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How timing shapes one of the hardest conversations in medicine

Rachel Sauer — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 13:00:00 +0000

How timing shapes one of the hardest conversations in medicine Rachel Sauer Thu, 10/01/2026 - 07:00

Cody DeBos

New research shows that a different kind of breast cancer awareness starts with better communication

A newly diagnosed breast cancer patient sits across from her surgeon to discuss her course of treatment. Moments after the surgeon starts laying out the options, she cuts in to say, “I want both breasts off.”

Surgical guidelines actively discourage this treatment for early-stage, one-sided breast cancer patients with no family history or genetic mutations related to breast cancer. In these cases, removing a healthy breast doesn’t improve survival odds and can raise complication risks.

But it’s also, unmistakably, what this patient wants.

Chase Raymond (left), a CU �Ǹ�Թ� associate professor of linguistics and a member of the clinical faculty in Family Medicine at CU Anschutz, and Virginia Teas Gill (right), professor of sociology emerita at Illinois State University, collaborated on research studying how surgeons and breast cancer patients communicate.

In that moment, the surgeon faces a dilemma. Follow the evidence and risk overriding the patient’s autonomy or honor her request and allow her to forego the treatment option backed by decades of medical research: lumpectomy plus radiation therapy.

This tension plays out in exam rooms around the world every day for breast cancer patients in need of life-saving care. It is also at the center of new research from Chase Raymond, a �Ǹ�Թ� associate professor of linguistics and a member of the clinical faculty in Family Medicine at CU Anschutz, and Virginia Teas Gill, professor of sociology emerita at Illinois State University.

October, which is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, is a fitting time to examine that push-and-pull through a new lens.

“Our approach is to look at real recordings of actual consultations, with prior consent, of course, and then we can see what surgeons and patients are really doing,” Raymond says.

In studying the moment-by-moment mechanics of how doctors and patients reach treatment decisions, their paper sparks valuable discussions about patient advocacy and how providers can navigate the balancing act between competing mandates.

A black box, finally opened

Raymond and Gill’s approach relies on Conversation Analysis (CA), a tool used for uncovering the interactional structures that underpin every ordinary conversation.

“This is language and social life—the interactional mechanics that we use to get the activities of everyday life accomplished with one another,” Raymond says.

Gill was drawn to breast cancer surgical consultations for this study because of a historical trend concerning that patient population.

“Historically, breast cancer patients did not have a say in how they were treated. Really, through the 1970s in the United States, this was a decision that was made by physicians,” she says.

For years, radical mastectomy (removal of the breast[s], chest muscles and nearby lymph nodes) was standard treatment even for small tumors.

Today, researchers understand more about what factors influence a patient’s long-term outcomes and which treatment modalities represent the best chance for remission. Treatment options have expanded, giving patients many more choices for their care, including the option to have less-extensive surgery. However, many early-stage patients are now expressing a desire to have both breasts removed.

Yet, what happens between patient and provider in the exam room has largely remained a mystery.

“What goes on when the surgeon and patient talk to each other has been kind of a black box,” Gill says.

“The challenge at issue is, how can patient preferences be balanced with best practice guidelines in this setting?” asks researcher Virginia Teas Gill. (Photo: Unsplash)

She and Raymond wanted to open it.

“We want to understand this process of how surgical treatment options are presented and negotiated, and Conversation Analysis gives us the tools to do that,” Gill adds.

Two mandates

The challenge for physicians isn’t simply whether to make a recommendation for a particular course of treatment. Gill and Raymond note that doing so is often medically necessary.

“The challenge at issue is, how can patient preferences be balanced with best practice guidelines in this setting?” Gill says.

In cases where surgeons and patients may have different perspectives, “both sides are looking for the right thing to do, but figuring out what exactly that is doesn’t happen in an instant. The surgeon and the patient are going to take turns back and forth to ultimately arrive at a decision,” Raymond says. “The sequencing and the ordering of the parts of this conversation are incredibly important.”

‘OK, then you need to hear me out’

In one consultation Raymond and Gill studied, a surgeon walks this tightrope on the record. When the patient asks for both breasts to be removed before being presented with complete information about her options, the surgeon neither grants nor denies the request.

She instead asks the patient to wait and hear the full picture first, including the survival and recurrence statistics associated with all her options.

Gill and Raymond use this example to illustrate how this surgeon works to help the patient make not just her own decision, but a decision that is informed by medical evidence.

“Before granting the request, the surgeon asks the patient to first listen to information that she might not know,” Gill adds.

The duo likens the interaction between patient and provider to stocking a metaphorical pond.

They note that every patient enters the room with “their life experience, their preferences, their values, what they’ve heard from other people and all kinds of media sources.”

Physicians have their own pond filled with information, and the two don’t always fully overlap.

Before a final decision is made, Gill says, the surgeon’s job is to close this information gap. In this case, that means presenting clinical trial data on survival and recurrence, so that the patient has access to the information in their pond. It also means giving the patient an opportunity to ask for more information and express her concerns to complete the surgeon’s picture of what matters to the patient.

That’s why understanding these conversations is so important. There’s a lot at stake, and everyone is trying to achieve the best outcome."

Raymond says, “The patient is thereby reassured that the decision is hers, and will remain hers, but some additional information will be shared before that final decision is made.”

Working both ways

Patients, Gill says, can use the same strategy in reverse, asking to hear more information before accepting a surgeon’s recommendation, or before any medical decision is made.

Raymond notes that physicians are given a limited window of time to convey a tremendous amount of information, with patient satisfaction and complication risks on the line. But no outcome feels good if a patient goes through with a treatment they later regret or leaves the office without understanding all their options.

“That’s why understanding these conversations is so important. There’s a lot at stake, and everyone is trying to achieve the best outcome,” Raymond says.

Conversation Analysis is one way researchers can peek behind the curtain and identify patterns that can help both sides communicate more effectively.

The researchers believe the observations made in their study are important for negotiations beyond the surgical consult room, too.

“This is a dynamic that happens in a lot of contexts. It’s a balancing act that plays out in many different settings, both in and out of medicine,” Gill says.

In the exam room or elsewhere, timing matters. If information can be given before final decisions are made, these priorities don’t have to be in competition. For Gill and Raymond, the study is also a reminder that how patients and doctors talk to each other still matters.

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New research shows that a different kind of breast cancer awareness starts with better communication.

