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Glenn Miller Ballroom

Climate and Health Research across CU: Boulder and Anschutz (1:10PM - 2:40PM) Glenn Miller Ballroom

• Session Organizer:��Kris Karnauskas,����Associate Professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences and CIRES Fellow,�� ��ñ����.
• Speakers:��Max Elling, Ellen Considine, Colleen Reid, Elizabeth Carlton, ,
• Type of Session:��Traditional Research Presentation, Participative Panel Discussion
• Session Description:��Climate change is reshaping the landscape of human health, from the spread of infectious disease to chronic illness, nutrition, water security, and mental wellbeing. This session brings together researchers from ��ñ���� and CU Anschutz Medical Campus to showcase the breadth of climate-health science underway across our university system and to catalyze new collaborations between the two campuses.Talks will span a range of exposures and outcomes: climate-driven shifts in vector-borne diseases such as malaria, dengue, and West Nile virus; chronic kidney disease linked to heat stress; diarrheal disease tied to climate variability and water systems; the health impacts of climate-driven migration; and the particular vulnerabilities of aging populations. We will also feature work on climate communication—essential for translating this research into public understanding and policy action, and on the development of climate-informed early warning systems that can help health systems anticipate and respond to emerging risks. Following a series of short talks, the session will close with a panel discussion designed to identify shared challenges, methodological overlap, and opportunities for joint proposals and data-sharing between Boulder-based climate (and health) scientists and Anschutz-based health researchers. Our goal is not only to highlight excellent science already happening independently on both campuses, but to actively build toward interdisciplinary bridges—personal connections, shared datasets, and co-developed tools needed to accelerate CU’s leadership in climate and health research going forward.

UMC Room 235

A critical lens on “sustainable AI” (1:10PM - 2:20PM) UMC Room 235

• Session Organizer: Jed Brown, Associate Professor, Associate Chair for Community and Accountability
• Speakers: Jed Brown, Esther Rolf, , Emily Yeh, Katherine Siegel
• Type of session: Participative Panel Discussion��
• Session description: In this session, we examine environmental impacts of data centers built, under construction, and planned in the name of “AI.” We will discuss disparities between financing of infrastructure build-out and purported sustainability commitments asserted by tech companies, between messaging of energy transition to renewables from analysts advising government and realities of the increased load preventing transition per independent and IEA analysis. We will examine greenwashing efforts, the misfit between “bottom-up” and “top-down” accounting, and environmental racism. We will discuss conflicts of interest and the role of government, community organizing, and paths for effective regulation and policy.

Break (2:20PM - 2:30PM)

Climate Adaptation Science: advancing sustainability at the nexus of the climate, ecological, and social sciences (2:30PM - 3:30PM) UMC room 235

• Session Organizer:��, Research Scientist at CIRES and the Lead Social Scientist at the North Central Climate Adaptation Science Center
• Speakers:, Elizabeth Woolner, Em Wright, Kelsey Warren, ��
• Type of session: Case Studies��
• Session Description: The North Central Climate Adaptation Science Center (NC CASC) conducts interdisciplinary, actionable science research at the intersection of the climate, ecological, and social sciences. This panel will provide a brief overview of our center, and then highlight our research through the presentation of several case studies that showcase our research collaborations with public land managers and Tribal Nations across our region. This session particularly showcases the research conducted by the cohort of summer graduate students we bring on each year. Presentations will include research on newly developed drought metrics, evaluating the effectiveness of low tech climate adaptation actions, understanding the science needs of land managers dealing with woody invasive plant species in prairie ecosystems, developing decision support tools for managers in sagebrush ecosystems, and communicating our science to multi-disciplinary audiences and practitioners.

