University of New Mexico in the context of Los Lunas, New Mexico

Nasir Ahmed (born 1940) is an American electrical engineer and computer scientist. He is Professor Emeritus of Electrical and Computer Engineering at University of New Mexico (UNM). He is best known for inventing the discrete cosine transform (DCT) in the early 1970s. The DCT is the most widely used data compression transformation, the basis for most digital media standards (image, video and audio) and commonly used in digital signal processing. He also described the discrete sine transform (DST), which is related to the DCT.

Keith Hamilton Basso (March 15, 1940 – August 4, 2013) was a cultural and linguistic anthropologist noted for his study of the Western Apaches, specifically those from the community of Cibecue, Arizona. Basso was professor emeritus of anthropology at the University of New Mexico and earlier taught at the University of Arizona and Yale University.

Everett M. "Ev" Rogers (March 6, 1931 – October 21, 2004) was an American communication theorist and sociologist, who originated the diffusion of innovations theory and introduced the term early adopter. He was distinguished professor emeritus in the department of communication and journalism at the University of New Mexico.

Bernard Spolsky (Hebrew: ברנרד ספולסקי; born in Wellington, New Zealand 11 February 1932; died in Jerusalem, Israel 20 August 2022) was a professor emeritus in linguistics at Bar-Ilan University (Israel), specializing in sociolinguistics, educational linguistics, and applied linguistics.

Born to a Jewish family in Wellington, New Zealand, Spolsky moved to Israel in 1958 after completing his studies at Wellington College and getting his degree at Victoria University. He received a Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of Montreal in 1966. After briefly serving in the Israel Defense Forces he taught at several North American universities such as McGill University, Indiana University, and the University of New Mexico. His large body of linguistic research encompasses bilingual education, language policy, and educational linguistics.

Gary Earl Johnson (born January 1, 1953) is an American businessman and politician who served as the 29th governor of New Mexico from 1995 to 2003 as a member of the Republican Party. He has been a member of the Libertarian Party since 2011 and was the party's nominee for President of the United States in the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections. He was also the Libertarian nominee in the 2018 U.S. Senate election in New Mexico.

Born in Minot, North Dakota, Johnson attended the University of New Mexico, where he earned a Bachelor of Science. He entered politics for the first time by running for governor of New Mexico in 1994 on a low-tax, anti-crime platform, promising a "common-sense business approach". He defeated incumbent Democratic governor Bruce King, 50% to 40%. He cut the 10% annual growth in the budget, in part by using the gubernatorial veto 200 times during his first six months. He was unable to convince the state senate to pass any of his motions. Johnson sought reelection in 1998, winning by 55% to 45%. In his second term, he concentrated on the issue of school voucher reforms as well as campaigning for cannabis decriminalization. During his tenure as governor, Johnson adhered to an anti-tax policy, setting state and national records for the number of times he used his veto power: more than the other 49 contemporary governors put together. Term-limited, Johnson retired from front-line politics in 2003.

Joan Lea Bybee (previously: Hooper; born 11 February 1945 in New Orleans, Louisiana) is an American linguist and professor emerita at the University of New Mexico. Much of her work concerns grammaticalization, stochastics, modality, morphology, and phonology. Bybee is best known for proposing the theory of usage-based phonology and for her contributions to cognitive and historical linguistics.

Ian Maddieson (1 September 1942 – 2 February 2025) was a British-American linguist and professor emeritus of linguistics at the University of New Mexico. He is best known for his work in phonetics and phonological typology.