News

UMass Amherst Economist Léonce Ndikumana Nominated to U.N. Committee for Development Policy

AMHERST, Mass. – Léonce Ndikumana, professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, has been nominated by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to serve on the U.N. Committee for Development Policy (CDP) in 2013-15.
 
The CDP is a subsidiary body of the United Nations Economic and Social Council. It provides information and independent advice to the council on emerging cross-sectoral development issues and on international cooperation for development, focusing on medium- and long-term aspects.

PVLSI Announces Licensing Agreement of Intellectual Property to Seahorse Bioscience, Inc.

Seahorse Biosciences has licensed a patent, titled “Methods, Compositions and Kits for Assaying Mitochondrial Function,” developed in the laboratory of Dr. Nagendra Yadava, the John Adams Investigator at the Pioneer Valley Life Sciences Institute (PVLSI) and Alejandro Heuck, an assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. 
 
The patent describes a new method for creating small apertures in the cellular membrane, which will allow scientists to examine and better understand the inner mechanics of the cell and how it is using and making

UMass Amherst Hosts Annual Community Breakfast Aug. 29

AMHERST, Mass. – The 46th Annual Community Breakfast will be held on Wednesday, Aug. 29 from 7:30-9 a.m. in the Student Union Ballroom at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The event is open to the public.
 
Jointly sponsored by UMass Amherst and the Amherst Area Chamber of Commerce, the breakfast traditionally marks the beginning of the academic year and offers a chance for representatives of the local, academic and business communities to meet and discuss common goals and issues.
 
Speakers at the breakfast will include UMass Amherst Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy, who took office July

UMass Amherst Names John K. Horvath as the New Police Chief and Director of Public Safety

AMHERST, Mass. – The University of Massachusetts Amherst has appointed John K. Horvath of the Hartford Police Department in Connecticut to be the new police chief and director of public safety. He succeeds Johnny Whitehead, who served as chief from 2009 until this past February. Horvath begins his new duties in September.
 
James P. Sheehan, UMass Amherst’s vice chancellor for administration and finance, announced the appointment.

UMass Amherst’s Institute for Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies Offers Docent Training for High School Students

AMHERST, Mass. – The Institute for Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst will offer a training session on Wednesday, Aug. 22 from noon to 2:30 p.m. for high school students interested in learning how to lead their peers through the institute’s permanent Holocaust teaching exhibition, “A Reason to Remember: Roth, Germany, 1933-1942.”  

Led by an experienced docent of the exhibit, Anne Stagg, the workshop will introduce students to the exhibition and its origins and encourage further study and training in order to become student tour facilitators

UMass Amherst Isenberg School of Management Offers New Management Strategy Courses in Downtown Boston

AMHERST, Mass. – The Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts Amherst is launching its Boston-based Executive Suite, a new innovative blended portfolio of three online and in person management strategy classes for business professionals. The classes are available through Isenberg’s MBA program and will be taught online and at the University of Massachusetts Club at 225 Franklin St., Boston, 33rd floor beginning in September.
 
The courses are available to individuals and business professionals, but without the need to apply for a degree or certificate.

UMass Amherst Lauds Approval of New State Law That Boosts Funding for Research

AMHERST, Mass. – Officials at the University of Massachusetts Amherst say a new state law that provides $50 million in state matching funds for institutions pursuing major research and development grants is a powerful new tool that will boost the state’s innovation economy.
 
The new law, part of an omnibus economic development bill, signed by Gov. Deval Patrick today after approval by the House and Senate, provides $50 million in bond funding to attract large-scale, long-term sponsored research and development activities. Half the money is reserved for UMass projects.

UMass Amherst Engineer Builds Low-Cost Device to Purify Human Waste, Make Compost and Generate Electricity

AMHERST, Mass. – Caitlyn Shea Butler, a civil engineering professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, 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.

UMass Amherst, National Team Define Limits of Microbial Life in an Undersea Volcano

AMHERST, Mass. – 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 at the University of Massachusetts Amherst 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

UMass Amherst Hosts Inaugural Meeting of the North American Wind Energy Academy Aug. 7-9

AMHERST, Mass. – The University of Massachusetts Amherst will host the inaugural meeting of the North American Wind Energy Academy (NAWEA) Aug. 7-9 with a series of talks and workshops to be held in Engineering Lab 1 and Lab 2 on the north side of the campus.
 
NAWEA is an organization of universities, research laboratories and industry participants dedicated to coordinating wind energy research and education activities in order to advance the state of wind energy technology and to develop the next generation of wind energy engineers, researchers, scientists and innovators in North America.
 

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