The CU Boulder Outreach Awards Committee is pleased to announce that 27 faculty-led projects have been selected to receive CU Boulder Outreach Awards for 2021–22.
These awards were started in 1999 to fund university research, teaching and creative work that connects with public needs. Over more than two decades, $6.7 million has been awarded to 863 projects that have directly benefited 5.5 million people in Colorado and beyond.
This year’s projects represent units across campus and will impact more than 16,000 people through innovative pre-K-12 programs, community-based initiatives, legal assistance, STEM education and more.
“Outreach Award funding enables us to keep our program accessible to all students in our community,” said Suzette Malveaux, provost professor and director of the Byron R. White Center for the Study of American Constitutional Law. “ I love that we can educate and empower students from all over the state. Having this funding means we can reduce or waive any programming fees so that everyone can participate.”
Professor Malveaux leads the Constitutional Literacy in Colorado High Schools Program, which has been an Outreach and Engagement Award recipient since 2012. Thus far, 52 CU Boulder students have been involved through the program and supported 1,034 K-12 students.
Project funding for the 2021-22 Outreach Awards totals $375,000, and comes from the Office of the Chancellor, Office of the Provost and the Division of Continuing Education.
The CU Boulder Outreach Awards Committee, composed of faculty and staff members across many disciplines, reviews and selects proposals for funding. The Office for Outreach and Engagement, a unit within Continuing Education, oversees the process and administers the awards. Awarded projects align with the division of Continuing Education’s mission of providing lifelong learning opportunities for diverse populations across Colorado.
These projects represent only a portion of the CU Boulder’s outreach work involving faculty and staff. Currently, there are approximately 220 programs connecting research, creative work and teaching with public needs.
2021–22 Outreach Award recipients by college, school or unit:
College of Arts and Sciences
Attention, Behavior, and Learning Clinic: Affordable Childhood Evaluations
Research Associate Nomita Chhabildas
Professor Erik Willcutt
Department of Psychology and Neuroscience
Brain Behavior Clinic and Boulder County Homelessness
Associate Clinical Professor Emily D. Richardson
Department of Psychology and Neuroscience
CU Contemporary Dance Works Residency Tour
Assistant Professor Helanius Wilkins
Ondine Geary, Production, Outreach & Engagement Liaison
Department of Theatre & Dance
Literacy Practicum
Professor Kira Hall, Department of Linguistics
Raichle Farrelly, Program Director, TESOL
School of Education
2021 CU Children’s Book Festival
Associate Professor Bridget Dalton, Program in Literacy Studies
Chair Jacalyn Colt, Development Advisory Board
Aquetza: Youth Education, Leadership, and Community Empowerment Program
Associate Professor Enrique Lopez
Public Achievement: Building Equity with First-Generation Immigrant Youth
Roudy Hildreth, Executive Director
Soraya Latiff, Assistant Director
Charla Agnoletti, Program Director
CU Engage
Graduate School
Colombia Infrastructure: Upgrading for Displaced Communities
Assistant Professor Jota Samper
Program in Environmental Design
Colorado Law
Constitutional Literacy in Colorado High Schools
Provost Professor Suzette Malveaux, Director, Byron R. White Center for the Study of American Constitutional Law
Clinical Professor Colene Robinson, Co-Director, Juvenile and Family Law Program
Matthew Cushing, Director, Executive and Community Learning Programs
Senior Assistant Dean, Jennifer Sullivan, Program Development
The Acequia Project: Helping San Luis Valley Farmers
Moses Lasky Professor Sarah Krakoff
College of Music
Colorado Lullaby Project: Nurturing Social Connection Through Song
Associate Professor Jeffrey Nytch, Director
Entrepreneurship Center for Music
Emerging Composer Project (ECP) for area High Schools
Associate Professor Carter Pann
Department of Music Composition
Research Institutes
Craniate: Superpowered Learning for Underserved Students
Instructor Shaz Zamore
ATLAS Institute
Expanding Representation and Access: Colorado Archaeology in Classrooms
Assistant Professor Samantha Fladd, Curator, Department of Anthropology and CU Museum of Natural History
Assistant Professor William Taylor, Department of Anthropology and CU Museum of Natural History
James Hakala, Senior Educator, CU Museum of Natural History
