Assoc. Teaching Prof. Yuko Oda and 12 students from the Art & Design Department traveled to Japan for two weeks over the summer, culminating a course focused on the country's culture and influence on contemporary arts and game design.

The Rist Institute for Sustainability and Energy granted fellowships to mechanical engineering major Caralyn Conrad, industrial engineering Ph.D. student Mahsa Ghandi and Art and Design Assoc. Prof. Kirsten Swenson.

Through the Emerging Scholars program, graphic design major Michael Page ’23 and Architectural Studies Program Director Marie Frank teamed up to document a revitalizing era in Lowell’s history.

Alumnus Terrence Masson '89, a pioneer of media and visual entertainment, returned to campus this spring to share his career experiences and insights on the industry going forward.

Distinguished University Prof. Robert Forrant held a “book party” to culminate a monthslong collaboration with a second grade class from Lowell’s McAuliffe Elementary School in which he helped the students write and publish their own books.

Two of the four Peters sisters, all UMass Lowell Honors students, are graduating together. Eleanora, an education major, has already started on her master's degree. Regina, a biology graduate, is tracking turtles.

Connecting through the UMass Lowell Art & Design Department, alumni Derek Kunze '16, Otto Setiajita '18 and Julien Saliba '19 used their graphic design skills to work on DraftKings' 2023 Super Bowl commercial.

Project Save Photograph Archives in Boston welcomed photographer and artist Pavel Romaniko, an Assistant Teaching Professor in UMass Lowell's Art & Design department, as its first Artist in Residence.

A group of UMass Lowell students and faculty created educational signs across campus to spread community awareness and knowledge of Indigenous peoples who were originally settled on the local land.

When students arrived back on campus, they were greeted by two colorful murals: a “chrome” hermit crab by internationally known artist “Bikismo” and six endangered species painted by New England muralist Sophy Tuttle. The murals were sponsored by ArtUp Lowell, a citywide coalition that brought nine muralists to the city in August.

This year, the Nancy L. Donahue Celebration of the Arts celebrated the Lowell philanthropist’s $2 million donation to renovate Durgin Concert Hall. It is only her latest gift to the university.

Art Assoc. Prof. Ingrid Hess is traveling to some of the world’s most beautiful places to make artwork that educates children about the natural world and environmental sustainability. She’s won grants, fellowships and artist residencies to visit national parks in Costa Rica, Australia, the U.S. and more.

Art Asst. Teaching Prof. Pavel Romaniko, who has roots in both countries, is divided by the war between Ukraine and Russia. Yet long before Russia invaded Ukraine, Romaniko was meditating on the diminishment of free artistic and political expression in Russia through his photographs of reconstructed, depopulated spaces.

Visiting Prof. Pedro Letria, a Portuguese photographer and writer, is teaching photography and documenting the Portuguese American community in Lowell for the university’s Portuguese American Digital Archive. His wife, journalist Cláudia Lobo, is also gathering oral histories for the archive.

The New England Undergraduate National Portfolio Day will be held on Saturday, Oct. 2, 2021 from noon to 4 p.m., at the University of Massachusetts Lowell.

The university’s new digital media major prepares students to become video, audio, corporate media and advertising professionals through classes that combine storytelling and technical skills. Students also get hands-on experience through internships.

Science education can help slow the pace of global warming, because people who understand climate science can make informed decisions, says Education Assoc. Prof. Jill Hendrickson Lohmeier. Lohmeier does research on using artwork in informal settings to educate the public about climate science.

“Integrating Climate Change into the K-12 Classroom,” a free professional development workshop hosted by EEAS Assoc. Teaching Prof. Lori Weeden and the university’s Climate Change Initiative, showed teachers how they can address the topic through a variety of educational lenses.

Her leadership on campus and advocacy for Black students won Fiona Bruce-Baiden recognition as one of “29 Who Shine,” an award given by the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education to one student from each of the state’s public colleges and universities.

Honors College students are creating graphic novels about science and medicine in a new seminar. Assoc. Prof. of Art Karen Roehr says that during the COVID-19 pandemic, they’re more relevant than ever, because linking words and images helps people understand and relate to health and safety issues.

Like others around the world, Jason Reyes was horrified by the video of George Floyd being killed by Minneapolis police, as well as the Black lives lost before and after. He takes artistic action on a Lawrence street on Oct. 25.

Armed with a prestigious Burkhardt Fellowship, Assoc. Prof. of Art History Kirsten Swenson will spend the 2021-2022 school year researching and writing about a subject she calls an “obsession” – urban parks designed by artists.

