Keeping current with classmates
From UNM President
Garnett S. Stokes
What’s going on around campus
Opera singer pivots to performance coaching
By Amanda Gardner
Alumnus caps high-performance computing career with prestigious prize
By Ellen MarksUNM grad helps spark electric vehicle revolution
By Leslie Linthicum
Q&A with National Museum of the American Indian director alumna Cynthia Chavez Lamar
Alumni take home a Grammy and a Pulitzer for music
Books by UNM alumni
A message from Alumni Association’s Connie Beimer
Jack Dongarra ('81 PhD) at the keyboard long ago with Al Gore, former vice president and U.S. Senator.
Doug Campbell ('01 BS, '02 MS) is helping the auto industry go green with new battery cell technology.
Photo: Roberto E. Rosales
Mirage was the title of the University of New Mexico yearbook until its final edition in 1978. The title was then adopted by the alumni magazine, which continues to publish vignettes about UNM graduates and news of the University.
Garnett S. Stokes, President Connie Beimer, Vice President, Alumni Relations, Executive Director Alumni Association
UNM Alumni Association Executive Committee Amy Miller (’85 BA, ’93 MPA), President Shammara Henderson( ’04 BS, ’07 JD), President Elect
Mike Silva (’95 BA), Past President Joe Ortiz (’14 BBA), Treasurer Connie Beimer (’76 BA, ’79 MPA), Secretary
Kenneth Armijo (’05 BS, ’08 MS, ’11 PhD)
Michele Ziegler
Jessica Hurtado (’08 BA, ’12 MPA)
Jaymie Roybal (’12 BA/BS, ’16 JD) Chad Cooper (’01 MBA)
Sandra Begay (’87 BS), Regent Member Connie Beimer (’76 BA, ’79 MPA), Ex Officio
Connie Beimer (’76 BA, ’79 MPA), Vice President Leslie Linthicum, Editor Wayne Scheiner & Company, Graphic Design
Address correspondence to MirageEditor@unm.edu or The University of New Mexico Alumni Association, MSC 01-1160, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, 87131-0001. You can also contact us at (505) 277-5808.
Web: UNMAlumni.com
Facebook: Facebook.com/UNMAlumni
Instagram: Instagram.com/UNMAlumni
Flickr: Flickr.com/UNMAlumni
Twitter: @UNMAlumni
Dr. Chilton served as a pediatrician for 8 years at the UNM Young Children’s Health Center in Albuquerque’s International District. He and his wife Katherine have included a provision in their will to support the Center that has served the community for more than 30 years. Dr. Chilton knows first-hand the exemplary care given by a dedicated group of nurses, social workers, playroom and office staff, doctors, and nurse practitioners. They are privileged to be part of the UNM Young Children’s Health Center’s continued success.
The Chiltons are members of the New Horizons Society, a group honoring individuals and families who have included UNM in their estate plans. For more information about how you can create a legacy at UNM or to share that you’ve already done so, please contact Bonnie McLeskey at (505) 313-7610 or bonnie.mcleskey@unmfund.org.
Look forward by giving back.
n March of this year, in Silver City, UNM double alumna Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed into law the New Mexico Opportunity Scholarship Act, which expands state assistance in paying for college tuition and fees for New Mexico residents.
While the Lottery Scholarship is aimed at recent high school graduates, the Opportunity Scholarship is intended to help returning students or older adults who didn’t make it college after high school graduation and those who attend part-time.
UNM adds to the mix the Lobo FirstYear Promise, which supports first-year students whose family income is $50,000 or less with full tuition and fees.
As anyone who has tallied up a grocery bill or filled their gas tank or tried to buy a house or rent an apartment lately can appreciate, these assistance programs can change the game for New Mexicans trying to take the step to a better future through a bachelor’s or associates degree or a specialized certificate in this blisteringly hot economy.
The importance of access to higher learning for everyone might come into clearer focus as you read the alumni profiles in this issue of Mirage. It certainly did for me as I put this issue together. There are millions of Americans and plenty of New Mexicans who live productive, interesting and meaningful lives without ever having taken a seat in a college classroom. But for many others, their first steps toward greatness happen on the way to a degree.
I’m thinking of Jack Dongarra, an Italian kid from Chicago whose parents never
Ifinished high school. He had dyslexia but he was pretty good at math so he went to college as a math major. Many years and a PhD from UNM later, Dongarra just won the $1 million Turing Award, considered the Nobel of computer science.
I’m thinking of professional mountain biker Doug Campbell, who decided to get serious at 26 and enrolled in UNM’s College of Engineering without much thought about what he wanted to do with his life. Today he’s CEO of a company producing a smaller, cheaper alternative to traditional lithium-ion electric car batteries. If you buy a Ford or BMW EV five years from, money is on Campbell’s battery cell powering your ride.
I’m thinking of UNM music major Raven Chacon from Ft. Defiance, Ariz., whose unique tonal compositions were just recognized with the Pulitzer Prize for music. And of Cynthia Chavez Lamar, whose PhD at UNM in American Studies helped focus her thoughts on collaboration between museums and Indigenous communities and who now heads the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian.
I could go on — we have a remarkably strong lineup of alumni in this issue. But I think you’ll want to read about them yourselves.
And who knows which student taking a first class this Fall, thanks to the promise of free tuition, might be the next UNM grad to make the big discovery or reach the top of their field?
Send your alumni news to Mirage Editor, The University of New Mexico Alumni Association, MSC 01-1160, 1 University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, 87131-0001. Or better yet, email your news to Alumni@unm.edu. Please include your middle name or initial and tell us where you’re living now.
Spring deadline: January 1 Fall deadline: June 1 1950s
Robert “Bob” Cardenas (’55 BS) died in San Diego at the age of 102. Cardenas, a retired Air Force brigadier general, was an experimental test pilot and was awarded the Air Medal with two oak leaf clusters for experimental flight tests at Edwards AFB. His most notable achievement was piloting the B-29 launch aircraft that released the X-1 experimental rocket plane in which then Capt. Charles “Chuck” Yeager became the first human to fly faster than the speed of sound in 1947.
Jack Bresenham (’59 BSEE) Washington, D.C., was honored in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Computer Society’s inaugural 2021 Class of Distinguished Contributors, which recognizes members for their technical contributions to the Computer
Leslie Linthicum MirageEditor@unm.edu
grandfather, has completed his new book "Rogue Justice: Retribution.”
Bob White (’70 BA) Albuquerque, was named associate chief administrative officer for the City of Albuquerque. White has more than 40 years of experience as an attorney and public servant, formerly serving as assistant city attorney and city attorney.
Nasario Garcia
all in New Mexico is a treat for the senses.
With the arrival of autumn comes the smell of roasting chile, the sight of hot air balloons on the horizon and the vibrant, bustling sounds of student life on our UNM campuses. It’s easy to be excited about the season — and about the future.
For more than a year — and even during a globe-altering pandemic — The University of New Mexico has been working tirelessly with an engaged university community to craft a road map for the future of our university. That long-term plan, UNM 2040: Opportunity Defined, has given us a chance to think differently about how UNM can be more relevant, more visible, and more competitive as we make our way toward the middle of the 21st century.
We officially unveiled our plan at a celebration in the SUB this past May, with the help of some key Lobo leaders and the lively support of an engaged audience. As part of our plan, we’ve laid out five long-term goals to guide us along our path to excellence. I hope you’ll take some time to read the full strategic framework, but our five goals, briefly, are:
1. Advance New Mexico – We look carefully not only at what all New Mexicans require, but also at the unique needs of our communities, and use that knowledge to improve the quality of life and work toward growth and prosperity.
2. Student Experience and Educational Innovation – We create supportive, intellectually challenging, exciting, diverse, joyful learning environments, both inside and outside of the classroom, that will help ensure the success of all learners.
3. Inclusive Excellence – We lean into our core values of equity and inclusion to expand opportunity, cultivate the potential of our students, faculty and staff, create new knowledge, and serve all New Mexicans.
4. Sustainability – We ensure we have the necessary resources — human, financial and physical — needed to achieve all our aspirations, while protecting the natural environment.
5. One University – We connect, integrate and streamline our distinctive academic, research, patient care and service components across all of our campuses.
As our flag-bearers and ambassadors in communities around the world, our Lobo alumni are some of our most crucial allies in advancing our mission and helping us achieve these lofty goals. Your engagement and enthusiasm will always be essential to our success as a university — and with you at our side as we begin the work to turn our aspirations into reality, I have never been more optimistic about our future as Lobos.
Have a wonderful Fall, and let’s go, Lobos!
Garnett S. Stokes President, The University of New MexicoDouglas J. Crandall (’71 BUS) was elected to a second term as president of the board of the New Mexico Retiree Health Care Authority, which administers insurance plans for more than 90,000 municipal, county, state and educational retirees and their families.
Raul R. Mena (’71 BS, ’75 MD), the medical director of the Roy and Patricia Disney Family Cancer Center, retired after four decades of caring for cancer patients at Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, Calif.
Grace B. Duran (’77 JD), Las Cruces, N.M., a judge in the Third Judicial District in Las Cruces, was appointed to the New Mexico Children’s Trust Fund Board of Trustees.
Anna L. Pool (’79 BA) has returned to Albuquerque after retiring from the University of Washington. She is currently editing another memoir and researching her family history.
Walter R. Archuleta (’81 MA, ’02 PhD), Santa Fe, N.M., was the recipient of the Matías L. Chacón Lifetime Achievement Award for contributions to bilingual education. The award was presented by the New Mexico Association for Bilingual Education at their annual conference.
Jack J. Dongarra (’81 PhD) Knoxville, Tenn., received the 2021 ACM A.M. Turing Award from the Association for Computing Machinery for his pioneering contributions to numerical algorithms and libraries.
Jack J. Dongarra
James H. Hinton (’81 BA), Dallas, retired from his position as CEO of Baylor Scott & White Health, and has been named operating partner of the equity firm Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe.
Taking a novel approach to understanding climate change, Paul Hooper, adjunct associate professor of Anthropology, dived into existing data sets that contain historical information about societies, including measures of complexity in language, government and economies. He reanalyzed that information to look at how societies fared during cooling periods.
“I found that societies were substantially less complex during the coldest centuries of these climate events. For societies in northern regions, cooling was associated with a loss of about 300 years of accumulated social complexity,” Hooper said. “The research shows that the success of civilizations depends on favorable climatic conditions.”
While Hooper focuses on cooling, not warming, his analysis published in Cliodynamics: The Journal of Quantitative History and Cultural Evolution illuminates yet another potential disruption of changing climate.
“Societies based on agriculture, like our own, are productive within a surprisingly narrow range of climatic conditions,” Hooper said. “Too cold, too hot, or too little water, and productivity suffers. Complex societies have never faced the climate conditions
that are now on the horizon, and they're going to be a shock to our social and economic systems. In addition to higher temperature, precipitation will also be key. While some areas will dry up, others will receive more water due to higher rates of evaporation from the oceans.”
“We see the migration of these people as fundamentally important for development of farming and, eventually, large Maya-speaking communities,” said Prufer, who directs UNM’s Environmental Archaeology Lab. Maize — or corn — could be grown and stored, giving communities a reliable source of protein and sugar and allowing them to stay in one place.
Mammals have the largest brains in relation to body size among vertebrates, but which came first? New research that examined the assumption that enlarging brains led to larger body sizes in mammalian evolution found instead that body size was the first to increase, followed by bigger brains.
UNM archaeologist and Prof. Keith Prufer co-led a team excavating a site in Belize that uncovered evidence of how maize, a critical staple food in Central America, went hand in hand with human migration.
The paper’s title says it all. “South -to-north migration preceded the advent of intensive farming in the Maya region” was published in the journal Nature Communications in March.
Working in the remote Maya Mountains of Belize, Prufer’s team excavated 25 burial sites and, using stable isotope-labeled DNA, discovered evidence that farmers moved from the south 6,500 years ago, bringing with them seeds that changed the makeup of the region.
UNM Biology Prof. Felisa Smith, an expert on body size evolution and president-elect of the American Society of Mammalogists, was asked by the prestigious journal Science to interpret the new findings, which looked at the explosion of mammalian diversification after dinosaurs went extinct
“But did brain size also increase proportionately? The study, it turns out, showed that it didn’t,” Smith said. “Essentially mammals got bigger and ‘dumber’ first. Once these body size
niches were all full, then there was strong selection on brain size and mammal brain size increased.”
