Jasmine M. Andersen, PhD

Values Driven Life

I strive to live my life in a values driven way. How you show up impacts your ability to be present, connect with the people around you, understand the challenges you or others might face, and your relationships.

Nature

We all rely on this beautiful planet for life. Stop and listen to the wind or feel it on your skin, listen to the birds, look up at the trees, notice the insects or the ebb and flow of waters. I am so grateful for nature documentaries that let us take a sneak peak into the vastness of our planet from our own living rooms. I always hope that people feel inspired to explore, protect, and connect with the land around them whether that be in their home, at the parking lot of their grocery store, in a park, or out in the wilderness. All photos (except the last section) were just taken with my cell phone.

  • A banana slug in the Redwoods. The sorrel in these places can get so large. A perfect woodland place to reset, dream, and learn.
  • Our annual big backpacking trip in 2024 was in October in Grand Canyon. This is from our second day. I hiked up with one other in our group ahead of the rest who hiked up the trail below us. Can you see them?! We did ~25miles with high temperatures of 117F…. It was HOT.
  • Air. Stunning mammatus clouds above our home. Clean air gives all of us life and feeling the wind run over your face and through your hair can be pure bliss.
  • Water. This is Jasper Lake. Having backpacked in the desert in the dry season, I know how vital it is to our survival. We must all work together to protect our precious waters.
  • Fire. Fires have devastated communities close and far. As we tread into uncharted territory with climate change, we must work together to prepare and protect vulnerable communities.
  • Earth. This is some beautiful scenery in Canyonlands National Park from a backpacking trip we took in 2023. This humbling landscape is awe-inspiring and deserving of so much love and respect.
  • Several types of tired pollinators find respite at an “air-bee-‘n-bee” in my front yard. They slept for some time and then went back to work!
  • This beautiful dragonfly stopped to say hi on a hike at Burr Pond in Connecticut.
  • Emerald lake in Rocky Mountain National Park is one of my favorite hikes to do with a friend.
  • Ice crystals on a leaf that was alone in a parking lot… Mundane places can be so exciting if you take a second to look around you.
  • We LOVE our bees that come to our yard and get some sustenance from our garden.
  • Columbines blooming at Clinton Gulch Dam Reservoir in July 2024.
  • I will always revel in the colors and beauty of an ocean sunrise. So incredibly beautiful. Our poor oceans have taken the heat of climate change massively and we must fight to protect this special resource that we so often take for granted.
  • This magnificent artwork provided by nature was a sight to behold at Red Cliffs campground in Utah.
  • Sometimes the most beautiful things are right before our eyes without us seeing them. This was a stunning tree in a parking lot in the city.
  • I am beyond lucky to see such sights every spring. So grateful for wildflowers and mountains.
  • Moody rainy days are some of my favorite times. This was from Sequoia National Park in November 2024.
  • The desert has been treacherous and beautiful at the same time. I love the plants and animals that call this place their home and have so much respect for the sharp shells things have developed to survive here. I like to find inspiration from the small things that surround us.
  • Swallowtail butterflies come to visit our garden every year. I hope we can continue to see them as the climate changes. We will continue to plant plants that they need to survive.
  • Grasslands are so important to so many species of animals. I used to be bored by them, but have found that they are a host to so much and they are also worthy of understanding and protecting.
  • Autumn leaves glowing in the sun will never cease to amaze me. Rocky Mountain National Park.
  • I love when the leaves are gone and just the stems remain. These beautiful parts of our landscape provide food for birds and homes for wintering insects. I am so grateful for them.
  • Love the time of year that these little creatures come out!
  • Again, parking lots sometimes have the most beautiful things in them.
  • Assassin bug! Run! Just kidding…. They are so cool!
  • These footprints were too perfect not to capture. Virginia Beach.
  • This little orb weaver made a perfect web in our sliding door. I love to watch them spin their webs in beautiful designs that catch the sunlight and inspire us to create our own beauty in our life.

