BS Astrophysics

2023

Michael W. Bess
After graduation, Michael will be working on research for the summer with Dr. Diana Dragomir. After that, will be looking to find an internship or post-bac position for a year and then apply again for graduate school next fall. He hopes to join a PhD program studying exoplanets and continue working on similar research to what Michael is working on now. See him on Facebook


Stephanie L. Hansen
After graduation, Stephanie will be looking for more research and work experience and plans to apply to graduate school again in the near future.


Simon S. Matin
Simon will be joining the University of Nevada, Las Vegas to pursue graduate studies in Astronomy. His research will involve Machine Learning to identify Radio Frequency Interference for The Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array.

2022

Jason L. Weisgerber 
See his LinkedIn profile

Paige Zamora
See her LinkedIn profile

2021

Taylor Cramer


Kyle Kennard
Kyle is a PhD student in Physics at Northwestern University


Nicolas Litza
Nic is a Graduate student in Miki Nakajima'sw Planetary Science Laboratory at the University of Rochester


Trevor Oliver


Erika Sommer
Erika is a Graduate student in the Department of Physics at UNM


Ryan K. Stairs
Ryan received a double BS in Earth and Planetary Sciences in conjunction with the Astrophysics degree and continued at UNM to receive his MS in Mechanical Engineering with a concentration in Space Systems Engineering. He will then continue his job with the Department of the Air force on Kirkland Air Force Base. See his LinkedIn profile.

2020

Ivey Davis
summa cum laude
Ivey is studying exoplanets at Caltech as an Astrophysics student. See their LinkedIn profile.


Prescott Farley
summa cum laude
See his LinkedIn profile.


Matthew Loftus
summa cum laude
Matthew joined UNM Physics & Astro grad program focusing on Biophysics Research
See his Instagram profile.


Sanjna Mahobia
summa cum laude
Sanjna entered the PhD program at the University of Exeter for Interstellar Medium Research


Dilys Ruan
Dilys graduated summa cum laude and is an Astrophysics graduate student in Cosmology at Rutgers


Susan Sapkota
Susan graduated summa cum laude

2019

Sarka E. Blahnik
magna cum laude
Sarka is pursuing a PhD in Physics at Penn State University, where she plans to join their Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos. Sarka will be doing research with Professor Sarah Shandera on the interplay of quantum information, dynamics, and gravity in the early universe. See her LinkedIn profile.


Patrick M. Brown
summa cum laude
Patrick will be pursuing a Master's of Science in Applied Nuclear Physics at the Air Force Institute of Technology located in Dayton, Ohio. After which, he intends to earn his PhD in Theoretical Particle Astrophysics.


Kylar L. Greene
cum laude
Kylar will be attending UNM for graduate school to get a PhD in Physics with a focus in Astronomy. He hopes to study early structure formation in the universe, cosmology, and dark matter formation.


Patrick R. Latimer
cum laude
Patrick will be taking a break before attending grad school. He plans to move to Seattle to work on radiation effects on electronics for rocket company Blue Origin. See his profile on Facebook.


Jessica L. Luna
Jessica is a Social Media Marketing Intern at Excel Staffing in Albuquerque


Daniel F. Puentes
Daniel is a Engineering Technician at Boeing in Albuquerque


Bruno Sa de La Rocque Guimaraes
Bruno graduated magna cum laude. He is a masters student in the UNM Nuclear Engineering Department and a MR Imaging research assistant in Adult Neurology

2017

Montie S. Avery
summa cum laude
Montie is working on a PhD in Mathematics at the University of Minnesota, where he has been awarded a College of Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship. In the summer, Montie had an Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics internship at UCLA.


Luke A. Brymer
Luke will be seeking a job in the space industry after graduation.


Aaron D. Cross
Aaron was the Teaching Lab Supervisor at UNM's Regener Hall.


Veronica J. Dike
summa cum laude
Veronica is in graduate school at UCLA Astronomy, where she intends to get a PhD.


Chris E. Gallagher
summa cum laude
See him on Facebook.


Joshua R. Johnson


Kirtus G. Leyba
Kirtus began studying for his Ph. D in computer science at Arizona State University (ASU) in 2017. See his LinkedIn profile.


Jessica J. Lopez
cum laude
Jessica is eager to apply the skills she obtained while pursuing this degree at UNM to a career and future endeavors.


Christopher J. Quintana
Once Christopher find a job he enjoys, he plans on going back to school to pursue his masters in that specific field.


Daniel R. Sprinkle


Austin C. Vaitkus
cum laude
Austin is studying physics and cosmology in grad school at Brown University


Adam M. Watts
Adam plans to spend more time with his family and perhaps start preparing for graduate school.

