Division of Natural Sciences

Photojournalist turning aerial art into climate archive

Rachel Sauer — Thu, 04 Dec 2025 14:30:00 +0000

Photojournalist turning aerial art into climate archive Rachel Sauer Thu, 12/04/2025 - 07:30

Cody DeBos

CU Boulder geography alumnus Katie Writer shares Alaska’s changing landscape from the skies

On a clear day high above south-central Alaska, you can find Katie Writer pulling open the window of her Super Cub airplane and leaning her camera out into the rushing wind. Below, the landscape doesn’t look like the same one she once hiked and skied. That’s exactly why she’s flying.

For Writer (Geog’91), flying offers a unique vantage point from which to witness the planet changing in real time.

“Climate change is something I saw coming all the way back in my CU days studying geography, and I knew it would be a big part of my life’s calling. I have a sense of duty as a photojournalist pilot and an advocate for the environment. Whenever there’s a chance for me to tell the story of the landscape or point emphasis to an area that needs some protection, I jump on it,” she says.

Geography alumnus Katie Writer has built a career at the intersection of science, storytelling and adventure. (Photo: Katie Writer)

From documenting glacier retreat to photographing generations of spruce trees withered by beetle kill, she’s built a career at the intersection of science, storytelling and adventure.

Skiing onto the page

Writer’s journey to the cockpit wasn’t traditional. At CU Boulder, she majored in geography and raced on the ski team, balancing course loads with weekend races. After graduating, she worked as an interpreter for the United States Olympic Committee at the 1992 Winter Olympics in France, and that lit a fire in her for world-class competition.

“I quickly moved up the ranks and placed 17th at the U.S. National Championships in 1994,” Writer recalls.

But when an injury derailed her career, she pivoted her skiing passion from competition to the page, becoming an aptly named writer of outdoor adventure articles for the likes of Couloir and Powder magazines. One story led her to Denali National Park.

“On that trip, I was inspired to become a pilot,” she says. “I’d also been on another ski trip where a Cessna 185 flew us into the wilderness in a ski plane, and it made me realize that these little planes give you some great access to the wilderness.”

After earning her pilot’s license with support from aviation scholarships, Writer settled in Alaska, where she has since filled her appetite for adventure and storytelling through the lens of her camera.

“Others were noticing my photography and really appreciating the bird’s eye view I was getting as an aerial photographer/pilot. It helped me realize that capturing these images was something I was really passionate about,” she says.

Seeing the story from above

When Writer takes her camera into the sky, the viewpoint of Alaska’s stunning landscapes brings awe, but also a sense of urgency. From her Super Cub, she observes patterns of change. Hillsides of dying spruce. Once thriving glaciers shrinking every year. Riverbanks collapsing after torrential storms. She has returned often to the same places, documenting changes that most people never get to see.

“There’s no doubt when you live in Alaska, you see the effects of the beetle kill. I realized this was an excellent way to present climate change with the visuals from an aerial perspective,” Writer says.

Warmer winters have allowed spruce beetles to survive year-round, leaving entire forests stained with rust-colored decay. Glaciers tell a parallel story of loss.

Aerial views of the changing Alaska landscape captured by Katie Writer from the open window of her Super Cub airplane. (Photos: Katie Writer)

“We spent a lot of time going back to the toe of the Ruth glacier, photographing the specific area year after year and seeing how dramatically the receding lines were, as well as observing the collapsing walls,” she adds.

She also tracks what happens downstream. After record rainfall from an atmospheric river in August 2025, she flew over the swollen Talkeetna River and saw entire stretches of bank washed away.

“These weather events with high levels of moisture, in my opinion, are another visual acceleration of erosion.”

These scenes are part of a photographic timeline Writer has spent years assembling. With each flight, she adds a new layer to the growing visual archive that captures the rapid reshaping of Alaska’s wilderness. For those of us on the ground, it’s a rare glimpse at what our world looks like from above.

Exploring a new medium

In time, the stories Writer wanted to tell outgrew both print and pictures. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she launched the All Cooped Up Alaska Podcast, a show born from isolation and the desire to connect. It’s since evolved into the Alaska Climate and Aviation Podcast, where she explores stories of weather, flying and environmental change.

“Being in the air and photographing the landscape feels like artistic movement and is a spiritual experience. The natural world is just stunning,” says Katie Writer. (Photo: Katie Writer)

“The benefit of producing your own podcast is that you get to be as creative as you want and can tell the stories you want to tell,” she says. “A lot of the stories I used to create for our local radio station would be edited down to three and a half minutes for airtime. I was always a little bit frustrated by that.”

Now, Writer brings on regular guests, including prominent Alaskan climatologists Rick Thoman and Brian Brettschneider, to discuss everything from wildfire smoke to Arctic feedback loops. She also covers major events like the Arctic Encounter Symposium in Anchorage.

“Arctic Encounter is attended by world leaders from all around Arctic countries, including Indigenous leaders, policymakers, scientists, villagers and Arctic dwellers,” she says. “It’s a very inspiring event with fascinating panels of people talking about the problems they’re having and solutions they envision.”

CU at altitude

Looking back, Writer credits her time at CU Boulder with helping to shape her worldview.

“One of the primary things that made a major influence on choosing geography as a major was an upper-division course that was in the Arctic Circle, learning field research techniques,” she says.

She also recalls the atmosphere of both Boulder’s scientific community and cultural diversity.

