NREL EcoPress

09/30/2026

Big congratulations to NREL scientists Jill Baron and Dennis Ojima, who have both been elected 2026 Fellows of the American Geophysical Union (AGU)! 🎉🌎

One of AGU’s highest honors, the Fellows program recognizes exceptional contributions to Earth and space science. Jill and Dennis are being recognized for careers that have advanced ecosystem and climate science through decades of research, collaboration, and leadership.

We’re proud to celebrate two remarkable members of the NREL and Warner College of Natural Resources community!

Read more: https://warnercnr.source.colostate.edu/two-natural-resource-ecology-laboratory-scientists-elected-2026-agu-fellows/

08/24/2026

From CSU mentorship to global land policy, Colorado State connections are on display at UNCCD COP17 in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

COP17 is the 17th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, one of the three environmental conventions that emerged from the 1992 Earth Summit. Representatives from around the world are meeting through Aug. 28 to address desertification, land degradation, drought, restoration, and the future of the world’s rangelands.

Among the major scientific contributions being shared at COP17 are the findings of the Global Land Outlook 3, the UNCCD’s flagship assessment of the challenges facing the world’s land and pathways toward more sustainable management and restoration.

Two of the report’s lead authors have deep CSU connections. Batkhishig Baival earned her Ph.D. in rangeland ecosystem science at CSU under Maria Fernández-Giménez, and Nichole Barger earned her Ph.D. in ecology at CSU under Dennis Ojima.

These photos capture Barger and Ojima at the COP17 release of the Global Land Outlook 3 summary findings, and Barger and Baival during the panel discussion accompanying the release.

Also pictured in this post is Dennis Ojima with Chuluun Togtohyn, a Mongolian scientist with whom he has collaborated since the 1990s. Initially, they engaged in fieldwork that was focused on the ecological impact of land use and climate. As they spent more time in Mongolia, they became increasingly involved with pastoral communities, studying their resilience and getting more resources to support their sustainable livelihoods. The project evolved into more of a social-ecological study, where they worked closely with local pastoralists, the government, and different international programs.

For CSU, COP17 is a full-circle moment. CSU researchers have worked with colleagues and pastoral communities in Mongolia for more than three decades, building research partnerships around rangeland resilience, social-ecological systems, and community knowledge. Today, researchers trained through those relationships are helping shape the international science and policy conversations happening at COP17.

Learn more in a blog post from earlier this month: https://www.nrel.colostate.edu/colorado-state-researchers-bring-decades-of-rangeland-science-to-un-land-summit-in-mongolia/

08/14/2026

From Colorado to Mongolia, Colorado State University has a decades-long record of contributing to conversations about resilience, restoration, and the future of pastoral communities.

That legacy continues, as CSU researchers will represent the university at the UN Convention to Combat Desertification’s COP17 in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, Aug. 17–28.

As the team prepared for COP17, they helped put together a story tracing the history of CSU's global rangeland work — from collaborating with pastoralists and land managers, to combining ecological, physical, and social science with the knowledge of the people who live and work on the land.

Read it on NREL EcoPress (Warner College of Natural Resources):

https://www.nrel.colostate.edu/colorado-state-researchers-bring-decades-of-rangeland-science-to-un-land-summit-in-mongolia/

08/12/2026

Come find us at YES!fest 2026, hosted by High Plains Library District! Caroline Nickerson, our communications lead and Ms. Doctorate Colorado 2026, will be at the table with CitSci and NREL EcoPress.

Her Ms. Doctorate platform is citizen science, the idea that anyone can take part in real research, and she's bringing it to Greeley, Colorado on Saturday, September 19.

Stop by our booth to try citizen science for yourself: make an observation, log a real data point, and see how the work volunteers contribute adds up to actual science.

YES!fest runs 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the LINC Library Innovation Center, 501 8th Ave., Greeley, CO. Hands-on STEM for kids in grades 2 to 5 (all ages welcome), plus free books and prizes. Come say hello!

