News

Scott Taylor elected councilor of the American Ornithological Society

Rachel Sauer — Tue, 11 Aug 2026 15:33:13 +0000

Scott Taylor elected councilor of the American Ornithological Society Rachel Sauer Tue, 08/11/2026 - 09:33

�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder researcher will serve as a member of the Society’s governing body and promote its mission to support science that advances the understanding and conservation of birds

Scott Taylor, a �鶹��Ѱ�� professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and director of the Mountain Research Station, has been elected a councilor of the American Ornithological Society (AOS).

In this three-year volunteer term, Taylor, who also is a fellow of the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, will serve as a member of the AOS governing body, which “establishes the direction and strategy of the AOS, makes high-level decisions about AOS’ priorities, oversees the sound financial management of AOS’ resources and ensures legal and ethical integrity of the organization,” according to the organization.

The AOS’ mission is to connect ornithologists, science and bird conservation by “supporting science that advances the understanding and conservation of birds, promoting broad access to ornithological science, supporting ornithologists throughout their career paths and fostering a welcoming, diverse, supportive and dynamic ornithological community.”

�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder scientist Scott Taylor has been elected a councilor of the American Ornithological Society.

In his councilor candidate statement, Taylor noted that he is deeply committed to the AOS “as both a scientific home and a community that has shaped my career. Having benefited from AOS through collaborations, mentorship networks and opportunities to engage with cutting-edge research, I am motivated to give back in a leadership role.”

His involvement with AOS has included serving on committees, organizing symposia and building inclusive community spaces at annual meetings

“I am particularly interested in helping the Society continue to foster a vibrant, inclusive and forward-looking ornithological community while supporting early-career scientists, strengthening connections across disciplines and engaging in effective outreach,” he noted in his candidate statement.

Taylor, who grew up in rural southern Ontario, earned his undergraduate degree in wildlife biology at the University of Guelph and his PhD at Queen’s University. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and worked as a field biologist in South America.

As principal investigator of the Taylor Lab, he leads research focused on hybridization, speciation, evolutionary ecology and population genomics, primarily of birds. He and his colleagues pursue research using natural hybrid zones and recent radiations to understand the genetic bases of traits involved in reproductive isolation, population divergence and speciation, and the impacts of anthropogenic change, including climate change, on species distributions, interactions and evolution.

Taylor also is host of the podcast “Okay, But… Birds,” which has addressed topics ranging from whether birds invented music to how wildfire smoke affects birds and a rumination on whether birdwatching is the original Pokémon with Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer Ed Yong.

“Being elected to AOS Council is an honor,” Taylor said. “I have long worked to help the AOS become a more inclusive society and am impressed by the dedication of the society to their members. In my new role, I’ll continue this work at a larger scale, supporting the next generation of ornithologists and ornithological research.”

Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to our newsletter. Passionate about ecology and evolutionary biology? Show your support.

�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder researcher will serve as a member of the Society’s governing body and promote its mission to support science that advances the understanding and conservation of birds.

Traditional

White

Top image: a flock of pelicans in Peru (Photo: Scott Taylor)

Meredith Betterton awarded Sloan Matter-to-Life grant

Rachel Sauer — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 20:55:21 +0000

Meredith Betterton awarded Sloan Matter-to-Life grant Rachel Sauer Wed, 08/05/2026 - 14:55

Rachel Sauer

Research aligns with foundation goal to sharpen ‘scientific understanding of the physical principles and mechanisms that distinguish living systems from inanimate matter’

Meredith Betterton, a �鶹��Ѱ�� professor of physics and molecular, cellular and developmental biology, has been awarded a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Matter-to-Life program.

The two-year, $594,487 grant will support Betterton’s ongoing research on microtubules, the small, long tubes inside cells that serve several functions and that Betterton’s research suggests may be less fixed and static than previously thought.

The Sloan Matter-to-Life program aims “to sharpen our scientific understanding of the physical principles and mechanisms that distinguish living systems from inanimate matter, and to explore the conditions under which physical principles and mechanisms guide the complexification of matter towards life.”

�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder scientist Meredith Betterton has been awarded a two-year, $594,487 grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Matter-to-Life program.

Betterton and her research colleagues study microtubules in cells, which help maintain cell structure similar to how beams support a building and also act like highways that move traffic along, she explains.

“Because (microtubules) have this important role as highways that things stick to and then move along, people have thought about them as being kind of fixed,” she says. “You build a microtubule, it’s there to be a highway and then it’s pretty static.

“The thought has been that once they’re there (in the cell), they sit there. Our project has to do with the idea that there might be subtle changes within the (microtubule) structure that act as a signal that sends information—so they act in some ways not as a highway, but like a telephone wire that’s sending signals.”

Building with bricks

Microtubules are built of subunits, called tubulin, that can be compared to bricks, Betterton explains. These tubulin “bricks” are known to make small internal changes to their shape and size; what hasn’t been known is what happens to the rest of the tubulin in the microtubule if one changes. “Imagine packing a lot of bricks together in a wall,” she says. “If you change the shape of one, what happens to the others nearby?”

Several years ago, Betterton and her research group, in collaboration with another team of research colleagues including Radhika Subramanian and Sithara S. Wijeratne at Harvard Medical School, were studying “traffic” along microtubules, which is done by motor proteins. These proteins take “steps” along the microtubule. They also can pile up and cause traffic jams, so Betterton and her colleagues were studying those jams to better understand the motors.

The researchers discovered this phenomenon because the math wasn’t working. “In my group we were working on mathematical modeling of this, and we couldn’t get the model to work,” she says. “We put in measurements, and the equations gave us predictions that were really different from what experiments showed. We found the only way we could get the model to make sense was if something was happening where the motors could talk to each other over really long distances.”

While this action happens on a nanometer scale, “if you scaled it up it would be as if, when you’re driving a car, you could know there’s another car two miles away and how fast it’s driving,” she says. “That really was the initial discovery—this weird, long-range effect that we didn’t know where it was coming from.”

Other research had explored the conformational transitions, or structural shifts in tubulin, and how motor proteins can stick to microtubules and change their state if they bind in large numbers. Betterton and her research group are exploring whether a change of state can happen when motor proteins bind in small numbers and send signals over long distances.

How cells process information

A key aspect of this research, Betterton says, is it explores a different paradigm for how to think about these particular molecules in cells and aims for broader understanding of the way cells process information.

For example, she says, much is known about how neurons in the brain send electrical signals—a vital process for information transmission in the brain—but that process “can only happen in that one type of cell, whereas microtubules are in every cell,” Betterton says. “They could be sensing something happening in one part of the cell, so we’re studying this new way that cells could be responding.”

She adds that there are various potential applications for this avenue of research, including developing more targeted chemotherapy drugs: “There’s one (tubulin) that seems to be resistant to this subtle expansion and contraction. Recent work shows that makes them not as responsive to chemotherapy drugs. Because microtubules are involved in cell division, some first-line chemotherapy drugs for cancer act against microtubules.

“What has been discovered is that some cancers can resist these chemotherapy drugs by switching to this other type of tubulin that doesn’t change shape as well,” she says, adding that understanding more about tubulin expansion and contraction could possibly lead to more effective drugs.

There also could be potential applications in the physics of materials and using microtubules and motor proteins to make new types of materials that are more tunable to specific functions.

“The Sloan program is interested in this research because this specific program is called Matter-to-Life,” Betterton says. “What that’s trying to say of matter is that it’s some collections of molecules, but what about it becomes different between something that’s inert versus something that could be more alive? That’s a really exciting question.”

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

Research aligns with foundation goal to sharpen ‘scientific understanding of the physical principles and mechanisms that distinguish living systems from inanimate matter.'

