AMHERST, Mass. – The University of Massachusetts Amherst will honor the exemplary achievement, initiative and leadership of some of its most talented and accomplished graduating seniors during Undergraduate Commencement on Friday, May 10 at McGuirk Alumni Stadium beginning at 4:30 p.m.

Ten members of the graduating class will be honored as 21st Century Leaders at Undergraduate Commencement:

With the new year fast approaching, I’m proud to report that 2018 has been another outstanding year for the University of Massachusetts.

This year, we continued our rapid rise into the top tier of public research universities, reaching important new milestones while increasing our impact in the Commonwealth and beyond. Consider just a few of the highlights and top achievements of 2018:

UMass Dartmouth achieved a National Tier 1 designation in the U.S. News & World Report Best Colleges rankings released today, jumping from its previous designation as a regional university.

UMass Dartmouth Masters of Fine Arts candidate in painting Robert Najlis (Ridgewood, NJ) has been awarded a Fulbright scholarship. Najlis, who is graduating in May 2019, is among 2,000 people from across the globe who receive grants each year in all fields of study to conduct international research.

October 2, 2006: The University of Massachusetts Medical School's Craig C. Mello, PhD, and his colleague Andrew Fire, PhD, of Stanford University, were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for 2006 for their discoveries related to RNA interference.

University of Massachusetts hockey head coach Greg Carvel has been tabbed the 2019 Spencer Penrose Award winner, given annually to the CCM/AHCA Division I Men's Ice Hockey Coach of the Year, the American Hockey Coaches Association announced on Tuesday. Carvel's honor marks the 11th time a UMass head coach has been selected as a national coach of the year across all sports, with men's lacrosse's Greg Cannella being the previous most recent recipient in 2006.

Today, in coordinated press conferences across the globe including one at the National Science Foundation in Washington, D.C., an international team of astronomers including a team from the University of Massachusetts Amherst reveal that they have succeeded in unveiling the first direct visual evidence of a supermassive black hole and its shadow.

Reforms are needed to ensure the integrity of the medical residency program selection process, according to commentary in the journal Academic Medicine by Chancellor Michael F. Collins and colleagues at UMass Medical School. The authors cite violations of National Residency Matching Program policy during residency interviews, such as women being asked whether they are on birth control and if they have a partner who will support them financially, and applicants being prodded to disclose what order they ranked programs of interest.