Graduate Students

'We live under one sky'

Jayden Fortner — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 19:23:45 +0000

'We live under one sky' Jayden Fortner Thu, 06/11/2026 - 13:23

Hannah Stewart

When Naim Aburaddi was a master’s student in California, he laughed when his friends asked him to go to Joshua Tree National Park to stargaze.

Growing up in Gaza City, Aburaddi never had the “privilege,” as he called it, to enjoy the night sky—there was always the fear of drones, surveillance or being bombed—but his experience at Joshua Tree changed how he looked at the dark.

As part of his dissertation, Naim Aburaddi organized an event at Fiske Planetarium that combined elements from his project Phoenix of Gaza XR and his personal story. Photo by Jack Moody.

“We live under one sky. I hope that one day we unite under this one sky that we have, and I hope for a better future for everyone,” he said.

That hope was at the center of his event, Reclaiming Our Sky: A Tale of Immersive Survival, hosted at Fiske Planetarium in the spring.

The planetarium show was born out of The Phoenix of Gaza XR, an extended reality project he co-founded alongside his mentor Ahlam Muhtaseb, while pursuing his master’s degree at California State University-San Bernardino. Using footage from Gaza XR, Aburaddi shared his personal story, as well as that of the project itself, to immerse attendees in Gaza, both before and after the Oct. 7, 2023, attack.

“I left in 2014, and I never had the chance to go back,” he said. “This project started from a very personal place, with a question of how I can use immersive media, virtual reality and 360 filming to return to Gaza.”

As a doctoral student with teaching obligations, Aburaddi often used Gaza XR in the classroom to show students a practical application of virtual reality technology while also encouraging them to connect with a culture half a globe away. He has since used the technology in a class he helped create, A.I., VR and Society, which challenges students to use technology as storytelling tools.

Rather than simply having students read first-person accounts of colonization or segregation, Aburaddi has students interact with immersive media that puts them, digitally, in those situations.

“Students learn how to film in 360, and then we’ll see how we can show documentaries in VR before taking them to the planetarium, so they see how the story can be told in a different way, using these different formats,” Aburaddi said.

“In my personal research and the classroom, I’ve looked for ways technology can be used to preserve culture and to create new formats of engagement with displaced people and marginalized communities. So, how can we build this connection with them, and how can we use it for repair and reconstruction?”

Naim Aburaddi hopes that one day, the people of Gaza will be able to look at the sky without fear. Lanterns were projected over livestreamed footage of Gaza stars at the beginning of the show, which also featured live music. Photo by Jack Moody.

Digital historic and cultural preservation wasn’t always his goal, however. It was a byproduct of how the Gaza XR team had to reevaluate its mission after Oct. 7.

Initially, the team hired a local journalist to film daily life in Gaza and “show the happy moments, the beauty and how people made life out of nothing,” Aburaddi said. But following months of retaliatory strikes from Israel, much of Gaza was destroyed—and the team decided that had to be documented, too.

“Most of the locations we had filmed before were gone—the historical locations, the churches, mosques, even the streets and public squares,” Aburaddi said. “We didn’t realize it at first, but this project became a way to preserve history and culture.”

The dangers of acquiring that new footage became all too clear when Yahya Sobeih, the photojournalist hired to capture new scenes, was killed in an airstrike. But the added content has shown hundreds of people Gaza’s resilient residents and rich history—like the centuries-old Turkish bathhouse Hamam al-Samrah, now demolished. Gaza XR has been shown nearly 60 times worldwide at various universities and other venues, but Reclaiming Our Sky was a unique show for the Boulder community.

Almost 120 tickets were sold, but Fiske, which seats 200 people, was nearly filled with students, faculty, staff, community members and even a crew from Japanese public media. Many stopped Aburaddi and other members of the Gaza XR team to congratulate them on their work and ask questions.

All of their feedback, as well as an analysis of the event itself, was included in his dissertation, which explores how virtual reality can preserve culture, engage with marginalized communities and rebuild.

“We encourage students to do multimodal research that includes a creative component as well as the traditional dissertation,” said Nabil Echchaibi, a professor in media studies and Aburaddi’s advisor.

“Naim is the true embodiment of that interdisciplinary narrative. He's working with people in critical media practices in the Immersive Media Lab and the Center for Documentary and Ethnographic Media. He feels like he's at home in all these areas, and he brings that to his students, as well.”

