spring 2019

College News Spring 2019

Anonymous — Mon, 29 Apr 2019 06:00:00 +0000

College News Spring 2019 Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 04/29/2019 - 00:00

On the Ball

The partnership between Ball Corp. and the University of Colorado Boulder dates back to the very dawn of the space program.

At that time, Ball was a glassmaker facing declines in its core home canning business. It was looking for the next big thing and, after putting feelers out across the country, connected with a few CU Boulder faculty members working on early space research.

It was a new industry and a radical change for the company, but 60 years later, it is still paying dividends for Ball and CU. Ball has sponsored aerospace senior design projects, collaborated with faculty on research and hired hundreds of engineering graduates.

The partnership was broadened campuswide in 2018 with the first Ball Career Day. Engineering, business and communications students fanned out across the Denver area to tour various Ball manufacturing, administrative and research facilities before reconvening on campus for a networking reception with Ball employees.

“Having company senior leadership surrounding us like this is miraculous,” senior aerospace major Alejandro Corral said during the reception. “It was insane that one leader greeted me and shook my hand and started talking to me. Speaking to the company leaders like that was an experience you wouldn’t get at a career fair.”

2018 also marked the second year of the  Ball Sisters program, which works to  support women in engineering through a mentoring initiative that matches female students with a “sister” employee at Ball. Since its inception, the program has  doubled in size, from 25 to 50 pairs.

“It is so rewarding to have a program that allows us opportunity to mentor our budding aerospace sisters,” said Michele Miller, Ball’s director of missions and systems engineering. “These future leaders from CU are able to leverage our various talents and experiences, and along the way, we also get to learn a thing or two from them. It’s fun!”

As CU Boulder looks forward to new collaborations and opportunities, those who know Ball’s contributions to the aerospace program can already vouch for the benefits they bring to the university.

Above and beyond: New global aerospace degree

CU Engineering now offers a global aerospace engineering degree track, allowing students to graduate with a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering, minor in computer science, study abroad experience and co-op work experience in just five years.

The innovative new track provides students with the education and experience they need to be even more competitive in the aerospace job market, while also providing value for students and their families.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQoITlRZtFI&feature=youtu.be]

�鶹��Ժ spend the first two-and-a-half years following the regular progression of aerospace courses and taking foundational courses in the computer science minor. In their third year, they will apply to a study abroad program with a strong basis in computer science. Currently, pre-approved study abroad programs in computer science are offered at nearly two dozen highly regarded universities in 13 countries.

While abroad in fall of their fourth year, students will continue working toward the computer science minor and take humanities and social science courses, while also applying for co-ops. When they return stateside, students will work alongside professionals through the spring and summer, earning valuable real-world experience and,  in many cases, competitive wages. They’ll return to campus in fall for their fifth and final year of aerospace engineering courses.

A BOLDer Celebration

In November, the College of Engineering and Applied Science celebrated the 10th anniversary of the BOLD Center, our award-winning program to support women and minorities in engineering.

The celebration at a Boulder art gallery brought 170 students, alumni and staff together to celebrate BOLD and the two programs it brought together—the Multicultural Engineering Program and Women in Engineering Program, which were started in the 1970s and ’80s, respectively.

“Some of our students used to have to choose between belonging to MEP or WIEP, or they would have to split their time in two places,” said Beverly Louie, former director of WIEP.
“BOLD solved that. In the BOLD Center, our students can embrace all of their identities as whole individuals.”

Earlier in 2018, BOLD was honored by the Collaborative Network for Engineering and Computing Diversity as its Program of the Year. CoNECD is a forum for exploring current research and practices to enhance diversity and inclusion of all underrepresented groups in the engineering and computing professions.

Two CU engineers elected to National Academy of Engineering

The National Academy of Engineering has elected Ann and H.J. Smead Aerospace Engineering Sciences professor Penina Axelrad and alumnus Dereje Agonafer (AeroEngr’72) as new members in 2019. Axelrad is the Joseph T. Negler Professor and immediate past chair of Smead Aerospace at CU Boulder. Agonafer is the Jenkins Garrett Professor in mechanical and aerospace engineering at the University of Texas Arlington.

