Engineering News

Business grad Mai Pham and engineering alum Nabil Saleh, who both landed jobs at Dell Technologies after graduation, returned to campus to tell students about opportunities in the field of supply chain operations.

Engineering student Shawn Reese had a summer internship at M.I.T.’s Lincoln Laboratory. He is beginning work on a four-year degree in engineering at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell.

The Center for Promotion of Health in the New England Workplace (CPH-NEW) has launched an online continuing education program to help nurses prevent musculoskeletal injuries in clinical care settings.

The Massachusetts Life Sciences Center sponsored nine high school students to do research for eight weeks on campus under its High School Apprenticeship Challenge program.

The Mechanical Engineering and Computer Science departments have moved to a remodeled (and renamed) Dandeneau Hall – one of Facilities Management’s several major renovation projects this summer.

Slated to open next year on campus, a new center will provide students with access to Dassault Systemes' 3DEXPERIENCE platform and its design and collaboration applications.

The new RAMP summer camp for incoming women engineering students aims to build their skills and connect them with future mentors so they stay the course. The first-year students say it’s boosting their confidence – and helping them make friends.

UML assistant professor of chemical engineering Gulden Camci-Unal's research uses structures inspired by origami for tissue regeneration.

Origami – the Japanese art of folding paper into shapes and figures – dates back to the sixth century. At UMass Lowell, it is inspiring researchers as they develop a 21st century solution to the shortage of tissue and organ donors. 

UMass Lowell seniors Benjamin Tran, 21, and senior Katie Elwell, 22, of Tewksbury, created a wind turbine component of the renewable energy "traveling classroom" for their mechanical engineering capstone.

Invitation to Innovation, which was held May 4 at the Tsongas Center, was attended by more than 2,000 schoolchildren, educators and community and corporate partners.

Mechanical engineering senior Deborah Fowler and chemical engineering senior Erin Shaughnessey have each won a 2018 Graduate Research Fellowship Program award from the National Science Foundation.

Industrious and driven to entrepreneurship, 25-year-old mechanical engineering grad Justin Lozier ’17 invented TopaCan, “the most convenient ashtray in the world.” 

A dozen civil and environmental engineering majors created their own senior capstone class to take on the challenge of designing home sanitation systems for a community in Haiti. The students traveled to Haiti to learn more about the people and local conditions.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has awarded a group of UMass Lowell student researchers a “P3” grant to develop an innovative technology that would turn seafood waste into fertilizer.

The smart jewelry company began in 2016 as a DifferenceMaker project but is gaining big-time sparkle as it launches to the rest of the world.

Sixty academic, government and industry leaders and researchers from across the region came together for “The Internet of Things: Enabling Technologies & Emerging Trends,” a forum hosted by the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation and the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative.

Robert S. Ward, president and CEO of California-based ExThera Medical Corp. and a 1971 chemical engineering graduate of UMass Lowell, has been elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering.

Mechanical engineer students, led by senior lecturer Michele Putko, are helping improve energy efficiency at the Lowell Transitional Living Center through an independent study project funded by a mini-grant from the university’s Sustainability Encouragement & Enrichment Development (S.E.E.D.) Fund.

Prof. Oliver C. Ibe of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering has been named a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors.

Chemical engineering Assistant Professor Gulden Camci-Unal and her team of student researchers are designing new biomaterials that could someday be used to repair, replace or regenerate skin, bone, cartilage, heart valve, heart muscle and blood vessels, among others.

A group of engineers from iRobot, including alumni Eva Moscat and Anne (Faber) Gambino, shared how they overcame academic adversity during a panel discussion with STEM students dubbed “#PermissionToFail.”

A new research partnership between Avangrid, its subsidiary Central Maine Power and UMass Lowell will bring together researchers from the company and the university to advance the development and implementation of clean energy technologies - including hydropower, wind energy, power grids, energy storage and data sciences - over the next decade. UMass Lowell students will also benefit from the partnership, which calls for them to participate in on-campus research and for CMP to explore opportunities for co-ops, internships and fellowships. 

The NERVE Center and Toxics Use Reduction Institute both moved to new homes over winter break, while Facilities Management steamed ahead on renovations at Perry and Pasteur halls and on the construction of University Suites Dining.

Assoc. Prof. Sukesh Aghara, director of UMass Lowell’s Nuclear Engineering Program, shares his perspective on what we can expect to see in the geopolitical landscape in the coming year.

E Ink is expanding its partnership with UMass Lowell beyond co-ops and internships, thanks to a $196,000 workforce training grant that the Division of Online and Continuing Education helped the high-tech company obtain from the state and the opening of more innovation labs on campus.

Students learned about potential careers in the growing field of sales engineering at an alumni panel discussion co-sponsored by the Francis College of Engineering and the Manning School of Business.

Thanks to the support of the Pernick Fund, faculty and students at UMass Lowell and Shenkar College of Engineering, Design and Art in Israel have joined forces to study and produce new coatings that make surfaces from glass to metal self-cleaning. That research, which is covered by two patents, could revolutionize the aerospace, automotive and building industries, among others. 

How do you take the world by storm while lending it a hand? The co-founders and partners in Nonspec Inc., an emerging business that makes affordable prosthetics, are finding out after they landed a $50,000 prize as one of the Top 26 startups at MassChallenge, the Boston-based business accelerator. 

Engineering students from the River Hawk Racing club have teamed up with business students from Collegiate DECA to build a race car that will compete next summer at an international event hosted by the Society of Automotive Engineers in Lincoln, Neb.  

Evan Jones and Andrew Terrill, both freshmen in the Francis College of Engineering, turn heads and draw smiles by riding unicycles to get around campus.

Two UMass Lowell graduate students were part of the teams that recently won top prizes at two “hackathons” organized by MIT, the U.S. Department of Defense MD5 program and the Naval Postgraduate School.

Asst. Prof. Kacey Beddoes has won a prestigious National Science Foundation grant to investigate how gender affects the workplace experiences of new engineers.

UML Professor Sam Mil'shtein and three of his Electrical Engineering students, led by Mukhammaddin Zinaddinov, recently partnered on the project, with the UML contingent visiting the high school on a weekly basis.

Prof. Joey Mead of the Department of Plastics Engineering, a highly regarded teacher and researcher, has been named Distinguished University Professor, the top accolade bestowed on a UMass Lowell faculty member.

For her first honors class at UMass Lowell, plastics engineering major Brianna Atwood wanted to do community service. She called a neighbor, the nun who is principal of the St. Patrick School in Lowell, and soon had a dozen student volunteers tutoring in multiple languages.

UMass Lowell engineers are creating new, cost-effective sensor-laden textiles that can be used to monitor the structural health of vital infrastructures across the country.

Electrical engineering alum Vala Afshar ’94, ’96, chief digital evangelist at Salesforce, shared his insights with students on business trends and the power of social media.

NextFlex has awarded three projects with a total contract value of $4.4 million to researchers from the UMass Lowell Nanomanufacturing Center, defense contractor Raytheon IDS and SI2 Technologies.

NextFlex has awarded three grants of more than $4 million to teams of researchers from the UMass Lowell Nanomanufacturing Center and defense contractor Raytheon IDS.

The university’s new Urban Agriculture Greenhouse, run in partnership with Mill City Grows, will be a testing ground for water and energy efficiency — while also providing food for the local community.

Every year, more than 200 first-year students receive merit-based, $4,000 Co-op Scholarships in their acceptance packages. The scholarships pay them to do research with a faculty member, intern at a community agency or study abroad.

Should your self-driving car protect you at all costs? Or should it drive you into a ditch to avoid hitting a school bus? The National Science Foundation has awarded a $556,000 grant to three philosophers, a transportation engineer and two public health experts so they can figure out ethical safety algorithms for self-driving cars.

Michael and Nicholas Forsyth of Acton mirror more than each other’s appearances – the identical twins, after five years sharing the same classes, textbooks, and college commute, recently graduated with master’s degrees from UMass Lowell and with plans to pursue careers in robotics.

Prof. Donald Leitch, who taught the first cohort of undergraduates to major in civil and environmental engineering at Lowell Tech, is still going strong after 49 years and two university name changes. The founding adviser of the Concrete Canoe Team and the student chapter of ASCE won the 2017 Manning Prize for Excellence in Teaching, UMass Lowell’s top teaching award.

