Over the past month, we asked Denver Post readers and our staff to help us come up with a list of people in Colorado who should be recognized for their extraordinary accomplishments or ideas that either occurred or came to fruition in 2013.
Click for the complete list of this year’s winners.
Science
WINNER:
Sara Volz, 17, of Colorado Springs, who won first prize and $100,000 in the in 2013 for her research of algae biofuels. According to the , Volz “used artificial selection to establish populations of algae cells with high oil content, which are essential for an economically feasible biofuel. Sara, who built a home lab under her loft bed, sleeps on the same light cycle as her algae.”
HONORABLE MENTION:
Bruce Jakosky, principal investigator of the , a Colorado-led mission to explore the red planet that launched in November. The University of Colorado at Boulder’s Laboratory of Atmospheric and Space Physics is acting as the science operations center, and most of the contractors who built the vehicle are also Colorado-based.