Expansion will unite business and engineering

In June, CU Boulder will break ground on the Business + Engineering Expansion, connecting the Engineering Center with the Koelbel Building. This 60,000-square-foot addition will improve collaboration between CU Engineering and the Leeds School of Business, provide additional classroom space and create a hub for university entrepreneurial endeavors. The expansion is targeted for completion  in December 2020.

Learn more

This partnership between Western and CU will help meet the demands of our state’s rapidly expanding high-tech industries.

More about the partnership

A CU Engineering degree, grounded  in Gunnison

A new collaboration between the College of Engineering and Applied Science and Western State University in Gunnison, Colorado, will allow students to earn their degrees in mechanical engineering and computer science, including computer science with an emphasis in software engineering, as graduates of CU Boulder.

They will complete their first two years as Western students, and the balance as CU Boulder students, all while remaining on the Western campus. Graduates will receive a Bachelor of Science degree and diploma from CU.

“By expanding the number of qualified students who have access to a technological education, this partnership between Western and CU will help meet the demands of our state’s rapidly expanding high-tech industries,” Dean Bobby Braun said. “This partnership is good for the economic competitiveness of our state and will allow CU to continue to expand our reach across the Western Slope.”

Western Colorado University President Greg Salsbury, left, and Dean Bobby Braun at WCU.

On the road again: Dean’s State Tour

The second annual Engineering State Tour took Dean Bobby Braun and his wife, Karen, on a more than 900-mile trip around the Eastern Plains  in September.

In addition to visits to several  K–12 schools and community  colleges, Bobby also spent some  time at Colorado State University  and the University of Northern Colorado to talk about future collaboration and partnership opportunities. On the industry front, wind energy was a common theme  — stops included NextEra Energy  in Calhan, Northeastern Junior College’s wind technology  program and Vestas in Greeley.

The dean’s mission is to travel to all four corners of Colorado to connect with industry partners and alumni, and to search out the best and brightest students. Future tours could also branch out into New Mexico and  other surrounding states.

Creating community college connections

America’s community colleges have a vast trove of talented students, and we need to make the pathway to engineering for them accessible.

Sarah Miller
Associate Dean of Diversity and Inclusion

CU Boulder is taking a leading role on a new $10 million National Science Foundation grant to increase the number of community college students who go on to study engineering at four-year colleges, a move intended to help pave the way for a more diverse workforce.

Millions of U.S. students finish high school ill-prepared in math, despite their aptitude for it. If they enroll at a community college — as many low-income, first-generation, minority and working college students do — they’re often so far behind that it’s hard to gain proficiency for timely transfer to a four-year engineering degree program.

The CU Boulder team and partners aim to help community college students study math intensively by providing specialized resources,  such as tutoring and STEM internships, and by lowering  common barriers, such as financial aid and access to appropriate transportation and childcare.

“Society needs more engineers, and more diversity in engineering,” said Sarah Miller, one of CU Boulder’s principal investigators and an assistant dean in the College of Engineering, who is directing the initiative in partnership with Saddleback College in California. “America’s community colleges have a vast trove of talented students, and we need to make the pathway to engineering for them accessible.”

The college is also taking the lead in a three-year grant awarded through the NSF Research Experiences for Teachers (RET) program.

Sean Shaheen, associate professor of electrical, computer and energy engineering, and Janet Yowell of CU Boulder’s Center for STEM Learning are directing the Authentic Research Experiences for Teachers (ARETe) program, which uses a train-the-trainer model to match community college faculty with CU Boulder engineering faculty to conduct research on the Boulder campus.

The program provides community college faculty with professional development, mentoring and training on how to conduct research. Faculty will use what they’ve learned to create in-class research experiences at their home colleges, multiplying an effect that will connect community college students across the Front Range to research at CU Boulder  for years to come.

