The New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology (New Mexico Tech or NMT) is a public university in Socorro, New Mexico, United States.
It offers over 30 Bachelor of Science degrees in technology, the sciences, engineering, management, and technical communication, as well as graduate degrees at the masters and doctoral levels.
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History
With 987 degree-seeking undergraduate students and 486 degree-seeking graduate students as of fall 2024, New Mexico Tech is a relatively small university focused on science and engineering. It was founded by the New Mexico Territorial Legislature in 1889 as the New Mexico School of Mines with the goal of boosting the territorial economy by teaching mining specialties at the college level.
During the 1930s, petroleum engineering and technology also became an important field of study at the institute. In 1946, New Mexico Tech began offering graduate degrees. The institute adopted its current name in 1951 but the change was not legally effective until 1960, through an amendment of the New Mexico State Constitution, Art. XII, Section 11.
It also houses numerous research centers spanning diverse fields such as hydrology, astrophysics, explosives engineering, atmospheric physics, and cybersecurity.
Research and teaching
New Mexico Tech's well-known areas of research and teaching include hydrology, astrophysics, atmospheric physics, geophysics, information technology, information security, Earth Science, energetic materials engineering, and petroleum recovery.
In 2003, with funds from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, New Mexico Tech purchased the town of Playas, New Mexico, and the surrounding 1,200 acres (490 ha) to develop the Playas Training and Research Center, operated by the school's EMRTC, which provides training and research for the university's first responders, counterterrorism, and Air Force programs.
Affiliated science and engineering centers
New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources
Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center
Institute for Complex Additive Systems Analysis
The EarthScope Primary Instrument Center (EPIC, formerly the IRIS PASSCAL Instrument Center)
Langmuir Laboratory for Atmospheric Research
Magdalena Ridge Observatory
National Cave and Karst Research Institute
National Radio Astronomy Observatory (a National Science Foundation facility operated by Associated Universities, Inc. located on the New Mexico Tech campus)
Petroleum Recovery Research Center
Playas Training and Research Center
Student life
NMT hosts an annual Performing Arts Series that is free to students, and, along with the broader Socorro community, city, and county, supports a great number of special events each year. New Mexico Tech is located approximately an hour south of Albuquerque in a region of high deserts to subalpine mountains that offers considerable outdoor recreation opportunities, including rock climbing, road and mountain biking, a triathlon, and hiking opportunities. New Mexico Tech also hosts numerous active student clubs, a Part 15 AM radio station, and a biweekly student newspaper, Paydirt. The campus includes an 18-hole championship golf course. The NMT student esports and rugby club teams recently won national championships.
NMT also hosts community outreach programs such a robotics demolition derby for 6th-12th graders and a weeklong summer science, technology, engineering, and mathematics program for high school students.
The campus population has historically been predominantly male, but it has moved increasingly towards a balance between the sexes. The gender distribution at New Mexico Tech as of 2021 is 68% male and 32% female.
Presidents
The following people have served as president of New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology:
Notable alumni
Conrad Hilton (born 1887) — American hotelier and the founder of the Hilton Hotels chain
Larry Soderblom (born 1944) — American geophysicist with the Astrogeology Science Center at the United States Geological Survey in Flagstaff, Arizona, where he has served as chief of the Branch of Astrogeology
Don Tripp (born 1946) — American politician and a Republican member of the New Mexico House of Representatives representing District 49 since January 1999
Ed Fries — American video game programmer who led the Microsoft team that created the Xbox console
Fred Baker (born 1951) — American engineer, specialized in developing computer network protocols for the Internet
Ibrahim Mohammad Bahr al-Ulloum (born 1954) — Iraqi Minister of Oil from May 2005 to December 2005, while he was a member of the Islamic Virtue Party
Terry Wallace (born 1954) — director of Los Alamos National Laboratory
Lukas Lundin (born 1958) — Swedish-Canadian businessman, billionaire
Jeffrey A. Lockwood (born 1960) — author, entomologist, and University of Wyoming professor of Natural Sciences and Humanities
Axel Scherer — professor, California Institute of Technology, inventor of the Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Laser (VCSEL)
Jason Harper — American politician, Republican member of the New Mexico House of Representatives representing District 57 since January 15, 2013
Popular culture
A number of television shows have focused on New Mexico Tech faculty, students, and research. TruTV's Man vs. Cartoon features attempts by Tech's Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center to re-create contraptions and situations found in Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner cartoons. MythBusters, National Geographic Explorer, BBC Horizon and Nova have also featured Tech in various episodes. Another TV show featuring Tech's Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center, Blow Up U, began filming in the spring of 2009.