Meet Our Team
The ANGLES Steering Committee provides strategic guidance for the network, including facilitation of network collaborations, meetings, and activities, and leading the implementation of network decisions and actions.
Aleta Rudeen Weller, Senior Research and Engagement Officer, School of Global Environmental Sustainability at Colorado State University
ANGLES Committee Chair
Email Aleta Weller
Aleta Rudeen Weller is the Senior Research and Engagement Officer at Colorado State University’s School of Global Environmental Sustainability. For the School, Aleta works to facilitate discourse and creative approaches to sustainability research, leadership, and engagement. She runs the School’s collaborative research programs for CSU faculty, creates opportunities for networking and dialogue across the University’s disciplinary and organizational boundaries, and helps form innovative, strategic partnerships to advance sustainability scholarship. Aleta runs the School’s selection and annual training of early career sustainability science leadership fellows and sits on the advisory committee of ANGLES, a network of higher education institutions doing similar leadership training across the U.S. and Canada. She is in charge of the School’s strategy for developing new interdisciplinary research activities, return on investment, messaging, and role in community and campus connections.Aleta has an interdisciplinary background in communication, facilitation, conflict management and collaboration in natural resources. She has worked on a variety of projects that link science and management; has a research and applied background in collaborative process; and is a certified mediator. Aleta has a Master of Science degree from Colorado State University in Rangeland Ecosystem Science and a Bachelor of Arts degree in International Affairs from Northern Arizona University. Prior to coming on board at SoGES, Aleta was the Director of Outreach and Leadership Development for the Society for Range Management.
Aleta runs and is the point of contact for the following areas: research partnerships, networking, and ideas; Global Challenges Research Teams; Resident Fellows; Visiting Fellows; Sustainability Leadership Fellows; Dining with Sustainability dinners; and any novel ideas and proposals for engagement. Aleta also advises the SoGES Student Sustainability Center, serves as the School’s representative on CSU’s President’s Sustainability Commission, sits on the advisory committee of ANGLES, serves as CSU’s designated point of contact to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and serves on the Board of Directors for the Sustainable Living Association.
Nicole Motzer, Director of Research Development at Montana State University
Email Nicole Motzer
Dr. Nicole Motzer is the Director of the Office of Research Development at Montana State University. In this role, she works closely with PIs from across campus and at all career stages to elevate and accelerate research and scholarship activity. She is particularly focused on facilitating interdisciplinary connections, fostering team science, and encouraging boundary-spanning partnerships to produce innovative and impactful research outcomes.Prior to joining MSU in January 2022, Nicole served as the Assistant Director for Interdisciplinary Science at the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC). There, she coached scholars through every stage of the interdisciplinary research process, from building teams, to enhancing collaborative skills, to developing boundary-spanning ideas into funded proposals and actionable outcomes. She also led SESYNC’s Graduate Research Fellowship program.
In addition to helping others realize their own research goals and potential, Nicole is an active interdisciplinary collaborator herself. She is a co-PI on an active NASA LCLUC grant that integrates demographic shifts in Mongolia with UAV-derived vegetation information to better understand grassland health and inform sustainable development pathways. She also served as the PI of an international, interdisciplinary effort funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation that developed a global framework for evaluating the socio-ecological impacts of ocean planning as a previously untested governance tool. In total, she has been awarded over $1 million in research grants so far.
For her contributions to interdisciplinary research, Nicole has been recognized by the likes of Michigan State University’s Center for Interdisciplinarity with a Visiting Fellowship in 2019 as well as the National Academies, which in 2020 formally sought her counsel on measuring convergence research. She received her PhD in Geographical Sciences in 2017 from the University of Maryland, College Park.