“As a sophomore, our house was across the street from the Hari Krishnas, where we ate a meal a week and enjoyed philosophizing on life and world religions. It was just a really neat place to be,” Writer says. “All of the beautiful architecture and even the Guggenheim building for Geography really held a special place in my heart for a place of learning.”

Her advice for today’s students? Write often.

“Writing is a really important skill that I’m noticing more and more being lost with the use of AI. Getting the pen flowing onto a piece of paper lets you tap into a whole different type of creativity,” she says.

“Realize that you may not know what your whole career is going to be, but don’t be afraid to explore and take a risk in opportunities you might get. When I look back at the journals that I had at that time in my life, I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m doing it,’” she adds.

Even now, after decades of flying and learning to balance the art with the business, Writer isn’t sure where her career will lead next.

“I always aspired to work for National Geographic as a photojournalist,” she says. “And I still haven’t met that goal — but who knows what could happen in the future.”

One thing is certain: Writer has no plans to stop flying over Alaska and documenting its changes.

“Being in the air and photographing the landscape feels like artistic movement and is a spiritual experience,” she says. “The natural world is just stunning.”

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CU Boulder geography alumnus Katie Writer shares Alaska’s changing landscape from the skies.

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Wally the Wollemi finds a new home

Rachel Sauer — Mon, 01 Dec 2025 14:30:00 +0000

Wally the Wollemi finds a new home Rachel Sauer Mon, 12/01/2025 - 07:30

Rachel Sauer

CU Boulder alumni Judy and Rod McKeever donate a tree once considered extinct to the EBIO greenhouse, giving students a living example of modern conservation

Wally probably doesn’t know he’s a dinosaur.

He’s just living his best life in a bright spot—but not directly sunny, he doesn’t like that—in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology greenhouse on 30th Street.

This guy! Talk about charisma. People have certain stereotypes and expectations for what he should be, and he defies them. For starters, he’s here and not, after all, extinct.

Yes, Wally the Wollemi is something special—a Cretaceous Period pine tree thought to have gone extinct 2 million years ago, rediscovered in a secluded Australian canyon in 1994 and, with a few steps in between, recently donated to the greenhouse.

. “Where we are right now with climate change, we’re losing plants and animal species and insect diversity at an extremely rapid rate, so as scientists and horticulturists and curators it’s our job to maintain the diversity of the world in collections, and Wally is an important part of that," says Malinda Barberio, EBIO greenhouse manager.

“The Wollemi pine is an interesting story about paleobotany as well as conservation,” explains Malinda Barberio, greenhouse manager. “Where we are right now with climate change, we’re losing plants and animal species and insect diversity at an extremely rapid rate, so as scientists and horticulturists and curators it’s our job to maintain the diversity of the world in collections, and Wally is an important part of that.”

Back from extinction

How Wally came to live in a quiet spot in the 30th Street greenhouse is a story that started in the Cretaceous. Scientists theorized that herbivorous dinosaurs living then dined on Wollemi pines, which belong to a 200-million-year-old plant family and are abundantly represented in the fossil record dating as far back as 91 million years.

Where they weren’t abundantly represented was in the living world. They were theorized to have gone extinct, living only in stone impressions.

However, in 1994, New South Wales (Australia) National Parks ranger David Noble was rappelling in a remote canyon about five hours west of Sydney when he happened upon a stand of pine trees unlike anything he’d seen before. They had fern-like foliage, distinctive bumpy bark and a dense, rounded crown. They towered over other trees in the canyon.

“Typically, you think of pines as Christmas tree-shaped, fairly triangular, so that dense top crown that’s very rounded is a little odd for pines,” Barberio says. “And you typically expect large, fluffy branches, but the Wollemi’s branches are covered in thicker, flat needles that are in two rows parallel to each other along the sides of branches, which is really distinctive.”

Intense scientific investigation followed Noble’s discovery, including comparison to the fossil record, until it was agreed: This was the Wollemi pine—back from extinction.

Follow Wally and his friends in the greenhouse at @CUBoulderEBIOGreenhouse on Instagram.

The ongoing threat of extinction loomed large, though, because there were fewer than 100 trees in that canyon, whose location remains a closely guarded secret. So, in 2006, and in an unusual partnership between the National Geographic Society, the Floragem plant wholesalers, conservationists, botanists and scientists, 10-inch Wollemi pines were offered for sale in National Geographic’s holiday catalog.

“You are now the owner of a tree that is a survivor from the age of the dinosaurs, a miraculous time traveler and one of the greatest living fossils discovered in the twentieth century,” began the catalog description of the 10-inch saplings selling for $99.95.

That’s what caught Judy McKeever’s attention.

A tree named Wally

“My husband (Rod) does bonsai and loves his bonsai garden, so when I saw the advertisement for National Geographic selling these trees, and it was a love story about finding a dinosaur in an Australian canyon, I thought it would be the perfect addition to his collection,” recalls McKeever (A&S’76). “But he never got bonsaied or really trimmed at all, and just kind of grew out of control.”

The couple named him Wally because it sounds like Wollemi, and he lived in a sheltered, south-facing spot on their Boulder deck in the summer and under a grow light in their basement in the winter. Between seasons, they toted him up and down the stairs—and every year he was bigger.

CU Boulder alumni Judy and Rod McKeever donated Wally the Wollemi pine tree to the EBIO greenhouse in October.

“We didn’t really do anything special, just treated him like every other plant we have,” McKeever says. “He lived a sheltered little life, occasionally got fertilized, and he was very happy. We just let him do whatever he wanted to do; he’s an Australian free spirit.

