Grand Challenges Brochure 2025

GrandChallenges GRANDCHALLENGES.UNM.EDU

NEW LEVEL 2 TEAMS LAUNCHED IN 2023

CHILD HEALTH

UNM RESEARCHERS, INNOVATORS, MENTORS...

INTRODUCED IN 2023

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The Accelerating Resilience Innovations in Drylands (ARID) Institute maximizes the resilience of drylands to climate change. ARID fosters transdisciplinary research, co-creates innovations with community and industry partners, and equitably trains the next generation to improve economic, human, and ecosystem health in New Mexico and beyond.

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JUST TRANSITION TO GREEN ENERGY SUSTAINABLE SPACE RESEARCH

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Shearer is a senior research scientist at the UNM Institute of Meteoritics (IOM) and a research professor within the Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences. He leads a diverse interdisciplinary team of scientists conducting lunar research that is directly applicable to NASA’s Artemis Program to return humans to the moon’s surface. The collaboration with NASA partially stemmed from the success of the Sustainable Space Research Grand Challenge.

Katie Witkiewitz, UNM Distinguished Professor

Boness is a research assistant professor at CASAA. Her research focuses on reducing suffering and improving wellbeing in the lives of people who use substances, through better understanding the factors that cause and maintain use, as well as improving the ability to assess such factors. Her work is partially supported by the SUDs Grand Challenge team and a career development award from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

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SUSTAINABLE WATER RESOURCES

Charles “Chip” Shearer, UNM Research Professor

Cassandra L. Boness, UNM Assistant Professor

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SUBSTANCE USE DISORDERS

Chee is Tsé Nahabiłnii, Kin Łichíi’nii, Hooghan Łání and Áshįįhí, originally from Lake Valley, New Mexico. As a Diné speaker, an assistant professor of linguistics and director of the Navajo Language Program at UNM, Chee has more than 20 years of experience working with her heritage language in a professional capacity. Chee’s research focuses – partly through the Grand Challenges Indigenous Child Development Concept Team – on the linguistic analysis of Navajo child speech and child-directed speech to learn how exposure to one’s heritage language affects their wellbeing.

Witkiewitz is a UNM distinguished professor of psychology and the director of the UNM Center on Alcohol, Substance Use And Addiction (CASAA). She was also the lead co-convener of the Substance Use Disorders (SUDs) Grand Challenge. Her research examines treatment of substance use disorder, with an emphasis on reducing human suffering, harm reduction, precision medicine, and supporting recovery.

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ORIGINAL LEVEL 2 TEAMS

Melvatha Chee, UNM Assistant Professor

L1: Development & Conceptualization L2: Implementation

Derek Capitan, UNM Civil Engineering

L3: Translation

Capitan is a senior at UNM majoring in civil engineering and is working in laboratories supporting the UNM METALS Superfund Research Program and the UNM Center for Water and the Environment. The two programs address community concerns regarding the possible impacts of abandoned uranium mines on agricultural lands. Capitan also participated in the Sustainable Water Resources Grand Challenge Undergraduate Fellowship.

*In 2022, UNM announced 10 new Level 1 Concept Teams

GrandChallenges

BY THE NUMBERS

MSC05 3480 1 University of New Mexico Albuquerque, NM 87131

Nonprofit Org. U.S. Postage PAID Albuquerque, NM Permit No. 39

$2.3 Million INVESTED

350+ FACULTY & STAFF RESEARCHERS

1,500+ STUDENTS ENGAGED

128+

COMMUNITY PARTNERS

$100+ Million

NEW FUNDS GENERATED SINCE 2019 Derek Capitan captured this photo near the Jackpile Mine of Laguna Pueblo, "representing the sacredness and security of water, as water is life.”

EMPOWERING OUR STATE OF MINDS The UNM Grand Challenges Initiative unites researchers, educators, students, and community members in solving problems of critical importance to our state, our nation, and our world. If you would like to donate to the program visit grandchallenges.unm.edu/giving