BCES Faculty
Chair / Biology, Chemistry, Environmental Science
Assistant Professor, Environmental Science
505-747-5480
@nnmc.edu
GE 110
Teresa Beaty, PhD
Assistant Professor, Environmental Science
505.747.2210
teresa.beaty@nnmc.edu
Dr. Teresa Beaty received her PhD from the University of Texas at Arlington in Earth Science specializing in Biogeochemistry. Dr. Beaty also holds a Master of Science degree in Environmental Science from Tarleton State University and a BS in Biology from the University of Mary-Hardin Baylor.
Dr. Beaty has various interests; however, her principal research interest is the understanding biogeochemical cycle interactions within the climate system on both regional and global scales. Her current interests include; how DMS emissions from algal blooms due to sea ice melt impact cloud formation in the Arctic and the affect of large scale biofuel production on DMS emission and cloud formation.
She is also interested in Urban Heat Islands and in particular the impact of heat islands on vector borne diseases. Dr. Beaty has experience in both observation science and modeling the climate system and continues to use both tools in her research. Dr. Beaty’s PhD dissertation focused on the response of oxygen solubility and dissolved oxygen concentrations to climate change with an emphasis on the deep sea and oxygen minimum zones. Her MS thesis involved determining the validity of using diatoms to track changes in water quality in Texas reservoirs.
Dr. Beaty has taught in the sciences since 2004 while working on her Masters degree and continued to teach throughout her PhD and beyond. Before coming to Northern New Mexico College, Dr. Beaty was a lecturer at The University of Texas at Arlington and Adjunct Faculty at Tarrant County College in Fort Worth, TX. She also served for 14 years in the United States Air Force Reserve with most of that time spent in the Intelligence community.
Scott Braley, PhD
Assistant Professor of Radiation Protection
505.747-5469
scott.braley@nnmc.edu
Office: HT 111
Dr. Gerald "Scott" Braley received his doctorate at Colorado State University, with research interests in disaster response policy and risk analysis. In particular, he focuses on the relative risks and costs of different disaster response options, and mechanisms to insert risk-based decision making into public policy. He previously earned MS degrees at the University of Illinois (Civil Engineering) and the University of Tennessee (Nuclear Engineering). Dr. Braley spent 20 years as an Air Force Bioenvironmental Engineer and Health Physicist, primarily working on emergency response and disaster management. He has been teaching Radiation Protection at NNMC since 2019.
Wesley Colgan, III, PhD
Assistant Professor, Forestry Science
505.747.5474
wes.colgan@nnmc.edu
Wes Colgan III has over 25 years of higher education experience in a wide variety of life science and natural resources subjects. With a bachelor’s degree in Biology from Sonoma State University and Ph.D. in Forest Ecology from Oregon State University, Wes has been an adjunct instructor and research professor at Northern since Aug 2018.
Wes is very pleased to join the BCES department in a full time capacity. He has received many awards and commendations for his work in academia and in industry. A highlight was being recognized as “Educator of the Year” in 2014 by the Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience for his work training fellow educators. Originally from Northern California, Wes now calls Glorieta NM Home with his wife Erin, rescue dogs Abby and Ally, eleven chickens and rather large vegetable garden.
Brenda M. Linnell, PhD
Assistant Professor of Chemistry
505.747-2248
bmlinnell@nnmc.edu
Office: GE 115
Dr. Brenda M. Linnell (née: Brenda M. Porta Briseno) was born and raised in Mexico City, She presented the thesis “Synthesis and Characterization of Dendrimeric Polymers Functionalized with Lactam-Imides," 2001.
Sushmita Nandy, PhD
Assistant Professor, Biology
505.747.2210
sushmita.nandy@nnmc.edu
Dr. Sushmita Nandy is a stem cell and cancer biologist by training. She earned her PhD from All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India. She then pursued her post doctoral research work, first at The Jackson Laboratory, Bar Harbor, ME, USA and later at Paul L Foster School of Medicine, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, El Paso, TX, USA. Her PhD research work involved investigating the regenerative potential of human mesenchymal stem cells and developing approaches to coax them towards cardiac and dopaminergic neuronal lineages. Her research focus during her post doctoral period was mainly on the impact of microRNA mediated regulation of stem cells in the malignant state. Some of her other work during this period involved investigated the stem cell pool in breast cancer patients with diabetes mellitus and also the paracrine role of exosomal microRNAs in regulating the hormone receptor negative breast cancer stem cells. Dr. Nandy has published numerous peer-reviewed articles.
She has trained several graduate and undergraduate students during this time and has been regularly involved in educating graduate students about stem cells and its role in cancer initiation, progression and relapse. She has also been a member of the American Association for Cancer Research and Endocrine Society since 2012. In addition, she was also a member of the Women in Medicine and Science (WIMS) at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, El Paso.
Dr. Nandy joined NNMC in Fall 2017 as an Assistant Professor of Biology. In addition to teaching and mentoring students, her focus at NNMC would be to develop undergraduate research in the area of small non-coding RNA (microRNA) and cancer by using C. elegans as a model organism.
Dr. Anthony Sena
Professor Emeritus
Professor of Biology
505.747.2291
asena@nnmc.edu
Office: GE 106
Dr. Anthony Sena's research interests are in DNA repair and recombination, and he also has a special interest in the ecology and genetic diversity of desert lizards.
Rhiannon West, PhD
Assistant Professor, Biology
505.747.5466
rhiannon.west@nnmc.edu
Dr. Rhiannon West received her PhD from the University of New Mexico where she focused on the behavior and ecology of pupfishes. Dr. West then had a post-doctoral position at the University of Lincoln-Nebraska which focused on the behavioral ecology of green swordtails.
She has broad behavioral evolutionary ecology interests and uses both ultimate and proximate approaches to address her questions. Dr. West's research is question, not system oriented.
Dr. West studies the behavioral ecology of pupfish (Cyprinodon spp.) where she examines the interaction between behavioral mechanisms, mate choice, morphology, and phenotypic plasticity. She is also deeply interested in the role of life history in character evolution, particularly brain size evolution in birds. She uses a variety of methods to address her questions, and uses careful experimental design to examine behavioral mechanisms and quantitative approaches to examine important selective pressures in a system. When behavioral tools are not available, she uses quantitative methods such as comparative phylogenetic analysis, geometric morphometrics, categorical and regression trees, and statistical tools.
During her time at UNM, Dr. West taught laboratory courses in microbiology, genetics, evolution and ecology, plant and animal physiology and assisted in Animal Behavior and Human Evolutionary Ecology courses. She has taught courses at Central New Mexico College. Following her post-doctoral work, she spent two years teaching deployed military, DoD personnel and their dependents in Europe for the University of Maryland, University College, where she taught courses in Introductory Biology, Environmental Science, and Human Behavior.
