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Remembering Ron LeMaster

Anonymous — Wed, 10 Aug 2022 22:32:15 +0000

Remembering Ron LeMaster Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 08/10/2022 - 16:32 Hannah Sanders

A giant in the ski industry and in the �鶹ӰԺ community

Ron LeMaster was widely known as a world-class ski instructor, but the University of Colorado community and the larger �鶹ӰԺ community are lucky enough to know LeMaster as one of our own.

LeMaster was a ski coach for the CU ski team, the U.S. ski team, as well as for Vail and Aspen ski resorts. Described as an “artist of motion dissection” by CU Ski Team coach Richard Rokos, Ron LeMaster published several books, including The Skier’s Edge and Ultimate Skiing.

LeMaster earned his bachelors in Mechanical Engineering at �鶹ӰԺ while with the CU ski team. After earning his degree, Ron LeMaster spent much of his career working as a programmer for IBM in �鶹ӰԺ. On the weekends, he worked with skiers everywhere on improving their technique.

Daughter Alexis Lemaster describes how Ron LeMaster balanced his many interests throughout his life: “He did everything at the same time. [On the weekends] he would go teach skiing and at night he would just stay up writing articles about skiing. I remember I would fall asleep to him typing, because he would just be up until 2 a.m. working on something, and then he’d wake up and ride his bike to work.”

In addition to writing books and articles, Lemaster became an advisor for our own Colorado Engineering Magazine, where he was able to use his editorial knowledge to support student work.

Ron LeMaster’s teaching gifts touched the �鶹ӰԺ community in so many ways. For a time, Ron LeMaster worked for Nobel Laureate Carl Weimann to develop a physics class that made content more comprehensible and engaging for students.

Knowledge of physics in particular is what made Ron LeMaster’s work so unique as a ski instructor, as he could break down the science behind downhill skiing to improve speed and efficiency. LeMaster possessed such a depth of knowledge that he was an instructor to other coaches. He often attended conferences and seminars to share his knowledge across the country so that more could benefit from mastering the fundamental movements of downhill skiing. Also unique to LeMaster’s work was the use of photography and videos taken by LeMaster himself.

Friend Carl Newman explains, “He would go to races and take pictures…in those days they were slides. He would take the slides and make a collage of them and draw angles and vectors, showing what [the skiers] weight distribution was, and that was the basis of his work: What the physics is of what the skiers [are] doing, what the right way to do it [is].”

Ron LeMaster’s work in the ski industry showcases the qualities we all seek out in good teachers and mentors: expertise on a subject built through technical knowledge and personal experience, a talent for communication and a deep passion for those he worked with.

“So many different types of people go skiing,from all over the world, all different demographics,” Alexis LeMaster said. “You’re interacting with so many different types of people, so you start to learn how to interact with such a wide breadth of people and personality types, and you get better at learning where you need to assert yourself and where you don’t. [Ron was] really good at finding a way for that specific situation or person to understand what he was trying to portray.”

Ron LeMaster took some time early in life to focus entirely on ski instruction, later transitioning to work at IBM. Even off the mountain, he still did what he loved.

“He loved [computer engineering] and he always told me that he loved his job.

He was a big advocate of it [no] matter how much money it’s going to pay you; if you don’t like it it’s not worth your time,” Alexis Lemaster said. “He definitely lived the same kind of way he told people they should live.”

For many students in college, entering the workforce can feel like making a choice between a passion and a job. Ron LeMaster is an example of a better way: choosing to find a job you enjoy and are good at, while carving out time for the things you are passionate about.

“I think there is really something to be said about getting the opportunity to really figure out what you love and what can serve you within what you love [Ron] saw that engineering is… more reliable…but over time [both computer engineering and ski coaching] ended up both serving him in life,” said Alexis LeMaster.

Although Ron Lemaster was known for his work, he was loved for investment in the lives of those around him.

