INSTAAR 🏳️‍🌈

Collaborate, discover and contribute during Research & Innovation Week Oct. 6–10 Join other faculty, students and staff during a week of research and innovation events designed to elevate awareness across campus, build a sense of shared

It’s Research & Innovation Week at CU Boulder! 🔬

October 6–10, join events across campus that celebrate collaboration and leadership in research.

See what’s happening all week ↓
https://bit.ly/4mLAmMT

As salmon disappear in warming rivers, Indigenous communities face an uncertain future New research shows that climate change is exacerbating salmon declines in the Arctic, but warming waters could give another fish species a temporary boost.

“We are hoping to provide communities with some applicable information, like when and where the water would be too warm for salmon, which could help them decide whether to reduce fishing."
www.colorado.edu/today/2025/0...

Welcoming Associate Professor Alia Khan to Smead Aerospace

INSTAAR alum Alia Khan joins CU Boulder's Smead Aerospace

Previously at Western Washington Univ., she combines environmental chemistry & remote sensing to document snow and ice melt in mountainous & polar regions www.colorado.edu/aerospace/we...

Ross Palomaki

❄️ "Recent developments in remote sensing of snow water equivalent using synthetic aperture radar" 🛰️

Join us for Ross Palomaki's Monday noon talk at INSTAAR:
• Free event
• Oct 6th 12pm
• SEEC rm S228 & on Zoom
More info: calendar.colorado.edu/event/instaa...

Graphic includes text "Heroes Assemble" in an exclamation bubble, the text "Super Science Saturday" with an orange background. One photo on the top includes scientists at an activity table talking to children, and the bottom photo shows a scientist helping a group of children to deploy a weather balloon.

The 2025 Super Science Saturday is going to be… well, SUPER! 🦸‍♂️ Hosted by UCAR SciEd, our heroic staff are assembling on Sat, Nov. 1 from 10AM-4PM for a super-powered day of science and fun for the whole family at the Mesa Lab! https://scied.ucar.edu/visit/ncar/super-science-saturday

See a related thread from CREAF at bsky.app/profile/crea...

🌱 New ecology paper:
A large team led by Mariana García Criado (U Edinburgh) analyzed 1,100+ plots in the Arctic (40 years of data) to look in detail at how boreal plants are increasing on the tundra as the climate warms. Sarah Elmendorf (INSTAAR+EBIO) is a co-author. Read the thread ⬇️

View downstream of the North St. Vrain Creek on the property of the Rocky Mountain Hydraulic Laboratory.

79th Rocky Mountain Hydrologic Research Center Meeting
🗓️ Friday Nov. 7th 2025
📍 CU Boulder
🌊 Submit any hydro-related research
🧑🏽‍🎓 Students encouraged
💲 Cost is $15 to $40
🔜 Abstracts due 31 Oct
rmhrc.org/annual-meeti...

Dr. Lauren Shoemaker earns NSF Career Award to support her research on Niwot Ridge and beyond. — Niwot Ridge LTER Dr. Lauren Shoemaker, an assistant professor at the University of Wyoming and senior investigator with the Niwot Ridge LTER, uses manipulative experiments to better understand how populations and comm...

Congratulations, Dr. Lauren Shoemaker, on your NSF CAREER award!

nwt.lternet.edu/news/shoemak...

Among other results, the team's work shows the power of pairing sediment samples from nearby oxygen-rich & oxygen-poor lakes. Careful assessment of ancient DNA & lipids in these lake sediments shows natural climate, not humans, controlled Holocene vegetation changes in NE Iceland

🚨 New paleoclimate proxy paper from a team of INSTAARs, working with colleagues from UC Santa Cruz & U of Iceland. 1st author David Harning now works with CIRES & NOAA, but remains an INSTAAR Affiliate. Congrats all! 👏🏽

PFAS in Rural U.S. Well Water: Using Participatory Science to Identify and Communicate Results to Address Risks Drinking water contributes 1.2–61% of perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) exposure, but little information is available on PFAS in private wells serving 17% of the U.S. population.…

New paper: PFAS detected above health guidelines in 49% of private well samples from 4 US states. About half of affected households installed water filters upon learning their water test results

Study led by Erica Wood (RTI Int'l) includes Riley Mulhern (ENVS+INSTAAR) pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

Advertisement for Dr. Sammy Ramsey's presentation on SciComm 101: how to give a great talk. Thursday Oct 2nd 2-25 10:30 am in the CU Boulder Center for Community (C4c), Flatirons Room, N301. Sammy is pictured in a beekeeper coat with bees covering both of his hands.

