Undergrads

Anika Mathur earns college Community Impact Award

Charles Ferrer — Tue, 02 Dec 2025 21:56:24 +0000

Anika Mathur earns college Community Impact Award Charles Ferrer Tue, 12/02/2025 - 14:56

Charles Ferrer

Anika Mathur

Anika Mathur, a fourth-year electrical engineering student, has earned the fall 2025 Community Impact Award from the College of Engineering and Applied Science.

The award recognizes graduating undergraduate students who contribute to improving their community at the department, program, college, university and community level.

Mathur has served as treasurer for the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) and Engineers Without Border (EWB) since September 2023.

“Anika leads by example, inspiring others to take action while fostering an inclusive environment,” said Professor Melinda Piket-May. “Through her leadership roles, she promotes collaboration and encourages participation from students of all backgrounds. By modeling these values, Anika strengthens the college community and sets a standard for future leaders.”

Mathur’s impact with other student organizations supported by the Campos Student Center has spread positive ripples for their leadership boards.

“Anika has mentored multiple students into leadership roles and actively promotes collaboration between student organizations,” said Amanda McKenzie, coordinator of student societies. “Her financial expertise has made her a trusted student leader. She also ensures that all students feel welcome, often going out of her way to engage quieter or newer members in conversation.”

We sat down with Mathur as she reflected on her leadership and community involvement at the college.

You’ve mentioned that your community journey started before you even arrived at CU Boulder. How did that experience shape everything that followed?

When I visited CU as a high school senior, I attended Mocktail Night, an event for admitted students hosted by SWE and the dean’s office. The women I met that night inspired me so much and they were the reason I chose CU. I walked away feeling seen, welcomed and reassured that I could belong here. That moment stayed with me. So, when I came to campus as a first-year student, I sought out SWE at the Be Involved Fair on my very first day because I wanted to join the community that had already made such an impact on my life.

Your involvement with SWE has grown significantly over the years. What has that experience meant to you?

Early on, I went to as many SWE events as possible from friendship bracelet nights to resume reviews. By the end of that year, I wanted to help build the same supportive space I had benefited from. Becoming director of events allowed me to create welcoming environments through our weekly “Totally Tuesday” meetings. Now, as Treasurer for a second year, I help maintain the organization’s financial health and guide committees in planning events that bring women engineers together. What I value most is helping others feel encouraged and confident. Engineering can be overwhelming, and sometimes the most meaningful impact comes from checking in on someone who looks uncertain or saying “I’ll go with you” to a first-time attendee.

Mathur (middle left) along with student leadership member of the Society of Women Engineers at the 2025 National Conference in New Orleans, La.

You also hold a major role in Engineers Without Borders. What has your work on the Nepal team taught you?

EWB has taught me how important it is to slow down and listen before deciding what “help” looks like. We work with communities, not for them, and that approach has changed the way I think about engineering. It’s not just about designing a solution, it’s about understanding people’s needs, priorities and perspectives. Being able to support that kind of long-term, relationship-focused work means a lot to me.

Tell us more about your STEM outreach work with TeachEngineering. What impact did that have on you?

Creating hands-on STEM education videos for the TeachEngineering Digital Library allowed me to reach K-12 teachers and students across the country. Knowing that these videos might be the first time a student sees engineering is incredibly meaningful. Not everyone grows up knowing an engineer, so if a student watches an experiment and thinks, “Maybe I could do this too,” then I’ve made a difference.

What drives you to show up for your communities?

It honestly has been rooted in creating spaces where students can grow with confidence, especially during moments when engineering can feel overwhelming or isolating. Some of the most meaningful contributions happen in the small moments: showing up consistently, checking in when someone seems unsure, saying “I’ll go with you to this event,” or simply making room for someone to try something new. Those moments build trust and connection. I hope to continue creating communities where we lift one another up, celebrate each other’s achievements and move forward together.

What are some of your favorite aspects about the ECEE department during your undergraduate career?

