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TikTok doesn’t change minds—it changes moods

Rachel Sauer — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 23:25:55 +0000

TikTok doesn’t change minds—it changes moods Rachel Sauer Mon, 03/23/2026 - 17:25

Bradley Worrell

New research from CU 91��Ҹ� political scientist Michelangelo Landgrave finds that watching political influencers on TikTok does not seem to influence young voters on the issues—but does leave them feeling sadder, angrier and more anxious

If you are over the age of 30, put aside those preconceived ideas that TikTok is just a website where teens and young adults watch 10-second videos of cute cats.

According to the Pew 91��Ҹ� Center, about one in five U.S. adults now regularly gets their news from TikTok—and usage is highest among people under age 30. That shift prompted 91��Ҹ� 91��Ҹ� political scientist Michelangelo Landgrave to ask a simple but important question: What does consuming political content on TikTok actually do to young voters?

In a new study published in Political Studies Review, Landgrave and his co-authors found that while TikTok videos from political influencers don’t appear to change young voters’ positions on the issues, they do have an impact—making those viewers feel more negative emotional states, such as anxiety, anger and sadness.

CU 91��Ҹ� political scientist Michelangelo Landgrave and his research colleagues found that while TikTok political influencers may not change minds, they do change moods.

Landgrave recently discussed the findings of his research paper with Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine. His comments have been edited lightly for clarity and condensed.

Question: How does this latest study fit into your broader area of research?

Landgrave: I study American politics broadly, including institutions and political behavior. This paper is primarily a behavior study. It was inspired by earlier work examining how exposure to traditional news media—like Fox News and CNN—shapes political beliefs.

We started thinking that traditional media isn’t where many young people get their news anymore. Instead, they’re getting it from TikTok or similar short‑form video platforms like YouTube. It’s arguably the only type of media where the number of people getting news is actually increasing. Traditional media still has an audience, but it’s relatively stagnant and it skews older.

That led us to ask: Does this change in media format affect how people process political information?

Question: At the outset, were you surprised to learn how many younger Americans are getting their news from TikTok?

Landgrave: Somewhat. One of our co‑authors, Robert Anstett, was a student at the time, and we brought him onto the project explicitly because neither I nor the other senior co‑author, Abdelaziz Alsharawy (assistant professor at UT Health Houston School of Public Health), really used TikTok. We had a sense this was happening, but we weren’t firsthand users of TikTok.

We had read a Pew 91��Ҹ� Center report noting that an increasing number of people get their news from TikTok, and both of us thought, ‘Isn’t that just a 5‑second clip? What can you really get from that?’

That skepticism helped motivate the study.

Question: When and where was this study conducted?

Landgrave: This study was conducted in 2023 at the University of Missouri while I was finishing my work there. Missouri turned out to be ideal because, while it’s a red state at the presidential level, the local student population was about evenly split—roughly 50% Democrat and 50% Republican. The experiment involved political science students who agreed to participate in the experiment.

Question: How did the experiment work?

Landgrave: At the start of the weeklong study, participants were randomly assigned—regardless of their political views—to one of three groups. One group watched Democratic‑leaning political videos, another watched Republican‑leaning videos, and the control group watched nonpolitical content—mostly animal videos.

We didn’t produce the videos ourselves. These were real TikTok videos that had been popular in the week leading up to the study.

"Because the videos are so short, influencers rely heavily on emotion rather than argument. Both Democratic and Republican videos leaned strongly on negative emotions—sadness, fear and anxiety," says CU 91��Ҹ� scholar Michelangelo Landgrave.

Question: With political influencer content, did you notice any notable differences in who was producing the content by age, gender or race? What about the frequency of posts?

Landgrave: That surprised us. We expected differences but we didn’t find much. Age, gender and racial diversity were fairly balanced across political sides.

We did observe that Democratic‑leaning influencers produce more videos and tend to have more followers. Both are still dwarfed by nonpolitical content like animal videos, but there is a clear production imbalance. It’s unclear whether that’s due to the algorithm or differences in content creation. We can’t say for sure.

Question: Were there differences in the way Democratic and Republican influencers made their cases to TikTok viewers?

Landgrave: That was one of our most interesting findings. Because the videos are so short, influencers rely heavily on emotion rather than argument. Both Democratic and Republican videos leaned strongly on negative emotions—sadness, fear and anxiety.

Republican‑leaning videos tended to show more negative emotions like contempt and fear. That said, both sides relied heavily on negative emotions. Democratic-leaning videos were more likely to utilize anger. By contrast, traditional news often includes lighter or feel‑good stories, while animal videos found on TitkTok are, of course, just animals being animals.

Question: If the political videos on TikTok are less than a minute, it doesn’t seem like that’s enough time to properly address an issue in a substantive way?

Landgrave: Exactly. Even short television news segments usually provide some nuance and context. There’s a reason it takes 10, 20 or even 60 minutes to follow the news properly. With 5‑ or 10‑second clips, there’s very little room for nuance—you’re really only getting snippets.

Question: After the weeklong experiment, research subjects who watched these influencer videos showed no evidence of changing their opinions on political topics?

Landgrave: That’s correct. We didn’t find evidence that political attitudes changed—even after a full week of exposure. This is important because it wasn’t just one video; the algorithm adapts. Once someone starts watching a type of content, TikTok shows them more of it. So, effectively, we were altering their algorithm for a week—and still didn’t see attitude change.

It’s possible longer exposure—months or years—could matter, but at least over a week, we didn’t see a direct effect on political attitudes.

Question: But you did see emotional effects even at just one week?

Landgrave: Yes. While political attitudes didn’t change, emotional states did. After a week of political TikTok exposure—regardless of whether it was Democratic or Republican—participants reported feeling more sadness, anxiety and anger.

I went into this study fairly ambivalent, assuming concerns were probably overstated. But after seeing the results, I’m genuinely worried about the emotional effects on young people.

CU 91��Ҹ� scholar Michelangelo Landgrave and his research colleagues found that after a week of political TikTok exposure—regardless of whether it was Democratic or Republican—participants reported feeling more sadness, anxiety and anger. (Photo: Kelly Sikkema/Unsplash)

Question: Do you believe there are possible policy implications here?

Landgrave: Speaking only as a private citizen, and not representing CU 91��Ҹ�’s position, I think there’s reason for concern—particularly regarding children and teenagers. While we didn’t find direct political effects, we did find emotional harm.

That suggests policymakers should consider stronger safeguards, whether that’s time limits, improved parental controls or other measures.

Question: Why do you think emotions changed but political attitudes didn’t?

Landgrave: That surprised me, too. We focused on young adults because their political views are still forming. If there were going to be an effect, we expected to see it there.

One possibility is that emotional effects accumulate faster than ideological change. I also wonder whether younger audiences—middle school or even elementary‑age children—might be more susceptible, though that research would require different expertise.

Question: Were your survey participants already using TikTok?

Landgrave: Almost all of them. Only about five participants had never used TikTok. Most already had accounts and varied only in how much they used it. Our intervention didn’t replace their normal viewing—it nudged the algorithm by requiring them to watch specific videos daily.

Question: How confident are you that TikTok itself caused the negative emotional effects, rather than outside life stress?

Landgrave: Because it was an experimental study with random assignment, we’re confident we controlled for most external factors. That said, I’d love to explore conditional effects—whether the impact is stronger for heavy users, rural populations or people with fewer entertainment alternatives.

Question: Do you believe this is a subject area worthy of more exploration, possibly on what longer-term exposure to TikTok might mean for mental health outlook? And maybe whether political influencers have a greater influence over a longer-term period?

Landgrave: Long‑term experimental studies would be very difficult, but observational work is possible. As a researcher—and as a teacher—I’m increasingly concerned about the mental health effects (of social media) on younger people. I see students who seem almost addicted to these platforms, and I worry about my nieces and nephews too.

I want to be clear: This is speculative, but I can imagine an indirect effect over time. Years of exposure to emotionally negative content could potentially radicalize people or increase tolerance for extreme behavior. Our study can’t prove that, but it raises important questions.

Question: If you do more research on this particular subject, what might that look like?

Landgrave: We want to use eye‑tracking technology—glasses that track where people are actually looking. That would help us understand whether viewers are focused on the speaker, the text or even the video at all. Future studies might also involve controlled lab settings to see whether focused attention changes outcomes.

Question: Have you received feedback from other researchers on your published work regarding TikTok influencers?

Landgrave: Yes. Colleagues have reached out, including researchers studying similar effects internationally. This may not be a uniquely American issue—it could be global.