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Scholar finding signal in the static

Rachel Sauer — Wed, 30 Sep 2026 13:00:00 +0000

Scholar finding signal in the static Rachel Sauer Wed, 09/30/2026 - 07:00

Cody DeBos

CU �Ǹ�Թ� applied mathematician Brian Zaharatos asks, ‘What becomes of thinking when machines think for you?’

When you ask an AI model to solve a math problem, it will. Ask it to draft a legal brief, summarize a medical study or grade a stack of essays, and increasingly, it can do that too.

Whether the resulting output is accurate is less assured.

Even so, artificial intelligence technology is advancing faster than most people can reckon with what it means for them. From its impact in the workplace to decaying trust in information, even the researchers building today’s leading AI models don’t have the answers.

Brian Zaharatos, a teaching professor in the �Ǹ�Թ� Department of Applied Mathematics, has been searching for one through a philosopher’s lens.

Brian Zaharatos is a teaching professor in the CU �Ǹ�Թ� Department of Applied Mathematics.

His new book, Patterns and Static: Philosophy and the Question Concerning Statistics, isn’t about artificial intelligence inherently, but the ponderings within its pages have much overlap.

“I don’t want to oversell any AI angle. The book is primarily about the inescapably philosophical nature of statistics, and disagreements about the nature of probability and inference,” Zaharatos says.

Yet, Zaharatos raises a question many people are asking themselves right now. What’s left for the human mind once machines can think for us?

‘Computation can be automated. Judgment cannot’

The book’s real focus is a century-old argument over what justifies drawing a conclusion from gathered evidence. Rather than settling the debate, the proliferation of AI into nearly every facet of daily life has raised the stakes.

“Inference is the process of drawing conclusions based on evidence. It’s about moving from data to theories. As the great computer scientist and philosopher Judea Pearl says, ‘How we go from what to why,’” Zaharatos explains.

As an undergraduate, Zaharatos took much inspiration from the work of philosopher Hubert Dreyfus, whose interpretations of Heidegger and his existentialist theories, shaped how he thought about meaning.

“At times, I have been quite convinced by Dreyfus’ main theses about what computers can’t do. His arguments are nuanced, and the fact that AI has come such a long way in the last several years is not by itself strong evidence that he was wrong,” Zaharatos says.

He goes on to explain that he was right about some things, including that AI doesn’t “understand” or “care” in the same way humans do.

“But it seems like he was wrong about others. For example, he famously claimed (during the era of first-gen AI) that AI would never have the ability to drive a car. Enter, Waymo,” Zaharatos says.

What’s more important than deciding what AI can do, however, is deciding when it can be trusted. This, Zaharatos says, is one of the defining questions of our current time.

“Who judges whether we take the proposed solution to be correct with little or no critical thinking on our part, or whether we put it to a rigorous test? Clearly, we do,” Zaharatos says.

The dangers of an agreeable machine

Zaharatos didn’t write a word of Patterns and Static with AI, but he did lean on various AI tools to pressure test his own arguments while drafting it. He came away wary.

“The danger is that we surrender our critical thinking abilities to machines… so I think figuring out how to resist that in some ways and to further hone your skills is difficult but important,” says CU �Ǹ�Թ� mathematician Brian Zaharatos.

“I often found it too agreeable. Or I’d find myself questioning what it was saying to me because I know it can be sycophantic. Do you really think my presentation of this argument is strong or are you doing what you’ve been nudged to do—flatter me and keep me engaged?” he asks.

This agreeableness, Zaharatos warns, is a real danger with AI tools. Not so much that AI gets things wrong (which it will), but that it makes believing the output easy, without requiring one to take a moment to step back and examine it.

“Critical thinking is a skill to be cultivated and fine-tuned, similar to physical skills like playing a sport. If we do not practice critical thinking, we will lose it. AI and technology allow us to think less,” he explains.

Zaharatos has seen this playing out both in his own life and in the classroom, where he’s consciously trying to find ways to work against it.

“It’s important to put yourself in situations that seem synthetic or not quite real world that force you to do critical thinking. It actually is very good training for realistic situations when you’re responsible for making a judgment,” he says.

Zaharatos employs a variety of puzzles and scenarios to train his own reasoning skills and those of his students. These problems come with guardrails, forcing one to work through them with nothing but a pencil and paper.

Why bother doing _______, if AI can do it?

Across academic circles, corporate workplaces, and even family living rooms, this question has been asked ad nauseum over the past few years. Zaharatos hears it often.

His answer returns to the idea that a machine can’t do the real thinking for you.

“We’re often so focused on the output. But the output that you get is going to be a function of what you feed into the system. I think you have to know something about your problem and about inference to begin with in order to give AI the proper direction,” he says.

This is part of the reason why he wrote Patterns and Static in the first place. It’s a love letter to inference and to what it really means to decide something based on what you know.

“The fact that there are fundamental disagreements among the top minds in statistics and science about how to properly conduct inference is interesting in its own right,” he says.

Statistics isn’t going to be everyone’s passion, and Zaharatos knows it. But in a world where AI makes it easy to hand off your thinking, his advice has less to do with math than it does with finding whatever it is that makes you want to sit around and ponder.

“If these topics are not inherently interesting to you, my advice is to find something that is. Curiosity is a wonderful state to be in,” he says.

Patterns and Static: Philosophy and the Question Concerning Statistics, and a free sample of the first two chapters, is available now at brianzaharatos.com/book.

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CU �Ǹ�Թ� applied mathematician Brian Zaharatos asks, ‘What becomes of thinking when machines think for you?’

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Research hears the quiet power of Afro-Italian podcasting

Rachel Sauer — Tue, 29 Sep 2026 13:00:00 +0000

Research hears the quiet power of Afro-Italian podcasting Rachel Sauer Tue, 09/29/2026 - 07:00

“Podcasting offers insight into forms of cultural production that are expanding the possibilities of public discourse in Italy,” says CU �Ǹ�Թ� scholar Michela Ardizzoni. (Photo: ConvertKit/Unsplash)

Cody DeBos

CU �Ǹ�Թ� scholar Michela Ardizzoni describes how podcasting is reshaping Italy’s conversations about race

On an episode of the podcast The Chronicles of a Black Italian Woman, hosted by Benedicta Djumpah, well-known art curator and historian Mistura Allison reflects on growing up in Italy.

The daughter of a Nigerian-born immigrant who had lived in Italy since the age of 14, Allison said during the interview, “I didn’t have to chiedere il permesso di soggiorno, I never had to ask permission to exist.”

