In this month’s CU on the Air, we talk with Catalin Grigoras, director, and Cole Whitecotton, IT professional, at the National Center for Media Forensics at CU Denver. The only one of its kind in the U.S., the center not only graduates the top media forensics specialists, it and its students assist law enforcement and government investigations, researches scientific methodology, conduct analysis of raw audio and video and, importantly, the digital manipulation of audio and video.
Underrepresented ethnic minorities make up about one-third of the U.S. population, but when it comes to undergraduates who earn engineering degrees, only 4 percent are African-Americans, 10 percent are Latinx, and less than 1 percent are indigenous. Even fewer underrepresented minorities – only about 6 percent – become engineering faculty members, according to the National Science Foundation (NSF).
Given the many ways in which he has provided leadership for decades at the University of Colorado, it’s not surprising that Alexander “Sandy” Bracken voices some ambivalence when congratulated on his recent retirement from CU.
Katja Friedrich has tolerated freezing temperatures, hail storms, pouring rain and tornadoes, all in the name of science.