New Mexico Research Symposium
The New Mexico Research Symposium (NMRS), 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.
NMRS 2022 is an in-person event occurring on November 5th at the UNM student union building. More info below.
Event Information
11/5/2022
Time:8:00 AM to 3:30 PM
Location:University of New Mexico Student Union Building
Parking:UNM A Lot, between Central and Redondo Parking structure and east of the bookstore, is free in non-metered or signed spaces. The Cornell parking structure is paid parking. Get directions with Google Maps from the Cornel parking structure to the UNM SUB.
Dates and Deadlines:
- Notice of acceptance October 21, 2022
- Registration is now CLOSED
Contact:
Sara Pichette, sarapichette@epscor.unm.edu
Selena Connealy, connealy@epscor.unm.edu
- Submission Guidelines
- Hey presenters! Watch the webinar: Public Speaking Hacks for Research Poster Presentations.
- Limited travel funds for hotel accommodation and/or mileage may be available to symposium participants traveling more than 50 miles to attend.
- Chemistry students and faculty, contact ACS Central New Mexico Local Section Chair Alex Edgar
- The Rio Grande Research Slam is part of the 2022 New Mexico Research Symposium. To register for the Rio Grande Research SLAM session, please register for the 2022 New Mexico Research Symposium below.
Agenda
More information coming soon.
Session A: Chemistry
Room: Scholars
Moderator: Alexander Edgar, Central New Mexico Chapter Chair, American Chemical Society
- Time: 9:00 - 9:30 am
Colorimetric and Fluorometric Sensing of Various Carboxyl Anions with Dinuclear Ni(II) and Cu(II) Complexes of Polyamine Macrocycles Following Indicator Displacement Assay
Md Mhahabubur Rhaman, Associate Professor of Chemistry, Eastern New Mexico University - Time: 9:30 - 10:00 am
Making it Click: Synthetic Tools for Multi-Stage Diversification
Brian Gold, Assistant Professor of Chemistry, University of New Mexico - Session A Abstracts
Session B: NASA EPSCoR
Room: Sandia
Moderator: Paulo Oemig, Director, NM Space Grant Consortium & NASA EPSCoR
- Time: 9:00 - 9:15 am
Efficient Microgravity Heat and Mass Transfer with no Moving Parts
Joel Gates, Undergraduate Student, University of New Mexico - Time: 9:15 - 9:30 am
Pill Bug-Inspired Robot for Lunar Exploration
Chase Dunaway, Undergraduate Student, New Mexico Tech - Time: 9:30 - 9:45 am
Effect of Processing Route on Properties of NbMoTaWVTix Refractory High Entropy Alloys
Surya Bijjala, Graduate Student, University of New Mexico - Time: 9:45 - 10:00 am
Predictive Analysis of Genetic Radiation Resistance Mechanisms
Katheryn Perea-Schmittle, Graduate Student, New Mexico Tech - Session B Abstracts
Session C: Water Application
Room: Mirage/Thunderbird
Moderator: Babu Chalamala, President-Elect, New Mexico Academy of Science
- Time: 9:00 - 9:15 am
Comparing the Growth of Xeric Trees in Soil vs. Aquaponics
Conner Wood, Undergraduate Student, Santa Fe Community College - Time: 9:15 - 9:30 am
Examining Spatial Heterogeneity and Tourism Potential of Water Resources in New Mexico
Jason Banegas, Graduate Student, New Mexico State University - Time: 9:30 - 9:45 am
Dual Turn-On/Turn-Off Sensing of Acetylacetone and Turn-On Sensing of Water in Organic Solvents
Alisha Gogia, Postdoc, New Mexico Highlands University - Session C Abstracts
Session D: Energy, Biology, and IoT Systems
Room: Lumanaria
Moderator: Anton Sumali, President, New Mexico Academy of Science
- Time: 9:00 - 9:15 am
Use of Waste Bioproducts as a CO2 Sink in Sustainable Structural Composites
Marcos Hernandez, Graduate Student, New Mexico State University - Time: 9:15 - 9:30 am
Analysis of Asynchronous Communications on Microgrid State Estimation
Mohammad Afrazi, Graduate Student, New Mexico Tech - Time: 9:30 - 9:45 am
Learning to Run a Power Grid with High Penetration of Renewables
Di Shi, Associate Professor, New Mexico State University - Time: 9:45 - 10:00 am
IoT Enabled Healthcare Monitoring System
Md Apu Sayeed, Associate Professor, Eastern New Mexico University - Session D Abstracts
Room: Ballroom C
Speaker: David Bustos
Resources Program Manager at White Sands National Park, New Mexico
Life before the Ice Melted: Racing to preserve fossil footprints and traces of people from 23,000 years ago
Abstract & Speaker Bio
Abstract:
It is commonly believed the oldest known humans in North America lived around 12,000 years ago from a site in Clovis, New Mexico. But in 2017, the National Park Service and a team of researchers found fossil prints of megafauna that were contemporaneous with human prints. Since 2014 thousands of human and megafauna fossil prints of Mammoth, Giant Ground Sloth, Saber tooth cat and many other megafauna have been found across 80,000 acres within the park. In 2020, 61 human footprints were discovered that dated over ten millennia older than Clovis people [Bennet et al.,Science, 373 (6562),Nature News, 2021]. The footprints are preserved in layers of gypsum soil in the White Sands National Park, NM, beneath some newer fossils of megafauna like mammoth. This finding fundamentally changes the timeline on North American human habitation – turning back the clock of human arrival in the Americas many thousands of years.