“In undergrad, [Ron] was just a guy that loved to ski and when you skied with him you would come back at the end of the day better than when you went out,” said friend John Clark. “Even in the old days I would ski with him, and I was just amazed that he enjoyed skiing with me, even though he could have been out shredding the mountain with his high performance guys. He enjoyed the camaraderie of it, the friendship of it.”

Often he would bike up �鶹ӰԺ Canyon, stopping to talk with friends that lived along his route. Friend Burr Touhey described how he would bike up and tell her about birds he had seen, as he knew Burr was passionate about birdwatching.

“That is what everybody loved about my dad…he had the time to take with you, and he was really curious and interested in just about anything, and so he’d talk to you about anything. He genuinely cared about people, you know, so he would remember special things,” said Lemaster.

A beloved member of the �鶹ӰԺ community, Ron LeMaster touched the lives of so many, and inspires us to carve the perfect line between serving our communities and building a life we love living.

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The Rise of Computational Biology

Anonymous — Wed, 10 Aug 2022 22:27:47 +0000

The Rise of Computational Biology Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 08/10/2022 - 16:27 Zane Perry

How one of CU’s most recent minors has the potential to revolutionize the medical industry

The field of medicine and health professions is a rapidly shifting and growing industry, constantly providing new sources of innovation in ways that benefit human health across the globe. The integration of rapidly emerging, new technologies into medical and biological research has led to exciting developments within the field. One noteworthy impact was the creation of computational biology, a field of study that seeks to use computing techniques to model and study a wide variety of biological systems. By effectively combining topics from diverse fields, such as molecular biology, biochemistry, neuroscience, computer science, data science and software engineering, computational biology has contributed to major breakthroughs in the modern world including the rise of biotechnology and the development of the COVID-19 vaccine.

In response to this cutting edge subject, the �鶹ӰԺ introduced a minor in Computational Biology in Fall of 2020 that teaches students the advanced computational tools and interdisciplinary ideas that will enable innovative biotechnology and biological research. This effort has been closely aligned with CU’s BioFrontiers Institute, created in 2011 and dedicated to the interdisciplinary exploration of the life sciences and their societal benefits. Working alongside multiple disciplines from the College of Arts and Sciences and the College of Engineering, the vision of the BioFrontiers Institute is to “drive innovation without boundaries”. The BioFrontiers Institute draws support from well-known computational biologists like Eugene Myers, Sean Eddy, and Gary Stormo, who attended CU for their graduate studies.

In 2017, Aaron Clauset, an associate professor in Computer Science at CU, and Kristin Powell, Director of Interdisciplinary Education at the BioFrontiers Institute, began the long journey to launch a Computational Biology curriculum at CU. To start, they worked with the talented faculty affiliated with the BioFrontiers Institute who had extensive experience in interdisciplinary research, as well as existing classes offered at CU. Their goal was to create a program that brought together students and faculty from a diverse set of majors and departments. Working with advisors Eva Lacy from the Computer Science Department and Kim Noice from the Biology Department, they discussed how to combine classes from both departments into a single program, as well as how to introduce several new courses tailored specifically to the minor. This provided students the opportunity to cross between disciplines to collaborate and learn from each other and from other students outside of their traditional colleges. For this reason, Clauset and Powell strongly believed that first establishing Computational Biology as a minor instead of a major program was critical to the success of students who desired to enter the field. This not only allowed them to cross departments for their studies, but also cross colleges between Arts and Sciences and Engineering. As such, it is one of the only minors at CU to date that spans multiple departments and colleges on campus.

Robin Dowell, an Associate Professor in Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology who is also a faculty member at the BioFrontiers Institute, was instrumental to the formation of the Computational Biology minor. Because the minor is rostered by the Computer Science department, Dowell acted as a spokesperson for the biology departments in the College of Arts and Sciences, advocating on their behalf, and was a leader in the development of the minor’s curriculum. Dowell herself is an excellent example of why this minor was an instrumental addition to CU for those interested in pursuing computational biology. She received bachelor’s degrees in genetics and a second one in computer engineering from Texas A&M University because the concept of computational biology barely existed when she was attending school. Despite this, she knew that she wanted to find a way to combine engineering and genetics in a lab setting, and as a result ended up in the middle of the Human Genome Project at Washington University in St. Louis while obtaining her master’s degree and Ph.D. Owing to her own experiences, Dowell was a strong advocate for the Computational Biology minor at CU so that younger students would not have to pursue multiple degrees to be qualified for the developing industry.

