CU-Boulder-NREL Partnership Strengthened
CU-Boulder’s long-term involvement with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden is poised to become stronger with the recent selection of the Alliance for Sustainable Energy as NREL’s next management contractor. The mission of the alliance is to support the Department of Energy in the development and deployment of new, high-impact renewable energy technologies.

CU-Boulder is a key university partner in the alliance, which is led by the Midwest Research Institute and Battelle Memorial Institute. Other university partners are the Colorado School of Mines, Colorado State University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Stanford University. 

The contract is scheduled to begin Nov. 7 and will eventually lead to a number of joint faculty lines and graduate research assistantships with CU-Boulder, according to Vice Chancellor for Research Stein Sture. The Colorado Governor’s Office also plans to fund new energy positions at the three state schools. University involvement is expected to help NREL recruit and retain top scientists, while increasing the number of energy faculty at CU-Boulder, now estimated at 120.

ECE Department Secures New IGERT
A graduate education and training program in Computational Optical Sensing and Imaging is being established at CU-Boulder with a new grant from the National Science Foundation. The program, which incorporates the design of optics, optoelectronics, and signal processing, will involve students in the departments of applied mathematics, MCD biology, physics, and electrical and computer engineering.

Worth $3.2 million over five years, the Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) will be enhanced with matching funds to support as many as 20 students per year, according to Professor Rafael Piestun of electrical and computer engineering, who will direct the program.

Graduates are expected to be in high demand, with applications in medical imaging, tomography, cell phones, radar, and other areas. The grant comes just as the Optical Science and Engineering Program IGERT directed by Professor Dana Anderson approaches expiration in 2009.

41st Annual High School Honors Institute
The college hosted the 41st annual High School Honors Institute in July, welcoming 262 high school students from across Colorado, the United States, and England for the four-day event. Participants attended workshops in two selected majors, explored career options, and engaged in various extracurricular activities on the CU-Boulder campus.

Our thanks to all of the faculty, students, and staff who made this outreach program a success. In addition to the engineering faculty and graduate students who presented sessions in each of the engineering disciplines, 33 undergraduates served as group leaders, assisting in moving the students to and from their classes, across campus, and back to the residence hall at night. Fourteen of these group leaders had attended HSHI as high school students themselves, and several other HSHI alumni served as industry representatives.

DEAA Nominations Due Sept. 20
The deadline for nominating a college alumnus or alumna for the 2009 Distinguished Engineering Alumni Award is quickly approaching. Nomination materials, including supporting letters, are due Sept. 20. Anyone wanting to make a nomination can find more information on the nomination process and selection criteria at DEAA procedures.

Honors & Awards
Congratulations to the following individuals on their outstanding achievements:

Faculty
Diane Sieber of Herbst Humanities has been selected to receive the Gold “Best Should Teach” Award for excellence in teaching, academic leadership on the Boulder campus, and exceptional service to the Graduate Teacher Program and the Faculty Teaching Excellence Program.  The award will be presented Aug. 20.

The following faculty were selected to receive Dean’s Awards, which will be presented at the Sept. 5 First Friday reception, and come with $5,000 in funding support from the dean’s discretionary fund:
- Steve George, ChBE, for Outstanding Research
- Doug Sicker, CS, for Outstanding Junior Faculty
- Diane Sieber, Herbst Humanities, for Outstanding Teaching
- Conrad Stoldt, ME, for Professional Progress

The following faculty were selected to receive the Provost’s Faculty Achievement Award, which will be presented at the Fall Convocation Oct. 17:
- Dejan Filipovic of ECE, for his work on electromagnetic waves
- Christine Hrenya of ChBE, for her work on modeling granular flows
- Will Medlin of ChBE, for his work involving spectroscopy and quantum-chemistry computer simulations
- Kamran Mohseni of AES, for his work on bio-inspired vortex dynamics

New Faculty & Staff
Welcome to the following new faculty and staff joining the college:
Joseph Tanner, Senior Instructor, AES

Charles Musgrave, Assoc. Professor, ChBE
Arthi Jayaraman, Asst. Professor, ChBE
Mark Stoykovich, Asst. Professor, ChBE
Daniel Downey, Lab Coordinator, ChBE

Gregor Henze, Professor, CEAE
Matthew Hallowell, Asst. Professor, CEAE
Abbie Liel, Asst. Professor, CEAE
John McCartney, Asst. Professor, CEAE
Fernando Rosario-Ortiz, Asst. Professor, CEAE

Christine Lv, Asst. Professor, CS
Judy Loken, Accounting Tech II, CS
Rajshree Shrestha, General Professional I, CS

Scott Bunch, Asst. Professor, ME
Olivier Desjardins, Asst. Professor, ME
Yifu Ding, Asst. Professor, ME
Mark Rentschler, Asst. Professor, ME

Valerie Yates, Scholar in Residence, ITP
Kurt Smith, Scholar in Residence, Engineering Management
Hardy Fredricksmeyer, Instructor, Herbst Humanities

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