“We just loved Wally, but he grew a few inches every year and with the soil and pot, he just got to be too heavy to take down to the basement every winter.”

In early autumn, McKeever began looking for places that might be interested in adopting Wally and found the EBIO greenhouse. There was an element of homecoming since both Judy and Rod are 1976 CU Boulder graduates (Rod in chemical engineering); Wally would be staying in the family.

“We are very happy to bring Wally into our collection,” Barberio says. “For the university to have a Wollemi pine is a really special privilege. It allows students to have an example of conservation efforts that are modern and recent in history and shows them that they have the opportunity to participate in these efforts as well.”

Plus, she adds, Wally is a great opportunity for public outreach: People can schedule time to visit him in the greenhouse and see science, conservation and worldwide partnerships at work. And students in future paleobotany classes will be able to see just how close scientists and artists got in visually rendering the Wollemi pine from fossil evidence.

“It’s surprisingly accurate how well they were able to reproduce (Wollemi pines) in theory,” Barberio says. “We have all of these animals and plants that are extinct, and having this living example is a really cool way to show how close we got it.”

A part in plant diversity

As for the care and feeding of Wally, who actually isn’t only male since pines produce both male and female cones, he likes acidic soil and bright but not direct light, given that he’s prone to sunburn. He likes regular watering and doesn’t like his soil to completely dry out, but he also dislikes “wet feet,” or for the bottom layer of soil to be damp.

Because his very few wild relatives live in a protected canyon, it may be implied that Wollemi pines prefer protection from rapid temperature changes, Barberio says, adding that so far, he’s shown no signs of producing cones.

“We would love to have Wally produce cones in the future,” she says, “and of course we would try to plant and grow them.”

Until that time, Wally the Wollemi pine will be a signature plant in the greenhouse collection and an example, Barberio says, “that we can play a part in maintaining the diversity of the plant world.”

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CU Boulder alumni Judy and Rod McKeever donate a tree once considered extinct to the EBIO greenhouse, giving students a living example of modern conservation.

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Meet the scientist who stumbled into the cold—and stayed

Rachel Sauer — Mon, 17 Nov 2025 14:30:00 +0000

Meet the scientist who stumbled into the cold—and stayed Rachel Sauer Mon, 11/17/2025 - 07:30

Clint Talbott

John Cassano, professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences at CU Boulder, lead scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center and fellow at CIRES, recently returned from his 15th research trip to Antarctica

The first time John Cassano flew to Antarctica, he found the 12-hour commercial flight from Los Angeles to Auckland, New Zealand, uncomfortable. Then he boarded a C-130 cargo plane bound for Antarctica.

“Put me on a commercial plane in a middle seat for 12 hours,” he says, chuckling. “I’ll take that over being in a cargo plane any day.”

John Cassano, a CU Boulder professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences and self-described "weather weenie," has been pursuing research in Antarctica since 1994.

That was January 1994. Cassano was 25 and a graduate student who had agreed to work on a project installing weather stations in Greenland and Antarctica. He figured he’d go once, check Antarctica off his list and move on with life. Thirty years later, he’s still going back.

Cassano did not plan to be a polar researcher. Growing up in New York, he imagined a career in architecture—something tangible, predictable. But a freshman weather class at Montana State �Թ�� changed everything. “I decided architecture wasn’t for me.”

Meteorology seemed a better fit. Montana State didn’t offer meteorology, so Cassano earned an earth science degree and headed to graduate school at the �Թ�� of Wisconsin–Madison, intending to study storms. Then came an invitation from Charles Stearns, professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences, asking if Cassano would be interested in working on a project in Antarctica.

“I had no real interest in the polar regions,” Cassano admits. “But I wasn’t going to pass up the chance to go to Antarctica once.”

That “once” became a career. After two field seasons with Stearns, Cassano pursued a PhD at the �Թ�� of Wyoming, focusing on Antarctic meteorology. Today, as a professor in the �Թ�� of Colorado Boulder’s Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, he has lived about a year in Antarctica over the course of 15 trips there.

Cassano is also lead scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center and a fellow at CU Boulder’s Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences.

'A weather weenie at heart'

The science keeps him coming back. Cassano’s work explores how the atmosphere behaves in Earth’s most extreme environments—knowledge that underpins climate models and weather forecasts worldwide.

The adventure is also alluring. “I’m a weather weenie at heart,” he says. “I like experiencing extremes—strong winds, big snowstorms, really cold temperatures. Antarctica gives me that.”

He recalls standing in minus 56°F air, frostbite nipping his fingers as he launched drones. “I enjoy experiencing those conditions,” he says. “I wouldn’t want to camp in a tent for months like the early explorers, but I like the challenge.”

John Cassano (right) and then-fellow graduate student Mark Seefeldt (left), now a research scientist in Cassano's group at CIRES, on their first trip to Antarctica in 1994. (Photo: John Cassano)

Cassano’s contributions have helped reshape polar science. In 2009, he led the first U.S.-funded drone research campaign in Antarctica, opening new ways to measure the atmosphere where traditional instruments fall short.

“Drones let us probe the boundary layer—the part of the atmosphere that exchanges heat and moisture with the surface,” he explains. “That’s critical for understanding climate.”

Earlier, as a postdoctoral researcher at Ohio State �Թ��, Cassano helped modernize Antarctic weather forecasting. The Antarctic Mesoscale Prediction System, launched in 2001, transformed flight safety.