Despite existing for only two academic years, as well as launching during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Computational Biology minor already includes over fifty enrolled students that span about a dozen majors. The program has three areas that students complete over the course of their studies. A technical skills area covers mathematical and computational techniques, while a bio-electives area teaches students the fundamentals of biological concepts and theories. In the third area, composed of upper division courses, students integrate these ideas in a set of classes that focus on topics within computational biology and their applications to the real world. These upper division courses include topics like biological networks, computational genomics, computational neuroscience, optical imaging, biophysics, and more.

Both Clauset and Powell hope that the Computational Biology program at CU �鶹ӰԺ provides a model for other universities to follow in promoting this evolving field. Many other schools that offer similar programs restrict students to taking classes that are segregated between departments and lack the opportunity for collaboration for academic and research experiences. Looking forward to the future, Clauset and Powell hope that the Computational Biology Minor expands to include many more students and encourages others to appreciate the value of interdisciplinary work and its implications for innovation throughout the world.

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How The James Webb Space Telescope Views the Cosmos

Anonymous — Wed, 10 Aug 2022 22:25:12 +0000

How The James Webb Space Telescope Views the Cosmos Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 08/10/2022 - 16:25 Aaron Schurman

The James Webb Space Telescope gives an unprecedented view of the ancient universe through the use of deep range infrared light imaging

Directly after the Hubble Space Telescope launched in the 1980s, observational scientists started discussing a follow-up technology that would use long wavelength or infrared imaging. This telescope, named after James Webb, director of NASA from 1961 to 1968, was originally supposed to launch in 2007 on a 500 million dollar budget. After failing to make launch dates in 2007 and 2013 due to construction delays, many people following this satellite’s journey thought it was never going to be ready to take to the stars. Finally in October of 2021, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), coming in at a final cost of nearly 9.7 billion dollars (as estimated by NASA), was launched.

The JWST started its journey nestled on the head of the ESA Ariane 5 rocket and proceeded to make a 1.5 million kilometer journey to the second Lagrange Point. A Lagrange Point is a stable orbit point that maintains a smaller orbiting body’s position relative to two larger bodies. In this case, gravitational forces keep the Earth in between the telescope and the Sun, which helps maintain a cool telescope temperature and limits the amount of infrared light coming from the Sun, which would effectively ruin the telescope’s “night vision”. This is an ideal place for the JWST to call home, as its sensitive instruments need to be kept very cold, a chilly -255 degrees Celsius, and can become oversaturated by the Sun’s light.

The ability to pick up wavelengths of light that are far into the infrared spectrum is important for observational astronomers, such as Dr. Erica Nelson, an Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences professor here at CU �鶹ӰԺ studying the early formation of galaxies.

The universe is expanding, and when light travels across space a phenomenon known as the Doppler Effect stretches out the light to be at a longer wavelength. This is often referred to as ‘redshift.’ In order to see further into the past, the JWST must be able to pick up light deep into the infrared spectrum that has been shifted there after traveling through billions of lightyears in an expanding universe.

Dr. Erica Nelson and her team are attempting to understand “how the universe evolved from its uniform state, shortly after the Big Bang, to the diversity of galaxies we see today.” Through her prior research with the Hubble Telescope, Dr. Nelson categorized most galaxies that we can currently observe as forming like massive disks and also creating a majority of their stars as galactic disks. She said, “If we are going to understand how early galaxies evolve, we are going to have to understand how the stars that make them up formed.” It is predicted that at earlier times in the universe, galaxies did not form in these massive disk-like structures, and at a certain point there was a time when galaxies evolved from a mess into an organized structure that Dr. Nelson describes as a ‘dawn of disks.’ Dr. Nelson is hoping to observe and understand this hypothesized shift to disk formations.

