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'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

Grotevant honored at adoption conference in NYC

Professor Harold D. Grotevant, the Rudd Family Foundation Chair in Psychology, received the Outstanding Scholar in Adoption Award during the 7th Biennial Conference on Adoption held Oct. 18-20 at St. John’s University in Manhattan.
 
Given by the St. John’s University Adoption Initiative in collaboration with Montclair State University, the award recognizes Grotevant for his contributions as a scientist and scholar to  “making adoption an important subject of discussion in the field.”
 
“Thanks to his pioneering work we have made tremendous strides in our efforts to achieve a more profound

Ahern presents paper at Shanghai workshop

Jack Ahern, vice provost for International Programs and professor of Landscape Architecture, presented an invited research paper at the international workshop "Frontiers in Urban Ecological Research and Planning: Linking Ideas from the East and the West," held Oct. 25-30 in Shanghai, China.

Ahern's paper was titled "A model and research agenda for safe-to-fail adaptive planning and design."

The workshop was sponsored by the Shanghai Key Lab for Urban Ecological Processes and Eco-Restoration (SHUES) at East China Normal University.

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