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With the spring semester ending soon, I am grateful for our students, faculty and staff who helped make our return to campus this past academic year a success. All throughout the fall and spring, we found success and fellowship in our classrooms and research labs, returning to safe and productive in-person experiences that we will never take for granted again.

Our students’ achievements speak to the strengths of our department community. Our graduating seniors earned several honors from the College of Engineering and Applied Science, including the coveted Silver Medal Award won by Jenna Nielson and the Outstanding Undergraduate of the College recognition going to Cyrus Haas.

We also recognized the invaluable service of our graduate student teaching assistants through the David T. Spalding Graduate Teaching Fund Fellowship, whose contributions during periods of remote learning ensured our undergraduate students’ success.

Speaking of graduate students making an impact, students from the Toney and Shields groups have been bringing science and engineering education outreach to students in public schools in the Boulder and Denver metro areas, serving as advocates and ambassadors for STEM among the next generation.

Assistant Professor Wyatt Shields IV also won two prestigious awards this past year: an NSF CAREER Award and Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Program Award. His achievement reflects the department’s success in hiring top-tier early career researchers and educators.

Our department marked a significant milestone this semester. Professor Al Weimer’s senior capstone design course is 25 years old — 25 years of industry partnerships, alumni success and our students learning how to solve real-world problems. Congratulations to Professor Weimer and to all our students — and industry alumni — who have made that course into such a success.

It is with great excitement that we are hosting our first in-person graduation ceremony since the pandemic began on Thursday, May 5 from noon to 3 p.m. on the west lawn of the Jennie Smoly Caruthers Biotechnology Building here on CU Boulder’s East Campus. We are inviting alumni who graduated in the last two years to walk the stage. I cannot wait to see all the students, alumni, graduates and families coming together to celebrate for the first time in two years.

On behalf of the faculty and staff of the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, thank you for being part of our department’s success this academic year. Have a great summer!

Denver Business Challenge Endowed Professor Will Medlin
Chair