Los Alamos lab plans $14 million over five years for Texas A&M engineering research

Los Alamos National Laboratory plans to spend $14 million during the coming five years on students, faculty and research at Texas A&M University, according to a Texas A&M Engineering news release published Tuesday.

The money flows through TALENT, short for TAMUS and LANL Engineering for Next-generation Technologies, a program built to send students, scientists and new technology toward the New Mexico lab's national security work. The program is now in year two of full-time funding, and the lab has committed $3.3 million to it in 2026, the release said.

It did not break down how the five-year total will be spread across years.

Where the money goes

TALENT currently pays for senior capstone design projects and graduate research, and its leaders are now looking at upgrades to research facilities and equipment on the College Station campus, according to the university. This year it is funding 30 capstone projects and 20 graduate research projects, with more than 14 faculty members in six engineering departments leading the work.

Graduate projects are tied to research areas the two institutions share, such as advanced manufacturing and hypersonics.

The university said the capstone teams have done well in competition. In 2025, 25 of the 30 TALENT-funded capstones were selected for the College of Engineering's project showcase, and five of them won awards in a field of more than 300 teams.

How it started

Los Alamos decided in 2022 that it needed a stronger flow of talent and ideas from universities and began with the Texas A&M System, one of the lab's managing partners, the release said. The program is co-directed by T.J. Ulrich, who leads university research and relations for the lab's weapons engineering directorate, and Pablo Tarazaga, a mechanical engineering professor at Texas A&M.

The A&M System's Nuclear Security Office represents the system in the partnership.

The system also runs its own funding program, the Manufacturing University Initiative for Qualification & Certification, which pays for faculty and student research in advanced manufacturing relevant to the lab. Promising ideas from that program can be handed to TALENT or other lab funding sources, according to the university.

"While the money is an enabler, the relationships with faculty and students are really what we are trying to foster," Tarazaga said in the release.

Sources

news.engineering.tamu.edu