Alumni

One photo, many whales: scholar captures research above the Arctic Circle

Rachel Sauer — Mon, 02 Feb 2026 21:31:55 +0000

One photo, many whales: scholar captures research above the Arctic Circle Rachel Sauer Mon, 02/02/2026 - 14:31

Cody DeBos

For CU Boulder ecology and evolutionary biology alumna Emma Vogel, an award-winning photo captured a vital moment of research and science

Soft light slanted across the gray Norwegian sky, bouncing off the frigid water where Emma Vogel sat in a research boat. She had just helped her team tag a whale and was scanning the waves for the next group. It was a rare reprieve in what otherwise tends to be a chaotic venture.

She lifted her camera, but not for data collection this time. The scene was simply too vivid not to capture.

“I was super surprised about catching the little whale in the background of it, framed in the platform,” Vogel recalls. “That was a very, very nice surprise. I’m not often using my camera to take pictures of people, but the lighting was so atmospheric, I thought it would be a good shot.”

Emma Vogel, a 2016 CU Boulder graduate in ecology and evolutionary biology, is a postdoctoral researcher at The Arctic �Թ�� of Norway.

The photo, showing a researcher poised to launch a tracking tag set against a backdrop of swarming seabirds, went on to win Nature’s 2025 Scientist at Work photo competition.

For Vogel, a 2016 CU Boulder graduate, the image is more than an award-winner. It’s a snapshot of her life spent tracking giants of the ocean through the shifting currents of science and sustainability.

A path north

Vogel’s journey to the coast of Northern Norway, firmly situated in the Arctic Circle, began in Washington, D.C., but when it was time to go to college, the mountains of Colorado called.

“I thought Colorado looked beautiful. And I kind of always knew I wanted to do science or ecology, so it seemed like a perfect place for that,” she says.

During her time at CU Boulder, Vogel studied ecology and evolutionary biology, exploring the impact of forest fires and regrowth. A semester abroad in Sweden opened her eyes to marine science.

“I got to take some more aquatic and ocean marine-based courses and I fell in love with the field.”

After graduation, Vogel spent two years working in animal welfare policy with the Humane Society of the United States. However, she felt drawn to do hands-on research.

That led her to Tromsø, Norway, where she earned her master’s and PhD and now works as a postdoctoral researcher at the Arctic �Թ�� of Norway’s Arctic Sustainability Lab.

Fieldwork at the edge of the world

As one might imagine, life and research in the Arctic come with their own rhythms.

“Some of the unique, really wonderful things that maybe people wouldn't expect, is that it's such a diverse place, both the people and the ecosystems, the organisms that live here,” Vogel says. “We have a beautiful combination of mountains and ocean right in the same space.”

Fieldwork in this environment is both harsh and intimate. Vogel and her team spend weeks tracking and tagging humpback and killer whales in the fjords during the winter herring season. She says the process can be logistically easier than in other places because the whales stay close to the coast.

But the conditions are punishing.

“In the morning, we often need to shovel snow out of our boats before we can get started, and it’s cold enough where the seawater is freezing onto the boat. Temperatures are often well below zero while we’re out doing research.”

Luckily, Vogel has discovered something of a superpower.

“The thing that changed it for me was when I discovered battery-powered socks that you can put on a little cycle to heat up every 30 minutes,” she says with a grin. “They really make all the difference.”

Those socks come in handy during long days on the water when Vogel and her team are using air-powered tracking equipment to attach satellite transmitters to whales. The tags allow researchers to track their movements long after they disappear from the coast.

“Normally, once the whales get enough of the herring, we don’t know where they go. With the tags, we can see their movement patterns for a month to six months, depending on the species and tag,” she says.

From there, Vogel and her team can interpret the data to paint a clearer picture of what these oceanic giants do when they slip below the waves.

“We can figure out their behavior based on the data. If they’re slowing down and turning a lot in one area, we can say they’re possibly looking for food and foraging. If they’re traveling in a straight line really fast, then it’s kind of transiting behavior. For humpbacks, we’ve tracked them through a full migration. So, going down to the Caribbean and then back up to Norway and even up into the Barents Sea.

“These tags let us track them through the entire ocean and see things we otherwise wouldn’t be able to, which is, I think, really exciting.”

Emma Vogel's award-winning photo shows biologist Audun Rikardsen, her PhD advisor at The Arctic �Թ�� of Norway, battling waves in a northern Norwegian fjord, aided by the glow from a nearby fishing trawler.

Data-informed decisions

Part of Vogel’s work in the Arctic Sustainability Lab involves turning movement data into better marine policy.

“We are working to create ways to use tracking data to help spatial planners consider these migratory animals when designing local marine protected areas,” she says.

It’s a tricky challenge. Protected zones often prioritize stationary habitats for sea grasses and corals (and the animals that rely on them), not animals that travel hundreds or thousands of miles every year. Vogel and her team hope to change that by giving planners reliable data to inform their policy decisions.

But her work isn’t solely focused on marine life. She’s also part of a project called the Coastal Barometer, which helps quantify the health and sustainability of Northern Norway’s seaside communities.

“We developed a website called the Coastal Barometer to offer different ways of looking at and considering sustainability. It lets people from different municipalities click on where they’re from and see where they’re performing well and where there needs to be improvement,” Vogel says.

The project includes metrics for biodiversity, water quality, carbon storage, tourism, economic resilience and even a unique measure called “sense of place” that considers how much people value their connection to the local land and sea.

The latter is more urgent than ever. While Vogel doesn’t want to attribute all changes in her community to climate change, she’s already seen worrying signs.

“This last summer and the summer before we had about a month of days that you were able to go hiking in shorts in the Arctic. That’s been rare since I came here in 2018. For now, they’re nice, but you don’t want it much warmer.”

Those summer days may be rare enough to feel like a novelty today. But for researchers like Vogel, they are a quiet warning that even in the planet’s most rugged corners, change is underway. Thanks to valuable data collected by humans who care, communities and conservationists can be equipped with tools to adapt to those changes.

Boulder foundation, global reach

Despite her current home being thousands of miles away, Vogel still sees her time at CU Boulder as a defining chapter.

“It really set me up so well, I think, to be an interdisciplinary researcher. Not only taking science courses, but also exploring literature, communication, human geography. I even took a course about Vikings, which was quite fun,” she recalls.

That foundation has served her well in a career that now sprawls across ecology, community engagement and policy innovation. For students hoping to follow in her footsteps, Vogel has one piece of advice: “Genuine curiosity.”

“You need to really want to understand and be inquisitive,” she says. “To understand for the sake of understanding—not just taking your courses. Asking questions and not taking things at surface value, just always wondering, ‘Why? Why? Why?’ can really get you far.”

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For CU Boulder ecology and evolutionary biology alumna Emma Vogel, an award-winning photo captured a vital moment of research and science.

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Filmmaker charts path from rented cameras to Hollywood marquees

Rachel Sauer — Tue, 20 Jan 2026 22:35:57 +0000

Filmmaker charts path from rented cameras to Hollywood marquees Rachel Sauer Tue, 01/20/2026 - 15:35

Bradley Worrell

On campus on Wednesday for a screening of his movie Roofman, CU Boulder alum Derek Cianfrance praises the professors who mentored him and talks about what motivates him today as a filmmaker

From making short films as a teenager to sitting in the director’s chair today for Hollywood marquee films, Derek Cianfrance’s path to professional filmmaker has been anything but conventional.

Long before he directed films such as Blue Valentine and The Place Beyond the Pines, Cianfrance was a kid growing up in Lakewood, Colorado, who turned birthday parties into movie sets. At age 13, he was shooting short films on a rented video camera—driven by a sense of play that he says still fuels his work today.

In a recent, candid conversation with Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine, Cianfrance reflects on the formative years that shaped his vision, the mentors who guided him at the �Թ�� of Colorado Boulder and the persistence—and rejection—that defined his rise from short home films to Hollywood movies.

CU Boulder alumnus Derek Cianfrance directed films such as Blue Valentine and The Place Beyond the Pines, in addition to his most recent, Roofman.

Question: What’s it like for you to come back to Boulder now? And what are your plans while you are here?

Cianfrance: It’s always amazing coming back. Boulder shaped me as a filmmaker. I had transformative experiences there—with mentors like Phil Solomon, Stan Brakhage, Bruce Kawin, Don Yannacito and Jim Palmer. Some aren’t around anymore, but they left a mark.

On Wednesday evening, at the Muenzinger Auditorium, I’ll be screening my most recent movie, Roofman, and I’ll probably do an intro and a Q&A.

