PhD Student
Geochemistry
Advisor
Laura Waters
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Magdalen Grismer learned the scientific method of trial and error at an early age, while growing up on a small, family-farm in California. She gained an innate knowledge of natural laws, such as gravity (when falling out of trees), and angular acceleration (being bucked off horses). After graduating high-school, she learned effective communication by leveraging common patterns in how people think through a Socratic style of learning at Thomas Aquinas College. Following a senior thesis defending geology as a science based on Aristotle’s definition of knowledge, Magdalen decided to pursue her B.S. in Geology at Sonoma State University. She came to New Mexico Tech in August 2020 and is working towards a Ph.D. in geochemistry. Her dissertation investigates the petrology, pre-eruptive storage conditions of Valles Caldera post-collapse domes, as well as sanidine kinetics, to better understand the development and eruption of silica-rich magmas.
Recently, Magdalen has been awarded a six-month pre-doctoral fellowship at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C., which will fund experimental work central to her thesis. While at the Smithsonian she will work in the Department of Mineral Sciences under the supervision of Dr. Benjamin Andrews. There she plans to run decompression experiments on volcanic samples to determine how crystals record ascent rates of some of the most SiO2-rich, explosive magmas ever erupted on Earth. Her results will be used as the foundation for a model that will be widely applicable to catastrophic, silica-rich volcanoes throughout the world, such as those issued from Yellowstone and the Valles Caldera. A model to determine the speed at which thousands of cubic kilometers of lava, ash, and pyroclastic debris will be an invaluable tool for current and future volcanologists.
Magdalen is also thrilled to be participating in the Q?rius program at the Coralyn W. Whitney Science Education Center, in addition to her scientific research at the Smithsonian Institution. At the Q?rius program she will be able to volunteer and continue supporting STEM education through running educational events, such as volcano days. In the future, Magdalen will continue focusing on the development of Earth, through studying volcanoes, while working with students to help them achieve their own scientific goals.
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PhD Student
Computer Science
Advisor
Jun Zheng
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Qingqing Li is a PhD student in the Computer Science department at New Mexico Tech, where she received her MS degree in Computer Science in July 2020. She has served as the event officer of the graduate student association (GSA) since May 2021.
Before coming to NMT to pursue graduate studies, Qingqing obtained the BS degree in Software Engineering from Yangtze University, China in 2016. After that, she worked as a software engineer for two years in Chad and China. While working in China, she was exposed to Internet technologies and realized how these emerging technologies could change the way we live, which is the reason that she decided to pursue graduate studies in computer science. The colleagues and people in Chad heavily influenced her attitude towards life and learning. They are enthusiastic, friendly, and always sing and dance happily regardless of their living conditions. Their optimism taught her how to cope with the difficulties in life and learning.
Qingqing’s current research interests include mobile security, biometrics, machine learning, and deep learning. She has worked on research projects using biological signals such as surface electromyography (sEMG) for security and human computer interaction (HCI) applications. She has authored and co-authored four journal papers and one conference paper so far. The figure below shows her recent research work which proposes a new method for user
authentication using sEMG images of hand gestures and deep anomaly
detection. User authentication is the process to verify the identity of a user to prevent unauthorized access to sensitive information stored on systems or devices. The proposed method first converts multi-channel sEMG signals, acquired when the user performs a hand gesture, into sEMG images. The sEMG images are used as the input of a deep anomaly detection model, which classifies the user as a valid client or an imposter.
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An illustration of the proposed deep anomaly detection-based user authentication approach
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New Graduate Students Stipend
New graduate stipends have been posted on the graduate website. On average there is a 7.3% increase. For more information please see the stipend sheet here.
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Changes to Commencement Participation Rules
Graduate students that are on track to finish this Spring may participate in commencement if the following is satisfied
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- Submitted an Intend to Graduate form by the deadline of April 15th, 2022,
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Submitted an Intend to Walk form by the deadline of April 15th, 2022,
- have an approved course plan on file showing that they are finishing all their course work by the end Spring 2022 semester, and
- for MS and PhD students have the following
- approved committee form,
- sent the graduate office information about your defense date by May 6th, and
- defended successfully by May 10th, 2022.
If all the above conditions have been met you will be able to walk during commencement. If all your completion paperwork has been submitted and finalized by April 15th, 2022 you will be on the conferred list for May. If not, your degree will be on the June list of conferral presented to the Faculty Senate and Regents for approval.
Please check the registrar's website for current list of students on the walking list and the program list. Please let us know if you don't see your name and you think that you should be on it or if there are any mistakes in the name or degree.
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GSA/CGS BBQ
On April 14th the GSA and CGS held the annual spring BBQ. We thank students, faculty, staff, administration, families for participating. Special thanks to all the volunteers that ensured that the even runs as smoothly as possible.
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04/29
GSA Officers Election
Voting will close at 3 pm sharp on April 29 before the final meeting of the GSA council.
All graduate students are encouraged to vote. The votes will be counted and winners confirmed at the meeting. Please take the time to vote!. A link to the voting form has been emailed.
All graduate students are invited to attend the council meeting next Friday, April 29 at 3:00 pm in MSEC 101. If you have been nominated for a position or are a department representative, we strongly encourage you to attend this meeting.
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05/14
Commencement
Congratulations to all graduating students. We are so proud of you and your accomplishments. Hope to see you all at commencement.
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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).
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Graduate Student Association
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Center for Graduate Studies
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Admission & Student Success
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AA Technology Support & Data Analytics
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