College of Arts & Sciences

How a Fish Proved a Mathematical Breakthrough

Anna Tolette — Mon, 07 Jul 2025 20:06:33 +0000

How a Fish Proved a Mathematical Breakthrough Anna Tolette Mon, 07/07/2025 - 14:06

Alison Van Houton

On a March day in 2023, Ben Alessio, then a research assistant at �山��, was wandering around the Birch Aquarium in La Jolla, California, when he clocked a surprising sight: a male ornate boxfish undulating in the water, tessellating with violet and tangerine hexagons. It was dazzling — but more importantly, it was vindicating.

The rare fish’s markings were a real-life example of something that he and Ankur Gupta, �山�� assistant professor of chemical and biological engineering, had previously only modelled mathematically. It confirmed that they were onto a scientific breakthrough.

Turing Patterns

To understand Gupta’s research, one must first understand morphogenesis. Morphogenesis is the process by which cells, tissues and organisms develop their shapes.

Nearly 75 years ago, the famed British mathematician Alan Turing published a paper titled “The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis.” Since then, Turing’s work has been key to our understanding of how many — but not all — patterns form in nature.

“That’s sort of the foundational thinking, mathematically speaking, for this area of work,” said Gupta.

Turing had an uncommonly innovative mind — his ability to think beyond the status quo and make connections between various fields of thought led to breakthroughs in electronic computing, artificial intelligence, code breaking in WWII and, in this case, mathematical biology.

When it came to morphogenesis, Turing was interested in how heterogeneity, or diversity, arises out of homogeneity, which is when something is composed of all one type of thing. In other words, why does a zebra have both black and white stripes instead of a coat with hairs that are all one solid color, like gray?

The reason is diffusion — which is central to Turing’s theory. Diffusion is the movement of molecules from areas of higher concentration to areas of lower concentration; molecules tend to spread out until there’s an even distribution (much like people in an elevator). In chemistry, diffusion often dominates systems, especially when particles are tiny.

“Diffusion essentially promotes homogeneity,” said Gupta.

What he means is that if you drop blue dye into clear, still water, for example, it will slowly diffuse, in a gradient, until the whole container is equally blue. Similarly, when mixing red and blue dye in a diffusion-dominated system, one expects the colors to blend, ultimately yielding a homogenous purple hue. However, when a chemical reaction also occurs, something different may happen. In certain conditions, even a diffusion-dominated system can promote heterogeneity from homogeneity.

“Essentially, what [Turing] argued was that under the right conditions, if there is diffusion as well as [a chemical] reaction between different components — if I have five or six dyes, or three or four dyes, and they’re reacting with each other — then essentially it’s just a delicate dance between these two processes.”

These days, the term “Turing pattern” is generally applied to any reaction-diffusion pattern. This natural pattern forms when chemicals react with one another and spread out, often resulting in wavy lines or spots. A notable example of a Turing pattern in nature is the sparkling blue zebra fish, a slender creature that’s gilded with horizontal, blurry-edged golden stripes.

However, some wild animals feature very crisp markings.

“Why would a diffusion model describe something that is so striking and sharp?” Gupta wondered.

An Accidental Discovery

Gupta didn’t initially set out to answer that question. His focus was on diffusiophoresis, which is the combination of diffusion, described earlier, and phoresis, which describes how ultra-small dissolved particles — around a tenth or even a hundredth the width of a single human hair — can sometimes drag other things along with them in a solution. So, if diffusion is the way that blue dye spreads through clear water, phoresis is the movement of particles that happens because they’re temporarily dragged by that dye.

Alessio, who was doing computational research at the time, had been running mathematical simulations of reaction-diffusion systems that also had a diffusiophoretic element. The resulting visuals were notably defined, unlike the fuzzier ones that emerge from reaction-diffusion models (as seen in the zebrafish). And it was the striking violet and tangerine hexagon boxfish pattern that caught his attention in the Southern California aquarium.

“I was just literally simulating something like this on my computer,” thought Alessio when he saw it. He snapped a slew of photos and messaged Gupta excitedly. “I have something exciting to show you.”

Until that point, Gupta and Alessio had the models, but they didn’t have an example of them in nature.

“I didn’t have any sort of idea about this fish or anything like that,” said Gupta. “He showed me this, and then we sort of reverse-engineered the missing link.”

They dove into existing research and realized that chromatophores — cells that create pigment in the bodies of fish, reptiles and some other animals — can be carried by dissolved chemicals. In other words, they can move diffusiophoretically (like the particles temporarily dragged by dye).

In late 2023, Gupta and Alessio published a paper titled “Diffusiophoresis-Enhanced Turing Patterns” in the peer-reviewed journal Science Advances. Their research advances Turing’s theory by describing how more precise patterns — like the one seen on the ornate boxfish — come to exist.

While Alessio is now working on a PhD in mechanical engineering at Stanford, Gupta intends to continue researching how diffusiophoresis factors into Turing patterns.

“On the pattern-formation side, it would be useful to see if we can replicate some of this synthetically,” he said.

It’s a tall order, but more investigation can potentially help us understand how to control things synthetically.

Gupta is now investigating this phenomenon at an individual-cell level, which he likens to studying a single human versus a population of people.

“If I’m thinking about a population, then one option is to track individual people, and one is to say, ‘What is the population density?’” he said. “It was the population density approach that we were taking in our first paper. But now, we’re examining individual cells, and that has been interesting, because now what we start to see is imperfect Turing patterns.”

