Talking Points

Researchers set to begin building shared computer cluster at new Holyoke center

When Gov. Deval Patrick, President Robert Caret and other state officials cut the ribbon Nov. 16 to open the new Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center (MGHPCC) in Holyoke, a small group of scientists was waiting in the wings, ready to step in and begin actually building a shared computer cluster, an “academic cloud” to provide service to university users.
 
Four principal researchers, Computer Science professor Prashant Shenoy, Chris Hill of MIT, Claudio Rebbi of Boston University and Gene Cooperman of Northeastern University recently were awarded a $2.3 million grant from the

School of Education awarded total of $21M to help Afghanistan rebuild higher education system

Having traveled to Afghanistan three times in the past five months, the last thing professor David Evans seems to think about is withdrawal.
 
In fact, as the United States prepares to end its military presence in that country 2014, Evans and the project team at the School of Education’s Center for International Education (CIE), which he directs, are ramping up efforts to help create, expand and extend higher education capacity there under a new $11.2 million agreement with the U.S. Agency for International Development.
 
Evans is principal investigator for the CIE’s Higher Education Project

Campus symposium to pay tribute to Congressman Olver

A symposium honoring Congressman John W. Olver on the eve of his retirement from the U.S. House of Representatives is being held Monday, Nov. 19 from 9:15 a.m. to 5:45 p.m. in the Campus Center Auditorium.
 
Olver has represented the 1st Congressional District – spanning Berkshire, Hampden, Hampshire, Franklin, Worcester and Middlesex Counties – since June 1991. He is currently the only member from the Massachusetts delegation serving on the House Appropriations Committee.
 
In 2011, his colleagues named him the ranking member of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and

Campus sharing $6.24 million NSF grant to improve computer science education nationally

Building on its success in drawing more women and under-represented minority students to study computer science at Massachusetts public colleges and universities over the past five years, the campus’s Commonwealth Alliance for Information Technology Education (CAITE) has won a major grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and will now take a national leadership role in computer science education.
 
CAITE will share the new five-year, $6.24 million NSF grant with Georgia Computes!, a project at Georgia Tech, to create a national resource for other states that want to learn how to

Federal grant supports local efforts to address sexual and domestic violence

The U.S. Department of Justice’s Office on Violence Against Women has awarded $300,000 to the Amherst Police Department that will fund several positions focused on dealing with cases of sexual and domestic violence.
 
The grant was obtained in collaboration with the UMass Police Department, the campus’s Center for Women and Community (CWC) and the Northampton Police Department.
 
The grant will continue to fund a full-time civilian advocate, Ilana Gerjuoy, who currently works on-site with the Amherst and UMass police departments assisting survivors of domestic and sexual violence.

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