A series of open meetings to explain the campus’s plan to prohibit tobacco use starting July 1 will begin later this month, according to Associate Chancellor Susan Pearson.
In a Feb. 12 broadcast e-mail to the campus, Pearson said the ban, which was approved by the Campus Leadership Council and the Faculty Senate in 2011, applies to everyone on campus, including students, staff, faculty, contractors and visitors and covers all buildings and grounds as well as vehicles. All tobacco products and electronic cigarettes will be prohibited.
“In doing so, the campus joins more than 700 colleges
Professor Andrea R. Nahmod of Mathematics and Statistics has been awarded a Simons Foundation Fellowship in Mathematics by the Simons Foundation. 
Aline Gubrium, Public Health and Health Sciences, and Betsy Krause, Anthropology, recently won a two-year, $500,000 grant from the Ford Foundation’s Sexuality Research Initiative to launch their “Hear Our Stories” project in collaboration with the Community Adolescent Resources and Education (Care) Center of Holyoke, an alternative education program that serves young women ages 16-21 and their children.
David Irwin, assistant professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, has received a five-year, $461,434 grant from the National Science Foundation to fund research on energy efficiency in houses and buildings. The grant is from the NSF’s Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) program.
Biologist R. Thomas Zoeller will discuss ways in which chemicals in the environment may disrupt the body’s endocrine system in a Distinguished Faculty Lecture on Monday, Feb. 25 at 4 p.m. in the Massachusetts Room at the Mullins Center. His lecture, titled “The Brain on Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals,” will be followed by a reception. All lectures in the series are free and open to the public.
Research spending for the five-campus UMass system has reached record levels, surpassing the $500 million mark for the third straight year, according to President Robert L. Caret.