AEM

Thad Sauvain (ChemEngr'91)

Anonymous — Thu, 15 Feb 2024 22:41:54 +0000

Thad Sauvain (ChemEngr'91) Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 02/15/2024 - 15:41

Thad Sauvain, 2024 Alumni Engagement Medal Award recipient

Engineering Alumni Awards

2024 Alumni Engagement Medal Award recipient

Current job and employer: Chief Operations Officer, Chevron Lummus Global

Current city: San Rafael, California

Professional background

Upon receiving a BS in chemical engineering from CU in 1991, Thad Sauvain embarked on a 33-year career with Chevron / Chevron Lummus Global. Starting as a process engineer, Sauvain branched into research & development and business development. He soon worked his way into design and process engineering multi-level management and served as the director of global licensing and sales for Chevron for nine years. Sauvain is now the chief operations officer for Chevron Lummus Global, overseeing all engineering design work, field services and supply of catalyst and equipment for CLG’s customers.

Contributions to the Chemical and Biological Engineering department over the past year

Over the past year, Sauvain has served as the president of the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering’s External Advisory Board. In this capacity, Sauvain organized four board meetings in 2023, two in-person and two via Zoom, in addition to organizing meetings with department leadership. He spearheaded efforts to conduct the first-ever undergraduate senior exit interviews in the spring, and graduate student interviews in the fall. During those interviews, board members met individually with nearly 100 students. He was instrumental in bringing in three new board members this year, arranging for board members to meet with ABET evaluators, and calling prospective students to encourage them to enroll at CU.

Sauvain has championed the College of Engineering and Applied Science, the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering and CU students during his 33-year tenure at Chevron. He has participated in just about every activity possible for alumni, including department and BOLD Center panel talks, guest lectures, career fairs, mock interviews and resume critiques, mentor programs, senior design project support and student group talks. On top of giving class lectures on professionalism and other industry-facing topics, he arranged to fly in Chevron speakers to give technical talks in other courses such as process control and separations. Sauvain has been a champion of funding support from Chevron for numerous areas of the college, including the chemical and biological engineering department, BOLD Center and student groups such as AlChE and OXE. On a fun note, he was instrumental in getting murals put up in the department’s undergraduate lab. In general, Sauvain has embodied Sko Buffs with his unwavering support of CU!

Thad Sauvain has served as the president of the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering’s External Advisory Board. He has participated in various alumni activities, including panel talks, guest lectures, career fairs, mock interviews, mentoring and supporting senior design project support. Sauvain has also facilitated Chevron's funding for several college initiatives and arranged for Chevron speakers to give technical talks.

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Mike McCue (MechEngr'90)

Anonymous — Thu, 15 Feb 2024 22:32:53 +0000

Mike McCue (MechEngr'90) Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 02/15/2024 - 15:32

Mike McCue, 2024 Alumni Engagement Medal Award recipient

Engineering Alumni Awards

2024 Alumni Engagement Medal Award recipient

Current Employer: Accu-Precision

Current city: Boulder, CO

Professional background

Michael ("Mike") McCue is president of Accu-Precision, a contract manufacturing company that he owns and operates. Early in his career, he worked at Chevron as an oil refinery project engineer, completing capital projects for refinery upgrades. He returned to school to get an MBA from Harvard Business School, which led to a job in mergers and acquisitions for Alcoa. In this role, McCue purchased and integrated smaller entrepreneurial companies to expand Alcoa’s capabilities. He was later asked to run some of these companies and take full responsibility for their success or failure. These experiences provided him with the confidence and expertise to buy and run his own company. Currently, his desire is to develop his company into one of the strongest, most forward-thinking organizations in the aerospace and industrial part manufacturing market.

