College Announces new Associate Dean for Research

Posted: August 10, 2021

Professor Chris Lippitt has been appointed at the new Associate Dean for Research in the College of Arts and Sciences.

"With great pleasure, I announce the appointment of Professor Chris Lippitt as the new Associate Dean for Research in the College of Arts and Sciences, effective August 1, 2021. Prior to this appointment, Chris served as the Director the Center for Advancement of Spatial Informatics Research and Education (ASPIRE) and Coordinator of the Interdisciplinary Science Cooperative (Co-op).  

Professor Lippitt has been a member of the UNM Department of Geography and Environmental Studies since 2012. Prior to joining the UNM faculty, he earned his Ph.D. in Geography from San Diego State University and University of California Santa Barbara and an M.S. in Geographic Information Science from Clark University. Professor Lippitt’s teaching and research focus on remote sensing and geographic information science (GIScience) more broadly. As a scholar who’s research spans the theoretical to the applied, his research requires routine collaboration with government, private sector, and extra-disciplinary cooperators and accessing a diverse array of federal, state, and private funding sources. He has been contracted/selected by numerous federal agencies to design and test remote sensing based spatial decision support systems, including the USDOT, NASA, USFS, USFWS, DHS – S&T, ONDCP, USACE, BLM, and the USFWS. He has also started several research derived companies, helped students launch their own, and advised teams though the NSF iCorps research commercialization program.

While at UNM, Professor Lippitt has built a strong track record of service, collaboration, and engaging students and colleagues in research. He was the founding Faculty Coordinator of the Interdisciplinary Science Cooperative (Co-op), director of the Center for Advancement of Spatial Informatics Research and Education (ASPIRE), and Graduate Program Director supervising the New Mexico Doctoral Program in Geography, a joint program with New Mexico State University. As he will tell you and is clear from his record, the success of faculty and student mentees is Professor Lippitt’s greatest source of professional satisfaction. Professor Lippitt believes strongly that the diversity of scholars at UNM and its expertise in providing flagship, R1, training to the emerging American Majority are the keys to UNM’s success as a research leader nationally, and is committed to building on that success through a continued commitment to diversity.

Professor Lippitt will replace Professor Tom Turner, who served the College of Arts and Sciences as Associate Dean for Research for nearly a decade. Professor Turner stepped down as ADR on 30 June 2021. I want to take this opportunity to thank Prof. Turner and wish him well as he returns to the faculty, and welcome Prof. Lippitt to this important leadership role in our College."

Arash Mafi
Interim Dean, College of Arts and Sciences
Professor of Physics & Astronomy
University of New Mexico