Research

Beyond Arrakis: Dune researchers confront real-life perils of shifting sand formations

Alexander James Servantez — Mon, 18 Aug 2025 19:25:46 +0000

Beyond Arrakis: Dune researchers confront real-life perils of shifting sand formations Alexander Jame… Mon, 08/18/2025 - 13:25

Associate Professor Nathalie Vriend is leading a research effort exploring how sand dunes evolve over time, shifting and surging across the landscape. Her team ultimately wants to answer a pressing question: Can humans efficiently shift or even halt the flow of the planet’s largest dunes?

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ME grad student probes industrial pollution in Mississippi neighborhood

Alexander James Servantez — Fri, 25 Jul 2025 21:55:39 +0000

ME grad student probes industrial pollution in Mississippi neighborhood Alexander Jame… Fri, 07/25/2025 - 15:55

Caroline Frischmon is a graduate student leading a critical study documenting industrial pollution near the Cherokee Forest subdivision in Pascagoula, Mississippi. Her findings show that industrial activities are leading to negative impacts on human health and the residents of the neighborhood are looking to take action.

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How slashing university research grants impacts economy, national innovation

Alexander James Servantez — Thu, 10 Jul 2025 20:37:30 +0000

How slashing university research grants impacts economy, national innovation Alexander Jame… Thu, 07/10/2025 - 14:37

Federal funding cuts in the billions have impacted dozens of universities in the U.S. Read from Professor and Senior Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation Massimo Ruzzene on why this research is important for everybody.

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Bruns researches cybernetic human advancement with New Frontiers Grant

Alexander James Servantez — Fri, 20 Jun 2025 17:51:14 +0000

Bruns researches cybernetic human advancement with New Frontiers Grant Alexander Jame… Fri, 06/20/2025 - 11:51

Associate Professor Carson Bruns has received a $50,000 grant through �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder's New Frontier Grant Program. The funding will allow Bruns and a couple of key collaborators to develop a new suite of body-integrated technology that can help monitor health, help with mobility challenges and enable peak performance in a range of daily activities.

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Bruns explores nanotech that turns plastic into fertilizer with RIO seed grant

Alexander James Servantez — Mon, 16 Jun 2025 15:42:54 +0000

Bruns explores nanotech that turns plastic into fertilizer with RIO seed grant Alexander Jame… Mon, 06/16/2025 - 09:42

Assistant Professor Carson Bruns was recently awarded a seed grant from �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder's Research and Innovation Office to turn agricultural materials into bio-based plastics that can be more easily recycled, composted or even used as fertilizer.

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New discovery could make a risky heart failure treatment safer

Alexander James Servantez — Thu, 12 Jun 2025 18:36:49 +0000

New discovery could make a risky heart failure treatment safer Alexander Jame… Thu, 06/12/2025 - 12:36

Left ventricular assist devices (LVAD) designed to improve blood flow throughout the body can aid nearly 26 million people globally struggling with heart failure. But these implantable devices come with risks. New research by Assistant Professor Debanjan Mukherjee suggests that studying patient blood flow patterns could help determine who’s at risk of dangerous side effects from LVADs and lead to improvements that could make them safer.

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Robots and chemistry isn’t just a fun combo. Bruns says it’s the future

Alexander James Servantez — Fri, 06 Jun 2025 22:02:21 +0000

Robots and chemistry isn’t just a fun combo. Bruns says it’s the future Alexander Jame… Fri, 06/06/2025 - 16:02

Alexander Servantez

Carson Bruns is working to lend chemists a hand—literally—by bringing collaborative robots into chemical wet labs.

Bruns, an assistant professor in the Paul M. Rady Department of Mechanical Engineering at �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder, is leading the charge on a project that he and his team like to call “robochemistry.” Their goal is to create robotic sidekicks that can assist chemists with burdensome or unsafe tasks that they may encounter in a wet lab on a daily basis.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, chemists and materials scientists held nearly 100,000 jobs in 2023 and overall employment is expected to grow eight percent over the next 10 years.

But unlike other large and growing industries, Bruns says chemical research and development has remained devoid of robots, often leading to injuries and considerable risks in the workplace.

