Above: Aerial view of the Mexican Cut Preserve in the Elk Mountains. Photo by Eric Phillips

Dear RMBL community, 

Every discovery begins with an observation.

At RMBL, those observations have been accumulating for nearly a century. Across almost 4,000 research sites in the Gunnison Valley, scientists and students return year after year to observe, measure, wonder, and learn.

Why does that matter? Because knowing where we’ve been allows us to recognize what is changing, understand why, and make better decisions about what comes next.

Mexican Cut is a powerful example. Recognizing the scientific value of this alpine ecosystem, RMBL scientists helped inspire The Nature Conservancy to protect it in 1966 as its first preserve in Colorado. Sixty years later, the Conservancy and RMBL continue to work together to protect this extraordinary place and sustain the long-term research it makes possible.

For more than three decades, scientists have studied the same population of Arizona tiger salamanders at Mexican Cut, documenting changes in breeding, development, and responses to declining snowpack. Yet decades into the research, scientists observed something entirely unexpected: The salamanders biofluoresce, opening a new window into how they may experience and respond to their environment — an environment that is changing.

Even after decades of study, there is more to discover. That is the power of long-term science and curiosity.

A single season gives us a snapshot. Decades of science allow us to see patterns, recognize change, and begin to understand what that change means for our community. What we learn in the mountains can also help us understand changes occurring downstream.

We saw that connection at our final Explorer Sips & Science of the summer, where scientists and community members explored the future of water in the West and the health of our forests. Increasingly, RMBL is connecting long-term scientific knowledge with communities, partners, and decision-makers so that what we learn here can help inform the choices we face today.

But discovery requires more than time. It requires curious people.

At RMBL, students learn alongside scientists, bringing new perspectives, tools, and ideas to questions that may span generations. An observation sparks curiosity. Curiosity drives inquiry. Inquiry creates collaboration. And each discovery becomes the foundation for what comes next.

This continuity cannot be taken for granted. As research funding tightens across the country, RMBL continues to invest in scholarships, fellowships, and subsidized fees. Gifts to the RMBL 365 Home Stretch Campaign help retire the mortgage on our Crested Butte “front porch,” freeing resources to advance science and education, grow philanthropic support, and bring people together year-round. Your support strengthens RMBL’s long-term financial footing and local presence, creating a lasting home for discovery, learning, and community for the next century.

Together, these investments keep scientists returning, open doors for the next generation, and ensure that today’s observations have the opportunity to become tomorrow’s discoveries.

You’ll see that story throughout this newsletter — from long-term science at Mexican Cut and Carol Boggs’ butterfly research to the journey of RMBL alumna Diane Thomson.

For nearly 100 years, RMBL has created the conditions for discovery across generations. Because understanding a changing world — and preparing for what comes next — depends on the places we protect, the knowledge we sustain, and the curious people who keep asking what we have yet to discover.

With gratitude,

Jeni Blacklock, PhD
Executive Director
Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory

Dear RMBL community, 

This has been an ecologically weird year, and RMBL scientists are documenting it. After an extraordinarily low-snow winter, wildflowers bloomed weeks early, Blue Mesa Reservoir fell to historic lows, and drought, insects, and disease continued to challenge our aspens and conifers and reshape our forests.

And then there are the marmots. About two-thirds of the marmots in our long-term study population didn’t survive last winter, bringing national attention to a study RMBL has run since 1962. In the wake of that die-off, the RMBL Marmot Project launched Fat Marmot Week, which drew people from all walks of life, across the country and the globe, into a conversation about both the value of long-term science and the challenge of funding it. The weekend of Aug. 29-30, Dawn, a doting marmot father, swept the weight-gain and popular-vote categories to become the “chunky champion.”

Behind all the fun, and some very chunky marmots, is a serious point: long-term science matters. Only decades of observation let scientists tell a strange year apart from a lasting change, understand resilience, and ask what today’s shifts might mean for the future.

Maintaining that continuity is an act of stewardship.

Stewardship Across Generations

I’ve been thinking about the word “stewardship” a lot lately.

At RMBL, stewardship takes many forms. We steward nearly a century of scientific discovery and decades-long datasets that can’t be recreated once they’re gone. We steward a field station approaching its 100th year, along with the infrastructure scientists need to do their work. And we steward relationships, with scientists, students, donors, partners, and the communities around us, along with a responsibility to honor the generosity of the people who believe in RMBL.

