Founders Forum

Extraordinary faculty. Innovative ideas.

Wednesday, March 1, 2017

University of Denver
Joy Burns Center, Tuscan Ballroom
2044 E. Evans Ave.
Denver, CO  80210
(Please note the location change.)
5:30 – 8:30 p.m.

Join us for this 2nd annual showcase of our stellar faculty who inform and inspire as they present the innovative research they undertake to better our communities and our world. Through short, fast-paced presentations, Discover how faculty collaborate across disciplines to design the knowledge that addresses the complex challenges facing the world today.

$20 general admission, includes dinner and refreshments. $5 of each ticket will be donated to the University of Denver Chancellor’s Innovation Fund.

Register Today

Featured Faculty Speakers

Lawrence Conyers
“How ground-penetrating radar (GPR) snapped the first picture of Native and Colonial partnership”

Professor, Department Chair, and Director of Graduate Program
Department of Anthropology
Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences

Lawrence B. Conyers has been a professor of anthropology at the University of Denver since 1995. He received BS and MS degrees in geology and geophysics from Oregon State and Arizona State Universities respectively. His PhD degree is in anthropology from the University of Colorado, Boulder. Dr. Conyers’ research focuses on using geophysics to map buried archaeological sites all over the world, with field projects presently in Australia, Africa, England, Ireland, and Costa Rice. Dr. Conyers has published five books on the topic of ground-penetrating radar (GPR) in archaeological applications and is currently working on a sixth book. Prior to working with GPR, he spent seventeen years in petroleum exploration and development using seismic techniques.


William Cross
“Social Identity as something you do in everyday life”

Clinical Professor, Higher Education and Counseling Psychology
Morgridge College of Education

Dr. William Cross Jr. is a leading theorist and researcher in the psychology and identity development of minorities. His book, “Shade of Black”, is considered a classic in the field of racial identity. He is the President-Elect of American Psychological Association’s Division 45 (Society for the Psychological Study of Ethnic Minority Issues), an Elder of 2013 National Multicultural Conference, a CUNY Professor Emeritus, and a Distinguished Lecturer at Georgia Southern University.

Dr. Cross’ recent publications interrogate the structure of the self-concept; the range of identity profiles found among African American adults; cultural epiphanies; the identity implications of cultural miseducation and false consciousness; and the multiple ways racial identity is enacted in everyday life.

Dr. Cross received his PhD from Princeton University. He is a dedicated audiophile and is never far from music.


Lisa M. Martinez
“From Living in the Shadows to Pursuing the Dream: Legal Reforms and the Lives of Undocumented Latina/o Youth”

Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Sociology and Criminology

Core faculty member, DU Latino Center for Community Engagement and Scholarship (DULCCES)

Professor Martinez studies the impact of immigration policies on the social, economic, and political well-being of Latina/o communities as well as educational, health-related, and job market outcomes among Latinas/os and immigrants. She is currently working on an interdisciplinary project with her DULCCES colleagues on the pathways to mobility among Latina/o and undocumented youth. Specifically, the study examines the impact of legal reforms, including the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, on their educational and occupational trajectories. Her research has been published in Social Forces, Mobilization, American Behavioral Scientist, Latino Studies, and International Journal of Multicultural Education.


Robin Tinghitella
“Grand gestures and love notes: animal mating communication in a rapidly changing world”

Assistant Professor, Department of Biological Sciences
Natural Sciences & Mathematics

As a behavioral ecologist, Dr. Robin Tinghitella works to understand how rapidly changing environments alter animal communication, particularly interactions between males and females. Researchers in her animal behavior lab use both insect and fish model systems and are supported by the National Science Foundation, the Society for the Study of Evolution, and the Animal Behavior Society.

She graduated from the University of Portland with a B.S. in Biology before earning her Ph.D. in Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology at the University of California, where she studied the evolution of animal communication and social interactions. She then completed postdoctoral positions at the University of Michigan and Michigan State University (MSU). At MSU she led a National Science Foundation funded project linking ecology graduate students with K-12 teachers and students to improve the scientists’ teaching and communication skills. The experience ignited a long-lasting passion for science education and science communication.


Steve Wiest
The Positive Force of Jazz

Professor and Co-Chair, Jazz Studies
Lamont School of Music
Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences

Steve Wiest has been described as a “creative polymath” in that he is active and well known in a number of artistic genres. As a multiple Grammy-nominated composer and trombonist, a science-fiction author and a cartoonist-illustrator, Steve pursues creativity of all types with a passion. 2016 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductee Jimmy Pankow from the rock group Chicago says this about Wiest: “Steve is a pioneer. He is fearless. He is a visionary who dares to throw convention to the wind. His music screaming from the very depths of his being, with no rules!”

After performing as the featured trombonist and composer with Maynard Ferguson and Doc Severinsen, Steve has continued a successful career in the arts focusing on composing and recording as well as being an internationally-known educator. Among his many accomplishments in academia, Steve was the director of the seven time Grammy nominated One O’Clock Lab Band at The University of North Texas from 2008-2014 before moving to Colorado. Wiest is now the Co-Chair of Jazz Studies here at the University of Denver’s Lamont School of Music where he conducts the Lamont Jazz Orchestra, the top jazz Small Group and teaches jazz composition and arranging.

The Positive Force of Jazz

Not only is America’s  homegrown art form a universal language, but it is also wonderful force for positive communication and uplifting inclusive interactive art. Steve Wiest will present illustrative anecdotes from his personal experiences performing with such luminaries as Doc Severinsen, and Maynard Ferguson while tying it all together with what is going on right here at DU with our own Jazz Studies at the Lamont School of Music.


Barry Zink
“The hot, nanoscale spin on our energy and information challenge”

Associate Professor of Physics
Department of Physics & Astronomy
Natural Sciences & Mathematics

Prof. Barry L. Zink leads a research group at the University of Denver focusing on measurements of heat, charge, and spin transport in thin films and nanostructures.  These measurements are often enabled by micro- and nanomachined thermal isolation platforms that use free-standing silicon-nitride membranes.   Barry completed his PhD at UC San Diego in 2002, and has earned honors including the Piercy Distinguished Visiting Professorship (U. Minnesota), the NSM Excellence in Research Award, the NSF CAREER award, and the NRC Post-doc.  Current projects he and his team of undergraduate, and graduate researchers are exploring range from developing new materials for small-scale cooling and energy conversion to understanding how spin travels in disordered magnetic systems.  In over a decade at DU he has mentored a dozen graduate and postdoctoral researchers and many talented undergraduates.  Zink group alumni have gone on to industry (Intel, Avago Technologies), national labs (NIST, NREL), and academia.  His group’s research has to date been supported by the National Science Foundation (DMR and EECS), the Nanoelectronics Research Initiative, the Petroleum Research Fund, and others.


Founders Forum 2016

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