Laurel Hind is studying the signals that regulate the immune system and contribute to disease, supported by a major grant awarded to promising early-career faculty.

Hind, an assistant professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder, has received a prestigious National Science Foundation CAREER Award. This highly competitive program supports faculty with potential to become leaders in research and education.

The $646,000, five-year grant will support Hind's research on how the tissue environment directs the innate immune response. It will also fund outreach efforts to improve scientific literacy in immunology through a new program, “Immunology in our Everyday Lives."

“I am grateful for this award because it recognizes and builds on the work my students have done to understand how the tissue environment regulates innate immunity while also opening a completely new research area for my lab, which is very exciting," Hind said. "I am happy that the field recognizes the importance of understanding how physical cues regulate cell function.”

The innate immune response acts as the body's first line of defense against harmful invaders like bacteria or viruses, injuries and disease, and plays a critical role in maintaining health. However, an imbalance in the immune system can lead to inappropriate responses which are increasingly linked to diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, chronic infections and fibrosis, and aging, Hind said. Understanding the signals that control this response and how they become dysregulated in disease could help develop new treatments. 

The award will support Hind and her team in exploring how physical changes in tissues affect immune function and contribute to worsened disease outcomes as diseases affected by immune system problems often involve changes in the physical properties of tissues. For example, tissues become stiffer in cancer and fibrotic diseases, but lose structure during the aging process. While the chemical signals that influence the immune system in these processes are well studied, how the physical properties of tissues impact immunity is not yet fully understood.

Using novel biomaterials in an innovative “inflammation-on-a-chip” device, Hind and her team will examine how properties such as stiffness, elasticity and the dynamics of tissue stiffening affect innate immune cell function. Importantly, it will identify the genes and proteins that drive these changes, providing targets for future therapeutic development.

The award will also support the development of a curriculum to improve scientific literacy in immunology to encourage public health initiatives through community-engaged outreach. This curriculum will use games and hands-on activities to explain how antibiotics and antibodies work and demonstrate the importance of herd immunity. It will also help retain and recruit women and historically excluded students in science and engineering by involving them in research and curriculum development.

“Public health initiatives like broad participation in vaccination and reducing the overuse of antibiotics are so important for the health of our communities, yet many people don’t understand why, which can lead to resistance," Hind said. "I am excited to share our knowledge in an accessible way with students and families in our community.”

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Luis Kitsu Iglesias, a fifth-year PhD candidate in Professor Mike Toney’s lab, received the prestigious gold award—the highest graduate student honor—at the 2024 Fall Meeting of the Materials Research Society (MRS) for his exceptional battery research. The renowned international conference brings together experts from around the globe to showcase and discuss the latest advancements in materials science.

Initially selected as a finalist for the MRS Graduate Student Award, Kitsu Iglesias of the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, received the award after presenting his sodium-ion battery research at the MRS fall meeting in Boston on Dec. 3.

“This award marks a personal milestone and highlights the significance of advancing sustainable battery technologies,” Iglesias said. “It underscores the urgency of addressing challenges like energy, equity and environmental responsibility through research.”

Iglesias’s research focuses on advancing sodium-ion batteries as a sustainable alternative to lithium-ion batteries, addressing challenges like safety, cost, limited lithium resources and ethical concerns around lithium extraction. He studies sodium storage in hard carbon anodes, a key material for these batteries, using advanced X-ray techniques to observe how the structure and behavior of hard carbon change during charging and discharging.

By utilizing abundant and environmentally friendly sodium resources, these batteries offer a competitive solution for large-scale grid energy storage.

“My work provides the foundation for designing sodium-ion batteries with higher capacity, improved efficiency and greater durability,” Iglesias said. “These advancements pave the way for more accessible renewable energy storage, enabling the widespread adoption of clean energy technologies and contributing to a more sustainable and resilient energy future.”

Iglesias received his BS in chemical engineering from the  Polytechnic University of Catalonia. In his third year, he received a fellowship to study in Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden. His fourth year he received another fellowship to study at CU Boulder.

In May, Iglesias will begin a postdoctoral research position at ETH Zurich, where he will continue exploring energy storage technologies.

“My goal is to lead projects that bridge the gap between cutting-edge research and societal needs, ensuring that advancements in green technologies benefit all sectors of society,” he said. “Being recognized by the Materials Research Society inspires me to keep exploring innovative energy storage solutions and contributing meaningfully to the global scientific community.”

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Polymer thin films can extend the lifespan of everyday products, such as food packaging for preserving freshness and protective coatings for electronics. Advancing their design to be even thinner and more durable could expand their applications further.

