UNM professor presented with Casimiro Legacy award
According to a University press release, A. Gabriel Meléndez, a UNM professor of American Studies, received the Casimiro Legacy Award at the Colorado Latino Hall of Fame gala event.
The event was sponsored by the Latino Leadership Institute at the University of Denver, where the fellowship program honored the Latinos who have made an impact on Colorado’s economic, civic and political history, according to the press release.
According to the press release, Meléndez was honored for his written works, which included an introduction about Casimiro Barela and other Hispanic biographical narratives.
Meléndez was not the only one who received recognition. Other inductees included Barela, Federico Peña, Rod Tafoya, Dr. Joe Vigil, the Salazar Family Foundation, and Susana Cordova, according to the press release.
According to the press release, there are few Latino halls of fame in the country that honor Latinos from all different sectors.
LLI was established in 2013 to create the nation’s first professional development program that enhances an elite network of Latino leaders, according to the press release.
According to the press release, LLI’s event will become an annual fundraiser that will position the institute as a leader in supporting and honoring Latinos who have contributed to Colorado’s history.
The fellows and alumni of LLI’s profile shows that more than 70 percent hold an advanced degree and an average of 15 years of experience. 34 percent of them come from the private sector, 29 percent from the public sector, 19 percent from a non-profit sector and 18 percent work in education, according to the press release.
According to the press release, once the program is at capacity, LLI will graduate 50 fellows annually and elevate them into positions of power and influence across Colorado.
Assistant professor receives award from Royal Spanish Society of Physics
According to a University press release, UNM Assistant Professor Alejandro Manjavacas was awarded the prestigious Royal Spanish Society of Physics – BBVA Foundation Award for Physics.
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The award, given in the category of Theoretical Physics, is annually presented to a Spanish physicist under the age of 35.
The Awards of the Royal Spanish Society of Physics and the BBVA Foundation include categories aimed at junior researchers, as well as in teaching and the dissemination of physics, according to the press release.
According to the press release, the purpose of the awards is to recognize high-quality research, encourage younger researchers and foster innovation.
Manjavacas joined UNM’s Department of Physics & Astronomy in 2015 after achieving a postdoctoral fellowship at Rice University in Houston, Texas. Before, he was an FPU Fellow at the Spanish National Research Council in Madrid, Spain, according to the press release.
According to the press release, the award cites Manjavacas’ work in “the study of the interaction of light with physical structures of dimensions in the nanometer scale, and particularly metal and graphene nanostructures. Their theoretical predictions have inspired new lines of experimental research in nanophotonics.”
Presently, Manjavacas heads UNM’s Nanophotonics Theory research group and works with collaborators from Texas and Spain.
The research group strives to understand the fundamentals of the light-matter interaction at the nanoscale, works to discover new physical phenomena, provide theoretical support to understand new experimental results in the field of nanophotonics and tries to propose and design new applications for exploiting the advances in nanophotonics, according to the press release.
Research warns hurricane risk to northeast United States coast Increasing
According to a University press release, new research suggests the Northeastern coast of the United States could potentially be struck by more frequent and powerful hurricanes in the future due to shifting weather patterns caused by manmade industrial emissions.
Researchers from UNM and Durham University in the UK, published in the journal Scientific Reports, found hurricanes have gradually moved north from the western Caribbean towards North America over the past several hundred years, according to the press release.
According to the press release, co-authors Lisa and James Baldini from Durham University and Professors Yemane Asmerom and Keith Prufer from UNM suggest the change in the hurricane track is caused by the expansion of atmospheric circulation belts driven by increasing carbon dioxide emissions.
These researchers reconstructed hurricane rainfall for the western Caribbean dating back 450 years by analyzing the chemical composition of a stalagmite collected from Yok Balum, a cave in southern Belize, according to the press release.
They found that the average number of hurricanes at the Belize site decreased during that time. When combined with other data from places such as Bermuda and Florida, this information showed that hurricanes were moving North rather than decreasing in total number across the North Atlantic, according to the press release.
According to the press release, the researchers also found a marked decrease in hurricane activity in the western Caribbean coinciding with the late 19th Century industrial boom associated with increasing carbon dioxide and sulfate aerosol emissions into the atmosphere.
Asmerom and Research Scientist Victor Polyak developed the age model at UNM, with assistance from graduate student Valorie Aquino, for a research program at the Yok Balum cave initiated and coordinated by Prufer for more than a decade, according to the press release.
According to the press release, the late 19th Century man-made emissions have become the reason behind shifting hurricane tracks by altering the position of global weather systems. It is expected that if carbon dioxide and industrial aerosol use continue to rise, hurricanes could move further northward, exacerbating the risk to the Northeast of the U.S. coast.
- Compiled by Megan Nyce