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Over the past two months, the Colorado-Wyoming Climate Resilience Engine has been focused on identifying and supporting groundbreaking climate resilience projects across the region. This included launching the first round of investments in Research and Development and Translation/Startup projects with funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Regional Innovation Engines program. Interdisciplinary, collaborative teams from across the region’s leading universities and startup companies answered the Engine’s request for proposals with an overwhelming and diverse range of climate resilience solutions.  

Governors Jared Polis of Colorado and Mark Gordon of Wyoming collaborated to announce the recipients of the inaugural grant program by the CO-WY Climate Resilience Engine. This partnership signifies a new phase in the joint efforts of the two states to create climate resilience solutions that safeguard communities, encourage innovation, and stimulate economic development. 

The CO-WY Engine received nearly 50 proposals across two areas: R&D, which focuses on catalyzing the commercialization of university-based projects, and Translation/Startups, which supports bringing early-stage commercial solutions to scale. The winning projects address key issues in climate resilience in our region, including water security, wildfire prediction and response, extreme weather modeling, soil carbon sequestration, and methane emissions mitigation. These projects build on and strengthen critical capabilities in advanced sensing and data science, positioning Colorado and Wyoming at the forefront of innovation nationally. These projects demonstrate the power of public-private partnerships and investments in innovation to drive meaningful impact.   

Wildfire Risk and Prediction 

Project title: Predicting Regional Wildfire Risk through Climate-Wildfire-Power-System Interactions.  

Principal investigator: Qiuhua Huang, PhD  

Lead institution: Colorado School of Mines  

Key partners: University of Wyoming, Xcel Energy, Tri-State Generation and Transmission, Fire Adapted Colorado 

About CO-WY Engine:  

Led by Innosphere Ventures and funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), the CO-WY Engine is a collaborative initiative focused on driving innovation in climate resiliency and sustainability across the Colorado-Wyoming region. The CO-WY Engine brings together a diverse network of partners to develop and commercialize technologies that address critical environmental challenges, foster economic growth and enhance community well-being.  

Visit www.co-wyengine.org for more information.

Matthew Dodd, Charles Vath, Nelson Angles, Silje Ostrem, Grace Martinez, Elizabeth Peterson, Kenny Hora, Lisa Elmiladi, Trevor Wolf and Drs. Atef Elsherbeni, Peter Aaen, and Jamal Rostami members of the ARC research group at Mines participated in the Applied Computational Electromagnetics Symposium, held in May 2024 in Orlando, FL.

They presented 6 papers (Matthew Dodd, Charles Vath, Nelson Angles, Silje Ostrem, Kenny Hora, Lisa Elmiladi), co-shared four sessions (Charles Vath, Nelson Angles, Silje Ostrem, Elizabeth Peterson) and all managed the conference registration and help desk. Four other members participated in the presented work (Nolan Grant, Cameron Evanovich, Colin Kringlen, Trevor Wolf), but could not attend the conference.

Please visit the LinkedIn post for the list of presented papers.

Groundbreaking started of the 70-acres of Quantum COmmons in Arvada. Quantum COmmons will be owned/operated by Colorado School of Mines and being developed with Elevate Quantum partners to accelerate growth of the quantum industry and workforce. All made possible by investments from the State of Colorado and the Federal TechHub program, and the visionary leaders involved.

Please visit the LinkedIn post for the full article.

The EE department would like to congratulate one of our undergraduate students, Roya Akrami, on tying for the #3 Best Oral Presentation at last Spring’s UG Research Symposium. Roya is a freshman and is part of the FIRST Program here at Mines and has already been making waves in the undergraduate research areas she is a part of. Roya has been working over the summer doing undergraduate research with Dr. Yamuna Phal. In her free time, she likes to visit Clear Creek, crochet, and make tea lattes; she also has a wonderful 4-year-old Rottweiler named Bear. In the future, she would love to contribute to more spectroscopy-based research and participate in other fields of EE-based research.

For a brief overview of her presentation and the research she is doing, please visit the LinkedIn post.

This past May we had some wonderful Senior CAPSTONE groups participate in their senior showcase! For the entire year, seniors work in groups to design, manage, and create a finished project for the company they were working with. This is a requirement of all our students to go through CAPSTONE, which preps them for their transition into industry work and learning how to not only work in groups but manage a project and come out with a successful product or project as an engineer. Faculty member Dr. Chris Coulston was there during the showcase, not only as a mentor and faculty member, but as someone who has been there since day one for these students on their education journey.

For more photos, please visit the LinkedIn post.

Massive congratulations to Lisa Elmiladi for being one of our outstanding seniors for EE this year! Lisa spoke at commencement and was recognized by the Colorado Engineering Council Certificate as well! If you are interested in what it means to be an EE Mines student, please check out what Lisa had to say and additional photos at the following LinkedIn post.

Our students attended the Order of the Engineer & made their pledge! This is an ethical pledge to always foster pride and responsibility in the their profession, to bridge the gap between training and experience, and to present to the public a visible symbol identifying the engineer.

Everyone please congratulate Kelsie Diaz, our amazing grad program manager, on winning one of the campus wide Diversity, Inclusion & Access (DI&A) awards for the year: Creating a Culture of Inclusion! DI&A awards are given out to people who are exceptional with their understanding, efforts, and work in the diversity, inclusion, and access world. If you don’t know – Kelsie is currently one of the co-chairs for the Women’s Mines Community Alliance (W-MCA), she is on the steering committee for the LGBTQ+ W-MCA, and is on both the EE and CS DI&A committees within the departments themselves. Outside of these commitments, Kelsie is constantly striving to learn more about the people around her, educating others on the DI&A world, and spends her time reaching out to people across campus (staff, faculty, and students alike) to be the person they can go to when things are rough and/or needs someone to lean on. For additional information and photos, please check out what the following LinkedIn post.