Traditional

White

Top image: Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

The weather’s hot, the books are cool

Rachel Sauer — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 21:31:07 +0000

The weather’s hot, the books are cool Rachel Sauer Mon, 08/03/2026 - 15:31

There’s still plenty of time to dive into a summer reading list, and College of Arts and Sciences authors can meet every reading mood

Friends, it’s hot out—don’t-touch-the-steering-wheel, try-to-fry-an-egg-on-the-sidewalk hot, with scant relief in the forecast.

It’s the sort of weather that calls for a hammock in the shade and a good book. So, even though we’re well into summer and perhaps starting to think about heading back to school, it’s not too late to dive into a summer reading list.

If you’re looking for some recommendations to see you through the rest of summer, the College of Arts and Sciences can help. Our faculty and alumni have written books that cater to a fascinating range of interests—from Roman temple robbery to a middle school student trying to figure things out to an exploration of Colorado’s eeriest places.

So, what are you in the mood to read?

Reading vibe: Creepy but make it Colorado

Suggestion: Eerie Colorado: Mountain Folklore, Monsters and Tales of the Supernatural, by Jack Daly, a lecturer in the �鶹��Ѱ�� Program for Writing and Rhetoric.

Daly explores all things supernatural, unexplainable and unnerving in the Centennial State. Beyond simply organizing these legends in one volume, Daly also grapples with the role supernatural folklore plays in the historical and contemporary culture of Colorado.

Reading vibe: Thinking about the Roman Empire

Suggestion: Stealing from the Gods, by Isabel Köster, a �鶹��Ѱ�� associate professor of classics whose research focus is the history, religion and literature of the Roman Republic and the early Empire.

Ancient Romans often plundered temples in their wars of conquest—sometimes openly and with astonishing scale. Large statues and famous works of art were carried away from foreign lands to Rome, treasuries were emptied and sacred spaces were stripped bare.

Yet, despite how frequently these robberies occurred, Romans still expressed sharp moral outrage about it—not for the plundering itself, but for particular individuals accused of committing it for the “wrong” reasons.

Reading vibe: Remembering forgotten histories of choice and liberal religion

Suggestion: God Bless the Pill, by Samira Mehta, a �鶹��Ѱ�� associate professor of women and gender studies and director of the Program in Jewish Studies.

It's time to remember the often-forgotten history of mid-20th-century Protestant, Jewish and Catholic leaders and believers who embraced birth control as part of God’s plan. In fact, many denominations that were “skeptical to disapproving” in the early 20th century came around to supporting and advocating for birth control and family planning.

Reading vibe: The "A" in AI could also stand for "art"

Suggestion: Lily in a Codebox, by Lee Frankel-Goldwater, an assistant teaching professor of environmental studies at the �鶹��Ѱ��.

In the summer of 2023, Lee Frankel-Goldwater was heavily immersed in Boulder’s poetry community. He was also very aware of the waves that ChatGPT was making in the tech world.

"I started doing some experiments and playing with this AI to see what it could do poetically,” says Frankel-Goldwater. He was already certain AI was going to change everything, and he wanted to see how it might be used to explore new realms of poetics.

Reading vibe: Feeling like a mango

Suggestion: Confessions of a Mango, a mid-grade novel by Katheryn Lumsden, a �鶹��Ѱ�� molecular, cellular and developmental biology alumna, and Nathan Pieplow, an associate teaching professor in the Program for Writing and Rhetoric.

Pieplow says it was important to them to write a book that was realistic and relatable: The parents may be occasionally clueless, but they want what’s best for their kids. The teachers and administrators at the school are supportive, and the other kids may be squirrelly sometimes, but they’re otherwise normal, decent kids.

“I grew up in Boulder and my husband and I are raising our kids in Boulder, and the parents here are fantastic, but sometimes there can be this feeling of life or death if you don’t do well (in school),” Lumsden says. “There isn’t a lot of room to fail, and people sometimes won’t even say the word ‘fail’ to kids. But it’s important that kids know sometimes they’ll fail and it’s not the end of the world.”

Reading vibe: Gloriously alive

Suggestion: How it Feels to Be Alive: Encounters with Art and Our Selves, by Megan O'Grady, an assistant professor in art and art history and a former art critic at The New York Times.

“I have often been bludgeoned by art’s beauty, energized or pulverized by its emotional content, vacuum-sealed within its force-field," O'Grady says. "I’ve looked at it and thought, This is exactly what it feels like to remember someone I lost, or, This is what love is, a tenderness toward existence.”

Additionally, she contends, art “provokes unanswerable questions about how to live in a fragmenting society. It enacts transfers of energy, joy and defiance. It suggests new forms of connection and belonging.”

Reading vibe: More reading, please

Suggestion: The Novel Experience, by Helmut Müller-Sievers, a professor of Germanic and Slavic languages and literature.

Helmut Müller-Sievers has an idea to help reignite students’ interest in taking literature courses: Rather than teaching novels as a source of knowledge, academics should encourage young readers to pay attention to the experience of reading.

“Every experience is novel, and every novel is an experience,” he says.

Reading vibe: Science can happen anywhere!

Suggestion: A Life of Science—In Gyms!, a memoir by Doug Seals, a distinguished professor in the Department of Integrative Physiology who chronicles more than four decades in biomedical research.

Imagine a biomedical research laboratory. Chances are, visions of gleaming equipment, climate-controlled rooms, and the hum of precision instruments come to mind.

But what if that lab was really a century-old gymnasium plagued by electrical outages, noise and temperatures that swing with the seasons? Those are just some of the challenges Doug Seals faced while establishing one of the most productive aging research programs in the country.

Reading vibe: Walking through the garden

Suggestion: The Garden, a work of poetry by Julie Carr, professor of English and creative writing and chair of women and gender studies.

Questions of what to do about violence and the spiritual paralysis it can cause let Julie Carr down wandering paths of mystical tradition, of memories of her uncle, of dreams of fire in the dry Colorado grass, of imaginings like fragments of broken glass. And she arrived at The Garden, her recently published book that weaves fractured narratives into reoriented themes of time, war, Jewishness, memory, techno-biology, friendship and grief.

Reading vibe: A road trip through memory

Suggestion: Music for Leaving, a novel by Erika Randall, dean and vice provost of undergraduate education and professor of dance

Meet Eleanor Murphy: She's 61 and on a road trip of reconciliation and reclamation across I-70, a small duffle bag and her childhood hopeless chest of failed dreams beside her on the seat of a 1960s Dodge truck.

On a journey to connect with her sister and her estranged daughter, Eleanor considers themes of longing, relief and hope—sometimes given voice through items she connects with like a peach pit, her engagement ring and a dashboard hula dancer. Along the way, she learns that though leaving is often seen as failure, sometimes it is its own superpower.

Keep reading!

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

There’s still plenty of time to dive into a summer reading list, and College of Arts and Sciences authors can meet every reading mood.

Traditional

White

National honor recognizes physics teaching excellence

juch8046 — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 14:31:53 +0000

National honor recognizes physics teaching excellence juch8046 Mon, 08/03/2026 - 08:31

Carl Wieman, Katherine Eggert (interim dean, �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder College of Arts and Sciences), Tobin Munsat, Noah Finkelstein and Erika Randall (dean and vice provost of undergraduate education, �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder) celebrate the recognition on Monday, August 3, for �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder's Department of Physics. Photo: John Eisele

�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder Department of Physics named inaugural recipient of the Carl E. Wieman Award for Excellence for sustained commitment to high-quality undergraduate education

The �鶹��Ѱ�� Department of Physics has received national recognition as an inaugural recipient of the Carl E. Wieman Award for Excellence, a new honor presented by the Association for Undergraduate Education at Research Universities (UERU).

