Category: Uranium

  Often there are simply too many accomplishments to fit into our tiny kudos section. This month, we've compiled a list of kudos-worthy accomplishments by NM EPSCoR faculty that we missed the first go round. Have something we missed in our previous newsletters and below? Reach out to Brittney (bvdw@epscor.unm.edu) to have it included in the next newsletter kudos section.

What is the goal?  To provide opportunities for non-tenured AND tenured investigators to develop their individual research potential through extended collaborative visits to the Nation’s premier private, governmental, or academic research centers. Only investigators from research universities and primarily undergraduate institutions in EPSCoR states (including NM) are eligible to apply.   What’s new in 2023? Changes impacting both Tracks:

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. 

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.

New Mexico depends heavily on revenue generated by oil and gas extraction throughout the state, but significant environmental concerns remain about extraction and production, especially with regards to water use. Oil and gas production generates billions of gallons of what is referred to as "produced water", much of it with very high concentrations of dissolved solids, and much of it originates as fresh groundwater, a precious commodity in the desert southwest.

Energize New Mexico PhD student Sumant Avasarala recently had his research for the Uranium Transport & Site Remediation team published in Environmental Science and Technology, an academic journal from the American Chemical Society. Sumant is working for his PhD under Dr. José Cerrato and Dr. Ricardo Gonzáles-Pinzón. The article, "Reactive Transport of U and V from Abandoned Uranium Mine Wastes," focuses on research pertaining to how uranium (U) and vanadium (V) interacts with the environment around the abandoned Blue Gap/Tachee Claim uranium mine on the Navajo Nation.

Two Uranium Transport & Site Remediation Team members—Bonnie Frey and Ginger McLemore—recently received prestigious awards for their hard work and achievements.

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 University of New Mexico student Asifur Rahman about his time as an extern at the USGS New Mexico Water Science Center.

Dr. José Cerrato (pictured above, center-right, receiving his Faculty of Color Award), co-lead of the Uranium Transport and Site Remediation team and Assistant Professor at the University of New Mexico, has received numerous awards in the last year in recognition of his outstanding research and commitment to science.

We are continuing our February Spotlight on the STEM Advancement Program, this time through one of our students’ perspective. To date, 25 New Mexico students have been part of STEMAP – 11 students in 2014 and 14 students in 2015. Brianne Willis is a student at Eastern New Mexico University and one of the 25 STEMAP students. Brianne spent her STEMAP Summer doing research on “Assessing Uranium Contamination on the Navajo and Laguna Reservations.”