Science & Technology

CU ��ý�� joins Medtronic in strategic partnership to drive breakthrough health innovations

Megan M Rogers — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 21:06:29 +0000

CU ��ý�� joins Medtronic in strategic partnership to drive breakthrough health innovations Megan M Rogers Thu, 01/22/2026 - 14:06

The University of Colorado (CU) and Medtronic, a global leader in health care technology, have entered into a strategic research agreement to accelerate the development of transformative health technologies. CU was selected from a nationwide search for its strength in advancing disruptive innovation.

“This is an incredible collaboration across the breakthrough innovation ecosystem at CU ��ý��, clinical excellence at CU Anschutz, and enhancements in patient care delivered by Medtronic,” said Bryn Rees, associate vice chancellor for innovation and partnerships at CU ��ý��. “We are excited to contribute to improving health care through this university-industry alliance."

The long-term partnership will focus on artificial intelligence, robotics and sustainability, aiming to move technologies from lab to bedside faster and deliver real benefits to patients worldwide. The collaboration spans CU ��ý��, CU Anschutz and CU Denver, leveraging each campus’s unique expertise.

“Together, we will explore new frontiers critical to the future of health care,” said Jim Peichel, chief technology officer at Medtronic.

The alliance launched at a summit on the CU Anschutz campus, where priority research projects were identified. CU Anschutz brings deep clinical research capabilities, while CU ��ý�� contributes cutting-edge innovation and entrepreneurial strength.

Learn more about CU ��ý��’s innovation initiatives.

CU ��ý�� and two other CU campuses have been chosen from a nationwide search to partner with Medtronic—a global leader in health care technology—in a strategic research agreement aimed at accelerating transformative health innovations.

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CU ��ý�� physicists automate plasma alignment for next-generation accelerators

Megan M Rogers — Fri, 16 Jan 2026 17:49:14 +0000

CU ��ý�� physicists automate plasma alignment for next-generation accelerators Megan M Rogers Fri, 01/16/2026 - 10:49

In a recent study, a team of physicists at CU ��ý�� demonstrated the ability to align a laser-ionized plasma source with the electron beam in an ultra-precise and automated way, paving the way for future developments in making plasma wakefield accelerators a reality.

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An earthquake on a chip: New tech generates tiny waves, could make smartphones smaller, faster

Daniel William Strain — Wed, 14 Jan 2026 20:07:57 +0000

An earthquake on a chip: New tech generates tiny waves, could make smartphones smaller, faster Daniel William… Wed, 01/14/2026 - 13:07

Daniel Strain

A team of engineers has made major strides in generating the tiniest earthquakes imaginable.

The team’s device, known as a surface acoustic wave phonon laser, could one day help scientists make more sophisticated versions of chips in cellphones and other wireless devices—potentially making those tools smaller, faster and more efficient.

The study was conducted by Matt Eichenfield, an incoming faculty member at the ��ý��, and scientists from the University of Arizona and Sandia National Laboratories. The researchers published their findings Jan. 14 in the journal Nature.

The new technology utilizes a phenomenon known as surface acoustic waves, or SAWs. SAWs act a little like sound waves, but, as their name suggests, they travel only on the top layer of a material.

Earthquakes, for example, generate large SAWs that ripple over the planet’s surface, shaking buildings and causing damage in the process.

Much, much smaller SAWs, meanwhile, are an important part of modern life.

Matt Eichenfield

“SAWs devices are critical to the many of the world’s most important technologies,” said Eichenfield, senior author of the new study and Gustafson Endowed Chair in Quantum Engineering at CU ��ý��. “They’re in all modern cell phones, key fobs, garage door openers, most GPS receivers, many radar systems and more.”

In a smartphone, SAWs already act as little filters. Radios inside your phone receive radio waves coming from a cell tower. They then convert those signals into tiny vibrations, which allows chips to easily remove unwanted signals and noise. Then, the same device turns those vibrations back into radio waves.

In the current study, Eichenfield and his team developed a new way of making SAWs using a “phonon laser.” It works like a run-of-the-mill laser pointer, except that it generates vibrations.

