Prior to arriving at Mines I taught for four years at Olahoma State University (OSU) as a Teaching Assistant Professor, and for eight years at the Australian National University (ANU) as a Teaching Fellow and Teaching Assistant. In these positions I taught a wide range of introductory geology, climate change, mineralogy, petrology, field geology and graoundwater courses. I completed a PhD in Earth Sciences with a focus on mantle petrology and geochemistry at the ANU in 2014, working with Greg Yaxley. It was during my PhD that I was first given the opportunity to teach and this led me to developing into the educator I now am. Prior to this I completed my undergraduate studies in geology and chemical engineering at both ANU and Monash University, Melbourne.

Luis E. Zerpa joined the Mines Petroleum Engineering Department in April 2013. Before joining Mines, he was an assistant professor at the University of Zulia, Venezuela. Dr. Zerpa has consulting experience leading the reservoir simulation studies of an industrial offshore chemical EOR pilot project developed by the Venezuelan National Oil Company (PDVSA). He holds a B.S. (2001) and M.S. (2004) in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Zulia, and a Ph.D. in Petroleum Engineering from Colorado School of Mines (2013). His research interests are in the areas of reservoir engineering, fluid flow in porous media, enhanced oil recovery, flow assurance and multiphase flow modeling, and natural gas hydrates as potential energy source. He is a member of the SPE, ACS and ASME.

Dr. Pejman Tahmasebi is an Associate Professor at the Colorado School of Mines. For his Ph.D., he worked on the modeling of large- and small-scale porous media using data analytics methods in a joint program under the supervision of Prof. Sahimi from the University of Southern California. He then joined Stanford University as a postdoc and worked on statistical modeling for data integration and uncertainty modeling. Then, he worked as an associate research scientist at the University of Texas at Austin on the development of novel statistical and multiscale techniques. He then conducted research at Caltech on granular particles for geomechanical applications, in the Department of Mechanical and Civil Engineering. Dr. Tahmasebi has published several papers and five book chapters.

Dr. Rostami is the Hadden/Alacer Gold Endowed Chair and Director of the Excavation Engineering and Earth Mechanics Institute (EMI). He has a BSc in mining engineering from Univ. of Tehran, Iran and his MSc and PhD in mining engineering in 92 and 97 from CSM, respectively. He has been a faculty at Univ. of Tehran from 1988 through 2002, a full time consultant with major A&E companies from 2002 to 2007 (Brierley Asso, Jenny Engineering, CDM Smith, etc.) He joined the Pennsylvania State University (PSU), as Centennial Chair of Carrier Development in Mining in 2007 and moved back to CSM in 2016. He has over 27 years of experience in design, management, research, and teaching in the field of mining, tunneling, and underground construction. Dr. Rostami is a registered Professional Engineering (PE) in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. He is a member of SME, ASCE, ARMA, ISEE, IRSME, IRRMS, and TRB AFF-60 tunneling committee. He is currently one of the Editor in Chiefs of Tunneling and Underground Space Technology (published by Elsevier). Dr. Rostami is a member of the executive committee of the International Tunneling Association (ITA) and a member of the editorial board of Rock Mechanics and Rock Engineering journal, and the representing UCA of SME in the Mining and Minerals Engineering journal of SME. He is the current chair of the Research Committee and past chair of the faculty/student grant selection of SME. He is the chair of the upcoming 4th international conference on TBM in Difficult Ground (TBM-DiG). He has offered short courses on tunneling, shaft construction, and related topics for SME and other organizations. He has published over 80 Peer reviewed publications and ~150 conference papers, and over 100 technical reports and proposals, and reviews technical papers on a regular basis. He is one of the founding members of Iranian American Academics & Professionals (IAAP), member of the board of directors of Child Foundation, also the founder and incorporator of Professors Without Borders (PWOB).

Erdal Ozkan is a professor of Petroleum Engineering. He has BS and MS degrees from Istanbul Technical University and a Ph.D. degree from the University of Tulsa, all in Petroleum Engineering. He has over twenty years of teaching and research experience at Istanbul Technical University, The University of Tulsa, and Colorado School of Mines. His main research interests are horizontal and multilateral well technology, pressure-transient analysis, modeling fluid flow in porous media, and unconventional reservoirs. He joined the PE Department at Colorado School of Mines in 1998 and he is a co-director of Marathon Center of Excellence for Reservoir Studies (MCERS). Dr. Ozkan is a Distinguished Member of SPE and the recipient of the SPE Formation Evaluation Award (2007). He is also a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, ASME, and The Mathematical Association of America.

Erdal Ozkan has published and presented over 100 papers in prestigious refereed journals and technical meetings, co-authored a book, and contributed to several others. Dr. Ozkan is also actively involved in the organization of technical conferences; some examples include the Steering Committee of the SPE Forum on Reservoir Engineering Aspects of Multilateral and Advanced Wells (1999), Chair of the Organizing Committee for the SPE Advanced Technology Workshop on Unconventional Gas (2006), Steering Committee of the SPE Advanced Technology Workshop on Advances in Performance Diagnostics for Fractured and Horizontal Wells (2007), and Co-Chair of the Organizing Committee of the SPE Technical Conference on Shale Gas Production (2008 and 2010).

Dr. Ozkan serves in the editorial boards of the key technical journals. He was the Executive Editor of the SPE Reservoir Evaluation and Engineering, Chief Editor of Elsevier Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering, and Associate Technical Editor of ASME Journal of Energy Resources Technology. He also serves as a referee for several US and international research foundations. He is a member of the SPE Reservoir Description and Dynamics Advisory Committee and a Technical Director of the SPE Research and Development Technical Section.

Dr. Jennifer L. Miskimins is a Professor and the Department Head of the Petroleum Engineering Department at the Colorado School of Mines, where she holds the F.H. Mick Merelli/Coterra Energy Distinguished Department Head Chair. Dr. Miskimins has over 30 years of experience in the petroleum industry, starting with Marathon Oil Company as a production/completions engineer and production foreman. Dr. Miskimins started teaching at Mines in 2002 and has held various appointments since then. From 2013-2016, she had a part-time appointment at Mines, while working for Barree & Associates, where she specialized in hydraulic fracture design and post-treatment analysis. In 2016, she returned full-time to the university.

Dr. Miskimins specializes in well completions, stimulation, hydraulic fracturing, and associated production issues. She is the founder and Director of the Fracturing, Acidizing, Stimulation Technology (FAST) Consortium. Her research interests focus on the optimization of stimulation treatments and the importance of such on associated recovery efficiencies.

Dr. Miskimins served as the first Completions Technical Director on the SPE International Board of Directors from 2015-2018. She was an SPE Distinguished Lecturer in 2010-2011 and 2013-2014 on hydraulic fracturing in unconventional reservoirs. In 2014, she was awarded the SPE International Completions Optimization and Technology Award, and in 2022, she received the SPE International Distinguished Achievement Award for Petroleum Engineering Faculty.

Dr. Miskimins serves on a variety of conference organizing committees and as a technical editor for various journals. She was the Editor-in-Chief for the recent SPE Monograph update Hydraulic Fracturing: Fundamentals and Advancements. Dr. Miskimins is a registered Professional Engineer in the State of Colorado (License #36193).

Aaron Malone completed his PhD in Geography from the University of Colorado-Boulder in 2019. He has a broad background in Human Geography, including training in qualitative and quantitative methods and participatory research. His interests include critical minerals and energy transition, rural development and economic change, migration and mobility, and public policy, with a focus on Latin America and the US.

Dr. Heather Lammers is a geological and mining engineer with over 18 years of consulting experience in the mining industry, specializing in interdisciplinary analysis and design. She has international project experience in mine closure and reclamation and tailings and mine waste facility design and construction with consideration for sitewide water management, geotechnical and geochemical stability, cover systems, and geomorphic design. Her expertise includes developing and implementing risk-based design approaches for mine waste and water management throughout the lifecycle of a facility. Heather has demonstrated leadership through team building, project execution, development and implementation of business and corporate strategies, industry service, and academic research.

Heather serves as a Teaching Assistant Professor in the Mining Engineering Department at the Colorado School of Mines, responsible for expanding education and research capacities in mine closure and reclamation, tailings facility design, and critical mineral development and resource evaluation. She actively seeks opportunities that promote and facilitate student learning, professional development, and industry engagement experiences.

Heather also serves as a senior technical principal for tailings, mine waste and mine closure at WSP USA. She works directly with internal and external project teams and communities to develop innovative solutions and implement best practices for environmental stewardship. She has directed mine closure and reclamation design and construction projects on four continents in varying climate zones. She has also led and advised tailings and mine waste facility planning, design, construction, and closure projects.

Dr. Mohamed Shafik Khaled is an Assistant Professor in the Petroleum Engineering Department at the Colorado School of Mines, having joined in 2024. He brings extensive expertise in advanced drilling research, oil and gas operations, and geothermal energy development.

Dr. Khaled began his career at Halliburton Co., where he worked for over five years, notably as a Drilling Solutions Engineer. In this role, he was instrumental in well planning, identifying drilling limiters, and resolving drilling-related challenges across various global projects. He later earned his Ph.D. in Petroleum Engineering from Texas A&M University (TAMU). He continued his academic and research pursuits at the University of Texas at Austin, serving as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering and subsequently as a Research Assistant Professor in the Bureau of Economic Geology (BEG).

His current research is focused on advancing technology for drilling and well construction, improving the life cycle process of geothermal systems for heat and power production, and conducting high-resolution geological and heat flow mapping. Dr. Khaled’s work is dedicated to enhancing sustainable and efficient subsurface energy systems on Earth and in Space.

Our understanding of reservoir performance is increased through the study of fluid flow principles, a clear description of reservoir geology, and the judicious use of appropriate reservoir models and simulators. This allows us to evaluate “what if” production alternatives to produce the reservoir most efficiently and economically.

The detailed reservoir heterogeneity must be carefully accounted in recovery calculations. Laboratory experiments are generally conducted at too small a scale compared to the reservoir scale, but we must nevertheless be able to translate laboratory results to field-scale calculations.

Another major problem revolves around the inefficient contact of the reservoir fluid with the displacing fluid because of channeling and frontal instabilities known as fingering. We must be able to predict accurately fluid channeling and fingering and develop techniques to alleviate such problems. The recognition and prediction of flow channeling can be accomplished from the analysis of the reservoir rock, fluid properties, water/oil and gas/oil ratios, tracer signature, and pressure-transient response.

Practical reservoir simulators are based on finite-difference and finite-element discretization schemes. I do not anticipate any major changes in these numerical approaches in the foreseeable future. The research in this area must include judicious and efficient use of local mesh refinement to account for reservoir heterogeneities (channels, fractures, vugs, layers, and discontinuities).

Furthermore, we must learn to improve the mathematical implementation of the correct physics in such simulators. Finally, robust and efficient mathematical algorithms (e.g., equation solvers, vapor/Iiquid equilibrium calculations, relative permeability hysteresis tracking) must be developed in anticipation of routinely using very large reservoir models with more than 1,000,000 nodes.

I like to do research on various aspects of reservoir engineering (especially with a strong emphasis on the physics of flow in porous media), reservoir description, and mathematical modeling (both analytical and numerical). I want to work with students who are perceptive, have strong mathematical background, work hard, have self-initiative, and can transfer scientific ideas to practical applications.

Dr. Serveh Kamrava's research is focused on using machine learning and multiscale modeling methods for solving problems related to porous media focused. The goal is to develop physics-guided machine learning methods that can integrate physical laws and available data at small- and large-scale systems. Dr. Kamrava's group uses machine learning to discover physics when large data is available and the physical laws are not well known. The efficient ways of finding patterns in big data by integrating known physics into data-driven methods are also explored which requires using both machine learning methods and numerical simulations.

Dr. Ge Jin is Associate Professor of Geophysics and co-PI of Reservoir Characterization Project at Colorado School of Mines. His research focuses on Distributed Fiber-Optic Sensing (DFOS) applications in the fields of oil & gas, geothermal, CO2 sequestration, smart city, and earthquake hazard. He is also interested in machine-learning applications and seismic imaging. He obtained his Ph.D. in Geophysics from Columbia University in the City of New York, and dual B.S. in Geophysics and Computer Science from Peking University in Beijing. He worked as a research geophysicist in the oil industry for five years before joining Colorado School of Mines as a faculty member in 2019.

Dr. Fan is an Associate Professor in Petroleum Engineering at Colorado School of Mines, and the Director of the Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage (CCUS) Interdisciplinary Graduate Program (IGP). She earned her B.S. in Oil and Gas Storage and Transportation Engineering from the China University of Petroleum and both her Master’s and Ph.D. degrees in Petroleum Engineering from the University of Tulsa. Before joining Mines, she worked as a Postdoctoral Research Associate from the University of Tulsa.

Dr. Fan’s research interests include, but are not limited to, steady-state and transient multiphase flow in pipelines and wellbores, gas well deliquification, artificial lift design and optimization, multiphase flow related flow assurance issues, the application of fiber optic sensor in production logging and optimization, multiphase flow metering, etc. Dr. Fan received the Best Paper Award in the 17th International Conference on Multiphase Technology, and was awarded the 2020 ACS Petroleum Research Fund. She is currently serving as a member of SPE Production and Facility Advisory Committee (P&FAC), associate editor for SPE Journal and Geoenergy Science and Engineering, and technical reviewer for several peer-reviewed journals and research grant proposals.

Mansur A. Ermila joined the Petroleum Engineering Department in 2012 as a Research Assistant professor, and became a full-time member of the faculty in 2015. He teaches Drilling engineering, well completion, reservoir fluid properties, reservoir rock properties, Introduction to petroleum industry and advanced drilling fluid. He earned his B.S. from University of Tripoli in Petroleum Engineering, and a M.S. in petroleum engineering from university of Miskolc (Hungary) and PhD in petroleum engineering from Colorado School of Mines. His research interests include drilling operation, well completion, stimulation, artificial lift optimization. He is an active member of SPE, AADE, ARMA and Pi Epsilon Tau.

Dr. H. Sebnem Düzgün is a full professor, Fred Banfield Distinguished Chair, and Associate Department Head of Mining Engineering at Colorado School of Mines. In addition, she has a joint appointment with the Department of Computer Science. She is the associate director of the GIS and Geoinformatics program and coordinator of the geoscience section of the Data Science program. She also leads the mineral supply chain pillar of the Mines Global Future Initiative (GEFI).

Dr. Düzgün obtained her Ph.D. in mining engineering from Middle East Technical University (METU) in Ankara, Turkey, in 2000. She held a visiting scholar position at MIT's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering from 1998 to 1999, supported by a NATO grant. In 2001, she was appointed as an assistant professor in the Geodetic and Geographic Information Technologies Program at METU. From 2004 to 2005, the Norwegian Research Council provided support for her research while she served as a postdoctoral scholar at the Norwegian Geotechnical Institute and International Center for Geohazards. In 2006, she resumed her position at the Department of Mining Engineering at METU as an associate professor. Four years later, in 2010, she achieved the rank of full professor. In 2014, Dr. Düzgün was awarded the experienced researcher grant by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. This grant allowed her to conduct research at the Geophysical Institute at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany from 2015 to 2016. Since 2017, she has been a Colorado School of Mines faculty member.

With over 25 years of experience in research, teaching, and consulting, she possesses extensive expertise in geosciences, resources engineering, and information technologies. Dr. Düzgün specializes in a wide range of areas, including systems dynamics modeling, systems safety, mineral supply chains resiliency and transparency, decarbonization and net zero carbon strategies, sustainability, big data analytics, machine learning, artificial intelligence, virtual/augmented reality, GIS, remote sensing, information fusion, risk, and safety analysis, mine environmental monitoring, autonomous operations, IoT and cyber security and workforce development in mining.

Dr. Düzgün has authored four books, eleven book chapters, ninety scientific journal articles, over two hundred conference papers, and numerous technical reports. She is the author of the book "Remote Sensing of the Mine Environment." She has been recognized as one of the 100 Globally Inspiring Women in Mining for the 2020 Edition. She was appointed one of the 100 Resilience Fellows in the Engineering Program at TU Delft, organized by the 4TU-Resilience Federation. She has been selected as the Newmont STEM Equity Instructional Fellow, the Mines' University Public Fellow, and the Elates Fellow at Drexel University, where she completed the Executive Leadership in Academic Technology, Engineering, and Science (ELATES) program. She is also the founder of a startup company that specializes in providing AI-based solutions for resource exploration.

Dr. Parisa Bazazi received B.Sc. in Petroleum Engineering from the University of Tehran in 2015 and the M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Chemical and Petroleum Engineering from the University of Calgary respectively in 2017 and 2021. She worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering in Princeton University before joining the Petroleum Engineering department at Mines in January 2023.

Dr. Bazazi’s research interests are in interfacial sciences, materials, and fluid dynamics. She leads experimental and theoretical research related to transport phenomena in porous media, generation of novel interfacial materials, and soft matter. Her research goal is to develop an integrated platform to formulate engineered interfacial materials and tailor interfaces toward energy, environment, and health applications.

Dr. Linda A. Battalora is a Teaching Professor in the Petroleum Engineering Department at the Colorado School of Mines (Mines), and the Ben L. Fryrear Chair for Innovation and Excellence. She is a Payne Institute for Public Policy Faculty Fellow and a Shultz Humanitarian Engineering Fellow. She has BS and MS degrees in Petroleum Engineering from Mines, a law degree from Loyola University New Orleans School of Law, and a PhD in Environmental Science and Engineering from Mines. Prior to joining the Faculty at Mines, Dr. Battalora served in various roles in the oil and gas industry including operations engineer, production engineer, attorney, and international negotiator for oil and gas project development.

Dr. Battalora serves on the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) Sustainable Development Technical Section, Carbon Dioxide Capture, Utilization & Storage (CCUS) Technical Section, Health Safety Environment (HSE) & Sustainability Advisory Committee, Engineering Professionalism Committee, Research & Development Committee, and is Chair of the Diversity & Inclusion Committee. She is a member of multiple other professional organizations including the Association of International Energy Negotiators, American Society for Engineering Education, American Bar Association, and Colorado Bar Association. Her research areas include HSE, Sustainability, CCUS, and the Circular Economy.

Dr. Corby Anderson served in the Metallurgical and Materials Engineering Department as the Harrison Western Professor from 2009 to 2019. He joined the Mining Department in 2019. Dr. Anderson teaches and conducts research as a member of the Kroll Institute for Extractive Metallurgy. He is an expert in the fields of extractive metallurgy, mineral processing, waste minimization and recycling. Dr. Anderson has an extensive background in industrially oriented research and was responsible for the development and success of the Center for Advanced Mineral and Metallurgical Processing at Montana Tech.

Dr. Adrienne Marshall is a computational hydrologist with research focused on snow, ecohydrology, permafrost, and hydropower. These research interests are united by a desire to understand how climate change is altering water resources and identify solutions to these problems from both adaptation and mitigation perspectives. She uses data science approaches, physically-based modelling, and statistical modelling to address these questions. Prior to her academic career, Dr. Marshall worked in environmental education, and brings her experience with active and experiential learning to her pedagogical approaches in hydrology and computational science.

My name is Stephan Graham, a material-science engineer turned chemistry and physics teacher. After receiving my B.S. and M.S. in material-science engineering at Rutgers and Penn State University, respectively, I worked at Corning, Incorporated for nearly five years as a process engineer in the photochromic glass and ceramic catalytic converter industries.

Toni Lefton is the Assistant Provost for Signature Student Experience and Executive Director of the University Honors and Scholars Programs. She joined the Mines faculty in 1999 where she has worked on ethics across the curriculum, integrating arts and humanities in the STEM classroom, developing creative writing and comparative literature courses that incorporate environmental and professional ethics, multidisciplinary lenses, and creative expression as a modality for empathy and civic engagement. Professor Lefton currently serves as the Assistant Provost in Academic Affairs. In addition, she leads University Honors and Scholars as the Executive Director of Thorson First-Year Honors, Grandey First-Year Honors, the McBride Honors Program in Public Affairs, Undergraduate Research Scholars, Grand Challenges Scholars Program, Teach@Mines, and the office of Nationally Competitive Scholarships. Professor Lefton’s scholarship and service is devoted to interdisciplinary pedagogy, collaborative teaching, developing signature programs for Mines students, and high impact practices (HIP) in honors education. She has received a Daniels Fellowship to integrate ethics in the first-year honors curriculum and was selected to participate in the National Academy of Engineering “Overcoming Challenges to Infusing Ethics.” The results of this collaboration are part of NAE’s Online Ethics Center. Professor Lefton is also an active member of the National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC) and the NCHC Faculty Institute which develops experiential programs for students and educators. Professor Lefton is involved in international STEM+, STEAM, and engineering ethics initiatives, researching new methods for HIP, and writing about integrating arts and humanities into an engineer’s toolkit.

Professor Lefton received the Outstanding Faculty Award from the graduating senior class 17 times and was honored with the Board of Trustees Outstanding Faculty Award in 2015. She has been the faculty advisor for High Grade, Mines award-winning literary and arts journal since 2000. She has served as a faculty mentor for the Vanguard scholars, as a coach for the Mines Ethics Bowl team, faculty friend for the Visual and Performing Arts Themed Learning Community, advised the Creative Arts Club, the Mines Dance Team, Philosophy Club, Creative Writing Club, and Anonymous Right Brains. In her other life, Toni is a published poet and writer. Her poetry, fiction, and essays have appeared in Narrative, The Crab Orchard Review, Kalliope, The Sun Dog, Hayden’s Ferry Review, The Kudzu, Thin Air, Ellipses, on National Public Radio and Ms. Magazine, among others. Her first book, Everyday Crimes won the Anhinga Prize and she has been a finalist for a Pushcart and the Emily Dickinson Prize in Poetry.

Professor Hogue’s research centers on understanding hydrologic and land surface processes, with much of her work focused in semi-arid regions. The overarching goal of her work is to improve the prediction of hydrologic fluxes for better management of water resources, to assess human impacts on the environment, and to mitigate the effects of natural hazards.

Projects include investigating catchment response to wildfire, understanding the impact of urbanization on hydrologic fluxes, evaluating climate variability and response of land-atmosphere systems, and improving hydrologic forecasts.

Professor Hogue and her research group use field and experimental methods, modeling and optimization techniques, as well as remote sensing data in their investigations.

Research in the Herring group is generally in the area of Energy with a particular emphasis on Renewable Energy. We work at the interface of materials science and chemical engineering and most of our work is collaborative in nature the majority with the National Laboratory of the Rockies, also in Golden. We currently focus on Electrochemical Engineering.

All of our work is focused on the storage, conversion, or use of renewable electricity. Much of the effort concerns the discovery, synthesis, characterization and study of polymer electrolyte membranes. We are interested in both proton exchange membranes, particularly those incorporating inorganic super acids, and anion, and advanced anion exchange membranes with stable cations. Fundamental polymer physics is used to understand and optimize the materials. The same polymers are also used as the basis of our studies of ionomers for the fabrication of high performance electrodes.

Single cell device level studies concern, both fuel cells, electrolyzers, and redox flow batteries where performance and durability are maximized. Our interests also include carbon dioxide reduction and nitrogen electrochemistry. Another area of research is in electrochemical applications in water purification and use. Membranes are designed for both desalination using electrodialysis and blue energy. We use wastewater as a course of a slow release fertilizer, struvite, and hydrogen production.

Alicia Polo y La Borda Cavero has 20 years of experience in the mining industry analyzing mine projects, asset portfolios, business strategies, mining policy and mineral and metal markets. She has a bachelor degree in Economics from the Universidad del Pacifico in Peru, and a graduate degree in Master of Laws (LLM) in Mineral Law & Policy from the Centre of Energy, Petroleum, Minerals, Law & Policy (Cepmlp) – University of Dundee in Scotland.

Jack believes libraries play critical roles in open societies and higher education, including as a fundamental piece in larger socio-technical infrastructures supporting learning and research. He has published and presented widely on information literacy and ethics, open access, user expectations and behaviors, collections as data, and libraries as physical spaces. He currently sits on the Publications Coordination Committee for the American Library Association’s Core Division and the National Information Standards Organization’s Information Policy & Analysis Committee, and he frequently reviews for several journals, including College & Research Libraries. He has won awards from the Johns Hopkins University Press, the International Earth Data Alliance, the American Library Association, and the Colorado Endowment for the Humanities.

Prior to joining Mines he served as Associate Dean for Scholarly Communication & Collections Services at the University of Denver Libraries (2017-2024), where he was promoted to Professor and also taught in the Morgridge College of Education, and he held several positions at the University of Colorado Boulder (2005-2017), where he was awarded tenure in 2014. He proudly began his career at a shelver at the Denver Public Library.

Peter H. Aaen received the B.A.Sc. degree in engineering science and the M.A.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada, in 1995 and 1997, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA, in 2005.

He was the Manager of the RF Division, RF Modeling and Measurement Technology Team, Freescale Semiconductor, Inc., Tempe, AZ, USA, a company which he joined in 1997, then the Semiconductor Product Sector, Motorola, Inc. In 2013, he joined the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences, University of Surrey, Guildford, U.K., where he was a Reader of microwave semiconductor device modeling.

He was also the Director of the Nonlinear Microwave Measurement and Modeling Laboratory, a joint University of Surrey/National Physical Laboratory, and the Director of National Physical Laboratory – South of England, Guildford U.K. In 2019, he joined the Colorado School of Mines as a Professor and Head of the Electrical Engineering Department. He has co-authored Modeling and Characterization of RF and Microwave Power FETs (Cambridge University Press, 2007).

Dr. Aaen is a member of the Microwave Theory and Techniques and Electron Device Societies, served as an Executive Committee Member and Vice-President of the Automatic RF Techniques Group, and was the Chair of the IEEE Technical Committee (MTT-1) on Computer-Aided Design.

Andrew Petruska is an associate professor of mechanical engineering and robotics and the director of the M³Robotics Lab. His primary research focus is on the control of complex dynamic systems with an emphasis on magnetic manipulation for medical applications and autonomous systems for mining and underground exploration. He obtained his PhD in 2014 from the University of Utah and did his posdoctoral studies at ETH Zurich, where he was named a Max Planck ETH Center for Learning Systems fellow. In 2017 he was named a Boettcher Investigator for his work on magnetic manipulation for neurosurgery.

Laura Maginnis has over 20 years of experience in the space launch services industry. She began her career in the United States Air Force (USAF) supporting the launch of numerous GPS and NASA planetary exploration missions on the Delta II launch vehicle. She subsequently joined Boeing / United Launch Alliance and held positions in Launch Operations, Trajectory Analysis, Mission Design, Program Management and as Vice President of Government Launch, overseeing the successful launch of numerous NASA, USAF, and National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) missions on Atlas V and Delta IV launch vehicles. She currently leads Mission Management as part of the New Glenn development team at Blue Origin. Through partnership with government agencies and commercial enterprises around the world, Laura’s career has focused on ensuring the successful launch integration and delivery of missions that explore the solar system, protect national security, and inform, inspire, and connect humanity. Laura holds a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering with a concentration in Aerospace Engineering from Cornell University and a Master of Science in Space Systems from the Florida Institute of Technology.

Kevin Moore is professor emeritus at the Colorado School of Mines, with affiliations in the Department of Engineering, Design, and Society and the Department of Electrical Engineering. Most recently he was the Executive Director of the Humanitarian Engineering Program (2020-2025). He also served as the Inaugural Director of Mines’ Robotics Program (2020-2023). At Mines he held a variety of leadership positions, including Vice Provost for Strategic Initiatives and Dean of Integrative Programs (2018-2020) and Dean of the College of Engineering and Computational Sciences (2011-2018). He was the Founding and Interim Department Head of the Department of Engineering, Design, and Society (2017-2018). He held the G.A. Dobelman Distinguished Chair from 2005-2013 as a Professor of Electrical Engineering. Professor Moore received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering from Louisiana State University and the University of Southern California, respectively. He received the Ph.D. in electrical engineering, with an emphasis in control theory, from Texas A&M University in 1989. He has previously held positions at the Hughes Aircraft Company, Texas A&M University, Idaho State University, Utah State University, and the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. His general research interests include iterative learning control and discrete repetitive processes; autonomous systems and robotics, including the theory and application of networked robotic systems; and applications of control to industrial and mechatronic systems. Professor Moore is a registered professional engineer (State of Idaho #7066), involved in several professional societies and editorial activities, and is interested in engineering education, particularly design education, and humanitarian engineering.

There is a societal need to ensure access to a clean and reliable water supply in this country and globally. Our laboratory’s research is guided by a vision that nature-based treatment solutions can be more sustainably and holistically integrated into water infrastructure to help achieve this goal. However, optimization of these systems necessitates an increased understanding of how microbial respiratory processes influence and are influenced by their environment.

We approach this challenge by integrating the traditionally disparate fields of microbiology, geochemistry, and hydrology under the umbrella of environmental engineering and collaborate extensively with academic, government and industry partners. Our group in turn applies this perspective toward a more convergent understanding of sustainable water treatment systems such as engineered wetlands, aquifer recharge, and riverbank filtration.

Our research also focus on related themes of the drivers of ecosystem services relevant to water quality and in quantifying contaminants and their sources in urban and rural watersheds. This is achieved by integrating field observations and analyses with mechanistic laboratory experimentation. We have translated these findings to address challenges across the Americas with a current focus on water resources in the arid, western United States and southern Peru.

Dr. Norrgran obtained her B.S. in physics from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. She then worked in biology research on regenerating limbs and biochemical research on brain enzymes for several years before entering medical school at the University of Nevada, Reno. After graduating with her M.D., she went to University of Cincinnati for her surgical internship and neurosurgery residency. Her research there consisted of the mechanical stress designs for cervical wiring techniques and also skull base surgical applications for carotid cavernous sinus fistulas. Dr. Norrgran worked in private practice as a neurosurgeon in the Denver area for many years. When she retired from her medical practice, she earned her M.S. in astrophysics by processing data in search of extra solar planets. She obtained her Ph.D. in cognitive psychology researching cognitive enhancement. She started teaching biology and biophysics at Mines 2004.

Dr. Samantha Temple is a scholar-practitioner whose work bridges the fields of humanitarian engineering, nonprofit leadership, and community-led development. She currently serves as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Colorado School of Mines, where her teaching and research explore cultural humility in engineering education, power dynamics in development and humanitarian systems, and NGO partnership development to support student projects and applied learning.

With over a decade of field-based experience—primarily in East Africa—Dr. Temple brings deep applied insight to her academic work. Her recent co-authored publication, Engineering and Sustainable Community Development (Springer, 2024), investigates how engineers and communities can collaborate to advance more just and sustainable outcomes.

In addition to teaching and community outreach, Dr. Temple serves as Director of the Mines Peace Corps Prep program, where she mentors students seeking to apply their engineering skills through international service.

Dr. Temple holds a PhD and MPA in Public Affairs from the University of Colorado Denver, and a BA in International Relations from Knox College. She draws upon a wealth of lived experience—including two and a half years of Peace Corps service in Tanzania and a year in AmeriCorps—to guide her work as an educator, mentor, and development strategist.

Dr. Angeline Letourneau is the Hennebach Visiting Assistant Professor in Energy Transition and Society at the Colorado School of Mines. Angeline’s work examines the affective influence of identities under threat in the age of environmental and climate crisis and the contribution of these identity processes to widening cultural divisions and political polarization. Her research is inspired by the possibility of synergies despite differences. Her current project explores how the political framing of the just transition movement to decarbonize global economies intervenes in culturally specific understandings of gendered identities. Angeline’s prior experience in industry and the non-profit landscape informs her attention to purposeful intervention and actionable outputs. Her work has been published in journals such as Environmental Politics, Environmental Sociology, and Climatic Change.

Mark Orrs, PhD (Sustainable Development, Columbia University) is a Teaching Associate Professor in Engineering, Design, & Society with more than a decade of experience teaching in the fields of sustainable development and engineering design. Dr. Orrs teaches across both the Design Engineering and Humanitarian Engineering programs at Mines, with a focus on project-based, community-engaged, and systems-oriented approaches that integrate ethics, sustainability, and real-world impact. He also writes Z-engineering, a Substack exploring the nexus of technology, sustainable development, and human flourishing, with a particular focus on Gen Z and how we might guide powerful tools toward wiser outcomes.

Dr. Orrs teaches EDNS 315: Engineering for Social and Environmental Responsibility, the gateway course for the Humanitarian Engineering minor, offered each term. He also leads the Sustainable Engineering Design Studio (SEDS) as part of the Mines Capstone Program and is developing a new upper-level special topics course in Regenerative Development & Design, launching in Fall 2026 as a Design Engineering elective open to students across the university.

In addition, Dr. Orrs teaches in the Mines Futures Program, including courses within the Energy and Technology themes. He has previously taught in the Cornerstone Design Program (studio and lab), Design for a Globalized World (now EDNS 220: Problem Framing & Stakeholder Engagement), and the human-centered design studio EDNS 401: Projects for People. Dr. Orrs serves as Co-Director of the Sustainable Energy @ Mines (SE@M) undergraduate distinction, and is Faculty Advisor to Mines Without Borders.

Prior to joining Mines, Dr. Orrs was Professor of Practice and Founding Director of the Sustainable Development Program at Lehigh University, where he helped establish one of the nation's first interdisciplinary, experiential programs in sustainable development, engaging students from engineering, business, and arts and sciences in field-based work across more than a dozen countries.

Dr. Orrs holds a B.S. in Sociology from Saint Joseph's University, a Diploma in Economics with Distinction from the London School of Economics & Political Science, and a Ph.D. in Sustainable Development from Columbia University.

Mark lives in southeast Denver, where he serves as President of the Hampden Heights Civic Association and has also served in civic leadership roles, including Chief Sustainability Advisor to Councilwoman Kendra Black and member of the Science & Research Committee and later the Zero Waste Committee for Denver's Office of Climate Action, Sustainability, and Resiliency.

Joseph Horan joined the Mines faculty in the fall of 2012. He received his M.A. and Ph.D. in History from Florida State University and his B.A. in History and French from Colorado State University. Dr. Horan specializes in the Environmental History of Europe and the Atlantic World, with an emphasis on the Napoleonic era. His dissertation examines an extensive effort to promote large-scale cotton cultivation in France and Italy that was carried out by the Napoleonic regime. Dr. Horan’s dissertation has been recognized with honorable mention for the Parker-Schmitt Dissertation Award in European History and for the Rachel Carson Prize in Environmental History. Articles by Dr. Horan have been published in the journals International Review of Social History and French History and as part of the edited volume New Perspectives on the History of Life Sciences and Agriculture.

Prof. Sullivan’s research focuses on experimentation of electrochemistry, heat transfer, fluid mechanics, transport phenomena, chemical kinetics, and combustion processes found in solid-oxide fuel cell systems and balance-of-plant components, microchannel reactors, and heat exchangers.

In his current position as Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the Colorado School of Mines, Professor Sullivan leads experimental operations within Colorado Fuel Cell Center Laboratory. This 3600-ft2 facility acts as the focal point at the Colorado School of Mines for research and development activities in the fields of polymer-electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cells, solid-oxide fuel cells (SOFCs), high-temperature proton-conducting ceramics, and balance-of-plant component development for fuel-cell, heat-transfer, and chemical-processing applications. Professor Sullivan was named Director of the Colorado Fuel Cell Center in August of 2007.

Prof. Sullivan received CSM’s Alumni Teaching Award in April of 2008. Graduating seniors have voted Prof. Sullivan as the Outstanding Teacher for the Mechanical Engineering Department six times.

