INSTAAR will welcome its latest faculty fellow in January. Sisimac Duchicela is an ecologist, botanist and biogeographer. Her research investigates climate change, ecology and human-ecosystem relationships in the Andes.

Duchicela will continue to investigate tropical alpine ecosystems, sustainable management practices and community-driven development at INSTAAR. She is particularly interested in how Andean ecosystems are changing in the 21st century, and what this means for local and indigenous people. Duchicela will also develop comparative climate change studies between tropical mountains and the Rockies, with the goal of understanding how the entire latitudinal range of these ecosystems will change.

“Global environmental change is altering the way humans interact with their environment and, in turn, the feedback obtained from these ecosystems,” she said.

In the past, Duchicela has worked closely with Andean Indigenous and farming communities to design and monitor ecological restoration projects, implement climate change simulation experiments and propose adaptation strategies. She is also an expert in the taxonomy, ecology, and biology of tropical alpine vegetation in the Andes — a field that she had contributed to for more than 15 years.

INSTAAR director Nicole Lovenduski said that Duchicela’s interdisciplinary background and rigorous approach were major drivers behind INSTAAR’s decision to hire her.

“Dr. Duchicela’s research program is focused on alpine ecology, an area that has been a core strength of INSTAAR since its inception,” Lovenduski said. “She studies these rapidly changing alpine regions by bringing together concepts from ecology, botany, biogeography, and ecological restoration – exactly the type of interdisciplinary approach that INSTAAR values.”

Duchicela holds a PhD in Geography and the Environment from the University of Texas at Austin and a MS in Natural �ƹ���Ƶ and Environment from the University of Michigan Ann Arbor. Alongside her INSTAAR affiliation, she will hold an assistant professorship in the geography department, where she will teach courses.

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Riley Mulhern will join INSTAAR as a faculty fellow in January, concurrent with his role as an assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Studies. At INSTAAR, Mulhern will continue his work to investigate environmental contamination and human health-related exposures through a community-engaged approach.

“Mulhern’s past experiences and plans to study water quality in high elevation regions, his innovative use of artificial intelligence techniques to analyze complex observational data, and his connections to the public health sector complement and expand INSTAAR’s interdisciplinarity,” INSTAAR director Nicole Lovenduski wrote. “We are excited to welcome him to our institute!”

Previously, Mulhern was the engineering and data science lead on, a program that tested and remediated lead-contaminated water at child care and educational facilities in Georgia and North Carolina. He has also worked on projects addressing private well water quality, low-income housing and PFAS contamination. His environmental engineering and environmental justice efforts have taken him to Nicaragua, Guatemala, and the Bolivian Andes. 

Mulhern earned an MS in Environmental Engineering from CU Boulder in 2016 and a PhD in Environmental Sciences & Engineering from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2021. He comes to the institute with a lengthy record of peer-reviewed publications. He received both the Highly Cited and Highly Published Author awards from RTI international in 2021.

Throughout his career, Mulhern has fostered collaboration to expand the bounds of his research and its impacts. At CU, he hopes to develop collaborative projects both within the institute and beyond.

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Michael Gooseff has been elected as a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union (AGU), the union announced today.

Gooseff is among 54 scholars in the 2024 cohort of Fellows. AGU, the world's largest Earth and space science association, bestows the honor annually on a select number of individuals who have made exceptional contributions in their fields. Since its inception in 1962, less than one tenth of one percent of AGU members have been selected as Fellows each year.

It’s such an honor and a great surprise. While I am the one receiving this honor, it is really a testament to my collaborations with colleagues and students throughout my career 

Michael Gooseff (left) with Anthony Bourdain and Byron Adams in the McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica after shooting outreach science discussions for the CNN show Parts Unknown, January 2017.

Gooseff was selected for his exemplary leadership and for advancing our understanding of how a changing climate affects ecosystems and freshwater supply.

Gooseff has conducted field and modeling research studies from Arctic Alaska to Antarctica, including many sites in the intermountain western U.S. He and his students investigate the relationships between earth systems and ecosystems to better understand mechanisms of natural water movement in the environment, particularly the interactions of surface water and groundwater, and the consequences of these physical processes on the transport and fate of solutes such as pollutants and nutrients. Quantifying these linkages directly informs our understanding of water quality and its response to changes within these systems.

Gooseff is a fellow of the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research and a professor in the Department of Civil Architectural & Environmental Engineering. He is currently the Associate Dean for Research for the College of Engineering and Applied Science, lead principal investigator of the McMurdo Dry Valleys LTER project, and a co-director of the Hydrologic Sciences Graduate Program at CU.

He is a celebrated teacher and effective graduate student advisor and mentor.

In addition to his academic contributions, Gooseff recently chaired the Water Quality Control Commission for the State of Colorado and was a member of the Scientific Advisory Board on Water Body Connectivity for the Environmental Protection Agency.

“It’s such an honor and a great surprise,” said Gooseff. “While I am the one receiving this honor, it is really a testament to my collaborations with colleagues and students throughout my career.”

Gooseff joins a number of AGU Fellows active within INSTAAR, including Robert Anderson, Suzanne Anderson, Diane McKnight, and Gifford Miller. With the rest of the 2024 Fellows, Gooseff will be recognized at in December 2024.

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