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Eyes in the sky focus on elephants

Rachel Sauer — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 14:22:27 +0000

Eyes in the sky focus on elephants Rachel Sauer Mon, 03/23/2026 - 08:22

Tiffany Plate

CU 91��Ҹ� PhD student Liam Jasperse-Sjolander is helping elephant behavioral observation get off the ground—and into the air above Africa

Walking through the quiet, lush rainforests of Gabon, on Africa’s equatorial west coast, forest elephants have a knack for appearing and disappearing just as quickly.

Because they travel in small groups through the thick jungles, forest elephants are much less noticeable—and thus much harder to observe—than their cousins that live on the wide-open African savannas.

For Liam Jasperse-Sjolander, a 91��Ҹ� 91��Ҹ� environmental studies PhD student, that quiet grace is part of the magic of his fieldwork. “They can be very silent, very unassuming,” he says. “Suddenly you’ll see this gigantic creature in the forest, and the next instant they’re gone.”

CU 91��Ҹ� PhD student Liam Jasperse-Sjolander has been studying elephant behavior since 2016. (Photo: Alain-Djessy Banguiya)

Jasperse-Sjolander has spent years traveling through Gabon and other African countries tracking elephant behavior in a variety of ways: using radio collars, camera traps and, more recently, drones.

And he’s been publishing his findings along the way. In 2025 alone, Jasperse-Sjolander co-authored three publications, one based on data from dung collection in Gabon and two on the benefits and potential ramifications of drones in observations.

Now he’s working to collate years of field data collected from these studies—identifying behavioral patterns and their ecological implications—for his dissertation, and pondering what’s next in his research.

Discovering Africa

Growing up, Jasperse-Sjolander didn’t always know where his love of the outdoors would take him. “I just wanted to do something outside,” he says of his childhood in Colorado. “I was either going to work in science or go run off into the woods to fend for myself.”

Ultimately, he chose the former, earning an undergraduate degree in environmental biology from McGill University in Montreal. During those years he got his first taste of fieldwork, spending a semester learning about conservation and field ecology in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania—and falling in love with Africa. Why?

“From a conservation perspective I think that many areas still feel wild, with so many megafauna worth protecting. And I love the beautiful diversity and vibrancy of cultures and traditions there.”

That’s why, after finishing his undergraduate studies, he headed right back, signing on as a research assistant for a Duke University PhD student Amelia Meier, who was tracking forest elephants in the Wonga Wongué Presidential Reserve in Gabon. Jasperse-Sjolander was eager to get in the field and watch the elephants with his own eyes, and was pleased to see that Meier was interested in mixing old-school observation methods with some new technologies.

“Her approach was really interesting and it kind of opened my eyes to studying behavior in the field in new ways,” he says.

On the ground in Gabon

That approach required a few radio collars—and sorting through an awful lot of dung. Jasperse-Sjolander and his colleagues would track the forest elephants’ movements, then follow along at a safe distance to capture dung samples for later lab analysis.

The data they collected showed the makeup of the fruits and seeds the elephants were consuming in the forest, and laid the foundation for an October 2025 paper published in the journal Oikos. The article sought to model how elephants may play a role in reseeding forests with trees and other large plant species that can consume large amounts of carbon dioxide.

Forest elephants, once thought to be a subspecies of African savanna elephants, were recognized as their own species in 2021 by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Part of Liam Jasperse-Sjolander’s work is to help establish a behavioral baseline. “It's really hard to protect a critically endangered species if you don't know what they're doing and where they're going.” (Photo: Liam Jasperse-Sjolander)

The results of the study showed wide variety in when and how the elephants disperse seeds, making it difficult to use a one-size-fits-all model for predicting how they will impact their local ecology.

“A lot of climate initiatives will put an emphasis on elephants being ‘gardeners of the forest,’” says Jasperse-Sjolander. These initiatives’ 91��Ҹ� assume that if elephants are in the area, carbon will in turn increase by a certain amount. “But if that’s not true in a country the size of Gabon, that’s certainly not true on an international scale.”

While there is still more work to do to better understand this interaction, Jasperse-Sjolander’s work in the field was pivotal to reaching this next step in the research.

In the air in Kenya

Now Jasperse-Sjolander is taking his fieldwork to new heights by studying how drones can be used to track elephants’ movements, eating patterns and group sizes—without disturbing the creatures. “This new format opens up a lot of doors for seeing behavior that we haven’t seen before,” says Jasperse-Sjolander.

In 2024 Jasperse-Sjolander was contracted by Save the Elephants, an African non-governmental organization dedicated to the preservation of elephants and their habitats, to analyze how drones may impact different elephant groups. “Before we start using drones to study behavior, we have to make sure that we're not negatively affecting the elephants,” says Jasperse-Sjolander.

Jasperse-Sjolander analyzed the behavioral data Save the Elephants had captured during trial runs of the drones with 14 distinct elephant groups in the Samburu National Reserve in Kenya. The results, which were published in November 2025 in Scientific Reports, were positive: While some of the elephants exhibited a few changes in baseline behavior—like eating a bit less or staying more alert—after multiple trial runs the group seemed generally unphased.

The researchers performing the trials adhered to some general common-sense protocols about how far to stay from the group.

“We always would launch the drone at least a half kilometer away from the group, since it's really at takeoff that it's the most noisy and disturbing,” says Jasperse-Sjolander. “Then we flew at a height of 120 meters (around 400 feet), which is the maximum height you can fly drones in Kenya. So we're basically as far away as we can be.”

Even at that distance, the latest high-tech drones can still capture high-resolution images; researchers can also use the drones’ embedded infrared camera to follow the elephants at night. That camera allowed researchers to follow some elephants for 24 hours and learn more than they ever knew about the animals’ sleep patterns.

Even at heights of 400 feet, drones’ high-resolution lenses allow researchers to capture important information, such as back length measurements, a common indicator of age. (Photo: Save the Elephants)

“Previously we’d estimated that they only sleep for 15 minutes, but we found that sometimes they’ll all lay down together in a dry riverbed and sleep for a full two hours,” says Jasperse-Sjolander.

“We didn’t really know before what elephants were doing at night,” he adds.. “And so we’re uncovering all these layers of elephant behavior that can help the population.” Knowing where they spend most of their time, when they leave an area and when they are most vulnerable to poaching are all important considerations in the business of saving elephants, he explains.

In May 2025, Jasperse-Sjolander and the Save the Elephants team also published a small field note in the journal Pachyderm about how to maximize these drones’ capabilities, even when there are restrictions on their flight (e.g., in Kenya, where drones are highly regulated). “It can still be a very useful piece of equipment,” says Jasperse-Sjolander, noting that the device’s infrared camera and potential for measuring elephant shoulder height (another common indicator of age) can all be used on the ground, and can take the place of other, more expensive equipment.

In the lab in Colorado

Now, with so much fieldwork data under his belt, Jasperse-Sjolander is back at CU working to finalize his dissertation, comparing behavior between forest and savanna elephants. He’ll build on his master’s coursework (also earned at CU 91��Ҹ�), which looked specifically at the different behaviors of forest elephants in Gabon—which is 90% forest, 10% savanna—when they’re in the two different biomes.

“Most forest elephant groups are just a mother around their calf and maybe a few relatives,” says Jasperse-Sjolander, explaining that the patchily distributed fruit trees that the elephants feed on are not enough to sustain groups much larger than that.

But, when they emerge from the forest, these groups connect with other small groups.

“Elephants are still very social, and it’s important for them to keep those links and have that larger association network,” says Jasperse-Sjolander, adding that the elephants’ time in the savanna is also important for the exchange of information.

Jasperse-Sjolander’s dissertation will expand the boundaries of his comparison of forest and savanna elephant behaviors to take more of a continent-wide approach to understanding the variations between and among them.

And after that? Jasperse-Sjolander is hoping to head back to Africa for a longer contract with a non-governmental organization like Save the Elephants, where he can use learnings from his PhD to advance our understanding of elephant behavior even further.

“I like just being in Africa and being in the field,” he says. While many researchers in his field go back and forth between the U.S. and Africa, “I like to live and embody the places I study.”

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CU 91��Ҹ� PhD student Liam Jasperse-Sjolander is helping elephant behavioral observation get off the ground—and into the air above Africa.

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Can concussions cause fear of movement?

Rachel Sauer — Wed, 18 Mar 2026 17:12:43 +0000

Can concussions cause fear of movement? Rachel Sauer Wed, 03/18/2026 - 11:12

Alexandra Phelps

CU 91��Ҹ� neuroscience student Alexander Wiegman’s research finds that a history of concussions doesn’t necessarily lead to later kinesiophobia

Stadium lights stream over the field. It’s Friday night, and over the course of the football game touchdowns have been scored, penalty flags have flown and countless plays have been run. However, on the next play, something goes awry. A player is down on the field and they’re helped to the medical tent. Upon further observation, medics diagnose a concussion.

