Dion Messer holds her distinguished alumna award at the 26 Annual Scholarship Breakfast.

Dion’s career path started out as a communications engineer with a NASA contractor at White Sands Missile Range. 

With a Master’s degree from UT Austin, Dion became recognized worldwide as a digital signal processing expert who co-invented nine U.S. patents and authored numerous peer-reviewed IEEE publications. 

What makes Dion unique is that she moved on to get a law degree at UT School of Law and has led a successful career defending a case before the U.S. Supreme Court, winning 9-0, while creating a patent portfolio of more than 150 patents in less than five years. 

With her service on the NMSU Foundation Board of Directors, and her philanthropic support to NMSU, Dion serves as an outstanding role model  for our students.