Faculty

Sanctuary brims with happy tales (and tails)

Rachel Sauer — Tue, 02 Dec 2025 14:30:00 +0000

Sanctuary brims with happy tales (and tails) Rachel Sauer Tue, 12/02/2025 - 07:30

Clint Talbott

Tails of Two Cities Sanctuary, founded and run by CU Boulder alumna Jess Osborne and her husband, CU Boulder Professor Myles Osborne, gives unwanted or neglected animals a safe, comfortable forever home

Why did this chicken cross the road? No one knew. And this was no joke.

Late last month, the chicken was strutting on Magnolia Road in the mountains near Nederland—a place inhabited by coyotes, fox and other canines. Three passersby stopped to help, and, together, they captured the bird by wrapping it in a shirt, whereupon one good Samaritan drove the bird to Tails of Two Cities Sanctuary.

Friends of the sanctuary posted the news to the local Facebook group, called Nedheads, hoping to find the chicken’s owner. No one claimed the bird.

Myles (left) and Jess Osborn founded Tails of Two Cities Sanctuary to rescue "unwanted and discarded animals and provide them with high-quality food and medical care to live out their natural lives.” (Photos: Clint Talbott)

It’s possible that the chicken wandered away from its home, through the forest, to this road. It’s also possible that the bird, which appears to be a rooster, was dumped on the side of the road because it won’t produce eggs. (Discarding roosters is common.)

Jess and Myles Osborne, who founded the sanctuary, have adopted the rooster and named it Chamonix, after the resort town in France. Like his namesake, Chamonix is striking, but why name a bird after a town? Thereby hangs a tale.

Tails of Two Cities Sanctuary is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit launched in 2021 by Jess, who graduated in 2005 from the �Թ�� of Colorado Boulder with degrees in communication and fine arts, and Myles, CU Boulder associate professor of history.

The sanctuary, just south of Magnolia Road west of Boulder, aims to rescue “unwanted and discarded animals and provide them with high-quality food and medical care to live out their natural lives.”

On the sanctuary’s 23-acre parcel, more than two-dozen animals—horses, pigs, goats, ducks, dogs, plus a cat, yak, donkey, turkey and, now, chicken—enjoy lives they otherwise would not have had.

And an oink-oink here…

Consider the pigs, named Bolton and Berlin, which a friend of the Osbornes noticed wandering on another roadside near Nederland. The pigs had broken out of their home because they were starving and didn’t have water, and their owner gave the OK to take the pigs. Bolton and Berlin now sleep, snort and snuffle, in the sanctuary’s loving embrace.

Each animal has a backstory.

Wilbur, a dog named for Wilbur, Washington, came to the sanctuary after his foster family refused to put him down, against the advice of three veterinarians, to join his biological brother, Ziggy, named after Zagazig, Egypt.

Chamonix the (suspected) rooster came to Tails of Two Cities Sanctuary in October after being found strutting alone on Magnolia Road near Nederland; attempts to find an owner were unsuccessful.

The brothers were both born with the same neurological disorder. Wilbur also has a dog version of Wilson’s disease, which makes him retain excessive amounts of copper. He takes medicine to remove copper from his blood.

Wilbur was in a wheelchair but now can walk, though unsteadily. Ziggy suffers from spells resembling seizures that prevented him from walking or standing at least 30 times a day. He often had to be carried.

Wilbur and Ziggy are clearly happy, though, and Jess dubs them the “wiggle brothers.”

Talkeetna (Alaska), a yak usually called “Tallie,” was born prematurely and was unlikely to survive. She was donated to the sanctuary, which took her to Colorado State �Թ�� and gave her a shot at survival. These days, Tallie is hale and hearty and hangs around with the goats. She seems to enjoy gently headbutting people who walk by.

London and Brooklyn are mini horses who had been awfully neglected. Both had severely overgrown hooves when they were rescued from a kill pen at auction. Brooklyn had suffered some kind of trauma when she was younger, and her left eye has been removed once at Tails to give her the same standard of care as humans and dogs.

Both mini horses love being taken for walks and chomping as much roadside grass as possible in the broad meadow that sits under a stunning vista featuring James Peak, South and North Arapahoe Peaks.

A herd of elk often gathers nearby, drawing curious glances from many of the animals, perhaps none more than Rio, a 2,000-pound draft horse whose head is higher than the eaves of the sanctuary.

Tails of Two Cities Sanctuary provides a loving home and high-quality care to animals in need and creates a welcoming place for humans to experience the love, joy and healing of connecting with animals.

When Tails adopted her from a rescue in Montana, Rio had a crooked foot and still needed extensive veterinary care to make sure she was comfortable and could walk comfortably. Now, she’s playful and mischievous, sometimes inadvertently crushing pieces of the aluminum fencing around the horses’ area.

Animals soothe the human psyche

Jess Osborne has always loved animals. As a kid in Gunbarrel, she collected the critters her mother could afford (and their home could accommodate): frogs, geckos, chickens and dogs.

Animals helped her feel better, much better. She has grappled with ADHD and anxiety since childhood. As she speaks, her focus can drift into several sometimes-related topics.

Jess Osborne with Tallie the yak (left) and Darwin the dog.

But focusing on animals is no problem. “Even though I can’t remember history or make it through any of Myles’ books without falling asleep, when it comes to medicines and animal care and stuff like that, I go down the hyper-focusing tunnel,” she told The Colorado Sun.

And the animals helped other people, too, Jess noticed. Nine years ago, when she was working at a nursing and memory-care facility in Boulder, Jess brought her dogs Dublin and Brisbane. The residents loved the dogs.

After adopting Brisbane and Dublin, who died in 2023, Jess and Myles adopted a bunny and, later, the mini horses.

This was the seed of an idea: Elderly people often can’t care for (or aren’t allowed to have) pets. Unwanted and abused animals need forever homes where they can live their best lives. And rescued animals can bring comfort and joy to people who—for many reasons—don’t have animals in their lives.

