Talking Points

Junior Renée Barouxis is Truman Scholarship finalist

Renée Barouxis, of Westfield, a junior enrolled in Commonwealth Honors College, has been named a finalist for the Harry S. Truman Scholarship. The prestigious award is for outstanding students preparing for careers in public service. She was chosen from a pool of 629 applications from 293 colleges and universities, and vies to be among the 60-65 college juniors to be selected nationwide.
 
A Political Science major with minors in History and in Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies, Barouxis is also enrolled in three certificate programs: International Relations, Public Policy and International

UMass Innovation Institute forging links between academic research and industry

The UMass Innovation Institute (UMII) is accelerating connections between advanced science and technology available in campus laboratories and private business. Its most recent initiative is a five-year strategic partnership with BASF, the world’s leading chemical company, to develop new advanced materials for the automotive, building, construction and energy industries. The new agreement was announced last week in Cambridge.
 
The agreement between BASF and the UMII along with Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is called the North American Center for Research

Brown examines magnetic field reversals in Distinguished Faculty Lecture

Professor Laurie Brown of the Department of Geosciences will be presenting a Distinguished Faculty Lecture titled "Magnetic Field Reversals: The Ups and Downs of Earth's Dipole, as seen from South America" on Monday, March 11 at 4 p.m. in the Massachusetts Room of the Mullins Center.

While studying an active volcano in the Chilean Andes, Brown discovered lava flows that gave evidence of the most recent reversal of Earth’s magnetic poles. Paleomagnetism, the study of how Earth’s magnetic field is recorded in rocks, suggests that when the field reverses itself, it reduces to a low intensity.

Consultant hired to review residence hall security program

Business Protection Specialists, Inc., an independent security consulting firm based in Canandaigua, N.Y., has been hired to conduct a comprehensive review of the residence hall security program and recommend improvements to ensure a safe campus community.
 
As part of the study, BPS representatives will visit campus during spring break, March 18-22, to tour the 45-residence hall system, inspect technical security measures and current visitor access in the six residential areas. The BPS team will return to campus April 4-5 to observe security procedures while students are on campus.
 

New student portal offers mobile and desktop access to campus info

Starting this week, students have a new way
 of accessing campus resources on the go. Go.UMass is a device-responsive website that brings together students’ personalized
 academic information and other useful campus data, such as news, events, maps and athletics scores, on mobile and desktop devices.

“Given the prevalence of smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices among students and our desire to streamline the delivery of campus information, we opted for a ‘one-stop virtual shop,’ a centralized, mobile‐friendly portal that meets students’ information needs,” said Heidi Dollard,

Biochemists gain insight into double-protected dance of cell division

Biochemistry researchers including assistant professor Peter Chien recently gained new insight into how protein synthesis and degradation help to regulate the delicate ballet of cell division. In particular, they reveal how two proteins shelter each other in “mutually assured cleanup” to insure that division goes smoothly and safely.
 
Cells must routinely dispose of leftover proteins with the aid of proteases that cut up and recycle used proteins.

Faculty awarded $1.25m for speech language pathology research-to-practice project

Mary Andrianopoulos, Communication Disorders, and Mary Lynn Boscardin, chair of the Student Development Department, recently were awarded a five-year, $1.25 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) for training speech language pathologists in the public schools to effectively deliver reliable, evidence-based models of technology. Theirs was one of only nine winning proposals in the national competition.
 
The grant will fund over 40 master's students in speech language pathology (SLP) with a specialization in the area of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and using technologies

NEPR breaks ground on downtown Springfield facility

A new era for New England Public Radio began March 4 as the station formally broke ground on a new, multi-million dollar production and operations facility at the corner of Main and Bridge streets in downtown Springfield.
 
The CEO and general manager of NEPR, Martin Miller, was joined at the ceremony by Congressman Richard Neal, Mayor Domenic Sarno, Elizabeth Cardona of the governor’s Springfield office and John Kennedy, vice chancellor for University Relations.
 
“The choice to move to the heart of downtown Springfield was a very deliberate one for New England Public Radio,” said Miller.

Keck Foundation awards $1m for research on ultrathin films

Physicists Narayanan Menon, Benny Davidovitch and Christopher Santangelo, with polymer scientist Thomas Russell, recently won a three-year, $1 million Keck Foundation grant to develop the basic science needed to spontaneously deliver ultrathin films to fluid interfaces. The W.M. Keck Science and Engineering program funds “endeavors that are distinctive and novel in their approach. It encourages projects that are high-risk with the potential for transformative impact.”
 
As Menon explains, he and his collaborators will build upon their previous successes to tackle a handful of new problems,

Former Chancellor Randolph Bromery dead at 87

Randolph Wilson “Bill” Bromery, of Peabody, who served as chancellor from 1971-79 and Commonwealth Professor emeritus of geophysics, died Feb. 26 in Danvers. He was 87.
 
Bromery led the university through one of the most dynamic, and sometimes turbulent, periods in its 150-year history, establishing a reputation for problem solving and for building both diversity and consensus. Following his retirement as chancellor and executive vice president in 1979, Bromery went on to lead Westfield State, Springfield College and Roxbury Community College, retiring in 2003.
 
“Randolph Bromery was a

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