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Category Archives: Research

Wrenching Poetry from the Nancy C. Wood Manuscript Collection

May 15, 2012 | By Karen Wentworth
Carolyn McSherry

Car­olyn McSherry

Car­olyn McSh­erry holds the Juan and Vir­ginia Cha­con Fel­low­ship and has spent part of the year pro­cess­ing the papers of writer-photographer Nancy Wood. She is a Ph.D. stu­dent in the Amer­i­can Stud­ies program. 

Her research is about the chal­lenges posed to 1930s-era agri­cul­tural improve­ment projects in Puerto Rico and on Navajo lands by peo­ple who lived in and knew those land­scapes, and by others. She is inter­ested in the rela­tion­ships between agri­cul­tural sci­ences and colonialism.

In this talk, titled “Wrench­ing Poetry from the Nancy C. Wood Man­u­script Col­lec­tion” she explores the man­u­scripts in the Nancy C. Wood man­u­script col­lec­tion and talks about Wood as a writer. At the begin­ning of the talk she dis­cusses this poem by Nancy C. Wood.

Hold on to what is good,
even when it is
a hand­ful of earth.

Hold on to what you believe
even when it is
a tree which stands by itself.

Hold on to what you must do
even if it is
a long way from here.

Hold on to life even when
it is eas­ier let­ting go.

Hold on to my hand
even when I have gone away from you.

Lis­ten to McSherry’s talk.

Runs: 15:47

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

Posted in Research, University News | |

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 | |

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 | |

Nanoscience and Nanobiology Lab Puts Students on Front Line of Research

April 24, 2012 | By Karen Wentworth
UNM student Katharine (Katy) Epler and Chemical and Nuclear Engineering Research Asst. Professor Eric Carnes in the lab.
UNM student Katharine Epler and Chemical and Nuclear Engineering Research Assistant Professor Eric Carnes in the lab.

UNM stu­dent Katharine Epler, and Chem­i­cal and Nuclear Engi­neer­ing Research Assis­tant Pro­fes­sor Eric Carnes in the lab.

For sev­eral decades, doc­tors and sci­en­tists have worked to develop meth­ods for treat­ing can­cer that improve patient out­comes and avoid unpleas­ant side effects asso­ci­ated with tra­di­tional chemother­apy.  Researchers at UNM and San­dia Labs have made a sig­nif­i­cant step toward achiev­ing this goal by devel­op­ing a novel type of nanopar­ti­cle, called a “pro­to­cell,” capa­ble of deliv­er­ing drugs and other types of ther­a­peu­tic mol­e­cules specif­i­cally to can­cer cells.

The core of the pro­to­cell is a porous sil­ica nanopar­ti­cle that acts as a nano-sized sponge, soak­ing up high con­cen­tra­tions of drugs.  The drug-laden core is wrapped in a lipid bilayer, which is sim­i­lar in com­po­si­tion to a cell mem­brane and pre­vents drugs from pre­ma­turely leak­ing out of the core. Mol­e­cules that rec­og­nize can­cer cells are then attached to the lipid bilayer so that pro­to­cells are taken up by can­cer cells while bypass­ing nor­mal cells.  The type and den­sity of these mol­e­cules, called tar­get­ing lig­ands, can be tai­lored to tar­get dif­fer­ent types of cancers.

The protocell’s abil­ity to kill can­cer cells with­out harm­ing nor­mal cells was orig­i­nally reported in an arti­cle fea­tured on the cover of the sci­en­tific jour­nal “Nature Mate­ri­als” in May 2011.  This arti­cle demon­strated that pro­to­cells loaded with a cock­tail of chemother­apy drugs and tar­geted to liver can­cers are one mil­lion times more effec­tive at treat­ing can­cer than other types of tar­geted deliv­ery vehicles.

A sec­ond paper appeared on the cover of the March 2012 edi­tion of “ACS Nano” and described the abil­ity of pro­to­cells loaded with a new type of can­cer ther­a­peu­tic called small inter­fer­ing RNA or siRNA, to kill an entire pop­u­la­tion of liver can­cer cells at van­ish­ingly small con­cen­tra­tions of siRNA.

What is unusual in this research suc­cess story is the role under­grad­u­ate stu­dents are play­ing.  One UNM chem­i­cal engi­neer­ing junior, Katharine Epler, is the lead author on a new paper “Deliv­ery of Ricin Toxin A-Chair by Peptide-Targeted Meso­porous Sil­ica Nanoparticle-Support Lipid Bilay­ers” which will be fea­tured on the cover of “Advanced Health­care Mate­ri­als” next month.

