Research & Creative Work 2018-19

The university has again attracted a听record amount of research funding, this year drawing an incredible听$631 million. This marks the third year in a row the university has听attracted more than half a billion dollars in research funding and听represents a 23 percent increase over the previous year.

This year鈥檚 stories鈥攁 cross-section of the trailblazing research,听scholarship and creative work taking place across CU Boulder鈥斕齛re as innovative and fascinating as ever. In the following pages,听you鈥檒l learn about our contributions to the largest Central Arctic听expedition ever, the first U.S. mission to return samples from an听asteroid to Earth, and new hope in the battle against antibiotic-resistant听鈥渟uperbugs,鈥� just to name a few.

CU Boulder researchers walking across the arctic to study climate

A year in the ice

The Arctic is warming faster than any other region on the planet, with enormous implications for the future of global climate. This year, CU Boulder researchers will play a leading role in a historic expedition to study one of the Earth鈥檚 most remote environments firsthand.

Sensors monitoring indoor air quality from cooking

A secret pollution hot spot: your home

Cooking, cleaning and other routine household activities generate significant levels of volatile and particulate chemicals inside the average home, leading to indoor air quality levels on par with a polluted major city, CU Boulder researchers have found.

CU Boulder Professor Lupita Montoya and undergraduate student standing behind bottles of nail polish

The hidden risk of nail salons

When CU Boulder Professor Lupita Montoya walked into a nail salon years ago, she was struck by the pungent smell of open chemicals used in gel and acrylic nail applications. The air quality couldn鈥檛 be very good in such a confined space with poor ventilation, she suspected, and decided to use her background as a mechanical engineer to investigate further.

Professor Corrie Detweiler looking at bacteria

Kryptonite for superbugs?

With antibiotic-resistant 鈥渟uperbugs鈥� infecting 2 million people per year, and a dearth of new medications in the pipeline to treat them, CU Boulder researchers are taking a novel approach to addressing the looming public health crisis:听They鈥檙e developing new drugs to make old drugs work better.

Innovation ecosystem achieves liftoff

With a trophy case overflowing with 鈥渕ost entrepreneurial鈥� and 鈥渂est in innovation鈥� awards, nearly $2 billion in economic impact from university commercialization efforts, and the recent Innovation and Economic Prosperity University designation from the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, the university and community make a convincing case for entrepreneurial students, faculty and community partners who want to turn their ideas into reality.听

Students critical to massive drone study of tornadoes

Researchers from CU Boulder flew drones into severe storms this spring听for project TORUS, one of the largest and most ambitious drone-based听investigations of meteorological phenomena ever, with students leading听much of the work.

Taking the measure of an asteroid

On Dec. 4, 2018, NASA鈥檚 Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource听Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft听zipped to within 4.5 miles of the asteroid Bennu. This space rock has an听orbit that carries it relatively near to Earth about once every six years.

Martha Russo and Bruce Price in an pedestrian underpass

Out-of-this world art project

A large-scale campus collaboration is underway to visually pay homage to the significant contributions CU Boulder has made to space exploration. The SpaceTime Underpass project will be a permanent public art installation inside a key campus pedestrian underpass on Regent Drive.

Innovation means:

We asked this year鈥檚 Faculty Fellows how they see their research, scholarship or creative work ultimately pioneering new paths forward or changing the world for the better.

What innovation means to the RIO Faculty Fellows