“When I started going down in the ’90s, forecasters were confident about eight hours out,” he says. “Now it’s five days. That’s huge.”

That’s a big change for several reasons, not the least of which is that an eight-hour forecast could change from the time a plane left Christchurch, New Zealand, and got closer to Antarctica. Planes often had to turn around mid-flight back then, Cassano recalls.

Witnessing dramatic changes

Cassano has witnessed dramatic changes in three decades of research.

Arctic sea ice has declined about 40 percent in recent decades. Antarctic sea ice, once at record highs, now hovers at record lows. Ice shelves are collapsing.

“These changes matter,” he says. “They alter the temperature gradient between the tropics and poles, which drives global weather. Even if you never go to the polar regions, it affects the storms you experience.”

Meanwhile, fieldwork isn’t all adventure. “Emotionally, it’s hard,” Cassano says. “When I was single, I didn’t mind being gone for months. Now, being away from my wife and daughter is tough.”

Comforts are few: shared dorm rooms, institutional food and the knowledge that if something happens at home, he can’t leave. “Once you’re there in August, you’re stuck until October.”

But Cassano treasures the Antarctic community—a self-selecting group of scientists and support staff who thrive in isolation. “You don’t wind up in Antarctica by mistake,” he says.

“Everyone wants to be there. Contractors work six-month stints and spend the rest of the year traveling. It’s like living in a travelogue.”

Kara Hartig (left), CIRES visiting fellow postdoc, and John Cassano (right), in Antarctica during the 2025 research season. (Photo: John Cassano)

He loves the stories: a mechanic who spent his off-season trekking through South America, a cook who had just returned from hiking in Nepal. “You hear all these amazing experiences,” Cassano says. “It’s like living inside a travel magazine.”

Behind every scientific breakthrough lies a vast support system. “I can focus on science because others make sure I have food, water, transportation and a warm place to sleep,” Cassano says. “That infrastructure is critical.”

Cassano worries about the cost of fieldwork and the ripple effects of recent disruptions. “Field projects are expensive,” he says. “COVID and a major McMurdo Station rebuild created a backlog. My project was supposed to be in the field in 2021—we went in 2025. NSF is still catching up.”

Federal priorities are a concern in the current political climate, but Cassano suggests that Antarctic research might be less vulnerable than other kinds of federally sponsored science.

“Antarctic research has always had a geopolitical dimension,” Cassano notes. “The Antarctic Treaty encourages nations to maintain scientific programs. It’s how you keep a seat at the table.”

Constant curiosity

For Cassano, mentoring is particularly rewarding. “I love bringing new people down,” he says. “Seeing Antarctica through their eyes makes me excited again.” On his latest trip, he watched a young researcher, Kara Hartig, CIRES visiting fellow postdoc, as she experienced the ice for the first time. “Her enthusiasm reminded me why I do this.”

That excitement ripples outward. After Cassano shared photos in class, a former student emailed, saying, “I’m on my way to Antarctica to work as a chef at McMurdo,” the largest research station on the continent.

“He just wanted to experience it,” Cassano says. “I think that’s awesome.”

Cassano’s curiosity remains undiminished. On his latest trip, when drones failed to arrive, he improvised with van-mounted sensors, uncovering puzzling temperature swings across the ice shelf.

What might we learn from the data? “It hints at important processes,” he says. “Now we need to go back and figure out why.”

After three decades, Cassano still marvels at the complexity of the atmosphere—and the urgency of understanding it. “Increasing our knowledge is broadly beneficial,” he says. “And for me, it’s just fascinating.”

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Top image: Sunset over the Royal Society Range (background), sea ice in McMurdo Sound (mid-ground) and McMurdo Station from John Cassano's 2025 Antarctic trip. (Photo: John Cassano)

Alliance relaunch highlights the geography of learning

Rachel Sauer — Wed, 12 Nov 2025 01:31:02 +0000

Alliance relaunch highlights the geography of learning Rachel Sauer Tue, 11/11/2025 - 18:31

Supporting the relaunch of the Colorado Geographic Alliance, CU Boulder Department of Geography aims to emphasize the interdisciplinarity of geography

The �Թ�� of Colorado Boulder Department of Geography is supporting the statewide relaunch of the Colorado Geographic Alliance (COGA), an initiative that promotes geography education at all levels.

The department is hosting a public relaunch celebration from 5:30-7:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 17, in room 235 of the �Թ�� Memorial Center.

If you go:

What: Colorado Geographic Alliance relaunch—free and open to the public, registration requested

When: 5:30-7:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 17

Where: �Թ�� Memorial Center room 235

Can't attend in person? Join the Zoom from 6-7 p.m. https://cuboulder.zoom.us/j/93774860010

Learn more

COGA provides K-12, college and university educators with lesson plans, hands-on activities, workshops and professional development and aims to promote and foster geography’s interconnections across environmental sciences, geographic information and data sciences, social sciences and the humanities.

COGA, which is part of a network of 54 geographic alliances across the United States, was founded at CU Boulder in 1986 as a collaboration between CU Boulder, Colorado university partners, the National Geographic Society and Colorado geographers. Colorado is one of the original seven states in the Geography Alliance Network.

The alliance was founded, in part, to provide resources and professional development for elementary and secondary school teachers, address policies related to geography education at the state and local levels and expose the public to activities related to geographic knowledge.