Introducing Technology, Cybersecurity and Policy

CU Engineering has launched a new cybersecurity program that combines the expertise of the longstanding Interdisciplinary Telecommunications Program with new strengths in defense and entrepreneurship.

The program, rebranded as the Technology, Cybersecurity and Policy Program, aims to give all undergraduates exposure to the topic, offering a new introductory cybersecurity course that doesn’t require a computer science background.

Because “cyber” now impacts not just the internet, but everything from autonomous vehicles to medical devices, CU Engineering is committed to pushing the boundaries of how we think about cybersecurity and its future. For example, recent studies reveal that cyber attackers still rely heavily on human factors and especially “social engineering.” This means that our approach will take into account issues of confidentiality, authenticity, integrity, risk management and adversarial thinking.

New classes already announced:

Introduction to Blockchain
Immersive Cyber Defense
The Business of Fintech
The Mathematics of Cryptosystems

Learn More

Dear World: Breaking the ice through stories

During their first week on campus, our freshman class participated in a unique interactive experience that encouraged them to build community by sharing their personal stories.

Organizers said they brought Dear World to campus because being able to work as a team is vital in engineering, and teamwork requires personal connection. �鶹��Ժ worked with their classmates to develop their stories, then wrote a phrase from their stories on their bodies for a photo shoot with Dear World facilitators. Senior aerospace engineering student Connie Childs was among the current students and alumni who volunteered to share their stories as part of the event. Visit the online edition of CU Engineering to watch a Dear World wrap-up video and to listen to a podcast interview with Childs.

VIDEO EXTRA: [video:https://youtu.be/tlbsFzsEf84]

�鶹��Ժ who serve

CU Boulder launched a student chapter of the Society of American Military Engineers in February 2018. SAME is a national organization that leads efforts to confront national security and infrastructure challenges. CU’s chapter wants to connect CU students with SAME members and companies in these fields through guest presentations and field trips to government sites and projects. Their goal is to foster an inclusive environment for all students interested in these fields.

Timothy Barentine (EngrPhys’18) of Cascade, Colorado, and Joseph Crawford of Durango, Colorado, who will graduate in May with a degree in environmental engineering, were selected for the U.S. Navy’s prestigious Nuclear Propulsion Officer Candidate Program.

Midshipman Gemma Nowak, U.S. Navy ROTC, a senior in mechanical engineering, received the RADM Michael R. Johnson, CEC, USN Scholarship from the NY City Post, Society of American Military Engineers (SAME). Cadet Zachary Donovan, U.S. Air Force ROTC, a senior in aerospace engineering, received the Charles H. Sells Scholarship from the NY City Post.

Opening in fall 2019

Our new aerospace hub is just weeks away from opening! Smead Aerospace faculty and staff will begin moving in this summer, and we will celebrate the grand opening on Aug. 26. Check out the fall edition of CU Engineering magazine for an inside look at this new campus focal point for aerospace research and education.

New Aerospace Building

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Colorado Research Spotlight

Anonymous — Wed, 24 Apr 2019 06:00:00 +0000

Colorado Research Spotlight Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 04/24/2019 - 00:00

Wildfires spark water quality research

In 2012, two wildfires burned the Upper Cache la Poudre River watershed in northern Colorado. When Associate Professor Fernando Rosario-Ortiz sampled water from two areas along the river — one affected and one unaffected by fire — he uncovered a chemical difference between the two.

Since then, he and his team have studied how the intensity of wildfires impacts water quality and water treatment. Wildfires release sediments, nutrients, heavy metals and organic matter, all of which contaminate water and nearby soil. To further understand this process, Rosario-Ortiz and his team simulated wildfire severities by heating soils in his lab to different temperatures. What he found was that up to a point, the warmer a soil gets, the more carbon- and nitrogen-containing compounds it releases.

These compounds are problematic because they react with chemicals used to purify drinking water. This results in disinfection byproducts that impact the ability of drinking water utilities to produce water that meets EPA standards.

