Talking Points

Engineer builds low-cost device to purify human waste, make compost and generate electricity

Caitlyn Shea Butler, assistant professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering, has designed and is now field-testing a new “green latrine” that purifies human waste, turning it into compost for farming and generating electricity.Her multipurpose invention is called a “Microbial Fuel Cell Latrine.”
 
Butler believes her inexpensive green latrine can be deployed throughout places such as rural Africa, transforming the way human waste is treated in areas where sanitation facilities are poor or nonexistent.

Researchers define limits of microbial life in undersea volcano

By some estimates, a third of the Earth’s organisms by mass live in our planet’s rocks and sediments, yet their lives and ecology are almost a complete mystery. This week, microbiologist James Holden and others report in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the first detailed data about a group of methane-exhaling microbes that live deep in the cracks of hot undersea volcanoes.
 
Holden says, “Evidence has built over the past 20 years that there’s an incredible amount of biomass in the Earth’s subsurface, in the crust and marine sediments, perhaps as much as all the plants and

Cunningham named vice president and interim CEO of UMassOnline

Former deputy provost and longtime faculty member John Cunningham has been named vice president for Academic Affairs, Student Affairs and International Relations and interim chief executive officer of UMassOnline by President Robert L. Caret.

Cunningham served for the past year as associate vice president for Academic Affairs, Student Affairs and International Relations. At UMassOnline, Cunningham will be filling the post held by Ken Udas, who recently joined the private higher education sector.

As interim CEO, Cunningham reports to Caret, who said Cunningham’s chief priority will be to

Veterinary scientists' research helps alpaca wool growers in Peru

This week at an international conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, researchers from Veterinary and Animal Sciences are presenting results of some of the first studies ever done in Peru and on campus to improve the success of alpaca farmers who rely almost entirely on these animals for their livelihood.
 
Professor Steve Purdy, veterinarian and director of the Camelid Studies Program, with recent graduates Weston Brown and Caitlin Donovan, will present three papers at the International Congress on Animal Reproduction’s camelid satellite meeting on Aug. 3-4 in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Arts Extension Service offers three new courses

Three new courses addressing less visible aspects of life in the arts and culture field are being offered this fall by the Arts Extension Service (AES) at the College of Humanities and Fine Arts.  
 
Two of the courses are being offered on campus: "Arts and Culture Internship Preparation Course" will help students identify their personal career interests and learn how to create the appropriate application materials, while "Greening Your Nonprofit Arts Organization" will explore environmental issues unique to arts institutions.
 
"Grantwriting for the Arts" is offered online only, and will

Polymer scientist Alejandro Briseño, Kinesiology alumna receive presidential early career awards

President Barack Obama has named polymer scientist Alejandro L. Briseño to receive the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the highest honor bestowed by the federal government on science and engineering professionals in the early stages of their independent research careers. 
 
Briseño was cited for “outstanding research accomplishments in areas of organic semiconductor nanoelectronics and molecular crystals and breakthroughs in the fundamental understanding of organic interfacial crystallization.”
 
Joining Briseño among the 96 science and engineering

Center for e-Design Receives In-Kind Software Grant from Siemens PLM Software

The Center for e-Design in the College of Engineering has received an in-kind software grant from Siemens PLM Software, a leading global provider of product lifecycle management (PLM) software and services. The gift has a commercial value of nearly $2.3 million. The grant was provided by Siemens PLM Software’s Global Opportunities in PLM, a program that delivers PLM technology to more than one million students yearly at more than 11,000 global institutions, where it is used at every academic level – from grade schools to graduate engineering research programs.

The grant includes Teamcenter

New Agricultural Learning Center will link past, present and future roles in agriculture

The university will develop a new Agricultural Learning Center on the former Wysocki Farm on North Pleasant Street to serve as a hands-on, living classroom for students to learn about farming and the horticultural, nursery and landscape industries. The center will also have small areas devoted to livestock, fruits, vegetables, turf and landscape crops.
 
The center is being created by the Center for Agriculture and the Stockbridge School and will open for classes in fall 2014. The project will be located on Wysocki field (40 acres) on the east side of North Pleasant Street.

Hazardous Material Drill at UMass Amherst Central Heating Plant on Tuesday, July 24 from 9 a.m. to Noon

AMHERST, Mass. – The University of Massachusetts Amherst will be conducting a hazmat training exercise at the Central Heating Plant on Tuesday, July 24 from 9 a.m. to 12 noon. The exercise, organized by Environmental Health & Safety, involves staging a controlled incident within the CHP and will include a response from first responders on campus as well as local fire and public safety people and vehicles.

Dining Services takes NACUFS grand prize for sustainability for permaculture project

It was a “green sweep,” so to speak, as Dining Services and the campus permaculture project won the grand prize for sustainability and the top award for Outreach and Education at the national conference of the National Association of College & University Food Services last week in Boston.
 
Matthew Biette, director of dining services at Middlebury College and chair of the NACUFS Sustainability Awards committee, said that the Dining Services sustainability program is “well known, involved just about everyone and best off, had the numbers to prove it.

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