Programs

Workforce Development and Community Engagement

The NM SMART Grid Center invests in programs that support workforce development and community engagement to help prepare a new cadre of diverse and competitive researchers, innovators, and educators.

WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS

Three-day residential program to enhance the professional and leadership skills of postdocs and early career faculty in STEM disciplines. Topics addressed in the Early Career Leadership Workshop include: meeting facilitation and leadership, proposal writing, incorporating broader impacts into research, communicating science to the media, effective teaching in higher education, data management, and mentoring students. Participants must be post docs or junior faculty who have received their PhD within 5 years of the workshop.

Early Career Leadership Workshops will be available in Year 2 (2019-2020) and Year 4 (2021-2022).

Read more about the Early Career Leadership Workshop program

Contact:
Selena Connealy
Associate Director, NM EPSCoR
connealy@epscor.unm.edu

TSLT is a program for faculty to develop skills for managing collaborative, interdisciplinary, and complex projects. Key elements include: building and leading diverse and productive teams, communication, and strategic planning.

TSLT will be offered in Year 2 (2019-2020) and Year 4 (2021-2022).

Read more about the Team Science Leadership Training program

Contact:
Selena Connealy
Associate Director, NM EPSCoR
connealy@epscor.unm.edu

Graduate Externships provide resources for graduate students (with existing assistantships) to spend a semester or summer doing research at a partnering university, national laboratory, or industry facility. Activities may include taking courses at the host institution, conducting research in a host laboratory, and interacting in the host institution’s academic setting.

Graduate Externships will be available in Year 2 (2019-2020) through Year 5 (2022-2023).

View the call for applications!

Contact:
Selena Connealy
Associate Director, NM EPSCoR
connealy@epscor.unm.edu

This program provides New Mexico’s research community with fundamental data management skills and best practices in software development that can be applied to their own research. A cadre of instructors will deliver Data Carpentry and Software Carpentry workshops across New Mexico. Data Carpentry workshop participants learn foundational data skills such as data organization in spreadsheets, data cleaning (i.e., QA/QC), data management with SQL, and data analysis in R or Python. Software Carpentry participants learn software development best practices and enabling tools such as the Unix shell, version control, GitHub, and programming in Python, R, or MATLAB.

The NMCIT program will be offered Year 1 through Year 5 (2018-2022).

Contact:
Jon Wheeler
Assistant Professor and Data Curation Librarian, UNM College of University Libraries and Learning Sciences
jwheel01@unm.edu

Dustin Allen
Systems & Network Analyst
dallen1@epscor.unm.edu

SMTC is a comprehensive center for training the next generation of smart- and micro-grid professionals. SMTC activities include the development of curriculum and courses, the launch of new degree and certificate programs, and dissemination of best practices to other two- and four-year academic institutions in New Mexico and beyond.

2022 Distributed Energy Workforce Summit

2021 Distributed Energy Workforce Summit

2020 Distributed Energy Workforce Summit

Website:
SFCC Distributed Energy and Smart Grid Systems

Contact:
Ondine Frauenglass
Interim Dean, School of Trades, Advanced Technologies and Sustainability, Santa Fe Community College
ondine.frauenglass@sfcc.edu

Selena Connealy
Associate Director, NM EPSCoR
connealy@epscor.unm.edu

STEMAP engages students from New Mexico’s regional universities, community colleges, and tribal colleges in NM SMART Grid Center research. STEMAP 8-week internships take place over the summer, and students have the opportunity to participate in research and training activities in the academic year immediately following their internships.

Learn more about STEMAP

Contact:
Laura Boucheron Associate Professor, College of Engineering, NMSU
lboucher@nmsu.edu

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT PROGRAMS 

Small awards (<$7,500) to support working groups in SMART grid research innovation and training/learning activities. C-IWG awards generally support groups of 8 to 12 individuals working together for two to three days to integrate disciplines, institutions, models, testbeds, and/or approaches to modernizing the electricity grid.

Call for Proposals now open!
Read the full solicitation here

View the informational Webinar here  

Contact:
Selena Connealy
Associate Director, NM EPSCoR
connealy@epscor.unm.edu

The Research Symposium, collaboratively hosted with the New Mexico Academy of Science (NMAS), is an annual conference with oral presentations, a poster competition, and a keynote address. The conference is geared to undergraduate and graduate students from New Mexico’s colleges and universities. Presentation and poster abstracts are published in the New Mexico Journal of Science. View the Journal of Science on the NMAS Website.

Current conference information and registration

View previous conference websites: 

2018 Symposium

2017 Symposium

Contact:
Brittney Van Der Werff
Communication and Outreach Specialist, NM EPSCoR
bvdw@epscor.unm.edu

NM EPSCoR partners with Explora, a local science museum, to engage the public in NM SMART Grid research topics. This program builds support for, and awareness of, smart grid solutions and related education and career pathways by engaging youth and the general public in hands-on programs at informal science education venues. Additionally, Explora will train a cadre of scientists as Science Communication Fellows to develop hands-on activities and materials for use in public demonstrations, presentations, school outreach programs, science cafes, and science festivals.

Brittney Van Der Werff
Communication and Outreach Specialist, NM EPSCoR
bvdw@epscor.unm.edu