Fall 2024 Newsletter
Colorado College
Letter from the Chair
Professor Miro Kummel, Chair Environmental Studies & Science Program
Happy Winter Break everyone! The final day of block 4 is upon us and we will soon switch the regular beat of the classroom for fun and relaxation with family and friends — some of us seeking the cold and the fun it offers while others, myself included, trying to escape it. In my case by going to feed swarms of mosquitoes while enjoying rainforest ecology and bird photography in Panama. EV is alive and well. We celebrated our faculty receiving tenure this fall — Congratulations Prof. Mike Angstadt and Prof. Sarah Schanz (affiliate from Geology)! Prof. Charlotte Gabrielsen is off to a sabbatical in the spring, starting to work on environmental DNA analyses. Prof. Corina McKendry is heading to Costa Rica on a Fullbright for the second half of her sabbatical, and along with her former thesis student Mia Matteucci, was published in a peer reviewed journal. Additionally, several students presented at research conferences this past summer and fall! These are just some of our recent department highlights. Read through the newsletter to learn about these accomplishments and more in detail! One of the major themes we decided to emphasize this year is community building. With support from the new EV Student Leadership Council, we have hosted several events this fall, including a donuts and cider social, a pancake breakfast, a celebration for our winter graduates, and coming soon, a faculty and staff themed trivia. We also had a successful search for a new Environmental Science Professor and will be welcoming Daniel Hueholt to our team in the Fall! Daniel specializes in climate change, climate modification via sulfate injections in the stratosphere, climate change velocity and ecosystem response. All of this flourishing is for good reason! The world continues to need EV graduates who understand environmental justice, human impacts on the spheres of the earth system, and climate change. The hurricane season is not far behind, and the communities impacted by hurricane Helene are still grieving and rebuilding, and this year is projected to be the warmest on record (again!). Hang in there and keep up the good work for the environment. Kindly, Miro
Faculty and Department Updates
Get to know your EV visiting faculty, Professor Wilkins and Professor Chesler, and new GIS Specialist Alyssa Tews!
Scroll through the sidecar below to read each of their bios!
CC Professor Dr. Corina McKendry heads to Costa Rica as Fullbright Scholar!
Read about Dr. McKendry's upcoming exploration of climate action on the municipal level in Megan Clancy's ('07) for the PEAK.
Click on the banner below to scroll through the article.
CC Professor Heads to Costa Rica as Fulbright Scholar
Professor Amy Kohout's book: Taking the Field: Soldiers, Nature, and Empire on American Frontiers wins awards!
Amy Kohout accepting the WHA Rothman Award
WESTERN HISTORY ASSOCIATION AWARDS
2024 Robert M. Utley Prize Winner: Awarded to the best book published on military history of the frontier and western North America
2024 Hal K. Rothman Prize Winner: Awarded to the best book published on western environmental history
SYNOPSIS In the late nineteenth century, at a time when Americans were becoming more removed from nature than ever before, U.S. soldiers were uniquely positioned to understand and construct nature’s ongoing significance for their work and for the nation as a whole. American ideas and debates about nature evolved alongside discussions about the meaning of frontiers, about what kind of empire the United States should have, and about what it meant to be modern or to make “progress.” Soldiers stationed in the field were at the center of these debates, and military action in the expanding empire brought new environments into play. In Taking the Field Amy Kohout draws on the experiences of U.S. soldiers in both the Indian Wars and the Philippine-American War to explore the interconnected ideas about nature and empire circulating at the time. By tracking the variety of ways American soldiers interacted with the natural world, Kohout argues that soldiers, through their words and their work, shaped Progressive Era ideas about both American and Philippine environments. Studying soldiers on multiple frontiers allows Kohout to inject a transnational perspective into the environmental history of the Progressive Era, and an environmental perspective into the period’s transnational history. Kohout shows us how soldiers—through their writing, their labor, and all that they collected—played a critical role in shaping American ideas about both nature and empire, ideas that persist to the present.
Published in Cooperation with the William P. Clements Center for Southwest Studies, Southern Methodist University.
Check out the first chapter of Kohout's book here via the University of Nebraska Press!
2024 Summer and Fall Course Spotlight
As always, the Environmental Program continues to offer amazing classes and field based experiences. Scroll down to see what students have been up to this summer and fall!
Ecology and Management of Shallow Lakes Třeboň, Czech Republic Block A Prof Miro Kummel
Read about Professor Kummel's Block A course to the Czech Republic to study lake ecology in this article for The PEAK written by Julia Fennell '21. Thesis students and ENKI interns Emily Marple ’25, Olivia Spencer ’25, and Lucy Hylton ’25 research is highlighted here and in Student Summer Research section.
