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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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Karolin Luger wins Vilcek Prize in Biomedical Science

Rachel Sauer — Mon, 02 Feb 2026 18:01:29 +0000

Karolin Luger wins Vilcek Prize in Biomedical Science Rachel Sauer Mon, 02/02/2026 - 11:01

The award recognizes CU Boulder biochemist’s career dedication to the study of nucleosomes and groundbreaking discoveries

Karolin Luger, a distinguished professor of biochemistry and the Jennie Smoly Caruthers Endowed Chair of Biochemistry, has been awarded the 2026 Vilcek Prize in Biomedical Science.

The $100,000 award recognizes her career dedication to the study of nucleosomes—research that led to the groundbreaking capture of a high-resolution image of chromatin and resulted in the development of novel drug treatments for diseases including cancer.

The Vilcek Foundation Prizes in Biomedical Science honor immigrants who are leading advancements in biomedical research in the United States. Prize co-founder Jan Vilcek—whose research led to the development of the drug Remicade—established prizes to support distinct ingenuity in scientific inquiry.

Karolin Luger, a distinguished professor of biochemistry and the Jennie Smoly Caruthers Endowed Chair of Biochemistry, has been awarded the 2026 Vilcek Prize in Biomedical Science. (Photo: Vilcek Foundation)

Presented annually since 2006, the Vilcek Foundation prizes honor immigrant contributions to societal advancement in the United States and recognize excellence in the arts and sciences. Since the prizes program began 20 years ago, the Vilcek Foundation has awarded $9.6 million to individuals “whose perspectives, creativity and vision have enriched the United States.”

“The Vilcek Foundation community are unwavering champions of the immigrants and leaders who advance every facet of our culture,” said Vilcek Foundation President Rick Kinsel. “The United States is a nation defined by freedom of expression, imagination and opportunity. This 20th group of prizewinners demonstrates our unshakeable commitment to honor those who embody the spirit of resiliency that defines our country and society.”

Luger, who is an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, became interested in science at an early age, using a microscope to study the plants and soil in her garden at the microscopic level. She earned Bachelor and Master of Science degrees in biochemistry from the �Թ�� of Innsbruck in Austria and a PhD in biochemistry and biophysics from the �Թ�� of Basel in Switzerland before immigrating to the United States in 1990.

“I came (to the United States) to join this amazing scientific enterprise that is the envy of the entire world,” Luger said.

As an immigrant from Austria who has participated in international research collaborations throughout her career, Luger notes that cross-cultural perspectives are essential to continued scientific advancement.

“Diversity is key because everything becomes clearer and more three-dimensional when illuminated from all sides,” said Luger. “To borrow a concept from structural biology: You need to see ‘all orientations!’ This can only be achieved with a diverse workforce where people constantly question each other’s assumptions.”

‘The central dogma’

In her postdoctoral studies at ETH Zürich in Switzerland, Luger focused on the atomic structure of nucleosomes, the discovery of which would help scientists understand fundamental aspects of the human genome. After eight years of research, Luger and her colleague, Tim Richmond at ETH Zürich, published a groundbreaking paper that has influenced innumerable studies and changed how researchers understand the interactions of proteins within the nucleosome, how proteins are modified and how this controls gene activity.

Since its publication 28 years ago, the paper has been cited more than 12,000 times and is included in biology textbooks and classes as part of “the central dogma.”

Because of Luger’s discovery, many diseases have since been found to stem from mutations in the nucleosome, resulting in the development of successful drug treatments. Luger continues to study nucleosomes in her laboratory work.

“Like many others, my lab has built on this original discovery, and we continue to be surprised by the elegant and complicated ways in which DNA access is regulated by nucleosomes,” Luger said. “I am proud to have contributed a bit of beauty and knowledge to the world.”

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The award recognizes CU Boulder biochemist’s career dedication to the study of nucleosomes and groundbreaking discoveries.

