Climate, Energy & Sustainability
CU Boulder Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute (RASEI)—Imagine a display that harvests ambient light when it is not actively in use, offsetting some of its own energy consumption. The materials physics shows that this is possible.
The University of Colorado Boulder and Techstars, the global startup accelerator and investor, have announced a strategic partnership to expand opportunities for founders and strengthen Colorado’s innovation economy.
Commercialization activities through Venture Partners at CU Boulder had an economic impact of $8.7 billion nationally and $5.1 billion in the state of Colorado over the last five years, according to a new report from the Leeds School of Business.
CU Boulder College of Engineering and Applied Science—Women of Carbon, a documentary featuring Mija Hubler, highlights women transforming the construction industry through sustainable innovation, decarbonization and green technology. Hubler’s research interests include aging of construction materials, concrete infrastructure design and construction methods and the design of alternative construction materials from biological elements and engineered waste materials. She is a co-founder of Prometheus Materials, a bio-cement startup in Longmont, Colorado.
CU Boulder Today—This week, the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) announced that three faculty members at CU Boulder were elected to the ranks of this prestigious organization. Dana Anderson, Iain Boyd and Bob Erickson are among the 130 scientists and engineers from around the country who will be inducted as members of the NAE at a meeting this fall.
CU Boulder College of Engineering and Applied Science—Aoife Henry is leading Zentus, a startup she founded that addresses a critical challenge in the energy sector: preventing costly equipment failures that can bring wind and solar farms offline without warning. After participating in the University of Colorado Ascent Deep Tech Accelerator, Henry landed a fellowship with the Stanford Sustainability Accelerator at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability.
CU Boulder Today—A team of University of Colorado Boulder researchers is making reliable, inexpensive and easy-to-deploy sensors that monitor soil in real time and have formed a new startup, Tierra Metrics.
Eleven teams of University of Colorado faculty, researchers and graduate student innovators competed for a combined $755,000 in startup funding grants in this year’s Lab Venture Challenge (LVC). Judges from CU's entrepreneurial network heard Shark-Tank-style pitches across two nights, one for innovations in biosciences and another for physical sciences and engineering.
From agriculture to aerospace, NSF’s I-Corps is a launchpad at the University of Colorado Boulder, helping innovators in and out of the University of Colorado bring research and inventions to the people who need them most. By equipping scientists and inventors with entrepreneurial tools, the program transforms great ideas into startups that tackle real-world problems.
CU Boulder Environmental Engineering Program—Mark Hernandez is serving as a commissioner of the newly launched Global Commission on Healthy Indoor Air to elevate indoor air as a critical public health priority and drive coordinated global action and solutions.