“The work we do increases understanding and will ultimately help us to improve potable water production,” Rosario-Ortiz said.

Poor air quality affects low-income households

Professor Shelly Miller has been studying the effects of climate change on indoor air quality in low-income Denver-area households. With many buildings using large amounts of energy for heating, cooling and ventilating, Miller hopes to improve energy efficiency. She and her team aim to explore health effects of reducing ventilation rates in homes to minimize energy loss.

Many studies have shown that low ventilation rates harm indoor air quality and health. “For urban homes in Denver, when we assessed respiratory health with questionnaires, we found the opposite to be true,” Miller says. “This is likely because higher ventilation rates let in more outdoor air pollutants than they push out.” As a result, respiratory health, in the form of allergies, asthma and chronic respiratory conditions, was found to be poor in households with high ventilation rates. Not surprisingly, those in households near busy roads with increased exposure to traffic-related pollutants show more severe asthma-like symptoms.

Colorado-born technology detects methane gas leaks

In addition to contributing to climate change, methane leaks from oil and gas wells raise a variety of safety, environmental and financial concerns. As demonstrated by the explosion of a home in Firestone, Colorado, in 2017, these leaks can even be deadly if the gas is unexpectedly ignited.

To identify hard-to-detect leaks before they become a problem, Assistant Professor Greg Rieker and his team are using lasers called frequency comb spectrometers, which they place among dense oil and gas infrastructure.

The system sends the eye-safe laser over mile-long stretches of the atmosphere to mirrors placed among well pads across a several-square-mile region. When the light returns, researchers analyze how much light is missing at certain colors where methane absorbs, identifying traces of methane as small as one part per billion. The team has started a company called LongPath Technologies to commercialize the system.

“It’s a tremendous Colorado story,” Rieker said. “We’ve taken the laser frequency comb — a 2005 Nobel Prize-winning technology from right here at CU Boulder — brought it to the field to solve a problem for a Colorado-based industry and created a Colorado company in the process.”

CPR Podcast: Detecting Methane Leaks Could Turn Into Big Business

AirWaterGas outreach Affects 11 K–12 schools across Colorado

The five-year AirWaterGas project at CU Boulder wrapped up this year with a host of research findings aimed at integrating science into decisions about transitions in energy systems. Through the project’s outreach to K–12 schools across Colorado, it also helped nearly 1,000 students learn to ask their own questions about what is in the air and where it comes from.

In addition to more typical energy systems, such as cars or electricity systems, students at 11 schools have explored air quality of high school locker rooms, nail salons, hospital waiting rooms, small airplanes, feedlots and greenhouses.

“We’ve learned that students get excited about air quality when they conduct research in their communities, especially as it relates to family business,” Assessment Team Lead Daniel Knight said. “It’s great to see students excited about science.”

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Becoming ‘Ilisaurri’

Anonymous — Tue, 23 Apr 2019 06:00:00 +0000

Becoming ‘Ilisaurri’ Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 04/23/2019 - 00:00

After overcoming the odds to become an engineer, alumnus spends his career helping others do the same

When he started as a faculty member at the University of Alaska Anchorage, Herb IIisaurri Schroeder (PhDCivEngr’91) spent time researching rural sanitation in 100 Alaska Native villages.

Because many still relied on portable toilets rather than sewer systems, the villages had higher occurrences of disease and infant mortality, since pathogens live longer in the cold climate. He quickly realized that if public health engineers could communicate with communities, it would be easier to set up improved sanitary systems.

But everywhere he looked, the engineers were outsiders.

“In my two years on the project, I’d never met an Alaska Native engineer,” Schroeder said. “This was one of the first times that I realized Alaska Natives were being discriminated against.”

Determined to change things, Schroeder reached out to friends in the oil and gas industry and raised $100,000 to launch the program now known as the Alaska Native Science and Engineering Program (ANSEP).

However, raising the money wasn’t the only hurdle Schroeder would face. At first, he said, officials at the University of Alaska threatened to send the money back because they were concerned that accepting Alaska Native students would weaken their academic standards.

