The University of New Mexico
AC-6: Sustainability Research

Each Department was searched for overarching sustainability research themes. If those were not found--due to website organization or a lack of core departmental sustainability research focus--individual faculty members' research programs were investigated. At least one research example per department that fits into the framework of the UN Sustainable Development Goals counted that department as "engaged in sustainability research." 

Some departments were excluded from the denominator, due to an exclusive clinical or performance focus. 

Grand Challenges

Grand Challenges are problems of global, national and regional significance that require researchers to work together across disciplinary boundaries to develop and implement solutions. Grand Challenges address problems that, when solved, have a significant positive impact on people and society. These challenges are large in scale, ambitious in scope, and multi-disciplinary. They have carefully developed goals that enable multiple paths towards solutions, and that are relevant across varied disciplines and communities. UNM provides direct financial support for Grand Challenges teams to establish an infrastructure, conduct pilot work, and establish a formal research agenda. UNM additionally provides programmatic support to train teams on program management, grants development, public outreach, and external relations with donors, industry, and government.

In Spring 2019, UNM launched three Grand Challenges (one led by UNM Main Campus, one led by UNM Health Sciences Center, and one with shared leadership between the two campuses) in the following areas: Sustainable Water Resources, Successful Aging, and Substance Use Disorders. Given that New Mexico is one of the most water-stressed states in the US, the Sustainable Water Resources team is tasked with conducting the research necessary to help decision makers, communities, and individuals make better choices about how they manage water. UNM aims to train the next generation of water managers and leaders needed to solve the state’s water problems, and will act as a repository of collaborative science and policy expertise for New Mexico to sustainably manage its water and develop a unique infrastructure to address the sustainable growth conundrum. The Sustainable Water Resources Grand Challenge research is now housed in the UNM research center, ARID (Accelerating Resilience Innovations in Drylands) Institute. This center receives core support from the UNM Office of the Vice President for Research.

In 2022 and 2023, additional sustainability-focused Grand Challenges teams were selected through a competitive application process. The Just Transition team is focused on developing inclusive, just solutions to climate change at the speed necessary to prevent catastrophic harms. This interdisciplinary initiative that seeks to identify and evaluate the opportunities, challenges, and policy options for achieving an inclusive and equitable transition to a zero-carbon economy, with a focus on creating economic opportunities for disadvantaged communities and fossil fuel worker communities. The team is receiving two years of internal seed funding to establish a campus-wide institute to lead policy-relevant research and technical assistance on just transition issues important to the state and the nation.

Other funded Grand Challenges teams that address sustainability-related areas include Basic Needs, Housing Justice, Child Health, and Sustainable Space research. 

The Basic Needs Grand Challenge established an interdisciplinary team that is working to assess and solve basic needs insecurity in higher education across the United States. This has grown into the New Mexico Basic Needs Consortium. 

The Housing Justice Grand Challenge seeks to convene, understand, build knowledge, and co-create community-driven solutions to advance housing justice, decrease housing insecurity, and end homelessness.

The Child Health Grand Challenge team includes academics from multiple medical and non-medical disciplines, community providers, and New Mexico stakeholders who work together to improve the lives of children and families. They examine research questions at the individual, family, community, and societal levels, recognizing that children’s health is strongly influenced by the environments in which they live. The team’s goals are to provide needed data to state policymakers that will result in improvements in the wellbeing of New Mexican children and families and to contribute rigorously derived research to the world pediatric scientific literature.

The Sustainable Space Grand Challenge is working to expand New Mexico's scientific, creative, and economic horizons beyond Earth through university, commercial, and national lab collaboration. Research is focused on technologies for space travel, materials for space travel, indigenous space materials extraction research, space cybersecurity research, space biology research, terraforming space environments, human life support and health for space travel, space situational awareness, and planetary science.

