Category: Education & Outreach

In 2012, I was working as Education Coordinator for the Valles Caldera Trust, a small experimental federal agency charged with managing the 89,000-acre Valles Caldera National Preserve (VCNP) in the Jemez Mountains. New in my position, I had taken it upon myself to overhaul VCNP education efforts and establish a tiered education program offering place-based STEM field trips to local k-12 students.

What do you get when you combine 19 education institutions, nearly 50 posters, and 150 attendees? The 2019 New Mexico Research Symposium hosted in collaboration with the New Mexico Academy of Science (NMAS)!

You probably have an “elevator pitch” to describe your research when you get the inevitable question, “So, what do you do?” That’s great when a non-scientist asks about your research in a casual conversation at a party. But, how prepared are you when you’re asked to do a presentation at a STEM conference for middle school girls, or when you need to design an outreach or broader impacts component for a grant proposal?

The Sci-Q (science quotient) of New Mexico went up during the week of June 22 to 29 when nearly 4,000 people participated in the NM EPSCoR–sponsored New Mexico Science Fiesta in events across the Albuquerque metro area. The celebration of science was coordinated by Explora and supported by dozens of organizations, ranging from STEM employers to community centers, colleges to dance studios, and national labs to city departments.

Continuing a tradition of collaboration and research excellence, our 6th Annual Research Symposium was a success! Sponsored by the New Mexico Academy of Science (NMAS), NM EPSCoR, the American Chemical Society, UNM Center for Water and the Environment, and the New Mexico Alliance for Minority Participation (NM AMP), the Symposium took place at the Sheraton Airport in Albuquerque on Saturday, October 28th. With over 110 attendees, 40 posters, and 25 presentations, the day was filled with networking and topics spanning several STEM fields.

The five-year, $20 million grant will highlight statewide research collaboration among higher education institutions, national laboratories, and industry.

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.

When I first started with NM EPSCoR in 2013, one of my major tasks was to recruit students for our undergraduate research program, the STEM Advancement Program (STEMAP). Three and a half years later, I had traveled over 5,000 miles to visit 22 of 25 primarily undergraduate institutions (open to see the map). Those miles traveled and campuses visited resulted in 200 students applying for STEMAP from 2014 to 2017.

We are proud to announce this year's recipients of the NM EPSCoR Mentoring Award: Catherine Brewer, Assistant Professor at New Mexico State University; Marty Kirk, Distinguished Professor at the University of New Mexico; and Juchao Yan, Professor at Eastern New Mexico University. Mentors are able to create a professional and social relationship with students that encourage them to take the next step in their careers through listening, advising, supporting, providing feedback, increasing students’ networks, and solving problems, to name a few roles and characteristics. Click to learn more about these outstanding mentors.

Chelsea Chee, our Diversity and Inclusion Coordinator, was honored last week by the National Alliance for Partnerships in Equity (NAPE)with their 2018 Rising Star Award. She traveled to Washington, D.C. to receive this honor. This prestigious award honors a person at the beginning of their career who has demonstrated exemplary leadership traits promoting access, equity, and diversity in education and/or the workforce.