News

2023

August:

  • Sierra Astle joins the group as a PhD student.

June:

  • Sarah Boardman successfully defended her PhD dissertation.

March:

  • Anna Braun successfully defended her PhD dissertation and started a new job at SRI International in New Jersey.

January:

  • Jai won a poster award for his rare earth orthophosphate research poster at the Rocky Mountain Solid State Chemistry Workshop in Boulder, CO.

2022

October:

  • Sarah Boardman gave an invited talk at the International Conference on Advanced Manufacturing in Orlando, Florida.
  • The Packard Group had a Pumpkin carving event in Corinne’s backyard.

August:

  • Sarah Boardman was awarded the ASTM Graduate Student Scholarship.

  • Jai, Henry, and Anna helped organize and run the CCAC Conference in Golden, CO.

July:

  • Jai successfully presented his PhD thesis proposal.

  • Jai presented a poster on his research on rare earth orthophosphates at the NDSED National Fellows Conference in Boston, MA.

  • Henry and Jai presented their posters on their rare earth orthophosphate projects at the Solid State Studies in Ceramics Gordon Research Seminar and Conference in South Hadley, MA.

June:

  • Anna Braun attended the IEEE Photovoltaics Specialist Conference in Philadelphia, PA where she had an oral presentation on “Planarizing HVPE growth on GaAs substrates produced by controlled spalling”

May:

  • Anna Braun attended the Spring 2022 MRS Conference in Honolulu, Hawaii. She had an oral presentation titled: “GaAs overgrowth of a faceted surface using HVPE towards planarization of rough substrates” which was recognized as “Best Student Presentation” in her session.

April:

  • Dr. Packard, Jai, and Henry went to the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Lab to perform high-pressure x-ray diffraction experiments.

January:

  • Henry Afful volunteers as a Science Writer for the Materials Research Society (MRS) Bulletin

2021

December:

  • Jai Sharma’s poster on “In situ synchrotron diffraction of DyPO4 pressure-induced phase transformation under variable hydrostaticity” received a first place award at the  45th International Conference on Advanced Ceramics & Composites. Congratulations Jai! 
  • Jason Chenenko graduates and starts work at NASA Langley Research Center in Virginia

April:

  • Dr. Jie Chen started a new position at Applied Optoelectronics Inc. in Texas

2020

August:

  • Henry Afful joined the Packard group as a graduate student
  • Allison Perna joined the Packard group as a graduate student

June:

  • Jason Chenenko elected to serve as the Vice President of the Mines Graduate Student Government (GSG) for the 2020-2021 term
  • Jai Sharma became a student representative to the Colorado Section of ACerS

April:

  • Sarah successfully presented her PhD thesis proposal
  • Jai Sharma was awarded an NDSEG Fellowship

January:

2019

December:

November:

  • Sarah and Savannah presented research projects to CoorsTek leadership
  • Sarah traveled to NIST in Gaithersburg, Maryland to attend Materials Research & Measurement Needs for Ceramics Additive Manufacturing workshop

August:

  • Graduate Student Anna Braun started, awarded NSF Graduate Research Fellowship
  • Graduate Student Jason Chenenko started

July:

  • Graduate Student Jai Sharma started

June:

Sarah with Adam SavageSarah on Discovery GO

April:

  • Dr. Packard receives The Faculty Excellence Award, which recognizes a tenured or tenure-track faculty member for significant and meritorious achievement in teaching and scholarship.
  •  

  February:

  • The Alliance for the Development of Additive Processing Technologies (ADAPT), an industry-academia consortium that advances data informatics and advanced characterization technologies to optimize for Additive, welcomes new member Lithoz, the world leader in development and production of ceramic materials and additive manufacturing (AM) systems. Mines is currently investigating mechanical properties of ceramics produced by lithography-based ceramic manufacturing (LCM) with graduate student Sarah Sortedahl with the intent of exploring whether separate standards are needed for ceramic AM.