Epler sum­ma­rized the major find­ings of the paper by say­ing “ricin toxin is a pro­tein iso­lated from Cas­tor beans and nefar­i­ous for its use in the assas­si­na­tion of Georgi Markov.  Ricin is com­posed of two sub­units or chains – A and B.  The B-chain pro­motes uptake by cells, while the A-chain kills cells by inhibit­ing pro­tein syn­the­sis. By load­ing pro­to­cells with ricin toxin A-chain, we can selec­tively kill liver can­cer cells while spar­ing nor­mal liver cells. Work­ing with ricin toxin A-chain (as opposed to the intact toxin) is also much safer for us, since A-chain is only toxic if it has a way to get inside of cells.  This is why pro­to­cells are well-suited for deliv­ery of espe­cially toxic mol­e­cules – pro­to­cells loaded with ricin toxin A-chain and tar­geted to can­cer are almost exclu­sively taken up by can­cer cells and are not toxic to other types of cells.”

Epler became involved in devel­op­ment of the pro­to­cell dur­ing the sum­mer of 2009, just after she grad­u­ated from high school.  That is when she met and began work­ing with Assis­tant Research Pro­fes­sor in the Depart­ment of Chem­i­cal and Nuclear Engi­neer­ing Eric Carnes, who is a mem­ber of the research group led by Dis­tin­guished Pro­fes­sor of Chem­i­cal and Nuclear Engi­neer­ing, UNM Can­cer Cen­ter mem­ber and fel­low at San­dia National Lab­o­ra­to­ries C. Jef­frey Brinker.  Although Epler had no prior lab expe­ri­ence she learned quickly under Carnes’ tutelage.

“I remem­ber being a bit over­whelmed dur­ing my first few months,” she said.  “Dr. Carnes has been very sup­port­ive.”  Carnes explains, “Dr. Brinker and I have high expec­ta­tions for our stu­dents.  Under­grad­u­ate stu­dents are expected to per­form at the grad­u­ate stu­dent level, while grad­u­ate stu­dents are expected to per­form at a post– doc­toral or fac­ulty level.  How­ever, Katie has exceeded our expec­ta­tions.  By the time she grad­u­ates, she will be the lead author of at least three papers.  This level of achieve­ment is quite rare.”

About a dozen under­grad­u­ates work in Brinker’s new Nanoscience and Nanomed­i­cine Lab at the Cen­ten­nial Engi­neer­ing Build­ing.  Most will be lead author of at least one paper before grad­u­at­ing with a B.Sc. degree and all agree that their research achieve­ments are made pos­si­ble by the sup­port and men­tor­ship pro­vided by senior mem­bers of the group such as post­doc Jason Town­son.  Epler fol­lows the foot­steps of another suc­cess­ful grad­u­ate Car­lee Ash­ley, who now works for (SNL).

Epler’s research accom­plish­ments are an impor­tant step toward meet­ing the goals of a Can­cer Nan­otech­nol­ogy Plat­form Part­ner­ship (CNPP) grant funded through the National Can­cer Insti­tute and lead by Brinker and Direc­tor and CEO of the UNM Can­cer Cen­ter Cheryl Willman.

This inter­dis­ci­pli­nary research effort involves a team of can­cer biol­o­gists, mate­ri­als sci­en­tists and chem­i­cal engi­neers and focuses on devel­op­ing ways to treat poor prog­no­sis child­hood leukemia.   Biol­o­gists involved in the project are iden­ti­fy­ing mol­e­cules over-expressed by drug-resistant forms of acute lym­phoblas­tic leukemia (ALL), while the engi­neers are devel­op­ing drug-filled nanopar­ti­cles that tar­get those mol­e­cules and might be able to selec­tively the dis­ease while min­i­miz­ing col­lat­eral dam­age to non-diseased cells.

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

Posted in Research, University News | |

Honduran Spanish and Migration Focus of SOLAS Brown Bag

April 23, 2012 | By Carolyn Gonzales

SOLAS, Stu­dents of Latin Amer­i­can Stud­ies, presents a brown bag lec­ture on Wednes­day, April 25 at noon at the Latin Amer­i­can and Iber­ian Insti­tute Library. The lec­turer, Michael Woods, a UNM doc­toral can­di­date in His­panic lin­guis­tics, presents, “Hon­duran Span­ish & Migra­tion: An ini­tial look at Santa Lucía, Intibucá and avenues for future research”.

Woods dis­cusses the sociode­mo­graphic pro­file in con­junc­ture with his­tor­i­cal and con­tem­po­rary pat­terns of immi­gra­tion. It is in this con­text that this com­mu­nity exem­pli­fies a dis­tinc­tive research site for lin­guis­tic inquiry.

Pre­vi­ous research on Hon­duran Span­ish is lim­ited and reflects a few selected lin­guis­tic fea­tures (e.g. voseo, lex­i­cal items, /s/) and uses found in pri­mar­ily urban areas. Even more scarce is research look­ing at Hon­duran Span­ish in the United States. Using soci­olin­guis­tic inter­views cou­pled with ethno­graphic obser­va­tions, the Hon­duran expe­ri­ence is exam­ined regard­ing tes­ti­monies of migra­tion and reflec­tions on lin­guis­tic accom­mo­da­tion in the U.S. as well as with respect to expe­ri­ences of return­ing to Hon­duras. To expand the under­stand­ing of Hon­duran Span­ish, Woods present pre­vi­ous research as well as pre­lim­i­nary data from his recent field­work expe­ri­ences in rural Hon­duras. Impli­ca­tions for future research on Hon­duran Span­ish and poten­tial effects of return migra­tion on lan­guage and iden­tity are also explored.