Doug La Follette, PhD, one of the organizers of the first Earth Day, understood this particularly well.

Doug has given consistently to RMBL because he believes in supporting the Laboratory itself: ensuring scientists always have a place to ask important questions. Not every gift needs to fund a specific discovery. Sometimes the greatest gift is the stability that lets discovery happen at all: maintaining a field station, supporting scientists and students, caring for long-term datasets, providing housing and labs, keeping the lights on, making sure someone can return to the same meadow, stream, forest, or marmot colony, year after year.

Today, scientists’ fees cover only about half of the true cost of conducting research at RMBL. Donor support and our endowment subsidize the remaining costs, helping keep research and education accessible even as operating expenses continue to rise.

Doug’s generosity is long-term stewardship in service of long-term science, and that same responsibility to think beyond today is at the heart of RMBL 365.

Stewarding RMBL’s Next Century

I often describe RMBL 365 as the front porch of Gothic.

Gothic will always be the heart of RMBL, the place where scientists have gathered for nearly a century to study the natural world. RMBL 365 extends that mission year-round. Located in Crested Butte, it’s where science, education, and community come together, giving us a place to share the work happening in Gothic, educate students, welcome partners, convene scientists, and engage our community all year.

When RMBL purchased RMBL 365 for $4.4 million in October 2025, we took an important step toward stewarding the organization’s future, and our community responded in an extraordinary way. 2025 was an incredible year for philanthropy at RMBL, with donors stepping forward to help make the purchase possible. Since then, we’ve worked to be good stewards of that investment by putting the building to work: science talks, educational programs, workshops, conferences, community gatherings, networking events, board and lab meetings, a monthly book club, visiting scientists and students, and much more. And all the while, our adjacent laundromat has provided a service to our community while offsetting our expenses. 

After watching the building come alive this summer, one thing is clear to me: RMBL 365 was the right investment. Good stewardship also means making sure it’s sustainable, and RMBL 365 was designed with that in mind: its two apartments and laundromat alone generate roughly $130,000 in gross annual revenue, helping support the facility and RMBL’s broader mission.

Now we have one more responsibility: finish what we started.

The Home Stretch

Together, our community has already raised millions toward this $4.4 million investment, something we can all celebrate. Over the next several weeks, we’re asking you to help us close out the RMBL 365 Home Stretch Campaign and position this resource for RMBL’s next century.

Paying off RMBL 365 isn’t just about eliminating a mortgage. It’s about being responsible with what our donors have entrusted to us, strengthening RMBL’s financial foundation, and freeing up resources currently spent on debt so more of them can go toward science, students, and education. Ultimately, it’s about making decisions today that will benefit people we may never meet. That is what long-term science asks of us, and this unusual year has reminded us why.

The marmots, wildflowers, forests, and water around us are telling us stories. Some systems are showing remarkable resilience. Others are changing in ways that raise new, urgent questions. We don’t yet know what those changes mean, and that’s precisely why RMBL exists: our responsibility is to make sure scientists are here long enough to find out.

For nearly 100 years, generations of scientists, students, donors, families, and friends have stewarded this institution, each inheriting something from those who came before and strengthening it for those who’ll come next. Today, we carry that forward.

As we approach RMBL’s centennial, I hope you’ll join us in bringing RMBL 365 home and helping steward RMBL — and the long-term science that makes this place so extraordinary — into its next 100 years.

With gratitude,

Jeni Blacklock, PhD
Executive Director
Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory

Top: A rainbow over Mt. Crested Butte, as viewed from Gothic. Photo by Jeni Blacklock

Dear RMBL community, 

Over the past few weeks, something remarkable happened.

A playful story about some delightfully round yellow-bellied marmots captured the attention of people around the world. What began as a fun social media moment quickly grew into national and international news, with stories appearing on the NBC’s TODAY, in The New York Times, on Rocky Mountain PBS, and across countless other media outlets.

What struck me most about the excitement wasn’t simply that millions of people were talking about marmots. It was that they were asking questions.

Why are the marmots gaining weight? Why are scientists studying them? What can we learn from these studies?

