News

A team of researchers from UMass Lowell and the Goddard Space Flight Center has received a two-year, $1.2 million grant from NASA to develop an instrument that would significantly improve the accuracy of the International Terrestrial Reference Frame.

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.

The subtle memory decline that can precede Alzheimer’s disease for a decade or more could be slowed or even reversed through lifestyle modifications, according to newly published research by a UMass Lowell faculty member. 

Kennedy College of Sciences Dean Noureddine Melikechi, who is also a physics professor, has been elected a fellow of the American Physical Society (APS).

Associate Professor Jessica Garb will use NSF grant to figure out how Darwin’s bark spider produces its silk and what makes it so tough.

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.

Prof. Fred Martin of the Department of Computer Science recently hosted “CS Connections,” a four-day summer workshop for middle school teachers who want to learn about computer science.

Sophia Manukian is one of nine high school-age interns conducting biological research at UMass Lowell this summer under the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center (MSLC) high school apprenticeship challenge.

UMass Lowell physics professor Archana Kamal was recently named to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's list of 35 Innovators Under 35.

Assoc. Prof. Jessica Garb is studying the molecular composition, biomechanical properties and evolution of a type of silk produced by Darwin’s bark spider.

Robotics experts from UMass Lowell, Carnegie Mellon University, Brigham Young University and Tufts University are working together to give humanoid robots and other autonomous systems the ability to assess themselves in terms of how well they can perform a given task.

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.

Nobel laureate Shuji Nakamura was on campus recently to deliver this year’s Tripathy Endowed Memorial Lecture and to receive an honorary doctorate from UMass Lowell.

NASA was able to re-establish radio contact with the IMAGE satellite, which was launched in 2000 and operated for nearly six years before ground controllers suddenly lost its signal in December 2005.

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.

To help students pursue advanced health degrees, the university has increased and centralized advising support and program coordination.

UMass Lowell public health and computer science researchers are launching the pilot of a new tool in Peru that aims to speed up the diagnosis of people afflicted with tuberculosis.

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.”

Biology Asst. Prof. Jennifer L. Fish is spearheading a project to understand the molecular mechanisms responsible in patients who have genetic mutations that lead to craniofacial deformities.

An interdisciplinary team of researchers led by biology Assoc. Prof. Jeffrey Moore is studying a genetic disorder that causes the walls of the heart to thicken and become stiff.

Prof. Partha Chowdhury of the Department of Physics and Applied Physics is conducting research to unravel the internal structure of the atom's nucleus.

The future of numerous industries – from health care to energy – depends on skilled computer science professionals. That’s the message that educators heard at a recent conference focused on strengthening computer science education in grades K–12.

UMass Lowell is now a member of UCAR, University Corporation for Atmospheric Research.

Math Prof. Enrique González-Velasco co-authored a book on the contributions of the influential mathematician John Napier, who is credited with inventing logarithms.

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.

Biologist Nicolai Konow studies the structure and movements of backboned animals, including fish, bats, birds and axolotls, to understand how they evolved and how they fit into the ecosystem. A recent study looks at fish that eat coral.

Nearly 60 schoolchildren in Everett and Medford learned programming skills this summer at a camp conducted by computer science Prof. Fred Martin and graduate student Chike Abuah.

UMass Lowell Climate Change Initiative Director Juliette Rooney-Varga received a three-year, $340,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to study whether college students who are exposed to the World Climate Simulation are more likely to become engaged with sustainability issues on campus.

UMass Lowell researchers will take advantage of the rare opportunity presented by the total solar eclipse on Aug. 21 to study how the moon’s shadow might affect Earth’s upper atmosphere.

A visiting student researcher from Spain is trying to find out if the venom from the sea anemone can be used to fight cancer cells in humans.

On Monday, Aug. 21, a total eclipse of the sun will be visible in the United States along a narrow track that stretches from Salem, Ore., to Charleston, S.C. Check out tips for viewing the partial eclipse that will happen in New England.

Prof. Daniel Obrist recently led an international group of researchers to conduct a long-term study of the origin of mercury pollution in the Arctic tundra.

