LEWIS project is taking off with LEWIS6 and LEWIS7 testing
We will be updating you with progress with field deployments, stay tuned!
SMILab end of the year potluck
Bright minds, tasty food, celebrations from 2025 achievements and great plans for 2026!
Lili visits SMILab
Looking forward to impactful collaborations!
Jim Churchill (M+P International) visits SMILab
Thank you for helping us getting back on track with Vibpilot! Great job everyone!
Gabriella Gallegos MS Thesis Defense
Congratulations Gabriela for a great MS defense / thesis entitled “Neuromorphic Event-based Sensing for non-linear structural dynamics: pixel-level frequency mapping and event-density consensus methods”. Committee Members Dr. Fowler (Sandia National Laboratory), Dr. Rafi Tarefdel (computational mechanics) and Dr. Tariq Kraishi (mechanical engineering)
Steel Design Quiz
Learning from Thrasher Magazine about Deck Plate Girders and Bridge Desing
LeiLei and Sean Brady meet at SMILab
Dr. LeiLei from CS (new faculty) visits the lab. Bracy and Jill explain to him our AR research
Steel Design Class at the Zimmerman Library
We learned shear and serviceability design at the library. Some of the new UNM students never visited this library before!
Marlon Aguero, PhD student, presents a seminar
Good to see you back and keep up the great job advancing your PhD research Marlon!
–
Valeria Franco from ESPOL visits SMILab
Valeria is a student from Prof. Nati and is interested to advance AR for structural engineering. Welcome to SMILab Valeria! Looking forward to impactful research.
–
Visit to Princeton University and Columbia University
Thank you Professor Branko Blisic and Raimondo Betti, respectively, for hosting! Looking forward to many collaborations together.
Steel Design Field Trip for Take Home Midterm2
Sujata and Tayab taking some measurements at the foothills to investigate the steel structure and develop their report. Great day! Also, we had Joe visiting and showing off his AISC manual at the site!
Engineering Open House
Great job SMILab supporting SOE and UNM with your great projects, with young students and smart high school students who will be the future of engineering
Fernando Segura joins SMILab
Fernando is a sophomore in mechanical engineering interested to work for NASA, Fernando will be helping us with our aerospace research with human in the loop engineering.
Piedad Miranda completes her qualifying exam!
Great job Piedad and best wishes for your next steps ahead in your career!
Sigma Tau Pi Eminent Engineer Induction
Honored to join colleagues Prof. Jose Cerrato and Dean Donna Riley at the Sigma Tau Pi Annual Convention at Downtown ABQ!
Honored to join colleagues Prof. Jose Cerrato and Dean Donna Riley at the Sigma Tau Pi Annual Convention at Downtown ABQ!
Thank you for visiting today! We look for more collaborations across disciplines. We have collaborated with Professor Polli and we want to do explore ideas together!
Human-Computer Interaction, VICON lab, SHM from cradle to grave
Mahsa is preparing for more human in the loop Digital Twin.
SMILab group lunch at the University Club
Nice new bridge for testing at the new duck pond.
Teaching Bridge Design to steel design students with AISC at the Route 66 for the 8th UNM Bridge Design Competition
All the students in this Fall course have to design a pedestrian bridge over the University and Central Intersection right at Route 66. We visited the structures laboratory and the site. Great course project for structural engineering hands on!
ASCE and ASME students chapters
Great turn out of students! Strongly supporting students as faculty mentor.
Steel Design Building Project Competition
Thank you Dilendra Maharjan (Hinley Engineering) and Patience Dunlap (Deker) for supporting UNM and our students! They did a great job at the course!
/
Various structural engineering meetings this week
On October 15th with structural engineering faculty and researchers at ABQ
On October 13th with Rich Payne from ESCA Consultants at SF
Dr. Moreu named ASCE Fellow at OPAL Gala with ASCE President Fenyosky-Mora
Great recognition to our research group and we are proud to serve to our technical communities in the American Society of Civil Engineers.
Elias Mosco is ready for AR DT interfaces
Welcome to a world of limitless possibilities, where the journey is as exhilarating as the destination, and where every moment is an opportunity to make your mark.
TEDX ABQ Talk: “Connecting Cables is like Making New Friends”
Dr. Moreu gave a talk at TEDX ABQ and you can enjoy it in this link – have a great time!
