SPRINGFIELD, Mass. – Jamina Scippio-McFadden, a senior program manager at the UMass Center at Springfield and a deeply engaged community leader, has been named director of the center by the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

“Jamina Scippio-McFadden has outstanding professional credentials and a wealth of strong ties to the community,” said Steve Goodwin, deputy chancellor at UMass Amherst. “As the center builds upon its achievements and identifies opportunities to be more deeply connected to the community, she is well prepared to provide the leadership essential to success.”

Appointed to the Board by Governor Mitt Romney in 2003, John was an exemplary higher education leader who drew on his experiences growing up in Detroit and being the first in his family to attend college. He was the epitome of a public servant – humble and selfless, strategic and ethical, and always working to expand access to higher education. A mentor at heart, he spent a great deal of this time and energy, via the American Council on Education fellows, working to develop new higher education leaders.

AMHERST, Mass. – The Massachusetts Gaming Commission has awarded a renewable contract to a University of Massachusetts Amherst team to continue groundbreaking research into the socioeconomic impacts of introducing casino gambling in the state.

More than half of faculty members at U.S. land-grant universities believe engaging with the public about science is a high priority. But at the same time, fewer than a quarter think their peers prioritize science communication, according to a new report. That gap suggests that faculty who engage with the public feel isolated and could weaken outreach programs that meet university missions and the goals of the scientific community at large, researchers say.

AMHERST, Mass. – Breastfeeding women with a pathogenic BRCA1 or BRCA2 genetic mutation face a significant risk, even at a young age, of breast and ovarian cancer. Yet no fully effective breast cancer screening method exists for nursing mothers in this high-risk group, some of whom are diagnosed after the disease has spread, possibly becoming fatally metastatic.

The School of Public Health and Health Sciences (SPHHS) has announced the appointment of Christopher Greenfield as its new associate dean of administration and finance. Greenfield brings 16 years of strategic leadership experience to the school, most recently as the administrative director of primary care at Baystate Health in Springfield.

Boston Mayor Marty Walsh has appointed Professor of Latin American and Iberian Studies Reyes Coll-Tellechea and six others to the city’s reactivated Human Rights Commission, which has a special focus on immigration.

UMass Dartmouth and the SouthCoast Development Partnership are happy to announce that BankFive has pledged $75,000 over a three-year period to support regional economic development through identifying Blue Economy-related industry and workforce training opportunities.

The American Cancer Society recently reported a drop in the overall cancer death rate in the U.S., with an overall 29% decline in cancer deaths from 1991 to 2017.

This resulted in 2.9 million fewer deaths over this span.

A service-learning class put honors nursing student Marbella Leal ’19 on the path of community service.