Details and directions: https://www.mylibrary.us/yesfest/

Pictured: The YES!Fest mascots

07/25/2026

New on the EcoPress blog from Colorado State University's Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory (NREL): how a banner for the Ecological Society of America (ESA)'s Rocky Mountain Chapter turned real temperature data into art!

NREL communications specialist Caroline Nickerson and University of Florida artist Olivia Zhang collaborated to build a banner for the chapter's table at the ESA Annual Meeting, held in Salt Lake City July 26 to 31.

The art piece created by Olivia shows a Rocky Mountain landscape, and the line across the sky is not decoration. It is the actual annual mean temperature for the Rocky Mountain National Park region, drawn from the PRISM climate dataset. In the animated version on the NREL EcoPress blog (and featured in this social media post), the graph shifts color as it warms over time.

That is the idea behind the data and art approach: a picture can resonate and communicate trends in a different way than just words or numbers can. Putting the temperature record where the sky would be lets people see the warming trend right away.

And warming here has real consequences. It changes snowpack and snowmelt timing, stresses alpine species like the bighorn sheep in the banner, and reshapes the ecosystems the chapter's members study and manage. Caroline and Olivia were honored to help interpret the chapter's mission in a new way.

If you are at ESA, stop by the Rocky Mountain Chapter's table and say hello (and pick up some stickers of the new logo!).

Learn more in this blog post: https://www.nrel.colostate.edu/understanding-temperature-change-through-art-creating-a-banner-for-the-rocky-mountain-chapter/

07/16/2026

06/26/2026

CSU, CitSci.org, and NREL are bringing citizen science to Denver’s Park Hill 4th of July Parade! 🎉

Caroline Nickerson, communications specialist with Colorado State University’s NREL EcoPress and CitSci.org, will walk in the parade as Ms. Doctorate Colorado 2026. Her platform is citizen science: the idea that anyone can take part in real research.

That message fits right at home with CSU’s land-grant mission of research, education, and service. At CSU’s Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory, or NREL, researchers study ecosystems, environmental change, sustainability, and the connections between people and the natural world.

CitSci.org, a global citizen science platform based at CSU, helps researchers, educators, students, and community groups create projects, collect data, and invite the public into science.

On July 4, Caroline will bring that work into the community at the Park Hill 4th of July Parade, a beloved Denver tradition organized by Greater Park Hill Community, Inc.

CSU faculty, staff, students, alumni, families, and friends are invited to walk with the CSU/CitSci group, carry signs, wave to the crowd, and share citizen science projects anyone can join, including:
🌎 Leave No Trash (Leave No Trace), which turns cleanups into environmental data
☁️ Space Cloud Watch (Do NASA Science), which invites volunteers to look for rare noctilucent clouds
🌱 2FP Resilient Soils Project (The Two Frontiers Project), which focuses on soil health and land stewardship

Read more and sign up to walk with us: https://blog.citsci.org/2026/06/18/walk-with-us-caroline-nickerson-brings-citizen-science-to-the-park-hill-4th-of-july-parade-as-ms-doctorate-colorado-2026/

04/30/2026

Nitrogen fertilizer is essential for global food production, but more than half of what is applied to crops is often lost to the environment. These losses contribute to greenhouse gas emissions, water and air pollution, and broader ecosystem impacts.

Researchers at Colorado State University are part of a new international collaboration aimed at reducing agricultural emissions while maintaining crop productivity.

The initiative, known as the Agricultural Nitrogen Use Efficiency Platform, is hosted by Aarhus University and supported by the Novo Nordisk Foundation. AgNUE will bring together institutions across Europe and the United States to create the first international network dedicated to measuring and understanding how nitrogen moves through agricultural fields.

Learn more: https://www.nrel.colostate.edu/csu-researchers-join-international-effort-to-improve-nitrogen-management-in-agriculture/

04/27/2026