Touring the Sandia Peak Tramway with Steel Design Class and Michael Donovan
Students received a private tour of the engine and the updated digital controls, take the ride up and some even toured the crest for a hike!
Hector is testing out the metaquest for his NSF RAISE thesis
Hector is investigating human in the loop automation and robot control
Montara and Halfmoon Bay, CA
LEWIS6 are now fully functional and we are exploring new field applications
Stanford University Palo Alto, CA – We prepared, presented, and won the 2025 IWSHM Competition SHM in Action!
Great job Mahsa Sanei, Ronan Reza, Michael Carl!
Preparing for 2025 IWSHM Competition SHM in Action
We won in 2023 with AR and AI-cracks (Dr. Ali Khorasani, Dr. Kaveh Malek, Sandeep Alampalli) and now we are preparing for 2025 with human-machine collaboration for SHM from cradle to grave with Kinova, reinforcement, and human AR control of robots with Mahsa Sanei, Hector Valenzuela, Elias Mosco, Michael Carl, Ronan Reza, and Piedad Miranda.
Teaching LEWIS to steel design students with AISC at the start of Fall 2025
All the students received a LEWIS at the start of the semester to introduce them to smart structures technology. It is a class it is always well received by both undergraduate and graduate students in structural engineering because they learn civil engineering skills of the future.
Dr. Ali Khorasani PhD Thesis Defense
Congratulations Dr. Ali Khorasani for a great PhD defense and dissertation entitled “A Novel Augmented Reality Human-in-the-Loop Methodology for Enhancing Structural Inspections”. Committee Members Dr. Rafi Tarefdel (computational mechanics), Dr. Victor Law (Organizational Science Information and Learning) and Dr. Alampalli (Stantec).
Teaching LEWIS to more high schooler at the start of Fall 2025
Ronan, Arian explain LEWIS technology at Stamm Room to over 50 high school students to start the semester strong. Best LEWIS instructors.
Black Bear sighting at Rio Rancho
It is always nice to have wildlife around – we will explore LEWIS Black Bears soon
Mahsa and Hayden are testing LEWIS6 prior to field deployments
We have created a new generation of LEWIS6 to test in Chama, stay tuned!
Hussein starts at SMILab with SAP2000 and Structural Engineering Association of New Mexico (SEANM) Annual Conference
Welcome to the United States, UNM, SEANM and New Mexico! Hussein completed his MS in structural engineering at the University of Torino in Italy and is now starting his PhD in SMILab focused on smart sensing technology and real-time digital twins for critical infrastructure
Ronan Reza receives junior award scholarship from the Structural Engineering Association of New Mexico (SEANM) Annual Conference
Congratulations Ronan, keep up your great work in experimental structural dynamics and looking forward with more contributions with LEWIS.
Summer farewell to Wyatt Saeger and Bryan
Great contributions this summer both Bryan and Wyatt during your masters! Stay in touch! I barely made it to the picture. Solaiman ends his summer and prepares for the start of his PhD in ECE. Piedad completes her first year as PhD student in CCEE. Mahsa is the most senior member now! Kira (AA), Nixon (ME), Fatehma (CS) new HS/UG summer additions.
Nixon Reyes joins SMILab
Welcome Nixon, UG Mechanical Engineering assisting with robotics, signal processing, and vibrations.
Wyatt Saeger MS Thesis Defense
Congratulations Wyatt for a great defense and graduating with honors. Committee Members Dr. Heitman (Sandia National Laboratory) and Dr. Pathirage (computational mechanics)
Teaching sensors at the Tramway
Great work from the team, and Ronan drives like a champion!
Representing SOE at Mathcounts Golf Outing
With Arup Maji, Richard Martines (NMSPE President) and Chair Bogus Halter, what a great Saturday and we did well as a team with the best golfers of ABQ! We should spend more time at the golf course…
Dr. Moreu named ASCE Fellow
Great recognition to our research group and we are proud to serve to our technical communities in the American Society of Civil Engineers.
Presenting at the Tribal Environmental Summit on AI with Professor Trilce Estrada
Thank you, Tara and Shaun, for inviting us to teach sensors, and great students in the audience by the way! With the support of our state economic development funders, we are eager to grow and transform the ecosystem in sensors.
