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Category Archives: Academics & Faculty

Mike Anderson Awarded Tom L. Popejoy Dissertation Prize

May 14, 2012 | By Karen Wentworth
Mike Anderson with Asso. Prof. of Mechanical Engineering Peter Vorobieff
Mike Anderson with Asso. Prof. of Mechanical Engineering Peter Vorobieff

Mike Ander­son with Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor of Mechan­i­cal Engi­neer­ing Peter Vorobieff

The 2012 Pope­joy Dis­ser­ta­tion Prize has been awarded to Mike Ander­son. The award, which was estab­lished as a per­ma­nent memo­r­ial to late UNM Pres­i­dent Tom L. Pope­joy, rec­og­nizes and encour­ages the high­est level of aca­d­e­mic excel­lence among doc­toral students.

Ander­son per­formed ground­break­ing research bridg­ing exper­i­men­tal and com­pu­ta­tional fluid dynam­ics in a devel­op­ing area of high-speed com­press­ible mul­ti­phase flow. He par­tic­i­pated in state-of-the-art exper­i­ments, but more impor­tantly, he per­formed numer­i­cal sim­u­la­tions of the exper­i­ments that made it pos­si­ble for his research group to develop a phys­i­cal under­stand­ing of exper­i­men­tal data, which led to the dis­cov­ery of a hydro­dy­namic insta­bil­ity mech­a­nism pro­vi­sion­ally named “gen­er­al­ized Rayleigh-Taylor and Richtmyer-Meshkov insta­bil­ity” or “particle-lag instability.”

His work was pub­lished in “Phys­i­cal Review Let­ters,” along with ref­er­eed pro­ceed­ings of two inter­na­tional con­fer­ences in 2011, and will lead to three more pub­li­ca­tions to be sub­mit­ted in 2012. Anderson’s men­tor, Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor of Mechan­i­cal Engi­neer­ing Peter Voro­bi­eff, says “Mike’s con­tri­bu­tion to our research group sheds light on the physics behind many phe­nom­ena — from vor­tices rolling up in inter­stel­lar dusty plasma accel­er­ated by a shock from a super­nova explo­sion to enhanced mix­ing of fuel droplets in a scram­jet or a chem­i­cal laser. In addi­tion, his involve­ment in our project was a per­fect com­bi­na­tion of indi­vid­ual (com­pu­ta­tional) and team­work (exper­i­ment), and helped develop ties between UNM and a local hi-tech com­pany (ARA).”

Media Con­tact: Karen Went­worth (505) 277‑5627; email: kwent2@unm.edu

Posted in Academics & Faculty, Research, University News | |

Graduate Studies Announces 2012–13 Scholarship and Award Winners

May 10, 2012 | By Carolyn Gonzales
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The UNM Office of Grad­u­ate Stud­ies announces win­ners of sev­eral schol­ar­ships and awards for aca­d­e­mic year 2012 –2013. These awards to both fac­ulty and grad­u­ate stu­dents sup­port timely com­ple­tion of the­ses and dis­ser­ta­tions, pro­mote men­tor­ing ini­tia­tives by both fac­ulty and grad­u­ate stu­dents, and pro­vide oppor­tu­ni­ties to develop an array of skills for future fac­ulty. OGS has also awarded the Tom L. Pope­joy prize, which will be announced separately.

The Grad­u­ate Research Sup­ple­ment is awarded to ABD doc­toral stu­dents pur­su­ing advanced writ­ing and research.

Win­ners include:
Elena Aviles, Span­ish & Portuguese—for archival research in the Spe­cial Col­lec­tions Libraries at the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia, Santa Bar­bara and Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia, Los Ange­les.
Philip Hultquist, Polit­i­cal Science—for field research in India to explore sub-state ori­gins of effec­tive coun­terin­sur­gency.
Menuka Karki, Economics—for research con­cern­ing a sus­tain­able solid waste man­age­ment sys­tem in Kath­mandu, Nepal.
Nathan Lord, Biology—for dis­ser­ta­tion research (includ­ing research trips and field work) on south­ern hemi­sphere bio­geog­ra­phy.
Ying Wang, Chemistry—for field research at the Bio­log­i­cal Imag­ing Facil­ity at North­west­ern Uni­ver­sity to carry out cryo­genic trans­mis­sion elec­tron microscopy (cryo-TEM) imag­ing experiments.

