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Academic Colleges
The College of Natural Sciences (CNS) is both the newest and the oldest college at UMass Amherst. Established in 2009, the college unites the life, environmental, computational, and physical sciences, and mathematics on campus. CNS is a central nucleus of science education and research at UMass Amherst, with 15 departments, the Stockbridge School, four popular interdisciplinary graduate programs, and 6,000 undergraduates.
The College of Engineering at UMass Amherst is ranked as the best public engineering school in New England. We have a physical plant of eight buildings, including our five-year-old ELab II with its sophisticated laboratory spaces, research facilities, computer labs, and graduate offices. The College of Engineering’s network of living alumni numbers more than 16,000 around the globe.
Academic Departments
Chemical Engineering at UMass Amherst, is a dynamic Department offering a highly-rated undergraduate program and a vibrant graduate research program that balances chemical engineering fundamentals and industrial technology. Currently, the Department consists of 16 full-time faculty members, approximately 180 undergraduate students and 80 graduate students pursuing a Ph.D.
For over 130 years Chemistry at UMass Amherst continues to be the core of the chemical sciences on campus. The Department has 24 tenure - track faculty members working on research projects related to the areas of nanomaterials, chemical energy, chemical basis of disease, as well as the traditional areas of chemistry. We have a diverse and ambitious group of students including 180 undergraduate and 131 graduate students training in cutting edge educational methods, modern instrumental facilities, and original research.
With more than 200 scientists and students and well over $24 million in instrumentation, the Polymer Science and Engineering Department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst is one of the largest academic centers for polymer research in the world. Our flourishing research programs seek to expand the useful application of polymers to human needs. We host an average of 120 doctoral degree candidates and 45 postdoctoral fellows and visiting scientists, and award 15-20 doctoral degrees each year.
The Physics Department has a comprehensive graduate program offering opportunities for doctoral studies in most forefront areas of physics research, and a multi-track undergraduate program with undergraduate research opportunities. The department currently has 29 tenure-system faculty, approximately 100 graduate students, and over $5M in yearly research expenditures. In addition to traditional areas of physics research including high energy, nuclear, gravitation, and condensed matter the department has vibrant interdisciplinary programs in nanoscale physics, soft matter, and biological physics.
Centers, Institutes, Networks & Programs
The University of Massachusetts Amherst hosts a DOE-funded Energy Frontier Research Center, Polymer-based materials for Harvesting Solar Energy (PHaSE). Initial five-year funding of PHaSE totals $16 million. PHaSE’s technical focus is on basic research underpinning the conversion of the sun's energy into electrical power, using polymer-based and related composite materials. The research plan integrates the experimental and theoretical expertise of 17 faculty members from four different departments at the University with that of partner investigators from the University of Massachusetts Lowell, the University of Pittsburgh, and Pennsylvania State University. PHaSE has international collaborations with universities in Germany, Korea and Japan, and collaborates with researchers at several DOE laboratories, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and Konarka Technologies, Inc., a Massachusetts-based industrial leader in polymer-based photovoltaic devices.
The NNN is an alliance of academic, government and industry partners that cooperate to advance nanomanufacturing strength in the U.S. The mission of the NNN is to serve as a catalyst for progress in nanomanufacturing in the U.S., through the facilitation and promotion of nanomanufacturing workshops, roadmapping, inter-institutional collaborations, technology transition, test beds, and information exchange services. It is a partnership between academia, industry and government that is built to foster and serve nanomanufacturing communities of practice.
Materials research at UMass Amherst has a rich history of fundamental discovery centered in polymers and extending across the landscape of colloidal materials, surface science, and nanoscale structures. NSF support for the UMass MRSEC has been instrumental in landmark findings in polymer crystallization, block copolymer assembly for high density addressable media, ultrathin free-standing nanoscale structures, and state-of-the-art advances in polymer adhesion and self-healing. Our materials research mission merges with vibrant programs designed to educate students towards rewarding careers in science and technology.
The Center for Hierarchical Manufacturing is an NSF Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center (NSEC). The mission of The Center for Hierarchical Manufacturing (CHM) at the University of Massachusetts is to be a leading research and education center for the development of efficient, cost effective process platforms and versatile tools for the two and three dimensional integration of components and systems across multiple length scales. The approach integrates nanofabrication processes for sub-30 nm elements based on directed self-assembly, additive-driven assembly, nanoimprint lithography, high fidelity 3-D polymer template replication, and conformal deposition at the nanoscale with Si wafer technologies or high-rate roll-to-roll (R2R) based production tools to yield materials and devices with unprecedented performance for computing, energy conversion and human health. The CHM effort is made comprehensive by research on device design, modeling and prototype testing in functional architectures that takes advantage of the specific hierarchical nanomanufacturing capabilities developed by the Center.
Nanoscale device research is new territory that is calling many explorers. In the IGERT Nanotechnology Innovation program you keep your core disciplinary focus but broaden your academic horizons through multi-disciplinary exposure and an intensive two-year team project aimed at product development and commercialization. You can enter and graduate on time as an electrical engineer, for example, while learning from your polymer science and chemistry teammates and mentors from business and industry.
The MassNanoTech Institute is the University of Massachusetts Amherst’s campus-wide initiative for nanoscale science and engineering. The campus has built a strong reputation for innovation in nanoscale research, with breadth across many departments. Over 50 faculty investigators from eight departments in three colleges are working in the field of nanotechnology, generating over $36 million in research funding since 1997 from a variety of federal and industry sources. MassNanoTech provides a single point of contacts for academic and industrial collaborators.