The event concluded with a panel discussion with Aburaddi, his advisors—including Gaza XR co-founder Ahlam Muhtaseb, center—from both CMDI and CSUSB as well as others involved in the project. Photo by Jack Moody.

Nabil Echchaibi, a professor in media studies and Aburaddi’s advisor, introduced the event hosted at Fiske Planetarium. Photo by Jack Moody.

In addition to showing footage from his project Phoenix of Gaza XR, Aburaddi shared his personal story with the audience. Photo by Jack Moody.

Hannah Stewart graduated in 2019 with a degree in communication. She covers student news at the college.

A PhD student’s extended reality project on Gaza has enjoyed worldwide showings. In the spring, he introduced a new VR feature that includes live storytelling and footage from the ruined city.

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Apart from the heard

Hannah Stewart — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 22:00:53 +0000

Apart from the heard Hannah Stewart Wed, 04/15/2026 - 16:00

Hannah Stewart

Brook Vann has long been interested in sound as a tool for both data analysis and digital storytelling.

“I have some really fond memories of having story time and having something read aloud,” Vann, a PhD candidate in media production, said. And they’re particularly interested in how the accessibility of sound can help a story better resonate with an audience.

Brook Vann curating an art show at D.D.D.D., in New York. Photo courtesy of Brook Vann.

“If your car is making a strange noise, you don’t have to be a trained musician to think about whether something is wrong with it,” they said. “And sound can help make sense of data that might otherwise be impalpable—it allows for a certain viscerality.”

Visceral is a good word for two research projects Vann has collaborated on—the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting and a eugenics campaign North Carolina embarked on a century ago. They said they are motivated to research heavy topics because they believe it’s important to be curious and talk about difficult things. Creative work, they said, brings stories to the public in a digestible way, and inspires a sense of curiosity in viewers—which is even more powerful when that audience is students.

“I get to teach undergraduates why media is important, and how and why you should engage with it,” Vann said. “I love talking to students about their intentions with the project versus how their peers interpreted it. And that’s where my creative practice comes in because I can share my own experiences working through a project and how I can be certain my audience receives the message I intend.”

It was this passion for teaching that led them to be one of six graduate students who represented the college at last year’s Institute on Teaching and Mentoring Conference, in Atlanta. Vann said it was a great opportunity to not only represent the college, but to also network with scholars from different fields, thus gaining new perspectives.

Their advisor, Betsey Biggs, an assistant professor who’s working with them on the Pulse project, said Vann’s perspectives are a reason for their success.

“They are willing to bring a lot of different fields together, such as sound studies, gender studies, music, art, cultural theory, materiality and so on,” Biggs said.

The Pulse team created a 24/7 web broadcast made up of eight individual audio channels. Alone, the channels are abstract, at times eerie and disjointed. For the full experience, users must listen with other participants, each using their own mobile device, in the same setting.

The inspiration for the project was a graffiti wall at the site of the shooting, where survivors and allies left messages in remembrance of the victims. The wall was recently torn down; in contrast, Vann and the team hope to further develop the memorial, expanding the eight channels to 49—one for each victim of the shooting—and integrating voices into the broadcast stream.

“With the graffiti wall, you could see messages, but then they faded with time and new messages,” Vann said. “By allowing the community to contribute, it won’t have an end point—it will continue to be a space that holds memory and grief.

“Community engagement is something that’s always been important to me and has been a big part of the research and work I’ve done here at CMDI.”

And their research has taken them beyond Boulder. Last summer, Vann was a research fellow for the Digital Justice Lab, at Dartmouth College, where they worked closely with faculty and data scientists on a project called Eugenic States, which tracks forced sterilizations in North Carolina, Iowa and California. There were thousands of historical documents to sort through—many of which were heavily redacted—that had to be rendered into data points.

To make sense of the information, Vann created a booklet as well as an interactive digital platform that shows sterilizations filtered by age, assigned sex and county. Depending on the data’s value, the points vary in size and color, and there’s an ambient sound element Vann created to go with the data visualization.

“I was inspired by the blue ghost fireflies in North Carolina—when you're far away, they tend to have a green hue, but when you're closer, they look blue,” Vann said. “The counties with smaller numbers of sterilizations have a smaller ring with fewer green layers, while the counties with more sterilizations are blue, have more layers and take up more of the screen.”