“But I knew my rights as a faculty member, and we launched the program,” Schroeder said. “I wasn’t going to quit until that kind of discrimination was gone forever and it would never happen again.”

‘We had to build a solution to work around the system’

In the early years of the program, Schroeder began to fully understand the challenges Alaska Native students face. Some who attended the first summer bridge programs hadn’t completed algebra in high school, and some failed the required introductory English classes.

He said people often don’t realize that Alaska Natives are the poorest population in the U.S. In rural areas, people often still hunt for most of their food. He remembers one student, the son of a North Slope nomad, who was the first in his family to use money.

“I saw high schools saying that Alaska Native kids weren’t capable of success, and they would just pass them through unprepared for college,” Schroeder said. “Because of the issues with schools, the attitudes toward Native Alaskans and the availability of people who would work with us, we had to build a solution to work around the system.”

ANSEP started working with the National Science Foundation, teaching kids as young as sixth grade to build home computers. Those kids committed to finishing algebra by eighth grade. High schoolers at ANSEP’s acceleration academies commit to completing trigonometry, physics and calculus before graduating, and most earn college credit.

This year, ANSEP’s Acceleration Academy in Anchorage is graduating a 17-year-old with 70 college credits.

“Our students aren’t just prepared — they are hyper-prepared.” Schroeder said.

Working together to overcome barriers

Today, ANSEP has multiple programs to support students from fifth grade through doctoral work. From helping 10 students a year build home computers in the early 2000s to more than 500 in 2018, ANSEP’s impact continues to grow.

Skylar Kern is working on his PhD in mechanical engineering and is a research assistant in the Turbulence and Energy Systems Laboratory (TESLa) at CU Boulder.

While most ANSEP students leave after completing their bachelor’s in engineering, some go on to complete graduate work. The students even have the opportunity to return to tenure-track teaching offers at the University Alaska Anchorage if they complete their doctoral degrees elsewhere.

One of these promising students, Skylar Kern, is pursuing a PhD in mechanical engineering at CU Boulder. ANSEP has awarded him a fellowship that supports his research, and he plans to teach at UA Anchorage after completing his degree.

ANSEP has received dozens of national awards, including the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring from President George W. Bush. It was a finalist for the 2018 Innovations in American Government Award from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. ANSEP is supported by over 100 industry, public, private and government funders.

In 2018, Schroeder received the CU Boulder George Norlin Award for distinguished achievement in his chosen field of endeavor and a devotion to the betterment of society and their community.

But perhaps most impressive is the name the Alaskan Native students and their families have bestowed on him: Ilisaurri. It means teacher.

Becoming Ilisaurri

Schroeder followed an unlikely path to academia. As a high school sophomore in in Chicago, his math teacher told him that he was “a loser at math,” and Schroeder sort of agreed.

When he went to college the first time, he majored in business but found it boring and soon dropped out. Uncertain what to do next, he spent time on the East Coast, bartending and playing rugby.

After the 1973 U.S. oil crisis, he heard about the need for workers to build the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. Lured by this unique opportunity, Schroeder hopped on a plane and headed to Anchorage. Two days later, he headed north to one of the main construction sites in Fairbanks. He found the union hall and, before he knew it, he was shoveling snow in a construction yard.

He spent the next two-and-a-half years working, eating and sleeping in the construction camps alongside engineers. During one of many shared meals he found himself thinking, “He’s no smarter than I am. I can be an engineer, too.”

From that moment, his goal became earning his bachelor's in engineering, which he did at the University of Alaska in Anchorage. With his degree and experience working on the pipeline, Schroeder easily found a job in the oil and gas industry and stayed there for seven years.

Not fully satisfied with his career, he decided to pursue additional degrees, earning a master’s in construction engineering from Oregon State University and a doctorate in civil engineering from CU Boulder.

Under the direction of CU professor Jim Diekmann, Schroeder conducted research for NASA on the constructability of the International Space Station in orbit. Like the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, construction in space was the perfect opportunity to do something that had never been done before.