“Think of it almost like the waves from an earthquake, only on the surface of a small chip,” said Alexander Wendt, a graduate student at the University of Arizona and lead author of the new study.

Most SAWs devices today require two different chips and a power source to generate these waves. The team’s device, in contrast, works using just a single chip and can potentially produce SAWs at much higher frequencies paired only with a battery.

A new kind of laser

To understand how the team’s new SAW device works, it helps to think about a traditional laser.

Most lasers around today, known as “diode lasers,” work by bouncing a beam of light between two microscopic mirrors on the surface of a semiconductor chip. As that light bounces back and forth, it bangs into atoms in the semiconductor material that have an electric field running through them from a battery or other power source. In the process, those atoms eject even more light, and the beam becomes more powerful.

“Diode lasers are the cornerstone of most optical technologies because they can be operated with just a battery or simple voltage source, rather than needing more light to create the laser like a lot of previous kinds of lasers,” Eichenfield said. “We wanted to make an analog of that kind of laser but for SAWs.”

To do that, the team developed a device that’s shaped like a bar and measures about half a millimeter from end to end.

The device is a stack of materials: In its finished form, it’s made from a wafer of silicon, the same material in most computer chips. On top of that is a thin layer of a material called lithium niobate. Lithium niobate is a “piezoelectric” material, which means that when it vibrates, it also produces oscillating electric fields. Equivalently, when oscillating electric fields are present, they create vibrations.

Last, the device includes an even thinner layer of indium gallium arsenide—an unusual material that, when hit with a weak electric field, can accelerate electrons to incredibly fast speeds.

Altogether, the team’s stack allows vibrations on the surface of the lithium niobate to directly interact with electrons in the indium gallium arsenide.

Doing the wave

The device works a bit like a wave pool.

When the researchers pump their device with an electric current in the indium gallium arsenide, waves will form in the thin layer of lithium niobate. Those waves slosh forward, hit a reflector, then slosh back—similar to light bouncing between two mirrors in a laser. Every time those waves move forward, they get stronger. Every time they move backward, they get a little weaker.

“It loses almost 99% of its power when it’s moving backward, so we designed it to get a substantial amount of gain moving forward to beat that,” Wendt said.

After several bounces, the wave becomes very large. The device lets a little of that wave leak out one side, which is equivalent to how laser light builds up and leaks out from between its mirrors.

The group was able to generate SAWs that rippled at a rate of about 1 gigahertz, or billions of times per second. But the researchers also think they can easily increase that to frequencies in the many tens of gigahertz or even hundreds of gigahertz.

That’s much higher frequency than traditional SAW devices which tend to top out at about 4 gigahertz.

Eichenfield says the new device could lead to smaller, higher performance, and lower power wireless devices like cell phones.

In a smartphone, for example, numerous different chips convert radio waves into SAWs and back again multiple times every time you send a text, make a call, or access the internet.

His team wants to streamline that process, designing single chips that can do all that processing using SAWs alone.

“This phonon laser was the last domino standing that we needed to knock down,” Eichenfield said. “Now we can literally make every component that you need for a radio on one chip using the same kind of technology.”

Beyond the story

Our quantum impact by the numbers:

60-plus years as the regional epicenter for quantum research
4 Nobel prizes in physics awarded to university researchers
No. 11 quantum physics program in the nation and co-leader on the new Quantum Incubator facility

Follow CU ��ý�� on LinkedIn

A team of engineers has developed a new device that works like a laser but, instead of light, generates incredibly small vibrations called surface acoustic waves.

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Researchers create shape-shifting, self-navigating microparticles

Amber Carlson — Tue, 06 Jan 2026 15:19:16 +0000

Researchers create shape-shifting, self-navigating microparticles Amber Carlson Tue, 01/06/2026 - 08:19

Amber Carlson

Jin Gyun Lee

Researchers at CU ��ý�� have created tiny, microorganism-inspired particles that can change their shape and self-propel, much like living things, in response to electrical fields.

One day, these shape-shifting “active particles” could be used as microrobots that deliver medications inside the human body, particularly in areas that are hard for drugs to reach on their own, or for building large-scale dynamic materials that are responsive and self-healing.

The findings are described in a new paper published in January 2026 in Nature Communications.

