Faculty

CU Engineering brings energy experts together to power the future

Alexander Servantez — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 16:09:31 +0000

CU Engineering brings energy experts together to power the future Alexander Servantez Wed, 08/12/2026 - 10:09

Alexander Servantez

AI data centers. Manufacturing facilities. Quantum computing. Local communities.

The future of each depends on a power grid that can deliver electricity quickly, reliably and efficiently. But meeting that challenge will require more than just better batteries—it will take new partnerships and a shared vision.

Sir M. Stanley Whittingham, distinguished professor of chemistry at Binghampton University and recipient of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, delivering his keynote talk at the 2026 Battery-Grid Application Workshop.

This summer, those partnerships came to life at 91��ý’s Battery-Grid Application Workshop. Hosted through the College of Engineering and Applied Science’s (CEAS) Catalyzing Engineering Research Teaming (CERT) program, the all-day event brought academic researchers and professors from universities together with industry leaders, national laboratory experts and other stakeholders to explore the future of battery-enabled power infrastructure.

"We don't want people working in isolation," said Associate Dean for Research Michael Gooseff. "Our goal was to blend different areas of expertise and spark new collaborations that can move technology forward not just for our labs, but for society as a whole."

The event opened with a keynote address by Sir M. Stanley Whittingham, distinguished professor of chemistry at Binghamton University and recipient of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. His talk set the stage for discussions on bridging battery science, technological innovation, manufacturing and real-world applications.

From there, the workshop, led by Professor Chunmei Ban of the Paul M. Rady Department of Mechanical Engineering and Professor Bri-Mathias Hodge of the Department of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, focused on four key themes: batteries for emerging technologies, manufacturing pathways, accelerated battery discovery and next-generation technologies.

Conference attendees chatting with each other after a workshop session.

A panel of industry practitioners and faculty representatives discussing the future of battery research and innovation.

Conference attendees, including keynote speakers M. Stanley Whittingham (left) and Dr. Jud Virden (standing), sharing ideas in the lobby during lunch.

Industry representatives from Eaton, Forge Nano, Mana Battery, Peak Energy, Prieto Battery, Solid Power, and Xcel Energy shared insights into current technological needs and commercialization opportunities. Faculty members representing institutions such as the Ohio State University, Texas A&M University and University of California San Diego showcased existing research initiatives and OSU Battery Cell R&D Center facilities.

Dr. Jud Virden, laboratory director at the National Laboratory of the Rockies, giving his keynote address at the workshop.

Researchers from the National Laboratory of the Rockies shared their research expertise and ongoing projects aimed at addressing critical energy challenges. Laboratory Director Dr. Jud Virden delivered a keynote presentation highlighting the government's priorities in applied energy research.

“Thanks to CEAS, this workshop brought together professors, national laboratory scientists and industry experts,” said Ban, who is also affiliated with the Materials Science & Engineering Program. “We are entering a new era with rapidly emerging applications and energy storage is a critical technology for enabling them. Bringing together experts with diverse perspectives in one room is exactly how we can accelerate the process and turn lab research into large-scale manufacturing.”

The workshop highlighted a wide range of applications where next-generation batteries could have a transformative impact, from powering AI data centers to electrifying forklifts in Amazon warehouses. While significant scientific and engineering advances are still needed before many of these technologies reach widespread commercial deployment, Ban and Hodge believe 91��ý is uniquely positioned to help bridge that gap.

Professor Chunmei Ban (left) and Associate Dean for Research Michael Gooseff (middle) at the workshop.

“We’re hearing from industry practitioners that there is no one energy storage technology that works for every application,” said Hodge. “At 91��ý, we bring a new design mentality. We have faculty working at the application level all the way down to the fundamental level, ready to develop various technologies for different use cases, rather than applying them as a one-size-fits-all solution.”

Moving forward, CEAS and the CERT program plan to build on the momentum generated by the workshop by advancing a large-scale proposal for a center focused on battery-grid integration. The envisioned center would further support energy research by accelerating discoveries in battery materials, manufacturing, power electronics and grid planning.