This was true for Jess’ grandmother, whom Jess and Myles took care of and who died in 2021. It was also true for a neighbor’s boy, who was on the autism spectrum.

He rode and brushed the horses to build core strength and fine motor skills. Occupational and physical therapists have shown that movement and interaction with horses can improve physical, cognitive and emotional well-being in people with varying conditions.

In the career world, Jess had not found her place, but launching an animal sanctuary was her calling. She and Myles bought the sanctuary’s current home, which is large enough to allow the sanctuary to help more animals and humans. There, they have room for large horses and the rest of the menagerie.

But what to call the sanctuary? Happy Tails wasn’t quite right. Given Myles’ extensive travel and his English background, Tails of Two Cities Sanctuary seemed to fit, even though the place is not Dickensian.

The name reflects the fact that both Jess and Myles love to read and travel.

Of course, the place, which had been a regular home with a two-car garage and a large deck, had to be converted to serve its primary residents, the animals. The garage was turned into a barn, and an additional shelter for the goats was built adjacent to the newly fashioned barn.

Myles Osborne with several of the eight goats, who often lounge on the sunny deck and fall asleep, snoring.

A sunny enclosure next to the deck serves as a warm spot for the pigs and sometimes the eight goats, who often lounge on the sunny deck and fall asleep, snoring.

Below the deck, the chicken, Chamonix, the newest feathered child, and ducks (Louise, Abe and Albie, after Lake Louise and Lake Abraham, Canada, and Lake Albert, Uganda) have their own petite house called the Duck Tails Saloon, which resembles an Old West bar, next to a small fenced area.

Jess, Myles and sanctuary volunteers build and mend fences, string electric fencing (which keeps big horses in and bears out), fashion goat playgrounds, and spend their days raking muck, preparing special food for two-dozen different palates and attending to the animals’ medical needs.

Being as bold as your dreams

It’s a lot of work and, no doubt, a fair amount of stress. As he talks about this, however, Myles’ demeanor remains steady and calm, just as it does when he discusses the history of colonialism in Africa, the necessary steps to refashion a horse fence or his attempted climb of Mount Everest, which he abandoned in the “death zone” to save a man’s life.

Myles suggests that the decision to start a sanctuary was a no-brainer:

“If you have a dream and something that you are excited about, you have to lean into it. And if you are in your early 40s and financially secure, if you're not gonna do it, then when are you gonna do it?”

He observes: “I do think that generally when people are brave and people lean into things that seem intimidating, it works itself out. … And why not be brave? Why not go for it? And it clearly is Jess’ passion in life. It's what she was put on the earth to do, very clearly. So it wasn't that tough of a decision.

“Now, keeping the numbers reasonable is a bit more of an ongoing conversation,” he adds. There are bills for veterinarians, racks of hay, tons of animal feed, walls of sawdust (for sleeping and padding) and more. The operation is 40% self-funded (down from 70% self-funded last year).

But it’s worth it, they say.

The couple still visit elder-care facilities in which there will be 25 or 30 people in wheelchairs in a circle. “And we just release 2,000 pounds of goats and yak and the dogs. And they all know exactly how to behave, how careful they need to be. And (the animals) will walk around the circle, they will greet everybody, everyone pets them.”

Tallie the yak was born prematurely and given scant odds of survival, but these days she is hale and hearty and hangs around with the goats. She seems to enjoy gently headbutting people who walk by.

Myles also relates a story about a blind woman who came to the sanctuary and walked onto the deck. Goats quickly crowded around her. The woman petted them and marveled aloud that four goats were pressing into her.

Myles told her there were actually six goats. Goats (seeking treats) can become pushy around fully able-bodied people, but they took it easy on this visitor.

“And then we said to her that there has actually been a 500-pound yak who has been two yards away from you for the past 15 minutes, who clearly understands that you have some issue that she's not familiar with and she's holding back and she's waiting.”

The animals, he adds, “understand instinctively when people are old or disabled or young or blind or something, they get it.” And for the woman, the experience was “profound.”

The next horizon

Tails of Two Cities Sanctuary has more its leaders hope to do. Chief among them is to build a “proper” barn that has more room for the animals, whose design facilitates feeding, cleaning, visitors’ experiences and volunteers’ work.

While that’s on the horizon, more immediate tasks remain. On a recent evening, Myles and three volunteers worked to rearrange and refashion the fence that keeps the horses from wandering away and separates the minis from the large horses and Murphy, the donkey.

As Myles worked here and there, tools usually in hand, Stanley, the turkey (named for Istanbul), followed Myles around.

Stanley came from a backyard homestead whose owners didn’t have the heart to slaughter him. And no wonder. Jess describes him as “the friendliest turkey on Earth.”

Stanley’s gobble, a cheerful trilling song, often punctuates the background sounds of barks, whinnies, bleats, clucks and snorts. Stanley tends to follow people around the sanctuary.

With Myles in the horse pen, Stanley performed some “turkey dances,” with Myles’ gentle encouragement and praise.

So there they were, human and animal, working and strutting, talking and gobbling. Two tales as one.

Learn more about Tails of Two Cities Sanctuary at this link.

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Space physicist Mihály Horányi honored as 2025 professor of distinction

Rachel Sauer — Fri, 24 Oct 2025 19:47:36 +0000

Space physicist Mihály Horányi honored as 2025 professor of distinction Rachel Sauer Fri, 10/24/2025 - 13:47

College of Arts and Sciences leadership and peers recognize the physics professor’s service, teaching and research with the award

Mihály Horányi, a �Թ�� of Colorado Boulder professor of physics, has been named the 2025 College Professor of Distinction by the College of Arts and Sciences in recognition of his exceptional service, teaching and research.

Mihály Horányi, a CU Boulder professor of physics, has been named the 2025 College Professor of Distinction by the College of Arts and Sciences.