In relaunching COGA, leaders in the Department of Geography note, “We believe the inherent interdisciplinarity of geography provides an essential foundation for tackling the opportunities and challenges facing Colorado by providing students with an integrated set of skills to meet an ever-changing job market.

“This initiative will center Indigenous knowledge, focus on under-resourced schools and communities and highlight the value and experiences of Colorado’s diverse communities. We seek to communicate the importance of geography as both a public resource and a science for the common good of all Coloradans.”

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Supporting the relaunch of the Colorado Geographic Alliance, CU Boulder Department of Geography aims to emphasize the interdisciplinarity of geography.

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Top image: iStock

New Bachelor of Science degrees expand pathways in natural sciences

Timothy Grassley — Mon, 10 Nov 2025 13:50:15 +0000

New Bachelor of Science degrees expand pathways in natural sciences Timothy Grassley Mon, 11/10/2025 - 06:50

Degree options will give students broader opportunities to tailor their academic experiences and prepare for evolving careers in science, research and technology

Beginning fall semester 2026, the College of Arts and Sciences at the �Թ�� of Colorado Boulder will launch a suite of Bachelor of Science (BS) degrees across many majors in the Division of Natural Sciences, expanding opportunities for students to tailor their academic experiences and prepare for evolving careers in science, research and technology.

The new degree options in astrophysical and planetary sciences; atmospheric and oceanic sciences; biochemistry; chemistry; geological sciences (renamed Earth Science in Fall 2026); geography; integrative physiology; mathematics; molecular, cellular and developmental biology; neuroscience; physics; and statistics and data science reflect a growing demand from students, faculty, alumni and employers for programs that signal greater specialization in the sciences.

“We’ve listened to feedback from our students who want more clarity in how their degree reflects the work they’ve done,” says Irene Blair, dean of the Division of Natural Sciences. “The sciences are evolving rapidly, and our degree offerings must evolve with them. These new BS pathways empower students to pursue the laboratory, mathematical and computational studies they value while maintaining the flexibility that defines a liberal arts education.”

Most students in the natural sciences will see little or no change to their coursework; the introduction of BS degrees provides clarity about their specialization on their diplomas. At the same time, existing Bachelor of Arts (BA) options will remain available in many natural sciences departments – applied math, astrophysical and planetary sciences, ecology and evolutionary biology, environmental studies, geography, mathematics, psychology, physics, and public health – ensuring students retain the flexibility to explore interdisciplinary interests or combine majors, with their natural sciences major continuing to signal the skills and specialized knowledge they have gained.

“Offering both BA and BS degrees reflects our belief that success in science takes many forms,” says Blair. “We want students to have the freedom to pursue what inspires them, whether it’s deep research, broad exploration or innovative work across disciplines.”

The College of Arts and Sciences will share detailed guidance for current students and academic advisors in the months leading up to the August 2026 launch. For more information, see the BS degree FAQ page, which outlines the degrees that will automatically convert to the BS, those that require additional coursework, new degree offerings and how current students can explore their options.

Learn more about new Bachelor of Science degree options

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Degree options will give students broader opportunities to tailor their academic experiences and prepare for evolving careers in science, research and technology.

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CU Boulder mathematician honored by peers

Rachel Sauer — Thu, 06 Nov 2025 18:48:23 +0000

CU Boulder mathematician honored by peers Rachel Sauer Thu, 11/06/2025 - 11:48

Katherine Stange is named a fellow by the American Mathematical Society, becoming the second person in the math department to garner AMS recognition

Katherine Stange, a professor of mathematics at the �Թ�� of Colorado Boulder, is one of 40 mathematicians from around the world to be named a 2026 fellow of the American Mathematical Society.

Katherine Stange, a CU Boulder professor of mathematics, has been named a 2026 fellow of the American Mathematical Society.

AMS members designated as fellows have made “outstanding contributions to the creation, exposition, advancement, communication and utilization of mathematics,” according to the society.

“I am honored to congratulate the 2026 class of AMS fellows,” said AMS President Ravi Vakil. “Their research and service endeavors help ensure the health of the mathematical sciences on a daily basis. AMS fellows are selected from a substantial pool of accomplished candidates. Their collective achievements highlight the many ways individuals devote themselves to our beautiful and essential subject.”

“I'm grateful to my nominators and to all my colleagues, collaborators, students and mentors, who make mathematics such a beautiful and fun endeavor,” said Stange.

Stange’s area of research includes arithmetic geometry, elliptic curves, algebraic and integer sequences, cryptography, arithmetic dynamics, Apollonian circle packings and game theory.

Stange becomes the second CU Boulder Department of Mathematics professor to be named an AMS fellow; Agnes Beaudry was named a fellow in 2024.

Goals of the AMS fellows program include creating a class of mathematicians recognized by their peers for their professional contributions, lifting the profession through the provision of an honor, and supporting the advancement of mathematicians to leadership positions in both their institutions and the broader society.

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Katherine Stange is named a fellow by the American Mathematical Society, becoming the second person in the math department to garner AMS recognition.

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CU Boulder commits to green chemistry

Rachel Sauer — Tue, 04 Nov 2025 18:47:17 +0000

CU Boulder commits to green chemistry Rachel Sauer Tue, 11/04/2025 - 11:47

Rachel Sauer

In May, campus leaders signed the Green Chemistry Commitment to practice and teach sustainable chemistry—an effort being encouraged and advanced by students

For much of the history of chemistry, the science was done how it was done—with fleeting or no thought given to things like lab energy consumption or the environmental persistence of toxic chemicals used in experiments. Those things were simply considered the wages of scientific progress.