A research team led by Prof. Daniel Obrist, chairman of UMass Lowell's Department of Environmental, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, found that airborne mercury is gathering in the Arctic tundra, where it gets deposited in the soil and ultimately runs off into waters.

This year, the Kennedy College of Sciences has initiated the Distinguished Guest Lecture Series, New Faculty Research Symposium and Conversation Starter for faculty, staff and students.

Assoc. Prof. Mathew Barlow of the Department of Environmental, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences is conducting research to try to understand what causes extreme rainfall events in the Northeast.

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.

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.

NASA is charting a bold course that could have humans exploring the Martian surface by the early 2030s. Experts discussed the prospect at a two-day symposium at UMass Lowell.

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.

Prof. Erno Sajo, in collaboration with researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital, has developed a new class of inexpensive nanofilm radiation detectors that can be used in everything from health care to homeland security.

Assoc. Prof. Juliette Rooney-Varga and members of the university’s Climate Change Initiative led a legislative briefing at the State House on “Meeting the Climate and Energy Challenge,” introducing their interactive simulation to policymakers.

Juliette Rooney-Varga, director of the Climate Change Initiative at UMass Lowell, stood before a packed room in the State House and guided lawmakers, staffers, and other attendees through an exercise in climate-change policy making.

A team from UMass Lowell spent spring break teaching more than a hundred schoolchildren in Haiti about astronomy, rocket science, space exploration and the lives of famous scientists, engineers and mathematicians.

Advanced mathematical 3-D modeling conducted by Asst. Prof. Ofer Cohen and other researchers demonstrates that Proxima b doesn’t have an atmosphere; hence, the chances of finding extraterrestrial life on the alien world’s surface have become less likely.

Noureddine Melikechi, dean of the Kennedy College of Sciences, and his co-researchers have developed a technique that uses intense pulses of laser to break down a patient's blood sample to search for biomarkers for ovarian cancer.

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.

Thanks to a $1.5 million grant from the Department of Energy, a team of robotics experts is studying ways in which a humanoid robot can help clean up America’s decommissioned nuclear production facilities.

The “Digital Healthcare Revolution” panel discussion featured experts in the areas of technology, entrepreneurship and clinical care and operations.

Since Kierra Walsh was 6 months old, she's been a regular at the Boston Museum of Science. Walsh, now 18 and a student at UMass Lowell, would dress up as a bee -- playing in the Discovery Center's hive. For the last four years, she's been volunteering at the museum.

Steven Chu was on campus on Nov. 16 to deliver this year’s Tripathy Endowed Memorial Lecture and receive an honorary doctorate.

Project Blue, a consortium of non-governmental, non-profit space and research institutions, including UMass Lowell, has embarked on an ambitious quest to design, build and launch by 2020 a small, privately funded space telescope to detect planets around our nearest stellar neighbor called Alpha Centauri.

Dean Noureddine Melikechi has been recognized "for pioneering scientific, technological and educational contributions to optics, including novel methodologies in laser induced breakdown spectroscopy for space exploration and cancer diagnosis."

Several of the technologies necessary for the telescope have already been on various NASA missions, according to Project Blue's lead scientist Supriya Chakrabarti, an astronomer at the University of Massachusetts Lowell.

More students than ever are majoring in mathematics, which opens the door to careers in data analytics, statistics, computer science and teaching.

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

From improving rehabilitation for stroke survivors to reducing inflammation through diet in older adults, faculty members in the College of Health Sciences are conducting studies that have the potential to make a powerful impact on people’s lives.

A team of computer science students won an award at a Simmons hackathon for an app that helps people listening to rap music understand the lyrics. They also got mentored by an engineer at Spotify, who invited them to visit the company and apply for internships or jobs.

The university’s Core Research Facilities, a group of open access laboratories, is showing off its state-of-the-art scientific equipment by offering a fictional crime “Lunch and Learn” series of workshops and a short-story contest for undergraduates.

Honors biology major Kierra Walsh shared the podium with businessman and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg when he announced a $50 million gift to the Boston Museum of Science.

