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When the mountain becomes a mirror

Rachel Sauer — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 17:42:33 +0000

When the mountain becomes a mirror Rachel Sauer Thu, 03/19/2026 - 11:42

Cody DeBos

�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder alum Jason Kolaczkowski’s new memoir reveals lessons found in the mountains and in life

Jason Kolaczkowski (PolSci ’99) didn’t know if the Himalayas would bring him clarity, but he knew he needed to attempt the first ascent of an unclimbed peak. Diagnosed with leukemia just a year earlier, he boarded a flight to Asia in 2019 with a plan.

The goal wasn’t to make history as a mountaineer. For Kolaczkowski, the trip was about defying the notion that his time was already running out.

“There was a moment when I thought to myself, ‘I’m going to die a lot younger than I thought I was, and so I want to go and do this thing.’ There was no going back from there,” he recalls.

Jason Kolaczkowski (PolSci ’99), shown here at basecamp, attempted the first ascent of a previously unclimbed Himalayan peak after being diagnosed with leukemia. (All photos courtesy Jason Kolaczkowski)

In his forthcoming memoir, Notions of Grace: A Memoir of Climbing, Cancer and Family, Kolaczkowski chronicles the lessons learned leading up to and following that expedition.

“It started as internal processing for me. The process of writing the book was really then an act of compulsion,” he explains. “I wanted to archive a snapshot of my life for my kids, who were too young to understand at the time. Maybe when they’re 14 and maybe again when they’re 24—maybe they’ll care.”

The mountain becomes a mirror

Wrestling with risk, fatherhood, identity and a cancer diagnosis layered with unknowns, Kolaczkowski thought of climbing as a reprieve.

The type of slow-progressing leukemia he had been diagnosed with can remain asymptomatic for years. Treatment wasn’t recommended yet, so he entered a “watch-and-wait” phase that included taking precautions to protect his compromised immune system.

But Kolaczkowski’s internal clock was ticking.

A climber since the late Aughts, he had long dreamed of attempting a previously unclimbed route. He started planning the Himalayan expedition before his diagnosis, but after it came, the trip felt more urgent.

“The first big question was: Well, should I even still go?” he says. “I ultimately reached the conclusion that I still felt healthy enough to do it.”

After finding the right group, the pieces fell into place, but the climb itself would soon be a wakeup call. In Notions of Grace, Kolaczkowski describes the peril of fixing lines in a gully littered with rockfall. The terrain, though not inherently difficult to climb, was deadly in its indifference. The mountain didn't care if Kolaczkowski died.

“What I came away with was a new sense of self-awareness. Just being in that amount of danger for that amount of time shifted my mindset into a much more forward-looking place again,” he says.

The expedition didn’t end in a triumphant summit photo, but Kolaczkowski flew home counting it as a success.

“I was really looking forward to going home and doing things with my kids.”

Writing for who matters most

Kolaczkowski describes his emotional state before the trip as grief for a life transformed by factors beyond his control.

“I guess you could say that telling a private story in public is another form of accepting risk,” says Jason Kolaczkowski of writing his memoir.

“Getting a cancer diagnosis really is a grieving process. You’re giving up a life that you had—an understanding of your goals and your family dynamics that you had—and you have to let it go and shift into the acceptance eventually of what is reality now,” he says.

Writing became his way of documenting this shift. His sons remained the intended audience for a while, but after sharing early drafts with friends over time, Kolaczkowski’s outlook on the project changed.

“People started telling me, ‘I think there are some universal themes here that other people would be interested in.’ So, I started thinking of ways to maybe get this published,” he says.

He kept writing, bringing the meticulous habits learned in planning expeditions and climbing rugged peaks to the page.

“Rather than focusing on getting the book done, my goal was to put in effort consistently. Some efforts will be great; others won’t be,” Kolaczkowski says.

“If you think about not making summits, and when to turn around and all that sort of stuff, having enough self-forgiveness to accept that, it translates well. Maybe today was hard to write and it just isn’t coming out; that’s OK as long as I’ve made the attempt,” he adds.

The calculus of risk

The title of Kolaczkowski’s memoir mirrors its tone. Grace isn’t something he claims to possess in abundance. Rather, he jokes that it’s often a goal he stumbles toward, describing several moments in the book as a “series of misadventures rather than adventures.”

The throughline connecting mountains, medical challenges and fatherhood is a series of lessons on living life with just the right amount of risk.

Just a few months after Kolaczkowski returned from Nepal, there were new obstacles to overcome as the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Strict precautions for protecting his health became necessary, leading the Kolaczkowskis to the decision to homeschool their sons.

“We were shrinking down the world in order to keep me safe, but 5-year olds need their world to expand. What are we willing to do from a mitigation perspective when it comes at a cost?” he asks.

At first, the choice felt aligned with his family’s needs. But after watching one of his sons be afraid to touch playground equipment, Kolaczkowski knew it was time to rethink his approach to risk.

“And that’s what the book is about. How little risk is too little risk? How much is too much? Because we had taken too little risk and it was visibly stunting the character development of my kids,” he says.

Fortunately, in his years of climbing, Kolaczkowski had already developed a mental framework for managing uncertainty.

Jason Kolaczkowski approaches a couloir entrance on his Himalayan climb.

“You’re constantly building in these points where you are having the meta-conversation about the thing that you're doing,” he says. “You're talking about how to talk about the climb.”

That same approach became essential to not only navigating the pandemic but rebuilding his family’s relationship with adventure. Because his wife, Kristina, had often accompanied him on climbing trips, she shared some of the same language.

“The ability to sort of coalesce around that sort of meta-conversation—how are we going to talk about how we're going to deal with these new risks—was a big part of our family life,” he says.

Return to adventure

Eventually, Kolaczkowski and his family began venturing out again. Hiking, climbing and reconnecting in the relative safety of the outdoors during the pandemic ultimately led to a 100-mile family hike around Mont Blanc.

“I’ve never seen them quite so happy,” he says, recalling his sons’ experience on the trip.

Today, Kolaczkowski is planning many more adventures, some with his sons and some on his own. He recently joined an expedition in Kyrgyzstan and is looking ahead to more climbs, including a return to Nepal in 2027.

Telling his story publicly, he says, was another kind of healing.

“I guess you could say that telling a private story in public is another form of accepting risk,” he admits.

But as Kolaczkowski sets his eyes on what the future will bring, public opinions aren’t what he worries about.

“That’s one of the nice things about having cancer. It puts other stuff in perspective,” he says with a smile.

Notions of Grace: A Memoir of Climbing, Cancer and Family is available for pre-order now through DAP Books and will be released March 31.

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�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder alum Jason Kolaczkowski’s new memoir reveals lessons found in the mountains and in life.

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Top photo: Jason Kolaczkowski at an 18,000-foot camp

Can concussions cause fear of movement?

Rachel Sauer — Wed, 18 Mar 2026 17:12:43 +0000

Can concussions cause fear of movement? Rachel Sauer Wed, 03/18/2026 - 11:12

Alexandra Phelps

�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder neuroscience student Alexander Wiegman’s research finds that a history of concussions doesn’t necessarily lead to later kinesiophobia

Stadium lights stream over the field. It’s Friday night, and over the course of the football game touchdowns have been scored, penalty flags have flown and countless plays have been run. However, on the next play, something goes awry. A player is down on the field and they’re helped to the medical tent. Upon further observation, medics diagnose a concussion.

In sports, injury is always a possibility. A misstep or collision can cause an athlete to need a period of recovery, changing not only their physical health but also their relationship with movement. For Alexander Wiegman, a former football player and an undergraduate �鶹��Ѱ�� neuroscience student, a similar reality became personal and, later, scientific.