The college presents this prestigious award annually to current faculty members who are scholars and artists of national and international renown and who are recognized by their college peers as teachers and colleagues of exceptional talent.

“I’m truly surprised and honored by this recognition from my peers,” Horányi says. “LASP and the Physics Department at CU Boulder are extraordinary communities of talented and passionate people who continually push the boundaries of scientific discovery and space exploration. I feel incredibly fortunate to have had the opportunity to collaborate with so many inspiring colleagues over the past 30 years.”

Horányi is a physicist who conducts theoretical and experimental investigations of space and laboratory complex (dusty) plasmas. He also studies electrodynamic processes and their role in the origin and evolution of the solar system, comets, planetary rings, and plasma surface interactions; dust charging, in situ and remote observations of dust; and dusty plasma laboratory experiments and space hardware development.

He received an M.S. degree in nuclear physics and a PhD in space physics at the Lorand Eotvos �Թ�� in Budapest, Hungary. While a graduate student, Horányi worked on the Vega mission to comet Halley. At that time, the Russian probes Vega 1 and Vega 2, as well as the European Space Agency Giotto and Japanese missions, were happening, and “the large international interest and the excitement of building instruments that would fly in deep space was mesmerizing to me,” he recalled in an interview with NASA. “For me, figuring out the most important science questions to ask, which measurements to make, and what is the right balance between capability, reliability, mass, power needs, schedule, and cost remains challenging and exciting ever since.”

Horányi joined the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) in 1992 and the CU Boulder Department of Physics in 1999. He served as a co-investigator for the dust instruments onboard the Ulysses, Galileo, and Cassini missions and as a principal investigator for the dust instruments built by LASP: the Student Dust Counter (SDC) onboard New Horizons, the Cosmic Dust Experiment (CDE) onboard the AIM satellite, and the Lunar Dust Experiment (LDEX) onboard the LADEE mission. He is the principal investigator for the Interstellar Dust Experiment (IDEX) onboard the recently launched IMAP mission.

He is the author or coauthor of more than 300 refereed publications and is a fellow of both the American Physical Society and the American Geophysical Union. The International Astronomical Union renamed Asteroid 1998 AX9 as 164701 Horányi in his honor.

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College of Arts and Sciences leadership and peers recognize the physics professor’s service, teaching and research with the award.

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CU Boulder instructor named a 2025-2026 Fulbright Scholar

Kylie Clarke — Wed, 16 Jul 2025 23:45:20 +0000

CU Boulder instructor named a 2025-2026 Fulbright Scholar Kylie Clarke Wed, 07/16/2025 - 17:45

Award will allow Associate Professor Katherine Lininger to teach at the �Թ�� of Trento and conduct research on the Tagliamento River floodplain in Italy

Katherine Lininger, a �Թ�� of Colorado Boulder Department of Geography associate professor, has received a U.S. Fulbright Scholar award starting in fall 2025 to study and teach in Italy. The award is provided by the U.S. Department of State and the Fulbright Scholarship Board.

The Fulbright award will allow Lininger to investigate interactions among floodplain vegetation, downed wood, water flows and sediment fluxes to better understand and predict changes in floodplains over time. With collaborators at the �Թ�� of Trento, she will conduct fieldwork, geospatial analyses and numerical modeling to understand ecogeomorphic processes in the Tagliamento River floodplain in northeastern Italy.

Additionally, Lininger will lecture in courses at the �Թ�� of Trento, lead field trips, give research seminars and mentor graduate students. She said her project will advance ecogeomorphic understanding of floodplains, which provide important ecosystem services, and will support her career trajectory and goals.

Katherine Lininger is an associate professor of geography whose research has mainly focused on large floodplain rivers. Her research methods include fieldwork, statistical modeling and remote sensing.

“I’m honored to take part in the Fulbright program and look forward to building internation connections and collaborations,” Lininger said. “With this award, I will work with researchers at the �Թ�� of Trento in Italy, investigating interactions between river flows, sediment fluxes and plants to better understand and predict physical and ecological changes in floodplains over time. Our work will inform management and restoration of river floodplains.”

Each year, more than 800 individuals teach or conduct research abroad through the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program. Since 1946, the Fulbright Program has provided more than 400,000 talented and accomplished students, artists and professionals with the opportunity to study, teach and conduct research abroad. Notable awards received by alumni include 63 Nobel Prizes, 98 Pulitzer Prizes and 82 McArthur Fellowships.

“The benefits extend beyond the individual recipient, raising the profile of their home institutions. We hope �Թ�� of Colorado Boulder can leverage Katherine Lininger’s engagement abroad to establish research and exchange relationships, connect with potential applicants and engage with your alumni in the host country,” the Fulbright Program said in its award announcement.

Fulbright is a program of the U.S. Department of State, with funding provided by the U.S. government. Participating governments and host institutions, corporations and foundations around the world also provide direct and indirect support to the program, which operates in more than 160 countries worldwide.

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Award will allow Associate Professor Katherine Lininger to teach at the �Թ�� of Trento and conduct research on the Tagliamento River floodplain in Italy.

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Artist features the beauty of nature on a 140-foot canvas

Rachel Sauer — Fri, 20 Jun 2025 15:21:21 +0000

Artist features the beauty of nature on a 140-foot canvas Rachel Sauer Fri, 06/20/2025 - 09:21

Rachel Sauer

‘The Tender Hand of the Unseen,’ an immersive video installation by CU Boulder artist Molly Valentine Dierks, is featured through June on D&F Tower in downtown Denver

It happens most often in autumn and winter, when large flocks of starlings roost in protected spots like woodlands, marshes and even buildings. Before settling for the night, often in the gloaming twilight, they sometimes paint the sky in formations called murmurations.

Hundreds—sometimes thousands—of starlings dance in undulating, ever-shifting shapes, a spontaneous choreography that fills the sky like the liquid fall of silk.