Why?
“Brains are energetically expensive, which means that if you had two animals of the same size, the one with the larger brain would require much more energy (food) to survive. Because energy is often limiting for animals, this means that other activities, and especially reproduction, are scaled down. Indeed, animals with relatively larger brains for their bodies have lower reproductive rates,” Smith said.
Laura Crossey and Karl Karlstrom, both professors in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, joined an international team of scientists on an expedition to the Tibetan Plateau, driving thousands of miles across Tibet to sample bubbling hot springs to learn more about how the Earth’s underground system of geological plates move and collide. Their findings were published recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal. Crossey was one of the authors.
The team sampled gasses emitted by geothermal hot springs to ascertain how plates have moved deep underground. Where the crust is thick, mantle-derived helium cannot escape. Where plates have shifted an dropped away, the gas escapes. The team was able to define a 1,000-kilometer-long East-West boundary in southern Tibet where what is known as the Indian
plate has dropped away from the Himalayan plate.
The findings add to our knowledge of the Earth’s mantle and also have practical implications.
“Additionally, these forces also generate some of the most powerful and deadly earthquakes on Earth,” Crossey said. “Understanding the detailed nature of the colliding plates can help us better prepare and plan for earthquakes.”
Bob Matteucci, Jr. (’82 BAS, ’08 JD) has been elected to serve on the New Mexico Bar Association Family Law Section Board of Directors.
Shelley Armitage (’83 PhD), Las Cruces, N.M., was inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters. Armitage is a professor emerita at the University of Texas at El Paso.
Mike Hamman (’83 BSCE), was named New Mexico state engineer. Hamman was formerly the CEO and chief engineer for the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District, the Bureau of Reclamation area manager and the City of Santa Fe’s water resources director.
Dianne R. Layden (’83 PhD), Albuquerque, was selected to portray the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the New Mexico Humanities Council's Chautauqua program.
David Player, a graduate student focusing on sociolinguistics of signed languages in the UNM Department of Linguistics, has begun to document variations in American Sign Language in the Southwest.
Inspired by the Black ASL Project, which studies the variation in ASL in Black communities, Player, who is Black and deaf, is interviewing users of ASL across New Mexico to tease out geographical and cultural distinctions.
“Most people think that the Deaf community is homogenous, and it’s not,” Player said. “Where you grow
Martin Red Bear (’83 MA) is celebrating Native American culture and honoring military service members with a new piece of art that will be displayed in The Journey Museum & Learning Center in Rapid City, S.D. Red Bear was commissioned to adorn the outside of a tipi, choosing to paint 41 horses and warriors.
Edward Argueta (’85 BSCE) was honored by the Department of Defense with the Bronze de Fleury Medal for his exceptional service to U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Army, the Department of Defense and the nation during a career that spanned more than 35 years.
Gregor von Huene (’85 BSME) is chief engineer at Soleeva Energy Inc. in San José, Calif., where he is developing a hybrid solar photovoltaic panel that provides both hot water and electricity. The panel will increase the overall energy gain from the same roof space and will be manufactured in the U.S. for use in residential and commercial applications.
up, the kind of education you received, the language exposure you’ve had – all of those things are factors and make language variation complex.”
Player first conceptualized the project after he saw students at UNM using a different sign for “lucky” than he was used to. Students from New Mexico told him his sign for “lucky” is used to sign “chile” here.
“What this told me was that there had been an adaptation in the sign for ‘lucky’ so that there’s not a confusion between the sign for lucky and the sign for chile,” he said.
Player found at least four different varieties of New Mexican American Sign Language, including three regional varieties — Northwest New Mexico, associated with native communities, the Middle Rio Grande region, associated with the School for the Deaf in Santa Fe, and Southern New Mexico.
Eric Scott is UNM’s new vice president for Student Affairs. Scott comes to UNM from Boise State University, where he served as the associate vice president for Student Affairs.
Scott will bring equity-minded and research-informed practices to support student success, especially among minority students, calling it “our moral and ethical responsibility to commit to thoughtful and intentional practices to mitigate systemic inequality.”
Scott is a graduate of the University of South Carolina, where he earned a B.A. and a master’s of education, and where
his interest in student affairs took root. He earned his doctorate in education from Oregon State University.
“Postsecondary credentials are important to the lives of individuals and the well-being of communities, as they have been shown to be associated with more positive economic, social and even physiological life outcomes,” Scott said.
“I want to be a voice for those who may be voiceless — to have a seat at the table to make a difference.”
“That’s been my passion and commitment, to really integrate scientific discovery with health care for the underserved. My job as a physician leader is to provide exceptional care for all in the context of scientific discovery as we train the next generation, because we are part of a local and global community,” she said. “That’s what I bring to the table.”
Finn graduated medical school and residency at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York and completed a fellowship in pulmonary medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, followed by a postdoctoral research fellowship in immunology at the Harvard School of Public Health.
Patricia W. Finn, MD
Patricia W. Finn, MD, is the new dean of the UNM School of Medicine. Finn, who was most recently associate dean for Strategic Initiatives and associate program director for the Medical Scientist Training Program at the University of Illinois College of Medicine in Chicago, will also serve on the medical school faculty.
Finn, the daughter of immigrants from Ireland who was the first in her family to attend college, calls herself “feisty” and brings a commitment to help the underserved.
On North Campus, construction is underway on what will become a nine-
story addition to University Hospital. The new Hospital Tower, adjacent to the existing hospital, will eventually add 190 beds and 18 operating rooms along with other services. The tower will be connected to a new parking garage with more than 1,400 parking spaces.
In the latest U.S. News & World Report rankings of graduate schools, several UNM schools and programs ranked among the top 20.
UNM was ranked 8th best in Clinical Training in the School of Law; 11th best in Nursing-Midwifery; 14th in Nuclear Engineering; and 8th in photography. The UNM School of
Medicine ranked 16th best in primary care and came in at 7th best in Family Medicine, 5th in diversity and 16th in most graduates going on to practice in primary care fields.
UNM has also been named a First-generation Forward Institution by The Center for First-gen Student Success, recognizing the University’s commitment to improving the experiences and success of students who are the first in their family to attend college.
The Center for First-gen Student Success is an initiative of Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education, and the Suder Foundation. Among UNM’s programs geared to first-gen students are its College Enrichment Program and Peer Learning Facilitator Program.
Russell "Rusty" Greaves (’87 MA, ’97 PhD) has been appointed director of the Office of Contract Archeology, a division of UNM’s Maxwell Museum of Anthropology. Sheila Hernandez (’87 BBA, ’89 MBA) has been named senior vice president at Summit Electric Supply in Albuquerque with the title “customer experience officer.”
(’87 MAPA) was named the director of economic development and senior planner for the town of Florence, Ariz. Mike D. Petraglia (’87 PhD), Brisbane, Australia, has been named director of the Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution at Griffith University. JoLou Trujillo-Ottino (’87 BA) has joined Delta Dental of Arizona’s leadership team as its senior vice president of sales and business development.
Craig Webb (’87 BFA), Rudolfo (’87 BFA), Judson Frondorf (’80 BFA, Angie Garberina (’88 BFA) were featured in “Saw. Conquered. Came.” at Six O Six gallery in Albuquerque.
(’88 BM), Atlanta, Ga., conducted The United States Army Field Band on the recording Soundtrack of the American Soldier, which won the Grammy Award for Best Immersive Audio Album.
Dave A. Sanchez (’88 BA), Washington, D.C., has been appointed director of the Office of Municipal Securities at the Securities and Exchange Commission. He was an attorney fellow at the SEC from 2010 to 2013 and was most recently senior counsel at Norton Rose Fulbright.
Bryan Biedscheid (’90 BA, ’96 JD) is chief judge of the First Judicial District, which encompasses Santa Fe, Los Alamos and Rio Arriba counties.
Carol C. Sánchez (’90 BFA), Orlando Leyba (’82 BFA), and Leigh Anne Langwell (’88 BFA, ’98 MFA) are included in a new exhibition at South Broadway Cultural Center showcasing the work of six artists reflecting on their experiences of the pandemic.
By Amanda Gardner
Performing on some of the biggest stages in Europe and the United States, soprano Ingela Onstad has felt the highs and lows of being a performer.
The highs: Singing at the Santa Fe Opera and Dresden’s Staatsoperett and mastering a piece for Mahler’s Fourth Symphony in just one night so she could fill in for a sick cast member. The lows: Shaking hands, knees and voice and forgotten lyrics.
Now Onstad (’14 MM, ’17 MA) takes her training and experience to a new venue, an Albuquerque-based coaching business called Courageous Artistry, which helps others overcome stage fright, build confidence and achieve career goals.
When Onstad first hung out her shingle (a largely virtual shingle thanks to the pandemic), she catered primarily to other singers and performers, but has now expanded her clientele to include instrumentalists and even professional football referees.
“I can help all humans with these skills. It’s pertinent to people’s lives,” says Onstad, who holds master’s degrees in both voice performance and mental health counseling from UNM and counts some 15 to 25 coaching clients, most of them in North America (including Canada) and Europe.
Most of the issues come down to the basic human emotion of fear.
“Fear is deeply woven into our biology,” Onstad explains. “Fear of judgment, fear of criticism.” Coaching usually starts with cognitive work on how the brain works, the biological fundamentals of fear. “Our natural factory setting is a lot of negative thoughts,” she says. “We assess whether that is helpful or harmful.”
Once her clients understand this basis of fear she then helps them outline their goals, and then moves forward using various cognitive and emotional tools.
Nikki Kelder, an actress and singer in New York City, came to Onstad in November 2020 for help dealing with “extreme anxiety” in auditions and self-sabotaging. Through visualization, breathing techniques, goal setting, books, worksheets, podcasts and more, Kelder has learned to identify how she undercuts herself so she can show up better in auditions. “I began to feel more hopeful and positive about the audition process,” she says.
Onstad herself has been auditioning since she was a preteen in Santa Fe. Because few young people were studying voice in Santa Fe at the time, she stood out, something which helped build her confidence from the beginning. “I was a big fish,” she remembers. “I was one of the best ones around.”
She continued to perform in junior high and high school, started singing professionally when she was 18 and then moved on to ever bigger ponds. She was accepted into the renowned voice program at McGill University in Montreal where she was among many fellow students who went on to build international reputations. She recalls her “jaw hitting the floor” when she listened to master’s and doctoral students sing during weekly studio sessions.
From there, Onstad moved to even bigger stages, this time in Germany. Had she stayed in the U.S., she likely would have had to operate as a freelancer (much like Kelder). In Europe, vocal artists are hired
by certain opera houses, with contracts lasting a number of years. Over the span of about a decade, Onstad worked at opera houses in three different cities.
In Europe, she performed opera at Dresden’s Staatsoperette, Oldenburgisches Staatstheater and Landestheater SchleswigHolstein. In the U.S., she has sung at the Santa Fe Opera and has had concert performances with the Santa Fe Symphony, New Mexico Philharmonic, Chatter, Bad Reichenhaller Philharmonie, Chicago Arts Orchestra and many others.
Because she is a lyric soprano, Onstad often sang (and still sometimes sings) the lighter roles in operas. Think more Mozart and Puccini, less Wagner. She has played Musetta in one of her favorite operas, Puccini’s La Boheme, a character who, ironically enough given Onstad’s future career, touts her own virtues in Act II.
“There are different weights of voices. It has to do with the thickness of the vocal cords and certain body types are better for certain things,” she explains. “I’m petite, and smaller frames generally house smaller instruments and sing lighter roles.” (As a point of contrast, Onstad is married to Michael Hix whose very tall frame houses a very big baritone. He is currently interim chair of the UNM Department of Music.)
Onstad returned home to New Mexico in 2012, earned her first master’s, in voice performance, in 2014 and her second, in counseling, in 2017. She then worked at a local counseling agency and as a voice coach while continuing to perform locally. As she grew in her multiple professional roles, she began to see “a real need for specialized psychological help for
performing artists,” she says. “Athletes have it in the form of sports psychologists. I think of myself as a type of athlete.”
Onstad’s own performance issues had less to do with classic stage fright than with holding herself back for fear of not being good enough or ready enough, which itself often stems from perfectionism. “A lot of times it’s not necessarily the classic stage fright,” she says. “Oftentimes I see a colleague have a certain type of confidence in rehearsal. They shrink when it comes to the performance.”