A lighthearted story became an invitation to discover the remarkable science happening at RMBL. And to me, that’s exactly what education is meant to do. It begins with curiosity.

The excitement surrounding the marmots reminded me of one of my favorite personal memories of RMBL.

My two boys attended their first RMBL summer education programs when they were 5 years old, long before I was the executive director. Every afternoon they would come home bursting with excitement, telling us they were “learning how to be discoverers.”

They weren’t just learning the names of birds, bees, wildflowers, or streams. They were learning to ask questions. They were learning to observe the world around them, understand how it works, and become curious about what they didn’t yet know.

Watching that transformation in my own children is when I first fell in love with RMBL.

As someone who has studied STEM education for over a decade, I know that these kinds of hands-on, experiential learning opportunities are transformational. Research consistently shows that when young people are encouraged to explore, question, and discover through real-world experiences, they develop confidence, resilience, creativity, and critical thinking skills. Those experiences don’t simply create future scientists — they create future physicians, engineers, entrepreneurs, educators, leaders, conservationists, and informed citizens.

Today, I believe something even bigger: education is transformational at every stage of life. Whether someone is 5 years old discovering alpine wildflowers for the first time, an undergraduate conducting research alongside world-renowned scientists, a volunteer collecting long-term ecological data, or a community member attending a public lecture, education has the power to change lives.

It Begins with Discovery

This summer, more than 600 K–12 students participated in RMBL’s hands-on education programs.

Students explored mountain meadows, searched for pollinators, examined streams, learned about watersheds, investigated ecosystems, and discovered how the natural world works through direct experience.

These programs are about much more than science. They encourage students to become curious, ask thoughtful questions, solve problems, and build confidence through discovery. Many of our former students have gone on to become leaders in their fields. While their careers have taken many different paths, they all began with curiosity — and someone who encouraged them to ask, “Why?”

Learn more about RMBL’s K–12 education programs.

Learning to Become a Scientist and a Leader

Curiosity doesn’t end in childhood. This summer, 42 undergraduate students from colleges and universities across the country are participating in RMBL’s Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program.

These students spend 10 weeks immersed in research alongside some of the world’s leading scientists. They are designing experiments, collecting long-term ecological data, analyzing results, and learning what it truly means to be a scientist.

Just as importantly, they are developing the confidence to ask difficult questions, collaborate across disciplines, and pursue careers dedicated to solving some of our world’s most pressing environmental challenges.

These students represent the future of science — and RMBL is helping launch their journeys.

Read more about the REU program

Education Doesn’t End with Graduation

One of my favorite aspects of RMBL is its commitment to lifelong learning.

This summer, our Visitor Center is expected to welcome more than 28,000 visitors. Families, visitors, and community members join guided walks through Gothic, explore wildflower meadows, learn about local history, meet researchers, and gain a deeper understanding of the science taking place every day at RMBL.

Whether you’re visiting for an hour or spending the summer with us, there is always something new to discover.

Education belongs to everyone.

Learn more about Visitor Center programs

A Lifetime of Curiosity

One of the best examples of lifelong learning is Svata Louda, PhD, a RMBL alumna whose passion for science continues today. At 83, Svata still leads volunteers in collecting long-term ecological data, demonstrating that curiosity and discovery never retire. Through decades of research, mentorship, and community engagement, she reminds us that science is not simply a career — it is a lifelong pursuit.

Her story also reflects something deeply special about RMBL. When Svata first came to RMBL in the 1980s, she found a community where ideas mattered, curiosity was encouraged, and young scientists were given opportunities to succeed. That spirit continues today.

Read Svata Louda’s RMBL story

Education Is RMBL’s Heartbeat

Help Inspire the Next Generation

Your generosity helps make these experiences possible. Examples of the impact your support can have include:

$150 — Provides a scholarship for one day of hands-on learning for a K–8 student.

$200 — Provides a scholarship for one day of hands-on learning for a high school student.

$500 — Provides one week of support for a graduate student researcher.

$1,000 — Supports undergraduate scholarships for student participation in RMBL educational programs.

$5,000 — Helps provide public tours and educational programming through the Visitor Center for half the summer.

$10,000 — Funds one full scholarship for the undergraduate Research Experience (REU) for a full 10-week summer program.