In sports, injury is always a possibility. A misstep or collision can cause an athlete to need a period of recovery, changing not only their physical health but also their relationship with movement. For Alexander Wiegman, a former football player and an undergraduate 91��Ҹ� 91��Ҹ� neuroscience student, a similar reality became personal and, later, scientific.

Alexander Wiegman, a former football player and an undergraduate 91��Ҹ� 91��Ҹ� neuroscience student, studies how concussions can lead to kinesiophobia, a debilitating fear of movement that usually results from an injury or re-injury.

Wiegman’s recently published research in the journal Brain Injury examines how concussions can lead to kinesiophobia, a debilitating fear of movement that usually results from an injury or re-injury.

Individuals who’ve experienced kinesiophobia, a fear of movement due to the possibility of pain, can have decreased physical activity levels, stemming from the fear and hesitancy of activity. 91��Ҹ� such as Wiegman’s, which looks into the mental recovery from a concussion, seeks to predict which patients are more likely to develop severe kinesiophobia. Building a broader understanding of the mental effects of concussions can help providers to optimize care and provide recommendations for how individuals can recover from kinesiophobia.

Working with Dr. David Howell, Dr. Julie Wilson and the team of researchers in the Colorado Concussion 91��Ҹ� Laboratory (CCRL) at the 91��Ҹ� Anschutz, Wiegman initially predicted that if a patient experienced a lower initial symptom severity as well as a lower number of prior concussions, they would have lower kinesiophobia scores. However, the research findings suggested the opposite.

From the field to the lab

Wiegman played football for as long as he can remember, and like many athletes, he experienced injuries, including concussions. Even after going through his recovery care with the help of a concussion specialist, he was still unsure about moving his body again. This fear inspired him to begin his research.

As an undergraduate, he has had an opportunity to bring his experience with concussion care full circle. Working alongside his co-researchers, Wiegman transformed his initial experience with concussions into a hypothesis. He notes that he was allowed “to take the reins with my project. We began by discussing my experience with concussions because I've been through it. The fear of movement and the fear of getting back to activity is something that I really struggled with.

“I was always a math and science person, and by the time I got to high school, I knew I wanted to study something in that realm. But by the time I got to college, I knew I wanted to go into medicine.”

Understanding the fear of movement

Kinesiophobia is a response that has been documented across many types of injuries, though it's been less studied in people diagnosed with concussions. With numerous injuries, kinesiophobia can contribute to other symptoms even after the injury itself has healed. Understanding kinesiophobia is important because it can affect the severity of initial injuries, including concussions. A patient’s quality of life and recovery times are all aspects that can be impacted.

To better understand this gap in kinesiophobia research with concussions, Wiegman collaborated with CCRL researchers. Participants completed one assessment within 21 days of their injury and another between 30 and 90 days post-concussion.

“It is possible that individuals who have experiences with prior injuries understand the recovery process and have developed resilience against the negative aspects of fear of movement,” says CU 91��Ҹ� researcher Alexander Wiegman. (Photo: John Torcasio/Unsplash)

From a clinical perspective, "the first thing you think about is getting someone physically healthy," Wiegman explains, adding that he and his co-researchers examined "the broader idea of mental health after concussions" in an attempt to enhance the care that can be provided after a concussion. Wiegman and his research colleagues looked at the period post-concussion because typically this is when the physical injury has recovered. Focusing on this window of time allowed them to better understand how patients were recovering both physically and mentally from their injury.

What looking under the hood revealed

Contrary to Wiegman’s hypothesis that patients who had a more extensive injury history would exhibit more severe kinesiophobia, these patients actually displayed less-severe kinesiophobia.

However, after analyzing patient data, Wiegman concluded that those who had previously recovered from injuries were less fearful in moving their body again. “It is possible that individuals who have experiences with prior injuries understand the recovery process and have developed resilience against the negative aspects of fear of movement,” he says.

The research found that there was no evidence to suggest that age, sex, or prior concussions were independently associated with kinesiophobia. Wiegman concluded that prior injury and the experience of recovery may be one of the most influential factors in how a patient may or may not develop kinesiophobia.

Looking ahead

As a senior, Wiegman is pursuing a route to medical school. Interning as an athletic trainer with CU 91��Ҹ�’s track and football teams, as well as working as a phlebotomist, he’s had hands-on experience with athletes and their injuries. As Wiegman was completing his research and defending his senior thesis, he also studied for and took the MCAT.

Wiegman hopes to learn more about the relationship between kinesiophobia and concussions. “In my mind, I wanted to find some definitiveness, especially with this being intended to be used in a clinical setting; I really wanted to have the answer,” he says. “It was hard to wrap my head around [the fact] that we have data, but we don’t have an answer per se.” He explains that this research is a step in the right direction and hopes to continue on to further research of kinesiophobia and other mental health disparities following concussions.

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CU 91��Ҹ� neuroscience student Alexander Wiegman’s research finds that a history of concussions doesn’t necessarily lead to later kinesiophobia.

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Top photo: John Torcasio/Unsplash

Scientist lives by the Serengeti Rules

Rachel Sauer — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 02:17:06 +0000

Scientist lives by the Serengeti Rules Rachel Sauer Mon, 03/16/2026 - 20:17

Rachel Sauer

Author, filmmaker and scholar Sean B. Carroll, formerly a CU 91��Ҹ� postdoctoral researcher, will deliver the Rose M. Litman Memorial Lecture in Science April 7

When Sean B. Carroll came to the 91��Ҹ� 91��Ҹ� in 1983, right out of graduate school and newly hired as a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of molecular, cellular and developmental biologist Matt Scott, he was somewhat indifferent to Drosophila melanogaster, better known as the fruit fly and Scott’s research focus.

“I was coming from an immunology background, working with furry animals, and my attitude was that studying fruit flies wouldn’t teach us anything general,” Carroll recalls. “It wouldn’t have anything to do with humans or important things, or so I thought. But that was a really narrow view, because it turns out that all these genes that build fruit fly parts are in us—they build parts in us—so fruit flies became a passport to the whole animal kingdom.”

Scientist, author and filmmaker Sean B. Carroll, a former CU 91��Ҹ� postdoctoral researcher, will deliver the Rose M. Litman Memorial Lecture in Science April 7.

And with that passport, Carroll has roamed the planet as an evolutionary developmental biologist and award-winning author and filmmaker, observing life from individual cells to continent-spanning populations. Through his observations and experiences emerged what he came to call “The Serengeti Rules,” based on the idea that everything in the living world is regulated.

He will discuss the discovery of The Serengeti Rules, on which he elaborates in his book of the same name, during the Rose M. Litman Memorial Lecture from 4-5 p.m. April 7 in the CASE Chancellor’s Hall Auditorium.

The Serengeti Rules, as he describes them, are ecological rules that regulate the numbers and kinds of animals and plants in any given place, and how they are being applied to restore some of the greatest wildernesses on the planet.

“Every cell contains a society of molecules, every organ a society of cells, every body a society of organs, every habitat a society of organisms,” he writes in The Serengeti Rules. “Understanding the interactions within each of those societies are the primary aims of molecular biology, physiology and ecology.”

Diversity in the animal kingdom

Before he had roamed the globe as a scientist and filmmaker, however, Carroll was the kid growing up in Toledo, Ohio, flipping over rocks to see what was under them. “I have a love for the entire animal kingdom,” he explains, which guided him to a bachelor’s degree in biology from Washington University and a PhD in immunology from Tufts University.

During his graduate studies, he became very interested in the question of how animal bodies evolve—in understanding how all the diversity in the animal kingdom came about. So, he hatched a plan to solve the mysteries of development.

“Changes in development are what lead to changes in form,” Carroll says. “The whole diversity of the animal kingdom is rooted in development, so we had to crack the black-box mystery of development to get any traction in understanding how the physical diversity of the animal kingdom evolved.”

Thus, the fruit flies. He wagered that studying them could be a key to unlocking the diversity of the animal kingdom—and the genes that govern development—and came to CU 91��Ҹ� determined to pick the lock on that black box.

