News

The proliferation of plastic products has created an environmental challenge: what should be done with unusable, discarded plastic waste that can harm the environment? Faculty from the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering are working on a National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded project, Hydrogenolysis for Upcycling of Polyesters and Mixed Plastics, to address this serious environmental issue.

Meagan Arguien is a second year graduate student in the Bowman Research Group. She earned her BS in chemical engineering from Clarkson University in 2020. She hails from Churchville, New York.

With the fall semester underway, I wanted to take this opportunity to formally introduce myself as the director of the Materials Science and Engineering Program. I have had the pleasure of meeting and interacting with many of you over the years, as I have been a faculty member of the program going back to its founding.

A team of physicists at CU Boulder has solved the mystery behind a perplexing phenomenon in the nano realm: why some ultra-small heat sources cool down faster if you pack them closer together. The findings, which appeared recently in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), could one day help the tech industry design speedier electronic devices that overheat less.

Karan Dikshit is a fourth-year PhD candidate in the Materials Science and Engineering Program studying under Assistant Professor Carson Bruns in the Emergent Nanomaterials Lab. He is also affiliated with the Paul M. Rady Department of Mechanical Engineering and ATLAS. He is originally from Pune, India.

With new leadership and several high-profile faculty joining the program, Materials Science and Engineering at CU Boulder is poised to build on past successes to grow into a world-class hub for research and education in the field.

Dylan McNally is a second-year graduate student in the Materials Science and Engineering Program studying under Associate Professor Chunmei Ban in the Ban Surface Science and Engineering Research Group. He is originally from Loveland, Colorado.

CU Boulder is a founding partner of a major National Science Foundation Science and Technology Center (STC): the Center for Integration of Modern Optoelectronic Materials on Demand (IMOD). The center represents a research partnership spanning 11 universities led by the University of Washington.

Professor Michael McGehee and Professor Ivan Smalyukh are the principal investigators on two Department of Energy-funded projects to improve building technologies and energy efficiency in the built environment. Their projects are among 44 nationwide research projects selected as part of the Building Technologies Office’s competitive Building Energy Efficiency Frontiers & Innovation Technologies funding program.

Assistant Professor Mija Hubler and Melvin E. and Virginia M. Clark Professor Al Weimer are collaborating on linked Department of Energy-funded projects to capture and repurpose carbon products from fuel sources into materials for concrete bricks. They hope to reduce pollution while also making stronger, more resilient building materials that require less maintenance and repairs over time.