One of my favorite parts of the ECEE department has been how genuinely inclusive it feels. Even though the field is very male-dominated, I’ve never felt lesser than my peers here and a huge part of that is because our professors and staff are intentional about creating a welcoming, encouraging environment. I’ve also received an incredible amount of support throughout my time in the department, from professors who take time to help you truly understand the material to advising staff who always make sure you’re on the right track. That level of support has meant everything and has shaped a big part of my experience.

What about electrical engineering excites you?

I love how versatile electrical engineering is. There are so many directions you can go and the skill set opens doors in almost every industry. That range keeps the field exciting for me. I also love the mix of theory and hands-on problem-solving. Electrical engineering gives you the tools to build meaningful, real-world technology while still leaving endless room to explore.

What advice would you give future engineering students who want to make an impact?

My advice to future students is that if you want to make an impact here, start small. Just show up. Walk into that first meeting, even if you feel nervous. Ask someone how they’re doing, and really listen to the answer. Say yes to opportunities that feel new or a little uncertain. Community is built through consistent, simple acts of showing up for each other.

Lead with kindness. Engineering is challenging, and people often carry more than they let on. A supportive word, a shared moment or a genuine conversation can make a real difference. Surround yourself with people who encourage you, and be that source of encouragement for others too.

And most importantly: you are already enough. You don’t need to prove that you deserve to study engineering, you already do. What matters is that we keep lifting each other up, step by step, so we all continue to grow, learn and shine here. The most meaningful part of my experience at CU has been the people and the community we’ve built together. Being part of helping others feel supported, confident, and valued is something I am genuinely proud of, and I hope every student who comes after me carries that forward.

What’s next?

I’m continuing my studies in the Bachelor’s–Accelerated Master’s Program at CU Boulder to complete my master’s in electrical engineering with a concentration in high speed digital engineering. After that, I hope to work in industry, likely in hardware or signal integrity. I really enjoy the intersection of engineering and people, so I’d love a role that lets me solve technical challenges while working closely with others.

I’d love to thank the people who’ve supported me throughout my journey. I’m incredibly grateful to Professor Piket-May and Professor Bogatin for their guidance, as well as the advising staff who have always been there to help. I also want to thank Amanda for her constant encouragement and for creating such a supportive environment for all of our student orgs. Most of all, I want to thank my fellow SWE board members. They have been my strongest support system, and I truly couldn’t have gotten here without them. Their teamwork, kindness and friendship have made this experience meaningful and I’m grateful for everything we’ve built together.

Mathur, a fourth-year electrical engineering student, has earned the fall 2025 Community Impact Award from the College of Engineering and Applied Science. Mathur has served as treasurer for the Society of Women Engineers and Engineers Without Border during her time at CU Boulder.

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Electrical and computer engineer gets real-world experience with aerospace internship

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Feb 2024 07:00:00 +0000

Electrical and computer engineer gets real-world experience with aerospace internship Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 02/01/2024 - 00:00

Charles Ferrer

Kofi Asare, a second-year electrical and computer engineering student, is taking his interest in avionics — electronics systems used on aircraft — to greater heights.

In fall 2023, Asare took a semester “off” from his coursework and completed a three-month long avionics internship at Stoke Space. The space launch company based near Seattle, Wash., aims to revolutionize access to space using 100% reusable rockets designed to fly with a 24-hour turnaround, a feat that has yet to be done.

On Sept. 17 , Stoke Space launched Hopper2, the company’s reusable rocket prototype, for a flight test meant to demonstrate the rocket’s novel hydrogen and oxygen engine capabilities.

During his internship, Asare performed a number of hardware tests facilitating vehicle testing and software testing which simulated environments for rockets as if they were flying.

“Seeing all the projects come to life like Hopper2 was such a rewarding experience after spending a while working on part of something so complex,” Asare said. “This gave a ton of motivation for all the engineers and myself to move forward at full speed!”

