I am always truly amazed and impressed by the dedication and commitment that I see each day to the mission and values of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. All of our outstanding winners have accomplished much and deserve our acknowledgement and appreciation; I’m sure you will agree after reading more about all of their achievements. I am deeply honored to serve as dean for the college, especially during these unusual times, and am pleased to recognize these Dean’s Awards recipients for the 2019-2020 academic year.

- Dean Pamela Janmsa

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Outstanding Bachelor of Arts Fall 2019

Esther Asherit Bellinsky (International Studies)

Esther Bellinsky is an activist and a change-agent dedicated to contributing to a more peaceful society. As a passionate advocate of peacebuilding, Esther has developed a variety of independent projects including a video series called Reflections of Peace, which documents conversations around peace and conflict between young Israeli and Palestinian women. Esther has also co-founded the PeaceXchange organization, in collaboration with the Rotary club and the University of Colorado Denver Political Science department. PeaceXchange provides academic resources, professional development opportunities, internships, career options, and more for young students interested in peacebuilding. Esther graduated from the University of Colorado Denver in December of 2019 with a BA degree in International Studies with an emphasis in Peace, Human Rights and Security in the Islamic World. Esther speaks Arabic, English, and Hebrew and intends to utilize these languages in the future to create constructive dialogue between Israelis, Palestinians and the Arab World. When she is not passionately working towards a more peaceful future, Esther can be found curled up inside with a good book, practicing yoga in the grass or taking care of her plants. 

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Outstanding Bachelor of Arts Spring 2020

Alyssa Romero (English Writing and Philosophy)

Alyssa began her academic journey at the Community College of Denver where she graduated with an Associate’s Degree in Paralegal studies. She transferred to CU Denver to pursue her Bachelor’s in Philosophy and English Writing. She is currently in a leadership role with CU Denver’s chapter of the National Society of Collegiate Scholars (NSCS), works as a manager of a restaurant and volunteers at an immigration law firm.  She originally wanted to become an addiction counselor in order to help good people who may have made bad decisions and later came to focus on Law as a career, realizing a lot of people struggle with addiction and mental health issues partly because of a failed legal system. Alyssa says, “I enjoy working with people who are nothing like me, because this is when I learn the most about myself…My passion to see people happy goes beyond the tasks I complete and transfers to people I am able to work with.” She will graduate summa cum laude, will apply to law school in the Fall and plans to impact her community on a legislative level.

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Outstanding Bachelor of Science Fall 2019

Anna Karymeé Jensen (Integrative Biology)

Anna Jensen is a first-generation student and is the first woman in her maternal lineage to make it past middle school. She is very service oriented and started an organization to help cancer patients feel more connected to their community through hats and letters and has shaved her head for donations to The Childhood Leukemia Foundation. Anna got involved in the food justice movement and began volunteering regularly at pay-what-you can gardens as well as grocery cooperatives. Throughout her time at CU Denver, she worked in Dr. Reed’s research lab on a pharmacogenomics project via computational chemistry. In her last semester, Anna published a portfolio of poetry, a long-time project of hers with mentor Dr. Eliot Wilson. Graduating at 19 years old with a B.S. in Biology, Anna plans to continue her studies and pursue a PhD in genetics. Anna aims to help people understand themselves and make informed decisions about their bodies and lives. This extends into her preferred area of research, which includes gene editing therapies for diseases such cystic fibrosis and cancer. 

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Outstanding Bachelor of Science Spring 2020

Shaely Folger (Integrative Biology)

Throughout her four years at CU Denver Shaely was involved in a variety of student organizations and professional associations such as The National Society of Leadership and Success (Sigma Alpha Pi) and the Pre-Physician Assistant Club, among others. The Golden Key International Honor Society invited her to join the International Scholar Laureate Program - Delegation of Medicine and Science in Australia. This program provided her a life-changing educational and cultural opportunity to further her education in the global medical field with other scholars across the world. Shaely volunteers at OrthoColorado Hospital, part of Centura Health, focusing on giving patients the most comfortable experience throughout the stages of orthopedic surgery by nurturing the health of those in their community. She is also a clinical research intern at the Barbara Davis Center for Childhood Diabetes at University of Colorado Anschutz School of Medicine. Her future goals include attending the PA Program at the University of Colorado Anschutz and becoming an Orthopedic Physician Assistant specializing in sports medicine.