While mathematical models tend to be perfect, in reality, you often see imperfections: deformed hexagons or hexagons sliced in half. Taking an individual-cell-level approach to diffusiophoretic Turing patterns could provide more insight into why patterns sometimes don’t appear as expected based on mathematical models.

“We think it’s exciting, because real systems actually are not perfect,” Gupta said.

A Pilgrimage

In October 2023, before the “Diffusiophoresis-enhanced Turing patterns” paper was published, Gupta’s wife was traveling to a conference in San Diego. With anticipation, he packed his bags, hoping to set eyes on the ornate boxfish that inspired their discovery.

Inside the Birch Aquarium, he did a lap around the right side, where most of the fish seemed to be. But he wasn’t sure exactly where to look, and he struggled to spot its telltale scales.

“I couldn’t see it,” he said. “It was hidden.”

Ten minutes passed, then 20. Increasingly worried, he considered enlisting a staff member to help him track it down. Finally, in a last-ditch effort, he ventured off in the direction of the children’s area, toward the other side of the building. There, at long last, he caught his glimpse of the elusive fish.

Eureka.

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Illustration by Petra Péterffy

�山��'s Ankur Gupta’s discovery of sharper, more precise natural patterns expands on Alan Turing’s mathematical theory.

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Five CU Innovators Changing the World

Anna Tolette — Mon, 07 Jul 2025 20:04:07 +0000

Five CU Innovators Changing the World Anna Tolette Mon, 07/07/2025 - 14:04

�山�� is teeming with innovation, curiosity and thought leadership. And the people who comprise the university — CU Buffs — make global impact.

We’re highlighting five stellar Buffs — �山�� students, alumni and faculty whose work is relevant, leading-edge and promises to create ripples out into the world. Their stories were written by five equally outstanding CU affiliates, who personally know and understand the importance of their work.

As journalist Tom Costello (Jour’87) wrote in his essay on his NBC colleague Savannah Sellers (Jour’13), she “breaks through.”

Many Buffs are breaking through — they bridge traditional silos, strive to think differently, and take huge risks. And just as many credit the university for equipping them to pursue their passions. �山�� is more than its stunning location — this university is the people who push for more.

Idowu Odeyemi (PhDPhil’27)

Charting New Paths as a Rising Philosopher

Idowu Odeyemi came to �山�� to refine his philosophical acumen while carving a path for young Africans like him who aspire to study philosophy.

Beyond his research, he said, “I want to challenge and expand the traditional boundaries of the discipline so that the philosophical community must either engage with African thinkers or justify why not.”

Idowu’s work — centered on oppression and blame — delves into how oppressive systems like patriarchy, colonialism, Nazism and slavery affect moral agency. He invites us to consider haunting questions such as why a battered wife doesn’t simply leave while her husband is out, illustrating how the threat of severe harm to one’s welfare can override considerations of morality and compel individuals to remain in oppres-sive circumstances.

Consider a battered wife who faces an oppressive double bind: resisting her abuser risks her safety, while compliance perpetuates the very system that oppresses her. This leads to an untenable situation where she is damned if she revolts, and damned if she doesn’t. In Idowu’s view, this dilemma complicates blaming oppressed individuals for not revolting.

Another facet of Idowu’s scholarship introduces the term “epistemic disgust” — a neglected psychological response that prompts us to reject certain beliefs and utterances because they repulse us. If someone says, “All white men smell like hot dog water,” for instance, many listeners feel revulsion that blocks such an utterance from entering our belief system. Idowu’s ground-breaking theory on how disgust can shape belief formation was published in the prestigious journal Episteme.

He also ventures beyond academia: His essay “On Accent and Confidence” in Isele Magazine was nominated for the 2025 non-fiction prize and recognized as one of the 50 notable essays from Africa in 2024, and another piece, “Living in America, Leaving Nigeria” (published by The Republic), was named among the 18 notable essays by a Nigerian in 2023.

As a graduate student, Idowu has published four peer-reviewed papers in leading journals — an achievement typically expected of faculty. Recently, he delivered a philosophy colloquium at the University of Missouri — uncommon for a graduate student. He was a Harper PhD Fellow at the Benson Center, a fellow at the Center for African and African American Studies and, in 2023, a fully funded fellowship took him to the University of Oxford. This summer, he will be visiting the National Archives in London through a research award from �山��’s Center for African and African American Studies.

Through Idowu’s compelling research and prolific achievements, he exemplifies how �山��’s nurturing environment fosters tomorrow’s transformative thinkers.

�山�� philosophy associate professor Ajume Wingo serves as Odeyemi’s advisor. Ajume is a member of the royal family in the Nso kingdom, located in the northwest region of Cameroon. In addition to being widely published in political and social philosophy, he is the founder of several NGOs, including PridePads Africa and Pathfinders4peace.

Photo by Alastair Norcross

Savannah Sellers (Jour’13)

Serious, Fun, Whimsical — and Never Dull

As the face of “the Generation of Now,” Savannah Sellers co-anchors the streaming morning newscast of NBC News NOW, then reports for The Today Show and NBC Nightly News. She demonstrates how a journalist can break through a saturated news market and reach a new generation of consumers who crave accurate information on their own terms.

