AMHERST — The UMass Amherst College of Engineering (COE) has received a $10 million gift from Jerome and Linda Paros aimed at accelerating its cutting-edge work in atmospheric research and hazard mitigation by enabling a new center of excellence. The gift is the largest ever received by the college.

The gift will support the translation of ongoing and future research into improved hazardous weather predictions, alert systems, and policies that will save lives as the world continues to experience increases in the intensity and frequency of storms and other extreme weather events that stem from climate change. The $10 million gift will provide discretionary support for the new Paros Center for Atmospheric Research, funding for the Paros Fellows/Scholars Endowed Fund for graduate fellowships and undergraduate scholarships, and to establish the Paros Chair of Atmospheric Research and Hazard Mitigation.

“This transformative gift is a recognition of the tremendous talent and expertise we have at UMass Amherst,” College of Engineering Dean Sanjay Raman said. “Jerry and Linda Paros are enabling us to build on our established track record of accomplishment in ways that will have a profound impact on our nation and the global community. This gift will greatly enhance our capability to translate research in areas such as radar systems, the internet of things, data science and artificial intelligence, and unoccupied aerial vehicles into real-world hazard mitigation systems. It is an extraordinary investment, and we are deeply grateful.”

Building upon UMass Amherst’s leadership in the field through the Center for Collaborative Adaptive Sensing of the Atmosphere (CASA) — an engineering research center housed at UMass and established through prior National Science Foundation funds — this new funding will enable UMass researchers to expand CASA’s original mission to explore new frontiers in atmospheric measurement, science, and technology.

Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy noted that UMass faculty have been at the forefront of this effort. “Through their innovation, our researchers are building a new level of safety for communities around the world,” he said. “Now, with this gift, we will expand our understanding of hazardous weather conditions and explore the next generation of life-saving strategies.”

Jerome Paros, a 1960 UMass Amherst alumnus, is a leader in the field of geophysical measurements. He holds more than 50 patents and is the founder, president, and chairman of Paroscientific Inc., Quartz Seismic Sensors Inc., and related companies based in Redmond, Wash. These companies use the quartz crystal resonator technology he developed to measure pressure, acceleration, temperature, weight, and other parameters. His work has improved the measurements of geophysical phenomena such as tsunamis, earthquakes, and severe weather, and enhanced knowledge about the complex earth, air, and ocean processes that produce climate change. In the mid-2000s, Jerome and Linda Paros endowed a fund in measurement science at UMass Amherst, with the goal of creating synergy in this field of study between the COE and the College of Natural Sciences.

Paros holds an undergraduate degree in physics from UMass Amherst and a graduate degree in physics from Columbia University. He is an International Society of Automation fellow and received the society’s Si Fluor Technology Award in 1980 and the Albert F. Sperry Founders Award in 2006. UMass honored him with a Distinguished Achievement Award in 2011.

AMHERST — Jianhan Chen, a UMass Amherst chemistry and biochemistry and molecular biology professor, has received a five-year, $2 million National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant to support research in his computational biophysics lab aimed at better understanding the role of intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) in biology and human disease.

The grant falls under the National Institute of General Medical Sciences MIRA program, which stands for Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award. It’s designed to give highly talented researchers more flexibility and stability to achieve important scientific advances in their labs.

“The MIRA award enables us to continue working on several central problems regarding the study of disordered proteins and dynamic interactions. The flexibility of this funding mechanism also allows us to follow new research directions as they emerge,” Chen said.

Until relatively recently, it was thought that proteins needed to adopt a well-defined structure to perform their biological function. But about two decades ago, he explained, IDPs were recognized as a new class of proteins that rely on a lack of stable structures to function. They make up about one-third of proteins that human bodies make, and two-thirds of cancer-associated proteins contain large, disordered segments or domains.

“This disorder seems to provide some unique functional advantage, and that’s why we have so much disorder in certain kinds of proteins,” Chen said. “These IDPs play really important roles in biology, and when something breaks down, they lead to very serious diseases, like cancers and neurodegenerative diseases.”

In his lab, Chen and colleagues focus on using computer simulations to model the molecular structure and dynamics of proteins. “IDPs are a mess; it’s difficult to determine the details of their properties because they are not amenable to traditional techniques that are designed to resolve stable protein structures,” he noted.

Because of their chaotic state, IDPs must be described using ensembles of structures, and computer simulations play a crucial role in the quantitative description of these disordered ensembles. “Our goal is really trying to combine simulation and experiments in collaboration with other labs to tease out what are the hidden features of these disordered proteins that are crucial to their function,” Chen said. “Then we can look at how these specific features might be perturbed by disease-related mutations or conditions.”

The next step would be to develop effective strategies for targeting disordered protein states. Toward that end, Chen’s lab will study the molecular basis of how the anti-cancer drug EGCG, an antioxidant found in green-tea extract, and its derivatives interact with the p53 gene, a tumor suppressor and the most important protein involved in cancer.

The key, he explained, is knowing how to design drug molecules to bind well enough to IDPs to achieve a therapeutic effect. Traditional, structure-based drug design strategies are faced with significant challenges, he noted, because IDPs do not contain stable, “druggable” pockets.

“We believe that targeting IDPs requires new strategies that explore the dynamic nature of IDP interactions,” he said. “If we can do this, it could really open up a whole class of drugs that were previously thought impossible.”

AMHERST — A collaboration among UMass Amherst, UMass Dartmouth, UMass Lowell, and Salem State University to work together to decarbonize each campus has been recognized by the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources with a Leading by Example (LBE) Award, which was presented to representatives from each campus at a ceremony earlier this month.

The LBE Awards recognize Commonwealth agencies, public colleges and universities and municipalities, and public-sector staff and volunteers for outstanding efforts related to clean energy and the environment that have resulted in measurable impacts.

The four-campus collaboration began during fiscal year 2020-21, when all four campuses decided to undertake a collaborative strategic planning process to decarbonize their campuses. Representatives from each campus held a series of meetings to allow for a free exchange of ideas, challenges, and lessons learned so that others might get a better result. The group kept various state agencies abreast of their discussions and how the work may affect formulating new policy. The group is also committed to sharing their information with similar institutions and agencies across the commonwealth.

To qualify for the award, the campuses had to meet various criteria, including sustainable practices, environmental benefits, cost savings, and education and outreach efforts.

The UMass Amherst Carbon Mitigation Taskforce is co-chaired by Ezra Small, sustainability manager for the UMass Amherst physical plant; and Dwayne Breger, environmental conservation and clean-energy extension, School of Earth and Sustainability.

“I can’t think of a more important task than to develop a plan that transitions our campus energy system to 100% renewables and zero carbon emissions within the next 10 to 15 years, and I am grateful to have co-chaired the Carbon Mitigation Taskforce for UMass Amherst along with Dwayne Breger,” Small said. “I’m happy to have traded notes and shared best practices with my colleagues at the other awarded institutions to help each other along the way, and I think we are all at the forefront of the most crucial issue of our time of addressing climate change.”

AMHERST — In the largest-ever nutritional comparison of beef and alternative burgers available to U.S. consumers, a UMass Amherst analysis found that packaged beef burgers on average contain more calories, protein, fat, and cholesterol — and less sodium and fiber — than imitation and veggie burgers.

On average, veggie burgers contain the least fat, the most carbohydrates, and the most vitamin A and vitamin C, while imitation burgers contain the most sodium, vitamin D, iron, and potassium.

