Alumni Stories

Duane Chesley (MechEngr’58) valued education because of how it impacted his life, taking him from humble beginnings on a farm in Nebraska to full colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves. At CU Boulder, he endowed a scholarship and established an earn-learn apprenticeship to support mechanical engineering students.

Roger McNamara (MAeroEngr’86, PhD’95) has built a career advancing the forefront of aerospace technology and is serving in a leading role on the next-generation Orion crewed space capsule. As a master’s and PhD alumnus of the University of Colorado Boulder, he has put his skills to use on an array...

Ashley Pennington (ChemBioEngr ‘13) has earned an American Association for the Advancement of Science - Science & Technology Policy Fellowship and a position at the Department of Energy’s Federal Energy Management Program.

After graduating from CU in May, Gabriella Abello spent the summer weighing all her options. Graduate school? Find a job? Something else entirely?

Abigail Fernandes made the best of a bad situation — and then some.

In March, before the world turned upside down, Khatter got a job offer in Georgia in her chosen field, cybersecurity. Unfortunately, before she could even start packing, the company reversed course and terminated the position because of the pandemic.

Engineers Without Borders and the Mortenson Center inspired Recent Alumni Award winner Christina Barstow to pursue a career in global development.

CU Engineering alumnus Fletcher Richman's startup success grew from a passion for productivity tools.

There’s an adage in alumni engagement: the alumni couple who volunteers together, stays together. Chris (MAeroEngr’18) and Jannine Rouw (EngrPlus’18) are Buffs through and through and have been devoted volunteers to the College of Engineering and Applied Science from the moment they graduated. The Rouws were some of the first...

It was less than three hours until Apollo 11 was set to leave planet Earth, and Stew Woodward had found a leak in the line supplying liquid hydrogen fuel to the massive Saturn V rocket. The first manned mission to the moon was in jeopardy...