A smiling Sara Padula holds a Chickadee in her hand

Q&A with Sara Padula, first recipient of the Sarah Crump Graduate Fellowship

July 14, 2023

We are proud to announce Sara Padula as the first recipient of the Sarah Crump Graduate Fellowship. The fellowship provides summer support for a graduate student researching Earth or environmental science in Arctic, Antarctic, or alpine regions. We caught up with Sara to ask about her research, her summer, and life as a scientist.

Jared Collins, Airy Peralta, and Brad Markle at the celebration of INSTAAR awards. Photo by Marisa Seitz.

Airy Peralta and Jared Collins garner first INSTAAR Graduate Community Awards

May 24, 2023

Airy Peralta and Jared Collins are the recipients of the first INSTAAR Graduate Community Awards. The award is a new honor that recognizes students who expend substantial effort in activities that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in the INSTAAR community and as representatives of INSTAAR.

Student use of open office spaces at SEEC has been down since the pandemic. New funding seeks to make SEEC spaces safer, more engaging, and more inclusive.

Recipients of President’s DEI Awards, Grants honored at reception (CU Connections)

May 12, 2023

CU System awards and grants to advance diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) were also honored at an April 20 event. INSTAAR has received a grant to address inclusive open workspaces. Through participatory scenario development, ethnographic walks, and semi-structured interviews, SEEC community members will reflect on inequitable and unwelcoming spaces and conceptualize just future concepts.

Warren Sconiers at one of his research sites on Niwot Ridge.

Warren Sconiers: A winding path of discovery through research and teaching (British Ecological Society)

Oct. 25, 2022

Warren Sconiers—an Assistant Professor at the University of Colorado Boulder interested in plant-insect interactions, insect ecology, and climate change—shares his story as part of Black History Month.

Logs in a Colorado mountain stream

INSTAAR DEI Summer Scholars share research plans

May 20, 2022

INSTAAR’s first cohort of DEI Summer Scholars has been announced. Sáde Cromratie Clemons and Christina Geller will each be awarded a stipend for the summer months to continue their research projects.

Four 8th graders touching, smelling, and learning about permafrost.

Angevine Middle School students visit INSTAAR for hands-on science

April 21, 2022

200 students from Angevine Middle School criss-crossed INSTAAR space this morning, engaging in hands-on science activities. Students touched and smelled permafrost, looked at algae through microscopes, tested water pollution in local streams, investigated soil texture, learned about chickadees, and checked out weather and climate measurements in fast-paced, hands-on activities.

Scientist works on equipment while on sea ice

New Polar Science Early Career Community Office launches at CU Boulder (CIRES)

April 13, 2022

The Polar Science Early Career Community Office, funded by the NSF and housed by CIRES and INSTAAR, will provide training opportunities, resources and funding to support and help build a community of polar early-career scientists in the United States.

City lights are seen in the distance from the vantage point of a snowy mountainside at night.

Protect Our Winters advocates for racial justice in climate fight (Powder)

July 24, 2020

Minority, tribal, and indigenous people are the most vulnerable to climate change. INSTAAR Keith Musselman is quoted in this Powder Magazine story.

Students walk in all directions in front of building at Harvard University.

Schools scramble to keep students in wake of “devastating” new visa rule (Eos)

July 9, 2020

The United States has always been a scientific powerhouse, but following a sudden announcement from ICE, some worry that “we’re just going to get so far behind.” Eos story quotes INSTAAR doctoral student Lina Pérez-Angel.

Mural of George Floyd's face surrounded by flowers

INSTAAR statement on systemic racism

June 19, 2020

We recognize that Black Lives Matter and stand with the protesters demonstrating against injustice. We are also reckoning with the overdue realization that we are part of the same systems that led to that violence. We commit to doing our part to dismantle implicit, systemic racism in our own spaces and list specific actions we will take within INSTAAR.