I’ve been back to Boulder many times since leaving college—and some of my most important relationships came from there. Every time I return, I enjoy getting to see the next generation of students and teachers carrying on that tradition.

Question: You started experimenting with film and other media as a teenager?

Cianfrance: Earlier, actually. At age 6, I borrowed my older brother’s tape recorder and used it to make skits, fake movie trailers and to do interviews. At 13, I rented a video camera from my school librarian at Green Mountain High School and made The Bat Movie, which was about this rubber bat that attacks people. The movie was 15 seconds long, four shots, and it was from the point of view of the bat. It was actually kind of funny and ridiculous. …

From then on, I kept making little films. It was play for me—like a sport. Even now, in my 50s, I feel connected to that 6-year-old—it’s still play at its best moments.

And, I have to say, my parents were very supportive. I feel very fortunate. They dealt with me putting a camera in their face, filming birthday parties, turning the birthday party into a set for my movie. If they hadn’t supported that, I don’t know if I would have had the confidence to keep going. My parents were awesome that way.

And I immersed myself in film. I grew up on VHS and Hollywood movies—Martin Scorsese and George Romero. I had a picture of Scorsese over my bed.

Question: Many aspiring filmmakers set their sights on NYU or UCLA. Why did you choose CU Boulder?

Cianfrance: I wanted to attend UCLA, USC or NYU as well. When I was in high school, I was obsessed with the film school generation back in the 1990s, but those schools were cost-prohibitive. I ended up going to CU because I knew they had a film program and Boulder seemed like a great place to be. I didn’t know what to expect, but it was transformative.

At CU, my professors deconstructed cinema. Stan Brakhage showed us films out of focus to study shadow and light, and very quickly I learned I was getting a unique education. It was avant-garde, experimental. I learned aesthetics and formalism differently. Bruce Kawin taught screenplay structure; Jim Palmer taught thematic analysis.

When I showed my student films at festivals, I realized just how unique my education was. NYU students had huge budgets; mine cost $1,000 and was shot on 16mm Bolex. CU taught me to embrace limitations. That has shaped everything I do.

If you go

CU Boulder alumnus Derek Cianfrance will be present for a screening of Roofman at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 21, and will participate in a Q&A after the film.

What: International Film Series screening of Roofman with writer and director Derek Cianfrance

When: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 21

Where: Muenzinger Auditorium E050

Admission: $8 students/$10 general admission

Learn more

Question: What year did you graduate?

Cianfrance: Well, I didn’t actually graduate. I spent five semesters at CU. At the time I entered film school, Trey Parker and Matt Stone (later of South Park TV series fame) had just graduated and made Alfred Packer: The Musical. I was watching that from afar, as this young, ambitious film student, and so by the time I was a junior, I decided I was going to make a feature, too.

I dropped out for what I thought at the time would be a semester, raised $40,000, and shot Brother Tied. It took four years to finish, and it went to Sundance in 1998.

I spent a year on the road with that film. I had no money. I was literally living off of hors d’oeuvres from film festivals. I was like Ratzo Rizzo from Midnight Cowboy at the film festivals, just stuffing my pockets with food. The movie went to about 30 festivals and it won a handful of awards.

I got a lot of business cards, and I met a lot of people in the industry while I was doing that. I was writing Blue Valentine at the time, so I started sending out scripts for Blue Valentine—and I got a lot of rejections. Just non-stop rejections, but I just kept working on it.

It was far from an instant success. From when I first started writing Blue Valentine it was 66 drafts and 11 years later that I shot it.

Question: After leaving CU, did you move to Hollywood?

Cianfrance: No, I moved to New York in 1999. I lived on couches, edited tribute videos for TV award shows and worked enough to buy time back to write. That leapfrogging lasted 10 years until I made Blue Valentine.

Derek Cianfrance's (striped jacket) most recent film, Roofman, is about a convicted spree robber who hides out in the roof of a Toys R Us after escaping from prison.

Question: Blue Valentine was praised by critics and received multiple award nominations. Did you feel like you had ‘arrived’ as a director after it debuted?

Cianfrance: I don’t believe in arrival points. It’s a journey. That hasn’t changed for me. That’s why I feel so connected to my 6-year-old inner child—because I’m doing the same process I’ve done forever.

When you experience success, it removes barriers, which can be dangerous. Resistance and rejection are blessings—because they force growth. Blue Valentine took 11 years because I needed that time. By the last draft, I was married with kids, so I could tell the story authentically.

Question: Many people aspire to become a screenwriter or director but success eludes them. What do you believe helped you break through?

Cianfrance: Focusing on the work—not ego. I never cared about seeing my name on a marquee—only the movie’s name. It’s about staying true to your inner voice. Success and failure both come, so keep swinging.

Question: Even today, rejection comes with the territory as a recognized director?

Cianfrance: That’s the life of a filmmaker. You’re just knocking on doors and saying, ‘Do you want to buy this idea that I have?’

No one’s ever asking for those (films). Like, no one was asking for Blue Valentine. No one was asking for Roofman. Those were things where I found myself in a story and then you have to get excited about them.

I always feel like making movies is like the energy source. It’s the sun. When I see an energy source that I’m attracted to, I start orbiting it. And my job is to pay so much attention to it that other people start to pay attention to it as well, because you can’t do it alone.

It’s not like being a painter or a writer. You can write all by yourself, but to be a filmmaker, you need so many people. It costs so much money and there’s so many different elements involved.

That process has not changed at all for me. Roofman, Brother Tied, Blue Valentine—every movie I’ve ever made is pretty much the same. What has happened to me, though, is actors like Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams believed in me—and because they believed in me, with the performances they delivered in Blue Valentine—that meant other actors would then trust me. And so, I think a definition of my work has really been about the quality, the vulnerability and the courage of the performances.

CU Boulder alumnus Derek Cianfrance (right) praises the vulnerability and courage of the performances from actors with whom he's worked (including Kirsten Dunst, left, in Roofman).

I don’t want to say I’ve arrived as a director, but that’s been the thing that allowed me to make the films that I’ve been able to make. Without my actors, I’m nothing.

Question: Today, what attracts you to a movie project?

Cianfrance: Family stories. Movies feel voyeuristic—about secrets, flaws and relationships. I’m interested in impossible choices and consequences. My films reflect my life: Blue Valentine came from being a child watching my parents’ marriage; Roofman reflects on being a father.

Question:Can you name a creative decision that you made as a director that scared you at the time but that you’re proud of now?

Cianfrance: Roofman, as a whole. It pushed me out of my comfort zone—I aimed for a tone that was sad and sweet, not just dark. It was terrifying but rewarding.

Question:If you had unlimited resources and no commercial expectations, what kind of movie would you make?

Cianfrance: Honestly, I’ve had that once, with HBO’s I Know This Much Is True. But limitations often create magic. Throwing money at problems isn’t always good.

Question:Are there any film genres you’d still like to explore?

Cianfrance: Horror. That’s how I got into movies—Creepshow was my first VHS obsession. Horror allows limitless experimentations in form. That excites me. You can go anywhere with a horror movie.

Question:If you could give two or three bullet points of advice for today’s CU Boulder film students, what would it be?

Cianfrance: Stay close to your friends. Help each other make things—you can’t do it alone. Get comfortable with rejection—it’s 99% of the process, so learn from it without losing your voice. And have a life—movies about movies aren’t enough.

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On campus on Wednesday for a screening of his movie Roofman, CU Boulder alum Derek Cianfrance praises the professors who mentored him and talks about what motivates him today as a filmmaker.

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Top photo: Derek Cianfrance (right, baseball cap) on the set of Roofman with actor Channing Tatum (in orange). (All photos courtesy Derek Cianfrance)

Couple capture the wonders of wildlife (and wolverines!)

Rachel Sauer — Tue, 13 Jan 2026 16:50:39 +0000

Couple capture the wonders of wildlife (and wolverines!) Rachel Sauer Tue, 01/13/2026 - 09:50

Clint Talbott

Having stepped away from high-powered careers, alumnus Scot Bealer and his wife, Lea Frye, now focus on what they love, writing about and photographing Rocky Mountain wildlife

Scot Bealer doesn’t think of himself as a writer, but he’s written one book and co-written another. The way he tells it, he just communicates about what he loves: wildlife and nature.

His partner in publishing and in life has, quite literally, the same focus. She’s a photographer.

