Science & Technology

Astronaut Sarah Gillis is the First to Play Violin in Space

Anna Tolette — Mon, 10 Mar 2025 20:29:29 +0000

Astronaut Sarah Gillis is the First to Play Violin in Space Anna Tolette Mon, 03/10/2025 - 14:29

Christie Sounart

At more than 870 miles above Earth, this was no ordinary violin recital.

On Sept. 13, 2024, Sarah Gillis (AeroEngr’17) played “Rey’s Theme” from Star Wars: The Force Awakens by legendary composer John Williams — from a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft. As she played, Gillis firmly pressed her violin to her shoulder with her chin as she floated around the zero-gravity chamber, her hair flowing wildly.

Gillis’ three astronaut crewmembers filmed the inaugural performance as part of the Polaris Program’s Polaris Dawn mission, then transmitted the video to Earth via Starlink, a laser-based satellite communication.

Polaris Dawn posted the video, “Harmony of Resilience,” on X that day as part of a partnership with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and El Sistema USA, which supports American music education programs. The video included Gillis’ performance and clips from orchestras playing the same piece in Los Angeles, Boston, Haiti, Sweden, Brazil, Uganda and Venezuela.

“The whole music moment was meant to inspire and show what’s possible when you can bring the world together,” Gillis said in an interview two months after returning to Earth.

“The whole music moment was meant to inspire and show what’s possible when you can bring the world together.”

Gillis reflected on the months of preparation for the performance, which included having engineers completely reconstruct her violin to survive the harsh space environment, and meeting Williams himself at the Los Angeles recording session.

“That was probably more stressful than actually going to space, if I’m completely honest,” said Gillis, who does not play violin professionally. “I was so nervous that he would show up and say, ‘No, you don’t have the rights to use this anymore.’ And instead he was so kind and supportive.”

From Training Astronauts to Becoming One

Gillis first gained interest in space as a high school student at Boulder’s Shining Mountain Waldorf School, where she attended a CU Boulder space for nonmajors course with her brother David Levine (FilmSt, Hist’13) and met former CU instructor and NASA astronaut Joe Tanner. Tanner helped Gillis with a space-related project she had for school, and he encouraged her to consider engineering at CU Boulder.

“He really planted that seed,” she said. “I honestly don’t know that I would’ve considered engineering if that hadn’t happened.”

After Gillis returned to Earth, Tanner — who flew on four NASA space shuttle flights from 1994 to 2006 — was eager to swap space stories with her.

“Being a friend to Sarah was perhaps my greatest joy during my eight years at CU,” said Tanner. “I may have helped open a few doors for her, but she made everything happen. I couldn’t be more proud of her, even if she were my own daughter.”

During her junior year at CU, Gillis took an internship at SpaceX that lasted more than two years. She helped develop and test displays and interfaces on the interior of the company’s Dragon spacecraft, the first private spacecraft to take humans to and from the International Space Station.

“I got to see some of those design decisions in space on my mission,” she said. She joined SpaceX full time in August 2017 as a space operations engineer, training astronauts on the interfaces she’d already worked on.

Several years later, her boss called a surprise meeting with her. Jared Isaacman, Polaris Dawn’s mission commander, was there to invite her to become part of the crew as a mission specialist, joining himself, Scott Poteet (mission pilot) and Anna Menon (medical officer and mission specialist).

“My response was, ‘Hell yes, but I’ll need to talk to some people first,” she said. “I immediately walked out of the room and straight downstairs to my husband, who worked at SpaceX with me. He had his headphones on at his desk. I tapped him on the shoulder and said, ‘I need to talk to you.’ … It was very special to share that exciting news.”

Five Record-Breaking Days

Two and a half years later, on Sept. 10, 2024, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket launched the crew aboard a Dragon spacecraft from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. One of the crew’s main objectives on the mission was to conduct research to help better understand the human effects of space flight and space radiation. This included the first spacewalk from Dragon.

