Home, For Now
Students in the course “Senior Civil Engineering Construction Methods”
are designing emergency housing structures that could one day provide
temporary shelter for people displaced by natural disasters such
as hurricanes or floods. “The challenge for the students is to have
it feel like a home,” says civil and environmental engineering professor
Alan Lutenegger. Lutenegger was inspired to offer the course after
watching a television show on disaster relief. Already, the building
industry has shown interest in the designs.
Families, Interrupted
The nearly 500,000 men and women serving abroad in the Armed Forces
know firsthand that being away from home is stressful to them and their
families. The Psychological Services Center at UMass Amherst is helping
local families handle the strain. A free 12-week program supports parents
trying to maintain healthy relationships with their overseas spouses;
another free support group focuses on children. The program, says center
director Christopher Overtree, “is a direct response to the growing
needs of military families for support during this prolonged conflict,
efforts we hope to see mirrored by other local and national organizations.”
Nobel Work on Climate Change
Raymond S. Bradley, director of the Center for Climate Change and a
Distinguished Professor of Geosciences at UMass Amherst, is one of
four campus researchers who contributed to reports issued by the United
Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in recent years.
The reports earned the panel the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, which it shares
with Al Gore. “I feel that I played a small part in this enormous endeavor,”
said Bradley, “and I’m delighted that the Nobel Committee acknowledged
all who took part.”
Fat Chance
In fall 2008, UMass Amherst will launch the nation’s first online degree
program for a master’s of public health in nutrition. The program will
enable professionals anywhere in the world to earn a master’s without
interrupting their careers and gives them valuable training in countering
such pressing social troubles as obesity and malnutrition. “To train
people worldwide in public health and nutrition, and to interact with
colleagues doing fascinating work around the globe, is extremely exciting,”
says Nancy Cohen, interim dean of the School of Public Health and Health
Sciences. “This is a great time to bring together the expertise of
UMass Amherst and the expertise of professionals in the field.”
Medicine of the Future
The Institute for Cellular Engineering has been awarded a $3 million
grant by the National Science Foundation. The grant will help train
graduate students in such areas as generating artificial organs and
tissues, and developing biological pharmaceuticals, targeted drug delivery
systems and clean-up processes for contaminated wastewater and soils.
The fellowships, training, and research opportunities funded will help
prepare students for employment in biotechnical and biomedical industries.
Our Fifteen Minutes
The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc., is donating photographs
by the late artist to the University Gallery. “The gift of 150 Polaroid
and black-and-white images vastly enhances the teaching, research and
scholarly opportunities offered by UMass Amherst,” says Loretta Yarlow,
director of the University Gallery. “The work of Andy Warhol is seminal
to the development of the visual arts and soon faculty, students, and
graduate students will be able to interact with this collection firsthand—as
curators, researchers, and scholars.”
Pressing Issues
The University of Massachusetts Press recently published The Future
of Work in Massachusetts, a collection of essays edited by labor studies
professor Tom Juravich. A growing shortage of good jobs and a lack
of family-friendly policies among employers pose major challenges for
the state’s economy and labor force, according to the book. The state
legislature has allocated funds to distribute copies of the book to
every high school and public library in the Commonwealth, as well as
to each state representative and senator. The book is the result of
a project undertaken in 2004 by the labor studies programs at the UMass
campuses in Amherst, Boston, Dartmouth, and Lowell.
Decoding Autism’s Genetic Clues
Rett Syndrome, a severe childhood neurological disease that affects
one female out of 10,000 (it occurs much less frequently in males),
is one of the most physically debilitating autistic disorders. Biology
professor Christopher Woodcock received a $100,000 grant from the International
Rett Syndrome Foundation to research causes and treatments. Woodcock
and his team will investigate the genetic mutations thought to be behind
Rett Syndrome.