While acknowledging the privilege her Italian citizenship offered, and the challenges she faced when briefly moving to another country, Allison goes on to describe how her background helped shape her layered view of identity and why it’s okay to not fit into society’s predefined labels.

Michela Ardizzoni is an associate professor in the CU �Ǹ�Թ� Department of French and Italian.

The episode’s honest vulnerability is part of what drew Michela Ardizzoni, an associate professor of Italian at the �Ǹ�Թ�, into the growing wave of Afro-Italian podcasting.

In her latest research, Ardizzoni examines how shows like Chronicles are reshaping Italy’s cultural conversations about race, identity and belonging.

“Podcasting offers insight into forms of cultural production that are expanding the possibilities of public discourse in Italy,” Ardizzoni says.

Following identity across media

Ardizzoni’s interest in the politics of Italian identity is as personal as it is professional.

“I grew up in Italy, but I never experienced it as a single, uniform place. Different stages of my life took me from northern Italy to Sardinia, and later to different regions in the U.S.,” she says.

“Those experiences made me increasingly interested in the relationship between media, place, and identity, and in the ways cultural narratives shape our understanding of belonging.”

Ardizzoni spent her early years of scholarship examining how Italian television and film help define who “counts” as Italian. Podcasting, she says, is a refreshing departure from more institutional forms of media.

“Podcasts offer a comparatively more open space for experimentation. They are less constrained by editorial conventions and more conducive to conversations that develop on the speakers’ own terms,” she explains.

By giving creators greater freedom of expression, podcasts have opened new lines of dialogue about what it means to be Italian from one’s own perspective.

“Rather than responding to questions framed by mainstream media, they [podcast hosts and guests] establish the agenda themselves, decide what deserves attention and shape the language through which their experiences are understood,” Ardizzoni says.

A conversation without borders

One misconception Ardizzoni often hears from American audiences is that Blackness in Italy is a new phenomenon tied to recent immigration.

“There are now multiple generations of Black Italians who were born and raised in Italy, whose cultural and linguistic lives are deeply rooted in the country,” she explains.

Djumpah’s podcast offers a view that better reflects the real world. Recorded almost entirely in English, the show regularly features guests who discuss their Italian upbringings and their connections to the wider diaspora across Africa, the U.K. and the U.S.

“The decision to record in English is an important part of that vision. English allows the podcast to reach audiences well beyond Italy and creates a common space for dialogue among people connected by diaspora rather than nationality alone,” Ardizzoni says.

The result is conversations that refuse to treat being Italian as disconnected from broader dialogue about race.

“It challenges the tendency to think about Italy as an exceptional or self-contained case and instead places Afro-Italian voices within the wider intellectual and cultural networks of the Black Atlantic and the Black Mediterranean,” Ardizzoni says.

Making space for quiet

To make sense of what Djumpah and her guests are doing, Ardizzoni draws on scholar Kevin Quashie’s concept of “quiet.”

“Quashie's work has been influential because it places Black interiority at the center of how we understand Black life,” Ardizzoni explains.

He encourages a more holistic approach to understanding the human experience, including the emotional, imaginative and reflective dimensions each of us shares.

Ardizzoni adds that these “interior worlds” shouldn’t be relegated to the side stages behind political life. Rather, they are what give us meaning and agency with which to imagine ourselves and our futures.

“Black subjectivity, in this sense, encompasses far more than public resistance. It also resides in the ordinary, intimate and deeply personal aspects of everyday life,” she adds.

This idea of “quiet” also shapes how a show like Chronicles can be understood. It isn’t a platform built to counter racism through acts of resistance or protest but rather by giving guests a space where they are simply allowed to be whole.

That dynamic is evident when listening to an episode.

“[Djumpah’s] conversations move fluidly among family, friendship, artistic practice, spirituality, work, music and memory. Listeners encounter guests as artists, daughters, friends, professionals and thinkers whose lives unfold across many registers at once,” Ardizzoni says.

Look closely, and you’ll see the same thread running through Allison’s reflection on never needing to ask permission to exist. Chronicles doesn’t ask guests to justify their belonging. It gives them a platform to make their voices and experiences heard.

Podcasts offer a comparatively more open space for experimentation. They are less constrained by editorial conventions and more conducive to conversations that develop on the speakers’ own terms."

That act of acceptance, Ardizzoni argues, is what makes the show so radical in a media landscape unaccustomed to letting Black lives simply exist.

Refusing the status quo

Ardizzoni’s latest research is one piece of a much larger exploration of contemporary Afro-Italian women artists across literature, film, photography and digital media.

“This article is part of a broader research project that culminates in my forthcoming book, Archives of Futurity: Afro-Italian Women's Imaginaries and Poetics of Refusal (2027), which will be published by Liverpool University Press in its Transnational Italian Cultures series,” she says.

At the heart of her writing is a concept she calls refusal—not just pushing back against dominant, sometimes harmful narratives, but building something new and better in their place.

“The artists I study refuse inherited ways of seeing and classifying people and identities; instead, they create spaces for different narratives, relationships and ways of belonging,” Ardizzoni says.

That sense of possibility also aligns with Ardizzoni’s hopes for how Italian media will grow in the years ahead.

“I hope we’ll move beyond thinking of diversity as a topic that surfaces only in moments of crisis or political debate,” she says. “The most interesting work being produced today (in scholarship as well as in the arts) is showing that race is a necessary lens through which we can better understand contemporary Italy.”

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CU �Ǹ�Թ� scholar Michela Ardizzoni describes how podcasting is reshaping Italy’s conversations about race.

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Top photo: Luther Yonel/Unsplash

Scholar studies animals through the love in their hearts

Rachel Sauer — Tue, 29 Sep 2026 03:27:04 +0000

Scholar studies animals through the love in their hearts Rachel Sauer Mon, 09/28/2026 - 21:27

Rachel Sauer

In new book for younger readers, CU �Ǹ�Թ� Professor Emeritus Marc Bekoff advocates for increasing humanity’s ‘compassion footprint’

Zebras, it turns out, are bro huggers.

In Namibia’s Etosha National Park, behavioral ecologist Caitlin O’Connell observed that male zebra leaders “wrap necks, nip and sniff one another around the head and sometimes the genitals. Then they exhibit an exaggerated chewing behavior with their teeth bared and the corners of their lips drawn up as if smiling or laughing with necks extended and ears directed forward. It really looks like they are enjoying a hilarious joke together.”

And then everyone does their business on “a communal dung pile.”

Marc Bekoff is a �Ǹ�Թ� professor emeritus of ecology and evolutionary biology.