On the third day of the mission, Gillis and Isaacman exited the spacecraft in SpaceX’s newly designed and developed extravehicular activity spacesuits. For 10 minutes, she tested different components of the suit and became, at 30 years old, the youngest astronaut to complete a spacewalk.

When asked to describe the feat in one word, she settled on “dark.”

“I was emerging into the total blackness of space. It’s this immense void where you realize how close to Earth we are and how much is still left to explore out there, but it’s also this overwhelming dark blanket that is surrounding you.”

"It’s this immense void where you realize how close to Earth we are and how much is still left to explore out there."

The next day was her violin performance, which was planned to test the connectivity of SpaceX’s Starlink laser-based internet from space. The data may help improve communications for future missions to the Moon and Mars.

The crew also conducted other experiments — including gathering data on space radiation — that could help advance human health for future long-duration space flights.

Gillis noted one surprising aspect of being in space she hadn’t prepared for: how easily things got lost without the presence of gravity.

“It was always a constant treasure hunt of, ‘Has anybody seen this? Has anybody seen that?’” she said, adding that a missing camera SD card was found in the spacecraft weeks after landing. “You’d stick something with Velcro, then turn around and it would be gone.”

The historic mission lasted five days and ended with a successful splashdown off the coast of Florida.

“I hope that it is inspiring to people to see what the future of human spaceflight could be and where we’re going — that it is a possibility that more and more people are going to go to space.”

“I hope that it is inspiring to people to see what the future of human spaceflight could be and where we’re going — that it is a possibility that more and more people are going to go to space,” Gillis said.

The Next Step

Gillis’ husband, Lewis Gillis (Aero Engr’17; MS’17), formerly a SpaceX senior propulsion engineer, reflected on his wife’s extraordinary career to date when the couple visited campus this past November.

“With some curiosity and passion and connecting to all the humans around her, Sarah’s made it quite a long way,” he said. “I’m excited to see what she builds next and who she meets along the way.”

Gillis said she would reconsider another spaceflight if given the opportunity, but she is eager for others to experience space first. She remains in her astronaut training position at SpaceX.

Reflecting on her historic mission, she said: “I think the more people we can get into space to see the world from that perspective, the better off humanity will be.

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Photo by Glenn Asakawa; Polaris Dawn Crew (violin)

SpaceX's Sarah Gillis made history by becoming the youngest astronaut to complete a spacewalk and perform the first violin recital in space.

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Thinking Huts Is Printing a Brighter Future

Anna Tolette — Mon, 10 Mar 2025 20:24:56 +0000

Thinking Huts Is Printing a Brighter Future Anna Tolette Mon, 03/10/2025 - 14:24

Kelsey Yandura

In 2015, “3D printing” still conjured up images of the absurd, the novel or the futuristic — think custom tabletop game pieces, small replacement parts, decorative novelties and even 3D-printed chocolate.

But Maggie Grout (Mgmt’21) has never been one to think small. At just 15 years old, three years before she enrolled as a Buff, Grout walked up to her dad and asked a life-changing question: “What if we 3D-printed a school?”

The answer, in the form of Grout’s nonprofit Thinking Huts, would ripple out to impact not only her own future, but the futures of families and communities across the globe.

Welcome to Bougainvillea

In 2022, seven years after Grout’s initial idea sparked, Bougainvillea was born — a 700-square foot, 3D-printed school in south central Madagascar and Thinking Huts’ first officially completed project.

According to data from UNESCO and the United Nations, sub-Saharan Africa faces the highest education exclusion rates in the world. In Madagascar, the crisis is acute: three-fourths of secondary-age children don’t attend school due to issues like overcrowding and dangerous commutes. One-third won’t complete primary education, and 97 percent of 10-year-olds who finish primary school cannot read simple sentences.

Thinking Huts hopes to change that. Bougainvillea is small but mighty, holding up to 30 students and serving as a beacon of hope for the local community and proof of Thinking Huts’ potential to address the global education opportunity gap.

