March 2022 Issue

Correction - Workshop time is 11:30AM not PM

WORKSHOP

Degree Completion Information & Latex Workshop

Thursday March 10th

11:30AM MST

This event is for all graduate students regardless of where you are in the process. We will go over degree completion requirements and deadlines as well as how to easily format your thesis/dissertation using Latex. Faculty are welcome and highly encouraged to attend and participate. Whether you just started your graduate degree or are close to finishing, there will be useful information that is critical for you to know so please make an effort to attend.

Student Profile

MS Student

 

Materials Engineering Department

 

 

Advisor

Chelsey Hargather

 

Christopher Lafferty was born in Houston, Texas where he lived for 19 years. Throughout his Elementary school years, he was placed into Gifted and Talented classrooms to further engage curiosity in learning. As he grew, this helped him to accumulate knowledge which led to an interest in wanting to go to college. Later he would attend Houston Community College with no clear direction, only to take core classes while he figured out what he wanted to do with his life. While at HCC he completed his Associate of Science, which sparked his interest in engineering topics i.e., physics, thermodynamics, and diffusion, etc. After careful  considerations of colleges, he chose to leave his home to live in the land of Enchantment. He obtained his B.S in chemical engineering from New Mexico Tech in May of 2021 after concluding his undergraduate research for Dr. Sanchuri Chowdhury. Upon the discovery that New Mexico Tech offers an accelerated M.S. degree program, Chris took full advantage of the opportunity and is now currently working towards a Master’s of Science in Materials Engineering. Due to an interest in computational studies, he was able to begin computational research for Dr. Chelsey Hargather immediately following his undergrad graduation.

 

Chris’ work involves the study of High Entropy Alloys (HEAs) which are a single solid phase alloy which includes five or more metals with near equal composition. HEAs are potential candidates for high performing engineering material due to their unique combination of properties. His work centers around the diffusion and  creep behavior of HEAs that has been chosen for him to study. Creep is a permanent, time-dependent deformation that is caused from high stress environments. Diffusion has been shown to be an important contributor to secondary creep behavior. Density functional theory (DFT) allows for the analysis of the structural energy for various HEA atom configurations. Special quazirandom structures are used with first principle-based calculations which implements the Schrodinger equation to solve for the ground state energy of the system. This process calculates the activation energy for the diffusion within the CrCoFeNiMn system he works with. To finish his work, he will be exploring the relationship between creep activation energy and diffusion activation energy.

 

The figures included shows a ternary and a quinary system made up of equal amounts of each atom. By analyzing the ternary systems that makeup the quinary system, the overall ground state energy can be found. To finish his work, he will be exploring the relationship between creep activation energy and diffusion activation energy.

This 125 atom structure was made by Chris to model the HEAs random placement of atoms. By randomizing the placement of each type of atom the average ground state energy can be found for each ternary system. In finding the ground state energy of every ternary system that can be made from the atoms in a quinary system, the ground state energy of the quinary system can be found.

New forms

Intent to graduate

Intent to graduate forms for graduate students have been updated. This form is due by midterm of the semester prior to that you intend to graduate in and is in addition to the  Registrar's Intent to Walk and Graduation Payment forms. You can find this form on the Graduate Studies website or the Registrar's website.

 

PhD Committee Report Forms

To provide greater flexibility and tracking ability, the PhD Advisory Committee Report form has been updated and divided into multiple forms to reflect the stage you are in with your PhD degree rather than keeping everything within one form to cover around five years of your progress. These forms are now available and live on the Graduate Studies website.

03/25

Panel for Women's History Month

The GSA is sponsoring  a panel for Women's History Month called Voices of Women: A panel of women discuss how climate change impacts New Mexico. It will be held Friday, March 25 at 1:00 pm at Macey Center and on Zoom at tinyurl.com/VOWclimate. There will be refreshments available at the event.

04/07

GSA/Graduate Studies BBQ 4pm-6pm

It is BBQ time. Please come and join us at the GSA/Graduate Studies spring BBQ. All graduate students, faculty, staff are invited. Please RSVP by April 1st, 2022 to help us get the right amount of food and minimize waste.

04/15

Completion paperwork for Spring graduation

If you are planning to graduate in May the completed report of the advisory committee, iThenticate report from academic advisor, and ProQuest submission of the final thesis/dissertation must be submitted to and accepted by the Center for Graduate Studies or one final copy of an accepted independent study paper must be submitted to the student’s advisor and advisory committee. Please refer to the Completion Guideline on the CGS website.

 

Student degrees are not complete until final materials have been approved by the Center for Graduate Studies and the student receives final acceptance via email from the ProQuest system. 

There are some Endowed scholarship opportunities open to graduate students, which are listed here on the Endowed Scholarship website. Native American graduate students should contact the Financial Aid Office for information for additional scholarship opportunities (financial_aid@nmt.edu).

President

Vice President

Information Officer

Appropriations Officer

 

Travel Officer

Events Officer

Graduate student poster competition at the Science Research Symposium (SRS)

There will be a graduate student poster competition at the Student Research Symposium (SRS), April 22 12-2pm. This session is for students who are interested in competing on a professional level.  Students will need to register for the SRS grad student poster session category. You will be required to do a review at the Writing and Communication lab, in order to print your poster. We will be giving a $500 dollar prize to the top poster and it's a great opportunity to receive feedback on your research and presentation skills.

Recruiting & Contracts

Admission & Student Success

AA Technology Support & Data Analytics

Dean of Graduate Studies

We love to hear from you

https://www.nmt.edu/gradstudies

Fidel Center - Room 275

Tel: (575) 835-5513