Based on interactions with engineers at Stoke Space and elsewhere, Asare realized how many engineering students have only classroom-based, theoretical experience, while companies need employees with real-world experience.

“The theoretical world versus the real world are two very different things. There’s lots to consider in the real world when you’re implementing ideas and that’s a huge value in this particular internship.”

In many ways, Asare saw how the calculus from his coursework literally came to life through rocket launches.

Journey to CU

Asare’s family inspired him to pursue a STEM education. His father, a radio frequency engineer, and mother immigrated from Ghana to Arvada, Colo. for a chance at better economic and educational opportunities. His sister, a fellow CU Boulder student, is majoring in molecular and cellular developmental biology, while his brother is a mechanical engineer.

“As a little kid, I was always taking apart my toys,” said Asare. “It was always about exploring what was inside of them and having that curiosity to just dig deeper and discover what was going on behind the surface.”

While Asare said that diversity was lacking in his high school experience, participating in CU Engineering programming through the BOLD Center helped connect him with peers who have supported each other along the way.

“It was honestly eye-opening to me joining the GoldShirt program, where most people around me were from diverse ethnic backgrounds,” said Asare. “We all have that same common goal in engineering of trying to improve the world around us — that was very special for me to see.”

Why Electrical & Computer Engineering?

“Electrical engineering is a driving fundamental force behind almost everything we use in the practical world,” Asare said.

Even beyond electrical engineering, Asare said, one can study almost any type of engineering and still end up in the aerospace industry. At Stoke Space, he met engineers across disciplines such as electrical and computer, mechanical, structural engineers and computer scientists.

“When it comes to electrical at Stoke, there were lots of different disciplines I saw at play, from PCB design/assembly to flight vehicle harnessing and more, all needed to make that rocket fly,” he said. “Electrical and computer engineering is often literally behind the faces of things made in other engineering disciplines that people generally see, but don’t necessarily think about.”

Curiosity for Kofi

During his first year at CU Boulder, Asare joined the Sounding Rocket Laboratory (SRL), one of CU Boulder’s largest student organizations focused on developing and testing rocketry.

“Getting involved with SRL allowed me to dive into the niche of learning to build actual rockets and see them take flight,” said Asare. “What’s quite special is the ability to use professional software to gain that practical experience sought after by a lot of companies.”

Asare thrives off of collaborating together in a community while leaning in that passion for learning to get things accomplished.

With internship rocketry experience under his belt and getting back into engineering courses this semester, Asare hopes to land a future opportunity in aerospace or avionics.

Whether it’s designing rocketry on campus, developing the next generation of reusable rockets or taking flight on his own, Asare channels that curiosity without any limitations.

“That curiosity is still driving me today,” said Asare. “The further I dig, I find that there are just infinite questions to this world’s wonders but almost just as many answers and answers to be.”

Top Photo: Kofi Asare at Stoke Space in Washington State; Bottom Photo: Printed circuit board which Asare used during his internship!

Kofi Asare, a second-year electrical and computer engineering student, is taking his interest in avionics to greater heights by interning at Stoke Space, a space launch company.

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Three from ECEE earn graduating student awards from CU Engineering

Anonymous — Mon, 25 Apr 2022 22:15:38 +0000

Three from ECEE earn graduating student awards from CU Engineering Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 04/25/2022 - 16:15

Each semester, the College of Engineering and Applied Science honors students for outstanding accomplishments and contributions to the CU Engineering community.

Graduating students are nominated by faculty, staff and peers. For spring 2022, three ECEE students were among the winners. Congratulations to Phaedra, Nanu and Will!

Check out the full list & award criteria

Congratulations to Phaedra Curlin, Nanu Dahal and Will Pryor!

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Senior aspires to be "jack of all trades"

Anonymous — Sun, 14 Jun 2015 19:47:40 +0000

Senior aspires to be "jack of all trades" Anonymous (not verified) Sun, 06/14/2015 - 13:47

This spring, senior John "Max" Dunn helped the CU Triathlon team bring home its 16th collegiate national championship and was voted in as the club's vice president. But being a student athlete only scratches the surface of Dunn's active college life.