2016

Isaiah B. Santistevan
cum laude
Isaiah is in the graduate program at UC Davis


Cameron W. Trapp
summa cum laude
Cameron is a graduate student at UC San Diego's Center for Astrophysics & Space Sciences

2015

Michael J. McCrackan
summa cum laude
Michael received his PhD in 2024 from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst.He is now a Postdoc at Yale University.

2014

TarranehEftekhari
magna cum laude
Tarraneh received her PhD from Harvard in 2021. She reports, "I am a NASA Hubble Einstein Fellow and Radio Astronomer at Northwestern University and a member of the Fast and Fortunate for FRB Follow-up (F4) collaboration. My research focuses on a broad range of astrophysical transients, ranging from fast radio bursts to superluminous supernovae and tidal disruption events. I'm particularly interested in studying the radio properties of these sources to answer key questions about their progenitors, outflows, and environments." See her website, TarranehEftekhari.com


Michelle M. Godfrey
Michelle is a Mathematics Lecturer at UNM-Valencia Campus in Los Lunas


Haley E. McDuff
summa cum laude
Haley is a graduate student at the University of Colorado, Boulder in the Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences with a focus in Astrodynamics and Satellite Navigation.

2013

Jacek K. Osinski
summa cum laude
Jacek is a graduate student in the Physics and Astronomy Department at UNM.

2012

Matthew A. Koppa
cum laude
Matt is currently in the UNM Physics and Astronomy department PhD program, working with Paul Schwoebel. He is working on a project which studies step dynamics in homogeneous systems for crystal growth applications.


Joshua D. Reding
cum laude
Second Lieutenant Joshua Reding graduated from the Air Force Institute of Technology in Dayton, Ohio and is now an electro optic device physicist at the Air Force Research Laboratory where he primarily works in a clean room doing fabrication and metals deposition on mid-wave infrared detectors using strained layer superlattice materials. Joshua also performs hybridization and characterization of the detector material mostly using photoluminescence, but also performs QE and dark current measurements. Joshua also manages a couple of contracts; working with Kirtland AFB in the Space Vehicles Directorate and Dr. Sanjay Krishna's company SKINfrared, a team revolutionizing diagnostic medical technology with the infrared spectrum.


Paige S. Romero
Paige got his Masters in Computer Science at UNM, and is now an HPC intern at Intel Corporation.

2011

Melissa R. (Freeland) Archuleta
Melissa is currently a systems engineer at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO). See her LinkedIn profile.


Aaron M. Gibson
cum laude


David P. Martin
David is currently pursuing a Doctor of Pharmacy degree at UNM.


Anthony A. Ortiz
cum laude
Anthony received a Masters in Math and is currently pursuing a PhD in Mathematics at UNM.

2010

Stefanie A. Gallegos
Stephanie will be working for Applied Research Associates (ARA) in conjunction with the United States Air Force Research Laboratory as a Space Weather Scientist. Her various upcoming projects will include the Space Particle Hazard Specification and Forecasting Program, cold atom interferometry and the development of a heliospheric imager.


Dmitry V. Vorobiev
Dmitry is pursuing a PhD at the Center for Detectors at the Rochester Institute of Technology. See his profile at NASA and his LinkedIn profile.

2009

Alexander E. Collins


Nguyen S. Phan
summa cum laude
Nguyen is pursuing a PhD in Physics at UNM.


Jose S. Sanchez


Daniel C. Zirzow
summa cum laude
Daniel is currently pursuing graduate studies in physics at UNM working as a research assistant with John McGraw.

2008

Robert M. Edmonds
summa cum laude
Robert is currently an Oak Ridge Associated Universities Postdoctoral Fellow at the Army Research Laboratory. The postdoctoral work mainly focuses on atmospheric research. He completed a Ph.D. in Astronomy at NMSU in the Fall of 2014, the doctoral research focused on examining the Martian atmosphere. Robert also completed 2 Masters degrees in Mechanical Engineering (Spring 2014) and in Astronomy (Spring 2012). For 5 years he operated a part-time storm chasing guide service during Spring and Summer months. He stated that the UNM education was first rate, and definitely prepared him for his graduate studies.


Tiffany R. Hayes
summa cum laude
Tiffany received her masters from the Physics department at UNM. She is currently wrapping up her PhD at UNM in the EE department where she studies basic plasma physics and is doing experimental work on a linear device called HelCat which studies turbulence and ways to control and affect it using electrode biasing. She hopes to continue her research as a post doc.