Dr. Kathleen J. Hancock is Associate Professor of Political Science in the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences Department. She is a core faculty member in, and former Director of, the M.S in Natural Resources & Energy Policy (NREP) and is Co-Director of the multidisciplinary Energy Minor. In 2015-16, Dr. Hancock was Visiting Researcher at Freie Universität Berlin where she worked on energy and regionalism and regionalism in the former Soviet space. Before earning her PhD at UCSD, Dr. Hancock worked in Washington, DC for ten years, including as a senior analyst in international security at the Government Accountability Office and lobbyist on nuclear arms control for the Federation of American Scientists. She also earned an MA in Science, Technology, and Public Policy at George Washington University.

Her in-progress (co-authored) book analyzes the changing politics of renewable energy in the U.S. with a focus on how lower solar and wind prices have brought in new pro-renewable energy actors and the growing role of social justice organizations. She highlights how conventional understandings of energy politics (Republicans are pro-fossil fuels; Democrats are pro-renewables) do not capture the richness of energy politics. Understanding these dynamics will help policy makers and the public better understand how the U.S. can continue to increase renewable energy production and consumption. She is also working on papers on energy equity, nuclear energy in the US, and community solar.

She is the founding and lead editor of the Oxford Handbook on Energy Politics and co-authored three chapters in the 30-chapter book. She has published a number of peer-reviewed articles and book chapters on energy security, hydropower in Africa, mining laws in Chile, and regional trade in Africa, among other topics. She guest edited a special issue on Renewable Energy in Sub-Saharan Africa: Contributions from the Social Sciences (Energy Research and Social Sciences, 2015) and is now editing and contributing to a special issue on Energy Regionalism (forthcoming, Review of Policy Research). Earlier publications, including her book Regional Integration: Choosing Plutocracy (Palgrave, 2009) focused on economic relationships between Russia and the other former Soviet states and included field research in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and the Kyrgyz Republic.

Dr. Hancock serves on the founding Board of Directors for the Society of Black Solar Professionals and works on community outreach for WRISE (Women in Renewable Industries and Sustainable Energy) Colorado Chapter. She is active in helping students find jobs in renewable energy through an annual career event and in organizing and coordinating with faculty, students, and staff interested in renewable and sustainable energy.

Natural gas hydrates are crystalline inclusion compounds, which are capable of hosting small molecules inside the cages of a hydrogen-bonded water framework. Hydrates of natural gas present a potential hazard to the oil and gas industries when they form in subsea oil/gas flowlines. On the other hand, they also have technological importance in energy recovery, transportation and storage. We have recently demonstrated (Science 2004) that hydrogen molecules can be stored in binary H2/THF (tetrahydrofuran) clathrate hydrates at pressures nearly two orders of magnitude lower than that in pure hydrogen hydrates. This decreased pressure makes binary clathrate hydrates a potentially feasible hydrogen storage material, with a unique combination of advantages not found in any other class of materials.

The ultimate goal of our research is to advance our understanding of the nucleation, crystallization, and agglomeration mechanisms for natural gas hydrates. The results will have immediate relevance to flow assurance in gas/oil flowlines, and energy transportation and storage. Specifically we are aiming to (a) develop molecular-scale models of the aqueous structures which occur in solution immediately prior to and during the growth of gas hydrates, (b) investigate the effects of inhibitor and promoter molecules on these local structures, and, (c) using these data, identify possible pathways which may occur in the process of hydrate formation. This program combines microscopic (vibrational spectroscopy and neutron diffraction coupled to computer simulations) and macroscopic measurements (differential scanning calorimetry) to provide mechanistic information on hydrate nucleation, growth, and decomposition. The different methods help assure correct interpretation of the measurements and provide a solid foundation for accurate model development.

Professor Shafer joined the faculty at Colorado School of Mines in the fall of 2012 after a two-year employment at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Jenifer Shafer is a Professor in the Chemistry Department and Nuclear Science & Engineering Program at the Colorado School of Mines. She received her Ph.D. from Washington State University in 2010, and a B.S. from Colorado State University in 2005. Jenifer is interested in advancing f-element separations technology through the use of new materials, supramolecular assembly, unique oxidation states, and controlling electronic structure. Advancing f-element separations technology has broad applications from advanced nuclear fuel cycles, nuclear forensics, and renewable technology. She is the co-author of several book chapters, over 50 technical manuscripts, and has led or collaborated on projects receiving over $30M in funding from the DOE, DOD, and DHS. Professor Shafer has received numerous awards and honors including Early Career awards from DOE and DHS and a Seaborg Visiting Scholar Fellowship for her sabbatical at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Her professional service includes leading sections and authorship of DOE Basic Research Needs reports and participation as a panelist for the National Academy of Sciences study, U.S. Nuclear Forensics and Attribution Support Capabilities. She is currently serving on the American Chemical Society’s Committee on Science working on chemical policy matters.

Professor Jensen’s research interests are focused on the nuclear fuel cycle, ranging from mechanisms of selectivity in chemical separations to biologically-based metal separations and the biochemistry and environmental chemistry of the transuranium elements. Mark has been studying the chemistry of the actinide and lanthanide elements as a scientist in the Heavy Element Chemistry and Separation Science Group at Argonne National Laboratory for the past twenty years. He received his Ph.D. in Inorganic and Nuclear Chemistry from Florida State University.

Dr. Gockel earned his BS and MS in Mechanical Engineering and MS and PhD in Material Science and Engineering. His research focuses on the intersection of dynamic, material-structure response and failure in extreme environments.

Dr. Petrella is director of the Computational Biomechanics Group. Areas of research interest include computational and also experimental study of the musculoskeletal system. Specific areas of focus include spine, hip, and knee mechanics.

Dr. Petrella joined Mines in the fall of 2006 to continue the exciting growth of research and teaching in the area of Bioengineering. Dr. Petrella came to Mines after a 6-year career with Johnson & Johnson where he managed the computational biomechanics research group for DePuy Orthopaedics, Inc. – a world leader in the design and manufacture of joint replacement implants. Dr. Petrella continues to pursue his interest in orthopaedic biomechanics and has expanded his research focus from the knee and hip replacements designed by DePuy to also include spine biomechanics. The Computational Biomechanics Group that Dr. Petrella directs uses advanced nonlinear finite element methods together with subject-specific anatomy and statistical techniques to simulate spinal function in three states: healthy, degenerated, and surgically reconstructed. The long-term goal of the group’s spine modeling work is to improve clinical outcomes from spine arthroplasty procedures through a deeper understanding of the variables that affect clinical success.

In 2020 Dr. Petrella launched the FEA Professional graduate-level certificate program, a fully online program that teaches advanced skills in finite element analysis for structural and thermal applications.

High Energy Astroparticle Physics: Exceeding 1020 eV, cosmic rays are the highest energy particles known to exist. What are their accelerators? What are they? How to they obtain these energies? To address these questions, I collaborate on two major experiments. The Pierre Auger Observatory, located in Argentina is the world.s largest ground based detector. JEM-EUSO is a pioneering instrument planned for the international space station.

Interdisciplinary Science: Because high energy cosmic ray detectors observe the earth in unique ways as well as the cosmos, their interdisciplinary reach extends to the atmospheric and earth sciences. For example, the Pierre Auger Observatory also measures transient luminous events that occur in the ionosphere high above certain thunderstorms.

Innovative laser test beam systems for Cosmic Ray Observatories: Test beams of 10^20 eV particles do not exist. Well calibrated laser systems can generate optical signatures in the atmosphere that have similarities to the optical signature generated by cosmic rays. Applications of these systems include detector characterization, artificial sky maps and atmospheric science. The Mines group is responsible for the central laser facilities at the Pierre Auger Observatory and systems for the JEM-EUSO Global Light System.

Research is focused on computational electromagnetics, the bulk of which is electromagnetic wave propagation simulation applied to nanophotonics and nanoplasmonics. Combining electromagnetic wave simulation with other simulation such as charge transport has been used to study complex systems such as solar cells and electro-optic modulators. Simulations use various techniques, such as finite element simulation, Green.s Function/integral equations, transfer matrices, etc. Applications have included micropolarizers, THz detection, study of chiral materials and chiral light, and biosensors.

I have lived my entire life in Colorado, love teaching physics, and studying how people learn physics. I have taught a range of courses over 15 years from introductory physics to graduate level science education research seminar.

My research focuses on formative assessment and curriculum design. I developed the widely used CLASS, which measures students’ perceptions of physics and how to learn physics; have done extensive work on problem solving evaluation; developed the interface design guidelines for the PhET Interactive Simulations; and most recently developed the PTaP (Perceptions of Teaching as a Profession) instrument. I have also designed and developed several curricula including the Explore Sound project – K-14 materials for acoustics.

Forging is an old art. The forger has evolved from the artisan of the ancient world through the blacksmith of the last several centuries into the modern engineer of today. But the forger’s challenge – creating a forged product with optimal geometry and properties – remains the same.

The present challenges facing the forging industry are still related to basic material questions. New materials are being developed; how can they be forged successfully? Older alloys are still used extensively – are they sufficiently characterized so that models correctly predict their behavior?

As the Forging Industry Education and Research Foundation Professor at CSM, I work extensively with the Advanced Steel Processing and Products Research Center. My primary focus is on steels and specialty alloys used by the forging industry.

One aspect of my research centers around the various microstructural changes that occur during forging and the relationship between these changes and the mechanical properties that the steel possesses.

Besides forging, I am involved in other metal deformation processes such as rolling, extrusion, and sheet metal forming. I also have a keen interest in modeling of these deformation processes by a variety of techniques. Frictional behavior of metal surfaces during deformation is another research area in which I have done some studies.

I am a materials scientist and engineer, and my primary tool is the scanning-transmission electron microscope (STEM). In addition, my research group uses other techniques to investigate the structures, properties, and processing of materials and to design the microstructures of materials.

We are attempting to clarify austenite decomposition mechanisms in ultra-low-carbon bainitic steels by combining STEM work with studies of isothermal and continuous-cooling transformation behaviour using specialized furnaces and a Gleeble thermomechanical test system. Our work is of interest to the ship-building and oil exploration industries.

Another exciting topic of study is strengthening mechanisms in direct-quenched plate steels. In our state-of-the-art research we are probing why direct-quenched steels are stronger that the conventionally processed steels which are produced today.

Other ongoing programs concern phase transformation phenomena in high-purity aluminum alloys, the effects of substrate chemistry on microstructural evolution in zinc-coated sheet steels, the evolution of microstructure during simulated ingot breakdown of nickel-base superalloys, and the effects of microalloying elements on the structures and properties of low-alloy steels.

Rockett holds a ScB in physics from Brown University and a PhD in metallurgy/materials science and engineering from the University of Illinois. He is a professor emeritus in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois and has won numerous awards for teaching and advising. He has studied the basic science of solar cell materials and the operation of solar cell devices, using virtually all of the common materials, microchemical and microstructural analysis techniques from SIMS and TEM to STM and photoluminescence. Rockett’s research group also developed numerical models of photovoltaic and photoelectrochemical cells. He also worked on self-assembled nanostructures, MEMS devices, silicide reactions for VLSI contacts, Si-Ge oxidation kinetics for gate dielectrics, superconducting cavity resonators as temperature probes and optical spectroscopic analysis of combustion. Rockett is a fellow of the American Vacuum Society, serving as president in 2011; was the 2012 program chair and the 2016 general chair of the IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference; and was a rotating research program administrator at the Office of Basic Energy Sciences at the U.S. Department of Energy in 2000.

Dissertation: The Interaction of Gas Bubbles with Liquids at Sub-Atmospheric Pressures

Dr. Martins has served the Metallurgical and Materials Engineering Department for many years.

Dr. M. Brooks Tellekamp is a Research Scientist at the National Laboratory of the Rockies and a research professor at the Colorado School of Mines, working on the development of materials for next generation power electronic devices and neuromorphic computing. Brooks and his team use molecular beam epitaxy (MBE), pulsed laser deposition (PLD), and RF sputtering to synthesize high-quality thin films with atomically abrupt interfaces.

Brooks focuses on ultra-wide band gap (UWBG) semiconductors with nitride and oxide chemistry. Using MBE, he and his team explore how chemically and structurally dissimilar interfaces can be controlled to create high-performance electronic devices. In addition to UWBG semiconductors, his work encompasses ternary nitrides, correlated oxides, and crystalline carbide thin films. These materials are explored for applications in high-temperature and extreme environment electronics, novel computing architectures, and power electronic devices.

If you are interested in research opportunities at NLR supported by an external graduate, postdoctoral or professional fellowship, please contact me at brooks.tellekamp@nlr.gov.

John Steele completed his transition to official retirement in May 2017 but continues to work actively with graduate students on research in robotics and intelligent machines.

Prior to retiring in September 2016, Dr. Parker served as a faculty member in the Engineering Division at Mines for over 20 years, including tenures as Engineering Division Director, Vice President of Academic Affairs and Provost.

Dr. Munoz retired from teaching effective January 2011. He is now working with the Fetzer Institute and other nonprofits in the areas generally designated as humanitarian or peace engineering.

Joan Gosink became Division Director of the Division of Engineering in 1991 after serving as a Program Manager at the National Science Foundation. Dr. Gosink retired from Mines in 2003.

Joel Bach retired from teaching in July of 2023. He remained the Director of the Human Design Center until May of 2024.

Michael R. Walls is an Emeritus Professor of Economics and Business at the Colorado School of Mines, where he taught and researched petroleum economics, risk management, and strategic decision making for 25 years. Prior to joining academia, Dr. Walls worked for 13 years in the upstream sector of the petroleum industry as a production manager and VP of exploration and production. He holds a BS in Geology from Western Kentucky University, an MBA in Finance and a PhD in Management from the University of Texas at Austin.

Dr. Walls’ research areas include decision analysis, petroleum economics and risk management, valuation and finance, particularly as it relates to the petroleum industry. He is recognized as an industry authority on the application of risk and investment theory to the petroleum industry and is also the author of numerous articles on the topics of decision and risk analysis. Dr. Walls has consulted in the areas of risk analysis and strategic planning to companies such as Chevron-Texaco, Petrobras Brasilieo, BHP Billiton, Anadarko Petroleum, Schlumberger, BP Exploration, Hess Corporation, and numerous other companies. Dr. Walls also has significant teaching experience in executive programs as well as in‑house briefings for oil companies. Since 1992, his seminar entitled “Managing Risks and Strategic Decisions in Petroleum Exploration and Production” has been attended by over 3500 industry professionals

Though now retired, I have over the past 20 years divided my time between Colorado, where I held the Coulter Chair in Mineral Economics at the Colorado School of Mines, and Chile, where I was a professor in the Mining Engineering Department of Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. My teaching and research interests have focused on economic and policy issues associated with the metal industries and markets. Recent research examines the role of mining in economic development, the environment and mining, material substitution, long-run trends in metal demand, the recycling of metals, the sources of productivity growth in mining, the competitiveness of mineral markets, and changes in comparative advantage in metal trade. My most recent books are: On Borrowed Time?, which examines the long-run challenge for modern civilization from the depletion of mineral resources, and Mineral Economics and Policy, where with Juan Ignacio Guzmán I explore the nature and behavior of mineral commodity markets.

Graham A. Davis is an Emeritus Professor of economics and business at the Colorado School of Mines, where he taught and researched mineral and energy economics for 24 years. Prior to joining academia, Dr. Davis worked as a metallurgical engineer at mines in Canada and Namibia. He has a BS in Metallurgical Engineering from Queen’s University, an MBA from the University of Cape Town, and a Ph.D. in Mineral Economics from the Pennsylvania State University.

His research areas include the impact of mineral extraction and trade on developing economies and the taxation and valuation of mineral and energy projects. He serves on the Editorial Board of Resources Policy, an international journal devoted to minerals policy and economics, and is an Associate Editor of the Journal of Commodity Markets. Past research projects have included working with UNIDO on development strategies for Mongolia and with the WTO in an analysis of global mineral trade patterns. His most recent projects include leading the Inter-American Development Bank’s analysis of fiscal regimes that apply to petroleum and mining projects in Latin America and the Caribbean and the World Bank’s review of mineral rent taxation in Africa. Dr. Davis continues to consult to the mining industry and provides expert witness services in national and international mining disputes.

Cyndi retired in July 2017. During her teaching career, she was passionate about software engineering and helping students develop beautiful code. Her research interests included K-12 STEM education and broadening participation in computing. She now enjoys hiking, cycling, skiing and volunteer work.

William Hoff received the B.S. degree in physics from the Illinois Institute of Technology, the M.S. degree in physics from the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign) and also the Ph.D. degree in computer science from the University of Illinois. After his Ph.D., he was a staff engineer at Martin Marietta, where he led research projects in robotics and target recognition. He joined the Colorado School of Mines in 1994. He has developed and taught courses in digital electronics, microprocessors, image processing, computer vision, stochastic processes, and mobile application development. He has been a visiting scientist at Lockheed Martin and at the Rocky Mountain Musculoskeletal Research Lab. His research interests include computer vision and pattern recognition, with applications in augmented reality, robotics, video aided navigation, and activity recognition.

Tracy Camp is the Founding Department Head and a Professor at the Colorado School of Mines. She is the Founder and Director of the Toilers (http://toilers.mines.edu), an active ad hoc networks research group.

Her current research interests include the credibility of ad hoc network simulation studies and the use of wireless sensor networks in geosystems. Dr. Camp has received over 20 grants from the National Science Foundation, including a prestigious NSF CAREER award. In total, her projects have received over $20 million dollars in external funding. This funding has produced 12 software packages that have been requested from (and shared with) more than 3000 researchers in 86 countries (as of October 2012). Dr. Camp has published over 80 refereed articles and 12 invited articles, and these articles have been cited almost 4,000 times (per Microsoft Academic Search) and over 7,000 times (per Google Scholar) as of December 2012.

Dr. Camp is an ACM Fellow, an ACM Distinguished Lecturer, and an IEEE Fellow. She has enjoyed being a Fulbright Scholar in New Zealand (in 2006), a Distinguished Visitor at the University of Bonn in Germany (in 2010), and a keynote presenter at several venues, e.g., at the 7th International Conference on Intelligent Sensors, Sensor Networks and Information Processing (ISSNIP 2011) in Adelaide, Australia, and the 3rd International Conference on Simulation Tools and Techniques (SIMUTools 2010) in Malaga, Spain. In December 2007, Dr. Camp received the Board of Trustees Outstanding Faculty Award at the Colorado School of Mines; this award was only given five times between 1998-2007.

Dinesh is a Professor who joined the department in 2000. His core research is in algorithms and data structures which he applies to interdisciplinary areas such as VLSI design automation, cheminformatics, computational materials and cyber-physical systems. Outside of work, Dinesh and his wife Usha enjoy hanging out with their son Sanat. Dinesh also tries (with limited success) to stay fit.

Gabe Fierro is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Colorado School of Mines, with a joint appointment at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Dr. Fierro works at the intersection of databases, cyberphysical systems, the Internet of Things, data modeling and semantic interoperability. His research focuses on the design and development of efficient, practical systems that enable sustainable practices at societal scale through making critical cyberphysical data easier to discover, manage and leverage.

Dr. Fierro is a founder and the lead maintainer of Brick Schema, an open-source ontology and data model that defines a standard representation for smart building data. Dr. Fierro is an internationally recognized expert in ontology design for cyberphysical systems and is actively involved with the IEA Annex 81 investigation and the development of the emerging ASHRAE 223P standard.

He is one of 11 recipients of the inaugural CMD-IT-FLIP dissertation fellowship and has won several Best Paper and Best Presentation awards at international research conferences.

Dr. Rebecca Smaha is from Austin, TX, and received her bachelor’s degree in chemistry and certificates in materials science and engineering and linguistics from Princeton University in 2014. She then received a Fulbright grant to perform solid state chemistry research in Madrid, Spain, at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. She earned her doctorate in inorganic chemistry at Stanford University in the applied physics lab of Prof. Young Lee studying synthetic minerals with interesting low-temperature magnetic behavior using various X-ray and neutron scattering techniques.

Dr. Smaha joined NLR as a Director’s Postdoctoral Fellow in 2021, investigating novel ternary nitrides for potential multiferroic applications. She is now a staff scientist in the Materials Discovery & Design group within NLR’s Materials Science Center. Her current research focuses on the design, discovery, and development of novel ternary nitrides as both bulk powders and thin films, both fundamentally and for applications including magnetism, optoelectronics, detection, and spintronics.

Progressive engineering educators are transforming engineering courses from a passive, lecture-based delivery mode to active, student-centered learning communities in which students “make meaning” of what they are learning. With this transition comes the need to find better techniques for accurately assessing the complex activity that we call learning– traditional exams are often no longer adequate.

One of my projects involves developing graphics-based interactive software which measures students’ intellectual development using expert system and neural network technologies. We are studying human experts who measure intellectual development using a lengthy and complex interview process and converting the experts’ knowledge into a series of open-ended scenarios which are designed to measure specific student beliefs about the nature of knowledge, use of evidence in problem-solving, and the role of authorities in seeking truth. Student responses to each scenario are scored by a trained neural net which places each student on a hierarchical scale ranging from a dualistic (black/white) objective view of knowledge, through a relativist view (all ideas equally valid) to a more realistic view in which the best answer to any real-world problem is contextually based.

This project, supported by the U.S. Department of Education, is currently testing the alpha version of our software on student volunteers. When completed and validated, the program will be used to assess the longitudinal intellectual growth of our students while at CSM and will provide us with valuable data for further improving our curriculum and teaching methods.

Manifestation of therapeutic or toxic effects following chemical contact with our skin only occurs if there is dermal absorption. The goal of our research is to understand skin’s behavior as a barrier to chemicals that contact the skin whether they are applied intentionally as medicines or accidentally from the environment or during work. We focus specifically on developing methods for measuring and predicting the rate and extent of dermal absorption. This information is used to assess drug delivery from topical dermatological products, including comparisons of generic and reference-listed formulations, and also to evaluate health risks from skin exposures at home, work or in the environment. This multidisciplinary research is conducted in collaboration with scientists and engineers in the United States and around the world. Current projects with colleagues at the University of Bath and Vanderbilt University focus on evaluating equivalence of generic and reference listed drug formulations and molecular simulation of lipids in the outermost skin layer, the stratum corneum.

Previously, Ramya was a postdoctoral associate at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities where she developed materiomics workflows to accelerate the discovery of polymeric vectors for gene delivery.

Polymers are poised to bridge technological and regulatory barriers hindering the clinical translation of cellular, protein and gene therapeutics. Thanks to rapid advances in controlled radical polymerization, we can precisely tailor chemical and architectural design parameters to access myriad properties and multifunctional polymers. Yet, synthetic advances have not been accompanied by fundamental knowledge connecting polymer design decisions to interfacial properties, and the ultimate biological performance achieved by polymeric biomaterials such as coatings and delivery vehicles. In order to create discovery pipelines for clinically useful and affordable biomaterials, the Kumar lab will develop (1) combinatorial design strategies to accelerate polymeric biomaterial discovery (2) process intensification techniques to improve the physical properties of nanoassemblies formed between therapeutic payloads and polymers, and (3) synthetic cell culture substrates to promote efficient polymer-mediated delivery of gene editing constructs.

Willy Hereman received his Bachelor’s (1974), Master’s (1976) and Ph.D. (1982) degrees in Applied Mathematics from the University of Ghent, Belgium. He held NATO Research Fellowships at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering of The University of Iowa and a Visiting Assistant Professorship in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Wisconsin. He joined the Colorado School of Mines in 1989 where he now is Professor Emeritus of Applied Mathematics. From 2011 to 2016, he served as Head of the Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics at Mines. He has published over a hundred research papers in acousto-optics, scattering theory, soliton theory, nonlinear wave phenomena, wavelets, and symbolic methods for nonlinear partial differential equations and lattices. Supported by the National Science Foundation of the United States of America, he has developed several symbolic software packages in Mathematica for the investigation of integrability, symmetries, conservation laws, and exact solutions of nonlinear differential and difference equations. He is a laureate of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Belgium and a member of the American Mathematical Society and the Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics.

On the Mines faculty since 1986, Roderick G. Eggert specializes in mineral economics and public policy. In recent years, his research and teaching have focused on critical minerals and materials. Between 2013 and 2026, he was deputy director of the Critical Materials Innovation Hub (initially known as the Critical Materials Institute), a research consortium established by the U.S. Department of Energy in 2013 to accelerate innovation in energy materials. He chaired the U.S. National Research Council committee that wrote the 2008 book, Minerals, Critical Minerals, and the U.S. Economy (National Academies Press). He has testified on critical minerals and materials at committee hearings of the U.S. Senate, U.S. House of Representatives, Canadian House of Commons, and European Parliament.

He co-chaired the National Academies committee that wrote the 2025 book Meeting Future U.S. Mineral Resource Needs: The Role of the U.S. Geological Survey Mineral Resources Program (National Academies Press).

Between 2016 and 2024, he held the Viola Vestal Coulter Foundation Chair in Mineral Economics. Between 1998 and 2013, he was Director of the Division (now Department) of Economics and Business. Between 1988 and 2006, he was editor of Resources Policy, an international journal of mineral economics and policy.

Kaveh Fathian is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the Colorado School of Mines. Before joining Mines, Dr. Fathian was a research scientist at MIT. He received his PhD degree in Electrical Engineering, MS degree in Mathematics, and MS degree in Electrical Engineering from UT Dallas. His research is focused on robotics and computer vision topics such as robust perception, visual navigation, simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM), multi-robot SLAM, and multi-agent systems.

Dr. Fathian leads the Autonomy, Robotics, and Intelligent Algorithms (ARIA) lab at Mines. The mission of the lab is to pioneer algorithmic technologies for robust and resilient robotic perception and autonomy, such as certifiable perception, novel relaxation techniques for computationally challenging optimization problems with optimality guarantees, and data association algorithms robust to extreme outlier ratios (>99%). His research is further extending these technologies to multi-robot teams to create a resilient cyber-physical internet of robots that communicate and compute on the edge and the cloud.

I teach courses in literature and the environment, American literature, the history of nineteenth-century science, especially the history of earth and environmental sciences, and environmental justice. I also direct the Environment and Sustainability Studies Minor in HASS.

My research fits most broadly into the category of environmental humanities, and I focus especially on reactions and responses to evolutionary theory in the U.S., with a special focus on Darwin’s plant studies. I’ve published a book on women, nature and science, ‘Good Observers of Nature’: American Women and the Scientific Study of the Natural World, 1820-1885 (2007) and co-edited a collection of essays that explores the distinctive qualities of American textual engagement with Darwinism, America’s Darwin: Darwinian Evolution and U.S. Literary Culture (with Lydia Fisher; University of Georgia Press, 2014). I’ve also published articles on Darwinian botany, evolutionary science and women’s social reform, and women’s participation in botanical correspondence networks.

I’m currently working on a co-editing a volume featuring original plant studies from LGBTQIA people in the British Empire (~1650-1950). And recently, I’ve worked with an international team on a digital environmental huminites project, collecting plant stories written by people around the world, Herbaria 3.0: Everyone has a story to tell about a plant. What’s yours? www.herbaria3.org, (funded by The Seed Box: A Mistra-Formas Environmental Humanities Collaboratory, Sweden).

I have been a U.S. Fulbright Core Scholar (Naples, Italy, 2017) and have received fellowships from The Huntington Library, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the American Council of Learned Societies. My work as Co-Ombudsperson for the History of Science Society is a particular passion. My degrees in literature are from Columbia University (Ph.D., 2002; M.Phil., 1996; M.A., 1993; B.A., 1991).

When I’m not reading or writing about the outside world, I prefer to be in it, climbing, skiing, or hiking through the mountains with my dog.

Cristian Ciobanu has earned his BSc (Physics, 1995) from University of Bucharest, Romania, and MSc (Physics, 1998) and PhD (Physics, 2001) from The Ohio State University. After a postdoctoral stage in the Division of Engineering at Brown University, he joined the Colorado School of Mines in 2004, where he is now an Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering.

His research interests are in nanoscale surface problems, two-dimensional materials, materials for renewable energy applications, developments of evolutionary algorithms for computational materials design and optimization of atomic structures, self-organized nano and bio structures on crystal surfaces, among others.

Prof. Ciobanu received a Research Excellence Award from Colorado School of Mines (2013) and the NSF Career Award (2009-2014). He has authored/coauthored over 60 technical publications and coauthored a book on determination of atomic structure for nanostructures and surfaces.

Dr. Xiaoli Zhang’s research expertise lies in human-robot cooperation, knowledge-based robotics, intelligent control, teleoperation, and their applications in healthcare and industrial fields. Her research goal is to improve the flexibility, adaptability, and robustness of robots and autonomous systems so they can operate and adapt to deal with new problems and situations or deal with changes in tasks, environments, and human cooperators. Her work crosses different applications, including assistive robots, surgery, additive manufacturing, material discovery and underground construction, and draws from optimal control, planning, reasoning, learning and cognitive science.

Dr. Steve Midson received both his bachelor of metallurgy (B.Met.) and PhD in metallurgy degrees from the University of Sheffield (in the UK). He moved to the USA in the 1980s, and initially worked at corporate R&D centers for two Fortune 500 companies, focusing on solidification, liquid metal processing and metal casting (specifically high pressure die casting type processes). During the late 1990s and 2000s, Steve ran two small-business casting companies in Colorado, performing research and producing components from aluminum and copper alloys by die casting and semi-solid casting. In 2004, Steve founded an engineering services company (The Midson Group). Steve joined the Colorado School of Mines in 2013 as a Research Professor, where his research focuses on metal casting processes, PVD coatings, CT scanning, and additive manufacturing (3D printing). Within Mines, Steve is Director of Industry Relations for an industry-university research center, the Alliance for the Development of Additive Processing Technologies (ADAPT).

Steve is very active with the North American Die Casting Association, where he chairs their Die Materials Committee, and is active on their R&D Committee. He is also a member of the International Scientific Committee for Semi-Solid Processing of Alloys and Composites, an entity that organizes bi-annual international conferences on semi-solid casting. In addition, Steve is a member of the American Foundry Society, ASM International, and ASTM International.

I am interested in the fundamentals and applications of light propagation. On the technology side, I develop laser systems that range from diode-pumped Ti:sapphire oscillators to high power ultrafast amplifiers. Coherent beam propagation, control and characterization have been a long-term interest. This includes exotic forms of structured light: spatial and temporal focusing, vortex beams, and Bessel-Gauss beams. We use linear interferometric and nonlinear tools to characterize the properties of these beams. Nonlinear dynamics of beam propagation in free space (filamentation) and guided waves (solitons and continuum generation) are active areas in which we are working. We strive to couple our experimental measurements with theoretical analysis and computational

My research focuses on superconductivity and quantum phase transitions in nuclear matter at high densities, as occur in neutron stars, for example. At ordinary low densities, quarks are tightly confined into the familiar nuclei from the standard table of elements. As densities increase, however, nuclear matter undergoes several phase transitions ultimately dissociating into constituent quarks and gluons forming a strongly interacting quantum liquid, or quark-gluon plasma, through a phenomenon known as asymptotic freedom. There are presently many open questions regarding the structure of matter between these extremes of low and high densities.

From a technical standpoint, one attractive aspect of studying nuclear matter at low-temperatures is that these regimes are amenable to effective models of quantum chromodynamics, the quantum field theory that describes the strong interaction between quarks and gluons. These models are generically referred to as four-fermion theories since the gluon degrees of freedom are absorbed into point-like four-quark vertices. Presently, I am using analytical methods that incorporate spin-charge separation for quarks into superconducting four-fermion models in order to resolve the low-temperature microphysics of the meson-diquark phase transition. In particular, I am interested in understanding how topological structures such as skyrmions, vortices, and instantons might be involved in the meson-diquark transition, as well as quantum phase transitions in more general field theories. Ordinarily, topological objects are too heavy to play a significant role at low temperatures, yet their effects may be strong at quantum critical points when competing orders exhibit unusually rich topologies.

More fundamentally, I am interested in connections between quantum field theories and theories of gravity known as holographic or gauge-gravity dualities: the notion that certain quantum mechanical theories in flat space-time contain theories of gravity in one higher dimension hidden within the subtleties of their mathematical structure, and conversely that Einstein’s field equations have something to say about quantum mechanics. This is undoubtedly one of the great discoveries of late twentieth century physics. I am particularly interested in gaining a deeper understanding of quantum gravity by elucidating the topological sectors of certain quantum field theories and studying the emergent dual gravity theories.

I’m strongly committed to figuring out the best possible methods for teaching physics at the Colorado School of Mines. Studio physics plays a very large role in that. My background is in physics education research, meaning that I take a research-based approach to iteratively evaluating and improving courses that I’m involved with. My publications in the past few years have involved the process of taking a traditional course and transforming it into a Studio mode, gender gaps in both introductory and upper-division physics courses, and some work with the assessment tools available to us. Feel free to drop by if you’d like to learn more.

My primary responsibilities at Colorado School of Mines involve teaching our large-enrollment, calculus-based physics courses for undergraduate engineering, computer science, and physical science majors using active-engagement teaching methods. As the Faculty Advisor to Mines’ Society of Physics Students (SPS), I have watched our organization blossom under strong student leadership as it selflessly participates in numerous on-campus and off-campus science education outreach programs while earning the nationally coveted SPS Outstanding Chapter Award 15 years in a row (2008 – 2022), hosting five regional SPS Zone 14 Meetings (Spring 2009, Fall 2009, Spring 2014, Spring 2017, Spring 2023), and winning numerous Future Faces of Physics Awards and Marsh White Outreach Grants to promote our outreach efforts to local K-6 schools.

Additionally, I have served on Mines’ Campus Undergraduate Council, Ethics Across Campus Committee, and Faculty Senate, and am an active proponent in increasing the numbers of women, underrepresented minorities, and persons with disabilities in Mines’ academic programs and undergraduate research enterprise. Beginning in Fall 2023, I will serve as a campus ambassador for Mines Diversity, Inclusion, and Access program.

Each fall I mentor 25 incoming students in our CSM 101 (Freshman Success Seminar) course. From 2009 to 2018, I directed a 10-week Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) summer program associated with our NSF-sponsored Renewable Energy Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (REMRSEC), engaging 176 students and 3 teachers in renewable energy research. In 2010, I developed and taught the ENGY320 (Renewable Energy) course that is now part of Mines’ Energy Minor Program. In 2022, I began teaching ENGY501 (Energy Resources and Electric Power Systems) that is part of Mines’ Advanced Energy Systems (AES) graduate program in partnership with the nearby National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR).

My research interests lie in the area of extractive metallurgy, carbon sequestration, and waste management. My research group focuses on developing novel, robust, and efficient technologies that tackle the sustainability challenges associated with the supply of critical metals and anthropogenic CO2 emissions. The research program covers three main themes:

1. Hydrometallurgical processing of secondary resources with a focus on critical metals including rare earth elements, platinum group metals, and battery metals

2. Mineral carbonation of industrial wastes for carbon dioxide sequestration and production of advanced construction materials

3. Chemical and process modeling of aqueous electrolyte systems for sustainable metallurgy

"Michael B. Wakin has a B.S. in electrical engineering and a B.A. in mathematics in 2000 (summa cum laude), an M.S. in electrical engineering in 2002, and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering in 2007, all from Rice University. He was an NSF Mathematical Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Caltech from 2006-2007, an Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan from 2007-2008, and a Ben L. Fryrear Associate Professor at Mines from 2015-2017. His research interests include signal and data processing using sparse, low-rank, and manifold-based models."

"In 2007, Dr. Wakin shared the Hershel M. Rich Invention Award from Rice University for the design of a single-pixel camera based on compressive sensing. In 2008, Dr. Wakin received the DARPA Young Faculty Award for his research in compressive multi-signal processing for environments such as sensor and camera networks. In 2012, Dr. Wakin received the NSF CAREER Award for research into dimensionality reduction techniques for structured data sets. In 2014, Dr. Wakin received the Excellence in Research Award for his research as a junior faculty member at Mines. In 2021, Dr. Wakin was elevated to IEEE Fellow. "

"Dr. Wakin is a recipient of the Best Paper Award and the Signal Processing Magazine Best Paper Award from the IEEE Signal Processing Society. He has served as an Associate Editor for IEEE Signal Processing Letters and IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, and he is currently a Senior Area Editor for IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing."

