Academics

University of Colorado Boulder astronomers targeting one of the brightest quasars glowing in the universe some 11 billion years ago say “sideline quasars” likely teamed up with it to heat abundant helium gas billions of years ago, preventing small galaxy formation.

Three University of Colorado Boulder engineering faculty were selected this spring to receive National Science Foundation CAREER awards. Assistant professors Abbie Liel and Matthew Hallowell of civil, environmental and architectural engineering, and Mahmoud Hussein of aerospace engineering sciences, were selected to receive the awards.

University of Colorado Boulder students, along with experts from government and industry, will focus on student research and topics including energy storage and cooperation with China during the fourth annual Energy Frontiers conference April 4. The event, organized by the CU Energy Club, is free and open to the public and will be held from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the Glenn Miller Ballroom of the University Memorial Center. The conference includes a poster session, panel discussion, catered lunch and a career fair.

NASA’s next Mars mission is giving students and the public worldwide an opportunity to have a personal connection with space exploration through a new education and public outreach effort called the “Going to Mars” campaign. The campaign is led on behalf of the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution, or MAVEN mission, by the University of Colorado Boulder.

Wei Zhang, an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Colorado Boulder, has won a prestigious Sloan Research Fellowship. Awarded annually since 1955, the fellowships are given to early career scientists and scholars whose achievements and potential identify them as rising stars and as the next generation of scientific leaders. The 2013 fellowships were awarded to 126 U.S. and Canadian researchers.

Steven Hayward has been appointed the first Visiting Scholar in Conservative Thought and Policy, the University of Colorado Boulder announced today. Hayward, Thomas W. Smith Distinguished Fellow at the Ashbrook Center at Ashland University in Ohio, will begin his one-year appointment in the fall.

CU System news release DENVER - Graduate programs across the University of Colorado system continue to gain attention for excellence in the latest annual rankings from U.S. News & World Report. Research and teaching contributions by the four campuses in health care, engineering, law, education and business are well-represented in the 2014 edition of Best Graduate Schools (U.S. News Media Group). A sampling of CU’s 2014 rankings include: University of Colorado Boulder

Sleeping just five hours a night over a workweek and having unlimited access to food caused participants in a new study led by the University of Colorado Boulder to gain nearly two pounds of weight. The study, performed in collaboration with the CU Anschutz Medical Campus, suggests that sufficient sleep could help battle the obesity epidemic.

People assigned to positions of power tend to dehumanize those in less powerful positions even when the roles are randomly assigned, according to a new study by the University of Colorado Boulder. The study found that participants given more powerful roles in two experiments attributed fewer uniquely human traits — characteristics that distinguish people from other animals — to their peers who were given less powerful roles.

Interdisciplinary discovery doesn’t always happen in the lab. Sometimes it integrates technology and musicians in an ensemble setting to provide live interaction, as in the case of the Boulder Laptop Orchestra (BLOrk). After computer science doctoral student Charles Dietrich and Associate Professor John Gunther of the College of Music met at a campus STEM poster presentation in the fall of 2012, the encounter led to new artistic collaboration through the College of Music’s BLOrk ensemble.