Announcements & Deadlines

CU Boulder aligns with city drought guidance, emphasizes water stewardship across campus

Megan M Rogers — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 12:16:25 +0000

CU Boulder aligns with city drought guidance, emphasizes water stewardship across campus Megan M Rogers Fri, 04/03/2026 - 06:16

The city of Boulder has entered a drought watch and is asking the community to take voluntary steps to reduce water use. As record hot and dry weather persists across the Front Range, CU Boulder supports these efforts to help preserve water this spring.

The campus is working diligently to conserve water where possible while also maintaining green spaces that provide important health, recreation and community benefits.

Where campus irrigation comes from

A vast majority of CU Boulder’s irrigation uses ditch water—non-potable, raw water—that is not part of the city of Boulder’s water supply. These water rights were granted to the university when the university was founded. While not subject to the city’s current drought guidance, the university is committed to using all water resources responsibly—applying water efficiently, minimizing waste and prioritizing long-term sustainability and stewardship of this state resource.

“Regardless of the source of our campus irrigation, we approach all water use with care, focusing on efficiency, minimizing waste and making decisions that reflect long-term sustainability and stewardship,” said Jonathan Akins, campus civil engineer with Planning, Design and Construction.

The university does have a limited area of campus where irrigation is supplied by the city, and is delaying the use of potable (treated drinking) water for irrigation of lawns and turf in those areas until May 1 in line with city recommendations.

Smart irrigation and water stewardship

CU Boulder has invested significantly in systems and practices that support efficient water use across campus, including:

Advanced irrigation controls that adjust watering based on weather conditions
Soil moisture monitoring to prevent overwatering
Nighttime irrigation schedules to reduce evaporation
Ongoing system checks to identify and fix leaks or inefficiencies

The Outdoor Services team at CU Boulder uses all of these tools to make informed decisions about when to irrigate areas of campus, and for how long.

“We evaluate these systems and the conditions on the ground daily, adjusting campus irrigation in real time,” said Ryan Heiland, assistant director of Outdoor Services. “The goal is to be as efficient as possible, using only the water that’s needed to maintain healthy landscapes that support accessibility and community use.”

Campus irrigation typically occurs between 9 p.m. and 7 a.m. However, community members may still see sprinklers operating in some areas during daytime hours when Outdoor Services is able to conduct system maintenance, safety checks or to ensure irrigation systems are functioning efficiently and not wasting water.

CU Boulder will continue to monitor conditions and coordinate with city partners as drought conditions evolve—working to conserve water while maintaining a safe, sustainable and vibrant campus environment.

What you can do

While there are currently no mandatory restrictions, early action can help avoid the need for stricter water use measures. CU Boulder encourages students, faculty and staff to support water conservation efforts by:

Prioritizing water for trees and essential plants
Using water efficiently indoors and fixing leaks
Being mindful of everyday water use

Find more tips on the city of Boulder’s water conservation webpage

The university supports voluntary conservation measures while continuing responsible water management across campus.

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CU Boulder, Techstars announce partnership to accelerate Colorado entrepreneurism

Megan M Rogers — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 17:31:20 +0000

CU Boulder, Techstars announce partnership to accelerate Colorado entrepreneurism Megan M Rogers Thu, 04/02/2026 - 11:31

CU Boulder and Techstars, the global startup accelerator and investor, have announced a strategic partnership to expand opportunities for founders and strengthen Colorado's innovation economy.

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22 faculty recognized as exceptional mentors

Megan M Rogers — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 17:20:29 +0000

22 faculty recognized as exceptional mentors Megan M Rogers Thu, 04/02/2026 - 11:20

The Exceptional Graduate Faculty Mentor Award recognizes the work that faculty mentors do to improve the graduate student experience.

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ChatGPT Edu access goes live for faculty and staff

Megan M Rogers — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 13:45:57 +0000

ChatGPT Edu access goes live for faculty and staff Megan M Rogers Wed, 04/01/2026 - 07:45

After completing a required online training, eligible faculty and staff can access ChatGPT Edu. Learn about eligibility, security, approved data levels and much more.