One day after class while she was earning her MFA at the �Թ�� of Michigan, Molly Valentine Dierks saw a murmuration of starlings. She pulled out her phone to capture it—footage that wasn’t as good as she’d like it to be but that nevertheless captured a transcendent moment of ephemeral sculpture in the sky.

Molly Valentine Dierks is an assistant teaching professor in the CU Boulder Department of Art and Art History.

Memories of that murmuration guided her in creating “The Tender Hand of the Unseen,” an immersive video installation that is a featured work through June on D&F Tower in downtown Denver, part of the Night Lights Denver program.

For Dierks, an assistant teaching professor in the �Թ�� of Colorado Boulder Department of Art and Art History, her work represents a confluence of many influences, musing on the nature of time and referencing periods of growth and rebirth.

As a sculptor and interdisciplinary artist, “and also a nature geek—I’m really interested in the idea of this physical sculptural performance in the sky,” Dierks explains. “They’re stunning, the patterns are beautiful, the way that they change is really gorgeous, plus there’s something about the idea of moving intuitively as a group that I think as human beings we don’t have or we’re not comfortable with. This society of beings is so in sync with one another that they can move as a fluid unit, and it’s also performance and also art.

If you go

What: "The Tender Hand of the Unseen" immersive video installation

Where: D&F Tower, 1601 Arapahoe Street, downtown Denver

When: Evenings through June

Learn more

“As an artist and educator, particularly in the classroom I really encourage my students to get in touch with their intuition and develop spiritual understanding of who they are. For me, as an artist, there’s something about looking at big flocks of birds that gets me in that state. We’re all so comfortable looking at screens, for example, but as a society we’re not really encouraged to just look at sky. (This piece) is an excuse to encourage people to look at sky, even though it's a screen that is sneakily subverting that tension.”

A 140-foot canvas

Public, site-specific art and installations are defining aspects of Dierks’ practice for their ability to foster healing, stillness and growth, she explains. So, when a friend told her about the Night Lights Denver program, she contacted the curator, David Moke, with her idea for a large-scale installation focused on starling murmurations.

When her proposal was accepted, the work of art began. The murmuration she recorded in Michigan didn’t work—there were a lot of trees in the way—so she worked with footage shot in the Netherlands that would be crisp and clear when projected onto the side of D&F Tower, a 140-foot canvas.

Molly Valentine Dierks' immersive video installation "The Tender Hand of the Unseen" will show on D&F Tower in downtown Denver through June. (Photos: Molly Valentine Dierks)

She manipulated and sculpted the footage on her computer, then did test projections from the parking garage near the tower that houses the Night Lights Denver projection center.

“I would bring a thumb drive with an hour-and-a-half of tests, and I just sat there and took a bunch of notes to figure out the best settings,” Dierks says. “(The footage) was taken at different times of day and in different weather conditions, so I could start to see that if the background was too dark or too blue or too purple, I couldn’t see the starlings as well as I wanted.

“I played with timing as well, slowing the footage down in spots and thinking about grains of sand or sand in a timer. I was looking for crescendos—not just contrast and brightness, but does it feel like a piece of music?”

The tender hand

The name of the work is a line from the poem “On Pain” by Kahlil Gibran, which also says:

And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy;

And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.

“We all go through difficult times: we go through grief, we go through breakups, and I found poetry kind of a resting spot for me,” Dierks explains. “I could read a poem and get outside the nuts and bolts and bureaucracy of everyday life and get to the heart of what I feel, after a while I started naming my pieces after lines in poems that spoke to me about certain stages in my life.”

In describing the work, Dierks wrote, “The work is my way of confronting a socially fractured landscape, where screens more frequently mediate our understanding of self … overshadowing more embodied connections to each other and the natural world.”

The piece is Dierks’ first large-scale projection, and although there’s really nowhere to hide with a 140-foot public canvas, Dierks says she wouldn’t want to. “There’s something really nice when you install in public, outside of the art world, (where) people don’t have to go to a gallery … I prefer it in a lot of ways.

“(D&F Tower) is in this beautiful area on 16th Street and there’s a park so people can walk around and look at it. When I did the first test last August, I could see people stopping and looking at it, looking at these beautiful formations, these birds in flight—just taking that moment to stop and look.”

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‘The Tender Hand of the Unseen,’ an immersive video installation by CU Boulder artist Molly Valentine Dierks, is featured through June on D&F Tower in downtown Denver.

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How a California dude became CU Boulder’s provost

Rachel Sauer — Fri, 06 Jun 2025 19:23:49 +0000

How a California dude became CU Boulder’s provost Rachel Sauer Fri, 06/06/2025 - 13:23

Clint Talbott

Before finding the joy of exploration as a university professor and chief academic officer, Russell Moore found it traveling the world

When Russell Moore went to college, the Vietnam War, Kent State killings, Watergate and an energy crisis dominated the nightly news.

Moore was studying biochemistry at the �Թ�� of California, Davis, and those tumultuous days made academics less than entrancing. “There was so much going on in the world, and as for college, well, I just didn’t see the point,” Moore recalled recently.

Biochemistry seemed “maybe interesting,” but it also seemed mostly focused on process, and the purpose wasn’t clear, Moore said.

Russell Moore (right) talks with Reiland Rabaka (left), director of the Center for African and African American Studies, before the State of the Campus address. (Photo: Glenn Asakawa/CU Boulder)

So after two and a half years of college, he dropped out to travel the world. At the time, his sister was a flight attendant for Pan Am Airways, and he got long-haul tickets “virtually free.” He went to the South Pacific, Southeast Asia, New Zealand and Australia.

Once back in the United States, he got a job but soon realized that “this job thing” also wasn’t compelling. So, he returned to college and began working in a research lab.

“That’s when things changed,” he said. “Then I saw the point.”

He was working in the lab of Irwin Segel, then a professor of biochemistry, who framed the scientific enterprise this way: “When you make a scientific discovery, you know something no one else on the planet knows, even if it’s minuscule and for only a few minutes or hours.”

