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 , 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  and , 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 (�󾱲�’74).&�Բ�����;

“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 

“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 

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Max Kiefer (Mgmt’04; OrgMgmt’21) spent the last two decades building a career as a sustainability professional, holding positions at Costar, CB Richard Ellis and Healthy Buildings International. Today he serves as the sustainability director at , an air monitoring and purification technology company operating in over 100 countries around the globe. 

What was your favorite part about your time at CU? 

The highlight has to be a business class I took called “Profiles in American Enterprise” that allowed undergrads to be teaching assistants to a class of 30, give a presentation to over 1,000 people, connect with CEOs — mine was Patagonia CEO Michael Crooke — and become a published author. 

Could you tell us a little about what Wynd does? 

What we really focus on is speciation and contextualization — basically telling you exactly what’s in the air. Our monitors and purifiers communicate with one another through connected sensors. These sensors can pull in particulate matter and tell if it’s pollen, mold or smoke from a cigarette, and instruct the purifier to respond accordingly. We then aggregate all this data in a mapping system to give consumers a report of their space’s air quality. 

Why does indoor air quality matter? 

People spend more time inside now, and indoor air quality can be nine to 10 times worse than outdoor air quality. Things like office buildings and apartment complexes used to be just for the owners to monitor and manage. But now, individuals have more access to data and have the power to ask questions and push for change in the places that they live, work and play. 

What creates poor indoor air quality? 

Poor indoor air quality often comes from simple things people don’t pay attention to: cooking, vacuuming, cleaning — even carbon dioxide from breathing. Improving indoor air quality often comes down to educating individuals on simple items to improve their space, such as opening windows. The COVID-19 pandemic also changed the way people talk about air quality. With the pandemic, we became more aware of how viruses travel through the air — and poor air quality makes that spreading even easier and compounds the ramifications.

What gives you hope for the future of air quality? 

I’m hopeful that with more data out there we can continue to uncover solutions to maintaining better air quality. I’m also optimistic about the direction sustainability is heading. It’s evolving to incorporate health and wellness and environmental justice, ensuring these technologies will bring all individuals — particularly those who have been marginalized in the past — forward to the future of healthy buildings.

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Photo courtesy Max Kiefer 

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NIST materials research engineer Callie Higgins (MElEngr’14; PhD’17) was awarded the federal government's prestigious 2021 Emerging Leaders Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medal. She was recognized for her invention of a technology that detects and fixes microscopic flaws affecting the reliability of 3D-printed products.

What was the best part of your CU experience?

Probably the relationships I built in graduate school — the classes, labs and research aren’t easy, but when you are surrounded by people all going through the same trials, the load seems to lighten a bit. Another highlight was transitioning to a Research 1 (R1) Institute with pretty rockin’ school spirit for graduate school. My undergraduate program was at a small liberal arts college in California, the University of San Diego, where we were all too distracted by getting to live at the beach to remember our sports teams.

How do you describe your research?

The goal of my research is to help transform traditional manufacturing as we know it. We are working to develop a fundamental understanding of a technology called photopolymer additive manufacturing, with an eye on the healthcare field and tissue engineering. Our process starts with liquid material (photopolymer) that reacts with light — so that wherever you shine light, it solidifies into a 3D part you've designed. This allows you to fabricate structures with an array of chemical and physical properties that would otherwise be impossible to make.

How did you and your team first discover flaws in 3D-printed products?

To 3D print using this technology, the resins must have absorbing qualities in order to confine the printing region to a single layer. For example, think about how the heart has four chambers; if you didn't confine the light to a defined region, you’d end up with a solid, useless blob of tissue-like material. However, this requires the material to have a gradient of properties throughout every layer, where the top is stiff and the bottom is soft. You can imagine the issues that might arise if the stiff regions of one layer didn’t quite attach to the soft region of the next layer. At NIST, we're working to not only understand these regions and how they bind together, but also reverse-engineer them to produce parts with complete 3D control of their mechanical and chemical properties.

Explain how your technology aids in the 3D printing of artificial organs.

The technology we invented to detect and remedy these microscopic flaws that threaten the safety and reliability of photopolymer 3D-printed structures paves the way for the use of this technology in tissue engineering. We built a 3D printer into an atomic force microscope to understand how materials change through-out the printing process. We are now working to reverse-engineer the process to print the ideal environment for cells to develop into representative tissues (like cartilage, bone and lungs).

What advancements do you hope to see in this technology?

