Elizabeth Hjelvik

Elizabeth began her Ph.D. program at CU in the Material Science and Engineering department in the Fall of 2019 and successfully defended her thesis in March 2025. She received her B.S. in Chemistry from the University of New Mexico. During her undergraduate career she researched how synthetic parameters affected silica nanoparticle material characteristics. After graduating, she worked at the Los Alamos National Laboratory as a post baccalaureate intern where she focused on functionalizing polymer surfaces with functional chemistries for robust biosensing applications. During her time at CU, Elizabeth focused on membrane surface modification with vapor phase chemistry methods. Currently, she is a postdoctoral researcher at Sandia National Laboratories.