Featured Research, Scholarship & Creative Activity
Every day, faculty and students in the College of Arts and Sciences undertake boundary-pushing research, scholarship and creative activity.
They investigate, innovate and invent, asking the big questions and challenging conventional wisdom. And, no matter what their fields are, their work results in new knowledge, technologies and creative works that advance the economy, culture and health of the state of Colorado, the nation and the world.
Rachel Baiduc, of speech, language and hearing sciences, is the director of the Hearing Epidemiology and Research Diagnostics (HEARD) Laboratory and a professional hearing scientist that looks into possible external and internal risk factors for age-related hearing loss.
Jennifer Balch, of geography, is the director of Earth Lab—an initiative launched in 2015 to use space information to better understand our own planet—and is a nationally renowned wildfire expert, particularly on how it relates to human actions.
Tiffany Beechy, of English, explores the poetics of old English and early medieval literature, particularly anonymous and pseudonymous texts (including forgeries, fake grammars and riddles) and the “mistakes” and misrepresentations in the texts.
Thora Brylowe, of English, is a scholar of British Romanticism and the visual print history of books who brings innovative hands-on teaching approaches to the arts and humanities.
Clint Carroll, of ethnic studies, is a social-environmental scientist whose research focuses on indigenous environmental policy and governance—particularly in the Cherokee nation.
Brianne Cohen, of art and art history, explores contemporary artistic practices and visual culture in the public sphere—particularly as it pertains to global migration, political violence and ecology and environmentalism.
Corrie Detweiler, of molecular, cellular and developmental biology, focuses on the discovery of chemicals that interfere with bacterial infection and is considered an expert on early antibiotic discovery.
Kim Dickey, of art and art history, is using ceramics to explore how people construct environments, creating works that are platforms on which memories, myths, nostalgia and imagination can play.
Zoe Donaldson, of psychology and neuroscience, is a neuroscientist whose research delves into how genes and the environment shape humans and the potential development of mental illness.
Nancy Emery, of ecology and evolutionary biology, looks to understand how plants from the wetlands in the West to the forests in the East adapt and persist in a constantly changing world.
Maria Kazachenko, of astrophysical and planetary sciences and the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, works with the National Solar Observatory to study solar astrophysics.
Sarah Kurnick, of anthropology, practices community archaeology with the Maya to study creation, perpetuation and negation of institutionalized social inequality—both in antiquity and today.
Richard Mansfield, of economics, looks to the implications that sorting people into groups has on their future success.
Dimitri Nakassis, of classics, is a world-renowned field archaeologist that co-directs the Western Argolid Regoinal Project in southern Greece and specializes in the "Mycenaean" culture of the Greek Late Bronze Age.
Lori Peek, of sociology, directs the Natural Hazards Center—a renowned clearinghouse of knowledge about the social science and policy aspects of disasters—and studies vulnerable populations in disasters.
Erika Randall, of theatre and dance, is a world-renowned dancer, choreographer and filmmaker whose research seeks to examine, reconsider and rewrite roles for women on the stage, the screen and the street.
Lauri Reitzammer, of classics, studies transgressive spaces in ancient Greece, as well as Greek literature, mythology and religion.
Honor Sachs, of history, specializes in the history of early America, particularly focusing on slavery, gender and law.
Marcos Steuernagel, of theatre and dance, works on the intersection of performance and politics—particularly in Brazil and Latin America—and the digital humanities.
Nicole Wright, of English, examines personhood and shifting conceptions of justice and representation in British literature and culture of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.