The formation of galaxies and stars is a chaotic process, and during their construction stars are surrounded by dust. Dust can become an issue for observational astronomers like Dr. Nelson, because it absorbs, heats up, and re-radiates up to 95% of the light that those emerging stars produce. Most of this light is emitted as longer wavelengths of infrared. A good example of this phenomenon is to look at the Pillars of Creation, a giant cloud filled with dust and gas, in visible and infrared light. In Dr. Nelson’s words, “At earlier cosmic times galaxies are way dustier.”

Another application of the JWST’s ability to see through dust and small particles is to examine in more chemical and visual detail, past the icy clouds and waters of the ice giants Neptune and Uranus.

This will give scientists a new window to view Earth’s celestial neighbors. The JWST will be able to pick up these long wavelengths of infrared, and it will be the first time scientists, such as Dr. Nelson, are going to see early galaxies and other previously opaque celestial bodies clearly.

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Fires and Blizzards

Anonymous — Wed, 10 Aug 2022 22:12:25 +0000

Fires and Blizzards Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 08/10/2022 - 16:12 David Remich

How the extreme shifts in weather are impacting our community

Over the past couple years, life has become a perpetual cycle of ups and downs. More often than not, whenever there seems to be a positive story in the news or an uplifting movement on social media, it turns out to be the calm before the storm. For the residents of Superior and Louisville, the Marshall Fire changed everything. As a community, there was nothing we could do besides look on in shock as the Marshall Fire swept through Superior and Louisville on December 30th.

I live in Broomfield, right on the edge of Superior. I parked my car at the bus stop in downtown Louisville before I went out of town for the holidays. All I could do was watch and hope for the best with my family as I waited to hear from my neighbors if our apartment building had burned down. However, I was more worried about my car because I had no way to determine its condition and it was in the heart of the fire. Upon arrival, I was relieved to find my car undamaged. The bushes and trees directly in front of my car were charred and blackened. The stripmall across the parking lot was gone. I opened my car and all I could smell was smoke. The stench lasted for several weeks and outlasted many air fresheners. However, my story is nothing compared to the hundreds who lost their homes, but it just shows how much this has affected the entire community.

According to the �鶹ӰԺ Office of Emergency Management, 1,084 residential structures were destroyed, including 550 in Louisville, 378 in Superior, and 156 in unincorporated �鶹ӰԺ County and the total damage to homes is estimated to be upwards of $513 million. Unpredictable disasters can be disorienting when you look around the place you grew up and all you see is ash. Cars looking like they were just hit by a bomb and the blackened remains of homes you once visited on Halloween.

As if this tragedy wasn’t enough, fewer than 24hrs after the fire began, the entire area was covered in a thick blanket of snow. “The snow can be positive and a hindrance,” said Rocco Snart, the branch chief for the Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control. The sudden snowfall inhibited the fire from spreading as quickly as it had the day prior with the 100+mph winds. However, it inhibited most of the clean up efforts and blocked the Colorado National Guard from securing the impacted area successfully. Not to mention the hundreds of displaced citizens who now found themselves homeless and shivering just days before the new year.

Like adding salt to a wound, the first warm spring day in �鶹ӰԺ resulted in the NCAR fire. The �鶹ӰԺ Office of Emergency Management reportedly evacuated 1,629 people, including 699 housing units and 836 buildings by 11:08pm on March 26th. �鶹ӰԺ fire rescue crews were able to 100% contain this fire by March 31st, but not before it took hold of 190 acres southwest of the city’s Table Mesa neighborhood, near the National Center for Atmospheric Research. The sporadic weather trends are nothing new to Colorado; however, the scale, intensity, and consistency of these recent fires has the entire state sitting on edge.

