Juliana Ruef is awarded the Sarah Crump Graduate Fellowship
INSTAAR is excited to announce that incoming PhD student Juliana Ruef is the 2025 recipient of the Sarah Crump Graduate Fellowship. Ruef will use the award for snow science research on the Juneau Icefield in Alaska this summer.
The Sarah Crump Graduate Fellowship was designed by Sarah Crump, a beloved INSTAAR alum who passed away in November 2022. Each year, the fellowship provides funding for one graduate student studying earth or environmental science in high-latitude or high-altitude regions.
Juliana Ruef, the recipient of the 2025 Sarah Crump Graduate Fellowship, poses for a portrait.
Though Ruef hasn’t started her PhD yet, she is already at INSTAAR working on a MS degree with INSTAAR faculty Robert Anderson and Bradley Markle. Her PhD research will focus on the evolution and dynamics of rock glaciers and firn—granular ice that forms between snow and glaciers.
Ruef will use the fellowship funds to pay herself and an undergraduate research assistant to gather data for firn evolution research project this summer. The funding will also help pay for travel to and from the Juneau Icefield as well as essential supplies for data collection in the field.
Ruef’s advisors cited her focus on community-building and her high research standards in a recommendation letter.
“We can think of few students who so closely embody Sarah’s passion for scientific understanding of the alpine world as well as her commitment to making science a better community,” Markle and Anderson wrote.
Juliana Ruef processes a freshly-drilled "firn core" on the Juneau Icefield in 2024.
If you have questions about this story, or would like to reach out to INSTAAR for further comment, you can contact INSTAAR Communications Specialist Gabe Allen at gabriel.allen@colorado.edu.