News

December, 2020
Six UMass Amherst Faculty Recognized Among 2020 World’s Most Highly Cited Researchers

Six campus researchers in the College of Natural Sciences (CNS) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have been recognized among the world’s most highly cited researchers in 2020 by London-based Clarivate Analytics, owner of the Web of Science. They have consistently had high citation counts over a decade.

Now in its seventh year, the citation analysis identifies influential researchers as determined by their peers around the world. They are judged to be influential, and their citation records are seen as “a mark of exceptional impact,” the company says.

Read full article at the UMass News Office

September, 2020
Research Shows How to Imitate Natural Spring-loaded Snapping Movement Without Losing Energy UMass Amherst materials scientists outline fundamental physics of bending into a snap

Venus flytraps do it, trap-jaw ants do it, and now materials scientists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst can do it, too – they discovered a way of efficiently converting elastic energy in a spring to kinetic energy for high-acceleration, extreme velocity movements as nature does it.

In the physics of human-made and many natural systems, converting energy from one form to another usually means losing a lot of that energy, say first author Xudong Liang and senior researcher Alfred Crosby. “There is always a high cost, and most of the energy in a conversion is lost,” Crosby says. “But we have discovered at least one mechanism that helps significantly.” Details are in Physical Review Letters.

Using high-speed imaging, Liang and Crosby measured in fine detail the recoiling, or snapping, motion of elastic bands that can reach accelerations and velocities similar to many of the natural biological systems that inspired them. By experimenting with different elastic band conformations, they discovered a mechanism for imitating ant and flytrap fast-motion, high-power impulse events with minimal energy loss.

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September, 2020
Early Detection of Soil-Surface Ozone Can Help Prevent Damage to Grape Vines and Apple Trees UMass Amherst materials chemists develop a durable leaf “tattoo” for monitoring

Farmers and fruit growers are reporting that climate change is leading to increased ozone concentrations on the soil surface in their fields and orchards – an exposure that can cause irreversible plant damage, reduce crop yields and threaten the food supply, say materials chemists led by Trisha Andrew at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Writing in Science Advances, co-first authors Jae Joon Kim and Ruolan Fan show that the Andrew lab’s method of vapor-depositing conducting polymer “tattoos” on plant leaves can allow growers to accurately detect and measure such ozone damage, even at low exposure levels. Their resilient polymer tattoos placed on the leaves allow for “frequent and long-term monitoring of cellular ozone damage in economically important crops such as grapes and apples,” Andrew says.

They write, “We selected grapes (Vitis vinifera L.) as our model plant because the fruit yield and fruit quality of grapevines decrease significantly upon exposure to ground level ozone, leading to significant economic losses.” Ground-level ozone can be produced by the interaction between the nitrates in fertilizer and the sun, for example.

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September, 2020
Grason, Greg
Greg Grason Named Fellow of the American Physical Society

Professor Greg Grason, a theoretical polymer scientist in polymer science and engineering, has been elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) by its Council of Representatives this month as recommended by the society’s Division of Polymer Physics

The society’s announcement states that the selection as an APS Fellow is a “prestigious recognition by your peers of your outstanding contributions to physics.” In the award citation, Grason is recognized “for elucidation of the role of molecular geometric packing frustration on the fundamental physics for the selection of complex self-assembled phases.”

Grason says, “I’m very honored to named APS fellow and humbled to be able to join the ranks of the many of outstanding colleagues at UMass and elsewhere who have also received this recognition.”

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June, 2020
Russell Honored with Shull Prize in Neutron Science

Professor Thomas P. Russell, polymer science and engineering, was recently honored by the Neutron Scattering Society of America with its highest honor, the Clifford G. Shull Prize in Neutron Science, for “his pivotal role in the application of neutron reflectivity and small-angle neutron scattering to polymer science and his important work on behalf of the neutron scattering community.”

The prize is named in honor of Shull, who received the Nobel Prize in 1994 with Bert Brockhouse for seminal developments in the field of neutron science.

Russell says, “I was truly honored with this recognition and was happy to have been able to have made a significant contribution to the field that has advanced our understanding of long-chain molecules in thin film and at surfaces and interfaces. It was equally rewarding to have worked with outstanding scientists at Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and a talented group of post-doctoral fellows and graduate students.”

