Dear Colleagues,
I am pleased to announce that Dr. Hongmei Luo, Luke Barry Shires Professor in the Chemical and Materials Engineering Department, has been appointed to be the Associate Dean of Research and Doctoral Education. She will begin Monday, Oct. 7. During her 10 years here, she has received six NMSU awards recognizing her excellence in teaching and research. She has also established a very successful research program in thin films and nanomaterials. Please join me in welcoming her to this new position and working with her as she gets started in this very important position. Dr. Luo brings 10 years of experience as Graduate Program Director in her department, and brings tremendous enthusiasm to recruit and retain top-quality doctoral students, post-doctoral fellows, and non-tenure track research faculty.
Dr. Luo is fortunate to step into this position at this point in time as Dr. Phillip De Leon leaves it in an upward trajectory. Dr. DeLeon assumed the position of Associate VP of Research this past Monday. Under his direction, the college enjoys a 42 percent increase in new awards and a 54 percent increase in dollar value of awards over the past fiscal year. Dr. DeLeon was also very instrumental in preparing the grounds for NMSU portion of U.S. DOE $100 million Energy-Water Desalination Hub which was recently awarded to the research team led by Dr. Pei Xu. I would like to thank Dr. DeLeon for his leadership in the college and wish him the very best in his new position.
Sincerely,
Lakshmi N. Reddi