Hua Wang is a Professor of the Department of Computer Science at Colorado School of Mines. He joined the department right after he finished his Ph.D. degree in 2012. His current research interests include machine learning and data mining, as well as their applications in medical image computing, health informatics, cheminformatics, material informatics, additive manufacturing, bioinformatics, and computer vision, where he aims at developing efficient algorithms with nice theoretical guarantees to solve practical problems involving large scale data. Before his academic jobs, he ever worked in industry for Motorola for 4 years.

Dr. Goodman received his PhD in geochemistry from Mines in 2024. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Montreal, and then returned to Mines in 2025 as a Research Assistant Professor. His research focuses on developing new analytical methods in geochemistry and environmental chemistry, with an emphasis on nanoscale particles. His PhD and postdoctoral work focused on single particle ICP-MS methods to detect, quantify, and characterize nanoparticles for several geochemical applications, ranging from mineral exploration to airborne contamination from copper smelting. Another aspect of his work relates to the presence of critical minerals in mining waste and mining impacted water, and the feasibility of recovery. His goal as a Mines faculty member is to strengthen the geochemistry program through interdisciplinary research across the chemistry, geology, and environmental engineering departments.

My research interests focus on the physical principles of viral self-assembly. Viruses are simple physical objects (and therefore, very simple organisms!), with the simplest viruses being composed of only two components, a single-stranded (ss)RNA genome and 180 identical copies of a single protein, called a capsid protein. When these two components are mixed under the right pH and salt conditions, they spontaneously self-assemble into perfectly-ordered icosahedrally-symmetric virus particles. I study this self-assembly process using a variety of biochemical assays and physical tools, and my collaborators are using our self-assembled virus-like particles for a variety of therapeutic applications. I now focus primarily on undergraduate education, and I hope to utilize my interdisciplinary research experiences to inspire students with diverse interests. In my teaching, I am interested in using inquiry-based methods to promote “hands-on” learning opportunities. In my free time, I enjoy skiing, hiking and playing hockey.

Samy Wu Fung is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics and the Department of Computer Science at Colorado School of Mines. Prior to joining Mines, Samy was an Assistant Adjunct Professor in the Department of Mathematics at UCLA. He received his PhD in applied mathematics from Emory University in 2019.

Samy's research interests lie in the intersection of applied mathematics and data science.

Dr. Kontoudis research interests lie in the integration of robotics, control theory, and machine learning. In particular, he is interested in the formulation of hybrid theoretical schemes and the development of novel robotic devices to bridge the gap between machine learning and autonomous systems. Dr. Kontoudis research work appears in top conferences and journals, including ICRA, IROS, ACC, CDC, TNNLS, and RAS. He is the co-founder of the OpenBionics initiative, he was selected as a 2022 Robotics: Science and Systems (RSS) Pioneer, and he served as the General Chair of the 2023 RSS Pioneers. Prior to joining Mines, he was a postdoctoral research associate in the Aerospace Engineering Department at the University of Maryland. He obtained a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Virginia Tech in 2021 and 2018 respectively. He received a Diploma in Mechanical Engineering at the National Technical University of Athens in 2016.

Duncan teaches for the Quantitative Biosciences and Engineering interdisciplinary undergraduate program, focusing on senior engineering design and quantitative biology. His position in the Engineering, Design, & Society Department aligns with his passion for engineering design and engineering education. Duncan was a two-time recipient of the Bioengineering Department's Outstanding Graduate Student Award and received the Student Senate Excellence Award's Spirit of Anschutz while attending the University of Colorado Denver | Anschutz Medical Campus.

Duncan earned the NIH F31 Predoctoral Fellowship from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute during his graduate research and produced three peer-reviewed publications, including articles in Biofabrication and Biomedical Engineering Education. He has presented his research at annual conferences for the Society for Biomaterials, the Biomedical Engineering Society, and the American Society for Engineering Education.

Duncan's teaching experience includes MATLAB and Python programming, biomaterials laboratories, and design and prototyping (including CAD and 3D printing). As a professor at Mines, Duncan created and piloted the QBE Senior Design course and initiated the BioBuilders@Mines makerspace with QBE students.

Dr. Valerio Mascolino joined Mines as an Assistant Professor in August 2025. His work centers on advancing nuclear particle transport methodologies for next-generation nuclear systems. Originally from southern Italy, he earned a joint master’s degree with honors from Politecnico di Torino and Politecnico di Milano, and a Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering from Virginia Tech, where his dissertation focused on the development of fast and accurate hybrid particle transport methods.

Following his Ph.D., Dr. Mascolino joined Argonne National Laboratory, where where he advanced to the position of Principal Nuclear Engineer. In this role, he served as the technical lead for the University of Missouri Research Reactor (MURR) low-enriched uranium (LEU) conversion under the U.S. High Performance Research Reactor program, and was the lead software engineer for ADDER, Argonne’s open-source depletion and fuel management code. Since 2025, Dr. Mascolino also serves on the reactor safety committee of MURR.

His research has focused on time-dependent neutron transport, reactor kinetics, and hybrid transport methods. He is now exploring the use of machine learning and artificial intelligence in neutron transport and multiphysics modeling, with the long-term goal of developing fast, accurate, and predictive analysis tools for advanced nuclear systems, including Generation IV concepts and small modular reactors.

The discovery of new materials is fundamental to the development of innovative technologies for production, storage and efficient use of energy. The advent of nanotechnology has given rise to the possibility of tuning the properties of materials by manipulating their architecture at the atomistic-level. The pool of possible materials is virtually infinite, and owing to vast improvements in the calculation power of computers, molecular simulation has emerged as a powerful tool to investigate the properties of materials at a much faster rate that can be done experimentally. This helps focus synthetic and testing efforts only on the most promising materials. My primary research interest is thus to develop, integrate and use techniques in molecular modeling and data science, and other computational tools to help design materials that can play pivotal roles in energy-related problems in sectors such as transportation, power generation, and chemical industry.

My research shares much of the philosophy of the Materials Genome Initiative, where the ultimate goal is “to discover, develop, and deploy materials twice as fast.” Broad research interests encompass the investigation of materials with crystalline structures, with current research interests mainly focused on i) the design of materials based on nanoporous architectures such as metal‑organic frameworks (MOFs) for energy storage and for energy-efficient chemical separations, and ii) the design of advanced catalytic interfaces between metal nanoparticles and traditional and novel supports for selective catalysis.

I am an Associate Professor in the Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at the Colorado School of Mines. I study environmental governance in the American West and have active research projects on water, unconventional oil and gas, and wildfire.

I have a PhD in Environmental Studies from the University of Colorado with an emphasis on environmental policy and theory.

While at the University of Colorado, I also earned a masters degree from the Geography Department, where I was trained in hydrology and water policy.

During my time at C.U., I was also very fortunate to serve as an Instructor and Research Assistant at the Center of the American West, a hub for research, teaching, and inclusive public dialog on contentious regional issues.

Before graduate school I worked as a journalist covering science and technology policy, primarily at Congressional Quarterly in Washington, D.C.

My undergraduate degree is in Science and Technology Studies from Cornell University, with an emphasis on science communication.

My interest in pursuing an academic career stems from my experiences as an undergraduate engineering student. During that time I was inspired by several influential and exemplar educators to dedicate my life to teaching engineering. During graduate school, I was given the opportunity to begin teaching and found pleasure, reward, and personal fulfillment in helping students learn and understand a subject.

Since my ultimate goal was to secure a faculty teaching position, I took every opportunity to teach during graduate school and was fortunate enough to instruct four undergraduate engineering classes with eight total sections during a period of three years. Upon completing my doctorate in 2010, I joined the faculty at Florida Gulf Coast University and taught there for a total of 13 semesters. I joined Colorado School of Mines as a Teaching Professor in December of 2016.

Over the last 10 years, I have continually strived to improve my teaching ability, in order to prepare students to enter the work force as professional and well developed engineers who are aware of the societal and environmental impacts associated with the engineering profession. I plan to actively continue my development as an educator at the Colorado School of Mines.

Dr. Tzahi Y. Cath and his students conduct research in the area of water and wastewater treatment. They focus on the use of commercial and novel membrane processes.

In the area of wastewater treatment and reuse, they investigate the performance and enhancement of on-site wastewater treatment using novel hybrid membrane bioreactors and sequencing batch reactors. In this study, they focus on the simultaneous optimization of energy consumption, chemical use, and nutrient and organic removal. Dr. Cath and his students also explore the use of byproducts such as biosolids for bio-energy production.

Dr. Cath and his students study novel membrane processes such as osmotically driven membrane processes (forward osmosis and pressure-retarded osmosis) for multi-barrier treatment of domestic and industrial wastewater for ultimate direct potable reuse. Their research focuses on investigation of solute and solvent mass transport in forward osmosis and the effects of these phenomena on future industrial implementation of the technology.

In the area of desalination, Dr. Cath and his students investigate novel thermally driven membrane processes such as membrane distillation and osmotic distillation. Specifically, they study the potential implementation of these processes in industrial settings where low grade heat and impaired water are readily available and high quality water is needed.

Dr. Cath and his students also study the utilization of the process for harvesting of minerals during desalination of brines. In this area of desalination, they research novel thermally and chemically resistant nanofiltration membranes for various industrial applications. Specifically, they examine the occurrence, characteristics, and treatment of produced water from gas and oil exploration (especially coal-bed methane produced water).

Lucas Bessire is an American writer, filmmaker and anthropologist. Drawing on extensive field research in the Gran Chaco, the Arctic and the High Plains, his writing explores the lived experience of contemporary environmental and social changes and seeks ways to communicate his findings to wider publics. A fifth-generation Kansan, Lucas graduated from Kansas State University before earning his PhD in sociocultural anthropology from New York University. He has been a member at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and a fellow of both Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study and Stanford’s Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. Among other films, essays and articles, he is the author of Behold the Black Caiman: a Chronicle of Ayoreo Life (University of Chicago Press 2014), and Running Out: In Search of Water on the High Plains (Princeton University Press 2021), which was named a finalist for the 2021 National Book Award in nonfiction. In 2023-24, Lucas was named a Guggenheim Fellow. Currently, he is Professor of Anthropology in the Department of Humanities, Arts & Social Sciences at the Colorado School of Mines.

Dr. Hussein A. Amery is a professor of water politics and policy at Colorado School of Mines. He was the Chair of the Department of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, and served as the Associate Provost and Dean of Undergraduate Studies and Faculty. His academic expertise is in water and food security in the Middle East, with a focus on the Arab Gulf states. He also specializes in Islamic perspectives on water management, and in trans-boundary water politics especially along the Litani, Jordan, Nile, Tigris and Euphrates rivers. His books are Arab Water Security: Threats and Opportunities in the Gulf States (Cambridge University Press), and Water in the Middle East: A Geography of Peace (Texas University Press; Co-edited). His academic contributions were recognized by his selection as Fellow by the International Water Resources Association. Dr. Amery had been a consultant to US government agencies, International Development and Research Center (Canada), and to American water engineering firms.

Marie Stettler Kleine is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Engineering, Design, & Society. She conducts research on engineering practice and pedagogy, exploring its origins, purposes, and potential futures. Marie is especially interested in the roles of values in engineers’ pursuit to “do good.”

Marie received her B.S. in mechanical engineering and international studies from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology and M.S. and PhD in science and technology studies (STS) from Virginia Tech. She also earned a graduate certificate in human-centered design (HCD) from the Interdisciplinary Graduate Education Program at Virginia Tech.

Marie’s interest in values and engagement in professional cultures also extends to innovation and its experts. With Matthew Wisnioski and Eric Hintz, Marie co-edited Does America Need More Innovators? (MIT Press, 2019). This project engages innovation’s champions, critics, and reformers in critical participation.

As an educator, Marie challenges engineers to critically engage in their work. At Virginia Tech, she taught Engineering Cultures, a class that introduces students to the historical and contemporary formations of the engineering profession around the globe. She also assisted in Foundations of Engineering, exposing first-year engineering students to team design and engineering ethics. At Mines, she teaches humanitarian engineering, design, and STS at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.

Dr. Jon A. Leydens is a Professor of Engineering Education Research in the Department of Humanities, Arts, & Social Sciences at the Colorado School of Mines (CSM). Dr. Leydens’ research interests are in three areas of engineering education: problem contextualization, sociotechnical thinking, and social justice.

To date, Dr. Leydens has been PI or Co-PI on intra- and extramural grants totaling nearly $1.8 million.

My research interests are primarily in developing and understanding materials used in various photovoltaic and light emitting devices. My on-campus research develops structure-property relationships connecting molecular properties, bulk morphology, interfacial morphology, and solid-film optoelectronic properties in small-molecule organic thin films. This research includes the use of atom probe tomography to understand fundamental science and improve device efficiency in small-molecule organic light emitting diodes and small-molecule organic photovoltaics.

A second research interest of mine, primarily with collaborators at NREL, is the integration of III-V semiconductors with silicon for optoelectronic platforms, such as photovoltaics.

Dr. Siby Thomas joins Mines from the University of Florida, where he worked as an Adjunct Research Assistant Scientist in the Department of Chemical Engineering. He graduated from the National Institute of Technology Karnataka (NIT-K), India, in 2017 with a Ph.D. in Physics. Following his graduation, Dr. Thomas held postdoctoral positions at Hanyang University, South Korea (10/2017-06/2019); Colorado School of Mines, United States (08/2019-07/2021); and Technical University of Munich, Germany (08/2021-06/2023). His research expertise includes multiscale simulations and machine learning for energy and environmental applications, encompassing energy storage, sensing, and catalysis. He has published over 40 scholarly articles in prestigious journals. In addition to his teaching and research, he serves on the editorial board of Carbon Trends, an Elsevier journal, and acts as a reviewer for numerous journals. Dr. Thomas’s overarching mission is to bring enthusiasm into his teaching by combining engaging lectures with active learning strategies. He is dedicated to fostering supportive and welcoming environments both inside and outside the classroom.

Dr. Tabares-Velasco came to Colorado School of Mines after being a research engineer at the National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR) where he developed the simulation environment for NLR’s Smart Power Lab. He was a developer of NLR building simulation/optimization tool BEopt. Prior to that he was a postdoctoral researcher at NLR where he led NLR technical research on phase change materials in collaboration with the Department of Energy Building Envelope and Windows R&D program, Oak Ridge National Lab, and Fraunhofer CSE. He also validated and improved the finite-difference/phase change material (PCM) model in EnergyPlus and analyzed pre-cooling strategies in residential buildings to reduce electric peak demand.

Dr. Tabares-Velasco’s work at Penn State on vegetated roofs has been recognized with the 2009 Crosby Field Award, 2009 Willis H. Carrier Award and 2009 Best Poster Award by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), the 2011 Green Roof Research Award of Excellence by Green Roof for Healthy Cities (GRHC) and an NSF video production. He was also a Student Project Engineer at the Industrial Assessment Center at Colorado State University (CSU), where he performed more than 20 energy assessment to manufacturing plants in Colorado, New Mexico and North Dakota.

Dr. Mohagheghi received his PhD from Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA in Electrical Engineering in 2006. Currently, he is an Associate Professor at the Electrical Engineering Department at Colorado School of Mines. Prior to joining Mines, he was a Senior R&D Engineer at ABB Corporate Research Center, Raleigh, NC, where he developed solutions for advanced distribution automation systems and distributed energy management.

Dr. Mohagheghi’s current research focuses on the intersection of energy, environment, and society. His research group develops mathematical models to optimize the performance of the electric power grid and enhance its resilience against external events, while ensuring environmental sustainability and energy justice.

The major sources of energies and materials that we use in daily life are produced by chemical reactions that break and form chemical bonds. These reactions can be controlled in specificity using catalysis, which enhances the rate of the desired reaction through the stabilization of the transition state that mediates such route. The demand for catalysis has recently grown even more with challenges in supplying fossil fuels and with growing concerns in global warming and environmental issues.

The main goal of my research group is to understand the identity and kinetic relevance of the requisite elementary steps involved in heterogeneous catalysis in order to ultimately design catalytic systems with improved reactivity and selectivity toward desired products. Such goal is achieved by rigorously combining atomic-level synthetic methods, characterization tools, and theoretical assessments, which allow us to understand and control catalytic reactions at a molecular-level. The results of our projects will provide mechanistic insights into current catalytic systems and help to develop new catalysts with minimal energy requirements and environmental impacts.

Dr. Michael Kaufman is currently the Director of Materials and Energy Initiatives at the Colorado School of Mines. Prior to taking this position, he served in various capacities at Mines starting in 2007 when he joined the Metallurgical and Materials Engineering as Professor and Director of the Electron Microscopy Laboratory. From 2010 to 2014, he served as the department head of MME before becoming the Dean of the College of Applied Science and Engineering where he served from 2014-2018. Upon a reorganization in Academic Affairs, he became the Dean of Energy and Materials Programs and Vice Provost for Graduate and Research Initiatives where he served from 2018-2021. In 2021, he joined the Office of Research and Technology Transfer in his current role.

Prior to his time at Mines, Dr. Kaufman served on the faculty at the University of North Texas, the University of Florida, and the University of Washington and as a staff member at the National Institute of Science and Technology. His research focus has been in using advanced characterization techniques to study materials with a focus on alloys for structural applications. He is the founding director of the Center for Advanced Non-Ferrous Structural Alloys (CANFSA), which is an NSF Industry/University Cooperative Research Center (I/UCRC), that started in 2011 and is now a Phase III I/UCRC. He has served as advisor or co-advisor of over 65 graduate students and has published over 160 papers in archival journals.

Prof. Greg Jackson has served in academia for 25 years including as Dept. Head of Mechanical Engineering at Mines from 2013-2017. Before joining Mines in early 2013, Jackson was a faculty member for over 15 years at the University of Maryland in the Dept. of Mechanical Engineering and in their campus-wide Energy Research Center, for which he served as Associate Director for several years.

At Mines, Dr. Jackson’s research group focuses on concentrated solar energy, high-temperature energy storage, and solid-oxide electrochemical systems. Dr. Jackson has led several research efforts on both reactive and inert oxide particles for high-temperature energy storage for concentrating solar power applications. He has published broadly on materials and processes for high-temperature catalysis and electrochemistry for a range of energy conversion applications. His group looks at a wide scale of phenomena from fundamental material characterization and modeling to full-scale system design and optimization. Dr. Jackson received his PhD from Cornell University where he performed research on liquid fuel combustion. After his PhD, he worked at Precision Combustion Inc. where he led research and development efforts on catalytic reactors for low-NOx combustion and catalytic ignition in various applications.

Dr. Steven DeCaluwe’s research interests center on clean energy and water systems, with a focus on electrochemistry and interfacial processes. He leads the CORES Research Group, which combines fundamental experiments with numerical simulations to study the chemical, thermodynamic and fluid mechanic processes occurring at material interfaces and in reacting flows. Via fundamental insight into these processes, technologies can be designed and improved to enhance the quality of life for diverse populations and ease the impacts of human resource use on critical ecosystems and habitats across the globe.

Dr. DeCaluwe joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering in 2012 following an NRC postdoctoral fellowship at NIST in Gaithersburg, Maryland. His work at NIST used neutron scattering experiments to study solid electrolyte interphase formation in lithium-ion batteries and water uptake in thin-film polymers for PEM fuel cells.

Dr. DeCaluwe has a PhD from the University of Maryland, College Park. His dissertation was titled “Quantifying the role of ceria as catalyst in solid oxide fuel cell anodes.” His work at UMD involved electrochemical experiments, in operando physical chemistry diagnostics and multiscale simulations.

Dr. DeCaluwe holds a BS in Elementary Education and Mathematics from Peabody College at Vanderbilt University. For three years prior to attending graduate school, he taught first and second grade in Nashville, Tennessee.

Dr. Robert Braun, Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Colorado School of Mines, leads the Advanced Energy Systems group (https://aes.mines.edu). He received a PhD from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 2002. From 2002 to 2007, Dr. Braun was at United Technologies Fuel Cell and Research Center divisions where he last served as project leader for UTC’s mobile solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) power system development program. Dr. Braun has a multidisciplinary background in mechanical and chemical engineering, and his research focuses on energy systems modeling and analysis, techno-economic optimization, and numerical simulation of transport phenomena occurring within fuel cell and alternative energy systems. His industry experience encompasses development of low-NOx burners, CO₂-based refrigeration, and fuel cell technologies (incl. PEMFC, PAFC, MCFC, SOFC, and PCFC). Dr. Braun’s current research activities focus on hybrid fuel cell/engine systems, renewable energy pathways to synthetic fuel production, grid-scale energy storage, novel protonic ceramics, supercritical CO₂ power cycles, and dispatch optimization of concentrating solar power plants. He is a Link Energy Foundation Fellow, a member of ASME, ECS, and ASHRAE, has over 50 journal publications, and holds 6 U.S. patents.

Morgan D. Bazilian is Director of the Payne Institute and Professor of Public Policy at the Colorado School of Mines.

Previously, he was Lead Energy Specialist at the World Bank. He has over two decades of experience in energy, natural resources, energy poverty, national security, and investment. He holds a Ph.D. in energy physics and was a Fulbright Fellow.

He is a Member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center, a senior advisor on security to NREL, a Fellow at the Atlantic Council, and an adjunct professor of thermal physics at University College Cork.

He has published over 220 papers in learned journals, and his 2008 book: "Analytical Methods for Energy Diversity and Security" is a seminal work in the field. His work has appeared in Nature, Science, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, WSJ, Washington Post, New York Times, FT, and Foreign Affairs.

Dr. Bazilian was a member of the World Economic Forum's Global Advisory Council on Energy, served as an advisor to the International Energy's World Energy Outlook, as well as Bloomberg New Energy Finance's Global Energy Outlook.

He holds (or has held) academic affiliations at The Royal Institute of Technology of Sweden, Columbia University, Cambridge University, Oxford University, the Atlantic Council, and IIASA.

Dr. Bazilian was the European Union's lead negotiator on technology issues at the UN's climate change negotiations, and a member of the UN Expert Group on Technology.

Earlier, Morgan worked as a senior diplomat in the UN. Prior to that post, he worked in the Irish Government as Chief Advisor for the Energy Minister, and was the Deputy CEO of the Irish National Energy Agency.

As an alumna from the CBE department, I could not be happier to be back at Mines teaching the very same classes I attended as a student here. While I’ve taught many of the core chemical engineering courses, you’ll most frequently find me listed as an instructor for thermodynamics (both sophomore and junior levels). In my classes I like to show students how thermodynamics impacts not only engineering, but many other aspects of our everyday lives. My research interests are in the surface chemistry and processing of thin film materials. Outside of teaching, I enjoy coordinating hands-on outreach activities for kids and helping Mines students find ways to incorporate a study abroad experience into their degree program.

Dean Nieusma is Department Head and Associate Professor of Engineering, Design, & Society. His research focuses on integrating social and technical dimensions of engineering in education and practice, with a focus on design and project-based learning. He is also broadly interested in the social and ethical implications of technologies and the application of engineering and design expertise to enduring social and environmental problems.

He has received several awards and fellowships for research, teaching, and service, including a Fulbright fellowship (Sri Lanka) and ASEE's Olmsted Award for contributions to the liberal education of engineers. He received his Ph. D. in science and technology studies from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and bachelor ' s degrees in mechanical engineering and general studies from the University of Michigan.

Prior to graduate school, he worked as a manufacturing engineer at Ford Motor Co.

Carrie J. McClelland (Cj) came to Mines first as a student, when she earned one of the original B.S.E. degrees – a B.S. in Engineering with a Civil Specialty, and a minor in Public Affairs. She returned later to teach after working as a professional civil engineer, and attending graduate school. Cj holds a M.S. in Environmental Engineering, a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering, and graduate minors in Engineering for Developing Communities and College Teaching from the University of Colorado-Boulder.

She is passionate about helping students learn in meaningful, fun, and impactful ways, and helping them to be well-rounded thinkers who are effective professionals who contribute positively to society. Cj‘s teaching focuses on courses that push students to think and integrate multiple aspects through projects, experiences, and active in-class modes. Her research interests include teaching as research (Scholarship of Teaching & Learning); pedagogy from a practitioner’s view; and the interplay between technical, social, political, environmental, and economic factors in making engineering and policy decisions.

Her most recent work has focused on: the educational effectiveness of using a “flipped”,” active classroom structure; developing classroom interventions to raise students’ understanding of Corporate Social Responsibility and how it may affect their professional practice; and, using Standards-Based-Grading in engineering courses.

Daniel Blood joins the faculty at Mines after teaching for seven years in the Mechanical Engineering department at Valparaiso University. His teaching interests are primarily in the areas of design and manufacturing, and his undergraduate research interest focuses on characterizing additive manufacturing technologies.

Daniel brings eighteen years of experience working on humanitarian projects in developing countries, and he is excited to work with the Mines students on a variety of on-going projects in Central America. He is the co-founder of TripleTech3D LLC, a company that focuses on assistive technologies for developing countries.

Daniel is excited about all the outdoor activities Colorado has to offer, and cannot wait to explore them with his family.

Dr. Chris Anderson is currently the Principal of Yirri Global, the social performance consultancy he founded. He has worked as a field practitioner and senior executive in the mining industry for 17 years, with Rio Tinto, Newmont Mining, and Normandy Mining. He is an anthropologist and has worked with and for Indigenous communities on a variety of issues including land claims, Royal Commissions, customary law and similar. In addition, he is a practicing academic and a field anthropologist with community experience with Indigenous peoples around the world.

He is a board member of the World Bank Institute’s Open Contracting Initiative, past chair of the International Council on Mining & Metals Human Rights and Indigenous Peoples Working Group, and was Alumnus of the Year in 2013 at the University of Queensland.

Dr. Anderson holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Queensland in Brisbane Australia where he is also an Adjunct Professor. He is currently Affiliate Faculty of the Engineering, Design and Society Department at Mines.

Tom Williams is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at the Colorado School of Mines, where he directs the Mines Interactive Robotics Research Lab. Prior to joining Mines, Tom earned a joint PhD in Computer Science and Cognitive Science from Tufts University in 2017.

Tom’s research focuses on enabling and understanding natural language based human-robot interaction that is sensitive to environmental, cognitive, social, and moral context. His work is funded by grants from NSF, ONR, and ARL, as well as by Early Career awards from NSF, NASA, and AFOSR.

Jessica M. Smith is an anthropologist and STS scholar whose research interests center on energy, engineering, and public accountability.

Professor Smith’s first major research project investigated gender and mining from the perspective of Wyoming’s Powder River Basin, where she grew up and drove haul trucks in the mines for summer employment during college. That research forms the basis of her book Mining Coal and Undermining Gender: Rhythms of Work and Family in the American West(Rutgers University Press, 2014), which was funded by a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship and a research grant from the National Science Foundation. It received the 2018 Western Social Science Association book prize and honorable mentions from the Society for Economic Anthropology and the Society for the Anthropology of Work.

From her position at Mines, she has developed an active, funded research agenda on engineering education, including the funds of knowledge of low-income and first generation engineering students, belongingness among under-represented students in engineering, and the influence of social science learning for students’ understandings of social responsibility. She is concluding an NSF Partnerships in International Research and Education grant that educates US engineering undergraduates to co-design, implement and evaluate more sustainable artisanal mining practices and technologies with miners and affected communities in Peru and Colombia.

Professor Smith’s courses introduce STEM students to social science concepts that enrich their learning, research, and future professional practice. She regularly teaches ENDS 430 Corporate Social Responsibility, EDNS 479 Community-Based Research, and HASS 490/590 Energy and Society. In 2016 her Corporate Social Responsibility course was named an Exemplar in Engineering Ethics by the National Academy of Engineering. In 2022 she was named a Kavli Fellow by the National Academy of Sciences. She spent her first sabbatical at the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of St. Andrews.

Juan is the Director of the Humanitarian Engineering Undergraduate Program and Professor of Engineering, Design and Society at the Colorado School of Mines. Juan obtained a Ph.D. in Science and Technology Studies (STS) from Virginia Tech and two BS in Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. His books include Defending the Nation: U.S. Policymaking to Create Scientists and Engineers from Sputnik to the 'War Against Terrorism' (University Press of America, 2005), Engineering and Sustainable Community Development (with Jen Schneider and Jon Leydens, Morgan & Claypool, 2010), Engineering Education for Social Justice: Critical Explorations and Opportunities (Springer, 2013), and Engineering Justice: Transforming Engineering Education and Practice (with Jon Leydens, IEEE-Wiley, 2017).

Raised in a privileged family of engineers, lawyers, and doctors, Juan learned about the social injustices associated with the application of professional expertise, including engineering. Living in Bogota, Colombia, a city of 10 million, he saw how the engineers working for the public utilities managed by his father, Bogota's mayor, built systems that benefited the wealthy. Now witnessing a new president and administration that propose a science and technology system to eradicate hunger, poverty, discrimination, racism and inequality, he is very excited to contribute to these lofty goals though his scholarship and mentoring of students. As an engineeri ng student in the 1980s, he experienced the engineering curriculum firsthand and how its content was shaped by the politics of the Cold War and economic competitiveness against Japan and China. Later as a PhD student working under the mentorship of cultural anthropologist Gary Downey, he learned that engineers and engineering have culture that can be studied and, if necessary, transformed for the wellbeing of communities, social justice, and sustainability. Transforming engineering and engineering education to promote these goals is what he has been trying to do since becoming an engineering educator in 1996.

Andy Wood (MSE, PhD) is an expert in streamflow forecasting, hydrologic modeling and applications, land monitoring and prediction (e.g., for flooding and droughts), climate change downscaling and impact assessment, water resources management and planning, and seasonal climate and hydrologic forecasting. His current research focus areas include improving operational hydrologic prediction at local to global scales, sub-seasonal to seasonal hydroclimate applications, climate change impact assessment, and advancing the implementation of hydrology and land representations in Earth System Models.

Andy splits his time between Mines and the NCAR Climate and Global Dynamics laboratory, Terrestrial Sciences Section, in Boulder, Colorado, where he is a project scientist.

Dr. Tilton’s expertise is in theoretical and computational fluid mechanics with an emphasis on hydrodynamic stability and flow through porous media. He received his Ph.D. in 2009 from McGill University, after which he was a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Aix-Marseille (2009-2011) and the University of Maryland (2011-2014). His research focuses on developing accurate analytical and numerical models of membrane filtration, carbon dioxide sequestration, and flow control for drag reduction. These applications play central roles in the water-energy-climate nexus, as well as the food, pharmaceutical, and petroleum sectors. Dr. Tilton’s numerical work focuses on spectral methods, fractional step methods, and multi-domain methods. His analytical work focuses on perturbation methods and volume-averaged models of flow through porous media.

Steven M. Smith is an Associate Professor of Economics and Business. He joined the Mines faculty in 2017 following a post-doctoral fellowship at Haverford College. His research focuses on how society determines the governance of natural resources and the implications of those governance structures. Water is frequently a central feature of the research.

Accordingly, he is also an Affiliate Faculty of the Hydrologic Sciences and Engineering Program at Mines.

Dr. Chelsea L. Panos earned her Bachelor's in Environmental Engineering, Master's in Hydrology and Ph.D. in Hydrology from the Colorado School of Mines between 2011 and 2020. Although she enjoyed conducting research in urban hydrology in her graduate studies, Dr. Panos is now in a teaching faculty role in the Civil and Environmental Engineering department where she is happy to solely focus on teaching.

Dr. Panos is passionate about engineering learning and effective teaching practices. She is involved in several community based groups on campus. She also loves dancing and photography and is always open to new travel recommendations to add to her ever-expanding bucket list.

Dr. John McCray's research focuses on chemical transport in hydrologic systems, and generally utilize some combination of field, laboratory, and modeling work.

His current projects include: current and future sustainability assessment of important watersheds in southern Peru and green infrastructure for treating storm water in urban waterways and developed areas. Additional projects are characterization of urban water quality with application to urban planning, model development for PFAS fate and transport and nutrient pollution/mitigation in urban and rural waterways. Dr. McCray's other research projects are interphase mass-transfer, transport, and remediation of groundwater pollutants (including PFAS transport in vadose zones and groundwater) along with model development for PFAS fate, transport, and remediation.

Dr. Ning Lu is well known internationally for his work on stresses in variably saturated porous media. His primary research interest is to seek common threads among basic soil physical phenomena including fluid flow, chemical transport, heat transfer, stress, and deformation. He pursues understanding of these phenomena at fundamental levels, including unifying atomic-scale potentials, inter-particle forces, and engineering-scale stresses in soils.

Dr. Lu has been working on challenging engineering problems in chemical transport in clayey soil, underground nuclear waste isolation, residential house foundation damage by expansive clays, and, most recently, precipitation-induced shallow landslides.

Professor Thomas joined Mines in 2015 as a Professor in the Mechanical Engineering department. He received his B.Eng. from McGill University and his PhD from the University of British Columbia, both in Metallurgical Process Engineering. His research is primarily in the field of metals processing and focuses on the computational modeling of the continuous casting of steel and related processes.

By combining the results of his computational model calculations with laboratory experiments, metallographic analysis and measurements on operating commercial casters, he has generated fundamental knowledge about how the continuous casting process works, how defects form, and how quality can be improved.

Prior to joining Mines, Professor Thomas led the Metals Processing Simulation Laboratory in the Mechanical Science and Engineering Department at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he is the C.J. Gauthier Professor Emeritus, Research Professor, and Director of the Continuous Casting Consortium (CCC). After moving to the Mines campus, the CCC has been renamed the Continuous Casting Center.

Prof. Mistry engineers the next generation of energy technologies. While many new materials and chemicals have been discovered that can, in principle, enable an array of new energy technologies like batteries flying Boeing jumbo jets, production of hydrogen and chlorine from seawater, electricity generation from atmospheric oxygen, etc., to date, none of these are commercial realities. Prof. Mistry is an experimental theorist focused on understanding this disconnect between new interesting materials and useful devices to engineer such technologies at scale. To this end, his group synergistically combines physics-based theory, controlled experiments, and data-driven analysis across molecular and continuum scales.

Dr. Leslie Lamberson is an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the Colorado School of Mines and a Ben L. Fryrear Endowed Chair for Innovation and Excellence. She earned a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering and a B.A. in Dance Performance from the University of Michigan, an M.S. in Aerospace Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, and a Ph.D. in Aeronautics from the California Institute of Technology under Professor Ares Rosakis. In 2024, she completed an M.B.A. with the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School as a Forte Fellow, further enhancing her leadership in innovation and interdisciplinary research.

Leslie’s career spans academia, industry, and government, including roles as a Lockheed Martin “Skunk Works” engineer, a NASA Glenn Faculty Fellow specializing in materials and structures for extreme environments, and a postdoctoral research scholar with K.T. Ramesh at Johns Hopkins University. Before joining Mines, she was the P.C. Chou Assistant Professor at Drexel University, holding appointments in both Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science.

A former board member of the American Society for Composites (ASC) and the Society for Experimental Mechanics (SEM), Leslie currently serves as an Associate Editor for the journal Strain (Wiley). A recipient of the Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award and the NSF CAREER Award, her research focuses on the mechanics of materials under extreme conditions, impact physics, and advanced optical metrology and inverse techniques. She continues to drive innovative research and leadership, addressing critical challenges in aerospace, defense, and materials science, while educating the next generation of scientists and engineers.

Professor Kee holds the George R. Brown Distinguished chair. Dr. Kee’s research interests are primarily in modeling and simulation of chemically reacting fluid flow. Applications are generally in the area of clean energy, including fuel cells, photovoltaics, and advanced combustion.