If you go

What: 2026 Rose M. Litman Memorial Lecture in Science—The Serengeti Rules: The Regulation and Restoration of Biodiversity

Who: Sean B. Carroll

When: 4–5 p.m. Tuesday, April 7, with reception to follow

Where: Chancellor’s Hall Auditorium, Center for Academic Success & Engagement (CASE)

Learn more

“During this time, 1983, oh my god—how an egg turns into a complex creature was a mystery,” he says. “It was a spectacular pageant we could watch from the outside, but we didn’t know what was going on inside. We needed to identify the genes that are necessary for that process, figure out what the genes did.

“It’s hard to overstate both how deep the mystery was but how thrilling these clues were as they started to unfold. Those days were incredibly exhilarating and intense, the lab was a beehive, people worked all days and nights and weekends because, first of all, we were fascinated. Also, we felt we had a shot at some really fundamental discoveries. Looking back, these times don’t happen very often in science where you really have a black-box mystery, and it breaks open—and it broke open partly because of what we did in Matt’s lab and partly because of what our peers around the world did.”

One eureka moment from Carroll’s time in 91��Ҹ� came about 18 months into his research. He had taken on the task of seeing genes in action inside developing fruit fly embryos, working every day in the lab, trying this technique and that technique until his bag of tricks was almost empty; he was no closer to understanding which genes caused wings to grow, for example, or determined their shape.

He remembers a particular time when he took his samples down to a borrowed microscope, flipping on an ultraviolet light because he was looking at fluorescence, “and the best thing I can say is that it was a ‘holy sh^t!’ moment. I remember looking down, and I saw these embryos that had these beautiful green rings circling them, which is the mark of a gene that turns on every other segment.

“That’s the day when the dam broke, the door blew open, the clouds parted. It’s almost overwhelming because now so many things are possible. I went from having nothing to show anybody to essentially having the tools that would allow me to really untangle this puzzle.”

During his April 7 lecture, Sean B. Carroll will discuss the Serengeti Rules, the ecological rules that regulate the numbers and kinds of animals and plants in any given place, and how they are being applied to restore some of the greatest wildernesses on the planet.

A discovery of wings

After completing his CU 91��Ҹ� postdoc, Carroll joined the faculty at the University of Wisconsin Madison, where he continued studying the genes that control animal body patterns and play major roles in the evolution of animal diversity. There he “saw something in the microscope that nobody had ever seen before,” he remembers.

He and the other researchers in his lab isolated the handful of genes that are activated in caterpillars to become butterfly wings. This discovery, published in the journal Science, garnered a feature in The New York Times, an interview on PBS News Hour and an invitation to the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.

From there, Carroll built a career that marries both research and discovery with science communication—as an investigator and vice president for science education at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) and head of the HHMI Tangled Bank Studios, where he executive produced or was executive in charge of more than 30 documentary films, including the Oscar-nominated and Peabody-winning All That Breathes. He has won three Emmys and been nominated for an additional five.

During that time, “I decided, ‘I’m telling the same story again and again, so I probably should write this down,’” he says. “So, I wrote a book, then I wrote another book.” He has written six books, including Remarkable Creatures: Epic Adventures in the Search for the Origins of Species, which was a finalist for the 2009 National Book Award for nonfiction, and The Serengeti Rules: The Quest to Discover How Life Works and Why It Matters, which will be the foundation for his CU 91��Ҹ� lecture.

Carroll, who is a distinguished university professor and the Andrew and Mary Balo and Nicholas and Susan Simon Chair of Biology at the University of Maryland, credits the depth and success of his career in large part to the collaborations of which he’s been a part. “I like to think my toolkit has grown over the years, but it doesn’t happen all at once and it doesn’t happen alone. I didn’t write a full-length book until I was 45 and truly an expert in my field.

“I think people might look at my portfolio and say the science portfolio is pretty good, the external indicators are good; the writing career, there’s been a fair amount of output; the film career has been good. But in no way could I have done it alone. Science is a hugely collaborative thing; filmmaking’s even more collaborative. An individual like me gets a lot of credit for a body of work owned by an enormous community.”

Through it all—from his extensive travels through the Serengeti to the red carpet at the Academy Awards to the quiet moments in the lab—the joy of discovery and mystery-solving has never ebbed, he says. “I love science because I love nature and I love trying to figure out how nature works. I love the privilege and thrill of peeking into that box and going, ‘Oh, my gosh, that’s how it is.’”

About the Rose M. Litman Memorial Lecture in Science

The Litman Lecture celebrates the legacy of an exceptional scientist and educator with a lifelong passion for research and a firm commitment to keeping rigorous inquiry at the heart of university life.

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Author, filmmaker and scholar Sean B. Carroll, formerly a CU 91��Ҹ� postdoctoral researcher, will deliver the Rose M. Litman Memorial Lecture in Science April 7.

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Study probes the ‘new normal’ for older adults, post-COVID

Rachel Sauer — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 14:30:42 +0000

Study probes the ‘new normal’ for older adults, post-COVID Rachel Sauer Mon, 03/16/2026 - 08:30

Bradley Worrell

91��Ҹ�ers from CU 91��Ҹ� find that the pandemic reshaped how people age 55 and older interact with their communities while highlighting the importance of ‘social infrastructure’

The COVID-19 pandemic reshaped how people interact with their communities, but its effects on older Americans have been especially complex—altering daily routines, social connections and how people move through their communities even years later.

Those changes are at the center of a five‑year longitudinal study led by researchers at the 91��Ҹ� 91��Ҹ� and the University of Michigan. Hayes Hart‑Thompson (they/them), a graduate student and researcher in the CU 91��Ҹ� Department of Geography, helped analyze how older adults adapted their lives during and after the pandemic.

In a recent paper, “A New Normal. Not Bad, Just Different,” Hart-Thompson and study co-authors provided a long-term view of how disruption turns into adaption, based upon survey responses from the same study participants since early 2020, all of whom are 55 or older.

Hayes Hart-Thompson is a graduate student in the CU 91��Ҹ� Department of Geography whose recently published research helped analyze how older adults adapted their lives during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

“What really stood out,” Hart‑Thompson explains, “was that people weren’t just responding to COVID itself. They were responding to the after‑effects—how the world had changed and how their routines had to change with it.”

Following routines over time

The study began in the early months of the pandemic, when participants were surveyed every month. As the crisis continued, Hart-Thompson says the research shifted to annual surveys, allowing researchers to track how people’s habits, perceptions and social lives evolved. The research focuses primarily on data from the fourth year of the study, although the research team has since received a fifth year of responses.

That fifth year added a reflective dimension, says Hart-Thompson. Participants were asked to look back over the previous five years and consider what they had learned, what they wished they had done differently and how their relationships with their neighborhoods and communities had changed. Hart‑Thompson says many people used that opportunity to rethink whom they spend time with, how they engage socially and what they value most.

“It gave us insight not just into what people are doing now,” they say, “but how they understand those changes in hindsight.”

What is social infrastructure?

A key concept in the research is “social infrastructure”—a term that Hart-Thompson says goes beyond physical buildings to describe the places that support social interaction and community life.

“A library is a great example,” they say. “It’s a physical space but it also supports relationships, routines and access to resources. The same can be true for community centers, parks or even coffee shops. They’re physical spaces where relationships happen and routines take shape.”

The idea overlaps with what geographers and sociologists often call “third places”—spaces that are neither home (first place) nor work (second place) and that support community, connection and informal care. Third places captures both public and private spaces and reflects the full range of places people mentioned when describing how their routines changed during the pandemic.

Faith‑based organizations, in particular, played an important role for many participants, Hart-Thompson says.

“Especially with this older population we surveyed, churches provide consistent, low-cost—or no-cost—opportunities to see the same people regularly, which is incredibly important for maintaining social routines,” they say. “When concerns about disease spread or mobility made returning difficult, that loss was significant—even if services moved online.”

Aging: not a one-size-fits-all experience

The study focused on adults 55 and older, but Hart-Thompson says the researchers found that age alone did not determine how people experienced the pandemic. Instead, perception mattered just as much as chronology.

“How people felt about their age really shaped how they talked about their lives,” Hart‑Thompson explains. “Someone who felt old at 60 described their experiences very differently from someone who felt young at 80.”

Retirement status also made a major difference. Hart-Thompson explains that participants who were still working navigated different social environments than those who were retired. Health, mobility and daily obligations also influenced how much choice people felt they had in shaping their routines, they add.

Rather than finding a clear age‑based trend, Hart-Thompson says the researchers saw a mix of social and structural factors shaping each person’s experience.

Health, mobility and daily obligations also influenced how much choice people felt they had in shaping their routines during and following the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, says CU 91��Ҹ� researcher Hayes Hart-Thompson.