While transitioning from �山�� to NBC News in New York could have been daunting, Savannah quickly established herself as smart and determined, yet easy-going and relevant. This rare combination made her a natural choice to help lead NBC’s outreach to younger viewers, where they are — on social media.

She helped map a new look and pacing for NBC News. The target age: 20-to-40- somethings who want news on the go for their 24/7 lifestyle. Almost immediately, the audience was there. The newscasts moved fast. They were serious, fun, whimsical — and never dull.

Savannah took Snapchat viewers to Parkland, Florida, hours after a former student murdered 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Her coverage was raw and real. A record 18 million people tuned in: mostly kids seeking information about a tragedy affecting other kids they didn’t know, but who were their age.

She has documented America’s heroin epidemic with an Emmy award-winning Nightly News series, revealing that the victims are not always stereotypical drug addicts — they could be your own neighbor or family member.

She has detailed and explained the confusing fight over banning TikTok, the app-of- choice for her younger audience, led honest discussions on diversity, equity and inclusion, and shared the deeply personal and painful struggle she and her husband have faced with fertility.

To meet Savannah is to discover a person of tremendous warmth, charm and insatiable curiosity who wants to know your story — what motivates you, and why. Those are the traits of a great broadcast journalist.

As one NBC exec put it, “She breaks through! She pops!”

It delights me to see a fellow CU alum become such a trusted voice and valued colleague at The Peacock. Go Buffs!

Tom Costello (Jour’87) is the senior correspondent at NBC News. With nearly 30 years of experience at CNBC and NBC News in London, New York and Washington, D.C., he reports daily across all NBC News platforms.

Photo by Nate Congleton

Dania Arayssi (MPolSci’22; PhD’26)

Vital Work in Transnational Politics

Dania Arayssi doesn’t just care deeply about the big social and economic problems that affect people’s everyday lives — she rigorously studies them and takes action.

Before coming to �山��, she participated in the U.S.-Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) at the U.S. State Department and earned multiple advanced degrees. She then founded the Gleam of Hope Group, which works with thousands of young people and women to address food and health needs. For many, these accomplishments would constitute an entire career. For Dania, this was just the beginning.

Dania brought her passion for understanding pressing socioeconomic and political issues to �山�� in 2021. Her dissertation work centers on remittances, money sent by those working abroad back to their families in their home countries. Remittances are an important source of income for families around the world. Dania’s research seeks to explain how these remittances affect people’s incentives to be politically active. Does the added economic security make people more likely to pressure the government for change? Or does economic security dampen any potential dissent, making people less likely to vote or protest? What issues do people who receive remittances care about the most?

Dania uses a rigorous combination of interviews, focus groups and original survey data to study these questions in her home country of Lebanon. Her work helps us understand how diaspora communities affect politics around the world. In an era of transnational politics, her work is vitally important.

Dania represents the best of �山��. After completing her dissertation, she plans to work at the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy in Washington, D.C. During these politically contentious times plagued by myriad challenges, I personally find enormous hope that CU alumni like Dania will be out in the world contributing their expertise, knowledge and wisdom.

Sarah Wilson Sokhey works as an associate professor in �山��’s Department of Political Science, a faculty associate at the Institute of Behavioral Science and the founding director of the Studio Lab for Undergrads in the College of Arts and Sciences. Her current research focuses on the local provision of public services in Ukraine during wartime. In 2024, she was inducted into the President’s Teaching Scholars Program, one of the highest CU teaching awards.

Photo courtesy Dania Arayssi

Jun Ye (PhDPhys'97)

Using Quantum for High-Tech Innovation

My friend and colleague Professor Jun Ye is an ever-flowing fountain of scientific and technological innovation.

One of the greatest laser scientists in the world, he and his students have built several generations of record-setting optical clocks. The technology has advanced to the point where Jun’s clocks would gain or lose less than a second in the whole age of the universe. These highly accurate clocks are tied into technology improvements to support better navigation, communication and the ability to sense unseen things (for example, small changes in gravity associated with objects buried underground). Additionally, his lab created the world’s first nuclear clock.

Through his research at JILA, Jun uses lasers to detect slight traces of unusual elements in gas samples. His group is now examining the air exhaled by people with various diseases to find tiny traces of certain chemicals associated with a particular disease. If this works, one day cancer testing might be as easy as puffing some air into a soda straw.

Much of his research is built around using the properties of quantum mechanics to do high-tech research — precision measurement, secure communication, exotic material design — that eludes the reach of “old-school” classical mechanics.

Perhaps as impactful as anything else he does, Jun has trained an entirely new generation of elite scientists and engineers, who are now the beating heart of Colorado’s, and the nation’s, high-tech industry. When I visit high-tech Colorado companies, it often seems that the technical leadership are �山�� alums who earned their degrees while working in Jun’s group.

On top of his research, Jun is working with me on a joint project to understand why there is more matter than antimatter in the universe. It sounds like a very abstract topic, but it is part of a bigger question: How are the conditions in the universe such that the development of humankind is possible? I feel very privileged to collaborate with Jun. I’ve learned a lot from working with him. Sometimes I wonder if the man ever sleeps!

Eric Cornell has been at CU for 34 years and wears many hats. He teaches first-year physics for the �山�� Department of Physics; he is a JILA fellow; and a scientist with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), part of the U.S. Department of Commerce. In 2001, he and �山�� professor Carl Wieman won the Nobel Prize in Physics for creating Bose-Einstein Condensation, the “world’s coldest stuff.”