Kōnane Bay, an assistant professor based in the University of Colorado’s Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, recently received a prestigious  Award, a $675,000, five-year grant from the . The funding will advance her work in polymer characterization and support the development of high school and summer program curricula that integrate materials science and engineering lessons with traditional Indigenous knowledge.

“It feels great to be recognized by the polymer community for both the scientific and outreach work that we are doing,” Bay said.

The award will support Bay and her team at the Huli Materials Lab in investigating how the mechanical properties of polymer films evolve as their thickness is reduced to less than 100 nanometers—about a thousand times thinner than a human hair or cling wrap. Many industrial applications depend on the mechanical performance and stability of these films. The difficulty, Bay said, lies in the fact that when polymer materials are processed into thinner films, their mechanical strength changes in ways that are not yet fully understood.

Using a custom-built instrument, researchers in the Huli Lab will study how variables like thickness, temperature and surface interactions affect the strength of these films. The findings will provide valuable insights for designing more reliable adhesives, coatings and membranes while reducing material costs, energy use and environmental waste.

The project will fund a PhD student for five years to study the mechanics of ultrathin polymer films.

In addition to supporting research, the funding will enable the development of high school and summer program curricula that integrate materials science and engineering with traditional Indigenous knowledge. Growing up in Hawaiʻi, Bay draws from her heritage to shape this initiative, which aims to increase STEM recruitment and retention among women and historically excluded students, particularly Native Hawaiians, through curriculum development, outreach and mentoring to inspire the next generation of diverse STEM leaders.

“The curriculum will be designed to inspire high school students across Colorado and Hawaiʻi to explore and pursue advanced degrees and careers in STEM disciplines,” Bay said.

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Kristi Anseth, a Distinguished Professor and Tisone Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, has been awarded the prestigious  in recognition of her pioneering research in tissue engineering. Winners were selected from nearly 1,500 scientific nominations spanning more than 80 countries and territories worldwide.

Anseth, also the associate faculty director of CU Boulder’s BioFrontiers Institute, said she was deeply honored to receive the recognition.

“It is one that I will cherish for years to come,” said Anseth after being presented with the award Dec. 6 at the 2024 VinFuture Prize Award Ceremony in Hanoi, Vietnam. “I thank the VinFuture Foundation for sponsoring this award to highlight the innovation of women in science and engineering.”

Anseth designs biomaterials that interact with living tissues to promote repair and regeneration, aiding in healing injuries and diseases. Her lab works with hydrogels—a degradable biomaterial—to deliver molecules at the right time and sequence to accelerate the healing process. Her team is also growing miniaturized versions of heart cells and tissues, known as organoids, to better understand disease mechanisms and explore new types of heart disease treatments, such as to repair heart muscles after heart attacks.

Anseth said she has been fortunate to work in the dynamic and evolving field of biomaterials and to be working at CU Boulder.

“The translation of bioengineering across biology and medicine remains a frontier with many opportunities to explore,” she said. "I believe that many of the major breakthroughs in the next decade will continue at this interface and lead to improvements in healthcare for people everywhere.

“CU Boulder has provided an amazing environment for a nearly 30-year career. I started as a faculty member in 1996, and the community of faculty and students has been an amazing environment to support my own learning and creativity. What’s the phrase—'minds to match our mountains’? I feel fortunate to be surrounded by exceptional people.”

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In a comment published in “Nature Chemistry,” on Nov. 25, Casey Davis, a chemistry PhD student, along with her advisor, Mike Toney, a professor of chemical engineering and materials science, and others, argue that universities must integrate energy justice into graduate curricula and research.

CU Boulder spoke with Toney and Davis about energy justice and the importance of preparing graduates to tackle these challenges in their careers as the world transitions from fossil fuels to renewable energy.

What is energy justice?

Davis: Energy justice means ensuring fairness in how energy is produced and used, as well as addressing past harms experienced by disadvantaged communities.

Can you explain the social aspects of energy justice?

Davis: Community solutions involve engaging with communities to understand their needs, rather than having scientists and policymakers make decisions in isolation. For example, while coal is harmful, communities reliant on it for jobs and the local economy may have different perspectives. Addressing their concerns can foster broader support and accelerate progress, rather than facing resistance.

Mike and I have worked to integrate this focus into our fundamental research, which I find very rewarding.

Toney: As an example, one of the first-year chemical engineering graduate students, Summer-Solstice Thomas, is proposing to specifically engage local communities impacted by Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), or so-called “forever chemicals,” in her graduate research aimed at improving membranes to remediate PFAS.