She saw it all around her. When people realized she was in the mental health field, she started getting late-night calls and texts from panicked colleagues and friends: I am so anxious. I have a performance tomorrow. Can you give me tips?
This reaching out required its own well of courage. “It’s really taboo to talk about anxiety in the community. We don’t speak about it openly because the competition is so high and there’s stigma around any type of mental health issue. Even admitting to a fellow colleague that having a lot of anxiety creates more anxiety,” she says. “You’re already at maximum vulnerability.”
That makes Courageous Artistry particularly valuable as a private space where the people behind the public personas can go ahead and be afraid, then work through it.
Onstad says she chose coaching rather than therapy because coaching allowed her to have clients all over the world. If she had offered therapy, she would have been limited to New Mexico clients unless she acquired multiple licenses.
Certainly, Onstad’s therapy background informs her practice but coaching, including her style of coaching, is very present and future-oriented, whereas therapy is heavily based in a past perspective. Coaching, she notes, is not “Why do I feel the way I feel?” but more “How can I progress towards my goals?”
One of Kelder’s favorite exercises, one that has led to “lasting and significant change,” involved visualizing her life as a working actor: What would her day look like? What tasks would she accomplish? What job would she have?
Onstad launched Courageous Artistry just as the shadow of COVID-19 darkened the world. “I thought this is either terrible
or wonderful timing,” she laughs. Onstad made sure it was wonderful, offering free webinars to help artists cope with the stress of diminished work opportunities and canceled performances. She now sees clients in person and on Zoom.
Meanwhile Onstad was experiencing her own learning curve as an entrepreneur and, taking her own advice, hired a business coach to lead her through this new world.
In addition to the free webinars, she drums up business through presentations at colleges and organizations, including Tulane University, UNM and Youth Opera of El Paso. She also gets referrals from voice coaches (that’s how Kelder found her), physical therapists and speech language pathologists, including, recently, a team at Duke University.
Onstad’s extensive career as a performer prepared her well for this new role. “I’m used to being in the public eye and presenting myself,” she says. “I’m used to poor odds, knowing the chance you take auditioning. You have to be brave. You have to be courageous and resilient. You have to learn.”
When Jack Dongarra received a Zoom invite from MIT professor emeritus Rodney Brooks, a founder of the robot vacuum cleaner, he thought it probably would be about membership in a professional association.
Or, he thought, it might be related to Brooks’ role as adviser to one of Dongarra’s colleagues.
But when Dongarra joined the meeting in early March, he said he found about nine people in Zoom’s “Hollywood Square” configuration, including some of the brightest minds in the computer sciences world.
The faces Dongarra saw turned out to be members of the Turing Award committee, and they told him he had just been named 2021 recipient of the $1 million prize. Considered the Nobel of computer science, the award is the highest distinction in the field to which Dongarra has dedicated his life’s work.
“I was stunned,” Dongarra says. “This is the capstone to my career.”
The 72-year-old professor emeritus at the University of Tennessee is now officially recognized for his groundbreaking work in the world of high-performance supercomputing.
Dongarra earned his PhD in applied mathematics at the University of New Mexico in 1980 and spent part of his time in the state at Los Alamos National Laboratory, taking classes at the UNM branch campus there before moving to the main campus in Albuquerque.
“He has been forever a well-known name in the field of high-performance computing, building software for very large, one-of-a-kind computers,” says Darko Stefanovic, chair of UNM’s computer science department. “It’s not a very large field, but it’s a very important one. And it’s very important to New Mexico and to UNM.”
The Association for Computing Machinery, which grants the Turing award, called Dongarra “a leading ambassador of high-performance computing” and cited his cutting-edge work in developing software that can keep pace with rapidly developing “hardware” — computers that range from the laptop to the world’s fastest supercomputers.
Here’s Dongarra on his job description: “The way to think of it is that my hardware friends build something, and they throw it over the fence and they put it at our feet and say, ‘Try to use it.’”
“So now we’ve got this new machine, and we struggle to effectively use it. It takes us about 10 years to really develop the methods and approaches that will let us use that machine correctly, and then it’s time for a new machine to be thrown over the fence and we start over. So that’s sort of the scenario we’re in.”
Dongarra’s advances rely on linear algebra operations and “parallel processing.” Linear algebra is ubiquitous in computational science solutions, and parallel processing uses a number of computer processors jointly working on a problem to solve it in the most rapid and accurate way.
Dongarra also was cited for open source software libraries that invited anyone to use his inventions for the advancement of the field.
“These contributions laid a framework from which scientists and engineers made important discoveries and gamechanging innovations in areas including big data analytics, health care, renewable energy, weather prediction, genomics, and economics, to name a few,” the association said in awarding him the prize.
Dongarra is director of the University of Tennessee’s Innovative Computing
Laboratory, a Turing Fellow at Manchester University, adjunct professor at Rice University and a Distinguished Research Staff member at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
He participated in some of the work leading to development of the Frontier supercomputer at Oak Ridge, declared in May to be the world’s fastest.
Even Dongarra is astounded by Frontier’s “exascale” speed.
“Exascale… is a billion billion operations per second,” he says. “Let me just put that number in perspective. You take all the people in the world and have them do one computation per second. To equal what that supercomputer would do in one second, all the people in the world would have to be working four years to do that.
So it’s a stunning amount of work, and the computer does it in a second. That’s sort of where we are today.”
‘Pretty good at math’ Dongarra grew up in Chicago to parents who never finished high school. His grandparents were from Sicily, and Dongarra kept up the family’s heritage by making pizza for a living – from high school into graduate school.
“It taught a lot of real-life things,” he says, adding, “I still make pizza.”
A young Dongarra went through school with dyslexia, although it was undiagnosed at the time. But it explained why he was always stuck with the same classroom seating arrangement.
“I remember being put in the back of the class because they ordered the class from smart to not-smart people,” he says. “I was never good at reading, and I’m still not very good at reading or writing, to be honest.”
“But I’m pretty good at math and physics,” he adds, in what has to be a nominee for understatement of the year.
Dongarra got his bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Chicago State University in 1972, and his master’s in computer science from the Illinois Institute of Technology the following year.
He was working at Argonne National Laboratory outside of Chicago when he met Cleve Moler, a then-UNM math and computer science professor who spent summers at Argonne.
Moler taught at UNM for 13 years, and served as chair of UNM’s Computer Science Department in the 1980s.
Moler is
a renowned mathematician and computer programmer who was a geek from the start. As a kid growing up in Salt Lake City, he entertained himself by seeking prime factors in license plate numbers and street addresses.
Moler, who founded the MathWorks mathematical computing software company, recalls what motivated his protege to seek a doctorate while the two were working at Argonne.
“He (Dongarra) said one day, ‘Cleve, whenever a really important decision is made here, all the PhDs go into (an) office and make the decision, and I’m not part of that group,’” Moler recalls. “‘If I’m going to be a full-fledged member of this group, I’m going to need a PhD.’”
Dongarra and Moler were close during the casual summer atmosphere at Argonne, and even though their offices were at opposite ends of a corridor, “I remember hearing Jack and Cleve holler to each other from down the hall,” recalls Doris Pool, a then-administrative assistant.
Moler convinced Dongarra to come back to New Mexico with him, even though UNM did not offer a PhD in computer science at the time. Instead, Dongarra pursued a mathematics PhD, although it was what he called “sort of an applied mathematics PhD.”
When Moler went on sabbatical at Stanford University, Dongarra followed and continued to work with Moler while the two kicked around possible thesis topics.
Initially, it didn’t go that well.
“There was a hamburger and beer joint there (at Stanford) called Oasis,” Moler says. “We sat in the outdoor beer garden, and he came up with a thesis, and it turned out to be a bad idea. We refer to it this day as the ‘Oasis algorithm.’”
But Dongarra finally found his PhD topic, centering on “eigenvalues,” which can be used to measure the frequency of vibrations on such structures as bridges and buildings.
And although he left New Mexico soon after his studies were completed, he remembers the Frontier restaurant near
UNM and his walk across the bridge in Los Alamos to get to the lab.
“Growing up in Chicago, I really hadn’t experienced the desert or mountains,” he says. “It was just a tremendous experience.”
Leader in the Field Patrick Bridges, a computer science professor and director of UNM’s Center for Advanced Research Computing, says Dongarra “has been a real leader in the general field of computer science for 40-plus years.”
Bridges’ description of Dongarra echoes those of others who know him: “He’s a really nice, low-key, down-to-earth kind of guy. If you have questions or need advice, Jack’s great.”
Bridges cites Dongarra’s introduction of benchmarks, such as the Linpack benchmark, to evaluate a computer system’s performance by, for example, approximating how fast it can perform when solving actual problems.
“The thing to understand is that science today is really driven by simulation, and simulation is carried out on computers,” Dongarra says. “So if we’re trying to understand something, we do a mathematical model of it. We take a mathematical model and represent it somehow as a program which runs on a computer.”
“You can think about that being applied to a car,” Dongarra says. “We want to test it and see if it’s crash-worthy. In the old days, you would build a car and smash it into a wall and then see what happens. You know, that’s an expensive thing, you can’t do that many times.
“But we can design a car on a computer, and we can then crash that model into the wall thousands of times, hundreds of thousands of times, and then we can optimize the design to make it more crash-worthy.”
Dongarra says because so much of his work was funded by the government, he has always believed that it should be free and available to anyone. He calls his developments his “calling card”
However, someone who wants to replicate the steps Dongarra took to develop a career that has reached
“I’ve been in an unusual situation. I happened to be at the right place at the right time for many things,” he says.
“So if somebody said, ‘I want to do what you did, how did you do it?,’ I can’t tell you. It’s been very serendipitous.”
Regarding the $1 million, Dongarra said, "I’m not sure exactly what I’ll do with it, but I am taking suggestions."
By Leslie Linthicum
en Doug Campbell was a skater punk in Albuquerque in the 1980s, The University of New Mexico campus was his skate park. Unfocused in school and happy to buck authority, he rode the ramps and sidewalks of campus, one step ahead of
Campbell went on to earn two degrees from UNM, a bachelor’s in civil engineering in 2001 and master’s a year later, and took several classes from Gerald May, who happened to have been the president of UNM when Campbell was getting chased off
Well, no hard feelings on either side. Campbell had finished his bachelor’s and was unenthused about the traditional Campbell’s undergraduate advisor, May saw a saw a young man struggling to
“He was one of those students who was driven, exceptionally bright. He was focused,” May says. “And he was restless, in
“Doug,” May told him, “you’re destined for great things, but if you can’t decide what you want to be, go to graduate school and you’ll
In graduate school, Campbell found his
Today, he is an entrepreneur who sold an aerospace startup two years ago and is CEO of a next-generation battery company that
Blessed by his success, Campbell just
Engineering, earmarked for the Department of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering. The gift is without restrictions except for one: The department will be
When he made the gift and specified Campbell wanted to honor a man who
“He is such a phenomenal individual,” Campbell says. “He was such a humble and phenomenal teacher. I just developed an immense amount of respect for him.”
Campbell, who splits his time between Longmont, on the Colorado Front Range, and Gunnison, on Colorado’s Western Slope, has arrived in Albuquerque to look for an apartment for his eldest son, Ethan, who begins UNM as a transfer student this year. He drove down from Boulder County in his Porsche Taycan, a sleek rocket of an EV that can get to 60 in three and a half seconds. “Amazing,” is Campbell’s assessment of his electric ride.
Not yet 50 and with a startup cash-out behind him and another one in the highstakes and lucrative race for the best EV battery technology, Campbell could be one of those arrogant Silicon Valley tech bros he likes to call an unprintable name.
Instead, he’s casual and funny, ready to tell an embarrassing story on himself (his personal website is www. entrepreneurialdysfunction.com and he describes himself as a battery nerd) and just as ready to admit to the luck that’s got him to where he is today.
“There’s always luck,” Campbell says. “But I also saw that we as a society are moving toward an electrified future.” Campbell’s parents met at St. Pius High School in Albuquerque and Campbell was born in Mountain View, Calif., where his father was stationed in the Navy. His mother, Mary, was 18 when she gave birth and shortly after found herself divorced and back in Albuquerque.
Until she married Campbell’s stepdad when he was 10, “She was a single mom and basically said, 'I gotta do something with my life,'” Campbell recalls. “And she went to UNM and got a degree in civil engineering. I grew up on campus. I would putz around and go to the Duck Pond. She would take me to school and say, 'I gotta go to class; entertain yourself.'”
