The Environmental Science and Engineering Division (ESE) is a degree-granting academic program at the Colorado School of Mines (CSM), a top-ranked public university located in Golden, Colorado at the base of the Rocky Mountains. CSM is a world-class institution with a focus on engineering and applied science related to earth, energy, materials and environment. The current enrollment of 4,200 students includes those seeking B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees.
The ESE Program is nationally ranked for its character and quality. The programs of study are interdisciplinary in scope and designed to prepare students to investigate and analyze environmental systems as well as evaluate and design natural and engineered solutions to protect, preserve, and benefit from the earth's resources.
ESE faculty and staff are diverse in their backgrounds and expertise, spanning civil and environmental engineering, environmental chemistry, soil science, hydrology, ecology, microbiology, toxicology, and environmental law. Students in ESE also have varied backgrounds in the physical and life sciences and most engineering disciplines; they come to ESE from across the U.S. and abroad. ESE prides itself in the diversity within the Program and the strong interactions encompassing both intellectual and social aspects of the university educational experience.
News
ESE 2008-2009 Seminar Schedule
Phil Ross "Celebration of Life" Event
It is with sadness that we report that Dr. Phil Ross passed away on Thursday, July 3, 2008 after a long struggle with esophageal cancer. At the time of his passing, Phil was at his home in Golden with his family and hospice caretaker.
Phil was a great colleague and friend, and a highly valued academic. He will be dearly missed, but certainly never forgotten.
There will be a Celebration of Life event on Friday, August 8, 2008 at the American Mountaineering Center in Golden, Colorado. If you are in Colorado or are able to come to Colorado, please join Phil's family, friends and colleagues in celebrating Phil's life. The "Celebration of Life" will be held at the American Mountaineering Center in Golden beginning at 4 p.m. on August 8, 2008 and lasting until 8:00 p.m. or so. The American Mountaineering Center is located at 710 10th Avenue, Golden, CO 80401.
Note: Donations in memory of Phil can be made to the John Hopkins Esophageal Cancer Research Center at the following address: Elizabeth Montgomery, M.D., The John Hopkins Hospital, Weinberg Building – 2242, 401 North Broadway, Baltimore, MD 21231. Please put the words "in memory of Philippe Ross" on the memo line.
While on sabbatical this Fall Dr Ron Cohen will be a visiting scholar at the University of Witwatersrand's Department of Mining and at the University of the Northwest in South Africa. Dr Cohen will be collaborating on environmental issues facing mining operations and historical mining areas.
International Geobiology Course at CSM
In June, the Environmental Science and Engineering Division at CSM hosted one week of the annual International Geobiology Course. The course is under the direction of Will Berelson (University of Southern California), Kurt Hanselmann (Zurich, Switzerland), Frank Corsetti (USC) and John Spear (ESE at CSM) with funding provided by the Agouron Institute and the National Science Foundation. The course seeks to train the next generation of scientists who can explore the interface between microbes and rocks to seek answers to the questions--how life evolved; how life history is reflected in the rock record; how microbial life built mineable mineral deposits; how biosignatures are recorded in the rock record; and how microbial life made Earth inhabitable for all of life.
Geobiology touches upon every scientific discipline as we seek to understand where we came from, and where else life may be--the subsurface of Mars, for example. This year, the graduate students learned molecular microbial ecology over 5 days at the School of Mines along with a symposium entitled "The Energetics of Life." Samples obtained on a field trip to Yellowstone National Park over the 1st week of the course were processed in the Environmental Science and Engineering Division's teaching labs. After leaving the School of Mines, the course continued on to the USC Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies for two more weeks of training on Catalina Island, California. This year's students, 12 women and 8 men, came from 12 different countries representing schools such as Oxford University, Uppsala University, Harvard University, Penn State, University of Colorado, University of Aarhus and Caltech. Gobiology '09 will again be coming to the School of Mines under the direction of John Spear and Frank Corsetti. For information or questions please contact John at jspear@mines.edu.
Two new tenure line ESE Faculty, Drs Christopher Higgins and Jonathan Sharp will be joining the ESE faculty in January 2009 as assistant professors. For more information on their backgrounds and research interests please see ESE New Faculty 2009.pdf.
Calendar Year 2007 was an exemplary year of activity and accomplishment for ESE as reflected by the following highlights:
Research awards = $5.8M
Research expenditures = $3.1M
Journal papers in print = 40; in press = 13
Abstracts associated with presentations = 82
Full conference papers published = 50
Invited talks across the U.S. and abroad = 50
Editorships = 9
Courses delivered = 38
ESE PhD student Jackson Lee was awarded a fully funded advanced Chinese language Scholarship to study Chinese at Suzhou University. His award was one of the first of the nationally competitive Critical Language Scholarships (U.S. State Department sponsored) to be awarded to CSM students. Jackson will spend three months this summer in China in the program.
GAANN Program Fellowships
Environmental Science and Engineering Faculty at the Colorado School of Mines (CSM) have been awarded a three year grant from the Department of Education’s Graduate Assistantships in Areas of National Need (GAANN) Program. The grant will provide PhD fellowships in Environmentally Sustainable Nuclear Power (ESNP) beginning in the 2007/2008 academic year. Dr. Linda Figueroa is the program director and Drs. Honeyman and Ranville (of the CSM Chemistry and Geochemistry Dept.) are co-directors. Other program team members involved in the ESNP program are Drs. John McCray and John Spear.
Additional information on the GAANN PhD fellowships (pdf)