“This discovery opens new possibilities for precise, programmable control of microrobots, enabling them to adapt their motion to different environments or tasks,” said Jin Gyun Lee, a postdoctoral associate in CU’s Shields Lab who co-led the research with Seog-Jin Jeon, a visiting scholar in the Hayward Research Group at the university’s Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering.

How the particles work

Active particles take energy from the surrounding environment and convert it into propulsion. The concept of active particles has been around for decades, but the CU researchers’ particles are among the first that can change their shape and the way they respond to electrical stimulation.

Active particles were originally inspired by microorganisms, according to Lee. So far, most research has used these particles to study how bacteria and other microscopic swimmers move and organize themselves, but newer studies are looking at ways to harness the power of that controlled movement for a variety of applications.

While biological swimmers can change their shape and trajectory to get where they’re trying to go, most active particles developed so far don’t have those capabilities. So the CU researchers aimed to create something a little more lifelike.

“We wanted to bring these systems closer to biology by designing soft, shape-morphing active particles that can bend, reconfigure and ultimately steer themselves,” Lee said.

A microscopic image shows a curled particle transitioning to a straight shape. (Credit: C. Wyatt Shields)

The researchers’ particles measure up to 40 micrometers in length—comparable in size to some larger bacteria and other microorganisms, said Jeon. And they’re made from layers of two very different materials. One layer is a soft hydrogel material that swells and shrinks as it absorbs and releases water, while the other is a hard, glassy substance that does not swell or shrink.

When the surrounding temperature changes, Jeon said, the hydrogel layer changes its size. It absorbs water and swells at cooler temperatures; at warmer temperatures, it releases water and contracts. Because the glassy layer doesn’t change, the difference in swelling between the two layers bends the particle into a new shape.

In the new study, the researchers placed the particles in a chamber filled with water within an AC electrical field. They adjusted the temperature of the water, which caused the particles to change shape and orient themselves in certain directions. The AC electric field then polarized the particles, causing ions within the hydrogel and the surrounding water to start flowing.

This asymmetric ion flow allowed the researchers to propel the particles around in a manner that is controlled by the shape and composition of each layer.

“By adjusting the temperature of the water, we can reversibly alter the shape and effective polarizability of the particles,” Lee said. “This allows us to effectively change the direction and type of propulsion in real time.”

Potential applications

C. Wyatt Shields, the co-principal investigator of the study and an assistant professor in CU’s Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, said there are many possible uses for his team’s active particles.

Medical microrobots are one possibility for the future. Although they are a new technology and haven’t yet been cleared for use in the human body yet, they could one day be used to deliver drugs, and the researchers’ particles could help steer such microrobots to help them navigate challenging environments.

These robots would need a different way to propel inside the body since running an AC current there might not be safe or practical. But Shields believes the particles could also be used for other applications such as biomedical devices, flexible electronics and sensors.

As a result of this work, Shields and co-principal investigator Ryan Hayward, professor and chair of CU’s Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, recently received $550,000 in new grant funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF).

“We are very excited about this new NSF-funded project”, Hayward said, “which will allow us to further explore ways to control the motion of single particles as well as to understand the collective behavior of larger groups of particles.”

Said Shields, “We believe this paper opens the door to a new class of active matter that will offer new functional capabilities and take us one step closer toward recapitulating some of the dynamics of living systems, which in turn could help us translate these types of systems toward practical real-world use.”

CU researchers have created shape-shifting microparticles that change their shape in response to environmental factors for self-directed propulsion and navigation.

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A microscopic image shows a curled particle transitioning to a straight shape. (Credit: C. Wyatt Shields)

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Engineers develop real-time membrane imaging for sustainable water filtration

Megan M Rogers — Mon, 05 Jan 2026 14:16:44 +0000

Engineers develop real-time membrane imaging for sustainable water filtration Megan M Rogers Mon, 01/05/2026 - 07:16

College of Engineering and Applied Science

CU ��ý�� researchers have developed a laser-based imaging method called stimulated Raman scattering to improve the performance of desalination plants by allowing real-time detection of membrane fouling. The advance could help make desalination more efficient and reliable as global demand for clean water rises.