Dr. Kee’s sponsored research efforts are primarily in the modeling and simulation of thermal and chemically reacting flow processes, with applications to combustion, electrochemistry, and materials manufacturing. His fuel-cell research concentrates on elementary chemistry and electrochemistry formulations and their coupling with reactive fluid flow. Primary applications are to solid-oxide fuel cells operating on hydrocarbon fuels. His combustion research emphasizes the use of elementary chemical kinetics to understand fundamental flame structure.

Recent research includes efforts on catalytic-combustion and water-mist flame suppression. The materials-processing efforts emphasize the design, optimization, and control of chemical-vapor-deposition processes, with applications ranging from thin-film photovoltaics to CMOS semiconductor devices. The work includes development of computational methods and software to solve systems of stiff differential equations. It also includes development of an extensive system of general-purpose chemical-kinetics and molecular-transport software.

Dr. Kee is the principal architect and developer of the CHEMKIN software, which is the leading software package used worldwide for simulating chemically reacting flow.

Dr. Owen Hildreth received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, San Diego in 2002 and worked for five years as a mechanical engineer designing consumer products. In 2012 received his Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology under the supervision of Prof. C. P. Wong. His Ph.D. research identified the mechanism for catalyst motion in metal assisted chemical etching (MacEtch) for applications in 3D nanofabrication. His current research areas focus on additive manufacturing (nm to cm scales); mass transport, reaction kinetics, and interface design in reactive inks for stretchable electronics, photovoltaics, and microfluidic devices; sensitization kinetics, microstructure evolution, dilution, and corrosion of metals fabricated using Powder Bed Fusion (PBF) and Directed Energy Deposition (DED) technologies.

Before joining Mines, he was an Assistant Professor at the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport, and Energy (SEMTE) at Arizona State University (ASU).

Joy Gockel is an associate professor in Mechanical Engineering at Colorado School of Mines and her research spans several aspects of additive manufacturing (AM). She joined Mines from Wright State University where she was an assistant professor in Mechanical and Materials Engineering. Prior to her faculty position, she was a Lead Engineer at GE Aviation’s Additive Technology Center. She earned her PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University, supported by a NDSEG Fellowship, and received her BS and MS degrees from Wright State University. She has been awarded the 2020 ASTM International Additive Manufacturing Young Professional Award, and the 2021 TMS Young Leader Professional Development Award.

AM processes are unique because the material is created at the same time as the component. To understand the behavior of the fabricated component, the properties must be related back to the manufacturing processing parameters. Dr. Gockel’s research explains the fundamental processing-structure-properties-performance (PSPP) relationship to support qualification and certification in AM as well as the development of next-generation AM processes and materials. Her work utilizes strategic processing experiments, process modeling, in-situ monitoring, innovative mechanical testing methods and advanced characterization to connect the PSPP relationship in AM for different classes of structural and functional materials.

Craig A. Brice is a Professor of Practice in Mechanical Engineering at Colorado School of Mines. He is currently the director of the Additive Manufacturing Program, which focuses on undergraduate and graduate education in additive manufacturing and other advanced manufacturing techniques. He is also involved in additive manufacturing research with the Alliance for the Development of Additive Processing Technologies (ADAPT) at Mines and serves as the director for the ADAPT consortium. Dr. Brice has been working in additive manufacturing for over 20 years, beginning with the first commercially available AM system sold by Optomec in 1998. He has spent his entire professional career working in additive manufacturing with time spent at Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Advanced Development Programs (Skunk Works), Lockheed Martin Space Advanced Technology Center, and NASA Langley Research Center. His work over the years has focused on alloy development, process monitoring and feedback control systems, and qualification/certification. He has served as lead/co-lead on DoD collaborative projects worth over $20M, including an AM qualification program for the F-35.

He has contributed to over two dozen technical journal publications and has 13 issued patents. Dr. Brice has a BS in metallurgical engineering from Missouri University of Science & Technology, an MS in materials science and engineering from The Ohio State University, and a PhD in mechanical engineering from the University of Canterbury.

After gaining work experience as a geotechnical engineer and construction estimator, Dr. Lori E. Tunstall joined the graduate program at Princeton University, earning a joint Ph.D. in Materials Science and Civil and Environmental Engineering in 2016. Princeton University distinguished Dr. Tunstall with two awards during her graduate program, the Wu Graduate Fellowship in Engineering and Princeton's Emerging Alumni Scholars Award for 2015 – 2016.

Dr. Tunstall continued her work at Princeton University as a postdoctoral research associate for the following year, until beginning an appointment at Honeywell FM&T as a chemical engineer. Here she worked in the advanced manufacturing department, overseeing the development of processes and materials for novel applications of additive manufacturing, including direct-write electronics and direct ink write of polymers.

Dr. Tunstall was selected as a part-time resident at Lawrence Livermore National Lab, where she was responsible for technology transfer between the two sites, and received the 2017 Defense Programs Award of Excellence for her contributions in solving a critical manufacturing issue.

Dr. Strathmann's research group applies modern chemical research tools and techniques to develop more sustainable technologies for environmental and energy applications. The group is currently developing technologies that employ innovative catalytic, hydrothermal, and photochemical processes to treat highly reclacitrant per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs), produce bio-renewable energy and chemicals, and recover valuable resources from waste streams.

Our work is at the interface between chemistry, solid-state physics, and material science, and targets new materials for energy applications. We develop predictive relationships between the chemical structure of a material and the resulting properties, thereby guiding our search for new energy materials. Further insight into our experimental results is obtained through close collaborations with computational groups.

Our current focus is on electron and phonon transport in thermoelectric materials. Here, we investigate how the electron and phonon band structure and scattering sources control transport. Beyond thermoelectric materials, this fascination with transport in the solid state has application to other energy systems such as fuel cells, photovoltaics and batteries.

We encourage the involvement of undergraduates in this research, as demonstrated by the eight papers undergraduates have co-authored since 2005.

Dr. Megan E. Holtz joined the department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering at the Colorado School of Mines in 2021.

Dr. Holtz conducts research as a member of the Colorado Center for Advanced Ceramics, primarily focusing on growth of controlled structures and interfaces with thin film deposition and atomic and nanometer scale characterization by scanning transmission electron microscopy.

My group is interested in a wide variety of problems that can be solved (or at least addressed) through the enabling capabilities of advanced ceramic materials. In particular, our work tends to focus on materials that do something interesting under an applied electric field (e.g., dielectrics, piezoelectrics, ferroelectrics). We are especially interested in the dynamic response to electric field, from nanosecond processes (e.g., ferroelectric polarization reversal and domain wall dynamics) to long-term defect migration and associated degradation and reliability issues, particularly under challenging (e.g., high temperature, high electric field) operating conditions. Of course it is a rare case when a single stand-alone material is the solution to any engineering problem, so clever processing to enable fabrication and integration of these functional materials into useful devices and systems underlies all of our research.

Biogeochemical cycling of toxic and nutrient metals. Photochemistry and free radical chemistry in aqueous environment systems.

The Sellinger research group focuses on the design, synthesis and characterization of organic, polymer, and hybrid based materials for application in thin film solar cells (polymer semiconductors), radiation detection (organic/polymer scintillators, 3D printing), critical rare earth element extraction (dipole- and photo-active aromatic phosphonic acids), and 2D/3D semiconductors (surface chemistry of MXenes and carbon nanodiamonds). The highly interdisciplinary nature of our research has led to multiple collaborations including the University of Colorado-Boulder, Georgia Tech, Indiana University, Princeton, the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NIST Boulder, NREL, Lawrence Livermore National Lab (LLNL), and Sandia Livermore National Lab. This allows for students to have a broad application-based research experience!

The Richards group works at the interface of the fields of renewable energy, nanoscale materials, sustainability, circular economy, catalysis and inorganic chemistry. The group leverages collaborative efforts (predominantly at Mines and NRL) with in-situ characterization (ie. microscopies, X-rays, spectroscopies), computation (including molecular dynamics (MD) simulations with density functional theory (DFT) and machine learning), as well as applications (biomass/plastics upgrading, fuel cells, CO2 capture/conversion, batteries, etc.) to realize the ambitions of these projects. Please visit the Richards group webpage for additional information.

Many important chemical processes occur at the material surface and therefore understanding surface composition and structure of materials is important for many applications. Our group investigates surfaces and interfaces of functional materials including catalysts, polymers, semiconductors and metals targeting a wide range of applications. We focus on building relationships between surface composition and structure, materials properties and their performance with the eventual goal to design next generation of materials which provide high efficiency at the fraction of the cost. Significant efforts of our team are dedicated to development of cost-effective materials for alternative energy applications.

Research in the McGuirk Lab exists the interface of synthetic chemistry and materials science, addressing fundamental scientific challenges related to organic and hybrid materials, supramolecular assembly, and environmental sustainability. Our group leverages expertise in non-covalent interactions, structural order, and chemical reactivity to develop synthetic tools for the by-design construction and programmed destruction of functional materials. Through our fundamental efforts, we seek to move the needle on the chemical recycling of plastic waste, the storage and delivery of alternative fuels, and the expansion of base pairing in synthetic DNA. Students in the McGuirk Lab are trained in synthetic organic/inorganic chemistry and the characterization of molecules and materials. Additional emphasis is placed on students becoming independently creative and critically thinking scientists poised to tackle critical questions in science and society.

Students interested in materials and/or synthetic chemistry are encouraged to contact Prof. McGuirk.

Research in the Maughan group is aimed at developing structure-dynamics-property relationships in functional solid-state materials for applications in renewable energy. Inspired by the grand challenge of “Materials by Design”, our research emphasizes crystal-chemical control through targeted synthesis of solid-state materials for a diverse range of potential applications, from renewable energy generation in perovskite halide semiconductors to safe and energy-dense energy storage technologies. Our research is highly interdisciplinary by nature, existing at the interface of chemistry, physics, and materials engineering. Students in the Maughan group are trained in solid-state and inorganic materials synthesis, X-ray and neutron scattering, and materials property measurements. Students in this program will have the opportunity to perform experiments at X-ray and neutron scattering facilities and to interface with the nearby National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR).

Polymer and materials chemistry is a vibrant area of research key to continued technological progress particularly in the areas of nanomaterials and nanotechnology. Research in the Knauss Group is dedicated to the study of macromolecular chemistry and characterization of new materials and the development of their application. Current research interests include: the synthesis of new types of polymers, the control of polymer architecture and functionalization, and the study of new reaction mechanisms through monomer and polymer synthesis. The types of applications include polymeric photovoltaics, packaging using polymers from renewable resources, fuel cell membranes, and water purification. Research has been funded in recent years by the NSF, EPA, PRF, Kraton Polymers, DOE, AFOSR, and ARO.

Dr. David Halat was born in Bozeman, Montana, and completed dual B.S. degrees in Chemistry and in Mathematics at Montana State University in 2013. He then traveled to the United Kingdom to join the University of Cambridge, where he earned his Ph.D. in 2018 under the supervision of Prof. Clare Grey, focusing on solid-state NMR of functional energy storage materials for fuel cells and batteries. Following his Ph.D., he moved to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California, Berkeley, where he conducted postdoctoral research until 2023. Dr. Halat joins the Colorado School of Mines as a researcher developing NMR methodology and instrumentation. His research has led to the development of electrophoretic NMR, an in situ technique that allows for the direct measurement of ion transport in materials and electrolytes. This work is crucial for advancing the understanding of ion dynamics in energy storage systems, central to tackling issues related to decarbonization. Outside of the lab, Dr. Halat enjoys spending time cycling and hiking.

Presently, my applied/basic research program is energy system centric with a strong materials and engineering emphasis. Our work is focused on developing and understanding materials for hydrogen and energy storage with specific applications for transportation and grid storage. We have several on-going projects: (a) investigation into the mechanism of room temperature hydrogen sorption for carbon and framework sorbents while in parallel we develop next-generation characterization methodologies to understand the fundamental nature of gas-solid interactions; (b) investigation of plasmonic, bio-inspired, porous liquids and frustrated Lewis-acid base materials for hydrogen carrier applications; and (c) the development of hybrid energy storage materials by physical vapor deposition and ion-implantation methodologies.

The Domaille lab is a chemical biology lab in the Department of Chemistry at the Colorado School of Mines. Using principles from organic chemistry, engineering, and materials science, we develop tools and processes that address critical concerns in the fields of energy and human health and disease. The research in the group falls into three main areas: a) biocompatible chemistry; b) dynamic covalent soft materials; and c) chemical sensing in biological systems.

Our research interests are focused on the synthesis of nanostructured materials and their application to solving challenges in the areas of renewable energy and sustainability. Synthesis techniques include both vapor deposition (sputtering, CVD) and solution processing (reactive precipitation, electrodeposition, etc.). A central theme is developing novel processing techniques that impart nanoscale control while retaining high rate for the efficient synthesis of mesoscale structures (5 – 500 nm). The materials we synthesize serve as integral components in thin film photovoltaics, solid state batteries, and catalytic membrane reactors. Investigation of these processes is guided by detailed reactive flow modeling and experimental measures of both homogeneous and heterogeneous kinetics. In-situ process diagnostics and ex-situ materials characterization are used to gain a fundamental understanding of the process–structure–performance relationships in these systems.

My area of research is in subatomic physics, more precisely in nuclear and astroparticle physics. My research activity spans about 14 orders of magnitude in energy, from the MeV (1MeV=10⁶eV) in low-energy nuclear physics to the hundreds of EeV (1EeV=10¹⁸eV) in cosmic-ray physics. In nuclear physics, my interest lies in a group of light nuclei far from stability called halo nuclei. These nuclei distinguish themselves by their large spatial extent arising from one or two very loosely-bound nucleons in low orbital momentum orbitals. This research is carried out at national and international accelerator facilities. I am also involved in a more applied project, which aims at developing a skin patch for radiotherapy using the nearby 1MW TRIGA reactor.

At the very end of the energy spectrum, I am studying Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays as a member of two large collaborations: the Pierre Auger Observatory, located in Argentina and the Extreme Universe Space Observatory (JEM-EUSO), to be deployed on the International Space Station. To this day, no one knows where these cosmic-rays (the highest energy particles in the Universe!) come from. We do have some hints though! Please visit my personal website for more information on these exciting fields of research.

My primary interests in materials engineering are mechanical metallurgy and developing microstructure-mechanical property relationships in advanced metal alloys. There are several engineering models that can accurately estimate mechanical behavior such as stress-strain, fatigue crack initiation and growth rates, fracture toughness, and creep at high temperatures; however, many of those models are fitted mathematical relationships using empirically determined constants that may not fully represent the underlying physical mechanisms governing the specific mechanical property. My research interests involve linking mechanical behavior of metallic materials to microstructural features at a variety of length scales ranging from sub-microscopic to microscopic levels and using this understanding to develop physically-based models. This methodology is applied to Advanced Steel Processing and Products Research Center projects in the bar, plate, and sheet product areas. Through my research and teaching activities, I seek to educate undergraduate and graduate students in core physical metallurgy concepts and maintain the strong relationships between the ASPPRC and the industrial sponsors as well as forge new collaborations as opportunities present themselves.

Dr. Aslangil received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Lehigh University in 2015 and 2019, respectively. His research focuses on turbulence theory, hydrodynamic instabilities, interfacial flows, and fluid-solid-shock interactions. He has extensive experience in high-fidelity numerical simulations, including Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) and Large Eddy Simulation (LES), as well as high-performance computing. Before joining Mines, Dr. Aslangil was a postdoctoral researcher at Los Alamos National Laboratory and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics at the University of Alabama.

Andy Osborne received his Ph.D. in Nuclear Physics in 2006 from the University of Glasgow in Scotland. After graduating he worked as an analyst for the JP Morgan Chase investment bank, splitting his time between Glasgow and New York City where he worked closely with the Emerging Markets trading desk, developing risk management software for credit derivatives. He returned to academia as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Texas at Austin (2009-2014), where he worked on the design and analysis of advanced nuclear reactors and fuel cycles. Andy furthered his postdoctoral work at the Colorado School of Mines, and held a Research Assistant Professor appointment from 2016 until joining the Mines Mechanical Engineering faculty as an Assistant Professor in January 2018. His work centers on the application of high performance computing and reactor theory to model coupled multiphysics phenomena in a broad variety of nuclear reactor systems. Andy’s research interests also include hybrid energy systems, numerical methods and software engineering.

I joined the Colorado School of Mines as an assistant professor in 1999 and have been active in applied nuclear physics research in collaboration with several national laboratories.

The research field I work in can be loosely described as applied nuclear physics.

Most of the experiments are carried out at national and international laboratories (LANL, LLNL, NSCL/FRIB and TRIUMF).

Dr. Deinert was born in New York and grew up in both the United States and Germany. He received a PhD in Nuclear Science and Engineering from Cornell University and did his postdoctoral training there in the Department of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics.

Dr. Deinert’s research centers on systems modeling to understand the environmental, economic and geopolitical impacts of different energy technologies. His research group uses tools from engineering analysis, thermodynamics, statistical physics and computation to understand problems how dynamics, non-equilibria and systems structure affect energy technologies . By relating performance to design and manufacturing decisions, his research informs development in the laboratory and policy.

Dr. Deinert is one of the core faculty members for the Nuclear Science and Engineering program, an interdisciplinary program that offers three different graduate degrees.

Deep into the periodic table the increasing effects of relativity, spin-orbit coupling, and the subtle rearrangement of frontier orbital energies challenges our ability to predict and understand the chemical and physical properties of heavy elements like berkelium, californium, and einsteinium. Recent experimental and computational developments reveal that models based on monotonic changes in electronic structure across heavy element series do not occur, and that perhaps the current arrangement of the periodic table has started to unravel. Our group prepares and studies rare of examples of materials and complexes of the heaviest elements for which macroscopic properties can be obtained from nuclear reactors. We use a wide variety of characterization tools, but focus extensively on advanced X-ray diffraction techniques in order to probe the electronic structure of f-block compounds. We work extensively with theorists to understand the origins of the exotic properties of these elements. The ultimate goal of this work is to understand the bonding in these elements well enough for molecules and materials to be tailored to achieve desired properties, which is currently quite challenging to achieve.

Yamuna’s research interests revolve around developing novel optical technologies for biomedical and space applications. Her research has earned her recognition through various scientific awards and publications, including a patent for VCD imaging. Her work has been featured on the covers of Analytical Chemistry and the Journal of Physical Chemistry C.

Apart from her research accomplishments, Yamuna is also passionate about teaching. She has received numerous awards for her teaching, including the Harold Olsen Award for undergraduate teaching and the E. A. Reid Fellowship for undergraduate teaching and engineering education. She has been recognized by the President of India Award, Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences Rising Stars, and the Cadence Women in Technology Scholarship.

The unifying theme for my research interests is water reclamation and resource recovery, primarily by using microorganisms in engineered systems. Bacteria and other microbes have useful and sometimes surprising metabolic capabilities that we can harness to remove organic pollutants and create valuable products.

While microbial communities are inherently dynamic, we can apply molecular biology techniques to assess microbial communities in environmentally relevant systems. Understanding and ultimately controlling these dynamics is important in many applications of environmental engineering microbiology. For example, microbes form the heart of wastewater treatment, degrading organics while also generating methane under specific conditions; any change in microbial activity or populations during treatment may have significant implications for the treatment effectiveness. By understanding the community dynamics during the treatment process, we may be better able to control the treatment effectiveness.

I am also interested in assessing the sustainability of new treatment approaches. Current research activities include optimization and microbial characterization of anaerobic primary and secondary treatment, biological nitrogen removal, and toxicity assessment of critical-minerals processing chemicals.

My teaching interests are diverse. I’ve taught 15 different classes at Mines! I strive to engage every student in each course. I have been actively involved in the Humanitarian Engineering program and teach elective courses (Sustainable Engineering Design, Onsite Water Reclamation and Reuse) that support this program and Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Understanding biological structure and function is an exciting multidimensional challenge. As such, my research is a highly collaborative endeavor, working with biologists and biophysicists to create novel instrumentation that will enable the Bio-community to explore and visualize dynamics in a minimally invasive way. For example, we have designed novel imaging systems that use “non-imaging” optics to capture three-dimensional image volumes with sub-micrometer spatial resolution and millisecond temporal resolution. Further, using optical systems that focus the femtosecond laser beam in space and time, we can perform specialized surgeries in biological systems of interest. Finally, we apply these techniques to real-world applications including the fabrication of micro-mechanical and micro-fluidic platforms.

Part of my research involves the role of colloids and particles in environmental processes. Environmental colloids can be described as particles smaller than one micrometer. They can make up a significant proportion of suspended sediments and are important in that they: effectively bind pollutants; do not readily settle out of surface waters; and are mobile in groundwater’s. Consequently they can facilitate the transport of pollutants. Currently not much is known about the abundance and properties of environmental colloids. Much of my work has been involved in the development of methods to collect and analyze colloids from rivers, reservoirs, mountain streams, soil solutions, and groundwater’s.

Another aspect of my research deals with field-flow fractionation (FFF). FFF is a family of related methods that provides a high-resolution, size separation of macromolecules, colloids and particles over an ultimate range of a few thousand Daltons to 50 micrometers. One significant advantage of FFF over other size analysis methods is that it provides a separation, which allows further analysis of colloids as a function of size. Currently my research group is using FFF to examine soil particle composition over a size range of 1-25 micrometers. Other methods we have used in conjunction with FFF are electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction; develop and application of size separation methods; isolation and characterization of natural organic matter.

The controlled assembly of colloidal particles has received significant attention because of their potential application as nano- and micro-structured materials. To vary their structure and behavior, we employ external fields, including applied time-varying electromagnetic, electric, and magnetic fields. Funded currently by the State of Colorado, NIH, NSF and NASA, our goal is the creation of technologically-relevant platforms including micron-scale colloidal-based devices and microbots for biomedical treatment.

Dr. Christopher P. Higgins is an environmental chemist at the Colorado School of Mines. Dr. Higgins received his A.B. in Chemistry from Harvard University, and graduate degrees in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Stanford University. He joined Mines in 2009, attaining the title of University Distinguished Professor in 2022 and AMAX Distinguished Chair of Civil and Environmental Engineering in 2025. He was the recipient of the 2019 Huber Prize in Civil Engineering Research awarded by the American Society of Civil Engineers. Dr. Higgins was the lead Principal Investigator for the 2020 Environmental Restoration Project of the Year for the U.S. DoD’s Strategic Environmental Research & Development Program.

His research focuses on the movement of contaminants in the environment. In particular, he studies chemical fate and transport in natural and engineered systems, with a focus on poly- and perfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs). Dr. Higgins has authored over 175 peer-reviewed publications. His research has been supported by NSF, NIH, EPA, USDA, and the DoD.

Our research centers around WATER as a sustainable functional material, in particular when combined with gases to form a crystalline phase, known as CLATHRATE HYDRATES. These phase change properties of water can be tuned depending on the gas(es), temperature, and pressure, making clathrate hydrates a versatile functional material relevant to numerous areas as shown below. Our study on clathrate hydrates ranges from the SCIENCE (fundamental) to the ENGINEERING (applied), so that we can further our understanding of their properties and develop solutions for their application. The research is based on experimental, theoretical, and computational approaches, bringing a unified approach to bridge the microscopic and macroscopic scales utilizing a variety of techniques for property measurement, characterization, and discovery.

In addition to clathrate hydrates, our research is also concerned with other broad areas ranging from soft condensed matter to structured materials to biological systems, with emphasis on molecular descriptions as the basis to understand macroscopic properties and behavior. Theoretical, computational, and experimental methods are employed as research tools to broaden our fundamental knowledge while applying those principles to tackle practical problems. Every topic of research emphasizes a multiscale and multidisciplinary approach that encompasses knowledge and skills covering the chemical, physical, and life sciences, computer science, and engineering.

Tolga Can received his BSc degree in computer engineering from Middle East Technical University, Turkey, in 1998 and his PhD degree in computer science from the University of Santa Barbara in 2004 as a Fulbright scholar. He worked as a tenured professor at the Computer Engineering Department, Middle East Technical University (METU) until he joined the Colorado School of Mines as a Teaching Professor in Computer Science.

His main research interests include bioinformatics, graph theory, and algorithms. He has worked on protein structure analysis and on large-scale biological networks. He has taught various courses such as Bioinformatics, Data Structures and Algorithms, Computational Geometry, Computer Graphics, and Probability and Statistics for Computer Scientists.

He is also the recipient of two "Instructor of the Year" awards at METU. Between 2019 and 2022, he served as the Academic Committee Chair for the Informatics Olympiads in Turkey, responsible for selection and training of the Turkish team for the International Olympiads in Informatics (IOI), the most prestigious competitive programming event at the high-school level.

Dr. Terry Lowe is a research professor in the George S. Ansell Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering. He supports undergraduate and graduate education and research within the department and in two interdisciplinary programs—Materials Science and Quantitative Biosciences and Engineering.

Biomaterials have revolutionized strategies to combat these life-threatening diseases; from tools to better understand disease development to tissue engineering strategies and drug delivery platforms. Biomaterial scaffolds are highly tailorable platforms that can be engineered to interact with existing tissue, mimic native tissue including cellular interactions with extracellular matrix molecules, and even alter cellular behavior.

The main goal of my research is to develop biomaterial scaffolds to investigate and mimic cellular interactions with their environment and to harness this information to develop therapies for life threatening diseases. My research primarily focuses on type 1 diabetes (T1D), which is characterized by the progressive destruction of the insulin producing β-cells in the pancreatic islets of Langerhans. The goals of my research are to 1) understand the role of extracellular matrix interactions in cellular death and dysfunction during the onset and progression of T1D, 2) develop drug delivery strategies to prevent pancreatic islet dysfunction and death during the pathogenesis of T1D, and 3) develop therapies which target multiple aspects of T1D to prevent the onset of T1D. This research combines novel biomimetic scaffold design with advanced live-cell imaging techniques to provide quantitative insight into pancreatic islet function and disease development. The discoveries that we make will ultimately help to improve therapies for patients with T1D.

There is a critical need for replacement tissues due to organ failure and tissue loss. The field of tissue engineering seeks to regenerate diseased or damaged tissues by providing the necessary physical, biochemical, and cellular cues that promote tissue regeneration. These approaches typically use biomaterial scaffolds, often with incorporated bioactive factors to help induce the formation of the desired tissue within a defect site. In the body, cells are influenced by a large host of factors, including soluble signals such as growth factors, insoluble signals that are components of the extracellular matrix surrounding the cells, and also the interaction of various populations of cells with each other.

Our group is interested in the development of biopolymer systems that will allow the study of cells’ interactions with their microenvironment and that can be used for tissue regeneration and therapeutics. We are investigating the controlled delivery of bioactive factors and therapeutics, the presentation of insoluble signals to cells, the effect of mechanical forces on cell behavior and tissue formation, and the influence that different cell populations have on one another. These advances will lead to improved biomaterial system design criteria. The applications that we are researching include growth plate cartilage regeneration, trabecular meshwork cell behavior that is important in glaucoma, diabetic wound healing, and bone and dental tissue regeneration. Ultimately, what we learn in our laboratory will help to improve patient therapies that are available in the clinic.

Dr. Knaus’s research uses engineering principles to explain fundamental biomechanics of multiscale muscle design needed to solve problems that will improve human mobility, health, and performance. As director of the MyoEngineering Lab, she applies mechanical engineering expertise to myology, the study of muscle structure-function, using detailed computer simulations of complex muscle-tendon structures and innovative experimental measurements of human biomechanics and physiology. Before joining Colorado School of Mines, Dr. Knaus received her BS in Mechanical Engineering and Physics and PhD in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Virginia. She also completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California San Diego with the Wu Tsai Human Performance Alliance. She is an active member of the American Society of Biomechanics, American College of Sports Medicine, American Society of Mechanical Engineers Bioengineering Division, and the International Women in Biomechanics.

As a Teaching Professor, I aim to provide undergraduate students the best educational and classroom experience possible and to study how students learn science and engineering.

Everything that I do as a teacher all comes down to the fact that I want my students (and society as a whole for that matter) to appreciate, understand, and ultimately be excited about science and engineering. I believe that student excitement and engagement are the foundation for improving scientific literacy, building solid critical thinking and analysis skills, and preparing for successful scientific and engineering careers. For those students that already really like science and engineering, I want to cultivate their interests and help them prosper into the scientists, engineers, doctors, and researchers of tomorrow. I like to say that I know that I won’t ever find a cure for cancer, but maybe I will inspire a student who will someday do just that.

Jenny holds a PhD in Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology from the University of Florida and an MPH from Independence University. She brings almost 20 years of experience teaching undergraduate biology courses including General Biology, Genetics, Developmental Biology, Cell Biology, and Microbiology across face-to-face, hybrid, and online modalities.

Her prior research focused on genetic engineering of plants in systems such as tomatoes, petunias, and Arabidopsis thaliana, with a particular emphasis on ethylene signaling and its involvement in developmental pathways. Her teaching philosophy centers on active learning, fostering critical thinking, technology integration, and promoting scientific literacy. Beyond the classroom, she has held administrative roles encompassing student advising, instructional training, curriculum review, and a Canvas LMS administrator. Jenny has recently been a health program coordinator at a local non-profit. In this role, she coordinated health-based education and services at a community hub for vulnerable and under-resourced populations. She also worked in direct coordination with Broomfield Public Health on community initiatives such as vaccine education, harm reduction, and mental health trainings.

Alina Handorean is a Teaching Professor in EDS with more than 15 years of experience teaching a wide range of biology, chemistry and fundamental environmental engineering classes at the middle school through graduate levels. Dr. Handorean earned her B.S. and M.S. degrees in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of Bucharest, Romania and her M.A. and PhD in Chemistry from Washington University in St. Louis before completing a post-doctoral fellowship in cancer biology at the University of Colorado’s Health Sciences campus.

Prior to joining Mines, Dr Handorean was a Research Faculty/Lecturer in the Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering at University of Colorado, Boulder. Her research interests are Environmental Engineering (Drinking Water, Bioaerosols), Chemistry, Cancer Biology, and Pedagogy, and she’s passionate about teaching user-centered design, communication skills, and teamwork in her Cornerstone classes.

Stephanie Seevers holds a bachelor’s degree in geology and a master’s degree in science education. She worked briefly in petroleum exploration and environmental consulting before embarking on her primary career as a STEM educator. She started teaching high school science in 1998 and still continues to teach science and engineering part-time at Evergreen High School.

In addition to her secondary and post-secondary teaching roles, she also works on education research and curriculum development projects that offer interactive stochastic computer-based models designed to allow students to conduct authentic investigations of complex geologic phenomena. She is passionate about facilitating her students’ engagement in the messy, non-linear process of solving real-world science and engineering problems.

Carlos Goncalves Ph.D. is a Research Instructor at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus and Adjunct Faculty at the Colorado School of Mines. His research focuses on leveraging artificial intelligence, data science, and engineering to improve healthcare outcomes, particularly in organ transplantation and wearable medical devices. With over a decade of experience in implementation science and biomedical innovation, Dr. Goncalves has led multidisciplinary projects across academia, healthcare, and industry.

His academic work emphasizes AI-driven prediction models, system integration in clinical settings, and curriculum design. He is also a dedicated mentor and educator, with a strong record of guiding students and junior researchers.

Previously, Dr. Goncalves served as an Innovation Manager for large-scale European initiatives in cybersecurity and pharmaceutical blockchain applications. He has contributed to multiple international patents, published in high-impact journals, and secured competitive grant funding.

Juliet Garcia brings nearly two decades of experience spanning the energy industry and education. Her professional background includes more than 12 years of experience in upstream oil and gas engineering roles, in addition to expertise in corporate strategy, data analytics, and secondary STEM teaching. She is excited to teach at Mines because it allows her to blend her industry experience with her passion for hands-on, human-centered engineering education, preparing students to thrive in an evolving, AI-enabled world.

Juliet holds a B.S.E. in Chemical Engineering from Arizona State University and an MBA from Duke University, and she is currently pursuing advanced studies in engineering education at Purdue University.

Jeremy brings 20 years of professional engineering design experience which covers a variety of water and wastewater services. He’s worked on everything from structural, process and hydraulic engineering projects to performing process treatment system energy audits. Jeremy is particularly skilled at energy audits for water and wastewater systems and shares his knowledge by assisting engineering students with energy audits through the Industrial Assessment Center at the Colorado School of Mines. From project proposal to commission, he works with clients to develop sustainable energy alternatives, utilize advanced technologies, and educate staff on the new applications and processes. Jeremy also has experience on the construction side of projects and directly applies that knowledge to engineering design by developing easily implementable and maintainable solutions to address client concerns.

Jeremy has worked 6 years as an Adjunct Professor for the Colorado School of Mines and 10 years as an Instructor for Red Rocks Community College where he develops project-based cross class collaboration engineering courses. In these courses students support each other through peer-to-peer learning while also developing industry partnerships to gather feedback on their solutions. When teaching Jeremy uses his industry experience to explore sustainability through engineering to transform conventional thinking and spark innovation.

Professor Wouter Van De Pontseele leads the Quantum Technologies at the Sensitivity Frontier group, which develops advanced superconducting sensors and cryogenic instrumentation to search for rare particle interactions. The group’s research focuses on creating low-threshold superconducting detectors and quantum-limited amplifiers for fundamental physics. These technologies are applied in collaborations with major international experiments, including Project 8, which aims to measure the neutrino mass, and the Ricochet experiment, which studies neutrinos at a nuclear reactor.

A key local project is the development of the CURIE low-background facility, where the group is designing and installing shielding in the Edgar Experimental Mine to create an ultra-quiet environment for sensitive experiments. This work is supported by collaborations with industry partners like Maybell Quantum and national labs such as NIST.

Keisuke Yazawa is a postdoctoral researcher at National Laboratory of the Rockies and Research Associate Professor at the Metallurgical and Materials Engineering Department at the Colorado School of Mines. He received a BS degree in Chemistry in 2008 from Sophia University and an MS degree in Materials Science in 2010 from Tokyo Institute of Technology. He spent 6 years as an R&D engineer at Panasonic from 2010 to 2016. He received a PhD in Materials Engineering from Purdue University in 2020. His research focus is on functional nitride and oxide thin film synthesis and characterization.

Our research spans from exploring basic Physics in reduced dimensionality systems to building novel devices for applications.

From a fundamental Physics standpoint, small is often different. A prime example of this is the difference between the quantum and the classical worlds. We seek to gain fundamental understanding of quantum effects and other novel Physics at nanoscales. Charge, spin and thermal transport measurements performed at low-temperatures in our lab offer a versatile probe into these properties.

The unique insights uncovered by these studies are used to guide device design for different applications. We are especially interested in exploring materials and devices that can aid in developing alternative computing paradigms in a post-Moore, post-Dennard world.

Gabriel Santamaria received his Electrical Engineering degree from the University of Carabobo, Venezuela in 2014 and his Ph.D. from Charles III University of Madrid (UC3M), Spain in 2021. During his Ph.D. studies, he developed theoretical models and experimental demonstrations of THz-to-optical upconversion via resonant electro-optics techniques for high-sensitivity THz radiometry. In 2021 he joined the Microwave & RF Research Group at the University of Colorado, Boulder as a Research Associate, where he worked on microwave sensing techniques using Rydberg atoms and the development of non-invasive radiometers for internal body temperature measurements.

His research interests include nonlinear and quantum optics, microwave and integrated photonics, low-noise mm-wave and THz sensing, superconducting circuits, and computational electromagnetics (MLFMM).

Dejun Yang is an Associate Professor in Computer Science at Colorado School of Mines. He is the Director of the NEMOS (Networking and Mobile Sensing) Lab. As of Jan 2018, he has published more than 80 papers in top journals including IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, and IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, as well as prestigious conferences including ACM MobiCom, ACM MobiHoc, IEEE INFOCOM, IEEE ICNP, and ICDCS.