Light refresh­ments will be served. This event is free and open to the public.

Posted in Events, Research | |

2012 STC.UNM Creative Awards Ceremony to Honor UNM Inventors

April 20, 2012 | By Karen Wentworth
STC.UNM

STC.UNM will host an awards cer­e­mony on Wednes­day, April 25 from 5–7 pm at the UNM Sci­ence & Tech­nol­ogy Park Rotunda to honor 44 fac­ulty, staff and stu­dents who have received issued patents and dis­closed copy­rights within the past year.

Keynote speaker for the event will be Christo­pher C. Gal­lagher, Esq., Senior Pol­icy Direc­tor of New Ven­ture Advi­sors.  The 2012 STC.UNM Inno­va­tion Fel­low Award will also be pre­sented to Dr. Stephen D. Hersee in recog­ni­tion of his achieve­ments as one of the Uni­ver­sity of New Mexico’s lead­ing innovators.

The fol­low­ing UNM fac­ulty, staff and stu­dents received issued patents and dis­closed copy­rights within the past year:

Mark R. Ack­er­mann, Ph.D.
Dept. of Physics & Astron­omy
Struc­ture Func­tion Mon­i­tor
U.S. Patent 8,103,045, issued Jan­u­ary 24, 2012

Kateryna Artyushkova, Ph.D.
Dept. of Chem­i­cal & Nuclear Engi­neer­ing and Cen­ter for Emerg­ing Energy Tech­nolo­gies
Method for Mul­ti­vari­ate Analy­sis of Con­fo­cal Tem­po­ral Image Sequences for Veloc­ity Esti­ma­tion
U.S. Patent 8,045,140, issued Octo­ber 25, 2011

Pla­men B. Atanassov, Ph.D.
Dept. of Chem­i­cal & Nuclear Engi­neer­ing
Hybrid Thin Films that Incor­po­rate Lamel­lar Phos­pho­lipid Layer Assem­blies and Trans­mem­brane Pro­teins
U.S. Patent 8,114,464, issued Feb­ru­ary 14, 2012

C. Jef­frey Brinker, Ph.D.
Depts. of Chem­i­cal & Nuclear Engi­neer­ing and Mol­e­c­u­lar Genet­ics & Micro­bi­ol­ogy
Method of Mak­ing Dense, Con­for­mal, Ultra-Thin Cap Lay­ers for Nanoporous Low-k ILD by Plasma Assisted Atomic Layer Depo­si­tion
U.S. Patent 7,947,579, issued May 24, 2011

Self-Assembly of Water Sol­u­ble Nanocrys­tals
U.S. Patent 8,092,595, issued Jan­u­ary 10, 2012

Lee K. Brown, M.D.
Depts. of Inter­nal Med­i­cine and Pedi­atrics and UNM Hos­pi­tal Sleep Dis­or­ders Cen­ter
Win­Somn Sleep Lab­o­ra­tory Data­base Solu­tion
Dis­closed Octo­ber 5, 2011

Steven R. J. Brueck, Ph.D.
Depts. of Elec­tri­cal & Com­puter Engi­neer­ing and Physics & Astron­omy and the Cen­ter for High Tech­nol­ogy Mate­ri­als
Nanos­truc­tured Sep­a­ra­tion and Analy­sis Devices for Bio­log­i­cal Mem­branes
U.S. Patent RE42,315, issued May 3, 2011
Inte­grated Affin­ity Micro­columns and Affin­ity Cap­il­lary Elec­trophore­sis
U. S. Patent 7,959,861, issued June 14, 2011
Imag­ing Inter­fer­o­met­ric Microscopy
U.S. Patent 7,978,403, issued July 12, 2011
Epi­tax­ial Growth of In-Plane Nanowires and Nanowire Devices
U.S. Patent 8,030,108, issued Octo­ber 4, 2011
Nanoflu­idics for Biosep­a­ra­tion and Analy­sis
U.S. Patent 8,105,471, issued Jan­u­ary 31, 2012
Struc­tural Illu­mi­na­tion and Evanes­cent Cou­pling for the Exten­sion of Imag­ing Inter­fer­o­met­ric Microscopy
U.S. Patent 8,115,992, issued Feb­ru­ary 14, 2012

Paula Vic­to­ria Couselo, B.A.
New Mex­ico Cen­ter for Lan­guage Access
Lan­guage Access Spe­cial­ist Cer­tifi­cate Pro­gram
Dis­closed May 4, 2011