Are you a grad student? Learn how to turn complex research into clear, engaging stories with Dr. Samuel “Sammy” Ramsey on Thursday Oct 2nd 10:30am. The CU Boulder Graduate School is hosting his presentation.

Register through this link: calendar.colorado.edu/event/scicom...

Edgart Flores Rafael and Leanne Lestak strike a funny pose next to a sign for the Spanish Language Lunch Table, a monthly meeting that they have led together.

🙏🏽 Thank you Edgart Flores Rafael! We're sorry to see you head off to 🇨🇱 but appreciate all your efforts, incl. your awesome postdoc research & for co-leading the Spanish Language Lunch Table with Leanne Lestak!

All are welcome to future lunch table meetings: calendar.colorado.edu/event/spanis...

Snow blankets Niwot Ridge in early fall storm. — Niwot Ridge LTER In the shoulder seasons, a day of rain at lower-elevations often means snow up on Niwot Ridge. That was the case this past week when a soggy day in Boulder, CO coincided with a blanket of snow on the ...

nwt.lternet.edu/news/snow-bl...

View from atop a steep grassy hillslope in the Colorado foothills looking eastward past more hills and cliffs and onto the plains. Above is a bright blue sky with puffy white clouds. Photo taken from the Spruce Gulch Wildlife and Research Reserve outside Boulder, Colorado. Credit: Linda Holubar Sanabria.

👏🏽 Congrats to Linda Holubar Sanabria! She received Boulder County's Land Conservation Award for preserving the 493-acre Spruce Gulch property with conservation easements, forever ensuring its protection bouldercounty.gov/open-space/m...
Spruce Gulch Reserve info: www.colorado.edu/instaar/rese...

Warren Sconiers working on Niwot Ridge Colorado

Warren Sconiers (EBIO & INSTAAR) has started a three-year term of service as a CU Boulder faculty fellow creating programming to support teaching and clinical professors through the unique challenges that characterize their careers. Thank you Warren! 🙏🏽
www.colorado.edu/facultyaffai...

Alfred Scott McLaren

Surfaced at the North Pole, August 1970. Chief Quartermaster Jack Patterson, dressed as Santa Claus, greets Commander Alfred S. McLaren, USN, Commanding Officer of the USS Queenfish.

RIP Alfred Scott McLaren (1932-2025)
🎓 CU Boulder PhD 1986, Arctic under-ice surveys (John Andrews & Nel Caine on his committee).
🎖️ Captain of a nuclear attack submarine.
📍 President, Explorers Club.
🚢 Dives on Titanic & Bismarck.
➕ much more.
See CV alfredmclaren.academia.edu

Early-career polar researchers chart course for more collaborative future PSECCO-hosted summit convenes early-career community from five continents to reimagine polar science

A new generation of early-career polar professionals came to Boulder, CO this spring with a vision to transform how polar research is conducted, funded, and shared with the world. The results are now available in a comprehensive synthesis report buff.ly/iZnxw4o #PECWS @polarsecco.bsky.social

Impact of current and warmer climate conditions on snow cover loss in burned forests Wildfires are causing earlier snowmelt across the western US, and this effect would be exacerbated with projected warmer winters.

Our latest research on fire impacts on snow melt timing across the Western US was just published in @aaas.org Science Advances. Read here: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Snow melts earlier in burned forests, new Science Advances study finds Wildfires are causing earlier snowmelt across the western U.S., and this effect would only be exacerbated by projected warmer winters. This is according to a new study led by Colorado School of Mines…

🔥 Wildfires are causing earlier ❄️ snowmelt across the western U.S.