2018

  October:

Micheal meets adam savage

  August:

  • Dr. Packard, Noor, Brett, Sarah, and Savannah attend the Solid State Studies in Ceramics Gordon Research Conference at Mount Holyoke College

Noor, Brett, Sarah, Corinne, and Savannah at Mt. Holyoke GRC

  May:

  • Dr. Packard’s sabbatical at CoorsTek is approved for Fall 2018

  April:

  • Alumni Matt Musselman accepts job with Ball Aerospace 

  February:

  • Noor successfully completes thesis proposal presentation on porous germanium

2017

  December:

  • Packard Group outing to Conundrum Escape Room

Group outing to Escape room

  November:

  October:

  • Dr. Packard, Yachao, Matt, and Sarah go to the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Lab to do Synchrotron XRD measurements at HP-CAT

Argonne National Lab

  • Matt presents at MS&T

  September:

  • Dr. Packard becomes an editor at the Journal of Materials Science
  • “Packard awarded NSF funding for TOF-SIMS instrument” Full Article

  August:

  • Post-doc Yacho starts
  • Graduate students Sarah and Savannah start, awarded CoorsTek Fellowships

  July: 

  • The group volunteers at Rocky Mountain Camp for Dyslexia

Dyslexic children camp

  • Dr. Packard was one of the organizers for a National Academy of Engineering event on campus 
  • Post-doc Dong Wu took a job with Lam Research in China

  June:

  • Graduate student Brett Ley begins research on spalling germanium wafers

  May:

  • Matt and Dustin graduate with Masters in materials science
  • Taylor graduates with a PhD in materials science
  • Dustin starts a job at 3D Systems
  • Taylor starts job at Corning 

  April:

  • Dong gives a presenation at Spring MRS

  February:

  • Dr. Packard wins TMS Hardy Award for Exceptional Promise. Read the article here. Info about the award here. 

2016

  September:

  • Taylor Wilkinson’s article, “Indentation recovery in GdPO4 and observation of deformation twinning” has been published in AIP Advances (Vol. 6, Issue 9) 
  • Ryan Plessinger and Ryan Matheison received Undergraduate Research Fellowships and will be assisting the GE and GdPO4 projects 

  August:

  • Dustin (graduate student) accepted an invitation to judge the Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internship (SULI) poster session at NREL

  July:

  • Noor was awarded a scholarship for the fifth International School on Materials for Energy hosted by the Ettore Centere in Erice, Italy
  • Anna Braun (summer intern) presented her work at the REMRSEC REU poster session 

Poster Session (Anna)

  June:

  • June: Former summer intern (2015) Chloe Castenada, was awarded a spot for the Fall 2016 SULI position at NREL. Her efforts will focus on quantum dots and device applications.

  May:

  • May: Anna Braun (undergraduate) joined the research group in the REMRSEC REU. She will assit Dustin on the project for controlled spalling for cost effective III-V solar cell applications 

  March:

  • March: Dr. Packard and Matt Musselman traveled to the Advanced Photon Source (APS) syncrotron at Argonne National Lab. Working with the High Pressure Collaborative Access Team (HPCAT) they performed in-situ time resolved x-ray diffraction experiments at high pressure in a Diamond Anvil Cell (DAC). A sincere thanks goes to our experienced collaborator at Oak Ridge National Lab, Dr. Bianca Herbert

HPCAT

  February:

  • February: Cassi Sweet defended her PhD thesis

  January:

  • January: Dong Wu (Post-Doc) and Noor Alkurd (PhD program, Materials Science) joined the group
  • January: Cassi Sweet’s paper published in Applied Physics Letters, “Controlled exfoliation of (100) GaAs-based devices by spalling fracture”

2015

  December:

  • Research group attended Fall MRS, giving three talks and a poster. Matt Musselman’s poster was nominated for the Outstanding Poster Award

  November:

  • Dr. Packard featured in CASE (College of Applied Science and Engineering) newsletter

  October:

  • Dr. Packard gave a talk at MS&T, “Pressure-induced transformation in rare-earth orthophosphates.”

  August:

  • Taylor Wilkinson was awarded Outstanding Poster at the 2015 CCAC Annual Conference.
  • As part of the NSF program Designing Materials to Revolutionize and Engineer our Future, a research collaboration group was awarded $1.5 million over 4 years investigating piezoelectric materials. The principal investigator Geoff Brennecka is joined by fellow professors Corinne Packard, Vladan Stevanovic, Cristian Ciobanu, Paul Constantine, and Andriy Zakutayev from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

  May:

  • Dustin Crouse joined the research group pursuing his Master’s in Materials Science.

  February:

  • Taylor Wilkinson published ‘Optimizing nano-dynamic mechanical analysis for high-resolution, elastic modulus mapping in organic-rich shales’ in the Journal of Materials Science. One of her images was used as the cover art for the journal.