Support RMBL to support educational programming

Join Us

Learning happens every day at RMBL. Whether you attend one of our community events, participate in the Explorer Program, visit RMBL 365, volunteer, or simply spend time exploring Gothic, we invite you to become part of our community of discovery. Together, we are inspiring curiosity, advancing science, strengthening communities, and helping educate the next generation of leaders. We hope you’ll join us.

Community Events

Explorer Program

RMBL 365

Learn More About Educational Opportunities at RMBL

Thank you for believing in the power of education and for helping RMBL inspire discovery for generations to come.

With gratitude,

Jeni Blacklock, PhD
Executive Director
Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory

Top: Young attendees of RMBL Family Fest 2026. Photo by Andrew Kunze, Recipe for Adventure

Dear RMBL community, 

If you’ve spent any time in the Upper Gunnison Valley this summer, you’ve likely noticed something remarkable: monument plants are everywhere.

Towering above the landscape at heights of 7 to 9 feet, monument plants (Frasera speciosa) are experiencing a “super bloom” year. These extraordinary plants can live for decades — sometimes nearly a century — before flowering just once in their lifetime. After decades of quietly storing energy, they produce a spectacular flowering stalk, scatter seeds, and complete a life cycle that may have taken 50 years or more to unfold.

Many valley residents remember the last major bloom in 2019 and another in 2010. Yet despite decades of observations, scientists still do not fully understand what triggers these synchronized flowering events. Is it snowpack? Temperature? Drought? Climate variability? Some combination of environmental conditions accumulated over many years?

These are exactly the kinds of questions that scientists at RMBL are working to answer.

For nearly 100 years, scientists at RMBL have documented environmental change across the Upper Gunnison Valley and the headwaters of the Colorado River Basin. Together, they have created one of North America’s most valuable collections of ecological knowledge — hundreds of research projects, nearly 13,000 herbarium specimens, long-term environmental datasets, and a scientific record that spans generations.

Today, those observations are becoming more accessible than ever through the RMBL Data Hub, which connects thousands of scientific publications, environmental datasets, maps, forecasting tools, and historical records. The Data Hub represents an important step forward in making nearly a century of science available not only to researchers, but also to educators, communities, and the public.

But data alone is not enough. The real opportunity lies in translating data into understanding.

One example is RMBL’s new Wildflower Bloom Forecast. Built using decades of ecological observations, the tool helps visitors and residents anticipate peak wildflower blooms throughout the season. While it is a practical resource for the community, it also demonstrates something much bigger: how long-term data and technology can work together to make science useful and accessible.

That raises an important question: What else can we do with nearly a century of environmental data?

Answering this question requires more than data. It requires partnerships across our community and beyond. At RMBL, we are increasingly thinking about how science can move from discovery toward understanding. That means building relationships across disciplines, sectors, and communities.

Those partnerships span local, regional, and national organizations. Locally, RMBL is entering its second year of an exciting partnership with the Crested Butte Wildflower Festival, helping connect the public with the science of wildflower ecology and why wildflower-pollinator interactions are critical to our ecosystem. Community partners, such as Irwin Brewing Company, create opportunities to engage residents and visitors with RMBL’s science in accessible and enjoyable ways.

In addition, we are expanding collaborations with Tribal communities, including early conversations with members of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe and the Southern Ute Indian Tribe, whose deep knowledge and enduring relationships with these landscapes offer invaluable perspectives for understanding and stewarding them, allowing us to learn from one another.

At the same time, we are building new relationships with universities and technology leaders. This month, RMBL hosted faculty and students from the University of Colorado Boulder’s Aerospace Engineering program to explore opportunities involving remote sensing, satellite technologies, and environmental monitoring models. These collaborations represent exciting opportunities to connect cutting-edge technology with some of the world’s most valuable long-term ecological datasets.

Together, these partnerships are helping shape a broader vision for RMBL’s future — one where scientific discovery extends beyond the field to inspire education, strengthen conservation, foster community engagement, build environmental resilience, and create lasting benefits for the communities and landscapes we serve. By bringing together diverse expertise, perspectives, and partners, we are creating new opportunities to better understand our changing world and the interconnected systems that shape it.

The monument plants blooming across the valley this summer are a reminder that some of the most remarkable outcomes take years — even decades — to emerge. The same is true for scientific discovery.

