2016 Award Recipients [1]
Assistant Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Joseph C. Bardin's research in ultra-low-noise and ultra-low-power SiGe and SOI transistor modeling and related SiGe circuits has been called among the best of its kind in the world.
Bardin's research group leverages expertise in the design and implementation of integrated circuits to explore a number of basic research topics, with outcomes impacting fields ranging from astronomy to communications. When the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory began developing a new system to communicate with spacecraft using free-space lasers, Bardin's research group was called upon to design a special integrated circuit for this application; this chip turned out to be instrumental in taking the link from concept to lab demonstrations.
In another research thrust, Bardin aims to greatly improve the cryogenic electronics used in ultra-sensitive scientific instruments, thereby enabling new and more powerful experimental tools for scientific researchers. In particular, he seeks to improve the information-gathering capacity of THz heterodyne cameras by a factor of ten, a feat that would allow astronomers to perform detailed studies of planetary and star formation that simply are impossible using today’s state-of-the-art instruments. His group also has active efforts in a diverse set of other basic research areas including quantum optics, quantum computing, millimeter-wave integrated circuit design, radio frequency device design, and novel communications system design.
Bardin has been principal investigator on some $5 million of research grants and has proven to be a brilliant collaborator. His and Professor Qiangfei Xia's teams recently published in Nature Communications groundbreaking research on the world’s first truly nanoscale radio-frequency switch.
Education: BS, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2003; MS, University of California, Los Angeles, 2005; PhD, California Institute of Technology, 2009.
Professor, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences
Widely recognized as an expert on the influences of hormones on the brain, Jeffrey D. Blaustein has spent nearly his entire career at UMass Amherst. He studies the cellular processes by which estrogens and progestins act in the brain to influence behavior, mental health, and cognitive function. Blaustein is currently developing tools to help better explain to oncologists and breast cancer survivors the important role that estrogens play in the brain, so that patients can make informed decisions about breast cancer treatments that block estrogens.
Blaustein has served as president of the Society for Behavioral Neuroendocrinology and during the past few years, has been invited to give keynote and plenary addresses in Chile, Mexico, Italy, and Miami. He has contributed numerous chapters to major compilations and articles to major journals. Blaustein served a five-year term as editor-in-chief of Endocrinology, the journal of the Endocrine Society, and was chosen by the Society for Neuroscience to be a reviewing editor of eNeuro, its new open-access journal.
Blaustein has also served on the editorial boards of all the major journals in his field and on numerous grant review panels for the National Institutes of Health. He was recently asked to write a blog for the American Cancer Society on the effects of hormones and antihormone treatments in breast cancer survivors.
Education: BS, University of Massachusetts Amherst, 1973; MS, University of Massachusetts Amherst, 1975; PhD, University of Massachusetts Amherst, 1977.
Professor, Department of English
Known for his research at the intersection of political theory, African American studies, and literary studies, Nicholas K. Bromell has published extensively on black Americans’ political theories of democracy.
Bromell is the author of three highly regarded books, among them By the Sweat of the Brow: Literature and Labor in Antebellum America (University of Chicago Press, 1993) and The Time Is Always Now: Black Thought and the Transformation of U.S. Democracy (Oxford University Press, 2013). He also has written on the history of rock, in particular on its relation to the blues.
Bromell is completing a book on the political philosophy of Frederick Douglass for Duke University Press. His other works-in-progress include an edited collection of essays on the political thought of W. E. B. Du Bois for the University of Kentucky Press; the Norton Critical Edition of Frederick Douglass’s My Bondage and My Freedom; and a special issue on black political thought for La revue international de philosophie.
Bromell has published in a wide variety of journals, including American Quarterly, American Music, American Literature, American Literary History, and Political Theory. His essays have appeared in Harper’s, Raritan, The Boston Review, The American Scholar, The Georgia Review, and The Sewanee Review.
Bromell served as president of the New England American Studies Association and organizes and convenes “Democratic Vistas: An Interdisciplinary Seminar in Political Theory and Literary and Cultural Studies,” which meets annually at New York University. His blog thetimeisalwaysnow.org deals with race, culture, and politics.
Education: BA, Amherst College, 1972; PhD, Stanford University, 1987.
Professor, Department of Communication
Donal Carbaugh's recent works are all but unique in spanning three communication subdisciplines: environmental communication, international/intercultural communication, and language/social interaction. They have been honored nationally and internationally, involved many of his current and recent doctoral students, helped inspire special issues of journals and other publications, and been funded by major grants.
A member of the UMass Amherst faculty since 1986, Carbaugh studies cultural philosophies of dialogic communication, the environment, and the ways culturally distinctive practices get woven into international and intercultural interactions. He focuses on Native American, popular American, Russian, and Finnish communication practices, with special attention to the relationships among language use, culture, spirit,
and nature.
Carbaugh has two books slated for publication this year. The first is an international handbook in which he compiled 26 ethnographic research reports about communication from around the world. The other is the co-authored Reporting Cultures on 60 Minutes: Missing the Finnish Line. “On Dialogue Studies,” his lead article for the new international Journal of Dialogue Studies demonstrated his stature in the study of dialogue and intercultural relations.
Carbaugh serves on about 20 editorial boards of national and international journals, and his research has appeared in major academic journals in several countries. In 2010, he was invited by the National Academies to present at the workshop “Unifying Social Frameworks: Building Bridges through Cultural Discourses” in Washington, D.C. His public talk to recent Distinguished Fulbright Professors and Bicentennial Chairs in Finland in May was attended by past president of Finland Tarja Halonen and current U.S. Ambassador to Finland, Charles Adams.