The findings, based on an analysis of 158 products — 89 veggie burgers, 41 conventional burgers, and 28 imitation burgers — were published in the International Journal of Food Science and Nutrition.

Sensory scientist and senior author Alissa Nolden, assistant professor of Food Science at UMass Amherst, said surveys have shown that consumers are very concerned about the nutritional value of meat-free burgers on the market. “In one survey, taste was a huge reason why consumers were adopting changes, but nutrition was also a primary concern. And the top nutritional concern was protein.”

Nolden compiled and analyzed the data with a team of students and co-authors, including then-high-schooler Natalie Goeler-Slough, who had won a Massachusetts Life Sciences Center apprenticeship. Goeler-Slough, a native of Northampton, is now studying at Haverford College in Pennsylvania.

Even as meat-eating increases globally, UMass Amherst food scientists are at the forefront of efforts to develop healthier, better-tasting, and sustainable plant-based foods that mimic fish, milk, cheese, and eggs, as well as meat.

Nolden, as a sensory scientist, focuses on the complexities of creating products to enhance food enjoyment. She noted the huge nutritional variability in the burger products on the market, which is important for consumers to be aware of when substituting beef for non-meat burgers.

“There are tons of options for consumers to try, and they might not be aware of the nutritional differences,” she said. “The goal of this study wasn’t to say one product category is healthier than the other. We wanted to look at the nutrients, which can sometimes become a lower priority during product development because there is a strong focus on making the product taste delicious.”

Consumers who read nutritional labels closely can make better choices about their needs. “If you’re looking to reduce your overall calories, then veggie burgers could be beneficial for some consumers,” Nolden said. “People who are looking to consume veggie burgers don’t need them to taste like meat; they can embrace the flavors and textures of those veggie ingredients. Unlike imitation meat, veggie burgers don’t have to have as much protein as conventional burgers, which was a finding of this study.”

It’s more challenging to develop imitation burgers that are trying to match conventional burgers in their appearance, texture, taste, and amount of protein. “You might think that, because an imitation burger is plant-based, it would be lower in things like saturated fat, when, in fact, in order to make it taste better, they incorporate things like coconut oil,” she noted.

The burger-development industry is the most important target of the study’s findings, which Nolden said can help food scientists identify areas that need nutritional improvement.

The paper concludes, that “these findings can help to inform future work related to determining important nutritional drivers for consumer acceptance and consumption, improving the nutritional content of the alternative product to match conventional products, and informing on the potential nutritional implications of consuming a diet consisting of sustainable or plant-based products.”

AMHERST — Two visionary financial gifts have provided a strong foundation for UMass Amherst nurses and engineers to collaborate and lead transformational change in patient care, nursing practice, and medical-product development.

In May, alumni Michael and Theresa Hluchyj, longtime supporters of both the College of Engineering and the College of Nursing, committed $1 million in seed funding for a collaborative center. Building on their prior philanthropy devoted to graduate fellowships, their vision was to help foster partnerships between the two disciplines to identify issues and develop innovative solutions.

“Innovation is often accelerated at the intersection of different academic disciplines,” Michael Hluchyj said when announcing the gift. “The worldwide health crises resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic make clear the critical need for innovative solutions in clinical settings where both nursing and engineering play vital roles.”

Inspired by the transformational possibilities enabled by the Hluchyjs’ generosity, in September, the Elaine Nicpon Marieb Charitable Foundation gave a gift of $21.5 million to the College of Nursing, with a significant portion designated to support the Elaine Marieb Center for Nursing and Engineering Innovation.

“The innovative nursing engineering program currently being launched at the university was clearly the catalyst for capturing the interest of the foundation and is consistent with Elaine’s own spirit of innovation in learning,” said Martin Wasmer, Elaine Nicpon Marieb Charitable Foundation trustee.

In the few short months since the foundation gift was announced, the Elaine Marieb Center for Nursing and Engineering Innovation has established an initial laboratory footprint on the sixth floor of Life Sciences Laboratories, said center co-directors Frank Sup, Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, and Karen Giuliano, Nursing and Institute for Applied Life Sciences.

The center also currently supports two graduate fellowships and is accepting pilot grant applications from interdisciplinary nursing and engineering teams. Its first postdoctoral fellow and undergraduate interns are expected to begin work next summer.

As a nurse-innovator with experience in both clinical care and product development during her many years in industry, Giuliano says involving nurses in the earliest stages of the development process is crucial.

“As the nation’s largest group of healthcare professionals, nurses use more products and are a part of more services than any other healthcare professional,” she said. “Traditionally, nurses have not been included as part of the healthcare innovation process — the Elaine Marieb Center intends to change that.”

Sup added that “the mission is to advance human health and wellness by training the next generation of nurses and engineers to be leaders at the frontiers of healthcare delivery. The nurse-engineer approach represents a powerful, integrated, real-time collaboration to identify healthcare problems, iterate potential solutions, evaluate outcomes, and balance tradeoffs to optimize system performance and patient care.”

The Elaine Marieb Center has already established itself as a Center of Excellence for improving the safety and usability of IV smart pumps. Intravenous (IV) infusion pump systems are among the most pervasive technologies in healthcare, used by about 90% of hospital patients, and have numerous well-known safety and usability issues that have a negative impact on patient care. This program of research is being led by Giuliano, with results from 16 publications representing both research and thought already disseminated.

More recently, the center research is focused on flow-rate accuracy during actual clinical use, with a series of studies being led by Jeannine Blake, MS, RN. Starting in July, Blake will be the first nursing doctoral student to enter an engineering postdoctoral fellowship, with mentorship from Juan Jiménez, Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, who uses fluid flow engineering principles to better understand human systems.

Under Sup’s leadership, the center is also starting research on the use of robotics in healthcare. It teams doctoral students from both engineering and nursing, as well as an undergraduate nursing honors student, to identify challenges and develop robotic solutions to improve healthcare delivery for patients and providers.

A longer-term goal enabled by the Elaine Marieb Foundation gift will be the establishment of a lab at the university’s Mount Ida campus, which will provide a place for healthcare product and service testing with a diverse group of nurses and other frontline clinical end users.

AMHERST — UMass Dining Services has been awarded $319,000 by the Henry P. Kendall Foundation for its “Strategies to Onboard Kelp into College Dining Programs” project.

Between 2013 and 2020, the Kendall Foundation’s gift of $1,395,000 supported UMass Dining’s commitment to local, healthy and sustainable sourcing. As an example, the Real Food Challenge initiative of 20% ‘real food’ by 2020 — a goal UMass Dining exceeded, achieving 29% — was supported by this funding. In addition, the grant supported infrastructure improvements, relationship building, promotional campaigns, local partnerships, innovative programs, and regional convening for key stakeholders.

Ken Toong, executive director of Auxiliary Enterprises, is excited and proud of his team, noting that “we’ve been fortunate and grateful to have the Henry P. Kendall Foundation’s support for many years. Our team, even through the pandemic, never lost sight of our mission and continued to source from our local partners. It’s a great opportunity and an honor to be able to partner with Atlantic Sea Farms to continue to push the needle for more local, sustainable, and healthy items to add to our menu.”