Vann plans to continue working with the lab after graduating from CMDI in May, helping the Dartmouth team to integrate the interactive platform onto the servers there.

Biggs said their contributions to the college extend far beyond their creative successes.

“They’ve really helped the culture of our department for the graduate students, and so we'll miss them, but we know they're gonna go out and do great things,” she said.

Hannah Stewart graduated from CMDI in 2019 with a degree in communication. She covers student news for the college.

PhD candidate Brook Vann was one of six students to represent CMDI at a national teaching conference last fall. Their research and creative work blends sound with social justice, which makes them a stronger instructor.

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All together now: 2025 at CMDI

Amanda J. McManus — Tue, 16 Dec 2025 02:22:15 +0000

All together now: 2025 at CMDI Amanda J. McManus Mon, 12/15/2025 - 19:22

In a year where the college’s biggest story was its name change—following its integration with the environmental design department—CMDI’s community also found itself at the center of the biggest conversations shaping our time—from sustainability and A.I., to media literacy and the future of journalism.

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Summer 2025: 2 minutes with Antoinette Kendrick

Amanda J. McManus — Wed, 28 May 2025 18:29:42 +0000

Summer 2025: 2 minutes with Antoinette Kendrick Amanda J. McManus Wed, 05/28/2025 - 12:29

Antoinette Kendrick
PhD student, media studies

“One minute, I’m sharing my phone with Deion Sanders, showing him the app,” said Antoinette Kendrick, recalling her visit to a CMCI course that features Coach Prime as a frequent guest lecturer. “Next, he starts calling Snoop, and suddenly I’m on a FaceTime with him. It’s going be a highlight of my life, for sure.”

Responses edited for length and clarity.

So you got Snoop Dogg to come to class. What will you do for an encore?
I was there as a guest, and didn’t want to interrupt the class. The students were pitching ways Prime could expand his brand. But at the end, he’s still asking, “Anyone else?” so I told him about Speechify, a text-to-speech platform with only two Black male voices—a stolen likeness of Barack Obama, and Snoop.

And then he called Snoop.
It was sur(actual)real. Surreal! Honestly, my first thought was, this is where the academy can take you—like, I can be on a Thursday night Facetime with Snoop, who just looks like someone’s grandfather in a regular den.

Speaking of the academy, how does a social worker get to CMCI?
Working with kids illuminated to me what the digital age looks like for them—and how little guidance they have navigating these spaces. My supervisors suggested the problem needed to be studied at a research level. I found social work programs were not meaningfully engaging with media, so I looked at media studies.

Children’s media literacy must be a fascinating topic.
I’m actually looking at tech stress in young adults. I think it’s because I live in a sorority house—

Wait. You live where?
(Laughs.) Well, it’s a refurbished sorority house. A couple years ago the sorority disbanded. The owner rents to students, and I get reduced rates for being house mom.

How does that influence your research?
You see the stresses they encounter. At the low scale is how they respond to the three dots in their messages. Large scale, one girl broke up with her partner because he was looking at pictures of her friend on another social media platform. We have not navigated how to negotiate these encounters.

Back to Prime. Will the experience in the course change how you teach?
Prime comes to class with so much energy, which I think these young white students have never seen. And he doesn’t code switch. He stays true to himself in this highly regimented space. I’d like to do more of that.

A regular feature catching up with people in our community who are doing interesting and impactful work. In this edition, bringing Snoop Dogg to a media studies class.

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Spring 2025: 2 minutes with...

Amanda J. McManus — Wed, 26 Feb 2025 20:09:47 +0000

Spring 2025: 2 minutes with... Amanda J. McManus Wed, 02/26/2025 - 13:09

Max Pollak (Advert’10)
Creative Director, Deutsch LA

After years away from Boulder, Pollak returned to CU for a collaboration between NerdWallet and Travis Hunter. Pollak and his team shot a video where Hunter talked about the “Smartest NIL” campaign and a giveaway where fans could win a collectible cutout piece of Hunter’s contract with the brand. The highlight for Pollak? A selfie with “Heisman” Hunter.