The Future Fac­ulty Award sup­ports sum­mer course­work, research or pro­fes­sional devel­op­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties not avail­able at UNM and directly related to prepar­ing the grad­u­ate stu­dent for a career in higher edu­ca­tion. Win­ners include:
Mau­rice Cran­dall, History—for travel to Nebraska and Ari­zona to sup­port doc­toral research in Native Amer­i­can his­tory.
Jes­sica Jones, Polit­i­cal Science—for par­tic­i­pa­tion in a sum­mer research pro­gram at the Inter-University Con­sor­tium for Polit­i­cal and Social Research (ICPSR) in Michi­gan.
Car­men Lowry, Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Journalism—for atten­dance at the Sum­mer Insti­tute spon­sored by North­west­ern University’s Cen­ter for Forced Migra­tion Studies.

The Fac­ulty Men­tor Award rec­og­nizes fac­ulty mem­bers who have pro­vided excep­tional ser­vice in men­tor­ing grad­u­ate stu­dents in their depart­ment, pro­gram and/or across the col­lege and uni­ver­sity. Win­ners include:
Jedidiah Cran­dall, Com­puter Science—for exten­sive involve­ment in depart­men­tal out­reach efforts and grad­u­ate stu­dent advise­ment and men­tor­ship.
Anita Ober­meier, English—for ser­vice as asso­ciate chair for Grad­u­ate Stud­ies in Eng­lish and over­all excel­lence in teach­ing, ser­vice, research and men­tor­ship.
Paul Zand­ber­gen, Geography—for ser­vice as direc­tor of Grad­u­ate Stud­ies in Geog­ra­phy and gen­eral ded­i­ca­tion to depart­men­tal grad­u­ate students.

The Grad­u­ate Stu­dent Men­tor Award rec­og­nizes grad­u­ate stu­dents who have demon­strated excel­lence in men­tor­ing activ­i­ties that ben­e­fit grad­u­ate stu­dents in their own or other depart­ments. Win­ners include:
Lisa Bryant, Polit­i­cal Science—for devo­tion to help­ing fel­low grad­u­ate stu­dents with research and course­work and par­tic­i­pa­tion in uni­ver­sity grad­u­ate stu­dent orga­ni­za­tions.
Roya Ensafi, Com­puter Science—for ser­vice as pres­i­dent of depart­men­tal Grad­u­ate Stu­dent Asso­ci­a­tion and ded­i­cated assis­tance and sup­port of fel­low grad­u­ate stu­dents.
Doug Man­ning, Health, Exer­cise and Sports Sciences—for men­tor­ship of depart­men­tal Teach­ing Assis­tants and gen­eral grad­u­ate stu­dent support.

The Dean’s Dis­ser­ta­tion Fel­low­ship is one of the University’s most pres­ti­gious awards for grad­u­ate stu­dents, rec­og­niz­ing impor­tant and inno­v­a­tive doc­toral research. It pro­vides one year of finan­cial assis­tance to stu­dents near­ing com­ple­tion of a ter­mi­nal (PhD, EdD, or MFA) degree. Win­ners include:
Lisa Bryant, Polit­i­cal Science—to sup­port the final writ­ing of the dis­ser­ta­tion, “For Research on the Mobi­liz­ing Minor­ity and Immi­grant Vot­ers in Cal­i­for­nia using a Field Exper­i­ment Con­ducted Dur­ing the 2010 Gen­eral Elec­tion.”
Thanhvu Nguyen, Com­puter Science—to sup­port the final writ­ing of the dis­ser­ta­tion, “Dynamic Analy­sis Guided Con­straint Solv­ing for Invari­ant Gen­er­a­tion and Pro­gram Repair.”

As the cen­tral grad­u­ate aca­d­e­mic admin­is­tra­tive unit at the Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico, the Office of Grad­u­ate Stud­ies pro­motes the suc­cess of grad­u­ate stu­dents and grad­u­ate pro­grams by pro­vid­ing broad over­sight of pro­gram qual­ity, man­ag­ing aca­d­e­mic poli­cies and admin­is­ter­ing finan­cial sup­port in the form of assist­ant­ships, fel­low­ships, schol­ar­ships, grants and awards. For more infor­ma­tion about the OGS awards or award recip­i­ents, con­tact the Office of Grad­u­ate Stud­ies or call (505) 277‑2711.

