Three distinct awards given to Morgan Lee, Sophia Rosa, and Rowan Oglesby at this years NM AMP.

Three New Mexico Tech students earned top honors at the 2026 New Mexico Alliance for Minority Participation (NM AMP) Student Research Conference held recently in Las Cruces. This Conference provides students and faculty members the opportunity to share ideas, learn, network professionally, and showcase undergraduate research focused on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM).

Chemistry student Rowan Oglesby won first place in the University Category podium presentations. Biomedical Sciences student Sophia Rosa took first place in the poster presentations. Mechanical Engineering student Morgan Lee won second place in poster presentations. All three presented research sponsored by NM AMP.

Oglesby, mentored by Dr. Menake Piyasena of the chemistry department, presented “Concentration and Entrapment of Micro and Nano Plastics Using Acoustic Wave-Based Microfluidic Devices with Microposts.” The project aims to build an inexpensive, quick way to separate tiny plastic particles from water. Sound waves move the particles to pressure nodes, where they are held against small posts. When the sound stops, the particles are released.

Rosa, a member of the Class of 2027, worked under Dr. Michaelann Tartis in the Department of Chemical Engineering, alongside colleague Miles Harrington. Their poster was titled “Surface Modification of Polyacrylamide Hydrogels with Chitosan and Polydopamine.” The team is building a lab model of brain tissue to study traumatic brain injuries. They coated the hydrogel to help cells attach more reliably. The work could one day inform patient diagnostics, protective headgear, and sports and military training policies.

Lee, a third-year Mechanical Engineering student, conducts research in the Energetics and Fluid Dynamics Lab under Dr. Frank Austin Mier from the mechanical engineering department. Lee’s project explores how controlled explosive energy can etch designs into copper and bond different metals together. The work builds on a Tech tradition, in partnership with Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center (EMRTC), of awarding Ph.D. graduates explosively etched copper diplomas. Results so far show detailed, repeatable surface patterns and promising bonding between copper and nickel-silver alloy.

Now in its 34th year, the conference is a forum for students to find a place of belonging, encouragement, and appreciation, according to organizers.

 

 

By Jaime Terrazas Lozano