How did you land Travis Hunter? In his Heisman season, no less?
I’m a huge CU fan with season tickets, and it just so happens that NerdWallet already has a partnership with CU. I knew Travis Hunter would be a great brand ambassador, and we even sneaked into the Coach Prime documentary.

As to the Heisman, I thought he should win it and I thought there was a big chance. I’m happy it happened, but I can’t say I predicted it.

What’s the best advice you’ve been given?
Focus on what you love. Success comes out of that.

I’m actually stoked for what I get paid to do. I like advertising because it’s a puzzle to figure out—it’s both strategic and creative, and I like intertwining all that.

You used to be a firefighter. What’s something memorable about that job?
You never want something bad to happen—but there’s [an adrenaline rush] when you hear the bells and sirens.

My best friend—also a volunteer, now with FDNY—and I were driving to a car show when we got the page that his house went up in flames. We had to put out a fire that was going through his house, which we had played in as kids. It makes you sympathize with people.

Best compliment you’ve ever received?
I was at Barchetta recently and my wife was sitting there with our kid, and this guy walked up to me and said, “You have a great spot”—meaning the table in the restaurant. I thought it was weird, but I said, “Yeah, I know.” He was like, “Wow, how confident!” and walked away. I saw my wife was dying laughing, and she told me what he actually said was, “You have a great smile!”

Rory Fitzgerald Bledsoe
PhD Candidate, Media Studies

Rory Fitzgerald Bledsoe is a PhD candidate in media studies who runs a multimodal art gallery, Space__Space, in East Boulder. Her first exhibition, “Phones are Heavy,” ran from November through January; “Archive Fever Dream” opens in March.

Why did you want to open a gallery?
This space is public scholarship. I’m interested in creating discourse on cultural issues that transcend the limits of the law. I also ran a gallery in Boston where I gave solo shows to artists who hadn’t had one before, and it’s gratifying to elevate emerging artists and underrepresented ideas.

Was there a gallery you had in mind as you envisioned what Space__Space could look like?
I did an artist/curatorial residency in New York, at Flux Factory, and that has been a big influence on my drive for cultivating experimentation and community.

Something you hope visitors notice as they walk through the gallery?
The work, of course. And maybe the sunset-pink trim. Pink has connotations of being frivolous, but I see it as subversive—a power color. So I put it in the bottom trim around the gallery, where it’s a secret signature that doesn’t get in the way of the work.

Tell me about those sunsets.
I’m used to underground, windowless art spaces in New York and Boston. From the back of Space__Space, you can see mountains, and from the front, you get the sunset. Someday, I want to do a site-specific installation that harnesses sunsets, because they are so spectacular.

Biggest surprise?
Being able to do it. Every time you take the risk of creating something—like in Boston, running Space 121 out of my apartment, I wasn’t sure what would happen. But I’ve started to believe if you build it, when there is a thirst, they will come.

Wait, the gallery in Boston was out of your apartment? What did your landlord say about that?
They never found out. (Laughs) We had openings; we just called them parties.

Last one. A favorite work from your first exhibit?
The brilliant Flora Wilds flew in to install her sculptures, which was a magical collaboration. But I will say everyone who came in had a different favorite, and that is a mark of a resonant and successful show.

A selection of works from Space__Space’s inaugural exhibit, which closed in January. From left, works by Maya Buffett-Davis, a ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� graduate student; Ana González Barragán; Devon Narine-Singh; and Flora Wilds. Photos by Kimberly Coffin (CritMedia, StratComm’18).

A regular feature catching up with people in our community who are doing interesting and impactful work. In this edition, a commercial with Travis Hunter and a new art gallery in East Boulder.

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Spring 2025

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Foster figure

Amanda J. McManus — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 20:59:52 +0000

Foster figure Amanda J. McManus Fri, 02/21/2025 - 13:59

Hannah Stewart

As a kid, Joel Thurman decided that while he didn’t have the wit or wealth of Batman, he could still train and shoot a bow like the Green Arrow.

Now, as a comic book scholar, Thurman is more interested in the character’s role as a foster father.

As a long-time Arrow fan—and a high school history teacher of 10 years—Thurman thought he’d research history through comics for his PhD program in media studies. But that focus shifted when he and his wife became foster parents.

“I was walking with my wife when I had an epiphany: study foster care and superheroes, find those connections and do a history of both,” he said. “I absolutely adore the Green Arrow, which since the early 2000s really depicts him as a foster father. I have a completely different appreciation for Green Arrow now than I did, say, five years ago.”