For this new research, INSTAAR Fellow Karl Rittger teamed with Arielle Koshkin & Adrienne Marshall of the Colorado School of Mines.
www.minesnewsroom.com/news/snow-me...

Humorous advertisement for the Spanish Language Lunch Table in the SEEC Cafe at CU Boulder. The heads of the two co-hosts are crudely photoshopped onto to silly cartoon bodies. The table meets the last Thursday of each month, 12pm.

Hola A Todos! 👋🏾 Join the Spanish Language Lunch table this Thursday, Sept 25th at 12pm in the SEEC Café. We'll have lots of fun while practicing our vocabulary & listening skills. All welcome.
Cohosts: Edgart Flores Rafael & Leanne Lestak
calendar.colorado.edu/event/spanis...

A walk across Alaska’s Arctic sea ice brings to life the losses that appear in climate data A polar scientist explains the changes hunters who rely on the ice are seeing off Utqiagvik, and how those shifts are echoed in satellite data and climate models.

INSTAAR fellow Alexandra Jahn @seaiceclimate.bsky.social has spent more than a decade studying sea ice and how it's changing in the 21st century. Last year, she visited an arctic community that is feeling those changes first hand. theconversation.com/a-walk-acros...

Image of Nathalie Vriend of Mechanical Engineering and INSTAAR. Overlying text congratulates her on being a CU Boulder Outstanding Postdoc Mentor of the Year

🏆 Congrats to Nathalie Vriend (Mechanical Engineering + INSTAAR) for being selected as a CU Boulder Outstanding Postdoc Mentor of the Year!
www.colorado.edu/postdoctoral...

Tim Seastedt

Volunteers in orange hard hats remove invasive spotted knapweed from an upland meadow on the Spruce Gulch Reserve during a co-sponsored U.S. Forest Service event. (Photo: Tim Seastedt)

"Science opportunities at the CU Spruce Gulch Wildlife and Research Reserve"

Join us for Tim Seastedt's Monday noon talk at INSTAAR:
🆓 Free event
🗓 Sept 22nd
🕖 12:00 pm
📍 SEEC rm S228 & on Zoom
🔗 calendar.colorado.edu/event/instaa...

Join us tomorrow for this information session on the National Plan for Arctic Research. Make sure you register for the event: iarpc.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

Last call for GREEBs registration & talk submissions. We might have space for 4 additional talks. Poster submissions are closed.

Registration will close Wednesday Sept 17th.

200 dead fish in Colorado reservoir have local groups concerned over climate change's impact on mountain waters About 200 fish died at Grizzly Reservoir in Pitkin County in August when heavy metal concentrations rose too high in a warm, dry summer.

🐟 Dead fish piled up on the shore of Grizzly Reservoir, prompting officials to look for a cause. Research from INSTAAR fellow Diane McKnight's lab indicates that high metal concentrations from the reservoir's inflows could have poisoned the water.
coloradosun.com/2025/09/12/2...

Promo for a reminder to RSVP for the upcomingvPSECCO international networking event. Text overlaid on photo states “Registration closes one week before the event to help sort participants into similar goals and collaborations beforehand. September 24, 2025 7 am AKT | 9 am MT | 11 pm ET” . A researcher drags a sled behind themselves, with a background of the snowy Alaskan mountains, photo credits courtesy of Pixabay.

Registration for this PSECCO international networking event closes tomorrow. Please have your intentions and goals in mind so we can make this event as collaborative and impactful as possible when you register for this event! We look forward to seeing many of you there! The link to register is below

Students study metal contamination in Colorado waterways In the most beautiful places in Colorado, hazards to aquatic life lurk in the water. A team at the University of Colorado Boulder is studying heavy metal

Adam Odorisio, Athena Bolin, and Diane McKnight are studying heavy metal pollution near Aspen to aid cleanup and explore recovering valuable metals, including rare earths, from polluted streams
www.colorado.edu/even/student...