Kyle Winter came to New Mexico Tech for graduate school and originally planned to get his master's degree in Mechanical Engineering with a focus on explosives. Similarly, Austin Mier was an NMT undergraduate and decided to continue his education here as well. Like Winter, he planned to get a master's degree in Mechanical Engineering focusing on explosives.

Only once they were partway through their master's programs did the Mechanical Engineering Ph.D. program be granted necessary approval by the state. Winter began work on his dissertation on Mach. stems and properties of shockwaves, while Mier started work on his dissertation on intelligent energetic systems.

While looking back on his time at Tech, Mier spoke to the highlights of his Ph.D. program as being whenever new experiments, which weren’t working at first, were fixed and beginning to work for the first time. He referred to the sense of accomplishment that comes from creating an experiment from the bottom up, overcoming any roadblocks that came along the way, and obtaining all the necessary data in the end. Winter's highlight, thinking back to his experience in the program, included his interactions with EMRTC staff. He mentions that whenever he had a question about any aspect of his work, he could trust the staff at EMRTC to assist him.

Nowadays, the two graduates have moved on to bigger and better things. Mier has moved on to work at the University of Wyoming. While Winter has stayed closer to NMT and is working with Sandia National Laboratories. If you are interested in learning more about the department's graduate programs, you can visit the Mechanical Engineering Graduate Studies Page.