storytelling, to make complex environmental issues approachable.”

“Success isn’t that there won’t be more disasters — it’s that, with more thoughtful choices, future disasters may be less impactful. And that is a more challenging story to tell.”

In her lab, Pezzullo is searching for that impact by forging partnerships within CMCI and ��ɫ��Ƶ to bring different kinds of expertise to the challenge of impactful storytelling — something she’s already doing as director of the university’s graduate certificate in environmental justice. She’s lectured at universities across the globe and has collaborated extensively with Colorado’s Department of Public Health and Environment on climate change. In the meantime, she and her students build digital “story maps” that illustrate how Colorado communities are affected by environmental and climate injustice.

Pursuing Stories with Confidence

Independent reporter Anthony Albidrez (MJour’24) took a foundational course in environmental justice with Pezzullo to better understand how journalism supports sustainability through storytelling and rigorous news reporting standards.

Because of his class experiences, Albidrez turned a course project about a stream cleanup in Honolulu, where he lives, into a report detailing how the local unhoused population was blamed for a mess that, when cleaned, amounted to 16 tons of trash being removed from the Makiki Stream.

“I don’t think a group of homeless people can drag tons of trash into a streambed, but from my research, they were receiving the brunt of the blame,” Albidrez said. “Phaedra’s course helped give me the confidence to go beyond the government numbers and explanations and find the real story.”

Pezzullo’s ability to encourage that sort of intellectual curiosity is what Cox most appreciates about her impact. Though he’s quick to credit her with pushing the boundaries of their field, Cox most admires how Pezzullo has guided the next generation of thinkers as they seek to advance sustainability through storytelling.

“So many of her students are pursuing academic, business and nonprofit work in this area, and that speaks to her strength as a mentor,” Cox said. “She is such an unselfish person in terms of contributing her labor to the field of environmental communication — and that’s the kind of champion a story like this needs.”

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Illustrations by Scott Bakal

Professor Phaedra Pezzullo aims to make sustainability issues more relatable by integrating storytelling into environmental communication.

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Chancellor Schwartz Discusses ��ɫ��Ƶ's Sustainability Efforts

Julia Maclean — Mon, 10 Mar 2025 17:46:52 +0000

Chancellor Schwartz Discusses ��ɫ��Ƶ's Sustainability Efforts Julia Maclean Mon, 03/10/2025 - 11:46

What do you want people to understand about sustainability?

Sustainability is the most pressing issue facing humankind in the 21st century. We need to ensure that human life continues on the planet in a manner that gives everyone the opportunity for a life worth living. There is a misconception that sustainability is a STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) issue — that it’s a problem for scientists and engineers to solve. But sustainability is a human challenge. Our failure or success will affect each of us, and we must work together across disciplines to implement solutions.

��ɫ��Ƶ will soon welcome its first vice chancellor for sustainability. How will this position influence future campus efforts?

I am thrilled that we’ve hired Andrew Mayock, chief sustainability officer for the federal government since 2021, as our inaugural vice chancellor for sustainability. I’ve charged Andrew with advancing ��ɫ��Ƶ’s reputation for bringing climate solutions to life. As the “face of sustainability” for our campus, he will take an inclusive and interdisciplinary approach to build on our legacy and make ��ɫ��Ƶ a household name for sustainability impact across Colorado, the United States and around the globe. I know he is eager to get started!

How can alumni and friends of ��ɫ��Ƶ get involved in sustainability efforts?

We’re always looking for partners who are willing to share their insights, time and financial support to advance ��ɫ��Ƶ’s vision and support our incredible sustainability-focused research and teaching. You also can be an ambassador for ��ɫ��Ƶ in your own communities — tell your friends, neighbors and prospective students about what we’re doing in sustainability! Explore how you can minimize your carbon footprint and address issues of concern in your own cities. If you are an employer, you can also engage with ��ɫ��Ƶ on implementing climate action strategies in your company or workplace.

In five or 10 years, what evidence will show that ��ɫ��Ƶ has advanced in sustainability?

As a campus, we will pursue some “quick wins,” while also working on priorities that take more time and effort. I want to see ��ɫ��Ƶ lead the charge in making Colorado the most sustainable state in the nation. In the coming years, we’ll aim to advance both climate education and the implementation of solutions across the United States and beyond, transforming the way higher education drives sustainability.

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Photo by Glenn Asakawa

Chancellor Schwartz reveals the importance of a collaborative approach and the role of alumni in advancing climate action and sustainability on campus and beyond.

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