The award recognizes research university departments and offices that demonstrate a sustained commitment to teaching excellence and high-quality undergraduate education. UERU also recognized the Office of the Senior Vice Provost for Academic Programs, Student Success, and Effectiveness at the University of Illinois Chicago with a Wieman award.

Carl E. Wieman, one of the �鶹��Ѱ��Department of Physics' most distinguished faculty members, received the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physics while a faculty member, sharing the prize with �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder physics professor and JILA fellow Eric Cornell. Photo: John Eisele

For the Department of Physics, the recognition reflects the department’s longstanding commitment to scientific discovery, physics education research and student success. It also carries special significance because the award is named for Carl E. Wieman, one of the department’s most distinguished faculty members.

Wieman received the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physics while a faculty member at �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder, sharing the prize with �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder physics professor and JILA fellow Eric Cornell. Their groundbreaking work achieved the world’s first Bose-Einstein condensate. Wieman and Cornell’s scientific accomplishments helped elevate �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder’s international reputation in physics.

Wieman’s impact extends well beyond the laboratory. Following his Nobel Prize-winning research, he launched the PhET initiative focused on improving science education and went on to become an internationally recognized scholar of teaching and learning. He later returned to �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder as a science education advisor and collaborator, helping advance efforts to improve teaching effectiveness and student learning across STEM disciplines.

Today, his influence continues through research, mentorship and scholarship, including his recent book, How to Learn to Think Like a Skilled Engineer or Scientist and How to Teach It.

That legacy is reflected in the work now being recognized. According to UERU, the Department of Physics was selected for its leadership in rethinking teaching evaluation. Drawing on the department's internationally recognized contributions to physics education research, faculty leaders developed approaches that use multiple measures to evaluate instructional excellence and support effective teaching. Led by Vice Chair Noah Finkelstein and other faculty partners, the effort helped shape teaching evaluation reforms across multiple colleges at �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder.

“Our department is remarkable in its impact and commitment to excellence in all its activities including education, research and service,” Finkelstein said. “This community continues to innovate and keep our students at the center of what we do. We are so grateful for this recognition from UREU - a national leader in advancing our collective capacities in undergraduate education.”

The department’s success has been strengthened through participation in national initiatives focused on undergraduate STEM education, including the AAU STEM Education Initiative, APLU’s Network of STEM Education Centers, the former Bay View Alliance and UERU’s Raising the Bar Initiative, and the Transforming Higher Education–Multidimensional Evaluation of Teaching project, which culminated in the 2026 Harvard Education Press book, Transforming College Teaching Evaluation: A Framework for Advancing Instructional Excellence.

“This award is enormously meaningful for our department, especially because it bears Carl Wieman’s name,” said Tobin Munsat, chair of the Department of Physics. “Carl showed us that groundbreaking research and a deep commitment to teaching can, and should, go hand in hand. This recognition affirms our commitment to giving students the best education we can.”

Steven P. Dandaneau, UERU Executive Director and Associate Provost at Colorado State University, noted that both universities receiving the inaugural Carl E. Wieman Award for Excellence “demonstrate that excellence in undergraduate education is not the product of isolated innovators, but of intentional systems, leadership and accountability.”

The recognition underscores the department’s role as a national leader in the ongoing effort to improve undergraduate education at research universities. "This award emphasizes accountability, an often-overlooked component of educational excellence," said Wieman. "By recognizing departments that have built systems to support and assess excellence in teaching and learning, this award shines a light on models worthy of attention and emulation."

In many ways, the recognition comes full circle. An award named for a Nobel laureate whose career helped redefine both modern physics and science education now honors the department where much of that work began. For the department, which earned the No. 4 spot among public universities in the latest U.S. News & World Report graduate program rankings, the award reflects the department's longstanding commitment to research excellence, outstanding teaching and the education of future physicists.

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

�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder Department of Physics named inaugural recipient of the Carl E. Wieman Award for Excellence for sustained commitment to high-quality undergraduate education.

Traditional

Photo by Nikita Palenov / Unsplash

White

Top photo: Nikita Palenov / Unsplash

Lee Niswander awarded 2026 Edwin G. Conklin Medal

Rachel Sauer — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 16:31:43 +0000

Lee Niswander awarded 2026 Edwin G. Conklin Medal Rachel Sauer Fri, 07/31/2026 - 10:31

Mikayla Eppert

The award recognizes the �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder developmental biologist for extraordinary research contributions being a mentor who helped train the next generation of outstanding scientists

Lee Niswander has been named the 2026 recipient of the Edwin G. Conklin Medal from the Society for Developmental Biology.

A distinguished professor of molecular, cellular and developmental biology at the �鶹��Ѱ��, Niswander joins a group of researchers recognized for their exceptional contributions to developmental biology and their dedication to training the next generation of scientists.

Named after Edwin G. Conklin, a pioneering developmental biologist and American embryologist, the medal recognizes both scientific impact and mentorship.

Lee Niswander is a distinguished professor of molecular, cellular and developmental biology at �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder.

“It is a huge honor to receive the 2026 Edwin G. Conklin Medal from the Society for Developmental Biology (SDB). I thank SDB for nurturing my career and the education and careers of my trainees through the years,” said Niswander. “I am extremely pleased to share in the honor of this award with all of my current and former trainees whose research drove our discoveries and revealed the wonders of the embryo.”

This award follows on the heels of Niswander earlier this year receiving the 2026 Hazel Barnes Prize and being elected as a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

Niswander is described by her peers and trainees as a generous mentor, thoughtful leader and a disarmingly humble scientist.

“Lee is fearless,” said Maria Barna, Niswander’s former graduate student who now runs her own lab at Stanford. “[She] has instilled that in me."

Niswander’s work has shaped scientists’ understanding of how the body plan arises in early embryos. Her seminal contributions range from work on FGF signaling in limb development to the role of cell cilia during early organ development, and, more recently, efforts to understand the mechanisms underlying human neural tube defects.

'Wow, this is really cool'

Niswander originally became interested in research as an undergraduate at the �鶹��Ѱ��, where she first stepped into a lab through a work-study program. “Once I started to do research, I was like, ‘Wow, this is really cool,’” she recalled.

That exposure led Niswander to graduate school at Case Western Reserve University, where she joined the developmental biology program. She remembers thinking, “I don’t know anything about development … I’m going to do that,” before joining the lab of Terry Magnuson, PhD.

Her dissertation work used genetic deletions in mice to probe which regions of chromosome 7 are necessary for embryonic development. She spent time in Sweden learning a specialized technique that helped her complete the work.

“There’s no need to reinvent the wheel if somebody else knows how to do it,” she said. “Go learn from an expert.”

After completing her PhD, Niswander joined the lab of Gail Martin, PhD, at the University of California, San Francisco, as a postdoctoral fellow. She began working on limb development, a topic no one else in the lab was pursuing at the time, and trained further at University College London with Cheryll Tickle, PhD, a leading expert in the field.

During this work, she found expression of FGF4 in the apical ectodermal ridge (AER) is sufficient for limb outgrowth—a finding that reflected the technical curiosity and willingness to seek outside expertise that would come to define her approach to science.

On her first day as a principal investigator, Niswander walked into an empty lab at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City.

“It’s just me … I can’t believe they let me do this,” she remembers thinking. This marked the beginning of her independent research career. Soon after, Niswander began a collaboration with Kathryn Anderson, PhD, launching a large-scale forward genetic screen for developmental mutants in mice.

One major finding to emerge from the screen was in identifying ciliary proteins that help integrate Hedgehog signaling during organogenesis, which Barna describes as, “dogma changing.” The findings reconceptualized cilia from passive “cellular antennas” into active signaling hubs that drive decisions about development. “The cilia is not just a boring antenna that's sticking out of the cell but is like a major signaling center also," Barna noted.