Photo courtesy Jun Ye

Steve Swanson (EngrPhys’83)

Space Commander Gains and Gives Respect

Steve Swanson was one of the most highly respected members of the NASA astronaut office during the Shuttle and Space Station Programs in the 1990s and 2000s.

Steve and I met in the late 1980s when we were both in the aircraft operations division at Johnson Space Center. I was an instructor pilot in the space shuttle training aircraft. Steve was a software wizard and the flight simulation engineer responsible for managing the computer that enabled a Gulfstream II business jet to fly like a space shuttle. We were both interested in becoming astronauts. I was selected in 1992, and

Steve was named an astronaut in 1998 after obtaining a PhD in computer science from Texas A&M University.

Steve excelled right away in the astronaut office and was selected as one of the four extra-vehicular activity (EVA) crewmembers to install one of the four solar array elements of the station. It was considered an honor to be chosen for such a significant mission on his first flight — he was clearly a rising star!

I began working at �山�� thanks to Steve. He talked to me after his post-flight trip to �山�� to visit with the students and return items he had flown for the university. CU asked him to consider a professor position in the CU aerospace department, but he wanted to fly more for NASA and so asked if I might be interested instead.

Steve also led the EVA team to install the final solar array element two years later. His final mission in 2014 was serving as a station crewmember and the mission commander.

That fall, I was proud to arrange a live video conference in the Fiske Planetarium so Steve could talk to the students while he was on the Space Station. Today, Steve shares his experiences at Boise State University, leading and advising student teams participating in NASA’s Artemis Challenges, inspiring them to do great things in science and engineering.

Joe Tanner is a retired NASA astronaut, Navy pilot and �山�� teaching professor. During his 16-year career as an astronaut, he flew four missions on the space shuttle, one to the Hubble Space Telescope and two to the International Space Station. He also mentored astronaut Sarah Gillis (AeroEngr’17) when she was a CU student; Gillis traveled to space in fall 2025 with SpaceX.

Photo courtesy NASA

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From quantum science to journalism, these five �山�� students, alumni and faculty are making bold, world-shaping contributions.

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Colorado Firefly Field Guide

Anna Tolette — Mon, 07 Jul 2025 20:03:02 +0000

Colorado Firefly Field Guide Anna Tolette Mon, 07/07/2025 - 14:03

Kelsey Yandura

“Magic is just science we don’t understand yet,” science fiction author Arthur Clarke famously penned in the 1960s. If that’s true, �山�� computer science researchers have been busy studying the fairy tale of fireflies in Colorado.

The work looks romantic, but it’s no picnic: In twilight vistas across the state, doctoral student Owen Martin (PhDCompSci’25) and associate professor Orit Peleg tow cameras and computers to document firefly populations and decode their flash patterns. It’s all part of a longstanding effort to understand firefly communication.

When the scientists discuss their work, locals are often surprised.

“A lot of people here come from places like the Midwest, where they’ve seen fireflies,” Martin told �山�� Today in July 2024. “But they don’t know about them in their own backyards.”

That’s why he’s eager to raise what he calls “firefly literacy” in the state.

Fireflies have quietly flickered in Colorado for centuries, though the first formal documentation came in 2016, when naturalist Tristan Darwin Kubik identified a population near Fort Collins. Genetic testing suggested they may represent a previously undocumented species, potentially dubbed Photuris coloradensis.

In 2018, Martin and Peleg began tracking fireflies, which have been documented in at least 19 counties, including near Fort Collins, Loveland, Greeley, Pueblo, Mofat, Divide, Durango and Carbondale.

Why are sightings so rare? Studies show fireflies prefer swampy environments — wetlands, meadows and areas near streams and ponds. Their patchy distribution and brief annual activity window leave many residents unaware of their presence.

As magical as these discoveries are, scientists warn they could be short-lived. Habitat loss, wetland drainage, livestock grazing, urban development and light pollution all pose serious threats.

“They are very special. We have a lot to learn from them, but also, they are under threat from environmental issues,” Peleg told �山�� Today.

Residents can help to protect these luminescent creatures by assisting with flash data collection, supporting habitat restoration, staying on marked trails and turning of outdoor lights from June to August, especially near wetlands.

“Biodiversity is magical,” Martin added. “And if we don’t alert the right people that these cool fireflies, that are really rare, are in this habitat, we’ll lose them forever. And then you lose the kind of wonder and magic they bring to you.”

To spot them, keep your eyes peeled from mid-to-late June through mid-July, usually after 9 p.m. in swampy or wetland areas.

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Illustration by Sunnu Rebecca Choi

�山�� researchers are uncovering the story of Colorado’s rare fireflies.

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Saving Endangered Languages

Anna Tolette — Mon, 07 Jul 2025 19:58:24 +0000

Saving Endangered Languages Anna Tolette Mon, 07/07/2025 - 13:58

Sophia McKeown

�山�� linguistics professors Ambrocio Gutiérrez Lorenzo and Rai Farrelly are working to preserve Zapotec, a family of languages that originated in Southern Mexico and Central America.

For most of human history, the survival of specific languages has relied on one generation passing it on to the next — a process that, in many speech communities, unfolds naturally.

But, according to a study published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, around half of the world’s 7,000 documented languages are currently considered “endangered.”

