Early known Chinese immigrants settled down in Albuquerque dated back 1895.  Between 1890s to 1950s, there were about 20-40 Chinese families lives here. From 1950 there were continuous increase of Chinese immigrants coming to the US initially from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Southeast Asian and other parts of the world. Some of them were students coming over here to study at colleges and graduate schools. After they completed the study, many chose to stay here and raised the family. From 1960s, there were Chinese students at University of New Mexico mostly in graduate studies of science and engineer. About 1970s, there were more families settled in Albuquerque, many were scientists and engineers working at Sandia National Lab, universities and other research organizations around the air force base. The local Chinese community flourished with many organizations including Chinese American Citizens Alliance (1961), Albuquerque Chinese School (1978), New Mexico Chinese Association (1983), Chinese churches and Albuquerque Chinese Chorus (1991).

On March 16 1991, the Association of Chinese-American Engineers and Scientists of New Mexico (ACES-NM) was formed in the Imperial Wok restaurant. Nine board members were elected and from the board members the officers were elected. The executive committee included President, Dr. Er Ping Chen, Vice President, Dr. Ming Liang Wang, Secretary, Dr. Eliot Fang and Treasurer, Dr. Yung Sung Cheng. The bylaw was passed. The first annual symposium entitled “Impact of Environmental Science & Occupational Health in the Nineties” was held on March 28, 1992. Annual meetings were held in the spring each year with symposium.

On February 19, 2000, we held the annual meeting with a special symposium “Impact of the alleged Chinese Espionage” to discuss the potential impact of Wen-Ho Lee case national-wide and especially on the Asian Americans working in national laboratories. Special guests including prominent Chinese Americans and directors of Los Alamos National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratory were invited to discuss the issue.

The ACES-NM submitted application to the National Council of the Chinese Institute of Engineers, USA (CIE-USA) and was accepted as CIE-USA, New Mexico Chapter on April 1, 1994. We were granted the 501(c)3 non-profit tax exempt status by the IRS on March 24, 2005.