Graduate student training and success

CMI researchers at Colorado School of Mines and Idaho National Laboratory conducted the activity for this highlight

Innovation
Mines graduate student receiving training in critical materials biogeochemistry

Achievement
Kayla Cunningham started program in Civil and Environmental Engineering in August 2021 and has already garnered a fellowship award (Edna Bailey Sussman Foundation) and two best poster awards (CMI Winter Meeting and Mines Graduate Research and Discovery Symposium)

Significance and Impact

  • Kayla had no background in critical materials or microbiology/molecular biology before joining the CMI research team but has made great strides and significant contributions to the research.
  • Increasing domestic expertise in environmental impacts of critical material processing will support development of sustainable CM production and recycling technologies

Hub Target Addressed
Developing the critical materials workforce of the future

image of woman standing by a research poster
Colorado School of Mines graduate student Kayla Cunningham with her award-winning poster (“Impacts of yttrium on the activity and gene expression of Nitrosomonas europaea”) at the CMI Winter Meeting, March 2022.