Faculty Highlights
Al-Hariri and Acquah Selected as STRIDE Fellows
Dr. Lara Al-Hariri, senior lecturer II, and Dr. Steve Acquah, adjunct associate research professor; Digital Media Lab coordinator, W.E.B. Du Bois Library were both selected to serve on the Strategies and Tactics for Recruiting to Improve Diversity Excellence (STRIDE) Faculty Fellowship Program for the 2024-25 academic year.
Through this fellowship, the university aims to ensure that the STRIDE Faculty Recruitment Workshops remain faculty-centered and led, exploring the challenges of recruiting in a variety of settings. This is a one-year program designed to foster ongoing involvement, either through STRIDE or other recruitment-related efforts initiated during the fellowship. The program complements broader initiatives aimed at enhancing faculty recruitment by drawing on the expertise and insight of current faculty members.
Auerbach Receives Honor of Provost Professor Title
Professor Scott Auerbach will receive the honorary title of “Provost Professor” effective September 1, 2025. This prestigious recognition acknowledges individuals who have made significant contributions in both research and teaching, highlighting a well-rounded and impactful career. Auerbach is one of only three faculty receiving the lifetime honorific title. “These dedicated and exceptional faculty members exemplify the excellence of our educators,” Provost and Senior Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, Abd-El-Khalick says. “It is truly an honor to recognize their work and achievements in academic excellence, innovation, and commitment to student success.”
Auerbach is an internationally recognized scholar of zeolites, which are crystalline structures with broad potential use in the generation of clean energy and carbon dioxide capture. Auerbach is an author of two books and over 130 articles, and the founder and director of the Mahoney Family funded UMass Integrated Concentration in STEM (iCons) Program.
Lin Named UMass ADVANCE Faculty Fellow
Professor Zhou Lin has been chosen as a UMass ADVANCE Faculty Fellow. The cohort plays an important role in linking UMass ADVANCE with various campus departments where faculty equity is cultivated. Fellows offer recommendations and feedback on UMass ADVANCE programs and resources, while also advocating for its initiatives within their respective departments. A faculty member is selected from each academic department, the libraries, and other campus units with faculty, serving a twelve-month term. This network is crucial to the program's success, as it provides valuable input to the leadership team and helps promote programs and resources within their departments.
Martin Awarded Mahoney Life Science Prize
Chemistry faculty Craig Martin has been awarded the 2025 Mahoney Life Sciences Prize for his lab’s research that aims to dramatically improve manufacturing of RNA for applications ranging from basic science and drug discovery, to vaccine and therapeutic production.
mRNA is poised to dramatically accelerate the development of therapeutics for a wide variety of conditions. The rapid development and the high efficacy and safety of the COVID vaccines presages a new era of medicines. Successful protein biologics, such as monoclonal antibodies (e.g. Humira for arthritis and related conditions) or EPO for treating anemia, encompass a wide range of structures and chemistries, and so require significant efforts in formulation and delivery. In contrast, the mRNAs encoding those proteins are chemically identical, differing only in the order of the four bases. RNA serves as a “platform” technology that is readily adapted from one therapy to another.
“I’m delighted to receive this incredible honor from the College and from our Mahoney family alums,” Martin says of winning the prize. “Throughout my career at UMass we have pursued mechanistic studies of a simple model system for a fundamental process in the cell, never expecting commercial applications. About a decade ago, however, enthused by the huge potential of RNA medicines, we shifted in part towards using our fundamental understandings of the system to generate RNA of higher quality, at lower costs.”
“Our current work is informed by research going back decades,” he says. “My first PhD student, Maribeth Maslak (1994) characterized the salt dependence of transcription initiation. Later, Eddie Esposito (2005) posited that tethering the enzyme to its initial binding site in the DNA would allow initiation, but not elongation. He disproved his hypothesis, which led to new hypotheses (this is how science works!). He did show that a tethered system is salt resistant and now, twenty years later, we’re using that obscure result for practical ends!”