Why do graduate students need to understand energy justice?

Davis: Students who understand both the scientific and social aspects of climate change will develop better and more implementable solutions to address environmental challenges in ways that minimize harm to vulnerable communities and address previous injustices.

In STEM, PhD students often focus on their specific science and don’t have all the skills needed  to contribute to a just energy transition. For example, students working on renewable energy may learn how batteries work, but not about the negative impacts of mining the materials needed for them.

What are some of these potential negative impacts?

Davis: Sourcing materials and establishing sites for renewable energy can negatively impact adjacent communities in ways similar to fossil fuels. For example, the cobalt mined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo for lithium-ion electric car batteries, has led to severe injustices, including child labor and mining deaths.

How have scientists historically approached energy justice?

Toney: Historically, many scientists, including myself, have only superficially addressed this issue. However, there is a growing awareness among early-career scientists about its significance. We need to integrate these considerations into our technical work. Recently, there’s been a significant increase in student interest in energy justice. In my experience, recent engineering students are particularly passionate about energy and environmental justice.

Davis: This growing demand highlights the need for professors and academic institutions to consider these concerns more in their teaching and research. It’s essential to address these issues in graduate school, where future scientists and engineers are trained. By teaching students the importance of energy justice and how to incorporate it into their work, they can apply these principles in their careers, whether in industry or regulatory agencies like the EPA. 

Are there barriers to integrating energy justice into research?

Davis: PhD students might hesitate to add this new focus due to concerns about extending their graduation time and potential pushback from advisors. Additionally, some journals and reviewers have been resistant.

Toney: Incorporating these concepts at the PhD level has been challenging, but Casey and other students have successfully integrated energy justice into their research, receiving positive feedback during exams.  In my generation, nobody really ever thought about this.

How can these barriers be overcome?

Davis: Solutions should be tailored to each institution, but incorporating more diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives is essential, a point that we discuss more in the Comment. Schools can develop interdisciplinary programs and hire faculty who support these approaches to encourage a culture shift. Equity can become part of the curricula and dissertations of science graduate students. While it’s challenging, these incremental changes have significant impact. We’re already seeing progress.

What is changing in CU Boulder’s graduate program?

Davis: Mike is encouraging me to incorporate energy justice into my dissertation. This sort of support from professors is necessary for graduate students to begin to develop a holistic understanding of how their work fits into larger issues such as climate justice.

Toney: CU Boulder is proposing a new approach to graduate education through an NSF grant proposal. The plan integrates fields like communications, business and social sciences into PhD programs, giving students across disciplines a broader understanding of engineering and science. This multidisciplinary training prepares our students with the tools needed to apply these concepts in their careers end enable a just energy transition. I see this as expanding engineering education to include broader training which would extend into the undergraduate level.

This approach will better equip our graduates to make a more significant, holistic impact in the world.

How will you be integrating energy justice into graduate curricula here at CU Boulder?

Toney: I will be teaching a new one-credit class Spring semester on “Energy Justice in Engineering.”

Do you have a vision for how incorporating energy justice at a college level might evolve?

Davis: I envision energy justice becoming integral to STEM education, where students not only learn science and engineering concepts but also understand its social implications. Solving climate change is also about addressing social issues. If we resolve social inequalities, it would significantly advance our climate goals. For instance, equitable public transportation reduces emissions and supports broader access. It’s about creating a more abundant and connected community.

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Emma Aldrich, a member of the , received a Division 15 Oral Presentation Award at the 2024 American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) Annual Meeting, held Oct. 27-31 in San Diego. The award included a $600 prize.

Tom Chaney of the Toney Group has been selected for the American Chemical Society's Excellence in Graduate Polymer Research Symposium and invited to present in the oral session at the 2025 Spring ACS Meeting in San Diego on March 24 and 25.

Claire Ely's proposal, ChemECar, was approved for full funding ($3,000) by the Engineering Excellence Fund. Ely is with the Toney Group.

Luis Kitsu Iglesias, a fifth-year PhD candidate in Professor Mike Toney’s lab, received the prestigious gold award—the highest graduate student honor—at the 2024 Fall Meeting of the Materials Research Society (MRS) for his exceptional battery research. Read more.

Delaney McNally, an undergraduate student in the Anseth Lab, earned first place in the Food, Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology VIII category of the national poster competition at the 2024 American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) annual meeting, held Oct. 28-31 in San Diego. 

