By Avery Clifton

The University of Colorado Boulder kicked off Sustainability on Tap at Rayback Collective on Jan. 21, an event series that gives CU faculty and staff the opportunity to share their environmental research with the Boulder community.  

“I really like this environment, it’s opening up the conversation, which I think is huge,” said Ben Jacobson, a CU electrical engineering major who attended the event. 

The event is hosted by Sustainability Research Initiative, an organization that funds and oversees sustainability research at CU.

Erin Espelie, a professor of cinema studies & moving image arts, presented two environmental short films that focused on the “small world” of hummingbirds and mealworms.  

 “So many people want to see the big, the grandiose,” Espelie said. “They want to see the polar bears. They want to see the ice flows. They want to see the Sub-Saharan Africa. I want to see the red ants.” 

Espelie says her motto for storytelling is to encourage people to look closely at nature.

“I actually don’t mind excluding the human, because I think the human is too often put and featured and given screen time,” she said. 

CU social scientist Sarah Gonzalez-Coffin, a PhD graduate student, discussed how people make decisions about eco-friendly technologies. She said that understanding the psychology behind human preferences can better inform design and policy making. She calls it her first “pub-style” talk.  

“A lot of folks offered up next steps and research questions and then just general enthusiasm about having a space where we could all come together,” she said.  

The two presentations concluded with a Q&A segment and a networking session 

The event’s executive director is Jane Zelikova.

“We’re going to continue evolving and making it more compelling, interesting, relevant for community members,” she said. 

Edited by William Flockton