Kamini Singha: "I love that our faculty care deeply about teaching and are also research powerhouses, and that our students are such broadly brilliant humans.

I came to Mines as an associate professor in 2012 after having been tenured at Penn State. I moved to Mines for the remarkable Hydrologic Science and Engineering Program we have here on campus. After being one of two hydrologists in my former department, it was amazing to be at a school with ~30 faculty members and tons of students interested in solving the many big water problems on the globe. Plus, Golden is a pretty nice place to live!

The students, hands down, are my favorite part of my job. I've always loved teaching, and I also love working with new researchers to help them channel their talents to explore real-world problems. We do a lot of fieldwork, so we get to travel to interesting places to study issues of water quantity and quality.

Mines is a school like no other I know. I think we are proudly nerdy, which I love. We're also a small community, which means that there is the potential to be a positive force for change more here than other, larger institutions. I love that our faculty care deeply about teaching and are also research powerhouses and that our students are such broadly brilliant humans. And we're lucky to have the most remarkable staff here at Mines—they often do the jobs of two people and do them well.

One of my biggest hopes on campus is that we can build an environment where everyone feels like they could belong here. I put a lot of my time into building early-career workshops for assistant professors on campus a few years ago, as starting a faculty job is a lot of work, and knowing where to prioritize one's time can be hard. More recently I have been thinking about how graduate students may not have the community at Mines that undergraduates have—we bring them into their advisors' labs and hope they thrive. So I just started a class, CSM 501, with Geoff Brennecka in Metallurgical and Materials Engineering and Jenny Briggs in the Office of Graduate Studies, which looks to onboard new graduate students to Mines. In this seminar-style class, we look to introduce our new graduate students to tools and skills to help them launch here at Mines. So if you're a new graduate student at Mines, check it out in the fall!

I like all things on two wheels—bicycles and motorcycles of all types. I still enjoy climbing, even if I'm getting older and so am breaking myself more and more, which has made doing bigger things a bit harder. I love traveling, reading and getting to spend time with my people.

You are remarkable humans. I have never been so impressed with the alacrity of the students I work with and the dedication of my colleagues to their students as I am with you all here. Thanks for making Mines the place it is.