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Study: Geothermal energy is feasible for future CU Boulder campus use

Megan M Rogers — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 17:02:15 +0000

Study: Geothermal energy is feasible for future CU Boulder campus use Megan M Rogers Mon, 03/30/2026 - 11:02

CU Boulder and the Colorado Energy Office on Monday, March 30, released two state-funded feasibility studies evaluating whether geothermal energy could help reduce campus greenhouse gas emissions over the long term.

The studies evaluated both shallow geothermal systems, which are well known and commonly used for campus heating, and cutting-edge deep geothermal systems that could provide heat or electricity. Findings show geothermal systems of both types are technically feasible on campus and could significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, though implementation would require major infrastructure changes and long-term investment.

The work provides CU Boulder with valuable technical data and planning insight as the university advances its Climate Action Plan and broader decarbonization strategy, which includes cutting campus carbon emissions 50% by 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality no later than 2050.

“Evaluating frontier technologies like deep geothermal is an important step as we work toward our Climate Action Plan goals and explore pathways to reduce emissions across campus,” said Andrew Mayock, vice chancellor for sustainability.

“Our campus also serves as a living laboratory where research and campus operations come together to test and evaluate innovative energy solutions that can inform sustainability efforts well beyond CU Boulder. Moreover, this state-supported study is a great example of the continued leadership of the state of Colorado and highlights the importance of partnership."

Study resources

Incentive tracker—project information on the grants and links to final reports
Electricity generation scoping study—deep geothermal
Community district heating design study—geo-exchange

Deep geothermal systems can extend more than 20,000 feet underground, far deeper than shallow systems that typically operate less than 1,000 feet deep. While less widely deployed, deep geothermal systems could offer an opportunity to test emerging clean-energy technologies at scale.

No construction or implementation decisions are being made at this time. Instead, the studies are intended to serve as planning resources to inform future energy and infrastructure decisions as campus strategies, funding opportunities, partnerships and governance approvals continue to evolve.

That broader work is already underway. Last summer, CU Boulder selected an engineering partner to begin designing a campuswide decarbonization plan focused on transitioning heating systems away from steam and toward low-temperature hot-water systems powered by carbon-free energy sources.

“Colorado continues to lead the way in harnessing the heat beneath our feet to create a cleaner, more affordable energy future,” said Colorado Energy Office Executive Director Will Toor. “By investing in these feasibility studies at CU Boulder, we are not just helping generate data and technical insight—we are empowering our institutions to serve as blueprints for decarbonization. These projects are a vital step toward reducing emissions, improving our air quality, and proving that clean energy solutions can protect our state for future generations.”

The studies were funded by the Colorado Energy Office Community District Heating/Thermal Energy Network (Agreement GAE 25-2370) and Geothermal Electricity Generation (Agreement GAE 25-2398) grants awarded to CU Boulder in November 2024. The grants supported 59% of the study costs.

The results of a study involving future use of geothermal energy by the CU Boulder campus will help inform the university's decarbonization plan, which aims to achieve carbon neutrality by no later than 2050.

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Regents honor William King, Alice Mortenson with honorary degrees

Megan M Rogers — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 14:29:21 +0000

Regents honor William King, Alice Mortenson with honorary degrees Megan M Rogers Mon, 03/30/2026 - 08:29

The University of Colorado Board of Regents has announced its selection of recipients of honorary degrees, distinguished service awards and university medals for 2026, including two CU Boulder affiliates.

Given since 1882, the regent awards include:

Honorary degrees, which recognize outstanding achievement in one or more of the following areas: intellectual contributions, university service, philanthropy and/or public service.
Distinguished service awards, which recognize those persons whose achievements and contributions are particularly associated with the state and/or nation.
University medals, which recognize those persons whose achievements and contributions are particularly associated with the university.