UMass Lowell’s role as a leader in the emerging energy industry got a lift from a recent $95,000 grant from the UMass President’s Science & Technology (S&T) Initiatives Fund.

A new UMass systemwide research center, launched with a $25,000 grant by the UMass President’s Science & Technology Initiatives Fund, will study the science of how bone and muscle systems work under different conditions.

Nathaniel Swanson's love of chemistry started at Ipswich High School. Now, the UMass Lowell graduate is moving on to his dream job to work in cancer treatment. Swanson, 22, was picked as one of four out of more than 1,000 applicants for a two-year rotational program at Genentech Inc. in San Francisco.

The university’s construction projects are kicking into high gear this summer, from the renovations of Perry and Pasteur halls to the completion of the new Fox Hall elevators and Haverhill satellite campus.

The university’s first-ever Invitation to Innovation (i2i) event drew a crowd of more than 1,000 to see student projects, research and products coming out of the university’s labs and classrooms.

The UMass President’s Office recently awarded a total of $75,000 to three teams of UMass Lowell faculty researchers to develop new technologies aimed at detecting cancer, improving the cost and quality of plastic products and creating highly stable battery power supplies.

The two students, one undergraduate and one graduate, selected by a panel of administrators to deliver speeches at Commencement won the honor through hard work and inspirational messages.

The Model United Nations Team brought home six awards from its latest competition in Belgium and recently hosted its 13th annual Model U.N. for regional high schools. Alumni have started Model U.N. clubs at area schools whose graduates often matriculate at UMass Lowell and join the team.

Physics Asst. Prof. Wei Guo and mechanical engineering Assoc. Prof. Fuqiang Liu are among seven early-stage researchers recently awarded funding through the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC) Catalyst Program to develop promising products and technologies in the fields of clean energy and clean water.

UMass Lowell has named its engineering MakerSpace in honor of business leader and alumnus Lawrence Lin at a dedication ceremony attended by students, faculty, staff and industry representatives.

Mechanical engineering alum Marcelle Durrenberger ’16 is working with rocket scientists at Los Angeles “fashion-tech design house” to revolutionize the high-heel shoe.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) recently awarded a team of nuclear engineers and scientists led by chemical engineering Assoc. Prof. Dean Wang a three-year, $800,000 grant to develop tools to help keep America’s nuclear power plants safe during extended power disruptions.

UMass Lowell and UMass Medical School, together with MIT, are spearheading the state's efforts in the newly formed National Institute for Innovation in Manufacturing Biopharmaceuticals.

The four oldest Forsyth brothers came to UMass Lowell to study engineering — and more of their siblings could follow in other programs.

Honors students are learning about the hero’s quest in a new film and literature class, A Call to Adventure, and preparing to become the heroes of their own adventurous lives.

The university has launched Making WAVES, a campuswide effort to address barriers to professional advancement for women and minority faculty in STEM fields. A five-year, $3.5 million National Science Foundation grant is supporting the research initiative.

With the groundbreaking vLabs:Engineering project, students can access the university’s full suite of graphics-intensive engineering software from any internet-connected device, even their phones.

The Toxic Use Reduction Institute has funded three UMass research projects, aiming to find safer alternatives to toxic chemicals that harm human health and the environment.

Mechanical engineering students visited Lowell middle schools and after-school programs to get kids excited about science. It was a service-learning project that was part of a required course, Materials Science for Engineers.

Chemical engineering major New Michael Ingemi is a writer, performer and co-founder of Asperger’s Are Us, a comedy troupe that’s the subject of a new documentary by the same name.

NextFlex, a public-private consortium of companies, academic institutions, nonprofits, and government, has awarded a $1.89 million grant to a team of researchers from the UMass Lowell Nanomanufacturing Center and Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems.

The recent student-organized Graduate Volunteer Day gave grad students across all disciplines a chance to help the local community while building connections with one another.

Students from the eNABLE Lowell group fitted 8-year-old Liam Haggerty with a custom-made artificial hand at the South Campus basketball court.

Mechanical Engineering Asst. Prof. Scott Stapleton and research collaborators are developing tissue-engineered heart valves that can be implanted in a less invasive procedure that can cut the cost of the operation and the patient’s hospital recovery time, especially for the young and elderly.

Mechanical engineering Ph.D. student Tina Dardeno ’14, who was awarded an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Award, is developing a non-contact, non-invasive method for monitoring the insertion and seating of cementless femoral implants in real-time.

Asst. Prof. Joyita Dutta, who leads the Biomedical Imaging and Data Sciences Laboratory at UMass Lowell, is working to develop novel image- and data-processing tools that merge traditional signal processing with the emerging field of data science.

A team of researchers led by electrical and computer engineering Assoc. Prof. Hengyong Yu is developing a new ultralow-dose CT screening method to improve the image quality and resolution of CT scans while reducing the radiation dose.

The Francis College of Engineering has launched a biomedical engineering (BME) undergraduate bachelor’s degree program this fall, the first offered by a public university in the Commonwealth.

Chemical engineering Asst. Prof. Prakash Rai was awarded a grant by the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health (NCI/NIH) totaling more than $725,000 to study a combined, nanotechnology-based diagnostic/therapeutic strategy for the targeted treatment of breast cancer.

In unveiling a fresh structure, the university’s engine of entrepreneurship and economic development celebrates those who get it there.

Sophomore plastics engineering major Brian Amici combines his love of domino designs and Taylor Swift’s music into an internet sensation.

Twenty-two-year-old plastics engineering senior Michael Akerstrom has been racing speedboats in international circuits since 2013.

Senior mechanical engineering major Jesse Knowlton and chemistry grad Kelly Dinning ’16 won a quidditch national championship with Boston Night Riders team.

In study-abroad course in Czech Republic, Assoc. Prof. Jana Sladkova’s students see immigration issues and refugee crisis through different lens.

Mechanical engineering Prof. Christopher Niezrecki and Asst. Prof. Murat Inalpolat are among the researchers from eight academic and research institutions across the state who have received grants from the Commonwealth totaling nearly $700,000 to advance offshore wind energy research and development.

A group of psychology, math, engineering and education professors and students, working with fiber artists, are using textiles to teach STEM concepts with the hope of reducing math anxiety in girls and young women and improving learning for all.

At UMass Lowell, high-merit students in the Co-op Scholars Program are given opportunities to conduct summer research after their freshman year.

A new partnership with Hanscom Air Force Base is expanding. It’s just one highlight of the Division of Online and Continuing Education’s workforce development program.

Three teams of UMass Lowell researchers — led by Prof. Holly Yanco and Assoc. Prof. Yu Cao, both from the Department of Computer Science, and Asst. Prof. Seongkyu Yoon from Chemical Engineering — are among the recipients of $834,000 in grants from this year’s UMass President Science & Technology Initiatives Fund.

More than two dozen people from across the campus community share what’s on their summer reading lists. Their responses run the gamut—with authors ranging from the Dalai Lama to Kurt Vonnegut and topics spanning quantum physics to dieting strategies, and everything in between.

A team of 16 students from the Francis College of Engineering and Manning School of Business took second place in the national Collegiate Wind Competition.

Held each spring, the Student Research and Community Engagement Symposium enables students to showcase their work through presentations to peers, faculty and guests. 

Mechanical Engineering Asst. Prof. Juan Pablo Trelles is developing a new process to convert waste carbon dioxide from power plants and factories into sustainable fuels and high-value chemicals.

As they prepare for commencement, some of our seniors reflect on how they found their place at UMass Lowell and what legacy they’d like to leave behind.

If everything goes as planned, in 2018 a small satellite designed and built by a team of undergraduate students will be launched into Earth orbit.

College Writing II students visited Lowell High to speak about college as part of a study on whether service learning leads to better academic outcomes for UMass Lowell students.

Ten teams pitched and vied for a piece of the $35,000 purse in the fourth annual DifferenceMaker Idea Challenge.

One year after receiving a $4 million grant, students like Kyle Homan are already working in the high-tech Printed Electronics Research Collaborative at UMass Lowell.

A team of researchers led by Prof. Peter Avitabile recently received more than $425,000 in funding from Eglin Air Force Base to help improve the efficiency of the bunker buster’s conventional fuze.

The Navy recently awarded Asst. Prof. Alireza V. Amirkhizi with a three-year grant totaling more than $300,000 to find the mechanisms of premature wear, damage or failure in materials exposed to cavitation conditions.