As early as the 1940s, however, some chemists began asking if there were better, less hazardous, less environmentally damaging ways to do the science. By the 1990s, chemists Paul Anastas and John Warner had given a name to this new approach: green chemistry. In their 1998 book Green Chemistry: Theory and Practice, they detailed the 12 principles of green chemistry, which include preventing waste rather than trying to treat it or clean it up after the fact and designing chemical products to preserve efficacy of function while reducing toxicity.

Since that time, green chemistry has become a movement as universities and labs around the world evolve the practice and teaching of chemistry to reduce its impact on environmental and human health and safety.

In May, CU Boulder �Թ�� Justin Schwartz and Department of Chemistry Chair Wei Zhang signed the Green Chemistry Commitment, not only committing CU Boulder to green chemistry in practice and principle but joining a worldwide network of universities working to expand the community of green chemists and affect lasting change in chemistry education.

The �Թ�� of Colorado Boulder has been very involved in the green chemistry movement, and in May �Թ�� Justin Schwartz and then-Department of Chemistry Chair Wei Zhang signed the Green Chemistry Commitment, not only committing CU Boulder to green chemistry in practice and principle, but joining a worldwide network of universities working to expand the community of green chemists and affect lasting change in chemistry education.

“Signing (the Green Chemistry Commitment) is an important step toward integrating green chemistry into curriculum, theory, toxicology and lab applications,” says Forrest Yegge, chair of the Green Chemistry CU Student Government (CUSG) Environmental Board subcommittee and a junior studying philosophy and ecology and evolutionary biology.

“Social justice-wise, I think it’s our responsibility to be more aware of the effects we are having on the environment,” adds Jules Immonen, a first-year student studying chemistry who serves as secretary of the CUSG Environmental Board. “Obviously, sustainability is something I’m passionate about, but even people who aren’t should be able to learn how to incorporate these practices in an easy way.”

Doing better chemistry

CU Boulder’s embrace of green chemistry has been growing for years, says Kathryn Ramirez-Aguilar, CU Boulder Green Labs Program manager. The Department of Chemistry and Green Labs have been partnering on green chemistry efforts on campus, leading initiatives on everything from education opportunities to sustainable lab practices. Signing the Green Chemistry Commitment (GCC) is an important step, Ramirez-Aguilar says: “It’s a huge opportunity to involve students in designing curriculum, and it aligns with CU’s Climate Action Plan outlined last year.” In fact, she adds, members of the CUSG Environmental Board have been at the vanguard of bringing the GCC to the attention of campus leadership.

Ashley Ley, a chemistry graduate candidate and member of the Green Chemistry CUSG Environmental Board subcommittee, emphasizes that green chemistry is most importantly about practice, not just theory. “If you look at someone like Dr. (Jacquie) Richardson, she’s been making changes to methods, working toward greener methods using less harmful chemicals in the Organic Chemistry Teaching Labs. In Organic Chemistry 2, there’s a lab focused on atom economy, and one of the previous (Green Labs Chemistry) team leads worked with Dr. Richardson to incorporate acetone recycling, so now organic chemistry teaching labs only use recycled acetone for cleaning.

“These labs have also started using water recirculatory buckets because there are reflux reactions where you need a ton of water and normally it would go through the condensers and down the sink. Now it’s being recirculated, and we’re saving a lot of water. Last summer, they incorporated no-touch doors in the labs [as part of a collaborative project with Green Labs], so you can get in and out of the labs without having to take off your gloves.”

In another campuswide green chemistry application, Amrita George, a professional research assistant of many years in the Department of Integrative Physiology and volunteer lead for the Green Labs Team, is working on introducing a chemical sharing initiative in which research labs share chemicals within their research building.

Kathryn Ramirez-Aguilar (left), CU Boulder Green Labs Program manager, and Matt Wise (right), director of chemistry instruction and Department of Chemistry associate chair, give a presentation about incorporating green chemistry into the introductory chemistry curriculum. (Photo: Kathryn Ramirez-Aguilar)

“This has a lot of support from the Environmental Health and Safety group,” George says. “It aligns with one of the principles of green chemistry, which is to reduce the total amount of hazardous chemicals used and, therefore, waste created. [The initiative] allows researchers to see the chemical inventory of other labs within their building and share amongst themselves rather than ordering new stocks for each lab, which is usually what researchers do. Often these stocks sit on the shelf and expire before the lab ever uses them again.”

Ramirez-Aguilar adds that the chemical sharing initiative is also a money saver for labs by reducing purchasing—which also benefits a reduction in carbon emissions similar to a campuswide focus on reducing labs’ energy consumption, as labs are among the most energy-intensive spaces on campus.

Valentina Osorio, a chemistry graduate student and member of the Green Chemistry CUSG Environmental Board subcommittee, adds that General Chemistry teaching faculty have adapted student experiments and lab processes so that they can use drops of a chemical rather than milliliters of it. This makes a significant difference when thousands of students are conducting the experiments each year.

Performing research sustainably

While the benefits of green chemistry practice and teaching are broad and affect many communities and populations, among those most affected are students, says Ana Curry, a chemistry graduate student and member of the Green Chemistry CUSG Environmental Board subcommittee: “I’m currently working in materials chemistry, and I believe strongly that if my research is focused on sustainability, I should also be performing that research sustainably.”

Osorio notes that while her research focus is environmental chemistry, “I’m studying the impacts of air and water pollution, and while I’m not really synthesizing anything, what I’m researching is largely impacted by what humans are doing.”

