UNM Today: Nanoscience and Microsystems Degree

February, 2007

UNM Grad Students Bend New Degree to Their Individual Interests

(pictured from left-to-right: row 1: Darin Leonhardt , Arezou Khoshakhlagh , row 2: Martin Donovan , Andrew De La Riva , Diana Habel-Rodriguez , Erika Cooley)

Martin Donovan wants to solve real life problems.  That is why he is studying pharmaceutics with Assistant Professor of Pharmaceutics, Hugh Smyth, M.D. Donovan’s doctoral work is a search to find a way to deliver drugs into the specific regions of the lungs where they can be most effective. That requires chemistry and engineering solutions, so for the next several months he will spend time in various labs throughout the university searching for a technique to break cancer and cystic fibrosis drugs into  specially- sized particles that when inhaled, will naturally travel to the part of the lung that needs them. 

Erika Cooley works at Sandia National Laboratories while she is finishing a doctorate in Chemical and Nuclear Engineering.  At Sandia she works with sensitive surface acoustic wave sensors to detect pathogens. But this spring she is working at the UNM Cancer Research Center with Professor and Chief, Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine Kimberly Leslie, M.D. who is developing a non-invasive endometrial cancer test, as she searches for her doctoral project.

These students, along with six others are taking classes in the new UNM graduate degree program in nanoscience and microsystems. They are on fellowship receiving stipends from the National Science Foundation’s Integrated Graduate Education Research Traineeship (IGERT) program. The new degree program is something different for the university. Most graduate programs fit the student to the degree.  This degree forms itself around the interest of the students.

NSMS program director Abhaya Datye says, “The newly approved NSMS degree program represents a paradigm shift in graduate education by eroding the boundaries among traditional departments.  Faculty from participating departments will co-teach in a new curriculum, since nanoscience depends critically on the contributions from the materials, chemical, physical, biological and engineering sciences.  The microsystems portion of the program will provide the engineering component.”

More than 60 UNM faculty members work with individual students as they try to solve complex multidisciplinary problems.  Some students come to the program knowing the kind of problem they want to solve.  Others are inspired by working in lab groups with individual faculty members.  Datye says there is room in this program for students with many different interests.

**More info on the degree can be found here**