Media Con­tact: Car­olyn Gon­za­les (505) 277‑5920; e-mail: cgonzal@unm.edu

Posted in Academics & Faculty, University News | |

A Riparian “Empire” in the Chihuahuan Desert: Spanish, Puebloans and Apaches in 17th Century New Mexico

May 9, 2012 | By Karen Wentworth
LaBin

Mor­gan LeBin, a Ph.D. stu­dent at the Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan, will speak Fri­day, May 25 at noon in the Waters Room (105) of Zim­mer­man Library on “A Ripar­ian ‘Empire’ in the Chi­huahuan Desert: Span­ish, Puebloans, and Apaches in Sev­en­teenth Cen­tury New Mex­ico as part of the 2012 His­tory Schol­ars Lec­ture Series co-hosted by the Office of the State His­to­rian and the Cen­ter for South­west Research.

The 1680 Pueblo Revolt is a well-established nar­ra­tive of polit­i­cal and cul­tural stres­sors that, when com­pounded with over­taxed resources such as pas­turage, fuel wood, and labor cat­alyzed a major Puebloan insur­gency up and down the Rio Grande val­ley, eject­ing the Span­ish from New Mex­ico for 12 years.

As it stands, the Span­ish removal from the ripar­ian zones of New Mex­ico and their long effort to retake their set­tle­ments makes for an excel­lent – although micro regional his­tory of a river.  The prob­lem is that it leaves us with too many ques­tions and over­sights about how the sur­round­ing land­scapes and peo­ples con­tributed to, and par­tic­i­pated in, a last­ing and appar­ently suc­cess­ful resis­tance to Span­ish colo­nial claims.

A closer look at the ecol­ogy of the Chi­huahuan Desert, as shown through the ways Apaches moved through it and used it, reveals a nar­ra­tive where Span­ish empire in New Mex­ico is reduced and hemmed into trou­bled pock­ets of river set­tle­ment while semi-nomadic or nomadic peo­ples were posi­tioned to develop bet­ter strate­gies of sur­vival and dom­i­nance over pop­u­la­tions depen­dent on the Rio Grande.

An envi­ron­men­tal focus prompts us to revise notions of Span­ish empire, per­cep­tions of Native power and the role of the envi­ron­ment in cre­at­ing a defen­si­ble for­mu­la­tion of space and place.  In the end, it would appear that groups like the Apache have a bet­ter claim to build­ing hege­monic space in New Mex­ico than do the Spanish.

The lec­ture is free and the pub­lic is welcome.

Media Con­tact: Karen Went­worth (505) 277‑5627; e-mail: kwent2@unm.edu

Posted in Academics & Faculty, Events, Research | |

UNM to Host 64th Annual Meeting of the Rocky Mountain Section of the Geological Society of America

May 7, 2012 | By Steve Carr

The Depart­ment of Earth and Plan­e­tary Sci­ences at the Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico is host­ing the 64th annual meet­ing of the Rocky Moun­tain Sec­tion of the Geo­log­i­cal Soci­ety of Amer­ica, May 9–11 at the Hotel Albu­querque. The annual meet­ing title is “Rio GeoFi­esta!” About 500 par­tic­i­pant geol­o­gists from across the coun­try will debate top­ics about the geo­log­i­cal evo­lu­tion of the region in a series of theme sessions.

A pub­lic lec­ture, given by Dr. Robert Smith, dis­tin­guished research and emer­i­tus pro­fes­sor of geo­physics at the Depart­ment of Geol­ogy and Geo­physics, Uni­ver­sity of Utah, will be held on Thurs­day, May 10 from 7:30–8:30 p.m. at the at the New Mex­ico Museum of Nat­ural His­tory and Sci­ence. Smith’s lec­ture is titled, “The Yel­low­stone Super­vol­cano: Past, Present and Future.”

Smith’s pri­mary research inter­ests are in the­ory and meth­ods in seis­mic stud­ies of lithos­pheric struc­ture, earth­quake seis­mol­ogy, crustal defor­ma­tion, tectono­physics of intraplate tec­tonic regimes and mechan­ics of crustal exten­sion. Smith, who is con­sid­ered the world’s lead­ing expert on the geol­ogy and geo­physics of the Yellowstone-Teton area, has con­ducted sem­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tions of lithos­pheric struc­ture, geo­phys­i­cal and geo­detic inves­ti­ga­tions of the Basin-Range Province, Yel­low­stone hotspot and the Wasatch fault fol­lowed by prob­a­bilis­tic seis­mic haz­ard eval­u­a­tion of the Inter­moun­tain West.