I am extremely pleased to share in the honor of this award with all of my current and former trainees whose research drove our discoveries and revealed the wonders of the embryo.”

Seeking the bigger picture

Niswander later returned to the �鶹��Ѱ��, where her work expanded from identifying genes linked to neural tube defects to probing the broader underlying mechanisms. "[Niswander] was looking for a way to plug in some of these basic discoveries into human health even more,” said Barna.

Neural tube defects remain a central focus of her current work, reflecting her broader approach to science: “I’d be bored to tears to study anything at one level. I want to see things in that bigger picture,” she explained.

Niswander continues to teach limb development as a way of sharing what she finds most compelling about developmental biology and modeling the mentorship style she values.

“I still teach limb development because I think it's such an easy system for somebody to say, ‘Oh yeah, why are my fingers here and my shoulder there?’” she said.

Although her research has since expanded beyond questions of limb development, her postdoctoral findings still stand out to her. Remove the AER and limb growth stalls; replace its signal with FGF and the limb continues to grow.

“I still find it astounding,” she said, “that you can take off this whole strip of tissue – the apical ridge – and just put back in FGF, and the limb will continue to grow.”

Across her independent career, Niswander has trained nearly 50 graduate students and postdoctoral researchers who have gone on to careers in science and beyond: professors, scientists, journalists and editors.

“I have no preconceived notions that somebody’s going to be like me,” Niswander said. “I give people opportunities all the time to pursue the career path that they want."

For Niswander, what has made it all worthwhile comes without hesitation.

"The people are my legacy,” she said. "None of this would be fun if you didn't have people in your lab. I live vicariously through all the wonderful people that have come through my lab."

Barna saw that approach firsthand.

“She encouraged this kind of bold and free way of doing science in the lab that I try to emulate,” said Barna. “But it’s very difficult to emulate Lee."

Niswander began her work at a single lab bench as an undergraduate, but her career has since evolved into one that has moved across institutions and continents, produced work spanning human disease and developmental biology, and trained dozens of scientists. Yet, Niswander still describes the impact of her work in the same way.

“The research is fun,” she said. “You publish papers and stuff, but to me it’s the people and what they’ve done.”

In recognizing Niswander with the Conklin Medal, the Society for Developmental Biology said Niswander exemplifies the scientific impact and mentorship recognized by the organization through a career defined by curiosity, fearlessness and a deep commitment to training the next generation of scientists.

—Bradley Worrell contributed to this article

Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to our newsletter. Passionate about molecular, cellular and developmental biology? Show your support.

The award recognizes the �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder developmental biologist for extraordinary research contributions being a mentor who helped train the next generation of outstanding scientists.

Traditional

White

How gut bacteria offer clues about the cost of industrialization

Rachel Sauer — Thu, 30 Jul 2026 15:44:49 +0000

How gut bacteria offer clues about the cost of industrialization Rachel Sauer Thu, 07/30/2026 - 09:44

Cody DeBos

In newly published research, �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder scientist Matthew Olm and colleagues map the gut microbiome’s hidden global diversity

When Matthew Olm’s daughter was born, he did something most parents never consider. He gave her a type of experimental probiotic designed to nudge her infant gut microbiome in a healthy direction.

Then again, most new parents don’t have a PhD in microbiology or run their own research lab studying microbes from around the world.

“It was fascinating in terms of how well it worked to colonize my daughter’s gut, and it really validated a lot of the science that I’d read about,” he says.

Matthew Olm, a �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder assistant professor of integrative physiology, recently collaborated on a study examining the gut microbiomes of eight tribal communities across India.

At the time, Olm was a postdoc in Justin Sonnenburg’s lab at Stanford University, curious to know more about what happens to the human gut microbiome as one’s lifestyle industrializes.

“There’s a lot of reason to suspect that the way industrialization changes the microbiome opens you up to immune disease. Many studies also show that the infant microbiome is especially important in this regard,” he says.

Olm, now running his own lab and serving as an assistant professor of integrative physiology at the �鶹��Ѱ��, recently collaborated on a study examining the gut microbiomes of eight tribal communities across India.

While trying to understand what these communities’ relative isolation from industrialization may have preserved, the data revealed an unexpected story.

A better global picture

Now a paper published in the journal Gut Microbes, the project first found Olm while he was at Stanford.

“A graduate student, Abhijit Sanjiv Kulkarni, came up to my (principal investigator) Justin at a conference and asked if we wanted to help out with the analysis. He had done this sampling campaign across all of these different tribes in India and had a lot of microbiome samples,” Olm recalls.

It was a unique proposition.

Some 71% of gut microbiome samples come from the United States, Europe or Canada. Almost half of all samples come from the United States despite the country accounting for just 4.3% of the global population. Samples from more populous areas like Africa and Southeast Asia, particularly communities outside urban hubs, are studied far less often.

One challenge of acquiring samples from less developed areas, Olm says, is that the sample material must be frozen immediately lest the microbes inside keep growing and distort the snapshot.

Rather than freezing in the field, the team preserved each sample on-site with a chemical stabilization buffer that halts microbial growth until the samples could be frozen back at the lab. Olm then catalogued the samples and ran the initial analysis, doing much of the work with inStrain, a genome analysis tool he had written during his PhD work at UC Berkeley.

He points out that a single microbe most people have heard of, like the E. coli found naturally in your gut, isn’t really one thing at all.

Geographic and dietary diversity of the eight sampled tribal populations in India. A, Photographs of traditional dwellings, residents, and unique foods in participating villages. B, Geographical locations of the eight sampled populations. Map is from Survey of India. Green shading indicates tribal populations as a percentage of state population in the 2011 Census of India. C, Food items consumed daily by at least one population.

“That’s millions, billions, trillions of cells, and each individual cell is slightly different from the others,” Olm says.

inStrain allows researchers to see the hidden variations so they can trace the lineage of bacterial strains within communities, regions and even family trees.

Where do our microbes come from?

The study’s most striking finding centers on Bifidobacterium, a genus prized for its health benefits. Analysis showed it in much greater abundance among dairy-consuming Trans-Himalayan communities than anywhere else in the study. The microbes were also genetically distinct from Bifidobacterium strains found in industrialized populations.

Olm says this result speaks to a long-running debate over where we get our gut microbes from. Does everyone share the same global pool of microbes, altered by our diet and lifestyle, or does physical exposure determine our gut’s unique makeup?

“Actually, the physical source matters a lot. Even if you eat a lot of potatoes, if you don’t interact with a microbe that specializes in digesting potatoes, you’re never going to pick that strain up,” Olm explains.

The findings from these communities suggest their unique gut microbiome strains co-evolved alongside the populations themselves, passed down from generation to generation, rather than being acquired because of a shared diet. An American who started eating more dairy today, Olm says, would likely never achieve a similar microbiome through diet alone.

The cost of a cleaner world

Science has proven the benefits of a diverse microbiome. Yet, industrialized societies are notorious for a lack of gut diversity, even among individuals who do everything “right” when it comes to diet and lifestyle factors.

Olm says this traces back to a handful of compounding factors.

“We have a lot more antibiotic exposure, birth by C-section and these other medical things. Diet plays a role too,” he says.

But the biggest factor is one most people aren’t as comfortable discussing: modern sanitation.

Olm explains that acquiring new microbes from other people typically requires a level of everyday exposure that handwashing and modern plumbing have all but eliminated in industrialized societies.

“A hundred years ago, the number one causes of death were all infectious disease, because we didn't have this hygiene,” Olm says. “Hygiene is definitely a good thing, but the downside is you're also not exposed to the way you'd naturally pick up healthy microbes from other people and other people’s poop.”

