On Thursday, April 27th at our All Hands Meeting, we recognized two faculty members with the inaugural NM EPSCoR Mentoring Award. The NM EPSCoR Mentoring Award is designed to recognize two NM EPSCoR participants who not only build relationships with students and support their academic, research, and career endeavors, but also work to create inclusive environments for our diverse students. I was honored to be the emcee for the Ceremony. The Award and Ceremony would not have been possible if it weren’t for three groups of people.

Explora, with support from the NM EPSCoR-funded New Mexico Informal Science Education Network (NM ISE Net), hosts a free Teen Science Café (TSC) about once a month to encourage teen interest in and engagement with STEM. Local scientists or engineers are invited to present their research in a teen-friendly way – through hands-on activities and in-depth discussions. The TSC events are attended by a variety of teens including the Explora Youth Interns.

Fall 2015, what a season it's been! NM EPSCoR made its mark at several national events thanks to STEM Advancement Program students and two collaboration efforts. You may have seen our students, our partners, or me at:

Thank you to everyone who attended the New Mexico Academy of Science Research Symposium on November 14th. It was a symposium for the record books: 58 posters, 30 presentations, and over 150 attendees. Dr. Vipin Gupta of Sandia National Laboratories kicked off our day with his keynote about the Power on Demand Research Challenge, and encouraged us to think differently about power consumption at all scales. After the luncheon and keynote came the first group of concurrent sessions, followed by the poster session and our final group of concurrent sessions.