Together, Bealer and Lea Frye, who are married, have published a new book titled Wildlife Through the Lens: Animal Stories from Montana and the Rocky Mountains, which fuses their lifelong passions for wildlife, photography and storytelling. Last year, they teamed up on Most Trout Don’t Read: Lessons from Time on the Water.

Scot Bealer (left), a 1986 CU Boulder biology graduate, and his wife, Lea Frye (right), recently published Wildlife Through the Lens: Animal Stories from Montana and the Rocky Mountains, which fuses their lifelong passions for wildlife, photography and storytelling.

His path from college biology student to author was not exactly linear. Here’s how it happened:

Bealer graduated from the �Թ�� of Colorado Boulder in 1986 with a BA in biology, cum laude, and went on to earn an MBA from Texas McCombs School of Business.

When he came to CU Boulder and majored in biology, he was initially baffled about why he had to take non-science courses. One of those courses was philosophy.

There were weekly writing assignments, and the professor returned Bealer’s first essay covered in red ink and bearing a “stunningly low grade.” The professor invited students who didn’t do well to see him during office hours. Bealer did that.

The professor told Bealer that he clearly knew the material and could talk about it, but writing was another story. “This will make a difference in your life, if you take the time to learn how to get your thoughts down on paper,” the professor told Bealer.

By the end of the semester, the professor praised Bealer’s progress, noting, “I hope you see how much you’ve changed in your writing.”

Bealer calls that encouragement “transformational.”

Science, fly fishing and business

At CU Boulder, he was mentored by biology professors Carl Bock and David Armstrong, who encouraged him to develop critical thinking and communication skills. Armstrong was Bealer’s advisor for his honors thesis.

After graduating from CU Boulder, Bealer joined a PhD program, thinking he’d go into academe. While in graduate school, though, Bealer took a job with the L.L. Bean fly-fishing school, where he worked with Dave Whitlock, who wrote and illustrated the L.L. Bean Fly-Fishing Handbook. He had such a satisfying time in Maine that he stayed at L.L. Bean and didn’t return to the PhD program.

An American badger featured in Wildlife Through the Lens: Animal Stories from Montana and the Rocky Mountains. (Photo: Lea Frye)

Also at the L.L. Bean Fly-Fishing School, Bealer met Brock Apfel, who would become a great friend and mentor and who encouraged him to go into the business world. Bealer got an MBA and launched a business career that went “pretty well,” he notes.

Bealer eventually rose to vice president of worldwide sales and marketing for Universal Air Travel Plan (UATP), a global payment network and expense management system for corporate air travel. Prior to that, he worked at Continental Airlines in revenue management.

At Continental Airlines, he crunched data to figure out when one person might pay $1,000 for a seat even if the person in the next seat paid $200. “Well, it was all about demand. And I was very good at analyzing statistics to predict demand on future flights,” he notes, adding: “The foundation in statistical work I did at CU is really what drove me to succeed in the realm I did from a business standpoint.”

Bealer found that in many ways working at UATP was that “dream job” with good pay and a chance to travel around the world, “which in one sense was spectacular. I got to do business trips to New Zealand, where I could bring my fly-fishing gear and take a few days” to fish. But constant travel is “not healthy,” and he stepped away from the dream job, eventually returning to work as a fly-fishing guide in Salida, Colorado.

“And I was back to doing what I loved. It was really kind of a fun circle, and it worked for both me and Lea, who also did very well in her business career. … We were kind of spendthrifts, so when we were ready to go do stuff that we loved, we could pay down debt and live on what we made doing jobs that paid less.”

“We’re working 60 to 80 hours a week on our book and photography ... we’re getting about 2% of the income we used to get, but we love everything we do,” notes CU Boulder alumnus Scot Bealer of producing Wildlife Through the Lens: Animal Stories from Montana and the Rocky Mountains. (Cover photograph: Lea Frye)

A shared love of the outdoors

Bealer and Frye both grew up loving nature and wildlife, which they continue to explore together:

They met in Texas, but their families are both from Pennsylvania, and both families enjoyed spotting animals in the wild. “Lea’s passion was wildlife photography ... She loved taking pictures of animals with little instamatic cameras.” Over time, those cameras would get bigger and better.

“Her mom and dad both loved taking pictures, and when she was 8 or 9, her dad built a dark room in their basement. She remembers going down and helping him with that archaic technology called developing film.”

One thing that cemented their bond was that Bealer and Frye loved spending time outside. “And if we saw an animal, we were happy to stop and watch it and see what it was doing. We might even wander off trail for miles because what it was doing was interesting, and we stayed with it.”

Bealer notes that many people love animals but are satisfied looking at pictures and getting outside a few times a year. “If they see something, cool; that’s exciting, and it shows up and then it goes away. Lea and I love to spend time watching what the animals do. We think seeing their little neat, quirky behaviors that are part of their life is just wonderful.”

Hitting the jackpot

But seeing and photographing wildlife can require a lot of time waiting and watching. Sometimes, the investment pays off. Last summer, Bealer and Frye were in the Montana wilderness when they spied (and photographed) a wolverine.

Such a sight is extraordinarily rare. Bealer calls it a “once-in-a-lifetime” encounter. He also calls it a “lottery-ticket kind of win.” (The wolverine photos are in Wildlife Through the Lens.)

“But our time in the field buys us a lot of lottery tickets. We still got lucky. I know people who have lived here all their lives; they’re serious outdoors people like I am. They still haven’t seen one.”

Then there are badgers, which few people see. Frye has photos of them, too. They spend a lot of time in prairie-dog colonies (because prairie dogs are a favorite food) but are less visible than prairie dogs. Bealer noted that Frye has an eagle eye for things like plumes of dirt rising from prairie-dog towns.

For instance, as they were driving, they noticed a puff of dirt flying into the air. “Most people would not have seen that or cared if they did because it was windy and there were lots of little dust plumes.”

But Bealer and Frye stopped the car. “Five plumes later a badger pops his head up. If you didn't stop when you saw that first plume, you wouldn’t have seen it.”

Bird lovers and ‘birders’

Bealer and Frye love to see birds, and Wildlife Through the Lens includes arresting images of birds. Still, they pause when they’re asked if they are “birders.”

Bealer puts it this way: Those who call themselves birders can be focused on completing “life lists” of birds they’ve seen and on traveling great distances to find an individual species. Meanwhile, “we don’t find as much excitement in seeing 10 new birds. We find the excitement in finding one bird and then watching it do something really cool.”

Nonetheless, Frye is keen to photograph the dance-on-water moves of the western grebe. Bealer says they’ve seen the grebes dancing on water. “We just didn’t get the pictures yet.” They’re planning to return to that same place next spring to try again, so one might call them “birder-adjacent.”

Among the wildlife that Scot Bealer and Lea Frye document are bighorn sheep. (Photo: Lea Frye)

Among the many other species they chronicle and display in their book are bighorn sheep. Bighorn males are known for butting heads (literally) in the rutting season. They’re less known for another contest of wills: kicking each other in the, um, privates.

In the book, Bealer notes that Frye was hesitant to publish the images. “But over time I convinced her that I couldn’t be the only adult in the world that still had the sense of humor of a 13-year-old.”

As soon as she printed the first one, he adds, “it became a hit.”

Bealer notes that he and Frye are a synergistic team.

“We can spend hours watching stuff without saying a whole lot,” he says, noting that they are both skilled at finding animals. “Lea is just hell on wheels finding nests. She can hear in a range that I can’t. And if we’re hiking and she hears baby birds, it’s like she’ll just stop and look up like there’s a nest and I haven’t heard a thing.”

When they make such a find, they’ll back away and make a note of where the nest was. They want to see the parents and watch the young grow.

Their previous book, Most Trout Don’t Read, reflects Bealer’s philosophy that fishing should be fun.

The book’s title “was a one-liner I used when teaching beginners about fly fishing,” he says, adding: “It doesn’t have to be complicated. You can take six fly patterns and fish a whole lifetime and catch lots of fish. You don’t need to be a master caster.”

Lifelong learning and reflection

From his career in business, Bealer saw the value of a broad education and critical thinking, especially in leadership roles:

“People coming out of school with technical degrees fill immediate needs, but for advanced roles, you need people who can think creatively and solve problems,” he says. “I became a huge fan of looking for people with a liberal arts education.”

Now retired, Scot and Lea continue to pursue their passions with enthusiasm and humility: “We’re working 60 to 80 hours a week on our book and photography ... we’re getting about 2% of the income we used to get, but we love everything we do.”

Even the writing.

