Category: News

A $1.25 million investment expands pioneering multi-disciplinary program at UMass Amherst  The Integrated Concentration in Science program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, also known as UMass iCons, is revolutionizing science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education, and will be expanding its reach thanks to a substantial gift that will foster more interdisciplinary research and expand the science learning model to other institutions.    Launched in 2010, the UMass iCons program has produced six cohorts of graduates who are already transforming their fields, communities, and the culture of scientific exploration. The program encourages and teaches undergraduate STEM researchers to collaborate across disciplines and exert leadership in tackling global problems, with an emphasis on communicating science to a wider audience.  Thanks to a gift of $1.25 million over five years from the Mahoney family—longtime UMass supporters including Richard J. Mahoney ’55 and Barbara M. Mahoney ’55, William E. Mahoney ’55, and Robert M. Mahoney ’70 and Kathleen S. Mahoney ’70—the College of Natural Sciences will significantly expand the reach of the UMass iCons program by educating more students, positively impacting the commonwealth, and spreading the program’s pioneering educational approaches to other institutions.  “This way of learning is not...

New rankings show UMass as agricultural and sustainability leader  After achieving a Top 25 ranking nationwide among public universities, UMass Amherst has once again distinguished itself among universities nationally and globally in specialized rankings reports set out this fall by US News & World Report and Princeton Review.  Princeton Review Top 50 Green Colleges  For the fifth year in a row, the University of Massachusetts Amherst has been named to the Princeton Review’s list of Top 50 Green Colleges, recognizing schools that have “superb sustainability practices, a strong foundation in sustainability education, and a healthy quality of life for students on campus.” The list is included in the new 2019 edition of “The Princeton Review Guide to 413 Green Colleges.” Ranked No. 30 this year out of the 413 schools profiled, UMass Amherst was also among the Top 50 in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018.   The Princeton Review tallied this ranking list based on data from its institutional survey of administrators at the colleges for its Green Rating and its surveys of...

New models demonstrate how dam removal reconnects waterways for healthier ecosystems  From their modeling study of fishes and ecosystems in the Gulf of Maine earlier this year, researchers led by graduate student Beatriz dos Santos Dias and her advisor Adrian Jordaan, environmental conservation and director of the Gloucester Marine Station, report that modeling demonstrates that improving river-ocean connectivity by removing dams not only makes more food available to larger species, but would enhance overall ecosystem functioning.  They believe this is the first study to use historical, landscape-based estimates of anadromous fish species – those that return from the ocean to freshwater rivers to spawn – in the Gulf of Maine to model ecosystem responses. Increasing the numbers of forage fish such as river herring and Atlantic herring could promote energy flow in the gulf and benefit many other species, such as Atlantic cod, flounder and wildlife including marine mammals and seabirds, they note. Details are in a recent issue of PLOS ONE.  “Restored watersheds with incentivized dam removal...