But most of all, it would unite researchers, industry partners and national laboratories in one place—something Gooseff says is crucial to ensuring that promising technologies emerge from laboratories and play a role in the systems that power our everyday lives.

“It’s so easy for us all, especially in academia, to put blinders on and focus solely on our own labs, papers and work,” said Gooseff. “But if we do that, who benefits from it besides us? We need to step out, understand each other’s goals and find new ways to leverage each other’s strengths and ideas for one common purpose.

“This workshop is just the first step on a long journey towards making that happen.”

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Toward safer self-driving cars

Jeff Zehnder — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 15:57:17 +0000

Toward safer self-driving cars Jeff Zehnder Mon, 04/20/2026 - 09:57

Jeff Zehnder

Majid Zamani is designing safer self-driving car technology with math.

An associate professor of computer science at the University of Colorado Boulder, Zamani is working on a European Research Council (ERC) proof-of-concept project that uses mathematical models to guide autonomous vehicles, rather than relying on testing to capture every possible crash scenario.

“Existing autonomy software are not formally proven to work all the time,” Zamani said. “Waymo taxis carry sensor suites worth hundreds of thousands of dollars and are marketed as self-driving, yet they do not always operate autonomously. At times, they become stuck and require remote operator intervention, a limitation that can undermine public trust in the system.”

The issue is edge cases. Existing autonomous driving software incorporates results from millions of miles of travel, but cars still encounter new situations regularly. While humans easily adapt to unforeseen road conditions, machines do not.

When those incidents arise, automakers update their software to address the new scenario, each time adding more lines of codes. Some vehicles now exceed 100 million lines of computer codes, Zamani said.

“One might say that 98 percent of the challenge of autonomy has been solved, leaving only 2 percent unresolved. But that remaining 2 percent is still enormous. When measured against the millions of miles driven each day, even a small fraction of failure cases translates into a significant real-world problem,” Zamani said.

What if there was a better way?

Utilizing an ERC grant awarded through his visiting-professorship at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München in Germany, Zamani wants self-driving cars to rely on concrete physics and mathematical formulas rather than endless testing of scenarios.

“These are Newton’s laws. We understand the relationship between velocity and acceleration, and we can calculate how long it will take a car to stop once it detects an obstacle. The mathematics is clean, and if we succeed, we can certify the system’s effectiveness,” he said.

Zamani and his team are focused specifically on lane changes and have made significant progress. Through the grant, they plan to soon test their work on an embedded NVIDIA Jetson AGX Orin platform using MORAI, a high-fidelity driving simulator that mimics real-world conditions.

“We have proven that our software is formally correct. Now we need to demonstrate it in practice,” he said.

Designing self-driving cars around mathematics and logic may seem like the obvious approach, but it requires substantial computation, which is one reason current systems do not fully rely on it.

“Imagine a busy intersection in a large city, with bicycles, pedestrians, traffic signals, other vehicles, and road conditions that shift with the weather. A mathematically grounded system must decide in real time how to respond, but the sheer number of interacting variables makes the problem extraordinarily complex, even though many of those interactions are ultimately governed by physics,” he said.

The team is developing methods to make its physics- and mathematics-based approaches more scalable. That includes both refining its algorithms and exploring neural networks and other machine learning techniques.

“Sometimes, a very small change in the model architecture can lead to an algorithm that scales much more effectively,” he said. “It is challenging, but we have made meaningful progress. Implementing the MORAI high-fidelity simulator is an important step toward showing that what we promise is possible and demonstrating provable safety in complex autonomous driving scenarios.”

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ME outreach program brings big engineering dreams to small rural towns

Alexander Servantez — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 21:56:29 +0000

ME outreach program brings big engineering dreams to small rural towns Alexander Servantez Wed, 04/01/2026 - 15:56

Associate Research Professor Daniel Knight and Professor Michael Hannigan are leading an outreach program that connects 91��ý students with rural high schools to introduce hands-on engineering experiences in the classroom. The initiative, known as the Science and Engineering Inquiry Collaborative (SCENIC), serves 12 schools and nearly 700 high school students across rural Colorado each year, turning local questions about air and soil quality into real-world research projects.

