Mayors Keller and Galván sign a charter to establish an exchange of knowledge, ideas, and projects

On June 26, 2019, Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller and Chihuahua Mayor María Eugenia Campos Galván established an Albuquerque – Chihuahua Bilateral Commission, including a Memorandum of Understanding between the UNM Center for High Technology Materials (CHTM) and Centro de Investigación en Materiales Avanzados (CIMAV), signed by UNM Vice President for Research Gabriel López and CHTM Director Arash Mafi.

Mafi, a UNM Physics and Astronomy professor, hopes for faculty and student researchers at CHTM to visit CIMAV and vice-versa, both for short-term access and long-term partnerships and sabbaticals, and that there will be an exchange of facilities, equipment, and technology.

"International collaborations are about bringing in a diversity of ideas and methods to solve challenging scientific and technological problems,” he says. “In materials and optics, like other high technology fields, we can exchange ideas and expertise and benefit from each other’s facilities and equipment to solve problems that would be impossible or very hard to tackle without such collaborations. Such collaborations are especially important when unique state-of-the-art tools are required and not one single institution has it all."

Mafi also believes in the importance of building relationships between people of different cultural and historical backgrounds, and the uniqueness of Albuquerque’s relationship with the citizens of Chihuahua. He continued,

"I am very excited about this collaboration. The culture of science transcends national boundaries. Scientists cherish collaborations and the long-lasting friendships they create. Mexico and Chihuahua are special because they are our neighbors, which makes it much easier and manageable to interact. Of course, the shared cultural and historical aspects bring in a whole new dimension to such interactions."

See the related news articles:

• UNM Newsroom: CHTM signs international collaborative research agreement with CIMAV
• CHTM News: CHTM signs international collaborative research agreement with CIMAV
• City of Albuquerque: Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller and Chihuahua Mayor María Eugenia Campos Galván Sign Historic Bilateral Commission Accord
• ABQ Journal: Albuquerque, Chihuahua ink bilateral partnership