For a long time, conventional wisdom—and even scientific observation—would have asserted that this is merely instinctual mammalian behavior, nothing more than complex evolutionary responses to environmental and inter-group stimuli. They’re animals, after all; surely they aren’t exhibiting joy, playfulness or love?

Not so, says Marc Bekoff, a �Ǹ�Թ� professor emeritus of ecology and evolutionary biology. In his recently published book for younger readers, Love in their Hearts: A Celebration of Animal Emotions and a Guide to Compassionate Action, written with longtime collaborator Jeff Campbell, Bekoff advocates for increasing humanity’s “compassion footprint.”

“The message is to be nicer to humans, be nicer to non-humans, treat all living things with respect,” Bekoff explains. “We are never too young to hear that message and learn that lesson.”

‘Animals have thoughts and feelings’

Bekoff began learning that lesson, which became the work of his lifetime, when he felt sorry for a goldfish. Growing up in Brooklyn, New York, “everyone had the requisite goldfish in an aquarium on the kitchen counter, including my family, and I used to feel so sorry for that goldfish,” he recalls.

He also spent hours riding his tricycle around the neighborhood, talking to all the animals he saw, and rather than being worried, his parents were supportive. “I used to tell my parents I could feel the emotions of the dogs and cats and mice and birds, I would tell them that animals have thoughts and feelings, and my parents supported it because why not?” he says.

When he was 6, he and his family moved from Brooklyn to Lynbrook on Long Island, which at the time had swaths of woods to explore. Bekoff was a good athlete and a mediocre student, but he nevertheless knew that he had to at least try to get to college if he wanted to continue building a scientific foundation beneath his observations of animals.

Jane Goodall, who would become Bekoff’s dear friend and professional collaborator, “used to say it felt wrong to harm animals and it felt right to try to learn about them, so I went to college and then I got a master’s in neurobiology, then I spent two years in a PhD/MD program disliking every day of it,” Bekoff says.

It was around that time, in the late 1960s, that famed researcher and animal behaviorist Michael Fox joined the faculty at Washington University in St. Louis. Fox, a Royal Veterinary College-trained veterinarian who also held a Doctor of Science in ethology and animal behavior, was doing exactly the sort of work that Bekoff wanted to do: non-invasive, observational science focused on animal behavior.

Fox accepted Bekoff as a graduate student, and he earned a PhD in animal behavior. After a year as an assistant professor of biology at the University of Missouri in St. Louis, he came to CU �Ǹ�Թ� in 1974 to study behavioral ecology and carnivore behavior.

“The message is to be nicer to humans, be nicer to non-humans, treat all living things with respect,” says scientist and author Marc Bekoff.

“So, I got my job here, and down on 30th and Marine on East Campus, back when the Institute for Behavioral Genetics was one of the only buildings down there, I somehow got a grant and convinced the university to put in a chain link fence enclosure so we could study coyotes,” Bekoff says. “We had a few coyotes who had been rescued, and they became this beacon. Everybody went down there to see them, so much that we had to put up signs telling people not to play with them.”

From there, he studied Adélie penguins at Cape Crozier, Ross Island, Antarctica, then initiated a field project studying coyotes in Grand Teton National Park.

“I always was driven to know what animals were thinking and feeling, I knew there was a way to study this scientifically and I was really persistent because I knew I was right,” he says. “Back when I was starting out, the major school of thought was behaviorism—the idea that with animal behavior, everything is a stimulus response, and the brain is a black box that we can’t know anything about.

“I said no, there’s just got to be something going on in animals’ minds, particularly concerning what they’re feeling and what they’re calculating. These are wild animals who have difficult lives; I knew there had to be so much more going on.”

Complex emotional lives

A significant facet of Bekoff’s research has been to systematically and non-invasively observe animal behavior to gain insight into the “black box” of animal minds. In addition to the usual challenges of research, he says, was the resistance he initially encountered in the scientific community, many of whose members equated ethology—or the study of animal minds—with finger waggling and magical thinking.

“The science had to be irrefutable,” Bekoff says. “We didn’t have a choice. Michael Fox, my mentor at Washington University, was one of the first ethologists who practiced the science of watching—slow watching, slow looking, just going out and watching animals. We weren’t putting electrodes in their bodies or cutting out parts of their brains; it was uncontrolled.

“A group of us were just really persistent, getting grants and I published tons in refereed journals and published books, just keeping at it and putting it out there, and slowly but surely we had evidence showing that animals have extremely complex emotional lives.”

That growing body of evidence—gathered by Bekoff, Goodall and a community of scientists around the world—is, in part, what inspired Bekoff to write Love in their Hearts, for which Goodall wrote the foreword.

Bekoff gathered animal stories from colleagues around the globe, including O’Connell’s observations of zebra bro hugging, to embody “the universality of emotions.” The aim is not to prove that animals have emotions—“We know they do,” Bekoff says—but to bring those emotions to life for younger readers who may be interested in science, who may spend hours observing animals or who may simply love their pets and have a sense that their pets love them, too.

Love in Their Hearts also gives young readers actionable steps to help care for both animals and Earth—a compassionate conservation approach that children are never too young to learn, Bekoff says, and that he still teaches in Jane Goodall’s Roots and Shoots groups.

“It’s the basic principle of the One Health philosophy,” Bekoff says. “What’s good for animals is good for us, and what’s bad for them is bad for us. Let’s change the world for all its inhabitants.”

“What’s good for animals is good for us," says Marc Bekoff, "and what’s bad for them is bad for us. Let’s change the world for all its inhabitants.” (Photo: Dylan Shaw/Unsplash)

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In new book for younger readers, CU �Ǹ�Թ� Professor Emeritus Marc Bekoff advocates for increasing humanity’s ‘compassion footprint.’

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Nobel laureates gather to celebrate Department of Physics

Rachel Sauer — Mon, 28 Sep 2026 22:50:29 +0000

Nobel laureates gather to celebrate Department of Physics Rachel Sauer Mon, 09/28/2026 - 16:50

Nobel laureates Carl Wieland, Eric Cornell, David Wineland and John Hall

Rachel Sauer

At event celebrating the 100th anniversary of the first PhD awarded in the CU �Ǹ�Թ� Department of Physics, researchers reflect on how the department shaped them as scientists

Of the four Nobel laureates seated in a row Saturday afternoon, none set out to win the highest honor in science.

Instead, the goal was doing the science—for the discovery, the limit-pushing, the pursuit of answers to questions as fundamental as “How?” and “Why?”

