SOCORRO, N.M. – The New Mexico Tech Office of Research will be hosting the first university-wide Research Colloquium on October 16, 2019. 

Dr. Nikolai Kalugin, the 2019 Distinguished Researcher, will deliver a keynote address.  The colloquium will take place at the Joseph A. Fidel Student Center. The morning sessions include break-out sessions, roundtable talks and networking. Kalugin will speak during the luncheon. Events that day include talks from NMT and LANL researchers, networking sessions, and the luncheon.

(Pictured are Dr. Nikolai Kalugin (left) with NMT President Stephen Wells.)

Special guests for the Research Colloquium will be from Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). NMT President Stephen G. Wells signed an institutional agreement between LANL and NMT last October. This Research Colloquium is an opportunity to present current research and hear about current research from NMT researchers and LANL researchers. A primary goal of the event is to foster transdisciplinary research and to connect researchers from NMT and LANL to increase research connections and opportunities. 

Dr. Nikolai Kalugin came to New Mexico Tech in 2006. He earned his degrees in optics and physics in Russia. He then spent time as a researcher in Switzerland and a professor at Texas A&M. His talk is "Glimpses of Nanoconfinement." Kalugin will discuss his research with graphene and graphite, which shows how anoconfinement is an efficient way of changing material properties, and opens up the door for new phenomena and effects.

Dr. Kalugin has earned an international reputation for his work in nanostructures, and graphene. His use of microwave spectroscopy has led to discoveries with the alternative current impedance for graphene.

Dr. Kalugin has published more than 63 papers, the majority of which have been published since he came to New Mexico Tech. His global work resulted in being selected as a Fulbright Global Scholarship in 2018, allowing him to continue his work on graphene with collaborators in Chile and at the University of Cambridge in England. During his recent sabbatical, Dr. Kalugin contributed to the observation of Tomonaga-Luttinger electron liquid in graphite in high magnetic fields, at an absolute world record–cryo-micro-Raman measurements in magnetic fields up to 45 Tesla.

This event is hosted and sponsored by the Office of Research, but advanced registration is required. The NMT research community is encouraged to attend, faculty, staff and students.  You can register for this event at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/5L7MGD8. Deadline for registration is October 13, 2019. Professors are encouraged to get colleagues and students to attend. 

Tentative Schedule

7:45 a.m. – Check-in and Coffee

9 a.m. – Welcome and introductions

9:15 a.m. – Plenary Session #1

      9:15 - Stewart Thompson, NMT Psychology Department, "“Figuring out how non-ionizing radiation increases breast cancer risk”

       9:35 - Dr. Miao Zhang, NMT Petroleum Department, "“Numerical and Experimental Analysis of Diffusion and Sorption Kinetics Effects in Marcellus Shale Gas Transport”

      9:55 a.m. - Robert Robey, LANL, "Challenges of Next Generation Computing Architectures."

10:15 a.m. – Networking Break

10:30 a.m. - Plenary Session #2

      10:30 - Pabitra Choudhury,  NMT Chemical Engineering Department, “Bio-inspired Single-Metal Catalyst Design for Methane to Methanol Conversion Process at Mild Conditions”      

      10:50 - Víctor Lema, NMT Petroleum Engineering Department, “Two-Phase Flow Aspects of Hydraulic Modeling when Drilling with Concentric Casing Gas Injection”

      11:10 - James Wernicke, LANL, “LANL Cyber Research Topics”

      11:30 - Michael Hargather, NMT Mechanical Engineering Department, “An Overview of Research in the Mechanical Engineering Department”

      11:50 - Stuart Maloy, LANL, “Materials for High Dose Nuclear Applications”

12:25 p.m. – Luncheon and keynote addresses

      12:25 - Alan Hurd, LANL National Security Education Center

      12:45 - Nikolai Kalugin, NMT Materials Engineering Department and 2019 Distinguished Researcher Award winner, "Glimpses of Nanoconfinement." 

1:05 p.m. – Remarks and acknowledgement of NMT's top principal investigators over the past 15 years. 

1:15 p.m. - Plenary Session #3

     1:15 - Sajjan Heerah; LANL, “Regional Observations of Methane Emissions from California’s Dairies using Ground-based Remote Sensing”

      1:35 - “PACO (Process Analysis for Cyber Operations)”
Matt Karasz; Institute for Complex Additive Systems Analysis (ICASA), NMT

      1:55 - Sanchari Chowdhury, Chemical Engineering Department, NMT“Solar energy conversion using long-term stable plasmonic materials” 

      2:15 - Bin Lim, NMT  Mechanical Engineering Department, “Extreme Tension Physics and Its Applications” 

      2:35 - Kip Carrico, NMT Civil & Environmental Engineering, “Biomass Burning, Climate and Air Quality: Key Physicochemical Properties of Biomass Smoke from Southwestern US Fuels”

2:55 - Closing remarks and "next steps" 

If you have any questions feel free to contact Carlos Romero at carlos.romero@nmt.edu. 

-- NMT --