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The College of Engineering and Applied Science Alumni Awards honor the best and the brightest of Boulder’s engineering alumni. This year, Kristin Thunhorst (MChemEngr '95, PhD' 98) will receive the Distinguished Engineering Alumni Award for Research & Innovation for an accomplished, unique—and ongoing—chemical engineering career.

After leaving CU Boulder with a PhD in chemical engineering, Thunhorst joined the ranks of the 3M Company. While numbers alone don’t tell the full story, hers are staggering.

Her work as a scientist has resulted in 22 issued patents (with more on the way), new product developments generating the company hundreds of millions of dollars, eight Circle of Technical Excellence and Innovation Awards, and the American Institute of Chemical Engineering Industrial R&D Award—not to mention earning her position as one of the top scientists at the company.

Every successful career starts somewhere—and hers started right here at CU Boulder.

“I cherished my time in Colorado because I could live in such a fantastic and inspirational setting and still be able to work with accomplished—and yet understated—professors and advisors to earn an excellent education in the chemical engineering department at CU,” Thunhorst said.

“Every day, I was grateful to walk to campus and see the distinctive Flatirons framing the chemical engineering building. I appreciate my CU education which prepared me to contribute to a myriad of interesting and challenging opportunities during my career with 3M.”

At the upcoming alumni awards banquet, Thunhorst will be honored alongside other college alumni receiving awards in the Industry & Commerce, Education and Recent Alumni Award categories. While external awards and recognition are important, Thunhorst says the key to her success has been forging her own path.

“Each person has to determine what constitutes their own vision of a rewarding and successful career and life,” she said. “When a person is satisfied, they can bring their best whole person to bear on the obstacles, challenges, projects and deadlines that confront them. They are also in a better situation to be a more encouraging, positive and productive manager, team leader, team member, coach, teacher, spouse and parent.”

What advice does she have for future chemical and biological engineering Buffs? While technical knowledge is important, she points to other personal factors that can help an engineer find success.

“Communication and collaboration are absolutely critical to future success, no matter what one’s chosen discipline will be,” she said. “Invest in yourself by taking time to study and practice, in school or in your early career, distilling thoughts, data, and information down to the most powerful and concise points. These skills will pay immense dividends when you’re trying to gain support of management, seek funding for experiments, write grant proposals, start a new venture or even recruit a new collaborator.”

Ultimately, Thunhorst said she believes that a team’s diversity helps the essential processes succeed.

“One of my favorite statements is, ‘The magic always happens at the interfaces.’ This is true whether we are talking about the action of sandpaper on a substrate, the chemical and physical forces that make tapes and adhesives function or whether we are talking about the spontaneous, creative and unexpected ideas and solutions produced when people of different backgrounds and perspectives converge on a challenge,” she said.

“It is in that moment where fuzzy boundaries of diverse expertise, understanding and technical backgrounds collide, that inventions are sparked to life.”

Thunhorst gives credit to one person in particular for the opportunity to receive such a distinguished award: her former graduate advisor, Distinguished Professor Chris Bowman.

“I’m poignantly reminded that the only reason I’ve even been asked to write this article is because my graduate advisor, Dr. Chris Bowman, decided to advocate for, solicit support from others and nominate me for the University of Colorado Distinguished Engineering Alumni Award this year,” she said. “I’m deeply grateful for the opportunity and humbled by the award.”

The alumni awards banquet will be held at the Arrow Touchdown Club at Folsom Field on Friday, April 26.