“I would not go so far as to say that I’m a writer,” Bealer says, adding: “I translate oral stories into reasonable texts that hopefully people understand.”

Black bear

Northern pygmy owl

Mountain goats

Grizzly bear

Photos by Lea Frye

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Having stepped away from high-powered careers, alumnus Scot Bealer and his wife, Lea Frye, now focus on what they love, writing about and photographing Rocky Mountain wildlife.

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Top image: wolverine on a riverbank (Photo: Lea Frye)

Craft-beer pioneer is still eyeing the next big thing

Rachel Sauer — Thu, 16 Oct 2025 15:23:37 +0000

Craft-beer pioneer is still eyeing the next big thing Rachel Sauer Thu, 10/16/2025 - 09:23

Clint Talbott

Keith Villa, who invented Blue Moon Belgian White, thinks cannabis-infused beer might take off; he and his wife, Jodi, both CU Boulder alums, have launched an alcohol-free brewery that could help lead the way

Keith Villa did not set out to shake up the American beer industry. He’d aimed to become a medical doctor, but his love of biology led him to become a bona fide beer doctor. That led to the kind of career that happens once in a blue moon.

Or, rather, a Blue Moon.

In 1995, Villa invented what’s now known as Molson Coors Blue Moon Belgian White beer. Ultimately, it became the largest craft beer on the market.

Keith Villa (MCDBio'86) got his start in the science of beer by responding a job posting at Coors for someone to do molecular research on how to improve their yeast. (Photo: Jodi Villa)

After more than three decades at Molson Coors, Keith Villa and his wife, Jodi Villa, launched Ceria Brewing Co., which brews alcohol-free beer and is eyeing the potential for alcohol-free beer infused with cannabis. The Villas are still busy innovating, and their latest chapter is still being written.

It’s a tale with several plot twists, but one key player was the �Թ�� of Colorado Boulder.

Improving yeast

Before college, Keith Villa was inspired by his mother, who was a registered nurse at the Veterans Administration hospital in Denver. He resolved to become a pediatrician.

While in high school, Keith and Jodi met and began to forge their own partnership. They both enrolled at CU Boulder, he in a pre-med program and she in architectural engineering. Both graduated in 1986.

As a student in molecular, cellular and developmental biology, he worked in the laboratory of Professor Emeritus Lawrence “Larry” Gold, who founded NeXstar Pharmaceuticals.

In the Gold lab, Villa was helping graduate students conduct original research. In 1986, shortly before he graduated with his bachelor’s degree, Villa responded to a job posting at Coors for someone to do molecular research on how to improve their yeast.

“And I thought, ‘Wow, that’s exactly what I’m doing here.’”

Coors hired him more or less immediately, and he went to work trying to design a yeast that would make it cheaper to brew light beer. Although Villa was successful, the yeast was never used commercially, he notes.

After that project concluded, Villa told Coors he was ready to quit to pursue a PhD in biochemistry. Coors’ director of research and development made a counteroffer: Go to Belgium to join a PhD program in brewing, and Coors would foot the bill.

Keith and Jodi didn’t have a mortgage or family yet, so they said, “Let’s do it.”

Studying in Belgium

Belgium was an eye opener. Easy train rides to Germany, Switzerland and beyond widened their horizons to new beers, foods and regional dialects. He conducted his PhD research in Belgium and finished writing his dissertation in Colorado.

Villa’s bosses at Coors said, “Well, you just came back from Belgium. You know about these beers. Can you make something?”

“So that’s when I created Blue Moon,” Villa says.

The top executives at Coors had initial reservations about this new beer: Why was it cloudy and infused with orange peel and coriander, for instance? Eventually, however, Blue Moon became a billion-dollar brand, brewing 2 million barrels a year.

Keith Villa (in the CERIA lab in Brussels, Belgium) earned his PhD at CERIA and named his company in honor of it. (Photo: Jodi Villa)

By 2017, Villa had done “a lot of what I wanted to do in the brewing world,” and he retired from Coors. Soon, he and Jodi launched Ceria Brewing Co., which pays homage to Ceres, the Roman goddess of the harvest. “Ceria” also reflects CERIA, the acronym of the Belgian campus where Keith earned his PhD.

Initially, Ceria produced cannabis-infused beers sold through dispensaries in Colorado and California, and they were aimed at those who consume THC in moderation. But the products faced regulatory hurdles, not least of which is that the federal government doesn’t recognize cannabis as a legitimate business undertaking. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency classifies marijuana as a Schedule 1 controlled substance, even though individual states have legalized it to varying degrees.

'Bad movies, hot showers and vanilla'

Today, Ceria offers two non-infused alcohol-free beer styles: Grainwave Belgian-Style White and Indiewave Hoppy IPA. Grainwave is brewed with orange peel and coriander (sound familiar?) and is billed as pairing well with Mexican food, anything spicy, “bad movies, hot showers and vanilla.”

Indiewave, meanwhile, is said to pair well with “charcuterie, Middle Eastern cuisine, after-parties, rainy days, chocolate, your record collection.”

Ceria’s offerings are alcohol free, which differ from “non-alcoholic” beers. According to federal regulations, non-alcoholic beer must be sold with less than 0.5 % alcohol by volume. Alcohol-free beers must have 0.0%.

That distinction matters. One reason is that to infuse beer with THC, the psychotropic ingredient in cannabis, the beer must be alcohol free. And selling cannabis-infused beer could be, in Villa’s estimation, the next big thing.

Hemp-derived THC is a key ingredient. Hemp is distinguished from marijuana largely by the concentration of THC in each; hemp’s concentration is lower. In some states, it’s legal to distribute hemp-derived THC, and selling cannabis-infused beer there is more cost-effective for brewers and consumers.

In states where such sales are legal, Villa notes, consumers can buy cannabis-infused beer in many places, right next to alcoholic beers.

“And when you offer a consumer that choice, you see these beverages just start to take off,” Villa says, adding that there’s a sizable market of people who don’t want to drink alcohol, “or they want to switch back and forth, maybe alcohol this weekend, next weekend cannabis.”

“I would say that we were probably a little ahead of our time with what we did, because now when you look at hemp-derived THC, that really proves our original thesis that beverages with THC are a really great option for people that don’t want alcohol all the time, or they may find alcohol to be bad for their health.”

Now the Villas watch the national market and wait for regulatory changes that could help restart their efforts to sell cannabis-infused beer.

As Villa observed, “We socialize with beverages, and you can’t toast a bride and groom with a gummy.”

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Top photo: Jodi and Keith Villa and their daughter, Catherine (right), co-own Ceria Brewing Company. (Photo: Jodi Villa)

From Huffy to high tech, it's been a wild ride

Rachel Sauer — Fri, 05 Sep 2025 19:29:05 +0000

From Huffy to high tech, it's been a wild ride Rachel Sauer Fri, 09/05/2025 - 13:29

Rachel Sauer

For CU Boulder alumnus Todd Carver, what he learned in the lab as a student inspired industry-rocking innovation in developing digital bike-fitting technology

For a long time, one of the unspoken truths of cycling was that if you ride hard and long enough, it’s going to hurt: foot or hand numbness, back pain, shoulder pain, the list is intimidating.

Every rider feels it differently. For Todd Carver (IntPhys’00, MIntPhys’02), “my lower back is the problem. I struggled with my position but finally got to the point where I could ride pain-free as I understood the human body more and was actually able to make changes to my position on the bike.

“Plus, the bike’s adjustable, right, so you can move the seat, you can adjust your touchpoints to the bike, your hands, butt and feet can all be adjusted. And if you don’t adjust those and just plop yourself on the bike, there’s a chance you’re not going to perform well and you’re going to get injured.”

CU Boulder alumnus Todd Carver (IntPhys’00, MIntPhys’02) co-founded Retül, a bike fitting and product matching technology now used by professional cycling teams, performance centers, rehabilitation centers and bicycle retailers worldwide.

While working with Bill Byrnes and Rodger Kram, associate professors emeritus in the �Թ�� of Colorado Boulder Department of Integrative Physiology, in the Applied Exercise Science Laboratory during his graduate studies, Carver began wondering if competitive cycling—or even long-distance recreational cycling—needed to end in pain.

“The big thing the cycling world was missing was information about the rider—the human aspect,” Carver explains. “How should riders fit on a bike? How do you position a rider to be powerful, efficient and perform well? All the things I was learning in my academic career under Bill Byrnes and Rodger Kram—the focus of my research—was in predicting cycling performance, who’s going to perform well and who’s not.”

