Talking Points

New UMass Rising website conveys goals, reasons for supporting fundraising campaign

UMass Rising, the campus’s $300 million, comprehensive fundraising campaign, has launched a new website outlining its goals and priorities accompanied by testimonials from alumni benefactors, recent graduates, faculty, staff and Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy.
 
The campaign, which was formally announced last month’s Founders Week, has raised $183.7 million, or 60 percent, of its goal.

SPHHS honors service and mentorship

Jeff Harness, director for integrated care and population health at Cooley Dickinson Hospital, was honored April 26 at the School of Public Health and Health Sciences’ Celebration of Service Breakfast in the Campus Center.
 
Harness, who received his master’s in Public Health through the school, was presented with the Distinguished Service Award honoring outstanding leadership in the field of public health.
 
Elizabeth Cardona, director of the governor’s western Massachusetts office, presented Harness with a citation from Gov. Deval Patrick.

SPHHS doctoral student Larry Pellegrini wins APHA award

Larry Pellegrini, a Ph.D. candidate in the Health Policy and Management Program in the School of Public Health and Health Sciences, recently received the American Public Health Association’s (APHA) 2013 Medical Care Student Session Award.
 
Pellegrini will present his winning abstract, “The Impact of the Labor Market on Medicaid, the Industrial and Occupational Composition of the U.S. Healthcare Industry and Mortality, 1999-2009,” in November at APHA’s annual meeting in Boston.
 
“This research explores the labor market’s impact on Medicaid provisions and mortality and morbidity, with

‘Dinner with Friends’ raised nearly $30,000 for new Digital Media Lab

The 11nth annual “Dinner with Friends” on April 6 raised nearly $30,000 for the new Digital Media Lab in the Du Bois Library. The event, hosted by the Friends of the UMass Amherst Libraries, featured a talk by New York Times bestselling mystery writer Archer Mayor.

New this year, the dinner featured silent and live auctions, including a live auction during which dinner guests could bid on having their name featured for one of the characters in Archer Mayor’s next book.

Sponsors Bassette Printing, Brattle Book Shop, Elsevier, Lexington Group, Print Associates, Sunshine Sign Co., UMass

Nuclear physicist, with hundreds worldwide, tracks huge magnetic ring across country for muon experiments

Nuclear physicist David Kawall is among scientists from 26 institutions worldwide who are waiting patiently for an electromagnet 50 feet in diameter to be transported from New York to Illinois, where they plan to launch an experiment in 2016 that could open new realms of particle physics.
 
Kawall’s responsibility will be to measure very precisely the magnetic field inside the ring-shaped magnet when it arrives at its new home sometime in late July. “It’s definitely new territory,” he says, “because we need to measure the field accurately to 70 parts per billion in this huge magnet.

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