Interdisciplinarity has also been essential to their success. While the Martin lab envisioned a continuous flow reactor to combine with their biochemical advances, he admits that they knew nothing about fluidics systems. A timely collaboration with Professor Sarah Perry in Chemical Engineering at UMass has provided the essential key. The Perry lab is to fluidics what the Martin lab is to RNA polymerase. Together, they have built flow reactors and have developed new “add ons” to make the process even better.
The dramatic success of the mRNA COVID vaccines has shown a bright spotlight on the broad field of mRNA therapeutics. Developments initiated at UMass and continuing in a new company, Waterfall Scientific, aim to reduce costs in RNA manufacturing and achieve ultra-high purity levels to enable the development of a much broader range of RNA medicines.
Martin Startup Company Synthesizing mRNA
Waterfall Scientific, a company founded by Craig Martin (and previously known as RNA4Tx), has secured two additional co-founders and has raised pre-seed capital. The two co-founders, Melissa Moore and Inna Shcherbakova, both previously of Moderna and UMass Medical School, bring valuable industry experience to the new operation which has opened a laboratory in Worcester, MA. The company is synthesizing evaluation mRNA for therapeutics companies and will fully develop the flow manufacturing system pioneered here at UMass.
Rotello Recognized As Highly Cited
Distinguished Professor in Chemistry Vincent Rotello is one of six UMass Amherst researchers to be recognized as among the world’s most highly cited in 2024 by Clarivate Plc, a provider of data analytics. The highly cited researchers demonstrated significant and broad influence in their field of research. “We celebrate these Highly Cited Researchers whose exceptional and community-wide influence shapes the future of science, technology and academician globally,” says Bar Veinstein, president of Academia & Government at Clarivate. “We honor not just their scientific achievement but their impact of driving innovation and addressing wider societal challenges to help transform our world.”
Surampudi Selected for Instructional Innovation Fellowship
Dr. Sravan Surampudi, Senior Lecturer I, Chemistry was selected by the Instructional Design, Engagement and Support (IDEAS) team as a fellow for the third annual Instructional Innovation Fellowship (IIF).
The IIF supports UMass instructors currently engaging in creative teaching practices to share their ideas with and learn from their campus peers. IIF fellows convene monthly and rotate presenting their innovative teaching methods and approaches leveraging technology in developing dynamic lectures, equitably assessing students, and facilitating engaging activities.
Representing a variety of campus disciplines, Surampudi and ten other fellows will join a collaborative community of practice to share innovative tools, teaching methods and strategies.
Thayumanavan Receives CNS Excellence in Student Mentoring Award
Professor Sankaran (Thai) Thayumanavan received the CNS Excellence in Student Mentoring Award which honors faculty who have demonstrated exceptional commitment to mentoring students.
While Thai runs a large research group with internal mentoring support, he is still adept at personally interfacing with each of his mentees. His students repeatedly highlight how compassionate, supportive, dedicated and encouraging he is. In particular, students appreciate Thai’s ability to balance providing support with latitude, allowing them to carve out independence and autonomy in their research. Simultaneously, students note the supportive and inclusive atmosphere, where they can collaborate, share ideas, and ask questions. Thai is committed to each of his students, and his mentorship is deeply appreciated long after students leave UMass as confident, well-trained scientists.
Thayumanavan Receives Translational Seed Award
Sankaran (Thai) Thayumanavan, Department and a Distinguished Professor in Chemistry and head of Biomedical Engineering (BME), is one seven campus research teams that have been named recipients of the annual Translational Seed Awards. These translational awards advance applied R&D efforts from UMass-based faculty research groups toward the development of spin-out/startup companies and the out-licensing of UMass intellectual property.
Thai’s Polytacs research project on “Protein Scissors,” which focuses on lung cancer treatment, was selected from a highly competitive group of applicants. Awarded teams will receive seed funding of between $50,000 and $100,000 each to achieve translational milestones with the goal of moving UMass Amherst research, know-how, and scholarly and creative works toward impact through startup ventures, out-licensing of patented or copyrighted work, scalable engagement with external partner organizations, or other vehicles. Translational Seed Awards are funded by the Manning/IALS Innovation Program and the U.S. NSF Accelerating Research Translation Program.