The 2026 CU Boulder awardees are William King, the second tenured African American professor at CU Boulder, and Alice Mortenson, a renowned philanthropist and community leader who co-founded the Mortenson Center in Global Engineering and Resilience.

William King, honorary degree

King, professor emeritus at CU Boulder, is a distinguished scholar, educator and community leader. He was the second tenured African American professor at CU Boulder and the university’s longest-serving Black professor (1972–2012) in history, known for pioneering contributions to Black studies, transformative teaching and dedication to social justice.

During his 40-year career, King played a pivotal role in establishing CU Boulder’s Black studies curriculum, which later evolved into the Department of Ethnic Studies. He designed and taught numerous groundbreaking courses, including Black Religious Life in America and The Civil Rights Movement, inspiring generations of students. A founding member of the National Council for Black Studies, King also served as its chairman and historian, shaping the discipline nationally.

An accomplished author, King has published books, scholarly articles and essays that explore African American history, science and public policy. His widely cited work has enriched academic discourse.

Beyond academia, King has served as chairman of the Urban League of Metropolitan Denver and contributed to organizations such as the Black American West Museum and Colorado Historic Preservation Review Board.

Alice Mortenson, honorary degree

Mortenson is a renowned philanthropist and community leader who has made exceptional contributions to education, public service and global development. Her enduring legacy of advocacy, collaboration and generosity has left a profound impact on CU Boulder and communities worldwide.

Mortenson—alongside her late husband, M.A. “Mort” Mortenson Jr.—co-founded the Mortenson Center in Global Engineering and Resilience at CU Boulder in 2009. The center has impacted over five million lives globally through innovative solutions addressing water, sanitation and resilience challenges.

The center and its affiliates are involved in such international research programs as the Sustainable WASH Systems partnership, Bill Gates’ Reinvent the Toilet Challenge, and the Drought Resilience Impact Platform. Graduate students participating in field practicums benefit from partnerships developed in over 80 countries.

Beyond CU Boulder, Mortenson has made significant contributions to education and community development. She and Mort co-founded the Mortenson Family Foundation, which focuses on expanding opportunities for children and families, sustaining environmental systems and strengthening developing communities.

She established the Alice D. Mortenson/Petrovich Chair in Russian History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and has served in leadership roles for numerous organizations, including Macalester College, Westminster Presbyterian Church and the Greater Minneapolis Council of Churches.

The CU Board of Regents announced its selection of recipients of honorary degrees, distinguished service awards and university medals for 2026. William King was the second tenured African American professor at CU Boulder. Alice Mortenson, who co-founded the Mortenson Center in Global Engineering and Resilience, is a renowned philanthropist and community leader.

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Nominate by April 3 for the Excellence in Teaching with Technology Award

Megan M Rogers — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 13:26:26 +0000

Nominate by April 3 for the Excellence in Teaching with Technology Award Megan M Rogers Fri, 03/27/2026 - 07:26

The award recognizes a faculty member who demonstrates outstanding teaching with technology and a strong commitment to advancing the Center for Teaching and Learning's mission. Nominations from peers and students are invited, and the recipient will receive a $500 professional development award.

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4 CU Boulder professors honored as AAAS fellows

Megan M Rogers — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 12:30:31 +0000

4 CU Boulder professors honored as AAAS fellows Megan M Rogers Thu, 03/26/2026 - 06:30

Two professors from the College of Arts and Sciences—Rebecca Safran and Tin Tin Su—and two professors from the College of Engineering and Applied Science—Aaron Clauset and R. Steven Nerem—have been elected 2025 fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

They are among nearly 500 scientists, engineers and innovators who have been recognized this year for their scientifically and socially distinguished achievements by one of the world’s largest general scientific societies and publisher of the Science family of journals. They also join a cohort of more than 80 CU Boulder faculty members who previously received the honor.

Safran is a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology who has led groundbreaking research on the evolution of new species; Su is a professor and the chair of molecular, cellular and developmental biology, whose research is leading to novel cancer therapies. Clauset is a professor of computer science and an internationally recognized expert on network science, data science and complex systems; Nerem is a professor of aerospace engineering and an expert in satellite remote sensing and geodesy.

