Digital Commons Network^™

Quantum Control Of Qubits And Qudits In Neutral Atom Systems, Sri Datta Vikas Buchemmavari

Physics & Astronomy ETDs

This dissertation explores control of neutral atom quantum systems across multiple levels of abstraction, from atomic physics to system-level fault tolerance, using optimal control to improve performance. First, we propose a Rydberg entangling gate based on dressing with only the qubit control field; an interaction energy near the Rabi frequency benefits both gate speed and Rydberg decay. Second, with Sandia National Laboratories, we show that leakage errors in neutral atom systems can be converted to atom loss errors and detected using two entangling gates with an auxiliary atom, where a SWAP-based leakage detection unit outperforms the standard design. Next, we …

Naturalistic Aided Language Intervention For Children Who Have Multiple Disabilities Including Visual Impairment, Naomi Nattress

Speech and Hearing Sciences ETDs

ABSTRACT

This dissertation examined aided AAC interventions for individuals with multiple disabilities, including visual impairment, across three original studies. Chapter 2, a meta-analysis, found limited rigorous research for this population while showing that individuals at early symbolic stages with diverse visual profiles can successfully engage with AAC when appropriate adaptations are provided. The pilot study in Chapter 3 indicated that caregivers and graduate student clinicians can learn and implement naturalistic AAC techniques and VI accommodations with high fidelity through structured coaching. The mixed methods study in Chapter 4 introduced the ImPAACT-VI program, showing strong outcomes in educator performance, students’ symbolic …

How Forest Structure And Climate Influence Snowpack For Water Resources In The Southwestern United States, Lindsey L. Rotche

Geography ETDs

Climate change, declining snowpack, and increasing wildfire risk have profound impacts on water availability in the southwestern United States. Because the southwestern United States is a global hotspot for freshwater vulnerability, and snowpack provides much of the region’s freshwater, understanding how climate and forest structure influence snowpack dynamics is increasingly important. In this dissertation I aim to better understand and communicate these dynamics through empirical data collection and the development of a simple vegetation driven temperature-index snow model: SNOW-17(VEG). I then implement the model at a watershed scale using remotely sensed imagery to create vegetation zones and climate simulations to …

Regenerative Writing: The Rhetorics Of Indigenous Futurisms As Pedagogical Praxis, Madeline R. Mendoza

English Language and Literature ETDs

This dissertation explores how land-based writing and Indigenous Futurisms can reshape writing pedagogy in higher education, focusing on English courses at the University of New Mexico. At the center of this project is the Land Memoirs assignment, which I designed to encourage students to engage land as a living relative and active participant in the learning process. Through the frameworks of Indigenous Futurisms, Land as Pedagogy, Rhetorical Sovereignty, and Pueblo understandings of marking, I analyze the rhetorical choices across student multimodal narratives, reflections, and interviews to examine the assignment’s pedagogical impact. My findings reveal epistemic differences in how Indigenous …

Helmholtz Reciprocity In Bidirectional Y-Junction Couplers, Hosuk Lee

Optical Science and Engineering ETDs

This thesis explores the light propagation characteristics in Y-junction couplers based on the Helmholtz reciprocity principle. The Helmholtz reciprocity principle is a crucial concept in optical system design, and it has primarily been understood based on input-output symmetry. However, this study emphasizes reciprocity needs to consider the entire system, beyond the traditional input-output symmetry reciprocity interpretation. For this study, we specifically examined the direction-dependent asymmetrical outputs, in the Whistle-geometry Ring Laser (WRL) structure. And the WRL results cannot be fully explained by simple input-output symmetry for reciprocity. The Y-junction coupler in the WRL structure makes different output characteristics based on …

Keeping Communities Safe Through An Alternative First Response Model: Predictors Of Civilian First Responders’ Self-Efficacy In Handling Crisis Situations, Jasmine Desiderio

Organization, Information and Learning Sciences ETDs

The expansion of civilian alternative first responder models reflects a national shift toward community-based approaches to crisis intervention. Grounded in Albert Bandura’s social learning theory, this study examined the extent to which demographic characteristics are associated with crisis self-efficacy, explored how perceptions of the responder role relate to confidence, and identified supports necessary for effective crisis response. A convergent parallel mixed-methods design was employed with civilian first responders in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Quantitative data were collected with the Crisis Self-Efficacy Scale, and semi-structured interviews gathered qualitative data. Exploratory regression analyses (n=31) were not reliably associated with crisis self-efficacy, while role …

Transforming Faculty Development: Organizational Citizenship Behavior, Arts-Based Design, And Communities Of Transformation In Stem Education, Kristen L. Ferris

Organization, Information and Learning Sciences ETDs

This dissertation investigates the relational conditions enabling institutional transformation and diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice (DEIJ) within STEM higher education. Despite needs for systemic change, sustaining faculty engagement remains difficult due to entrenched power dynamics, lack of pedagogical training, and political repression. To address these barriers this research introduces Organizational Citizenship Behaviors (OCB) as an analytic lens and functional infrastructure for change.