Terry W. Du Clos, M.D., Ph.D.
Depts. of Inter­nal Med­i­cine and Mol­e­c­u­lar Genet­ics & Micro­bi­ol­ogy
C-Reactive Pro­tein and Its Use to Treat Sys­temic Lupus Ery­the­mato­sus and Related Con­di­tions
U.S. Patent 8,013,120, issued Sep­tem­ber 6, 2011

Bruce S. Edwards, Ph.D.
Dept. of Pathol­ogy and Cen­ter for Mol­e­c­u­lar Dis­cov­ery
Flow Cytom­e­try for High Through­put Screen­ing
U.S. Patent 8,021,872, issued Sep­tem­ber 20, 2011

Mohamed S. El-Genk, Ph.D.
Depts. of Chem­i­cal & Nuclear Engi­neer­ing and Mechan­i­cal Engi­neer­ing and Insti­tute for Space and Nuclear Power Stud­ies
Meth­ods and Appa­ra­tuses for Removal and Trans­port of Ther­mal Energy
U.S. Patent 8,073,096, issued Decem­ber 6, 2011

Christie G. Enke, Ph.D.
Dept. of Chem­istry & Chem­i­cal Biol­ogy
Energy Focus for Dis­tance of Flight Mass Spec­trom­e­try with Con­stant Momen­tum Accel­er­a­tion and an Ion Mir­ror
U.S. Patent 7,947,950, issued May 24, 2011

Ion Focus­ing and Detec­tion in a Minia­ture Lin­ear Ion Trap for Mass Spec­trom­e­try
U. S. Patent 7,960,692, issued June 14, 2011

Yuliya Fedasenka, M.A.
New Mex­ico Cen­ter for Lan­guage Access
Lan­guage Access Spe­cial­ist Cer­tifi­cate Pro­gram
Dis­closed May 4, 2011

Mikhail I. Fuks, Ph.D.
Dept. of Elec­tri­cal & Com­puter Engi­neer­ing
Mag­netron Device with Mode Con­verter and Related Meth­ods
U.S. Patent 8,018,159, issued Sep­tem­ber 13, 2011

Sang M. Han, Ph.D.
Depts. Chem­i­cal & Nuclear Engi­neer­ing and Elec­tri­cal & Com­puter Engi­neer­ing
Ultra-Thin High-Quality Ger­ma­nium on Sil­i­con by Low-Temperature Epi­taxy and Insulator-Capped Anneal­ing
U.S. Patent 7,968,438, issued June 28, 2011

Nanoflu­idics for Biosep­a­ra­tion and Analy­sis
U.S. Patent 8,105,471, issued Jan­u­ary 31, 2012

Majeed M. Hayat, Ph.D.
Dept. of Elec­tri­cal & Com­puter Engi­neer­ing and Cen­ter for High Tech­nol­ogy Mate­ri­als
Sys­tem and Method for Reduc­tion of Speckle Noise in an Image
U. S. Patent 7,961,975, issued June 14, 2011

Detec­tor with Tun­able Spec­tral Response
U.S. Patent 8,134,141, issued March 13, 2012

Infrared Retina
U.S. Patent 8,071,945, issued Decem­ber 6, 2011

Stephen D. Hersee, Ph.D.
Dept. of Elec­tri­cal & Com­puter Engi­neer­ing and Cen­ter for High Tech­nol­ogy Mate­ri­als
Thin-Walled Struc­tures
U. S. Patent 7,968,359, issued June 28, 2011

Pulsed Growth of Catalyst-Free Growth of GaN Nanowires and Appli­ca­tion in Group III Nitride Semi­con­duc­tor Bulk Mate­r­ial
U.S. Patent 8,039,854, issued Octo­ber 18, 2011

Lin­nea K. Ista, Ph.D.
Dept. of Chem­i­cal & Nuclear Engi­neer­ing and Cen­ter for Bio­med­ical  Engi­neer­ing
Nanos­truc­tured Sep­a­ra­tion and Analy­sis Devices for Bio­log­i­cal Mem­branes
U.S. Patent RE42,315, issued May 3, 2011

Inte­grated Affin­ity Micro­columns and Affin­ity Cap­il­lary Elec­trophore­sis
U. S. Patent 7,959,861, issued June 14, 2011

Woo-Yong Jang, M.S.
Dept. of Elec­tri­cal & Com­puter Engi­neer­ing and Cen­ter for High Tech­nol­ogy Mate­ri­als
Infrared Retina
U.S. Patent 8,071,945, issued Decem­ber 6, 2011

Ying-Bing Jiang, Ph.D.
Dept. of Earth & Plan­e­tary Sci­ences
Method of Mak­ing Dense, Con­for­mal, Ultra-Thin Cap Lay­ers for Nanoporous Low-k ILD by Plasma Assisted Atomic Layer Depo­si­tion
U.S. Patent 7,947,579, issued May 24, 2011

Tariq A. Khraishi, Ph.D.
Dept. of Mechan­i­cal Engi­neer­ing
Metal-Carbon Nan­otube Com­pos­ites for Enhanced Ther­mal Con­duc­tiv­ity for Demand­ing or Crit­i­cal Appli­ca­tions
U.S. Patent 7,998,367, issued August 16, 2011

