Leadership
Denis Muthike, PhD
Associate Faculty Director
Dr. Denis Muthike research interests are in advancing knowledge on the impact of hydro-climatological events on society. He combines expertise in climate science, remote sensing & geospatial analytics, hydrology, data science, stakeholder engagement, and technology transfer. His innovations in developing tools that integrate, analyze, and extract information from many large and often diverse data sets have enabled decisions that required the inclusion of multiple data sets. His research contributions have been instrumental in targeting climate resilience interventions in climate-vulnerable and marginalized rural communities, resulting in improved capacity to adapt to climate impacts.
Dr. Muthike currently leads Mortenson Center’s climate resilience projects in East Africa, primarily focused on improving food and security programming. He is also an Associate Faculty Director providing leadership for the Global Engineering Residential Academic Program. He was on the NASA SERVIR Eastern and Southern Africa hub team in Kenya for over a decade, leading research on weather and climate resilience in the region prior to joining the Mortenson Center. He has trained over 500 professionals in various climate topics and mentored more than a dozen young climate scientists starting their careers in the field. He is a recipient of the Global Engineering and Resilience Professional Award, SERVIR Individual Excellence Award and a Hult Prize recognition for mentorship.
Carlo Salvinelli, PhD
Teaching Assistant Professor
Dr. Carlo Salvinelli is a teaching assistant professor at the Mortenson Center in Global Engineering & Resilience where he teaches courses on sustainable community development, fieldwork methods for development engineers, and humanitarian response and disaster management. He has a BS in Industrial Engineering and a MS in Engineering Management from the University of Brescia, Italy, and a PhD in Geological Engineering from the Missouri University of Science and Technology where he conducted research focused on household water treatment systems for developing communities.
Dr. Salvinelli spent six years working for international NGOs, especially in Central America, where he designed and implemented international development projects, facilitated international policy dialogues, and coordinated emergency response efforts. The projects he managed addressed key development challenges including water and sanitation access, rural electrification, development of income generating activities, natural resources management, and disaster risk reduction. Dr. Salvinelli received the distinguished thesis award “Appropriate technologies for environmental management in developing countries” from the CeTAmb LAB at University of Brescia. His research interests include appropriate solutions for developing communities and integrated biosystems for sustainable development.
Adria Ryan
Program Coordinator
Adria joined the RAP in its infancy andhelped the first RAP director shape the community and bring engineers of all types together through their love of boardgames, Just Dance and candy. A Native Boulderite, Adria enjoys community building through projects, problem solving and making. She engages the RAP students in all of these things and also facilitates their interests in mentorship, cultural exchanges and professional development.