The graduate dean invites all graduate faculty to attend the final oral examinations for the doctoral candidates scheduled as follows:
Liliya Karimova, Ph.D., Communication. Monday, July 8, 9 a.m., E31 Machmer Hall. Dissertation: “Muslim Tatar Women’s Piety Stories: A Quest for Personal and Social Transformation in Tatarstan (Russia).” Benjamin Bailey, chr.
Sravan Surampudi, Ph.D., Chemistry. Monday, July 8, 10 a.m., 153 Goessmann. Dissertation: “Conjugated Molecules and Materials as Viable Platforms to Study Light-Matter Interactions.” D. Venkataraman, chr.
Patricia Mackay, Ed.D., Education.
The National Academy of Sciences has awarded a three-year, $271,930 grant to Chemistry professor Vincent Rotello to develop, test and deploy new, sensitive, reliable and affordable inkjet-printed, nanoparticle-based test strips for detecting disease-causing bacteria in drinking water, with researchers at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) in Pakistan.
A proposal to freeze tuition and fees for the coming academic year moved ahead July 1 as the Legislature approved $39 million in additional funding for the UMass system as part of a $34 billion state budget and sent the measure to Gov. Deval Patrick.
Stephen Miller, associate professor of Japanese language and literature, recently published a monograph with the Cornell University East Asia Series titled “The Wind from Vulture Peak: The Buddhification of Japanese Waka in the Heian Period.”
Kathleen Lugosch, professor of Architecture and director of the Master of Architecture Program, has been named a fellow by the American Institute of Architects.
Reporting this month in Molecular Microbiology, assistant professor of Biochemistry amd Molecuar Biology Peter Chien and colleagues describe using a combination of biochemistry and mass spectrometry to “trap” scores of new candidate substrates of the protease ClpXP to reveal how protein degradation is critical to cell cycle progression and bacterial development. The new understanding could lead to identifying new antibiotic targets.
Entomology professor John Stoffolano’s research on greenhead flies, the bane of beachgoers up and down the Atlantic coast, is the subject of an article in the July/August issue of Yankee magazine.
The DEFA Film Library will welcome 30 international scholars from July 7-14 to participate in its seventh biennial Summer Film Institute. This year’s institute, held on the Smith College campus and titled “DEFA & Amerika: Culture Wars, Culture Contact,” will explore East Germany’s filmic relationship to the USA during the Cold War. 
President Barack Obama’s office has named computer science education pioneer Beverly Woolf a Presidential Innovation Fellow for 2013, recognizing her leadership in designing software tutors that respond to a student’s mood and personal learning pace, for example, to dramatically improve lesson effectiveness.