Fatehma joins SMILab
Fatehma is a rising senior in Computer Science and is advancing Kinova, Augmented Reality, and software development. We are fortunate to transform the landscape of automation and controls with Fatehma in our team! She also teaches LEWIS to high schoolers.
Teaching LEWIS to more high schooler! Touring dynamics laboratory
Fatehma, Sergio, Solaiman, Ronan, Bryan are the best LEWIS instructors! Great future in engineering – And we want them all in engineering
Tramway and LEWIS long term deployment
We traveled to the peak thanks to Michael Donovan and outstanding team. We have three LEWIS collecting data. Great job from Hayden, Solaiman, Bryan.
Visiting South Carolina, SMILab interns in National Lab, Leo Lagos and team at FIU, Department of Civil Engineering at USC Chair Juan Caicedo, Austin Downey from Mechanical Engineering
We had a busy trip learning more on exciting research, catching up with our students and work at the lab with FIU, and also learned on the great work going on at USC. Piedad will come back and collect more data. Stay tuned with Brutus new adventures.
Railrunner exam for high school students
Bryan, Solaiman, Sergio and Ronan conducted the test on the railrunner which became a classroom again! Now we plan to use it in the fall for the steel design midterm. Exam on wheels definitely makes you move. Best high school students on wheels!
SMILab leaders dinner 2025
Great start of the summer with Graduate Students Leaders dinner at BRAVO Cucina Italiana featuring: Mahsa Sanei, Wyatt Saeger, Gabriella Gallegos, Piedad Miranda Chiquito, and big welcome to new SMILab PhD student Mohammad Solaiman in electrical engineering at University of New Mexico School of Engineering the future is theirs!
Teaching LEWIS to the best teachers in science and engineering in the country
Solaiman, Bryan, Sergio and Ronan taught the best students, our teachers, about LEWIS. Very taught questions and at the end, we passed! Great time
Teaching LEWIS to best high school students in the country
The entire team prepared and taught a LEWIS class. Led by our own Ronan Reza + 10 of us, we taught how to build LEWIS and check out the data in 1 hour to high school juniors. There were some freshmen- great work! And great fun. Thank you, Elsa Castillo, and Aidira. For inviting us to teach in your very successful program.
LEWIS deployment in TinkerTown
Thank you, Carla Ward! The East Sandia Mountains is the best location for LEWIS full time deployment, come check out all the engines, machines, and sensors you can find and even LEWIS will count you at the Museum that day! We also have rain sensors by Teodora, the only boat that sails in a Mountain.
Check them out! Tinkertown Museum
Welcome Summer Lunch at Frontier
We checked out the red/green chili favorite burger and even had Ali to join us!
LEWIS Deployments
Bryan is working hard with LEWIS for deployments
ASCE EMI 2025 SMILab
Mahsa Sanei, Wyatt Saeger, Piedad Miranda and Dr. Moreu presented at ASCE EMI this year a total of 8 conference papers; chairing 6 mini-symposiums: (3) education and AI, (2) SHM and AI, (2) human-machine interaction. We also organized the first ever ASCE EMI open mic event to introduce new members to technical committees, student competitions, journal of mechanical engineering, and other initiatives to grow our community. A great opportunity to transform and serve our engineering mechanics (and dynamics) community!
New Summer ahead of research!
Sergio, Bryan, and Solaiman at the top view from CARC – the future is theirs!
Mohammad Solaiman joins SMILab
Welcome Mohamad Solaiman as new PhD student at SMILab (computer engineering). Solaiman is completing his MS at University of Texas as Tyler and will advance Internet of Things research, AI and distributed networks. Looking forward to growing LEWIS in New Mexico and in the entire country!
Sergio Contreras joins SMILab
We are very glad that Sergio Contreras is joining SMILab from the University of Texas at San Antonio (electrical engineering). Sergio is contributing to advancing neuromorphic signal processing at CARC. Great work in multidisciplinary areas including dynamics, programming, signal processing, and laboratory!
Measuring Damage of Rotatory Objects
Get ready for measuring rotatory objects with a new project with Los Alamos National Laboratory and New Mexico Consortium … stay tuned
Patent Law, Engineering, and Intellectual Property only last 20 years
We hosted with the graduate seminar Dr. Helen Baca who presented to graduate students patent law as a career for engineers. Great interaction with the audience and participation from various SMILab members. Thank you Dr. Baca for visiting the lab and touring the experiments and mentoring innovation with graduate and undergraduate students! Come to SMILab more frequently/often!