Spring Career Fair gives alumni like Tiffany Soun a chance to extend a helping hand to students seeking co-ops, internships and full-time positions.

Nearly 100 students from across the region gathered at the Innovation Hub to bring good things to life — by hacking them.

To harness the power of "Big Data," a team of university researchers are building a campus network cyber infrastructure to quickly access and share vast datasets with other collaborators.

Asst. Prof. Juan Pablo Trelles and his team are synthesizing sustainable fuels using solar energy and carbon dioxide as well as water or methane from natural gas.

More than 30 middle-school and high-school students from the Merrimack Valley spent six weeks at UMass Lowell, designing and building a robot for an international robotics competition.

T-shirt cannons, sled races and a blue-haired dean highlight the Francis College of Engineering’s annual Dean’s Cup Challenge during National Engineers Week.

Two UMass Lowell students, Felipe Nascimento and Upkar Singh, co-founded startup Veloxity, maker of the new cell phone charging kiosk located at University Crossing.

Faculty and students from a wide swath of disciplines demonstrate why the university is increasingly becoming known for its entrepreneurial prowess.

Three students from the Francis College of Engineering turn coveted internships at Tesla Motors in California into launching pads for young careers.

New graduate degrees combine specialized knowledge in humanities and sciences with business management, data analysis and leadership skills.

The Massachusetts Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MassMEP) and the university recently joined forces to expand training options in advanced manufacturing in the northeastern region of the state.

Officials from UMass Lowell and the Massachusetts Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MassMEP) on Friday morning formally announced a partnership under which university instructors will teach MassMEP's Advanced CNC (computer numerical control) training program.

Environmental straight-talker Naomi Oreskes urges students to focus on solutions — and forget the doubters — at sixth annual Climate Change Teach-In.

UMass Lowell seniors, twins Elizabeth and Laura Kender and their brother Stephen, a UML sophomore, are developing a flexible, modular body armor for sports protective equipment.

Chancellor Jacqueline Moloney and keynote speaker Clancy Martin welcomed new students at the annual convocation ceremony and urged them to make the most of their opportunities at UMass Lowell.

Thanks to a $1 million grant from a federally funded program and a unique partnership between global defense giant Raytheon Co. and UMass Lowell, researchers at the Raytheon-UMass Lowell Research Institute (RURI) are helping bring the future of 3D-printed flexible electronics one step closer to reality.

Prof. Martin Margala of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering has been awarded the Fulbright-Czech Technical University Distinguished Chair in Electrical Engineering.

Electrical and computer engineering Prof. Ziyad Salameh has been honored by the IEEE Power & Energy Society with the 2015 Ramakumar Family Renewable Energy Excellence Award in recognition of his contributions to the field.

UMass Lowell student Colin Senechal works in a university laboratory inspecting plastic pellets that are used to fabricate lightweight structures for space exploration. Senechal, a plastics engineering major from Ipswich, gained the chance to work on the project through the university’s Co-op Scholar Program.

UMass Lowell students showcased their ingenuity and intellectual prowess by racking up numerous honors and awards in nationwide competitions this spring and summer.

A group of aspiring scientists and engineers met at UMass Lowell to discuss and collaborate on solutions to such critical issues as renewable energy, recycling and toxic chemicals in laundry detergents. The group was made of female high-school students from the area at UMass Lowell's weeklong Engineering for Sustainability camp.

The university’s new co-op partnership with Kronos gives students opportunities to dive into meaningful and productive work.

The Toxic Use Reduction Institute hosted business leaders at its biannual Greener Materials Research Symposium and funded two UMass Lowell faculty member research projects.

Engineers at the Raytheon University of Massachusetts Lowell Research Institute are developing ways to print complex electronic circuits and microwave components.

Students from India, Japan, China, Guyana and Thailand collaborate with UMass Lowell students on campus in expanded Global Entrepreneurship and Innovation course.

Massachusetts Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MassMEP), a leading resource for manufacturing companies in Massachusetts, and UMass Lowell’s Francis College of Engineering are partnering to expand delivery of the MassMEP Advanced CNC (Computer Numerical Control) Training Program in Massachusetts.

Members of the UMass Lowell concrete canoe team are heading to Clemson University in South Carolina to go against 22 other collegiate teams from across North America.

Thanks to UMass Lowell engineering students, children with complex medical needs at Billerica's New England Pediatric Center (NEPC) can experience the fun of an interactive Nerf game.

UMass Lowell researcher Christopher Hansen has secured $579,000 in a NASA grant for his project to develop lightweight interlocking construction materials to be used to build space stations and other structures for space explorations.

The Alumni Admissions Volunteer Program connects alumni with prospective students across the world, building excitement and increasing applications.

Margo T. Oge '72, ’75, a former director at the Environmental Protection Agency, visited campus recently to talk to students and faculty as part of Engineering Dean Joseph Hartman’s colloquium series.

Internationally known Native Canadian playwright and author Drew Hayden Taylor led classes and met with dozens of students during his recent visit to campus as part of the "Theatre Lives" program.

Students will bring concepts to life in a new space repurposed from the former North Campus bookstore.

UMass Lowell's graduate programs in business, education and engineering are among the top in the nation, according to new rankings from U.S. News & World Report.

Alum Lisa Brothers, president and CEO, Nitsch Engineering, talks about the influences in her career how UMass Lowell played a key part in that.

Barrage of snowstorms and subfreezing temperatures on New England likely to persist for a while, according to a university weather expert.

The “Global Immersion in Innovation and Entrepreneurship” course returned to India over winter break, with 17 UMass Lowell students learning through multicultural and multidisciplinary activities.

Experiments conducted by UMass Lowell engineering Asst. Prof. David Willis reveal plausible explanations for deflated Patriots’ footballs.

Junior back Marzana Fiedtkou of Guyana becomes the first member of the UMass Lowell field hockey program to represent a national team.

Students from across the campus developed business plans and prototypes in the latest round of DifferenceMaker contests.

Waltham-based Raytheon Co. is planning to invest at least $50 million over the next seven years to establish a campus in Kuwait for UMass Lowell, officials said.

A team of electrical engineering and computer science students has built and tested a solar/electric-powered quadricycle that could ferry up to four passengers without consuming a single drop of gas.

Waltham-based defense contractor Raytheon Co. and UMass Lowell officially opened a research center on the UMass Lowell campus with a Friday ceremony.

Convocation and opening events welcomed students back to campus and challenged them to make it their best year yet.

More than 100 rising sophomores participated in the Co-op Scholar Program this summer, working in labs, conducting research and getting professional experience.

Margaret Sobkowicz-Kline, an assistant professor in the UMass Lowell plastics engineering department, won a $400,000 five-year grant from NSF to explore ways to improve plastics made from the inedible portions of sugarcane and to help encourage more women to become plastics engineers.

TURI and state legislators recognize Prof. Sammy Shina for his research to get lead out of electronics.

A new industry-driven consortium led by UMass Lowell is one of 19 partnerships awarded advanced manufacturing technology grants by the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

A return visit to campus for alum Edwin Garro, president of PXS Performance Excellence Solutions, has strengthened the bonds with his alma mater and opened up new possibilities for international collaboration.

Recent graduate Per Onsager and alum Craig Miller have one important thing in common: Both hold the somewhat unusual belief that engineers can make a difference in people’s lives, by solving problems that many of us have the luxury of taking for granted.

A new wind energy research center received funding from the National Science Foundation to help foster industry, academic and government collaborations.

With Commencement approaching, several graduating seniors reflect on their experiences at UMass Lowell, how they've changed and what comes next.

Nonspec — a startup company established by engineering-students-turned-entrepreneurs — won $25,000 at the annual American Society of Mechanical Engineers Innovation Showcase.

This year marks the 45th anniversary of UMass Lowell’s Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, which was founded in 1969 by Prof. Allan T. Gifford, who served as its first chairman.

The new UMass Lowell Innovation Hub will provide entrepreneurs and startup ventures with assistance in developing and launching high-growth businesses.

UMass Lowell hosted this year’s American Society of Civil Engineers steel bridge and concrete canoe regional competitions.

A class of mechanical engineering students under Asst. Prof. Christopher Hansen has been working with the Lowell Transitional Living Center to improve the cots used in the Center’s Winter Emergency Bed Program. 

As online enrollments grow, faculty members continue to develop ways to optimize student engagement.