Contributions to the Paul M. Rady Mechanical Engineering department over the past year

McCue has been a valuable contributor to the Paul M. Rady Department of Mechanical Engineering (ME) for many years, but went above and beyond over the past year. He served as chair of the ME Strategic Advisory Board (MESAB), helping to organize board meetings and recruit potential board members. He represented the board during the ABET accreditation process, meeting and having lunch with the department evaluator during his visit to campus. For the past several years, McCue and his company were clients for industry-sponsored senior design teams, and he participated in mock interviews and industry panels during the ME Alumni Connect and ME Partners days. McCue has given tours of his company to students in the ME as a Profession course, and his company has hired a number of graduates over the years. Finally, McCue created a new faculty fellowship (the Accu-Precision Faculty Fellowship) in 2023. One of MEs outstanding teaching professors, Janet Tsai, was the first recipient of the fellowship.

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Briana Santa Ana (CivEngr'20)

Anonymous — Thu, 15 Feb 2024 22:27:10 +0000

Briana Santa Ana (CivEngr'20) Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 02/15/2024 - 15:27

Briana Santa Ana, 2024 Alumni Engagement Medal Award recipient

Engineering Alumni Awards

2024 Alumni Engagement Medal Award recipient

Current job and employer: Graduate Engineer, Development Review for the City of Mesquite

Current city: Dallas, TX

Professional background

Briana Santa Ana earned her BS degree in civil engineering at CU Boulder, where she was also active in undergraduate research, a GoldShirt Scholar, a peer mentor in the BOLD Center, and a longstanding member of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers. While an undergraduate student, Santa Ana had two internships at the Colorado Department of Transportation and a local construction firm. Upon graduation, she worked for a general contractor and a concrete contractor, before moving to Dallas, Texas, where she is a city project engineer.

Contributions to the Civil, Environmental, and Architectural Engineering department over the past year

In an effort to bring attention and awareness to issues around discrimination and diversity in the construction industry, Santa Ana helped organize the Construction Diversity Summit, which took place in April 2022 with nearly 200 attendees. Briana was fully engaged in the planning process, which included coordinating three breakout session speakers and a panel of industry leaders. She joined two of her peers who represented recent graduates and shared their stories with the audience. The summit enabled participants to learn new communication strategies and skills, recognize the importance of DEI work on the jobsite, and better understand the challenges underrepresented populations face in the construction industry.

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Jonathan Haines ( MElEngr'91)

Anonymous — Thu, 15 Feb 2024 22:20:44 +0000

Jonathan Haines ( MElEngr'91) Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 02/15/2024 - 15:20

Jonathan Haines, 2024 Alumni Engagement Medal Award recipient

Engineering Alumni Awards

2024 Alumni Engagement Medal Award recipient

Title and employer: Director, Embedded Software, Western Digital

Current city: Boulder, Colorado

Professional background

Jonathan Haines earned his BS in electrical and computer engineering at the State University of New York at Buffalo and his master’s in electrical engineering, with an emphasis in communication theory, at CU Boulder. After working as a research assistant on digital signal processing and atmospheric radar, Haines worked at a military contracting company writing software before moving to the storage industry. Other than a few years writing firmware for telecommunications, Haines has been in storage for his entire career. His technical career has included writing software to make electrical controls and data transformations happen. He began as a firmware coder, and then revolved through firmware architecture, program management and now personnel management. The technology that Haines helped develop has helped hard disk drives continue the amazing storage density growth that so much of our world depends on. In the process, he has authored over 50 U.S. patents. Haines feels lucky to have experienced such a rich mix of science and engineering in industry, and he is enthusiastic about sharing his experience in embedded systems engineering as he continues to work in the storage industry and recruits the next generation of storage engineers.

Contributions to the Department of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering over the past year

Haines has led HDD teardowns for the IEEE chapter and the Business and Engineering Women in Technology program at CU Boulder, providing technical and business correlations between university studies and some of the fascinating problems in engineering development. Haines teaches multiple courses at CU Boulder, participated in the Society of Women Engineers Mocktail event, and most recently joined the Department of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering External Advisory Board in 2022.