I am cautiously optimistic that our work is pushing the field of tissue engineering closer to producing small, representative versions of interesting tissues along the lines of kidneys, cartilage, bones and more. These mini tissue structures, or organoids, have the potential to revolutionize pharmaceutical testing and personalized medicine. What I’ve been struck by and have found wonderful about this community is its commitment to collaboration and the understanding that the only way to truly reach the full potential of this field is by working together. That has me excited, being surrounded by so many brilliant collaborators, all working towards a dream that will potentially change the world.

Interview condensed and edited. 

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Photos courtesy Callie Higgins 

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Jennifer Ho is a CU Boulder ethnic studies professor and director of the Center for Humanities and the Arts. As the daughter of a refugee from China and an immigrant from Jamaica, she is a passionate voice in anti-racism conversations at CU and around the world. 

Phone Model: Red iPhone SE in a clear, protective case 

iPhone Insights:

How soon after waking up do you look at your phone? 

Depends. If I need to check the weather, I may look at it an hour or two after waking up. If I don’t, then half a day can go by before I look at my phone.  

Duration of longest call last week?

I talked to my mom on the phone for 30 minutes.

Location of last selfie? 

The Grand Tetons with my husband last week — the only selfies I take are with him.

Lock screen or background image?  

A photo of a lava field at Volcano National Park on the big island of Hawaii. I took the photo when I was visiting there with my parents in November 2019. That place was probably one of the most sublime experiences I’ve had — I can’t describe what it’s like to drive through the lava fields and to see new rock formations from the last volcanic explosion.

How many hours were you on your phone last week? 

No idea, but my guess is maybe an hour tops.

Oldest photo on your phone? 

I have a picture of my grandmother taken in 1930, though of course it was digitized in the last decade. I’m pretty sure this was her immigration photo — probably taken in Hong Kong/Kowloon in order for her to go to Kingston, Jamaica, and rejoin my grandfather, who lived there. 

Most-Used Apps: 

Apple Maps, Insight Timer, WeCroak (Bhutanese meditation app) 

Most-Used Emoji: 

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Photo courtesy of Jennifer Ho  

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A PhD student and Microsoft research fellow, Morgan Klaus Scheuerman (PhDInfoSci’21) has worked with companies like Facebook and Google to spot social issues within technology design. His work explores how social identities like race and gender are represented in algorithms and other technical infrastructures. 

Model: Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra with a card case and a cat-shaped keyring

How soon after waking up do you look at your phone?
I use my phone as my alarm, but most of the time I look at it and then hit snooze immediately — at least five times!

Duration of longest call last week?
Eighteen minutes with a journalist discussing AI ethics work.

Where was the location of your last selfie? 
At home, with my cat on my chest. I take a lot of selfies and a lot of cat photos. Anytime my cat graces me with his cuddles, I have to take a picture.

The main thing you use your phone for? 
Probably chatting on different apps. My phone is mostly a social connection tool for me. But I do doomscroll quite a bit, sadly.

Lock screen or background image?
I am a nerd, so both my backgrounds are from nerdy media. My lock screen is a fanart of Thanatos from the video game Hades, and my home background is a fanart from Full Metal Alchemist. 

How many hours were you on your phone last week?
I don’t even want to think about this!

Most-Used Apps: Gmail, Twitter, Slack

Most-used emoji: 

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Photo courtesy of Morgan Klaus Scheuerman 

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Stefanie K. Johnson is an associate professor at Leeds and director of the CU Boulder Center for Leadership. She is an expert on leadership, inclusion and mitigating bias in the workplace. Her book Inclusify, released by HarperCollins in June, hit the Wall Street Journal National Bestseller List in its first week on the market. 

iPhone Insights

Model: iPhone XS with a credit card case
Most-Used Apps: Outlook Email, Text Messages, Find my iPhone 
Most-Used Emoji: (awkward-stressed face) 

How soon after waking up do you look at your phone? 

It’s usually the first thing I look at after hugging the kids, feeding my cats breakfast and drinking a glass of water.

Last person you called: 

One of my former PhD students, now a University of Memphis professor, to talk about a study we are doing on whether sexual harassment exists in the time of COVID. Spoiler — it does.

Duration of longest call last week:

An hour.

Location of last selfie: 

My kids’ playroom at home. My son Kyle and I dressed up as pirates and took photos of ourselves. Apparently pirate is not a good look for me.

What’s the main thing you use your phone for? 

Mostly email. If I kept my email open while I worked, I would do nothing but email. So, I try to do it on my phone when I am taking a break or done with work for the day.

