NEWS

New Mexico EPSCoR is proud to partner with smaller colleges around the state in order to provide research opportunities to students at non-research schools. Mesalands Community College in Tucumcari, NM is a new participant in the WC-WAVE Undergraduate Visualization and Modeling Network (UVMN) program. The UVNM program gives opportunities to engage diverse students in undergraduate research and cyberinfrastructure-enabled education through the WC-WAVE grant. UVMN will provide professional development for faculty and students from Primarily Undergraduate Institutions (PUI) in the three Western Consortium states of New Mexico, Idaho, and Nevada. The following is an excerpt from a news release on the Mesalands Community College website.

The UVMN program gives students the opportunity to conduct undergraduate research and provides professional development for instructors. Three institutions from each of the three states were chosen for this program. In addition to Mesalands Community College, New Mexico Highlands University and the University of New Mexico were selected from the State of New Mexico.

“It’s exciting and such a great accomplishment, for a community college to be selected as part of this project,” said Gretchen Gurtler, Director of the Mesalands Community College’s Dinosaur Museum and Natural Sciences Laboratory.

Three institutions from each of the three states were chosen for this program. In addition to Mesalands Community College, New Mexico Highlands University and the University of New Mexico were selected from the State of New Mexico. The faculty member overseeing this program at each institution, chose a student researcher to assist in this project. Nikki Vazquez, a recent Mesalands graduate in Wind Energy Technology, will be assisting Gurtler with this research project.

Read the full article at the Mesalands Community College news website! We are looking forward to hearing about the research that will continue through 2015.