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Scholar studies humanity through skin and ink

Rachel Sauer — Thu, 29 Jan 2026 17:51:52 +0000

Scholar studies humanity through skin and ink Rachel Sauer Thu, 01/29/2026 - 10:51

Chris Quirk

In his new book Indigenous Tattoo Traditions, CU Boulder alumnus and Tattoo Hunters host Lars Krutak highlights traditional techniques that sometimes date back millennia

Lars Krutak is not the kind of scholar who is content to simply write about his field. Krutak, a 1993 �Թ�� of Colorado Boulder graduate in art history and anthropology, is an internationally recognized researcher of the history and culture of tattoos and has about 40 of them himself. He even went under the knife for his research—a scarification ritual of the Kaningara people of Papua New Guinea, during which an elder made more than 400 incisions in his skin.

CU Boulder alumnus Lars Krutak (left) has studied with indigenous artists around the world, including Pius (right), one of the last Makonde tattoo masters of Mozambique. (Photo: Lars Krutak)

“That technique of incision tattooing where they cut you to create a scar and then they rub in the pigment is by far the most painful,” he says. “You're getting cut open like a piece of chicken, and then you're just bleeding all over place. It's hard.”

It’s one of the traditional techniques described in his recent book, Indigenous Tattoo Traditions: Humanity through Skin and Ink, lauded as a best science pick in the journal Nature.

The author of four books on tattooing and host of the Tattoo Hunters series on the Discovery Channel, Krutak became fascinated with the art and custom of tattoos 20 years ago. After completing his bachelor’s degree at CU Boulder, Krutuk began work on his master’s degree in anthropology and archaeology at the �Թ�� of Alaska Fairbanks. “I moved there in January of 1996,” he says. “When I got off the plane it was minus 55 degrees.”

Krutak was walking across the Fairbanks campus one day and saw a woman with three chin tattoos. “I didn't have any tattoos. I didn't know anything about tattoos. I didn't know indigenous people had tattoos,” Krutak recalls. “I could recognize that she was indigenous, and I got to know her later on, but that moment opened my eyes.”

His scholarly interest piqued, Krutak began digging through the university’s archives and extensive collection of artifacts. “I quickly realized that basically every indigenous society across the circumpolar north, from East Greenland to Siberia and seemingly everywhere in between, had a tattooing tradition at one time or another, but almost all I could find were records from 100 years ago and a few things from the 1950s.”

Krutak resolved to change that. “My main goal when I started doing this research was to preserve a history. No one in academic circles seemed interested in studying indigenous tattooing,” he says. “There were a lot of stigmas attached to tattooing at that time, and there are still some to this day. But I always felt that this was a significant part of the world's cultural heritage, and it was vanishing rapidly around the world, with no one going out there to document it.”

Permanent records

After learning about the tattooing tradition of the Yupik people of St. Lawrence Island in the northern Bering Sea, Krutak wrote to village councils and received permission to visit. What he found was that tattooing was on the wane among the Yupik, with just a small number of women who were in their 80s or 90s sustaining the custom.

In his recent book Indigenous Tattoo Traditions, author and CU Boulder alumnus Lars Krutak highlights work from indigenous artists around the world.

But he also found that the tradition went back about 2,000 years. The Yupik had, for two millennia, created anthropomorphic dolls, carved out of walrus ivory, that most likely represented ancestral personages. And the dolls had careful renditions of Yupik tattoos.

The significance of tattoos, for the Yupik people and for other cultures across the globe that Krutak has since visited—more than 40 to date—can be widely varied.

“If there is something that needs to be permanently recorded, tattoos can do that,” he says, adding that a tattoo can function as a record of hunting prowess, tally enemies killed in warfare or identify a person as a member of a particular clan or family. There are tattoos that denote a rite of passage, tattoos that invoke ancestral spirits and tattoos that relate to medicinal purposes, Krutak says.

One important meaning that bearers of tattoos have cited, across many cultures, is to identify the person in the afterlife, he says. In the case of the Yupik people of St. Lawrence Island, there are tattoos to help ancestors recognize the person so they can enter the sanctity of the afterlife. “I've been told, by many elders, that they would not be recognized as a true person from their culture without certain tattoos,” Krutak says. “This is one of the most common beliefs and purposes for tattoos across the indigenous world.”

‘Ancient marks of humanity’

What began with that serendipitous moment in Fairbanks has turned into a lifetime pursuit and a synthesis of two threads of Krutak’s interest that he cultivated at CU Boulder as an undergraduate: art history and anthropology. “I had two very formative professors,” he says. “Roland Bernier encouraged me to explore more deeply the connection between anthropology and art history, hence my double major. John Rohner was in charge of the museum studies program and introduced me to what a career in the museum field would look like.”

