Sandia LabNews

‘Safety is a State of Mind(fulness)’

Celebrated annually in June, National Safety Month is an important opportunity to raise awareness about safety and health in the workplace. Throughout the month, Sandia Health Benefits and Employee Services and Safety organizations at the Livermore and Albuquerque campuses teamed up to host an array of speakers, activities and events.

A day in the life of Sandia — 70 years and counting

To mark the 70th anniversary of President Truman’s letter that inspired Sandia to “… exceptional service,” Lab News photographer Randy Montoya spent a full day chronicling the people and work that make the Labs hum from sun up to sundown.

Fields of gold

Jennifer Payne is a Sandia ecologist who stabilizes degraded lands. She is also one of two Certified Ecological Restoration Practitioners in New Mexico, a title held by only 150 people in the country. As an ecologist who specializes in restoration, Jennifer ensures that Sandia upholds its commitments to protect land leased from Kirtland Air Force Base and land withdrawn from the U.S. Forest Service.

Flying from the glass

Bird strikes against windows are an all-too-familiar sound. To birds, the transparent glass looks like open space, and between 500 million and 1 billion birds die each year trying to fly through closed windows. Sandia is solving this problem at one of its high-strike buildings, where ecology program staff partnered with facilities staff to place adhesives featuring a dot pattern on the building's windows.

Slithering science

As part of Sandia's ecology program, wildlife biologists set up and check herpetofaunal traps around Sandia lands to gather data on species in the area. The data, combined with other baseline monitoring, are used to to observe long-term habitat changes.

The early biologist catches the bird

Its heart beating rapidly, a wild gray flycatcher sits in the palm of a steady hand, waiting for just the right moment to make its escape. The moment lasts mere seconds, but it’s filled with emotion, from fear to connection to protection. Moments like this don’t happen for most people, but for a handful of biologists in Sandia's ecology program, they do.