Segel also told his students that science rarely progresses in large leaps; most of the time, it takes small steps. “I thought that was cool, like I could be part of something that was significant,” Moore said.

“I could see myself in that process, even though I wasn’t the quarterback. I was just a small contributor,” but playing that role got him “very, very interested in the research enterprise.”

After earning his BS in biochemistry from UC Davis, Moore studied physiology and earned a PhD from Washington State �Թ��.

Leaving college and returning was not so much a detour in his academic journey as a necessary part of the path. As he puts it, the experience widened his aperture, which helped him realize his eventual role as a university professor and chief academic officer for the �Թ�� of Colorado Boulder.

Initially, academic life seemed not to offer a foray into the unknown. “What I love about traveling is just a sense of exploration. And part of what I learned about myself is, particularly being in very foreign environments, you don’t have to fear the unknown. You can view it also as an exciting thing.”

Now, he eyes another journey into the unknown. He is about to retire.

From professor to administrator

Today, he is the university’s provost and executive vice chancellor for academic affairs. He has served as provost since 2010 and is a professor of integrative physiology and an adjunct professor in the Department of Medicine at the �Թ�� of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus.

Moore was appointed associate vice chancellor for research in 2006 and was named interim vice chancellor for research in 2009. He has taught at CU Boulder since 1993 and served as chair of the Department of Integrative Physiology from 1994 to 2001.

Russell Moore (front center, wearing blue shirt) and CU Boulder deans at a "The Big Lebowski"-themed tribute to Moore at the UMC Connection.

Before the department became dedicated to integrative physiology, it was the department of kinesiology, which had grown out of the university’s physical-education program.

A core group of faculty members launched the move to transform the kinesiology department into a department of physiology. By the early 2000s, CU Boulder’s Department of Integrative Physiology’s graduate program was ranked among the nation’s top 10.

Moore’s lab contributed to that reputation, focusing on the cellular basis for exercise-induced protection of the heart against ischemia-reperfusion injury and on the influences of diet and exercise on cardiac energy metabolism.

Moore said he appreciates the physical-education roots of his department. Paraphrasing an early 20th century physiologist, Moore said you can study a locomotive at rest, disassembling its engine and examining its parts, but that won’t really tell you how it works.

“You need to be able to study the locomotive while it’s moving,” Moore said. “And you can study physiology while I’m sitting in this chair, but I have arms and legs, and they’re not designed for me sitting in the chair. They’re designed for me to run and pick fruit and whatever.”

Studying organisms under stress, as they’re designed to function, is more revealing. Another thing that drew him to physiology is that much scientific research focuses on pathology rather than physiology. “And they’re not necessarily just reverses of each other. They’re two different paths. That just gets back to the exploring part, and that’s what’s fun.”

Similarly, conducting research is a different enterprise than becoming an academic administrator. Moore came to that when he “drew the short straw” and was named chair of his department.

“It was hard, really hard. I think department-chair jobs are the hardest jobs on campus, because if you’re making hard decisions, you’re making them with people whom you know really well,” he said.

“It’s easier to make hard decisions when you’re further removed interpersonally. I always know when I make a tough decision is impacting people. But it’s different when you’re working with peers-slash-friends.”

Moore volunteered for a campus-wide committee with a light workload, the research-misconduct committee, which hadn’t heard a case in years. Within months, allegations arose against Ward Churchill, a former ethnic-studies professor whom the university later fired for plagiarism and academic misconduct. Moore co-chaired the inquiry committee that initially investigated the charges against Churchill.

Churchill was also a controversial figure, calling victims of 9-11 terrorist attacks “little Eichmanns,” a reference to Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann.

Responding to a question about why such an initiation into academic administration was compelling, Moore said the experience taught him about research administration and research compliance.

“I didn’t know all of that stuff existed,” he said, adding, “Because I have such an affinity for research and discovery, I got really interested in that.” So he applied to be associate vice chancellor for research.

"You need to be able to study the locomotive while it’s moving. And you can study physiology while I’m sitting in this chair, but I have arms and legs, and they’re not designed for me sitting in the chair. They’re designed for me to run and pick fruit."

This, too, was a natural fit, he said, noting that he’s always loved research and scholarly endeavors on campus, whether they’re in science, arts and humanities, music; “it’s all incredibly interesting to me,” because all these disciplines involve the discovery or creation of things that are novel.

The regular-person leader

Bronson Hilliard, CU Boulder senior director of academic communications, has worked with six university presidents, five campus chancellors and a host of mid- and upper-level administrators in three decades of university service.

“Russ Moore is a complete human being,” Hilliard said. “He’s not only a good administrator; he’s a good human being. He’s brought into the role of being provost an abundant life experience … of erudition and education and training. But Russ adds to all of that a kind of regular-person quality that I’ve not seen in any administrator I’ve ever worked with.”

“He’s very much in touch with the impact of education on real people’s lives,” Hillard said, adding, as an example, that Moore worked to ensure a smooth path for students transferring from community colleges to CU Boulder.

Student success is one of Moore’s passions. As he tells it, in regular meetings with new employees, he’d ask every person a question for which there was, he emphasized, one right answer.

The question: “What’s your job?”

Employees might reply with, “groundskeeper” or “advisor,” for instance.

“The right answer is, ‘I’m here to make students successful,’” Moore observed, adding that Nobel laureates, groundbreaking spinoff companies, startling discoveries about the solar system, soaring musical scores—“we can’t do it without everybody’s contribution.”

Student success, along with knowledge discovery and dissemination, is “why we’re all here.”

Moore, Hillard said, has never lost touch with his roots; he grew up in Northern California, worked as a river-raft guide, enjoys fly fishing, loves to camp and hike and “knows his way around a backyard barbecue grill.”

“Every day I came to work with Russ, I knew I had a real human being at the center of the work,” Hilliard said.

