People of the MTG

Aren't we a happy group?

Jonathan Miorelli

I’m a young Colorado transplant, moving here from Pennsylvania with my family at the age of 7. For my undergraduate education I attended a local state school, Metropolitan State University of Denver, where I received a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and physics. Ever since I’ve been fascinated with the underlying physics mediating the heuristic structure/reactivity relationships developed by practicing chemists and particularly the role the ground-state charge density plays in chemical interactions. I completed my Ph.D. in Decembewr 2016 and continue to contribute to the MTG as a postdoctoral fellow, and I am an adjuct professor to the Chemistry Departments at Metro State University. Outside of research, I spend most of my time drawing, playing guitar, going to concerts and various art shows, and playing hockey.

Tim Wilson

I became interested in the devlopment of visualization and computational chemistry software as an undergraduate. Now as a graduate student, I lead the development of a visualization tool called Bondalyzer. Outside school, I enjoy martial arts, snowboarding, (indoor) rock climbing, ultimate Frisbee, and jogging, mountain biking with my wife, Kaori. Here I am with Dr. Masaki Hatsumi, the current Grandmaster of Bujinkan Taijutsu, after passing my 5th degree black belt test in Noda City, Chiba Prefecture, Japan. The test is basically dodging a sword attack from behind while sitting with your eyes shut, so if you want to sneak up behind me and attack, please accept your chosen fate quietly.

Michael Hoerner

I am a Colorado native and grew up camping in the mountains. I got my undergraduate degree in Engineering Physics at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute, Indiana and moved back to Colorado immediately upon graduation to attend Colorado School of Mines and to marry my wife Ashley who was finishing her undergraduate degree at the University of Northern Colorado. I am a Ph.D student in Metallurgical and Materials EngineeringIn and am attempting to develop a mechanistic understanding of solute drag in FCC iron--combining density functional theory with experimental measurements of solute drag. When not working, I can be found camping, fishing, rafting, and generally enjoying the outdoors with my wife Ashley and our very rambunctious dog, Pearl.

Jordan Goss

I am from Wichita, KS and came to Mines as an undergraduate for an educational challenge where I studied Biochemistry. As an undergraduate I spent a summer working as an analytical chemist for ENRC, a Cu/Co mining company, in Zambia, Africa. Now as a graduate student I am using bond bundle concepts to study bond torrsion. During my free time I like to run half marathons, hang out with my dogs, and cook delicious food.

Malavikha Rajivmoorthy

I am from the city of Chennai, India and I’ve completed my bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from SSN College of Engineering, Anna University. I moved to Colorado in August 2016, to pursue a Ph.D. in Metallurgical and Materials Engineering at Mines, working towards my aspiration to build a successful career in academia. I currently work on studying grain boundary structure and phases, to understand the effect of solute segregation in steels, using first principle calculations and correlate them with experimental characterization methods. I am very passionate about teaching, and I’ve taught basic math and science to children in government schools back in India. My other interests include theatre-I have been a part of several performances as a part of my college dramatics club. I also enjoy Indian classical music. I hope to explore more of the outdoors while living in Colorado!

Amanda Morgenstern

Originally from Wisconsin, I moved to Colorado in 2006 to attend The Colorado College where I earned my degree in chemistry, fell in love with the mountains, trail running, and my future husband. After spending a year living on the Western Slope and getting married, we moved to Golden to begin our graduate studies at Mines. My research focuses on new ways of analyzing charge density to explain bonding in molecules and using this information to aid in the enzyme design process. I received my Ph.D, in May 2016. I am now a postdoctoral Fellow at Los Aalmos National Laboratory in New Mexico but continue my interactions with the MTG. When not working, I can be found biking , practicing yoga, playing with our basset hound, or trail runnning through the mountains around Los Alamos with my more athletically inclined dog, Jase.

Travis Jones

I came to Mines from Oklahoma as an undergraduate. I spent the first several years here balancing professional cycling aspirations with my desire to be a professional scientist. I competed across the country as a cyclist and in the US nationals, and one summer I raced on a professional team in Belgium. In the end, I came down on the side of science. I completed my undergraduate, Masters, and Ph. D. working in the Molecular Theory Group, where I was instrumental in developing the bond bundle formalism and wrote the first codes to find bond bundles. After a post-doctoral appointment in Europe where I modeled catalytic reactions on surfaces, I was fortunate to be honored with an Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship where I continue to model catalysts at the Fritz-Haber Institute in Berlin. Even so, I have an ongoing collaboration with the MTG where I work to advance bond bundle methodologies.

Mark Eberhart

I grew up in Colorado, in fact, I am a fifth generation native of the State and attended Stedman Elementary School, which is named after my great-great-grandfather, Arnold Stedman. I did my undergraduate work at the University of Colorado, where I spent way too much time skiing, kayaking, and cycling. When it came time to do my graduate work, it was clear that I had to go where there were fewer distractions. Boston was the perfect place. Thankfully, life’s path eventually led me back to Colorado and the Colorado School of Mines—where I still spend time skiing, rock climbing, and cycling.