Addi­tional meet­ing co-sponsors include the New Mex­ico Bureau of Geol­ogy and Min­eral Resources, New Mex­ico Museum of Nat­ural His­tory and Sci­ence, and the New Mex­ico Geo­log­i­cal Society.

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion on events and meet­ing ses­sions, visit: Geoso­ci­ety Events

The annual meet­ing is chaired by Pro­fes­sor Laura Crossey, meet­ing tech­ni­cal pro­gram chair is Karl Karl­strom, Gary Smith. field­trip cood­i­na­tor and Gary Weiss­man, stu­dent vol­un­teer coor­di­na­tor, all from the UNM Depart­ment of Earth and Plan­e­tary Sciences.

Addi­tional media infor­ma­tion and selected meet­ing high­lights are avail­able at: Geoso­ci­ety News.

Note: press rep­re­sen­ta­tives with accred­ited cre­den­tials will receive com­ple­men­tary meet­ing registration.

Media Con­tact: Steve Carr (505) 277‑1821; e-mail: scarr@unm.edu

Posted in Academics & Faculty, Events, Research | |

Morrow to Receive Award from Spanish Government

April 26, 2012 | By Carolyn Gonzales
Baker Morrow

Baker Mor­row

Baker Mor­row, pro­fes­sor of prac­tice in the UNM School of Archi­tec­ture and Plan­ning, trans­lated and inter­preted the 500-year-old account, “The South Amer­i­can Expe­di­tions, 1540–1545, Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca.” Mor­row will receive the Min­istry of Cul­ture Award from the Span­ish gov­ern­ment on Fri­day, April 27 from 5:30 – 6:30 p.m. in the gallery of George Pearl Hall. This event is free and open to the public.

Fred Mon­dragon, an offi­cial rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Span­ish Con­sul in Wash­ing­ton, D.C., is accept­ing the pre­sent­ing the award on behalf of the Ambas­sador, the Hon­or­able Jorge Descallar. Mor­row will present a copy of the book to Mon­dragon and also pro­vide him with a copy to give to the Ambassador.

“I am exceed­ingly grate­ful to receive this honor and award and to present copies of this book to the Span­ish gov­ern­ment on the occa­sion of New Mexico’s 100th anniver­sary of state­hood,” Mor­row said. The event is an offi­cial cen­ten­nial event spon­sored by the School of Archi­tec­ture and Planning.

“In this way, we rec­og­nize the impor­tance of Latin Amer­ica in the South­west and UNM’s role in rec­og­niz­ing the sig­nif­i­cance of Latin Amer­i­can cul­ture and his­tory,” he said.

Cabeza de Vaca is a leg­endary fig­ure in the West­ern Hemi­sphere and in Span­ish history. “

Cabeza de Vaca was, Mor­row said, “a writer, doc­u­men­tar­ian, mem­oirist, early eth­nol­o­gist and prob­lem solver.”

Media con­tact: Car­olyn Gon­za­les (505) 277‑5920; email: cgonzal@unm.edu

Posted in Academics & Faculty, University News | |

University Libraries Collaborating to Improve Access to Archives and Special Collections

April 25, 2012 | By Karen Wentworth

The Rocky Moun­tain Online Archive, hosted by the Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico, is one of three con­sor­tia plan­ning for a new net­work that will improve access to archival col­lec­tions in the West.

Last fall, the Insti­tute of Museum and Library Ser­vices (IMLS) awarded a National Lead­er­ship Grant to the J. Willard Mar­riott Library at the Uni­ver­sity of Utah on behalf of the west­ern regional con­sor­tia. In addi­tion to the Rocky Moun­tain Online Archive, there is the Utah Aca­d­e­mic Library Consortium’s Moun­tain West Dig­i­tal Library and the Orbis Cas­cade Alliance’s North­west Dig­i­tal Archives.

