University Of Colorado, Denver: Inaugural Research Symposium Brimming With Innovative Ideas

Press release from the University of Colorado, Denver :

Rachel Sturtz

November 1, 2021

Last Friday, the University of Colorado Denver hosted its inaugural Strategic Plan Research Symposium, a gathering of the university’s top-notch faculty to pitch ideas that could become one of five “grand challenges” research topics. The campus will focus its research investments in the coming years around the interdisciplinary grand challenges to grow its research enterprise in national and international prominence.

It’s a big first step toward CU Denver’s 2030 Strategic Plan to elevate and invest in collaborative research to solve complex, global problems. Chancellor Michelle Marks, Provost Constancio Nakuma, Engineering Dean and Interim Chief Research Officer Martin Dunn, and School of Public Affairs Dean Paul Teske welcomed faculty and quickly got the presentations underway. 

During the three-hour session in the Lola & Rob Salazar Student Wellness Center, each faculty member or team took three minutes to pitch their projects, with a basketball buzzer signaling the end of their time. In all, 40 projects filled the morning.

Faculty represented several schools and departments, with many covering the most pressing societal issues, including innovations in health, social justice, community resilience, equity, climate change, wildfires, and population growth. By proxy, Cathy Bodine pitched a center for aging and disability technology, which would focus on a market that will triple by 2050 and continue Center for Inclusive Design and Engineering’s work on human-centered engineering design like assistive robotics and wireless charging for wheelchairs.

Diana Tomback pitched a Global Change Group made up of research clusters that would primarily tackle the wide-ranging effects of climate change and population growth. There were pitches that covered deep fakes and media forensics, equity on our campus and in our technology, psilocybin treatments, and the importance of equitable landscape architecture in preschools and neighborhoods.

After each pitch, faculty had the chance to email project presenters with whom they were interested in collaborating. And after the presentations, faculty met over lunch to talk more about their research.

“What tremendous potential,” Nakuma said in his closing remarks. “The number of people who showed up and presented for three hours of intense discussion is, to me, success. As we take these things forward, the results you see will be in the earned leadership, energy and passion, and a clearer vision for where we want to go with the research areas we identify. This is the beginning.”

For Phase 2, speakers will collaborate and build on their ideas to create a 15- to 20-minute presentation and discussion on Nov. 19. Registration for team presentations will be due by Nov. 12. Dean Dunn introduced a timeline for the rest of the year, below.

CU Denver Research and Creative Work Grand Challenges

This press release was produced by the University of Colorado, Denver. The views expressed here are the author’s own.