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Tiny new device could enable giant future quantum computers

Megan M Rogers — Tue, 16 Dec 2025 20:24:40 +0000

Tiny new device could enable giant future quantum computers Megan M Rogers Tue, 12/16/2025 - 13:24

College of Engineering and Applied Science

Researchers have developed a device that can precisely control laser light using a fraction of the power and space required today. This tiny device could unlock quantum computers capable of solving problems far beyond the reach of today's technologies.

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From cyborg jellyfish to weed labels: 10 research stories you may have missed in 2025

Daniel William Strain — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 18:42:05 +0000

From cyborg jellyfish to weed labels: 10 research stories you may have missed in 2025 Daniel William… Wed, 12/10/2025 - 11:42

Amber Carlson , Nicholas Goda , Katy Marquardt Hill , Lisa Marshall , Daniel Strain , Yvaine Ye

From testing atomic clocks at 14,000 feet to developing robotic jellyfish to survey the ocean, CU ��ý�� researchers continued to shed light on the world around us in 2025. They also developed new ways to heal wounds, track where our food comes from and communicate with the dead. Check out a little bit of what they learned this year.

To keep up on new discoveries in 2026, subscribe to the Beyond research newsletter.

14er science: Quantum physicists measure whether time moves faster on a mountaintop

This summer, physicists from Colorado traveled to the summit of Mount Blue Sky, one of the state’s famous “14ers.” Their work in this rugged terrain may lead to new technologies that could help people navigate without GPS or even predict when a volcano is about to erupt.

Image: Laura Sinclair, a scientist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), works on a specialized type of laser on the top of Mount Blue Sky. (Credit: Glenn Asakawa/CU ��ý��)

A better band-aid: New 'suspended animation' technology could revolutionize wound care

When you get a burn or another wound, nearby immune cells go into overdrive, often causing severe inflammation that can lead to lasting damage. A team of engineers are fast-tracking a new approach to treating wounds that suspends this natural response—giving the body time to heal.

Image: Professor Christopher Bowman, left, and members of his research team demonstrate how light is used to activate a novel treatment for frostbite, severe burns, battlefield wounds and more. (Credit: Glenn Asakawa/CU ��ý��)

‘Cyborg jellyfish’ could aid in deep-sea research, inspire next-gen underwater vehicles

From her lab in Colorado, far from any ocean, engineer Nicole Xu fits moon jellyfish with microelectronic devices that enhance the animals’ natural swimming ability. These jellies may one day help scientists collect important data on hard-to-read ocean environments.

Image: Nicole Xu stands behind the main jellyfish tank in her lab. (Credit: Glenn Asakawa/CU ��ý��)

As AI explosion threatens progress on climate change, these researchers are seeking solutions

AI data centers, like the ones that power ChatGPT and other popular AI tools, use a lot of electricity. But engineers Kyri Baker and Bri-Mathias Hodge say that putting these centers in the right locations across the country, among other strategies, can make them more sustainable.

Image: Kyri Baker and Bri-Mathias Hodge. (Credit: Patrick Campbell/CU ��ý��)

How to save a satellite: Student team races the clock to study a hazardous region of space

A team of undergraduate students led an effort to regain control of a small spacecraft that was tumbling wildly through space—with months to go before the satellite burned up in Earth’s atmosphere. Their work sheds light on a region of space called Very Low Earth Orbit.

Image: Members of the small satellites operation team at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at CU ��ý�� monitor a spacecraft in orbit. (Credit: LASP)

Where does your food come from? First-of-a-kind map tracks journey across thousands of miles

A new, interactive map allows users to explore how drought, heatwaves and other extreme conditions around the world could threaten critical food supplies. This map, called the Global Food Twin, gives people “a window into a world they haven’t seen before,” says data scientist Zia Mehrabi.

Image: Global Food Twin

CUriosity: What makes Colorado so windy—and will it stay that way?

Colorado’s Front Range is no stranger to windy weather—with gusts that can knock you off your bike or cause serious property damage. A team of meteorologists break down how the Rocky Mountains “squeeze” winds coming from the west, leading to blustery conditions in ��ý�� and surrounding areas.