This col­lab­o­ra­tive plan­ning grant is a one-year project, “Plan­ning for a West­ern Archival Net­work: Admin­is­tra­tive, Tech­ni­cal, and End User Con­cerns.” The con­sor­tia on the grant are cur­rently explor­ing ways to improve user access to archival find­ing aids describ­ing the archival mate­ri­als in our three West­ern regions, pos­si­bly via a cen­tral west­ern search por­tal that lever­ages the Encoded Archival Descrip­tion (EAD) stan­dard now in use by all of the par­tic­i­pat­ing consortia.

Fif­teen staff mem­bers rep­re­sent­ing the con­sor­tia met at UNM Uni­ver­sity Libraries in Albu­querque in Jan­u­ary to exam­ine ways to cre­ate bet­ter user expe­ri­ences and real­ize cost effi­cien­cies through shared stan­dards, tech­nol­ogy and administration. Follow up meet­ings are planned in Salt Lake City, Utah in April and Port­land, Ore. in September.

This project will have national impact for both end users, and the EAD com­mu­nity at large. Once the plan­ning is com­pleted and the meth­ods imple­mented, end users will have eas­ier and quicker access to both a greater vol­ume and diver­sity of archival mate­ri­als. The intent is to pro­vide a model that other orga­ni­za­tions can imple­ment so that con­sor­tia across the coun­try ben­e­fit from reduced costs and increased access to collections.

Accord­ing to Michael Kelly, RMOA Project Direc­tor, “This is a good oppor­tu­nity to expand access to RMOA by net­work­ing with other EAD col­lab­o­ra­tives.  Pro­vid­ing one point of access to find­ing aids from across the West will make it much eas­ier for users to dis­cover our collections.”

Based on the grant activ­i­ties, final rec­om­men­da­tions and a report will be released in Octo­ber 2012. The three con­sor­tia hope to pur­sue addi­tional col­lab­o­ra­tive fund­ing for the imple­men­ta­tion phase of the project.

EAD Con­sor­tia Project Part­ners
The Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico Uni­ver­sity Libraries pro­vides the infra­struc­ture for the 30 con­tribut­ing insti­tu­tions in New Mex­ico, Col­orado and Wyoming of the Rocky Moun­tain Online Archive. UNM sup­ports and main­tains RMOA as a ser­vice to libraries, muse­ums and archives in the three states with the goal of improv­ing access to man­u­script and archival col­lec­tions. Ini­ti­ated with a grant from the National Endow­ment for the Human­i­ties in 2004, con­tin­u­ing sup­port comes from the UNM Uni­ver­sity Libraries and the Cen­ter for Regional Studies.

The Utah Aca­d­e­mic Library Con­sor­tium is a 40-year-old con­sor­tium of 14 aca­d­e­mic libraries in Utah, along with the Utah State Library and affil­i­ate mem­ber libraries in Utah, Nevada, and Idaho. UALC part­ners coop­er­ate in con­tin­u­ally improv­ing the avail­abil­ity and deliv­ery of library and infor­ma­tion ser­vices to the higher edu­ca­tion com­mu­nity and to the State of Utah, through fos­ter­ing research, devel­op­ing and imple­ment­ing coop­er­a­tive library pro­grams; pro­vid­ing a means for the exchange of infor­ma­tion on coop­er­a­tive library ven­tures; max­i­miz­ing lim­ited resources by improv­ing library meth­ods and avoid­ing expen­sive dupli­cate pur­chases; max­i­miz­ing infor­ma­tion deliv­ery through shared use of tech­nol­ogy and human resources; and act­ing as an advo­cate for excel­lence in library resources and ser­vices. One of the flag­ship pro­grams of the UALC is the Moun­tain West Dig­i­tal Library, a free search por­tal to 350 dig­i­tal col­lec­tions con­tain­ing more than 650,000 resources about the Moun­tain West region from 62 part­ner­ing libraries, archives, and other cul­tural her­itage insti­tu­tions. Eight part­ners of the MWDL main­tain EAD files, and sev­eral more are involved in cre­at­ing new EAD collections.