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Ben Finan (IntDesEngr'22)

Anonymous — Thu, 15 Feb 2024 21:58:45 +0000

Ben Finan (IntDesEngr'22) Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 02/15/2024 - 14:58

Ben Finan, 2024 Alumni Engagement Medal Award recipient

Engineering Alumni Awards

2024 Alumni Engagement Medal Award recipient

Employer and title: Keysight Technologies, New Product Introduction Program Manager

Current city: Colorado Springs, CO

Professional background

Ben Finan is a 2022 graduate of the College of Engineering and Applied Science, having completed the Integrated Design Engineering (IDE) Program with an emphasis in mechanical engineering and a concentration in business and entrepreneurship. During his tenure at CU, he served as a team leader, project manager and CEO in various project courses and entrepreneurial endeavors. Additionally, he served as a lead course assistant for the IDE Engineering Design Expo, where his contributions significantly improved and streamlined the expo process for future semesters. In his senior year, Finan further explored his entrepreneurial interests through the ESCEND program, leading Delta Horizons, a cross-campus team from the College of Engineering and Applied Science and the Leeds School of Business. Their focus on developing a safer wheeled mobility walker led to notable achievements, including first place in the Paul M. Rady Department of Mechanical Engineering’s senior capstone competition, a Distinction in Design, and first place in the cross-campus category at the New Venture Challenge that year. Finan now serves as a new product introduction program manager for Keysight Technologies in Colorado Springs, while still generously offering his time to support CU Engineering and its associated programs.

Contributions to the Integrated Design Engineering Program over the past year

Finan has maintained active involvement with CU Engineering and the IDE program since his undergraduate years. His leadership and commitment are evident through his mentorship of undergraduate engineers and teams. Despite his professional responsibilities at Keysight Technologies, Finan continues to contribute to IDE’s programs. He participates in events such as CU Teach Engineering's pre-college teacher summer professional development program, serves as a judge for the first-year projects expo, delivers guest presentations for general engineering courses, participates in mock interviews, and readily mentors current students. Finan’s consistent presence and support highlight his ongoing dedication to the program/college and its initiatives.

Finan exemplifies the qualities of an alumni role model, representing our engineering programs and college with professionalism and dedication. His commitment to learning and service is exemplary, as evidenced by his willingness to engage in discussions with students on leveraging technical skills for project and career success. Finan's contributions have significantly enhanced the success of student showcase and expo events, leaving a lasting impression on our programs. As an active alum of the college and IDE program, Finan is truly deserving of recognition for his continued support and advocacy.

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Avinash Ratnavel (MCompSci'18)

Anonymous — Thu, 15 Feb 2024 21:49:40 +0000

Avinash Ratnavel (MCompSci'18) Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 02/15/2024 - 14:49

Avinash Ratnavel, 2024 Alumni Engagement Medal Award recipient

Engineering Alumni Awards

2024 Alumni Engagement Medal Award recipient

Current job and employer: Software Engineer at Arista Networks
Current city: San Jose, CA

Professional background

Avinash Ratnavel graduated with an MS in computer science in 2018. During his time at CU, he maintained an excellent GPA and excelled as a teaching assistant for data structures and computer systems, eventually winning the department’s coveted Best Teaching Assistant Award. Ratnavel now works as a software engineer at Arista Networks. He is passionate about giving back to the department, making a point to promote the program and the great work happening in the Department of Computer Science department.

Contributions to the Computer Science department over the past year

Since starting his position at Arista, Ratnavel has brought an Arista team to Boulder every fall. The company presents a talk on internship/job search techniques and then holds interviews for both computer science/software jobs and network engineering jobs. Ratnavel ensures this event happens every fall. Anytime he travels to Boulder with any other job-related commitments, he always brings some engagement from Arista for an additional touchpoint. He has supported networking events, mock interviews, events for career exploration and on-campus job interviews, and is always encouraging students to learn more about future opportunities in the tech industry. This past summer, he visited the Computer Science Graduate Professional Development Club and spearheaded a series that brings industry speakers to students. Once the speaker series was launched, alumni and industry partners immediately signed up to present every Friday throughout fall, and computer science students remain enthusiastic about these opportunities to engage with a variety of tech career contacts.

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Dale Farrand (AeroEngr'93)

Anonymous — Thu, 15 Feb 2024 19:28:21 +0000

Dale Farrand (AeroEngr'93) Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 02/15/2024 - 12:28

Dale Farrand, 2024 Alumni Engagement Medal Award recipient

Engineering Alumni Awards

2024 Alumni Engagement Medal Award recipient

Current Job and Employer: Senior Program Manager, Connected Logistics
Current City: Washington, D.C.

