AMHERST, Mass. — An electrical and computer engineering (ECE) doctoral candidate is the first University of Massachusetts Amherst student to be awarded a prestigious international scholarship from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nations body responsible for assessing the current state of scientific, technical and socio-economic knowledge on global warming.

AMHERST, Mass. – A University of Massachusetts Amherst behavioral scientist is continuing her research into the impact on well-being of the human-animal bond with two new pilot studies, one involving older adults and the other focused on families with young children.

Healthy adults between ages 70-84 are being recruited for the Lifestyle, Brain and Cognitive Health Study, which requires two, in-person visits to UMass Amherst. 

Eight UMass Amherst undergraduates have been named Fall 2021 Rising Researchers.

They performed outstanding research in a variety of fields—computer engineering, political science, public health, biology, and more. Many have published research papers in prestigious journals. Some are determined to continue their research while they study for a Ph.D. Others aspire to apply their research to industry or to society.

The Fall 2021 Rising Researchers are:

Janet Lubov, a dermatology research fellow at UMass Chan Medical School, hopes to help advance skin health in resource-limited communities, locally and globally, through sustainable and integrated approaches to clinical care, education, research, policy and advocacy. The Lupus Research Alliance has awarded Lubov a $15,000 Diversity Research Supplement Award for her work on cutaneous lupus erythematosus, a skin disease typically found on sun-exposed areas such as the face, neck, ears, legs and arms.

Adding a safe, inexpensive and easy to administer form of vitamin D to treatment for children newly diagnosed with type 1 diabetes shows promise to improve measures of disease progression. Results of a randomized clinical trial comparing ergocalciferol supplementation to placebo, conducted by Benjamin Udoka Nwosu, MD, is published in the January issue of the Journal of the Endocrine Society.

UMass Chan Medical School global health researcher Ann Moormann, PhD, MPH, has been elected as a Fellow of the African Academy of Sciences in recognition of her outstanding contributions to the development of science, her leadership roles, academic mentoring and career development of scientists in Africa. The African Academy of Sciences Fellowship comprises individuals who have reached the highest level of excellence in their field of expertise and have made contributions to the advancement of the field on the African continent.

Two years after receiving a grant from the nonprofit Hyundai Hope on Wheels, Jason Shohet, MD, PhD, has received a new, two-year $300,000 Scholar Hope Grant to focus on overcoming drug resistance in treatments for neuroblastoma, a deadly cancer in children that affects the peripheral nervous system.

UMass Chan Medical School researchers are embarking on a clinical trial of an mRNA vaccine by Moderna against the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), a common cause of infectious mononucleosis. EBV has also been associated with several autoimmune disorders and has been implicated in the development of several cancers, including Burkitt and Hodgkin’s lymphomas.

AMHERST, Mass. – Women vaccinated against COVID-19 transfer SARS-CoV-2 antibodies to their breastfed infants, potentially giving their babies passive immunity against the coronavirus, according to University of Massachusetts Amherst research.

The study, published in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology, measured the immune response to the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine in both breast milk and the stools of breastfed infants.