Image: Winds swoop over Colorado's Rocky Mountains. (Credit: CC photo by Zach Dischner via Flickr)

Can weed labels be trusted? Study shows it depends on what you're buying

Researchers analyzed 277 products from 52 dispensaries in 19 Colorado counties. They discovered that high-potency concentrates like oils and waxes tend to be labeled accurately, but flower products often overstate their THC content. The potency of cannabis products overall has also increased across the state.

Loose flower cannabis in jars at a retail store. (Credit: Adobe Stock)

Study reveals widespread underinsurance among homeowners, exposing risk in the wake of devastating wildfires

Many Colorado homeowners may not have enough insurance to rebuild their homes after a wildfire, according to a study from the Leeds School of Business. The researchers analyzed more than 5,000 policyholders who filed claims after the Marshall Fire in 2021 and found that 74% were underinsured.

Image: A neighborhood in Superior, Colorado, in the aftermath of the Marshall Fire. (Credit: Glenn Asakawa/CU ��ý��)

AI ghosts are coming: Is that comforting or creepy?

In the not-so-distant future, it may become common for humans to interact with digital versions of their deceased loved ones. Will these AI tools help people grieve, or could they lead to unhealthy behaviors? Information scientist Jed Brubaker digs into the promises and perils of “generative ghosts.”

South Korean mother Jang Ji-Sun embraces an AI simulation of her late daughter, Na Yeon. (Credit: MBC Media/YouTube)

Plus testing atomic clocks at 14,000 feet, AI ghosts and a new kind of "Band-Aid" for healing wounds

Zebra Striped

Nicole Xu reaches her hand into the tank and touches one of the moon jellyfish. (Credit: Glenn Asakawa)

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Wally the Wollemi pine finds a new home

Megan M Rogers — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 19:54:05 +0000

Wally the Wollemi pine finds a new home Megan M Rogers Tue, 12/09/2025 - 12:54

Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine , Nicholas Goda

CU ��ý�� alumni Judy and Rod McKeever donated a tree—once considered extinct—to the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology greenhouse, giving students a living example of modern conservation.

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Scientists use ultrasound to soften and treat cancer tumors without damaging healthy tissue

Amber Carlson — Mon, 08 Dec 2025 21:13:24 +0000

Scientists use ultrasound to soften and treat cancer tumors without damaging healthy tissue Amber Carlson Mon, 12/08/2025 - 14:13

Amber Carlson

Cancer is one of the leading causes of death in the U.S., second only to heart disease. But a new cancer treatment method from CU ��ý�� researchers uses sound waves to soften tumors and could be a potent tool against the disease.

Chemotherapy can help treat many types of cancer. Chemo drugs aim to disrupt or destroy cancer cells, which tend to grow and divide quickly. But the drugs aren’t always effective, partly because tumor tissue can be so dense that drugs can’t penetrate the inner layers of cells. Chemo drugs can also damage healthy cells and cause unpleasant side effects.

Shane Curry

In a new study in the journal ACS Applied Nano Materials, a team of researchers led by former CU ��ý�� graduate engineering student Shane Curry used two tools to soften tumors. They paired high-frequency ultrasound waves with a type of sound-responsive particle to reduce the protein content of tumors.

Andrew Goodwin, senior author of the study and associate professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at CU ��ý��, said softening tumors this way could make chemotherapy more likely to work.

“Tumors are kind of like a city. There are highways running through, but it's not laid out very well, so it's hard to get through,” he said. “Are there ways we can improve these lines of transport so the drugs can do their job?”

Ultrasound can also treat cancer by breaking down tumor tissue, but like chemo, the sound waves can also be damaging to the body. The researchers’ particles could make it easier to treat tumors with less intense sound waves, making the procedure safer for patients.

"A major limitation in many tumor treatments is delivering sufficient therapeutic doses without damaging healthy tissue,” said Curry. “My hope is that these particles can expand the applications and increase the potency of a variety of treatments."

Changing body tissue through sound

Sound creates physical waves that move through air, liquid and solid objects. Goodwin said the sounds we hear are essentially small packets of fluctuating pressure moving through the space around us.

“When a packet of high pressure and low pressure pushes your eardrum, the pressure makes it vibrate, and these vibrations are interpreted by your brain,” he said.