The problem was, there just weren’t that many tools to assess a rider’s position on their bike and give them a three-dimensional, dynamic bike fit. So, Carver and two colleagues developed one: Retül, a bike fitting and product matching technology now used by professional cycling teams, performance centers, rehabilitation centers and bicycle retailers worldwide.

Retül wrought such a change in the cycling world that Specialized acquired it in 2012. Now, as head of human performance for Specialized, Carver continues to innovate at the vanguard of cycling fit and performance.

“Riders just want to be pain free,” Carver says. “And even if they don’t care about being fast, they don’t want to push on the pedal and not go or push on the pedal and it hurts.”

Bike = freedom

Carver discovered young that pushing on a bike pedal is bliss and freedom in equal measure. “My first bike was a Huffy, and it was frickin’ rad,” he recalls. “As a kid, I realized that on a bike I can go way farther. So, I had this Huffy that I rode around the neighborhood, and it gave me a lot of freedom as a kid.”

Celebrate cycling (and correctly fitted bikes) Sunday, Sept. 7, at the Buffalo Bicycle Classic!

Learn more

His first “real” bike as a recreational and then competitive cyclist was a mountain bike, which he rode while figuring out what to do during the several years he lived in Breckenridge between high school and college. “I moved to Breckenridge and just got hooked on endurance sports, especially mountain biking, and I said, ‘I need to go study the science of this.’”

He came to CU Boulder and joined the cycling team, eventually realizing that he didn’t want to pursue professional cycling and that the science of riding held a lot more fascination for him. Plus, he brought to the performance lab and insiders knowledge of the problems cyclists could have.

“One of the studies that we did with Rodger (Kram) was measuring aerodynamic drag on bikes, and I saw how big of an opportunity fit was,” Carver says. “You can have a really fast bike, and that’s good, but the human body makes up 80 to 90% of drag.

Todd Carver (left) works with a cyclist to gather data for a bike fitting. (Photo: Todd Carver)

“To this day, we still do that analysis with all of our pro riders. We take them to the velodrome, measure aerodynamics and then work with fit to try to improve it. I’d almost say that one of the biggest impacts we’ve had is helping send professional and career cycling more toward science.”

After earning his master’s degree, Carver worked at the Boulder Center for Sports Medicine, where he and an engineer colleague, Cliff Simms, soon realized that people were flying in from as far as Europe to get fitted for bikes. He wondered why they couldn’t get fitted in their hometowns, “and it really came down to the technology. For a bike shop to get the digital technology was too expensive and it was too hard to run—you basically would need a master’s degree in biomechanics to do it—so this engineer friend and I started to look at how we could break down those barriers.”

They began developing a motion-capture system that measures length and trigonometric relation between small LED markers placed all over the cyclist’s body and synchronized to flash at certain times, a process that happens in milliseconds. 3D cameras positioned around the rider record the data, which is immediately analyzed and used to fit riders to bikes with millimeter precision.

Affordable, portable, easy to use

With partner Franko Vatterott, Carver and Simms founded Retül in 2007 with a goal of making bike fitting more affordable, portable, easy to use and data driven.

“I say I got my MBA starting a company,” Carver says. “I knew nothing, and I learned it starting a company. One big thing we learned is you better have a darn good product, and what we felt we had was a really good product, so that made some things easier. We didn’t need to take investment initially; we were able to just bootstrap it and work off the money we were making (during development).”

They also were building a database containing everything they were learning about different types of bodies and how they fit on bikes—data they knew would be appealing to bike manufacturers. In fact, he adds, the goal was always to sell to Specialized, which had worked with doctors on ergonomic design and lacked only data from digital fitting.

Todd Carver (right) shows a cyclist data from a digital bike fitting. (Photo: Todd Carver)

They initially worked with professional riders, drawing on connections Carver had made with riders in CU Boulder performance labs, and marketed Retül to fitting pro teams. “Then bike shops were coming to us saying, ‘We’d like to buy one of your systems.’

“From the rider point of view, what I was hearing was, ‘Wow, that feels way better, and it’s easier for me to pedal’ or ‘That completely got rid of my injury and now I can push harder.’ The problem might not be the bike itself, it just might be the saddle or the shoe or the footbed, or it just might be that the rider needs to reposition themself on the bike. From the rider point of view, that’s powerful because they could see that bike shops weren’t always trying to sell them a new bike, but had the data to say, ‘Let’s try a new saddle.’”

‘More fun with data’

As head of human performance for Specialized, Carver continues to work with riders at all levels and in all areas of cycling.

“We work in optimizing athlete and product performance using science,” Carver says. “In addition to fitting pros and selling fit systems to retailers, we do a lot of research and development—we take that fit knowledge we have and are able to then use that for ergonomic design of saddles, shoes and hand grips.

“How hand grips are shaped, for example, affects how a rider’s hand sits, which can mean the difference between a comfortable hand and one that goes numb. So, what we do is prototype and test and gather data for better design. We do so much work in saddles, which is the hardest thing on a bike to get right, so we’re always testing with pressure mapping.”

The overarching goal, Carver says, is to solve riders’ problems, “and that’s more fun with data.”

Carver often considers whether his life’s work is science or art, and figures it lives somewhere between the two: “We use scientific tools, have all these ranges, but we can’t know everything from that. I think that’s where the art comes in. You need to work with a lot of different riders—some who just want to ride bikes down to the grocery store and don’t want to be aerodynamic or fast—and you have to be able to empathize with that as well as the more competitive side of cycling. You have to have the human side, too, and really read people, have really good interviewing skills and listening skills to know what they want to do on a bike.

"I think I can empathize because I still love to ride, and I still feel that freedom when I get on my bike.”

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For CU Boulder alumnus Todd Carver, what he learned in the lab as a student inspired industry-rocking innovation in developing digital bike-fitting technology.

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Top image: A cyclist receives a bicycle fitting using technology co-developed by CU alumnus Todd Carver. (Photo: Todd Carver)

From renderings to reality: The renovated Roe Green Theatre opens

Anonymous — Mon, 06 Nov 2023 23:10:18 +0000

From renderings to reality: The renovated Roe Green Theatre opens Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 11/06/2023 - 16:10

Allison Nitch

'The arts give joy and meaning to life, and I’m so pleased that Roe Green has chosen to support CU Boulder and the surrounding community in such a creative and meaningful way,' says �Թ�� Phil DiStefano

With the grand opening of the renovated Roe Green Theatre on Nov. 3, the university has ushered in a new era for CU Boulder’s Department of Theatre & Dance.

To celebrate the theater’s opening, the department hosted a celebratory ribbon-cutting featuring remarks from campus and university leadership—as well as the theater’s namesake, Roe Green—ahead of the opening night performance of Working, A Musical.

The state-of-the-art renovations were made possible with a gift from arts patron, philanthropist and alumna Roe Green (Comm, Thtr’70) in 2021. Formerly known as the �Թ�� Theatre, the iconic theater was renamed in recognition of Green’s generosity.

At the top of the page: Roe Green, an arts patron, philanthropist and CU Boulder alumna, cuts the ceremonial ribbon for the newly renovated Roe Green Theatre. She is flanked by �Թ�� Philip DiStefano (left) and Bud Coleman, the Roe Green Professor of Theatre and associate dean of faculty affairs and initiatives in the College of Arts and Sciences. Above: Green enjoys a moment at the doors of the theater. (CU Boulder photos by Casey A. Cass)

“The arts give joy and meaning to life, and I’m so pleased that Roe Green has chosen to support CU Boulder and the surrounding community in such a creative and meaningful way,” said CU Boulder �Թ�� Phil DiStefano.

Innovation by design

Originally built in 1904 as the campus library on what would become the Norlin Quadrangle, the theater’s last major update was completed more than 30 years ago. According to the Campus Master Plan, a major addition in 1985 included new studios and classrooms for the Division of Dance. In 1989, the older sections were renovated, and a new stage house was added to provide a backstage and wings for the existing theater.

This time around, improving the theater-going experience through advanced acoustics and audience comfort were the key renovation goals. This included adding a near-silent air-handling system, improved stage lighting, optimized acoustic-speaker placement and faceted surfaces that clearly reflect sound from the stage to the audience.

“Our brilliant architects from Architectural Workshop not only achieved this goal—they were also able to improve the positions for theatrical lighting and speakers, the air handling and the overall aesthetics of the space,” said Bud Coleman, the Roe Green Professor of Theatre and associate dean of faculty affairs and initiatives in the College of Arts and Sciences.