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June, 2020
Global Team Develops Open-source N95 Respirator: UMass Amherst lab produces 3D prototype pieces for Holyoke design consultancy

In one of the latest COVID-19 response projects at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, the Advanced Digital Design and Fabrication (ADDFab) laboratory is collaborating with a global network of design, engineering and manufacturing experts to help develop an open-source N95 face mask.

ADDFab, one of the core facilities at UMass’s Institute for Applied Life Sciences, has been rapidly preparing 3D prints of prototype parts and molds for Cofab Design in Holyoke. Cofab business partner and design engineer Aaron Cantrell is one of primary leaders of the Open Standard Respirator (OSR) project, a“nonprofit effort to broaden protective equipment supply for COVID-19 and beyond.” The other leaders are biomechatronics engineer Matt Carney of the MIT Media Lab Biomechatronics Group and Philip Brown, assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center.

Read full artice at the UMass News Office

May, 2020
Experimental and Theoretical Physicists Clarify an Old Muddle

Recent correspondence in “Nature Materials” by a team of campus researchers answers a long-time question that experimental physicist Narayanan Menon says is “one of those things you should be able to look up in a textbook, a very basic question. But when you do look into the literature, there’s confusion, and it has been going on for decades. Our work isn’t screaming ‘new discovery,’ but this basic question is what we have clarified.”

In addition to Menon, the team included theoretical physicist Benny Davidovitch, polymer scientist Thomas Russell and a former UMass postdoctoral physics researcher, Deepak Kumar. He led the experiments and analysis for the report and is now starting as a new faculty member at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.

Read full article at the UMass News Office

April, 2020
Advancing Study of Traumatic Brain Injury and Other Soft-Tissue Damage – Goals, Opportunities and Guidance UMass Amherst scientists and team offer perspectives on cavitation science

A type of damage in soft materials and tissue called cavitation is one of the least-studied phenomena in physics, materials science and biology, say expert observers. But strong evidence suggesting that cavitation occurs in the brain during sudden impact leading to traumatic brain injury (TBI) has accelerated interest recently, say materials scientist Alfred Crosby at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and his team.

Crosby is the senior author of a new “Perspectives” paper this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The researchers intend it to spark fresh discussion and drive collaboration among new communities of biologists, chemists, materials scientists, physicists and others to advance knowledge. They define high-priority goals and point out new opportunities in the field of how matter deforms and flows with cavitation.

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April, 2020
UMass Amherst Engineer Sarah Perry Gets NSF CAREER Grant To Stabilize Proteins to Increase Access to Vaccines High temperature stable vaccines would be valuable in developing countries

Sarah Perry, a chemical engineer at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, is studying a new approach to protein stabilization based on how cells work at body temperature. The research is aimed at boosting the accessibility of vaccines and other therapeutics, especially in developing countries, and extending the reach of temperature-stable proteins to sensing and catalysis applications.

The research is funded with a five-year, $657,920 grant from the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program. Perry’s Research Group is based at the Institute for Applied Life Sciences at UMass Amherst.

Formulations of vaccines or biologics come as solutions of protein in water. However, most purified proteins and vaccine formulations are extremely sensitive to temperature and must be kept refrigerated. In fact, the need to maintain refrigeration during the storage and transportation of these vaccines is a tremendous expense and logistical challenge for both doctors and patients. Maintaining this “cold chain” becomes even more daunting for people who take daily doses of temperature-sensitive biologics to treat diseases such as arthritis and multiple sclerosis.

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March, 2020
UMass Amherst Engineers Receive NSF Grant to Find Ways To Prevent Bacterial Infections from Common Medical Devices: New materials and coatings could prevent frequent sources of infections

In an effort to combat a major source of serious bacterial infections, chemical engineers Jessica Schiffman and Lauren B. Andrews at the University of Massachusetts Amherst are studying how bacteria attach themselves to polymer materials used in biomedical devices such as catheters, implants, wound dressings and contact lenses. The goal is to help prevent infections by developing new biofouling resistant materials.

The research is funded with a three-year, $515,473 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) that supports fundamental research on how bacteria attach to polymer materials and how to re-engineer hydrogel-coated biomedical devices.

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