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Institute of Behavioral Science

Health and Society Program

Women’s History Month Feature: Anni Magyary

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Image of Anni Magyare wearing a lime green button down. A graphic of the flatirons and Women's History Month are in the background.

Our next Women’s History Month Feature is with Anni Magyary! Anni joined IBS and CU Boulder in July of 2019. She works as a Proposal Analyst/Outreach Specialist for the CU Population Center and the Health and Society Program.

What do you like most about your position at IBS?

Magyary: So many things! I really enjoy assisting and guiding researchers with their proposal submissions and the appreciation they show me, always making me feel like I’m part of their team and not an outsider. Of course, when their project is chosen to be awarded, that makes it 10x more special and worthwhile! I also LOVE being able to utilize my journalism degree by writing and reporting about all the groundbreaking, cutting-edge research being done for our “CUPC Highlights” newsletter; it makes my job so much fun and enriching.

What has been the most impactful IBS research you’ve learned about? 

Magyary: So much of IBS research is found in the headlines of our nation’s current events – but if I have to choose one area, it’d be what’s dear to my heart – research that’s trying to understand climate change and how it affects us as a population, whether it be our health, vulnerability to natural hazards, and climate migration and equity. Oh, and who doesn’t love gazing at those amazing GIS maps of human settlement, urbanization, and spatial-temporal modeling, especially the animated ones!   

What’s one thing you hope never changes about IBS?

Magyary: Great question: the strong feeling of being part of a community full of talented people with a shared mission!

What have you read lately that you’d recommend to a friend?

Magyary: The million-dollar question – you’re asking somebody who works at the Boulder Public Library downtown on the week-ends! Just stop on by, find me at the front desk, and I’ll recommend a great book according to your taste, whether it be fiction or non-fiction. I just finished the fiction book “Horse” by Geraldine Brooks (a Pulitzer prize-winning author) and couldn’t put it down – loved the historical aspects of a real racehorse during the mid-19th century Kentucky. It won the indie book award last year.

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Tune in next week for another interview with another phenomenal IBSer!

Secrets from the Grave: A Portrait of Sharon Dewitte

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Sharon Dewitte wears a white lab coat and holds a skull with both hands. She stands near a desk.

Professor of anthropology and faculty/fellow of the Institute of Behavioral Science, Sharon Dewitte, was recently featured in the Coloradan Alumni Magazine. Author Lisa Marshall shares how Dewitte’s research helps us learn more about pathogens, their effects on the body, and the structural inequalities that historically led some groups to be more vulnerable to pathogens than others. Read more about Dewitte and her work in the article here.

Impact of early childhood health interventions in Bangladesh felt by future generations

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Two boys in Bangladesh harvest flowers.

Tania Barham, associate professor of economics, along with coauthors Brachel Champion, Gisella Kagy and Jena Hamadani, published a new paper examining the effects of the Maternal and Child Health and Family Planning Programme (MCH-FP) implemented in Bangladesh. Results showed children who experienced MCH-FP had greater height and improved cognition. Remarkably, these benefits spanned generations. The next generation of children were taller and also had greater cognition compared to peers whose parents did not experience MCH-FP.

Daniel Long from the Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine at CU Boulder shares more about Barham’s findings here.

Women’s History Month Feature: Angela “Angie” Branson

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Angela Branson holds a camera and is looking at us. In the background, it is springtime in Vail, Colorado with bright green foliage everywhere and a road winding into the trees.

Happy International Women’s Day from IBS! In honor of Women’s History Month, we’re interviewing some of our amazing IBS staff. Up first is Senior Program Manager, Angela Branson! Branson joined IBS in September 2022 and helps manage the Health and Society Program, the Population Program, the Program on International Development and the CU Population Center. 

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What do you like most about your position at IBS?

Branson: I love the people that I work with along with supporting the impactful research mission of the programs that I support and in IBS as a whole.

What has been the most impactful IBS research you’ve learned about? 

Branson: It’s hard to pick just one, but I’m very supportive of the research work Amanda Stevenson and the Colorado Fertility Project are doing. It seems that women’s (as well as transgender people’s) rights to bodily autonomy are currently under attack in our nation’s politics, especially at the state level in several states and I feel strongly that women and transgender people should have the right to choose what happens with their own bodies with the guidance from their personal physicians, without the government stepping in. I am also partial to any research leading to policy influence related to climate change. 

What’s one thing you hope never changes about IBS?

Branson: I hope that the passion for positive change in the world through the research done and supported by IBS never changes. Every Program and Center is doing highly impactful work all striving toward a better ‘tomorrow’ by looking to the past, present and future for collaborative solutions to real world problems and I love that.

What do you like to do most outside of IBS?

Branson: My favorite pastime outside of IBS is photography. I have been interested in photography since I was a child but have gotten serious about my art starting in about 2014. I have my own company and website, Angela Branson Photography, LLC. I specialize in wildlife art photography as well as portraits/headshots and events professionally as a side gig. If anyone is interested in checking out my work, they can follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/angelabransonphoto/.

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Tune in next week for another interview with another phenomenal IBSer!

Daniel Simon, Ryan Masters new study shows institutional failures increased suicide rates

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Older woman looks out the window in her apartment.

A new CU Boulder study sheds light on the national upward trend of suicide rates. Authors Daniel Simon, doctoral candidate in the Department of Sociology and IBS research affiliate, and Ryan Masters, associate sociology professor and director of the Population Program, examined suicide data from 1997 to 2017. They found two institutional bodies contributing to suicide rate increases:

  1. Prescription drug monitoring programs, whose minimal regulations or lack of existence in certain states made access to drugs like OxyContin easier, and
  2. A weaker public safety net offering limited help during economic downturns.

Lisa Marshall, science writer for CU Boulder Today, tells the full story here.

https://www.colorado.edu/today/2024/02/15/suicide-rates-us-are-rise-new-study-offers-surprising-reasons-why
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