Education: BS, Manchester University, 1977; MA, University of Montana, 1980; PhD, University of Washington, 1984.
Professor, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences
A professor and the director of faculty equity and inclusion for the College of Natural Sciences, Nilanjana Dasgupta conducts seminal research on implicit bias, translating scientific research to inform such social problems as bias against racial and ethnic minorities, lesbians and gay men, employment discrimination, educational disparities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), and the professional underrepresentation of women and racial minorities in STEM fields. She has twice been invited to the White House to present her findings on STEM education. During her recent distinguished lecture at the National Science Foundation (NSF) in Arlington, Va., Dasgupta spoke of how to prevent girls and young women from leaving careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
Since the beginning of her career, Dasgupta’s research has been funded by the NSF and the National Institutes of Health, amounting to approximately $4 million in grant support to date. Her research findings have been featured in the New York Times, the Boston Globe, the International Herald Tribune, BBC Radio (U.K.), National Public Radio, PBS News Hour, Scientific American Mind, Slate.com, ABC News, and many other popular news outlets.
Dasgupta has held leadership positions in several international societies in social psychology and is the 2017 incoming president of the Society for Experimental Social Psychology. She also serves on the National Science Foundation’s Advisory Committee for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences.
Education: AB, Smith College, 1992; MS, Yale University, 1994; MPhil, Yale University, 1996; PhD, Yale University, 1998.
Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering
John Klier arrived at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in the fall of 2015 to serve as professor in and head of the Department of Chemical Engineering. A member of the National Academy of Engineering, he had worked at Dow Chemical Company’s R&D laboratories since 1989, ultimately holding the position of global research and development director of Dow Performance Materials and Chemicals, where he achieved the position of distinguished fellow, the highest technical level at Dow, and led an organization of over 400 research, development and technical service professionals. The chemical engineering department was drawn to Klier’s focus on collaborative research, which promises to harness UMass Amherst’s power in such areas as polymer chemistry, material science, reaction engineering, modeling, analytical science, and inorganic materials.
At UMass, Klier is developing a leading interdisciplinary research program devoted to understanding and controlling molecular architecture, association behavior, and properties of interactive and responsive polymers, colloids, and amphiphiles. His research interests are in coatings, the release of active ingredients, and lightweight and functional materials.
Klier builds on his background in colloid, interfacial, and polymer science and engineering; research and development leadership; new-venture assessment; and organizational integration and change initiatives. He is author on over 70 patents and numerous professional papers. Klier has led a number of research and development programs involving interactive or responsive materials that have met significant commercial and technical success, including Betamate™ 1630 structural adhesives, Teraforce™ proppant coating, and Evoque™ precomposite polymer.
Education: BS, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1984; MS, Purdue University, 1986; PhD, Purdue University, 1989.
Professor, Department of Mathematics and Statistics
Within the international research community, Andrea R. Nahmod is one of the most visible members of UMass Amherst’s Department of Mathematics and Statistics. A native of Argentina, she works in nonlinear analysis and partial differential equations, a subfield of pure mathematics, but has also collaborated with applied mathematicians.
“I’m an analyst,” Nahmod says. “I study how to decompose objects in forms we can understand and that give us information about their most relevant features, their structure and patterns.” Using harmonic and nonlinear Fourier analysis, Nahmod applies these decomposition techniques to problems in the material world in order to find solutions and to understand their behavior.
Nahmod was named Professeur Invité at Université Paris-Sud 11, Orsay, and was a visiting scholar at the Courant Institute, New York University. She was awarded a Radcliffe-Sargent Faull Fellowship at Harvard University and has been twice selected a member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton.
Nahmod's research has been continuously funded by the National Science Foundation. She delivered an Invited Plenary Address at the American Mathematical Society in 2006 and was keynote speaker at the Tenth New Mexico Analysis conference in 2007, the 16th Riviere-Fabes Symposium on Analysis and PDE in 2013, and the 33th SEARCDE Conference in 2014. She frequently speaks at major research conferences in the U.S. and overseas, including the Oberwolfach Institute of Mathematics in Germany in 2013, the NSF-CBMS Regional Research Conference in 2013, the Banff International Research Station in Canada in 2014, and the International Conference on Recent Progress and Future Directions at the University of Chicago in 2014.
Education: BS, University of Buenos Aires, 1985; PhD, Yale University, 1991.
Professor, College of Nursing
Jean E. Swinney is known throughout the country and beyond for her commitment to diversity, equity, access, and representation in the workplace, as well as for her significant contributions to the nursing profession locally, nationally, and internationally. Throughout her 41-year career, she has worked to inspire young people, particularly disadvantaged and underrepresented students, to enter the nursing profession. She has created a national model, SAFER, to support those students, created a holistic admission process for nontraditional students, and made life-changing improvements to nursing and the care of children in Africa.
The impact of Swinney’s work has been decisive. She created a revolutionary method for returning veterans to earn a degree in nursing, increasing diversity and inclusivity at UMass Amherst and elsewhere. “Heroes in Health: Veterans Entering the Nursing Workforce,” is a three-year, multifaceted, collaborative initiative to develop model approaches to increase the number and percentage of ethnic-minority and disadvantaged veterans who are able to successfully complete a university-based nursing education and become employed in the national nursing workforce.
Swinney has introduced maternal and child health education programs that have decreased infant and maternal mortality for the people of Botswana, and through the creation of nursing clubs and other initiatives, has inspired African American, Hispanic, and disadvantaged youths to plan for a career in nursing.
Education: BS, New York University, 1964; MA, New York University, 1980; PhD, University of Texas at Austin, 1992.