Los Alamos National Laboratory, shown above, is coordinating with the University of New Mexico with a new joint faculty agreement to increase learning and research opportunities.
LOS ALAMOS, N.M., July 9, 2019—The University of New Mexico (UNM) and Los Alamos National Laboratory signed a landmark Institutional Agreement that provides staff from both institutions unprecedented access to collaborative research and allows for academic appointments for LANL staff and scientific staff appointments for UNM faculty. Laboratory staff can teach classes at UNM's main and branch campuses, pursue joint funding opportunities, and work with faculty and students. UNM faculty enjoy similar, reciprocal privileges.
"After many months of work with colleagues here at UNM and at Los Alamos to lay groundwork for this agreement, I am extraordinarily pleased as UNM enters into a new level of collaborative relationship with Los Alamos National Laboratory," said UNM Interim Provost Dr. Richard L. Wood. "This will allow UNM to more readily host interested Los Alamos researchers, and allow more UNM faculty and research staff engage with colleagues at the Laboratory. I trust that will undergird some great new research in the months and years ahead—and eventually stronger economic development in New Mexico. As one born and raised in Los Alamos, the son of a Los Alamos theoretical physicist, it is great to sign this agreement as I exit the interim provost role at UNM."
"Los Alamos is excited to take our relationship with the University of New Mexico to the next level through this agreement. Our institutions have a long history of productive collaboration, and this agreement creates additional mechanisms to strengthen and grow our partnership," said John Sarrao, Los Alamos's deputy director for Science, Technology and Engineering.
Sarrao and Wood signed the agreement June 28. Previously, UNM faculty and staff operated at Los Alamos as visitors, highly restricting their access. This agreement updates their status so that they operate as staff, thereby streamlining their access to important research and information.
This five-year agreement provides an official mechanism to build joint appointments between UNM faculty and Los Alamos staff, allowing each to function in the same capacity at the other's facilities. UNM faculty will now be provided the status and freedom to work with Laboratory staff members and their research. Los Alamos staff members will now have appointments in UNM academic departments, allowing them to teach and work with UNM students and faculty, and grants them access to UNM research.