Thuso S. Simon
magna cum laude
Thuso resides in Cape Town where he is working as a Senior Data Scientist at a company called Zoona. Thuso states he is enjoying his work, which he finds both challenging and fun.


Amanda J. Townsend
summa cum laude
Amanda is a support astronomer at Apache Point Observatory, after receiving her PhD in Astronomy from the University of Florida in 2020. See his LinkedIn profile.


Aaron B. Zimmerman
summa cum laude
After receiving a PhD at Cal Tech, Aaron is an Associate Professor of Physics at the University of Texas at Austin

2007

David A. Valdes
Is an Associate Dean at Central New Mexico Community College (CNM)See his profile on LinkedIn.

2006

Celestyna Brozek
magna cum laude
Celestyna's immediate plans include loads of celebrations. Her longer range goals include working, traveling and pursuing further studies.


Lance E. Edens
magna cum laude and with Departmental Honors
Lance received his PhD (with distinction) in Physical Chemistry at UNM where he discovered that he really enjoyed computational modeling. Lance plans to move to Pullman, WA to start a postdoc position with Dr. Aurora Clark at Washington State University. The position involves modeling excited states of water at interfaces. The goal during his postdoc phase is to learn as much as possible about computational modeling, with a quantum mechanical focus. After that, Lance's plan is to go for a full faculty position. See him on LinkedIn.


Adam M. Johnson
Adam plans to attend grad school at UCLA for either geology or geophysics next year.

2005

Adam K. Norman
After UNM, Adam completed research in experimental flow control at Caltech and received his PhD in Aerospace Engineering. From there, he went on to GE Global Research to work on Pulsed Detonation Engines. Adam joined Blue Origin in 2012, where he designs and tests components for commercial launch vehicles. Example projects include the Crew Capsule windows, dynamic engine seals, engine injectors, and thermal analysis.


Holly C. Rodecap
Holly will pursue a master’s degree in secondary education with certification through the UNM college of education starting in fall 2005. She will seek a double endorsement in Science and Mathematics, and would like to teach at the high school level. See her on Facebook.


Geno J. Santistevan
See the article

Samuel J. Slagle
Sam is taking the summer off, and will start grad school here in the fall (May 2005).

2004

Amanda J. Burghard
magna cum laude


Evan Kias
Evan got his PhD from the Colorado School of Mines and now works for Baker Hughes at the Tomball Technology Center.


Anah Mourant
magna cum laude
Anah and her husband have  moved to NYC, and she attends Stevens Institute of Technology in nearby Hoboken, NJ.


Mason Parsons


Michael Sepulveda
Michael received an MBA from the Anderson School of Management at UNM and is now a Dental Transition Analyst/Consultant at AFTCO.

2003

Scott J. Beatty
Scott has joined Nikon Precision, Inc., the world's leading manufacturer of lithographic equipment for the semiconductor industry. He is an Applications Engineer at the Los Ranchos site.


Fatima Benaissa
Fatima is currently pursuing a career in science education.


Devon R. Hjelm
Devon is currently a graduate student in Computer Science at UNM. See his website on github.

2002

Cindi L. Ballard


Mark A. Harris
Mark got his PhD in Engineering from UNM and works in industry.


Syd B. Partridge
Syd was inducted as a lifetime member of honor in Kappa Mu Epsilon, the Mathematics Honor Society. He worked for more than a year for MITs Lincoln Near Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) site as an observer, after which he attended SUNY-Stonybrook. He has been involved in quantum informationand optics research as a student intern with the Quantum Key Distribution Group at LANL. He is switching gears this fall (2006), however, because he has been accepted to an interdisciplinary program that is focused on climate change science and policy at Columbia University's Earth Institute at NYC. Syd has been involved with the Students for Clean Energy here at UNM for quite some time. He'll be an RA with the International Research Institute for Climate and Society at Columbia. Mr. Partridge graduated from Columbia University's Masters program in Climate & Society and now is the Policy Manager at Climate Action Reseave in LA.


Katherine A. Smith-Jones
After graduation, Katherine went to Australia and completed an internship/research stint with the ATNF and ended up at Case Western where she got to study a fairly diverse set of topics. While cosmology is one of her main interests, Katherine also worked on non-Hermitian quantum mechanics. Katherine's first paper appeared in *Nature* and debunked claims that Jackson Pollock's drip paintings could be considered fractal. She now teaches a class on physics and art. Katherine finished her PhD at Case in 2010 and was a postdoc at Washington University in St Louis until 2012. She held a visiting position at Oberlin College and Reed College before getting a permanent position at Hamilton College in upstate New York. After being part of several different physics departments, Katherine states she has a good basis of comparison. She feels strongly that UNM's astronomy program is great for she felt much better prepared than many of her fellow graduate students and especially now that she teaches.

