Articles by Shelly Sommer

INSTAAR researcher Peyton Thomas has been awarded the Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellowship for Faculty Diversity from CU Boulder. A fish physiologist who studies the impacts of a changing climate on fish growth trajectories, Thomas is a postdoctoral scholar at INSTAAR and in the Environmental Studies program.

The Mountain Hydrology Group will be developing a new snowpack data set to inform water supply management in the western United States, thanks to grant funding from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.

INSTAAR is pleased to announce that incoming PhD student Kathryn Gannon is this year’s recipient of the Sarah Crump Graduate Fellowship. Gannon will work with advisor Bella Oleksy to explore murky questions around greenhouse gas emissions from seasonally ice-covered lakes.

A team of researchers that included several INSTAAR scientists received the prestigious Kirk Bryan Award from the Quaternary Geology & Geomorphology Division of the Geological Society of America (GSA). The prestigious award honors the authors of a recent paper that advances the science of geomorphology.

Supported by a new five-year, $2.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation, a group of researchers at five universities will examine how rapidly warming temperatures and shorter winters can influence the growth and toxicity of lake algae. Isabella Oleksy, who studies aquatic ecosystems and recently joined INSTAAR, is leading the Colorado contingent at CU Boulder.

INSTAAR is pleased to announce four George R. Aiken Graduate Fellowships for 2023. CU Boulder graduate students Mackensie Bowen, Allison Cook, Tim Higgins, and Millie Spencer received the awards, which come with funding to support their research over the next year.

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.

Birds continue to thrive in Colorado’s Snake River watershed, despite increasing heavy metals and rare earth elements in streams, finds a study by Kelly Watson and Diane McKnight.

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.

Renowned climatologist Pieter Tans has joined INSTAAR as a Fellow Emeritus. Tans will be working with colleagues at INSTAAR to continue investigations of atmospheric carbon and climate change.