Nobel laureates Carl Wieland, Eric Cornell, David Wineland and John Hall

At a celebration of the first PhD awarded in the �Ǹ�Թ� Department of Physics 100 years ago, the department’s four Nobel laureates gathered to share insights into the discoveries that the award recognizes and the role that CU �Ǹ�Թ� played in their growth as scientists.

“I think of CU as my physics home,” said Carl Wieman, who shared the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physics with CU �Ǹ�Թ� colleague Eric Cornell and Wolfgang Ketterle. “This is where I did almost all my physics research and was very successful, and I'd like to hope that I had some impact on the department. I’ve really enjoyed watching it flourish.”

Wieman, who went on to professorships at the University of British Columbia and Stanford University, came to CU �Ǹ�Թ� with ideas about tuning lasers to control and cool atoms to temperatures close to absolute zero—a fifth state of matter that Satyendra Nath Bose and Albert Einstein predicted as Bose-Einstein condensates, but Wieman and Cornell proved.

“When I first showed up here, I had a bunch of ideas that I wanted to implement, and I was a little surprised that Carl was extremely enthusiastic,” Cornell recalled. “He’d say, ‘Let's try that.’ So, that worked super well.

“Anyway, I showed up here, started a lab on my own, and for about 10 years, Carl and I basically ran a joint group. I would wander into his labs and talk to his graduate students and postdocs—and even maybe try and tell them what to do, which they maybe would or wouldn't do—and then I would go back into my own lab. And it was the same with Carl.”

And through that long-term collaboration—which can be rare in science because egos easily get in the way, Wieman said—they saw Bose-Einstein condensation in June 1995.

For John Hall, winner of the 2005 Nobel Prize in Physics with Roy Glauber and Theodor Hänsch, the CU �Ǹ�Թ� Department of Physics has been a science home that balances scientific thinking with imagination—the envisioning of what could be.

“This university is a magnet for great people,” Hall said. “Our students, I can’t imagine having better. They come and they work hard, they have good imaginations,” adding that his students and science colleagues have been significant factors in his lifelong joy in the work.

David Wineland, winner of the 2012 Nobel Prize in Physics with Serge Haroche and now the Knight Research Professor at the University of Oregon, credits his time at CU �Ǹ�Թ� with allowing him to explore beyond “junior-level physics” ideas of laser cooling and delve into properties of conservation, momentum and scattering.

“I come back to this idea that this place has been very, very, very good to me,” Cornell said. “It made me as a scientist.”

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John Hall (standing) shares insights into his research while (left to right) Carl Wieman, Eric Cornell and David Wineland listen.

Eric Cornell (left) and Carl Wieman (right)

David Wineland (left) and John Hall (right)

At event celebrating the 100th anniversary of the first PhD awarded in the CU �Ǹ�Թ� Department of Physics, researchers reflect on how the department shaped them as scientists.

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Top photo: Carl Wieman discusses his research while Eric Cornell, David Wineland and John Hall listen. (All photos: Glenn Asakawa/CU �Ǹ�Թ�)

Activist is in it for the long haul

Rachel Sauer — Sun, 27 Sep 2026 19:02:05 +0000

Activist is in it for the long haul Rachel Sauer Sun, 09/27/2026 - 13:02

Clay Bonnyman Evans

Disability-rights activist Stephanie Thomas to give keynote at CU �Ǹ�Թ� disability symposium Sept. 28

When she was 17, Stephanie Thomas was involved in a tractor accident in New Hampshire that resulted in a spinal-cord injury and began using a wheelchair.

She didn’t want to learn how to drive. But at the time, public transportation across the nation was not accessible to people with disabilities. “Paratransit” systems were sometimes available but offered limited services.

“You could only go so many times a week, for certain kinds of trips, such as to the doctor. They often weren’t compatible with living life; going to the grocery store was not a priority.” says Thomas, a long-time disability-rights advocate who is now the archivist for the well-known organization ADAPT’s online museum.

Activist Stephanie Thomas will give the keynote speech at the �Ǹ�Թ�’s 2026 Access, Innovation & Disability Symposium on Sept. 28.

She will give the keynote speech at the �Ǹ�Թ�’s 2026 Access, Innovation & Disability Symposium on Sept. 28.

No access at Harvard

When Thomas arrived at Harvard University, there were only nine disabled students on campus, and there was no accessible public transit or other accommodations to assist them.

“I had to learn how to drive, and I was sort of annoyed by that,” she says.

She became interested in Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which prohibited disability discrimination in federal programs or activities and disability rights more broadly.

It was the time of anti-war protests, civil rights, women’s rights.

“It wasn’t surprising, at least not to me, that disability rights just began to be thought of as a thing,” she says.

She got involved on campus—“nothing revolutionary, just advising on accessibility”—and began to learn of egregious examples of discrimination: A deaf woman who spoke seven languages was not allowed to be a language major because a required language lab used audiotapes; a student who had a seizure when fire-alarm strobes went off was unable to evacuate and was left behind; and the university’s disabled student-services advisor’s office was located on an inaccessible second floor.

“Nobody could get to the guy,” Thomas says. “But nobody wanted to anyway; he was that much of a jerk!”

After graduation, she took a job at EPOCH (now known as VOLAR), an independent-living center in El Paso, Texas. Her boss sent her to a meeting of a coalition of local organizations working together on state-level issues in San Antonio.

“I met my husband Bob Kafka there, and we hit it off right away,” Thomas says.

Access, Innovation & Disability Symposium

Learn strategies to create equitable opportunities for members of the campus community of all abilities.

What: 2026 Access, Innovation & Disability Symposium

When: Sept. 28 - Oct. 1

Who: All are invited

Learn more

She also recalls seeing a brochure from ADAPT with the image of a bus sticking out of a toilet bowl and the slogan, “Don’t flush, organize!”—a takeoff on labor organizer and musician Joe Hill’s famous aphorism, “Don’t mourn, organize!”

Feeling patted on the head

When Jim Parker, a friend of the couple, attended a training sponsored by ADAPT, a national grass-roots community that organizes activists to engage in non-violent direct action to assure the civil and human rights of people with disabilities and started in Denver, he was energized by the experience. So, he, Thomas and Kafka decided to start ADAPT of Texas.

“They were forcing people to face up to the problem, and Bob and I got excited,” she says.

At a public hearing in Austin, she worked hard on her testimony, putting in many hours of research, only to “feel patted on the head, thank you, sweetheart, and don’t let the door hit you on the butt as you leave.”