UMass Lowell alumnus Phillip Gibson of the Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center performed tests at the Natick lab last year to help Burlington, Vt.-based company Burton Snowboards pick a fabric for the team’s official uniforms for the Winter Olympic Games.

Students studying entrepreneurship in India over winter break got hands-on experience with international business development.

Aldo Beqiraj has a vision to create a virtual lost-and-found on a global scale. UMass Lowell senior Beqiraj is CEO of Bringrr, a company that provides an electronic tagging system to keep track of your belongings through your smartphone. It also has a patent on a one-of-a-kind charger that will notify you if you're driving away from your phone and have left it behind.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has recently recognized Asst. Prof. Meg Sobkowicz-Kline in the Plastics Engineering Department with a prestigious faculty early career development prize, called the “CAREER” award.

The Massachusetts Medical Device Development Center (M2D2) — in partnership with Nutter McClennen & Fish LLP and Smith & Nephew — is hosting the third annual new venture competition to showcase the nation’s best innovative medical device ideas by startup companies.

Smith & Nephew (NYSE: SNN; LSE: SN), the global medical technology business, is proud to announce it will co-sponsor the 2014 Massachusetts Medical Device Development (M2D2) Center's New Venture Competition. M2D2 is a joint initiative of the University of Massachusetts' Lowell and Worcester campuses.

Alumni have used their University educations to achieve their goals, even if their dreams aren’t what they studied.

Students display ingenuity and intellectual prowess in competitions held across the country and the region.

Quadrant Engineering Plastic Products has introduced NONSPEC, a group of UMass Lowell engineering students, who are developing breakthrough prosthetics technologies aimed at making arm and hand devices.

A startup company composed of engineering-students-turned-entrepreneurs, called Nonspec, aims to make a difference in the world by fabricating low-cost, durable prosthetic limbs for children in developing countries.

Electrical and computer engineering Assoc. Prof. Dalila Megherbi and graduate student Iliana Voynichka have been conducting research on facial recognition, especially with facial expressions or disguises that vary over time.

Incomingstudents in UMass Lowell’s Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) program are getting hands-on training and design experience in electronics, thanks to the “Lab in a Box” learning kits developed by Erin Webster, a recent computer engineering graduate and ECE teaching assistant.

Three faculty researchers — Assoc. Prof. Zhiyong Gu in Chemical Engineering, Asst. Prof. Christopher Hansen in Mechanical Engineering and Assoc. Prof. Ramaswamy Nagarajan in Plastics Engineering — were recently awarded academic research grants by the Toxics Use Reduction Institute (TURI) totaling nearly $64,000 to develop environmentally friendly alternatives to hazardous materials currently used in industry.

Mechanical engineering students set out to bring two pieces of Lowell history back to life with their capstone project: recreating the Lowell Cemetery sphinxes.

Erin Webster is a Computer Engineering Graduate Student at UMass Lowell. Along with Jay Weitzen, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and technology companies Analog Devices and Digilent, she is creating a “Lab In A Box” – a new way of getting students excited about electrical and computer engineering for the 21st century.

The Baseball Research Center has been studying the durability of wood bats for Major League Baseball for more than five years.

Students are returning to campus with new skills and fresh perspective developed at professional internships, co-op positions and jobs held over summer break.

The National Science Foundation has awarded a three-year, $500,000 grant to a team of researchers from UMass Lowell and Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minn., to study the use of focused ultrasonic radiated force as a mechanism for making tiny structures vibrate.

Thirteen young teens from the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Lowell recently toured North Campus as part of a college-readiness program that helps them better prepare for the transition from high school to college.

Sensata Technologies Inc. in Attleboro has recently donated one of its vibration shaker systems to UMass Lowell’s Structural Dynamics and Acoustic Systems Laboratory (SDASL).

Daniel F. Schmidt, an associate professor of plastics engineering at UMass Lowell, said he began looking for a BPA substitute out of concern for public health — particularly the health of his wife and young children.

Student entrepreneurs now have space to congregate, collaborate and cultivate ideas at the new DifferenceMaker Central office in the ground floor of Lydon Library.

UMass Lowell is hosting 23 engineering sophomores and juniors from King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, as part of the University’s Nuclear Energy Education and Training (NEET) program.

From fruit peels and algae, a UMass Lowell research team works to create less-toxic detergent.

Twenty-one innovative projects from teams of electrical engineering seniors were featured during the first annual “Capstone Project Showcase Day,” held in April at Cumnock Hall.

A group of UMass Lowell student researchers is among seven teams from six colleges and universities across the country that won the prestigious “P3” — People, Prosperity and the Planet — award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

TURI hosted a symposium with UMass Lowell researchers and Massachusetts companies to stimulate ideas for developing greener materials.

UMass Lowell’s student team placed sixth this weekend at the national concrete canoe competition, finishing near the top among counterparts from institutions across the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico.

Partnerships with universities in China and India are attracting new students to UMass Lowell.

Forget concrete jungles. It's all about concrete marinas for a group of UMass Lowell students who loaded their 19-foot, 8-inch boat into a truck Monday morning, bound for an American Society of Civil Engineers contest in Illinois.

Recent electrical engineering graduates Paul Paquette, Michael Antonov and Andrew Gilstrap have designed “BioBot,” a low-cost, mobile bio-sensing robot capable of automatically taking air samples in a room and then analyzing them to quickly detect any harmful bacteria and viruses present.

UMass Lowell engineering students created a feeding arm for a Hingham man battling ALS.

UMass Lowell’s concrete canoe and steel bridge teams scored impressive wins at this year’s regional competitions organized by the New England student chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).

A team of researchers at UMass Lowell led by plastics engineering Assoc. Prof. Daniel Schmidt has identified and tested a potential chemical substitute for BPA in epoxy can linings.

Each year, undergraduate and graduate students from our six colleges and schools gather to present their research in oral and poster presentations to their peers, faculty and guests.

In his University Professor Lecture, Stephen McCarthy discussed the various interdisciplinary research centers on campus that he has been involved with since 1984.

A total of about 400 seventh- and eighth-grade students from Lowell Public Schools toured the campus as part of the University's STEM outreach effort.  

Ten student teams participating in the first DifferenceMaker Idea Challenge are sharing $25,000 in prize money to address problems like childhood obesity and the need for affordable prosthetics for children in developing nations.

Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Lowell say they have identified and tested a potential chemical substitute for bisphenol A (BPA) in epoxy.

Eleven research abstracts winged their way from UMass Lowell to Washington, D.C., where they joined 800 others in a national competition.

This year, three UMass Lowell researchers and their collaborators were among those chosen to receive grants from the UMass Commercial Ventures and Intellectual Property (CVIP) Technology Development Fund.

UMass Lowell’s Wind Energy Research Group (WERG) was recently awarded $200,000 by the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center to help strengthen and grow its research capacity.

Thanks to a three-year $750,000 grant from the ADVANCE initiative of the National Science Foundation, researchers from UMass Lowell and UMass Medical School are developing an index to measure subtle gender biases within the academic setting. 

Plastics Engineering Assoc. Prof. Ramaswamy Nagarajan is one of the University’s leading researchers on sustainability and renewable materials, having devoted more than decade of his career developing products and processes that minimize the use and generation of hazardous substances.

Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Lowell have received a $1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation to improve the nation's railway infrastructure, particularly through the development of an automated inspection system.

Researchers from UMass Lowell and their counterparts from the U.S. Army’s Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center will be working together as part of a new research and development initiative called HEROES (Harnessing Emerging Research Opportunities to Empower Soldiers).

UMass Lowell's New England Robotics Validation and Experimentation Center at 1001 Pawtucket Blvd. is being hailed as the nation's most advanced facility for robotics testing to date.

UMass Lowell and Natick lab announced their partnership for various research projects during a ceremony Feb. 7. The collaboration, called "Harnessing Emerging Research Opportunities to Empower Soldiers (HEROES)," aims to find ways to better ensure soldier safety, ranging from flame-retardant camouflage to lighter food-packaging materials to improved body armor for female soldiers.

Electrical engineering students Anthony Capone and Derek Dempsey used assistive design technology to create a “hybrid power tricycle” for their client — a 4-year-old boy named Pierce who is afflicted with cerebral palsy.

SELCO founder, UMass Lowell alum Harish Hande, set out to dispel the myths that poor people can't afford or maintain solar technologies.

