CMI encourages externships, which are intern-like experiences away from the participant’s home institution. Building on a pilot program of externships, current CMI graduate students and postdocs will be selected and given an opportunity to switch places with another visiting scientist/colleague to experience a different, complementary research setting. After a successful pilot exchange between Colorado School of Mines and Idaho National Laboratory, CMI has had two one-way externships between Mines, INL and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Brief descriptions of these follow.
- Mary Case, graduate student at University of Idaho, intern at Idaho National Laboratory and extern for one week at Colorado School of Mines. Since then, she completed her doctorate and now is a staff scientist at INL.
Right: Mary Case, CMI extern - Hunter Sceats, graduate student at Colorado School of Mines, one week at Idaho National Laboratory. Since then, he completed his doctorate, and now is with the Vanderbilt School of Medicine's Medical Innovators Development Program
- Olivia Salmon, graduate student at Colorado School of Mines, one week at Idaho National Laboratory through a fellowship she was awarded from the Edna Bailey Sussman Foundation. Her research at Mines included investigating impacts of rare earth elements on biological wastewater treatment processes through an experimental system involving bench-scale aerobic and anaerobic bioreactors, culture plate assays, and microbial community analyses. Her externship at INL was environmental research guided by Yoshiko Fujita, project lead for the CMI project Biogeochemical Impacts of Wastes from Critical Materials Recovery. Salmon finished her masters in Civil and Environmental Engineering at Mines, and currently is consulting for an environmental firm.
Olivia Salmon, CMI extern - Philip Keller, doctoral student at Colorado School of Mines, two week externship at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He conducted research using analytical equipment known as Attenuated Total Reflectance Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR), which is very strong for determining the interactions of molecular compounds at interfacial surfaces between solids and liquids. Phillip completed his master’s degree in Metallurgical and Materials Engineering and remains a Graduate Research Assistant at Mines, now seeking a doctorate.
CMI is interested in increasing the number and variety of exchanges, such as lab to lab, lab to industry and/or university to industry or lab. If you are interested in participating in an externship or in sponsoring an extern, please let us know by completing this form.
For further information please contact:
Cynthia Howell
Research Faculty, Education, Training and Outreach
Phone: 303-273-3651