Academically, he's a member of the Engineering Honors Program (EHP) and served as a teaching assistant for ECEE's freshman "clocks" class. In his spare time, he started an improv comedy troupe called KidzBlop with his roommate. He volunteered with a group that designed and built the tables in the Idea Forge. He swing dances once a week. He plays water polo with a group from EHP.

So how does he do it all? For a start, he chose to go with a five-year plan for his bachelor's.

"I made a conscious decision to enrich my college experience," Dunn said. "It just wasn't conducive to my learning path to do it in four. Dabbling is my forte."

A five-year plan allowed him to take his time in identifying the engineering specialty that was right for him. He started as open-option, but always had his eye on electrical engineering. In the last year, after a class with professor Milos Popovic, he's developed an interest in electronic physics and optics.

"My interests are in working on things," he said. "While I enjoy coding, it's more interesting to see physical things that work, and making silicon wafers for optics looks like magic."

And a five-year plan does not mean he gets to take things easy. Dunn describes himself as "hyper organized" and applies the same discipline to his academics that he applies to his athletics.

"Triathlon Club usually has one or two workouts available each day, and you choose the workouts you need during the week," he explained. "But during 'hell weeks,' you go to all of them."

When finals or other busy times roll around, he designates his own personal hell weeks.

"I sit down with paper and a Sharpie and plan out the week down to the 10 minutes - when I'll study, when I'll eat, everything," he said. "It takes a lot of planning and understanding how long assignments take."

He also relies on his fellow EHP students for academic support, something he recommends for all engineering students.

"Find study groups that you can rely on that won't be counterproductive," he said. "Have friends that you know you can help, and they can help you."

Being a student athlete only scratches the surface of Dunn's active college life.

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Local TV news visits satellite ground station

Anonymous — Thu, 28 May 2015 06:00:00 +0000

Local TV news visits satellite ground station Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 05/28/2015 - 00:00

PolarCube rig attracting attention from passersby on Boulder Creek path.

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Undergrads design nanosatellite ground station

Anonymous — Thu, 14 May 2015 06:00:00 +0000

Undergrads design nanosatellite ground station Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 05/14/2015 - 00:00

ECEE senior project team jumps at the chance to be part of pioneering weather research.

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Rejection only the beginning for student entrepreneur

Anonymous — Sat, 14 Mar 2015 19:50:28 +0000

Rejection only the beginning for student entrepreneur Anonymous (not verified) Sat, 03/14/2015 - 13:50

A professor who met him during his freshman year calls him "the absolute best and brightest" engineering student he's ever met. But when junior Alex Mault began his career at CU-Boulder, he technically wasn't an engineering student at all.

Mault said he fully appreciated the irony of the situation when he was passed over for admission to the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences and placed into the College of Arts and Sciences instead. "I was not accepted to an engineering college because I had been too busy practicing engineering to maintain a perfect GPA," he said, adding that admissions told him there was a chance he would be able to transfer to engineering one day.

Mault is the co-founder of Reflexion Health, a health care company that is designing a 3D depth sensor they hope will make physical therapy more fun, effective and affordable. According to co-founder Ravi Komatireddy, Mault "single-handedly architected our big data infrastructure, application programing interface to access health data, and modified the computer vision algorithms related to accurately tracking joint motion using the Kinect 3D camera."

So from the beginning of his CU-Boulder career, Mault dedicated himself to two goals -- earn his way into the College of Engineering, and see Reflexion Health succeed. He pulled long hours on both classwork and his responsibilities as acting chief technology officer of Reflexion.

His efforts did not go unnoticed by his electrical engineering teachers. Associate professor Robert McLeod had Mault in a freshman projects class nicknamed "the clock class."

"Within the first week, it was obvious that Alex knew more about the topic than I did, by a lot," McLeod said. He added that Mault finished his clock project in half the allotted time and soon began coming to all of the lab's sections to help other students. McLeod soon enlisted Mault to help assemble a group of undergraduates to serve as teaching assistants for the clock class.