Alexander Wiegman, a former football player and an undergraduate �鶹��Ѱ�� neuroscience student, studies how concussions can lead to kinesiophobia, a debilitating fear of movement that usually results from an injury or re-injury.

Wiegman’s recently published research in the journal Brain Injury examines how concussions can lead to kinesiophobia, a debilitating fear of movement that usually results from an injury or re-injury.

Individuals who’ve experienced kinesiophobia, a fear of movement due to the possibility of pain, can have decreased physical activity levels, stemming from the fear and hesitancy of activity. Research such as Wiegman’s, which looks into the mental recovery from a concussion, seeks to predict which patients are more likely to develop severe kinesiophobia. Building a broader understanding of the mental effects of concussions can help providers to optimize care and provide recommendations for how individuals can recover from kinesiophobia.

Working with Dr. David Howell, Dr. Julie Wilson and the team of researchers in the Colorado Concussion Research Laboratory (CCRL) at the University of Colorado Anschutz, Wiegman initially predicted that if a patient experienced a lower initial symptom severity as well as a lower number of prior concussions, they would have lower kinesiophobia scores. However, the research findings suggested the opposite.

From the field to the lab

Wiegman played football for as long as he can remember, and like many athletes, he experienced injuries, including concussions. Even after going through his recovery care with the help of a concussion specialist, he was still unsure about moving his body again. This fear inspired him to begin his research.

As an undergraduate, he has had an opportunity to bring his experience with concussion care full circle. Working alongside his co-researchers, Wiegman transformed his initial experience with concussions into a hypothesis. He notes that he was allowed “to take the reins with my project. We began by discussing my experience with concussions because I've been through it. The fear of movement and the fear of getting back to activity is something that I really struggled with.

“I was always a math and science person, and by the time I got to high school, I knew I wanted to study something in that realm. But by the time I got to college, I knew I wanted to go into medicine.”

Understanding the fear of movement

Kinesiophobia is a response that has been documented across many types of injuries, though it's been less studied in people diagnosed with concussions. With numerous injuries, kinesiophobia can contribute to other symptoms even after the injury itself has healed. Understanding kinesiophobia is important because it can affect the severity of initial injuries, including concussions. A patient’s quality of life and recovery times are all aspects that can be impacted.

To better understand this gap in kinesiophobia research with concussions, Wiegman collaborated with CCRL researchers. Participants completed one assessment within 21 days of their injury and another between 30 and 90 days post-concussion.

“It is possible that individuals who have experiences with prior injuries understand the recovery process and have developed resilience against the negative aspects of fear of movement,” says �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder researcher Alexander Wiegman. (Photo: John Torcasio/Unsplash)

From a clinical perspective, "the first thing you think about is getting someone physically healthy," Wiegman explains, adding that he and his co-researchers examined "the broader idea of mental health after concussions" in an attempt to enhance the care that can be provided after a concussion. Wiegman and his research colleagues looked at the period post-concussion because typically this is when the physical injury has recovered. Focusing on this window of time allowed them to better understand how patients were recovering both physically and mentally from their injury.

What looking under the hood revealed

Contrary to Wiegman’s hypothesis that patients who had a more extensive injury history would exhibit more severe kinesiophobia, these patients actually displayed less-severe kinesiophobia.

However, after analyzing patient data, Wiegman concluded that those who had previously recovered from injuries were less fearful in moving their body again. “It is possible that individuals who have experiences with prior injuries understand the recovery process and have developed resilience against the negative aspects of fear of movement,” he says.

The research found that there was no evidence to suggest that age, sex, or prior concussions were independently associated with kinesiophobia. Wiegman concluded that prior injury and the experience of recovery may be one of the most influential factors in how a patient may or may not develop kinesiophobia.

Looking ahead

As a senior, Wiegman is pursuing a route to medical school. Interning as an athletic trainer with �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder’s track and football teams, as well as working as a phlebotomist, he’s had hands-on experience with athletes and their injuries. As Wiegman was completing his research and defending his senior thesis, he also studied for and took the MCAT.

Wiegman hopes to learn more about the relationship between kinesiophobia and concussions. “In my mind, I wanted to find some definitiveness, especially with this being intended to be used in a clinical setting; I really wanted to have the answer,” he says. “It was hard to wrap my head around [the fact] that we have data, but we don’t have an answer per se.” He explains that this research is a step in the right direction and hopes to continue on to further research of kinesiophobia and other mental health disparities following concussions.

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�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder neuroscience student Alexander Wiegman’s research finds that a history of concussions doesn’t necessarily lead to later kinesiophobia.

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Top photo: John Torcasio/Unsplash

Project harnesses next-generation satellites to preserve Arctic sea ice

Rachel Sauer — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 22:11:24 +0000

Project harnesses next-generation satellites to preserve Arctic sea ice Rachel Sauer Tue, 03/17/2026 - 16:11

�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder researcher Ivy Tan leads a project recently funded by Ocean Visions that aims to assess whether mixed-phase cloud thinning is a viable method for cooling the Arctic

Ivy Tan, a �鶹��Ѱ�� assistant professor of physics, recently was awarded funding from Ocean Visions for a project she leads that is assessing whether mixed-phase cloud thinning is a viable method for cooling the Arctic and restoring sea ice.

Tan’s project is one of six funded by Ocean Visions, a nonprofit ocean conservation organization pursuing solutions to counter and reverse climate impacts on ocean health. The selected projects are being funded through Ocean Visions’ Arctic Sea Ice Restoration Research Fund, which was created to identify, prioritize and support research on cutting-edge ideas to slow the loss of Arctic sea ice.

“Arctic summer sea ice is a critical foundation of the global ocean and climate system, and its rapid loss is creating a series of severe risks to nature and people across the planet,” says Brad Ack, Ocean Visions CEO. “These research projects, and others to come, are intended to help answer the glaring question: Is there anything else we can do to forestall these potentially irreversible outcomes?”

“This support from Ocean Visions will allow us to better understand the radiative influence of Arctic clouds on the rapidly warming Arctic by spectrally fingerprinting the far infrared radiative signature of clouds using state-of-the-art technology,” Tan says.

Tan and her research colleagues—Sebastian Schmidt, a �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences, Michael Diamond at Florida State University and Colten Peterson with the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center—are developing a new, satellite-based Arctic cloud observation product using recently launched satellites with unprecedented routine measurements of far-infrared radiation (NASA’s PREFIRE CubeSats), as well as collocated radar, LiDAR and imager instruments.

“We will compare the satellite observations to those made with ESA/JAXA’s recently launched EarthCARE satellite and an aircraft (as part of NASA’s ARCSIX campaign),” Tan and her colleagues explain. “These comparisons will be used to produce and validate an algorithm that provides information on cloud properties and their radiative effects on the Arctic surface on a broad spatial scale. Our framework will uniquely take into account the influence of the vertical thermal stratification of the Arctic atmosphere helping us to determine where and when mixed-phase cloud seeding would, or would not, have potential as a climate intervention strategy.”

Among their aims is to help make mixed-phase cloud thinning a more viable method for cooling the Arctic and restoring sea ice. For this to happen, however, “there would need to be enough of the right type of cloud present to be thinned by seeding (clouds containing supercooled liquid water), at the right time (polar night), to produce the desired climate forcing (cooling). Unfortunately, accurately measuring these clouds, especially at night, is very challenging with current satellite products,” the researchers explain.

Ocean Visions selected the six projects through a competitive process, including review by an independent international expert panel. The research to be conducted will provide the foundation for future work, if warranted, to further advance knowledge and address ecological, social and ethical dimensions, as well as develop guidance on safeguards or stage gates for future research, according to Ocean Visions.