After completing his doctorate in 1991, Schroeder sold everything in Boulder and moved back to Alaska with his family and his new degree. He didn’t have a job, wasn’t interested in a postdoc and didn’t realize that he was again on track do something that had never been done before.

The decision to move back to Alaska was simple — he wanted to give something back to the state that had given him so much. From jobs on the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, to an engineering degree that most people who knew him would have thought impossible, he returned to Alaska to pay forward his good fortune.

“ANSEP started small and had a few kids, but you pull partners in and once they see it’s possible — they see it’s working — it grows,” Schroeder said. “We all recognize there are problems with the system. We can overcome the barriers if we work together.”

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Engineering Buffs, Unite

Anonymous — Tue, 23 Apr 2019 06:00:00 +0000

Engineering Buffs, Unite Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 04/23/2019 - 00:00

Alumni Tailgate

Mark your calendar!

CU Engineering Alumni Tailgate
November 9, 2019
Homecoming - CU vs. Stanford

More Info

The fall 2018 Alumni Tailgate drew dozens of alumni, including beer from alumni-owned Bootstrap Brewing Company Steve Kaczeus (MechEngr’82).

CU Engineering graduates are spread across all 50 states and at least 97 countries.

Now, the college is establishing Regional Alumni Networks in five metropolitan areas to help alumni harness the power of this vast CU Engineering network.

“If we can provide opportunities for that whole ecosystem of people to connect with one another in meaningful ways, that can be formative for their careers,” said Kevin Lobdell, director of alumni engagement in the College of Engineering and Applied Science.

Lobdell and his team have established outposts in the San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle and Houston, with Los Angeles and the Denver metro next on the list.

They’re partnering with alumni like Kevin Mackay (MechEngr’06) in the Bay Area to serve as Regional Network Ambassadors. These volunteer ambassadors serve several important purposes: as sounding boards for events and initiatives the college is considering; as amplifiers for those initiatives within their own areas; and as a friendly face for fellow alumni or students seeking local connections.

“Within a big city, it’s not always the easiest to find your way around from a networking standpoint,” Mackay said. “I thought it would be a great way to give back to alumni that are trying to find their way, as well.”

The network is having other auxiliary effects, too. As a result of his volunteer post, Mackay was invited to assist with a high school robotics event, which he hopes will allow him to promote engineering in general and CU Boulder in particular among the next generation.

The Alumni Engagement Team plans to host events in each of the five regions throughout the year, allowing alumni to broaden their connections, learn what’s new in the college and have some fun in the company of fellow Buffs. The hope, Lobdell said, is that more alumni can point to CU Engineering and Applied Science as their strongest professional network, helping them to secure their first jobs, their next jobs, business partnerships and more.

While they’re focusing first on areas with the largest alumni populations, the college will continue to host events on campus to reconnect with alumni while back at their alma mater. And they’ll look to expand these networks to additional areas in the future.

Regional Alumni Networks

Denver | Houston | San Francisco | Seattle | Southern California

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'The Passion is Here'

Anonymous — Tue, 23 Apr 2019 06:00:00 +0000

'The Passion is Here' Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 04/23/2019 - 00:00

New director wants CU to be the destination for research into global engineering solutions

Evan Thomas is the type of leader who will speak passionately for hours in support of his projects, team and vision with little need for breaks — mental, breathing or otherwise.

It’s an admirable trait—doubly so, given that you can tell he believes deeply every word he says about the work the Mortenson Center in Engineering for Developing Communities has done and will do around things like clean water, sanitation and disaster resiliency.

Thomas took over as director of the Mortenson Center in summer 2018. Since then, he has outlined significant changes to the center’s research and teaching, and advocated for recruiting students from all engineering departments, as well as outside entities like the Colorado School of Public Health.

Those changes, paired with a plan to dedicate space on East Campus for global engineering research, are all part of his goal to make the center the preeminent education and research destination for engineers who want to make a positive global impact.