In other words, our cleaner world is also one with less microbial diversity.

“The more you sanitize the environment, maybe the less diverse microbiome you have, but also the less infectious disease you have,” Olm says.

He’s careful to reiterate that this isn’t an argument against modern medicine. It’s simply a reminder that everything has a trade-off.

There’s a lot of reason to suspect that the way industrialization changes the microbiome opens you up to immune disease."

“If you’re prescribed antibiotics for an ear infection, it’s important to take it. You should be washing your hands regularly and practicing good hygiene. Yes, it will have some harm on your microbiome, but in the cost-benefit analysis, modern medicine and sanitation still win,” he says.

Racing to preserve a moving target

As the world moves further along the path of industrialization, we risk losing much of the gut diversity our ancestors had. Once that diversity is gone, Olm says, it’s very difficult to bring it back—let alone study it.

This is why some researchers have begun freezing and banking fecal samples from non-industrialized populations, similar to preserving seed banks for crop diversity. Others have taken to studying ancient fossilized fecal matter to recover snapshots of gut microbiomes lost millennia ago.

While projects like the one Olm collaborated on can reveal some hidden secrets of humanity’s gut health, he is careful not to frame traditional communities as something to be preserved for the benefit of research.

Pointing to the Hadza hunter-gatherers of Tanzania, he says it’s tempting to romanticize the lifestyle as something worth protecting, but adds, “If you talk to some of these communities, they want education, they want modern medicine.”

Industrialization, he says, is “part of the human condition.”

“I don’t think it’s right to discourage these non-industrialized populations from becoming industrialized with the rest of the world just so it benefits our microbiomes,” Olm adds.

“Most of the microbes in our gut, they eat fiber, and it's the primary food source for our microbiome," says �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder scientist Matthew Olm. "The more fiber you eat, the more substrate there is to sustain a healthy microbiome." (Photo: iStock)

Instead of discouraging it, his lab publishes its sequencing data publicly, serving as what he calls a computational resource for future researchers to study before these unique microbiomes change further.

What about your gut?

As for the rest of us, Olm’s advice on a healthy microbiome is refreshingly unglamorous in a world where we are constantly bombarded by ads and influencers pushing one supplement or the next.

“Eat more fiber. That’s definitely the number one recommendation,” he says.

Recommended daily fiber intake in the U.S. is about 25 to 28 grams per day for women and between 28 and 34 grams per day for men, according to the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

Olm says most Americans get just 10 grams of fiber from their diet each day. Traditional hunter-gatherer communities may eat up to 200 grams a day during certain bountiful seasons.

“Most of the microbes in our gut, they eat fiber, and it's the primary food source for our microbiome. The more fiber you eat, the more substrate there is to sustain a healthy microbiome,” Olm adds.

It’s not a flashy recommendation, but that’s the point. In a field full of trendy probiotics that are more marketing than science, the answer may be as simple as supporting the system our bodies have relied on for thousands of years.

For Olm and his lab moving forward, the real promise of gut microbiome research lies in building a fuller picture of what a healthy gut can look like and how we can support it with science-backed interventions.

As more of the world's underrepresented microbiomes get studied, that picture, and our knowledge of our own health, can only be clearer.

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

In newly published research, �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder scientist Matthew Olm and colleagues map the gut microbiome’s hidden global diversity.

Traditional

White

Top image: "Farm Near Karlee, India" by Marianne North

Why remembering the Big Thompson Flood of 1976 matters today

Rachel Sauer — Wed, 29 Jul 2026 15:44:28 +0000

Why remembering the Big Thompson Flood of 1976 matters today Rachel Sauer Wed, 07/29/2026 - 09:44

A cabin lodged on a private bridge just below Drake, Colorado, following the Big Thompson Flood in 1976. (Photo: W.R. Hansen/U.S. Geological Survey)

Bradley Worrell

�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder Natural Hazards Center Director Lori Peek says there are still lessons to be learned from the devastating flash flood, 50 years later

Fifty years ago this week, a beautiful summer evening in Colorado ended in catastrophe.

On the night of July 31, 1976, a powerful thunderstorm stalled over the Big Thompson Canyon west of Loveland, unleashing a torrential rainfall in a matter of hours. The resulting flash flood killed 144 people and became the single deadliest disaster in the state’s history.

For Lori Peek, professor of sociology and director of the Natural Hazards Center at the �鶹��Ѱ��, the flood’s most important legacy may be the lessons that emerged from it—and the realization that those lessons still require attention today.

Lori Peek is a �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder professor of sociology and director of the Natural Hazards Center.

“Anniversary events like this one are so important because they serve as moments for communities to come together and reflect upon what was lost, what we’ve learned and what we still need to do to become more resilient in the future,” she says.

A perfect storm of human, environmental and built factors

While the Big Thompson Flood is often remembered for its meteorological extremes, Peek says that disasters are never caused by nature alone.

“One of the things we say in this field of study is that there are natural hazards, but there’s no such thing as a natural disaster,” she says. “Every disaster has a human component.

“There are, of course, natural hazards—floods, fires and tornadoes—but what turns them into disasters is the collision between vulnerable built environments, vulnerable human systems and the natural environment. That’s what creates a disaster.”

In the case of the historic Colorado flood, Peek says several factors converged to maximize the damage. These included:

Storm stalled: Rather than moving through an area as storms tend to do, the storm that evening stalled over the canyon, dumping more than 12 inches of water in just over four hours. “It was almost like pouring water into a bowl,” Peek says.
Rapid water rise: The floodwaters rose with astonishing speed, leaving many people trapped in cabins, automobiles or low-lying areas before they understood the danger.
Geography: The canyon’s steep walls funneled water into a narrow corridor, placing people in homes, hotels, campgrounds and vehicles along the river in harm’s way. “The topography played a major role,” Peek acknowledges.
Nightfall: The storm struck after dark, when many people were sleeping. Also, of those who were awake, some could not see or sense the danger.
Cars: Many victims were in cars—either trying to flee the storm or parked near the river. “The people with the highest risk of dying were those who remained in their vehicles,” Peek says.
Timing: The storm struck during the final holiday weekend of the summer, when the canyon was crowded with campers and visiting tourists, as well as a mix of full-time and part-time residents. In total, it is estimated that about 2,500 people were in the canyon at the time.

“There’s also the human dimension—whether people understood the risk, knew what to do, could physically take action and could get to safety,” Peek says. “That complicated mix is what led to so many deaths.”

A cabin lodged on a private bridge just below Drake, Colorado, following the Big Thompson Flood in 1976. (Photo: W.R. Hansen/U.S. Geological Survey)

She adds that research conducted soon after the flood found that survival often depended upon a simple but critical decision: getting out and moving uphill.

“What the research on who survived and why—and who died and why—showed was that the key to survival was getting out … and literally climbing to safety,” she says.

She says that finding is one of the flood’s most enduring lessons.

A (new) sign of the times in 1977

Today, anyone who travels through Colorado canyons is likely familiar with the bright yellow signs depicting a person climbing uphill.

Peek says those signs endure because they communicate something essential: Survival depends upon taking immediate action.

Today, anyone who travels through Colorado canyons is likely familiar with the bright yellow signs depicting a person climbing uphill. (Photo: Brad Turner/KUNC)

“If you’re going to communicate risk effectively, the message has to be actionable,” she explains. “That’s why, even 50 years later, the signage remains so powerful. It tells people exactly what to do in the face of an imminent threat to life safety.”

Peek notes those climb-to-safety signs were the result of an August 1977 working paper by �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder researcher Eve C. Grunfest, who interviewed dozens of flood survivors, first responders, emergency management professionals and others to learn what worked and what needed to be improved following the Big Thompson Flood. Grunfest studied under Gilbert F. White, a �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder professor of geography who Peek says is widely considered the father of floodplain management and who founded the Natural Hazards Center in 1976.