“The research supported through the Arctic Sea Ice Restoration Research Fund prioritizes scientific merit, interdisciplinary approaches, and careful risk assessment through a rigorous review,” says Dr. Ginny Selz, Ocean Visions senior program director. “We are excited to watch this research progress and see how it expands our understanding of potential approaches to protect and restore Arctic sea ice.”

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�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder researcher Ivy Tan leads a project recently funded by Ocean Visions that aims to assess whether mixed-phase cloud thinning is a viable method for cooling the Arctic.

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Scientist lives by the Serengeti Rules

Rachel Sauer — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 02:17:06 +0000

Scientist lives by the Serengeti Rules Rachel Sauer Mon, 03/16/2026 - 20:17

Rachel Sauer

Author, filmmaker and scholar Sean B. Carroll, formerly a �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder postdoctoral researcher, will deliver the Rose M. Litman Memorial Lecture in Science April 7

When Sean B. Carroll came to the �鶹��Ѱ�� in 1983, right out of graduate school and newly hired as a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of molecular, cellular and developmental biologist Matt Scott, he was somewhat indifferent to Drosophila melanogaster, better known as the fruit fly and Scott’s research focus.

“I was coming from an immunology background, working with furry animals, and my attitude was that studying fruit flies wouldn’t teach us anything general,” Carroll recalls. “It wouldn’t have anything to do with humans or important things, or so I thought. But that was a really narrow view, because it turns out that all these genes that build fruit fly parts are in us—they build parts in us—so fruit flies became a passport to the whole animal kingdom.”

Scientist, author and filmmaker Sean B. Carroll, a former �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder postdoctoral researcher, will deliver the Rose M. Litman Memorial Lecture in Science April 7.

And with that passport, Carroll has roamed the planet as an evolutionary developmental biologist and award-winning author and filmmaker, observing life from individual cells to continent-spanning populations. Through his observations and experiences emerged what he came to call “The Serengeti Rules,” based on the idea that everything in the living world is regulated.

He will discuss the discovery of The Serengeti Rules, on which he elaborates in his book of the same name, during the Rose M. Litman Memorial Lecture from 4-5 p.m. April 7 in the CASE Chancellor’s Hall Auditorium.

The Serengeti Rules, as he describes them, are ecological rules that regulate the numbers and kinds of animals and plants in any given place, and how they are being applied to restore some of the greatest wildernesses on the planet.

“Every cell contains a society of molecules, every organ a society of cells, every body a society of organs, every habitat a society of organisms,” he writes in The Serengeti Rules. “Understanding the interactions within each of those societies are the primary aims of molecular biology, physiology and ecology.”

Diversity in the animal kingdom

Before he had roamed the globe as a scientist and filmmaker, however, Carroll was the kid growing up in Toledo, Ohio, flipping over rocks to see what was under them. “I have a love for the entire animal kingdom,” he explains, which guided him to a bachelor’s degree in biology from Washington University and a PhD in immunology from Tufts University.

During his graduate studies, he became very interested in the question of how animal bodies evolve—in understanding how all the diversity in the animal kingdom came about. So, he hatched a plan to solve the mysteries of development.

“Changes in development are what lead to changes in form,” Carroll says. “The whole diversity of the animal kingdom is rooted in development, so we had to crack the black-box mystery of development to get any traction in understanding how the physical diversity of the animal kingdom evolved.”

Thus, the fruit flies. He wagered that studying them could be a key to unlocking the diversity of the animal kingdom—and the genes that govern development—and came to �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder determined to pick the lock on that black box.

If you go

What: 2026 Rose M. Litman Memorial Lecture in Science—The Serengeti Rules: The Regulation and Restoration of Biodiversity

Who: Sean B. Carroll

When: 4–5 p.m. Tuesday, April 7, with reception to follow

Where: Chancellor’s Hall Auditorium, Center for Academic Success & Engagement (CASE)

Learn more

“During this time, 1983, oh my god—how an egg turns into a complex creature was a mystery,” he says. “It was a spectacular pageant we could watch from the outside, but we didn’t know what was going on inside. We needed to identify the genes that are necessary for that process, figure out what the genes did.

“It’s hard to overstate both how deep the mystery was but how thrilling these clues were as they started to unfold. Those days were incredibly exhilarating and intense, the lab was a beehive, people worked all days and nights and weekends because, first of all, we were fascinated. Also, we felt we had a shot at some really fundamental discoveries. Looking back, these times don’t happen very often in science where you really have a black-box mystery, and it breaks open—and it broke open partly because of what we did in Matt’s lab and partly because of what our peers around the world did.”

One eureka moment from Carroll’s time in Boulder came about 18 months into his research. He had taken on the task of seeing genes in action inside developing fruit fly embryos, working every day in the lab, trying this technique and that technique until his bag of tricks was almost empty; he was no closer to understanding which genes caused wings to grow, for example, or determined their shape.

He remembers a particular time when he took his samples down to a borrowed microscope, flipping on an ultraviolet light because he was looking at fluorescence, “and the best thing I can say is that it was a ‘holy sh^t!’ moment. I remember looking down, and I saw these embryos that had these beautiful green rings circling them, which is the mark of a gene that turns on every other segment.

“That’s the day when the dam broke, the door blew open, the clouds parted. It’s almost overwhelming because now so many things are possible. I went from having nothing to show anybody to essentially having the tools that would allow me to really untangle this puzzle.”

During his April 7 lecture, Sean B. Carroll will discuss the Serengeti Rules, the ecological rules that regulate the numbers and kinds of animals and plants in any given place, and how they are being applied to restore some of the greatest wildernesses on the planet.

A discovery of wings

After completing his �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder postdoc, Carroll joined the faculty at the University of Wisconsin Madison, where he continued studying the genes that control animal body patterns and play major roles in the evolution of animal diversity. There he “saw something in the microscope that nobody had ever seen before,” he remembers.

He and the other researchers in his lab isolated the handful of genes that are activated in caterpillars to become butterfly wings. This discovery, published in the journal Science, garnered a feature in The New York Times, an interview on PBS News Hour and an invitation to the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.

From there, Carroll built a career that marries both research and discovery with science communication—as an investigator and vice president for science education at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) and head of the HHMI Tangled Bank Studios, where he executive produced or was executive in charge of more than 30 documentary films, including the Oscar-nominated and Peabody-winning All That Breathes. He has won three Emmys and been nominated for an additional five.

During that time, “I decided, ‘I’m telling the same story again and again, so I probably should write this down,’” he says. “So, I wrote a book, then I wrote another book.” He has written six books, including Remarkable Creatures: Epic Adventures in the Search for the Origins of Species, which was a finalist for the 2009 National Book Award for nonfiction, and The Serengeti Rules: The Quest to Discover How Life Works and Why It Matters, which will be the foundation for his �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder lecture.

Carroll, who is a distinguished university professor and the Andrew and Mary Balo and Nicholas and Susan Simon Chair of Biology at the University of Maryland, credits the depth and success of his career in large part to the collaborations of which he’s been a part. “I like to think my toolkit has grown over the years, but it doesn’t happen all at once and it doesn’t happen alone. I didn’t write a full-length book until I was 45 and truly an expert in my field.

“I think people might look at my portfolio and say the science portfolio is pretty good, the external indicators are good; the writing career, there’s been a fair amount of output; the film career has been good. But in no way could I have done it alone. Science is a hugely collaborative thing; filmmaking’s even more collaborative. An individual like me gets a lot of credit for a body of work owned by an enormous community.”