Professional Background

Dale Farrand graduated from CU in 1993 with a bachelor's degree in Aerospace Engineering. Attending school on an ROTC scholarship, Dale was commissioned a second lieutenant in the United States Army. During a 25-year career, Dale served as a Missile Maintenance Production Control Officer, commanded a Missile Maintenance Company, and commanded a Multifunctional Logistics Battalion that supported all Army missile assets in Central Iraq. Dale led organizations numbering 50 to 1,500 Soldiers in Europe, Haiti, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, and Iraq; developed the Army’s logistics enterprise information technology system; prepared dozens of staffs to deploy on contingency operations; and culminated his career as the Director of Customer Operations for the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) – the Department of Defense’s $35 billion-dollar annual business unit. At DLA, he championed small and large businesses in the Defense and Aerospace Industry. Utilizing business intelligence tools, managing Congressional budgets, and interacting with the factory to front line supply chain, Dale implemented programs to invest in repair parts that improved weapons system readiness – the key performance metric for customers – for all Army and Marine Corps vehicle fleets.

After retiring from the Army, Dale served as a Vice President for Business Strategy and currently runs the Department of Defense's Radio Frequency In-Transit Visibility program which uses satellite and cellular technology to track over 80,000 military shipments monthly across 44 countries.

Contributions to the Aerospace Engineering Sciences department over the past year

Dale’s volunteerism with CU began when he served as a mentor for the Hacking for Defense Course. During the COVID-19 Pandemic, Dale served as a panelist on the College of Engineering and Applied Science’s (CEAS) virtual networking event Taking a Non-Traditional Career Path After Graduation and, along with his wife, Kristen (Psych ’92), hosted a virtual welcome for New Buffs Families, focused on how CU was taking care of its students during the pandemic. Dale and Kristen are parents of two Buffs (EnvSt ’23 and Edu ’25).

Dale is a CEAS Network Ambassador for the Washington DC Metro area and helped coordinate a highly successful launch of CEAS’s DC Metro Alumni Network in October 2023. Dale also leads the Forever Buffs Chapter in Washington DC, serves on the CU Boulder Alumni Association Advisory Board, and is one of the Chancellor’s Global Ambassadors. For the Forever Buffs in Washington DC, Dale established several programs within the Chapter to increase engagement.

He doubled the number of Buffs Give Back philanthropy events, started a series of industry focused networking events, changed the criteria for the Chapter’s annual scholarship to be more inclusive of first-generation college students (on track to award over $7,500 in scholarships) and started a mentorship program for CU students studying in Washington DC that has mentored more than 50 students to date.

Dale has a passion for the University of Colorado, the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences and the Smead Aerospace Engineering Sciences Department. He has built the brand in under-represented areas and helped others see the value of a CU education and more importantly, the talent within the network of diverse students and graduates

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Denzil Ekow Bilson (CompSci'23)

Anonymous — Thu, 15 Feb 2024 19:22:39 +0000

Denzil Ekow Bilson (CompSci'23) Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 02/15/2024 - 12:22

Denzil Bilson, 2024 Alumni Engagement Medal Award recipient

Engineering Alumni Awards

2024 Alumni Engagement Medal Award recipient

Current Job and Employer: Graduate Research Assistant at CU Boulder

Current City: Boulder, CO

Professional Background

Denzil is a current GRAD CSEN-MS student and a long-time student of the BOLD Center. His journey began back in 2019 as undergraduate BOLD Scholar where he immediately demonstrated student leadership. Denzil was a stellar student and BOLD Scholar and contributed in a number of ways such as Peer Mentoring, Lead Tutoring, and student leader in the BOLD Center.

Contributions to the BOLD Center over the past year

Denzil has built many connections and relationships with students, staff, and faculty within BOLD and in the College of Engineering and Applied Science. Though he finished his undergraduate coursework and student employment last year, he still engages with the BOLD Center as a Lead Volunteer Tutor and has expanded his portfolio as a TA in CSEN.