2001

Sybil Adams
Observational Systems Support Associate with Gemini Southern Operations.


Raquel Fraga-Encinas
Raquel is currently a Research Scientist at the Instituto de Física de Cantabria


Jerod Gomez
Planning to relocate to Las Vegas, NV. See his profile on Facebook.


Dale C. Jackson
Dale is now an astrophysicist at Sandia National Labs in Albuquerque, NM.


Ryan E. Johnson
Since graduating in 2001, Ryan spent 1 year in graduate school at Arizona State, then worked as an operator at the VLA from 2003-2005. Since 2005, he has been a graduate student at Dartmouth College. Since 2008, Ryan worked as a predoctoral fellow at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. As of September 2010, he will be teaching as a CFD fellow at Denison University and plans to defend his thesis in March, 2011. Ryan notified us that he earned his doctorate from Dartmouth in 2011 which included a two-year stint at the CfA in the high energy group studying X-ray observatons of galaxy clusters. As of February 2025 he is an associate professor in the Physics and Astornomy department at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania.


Cristina Murray-Krezan
Cristina earned a MS in Statistics from the University of Virginia in 2006. She has worked as a biostatistician in industry and academia since 2007. After living on the East Coast for nearly 9 years, she moved back to NM and is currently a Research Assistant Professor in the UNM Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Preventive Medicine. Concurrently, Cristina is a PhD candidate (ABD) in Statistics in UNM's Department of Math & Statistics. She married fellow UNM Physics student Jeremy Krezan and they have two children.


Diego R. Ramirez
Albuquerque, NM

2000

d.2002 Chris Schultz earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Physics from the University of New Mexico in May 2000, at which time he earned the Feynman Award for Best Student in Contemporary Physics. As a top student, he  was actively recruited by the Optical  Sciences Center at the University of Arizona where he accepted a Graduate Research Assistantship.Shortly after Chris began his studies at the Optical Sciences Center, he joined Bernard Kippelen’s research group. Under Professor Kippelen’s direction, Chris was actively  involved in two projects: a research program focusing on the development of electro-active lenses using liquid crystals and a second project investigating the fabrication and characterization of field-effect transistors based on organic molecules. An outstanding student, Chris was beginning to demonstrate his potential as a scientist through his discipline, initiative and collaborative abilities. For this he was respected. Chris was also a valued friend who was sensitive to others and generously shared his time, talents and resources -- and for this he was loved. In Chris’s memory, a scholarship has been established by his family, friends and colleagues at the Optical Sciences Center. When the scholarship is awarded, the recipient will be a second-year Optical Sciences Center Ph.D. student with outstanding scholastic ability and research promise in applied optics.  Contributions in any amount are welcome and will be very greatly appreciated. To contribute, please make your check payable to The University of Arizona, with a memo that it is for The Christopher Karl Schultz Memorial Scholarship. Mail it to Ms. Ruth Smith, Accounting Manager, Optical Sciences Center, P.O. Box 210094, Tucson, Arizona 85721-0094 USA.  If you would like to contact Ms. Smith directly, she can be reached by email at ruths@u.arizona.edu or by telephone at 520-621-8155. With your help, we hope the Christopher Karl Schultz Memorial Scholarship will represent an appropriate and lasting memorial to a gifted young man who valued academic and research excellence.

1999

William H. Baker
With LightPath Technologies, in Albuquerque


Eden Denton-Trost
Graduate RA with the Colorado Center for Astrodynamics Research, University of Colorado at Boulder

1998

Willa Cather Inbody
Lodestar Astronomy Center at the NM Museum of Natural History & Science, here in Albuquerque


Savvas Koushiappas
PhD-The Ohio State (2004)...post-doc at ETH in Zurich until Sept 05...now at LANL, Theoretical Division (Oct 2005).

1997

Anita Lee Gallegos
Anita is employed by SAIC, and is contracted to work as a physicist at Starfire Optical Range; she lives here in ABQ.

1996

Timothy S. Bergman
Seagoville, TX


Mary Elizabeth "Lisa" Foley
After 11 years at NRAO in Socorro, working my way up from technician to operator to data analyst, I was ready for a new challenge. So I took a foray into seismology for a couple of years. Although similar to radio astronomy in several ways, seismology just wasn't my thing. Now I'm happy to be back in astrophysics at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff. I work in the optical realm as an observer at the Navy Precision Optical Interferometer and the Discovery Channel Telescope.