Not all changes were negative

“COVID-19 reduced in‑person social interaction for many older adults—but the impact was not uniformly harmful,” Hart-Thompson says. In fact, some participants described positive or neutral changes, particularly when technology expanded access.

For individuals with limited mobility, tools like Zoom opened doors that hadn’t existed before. Others found new routines they enjoyed, such as online exercise classes or increased time for solitude.

“At the same time,” Hart‑Thompson says, “there was a lot of avoidance—people staying away from spaces because of health fears or political tensions. It really depended on the activity and the individual.”

In many cases, they say, declining health or aging‑related challenges were already influencing routines even before the pandemic. “COVID-19 just intensified those trends and brought them into sharper focus,” Hart-Thompson adds.

A specific, but meaningful, sample

The study’s participants were predominantly white, female and college educated, with many living in the Midwest. While the sample included both rural and urban residents across the United States, study participants are not representative of the population as a whole, Hart-Thompson acknowledges.

They emphasize that the research team is mindful of those limitations. Rather than treating the data as universally generalizable, the focus is on what this specific group can tell researchers, particularly as an important group of voters. That’s because, in the fifth year of the study, researchers added questions about democracy and political perceptions to explore that dimension more directly.

“There’s also a real issue of privilege in survey research,” Hart‑Thompson says. “Who has the unpaid time to respond year after year? That shapes who shows up in the data.”

Politics, isolation and policy lessons

One unexpected finding was the degree to which the study retained participants from across the political spectrum, Hart-Thompson says. Despite the politicization of COVID-19 and growing mistrust in institutions, respondents with very different views continued to participate in the research, they add

That diversity complicated the narrative. Participants disagreed sharply on whether COVID-19 was a serious health threat, but those disagreements didn’t erase shared concerns about isolation and access.

Hart‑Thompson sees a clear lesson for policymakers: Adaptability matters more than uniformity.

“There’s never going to be a one‑size‑fits‑all solution,” they say. “But universal access to social spaces—both physical and digital—is crucial. Isolation is harmful regardless of political ideology.”

Hybrid events, online access and inclusive design can help ensure people aren’t left behind during future crises—particularly those who are older or immunocompromised, Hart-Thompson adds.

Living in a new normal

Perhaps the clearest conclusion from the research is that most older adults have not returned to their pre‑pandemic routines—and many don’t expect to, Hart-Thompson says.

“There’s never going to be a one‑size‑fits‑all solution. But universal access to social spaces—both physical and digital—is crucial. Isolation is harmful regardless of political ideology.”

They say participants frequently described living in a “new normal.” Some realized they value solitude more than they once thought. Others became more intentional about spending time with close friends and family. Even when routines resembled the past, people understood that the world had changed.

“There wasn’t this expectation that things would go back to exactly how they were,” Hart‑Thompson says. “Adaptation is the reality.”

That perspective, they believe, challenges the idea that recovery means returning to a previous state. Instead, it highlights how people reshape their lives in response to long‑term change—especially later in life.

Offering support in crisis . . . and in everyday life

As the research team begins analyzing five full years of data, Hart‑Thompson is particularly interested in how overlapping crises—also known as “polycrises”—shape everyday life. That’s because COVID-19 did not happen in isolation—and neither do its effects, they add.

Across all of it, one theme remains constant: the importance of adaptable, accessible social infrastructure.

“If we center access and adaptability,” Hart‑Thompson says, “we’re better equipped to support people—not just in crises, but in everyday life.”

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91��Ҹ�ers from CU 91��Ҹ� find that the pandemic reshaped how people age 55 and older interact with their communities while highlighting the importance of ‘social infrastructure.'

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91��Ҹ� finds many psychiatric disorders are influenced by five genetic factors

Rachel Sauer — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 21:24:35 +0000

91��Ҹ� finds many psychiatric disorders are influenced by five genetic factors Rachel Sauer Fri, 03/13/2026 - 15:24

Blake Puscher

Genome-wide association studies identify genetic overlap among disorders, providing evidence that their distinctions may be misleading

One major difference between psychiatric disorders and purely physical diseases is that the former are largely defined by their symptoms. Patient-reported symptoms are also closely associated with physical illnesses, but this is often accompanied by an awareness of underlying, biological causes, which can be confirmed by tests or scans.

However, because the biological causes of psychiatric disorders have not been comprehensively explained, the boundaries between them can be blurry, especially considering that many people diagnosed with one disorder will be diagnosed with others, too.

As a step toward the long-term goal of explaining these causes, a large number of scientists from across the United States and the world conducted a study published in Nature into the genetic associations of 14 disorders. This group includes first author Andrew Grotzinger, a member of both the 91��Ҹ� 91��Ҹ� Department of Psychology and Neuroscience and the CU Institute for Behavioral Genetics.

CU 91��Ҹ� scientist Andrew Grotzinger and his research colleagues studied how certain psychiatric disorders are influenced by genetic factors.

This study involved genome-wide association studies on the different disorders, followed by an analysis of the results for signs of genetic overlap (pleiotropy). The disorders ranged from attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) to schizophrenia, and included several substance-use disorders. The study found that these disorders were influenced by five genetic factors, each of which was shared by two or more disorders.

Pleiotropy and genetic association

When multiple measurable and observable (phenotypic) traits are influenced by a gene or genetic variant, it is called pleiotropy. One example is the typical form of albinism, where a mutation of a single gene influences skin pigmentation, eye color and hair color by altering the production of melanin. The study uses the term pleiotropic loci, which refers to areas of chromosomes within which genes influencing multiple phenotypic traits can be found. In this case, those traits are different psychiatric disorders.

While evidence of pleiotropy can be seen in how some traits tend to vary together between individuals, like hair and eye color, it can only be proven by a thorough analysis of a large amount of genetic data. In this case, genome-wide association studies (GWAS) were done for each psychiatric disorder covered. A GWAS attempts to associate common genetic variants with traits by seeing if people who have the trait of interest also have a given genetic variant more often than would be expected based on chance alone.

For example, if people can have either gene A or gene B at a particular location (locus) in their DNA, a GWAS could determine if that genetic variation was associated with a given trait. If the study found that many people who did not have the trait had gene A and many people who did have the trait had gene B, it would conclude that gene B influenced the trait, even though there might be other factors contributing to it.

However, because there are so many genetic variants, and because scientists do not know which are relevant to begin with, a large number need to be studied. According to Grotzinger, this analysis happens across millions of genetic variants. A massive number of participants, both with and without the trait in question, is also necessary to have this statistical power to reliably study these associations. “What’s unique about this study is, in part, just how many people are involved, how many people we had DNA from,” Grotzinger explains.

That being said, data from some groups was more abundant. Only the European genetic ancestry group had enough data to perform analyses for all 14 psychiatric disorders. According to Grotzinger, analyses need to be performed separately by genetic ancestry group for statistical reasons, not because the genes themselves are very different but because the results may not apply equally to all people. “Initial evidence indicates that it may be more applicable for some disorders than others. So, schizophrenia is very much the same across ancestries, whereas depression is a little bit different,” he says. “The only reason we did European-like ancestry here was availability of data, and the hope would be that the next iteration of this study has greater diversity and representation.”

“Most people who are diagnosed with one psychiatric disorder are going to be diagnosed with multiple, and this has led some to theorize that there are genes that just increase your risk for everything,” says CU 91��Ҹ� researcher Andrew Grotzinger. (Illustration: Wikimedia Commons)

Genomic factors

After analyzing the results of the different GWAS, the researchers identified five genomic factors that explained the majority of the genetic variance of the individual disorders. Some of the variance is non-genetic (for example, resulting from different life experiences), but these genetic factors explain on average around two thirds of the common genetic variation caused by people having different genes. The factors were associated with 238 pleiotropic loci.

Factor 1 was most strongly associated with compulsive disorders, factor 2 was associated with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, factor 3 was tied to neurodevelopmental disorders, factor 4 was connected to internalizing disorders, and factor 5 explained the genetic variance in substance use disorders

“Most people who are diagnosed with one psychiatric disorder are going to be diagnosed with multiple,” Grotzinger explains, “and this has led some to theorize that there are genes that just increase your risk for everything.” But “by and large, genes increase risks for subsets of disorders, and that’s what those factors are indexing.” All five factors showed high genetic correlation; however, there was evidence for even more overlap between the disorders covered by Factor 2 and Factor 4.

Besides genetic overlap within factor groups, the study also found weaker associations between disorders from different factors groups. That is in line with the theory that there are some genes that increase the risk for many psychiatric disorders, Grotzinger says, “and it seems like there are, but those probably map onto really general pathways, like tendency to experience distress. That’s not specific to OCD versus anxiety versus depression.” This overarching factor is called the “p factor” or general psychopathology factor, and is similar in concept to the “g factor” of general intelligence. In this study, the p factor was correlated with all five factors, especially Factor 4 (internalizing disorders).