UMass Lowell announced today that its new, $80 million Emerging Technologies and Innovation Center has been named in tribute to distinguished alumnus Mark Saab ’81 and his wife Elisia. The naming recognizes the Saabs for a new multimillion-dollar commitment to UMass Lowell that will make the couple the largest individual donors to the university.

On Saturday, UMass Lowell formally unveiled the name for the Mark and Elisia Saab Emerging Technology and Innovation Center. The contribution of Saab, a 1981 graduate, and his wife to the $80 million center's construction and to other university.

UMass Lowell’s Distributed Semiconductor Instructional Processing Laboratory (DSIPL) has been providing both undergraduate and graduate students with hands-on training in semiconductor design and fabrication.

Hosted by UMass Lowell’s Office of Commercial Ventures and Intellectual Property, the Nov. 27 meeting of the Middlesex 3 Coalition was billed as “Enabling Life Sciences Innovation Beyond Cambridge.”

An integral part of UMass Lowell’s newly inaugurated $80 million Emerging Technologies and Innovation Center on North Campus is a “clean room” facility, where the air inside is continuously circulated, filtered and monitored to make sure that the number of microscopic particles present doesn’t exceed the maximum allowable limit.

Christopher Leger, an electrical engineering and math sophomore, and Josiah Hackendorf, a mechanical engineering senior, have created a prototype electric-powered tricycle that would help commuters cut down on air pollution and gas consumption.

Citing the University’s outstanding energy and environmental leadership, the state recently presented UMass Lowell with a Leading by Example award.

In a recent podcast produced by the Museum of Science in Boston, electrical engineering Assoc. Prof. Joel Therrien talked about the importance of studying how nano-sized particles affect human health and the environment.

UMass Lowell's Emerging Technologies and Innovation Center has a new Sumitomo Demag SE-EV Series all-electric injection molding machine as part of that machinery supplier's commitment to "keep the university supplied with the latest technology from Sumitomo Demag."

A team of researchers from UMass Lowell, Duke University, the University of Vermont, the University of Alaska, Fairbanks and Penn State Altoona has recently received a two-year award of $1 million from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Research and Innovative Technology Administration to develop a high-tech automated system for inspecting and monitoring the health of the country’s rail transit infrastructure.

UMass Lowell and Northern Ireland’s University of Ulster have forged a new research partnership to advance international collaboration in the fast-growing fields of medical device technologies, innovation and health care.

This fall’s Career Fair, the largest in several years, attracted 150 employers and several hundred students, some of whom lined up interviews on the spot.

An interdisciplinary team of researchers from UMass Lowell and the State University of New York, Binghamton, has been awarded a three-year grant worth nearly $460,000 by the National Science Foundation to synthesize lead-free nanosolder materials and develop innovative nanosoldering techniques for joining electronic components measuring only billionths of a meter in size.

UMass Lowell’s unique partnership with ConforMIS, maker of custom-designed knee implants, is helping prepare students for the workforce while providing the fast-growing company with a pipeline of highly qualified engineers.

Internship programs, co-ops and service learning projects have expanded, giving students more opportunities to be ready for work once they graduate.

Chemical engineering Asst. Prof. Prakash Rai has been awarded a grant by the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health (NCI/NIH) totaling more than $725,000 to study the use of theranostic nanomedicine for the treatment of breast cancer.

The Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship allows students of all disciplines to work together to develop innovative products, services and new businesses that make a difference.

More than 500 UMass Lowell community members, public officials and industry leaders officially opened ETIC, an 84,000-square-foot, $80 million research center and the first new academic building constructed on campus in more than three decades.

Electrical and computer engineering Assoc. Prof. Xuejun Lu has been awarded a $750,000 grant from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research to develop an electrically tunable polarimetric infrared focal plane array (IRFPA) for adaptive infrared sensing and imaging.

International student ambassadors are helping newly arrived students feel at home on campus.  

A multi-disciplinary team of researchers from UMass Lowell and Wichita State University has been awarded nearly $1.9 million by the National Science Foundation to develop the next-generation of wind-turbine blades.

Chancellor Marty Meehan joined University administrators, faculty and staff as well as friends and family members in honoring plastics engineering Prof. Stephen McCarthy, who was named this year’s University Professor.

The Toxics Use Reduction Institute (TURI) awarded four grants to UMass Lowell faculty to identify and test less hazardous substances.

Electrical and computer engineering Assoc. Prof. Alkim Akyurtlu recently received a three-year grant totaling about $650,000 from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research to study homogeneous negative refractive index metamaterials.

UMass Lowell’s mission to enhance the student experience by providing a global perspective will be highlighted when Queen’s University Belfast — in partnership with UMass Lowell and Dublin City University — hosts the Advanced Materials, Polymer Processing and Manufacturing Conference in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on Sept. 25 and 26.

Profs. Pradeep Kurup and Ramaswamy Nagarajan are conducting pioneering research to develop an electronic “tongue” for detecting and analyzing heavy metals in the soil and groundwater. 

Electrical and computer engineering Assoc. Prof. Tingshu Hu has received a three-year grant totaling more than $372,000 from the National Science Foundation  to develop advanced, nonlinear control-design methodologies for power electronic interfaces in renewable energy systems.

Chemical engineering Assoc. Prof. Sanjeev K. Manohar is developing a sensor that would help keep the military's food supply safe and secure.

Electrical engineering Prof. Martin Margala, together with his former graduate student Vikas Kaushal and collaborators from the Universidad de Salamanca in Spain and North Carolina State University, are moving one step closer to developing even smaller, faster and super energy-efficient mobile electronic devices with their work on “ballistic deflection transistors,” or BDTs.

At the center of the University’s efforts is the brand-new, $80 million state-of-the-art Emerging Technologies and Innovation Center (ETIC), which is scheduled to have its grand public opening Oct. 11.

Teachers participating in the Tsongas Industrial History Center’s weeklong Inventing America workshop got to witness history being uncovered at the archaeological dig on the grounds of St. Patrick’s Church.

A group of mechanical engineering students is putting their engineering skill to work helping the Israeli Bobsled and Skeleton Federation team prepare for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.

The International Sports Engineering Conference this week at the UMass Lowell Inn and Conference Center is a meeting of minds focused on developing faster, stronger and sleeker equipment and fabrics through cutting-edge science. Performance-enhancement in this context is a virtuous exercise involving drag coefficient equations, terminal velocity, and good methodology.

Asst. Prof. Margaret Sobkowicz-Kline of Plastics Engineering and Assoc. Prof. Viktor Podolskiy of Physics and Applied Physics have been awarded Joseph P. Healey Advancing Research, Scholarship and Creative Work Seed grants for their work on photovoltaic cells and optics, respectively.

The International Sports Engineering Conference will be held at UMass Lowell this July, just two weeks before the opening of the Summer Olympics.

Stephen McCarthy, a plastics engineering professor and pioneer, has been named University Professor, the highest distinction bestowed on a UMass Lowell faculty member for exceptional teaching achievement and service to the university.

TURI and state legislators recognized “Champions of Toxics Use Reduction,” including Assoc. Prof. Daniel Schmidt of plastics engineering.

The UMass Lowell concrete canoe team finished 13th overall in the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) national competition hosted by the University of Nevada in Reno.

When higher education and manufacturers collide, innovation can result. That's what happened when WaveMark Inc., a Littleton company that makes RFID-based supply chain products, worked with engineering students from UMass Lowell to solve a challenge with one of its products.

Two computer engineering graduates have developed an Apple app designed to help people with speech disabilities communicate with their friends, families and caregivers.

Prof. Stephen McCarthy of the Plastics Engineering Department, lauded by his peers and students for his exemplary teaching, outstanding research and extraordinary service to UMass Lowell for nearly three decades, has been awarded the prestigious title of University Professor.

Many members of the class of 2012 have landed their coveted first post-college professional jobs.

UMass Lowell joined more than 550 leading science organizations and institutions across the country in the largest celebration of science and engineering in America held in April in Washington D.C.

Samuel Hamill, a senior electrical engineering student from Lawrence, has created a solar-powered lawn mower to help cut down on air pollution, gas consumption and noise.

Thanks to a group of soon-to-be engineering graduates from UMass Lowell, an empty room furnished with only a chair and bare walls can now be a beach, a forest, an aquarium, a coffee shop, a boat or even McDonald's. It's the sensory room.

A concrete canoe designed and built by UMass Lowell students, dubbed “Revolution,” won second place in the annual regional competition organized by the New England student chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).