Through three papers, this study 1) establishes OCB via a systemic literature review as an actionable metric for faculty development; 2) details the design of a cross-institutional Community of Transformation (CoT) as a design case; and 3) Presents …

Real-Time Waveform Synthesis For Rfsoc-Based Quantum Control Systems, Tiamike I. Dudley

Electrical and Computer Engineering ETDs

RFSoCs are gaining adoption in many labs for quantum control systems thanks to their compactness and affordability. Making full use of the many components on an RFSoC evaluation board is a challenging engineering problem that must be solved to realize scalable control systems. In this dissertation, I evaluate the performance of various RFSoC components in the context of quantum information science. I present two custom FPGA engines that accelerate and parallelize arbitrary waveform generation. The first engine can be instantiated many times to power low-speed DACs for ion-shuttling trap electrodes. The second engine synthesizes CPMG-XY8n dynamical decoupling pulse sequences on …

Multi-Robot Cooperative System For Complex Aerospace Manipulation Tasks: Theory And Application, Longsen Gao

Electrical and Computer Engineering ETDs

Multi-robot systems can extend manipulation capabilities beyond the limits of a single robot, particularly for tasks involving large, flexible, delicate, or free-floating payloads. Reliable cooperative manipulation, however, remains difficult when payload dynamics, contact geometry, compliance properties, deformation-induced forces, and external disturbances are only partially known, and when safety constraints must be enforced during physical interaction. This dissertation develops a two-layer control framework for resilient multi-robot manipulation under uncertainty, with emphasis on space servicing, satellite stabilization, aerial transportation, and cooperative manipulation of free-floating structures.

Pragmatic Measures In Aided Language Measurement: Aac Clinical Expert Perspectives, Makayla Hydiea Smith

Speech and Hearing Sciences ETDs

Purpose: The augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) discipline currently lacks psychometrically sound aided language measures. This thesis is designed to address one step in developing such measures: to begin to establish the clinical feasibility of three pragmatic measures – communicative intent, independence/co-construction, and imitation/non-imitation. Therefore, the objective of this thesis is to identify the useability of these pragmatic measures.

Method: A qualitative approach in the form of a focus group was used to examine the perceptions of SLP practitioners who are experts in AAC. Rapid qualitative analysis (RQA) was used to identify relevant themes and subthemes.

Results: Overall, the themes …

Inactive Nurses In New Mexico: Insights Into License Lapse And Inactive Reserve Status, Kiyoko Dell Davis

Doctor of Nursing Practice Scholarly Projects

Nursing shortages have varied over the decades, yet persist at local, national, and global levels. Nurses report leaving the workforce for many reasons, including professional environment factors resulting from these shortages, further exacerbating a shrinking workforce and population growth. Recent efforts include recruitment and education incentives and implementation of the New Mexico Board of Nursing (NMBON) Inactive Reserve Licensure option, which allows retiring nurses to maintain a reduced-scope nursing license with fewer barriers. Despite these efforts, questions remain: why are nurses in New Mexico leaving the profession and would this licensure category have impacted retention? The purpose of this project …

Improving Continuity Of Care: Evaluating Universal Nursing Handoff Sheets, Elizabeth Ifeloluwa Sanya

Doctor of Nursing Practice Scholarly Projects

Effective communication during nursing handoffs is essential for safe, patient-centered care, as breakdowns in communication are a leading cause of adverse patient outcomes. At a large academic level I trauma center, inconsistent nursing handoff practices were identified across progressive care units following the COVID-19 pandemic. This variability contributed to incomplete transfer of patient information and was associated with increased patient safety incidents, including delayed wound care, central line dressing lapses, and medication errors involving high-alert therapies. The purpose of this DNP project was to plan, implement, and evaluate the use of  standardized nursing handoff sheet and its impact on continuity …

Improving Continuity Of Care: Evaluating Universal Nursing Handoff Sheets, Elizabeth Ifeloluwa Sanya

