Research Outcomes

��ƷSM��ӰƬ ranked No. 1 for launching startups based on university discoveries

Michelle Wiese — Mon, 27 Oct 2025 15:15:14 +0000

��ƷSM��ӰƬ ranked No. 1 for launching startups based on university discoveries Michelle Wiese Mon, 10/27/2025 - 09:15

The ��ƷSM��ӰƬ reached a historic milestone, launching 35 new companies based on university intellectual property during fiscal year 2024, more than any other U.S. campus that year. In addition to holding the No. 1 spot for that year, the achievement also places ��ƷSM��ӰƬ No. 2 for the most startups launched in a single year by a U.S. campus.

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Research institute building the AI-literate workforce of the future receives major new grant

Emily Adams — Thu, 31 Jul 2025 19:28:04 +0000

Research institute building the AI-literate workforce of the future receives major new grant Emily Adams Thu, 07/31/2025 - 13:28

Pioneering research institute led by the ��ƷSM��ӰƬ launched in 2020 to explore how classrooms could become more effective and engaging learning environments.

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��ƷSM��ӰƬ leading 10-university uncrewed aerial systems communications project

Jeff Zehnder — Thu, 10 Apr 2025 21:15:44 +0000

��ƷSM��ӰƬ leading 10-university uncrewed aerial systems communications project Jeff Zehnder Thu, 04/10/2025 - 15:15

Jeff Zehnder

Eric Frew is heading a major project to improve drone communications in anticipation of a future when autonomous aircraft regularly whizz overhead for everything from product deliveries to emergency response.

A professor in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at the ��ƷSM��ӰƬ, Frew is the principal investigator of an $8 million, four-year NASA University Leadership Initiative grant to ensure safe and assured operation of commercial autonomous aircraft in populated areas.

“These are complex scenarios -- a drone flying from Denver International Airport to Boulder to drop off a package or using drones to monitor wildfires. Consider the benefit if the Boulder Fire Department could dispatch a drone the moment there’s an incident t so it gets there before police or fire crews,” Frew said.

Communications with consumer-grade quad copters are fairly standardized, but Frew’s team will be studying a much more complex problem – drones that navigate miles from their operator across challenging terrain where line-of-sight communication with a base station is no longer possible.

In such cases, cellular networks are the most likely solution for controlling the drone, but that presents unique challenges.

“Wireless communication is hard,” Frew said. “We’ve all had cell phone signals drop out. That’s fine on the phone with a family member. But if you’re commanding a flying drone, that’s a problem.”

The project team comprises some of the best minds in drones, radio signaling and computer science across 10 universities and colleges; the Center for Autonomous Air Mobility and Sensing research partnership; Boeing subsidiary Aurora Flight Sciences; and the nonprofit Charles Stark Draper Laboratory.

Ismail Guvenc is a partner on the project. An electrical engineering professor at North Carolina State University, he leads a major aerial experimentation laboratory that will offer the team opportunities to develop and test uncrewed aerial system concepts in a real-world outdoor testbed.

“This is advancing the state of the art in an area of critical and timely significance for the United States. We’ll be modeling the behavior of agents, interference, and data in hybrid airborne-terrestrial networks and their impact on the overall performance of the communication network. We will also be supporting real-world experiments and testing needs of project partners at Aerial Experimentation and Research Platform for Advanced Wireless (AERPAW),” Guvenc said.

Part of the research will focus on designing flight corridors that ensure continued communication. In the case of a trip from DIA to Boulder, that could mean designing a pathway that stays close to cell towers, rather than following the most direct route. Another possibility is using multiple drones as a mesh relay network.

“The transmission would multi-hop back through each drone. We can’t control the ground communications, but we can exploit our own,” Frew said.

Relay networks will be particularly important in sparsely populated areas with fewer cell towers, like during wildfire response in the Rocky Mountains.

This is part of a larger vision of how our work can help society. The goal is to provide tools to industry to understand and exploit the dynamic communications environment in urban, suburban, rural and remote areas.” - Eric Frew

“How do we organize stakeholders in that environment? We want to be able to manage team formations, routing and planning so we can work in a hybrid communications system that alternates between air-to-air and air-to-ground communications seamlessly,” Frew said.

Managing that complex interplay will be an area of study for multiple partners on the project, including Philip Brown, an assistant professor in computer science at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs. His work focuses on using game theory to inform the design of networked control systems.

“My lab studies the way that network structure impacts team performance for loosely connected teams, which is what a group of drones are in this case. We’re evaluating and predicting the performance of network structures, and also using network structures to inform the decisions made by individual autonomous aircraft,” Brown said.

A key objective of the project is technology transfer to industry. While some grants focus more on early stage research, Frew emphasized their plan to develop software and data to assist business and government going forward.

“This is part of a larger vision of how our work can help society,” Frew said. “The goal is to provide tools to industry to understand and exploit the dynamic communications environment in urban, suburban, rural and remote areas.”

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CU Engineering announces inaugural Innovation and Entrepreneurship Fellows

Caroline Harrah — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 21:30:37 +0000

CU Engineering announces inaugural Innovation and Entrepreneurship Fellows Caroline Harrah Tue, 02/11/2025 - 14:30

Caroline Harrah

The ��ƷSM��ӰƬ’s College of Engineering and Applied Science (CEAS) has announced the recipients of its inaugural class of Innovation & Entrepreneurship (I&E) Fellows, a new program designed to support faculty, postdoctoral researchers and graduate students in advancing cutting-edge research with commercial potential. The fellowships are supported by the CEAS I&E initiative and Venture Partners at ��ƷSM��ӰƬ.