San­jay Krishna, Ph.D.
Dept. of Elec­tri­cal & Com­puter Engi­neer­ing and Cen­ter for High Tech­nol­ogy Mate­ri­als
Infrared Retina
U.S. Patent 8,071,945, issued Decem­ber 6, 2011

Detec­tor with Tun­able Spec­tral Response
U.S. Patent 8,134,141, issued March 13, 2012

Yuliya V. Kuznetsova, Ph.D.
Cen­ter for High Tech­nol­ogy Mate­ri­als
Imag­ing Inter­fer­o­met­ric Microscopy
U.S. Patent 7,978,403, issued July 12, 2011

Struc­tural Illu­mi­na­tion and Evanes­cent Cou­pling for the Exten­sion of Imag­ing Inter­fer­o­met­ric Microscopy
U.S. Patent 8,115,992, issued Feb­ru­ary 14, 2012

Richard S. Lar­son, M.D., Ph.D.
Dept. of Pathol­ogy
Non-Invasive Diag­nos­tic Agents of Can­cer and Meth­ods of Diag­nos­ing Can­cer, Espe­cially Leukemia and Lym­phoma
U.S. Patent 8,097,237, issued Jan­u­ary 17, 2012

Seung-Chang Lee, Ph.D.
Dept. of Elec­tri­cal & Com­puter Engi­neer­ing and Cen­ter for High Tech­nol­ogy Mate­ri­als
Epi­tax­ial Growth of In-Plane Nanowires and Nanowire Devices
U.S. Patent 8,030,108, issued Octo­ber 4, 2011

Steven A. Lopez, R.P.S.G.T.
UNM Hos­pi­tal Sleep Dis­or­ders Cen­ter
Win­Somn Sleep Lab­o­ra­tory Data­base Solu­tion
Dis­closed Octo­ber 5, 2011

Shuang (Sean) Luan, Ph.D.
Depts. of Com­puter Sci­ence and Radi­ol­ogy
Single-Arc Dose Paint­ing for Pre­ci­sion Radi­a­tion Ther­apy
U.S. Patent 8,014,494, issued Sep­tem­ber 6, 2011

John T. McGraw, Ph.D., Dept. of Physics & Astron­omy
Struc­ture Func­tion Mon­i­tor
U.S. Patent 8,103,045, issued Jan­u­ary 24, 2012

Car­olyn Mold, Ph.D.
Dept. of Mol­e­c­u­lar Genet­ics & Micro­bi­ol­ogy
C-Reactive Pro­tein and Its Use to Treat Sys­temic Lupus Ery­the­mato­sus and Related Con­di­tions
U.S. Patent 8,013,120, issued Sep­tem­ber 6, 2011

Alexan­der Neu­mann, M.S.
Dept. of Elec­tri­cal & Com­puter Engi­neer­ing and Cen­ter for High Tech­nol­ogy Mate­ri­als
Imag­ing Inter­fer­o­met­ric Microscopy
U.S. Patent 7,978,403, issued July 12, 2011

Struc­tural Illu­mi­na­tion and Evanes­cent Cou­pling for the Exten­sion of Imag­ing Inter­fer­o­met­ric Microscopy
U.S. Patent 8,115,992, issued Feb­ru­ary 14, 2012

Jef­frey P. Noren­berg, Pharm.D.
Divi­sion of Phar­macy Prac­tice
Non-Invasive Diag­nos­tic Agents of Can­cer and Meth­ods of Diag­nos­ing Can­cer, Espe­cially Leukemia and Lym­phoma
U.S. Patent 8,097,237, issued Jan­u­ary 17, 2012

Marek A. Osiński, Ph.D.
Dept. of Elec­tri­cal & Com­puter Engi­neer­ing and Physics & Astron­omy and Cen­ter for High Tech­nol­ogy Mate­ri­als
Light-Emitting Device Hav­ing Injection-Lockable Semi­con­duc­tor Ring Laser Mono­lith­i­cally Inte­grated with Mas­ter Laser
U.S. Patent 8,009,712, issued August 30, 2011

Dimiter N. Pet­sev, Ph.D.
Dept. of Chem­i­cal & Nuclear Engi­neer­ing
Fab­ri­ca­tion and Use of Semi­per­me­able Mem­branes and Gels for the Con­trol of Elec­trol­y­sis
U.S. Patent 7,976,691, issued July 12, 2011

Nanoflu­idics for Biosep­a­ra­tion and Analy­sis
U.S. Patent 8,105,471, issued Jan­u­ary 31, 2012

Omar K. Qas­sim, M.S., M.B.A.
Dept. of Elec­tri­cal & Com­puter Engi­neer­ing
Light-Emitting Device Hav­ing Injection-Lockable Semi­con­duc­tor Ring Laser Mono­lith­i­cally Inte­grated with Mas­ter Laser
U.S. Patent 8,009,712, issued August 30, 2011