The Natural Hazards Center was not established because of the Big Thompson Flood, as White was already in the process of founding the organization in 1975. However, Peek says the flood demonstrated why such an academic research center, dedicated to translating and sharing findings, was needed.

“The Natural Hazards Center was established because, at the time, a lot of research wasn’t making it into the hands of practitioners and policymakers,” says Peek, who was a graduate research assistant at the center from 1999 to 2005. She returned to �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder in 2017 to serve as the center’s director. “The Natural Hazards Center was established to nurture the hazards and disaster research community and share information with those concerned with reducing disaster risk. That’s the work that federal agencies like the National Science Foundation support us to do, because the evidence shows that actions we take before disaster can save lives and prevent unnecessary harm and suffering.”

Comparing the floods of 1976 and 2013

In many ways, Colorado today is better prepared for flooding than it was in 1976, Peek says.

At the time of the 1976 disaster, emergency managers lacked many of the tools that are the norm today. Then, there were no cellphone alerts, no modern emergency notification systems, no social media networks and few of the sophisticated weather forecasting capabilities available today.

Peek says that weather forecasting has become more precise, at-risk communities have installed warning sirens and emergency communication systems can distribute alerts through many channels and in many different languages to serve diverse groups.

In the Big Thompson Canyon, some vulnerable structures destroyed in the 1976 flood were never rebuilt in the same locations.

“Portions of the built environment have been moved out of the highest-risk floodways and floodplains,” Peek says. “Some of the streamside motels, cabins and other structures that were destroyed in the flood were not rebuilt in those same vulnerable locations.”

When the Big Thompson River flooded again in 2013, Peek says it demonstrated both the value of those improvements and the continuing reality of flooding danger. While the 2013 flood caused massive damage and resulted in at least eight deaths, Peek says she believes losses would have been even worse without decades of investment in warning systems and flood mitigation.

Why some lessons go unlearned

Despite the progress made since 1976, recent disasters show that communities do not always implement best-practice safety measures. Peek points to the 2025 Camp Mystic tragedy in Texas, where children were swept away in a flash flood.

“They didn’t have an emergency action plan. They didn’t have sirens. They didn’t have timely cell phone alerts. They hadn’t moved structures in the floodplain out of harm’s way,” Peek notes.

Why do these failures persist?

Peek offers several reasons. While disasters can create “policy windows” for lawmakers and regulators to act, those windows close more quickly today due to short public attention spans, and consensus is harder to build in today’s age of political polarization, she notes. Additionally, even when guidance exists, people may not know where to begin or may be overwhelmed, she adds.

Still, Peek sees some reasons for optimism. New guidance documents from the Association of State Floodplain Managers provide step-by-step instructions for camps and RV parks to create emergency action plans and offer model ordinance language for lawmakers.

“That’s a good example of how progress happens,” she says. “Such guidance can help spur action.”

A state that has changed—and largely forgotten the storm

Meanwhile, back in Colorado, Peek says one of the bigger challenges in commemorating the anniversary of the Big Thompson Flood is that most Colorado residents—and nearly all of its visitors—have no memory of it.

“Fifty years is a long time,” she notes. “Most visitors would have no reason to know anything about the Big Thompson Flood unless they are particularly interested in disaster history.”

The Big Thompson Flood remains the deadliest disaster in Colorado’s history. By learning what happened, how lives could have been saved then and how lives can still be saved today, we have an opportunity to build a more resilient state.”

Even among residents, Colorado today is a relatively young state demographically. Many people weren’t alive when the flood occurred, and many didn’t attend school here. As a result, public awareness of flood risk remains low, Peek says.

“People are often surprised to learn that Boulder is one of the state’s communities most at risk to flash flooding,” she says.

At the same time, Colorado itself has changed dramatically since 1976. The state’s population has swelled from 2.6 million then to more than 6 million today. More people are hiking, camping and driving through canyons than ever, oblivious to the dangers that flash floods pose. And while technology has improved, many of those areas are still without reliable cell service, Peek notes. She adds that floods can strike with little warning.

Could a disaster like the 1976 Big Thompson Flood could happen today?

Peek’s answer is an unequivocal yes. That’s why physical signage, emergency planning measures, public education and land-use planning all remain essential—especially in a warming climate, she says.

“Risk isn’t static,” she says. “As we experience more extreme rainfall events, places that once weren’t considered high risk, or weren’t mapped as flood hazards, may now be vulnerable.”

Peek says it’s also why remembering anniversaries like the 1976 Big Thompson Flood still matters today.

“It’s so important to know our history,” she says. “The Big Thompson Flood remains the deadliest disaster in Colorado’s history. By learning what happened, how lives could have been saved then and how lives can still be saved today, we have an opportunity to build a more resilient state.”

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

�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder Natural Hazards Center Director Lori Peek says there are still lessons to be learned from the devastating flash flood, 50 years later.

Traditional

White

Top photo: Damage caused by the 1976 Big Thompson Flood (Photo: Maurice L. Albertson/Maurice L. Albertson Papers at Colorado State University)

The only way to make beef and dairy more climate-friendly? Stop producing it

Rachel Sauer — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 19:37:16 +0000

The only way to make beef and dairy more climate-friendly? Stop producing it Rachel Sauer Tue, 07/28/2026 - 13:37

Tiffany Plate

�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder researcher Cliff Bueno de Mesquita and colleagues are showing why microbial solutions to livestock methane emissions reductions won’t stop beef and dairy’s environmental and health problems

By nature, cows are gassy creatures. But it’s not just the stink of their manure or their belches that are troublesome. The methane gas released by ruminants like cows (or bison, sheep or goats) also causes a lot of trouble for the planet.

That’s because methane is a potent greenhouse gas with a dramatically higher global warming potential than carbon dioxide. And ruminants raised for food account for 14% of global methane emissions.

Over the last decade or so scientists have been hard at work figuring out how to infuse cows’ feedstock with additives that inhibit methane-producing microbes. The process could reduce those methane emissions and potentially produce a more “climate-friendly” beef.

Cliff Bueno de Mesquita, who studies microbial ecology of permafrost and ancient sediments in the lab of ecology and evolutionary biology Professor Noah Fierer and in the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, teamed up with other microbiologists passionate about environmental issues for this perspective piece. (Photo: Cliff Bueno de Mesquita)

Sounds like a win-win, right? A new perspective piece by Cliff Bueno de Mesquita (PhDEBio'19), a research scientist in the lab of ecology and evolutionary biology Professor Noah Fierer and the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), says otherwise.

“Even if you could decrease cows’ methane emissions by 100%, cows are still worse than plant-based agriculture for their land use, water use, pollution and impacts on human health,” says Bueno de Mesquita.

In their piece in the journal Sustainable Agriculture, Bueno de Mesquita and a team of microbiologist colleagues outline all the reasons that altering cows’ rumen microbes is a misdirected use of time, money and energy. “This is basically distracting from what we really need to be doing, which is reducing the ruminant population size,” he says.

This conclusion—that reducing the numbers of ruminants raised for food is the only solution to actually reducing livestock’s impact on the planet—has already been drawn by researchers around the world.

“There are a lot of great scientists working on this topic, with strong data sets that have been assembled with all of the evidence,” says Bueno de Mesquita.

Bueno de Mesquita and his colleagues cited 98 studies, to be exact, in their peer-reviewed opinion piece that re-emphasizes the personal and planetary benefits of a shift to a plant-based diet—and lays out exactly why rumen microbes are not the answer.