His mother, who died in 2006, was one of the reasons Campbell chose to study engineering when he finally enrolled in UNM in his mid 20s.
His path to college was anything but traditional and that has a lot to do with hormones.
“Pre-puberty Doug was very active, very athletic,” Campbell says. “Post-puberty Doug was a shitshow. Always in trouble. Causing hell. Very anti-authority.”
Campbell barely got through Albuquerque High School and didn’t even consider going to college. Luckily, he found the sport of mountain biking and managed to get very good at it.
He turned pro in 1997 and spent the remainder of the decade racing all over the country on the national circuit. As he focused and matured, Campbell started taking some courses at what is now Central New Mexico Community College. His last full-time racing season was 1999, when Campbell, then 26, realized he needed a second act.
He enrolled at UNM as nearly a junior thanks to his CNM credits and chose engineering because he didn’t know what he wanted to do and it was the family business. Campbell raced through his undergraduate degree, finishing in 2001 just in time to realize that designing bridges and roads and sewage plants wasn’t his thing.
With May’s advice to keep searching for his niche in grad school, Campbell
connected with Prof. Arup Maji, who was doing research on materials for spacecraft components and space structures and was associated with the Air Force Research Laboratory. Campbell found an area of engineering that excited him and he finished his master’s degree in a year, spending most of his time working in the Space Structures Group at the research lab.
“He was always a top student,” says Maji, who funded Campbell’s master’s work and chaired his thesis committee.” When Campbell graduated, May wrote some letters of recommendation.
“This young man is destined for something exceptional,” he wrote. “Whatever he is going to set out to do he will accomplish.”
Campbell, with his wife, nurse Arishanda Campbell (‘00 BSN), left for the mountains of Colorado and worked in design and program development for a company that creates composite materials for harsh environments and another R&D company that had battery technology in its portfolio.
Frustrated with management, Campbell broke out on his own in 2012 and cofounded ROCCOR, a space deployables and small satellite component products company
that started as the prototypical two guys in a garage and after some lean years grew to employ dozens and develop technology to remove some of the millions of pieces of debris in space.
Simultaneously, Campbell co-founded Solid Power in 2012, as a spinoff from the University of Colorado Boulder. In just 10 years, Solid Power has designed and is producing a different kind of battery for the electric vehicle market.
Since he stepped down as CEO at ROCCOR in 2018 and sold the company in 2020, Solid Power is his only focus and the company is closing in on mass-market production of its battery cell.
Ask Campbell to explain his product and the engineer in him takes pen to paper and draws it out.
Chargeable lithium-ion batteries store energy by drawing ions from the cathode (plus) side to the anode (negative) side
through a porous separator encased in a liquid electrolyte. They produce power by reversing that process and releasing electrons. That system has four components: the cathode and anode, electrolyte liquid and a polymer separator.
It is the kind of battery that currently powers the EVs on the road today.
An all-solid-state battery uses the same cathode/anode system but replaces the electrolyte liquid and polymer separator with a single component called an electrolyte separator.
“It is a discreet solid layer,” Campbell says, “so think Oreo cookie: creamy filling and your two little sandwiches.”
By replacing the two components with one solid state package that is more energydense, the vehicle’s range can increase by 30 to 50 percent, Campbell says. And because an all-solid-state battery is stable across a wide temperature range, auto manufacturers may be able to eliminate the costly cooling technology they build into electric vehicles.
“At the end of the day this works to deliver higher range and lower cost. That’s why Ford and BMW are working with us,” he says.
The proprietary component that Solid Power is delivering to Ford and BMW is the electrolyte separator.
“Broadly it’s a sulfide-based electrolyte,” Campbell says. Solid Power synthesizes the electrolyte as a powder, then turns it into a slurry (think cake batter), which is pumped into a machine similar to a printing press that pumps out thin layers that are stacked into a cell about the size of an iPad; a process very similar to how today’s lithium-ion batteries are produced.
The company is in pilot production, making hundreds per week.
Solid Power provides only the cells to the automakers, who design the battery packs. Campbell estimates his cells will be in EV models as soon as 2027.
His path from mountain biker to successful entrepreneur with millions to donate to his alma mater can look like a head scratcher. But Campbell sees it all as a perfect arc.
“I have over-the-top ambition. It’s how I’m wired. I’m always go, go, go, go, go. I’m just driven,” Campbell says. “And I’d argue that cycling primed me for business.”
Training all the time, watching your eating, weight and sleep and knowing
that not winning a race isn’t failure are fundamentals for an endurance athlete.
“You can’t worry about yesterday’s results, you’ve just got to just train, train, train,” Campbell says. “And that’s the same thing in business. You have to be persistent. You have to ride the highs and the lows. You can’t get too excited in the highs and you can’t get too bummed out in the lows. Otherwise, you’ll drive yourself crazy and you’ll flame out.”
Maji, the engineering professor who funded Campbell’s graduate work, is surprised by the speed and level of Campbell’s success, but not that he’s made it big.
“I’m not surprised in the context of his personality and caliber and zeal to do something different,” Maji says. “He was always a top student. And looking back, I can see why, given the traits that he had, he could certainly blossom into a very successful entrepreneur.”
When Campbell made the gift and specified the department be named for May, Campbell wanted to honor a man who helped change his life.
“I’m greatly honored,” says May, who retired from UNM in 2002 and is 81. “I see a young man who has accomplished extraordinary success at a young age. Quite exceptional. And I think it’s exceptional at this young age that he’s looking to benefit his school.”
Campbell readily admits he is not Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates or Elon Musk. “Five million sounds like a lot, but at the end of the day it’s not,” he says.
So he wanted his gift to be targeted to a small corner of the world that means something to him.
“It’s always been Albuquerque,” Campbell says. “Because even though I don’t live here I’ve always had a passion for this place. Because there’s goodness here. New Mexicans are good people. They’re very down-to-earth people. And UNM is competing with phenomenal research institutions, and I do think it punches above its weight, but it’s located in a relatively small state. I want to make my little corner of the world — the civil engineering department — more competitive.”
Campbell hopes his gift, which will endow a fund to be used at the discretion of the the Civil Engineering Department chair, will help to sweeten the pot to attract and retain world-class faculty.
Part of the plan is to help UNM compete with larger, better-funded universities in the competitive world of startups and spinoffs, a passion close to Campbell’s heart.
“I’m an Albuquerque kid who’s now running a company that the business community pits against spinoffs from Stanford and MIT,” Campbell says. “I’m not intimidated by anybody who comes out of these blue-chip universities.” ❂
CAlumna heads up national museum devoted to the American Indian experience
ynthia Chavez Lamar (’01 PhD), the new director of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian, was born in Dallas, where her family was living under the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ Voluntary Relocation Program. While her father trained as an architectural draftsman, the young family missed home — San Felipe Pueblo along the Rio Grande in New Mexico. The Chavez family — father Richard of San Felipe, mother Sharon who is Hopi, Navajo and Tewa, and three children — put their roots back down in San Felipe, where Cynthia excelled in school, graduated as valedictorian of Bernalillo High School and went on to study art at Colorado College.
Her grounding in Pueblo culture and tradition help to guide her in her new role as the first Native American woman to lead the National Museum of the American Indian’s museum system. And she credits her PhD in American Studies from UNM in 2001 with helping her to learn the importance of collaboration with tribes in curating museum exhibitions.
Mirage talked to Chavez Lamar about the National Museum of the American Indian, her time at UNM and best practices for getting New Mexico chile and salsa back to D.C. in her luggage. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Mirage:Tell me about your childhood.
Cynthia Chavez Lamar: I grew up in San Felipe and went to school there too, so it was really an important part of my upbringing, being in the community and being part of the community. That really forms a strong basis for my identity. My dad made heishi (beads) and is also a selftaught jeweler. He has become a master of lapidary work. Both of my parents stressed
education a lot and my mom, since we were very little, used to read to us every night. We grew up with a love of reading. I was a good student. I knew that it was important to my family and to my future that I do my best in school. So I tried really hard and did well.
Mirage:Then you went to Colorado College and majored in studio art. How did you find CC?
Chavez Lamar: That’s a funny story. My dad being a jeweler, he participated in these exclusive small tours in the summers to see artists at home. So they would come to our house and my mom would have a great lunch for them and they would get to talk to my dad about his jewelry. In this one group there was a Dartmouth recruiter and he started talking to me about Dartmouth and was encouraging me to apply to Dartmouth. And I told him, “That’s too far from New Mexico; I really want to be closer to home.” And he said, “Well, I know this great small liberal arts college in Colorado called Colorado College. You might want to check it out.” I always tell people at Colorado College I was recruited to CC by a Dartmouth recruiter.
Mirage: And you majored in studio art?
Chavez Lamar: Growing up around art and artists, it was a big part of my life and upbringing. My mom from her Hopi/ Tewa side knew how to do traditional clay pottery, so she taught us to work with clay. I would make all kinds of different figures. When I went to college it just seemed like something that was just part of me and it seemed natural to go that route. At CC I did printmaking and photography. I enjoyed it, but I’ve always been a practical person, so I knew by my junior year that I wasn’t strong
enough in any of those and I knew that if I was going to pursue the path of being an artist it certainly would be a struggle and it would take a long time. And I thought, “I’m really going to need a paying job,” so I decided to go to grad school. I had to think about, “What is it I’m interested in? I’m definitely interested in American Indian subject matter because of my background, because of who I am.” At the time there were only two master’s programs in American Indian studies, and I decided to go to UCLA.
Mirage: What was your path into museum work?
Chavez Lamar: When I was at UCLA I had the opportunity to work with a guest curator who was doing a show on Hopi kachina dolls for the UCLA Fowler Museum. That experience involved some fieldwork — a lot of research — and introduced me to the curatorial process and I really liked that. It allowed me to still be involved with Native art, it allowed me to use my intellect, it allowed me to explore new subjects. To me, it was a creative process in its own way. That’s when the bug bit me. And I thought I needed to get my PhD if I want to be a curator, so that’s why I ended up at UNM.
Mirage:Was that about coming home? The strength of the program?
Chavez Lamar: UNM had the only PhD program where you could specialize in Native American art history. And it also was about coming home. I had a bit of a hiccup on my master’s thesis because once my dad found out the topic I was working on, he said, “You can’t do that.” It was a cultural issue. When I was at UCLA, I started looking at issues around
representation, especially when it comes to American Indian culture. Throughout history, sacred and ceremonial items have often been on display in museum exhibitions. I was looking carefully at that history and that was what my master’s thesis was going to be about. My dad’s concern was that at our pueblo, given your position in the community, there are only certain things that you should know or you should acknowledge you know. If you’re a woman, like me, and you’re not initiated into any societies or groups and don’t live in the community, you’re probably a person who is considered to have very little knowledge of certain things. By looking at the display of sacred and ceremonial items in exhibitions, I think he was concerned that I would start getting into the details of what those things were, and as a Pueblo person you always have to be mindful that what you do outside your community can impact your family. That really put me into personal turmoil, because I questioned who I was as a San Felipe Pueblo person. I thought, “Have I really forgotten who I am?” It was kind of traumatic, honestly. But professionally it made me think about how can I still address this as an issue, because it is an issue. We need to let museums
and non-Native people know that to have sacred and ceremonial items on display is problematic. With my PhD I looked at the history of anthropology and how in the past anthropologists were always digging and trying to get information out of Pueblo people about secret or sacred information and what that resulted in. That was my way to address something that I thought was important to address but stay true to who I am as a Pueblo person.
Mirage: At UNM were there any particular mentors?
Chavez Lamar: The person that had the most impact on me was Dr. Mari Lyn Salvador, who is no longer with us. She was in the Anthropology Department and her scholarly practice was one that centered on collaboration. That’s really when I got introduced to the idea that in curating an exhibition, you can collaborate with artists and with Indigenous community members.
Mirage: That brings me to the question of your museum now and importance of collaboration with the communities who you are putting on display. Your museum feels different from other museums. Can you explain that?
Chavez Lamar: The museum’s origins were really based on collaboration and advocacy from Native Indigenous peoples. A lot of collaboration was done with Indigenous people to establish exhibitions, to develop the architectural concepts of the museum on the Mall and the Cultural Resources Center in Suitland, Md. The museum’s origins are based on Native Indigenous values and beliefs and concepts. That’s like our foundation that sustains us. That spirit is there and it will never go away, because that’s how NMAI was born.
Mirage: It’s a big responsibility. How are you feeling about the job?
