People

Obituary: Michael A. Cann, retired psychologist with Mental Health Services

Michael A. Cann, 84, of Amherst, a retired psychologist at Mental Health Services, died at home Oct. 28 after a long illness.

Born in the Charlottenburg district of Berlin, Germany, he emigrated with his family in 1937 to the Netherlands after Hitler’s rise to power. In 1939 he and his mother arrived in New York where his father had found work as an electrical engineer the previous year.  

After graduating from Weequahic High School in Newark, N.J., he attended Rutgers University for one semester and then enlisted in the Army.

Obituary: Manuel "Manny" Roberts, retired Physical Plant maintenance technician

Manuel “Manny” P. Roberts, 63, of Greenfield, a retired maintenance technician II with Physical Plant, died Nov. 3.

Born in New York City, he grew up in Amherst and graduated from Amherst Regional High School in 1967.
 
He joined the campus staff in 1974 and retired in 2011.

He leaves four children, Heather in Greenfield, Ian in Turners Falls, Raquel Barry in Greenfield and Shane in Montague. He is also survived by a sister Rosemarie James in Amherst; a brother Juan and his wife Michele in Belchertown; an aunt and a large extended family, most of whom reside in the Pioneer Valley.

'Ronference' honors career of School of Education's Hambleton

It is being billed as a “Ronference,” which may seem like a particularly airy and whimsical way to honor the weighty career of one of the most substantial international contributors to the singularly serious field of psychometrics.
 
But that is precisely the case as the School of Education prepares a two-day celebration of the work of Distinguished University Professor Ronald Hambleton, chair of the Research and Evaluation Methods Program and co-director of the Center for Educational Assessment, and a central figure in the national psychometric community.
 
More formally, the Nov.

Obituary: Jacqueline Wisneski, former head clerk in business school

Jacqueline Lavoie Wisneski, 90, of Easthampton, retired head clerk in the School of Business Administration, died Oct. 30.
 
Born in Holyoke, she attended the Holyoke public schools and graduated with a B.A. degree from Framingham State Teachers College in 1943. After marrying Henry Wisneski in 1947, she worked as a secretary in Amherst Town Hall before joining the campus staff. When she retired in 1987, she was assistant to the dean of the School of Business Administration.
 
She leaves her sons, Kim Wisneski of Freeport, Maine, and Kurt Wisneski of South Dartmouth, and four grandchildren.

Brigham-Grette gives Subaru Outdoor Life Lecture at GSA meeting

Geosciences professor Julie Brigham-Grette gave the Subaru Outdoor Life Lecture on Nov. 5 at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in Charlotte, N.C.
 
Her lecture, “Driven to Extremes — The Roadless Pursuit of Scientific Drilling at El’Gygytgyn Crater Lake, Arctic Russia,” recounted her experiences as the chief U.S. scientist with a 2009  international expedition to drill into a 3.6 million-year-old crater lake in remote northeast Russia to extract sediment samples that provided an unprecedented record of Arctic change and climate evolution.
 
In June, the team published

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