Seven Boston-area liberal arts and specialty colleges and universities will begin offering a pathway to affordable, accelerated master’s degrees in the region’s only public research university, UMass Boston, in the spring of 2020. The newly formed Boston Advanced Academic Consortium (BAAC) will enable undergraduate students from partner colleges to enroll in graduate courses during their senior year and then complete their master’s degree on a rapid timeline. UMass Boston students will also have the opportunity to enroll in specialized MA programs across the partnership.
AMHERST, Mass. – Mari Castañeda, professor of communication and associate dean for equity and inclusion in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, has been named the new dean of the Commonwealth Honors College at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She will start Sept. 1.
The appointment was made by John J. McCarthy, provost and senior vice chancellor for academic affairs. Castañeda succeeds Dean Gretchen Gerzina, who is returning to the faculty after five years of distinguished service.
#UMassImpact2019 is a look back at the news and events that made a positive impact at UMass Amherst last year.
View some of the campus's highlights from 2019.
UMass Law was recognized by the Equal Justice Coalition for their outstanding participation in the 2019 Walk to the Hill for Civil Legal Aid. Four law firms were also recognized: Morgan Lewis; Ropes & Gray; Meehan, Boyle, Black & Bogdanow; and WilmerHale. Eighty students at the Dartmouth-based school traveled to Boston for the 2019 Walk to the Hill.
UMass Medical School Director of Public Safety and Chief of Police Jack Luippold is retiring from his post this week, while his successor, Deputy Chief Clanford “Leon” Pierce prepares to take the reins.
“Chief Luippold retires this week after more than 13 years at UMMS and 34 years at the university,” said John C. Lindstedt, executive vice chancellor for administration and finance. “His service to our campus has been immeasurable and we are all grateful for his leadership.”
Hack.Diversity, the New England Venture Capital Association’s initiative to help diversify the ranks of Boston’s fastest growing tech companies, has selected 17 fellows from UMass Boston this year.
Fellows participate in an eight-month career development program with mentorship, connections, and internships at venture-capital-backed tech companies.
Overall, 75 information technology, computer science, and data science fellows from 27 colleges were selected, a 50 percent increase from the previous year.
Nianqiang Wu has been appointed to the Armstrong/Siadat Endowed Professorship in Materials Science in the department of chemical engineering. Wu’s work at UMass Amherst begins in January 2020, after spending five years as a professor in the department of mechanical and aerospace engineering at West Virginia University.
Raeann LeBlanc has been named the Seedworks Endowed Clinical Assistant Professor for Social Justice in the College of Nursing. LeBlanc has been teaching both graduates and undergraduates at UMass Amherst since 2011. Her research addresses health disparities in advanced care planning and the effect of social networks on self-care among older adults.
During his sophomore year of college, UMass Amherst political science professor Paul Musgrave awoke to a changed world.
"I remember a Tuesday morning I was sleeping in because I didn't have any early classes, and my suitemate kept knocking on the door, saying 'You need to come see the TV right now.'"
The 9/11 attacks that day, along with the Bush v. Gore decision and the run-up to war in Iraq, were central to Musgrave's decision to pursue a career devoted to making sense of the political tumult he was witnessing.
AMHERST, Mass. – Zeolites crystals, used among other things for refining petroleum to gasoline and biomass into biofuels, are the most-used catalysts by weight on the planet, and discovering mechanisms of how they form has been of intense interest to the chemical industry and related researchers, say chemist Scott Auerbach and colleagues at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. They hope their advance on a new way to understand zeolite structure and vibrations leads to new, tailor-made zeolites for use in sophisticated new applications.