Posts Tagged ‘Barbara Couture’

What:

Arrowhead Center invites the public to attend a Networking Mixer, that will introduce the recently expanded on-campus Incubator as a novel way to support the commercialization of faculty, staff and student research in addition to the small business community already being served. Most importantly, it will introduce the entrepreneurial community to the resources and services available at Arrowhead Center.

Join us to learn about Arrowhead business acceleration services: how we can help you turn your idea into a product, start or grow a business, develop and market a technology, or find new applications for research. Tour our newly renovated facility and network with like-minded thinkers.

When:

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Hors d’oeuvres and drinks served at 4:00pm.

Welcome and Opening Address begins at 4:10pm.

Barbara Couture, NMSU President

Garrey Carruthers, Vice President for Economic Development

Where:

Arrowhead Technology Incubator, Genesis Center C, 3655 Research Drive, (click here for map) on the New Mexico State University campus.

For more information contact Zetdi Runyan at (575) 646-7833, or email zrunyan@nmsu.edu.

Article courtesy of the Las Cruces Sun-News

By Reyes Mata III

LAS CRUCES – Arrowhead Park Early College High School – an ambitious venture to slash dropout rates – heralded a major accomplishment during its ribbon-cutting ceremony Wednesday at its new campus.

“One hundred percent of the sophomore class progressed from ninth grade to 10th grade on time,” Principal Jennifer Amis told the crowd of about 450 people who gathered at the New Mexico State University-based high-school campus.

Some of the parents in the crowd who were cheering that announcement say they support the strong academic curriculum and zealous advancement of students that the new high school emphasizes.

Francisco Silva, a parent of a freshman, said the Arrowhead experience is keeping his son on track for a stable future. “He has all these options at Arrowhead High School that he would not have had somewhere else. The education is very intense.”  His wife, Rosa Maria Silva, said she was very pleased with her son’s experience so far, adding that “he will be ahead of the game if he stays here.”

Jose Garcia, secretary of the New Mexico Higher Education Department, took the podium and said the dismal dropout rate of the state’s children is unprecedented. “For the first time in New Mexico’s history, the older generation is better educated than the younger generation,” he said, citing census figures that show fewer New Mexicans are achieving degrees in higher education. “That’s not good and we need to do something about it.”

The state has traditionally “not done a good job of improving the dropout rates of high school and college,” he said, and added: “But this school has proven they can reduce dropout rates to zero.”

Using a public-private funding hybrid, Arrowhead Park Early College High School – which officials stated cost $82 million less than a comparable school construction project – is the future that some state officials want New Mexico schools to look like.

“Thank you for creating the picture of what this state needs,” said state Education Secretary Hanna Skandera. “We now have a perfect model, a literal model,” she said, adding that her advice to the state regarding reducing dropout rates would be: “Go down and take a look at Las Cruces – they delivered.”

Las Cruces Public Schools Superintendent Stan Rounds echoed the same sentiment: “This is a zero-dropout place,” he told the crowd. “More than 60 percent of these students are the first in their families to go to college. And, to date, not a single one has dropped out,” Rounds said in a statement prepared earlier.

A high-school degree at Arrowhead will also entail a college-level associate’s degree, clearing the way for a four-year degree from a university, said Barbara Couture, NMSU president. “That is progress, a seamless transition of a college education,” she said of the school.

The school – part of the LCPS system – opened in July 2010 at Dona Ana Community College. Last August it moved to NMSU’s eight-acre site. The school currently has 115 freshmen and 115 sophomores, administrators said. Next year, the school will accept an additional 125 students, then an extra 125 students will be accepted the following year to reach the 500-student capacity, said Gabriela Alaniz, dean of students, and Yolanda Juarez, office manager of the school.

Officials at the event credited the Bridge of Southern New Mexico with bringing the private and public sectors of the area together to create the innovative school.

Reyes Mata III can be reached at (575) 541-5405.

Release courtesy of the NMSU News Center

WRITER: Janet Perez, 575-646-4120, perezjm@nmsu.edu

CONTACT: Britt Porter, 915-585-8585, bporter@truenorthadvisors.com

New Mexico State University President Barbara Couture, University of Texas at El Paso President Diana Natalicio and Britt Porter of the Paso del Norte Group will be announcing details of the first Re-Energize the Americas conference. The conference will take place Oct. 26-27 at the El Paso Convention Center.

Re-Energize the Americas seeks to spur economic development of sustainable energy resources and activities within the West Texas, Southern New Mexico and Northern Mexico area known as the “Paso del Norte” by helping to capitalize on the region’s abundant natural resources, production capacity and distribution networks.

New Mexico State University’s Re-Energizing America energy conferences provided the framework for this new multinational, multi-partner event. Along with NMSU, the Re-Energize the Americas conference is organized by the University of Texas at El Paso and the El Paso-based economic development organization the Paso del Norte Group. This collaboration among NMSU, UTEP and the Paso del Norte Group increases regional competitiveness and showcases the energy-related research activities of both universities.