Through it all—from his extensive travels through the Serengeti to the red carpet at the Academy Awards to the quiet moments in the lab—the joy of discovery and mystery-solving has never ebbed, he says. “I love science because I love nature and I love trying to figure out how nature works. I love the privilege and thrill of peeking into that box and going, ‘Oh, my gosh, that’s how it is.’”

About the Rose M. Litman Memorial Lecture in Science

The Litman Lecture celebrates the legacy of an exceptional scientist and educator with a lifelong passion for research and a firm commitment to keeping rigorous inquiry at the heart of university life.

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Author, filmmaker and scholar Sean B. Carroll, formerly a �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder postdoctoral researcher, will deliver the Rose M. Litman Memorial Lecture in Science April 7.

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Study probes the ‘new normal’ for older adults, post-COVID

Rachel Sauer — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 14:30:42 +0000

Study probes the ‘new normal’ for older adults, post-COVID Rachel Sauer Mon, 03/16/2026 - 08:30

Bradley Worrell

Researchers from �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder find that the pandemic reshaped how people age 55 and older interact with their communities while highlighting the importance of ‘social infrastructure’

The COVID-19 pandemic reshaped how people interact with their communities, but its effects on older Americans have been especially complex—altering daily routines, social connections and how people move through their communities even years later.

Those changes are at the center of a five‑year longitudinal study led by researchers at the �鶹��Ѱ�� and the University of Michigan. Hayes Hart‑Thompson (they/them), a graduate student and researcher in the �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder Department of Geography, helped analyze how older adults adapted their lives during and after the pandemic.

In a recent paper, “A New Normal. Not Bad, Just Different,” Hart-Thompson and study co-authors provided a long-term view of how disruption turns into adaption, based upon survey responses from the same study participants since early 2020, all of whom are 55 or older.

Hayes Hart-Thompson is a graduate student in the �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder Department of Geography whose recently published research helped analyze how older adults adapted their lives during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

“What really stood out,” Hart‑Thompson explains, “was that people weren’t just responding to COVID itself. They were responding to the after‑effects—how the world had changed and how their routines had to change with it.”

Following routines over time

The study began in the early months of the pandemic, when participants were surveyed every month. As the crisis continued, Hart-Thompson says the research shifted to annual surveys, allowing researchers to track how people’s habits, perceptions and social lives evolved. The research focuses primarily on data from the fourth year of the study, although the research team has since received a fifth year of responses.

That fifth year added a reflective dimension, says Hart-Thompson. Participants were asked to look back over the previous five years and consider what they had learned, what they wished they had done differently and how their relationships with their neighborhoods and communities had changed. Hart‑Thompson says many people used that opportunity to rethink whom they spend time with, how they engage socially and what they value most.

“It gave us insight not just into what people are doing now,” they say, “but how they understand those changes in hindsight.”

What is social infrastructure?

A key concept in the research is “social infrastructure”—a term that Hart-Thompson says goes beyond physical buildings to describe the places that support social interaction and community life.

“A library is a great example,” they say. “It’s a physical space but it also supports relationships, routines and access to resources. The same can be true for community centers, parks or even coffee shops. They’re physical spaces where relationships happen and routines take shape.”

The idea overlaps with what geographers and sociologists often call “third places”—spaces that are neither home (first place) nor work (second place) and that support community, connection and informal care. Third places captures both public and private spaces and reflects the full range of places people mentioned when describing how their routines changed during the pandemic.

Faith‑based organizations, in particular, played an important role for many participants, Hart-Thompson says.

“Especially with this older population we surveyed, churches provide consistent, low-cost—or no-cost—opportunities to see the same people regularly, which is incredibly important for maintaining social routines,” they say. “When concerns about disease spread or mobility made returning difficult, that loss was significant—even if services moved online.”

Aging: not a one-size-fits-all experience

The study focused on adults 55 and older, but Hart-Thompson says the researchers found that age alone did not determine how people experienced the pandemic. Instead, perception mattered just as much as chronology.

“How people felt about their age really shaped how they talked about their lives,” Hart‑Thompson explains. “Someone who felt old at 60 described their experiences very differently from someone who felt young at 80.”

Retirement status also made a major difference. Hart-Thompson explains that participants who were still working navigated different social environments than those who were retired. Health, mobility and daily obligations also influenced how much choice people felt they had in shaping their routines, they add.

Rather than finding a clear age‑based trend, Hart-Thompson says the researchers saw a mix of social and structural factors shaping each person’s experience.

Health, mobility and daily obligations also influenced how much choice people felt they had in shaping their routines during and following the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, says �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder researcher Hayes Hart-Thompson.

Not all changes were negative

“COVID-19 reduced in‑person social interaction for many older adults—but the impact was not uniformly harmful,” Hart-Thompson says. In fact, some participants described positive or neutral changes, particularly when technology expanded access.

For individuals with limited mobility, tools like Zoom opened doors that hadn’t existed before. Others found new routines they enjoyed, such as online exercise classes or increased time for solitude.

“At the same time,” Hart‑Thompson says, “there was a lot of avoidance—people staying away from spaces because of health fears or political tensions. It really depended on the activity and the individual.”

In many cases, they say, declining health or aging‑related challenges were already influencing routines even before the pandemic. “COVID-19 just intensified those trends and brought them into sharper focus,” Hart-Thompson adds.

A specific, but meaningful, sample

The study’s participants were predominantly white, female and college educated, with many living in the Midwest. While the sample included both rural and urban residents across the United States, study participants are not representative of the population as a whole, Hart-Thompson acknowledges.

They emphasize that the research team is mindful of those limitations. Rather than treating the data as universally generalizable, the focus is on what this specific group can tell researchers, particularly as an important group of voters. That’s because, in the fifth year of the study, researchers added questions about democracy and political perceptions to explore that dimension more directly.

“There’s also a real issue of privilege in survey research,” Hart‑Thompson says. “Who has the unpaid time to respond year after year? That shapes who shows up in the data.”

Politics, isolation and policy lessons

One unexpected finding was the degree to which the study retained participants from across the political spectrum, Hart-Thompson says. Despite the politicization of COVID-19 and growing mistrust in institutions, respondents with very different views continued to participate in the research, they add

That diversity complicated the narrative. Participants disagreed sharply on whether COVID-19 was a serious health threat, but those disagreements didn’t erase shared concerns about isolation and access.

Hart‑Thompson sees a clear lesson for policymakers: Adaptability matters more than uniformity.

“There’s never going to be a one‑size‑fits‑all solution,” they say. “But universal access to social spaces—both physical and digital—is crucial. Isolation is harmful regardless of political ideology.”

Hybrid events, online access and inclusive design can help ensure people aren’t left behind during future crises—particularly those who are older or immunocompromised, Hart-Thompson adds.

Living in a new normal

Perhaps the clearest conclusion from the research is that most older adults have not returned to their pre‑pandemic routines—and many don’t expect to, Hart-Thompson says.

“There’s never going to be a one‑size‑fits‑all solution. But universal access to social spaces—both physical and digital—is crucial. Isolation is harmful regardless of political ideology.”

They say participants frequently described living in a “new normal.” Some realized they value solitude more than they once thought. Others became more intentional about spending time with close friends and family. Even when routines resembled the past, people understood that the world had changed.

“There wasn’t this expectation that things would go back to exactly how they were,” Hart‑Thompson says. “Adaptation is the reality.”

That perspective, they believe, challenges the idea that recovery means returning to a previous state. Instead, it highlights how people reshape their lives in response to long‑term change—especially later in life.

Offering support in crisis . . . and in everyday life

As the research team begins analyzing five full years of data, Hart‑Thompson is particularly interested in how overlapping crises—also known as “polycrises”—shape everyday life. That’s because COVID-19 did not happen in isolation—and neither do its effects, they add.