Megan Mcken­zie Rauch, A.S.
UNM Hos­pi­tal Sleep Dis­or­ders Cen­ter
Win­Somn Sleep Lab­o­ra­tory Data­base Solu­tion
Dis­closed Octo­ber 5, 2011

Balu San­thanam, Ph.D.
Dept. of Elec­tri­cal & Com­puter Engi­neer­ing
Sys­tem and Method for Reduc­tion of Speckle Noise in an Image
U. S. Patent 7,961,975, issued June 14, 2011

Edl Schamiloglu, Ph.D.
Dept. of Elec­tri­cal & Com­puter Engi­neer­ing
Mag­netron Device with Mode Con­verter and Related Meth­ods
U.S. Patent 8,018,159, issued Sep­tem­ber 13, 2011

Scott Sib­bett, Ph.D.
Dept. of Chem­i­cal & Nuclear Engi­neer­ing and Cen­ter for Bio­med­ical Engi­neer­ing
Fab­ri­ca­tion and Use of Semi­per­me­able Mem­branes and Gels for the Con­trol of Elec­trol­y­sis
U.S. Patent 7,976,691, issued July 12, 2011

Larry A. Sklar, Ph.D.
Dept. of Pathol­ogy and Cen­ter for Mol­e­c­u­lar Dis­cov­ery
Flow Cytom­e­try for High Through­put Screen­ing
U.S. Patent 8,021,872, issued Sep­tem­ber 20, 2011

Gen­nady A. Smolyakov, Ph.D.
Dept. of Elec­tri­cal & Com­puter Engi­neer­ing and Cen­ter for High Tech­nol­ogy Mate­ri­als
Light-Emitting Device Hav­ing Injection-Lockable Semi­con­duc­tor Ring Laser Mono­lith­i­cally Inte­grated with Mas­ter Laser
U.S. Patent 8,009,712, issued August 30, 2011

Jean-Michel Tournier, Ph.D.
Dept. of Chem­i­cal & Nuclear Engi­neer­ing and Insti­tute for Space and Nuclear Power Stud­ies
Meth­ods and Appa­ra­tuses for Removal and Trans­port of Ther­mal Energy
U.S. Patent 8,073,096, issued Decem­ber 6, 2011

Charles R. Tru­man, Ph.D.
Dept. of Mechan­i­cal Engi­neer­ing
Dry Pow­der Inhaler with Aero­elas­tic Dis­per­sion Mech­a­nism
U.S. Patent 8,127,763, issued March 6, 2012

Wei Wang, Ph.D.
Dept. of Chem­istry & Chem­i­cal Biol­ogy
Organocat­a­lysts and Meth­ods of Use in Chem­i­cal Syn­the­sis
U.S. 7,968,734, issued June 28, 2011

Organocat­a­lysts and Meth­ods of Use in Chem­i­cal Syn­the­sis
U.S. Patent 8,084,641, issued Decem­ber 27, 2011

Nathan J. With­ers, M.S.
Dept. of Elec­tri­cal & Com­puter Engi­neer­ing and Cen­ter for High Tech­nol­ogy Mate­ri­als
Light-Emitting Device Hav­ing Injection-Lockable Semi­con­duc­tor Ring Laser Mono­lith­i­cally Inte­grated with Mas­ter Laser
U.S. Patent 8,009,712, issued August 30, 2011

Peter C. Zim­mer, Ph.D.
Dept. of Physics & Astron­omy
Struc­ture Func­tion Mon­i­tor
U.S. Patent 8,103,045, issued Jan­u­ary 24, 2012

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

Posted in Research, University News | |

Hersee to Receive the 2012 STC.UNM Innovation Fellow Award

April 17, 2012 | By Karen Wentworth
Stephen D. Hersee
Stephen D. Hersee

Stephen D. Hersee

Stephen D. Hersee has been cho­sen as the 2012 STC.UNM Inno­va­tion Fel­low in recog­ni­tion of his achieve­ments as one of the Uni­ver­sity of New Mexico’s lead­ing innovators.

This spe­cial award is pre­sented each year by the STC.UNM Board of Direc­tors to a UNM fac­ulty inven­tor whose body of tech­nolo­gies has made a sig­nif­i­cant social and eco­nomic impact on soci­ety and the marketplace.

The award will be pre­sented to Hersee at STC’s 2012 Cre­ative Awards Cer­e­mony on Wednes­day, April 25. The Cre­ative Awards Cer­e­mony is STC’s  annual awards event for UNM fac­ulty, staff and stu­dents who have received issued patents and dis­closed copy­rights within the past year.

In addi­tion to the Inno­va­tion Fel­low Award, Hersee will also receive a cre­ative award for two issued patents.