The problem with microbes

Some of the literature references cited in the piece are studies that have been done on the most common feed additives that have been studied for methane inhibition: seaweed and 3-nitrooxypropanol (or Bovaer). The research shows that the demonstrated efficacy of these microbes is extremely variable, with one review reporting a range of 10–63% reduction and another review reporting a range of a 4% increase to a 97% reduction.

Bueno de Mesquita and colleagues are also concerned that altering rumen microbes may lead to unpredictable health effects for the cattle, and may even decrease immunity to pathogens that could be detrimental to human health.

Another reason for concern? This method favors intensive beef production, where cattle are fed in feedlots rather than on grass (as is more likely to be the case in small-holder production). Not to mention that seaweed harvesting has its own inherent carbon emissions and environmental impact.

But Bueno de Mesquita’s team points out that even if none of these were issues, methane reduction does nothing to address potent nitrogen emissions or other emissions from the rest of the production life cycle (e.g., land use, water use, fertilizer, crop residues, manure).

Bueno de Mesquita and colleagues created this graphic to demonstrate how many ways livestock production can impact the environment and human health—and how only one of these impacts is reduced by trying to alter the microbes in the rumen with feed additives. (Graphic: Cliff Bueno de Mesquita and Ylenia Vimercati Molano)

Shifting people’s perspectives

The authors wrote the piece to be accessible to non-scientists in hopes of reaching as wide an audience as possible. “I want the public to be aware and to be skeptical of labels coming from the beef and dairy industry that are calling those products climate friendly,” says Bueno de Mesquita.

Of course, he also hopes that people will consider simply shifting to a plant-based diet in order to make their meals more climate friendly. But he knows that’s easier said than done.

“We're basically living in a ‘carnistic’ society where eating meat is perceived to be normal, natural and necessary,” says Bueno de Mesquita. “That's sort of people's default. So when they’re met with a proposal for a minor shift that challenges that, we know there's gonna be pushback.”

Two years ago Bueno de Mesquita and his co-authors published another paper documenting a push within �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder’s Ecology and Evolutionary Biology department for more plant-based meals. “The PhD students were very hesitant to implement a dietary change, even though they know that it's going to be better for the environment.”

Even still, Bueno de Mesquita says the current perspective piece is getting a lot of traction. “I basically never get emails about my research papers,” he says. “But I've already gotten emails from multiple people saying that they agree.” He adds that even some leading microbiologists have posted it on social media.

That’s key to reaching the other audience Bueno de Mesquita and colleagues wanted to address: the microbiologists actually doing the research on rumen microbes in livestock feed, usually funded by the beef and dairy industries, he says.

“They're enabling the dairy industry to say, ‘Hey, we're doing this research. This is going to work’,” says Bueno de Mesquita. “Then the industry has an excuse to keep business as usual.”

Instead, he hopes that microbiologists and other scientists studying climate change will step up and speak with a unified voice about what needs to be done as a society. “It's very obvious,” says Bueno de Mesquita. “If you want to reduce methane from ruminants, you need to decrease the number of ruminants.”

Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to our newsletter. Passionate about ecology and evolutionary biology? Show your support.

Traditional

White

Top photo: Unsplash

Benson Center receives $3 million National Endowment for the Humanities award

Rachel Sauer — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 21:38:09 +0000

Benson Center receives $3 million National Endowment for the Humanities award Rachel Sauer Thu, 07/23/2026 - 15:38

Award will establish endowment to support innovative academic program at �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder integrating study of the Western tradition with American history, government and civics

The Bruce D. Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization at the �鶹��Ѱ�� has received a $3 million Endowments for Advancing the Humanities Award from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The award, which is matched by $3 million in private philanthropic commitments, will establish an endowment to support the development of an innovative multidisciplinary academic program at �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder integrating the study of the Western tradition with American history, government and civics. This endowment will advance �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder's educational mission by creating a permanent source of funding that expands undergraduate curricular and co-curricular opportunities, strengthens faculty recruitment and retention, deepens K-12 partnerships and bolsters public engagement.

"This award confirms the central role of the humanities at �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder," said Katherine Eggert, interim dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. “The award’s impact will extend throughout the College of Arts and Sciences. We look forward to working with faculty across the college to enrich educational offerings for all �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder undergraduates through this opportunity."

This program will build on �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder’s existing academic strengths and foster a vibrant and multidisciplinary intellectual community dedicated to the study of the Western tradition and its ongoing influence on our world today."
— Joseph Porter, Benson Center director of undergraduate studies

Joseph Porter, Benson Center director of undergraduate studies, associate teaching professor and the awarded proposal's principal investigator, said, “This program will build on �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder’s existing academic strengths and foster a vibrant and multidisciplinary intellectual community dedicated to the study of the Western tradition and its ongoing influence on our world today. I am confident it will deepen countless students' understanding of texts, events, people and ideas that have profoundly shaped the modern world.”

Endowment income will support humanities faculty in different departments and programs who will expand the Benson Center's course offerings and develop a multidisciplinary curriculum focused on the Western tradition and American history, government and civics. This curriculum will introduce �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder students to texts, events, people and ideas that have profoundly shaped America and the Western world—from the classical and Biblical traditions through the American founding to the modern age.

The program will introduce students to enduring tensions and questions within the Western tradition and deepen their understanding of both past and present through critical study of influential and transformative texts. It will equip them with the historical literacy, analytical skills and civic understanding necessary for thoughtful citizenship.

“Grants from the National Endowment support organizations and scholars working to illuminate and educate about the great ideas and events of the past,” said NEH Acting Chairman William English in an announcement of the awards. “As we celebrate our nation’s 250th anniversary this year, NEH is proud to help foster robust public engagement with our national history, ideals and intellectual achievements through funding for an array of exhibitions, preservation projects, books, education initiatives and advanced research.”

The transformative award marks a significant milestone in the Benson Center's mission to expand humanistic study of the Western tradition at �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder.

“We are deeply grateful to the National Endowment for the Humanities for its support, as well as to the many alumni, donors and friends whose longstanding dedication, hard work and generosity have made this award possible,” said Taylor Jaworski, Benson Center interim director and associate professor of economics. “This award will strengthen the Benson Center and advance its mission of bringing together faculty and students from across �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder with shared interests in the Western tradition.”

“We look forward to developing a distinctive academic program at �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder that will inspire humanistic and civic education for decades to come,” Porter said.

Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to our newsletter. Passionate about the study of Western civilization? Show your support.

Award will establish endowment to support innovative academic program at �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder integrating study of the Western tradition with American history, government and civics.

Traditional

White

Do elections affect political anger?

Rachel Sauer — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 18:11:31 +0000

Do elections affect political anger? Rachel Sauer Wed, 07/22/2026 - 12:11

A Freedom Party of Austria (FOP) campaign van bearing the image of Herbert Kickl, who has led the party since 2021. The slogan "Dein herz sagt ja" translates to "Your heart says yes." (Photo: Asurnipal/Wikimedia Commons)

Bradley Worrell

�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder political scientists find that far-right voters in Austria were less angry after electoral success while many mainstream voters correspondingly became more angry

Much of the current research on right-wing populist parties focuses on what motivates their supporters before elections—particularly anger, anxiety and discontent.

But a recent study from �鶹��Ѱ�� Department of Political Science Professor Jennifer Fitzgerald and graduate students Mateusz Leszczynski and Sinan Nadarevic takes a different approach. Instead of examining what drives voters to support far-right parties—typically hardline attitudes on immigration, strong Euroskepticism and deep distrust of domestic political leaders—the researchers sought to understand what happens to those voters after their party achieves electoral success.

“What we’re doing is turning that question around,” explains Fitzgerald, whose research focuses on comparative political behavior. “Instead of asking what leads someone to support a far-right party, we’re asking what happens afterwards. Once someone has cast that vote, how do they feel?”

�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder political scientists Jennifer Fitzgerald (left), Mateusz Leszczynski (center) and Sinan Nadarevic (right) asked once someone has cast a vote, how do they feel?

The researchers found their answers in studying the 2017 election in Austria, in which the far-right Freedom Party (FPO) finished strongly in third place, allowing it to become a junior partner in a coalition government headed by the center-right Austrian People’s Party (OVP). As the results were counted, FPO voters became less angry and anxious—and more hopeful and confident, the researchers found.

The study’s findings challenge the widely held assumption that populist parties rely on a constant state of anger, says Leszczynski, who studies comparative politics and public policy. Those findings suggest that election outcomes can significantly alter political emotions—at least in the short term, he adds.

Fitzgerald says the research offers a new perspective on how voters experience democratic politics and may help researchers better understand emotional dynamics across modern democracies.

Looking for answers in Austria

One reason the three researchers looked at Austria is because the Freedom Party is one of Western Europe’s longest-running far-right parties and has enjoyed some measure of electoral success, even prior to the 2017 elections, Fitzgerald says.

“(FPO) has a very established electorate and a very well-known brand,” she says.

Austria also had another factor in its favor in terms of studying electoral behavior. Specifically, researchers had access to a rare Austrian survey that tracked political emotions before and after the country’s 2017 national elections. That’s significant because one challenge in studying political emotions is separating them from broader feelings about life, says Nadarevic, who studies comparative politics and American politics.

“It didn’t ask how they felt in general, how they felt about the economy or how they felt about society. It was explicitly focused on the political situation at that moment in time,” he says. He says that distinction helped the researchers isolate political emotions more effectively than many previous studies conducted in other countries with far-right parties.

“We also looked at data from countries such as Britain, Switzerland, the United States and Finland,” he says. “Austria was unique in asking specifically about political emotions rather than simply asking respondents how they were feeling overall.”

Leszczynski says that specificity allowed the researchers “to get much closer to the underlying mechanism.”

At the same time, as with any survey-based study, this research depends on self-reported responses, which always carry built-in limitations, Fitzgerald acknowledges.

“That’s always a challenge with survey data,” she says. “No survey instrument is perfect, and no survey question perfectly captures the phenomenon you’re trying to measure.”

Rather than treating survey responses as definitive proof of emotional states, Fitzgerald says the researchers interpret them in light of existing political psychology research.

“This is where the existing literature becomes so important,” she says. “Prior research gives us a set of theoretical expectations—sometimes competing expectations—which help guide our interpretation of the results.”

Fitzgerald emphasizes that research is an ongoing process of comparing data, theory and previous findings.

“We recognize that surveys don’t provide absolute truth about how people feel,” she says. “However, when interpreted in the context of broader scholarly literature, they can still provide meaningful insights.”

Electoral winners feel better

The study’s central finding is straightforward: Electoral success appears to improve how FPO supporters feel about politics—at least in the short term. Notably, those emotional changes were strongest among voters with deep attachments to the party, Leszczynski says.

“What we looked at was the strength of an individual’s connection to the party,” he says. The researchers compared highly committed supporters with voters who back the FPO but did not strongly identify with it.

“We found that voters who were more strongly connected to the party—what people might call ‘core’ or ‘hardcore’ supporters—experienced much stronger emotional shifts,” Nadarevic says. That finding resembles patterns seen in many democracies, where strong partisans tend to invest more emotionally in election outcomes than voters who simply choose a party in a particular election, he adds.

Fitzgerald says the results suggest that many far-right voters behave much like traditional party loyalists when it comes to how they feel about their preferred party’s electoral performance.

“Our findings suggest that at least some of these voters behave much like traditional partisans,” she explains. “The strongest emotional shifts occurred among those with the strongest partisan attachment.”

Still, the researchers offer a caveat with their findings: Their research makes no claims that election results permanently reduce anger. Campaign cycles may repeatedly increase and decrease emotions; thus, political emotions may be cyclical rather than fixed.

“We can’t say that reduced anger and reduced anxiety persist long term,” Fitzgerald notes.

Elections create winners and losers

Another key finding of the research report: Elections affect more than just the victorious party’s supporters. In the 2017 Austrian election, while FPO voters experienced an emotional uplift, supporters of the center-left Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPO) reacted in the opposite direction.

An FPO campaign booth in Wein, Austria. �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder researchers found that in the 2017 Austrian election, while FPO voters experienced an emotional uplift, supporters of the center-left Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPO) reacted in the opposite direction. (Photo: Janos Korom/Wikimedia Commons)

“What we observed was that center-left voters became more politically angry and anxious after the election,” Leszczynski says. In effect, elections produce emotional winners and losers as well as political ones, he adds.

Fitzgerald says she believes that broader perspective is essential for understanding modern democracy.

“If we looked only at far-right voters, we’d learn something useful from this analysis,” she says. “But by examining other parties as well, we see broader patterns.”

Nadarevic says the result is a kind of emotional trade-off, where gains among one group are accompanied by losses among another.

“To us, that’s a fascinating way to think about elections,” Fitzgerald says. “It highlights just how emotionally consequential modern democratic politics have become.”

Although there are no immediate plans for a follow-up paper, the researchers say a variety of avenues could be pursued, such as designing longitudinal studies in Austria that could better measure emotional changes over time, examining far-right parties and electoral outcomes in other countries, making comparisons across parties and ideologies and putting an even greater focus on the emotional consequences of political participation.

Implications beyond Austria

Although the researchers focused on Austria, they believe its findings could have relevance elsewhere.

Fitzgerald notes that scholars frequently identify similar characteristics among far-right voters in countries such as Germany, the Netherlands, France and Sweden.

“We think there’s a reasonable possibility that our findings could generalize beyond Austria,” she says.

At the same time, the researchers are careful not to overstate their conclusions.

“We view this as a case study with broader theoretical relevance—rather than proof that the same pattern exists everywhere,” Fitzgerald says.

Perhaps the most difficult question raised by the study concerns democratic legitimacy. For instance, if electoral success reduces anger and anxiety among populist voters, does that represent a healthy outcome for democracy? The researchers are cautious about drawing simplistic conclusions.

“It’s certainly something worth thinking about,” Fitzgerald says. However, the answer becomes more complicated when considering the emotional reactions of other voters, she acknowledges.

“If anger and anxiety decline among far-right voters while increasing among center-left voters, it’s hard to conclude that there is an overall gain in democratic legitimacy,” she says.

For the researchers, they say the most important lesson may be that emotions deserve a more central place in discussions about voting and democracy.

“What we can say is that public confidence in democratic politics matters greatly,” Fitzgerald says, “and understanding these emotional dynamics helps us ask better questions about democracies and their citizens.”

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

�鶹��Ѱ��Boulder political scientists find that far-right voters in Austria were less angry after electoral success while many mainstream voters correspondingly became more angry.

Traditional

White

Top image: A seemingly defaced FPO candidate billboard in Innsbruck, Austria. (Photo: Jolly Janner/Wikimedia Commons)

News

Scott Taylor elected councilor of the American Ornithological Society

Related Articles

Meredith Betterton awarded Sloan Matter-to-Life grant

Related Articles

The weather’s hot, the books are cool

Related Articles

National honor recognizes physics teaching excellence

Related Articles

Lee Niswander awarded 2026 Edwin G. Conklin Medal

Related Articles

How gut bacteria offer clues about the cost of industrialization

Related Articles

Why remembering the Big Thompson Flood of 1976 matters today

Related Articles

The only way to make beef and dairy more climate-friendly? Stop producing it

Related Articles

Benson Center receives $3 million National Endowment for the Humanities award

Related Articles

Do elections affect political anger?

Related Articles