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Outstanding Master of Arts Fall 2019

Kaylyn Mercuri (History)

Kaylyn is committed to bringing academic history to the public and involving students in her Department’s culture. She received a Koch Fellowship at Colorado History, edited the Colorado Heritage Magazine, led educational tours, participated in the museum’s historic preservation projects, and processed nominations for the National Register of Historic Places. Through her Public History coursework, Kaylyn designed an exhibit for the Fort Vasquez Museum, managed collections at the Denver Firefighters Museum, and planned a “Women in the West” Lecture at the Byers-Evans House Museum. Kaylyn also oversaw the department’s website transition to Drupal and created and maintained new webpages enabling students to view past course rotations and plan future course selections. She is currently working on a pop-up exhibit on Women’s Suffrage that will circulate between the History Colorado Community Museums and is looking forward to entering the professional world of museums.

Outstanding Master of Arts Spring 2020

Katherine Bleakley (Economics)

Kate comes from a culturally diverse, mixed family that includes a Buddhist nun mother, a father from a low-income family, and an Uruguayan immigrant stepmother.  She has been a Research Assistant in the Economics Department and was one of the founding members of the Economics Graduate Student Council. Outside of the classroom, Kate gives back to her community by volunteering for organizations such as Habitat for Humanity.  She is committed to pursuing a career as an academic researcher and professor in economics and intends to encourage younger female students to pursue economic research.  Her master’s thesis is entitled “The Effect of Immigration Enforcement on Women’s Professional Advancement,” and studies the tradeoff between career investments and childcare for highly skilled women. Kate plans to continue on for the PhD and says “My specific fields of interest are labor economics, public economics, and health economics…and my long-term goal is to pursue a career as a tenure-track professor at a research university.”

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Outstanding Master of Science Fall 2019

Thu Ly (Chemistry)

As a young scientist from Vietnam eager for growth and innovation, Thu wanted to advance her potential to the fullest and University of Colorado Denver was the springboard which jumpstarted her discovery of computational chemistry. With the encouragement of her professors, she is proud to have built a robust research portfolio specializing in chemical bond forming and reactions. Her insights have since been recognized in esteemed publications such as the Journal of American Chemistry Society, while paving the way for several more papers furthering her field. Thu says “I continue to carry CU Denver’s spirit of excellence through my work in food quality assurance, where I infuse my passion for chemistry with advancing the development of a sustainable global food supply chain.”

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Outstanding Master of Science Spring 2020

Marianne Elizabeth Davenport (Integrative Biology)

During her MS program at the University of Colorado Denver, Marianne researched the life history biology of an important forest pest in the Ragland Lab and worked 6 months of each year at Forest Health Protection in the United States Forest Service (USFS). Some of her research accomplishments include; presenting at international and national conferences and earning Honorable Mention for the highly competitive National Science Foundation’s Graduate Student Research Fellowship.  She also recruited and mentored more than 8 undergraduate students to engage in research projects in the Ragland lab. In addition to her research with CU Denver, Marianne has been able to directly engage in forest management in her position at USFS, promoting healthy and resilient forests in collaboration with a team of other researchers, forest pathologists and entomologists. In the future she wants to continue helping protect our forests by working in forestry research at a federal or state agency in a position able to make substantial applied contributions. Marianne says, “By researching forest pests, I can help inform future forest management practices that will have a direct and immediate impact on the future of our vast landscapes. The knowledge I have gained during graduate school, by learning more about the distribution and behavior of insects that affect our forests, will play an integral role...”

Outstanding Doctoral Student Fall 2019

Elizabeth Rose Pansing (Integrative Biology)

Throughout her time as a graduate student in the Department of Integrative Biology, Libby established a successful record of manuscript publication, acquired nearly $50,000 in funding for her master’s and doctoral research, and presented research findings at a variety of international, national, and regional conferences. She published two first-author publications, one chapter from her dissertation in the journal Forests and one resulting from her master’s work in the Journal of Ecology and Evolution. In addition, she has two manuscripts in review, and five in preparation in collaboration with researchers from CU Denver, the Rocky Mountain Tree Ring Lab, Montana State University, and Conservation Science Partners. Following graduation, she will be moving into a postdoctoral scholar position where she will investigate drivers of biodiversity in alpine plant communities across Europe and how those drivers change as a function of geospatial scale. Following her postdoctoral studies, she intends to pursue a career as a forest researcher with one of the national resource management agencies (e.g., US Forest Service, National Park Service). 