Ultrasound imaging, like the kind pregnant women undergo, uses this principle to visualize what’s inside the body. It sends sound waves into the body, and as those sound waves bounce off internal organs and tissues, the echoes are converted into live images and videos.

A microscopic image of the researchers' sound-responsive particles. (Credit: Andrew Goodwin)

Doctors also sometimes use ultrasound to treat cancer. Ultrasound waves can destroy tumor cells and tissue, but the sound waves are strong enough to also damage healthy tissue and disrupt blood vessels. They can also heighten the risk of the cancer spreading, or metastasizing, to another part of the body.

To solve that problem, Goodwin and his research team developed a type of microscopic particle that vibrates and pulses in response to sound waves. High-frequency ultrasound waves make the particles vibrate so fast they vaporize the water surrounding them, creating tiny bubbles—a process called cavitation.

These particles, which measure about 100 nanometers across, are made from silica and coated in a layer of fatty molecules.

In the new study, the researchers added these particles into both 2D and 3D cultures of tumor tissue. When they applied ultrasound, the particles changed the structure of both the 2D and 3D tumor cultures, but in slightly different ways.

In the 2D cultures, which consisted of a layer of cells grown on a plastic dish, the particles destroyed the tumor tissue. But in the 3D cultures, which were more lifelike, the particles simply reduced the amounts of certain proteins surrounding the tumor cells, which made the tissue softer.

The fact that the cells in the 3D culture didn’t break down is a good sign, Goodwin said. It means the treatment softened, but didn’t destroy, the tumor tissue, so it’s also less likely to damage healthy tissue.

Possibilities for the future

Goodwin believes this type of cancer treatment would work well for prostate, bladder, ovarian, breast and other cancers that have tumors located in a specific part of the body. Other cancers, such as those that affect the blood and bones, can be more spread out and harder to treat in this way.

Currently, Goodwin and his team are using similar sound-responsive particles to treat tumors in mice, but eventually, the researchers hope to administer the particles inside the human body.

Goodwin thinks it could be possible to attach the particles to antibodies—immune system proteins that bind to bacteria, viruses and other invaders—and then add those antibodies to the bloodstream, where they could travel to a tumor. Once the particles have arrived, the researchers could apply ultrasound and test the treatment.

Although that day could still be a ways off, Goodwin said he’s excited about the possibilities this treatment could unlock.

“The technology for focused ultrasound has come a really long way in the last decade,” he said. “I'm hoping that the particles we build in the lab can start to meld with the acoustic, imaging and therapy technologies that are part of the clinical regimen.”

Beyond the story

Our bioscience impact by the numbers:

Top 7% university for National Science Foundation research funding
No. 30 global university system granted U.S. patents
89-plus biotech startups with roots at CU ��ý�� in past 20 years

Follow CU ��ý�� on LinkedIn

CU researchers are using ultrasound with particles that respond to sound waves to soften tumors and make them easier to treat.

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Wind tunnel research could help predict how wildfires spread

Amber Carlson — Fri, 05 Dec 2025 16:02:24 +0000

Wind tunnel research could help predict how wildfires spread Amber Carlson Fri, 12/05/2025 - 09:02

Amber Carlson , Nicholas Goda

In a windowless, warehouse-sized lab on campus, a team of CU ��ý�� researchers huddle around two wind tunnels—long metal tubes that blow air currents at controlled speeds.

Laura Shannon, a graduate student in CU’s Paul M. Rady Department of Mechanical Engineering, turns a dial, releasing a hiss of gas that quickly ignites a burner inside one tunnel.

The crew turns out the overhead lights. The fire, glowing blue and yellow through a window in the tube, is the only light to be found. Shannon turns on the air current, speeding it up and slowing it down, and the flames flicker and sway wildly.

The researchers are using the wind tunnels to study wildfire behavior. For nearly a decade, the team has been delving into the hundreds of factors that can affect the way wildfire starts, moves and spreads, as well as the damage it causes.

Ultimately, the team has an ambitious goal: to build computational tools that can predict how wildfire will behave. They envision a day when, shortly after a fire starts, firefighters can plug in details about it and learn where—and how quickly—it could spread. The tools could help keep communities safer in a world where climate-driven wildfire is becoming more common—and more dangerous.