The Orbis Cas­cade Alliance is a con­sor­tium of 36 aca­d­e­mic libraries in Ore­gon and Wash­ing­ton. Alliance mem­ber libraries work together to pro­vide out­stand­ing ser­vices to stu­dents and fac­ulty, share infor­ma­tion resources and exper­tise, develop library staff, and help mem­bers allo­cate finan­cial and human resources to serve the unique needs of each mem­ber. To this end, the Alliance con­sid­ers the com­bined col­lec­tions of mem­ber insti­tu­tions as one col­lec­tion. The Alliance sup­ports a num­ber of ser­vices that sup­port this vision, includ­ing Sum­mit, a sys­tem that allows stu­dents, fac­ulty and staff to eas­ily search and request library mate­ri­als owned by mem­ber libraries; courier ser­vice offer­ing deliv­ery of library mate­ri­als in Ore­gon, Wash­ing­ton and Idaho; the North­west Dig­i­tal Archives, which offers enhanced access to pri­mary sources in the North­west U.S.; coop­er­a­tive pur­chas­ing for data­bases, ebooks and ejour­nals; and other dig­i­tal library services.

Ques­tions / com­ments may be directed to:

Rocky Moun­tain Online Archive:
Kath­lene Fer­ris, Dig­i­tal Pro­grams Man­ager, (505) 277‑7172; email: kferris@unm.edu

Uni­ver­sity of Utah, J. Willard Mar­riott Library
Gre­gory Thomp­son, Asso­ciate Dean for Spe­cial Col­lec­tions & Prin­ci­pal Inves­ti­ga­tor, (801) 581‑3421; email: greg.c.thompson@utah.edu

Moun­tain West Dig­i­tal Library
San­dra McIn­tyre, pro­gram direc­tor, (801) 585‑0969, sandra.mcintyre@utah.edu

North­west Dig­i­tal Archives
Jodi Allison-Bunnell, pro­gram man­ager, (406) 829‑6528; email: jodiab@uoregon.edu

Posted in Academics & Faculty, University News | |

Stephanie Forrest Selected as UNM’s Annual Research Lecturer

April 24, 2012 | By Karen Wentworth
Stephanie Forrest

Stephanie For­rest

Pro­fes­sor of Com­puter Sci­ence Stephanie For­rest has been selected for the 2012 Annual Research Lec­ture, announced Vice Pres­i­dent for Research Julia Ful­ghum. This award is one of the high­est hon­ors that UNM bestows on a fac­ulty mem­ber. The lec­ture will be pre­sented in the Fall of 2012.

Selected by the UNM Research Pol­icy Com­mit­tee, and nom­i­nated by peers from across the United States and abroad, For­rest is noted for her excep­tional abil­i­ties and knowl­edge, out­stand­ing research efforts, cre­ativ­ity, lead­er­ship, and men­tor­ship to a num­ber of stu­dents and fac­ulty. For­rest came to UNM in 1990 and is acknowl­edged for trans­form­ing the Depart­ment of Com­puter Sci­ence into an inter­dis­ci­pli­nary and high-activity research depart­ment, as well as secur­ing UNM’s rep­u­ta­tion as a leader in the study of com­plex systems.

Her exper­tise ranges from top­ics such as auto­mated soft­ware repair and cre­at­ing adap­tive immune sys­tems for nul­li­fy­ing com­puter viruses, to bring­ing the worlds of com­puter sci­ence and biol­ogy together through her work with com­pu­ta­tional mod­el­ing of bio­log­i­cal sys­tems, and com­pu­ta­tional immunology.

“Dr. Forrest’s cre­ativ­ity and inter­dis­ci­pli­nary zeal have laid the foun­da­tions for evolv­able com­puter sys­tems that can meet the chal­lenges of an increas­ingly com­plex and inter­con­nected world,” says UNM Dis­tin­guished Pro­fes­sor of Biol­ogy James Brown.

For­rest has served in var­i­ous capac­i­ties, includ­ing Research Pro­fes­sor and Sci­ence Board mem­ber and co-chair, at the Santa Fe Insti­tute and served as Chair of the Depart­ment of Com­puter Sci­ence at UNM for five years, where she improved edu­ca­tional resources, under­grad­u­ate enroll­ment, and fac­ulty diversity.

Recently, For­rest par­tic­i­pated in the pres­ti­gious 2012 World Eco­nomic Forum held in Davos, Switzer­land, pre­sent­ing a paper titled “Risks in a Hyper­con­nected World.” “Stephanie’s invi­ta­tion to par­tic­i­pate in the Forum has been a major break­through for the com­puter sci­ence fac­ulty and depart­ment in gen­eral,” notes George Luger, Chair of the UNM Depart­ment of Com­puter Science.

