Today, in UNM’s Zimmerman Library, representatives of the University of New Mexico, the City of Albuquerque and Sandia Corporation, operator of Sandia National Laboratories, signed a memorandum of understanding to participate in a Community Research Collaborative.
Photo (l. to r.): Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chavez, UNM President David Schmidly, SNL President Tom Hunter
The MOU says that each party is engaged in broad and complex areas of research that may result in economic development opportunities. Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chávez said, “The City of Albuquerque’s role will be to be the laboratory where some of the research can be applied.”
The parties have identified possible common areas of research that may provide immediate collaborative opportunities including energy infrastructure, alternative energy, energy efficiency, cyber security, digital film media and digital film media storage, and computer modeling and simulation.
UNM President David Schmidly said, “Our researchers received almost $300 million in research funding last year and we have a lot of cutting edge expertise on this campus that we can bring to bear on the community of Albuquerque.”
Schmidly noted that UNM is a member of the Coalition of Urban Serving Universities and that one of the missions of that organization is to improve the quality of life in their local communities.
Sandia National Laboratories President Tom Hunter said, “In partnerships we will bring together in whatever way we can, the opportunity to work with industrial entities, with governmental entities and with American universities. So what can be better than doing that? Doing that right here at home as a model for how it should be done.”
Each of the parties has appointed a senior staff member to begin work on the collaborative. Connie Beimer, the special assistant for strategic initiatives in the Office of the Vice President of Research will represent UNM. Michael DeWitt, deputy director and group manager for communications will represent Sandia National Laboratories, and Ted Shogry, performance improvement manager, will represent the City of Albuquerque.
The group will work to identify possible projects over the next few months. The agreement allows the Collaborative to seek funding for projects through federal agencies, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, state government, foundation and private partnerships.
Media contact: Karen Wentworth (505) 277-5627; kwent2@unm.edu