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Outstanding Doctoral Student Spring 2020

Holly K. O’Donnell (Clinical Health Psychology)

Holly O’Donnell is a doctoral candidate in the Clinical Health Psychology program and pre-doctoral intern at Harvard Medical School/ Boston Children’s Hospital. As a graduate student, she worked on several NIH-funded Randomized Controlled Trials focused on integrating behavioral health services into routine care and addressing psychosocial barriers to adherence in youth with type 1 diabetes. During her graduate training, she published manuscripts in well-respected academic journals and a book chapter on self-management behaviors and adherence in pediatric type 1 diabetes. She will begin a T32 post-doctoral fellowship at the Barbara Davis Center on the Anschutz Medical Campus this summer.

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Teaching Excellence Award: Instructional, Research and Clinical Faculty

Maren T. Scull (Sociology)

Dr. Maren Scull is an Assistant Professor, Clinical Teaching Track in the Department of Sociology.  She uses qualitative methods to conduct research in the areas of deviance, sexualities, gender, and social psychology.  Dr. Scull is passionate about teaching and teaches a variety of classes that align with her areas of expertise such as Deviant Behavior, Introduction to Social Psychology, Sociology of Human Sexuality, and Qualitative Methods.  Her teaching philosophy involves acting as an academic coach rather than an instructor in order to motivate students to be active participants in their own education and to enjoy the process of learning.  Dr. Scull generates an interest in sociology and encourages student engagement by incorporating her own research on male exotic dancers and women in sugar relationships into her teaching.  Dr. Scull is also committed to fostering diversity and inclusion in her courses by including community engagement assignments geared to educating students about the needs of the LGBTQ+ community.

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Teaching Excellence Award: Tenure Track Faculty

Audrey E. Hendricks (Mathematical and Statistical Sciences)

Dr. Hendricks is a biostatistician working in the complex nature of human diseases and traits. Her research spans a variety of health and disease projects. Recent collaborative projects include understanding the mechanisms and mediators behind successful nutrition interventions in children and adults. Her recent methodological work is built around the paradigm of flipping the observational unit enabling adjustment and modeling of heterogeneity within large summary datasets. She is proud to mentor many graduate students and to have an active and dynamic undergraduate research group working on important statistical challenges in human genetics. She is passionate about both making scientific advances and training the next generation of statisticians and critical thinkers. She believes that data science literacy is essential for an engaged and functioning society and that a higher level of understanding is and will continue to be needed for the majority of top careers. She strives to remove barriers to learning and success so that students can achieve goals they have dreamt of or never believed possible. It is with these deep-rooted beliefs that she approaches all of her teaching and mentoring. Dr. Hendricks looks forward to continuing to teach and mentor people of all levels in statistics and research. She plans to focus on developing widely accessible modular content and building diverse networks of researchers, mentors, and teachers.

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Teaching Excellence Award: Tenure Track Faculty

Adam Lippert (Sociology)

Dr. Lippert is a sociologist and demographer whose research applies quantitative methods to understand the social determinants of population health disparities. He was a recipient of the 2019 Dean's Award for Graduate Mentoring and has published over 20 research articles since joining CU Denver in 2015, four of which were published with student coauthors. In addition to his teaching activities, he directs the Sociology Department's Graduate Program and regularly supervises student-led projects related to health, demography, and quantitative methods.

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Teaching Excellence Award: Tenure Track Faculty

Annika C. Mosier (Integrative Biology)

Annika Mosier is an Assistant Professor in the Integrative Biology Department at the University of Colorado Denver. Her lab conducts research aimed at understanding microbial community structure and function in the environment. Her research focuses on two primary areas: (1) freshwater microbial nitrogen cycling, and (2) microbial responses to environmental change such as antibiotic pollution and forest fires. This research is accomplished through independent and collaborative projects that involve undergraduate and graduate student researchers. Dr. Mosier brings her enthusiasm for microbiology and research into the classroom setting to engage students by drawing them into the intersection between microscopic life and macroscopic issues. She is particularly passionate about supporting students from diverse backgrounds. She uses the classroom and research lab as an opportunity to educate, train, and mentor underrepresented science students to promote their resiliency and persistence in their degree programs and science careers.

