Who to Contact
Graduate Adviser
Department of (specify)
University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, New Mexico 87131

505-277-5521

E-mail: gradstud@unm.edu

Graduate Programs and Department Chairs
Chemical and Nuclear Engineering. Professor Julia Fulghum, Chair. Advanced study leads to the M.S. in chemical or nuclear engineering and the Ph.D. in engineering. The department provides education and research in diverse fields of advanced technologies. Faculty and students participate in a number of special programs at the Institute for Space Nuclear Power Studies, and the Center for Micro-Engineered Materials. Research facilities are located in the Farris Engineering Center and the Nuclear Engineering, the Space Technology, the Thermal-Hydraulics, and the Advanced Materials laboratories. State-of-the-art equipment is available in the research laboratories. Current research topics include biotechnology, biomedical sensors, radioactive waste management, health physics, space nuclear power and propulsion systems engineering and design, heat pipes technology, nuclear reactor safety and two-phase flow, reactor thermal-hydraulics, accelerator physics and engineering, interaction of radiation with matter, radiation measurement diagnostics, in situ fractional solidification, application of new techniques in powder and porous materials characterization, microstructure of ceramics, catalysis by metals on model supports, chemical and plasma processing of semiconductors, colloid transport, vapor-phase synthesis of materials, catalytic-waste degradation, inorganic membranes, biomedical sensors and instrumentation, and the use of self-assembled monolayers to study interfacial phenomena. Close collaboration with researchers at Sandia National, the Los Alamos National, and the Air Force Research laboratories provides access to an extremely large local scientific and engineering community. Graduates are intensively recruited by employers, with local and national opportunities that range from operation of high-technology facilities to research and development on the cutting edge. Continued professional opportunities for graduates are ensured due to close ties between the department's research programs and technologies of the future.

Civil Engineering. Professor Timothy J. Ward, Chair. Advanced study leads to Ph.D. and M.S. degrees with specialization in construction engineering, environmental engineering, geotechnical engineering, structural engineering and structural mechanics, transportation engineering, and water resources engineering. Research facilities include a 2-kip electromagnetic shaker table in the Structural Dynamics Laboratory; a 320-KV X-ray system and a 110-kip INSTRON biaxial testing machine in the Meso-Mechanics Laboratory; a fast scanning electron microscope, a pulsed ruby laser, and a high-speed streak camera for dynamic interferometry in the Micro-Mechanics Laboratory; a high-vacuum vapor deposition unit and E-3 environmental scanning electron microscope in the Environmental SEM Laboratory; a 100-ton servohydraulic testing machine and 220-kip INSTRON axial and torsional loading system in the Materials Response Laboratory; a dynamic triaxial testing system in the Geotechnical Laboratory; complete water quality analytic instrumentation in the Environmental Laboratory; a 50-foot tilting table in the Hydraulics Laboratory; and a computer laboratory that supports undergraduate and graduate computational needs in mechanics, CAD, and geographic information systems. There is research collaboration with the Sandia and Los Alamos national laboratories; the Air Force Research Laboratory; the Army Corps of Engineers; the Alliance for Transportation Research Institute; WERC, a consortium for environmental education and technology development; NASA; and state agencies and private enterprises. Research topics include finite-element analysis, micromechanics, mesomechanics, geomechanics, reinforced earth, radioactive and hazardous waste management, highway safety and design, shock analysis and testing, pavement testing, expert systems, construction project management, water and wastewater treatment, open-channel hydraulics, erosion and sediment transport, random vibrations, structural reliability, system identification, and arid regions hydrology.

Computer Science. Professor Deepak Kapur, Chair. The department offers M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in computer science. Active research programs include the areas of algorithmics, artificial intelligence, automated reasoning, biologically inspired computation, computational biology, data mining, graphics and visualization, programming languages, systems, and theory. The department is funded by several NSF grants, including CAREER, QUBIC, and small, medium, and large ITR; NIH grants in collaboration with the School of Medicine and other institutions; DARPA grants; and by contracts with Sandia and Los Alamos Laboratories. The department enjoys strong research collaborations with the Santa Fe Institute and Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratories. In addition, the department engages in strong interdisciplinary research activities with the School of Medicine and the Departments of Biology, Computer Engineering, Linguistics, Neuroscience, Physics, and Psychology. The department is also associated with the UNM Center for High Performance Computing and the Arts Technology Center in the College of Fine Arts.

Electrical and Computer Engineering. Professor Christos Christodoulou, Chair. The department offers advanced study leading to M.S. and Ph.D. degrees. Research facilities are located in the EECE building and the Center for High Technology Materials (CHTM) Building. CHTM is located in the Research Park. Faculty members and students participate in research in computer engineering, manufacturing engineering (interdisciplinary M.S. program), microelectronics, optoelectronics, plasma science, RF and microwaves, antennas, systems and controls (part of which research is done through the Center for Autonomous Control Engineering), signal processing and communications, high-performance computing, real-time systems, parallel algorithms, and image processing and visualization. State-of-the-art equipment is available in the research laboratories, including equipment for lasers and electrooptics, microprocessors, robotics, solid-state fabrication, a class-100 clean room, RF generation and characterization, pulsed power and plasma science, and high-performance and parallel computing. In addition, there is a clean room for instruction in microelectronics fabrication. The department maintains a large collection of high-end PC and UNIX workstations, multimedia output devices, and industry-standard engineering software for student use. There is close collaboration with researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories, and the Air Force Research Laboratory. Opportunities for graduates continue to grow as the demand for trained professionals in high-technology fields increases.

Mechanical Engineering. Professor Juan Heinrich, Chair. The department offers the M.S. in mechanical engineering and the Ph.D. in engineering. Programs of study and research are offered in the areas of thermal science, fluid mechanics, solid mechanics, materials science, dynamic systems and control, robotics, manufacturing, and computational mechanics,. Recent and ongoing research topics include thermal science-energy conversion and utilization, radiative heat transfer, second-law analysis of thermal systems and metal hydride energy systems; fluid mechanics- turbulence modeling, turbulence measurement, optical diagnostics, control of flow instabilities and transition, rheological models for multiphase systems, vorticity dynamics, and hydrodynamic stability and bifurcation theory; solid mechanics-fracture mechanics and composite failure, mesocracking damage, irreversibility and macroscopic damage, structure damage diagnosis, and dynamic properties of materials; materials science-thermomechanical integrity of microelectronic devices and packages, mechanical behavior of thin films and composite materials, and modeling of materials across diverse length scales; dynamic systems and controls-precision actuators and controls for semiconductor lithography and microfluidics; robotics-robot dynamics, robot design-and-drive systems, flexible robots, dexterous end effectors, smart/intelligent materials, and structures and systems (in particular, ionic polymeric gels or artificial muscles); manufacturing-computer-integrated manufacturing, clean-room automation, sensors, microfabrication, and computer-based training for semiconductor manufacturing; computational mechanics-multipole accelerated boundary element methods, finite-element methods, finite difference/volume methods, vorticity methods, and high-performance computing. Substantial computing and laboratory facilities are available in the ME building and the Manufacturing Training and Technology (MTTC) building to support research in these areas.