And while the grunt work of planning and preparing spanned the better part of a decade, the execution was swift — using an industrial-scale 3D printer and a cement mixture, an on-site team printed the modular wall components in just 18 hours. These units were designed to fit together seamlessly, forming a puzzle-like assembly to complete the structure. The roof, doors and windows, handcrafted by local artisans and builders, were added on several weeks later.

Grout recalls: “When I was looking at the walls being printed, I kept thinking, ‘Oh, my gosh, this is crazy. It’s finally happening.’”

Patience Pays Off

Thinking Huts was forged at the intersection of two different causes: education and sustainability. For Grout, they are intimately connected.

“We know that in order for us to continue to increase access to education in these communities, we have to have a focus on sustainable building metrics,” said Kristen Harrington, director of development at Thinking Huts. “A lot of organizations focus on speed. But if you’re looking at how to build more holistic communities and better equip families and address the poverty cycle, you have to take the whole picture into account.”

While this kind of long-term, intersectional problem-solving does not lend itself to the immediate gratification of a “quick fix” — each decision requires careful thought, planning and foresight — Grout said the result is lasting.

“It’s not an overnight thing,” said Grout. “We’re trying to set up the next few generations to succeed and go further than us, rather than thinking of the short term. It’s a long haul type of journey.”

A Relational Approach

For Thinking Huts, this kind of holistic approach means focusing on building strong, equitable, sustainable relationships in their partner communities.

“Relationship building is a slow drip,” Harrington said. “It’s an opportunity for us to really assess what’s going to be able to create sustainability in these structures for generations.”

In order to create this sense of longevity, Thinking Huts spends time building trust with community leaders and students, taking their needs and skills into account and assessing how to collaborate with local workers, builders, artisans and technicians. For Bougainvillea, this meant partnering with area manufacturers in the construction process, handing off 3D operational skills that can be applied to future construction projects.

Grout said this relationship-first ethos has roots in her years at CU Boulder, where she said the people she met were the most impactful, including her mentorship with Mike Leeds (Fin’74).

“I think even now I’m realizing how critical it is to have a network of people around you,” she said. “The relationships I developed are the biggest things that I took away from school.”

CEO with a Story

Grout said her passion for educational opportunities has been a lifelong journey. Born and abandoned in a rural village in China, she was adopted by American parents at 18 months old and grew up in the U.S.

“I think I’ve already always been more aware of how people’s lives are different from mine,” said Grout. “I had big visions from a young age, just knowing my life could have followed a very different path. That’s what drew me more to understanding the importance of education.”

The result is a work ethic and leadership style that Harrington said extends beyond her years and has garnered international attention from major media outlets like Forbes and Good Morning America. In fall 2024, Grout was featured as one of Time magazine’s featured “Next Generation Leaders.”

“Maggie has this true grit and determination,” said Harrington. “She doesn’t want any child to feel like they don’t have the access that she had because she was adopted. So now she can bring opportunity to children in the pockets of the world that often don’t see innovation.”

Honeycomb on the Horizon

For Grout and her team of 10, Bougainvillea is just the beginning. Next up is the Honeycomb Campus. Named for its design of adjoining hexagonal bases, this multi-building project will serve three remote villages on the west coast of Madagascar. The project is set to include solar power and Wi-Fi access and will impact more than 200 students ages four to 16, starting in summer 2025.

When asked about her approach to the future and how she’d encourage other innovators in philanthropy and sustainability, Grout emphasized a sense of hope.

“I know that what we do now will have a major impact later on,” she said. “I am trying to aspire for a legacy of change, even if it takes time.”

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Photos courtesy Thinking Huts

Thinking Huts, founded by Maggie Grout, uses 3D printing technology to build sustainable schools in underserved communities.

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Sustainable Spinouts: Innovation in Action

Anna Tolette — Mon, 10 Mar 2025 20:20:54 +0000

Sustainable Spinouts: Innovation in Action Anna Tolette Mon, 03/10/2025 - 14:20

Heather Hansen

Imagine strolling down a sidewalk made from algae or building a wall with the help of microbes grown in a bioreactor.