This two-year project will introduce nutrient-dense, regeneratively grown New England kelp into the UMass Dining program as a choice for students and an opportunity for climate action. UMass Dining is partnering with New England-based Atlantic Sea Farms on the project as an innovative leader in the kelp industry on the East Coast. Atlantic Sea Farms offers not only kelp products, but expertise in the climate impact of growing and eating kelp, as well as the volume necessary for a large campus dining program. This partnership with Atlantic Sea Farms will drive normalization and inclusion of kelp on university menus.

Briana Warner, president and CEO of Atlantic Sea Farms, is excited about the partnership and what the future will hold. “We are really excited to work with the incredible dining team at UMass to introduce fresh, regenerative kelp to students. College students are increasingly aware of the choices that we make every day that affect their health and the environment, and we are creating an entirely new food system here in New England that is helping communities not only adapt to climate change, but also mitigate some of its effects. By partnering with UMass, we are hoping to help give students tasty, healthy ways to incorporate Maine-grown, fresh kelp into their everyday lives so we can all, together, create a more resilient and climate-friendly food system.”

Along with recipe and concept development, UMass Dining plans to engage students by integrating kelp into its Low Carbon Dining campaign and its Diet for a Cooler Planet campaign. This project aims to lay the path for replication so that kelp can be introduced to menus in college and university dining programs across the country.

UMass is looking for a new head football coach. Again.

Yes, the Walt Bell era is over. Not quite three years in, and after a bad loss to the University of Rhode Island at home (and on homecoming weekend), Bell was fired. This was a bad loss not because of the score (35-22), but because URI plays one division down from UMass. And such a setback inevitably triggers discussion of why UMass is in that higher division to begin with.

Indeed, this loss, coupled with Bell’s firing, has brought out some new calls for UMass to end its experiment with big-time football and go back to where it was — playing schools like URI every weekend, and even beating some of them. Often, quite a few of them.

Those calls make sense. UMass has been trying to succeed in the Football Championship Subdivision for almost a decade now. It is not only not making any progress, it is going backward. The team has simply not been competitive on the field, as the scores would indicate — a 51-7 loss to Pittsburgh, 53-3 to Coastal Carolina, 59-3 to Florida State, and 62-17 to Liberty — and in recent years, the program has become nothing short of an embarrassment to the school.

If one were an optimist, one would point to the success of the school’s hockey team, which returned to Division 1 in 1993 and last spring won a national championship, as reason to stay with this experiment and press on. But this situation calls for realism, not optimism. And realistically speaking, UMass is simply not positioned to succeed with this experiment. It’s not the coach, and it’s not the stadium, or the lack of one befitting a school at the top tier. It comes down to the fact that it’s very, very difficult to succeed at this level. It takes money, facilities, a passionate fan base, and a foundation on which to build.

UMass doesn’t have any of those things, really, and neither does another school that should give up the ghost when it comes to the Football Championship Subdivision: UConn, the only school UMass has beaten this year.

Coach Walt Bell is gone, but the problem remains. UMass is in over its head. And it’s time to come back to shore.

AMHERST — In an effort to defend science and combat misinformation, Richard Peltier, associate professor of Environmental Health Sciences in the UMass Amherst School of Public Health and Health Sciences, has started writing a free, weekly newsletter called Up in the Air on Substack, a digital subscription newsletter platform.

Peltier, an expert in air pollution, aims to offer “objective analysis of science — mostly air quality and health, but occasionally dipping my toes in other directions where I might have something to say.”

He conducted urgent research at the start of the pandemic to test whether healthcare workers could safely reuse face masks designed for one-time use. In general, using innovative approaches and novel designs and applications of instrumentation, he focuses his research on advancing knowledge of particulate matter and its impact on human health.

Peltier’s expertise is often sought by national media outlets and such agencies as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the World Health Organization, for which he serves on the Global Air Pollution and Health Technical Advisory Group.

He invites “anyone who wants to learn — policymakers, journalists, students, or anyone who wonders about their environment” — to check out Up in the Air. “If you are curious about science, this newsletter is for you.”

Subscribe for free at 20000breaths.substack.com/about.

AMHERST — UMass Amherst announced that, as part of Robert and Donna Manning’s recent historic $50 million gift to the University of Massachusetts, $18 million will endow the newly named Robert and Donna Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences.

At the same time, Gov. Charlie Baker announced a $75 million commitment that will enhance and expand the college’s facilities. The state grant, which will be allocated over the course of multiple future capital plans, is backed by a $30 million commitment from the campus for the expanded physical footprint of the college.

These combined investments will allow the college to continue to grow and fuel new discoveries in computing research. It will attract top faculty, increase access to its nationally ranked program, and offer scholarships, bridge programs, and peer mentoring to foster a diverse and ethical future workforce. Since 2018, the college has committed to doubling the amount of undergraduate and graduate students, and the gift and grant will help accelerate that goal.

The Robert and Donna Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences ranks among the top 20 computer science programs in North America and boasts the 11th-ranked artificial intelligence (AI) program. United around a revolutionary vision for computing research and education, known as Computing for the Common Good, the college is driving scientific discovery in key areas such as healthcare, sustainability, cybersecurity, quantum information systems, and human-centered technology. Its research is focused on some of the most demanding challenges of today, including ensuring that AI is equitable, safe, and applied in positive ways, creating technologies that protect personal privacy and safeguard children from online predators.

“I have been very focused on the ethical application of new technologies, which both enhance and complicate our lives,” said Robert Manning, who is chairman of MFS Investment Management and the longtime chair of the UMass board of trustees. “The future of computing will cure diseases and solve some of the world’s greatest challenges, but will also be incredibly disruptive, particularly to the workforce. The College of Information and Computer Sciences at UMass Amherst, with its groundbreaking research and top-notch faculty, is well-positioned to be a leader in building a framework for Computing for the Common Good. Donna and I are proud to invest in this incredibly important initiative.”

UMass Amherst Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy added that “it’s an exciting time for UMass Amherst, and we’re incredibly grateful for this gift from the Manning family and funding commitment from the Commonwealth. We are committed to contributing to an inclusive and innovative society, and we know these gifts will help our institution harness technology’s power to drive this change.”

AMHERST — Two employees who have been coordinating UMass Amherst’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic since March were recently honored by Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy for their efforts.

Ann Becker, campus Public Health director and a clinical associate professor in the Elaine Marieb College of Nursing, and Jeffrey Hescock, executive director of Environmental Health and Safety and Emergency Management, were awarded the Chancellor’s Medal at a recent tribute dinner. Hescock and Becker are the co-directors of the university’s Public Health Promotion Center (PHPC), which has been the home to the UMass COVID testing and vaccination programs. The Chancellor’s Medal is the highest honor the campus bestows on individuals, and is given for exemplary and extraordinary service to the university.

“When the global pandemic abruptly descended upon us in March 2020, beginning one of the most challenging times in our almost 160-year history, the university looked to Ann Becker and Jeff Hescock,” Subbaswamy said. “Ann and Jeff worked together before on urgent issues of campus public health and safety, including their successful effort to stem a campus meningitis outbreak. When COVID-19 hit, they once again combined their respective expertise in public health and emergency management to quickly develop a response strategy for the campus.”

Together, Becker and Hescock established the PHPC, which became one of the largest asymptomatic COVID testing resources in the commonwealth. Applying their knowledge to each new challenge in the pandemic, they continually evolved the PHPC from a testing site to a vaccination clinic as well. And when the Delta variant appeared on campus this fall, they redoubled their efforts to keep the campus safe, Subbaswamy noted.