Nearly 150 posters from 160 students in all of the University’s six colleges and schools were viewed by the more than 300 people who attended the 15th annual Student Research and Community Engagement Symposium.

Researchers from UMass Lowell and UMass Amherst are collaborating with more than 80 academic and corporate teams to build, integrate and operate prototypes of a groundbreaking suite of next-generation network research infrastructures called Global Environment for Network Innovations.

A team of UMass Lowell students are heading to Lake Buena Vista, Fla., to vie for top honors at this year’s first-ever Cornell Cup USA competition.

When the Class of 2016 steps onto the campus of UMass Lowell for the first time, the Emerging Technologies and Innovation Center will beckon as a gleaming totem toward the future. In the next-generation building, students, professors and leading-edge companies such as Raytheon and Boston Scientific will make discoveries that could rock the universe.

A team of UMass Lowell researchers led by Asst. Prof. Bridgette Budhlall recently received a three-year $505,373 grant from Raytheon to develop stimuli-responsive polymers.

The $70 million state-of-the-art Emerging Technologies and Innovation Center is meant to serve as a gateway to the university. Yesterday, the university announced a $10 million grant from the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center that will help to build a laboratory, within the center, with "clean-room capabilities," university officials said.

As construction of the Emerging Technologies and Innovation Center enters the homestretch, plans to equip the building with cutting-edge laboratories and research space are getting a boost from a $10 million state grant and unprecedented support from private donors.  

UMass Lowell’s Engineering Building – which for 60 years has enjoyed a strong identity as a center for scientific discovery – finally has a name, recognizing a distinguished alumnus and generous benefactor whose latest gift to the university totals $1.25 million.

Prof. Robert Malloy is one of 10 individuals inducted into the Plastics Hall of Fame during the National Plastics Exposition banquet on April 1 in Orlando, Fla.

A 2005 UML graduate, Michael Jarvis has spent the past six years teaching students with special needs, including five years at the LHS Therapeutic Alternative Day program for kids with emotional disabilities and this past year at the Lowell High School Freshman Academy.

Thirty-one students were recognized for their hard work, professionalism and dedication to their campus jobs as part of UMass Lowell’s first Student Employee of the Year Award program.

UMass Lowell's Engineering Building finally has a name, recognizing a distinguished alumnus and generous benefactor whose latest gift to the university totals $1.25 million.

On paper, UMass Lowell Alum Donna Fagen is the chief technology officer at Equilateral Technologies Inc. (ETI). In reality, she is also the chief financial officer, a marketing director, the primary liaison between the firm and their customers in the U.S. government, and the lead cheerleader for technical innovation at the 10-year-old company.

The University of Massachusetts at Lowell now has three faculty members in the Plastics Hall of Fame, as the hall welcomes Robert Malloy, chairman of the plastics engineering department for the past decade.

Civil and environmental engineering Assoc. Prof. Kenneth Lee is spearheading efforts to develop engineering and science collaborations between UMass Lowell, UMass Amherst and four universities in Central America.

UMass Lowell will join more than 800 leading science organizations and institutions across the country in the largest celebration of science and engineering in America: the USA Science & Engineering Festival, which will be held April 28 and 29 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington D.C.

Three teams of University researchers  will receive three of this year’s nine grants from the UMass Commercial Ventures & Intellectual Property (CVIP) Technology Development Fund.

Electrical Engineering Assoc. Prof. Joel Therrien, along with Profs. Susan Braunhut of Biology and Kenneth Marx of Chemistry, has developed a “nanocanary,” a living-cell-based biosensor capable of continuously monitoring the physiological state of the live cells contained within it.

Plastics Engineering Asst. Prof. Ramaswamy Nagarajan, along with graduate students and Asst. Prof. Bridgette Budhlall of Plastics Engineering, are developing non-toxic, bio-based and biodegradable surfactants using “greener” materials and synthetic routes.

Chemical Engineering Assoc. Prof. Sanjeev Manohar and his team have developed an inexpensive, easy-to-use sensor system that instantaneously detects endotoxins, compounds from bacteria that can cause septicemia and sepsis.

CEOs, presidents and vice presidents; the manager of a global organization; a senior healthcare provider; a teacher; and a partner of a major technology firm will be honored during the 2012 University Alumni Awards … Celebrating Excellence event Thursday, April 19.

Biopharmaceutical leaders, experts and professionals from academia, industry and government gathered at UMass Lowell for the Biopharmaceutical Summit.

Carolina Barreto, a doctoral student in the University’s solar energy engineering program, played a key role in “Burning in the Sun,” one of five films that won this year’s Cinema for Peace award in Germany.

To help achieve the University’s goal of creating interdisciplinary programs with a focus on real-world challenges, the Francis College of Engineering will offer a Biomedical Engineering Minor for undergraduate-degree programs starting this fall.

Plastindia Foundation, India’s largest plastics trade umbrella organization, has partnered with UMass Lowell and the University of Wisconsin–Madison to help build a world-class university for polymer technology and processing in western India.

Two students and one employer were honored for their contributions to UMass Lowell’s co-op program at a recent networking and recruitment event that drew employers from as far away as Tennessee.

Undergraduate students involved in research can now submit their papers to the UMass Lowell Journal of Undergraduate Research, published through the Office of the Vice Provost for Research.

For alums Raul Raudales and Richard Trube, an engineer and technical writer who met at UMass Lowell 20 years ago, world change begins with the modest coffee bean.

Six months before the space shuttle Challenger exploded over Florida on Jan. 28, 1986, UMass Lowell alum Roger Boisjoly wrote a portentous memo. He warned that if the weather was too cold, seals connecting sections of the shuttle’s huge rocket boosters could fail. Boisjoly died in Nephi, Utah, near Provo, on Jan. 6. He was 73.

India’s largest plastics trade association and two American universities, including UMass Lowell, with prominent plastics engineering and material science programs signed an agreement Feb. 3 to help build an international-level university for polymers in western India.

More than a dozen legislators and House Speaker Robert DeLeo toured UMass Lowell labs, the Emerging Technologies and Innovation Center and the M2D2 incubator to see how our research and development connects with industry.

Intel, one of the world’s largest semiconductor chip makers, has donated a dozen computer processors to the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department for use in research and teaching.

Civil engineering juniors Joseph Benoit and Lisa Juan were recognized by the CH2M Hill Foundation for their academic achievements.

Three innovative student projects from UMass Lowell and a partner institution were among the nine entrepreneurial projects and ideas that were recognized during the Campus Catalyst Showcase held in December.

Nuclear engineering Prof. Gilbert Brown was recently appointed a William C. Foster Fellow by the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C.

Responding to the growing needs of the marketplace, the Francis College of Engineering will offer a new minor in energy engineering for undergraduate-degree programs starting in the fall.

A team of researchers from UMass Lowell, the University of Illinois, Chicago and private companies has received a $1.3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation to help inspect and monitor the nation’s highway bridges.

UMass Lowell has signed agreements with three top Chinese universities, laying the foundation for broader academic and research collaboration and student and faculty exchanges.

A group of UMass Lowell students is putting its engineering skills to the test this week in the U.S. Department of Energy’s biennial Solar Decathlon Competition.

UMass Lowell is offering a new interdisciplinary course, called the Nanoscale Transport Phenomena for Manufacturing Nanodevices, starting this fall.

University experts assess the chances of a major earthquake — such as the ones that devastated Haiti, New Zealand and Japan — happening right here in New England.

Faculty and students from English, Engineering and Gender Studies have joined forces in the Village Empowerment Program’s ongoing efforts to improve living conditions in Peru and on the Tohono O’odham Nation in Arizona.

UMass Lowell has acquired a brand-new Zeiss focused ion-beam scanning electron microscope to enhance the University’s research capabilities in the areas of nano materials and biological sciences.

A team of engineering and architecture students will participate in the biennial competition this fall in Washington, D.C.

A UMass Lowell engineering graduate is among those from Asia who have been chosen to receive this year’s prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award from the Philippines.

UMass Lowell faculty and students recently traveled to Istanbul for an international workshop on assistive technology for people with physical disabilities.

The Francis College of Engineering and the College of Management are now jointly offering a leadership option for graduate-degree programs in engineering.

UMass Lowell graduate students are making science come alive for students at Lowell High School with the Vibes and Waves program funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation.

