Thanks to a state grant, the university’s Fabric Discovery Center acquired equipment to test PPE that could be used to prevent transmission of COVID-19. Now, staff are conducting PPE testing for the state emergency management agency, hospitals, and regional companies that are ramping up to manufacture high-quality masks and gowns. And that’s just the beginning.

A total of 30 undergraduate and graduate students and postdoctoral researchers from colleges across the campus competed during the first Future Pack Design Challenge, held at the new Fabric Discovery Center.

Marjorie Yang, chair of the $1 billion Hong Kong-based textile company Esquel Group, visited campus and talked to students about sustainability and social responsibility. Her father, Y.L. Yang, earned a master of science in textile chemistry from the Lowell Textile Institute in 1948.

The U.S. Department of Transportation recently awarded a five-year, $14 million grant to a partnership of faculty and student researchers from UMass Lowell and other universities in New England to create a regional Transportation Infrastructure Durability Center.

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.

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.

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.

UMass Lowell's new Fabric Discovery Center will support research and development of new technologies that will revolutionize the way fabrics are made.

Gov. Charlie Baker was in Lowell to award $11.3 million to the university for what may fuel a new fabrics boom in the city.

The Baker-Polito Administration announced awards totaling $11.3 million to UMass Lowell to fund the creation of future technologies that will revolutionize the way fabrics are made and reinvent the textile industry in Lowell.