The research of June Gruber, Ph.D., examines happiness and positive emotion, words that might bring to mind a smiling face. It’s no surprise, then, when she describes her CU Boulder lab – the Positive Emotion and Psychopathology (or PEP) Laboratory – as a fun, collaborative and creative space. Positive emotion also plays a role in mental illness, which Gruber and her team also study. The work is not eternal sunshine. "There really can be too much of a good thing when it comes to positive emotion," she said. "And that’s one of the central ideas in our work: that positive emotions, while often helpful and adaptive, can also have a darker side when experienced in excess or in the wrong context."
CU’s budget for the 2025-26 fiscal year came into sharper focus Friday with the Board of Regents voting to approve the administration’s recommendations on tuition, student fees, and faculty and staff compensation. The figures will be used to determine CU’s annual budget, which the board will vote on in June.
Growing up, Jenny Knight’s mind concentrated on how things worked. Plants and animals were fascinations; by the time she was a college student, she zoomed in on the workings of the brain. “I was a biology major with a concentration in neuroscience and then went on to get a Ph.D. in neuroscience,” she said. “I just got fascinated by how this incredibly complex system, our brain, governs everything we do." A professor of Molecular, Cellular & Developmental Biology at CU Boulder, Knight last year was named a President’s Teaching Scholar at CU.