Geography Newsletter - Spring 2025

We welcomed a new faculty member, Assistant Professor Sisimac Duchicela, this semester. Dr. Duchicela received her Ph.D. in 2022 from the University of Texas at Austin in the Department of Geography and the Environment. She joined from her position as a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology at the University of California, Riverside.

This semester, the Geography Department hosted its first Mapathon, which will become an annual spring event. This event engaged students from several classes in various forms of mapping. Undergraduate and Graduate Students were encouraged to submit their maps to the Mapathon competition, which faculty and graduate students evaluated. The award winners included:

• Best Overall Map: The Heart of Boulder by Isabella Yasmine Perry
• Sustainability & Environmental Justice: 80216, Spatial Marginalization & A Cleaner Future by Adam Otto
• Innovation and the People's Choice winner: United States Wealth Map by Zachary Bartholomew
• Social Justice: The "Sea Peoples": Reclaiming Singapore's Islands for the Orang Laut by Jun Kai Leong, and Boston Bites Back by Mackenzie Campbell & Caroline Ploszay
• Inclusivity & Diversity: Resistance in Memory by Aradhya Choudhary
• Relationality & Community Engagement: Palestinian Resistance and The University of Colorado Boulder by Channing Thomson
• Personal Exploration & Storytelling:  A Map of Scars by Othello Zheng

Click here to see the Mapathon entries

As you can see from the entries in this newsletter, our faculty, graduate and undergraduate students, and Alumni are exceptional and continue to work on various research projects for the public good. Conducting cutting-edge, valuable, and award-winning research requires significant funding. The Shanghai Global Ranking of Academic Subjects ranked our department 1^st in the United States, 2^nd in North America, and 16^th globally. Our faculty are in several leadership positions across campus: Professor Waleed Abdalati is the Executive Director of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), Professor Jennifer Balch is the Director of the Environmental Science and Innovation & Inclusion Lab (ESILL), Professor Holly Barnard is the Associate Dean for Research in the College of Arts and Sciences,  Associate Professor Joe Bryan is the Director for the Latin American and Latinx studies Center on campus, Associate Professor Mara Goldman is the Director for the Environment & Society Program in the Institute for Behavioral Science, Associate Professor Colleen Reid is the interim Director of the new Public Health Program at CU Boulder, Distinguished Professor Mark Serreze is the Director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), and Associate Professor Bill Travis is the Director of the North Central Climate Adaptation Science Center.

Achieving high levels of research, scholarship, and public engagement requires extensive funding for field-based research, specialized equipment, high-powered computing, and funding for graduate student research assistants and postdoctoral research fellows. Most of our faculty and student research funding comes from highly competitive, extensively vetted federal grant programs.

Geography faculty and students have been extensively successful at writing and receiving grants from Federal Agencies such as the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Aeronautics & Space Agency (NASA), the National Institute of Health,  the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the National Renewable Energy Lab, the US Bureau of Reclamation, the US Department of Agricultural, US Department of Energy, the US Environmental Protection Agency, the US Fire Service, the US Forest Service, the US Geological Survey, and the US Park Service.

Due to the federal government transition, CU Geography faces new challenges, which inhibit our ability to produce top-notch science. Several faculty and students have had their grants rescinded, and the future of federal grant opportunities remains uncertain.

We are using reserve and emergency funding to ensure our graduate students finish their degrees as research or teaching assistant, provide our pre-tenured faculty with resources to continue their research and excel in their careers toward promotion and tenure, and continue to provide excellent education, field-based opportunities, study-abroad programs, and internships for our undergraduate students. We have also developed several new lower division classes to attract undergraduates to the Geography major. These classes include: Climate Change Geographies, Colorado Geographies, the Geography of Skiing and Snowboarding, and Introduction to Affordable Housing and Urban Development.

We ask you to join us in our commitment to provide outstanding teaching, research, scholarship, and community engagement in the future. Your financial assistance, of any amount, is greatly appreciated to help us get through this difficult time and map a positive and productive future for our staff, students, faculty, and alums. To donate to Geography, please use this link: giveto.colorado.edu/campaigns/56445/donations/new

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