Chavez Lamar: It’s definitely a lot of responsibility, but it’s also something I know I don’t have to do alone. Thankfully
there’s a tremendous staff in place and they’re the ones that make the museum operate on a day-to-day basis. So I have a tremendous amount of gratitude for them and the work that they do. I think it’s going to take me about a year to sort of settle and to feel like I have both feet on the ground. I’m still in the stage of learning something new every day. We’re strong now. But I think my challenge is trying to find that time to think about some bigger initiatives that the museum needs to take on to become even stronger.
Mirage: When you have challenges, what is your support system?
Chavez Lamar: For me, family is really important. I have a great husband, (former BIA law enforcement deputy director) Walter Lamar. He’s a tremendous person in Indian Country. And thankfully I still have both my parents. They’re always there for me. And my brother and my sister are also there for me. I do rely on family to help me get through challenging times.
Mirage: How often do you get back to New Mexico?
Chavez Lamar: Before the pandemic I’d get back four to six times a year — work and personal visits. I’m hoping as travel is opening up and I’m getting more comfortable traveling again that I’ll be able to get back to New Mexico at least that much again. I was actually just there for our May 1 feast day. We had it after two years of not having it. We were all very excited but also a little bit nervous. It went well and it wasn’t crazy busy, so I actually had time to sit for a bit and watch the dances. One of the things that I’ve really missed over the course of the pandemic was hearing the songs and seeing the dances. You don’t realize how much you miss something until it’s not there. That was really comforting to me and much needed.
Mirage: What food is the Chavez home famous for on feast days?
Chavez Lamar: There’s two things that people always ask us to make and it’s spinach casserole, which is interesting, and cheesecake.
Mirage: How do you get New Mexico food in D.C.?
Chavez Lamar: I get things through the mail sometimes. My mom overnights me some things. And when I go home,
I usually pack my suitcase. Now at the Albuquerque airport they sell the frozen red and green Bueno post-security, so I’ll sometimes bring a small cooler with me and fill it up and bring it home. I had lunch with Deb Haaland (U.S. Secretary of the Interior and fellow UNM alumna) about a month ago and I wanted to bring her something so my gift to her was a jar of Sadie’s Not As Hot salsa. ❂
A my Miller’s UNM cred goes well beyond her two academic degrees — a B.A. in Journalism and Sociology in 1985 and a Master of Public Administration in 1993.
First, let’s look at her family tree. Miller’s dad, James P. Miller Sr., received his PhD from UNM and taught in the College of Education. While dad was getting his doctorate, her mom, Millie, worked in administration in the Department of Geology.
Miller’s brother, James P. Miller Jr., is a two-time UNM graduate with his B.A. and PhD. Her sister, Susan Lester, has a B.A. from UNM. Miller’s sister, Linda Miller, diverged from the family tradition and got her degrees from NMSU but worked at UNM in Computer and Information Resources and Technology.
Miller’s husband, Cliff McNary, got his B.A. at UNM in 1986 and his M.A. in 1994.
The McNary/Miller children are also Lobos. Daughter Kiera received a bachelor’s in chemistry in 2019 and a master’s in nanosciences and microsystems engineering in 2021. And son Thailen just graduated with a B.S. in psychology. Amy’s nephew Kavi Miller graduated with a B.A. in business in 2020 and niece Zunyi Miller graduated with her business degree in May alongside Thailen.
In 1995, her father received one of the first Zia Awards given by the Alumni Association to honor outstanding alumni who live in New Mexico. In 2016, brother Jim received the same award.
Miller, 59, the incoming president of the UNM Alumni Association, takes obvious delight in drawing the map of her ties to Loboland.
“I have deep roots,” she says with a laugh.
Miller joined the Alumni Association board in 2017 and she has spent the past two years working on board development, particularly in strengthening the board by encouraging more diversity and active commitment among members.
“We want the board to look like the state,” Miller says. “And we want board members to be engaged in being great ambassadors for UNM.”
Miller wants to continue that work as president, to work on ramping up in-person alumni events that have been curtailed during the pandemic and to also support the career mentoring efforts spearheaded by the previous two presidents, Michael Silva and Chad Cooper. Silva and Cooper, both African American men who served during two years of unrest and activism — and spurred by the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police — brought their activism to the role of president.
Miller intends to allow her own passions — environmental sustainability, social justice and access to education — to guide her term.
“Maybe it’s a function of age, but I am not going to sit silently,” Miller says. “I am focused on living and breathing my values.”
One of Miller’s early values was education. Her father was a school administrator in Anthony, N.M. on the southern border. He moved the family to Albuquerque in 1971 to pursue a PhD and young Amy explored the campus in the afternoons after school let out.
After her father completed his doctorate, the family moved to Santa Fe, where her father served as superintendent of schools.
When 1981 came around and Miller was a 17-year-old high school graduate without much direction, she listened to her father’s advice.
“My dad really wanted me to go to UNM,” Miller says. “He believed very strongly that this university changed his life and the life of our family.”
So, she moved into Alvarado Hall.
“I was pretty fuzzy-headed,” Miller says. “My first year was a little tough.”
She had no idea what she wanted to do with her life and adjusting from small-town Santa Fe to big-city Albuquerque was a challenge.
In her second year, she got involved in modern dance and music, where she found her people. She was also a good writer; in high school she had worked as an intern at the Santa Fe New Mexican newspaper, running copy in the frantic days when inmates took over the New Mexico Penitentiary. She took some journalism classes at UNM and found her major.
“I just like talking to people and hearing their experiences,” Miller says.
Her first job was technical editing, then she moved into communications and marketing with the state’s credit unions and rural electric coops. During that time, Miller was involved in a serious motorcycle accident on Central Avenue in front of UNM and spent months undergoing surgeries and physical rehabilitation.
One day, when she was learning how to walk again, she took a stroll through campus and saw a flyer for the Master of Public Administration degree program. She enrolled in graduate school, started dating and married her husband (whom she met during their undergrad years) and found another lifelong passion.
“I have a love for politics and public policy,” Miller says. At PNM, the electric company where she worked for 15 years, Miller was able to combine her skills in communication and government affairs.
In 2017, PNM initiated deep layoffs and Miller lost her job.
“I wasn’t expecting it and it hit me pretty hard,” she says.
One day over some wine, a friend suggested Miller start her own company. It wasn’t anything she had ever envisioned, but the more she thought about it the more she realized it was an opportunity to do the kind of work that mattered to her. She opened AMM Consulting and developed a portfolio of clients in renewable energy and clean transportation among other passion projects, including the MAS charter school.
“I decided I would do work that fulfills me,” Miller said. With her two children now being UNM graduates themselves, Miller has been reflecting on the meaning of a UNM degree.
“We have trouble taking pride in our state,” Miller says. “What comes to mind when I think of UNM is that idea of — ‘you’re just going to UNM’? I think we have to change that thinking to, ‘no, UNM is a damned
good university’. There are really good people teaching here. There are people doing life-changing work here. We have to take more pride.” ❂
• Miller lives in a house near North Campus that was the original location of Animal Humane Association of New Mexico.
• Since she graduated, Miller has never lived more than two miles from Main Campus.
• Miller and McNary’s two children came into their family via adoption from South Korea.
• Miller’s fur babies are cattle dog Baby and Boxer/Pointer cross George.
• While an undergrad, Miller played in the UNM flute choir.
Photo:When the Grammy award for Best Immersive Audio Album was presented in April, the winning recording — The United States Army Field Band’s “Soundtrack of the American Soldier” — rang up several firsts. It was the first time a concert band had won a Grammy; the first time a military band had won a Grammy; and, as far as anyone at UNM can recall, the first time an alumnus has won a Grammy.
Col. Jim R. Keene (’88 BA), a native of Albuquerque’s South Valley who graduated with a degree in piano performance, conducted all of the music on the album.
After graduation, Keene received a master’s degree in orchestral conducting
from Southern Methodist University in Dallas and then was accepted into the Army bands program as a band officer and conductor. Keene’s Army career took him to Heidelberg, Germany, and West Point, and in 2015 he was named commander of The U.S. Army Field Band based at Fort Meade in Maryland.
“It shouldn't surprise you to hear that I believe the U.S. Army Field Band is the best band in the world,” Keene said. “The reason is the number of performances they do, performing more than 100 concerts per year, each one on a different stage, often in a different city or town across the nation and around the world.”
In Keene’s career he has performed for U.S. presidents, led music for funerals of three presidents, and conducted at numerous performances at the White House.
The album, recorded during the band’s 2018 tour, includes music chosen from movies, video games and new commissioned pieces to honor the American soldier. ❂
Chacon told the Pulitzer judges, “but in this
Igraduate made some music history. Raven Chacon ( and installation artist from the Navajo Nation, was the first Native American to win the Pulitzer Prize for music.
Defiance, Ariz., and lives in Albuquerque, describes himself as a “noise musician,” who often uses homemade electric instruments. A graduate of UNM’s College of Fine Arts with a degree in composition, Chacon received his MFA from the California Institute of the Arts. Chacon has appeared on more
specifically for the Nichols & Simpson pipe organ at The Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist in Milwaukee. The composition was a site-specific commission to utilize the organ for Present Music's annual Thanksgiving concert.
“As an Indigenous artist, I make a point not to present my work on this holiday,”
voiceless, when ceding space is never an option for those in power.”
Judges called the work “mesmerizing” and “a concentrated and powerful musical expression with a haunting visceral impact.” ❂
Each year, the UNM Alumni Association recognizes a host of exceptional alumni and friends of UNM. The Alumni Association is proud to announce the 2022 award recipients and ask for your nominations of 2023 awards.
Receiving an award is the University’s highest honor. You can nominate someone for the 2023 Alumni Awards at unmalumni.com/awards. The awards ceremony will be held on February 28, Lobo Day!
James F. Zimmerman Award: Shaandiin Tome (’15)
The James F. Zimmerman Award is given to an alumnus of the University of New Mexico who has made a significant contribution which has brought fame and honor to the University of New Mexico or to the State of New Mexico.
Bernard S. Rodey Award: Bradford Strand, Ph.D (’88)
The Bernard S. Rodey Award recognizes those whose leadership efforts have contributed significantly to the field of education.
The Erna S. Fergusson Award (formerly the Award of Distinction) recognizes exceptional accomplishments and/or commitment or distinguished service to the University of New Mexico.
Zia Award: Kim Kloeppel, Ph.D (’80, ’05, ’11)
Zia Award: Ireena Erteza, Ph.D (’86)
Lobo Award: Christina O’Connell, Ph.D (’96, ’21)
Inspirational Young Alumnus Award: Yixing Chen, Ph.D (’15)
outstanding teaching and service to students. The recipient is a faculty member currently employed full-time in any school or college of the University.
Research Award: Zachary Sharp, Ph.D Recognizes outstanding research being conducted at the University of New Mexico. The recipient is currently conducting research full-time in any school or college of the University.
William V. McPherson (’90 BA), Henderson, Texas, who retired from the Houston Police Department in 2020, is Kilgore College’s police chief and director of public safety. Julie Coonrod (’91 MS), dean of Graduate Studies at UNM and professor of Civil, Environmental, and Construction Engineering, has been named by The American Council on Education as a Fellow for the 2022-2023 academic year.
Garrett Young (’92 BUS) was promoted in December 2022 to partner and general manager at Microsoft corporate headquarters in Redmond, Wash.
LeManuel Lee Bitsoi (’93 AALA, ’95 BS), Cambridge, Mass., is vice president for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Brandeis University.
Higher Education Distinguished Legislator of the Year Award: Senator Martin Hickey and Senator Mark Moores (’93, ’05)
The Daily Lobo & Student Publications annual alumni celebration in June included the inaugural Hall of Honor Celebration, which recognizes alumni from the Daily Lobo and other student publications The 2022 honorees are Makayla Grijalva, Young Alumni Award; Leslie Donovan, Distinguished Alumni Award; and Mark Holm, Contributor Award.
Grijalva, a 2020 graduate of the School of Journalism, who is a Valencia County News-Bulletin reporter and former reporter at the Silver City Daily Press. A veteran of the Daily Lobo, Grijalva organized a mentorship network for young alumni.
Donovan, who earned a BA in creative writing with a minor in journalism in 1982 and a MA in English in 1986 from UNM, was an instructor in English and women’s studies and earned a PhD in medieval literature in 1993. Since 1994, Donovan had been a professor in UNM’s Honor’s College.
