Catherine House was an undergraduate intern for CMI at Idaho National Laboratory, from the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology. Through this next-generation researcher development for critical material recovery, CMI worked with the Minority Serving Institutions Partnership Program. House went to INL to evaluate downstream separations of critical materials in lithium ion battery (LIB) waste bioleachate, focusing on ion exchange methods.
At INL, Catherine received mentoring in environmental & chemical engineering, microbiology, analytical chemistry, electrochemistry. This type of interdisciplinary training and workforce diversity critical to accelerating innovative science and technology solutions. House won first place in the Clean Energy Division of INL intern poster contest. She worked with CMI researcher David Reed, who leads the CMI project Biomaterials for Critical Material Dissolution, Recovery and Separation. See more on this project link.