Elias Mosco is back to lead our Augmented Reality project
Elias has started to program our interface for the new project with USDOT project on prestressed beams monitoring using Augmented Reality and Digital Twins. Elias, you are the best AR entrepreneur and we are so glad to have you back for changing the future!
Hector Valenzuela joins SMILab as graduate student
Hector worked with us in the past as undergraduate student: ONR Cybersecurity project and NSF CIVIC wireless sensors. Now he is graduating and joining as research assistant. Welcome back to SMILab Hector and looking forward to your progress in Augmented Reality and Robotics!
CE598 Advanced Dynamics Calibration Homework
Great work from Gabriella Gallegos and Solomon Atcitty leading homework 06. Thanks Rome from PCB, Modal Shop, and Dewesoft and M+P International. Exciting to see all the achievements in the first half of the semester by top graduate students learning instrumentation fundamentals. Learning when you actually teach it, Gabby and Solomon!
Dr. Kaveh Malek, from KiloNewton, visits SMILab
It is great to have former alumni visiting again! Kaveh came by for lunch and he is helping the team to advance more robotics and AR continuation. We want to have you give us a seminar with your Kilonewton projects Kaveh!
International Modal Analysis Conference (IMAC) 2025 Orlando, FL
Conference with three papers! We met with Dr. Eric Robbins (former SMILab member) now post-doc at Sandia National Labs with Dr. Debbie Fowler, Guillermo Toledo presented all the way from Spain his work with Wyatt and Dr. Mascarenas (Los Alamos National Lab), Gabriella and Tessa presented their NOMAD project under Dr. Fowler’s supervision. Great work team!
CE598 Advanced Dynamics Sensing Homework
Great work from Wyatt Saeger and Piedad Miranda leading homework 04. Thanks Jim Churchill from M+P International, PCB, Modal Shop and APS. Exciting to see all the top graduate students learning instrumentation fundamentals, data acquisition, signal conditioning. Learning when you actually teach it, Piedad and Wyatt!
ESPOL Visits SMILab and UNM
Dean Eddy Sanclemente and Associate Professor Nati Garcia visisted us for five days. The ESPOL delegation met with the Director of the Education Abroad Office of UNM Dr. Todd Karr and the director of the Center of English as a Second Language Dr. Paul Enmunds arranged by the Global Education Office and discussed the various possible opportunities both at UNM and ESPOL for students and faculty to advance international research. Other potential collaborations were discussed with meetings including Dr. Nathan Jackson and Dr. Francesco Sorrentino (Mechanical Engineering), Dr. Mahmoud Taha, Dr. John Stormont, Dr. Allyson McGaughey, Dr. Lisa Losada-Rojas, Dr. Jose Cerrato, Dr. Ricardo Gonzalez-Rincon, Dr. Bruce Thompson, Dr. Carlos Rivera (Civil Engineering), Dr. Rafael Fierro (Electrical and Computing Engineering), Dr. Aschraf Marke (Chemical Engineering), as well as participating on the Rainforest Annual Inventor Event where they discussed with Alex Roerik an spectrum of topics including but not limited to innovation, intellectual property, and international collaborations.
The ESPOL delegation visited New Mexico Tech and explore other collaborations within the state.
Wonderful Route 66 View of SMILab
Wireless Smart Sensors Networks under development… stay tuned
CE598 Advanced Dynamics: UNM visits Keyence, Keyence in return visits SMILab
Best learning happens when you take students to visit industry. We visited Keyence and interacted with their bright experts on sensing technologies. Also we were able to learn more from their input to our projects.
Mahsa, Piedad, Emelia, Fabiola, Christian present their research at TRB
Excellent opportunity to meet with SMILab alumni: Dr. Roya Nasimi at California State University at East Bay and Marlon Aguero of Kinemetrics, Sandeep Alampalli of KGM. We met former TRB President Neil Petersen at the last night!
Wireless Smart Sensors Networks using Low-cost Efficient Wireless Smart Sensors
Great advances in our server and come join us and increase your impact with LEWIS. We are measuring the tides of our remote location at San Francisco, and we will be keeping you posted with more news soon!