Click on the banner below to scroll through the article
Environmental Science Class Prepares Students for Internship Abroad
Class Adventures!
EV 145: Environment and Society 2024 Martz Symposium on Public Lands Professor Mike Angstadt
Professor Mike Angstadt's Block 2 , Environment and Society attended the Getches-Wilkinson Center Conference: The Future of Public Lands – People, Place, and Power . Read more about this experience and what it meant in the context of the course from Professor Angstadt bellow!
EV145 outside CU Boulder Wolf Law Building October 4th, 2024
Those of us who are fortunate to teach Environment & Society (an interdisciplinary introductory course in our EV Program) get to explore compelling questions with motivated students through the lens of pressing environmental challenges. This fall, my Block 2 Environment & Society course coincided with the Martz Symposium on Public Land, an annual conference organized by Colorado Law's Getches-Wilkinson Center for Natural Resources, Energy, and the Environment. The symposium convenes leading environmental lawyers, policymakers, and stakeholders from a range of perspectives to explore compelling challenges in American public lands management. How should we weigh conservation priorities alongside resource extraction and recreation? What is an optimal level of energy development on public lands, and how can we maximize benefits while minimizing associated harms? These are complicated questions, and our current political climate underscores the many differing views for how we should resolve these questions.
Thanks to the incredible generosity of the Getches-Wilkinson Center and our EV Program's own Slade Fund, all students in our course were able to attend, in person, with all expenses covered. We heard from speakers including The Wilderness Society's senior legal director, the president of an oil and gas industry association, and the Bureau of Land Management's principal deputy director. During lunch, students met NPR reporters, practicing attorneys, and others who shared perspectives on their views and environmental career paths. While it was interesting to hear panelists' differing views, we found perhaps even more fascinating the many moments where stakeholders, even those who frequently face one another in court, sought common ground or opportunities to advance mutually-beneficial policy. The day was a valuable reminder of the many passionate individuals engaged in public lands management-and of the incredible opportunities that committed donors and EV Program alumni facilitate for our students!
-Professor Mike Angstadt
Want more pictures? Check us out on Instagram: @ cc_ev_studiesandscience to stay updated with the EV Program and see more pictures!
Student Summer Research
We had many students conduct research over the summer, both with CC professors and with outside programs! Read more about these student's work and how these experiences impacted them below.
In addition to the incredible amount of opportunity JIRP had to offer, I was lucky enough to help out Aaron Chesler in the Environmental Science department with his research for my upcoming thesis. I was able to collect snow samples across the entire icefield, which we plan to analyze for major ions in the upcoming blocks. This analysis will help us better understand the climate systems impacting the icefield.
I have learned so much this summer about glaciers, our changing climate, and about myself. This summer was transformative. I left the icefield feeling inspired to continue my future in glaciology and polar science. Hearing about the changes that have occurred on the icefield just within some faculty members’ lifetimes emphasized to me the importance of understanding our complex climate systems. Writing such a short synopsis of my summer was extremely difficult as it feels as though I lived a lifetime on the Juneau Icefield.
Please feel free to reach out to me by email with questions if you are at all interested in this program or want to hear more! @clairethompson@coloradocollege.edu
SHALLOW LAKE ECOLOGY IN CZECH REPUBLIC
OLIVIA SPENCER '24, LUCY HYLTON '25 & EMILY MARPLE '25 | FACULTY ADVISOR MIRO KUMMEL
Over the summer, Lucy Hylton ‘25, Emily Marple ‘25 and Olivia Spencer '25 spent Block A and an additional five weeks studying shallow lake ecology in the Czech Republic with Dr. Miro Kummel.
We worked in conjunction with Dr. Marek Baxa and Dr. Libor Pechar at ENKI studying ecology, alternative stable states, and oxygen regimes. Our time in the Czech Republic consisted of learning about the local history, data collection, and sample processing.
Back at CC, we are analyzing our data, writing theses, and eventually producing manuscripts.
Some highlights of the experience were being immersed in a small town, working with the team at ENKI, and learning a multitude of new technologies and techniques to collect our data.
Olivia: Working on this project has inspired me to pursue graduate school to continue doing research and has pushed my goals to include a future in collaborative and community based research.
ALASKA CENTER FOR ENERGY AND POWER
CHASE HELTER '25 | FACULTY ADVISOR MIKE AGNSTADT
I spent the past summer working as an Arctic Energy Transition Research Assistant at the Alaska Center for Energy and Power (ACEP) in Fairbanks, Alaska. I collaborated with my mentors Magnus DeWitt and Gwen Holdmann to develop a research project that analyzes the effects of Alaska state energy policy on rural communities.
