If you are a junior EV major, it is time to start thinking about the possibility of a senior thesis, particularly the thesis topic. Sophomores, it's never too early to start planning your thesis, such as travel funds or specific research plans. 

Here we have compiled a list of EV faculty and their research interests. Look it through and see if any topic or area of interest catches your eye. 

 

 

Research Themes & Study Areas:

Miro Kummel

• Predator-Prey Dynamics in natural and agricultural settings:
  • Spatial dynamics of ladybug-aphid predator-prey dynamics on short grass prairies. Field work (May+June) and mathematical modeling using R.
  • Spatial analysis of habitat use by mountain lions and elk in Catamount Center area on Pikes Peak
  • Dynamics of insect pests and their natural enemies (several possibilities on Western Slope and in the Pueblo area)
• Treeline dynamics:
  • Spatial pattern formation at the treeline edge and its relevance for treeline advance in response to climate change (drones)
  • Microclimatology of treelines (Drones)
  • Dendrochronology and dendroclimatology of treeline advance.
• Vegetation studies:
  • Spatial structure of tundra or prairie vegetation (drones)
  • Indicators of rangeland health from remote sensing using drones (Chico Basin Ranch)
• Limnology:
  • Phytoplankton and zooplankton dynamics in relation to nutrient loading in eutrophic water bodies.

Corina McKendry

• City sustainability
• Environmental justice
• Climate adaptation
• Globalization and the environment

Mike Angstadt

• Linking global environmental politics & international environmental law
  • Norm diffusion: how/why new institutions spread (e.g., environmental courts), and implications
  • Norm implementation: how domestic institutions incorporate international environmental la
  • Nonstate environmental governance: NGOs in global environmental governance and law

• Additional areas of longstanding interest
  • Alaskan environmental law & policy
  • Renewable energy policy and equity
  • Climate law/governance

• Reshaping global environmental politics & international environmental law
  • Rights of nature movements
  • Earth system law
  • Opportunities/mechanisms for exchange between: (1) environmental judges, (2) judges and academics, and (3) disciplines (environmental law & environmental politics)

Charlotte Gabrielsen

• Landscape & spatial ecology (to characterize the influence of climate and human land use on landscape patterns and processes)
• Effects of spatiotemporal ecosystem dynamics on biodiversity (particularly, in wetland ecosystems)
• GIS & remote sensing (as tools to inform conservation & management planning)

Jean Lee

• Smallholder agricultural mitigation and adaptation
• Gender equity and justice
• Community-based Management

Allison Lawman

• Past, present, and future climate change
• Oceanography and atmospheric science
• Tropical climate variability
  • The El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO)
  • Tropical Pacific decadal variability
• Abrupt climate change
• Climate proxies and coral geochemistry
  • Stable isotope geochemistry
  • Trace metal geochemistry
• Climate model output
• Climate impacts on coral reefs (thermal stress and ocean acidification)

Sylvan Goldberg

English

• Pre-1900 American literature
• Environmental literature
• Literature of the American West
• The relationship between place, nature, identity, and literary form
• Affect/emotion, gender (queer ecology), and temporality

Marion Hourdequin

Philosophy

• Environmental ethics
• Ethics & climate change, including climate justice and the ethics of climate engineering
• Ethics and philosophy of ecological restoration; restoration in landscapes with complex socio-ecological histories
• Philosophy, ethics, and the Anthropocene
• Nature in East Asian traditions of thought (esp. Confucianism and Daoism)
• Philosophy of science, values in science, science-society relationship
• Philosophy of ecology
• Additional areas of interest: environmental justice; philosophy of ecosystem services; Aldo Leopold; ethics of de-extinction

Eric Perramond

Southwest Studies

• Environmental ethics
• Water resources, law, and water policy
• Natural Resource Management & Conservation
• Decolonizing Conservation (broadly - Bears Ears, Valles Caldera, etc.)
• Militarization of the American West/Southwest (Border wall, nuclear sacrifice zones, military open spaces)
• Areas: Southwest U.S., Mexico, Latin America, Western Europe
• Specific Topics
  • Water adjudications of water resources in the western U.S.
  • Impacts of neo-liberal economic policies in Mexico
  • Livelihood and environmental justice crises in the Southwestern U.S.

Mike Taber

Education

• Boundary layer meteorology – energy fluxes over heterogeneous surfaces
• Biometeorology – energy flux across interfaces in ecosystems

Henry Fricke

Geology

• Paleoclimatology
• Geochemistry

Amy Kohout

History

• Environmental history
• U.S. West
• U.S. empire
• History of natural history
• Museum studies
• Science and technology studies

Shane Heschel

Organismal Biology and Ecology

• Physiological ecology of plant populations, particularly in stressful environments
• Local adaptation and the evolution of physiological mechanisms
• Factors driving the local extinction of plant populations
• Population genetics and Conservation genetics

Eli Fahrenkrug

Chemistry

• Probing Aerosol and Dust Particle Migration within Individual Snow Grains and their Impacts on Snow Albedo and Radiative Forcing Models
• Developing New Citizen-Accessible Water Quality Diagnostics for Use in Low-Resource Areas
• The Fountain Valley Water Project: a local community-based citizen science project responding to PFAS contamination in drinking water

Howard Drossman

• Primary interests:
  • How do students develop conceptions of ecological stewardship?
  • Environmental education
  • Integral approaches to studying the environment
  • Mindfulness and the environment
• Secondary interests:
  • Atmospheric chemistry
  • Aquatic chemistry
  • Biogeochemical cycling