“For more than 18 months, seven days a week, 24 hours a day, Ann and Jeff have shouldered an unrelenting amount of responsibility,” he said in his tribute, noting that “they have done so with grace, humility, and humor.”

AMHERST — Arwen Staros Duffy, currently assistant vice president for Development at the University of Southern California (USC), has been named vice chancellor for advancement at UMass Amherst. Duffy will begin her new position Nov. 15.

Duffy has served in her leadership role at USC since 2014. She oversaw record fundraising efforts for the Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism, Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, Gould School of Law, Herman Ostrow School of Dentistry, Price School of Public Policy, Rossier School of Education, and Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work as part of the Campaign for USC. Previously, she served as senior vice president for Development and External Affairs at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Calif.

A Yale University graduate in art, she was also vice president of Advancement for the California Institute of the Arts, where she earned her MFA in 1994. Duffy began her career in higher-education advancement at UCLA, where she secured support for the School of the Arts and Architecture and College of Letters and Science.

“Arwen Duffy possesses an extraordinary range of experience and expertise that will advance the mission of UMass Amherst as we seek new heights of philanthropic support for our revolutionary aspirations,” UMass Amherst Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy said. “Her most recent success at USC, a distinguished national university, as well as her deep knowledge of the arts, demonstrates the skill, creativity, and leadership that she will bring to UMass.”

Added Duffy, “public universities play a special role in advancing knowledge for the public good, and I embrace UMass Amherst’s commitment to create a better, more just world. It is a privilege to join the commonwealth’s flagship university at a time when philanthropy is playing a vital role in fueling its mission. This month’s extraordinary gifts to the Marieb College of Nursing will make a lasting impact in the lives of UMass students and their future patients, and I am grateful to interim Vice Chancellor Theresa Curry and the Advancement team for their dedication to engaging alumni, parents, friends, and neighbors in advocacy and support.”

AMHERST — Francine Berman, renowned data scientist, researcher, and co-founder of the Research Data Alliance, will join UMass Amherst’s College of Information and Computer Sciences (CICS) faculty this fall as a research professor and Stuart Rice Honorary Chair. She will work across the UMass campus to build and lead a new initiative in public-interest technology.

A leading researcher in the field of data science, Berman has focused her past work on the societal, ethical, and environmental impacts of information technology. Most recently, she has been working to ensure that the internet of things develops in ways that are beneficial for human society and the ecosystem, topics she explored as a 2019-20 Katherine Hampson Bessell Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. She currently serves as the Edward P. Hamilton Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

“Most people are part of the internet of things and don’t even realize it,” Berman said. “A Fitbit, a Tesla, your smartphone or pacemaker — all of these are connected, and they’re all gathering and sharing information.”

Most of the time, all that information-sharing makes our lives easier, but sometimes it doesn’t, as when our identities are stolen or when discriminatory pricing is tied to our surfing preferences, she explained. “Technology should be good for us. It should be controlled by us, not the other way around.”

At UMass Amherst, Berman will lead a new initiative focusing on public-interest technology. The initiative will blend teaching and research with hands-on practice and provide students, alumni, and the community with tools to reap the benefits and minimize the risks of the technological world we live in. This initiative will span the university’s Amherst and Mount Ida campuses, leveraging the Newton location for outreach and student experiential learning.

Berman’s academic expertise has translated to an extensive career in public service. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, she was appointed to the National Council on the Humanities in 2015. In recognition of her service-focused work, she was selected by the National Academy of Public Administration for inclusion in its 2020 class of Academy Fellows.

In 2012, she co-founded the Research Data Alliance (RDA), a community-driven international organization that builds global infrastructure to enable data sharing and data-driven research. Since its launch in 2012, RDA has attracted nearly 12,000 members from more than 130 countries and has built data infrastructure in use by groups and projects all over the world.

Berman has also served in academic leadership roles, including as vice president for Research at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, director of the San Diego Supercomputer Center, and director of the National Science Foundation’s Partnership for Advanced Computational Infrastructure, a consortium of 41 research groups, institutions, and university partners with the mission of developing national infrastructure to support data-intensive and computationally intensive applications.

Berman is a fellow of the Assoc. of Computing Machinery, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and the American Assoc. for the Advancement of Science. Before joining RPI, she taught at Purdue University as an assistant professor and at the University of California San Diego as a professor. She earned her master’s degree and doctorate from the University of Washington.

“I love the mission of public universities,” she said. “I’m excited to join the UMass community, where social responsibility is at the forefront of so many people’s work, from students to faculty to leadership. And CICS, with its mission of computing for the common good, will be a wonderful new home.”

AMHERST — UMass Amherst’s Jim Kurose, distinguished university professor in the College of Information and Computer Sciences and associate chancellor for Partnerships and Innovation, is part of the research team recently awarded a $20 million National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to build the internet of the future.

The grant, which will support the AI Institute for Future Edge Networks and Distributed Intelligence (AI-EDGE), is led by Ness Shroff, professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Computer Science and Engineering at Ohio State University. The funding supports a core team of 30 scientists from 11 collaborating educational institutions, three U.S. Department of Defense labs, and four global software companies.

AI-EDGE is one of 11 new, NSF-funded Artificial Intelligence Research Institutes, and its ultimate goal is to “design future generations of wireless edge networks that are highly efficient, reliable, robust, and secure, and facilitate solving long-standing distributed AI challenges.”

An edge network, Kurose explained, is simply the network that each one of us connects to. “The internet is a network of networks,” he said, “and every time you surf the internet using a wireless connection, you start at the edge. That’s where you connect.” There are hundreds of millions of such edge networks, and with providers beginning to offer 5G access, with 6G in the not-too-distant future, they’re only becoming more numerous.

The challenge is how to best control and manage these networks to provide high-performance, secure, and robust service. This is where AI (artificial intelligence) comes in.

Just as much of the internet has moved to the edge, so, too, is AI moving outward from a centralized, core location. Not only is the team using AI for networking to solve the problems of speed, reliability, and security, but it’s also helping to network AI and get the technology out to the edges, where it can do the most good.

“We’re looking for anywhere from 10 times to 100 times better performance, along with better robustness and security, than the best these networks can offer today,” Kurose said.

Faster speeds and more information mean more data that can be used to make better decisions — and this is where Kurose comes in. “My research will focus on how you monitor and make sense of all the incoming data, in real time, to ensure that performance and security remain robust.”

Kurose will also co-lead the team’s effort in broadening participation. He’ll be working with middle- and high-school students, with a focus on under-represented groups, to bring them into the world of AI, as well as running a Women in AI program that will be open to girls and women from kindergarten through graduate school.

AMHERST — UMass Amherst Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy has been elected as a new member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. He joins a distinguished roster of esteemed figures in the arts and sciences, business, philanthropy, and public affairs honored by the prestigious academy for their leadership and dedication to excellence.

The academy was established in 1780 by the country’s founders, including John Adams and John Hancock, to provide guidance to a young nation that would face challenges and need expertise and excellence to emerge stronger. “We are honoring the excellence of these individuals, celebrating what they have achieved so far, and imagining what they will continue to accomplish,” said David Oxtoby, president of the academy. “The past year has been replete with evidence of how things can get worse; this is an opportunity to illuminate the importance of art, ideas, knowledge, and leadership that can make a better world.”