Through his research, Thurman found that the success of superheroes—especially orphaned ones—reflect the myth that no matter how bad one’s situation is, it’s possible to overcome it. In reality, the myth is just that: Orphans are the least likely to graduate high school and maintain full-time jobs.

“I want to raise awareness of kids in foster care, and superheroes are a way to break the ice and have those difficult conversations with people who largely don’t know what the system is like,” he said.

Students in the media studies department at CMCI learn that pop culture is a place where people both tell their own stories while considering and challenging the expectations for how society is supposed to work.

Given how current events and societal shifts—not to mention changing perspectives, as new writers shape the voices of iconic characters—influence comic book writing, the medium itself becomes a unique way to examine the attitudes and norms of a given era.

“We train our students to think about other people and to consider positions of power, networks and social structure. Any of our students should be able to tell the stories of others,” said Rick Stevens, associate professor of media studies and Thurman’s mentor.

Stevens said that together, they focused Thurman’s interest in how foster children are represented in comics on how those stories can help people learn about their world.

“He has passion around some of the characters and stories in this space, but I’m really glad to see his interests expand beyond just what his desires and likes are,” said Stevens, who also is associate dean of undergraduate education. “And that’s the sign of a good media studies scholar.”

That growing interest now encompasses family dynamics and, even more broadly, industry trends such as readership changes, creator rights and consumer tastes.

“My research is so unique that, at the moment, I’m the only one who can write that particular narrative,” he said.

These other branches of research have taken him to conferences beyond Boulder, which he said were incredible opportunities—not only to present his work at places like Venice and San Diego Comic-Con, but to meet writers and actors who’ve worked on series such as Batman, Spiderman, Daredevil and, yes, Green Arrow.

His favorite interview, though, was with actor Jon Cryer, who played Lex Luthor in the CW television series Supergirl. Not only did Thurman discover that Cryer is a massive comic book fan himself—he has a collection of original Marvel comic art that he showed Thurman during their interview—the pair also bonded over being foster dads.

“I didn’t realize we would connect the way that we did, and it was just absolutely fantastic,” he said. “I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunities the university has allowed.”

I love teaching and fostering students’ ideas. The comic book writing is for me—it’s a story I wanted to tell. The academic work is to make a difference."
Joel Thurman
PhD candidate, Media Studies

One such opportunity was meeting CMCI advisory board member (and “legend,” in Thurman’s words) Steven T. Seagle, partner at Man of Action Entertainment. Over dinner, he learned Seagle (Advert’88) got his start from writing comic books while in college.

“I was like, ‘That’s a dream of mine.’ And he said, ‘If you really want to do it, do what I did: Hire an artist and get it done,’” Thurman said.

He now has independently published a horror comic, Disinter, and is working on a sci-fi comic set to come out in April.

“I’m having so much fun writing comics, but I’ll probably dabble in both academia and comic writing, because I love teaching and fostering students’ ideas,” he said. “The comic book writing is for me—it’s a story I wanted to tell. The academic work is to make a difference.”

Whether in the panels of a comic book or the classroom, Thurman hopes to challenge creators and the community to reconsider how they think about children portrayed in and beyond comic book stories.

“Foster care is completely not discussed in comics, and I think that should change,” he said.

If Thurman is able to change that conversation, it will be at least in part due to his CMCI experiences. Stevens said when it comes to being a voice for the vulnerable, he wants his students “to be allies where we can, and to research more than just who we are and what we directly know.”

“Joel is really good at thinking outside himself, asking good questions, and interacting with people who create pop culture and their thought processes,” he said. “But he’s also really good at stepping back and looking at the effects, the structure, the consequences.”

Hannah Stewart graduated from CMDI in 2019 with a degree in communication. She covers student news for the college.

Joel Thurman loves everything to do with comic books—reading, researching and writing them. As a PhD student, he investigates representations of children and the foster system; and as a writer, he seeks to tell compelling stories.

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Spring 2025

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Student Work Gallery: Spring 2024

Anonymous — Tue, 27 Feb 2024 21:26:40 +0000

Student Work Gallery: Spring 2024 Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 02/27/2024 - 14:26

CMCI students from all departments develop their portfolios through classes, competitions, internships and more.