“This is modern acoustical science at work—and the impacts are profound,” said Jonathan Spencer, assistant professor of lighting design, in a video tour of the renovated theater.

Embracing the arts

Green’s record-breaking $5 million gift—the largest ever to the Department of Theatre & Dance—was announced in 2021 and welcomed students and the community back to campus after pandemic restrictions.

“The arts are what make us human,” said Green when asked why supporting live performance matters. When budgets get tight, she said, “The first thing the schools take away are the arts. It should be the last thing they take away!”

In addition to the theater’s sweeping physical upgrades, Green’s gift also establishes endowed funds for student scholarships, theater maintenance and “launch” events designed to kick-start students’ careers.

The arts are what make us human,” said Green when asked why supporting live performance matters. When budgets get tight, she said, “The first thing the schools take away are the arts. It should be the last thing they take away!”

“Through her generous philanthropy, many more students, faculty, staff and community members will be able to embrace the life-changing power of theater and dance,” said DiStefano.

One of CU Boulder’s largest arts donors to date, Green previously established the campus's Roe Green Theatre Artist Residency Program and the theater department’s first endowed faculty chair.

Transforming lives, transforming the future

The renovated theater’s opening coincided with the debut of Working, A Musical—a celebration of the unsung heroes of everyday life, such as the schoolteacher, phone operator, waitress, millworker, mason and homemaker. In CU’s production, this classic has been updated for a modern age, featuring new interviews with Colorado workers and new songs by Tony Award-winning composer Lin-Manuel Miranda, as well as favorites by Stephen Schwartz, Craig Carnelia, James Taylor and Micki Grant.

Based on Studs Terkel’s best-selling book of interviews with American workers, the production runs through Nov. 12 and is the 2023–24 Roe Green Production. This program is funded by the Roe Green Visiting Theatre Artist Fund, which allows the Department of Theatre & Dance to invite professional guest artists to campus annually to work with CU Boulder students.

Coleman said Green’s generous gifts are truly an investment in the future of live performance at CU Boulder.

“Roe’s endowment will mean that the theater will continue to have funding to make necessary changes to stay current with new technologies, and will also provide scholarships for students to pursue the study of theater,” he said.

“Roe’s conviction in the power of theater to transform lives inspires us to work harder, work better and work smarter.”

Additional funding support was provided by the CU Boulder Graduate School Professional Master’s Program in Experience Design, the �Թ�� of Colorado Foundation and the CU Boulder Department of Theatre & Dance.

"The arts give joy and meaning to life, and I’m so pleased that Roe Green has chosen to support CU Boulder and the surrounding community in such a creative and meaningful way,” said CU Boulder �Թ�� Phil DiStefano.

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Award-winning filmmaker gives persistence, ‘energy’ to next generation

Anonymous — Tue, 14 Jun 2022 22:51:30 +0000

Award-winning filmmaker gives persistence, ‘energy’ to next generation Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 06/14/2022 - 16:51

Cody DeBos

John W. Comerford, who discovered the power of film at CU Boulder, arranges major gift to the Brakhage Center for Media Arts

A gust of Colorado night air washed over John W. Comerford (’90 Psych & Film) like a tidal wave.

The CU Boulder alumnus recalls stepping out for a breath of fresh air after viewing the hard-hitting Leni Riefenstahl Nazi propaganda piece Triumph of Will for a film-studies class.

Looking for a sign of where to take his career, that gust of wind led to an epiphany.

Film can change the world.

Under the wing of legendary experimental filmmaker Stan Brakhage, Comerford would go on to pursue a career in film and push the boundaries of what it means to tell stories on the big screen.

“I learned that the impact of film is a lot bigger than I had ever imagined,” Comerford says, reflecting on his time at CU Boulder.

At the top of the page: As principal at Paradigm Studio, John Comerford has helped produce and write a wide array of films. Above: Comerford hopes the gift he arranged to CU Boulder will help inspire young filmmakers to pursue a career in the industry.

He also reflected on a propaganda film from the Spanish Civil War period that Brakhage chose to show in class. The piece depicted scenes of seemingly normal life while the narrator spoke of sickness and suffering among the people. By all appearances, the people were healthy.

“This film demonstrated the power of narrative voice,” Comerford says.

He also pinpoints this as a pivotal moment in his career. He learned early on that film can be powerfully suggestive and that such power could be used to illuminate rather than manipulate.

Now, 30 years later, Comerford works as principal at Paradigm Studio, a production company. Comerford lends his visionary eye for the meaning of film to a wide array of projects and experimental pieces.

One of which, Around the Fire, co-written and produced with longtime friend and fellow CU Boulder alum Tommy Rosen (‘90), is slated for its 25th-anniversary re-release this year. The award-winning coming-of-age drama explores topics like adolescence, drug use and the importance of music culture.

Comerford attributes much of his success to CU Boulder’s spirit of discovery.

“I didn’t get a lot of direction from my parents growing up as far as what sort of career to pursue,” he says. “When my acceptance letter from CU Boulder arrived, it was actually dated on my birthday, Jan. 18. I thought, well, that’s a sign.”

Comerford’s first on-campus experience is committed to memory.

He reflects, “Coming down 36 and seeing the Flatirons for the first time, I thought, ‘Well this is going to be amazing.’”

Indeed, it was the start of something special for Comerford.

He has helped produce and write a number of critically acclaimed documentary and narrative films via Paradigm Studio, exploring topics from jazz music to gun violence. Themes of late include the environment and media literacy.

Lynch: A History made a splash as an experimental piece. It stitches together more than 700 internet video clips of former NFL running back Marshawn Lynch to form a narrative on race, media and the world of professional sports.

Comerford notes the piece has received praise from athletes at all levels, including from Lynch himself. He says it has also sparked discussions about the media’s impact among players and coaches throughout the sports industry.

Currently, Comerford has several projects in the works. He is producing a narrative feature film based on a true story of the fight to preserve California’s native redwood trees, authored by David Harris.

He’s also working with fellow Boulderite, filmmaker and musician Charles Hambleton on a film titled Kensu Maru. It highlights the search for a Japanese hospital ship laden with gold scuttled in the Philippines during WWII.

None of our productions happen without persistence. ... That persistence, and most importantly the persistence inspired by collaboration, is really essential.”

The story is about more than treasure, though. It is a tale of justice and defeating personal demons.

In recent years, Comerford has been thinking about how to give back. “The first thing that popped into my head was Stan,” he says.

“I did some research, and I thought of the Brakhage Center and the �Թ�� of Colorado. I just thought, ‘Wow, that is the perfect place to return to the world, if you will, the energy and spirit of that gift given to me by Stan.’”

Comerford helped arrange a gift of $30,000 to the Brakhage Center for Media Arts at CU Boulder. To be rolled out over three years, the gift is one of the largest ever received by the Brakhage Center.

He hopes the gift will help inspire young filmmakers to pursue a career in the industry. Comerford also hopes that students studying at CU Boulder will be able to gain a higher understanding of media literacy and its impact on consciousness.

Hanna Rose Shell, assicuarte professor and faculty director of the Brakhage Center for Media Arts, says the gift will do just that: “We at the Brakhage Center are thrilled to have the support and deep engagement from John Comerford, which will help enable students to enrich their horizons in the multiple realms of experimental film and beyond.”

When asked to share a bit of wisdom with those interested in pursuing a film career, Comerford offered two words:

“Collaboration and persistence.”

“None of our productions happen without persistence,” he adds. “Particularly as a producer, where you have the longest relationship with the motion picture of anyone involved. That persistence, and most importantly the persistence inspired by collaboration, is really essential.”

John W. Comerford, who discovered the power of film at CU Boulder, arranges major gift to its Brakhage Center for Media Arts.

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Family’s Buff roots sko deep

Anonymous — Mon, 02 May 2022 22:02:45 +0000

Family’s Buff roots sko deep Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 05/02/2022 - 16:02

Danny Long

Three generations of arts-and-sciences O’Donnells will celebrate this year’s commencement

Canton O’Donnell Jr. (Econ ’52) recalls driving his father’s car to a meeting that would alter the direction of his granddaughter’s life more than half a century later.

“I was a 17-year-old kid and scared to death,” says Canton, now 91, who has gone by the nickname “Scally” ever since “some uncle” called him a scalawag when he was very young.

Born in 1930 and reared in Denver, where he still lives, Scally had received a scholarship from the Navy. He just didn’t have anywhere to use it.

