H i PandA Alumni!

It seems I say this every semester, but this one has been another extremely busy one for us at PandA. Not only did we begin the serious work for our new Strategic Hiring Plan and for our Academic Program Review in December, but we also interviewed candidates for the Director of the Quantum New Mexico Institute (QNM-I).

It's been a big year for Quantum in New Mexico. Not only was the QNM-I established as a Category 3 (spanning Colleges/Schools) research center, in partnership with Sandia and LANL, but a large, $41M grant, called Elevate Quantum, was awarded to a consortium of the mountain states New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming. The grant will unlock a further $80M in state incentives and funds from New Mexico and Colorado. The first QNM-I symposium was held this fall, with remarks from Governor Lujan Grisham and Senator Heinrich. That means Quantum is getting attention at the highest levels of government in New Mexico!

In PandA, we will soon welcome two new faculty hires enabled by the establishment of the QNM-I, Niklas Mueller, who starts in January, and Francisco Salces Carcoba, who arrives in August. More irons are in the fire for this year's legislative session, so stay tuned for news on that.

You can read more about our goings-on this fall below. We welcomed a new machinist, William Phipps, to our machine shop, to work with Anthony Gravagne. Good machinists are hard to find! So we're very relieved that our shop is fully staffed again - it provides an excellent service.

Our recent great success in grant funding continued with a highlight being Victor Acosta's prestigious $1.25M Moore Foundation award to study precision measurements with nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond.

Our graduate students Andrew Gentry and Grant Block won noteworthy DOE and NSF graduate awards, respectively.

In the spring we completed our Feasibility Study for the new Campus Observatory. We looked at needs, possible sites, designs, and costs. It looks like the facility could have a price tag of near $10M. The next step is the full design study, estimated to cost $100k, for which we have raised $29k so far. Regarding that, I want to thank Emeritus Professor Bernd Bassalleck for his latest generous donation: $5k to this effort and another $5K for undergraduate research! We are looking for ways to reach our $100k goal. As always, this is one of the many ways you can help the department if you are able to make a donation. Just use the link at the bottom of this newsletter. The observatory is now on UNM's five-year capital plan. We have a lot of work to do before that translates to actual funding and a timescale for completion, but it's a start.

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season!

- Richard J. Rand, Department Chair