Other Office of the Vice President for Research Support

The Office of the Vice President for Research (OVPR) at UNM also provides support to seek external funding from the State of New Mexico and the federal government for sustainability-related research. At the state-level, the OVPR works with UNM Government Relations and faculty to find support through new legislation like the Reforestation Act, grant matching funds through the Technology Enhancement Fund (TEF), and through the Research Public Service Project (RPSP) program that currently has a nearly $3M recurring request for the ARID Institute. The OVPR also works with Government Relations and faculty to secure support from the federal government through our federal delegation and their annual processes for requests for language and appropriations. 

The OVPR, Provost, and Office of the President provide financial and staff support for teams of faculty to participate in and lead large regional grant programs like the Economic Development Administration (EDA) Tech Hub and National Science Foundation (NSF) Engines. One of the goals of the new Elevate Quantum EDA Tech Hub that UNM is part of is to advance the commercialization of new quantum computers that have the potential to reduce power and water needs of large-scale computing. In addition, UNM is the lead on an NSF Engine Development Award that is focused on water and energy security through developing sustainable access to and use of clean water with planning at the watershed-scale, and to pair that with the development of sustainable energy generation, storage, distribution, and control systems that operate across the same scale. Substantial funding and staff time is being provided by UNM to lead this regional effort that covers the Navajo Nation, all of New Mexico, and far-west counties of Texas that border New Mexico.

The UNM Office of the Vice President for Research (OVPR) supports numerous research awards programs, many of which have rewarded sustainability-focused research. For example: 

• The Annual Research Lectureship is one of the highest honors UNM confers on faculty in recognition of research/creative activity. Over the past 5 years, awardees have including experts on grassland ecosystems (Scott Collins, Biology), wastewater recycling (Kerry Howe, Civil Engineering), and predictors of mammalian extinctions (Felisa Smith, Biology).
• The Community Engaged Research Lectureship is a prestigious career achievement award for those whose research/creative works profoundly and systematically affects the relationship between the university and the large community in a positive and meaningful way. Recent awardees conducted their work on the health effects of uranium contamination and health in rural New Mexico (Johnnye Lewis, Pharmacy), the use of artistic installations to publicly communicate air pollutants and clean energy generation (Andrea Polli, Fine Arts), and the science and politics of climate change (David Gutzler, Earth & Planetary Sciences).
• The Faculty-Mentored Research Award, established in 2022, is given annually to an outstanding undergraduate researcher and their faculty research mentor based upon the demonstration of a strong research partnership. To date, the awards have been given to students working on a variety of sustainability-related issues, including applications of nanotechnology and biotechnology to health treatments, increasing flood resiliency of Pueblo lands, and an evaluation of the outcomes of the UNM Water Science Communication Fellowship.
• The Globally-Engaged Research Award was created in 2022 to recognized outstanding internationally focused research by faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students, that addresses a wide range of global issues and prepares a new generation of scholars to work and live in an interconnected and rapidly evolving world. Past faculty winners include an Art & Ecology professor who uses photography to draw attention to species in threatened habitats (Subhankar Banerjee) and an Economics professor who founded UNM’s Nepal Study Center to conduct research on water quality, waste management, pollution, and health in developing communities in Asia (Alok Bohara).

The ARID Institute provides Student Research Grants, which are $5,000 research grants available to undergraduate and graduate students from all departments at UNM. These are specified to support interdisciplinary research related to resilience in New Mexico, including the resilience of communities, ecosystems, and the economy to climate change. Students are encouraged to develop the research project in partnership with an external UNM entity, such as a community group, Pueblo or Tribe, business, management agency, or non-profit, to address a real-world problem facing that group. 

The Sustainability Studies Program requires all undergraduate students seeking a minor degree to complete a Capstone project. This two-semester project involves research into an area of the student's choice, and students are provided with a stipend to fund their project, if needed.