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Sabre Duren (EnvSt’01; MCivEngr’04; PhD’13)

Anonymous — Thu, 15 Feb 2024 18:42:31 +0000

Sabre Duren (EnvSt’01; MCivEngr’04; PhD’13) Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 02/15/2024 - 11:42

Sabre Duren, 2024 Alumni Engagement Medal Award recipient

Engineering Alumni Awards

2024 Alumni Engagement Medal Award recipient

Current Job and Employer: Freelance Educational Writer and Editor

Current City: Lyons, Colorado

Background

Sabre Duren earned her BA, MS and PhD from the University of Colorado Boulder (CU) in Environmental Studies and Environmental Engineering, respectively. She is passionate about collaborating with interdisciplinary teams for advancements in environmental science, curriculum development, education, and outreach. Sabre has over 20 years of research experience in monitoring, protecting and restoring natural aquatic ecosystems. She has conducted a number of large-scale water quality and hydrology investigations while engaging partners and stakeholders to work collaboratively to develop successful long-term solutions for the integrity of watersheds.

Sabre also has extensive experience developing and implementing environmental education programs. From 2016 to 2020, she was the Associate Director for the interdisciplinary and interdepartmental Hydrologic Sciences Graduate Program at CU. For over a decade, she has developed pedagogy-based science curricula and taught various K-12 and undergraduate level environmental courses. Throughout the years, Sabre has been a writer and editor at several publishing companies. Working with interdisciplinary teams, she has prepared lesson plans, textbooks, labs, assessment tests, and activities based on Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) three-dimensional learning, project- and place-based storyline methods, and nature of science (NOS). Sabre has also taught several science classes, including CU’s Environmental Engineering Water Quality Laboratory course, CU’s Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Laboratory course, CU’s Integrated Teaching and Learning Laboratory (ITLL) engineering curriculum lesson plans and activities piloted to 4th graders in three Boulder County schools, and a course on epidemics at the Alexander Dawson School for 7th-8th grade scholarship recipients from underrepresented schools.

Contributions to the Environmental Engineering program over the past year

Dr. Duren is currently collaborating with EVEN graduate students interested in the study of acid mine drainage in the Colorado Mineral Belt. This work builds on her doctoral research and addresses the processes controlling the biogeochemistry of rare earth elements, an emerging environmental issue. The recovery of rare earth elements from abandoned mines also represents potential new resources for Colorado.

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Vandana Duff (ELCompEngr’16)

Anonymous — Thu, 23 Feb 2023 20:05:13 +0000

Vandana Duff (ELCompEngr’16) Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 02/23/2023 - 13:05

Vandana Duff graduated from CU Boulder with a BS in electrical and computer engineering in 2016. At CU Boulder, she was active with the Society of Women Engineers and the Golden Buffalo Marching Band. Her work experience includes work as an ASIC test engineering intern at Keysight Technologies before joining the company full time as an application engineer with a spectrum analysis focus. Since that time, she has been with Keysight Technologies and specialized in technical marketing. She worked as a high-speed digital engineer product manager and is now quantum computing solutions product manager. She is a board member of the Signal Integrity Journal.

Duff is still active in the Society of Women Engineers and works with the career fair booth committee, planning smooth events at the national SWE conference. Vandana also spends time with "Keysight Afterschool," assisting children 9- to 13-year-olds in completing hands-on science experiments. In particular, she works with the girls to encourage and inspire them.

Contributions to the Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering Department over the past year:

In the past year, Duff has been active in recruiting at CU Boulder for Keysight Technologies. She has given talks for the IEEE student chapter, covering topics like how to be successful as a student, how to effectively job search, and what types of engineering jobs are available for ECEE students. She has been active with the ECEN 1400 Project Expo, both judging and mentoring students. In addition, Duff has been a speaker for ECEN 1100 Exploring ECE. Her guest lecture was very well received, and she went the extra mile to personally connect with a number of students after the class. In addition to her work with students, Duff is helping to develop programming for alumni and consults on marketing and outreach initiatives for the department. She is always eager to help support the department and its students.

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