BOSTON — Moody’s Investors Service, S&P Global Ratings, and Fitch Ratings have all announced that the University of Massachusetts has retained its strong bond ratings as it continues to finance a capital plan focused on renovation and construction of facilities that are critical to student success on the Amherst, Boston, Dartmouth, Lowell, and Medical School campuses.

A study by UMass Medical School integrative medicine expert Paula Gardiner, MD, MPH, finds that patients with chronic pain and depression who participated in medical group visits in which they learned mindfulness techniques were able to reduce their use of pain medications and made fewer emergency room visits.

AMHERST, Mass. – A new analysis of the changing character of runoff, river discharge and other hydrological cycle elements across the North Slope of Alaska reveals significant increases in the proportion of subsurface runoff and cold season discharge, changes the authors say are “consistent with warming and thawing permafrost.”

LOWELL, Mass. – A UMass Lowell education professor has received a Fulbright Scholar Award to further her efforts to teach students at home and abroad about the intersection of math and South African culture. 

Marjorie Aelion, associate vice chancellor for research and engagement and former dean of the School of Public Health and Health Sciences (SPHHS), was part of a delegation from the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health (ASPPH) invited to the organization’s inaugural Academic Regional Meeting in Asia: Global Conference on Public Health Education in the 21st Century. The ASPPH is the voice of accredited academic public health, representing schools and programs accredited by the Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH).

Together with her research partners and students, Chair and Associate Professor of Exercise and Health Sciences Julie Wright is looking to encourage black and African American women cancer survivors and their families to sit less and move more for better health in a new study funded by a U54 pilot grant.

Music education major Rachel Janielis says it's stressful when she cannot properly hear a professor speaking or a presenter talking at events.

“I remember an event at the beginning of the year when one of the people talking decided not to use a microphone,” she says. “The presenter asked if everyone could hear her and the majority of people said yes, but I could not. It was frustrating, because I missed the information.” 

The race to slash carbon emissions by 2050 is well underway – on a course laid out through ambitious commitments at many levels, from the global Paris Agreement, through Massachusetts’ Global Warming Solutions Act, to the university’s Climate Action Plan.

AMHERST, Mass. – While scientists have long sought to understand the factors that structure global biodiversity patterns, much of their research has focused on present-day climate, such as patterns of temperature or rainfall, or recent human impacts well-known to influence biodiversity, like urbanization and the destruction of wild lands.

BOSTON – UMass President Martin T. Meehan and the chancellors of the five UMass campuses – UMass Amherst Chancellor Kumble R. Subbaswamy, UMass Boston Interim Chancellor Katherine S. Newman, UMass Dartmouth Chancellor Robert E. Johnson, UMass Lowell Chancellor Jacqueline F. Moloney and UMass Medical School Chancellor Michael F.