Mault said he was thankful for the kindness of his ECEE professors.

"They didn't care what admissions had said, and as long as I continued to show a desire for knowledge, they happily taught me," he said.

By the end of his sophomore year, both of Mault's ventures came to fruition. He was officially accepted into the College of Engineering, and Reflexion received $7.5 million in venture capital funding.

But with that success came a tough decision. Mault received a job offer to become a full-time executive at Reflexion, but he knew he would have to leave school to do it. He said it was then that he questioned what an engineer is at their core and what he wanted to be.

"I looked at the Engineering Honors community I had been surrounded by for the past two years," he said. "I loved the random, communal projects from building a full second story in a dorm room, to building a 30 MPH RC car from spare parts in our electronics kits, to impromptu 1 a.m. quantum physics lectures from fellow classmates."

With that, Mault turned down the job offer and embraced his final years as an engineering student. As his junior year began, McLeod asked Mault to be a TA for the clocks class. Professor Li Shang also invited him to serve as a TA for his Digital Design Lab course.

For most engineering students, the clocks class is their first introduction to electrical engineering. Mault said he loves showing students that electrical engineering is something they can become passionate and excited about.

"As the final project approached, students who excelled began asking the question I love to hear: 'Do you think this is possible?'" Mault said. "My response was always the same: 'Let's find out!'"

From the beginning of his CU-Boulder career, Mault dedicated himself to two goals -- earn his way into the College of Engineering, and see his health startup succeed.

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Industry award has senior project team revved up

Anonymous — Mon, 15 Dec 2014 07:00:00 +0000

Industry award has senior project team revved up Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 12/15/2014 - 00:00

For their senior project, the League of Extraordinary Engineers Team (LEET) is building a 1/10th scale model of an electric vehicle. But this is no ordinary model car - this one can be wirelessly powered by the road beneath it.

The team's work is building off of a public transportation project in Korea, which created electric vehicles that could be powered by or recharge their batteries from electric power strips under the road. The system is meant to decrease the number of trips to charging stations needed per day by increasing the effective range of electric vehicles.

But LEET's project puts a new spin on the technology, based on the latest trend in power electronics.

"We want to see if we can change from inductive charging to capacitive charging," team member Conrad Hougen said. "We want to see what kind of power efficiencies we can get."

The group has already built many of the necessary components, including the capacitor plate, wireless transmission, rectifier and microcontrollers. Next semester, they'll finish building a test bench for the project so they can easily swap out components and measure how much power is being transferred versus how much is being received.

Hougen said it's been exciting for the team to see all of the project's moving parts come together into a working prototype. "The next steps will be tuning the prototype to optimize power transfer and doing some mathematical modeling to see how well our project scales to a full-size vehicle."

And thanks to a $500 award from the Denver Joint Chapter of the IEEE PES/IAS, the team has the funding they need to complete their project. In November, LEET presented in the organization's PK Sen Student Design Competition, where there project impressed several dozen judges from industry.

In addition to Hougen, LEET members include senior ECEE majors James Pentz, Zachary Vogel, Sean Wilson and Vince Coghlan. The team is advised by professors Zoya Popovic and Khurram Afridi, and additional guidance has been provided by graduate students Chieh-kai Chang, Ashish Kumar and Guilherme Goularte.

This is no ordinary model car - this one can be wirelessly powered by the road beneath it.

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Keysight donates oscilloscope in honor of ECEE student

Anonymous — Fri, 19 Sep 2014 06:00:00 +0000

Keysight donates oscilloscope in honor of ECEE student Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 09/19/2014 - 00:00

The Department of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering's Senior Capstone Lab now boasts one of the most advanced oscilloscopes on the market, and it's all thanks to senior Gabriella Bailado.

