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CU Engage is excited to be working with our 2019-2020 group of Community-Based Research Graduate Fellows in pursuit of mutually-beneficial academic research developed with our community partners.

“I’m excited to be part of a group of committed graduate students that are placing community needs at the center of their research,” Luz Aìda Ruìz Martìnez, CBR Fellow and doctoral student in CMCI, said.

"I deeply value the opportunity to work with colleagues focused on responsible community engagement. As a team, we can support, challenge, and help each other design projects with communities rather than to or for them," said CBR Fellow and doctoral student in Environmental Studies, Patrick Chandler.

The six CBR Fellows will work together to develop new research methods with those directly impacted by an issue of public concern with the intention of creating social change.

The 2019-20 group of selected CBR Graduate Fellows is below:

Ana Contreras, doctoral student in Education
Research Project: Parent/Community Engagement in Montbello-Trust and Agency through Participatory Research

Ana hopes to collaboratively address parents’ concerns about education for their children and work towards a community vision for education in Montbello. She aims to create more transformative opportunities for parent and community engagement.

Molly Hamm-Rodrìguez, doctoral student in Education
Research Project: Yo leo mi comunidad: Bridging Family, Community, and School Literacies in the Dominican Republic

Molly is doing research in partnership with a nonprofit organization in the Dominican Republic. Working alongside teachers, Molly hopes the project can disrupt the deficit narrative around students’ reading and writing skills in the country by highlighting family and community literacy, storytelling, and language practices at local book fairs.

Jasmine Baetz, Master of Fine Arts student in Ceramics
Research Project: Interrogating and Imagining Public Space

Jasmine's research is activated by the community-made sculpture installed on campus in Summer 2019 to commemorate Los Seis de Boulder, the Chicano student activists who were killed here in Boulder in 1974. She engages community participants to consider who is represented in public space, how that representation impacts particular people, and what happens when that representation changes.

Ashley D. Scroggins, doctoral student in Education
Research Project: Toward Elevating Learning and Performance Experiences of Divers Improvisational Actors

Ashley’s research partnership is working with an improvisational theater community as they respond to local and national issues such as sexism, racism, and homophobia within the community.  

Luz Aìda Ruìz Martìnez, doctoral student in CMCI
Research Project: Participatory Media Needs Assessment of Boulder County Youth

In partnership with KGNU Community Radio, Luz is carrying out a participatory youth media needs assessment. They will gather relevant information and put together informed recommendations that will strengthen Boulder county youth voices and engagement.

Patrick Chandler, Doctoral in Environmental Studies
Research Project: A Co-produced Creative Climate Change Curriculum

Through bringing art and science together in a co-created climate change curriculum that focuses on empowering youth to find solutions, this project hopes to help students overcome climate grief and create a replicable model for climate action.