�山�� linguistics professors Ambrocio Gutiérrez Lorenzo and Rai Farrelly hope to slow the decline.

“Languages are tied very closely to peoples’ identities and their cultures,” said Farrelly in an interview with KUNC this spring. “We believe that there is tremendous value in working to maintain and revitalize [languages].”

Currently, Farrelly and Gutiérrez Lorenzo are working to preserve Zapotec, a family of languages that originated in Southern Mexico and Central America, spoken mostly in Oaxaca, Mexico. Gutiérrez Lorenzo collaborates closely with members of the Teotitlán del Valle community who are interested in learning more about the Zapotec language and contributing to preservation efforts.

Since 2011, he has held monthly meetings with community members to discuss linguistic aspects of the language and the practical applications of his research, including the creation of small dictionaries and the documentation of local narratives.

“[Zapotec] is the language I grew up speaking, so I don’t want it to be lost with my generation,” said Gutiérrez Lorenzo. “I don’t want to be the generation that let it go.”

Besides creating real-world solutions, Gutiérrez Lorenzo and Farrelly are determined to raise awareness around the issue, both on campus and around the world. The colleagues developed a global seminar for CU’s Education Abroad based in Teotitlán del Valle, which offers �山�� students the opportunity to live in a rural Mexican community while learning and practicing Spanish and Zapotec.

“Maintaining languages in a community serves to strengthen intergenerational connections,” said Farrelly. “It brings together youth and elders through oral traditions that have been celebrated in many of these communities for centuries.”

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Photo courtesy Rai Farrelly

�山�� linguistics professors Ambrocio Gutiérrez Lorenzo and Rai Farrelly work closely with Mexican communities to preserve the endangered Zapotec language and strengthen cultural ties.

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Major Change: Five Fresh Degrees

Anna Tolette — Tue, 12 Nov 2024 20:43:34 +0000

Major Change: Five Fresh Degrees Anna Tolette Tue, 11/12/2024 - 13:43

Kelsey Yandura

Did Greta Gerwig’s Barbie film boost Birkenstock sales? Does a high-fat diet increase anxiousness? How are business leaders addressing “Zoom fatigue” among employees? Can a jellyfish-inspired robot track climate change?

The questions facing industry professionals today can range from complex to straight out of a science fiction novel. To keep up with and prepare students for the ever-evolving times, academic institutions need to constantly reevaluate course content and degree offerings.

�山��’s leadership strategically approaches the challenges of continuous modernization in higher education by examining both what and how students learn. This allows the university to remain on the leading edge of education while empowering students to navigate a fast-changing world.

“Our degrees don’t focus on a finite set of competencies, but on teaching students how to learn and lead,” said Katherine Eggert, vice chancellor for academic planning and assessment at �山��. “What our graduates learn today may be outdated by tomorrow. They’ll need to acquire new skills quickly from the moment they start their careers.”

The university’s academic strategy is centered on equipping students with adaptable, real-world skills in programs that embrace multidisciplinary approaches, foster collaboration and generate creative solutions to complex problems.

Here are five of the latest undergraduate and graduate degree paths �山�� has unveiled over the past four years.

Corporate Communication (MA)

�山�� Online

When Kiana Junior (MCorpComm’25) graduated from the University of Wyoming in 2021 with a bachelor’s degree in nutrition, job prospects in her field of study were dire.

“I took the first job I could, which happened to be in the real estate industry,” said Junior. Three years later, she’s bounding ahead on a totally new path: working as a brand communicator and pursuing her master’s in corporate communication at CU, a fully online degree program introduced in 2020.

In the field of corporate communication, professionals study the way companies and organizations communicate with internal and external audiences to share information and manage brand perception.

“It’s the practice and art of distilling information with integrity and consistency,” said Junior. “Consumers and employees expect transparency and social responsibility from corporations, now more than ever — especially when it comes to social responsibility, environmental compliance and diversity.”

The curriculum is designed to be student-centric. “The students learn from a mix of university faculty and current and distinguished practitioners who are working in the field,” said Tobias Hopp, director of the program. “It’s a dynamic educational experience.”

The results speak for themselves.

“I could read something in class one day and take it to work the next day,” said Junior. “It’s directly applicable every single week.”

Business Analytics (BS)

Leeds School of Business

Businesses have access to more data than ever — but it’s what they do with this data that provides value. Streaming site subscriptions, airline loyalty memberships, coffee shop sales and nail salon customer reviews — each of these datasets can provide a wealth of information for the respective businesses.

That’s where business analytics comes in: using data to glean insights, inform strategic decisions and recommend meaningful changes within a business. This fast-growing field of study became a new undergraduate focus within the Leeds School of Business in 2022.

“It’s about critical thinking with data,” said Kai R. Larsen, professor of information systems at Leeds. “Datasets are only getting bigger. We tried to imagine what a major would look like so that students could really understand the story behind the numbers.”

Business analytics students learn how to translate and distill hard numbers into helpful information. It is designed to be paired with another area of emphasis within the business school, such as marketing, finance or accounting.

“The beauty comes from how to put all these parts together,” said Larsen. “Not only understand the problem, but be able to analyze and also distill the information into something that’s valuable.”