“There’s the stereotype of an ivory tower, and Russ Moore is the antithesis of an ivory tower. If there is a Russ Moore tower, it’s made of very earthy substances, not ivory.”

That relatively unflappable, regular-person quality figures prominently in Moore’s favorite movie, The Big Lebowski. “He appreciates the character of the dude, who stays true to himself from the beginning of the movie to the end, even though all these things around him get completely unhinged,” Hilliard said.

“The dude abides,” a line from the film, suggests equanimity in the eye of a storm.

“So, Russ abides," Hilliard opined, "just like the dude.”

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Before finding the joy of exploration as a university professor and chief academic officer, Russell Moore found it traveling the world.

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College faculty and staff honored at 2025 recognition ceremony

Kylie Clarke — Thu, 01 May 2025 21:51:26 +0000

College faculty and staff honored at 2025 recognition ceremony Kylie Clarke Thu, 05/01/2025 - 15:51

The annual event recognizes excellence in teaching, scholarship and other work that is a highlight of the College of Arts and Sciences

Faculty and staff from across the �Թ�� of Colorado Boulder College of Arts and Sciences were honored at the Recognition Reception held Thursday afternoon in the Norlin Library.

Deans of division Irene Blair, Sarah E. Jackson and John-Michael Rivera presented gifts to faculty and staff being recognized for their outstanding achievements during the 2024-2025 academic year.

Awarded recognitions:

College Scholar Awards
Kahn Family Community Teaming Fund
ASCEND Awards
ASSETT Excellence in Teaching with Technology
Award Cogswell Award for Inspirational Instruction
College Professor of Distinction
CU Distinguished Professors
A&S Staﬀ Employees of the Year
Promotion to Full Professor
Tenure & Promotion to Associate Professor
Promotion to Teaching Professor
Promotion to Associate Teaching Professor

View the list of recognized faculty and staff

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The annual event recognizes excellence in teaching, scholarship and other work that is a highlight of the College of Arts and Sciences.

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College of Arts and Sciences faculty win 2025 Best Should Teach Awards

Rachel Sauer — Tue, 22 Apr 2025 13:30:00 +0000

College of Arts and Sciences faculty win 2025 Best Should Teach Awards Rachel Sauer Tue, 04/22/2025 - 07:30

Peter Hunt, Warren Sconiers and Josh Strayhorn will be honored during an awards ceremony May 1

Three College of Arts and Sciences faculty members have been recognized as 2025 Best Should Teach Award winners.

Peter Hunt, a professor of classics; Warren Sconiers, an associate teaching professor of ecology and evolutionary biology; and Josh Strayhorn, an associate professor of political science, will be recognized for their excellence in teaching and academic leadership at an awards ceremony from 6 to 9 p.m. May 1 in the CASE �Թ��s Hall and Auditorium.

Peter Hunt (left), Warren Sconiers (center) and Josh Strayhorn (right) have been recognized as 2025 Best Should Teach Award winners.

The Best Should Teach Initiative was established in 1996 by Lindley and Marguerite Stiles to support the idea that “the best should teach.” It celebrates excellence in teaching at primary, secondary and higher education levels and supports the preparation of college and university faculty, as well as public school teachers, in their disciplinary fields.

Hunt, who has been a faculty member at the �Թ�� of Colorado Boulder since 2000, is a classical Greek historian who studies warfare and society, slavery, historiography and oratory.

Sconiers trained as an insect ecologist, studying the effects of drought stress and changes in nutritional plant physiology and insect species composition. He also researches how to increase student engagement and learning in large classroom settings, focusing on peer-to-peer collaboration, self-efficacy, bridging biology teaching and research experiences and building instructor approachability.

Strayhorn, who joined the CU Boulder faculty in 2013, specializes in formal theory, political institutions and judicial politics. His research applies game-theoretic models in a variety of contexts. His work examines the implications of delegation, oversight and accountability mechanisms for outcomes within political and judicial hierarchies and for democratic governance.

The Best Should Teach Award ceremony is free and open to the public. The keynote speaker will be Alphonse Keasley, former associate vice chancellor in the Office of Diversity, Equity and Community Engagement at CU Boulder who has more than 30 years of experience as a faculty member, staff and administrator.

Best Should Teach events and awards are co-funded by the Ira and Ineva Baldwin Fund in the CU Foundation and Brian Good's private Best Should Teach Fund, with additional support from the Center for Teaching and Learning, the School of Education and the College of Arts and Sciences.

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Peter Hunt, Warren Sconiers and Josh Strayhorn will be honored during an awards ceremony May 1.

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Farm-diversification research wins high kudos

Rachel Sauer — Mon, 21 Apr 2025 19:03:22 +0000

Farm-diversification research wins high kudos Rachel Sauer Mon, 04/21/2025 - 13:03

Clint Talbott

CU Boulder’s Zia Mehrabi and an international group of researchers are named national champion of the Frontiers Planet Prize for research that finds environmental and social benefits of agricultural diversification

Widespread agricultural diversification could improve the health of the world’s environment and that of its people, a landmark study published last year found.

Zia Mehrabi, assistant professor of environmental studies at the �Թ�� of Colorado Boulder, alongside a large group of international researchers, has been named the U.S. national champion for the Frontiers Planet Prize, the Frontiers Research Foundation announced today.

As one of 19 national champions, Mehrabi and team are in contention to be named one of three international champions, each of whom will receive $1 million in funding to advance their research. The international champions will be announced at the Frontiers Planet Prize ceremony in Switzerland in June.

Zia Mehrabi, a CU Boulder assistant professor of environmental studies, has been named the U.S. national champion for the Frontiers Planet Prize. (Photo: Patrick Campbell/CU Boulder)

The Frontiers Planet Prize celebrates breakthroughs in Earth system and planetary science that “address these challenges and enable society to stay within the safe boundaries of the planet’s ecosystem.” The prize puts scientific rigor and ingenuity at its heart, helping researchers worldwide accelerate society toward a green renaissance, the Frontiers Research Foundation says.