Here we have collected a variety of student work that highlights their personal and professional passions explored during their academic careers at ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ��.

View the work

Students across CMCI find ways to bring together their personal interests and academic pursuits. Since the college’s founding, we have showcased this diverse collection of student work.

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Mapping identity

Anonymous — Sun, 29 Oct 2023 04:39:51 +0000

Mapping identity Anonymous (not verified) Sat, 10/28/2023 - 22:39

Joe Arney

For most people, winning a citywide essay contest as a teenager would just be a great way to get an all-expenses-paid trip to the nation’s most celebrated historical sites, like Washington, D.C.

For Nandi Pointer, there was a bigger prize.

“That was the first time I realized that my mind could take me places—my mind and my effort, and my trying,” she said. “And it helped give me this lust for seeing the world, and its cultures and people.”

Now in her third year in the media studies PhD program, Pointer’s curiosity about other people and their stories has led to impactful research into identity formation for Black men who’ve left the United States.

How she came to do so at CMCI is a story about Pointer finding her own identity—as a scholar, a documentary filmmaker and a niece to the Pointer Sisters, the influential R&B/soul group.

“Having famous aunts imbued me with this idea that anything was possible, that there’s no limitation to what you can do,” Pointer said.

But there was “sort of a dichotomy, as well,” she said. Her parents were both successful college professors, and her father’s side of the family included the Pointer Sisters, pro baseball player Aaron Pointer and NBA champion Paul Silas. But both sides of her family struggled with societal ills like violence and addiction.

That fueled her belief in the power of education—and also her curiosity about the violence Black men face in the United States and how that affects the formation of their identities. Pointer, who has worked and taught in South Korea, Vietnam and Saudi Arabia, was abroad when George Floyd’s murder in 2020 catalyzed nationwide protests about the police and violence against African Americans.

“As a Black American woman, I was shocked,” she said. “But being in Saudi Arabia, there was this distance, so I was able to process those events in a different way. And it made me wonder about the other Black expats I was around, as well as the Black Americans experiencing these violent mediated events in the present moment in their own cities.”

“I’m hoping to change the perception around Black men by seeing them as teachers, understanding their lives, and ultimately learning about how their experiences as Black men in America led them to seek opportunities overseas.
—Nandi Pointer

Exploring media and violence

Pointer said she’s always been “fascinated by the media and its power to influence how we see ourselves in the world.” She held production roles at MTV’s news and documentaries division and produced content for Netflix, where she worked on the award-winning documentary “The Black Godfather.”

So, it’s no surprise her research interests also have roots in how the media demonstrates violence against Black men, from Rodney King and Oscar Grant to Ahmaud Arbery and Floyd. That has powered her other major interest, exploring the perspectives of Black students who’ve witnessed these murders through the media.

CMCI was a strong fit, she said, because the college gave her access to an advisor like Sandra Ristovska, assistant professor of media studies and a fellow documentary filmmaker.

“Sandra is the primary reason I came to CU,” Pointer said. “She got a grant from Mellon/ACLS”—the American Council of Learned Societies—“working on visual justice, media and human rights, which was really interesting to me.”

They’ve been close collaborators throughout Pointer’s PhD journey. Ristovska, Pointer said, has supported and challenged her as a scholar, giving her opportunities to showcase her own research insights.

“Nandi approaches the people she interviews with care and compassion, so they really open up to her, trusting her to tell their stories,” said Ristovska, an expert in how images shape the pursuit of justice and human rights. “She has a remarkable ability to analyze a pressing social issue from a unique perspective.”

Inspired, supportive CMCI faculty

At Ristovska’s suggestion, Pointer applied to the International Association for Media and Communication Research, in Lyon, France, where she presented in both the visual culture and newly created FLOW34 divisions; the latter showcases multimodal scholarships. She presented a short work in progress featuring the Black expats who will be a part of her future documentary film.

She’s also worked with Ristovska on a career diversity series for publicly engaged doctoral students at CMCI, insights from which were shared in a reflection piece and in a panel discussion at this year’s National Humanities Conference, in Indianapolis.

“I have been so impressed with how inspiring and supportive the CMCI faculty are,” Pointer said. “They really work with you to make sure you’re both guided and challenged along each step of the way.”

