Dean's Message
Welcome to Graduate Studies at The University of New Mexico! With nearly 200 graduate programs across 13 colleges and schools, UNM offers something for everyone who seeks the challenge of graduate education. I encourage you to explore our programs, degrees, events, and activities. From award-winning research programs to top-ranked degree programs, and from pedagogical seminars to community-engaged practicum classes, we offer a diverse array of rich experiences for students.
Here at Graduate Studies, we celebrate and support everyone in the Lobo family. You may enter a graduate program directly after finishing a bachelor’s, or you may decide to return after significant professional and personal experience. You may spend time exploring your interests, or you may arrive with a detailed project idea already in mind. We honor the unique peoples and histories that intersect at the University of New Mexico, and we offer resources and support for students of all backgrounds, interests, and perspectives.
No matter your path, I know you will find UNM to be an incredible place. Graduate school provides a unique opportunity for exploration, specialization, training, and development. Our role in Graduate Studies is to support you in the journey. This website provides abundant information to that end. And we are always available to help current and prospective students find resources and achieve their goals.
About the Dean
Dr. Maria Lane is Dean of Graduate Studies and a professor of Geography & Environmental Studies. She has worked at UNM since 2006. She is a historical geographer whose scholarship explores and critiques the use of scientific knowledge and policy in environmental management. She has a long-standing commitment to graduate education, having served multiple times as the GES Director of Graduate Programs. As GES department chair, she led the successful effort to develop New Mexico’s first-ever PhD program in Geography, which is now delivered collaboratively by UNM and NMSU in an innovative two-campus model. In addition, she has directed 15 doctoral and master’s students to completion and has served on an additional 50 graduate committees in Geography, Latin American Studies, History, Art & Ecology, and other fields.
Dr. Lane helped found UNM’s R.H. Mallory Center for Community Geography, which builds partnerships between UNM and its surrounding communities to address critical human-environment issues. She was named UNM’s 2010 Outstanding New Teacher of the Year, and she now holds the title of Presidential Teaching Fellow, the highest recognition for teaching excellence UNM bestows. Lane is the author of Fluid Geographies: Water, Science, and Settler Colonialism in New Mexico published by the University of Chicago Press in 2024, and Geographies of Mars: Seeing and Knowing the Red Planet (also published by Chicago, in 2011). Outside UNM, she is active in the scholarly community of historical geographers and serves as convenor for the Standing Committee of the International Conference of Historical Geographers.