People, Connection, and Adventure

In a world of disengagement, it is so important to get involved in your community in a meaningful way. I have worked hard to build my own community of every day people. We all have a part to play in this society and the more we connect and lift each other up, the better all of our outcomes will be.

Cave of the Winds in CO Springs offers an “Expedition Tour” where you can go on a full cave tour. We decided to do this adventure when our friend Aditi visited from out of town. Highly recommend! The people there were wonderful guides.
Collective voices matter. Collective action matters. You as an individual can make a difference if you are willing to stand up for your communities.
Working on some photography fun during a backpacking trip in Canyonlands with these two pre-teens. We had lots of fun photographing turns “falling off of cliffs.”
Connection doesn’t have to just be with the people around you. It can be with the creatures that inhabit this world with us! This dragonfly and I got to hang out for quite a bit.
We have set an annual tradition to do a large backpacking trip each year with our good friends. So far, we have learned SO much on these trips, and I can’t wait to spend more time learning and adventuring with these awesome folks. This year’s will be on more familiar stomping ground.
This butterfly sat on my finger for about a half mile on a backpacking trip. So lucky to share the space with this beautiful little soul.
Time with family is so precious in a busy, busy world. I am so grateful to share experiences in life with the many loved ones I have in my life.
So grateful for my fellow women in STEM who helped me stay the course and inspire me always. Left to right: Hannah, myself, Heather (PhD), and Chanda (PhD).
Art is so important in this world. It helps us share ideas, change minds, understand complicated phenomena, connects people to others or places or things… We all benefit from art whether we realize it or not.
DU SciTech summer camp (a summer camp designed for middle school girls to access a variety of STEM topics) was one of my favorite experiences. We did so many fun experiments with topics ranging from optics, to astronomy, to insect catching and pinning, circuits, programming, and more. One year’s camp even resulted in a publication about the effect of light pollution on invasive cheat grass where the girls helped design the experiment and all went out into the field to take data! I loved working with these kids. I am continually inspired by their brilliant questions, eagerness to learn, and drive. We must provide safe spaces, leadership, and role models that can positively impact our young folks’ ability to see women and people of color as scientists!

Learning

I have always loved to learn, and will never stop. I only wish I could live a thousand lifetimes in order to learn the intricacies of all of the interesting things about this planet, this society, and our interpersonal relationships.

  • I completed my PhD in Condensed Matter Physics at the University of Denver. I learned SO much about not only physics, but the academic world, what it means to be on the forefront of scientific discovery, and myself along the way.
  • I love learning to bake or make something new, especially for people I care about. This is a lemon olive oil cake with a tart lemon curd and a whipped cream cream cheese frosting. Candied lemons and edible flowers for decoration!
  • All that we know now is as a result of what came before us. I am lucky to stand on the shoulders of people who never stopped fighting for our right to learn.
  • I had the opportunity to present a lab tour for the W. M. Keck grant. I learned so much from this process and had a lot of fun designing and running the demonstration for them!
  • I built a custom garden bed! It was fun to get the materials, design, and assemble it all. I like to try things I haven’t done before to build my knowledge and understanding of what goes into everything around us.
  • This world is complicated and so are our problems…. There is always something new to understand no matter what you are looking at.
  • I am always learning something new about how to take care of a garden. We’ve grown so many vegetables, and each time I start again, I build off what I’ve learned so far to improve.
  • I had so much fun making GIFs from data or simulations in graduate school…. Learning something new always inspires me to share in new ways that can be fun for others to look at and learn from, too!
  • Learning is not limited to what’s around you. It must be external AND internal. Standing up against injustices with good conflict navigation skills is vital. We must learn how our biases inform our lives.
  • The amount that I learned in graduate school is so incredibly vast. Although it has been some time, I still feel like I am learning from that experience to this day.

Gratitude

This is an essential practice of mine. I am so grateful for all that this life has to offer and consider it a privilege to be here and do what I can for the people around me- whether that be in my job, for a friend, or a stranger. I wouldn’t be where I am without everyone who has contributed to my life now, in the past, and beyond.

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