But when Bob started testimony from the same notes as his wife, he stated that he was with ADAPT, and Thomas noted that the reaction was very different.

“That name was a cattle prod to people on the committee. They sat up straight and said, 'Whoa!' When I saw that being a member of ADAPT could do that, I wanted in!” she says. The couple started ADAPT of Texas and began organizing local actions such as working on access to transportation, kerb cuts and more. At the same time, they got involved with the Atlantis Community, an independent living center in Denver.

“Before there were kerb cuts, you just had to drop into the street and cross your fingers,” she says. “You had to learn what restaurants you could get into, where you could shop for clothes—it was all very hit or miss.”

Bathrooms were not accessible, there were no interpreters and people with disabilities were often relegated to nursing homes. “There was just no expectation that disabled people belonged in society,” Thomas says.

Congress changed the landscape with the 1990 passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which prohibits discrimination based on disability and protects those with disabilities in employment, public services and public access.

But the current presidential administration is undertaking sweeping changes that will undermine much of the progress of the last three and a half decades, Thomas says.

Stephanie Thomas (third from right) at a groundbreaking event with Accessible Housing Austin. (Photo: Accessible Housing Austin).

Special education is being moved from the U.S. Department of Education to the Department of Health and Human Services. “That’s horrible,” she says. “That department has nothing to do with education.

Meanwhile, scheduled deep cuts to Medicare, critical to millions of people with disabilities’ lives, won’t kick in until after the mid-term congressional elections in November, a ploy to keep voters from taking that into consideration in casting their votes, she says.

And the Department of Justice has issued an advisory arguing that neither the U.S. Supreme Court's 1999 decision in Olmstead v. L.C., which held that people with mental disabilities have a right to live in the community rather than institutions, nor Section 504 requires states to provide services to people with disabilities “in the most integrated setting appropriate.” Although not binding, the advisory is expected to guide federal agencies under the current administration.

“Hundreds and hundreds of people have been working for the last four decades to get people the right to live in the community,” Thomas says. “Nobody is forced to live in community; you can still live in a nursing home if you want. But this is taking that right away from everyone else.

“People will become second-class citizens if they need assistance to get their pants on or go to the bathroom. It seems like we should be past that by now.”

Get involved

Thomas says the first step to fighting the trend against disability rights is to get involved.

“People need to vote, to speak up,” she says. “This is not the time to put your head in the sand.”

She’s concerned that national and local protests about civil rights seldom mention disability rights. She partly blames the easy “clicktivism” of social media for the shift.

“It’s a lot easier to write a post or send an email and call it done—and that doesn’t get in the face of the people who actually have power, which is what you have to do,” she told the magazine New Mobility in July.

And she fears that the ever-expanding list of disability conditions is having an effect on public awareness and concern.

“Once everybody becomes disabled, you’re no longer a distinctive minority, and you start to water down your rights legally,” she told New Mobility.

Stephanie Thomas will give the virtual keynote speech for CU �Ǹ�Թ�’s 2026 Access, Innovation & Disability Symposium at 3 p.m. Monday, Sept. 28. Register for the speech here.

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Disability-rights activist Stephanie Thomas to give keynote at CU �Ǹ�Թ� disability symposium Sept. 28.

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CU �Ǹ�Թ� celebrates topping out of new chemistry and applied mathematics facility

Rachel Sauer — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 20:46:06 +0000

CU �Ǹ�Թ� celebrates topping out of new chemistry and applied mathematics facility Rachel Sauer Thu, 09/24/2026 - 14:46

(Left to right) Irene Blair, dean of the Division of Natural Sciences; Joost de Gouw, chair of the Department of Chemistry; Braulio Baptista, partner at ZGF Architects; Mark Hoefer, chair of the Department of Applied Mathematics; Katherine Eggert, interim dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. (Photo: Patrick Campbell/CU �Ǹ�Թ�)

New facility will support research and teaching in fields including analytical spectroscopy, environmental chemistry, computational mathematics and the statistical sciences

CU �Ǹ�Թ� on Wednesday, Sept. 23, marked a major milestone in the construction of its new Chemistry and Applied Mathematics (CHAP) facility, celebrating the topping out of the building with university leaders, project partners, faculty and staff.

The ceremony recognized completion of the building's structural frame and provided an opportunity to honor the many people helping bring the project from vision to reality.

"The progress we celebrate today reflects the dedication and collaboration of countless individuals who have helped advance this project," said CU �Ǹ�Թ� Chancellor Justin Schwartz. "The Chemistry and Applied Math facility will be transformational in supporting the next generation of discoveries, learning opportunities and interdisciplinary partnerships at CU �Ǹ�Թ�."

Learn more in CU �Ǹ�Թ� Today

New facility will support research and teaching in fields including analytical spectroscopy, environmental chemistry, computational mathematics and the statistical sciences.

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Student meteorology society named local chapter of the year

Rachel Sauer — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 21:42:42 +0000

Student meteorology society named local chapter of the year Rachel Sauer Tue, 09/22/2026 - 15:42

Members of the CU �Ǹ�Թ� chapter of the American Meteorological Society on a tour of the NCAR Research Aviation Facility.

CU �Ǹ�Թ� chapter of the American Meteorological Society recognized for cultivating lasting student networks and leading impactful community outreach

The �Ǹ�Թ� chapter of the American Meteorological Society (CUBAMS) has been named local student chapter of the year by the national organization.

The honor recognizes the chapter “for cultivating lasting student networks, leading impactful community outreach and establishing a strong, visible presence throughout the American Meteorological Society.” It will be presented at the American Meteorological Society (AMS) annual meeting in Denver this January.

Members of the CU �Ǹ�Թ� chapter of the American Meteorological Society on a tour of the NCAR Research Aviation Facility.

“This AMS recognition highlights the dedication of our chapter and the broader (atmospheric and oceanic sciences) community to creating an academically supportive, professionally engaged and collaborative environment,” says member Amanda Bowden, a fourth-year PhD candidate in the CU �Ǹ�Թ� Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences (ATOC). “It recognizes the efforts of our members to strengthen the atmospheric sciences community at CU �Ǹ�Թ� through professional development, education, outreach and service. It also demonstrates how our students and faculty contribute beyond the university by sharing their knowledge and giving back to the broader public community.”