The Re-Energize the Americas conference coincides with the 18th Annual Border Energy Forum sponsored by the Texas General Land Office, which will be held Oct. 27 and 28 at the same location. The two conferences will hold a joint session on Oct. 27.

Before and after the press conference, UTEP will offer a tour of its energy facilities. Reserved parking will be available for invited off-campus guests and the media. For more information on parking, contact Alberto Lopez at alopez@utep.edu.

Release courtesy of NMSU News Center

WRITER: Mark Cramer, 575-646-1957, mwcramer@nmsu.edu

CONTACT: Steve Hottman, 575-646-9202, shottman@psl.nmsu.edu

New Mexico State University on Sept. 30 announced that its Physical Science Laboratory is partnering with the United States Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in developing and testing DARPA’s Vulture unmanned aerial vehicle program.

The Vulture II Program, a joint venture between DARPA and Boeing, is centered around a new type of UAV with a 400-foot wingspan, weighing just 5,000 pounds. The objective of the Vulture program is to develop and demonstrate the technology to enable an airborne payload to remain on-station, uninterrupted for more than five years, performing intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, and communication missions. A mixture of solar cells and solid oxide fuel cells will power the vehicle. The system has potential in numerous roles: operation as a single platform, as a formation of multiple aircraft, or as a constellation providing infrastructure augmentation or recovery.

“This is really exciting,” said retired Air Force Col. T. Bear Larson, who is NMSU’s point of contact with DARPA. “We think this is a great opportunity for you guys to see some of our technology and maybe help us out in areas that you are strong in. We love the facilities out here. Everything about this is exciting to me. This technology intrigues me.”

The program technology enables a re-taskable, persistent pseudo-satellite capability in an aircraft package. It combines the key benefits of an aircraft – flexibility and responsiveness, sensor resolution, reduced transmit/receive power and affordability – with the benefits of space assets, such as on-station persistence, no logistics tail, energy independence, fleet size and absence of an in-country footprint.

“It’s quite an extraordinary accomplishment that’s going to bring plenty of attention to New Mexico State University and possibly similar agreements in the future,” NMSU President Barbara Couture said. “The initial contract is for about $2.5 million, and we expect, if this is successful, for more contracts to be down the road. This is a truly experimental aircraft. It’s going to be a very exciting, unusual mission here right in our back yard in Las Cruces.”

NMSU’s PSL will be involved in addressing a variety of technology challenges for the massive UAV, including developing energy management and reliability technologies capable of allowing the aircraft to operate continuously for five years. The Vulture program will conduct full-scale technology maturation and demonstration activities to prove out critical technologies. Its intent is to advance technology and break the mindset that aircraft are defined by launch, recovery and maintenance cycles. Program success would allow a continuous operating airborne platform to remain on-station for multiple years and would greatly increase capabilities of the Department of Defense. In addition, NMSU/PSL will apply their airworthiness assessment, risk analysis and excellent safety record with unmanned aircraft in developing a safe operation to minimize impact to other airspace users.

NMSU is the only FAA Authorized Unmanned Aircraft System Flight Test Center in the United States, allowing for UAS operations in the National Airspace System or civilian airspace.

The NMSU/PSL portion of the project will continue through the conclusion of flight testing, which is expected to last into the third quarter of fiscal year 2014. DARPA determined that NMSU/PSL was the only entity capable of meeting the unique facilities, airspace and technical expertise required to oversee and conduct the flight testing of the Vulture while also meeting airspace, available frequency spectrum and takeoff and landing requirements.

“We’re going to have a building ready in early 2013 and start assembling the vehicle out here,” Larson said. “Our intent is to fly sorties of less than three hours to understand the airframe, and then start climbing up in altitude, with the culmination a 30-day flight test to demonstrate it can fly. Then we’ll bring it back down and do a forensic analysis on all the components. We’re really looking forward to this.”

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has given NMSU/PSL permission to build the airport for the Vulture testing on its land at the Jornada Experimental Range, northeast of Las Cruces. The vehicle will require a 3,000-foot diameter circle for level takeoffs. USDA also partners with NMSU/PSL for its UAS program. They use a small UAS for their remote sensing program for ecological applications, including access to airspace, image acquisition, terrain extraction, orthorectification, mosaicking, vegetation classification, geometric and classification accuracies and operational workflows.

Formed though a partnership between the Federal Aviation Administration and NMSU, the UAS Flight Test Center supports the integration of unmanned systems into the National Airspace System and operates the only FAA approved UAS FTC in the U.S. With more than 13 years of experience and expertise in UAS integration, operations and research and development, it collects data during unmanned flights in public, non-restricted airspace to assist the FAA in the development of standards and regulations for UAS operators.

The UAS FTC’s agreement with the FAA allows it to operate flights in more than 15,000 square miles of airspace in southwestern New Mexico. Facilities include a 15,000-square-foot hangar at the Las Cruces International Airport dedicated exclusively to UAS operations, and office facilities and technical support are available on the NMSU campus.