Holm, an award-winning photographer and photo editor at the Albuquerque Journal and Albuquerque Tribune, who died in 2017 at the age of 63, served as a quiet and encouraging mentor for countless young journalists and served as an advisor for the Daily Lobo staff. ❂
Cindy Lovato-Farmer (’93 JD), a specialist in employment law with two decades of experience in legal and leadership positions at national laboratories, has been named general counsel at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
Matthew T. Casados (’94 BSED), Santa Cruz, N.M., is the Rio Arriba County deputy manager. Rhonda BeLue (’94 BS) joined The University of Texas at San Antonio as a Lutcher Brown Endowed Distinguished Professor in the Department of Public Health.
Deb Haaland BA, ’06 JD), the U.S. Secretary of the Interior, spoke at the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland.
Savannah C. Partridge (’94 BSEE), Seattle, Wash., was chosen as the 2022 Honorary Fellow by the Society of Breast Imaging in recognition of her scientific contributions for advancing breast imaging techniques.
Anne Hillerman (’72 BA), who took up the Chee-Leaphorn mystery series after the death of her father, Tony Hillerman, brings the series into the serpentine coves of Lake Powell and the modern challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and the marijuana industry in The Sacred Bridge (Harper, 2022). Lt. Leaphorn is still retired and suddenly acting frisky; Jim Chee is second in command at the Shiprock District of the Navajo Nation Police and wondering if it’s time for a change; and Bernadette Manuelito, his wife, is contemplating becoming a detective. The Sacred Bridge has everything a fan of the series could want: parallel plot lines with danger galore, side trips into Diné history and culture; and the deepening relationship between Chee and Manuelito. Yes, it’s a page turner, but it also offers the frequent surprise of perfect little sentences like this: “Driving another man’s truck felt odd, like wearing another person’s shoes.”
Don J. Usner (’91 MA) has been carrying on a love affair with the Valles Caldera in northern New Mexico for years. Usner, a photographer, brings his cameras to the special place every chance he gets and has documented the landscape through the years, seasons and change in land ownership. With author William deBuys, Usner published Valles Caldera (Museum of New Mexico Press) in 2006. Since then, the nearly 90,000-acre former ranch has become a part of the National Park Service and named Valles Caldera National Preserve. With a new preface, this revised and expanded edition is filled with photographs of the stunning 13-mile wide bowl created by a volcanic eruption more than a million years ago. The reverence Usner and deBuys hold for the land is imbued in the more than 200 pages of this large format book.
Edward Callary (’68 MA) is a professor emeritus at Northern Illinois University and Jean K. Callary is a writer and editor. The couple live in Austin, Texas, and have an apparent affinity for and take an obvious delight in the place names that dot the Lone Star State. In Texas Place Names (University of Texas Press, 2020) they divide the massive state into towns and counties, of which there are thousands, and list them alphabetically. There are 66 entries beginning with LA alone, including Lazbuddie (named after founding merchants Luther “Laz” Green and Andrew “Buddie” Sherley), which you might have driven through on your way East out of Clovis. It sits not far from Muleshoe, named — you guessed it — after a mule shoe a rancher found in early 1900 when he was considering names for his ranch. In these entertaining and informative (nearly 400) pages you can divine the origins of Ding Dong, Telephone and Bug Tussel as well as Grit, Uncertain, Frognot, Dimple and Dime Box.
The name Larry S. Crumpler (’97 MS) is well known to anyone with an interest in Mars. The planetary geologist – research curator of Volcanology and Space Science at The New Mexico Museum of Natural History, as well as member of the NASA Mars Perseverance Rover mission team — is so connected to Mars that one geographical location on the red planet has been unofficially named Larry’s Lookout. So who else to write a hefty 300plus page tome on the exploration of Mars? Missions to Mars (Harper Design, 2021) is chock full of maps and color photos and narrated as only Crumpler could, with intimate knowledge of the Opportunity, Spirit and Perseverance rover missions. “Mission to Mars” also serves as a professional autobiography of Crumpler, who began his life in the space age peering at the sky through a telescope in his backyard and honed his interest in space while he was a graduate student in UNM’s Department of Geology. Crumpler takes through the story of Mars exploration from his first job in 1976 helping to choose the landing site of the Viking 2 Lander to his place on the Perseverance mission in 2020.
Nancy Lensen-Tomasson (’73 MA, ’78 MFA) was an associate professor of photography at Virginia Commonwealth University from 1979 to 1996. In 1989 she joined a group from the Parsons School of Design for five weeks of study in the Ivory Coast in West Africa. Her aim was to photograph women in their daily lives as she puts it, “revealing their communal, creative and spiritual contributions to their cultures.” In 1992, she joined a group from the Museum of African Art in New York for a stint in Mali, focusing on the cultures of the Bama, Bozo, Fulani and Gogan people. A lot has changed in Ivory Coast and Mali since then. Ivory Coast underwent civil war and Mali has undergone numerous military coups. Women cooking, dancing, tending yam fields, planting millet, weaving grass mats and firing pots fill the pages of Women of the Ivory Coast and Mali: Photographs of a Heritage (2021). In a foreword, Steve Yates, the founding curator of photography at the Museum of New Mexico, notes that the dozens of photographs collected in this book “stand as unique testimony now.”
Anne B. Thomas (’80 BUS, ’83 JD) is 18 and just out of a long painful rehab for a broken spinal cord. Once again, she is in a doctor’s office for a complication from her injury, this time a urinary tract infection. The doctor looks at her file and says, “I think you need to seriously consider checking yourself into a nursing home.” It will prevent her from becoming a lifelong burden to her family, he says. Thomas is devastated and forms a steely resolve to prove him wrong. Paralyzed in a car accident in Spain in 1976, Thomas enrolls at UNM at 20 and begins to live an independent life that will take her to Washington, D.C., to work for the Equal Opportunity Commission and the World Bank. In Was it Spectacular?
(Allison M. Yabroff, 2020), Thomas, who died in 2019, recounts her struggles and triumphs. In 1990, she returned to UNM and served as director of the Office of Equal Opportunity. “Ever since the accident,” Thomas writes, “I’ve listened to that voice inside me that guides me, urges me on, encourages me to try. There is no regret. The accident forged me, toughened me, drove me to achieve, to prove my worth. It’s been a good ride.” Proceeds of the book go to the Anne B. Thomas No Bounds Scholarship at the UNM Foundation.
Bruce Parker (’81 MA) has collected two dozen poems in Ramadan in Summer (Finishing Line Press, 2022). Parker, worked abroad with the State Department, and his title poem explores the push and pull of fasting during Ramadan in Islamabad where he worked. In other poems, he explores the transitions and impermanence of life. “A Blameless Life” is short and elegant: “I sit/and nap/ in the hot sun, /still until/ my dream dries up, then/ go inside. Indoors I wake,/dodge the smother of sleep,/put it off./Call me into the shade,/mine a blameless/ life when my acts/are forgotten, this age/ not held against me.”
Bob Rosebrough (’75 BA, ’78 JD) describes his adopted hometown of Gallup, N.M., as simultaneously wonderful and terrible. Raised in Farmington, another border town, but more segregated between whites and Navajos, Rosebrough strikes out for Gallup after he graduates from law school, eager to make his way in an entirely different milieu. In A Place of Thin Veil (Rio Nuevo Publishers, 2022), which is as much Gallup’s memoir as Rosebrough’s, the lawyer who will become mayor recounts the western outpost’s history, demography and geography as he writes about his own life’s path. Key to Rosebrough’s understanding of Gallup are some seminal events: in 1973 when Larry Casuse, a Navajo UNM student, kidnapped Gallup’s mayor hostage at gunpoint in City Hall and then was shot to death; in the 1980s when Gallup’s problems with alcohol gain nationwide attention; and during Rosebrough’s terms as mayor as he works for alcohol reform. “I find myself thinking that while some of the terrible side of Gallup is obvious to most,” Rosebrough writes, “the wonderful side is equally real, even though it’s less apparent to the outsiders.”
Miriam Quinones Smith, a dissertation away from a PhD in anthropology from New York University, is adrift in Miami, the hometown of her husband. Staying home with her toddler and trying to assimilate into the Miami social scene, she is drawn into intrigue when a country club luncheon ends with a tablemate dead, face-down in her banquet chicken salad. Mango, Mamba, and Murder (Crooked Lane, 2021), the first outing of Raquel V. Reyes (’92 BAFA) moves quickly and brightly, with Spanish sprinkled generously and warm repartee between Quinones Smith and her best friend from childhood, Alma Diaz, a fellow Cubana. When Alma gets arrested for the socialite’s death, the mystery swings into stride.
We would like to add your book to the alumni library in Hodgin Hall and consider it for a review in Shelf Life. Please send an autographed copy to:
Shelf Life, UNM Alumni Relations
1 UNM, MSC01-1160, Albuquerque, NM 87131
Elizabeth A. Garcia (’95 BA) has assumed the duties of chief clerk of the New Mexico Supreme Court.
Tieraona Low Dog (’96 MD), Austin, Texas, has been elected to the American Botanical Council’s Board of Trustees.
Maria E. Sanchez-Tucker (’96 BA), Santa Fe, N.M., has been named community services director for the City of Santa Fe’s Community Health and Safety Department.
Benjamin A. Baker (’97 BA) has been appointed interim director of the New Mexico Law Enforcement Academy, and serves as the deputy cabinet secretary for statewide law enforcement support at the Department of Public Safety.
Olivia Benally (’97 BSEE) Window Rock, Ariz., is the new chief executive officer of the Navajo Times Publishing Company Inc. and publisher of the Navajo Times newspaper. She is the first Diné woman to serve as leader of the Navajo Times.
Rachel Hess (’97 MD), physician and scientist, was named associate vice president for research at University of Utah Health.
Tom Ducatte (’98 EDSPC) is a sportswriter for North Country Living Magazine, a quarterly publication located in the Adirondacks region of upstate New York.
Maria De Varenne (’98 BA), Nashville, Tenn., has been named senior partner at FINN Partners, a leading global public relations agency. Varenne, a veteran news executive and former Tennessean editor, will be responsible for overseeing earned media strategy and content across print and digital channels for the company's diverse clients throughout the Southeast.
Raven Chacon (’01 BA), Albuquerque, N.M., won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in Music for his piece Voiceless Mass for the pipe organ. Chacon is the first Indigenous composer and first from New Mexico to win the prize.
Our monthly email newsletter, The Howler, keeps Lobos up-to-date with Alumni Association news and events, as well as additional alumni profiles not published in Mirage. You can read it online at lumni.com/howler or subscribe to the email version by sending a request to alumni@unm.edu.
Has it been a while since you’ve connected with the UNM Alumni Association? Don’t worry, now is the perfect time to reconnect by logging into UNM Alumni Connect, our online community. Simply visit UNMAlumni.com and click Community Login in the upper right corner of the screen.
You can update your contact preferences, control your privacy settings and add your personal or professional news to Class Notes. Keeping your contact information up-to-date allows you to find and connect with fellow alumni near you and to receive information about Homecoming events, regional green chile roasts, UNM department or program news, game watch parties and more #ProudUNMAlumni opportunities.
You can also go to unmalumni.com/events for updated information on alumni activities and events.
Be sure to check out our website at UNMAlumni.com for event details and Alumni sponsored programs and groups.
The UNM Alumni Relations staff continues to provide programming and opportunities to connect virtually, and will stay up to date on the latest regulations and mandates that will allow in-person events when it is safe and responsible to in the future.
We hope you take this time to reconnect with the programs, events, adventures and benefits the UNM Alumni Association has available for Lobos like you.
The UNM Alumni Association’s regional chapter program provides opportunities for alumni to stay connected with the University, find other UNM alumni living in their area and give back to the University and their communities. Find your chapter, upcoming chapter events and your chapter’s social media pages by visiting UNMAlumni.com/chapters.
Cynthia Chavez Lamar (’01 PhD), Alexandria, Va., has been named director of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian.
Lauren Keefe (’01 JD) is the new city attorney for the City of Albuquerque.
Donna Mowrer (’01 JD), is the new chief judge of the Ninth Judicial District, which includes Curry and Roosevelt Counties.
Camille Pedrick (’01 BA, ’05 JD), Albuquerque, is the new executive director of The New Mexico Board of Bar Examiners.
Benjamin Petre (’01 BA) Denver, Colo., joined the international law firm Dorsey & Whitney LLP as a partner in its Denver office.
