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UNM Directed Energy Center to hold kickoff event December 6

November 29, 2021 - by Kim Delker

The University of New Mexico will officially kick off the Directed Energy Center, a new center jointly led by the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), during an event on December 6.

The event will be held at 2 p.m. in the Roberts Room, Scholes Hall on the UNM campus, and on Zoom (information below).

The congressionally-funded center was announced earlier this month.

The event will begin with a welcome from Distinguished Professor Edl Schamiloglu, who will direct the new center. It will also feature remarks from President Garnett Stokes, Provost James Paul Holloway, UNM Vice President for Research Ellen Fisher, and officials from AFRL, including Kelly Hammett, Director of the Directed Energy Directorate at AFRL.

Schamiloglu has led UNM’s research efforts in microwaves and high-power electronics for the last few decades and also serves as associate dean for research and innovation in the School of Engineering. Ganesh Balakrishnan, professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, will serve as associate director of the center.

Arash Mafi, professor of physics at UNM and director of the Center for High Technology Materials at the time the proposal was submitted, is principal investigator, and Schamiloglu and Balakrishnan are co-PIs on the recent $2.4 million, four-year cooperative agreement through AFRL called, “Directed Energy Center for Lasers and Microwaves.”

Schamiloglu, Balakrishnan, and Mafi will also discuss research strategies for the center, specifically in directed energy lasers and microwaves.

The center will eventually be located in a new facility in the planning stages in UNM’s south campus science and technology park, which is expected to be operational by 2025.

Zoom meeting information: https://unm.zoom.us/j/98212392804
Passcode: AFRL

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Meeting ID: 982 1239 2804