Assistant Professor, Longji Cui, Department of Mechanical Engineering (MCEN)

Launched in 2025, the fellowships include two tracks: the Faculty & Postdoc/Graduate Student Team Fellowships and the ASCENT Deep Tech Accelerator Fellowships. Both are designed to foster a culture of entrepreneurship within the college by helping researchers translate academic discoveries into real-world impact.

“This inaugural cohort represents the remarkable breadth and depth of innovation within the College of Engineering and Applied Science,” said Wil Srubar, Deming associate dean for innovation and entrepreneurship. “By providing targeted support through these fellowship programs, we aim to empower researchers to transform their groundbreaking ideas into impactful solutions for society.”

Faculty & Postdoc /
Graduate Student Team Fellowships

The Faculty & Postdoc/Graduate Student Team Fellowships support collaborative teams of faculty members and graduate students or postdoctoral researchers. It provides funding, mentorship and access to entrepreneurial resources to help translate new technologies and innovations that have a strong commercialization potential.

Max Saffer-Meng, graduate student, and Assistant Professor Anthony Straub, Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering (CEAE)

The inaugural recipients are:

Max Saffer-Meng, graduate student, and Assistant Professor Anthony Straub (Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering - CEAE)

William Franz, graduate student, and Professor Mark Borden (Department of Biomedical Engineering - BMEN)

Grace McFassel, postdoctoral researcher, and Assistant Professor Kaushik Jayaram (Department of Mechanical Engineering - MCEN)

Yunxuan Zhu, postdoctoral researcher, and Assistant Professor Longji Cui (Department of Mechanical Engineering - MCEN)

Maxwell Conway, graduate student, and Professor Nikolaus Correll (Department of Computer Science - CS)

Tsung-Han Wu, postdoctoral researcher, and Professor Scott Diddams (Department of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering - ECEE)

These interdisciplinary teams are commercializing several new technologies in areas such as advanced materials, robotics, biomedical devices and carbon capture.

Aoife Henry, graduate student, Department of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering (ECEE)

ASCENT Deep Tech Accelerator Fellowships

The ASCENT Deep Tech Accelerator Fellowships support individual researchers working on transformative technologies aimed at addressing complex societal challenges. Fellows receive funding and tailored entrepreneurial support through ��ƷSM��ӰƬ’s ASCENT Deep Tech Accelerator to advance the development and commercialization of their innovations.

The first ASCENT Fellows are:

Sanghamitra Neogi, associate professor (Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences - AES)

Kian Lopez, graduate student (Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering - ChBE)

Aoife Henry, graduate student (Department of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering - ECEE)

Laila Fighera Marzall, research faculty (Department of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering - ECEE)

Jason Rivas, graduate student (Department of Materials Science and Engineering - MSE)

Dhiman Nandi, graduate student (Department of Chemistry)

Subrata Pal, graduate student (Department of Chemistry)

These fellows are advancing technologies in areas such as energy systems, advanced manufacturing and materials science.

Learn more about the CEAS Innovation & Entrepreneurship Fellowship programs.

CU Engineering has named the inaugural recipients of its Innovation and Entrepreneurship Fellows program, which supports faculty, postdoctoral researchers and graduate students in bringing research to market. The fellows, selected for their work in fields like robotics, biomedical devices and advanced materials, receive funding, mentorship and entrepreneurial support to accelerate commercialization.

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With Polaris Dawn’s launch, Colorado scientists will study vision changes in space

Anonymous — Tue, 17 Sep 2024 21:00:41 +0000

With Polaris Dawn’s launch, Colorado scientists will study vision changes in space Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 09/17/2024 - 15:00

During SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn's multi-day high-altitude mission, which rocketed to space on Sept. 10, the crew will conduct health impact research to better understand spaceflight-associated neuro-ocular syndrome (SANS). Researchers from ��ƷSM��ӰƬ and the CU Anschutz Medical Campus are right there with them.

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��ƷSM��ӰƬ, Elevate Quantum partners ready for $127M regional quantum boost

Anonymous — Tue, 02 Jul 2024 16:42:34 +0000

��ƷSM��ӰƬ, Elevate Quantum partners ready for $127M regional quantum boost Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 07/02/2024 - 10:42

Elevate Quantum, of which ��ƷSM��ӰƬ is a key partner, announced today that it has received a Tech Hub Phase 2 implementation award from the Department of Commerce, unlocking more than $127 million in new federal and state funding. The award is expected to drive more than $2 billion in additional private capital and cement the Mountain West as a global leader for quantum innovation.

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��ƷSM��ӰƬ wins $20M to lead National Quantum Nanofab facility

Anonymous — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 22:03:40 +0000

��ƷSM��ӰƬ wins $20M to lead National Quantum Nanofab facility Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 06/20/2024 - 16:03

The U.S. National Science Foundation today announced a $20 million grant to ��ƷSM��ӰƬ to launch a facility known as the National Quantum Nanofab (NQN).

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��ƷSM��ӰƬ, Johns Hopkins APL team advance in NASA space weather competition

Anonymous — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 18:55:50 +0000

��ƷSM��ӰƬ, Johns Hopkins APL team advance in NASA space weather competition Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 06/20/2024 - 12:55

A joint proposal of the ��ƷSM��ӰƬ and Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland has earned a $2 million award for a NASA mission concept study.

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Research Outcomes

��ƷSM����ӰƬ ranked No. 1 for launching startups based on university discoveries

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Research institute building the AI-literate workforce of the future receives major new grant

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��ƷSM����ӰƬ leading 10-university uncrewed aerial systems communications project

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CU Engineering announces inaugural Innovation and Entrepreneurship Fellows

Faculty & Postdoc / Graduate Student Team Fellowships

ASCENT Deep Tech Accelerator Fellowships

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