People

Obituary: Paul Procopio, professor emeritus of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning

Paul Procopio, 94, alumnus and professor emeritus of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning, died May 12 in Southbridge.

Born in Brockton, he graduated from the University in 1941 with a bachelor's degree in Landscape Architecture. During World War II, he was a civilian camouflage designer in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
 
He was hired as an instructor of Horticulture in 1947. He earned his master’s degree in Horticulture in 1954.
 
In 1977, he served as acting head of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning.
 
He retired in 1983 as professor A and associate head of the

Thelwell represents UMass at Nigerian rites for Chinua Achebe

Professor emeritus Ekwueme Michael Thelwell of Afro-American Studies represented his department and the university at funeral rites in Nigeria for writer and former visiting professor Chinua Achebe, who died March 21 in Boston.
 
Thelwell delivered a keynote address at the internal day of tribute on May 20 at the International Conference Center in Abuja, the West African nation’s capital.
 
Thelwell also traveled to eastern Nigeria traditional ceremonies of celebration and burial by Achebe’s family and kinsmen.
 
Achebe taught in the English Department and in Afro-American Studies in the

Rich addresses Lyme Disease Physicians Forum

Medical zoologist Stephen Rich of the Microbiology Department was an invited speaker on May 16 at the annual Lyme Disease Physicians Forum sponsored by the Barnstable County Cooperative Extension and the Cape Cod Lyme Disease Task Force.
 
About 100 physicians from the Cape and Islands heard leading clinical researcher and physician Benjamin Luft of Stony Brook University speak on diagnosis and treatment; Catherine Brown, the state’s public health veterinarian, speak on incidence and Rich speak about passive surveillance for newly emerging tick-borne diseases.
 
Rich says, “I highlighted the

Nahmod named Simons Fellow for 2013-14

Professor Andrea R. Nahmod of Mathematics and Statistics has been awarded a Simons Foundation Fellowship in Mathematics by the Simons Foundation. 
 
With the award, Nahmod will spend her 2013-14 sabbatical year as a visiting professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she will pursue ongoing research with MIT’s Gigliola Staffilani on deterministic and nondeterministic aspects of nonlinear partial differential equations (PDEs).
 
Nahmod’s research lies at the overlap of nonlinear Fourier analysis, harmonic analysis, and nonlinear partial differential equations, integrating

Obituary: Judith Todd, former assistant controller

Judith (Wilkinson) Todd, 71, of Amherst, alumna and former assistant controller for grants and contracts, died May 9 at the Hospice of the Fisher Home in Amherst, after a long illness.

She was a graduate of B.M.C. Durfee High School in Fall River and received her bachelor’s degree Mathematics from UMass in 1963. She married Robert Torla later that year.
 
After teaching in Somerset, she earned a master's in Accounting from UMass and then joined the Controller’s Office, where she worked until 1988.

In 1981, she married David Todd.
 
She leaves her husband, David, her sons Michael Torla of

Pages