Relatedly, when researchers analyzed genetic regions instead of the whole genome, they found 101 “hotspots”—regions that demonstrated significant pleiotropy. According to Grotzinger, these genetic regions include a larger group of genes than loci. “You can think of them as operating at a more local level, as opposed to the genome-wide level that examines the average percentage of genetic signal shared across the whole genome,” Grotzinger explains. The most pleiotropic region was on chromosome 11. Genes in this hotspot influence most of the psychiatric disorders, excluding all Factor 1 disorders, opioid- and nicotine-use disorder and autism.

Andrew Grotzinger and his research colleagues identified five genomic factors that explain the majority of the genetic variance of the 14 psychiatric disorders they studied.

Factor 1: most strongly associated with compulsive disorders (anorexia, OCD and Tourette’s), but also anxiety to a lesser extent
Factor 2: associated with both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder
Factor 3: tied to autism and ADHD, as well as more loosely to Tourette’s
Factor 4: connected to internalizing disorders such as PTSD, depression and anxiety.
Factor 5: explains the genetic variance in substance-use disorders, specifically for nicotine, alcohol, cannabis and opioids.

Although these analyses close in on some of the genetic causes for psychiatric disorders, this knowledge cannot be used to diagnose or treat those disorders. This is because the disorders are influenced by thousands of genes, and scientists still do not know which specific genes are relevant, just the area of the genome they are in. “This chromosome 11 hotspot is a really interesting data point, but it is not going to help diagnose anyone,” Grotzinger says. “It is one piece of a 10,000-piece puzzle, at the end of the day. It’s baby steps.”

Diagnostic boundaries

“One thing people say is that our DNA does not read our diagnostic manual,” Grotzinger says. “Our DNA seems to confer risk in a way that transcends the boundaries that we describe in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual.” In other words, psychiatric disorders are currently defined based on the way that symptoms tend to occur together rather than their biological or genetic causes. Of course, psychiatric disorders have non-genetic causes, but knowing what genes contribute to each disorder would help diagnose and treat them more effectively.

For example, “if you are someone who is diagnosed with multiple disorders,” Grotzinger says, “they may be more biologically similar than they are distinct. I think that increases the optimism for treatment, because you know that you are not dealing with four separate things. I do not think this is sufficient to argue for changing the diagnostic manual,” he continues, “but it is still a very important piece of evidence for considering whether or not to reconceptualize some of these disorders.

Depression and anxiety in particular are an example of disorders that are often diagnosed together, treated using similar methods (e.g., selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors), and appear nearly identical from a genetic perspective, according to Grotzinger. “It begs the question of whether or not we are calling something that is very similar different names. The metaphor I offer with this study is that, if you had a runny nose, a cough, and a sore throat, it would not be appropriate to go to the doctor and get a diagnosis for runny nose disorder, coughing disorder, and sore throat disorder.”

One implication of this, and a potential topic for future research, is that there are subtypes of disorders. While many of the disorders covered by this study overlap with each other, they do not all overlap completely with themselves. What is classified as depression, for example, may have different genetic causes in some cases. “You can have over 10,000 different symptom combinations, all of which meet the criteria for depression,” Grotzinger says. “So one question is, are there subtypes of disorders?” If enough research does support the reclassification of psychiatric disorders, this could involve both merging and splitting current disorders to most accurately reflect the underlying genetic risk factors.

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Genome-wide association studies identify genetic overlap among disorders, providing evidence that their distinctions may be misleading.

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Grant supports natural sciences research

Rachel Sauer — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 17:56:01 +0000

Grant supports natural sciences research Rachel Sauer Tue, 03/10/2026 - 11:56

CU 91��Ҹ� receives $1.5 million from Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation to fund postdoctoral researchers

The 91��Ҹ� 91��Ҹ� has received $1.5 million to provide funding for postdoctoral researchers in the Division of Natural Sciences—part of $55 million in funding provided to 30 U.S. universities by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.

"We are grateful for the generosity of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and its significant support of the groundbreaking research happening at CU 91��Ҹ�,” says Irene Blair, dean of the Division of Natural Sciences. “Despite the current uncertainties that we and universities across the country are experiencing, our scientists remain committed to finding innovative answers to the most pressing questions and issues we are facing today. By supporting post-doctoral research, this grant will advance fundamental research in the natural sciences."

The Moore Foundation provided this one-time support to maintain the pipeline of scientists in training. After consulting with leading scientists and university leaders, the foundation said it identified an especially critical, immediate shortfall at the postdoctoral training level.

“Universities are experiencing budget cuts which are drastically curtailing funding for postdocs,” said Aileen Lee, president of the Moore Foundation. “Though critical to the scientific enterprise, postdoctoral trainees are typically less readily supported by university friends and alumni than are graduate and undergraduate students.”

CU 91��Ҹ� was one of 30 universities that received past support from the Moore Foundation Science Program. Awards for this latest round of funding ranged from $1 million to $2.5 million per university, based upon historical levels of funding from the foundation.

“As funding for science becomes increasingly constrained, philanthropy plays a crucial role in fueling innovation and discovery,” Lee said. “We invest where science can make long-term, measurable change and in the talented people whose ideas will shape the future.”

The funding from the Moore Foundation assists 400 postdoctoral researchers across 25 fields.

For CU 91��Ҹ�, departments receiving funding include chemistry, biochemistry, ecology and evolutionary biology, environmental studies, geological sciences, integrative physiology, physics, psychology and neuroscience, atmospheric and oceanic sciences, astrophysical and planetary sciences, and applied mathematics.

Although the Moore Foundation’s science program funding is typically tightly focused on a small number of long-term research priorities, in this case, the foundation provided the funding to support postdoctoral researchers. The awards were made in late 2025 and the universities have the latitude to spend the funds across three academic years (2025-2028).

Established in 2000 by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore and his wife, Betty, the Moore Foundation supports scientific discovery, environmental conservation and the preservation of the character of the San Francisco Bay area. The Moore Foundation has provided $2.46 billion in cumulative grants for scientific discovery thus far.

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CU 91��Ҹ� receives $1.5 million from Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation to fund postdoctoral researchers.

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Art historian walks into the Middle Ages

Rachel Sauer — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 22:27:17 +0000

Art historian walks into the Middle Ages Rachel Sauer Wed, 02/25/2026 - 15:27

Clint Talbott

CU 91��Ҹ� Professor Kirk Ambrose set out to better understand art, doubt and medieval pilgrimages, but his 800-mile walk has modern implications

At some point during his trek, Kirk Ambrose felt that walking was “too fast.” Days stretched and the small loomed large. He and his wife would stop to admire a spider, then just talk about it.

“It really did change my perceptions,” he says. And that was kind of the point.

Kirk Ambrose (right), a CU 91��Ҹ� professor of classics, walked nearly 800 miles along medieval pilgrimage routes, joined for part of the journey by his wife, Kim Dickey, a professor of art and art history. (Photo: Kirk Ambrose)

Last summer, Ambrose, a professor of classics at the 91��Ҹ� 91��Ҹ�, walked nearly 800 miles along medieval pilgrimage routes—much of it on the Via Jacobi, the Way of St. James, which threads through France toward Santiago de Compostela in Spain. His wife, Kim Dickey, who is a CU 91��Ҹ� professor of ceramics, joined him for part of the walk.

Ambrose trained for the trek, but the goal was not athletic. It was scholarly. The long walk served as research for a book he’s writing about art and doubt in the 11th and 12th centuries.

“I wanted to get a sense of, as much as is possible in the modern day, what these experiences were like,” he says. “Pilgrimage has been a framework for understanding medieval art—especially the 12th century—and I wanted to probe that from the ground.”

He approached the journey with “a healthy dose of skepticism.” The romantic picture of pilgrims dutifully trudging from shrine to shrine, he argues, owes much to early 20th‑century American portrayals of pilgrimages.

Ambrose cites Arthur Kingsley Porter, a wealthy American scholar who toured Europe by chauffeured Rolls‑Royce and helped popularize the idea of being on the road as a way to understand the spread of medieval art. Porter’s writings reflected a privileged and American way of moving through the world, Ambrose suggests, adding that Porter’s perspectives differed from those of most Europeans.

The road and its surroundings

The walk itself focused Ambrose’s attention on the social fabric that makes pilgrimages possible. “What interested me, perhaps more than the pilgrim, was the whole support network,” he said. He met volunteers who cleaned bathrooms and retirees who opened bedrooms—chambres d’hôtes—and cooked dinner for strangers.