He has more than 3000 citations per Google Scholar (as of Jan 2018). He has received Best Paper Awards at GLOBECOM'15, ICC'12, ICC'11, and MASS'11, as well as a Best Paper Runner-Up at ICNP'10.

I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Colorado School of Mines. My research lies in the broad field of compilers and programming systems, with an emphasis on program optimizations for heterogeneous computing and emerging architectures. My current focus is on building efficient systems for machine learning and graph processing applications.

Before joining Mines in August 2014, I earned a Ph.D. in Computer Science from The College of William and Mary, where I worked with Professor Xipeng Shen. I received an M.S. in Computer Science and a B.S. in Mathematics both from Central South University, Hunan, China.

The Crane Lab is an interdisciplinary research group that sits at the intersection of nanoscience and photonic design, combining nanomaterials synthesis and ultrafast spectroscopy to address critical, looming problems in global energy production and next-generation computing. Our overarching goal is to bridge the gap between colloidal nanomaterials synthesis and optoelectronic devices. Colloidal nanomaterials have highly tunable electronic and optical properties that can be engineered to harvest, store, and transmit both energy and information. Despite their abundant promise, we lack clear design rules to realize devices that capitalize on these tantalizing properties. We are particularly interested in studying and exploiting nanophotonic effects in these materials and devices to drive dynamic chemical, structural, or electronic transformations that are critical for clean energy production and emerging computing technologies.

Rationally designing nanomaterial devices for these applications requires understanding how microscopic processes, nanomaterial structure, and mesoscopic ordering combine to influence a desired macroscopic objective (e.g., chemical selectivity, spin dephasing, or light scattering). We focus on disentangling these effects by (i) creating tools and methods to grow and to pattern nanomaterials with high precision over mesoscopic scales and by (ii) characterizing their behavior in situ with new spectroscopies to develop device-level structure-property relationships. We leverage these insights with multi-physics simulations to provide a systems-level perspective to optimize devices.

A common theme in our approach is that nanophotonics are often both the goal of our research and the driving force for synthesis and assembly. We use chemical design principals to develop materials for optics and we leverage optics to improve chemistry and patterning. Working at this intersection, we are currently focused on three key aims:

The great majority of life on Earth is microbial in size, things only visible through the microscope. Almost all of these microbes are harmless to humans and in fact, provide vital ecosystem services to just about every habitat on the planet—including our own bodies. We are interested in the who, what, when, where, why and how questions about microbial life—in essence, microbial ecology. We think and work with both the fundamentals of Basic Science and translate that into very Applied Science to make better and more favorable use of microbial-related processes.

Who are they?—We are interested in the diversity of this microbial life in all three domains of life—Eucarya, Bacteria and Archaea. What do they do?—Are they interacting and / or changing their environment? What can they do for us?—Can we learn how to optimize a microbial process for bioremediation or for bioenergy? When are the microbiota of a particular environment active?—Can we manipulate that activity for stimulation in an engineered system or process? Where are they?—Is a certain microbe only found in one place or throughout the ecosystem / world? Why are they there? Why do they do what they do? This leads us to ask “how?” Do microbiota interact with their world? Do microbiota use energy flow in novel ways? Do microbiota process metal and /or heavy metals? Are these processes beneficial to humanity?

It is in the pursuit of the answers to these questions that leads us to better understand our natural world that is filled with revelations and surprise—on a daily basis! Over the past twenty years the fields of Environmental Microbiology and Geobiology have progressed like no other in science! We are lucky to live, work and tell amazing stories of this microbial world in this time!

Prof. David Karl currently serves as the Additive Manufacturing Research Group Leader at the Chair of Advanced Ceramic Materials at Technische Universität Berlin and as an Adjunct Professor in the Space Resources Program at Colorado School of Mines. His diverse academic background uniquely combines scientific and artistic disciplines. Initially, he started his academic career with a distinguished diploma in Fine Art at Hochschule für Bildende Künste Braunschweig, followed by a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) from the Slade School of Fine Art at University College London. Dr. Karl then transitioned into materials science, completing his PhD summa cum laude in Materials Science and Engineering at Technische Universität Berlin. His dissertation, titled “In situ resource utilization of Martian regolith simulants through wet-processing for unfired clay structures and sintered ceramics,” highlights his expertise in additive manufacturing and advanced ceramics applied to space resource utilization.

Prof. Karl’s academic contributions include numerous peer-reviewed articles, a review article, an editorial, three conference papers, and a book chapter. He actively participates in the scientific community as a peer reviewer for a number of journals such as Open Ceramics, Powder Technology, Journal of the European Ceramic Society, Advances in Space Research, New Space, Frontiers in Space Technologies, Progress in Additive Manufacturing, Journal of the American Ceramic Society, Acta Astronautica, and Icarus. Additionally, he has co-edited two special issues for Open Ceramics and served as a scientific reviewer for project proposals from the European Space Agency (ESA) and the UK Space Agency, specifically related to exploration science and lunar activities.

In teaching, Prof. Karl holds various educational responsibilities at Technische Universität Berlin and the Colorado School of Mines, notably as the lecturer for the “Introduction to Additive Manufacturing (3D printing)” course and its practical lab module. Since 2025, he has been teaching a Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) course titled “Off-Earth Additive Manufacturing (Space, the Moon, Mars)” for students from TU Berlin’s materials science program and Colorado School of Mines’ Additive Manufacturing and Space Resources program.

Actively involved in the broader scientific community, Prof. Karl has co-organized several international conferences, forums, and workshops dedicated to ceramic additive manufacturing for the European Ceramic Society and space resource utilization for ESA and LSA. In 2025, he serves as President of the Board for the European Ceramics Society’s “Europe Makes Ceramics” topical network.

Throughout his career, Prof. Karl has received numerous prestigious awards for his research contributions. TU Berlin nominated him as a candidate for the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prize 2024, Germany’s premier scientific award supporting promising researchers toward professorship. He also received the Best Scientific Paper Award (James Zhijian Shen Prize) from Elsevier’s Open Ceramics during the 18th European Ceramic Society ECerS) conference. His academic excellence was further recognized by a Visiting Postdoctoral Scholarship from the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD) and the Hans-Walter-Hennicke-Preis from the Deutsche Keramische Gesellschaft (DKG). Additionally, his artistic achievements were acknowledged with the Robert Ross scholarship from the University College London and the first prize in the European Competition in Art by the European Council for his submission “Fortress Europe.”

Prof. Karl’s multidisciplinary research spans various disciplines and institutions, primarily focused on processing techniques, starting from powder materials and emphasizing Additive Manufacturing (AM). His key research areas include powder synthesis, advanced ceramics, sophisticated powder characterization, and functional sheet-silicate materials. He also specializes in the processing of AM-produced components, with particular emphasis on in-situ resource utilization.

Jeffrey Cleveland is an adjunct faculty member at the Colorado School of Mines where he teaches the graduate-level Economics of Space Resources course along with being a Ph.D. candidate in Space Resources Economic Policy. In the burgeoning field of space economics his research and writing interests lie in developing macro- and microeconomic policies for cislunar space and defining long-term economic development policies for a solar system-wide economy. Mr. Cleveland received his MA in Economics from the University of Detroit Mercy and has two degrees from the University of Maryland: a Bachelor of Music and a Master of Business Administration.

George Sowers has 30 years of experience in the space transportation field. During a continuous span working for Martin Marietta, Lockheed Martin and the United Launch Alliance, including a stint as the chief systems engineer for Atlas V development, Sowers helped develop more than a dozen launch systems. He recently retired from his position as vice president and chief scientist of ULA, where his team developed an architecture for fully reusable in-space stages fueled by propellant mined, refined and distributed in space. He holds a bachelor’s degree in physics from Georgia Tech and a PhD in physics from the University of Colorado. Sowers is a fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Dr. Chris Dreyer has a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Drexel University and an MS and PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Colorado at Boulder. He joined Colorado School of Mines in 2000 as a Research Professor with research focus on instrumentation for energy systems and later instrumentation for space exploration. His research focus now includes the full space resources value chain from resource identification to production of products.

Dr. Dreyer is currently a Professor of Practice in the Space Resources Graduate Program. He has two decades of experience in technology development and extensive experience with experimental methods, regolith mechanics, instrument design, and optical/laser spectroscopy methods. Dr. Dreyer’s interests include the development of space resources and advancement of space exploration of asteroids, the Moon, and Mars. He has developed experimental facilities for resource technology development, including prospecting instruments, resource extraction, surface property measurement, and resource processing. Dr. Dreyer is the Director of Engineering in the Center for Space Resources at Mines, in which he guides the experimental research direction of the center. He is a co-founder of Mines’ Space Resources Graduate Program, the first program in the world dedicated to space resources.

Angel Abbud-Madrid is the Director of the Center for Space Resources at the Colorado School of Mines, where he leads a research program focused on the human and robotic exploration of space and the utilization of its resources. He is also the Director of the Space Resources Graduate Program, aimed at educating scientists, engineers, economists, entrepreneurs, and policymakers in the field of extraterrestrial resources. He has over 35 years of experience conducting experiments in NASA’s low-gravity facilities, such as drop towers, parabolic-flight aircraft, the Space Shuttle, and the International Space Station. In 2004, he received the NASA Astronauts’ Personal Achievement Award for his contributions to the success of human space flight.

Dr. Abbud-Madrid is the President of the Space Resources Roundtable, an international organization that brings together interested parties to discuss all aspects of space, lunar, asteroidal, and planetary resources. In 2018, he was appointed as an Observer and Technical Panel member of The Hague International Space Resources Governance Working Group and in 2020 as member of the Committee on Planetary Protection of The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. From 2019 to 2023 he served as external faculty in the Interdisciplinary Space Master at the University of Luxembourg and in 2023 he received an honorary Adjunct Professor position at The University of Adelaide in South Australia.

At the undergraduate level, Dr. Abbud-Madrid is the Director of the Space and Planetary Science and Engineering Area of Special Interest and Colorado School of Mines Affiliate Director of the Colorado Space Grant Consortium, as well as faculty advisor of the Colorado School of Mines AIAA student chapter, Astronomy Club, and Rocket Club. He also holds a Private Pilot license for single-engine-land airplanes.

Dr. Zhu received her BS in Mechanical Engineering, MS in Aerospace Engineering (2015), and PhD in Aerospace Engineering (2019) from Cornell University. Her primary research interests intersect at the junction of dynamics and controls, robotics, machine learning, and space exploration.

Tyrone L. Vincent has been at the Colorado School of Mines since 1998, and is currently a Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering. His research interests include system identification, estimation, and fault detection with applications in energy storage and production.

Dr. Kathryn (Katie) Johnson conducts research in wind and hybrid energy control systems and sociotechnical aspects of engineering education. She teaches control systems and wind energy courses at various levels.

Qi Han joined the department in 2005. She founded and currently directs the Pervasive Computing Systems (PeCS) research group . The mission of her research is to design algorithms, develop techniques, and build systems to enable pervasive and mobile computing applications. Her interests range from algorithms to systems, from design and experimentation to deployment and applications.

As of October 2016, she has published over 100 papers in prestigious journals such as IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, and IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems, and selective conferences such as IEEE INFOCOM, IEEE ICDCS, IEEE PerCOM. These articles have been cited more than 2000 times per Google Scholar.

Dr. Han has received multiple grants from the National Science Foundation. She also collaborates internationally with Northwestern Polytechnic University in China, CSIRO in Australia, and Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Micah Corah is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the Colorado School of Mines. Micah's research is at the intersections of perception planning, multi-robot systems, and aerial robotics and seeks to develop teams of aerial robots that intelligently film, inspect, and explore.

My general research interest is to advance the understanding of the behavior of saturated and unsaturated soils, particularly focusing on their hydrological and mechanical properties. I have worked with the CSM/USGS research group in problems related to fluid flow through variably saturated porous media, shear strength in saturated and unsaturated soils, and infiltration-induced slope instability analysis. Courses taught: Mechanics of Materials, Soil Mechanics, Soil Mechanics Laboratory, Foundation Design, Soil Behavior, help teaching Civil Engineering Field Session.

Dr. Yangming Shi is an Assistant Professor in Civil & Environmental Engineering at the Colorado School of Mines. His research focuses on developing data-driven solutions to improve human performance and augment human capabilities for future design, construction, and engineering process.

Dr. Shi's research interests lie in Virtual Reality (VR)/Augmented Reality (AR), Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (AI), construction automation, construction informatics, disaster visualization, and Human Factors Engineering.

Dr. Reza Hedayat is a Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Colorado School of Mines. He received his PhD in 2013 from Purdue University. Dr. Hedayat is the recipient of the Department of Energy’s highly prestigious Early Career Award from the Basic Energy Sciences.

Dr. Hedayat’s teaching and research interests focus on geomaterials, construction materials, reuse of mine tailings, tunnels and underground construction, and non-destructive evaluation methods. He designs and conducts highly detailed and controlled experiments to research the fundamental challenges in understanding the behavior of materials and the structures made of them at different time-and length-scales.

Dr. Hedayat has published over 140 peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings.

Mike's research group focuses on geoconstruction monitoring, intelligent geoconstruction processes, ground vision and ground improvement as applied to underground construction and tunneling, earth dams and levees, urban excavations and pavement systems. In recent years, Mike's group:

(1) developed a real-time technique to improve foundation construction at the seabed floor for the Venice lagoon restoration project;
(2) developed a real-time boulder detection system for tunnel boring machines (currently being used in Seattle),
(3) advanced the understanding of intelligent vibratory and static roller compaction techniques and developed specifications for intelligent compaction adoption; and
(4) advanced understanding of ground control using pressurized TBM tunneling and soil conditioning.

Mike's current research includes real time tunnel boring machine monitoring, ground vision to look ahead of the tunnel boring machine, advancing horizontal directional drilling, earth dam and levee monitoring via remote sensing and geophysical methods, and rapid assessment of earth constructed conditions.

Mike teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in underground construction and tunnel engineering, earth retaining structures, foundations, soil mechanics, instrumentation and monitoring, nondestructive evaluation and intelligent geosystems, and infrastructure engineering. Mike is a registered Professional Engineer and actively consults on construction projects in the U.S. and Europe.

Scott Houser joined the faculty in Economics and Business in 2007. He was previously an Associate Professor of Economics at California State University, Fresno, and Special Associate Professor of Economics at Colorado State University. His published research focuses on economic pedagogy, tax policy, and poverty.

Hello! I am a Professor and a proud alumna of the Colorado School of Mines. My interdisciplinary research focuses on applying Machine Learning to Geophysical data to detect anomalous events in earth dams and levees. The understanding and utilization of the massive amounts of data we collected were critical and have applications across various aspects of computer science.

I have a deep love for teaching and traveling abroad. During my PhD, I had the opportunity to study levee systems in Amsterdam and collect valuable data. My undergraduate studies were also in computer science, and one of the coolest industry experiences I’ve had was working for Ball Aerospace, where I wrote flight code for a NASA-sponsored project. When I’m not teaching or attending meetings at the university, I enjoy spending time outdoors with friends and family, taking in the beauty of Colorado.

I am dedicated to guiding you on your journey as you expand your knowledge and skills.

Dr. Zibo Wang is a Teaching Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Colorado School of Mines. He was a Post-Doc at Wuhan University, an Adjunct Teaching Professor at Louisiana Christian University and a Lecturer at Louisiana Tech University. Zibo earned his PhD in Computational Analysis and Modeling, M.S. in Computer Science, and M.S. in Mathematics, all from Louisiana Tech University.

Zibo’s research interests include machine learning, biometric authentication, and robotics.

Derrick Hudson is a Teaching Professor in International Relations in the Department of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (HASS) at Colorado School of Mines. He earned his B.S. degree from the U.S. Air Force Academy and doctorate from the Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver.

In addition to teaching courses across the entire undergraduate curriculum, Dr. Hudson also teaches courses in the department’s graduate program, Natural Resources and Energy Policy (NREP). Dr. Hudson’s major academic interests are in African political economy, international politics, U.S. foreign policy, political theory, urban studies, religious and secular studies, religion and politics, moral psychology, environmental and engineering ethics, and Ethnic Studies.

Dr. Hudson has taught at the University of Michigan, Metropolitan State University of Denver, University of Colorado Denver, Colorado Christian University, and American Pathways University.

Dr. Hudson’s most recent book, co-edited with Dr. Steven Roach (University of South Florida), focused on post-secessionist dynamics in South Sudan (The Challenge of Governance in South Sudan Routledge, 2019).

Dr. Hudson’s most recent research interests will explore the geopolitics of the Nile River Basin, with focus on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), one of the world’s largest hydroelectric dams and the largest in Africa. The GERD, once filled, will be a geopolitical game changer with regard to water politics in the horn of Africa and the Gulf States.

Cortney got her master’s degree in English in 2003 and came to Mines in the Fall of 2004 to teach Nature and Human Values. She has enjoyed working with Mines students to improve their communication skills and explore the impacts of the natural world on human behavior and society ever since. She directed the Nature and Human Values class for several years and developed new courses for HASS in science communication and service learning. She earned her doctorate in Education in 2021 from University of Northern Colorado in Curriculum & Innovation and her dissertation research on faculty and student well-being in higher education, especially in engineering and STEM environments is the foundation for her passion for research. She believes that faculty and students need good support from the university system to navigate life challenges and mitigate mental illness and is working to expand the focus on care and wellbeing in stressful academic environments through future research and workshops for professors.

Dr. Heather Fester directs the Nature and Human Values Program at Mines and regularly teaches classes in rhetoric, ethics, composition, and creative writing. She has a combined background in Rhetoric & Writing and Creative Writing, which offers her a unique perspective on the humanities that she enjoys sharing with students. She has also administered various types of writing programs on the university level.

Before she returned to school to earn her MFA in Creative Writing and Poetics as the Allen Ginsberg Fellow at Naropa University (2015-2017), Heather directed the Center for Writing and Scholarship at the California Institute of Integral Studies and coordinated the Writing Across the Curriculum and First-Year Writing programs at Lincoln University of Missouri. Most recently, she coordinated the Creative Writing minor in the English Department at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs where she enjoyed supporting faculty and students to build community around creative writing.

Her research interests include the rhetoric of ideologies, technology and rhetoric, creative and contemplative writing pedagogies, writing program administration, creative nonfiction, documentary poetics, and alternative discourses and composing methods. She has a textbook unit on thinking critically about fake news out from The Independent Thinking and Writing Company (2021). She is currently working on a collection of micro-essays, and she continues to write and think about holding a critically complex view when it comes to ideologies on college campuses and in the classroom.

Heather enjoys running, hiking, yoga, coaching, supporting cultural events along the front range, meeting with her writing groups, and pampering her ginger cat named Perry.

Paula Farca received her PhD in English Literature and a second MA in English Literature from Oklahoma State University. Her research and teaching focus on three main areas: 1. Environmental Humanities, 2. Contemporary and Indigenous Literature, and 3. Women’s Fiction and Gender Studies.

Jonathan Cullison is the Interim Director of the Music and Performing Arts Program at Mines. As an educator, he has taught classes ranging from Music Theory and Music History, to Electro/Acoustic Improvisation and Audio and Acoustical Engineering and Science. Prof. Cullison started teaching at Mines in 2007, and created the Music Technology Program and the Music, Engineering and Recording Arts Minor. He is also the Director of the Jazz Program, and his ensembles maintain a busy performance schedule, including public performances in Dublin and Rome, and radio performances on KUVO in Denver. He has published educational material through XANedu for CSM classes.

Prof. Cullison has been a professional musician for 30+ years, performing and recording with a wide range of ensembles and styles covering Jazz, Salsa, Orchestral, Rock and Pop. As an audio engineer, he has recorded and mixed multiple artists, including Dan Perkins, Lorenzo Trujillo, and Belinda Womack. He has composed and arranged a variety of works, including movie music with Derrick Boelter Productions and Max Wild Productions, and ensemble arrangements for Moments Notice Entertainment.

Dr. Mairead Case (she, her) is an Assistant Teaching Professor in the Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences Department at the Colorado School of Mines. She holds a B.A. in Liberal Studies and French from the University of Notre Dame, an M.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and a Ph.D. in English and Literary Arts from the University of Denver, where her research focused on writing pedagogies, poetry and narrative, tragedy, and the 13^th Amendment.

The author of the books Tiny and See You in the Morning (featherproof) and the chapbook TENDERNESS (Meekling), Dr. Case has bylines in publications including POETRY, JSTOR Daily, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and Best American Comics. Selected work includes exhibitions, readings, and panels at the Whitney Biennial (with Neighborhood Public Radio), MCA Chicago, AWP, the Museum of Pop Culture, and the Naropa Summer Writing Program; program co-direction for the Poetry Foundation and the Bronx Museum; and project editing for the Public Media Institute and Third Man Records.

Dr. Case has taught writing, rhetoric, poetry, and literature at the University of Denver, the University of Colorado-Boulder, Naropa University, Denver Public Schools, Chicago Public Libraries, the Poetry Foundation, and the Denver Women’s and Centennial Jails. She has been a Legal Observer for the National Lawyers’ Guild for over twenty years and serves as a coach for PEN America’s Incarcerated Writers’ Bureau.

Eliza Buhrer is an Associate Teaching Professor in the Department of Humanities, Arts & Social Sciences at Colorado School of Mines, and likes to tell her students that she probably has the strangest academic background of any Mines Professor: She has a B.A. in Religious Studies from Reed College and an interdisciplinary M.A. and Ph.D. in Medieval Studies from Cornell, with concentrations in history and philosophy. Before to coming to Mines, she was a history professor at Seton Hall University and Loyola University New Orleans, and her research and publications focused on the relationship between medicine, law, and disability in premodern Europe, and the early histories of mental disorder and intellectual disability. She has also published on poverty and charity in premodern Europe and is the editor of the Bloomsbury Cultural History of Poverty in the Middle Ages, which will be published as part of a six-volume series on the history of poverty from antiquity to the present.

Dr. Shannon Davies Mancus is a Teaching Professor and Associate Department Head in the Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences Department at the Colorado School of Mines. She holds a B.A. in musical theater from Wagner College, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in American Studies from George Washington University.

In her first career, Dr. Mancus has performed in benefit concerts on Broadway, sang jingles for Altoids, and house managed off-Broadway shows. While she was in graduate school, she brought together her burgeoning research interest in interactive narratives with her performance background by devising and performing theatre with Dog & Pony DC. She served as the touring director for their off-Broadway run of Beertown as well as their performance and workshop at the Lincoln Center Director’s Lab in 2014.

Her research brings together environmental communication and performance studies, and she also writes frequently about visual culture and the role of genre in media and politics. Her work has been published in The Cambridge History of Science Fiction and The Bloomsbury Handbook of 21st Century Theory, and in the journals Performing Ethos and Gothic Natures.

Nationally, she serves as the Digital Liaison for the Environment and Culture Caucus of the American Studies Association. At Mines, she is the coordinator of the Nature and Human Values program, and faculty advisor for Mines Little Theater, Ballroom Dance, and Circle K. Dr. Mancus was also a 2021-2022 DI&A fellow, and a co-recipient of a Faculty Senate Signature Experience Award that she and Dr. Joseph Horan have used to launch the Environmental Leadership Lab and Environmental Scholars Program. She was named outstanding faculty member for the 2020-2021 academic year for the HASS department.

Research in the Trewyn group includes “all things porous.” The highly interdisciplinary research activities have us discussing and investigating new materials for drug delivery and controlled release systems, challenging electrocatalysis systems with methane and CO2, heterogeneous catalysis for upcycling plastic wastes and pairing orthogonally active enzymes with nanoparticles or organometallic catalysts for multistep, cascade reactions. A collaborative appointment with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) also in Golden, CO, focuses on new sorbent and active materials for hydrogen and methane storage and carriers. We investigate novel synthetic routes to develop multifunctional organic and inorganic materials, expanding the repertoire of characterization techniques for porous materials, and exploring fundamental and applied studies for porous systems. Important environmental challenges like upcycling plastic and polymer wastes, capturing and mitigating perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and utilizing CO2 are included in the portfolio of research interests we address in the Trewyn lab. Further developing the functionality of the porous materials in 3D printing and additive manufacturing is a new research focus area for the group.

With over 35 years of experience in software and information technology industries, Mr. Culbreth has held executive P&L positions in global software companies and national/international professional service firms. In addition to successfully creating and running business units within large corporations, he has started up entrepreneurial businesses and organizations outside of the corporation.

Mr. Culbreth is a member of the Board of Directors for the Root Group, Inc., a technology reseller and consulting firm in Boulder, CO. Before that he led the Cloud professional services team for the Americas and the global service product management at VMware, Inc. ($6B software company) with responsibilities for service offerings of all of VMware’s products.

Key positions include Executive Director of International Professional Services at CSG Systems ($600M telecommunications software company), Chief Operating Officer at Coachcomm, LLC (a wireless broadband start-up), Vice President and General Manager at Information Industries, Inc. ($50M system integrator), Director of Operational Strategy at Forsythe Solutions ($1B technology reseller) and Director of Integration and Consulting Services at GE/Access Graphics ($1B technology distributor – now Avnet).

Since 2012, Mr. Culbreth has been a Lecturer at Colorado University, Leeds School of Business teaching the Business Minor Capstone class as well as the Operations and Information Management / Business Planning class for Leeds business school majors. He started teaching at Colorado School of Mines in the fall of 2018 for the Engineering and Technology Management graduate program.

He has also served as Board Chairman for 4 years at the National Pain Foundation, a non-profit organization that provided a peer-reviewed, educational website on chronic pain. Board Member 1999-2006.

Ben Gilbert is an applied microeconomist who studies the relationship between public policy, energy and natural resource markets. His research addresses problems in energy supply, energy efficiency, marine resources, regulation, firm and industrial organization, and the housing market.

Before becoming an economist, Gilbert was a news reporter covering emerging energy technology. Gilbert holds a PhD in Economics from the University of California, San Diego, and a BA in Economics and English from Whitman College. He was previously an assistant professor of Economics at the University of Wyoming and an affiliate of the University of Wyoming Building Energy Research Group.

Dr. Jared Carbone joined Mines in 2014 as an associate professor in EB. His research and teaching focus on environmental policy and its interactions with energy and natural resource use in the economy.

Carbone teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in environmental economics and graduate courses in computational methods and microeconomic theory as part of the Mineral and Energy Economics (MEE) degree programs. PhD students he has advised in recent years have gone on to careers as research analysts at the National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR), the US Environmental Protection Agency and national research institutes in Japan and South Korea.

Much of his research deals with the design of pollution regulation and the use of economy-wide (general equilibrium) analysis to understand its full economic impacts. He has made important contributions to our understanding of how global markets for energy and resource commodities are likely to respond to the unilateral efforts of individual nations to control greenhouse gas emissions (the main driver of anthropogenic climate change). He has also written about how the health and productivity impacts of air pollution affect the economy. More recently, he has turned to the study of how climate change and drought are likely to influence regional populations and economies across the United States.

Currently he is working with NLR to develop a new model for economy-wide analysis of energy policies. It will be used by researchers on the staff at NLR but also offered as open-source software that can be used by energy analysts anywhere in the world. It’s different from existing models because it can be easily linked to all of the detailed engineering models of energy systems that NLR maintains.

Professor Carbone is a member of a special panel of the Science Advisory Board at the US Environmental Protection Agency. It establishes best practices for using economy-wide simulation models to study the economic impacts of new environmental regulations, so it will likely have an important impact on the way modelers at the EPA (and elsewhere) use economy-wide models in this area of research and policymaking.

Carbone served as director of the MEE program for the past two years. He is a scientific advisor and advisory board member to various groups at NLR with the aim of fostering research collaboration and the integration of lab activities into student experiences at Mines.

Quantum computing and simulation; passive quantum error correction; superconducting circuits; theoretical quantum hardware engineering; quantum simulation and chaos; analog quantum optimization; noise tolerant quantum algorithms; bath engineering; fractional quantum Hall physics; localization and entanglement.

Zhexuan Gong obtained his bachelor’s degrees in both physics and computer science from Huazhong University of Science and Technology in China’s Hubei province, where he was born. He then went to University of Michigan, where he obtained his PhD there in 2013. After graduation, he spent three years working as a postdoctoral researcher at the Joint Quantum Institute between the University of Maryland and the National Institute of Standards and Technology before being promoted to a research scientist in 2016. He is an active researcher in the broad field of quantum information and is particularly interested in understanding new quantum materials using concepts and tools from quantum information. In his free time, he enjoys playing piano, listening to classical music, reading novels, swimming and traveling.

Patrice Genevet is a Professor of Physics at the Colorado School of Mines. He received his Ph.D. degree at the université Côte d’Azur, France in 2009 on localized spatial solitons in semiconductor lasers and amplifiers. He did five years as a research fellow (2009-2014) in the Capasso group (SEAS, Harvard University) in collaboration with Prof. M.O. Scully (Texas A&M University). In 2014, he obtained the position of senior research scientist at ASTAR, Singapore.

In 2015, He joined CNRS as ‘Chargé de Recherche’. He is the recipient of several awards, including the ERC Starting Grant 2015, the 2017 Aimé-Cotton Price from the French Physical Society, the 2019 ERC proof of Concept, and the 2021 Fabry-De Gramont Price from the French Optical Society.

Since 2018, he has been named annually among the Top 1% Highly Cited Researchers by Clarivate. P. Genevet research activities concern the development of optical metamaterials, passive and active metasurfaces, and their applications and integration in optoelectronic devices, including VCSEL array, LiDARs, and diffractive optical neural networks.

I have a broad range of theoretical interests covering many disciplines, using an even balance of analytical and numerical methods, and often work closely with experimentalists. Subjects I have worked on include entangled quantum dynamics, quantum phase transitions, and ultracold quantum gases; artificial lattice systems, from optical lattices to graphene to millimeter waves; solitons, vortices, chaos, fractals, and other nonlinear phenomena in nonlinear Schrodinger and nonlinear Dirac equations as realized in Bose-Einstein condensates, spin waves in ferromagnetic films, and optics; the quark-gluon plasma at CERN and RHIC; and a variety of topics in mathematical physics and the physics of complex systems. I am honored to mentor an intense, active, diverse research group averaging 15 persons and including undergraduates, MS and PhD graduate students, and post-docs.

Teaching physics combines two of my passions: physics and helping people learn. For as long as I can remember, I have been involved in a variety of teaching, mentoring, and outreach experiences. I enjoy the challenge of figuring out how to effectively help students connect their current knowledge to new ideas, as well as the excitement that comes from supporting others in discovering their own interests and appreciation for how the world works.

Here at Mines, I am particularly excited about introducing students to the field of physics and helping them engage in authentic physics practices as early as possible. I believe that every student is capable of learning physics, and I try to emphasize this to my students and TAs. I want students to see how knowledge and skills related to physics can be relevant to their lives or future careers.

My career trajectory has included research in a variety of areas ranging from quantum imaging to experimental atomic physics to physics education research. A large part of my work in physics education research has focused on student experiences with quantum experiments, investigating what unique benefits complex experiments may provide and what learning outcomes may be able to be attained in less resource-intensive ways. I have also worked on projects investigating a variety of other important learning outcomes including teamwork, modeling, and views about the connection between experiment and theory.

I am excited to investigate similar or other education research topics at Mines and to iteratively evaluate and improve the courses I teach. If you are a Mines undergraduate student interested in doing a physics education research project that may align with my interests for senior design or hourly work during the semester or summer, please come talk to me!

My research in both academic and industrial settings has focused on diverse topics such as DNA replication, cell cycle control, as well as the engineering of microbes for the production of 3-hydroxypropionic acid.

I currently teach the introductory course of studio biology (BIO 110), which is an active-learning environment that promotes independence and critical thinking while emphasizing experimental design, analysis and communication. My instruction focuses on helping students appreciate how biological knowledge can be applied to solve engineering problems in new and innovative ways.

My current interests include the continual development of studio biology and the development of an upper-division molecular biology class for chemical engineers. I am also working on the development of an International Genetically Engineered Machine (IGEM) team that focuses on developing machines using synthetic biology.

Dr. Silverman’s research program centers on understanding musculoskeletal biomechanics and movement coordination to develop effective training interventions, prevent injury, and improve mobility. As director of the Functional Biomechanics Laboratory, she uses experimental movement analysis and computational whole-body modeling techniques to evaluate muscle action, joint loading, and device function during movement. Prior to joining Colorado School of Mines in 2011, Dr. Silverman earned her B.S.E. from Arizona State University, and her M.S.E. and Ph.D. from The University of Texas at Austin, all in mechanical engineering. Recent projects in Dr. Silverman’s group have investigated military service members, people with lower-limb amputations, and older adults. Her work has been funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Defense and has been published in the Journal of Biomechanics, Journal of Biomechanical Engineering and Gait & Posture. She has served as an Associate Editor for Gait & Posture and is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

The “bottom-up” design of soft materials from self-assembled and/or self-organized molecular building blocks has broad applications in energy, sustainability, and healthcare. Thermodynamic and kinetic control over molecular structures, which can be hierarchical or dynamical in nature, presents new opportunities to explore emergent properties in these materials. Our vision is to rationally engineer materials through modification of macromolecular building blocks and environmental factors during preparation and operation. To do so, we interrogate the fundamental connections between microscopic interactions and macroscopic behavior under equilibrium and non-equilibrium conditions. Our strategy is to develop and apply multiscale and data-driven computational techniques – in particular, atomistic and coarse-grained simulations empowered by machine learning techniques – to study structure-dynamics-function relationships and to identify guiding principles for macromolecular materials tailored to specific applications. Current research interests include the design of reprogrammable protein-based bionanoreactors for carbon capture/conversion, nanobody therapeutics targeting protein lattice virulence factors, protein- and biopolymer-based hydrogels for drug delivery, plant-based materials for thermal management and energy harvesting, and soft porous crystals (such as metal-organic frameworks) for catalysis and separations.

Current molecular probes and sensor technologies present limitations in both the range of targets that can be measured and the ability to function in the complicated in vivo environment. My research program will help answer pressing biomedical questions by developing novel nanosensors that overcome these limitations and applying these new tools in situ. Traditional sensor designs, while being quite valuable for in vitro and laboratory analysis, often fail in vivo due to complications such as sensor invasiveness, sensitivity, selectivity, and limitations from the sensor readout mechanism. Polymeric nanosensors have emerged over the past several years as an excellent nanosensor design platform for continuous in vivo monitoring that overcomes the shortcomings of many traditional sensor designs.

Using nanosensors as a platform, my lab’s research is focused on three key projects to advance this field.

Dr. Ian Jehn is a Research Professor in the Space Resources Graduate Program at Colorado School of Mines. He is also a licensed Professional and Structural Engineer with 10 years of experience in terrestrial building design and structural materials testing in high-seismic areas. He holds degrees in both Civil Engineering and Space Resources, and his research integrates these disciplines to develop lunar surface construction technologies. This includes extensive structural and geotechnical analyses of lunar landing and launch pads, roadways, human habitats, and other related infrastructure. His work also examines ISRU of local materials for processing, manufacturing, and construction of mission assets to support future Artemis infrastructure.

He is also actively working on the Lunar Structural Loads section of the upcoming Lunar Infrastructure Engineering Design and Construction guidelines, to be published by the American Society of Civil Engineers.

Aubrey Wigner is a Teaching Assistant Professor in the Department of Engineering, Design, & Society. He specializes in hands-on project-based learning, entrepreneurship, and making. Before joining Mines, he was an Assistant Professor at Michigan State University in the Burgess Institute for Entrepreneurship & Innovation and the Department of Management where he taught design, digital prototyping, and new venture creation. His research is primarily concerned with best practices in project-based learning and the assessment of education outcomes.