Yegge adds that in addition to the environmental and social justice benefits of green chemistry, “as I prepare for grad school and I’m increasingly worried about securing funding, I think that sustainable practices on campus and in labs are crucial for resilience in academia and in research. We need to be adopting these strategies so we can keep doing the science we’re doing.”

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In May, campus leaders signed the Green Chemistry Commitment to practice and teach sustainable chemistry—an effort being encouraged and advanced by students.

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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 Boulder 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 Boulder 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 �Թ�� of Colorado Boulder 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 Boulder 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 Boulder 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 Boulder Watershed Collective, Masters of the Environment students study what it means to live alongside beavers.

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Top photo: Amanda Opp

Students finding strength in numbers

Rachel Sauer — Wed, 29 Oct 2025 20:57:16 +0000

Students finding strength in numbers Rachel Sauer Wed, 10/29/2025 - 14:57

Rachel Sauer

Started by CU Boulder applied mathematics Teaching Professor Silva Chang, Colorado Math Circle is celebrating 20 years of bringing middle and high school students together in a community that has fun with math

It’s not always easy to be the student who does math for fun.

Even if the other kids aren’t weird about it, they still might not understand, so sometimes it can be easier to just brush it off. “Oh, math? Yeah, it’s OK.” But no, math is wonderful.

When one of Silva Chang’s high school teachers showed her a brochure for the six-week Hampshire College Summer Studies in Mathematics (HCSSiM) program, she wasn’t necessarily doing math for fun in her free time, but she was very good at it.

Silva Chang, a CU Boulder teaching professor of applied mathematics, was inspired to start the Colorado Math Circle in part from her high school experience in the Hampshire College Summer Studies in Mathematics program.

“I think he knew that I needed to get out of the city,” recalls Chang, a �Թ�� of Colorado Boulder full teaching professor of applied mathematics. “My parents were not college educated, they didn’t speak English, so I think he saw it as an opportunity that would open up my worldview.

“(HCSSiM) was a program where we did math 24-7, and it was the most fun I’ve ever had. I can say I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing today if I hadn’t had that experience. (The program) was transformative, it made math really fun, it made it silly, it presented math as an art form that’s not just useful for practical applications, but that’s beautiful by itself.”

Chang’s experiences at HCSSiM inspired her 20 years ago to start the Colorado Math Circle, an extracurricular organization that offers opportunities and mentoring for middle and high school math enthusiasts around Colorado. Further, she was interviewed about how HCSSiM inspired her for the documentary “Hunting Yellow Pigs,” of which there will be a free screening at 3:30 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 2, in Benson Earth Sciences room 180.

“I knew of certain students along the Front Range—all top students, some nationally ranked—and I wanted to be able to bring them together so they would have peer support,” Chang explains of starting Colorado Math Circle in 2005. “Some students can find peers, but some can’t. If you say, ‘I enjoy doing math problems all day,’ people might laugh at you, and you might try to hide that interest. I thought there should be a place where students didn’t have to hide their enthusiasm for math.”

‘Come and enjoy math’

For Chang, an interest in math grew from attending John Dewey High School in Brooklyn, New York, a school with a nontraditional pass/fail grading system and a longer, eight-hour day that allowed students to take more classes and explore their interests.

If you go

What: Free special screening of “Hunting Yellow Pigs,” a documentary about the Hampshire College Summer Studies in Mathematics program

When: 3:30-5 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 2

Where: Benson Earth Sciences room 180

Chang’s parents had emigrated from southeast China, and while they may not have been intimately familiar with the vagaries of the U.S. educational system, they knew that education led to opportunity, Chang says. However, when Chang’s teacher suggested she attend the six-week HCSSiM, her parents initially didn’t understand the significance.

With some parental convincing and bolstered by her membership on a New York City-wide high school team of top math students, Chang applied and was accepted. Initially, her family was asked to pay a small amount to attend, “and my parents said no. They didn’t have a lot of money, but I don’t think that was their reason. They were nervous about me leaving home. So, someone from HCSSiM called me up and said, ‘You turned down the acceptance, can you tell us why?’ and I said the reason was financial, so they offered a full scholarship.”

HCSSiM was started by Hampshire College founding faculty member David Kelly, who died June 20. Program organizers describe it as “college-level mathematics for talented and highly motivated high school students. It is demanding and expanding. Participants spend a major portion of each day actively engaged in doing mathematics (not simply learning the results of mathematics).”

“(David Kelly) was running the program when I attended in the 1970s, and he set the tone,” Chang says. “He just made it fun. Some of us were coming from more competitive or grade-oriented backgrounds, but his perspective was, ‘Come and enjoy math. Math is fun, math is beautiful, get what you can out of this program, take away what you can.’ They were teaching fairly high-level math, but it wasn’t competitive at all. It was like, ‘Let’s all do math together, let’s all learn together.’”

Creating a community

Participants in the Colorado Math Circle engage in a hands-on math learning activity. (Photo: Silva Chang)

After Chang came to CU Boulder and her children entered high school, she began thinking that she’d like to create a program similar in spirit and practice to HCSSiM, where students could come have fun doing math with others who love it, too. She also thought about the New York City-wide math team of which she’d been a member and wondered if there was a way to combine the two.

In 2005, she began contacting Front Range high schools and students to assemble a 15-member team that would compete in the 2006 American Regions Mathematics League (ARML) national math competition at the �Թ�� of Nevada. The team won first place in its division that year “and that was very motivating,” Chang recalls, “because we were competing against teams from around the country.”