For the first time, UMass Lowell’s animation program has cracked the top five among the state’s animation schools, ranking third in Massachusetts according to Animation Career Review’s 2020 listing.

The Art & Design Department transformed the opening of its annual end-of-the-year student art show into an online celebration for a class of 46 graduates whose last semester of college has been disrupted, but not defined, by the coronavirus pandemic.

With labs closed and all academic programs now online due to COVID-19, seniors are adapting their capstone projects. Some capstones have even taken on new relevance because they address aspects of the pandemic.

Going stir-crazy? Here are some suggestions from arts and humanities faculty on how to enrich and entertain yourself – all while staying safe.

A large gathering recently celebrated the unveiling of a student-painted portrait of late FAHSS Dean Nina Coppens. It is, say friends and family, exactly what she would have wanted.

Over two days, students from South Korea explored the worlds of virtual reality and 3D sculpting on their mission to Mars.

The Local Ecologies exhibit running now March 6 at Mahoney Gallery uses the Merrimack River to examine water and our relationship to it.

Artist Jonathan Monaghan paints a portrait of an increasingly angst-filled, technologically driven future.

Art historian, Assoc. Prof Marie Frank, talks about UML's first 125 years, what's changed and what has remained the same.

College of Fine Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences students Jacqui Gallant, Sarah Galevi and John Fedirko competed as the Rowdy River Rovers in the fourth annual Lowell Kinetic Sculpture Race, a festive community event that merges the “STEAM” fields of science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics.

Increasingly, student art is enlivening buildings across the UML campus. Recently, Andrew Fournier '19 saw his "River" installed int he Pulichino Tong Business Center,

Under a new partnership, 20 high school graduates from Washington, D.C., are studying at UMass Lowell this fall with merit scholarships. It’s part of the university’s mission to support students from all backgrounds in getting a great college education.

For seven years, the Cool Science contest has asked children to communicate climate science through art, with the winning works displayed on Lowell buses. A $3 million National Science Foundation grant will expand Cool Science in Massachusetts and add two metropolitan areas in the Midwest.

When liberal arts alum Erin Reynolds ’18, coordinator of creative services and entertainment for the Lowell Spinners minor league baseball team, needed a video production intern this summer, she turned to her former classmate, senior graphic design major Sara May.

Pavel Romaniko, visiting assistant professor in the Art & Design department, has been busy lately.  In addition to welcoming a baby son, he also welcomed a $15,000 fellowship from the Mass Cultural Council. 

Eleven students who comprised the Documentary Image photography class finished off last semester with a trip to the Azores.

Education, psychology and art faculty worked with community groups to collect folktales from four Southeast Asian countries and turn them into a book that can be used in the Lowell schools.

The university marked two major milestones at its Earth Day celebration: the completion of its $23.1 million Accelerated Energy Program and its latest STARS Gold rating, which moves UML into the top 10 nationally.

For four years, History Prof. Robert Forrant and Assistant Prof. Ingrid Hess of Art & Design have quietly charted the history of immigration in Lowell. With the help of a team of UML students , they have built a unique website to help teachers and students understand the waves of immigrants calling the city their new home.

Anna Dugan '13 returned to the Art & Design department recently to design in chalk and encourage current students to use all of their skills in the world beyond the university.

Asst. Prof. Miko Wilford has won a five-year, $498,000 National Science Foundation CAREER grant to study an urgent issue for the justice system: Why innocent suspects plead guilty.

In its first time in the U.S., the 404 International Festival of Art & Technology is at UMass Lowell University Gallery and other sites across campus, through March 5.

Virtual reality, augmented reality, optical illusions and more are all on display at UMass Lowell through March 5 as part of the 404 International Festival of Art and Technology. This is the 16th annual installment of the festival, which originated in Argentina.

The 2018 David Lustick Climate Change Teach-In, “Invisibilities: Seeing and Unseeing the Anthropocene,” explored how images can both shape and obscure our understanding of climate and environment. It was organized by Assoc. Prof. of Art History Kirsten Swenson as part of the IDEA Leadership Grant Initiative.

Sponsored by the Art & Design Department, the university’s first Regional High School Exhibition features 50 works by students from public and private high schools around the state.

Seven UMass Lowell students collaborated on a large mural, the latest stroke in a move  to make a once-gritty and blighted alley into a green haven for art and poetry.

It was a hospital, yes. But Lowell’s St. Joseph’s Hospital was so much more to the nuns who worked there and to the residents of the Acre neighborhood. Now, two UMass Lowell students have created a tribute to the hospital, celebrating its singular value to its workers, patients and the neighborhood around it.