Public Health (BA)

College of Arts and Sciences

After wildfires in California in 2008, Colleen Reid, an associate professor of geography at �山��, began studies to understand how wildfire smoke affects population health. Recently, she has been collecting data to understand how wildfire smoke gets into homes and schools and may affect children’s health in the Denver metro area. Reid hopes school districts can use the findings from her work to protect children from future high air pollution events, such as wildfires. Her work demonstrates the importance of careers in public health.

Starting in the fall of 2025, CU students will have the opportunity to pursue similar lines of work through the new public health major (BA) — a discipline focused on protecting and improving the health and well-being of communities and people. The field examines the underlying determinants of health within populations. For this new major at CU, students will learn about public health through courses within many different disciplines, including biology, statistics, geography, physiology, sociology, psychology and more.

“Public health goes beyond just individual bodies,” said Reid. “Seat belts are public health. Parks are public health. Climate change policy is public health. Food safety inspections at restaurants are public health.”

CU’s public health program plans to equip students with the tools to address the needs of today’s world — making strides to not only solve health problems, but also prevent them.

Biomedical Engineering (BS, MS, PhD)

College of Engineering and Applied Science

Earlier this year, a �山��-led team made strides in the quest to develop naturalistic materials that can repair and replace human tissue. Their breakthrough focused on creating a “Band-Aid for the heart,” and the process consisted of 3D printing adhesive, elastic materials that are strong enough to support tissue mechanically.

This work, which can lead to revolutionary uses such as internal bandages and cartilage patches, demonstrates the innovative possibilities in biomedical engineering. By connecting engineering principles to the fields of medicine and biology, professionals in this discipline create enhancements to health care.

“A biomedical engineer on a team can form a crucial bridge between the clinicians and the engineers,” said Jessica McLaughlin, a teaching assistant professor in CU’s biomedical engineering (BME) department. “It’s critical to have someone at the table who can speak both languages.”

Since 2020, students at �山�� have had this professional pathway open to them through undergraduate and graduate biomedical engineering degrees. The multidisciplinary major teaches students how to create technology to address complex health problems.

“Anyone who cares about human health should be interested in this,” said Corey Nue, a biomedical professor at �山��. “As engineers, we’re really uniquely positioned to impact the field through new devices, diagnostics and therapeutics.”

Robotics (MA, PhD)

College of Engineering and Applied Science

Perhaps the most futuristic major on the list is CU’s new graduate program in robotics, which kicked off in the fall of 2023. The program combines coursework and research from a variety of engineering fields, bridging the gaps between science, engineering and artificial intelligence.

“Robotics takes everything from computer science to mechanical engineering to electrical engineering,” said Sean Humbert, professor of mechanical engineering and director of the Robotics Program at �山��. “These are the types of students we want to be getting — folks that want this multidisciplinary background to solve all sorts of problems.”

From agriculture and health care to security and defense, the applications of a robotics degree are endless. Students enrolled in the program can choose from more than 40 different courses taught by experts in areas like field robotics, reasoning and assurance, smart materials, human-centered robotics and biomedical robotics.

When leading the charge to bring the robotics program to life, Humbert envisioned a department built on flexibility and an eye for developing trends.

“It’s a rapidly changing field, and our terrific faculty span all of these different bins of research,” said Humbert. “We’ll be able to educate students and develop new classes as the new tools appear. It’s really exciting.”

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Illustrations by Israel Vargas

Take a peek at five new undergraduate and graduate degree paths �山�� has unveiled over the past four years.

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Fall 2024

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Muriel Sibell-Wolle: Artist, Professor, Ghost Town Guide

Anonymous — Tue, 16 Jul 2024 06:00:00 +0000

Muriel Sibell-Wolle: Artist, Professor, Ghost Town Guide Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 07/16/2024 - 00:00

Kelsey Yandura

1942

When Muriel Sibell-Wolle traded the East Coast for the foothills of �山�� in 1926, she was immediately spellbound by the region’s rich natural beauty, declaring she planned to stay "until they kick me out." She began teaching fine art at �山�� and went on to lead the department for nearly 20 years.

One of the first and most prolific ghost town guidebook writers in the nation, Sibell-Wolle visited and sketched over a thousand mining towns in the American West. Here, Sibell-Wolle is pictured with her lithograph “Gladstone, Colorado,” which is now part of the CU Art Museum collection.

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Photo courtesy Floyd Walters Colection, CU Heritage Center

CU fine arts professor Muriel Sibell-Wolle visited and sketched over a thousand mining towns in the American West. She is now known as one of the first and most prolific ghost town guidebook writers in the nation.

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CU Wizards Bring Magic to the Science Classroom

Anonymous — Tue, 16 Jul 2024 06:00:00 +0000

CU Wizards Bring Magic to the Science Classroom Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 07/16/2024 - 00:00

Jessica Winter

One Saturday per month throughout the academic year, children and their families gather at �山�� to witness the magic of science — hosted by the university’s very own “wizards.”

The CU Wizards program, a free science-education experience for children, unofficially began in the late 1970s and early 1980s when CU physics professor John Taylor, the original “Mr. Wizard,” started presenting two to three children’s science shows each year on campus. Eventually, he began traveling to Colorado schools and presenting his science shows up to 20 times per year.

In 1987, after years of sharing his passion for science with others, Taylor handed the torch to CU professor David Nesbitt, a Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics (JILA) and National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) fellow and current director of CU Wizards. Since that time, the program has expanded in funding, frequency and faculty. The monthly show typically boasts over 400 attendees and has been attended by more than 100,000 children and family members over the past 37 years.