“Being able to have more accurate, better predictors of fires is extremely important to protecting people, lives and property,” said Shannon. “The more accurate we can make our simulations in the long run, the safer we can keep wildfires.”

The research team also brings a unique, interdisciplinary approach to studying wildfire, blending ideas and technology from mechanical and aerospace engineering.

“This research was driven by recognizing that there was a gap. There were these really advanced aerodynamics and sensing tools that had not been used in this field yet,” said Greg Rieker, a research team member and professor in the Paul M. Rady Department of Mechanical Engineering.

Teasing apart the elements of wildfire

Wildfire behavior is complex and hard to predict because there are so many variables—like wind, rain, humidity, fuel and topography—to consider. The researchers have been methodically isolating and studying these variables to understand more about how fire behaves under different conditions.

The team is using wind tunnels to better understand basics like how fire moves, its shape and structure, and how it transfers heat downstream. They’re also looking at the impact of ground slope on fire spread, using a tunnel that can tilt at an angle.

“The idea is to model the influence of ground slope to think about wildfires climbing hills versus descending. You have different physics and different dynamics,” said John Farnsworth, a team member and associate professor in CU’s Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences.

The team is also exploring how embers form and spread. Wind can carry these burning pieces of wood or debris miles away from a fire, sparking additional blazes. Embers were likely a major driver of the December 2021 Marshall Fire and the October 2020 East Troublesome Fire, which spread from Grand Lake to Estes Park overnight due to blowing embers.

A large smoke plume from the 2020 East Troublesome Fire in Grand and Larimer counties. Wind helped push the fire across the Continental Divide from Grand Lake to Estes Park, prompting massive evacuations. (Source: BLM)

In a study that has not yet been published, former mechanical engineering graduate student Charlie Callahan set one-millimeter wooden discs on fire to create embers, then dropped them into a wind tunnel and took a high-speed thermal video of the embers moving through the tunnel.

“Larger firebrands can travel long distances and start a fire a mile away, which causes fire spread. But also, small firebrands can change the rate of fire spreading over short distances,” Callahan said. “There hadn't been too many studies on looking at this specific size of firebrand.”

The study found that the embers, or firebrands, fluctuated rapidly in temperature—by hundreds of degrees—as they traveled through the tunnel. And the fluctuations happened more frequently in embers that were traveling at faster speeds compared to the wind speed. The faster they moved, the hotter they got.

Callahan and the other researchers plan to continue studying firebrands to understand more about the significance of these temperature changes and how they affect fire spread.

Looking forward

The researchers say it’s still extremely difficult for firefighters to predict how fires behave and spread, especially in areas with variable terrain and wind conditions. Fires such as the Marshall Fire and the East Troublesome Fire can spread more quickly and erratically than expected.

Scientists believe wildfire will likely become an even more significant threat as climate change progresses, temperatures rise and drought conditions persist in many areas. When fires happen, it’s crucial to be able to understand and predict how they’ll behave.

The work is particularly urgent for communities in the wildland-urban interface that border on wilderness and are more vulnerable to wildfire. The researchers hope their predictive tools might help improve evacuation plans and enhance firefighting approaches.

Peter Hamlington, a professor in the Paul M. Rady Department of Mechanical Engineering and the principal investigator behind this research, noted the impacts of wildfire extend beyond direct burn damage, and smoke from the fires can also travel long distances and negatively affect human health.

“A better understanding of the causes and dynamics of wildland fires will help us develop new computational tools for predicting the occurrence of fires and mitigating their most devastating effects,” Hamlington said.

“Ultimately, our project is focused on the development of more accurate and reliable predictive tools that can be used by those seeking to understand and reduce fire risk.”

Beyond the Story

Our research impact by the numbers:

$742 million in research funding earned in 2023–24
No. 5 U.S. university for startup creation
$1.4 billion impact of CU ��ý��'s research activities on the Colorado economy in 2023–24

Follow CU ��ý�� on LinkedIn

CU researchers are setting fires inside wind tunnels to gain a better understanding of how fire spreads across different terrain.

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