In some of Krutak’s travels, including his experience with the Yupik, he has encountered some of the last people in the culture who had or could share the history of tattoos in their culture, which increases his sense of urgency. “I firmly feel that indigenous tattooing deserves our attention, because it speaks volumes about what it means to be human,” says Krutak. “I think we can learn a lot about each other by studying and appreciating these ancient marks of humanity.”

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In his new book 'Indigenous Tattoo Traditions,' CU Boulder alumnus and 'Tattoo Hunter' host Lars Krutak highlights traditional techniques that sometimes date back millennia.

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Research sheds light on unintended consequences of money laundering regulations

Rachel Sauer — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 15:37:54 +0000

Research sheds light on unintended consequences of money laundering regulations Rachel Sauer Wed, 01/28/2026 - 08:37

Bradley Worrell

CU Boulder economist Alessandro Peri finds that when authorities cracked down on offshore money laundering, criminals redirected that money into domestic businesses and properties

Economists traditionally focus on economic indicators such as growth, inflation and trade—not on organized crime. Yet a recent paper co-authored by Alessandro Peri, an economist and associate professor in the �Թ�� of Colorado Boulder Department of Economics, dives deep into the economics of money laundering, exploring how international regulations meant to tamp down the practice in one part of the world can inadvertently cause it to take hold in different areas and in different ways.

Peri says his interest in money laundering was sparked in 2018 after attending a presentation on the topic. He also notes that his interest in the phenomenon of riciclaggio di denaro—Italian for money laundering—was partly shaped by his father, who worked for Guarda di Finanza, the Italian tax enforcement agency tasked with fighting financial crimes.

“I have always been fascinated by the phenomenon,” says Peri, whose research focuses on the macroeconomic implications of economic policy and legislative changes. “Specifically, on the process through which illicit profits—from drugs, counterfeit goods or other illegal activities—find their way into legitimate businesses and the real economy.”

CU Boulder economist Alessandro Peri and his research colleagues find that international regulations meant to tamp down money laundering in one part of the world can inadvertently cause it to take hold in different areas and in different ways.

To understand money laundering, Peri says it’s important to grasp its purpose. Criminal enterprises—from drug cartels to counterfeit goods networks—generate mountains of “dirty” cash that needs to find its way into the legitimate economy. Traditionally, banks were the preferred channel to make “dirty” money look “clean.”

In their research, Peri and his co-authors take a step further and explore the question: What happens when governments make it harder for criminals to hide illegal money in offshore banks? The answer, they discovered, is that criminals don’t stop laundering money. They often just switch to other methods and re-channel dirty funds from offshore financial account to domestic activities (such as local businesses) in the United States, a process they call “money laundering leakage.”

“If you target only one channel, the money leaks into others,” Peri explains. “It’s like squeezing a balloon.”

Tightening regulations

To address this question, the authors focused on a tightening in anti-money-laundering regulations that in 2009 involved Caribbean nations, historically considered havens for both tax evasion and money laundering. Peri says both of those activities exploit weak oversight, but their economic impacts differ, as stricter tax enforcement may reduce domestic investment, given that firms can no longer save on taxes, whereas tighter laundering controls can cause criminals to look for new domestic channels to “clean” their illicit gains.

Facing international pressure, Peri says Caribbean countries formed the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force, and from 2008 to 2015 underwent a mutual evaluation process aimed at curbing money laundering activities by strengthening oversight of financial institutions and enforcing compliance across jurisdictions.

“Passing laws is not enough. Enforcement of the law is just as important, and over time these countries did a really good job of that,” Peri says. As a result, laundering operations via financial havens became more difficult and expensive.

At the same time, Peri and his co-authors document how that action resulted in unintended consequences, by providing indirect evidence of a re-channeling of these offshore laundering operations into the United States.

Measuring the impact

How do you study an activity designed to be invisible?

Peri’s team employed some creative methods, including using information uncovered by investigative journalists in the Panama Papers—which documented financial linkages between U.S. localities and Caribbean jurisdictions—to determine which counties had stronger exposure to the regulatory changes happening in the Caribbean jurisdictions.