CUBAMS was formed after ATOC began offering an undergraduate major in fall 2016, explains Andrew Winters, an associate professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences and CUBAMS faculty advisor. “A group of students came to me with interest in building one of these chapters as a way to help undergrads who are very much new to the program, to build community,” he says. “In 2021 we really initiated the chapter—students wrote a constitution; they got approved by national organization and got registered as a student organization at CU.”

Anna Hagberg, a senior majoring in applied mathematics and ATOC, says that when she joined CUBAMS, she had just changed her major to ATOC “and was looking for people that I could be friends with (and talk about the weather with). I was also curious about the possible career paths that existed within atmospheric and oceanic science.”

The student-led organization has organized events from tours of the NCAR Research Aviation Facility to eclipse viewing and a weather balloon launch, as well as tabling at AMS conferences.

Wade Julian, a senior ATOC major who also is pursuing an interdisciplinary climate science minor and a certificate in arctic studies, says that participating and serving as an officer in CUBAMS has been one of his most valuable CU �Ǹ�Թ� experiences.

“Through the chapter, I have developed a lot of leadership and organizational skills, especially through serving as an officer and helping plan events for our members,” Julian says. “I have also had opportunities to attend professional conferences, meet atmospheric scientists and learn about careers that I would not have been exposed to through my classes alone.

"These experiences have helped me become more confident about pursuing a career in atmospheric science and have given me a better idea of the areas of the field that I am interested in, particularly climate and arctic science.”

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Members of the CU �Ǹ�Թ� chapter of the American Meteorological Society at an eclipse viewing event.

Members of the CU �Ǹ�Թ� chapter of the American Meteorological Society launching a weather balloon.

CUBAMS officers on a Flexible Array of Radars and Mesonets (FARMS) visit.

Students and faculty tabling for the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the annual American Meteorological Society conference.

CU �Ǹ�Թ� chapter of the American Meteorological Society recognized for cultivating lasting student networks and leading impactful community outreach.

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All photos courtesy Anna Hagberg

Rebecca Machen awarded $2 million National Science Foundation grant

Rachel Sauer — Mon, 21 Sep 2026 16:37:15 +0000

Rebecca Machen awarded $2 million National Science Foundation grant Rachel Sauer Mon, 09/21/2026 - 10:37

Hope Kerrigan

CU �Ǹ�Թ� mathematician earns competitive grant to fund scholarships and mentoring for academically talented, low-income students pursuing STEM degrees

Rebecca Machen, an assistant teaching professor in the �Ǹ�Թ� Department of Mathematics, has been awarded a grant from the highly competitive National Science Foundation (NSF) program for Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (S-STEM).

Machen, principal investigator on the award alongside co-principal investigators Tamara Sumner and Evy McUmber, will receive $2 million between January 2027 to December 2032 for scholarships that aim to support students facing financial barriers to completing STEM degrees.

Rebecca Machen is assistant teaching professor in the CU �Ǹ�Թ� Department of Mathematics.

Twenty-four students will receive scholarships averaging approximately $12,500 annually for up to five years. This support will also give recipients access to peer mentoring, cohort building, academic coaching, professional development and internships.

The program builds on the investigators’ previous CU �Ǹ�Թ� experience. Machen served as director of STEM instruction in the Student Academic Success Center (SASC), which has supported low-income students since the 1970s. McUmber is a chemistry faculty member in SASC and brings extensive experience working directly with its students, while Sumner has led NSF-funded initiatives and helped strengthen and elevate the project as it developed. Together, the team is building on SASC's longstanding academic and community-support model while adding a level of sustained financial assistance and a network of campus partners that had not previously been integrated at this scale.

This project's overarching goal is to increase STEM degree completion among high-achieving undergraduates with financial need, ensuring the number of STEM graduates can keep up with the ever-advancing demand in developing technologies. The project will be formally evaluated by an outside party using matched-comparison analyses of retention, time-to-degree and job or graduate-school placement, contributing to the broader knowledge base on what tangibly helps low-income students succeed in STEM.

"Financial need continues to be a significant barrier to accessing and completing higher education," Machen said. As fields like artificial intelligence, quantum science, robotics and biotechnology continue to grow, she wants talented students from all economic backgrounds to have the chance not just to earn degrees in these areas but to see themselves represented in the careers shaping the future. "This program gives students the financial, academic and professional support they need to pursue those opportunities," she added.

The National Science Foundation's S-STEM program specializes in increasing the number of academically talented, low-income students with demonstrated financial need who earn degrees in STEM fields. The program also aims to improve the education of future STEM workers and generate knowledge about the academic success, retention, transfer, graduation and career pathways of low-income students. This year, NSF is funding numerous S-STEM projects nationwide, including CU �Ǹ�Թ�'s, as part of its Track 2 cohort.

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CU �Ǹ�Թ� mathematician earns competitive grant to fund scholarships and mentoring for academically talented, low-income students pursuing STEM degrees.

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Top photo: Jeswin Thomas/Unsplash

Scientists get a clearer picture of phytoplankton sustaining ocean food webs

Rachel Sauer — Fri, 18 Sep 2026 19:19:38 +0000

Scientists get a clearer picture of phytoplankton sustaining ocean food webs Rachel Sauer Fri, 09/18/2026 - 13:19

Kaio Kish

CU �Ǹ�Թ� researchers develop a tool that can model phytoplankton biomass extremes in the ocean in ways that conventional satellites often can’t

Phytoplankton, the tiny, single-celled organisms that live in oceans, are more important than some realize. They are the base of the marine food web and help countless other species in the oceans thrive and survive.

Satellite technology and its continuous advancements have given the world a better understanding of the oceans and the life within them, specifically phytoplankton. But gaps still remain in what satellites can show about the activity of phytoplankton.

Unfortunately, phytoplankton and the oceans they call home are suffering, says Nicole Lovenduski, a �Ǹ�Թ� professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences (ATOC) and director of the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR). “You can think of (phytoplankton) as the grasses of the terrestrial biosphere,” she says. “They’re the things that build the foundation that everything else eats.”

In a recently published study conducted in partnership between CU �Ǹ�Թ� and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Lovenduski and her research colleagues found that despite what can be seen through satellite imagery, a lot of phytoplankton is obscured—often by clouds or low sunlight.

A mixed phytoplankton community. (Image: Stephanie Anderson/University of Rhode Island/NASA)

The researchers set out to discover what the observational limitations were in detecting phytoplankton biomass extremes in the oceans, building a satellite emulator that mimics the same blind spots a real satellite would encounter: sea ice, clouds, low sun angles. This allowed them to compare what the model predicted to what the satellite actually saw, ultimately revealing the gaps between the two. By combining interdisciplinary expertise, they were able to find the holes in detecting these phytoplankton biomass extremes.