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Excellence in Research and Creative Activities Award: Instructional, Research and Clinical Faculty

Emily Wortman-Wunder (English)

Emily Wortman-Wunder is an award-winning essayist and fiction writer, with pieces published or forthcoming in Guernica, Kenyon Review, Vela, Creative Nonfiction, High Country News, and elsewhere. Her book of stories, Not a Thing to Comfort You, won the 2019 Iowa Short Fiction Award and was published by the University of Iowa Press in October 2019. It was also a finalist for the Colorado Book Award. Her work draws on her ten years of experience as a wildlife biologist and technical writer, exploring the emotional resonance of place by drawing on history, ecology, landscape art, and folklore. She teaches scientific writing in the English Department at the University of Colorado Denver, both on the Denver Downtown campus and at Anschutz. She is currently at work on a novel.

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Excellence in Research and Creative Activities Awards: Tenure and Tenure Track Faculty

Gregory Ragland (Integrative Biology)
Dr. Ragland is an evolutionary biologist studying how organisms use dormancy to synchronize their life cycles with variable environments. He is also interested in the development and physiology of dormancy, a fascinating state of suspended animation. Dr. Ragland says, “I have been fortunate to be supported by the CU Denver community and collaborators in this research, allowing our research team to make major new discoveries about how dormancy is regulated, and how it can rapidly evolve in the face of changing climates.” His newest projects investigate the molecular ‘brakes’ that modulate cell proliferation and differentiation during dormancy, and the molecular basis for transcriptional control at very low temperatures. This research has been supported by funding from the National Science Foundation, the Austrian Science Fund, The US Department of Agriculture, and CU Denver, and has resulted in 16 peer-reviewed publications including postdoctoral and student authors since 2016. He participates broadly in service to the general scientific community, regularly serving on NSF review panels, organizing symposia, and editing special journal issues. Most recently, he has become a lead editor for Physiological Entomology, a British Royal Society journal.

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Excellence in Research and Creative Activities Awards: Tenure and Tenure Track Faculty

Daniel I. Rees (Economics)
Daniel I. Rees is a Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Colorado Denver, an IZA Research Fellow, and an NBER Research Associate.  He is also a Co-Editor at the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, an Associate Editor at the Journal of Population Economics, and an Associate Editor at Economic Inquiry.  He received his B.A. from Oberlin College in 1986, his M.S. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1988, and his Ph.D. from the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations in 1992. Professor Rees is interested in a wide range of topics including the determinants of risky adolescent behavior and the effects of prenatal stress on child health.  He is currently studying the mortality transition at the turn of the 20th century, the relationship between midwifery laws and maternal mortality, and the long-term effects of smoking on health. ​ 

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Excellence in Research and Creative Activities Awards: Tenure and Tenure Track Faculty

Xiaojun Ren (Chemistry)
Dr. Xiaojun Ren is a faculty member in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Colorado Denver and has made great contributions to the scientific field and the University. Dr. Ren has demonstrated that the master regulators of development (PcG proteins) undergo liquid-liquid phase separation to form liquid droplets that control development. This discovery was selected as “The Year in the Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC)” to represent the exciting advances and breakthroughs in the field of gene regulation. Dr. Ren has identified new therapeutic targets for pediatric brain tumors (DIPG), which was published in the Nature journal, Nature Communications. Dr. Ren has been awarded a prestigious NIH R01 grant, totaling $1.26 million, and served as a panel member of NIH standard study section. 

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Faculty Leadership and Service Award

jimi adams (Health and Behavioral Sciences)
jimi adams is an Associate Professor in the Department of Health and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Colorado Denver. From 2016-1019, he served as the director of our undergraduate programs in Public Health. His research focuses on how networks constrain or promote the diffusion of information and/or diseases through populations. He also has a primary interest in leveraging social network theory to improve strategies used in the design and implementation of primary data collection projects, which resulted in his recent book, Gathering Social Network Data (SAGE, 2019). He has served on the editorial boards of the American Journal of Sociology and Journal of Health & Social Behavior, American Sociological Review and Social Networks.

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Faculty Leadership and Service Award

Peter Anthamatten (Geography and Environmental Sceinces)
Associate Professor Peter Anthamatten arrived at CU Denver in the department of Geography and Environmental Sciences (GES) in 2008. The focus of his research and teaching work is in medical geography, the study of how physical and built environments impact human health, and geospatial science. His primary teaching responsibilities include cartography, spatial statistics, geographic information science, and health geography. Dr. Anthamatten has served in a variety of service capacities in his department, CLAS, and CU Denver. From Fall 2017 to Spring 2019 he served as the Chair of the CU Denver Faculty Assembly where he worked to lead CU Denver’s faculty engagement with shared governance at CU, enhance efforts to work with CU administrators to revise Article V of the Regent’s Laws, review and revise grading and FCQ policies, and advocate on behalf of faculty for broad range of policy and administrative concerns. Starting last fall, he began a term as Chair of the department Geography and Environmental Sciences in CLAS.