Sustainability-focused student research is also supported through the various interdisciplinary Grand Challenges described above, particularly with the Just Transition and Sustainable Water Resources teams that include faculty and students from the School of Engineering, the College of Arts & Sciences, the School of Law, the College of Population Health, the School of Architecture and Planning, and the School of Management. The Just Transition team currently supports two graduate fellows and one undergraduate intern. The Grand Challenge Water Science Communication Fellows receive $1,000 stipends to create relationships with mentors who are currently working on water-resource related issues within the student’s area of interest. Fifteen undergraduate students were supported as Fellows during the 2023-2024 academic year.

The Transformation Network (TN) aims to build resilient communities and ecosystems throughout the Intermountain Western United States. Research at UNM includes wildfire and watersheds, food sovereignty and regenerative agriculture, and water futures. The TN is currently supporting a UNM graduate assistant on a year-long project focusing on Indigenous community-engaged research for regional sustainability and climate resilience and engages student interns. The TN is supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation’s Sustainable Regional Systems Program, which aims to support convergent research and education that will advance sustainable regional systems science, engineering, and education (NSF Grant # 2115169).

The Center for the Advancement of Spatial Informatics Research and Education (ASPIRE) fosters integrative Geographic Information Science (GIScience) research and education and application of cutting edge geographic information technologies (GIT) at the University of New Mexico through cooperative research and education. Funded research via affiliated faculty in Biology, Earth & Planetary Sciences, and Geography & Environmental Studies addresses vegetation dynamics on protected land, flood resiliency on Pueblo lands, wildlife habitat and migratory waterfowl mapping, community-level health impacts from exposure to environmental contaminants, and livestock interaction with abandoned uranium mine waste. Selected student research projects are highlighted on the ASPIRE website.

The Center for Water and the Environment funds numerous graduate students in the School of Engineering on a variety of research projects that cover the functioning and resilience of water resources systems, complex environmental interactions, biological degradation of pollutants, and environmental engineering. Students are actively researching wildfire effects on water quantity and quality; the interplay between food, energy, and water resources; groundwater-surface water interactions; water reuse, resource recovery, and the removal or remediation of emerging contaminants; atmospheric water harvesting for drinking and industrial uses; metals and energy recovery from wastes; and wastewater treatment.

The Museum of Southwest Biology Museum Research Traineeship (MRT) program supports and prepares trainees for career opportunities that impact future research, education, and policy and tackle big challenges facing society today, including climate-forced environmental change, emerging pathogens, ecosystem transformation, loss of biodiversity, and more. The MRT offers a competitive one-year fellowship for UNM graduate students in their first year, including stipend support, paid tuition, fees, and health insurance. 

The UNM Office of the Vice President for Research (OVPR) supports numerous research awards programs, many of which have rewarded sustainability-focused research for students. For example: 

• The Faculty-Mentored Research Award, established in 2022, is given annually to an outstanding undergraduate researcher and their faculty research mentor based upon the demonstration of a strong research partnership. To date, the awards have been given to students working on a variety of sustainability-related issues, including applications of nanotechnology and biotechnology to health treatments, increasing flood resiliency of Pueblo lands, and an evaluation of the outcomes of the UNM Water Science Communication Fellowship.
• The Globally-Engaged Research Award was created in 2022 to recognized outstanding internationally focused research by faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students, that addresses a wide range of global issues and prepares a new generation of scholars to work and live in an interconnected and rapidly evolving world. Student winners have studied the impacts of both modern and prehistoric political crises.
• Zancada Fellowships seek to create a cohort of future leaders in science, technology, humanities, and the arts who are well-prepared and committed to finding interdisciplinary, actionable, and meaningful solutions to global problems. The fellowship program consists of a series of professionalization workshops, in addition to extramural engagement and leadership activities and scholarship and training funds. Previous Zancada Fellows have worked on sustainability research, such as Ashish Joshi, a Civil Engineering graduate student researching safe and equitable public transportation; Sara Rassa, who researched water engineering and management; and Theodros Woldeyohhanes, a Ph.D. Candidate in Geography & Environmental Studies researching GIScience and geospatial technologies for addressing environmental health issues and understanding the spatial patterns behind exposure and human-environment interactions.