Overview

Program Highlights

New Mexico EPSCoR (NM EPSCoR) continues to affect the lives of New Mexicans in four areas essential to the future of our State:

University-Wide Information Technology Infrastructure

NM EPSCoR assisted New Mexico universities in meeting their ever-increasing needs for access to adequate bandwidth for research and computation. The NM-sponsored CHECS-Net became an Internet2 Abilene Sponsored Education Group and began routing traffic in September 2002. NM EPSCoR subsidizes the connector fees to the Abilene Research Network for New Mexico State University, New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, and the University of New Mexico. This high-speed, high-quality network supports the ever-increasing Internet traffic at New Mexico's 4-year institutions and helps to alleviate the bottlenecks in statewide access to the Internet.

Natural Resource Management and Intra-Campus Connectivity

Natural resource research in New Mexico suffers from not only a lack of adequate funds for curating and cataloguing its university, museum, and research collections, but also a lack of connectivity between those university collections and other State and Federal natural resource databases. NM EPSCoR moneys support the development of a statewide database-linking project involving all university and museum collections. The system will allow collection connectivity, contributing to a more complete understanding of the country's biocomplexity. The system will eventually allow distributed use of geographic information system (GIS) data, linking the NM EPSCoR-funded GIS project at New Mexico State with other research facilities.

Nanotechnology

NM EPSCoR funding has also allowed the unique New Mexico Tech summer Master of Science Teaching (MST) Program to expand its content to include nanotechnology. The MST Program is a content-rigorous M.S. degree program for K-12 teachers. The new nanotechnology specialty area provides teachers with a multidisciplinary approach to the design, invention, and development of metals, ceramics, polymers, and composites for nanotechnology applications. MST-trained educators will be equipped not only to introduce nanoscience and nanotechnology into their K-12 curriculum, but also to stimulate student interest and encourage the next generation of materials scientists.

New Mexico State Science Plan

This year, NM EPSCoR began the data collection process that will eventually lead to the design and implementation of the New Mexico State Science Plan. The State Science Plan will integrate education into the process of statewide economic development by enabling education to focus its efforts in areas that would most benefit the future of the State and its citizens.