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How 91��ý built a biomedical engineering powerhouse

Alexander Servantez — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 21:01:58 +0000

How 91��ý built a biomedical engineering powerhouse Alexander Servantez Wed, 03/25/2026 - 15:01

When the first biomedical engineering class graduated from 91��ý in 2023, about a dozen students walked across the stage. Today, that once-small start has evolved into a powerful engine for biomedical innovation and education. But how does a program go from modest beginnings to powerhouse in such a short time?

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Why do we get a skip in our step when we’re happy? Thank dopamine

Alexander Servantez — Fri, 27 Feb 2026 20:21:34 +0000

Why do we get a skip in our step when we’re happy? Thank dopamine Alexander Servantez Fri, 02/27/2026 - 13:21

Professor Alaa Ahmed is leading a study that highlights the central role that dopamine, a brain chemical associated with reward, seems to play in making people move faster when they want something. The findings could one day help scientists understand and even diagnose a range of human medical conditions, including Parkinson’s disease and depression.

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Global collaboration to limit air pollution flowing across borders could save millions of lives

Alexander Servantez — Fri, 13 Feb 2026 18:04:48 +0000

Global collaboration to limit air pollution flowing across borders could save millions of lives Alexander Servantez Fri, 02/13/2026 - 11:04

A first-of-its-kind study, led by Professor Daven Henze and collaborators at Cardiff University in the United Kingdom, assesses how health benefits of aggressive climate policy travel across international borders. The researchers say that ambitious climate action to improve global air quality could save up to 1.32 million lives per year by 2040.

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Donated blood has a shelf life. A new test tracks how it's aging

Alexander James Servantez — Wed, 21 Jan 2026 17:20:27 +0000

Donated blood has a shelf life. A new test tracks how it's aging Alexander Jame… Wed, 01/21/2026 - 10:20

Associate Professor Xiaoyun Ding and medical collaborators at CU Anschutz have created a new chip device to help give blood centers and hospitals a reliable way to monitor the quality of red blood cells after they sit for weeks in storage.

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ECEE welcomes new faculty for spring 2026

Charles Ferrer — Wed, 07 Jan 2026 15:51:14 +0000

ECEE welcomes new faculty for spring 2026 Charles Ferrer Wed, 01/07/2026 - 08:51

Logan Horowitz (left), Gonzalo Constante Flores (right)

ECEE at 91��ý is welcoming three new faculty members including Assistant Professor Logan Horowitz and and Assistant Professor Gonzalo Constante Flores. Additionally, award-winning physicist Matt Eichenfield, the inaugural Karl Gustafson Endowed Chair of Quantum Engineering, joined this semester.

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Wind tunnel research could help predict how wildfires spread

Alexander James Servantez — Fri, 05 Dec 2025 18:35:37 +0000

Wind tunnel research could help predict how wildfires spread Alexander Jame… Fri, 12/05/2025 - 11:35

PhD student Laura Shannon, alongside Professors Greg Rieker and Peter Hamlington of the Paul M. Rady Department of Mechanical Engineering are setting fires inside wind tunnels to gain a better understanding of how fire spreads across different terrain. The team says their findings could help keep communities safer in a world where climate-driven wildfire is becoming more common—and more dangerous.

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Brewing engineers: Inside 91��ý’s new food engineering program

Alexander James Servantez — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 22:25:43 +0000

Brewing engineers: Inside 91��ý’s new food engineering program Alexander Jame… Wed, 12/03/2025 - 15:25

Faculty member Carmen Pacheco is the architect behind the Food Engineering Graduate Certificate, one of 91��ý's most innovative academic ventures. Launched in 2024, the program was designed to introduce engineering students to the science behind their favorite foods and career opportunities in the food industry, but it can also reinforce scientific concepts that students can apply to any engineering discipline.

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