Just the Facts 2007-2008

Research and Achievements

Space Sciences

• CU-Boulder is the only research institution in the world to have designed and built space instruments for NASA that have been launched to every planet in the solar system.
• LASP, the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, has operated more spacecraft than all other university-based organizations in the nation combined, and employs about 125 undergraduate and graduate students in all areas of science, engineering and mission operations.
• LASP currently operates nine scientific instruments in space, including an $8.7 million spectrometer, which flew within 125 miles of Mercury in January 2008 aboard NASA's MESSENGER mission, and a student-built "dust counter" aboard the New Horizons space craft bound for Pluto.
• A $70 million instrument designed by researchers in CU-Boulder's Center for Astrophysics and Space Astronomy, or CASA, will be installed on the Hubble Space Telescope during a servicing mission targeted for September 2008. Known as the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph, the instrument will probe nearby galaxies and the distant universe.
• NASA's Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere mission, or AIM, was launched in April 2007 and includes a satellite with two CU-built instruments that will be managed by CU-Boulder's LASP and will be controlled from the Space Technology Building at the CU Research Park. AIM researchers, including CU-Boulder faculty, staff and students, will study silvery-blue noctilucent clouds that form at high latitudes about 50 miles above Earth's polar regions each year and are believed to be associated with increases in greenhouse gases in Earth's atmosphere.
• CU-Boulder Professor Larry Esposito found evidence in 2007 that Saturn's rings, once thought to have formed during the age of the dinosaurs, instead may have been created roughly 4.5 billion years ago when the solar system was still forming. Esposito, principal investigator for the NASA Cassini spacecraft's Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph, drew his conclusions from observations made by Cassini, which arrived at Saturn in 2004.

Natural/Physical Sciences

• CU-Boulder climate scientist Konrad Steffen found that melting in 2007 on the Greenland ice sheet broke the 2005 summer melt record by 10 percent, making it the largest ever recorded there since satellite measurements of the ice began in 1979.
• A team of CU-Boulder researchers, led by physics professors Margaret Murnane and Henry Kapteyn, developed a new technique to generate laser-like X-ray beams, removing a major obstacle in the decades-long quest to build a tabletop X-ray laser that could be used for biological and medical imaging.
• CU-Boulder faculty members Lawrence Carlson and Jacquelyn Sullivan received the National Academy of Engineering's top educational honor in 2008 recognizing them as founders of the Integrated Teaching and Learning Program at CU-Boulder. Founded in 1992, the program infuses hands-on learning throughout K-16 engineering education to motivate and prepare tomorrow's engineering leaders.
• A team led by anthropology Professor Payson Sheets discovered an ancient field of manioc in 2007 at the prehistoric village of Ceren in El Salvador buried by a volcanic eruption 1,400 years ago, the first evidence for cultivation of the calorie-rich tuber in the New World. Discovered under 10 feet of ash, the discovery marks the first time manioc cultivation has been discovered at an archaeological site in the Americas. Ceren is considered the best-preserved ancient village in all of Latin America.
• In 2007, CU-Boulder researcher Brendan Depue published a study showing that people have the ability to suppress emotional memories with practice. The study may help clinicians develop new therapies for those unable to suppress emotionally distressing memories associated with disorders like post-traumatic stress disorder, phobias, depression, anxiety and obsessive-compulsive syndrome.
• Assistant Professor Pieter Johnson of CU-Boulder's ecology and evolutionary biology department published a 2007 study showing that high levels of nutrients used in farming and ranching activities fuel parasite infections that have caused highly publicized frog deformities in ponds and lakes across North America. It was the first study to show that nutrient enrichment drives the abundance of parasites, known as trematodes, increasing levels of amphibian infection and subsequent malformations.
• Distinguished Professor Thomas Cech shared the 1989 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his discovery that RNA in living cells is not only a molecule of heredity but also can function as a biocatalyst.
• Distinguished Professor Carl Wieman and Professor Eric Cornell in 1995 created a new form of matter called Bose-Einstein condensate, predicted by Albert Einstein in 1924. The condensate occurs when individual atoms meld into a "superatom" behaving as a single entity at temperatures near absolute zero. The achievement, which was awarded the 2001 Nobel Prize in physics, may lead to the creation of precise measuring devices and lasers that could dispense beams of atoms for micro-assembly purposes.
• John Hall (above), a fellow and senior research associate at JILA, was awarded the 2005 Nobel Prize in physics for his contributions to the development of laser-based precision spectroscopy, including the optical frequency comb technique.

Social Sciences

• Leeds School of Business Assistant Professor Peter McGraw was named one of the nation's top scholars by the Marketing Science Institute in February 2007. McGraw was one of only 30 recipients of the biennial honor given to faculty members early in their careers for their potential as leaders in the field of marketing research.
• A CU-Boulder research team reported in 2007 that the average career for a Major League baseball player is 5.6 years. The study also revealed that one in five position players will have only a single-year career, and that at every point of a player's career, the likelihood the player's career will end is at least 11 percent.
• CU-Boulder received a $2.4 million grant to build on already significant collaborations between the School of Education and math and science departments to help improve teacher education in math and science. The grant was one of 12 awarded by the National Math and Science Initiative to implement programs modeled after UTeach, a highly successful math and science teacher preparation program at the University of Texas at Austin.
• Researcher Cory Portnuff in CU-Boulder's speech, language and hearing sciences department, along with researchers at Children's Hospital in Boston, in 2006 produced the first-ever detailed guidelines for safe listening levels for iPods and other portable, digital music players using ear buds or earphones.

Arts and Humanities

• CU-Boulder writing instructor Steven Wingate of the Program for Writing and Rhetoric won the national Katherine Bakeless Nason Fiction Prize in 2007 for his short-story collection Wifeshopping.
• CU-Boulder filmmaker and film studies Professor Philip S. Solomon won the 2007 Thatcher Hoffman Smith Creativity in Motion Prize for his "American Falls" exhibit. The biennial award honors the creative process and is open to all fields of creativity including the arts, cultural affairs, education and science.
• Recognized as one of the world's premier string quartets, the Takács Quartet has been based at CU's College of Music since 1983. The ensemble won a Grammy Award in 2003 in the "Best Chamber Music Performance" category.
• CU-Boulder's opera program staged the first college production of Dead Man Walking in October 2007. The opera was written by librettist Terrence McNally and composer Jake Heggie and is based on the acclaimed book by Sister Helen Prejean, a Catholic nun who opposes the death penalty.
• Under the direction of Professor James Palmer, CU-Boulder hosts and presents the Conference on World Affairs every April. The annual gathering, launched in 1948, brings intellectuals, political pundits, journalists, artists and others to campus to discuss and debate a wide range of issues. The conference was created by the late Professor Howard Higman.
• The Colorado Shakespeare Festival presents a selection of plays every summer in CU-Boulder's Mary Rippon Theatre. With 50 years of distinguished history, the festival features the most advanced students in the CU-Boulder theater and dance department, and also showcases professional artists, including past performers Val Kilmer and Annette Bening.