Across all of it, one theme remains constant: the importance of adaptable, accessible social infrastructure.

“If we center access and adaptability,” Hart‑Thompson says, “we’re better equipped to support people—not just in crises, but in everyday life.”

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Research finds many psychiatric disorders are influenced by five genetic factors

Rachel Sauer — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 21:24:35 +0000

Research finds many psychiatric disorders are influenced by five genetic factors Rachel Sauer Fri, 03/13/2026 - 15:24

Blake Puscher

Genome-wide association studies identify genetic overlap among disorders, providing evidence that their distinctions may be misleading

One major difference between psychiatric disorders and purely physical diseases is that the former are largely defined by their symptoms. Patient-reported symptoms are also closely associated with physical illnesses, but this is often accompanied by an awareness of underlying, biological causes, which can be confirmed by tests or scans.

However, because the biological causes of psychiatric disorders have not been comprehensively explained, the boundaries between them can be blurry, especially considering that many people diagnosed with one disorder will be diagnosed with others, too.

As a step toward the long-term goal of explaining these causes, a large number of scientists from across the United States and the world conducted a study published in Nature into the genetic associations of 14 disorders. This group includes first author Andrew Grotzinger, a member of both the �鶹��Ѱ�� Department of Psychology and Neuroscience and the �鶹��Ѱ��Institute for Behavioral Genetics.

�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder scientist Andrew Grotzinger and his research colleagues studied how certain psychiatric disorders are influenced by genetic factors.

This study involved genome-wide association studies on the different disorders, followed by an analysis of the results for signs of genetic overlap (pleiotropy). The disorders ranged from attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) to schizophrenia, and included several substance-use disorders. The study found that these disorders were influenced by five genetic factors, each of which was shared by two or more disorders.

Pleiotropy and genetic association

When multiple measurable and observable (phenotypic) traits are influenced by a gene or genetic variant, it is called pleiotropy. One example is the typical form of albinism, where a mutation of a single gene influences skin pigmentation, eye color and hair color by altering the production of melanin. The study uses the term pleiotropic loci, which refers to areas of chromosomes within which genes influencing multiple phenotypic traits can be found. In this case, those traits are different psychiatric disorders.

While evidence of pleiotropy can be seen in how some traits tend to vary together between individuals, like hair and eye color, it can only be proven by a thorough analysis of a large amount of genetic data. In this case, genome-wide association studies (GWAS) were done for each psychiatric disorder covered. A GWAS attempts to associate common genetic variants with traits by seeing if people who have the trait of interest also have a given genetic variant more often than would be expected based on chance alone.

For example, if people can have either gene A or gene B at a particular location (locus) in their DNA, a GWAS could determine if that genetic variation was associated with a given trait. If the study found that many people who did not have the trait had gene A and many people who did have the trait had gene B, it would conclude that gene B influenced the trait, even though there might be other factors contributing to it.

However, because there are so many genetic variants, and because scientists do not know which are relevant to begin with, a large number need to be studied. According to Grotzinger, this analysis happens across millions of genetic variants. A massive number of participants, both with and without the trait in question, is also necessary to have this statistical power to reliably study these associations. “What’s unique about this study is, in part, just how many people are involved, how many people we had DNA from,” Grotzinger explains.

That being said, data from some groups was more abundant. Only the European genetic ancestry group had enough data to perform analyses for all 14 psychiatric disorders. According to Grotzinger, analyses need to be performed separately by genetic ancestry group for statistical reasons, not because the genes themselves are very different but because the results may not apply equally to all people. “Initial evidence indicates that it may be more applicable for some disorders than others. So, schizophrenia is very much the same across ancestries, whereas depression is a little bit different,” he says. “The only reason we did European-like ancestry here was availability of data, and the hope would be that the next iteration of this study has greater diversity and representation.”

“Most people who are diagnosed with one psychiatric disorder are going to be diagnosed with multiple, and this has led some to theorize that there are genes that just increase your risk for everything,” says �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder researcher Andrew Grotzinger. (Illustration: Wikimedia Commons)

Genomic factors

After analyzing the results of the different GWAS, the researchers identified five genomic factors that explained the majority of the genetic variance of the individual disorders. Some of the variance is non-genetic (for example, resulting from different life experiences), but these genetic factors explain on average around two thirds of the common genetic variation caused by people having different genes. The factors were associated with 238 pleiotropic loci.

Factor 1 was most strongly associated with compulsive disorders, factor 2 was associated with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, factor 3 was tied to neurodevelopmental disorders, factor 4 was connected to internalizing disorders, and factor 5 explained the genetic variance in substance use disorders

“Most people who are diagnosed with one psychiatric disorder are going to be diagnosed with multiple,” Grotzinger explains, “and this has led some to theorize that there are genes that just increase your risk for everything.” But “by and large, genes increase risks for subsets of disorders, and that’s what those factors are indexing.” All five factors showed high genetic correlation; however, there was evidence for even more overlap between the disorders covered by Factor 2 and Factor 4.

Besides genetic overlap within factor groups, the study also found weaker associations between disorders from different factors groups. That is in line with the theory that there are some genes that increase the risk for many psychiatric disorders, Grotzinger says, “and it seems like there are, but those probably map onto really general pathways, like tendency to experience distress. That’s not specific to OCD versus anxiety versus depression.” This overarching factor is called the “p factor” or general psychopathology factor, and is similar in concept to the “g factor” of general intelligence. In this study, the p factor was correlated with all five factors, especially Factor 4 (internalizing disorders).

Relatedly, when researchers analyzed genetic regions instead of the whole genome, they found 101 “hotspots”—regions that demonstrated significant pleiotropy. According to Grotzinger, these genetic regions include a larger group of genes than loci. “You can think of them as operating at a more local level, as opposed to the genome-wide level that examines the average percentage of genetic signal shared across the whole genome,” Grotzinger explains. The most pleiotropic region was on chromosome 11. Genes in this hotspot influence most of the psychiatric disorders, excluding all Factor 1 disorders, opioid- and nicotine-use disorder and autism.

Andrew Grotzinger and his research colleagues identified five genomic factors that explain the majority of the genetic variance of the 14 psychiatric disorders they studied.

Factor 1: most strongly associated with compulsive disorders (anorexia, OCD and Tourette’s), but also anxiety to a lesser extent
Factor 2: associated with both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder
Factor 3: tied to autism and ADHD, as well as more loosely to Tourette’s
Factor 4: connected to internalizing disorders such as PTSD, depression and anxiety.
Factor 5: explains the genetic variance in substance-use disorders, specifically for nicotine, alcohol, cannabis and opioids.

Although these analyses close in on some of the genetic causes for psychiatric disorders, this knowledge cannot be used to diagnose or treat those disorders. This is because the disorders are influenced by thousands of genes, and scientists still do not know which specific genes are relevant, just the area of the genome they are in. “This chromosome 11 hotspot is a really interesting data point, but it is not going to help diagnose anyone,” Grotzinger says. “It is one piece of a 10,000-piece puzzle, at the end of the day. It’s baby steps.”

Diagnostic boundaries

“One thing people say is that our DNA does not read our diagnostic manual,” Grotzinger says. “Our DNA seems to confer risk in a way that transcends the boundaries that we describe in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual.” In other words, psychiatric disorders are currently defined based on the way that symptoms tend to occur together rather than their biological or genetic causes. Of course, psychiatric disorders have non-genetic causes, but knowing what genes contribute to each disorder would help diagnose and treat them more effectively.

