Academic Accolade

Health Sciences Bioengineer Christina Salas Honored with Inaugural UNM Ovation Award

Biomechanical engineer Christina Salas, PhD, MSc, an associate professor in The University of New Mexico Department of Orthopaedics & Rehabilitation, is among the inaugural recipients of the UNM Ovation Award.

The awards recognize full-time UNM faculty members for recent accomplishments with unusually high impact, addressing local or global challenges and/or elevating the scholar's and UNM's reputation on a national/international stage.

Salas, who has additional appointments in the School of Engineering, was selected for her role in organizing an effort to create face masks using 3D printing technology to meet the acute need for personal protective equipment in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the summer of 2020 Salas and her colleagues delivered thousands of masks across the Navajo Nation, along with face shields, hand sanitizer and donations of food, water and diapers.

“It was a complete surprise to me,” Salas said of the Ovation award. “When we first started the mask-making effort I didn’t do it for recognition. It was just something where I asked, ‘How can we help?’”

Salas and a friend, flight nurse Laura Shaffer, launched the mask-printing project after Shaffer found hospital workers in Gallup improvising personal protective equipment from bandanas and plastic bags. Working out of the UNM COSMIAC facility, Salas and her student volunteers turned out the plastic masks based on her novel design.

It’s great to be recognized, but I often feel like it was the work of many of us. We were running a 12/7 effort during those first few months.

— Christina Salas, PhD