Though faced with a host of challenges in his early years—the Great Depression, his father’s deployment to Salt Lake City during World War II, his mother’s death when he was 10—Scally had earned good grades in high school and been accepted into several elite universities, including Yale, Dartmouth and CU Boulder. Problem was, none of those schools had room for him in their NROTC programs.

That’s when, half desperate and wholly determined, he drove to CU to explain his dilemma to the NROTC captain here.

The captain sat his desk, studying Scally’s file, before finally looking up at his anxious yet audacious visitor and saying, “So you want to come here and be a part of our unit?”

There was no question about it. “Yes, sir,” Scally said.

At the top of the page: (From left to right) Canton “Scally” O’Donnell in the 2021 Fourth of July parade in Grand Lake, Colorado (Photo courtesy John O’Donnell); John and Mary Jo O’Donnell in Amsterdam during the Semester at Sea Lifelong Learning Program (Photo courtesy John O’Donnell); Elizabeth “Libby” O’Donnell, who will be graduating on May 5, 2022, with a degree in integrative physiology (Photo courtesy Mary Jo O’Donnell). Above: (From left to right) John O’Donnell, Elizabeth “Libby” O’Donnell and Mary Jo O’Donnell (Photo courtesy Mary Jo O’Donnell).

“OK,” said the captain. “You’re in.”

Thus began the O’Donnell family’s CU Boulder story—with a touch of nerve and a dash of good luck.

Homecoming

John O’Donnell (Econ ’86), Scally’s son, also born and raised in Denver, began his chapter of the story at the �Թ�� of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington, despite having grown up going to CU football games at Folsom Field with his father.

It didn’t take long for him to realize he’d made the wrong decision. Puget Sound “was just too small,” John says, “and I didn’t like the weather. It really wasn’t satisfying the college experience for me.”

Things changed when he transferred to Boulder. “Immediately, I knew it was the right fit,” he says. He enjoyed the wide range of course options, the access to ski slopes, the athletics (he competed in club lacrosse), the people, one of whom, Mary Jo Lane (Commercial Recreation ’86), he would later marry.

And he enjoyed the football games. One in particular still burns bright in his memory: CU vs. Oklahoma, Nov. 15, 1986. Because a Buffs victory would ensure the team a spot in the Orange Bowl, John remembers, many students attended the cold game at Folsom with oranges in hand.

But alas, the talismans failed, and the Sooners won 28-0. “They crushed us,” says John. “Crushed our dreams.”

When Oklahoma’s Brian “The Boz” Bosworth, who would go on to play two seasons in the NFL, came over to the crowd to gloat, John says, the Buffs’ fans weren’t having it. “Fifteen thousand frozen oranges came flying down” upon the linebacker from the stands.

The Boz emerged from the citrus blitz unscathed, John admits with a hint (just a hint) of bitter disappointment, but that didn’t diminish John’s CU spirit. He and Mary Jo, an independent college counselor who may or may not give her clients the occasional nudge toward Boulder, continue to support the Buffs. They belong to an alumni group in Bozeman, Montana, where they moved to raise their three kids after living in Seattle for 12 years, and never miss homecoming.

Study Abroad

For Scally, John and Mary Jo, CU has been a constant companion, wherever they go—so constant, in fact, that it is sometimes difficult to determine if CU follows them or they follow CU.

After graduating in 1952, Scally spent a total of 35 months aboard the U.S.S. Seminole serving the U.S. Navy. By this time, he had decided to do away with his nickname, figuring he’d outgrown it. Fate, however, had other plans.

While at an officer’s club in Japan during the Korean War, Scally ran into a fellow Buff. “Hey, Scally!” his old classmate said.

One of Scally’s shipmates heard this and asked, “What did he call you?”

Scally attempted to divert attention away from the moniker, but to no avail. “Four days later,” Scally reminisces, chuckling, “why, everybody (on the ship) was calling me Scally. It stuck.”

John and Mary Jo recently returned from the Semester at Sea Lifelong Learning Program. Over the course of four months, they visited more than a dozen countries—starting in Italy and voyaging throughout the Mediterranean and Europe—and sat in on numerous lectures by university professors.

Among the many things they learned on the trip was how far-reaching the CU network can be. According to John, there were more alumni and students from CU on the journey than there were from any other school, a perk that transformed the ship of strangers into a place of familiarity. “We were quick to bond with one another,” John says. “It was kind of cool.”

Graduation

My parents would often tell me how grateful they were for their education, and my grandfather would regale me with colorful accounts of his NROTC days.”

A similar sense of familiarity has characterized the CU experience for John and Mary Jo’s youngest child, Elizabeth “Libby” O’Donnell, who is graduating this May with a degree in integrative physiology.

While she was growing up in Bozeman, Libby says, her parents would often tell her how grateful they were for their education, and her grandfather would regale her with colorful accounts of his NROTC days. On top of that, when it came time for her to select a school to attend, Libby had already spent many years touring the campus, attending football games and skiing the nearby slopes. (Libby, John and Scally each have a history of ski racing).

Boulder was for Libby a home away from home, not a “there” but a “here.” She was never pressured into attending CU, she says. There was never any need to pressure her. The place just felt right.

Libby says that attending her parents’ and grandfather’s alma mater brought her closer to them, providing them all with shared experiences. Some of these experiences, she says, could be downright spooky, like when she ended up living in the same residence hall (Farrand) and joining the same sorority (Delta Gamma) as her mother, a coincidence she calls “super weird,” but not in a bad way. “It feels very special to share that bond with my mom.”

Libby, who worked as a nurse aide at Boulder Community Hospital and hopes to become a physician’s associate, notes that her parents and grandparents, her “role models,” have been “huge support systems” while she’s been at CU.

John has been especially impressed with his daughter’s dedication to her studies. “For her to embrace (integrative physiology) and to take all these difficult classes in biology, physics, chemistry, epidemiology, endocrinology” and earn “great grades” is “pretty interesting,” he says, adding, “I don’t know if I was quite that good.”

Scally agrees that his granddaughter has studied hard, but he also points out that she has managed to “achieve a balance between work and play,” a balance he believes is crucial to a good life. Why? Family. “You got to work hard,” he says, but you also have to make time for loved ones.

On May 5, all three O’Donnell generations will once again return to Folsom Field, 70 years after Scally’s graduation. And when Libby dons the cap and gown and strolls across the stage to receive her degree, her parents’ and grandparents’ shouts of praise will surely rain down upon her from the stands, like flying frozen oranges.

Three generations of arts-and-sciences O’Donnells will celebrate this year’s commencement.

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Artist highlights juncture of the familiar, the unknown

Anonymous — Tue, 02 Feb 2021 19:49:47 +0000

Artist highlights juncture of the familiar, the unknown Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 02/02/2021 - 12:49

Marysia Lopez

Guggenheim-winning alum reflects on her career and time at CU Boulder

Now a successful working artist living in New York City with exhibitions at museums and galleries across the country, Barbara Takenaga was not always sure of her path while attending the �Թ�� of Colorado Boulder.

At the top of the page: Green Center Above: Barbara Takenaga

After receiving an undergraduate degree in English and fine art in 1972, Takenaga couldn’t bring herself to leave the Hill, where she rented a home with a group of close friends. Instead, she further explored an interest in art by taking one art course per semester.

It took some nudging from a friend, but eventually Takenaga applied and was accepted to the Master of Fine Arts program at CU Boulder. Despite the initial self-doubt about her work as an artist, Takenaga thrived in the program and focused on printmaking.

Printmaking, a medium focused on precise processes and steps, appealed to Takenaga’s

There’s such a wide range in the possibility of abstraction."

desire for control and order while still allowing for creativity and experimentation after the print was pulled. At the end of the three-year program, Takenaga was creating large wall pieces that incorporated repetition and abstraction.

The focus on process and abstraction harnessed at CU Boulder became an essential component of Takenaga’s artistic career. Today, Takenaga, a current Guggenheim memorial fellow and professor emerita of Williams College, is celebrated for her large-scale paintings and the way in which they teeter between abstraction and something slightly representational.

Her most recent works contain forms or imagery that feel somewhat biomorphic (reminiscent of nature or living organisms), cosmic or even landscape related, which can feel vaguely familiar to viewers. Takenaga says she hopes her viewers experience that sense of simultaneous recognition and confusion when looking at her paintings.

“I love to have that response where it’s familiar, but not. It’s almost something but it’s not. … It could be stars, or it could be bullet holes,” Takenaga explains. “There’s such a wide range in the possibility of abstraction.”