This extraordinary image may sound futuristic, but the technology is already here, thanks to Prometheus Materials, a sustainability-focused CU Boulder spinout giving concrete blocks a makeover with the help of environmentally-friendly bio-cement-making bacteria, algae and microbes.

CU Boulder civil, environmental and architectural engineering professor Wil Srubar founded the Longmont-based company in 2021 with CEO Loren Burnett and a cross-disciplinary team of CU Boulder collaborators, including civil, environmental and architectural engineering associate professors Mija Hubler and Sherri Cook and the late Jeff Cameron, formerly of biochemistry.

The impetus for the research group formed several years earlier around a call for proposals from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the research and development arm of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) focused on developing new technologies for the military.

“It sounded impossible, a bit like a Frankenstein objective of bringing building materials to life.”

“Our charge from the DoD was to grow a material that had both biological and structural function,” said Srubar. “It sounded impossible, a bit like a Frankenstein objective of bringing building materials to life.”

But the challenge was right for Srubar, who leads CU Boulder’s Living Materials Laboratory, where researchers aim to create construction materials that are in harmony with the natural world.

“We had been thinking about these concepts for some time,” he said. “But this was the first government investment in this particular area that really catalyzed an entirely new field.”

After two years of “spinning their wheels,” said Srubar, the team had a breakthrough in the lab when they made the first sample of engineered living materials that fulfilled DARPA’s requirements. Srubar said this success required looking back — way back — to life on Earth before humans. They were inspired by formations called stromatolites, stony structures built by microscopic photosynthesizing organisms known as cyanobacteria, which are among the oldest living lifeforms on the planet.

“We know nature has built really strong, tough materials,” said Srubar.

By studying the composition of coral and seashells, for example, the team figured out how to make lab-grown versions of the natural phenomena.

“You apply principles of biomimicry, you bring that process into the lab and beautiful things can happen,” he said.

Now Prometheus Materials, named for the legendary Greek god who introduced fire and other technologies to humans, is making sustainable building materials with a process that combines microalgae with other natural components to form zero-carbon bio-cement and bio-concrete with the major goal of reducing carbon emissions in the construction industry.

This is so important because making concrete — the most ubiquitous human-made building material on earth — generates massive amounts of CO2 and contributes significantly to climate change. Global cement manufacturing produces 11 million tons of CO2 every day (roughly equivalent to emissions from all the cars in the world), or about 8% of the world’s total CO2 emissions, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. And, according to the U.S. Department of Energy, demand for cement in the U.S. alone is expected to double by 2050.

As the company realizes its transformative role in the construction industry, it has raised $8 million in private funding in the past year and was awarded a role in a $10 million grant from the Department of Energy (DOE) that will fund collaboration between a trio of national labs. Within this partnership, Prometheus will join other institutions in the field to establish methods for measuring, reporting and verifying CO2 removal and sequestration in cement and concrete materials.

Environmental Stewardship

Prometheus is just one example of CU Boulder’s strong network of researchers bringing innovations out of labs and into companies that have real-world impact — the university is a national leader and spinout powerhouse, launching 35 companies in fiscal year 2024 and over 100 since 2016, according to Bryn Rees, associate vice chancellor for innovation and partnerships. Since 2000, the university has launched 44 sustainability-focused spinouts, including a dozen new companies in just the past few years, said Rees, who leads Venture Partners at CU Boulder, the university’s commercialization arm for the campus.

According to Rees and Srubar, several factors combine to make CU Boulder so effective at generating these kinds of companies: research expertise, commercialization resources, market need and an eagerness to improve our world.

“There’s such a history of environmental stewardship here at the University of Colorado, and in Boulder specifically, and that’s very much a part of our institutional fabric,” said Srubar. “We do sustainability research really well and it’s one, if not the pillar, of our education and research mission at the university.”