Hersee is a pro­fes­sor in the UNM Depart­ment of Elec­tri­cal & Com­puter Engi­neer­ing and the Cen­ter for High Tech­nol­ogy Mate­ri­als.  He is also a Fel­low of the Insti­tute of Elec­tri­cal and Elec­tron­ics Engi­neers (IEEE), whose mis­sion is to advance tech­no­log­i­cal inno­va­tion and excel­lence for the ben­e­fit of humanity.

Hersee grad­u­ated from the Uni­ver­sity of Brighton in the United King­dom, then spent 6 years with Plessey Research, also in the United King­dom. From 1980 to 1986, he worked at the Cen­tral Research Lab­o­ra­to­ries of Thom­son CSF in France, where he estab­lished sev­eral world records for quantum-well laser performance.

In 1986, he joined Gen­eral Electric’s Elec­tron­ics Lab­o­ra­tory in New York State. He has been a fac­ulty mem­ber in the UNM Depart­ment of Elec­tri­cal & Com­puter Engi­neer­ing since 1991.

Dur­ing his inter­na­tional career in indus­try and acad­e­mia, Hersee has worked on advanced III-V mate­ri­als and many types of elec­tronic and opto­elec­tronic devices. His cur­rent research focuses on the epi­tax­ial growth of semi­con­duc­tor nanos­truc­tures for defect reduc­tion and on the devel­op­ment of advanced core-shell light emit­ters and tran­sis­tors based on gal­lium nitride.

His tech­nolo­gies have been licensed to sev­eral com­pa­nies includ­ing NEC/Renesas, Toshiba, Sam­sung, Hynix and TSMC.

Hersee’s scal­able gal­lium nitride nanowire tech­nol­ogy led to the for­ma­tion of STC start-up Nanocrys­tal Cor­po­ra­tion, a New Mexico-based com­pany devel­op­ing defect-free, gallium-nitride nanowire semi­con­duc­tors for more reli­able, more pow­er­ful, and lower cost LED devices for the solid-state white light­ing and auto­mo­tive mar­kets and for the LCD back­light­ing of lap­tops, PDAs, cell phones and TVs.

Nanocrys­tal shares exclu­siv­ity of this intel­lec­tual prop­erty with another start-up com­pany called glō AB, located in Sun­ny­vale, Cal­i­for­nia. They are devel­op­ing and com­mer­cial­iz­ing new, highly energy-efficient and very low-cost LED nanowire tech­nolo­gies as well.

Hersee has pub­lished and pre­sented over 170 papers. His research has been high­lighted in “Nature Nan­otech­nol­ogy” and cited by the National Research Coun­cil of the National Acad­e­mies in the 2008 report on nanophotonics.

His research has been funded by NSF, DARPA, AFOSR, ARO, DOE and by industry. He was the Uni­ver­sity of New Mexico’s 2001–2002 Teacher of the Year and has grad­u­ated 11 Ph.D. and four M.S. stu­dents. Hersee has 12 issued U.S. patents.

On behalf of the STC.UNM Board of Direc­tors, STC Pres­i­dent & CEO Lisa Kuut­tila said she is pleased that Hersee was selected for the 2012 STC.UNM Inno­va­tion Fel­low Award.

“It is a priv­i­lege to work with an inno­va­tor, a pro­lific inven­tor, who is so col­lab­o­ra­tive with fel­low sci­en­tists and busi­ness com­mu­nity indi­vid­u­als as well,” she said. “His work has many com­mer­cial appli­ca­tions, which cross a num­ber of dis­ci­plines and prod­uct areas.”

Story by Denise Bissell

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

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

Worden to Discuss Laughing Horse Magazine and Modernism in New Mexico

April 17, 2012 | By Karen Wentworth
Daniel Worden

Daniel Wor­den

Vis­it­ing Assis­tant Pro­fes­sor in the Depart­ment of Eng­lish Daniel Wor­den will dis­cuss “Laugh­ing Horse mag­a­zine and Mod­ernism in New Mex­ico at a free lec­ture on Wednes­day, April 25 at 2 p.m. in the Waters Room (105) in Zim­mer­man Library on the Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico campus.

New Mex­ico was cen­tral to the devel­op­ment of Amer­i­can mod­ernism in the 1920s and 1930s, and mag­a­zine doc­u­mented the dis­tinc­tive form that mod­ernism took in the state. Cru­cial to the arts and lit­er­ary com­mu­ni­ties in Santa Fe and Taos, Laugh­ing Horse pro­vided a pub­li­ca­tion venue for estab­lished writ­ers such as Mary Austin and D.H. Lawrence as well as younger writ­ers like Lynn Riggs and Frank Waters.

The mag­a­zine also fea­tured iconic visual images that rein­forced the magazine’s region­al­ist, yet also mod­ernist, aesthetic. In this lec­ture, Wor­den will dis­cuss “Laugh­ing Horse’s” unique blend of region­al­ism and mod­ernism as well as the magazine’s nego­ti­a­tion of elite aes­thet­ics and the tourist indus­try.  Wor­den is also the author of Mas­cu­line Style: The Amer­i­can West and Lit­er­ary Mod­ernism.