The researchers then used county-level data from U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics from 2004 to 2015 to look at patterns in business activities. In U.S. counties with stronger financial connections to Caribbean jurisdictions, Peri and his co-authors were able to determine that there was a measurable uptick in business establishments—particularly small, cash-intensive firms. Peri says such businesses often exhibit telltale signs of “front companies”: few employees, unusual revenue patterns and operations in cash-intensive businesses such as liquor stores, laundromats, florists, restaurants and car dealerships.

Additionally, Peri says he and his colleagues found that cash-based real estate purchases increased—another common way criminals use to clean illegal money. “Someone seeking to clean criminal proceeds may purchase a home and quickly resell,” he says.

“If a crook were to launder money, they wouldn’t buy a multi-million-dollar company (like Apple), as they would get detected. They’d buy a car wash, which makes it much less likely to get audited,” says CU Boulder researcher Alessandro Peri about money laundering. (Photo: Jason Leung/Unsplash)

“This started as a theory paper, but in the end, we were able to provide some indirect evidence of how offshore AML (anti-money laundering) efforts impacted money laundering (in the U.S.) and its impact on local economies,” he says.

Notably, the evidence suggests a more pronounced increase in the use of front companies in high-intensity drug-trafficking areas, suggesting a link between local illicit economies and laundering demand, Peri says.

Ultimately, laundering decisions hinge on a cost-benefit analysis, Peri says, as criminals weigh the risk of detection against the need to legitimize funds.

“If a crook were to launder money, they wouldn’t buy a multi-million-dollar company (like Apple), as they would get detected,” he says. “They’d buy a car wash, which makes it much less likely to get audited.”

He says the smartest operations focus on diversification—buying a handful of businesses across sectors and locations rather than concentrating their operations in one sector.

“Hypothetically, if they went out and bought every restaurant in Boulder, they would probably get detected and audited,” Peri explains. “But if they buy just a few restaurants, as well as some florists and auto dealerships to diversify their operations, it likely reduces their risk of getting caught. That’s what we believe is at the heart of this process of diversification.”

The scale of the challenge

In pop culture, money laundering is portrayed as a shadowy process involving suitcases full of cash and offshore accounts. From Scarface to Breaking Bad, the trope is familiar: illicit profits transformed into legitimate wealth through clever schemes.

Peri says those cinematic dramas don’t do justice to how sophisticated modern money laundering schemes have become or the scope of such operations today. The United Nations Oﬃce on Drugs and Crime estimates that money laundering is a trillion-dollar problem, accounting for nearly 5% of global gross domestic product (GDP) annually. That’s roughly equivalent to the entire economic output of Germany, he notes.

What’s more, Peri says money laundering isn’t just a criminal issue—it’s an economic one. He says that by injecting illicit funds into legitimate markets, money laundering can distort local markets, misallocate resources and crowd out legitimate firms. For example, when illicit funds flood into real estate, housing prices can soar, pricing out ordinary families.

“Are these firms creating jobs? Yes,” he notes. “But at what cost to the local economies? The answer is unclear and requires further research.”

The scope of the challenge is daunting, Peri says, and the field of money laundering is evolving. In addition to traditional channels for cleaning currency, he says he believes criminal organizations engaged in money laundering are now purchasing cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and engaging in complex trading schemes that can add layers of opacity to their operations.

“Partial measures create leakage. To be effective, enforcement must be coordinated across financial and non-financial channels, and across borders.”

“We just scratched the surface,” he says of what his research uncovered. “There are always new methods.”

A call for vigilance

What should governments do about money laundering?

Peri’s paper stops short of prescribing detailed enforcement strategies, but he says his research does underscore two imperatives. First, domestic agencies including financial regulators, tax authorities and law enforcement must collaborate, and international agencies must harmonize standards. Second, Peri says targeting one channel is insufficient, so efforts must span financial systems, real estate and emerging technologies such as cryptocurrencies.

Peri draws an analogy to climate policy, which is also a research focus of his. Just as carbon emissions shift to countries with lax regulations, he says dirty money flows to jurisdictions—or sectors—where oversight is weakest.