This is an exciting time to be engaged with RMBL. As we approach our second century of science, education, community engagement, and discovery, we invite you to join us on this journey, helping transform nearly 100 years of scientific inquiry and observation into understanding for our communities, our landscapes, and our future.

Thank you for being part of the RMBL community.

Jeni Blacklock, PhD
RMBL Executive Director

PS: There are many opportunities for you to engage with RMBL this summer. Here are a few highlights:

• Events such as Art/Science Exchange film screening and conversation at the Majestic, public lectures, RMBL Reads book club, workshops, and family-friendly programming
• Wildflower and townsite tours through the Visitor Center 
• Our interactive wildflower bloom forecasting tool 
• The new RMBL Data Hub 
• Fat Marmot Week (stay tuned!) 
• Marmot Tears IPA, our new collaboration with Irwin Brewing Co. — launching July 1! 

Top: Jeni (left) with Prof. Jade Morton of the University of Colorado Boulder. Photo by Jeni Blacklock

Dear RMBL community, 

There is something magical about the beginning of summer at RMBL. As the snow slowly recedes from the mountainsides, the first glacier lilies emerge through the thawing ground, signaling the arrival of a new field season in Gothic. Soon after, the hillsides and meadows begin bursting with countless other alpine wildflowers, transforming the valley into one of the most ecologically vibrant landscapes in the Rocky Mountains. This year, however, the changes feel especially noticeable. Snow melted earlier than many scientists at RMBL have ever observed, adding to a pattern of shifting timing, abundance, and relationships among snowmelt, wildflowers, pollinators, and water that researchers at RMBL have carefully documented for decades. These visible changes across the landscape reinforce the importance of long-term ecological research and why places like RMBL matter.

The wildflowers that blanket Gothic each summer are not only breathtaking, but also deeply connected to broader questions around climate, biodiversity, resilience, and ecosystem change. Scientists, students, artists, educators, families, and visitors return from around the world, all drawn together by a shared curiosity about the natural world and a desire to better understand our place within it.

As I enter my second summer at RMBL, I continue to be inspired by the incredible diversity of knowledge, research, and creativity that exists within this community. RMBL has always been much more than a field station. It is a place where disciplines intersect, long-term observations lead to discoveries, and collaborations form in unexpected and meaningful ways. From pollinator ecology and hydrology to climate science, data science, engineering, education, art, and community engagement, the breadth of work happening at RMBL continues to highlight why place-based science matters at both local and global scales.

This summer also represents an exciting opportunity to strengthen our connections with the broader community. We have a variety of ways for people to explore, participate, and engage with RMBL, including:

• Events such as RMBL Fest (June 26-July 1), public lectures, RMBL Reads book club, workshops, and family-friendly programming
• Wildflower and townsite tours through the Visitor Center (opening June 3!)  
• Our interactive wildflower bloom forecasting tool 
• The new RMBL Data Hub 
• Fat Marmot Week (stay tuned!) 
• Marmot Tears IPA, our new collaboration with Irwin Brewing Co.

We hope to create more opportunities for people to engage with the science, stories, and people that make RMBL so special. Community engagement is deeply important to RMBL because science becomes even more impactful when it is shared, discussed, experienced, and celebrated together.

Behind every tour, lecture, workshop, and community event is the long-term, place-based research that defines RMBL. That work continues to generate insights into how mountain ecosystems function and respond to environmental change.

A recent paper by Erica R. Siirila-Woodburn and co-authors in Nature Geoscience highlights how warming and declining snowpack are increasing reliance on older groundwater sources in Colorado River headwaters — a finding with important implications for water resources and mountain ecosystem resilience in a changing climate. This research reflects RMBL’s commitment to long-term observation of how water, snow, and ecosystems interact over time, and it connects directly to broader conversations about climate, hydrology, and biodiversity that matter to scientists, policymakers, and the public.

We are also incredibly proud of the recent accomplishments and recognition of RMBL scientists and collaborators, including Brian Enquist’s 2026 Robert H. MacArthur Award from the Ecological Society of America. Brian recently reflected, “RMBL has been one of the most important scientific homes for me and has shaped my lab’s science through time spent in the field and conversations with the extraordinary community of scientists, students, staff, and friends connected to RMBL.”