Lock screen or background image?

A picture of my kids and I on the beach last January in Cozumel, Mexico.

How many hours were you on your phone last week? 

One hour and 46 minutes per day. 

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CU research finds technology use in children and teens may not be as dire as many assume. 

“Put your phone away!” “No more video games!” “Ten more minutes of YouTube, and you’re done!” 

Kids growing up in the mobile internet era have heard it all, often uttered by well-meaning parents fearing too much screen time could spur lasting problems.

But a series of studies by CU Boulder sociology professor Stefanie Mollborn suggests such fears may be overblown.

“What the data suggests is that the majority of American teens are not becoming irrevocably addicted to technology,” said Mollborn.

For her multi-year project, Mollborn analyzed national surveys, interviewed kids and young adults and followed 20 families over the years as their technology use changed.

Since 1997, she found, digital technology use has risen 32% among 2-to5-year-olds and 23% among 6-to-11-year-olds. Even before the pandemic, adolescents spent 33 hours per week using it outside of school.

Such trends have led to what Mollborn describes as a “moral panic” much like that which arose with the birth of comic books, radio and TV.

“We see that everyone is drawn to it, we get scared and we assume it is going to ruin today’s youth,” she said.

But as it turns out, teens have, in many ways, just swapped one form of tech for another — streaming YouTube instead of watching TV or texting instead of talking on the phone. Compared to 2002, teens spent only about 40 minutes more per week in technology-focused activities in 2016.

And in most cases, the research found, tech use does not crowd out sleep or exercise.

Surprisingly, things like setting time limits or prohibiting kids from watching shows during mealtimes appear to have no effect on how much those kids use technology as adults.

“What we do as parents matters less than most of us believe it will,” Mollborn said.

All this is not to say that no one ever gets addicted, or that parents shouldn’t talk to their kids about tech’s pros and cons.

But amid a pandemic, when even playdates have to happen on screens, her work suggests parents may have one less thing to worry about.

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As a CU student, alum or supporter, you can take pride in the amazing discoveries and inventions that have been created by people in your community. CU is full of innovators, who have changed the world in ways both big and small. Here are 10 inventions and discoveries made by CU faculty and alumni.

1. Post-it Note Adhesive

You might use them to leave reminders or label your lunch. Maybe you’re a Post-it traditionalist who uses them for the originally intended purpose — to bookmark your pages. No matter what you stick them to, you can thank CU alum Spencer Silver (PhDA&S’66). While working as a senior chemist for 3M’s Central Research Labs in 1968, Silver developed the reusable adhesive that eventually became a main component of Post-it Notes, which launched in 1980.  

Learn more about the invention of the Post-it adhesive.

2. Liquid Crystals

Researchers at CU Boulder, led by physics professor Ivan Smalyukh, have designed new kinds of liquid crystals that mirror the complex internal structure of some solid crystals. The group’s findings, published in the journal Nature, could one day be used to create new, more energy efficient types of smart windows and television and computer displays.

Learn more about liquid crystals.

3. 3D Printing

Late one night in 1983, CU alum Chuck Hull (EngrPhys’61) made a scientific breakthrough with his creation of a small plastic cup. Although seemingly unassuming, the cup was the first object to be created using stereolithography, better known as 3D printing. Hull’s discovery became the basis for the 3D printing that is a common practice across industries and homes today. After securing a patent for stereolithography in 1986, he founded his company, 3D Systems. Hull is now a member of the National Inventors Hall of Fame.

Learn more about the invention of 3D Printing.

4. Dry Fogger

In 1982, after freezing solid the set of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” video for 20 hours, CU alum Jim Doyle (Thtr’78) thought there had the be a better way to create fog than with liquid nitrogen. Doyle got to work and created a fog machine, which quickly became the industry standard. By 1986, Doyle’s dry fogger was used on the opening night of Alice Cooper’s “Nightmare Returns” tour. Later, Doyle received a 1992 Academy Award for its use in Terminator 2.

Learn more about the dry fogger.

5. Inhalable Measles Vaccine

In 2010, a team of researchers led by CU chemistry and biochemistry professor Robert Sievers developed an inhalable measles vaccine, which works when patients breathe in a puff of dry powder. One main goal of the inhalable inoculation is to mitigate needle use, as needles can be scary to some and can pose difficulties in disposal.

