With forecasters predicting heavy rain, strong winds, power outages and flooding in the region due to Hurricane Sandy, university officials announced that UMass Amherst and its off-campus facilities around the state will be closed Oct. 29.
The closing notice was communicated to students, staff and faculty through broadcast e-mails, text messages, the recorded emergency closing telephone line and via the campus's website. The notice was also distributed to local television and radio outlets.
The closure decision came after Gov.
Recently a research team led by Wei-lih Lee, associate professor of Biology, identified a new molecular player in asymmetric cell division, a regulatory protein named She1 whose role in chromosome- and spindle positioning wasn’t known before. Asymmetric cell division is important in the self-renewal of stem cells and because it ensures that daughter cells have different fates and functions.
Brenda Philips, deputy director of the College of Engineering’s Collaborative Sensing of the Atmosphere (CASA) program, with engineer Eric Lyons and innovation manager Apoorva Bajaj, were on hand Oct. 28 as the first CASA weather radar unit was installed by helicopter atop a building at the University of Texas Arlington (UTA).
University officials last week celebrated the launch of construction of a $95 million New Academic Classroom Building (NACB) that will provide state-of-the-art academic space and create a new hub of student activity near the Campus Center and Student Union. The event was held Oct. 26 in the Student Union Ballroom.
Karen Helfer, associate professor of Communication Disorders, has received a five year, $1.3 million grant from the NIH’s National Institute for Deafness and Other Communication Disorders to conduct a series of studies to determine what is going on in difficult listening situations where hearing aids often don’t help, and explore ways to assist millions of older Americans to do better.