Takenaga achieves this dichotomy through a two-part process that begins with paint-pouring and ends with the time-consuming task of adding onto the canvas, carefully creating forms and patterns by hand. The first component injects elements of chance into the work, which Takenaga hoped would help loosen up her control issues around creating artwork. The second component allows Takenaga to regain control and create structure.

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The duality between these two steps resembles the duality between what viewers often experience when looking at her work—the familiar and the unknown. Takenaga says it is not uncommon for her to come across an old photograph or landscape and suddenly realize that as the source for one of her paintings.

“I think this means that there are things in my head, as well as yours, that are part of our visual language, and sometimes we’re not even aware of it.”

Though much of Takenaga’s work has been informed by her days at CU Boulder, it continues to evolve in ways that surprise even her. Most recently, she has begun to incorporate Japanese and Asian formats more overtly.

As a student, Takenaga was not as interested in “identity politics” as some of her peers were. Today, she finds herself rethinking issues of diversity in America. This has pushed her to create compositions that lend themselves to the Japanese prints she always admired.

No matter where her artwork takes her, Takenaga has a soft spot for CU Boulder and the 17 years she spent living here. While in the MFA program, she immersed herself in a community of supportive artists that she believes made a huge difference in both her personal life and career.

A memory that stands out from her time as an MFA student was when the renowned conceptual artist John Baldessari came to CU Boulder as a visiting artist. Takenaga had snagged the coveted role of picking up the artist from the airport and taking him to campus.

It had not occurred to her until she got to the airport that Baldessari’s famously tall, six-foot-seven frame would have some trouble fitting into her compact VW Rabbit. Uncomfortable as the ride may have been for Baldessarri, Takenaga valued the time she got to spend with the artist, whom she still considers a hero.

Asked if she has any advice for today’s art students, Takenaga admits that the art world is unpredictable. Acknowledging that luck and timing can play a big role in success, she believes that working hard is one of the few things that artists can control.

Takenaga also encourages art students to rely on their friends. The friendships Takenaga created in the MFA program helped shape who she is as an artist and person, and she says she will always carry these connections with her.

Guggenheim-winning alum reflects on her career and time at CU Boulder.

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Cave-dwelling alum digs up ancient creatures

Anonymous — Tue, 03 Nov 2020 16:54:14 +0000

Cave-dwelling alum digs up ancient creatures Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 11/03/2020 - 09:54

Julie Marshall

CU Boulder graduate delves into the deepest parts of Colorado mountains in search of the strange

As a freshman living in Stearns West Hall, Dave Steinmann (Phys, Bio’90)’s roommate, Dave Mckee, mentioned something that would prove life-changing: His father had an unusual hobby of exploring dark places where there are strangely beautiful, ancient life forms.

David Steinmann collecting new species of cave life. Photograph by Norman R. Thompson.

That was 1984. Today, Steinmann, 54, is a cave dweller too, but with federal permits to collect specimens and a team of experts who have confirmed his discoveries of more than 100 new species that thrive within the craggy walls and tubelike passages of Colorado’s high-altitude caves.

“In every cave, I guarantee there is something new to discover,” says Steinmann, whose work has been featured in National Geographic Magazine. Minuscule millipedes, spiders and pseudoscorpions—half-inch long relatives without a stinging tail—are among his collections.

New Species of Pseudoscorpion from near the Boulder Flatirons, not yet named. Photograph by Dave S.

Steinmann is a special breed, explains Frank-Thorsten Krell, senior curator of entomology for the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, where Steinmann is a research associate. “Exploring places that are hardly accessible and outright dangerous requires a certain mindset and a lot of expertise. Both he has. He is amazing. So much talent, expertise, and eyesight! I think he is the only or at least the by far most prolific discoverer of new cave life in Colorado and probably the Rocky Mountain Region.”

On a personal level, it’s fascinating to think about life that evolved over millions of years in the coldest, harshest climates, Steinmann says. “It’s amazing to look at body formations under the microscope and see creatures that are albino because of no sunlight, covered in sensory hairs used for feeling their way around, and most often have no eyes.”

Explorer at heart

Born in Illinois, the Steinmann family lived in Boulder for his dad’s postdoctoral studies in psychology at the �Թ�� of Colorado Boulder but moved when Steinmann was 7 years old.

“I remember thinking how nice Boulder was, and immediately planned to go to college here,” he says.

Debbie, Nathan and Dave Steinmann surrounded by cave ice crystals. Photograph by Sophia Zedalis.

Tiny albino springtail that is a newly discovered species. Photograph by Dave S.

At CU Boulder, the unparalleled quality and charm of his science professors—many he routinely sees when dropping off specimens at CU Boulder’s Museum Herbarium—was most memorable, he says, notably the late Professor Emeritus William (Bill) Weber, who helped Steinmann become a rare-plants specialist.

When he’s not exploring caves, Steinmann is working at his other job as a wetland’s consultant, including projects for the city of Boulder. Both endeavors, he says, resonate with a purpose to increase our knowledge of biodiversity in unusual places.

“Most people think of wetlands as a lake with cattail swaths, but I’m usually the one who will be on the side of the hill looking at microhabitats for rare plants and insects.”

Steinmann has always been an inquisitive soul, his longtime friend, Ross Dinkelspiel, says. “He got me into caving and changed my perspective on life underground,” he says. “But I could never see any of those darned tiny bugs that Dave could find.”

Steinman even recently found a new species of daddy longlegs in Mallory Cave near the Flatirons. Genetic studies have shown these harvestmen evolved from their surface ancestors nearly 10 million years ago.

And as a volunteer firefighter who lives in Gold Hill, Steinmann spends a good amount of time cutting trees, clearing grass and shrubs surrounding his home. During the 2010 Fourmile Canyon Fire, neighbors credited Steinmann for saving their community by spraying a foam barrier that slowed and evaporated 100-foot-tall roaring flames, according to Colorado Public Radio. He was on standby during this year’s unprecedented fires that came close to town. “Our house is fine, and we have a dog, Mishka, plus a cat and two toads that we evacuated.”

But if you ask him, his heart belongs to cave research.

“Caves are sensitive and irreplaceable ecosystems,” he says. “My goal is for others, especially young students, to discover caving.”

Life underground

Colorado has no shortage of caves to explore, Steinmann says. The longest—Groaning Cave north of Glenwood Springs—offers 12 miles of passageways leading into rooms with 100-foot-tall ceilings, adorned with giant stalactites or icicle-shaped mineral formations hanging from the ceiling, and stalagmites jutting from the earth floor like the open jaw of a mythical creature.

To reach these chambers, it takes a lot of bending, twisting and squeezing his 6-foot-5 body through tight passageways, in the dark while shining lights on (hopefully) anything moving. Humidity can reach 100 percent, while temperatures are near freezing, sometimes there’s waist-high water and debris to navigate, with house-sized boulders that could drop in an instant.

“Sometimes I feel like I’m on an Indiana Jones movie set,” Steinmann says, “but it’s a little gross,” because the tiniest critters are found on bat and pack rat droppings. So tiny, that it takes a wet paintbrush to collect rare invertebrates without damage.

During one outing, covered by National Geographic, he spotted masses of wriggling blood-red worms at Sulphur Cave in Steamboat Springs. The importance of this discovery—and what it took to collect them—shouldn’t be understated, says Krell of Denver’s museum, which preserves the specimens.

“It’s a deadly place for humans,” Krell explains, as the worms live in sulfuric acid, which drips from otherworldly hanging white blobs called snottites that “would dissolve your clothes.”

These tiny worms, Krell says, “might become interesting for medical research, astrobiology or the understanding of potential life on other planets.”

Most discoveries are named after Steinmann, and one pseudoscorpion (Onychiurus nathanieli) was named after his son, Nathan, who recently applied to CU Boulder and has been exploring caves with dad (and mom, Debbie) since he was 4 years old.

Next up is a trip to a Western Slope cave that’s home to primitive lampshade spiders, named for their hanging web shapes and dating back to a time when the Earth held one continent. “They are big and run very fast,” he says. “Just seeing new species can be wonderful,” Steinmann says. “Does it necessarily benefit people? Maybe. But to show life exists in unusual places where you don’t expect to find it, I feel that’s enough.”

CU Boulder graduate delves into the deepest parts of Colorado mountains in search of the strange.

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'The arts give joy and meaning to life, and I’m so pleased that Roe Green has chosen to support CU Boulder and the surrounding community in such a creative and meaningful way,' says �Թ�� Phil DiStefano