Many of these workers had left urban careers after the pandemic, moved by a desire to be close to a journey even if they could not make one themselves. “Again and again, I heard a version of the same idea: ‘I travel through the people I encounter, even though I’m staying in the same spot.’”

The observation seemed timeless. Medieval monks, often prohibited from physical travel, were encouraged to undertake “spiritual pilgrimages”—imagined journeys toward the divine. The modern hosts Ambrose met felt like their analogues, he said.

Ambrose trained for a year—backpack full of books—before setting out; he finished the walk in just over two months without a blister. But the physical feat was secondary.

One observation about pilgrimages, he says, is “how much time you are not in churches.” Most days were focused on ferns, salamanders, hunger and the logistics of the next bed. Sacred sites punctuated but did not define the experience.

Scholarship in motion

Kirk Ambrose's journey took him along Lake Lucerne in Switzerland. (Photo: Kirk Ambrose)

Some scholars have argued that artistic styles spread via pilgrim highways. Ambrose suggests otherwise.

“There’s an increasing body of scholarship that challenges the idea that artists simply ‘followed’ pilgrims,” he says. “Institutional affiliation and alliances often explain transmission better—monasteries, chapters, reform movements—networks that stretch across regions through personal relationships, not roads.”

The variety he encountered along the way—the “dizzying” mix of styles and architectural solutions—underscored that point.

He offers a contemporary analogy: Rather than assuming ideas spread evenly across a state, think of a university department with deep ties to a lab in the Netherlands—ideas may travel faster via that friendship than along any map. The medieval equivalents—papal circles, Cluniac reform, houses of canons—made and remade aesthetic choices at large scale and across geography.

Ambrose also questions the notion of the Middle Ages as just an “Age of Faith.”

“I’m trying to complicate the emotional landscape,” he says. “Doubt is a primary motivator.” In the 12th century, commentaries on the Book of Job—which wrestles with faith and doubt—were among the most copied texts.

Ambrose notes that art from this period confronts doubt, raising questions such as: Which relic is genuine? Is the Eucharist literally the body of Christ or a symbol? What do I treat as true when I’m surrounded by competing claims?

Even images of damnation—liars punished, tongues ripped out—suggest a culture trying to distinguish fact from fiction. Today, humans face similar questions, he observes.

Ambrose speaks with delight about the people he met on the walk. “There’s a saying on the route that the kingdom of pilgrimage is 2,000 miles long and 5 feet wide,” he says. On that path, one might find an octogenarian walking from Budapest to Santiago—eight or nine months out and back—or a group of students between semesters, or a CEO on sabbatical. Most of the walkers he met weren’t religious.

He says the experience evoked what cultural anthropologist Victor Turner called the liminal experience—a phase between two stages of life, states of being or locations. “I met people from 18 to their 70s. We were all pilgrims together, regardless of motivation.”

Scenes from a (very long) walk

St.-Privat-d’Allier in France.

A fire salamander on the trail near Espalion, France.

The rooftops of Ste.-Foy, Conques in France.

Lungerersee in Switzerland.

View of Fribourg, Switzerland.

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CU 91��Ҹ� Professor Kirk Ambrose set out to better understand art, doubt and medieval pilgrimages, but his 800-mile walk has modern implications.

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Top photo: Kirk Ambrose on the trail. (All photos courtesy Kirk Ambrose)

Scholar considers language, identity and the fight over shared symbols

Rachel Sauer — Mon, 16 Feb 2026 17:42:36 +0000

Scholar considers language, identity and the fight over shared symbols Rachel Sauer Mon, 02/16/2026 - 10:42

Cody DeBos

CU 91��Ҹ� linguistics researcher Kate Arnold-Murray studies what a Facebook fight reveals about identity

In 2019, Washington, D.C.’s Pride celebrations became a flashpoint—but not just for the usual political tensions. Organizers of the annual Dyke March barred participants from carrying the Jewish Pride flag, sparking a wider debate about symbols and the meanings they carry.

Organizers claimed the flag too closely resembled the Israeli flag and could be insensitive to pro-Palestinian participants. Jewish LGBTQ+ activists, many of whom had marched in the event for years, were stunned.

“I was actually living in Washington, D.C., at the time,” says Kate Arnold-Murray, a PhD candidate in the Department of Linguistics at the 91��Ҹ� 91��Ҹ�. “I was out of town at the time, so I was looking at things involving the march on Facebook and saw all these arguments going on. I wanted to get to the root of what people were upset about—what people who presumably should be on the same page were arguing about.”

CU 91��Ҹ� scholar Kate Arnold-Murray has studied how the six-pointed Star of David became the center of conflict in a space that promotes solidarity.

What began as curiosity while browsing turned into years of research for Arnold-Murray, culminating in her recent publication in the Journal of Linguistic Anthropology.

Her study looks at how a single symbol—the six-pointed Star of David—became the center of conflict in a space that promotes solidarity.

Bridging language and politics

In her doctoral work at CU 91��Ҹ�, Arnold-Murray focuses on how language produces and reflects political identity in America.

“Most of my work involves language and politics on the left in the United States. This piece ties into that work because these are presumably mostly political actors on the left in arguments with each other,” she says.

In her paper, Arnold-Murray examines a trove of public Facebook comments from individuals and organizations reacting to the 2019 Dyke March decision.

“As a member of both the Washington, D.C., queer community and the Washington, D.C., Jewish community, it was like my two sides were fighting, and I wanted to understand why,” she says.

The problem of misrecognition

The controversy centered on the Jewish Pride flag: a rainbow background with a white Star of David in the middle. For some, the star was a proud symbol of Jewish identity that dates back thousands of years. For others, it was too reminiscent of the Israeli flag—and thus a political statement they opposed.

To understand the disagreement, Arnold-Murray turned to the concept of indexicality, or the connection between a sign and its social meaning.

“Indexical misrecognition is accounting for the possibility that we might have misunderstandings based on our lived experiences shaping how we interpret signs like a symbol or word,” she explains.

In other words, what one person sees as an expression of faith or cultural belonging, another may see as a symbol of state violence or exclusion.

“In this instance, each group came with a different notion of what the Star of David means based on their lived experiences—and that’s where we get that misrecognition.”

Arnold-Murray’s paper takes it further. She argues that not only do symbols connect with personal and cultural identities, but they can lead to conflict because their meanings are not fixed. That’s especially true when it comes to symbols like the Star of David, whose associations stretch across religion, nationalism, ethnicity and more.

“If we can find ways to stop arguing about symbols and come together a little more, we can have more political unity. But that has to start with listening to the voices of marginalized individuals and understanding that the signs we use might carry multiple meanings,” says CU 91��Ҹ� linguistics scholar Kate Arnold-Murray. (Photo: Tom Morris/Wikimedia Commons)

“Another example is the phrase ‘Are you a friend of Dorothy?’ which has been used within the queer community to indicate that someone is queer. But to someone who is not queer, they might not share that same meaning and they might say, ‘Dorothy who?’” Arnold-Murray says.

One flag, many meanings

Arnold-Murray also uses the term bricolage to describe the Jewish Pride flag. In the art world, bricolage refers to a construction created from layers of different materials.

“Here, we have the Jewish Pride flag as a construction of bricolage, where there are the meaningful horizontal rainbow stripes of the queer pride flag and then the white Star of David, which can indicate Judaism or potentially Israel, depending on one’s reading,” she says.

The ambiguity of meaning in signs consisting of multiple parts is what often leads to misrecognition. Since the Jewish Pride flag combines two strong identity symbols, any interpretation is bound to stir deep emotions, Arnold-Murray explains.

“It’s when we have these signs that are so tied up with our identity and who we are that we get these big conflicts among, presumably, a queer community where a lot of people agree on political issues overall.”

For many Jewish participants in the 2019 Dyke March, banning the flag was more than a debate over a symbol.

“A lot of the commenters who were against the ban of the Jewish pride flag were claiming that the ban was anti-Semitic and against them as Jews and that they felt excluded from the march,” Arnold-Murray says.

For organizers, allowing the flag could have been seen as endorsing a political stance they didn’t share. It was a lose-lose situation made worse by how personal it felt for everyone involved.

What’s at stake

Arnold-Murray is careful to warn that there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution to symbolic conflict. But she does suggest that understanding how symbols work, and why layered meanings can spark conflict, can lead to more empathetic conversations.

“I think the stakes are huge. When we have these signs that are tied to identity, it can feel like a personal attack to be contesting what they mean,” she says.