UMass Lowell’s innovative on-campus science and engineering summer program begins July 11.

Android smartphones that a UMass Lowell alum helped NASA to develop will be delivered by the space shuttle astronauts to the International Space Station.

A proposal by chemical engineering Asst. Prof. Seongkyu Yoon to help the biopharmaceutical industry — and ultimately consumers — save money has received a grant from the UMass President’s Office.

Two teams of UMass Lowell students participated in the recent regional competitions organized by the New England student chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers.

Chemical engineering Prof. Emeritus Krishna Vedula, special assistant to the Provost for international partnerships, has been named a Fellow of the American Society for Engineering Education.

Students who have developed a way to use a byproduct of processing cashew nut shells to make fireproof fabric have been recognized by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Dozens of local Boy Scouts recently visited UMass Lowell to work on a merit badge in nuclear science.

Robots will once again take over the campus when UMass Lowell hosts its annual Botfest exhibition and Botball tournament on Saturday, April 9, at Costello Gym on North Campus.

UMass Lowell will host the joint spring meeting of the New England sections of the American Physical Society and the American Association of Physics Teachers on April 8 and 9.

More than two dozen plastics engineering students successfully participated in the new co-op program. The initiative is being expanded to include management, sciences and other engineering disciplines next year.

University Professor Robert Giles discusses the latest research in terahertz imaging technology, along with his work promoting science education in Haiti, during his lecture April 13.

Geology and civil engineering professors assess seismic risk in New England.

Hundreds of students in the Village Empowerment Project have traveled to Peru to offer help in a variety of ways. Maia Benavente joined her father on a recent trip, where they created a high-efficiency stove for a school.

Electrical and computer engineering Prof. Emeritus Venkatarama Krishnan wrote a chapter in the International Encyclopedia of Statistical Science that was published in December.

Profs. Xingwei Wang, Christopher Niezrecki and Julie Chen recently received a one-year $30,000 grant from Raytheon Co. to develop a novel optical pressure-sensor network for evaluating the structural design of soldiers’ helmets.

The Massachusetts Medical Device Development Center and UMass Lowell’s Plastics Engineering Department are collaborating with TheraTorr Medical Inc. to develp an ultra low-pressure air mattress that is designed to prevent bed sores.

A group researchers has developed a highly sensitive optical sensor that can rapidly detect even trace amounts of explosives in the air.

The National Science Foundation recently recognized electrical and computer engineering Asst. Prof. Xingwei Wang with a prestigious faculty early career development award.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission recently awarded UMass Lowell $400,000 to help fund graduate fellowships in health physics and nuclear engineering for the next four years.

A mechanical engineering professor is developing a tool for rapidly detecting disease-causing microorganisms in food and water.

Last summer, four engineering students at UMass Lowell spent nearly a month teaching assistive technology at two institutions in India.

An engineering student has created an interactive multi-touch screen to assist people with physical disabilities.

UMass researchers from Lowell, Dartmouth, Amherst and Boston are developing an information-delivery system that will notify drivers of the traffic situation in real time.

Researchers discovered a new testing method for assessing the health and safety of nanoparticles.

About 280 high school students from 10 Bay State schools recently met at UMass Lowell to explore career opportunities in life sciences.

UMass Lowell joined more than 800 of the nation’s leading science organizations and institutions in exhibiting at the first USA Science & Engineering Festival, held in Washington, D.C., in late October.

From hybrid cars to solar panels, the campus is committed to significantly reducing its carbon footprint.

Imagine an astronaut that can work tirelessly 24 hours a day, seven days a week -- without needing food, drink or oxygen. That’s the vision behind Robonaut 2, the world’s first human-like robotic astronaut set to be launched into space.

MIT chemistry Prof. Timothy Swager will speak about “Chemistry and the Applications of Carbon Nanotubes” at the Konarka Tripathy Endowed Memorial Lecture Oct. 28.

Superintendents from more than 20 Massachusetts school districts gathered at the ICC Oct. 7 to explore partnerships in STEM fields.

Shenkar College and UMass Lowell will jointly offer a new graduate degree in plastics engineering.

The Engaging Computing Group, which is part of the Computer Science Department, has released an Android mobile phone application to interface with the group’s iSENSE website.

UMass Lowell, in partnership with the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative’s John Adams Innovation Institute, recently hosted “Destination Nano,” a two-day conference and workshop held at the UMass Lowell Inn & Conference Center.

UMass Lowell, together with Merrimack College and the MIT Enterprise Forum, are co-sponsoring the second annual Auto-ID & Sensing Solutions Seminar & Expo Oct. 13.

Do you want to know what it is like to drive an all-electric vehicle? You will have that opportunity by attending the Electric Vehicle Summit and Workshop on Wednesday, Oct. 6, at the UMass Lowell Inn & Conference Center.

Find out what the environmental effects are of global warming and the economic and health costs of action and inaction during UMass Lowell’s second annual Climate Change Teach-In Oct. 15.

Mark Micire, a Ph.D. student in the Robotics Lab, has developed a simple yet very effective multi-touch interface for commanding and controlling a swarm of robots.

Co-sponsored by UMass Lowell and the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative’s John Adams Innovation Institute, the conference and workshops will feature the latest information on sensors, nanomaterials, environmental health and safety, nanomedicine and energy.

Researchers at UMass Lowell are now able to replicate photosynthesis in the laboratory, with the goal of someday storing solar energy on a commercial scale to help alleviate global energy need and reduce high concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Starting this fall, UMass Lowell is offering a robotics minor, an interdisciplinary program offered within three undergraduate-degree programs: Computer Science, Electrical and Computer Engineering and Mechanical Engineering.

Asst. Prof. Guanling Chen of Computer Science will be working with researchers at Rutgers and other institutions as part of a three-year National Science Foundation-funded project to build a more trustworthy and robust mobile Internet.

Two chemical engineering undergraduate students — Mark Lalli and Neha Manohar — gave oral presentations of their research at the national meeting of the American Chemical Society held in August in Boston.

Chemical Engineering Prof. John Walkinshaw and his students take some of the wood material from the USS Constitution to make paper.

Profs. Robert Forrant and Tzu-Yang Yu will be featured in a one-hour documentary about the 1860 Pemberton Mill collapse in Lawrence.

Physical Therapy Assoc. Prof. Bruce Young and Ph.D. student Amy Reichlen will be featured in a Discovery Channel Canada television episode that will highlight their research on the backbones of lizards and snakes.

Chemical Engineering Asst. Prof. Zhiyong Gu recently received a 3M Nontenured Faculty Grant for his research.

Elisia and Mark Saab ’81 are longtime supporters, having previously funded laboratory renovations, new equipment and materials for the Plastics Engineering Department, and scholarships.

In its 11th successful year, DesignCamp has 11 workshops and attracts hundreds of middle-school students.

iRobot Corp. and UMass Lowell recently hosted this year’s STREAM  education workshop at the company's headquarters in Bedford.

UMass Lowell and Metabolix/Telles celebrate 15 years of partnership and collaboration.

Computer science Assoc. Prof. Fred Martin and his team of students won third place at an international robotics competition in Michigan.

A pair of peregrine falcons nesting on the roof of the 18-story Fox Hall on the East Campus successfully hatched two chicks this spring.

The 2009 lecture was presented on May 27 of this year by Sir Richard Friend, Cavendish professor of physics at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of St. John’s College and the Royal Society.

Chemical engineering Ph.D. candidate Ryan Bouldin has been awarded the 2010 Tripathy Endowed Memorial Summer Graduate Fellowship.

The Emerging Technologies and Innovation Center will be home to experts in nanotechnology, plastics engineering, biomedicine and electro-optics.

Millipore’s biosafety RV made a one-day stop on the North Campus on May 25 as part of its “Life: Expressed” cross-country tour.

Instead of spending thousands of dollars on a new commencement mace, a team of in-house talent fashions one in the Plastics Engineering Department.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, in collaboration with UMass Lowell and its partner organizations, recently hosted a workshop on water utility management at the ICC.

A team of students from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design and UMass Lowell’s Solar Energy Engineering Program will compete in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Decathlon next fall.

At a one-day meeting showcasing outstanding student research, more than 300 students and faculty were on hand for the 13th Annual Student Research Symposium.

Wellesley High School took overall first place in the annual regional robotics competition, with Roxbury Latin School and Malden Catholic High School as runners-up.