Archaeologists and researchers in allied fields have long sought to understand human colonization of North America. Questions remain about when and how people migrated, where they originated, and how their arrival affected the established fauna and landscape. In this keynote lecture, Resource Program Manager David Bustos will present evidence from the stories seen in the prints and excavated surfaces in White Sands National Park, where multiple in situ human and megafauna footprints are stratigraphically constrained together and bracketed by 11 seed layers that yield calibrated radiocarbon ages between ~23 and 21 thousand years ago. These findings confirm the presence of humans in North America during the Last Glacial Maximum, adding evidence to the antiquity of human colonization of the Americas and providing a temporal range extension for the coexistence of early inhabitants and Pleistocene megafauna.
The oldest known humans in North America lived around 12,000 yeast ago in Clovis, New Mexico. But in 2017, National Park Service Archaeologist David Bustos discovered 61 human footprints that dated over ten millennia older than Clovis humans [Bennet et al., Science, 373 (6562), Nature News, 2021]. The footprints are preserved in layers of gypsum soil in the White Sands National Park, NM, beneath some newer fossils of megafauna like mammoth. This finding fundamentally changes the timeline on North American human habitation – turning back the clock of human arrival in the Americas many thousands of years.
The creation and preservation of these new discoveries were made possible by an abrupt climatic event [Pigati et al., 2022, 72nd Annual Rocky Mountain Section Meeting]. During the late Pleistocene, full glacial conditions were interrupted repeatedly by abrupt warming events called Dansgaard-Oeschger, or D-O events. In the southwestern U.S., D-O events caused centuries-long megadroughts, which devastated spring ecosystems, lowered lake levels, affected sea-surface temperatures and ocean circulation patterns, and even triggered seismic activity. In the Tularosa Basin (where White Sands is), lake levels dropped dramatically during D-O 2 at ~23,500 years ago, exposing an expansive lake margin. Humans and megafauna then walked across the patchwork of wet and dry ground, leaving behind footprints and trackways that were preserved in multiple sediment layers over the course of time.
Speaker Bio:
David Bustos is a wildlife biologist and resource program manager at White Sands National Park. He is a graduate of New Mexico State University. He is responsible for the management of the park’s cultural and natural resources and has investigated ancient human and megafauna for nearly two decades.
Room: Ballroom C
Read more about the Rio Grande Research SLAM
Room: Ballroom C
2022 AWARD FOR OUTSTANDING SCIENCE TEACHING

NMAS Outstanding NM Science Teachers
Presented by the New Mexico Academy of Science and the American Chemical Society
Award Recipient:
Hope Cahill, PhD
6th Grade Science Teacher
El Dorado Community School, Santa Fe
Award Recipient:
Colleen Fordyce, PhD
Biology, AP Biology, Chemistry, Physics Teacher
La Cueva High School, Albuquerque
NM EPSCoR Poster Awards
Graduate Winners:
1st place
Zhirui Luo, NMT
“A Deep Attention Network for Non-intrusive Building Occupancy Detection Using Smart Meters”
2nd Place
Pedro Castillo Gomez, NMSU
“Wall-Modeled Large Eddy Simulations of Turbulent Boundary Layer over a Flat-Plate for Aero-Optical Distortion Analysis”
3rd Place
Chimezie Onukwuli, ENMU
“Synthesis of Carbonyl-Functionalized p-Phenylenes for Probing Electron Delocalization”
Undergraduate Winners:
1st Place
Adrian Maez, NMT
“Model and Power Flow Analysis of a Distribution Feeder using Data Recorded from Buildings, Facilities and a Photovoltaic System”
2nd Place
Stephen Villanueva, ENMU
“Analyzing the Golden Age of Science Fiction: A Topic Modeling Approach”
3rd Place
Matthew Kube, ENMU
“A Machine Learning Approach for Optimizing Antenna Design”