6. Lasers

In 1960, CU alum Theodore Maiman (EngrPhys’49) developed the laser with the help of his research assistant Charles Asawa. At the age of 32, Maiman had invented an essential technology that is now used across all aspects of life, ranging from manufacturing to surgery to grocery store checkout scanners. Maiman was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1984.

Learn more about the invention of lasers.

7. Bose-Einstein Condensate

In 1995, in a laboratory at JILA, a joint institute of CU Boulder and NIST, CU Boulder physics professor Carl E. Wieman and colleague Eric A. Cornell, a research physicist and NIST fellow, led the team that produced the first Bose-Einstein condensate, which is a group of atoms chilled almost to absolute zero. When a group of atoms is in this state, they begin to act as though they are a single atom, which lends itself to superconductive properties. For this discovery, Wieman and Cornell were awarded the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physics.

8. TiVo

You’re living in the age of Netflix, Hulu and HBO Max, so it might be hard to remember what having cable is even like. But before the streaming giants took over, TiVo was a leader in on-demand television. In 1997, CU alum Jim Barton (ElEngr, CompSci’80; MCompSci’82) and business partner Mike Ramsey founded what would become TiVo, which was best known for the device that allowed viewers to record and save television programs onto a hard drive for later viewing, and to pause and rewind live TV.

Learn more about the invention of TiVo.

9. Quantum Squeezing

In their efforts to better understand dark matter — the substance that likely makes up most of the universe’s mass — a group of scientists, including many at CU’s JILA research institute, developed quantum squeezing. In February 2021, led in part by CU alum Daniel Palken (MPhys’18; PhD’20) and NIST fellow Konrad Lehnert, the scientists found that their new approach to searching for axions allows them to better separate the signals of axions from the less relevant signals of quantum fluctuations. All this is to say that this method puts the scientific community one step closer to understanding the mysterious dark matter.

10. Body Battery

In 2021, Jianliang Xiao, a mechanical engineering associate professor at CU Boulder, created a small, wearable device that uses thermoelectric generators to convert body heat into power. The device is made from polyimine, a material that is stretchy and can heal itself. The hope is that this fully recyclable gadget can someday help power fitness watches and other wearable devices.

Learn more about this wearable device.

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Could Laura Devendorf’s high-tech fabrics change the way we express ourselves?

Laura Devendorf has a ready answer for how she spent the summer: The CU Boulder information scientist taught herself how to weave, an experience equal parts relaxing and infuriating — “like brushing doll hair forever,” she said.

On any given day in Devendorf’s lab, part of the university’s ATLAS Institute, where students and faculty commonly mix art and science, you’ll find at least three wooden looms — the old-fashioned kind with a hand-operated shuttle. They sit next to circuit boards, wires and other high-tech toys.

That’s because Devendorf, an ATLAS fellow and CU assistant professor since 2017, is diving into the zeitgeisty field of smart textiles — fabrics that look and feel like wool and cotton but exhibit dynamic properties.

Last year, designer Julianna Bass made waves at New York Fashion Week when she introduced a line of garments that changed color as models sauntered down the catwalk. Google’s Project Jacquard recently teamed up with Levi’s to design a denim jacket that lets you answer your phone by simply tapping the sleeve.

But Devendorf has a distinct attitude toward wearable technology, inspired by her eclectic interests in art, sustainable design and feminist theory. She’s more interested in expressive potential than utilitarian value. In this vein, she’s exploring how clothing can connect our bodies to the environment, for example, or reveal and record influences on the body as an aid to memory and reflection. 

Rather than developing technologies of convenience, she said, she’s interested in “whether or not it’s possible to build a different kind of relationship with technology that’s slower and more thoughtful.”

Old Meets New

Although Devendorf has a bachelor’s degree in computer science and enjoys writing code, she is in some ways an odd fit for the world of smart textiles. She’s skeptical about aspects of tech culture and is predisposed to physical craftsmanship. She once spent a summer drawing handmade cards for tourists in Santa Barbara, Calif., seemingly more in tune with another of her degrees, in art.

“My husband says I have an analog fetish,” she said. “I still collect vinyl. I like sending letters in the mail. I don’t really like technology, but it’s not going away. So my focus is how do we do something more interesting with it?”

Much of that old-meets-new tension is embodied in a special delivery Devendorf is expecting this fall: A custom-made TC2 Jacquard loom. The device looks more like a 3D printer than one of the doll-hair combers in her lab now, and can seamlessly weave more complex patterns of traditional textiles and high-tech threads, such as wires coated in thermochromic pigments that change color in response to an electric current.