Doctor of Nursing Practice Posters and Presentations

Effective communication during nursing handoffs is essential for safe, patient-centered care, as breakdowns in communication are a leading cause of adverse patient outcomes. At a large academic level I trauma center, inconsistent nursing handoff practices were identified across progressive care units following the COVID-19 pandemic. This variability contributed to incomplete transfer of patient information and was associated with increased patient safety incidents, including delayed wound care, central line dressing lapses, and medication errors involving high-alert therapies. The purpose of this DNP project was to plan, implement, and evaluate the use of  standardized nursing handoff sheet and its impact on continuity …

Ms4 Swmpp 2026, John Kay

Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System (MS4) Permit

Stormwater discharges from Sandia National Laboratories/New Mexico (SNL/NM) are eligible for coverage under the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System (MS4) Permit. This Stormwater Management Plan (SWMP) was prepared by National Technology and Engineering Solutions of Sandia (NTESS) for the Department of Energy (DOE) National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Sandia Field Office (SFO), owner of SNL/NM, located in Albuquerque, NM.

Core Sipp Community Collaboration Report, Yvonnie Baik, Mahtab Soleimani, Camille Velarde, Elena E. Martinez, Theresa H. Cruz

Reports & Documents

The New Mexico Core State Injury Prevention Program (Core SIPP), in partnership with the University of New Mexico Division of Prevention and Population Sciences, implemented the Community Collaboration Initiative to support community-led, upstream approaches to injury and violence prevention. Five community-based organizations across New Mexico received funding to develop and implement projects addressing shared risk and protective factors identified through advisory group input and community listening sessions. Programs emphasized youth leadership, mentorship, cultural identity, healthy relationships, mental and behavioral wellness, community connectedness, and access to supportive adults and resources.

Across the five projects, 68 youth participated in programming. A retrospective …

Veribrief: A Multi-Agent Retrieval-Augmented Generation System For Policy Decision Support, Imane Bahji

Electrical and Computer Engineering ETDs

VeriBrief is a multi-agent retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) system for evidence-grounded economic policy analysis. The system orchestrates a five-stage LangGraph pipeline, retrieval, research, analysis, synthesis, and critique, to produce cited, structured responses while detecting out-of-scope queries. An empirical evaluation on eight questions drawn from official U.S. macroeconomic releases compared VeriBrief against a single-pass RAG baseline. The multi-agent system achieved 100% refusal precision on unanswerable analytical queries versus 0% for the baseline. Unsupported claims fell substantially on answerable factual questions. A context-propagation defect discovered during evaluation was diagnosed and corrected. Limitations include failure of the evidence gate on policy-counterfactual queries and a …

A Multimodal Analysis Of Conflicting Discourses On New Mexican Identity, Nicholas L. Chavez, Fátima Holguín

Intersecciones Hispánicas: Revista de Cultura, Literatura y Lingüística

We analyze two contrasting discourses on New Mexican identity, as represented in political cartoons from Trever (2021) and García (2018). We show how visual and linguistic elements of the cartoons work together to construct identity through metaphor and metonymy. It was found that Trever (2021) relied on cultural symbols such as the Zia Sun symbol as metonyms for various aspects of New Mexico’s identity, while García (2018) subverted established metaphors for American culture such as the melting pot and Uncle Sam to critique governmental influence on Nuevomexicano (‘New Mexican’) identity formation. Using the critical discourse analysis framework of Fairclough (1995), …

Poemas, Aurélia Gervasoni, Direne Esperanza, Anamaría F. León Barrios

Intersecciones Hispánicas: Revista de Cultura, Literatura y Lingüística

No abstract provided.

When Justice Fails: Female Vengeance And Indigenous Memory In Jayro Bustamante’S Film La Llorona (2019), Isabel Ibáñez De La Calle

Intersecciones Hispánicas: Revista de Cultura, Literatura y Lingüística

Jayro Bustamante’s film La Llorona (2019) reimagines the Latin American myth of the weeping woman to expose the failures of state justice and propose a feminist, decolonial alternative rooted in Indigenous memory and spiritual retribution. The film follows retired general Enrique Monteverde, modeled after Guatemalan dictator Efraín Ríos Montt, as he is tried for genocide against the Maya Ixil people. While the courtroom scenes depict a moment of accountability, they ultimately reveal how legal institutions remain complicit in protecting power. In contrast, the arrival of Alma—an Indigenous domestic worker who embodies La Llorona—introduces a supernatural force that intervenes when the …

Pixels And Property Rights: Resolving Social Media Ownership Disputes Between Employers And Employees Through Traditional Property Law Frameworks, Brittany Kjerstad Mcknight