According to UMass President Marty Meehan, “it is no surprise to any of us at UMass that the American Academy of Arts & Sciences recognizes what we see every day — Chancellor Subbaswamy is a transformational academic leader, and he continues to bring UMass Amherst to great heights.”

Added Subbaswamy, “I am grateful to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences for this honor, particularly in light of those who have come before me, and with me. It inspires me to work harder to advance further the ideals and mission of the academy.”

Subbaswamy was elected into the academy as one of seven leaders in the educational and academic leadership section. Serving as chancellor since 2012, he is the 30th leader of UMass Amherst and has emerged as a popular and well-regarded chancellor for his pursuit of academic excellence, promotion of research and outreach, and initiatives aimed at addressing campus climate, diversity, and culture. He has also made sustainability a campus priority and is focused on strengthening community relationships, supporting area communities, and increasing access to the university’s academic and research resources.

He has overseen the opening of new cutting-edge academic, research, and athletic facilities, including the Commonwealth Honors College, the Integrative Learning Center, the Life Sciences Laboratories, a new physical sciences building, the Isenberg School of Management’s Business Innovation Hub, the Football Performance Center, and a newly renovated Student Union building. Additionally, he has presided over UMass Amherst’s dramatic rise in the U.S. News and World Report Guide to Colleges rankings, where the university currently sits at 26th among the nation’s top public research universities.

By George O’Brien

For the past several years now, UMass Amherst athletics have been, well … under fire.

And the discussion has centered around two sports — the two sports most people focus on when they think of big-time college athletics, football and basketball.

The basketball team in Amherst has been mostly irrelevant since the Marcus Camby-led team that went to the national championship game a quarter-century ago. The football team … well, it’s been worse than irrelevant, if that’s possible. It’s been relevant for all the wrong reasons — atrocious records, historically poor defense, and endless talk that the school made a terribly wrong decision when it decided to move up to the big time and start playing with Alabama, Clemson, and Notre Dame in the Football Bowl Subdivision.

With the UMass hockey team’s decisive 5-0 win over St. Cloud State in Pittsburgh on Saturday night, the school has a national championship to boast, and something else to talk about. Finally. This was a huge win for the team and the school and one that could redirect the discussion about athletics at the state’s flagship university.

How, exactly, we’re not sure. It could change ideas about just what this university is, a football or basketball school (the debate has raged for years). Maybe, just maybe, it’s a hockey school. It may change the debate about just how important those two ‘big’ sports are, really, when it comes to a school’s identity, or even its finances.

But we hope it changes the discussion when it comes to just what can happen if people are determined, patient, and the pieces finally fall into place. Remember, UMass dropped hockey — not once, but twice — over the past 80 years. When this writer was covering the team for the UMass Collegian in the late ’70s, it didn’t even have its own arena; home games were played at Amherst College’s Orr Rink.

When a rink was finally built and hockey was restored in 1993, a slow rebuilding process commenced that brought the team to some success, including a trip to the nationals in 2007. The final piece to the puzzle was the hiring of former St. Lawrence coach Greg Carvel, who has recruited players that have bought UMass to two straight national championships. They knocked on the door in 2019, and on Saturday night, they stormed through it.

This team looks like it could be a powerhouse for a long, long time, although, certainly, nothing can be taken for granted.

There might be those thinking, ‘why can’t this be the football or basketball team?’ But that’s not the right way to think. First, it doesn’t have to one of those two sports; a school can build an identity in other ways when it comes to athletics. Second, if this team has done anything, it’s shown that it can happen with those sports. It might take time — it might take decades — but it can happen.

So this was a hard-earned victory to be celebrated — on many, many levels.

George O’Brien is editor and associate publisher of BusinessWest.

AMHERST — The UMass Amherst College of Information and Computer Sciences will present an all-virtual symposium on “Computing for the Common Good” on Tuesday and Wednesday, March 16-17, from noon to 5 p.m.

The symposium will feature keynotes, research talks, and interactive discussions on applying computing and data science to society’s big problems. Attendees will learn about the ways UMass researchers are applying artificial intelligence, machine learning, and computing at scale to serve the common good.

Click here to register via Zoom.

AMHERST — The Amherst Board of Health issued an emergency order that will continue the mandatory early-closing order and continue certain sector capacity limits, both of which were set to expire on Feb. 8.

The order to extend the 25% capacity ceiling and the 9:30 p.m. closing time for many industries indefinitely was adopted on Sunday, just as UMass Amherst officials raised the university’s risk level and shuttered in-person activities in the face of more than 400 active cases of COVID-19.

The town has been in close communication with officials from the towns of Hadley and Sunderland, which are considering similar measures.

“This is not the direction that we, as a town, nor our businesses, want to go, but it is imperative that the town take decisive action immediately to address this increase in cases,” Amherst Town Manager Paul Bockelman said.

Added Public Health Director Emma Dragon, “it is in the interest of the health of our entire community that we continue the restrictions that are currently in place. Never has it been more important to follow those key public-health protocols of wearing a mask, washing hands, and maintaining social distance.”

AMHERST — In partnership with Gov. Charlie Baker’s administration, UMass Amherst announced it will expand its role in distributing COVID-19 vaccines, providing vaccinations for the foreseeable future in concert with the criteria and timeline of the state’s phased vaccination plan.

Currently, the Commonwealth is in phase one of vaccine distribution, with first responders, COVID-facing healthcare workers (including college health staff), and congregate care and shelter staff eligible to receive the vaccine at the UMass facility. All eligible individuals must schedule an appointment in advance for the vaccine at www.umass.edu/coronavirus/vaccine.

“We are proud to devote our time, energy, and expertise to expanding the Commonwealth’s vaccination program,” UMass Amherst Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy said. “This effort reflects our deep commitment to public service. Our clinic is staffed through the invaluable assistance of the UMass College of Nursing, with our nursing students providing critical support while also gaining clinical experience to administer vaccinations.”

The vaccination clinic, launched Jan. 11, is run by the university’s Public Health Promotion Center. This week, it will be open today, Jan. 20, from 1 to 6 p.m. Currently, the vaccine clinic is administering the Moderna vaccine, which includes two doses administered 28 days apart.

The clinic is being conducted at the UMass Amherst Campus Center, 1 Campus Center Way. Free parking is available at the nearby Campus Center Parking Garage. Times and hours of the clinic are likely to vary depending on vaccine availability and the state’s distribution plans. Visit the university’s vaccine website for updates.

AMHERST — As part of Gov. Charlie Baker’s plan to begin statewide vaccinations to deter the spread of COVID-19, UMass Amherst will establish a vaccine clinic for Massachusetts first responders starting the week of Jan. 11.

Individuals eligible to get vaccinated under state guidelines include police, fire, and emergency medical services professionals, who will need to show a professional ID or license confirming their status. All first responders in Massachusetts are eligible to schedule an online appointment in advance and come to UMass Amherst to receive the vaccine. For details, visit www.umass.edu/coronavirus/vaccine.

Plans developed by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health call for distribution of the Moderna vaccine, which includes two doses administered 28 days apart.

The clinic will be conducted at the UMass Amherst Campus Center, 1 Campus Center Way. Free parking will be available at the nearby Campus Center Parking Garage. All eligible individuals must register in advance for the two-dose vaccine at www.umass.edu/coronavirus/vaccine.