"Statistically, by definition, there have to be extremes in everything—you think about a normal distribution (referencing phytoplankton bloom events), the extremes are on the tail of that bell curve, so mathematically they must exist,” Lovenduski explains. “And I found maybe four papers on this, and that was it. Why isn’t anyone writing about this?... And then I had the a-ha moment: It's because no one can see them in the satellite data."

As Lovenduski explains, extremes are important for the ecosystem: “If there's a huge phytoplankton bloom, that's going to have ramifications for the whole ocean ecosystem in that region. Similarly, if blooms fail to occur, that's going to be devastating for the ecosystem.”

These high extremes refer to a higher-than-normal concentration of phytoplankton in one specific region or area. On the other hand, if a bloom is supposed to happen and it doesn’t—a low extreme—marine life in that region that rely on phytoplankton for their diet can be severely affected, which in turn causes a ripple effect across other species in the ocean.

Combining clouds, ocean and ice

To study these issues, Lovenduski worked with ATOC PhD graduates Genevieve Clow and Samuel Mogen, an INSTAAR postdoctoral scholar, as well as ATOC Professor Jennifer Kay and Michael Levy and Keith Lindsay of the NCAR Climate and Global Dynamics Laboratory. The researchers aimed to find a better way to visualize these mysterious single-celled organisms that do so much for our marine ecosystem.

To solve the problem of limited visualization of phytoplankton, the team built what they call a satellite emulator within an Earth system model—a tool that allows them to “see” the modeled ocean the same way a satellite does.

"It is an approach that they've used in atmospheric science before to simulate satellite observations of clouds, and we apply that approach to a completely different thing, which is the pigment chlorophyll in the ocean,” Lovenduski says. “Our ability to detect that from space turns out to be a really important limit on our ability to detect extremes.”

Chlorophyll, a green pigment that phytoplankton and plants use to absorb sunlight, plays a similar role in phytoplankton as it does in plants. It is why large phytoplankton clusters and algae appear green. Chlorophyll helps phytoplankton turn sunlight, water and carbon dioxide into energy while releasing oxygen.

However, because of the limitations caused by cloud coverage blocking satellite imaging of chlorophyll, Kay emphasizes that using field samples as well as satellite imagery is vital to a model: “You can learn so much from the assets that we have in space, and sometimes those assets, while providing an incomplete picture of things, can also provide the space-time perspective that's super important for understanding this change in variability.”

Kay also mentions that a combination of field sampling and the use of satellites are critical to understanding what's going on in the oceans, noting how her group often partners with �Ǹ�Թ�-based NCAR scientists to validate Earth system models with data.

As a key part of the research, Clow developed a tool that ran model simulations on a computer. Clow flew a virtual satellite inside the model, sampling the modeled ocean similar to how a real satellite would see the ocean.

Conventional atmospheric satellites wait for reflected light to bounce off the ocean and come back up but, Lovenduski notes, so “if there's a cloud in the way and if the sun angle is really low, there's not enough radiation to come back to the satellite, so we made sure that we included that effect in the model. And if there's sea ice growing on the surface of the ocean, (the satellite) can't see the chlorophyll underneath, but the model still predicts what the chlorophyll is.”

A phytoplankton bloom off the coast of Iceland. (Image: NASA)

By being able to account for these discrepancies in the model, Clow says that the main takeaway from this research is that “our observations of phytoplankton are limited, and that we need to combine observations and models in order to gain a complete picture of what's happening with phytoplankton in the ocean."

One of the most significant findings in this research included the fact that globally, satellites can only detect about 10% of daily low extremes and 19% of daily high extremes. Kay explains that clouds “obscure what you can view in the ocean. It's hard to penetrate into it, and from space you're not going to get that kind of information.”

Clow’s idea for an Earth system model study arose from that issue: “Satellites can only see the surface of the ocean, but in some regions, phytoplankton tend to grow much deeper, and so what satellites can see at the surface isn't representative of what's happening throughout the water column,” Clow explains, adding that this is the main issue with being able to visualize the amount of phytoplankton in a given area.

The stressed oceans

Despite the technical advances represented in the model, the researchers express concerns about the state and health of Earth’s oceans.

“There are so many environmental stressors that are hitting the ocean all at once, so it's getting warmer, and that is in turn is causing the ocean to lose oxygen with time,” Lovenduski says. “That also is making it more difficult for nutrients that are below the surface to get up to the surface and fuel this biological productivity that's so important for the marine food web.

“In addition, the ocean is taking up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, which is great for mitigating global warming but actually causing the ocean to become acidic. So, the ecosystems of the ocean are experiencing simultaneous difficult stressors all at once. It doesn't paint a very nice picture."

Phytoplankton observability matters as a sign of what’s happening in our climate, the researchers say. Kay points out that fisheries and other marine-based industries rely on knowledge of extreme events happening in the world. “If we have a heat wave in the atmosphere, we’re kind of miserable,” she says. “So, it can affect life in the ocean as well.”

Kay notes that though Colorado is far from the ocean, residents here still experience similar effects: “I think we can start to expect warmer days and more heat waves and more demand on water resources. I think we all felt that pretty acutely in Colorado this past winter, having 80-degree days in March when we're supposed to have the peak snowpack.”

“Make the model look like reality”

The recently published paper is an important step in continuing research. Clow is beginning a post-doctoral research position at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, where she’ll model the impact of fish on the carbon cycle.

Lovenduski’s group is applying the “make the model look like reality” idea to a fleet of ocean floats that “live forever, they don't ever run out of battery like the real world floats, but they also can do a profile every four hours instead of every 10 days.”

This, she says, will allow the team to, “improve the frequency of sampling, and then we can look at what an ideal float configuration in the real world looks like for the thing that you're interested in sampling.”

Kay is working with a newly launched satellite, called EarthCARE, to better understand the water cycle and how the energy budget and resources will be affected by measuring precipitation near the surface.

The researchers note that the experience of developing a tool to model the detectability of phytoplankton biomass extremes in the ocean, as especially the interdisciplinary approach to this work, is informing their further research.

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CU �Ǹ�Թ� researchers develop a tool that can model phytoplankton biomass extremes in the ocean in ways that conventional satellites often can’t.

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Top image: A green phytoplankton bloom in the Gulf of Finland. (Photo: NASA)

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