His recognition, along with the many accomplishments of RMBL scientists and staff this year, reflects the extraordinary impact this community continues to have across science and society.

As we continue building toward RMBL’s centennial in 2028, I remain excited about the opportunities ahead and deeply grateful for the people who make this place so meaningful. Whether you are joining us in Gothic this summer, attending an event in Crested Butte, supporting RMBL from afar, or helping share our story with others, thank you for being part of this community.

All my best,

Jeni Blacklock, PhD
RMBL Executive Director

Top: Mule’s Ears Sunflowers (Wyethia amplexicaulis) at RMBL. Photo by Jeni Blacklock

Dear RMBL community, 

As we head into summer, RMBL enters the season with both momentum and a critical question:

After one of the driest winters on record, how will the Gunnison Valley’s lack of precipitation shape its ecology, including impacts on pollinators, plants, water systems, and wildfire risk? This historic weather anomaly presents a rare opportunity for real-time science, with insights that will inform our understanding well into the future.

Against this backdrop, researchers are returning to Gothic, students are arriving, and the field season is getting underway. 

RMBL comes to life in these moments: early mornings in Gothic as scientists head into the field; students gathering around long-term research plots, collecting data that connects them to decades of work; and conversations over coffee focused on climate, water, and how our planet functions as an interconnected system — and what this unusual season may reveal.

We are especially excited about this summer’s lineup of events. Sips & Science gatherings, small-group hikes, and exclusive tours for our Explorers, along with science talks, RMBL Fest, and other events open to the public, offer many ways to engage directly with the science and the people behind it. These are interactive, informal opportunities to see RMBL in action.

At the same time, in nearby Crested Butte, RMBL 365 continues to build energy, with talks, gatherings, and new ways to engage with science beyond the field. With year-round programming, community events, and opportunities to connect with researchers, it is an important extension of RMBL, and the first expansion beyond Gothic in our 98-year history.

At its core is the science. RMBL’s long-term, place-based research continues to provide critical insight into climate, water, and ecosystem change, with growing relevance.

This work moves forward because of a community that believes in and invests in RMBL. We invite you to join us this summer at an event, on a hike, or in conversation, and experience it firsthand. We look forward to connecting with you and continuing the conversation about RMBL’s impact and its role in the century ahead.

All my best,

Jeni Blacklock, PhD
RMBL Executive Director

Top: Richard Forbes and Rozalia Kapas measure aspen leaves near Gothic. Photo | Benjamin Blonder, PhD

Dear Friends of RMBL, 

April brings us to Earth Day, a time to reflect on our relationship with the planet and the responsibility we all share in caring for it. At RMBL, Earth Day resonates deeply with our mission. For nearly a century, scientists, students, and educators have come to Gothic to study the natural world, listen to what the land is telling us, and translate those lessons into knowledge that can help guide how we live on this planet. 

One of the highlights of last summer for me was spending time with Dr. John Harte and also spending time with Dr. Lara Souza, learning about their research on warming mountain meadows. John’s work on this project began in the late 1980s, when he established one of the earliest experimental studies examining how increased temperatures affect subalpine ecosystems. Over the decades, this research has continued and expanded through the work of an incredible group of women scientists who have carried the project forward, building on the original foundation and deepening our understanding of how mountain ecosystems respond to climate change. A recent publication in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) by Lara and her co-principal investigators highlights how warming temperatures are reshaping plant and soil communities in these high-elevation meadows. It is powerful work — reported on by the Guardian, among other news outlets — that reminds us that even subtle environmental shifts can ripple through entire ecosystems.

Our recent Après Science talks at RMBL 365 have also centered on the patterns emerging in our own backyard. In January, Dr. David Inouye shared insights on temperature and snowpack trends recorded in Crested Butte and Gothic since 1910. In February, Dr. Rosemary Carroll discussed how declining snowpack and warmer winters are affecting groundwater systems locally. In March, Dr. Ian Breckheimer highlighted how long-term datasets on snowpack, water, and temperature are helping scientists forecast future risks, including tree mortality and wildfire in our region.  