Aubrey is an active maker, tinkerer, and cross disciplinary designer with a broad range of interests. At Mines he teaches Cornerstone, Capstone, design, and entrepreneurship. He challenges his students to engage with complexity and ambiguity while tackling real world problems.

Antonie (Tony) Vandenberge is a Professor of Practice in the Engineering, Design, and Society Department. Tony thrives on creative exploration in a project team setting. It is Tony's experience that the way we learn something is just as influential as the technical expertise acquired in preparing his students for responding to the demands of professional life. Tony teaches cornerstone and capstone design courses where Tony and his students get hands-on while paying close attention with each other to how the whole person is shaped – present instructor included.

Tony brings 30 years of industrial experience and 5 ½ years as a Mines Capstone Advisor. Prior to joining Mines, Tony led a team in meeting year on year commercial and schedule targets for the $250 Million logistics scope of KBR's international headquarters' portfolio of engineering construction projects. This included cultivating project execution teams, estimating, contract management, safety, project execution delivery, and trade compliance. The teams created and operated project supply chains for engineered equipment and bulk materials delivery to worldwide locations, often requiring site and marine infrastructure creation.

During his career, Tony spent 5 Years in engineering design program management for realizing champion's new ideas into accepted practices and created a world class discrete event simulation engineering team for KBR. Tony spent his first 5 years in manufacturing consulting following professors from Penn State and Purdue into a company startup, which released a commercially successful simulation product called "Arena".

Tony likes to spend time with his wife and kids and dogs goofing around and getting his hands dirty with car engine building and fire mitigation projects with his neighbors and being handy around the house.

Michael Sheppard, a Teaching Associate Professor in Engineering, Design and Society, centers his teaching on data-driven decision-making, concept validation, and human-centered design. He is passionate about helping students develop into thoughtful engineers who transform ideas into meaningful, impactful solutions.

Michael first discovered his love of teaching while serving as a Special Operations Combat Medic, delivering math and science courses while deployed in the Middle East, an experience that continues to shape his holistic, student-centered approach. Following his military service,

Michael moved toward a career in engineering, working in both design and quality. Later, seeking an avenue to more positively impact his community and future engineers within it, Michael completed his Ph.D. in Engineering Education Systems and Design, combining his industry experience with pedagogical theory. In 2019, his commitment to service, mentorship, and academic excellence was recognized through his induction as a Pat Tillman Foundation Scholar, a community dedicated to creating sustainable societal impact.

Dr. Mirna Mattjik is a Teaching Associate Professor in the Engineering, Design, and Society Department and the Director of the Grand Challenges Scholars Program. She primarily teaches first- and second-year engineering design and is also an affiliate faculty member in the University Honors and Scholars Program.

Mirna's academic background spans industrial technology, international political economy, project management, and leadership, with prior industry experiences in oil and gas and telecommunications. She holds a doctorate in educational equity in higher education.

As a teaching faculty, Mirna is committed to advancing student learning through high-impact practices and broadening participation in innovation. She is dedicated to creating equitable learning opportunities and designing environments that foster students' sense of belonging at Mines. In the classroom, she emphasizes intrinsic motivation by modeling authenticity in both teaching and learning.

Jack Bringardner is a Teaching Professor and Director of Education Innovation in the Engineering, Design, and Society Department. He teaches the first-year engineering Cornerstone Design course and Innov8x. His primary focus is developing curriculum, mentoring students, and engineering education research, particularly for project-based courses, the first-year engineering experience, and experiential learning for student professional skill development. He is the Colorado School of Mines KEEN Leader and member of the Entrepreneurial Mindset in the First Year (EMIFY) leadership team helping to promote entrepreneurial mindset in engineering education.

Cindy Athanasiou is a Teaching Assistant Professor in the EDS Department with over 24 years of teaching experience in many different science and engineering courses at the high school and undergraduate levels. She taught many physics and chemistry courses at all levels, developed a Forensic Science program, and taught PLTW courses in Engineering Design and Biomedical Sciences.

Prior to that, she was a Project Supervisor and Chemist for National Starch and Chemical Company creating custom hot-melt adhesives for the nonwovens industry. She has also worked as an Electron Microscopist, machinist, and lab technician. Currently, she teaches Cornerstone Design 1, Cornerstone Design 2, Capstone Senior Design, and the Cornerstone Design Lab classes.

Dr. Athanasiou is passionate about Engineering Design and passing on that passion of the engineering design process through a student-centered approach in an engaging classroom where everyone is respected for their own ideas and differences. She wants to prepare Mines students at all levels to engage with their clients and teammates in a productive and meaningful way.

Dr. Athanasiou is also the CCCS Outreach Lead connecting engineering students at the community college level with School of Mines at the Cornerstone Design 1 level.

Yosef Allam is a Teaching Professor in EDS who previously served the Engineering Fundamentals Department at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University as well as the First-Year Engineering Program at The Ohio State University. Dr. Allam received bachelor’s and master's degrees in Industrial and Systems Engineering and a Ph.D. in Engineering Education from The Ohio State University.

His interests include spatial visualization, diffusion of evidence-based teaching practices, student applications of the design process, and fulfilling the needs of an integrated, multi-disciplinary first-year engineering educational environment through active, project-based collaborative learning.

Chelsea Salinas is a Teaching Professor in Engineering, Design and Society with more than 10 years of experience teaching in the fields of design for people with disabilities, biomedical engineering, biodesign, material science, chemical engineering and first year engineering design.

Dr. Salinas earned a BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin and her MS and PhD in Chemical and Biological Engineering from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Prior to joining Mines, she served as a Lecturer in Bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania and as an Instructor in Biomedical Engineering at Duke University.

Dr. Salinas is interested in teaching design thinking strategies across the freshman and senior levels. She is passionate about design for people with disabilities, creating an engaging classroom, using active learning techniques and integrating user-centered design approaches to create a targeted and meaningful experience for her students.

Prachi received her Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, NY. Her Ph.D. research was focused on the fabrication and characterization of high responsivity metal-oxide nanomaterials-based photodetectors for smart lighting applications.

She was with Intel as a process engineer working on photolithography tools and as a hardware design engineer on the Graphics Processing Unit for three years. She has worked at CU Boulder as a lecturer and postdoctoral researcher on synthesis and characterization of perovskite and organic thin films for photovoltaic devices.

Before joining Mines, she was a Teaching Assistant Professor for three years in the department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Denver. She is passionate about teaching courses in electrical and computer engineering, particularly VLSI Design, Digital System Design, Embedded Systems, and Semiconductor Devices.

Dr. Sihua Shao joins Mines as an Assistant Professor with the Department of Electrical Engineering in August 2024. Prior to that, he was an Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering at New Mexico Tech. He obtained the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering and the Hashimoto Prize for best doctoral dissertation from New Jersey Institute of Technology in 2018. In 2023, he was honored to receive the NSF CRII Award, the NM EPSCoR Mentor Award, and was elevated to IEEE Senior Member.

His area of expertise is wireless communication and networking, mainly focusing on reconfigurable intelligent surfaces, integrated sensing and communication, optical wireless communication, backscatter communication, machine learning in communications and networking, and drone-assisted wireless networks. He has a patent in visible light communication and positioning.

His research, supported by the NSF, NIOSH, and NM EPSCoR, spans various applications including drone-based environmental monitoring, wireless infrastructure via drones, intelligent mine rescue operations, large-scale indoor robot navigation, microgrid security, warehouse automation, and smart healthcare systems.

In 2016, he joined Mines as a Post-Doctoral fellow when he pursued a research in the area of Computer Vision. Before joining mines, he worked as an IT Engineer for 5 years.

Dr. Qiuhua Huang is an Associate Professor in Electrical Engineer Department and leads the Power, Intelligence and Computing Lab. Before joining Mines, he was a Principal Power System Engineer at Utilidata Inc. Prior to that, he was a Staff Power System Research Engineer at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, WA. USA. He received his Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from Arizona State University in 2016.

He is the recipient of the 2019 IEEE Power and Energy Society (PES) Prize Paper Award, 2018 R&D 100 Award and a few best conference paper awards in IEEE PES General Meeting. He actively serves the professional communities, as co-chair/secretory of IEEE PES Working Group on Modeling and Analysis of System Transients using Digital Programs, and University Members Coordinator in CIGRE US National Council.

In addition, He serves as an Associate Editor of Applied Computational Electromagnetics Society Journal (ACES). served as an Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Power Systems and an Editor of CSEE JPES.

His research interests include power system modeling, simulation and control, fusion and application of AI/machine learning and advanced computing technologies for digitizing and transforming power and energy systems.

My name is Mike Rudolph and I have been a high school teacher for over 24 years if you count a year teaching in Costa Rica and a six month stint in Antarctica. Along with teaching a random assortment of STEM electives, I teach AP Physics C – Mechanics and Electricity & Magnetism, AP Computer Science A and AP Computer Science Principles. In 2023, I was a Colorado Semi-finalist for the Presidential Award for Excellence in Math and Science Teaching. I love working with a variety of students who bring unique and interesting challenges and perspectives to class each day.

Hello – I’m Chuck Powell. I recently retired from teaching high school, where I was a science, computer science, and STEM teacher for many years. I have taught subjects and levels ranging from introductory Physical Science to AP Physics and AP Computer Science. My bachelors’ degree is in physics, but I’ve learned computer science along the way.

Welcome, students! I’m excited to join you as your math professor. With a decade of experience teaching math from 7th grade to Calculus 3 across China, Korea, and the USA, I bring a diverse perspective to the classroom. I earned my MA in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Denver and my BS in Math and Economics from the University of Texas at Tyler. Since 2020, I’ve been scoring the AP Statistics Exam, and I’m proud to have founded the statistics program at Saint Johnsbury Academy in Jeju, Korea. As a Gifted Education Specialist and a certified CDE Depth and Complexity trainer, I’m passionate about supporting all learners in reaching their full potential. Additionally, I hold a TESOL certification, allowing me to effectively teach English to speakers of other languages. I’m looking forward to a fantastic time of learning and growth with all of you!

Rich Levine received his Juris Doctor from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law and earned dual bachelor’s degrees from the University of California, Santa Barbara (Sociology; Law and Society). He has taught at Colorado School of Mines for more than 20 years, focusing on legal and political philosophy, jurisprudence, constitutional law, and intellectual property.

Professor Levine’s academic and professional work spans Europe, South America, Israel, Washington, DC, and more than fifteen U.S. states. In addition to his teaching, he maintains an active law practice in Evergreen, Colorado, with experience in trial litigation and admission to state and federal courts (California, Colorado, and the United States Supreme Court). His professional background includes extensive work in the sports and entertainment industries.

Professor Levine has a longstanding commitment to public service, philanthropy, and nonprofit leadership, including organizations supporting the arts, community service initiatives, and the special needs community. Outside the classroom, he enjoys time with his family in Evergreen and works on community-based initiatives in Puerto Rico focused on women’s health and early childhood education, in partnership with colleagues and communities in Colorado.

Dr. Orloff is currently the project leader of the Microwave Materials Project in the Communications Technology Laboratory at NIST in Boulder, CO. His objective is to better materials for telecommunications.

Dr. Hay has 40 years experience with ceramics processing and characterization. Much of this has been done with high temperature and ultra-high temperature ceramics related to materials of interest for the US Air Force. Dr. Hay has extensive expertise in electron microscopy of oxides and carbides, both materials of interest to faculty at Mines. He has a background in geology and mineralogy which is ideal for performing structural and chemical analysis of high temperature ceramics.

Matt Enloe is the Manager of Product Development and Quality at Steel Dynamics – Sinton. Matt’s expertise centers on physical and mechanical metallurgy of advanced ferrous systems and alloy design for product/process optimization. He holds both a BS and MS in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and a PhD in Metallurgical Engineering from the Colorado School of Mines. He is also a licensed professional engineer in the State of Michigan.

Dr. Creuziger grew up in Central Wisconsin, and graduated with a bachelor of aerospace engineering and mechanics (BAEM) degree from the University of Minnesota in 2002. He then attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison, gaining M. S. (2005) and Ph.D. (2008) degrees in Engineering Mechanics. Dr. Creuziger was awarded a National Research Council (NRC) Research Associate Fellowship to work at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Gaithersburg MD starting in 2008. He has been a staff member at NIST since 2012, and was recently honored with a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE).

Dr. Kester Clarke is a joint appointee in the Metallurgical and Materials Engineering Department and is associated with the Center for Advanced Non-Ferrous Structural Alloys and the Advanced Steel Processing and Products Research Center. His research interests include alloy development, material deformation and fabrication processes, and the use of experimental and modeling methods to examine the effect of material processing history and microstructure on mechanical properties and performance.

Amy J. Clarke is a joint appointee in the George S. Ansell Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, and is associated with the Center for Advanced Non-Ferrous Structural Alloys, and a faculty member with the Advanced Steel Processing and Products Research Center at the Colorado School of Mines (Mines).

Her research focuses on physical metallurgy and making, measuring, and modeling metallic alloys during processing to realize advanced manufacturing. She also performs multiscale materials characterization with electrons, x-rays, neutrons, and protons, such as real-time imaging of metallic alloy solidification dynamics during simulated additive manufacturing and ultrafast diffraction during deformation.

Amy earned her B.S. degree from Michigan Technological University (MTU) and her M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Mines in Metallurgical and Materials Engineering. Prior to joining Mines, she was a Scientist and Seaborg Institute Postdoctoral Fellow at LANL and Senior Engineer – Development/Research at Caterpillar Inc. Amy has received a U.S. DOE Office of Science Early Career Research Program Award, an Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Program Award, and a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (nominated by the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Defense Programs), the highest honor bestowed by the United States government on science and engineering professionals during the early stages of their careers.

Amy has served on The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society (TMS) Board of Directors and Association for Iron & Steel Technology Board of Directors, as Chair of the Advanced Photon Source Users Organization at Argonne National Laboratory, serves on the MTU College of Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering External Advisory Boards, is an Editor for Metallurgical and Materials Transactions A, and was named a 2018 Fellow of ASM International and a 2020 TMS Brimacombe Medalist.

Before joining Colorado School of Mines Electrical Engineering Department, Dr. Arkadan was a Professor at and President of Rafik Hariri University, Lebanon. Prior to that, he joined Marquette University in Milwaukee WI as an Assistant Professor and was promoted to the ranks of Associate and Full Professor.

Dr. Arkadan is the author of over 120 technical papers. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) “For contributions to computer aided characterization and design optimization of electric machines and drive systems.” He is also a Fellow of the Applied Computational Electromagnetics Society (ACES).

Dr. Arkadan chaired several national and international conferences, including the First IEEE-IEMDC, IEEE-CEFC, IEEE GreenTech (GT), and the Applied Computational Electromagnetics Society (ACES) Conference, among others. He served on several editorial boards and as the Editor-in-Chief for June 2017 Special Issue of IEEE Transactions on Magnetics. Dr. Arkadan is a member of IEEE-CEFC International Steering Committee and its Past Chair, ACES Society Past President, and ACES Journal Associate Editor.

Atef Z. Elsherbeni started his engineering career as a part-time Software and System Design Engineer from March 1980 to December 1982 at the Automated Data System Center, Cairo, Egypt. From January to August 1987, he was a Post Doctoral Fellow at Manitoba University. He joined the faculty at the University of Mississippi in August 1987 as an Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering. He advanced to the rank of Associate Professor in July 1991 and the rank of Professor in July 1997.

He was the director of The School of Engineering CAD Lab from August 2002 to August 2013, and the director of the Center for Applied Electromagnetic Systems Research (CAESR) from July 2011 to August 2013. He was appointed as Associate Dean of Engineering for Research and Graduate Programs from July 2009 to July 2013 at the University of Mississippi.

Dr. Elsherbeni became the Dobelman Distinguished Chair and Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Colorado School of Mines in August 2013. He was appointed as Adjunct Professor, at The Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science of the L.C. Smith College of Engineering and Computer Science at Syracuse University in January 2004.

He spent a sabbatical term in 1996 at the Electrical Engineering Department, the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) and was a visiting Professor at Magdeburg University during the summer of 2005 and at the Tampere University of Technology in Finland during the summer of 2007. In 2009, he was selected as Finland Distinguished Professor by the Academy of Finland and TEKES.

Dr. Elsherbeni is a Fellow member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and a fellow member of The Applied Computational Electromagnetic Society (ACES). He is the Editor-in-Chief for ACES Journal and a past Associate Editor to the Radio Science Journal.

Chris enjoys developing with embedded systems, from the PCBs to firmware to run them. Applications range from real-time asset tracking (people and a campus bus) to the utilization of LEDs as input devices. A long-standing project is investigating how to utilize commercial LEDs matrices as interactive touch displays.

Josue Campos do Prado received the bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Santa Catarina State University in Brazil in 2012 and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2020. From 2018 to 2020, he conducted research on power system flexibility and resilience at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, CO.

Before joining Mines, he was an Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering for four years at Washington State University Vancouver. Josue is passionate about teaching power engineering courses and mentoring students to engineering success.

Professor C. Estelle Smith is a scholar of Computer Science in the discipline of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Social Computing, publishing regularly at top tier ACM venues such as CHI, CSCW, and TOCHI. Her interdisciplinary research lies at the intersection of computing, health, and community science, and has introduced the framework of Computational Spiritual Support as a design lens for serving users’ deepest needs during life-threatening health crises, including physical and mental illness. (See “Sacred Be Thy Tech” a recent position paper describing this concept.)

Professor Smith employs a Whole-Human Centered Design approach using qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods to evaluate stakeholders’ values, needs, and behaviors. Working in collaboration with industry and non-profit partners such as CaringBridge, Reddit, and the Wikimedia Foundation, her work aims to study, design, and evaluate sociotechnical systems and online communities used by millions of people every day. View Professor Smith’s Google Scholar profile or CV for a complete list of publications. Apart from work, Professor Smith is an avid outdoor enthusiast who loves rock climbing, yoga, biking, skiing, and hiking with her wonderful Siberian husky, Zosima.

Phil joined the Math and Computer Science department at the Colorado School of Mines in 1999 as an adjunct faculty member teaching operating systems, programing and discrete mathematics. In the spring of 2001, he joined the staff of the Computing Center (now Information Technology and Services). Over the last 19 years, he held various positions including Manager of Networking & Telecommunications, Director of Infrastructure, and interim CIO. During this time he remained connected to the Computer Science department continuing to teach at least one course per year.

Dr. Romig is currently the institution’s Chief Information Security Officer. This fall he formally joins the academic faculty as a Associate Teaching Professor in Computer Science.

Alexandra Chakarov is a Teaching Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the Colorado School of Mines. Her work centers on enhancing computing education through developing personally relevant curricula that foster coherent knowledge building.

Aysu Betin-Can is a Teaching Associate Professor of Computer Science at the Colorado School of Mines. Aysu's research has focused on automated software testing and verification. Her work has aimed to enhance the reliability of software across various domains such as smart contracts, web applications, and game software by adapting and developing new techniques in collaboration with experts.

Accomplished financial and economics executive with a history of success leading multiple corporate, academic functions and cross functional teams while maintaining an acute focus on achieving business results. Proficient in the development of high-performance departments and analytic models and processes.

My group investigates the dynamics of soft matter and complex fluids, which are critical to understand for many applications involving energy and the environment. For example, there are challenges associated with pumping, pouring, and mixing lignocellulosic biomass in processes designed to produce renewable fuels, chemicals, and composites. In addition to bulk rheological concerns, the dynamics of molecularly thin layers of material at a fluid interface, or interfacial rheology, impacts gas and oil recovery and generally governs the stability of foams, emulsions, and biological membranes.

Currently I am interested in the rheology of interfacial systems, where the interface between two fluids can be used as a construction site for advanced materials such as conductive thin films, and 2D polymer membranes. Interfacial rheology also plays an important role in energy recovery systems, and our investigations of the fundamentals underlying the dynamics of fluid-fluid interfaces helps to address real industrial challenges. Whether it is a bulk fluid, or a fluid interface, the group focuses on linking microstructure and material behavior; links that enable us to design new experimental methods for the laboratory, formulate novel advanced materials, and propose new strategies for solving important industrial problems.

My research interests are focused on the synthesis and characterization of solar and electronic materials. A significant part of our focus is on plasma-assisted materials processing to achieve atomic scale control over growth and removal of materials to enable the fabrication of next-generation devices. Future electronic devices or solar cells will consist of few-atom-thick sequential layers of metals, dielectrics, and semiconductors that can be as thin as 1.5–2.0 nm. In addition, in semiconductor devices, these layers will be grown or removed selectively using atomic layer deposition or etching to fabricate nanoscale device structures. Achieving this degree of atomic scale control in materials processing necessitates novel surface chemistries and techniques for measuring the chemical composition, microstructure, and the electrical and transport properties. Our research takes a fundamental approach where we use advanced characterization tools to understand interfacial phenomena, and surface and bulk defects in solar and electronic materials. Our group actively collaborates with the semiconductor industry and the National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR).

Hao Zhang is an Associate Professor in Computer Science at Colorado School of Mines. He received the Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from the University of Tennessee in 2014, the M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2009, and the B.S. degree from the University of Science and Technology of China in 2006. His research interests include Human-centered robotics, visual perception, robot learning, human-robot interaction, human-robot teaming, and field robotics.

Dr. McClurg is an Assistant Professor at Colorado State University. He received his Ph.D. from the CUPLV group at CU Boulder in 2018. He is currently working on research in synthesis and verification of software-defined network (SDN) programs, but has broad interest in programming languages, formal methods, and networking. His overall goal is to develop tools and techniques to help programmers write better code. His work has appeared in top conferences such as PLDI and CAV, and he received an Outstanding Research Award (2017) and an Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award (2013) from the CU Boulder CS Department. He is also the recipient of an NSF CRII award. In his free time, Dr. McClurg enjoys hiking, rock climbing, and unicycling.

Dr. Chuan Yue has a B.E. in Computer Science and M.E. in Computer Science from the Xidian University, Xi’an, Shaanxi, China , and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia, USA . His current research focuses on (1) Web, Mobile, Cloud, Cyber-Physical, IoT and AI systems security, (2) usable security and privacy, (3) vulnerability measurement and analysis, and (4) cybersecurity education.

Rob is a new teaching Associate professor, having recently completed his doctorate and a year of teaching at the University of Washington. At Mines he will be focusing on welcoming students in the 101 class and developing the department’s new Human-Computer Interaction class.

During his time at UW he studied educational reading and writing software for learning-disabled children, accessible programming environments for dyslexics, collaborative problem solving systems, and even a little neutrino physics.

He has also worked in industry at Zillow. His hobbies include cooking, hiking, video games, anime and generally being a big nerd.

Dr. Paone received the B.S. degree in Computer Science from the University of Notre Dame in 2007, M.Eng. degree in Computer Science from the University of Colorado in 2010, and returned to the University of Notre Dame to complete his Ph.D. in Computer Science in 2013.

He spent several years in industry developing software for state municipalities. Most recently, he has completed a post-doctoral appointment at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Dr. Paone’s research involved computer vision with a focus on face and iris detection and recognition. In addition, his interests include computer graphics, augmented reality, and Android development.

Christopher Painter-Wakefield received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Duke University in May 2013. He also has a B.S. in Physics from Wake Forest University (1990). His work experience includes 11 years as a computer programmer. In August of 2013, he joined the Colorado School of Mines as a Teaching Associate Professor in Computer Science. Christopher lives in Arvada with his wife, kids, and cats. His hobbies include cooking, gardening, and reading (especially science fiction).

Guannan Liu is a newly appointed assistant professor at CS@Mines. He received his Ph.D. degree in Computer Engineering from Virginia Tech in 2023, and his BS degree from Purdue University in 2016. His research interests include System and Network Security, Human-Factor Security, and User Authentication. Leveraging systematic and comprehensive measurement techniques, he has investigated various online services to uncover vulnerabilities led by resource mismanagement.

The discovered vulnerabilities have been disclosed to large tech companies, and the research results have been published in top-tier security venues.

Christine Liebe, holds a Ph.D. in Education (Curriculum, Instruction, Assessment) and is a Professor of Practice with a joint appointment in the Computer Science (CS) department and with Teach@Mines in the Honors College at Colorado School of Mines. She teaches introductory programming and pre-service CS teacher education courses.

Her research interests include K-12 computer science teacher education, abstraction, computational thinking, critical thinking, and learning through research. She provides CS curriculum and evaluation support to K-12 educators and school districts. Christine has founded two vocational schools offering professional massage therapy certification and vocational teaching certification. An online educator since 2010, she has developed and delivered online courses and curriculum (e.g., education, literacy, computer science, biological sciences) for undergraduate and vocational students, as well as faculty and K-12 teachers.

Applying herself to pursuits that promote healing, creativity, self-expression, and financial self-sufficiency, Christine has made it her mission to support teacher educators and promote computer science education, creativity, connectedness, and sustainable communities.

Kathleen earned a B.S. degree in Mathematics from Loyola University in New Orleans and a M.S. degree in Computer Science from the University of Central Florida in Orlando. She has been a professional software engineer for the past 24 years while also serving as an adjunct professor at various colleges including UCF an Seminole Community College in Orlando, Mesa College in San Diego, and Arapahoe Community College in Littleton. Her industry experience includes game programming PlayStation I games (n-Space, Inc.), music software development (MusicMatch, later acquired by Yahoo!), and network security software (ProtectWise, later acquired by Verizon).

Keith Hellman graduated from the University of Chicago with a B.Sc. in Mathematics in 1990 with a specialization in statistics. He began programming in clinical labs for the University of Chicago Hospitals, and for the next decade wrote research oriented analysis software, clinical databases, back-end databases for electronic publishing, and completed statistical analysis for journal papers. He went on to develop software and testing protocols for several different medical devices as well as in-home automation systems. Keith entered the Colorado School of Mines in 2004 and completed a M.Sc. in Computer Science with the thesis "Learning to Live: A Wireless Sensor Network Protocol Using Reinforcement Learning."

Keith was an Associate Teaching Professor at the Colorado School of Mines for seven years teaching courses at all levels of the undergraduate CS curriculum. He is now a Teaching Associate Professor at Mines, teaching upper level courses in computer simulation and compilers.

Keith is an experienced Unix systems programmer and an open source software advocate. He resides in Lakewood, Colorado with his wife, two daughters, and too many computers to count.

Kelsey Fulton is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the Colorado School of Mines. Their research applies a human-centric approach to secure software development with an emphasis on mental models and processes of software developers and the usability and improvement of secure development tools. As a result of their work, the aim to provide empirically based recommendations for policy, education, programming language, and tool changes.

Their work has been published in top security conferences and recognized with a best paper award at the USENIX Security Symposium. They received their PhD in computer science in 2023 and their master’s degree in computer science in 2019 from University of Maryland. They received their bachelor’s degree in computer science and mathematics from Millersville University in 2017.

Dong Chen is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at the Colorado School of Mines. Dr. Chen's research aims to build data-driven experimental computer systems at different scales to explore and advance the cross-cutting fields including Embedded AI, Embodied AI, Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS), and the Internet of Things (IoT).

Recently, Dr. Chen has conducted pioneering research in many areas, including user/system security and privacy, system sustainability, and system efficiency in the applications of smart/edge devices, smart homes, smart buildings, smart urban and connected communities, and smart cities.

Mehmet E. Belviranli received his Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from University of California, Riverside in 2016. Prior to joining Mines, he continued his research and mentoring activities at Oak Ridge National Laboratory as Staff Computer Scientist. Mehmet's main research interests are targeted at increasing resource utilization in heterogeneous architectures. He developed runtime systems, scheduling algorithms, analytical models, extended memory spaces, programming abstractions and OS & architecture level support to make heterogeneous computing more efficient.

His work has been published in major HPC and architecture related conferences including MICRO, PPoPP, SC, ICS, PACT and DATE.

Since January 2022, Iris Bahar is the Department Head and Professor at the Colorado School of Mines. Her research interests lie broadly in areas of computer system design and design automation. A main theme of her research over the years has been energy-efficient and reliable computing, from robots, to high-end processors, embedded systems, and emerging technologies.

Between her M.S. and Ph.D studies, she worked for 5 years at Digital Equipment Corporation, mainly on their VAX microprocessor designs. Prior to joining CS@Mines as Department Head, she was faculty at Brown University for 26 years with a joint appointment in the School of Engineering and Department of Computer Science.

Her research has been continuously funded since 1997 through various industrial and government sources, including the NSF (including a career award), DARPA, DoD, the Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC), Intel, IBM, Facebook, and NASA. She is the 2019 recipient of the Marie R. Pistilli Women in Engineering Achievement Award and the Brown University School of Engineering Award for Excellence in Teaching in Engineering. She is an IEEE Fellow an ACM Distinguished Scientist.

Dr. Yunyang Ye is an assistant professor in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at Colorado School of Mines. He was an assistant professor at the University of Alabama and a scientist at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Dr. Ye received his bachelor's and master's degrees from Tongji University, Shanghai, China, and his Ph.D. from the University of Colorado Boulder.

His research focuses on sustainable and resilient buildings, sustainable and smart cities, and grid-interactive efficient buildings. Dr. Ye's research spans from the system level to the urban scale, using system modeling methods that hybridize physics-based and cutting-edge artificial intelligence approaches. His spatial-temporal research is interdisciplinary and involves occupant behaviors (social), power systems, transportation (engineering), and climate disasters (science), which provide nature to conduct broad collaborations.

He has led multiple projects and tasks sponsored by U.S. DOE, NSF, and ASHRAE, and published over 50 peer-reviewed articles. He is a Youth Editor for Building Simulation: An International Journal. He has also served as a guest editor for six special issues, a member of the scientific committee to organize three international conferences, and vice chair of ASHRAE Technical Committee 7.4.

Dr. Ye has received multiple awards, including the ASHRAE New Investigator Award, IBPSA-USA Emerging Contributor Award, and the ASHRAE Homer Addams Award.

My expertise lays in planning, design, construction, project/program management, and asset management for heavy civil infrastructure. Some of my most rememorable projects that I have worked on are renovating Denver’s City Park, creating New Taxiway EE at Denver International Airport, developing RTD’s West Line and updating Denver’s Justice Center.

Dr. Syd Slouka is a Teaching Assistant Professor in the Civil & Environmental Engineering department at the Colorado School of Mines. Her research focused on the characteristics and comparison of respirable rock dust generated from mechanical excavations with conical picks.

Formerly, Dr. Slouka was a mine ventilation engineer at a small-scale Colorado gold/silver mine and a geotechnical consultant with WSP. She is an Engineering Learning Fellow with the Trefny Center. Dr. Slouka works to improve classroom experiences and study how pedagogical changes can enhance learning.

Cara Phillips received her bachelor's degree from Colorado School of Mines and her master's degree from The University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign. She worked as a Structural Engineer for 13 years, getting her P.E.License in 2005. Professor Phillips was a Design Engineer and Project Manager for various building types, sizes and materials across the United States. She worked on many buildings at Colorado School of Mines including, The Student Recreation Center, Maple Hall and Brown Hall.

Professor Phillips has a passion for teaching and learning and has spent the past 8 years teaching Engineering and Math at the secondary and post-secondary levels. She is excited to return to her Alma matter and to teach Advanced Structural Design classes.

Dr. Shiling Pei received his Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from Colorado State University in December 2007 and joined the faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Colorado School of Mines in Fall 2013. Before that, he worked as an Assistant Professor at South Dakota State University from 2010 to 2013. Dr. Pei's research focused on traditional and innovative timber systems, multi-hazard mitigation through performance based engineering, numerical modeling of structural dynamic behavior, and large-scale dynamic testing.

He received the 2012 ASCE Raymond C. Reese Research Prize for his work on seismic performance of mid-rise wood frame building. Dr. Pei is the author of the Seismic Analysis Package for Woodframe Structures (SAPWood) as part of the NSF (NEESR) funded NEESWood project. He also served as one of the lead researchers in shake table testing of a full-scale 7-story wood-steel hybrid building at Japan's E-defense shake table. Dr. Pei is an expert on wood building performance in post-hazard reconnaissance studies, including the 2011 Tuscaloosa and Joplin tornados and 2018 Hurricane Irma. He is currently leading an NSF funded six-university collaborative research project to introduce resilient tall cross laminated timber (CLT) buildings to the U.S., aiming at testing a 10-story full-scale wood building at NHERI@UCSD shake table.

Dr. Pei currently serves as the Chair of the ASCE Wood Technical Administrative Committee overseeing four wood engineering related committees. He also serves as Associate Editor for ASCE Journal of Structural Engineering and ASCE Journal of Architectural Engineering. He is a registered Professional Engineer (Civil) in the State of California.

Dr. Hongyan Liu joined the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering as an Associate Teaching Professor in Spring 2015 and was promoted to Full Teaching Professor in 2025. Prior to this appointment, she taught at University of Minnesota Duluth as the McKnight Visiting Assistant Professor.

Dr. Liu's teaching interests are focused on engineering mechanics, structural analysis and design, and engineering materials. Her research background was mainly in structural engineering and earthquake engineering.

Dr. Liu currently serves as the Vice Chair of the ASCE SEI Chapter Engagement Committee, and ASCE SEI Colorado Section Secretary. She is passionate about student and industry engagement and founded the first Graduate Student Chapter of SEI in Colorado. She also actively promotes K-12 outreach in STEM education through her volunteer math tutoring program PlusMath for local kids.

Professor Jeffrey A. Holley teaches courses in engineering mechanics, environmental studies and civil infrastructure design. He also teaches on storm water management and storm water quality enhancement.

Innovative approaches to educate Colorado School of Mines students about civil engineering applications in geotechnical and structural engineering, land development, construction practices, risk assessment, and optimizatio

Dr. Christopher Bellona’s teaching and research interests primarily revolve around technologies for water and wastewater treatment, water reuse, and remediation. Particularly, he strives to use fundamental concepts to understand the behavior of large treatment systems. A large percentage of Dr. Bellona’s research has been focused on potable wastewater reuse and the removal of organic contaminants from water and wastewater using advanced treatment processes. Past research projects include modeling the removal of contaminants by high-pressure membrane systems, evaluating nanofiltration as a replacement for reverse osmosis in potable reuse systems, and elucidating the cause and effects of fouling in membrane systems.

He has been involved in the fabrication and evaluation of various membrane systems including ceramic and polymeric microfiltration, nanofiltration, and reverse osmosis membranes. Current research interests include advanced oxidation processes, anaerobic membrane bioreactor systems for the treatment of mixed wastes and the recovery of valuable constituents from various waste streams.

Dr. Bellona’s teaching interests mirror his research activities and courses taught include aquatic chemistry, chemodynamics, hazardous waste management, physico-chemical treatment processes, and senior design. Due to his strong interest in process engineering, his overarching goal is to provide students with the knowledge required to effectively design and operate treatment systems.

Dr. D. Vaughan Griffiths is a Professionally Licensed Engineer in the state of Colorado and a Distinguished Member of the American Society of Civil Engineers. His research focuses on finite element modeling and risk assessment in civil and geotechnical engineering; e.g. slope stability, foundations and seepage analysis.

Dr. Griffiths is the author of over 400 papers and 3 textbooks that have gone into multiple and foreign language editions. He is one of the world’s most highly cited geotechnical engineering researchers. Dr. Griffiths teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on Advanced Soil Mechanics, Risk Assessment in Geotechnical Engineering, Finite Element Methods and Numerical Methods for Engineers.

The Holz research group interfaces the general areas of bioinorganic chemistry, mechanistic enzymology, and biophysical chemistry. The Holz group is interested in structure/function studies of metalloenzymes some of which are important industrial catalysts or antimicrobial targets. Within these studies, students in the Holz group utilize a wide variety of biochemical and biophysical methods such as enzyme kinetics, site-directed mutagenesis, isothermal titration calorimetry, UV-Vis, NMR and EPR spectroscopies.