For example, “if you are someone who is diagnosed with multiple disorders,” Grotzinger says, “they may be more biologically similar than they are distinct. I think that increases the optimism for treatment, because you know that you are not dealing with four separate things. I do not think this is sufficient to argue for changing the diagnostic manual,” he continues, “but it is still a very important piece of evidence for considering whether or not to reconceptualize some of these disorders.

Depression and anxiety in particular are an example of disorders that are often diagnosed together, treated using similar methods (e.g., selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors), and appear nearly identical from a genetic perspective, according to Grotzinger. “It begs the question of whether or not we are calling something that is very similar different names. The metaphor I offer with this study is that, if you had a runny nose, a cough, and a sore throat, it would not be appropriate to go to the doctor and get a diagnosis for runny nose disorder, coughing disorder, and sore throat disorder.”

One implication of this, and a potential topic for future research, is that there are subtypes of disorders. While many of the disorders covered by this study overlap with each other, they do not all overlap completely with themselves. What is classified as depression, for example, may have different genetic causes in some cases. “You can have over 10,000 different symptom combinations, all of which meet the criteria for depression,” Grotzinger says. “So one question is, are there subtypes of disorders?” If enough research does support the reclassification of psychiatric disorders, this could involve both merging and splitting current disorders to most accurately reflect the underlying genetic risk factors.

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Genome-wide association studies identify genetic overlap among disorders, providing evidence that their distinctions may be misleading.

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Don’t just explain the science, dance it

Rachel Sauer — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 16:14:04 +0000

Don’t just explain the science, dance it Rachel Sauer Thu, 03/12/2026 - 10:14

Rachel Sauer

Asia Kaiser, a bee researcher and ecology and evolutionary biology PhD candidate, is named social sciences category winner in the international Dance Your PhD contest sponsored by the journal Science

There’s a lot going on with bees right now. Because it was an unseasonably warm winter, queens may be emerging from hibernation and beginning to lay the eggs of their first broods. And since queens can choose the sex of their offspring, they are now or soon will be producing daughters.

It’s fascinating information about one of the planet’s most complex and charismatic insects, but how to convey it in dance?

PhD candidate Asia Kaiser (in a scene from her Dance Your PhD entry), studies how human land use affects different insect groups and, consequently, the ecosystem services they provide in coupled human-natural systems.

Start with a shimmy—reminiscent, perhaps, of the movement of bees’ wings or the vibration of their flight muscles. Then weave undulating patterns with fellow dancers, gliding and twirling in a choreography of bees in motion. And bring it home with a question about what happens when we remove native flowers from urban environments or destroy bee habitat to build roads or houses (answer: nothing good).

In short, dance your PhD. So, that’s what Asia Kaiser did.

Kaiser, a PhD candidate in the �鶹��Ѱ�� Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (EBIO) and researcher in the Resasco Lab, this week was announced the social sciences category winner in the international Dance Your PhD contest sponsored by the journal Science and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Now in its 18th year, Dance Your PhD seeks, through a spirit of fun and of marrying art and science, to address a scenario that scientists commonly experience: “The party is just getting started when the dreaded question comes: ‘So, what’s your PhD research about?’ You launch into the explanation, trying to judge the level of interest as you go deeper. It takes about a minute before someone changes the subject,” contest organizers explain.

“At times like this, don’t you wish you lived in a world where you could just ask people to pull out their phones to watch an online video explaining your PhD research through interpretive dance?”

“I was a dancer all through college, so I have a background in belly dance and Latin dance,” Kaiser explains. “And I like to make music, so I thought this could be a really fun way to explain my research.”

Learning to dance

And what is that research? Bees. Specifically, how human land use affects different insect groups and, consequently, the ecosystem services they provide in coupled human-natural systems. Her research aims to improve the resilience of urban agroecosystems, increase equitable access to fresh produce and promote environmental justice in cities.

As for the dancing, Kaiser had wanted to take dance lessons while growing up in Philadelphia, but there wasn’t room in the budget for them. So, after graduating high school she took a gap year in Brazil to do service work and finally began learning dance. She started with belly dance, then branched into samba and other Latin styles.

When she began her ecology and evolutionary biology undergraduate studies at Princeton University, “I thought, ‘I’m going to invest in my secondary dream,’” Kaiser recalls, which meant stepping away from the books sometimes to immerse herself in the vibrant dance scene in Princeton and the broader New York City and Philadelphia area.

She also is a cellist, so when she came to �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder to pursue her PhD she began making music with other people in her department.

When she heard about Dance Your PhD, it dovetailed with so many of the things she loves: dance and music and science. However, the deadline to submit entry videos was Feb. 20, and she decided to enter the contest a mere two weeks before then.

She started with the music, composing a piece to score the story in her mind: “I wanted to tell a story of bees emerging in early spring in your backyard and what they’re up to. People know a lot about honeybees, but not other bee species, so I wanted to highlight how important they are to urban ecosystems.”

Kaiser put out a call for dancers and fortunately, the response from her fellow PhD students and candidates was abundant and eager. Then she and Ella Henry, a violinist and EBIO PhD student, recorded the music.

Science as art

Because of the quick turnaround, the troupe had time for just two rehearsals before their afternoon of filming in front of the EBIO greenhouses on 30th Street in Boulder. It was an EBIO community collaboration. PhD students Manuela Mejía, Lincoln Taylor, Gladiana Spitz, Kaylee Rosenberger and Ella Henry danced Kaiser’s choreography alongside her. PhD student Luis de Pablo helped with sound engineering and Scott Taylor, EBIO associate professor and director of the Mountain Research Station, was cinematographer. Kaiser’s husband, John Russell, provided voiceover narration for the final video.

And despite the extremely short timeframe, it all came together, Kaiser says. For example, she happened to have a pair of gold Isis wings, a traditional belly dance prop, that Lincoln Taylor wore “to depict the fact that male bees spend their lives flying around,” she says.

The dance, music and costumes united in a science-as-art visualization of her PhD, which she uploaded to YouTube and clicked submit on her Dance Your PhD entry. She was up against scientists from around the world, so learning that she won her category was especially significant.

“Obviously, I love bees,” she says, “and I love to dance and make music, so it was a really cool experience to create this piece with my friends and find a different way to talk about my research.”

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Asia Kaiser, a bee researcher and ecology and evolutionary biology PhD candidate, is named social sciences category winner in the international Dance Your PhD contest sponsored by the journal Science.

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Grant supports natural sciences research

Rachel Sauer — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 17:56:01 +0000

Grant supports natural sciences research Rachel Sauer Tue, 03/10/2026 - 11:56

�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder receives $1.5 million from Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation to fund postdoctoral researchers

The �鶹��Ѱ�� has received $1.5 million to provide funding for postdoctoral researchers in the Division of Natural Sciences—part of $55 million in funding provided to 30 U.S. universities by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.

"We are grateful for the generosity of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and its significant support of the groundbreaking research happening at �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder,” says Irene Blair, dean of the Division of Natural Sciences. “Despite the current uncertainties that we and universities across the country are experiencing, our scientists remain committed to finding innovative answers to the most pressing questions and issues we are facing today. By supporting post-doctoral research, this grant will advance fundamental research in the natural sciences."

The Moore Foundation provided this one-time support to maintain the pipeline of scientists in training. After consulting with leading scientists and university leaders, the foundation said it identified an especially critical, immediate shortfall at the postdoctoral training level.

“Universities are experiencing budget cuts which are drastically curtailing funding for postdocs,” said Aileen Lee, president of the Moore Foundation. “Though critical to the scientific enterprise, postdoctoral trainees are typically less readily supported by university friends and alumni than are graduate and undergraduate students.”

�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder was one of 30 universities that received past support from the Moore Foundation Science Program. Awards for this latest round of funding ranged from $1 million to $2.5 million per university, based upon historical levels of funding from the foundation.

