Fellow:Adam Marcinkowski

Adam Marcinkowski

Adam is a junior Mechanical Engineering student and University Innovation Fellow Candidate at the Colorado School of Mines. He transferred from the United States Air Force Academy where his academic background was in Political Science with a focus on how to innovate within large organizations.

At the Air Force Academy and an internship at Facebook, Adam's research asked two questions: what is it about the DNA of Silicon Valley companies that makes them so agile and adaptable? How do we export those elements to other organizations elsewhere? His work combined the good (growth mindset, rapid experimentation, culture building), the bad (the many ways bureaucracies try to kill innovation) and the ugly (building political capital, navigating bureaucracies, and culture change).

Adam is able to use this organizational innovation mindset as a Mines Venture Associate at Mines' Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. He helps develop entrepreneurial thinking in his fellow engineering students, while helping student organizations and clubs launch initiatives and adopt innovation strategies.

Besides innovation and entrepreneurship, Adam is heavily involved in aerospace on campus. His specific passion, and the reason he's at Mines, is space mining. He is currently the project lead for a NASA lunar mining design competition, VP of the American Institute for Aeronautics & Astronautics (AIAA), and the chairman of AIAA's Space Resources Committee.