“It’s more and more obvious that engineers will play an important role in poverty reduction around the world, especially in the face of a changing climate,” Thomas said. “This is a growing field and a clear need. The passion is here—the challenge is identifying what our appropriate role and contribution should be.”

Over the next year, Thomas hopes to break the center’s curriculum into one-credit modules, making it more customizable and accessible to students across CU Boulder. The addition of lab space will open new opportunities, as well, including a dedicated space to develop and validate technologies in areas like air and water quality.

“We are keeping everything the center had, but dramatically increasing our portfolio of projects and practice,” he said. “Our goal is to work at the interface between implementers and policymakers, improving the technologies, methods and evidence base in global engineering.”

Thomas, who is also an associate professor in the Environmental Engineering Program, has a long history with CU Boulder, stretching back to 2001, when he began his undergraduate degree in aerospace engineering and joined the newly created Engineers Without Borders chapter.

Both EWB and the Mortenson Center were founded by Distinguished Professor Bernard Amadei, whom Thomas considers a mentor.

“EWB-CU and EDC unearthed this latent passion among engineers and engineering students. Up until that point, there weren’t well-established programs to train engineers to participate in these global challenges,” Thomas said.

Thomas’ career has followed two parallel paths—one as an entrepreneur starting companies working in global health, the other as a researcher in the same area.

His résumé includes time at the NASA Johnson Space Center developing water and air quality technologies for spacecraft. He also held a faculty position at Portland State University and the Oregon Health and Science University, where his research team began monitoring the water supplies for over a million people in Kenya and Ethiopia using satellite-connected sensors developed through his company, SweetSense Inc.

Thomas’ research and field team are now based at CU and have overlapping partnerships with a $15 million United States Agency for International Development grant run through the Mortenson Center with professors Karl Linden and Amy Javernick-Will as the principal investigators. This partnership has enabled students from the center to work in Uganda, Ethiopia and Kenya alongside professional organizations and community partners.

Engineering in Developing Communities from a Different Angle

The Mortenson Center isn’t the only CU Engineering program focused on tackling some of the world’s most important engineering problems. The Information and Communication Technology for Development graduate program in the ATLAS Institute teaches students to be creative problem solvers, finding effective and culturally appropriate solutions to issues like poverty, digital development and the effects of climate change.

�鶹��Ժ in the program come from a variety of backgrounds and disciplines and explore an open-ended curriculum. Master’s student Babatunde Adegoke came to CU Boulder from Nigeria after earning his bachelor’s in statistics and working with UNICEF, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Connected Development, among other nonprofit groups.

He heard about the ICTD program while visiting Colorado to observe the 2016 general election. During his visit, he met CU Regent Kyle Hybl, who encouraged him to look into attending the university. With his experience in web design, field management and more, he found the program was a good fit for the question he wanted to answer — what makes technology work for the people?

“Having witnessed the failure of different startups, including mine, and seeing how the technology works better in the USA, I wanted to know why that was, because I want to deploy platforms later and see them succeed,” Adegoke said. “The ICTD program not only showed me why these things don’t work, but I could also see the patterns developing through our case studies.”

Adegoke said many of the great inventors and thinkers he admires weren’t specialists. By giving him avenues to explore his strengths, the ICTD program reinforced that he didn’t need to be one, either.

“Over the semester, I have taken a lot of courses where you didn’t think they were related but they are,” he said. “I have the ability to choose whatever courses I want. I am able to find answers to all the questions that I have. So when I am designing technology solutions to problems now, I have better tools to do that.”

A main component of the program is a final field-based practicum semester, during which students work with nongovernmental organizations on real-world projects. Adegoke plans to do his practicum this summer with a consulting agency. From there, he plans to get an internship with a consulting group, learning from “the best, building a network of contacts and looking into funding to start my own consulting group.”

Adegoke said the ICTD program was unique and worthy of attention from engineers of all backgrounds and career paths.