A collaborative project with Gunnison Elementary is another way these ideas are taking shape beyond the lab. Building on students’ snow science learning from RMBL field trips, students are interpreting Gothic snow depth data through art, including a recent installation and an upcoming silk-based activity exploring spatial snow patterns. The project is an innovative example of how scientific understanding can inspire new ways of seeing and connecting with the natural world. 

These conversations and outreach activities have felt especially relevant this year as the U.S. experiences one of the driest and warmest winters of the past century. For my own family, they have sparked conversations about how we can better listen to the Earth and adjust our daily patterns in response. Something as simple as being mindful of water use this year feels like a small but meaningful way to respond to what the land is telling us, particularly as we learn more about the role of snowpack and groundwater in sustaining our mountain ecosystems and communities. 

At RMBL, we study patterns in nature every day. But those patterns aren’t just data — they’re invitations to listen carefully to the Earth, and to shape new patterns in our own lives that help create a more livable planet for generations to come. Earth Day reminds us that science, awareness, and everyday choices are all part of the same story. 

Thank you for being part of this community and for supporting the science, education, and stewardship that make RMBL possible. 

Warmly,

Jeni Blacklock
Executive Director
Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory

Photo: Gothic Mountain and glacier lilies. Changing climate is disrupting the timing of their annual bloom, along with that of other wildflowers, according to research by Dr. David Inouye and colleagues at RMBL.

Dear Friends of RMBL,

March is Women’s History Month, and we are proud to recognize and celebrate the extraordinary women who have shaped, advanced, and sustained science and education at RMBL for nearly a century. 

The Bean Pod Sprouts a Century of Women in Science article in this newsletter beautifully highlights this legacy and RMBL’s longstanding role in supporting women scientists whose work has transformed how we understand the natural world. From pioneering field researchers in the late 1920s breaking ground under challenging conditions to today’s scholars pushing scientific boundaries, our community has long been strengthened by women whose curiosity, rigor, and determination guide their work. 

Today, more than 50 percent of our current principal investigators are women — a testament to both the opportunity and the leadership that RMBL fosters. These scientists are advancing knowledge across disciplines, from biodiversity and climate systems to ecosystem processes and environmental sensing, while mentoring and inspiring the next generation of researchers. 

One such scientist is Dr. Rosemary Carroll. Just last month, as part of RMBL 365’s winter public programming, she presented her models of declining mountain snowpack and streamflow amid rising temperatures — a talk that felt eerily relevant on an unseasonably warm and rainy February day. Among the audience were many early-career community members, several of whom stayed afterward to discuss hydrology and career paths with Rosemary, clearly awed by both the science and the scientist.

Moments like these illustrate RMBL’s enduring influence. Our students and alumni share powerful stories about how their time at RMBL shaped their academic and professional journeys. Many women who began their scientific paths in Gothic have gone on to impactful careers in research, academia, government, and industry, carrying forward lessons learned through field research, collaboration, and community.

Their accomplishments, including groundbreaking publications such as a recent PNAS article led by women faculty affiliated with RMBL (two of whom are pictured), demonstrate the importance of equitable access to mentorship, opportunity, and immersive research experiences. At a time when women in STEM continue to reshape scientific discovery and innovation, RMBL remains deeply committed to supporting transformative educational experiences.

Each year, we engage more than 750 K–12 students and 40 undergraduates through our programs.  More than 60 graduate students and 190 professional scientists pass through our doors annually. With the launch of RMBL 365 and expanded year-round capabilities, we will deepen that impact even further. Through hands–on research, immersive learning, and dedicated mentorship, we ensure that women are not only participants in science, but also leaders. 

Since our founding in 1928, women have strengthened RMBL’s independence and vitality by bringing new ways of knowing, expanding scientific inquiry, and nurturing community. As we look toward our centennial and the next 100 years, we honor this legacy by continuing to elevate women in science, expand opportunity, and foster an environment where all scholars can thrive. 

Thank you for your continued support of RMBL and for championing science that is inclusive, impactful, and rooted in community. 

With gratitude,

Jeni Blacklock
Executive Director
Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory 

Photo: Jennifer Rudgers (left) and Stephanie Kivlin harvesting soil at the RMBL ‘warming meadow’ research site, established by ecologist John Harte in 1990. Along with Lara Souza, Aimée Classen, Harte, and others, the scientists published their results in PNAS last month. Read the press release and learn more about their research in The Conversation.