research guide - UTEP Magazine - University of Texas at El Paso

Materials and Manufacturing
Incubating High-Tech Businesses
Start-ups bring jobs and research investment to El Paso
Professor Russell Chianelli, Ph.D., director
of the Materials Research and Technology
Institute (MRTI), is helping take UTEP research
to a new level by finding ways to turn laboratory
breakthroughs into potentially profitable
products.
Chianelli and Lori Ann Polette-Niewold,
his Ph.D. student at the time, formed Mayan
Pigments, Inc. in 2005 to market one of
their discoveries: an environmentally friendly
technology for producing durable paints and
pigments.
Other start-ups spawned by technologies
developed at the institute reflect Chianelli’s
research interest in petroleum and biofuels.
They include: Refinery Science, Inc., which
markets technologies for a cost-effective means
of producing clean transportation fuels from
low-quality petroleum sources; and Transglobal
Oil Corp., which develops methods of using
photosynthetic organisms in refinery waste for
the production of biodiesel fuel.
Mayan Pigments recently received an
investment of $250,000 from the Texas
Emerging Technology Fund.
Chianelli said it has been exciting to see
how his and Polette-Niewold’s vision of Mayan
Pigments has grown and expanded.
“The UTEP environment has been so
nurturing,” he says. “And this is only the
beginning. You don’t always have to look to
Austin or Houston for energy innovation. It’s
here in El Paso.”
Russell Chianelli, Ph.D.
“MRTI also seeks to support
and assist the Materials Science
and Engineering academic
program and develop commercial
opportunities and generate local
businesses that provide jobs for
UTEP graduates.”
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