Michael Nord
See physics PhD's


Terrylynn Vigil
Terrylynn earned a master's degree in Mathematics in 2001, and then went on to get her secondary teaching licensure. She has taught at Rio Rancho HS, and been involved in student research in the public schools. She has continued to teach math for the American Indian Summer Bridge Program, and teaches at Mid High in Bernalillo during the regular school year.

1995

Kirsten Marie Boudreau
Kirsten is now a Systems Engineer with Lockheed Martin. She and spouse Derik Matthews live in Manitou Springs, CO (fall 2005).


Wayne A. Just
Rio Rancho, NM


Brian D. Priddy
Systems Engineer at Sandia

1994

David S. Brown
Albuquerque, NM


Scott D. Streit
Programmer, SDSU Astronomy Dept CCD Lab

1993

Christopher Abdalla
With the Albuquerque office of MPower Solutions, Inc., a managed care software and consulting organization


Prakash S. Bhakta
Midland, TX

1991

Michael W. Crane
See 1997 M.S. Physics


Randon M. Grashuis
Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, in Chile


Christina Lacey
see 1997 physics PhD's


Peter A. McCabe
Moriarty, NM


Joshua L. Stuyvesant
Josh joined Intel as a Microlithography / Microscopy Process Engineer in 2000; he and spouse Shannon Baten-Stuyvesant live here in Albuquerque.

1989

Cecelia DeBlasi
Completed an M.D. in Diagnostic Radiology in 2000, and now works with CDR Women's Service, in Paradise Valley, AZ.


Kristen Kartchner
Albuquerque, NM


Jeff L.Weiler
Now a self-employed environmental consultant - Wolf Pack Environmental - in Cypress (near Houston), TX.

1988

Joe M. White
Albuquerque, NM

1986

Reynal R. Guillen
As a Staff Research Associate at UCLA, Reynal is conducting research on Hispanics or Latinos in STEM.

1985

Christoph L. Herd
Colorado Springs, CO

1984

C. Jocelyn Frankow
Western Geco Processing Division, Calgary, Alberta


Sabri A.Sansoy
M.S.-MIT; analysis engineer for the technology firm, Schafer Corp, in Albuquerque, and is in charge of the structural analysis of all Team RE/MAX Ballooning flight system components. See the Sansoy Consulting website.

1983

James D. Dull
Ph.D. - Indiana Univ (1996); Professor of Physics at The College of Idaho


Robert C. Hampton
Los Alamos, NM See his profile on LinkedIn.


Joseph R. Piscitelli
M.S.-Astronomy, Univ of Hawaii (1986); currently a principle of Proscripts, LLC, here in Albuquerque, with spouse Donna.


Anne D. Shaw-Hanson
Peninsula Soccer League, San Diego, CA. See her profile on LinkedIn.

1982

Robin K. Justice
LANL Fire Protection

1981

Sean Patrick Clancy
LANL


Anthony J. Colucci
Mountain View, CA VP of Space Systems/Loral
See his LinkedIn profile.

Sherry L. Thompson

1980

Philip R. Gonzales
Fort Collins, CO

1979

Scott F. Anderson
Seattle, WA See his profile at the University of Washington


John K. Cannizzo
John completed a PhD in 1984 at UT-Austin. He now (2002) lives in Maryland, and is High Energy Astrophysics Grp Mgr, LHEA, Emergent/NASA/GSFC. He is an expert in accretion disks and interacting binary stars. In his spare time, John is a tennis enthusiast. 1957-2018


Kevin S. Cottage
Albuquerque, NM

1977

Laurence D. Norton
Austin, TX

1976

John P. Buehler
Pasadena, CA

1974

William V. Bollwerk
Colorado Springs, CO. See his profile on the Potomac Officers Club website.


Geoffrey A. Dorn
1978 M.S. - Geology (UNM); 1980 Ph.D. - Engineering Geoscience (UC-Berkeley); Exec. Director of the Center for Visualization at the Univ of Colorado in Boulder. 1951-2024

1972

Gary A. Willinski
Columbia, MD

1971

Robert F. Matthews
Sandia National Laboratories Subsites Mgmt Program

1970

William A. Glover
Physics and Cultural Astronomy teacher at Highland High School, Albuquerque. See his profile on LinkedIn.


Douglas R. Seeman
Douglas is Senior Structural Engineer with Lachel Felice & Associates in Fairfax, VA. He works primarily in the development and computational models for concrete and reinforced concrete as they apply to tunnels.

1951

Robert R. Henry
Encinitas, CA