AMHERST — For the first time, UMass Amherst has earned recognition in Princeton Review’s annual selection of Best Graduate Entrepreneurship Programs. In the publication’s 2021 list, the university ranks 40th among 50 colleges and universities.

Based on survey data from more than 300 schools, the rankings encompass a broad range of entrepreneurial activities inside and outside the classroom. The catalyst for student entrepreneurship at UMass Amherst is the Berthiaume Center for Entrepreneurship. The center serves the entire campus through a wealth of activities and resources.

“Our mandate emphasizes participation and synergies on a pan-campus level,” said Gregory Thomas, executive director of the Berthiaume Center. “We may be physically based in Isenberg School of Management, but our mission is campus-wide.”

A former member of the UMass Amherst Foundation, Thomas was hired several years ago because of his extensive relationships with the campus’s deans and administrators. Since then, Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy and campus leaders have supported the center’s campus-wide vision, including creation earlier this year of a 13-member pan-campus team to foster innovation and entrepreneurship.

“We want innovation and entrepreneurship to be more,” Thomas said. “To accomplish that, you have to start walking like you’re number one.”

Thomas noted that entrepreneurship courses and scholarships, faculty who focus on entrepreneurship, student competitions, student mentorship by entrepreneurs, and ventures by alumni and non-alumni all fall within the center’s purview. Its annual Innovation Challenge propels student startups through pitch contests and a final competition judged by entrepreneurs and venture capitalists. Last year, the finals awarded $65,000 in seed money to student startups. The center brings student innovators together from different disciplines for entrepreneurial collaborations and offers networking and mentorship with entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and academics, as well as an incubator space for student startups.

AMHERST — A significant proportion of people infected by COVID-19, known as ‘long-haulers,’ suffer from prolonged symptoms and chronic fatigue, which can lead to long-term incapacities. Therefore, therapies that can be performed at home and accelerate physical recovery need to be developed.

UMass kinesiology researchers are currently comparing the effects of local heat therapy to exercise training on physical function in previously hospitalized COVID-19 patients, as heat therapy might be a more practical solution and still provide large gains in function for many patients. Volunteers are needed for this study.

Eligibility requirements include being between 55 and 85 years old, having a prolonged hospital stay (at least five days) due to a COVID-19-related infection, not being currently enrolled in a rehabilitation program, and having no prior history of pulmonary embolism or deep vein thrombosis. Participants will be compensated for their time.

Contact [email protected] with any questions or to express interest in participating in the study.

AMHERST — The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Solar Energy Technology Office announced that a team led by Dwayne Breger, extension professor at UMass Amherst, has been selected for a three-year, $1.8 million award to study the effects of co-locating solar-energy panels and agriculture operations at up to eight different farms across the Commonwealth. The work will be in partnership with landowners, state agencies, solar developers, and a nonprofit farmland organization.

“Our objective with this award is to have the opportunity to do robust research to address the dearth of data on the impact of this solar approach to agricultural productivity and farm viability,” said Breger, who is also director of UMass Clean Energy Extension. “We need data on how the agriculture will perform and how the project economics will affect individual farms and the state agricultural economy as a whole.

“Right now,” he went on, “many communities don’t have the necessary experience to understand and manage the solar development that is coming, and farmers don’t have science-based facts to fully assess the opportunities that developers are proposing to them. Our project will do the research to allow us to help farmers and communities make informed decisions about the solar opportunities that are coming their way.”

Breger points out that two state agencies, the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources and the Department of Energy Resources, are keenly interested in this project, as outcomes will provide the science to inform policy development.

Jody Jellison, director of the UMass Center for Agriculture, Food and the Environment and UMass Extension, noted that “the dual use of land for farming and solar energy has gotten many people excited about its potential. Now, with this new project, we’ll be able to begin developing data to quantify the agronomic and economic effects on farming to determine whether that excitement is warranted or not.”

Breger and research colleagues at UMass Extension, the UMass Cranberry Station, the campus’s Department of Resource Economics, and the American Farmland Trust will study the economic and social impact of solar-agriculture co-location on farms by establishing site trials and assessing crop productivity, soil health, and micro-climatic conditions. Sites will grow a range of crops, including pumpkins, strawberries, greens, winter squash, cranberries, other vegetables and fruit, hay, and grazing.

Farm partners are in Grafton, Carver, Dighton, Plympton, Hadley, Colrain, and Charlemont. Solar-developer partners BlueWave Solar, Pine Gate Renewables, and Hyperion Systems are dedicating portions of their commercial dual-use solar installations at these farms for research site trials enabling a robust research scope over varied agricultural conditions. Most site trials will get underway in March 2021 in time for the first planting, Breger said.

He and colleagues will also study public acceptance of solar-agriculture co-location and develop practical co-location management guidelines for growers, solar developers, and other relevant stakeholders. The DOE says it is interested in “research and analysis that enable farmers, ranchers, and other agricultural enterprises to gain value from solar technologies while keeping land available for agricultural purposes.”

Breger noted that UMass Amherst’s Crop Animal Research and Education Center and farm in South Deerfield hosts one of the state’s first dual-use solar-agricultural installations, giving the campus valuable early experience in this research area.

AMHERST — Six campus researchers in the College of Natural Sciences (CNS) at UMass Amherst have been recognized among the world’s most highly cited researchers in 2020 by London-based Clarivate Analytics, owner of the Web of Science. They have consistently had high citation counts over a decade.

Now in its seventh year, the citation analysis identifies influential researchers as determined by their peers around the world. They are judged to be influential, and their citation records are seen as “a mark of exceptional impact,” the company says.

The six from UMass Amherst are environmental chemist Baoshan Xing in CNS’s Stockbridge School of Agriculture, Distinguished Professor of Food Science David Julian McClements and food scientist Hang Xiao, microbiologist Kelly Nevin Lovley, materials scientist Thomas Russell, and Vincent Rotello, the Charles A. Goessmann Professor of Chemistry and a Distinguished Professor of Chemistry. All are repeat members of the list.

McClements is internationally known for his cutting-edge work in food design and nanotechnology, including encapsulating nutraceuticals in nanoparticles to preserve nutrients. Xiao’s lab focuses on molecular mechanisms and interactions of possible disease-preventing nutraceuticals to enhance nutrient bioavailability through food processing and nanotechnology, among other topics.

Nevin Lovley’s lab, part of the Geobacter Project, works to determine the electron transport chain in these bacteria with a goal to develop techniques to optimize the cells’ electrical production for better fuel-cell performance, among other goals. The Rotello lab takes a multi-disciplinary approach, bringing chemistry, biology, and biomedical engineering to tailor nanomaterials to develop new biological applications.

Russell, internationally known as an inventor, names his lab’s research interests in polymer phase transition, polymers’ surface and interfacial properties, directed self-assembly processes, and using polymers as scaffolds and templates to generate nanoscopic structures. Environmental scientist Xing’s lab focuses on protecting the environment by maintaining and improving soil and water quality. This includes investigating the behavior and agricultural application of engineered nanomaterials and using spectroscopic and analytical instruments to study interactions among organic compounds, natural organic matter, and mineral particles.

The highly cited list, announced from the company’s U.S. office in Philadelphia, names a total of about 3,400 highly cited researchers in science and social-science fields. The company says it focuses on contemporary research achievement, and only highly cited papers in science and social-science journals indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection during the most recent 11-year period are surveyed.

