Congratulations to Alexis Foster! Alexis was selected to receive financial support through the HDNR Rough Patch Rescue Fund for 2026. This fund was established by HDNR’s alumni, Dr. Harry Zinn, and is designed to support students with financial aid. Alexis received $500 in assistance through the generosity of Dr. Zinn, the HDNR department, and the HDNR Rough Patch Rescue Fund.
The lab is continuously proud of Alexis’ work in securing external funding. This award will in-part support Alexis’ field component of her doctoral research in Colorado. The lab is deeply appreciative of the department, donors, and support systems like Dr. Zinn and HDNR. Congratulations again Alexis!
Congratulations to Alexis Foster, she received the Warner College of Natural Resources Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award! Alexis was nominated from multiple faculty members for this award which is given to a student who “served as a teaching assistant in one or more classes offered by a member of Warner College for outstanding performance as a teaching assistant.”
In recognition of her accomplishments, Alexis will receive $500, an inscribed award, and will have a slide recognizing her achievement in the Natural Resources Building Atrium for the upcoming year.
The lab is incredibly proud of Alexis and is delighted that she is being recognized for her dedication and commitment to every aspect of her professional career here at Colorado State University. The award ceremony will be held on April 20th with pictures to follow.
Congratulations to Alexis and the HDNR department for this wonderful recognition!
Are you conducting tourism research in the state of Colorado? Are you interested in learning more about the Colorado Destination Stewardship Strategic Plan? Join the new Colorado Tourism Research Network (CTRN)! Click here to join the Doodle Poll for the first CTRN meeting.
Colorado State University’s Dr. Christina T. Cavaliere was recently featured in The Rocky Mountain Collegian in an article by student reporter Katya Arzubi. In the interview, Dr. Cavaliere discusses how tourism impacts local communities and ecosystems. She highlights Colorado’s new Destination Stewardship Strategic Plan, where she serves as a committee advisor. Her insights connect directly to her broader research in biocultural conservation and tourism planning. Click here to read the article!
In Spring term 2026, Dr. Cavaliere is on academic sabbatical! She will be collaborating with two international universities and continuing community-based research in Colorado through The Cavaliere Critical Conservation Lab at CSU. Dr. Cavaliere will be continuing her established partnerships with the University of Oulu in Finland and with the University of Johannesburg in South Africa. Please note that Dr. Cavaliere will resume normal student advising, teaching, and administrative duties as of Fall term beginning 15 August 2026. Please recontact the Lab then if you have specific inquiries.
It is with great enthusiasm that The Cavaliere Critical Conservation Lab announces that Alexis R. Foster has advanced from PhD student to PhD candidate. On December 1, 2025, Alexis presented her dissertation topic of “Overtourism Challenges in Two Northern Colorado Recreational Areas: Understanding community perspectives and management approaches in Lory State Park and Horsetooth Reservoir.” This research takes place within the community of Larimer County, specifically Fort Collins and Bellevue, Colorado focused on overtourism perspectives and management approaches at these two locally significant protected areas.
In conjunction with the Lab, Alexis will be investigating overtourism communication strategies employed by management authorities, evaluate how overtourism is addressed within existing management strategies, and will assess park stakeholder concerns regarding overtourism impacts at the two parks. Email Alexis at Alexis.Foster@colostate.edu if you are interested in participating in an interview!
Dr. Julia Kathryn Giddy presented the co-authored work with Dr. Clare Kelso & Dr. Christina T. Cavaliere, titled “Domestic Tourists’ Perceptions of Conservation to Kruger National Park” at the From Recovery to Resilience in Tourism: Sustainable Pathways for Transforming Tourism conference. The conference was held from September 1-5, 2025, at the Maslow hotel Sandton in Johannesburg South Africa. The conference was co-organised by the School of Tourism and Hospitality, University of Johannesburg, and the University of Oulu in Finland. It focused on sustainable pathways for transforming the tourism industry, and its’ community and environmental relations in the context of recovery and resilience building.
The Pathways 2025 Conference “Appreciating Nature’s Benefits” took place from 8 to 10 September to share research addressing the myriad of issues that arise as people and wildlife struggle to coexist in a sustainable and healthy manner. PhD student, Alexis Foster, presented co-authored work with Dr. Cavaliere at the session, “Citizen Science & Participatory Programs.”