Colorado Math Circle has sent a team comprised of students from around Colorado to that competition every year since, but after that first year Chang thought it was important to create a place for students who may not want to compete but who want to get together to do, discuss and learn math.

During the school year, students either come to the CU Boulder campus or participate in weekly problem-solving Zoom sessions. Initially created with a focus on high school students, Colorado Math Circle grew to include middle school students and help those who are interested prepare for the MATHCOUNTS competition.

“The first year we were more focused on preparing for competition, but after that we expanded it to a place where students could come learn about a variety of math topics,” Chang says. “Members of my department have come to give talks about their work, and we’ve been doing it long enough that we have math circle alumni coming back now.”

For the first 17 years of Colorado Math Circle, Chang was the sole director, but now program alumnus Thomas Davids serves as co-director and ARML coach.

In its 20 years, Colorado Math Circle has steadily grown; last year, more than 110 students from 45 Colorado schools participated. Over the years, students from as far as Grand Junction, Pueblo and Rangely have participated. “We don’t draw many students from any one school—the two largest are Fairview and Cherry Creek—it’s often one student from one school,” Chang says. “The main goal of the Colorado Math Circle is to teach students math, yes, and teach them problem-solving skills, but what we really provide is a community.

“These students teach themselves a lot of math, so the need we fill is helping them to create a community of friends who love math, too.”

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Top image: The 2023 Colorado Math Circle team that competed in the American Regions Mathematics League national competition, coached by program alumnus Thomas Davids (far left, holding plaque). (Photo: Silva Chang)

Department of Geological Sciences to become Department of Earth Science

Rachel Sauer — Tue, 28 Oct 2025 16:06:36 +0000

Department of Geological Sciences to become Department of Earth Science Rachel Sauer Tue, 10/28/2025 - 10:06

New name reflects more than a century of evolution and a commitment to understanding the whole planet

Beginning in August 2026, the �Թ�� of Colorado Boulder's Department of Geological Sciences will become the Department of Earth Science, a change that reflects both the department's contemporary research capabilities and the evolution of the discipline itself.

The decision, unanimously approved by department faculty and endorsed by campus and CU system leadership, comes after decades of expansion in the research and teaching mission to include areas of inquiry not typically associated with traditional notions of geology. Today, CU Boulder's Earth scientists study everything from the forces that shape landscapes and the movement of water to the evolution of ancient animals and the modern threats natural hazards pose to humans.

"'Geological Sciences' has served us well, but it also carries some old-fashioned connotations—people think of rocks and minerals. Our work today spans so much more. We study glaciers, water resources, tectonics, marine geochemistry and even the connections between life and the Earth's chemistry," says Anne Sheehan, professor and chair of the department. "'Earth Science' simply fits who we are now."

Reflecting national trends

The department’s name change follows similar updates at leading research universities across the country, including Yale, Stanford and the �Թ�� of Texas at Austin, all of which have rebranded their programs to better represent the interdisciplinary nature of Earth and planetary sciences. CU Boulder’s department, which is ranked among the top programs in the nation for geosciences and Earth science by U.S. News & World Report, joins this growing movement to modernize terminology and public understanding of the field.

“It’s a broader term that more accurately represents who we are and what we do. It aligns with some of our funding agencies,” says Sheehan. “The National Science Foundation has a Division of Earth Sciences and NASA has an Earth Sciences Division. The new department name also fits perfectly with our home on campus, the Benson Earth Sciences Building.”

A natural shift

Founded in 1902 as the Department of Geology and renamed Geological Sciences in 1969, the program has evolved in step with the science itself. Research once focused largely on identifying rock formations and fossil records now uses advanced tools including satellite sensing and isotopic dating to reveal the planet's deep past and forecast its future.

“Our department is over 100 years old. It was one of the first departments at the university and the first handful of faculty at the university included people teaching geology because mining was so central to Colorado and to Boulder,” says Sheehan. “The field has expanded, and technologies such as satellites and GPS have opened up all sorts of new avenues of exploration. The field has definitely grown as you hope a vital field would do.”

Preparing the next generation

The name change coincides with another significant milestone: the conversion of the department's Bachelor of Arts degree to a Bachelor of Science degree beginning in fall 2026, a change that better reflects the scientific training students already receive. The change from a Geology BA to an Earth Science BS will not affect current students' academic requirements or degrees; it will help the department better convey its identity to future generations.

For Irene Blair, dean of the Division of Natural Sciences, the new name is about clarity and connection.

“Students increasingly seek programs that connect scientific inquiry with solutions to global challenges such as sustainability and resource management,” says Blair. “Adopting the name ‘Earth Science’ clarifies for prospective students what this department already offers—a comprehensive, forward-looking education that prepares graduates to lead in science, industry and policy.”

As the department looks ahead to its next chapter, Sheehan emphasized that the new name honors both tradition and transformation.

"This change honors our history while positioning us for the future," Sheehan says. "It better represents the collective mission of the excellent faculty we have recruited, the research programs we have built and the important questions in the Earth sciences we are tackling. We bring these discoveries into our classrooms and our graduate programs to successfully train the next generation of Earth scientists.”

“And you know,” Sheehan adds, “I’m kind of hoping that there will be fewer rock jokes, but that might be hoping for too much.”

Learn more about the change

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New name reflects more than a century of evolution and a commitment to understanding the whole planet.

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