  January:

  • Dr. Packard was elected Vice Chair of the Nanomechanical Behavior​ Committee for TMS at the last annual meeting.

2014

  May:

  • Matt graduated with his Engineering Physics B.S. Degree and will continue with group in the Materials Science PhD program.

  February:

  • Dr. Packard is mentioned in the Denver Business Journal’s “People on the Move” column.
  • Dr. Packard has been awarded a National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award for her research “Controlling Pressure-Induced Transformation in Rare Earth Orthophosphates.” Read full article here. 

  January:

  • Dr. Packard has been selected to receive a 2014 TMS SMD Young Leader Professional Development Award at the upcoming TMS Annual Meeting.
  • Undergraduates Tim Wilson and Skylar Zilliox have been awarded undergraduate research fellowships for the spring semester.

2013

  December:

  • Former post-doc, Mukesh Kumar, has started as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics at the Indian Institute of Technology, Ropar.

  November:

  • Taylor Wilkinson successfully defended her Masters of Science thesis in Metallurgical and Materials Engineeing, titled “High-Resolution, Mechanical Property Mapping in Oil Shales.”

  October:

  • Dr. Packard gave an invited talk – “Residual Stress and Mechanical Properties in Transparent Conducting Oxide Contacts for Photovoltaics.’ at the CU Boulder MCEN Graduate Seminar.

  September:

  • Undergraduates Tim Wilson and Skylar Zilliox have been awarded undergraduate research fellowships for the fall semester.

  August:

  • Cassi Sweet received 1st and 2nd place awards in the Colorado Center for Advanced Ceramics Scientific Art Contest.

  June:

  • Post-doctoral associate, Dr. Mukesh Kumar, has accepted a position as an Applications Engineer at Hysitron, Inc.

  May:

  March:

  • Undergraduate researchers, Kayla Raddant Rankin, Anthony Martinez, and Ray Oberbroeckling have accepted positions at Timken Company as a Steel Business Associate, Honeywell Aerospace as a Material and Process Engineer, and Paterson & Cook for a summer internship, respectively.
  • Dr. Packard gave an invided talk at the TMS Annual Meeting in March on tuning electronic tunneling using depth-controlled nanoindentation. A publication detailing this work has been accepted at the Journal of Materials Research.

2012

  December:

  • Congratulations to Cassie Sweet on graduating with her Master of Science in Material Science this fall. She joined the group and will be working on a project funded by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory concerning 1-Sun III-V photvoltaics

  July:

  • Metallurgical and Materials Engineering Professor Corinne Packard recently secured a new NSF grant to infuse modules on the ethics of nanotechnology into the undergraduate LAIS curriculum. Read the article here.

  June:

  • Dr. Corinne Packard co-authored an article featured in the Journal of the American Ceramic Society. The article, Determining Activation Volume for the Pressure-Induced Phase Transformation in β-Eucryptite Through Nanoindentation, was also authored by fellow researchers Subramanian Ramalingam and Ivar E. Reimanis. Read the article here.

  May:

  • While on campus prior to the spring 2012 commencement (at which he delivered the keynote address) Dr. Craig Barrett, retired chief executive officer and chairman of the board of Intel Corporation, toured several labs and discussed current projects with Mines researchers, including a presentation on nanomechanics research from Dr. Corinne Packard.  Read full article here.

Renewable energy

2011

  August:

  • Joe Carloni, summer intern in the REMRSEC REU program, received the “Best Technical Presentation” award for his poster presentation given on August 5th. He followed up by attending the Conference of Research Experiences for Undergraduates Student Scholarship, hosted by the Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR). His research was focused on the mechanical properties of weathered photovoltaic concentrator PMMA lenses.

  June:

  • Grant Klafehn (2nd row, 3rd from left) and three other CSM students from the REMRSEC attended the press conference held by Sen. Michael Bennet to unveil a report from Coloradans for an Innovation Economy. The report discussed economic competitiveness in the areas of aerospace, renewable energy, and bioscience. The meeting was held at the Sierra Nevada Corp. headquarters in Louisville. Photo credit, R Sangosti, Denver Post.

Senate with students

  • Dr. Corinne Packard appeared in an article of Energy and the Earth, explaining her work at Colorado School of Mines and NREL, and giving an overview of her area of focus. Photo credit, Tom Cooper, Lightbox Images. Articleon pp. 46-47

Packard in Magazine