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Faculty Leadership and Service Award

Amanda Charlesworth (Integrative Biology)
Dr. Charlesworth has served as Faculty Advisor for CU Denver Biology Club since 2013 and is proud that in 2019 they won the Milo award for Outstand Student Organization. She is also recognized for service to her department as Co-Chair of the Awards, Scholarship and Outreach Committee for assembling an alumni newsletter every semester; as a co-leader for implementing Inclusive Excellence in introductory biology as part of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute initiative; and as Associate Chair for leading an effort to codify laboratory coordinator and teaching assistant responsibilities, expectations and grievance processes.Says Dr. Charlesworth, “I grew up in the rural north of England with coal miners, steelworkers and farmers. Although I was aiming for drug design in a pharmaceutical company I ended up researching gene expression mechanisms in eggs and embryos.”  She is currently trying to figure out how RNA granules are assembled in frog eggs and how the frog embryo takes control of its own destiny.

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Partner In Philanthropy Award

Anthony Fontana (CLAS Admissions and Recruitment)
The University of Colorado Denver Office of Advancement and College of Liberal Arts and Sciences are pleased to present the 2020 CLAS Partner in Philanthropy Award to Anthony Fontana in in recognition of his extraordinary collaboration and commitment to expanding philanthropic support for CU Denver and its students. Anthony started his career in education as a high school Spanish teacher and transitioned to higher education a few years later. He says, “My focus is supporting students through their entire college career, from the moment they first connect with CU Denver until they become proud alumni.” He started at CU Denver in 2015 in the Office of Admissions & K-12 Outreach and transitioned to the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences in 2018. Prior to joining the team at CU Denver he worked for the College of Business at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

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Outstanding Staff Member Award

Angela Beale (Master of Humanities/Master of Social Sciences)
Angela has been with CU Denver’s College of Liberal Arts & Sciences for just over 17 years. One of her favorite parts of her job is being able to work with great faculty and staff within her own program, the Master of Humanities and Social Sciences (MHMSS), as well as connecting with others in departments throughout the college. Angela has served on numerous hiring committees for the Dean’s office as well as other departments within CLAS. Along with other CLAS staff, Angela spearheaded an effort to create a handbook designed to train and assist incoming Program Assistants. She loves getting to know others and dedicates portions of her time to help mentor some of the newer staff in the college. One of her more recent projects has been improving marketing materials and recruiting efforts for her program. Currently, Angela serves as the vice-chair elect for the newly formed CLAS Staff Council.  She is honored to have the opportunity to listen to the concerns of fellow CLAS staff in this position and strives to find creative and positive solutions for them in this role.

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Outstanding Faculty Achievement Award

Sarah K. Fields (Communication)
Sarah K. Fields began her road to being a Professor in Communication when, at the age of seven, she was one of the first girls to play in the St. Louis metro soccer league. She competed at four different universities in a number of sports as a student, picking up various degrees and learning that she could study sports for a living.  She has taught sport studies type courses at multiple universities to graduates and undergraduates; many of those students who went on to improve the sport industry as more informed and critical fans and participants. Dr. Fields’ research topic of sport in American Culture with a particular focus on gender, race, law, and injury has proved popular, and she has published three books and about 75 articles and book chapters.  Since her arrival in CLAS in 2013, she has continued to teach sport focused classes as well as Famous U.S. Trials about non-sport cases.  She has served as CLAS Council Chair, as Associate Dean of Student Success, and on a vast number of committees. In the future, she hopes to improve her golf and curling skills, finish her next book on athlete activism and the law, serve on a reasonable number of committees, and continue to work with the remarkable students of CU Denver.

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University of Colorado President’s Teaching Scholar

Campus Award Winner

Laurel Hartley (Integrative Biology)

Associate Professor of Integrative Biology Laurel Hartley was recently given the honor of being designated a University of Colorado President’s Teaching Scholar. She joins a prestigious group of more than 50 active Scholars from all four campuses.