A tradition dating back to 1874, election as an AAAS fellow is a lifetime honor, and all fellows are expected to meet the commonly held standards of professional ethics and scientific integrity. Distinguished past honorees include Alan Alda, Steven Chu, W.E.B DuBois, Thomas Edison, Grace Hopper, Ayanna Howard, Irwin Jacobs, Mae Jemison, Maria Mitchell and Ellen Ochoa.

“This year’s AAAS fellows have demonstrated research excellence, made notable contributions to advance science, and delivered important services to their communities,” said Sudip Parikh, AAAS chief executive officer and executive publisher of the Science journals. “These fellows and their accomplishments validate the importance of investing in science and technology for the benefit of all.”

Read more about CU Boulder's latest AAAS lifetime fellows.

Read more

College of Arts and Sciences: CU Boulder scientists honored as AAAS fellows

College of Engineering and Applied Science: AAAS honors two CU Engineering researchers as lifetime fellows

Aaron Clauset

Clauset has been a faculty member in the Department of Computer Science and the BioFrontiers Institute since 2010. Clauset’s research interests are broad, from using computational analysis to predict ovarian cancer outcomes, to shining light on potential biases in journal paper acceptance.

In 2025, he made Clarivate’s Highly Cited Researchers list for demonstrating “broad and significant influence” in his field. He is the recipient of a National Science Foundation CAREER Award and the Erdos-Renyi Prize in Network Science. Clauset also serves as an external faculty member of the Santa Fe Institute.

Clauset said he is honored to be elected as a fellow of AAAS, a group that has long championed the role of science in society.

“Science offers the best way to find order and meaning in the complex and often chaotic world we live in. My research shows how powerful computational tools can reveal the hidden structures of complex systems, and helps us use that understanding for the public good,” he said.

“I am grateful to my students and colleagues at CU Boulder. This honor reflects our shared commitment to using data-driven science to understand and, ultimately, improve the complex social structures we all inhabit.”

Aaron Clauset, Professor, Computer Science

R. Steven Nerem

Nerem is an aerospace engineering expert with over 30 years of experience. He was recruited to CU Boulder in 2000 as a full professor in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences and currently serves as director of the Colorado Center for Astrodynamics Research.

Nerem uses satellite-based techniques to monitor changes in Earth’s shape and gravity field due to shifts in sea level, distribution of water and ice planetwide, and vertical crustal motion. The AAAS election makes Nerem the second member of his family to be part of the prestigious body.

“This is a great honor. I really enjoy doing research—it’s like a hobby,” Nerem said. “The most important thing to me about my selection is that my father, who passed away in 2020, was also an AAAS fellow, so it’s nice to follow in his footsteps.”

Nerem has been part of multiple NASA missions, including the ongoing GRACE-FO and Sentinel 6B satellites. He leads an active research group, with more than 480 publications, including 12 in 2025 alone. He is a fellow of the American Geophysical Union and was the inaugural recipient of the Earth Science and Applications Award from the American Astronautical Society.

R. Steven Nerem, Professor, Aerospace Engineering Sciences

Rebecca Safran

Safran, whose passion for biology took root in a plant taxonomy class during her undergraduate studies at the University of Michigan, is a professor in the department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. She and her research team study the evolution of new species, focusing on the causes and consequences of individual variation across different scales of time and space.

Because studying the formation of new species can be difficult—since most species are millions of years old and what caused them to diverge from their ancestors often can’t be determined—Safran and her team study barn swallows, a very closely related group of populations of migratory birds that are currently diverging. This allows Safran and her team to study the process of speciation in real time.

Safran won a National Science Foundation Early Career Development award to study speciation in barn swallows across their entire, expansive breeding range throughout the Northern Hemisphere and Middle East. During the COVID-19 pandemic, when it wasn’t possible to conduct research in other countries, Safran and her team began focusing on the rapid decline in the population of barn swallows and its implications—using a highly integrative approach including behavioral, physiological and genetic perspectives.

