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The University of Colorado Boulder exceeded its own researchers’ expectations with its iDREAMS Scalable Game Design Summer Institute, and that success has been rewarded with a new $1.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation. CU-Boulder researchers are tracking how video game design engages students in computational thinking and STEM simulation design.

For the second straight year, the University of Colorado Boulder is ranked No. 1 in the nation for graduates serving as Peace Corps volunteers with 112 undergraduate alumni currently serving around the world, the Peace Corps announced today. CU-Boulder is ranked the No. 5 all-time school for volunteers with 2,317 alumni who have served in the Peace Corps since it was established in 1961.

Peace Corps Director Aaron S. Williams will give a short presentation at the University of Colorado Boulder on Wednesday, Jan. 25, to share stories of CU alumni who are currently serving overseas and discuss the importance of the Peace Corps in the world today. The presentation will begin at 1:30 p.m. in Old Main Chapel and is free and open to the public. Nominated by President Barack Obama and confirmed by the U.S. Senate in 2009, Williams is the 18th director of the Peace Corps and the fourth director to have served as a Peace Corps volunteer.

A team of researchers led by the University of Colorado Boulder has used NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope to uncover a cluster of galaxies in the initial stages of construction -- the most distant such grouping ever observed in the early universe. In a random sky survey made in near-infrared light, Hubble spied five small galaxies clustered together 13.1 billion light-years away. They are among the brightest galaxies at that epoch and very young, living just 600 million years after the universe’s birth in the Big Bang. One light-year is about 6 trillion miles.

A team of University of Colorado Boulder engineers will travel to Haiti this month to support the growth of green energy on the two-year anniversary of the country’s devastating earthquake. Engineering professors Alan Mickelson and Mike Hannigan and graduate student Matt Hulse will be in Haiti Jan. 8-16 to collaborate with the Neges Foundation school at Leogane to create a vocational training program on the installation, operation and maintenance of renewable energy systems.

Over the past decade, the University of Colorado Boulder has established itself as a national leader in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, or STEM, education. Through its Learning Assistant and CU Teach programs and Integrating STEM initiative, CU-Boulder is making great progress on its goal of improving introductory math and science classes and recruiting and training future K-12 science teachers.

Kevin Welner, professor of education and director of the National Education Policy Center at the CU-Boulder School of Education, can speak to most elements of the Lobato litigation and its implications. Welner is an attorney and policy analyst who has published articles and book chapters concerning school finance litigation, the outcomes of such litigation, and the underlying issues of what's necessary for an adequate education. He can explain the issues in the Lobato case as well as the options now available to the courts and lawmakers.

Two University of Colorado Boulder professors are conducting research in Finland and the United Kingdom as Fulbright Scholars for the 2011-12 academic year.

Fourteen graduate students from the Engineering for Developing Communities program at the University of Colorado Boulder traveled abroad this summer to gain field experience in community development.

The University of Colorado Boulder will host the 2011 Linguistics Institute from July 7 to Aug. 2, a prestigious gathering of faculty and students from around the world that also will feature free films, workshops and lectures open to the public.