Dr. Hartley has a deep interest in improving instruction and inclusion in undergraduate STEM courses. She co-founded the STEM Learning Assistant Program at CU Denver and is a leader in the International Learning Assistant Alliance. She conducts research related to how Learning Assistants (LAs) impact STEM courses. She also conducts research to assess and improve how students understand biological concepts and apply scientific principles, especially concepts and principles related to ecology. She does work at both the undergraduate and grades K-12 levels. She is also has active research in urban ecology, related to monitoring urban wildlife and exploring how factors of urbanization influence wildlife biodiversity and zoonotic disease. As part of this work, she studies how undergraduate students can contribute to authentic ecological research through Course Based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs).

Finally, Dr. Hartley has studied the impact of introduced bubonic plague on both urban and rural black-tailed prairie dog (Cynomys ludovicianus) communities. Dr. Hartley completed a postdoctoral position at Michigan State University, a PhD in Ecology and MS in Biology at Colorado State University, and a BS at Southwestern University. She also briefly worked at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History as the content researcher for an exhibition entitled Dig It! Secrets of Soil. Dr. Hartley plans to continue studying learning, instruction and inclusion in undergraduate STEM.

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Sharon L. Coggan (Philosophy/Religious Studies)

Dr. Coggan has been a member of the faculty at CU Denver since Fall 1978. She was a Lecturer for 21 years and during that time taught all over Denver and in Boulder. She says, “This allowed me to make wonderful contacts with students some of whom became life-long friends.” She was promoted to Sr. Instructor in 1999 and developed the Religious Studies Program, which launched in 2000 and served as its Director until her retirement. In 2012 she was promoted to Associate Professor C/T as a member of the very first cohort to be awarded that new faculty position. Dr. Coggan’s book, Sacred Disobedience: A Jungian Analysis of the Saga of Pan and the Devil is forthcoming from Rowman & Littlefield. In her retirement, she plans to travel, have fun, relax and audit classes including in Physics, Astronomy, Geology and other sciences.

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Paula A. Espinoza (Ethnic Studies)

Paula A. Espinoza, received her PhD in Sociocultural Psychology from the University of Colorado Boulder and is a Clinical Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Colorado Denver. She formally held a secondary appointment in Community Behavioral Health at the Colorado School of Public Health and was the Director for Health Research at UCD’s Latino/a Research & Policy Center. Dr. Espinoza’s research addresses social determinants of Latino health disparities through culturally-tailored interventions, utilizing a community-based participatory research approach.  She is the former Chair of the Colorado Cancer Coalition, is a 9-year breast cancer survivor, and is a named Health Disparities Scholar under the National Institute on Minority Health & Health Disparities.  Within the Ethnic Studies program, Dr. Espinoza taught several courses including Intro to Chicanx Studies, Chicana/o & Latina/o History, Culture, Racism, & Alienation, and Ethnicity, Health and Social Justice.  She is most proud of creating an online major and minor for the department. Dr. Espinoza also served as the CU-Succeed liaison and coordinator for the last three years. Dr. Espinoza was the first in her family to graduate from college and is a seventh generation Tejana, originally from San Antonio, Texas. In retirement, she plans to spend time writing family history and stories and looks forward to spending more quality time with her family, gardening, and traveling.

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Rebecca A. Hunt (History)

Associate Professor C/T Rebecca Hunt taught her first class as a lecturer for CU Denver in 1999. She became a Senior Instructor in 2005 and was part of the pioneer group of CTT faculty at CU Denver. Dr. Hunt expanded the History Department’s Public History program by developing new courses in museum practice. At the core of this program are partnerships in the museum community, which give students solid hands-on experience. This experiential learning has become a hallmark of the program. Dr. Hunt’s books include, A Century of Healing: Swedish Medical Center (2005) and Wyoming Medical Center: A Centennial History (2011). Natrona County: People, Place and Time (2011) and an edited volume of biographies of early families in Casper Wyoming (2016).  She co-produced a documentary in 2008, A Woman to Match a Mountain, on Neal Forsling, Casper, Wyoming homesteader, artist and writer. Two manuscripts, Urban Pioneers: Continuity and Change in Two Denver Immigrant Neighborhoods and Snow Stories, A History of Skiing on Casper Mountain, Wyoming, as well as a biography of Neal Forsling are at the center of her plans for retirement. She also serves on the steering committee for History Colorado’s Center for Colorado Women’s History and on the 19th amendment commemoration.