“If we can find ways to stop arguing about symbols and come together a little more, we can have more political unity,” she adds. “But that has to start with listening to the voices of marginalized individuals and understanding that the signs we use might carry multiple meanings.”

In a political landscape increasingly fractured by culture wars and identity debates, that goal may feel out of reach. But for Arnold-Murray, it all comes back to understanding.

“Meaning isn’t fixed. When it comes to situations like this, what’s really important is listening, being willing to apologize, and being willing to move forward while being as inclusive as possible,” she says. “Understanding that meanings come from lived experiences is a good starting point.”

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CU 91��Ҹ� linguistics researcher Kate Arnold-Murray studies what a Facebook fight reveals about identity.

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One safety step sparks another

Rachel Sauer — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 22:15:23 +0000

One safety step sparks another Rachel Sauer Tue, 02/10/2026 - 15:15

Bradley Worrell

91��Ҹ� from CU 91��Ҹ� environmental economist Grant Webster finds that wildfire risk mitigation and proactive evacuation preparation are complementary

The 2025 Los Angeles fires, the 2023 Lahaina Fire in Hawaii and the 2018 Camp Fire in northern California were rapid-moving wildfires that resulted in 196 combined fatalities, tens of thousands of displaced residents and billions of dollars in property damage.

Emergency preparedness experts have long recognized that wildfire risk mitigation and proactive evacuation efforts can both play important roles in lessening the risk of danger to people and property. And yet, previous research focused on those two efforts independently of one another, says Grant Webster, an environmental economist and postdoctoral research associate with the Institute of Behavioral Science at the 91��Ҹ� 91��Ҹ�.

Seeking to bridge that gap, Webster and his fellow researchers at the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Geological Survey analyzed household survey data from the Wildfire 91��Ҹ� Center (WiRē) collected in 25 wildland-urban interface (WUI) communities across five Western states, specifically examining both mitigation and preparedness measures.

Grant Webster, a postdoctoral research associate with the Institute of Behavioral Science and CU 91��Ҹ� PhD graduate in economics, and his research colleagues find that wildfire risk mitigation and proactive evacuation preparation are complementary.

“Our interest was looking at whether there’s a relationship between them. Is there a trade-off, like some people deciding, ‘I’m really prepared to evacuate but I’m not going to mitigate my home,’ or vice versa?” he says.

After evaluating their findings, Webster and his co-authors determined that those two strategies are not competing priorities but instead are mutually reinforcing behaviors. They explain their conclusion in a recently published paper in Ecological Economics,

“When people think about their risk and take action in one area, they are more likely to take action in the other,” he explains. “There’s a spillover between the two.”

Webster says this means that a homeowner who takes proactive mitigation measures—such as trimming the vegetation around their home, clearing the area of combustibles (such as chopped wood) and upgrading building materials to make their home more fire resistant—are statistically more likely to plan safe evacuation routes, prepare “to-go” bags, identify where the household will evacuate to and talk with neighbors about evacuation strategies.

The finding also holds in reverse: Households that take no action in one area often take no action in the other.

“That’s the troubling part,” Webster says. “People living in the riskiest properties are often the least prepared to evacuate.”

Why would a household neither mitigate nor prepare to evacuate?

Webster says his study controls for factors such as income, risk perception and information sources. None of these fully explains the gap.

“It’s likely something unobserved, potentially simply not thinking about wildfire risk,” he says. “If people aren’t engaged with the issue—if they haven’t talked with neighbors or professionals, or if they haven’t experienced a fire—they’re less likely to do either mitigation or evacuation planning.”

Experience is a powerful motivator

The study also examined which households were most likely to have evacuation plans in place. Webster says three patterns emerged. First, people who have evacuated before—or who have lived through a close call—are significantly more likely to prepare. Second, households that understand their vulnerability tend to be more proactive. And third, conversations with neighbors or wildlife professionals can prompt homeowners to act.

“Talking with others gets people thinking,” Webster says. Whether it’s a community meeting or a casual conversation about defensible space, social interaction increases preparedness, he adds.

Interestingly, income was not associated with evacuation planning. Webster says the research found wealthier households were no more likely to have evacuation plans than middle class or lower-income households.

While the study found that all mitigation actions correlate with evacuation preparedness, Webster says a few stood out more strongly: clearing vegetation, replacing combustible siding and addressing attached combustibles, such as wooden decks.

CU 91��Ҹ� researcher Grant Webster found that income is not associated with wildfire evacuation planning; wealthier households are no more likely to have evacuation plans than middle class or lower-income households. (Photo of 2023 Lahaina Fire: Wikimedia Commons)

Still, he cautions against viewing any single action as the “gateway” to preparedness.

“It’s not that there’s one magic measure that will make someone start planning,” he says. “It’s the overall process of thinking about risk and engaging with mitigation that appears to encourage evacuation preparedness.”

So, does that mean mitigation always naturally leads to evacuation preparedness, or does the evacuation preparedness sometimes lead to mitigation efforts? Webster says the question is a bit like the one posed as to which comes first: the chicken or the egg?

“In the paper, with our data, we look only at the direction of mitigation leading to evacuation preparedness. We can’t say anything causal the other way. Hazard literature suggests mitigation usually comes before preparedness, but in practice it could go either way,” he says. “We’re not saying it always does; we just estimate the causal effect in that direction.”

It’s also difficult to interpret from the study how large an impact risk mitigation has on evacuation preparedness for households, Webster says.

“For example, the results suggest that if a household were to change the distance to close vegetation around their home from 5 to 30 feet to over 100 feet, this would result in a household completing one more evacuation preparation action,” he says. “Although certain mitigation and evacuation actions require different levels of effort, making it difficult to quantify a typical effect.”

Implications for authorities and community organizations

Because the study reveals strong spillover effects, Webster says it offers validation for wildfire programs that address mitigation and evacuation together.

“There are teams out there talking to residents about both defensible space and evacuation plans,” he says. “Our findings show that is a good approach.”

Equally important, Webster says, is that even programs that focus on just one area—such as mitigation—are not crowding out the other.

“If you’re spending resources talking about evacuation preparedness, you’re not making people less likely to mitigate,” he explains. “And if you’re talking about mitigation, you’re not reducing the likelihood that they’ll plan for evacuation. People can—and do—take both actions.”

Webster emphasizes that the paper is written primarily for practitioners—fire departments, emergency managers and local governments—that need evidence-based guidance when designing public education programs. Webster’s research is designed to give those practitioners a road map to:

Pair mitigation messaging with evacuation preparedness, as they reinforce each other and improve overall community resilience.
Target outreach to households with no experience or engagement, as they are the most likely to be unprepared in both areas.
Encourage neighbor-to-neighbor conversations, as social networks are powerful tools for spreading risk awareness.
Recognize that income is not a predictor. Preparedness campaigns should include all demographics equally.

“Once we collect and aggregate the data and provide it to the practitioners—those people working on the ground—they can better inform their programs and their policies to deal with the risks in their specific community,” he says. For many at-risk communities, especially rural ones, budgets and personnel are limited, so practical advice that can be easily shared is especially valuable, he adds.

More fires, more need for research

For Webster, this research is particularly timely.

“It’s not that there’s one magic measure that will make someone start planning. It’s the overall process of thinking about risk and engaging with mitigation that appears to encourage evacuation preparedness.”

“Wildfire risk is definitely increasing throughout the country and around the world, due to a variety of factors, including climate change,” he says. “With these fast-moving fires, like in California, it’s really important for people to be ready to evacuate quickly and also to mitigate their home so it’s less likely to be destroyed.”

In addition to the danger of increasing temperatures associated with climate change, Webster says there are two other primary wildfire risk factors: the historical suppression of fires, which has resulted in an accumulation of fuels at risk of catching fire, and the expansion of communities into fire-prone areas, putting more people and properties at risk.

Meanwhile, Webster says he sees the potential for scholars to produce more research on this topic as new data becomes available.

“Our dataset is always growing,” he says. “That allows us to replicate earlier studies on a larger scale and understand the changing dynamics of preparedness.”

He says further research may explore how specific education strategies influence behavior, or how emerging technologies (such as real-time risk maps or AI-driven alerts) shape community responses.

For now, Webster says one message is clear: Proactive steps matter—and households that take action in one area are likely to take action in another. As Webster puts it, “Improving engagement—getting people to think about their wildfire risk—is one of the most powerful tools we have.”

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91��Ҹ� from CU 91��Ҹ� environmental economist Grant Webster finds that wildfire risk mitigation and proactive evacuation preparation are complementary.

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