The Franklin Institute named INSTAAR Faculty Fellow Katharine Suding the recipient of the Bower Award and Prize for achievement in Science today, citing her “transformative contributions to restoration ecology.”

Each year, the Bower Awards go to outstanding scientists and innovators who have led paradigm shifts in their respective fields. Past winners include Jane Goodall, Stephen Hawking, Albert Einstein and Marie Curie. 

“These are some of the greatest minds and most influential pioneers of our time,” Franklin Institute President and CEO Larry Dubinski wrote in a press release.

Suding has pioneered theoretical shifts, experimental methods and collaborative efforts with land managers since she entered the field of restoration ecology more than 25 years ago. Her work has influenced ecologists around the world. Suding’s 2004 paper “,” remains the most highly-cited article in the field to this day.

Though her theoretical contributions to the field have had a global impact, much of Suding’s work is locally-focused. At INSTAAR,  from 2013-2023. It is an ongoing National Science Foundation-funded project that has produced insights into alpine ecology for more than 40 years. She also recently  that applies insights from grassland ecology research toward mitigating wildfire risk.

On May 1,  for a ceremony at the Benjamin Franklin National Memorial in Philadelphia. INSTAAR sat down with the eminent restoration ecologist for a Q&A on the eve of the big announcement.

What was your path to restoration ecology?

I grew up in Evergreen, Colorado, and I was always really interested in the natural world. I especially loved the open spaces that we have around here and, later in my career, I think that’s why I always sought out grasslands.

Anyways, because of my interests, it made sense to pursue biology and ecology during my undergrad at Williams. When I got to graduate school, I was really interested in theory and quantitative approaches, but I also wanted to be able to work with land managers and provide something useful. That’s when I started to get interested in restoration.

At the time, it was a pretty new field — it really started in the late 80s and early 90s. One of the premises back then was that if you know how a system works and how all the pieces of the web of life fit together, then you should know how to put those pieces back into a degraded system and restore it. An often-repeated quote from the 80s was that "land restoration is the acid test of our ecological understanding.”

It was pretty appealing to be able to take ideas from the basic science side of things and use them for restoration. And, if that framework did work, it would create a really important role for ecology in terms of providing solutions to some of the negative impacts that humans have had on the environment.

But, I soon realized that this concept was a very simplified, human-centered way of thinking about things. So, one of the first things I started thinking about was shifting our understanding from thinking about ecosystems as linear to thinking about nonlinear dynamics. Maybe, when a system gets stuck in a degraded state, it’s actually stuck and not changing at all. And, if that’s true, you might actually be able to cross a threshold and cause really rapid recovery.

We were bringing in ideas from all kinds of complex system theories, like economics or even marriage dynamics. Really, we were thinking that maybe there’s a more productive way to approach restoration that takes into account alternative stable states.

You’re receiving this award, in part, because you played a major role in changing some of the fundamental theories in the field of restoration ecology. You just referenced some of the ideas in your now famous paper “Alternative states and positive feedbacks in restoration ecology.” What was the next big theoretical shift?

Yeah, so I think this is where you start to get into ideas that are a little more controversial. First, there’s this idea of novel ecosystems. It’s the idea that, in restoration, you might never fully get back to a historical reference state, for instance you might never be able to get rid of certain exotic species. Instead, you might be dealing with a new ecosystem that has no analog, but might still have some value. You might still have an ecosystem that benefits both nature and humans, but has changed forever.

Of course this makes things not so black and white. Some worry that it creates a slippery slope and that people could take advantage of it and say that anything they do is restoration. 

But, I think it’s probably going to become less controversial as time goes on. We have to provide ways that people can actually use these ideas in the world. And, these concepts have also spurred growth for things like research into ecosystem services — how nature can provide services. Things like meeting the demands of a productive landscape for rangeland or increasing water holding capacity or controlling flooding.

We can accept that we’re not going to go back to the past, but still set strong goals and maintain strong ideals, like fostering biological diversity and developing nature-based solutions to problems.

I think a lot of people that are just learning about restoration now, like undergrads, are kind of surprised that this was even controversial. The reality is that everything is changing. 

When you look back at your career so far, what are some things that you are proud of?

I hope I have given people some ways to think about management a little bit out of the box. Ways to break negative feedback that aren’t just going with the status quo. I think that has resonated with some people.

I also hope that I've allowed people to think more intentionally about the goals for particular natural systems. Maybe, instead of beating yourself up because you'll never meet certain ideals, maybe you can consider the value that that piece of land still has. Really thinking about how management goals can shift without losing the conservation mandate.

What questions or problems drive your work today?

Locally, I think the Fire question is super important. We’re working on ways to balance managing fire risk with also supporting the incredible diversity we have in grasslands and their ability to store carbon in the soil. It’s a complex problem without a single overarching goal, but hopefully we can find some more balanced solutions. 

One other thing that I’m curious about is potentially finding the best way to get Bison back onto our local grasslands. There’s a lot of potential in terms of both ecological health and cultural significance. This is still in the very early stages though, so who knows what will happen.

The UN declared this the decade of ecosystem restoration, and there’s been some debate over whether that means it’s just a decade of increased tree planting and reforestation, or if grasslands fit into that. These are sites that have huge conservation value on their own. 

I think we need more appreciation of what we've been calling old growth grasslands. We can't see all the complexity, because it's below ground. But it's there. There's all sorts of crazy underground roots and dynamics that you could see if you flipped it over. I think it's as amazing as an old growth forest.

If you have questions about this story, or would like to reach out to INSTAAR for further comment, you can contact Senior Communications Specialist Gabe Allen at gabriel.allen@colorado.edu.

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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 Resources 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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