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Steve Koester (Anthropology)

Dr. Steve Koester is an internationally recognized Applied Medical Anthropologist whose moral compass and a compassion for people is at the forefront of his research.  His work on the behavioral factors of disease vectors, especially Hepatitis C and HIV/AIDS with work in the Denver Metropolitan area, Bangladesh, and Vietnam is particularly noteworthy.  He has a long-standing interest in sustainability, the rights of local communities and the effects of development on those communities.  He was involved in founding the needle exchange program in Denver and educational programs in Public Health in Vietnam.  Today he is active in programs for the rights of homeless in Denver and continues his work with Denver Health on issues opioid overdose and the use of intravenous drug use among the homeless community. Dr. Koester came to CU Denver from the medical school in the early 1990s as an Associate Professor and one of the founding members of the PhD program in Health and Behavioral Sciences, as well as helping to shape the current Medical Anthropology program at the MA level.  He is passionate about his students, creating numerous classes to meet pressing issues in our society and has overseen countless undergraduate research projects, independent studies, honor’s thesis, MA thesis, and PhD committees. Tammy Stone, Chair of Anthropology says, “He is a wonderful colleague – always supportive of others.  His excitement at others’ successes and support in difficult times demonstrates his unselfish nature.  I am honored to call him my friend...” 

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Steven L. Maxson (Physics)

Dr. Steven Maxson completed his JD at the University of Denver (1976) and received his PhD in Physics from the University of Texas at Austin (1996). He practiced law in Denver from 1976 until 1989, when he went back to get his PhD as he had been drafted out of graduate school during the Vietnam era. Dr. Maxson was a part time Senior Instructor with CU Denver Physics from late August, 1996, and had enough part time hours to go on benefits from September, 1999 until May, 2020.

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Carol Rivas Morken (Advising)

Carol has had a thirty-year career in higher education working at four institutions including University of San Diego, University Chicago, Colorado State University, Pueblo (formerly University of Southern Colorado), and the University of Colorado Denver (since 2002).  Carol’s career has been to work with students to promote their engagement in their college experience and developing programs and services that foster student success, persistence, and graduation. Carol’s mission has been to lead her office each year to the next level of service excellence for our students and to strive to be the model of academic advising for the campus.  This includes growing and developing the CLAS Undergraduate Advising team from 4 staff members in 2002 to 21 staff as of 2020.  Carol’s promotion to Assistant Dean in 2005 provided her the opportunity to collaborate with five outstanding Academic Deans and eight Associate Deans. Her initial plans in her retirement are to travel the United States to visit all the major league baseball fields, enjoy some National Parks and drink some great wine at vineyards along the way. 

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Thomas Jacob Noel (History)

Thomas Jacob Noel is a Professor of History and Director of Public History, Preservation & Colorado Studies at the University of Colorado Denver. Since 1976, Dr. Noel has been at CU-Denver as a student, graduate assistant, lecturer, honorarium teacher, assistant, associate and full professor and as chair of the history department. He completed his B.A. at the University of Denver and his M.A. and Ph.D. at CU-Boulder.  Dr. Noel was named Colorado's State Historian in 2018. He is the author or co-author of 53 books and a longtime former Sunday columnist for the Rocky Mountain News and The Denver Post. He appears regularly as “Dr. Colorado” on Channel 9’s “Colorado & Company.”  His latest books including A Short History of Denver, Denver Landmarks & Historic Districts and Boom & Bust Colorado. His book, Colorado: A Historical Atlas won three prizes as the best history book of 2016. Dr. Noel is also co-author of Colorado: A History of the Centennial State, as well as co-author of a middle school and high school textbook on Colorado History. In 2018 History Colorado appointed Dr. Noel the Colorado State Historian. Please check Tom’s website: dr-colorado.com for a list of his books, classes, tours and talk and books.

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Catherine Ann Wiley (English)

Cate Wiley taught drama and women writers in the English Department for thirty years, starting at CU Denver in 1990, and has recently embarked on a new career as a playwright focusing on women's stories. Her plays have been seen in Denver, Seattle, and New York, with an upcoming production in Minneapolis. She recently moved to New York City, which feels somewhat familiar, since she grew up outside of Rochester, New York. She is grateful to the English Department and the College for enabling her transition out of scholarly writing into creative writing and plans to return to Colorado often to hike in the Rockies