News & Events

Susan E. Hankinson

Distinguished Professor in the Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, School of Public Health and Health Sciences at UMass Amherst, Susan E. Hankinson, has been named No. 28 in Research.com's 2022 ranking of Top 1000 Female Scientists in the World. Hankinson is also listed as No. 19 in the United States.

Assistant Professor of Dance Science Aston K. McCullough has set out to discover the potential physiological and psychological benefits of dance for those who move their bodies to the beat.

Inspired by his experience as a dancer, his study of statistics and kinesiology, and his work as a dance educator, McCullough formed an interdisciplinary team—totaling seven researchers from the Five Colleges—to study the impacts of dance on mental and physical health in adults.

Lisa Chasan-Taber

University of Massachusetts Amherst chair of the biostatistics and epidemiology in the School of Public Health and Health Sciences, Lisa Chasen-Taber, has been awarded a $2.1 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to continue research to understand how physical and mental health during pregnancy can help predict cardiovascular and mental health disorders in middle age.

What does belonging mean to you? The Building Bridges Worker Artist group invited fellow staff members to respond to this question via art.

The resulting exhibition “Building Bridges and Belonging” is on display through Nov. 4, from 6 to 7a.m., and from noon to 2 p.m.

The exhibition includes sculpture, painting, pastels, woodcarving, stitching, handmade fishing flys, books, a video game and much more.

Sundar Krishnamurty

Head of the Mechanical and Industrial Engineering (MIE) Department and the Isenberg Distinguished Professor in Engineering, Professor Sundar Krishnamurty has been honored with the 2022 Excellence in Research Award from the Computers and Information in Engineering Division of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).

UMass Amherst professor Rebecca Spencer

In a paper published Monday, Oct. 24, in a special sleep issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, lead author Rebecca Spencer describes a new theory about why and when young children transition out of naps. It’s not about age as much as the brain.

Jiakai Lu

A University of Massachusetts Amherst food scientist has been awarded two USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture grants to pursue research designed to benefit the environment and human health in different ways.

Assistant Professor Jiakai Lu was awarded a three year grant totaling $630,000, in an aim to reduce the use of conventional agricultural pesticides by developing an Eco-friendly drift reduction agent using essential oils derived from food waste, such as orange peel and culinary herbs.

The Department of Energy announced renewed funding of an interdisciplinary team of researchers at UMass Amherst in chemistry and chemical engineering, studying new ways to fabricate nanoporous zeolite crystals with targeted defect patterns, which hold promise for producing carbon-neutral biofuels and capturing carbon dioxide.

Kearney in the Lab

Biomedical engineer assistant professor Cathal Kearney received a $1.91 million grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of General Medical Sciences for his research in circadian rhythms in relation to tissue engineering.

Circadian rhythms refer to the body’s 24-hour internal clock that regulates the sleep-wake cycle but also many other important biological functions such as blood pressure and body temperature

Please join us on Tuesday, November 29, for the second annual UMass Amherst Core Facility Showcase in the Life Science Laboratories Conference Center from 1:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. 

This will be a formal program including a poster competition (with awards!), student presentations, and a plenary talk from Distinguished Professor Lila Gierasch. The full agenda is below:

AGENDA

1:00 PM         Registration (coffee, tea, and light refreshments)

1:15 PM         Welcome remarks-Andrew Vinard, Director of Core Facilities

The University of Massachusetts Amherst Institute for Applied Life Sciences (IALS) has announced that six campus research teams are recipients of the fourth annual Manning/IALS Innovation Awards. These translational grants advance applied R&D efforts from UMass-based faculty research groups towards the development of spin-out/startup companies and the out-licensing of UMass intellectual property.  

The funded projects are:

The National Science Foundation (NSF) recently announced that it will support the efforts of a collaborative group of researchers, led by Elizabeth Vierling, Distinguished Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Massachusetts Amherst,

Co-directors Frank Sup and Karen Giuliano. Leah Martin Photography

Under co-directors Karen Giuliano and Frank Sup, the center has made improving the safety and usability of IV smart pumps one of its first major projects. The team has been exploring flow-rate accuracy in a variety of settings and use cases, with the goal of developing pumps that eliminate inaccuracy “The whole idea of this center is for academic clinicians, students, nurses, and doctors to bring in industry partners,” Sup says. “It’s going to be innovative, and it’s going to make a difference.” “This work that’s being done will make its way to safety standards everywhere,” Giuliano says.

The Institute for Applied Life Sciences takes pride in training the next generation workforce, one student specifically being former PhD student Yang Yang. He graduated with a BS in Applied Chemistry from Hubei University in 2016 and then came from northern China to UMass Amherst for its leadership and innovation in the life science field. Here at UMass Amherst, he defended his dissertation on “Studies of Heterogeneous Macromolecules Using Novel ESI Mass Spectrometry Based Approaches” with the Kaltashov laboratory in the chemistry department.

The fall 2022 semester marks the launch of an interdisciplinary graduate program at UMass Amherst in materials science and engineering (MSE), involving the participation of nearly 50 faculty members from across the College of Engineering (COE) and the College of Natural Sciences (CNS). The program will offer both M.S. and Ph.D. degrees.

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