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UMC Room 247

Dogs, Dredges and Dorms: Researching Recreation at CU South (1:10PM - 2:20PM) UMC Room 247

• Session Organizer: Clare Gallagher, 5th year PhD candidate in ENVS.
• Speakers: EBIO Ecologists��, Dr. Tom Merchant, including research from Professor Emeritus ��on dogs. TBD - representatives from the City of �Ǹ�Թ� and CU �Ǹ�Թ�.
• Session Type: Participative Panel Discussion followed by Brief Social Gathering ��
• Session Description: For the past three years, PhD Candidate Clare Gallagher has researched recreation at CU South and its value to visitors. This research will be the starting point to discuss the ecological uniqueness of CU South as a grassland, a living lab, and as a de facto off-leash dog park. The discussion will highlight the nexus between research and how it can be applied, with local context and in discussion with the city and the university. All are welcome!��

Break 2:20PM - 2:30 PM

Climate resilience and affordable housing (1:10PM - 2:10PM) Aspen Rooms 285-287

• Session Organizer:��William Shutkin, Faculty Director and Teaching Professor in the Masters of the Environment (MENV) program, Urban Resilience and Sustainability specialization.��
• Speakers:��Kaila Hood,
• Session Type: Interactive Workshop,Case Study
• Session Description: The presentation will focus on and discuss the MENV clinic course focused on climate resilience and affordable housing. The course has been offered each of the last three years in partnership with �Ǹ�Թ� Housing Partners and �Ǹ�Թ� County Housing Authority. The aim of the session is to build awareness about the connection between affordable housing and sustainability in the �Ǹ�Թ�/Denver region and share best practices in graduate clinical/professional education.

Break 2:10PM - 2:30PM

Living Materials, Living Buildings (2:30PM - 3:30PM) Aspen Rooms 285-287

• Session Organizer:��Caitlin Charlet, Associate Teaching Professor, Environmental Design
• Speakers: Will Srubar, Joy Edwin-Ezeh, , Marina Vance
• Session Type: Traditional Research Presentation, Participative Panel Discussion, Case Study
• Session Description: What if building materials could do more than minimize environmental harm? What if they could grow minerals, store carbon, regulate indoor environments, filter air, incorporate biological processes, and return to the earth at the end of their useful lives? Living Materials, Living Buildings brings together four CU �Ǹ�Թ� researchers investigating how biological and earth-based systems might reshape the environmental performance of architecture. Moving from algae-grown limestone and lichen-based surfaces to bio-stabilized earth and indoor atmospheric chemistry, the session explores materials not as inert products but as participants in larger ecological systems.The projects operate at different scales but share a common proposition: the future of sustainable construction may depend not simply on making conventional materials more efficient, but on fundamentally reconsidering what materials are, where they come from, what they do while in use, and what happens to them afterward.

UMC 380s Rooms

Actionable Science: Connecting Sustainability Research with People and Decisions (1:10PM-2:30PM) UMC 380s rooms

• Session Organizer:��Benét Duncan is the Managing Director and co-lead PI of Western Water Assessment, CIRES.
• Speakers: Ben Livneh, , Jennifer Balch or , , Laura Dee
• Session Type: Participative Panel Discussion��
• Session Description: We are facing a precarious time, with climate-driven hazards like wildfire and drought increasing in both incidence and impact across Colorado, the nation, and the world. Communities, resource managers, and other decision makers are taking steps to prepare for and respond to these hazards, aiming to build resilience and improve recovery in the future. Sustainability and resilience research can advance cutting-edge science and provide critical information and guidance. Actionable science is done in partnership with those who will use it, applying principles that have been identified through decades of research and practice. CU �Ǹ�Թ� is the home to many leading experts and practitioners of actionable science, and their work has guided tangible decisions by communities, state and federal resource managers, non-profits, and private industry. In this session, we will convene a panel of experts from programs and centers across the university to share their stories of success and explore challenges and lessons learned in conducting usable science in the sustainability and resilience space. We will provide ample time for session attendees to ask questions and engage in iterative dialogue with the panelists. This session will also provide opportunities for connection across campus and beyond. This session has been designed to be a companion to a sustainability networking session being organized and submitted by Heather Yocum with the North Central Climate Adaptation Science Center (NC CASC).��

Break 2:30PM - 2:40PM

Actionable science networking session (Companion session to Benét Duncan's)��(2:40-3:40PM) UMC 380s rooms

• Session Organizer:��, Research Scientist at CIRES and the Lead Social Scientist at the North Central Climate Adaptation Science Center.��
• Session Type: Networking Session
• Session Description: Want to connect with others who are interested in actionable research? Come to this networking session! We’ll have a quick round of verbal introductions—no need to prepare anything ahead of time—and then have time to meet or reconnect with colleagues, so bring your business cards! Want to connect with others who are interested in actionable research? Come to this networking session! We’ll have a quick round of verbal introductions—no need to prepare anything ahead of time—and then have time to meet or reconnect with colleagues, so bring your business cards! The goal of this session is to create space for people to connect with others on campus who want to advance sustainability through designing and conducting more engaged, actionable research. We define actionable research as “scientific information, knowledge, data, and tools that directly inform policies, plans, decisions, and actions” (Cravens et al. 2026). This session will help identify existing scholars, labs, and centers where actionable research is being done, and we can start to think about next steps for how to continue collaborations and nurture these connections. Whether you’re just starting to think about actionable science, or you’ve done this kind of work for years, or you’re anywhere in between, we’d love to connect with you! This session is being organized by the North Central Climate Adaptation Science Center (NC CASC) in collaboration with the Western Water Assessment, Earth Lab, ESIIL (Environmental Data Science Innovation & Impact Lab) and the Nature & People Action CoLab.

UMC Room 235

Why Sustainable Solutions Stall: Social, Psychological, Political Barriers to Sustainability (1:10PM - 2:40PM) UMC Room 235

• Session Organizer:��Leaf Van Boven, Professor in Psychology.
• Speakers: Amanda Carrico, Sara Meerow, Fabian Neuner, Phil Fernbach
• Session Type: Traditional Research Presentation��
• Session Description: Sustainability solutions often meet public resistance. Even when they are technically feasible, public opposition emerges because of how people perceive, talk about, and politically identify with sustainability issues. This session will bring together five CU �Ǹ�Թ� researchers whose work reveals the social, psychological, and political dynamics that make or break public support for sustainability. Together, these talks offer broad understanding and a toolkit for researchers, communicators, and policymakers: understanding perceptions of “naturalness”, identity, language, and knowledge as both obstacles and levers for building durable public support for sustainability technologies and adaptation.

Break 2:40PM - 3:00PM

Nothing is too small to be wondered about: musings on soil microbes and a healthy planet (3:00PM - 3:45PM) UMC Room 235

• Session Organizer: , Associate Professor of Geosciences and an ecosystem ecologist
• Speakers: , ,
• Session Description: Mary Oliver wrote many poems about wonder and the wild world. Soils and microbes continue to provide a space for wonder, curiosity, and discovery. Microbes are essential to life on the planet, but how much do we know about these organisms we cannot see?��This session will explore a subset of research studies on soils, microbial communities (Who is there? What do we know about these microbes and how they function?), and climate change.��