Category: Diversity

We are continuing our February Spotlight on the STEM Advancement Program, this time through one of our students’ perspective. To date, 25 New Mexico students have been part of STEMAP – 11 students in 2014 and 14 students in 2015. Brianne Willis is a student at Eastern New Mexico University and one of the 25 STEMAP students. Brianne spent her STEMAP Summer doing research on “Assessing Uranium Contamination on the Navajo and Laguna Reservations.”

It's time for another NM EPSCoR Spotlight! This month we will shine our spotlight on Dr. Michael Heagy, coordinator for the STEM Advancement Program. Dr. Heagy is a Chemistry professor at the New Mexico Institute of Mining & Technology and is also on the Solar Energy research team for NM EPSCoR.

In order to put the focus on our amazing people in the Energize New Mexico project, we've started a new monthly series on the blog—NM EPSCoR Spotlight! Each month we will feature one participant and one student in the project and learn a little more about where they come from, and what they do for Energize New Mexico. To kick-start our new endeavor, NM EPSCoR's first Spotlight features our Diversity Coordinator, Chelsea Chee.

Fall 2015, what a season it's been! NM EPSCoR made its mark at several national events thanks to STEM Advancement Program students and two collaboration efforts. You may have seen our students, our partners, or me at:

Thank you to everyone who attended the New Mexico Academy of Science Research Symposium on November 14th. It was a symposium for the record books: 58 posters, 30 presentations, and over 150 attendees. Dr. Vipin Gupta of Sandia National Laboratories kicked off our day with his keynote about the Power on Demand Research Challenge, and encouraged us to think differently about power consumption at all scales. After the luncheon and keynote came the first group of concurrent sessions, followed by the poster session and our final group of concurrent sessions.

At NM EPSCoR we were thrilled to hear the news that Dr. Laura Crossey was honored by the New Mexico Network for Women in Science & Engineering with the annual IMPACT! Award. Laura is the co-lead for our Geothermal component, but that's only the tip of the iceberg. She knows how to inspire non-traditional and underrepresented students to pursue STEM education and careers. From all of us here at NM EPSCoR, congrats to you, Laura! No one deserves recognition for their hard work more than you.

A report from Chelsea, our Diversity Coordinator: I started off the summer with the largest group of STEM Advancement Program students to date - 14 students! They all spent a week together at New Mexico Tech then went their separate ways to their research sites in Albuquerque, Socorro, or Las Cruces. At the end of last month, their summer research concluded with presentations. Check out their presentation titles below:

Four women either previously or currently involved in New Mexico EPSCoR projects were among 13 other women honored earlier this month as New Mexico Women of STEM. Diana Northrup taught the EPSCoR-funded Communicating Science class at UNM in Spring 2014; Lorie Liebrock was an exceptional participant in our previous grants; Phyllis Baca has worked with EPSCoR for several years and is involved in the current Energize New Mexico grant; and Jeri Timlin is a current team member of the Bioalgal Component.

In early June, Laurel Saito of the University of Nevada, Reno spearheaded the WC-WAVE Interdisciplinary Modeling Course in Boise, Idaho. Boise State University welcomed students from Idaho, Nevada, and New Mexico for the course that was funded by the WC-WAVE grant. Boise State has a full report of the course up on their website—the following is an excerpt from that report, written by Kathleen Tuck.

Educators from seven different New Mexico Informal Science Education Network (NM ISE Net) institutions supported the 2015 Energize New Mexico Teacher Professional Development Institute in Farmington at the beginning of June. Twenty-two elementary and middle school teachers representing three school districts gathered at the Farmington Museum for a five-day workshop to learn about energy and connections to literacy and assessment. The course was based on WestEd’s Making Sense of Science Energy course with some additional material about New Mexico’s energy resources.