Geography professor Jennifer Balch has been named a RIO Faculty Fellow. The Research & Innovation Office (RIO) Faculty Fellows Program is a campus-wide research and creative works leadership program that supports rising CU Boulder faculty interested in furthering their leadership skills to achieve maximum impact within and beyond the campus. RIO Faculty Fellows seeks to identify and develop tenured and tenure-track assistant or associate professors who are poised to lead significant collaborative projects, develop vision and deliver novel and impactful scholarly work. The program was founded and will continue to be led by Faculty Director Alan Townsend and Program Director Kirsten Rowell.
Founded on lessons from the successful Aldo Leopold Leadership Program, the program engages fellows as individuals and as a cohort on research and creative work leadership; collaboration and systems thinking; along with team building and academic management; scholarly communication and values; equity; ethics; and personal and professional coaching. Its greatest promise may be in identifying a network of campus leaders, already experts in their respective fields, and equipping them to break down discipline-based silos on campus while strengthening the university’s reputation nationally and globally through deeper and wider collaborations beyond campus.