“As funding for science becomes increasingly constrained, philanthropy plays a crucial role in fueling innovation and discovery,” Lee said. “We invest where science can make long-term, measurable change and in the talented people whose ideas will shape the future.”

The funding from the Moore Foundation assists 400 postdoctoral researchers across 25 fields.

For �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder, departments receiving funding include chemistry, biochemistry, ecology and evolutionary biology, environmental studies, geological sciences, integrative physiology, physics, psychology and neuroscience, atmospheric and oceanic sciences, astrophysical and planetary sciences, and applied mathematics.

Although the Moore Foundation’s science program funding is typically tightly focused on a small number of long-term research priorities, in this case, the foundation provided the funding to support postdoctoral researchers. The awards were made in late 2025 and the universities have the latitude to spend the funds across three academic years (2025-2028).

Established in 2000 by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore and his wife, Betty, the Moore Foundation supports scientific discovery, environmental conservation and the preservation of the character of the San Francisco Bay area. The Moore Foundation has provided $2.46 billion in cumulative grants for scientific discovery thus far.

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�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder receives $1.5 million from Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation to fund postdoctoral researchers.

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Film builds science into beaver tales

Rachel Sauer — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 16:46:49 +0000

Film builds science into beaver tales Rachel Sauer Mon, 03/09/2026 - 10:46

Rachel Sauer

�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder alumna Emily Fairfax shared her scientific expertise as the beaver consultant on the new Pixar film Hoppers

Emily Fairfax came home one evening from her job as a weapons engineer at Los Alamos National Laboratory feeling a bit sad. Yes, she was using her degrees in chemistry and physics, but the work just wasn’t a good fit for her.

She sat on the couch and turned on the TV, happening across an episode of Nature on PBS called “Leave it to Beavers.”

“I was so hooked,” recalls Fairfax (PhDGeol’19). “I couldn’t stop thinking about it. There were all these aerial images of beaver wetlands in places like the Nevada desert, which was amazing and I couldn’t get it out of my head. So, I thought, ‘I’ve got to go to grad school and study beavers.’”

�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder alumnus Emily Fairfax (PhDGeol’19) was the scientific beaver consultant for the new Pixar film Hoppers. (Photo: Emily Fairfax)

Fast forward to the evening of Feb. 23 on the red carpet outside the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, California. There, wearing a beautiful teal and black dress with a lace and sequin overlay—and having received glam tips from her grad students—Fairfax posed for photographers in front of a yellow screen bearing the images of animated beavers she’d helped bring to life.

Fairfax, whose “a-ha beavers!” moment led her to the �鶹��Ѱ�� Department of Geological Sciences, was the scientific beaver consultant for the acclaimed new Pixar film Hoppers, which opened nationwide Friday.

The story of an animal-loving college student whose mind is transferred into a robotic beaver so she can help save a pristine glade from being paved for a freeway, Hoppers highlights a keystone species in a scientifically accurate way that is, frankly, adorable.

“People need to know that they’re a keystone species,” says Fairfax, who signed on to the film project with the assurance that this point would be emphasized. “When you lose the beaver, you lose the ecosystem, and I think (Pixar filmmakers) made that crystal clear.

“The other point that I really wanted to be in the film is that beavers are not just off in national parks. You can have beavers living in cities, living adjacent to cities, and we can coexist with them to our benefit, not just the benefit of the beaver. I wanted to highlight the idea that protecting beavers and habitats isn’t just about protecting nature out of the goodness of our hearts; we benefit greatly.”

The force of a glacier

Long before her pivot from Los Alamos to �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder, Fairfax, who now is an assistant professor of geography, environment and society at the University of Minnesota, was a Girl Scout in a troop that took its role as stewards of the natural world very seriously.

“We learned the basic principles of ‘Leave No Trace’ very early on, but then our troop leaders took it a step further,” she wrote on her personal website. “They urged us to put in that little bit of extra effort and leave things better than we found them. When we went camping this usually panned out as picking up trash off of trails, but the sentiment stuck with me. If everyone strives to leave things better than they started—even if only by a little bit—then the overall state of things will consistently improve.”

It’s a sentiment that dovetailed neatly with her graduate work at �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder, where she studied beavers through the lens of ecohydrology, combining remote sensing, modeling and field work to understand how beaver damming changes the landscape and the timescales on which that change happens.

“I’m at heart a water scientist—how fast it’s moving, if it’s being slowed or stored or just blasting downstream superfast,” Fairfax says. “I care about the shape of rivers as a geomorphologist, and I’m very hyper-focused on how one specific animal controls water or the shape of water.”

Her first Colorado field site was in Lefthand Canyon west of Boulder—where, if you drive slowly and look closely, it’s possible to see an 11-foot-tall beaver dam from the road—and her dissertation research was inspired by “Leave It to Beavers”: “In the documentary, they were interviewing hydrologists and geomorphologists, who kept bringing up how beaver wetlands in these areas are the only things staying green during droughts.

Emily Fairfax takes measurements of a beaver dam in Lefthand Canyon west of Boulder. (Photo: Emily Fairfax)

“I get that beavers can seem really chaotic—they don’t draw any blueprints, they don’t pull permits, they don’t let anybody know what they’re going to do before they do it. But beavers are second only to us, humans, in terms of animals that can change the physical earth. They’ve been damming for at least 7.5 million years, maybe as long as 25 million years, so thinking about beavers as this geological force is really intellectually exciting—this rodent in my yard carries the force of a glacier.”

Inquiry from Pixar

Two years after earning her PhD and joining the California State University Channel Islands faculty, where she worked before joining the University of Minnesota faculty in 2023, Fairfax presented a Zoom webinar about beavers and drought in California that several Pixar employees attended. “I thought, ‘OK, cool, they have a right to be interested in what’s going on in their state,’” she remembers. Several months later, she received an email with the subject line “Inquiry from Pixar” and thought it was a prank.

Nope: It was legitimate.

Pixar filmmakers wanted her to give a presentation to studio staff about beavers, which she did. It turns out that Pixar was making a film about them, and after signing reams of non-disclosure agreements and securing a promise that the filmmakers wouldn’t even think about having the beaver characters eat fish—because beavers do not eat fish—Fairfax was officially the Hoppers beaver consultant.

At first, Fairfax answered a lot of basic questions about beaver behaviors, ecology, what they can and can’t do, how long they live, their family units, their size and why their teeth are orange. Then the questions started getting more specific: What other animals would you see in a beaver wetland? How do beavers get along with humans? If someone tried to build a road by a beaver wetland, how would beavers react? She brought a group of Pixar filmmakers to Lefthand Canyon for a week of beaver observation, which yielded even more questions.

“At every step along the way, they were turning seemingly disconnected beaver facts into scenes,” Fairfax says. For example, as with humans, beavers’ tailbones tuck under, allowing them to sit on their tails like little chairs. So, the scene in Hoppers in which the real beaver George sits on his tail is accurate, and the fact that the character Mabel sits with her tail outstretched is a clue that she’s not a real beaver.

The dam-building sequence in Hoppers is also scientifically accurate: “A lot of people don’t know how beavers build dams,” Fairfax explains. "It can be very sudden, and they will often use relatively large cobbles and stones to start, which they put along the base of their dams. Then they’ll put on some sticks and then pack it with mud. Everyone thinks they pat the mud on with their tails, but they actually use their paws. So, the sequence in the film where you see these super buff beavers lifting up stones and rolling them down, then you see other beavers waddling in carrying mud and patting it down, that actually shows the real sequence of dam building.”