Aspen Rooms 285-287

Boulder Climate Ventures panel with local sustainability startup companies (1:10PM - 2:40PM) Aspen Rooms 285-287

• Session Organizer:��Michael McGehee, James and Catherine Patten Chair in the College of Engineering and Applied Science and Renewable & Sustainable Energy Institute Fellow.��
• Speakers: Michael McGehee, Chunmei Ban, Wil Srubar and Greg Rieker
• Session Type: Participative Panel Discussion
• Session Description: Mike McGehee, who has launched several companies, will moderate a panel of CU researchers who have spun out successful sustainability companies. The panel will include Greg Rieker (Longpath - methane detection), Wil Srubar�� (Prometheus - carbon cured cement), and Tyler Evans (Mana - sodium batteries). The panel discussion will highlight different paths these researchers have taken to bring their discoveries from lab to market, from research idea to demonstration and implementation, and lessons learned along the way.��

Break 2:40PM - 2:50PM

The Third Assessment of Natural Hazards (2:50PM - 3:50PM) Aspen Rooms 285-287

• Session Organizer: Lori Peek
• Speakers: Lori Peek, Abbie Liel, Shideh Dashti
• Session Type: Participative Panel Discussion��
• Session Description: The Third Assessment of Natural Hazards in the United States is now well underway, bringing together more than 100 authors who are reviewing and synthesizing decades of research evidence in the hazards and disaster field. The goal of this rigorous scientific assessment is to inform decision makers on specific actions to reduce the human toll of disaster. This session will provide an update on the Third Assessment and spotlight ��ñ����'s leadership with this effort as well as with prior national assessments.

UMC Room 386

Results-Based Financing for Just and Resilient Communities (1:10PM - 2:10PM) UMC Room 386

• Session Organizer:��Laura MacDonald, Managing Director, Mortenson Center in Global Engineering & Resilience
• Speakers:��Fatma Koroglu,��Zhen Li,��John Ecklu,��Laura MacDonald, Denis Muthike
• Session type: Center overview, case studies and traditional research presentations
• Session Description: The Mortenson Center in Global Engineering & Resilience at ��ñ���� advances research, education, and partnerships to improve access to safe water, sanitation, energy, food, and infrastructure, with a focus on supporting resilient communities around the world. Through collaboration with Better Planet Lab and Virridy, the Mortenson Center is combining advanced environmental sensing technologies, remote sensing and geospatial analytics, and machine learning tools to generate actionable insights that enable results-based financing and other solutions-oriented approaches to tackling climate, food, and water challenges. This session will highlight examples of this work and invite the audience to engage in discussion on what is missing for just and sustainable approaches to building resilience.

UMC Room 382-384

Workshop: Strategies for Partnering with Industry (2:20PM - 3:20PM) UMC Room 382-384

• Session Organizer:��Kelly Fleming, Assistant Director, Industry Research Partnerships for Advanced Energy and Sustainability
• Speakers:��Kelly Fleming, and Bri-Matthias Hodge
• Type of session: Interactive Workshop
• Session Description: This workshop will serve as an introduction to communicating research to non-technical and industry audiences, led by CU's Industry Research Partnerships (IRP). This session opens with a short panel featuring IRP staff, industry representatives, and faculty who've successfully bridged this gap, sharing what's worked for them. Participants come with a short elevator pitch for your research, and rotate through table conversations, using a Listening Loop exercise to test, refine, and sharpen your pitch with each new person you talk to. Facilitators will circulate throughout to offer support. We'll reflect on what changed, followed by a wrap-up and an overview of ongoing support available through IRP.

Aspen Room 289

Student Voices on Experiential Sustainability Education (1:10PM - 2:10PM) Aspen room 289

• Session Organizer:��Beth Osnes, Professor of Theatre and Environmental Studies at the University of Colorado.��
• Speakers: Samuel Cartwright, Sindhu Nepolean,, Katheryn Sullivan, Joseph Ikerodah, , Sydney Bihm
• Session type: Participative Panel Discussion��
• Session Description: This session will include a student-driven panel conversation moderated by Sam Spotts from the SPIKE Center for Sustainability Education, featuring five SPIKE Student Emissaries. The panelists, all student researchers engaged in sustainability research, represent a wide range of disciplinary approaches and perspectives. Drawing on the diverse interdisciplinary approaches represented by the SPIKE Emissaries—from environmental justice and arts-science partnerships to climate media data tracking—the discussion will illuminate the varied ways students engage with and contribute to transformations toward sustainability. Ultimately, the panel will foreground student voices and experiences, offering participants an opportunity to explore how sustainability research can foster not only disciplinary knowledge, but also the skills, perspectives, and capacities needed to navigate complex sustainability challenges. The session will then proceed with an opportunity to continue the discussion through audience participation. By bringing these diverse approaches into conversation, the panel aims to inspire new ways of thinking about how students and researchers generally can help shape more sustainable futures.