Assistant professors Ingrid Hess and Pouya Afshar, both four-year veterans of the UML faculty, have earned 2018 honors from the Fulbright Scholar Program, the cultural exchange program designed to improve intercultural and diplomatic relations across the globe. 

Jordi Love and Thomas Nelson bonded over video and board games. They texted each other their romantic feelings. They worked with professors on a research animation. And now they’re planning to marry. Among their “children” will be their own video games.

Most arrests end in guilty pleas instead of trials, and research suggests that many innocent people plead guilty to escape the threat of a long prison sentence. A psychology professor has teamed up with an art professor to make plea bargains easier to research – and to change an unjust system.

Students in Regina Milan's Design in Motion class took their assignment outside the classroom to help Girls Inc. create videos that would appeal to donors.

What can graphics tell you about a city's history? A new exhibit focuses on design branding in Lowell – including UMass Lowell – over the years.

Concurrently, in four city galleries hang exhibits featuring work by UMass Lowell students, alumni and faculty.

With the sweat of more than their brow, a couple of UML professors lead a team looking to quell conflict with sauna diplomacy.

Ashley Brown's public art project may not have made its full run, but it had an impact.

University Prof. Robert Forrant helped launch a summer history and writing program for Lawrence students from third grade through middle school, with help from the Lawrence History Center, Andover Bread Loaf and a Creative Economy Grant from the UMass President’s Office.

Assoc. Prof. Ellen Wetmore, a veteran filmmaker and photographer, was one of just 18 Bay State artists to win a $12,000 grant.

Steve Tello and Ellen Wetmore hatch the Art-to-Work Incubator, a program designed to train artists in the practical side of making a living with art.

Student Employee of the Year Mary Connell, a sophomore art major from Princeton, helps promote all that Lowell has to offer through her work with the Community Relations office.

This spring, construction begins on a fabrication lab for the Art and Design Department in the basement of Dugan Hall.

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 Iranian-born artist is a pioneer in new media who re-created what ISIS destroyed, saw the presidential travel ban up close and returned to the U.S. to reiterate the power of activist art.

The first students in UMass Lowell’s new Master of Public Administration program are getting a crash course in how to manage public and private agencies in the arts and humanities, criminal justice and human services.

UMass Lowell's campus is littered with hidden gems.

The Career & Co-op Center is targeting FAHSS majors with several innovative programs, including Employer-in-Residence days and a one-credit course on career preparation.

The debut of a race of kinetic sculptures from near and far was engineered by UMass Lowell lecturer Michael Roundy. It was a sloppy, kooky and colorful blast, and Roundy says you can count on it returning next fall.

John Cullen, a senior art major, is spending a chunk of his senior year at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston as a graphic design and video intern.

The Lowell campus has won three UMass Creative Economy grants that will fund educational projects on Southeast Asian folklore and immigrants, environmental history and animation.

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.

Pouya Afshar, assistant professor of art and design, uses a series of animated stories featuring mythical Iranian hero Rostam to generate discussion about serious issues in Iran.

UMass Lowell is a partner in a dramatic transformation of a troubled alley whose five-year journey was celebrated with an opening June 2.

The work of seven Art and Design students has been selected to appear on an 80-foot multi-screen LED outside the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center.

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.

Seven of the 10 student video installations featured in the latest Art on the Marquee exhibit at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center were created by UMass Lowell graphic design students.

Visiting Lecturer Regina Milan’s Design in Motion students created 60-second fundraising motion graphics for Melmark, a school in Andover that treats severely autistic children and teens.

Art students created a mural commissioned by the owner of Drum Hill Ford in Lowell, who was so impressed with the end result, he committed to funding an annual Art Department scholarship.

Assoc. Prof. Stephen Mishol has once again been honored with a Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellowship in recognition of his excellence in drawing.

Living-learning communities help students academically and socially, increasing retention and student success.

Distinguished Service Awards, presented at the annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. dinner, go to students, faculty and staff dedicated to social change, service and community engagement.

The recent renovation of Drum Hill Ford is not only giving prospective car buyers a pleasant car-buying experience, but it's also giving UMass Lowell fine arts students a great opportunity to strut their stuff.

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

Art students visited the Shenkar College of Engineering and Design, continuing a partnership between several of the school’s departments.

“Sound of Light” featuring work by lecturer Wael Kamal and students Duy Hoang and Lars-Erik Miller hints at the achievements ahead for the artists.

Established and emerging graphic novelists, three of whom visited campus for an artist talk with students, are featured in a show in the University Gallery.

The University Gallery is featuring a selection of contemporary artwork from Egypt. The exhibit resulted from a visit to Egypt by a UMass Lowell delegation led by Provost Ahmed Abdelal.