NEWS

July 14, 2022

Director Balakrishnan Presents to NM Legislature

Gunny presenting to NM legislature

Gunny presenting to NM legislature

NM EPSCoR

By Brittney Van Der Werff

What happened?

Earlier this month, NM EPSCoR Director Gunny Balakrishnan presented to the New Mexico State Legislature Science, Technology & Telecommunications Committee at an interim committee meeting held on July 7th and 8th. Committee members were visibly impressed as Director Balakrishnan rattled off the laundry list of positive impacts NM EPSCoR has had on building New Mexico's research capacity since 2000 when the program was established. After the presentation, Committee Vice Chair Debra M. SariƱana, told Director Balakrishnan, "Senator Soules told us about how wonderful this organization is...so to hear exactly what you are doing is great!"

Politicians at the national level are also taking note, as evidenced in the welcoming remarks commending NM EPSCoR by U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich and Representative Melanie Stansbury at SFCC's final distributed energy summit on June 24th.

Anyone can watch an instant replay of the session by visiting this link:
https://sg001-harmony.sliq.net/00293/Harmony/en/PowerBrowser/PowerBrowserV2/20220713/-1/68974.
Director Balakrishnan starts speaking at 11:10 am in the recording.

Why is this important?

When NM EPSCoR submits large $20M funding proposals to NSF, state support is a requirement. In fact, any proposal that does not align with the state's  science and technology objectives (here is a link to New Mexico's: https://eddstateplan.com/) is immediately disqualified from consideration.