Professor Jean-Claude Burgelman, director of the Frontiers Planet Prize, said the planet faces immense threats that require bold, transformative solutions rooted in evidence and validated by science.

“Innovative yet scalable solutions are the only way for us to ensure healthy lives on a healthy planet,” Burgelman said. “By spotlighting the most groundbreaking research, we are helping scientists bring their work to the international stage and provide the scientific consensus needed to guide our actions and policies.”

Mehrabi, who leads the Better Planet Laboratory, was recognized, alongside his co-authors, for an article published last year in the journal Science titled “Joint environmental and social benefits from diversified agriculture.”

Laura Vang Rasmussen of the �Թ�� of Copenhagen in Denmark and Ingo Grass of the �Թ�� of Hohenheim in Germany were lead authors of the paper, which had 58 co-authors. Claire Kremen of the �Թ�� of British Columbia was a senior author and co-principal investigator on the study.

The researchers found that diversifying crops and animals and improving habitat, soil and water conservation on individual farms can improve biodiversity while improving or, at a minimum, not coming at a cost to yields. Additionally, diversified farming can yield social benefits and improve food security—showing improved food access or a reduced number of hungry months, for example, particularly in smallholder systems.

The more diversification measures farms employed, the more benefits accrued, researchers observed. Essentially, the team found evidence to move toward agriculture that more closely reflects natural systems.

“If you look at how ecosystems operate, it’s not just plants growing alone. It’s not just animals or soil,” Mehrabi said last year. “It’s all of these things working together.”

Using data from 2,655 farms across 11 countries and covering five continents, the researchers combined qualitative methods and statistical models to analyze 24 different datasets. Each dataset studied farm sites with varying levels of diversification, including farms without any diversification practices. This allowed the team to assess the effects of applying more diversification strategies.

Diversified farming differs from the dominant model of agriculture: growing single crops or one animal on large tracts of land. That efficient, “monoculture” style of farming is a hallmark of agriculture after the Green Revolution, which reduced global famine by focusing on high-yield crops that rely on fertilizers and pesticides.

“The Green Revolution did many, many great things, but it came with a lot of costs,” Mehrabi says, noting that synthetic fertilizers and pesticides harm the environment.

Also, to increase labor productivity, large farms rely on mechanization, which tends to “replace people with machines.”

“If you look at how ecosystems operate, it’s not just plants growing alone. It’s not just animals or soil. It’s all of these things working together,” says Zia Mehrabi.

“So, the idea of trying to engineer nature into our agricultural systems is somewhat antithetical to the whole way we think about agricultural development,” Mehrabi says.

Making a case for a different way of doing agriculture is one thing. Implementing it on a widespread basis is something else. The dominant view, fostered by “big ag” (short for agriculture), is that “if you want to do ag, you’ve got to do it this way,” Mehrabi says.

“Our work challenges that idea, but it’s a bit of a David-and-Goliath situation,” he adds. “We have the stone, but it hasn’t yet landed.”

But it’s necessary to confront Goliath, Mehrabi contends, noting that agriculture affects all the things people care about environmentally, including climate change, water security, biodiversity, pollution, land use and habitat destruction.

A third of the Earth’s land is used for agriculture, and about a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions stem from agriculture, he notes. Climate change has reduced agricultural yields by as much as 5% to 10% in the last four decades, research has shown.

“If we want to do something about environmental issues, agriculture is one of the big buckets that we need to really, really start in.”

Separate from the research published in Science, Mehrabi has done modeling of the future state of agriculture globally if the world continues business-as-usual farming. He found that in the next century, the number of farms is likely to be cut in half and the average size of farms would likely double.

Given that, along with what scientists know about the loss of natural ecosystems as farm sizes increase, “the future looks a little bit bleak,” Mehrabi says. But this new research shows it could be different.

Though he does not suggest that all farms must be small farms, he does advise that agriculture strive to diversify systems that have been “massively depleted and massively simplified.”

�Թ�� the Frontiers Planet Prize, Mehrabi says he’s gratified to be recognized as one of 19 national champions. Additionally, he underscores the importance of the Frontiers Research Foundation’s financial commitment to this kind of research, calling it a “signal” to other funding entities that might follow suit.

Launched by the Frontiers Research Foundation on Earth Day 2022, the prize encourages universities worldwide to nominate their top three scientists working on understanding and putting forward pathways to stay within the safe operating space of nine planetary boundaries that are outlined by the Stockholm Resilience Center.

These nominations are then vetted at the national level, and the top scientists face an independent jury of 100—a group of renowned sustainability and planetary health experts chaired by Professor Johan Rockström—who vote for the National and International Champions.

Read a guest opinion by Zia Mehrabi and co-authors at this link. See a Q&A with Mehrabi about adding carbon-footprint labels on food at this link.

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Abby Hickcox wins 2025 Cogswell Award for Inspirational Instruction

Rachel Sauer — Tue, 15 Apr 2025 20:08:09 +0000

Abby Hickcox wins 2025 Cogswell Award for Inspirational Instruction Rachel Sauer Tue, 04/15/2025 - 14:08

Hickcox, a CU Boulder teaching associate professor of geography, is recognized for empowering students to think of themselves as creators of knowledge

Abby Hickcox, a teaching associate professor of geography and associate director of the Arts and Sciences Honors Program, has been named the 2025 Cogswell Award for Inspirational Instruction winner.

Supported by a generous donation from Craig Cogswell, a three-time alumnus of CU Boulder, the award recognizes outstanding instruction in the college, honoring individuals for their inspirational qualities and teaching abilities.

Hickcox, who also is co-principal investigator of the CU Boulder Affordable Housing Research Initiative, earned a BA in peace and global studies from Earlham College in 2000. In 2006, she received an MS from the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the �Թ�� of Wisconsin in Madison. Her master’s research investigated the privatization of common property (the Mexican ejido) in a national protected area in western Mexico. She earned her PhD in geography from the �Թ�� of Colorado in 2012 and joined the honors faculty that year.

