Maxwell Fleming is a PhD graduate student at Colorado School of Mines (CSM), working with CMI project lead by Roderick Eggert and Corby Anderson at the Economics and Business Department at Mines. Prior to his studies at Mimes, Fleming obtained a bachelor Environmental Studies and business minor at University of Colorado Boulder.
After earning his bachelor degree, he worked for small energy efficiency consultant companies, including Ecosystems Group, Inc. for three years where he was promoted to a manager position. After this industry experience, he decided to come back to the school and started the MSc program in Energy Economy. He finished that in 2022, and immediately starting the PhD program.
Currently as part of his PhD research he is working on carbon tax, showing different models depending on the industry and how to reduce CO2 emission. This includes Critical Material Institute work on local economic benefits of generating wind power energy and assessing criticality of critical materials. He is trying to answer how could be effectible supplied the critical material for the energy transition in the short and long term, considering the geological characteristic of critical minerals. Even could conclude how collaborative could be countries to face the eventual shortage of critical materials.
He explains that having an Environmental Studies background, and now economic formation about criticality of materials, provides a powerful tool to know how the mineral markets respond to criticality of minerals. This work with CMI will help me in my future career, to look for collaboration between companies and be part of solution, he explains. Also, he says that working with CMI researchers has helped him network and find opportunities in the academy and in industry.