On April 20, the Plastics Engineering Department, in collaboration with the Society of Plastics Engineers Medical Plastics Division and the Eastern New England SPE Section, organized the Plastics for Medical Devices Conference at the UMass Lowell Inn & Conference Center.

The UMass Lowell team and its self-designed and built concrete canoe, dubbed “The Hydrohawk,” finished second overall in the April 10 regional races organized by the American Society of Civil Engineers.

In addition to sports and recreation camps, Band Camp, DesignCamp and Boott Camp offer area children summer fun.

100 percent of plastics engineering students who applied for financial support received it thanks to 35 endowed scholarship funds.

Prof. Stephen McCarthy was recently invited by India’s Central Institute of Plastics Engineering Technology (CIPET) to give a lecture.

The Big Thaw Car Show helped the River Hawk Racing Club raise the funds it needs to bring its Formula SAE car to a Michigan competition in May.

Profs. Peter Avitabile and Christopher Niezrecki gave talks about their research to engineers at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla.

Two teams of UMass Lowell researchers have been chosen to receive two of this year’s eight grants from the UMass Commercial Ventures & Intellectual Property (CVIP) Technology Development Fund.

The fourth annual Nano Summit will showcase cutting-edge research in nanotechnology.

Five professors at UMass Lowell’s Center for Network and Information Security have received more than $1.3 million in grants from the National Science Foundation this academic year.

Prof. Xuejun Lu and his team are developing a new generation of night-vision devices that not only offer high sensitivity but also smaller size and simpler, more economical manufacturing process.

Interest was intense as faculty and administrators met with their counterparts at universities in Turkey. 

A team from Lexington High School beat 28 other teams from across the state and New Hampshire to win the Massachusetts Regional Science Bowl.

M2D2 and attorneys from Nutter McClennen & Fish LLC recently hosted the Nutter Strategic Planning Program at Wannalancit Mills.

Twenty-nine high-school teams will participate in the Massachusetts Regional Science Bowl Feb. 27 on North Campus.

Profs. Arnold O'Brien and Samuel Paikowsky examine the threat of earthquakes in the Northeast.

Prof. Nathan Gartner of the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department has recently been named the first emeritus member of the Committee on Traffic Flow Theory and Characteristics.

World-renowned car racer Mario Andretti has recently endorsed the fund-raising efforts of UMass Lowell’s Formula SAE team.

UMass Lowell students Sopheavy Sing and Danane Chhor are this year’s LIRA scholarship winners.

For the first time, UMass Lowell will host the Massachusetts Regional Science Bowl, to be held on the North Campus on Feb. 27.

UMass Lowell's Robotics Lab develops robotic arms to assist people with physical disabilities in opening and closing doors as well as picking up objects on a table or shelf.

Prof. Tingshu Hu of Electrical and Computer Engineering has received a three-year $286,824 grant from the National Science Foundation to analyze nonlinear oscillations using the Lyapunov approach.

Student Paula Bustos has earned a scholarship from the Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Awards Corp. for $5,000.

Symposium highlights the latest research trends and advances in polymer materials science being conducted by academia and industry across the country.

The language of technology is nearly universal: graphs, computer programs and electrical circuits.

Grad student Patrick Retelle helps the Chelmsford Water District obtain $3,783,000 in federal stimulus money to build a photovoltaic system to power its treatment plant.

Formula SAE (FSAE) is an auto design competition for universities that UMass Lowell is currently preparing for. The River Hawks will race in the upcoming Michigan competition in May 2010.

The Formula SAE race car designed and built by the River Hawk Racing Team will be on display at the New England International Auto Show in Boston from Dec. 2 to 6.

Nuthathai Warasitthinon, a plastics engineering graduate student, won the grad student poster competition during the recent American Chemical Society Rubber Division Meeting in Pittsburgh.

A team of researchers from UMass Lowell’s Mechanical Engineering Department recently received a two-year grant of about $500,000 from the Department of Energy to test wind turbine blades.

Prof. Martin Margala receives a $140K grant from the National Science Foundation and UMass Lowell in support of his research on nano-size "ballistic deflection transistors."

UMass Lowell’s innovative after-school educational program is quickly becoming one of the state’s leading providers of informal K-12 education in the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields.

Lt. Gov. Tim Murray, newly appointed chairman of Gov. Deval Patrick’s Science, Technology, Engineering and Math Education Coordinating Council, holds a “STEM Roundtable” on the campus.

Civil Engineering Asst. Prof. Tzu-Yang Yu has developed a new method that uses radar signals to conduct in-depth inspections of buildings, bridges, roadways, tunnels and dams.

Asst. Profs. Joel Therrien and Daniel Schmidt have received a three-year $340,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to produce new cantilevers for use in high-speed Atomic Force Microscopy.

On Sept. 11, parent-engineers from Pages for Peace met with UMass Lowell engineering faculty, students and alumni for the formal hand-off of the robotic page-turner.

The winners of the “Getting to Zero Energy Challenge” were presented at a ceremony held at Lowell City Hall Sept. 29.

Prof. Nelson Eby recently spent a week in Bogota, Colombia, to help the country establish a Neutron Activation Analysis Laboratory for use in criminal investigations.

Assoc. Profs. Sanjeev Manohar and Carl Lawton receive a two-year, $180,000 grant from Frito-Lay to develop new methods for converting the cardboard used to ship its products into biodegradable plastic.

UMass Lowell recently signed an agreement for education and research cooperation with India's Central Institute of Plastics Engineering Technology (CIPET).

Chancellor Marty Meehan tries out a novel contactless fingerprint scanner at the UMass Lowell Police Department.

The Nanoscale Science and Engineering Research Center for High-rate Nanomanufacturing has received a $12.25 million renewal grant from the National Science Foundation.

A wind turbine capable of producing 2 kilowatts of electricity has recently been added on the roof of Ball Hall in the North Campus.

ECE undergrad students Mike Baier, Chris Granz and Paula Bustos won the first prize for best research paper at this year’s IEEE International Conference on Homeland Security Technologies in Waltham.

The American Textile History Museum recently recognized UMass Lowell for its invaluable contributions to the museum’s new main exhibition.

iRobot Corporation, in partnership with the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council and UMass Lowell, recently hosted the STREAM 2009 workshop for robotics education.

The recipients of the 2009 Teaching and Learning Council Grants have been announced.

Julie Chen, professor of mechanical engineering, has agreed to serve as interim vice provost for research.

Forty-five undergraduate and graduate students receive financial support for the academic year 2009ߝ10.

UMass Lowell is part of a consortium, led by Idaho State University, that has been awarded a three-year, $1.5 million grant from the Department of Energy.

UMass Lowell will host a National Science Foundation summer institute short course on nanotechnology from June 15 to 18.

The Society of Plastics Engineers has named Prof. Robert Malloy as its Educator of the Year for 2009.

The Massachusetts Medical Device Development Center held a company showcase and open house on May 21 at Wannalancit Mill.

More than 150 students from 16 regional high schools participate in the seventh annual Assistive Technology Design Fair.

Teams of researchers at UMass Lowell are collaborating with colleagues, oncologists and other specialists to develop new ways of screening people for breast cancer.

Millipore Corp., in partnership with UMass Lowell, inaugurates the Millipore Corporation Process Development Laboratory.

Asst. Profs. Xingwei Wang, Ramaswamy Nagarajan and Zhiyong Gu received grants from the UMass Commercial Ventures & Intellectual Property Technology Development Fund.

A paper delivered by Dr. Majid Charmchiand at a recent international conference has been chosen for publication in the Journal of Fluid Dynamics & Materials Processing.

The April 16 summit shows how UMass Lowell is leading the next industrial revolution, one based on expanding knowledge of the nanoscale.

An international team of experts, led by Computer Science Asst. Prof. Xinwen Fu, has revealed a flaw in the Internet’s popular anonymous communications network called Tor.

A program designed to build a research and learning network between graduate students and Lawrence and Lowell high school students and teachers is among 92 programs nationwide that received a Motorola Foundation Innovation Generation Grant.

A meeting showcasing engineering graduate student research on transportation-related issues was hosted by the Massachusetts Chapter of the Institute of Transportation Engineers and UMass Lowell Feb. 20.

Prof. Tzu-Yang Yu of Civil Engineering Department helps come up with a novel plan to conduct mobile inspections of roadways using an automated “drive-by” monitoring system.