Current projects in the Holz group center on an NSF sponsored project to study the catalytic mechanism of nitrile hydratases (NHases) as well as a second project that examines the catalytic mechanism of the zinc dependent chlorothalonil hydrolytic dehalogenase from pseudomonas sp. CTN-3 (Chd).

I have spent the last ten years pursuing biology from quantitative perspectives. First as a Mathematical and Computational Biology major at Harvey Mudd College and then as a PhD student in the biophysics group of Rob Phillips at Caltech, I have learned and applied many ways in which quantitative approaches can be brought to bear on biological problems. During my time in graduate school, I took advantage of many opportunities to teach physical biology both on and off campus, nurturing my passion for teaching and mentoring. My teaching has taken me to many far-flung locations including the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts and the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology in South Korea. With this background in teaching quantitative, mathematical, and computational biology to many different audiences, I look forward to settling down at Mines and instilling in students an appreciation of biology far beyond that of just memorization, but as a discipline that can be approached critically and rigorously.

Our research focuses on the device physics of nano- and micro-structured materials for energy applications, understanding interfacial roles and morphology in thin-film devices, lightweight/flexible packaging solutions, water vapor transmission measurement, and reliability mechanisms that can be addressed with a material and/or cell level understanding with a distinct focus on thin-film photovoltaics relevant systems. Material systems we study include cadmium telluride and metal halide perovskites. We synthesize these materials using a variety of vacuum and solution-based processing including sputtering, evaporation, close-space sublimation, vapor transport deposition, spin casting, and blade coating. To aid these efforts we often develop new measurement tools and methods.

Ishan Rao works with KPMG as Manager for Energy Solutions, based in Houston, TX. At this current position, he evaluates, recommends, and implements technology and operational improvement strategies for asset integrity, reliability, and production optimization in the energy space. He has over 10 years of combined leadership, management, operational excellence, and technology deployment. He was formerly with Shell Exploration and Production Company as Flow Assurance Engineer for all of Shell’s Gulf of Mexico assets, providing primary support to greenfield/brownfield projects, SPAIR, technology development and interventions, and mitigating short term threats. Ishan was born in India, obtained his B.S. degree from the Institute of Chemical Technology (Mumbai) and then his Ph.D. from Colorado School of Mines (multiphase flow/hydrates), both in Chemical Engineering.

Dr. Phaneendra Kondapi is an affiliate faculty at Colorado School of Mines in the Center for Hydrate Research and the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering and Founder and CEO of DigiTide.ai. In his previous roles, he served as the Founding Director and Interim Assistant Dean of Engineering Programs at University of Houston and as an Instructional Professor and Director of Subsea Engineering. He also served as the Director of Subsea Engineering and Professor of Practice at Texas A&M University. Previously, he worked in the industry for over 20 years including at FMC Technologies, KBR and Wood. He is a founding member and past Program Committee Chair of AIChE-UEFA Forum, founding member and past Chair of the SPE International Flow Assurance Technical Section and also served as the Chair for SPE International Forum on Flow Assurance – The Future State of the Art.

Phaneendra is a Distinguished Member of SPE International, recipient of Innovative Teaching Fellow Award and Projects Facilities & Construction Technical Award from SPE International, Engineer of Distinction Award from College of Engineering, Tennessee Technological University, Outstanding Alumnus Award from College of Engineering, Andhra University, Projects Facilities & Construction Technical Award and Distinguished Petroleum Engineering Faculty Award from SPE Gulf Coast North America. Phaneendra received his Ph.D. from Tennessee Technological University and B.S. and M.S. from Andhra University, all in Chemical Engineering.

Dr. Carrie Farberow is a Principal Investigator and Group Research Manager of the Catalyst Design and Synthesis team in the Catalytic Carbon Transformation & Scale-up Center at the National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR) and an Affiliate Faculty member in the Colorado School of Mines Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering.

Carrie’s research aims to design processes and catalysts to produce fuels and chemicals from biomass and waste resources. Toward this goal, her specific expertise is in experimental reaction kinetics, materials characterization, quantum chemical calculations, and kinetic and microkinetic modeling.

Since 2019, Carrie has served as Principal Investigator for the NLR Atomic-scale Modeling project within the multi-lab DOE Bioenergy Technology Office (BETO)-funded Consortium for Computational Physics and Chemistry (CCPC). In this role, she leads and contributes to several research projects integrating experimental studies with computational modeling through the use of high-performance computing systems. Reaction applications for this work have included hydrodeoxygenation for vapor-phase upgrading in ex situ catalytic fast pyrolysis, coprocessing of biomass with petroleum-derived oils, and dimethyl ether homologation for the production of high-octane gasoline, among others.

An additional focus of her research and area of continued interest is the development of foundational structure-function relationships for next-generation, multi-functional catalyst materials (e.g., metal-modified zeolites, metal carbides). Carrie also serves as Co-Investigator for development of the Catalyst Property Database within the ChemCatBio DataHub, a centralized and publicly accessible data resource aimed at enabling broader application of predictive capabilities in catalyst research and development.

Carrie has a BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Oklahoma and worked as a Process Engineer at Chevron Phillips Chemical Company prior to completing her doctorate in Chemical Engineering at the University of Wisconsin – Madison.

Dr. Zachary Aman is a Professor of Chemical Engineering and Chevron Woodside Chair in Long Subsea Tiebacks at the University of Western Australia. His research is focussed on gas hydrate kinetics and transportability, interfacial phenomena in multiphase production systems, and environmental management of deepwater oil and gas releases. Zach received his PhD in Chemical Engineering from the Colorado School of Mines.

Dr. Nicholas (Nick) Thornburg is an Adjunct and Affiliate Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering and works full-time as Senior Reaction Engineer at the National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR) in Golden, CO. Dr. Thornburg investigates multiphase chemical reaction engineering and heterogeneous catalysis for the synthesis, storage and conversion of small-molecule chemicals and energy carriers—straddling research & development and scale-up activities across six NLR research centers. He serves as a national subject matter expert in the reaction engineering discipline and regularly teaches the original course CBEN 428/528 – Advanced Reactor Design offered in Spring semesters for seniors, masters and Ph.D. students in CBE and across other Departments and interdisciplinary programs.

At NLR, Dr. Thornburg leads research and development projects in the following areas: Ammonia synthesis, separation and utilization as an energy vector; electrochemical COx conversion, scale-up and energy systems integration; continuous photocatalytic conversion of liquid organic hydrogen carriers; plasma catalysis and reaction engineering for small-molecule syntheses; contaminant removal for direct recycling of lithium ion batteries; and (sub)surface reactive extraction and electrochemical separation of critical minerals. Before joining NLR, he gained industrial research and development experience at The Dow Chemical Company and 3M. His doctoral research focused on heterogeneous transition metal oxide catalysts in sustainable chemical manufacturing applications. Dr. Thornburg is passionate about industrial innovation, entrepreneurship, student development and pedagogy.

Jim Hutchins was born in Texas but his family moved to Colorado just before his 6th grade year. He went to Welchester Elementary and Bell Junior High in Golden, Colorado. He attended Golden Senior High School where his classmates were Princess Aurora (who also played the dead mother on “Full House”) and “Fish” from Ally McBeal. After graduating high school in 1976, he attended the University of Colorado in Boulder. He began with a journalism major, but after sampling nine declared majors finally graduated with a degree in molecular, cellular and developmental biology in 1980. Accepted to both medical school and graduate school, he opted for graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley. After earning the Masters in Neurobiology from Berkeley in 1982, he obtained the PhD in Neuroscience from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston in 1985, with a dissertation titled “Evidence for Acetylcholine as a Neurotransmitter in the Human Retina”.

From 1985 to 1989, Jim lived in Nashville, where he worked as a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Vivien Casagrande, studying the development of the visual system in primates, insectivores, and carnivores. Vivien passed away in January 2017.

Jim’s first “real job” was as a faculty member teaching histology and neuroanatomy to medical, dental and allied health students at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson. He also maintained an active research program, publishing over 40 scientific papers and book chapters. Jim won multiple teaching awards, including Teacher of the Year, voted by both dental and medical students.

Administration called, and Jim gave up his research program. He came to Weber State in 2005 as Associate Provost, but returned to the classroom as a Professor of Health Sciences from 2006 to 2025. In August 2025 he retired from Weber State and moved back home to the Denver area.

Now Jim has the time to teach the way he prefers, with a methodology called open pedagogy. (Since he’s teaching adults, it’s really open andragogy but that’s another word for another day.) Speaking of words, if you need to look up a medical word, Jim suggests Medical English as a great open resource. Jim has a passion for creating affordable textbooks for students. None of his students will pay a dime for a textbook. He is now author or co-author on six books.

For fun, Jim spends time at OrangeTheory working out, on runs with his friends, or with his dog Honey. Jim has authored a book, Do-It-Yourself Agility Equipment, which is a best seller in its (very small) field. He loves music, and has over 15,000 songs on his iPod.

Dr. Michael Guarnieri is a Principal Investigator at the National Laboratory of the Rockies, a Fellow of the Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute (RASEI), and an Affiliate Faculty member in the Colorado School of Mines Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering. Dr. Guarnieri’s research targets diverse biotechnological applications, spanning bioenergy, bioremediation, and biosecurity, via the development and deployment of molecular systems biology approaches. Dr. Guarnieri leads a diverse bioenergy research project portfolio that includes multi- institutional, DOE-Biological and Environmental Research (BER)-supported projects aimed at development of microbial bioproduction consortia and development of secure biocontainment designs, and several DOE-Bioenergy Technology Office (BETO)-supported projects targeting applied microbial biocatalyst development. These projects have led to the development of an array of microbial metabolic engineering and genomic tools and generated a series of first-in-class biocatalysts with diverse biotechnological applications in bioenergy and bioremediation.

Dr. Guarnieri earned his Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, where his research focused on protein crystallography and structure-guided drug design. Prior to his graduate studies, conducted undergraduate research at Brown University, examining viral secretion and virus-host interactions.

Dr. Bruno Klein is a Senior Research Engineer in the Economic, Sustainability, and Market Analysis group at the National Laboratory of the Rockies and an Adjunct Faculty member in the Colorado School of Mines Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering. He focuses on techno-economic analysis (TEA) and life cycle assessment (LCA) of biomass conversion pathways to biofuels and bioproducts. Bruno leads the analysis efforts in several projects sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, such as the Bioprocessing Separations consortium, the Agile BioFoundry consortium, and the Center for Bioenergy Innovation. Prior to joining NLR in 2019, he worked for six years at a Brazilian national laboratory with the assessment of biomass conversion through various technologies. His research interests span conceptual process design, process integration, and simulation; sustainability assessment (TEA, LCA, and social assessment); biochemical conversion process pathways; algal biomass production and conversion; and business models for the bioeconomy.

Aaron Smoroda is a graduate of the Colorado School of Mines Chemical and Biological Engineering department, where he earned his Bachelor’s degree in 2017. He then attended the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus and earned his Doctorate of Medicine. He currently works as an anesthesiology resident at the University of Colorado Hospital. In Fall 2024, he is teaching CBEN 413: Quantitative Human Biology.

"There is a beauty in discovery. There is mathematics in music, a kinship of science and poetry in the description of nature, and exquisite form in a molecule."

Dr. Jackson joined the faculty of Mines first in 2013 as a post-doc (2013-2015) then returned in 2018 as a Research Assistant Professor. During her time away from Mines she spent 18 months with the Commissariat à l’énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA) at the Marcoule site in the south of France. The focus of her research in France was the identification of Pu-ligand complexes by electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI-MS). Her advisor while in France was Laurence Berthon, an expert in the field of ESI-MS. Prior to this work, Dr. Jackson focused her research energy on the development of extraction chromatographic material for the separation of U(VI) from Th(IV) and development of a nanoparticle oxidant for the oxidation of Am(III) to Am(VI) in Dr. Jenifer Shafer’s laboratory at CSM. Her radiochemistry research interests began with her studies at Washington State University first as an undergraduate in the laboratory of Dr. Donald Wall and then expanded through her graduate work under the tutelage of Professor Kenneth L. Nash. The bulk of her research while at WSU was focused on the complexation kinetics of trivalent lanthanides and Am(III) with the macrocyclic ligand DOTA. She has rejoined the Mines faculty with the goal of supporting the mission of the radiochemistry program at Mines of educating students on the fundamental and applied concerns of nuclear chemistry and radiochemistry.

"Why just NMR? –Because there is hardly another technique that is so informative for so many different types of applications, and because there is no other technique that provides so much fun."

Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) Spectroscopy has risen to the same level of importance as electronic and vibrational spectroscopy as a tool for studying molecular properties, particularly structural properties. My research interests include the development and application of new instrumentation and experimental methods of NMR spectroscopy to study molecular structure and dynamics.

Due to the recent award, National Science Foundation Major Research Instrumentation Grant, the Department of Chemistry and Geochemistry at CSM purchased two state-of-the-art Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) instruments, JEOL 500MHz liquid state NMR and Bruker 400MHz solid state NMR.

I have been doing collaborative research with School of Mines faculties, which includes: diffusion NMR, quantum dots and nanoparticle characterization, heterogeneous catalysts characterization, biochar and soil solid state NMR, gas hydrates studies, shale permeability and porosity study and solid state NMR probe design.

Dr. Megan Moyer is an Assistant Teaching Professor in the Chemistry Department. Since graduating from Mines with her PhD, she has taught first year general chemistry and inorganic chemistry. Additionally, she has worked with undergraduate student researchers to explore porous materials such as corn-fiber derived carbons and metal organic frameworks for applications in water purification and drug delivery. Dr. Moyer’s graduate research involved synthesizing porous support materials like mesoporous silica, ordered mesoporous carbon, and zeolites for use with nanoparticle and single site catalysts. She investigated gas to liquid conversions and tandem catalytic reactions. After graduate school, her focus shifted to education. She aims to make chemistry accessible and enjoyable for all students both in the classroom and in the lab.

Dr. Jonathan Miorelli is currently an Assistant Teaching Professor in the Chemistry Department at the Colorado School of Mines. His research interests revolve around theoretical and computational chemistry, with an interest in how the structure and evolution of a molecule/material’s electron density gives rise to its observed reactivity, specifically within the context of the Quantum Theory of Atoms in Molecules (QTAIM) and Conceptual Density Functional Theory (CDFT). In recent years Dr. Miorelli has turned his attention to teaching and chemical education where he strives to improve student engagement with the material and build life-long learning strategies. In terms of chemical education research, Dr. Miorelli explores how to implement and assess the use of computational chemistry in the classroom, specifically with respect to the utility of visualization in help students grasp spatial concepts vital to understanding chemistry (e.g. orbitals). Outside of the classroom, Dr. Miorelli is a huge fan of the arts. He’s played guitar for over two decades and more recently has begun exploring the creation of visual art such as drawing and the occasional painting.

Dr. Amanda Furness was born and raised in Iowa. She got her undergraduate degrees in Chemistry and Spanish at Briar Cliff University, a small liberal arts institution in her hometown. After graduating, she moved to Kansas where she got her PhD in Analytical Chemistry at KU. Her dissertation work focused on quantitatively measuring the neurochemical effects of epilepsy. Upon completion of her doctoral work, she moved to Boston where she did a two year post-doc at Massachusetts General Hospital in the Center for Genomic Medicine. There, her research was a translational medicine project focused on developing therapies for the orphaned neurogenetic disease, Mucolipidosis IV.

Dr. Furness has been an Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Colorado Christian University for the past five years. In her time there she was able to focus her career goals and became passionate about teaching and being in the classroom. Her teaching pedagogy focuses on critical thinking and problem solving. She is also incredibly passionate about reaching underrepresented populations in the STEM field. Dr. Furness is very excited to be joining the Mines Chemistry Department as a Teaching Assistant professor.

Dr. Erik Menke was born in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and primarily grew up on Colorado’s Western Slope. He received his B.S. degree in Chemistry from Colorado State University in 2000 and then moved west to join UC Irvine’s second incoming class in the new Chemistry and Materials Physics (CHaMP) program. He completed his Ph.D. in 2006 under the direction of Prof. Reg Penner and then moved to UCLA as a postdoctoral researcher in the Materials Science and Engineering department at UCLA under the guidance of Prof. Bruce Dunn. He joins the Colorado School of Mines as an Associate Teaching Professor in Chemistry and the director of the CCUS certification program, coming from the University of California, Merced. His primary research interests are understanding aluminum ion behavior in organic solvents, motivated by developing electrolytes for rechargeable aluminum batteries, and developing educational interventions, such as culturally relevant science teaching, that positively impact student self-efficacy and sense of belonging in science courses.

Prof. Sower’s research interests involved the characterization of molecular alterations as a model for a neurodevelopmental disease, while at the University of New Mexico. This was followed by a Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Brain and Cognitive Sciences Department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in which she worked on pattern formation and targeting in visual system development.

Following this research work, her primary focus became chemistry and biochemistry education at a diversity of higher education settings. Angie hopes to reach students through learning strategies that will not only be applicable in a chemistry setting, but also throughout students’ education and hopes to pass along to students that chemistry never ceases to remain interesting and relevant.

My research interests center around the environmental chemistry of organic pollutants and their transport and fate in the environment. Understanding the movement, distribution and degradation of these compounds in the environment is essential for determining their long-term effects. Determining pathways of exposure for humans is necessary to control adverse health effects. By analyzing various media (e.g. air, water, soil, food, tissues, indoor environments, children’s toys) for these pollutants, I hope to better understand how human’s actions affect their health and the health of the environment.

My teaching interests revolve around improving chemical education through the use of modern pedogogies and a current understanding of chemical theories. In particular, I am working to improve the general chemistry curriculum through the creation of inquiry-based, active learning experiences in both the classroom and the lab that reflect changes in our knowledge of chemistry and advances in technology. I am interested in using research based best practices to show all students, no matter their field of interest, that chemistry is central to the world of science.

Dr. Samantha Johnson hails from eastern Colorado. She received her B.S. in Chemical Engineering from University of Colorado, Boulder in 2011. She received her Ph.D. in materials science from California Institute of Technology in 2017 where she was a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellow and a Resnick Fellow. She was a postdoctoral researcher in the Center for Molecular Electrocatalysis at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Dr. Johnson joined PNNL as staff in 2019. Her work at PNNL has focused on ammonia oxidation, hydrogen storage on liquid carriers, and solvation effects in mass spectrometry. In particular, she is interested in the role of a molecule’s surroundings in its performance and behavior. To study these effects, she uses a combination of electronic structure and molecular mechanics-based approaches.

My research expertise is in rheology of gas hydrate slurries, droplet and particle size distribution, flow assurance in oil/gas flowlines. My research interests include studying the thermodynamic and kinetic properties of gas hydrates system. My current research works includes gas hydrate for technological applications such as desalination, separation, and energy storage.

I see teaching as a mutually beneficial process between the professor, with significant knowledge and/or experience in the subject and the student, inspired to obtain it. I believe this reciprocal relationship allows the professor to learn as much as the student—continually becoming an even better teacher—if the lines of communication are open and students are actively learning. As a result, I spend a lot of time focusing on communication techniques, both in and out of the classroom (including digital methods). While this focus on communication was crucial in my first years as a lecturer/researcher at the Hanze University of Applied Sciences in Groningen—as I taught most courses in Dutch, which I only learned to speak later in life—I have since expanded this focus to include numerous “blended learning” techniques such as animated videos, flash lectures, and anonymous online quizzes (formative assessments). I have had significant success establishing a “partial flip” (the “flipped classroom”) for individual lectures at the Hanze which I plan to bring to Mines, and I am excited to explore the possibility of publishing some of these results.
While at the Hanze I taught many different courses, ranging from an interdisciplinary honors course (teaching students from different majors how to conduct a chemical experiment in a lab) to a master’s course on bio-fuels for mobility applications, but my favorite courses to teach include catalysis (reaction kinetics), fluid mechanics (including transport phenomena), and design using Aspen Plus. I also very much enjoyed integrating research into the undergraduate curriculum: supervising group research projects of both senior chemical engineering students and honors masterclass students.

While my lab research experience has been diverse, it has been generally focused on Renewable Energy or Sustainable Energy Systems. At UCLA I worked with atmospheric pressure plasmas to deposit both transparent conducting oxides and self-cleaning (hydrophobic) coatings for photovoltaic cells. At Delft I studied the production of atomic clusters of gallium in a spark discharge, in the hopes they will one day demonstrate superconducting properties. Finally, while at the Hanze I worked on several projects focused on Power-to-Gas technologies, including biological/biochemical solutions. These provided me with experience in thin film & semiconductor analysis techniques (SEM, AFM, ellipsometry, etc.), aerosol & nanoparticle instruments, life-cycle assessment methods, and more. I have also supervised several internship projects using Comsol (formerly FEMLab).

My current research interests are in the field of pedagogy – understanding how people learn and retain information, skills, and ideas and what teaching methods best support that learning. Some past research projects included using technology such as pen-enabled devices in the classroom and interactive simulations to provide real-time formative assessment and enhance student learning. Current projects include:

My Ph.D. and postdoctoral research, which I continued at some level for several years thereafter, focused on understanding the fundamental behavior of transport through and reaction on inorganic membranes and catalytic membrane reactors. I worked extensively on measuring and modeling transport 1) in zeolite membranes for liquid and vapor separations, 2) of hydrogen in dense Pd and Pd-alloy membranes combined with reaction on a supported catalyst, and 3) in mixed metal oxide membranes for oxygen separation from air.

I also worked on further developing synthesis procedures to macro- and micro- structure inorganic materials and their supports to increase fluxes through supported zeolite thin films and supported and unsupported metals and metal oxides. Both experimental and modeling studies provided insight into the transport mechanisms driving the permeation and separation behavior.

I believe that the capital duty of every faculty member lies in the instruction and direction of their students. My professorial experience has guided me toward the consistent implementation of three distinct educational principles.

The first of these is an effort to engage student interest through classroom conversation and clear enthusiasm on the part of the instructor. In each lesson, I endeavor to specify only one or two main topics that will give each student a new understanding and personal command of the concepts in the course. Naturally, the students must be encouraged to engage in the conversation by sharing their initial impressions, questions, and considerations. For many students, an effective tool is to continually remind them of the big picture, or the view of each topic in the larger context of the course (or the overall curriculum). Naturally, engineering is a ripe field for describing the use of course fundamentals or concepts in real-world practice.

Second is the proper use of technology to enhance the learning experience. The rapid communication made possible with today’s personal computing, information-sharing devices, and software allows us to overcome the limitations of the old homework-feedback paradigm. Web-based lecture material, tutorials, and demonstrations allow students to pause, restart, and repeatedly view course discussions in an interactive and naturally intuitive manner which is better suited to the various styles of student learning. I have consistently used technology to allow students to better “learn by doing,” and to ultimately do more – in greater depth – with less time invested.

Finally, team exercises and open-ended projects are incorporated into course work to allow students to better take ownership of, and a more direct responsibility for, her or his own education. Many of the most rewarding course-related work in which students may engage are projects presented near the end of the academic semester. It is at this critical point in the teaching of a course where all previous topics may be brought together and reconciled. When students are given the freedom to carry out a design or goal-based determinations as they see fit, they take true ownership of their investigation, and to use their creativity in a way that would have never been possible in the traditional “ask-answer” environment of homework and exams. Fostering the ability to work effectively in teams is a priority for all engineering curricula, and in my experience, these types of projects can be effective “capstones” for individual courses at all levels, from introductory courses through those in advanced specialization.

In general, my research activities and interests lie in the fields of energy and the impact of energy use on the environment. Persistent environmental issues such as climate change, pollution impacting air quality, and thermal waste have long been concerns of mine, and they remain present threats to the health and well‐being of our Nation’s citizens. In my academic career, I have endeavored to bring a wide range of energy research topics and environmental improvement connotations into my areas of experience. Additionally, undergraduate researchers are central to my laboratory efforts.

The current unsustainable consumption of fossil‐based, carbonaceous fuels for electrical power production and transportation within the United States has spurred my interest in alternative fuel production and utilization. Anhydrous ammonia (NH3) is a carbon‐free chemical most often used as an agricultural fertilizer, but is also used as an energy‐dense liquid fuel. Ammonia is the only fuel other than hydrogen that produces no greenhouse gases upon combustion. My research involving ammonia involves its use in fuel cells, combustion engines with additives, and to produce on‐demand hydrogen using catalytic reforming. Hydrogen production from renewable energy is one key to realizing a true hydrogen energy economy. My research involving hydrogen production has included high temperature and pressure electrolysis, which takes thermodynamic advantage of high temperatures to save electrical power in the electrolyzer, and furthermore produces a high pressure product that requires less compression for storage. Biodiesel production from waste vegetable oil is a method of synthesizing a renewable, carbon‐neutral fuel that avoids the food‐versus‐fuel debate that plagues most biofuel efforts. In my previous faculty appointments, I created and supervised multiple undergraduate research efforts to recover waste oil from university sources, and to promote its use for on‐campus diesel generators and fleet vehicles.

Fuel cells have long been considered as an attractive alternative for the delivery of electrical power when compared to both batteries and internal combustion engine/generator sets. Interest for their adoption has been strong in industrial applications as well as in military devices and vehicles. Current challenges to their adoption include cost, materials lifetime, and fuel flexibility. My research has involved the study and synthesis of electrolytes, electrocatalysts, and housing materials for use in intermediate temperature ceramic fuel cells, nanocomposite polymer fuel cells, and multiple forms of direct ammonia fuel cells.

Our primary research interest lies in finding simple and elegant ways to precisely control the structures of materials at different length scales. Multi-scale hierarchical structures are found abundantly in nature for surprisingly different purposes. For example, the amazing climbing abilities of geckos on different surfaces can be attributed to a hierarchical structure on their foot pads. Hierarchical structures on the lotus leaf makes the leaf surface both superhydrophobic and self-cleaning. In another totally different situation, Morpho butterflies show brilliant iridescent colors arising from very delicate and hierarchical structures on their wing scales.

All of these structures found in nature are formed by the so-called “bottom up” method, which is a self assembly of nano-scale building blocks into functional macroscopic structures. Taking advantage of their best properties individually and putting them together in a synergistic way is, however, not always an easy task for humankind. Our goal is to study and understand the fundamental principles of self- and guided- assembly of nano-“building blocks”, such as polymers, nanoparticles, cells, biomolecules, etc. Based on our understandings, we will then develop economic routes (by integrating both bottom-up and top-down methods) to fabricate organic-inorganic hybrid materials with both hierarchical structures and multiple functionalities. Those revolutionary materials will have impacts on the development of more efficient photovoltaics, photonic crystals, multi-functional and environmentally adaptive nanomotors, as well as biomedical diagnostic/therapeutic systems.

Our group is interested in transport and interfacial phenomena in a broad range of biomedical applications with a strong focus on ophthalmology. We are working in a number of areas including ophthalmic drug delivery, designing lubricious contact lenses, modeling ocular physiology, developing preservative free multi-dose eye-drops, understanding tear film drainage and breakup.

We are developing novel approaches for making ophthalmic drug delivery more efficient and compliant. Eye drops are inefficient at delivering drugs to the eye because a significant portion of the drug drains into the nose or is absorbed into the conjunctiva. Our group has shown that contact lenses deliver drugs more efficiently with about 50% of the drug reaching the cornea compared to 1% with eye drops. We have developed novel nanostructured soft contact lenses that deliver ophthalmic drugs for a period of days to weeks with significantly smaller drug loss to the systemic circulation. Animal trials of these lenses proved safety and efficacy, and currently a human study is ongoing. We are targeting many ophthalmic diseases for lens based therapy with a focus on glaucoma, cystinosis, dry eyes, chemical burns and allergies. Our work in this area has been covered in popular press including, CNN Headline News, and was listed in Reader’s Digest Medical Breakthroughs 2004. Our group has recently started focusing on drug delivery to the back of the eye, which is currently done through intravitreal injections through the eye ball. We are exploring the feasibility of delivery to the posterior eye using contact lenses and designing novel devices that can be placed in the vitreous through a single injection to provide extended therapy for a few months. Our group has recently developed contact lenses containing electrodes and power source to deliver drugs to the eyes through electrophoretic transport. In addition to designing contact lenses for drug delivery, we are also interested in developing improved contact lenses by increasing lubricity and also improved blocking of UV or selected spectrum of visible light.

Our group is combining mathematical modeling with in vitro experiments to develop a systems-based approach to understand factors that contribute to ‘dry eyes’, which is the most common ocular ailment, and also to develop possible treatments and efficient drug delivery vehicles. We have developed a model for tear dynamics that can predict the steady state tear film thickness, salt concentration and the electrical potential in the eye, and the dependency of these on physiological parameters such as tear secretion rates, salt concentration in the secreted tears, elastic properties of canaliculi, tear evaporation rates, etc. This model helps us understand various aspects of tear film dynamics and also helps us identify potential dry eye treatments. We are also studying a number of transport issues of relevance in ophthalmology. These include lipid spreading on the surface of the tear film, tear film breakup and transport of drug from the front surface of the eye to the retina. The eventual goal of our research efforts is to combine experiments and modeling to develop a comprehensive quantitative model for transport in the eye.

Drug overdose is a major health care problem, as a number of widely used drugs can cause life-threatening toxicities and are without antidotes. Additionally, our soldiers face increasing risk of exposure to dangerous chemical in battlefields. We are exploring the feasibility of designing nanoparticulates that can potentially sequester the toxic chemicals to mitigate the toxicity. We are also exploring development of opioid formulations that are less prone to abuse than commercial formulations. The ideas and systems that we are developing can be adapted to many other applications both for drug delivery and drug overdose therapy.

Recent reports from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have indicated that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have reached a new high (400 ppm) and continue on an upward trend. This, coupled with fluctuations in the price and supply of fossil fuels, highlight a need to develop more sustainable sources of energy as well as chemical feedstocks typically derived from petroleum products. Solar power, as the main source of energy on Earth, is the logical first step in the search for alternative energies. Photosynthetic organisms, such as cyanobacteria, algae and plants, have evolved over thousands of years to efficiently harvest solar energy and use that energy to convert carbon dioxide into complex molecules (starch, proteins, lipids, secondary metabolites, etc). With advances in synthetic biology and metabolic engineering, we now have the ability to direct carbon flux to metabolites that can serve as fuels, feedstocks and fine chemicals.

The main goal of our research group is to use genome engineering approaches (synthetic biology, systems biology, and metabolic engineering) to design photosynthetic organisms capable of producing fuels, feedstocks, and fine chemicals in a sustainable way. We focus on i) developing larger and more sophisticated molecular toolkits for cyanobacteria and optimizing those tools to ensure high recombineering efficiencies, ii) using genome-wide engineering techniques to identify genes which increase performance of cyanobacteria under stress conditions (salt, nutrient limitation, high/low light, etc) and iii) designing production strains capable of using CO2 and sunlight to produce molecules of interest.

I am a working burro so I need food to keep me going. I am a bit of a grazer if you know what I mean. Small meals throughout the day keep me in top form for running down the field. And did you know I’m a vegetarian? All donkeys are!

Dr. Webster’s research resides at the intersection of mechanics, materials science, and machine design, where she uses fundamental knowledge of laser, metal AM technologies to push the boundaries of manufacturing and solve human-centered problems through fabrication of unique, functional designs. She earned her B.S. in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Florida with minors in biomechanics and music performance, and her Ph.D. in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics focused on fundamental mechanics and formation of defects in laser directed energy deposition (DED-LB) at Northwestern University advised by Dr. Jian Cao. She was a National Research Council Postdoc at the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) Material Measurement Laboratory (MML) under the advisement of Dr. Carelyn Campbell, where she focused on hybrid metal AM techniques to address challenges such as defect formation and microstructure control. Throughout her research journey, Dr. Webster has designed custom manufacturing set-ups to study fundamental relationships through in-situ observations at multiple scales, including high-speed in-situ X-ray imaging. She has received the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship for her work, and she was named one of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers’ 30 under 30.

Dr. Rajasegar received his MS and PhD degrees in Mechanical Science and Engineering from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2013 and 2018, respectively. His research focuses on low greenhouse gas (GHG) fuels for in-cylinder combustion.

Professor Johnson comes to Mines with 12 years of industry experience in product design and development, tooling and fixture design and fabrication, Lean Manufacturing & Certified Six Sigma Green Belt, and quality control and inspection. He has a MS in Mechanical Engineering from University of Florida, Gainesville (2011).

Serving as the Digital User Experience Librarian, Adam helps maintain and improve Arthur Lakes Library webpresence. He also conducts user experience and usability studies to help improve the user experience, especially in digital spaces. Adam is interested in expanding usability studies to areas beyond the library website to help improve the user experience in other areas.

Before coming to Mines, Adam worked at Western Carolina University and Kennesaw State University, where he maintained the library web presence and conducted usability studies.

Dr. Ali Kerr has a PhD in Industrial-Organizational Psychology from the University of Tulsa. Prior to joining Colorado School of Mines she held two postdoctoral research roles. One as a Senior Researcher of Leadership and Executive Development at the National Center for Professional and Research Ethics (NCPRE) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Another at Purdue University in both the Biomedical Engineering and Engineering Education departments. Her research interests include training development and evaluation as explored across a variety of academic disciplines and organizational settings. Her most recent projects have focused on developing engineering and science students’ relevant non-technical professional skills including leadership, creativity and ethical practice and presentation. Her dissertation research was a comprehensive evaluation of a professional ethics training program which utilizes expert-witness role-play for engineering education.

Dr. Omid Babaie Rizvandi is a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Colorado School of Mines. He received his Ph.D. in Mechatronics Engineering from Sabanci University in 2019 and subsequently worked as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) from 2019 to 2023. His research focuses on numerical modeling of fuel cells and electrolysis technologies to advance sustainable energy solutions. Dr. Rizvandi has developed computationally efficient models for proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) and microfluidic fuel cells (MFCs), enhancing their performance and durability. His postdoctoral research extended to solid oxide cells (SOCs), where he focused on multi-scale modeling of SOC stacks to improve their performance and durability. Currently, at the Colorado School of Mines, he is developing multi-stack module (MSM) models and incorporating machine learning techniques to optimize SOC performance. His work contributes to refining the design, enhancing performance, and accelerating the commercialization of fuel cell and electrolysis technologies.

Enthusiastic energy storage engineer with over 15 years research experience in electrochemical analysis, fabrication processes, and optimization of electrode materials. Passionate desire to fuel and inspire young minds to pursue STEM pathways building a better world for the future. Motivated to help young women pursuing engineering recognize their potential and how their journeys will provide inspiration for those to follow.

As the Metadata Initiatives Librarian, Nicole supports access of the library’s collections for the campus community through the creation and enhancement of metadata. Prior to joining Mines, Nicole was the Technical Services Librarian & Archivist at Western Colorado University. She is a member of the Library Freedom Project. As a metadata librarian, Nicole is passionate about patron privacy and inclusive metadata practices that meet the discovery and research needs of students, faculty, and staff. In her free time, Nicole likes to explore the backcountry in Colorado.

Gary Nave joins Mines Mechanical Engineering after postdoctoral appointments at CU Boulder and Northwestern University (remotely). He received his BS and PhD from Virginia Tech in the Engineering Mechanics program, focusing on nonlinear dynamical systems and fluid mechanics. These research experiences have included a variety of interesting interdisciplinary problems and experiences, studying topics including flying snakes, honeybees, and chronic pain in sickle cell disease, with a variety of computational, theoretical, and experimental approaches.

At Mines, Gary will be teaching robotics, dynamics, instrumentation, and more. He brings an enthusiastic approach to teaching that combines lectures and active learning strategies with a focus on building supportive and welcoming environments in the classroom.

Gary has a very loud laugh and will gladly talk to anyone about hiking, sports, music, or new topics that he knows nothing about. Gary’s partner, Amy, works in the Mines Trefny Center and they have a 1-year-old daughter and 15-pound dog who keep them both very busy.