New Mexico Law Review

Social media accounts have become valuable business assets, yet courts remain divided on how to resolve disputes over their ownership. In employer-employee contexts, some courts have adopted multi-factor tests to determine whether an account belongs to the business or the individual. However, these tests create inconsistent and unpredictable results, leaving businesses and employees uncertain about their rights. Courts should reject ad hoc multi-factor tests and instead rely on traditional legal frameworks, specifically property, contract, and agency law, to resolve social media ownership disputes. By treating social media accounts as non-transferable, revocable licenses governed by contractual terms, courts can apply established …

Rejecting Salinas V. Texas’S Catch-22: Towards State Constitutional Protections For Silence In New Mexico, Kayla Herring

New Mexico Law Review

The landmark United States Supreme Court case, Miranda v. Arizona, protects individuals’ constitutional rights in coercive environments, like custodial interrogations, where law enforcement officers apply immense psychological pressure through specialized techniques. However, subsequent caselaw distorts Miranda’s intent to enable prosecutors to comment on silence. Doing so divorces Miranda from the reason the United States Supreme Court established Miranda warnings in the first place. This subsequent caselaw narrows individuals’ constitutional right against having their silence used against them in later criminal proceedings to imply guilt based on the custodial framework established in Miranda. Salinas v. Texas is one of those subsequent …

Neutrosophic Temperaments And Personality Evolution: A Conceptual Framework Of Evolution, Indeterminacy And Involution, Akbar Jadidi Mohammadabadi, Akbar Rezaei, Florentin Smarandache

Neutrosophic Sets and Systems

No abstract provided.

A Customer-Driven Supplier Evaluation Model Under Indeterminacy For Customizated Production, Çağrı Kuram, Özge Nalan Bi̇li̇şi̇k

Neutrosophic Sets and Systems

No abstract provided.

Tinf-Consensus For Multi-Annotator Learning: Separating Neutral Responses From Polarized Disagreement, Mukhtar Ahmad

Neutrosophic Sets and Systems

No abstract provided.

N-Evichain: A Neutrosophic Twofold Evidence-Chain Reasoning System For Legal Fact Support Assessment Under Uncertainty, Shimaa Abdelghany Attalla, Nada Hesham, Abduallah Gamal

Neutrosophic Sets and Systems

No abstract provided.

Neutrosophic Sets And Systems, Vol. 100, 2026, Florentin Smarandache, Mohamed Abdel-Basset, Maikel. Leyva Vazquez

Neutrosophic Sets and Systems

No abstract provided.

Reflections On Inclusive Qualitative Research With Autistic Emerging Adults: Lessons Learned And Practical Recommendations, Acadia W. Buro, Heidi Rishel Brakey, Monica F. Asencio Pimentel, Elizabeth Yakes Jimenez

Population Health Research and Scholarship

We explored inclusive qualitative data collection strategies for autistic emerging adults (ages 18–25) to identify nutrition-related resource needs and inform intervention development. We conducted Zoom interviews with autistic emerging adults, their caregivers, and service providers. We co-developed recruitment materials with a community advisory board of autistic advocates and offered and adapted interview accommodations in real time to align with participants’ preferences. Common accommodations included receiving questions in advance and in the chat, having a caregiver present, and simplifying questions. Some techniques used with neurotypical participants translated well to our participants, such as reflective listening, a conversational tone, and allowing pauses; …

Sample Models Of Nmoer Program Implementation, Jennifer Jordan, Valerie Nye, Christine Goshorn

Models of Institutional Implementation

No abstract provided.

Indigenous Child Language Research Report 2, Saad K’Idilyé, Indigenous Child Language Research Center

Indigenous Child Language Research Center

This report shares some of the preliminary finding of the continued research work that is being conducted by the Indigenous Child Language Research Center. The ICLRC aims to report to their community partner, Saad K’idilyé, the results of their groundbreaking work. This information is typically delivered in person at a planned meeting. This research is long-term and the data is being prepared for optimal analysis to be shared through published works, workshops, and conference presentations.

Indigenous Child Language Research Report 1, Saad K’Idilyé, Indigenous Child Language Research Center

Indigenous Child Language Research Center

This report shares some of the preliminary finding of the research work that is being conducted by the Indigenous Child Language Research Center. The ICLRC aims to report to their community partner, Saad K’idilyé, the results of their groundbreaking work. This information is typically delivered in person at a planned meeting. This research is long-term and the data is being prepared for optimal analysis to be shared through published works, workshops, and conference presentations. This is the very first research report that came out of our partnership.