Two years ago, Highly Cited Researchers introduced a new cross-field category to identify researchers with substantial influence across several fields during the data census period. At UMass Amherst, Nevin Lovley and Rotello appear in this category for 2020.

“There is no unique or universally agreed concept of what constitutes extraordinary research performance and elite status in the sciences and social sciences,” the report’s editors point out. “Consequently, no quantitative indicators will reveal a list that satisfies all expectations or requirements. Moreover, a different basis or formula for selection would generate a different, though likely overlapping, list of names. Thus, the absence of a name on our list cannot be interpreted as inferior performance or stature in comparison to those selected.”

AMHERST — UMass Amherst and the town of Amherst announced that the university will provide asymptomatic COVID-19 testing for the town’s first responders and inspectors as part of their joint efforts to deter spread of the novel coronavirus.

Approximately 100 firefighters, police, and inspectors will be tested once per week in the university’s Public Health Promotion Center at the Mullins Center. The town will reimburse the university for the costs associated with the testing.

“UMass has a long tradition of supporting and partnering with the town’s front-line responders and is deeply appreciative for the invaluable role they play in enhancing the public safety of our campus community,” Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy said. “Currently, our resources and capacity are limited, but we are pleased to be able to make this commitment for the well-being of the entire community.”

Added Amherst Town Manager Paul Bockelman, “we appreciate that the university will provide a needed service to the town as we work to keep our employees safe and healthy. Our entire community relies on our expertly trained first-responder teams, and we welcome the opportunity to keep them, and ultimately our town, safe. The university has done a tremendous job in setting up such a professionally run testing regimen, and we deeply appreciate the campus’ willingness to accommodate our request.”

The university’s asymptomatic-testing program is one of the largest in the state. UMass Amherst has conducted more than 70,000 COVID-19 tests since Aug. 6, including approximately 48,000 tests of the off-campus student population living in the Amherst area.

AMHERST — UMass Amherst announced a new collaboration with IntelliVen, a leading executive-team-development organization, to provide interactive remote-learning programs designed to raise the performance and effectiveness of leadership teams.

IntelliVen offers immersive programs designed to help an organization’s core leadership team tackle the unique challenges of managing a growing organization, especially in today’s turbulent markets. IntelliVen’s proprietary set of course modules enables an interactive, remote learning experience that leaders take along with their teams to unlock their true potential to perform and grow.

“IntelliVen teaches leaders, teams, and organizations to set direction, achieve team alignment, implement strategy, and make the change they want to grow faster and perform better,” said Peter DiGiammarino, managing partner.

Members of the university community will receive a discount on the standard price of IntelliVen’s leadership-development immersion programs.

“Education is a journey, not a destination. In fact, we view it as a lifelong journey, not something that ends when a person receives a college degree,” said John Wells, senior vice provost at UMass Amherst. “That’s why partnerships like this are so important. They provide affordable, convenient access to our students and alumni interested in continuous, lifelong learning.”

AMHERST — UMass Amherst Athletics announced the cancellation of the 2020 UMass football season on Tuesday.

“After consulting with university, state, and public health officials, we have made the difficult decision to cancel the 2020 UMass football season,” Athletic Director Ryan Bamford said. “We have been in constant communication with university leadership and our football staff since March, with the health and safety of our student-athletes, coaches, and staff remaining our top priority. The continuing challenges surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic posed too great of a risk, and we reached the conclusion that attempting to play a season would not have placed the members of our program in the safest situation possible.”

Football student-athletes will remain enrolled in coursework full-time, either virtually or in-person, in line with the UMass Amherst’s update to its fall reopening plan, announced on Aug. 6. The university will also examine the possibility of playing football in the spring.

Football-team members began returning to campus for team activities in late June, with extensive health and safety protocols in place to mitigate the risk of COVID-19. Over the past seven weeks, the program had only one positive test with more than 600 COVID-19 tests administered.

“I am absolutely heartbroken for our players, our former players, our alumni, and our UMass football community,” said Head Coach Walt Bell said. “Our job as coaches and mentors is to provide opportunities for our players, and do everything in our power to not take them away. Today’s news was devastating, but we will be resilient and prepared to be our best when our best is required.

“I would like to give an unbelievable amount of gratitude to our medical professionals, our administration, our campus, our athletic training staff and our operations staff for creating one of the safest environments in college football,” he added. “The testing, the protocols, the risk mitigation, and the execution have been incredible.”

UMass football did not complete its spring practice regiment or host its spring game due to the NCAA’s cancellation of athletic activities in March in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“These times have presented us with extensive uncertainty, and we are disappointed for all the members of our fall sports programs who will not have the opportunity to compete this autumn,” Bamford said. “We remain hopeful and fully intend to conduct a competitive schedule for our fall sports in the 2021 spring semester.”

AMHERST — Beginning with the spring 2021 term, and continuing for each spring and fall term through spring 2023, UMass Amherst will make standardized tests optional for its first-year entering applicants.

For the past several months, the university has monitored how possible, safe, and secure it will be for students to take the SAT or ACT. In recent weeks, said James Roche, vice provost for Enrollment Management, it has become obvious that the challenges to testing presented by the coronavirus pandemic will persist in the months ahead.

“UMass Amherst draws applications from throughout the world, and few, if any, states and countries currently offer testing sites that provide the access and safety that students, families, and schools have come to expect,” he said. “This is especially true for students who already encounter barriers in pursuit of a college education, including under-represented minority, first-generation, and low-income students. Given all these considerations, going test-optional is clearly the right choice.”

Historically, UMass Amherst has used a holistic review to evaluate applicants. The quantitative assessment component of that review was done using a formula that combined the applicant’s high school GPA and the best combination of test scores. Roche said the university’s research shows that, of the separate components, the high-school GPA is a stronger predictor of student performance, persistence, and success; however, it is also known that the combination of the two components provides an even stronger predictor than either the GPA or test score alone.

The university has analyzed three years of data and more than 100,000 applicant records to develop a formula for its test-optional assessment that uses the high-school GPA as the base. For applicants who either have or will submit test scores, UMass Amherst will compare the result of the formula with and without the test score included and give the applicant the highest value of the two. This test-optional approach applies to all majors. As it always has, UMass Amherst will continue to consider the rigor of students’ high-school coursework in its assessment, especially for courses that apply most directly to the applicant’s intended major.

“UMass Amherst has committed to being test-optional for the next three years,” Roche said. “As one of the country’s top 25 public research universities, we look forward to using the test-optional approach during this period to learn more about the relationship between high-school grades and standardized test scores, and to develop even better models for predicting student success in college. Our mission is to identify and recruit students who can grow and thrive at UMass Amherst, progressing to earn their degree as effectively and efficiently as possible.”

AMHERST — UMass Amherst announced its fall 2020 reopening plan, noting that, while almost all courses will be taught remotely this fall, students will be given the option to live on campus under exacting public-health restrictions. No students will be required to return to campus, and students will determine which option, taking courses while living at home or in campus residence halls, is best according to their personal health, educational path, and home environment.

“Students who choose to attend UMass Amherst do so not only for the quality of the faculty and the academic programs, but also for the immersive experience, which offers opportunities for enrichment that can be undertaken with a diverse group of peers,” Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy said. “As best we can — and there are severe limitations in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic — we will strive to sustain the community connections that represent UMass at its best.”

