Category: Solar Energy

The 2023 New Mexico Journal of Science, published by the New Mexico Academy of Science and New Mexico EPSCoR, is now available for public viewing. This year's Journal includes poster and oral session abstracts from the 2023 New Mexico Research Symposium. Also included are four papers authored by New Mexico researchers investigating topics ranging from ocean litter to the use of local honey to treat antibiotic resistant infections.

  Often there are simply too many accomplishments to fit into our tiny kudos section. This month, we've compiled a list of kudos-worthy accomplishments by NM EPSCoR faculty that we missed the first go round. Have something we missed in our previous newsletters and below? Reach out to Brittney (bvdw@epscor.unm.edu) to have it included in the next newsletter kudos section.

What is the goal?  To provide opportunities for non-tenured AND tenured investigators to develop their individual research potential through extended collaborative visits to the Nation’s premier private, governmental, or academic research centers. Only investigators from research universities and primarily undergraduate institutions in EPSCoR states (including NM) are eligible to apply.   What’s new in 2023? Changes impacting both Tracks:

Tohid Khalili is a PhD candidate in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of New Mexico, and an exceptional example of success in higher education STEM. He participates in NM SMART Grid Center research under the direction of UNM faculty member Dr. Ali Bidram. In Summer 2021, he was supported as an extern with the City of Albuquerque.

Every year the New Mexico SMART Grid Center submits three highlights from the previous project year to the National Science Foundation. This year's highlights recognize "DC Street" at NMSU, seed award results from NMT, and the Explora Science Communication Fellowship program. Below are overviews of what these outstanding project team members are working on - summarized in 250 words or less.  IT'S GOOD TO BE DIRECT Olga Lavrova, New Mexico State University

Presenter: Kevin Tomsovic, Director of CURENT, CTI Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science at the University of Tennessee

Presenter: Gary Oppedahl, Emera Technologies

Ever wonder what other team members of the NM SMART Grid Center are doing? You should. Take the work of Computer Science Assistant Professor Abdullah Mueen, Electrical and Computer Engineering Professor Manel Martínez-Ramón, and their graduate students. Recently they developed techniques to forecast solar panel power generation in near real-time and with greater accuracy.

In the world of academia, the proof is in the publications, not the pudding – unless, of course, the publication is on pudding. In the first year of New Mexico's last NSF EPSCoR project, the Energize New Mexico team produced 18 peer-reviewed publications. As time passed, these numbers predictably increased, with 27 in year three and 49 in year five. Now the grant is over, but papers are still being published. 

The Externship Program is a research exchange program that allows New Mexico graduate students (with an existing assistantship) to spend a semester or summer doing research at a partnering New Mexico university or research facility. This report is from New Mexico Tech student Hanqing Pan about her externship at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, CO.