“Partial measures create leakage,” he warns. “To be effective, enforcement must be coordinated across financial and non-financial channels, and across borders.”

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CU Boulder economist Alessandro Peri finds that when authorities cracked down on offshore money laundering, criminals redirected that money into domestic businesses and properties.

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Top image: iStock

Film addresses the dark side of aging

Rachel Sauer — Tue, 27 Jan 2026 22:39:05 +0000

Film addresses the dark side of aging Rachel Sauer Tue, 01/27/2026 - 15:39

Megan Clancy

CU Boulder sociologist Laura Patterson makes screenwriting debut with short horror film “Silent Generation”

Laura Patterson of the �Թ�� of Colorado Boulder Department of Sociology does a lot in her field, teaching courses in research methods and environmental sociology. She also teaches about the sociology of horror in courses such as Gender, Race, and Chainsaws and co-hosts the podcast “Collective Nightmares,” which examines the sociological implications of horror films.

Now she’s added screenwriter to her resume. After years of development, writing and filming, Patterson recently completed an eight-festival circuit, including the Denver Film Festival in late 2025, showing her new film, “Silent Generation.”

Laura Patterson, a CU Boulder assistant teaching professor of sociology, screened her short horror film "Silent Generation" at the recent Denver Film Festival.

“I think one of the things that horror can do well is make us look at the stuff that we don’t want to look at,” says Patterson.

“Silent Generation” is an eight-minute horror film that explores the dark side of aging and isolation. It follows an octogenarian as he goes about his day alone at home, watching TV and doing the laundry—a perfectly mundane task that turns bloody. And the inspiration for the film’s gruesome moment is rooted in a true story.

“It happened to my grandma, but she wasn’t living alone. My grandpa was there and my grandma was downstairs doing laundry,” Patterson recalls. “She calls to my grandpa and says, ‘Eddie, bring down the scissors.’ And so he brought the scissors down and she had got her hand stuck in the wringer washing machine, and it tore the top of her finger off. And she wanted him to just cut it off—which he wasn’t going to do. He took her to the emergency room, and they fixed things.”

But this incident got Patterson thinking about what would have happened if nobody else had been there. Thus, the idea for “Silent Generation” took hold.

“It stood out to me as a really important moment in life. The time when you notice that the people who were your caregivers now need care. And just the thin thread connecting older people to the rest of society, and how needed that connection is, because when that gets cut off there’s real danger just in the house where people are living,” says Patterson. “And you realize things that used to be normal become a threat.”

The idea stayed with Patterson for years, but she struggled to piece together how to make it into a movie.

“Since it is so short, writing the screenplay was not a big undertaking, because I kind of had the vision. But then to actually figure out how to make it, I just tried to take off like one piece at a time.”

One of the most difficult parts of creating the film, Patterson says, was actually finding the machine that would be centered in the climactic scene. The search took over a year. She eventually found the dated appliance in the 1,500-washing-machine collection of retired CSU professor, Lee Maxwell, who had curated the warehouse full of machines to represent the story of women’s liberation.

Laura Patterson's eight-minute horror film "Silent Generation" explores the dark side of aging and isolation.

Sitting with discomfort

To produce the film, Patterson connected with director Francisco Solorzano, producer Kenny Shults and cinematographer Kesten Migdal.

“They knew how to take this idea and put it onscreen. And they were amazing. Frank knew how to shoot the things and what sort of emotional tone I wanted. They knew how to actually evoke it on screen,” says Patterson. “Frank was really able to bring out the loneliness of the whole script. He was great at thinking about the timing and the way it was shot. Just to let you as an audience member really sit in that was very much something that I think he pulled out or leaned into very well.”

When it came to casting, Patterson turned to Leo Smith, the father of her podcast co-host, who readily agreed to be the film’s sole actor. Smith was making his film debut at 90 years old.

“He’d never acted before in a film, but he was excited about doing this project and kind of commenting on mortality. And this was just his house, and his laundry. We brought in the ringer washing machine, but otherwise, he just did what he does.”

Patterson sees her film as making an important comment on the peril that comes in the solitary life of a stoic generation.