Says Jen­nifer Rex­ford, Pro­fes­sor of Com­puter Sci­ence at Prince­ton Uni­ver­sity, “Stephanie is an incom­pa­ra­ble researcher mak­ing fun­da­men­tal con­tri­bu­tions to ‘grand chal­lenge’ prob­lems in com­puter sci­ence. She is a thought leader in the com­mu­nity through her research, her con­sid­er­able pro­fes­sional ser­vice, and gen­er­ous men­tor­ing of junior colleagues.”

The Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico con­grat­u­lates Stephanie For­rest for her out­stand­ing research and achievements.

Story by Valerie Roybal

Media con­tact: Karen Went­worth (505) 277‑5627; email: kwent2@unm.edu

Posted in Academics & Faculty, University News | |

Cahill Wins Award for Book on Social History of U.S. Indian Service

April 24, 2012 | By Carolyn Gonzales
Cathleen Cahill

Cath­leen Cahill

Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico Assis­tant Pro­fes­sor of His­tory Cath­leen Cahill has won the 2011 Labri­ola Cen­ter Amer­i­can Indian National Book Award for her book “Fed­eral Fathers and Moth­ers: A Social His­tory of the U.S. Indian Ser­vice, 1869–1933.”

The award is pre­sented annu­ally by the Labri­ola National Amer­i­can Indian Data Cen­ter at Ari­zona State University.

In her book, Cahill dis­cusses how the Bureau of Indian Affairs, estab­lished in 1824 as the United States Indian Ser­vice, sought to bring Native Amer­i­cans into the “mod­ern” world by com­pelling them to accept the lifestyle of the white, middle-class Amer­i­can fam­ily – to live in houses, work on farms and assimilate.

That goal required the ser­vices of many work­ers, male and female, white and native, sin­gle and mar­ried. These peo­ple, who were sup­posed to bring Indi­ans into the main­stream, are the sub­ject of the book.

“Fed­eral Fathers and Moth­ers” is the fourth book to win the Labri­ola Cen­ter National Book Award. Pre­vi­ous win­ners and their books are Daniel Cobb, 2008, “Native Activism in Cold War Amer­ica: The Strug­gle for Sov­er­eignty”; Paul Rosier, 2009, “Serv­ing Their Coun­try: Amer­i­can Indian Pol­i­tics and Patri­o­tism in the Twen­ti­eth Cen­tury”; and Malinda Low­ery, 2010, for “Lum­bee Indi­ans in the Jim Crow South: Race, Iden­tity, and the Mak­ing of a Nation.”

Books sub­mit­ted for con­sid­er­a­tion for the Labri­ola Cen­ter Amer­i­can Indian National Book Award cross mul­ti­ple dis­ci­plines or fields of study, are rel­e­vant to con­tem­po­rary North Amer­i­can Indian com­mu­ni­ties, and focus on mod­ern tribal stud­ies, mod­ern biogra­phies, tribal gov­ern­ments or fed­eral Indian policy.

Posted in Academics & Faculty, University News | |

UNM Offers Institute on Environmental Information Management

April 23, 2012 | By Karen Wentworth
Environment_Institute

Uni­ver­sity Libraries is host­ing the Wal­ter E. Dean Envi­ron­men­tal Infor­ma­tion Man­age­ment Insti­tute in a series of one week courses from Mon­day, May 28 to Fri­day, June 15, 2012.   More infor­ma­tion can be found at http://elibrary.unm.edu/courses/eimi

The course is for MS stu­dents and pro­fes­sion­als with a BS in biol­ogy, geol­ogy, ecol­ogy, or other envi­ron­men­tal sci­ences, envi­ron­men­tal engi­neer­ing, geog­ra­phy or sci­ence librarianship.

The Envi­ron­men­tal Infor­ma­tion Man­age­ment (EIM) Insti­tute pro­vides MS and PhD stu­dents and pro­fes­sion­als with the con­cep­tual and prac­ti­cal hands-on train­ing that allows them to effec­tively design, manage,analyze, visu­al­ize and pre­serve data and information.