Article courtesy of the Las Cruces Bulletin

Written by Jay Rodman

Research being done at New Mexico State University on the production of algae-based biofuels would become increasingly impor­tant to New Mexico’s – and the na­tion’s – economic prosperity, if U.S. Sen. Tom Udall has his way.

Udall visited NMSU to announce legislation he will introduce in the Senate to ensure a more level playing field for the algal biofuels industry.

Joining Udall at the news confer­ence were NMSU President Barbara Couture; Pete Lammers, NMSU re­search professor and the technical director of the university’s Algal Bio­energy Program; Jim Peach, regents professor of economics; and Denise Gitsham, director of corporate af­fairs and legislative counsel for Sap­phire Energy, Inc., owner of a large biorefinery in Columbus, N.M.

The U.S. Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 established a production target of 36 billion gal­lons of advanced biofuels by 2022, with separate volume requirements for each category of renewable fuel. It also required that life-cycle analyses be used to ensure that each renewable fuel emits less greenhouse gas that the petroleum it replaces.

Udall said he feels the renewable fuel standards established by than law go a long way toward promoting U.S. energy security through domes­tic production of fossil fuel alterna­tives. In the current version; however, mandated targets for alternative fuel production favor corn-based and cellulosic ethanol over algae-based and other “advanced” biofuels.

He expressed his belief that Con­gress should promote research and development of alternative energy sources, but that the market should determine the balance among the various alternatives. The legislation that he and Public Works Commit­tee colleague Larry Crapo of Idaho plan to introduce will mandate par­ity for algae and other non-cellulosic advanced biofuels, in terms of pro­duction requirements and subsidies under the renewable fuel standards. Comparable bipartisan legislation has been introduced in the House of Representatives.

Udall chose NMSU as the site for his announcement because of the university’s established com­mitment to algal biofuel research. NMSU recently moved into algae bio-oil production mode with a new 4,000-liter Solix BioSystems algal photobioreactor, which joined four smaller algae “raceways” at the Fabi­an Garcia Science Center in Las Cru­ces. The university is a member of the National Alliance for Advanced Biofuels and Bioproducts consor­tium, established through $49 mil­lion in grants from the Department of Energy to explore all aspects of algal biofuel production, harvesting, extraction and upgrading to diesel and jet fuels.

Prior to the news conference, Udall was greeted by Couture at the science center. He then met with a group that included other NMSU ad­ministrators, New Mexico Secretary of Agriculture Jeff Witte, and faculty and staff members involved in algal research. They showed him the new algal photobioreactor, as well as an automated biodiesel processor, and discussed various ways NMSU’s algal technology might be integrated into dairy and livestock production facili­ties, or even inland shrimp farming.

Lammer’s stressed the impor­tance of algae research in benefiting humankind. He foresees a situation in the not-too-distant future where converting algae into fuel will not only fill a significant portion of the nation’s energy needs, but will also capture value from waste streams to create a “cradle-to-cradle” approach to industrial ecology. Lammers sees the current push to develop renew­able fuels to blend with traditional petroleum products as a turning point in global energy policy, and he believes algae can play a key role.

“I think of algae cultivation as a waste-to-energy process that will benefit the economics of existing agricultural enterprises,” Lammers said. “This is the first step in a long journey. Industrial ecologies capable of sustaining a population of 7 bil­lion people for a thousand years will waste nothing and recycle ev­erything. In the long run, that will include industrial, municipal and agricultural waste streams.”

In his news conference remarks, Udall pointed out the advantages al­gal biofuel has over other options and the advantages New Mexico has over most other states in producing it.

Comparing algae to corn grown for ethanol and to soybeans used for biodiesel production, Udall explained that algae production requires much less land, can be accomplished with lower quality water, results in the absorption of large amounts of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide – and it is not a food crop, so growing it for fuel production doesn’t impact the food supply.

New Mexico is an ideal place for algal biofuel production. It has plen­tiful sunshine, an abundance of water unsuitable for consumption or crop irrigation, and land is not scarce.

“I believe New Mexico is well po­sitioned to be a leader in this,” Udall said. “And with policies that encour­age the production of clean energy, our state can create an energy econo­my that leads the nation in develop­ing the jobs of the future.”

Udall shared the results of a sur­vey of 52 Algal Biomass Organization member companies on the issue of potential job growth from legislative and regulatory parity for algae. The estimate based on this survey sug­gested that “explosive” job growth – more than 200,000 jobs nationwide – could be expected over the next de­cade if Congress puts algae on a level playing field with ethanol and other advanced biofuels.

Peach and colleague Meghan Starbuck-Downes have studied the potential economic impact of algal biofuel production. Based on their economic model, they estimate that for every 100 million gallons of algal biofuel produced in the state, there would be 450 jobs created, includ­ing direct, indirect and induced jobs. State revenues would likely be boost­ed by $8 million to $9 million.

“New Mexico is an energy state with vast reserves of oil, natural gas, coal and uranium,” Peach said. “Wind and solar are significant parts of the state’s energy industry. Nearly all energy analysts agree that we need to develop all forms of energy. The algal biofuels industry could be­come an important part of the state’s energy portfolio and could have sub­stantial economic impacts.”