Category: Energize NM Project

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

Presenters: Jeewon Choi, PhD Candidate, Mechanical Engineering, University of New Mexico (Research Goal 1), Jacob Marks, Masters Student, Computer Science, New Mexico Tech (Research Goal 2), Adnan Bashir, PhD Candidate, Computer Science, University of New Mexico (Research Goal 3), Shubhasmita Pati, PhD Candidate, Electrical & Computer Engineering, New Mexico State University (Research Goal 4)

Who has been a part of NM EPSCoR the longest? The answer may surprise you.

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. 

Assistant Secretary for the Office of Electricity (OE), Bruce J. Walker, announced the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) “Electricity Industry Technology and Practices Innovation Challenge.” This contest is designed to tap into American ingenuity for ideas on how to modify or replace existing processes and procedures, the use of technology, and traditional energy industry practices to improve grid operations, with the goal of making the nation’s Bulk Power System stronger and more resilient.

Eshani Hettiarachchi, New Mexico Tech graduate student and Uranium component team member for the Energize New Mexico grant, recently published her research on uranium-contaminated dust and its health implications in the American Chemical Society (ACS) journal, Environmental Science & Technology Letters.

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.

Bioalgal Team co-lead David Hanson (UNM) and Team member Jerilyn Timlin (SNL) recently received a grant from the Department of Energy (DOE) for a new initiative to advance fundamental bioenergy science. Their project, "Hyperspectral Light Sheet Raman Imaging of Leaf Metabolism," is lead by P.I. and UNM Physics professor Keith Lidke, and will build on research, infrastructure, and relationships established through the NM EPSCoR Energize New Mexico grant.