Break (2:10PM - 2:20PM)

Time Literacy on a Dammed Planet (2:20PM - 3:30PM) Aspen Room 289

• Session Organizer:��Kieran Murphy, Associate Professor, Department of French and Italian.��
• Session Speaker: Kieran Murphy
• Session type: Workshop
• Session Description: This workshop is for anyone curious about dams: how they are imagined and built, how they shape the lives around them, how they are maintained, how they fail or come down, and what becomes of a river in their wake. Scientists, engineers, historians, water managers, activists, artists, writers, students and community members each see a different part of that story and measure it on a different clock. Decisions about a dam affect communities and ecosystems, each moving to several rhythms at once. Policy that answers to only one rhythm fails the rest. Time literacy on a dammed planet means articulating these rhythms together, with every stakeholder at the table. Bring the timescale you know best, and together we'll trace the rhythms dams disrupt and the schedules they impose. You'll leave with new colleagues from across campus and beyond, and a shared sense of the many timescales any decision about a river must answer to.

UMC Room 247

Heat, Shade, and Sun Safety in Colorado Communities (1:10PM - 2:40PM) UMC Room 247

• Session Organizer:��Sara Meerow,��Associate Professor, Geography.
• Speakers: Sara Meerow, Sara Tabatabaie, Olga Wilhelmi, Azadeh Bolhari, Shawhin Roudbari,
• Type of session: Interactive Workshop, Lightning Talks / TED-style talks
• Session Description: This summer Boulder has broken numerous heat and drought records, a preview of a hotter future in Colorado and around the world. Colorado also likes to claim it enjoys 300 days of sunshine, but all that sun, especially at higher elevations, can mean dangerous ultraviolet (UV) radiation exposure. Planning and designing communities to increase shade is one way to improve both heat and sun safety, but shade is often unequally distributed. This session brings together researchers and practitioners tackling different pieces of the complex challenge for a round of short talks on their work, followed by an interactive workshop that encourages participants to design heat and sun safety strategies for a real neighborhood. The session will begin with a series of short presentations highlighting different dimensions of heat, sun safety and shade, followed by a panel discussion among the speakers. The final 30 minutes will feature an interactive workshop in which participants will work in small groups to analyze how planning and policy decisions influence heat resilience and sun safety in real-world locations. Using physical site models and design elements, participants will develop and discuss practical shade interventions and implementation strategies for a variety of public spaces. The session aims to provide participants with a better understanding of the complexities of heat and sun safety in Colorado, actionable strategies for advancing heat resilience and sun safety in their communities, and avenues for cross-campus and regional collaboration on this hot topic.

B2 Lab in the CU ATLAS Building

Environmental Cinema (2:50PM - 3:50PM) B2 in ATLAS

• Session Organizer:��Erin Espelie, Associate Professor, Cinema and the Moving Image Arts Department.��
• Speakers: Erin Espelie, Erin Manzitto-Tripp, Dr. Brad Gallagher,Hillary Rosner, Jacob Watts, Seth Raynor
• Session Type: Interactive Workshop,Meetup / Social Gathering
• Session Description: Hosted by the B2 Center for Media, Arts & Performance in the ATLAS Building, this session will revolve around an interactive installation involving lichen and the CU Natural History Museum's Herbarium, considering how lichen function as environmental sensors and indicator species. There will be a larger discussion of the role cinema can play in tackling environmental issues.
  • Note: This is in the basement of the ATLAS building so you will need to take the stairs or elevator to get to the B2 level.