“The shows have a different sort of energy than a kids-only class because parents also participate,” said the program’s coordinator Candice Brown in an article she penned for NIST on CU Wizards. “It’s the perfect combination — an enthusiastic young audience plus the [adults] who get the chance to be kids again — all eager, curious and interested in learning.”

While the program has grown and flourished under the leadership of Nesbitt, the “Chief Wizard,” it is still centered on Taylor’s philosophy of science education: we cannot have science without joy.

“Joy and curiosity are the fundamental reasons each of us studies science,” said Nesbitt. “Kids are naturally curious and excited about learning new things. CU Wizards is a perfect venue for professors and their graduate students to expose young scientific minds to their own joy and delight in science.”

And the program does more than entertain — it’s also helping children to view themselves as scientists. In a 2022 survey of 120 adults and children who have attended presentations, 84 percent responded that CU Wizards allowed children to better identify with scientists.

Nesbitt describes the program as “running on a special kind of magic: the goodwill of a fantastic community.” From the professors who volunteer time to prepare the presentations, to the staff, postdocs and students, CU Wizards involves a whole community dedicated to sharing the magic of science.

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Photos courtesy CU Wizards

For over three decades, CU Wizards has engaged and informed children about the wonders of science.

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Miniature Dictionary: Tiny Book, Trove of Knowledge

Anonymous — Tue, 16 Jul 2024 06:00:00 +0000

Miniature Dictionary: Tiny Book, Trove of Knowledge Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 07/16/2024 - 00:00

Christie Sounart

In 2003, nearly a decade after the death of Jacob Van Ek, former �山�� political science professor and College of Arts and Sciences dean, the CU Heritage Center received an anonymous donation of his desk items — including a miniature English-Dutch dictionary, which stands two inches high and less than 1.5 inches wide.

Mini books, according to auction service Britannic Auctions, were popular throughout history as they allowed the reader to conveniently and discreetly carry knowledge. Van Ek and his wife may have used the dictionary on their global travels, said Mona Lambrecht, Heritage Center interim director and curator of its history and collections.

After winning a year-long travel fellowship in 1928, Van Ek and his wife, Eve Drewelowe, traveled around the world to familiarize themselves with different peoples, countries and civilizations. During this time, they spent time in the Netherlands, where Van Ek’s parents were born.

The couple returned from their travels in 1929, and Van Ek assumed his role as Arts and Sciences dean, a position he held at �山�� for 30 years before teaching full time for several more years.

The experience left him with a broad worldview.

According to the Jacob Van Ek collection housed in the Norlin Library, “When the ‘Red Scare’ gripped college campuses in the late 1940s and the 1950s, Dr. Van Ek won the respect and gratitude of his faculty and student body when he acted as a steadfast defender of freedom of expression.”

Facts about the dictionary:

Title: English-Dutch 12000 Words Liliput Dictionary 77
Published by Schmidt & Günther
Printed by F. E. Haag in Leipzig, Germany
Published circa 1925
635 pages
Dimensions: 1⅜ inches wide by 2 inches high by 3/8 inches deep
Text 1/16 inches high
Red linen fabric cover
All the dictionaries published by Schmidt & Günther in this series have a number connected to them. The English-Dutch is number 77.

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Photos courtesy Mona Lambrecht, CU Heritage Center

Zoom in on a twentieth-century miniature English-Dutch dictionary in CU's Heritage Collection.

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Leslie Leinwand & The Science of Getting Things Done

Anonymous — Tue, 16 Jul 2024 06:00:00 +0000

Leslie Leinwand & The Science of Getting Things Done Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 07/16/2024 - 00:00

Lisa Marshall

Some might say the cards were stacked against Leslie Leinwand.

At age five, the precocious kindergartner was plucked from her Manhattan home and transplanted to the one-stoplight town of York, South Carolina, after the sudden death of her father, an internal medicine doctor. Her mother remarried a man who told young Leinwand repeatedly that, “girls didn’t need to go to college.” Then, when she was 13, tragedy took her mother and she was sent to live with extended family.

Leinwand persisted, landing at a small college in North Carolina where an astute professor noticed her interest in science and insisted she take a summer organic chemistry course at Cornell University.

“That’s when my somewhat sad story changed,” she recalls, now seated in her spacious office at the glistening, $210-million biotech facility she helped bring to life. “All because I had this fantastic professor.”

Today, Leinwand is a distinguished professor of molecular, cellular and developmental biology and the chief scientific officer of the BioFrontiers Institute at �山��. She has achieved what many scientists only dream about: turning a seed of scientific inquiry into a multibillion-dollar company that saves lives — more than once.

Leinwand stayed at Cornell and helped pay her way through by working as a fraternity house waitress. She later earned her PhD in genetics from Yale and served on the faculty at Albert Einstein College of Medicine for 15 years before landing in �山�� in 1995.

Throughout this time, one fundamental question drove her research: What genes and proteins are responsible for making the heart function properly, and what causes this complex machine to break down in some people?

“She is very special. When she discovers things in her lab, she doesn’t stop there,” said Nobel laureate and Distinguished Professor of Biochemistry Tom Cech, who has known Leinwand for three decades. “She works tirelessly, doing whatever it takes, to make something happen that will impact patients.”

Healing a big, sick heart

Much of Leinwand’s work has centered on hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), which she describes simply as a “big, sick heart.”

