Six New Faculty Join Natural Sciences and Mathematics at UMass Amherst

Dec. 13, 2000

AMHERST, Mass. - Six new faculty members have joined the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics at the University of Massachusetts this autumn. They are as follows:

Jeffrey Podos – Podos is an assistant professor in the biology department. His research focuses on the mechanisms and evolution of animal behavior, particularly vocal behavior in songbirds, and integrates laboratory and field perspectives. The lab studies aim to characterize the influences of acoustic experience and production mechanics on vocal development in songbirds. The field studies are conducted largely in the Neotropics, with a current emphasis on Darwin’s finches of the Gal?pagos Islands, in Ecuador. Podos is exploring how the diversification of beak morphology has shaped the evolution of vocal proficiency and song structure. He earned his bachelor’s degree at Franklin and Marshall College, and received a Ph.D. at Duke University. His postdoctoral research was conducted at the University of Arizona.

Todd Emrick – An assistant professor in polymer science and engineering, Emrick studies problems in organic chemistry and polymer science. "The basis for polymer synthesis, meaning the preparation of very large molecules (called macromolecules), is found in the reactions of small organic molecules," explains Emrick. "Much of what is commonly referred to as polymer chemistry depends critically on the various interactions of these small organic compounds. However, the ultimate properties of polymers differ enormously from small molecules, which makes the field of polymer science both fascinating for fundamental study, and practical from the standpoint of commercial applications." His research group will concentrate on organic aspects of polymer science with an emphasis on new materials. The value of new materials is in their potential to be used in many applications, Emrick notes. Some of the materials are relevant to nanotechnology. Other efforts will include the synthesis of polymeric biomaterials that will have uses in medicine, including such areas as bioadhesion and the use of macromolecules in drug-therapy treatments. Emrick earned his bachelor’s degree at Juniata College in Huntingdon, Penn., and received a Ph.D. in chemistry at the University of Chicago.

Yin-Long Qiu – An assistant professor in biology, Qiu studies the relationships between organismal phylogenetics and evolutionary genomics. He uses molecular genetic techniques and bioinformatic tools to investigate the evolution of genes and genomes. Qiu did his undergraduate work at Nanjing Agricultural University in China, and received a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina. He conducted postdoctoral work at Indiana University.

Carlo Dallapiccola – A faculty member in the physics department, Dallapiccola works in the field of experimental high-energy particle physics, studying the behavior of subatomic particles. He is currently working on the BaBar project, an experiment being carried out at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, a government laboratory near Stanford University in California. In this experiment, scientists accelerate electrons, one of the subatomic particles of which atoms are made, to nearly the speed of light and collide them with anti-electrons, the anti-matter partner of the electron. "Many interesting, rare particles are created from these collisions. Our goal is to investigate minute differences between the behavior of matter and anti-matter," said Dallapiccola. He received his Ph.D. at the University of Colorado.

Min Yun – An assistant professor in the astronomy department, Yun’s main scientific interest is in the formation and evolution of galaxies. He is particularly interested in the phenomenon called "starburst," which describes a galaxy forming stars at a level hundreds or thousands of times that of normal galaxies like our own, usually because it has recently experienced a catastrophic event like a head-on collision with a neighbor at a velocity exceeding one million miles per hour. "New observational and theoretical studies suggest that this phenomenon may have been far more common in the early universe when the galaxies were forming for the first time," Yun said. He will be working on the Large Millimeter Telescope (LMT) project, a joint venture between UMass and Mexico to build the largest radio telescope in the world working at millimeter wavelengths. Yun is a graduate of the California Institute of Technology and Harvard University. He conducted postdoctoral research work at Caltech, and briefly held the post of staff scientist at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory before arriving in Amherst.

Paola Sebastiani – An assistant professor in mathematics and statistics, Sebastiani is also founder and chief scientific officer of Bayesware Ltd., a start-up company developing knowledge-discovery software. Her research interests range from foundations of statistics and design of experiments, to the application of Bayesian statistical methods in machine learning and artificial intelligence. A long-standing collaboration with researchers in artificial intelligence has resulted in a computer program called Bayesian Knowledge Discoverer (BKD), which automatically generates Bayesian models from data. Sebastiani is also involved in applying Bayesian methods to the development of bioinformatics programs for genomic analysis. She completed undergraduate work at the University of Perugia, Italy, and earned a master’s degree from University College, London. Sebastiani received her Ph.D. from the University of Rome. From 1990-95, she was a researcher at the University of Perugia. She held faculty positions at Imperial College and the City University of London, as well as at the Open University, a distance-learning institution.

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