Rees agreed: “It’s a function of our research prowess in that area. There are many highly talented researchers who care deeply about the climate crisis, and so that’s where they’ve oriented their research.”

Those innovations could be used in lots of different ways, but Rees shared, “The innovators are saying, ‘We want to apply these technologies to really important problems.’”

For Srubar and others, the drive to make the world a better place is strong.

“It all begins with a vision and a belief that, first, the world is not static; it can become whatever you dream,” he said. “Understanding that you have the power and the potential to affect change is what really fueled me and our team.”

Rees also sees market need as critical to driving sustainability-focused ventures.

“There is an abundance of funding opportunities and demand from the market to have these types of solutions,” he said. “You’ve got the push from what CU Boulder is really good at, and you’ve got the pull from a true need for these types of solutions across different industries.”

“You’ve got the push from what CU Boulder is really good at, and you’ve got the pull from a true need for these types of solutions across different industries.”

Driving Meaningful Change

Another company with CU Boulder beginnings is the well-established, Boulder-based LongPath, founded in 2017 by Greg Rieker, chief technology officer and CU Boulder associate professor of mechanical engineering, with colleagues Caroline Alden (PhDGeol’13), Sean Coburn (PhDChem’14) and Robert Wright, former CU Boulder senior researcher.

LongPath harnesses quantum technology to detect fugitive methane emissions from oil and gas operations, innovation that benefits industry and investors — and the planet. The company’s breakthroughs in laser technology and quantum sensing, rooted in CU Boulder’s Nobel Prize-winning optical frequency comb technology, created a leak detection system to do what previous approaches could not: continuously detect invisible-to-the-eye natural gas escaping from pipes on-site at oil and gas facilities.

Finding and patching those leaks is a triple win — in industry cost savings (from $820 to $980 million per year), and improved air quality and public health. LongPath’s technology can identify natural gas leaks that sicken and displace thousands of people each year and cut greenhouse gas emissions, particularly methane.

Today, LongPath’s Active Emissions Overwatch System is live at oil and gas operations in several states, covering hundreds of thousands of acres. Rieker and his team see the impacts of those systems growing each day, and he estimates that each system saves between 40 and 80 million cubic feet of methane annually.

“Every time we deploy a new system, it really is impactful,” he said, adding the team still celebrates every large leak located. “We’ll nail a big one for a customer, and that’s exciting.”

Similar to Srubar, LongPath’s founders were motivated by protecting the environment.

“Many academics measure impact in terms of papers published or citation rates. I always wanted the impact of my work to be more palpable,” said Rieker. “In 2024, LongPath stopped more than 6 billion cubic feet of methane emissions and counting. That’s impact, and that’s why we launched.”

“Many academics measure impact in terms of papers published or citation rates. I always wanted the impact of my work to be more palpable.”

Wil Srubar of CU Boulder's Living Materials Laboratory

Recently, the company received landmark financial backing from the DOE for a loan of up to $189 million to accelerate the scale-up of the company’s monitoring systems.

Another game-changing company making significant strides in sustainability is Louisville-based Solid Power, founded in 2011, based on technology developed by CU Boulder mechanical engineering professor Se-Hee Lee and professor emeritus of mechanical engineering Conrad Stoldt (Chem’94).

Similar to Srubar and Prometheus Materials, Stoldt and Lee answered a call from DARPA. Their challenge was to double the energy density of a rechargeable battery.

“The metrics they wanted to reach were unheard of,” said Stoldt, but he and Lee accepted the challenge anyway. “We saw it as an opportunity… and we sat down and determined that, at least on paper, the only rechargeable battery technology that could meet the specs for the program was a solid-state battery.”

Lee and Stoldt partnered with Douglas Campbell, a small business and early-stage product developer, and chief technology officer Joshua Buettner-Garrett to start Solid Power. Along with then-mentor Dave Jansen, the team negotiated a commercialization agreement with Venture Partners (known then as the CU Technology Transfer Office), making the company an exclusive licensee to the university’s intellectual property.

