Crane Lab Team
Matthew Crane
Sara Russo
Brandon Reynolds
Lauren Cisneros
Brodrick "Brody" Sevart
Viewing the solar eclipse while practicing laser safety.
Matthew J. Crane
Assistant Professor | Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Colorado School of Mines | National Renewable Energy Lab
Matthew is an Assistant Professor in the CBE department at the Colorado School of Mines. He received his Bachelor's degree from the Georgia Institute of Technology and his M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Washington, all in Chemical Engineering. Matthew then made the enormous leap to the Chemistry department at the University of Washington, where he worked with Daniel Gamelin. There he co-founded BlueDot Photonics and served as Chief Science Officer until beginning his position at Mines. Matthew has received the National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Research Fellowship, the WRF and RCSA Cottrell Postdoctoral Fellowships, the Microanalysis Society Joseph Goldstein Scholar Award, UW CoMotion Innovation Prize, and American Made Solar Prize, and was a participant in the 2019 Distinguished Young Scholar Seminar series.
Matt can be found backpacking, hiking, and biking around Denver - that is, whenever he can get away from his cats, Bean and David Bowie - as well as playing guitar or explaining the rules to a board game.
Graduate Students
Brandon Reynolds
Graduate Student | Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Colorado School of Mines
Brandon is a PhD student in the CBE department at the Colorado School of Mines. He enjoys the school and area so much that he decided to stay after receiving both his BS in CBE and MS in Quantitative Biosciences and Engineering from Mines. While doing his MS, Brandon worked with Dr. David Marr on the aerosolization of rolling micro robots, and helped publish a paper during this time.
In his free time, Brandon can be found DMing for a rad D&D group, playing board games, or homebrewing unique beers.
Previous publications:
C.J. Zimmerman, T. Schraeder, B. Reynolds, E.M. DeBoer, K.B. Neeves, D.W.M. Marr, "Delivery and actuation of aerosolized microrobots." Nano Select (2022)
Sara Russo
Graduate Student | Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Colorado School of Mines
Sara is a PhD in the CBE department at the Colorado School of Mines. She joined the department after receiving her BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of New Mexico.
Sara enjoys the outdoors and loves hiking around the Denver area and, in summer, relishing in the warm weather - although it could always be a little warmer, apparently.
Previous publications:
S.J. Percival, S. Russo, C. Priest, R.C. Hill, J.A. Ohlhausen, L.J. Small, S.B. Rempe, E.D. Spoerke, "Bio-inspired incorporation of phenylalanine enhances ionic selectivity in layer-by-layer deposited polyelectrolyte films." Soft Matter 17, 6315 (2021)
Lauren Cisneros
Graduate Student | Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Colorado School of Mines
Lauren is a PhD student in the CBE department at the Colorado School of Mines. She continued at Mines after completing the combined BS/MS program in Chemical Engineering with minors in Computer Science and Biomedical Engineering.
When she’s not working on research, she likes to spend time reading, working on puzzles, and playing various metroidvania and open-world games. She also loves reptiles and has a pet snake, come talk to her about reptiles any time.
Brodrick "Brody" Sevart
Graduate Student | Advanced Energy Systems, Colorado School of Mines
Brody is a PhD student in the AES department at the Colorado School of Mines. He joined the group after finishing a BS in Chemical Engineering at Iowa State where he worked with Prof. Mathew Panthani.
When Brody isn't at work, he doesn't enjoy sending Matt headshots of himself or fun blurbs. Ask him about the ChemeE car competition, corn huskers, or why it isn't actually that cold in Colorado.
Masters Students
Undergraduate Students
Cade Colston
Undergraduate Student | Engineering Physics, Colorado School of Mines
Connor Harvey
Undergraduate Student | Chemical and Biological Engineering, Colorado School of Mines
Filippo Pierfelici
Undergraduate Student | Chemical and Biological Engineering, Colorado School of Mines
Group Alum
Jessica Harms | MS CBE | Consultant
Join the team
We're always recruiting motivated, passionate, and creative scientists and engineers!
Undergraduate Students: Exceptional and motivated undergraduates who can contribute at least 10 hours/week should contact Matthew with their resume.
Graduate Students: Please apply to the MS or PhD graduate program at Mines, and contact Matthew Crane to learn more about the research group on campus.
Materials Graduate Students: Candidates with experience in materials synthesis/characterization or electromagnetic simulations should contact Matthew with their CV.
Postdoctoral Researchers: We currently do not have funding available for postdoctoral researchers. However, we'd love to help you get some funding! If you'd like to apply for postdoctoral fellowships and want help, please contact Matthew with 1) your CV, 2) reference contact information, 3) a description of your research interests, and 4) the fellowship(s) you're interested in.