I knew I wanted to incorporate Community Engaged Research Frameworks (CEnR) into my research, so I aligned my research with existing collaborative partnerships between ACEP, the Teaching through Technology program, and the Native Village of Minto, AK.
I travelled to Minto several times to engage with community members, get updated on local energy and technology contexts, and ultimately conduct surveys on energy with community members. In addition to surveying Minto community members on their energy perspectives, I conducted interviews with state-wide Alaska energy stakeholders. I then conducted qualitative analysis on both data sets and created deliverables for the Minto community and ACEP.
Overall, researching the unique microgrid energy contexts of rural Alaska has provided valuable insights into how multi-level stakeholders collaborate to solve challenges and create place-based solutions. I also gained skills in collaborating with close-knit rural and Native communities to solve unique challenges and bridge gaps between state stakeholders, research organizations, and rural communities.
I am continuing to analyze my research data with support from both my Colorado College thesis advisor, Professor Mike Angstadt, along with my ACEP mentors.
Through my thesis, I hope to utilize my survey and interview data to act as a case study for analyzing state and local political relationships and creating policy that correlates with rural community needs. Through this experience, I have become passionate about conducting collaborative research, exploring rural community development, and implementing improved environmental policy
AMOC: Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation Weakening
GRACE CASSON '25, ETHAN LEVIN '25, ANNEKA RUST '25 | FACULTY ADVISOR ALLISON LAWMAN
This past summer, senior Environmental Science majors Grace Casson, Ethan Levin, and Anneka Rust, carried out research with Dr. Lawman at Colorado College.
We examined how the tropical pacific will react to a collapsed or weakened AMOC: Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation which is responsible for carrying warm equatorial surface water to higher latitude regions where it cools, becomes denser, sinks back down and eventually returns to the equator in a conveyor belt pattern. Specifically, we looked at this system through CESM1 climate models under hosing simulation to model a weakening AMOC as well as proxy records. Our research comprised of data analysis through Python, reading journal papers, and pulling data from various sources.
Some summer highlights from our work with Dr. Lawman include learning python and getting paid to do science, learning how to manipulate large datasets through climate models used by NCAR (CCESM1) and creating figures from large datasets, collaborating with each other and Dr. Lawman, and preparing to present our individual projects at AGU - American Geophysical Union - Conference in D.C. this December.
Learning python gave us marketable skills for graduate school and future jobs, and presenting at AGU will be a worthwhile experience to network and hear from other students and scientists further along in their careers.
We really enjoyed this experience of independent research in a supported environment! We hope to continue to be involved in and contribute to the field of climate science in the future.
CC STUDENTS HEAD TO RESEARCH CONFERENCES!
Professor Allison Lawman and Miro Kummel's thesis students attended international research conferences this past summer and fall—ESA 2024 (Ecological Society of America) and AGU 2024 (American Geophysical Union Conference), respectively.
Top: Professor Kummel's thesis students—Ewan Henderson, Cole Pietsch, Jordan Cosgrove, and Sabine Blumenthal, at ESA 2024, Professor Lawman's thesis student Grace Casson at AGU 2024 Bottom: Professor Lawman's thesis students—Anneka Rust and Ethan Levin— at AGU 2024
Huge thank you to the Environmental Department and Colorado College's Conference Presentation Grant for funding these experiences!
Alumni Spotlights
We interviewed two environmental program alumni, Sutton Lynch '22 and Anya Steinberg '21, about their experience in the department, what they've been up to since graduating, and how they use their environmental background in their work today- Sutton as a conservation photographer and Anya as a radio journalist. Read through their interviews below!
ANYA STEINBERG
Radio Journalism at NPR's Throughline
Anya graduated from Colorado College in 2021 as an Environmental Science & Race, Ethnicity and Migration Studies double major. She currently works at NPR as a radio journalist for their podcast Throughline. Here, she explores stories from the past and how they continue to impact the world today. Read through her interview and check out some Throughline podcasts (linked below)!
What was your experience like as an environmental science major?
I loved my time as an environmental science major! I made some of my best friends through the program and got to experience so much of the Southwest. Camping at the Great Sand Dunes for Atmosphere-Biosphere Interactions with Miro and hiking up the dunes with everyone in the middle of the night to stargaze was one highlight. But my favorite moments by FAR were the moments of pure chaos. Like when our vans got stuck driving in the snow on a field trip and we all had to get out and pile sticks in front of the wheels and push, or when we had to chase a dozen runaway equipment boxes through the desert in a windstorm, or when we realized we'd been measuring weeks' worth of data with a yardstick...not a meter stick. Those are the moments when you realize that all of a sudden, you've become friends with your classmates through the struggle.
Were there any mentors or professors you had at CC that impacted you/your path at CC and/or since graduating?