Brianna Zrinsky is the Director of Bands at Colorado School of Mines. Originally from Chicago, Zrinsky teaches band and music in the U.S. and abroad. Zrinsky graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Music Education degree from Wheaton College (Wheaton, IL). She earned an MM with a wind conducting emphasis from Northwestern University (Evanston, IL). She studied conducting under Dr. Timothy Yontz, Dr. Mallory Thompson, and Mr. Daniel Farris. She played flute and piccolo in many ensembles throughout her academic career. Some of her performance highlights included playing at Bands of America, the Midwest Clinic International Band and Orchestra Conference, and the CBDNA North Central Division Honor Band.

Zrinsky taught band in public schools in the suburbs of Chicago and Denver and currently holds an Illinois Music Educators License. For four years, she was a faculty member at Morrison Academy Kaohsiung, an international school in Taiwan, where she built a high school music program. During her tenure she served on the Fine Arts Curriculum Committee, coordinated middle school music festivals and culture trips, and was the faculty sponsor of the High School Music Service Club. She was also an active flute performer in the Kaohsiung area, playing at the Kaohsiung Cultural Center, Kaohsiung Art Museum, I-Shou University, and Wenzao University of Languages.

After graduating from Northwestern University, Zrinsky was Director of Bands at Rocky Mountain College (Billings, MT). In addition to her duties as the Director of Bands, she taught World Music, served as the RMC NAfME faculty chair, and coordinated music studio and instrumental lessons. She was invited to adjudicate several band and wind conferences in the Montana area.

Zrinsky recently presented her music education research at an international music conference hosted by The University of Calgary. Her research interests include international students’ music education experiences, wind repertoire and conducting, and instrumental music education methods.

Danielle, hired in 2021, works on the assessment, collection development & management, as well as the e-resources lifecycle for databases, journals, and other electronic resources. Danielle earned her MLIS from St. Catherine University in St. Paul, Minnesota. Prior to this position, Danielle was the Electronic Resources Librarian at the University of Minnesota Duluth and the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. While originally from central Minnesota, Danielle has lived in Denver since 2018.

As the Scholarly Communications Librarian, Seth supports students and faculty through instruction, consultations, and leading the campus’ efforts toward Open Science.

Prior to joining Mines as the Scholarly Communications Librarian, Seth worked at the Westminster Law Library at the University of Denver, the Jerry Crail Johnson Earth Sciences and Map Library at the University of Colorado Boulder, in addition to having spent several years as a professional woodworker. Seth’s passion for equitable access guides his primary research interest in accessibility of materials for users with disabilities.

In his free time, Seth enjoys skiing, hiking, traveling, and spending time outdoors with his dogs.

Polina Brodsky comes to Mines from The Ohio State University (OSU), where she received all three of her degrees in Mechanical Engineering. Her research is in modeling and characterizing the behavior of Li-ion batteries due to fast charging conditions for automotive applications using techniques in electrochemistry and system modeling. For many years during her undergraduate and graduate school careers, she was a team leader and technical expert on the Buckeye Current Electric Motorcycle Race Team at OSU’s Center for Automotive Research and was able to compete in motorcycle racing events all over the world. She held internship positions at Honda R&D Americas, Tesla Motors, Ford Motor Company and Apple, Inc. While completing her PhD, Polina was instructor of record for Heat Transfer for two semesters. She is passionate about experiential learning and helping students become excellent engineers, and she is excited for the opportunity to explore new courses to teach at Mines.

In her free time, Polina enjoys hiking, traveling, reading, kayaking, and cheering on the OSU football team. She is also an avid gardener and house plant enthusiast. After spending most of her life in the Midwest, Polina is looking forward to taking advantage of all the outdoor activities Colorado has to offer.

Joseph has been with the Arthur Lakes Library since June of 2019. Prior to joining Mines as a reference librarian, Joseph was at the University of Denver Main Library from 1998 to 2016 where he served in two roles. He was the Science and Engineering Reference Librarian from 1998 to 2012 and then as an Electronic Resources/Collections Analysis Librarian from 2012 to 2016. Before that, he was the Engineering Librarian at George Mason University from 1995 to 1998.

Joseph has written numerous articles and presented on topics ranging from science journal usage, scholarly communication, library unconferences, and alternative

With an academic background in condensed matter physics, my professional focus centers on applied research. More specifically, I explore inorganic materials for thermoelectric properties, i.e. their ability to convert heat into electric energy. Thermoelectricity, with its unique ability to harness waste heat, represents a promising frontier in sustainable development. My expertise encompasses a wide span of synthesis techniques. I have also been dedicating my efforts to understand the interplay between structural imperfections and transport properties. In the lab of Professor Eric S. Toberer, my biggest passion revolves around materials with ultra-low thermal conductivity and low-energy defects.

Dr. Harry Archer is an Associate Teaching Professor in the University Honors & Scholars Programs at the Colorado School of Mines (CSM). Dr. Archer’s research interests lie in the nexus of rhetoric and design and include key topics such as invention [rhetorical & technological], and visual-material communication in designed objects and systems.

Dr. Archer’s work has been published in journals such as the Canadian Journal of Communication, and the Journal of Communication and Religion. In Leadership by Design, (HNRS198A), and I.D.E.A. S.(HNRS 105), Dr Archer wants students to explore different modes of invention and build confidence across a variety of aptitudes from the rhetorical to the technical. Dr. Archer has also taught undergraduate classes in Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences including Nature and Human Values, Global Studies, Environmental Communication, Intercultural Communication, Mass Media Studies, and Risk Communication.

Jeff received a PhD in ME from Purdue University, studying the dynamics of legged locomotion while carrying heavy loads with highly-compliant suspension systems. His PhD work with Dr. Justin Seipel at Purdue was funded by an NSF grant and the National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship (NDSEG). Jeff was a visiting assistant professor in ME at Purdue and worked as a Design Engineer at BraunAbility, the leading vehicle wheelchair lift and ramp manufacturer. Prior to joining Mines, he became the president of startup company Prehensile Technologies, which develops robotic assistive technology for people with disabilities (see feature in NPR’s All Tech Considered). Jeff also developed The Eco Face Shield — a fully recyclable plastic face shield — during COVID (featured on CBS Denver). Jeff is passionate about design, robotics, biomechanics, 3D printing, prototyping, and entrepreneurship. He incorporates real-life examples from his own entrepreneurial activities into his project-based classes in ME. He is also the adviser for the Mines Makers Society.

Lawrence Cho is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering at the Colorado School of Mines. He also holds an associate research appointment at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)-Boulder. Previously, he was a Research Assistant Professor associated with the Advanced Steel Processing and Products Research Center (ASPPRC) at Mines and worked as a Materials Research Engineer at the NIST through the NRC Research Associateship program. His research focuses on the application of fundamental steel science to practical challenges related to the development of advanced materials for industrial applications. His recent interests include the design of sustainable and economical materials and processes for clean energy technologies, including hydrogen service applications, carbon capture transportation utilization storage, and industrial decarbonization.

Yewon Shin is a Research Assistant Professor who received her Bachelor of Science degree from Kyungpook National University, South Korea, and her PhD from the Colorado School of Mines, where she also completed her postdoctoral training.

Her research focuses on mixed ionic and electronic conductors for electrochemical applications, including electrolysis and fuel cells. Her work spans fundamental studies through device level cell testing.

She investigates thermodynamics and kinetics in functional materials, materials synthesis and processing via dry and wet routes, solid state reactive sintering, and composite development. In addition, she is interested in cell fabrication and the evaluation of electrochemical performance and durability.

Lauren has been at Mines since 2016 and joined the honors team in 2018, where she now directs Thorson First-Year Honors and teaches collaborative, interdisciplinary courses in Thorson and McBride. Lauren received her Ph.D. in sedimentary geology from Stanford University, where she studied the dispersal and deposition of sediments in deep-marine environments in New Zealand.

Prior to graduate school, Lauren earned a combined Earth sciences/anthropology degree from University of California, Santa Cruz, where she gained a lifelong appreciation for hands-on learning, interdisciplinary education, and the role of the humanities in STEM fields. Outside of work, Lauren enjoys reading, rock climbing, visual arts of all kinds, and spending time with her husband, daughter, and dog.

Dr. Oyvind Nilsen grew up in Tønsberg, Norway. He has extensive background as an engineer, scientist, and educator, with interests in product development and innovation. He earned his PhD from University of Colorado in Mechanical Engineering, and also has a mechanical engineering degree from his home country of Norway. His research experience includes mechanics of materials, optics, sensors, physical modelling and MEMS and microfluidics.

He was recently the Director of Manufacturing and Co-founder of BiOptix Diagnostics Inc. in Boulder, Co, as well as an adjunct faculty at the University of Colorado, Boulder, in the Mechanical Engineering Department. During his time at BiOptix he took a technology developed earlier in graduate school and developed it into a commercial product, an optical biosensor system. His key expertise is in design, manufacturing, advanced system integration, thermal and fluidic system design and optics and sensors. In addition to the professional experience at BiOptix, Dr. Nilsen has industrial experience from Norway, working mainly designing tools for the oil industry, as well as time as a Naval Officer.

As the Teaching & Learning Librarian, Brianna coordinates the Library’s information literacy program. She collaborates with classroom faculty to integrate information literacy instruction into the curriculum, teaches lessons across the Mines curriculum, develops policy and supports the efforts of other instruction librarians. In 2021, she served as a US Fulbright Scholar at Tunghai University in Taichung, Taiwan.

Prior to joining Mines in 2016, she was the Engineering & Computer Science librarian at the US Naval Academy and a contract reference librarian at the National Defense University. She earned her Master’s in Library and Information Science from the University of Denver in 2011. Her current research interests include: information literacy pedagogy, the role of information literacy in STEM curriculum and open educational resources in STEM.

Masakazu Ito has been a music faculty at the Colorado School of Mines since 2016, where his main responsibility is being a musical director and a conductor to lead the Colorado School of Mines Philharmonic Orchestra. Before adding orchestra conducting to his résumé he has been touring the world as an acclaimed concert guitarist, and is continuing to do so today.

Following his professional solo debut in Tokyo 1987, Ito won top prizes in seven major international guitar competitions, including the Andres Segovia International Guitar Competition, the Tokyo International Guitar Competition, and the Guitar Foundation of America International Guitar Competition. A performance of Concierto de Aranjuez by Joaquín Rodrigo with the National Repertory Orchestra marked his concerto debut in 1990.

He has a number of recordings to his credit. In particular, London’s Classical Guitar magazine called his 1998 recording ¡España! Music from Spain “a recording of depth… most musically satisfying.”

The Japanese government has invited Ito to perform solo concerts in honor of two historic milestones – 150 years of US-Japan diplomatic relations in 2003, and the 70^th anniversary of the end of World War II in 2015. The latter was attended by the Japanese Ambassador to the United States, representatives of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, among others.

Most recently Ito traveled extensively in Spain giving solo guitar concerts and clinics in November 2019 and May 2022. The highlight of both tours was being a featured solo artist during the Andrés Segovia International Guitar Festival in Segovia’s birth place, Linares.

“Ito displayed conspicuous skill and tonal range… [he] proved himself to be a clean and technically adroit player, whizzing through thorny passages with aplomb.”

“Guitarist Masakazu Ito further contributed to the overall spellbinding performance.”

“The nearly full concert hall was enraptured with the amazing fluidity of Ito’s playing… Ito’s performance was flawless and beautiful. …It was just amazing. The crowd rose to its feet and gave Ito rousing applause… Just superb.”

Kasra Taghikhani is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the Colorado School of Mines, where he also earned his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering with a minor in Applied Mathematics. His research lies at the intersection of mechanics, materials, and electrochemistry, with an emphasis on computational modeling of coupled multiphysics problems involving fracture. Dr. Taghikhani develops advanced finite-element and heterogeneous cell-level frameworks to study phenomena such as electro-chemo-mechanical interactions in electrochemical systems, thermo-mechanical coupling in energy devices, and solid–solid interface mechanics in complex materials. These models reveal and quantify transport-induced stresses, interfacial degradation, anisotropic deformation, diffusion-driven fracture, and phase transformations. Representative applications span lithium-ion and all-solid-state batteries, silicon anode and composite electrodes, protonic-ceramic fuel cells, and electrolyzers. His group’s broader aim is to establish predictive, damage-informed models that link microstructural mechanisms to macroscopic performance, enabling the design of safer, longer-lasting, and more efficient technologies across diverse engineering domains.

Kristine (Kristy) Csavina has academic, clinical and industry experience that she brings to Colorado School of Mines. Dr. Csavina received a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from University of Dayton in 1992 and a Ph.D. in bioengineering from Arizona State University in 2003. Her research interests include motion analysis of human motion in movement disorders, orthopedics and sports, human motion aided by wearable technologies, and engineering education research in student learning and pedagogical approaches.

Csavina comes to CSM from Arizona State University, where she was associate director for engineering program innovation in The Polytechnic School Engineering and Manufacturing Engineering programs in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering. She was the lead instructor for the two-semester senior capstone design experience, where she taught design and professional skills and managed over 20 student teams on eProjects (industry-partnered capstone experiences). She was also active with the ABET accreditation, helping to develop the course assessment and program evaluation process for the department. Prior to ASU, Csavina was founding faculty in the U.A. Whitaker College of Engineering at Florida Gulf Coast University. As an assistant professor from 2007-2012, she helped develop the curriculum for the bioengineering design courses and for biomechanics, and was involved in teaching courses from the sophomore to senior levels. Csavina had active research in biomechanics in partnership with physical therapy faculty at FGCU, including studies with Parkinson’s disease and stroke patients.

Csavina has a strong interest in improving her own teaching and in the research of pedagogical approaches in engineering education. She is finishing work with the Consortium to Promote Reflection in Engineering Education (CPREE) as co-PI on ASU’s grant. ASU was one of 12 institutions involved with this University of Washington initiative funded through the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Foundation. She helped lead a yearlong campus effort to promote reflection at ASU, hosted several reflection workshops at national conferences, and presented work resulting from her own research on reflection in design courses. She has participated in ASCE’s Excellence in Civil Engineering Education (ExCEEd) Teaching Workshop in 2008 and served as an assistant mentor for the 2013 ExCEEd Teaching Workshop. She has attended various workshops in engineering education research and presented her work with colleagues at the American Association of Engineering Education (ASEE) for over ten years.

Csavina has previous clinical and industry experience. From 2013-2016 she consulted with Phoenix area companies, including British Aerospace Engineering, to assist with the analysis of human motion influenced by exoskeletons and wearable technologies. From 2005-2007 she served as director of the SHRI-CORE Orthopedic Research Labs in Sun City West, Arizona, helping to start a full gait lab for orthopedic research and a biomechanics lab for bone/implant testing. From 1992-1997, she worked at NASA Lewis Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio, as a test engineer in several different aeronautical test facilities.

Allyce Horan is a Teaching Associate Professor in HASS and the Director of the Writing Center. She joined Mines in 2013. Allyce’s interdisciplinary background includes a B.A. in History & French, an M.A. in History, and certification in TEFL from Florida State University and certification in French from L’Institut Catholique de Paris. Allyce’s research has focused on understanding how literature, law, and language shaped 18th-century France’s perception of family, citizenship, and class. Allyce was the 2022 recipient of the W.M. Keck Mentorship Award for her work with graduate students and a 2022 recipient of the Campus Partner Award for her writing center work with the Multicultural Engineering Program. Allyce’s current research projects include understanding how individual STEM disciplines discuss and categorize concepts of “good” writing, methods to cultivate community for STEM graduate students, and writing across the curriculum. Allyce has published and presented her work at the American Society for Engineering Education, the Council of Writing Program Administrators, and the International Writing Center Association.

I love teaching physics. I had my first formal teaching experience as a senior in high school and my first exposure to physics as a sophomore in college; ever since, I have been seeking out ways to combine these two passions. Whether as a lead instructor, teaching assistant, individual tutor, or outreach volunteer, I thoroughly enjoy facilitating the discovery and understanding of interesting physical phenomena. As a teaching faculty member at Mines, I strive to provide a high-quality and welcoming educational experience for all of our physics students.

While my previous research has focused mainly on small networks of nonlinear dynamical systems, I now enjoy reading about physics education research (PER) and striving to put these results into practice. In particular, I am interested in learning how to make physics classrooms and departments more equitable spaces.

My academic background is also a bit nonlinear (pun intended). After earning my bachelor’s degree in Physics and Mathematics at Pacific University, I enrolled as a PhD student at Duke University. I decided to leave after finishing my MS degree, and then moved to the Winsor School in Boston, Massachusetts, where I taught both algebra- and calculus-based introductory physics for two years before returning to Duke to complete my PhD.

Dr. Garrison Hommer is a Research Assistant Professor in the Mechanical Engineering Department at the Colorado School of Mines. He received his BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, then worked on mechanical design in the particle technology industry and quality engineering in the medical device industry. Hommer received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the Colorado School of Mines in 2018, during which he studied biaxial dwell fatigue in titanium using high-energy diffraction microscopy. He currently manages the Advanced Manufacturing Teaching Lab and the Mechanical Testing Labs within Mines’ Shared Instrumentation Facility (SIF). His research broadly involves mechanical testing of traditional and additive alloys, including hydrogen embrittlement, high and low temperature, fatigue, and digital image correlation (DIC).

Justin is a Teaching Associate Professor in University Honors and Scholars, where he focuses on developing and delivering student-centered, active learning environments in both first year and upper level classes. Justin brings a multidisciplinary lens to the classroom and where he specializes in adapting narrative, writing, and communications concepts to a variety of learning contexts, from design to American Studies.

He holds an MFA from The Iowa Writers’ Workshop and a BS in Environmental Science from Roanoke College. Justin has the good fortune of living in the town where he works and enjoys exploring the nearby mountains and rivers with his family. His office is located at 1704 Illinois Street.

Dr. Ricote is a Research Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at CSM. She earned her PhD in Chemistry from the University of Burgundy in Dijon, France for her research on the characterization of high-temperature proton-conducting ceramic materials (BaCe0.9-xZrxY0.1O2.95) for use as electrolytes in Protonic Ceramic Fuel Cells (PCFCs).

Dr. Ricote completed a four-year appointment at the Technical University of Denmark/Risø National Laboratory in Roskilde, Denmark where she developed PCFCs electrode materials, among other projects.

Dr. Ricote joined Mines in 2012 and has been working since on the development of protonic ceramic fuel cells and membrane reactors.

She was the Chair of the Colorado Section of the American Ceramic Society from 2018 to 2020 and is now a board member.

Allison Caster was born and raised in the Black Hills of South Dakota, where she still spends summers swimming, hiking, paddle-boarding, picking berries, writing, and reading in her hammock. She got her B.S. in Chemistry from the University of South Dakota (where she also studied vocal performance and bass clarinet – ask her about Carnegie Hall), followed by a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from the University of California-Berkeley and post-doctoral research in Bioengineering at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus.

In her research, she developed non-invasive, laser and X-ray based microscopy techniques for probing the chemistry of both natural and man-made structures, for example, to improve the production of smaller integrated circuits, or to identify and sort cancerous from non-cancerous cells in human blood. To spend more time with people and explore the ways we can make undergraduate education more enjoyable, applicable, and inspiring, Allison joined Mines as Chemistry Teaching Faculty in 2012 and became a part of Mines University Honors and Scholars Programs in 2019.

She thrives on interdisciplinary investigations that bridge classroom and laboratory, and that embrace the intrinsically creative nature of science, engineering, and design. Her favorite activities are talking with students about big ideas, making tea, gardening, hiking, singing, dancing, watching movies, making art, reading, and playing video games with my teenage son.

Melanie Brandt is the director of the McBride Honors Program in Public Affairs and an associate teaching professor in the University Honors and Scholars Programs Department (UHSP). She began teaching at Mines in 2011 and brought with her an interdisciplinary educational background and a pedagogical quest to make the classroom an engaging, joyful, and dynamic space for learning.

Her contributions to the university include the development of signature classes and experiences for students that promote active learning, interdisciplinary explorations, and high impact practices. While Melanie has previously taught in the EDNS and HASS departments, her home is in UHSP. She can often be heard telling her students that “the narrative of my life, both inside and outside of the classroom, seems to have been written for my for current position” directing the McBride Honors Progam, teaching honors classes, and mentoring students.

Melanie Brandt received her MA in Humanities from CU Denver. For her thesis, she investigated the power of humor in forming identities and effecting political and social change. Her work necessitated multidisciplinary research and study thereby creating a platform for understanding the fundamental elements of learning and communication that can be applied to many academic disciplines. Melanie earned her bachelor’s degree in Literature and graduated summa cum laude. She is interested in combining the humanities and STEM fields of study in innovative ways that bolster both.

Melanie has taught a variety of writing, film, and literature classes. Furthermore, she has taught in Mines’ Design EPICS program since 2011. This spring she will be teaching one section of NHV and oral communications, along with one section of EPICS.

Kenneth Osgood researches and teaches about the history of U.S. politics and diplomacy, propaganda and intelligence, the history of media, advertising, and public relations, and international affairs.

Ken is author or editor of five books, as well as numerous articles and opinion pieces. Recently he has been a research fellow of the National Endowment for the Humanities and a Visiting Scholar at the Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History at Harvard University.

From 2011 to 2017, Ken served as Director of the McBride Honors Program and he co-founded the J. Don Thorson First Year Honors Experience. In 2015-16, he was president of the Mines Faculty Senate.

Before coming to Mines, Ken taught for ten years at Florida Atlantic University, where he co-founded and directed the Alan B. Larkin Symposium on the American Presidency. Ken also has been the Stanley Kaplan Professor of American Foreign Policy (Williams College) and the Mary Ball Washington Professor of American History (University College Dublin), as well as a research fellow at the Mershon Center for International Security Studies (Ohio State) and the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (UCSD). He received his Ph.D. from the University of California at Santa Barbara and his B.A. from the University of Notre Dame.

Ken also served as associate editor of the journal Diplomatic History, a series editor of Palgrave’s History of the Media series and of the Larkin Series on the American Presidency with University Press of Florida.

In addition to his academic work, Ken has published articles in the New York Times, Washington Post, The Hill, CNN, the Chronicle of Higher Education and other news outlets; he has been interviewed by many media outlets and podcasts; he has lectured on the cable television channel C-SPAN; and he appeared in documentary films from Canada, the UK, Japan, and United States, including the award-winning Love, Hate, and Propaganda (Canadian Broadcasting Company).

Ken loves teaching, especially at Mines. All of his courses integrate active learning and flipped pedagogies that engage students as partners in the learning process. Some of his courses include “Spies and Lies,” “Global Studies,” “Divided States of America,” “Explorations in Modern America,” and “Community Engagement through Service Learning.”

Dr. Ventzi Karaivanov earned a doctoral degree in Mechanical Engineering at Swanson School of Engineering at University of Pittsburgh. His recent research projects include life prediction modeling of thermal barrier coated turbine airfoils, developing custom finite element analysis routines, and corneal biomechanics.

Seth Tucker (Seth Brady Tucker) is a full teaching professor and has been with Mines since 2010. Seth’s teaching of Global Futures, upper-division creative writing and literature, and NHV have earned him a number of university teaching awards. Recent publications have investigated the ethical power of narrative, the culture of food miles, gun culture and violence, and veteran therapy through the arts. Seth is also the founder and executive director of the Longleaf Writers’ Conference (where he has created more than $250,000 in fellowships and scholarships for emerging writers and under-represented group writers over the past decade), and he devotes his free time to teaching at the Lighthouse Writers Workshop in Denver. Seth has been the Senior Prose Editor for the Tupelo Quarterly Review since 2015.

Seth’s third book, “The Cruelty Virtues” will appear with a top-tier press in 2025. He is an award-winning poet and prose writer, and his first book won the Elixir Press Editor’s Poetry Prize (Mormon Boy), and was a finalist for the Colorado Book Award. His second book won the Gival Press Poetry Award (We Deserve the Gods We Ask For) and went on to win the International Eric Hoffer Book Award. His poetry and fiction and essays have appeared in top literary magazines such as: Pleiades, Verse Daily, Iowa Review, December, Driftwood, the Los Angeles Review, Indiana Review, North American Review, and Crab Orchard Review, among many other journals and anthologies.

Seth has worked as a wine sommelier, a ranch hand, and has degrees from San Francisco State University, Northern Arizona University, and from the top-ranked Creative Writing program at Florida State University (PhD English 2012). He was a paratrooper with the US Army’s 82nd Airborne Division and served in the Persian Gulf. Currently, Seth enjoys camping and reading and writing and he raises bees in his backyard.

Jeffrey Wheeler joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering teaching faculty in 2017. He is currently a Teaching Associate Professor. He graduated from Whitworth University in Spokane, Washington in 2011 with a Bachelor of Science in Engineering Physics and a Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics. During his undergraduate studies, Dr. Wheeler spent two summers in the Langley Aerospace Research Summer Scholars program at NASA Langley Research Center.

After completing his undergraduate studies, Dr. Wheeler came to Mines as a graduate student. He completed his Masters of Science in Engineering, Systems Specialty in 2013. His thesis research focused on the development of a solid-state sensor to detect the onset of carbon formation on nickel catalysts in fuel reforming systems. This research also resulted in a patent.

Dr. Wheeler earned his Ph.D. from Mines in Engineering Systems in 2016. His research focused on applying optical measurement techniques to study liquid electrolytes. After graduation, Dr. Wheeler worked with the Colorado-based startup Vartega Inc. Vartega recycles carbon fiber manufacturing scrap through a novel chemistry-based process. Dr. Wheeler used his diagnostic expertise to determine the quality of reclaimed carbon fiber and develop process improvements for Vartega.

Dr. Wheeler remains active in the Colorado startup community and continues to perform research with Vartega. His research interests include instrumentation development, diagnostic techniques, process monitoring, and material characterization.

My area of expertise is physics education research, with a concentration in problem solving in introductory calculus-based physics. I have been involved with reform efforts in implementing effective pedagogical practices and developing curricular material at 3 major universities over the past decade. I’m interested in utilizing various qualitative and quantitative research methodologies in my investigations into student learning to inform both pedagogy and curriculum.

Currently I am working on further refining the studio-physics curriculum here at Mines, and am involved with several pedagogical reform efforts with upper-division physics courses. Plans are also in the works for designing a Studio Electronics learning environment.

My primary focus is on physical metallurgy and the study of the effect of heat treating on microstructural development and mechanical properties. Previously I was involved in low carbon TRIP steel research, notably on strain ageing (bake hardening), mechanical stability of the retained austenite and high strain rate testing of these grades.

More recently I studied the Quenching and Partitioning process by assessing mechanical properties, such as tensile and hole expansion, as well as by a study of the physical metallurgy of the process through dilatometry and differential scanning calorimetry analysis.

In my view, a primary goal of academic engineering research should be a fundamental study of involved mechanisms, aiming at improving properties and/or optimizing processes in service to the industry. This approach can greatly contribute to the education of our students.

My focus is on how people discover and use information, with an emphasis on STEM disciplines. My research interests include: discoverability of content and AI applications; how people evaluate information sources; and integrating archival materials into research and instruction.

My Master’s degree in geology, fieldwork on sedimentary rocks in the Sinai Peninsula, and an MLS emphasizing STEM information management set the stage for my current activities. I’ve worked with students, faculty and the public to connect them with scientific and technical information for much of my career. The challenges of managing STEM-focused special collections and supporting the use of archival materials are a more recent interest.

In addition to librarianship, I’m a long-time science fiction devotee and experimental xeriscape gardener.

Jay Straker is Associate Professor in Humanities, Arts & Social Sciences at the Colorado School of Mines. His primary research focuses on youth, nationalism, ethnicity, cultural politics, and social conflict in West Africa. He is the author of Youth, Nationalism, and the Guinean Revolution (Indiana University Press, 2009), and a series of articles on the Republic of Guinea. Other research and teaching interests include postcolonial literature and ethnographies of landscape, urbanization and performance.

Christine has been at Mines since 2004. She began at the Library’s Front Desk and then moved into the Library’s Government Publications section where she developed a keen interest in cataloging and metadata. Soon afterward, and ever since, Christine has taken on the role of Special Formats Metadata Librarian where she works to ensure access to and discovery of the Library’s special formats, both in the online catalog and in Mines Institutional Repository. She works primarily with Mines theses and dissertations, digitized and print special collections, and a variety of other formats.

Professor Adam Duran is a strategic program leader and engineering educator with nearly two decades of experience spanning automotive research and development, technical consulting, and systems engineering. He specializes in bridging academic innovation with industry needs, developing workforce pipelines to prepare the next generation of engineers.

Before joining Mines, Adam served as Program Director and Research Engineer at the National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR), where he led major initiatives in advanced vehicle technologies and fuels. While at the lab, he also co-launched the GCxN cleantech accelerator in partnership with Shell advancing and derisking promising early-stage startup technology. As a licensed Professional Engineer (P.E.) and certified Project Management Professional (PMP), he has secured over $10 million in competitive funding and authored more than 30 peer-reviewed publications.

At Mines, Adam directs large-scale experiential learning programs that integrate technical rigor with hands-on, team-based projects. In collaboration with Dr. Polina Brodsky, he leads the U.S. Department of Energy’s Battery Workforce Challenge and co-advises the university’s Formula SAE team. He also serves on the Mines Capstone Leadership Team, helping guide curriculum development and instruction for annual cohorts of more than 700 engineering students.

A Colorado native, Adam brings his engineering mindset to personal passions such as off roading in his Jeep and DIY home improvement projects. Outside the lab, he enjoys exploring the Rockies with his wife and two dogs and expressing his creativity through charcoal and pastel art.

Patricia Andersen has a background working in the Mining Industry in Australia and Namibia. She joined the Library’s Front Desk staff in 1999. Patricia now works on Assessment and User Experience, chairing committees in these areas and providing use statistics.

Patricia manages a campus wide survey on Library Services every 4 years or so and has presented on the results of these surveys and associated user comments.

Current interests include designing space use for both the current Library and the anticipated Library renovation.

Dr. Zhang received his B.S and M.S degrees respectively in 1984 and 1987 from Tongji University, Shanghai, China and Ph.D. degree from Florida Atlantic University in 1992. He is registered Professional Civil Engineer in California. Before joining Colorado School of Mines, Dr. Zhang had worked in Princeton University for three and a half years as Post-Doctoral Research Associate, and in University of Southern California for two years as Research Assistant Professor.

Dr. Zhang’s research interest resides in continuum mechanics, vibration theory, wave propagation, stochastic processes and fields, and advanced data processing and analysis for sensory systems, disaster assessment and mitigation, and structural/geotechnical nondestructive evaluation and health monitoring. He is author of 1 edited book, 1 book chapter, 1 edited journal, 48 journal papers and numerous papers in conference proceedings and edited books.

Dr Zhang is the recipient of 1997 IASSAR Junior Research Prize in Stochastic Dynamics for his contribution to the solutions of seismic wave propagation through stochastic media, bestowed by International Association for Structural Safety and Reliability (IASSAR).

Christopher J.J. Thiry has been the Map & GIS Librarian at Mines since 1995. He has extensive knowledge regarding map and GIS resources, map cataloging, and mining history. As the Academic Outreach Coordinator, he has met with a large number of Mines faculty and staff members regarding Library services and resources.

He has taught numerous classes on campus regarding research skills. He is a two-time former President of the Western Association of Map Libraries (WAML). He has served on numerous committees on campus including the Faculty Senate, the Re-admissions Committee, and Mines DI&A Allies and Advocates Committee.

Sandy Woodson has taught ethics, environmental ethics and writing at the Colorado School of Mines since 1999, and serves as the Department Head for Humanities, Arts, & Social Sciences. She is Director of the Ethics Across Campus Program, and she coaches the Mines Ethics Bowl Team. She earned an MA in Environmental Ethics from Colorado State University, where her research focused on Hindu metaphysics as a grounding for environmental ethics. She also earned an MFA in Creative Writing—Nonfiction—from the University of Montana. Her research interests include ethics pedagogy and curricular design, and her very favorite thing is coaching the Mines Ethics Bowl Team.

Dr. Berger has a BS in Civil (Structural) Engineering and an MS and PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park. Dr. Berger’s primary research interests are in the mechanical behavior and fracture of materials.

Specifically, he has been engaged in research concerning dynamic crack growth and crack arrest in brittle and ductile materials, analytical and computational tools for analysis of anisotropic solids, elastic wave-based models for the nondestructive evaluation of cylindrically anisotropic solids, and numerical/experimental studies of deformation and fracture in functionally graded materials. Most recently, Dr. Berger has been involved with chemo-elastic mechanics in lithium-ion batteries, fuel cells, and transport membranes. Dr. Berger spent five years on the staff of the Fracture and Deformation Division of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), has held faculty positions at Notre Dame and the University of Alaska, and has been at Colorado School of Mines since 1994. He served as department head for ME from 2017-2020.

As Systems Discovery Librarian, Lisa ensures robust library systems that facilitate search, discovery, and delivery of library services and resources in both the physical and digital realms. She takes a service-centric approach to improve access to and promote library materials for the Mines community.

In addition to this, she has a strong area of interest ensuring library users have knowledge of and access to grey information produced outside of the regular information channels. This stems from her initial library positions working with government information. Her research interests include: ensuring federally funded technical reports are accessible for researchers; increasing research skills in using government information, especially environmental legislation and regulations; and taking advantage of XML technologies to transform and/or manipulate bibliographic data to increase availability.

Her personal passions include exploring national parks, hiking in Colorado and the surrounding states, and camping with her family.

Dr. Zhu is currently working primarily on modeling chemically and electrochemically reacting fluid flow for fuel cells and batteries. Dr. Zhu received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from University of Maryland-College Park, BS in Mechanics and MS in Fluid Mechanics from Peking University, China.

Dr. Zhu has been developing the theory, modeling, and computational software for a wide array of chemically-reacting fluid-flow problems including: combustion, catalytic processes, chemically-reacting reservoir flows, high-temperature MIEC membrane reactors, solid oxide fuel cell systems, and batteries. Recent efforts include new approaches and software to represent the coupled effects of electrochemical kinetics, thermal reforming kinetics, porous-media transport, and fluid flows.

These capabilities are also incorporated into system-level models, which are applied to evaluate and optimize solid-oxide fuel-cell systems and batteries. Dr. Zhu is also studying the heterogeneous chemical reaction mechanisms for the fuel processes, catalytic combustion, and electrochemical systems for clean-energy power-conversion technologies.

Derrick received his Ph.D. in Environmental Science and Engineering from the Colorado School of Mines in 2006. Derrick also holds an M.S. in Environmental Engineering and a B.S. in Civil Engineering from the University of Wyoming.

Derrick has previously worked as an adjunct in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, as a research faculty member in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and was employed by various consulting firms for 5 years providing environmental engineering support to the Department of Energy’s Environmental Restoration Program. Derrick is also a registered professional environmental engineer in the state of Idaho.

Derrick lives in Applewood, has four children (20, 19, 15 and 13), and is an avid motorcyclist, enjoying both motocross track riding as well as riding on the street. Derrick practices Hawaiian Kenpo mixed martial arts at People’s Kenpo Karate in Littleton and is currently a 1st degree brown belt.

Prior to joining Mines ME, Jim Wong spent nine years as an adjunct instructor in Mines EPICS Engineering Design and Society (EDNS), Metallurgical and Materials Engineering (MME) and ME Departments. Jim is a Mines alum with a B.S. and M.S. in MME (‘92 and ‘01, respectively). Jim’s industrial experience is R&D and manufacturing support, ultimately leading him to John Deere’s Applied Mechanics department where he focused on component fatigue and reliability. Other areas of research include industry/academic collaborations addressing: simulation of weld and casting solidification, ultra-high cycle fatigue testing, and measuring thermo-mechanical properties of iron.