“I wanted to make a film that would have a positive social impact,” she says. “The line on the poster for the film says, ‘When was the last time you called?’ I’ve gotten a lot of feedback from audiences. First you see people cringing when they’re watching the film. And then it’s kind of nice, because it seems to be accomplishing what we wanted it to accomplish. Afterward, they’re like, ‘I need to call my, you know,’ fill in the blank.

“We can all think of people—especially of that generation—that that sort of resonates with,” Patterson adds. “So, there's been a lot of audience discussion around that, and around this sort of generational divide between then and now.”

Patterson aimed to make audiences sit with the discomfort.

“It's like, no, this isn’t pleasant,” says Patterson. “But it’s even worse if you don’t look, because then this person’s sitting alone having to navigate this.”

As for whether she has another film in the works, Patterson says she’s unsure.

“I think the pieces came together so well for this to happen. And I had wanted to do it for so long, in part to inform the other things I do. I think it makes sense to have some idea what it’s like to be on the other side of the camera and just understand what that process feels like. I have a lot of film students who come into my class. Now I can have a little bit of a connection point with them, having gone through this experience.”

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CU Boulder sociologist Laura Patterson makes screenwriting debut with short horror film “Silent Generation."

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Exhibit celebrates Black Panther Party in stories and portraits

Rachel Sauer — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 22:52:38 +0000

Exhibit celebrates Black Panther Party in stories and portraits Rachel Sauer Thu, 01/22/2026 - 15:52

The documentary exhibit “Revolutionary Grain,” open now through March 15 in the Macky Gallery, highlights the stories of former Black Panther Party members and ongoing struggles for racial justice

This spring, the �Թ�� of Colorado Boulder Center for African and African American Studies (CAAAS) and the Department of History, together with the Louis P. Singer Endowed Chair in Jewish History, present the traveling exhibition “Revolutionary Grain: Celebrating the Spirit of the Black Panther Party in Portraits and Stories” in the Macky Gallery.

The exhibition, open now through March 15, was created by California-based artist and photographer Suzun Lucia Lamaina and honors the legacy of one of the most influential movements in Black American history.

As part of Black History Month programming, the exhibition will be accompanied by a panel discussion with former Black Panther Party members Gayle Dickson, Aaron Dixon, Ericka Huggins and Billy X Jennings, alongside Lamaina and CAAAS Director Reiland Rabaka, on Thursday, Feb. 12, at 7 p.m. in the Norlin Library Center for Global British and Irish Studies Room (M549). The discussion will focus on the history and legacy of the Black Panther Party and its relevance in today’s political climate.

Living history

Hear firsthand accounts of the history of the Black Panther Party and the 1960s Black Freedom Struggle—along with their legacies in Trump's America. The program is part of the accompanying events for the traveling exhibit "Revolutionary Grain: Celebrating the Spirit of the Black Panther Party in Portraits and Stories" that is on display through March 15 in the Macky Gallery.

What: A panel discussion with former Black Panther Party members Gayle Dickson, Aaron Dixon, Ericka Huggins and Billy X Jennings, alongside CAAAS Director Reiland Rabaka and photographer Suzun Lucia Lamaina.

When: 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 12

Where: Norlin Library Center for Global British and Irish Studies Room (M549)

Learn more

Additional programs featuring former Panthers will take place throughout that week on campus.

The “Revolutionary Grain” exhibition features a social-documentary photographic essay of portraits and personal narratives from more than 50 former members of the Black Panther Party. Lamaina spent five years traveling across the United States to interview and photograph participants, offering them the opportunity to tell their own stories.

“This work is meant to spark conversation,” Lamaina explained of the project, noting that the exhibition coincides with the 60th anniversary of the Black Panther Party’s founding and ongoing struggles for racial justice in the United States. The exhibition situates the movement’s history in what Lamaina describes as a new phase of the Black Freedom Struggle in contemporary America.

Founded in October 1966 in Oakland, California, by Bobby Seale and the late Huey P. Newton, the Black Panther Party initially focused on addressing police violence in Black communities. By the late 1960s, the party had become a national and international symbol of resistance, establishing nearly 50 chapters across the United States and an international presence in Algiers, North Africa.