Dylan Miner (’03 MA, ’07 PhD), a founding professor in the Residential College in the Arts and Humanities at Michigan State University, has been appointed dean of the College.
John W. Blair (’04 JD), Santa Fe, N.M., is the new manager of the City of Santa Fe. Ganesh Balakrishnan (’06 PhD), Albuquerque, was appointed director of The New Mexico Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research, which works toward building the state’s capacity to conduct scientific research.
Kathy Dong (’06 PHARMD, ’06 MBA) joined the early-stage biotechnology firm Neuron23’s board of directors.
Eric J. García (’06 BFA) Roswell, N.M., presented his exhibit “Space Invader” at the Roswell Museum. The Roswell artist-inresidence’s work shines a light on the dark past of the Americas, and the reality of an authentic “alien” invasion of frightening proportions when Indigenous people clashed with “aliens” from the European continent.
Luis Brown (’07 BBA, ’09 MBA) has been hired as the information technology director by the Village of Los Lunas.
Leah Chelist (’07 BUS) is the new Executive Vice President for People at Denver-based NexCore Group, a national health care real estate developer.
Find more information about UNM Alumni Programming and Events at UNMAlumni.com
Marcos Gonzales (’07 MBA) was recently promoted to director of the Bernalillo County Economic Development Department.
When we describe the Alumni Association, we think of words like network, connection, sharing, support, enrichment and discovery. These words capture what we’re trying to accomplish with you and for you at the UNM Alumni Association. When you graduated as a Lobo, you became a Lobo for Life — an automatic member of our alumni association. And now we want to ensure you have the opportunities you want, whether it’s simply to be informed or to be actively engaged.
For those wanting to keep updated on the programs and work of the Association, there are two best places. One is The Howler, which is emailed to you on the first Thursday of each month. The second is our website, with up-to-date information on events, activities and opportunities to engage. The link is: unmalumni.com.
And of course, we know every Lobo looks forward to the Mirage magazine filled with interesting stories about our alums around the country. Our alums are doing amazing things in their jobs and communities. The interesting developments since their graduation are fascinating to discover and bring to you.
And now our biggest focus for this year is to get you involved in what we’re doing. We want you to participate, whether it’s attending an event — in person or virtually — or it’s joining a regional or affiliate chapter, a committee, or considering nominating yourself for a board member position. You could take advantage of our Lobo Career Network, which provides support to alums at every stage of their career. We’re also putting together the Alumni Business Directory to acknowledge and promote our alum-owned businesses. These opportunities and more are outlined on our website or you can reach out to us to find out more.
An here’s a reminder of an easy way to help the Alumni Association: When it comes time to renew your vehicle registration, order a UNM prestige plate. It's a great way to support your alumni association activities. I’d like to conclude with a special congratulations to our Alumni Emeriti. We enjoyed hosting the classes of ’70, ’71 and ’72 this past May at Hodgin Hall for a reception, breakfast with President Stokes, a tour of campus and concluding with the Commencement ceremony and special recognition of our alums. See our photo section for more.
To all of you Lobo for Lifers, we appreciate your support and engagement with UNM and the UNM Alumni Association. Go Lobos!
Connie Beimer
Vice President for Alumni Relations, UNM Executive Director, UNM Alunni Association
Shammara Henderson
(’07 JD), Albuquerque, a New Mexico Court of Appeals judge, was honored with the Albuquerque Section of the National Council of Negro Women’s Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune Legacy Award. The award acknowledges work with the National Council of Negro Women and the Black community in New Mexico.
Jason R. Patton Conn., a U.S. Navy commander, is executive officer of the NAVSEA Warfare Center’s Naval Undersea Warfare Center Division Newport in Rhode Island.
Rebecca Chavez the surgical critical care fellowship program at Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla, N.Y., a hospital affiliated with New York Medical College School of Medicine.
Shanna M. Combs (’08 MD), Fort Worth, Texas, a practicing physician with the Cook Children’s Physician Network, has been named president of the Tarrant County Medical Society.
Emma Nolan (’08 MWR) is the new principal managing broker for Coldwell Banker Bain’s Edmonds/Lynnwood office located in Seattle, Wash.
Myrriah Tomar (’08 BS) received the 2022 Women in Technology Award from the New Mexico Technology Council. Tomar is the executive director of New Mexico Tech’s Office of Innovation Commercialization and serves as a member of President Stephen G. Wells’ senior staff and cabinet.
Melanie Barnes (’09 PhD) was named state director for the Bureau of Land Management, and will oversee 800 employees, 13.5 million acres of public lands and 42 million acres of federal minerals.
CORRECTION: A caption in the Spring 2022 issue misspelled the last name of UNM School of Engineering Dean Christos Christodoulou.
Left to Right: Alumni Association President Mike Silva (’95 BA), Black Alumni Chapter Vice President Dee Dee Hatch Sanders (’93 BUS), Senator Harold J. Pope (’02 BS), Kenny Thomas (’19 BA), and Black Alumni Chapter President Diedre Gordon (’98 BA) celebrate Black Alumni Chapter awards. Senator Pope and Thomas were awarded with the Trailblazer and Living Legend awards respectively.
Members from the UNM Alumni Association Board of Directors in front of the U after celebrating Lobo Day.
Lobo Louie with Young Alumni President Aaron Currence (’15 MA) and President Elect Arturo Lozoya (’16 BBA) at Bombs Away Beer Company during Koozies for Cause, which raised money and collected donations for the Lobo Pantry.
Kenneth Armijo (’05 BSME), Association board member, kept the Lobo Pride going in Israel at the CSP Solar Tower plant.
Denver Chapter Lobos gathered for a tour of Empower Field, home of the Denver Broncos.
Head Football Coach Danny Gonzales (’98 BBA, ’02 MS) celebrating Alumni Night at Isotopes Park.
Alumni Relations Office celebrating Scott Sanchez, Alumni Relations officer, at the U. Left to right: Raymond Armijo (’88 BFA), Victoria Lujan (’11 BA), Connie Beimer (’77 BA, ’78 MPA), Scott Sanchez (’16 BA, ’22 MPA), Margaret Ortega (’00 BA), Katie Williams (‘04 BA), Jennifer Diaz (’18 BFA).
Alumni Emeriti walking into the graduation ceremony to celebrate 50 years as Lobo grads.
The Alumni Association Board of Directors with Leo Lo, dean of College of University Libraries and Learning Sciences, after learning about innovative initiatives being implemented across campus libraries.
Shaandiin Tome (’15 BFA) with her James F. Zimmerman Award at the Alumni Association Awards ceremony.
We remember alumni who recently passed away.
1940 - 1949
Singer, Jerre J. ’41
DeHerrera, Lena C. ’45
Ullom, Beryl ’46
Goode Jr., Nathan E. ’48
Riley, Brent Locke ’48
Silver, Leon Theodore ’48
Galloway, Lewis Dayton ’49
Gentry, Mary Severns ’49 ’51
Gordon, Larry J. ’49 ’51
Hofheins, Mareth C. ’49
Lareau, Richard J. ’49
Warren Jr., Harold J. ’49
1950 - 1959
Gay, Thomas David ’50
Korte, Merle ’50 ’59
Krug, Roland W. ’50
Riebe, Norman W. ’50
Savisky, Evelyn Idell ’50
Tischhauser Jr., John Lewis ’50
Zarate, Narcisa ’50
Asher, James John ’51
Gallegos, Arthur Abran ’51
Sundt, Dolores ’51 ’69
Tidenberg, Harold Eugene ’51
Ansley, Frances ’52
Hollander, Milton ’52
Murrell, John Thomas ’52
Chidichimo, Frank ’53
MaGill, Perry W. ’53
Castillo, Francis L. ’54
Church, Hugh W. ’54
Kahn, Ruth C. ’54
Marlin, Elmer David ’54
Nuckolls, Barbara A. ’54
Seese, William S. ’54 ’59
Wootton, Robert Joseph ’54
Grady, William G. ’55 ’59
Isaacson, Daniel ’55
Krogius, Barbara ’55
Sneddon Jr., Alexander Rick ’55
Bolling, Harriette Nell ’56
Knott, LaRoy ’56
Luke, Joan Marie ’56
Roybal, Benigno ’56
Sanchez, Lydia Rose ’56 ’66
Yrene, Carl S. ’56
Ahr, August Edward ’57 ’59
Crowley, Dennis Esler ‘57
Drake, Richard Warren ‘57
Kirk, Leon S. ‘57
Miller Jr., DeWayne A. ‘57 Pineda, Gustavo Salaiz ‘57 Scott, John P. ‘57 Torres, Gilbert A. ‘57
Vivian, Richard Gwinnett ‘57 ‘60 Mahr, Michael J. ‘58 Stahl, Carol Ann ‘58
Steward, William Paul ‘58 Blewett, Patrick J. ‘59 Gray, Anthony J. ‘59 Lunt, Richard Deforrest ‘59
Montoya, Fanny ‘59 Noble, Doris B. ‘59 ‘68 Trodden, Marie L. ‘59
1960 - 1969
Dahlgren, Patricia A. ’60 Lepp, Richard Lawrence ’60 Lucero, J. Carlos ’60 McKinley, Elaine Kay ’60 Mohr, Paul B. ’60 Perkins, Don A. ’60 Schlecht, Richard G. ’60 Cole, James Kenneth ’61 ’66 Gere, Frank S. ’61 Gunn III, Gordon McKay ’61 Ingalls Jr., Melvin N. ’61 Jaramillo, James C. ’61 Kelly, Eleanor N. ’61
Meiering, Robert Arthur ’61 Richards, James Edward ’61 Salome, Edward M. ’61 Brooks, John H. ’62 Wood, Wanda J. ’62
Bybee, Roger ’63
Grasse, William D. ’63 ’68 Ogurchak, Joseph G. ’63 Thompson, Sharon S. ’63 Abeyta, Severiano Joe ’64
Conoly, Walle Merritt ’64 D‘Arms, Philip Wilton ’64 Dodd, Nancy Elizabeth ’64 ’89 Emrick, Billy Roy ’64
Jeanjaquet, Joann ’64 Kirkpatrick, Marilyn K. ’64 Luxford II, William R. ’64
Tim Hoyt (’10 PHD) serves as the deputy director for Force Resiliency in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel & Readiness. He oversees military-wide policy and programs related to suicide prevention, sexual assault prevention and reducing illicit drug use.
Ruben Olguin (’10 BA, ’15 MFA) focuses on acoustics and incorporates sound frequencies in his series “Anthropogenic frequency,” part of the Arrivals 2022 exhibition at form & concept gallery in Santa Fe. Olguin’s series consists of vessels 3D-printed in plant-based plastic filaments infused with wood, which hold specific frequencies isolated to the optimal sound to stimulate the growth of specific plants, such as basil, corn, tomato and mung bean.
Yagazie Emezi (’11 BA), Lagos, Nigeria, an artist and independent photojournalist, has had work published by Al-Jazeera, The New York Times, Vogue, Newsweek, The Guardian and The Washington Post. Emezi was awarded the 2018 inaugural Creative Bursary Award from Getty Images, 2018 U.S Consulate Grant from The United States Consulate General Lagos, Nigeria, and 2017 Distinguished Alumnus Award from The University of New Mexico African Studies Department. Three years ago, she made history by becoming the first black African woman to photograph for National Geographic Magazine.
Ernest I. Herrera (’12 JD), San Antonio, Texas, was named by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund as its Western Regional Counsel.
Eric J. Stephen (’12 MA), Tulsa, Okla., is an education and development specialist at Manhattan Construction Company, a national construction services firm.
