Research Feature

Imagine a future in which you could 3D-print an entire robot or stretchy, electronic medical device with the press of a button—no tedious hours spent assembling parts by hand.

CU Boulder’s East Campus is now home to the High-Sensitivity Low-Energy Ion Scattering (HS-LEIS) Spectrometer, a tool researchers from across the Rocky Mountain region will use for advanced materials characterization and analysis.

Assistant Professor Mija Hubler is a recipient of a three year, $548,000 National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award for her proposal “Mechanical Modeling of Living Building Materials for Structural Applications.”

Assistant Professor C. Wyatt Shields IV is the recipient of a 2022 Office of Naval Research (ONR) Young Investigator Program Award for his proposal “Mapping Immune Cell Responses to High Pressures in Decompression Illness.”

Two CU Boulder professors have been elected to the National Academy of Engineering, one of the highest honors an engineer can receive in their career.

Assistant Professor C. Wyatt Shields IV is the recipient of a National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) award for his proposal “Shape-Encoded Electrokinetic Particles for Multiplexed Biosensing.” This project seeks to develop a new method of early identification of disease biomarkers, while also facilitating outreach and education to students at Northglenn High School.

CU Boulder is leading an international network of over 50 scientists and students using olfaction to study brain function in animals known as Odor2Action. In a new story published in The Conversation, network members trace the interconnections between smells and behaviors – highlighting what we know about olfaction, the challenges we face, and what's on the horizon. Learn more about their work and potential applications in engineering, neuroscience and public health.

Hydrogen has long been seen as a possible renewable fuel source, held out of reach for full-scale adoption by production costs and inefficiencies. Researchers in the Weimer Group are working to address this by using solar thermal processing to drive high-temperature chemical reactions that produce hydrogen and carbon monoxide, which can be used to synthesize liquid hydrocarbon fuels.

New research published in Nature Materials from Associate Professor Tanja Cuk and colleagues sheds light on a fundamental chemical reaction — the breaking apart of water to produce a molecular fuel such as hydrogen. Cuk is faculty in the Department of Chemistry and the Materials Science and Engineering Program (MSE) and is a Fellow in the Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute (RASEI).

Hayden Fowler, a graduate student in Gallogly Professor Timothy White’s Responsive and Programmable Materials Group, is the first author on a research paper published in Advanced Materials concerning the temperature-independent electrical actuation of liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs), which are soft, stimuli-responsive materials with potential applications in soft robotics, artificial muscles and more.