“Putting on the Black Panther uniform and committing our lives to the liberation struggle changed the purpose and meaning of our entire identities,” Dixon wrote in his 2012 memoir My People Are Rising: Memoir of a Black Panther Party Captain. “It was a liberating experience. Societal restriction and conformities dropped by the wayside, leaving a fearless, defiant, powerful human being. We no longer looked at ourselves in the same way, nor did we look at the system and its representatives in the same manner. We were the freest of the free.”

In addition to its revolutionary political stance against capitalism, imperialism and fascism, the party launched “survival programs” that provided free breakfasts, medical services and other essential resources to thousands of Black Americans. Despite its community-based activism, the Panthers were frequently targeted by federal authorities, with the Nixon administration labeling the party “the greatest danger to the internal security” of the United States. A number of its members, among them Fred Hampton in Chicago, died at the hands of police officers.

The exhibition seeks to counter decades of misrepresentation by bringing first-person accounts from former members to the foreground, connecting their experiences to present-day debates over racism, police violence and political organizing.

“At a time during which the Trump administration and its supporters are rewriting history and representing versions of the past that downplay or even erase the critical significance of the Black Liberation Struggle of the 1960s and 1970s—of which the Panthers were an integral part—it is all the more important to shed light on the movement’s complexities and give our students, faculty and the community one more opportunity to engage with aging Panther members in meaningful ways," says Thomas Pegelow Kaplan, a professor of history and the Louis P. Singer Endowed Chair in Jewish History. "This is a university campus, and it is a celebration, but also a reappraisal, with the help of key actors, of a complex struggle that has also problematic chapters. History is messy, but our students deserve better than what many in Washington have in store for them.”

The exhibition is co-sponsored by the departments of English, Ethnic Studies and Women and Gender Studies and the Center for Humanities and the Arts.

All events are free and open to the public. No tickets are required. For more information, contact Thomas Pegelow Kaplan at thomas.pegelow-kaplan@colorado.edu.

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The documentary exhibit “Revolutionary Grain,” open now through March 15 in the Macky Gallery, highlights the stories of former Black Panther Party members and ongoing struggles for racial justice.

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Top image: Former Black Panther Party members Emory Douglas (left), Kathleen Cleaver (center) and Barbara Easley Cox (right). (Photos: Suzun Lucia Lamaina)

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.

Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to our newsletter. Passionate about geography? Show your support.

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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CU Boulder instructor named a 2025-2026 Fulbright Scholar

Kylie Clarke — Tue, 15 Jul 2025 17:26:19 +0000

CU Boulder instructor named a 2025-2026 Fulbright Scholar Kylie Clarke Tue, 07/15/2025 - 11:26

Award will allow Teaching Professor Caroline Conzelman to teach and conduct research on sustainability in Murcia, Spain

Caroline Conzelman, a teaching professor in the College of Arts and Sciences Residential Academics Program (RAP) at the �Թ�� of Colorado Boulder, has received a Fulbright Senior U.S. Scholar Program award in international affairs and environmental studies for fall 2025 in Spain. The award is provided by the U.S. Department of State and the Fulbright Scholarship Board.

Conzelman’s Fulbright project is titled “Participatory Action Research on Urban-Rural Sustainability Challenges in Murcia, Spain.” Partnering with the Universidad de Murcia, Conzelman will work with undergraduate students to examine sustainability challenges in urban and rural areas of the valley of Murcia.

Trained as a cultural anthropologist, Conzelman’s objectives are to provide students with mentorship and training in applied ethnographic research methods to study how civil society, business and government leaders define and promote sustainable business goals. Additionally, she will give a series of workshops and organize a symposium on campus to present her findings and highlight innovative local solutions as well as meaningful career paths.

“I am honored to have this opportunity and am excited to work with and learn from the faculty and students at MU, and to help facilitate relationships between our universities in support of sustainability through social innovation, entrepreneurship and community engagement,” Conzelman said. “I appreciate the many and varied experiences I have had at CU over the last 28 years that allowed me to be a successful candidate.”

“The benefits extend beyond the individual recipient, raising the profile of their home institutions. We hope �Թ�� of Colorado Boulder can leverage Caroline Conzelman’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.

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Award will allow Teaching Professor Caroline Conzelman to teach and conduct research on sustainability in Murcia, Spain.