Rawlinson, Kim Thompson ’64 ’70 ’72
Reimer, Beverly Ann ’64
Bolling, George H. ’65
Copeland, Sharon Lee ’65
Ferguson, Mary Ann ’65
Hicks, Howard E. ’65
Leonard, Carol Marie ’65 ’69
Nichols, Julian S. ’65 ’67
Schofield, Sue Frances ’65 ’68
Singer, Carol Margery ’65 ’82
Stalheim, William ’65
Beavis, Mary H. ’66 ’71
Mahood, Mary Louise ’66
Robbins, Jeffrey H. ’66
Schoen, Rodric B. ’66
Ward, John W. ’66
Cummings, Isabel Lucero ’67
Haney, Catherine Park ’67
Parrish, John Michael ’67
Pritchard, Barbara D. ’67
Snider, Harold E. ’67
Trujillo, Daniel Juan ’67
Cooper, Barbara Kays ’68
Goldenberg, Karolyn ’68
Guist, Carl Glenn ’68
Chilcoat, Gary Dean ’69
Clark, Kirk A. ’69
Conner, Molly G. ’69
Jones, Ellen Mccanna ’69
Naberezny, Thomas P. ’69
Romero, James Peter ’69
Suazo, Norman T. ’69
Timm, Christopher Matthew ’69
Wenner, Donald Edward ’69 Winslow, Kathleen M. ’69 ’74
1970 - 1979
Benyak, Diane Marie ’70 ’71
Foy, Richard Edward ’70
McMullin, Richard Var ’70
Olmi, Antonio Michael ’70
Rummell, Frederick W. ’70
Taylor Jr., Edward W. ’70 Vichi, Don Craig ’70
Brannen, Mary Elizabeth ’71
Camp, William Curtis ’71 ’74
Catron Jr., James W. ’71 ’74
Eberhardt, Allan R. ’71
Finnegan, Michael Patrick ’71
We remember alumni who recently passed away.
Hansen, Susan ’71
Lavin, Susan Joan ’71
Macaluso, Carl A. ’71 ’77 Pearson II, Charles W. ’71 Ahumada, Eduardo Antonio ’72 ’77
Dodson, Richard A. ’72 McDowell, Kathryn Elizabeth ’72 Carlsten Sr., Ronald Wayne ’73 Condie, Carol J. ’73
Crawford, Donna Ann ’73
Holm, Wayne Stanley ’73 Klingbeil, Robert H. ’73 Lybarger, Judith Kay ’73 Roper, Carol Louise ’73 Shaffer, Randy Alan ’73 Skinner, George Franklin ’73 Tipton, Kevin William ’73 Valdez, Mateo ’73 Blum, Richard Dale ’74
Brown Simmons, Barbara Ann ’74 Kaplan, Bradley J. ’74 Murphy, Marilyn ’74 Ostling, Karl Francis ’74 Quintana, Michael A. ’74 Redmore, Gary Richard ’74 Sansoucie, Madie Felix ’74 Thompson, Meredith A. ’74 Bradley, Omar C. ’75 ’76 Martin, Pete Albert ’75 Peckinpaugh, Dennis P. ’75 Wood, Diane Marie ’75 Mason, Lavona Wreath ’76 Repko, Linda Lee ’76 Rogers, Patrick Joseph ’76 Swennes, Amy E. ’76 Terlecki, Steven W. ’76 White, Sarah Jane ’76 Gonzales, David A. ’77 Merritt, David Russell ’77 Tiefa, Marc Bradley ’77 Davis, Philip Bradley ’78
Garth, Janet Elliott ’78 Glass, Gordon ’78
Gray, David Gibson ’78 Heim, Sue E. ’78 Marquez, Maria Teresa ’78 Garcia, Maxine R. ’79 Henry, John Clifford ’79 Riggins, Leslie Erickson Ohl ’79
1980 - 1989
Corle, Steven Garver ’80
Johnson, Patty Ann ’80
Lester, James Lee ’80 ’88
Martinez, Juan Jose ’80 ’83
Montoya, Freddie Paul ’80
O‘Connor, Mary Ellen ’80 ’83
Thompson, Donald Gene ’80
Carter, Alice S. ’81
Koch, William Paul ’81
Larsen, Craig Richard ’81
Lockwood, Robert E. ’81
Officer, Sara Ann ’81
Ogilvie, Kenneth Mackey ’81 Anderson, Saundra E. ’82 ’93
Binford, Martha Riley ’82 ’00
Bustamante, Lorenzo ’82
Hartman, Gregory Vance ’82
McFadden, Marise Friesen ’82 ’97
Bustamante, Adrian Herminio ’83 Chacon, Lawrence Edward ’83 ’86
Hertweck, Roy Michael ’83
Mascolo, Richard Lewis ’83 ’86 Sandoval, Betty Loretta ’83 ’88 Epler, William Christopher ’84 ’94 Menapace, Diane Michele ’84 ’86
Prevot Jr., Leon M. ’84 ’91 Wolf, Eric William ’84 Magee, Sherry Lynn ’86 Perea, Paul Richard ’86 Reynolds, Holly C. ’86 Holmes, Lawrence Marvin ’87 Kurens, Maris ’87 Lane, Richard Ralph ’87 Triplett, Tony Leon ’87 Walters, Susan Elaine ’87
Carrillo, Andrew Joseph ’88 Freeman, Carol Ruth ’88 Harris, Joel Lon ’88 Henderson, Charles David ’88 Schlife, John Eugene ’89 Stepleton, John David ’89
1990 - 1999
Chavez, Pearl Diane Gomez ’90
Klossner, Carol Halcyon ’90
Maddy, Eric Damon ’90
McCarthy-Logan, Shannon Marie ’90 ’93
Nigg, Lorrain Cheryl ’90
Root, Thomas Lindsey ’91 ’99
Schwartzman, Sherrell Gene ’91
Walker, Jerry Lee ’91 ’94
Kottmann, John Henry ’92
Schatzman, Thomas F. ’92
Spencer, Dennis Jay ’92
Forrester-Day, Renee Yvonne ’93
Jennings, Elva O. ’93
Stixrud, Frederick J. ’93
Garcia, Gloria G. ’94
Glass, Patricia Suzanne ’94
Godshall, Ned Allen ’94 ’94
McCrossen-Klaus, Celia Camille ’94
Sauder, Shannon Leigh ’94
Calvert, Marc Douglas ’95
Cousineau, Todd Anthony ’95
Garcia, Blanca A. ’95 ’99
Navarro, Christian Cuauhtemoc ’95
Sanchez, Patrick Edward ’95
Morales, Juana Ofelia ’96
Duncan, Nora Kathleen ’97
Ayze, Joseph ’98
Bennett, Angela L. ’98
Davis, Anna Kathryn ’98
Edwards Jr., Willard Arthur ’98 Ellison, Kelly Jean ’98
Goettler, Edward Lee ’98 ’03
Wright, Bradley Kirk ’98
Lehnert, Nancy Marie ’99
Raynovich, Mary Catherine ’99
Van Leeuwen, Brian Peter ’99
2000 - 2009
Gonzales, Mark F. ’00
James, Steven Andrew ’00
Goetz, Therese Elizabeth ’01
Riggs, Randall Wayne ’01
Sharer, Elizabeth Jean ’01
Harley, Lee Brigit ’02
Lonning, Greg C. ’02
Rivera-Smith, Andrea Yvonne ’02 Peterson, Lorene Michelle ’03
Goodfellow, Douglas Devin ’05 ’10 Gilson, William C. ’07
Bologna, Grace Lorraine ’08
Skelton, Barbara Jane ’08 Begay, Velda J. ’09
Kalosky, Ethan K. ’09 Ortega, Andrea R. ’09
2010 - 2019
Platero, Erica D. ’10
Flores, David J. ’11 ’13
Leverett, Benjamin Joseph ’11 Miller, Melvina P. ’11 Weaver, Julie ’12
Abbott, Nicholas A. ’13 ’16 Pearlman-Flores, Alexis Nicole ’13 Tompkins, Jonathan ’13 Martinez, Liana K. ’14 Morgan, Damon Emrys ’14
Benavidez, Vanessa Marie ’15 ’19 Diaz, Christina Marie ’15 ’19 Medina, Adelmo R. ’15 Miners, Catherine S. ’15 Wilson, Joan Elizabeth ’15
Fraitekh, Ryan Kareem ’16 ’19 Williams, Tsianina Eileen ’16 Croteau, David H. ’17 Maurer, Viridiana ’17
Campbell, Mark Allen ’18 Killman, Joshua Yves ’18 Rader, Ross Andrew ’18 Bunch-Sutton, Katherine G. ’19
2020 - 2022
Holsten, Jarrett Scott ’21 Savage, Jackson Stuart ’21 Valerio, Nicole Andrea ’22
FACULTY AND STAFF
Leason Cherry
Kenneth F. Crumley Michael Dougher
Rolf J. Kolden
Jimmie L. Reed Deborah Rifenbary Eric Andrew Rombach-Kendall Scott Wilkinson
OTHER ALUMNI
Antinone, Kouri Zoa Harper, Katherine Louise Macaron Jr., Joe Richards, Ronna Shaye Utley, Robert M.
Alex M. Greenberg (’14 BA, ’17 MBA), Albuquerque, is director of the New Mexico Economic Development Department’s Office of Science and Technology.
Jessica Leigh Streeter (’14 JD), Las Cruces, N.M., has been appointed to the Third Judicial District Court.
Fabianna Tabeling (’14 MACCT, ’19 MBA) has been named interim director of Popejoy Hall at UNM.
Matthew L. Bernabe (’15 BBA), Albuquerque, owner of Urban Hot Dog Company, was featured on the Cooking Channel’s show “Food Paradise.”
Ashleigh E. Olguin (’15 BA), Albuquerque, was promoted director of contract administration at Friday Health Plans. Eric G. Griego (’17 MA, ’21 PhD), Albuquerque, will serve as the City of Albuquerque’s director of outreach and advocacy, which seeks to engage the community in the policymaking process.
Ashleigh E. Olguin Alexandra IturraldeThe UNM Alumni Association gives Lobos with wanderlust the opportunity to continue their education by traveling the world through the Alumni Travel Program. Travel has been challenging lately, but with a number of unique trip opportunities in 2021 and 2022 — from Tanzania to Thailand — the Alumni Travel Program sets you up for success by handling all the travel plans and arrangements for you while offering amazing discounts too.
To view Alumni Travel Program options and book, visit UNMAlumni.com/travel.
Cuba, Cuba and Its People Feb. 10 – 17, 2023
Staring at $5,395
Egypt, Legends of the Nile cruise March 7 – 18, 2023
Starting at $5,695
Netherlands and Belgium, Dutch waterways cruise April 6 – 14, 2023
Starting at $3,295
Southern Italy, Apulia: Undiscovered Italy May 10 – 18, 2023
Starting at $3,395
England, Cotswold Escape
July 13 – 21, 2023
Starting at $3,895
Greece, Athens and Gytheio Sept. 15 – 24, 2023
Starting at $3,895
South Africa, Capetown, Zimbabwe and Botswana Oct. 15 – 30, 2023
Starting at $8,295
Germany and France, Holiday Markets Rhine River cruise Dec. 11 – 19, 2023
Starting at $2,795
I was raised in the beautiful Mora Valley, where my family owns and operates a cattle ranch. I am the seventh generation in my family to call these majestic mountains home. In addition to ranching, my family has always been involved in education. My mother earned a Master of Science in Nursing from UNM (’97 MSN). I fondly remember accompanying her on the three-hour drive to the UNM campus twice per week. My brother and I would spend the time playing by the Duck Pond while she was in class. Naturally, UNM was my first and only choice for college.
Upon arriving at UNM during the fall of 2004, I was nervous but excited. I did not know what I wanted to study so I dabbled in many courses until I found my path in Economics. I joined the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity, where I quickly found community and a sense of belonging. I cherish my undergraduate time at UNM, I am still very close with my fraternity brothers. We speak daily about life, family, sports, finances and overall shenanigans.
After graduating in the fall of 2008, I returned home to the ranch.
I spent the next eight years running a small business where I supplied timber products to fellow ranchers and raised grass-fed beef. Life was just all right until the love of my life and UNM alumna, Jessica Jaramillo (’08 BA, ’12 MPA), appeared in my world. Jessica was thriving in her career as a higher education administrator at the UNM School of Medicine Combined BA/MD Degree Program. I was inspired and decided to make a career change. I earned a master's degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from New Mexico Highlands University and began working in higher education as a career counselor. I quickly found my passion and a hunger for more knowledge so I embarked on the journey of a Ph.D. in Educational Leadership and Policy at the University of Utah with an anticipated completion date of 2025.
Currently, Jessica and I live in Salt Lake City with our three dogs Bentley, Dozer and Diesel. We have found a wonderful group of Lobos here in Utah and we often spend time with them hiking, searching for green chile cuisine and cheering on the Lobos. Upon completing my Ph.D. I hope to find a meaningful job in higher education back home in New Mexico. Although I can often be found cheering on the Utes as they dominate the PAC-12, it is only temporary. I am a proud Lobo for life!
Everyone's a Lobo!
Tranquilino “Kino” Hurtado (‘08 BA)
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in touch with your Alumni Association
UNMAlumni.com.