Par­tic­i­pants com­plet­ing the three-week Insti­tute will be at a sig­nif­i­cant com­pet­i­tive advan­tage as they pur­sue fur­ther aca­d­e­mic and pro­fes­sional efforts. They will gain invalu­able expe­ri­ence with all aspects of the data life cycle: from man­ag­ing data files and cre­at­ing data­bases and web por­tals, through state-of-the-art analy­sis and visu­al­iza­tion tech­niques, as well as man­ag­ing, ana­lyz­ing, and visu­al­iz­ing geospa­tial data.

Week 1 — INFO 530 Envi­ron­men­tal Infor­ma­tion Man­age­ment
Lec­tures and exer­cises focus on data and meta­data acqui­si­tion and man­age­ment, qual­ity assurance/quality con­trol, data preser­va­tion, data­base cre­ation and man­age­ment, and web por­tal development.

Week 2 — INFO 532 Envi­ron­men­tal Data Analy­sis and Visu­al­iza­tion
Lec­tures and exer­cises cover tech­niques for data explo­ration, data analy­sis and sci­en­tific work­flows, and cre­ation of effec­tive visual rep­re­sen­ta­tions of ana­lyt­i­cal results.

Week 3 — INFO 533 Spa­tial Data Man­age­ment in Envi­ron­men­tal Sci­ence
This hands-on course focuses on how geospa­tial data are effec­tively man­aged, ana­lyzed, visu­al­ized and pre­served in Geo­graphic Infor­ma­tion Systems.

Reg­is­tra­tion infor­ma­tion
Space is lim­ited. The Insti­tute is com­prised of three one-week courses for two cred­its each. Stu­dents must reg­is­ter for and attend all three courses.

Open to non-UNM stu­dents. For more infor­ma­tion visit http://elibrary.unm.edu/courses/eimi or email Teresa Neely at neely@unm.edu

The 2012 EIM Insti­tute is made pos­si­ble by gen­er­ous fund­ing from Wal­ter E. Dean. Dr. Dean, a UNM alum­nus, has worked for the U.S. Geo­log­i­cal Sur­vey since 1975 on a vari­ety of projects and is cur­rently a research geol­o­gist in the Geol­ogy and Envi­ron­men­tal Change Sci­ence Cen­ter in Col­orado. Dean is a pro­lific researcher and author who has won numer­ous awards.

Posted in Academics & Faculty, University News | |

Mark Childs Discusses New Book at UNM Bookstore

April 23, 2012 | By Carolyn Gonzales
urban compisition

Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico Pro­fes­sor of Archi­tec­ture Mark Childs speaks about and signs copies of his new book Urban Com­po­si­tion: Design­ing Com­mu­nity Through Urban Design (Prince­ton Archi­tec­tural Press, 2012) on Tues­day, May 1, at 1 p.m. at the UNM Bookstore.

Cities and towns are among humanity’s largest and most com­plex achieve­ments. Build­ings, pub­lic works, plazas and parks of even a small town embody sub­stan­tial amounts of cap­i­tal, energy, nat­ural resources, his­tory and aspi­ra­tions. Cities are among our great­est cre­ations, yet typ­i­cally no sin­gle indi­vid­ual cre­ates them. Rather, they rise from dia­log between mul­ti­ple design­ers, clients, reg­u­la­tors, cit­i­zens, crit­ics and users.

Some­times the cities and towns that emerge are glo­ri­ous places. Too fre­quently they have only frag­ments of great­ness or are soul-deadening and envi­ron­men­tally unhealthy. Just as pri­vate doc­tors have respon­si­bil­i­ties to their indi­vid­ual patients and for pub­lic health, project design­ers are account­able to their clients and for a set of pub­lic goods such as envi­ron­men­tal stew­ard­ship, fos­ter­ing civil soci­ety and inspir­ing joy.

In Urban Com­po­si­tion, Childs intro­duces essen­tial ways in which the archi­tects, plan­ners, artists and engi­neers of indi­vid­ual projects can ful­fill their pub­lic trust to help make great urban places.

Childs has worked as an archi­tect, plan­ner, urban designer and pub­lic artist. He is cur­rently a pro­fes­sor in UNM’s School of Archi­tec­ture and Plan­ning, and is also the author of Squares: A Pub­lic Place Design Guide for Urban­ists (UNM Press).

The UNM Book­store is located at 2301 Cen­tral Ave. NE at the inter­sec­tion of Cor­nell and Cen­tral. Please con­tact Lani Tyler or call 505–277-7473 for more information.

Posted in Academics & Faculty, Events | |