A Student with Building and Construction Technology wins prize in UMass Innovation Challenge

Tracie Reed, a Masters of Architecture student at UMass was awarded one of two second prizes in the UMass Innovation Challenge for "Turf Builder", a web-based election canvassing tool. This prize carried a financial award of $1,000. Tracie has attended many BCT classes and her faculty sponsor for this competition was Alexander Schreyer, Lecturer in NRC. Each team in the executive summary competition conceives an innovative product or service based on technology created on campus, then produces a five-page executive summary for its commercialization. All the executive summaries were reviewed by the judges before the competition to help determine the overall scores in the contest. On the night of the competition, each team leader presented a two-minute presentation, or elevator pitch, to the judges, who then grilled the team about its concept. Judges dished out more than $10,000 in prize money and other incentives Dec. 8 to six clever, timely and promising ventures conceived by students, faculty and alumni as part of...
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Professor Juanes keynotes symposium on salmon in Taiwan

Professor Francis Juanes of the Department of Natural Resources Conservation was a keynote speaker at the First International Symposium on Formosa landlocked salmon and masu salmon which took place Oct. 23-26 in Taipei, Taiwan. Of the seven species of Pacific salmon, only the masu salmon spawns exclusively in the western Pacific. Four subspecies of masou salmon are currently recognized: amago salmon, Biwa salmon, red-spotted masou salmon and Formosa landlocked salmon. Formosa landlocked salmon only occurs in one location in Taiwan and is therefore considered to be the southernmost Pacific salmon. Its limited range (since the 1990s, it inhabits only the Chichian stream within the Shei-Pa national park), genetic discreteness, and its low and fluctuating population numbers suggests that it may be the most endangered salmon in the world. The symposium brought together scientists focusing on all subspecies of masu salmon to update knowledge and apply it to the conservation of Formosan salmon. Participants included scientists from Taiwan, Japan and two scientists...
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