A team of researchers from UMass Lowell and Dartmouth College has developed two new tools that allow users nationwide to react and view responses to the presidential debates in real time.

The second annual Kennedy College of Sciences Block Party at Cumnock Hall gave the school’s new dean, Noureddine Melikechi, a fun and informal way to introduce himself to students, faculty and staff.

A team of researchers from UMass Lowell and Dartmouth College recently launched HillaryDonald.com -- a set of tools that provides users with the ability to react and view an aggregation of reactions to the debates and other election events of the 2016 presidential election campaign in real time. The two tools include the interactive app that allows users to remotely “applaud” or “boo” live remarks by Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in real-time, and a visualization tool called TwitterScope, which maps live political discourse on Twitter by ideology and sentiment. 

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.

Scientists from UMass Lowell and King’s College London have demonstrated a new way of capturing ultrasharp images of structures of extremely tiny objects measuring billionths of a meter in size.

UMass Lowell students awarded $200,000 grant by NASA to design and build a satellite that will launch into orbit in 2018.

The U.S. National Security Agency and Department of Homeland Security have recently designated UMass Lowell a “National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense Research” in recognition of the university’s intensive cyber-security research and academic programs.

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.

Math Prof. Stephen Pennell has been recognized for his outstanding teaching and exemplary dedication to students and the campus community.

The UMass system’s move to divest from direct fossil fuel holdings is a personal victory for senior biology major Sabrina Pedersen, president of the Climate Change Coalition.

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

UMass Lowell students and researchers are programming one of only four robots in the world that NASA hopes will allow us to one day live on Mars.

Prof. James Propp of the Department of Mathematical Sciences was recently elected fellow of the American Mathematical Society for his “distinguished contributions to mathematics.”

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.

Recent alumni and industry leaders share practical career advice at annual Life Science Young Professionals Panel and Networking Session.

Students in Assoc. Prof. Juliette Rooney-Varga’s climate change course produce one-minute PSA videos on the plight of Earth, which are screened at Lowell Eco-Film Series.

Val — short for Valkyrie — is a 6-foot, 2-inch, 300-pound mass of metal, wires and plastic that was delivered to UMass Lowell, along with a squad of NASA engineers, who put together the robot piece by piece.

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

UMass Lowell was there for Alexandre and Rita Blumstein during a remarkably difficult time in their lives.

Computer science Assoc. Prof. Benyuan Liu and his co-researchers recently used data from a leading dating website in China to develop a recommendation system that would help those seeking romance find a good match. 

Chemistry Prof. Rudolf Faust, a world-renowned expert and pioneer in developing the chemical properties of plastics, was recently named a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors.

UMass Lowell professor Kate Swanger and postdoctoral researcher Kelsey Winsor want to learn about past climates, a goal that led them on a six-week study tour of Antarctica, where they researched sediment and glaciers in temperatures as cold as 15 degrees below zero Fahrenheit.

A state-of-the-art NASA robot prototype will soon be taking up residence at the university’s robotics testing lab to study how this human-like machine can assist astronauts in future space exploration. 

After attending the U.N. Conference on Climate Change, Assoc. Prof. Juliette Rooney-Varga, director of the Climate Change Initiative, says the Paris Agreement is an important first step.

A team of researchers led by UMass Lowell faculty is using smartphone technology to help improve the diagnosis of people afflicted with tuberculosis.

Prof. Supriya Chakrabarti and Asst. Prof. Timothy Cook are launching a rocket-borne experiment called PICTURE-B to take direct images of the disk of dust surrounding a nearby Sun-like star.

UMass Lowell announced today that it has named its College of Sciences for alumni John and William Kennedy.

A team of researchers led by Asst. Prof. Kate Swanger is spending two months in Antarctica to study the history of rock glaciers and buried glacial ice in the McMurdo Dry Valleys region.

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

Renowned robotics expert Holly Yanco has been named Distinguished University Professor, the highest distinction bestowed on a University of Massachusetts Lowell faculty member.