Alexis’ presentation at Pathways was entitled Recreationists’ Perceptions of Climate Change Through Lake Conditions, Windsor, Colorado. The Lab is very proud of Alexis as this was her first academic conference presentation. In addition, Alexis contributed to the lab’s mission of communicating scientific information to the community and in support in Colorado State University’s land grant mission.
The international research team including Drs. Hoarau-Heemstra, Cavaliere, Nazzarova, Hoarau, & Kline from the United States and Norway, have published the article “Making the wolffish personal”: exploring the role of tourism wildlife equity and biocultural conservation” in the A-ranked Journal of Sustainable Tourism!
(Click the image below for open access to the publication)
The new publication is significant for the Lab because Dr. Cavaliere’s previously co-authored posthumanistic theory (Wildlife Equity Theory) and conservation framework (a Critical Biocultural Identity Framework) informed this empirical fieldwork. The resulting Multispecies Tourism Communities outcome, demonstrates that conscious, complex relationships amongst humans and nonhuman stakeholders, protect this keystone species. Findings indicate that these interspecies relationships with the wolffish allow the wildlife to be recognized as sentient stakeholders that are more equitably conserved within the Marine Protected Area (MPA) of Saltstraumen.
Source: Galice Hoarau
Dr. Cavaliere and co-authors analyze the conservation status of the wolffish within Saltstraumen, as until the summer of 2024, it was legally allowed to hunt the wolffish with a speargun inside the MPA. The MPA is a popular Arctic tourist destination for diving and fishing and is one of the world’s strongest tidal currents.
The new Wildlife Equity Theory (Kline et al., 2023) guided the posthumanistic methodology for this research by positioning nonhuman species as active stakeholders within the system allowing for multispecies community cohesion to be incorporated. In addition, the Critical Biocultural Identity Framework (Cavaliere & Branstrator, 2023) guided the methods by providing indicators that framed the design of the qualitative inquiry.
This study allows insight into the human-wolffish relationship and demonstrates how influential the tourism system is to “decision-making processes, policy formulation, and multispecies community cohesion” (Hoarau-Heemstra et al., 2025, p.20). Wildlife agency is directly related to equity within the Anthropocene, and the paper demonstrates how multispecies perspectives are directly linked to justice and equitable biocultural conservation.
Congratulations to Dr. Cavaliere and her co-authors on this influential contribution to critical biocultural conservation research!
On April 25th, Alexis Foster proudly represented the Cavaliere Critical Conservation Lab on a field trip organized by Dr. Christina Cavaliere and Kathryn Metzeger [Program Manager, CSU Tourism & Conservation Graduate Programs]. Dr. Cavaliere represents CSU on the Colorado Tourism Office Destination Stewardship Council, where she interacts with Colorado tourism stakeholders to support sustainable tourism management in the state. In this instance, Visit Longmont serves as a wonderful destination management organization to provide experiential learning for our students in the Master of Tourism Management program. The students in Dr. Cavaliere’s NRRT 609 Tourism and Conservation course started the field trip by attending a guided tour at Jack’s Solar Garden, where they learned about agrovolterics and the connection to tourism. Next, the group enjoyed a lunch break at the Parkway Food Hall, bringing culinary tourism into the experience. Then, a conversation with Ryan Kazee from Angles Sport Ski Board and Fly Shop brought local tourism business perspectives to our learning goals for the day. Finally, a discussion with Sarah Leonard, the Chief Destination Stewardship Officer at Visit Longmont, was held with the students about how the DMO is approaching and implementing elements of the new Colorado Destination Stewardship Strategic Plan. A heartfelt thank you to Dr. Cavaliere, Kathryn, and all the dedicated community leaders for organizing such an impactful field trip. Overall, the students had a great time exploring sustainable tourism management in the field and were inspired by all the learning experiences and conversations. CSU would specifically like to thank Visit Longmont and Sarah Leonard for their kind support in sponsoring the student visit! Please see the video below for a recap of the student experiential learning in the field:
