/urop/ en /urop/2025/04/24/urop-celebrates-2025-savit-scholars <span>UROP Celebrates the 2025 Savit Scholars</span> <span><span>Timothy O'Neil</span></span> <span><time datetime="2025-04-24T23:20:00-06:00" title="Thursday, April 24, 2025 - 23:20">Thu, 04/24/2025 - 23:20</time> </span> <div> <div class="imageMediaStyle focal_image_wide"> <img loading="lazy" src="/urop/sites/default/files/styles/focal_image_wide/public/2025-04/Savitheader_0.png?h=33b05ede&amp;itok=CYatvW7W" width="1200" height="800" alt="Abstract design"> </div> </div> <div role="contentinfo" class="container ucb-article-categories" itemprop="about"> <span class="visually-hidden">Categories:</span> <div class="ucb-article-category-icon" aria-hidden="true"> <i class="fa-solid fa-folder-open"></i> </div> <a href="/urop/taxonomy/term/5"> UROP Announcements </a> </div> <div role="contentinfo" class="container ucb-article-tags" itemprop="keywords"> <span class="visually-hidden">Tags:</span> <div class="ucb-article-tag-icon" aria-hidden="true"> <i class="fa-solid fa-tags"></i> </div> <a href="/urop/taxonomy/term/9" hreflang="en">Savit Scholars</a> </div> <div class="ucb-article-content ucb-striped-content"> <div class="container"> <div class="paragraph paragraph--type--article-content paragraph--view-mode--default 3"> <div class="ucb-article-row-subrow row"> <div class="ucb-article-text col-lg d-flex align-items-center" itemprop="articleBody"> <div><p class="hero">Savit Scholars are recognized for projects that promise to push disciplinary boundaries and create space for creativity, expression and connection in Boulder and beyond.</p><h2><i class="fa-solid fa-award ucb-icon-color-gold">&nbsp;</i>&nbsp;2025 Savit Scholars &amp; Mentors</h2><hr><div class="row ucb-column-container"><div class="col ucb-column"><p class="hero"><strong>Ben</strong><br><strong>Forman</strong></p><p><strong>Disconnected: Life in a Digital Reality</strong></p></div><div class="col ucb-column"><p class="hero"><strong>Max Tkachenko</strong></p><p><strong>Political Corruption in the USSR: An Analysis of the Nomenklatura</strong></p></div><div class="col ucb-column"><p class="hero"><strong>Grace Thompson</strong></p><p><strong>Culturally informed care of indigenous-associated animal remains in museum collections</strong></p></div></div><div class="row ucb-column-container"><div class="col ucb-column"><hr><p>Mentor:<br><a href="/cinemastudies/erin-espelie" rel="nofollow"><strong>Erin Espelie</strong></a>,<br><a href="/cinemastudies/" rel="nofollow">Cinema Studies &amp; Moving Image Arts</a></p></div><div class="col ucb-column"><hr><p>Mentor:<br><a href="/gsll/anastasiya-osipova" rel="nofollow"><strong>Anatasiya Osipova</strong></a>, <a href="/gsll/" rel="nofollow">Germanic &amp; Slavic Languages &amp; Literatures</a></p></div><div class="col ucb-column"><hr><p>Mentor:<br><a href="/anthropology/william-taylor" rel="nofollow"><strong>William Taylor</strong></a>, <a href="/anthropology/" rel="nofollow">Anthropology</a></p></div></div></div> </div> <div class="ucb-article-content-media ucb-article-content-media-right col-lg"> <div> <div class="ucb-article-secondary-text"> <div><div class="ucb-box ucb-box-title-hidden ucb-box-alignment-none ucb-box-style-outline ucb-box-theme-darkgray"><div class="ucb-box-inner"><div class="ucb-box-content"><h2>Savit Scholars</h2><p>Since 2017, <a href="/urop/outreach/news/savit-scholars" data-entity-type="node" data-entity-uuid="19af811f-2ed5-4f21-8da0-b65970c7e903" data-entity-substitution="canonical" rel="nofollow" title="Savit Scholars">Savit Scholars</a> have expanded the possibilities for performance art, opened new ways of thinking about apparel design, produced a stage play from the testimonies of military veterans, created more interactive virtual reality experiences, opened inclusive spaces for LGBTQ+ athletes at 91³Ô¹ÏÍø, pushed boundaries in art, film and more!</p><hr><blockquote><p><a href="/asmagazine/2019/04/03/student-uses-stage-journalism-shine-light-veterans" rel="nofollow">Student uses the stage, journalism to shine a light on veterans</a></p></blockquote><hr><blockquote><p><a href="/atlas/TheShow" rel="nofollow">"The Show" explores relationships through dance and digital technology</a></p></blockquote></div></div></div></div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="ucb-article-content ucb-striped-content"> <div class="container"> <div class="paragraph paragraph--type--article-content paragraph--view-mode--default"> <div class="ucb-article-text" itemprop="articleBody"> <div><hr><div class="row ucb-column-container"><div class="col ucb-column"><h3>Culturally informed care of indigenous-associated animal remains in museum collections.</h3><p>I will develop and begin to implement a protocol for the culturally informed care of animal remains within the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History by incorporating Native practices and understandings into how animals are stored across departments. In many Native American cosmologies, animals and humans are viewed as equals or relatives, but this is not reflected in museum collections, which are often under-inventoried and over-filled. With this project I hope to contribute to the crucial, ongoing work of decolonizing museum practices and recentering indigenous perspectives within collections and curatorial spaces.</p><p>Although the 1990 Native Graves and Repatriation Act provided legal backing for Native American Nations’ rights to indigenous funerary materials and human remains, animal remains have been largely excluded from the growing efforts within museums to collaborate with indigenous communities in the storage and preservation of their sacred and ceremonial materials. Animal remains from archaeological sites associated with Native Nations’ land or ancestors are often marked as zoological specimens and thus removed from the cultural context from which they originated. I hope to contribute to more recent work on this by developing an achievable protocol within the CU museum.</p><p>&nbsp;</p></div><div class="col ucb-column"><h3>Disconnected: Life in a Digital Reality</h3><p>America has a youth mental health crisis. The rates of adolescent-depression have skyrocketed. For teenage girls, self-harm is up 189%. Suicide, 169%. Most striking? These rises began when iPhones/social media became mainstream. Social media has tr