2021 HENAAC Awards

With the U.S. government’s plans to decarbonize the energy sector by 2035 and the entire American economy by 2050, research conducted by engineers like Dr. Kenneth Armijo is central to meeting these goals. As a systems engineering staff member at Sandia National Laboratories, Dr. Armijo conducts critical research to discover and develop next generation storage technology for clean energy production.

At Sandia’s National Solar Thermal Test Facility, Dr. Armijo is a principal investigator looking into advanced materials for thermal storage. He leads the massive Department of Energy Generation 3 Concentrating Solar Power Liquid-Pathway program to develop high-temperature concentrating solar power plants employing super-critical Carbon Dioxide.

He is a subject matter expert in the application and utilization of molten salts, alkali metals, and high-flux / high-temperature materials, and he has 13 U.S. patents and numerous publication credits to his name, as well as hundreds of publication citations.

A native New Mexican whose family has been farming along the Rio Grande Valley for many generations, Dr. Armijo’s interest in engineering began with troubleshooting problems with his family’s tractor. That curiosity powered him to a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of New Mexico, and advanced degrees from the University of California, Berkeley focusing on the science of heat transfer thermal fluids.

Outside the lab, Dr. Armijo is active with Sandia’s MANOS program, co-founding the group’s bilingual family science nights for students and parents.  He also continues to support his family’s farm business, which produces organic fruits and vegetables including some of the best of New Mexico’s famous green and red chiles you’ll ever taste.