News

Innovation Challenge pitch competition is Dec. 4

A dozen teams of young entrepreneurs seeking $10,000 in prize money will be pitching their innovative business concepts to a panel of judges at the UMass Innovation Challenge Executive Summary and Elevator Pitch competition on Tuesday, Dec. 4 at 3:30 p.m. in the Student Union's Cape Cod Lounge.
 
Competitors are interdisciplinary student/alumni teams working with faculty members and external advisors. For example:

  • Team Green Latrine offers a solution for sustainable global sanitation, a latrine that purifies waste water at the same time as it produces electricity and compost for rural

Graduate program focused on offshore wind energy training its first class of students

An interdisciplinary graduate program  in offshore wind energy engineering, environmental science and policy is now up and running with 25 faculty members from nine departments working with 13 full-time graduate students. The goal of the Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) Offshore Wind Energy Program is to train researchers who understand the technological challenges, environmental implications and socioeconomic and regulatory hurdles faced by offshore wind farms.
 
The program was started with a $3.2 million grant from the National Science Foundation in August

Platt wins prestigious Cundill Prize for history of Taiping Rebellion

“Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War,” a history of the Taiping rebellion by Stephen R. Platt, associate professor of History, has won McGill University’s 2012 Cundill Prize, called the world’s richest and most prestigious award for historical literature.
 
Published earlier this year by Alfred A. Knopf, Platt’s book was chosen from among 143 works submitted by publishers from all over the globe. The competition, now in its fifth year, features a $75,000 U.S. grand prize. The award was announced at a gala award dinner in Montreal on Nov.

Doctoral oral exams for Dec. 10-14

The graduate dean invites all graduate faculty to attend the final oral examinations for the doctoral candidates scheduled as follows:

Hamed Soroush, Ph.D., Computer Science. Monday, Dec. 10, 9:30 a.m., 151 Computer Science Building. Dissertation: “On Measurement-driven Characterization of the Mobile Environment.” Brian Levine and Mark Corner, co-chrs.

Brett Ingram, Ph.D., Communication. Monday, Dec. 10, 4 p.m., E-31 Machmer Hall. Dissertation: “Critical Rhetoric in the Age of Neuroscience.” Stephen Gencarella, chr.

Subinoy Rana, Ph.D., Chemistry. Tuesday, Dec. 11, 11 a.m., 153 Goessman.

Communication faculty receive grant for new feminist media justice colloquium

Communication faculty Demetria Shabazz, Martha Fuentes-Bautista and Mari Castaneda, along with Five College faculty member Bernadine Mellis, received a $10,000 digital humanities grant from the Five College Women Studies Research Center to develop a team-taught feminist media justice colloquium.

The course will offer students opportunities to learn about strategies for intervening in mainstream media production and to use new technologies to make media as a form of critical practice and activist intervention. Guest speakers will provide models of career paths in alternative media fields.

Chilton addresses conferences in Spain and Turkey

Anthropology professor Elizabeth S. Chilton was an invited presenter at the meeting of the Study Group on the Heritage Status of Aboriginal Cultural Property, sponsored by the Fonds québécois de la recherche sur la société et la culture (FQRSC) and hosted Nov. 11-14 at the University of Barcelona. The topic of the meeting was “Indigenous Cultural Heritages and Sustainable Development” and the title of her presentation was “Why Does the Past Matter? Towards a Social Science of the Past.”

Chilton also presented a paper, “Towards an Ecological of Heritage,” at the international conference

Bears That Care toy drive

The Student Alumni Association is collecting new teddy bears and other furry friends to benefit children from a variety of local health and human service agencies this holiday season.

Due to health concerns, organizers ask that stuffed animals be new and preferably with tags still attached to indicate materials.

There are two ways to support Bears That Care:

Drop off stuffed animals in one of the Bears That Care marked boxes on campus located in Memorial Hall and the University Store.

Make a non-tax-deductible monetary donation of any size to support the purchase of stuffed animals.

Campus to hire consultant to review residence hall security

The campus plans to hire an outside consultant to undertake a comprehensive review of its residence hall security program, according to Police Chief John Horvath.
 
Horvath said, “UMass Amherst has a longstanding commitment to student safety, and this review will identify the strengths and any shortcomings of our current system while making recommendations based on best practices in the field. An independent set of eyes will serve us well.”
 
The move is part of a coordinated review and response to campus security following the alleged rape in October of a UMass Amherst student in a

Engineering alumnus to discuss healthcare technology

College of Engineering alumnus Christopher Larkin will give a talk titled “Keeping Patients Safe and Healthy with Advanced Technology” at a special alumni seminar on Thursday, Dec. 6 from 10-11 a.m. in the Gunness Student Center conference room in Marcus Hall. Larkin will discuss how technological advancements in modeling software and artificial intelligence can better foster healthcare optimization.

Larkin is chief technology officer for General Electric Healthcare, a company with more than 10,000 employees based in Washington State.

SGA, UMass Police sponsoring Toys for Tots drive Dec. 4-6

The Student Government Association and the UMass Police are teaming up to make children’s holidays a little brighter this year by collecting toys for the annual Toys for Tots campaign run by the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve.
 
"Each year the Marines work hard to reach out to the communities of Western Mass. in order to make the holiday season a little happier for the children in our area," says Deputy Police Chief Patrick Archbald.

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