Among the projects Devendorf can carry forward with this computer-meets-loom is Ebb, a fabric she helped invent as a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley. It interlaces ordinary yarn with thermochromic threads, yielding a fabric with designs that can morph from purple to pink to white within seconds. Devendorf has experimented with designing Ebb shirts that change color as the skin undergoes tiny shifts in sweatiness — like a human blush in cloth.

Purple to pink to white in seconds.

These subtle changes can indicate various types and degrees of excitement — from physical exertion to mere anticipation, true anxiety, even sexual arousal. Ebb-based garments would manifest how the wearer is feeling, signaling a change for all to see.

“We have five senses,” she said. “Smart textiles can partner with those and give you this other sense.”

Because smart textiles make public what might otherwise be private, and because clothing is more intimate than a phone you can set down and ignore, Devendorf approaches these projects with caution. “It represents you to the world.”

Steven Frost, an instructor in CU Boulder’s College of Media, Communication and Information who has collaborated with Devendorf, said she has a rare ability to blend technology and artistic creativity.

“What’s really exciting about working with Laura is that she really does speak both languages,” Frost said.

Devendorf helped invent a fabric that interlaces ordinary and thermochromic threads.

The Pressures On Us

Much of Devendorf’s recent work focuses on a topic she thinks about a lot: Parenthood. The mother of a 2-year-old and a 5-year-old, she describes it as a vulnerable experience. 

And while many technologies aimed at parents seek to ease stress, Devendorf embraces the vulnerability.

At a May workshop at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, she asked participants to design what she called an exoskeleton for caregivers — think an Iron Man suit for people covered in baby vomit. The group’s ideas included small, autonomous robots that would crawl over your body to clean your clothes and a hoop skirt that could double as a playpen for toddlers.

Speaking two languages: Art and science.

Devendorf herself is interested in using technology to lay bare the tensions inherent in parenthood — including the fact that, as a mother, she often feels like her body isn’t her own. In her free time, she’s been crocheting a poncho made of pacifier nipples to make visible a common feeling among nursing mothers.

She’s also begun developing a drape with small pressure sensors to record how parents hold their newborns, allowing production of maps showing the evolving physical relationship between parent and child.

“I like the idea of how our memories might change if we remember the pressures on us,” she said. 

Ultimately, Devendorf hopes more technology will move in this direction — enhancing how people experience reality and caretaking rather than alienating them from it. 

“So much of technology is about self-realization and no longer having to struggle or care for anything because you have the technology to do that,” she said. “I like the idea of actually amplifying that struggle instead, because maybe that’s where the meaning comes from.”

Comment? Email editor@colorado.edu.

Photos by Glenn Asakawa

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From Cup to Kidney 

Working late one night in 1983, Chuck Hull (EngrPhys’61) thought he’d made a breakthrough. The engineer phoned his wife, Anntionette, at their California home and asked her to drive to his lab to look at a small plastic cup. 

“She said something to the effect of ‘no way,’” he says, chuckling. 

But a breakthrough it was: The humble cup was the first object ever created via stereolithography — better known today as 3D printing. Hull had fashioned a three-dimensional shape by layering two-dimensional “slices” of a liquid, acrylic-based material hardened by ultraviolet light. 

The discovery would become the foundation of a technology that’s now ubiquitous, from breadbox-sized printers used by hobbyists to refrigerator- sized printers used in healthcare, manufacturing and aerospace design. (Above: a 3D-printed model kidney.) 

After graduating from CU, Hull took a job with a DuPont subsidiary developing analytical tools for chemists, then moved to a smaller firm that applied thin resin coatings to tabletop surfaces. The coatings cured instantly when exposed to ultraviolet light, which got him thinking about how the technology might be used to make 3D objects. 

Hull convinced his boss to let him use a small lab on nights and weekends for experimenting on his own time. After more than a year of tinkering with liquid plastics, his labor paid off. 

Hull secured a patent for stereolithography in 1986 and soon founded a company, 3D Systems. Initially, he saw the technology primarily as a way of prototyping objects, such as automotive parts, more efficiently. Over time, the business expanded into custom medical devices and a wide range of consumer products. 

Now 76 and a member of the National Inventors Hall of Fame, Hull is still involved in the day-to-day operations of 3D Systems, which opened a 70,000-square foot healthcare tech facility in Littleton, Colo., earlier this year. The company recently helped surgeons reconstruct the facial bones of a young man injured by a landmine in Zimbabwe — a reminder of how far technology can come in three decades and the good it can do. 

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