It’s the kind of impact she hopes to have one day as a professor. Her goal after completing her PhD is to join the faculty of a top research university that allows her to pursue her three loves of teaching, scholarship and filmmaking.

It’s a role she’ll excel in, Ristovska said.

“Nandi is driven by a strong commitment to social justice, and I really can’t wait to see where her journey takes her next,” she said.

Joe Arney covers research and general news for the college.

A PhD student and documentary filmmaker is trying to understand how leaving the country influences how Black American men form their identities.

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Fall 2023

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Digging up the big story

Anonymous — Sat, 28 Oct 2023 00:22:25 +0000

Digging up the big story Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 10/27/2023 - 18:22

Joe Arney

Byron Kominek, founder of Jack’s Solar Garden, near Longmont, picks dried seed pods off of a clary sage plant. Photo by Tyler Hickman; originally appeared in The Colorado Sun.

An important part of being a good enterprise reporter is a willingness to keep digging, even when the soil seems shallow.

Sometimes literally.

A news feature on agrivoltaics—the practice of growing crops beneath solar panels—that Gabe Allen and Tyler Hickman published in The Colorado Sunnot only helped validate both students’ interest in environmental journalism, it won them Best Scalable Innovation in Planet Forward’s 2023 Storyfest competition.

“Our instructor, Erica Hunzinger, talked about the importance of following your curiosity,” Allen said. “She encouraged us to go down this rabbit hole, even though it was weeks of digging before we knew we had a hook.”

Storyfest showcases student work that seeks to understand and illuminate innovations for how to best care for the planet. As part of the students’ win, they spent five days aboard a polar vessel in Iceland, learning how the country is addressing conservation alongside a team of naturalists, photo instructors and others.

“When you’re digging and you hit the wall, that just means that you have to go around it or go over it—find a new angle.
—Tyler Hickman

It was a valuable experience for two graduate students who chose to study journalism at CMCI thanks to the focus and opportunities made possible through its Center for Environmental Journalism.

“We’re trying to inform people first and foremost, but through these human interest stories, you’re also showing the impact these stories can create, and how they can bring about change,” Hickman said.

For the Sun feature, Allen and Hickman visited Jack’s Solar Garden, in Longmont, to share the story of founder Byron Kominek’s three-year battle to get a solar installation on his farm. The students’ persistence was rewarded when, deep into their investigation, a bill to expand agrivoltaics was proposed. Gov. Jared Polis signed it into law in May.

“When you’re digging and you hit the wall, that just means that you have to go around it or go over it—find a new angle,” Hickman said. “That’s something all our professors really drilled into us.”

Hunzinger, also public health collaborations editor at The Associated Press, called the pair “driven and ambitious.”

“You could see their growth in their in-class questions and discussions and in their assignments,” she said. “When these two decided to pair up for the final project, I knew we were in for a curious and thoroughly reported treat.”

For Allen, the opportunity to do enterprise-level reporting was a major motivator to attend grad school.

“It was fun to really dig into that piece—to spend a month talking to so many different people, from politicians and scientists to the farmer on the ground,” he said.

Joe Arney covers research and general news for the college.

As conversations around solar farming entered the Statehouse, two student journalists found themselves on the forefront.

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Crystallizing curiosity

Anonymous — Mon, 06 Mar 2023 17:45:24 +0000

Crystallizing curiosity Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 03/06/2023 - 10:45

Shannon Mullane

Leysia Palen was walking back after teaching an undergraduate class in fall 2022 when her phone rang. Only, her phone never rings. Thinking it might be something urgent, she answered and heard Todd Saliman, the president of the University of Colorado’s four-campus system, on the line.

“I said, ‘Oh hi!’ like it was normal,” she said. “Then he congratulated me, and he told me the news.”

That was when Palen, a professor with a joint appointment in the departments of information science and computer science, learned she had just been awarded CU’s highest honor: the title of distinguished professor.

Since the award was established 45 years ago, only 138 professors have been recognized in this way across all four campuses. Palen—a “rock star” advisor who forged a new area of study and founded an academic department—was clearly a fitting candidate, according to past students and colleagues. For Palen, however, the news felt surprising and surreal.

“I had to tell people about it before it really sunk in,” Palen said. “In the aftermath, as I digested it, it made me feel great because it newly synthesized the different aspects of being a professor into one whole.”