The lec­ture is co-hosted by The His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety of New Mex­ico, The Office of the State His­to­rian and the Cen­ter for South­west Research and Spe­cial Col­lec­tions as part of the 2012 His­tory Schol­ars Lec­ture Series.

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

UNM Student Engineering Team Excels at Environmental Design Contest

April 16, 2012 | By Karen Wentworth
UNM Environmental Design Team Craig Garcia, Andrew Gomez, Peter Crowder, Zachariah Harris and Stephen Clark
UNM Environmental Design Team Craig Garcia, Zachariah Harris, Andrew Gomez, Stephen Clark and Peter Crowder

UNM Envi­ron­men­tal Design Team (l ot r) Craig Gar­cia, Zachariah Har­ris, Andrew Gomez, Stephen Clark and Peter Crowder

A team of stu­dents from the Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico won first place last Wednes­day at the 22nd Inter­na­tional Envi­ron­men­tal Design Con­test. Chem­i­cal engi­neer­ing majors Stephen Clark, Peter Crow­der, Andrew Gomez, Zachariah Har­ris, and Craig Gar­cia received $2500, acclaim, and pro­fes­sional feed­back for their design solution.

The team was advised by Dr. Eric Carnes, assis­tant research pro­fes­sor; Geoff Courtin, research engi­neer and super­vi­sor of the Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing Under­grad­u­ate Lab­o­ra­tory; Civil Engi­neer­ing Pro­fes­sor Kerry Howe; and Civil Engi­neer­ing post-doctoral stu­dent Dr. Janet Leavitt.

The event took place at the Las Cruces Farm & Ranch Her­itage Museum, where the UNM team excelled among the 20 stu­dent teams rep­re­sent­ing 15 uni­ver­si­ties from across the coun­try. Hosted by New Mex­ico State University’s Insti­tute for Energy and the Envi­ron­ment (IEE), the con­test awarded $20,000 to win­ning teams for solv­ing tech­ni­cal envi­ron­men­tal prob­lems. Hav­ing spent sev­eral months to a year on their projects, the stu­dent teams pre­sented oral, writ­ten, poster and bench-scale demon­stra­tions of their inno­v­a­tive solu­tions to real-world prob­lems at the annual competition.

“The Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico did an out­stand­ing job dur­ing the com­pe­ti­tion,” said Dr. Abbas Ghas­semi, Direc­tor of IEE. “The team had the high­est over­all total score and high­est indi­vid­ual scores in each of the four cat­e­gories.” The UNM team received first place in the Task 5 cat­e­gory for design­ing an improved method for pre­treat­ing water on sea-going ships. The team devel­oped a real­is­tic solu­tion that could be applied to both sea­wa­ter and inland appli­ca­tion, reduc­ing the envi­ron­men­tal impact pro­duced by the cur­rent pre­treat­ment process.

“The team’s sys­tem uses an ultra-filtration mem­brane to remove par­tic­u­lates from sea­wa­ter,” explained Courtin. “It is designed to be an envi­ron­men­tally benign pre­treat­ment for the reverse osmo­sis mem­brane process used to cre­ate potable water.  With­out pre­treat­ment, reverse osmo­sis mem­branes become quickly fouled, which makes them less effec­tive and dras­ti­cally dri­ves up the cost of pro­duc­ing drink­ing water.”

The team’s device uti­lizes hol­low fiber mem­branes to reduce foul­ing (dirty­ing of the mem­brane). The sea water enters one end of the cylin­der which con­tains the mem­brane and runs tan­gen­tial to the pores of the mem­brane. This car­ries away par­tic­u­lates before they can accu­mu­late. That’s the back­bone of the design, explained Gar­cia. The pres­sure in the sys­tem forces water through the pores to a tube in the cen­ter of the cylin­der. When the water exits on the oppo­site side of the cylin­der, it is particulate-free and ready for fur­ther processing.

The full scale—the size the device would be in real life—was orig­i­nally designed for use on a spe­cific size of ship, but once the team met this qual­i­fi­ca­tion they mod­i­fied their design so it could be used on land as well. It was designed to be eas­ily scaled up or down to meet these vary­ing appli­ca­tions, and is transportable.

WERC’s Envi­ron­men­tal Design Con­test is a unique event that brings together indus­try, gov­ern­ment and acad­e­mia in the search for improved envi­ron­men­tal solu­tions. Held annu­ally since 1991 at New Mex­ico State Uni­ver­sity in Las Cruces, New Mex­ico, the con­test draws hun­dreds of col­lege stu­dents from through­out the United States and around the world.

A full list of win­ners and events at the con­test is avail­able at http://ieenmsu.org.This year’s event was spon­sored by the State of New Mex­ico, Freeport-McMoRan Cop­per & Gold, Intel Cor­po­ra­tion, the Office of Naval Research, and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.

Story by Mat­tie Hens­ley, NMSU

Posted in Research, Student Life, University News | |