The plan makes clear there are inherent risks to joining a residential campus environment this fall, and it provides students the opportunity to consult with their families and decide what is best for them. Subbaswamy emphasized that “it is important to understand that life on campus will not be anything resembling normal college life.”

In announcing the plan, UMass Amherst joins a small number of schools giving students the option to determine whether to spend the semester on campus or at home. The decision to invite first-year, transfer, and returning undergraduate students to live on campus was informed in part by the overwhelming feedback from students that they want to pursue their studies on campus — and, indeed, intended to seek out rental units in the area even if residence halls were not reopened.

For students who choose to reside in on-campus housing or expect to spend any time on campus, standards will be exacting. Students must agree not only to the standard Code of Student Conduct, but also to a set of protocols outlined in the UMass Agreement, a commitment they will be required to sign.

Protocols for students include strict physical distancing, wearing face coverings outside personal living spaces, limiting social contacts to a minimal number of people per day, the prohibition of guests in residence halls, subjecting themselves to virus testing on demand, daily self-monitoring and reporting, assisting with contact tracing, and limiting travel away from the immediate campus area for work and/or emergencies only.

Health and Safety

The university will establish a Public Health Promotion Center to be the central coordinating and operational center for COVID-19 on campus. It will focus on the following: asymptomatic testing (symptomatic testing will be conducted at University Health Services), contact tracing, coordinating isolation and quarantine, flu vaccinations, and communication outreach focused on health promotion with public-health ambassadors.

The university is developing a comprehensive surveillance, testing, isolation, and contact-tracing program that students must comply with both on- and off-campus. All students, faculty, and staff will be asked to self-monitor on a daily basis for COVID-19 symptoms before coming to campus. All students returning to campus will be tested prior to arrival. During the fall semester, any student experiencing even the slightest symptoms will be tested by University Health Services.

Students living on campus who test positive for COVID-19 will have the option to return to their home to isolate for the appropriate amount of time, or they will be placed in isolation housing on campus and be provided with support services and a daily wellness call. Off-campus students are also encouraged to develop an isolation and quarantine plan with their family and roommates. The university will provide support services in a student’s off-campus location or home, but it will not provide on-campus isolation or quarantine space.

Teaching and Learning

The university previously announced an altered academic calendar for fall 2020, with a start date of Aug. 24 for classes. Classes will end Nov. 20, at Thanksgiving break, when students will move out of residence halls. Final exams will be conducted remotely after Thanksgiving break. Classes also will be held on Labor Day, Columbus Day, and Veterans Day.

A majority of the fall 2020 curriculum will be fully remote, with only essential labs, studios, performances, and hands-on courses offered in-person and focused on the upper-level curriculum to provide seniors with timely progress toward degree completion. Some students who live on campus may have a fully remote curriculum, a factor they should consider in their decision whether to come to campus.

Classroom capacities will be limited to adhere to social-distancing guidelines. Additional sections of courses may be added to reduce class sizes. Course schedules will be adjusted to increase time between classes to reduce interactive foot traffic on campus and provide time for increased cleaning of lab and classroom spaces when needed. Students will be encouraged to be patient and flexible regarding classroom assignments and course schedules.

Libraries are currently working on a phased reopening plan for restoration of in-person services and on-site access to their collections. Until then, the libraries will continue to provide access to materials through the Library Express service.

Residential Life

While all courses that do not require physical presence on campus will be offered remotely this fall, all undergraduate students who have reserved on-campus housing for the upcoming semester, and for whom there is space available, are invited to live on campus under strict public-health behavioral restrictions.

After July 1, Residential Life will communicate with students who have a current housing assignment about their eligibility to live on campus. Students who plan on canceling their housing assignment should contact Residential Life immediately to inform them of their change of plans.

Life in the residence halls will be altered to include pedestrian-flow restrictions, restrictions on group gatherings, and limited face-to-face contact. No guests will be allowed in residence halls until further notice.

Move-in for fall semester will take place over multiple days to reduce the amount of people on campus at any time, and students may bring only two family members or helpers to assist them. Students are advised to bring fewer items to campus this fall and plan for 12 weeks of residential time as opposed to an entire school year due to the uncertainty of the pandemic. Also, if COVID-19 cases spike in Massachusetts, the university may close down residence halls and send students home.

Students who either do not have access to the main campus or who are seeking a residential option beyond the main campus may apply for housing on the Mount Ida campus in Newton. All health and safety protocols on the main campus will be in effect in Newton, but the total residential population at the Newton campus will be limited by available housing to fewer than 500 students. All courses taught in Newton beyond essential face-to-face courses for on-site programs (such as veterinary technology) will be offered remotely.

Campus Life

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the university is offering its immersive residential experience, which is conducive to students’ learning and academic progress, in a manner that is intended to provide safeguards for the health and well-being of the entire campus community. Given this situation, campus life will be a different experience in the fall, with all members of the campus community playing an important role in mitigating the infection and spread of the virus.

Most student services will be offered remotely, including the services of the Center for Counseling and Psychological Health. The Recreation Center will be open, but there will be limits and restrictions on activities. The center will also livestream fitness classes through the intramural leagues.

UMass Dining will adapt its services to current federal and state guidelines for food service. It will offer new grab-and-go stations, online ordering for many of its retail locations, and tents for outdoor dining on campus.

Student activities will center on small-group, in-person events, and larger virtual events.

The complete reopening plan, including a detailed set of frequently asked questions, can be found at www.umass.edu/reopening.

AMHERST — The Massachusetts eHealth Institute at MassTech (MeHI) selected six new healthcare research and development (R&D) hubs to join the Digital Health Sandbox Network, including UMass Amherst’s Institute for Applied Life Sciences (IALS).

The Sandbox Network program connects digital-health startups to cutting-edge R&D facilities in the Commonwealth and allows Massachusetts startups to apply for funding to test their innovations at one of the networks’ labs, now including IALS. Sandbox R&D facilities provide a range of services supporting validation and testing for digital health companies throughout their life cycles.

“Establishing a translational institute at UMass that provides startup lab space; more than 30 industry-friendly, staffed core equipment facilities; and individualized venture-mentoring services creates an exciting environment for digital-health companies in Western Massachusetts,” IALS Director Peter Reinhart said.

Andrew Vinard, IALS director of Core Facilities, added that “our core facilities will now have access to a wider network of potential users who may not have found us but for the Sandbox program and MeHI’s engagement. This will be a catalyst to bring digital health-focused companies to our doors to access the broad array of resources and expertise we can devote to their projects. Being in the Sandbox Network also broadens our core facilities access to expertise, which we hope will translate to inter-institutional projects to take advantage of the wealth of resources Massachusetts has to offer to our digital-health industry.”

IALS helps to shepherd and translate fundamental research into new product candidates, technologies, and services that benefit human health and well-being. IALS also helps users address both basic and translational questions, deliver technologies and product candidates more rapidly, and become more competitive in obtaining funding. Facilities include a state-of-the-art test bed for mobile health experiments at scale, the Center for Human Health and Performance, a roll-to-roll fabrication and processing facility, and research laboratory space for lease.

In 2019, Gov. Charlie Baker announced $500,000 in funding for the Sandbox program as part of the Commonwealth’s efforts to boost the digital-health ecosystem under the Massachusetts Digital Health Initiative.