What began as an idea Stoldt said was “bootstrapped” in CU Boulder labs, Solid Power is now an industry-leading developer of next-generation all-solid-state battery technology. As their name suggests, solid-state batteries (SSBs) differ from conventional batteries in that the electrolyte powering them is a solid material instead of a gel or liquid. That gives SSBs many advantages over lithium-ion batteries now widely used in electronics, toys, appliances and — critically — electric vehicles.

Solid Power’s design bests lithium-ion cells on safety, cost, durability and battery life — attributes long sought by consumers and automakers. Their technology swaps the flammable liquid in lithium-ion cells with a solid, sulfide-based electrolyte that is safer and more stable across a broad temperature range. Solid Power’s cells also easily outpace the conductivity and energy density of today’s best rechargeable batteries. The result is a smaller, lighter cell that is cheaper and has a longer-lasting charge.

Solid Power, which went public in 2021, employs many Forever Buffs and boasts major partnership deals with BMW and Ford, along with a new 75,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Thornton.

Their continued innovation was recognized with a recent $5.6 million DOE grant to continue developing its nickel- and cobalt-free cell, and, late last year, the company began award negotiations for up to $50 million in DOE funding. With this project, Solid Power intends to launch the world’s first continuous manufacturing process, allowing the company to produce its critical electrolyte material more quickly and at a lower cost.

From Lab to Marketplace

With the burgeoning success of Prometheus and others, Srubar hopes to inspire other researchers to make the leap to the marketplace. To that end, he was recently named Deming associate dean for innovation and entrepreneurship, a new role in the College of Engineering and Applied Science focused on building bridges between labs and the marketplace.

“This is something I’m so passionate about — shining a light for those inspired and driven by a vision to see change in the world and to follow that pathway of commercialization,” Srubar said. “I think CU Boulder’s reputation will continue to grow in this space, and I’m excited to be a part of it.”

“I think CU Boulder’s reputation will continue to grow in this space, and I’m excited to be a part of it.”

Emerging ventures at CU Boulder

PAGE Technologies: Co-founded in 2023 by Elliot Strand (MMatSciEngr’21; PhD’23) and Payton Goodrich to commercialize a low-cost platform to transform agricultural and environmental monitoring, enhance fertilizer use efficiency, improve water resource management and advance climate resilience efforts.
eat meati: Within months of beginning to collaboratively research mushroom root (mycelium) together as PhD students, Tyler Huggins (MEngr’13; PhDCivEngr’15) and Justin Whiteley (MMechEngr’14; PhD’16) knew they’d found a nature-based way to create meat alternatives.
Tynt Technologies: Founded in 2020 by Michael McGehee (CU Boulder Chemical and Biological Engineering) and then-PhD students Tyler Hernandez and Michael Strand. After developing the initial technology for energy-efficient windows at Stanford, they moved to CU Boulder to complete their work and found the company. Tynt allows users to fully control the light and solar heat entering a home, turning panes from clear to opaque with the touch of a button.
Latimer Controls: Founded in 2022 by Simon Julien (ApMath’21; MS’22) and Zachary Jacobs (ChemBiolEngr’21) to bring to market their innovative solar energy control system that solves the issue of intermittent renewable power. The technology was co-invented by Julien, working as an undergraduate and master’s student in collaboration with Bri-Mathias Hodge (Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering), Amirhossein Sajadi (Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute) and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
Mana Battery: A CU Boulder startup founded on discoveries from Chunmei Ban’s laboratory (CU Boulder Paul M. Rady Mechanical Engineering), is developing best-in-class sodium battery technology with the potential to replace lithium-ion batteries.
Green Steel Environmental: a CU Boulder startup founded on technology discovered by Mark Hernandez (Environmental Engineering) uses waste from steel manufacturing to replace hazardous chemicals from wastewater treatment.

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Illustrations by Daniele Simonelli

From engineered "living" sidewalks to quantum-fueled leak detection systems, several CU spinouts are bringing earth-focused breakthroughs to the marketplace.

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