It is the most common genetic heart disease in the United States, impacting roughly one in 500 people, as well as the most common cause of sudden death among athletes — who often don’t know they have it and push their hearts too hard, with lethal results.

HCM first made headlines in 1990 when Hank Gathers, an all-American college basketball star, collapsed and died while on the court during a game at the age of 23. Since then, a long list has followed, including Reggie Lewis of the Boston Celtics, who died on a basketball court shortly after Gathers in 1993.

In patients with HCM, their hearts — the walls thickened by disease — squeeze too hard and don’t fully relax, which burns through energy, leaves them breathless, causes the heart to race and depletes their energy.

HCM gets worse over time — and, until recently, there was no medication to treat it.

Leinwand’s interest in the disease dates back to 1985, when she first began studying a protein called myosin, which converts chemical energy into mechanical energy to move muscles, including the heart. Early on, she suspected that glitches in this ubiquitous protein might contribute to heart troubles and that studying them could ultimately lead to new therapies.

“It was an idea before its time,” she recalls. “We didn’t have the technology back then that we did later.”

First, she and her students had to develop a way to manufacture myosin in the lab so they could study it. That alone took years.

In 1996, Leinwand and other CU colleagues took what they had learned about myosin and founded Myogen, a startup that developed two novel drugs for treating hypertension, which sold to pharma giant Gilead Sciences for $2.6 billion in 2006.

Ultimately, Leinwand’s team determined that faulty myosin was a key culprit in HCM.

In 2012, she joined Harvard’s Christine and Jonathan Seidman, who study the genetic mechanisms of heart disease, and Stanford biochemist James Spudich, who studies how muscles contract, to create the biomedical company MyoKardia.

MyoKardia developed a drug that attaches to the faulty protein, effectively cranking down the heart’s overactive motor. The drug was tested in clinical trials and mavacamten (brand name Camzyos) was born.

Bristol Myers Squibb bought MyoKardia for $13 billion in 2020 and, in April of 2022, the Food and Drug Administration approved mavacamten as the first and only cardiac myosin inhibitor approved in the United States for treating HCM.

“We had hoped that the best outcome could be that the disease progression was slowed, but what cardiologists are telling us is that they are actually seeing a reversal in some patients,” says Leinwand.

Leinwand is not one to get emotional in public. But she can’t help but choke up a bit when asked how this makes her feel.

“It has been the most amazing thing to hear patients say things like, ‘I can now walk up a flight of steps again. I am no longer bedridden. I can get out of my house.’ It feels great.”

Paying it forward

Leinwand has no plans to retire anytime soon. The BioFrontiers Institute, which she and her colleagues dreamed up in the early 2000s, is now a thriving intellectual melting pot, bringing hundreds of physicists, engineers, biologists, chemists, geneticists and computer scientists from around the world together under one roof to improve human health.

Today, her Python Project, another way-outside-the-box idea she came up with in 2006, persists, enabling undergraduate researchers to study Burmese pythons as a means of better understanding what healthy versus unhealthy heart growth looks like.

Pythons can go 6–12 months without eating and then swallow animals as big as they are in one bite, prompting their heart to balloon 40 percent in just 48 hours. In the python’s case, this growth is healthy, much like a well-trained athlete’s heart that grows larger with conditioning.

By understanding how pythons can grow and reverse a larger healthy heart so quickly, Leinwand and her team hope to someday develop therapies that could help people strengthen or shrink their heart muscle, according to need.

Dedicated to her research, she was undeterred when told that the reptile breeder in Oklahoma City could not ship live pythons to Colorado due to interstate shipping guidelines. Instead, every year, her students drive 20 hours roundtrip to buy them and bring them to her lab on campus.

Leinwand continues to mentor students and travel the country giving lectures on leadership, paying forward the gift she got from the professor in North Carolina who encouraged her pursuit of science. She prioritizes her own health too, carving out time to pedal 12 miles each night on her indoor recumbent bicycle while watching cooking shows to inspire the gourmet meals she prepares for friends.

When asked how she gets it all done (a question she hears a lot), she offers this singular piece of advice:

“Pick your battles, and don’t pick battles you cannot win,” says Leinwand. “I know how to get stuff done,” she adds with a modest shrug. “I’m happiest when I’m doing five things at once.”

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Illustration by Sol Cotti

CU’s Leslie Leinwand helped develop the first drug for an incurable heart disease, sold two companies for billions and founded a thriving biotech institute. She’s just getting started.

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College of Arts & Sciences

How a Fish Proved a Mathematical Breakthrough

Turing Patterns

An Accidental Discovery

A Pilgrimage

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Five CU Innovators Changing the World

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Idowu Odeyemi (PhDPhil’27)

Savannah Sellers (Jour’13)

Dania Arayssi (MPolSci’22; PhD’26)

Jun Ye (PhDPhys'97)

Steve Swanson (EngrPhys’83)

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Colorado Firefly Field Guide

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Saving Endangered Languages

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Major Change: Five Fresh Degrees

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Muriel Sibell-Wolle: Artist, Professor, Ghost Town Guide

1942

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CU Wizards Bring Magic to the Science Classroom

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Miniature Dictionary: Tiny Book, Trove of Knowledge

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Leslie Leinwand & The Science of Getting Things Done

Healing a big, sick heart

Paying it forward

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