Metallurgical and materials engineering

Two Colorado School of Mines students won awards in the virtual Fall 2020 Student Speaking Symposium hosted by ASM International.

Meagan Papac, a joint Mines-NREL PhD student, is the lead author of the new research, published today in the journal Nature Materials.

Through these projects and others, Mines faculty and students are giving Mines an upper hand in responding to the pandemic and its challenges.

[Editor's note: This article first appeared on the Oak Ridge National Laboratory website. ORNL has provided Mines Newsroom with permission to re-share it here.] By Jeremy Rumsey, Oak Ridge National

Researchers believe the de-carbonization of the steel industry can be achieved by connecting ironmaking to renewable electric power through electrolytically produced hydrogen.

The honor, which recognizes the Mines doctoral graduate whose thesis demonstrates the greatest potential for societal impact, was presented during Spring 2020 Graduate Commencement on May 8.

"Why does this matter? If you are looking for the hardest material on Earth, and you don’t consider metastable states, you just missed diamond, which is the hardest material that we know."

Stephen Liu, who was awarded emeritus status in 2019, was recognized for his "outstanding achievements in fundamental research in welding science and technology."

Mines has now won the competition, held every year since 2007, eight times — only one other school has won it more than once.

Why did you choose to come to Mines? What have you enjoyed most about being here? Mines was referred to me as one of the best schools for extractive metallurgy, and that was indeed the truth. Being a