Alumnus Paul Manning and his wife, Diane, established the Manning Innovation Program through their family foundation in 2018. Their visionary gifts have provided for multiple years of support, advancing a robust and sustainable commercialization pipeline of applied and translational research projects from UMass Amherst.
Thayumanavan Collaborates with UMass Medical
Sankaran (Thai) Thayumanavan has collaborated with researchers from UMass and the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School (UMass Med) to publish a groundbreaking paper, “Therapeutic induction of ferroptosis in tumors using PD-L1 targeting antibody nanogel conjugates” in Cell Chemical Biology.
Ferroptosis is a form of regulated cell death caused by a toxic-iron buildup of lipid peroxides in cell membranes and many researchers are trying to understand the role of ferroptosis in cancer and exploit it to improve cancer therapy.
Thayumanavan and his research group members collaborated with Professor Art Mercurio of the Department of Molecular, Cell, and Cancer Biology at UMass Chan Medical School and his research group members, which is “an awesome example of a collaborative work between UMass Med and UMass Amherst,” says Thayumanvan.
This is cutting-edge research “to gain insights into the molecular basis of ferroptosis sensitivity in the context of tumor-cell phenotype.” The goal is to use ferroptosis to target cancer tumors very specifically, suppress the cancer, reduce drug dosage, and improve therapy while also avoiding any negative side effects. The researchers have been leveraging a newfound role for a protein called PD-L1 to induce ferroptosis to evade the immune system.
Vachet Receives CNS Faculty Peer Mentoring Award
Professor Richard Vachet has received the 2025 College of Natural Sciences (CNS) Faculty Peer Mentoring Award. Started in 2024, this award is given annually to honor a CNS faculty member who has demonstrated exceptional commitment to mentoring fellow faculty members.
Vachet has been actively involved in faculty mentoring since his time as Department Head when the Chemistry Department established a new junior faculty mentoring plan. The goal of this plan has been to help de-mystify many of the activities (e.g. research proposals, graduate student advising, teaching new classes, etc.) that can be frustrating for new faculty. Over the years, Vachet has served on the mentoring committees of five colleagues in the Chemistry Department. Current Department Head Ricardo Metz notes: “Richard is a greatly sought-after faculty mentor. Faculty he has mentored praised his empathy, thoughtful advice and on-going support.”
Vachet has also actively encouraged other departments across campus to establish their own faculty peer mentoring program. He has spoken at CNS Heads and Chairs meetings and the Leadership Enhancement for Academic Departments professional development program, which is a support program for Heads/Chairs and Associate Deans across campus.
Weaver Named Assistant VP for Academic Affairs and Research
Gabriela C. Weaver, professor of chemistry, was appointed assistant vice president for academic affairs and research in the UMass Office of the President. She will lead the academic program and research enterprise for the President’s Office and will work with the state Board of Higher Education and the Provost and Research offices of each UMass campus.
Weaver has worked in the field of higher education for nearly three decades. She has served at UMass Amherst for over 10 years as a professor of chemistry and in varied administrative roles, including as assistant dean for student success in the College of Natural Sciences since 2021.
Weaver’s work focuses on transforming institutional practices to support faculty professional development and enhance student access, persistence and success in higher education. She has led several NSF-funded projects, including E2020, CASPiE, Research Goes to School and her most recent project, Transforming Teaching Evaluation (TEval), which aims to create a holistic approach to teaching evaluation that supports inclusive, research-based teaching methods.
Weaver has also been actively involved in national organizations and professional associations, serving on study committees for the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, and as a counselor for the Chemical Education Division of the American Chemical Society. The recently concluded work of a study committee on which she served for the National Academies has resulted in “Transforming Undergraduate STEM Education: Supporting Equitable and Effective Teaching,” a 2025 report published by the National Academies Press.
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