Patrick Cruz, PhD Candidate, Department of Anthropology
Researcher-Practitioner Collaborations for Rural Community Wildfire Risk Reduction
Associate Professor Hannah Brenkert-Smith
Institute of Behavioral Science
Supporting Tribal Language Initiatives, Sovereignty with Visual Learning
Associate Professor Jennifer Shannon, Curator
CU Museum of Natural History and Department of Anthropology
Interdisciplinary and Faculty Group Awards
A Collaborative Project at the Texas-Tamaulipas Border
Distinguished Professor Bernard Amadei, Department of Civil, Environmental, & Architectural Engineering
Associate Professor Christina Sue, Department of Sociology
Professor David Cook-Martín, Department of Sociology
Soundscapes of the People
Professor Susan Thomas, Director, American Music Research Center and College of Music
Associate Professor Austin Okigbo, Chair, Department of Musicology
Associate Professor Arturo Aldama, Chair, Department of Ethnic Studies
Assistant Professor Natalie Mendoza Gutierrez, Department of History
Professor Patty Limerick, Director, Center of the American West
Jason Romero, Director, Latino History Project
Assistant Professor Xochitl Chavez, Department of Ethnomusicology, University of California, Riverside
Building Early Language and Math Together
Associate Professor Eliana Colunga
Assistant Professor Lei Yuan
Department of Psychology & Neuroscience
CU Restoration Ecology Experiential Learning Program
Professor Emeritus and Senior Fellow Timothy Seastedt, Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research
Professor Sharon Collinge, Environmental Studies Program
Assistant Professor Katherine Lininger, Department of Geography
Instructor Tracy Halward, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Kristin Lopez, Academic Services Associate Director, Department of Molecular, Cellular & Developmental Biology
Engaging Underserved Students with CU’s Cutting-edge Space Research
Assistant Professor Carolyn Crow, Department of Geological Sciences
Assistant Professor Paul Hayne, Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences
John Keller, Planetarium Director, Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences
Empowering Economically Disadvantaged Adolescents with Complex Communication Needs
Clinical Scholar in Residence Sherri Tennant
Assistant Professor Christine Brennan, Coordinator of Undergraduate Studies
Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences
Empowering Marginalized Girls in STEM through Symbiosis Modeling
Assistant Professor Jingchun Li, Curator of Invertebrates, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Museum and Field Studies Program
Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow Mike Gil, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
John Keller, Planetarium Director, Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences
Carl Simpson, Curator of Invertebrate Paleontology, Department of Geological Sciences
Gianna Sullivan, Science Program Coordinator, CU Museum of Natural History
Fostering Inquiry-Based K-12 Science Teaching with Authentic Data
Erika Lynne Harden, Education & Outreach Associate, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences
Assistant Professor Melissa Braaten, School of Education
Research Associate Kerri Wingert, Institute of Cognitive Science
Jonathan Griffith, Education & Outreach Associate, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences
Anne Gold, Director of CIRES Education & Outreach, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences
SCENIC Expansion: Developing Outreach Pathways in Rural Colorado
Research Associate Daniel Knight, Department of Mechanical Engineering
Professor Mike Hannigan, Chair, Department of Mechanical Engineering
Professor Joseph Polman, Associate Dean for Research, Program in Learning Sciences and Human Development
Associate Professor Greg Whiting, Department of Mechanical Engineering
Shakespeare & Violence Prevention in Schools
Senior Research Associate Beverly Kingston, Director, Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence
Associate Professor Kevin Rich, Associate Chair, Department of Theatre & Dance
Associate Professor Tamara Meneghini, Department of Theatre & Dance
Amanda Giguere, Director of Outreach, Colorado Shakespeare Festival
Heidi Schmidt, Outreach Specialist, Colorado Shakespeare Festival
Research Assistant Laurie Keith, Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence
The SOE-Uni Hill Partnership for Equity
Associate Professor Andrea Dyrness, School of Education
Associate Professor Deborah Palmer, School of Education
Assistant Professor Enrique Sepulveda, Department of Ethnic Studies