“There are a lot of potential benefits for introducing robots into a chemical lab that haven’t been explored yet,” said Bruns, who is also affiliated with the ATLAS Institute, Biomedical Engineering Program and Materials Science and Engineering Program. “Our angle involves trying to reduce work burdens and safety risks, develop robots that collaborate with humans instead of replacing them, and increase accessibility so that even people with disabilities can perform chemistry.”

Middle school students exploring the intersections of robotics and chemistry during one of the "robochemistry" interactive workshops led by Bruns and his team.

The project, funded by the National Science Foundation, is in collaboration with researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder’s Department of Computer Science. It started with an extensive observation-based task analysis that allowed Bruns and his team in the Emergent Nanomaterials Lab to develop a strong understanding of the various tasks that chemists were performing regularly in a wet lab.

After observing, interviewing and surveying their chemist test subjects, Bruns and his group were able to identify an array of different tasks that can potentially benefit from human and robot collaboration.

“We learned right away that chemists don’t really like doing a purification task called dialysis that is very common in a wet lab. It’s repetitive, it takes a lot of time and sometimes chemists have to come back to the lab in the middle of the night to change dialysis bags, which they don’t want to do.” Bruns said. “It seemed like a great case for a robot, so we built a robotic system automating the dialysis process.”

Bruns says his team of researchers has a list of other potential benefit areas, as well, including simple tasks like stabilizing a flask or offering a third hand to hold something for chemists when they need it. They are even trying to find solutions for more complex safety issues so that chemists can stay far away from violent and dangerous reactions.

But that’s not where the project ends. There is also an outreach portion aimed at improving science education and enhancing youth interest in science.

Led by PhD student Diane Jung, Bruns and his team ran a four-day interactive workshop series at a local middle school in Boulder. These workshops invited middle school students to build robots with Legos and use them to perform various chemistry experiments—something that’s already happening in Bruns’ lab.

“We’ve been building ordinary automation tools out of Lego because it’s cheaper and reconfigurable. When you don’t need it anymore, you just disassemble it and build it into something else,” said Bruns. “So we thought we could use this Lego thing we had going on in our lab already to appeal to a younger audience and show kids the fun and evolving intersection between chemistry and robotics in real time.”

During the workshop series, Bruns noticed various groups of students approaching experiments with unique perspectives and ideas. He said it was inspiring to see young kids actively engage with the science in front of them.

But most importantly, he saw the kids have fun.

“Thinking back to young Carson when he was a kid—it always just seemed very fun to me,” Bruns said. “I had positive role models in my life who also believed science was fun, so that was our goal with this part of the project. To help kids have a more positive association with the idea of science and engineering.”

Assistant Professor Carson Bruns is leading the charge on an NSF-funded project that he and his team like to call "robochemistry." Their goal is to create robotic sidekicks that can assist chemists with burdensome or unsafe tasks that they may routinely encounter in a wet lab. But that's not all: this unique blend of bots and beakers can also inspire youth interest in science.

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New study shows road emission policies could save 1.9M lives by 2040

Alexander James Servantez — Thu, 22 May 2025 20:45:25 +0000

New study shows road emission policies could save 1.9M lives by 2040 Alexander Jame… Thu, 05/22/2025 - 14:45

A new global study co-authored by Professor Daven Henze reveals that implementing smart policies that address road transport emissions can improve health outcomes across more than 180 countries and 13,000 urban areas.

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Vance turns her house into lab to study health risks of cleaning products

Alexander James Servantez — Tue, 20 May 2025 19:16:38 +0000

Vance turns her house into lab to study health risks of cleaning products Alexander Jame… Tue, 05/20/2025 - 13:16

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, global spending on household cleaning products have increased by nearly $50 billion. Associate Professor Marina Vance is turning her home into a research laboratory to study and explore the possible implications of the increased product usage on human health.

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We can turn bugs into flying, crawling RoboCops. Does that mean we should?

Alexander James Servantez — Wed, 14 May 2025 16:44:44 +0000

We can turn bugs into flying, crawling RoboCops. Does that mean we should? Alexander Jame… Wed, 05/14/2025 - 10:44

Scientists and engineers are modifying animals with mechanical parts to create next-generation biohybrid cyborg animals that can perform difficult and unappealing tasks for humans. But do humans have the right to overlook animal consciousness for personal gain? In this article by Salon, Assistant Professor Nicole Xu blazes this new terrain and explores the ethical considerations behind these biohybrid creatures using her jellyfish case study as an example.

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