It sounds like a cop out, but really all of the faculty in the EV department shaped me / my path in some way. I have to give huge kudos to Becca Barnes, who doesn't work at CC anymore, but who really took me under her wing as a first year and went out of her way to support me in choosing the major. I had so little confidence in myself when I decided to study EV, because even though I was interested in the subject, I felt like I'd been bad at math or science in high school and that being a major would be impossible. Becca was there at every step of my journey through the program, encouraging me to push myself.
And of course, Miro Kummel and his wife, Emily Chan, are the two that immediately come to mind. I ended up pursuing a double major in Environmental Science and Race, Ethnicity and Migration Studies -- the two departments they chaired -- and I have them to thank for making so many opportunities become possible for me at CC. Working with Miro on the Pikes Peak treeline was an iconic part of my time at CC that I still talk about five years later! All of the classes I took with him hold a special place in my heart -- being in class with him gives you the sense that the world is this big, endlessly interesting place full of mysteries to unlock.
What skills/experiences from your time in the environmental program do you draw upon today as a radio journalist?
SO much, considering I don't work in STEM anymore. A lot of the things I learned about the Southwest and its natural history, as well as the environmental issues facing it today, have become the basis of some of my reporting at NPR. I did a Throughline episode this year called "Water in the West" -- which was all about the story of the L.A. aqueduct, the water challenges the American West faces, and the consequences of developing the West, particularly for Indigenous communities. Before I was an EV major, I'd never even heard of water rights before!
Another thing is, the EV program is extremely collaborative. You're constantly having to work with people who you may or may not know or get along with, sometimes in bad weather or uncomfortable conditions, and that's stressful. Obviously, I'm not making a podcast in the desert, but every episode is truly a team effort -- everyone has to pull their weight and communicate well. Having attention to detail and being observant is another big one, particularly on reporting trips. There were so many times during EV classes that you're asked to take note of your environment and draw conclusions — why a tree is growing where it is, why a river looks the way it does. Those observational skills and being attuned to my environment have helped me so much on reporting trips.
In your alumni survey, you speak to the challenge of taking topics as huge and complex as climate change, and getting people to understand and care. Expand on how you approach this as a radio journalist and how you may have developed these skills as an undergrad?
One of the hardest parts of my job is taking a complicated story, or an issue that is extremely dry and full of wonky terms and distilling that story into something that is digestible and connects to people on a human level. That's something we grapple with in almost every episode we work on. How do you summarize decades of conflict in a foreign country when the listener may have barely heard of that country before, or talk about a century's worth of immigration law to people who may not know the difference between an asylum seeker and a refugee? And then, how do you make that something people actually care about? These are massive topics, and we only have 50 minutes in the show to go through them (just think, every Block Plan lecture is like 3 hours!) We talked about this challenge a lot in my time as an EV major, because you could definitely argue that climate change is kind of the ultimate issue for environmental science. But climate change is also extremely difficult to communicate about — you have to distill the science to its most essential parts, but you don't want to simplify it so much that it's inaccurate, AND you have to get people to listen to you, even if it can feel like you're just a messenger of doom.
One episode you enjoyed working on, and which drew upon your EV background, is "400 Years of Sweetness". Could you expand on your experience working on this episode?
"400 Years of Sweetness" is still one of my favorite episodes I've worked on. It blended 400 years of history that spanned from the Midwest to Haiti to understand why sweetness is such a big part of our diets. In my agriculture law and policy class we talked a lot about food systems in the U.S., and how agriculture really is fed by and manipulated by these governmental subsidies and other policies that incentivize growing certain crops in specific ways. In the episode, we go in depth into the life of this mysterious figure -- Dwayne Andreas -- that's pulling the strings in Congress in the 1970s and 1980s to shape agricultural policy and who's taking advantage of those subsidies to create opportunity for himself. And that opportunity was the chance to make high fructose corn syrup a HUGE part of our diets. The nitty gritty of ag policy is confusing, and also not that interesting for radio, so again, this was a perfect example of taking all this knowledge I had and having to distill it into a format that makes sense to our listeners.
Check out these episodes that Anya has worked on, and which relate to environmental themes!
A Tale of Two Tribal Nations: Tribal land ownership and the history of dispossession in the U.S.
How everyday people started a movement that's shaping climate action to this day: The origins of the EV justice movement .
Thank You Anya!
Add to our Alumni Map!
We are working on building an interactive alumni map to increase networking among our Environmental Studies and Science community: if you are willing to share a bit about yourself and your work, please fill out the survey below and a pin with the attached information will pop on the map for other EV alumni to see!
Alumni Networking Survey
Click around on the map below and pins to not only see where CC alumni are living but a little bit about their careers and lifestyles!
Alumni Networking Map