Keysight Technologies delivered the InfiniiVision 4000 X-Series oscilloscope to the lab in September in honor of Bailado's exceptional work with the company during her internship. In addition to working in the division that makes the scope, where she helped to produce training videos and instruction manuals, Bailado became the first intern to travel around the U.S. to conduct client trainings.

"At first, we were a little nervous about sending out an intern with a company credit card," Sales Development Manager Art Lizotte joked. "But she's done a great job with us. And who knows â€“ there could be a career in there for her." He added that Keysight has expanded the internship program to include more client-facing field work opportunities.

"She proved to us that this generation of engineers is very capable," Lizotte said. "(CU-Boulder) does a fantastic job of preparing the next generation of engineers, and it will continue to be a school where we recruit."

During Keysight's visit, Bailado confidently demonstrated the scope's capabilities to ECEE faculty members and staff, and she will soon be tasked with training students on the equipment. She said her internship was instrumental not only in exposing her to the different career options for electrical engineers, but also helped to put her schoolwork in context.

"I gained a lot of real-world experience," she said. "When I came back, the material my teachers were covering made more sense, and I was able to apply the concepts better."

Keysight provides electronic measurement instruments and systems and related software, software design tools and services used in the design, development, manufacture, installation, deployment and operation of electronic equipment. Read more about them here.

The Department of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering's Senior Capstone Lab now boasts one of the most advanced oscilloscopes on the market, and it's all thanks to senior Gabriella Bailado.

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Student demonstrates first-of-its-kind photonics device

Anonymous — Mon, 15 Sep 2014 06:00:00 +0000

Student demonstrates first-of-its-kind photonics device Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 09/15/2014 - 00:00

As an undergraduate in CU-Boulder's Electrical, Energy and Computer Engineering department, Chris Poulton tried working in several labs before finding his calling designing silicon photonic devices in Professor Milos Popovic's Nanophotonic Systems Laboratory. "It's quite amazing that a lab in this field is here at CU," Poulton said. "There are not many universities doing silicon photonics. After a few months here, I knew I wanted to stay in this field for my career."

During his two years in the lab, Poulton made independent novel contributions that led to multiple publications. For one project, he utilized an IBM 45nm CMOS nanofabrication process, also used to create microprocessors such as the Power7 in Jeopardy's Watson or the Cell in the PlayStation 3. By utilizing these existing microelectronics processes, electronics and photonics can be integrated to create systems of devices on a single chip, an idea called monolithic integration.

Popovic's lab is also focused on creating optical interconnects between a computer processor (CPU) and memory (RAM) instead of electrical links, with the goal of increasing bandwidth and decreasing power consumption. To do this, they needed to build several types of photonic devices.

Poulton focused on the integrated optical filter devices needed using a resonator called a photonic crystal. A photonic crystal is a quasi-periodic structure that resonates with certain wavelengths of light. By placing photonic crystals next to optical waveguides (wires for light), some wavelengths of light will leave the waveguide and tunnel into the photonic crystal and can be re-routed to other locations on the chip.

Poulton designed the first photonic crystals in an advanced CMOS process. These crystals also had high selectivity of wavelength, allowing for high-performance filters. He then designed a device that allowed for electrical current to be sent through these crystals to increase their temperature and their index of refraction. This changes the wavelengths of light that the crystal will resonate with and create a tunable optical filter. These tunable optical filters using photonic crystals were the most energy efficient of their kind.

Afterwards, he demonstrated a "push-pull" filter, proposed over 15 years ago but never realized, with high extinction and low insertion loss. This filter was realized using two cascaded photonic crystals and engineering the optical interference between them.

Poulton finished his undergraduate career with five conferences publications, one journal submission, and one invitation to speak at a research conference at Harvard �Թ��. "None of this could have been done without the help of Professor Popovic and the Electrical Engineering Department here at CU," he said. "I had an amazing undergraduate research experience here and support from a lot of wonderful people."

Chris Poulton tried working in several labs before finding his calling designing silicon photonic devices in Professor Milos Popovic's Nanophotonic Systems Laboratory.

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