Her team’s research has been published in more than 120 peer-reviewed journals, including Science, Nature and Current Biology. Safran also co-edited a recent book on speciation.

“None of this work is possible without the incredible collaboration with students, colleagues at CU and around the world, private landowners who allow us to study populations of barn swallows on their properties and continuous funding support by the National Science Foundation and other agencies,” Safran says.

“I am especially honored to have worked with so many talented undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral students.”

Rebecca Safran, Professor, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Tin Tin Su

Su is a professor in the department of Molecular, Cellular & Developmental Biology. Su, who attended Woodstock School in Mussoorie, Uttarakhand, India, credits her experiences there, in part, with helping her understand that her ideal environment is one in which “you do respect the elders or people who have had more experience or authority. But at the same time, if it doesn't seem right, you question it.”

Throughout her career, Su and her research colleagues have sought to develop new ways of attacking cancer. Through research on how tissues and organs regenerate after being damaged by X-rays in fruit flies, they synthesized the chemical SVC112, which helps prevent cancer cells from regrowing following radiation exposure. Su and her colleagues focused on the fruit fly because this insect shares more than 70% of disease-relevant genes with humans.

SVC112 is based on the chemical bouvardin found in the firecracker bush (Bouvardia ternifolia) that grows in the Southwest U.S. and Mexico. Su and her colleagues discovered that bouvardin can prevent regeneration of tissues in fruit flies.

More recently, Su, who also is a member of the CU Cancer Center, and her colleague Antonio Jimeno, used SVC112 to target cancer stem cells in head and neck cancers. They are in the process of applying to the FDA to test SVC112 in human trials.

Su also has participated in the CU Boulder Community Perspectives Program, conducting outreach in several rural Colorado communities that led to a research collaboration with Colorado State University Pueblo to assess the effect of heavy metals on the genome in fruit fly and human cells.

“I do what I do because I love science,” Su says. “The potential to help cancer patients in Colorado and beyond makes it even better. So, to be named an AAAS fellow is really the cherry on top!”

Tin Tin Su; Professor and Chair; Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology

Aaron Clauset, R. Steven Nerem, Rebecca Safran and Tin Tin Su have been recognized by the American Association for the Advancement of Science for excellence in research, teaching and interpreting science to the public.

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Innovation & Entrepreneurship Awards nominations close on March 24

Megan M Rogers — Wed, 18 Mar 2026 18:38:05 +0000

Innovation & Entrepreneurship Awards nominations close on March 24 Megan M Rogers Wed, 03/18/2026 - 12:38

Submit your candidate today for one of the 2026 Innovation & Entrepreneurship Awards! The awards recognize the contributions of outstanding students, faculty, staff, mentors and community members for their interest and accomplishments in innovation and entrepreneurship.

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Grant supports natural sciences research

Megan M Rogers — Wed, 18 Mar 2026 16:29:32 +0000

Grant supports natural sciences research Megan M Rogers Wed, 03/18/2026 - 10:29

Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine

CU Boulder has received a $1.5 million grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation to fund postdoctoral researchers in the Division of Natural Sciences.

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Announcements & Deadlines

CU Boulder aligns with city drought guidance, emphasizes water stewardship across campus

Where campus irrigation comes from

Smart irrigation and water stewardship

What you can do

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22 faculty recognized as exceptional mentors

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ChatGPT Edu access goes live for faculty and staff

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Study: Geothermal energy is feasible for future CU Boulder campus use

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Regents honor William King, Alice Mortenson with honorary degrees

William King, honorary degree

Alice Mortenson, honorary degree

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Nominate by April 3 for the Excellence in Teaching with Technology Award

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4 CU Boulder professors honored as AAAS fellows

Aaron Clauset

R. Steven Nerem

Rebecca Safran

Tin Tin Su

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Innovation & Entrepreneurship Awards nominations close on March 24

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Grant supports natural sciences research

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