Sandia Mountains from the Railrunner / Railroads are waiting for us
We are getting ready for 2025 Wireless Sensing of railroads… stay tuned
Michael Carl joins SMILab (pictured with Gabriella Gallegos)
Michael is a Junior in ECE and the vice president of the robotic club at UNM. He will be advancing structural dynamics, and Gabriella is introducing him to the structures laboratory, Quanser environment (assisting Wyatt) and other new control components of vibrations. Welcome Michael to SMILab!
SMILab Annual Christmas New Year Dinner
We had a fun ugly sweater competition and a clear winner Wyatt! Tasty Sechuan spicy food from Neon Sechuan we will repeat I am sure
UNM SOE Graduation Ceremony
Eric Robbins delivers the UNM SOE graduation ceremony talk! Great job and we are all proud of your accomplishments Eric! Best of luck at Sandia National Lab with your postdoc in Nonlinear Dynamics and come teach a lecture or two for UNM soon!
Angela Montoya passed PhD Oral Defense
Great job Angela defending your PhD thesis entitled “The Information Impulse Function: Detecting Temporal Changes in Structural Response”, with Committee Members Dr. Percy Ng and Dr. Madura Pathirage (UNM, Civil Engineering), Dr. Sorrentino (UNM, Mechanical Engineering), and Dr. John Pott (Sandia National Laboratory) and chair Dr. Moreu (SMILab director). Great job Angela!
Mahsa Sanei passes her PhD Comprehensive Exam
Great job Mahsa defending your PhD comprehensive thesis proposal entitled “Advancing New Machine-aided Human Infrastructure Inspection Interfaces”, with Committee Members Dr. Dr. Madura Pathirage (UNM, Civil Engineering), Dr. Mueen (UNM, Computer Science), and Dr. Rebecca Napolitano (Penn State University) and chair Dr. Moreu (SMILab director). Great job Mahsa!
Eric Robbins passed PhD Oral Defense with distinctions
Great job Eric defending your PhD thesis entitled “Exploiting Shaker Dynamics in Fixed Frequency Voltage Control to Stabilize Nonlinear Structures and Detect Isolated Resonance Curves”, with Committee Members Dr. Rafi Tarefder (UNM, Civil Engineering), Dr. Rob Kuether (Sandia National Laboratory), and Dr. Nicholar Wierschem (University of Tennessee Knoxville) and chair Dr. Moreu (SMILab director). Great job Eric!
CE424/524 Steel Design Bridge Competition
Great work from UNM structural engineering students and thank you to the industry leaders DIlendra Maharjan from Heilt Engineering; Dr. Xinxing Yuan from Stantec; Dr. Claudia Garrido from UNM; and Seth from AECOM. 3D printing, bridge specifications, drawings, moment diagrams and public presentation at its finest. Piedad from SMILab presented computer vision to count pedestrians with LEWIS, way to go Piedad!
Chi Epsilon Annual Meeting
Great large group of students striving for excellence!
Thanksgiving Annual Lunch at Two Fools Tavern
We had a large lunch to prepare for Thanksgiving large meals near Nob Hill. Sunny day!
Measuring Damage Outdoors while Flying (MDOF) Laboratory
We completed the acquisition of our Office of Naval Research DURIP award and are looking forward to Measuring Damage Outdoors while Flying (MDOF), stay tuned for many exciting updates coming your way!
Building your own LEWIS at Structural Dynamics
Teaching LEWIS in CE521 Structural Dynamics. We had Ronan Reza (first year student at Civil engineering) assist and Guille Toledo (exchange student) join our LEWIS leadership for the future of engineering. The Midterm of this class is using their own LEWIS around campus and conducting their structural assessment report with their own data. Most applied SHM structural dynamics class in the country, and possibly the world.
Mobile Underwater Robot for Inspections of Limited and Local Objects (MURILLO)
Gavin and Ronan are testing how to advance MURILLO to new depths. Stay tuned for underwater news.
TRB Presentations
Both Marielly Rodriguez Gauthier and Christian Torres Ortiz presented their research at Washington DC at the TRB Annual Conference. Marielly and Christian are recipients of the 2024 TRB Minority Fellowship, way to go! We met with Dr. Yuan, Sandeep, Dr. Nasimi, and Tim and other SMILab alumni!
SMILab 