Among the questions that Pixar filmmakers asked scientist Emily Fairfax was how beavers relate to and get along with other animals in the areas where they live. (Photo: Disney/Pixar)

Throughout the filmmaking process, Fairfax received scenes to review, so the accurately rotund beavers in the film are her doing. “The very first time I saw one of the (film) beavers, I told them it was too skinny. Beavers are shaped like a bowling ball, so when I saw it again it was a little fatter, and then I saw it again and it was a little fatter. Finally, people with Pixar were like, ‘If it’s sitting on its tail, it needs more rolls’ and ‘It should be jiggling more when it’s running.’ I was like, ‘Oh my god, this is adorable.’ They’re like big, fuzzy bowling balls, and I’m collecting all the little plushies.”

Science and storytelling

Through the process, Fairfax says, the filmmakers balanced storytelling and science. There were times when total accuracy had to concede a little to the story, “but they always asked me, ‘Is this realistic enough? Is it going to hurt beavers, is it going to hurt climate change work if we do it this way?’ They were always really good about asking me how much certain things mattered, because they are people trying to create a compelling narrative, but they also wanted to respect the science.”

(And speaking of respecting the science—and scientist—the full name of the film character Dr. Sam is Dr. Samatha Emily Fairfax.)

Fairfax’s work on the film was also a matter of balancing the often solitary, generally unglamorous work of science with the razzle-dazzle of Hollywood. She jokes that she considered wearing her waders to the Hollywood premiere, but her grad students stepped in with hair and makeup tips. And then she was on the red carpet with A-list stars like Jon Hamm, then inside the ornate theater watching the velvet curtain rise on her research via Hollywood movie magic.

“It was just so surreal,” she says. “I’d seen the movie many times before that, but it was so real in that moment, packed into this theater, all the voice actors there, and immediately I’m crying. In many ways, it felt like there was a lot of myself on that screen, and seeing people’s reactions to it felt like seeing reactions to my research.

“Trying to translate what I know in a way that’s relevant to artists was not a normal part of my job, and it felt very high risk at first because what if people don’t like the movie and it sets beavers back? Beavers are still coming back from the fur trade, plus we have the rising challenge of climate change, so it felt risky. But it’s a beautiful movie and people seem to love it, so that makes me feel very hopeful about how science and storytelling can benefit all species.”

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�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder alumna Emily Fairfax shared her scientific expertise as the beaver consultant on the new Pixar film Hoppers.

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Top image: Disney/Pixar

When napping in nature becomes art

Rachel Sauer — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 23:55:15 +0000

When napping in nature becomes art Rachel Sauer Thu, 03/05/2026 - 16:55

Cody DeBos

�鶹��Ѱ��alum Rick Silva finds meaning in the stillness of the natural world

Rick Silva (MFA’07) is lying still in the frame, perched on a rocky outcropping overlooking azure ocean waves. He’s sound asleep.

That’s one of 46 places you’ll find him taking a snooze in his new video art piece, Dirt Nap.

As he describes it, “Dirt Nap is composed of one-minute excerpts from 46 naps Rick Silva took in nature across the Western United States between September 2024 and January 2026, sequenced in the order they were recorded.”

“The project has some heavier personal meanings for me, but I also think it touches on broader themes of loss related to landscape in the 21st century, whether that’s the precarity of protected lands or ongoing threats from climate change,” says Rick Silva (MFA ’07) of his new video art piece, Dirt Nap.

The project’s structure is simple, almost stubbornly so. But the simplicity of one-minute naps, repeated 46 times, has a way of becoming something else—a question that challenges notions of patience and what it means to rest.

Taking a rest

The project began in 2024, a time marked by both grief and physical strain for Silva.

“My uncle-in-law died in a ski accident the previous year, and that late summer we hiked into the Grand Tetons to spread his ashes,” he recalls.

That same summer, Silva was dealing with severe migraines that forced him to retire to a dark room, sometimes for the entire day, just to ease the pain.

“The idea for Dirt Nap emerged during a lull in the pain of a migraine,” he says.

From the start, Silva knew the project needed to unfold over time. As the idea of deliberately resting in nature took hold, he started thinking of locations. Some had personal meaning. Others he hadn’t yet experienced but wanted to.

“There was a balance between planning and spontaneity throughout the process. I created a loose set of rules around framing and duration, then pushed against those rules through location, weather and light,” he says.

The title carries its own gravity. Often a dysphemism for death, the phrase “dirt nap” invokes images of a body being returned to the ground for its final rest.

Silva acknowledges the double meaning.

An ‘in-action’ sport

Prior to Dirt Nap, Silva spent years immersed in outdoor action sports culture, especially snowboarding. Video is a powerful medium for showcasing the pulse-pounding motion and spectacle of athletes carving through exotic terrain at high speeds.

�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder alumnus and artist Rick Silva created his video piece Dirt Nap from 46 naps he took in nature across the Western United States between September 2024 and January 2026.

Dirt Nap inverts the formula.

“There’s definitely a connection between Dirt Nap and that lineage of sport and nature filmmaking,” Silva says, “except here I’m doing ‘nothing’ in the landscape. It’s a kind of in-action sport focused on recharging and recovering.”

For Silva, shooting videos lying down instead of airborne while capturing exotic vistas across the Western United States is something of a return to his roots.

“My MFA thesis work at �鶹��Ѱ��was a video art piece in which I filmed myself in nature, sort of DJ-ing various landscapes,” he says.

A �鶹��Ѱ��foundation

Silva traces much of his foundational approach to filmmaking to his time in �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder’s MFA program.

“I was exposed to many different approaches to working with moving images, including experimental film, video art, performance and new media,” he says.

Just as influential was the support he received along the way.

“My professors encouraged me to follow my own path through those techniques and conceptual strategies, especially around time, presence and process.”

That trio anchors Dirt Nap.

“I think meaning emerges through the variation and duration of the project. It’s a very simple act, but multiplied to this extent it becomes something more epic, or perhaps absurd. I hope viewers oscillate between those readings,” says �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder alumnus Rick Silva.

Silva also found inspiration for the meditative quality of his footage from artists like Roman Signer and Ana Mendieta. While filming, he learned about the early works of Laurie Anderson, another artist who captured herself napping in public.

“I’m a longtime fan of her work and felt connected to her through our napping projects,” he says.

For current students, Silva offers some practical advice rooted in his own trajectory.

“If you can make it financially feasible, I highly recommend taking on an ambitious, self-driven creative project during a summer break.”

He points to an example close to home.

“The creators of South Park made Cannibal! The Musical during a summer break while they were students at CU.”

Ambitious early projects, he says, often echo through the careers of their creators for years.

Learning to look longer

As for Dirt Nap, the cumulative effect of 46 one-minute excerpts challenges viewers with one request: patience. It’s a hard ask in a world consumed by short-form videos and a never-ending tide of “the next big trend.”

Silva often finds himself returning to a quote from composer John Cage: “If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If still boring, then eight. Then sixteen. Then thirty-two. Eventually one discovers that it is not boring at all.”

“That quote took on even more meaning for me during this project, which was both born from and made within that zone of observation and reflection,” Silva recalls.

While appreciating Dirt Nap, viewers start noticing the little things. The flicker of shadows across Silva’s face. The rhythm of his breathing. Grass, trees and water responding to the wind. From one minute to the next, a person lying down outdoors runs the gamut of looking peaceful to looking exposed.

What first appears to be “doing nothing” becomes a sustained practice of attention born from grief and structured by repetition. The act is quiet, even vulnerable, and for Silva, it’s a reminder that nothing is ever truly still.

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�鶹��Ѱ��alum Rick Silva finds meaning in the stillness of the natural world.

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All photos courtesy Mario Gallucci

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