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More protections needed to safeguard biodiversity in the Southern Ocean

Anonymous — Wed, 22 Apr 2020 18:07:17 +0000

More protections needed to safeguard biodiversity in the Southern Ocean Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 04/22/2020 - 12:07

Kelsey Simpkins

Current marine protected areas in the Southern Ocean need to be at least doubled to adequately safeguard the biodiversity of the Antarctic, according to a new CU Boulder study

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Meet DNA’s chaperone

Anonymous — Tue, 26 Nov 2019 17:13:12 +0000

Meet DNA’s chaperone Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 11/26/2019 - 10:13

Cay Leytham-Powell

Researchers have discovered the structure of the FACT protein—a mysterious protein central to the functioning of DNA

It’s long been known that the proteins that package DNA—like students at a high school dance—require a chaperone. But what exactly that guardian looks and acts like has been a mystery—until now.

A team of researchers at the �Թ�� of Colorado Boulder has cracked the puzzle of the ‘Facilitates Chromatin Transcription’ (or FACT) protein structure. This protein is partly responsible for making sure everything goes smoothly and no improper interactions take place when DNA temporarily sheds and replaces its guardian proteins, or histones.

These findings, which are the result of a project five years in the making at CU Boulder and out today in the journal Nature, will have ripple effects for not only our understanding of the genome and gene transcription, but for our understanding of cancer and the development of anti-cancer drugs.

“This is just the start for this protein. It’s not the end,” said Yang Liu, a research associate at CU Boulder and one of the study’s lead authors.

Ever since its discovery in 1998, the FACT protein has been of great interest for those who study DNA, largely because of the possibilities it presents. But, despite decades of effort, many of the central questions of how the protein works remain unanswered.

Yang Liu and Keda Zhou, seen here, are both research associates in Luger's lab and are the study's two lead authors. Figure above of the FACT protein is courtesy of Karolin Luger.

The FACT protein is an essential type of histone chaperone. These guardian proteins escort other proteins during the deconstruction and reconstruction of nucleosomes (the structural unit responsible for organizing and packaging DNA). This happens during gene transcription (the step where DNA is copied into RNA), DNA replication, (where the entire genome is replicated faithfully), and DNA damage repair (which is essential to prevent disease such as cancer).

However, with no clear structure for the protein available, scientists have been less than clear as to how exactly it does both: How does one protein both destroy and maintain?

This new research, though, sheds light on both.

“For a long time, people have been trying to find the mechanism behind how it (this protein) helps transcription,” said Keda Zhou, a research associate at CU Boulder and the other lead author for the paper. “People have been working on different aspects of this protein, so we’re really happy that we’re the first to see it in action. It’s really exciting.”

The research team, aided by two other labs also led by women—one in New York and the other in Texas—managed to finally solve the puzzle by isolating the FACT protein and, through a combination of hard-work, ingenuity and tenacity, map it out and catch it in the act of both destroying and maintaining the nucleosome.

What they found is that FACT resembles the saddle and fork of a unicycle, made up of multiple domains that straddle the nucleosome ‘wheel’ of the unicycle. Up until that point, researchers were seeing only one domain at a time, causing confusion and contradictory results.

And yet, it appears that none of those differing findings are wrong.

“Their (Liu and Zhou) work really put everything together. And it seems like everybody’s right, which is just really cool,” said Karolin Luger, the endowed chair of biochemistry at CU Boulder, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Investigator and the study’s senior author.

This discovery is only the beginning for this protein, both for Luger’s lab and the broader medical community.

Earlier this year, CU Boulder, with the help of matching funds from HHMI, purchased a new, state-of-the-art cryo-electron microscope, which allows scientists in all biomedical disciplines to see biomolecular structures in ultra-high-resolution. Luger plans to use this new microscope to look more into the FACT protein, keeping in-house what they once had to send to other laboratories.

“Now with these new technologies, we can catch other protein machines in the act of doing their job,” said Luger. “We can almost put together movies where we see every step, we see what every part is doing during this process, and this is what this technology has made possible.”

The researchers also feel like this research might shed light on cancer, which is often the result of something in the genetic transcription or DNA replication and repair process going awry, and, by extension, cancer treatment research.

“There are lots of unknowns,” said Zhou. “But this is a starting point.”

Researchers have discovered the structure of the FACT protein—a mysterious protein central to the functioning of DNA

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