The job of a tenured professor is divided into research, teaching and service, and Palen has shown leadership in all three, according to about 100 pages of nomination letters, instructor ratings and department recommendations submitted during the consideration process.

Distinguished Professor Leysia Palen is known in the academic community for her efforts to support her students and colleagues.

Often considered an authority figure in the field of crisis informatics, Palen has been named a distinguished professor for her work inside and outside the classroom.

Palen, who has a joint appointment with the departments of information and computer science, was recognized as a distinguished professor, the highest honor CU faculty can receive.

Breaking ground in research

Palen joined the University of Colorado Boulder as a half-time research professor in 1998 after earning a doctorate in information and computer science from the University of California Irvine and working for Microsoft and the Boeing Company.

In 2004, she began to focus her research on coordination using technology in one of the harshest environments, disasters. At the time, the World Wide Web was just over a decade old, online blogs had rolled out, Facebook was just being launched, and smartphones were imminent.

People were beginning to adopt these tools in new ways during times of crisis, Palen said. And as a first-generation college student, she wanted to do research that both contributed new knowledge and had practical applications for daily life.

“So the disaster arena was a place both to help and give back in a serious way, as well as critically think about large-scale coordination, or lack thereof, as it's technologically mediated,” Palen said.

Now, Palen is considered the creator and the leading authority in the field of crisis informatics, which focuses on the role of information produced by both official and unofficial actors when dealing with disaster situations in real time.

Her research has been cited more than 20,000 times and has won numerous awards. Highly relevant to the general public, Palen’s work has attracted media attention from outlets such as The Atlantic, CNN, The New York Times and PBS. She has also been recognized with election to the ACM CHI Academy and the prestigious ACM CHI Societal Impact Award for her work in crisis informatics.

“Professor Palen is a brilliant researcher with incredible vision,” said Kate Starbird, an associate professor at the University of Washington, in her nomination letter. “Her contributions to the scientific community and to the University of Colorado are both broad and profound. Her research has bridged theory and practice to contribute solutions to real-world problems and to define a new, interdisciplinary scientific field—crisis informatics.”

Crisis informatics is a multidisciplinary field combining computing and social science knowledge of disasters; its central tenet is that people use personal information and communication technology to respond to disaster in creative ways to cope with uncertainty.

From Science, volume 353, issue 6296

The science of mentorship

Starbird, now one of the world’s foremost experts on social media and disinformation, first met Palen over a coffee during a visit to CU before her first year as a doctoral student.

“I remember thinking to myself that she was the smartest person I’d ever met and that I was going to do whatever I could to find a way to work with her,” Starbird said in her nomination letter. “Leysia was a ‘rock star’ advisor—who invested in her students’ personal and professional success.

Palen’s record as a doctoral advisor is “remarkable,” according to the award nominations. In fields that remain male-dominated, the majority of her past graduate students and five of her six current doctoral students are women. Several of her women advisees, including Starbird, have gone on to achieve significant success.

“I don’t think I’d be a researcher if I hadn’t met her—if I hadn’t had the chance to be advised by her,” Starbird said.

As an instructor, advisor and mentor, Palen focuses on supporting her students as they learn to hone their own research ideas. She tries to figure out what people bring and where they want to go—which only adds to the diversity of perspectives in the field, Palen said.

She thinks of it in terms of helping students learn how to crystallize their own curiosity into clear thinking. With practice, it becomes systematic—then you can apply it to everything you can possibly encounter, she said.

“When you work on difficult problems, if you’ve got crystal clear clarity about how you’re thinking about something, you can really go far,” Palen said.

During the spring 2023 semester, Palen is working on new research and ongoing grant projects. The distinguished professor award has liberated her to more fully integrate research, teaching and service, she said. It’s exciting to bring research thinking into the classroom and new questions raised by classroom students back into the lab.

“There's this real, deep satisfaction about feeling like an integrated scholar,” Palen said. “Ultimately, you don't need a title or a rank to feel integrated along the lines of research, teaching and service, but I couldn't believe how much it helped to have my institution realize that about me.”

Shannon Mullane graduated from CMDI with a Master's of Journalism in 2019.

Leysia Palen was awarded CU’s highest honor for faculty—the title of distinguished professor. She offers a deeper look into her groundbreaking research career, her mentorship methods and her goals for the future.

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