“The majority of engineers are going to find themselves solving a problem,” he said. “First, they have to understand why they are building a system for that problem and for who — not just build another system. We have enough systems already, and the problems still persist. What we need are problem solvers who understand the people they are trying to help.”

Other ICTD graduates include artists, computer scientists and political scientists. Past final projects include teaching coding to girls from low-income families, and documenting and sharing stories about climate change through still and video images.

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It's Alive!

Anonymous — Thu, 04 Apr 2019 06:00:00 +0000

It's Alive! Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 04/04/2019 - 00:00

'Frankenstein' materials could revolutionize building construction

In Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein created a living being out of lifeless limbs, challenging the laws of nature and science in his dark laboratory.

In Wil Srubar’s lab at CU Boulder, they may end up doing the same — though in a much cleaner, brighter lab and with much less monstrous results. Their goal is to create a living hybrid building material that exhibits both structural and biological function.

Think of the sand and cement used in a mortar. It’s inorganic. Not living. But Srubar’s work has shown that inorganic particles, like sand, can provide a rigid framework for a biological component like bacteria to grow and thrive. Combine the two, and you end up with a living material that has not only a structural load-bearing function, but also a beneficial biological one.

“We use bacteria to help grow the bulk of the material needed for construction,” Srubar said. “We know bacteria grow at an exponential rate, so rather than manufacturing bricks one-by-one, you may be able to make one brick and have it split into two, then four, and so on. That would revolutionize not only what we think of a structural material, but also how we fabricate structural materials at an exponential scale.”

Srubar, a faculty member in civil, environmental and architectural engineering and the Materials Science & Engineering Program, said the possibilities for his work are endless and especially interesting in extreme environments and military applications. Bricks could self-heal after natural disasters or enemy fire, or act as alarms by changing color when there are toxins in the air.

Srubar and his colleagues are aware of the connections to Shelley’s work, going so far as to title their four-year, $1.9 million DARPA project Programmable Resurrection of Materials Engineered to Heal Exponentially Using Switches. That’s PROMETHEUS for short, a nod to the subtitle of Shelley’s work, “the Modern Prometheus,” and the Greek myth that inspired it.

In classical mythology, Prometheus created mankind out of clay, taught them how to survive and gave them fire stolen from the gods, earning him the gods’ punishment. Shelley references the myth with Frankenstein’s creation of the monster from dead parts and the eventual loss of control over it despite his best intentions to better civilization.

Srubar notes this aspect of the myth wryly.

“What was intriguing to us as a team was that we were also trying to create a Frankenstein material while learning from our predecessors and avoiding the same fate by not losing control of our technology,” Srubar said. “We often speak of this project as ‘The Post-Modern Prometheus,’ where we have finally, after three tries, wielded the technology we have created.”

At the center of the project are cyanobacteria, photosynthetic saltwater bacteria that can sequester carbon dioxide. Placing genetically altered versions of these bacteria into the building material would provide an environmental benefit, especially in terms of lowered carbon emissions from manufacturing materials.

“Cyanobacteria are actually green, so it really does look like a Frankenstein material,” Srubar said, laughing.

Srubar is conducting the work with Assistant Professors Mija Hubler and Sherri Cook in the Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering, and Professor Jeff Cameron in the Department of Biochemistry. They bring experience in the biological sciences, gene editing and structural mechanics — needed perspectives on an interdisciplinary project this large, Srubar said.

“They opened my eyes not only to different ways of looking at science and engineering, but also to ways in which we can address some of the challenges we encounter and then spin those challenges into opportunities,” he said. “Sharing some of the common challenges in materials science has bolstered our work in micro- and synthetic biology, for example. That is leading us in wildly cool and crazy directions in the project.”

Srubar feels as though his lab is truly pioneering a new field despite being deeply rooted in fundamental disciplines.

“For the first time we are questioning the paradigm of cementitious materials, and that is incredible because cement technology hasn’t changed in 100 years,” Srubar said. “While we are still some years away from seeing a true application, we do feel that we are creating this new discipline.”

[video:https://youtu.be/GVvCAyDPotQ]

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