Tanvi Pati, an undergraduate student in the Hind Lab, earned first place in the Food, Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology category of the national poster competition at the 2024 American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) annual meeting, held Oct. 28-31 in San Diego. 

Paula Pranda, a member of the White and Hayward labs, was selected as a recipient of the 2025 Peebles Award for Graduate Student Research in Adhesion Science. The award provides partial support for attendance at the 2025 Annual Meeting of the Adhesion Society. 

Nathanael Ramos, a member of the Holewinski and Medlin Groups, has been awarded a Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science Graduate Student Research (SCGSR) fellowship. Ramos will begin his research at Pacific Northwest National Lab in December.

Nidhi Thite of the Randolph group was recognized by the Journal of Pharmaceutical Science as an ".”

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Laurel Hind, an assistant professor of chemical and biological engineering, has been recognized with the Rising Star Award from the Biomedical Engineering Society - Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering Special Interest Group. 

CMBE’s Rising Star awards are presented annually to a distinguished group of exceptional junior principal investigators each year. In recognition of her accomplishments, Hind was invited to present her research findings in January at the 2025 BMES-CMBE conference in Carlsbad, California.  

"I am very excited to accept this award," Hind said. "It highlights the innovative research the students in my laboratory are conducting to better understand the fundamental mechanisms of immune cell signaling and their potential impacts on human health."

Hind’s work focuses on using engineering principles to better understand the immune response to diseases. Her lab studies how inflammation, cell-cell interactions and the surrounding tissues influence the immune response, with the long-term goal of finding new drug targets to help treat diseases.

For five years Hind's laboratory has been investigating the fundamental mechanisms that regulate the innate immune response to inflammation, with a focus on bacterial infections. The research aims to understand how cells integrate the myriads of signals in an inflammatory environment into an efficient and effective response. During an innate immune response, innate immune cells receive signals from pathogens, blood vessels and tissue cells and react within minutes to protect against infection. 

"This award honors our work investigating how this response fails following sepsis, leading to an increased risk of infection," she said. "This could have profound applications for the way in which we treat patients who recover from sepsis.”

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                             Professor Al Weimer

Three undergraduate researchers from Professor ’s team received national poster awards at the 2024 American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) annual meeting, held Oct. 28-31 in San Diego. 

Hermann Klein-Hessling Barrientos, a chemical engineering senior, and Jessica Connell, a chemical engineering junior, each took home first-place, Barrientos in the "Catalysis and Reaction" category and Connell in "Materials Engineering and Science." Nathan Smith, a chemical engineering senior, took home third place in the "Separations" category.

The achievement places them among top undergraduate researchers in chemical engineering, selected from over 400 presenters and judged by approximately 100 professionals.

"Through focused team meetings, our students are encouraged to delve into the 'why' questions that underlie their research—a critical step for effectively communicating their work and standing out in a competitive setting," said Weimer, a Melvin E. and Virginia M. Clark professor of chemical and biological engineering. 

Students are also coached to deliver concise, one-minute presentations, allowing them to present confidently and capture the interest of their audience, he said. PhD mentors assist the undergraduates with the development of their posters, offering support with presentation techniques and strategies to maximize their impact.

Additionally, attending the AIChE meeting also allows undergraduate students to network with professionals and peers, often leading to job offers or graduate school opportunities.

"This exposure opens doors for future career paths," he said. 

Over the past 25 years, Weimer has mentored roughly 125 undergraduate students through independent study and internships, with more than 25 of them going on to earn PhDs, MDs or other professional degrees. Each year, he supports undergraduate participation in the AIChE annual meeting with assistance from the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) or the Discovery Learning Apprenticeship Program (DLA). 

Weimer's research spans diverse areas of engineering, focusing on particle surface modification by atomic layer deposition and high-temperature chemical reaction engineering using concentrated sunlight.

Catalysis and Reaction 

First Place:  Hermann Klein-Hessling Barrientos, senior, chemical engineering

Title:  “Optimizing Tungsten Powder Fluidization:  Applications for Atomic Layer Deposition"

PhD student mentor: Davis Conklin

Materials Engineering and Sciences

First Place: Jessica Connell, junior, chemical engineering

Title: “Iron-aluminate Reticulated Porous Ceramic Fabrication for use in Solar Thermochemistry”

PhD student mentor: Linnea Helenius

Separations

Third Place:  Nathan Smith, senior, chemical engineering

Title:  “Additive Manufacturing Plant-derived Char Meshes for Point-source CO2 Capture”

PhD student mentor: Katarina Odak

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