Abby Hickcox (second from right, with faculty colleagues in the Arts and Sciences Honors Program) has won the 2025 Cogswell Award for Inspirational Instruction.

“I am so honored to be selected for the Cogswell Award!” Hickcox says. “Teaching is what I love most about my role in the Honors Program. To be selected for the Cogswell Award, which recognizes inspirational instruction, is heartwarming and affirming. I am honored that my colleagues and peers took the time to nominate me, and I am so grateful for the community I have at CU, especially my students.”

In nominating Hickcox for the award, her colleagues and students noted her innovative teaching practices, interdisciplinary focus and genuine care for students.

“(Hickcox) excels at creating an inclusive classroom where students feel safe to share their thoughts, ideas and opinions,” noted Amy Palmer, a professor of biochemistry and the 2024 Cogswell Award winner. “She challenges students to take ownership of their own learning and empowers them to think of themselves as creators of knowledge.”

A former student who took Hickcox’s Environment Society Geography class as a freshman detailed how Hickcox combines an “irresistible passion for geography and learning with an unparalleled care and respect for students and their experiences.”

The student added, “From the first day, Dr. Hickcox had us questioning what can even define the line between nature and the human world, and from this philosophical beginning we extrapolated from questions into frameworks into analysis of lawns and wolves. It rocked.

“Dr. Hickcox’s excitement permeates through the classroom with geographical jokes and contagious interest in people and places. She almost got me; I almost considered changing my major—I might still add a minor. One thing will stick with me forever: a deeper appreciation of our interaction as humans with the world.”

Focusing on human geography

"From the first day, Dr. Hickcox had us questioning what can even define the line between nature and the human world, and from this philosophical beginning we extrapolated from questions into frameworks into analysis of lawns and wolves. It rocked."

Hickcox also is faculty advisor for the Honors Journal, an interdisciplinary, student-run journal published annually by the Arts and Sciences Honors Program. A student who worked on the journal praised the community that Hickcox helped them cultivate as they worked on the journal—“the friendships, memories, creativity and mutual respect that was intentional and significant,” the student noted.

“There is one moment that will last with me for a long time: Towards the end of the semester, we had finished the stressful process of planning the release event for the journal. After we had finished tasks for the day, Dr. Hickcox told us that she wanted to take a moment to talk about what she had observed this semester and what she valued in each of us. I have not felt the same depth of honesty and genuine thoughtfulness from a professor before or since.”

Hickcox teaches five honors courses per year—both lower division and upper division—which include Sustainable Futures (GEOG 1972); Place, Power and Contemporary Culture (GEOG 3742); Environmental Justice (HONR 4075); and Racism in American Culture (HONR 4000). She recently overhauled the Honors Diversity Seminar (HONR 1810) and created a new Advanced Writing Seminar—Honors Journal Section (HONR 3220).

Her research expertise is in human geography and focuses on the relationship between people and the environment. Her areas of research include parks and protected areas, environmentalism, environmental justice, racism, racialization, white racial privilege and the politics of belonging and exclusion. Specifically, through examination of historical and contemporary data, her research addresses the complicated overlap between environmentalism, progressive politics and racism in Boulder.

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Hickcox, a CU Boulder teaching associate professor of geography, is recognized for empowering students to think of themselves as creators of knowledge.

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Exploring the changing politics of science

Rachel Sauer — Tue, 15 Apr 2025 14:50:58 +0000

Exploring the changing politics of science Rachel Sauer Tue, 04/15/2025 - 08:50

Students invited to enjoy a slice and discuss interaction of science policy and politics at Pizza & Politics event April 21

A study conducted by the Pew Research Center in October 2024 found that 76% of Americans express “a great deal or fair amount of confidence in scientists to act in the public’s best interests.” That’s the good news. The not-do-good news is that number is down from 86% in January 2019.

Also, the same study found that 48% of respondents feel scientists should “focus on establishing sound scientific facts and stay out of public policy debates.”

So, these are interesting times at the nexus of science policy and politics. This will be the theme of the Politics & Pizza discussion from 6:15 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Monday, April 21, in HUMN 250.

If you go

What: Politics & Pizza, "Science Policy and Politics"

When: 6:15 to 7:30 p.m. Monday, April 21

Where: HUMN 250

Free Cosmo's pizza!

The aim of the Politics & Pizza discussion series—which was initiated and will be moderated by Glen Krutz, a professor of political science—is to “encourage productive, substantive deliberation of specific topics, rather than rancorous and ideological macro-thoughts.”

Politics & Pizza, which includes free Cosmo’s pizza, is modeled on similar sessions offered in Harvard �Թ��’s Institute of Politics. Each session features expert speakers who give a few introductory thoughts about the session’s topic and then open the session to a question-and-answer with students.

In the sessions, which are designed to be highly interactive with the student audience, the panel of experts individually make initial comments on the session topic.

“However, the majority of the time is spent in questions and answers in a lively, interactive format that often induces nice interaction between the experts as well,” Krutz says. “The panelists can also ask questions of one another and feel free to banter as they wish.”

The expert panel for the Science Policy and Politics discussion will be Michael Detamore, alumnus of CU Boulder College of Engineering and Applied Science (CEAS) and director of the Translational Medicine Institute and professor of biomedical engineering and mechanical engineering at Colorado State �Թ��; Lori Hunter, director of the CU Boulder Institute of Behavioral Science and professor of sociology; Keith Molenaar, dean of the CU Boulder College of Engineering and Applied Science (CEAS) and K. Stanton Lewis Professor of Construction Engineering and Management; and Massimo Ruzzene, CU Boulder senior vice chancellor for Research & Innovation (RIO), dean of the Institutes and Slade Professor of Engineering.

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Students invited to enjoy a slice and discuss interaction of science policy and politics at Pizza & Politics event April 21.

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