Outstanding Graduate

With a heart for social justice, Daniela Harton kept coming back to a career in education. As an undergraduate majoring in Human Services and Social Justice, she found herself working for after-school programs and then the Colorado Education Association. Soon, she began to see herself as a teacher.

As an undergraduate student, Casey Knosby loved learning and dreaming about many different professional paths. After considering careers in dentistry, business, teaching, and sustainability she finally found her niche in higher education and is helping students.

Growing up in Durango, in the rural southwest corner of Colorado, Meredith Nass has sought a worldly perspective to bring to her work as a community organizer and coalition builder.

Jami Riley taught high school math for four years before enrolling full time in the CU Boulder School of Education's Secondary Mathematics Master's program with her sights set on developing the tools and knowledge to further refine her teaching practice with research-based evidence. Riley has proven to be an incredible...

A long line of educators inspired Will Ostendorf's winding path to becoming a teacher. His parents are both teachers — his mother taught middle school and his father entered the profession after retiring from an information technology company and volunteering five days a week in a middle school. As an...

Andrés Martínez, 23-year veteran social studies teacher, has studied the important role CU Boulder played in the Chicano Movement in Colorado and the opportunity to have a CU Boulder graduate education has been a welcome chapter in his story.

When Allison Murphy was young, she used to pretend her backyard in Colorado Springs was an archeological excavation site and that one day she would make a huge new discovery. Murphy is the 2020 School of Education secondary humanities outstanding graduate.

Anne Fisher started making concrete plans to become a history and education Buff when she was just a freshman in high school. Now, she is graduating as the 2020 School of Education outstanding graduate in elementary education.

From a young age, Alexandra Collard knew she wanted to teach. She loved learning and found math and science fascinating in the ways that they explain how the world works. Collard is the 2020 School of Education and CU Teach outstanding graduate in STEM education.

Paula Abitia had always wanted to attend her “dream school,” CU Boulder, yet as a first-generation student of color, the reality of her dream included the struggle for a sense of belonging. She credits higher education professionals with helping her get through challenging times, and now she is paying it forward as a higher education professional and MA graduate.