Leading up to Christmas, the month of December was littered with 60 degree days and very little snowfall throughout the state of Colorado. The total snowpack was 0% going into 2022. Due to the late snowfall and previous years droughts, most of the state is experiencing an intensifying drought, classified as an “extreme D3 drought which has lasted a while” says Assistant State Climatologist Becky Bolinger. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) cites that “the extreme drought category, D3, corresponds to an area where major crop and pasture losses are common, fire risk is extreme, and widespread water shortages can be expected requiring restrictions.” These extremes seem to be increasing to the point of regularity and the cumulative impact can be dire. This long term environmental shift in water consistency is what set the stage for the Marshall Fire to be so destructive.

Within the next few weeks, there was a sudden reversal, with NOAA reporting that the total snowpack was at 127% of the average by the end of January. Currently, Colorado is at 104% of the average snowpack. However, the sudden shift does not mean we are back on track. Trends often happen across multiple years, so it will take a few good years to cancel out an extreme drought. These trends are begging us to ask the questions, what will happen if we do not get a giant snowfall to combat the lengthy droughts? What will our summers look like when that happens? Since mountains serve as natural ‘water towers’ that fill our reservoirs and supply us with fresh drinking water, if the towers run dry, will fires dominate our landscape?

These sporadic changes in our typical precipitation patterns have had both an immediate and prolonged impact on the people and industries of Colorado. This is perhaps most prominent and relatable during the skiing and snowboarding season. Some of the most lively and entertaining places in the winter are the mountain resorts. Unfortunately, with the minimal snowfall early this season, the only runs open at nearly every resort were the manmade groomers which were a limited departure from the typical Colorado experience. On December 18th, I took a trip up to Eldora, “�鶹ӰԺ’s Backyard,” to see how bad it really was. There were 12/65 trails open, it was a dismal day of rocks and grass along the mountain side. But then, like the changing of the tides, waves of snow began to fall, and with it, trouble.

As usual, there have been countless I-70 closures this season due to the heavy snow and icy conditions which greatly impacts the ski traffic and the infrastructural safety of the freeway. According to the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT), differing combinations of sand, a sand/salt mixture, and various liquid anti-icers and de-icers are used to combat differing intensities of winter conditions. A major problem with these types of extreme back and forth conditions is a drastic increase in potholes. Potholes form due to the freezing and thawing of water on roads, sound familiar? CDOT is responsible for maintaining and plowing all interstates and US highways, as well as most state highways with approximately 1,800 trained maintenance personnel. Closures are largely attributable to the inconsistent and often unique weather events.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) the salts used on the roads runoff into the surrounding areas and nearby streams leading to further negative environmental impacts such as “contaminate drinking water, kill or endanger wildlife, increase soil erosion, and damage private and public property.”

These fires & blizzards have shaken our community to its core, and they have everybody anxious about what the future might hold. However, we are �鶹ӰԺ Strong! There isn’t much this crazy world can throw at us that we are not capable of overcoming so long as we stick together. Moving forward we will need to adopt a new mindset. Murphy’s Law states anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. This motto has become today’s standard and should be used as the rule of thumb when planning for the future. Expect the unexpected and you will never be surprised.

We had better get used to going through changes because they do not seem to be slowing down. In reality they are becoming more frequent and impactful on our everyday lives. For the younger generations who have lived through 9/11, the 2008 financial collapse, a worldwide pandemic, and the dismantling of peace in Europe all before turning 30 years old, it is nothing strange to be living in an uncertain time with continuous turmoil.

Heat, snow, and drought records are being broken annually. In Denver, a 123 year old temperature record fell on February 23st. Lows reached a frigid -7 °F, breaking the previous record of -4 ° F set in 1899. Nobody alive today was alive when this record was set. We are living in unprecedented times and the future is uncertain. However, if we stick together like we did during the Marshall Fire and all the other so-called “apocalypses,” I am confident we will overcome whatever may lie ahead of us.

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