2008 Woodie Awards
UMass researchers don thinking caps
By Stephanie McPherson, Collegian Staff
Issue date: 9/2/08 Section: News
Most students know that the University of Massachusetts has a reputation for partying. That number is declining, however, as about a dozen schools do so harder than UMass.
What some students may not know is that while the party rank is declining, UMass is becoming more well-known for another, very different reason. Over the past few years, due to a combination of its research facilities and faculty, UMass has made a respected name for itself in the world of research.
"We are a world-class research intensive university," said Paul T. Kostecki, the Vice Provost for research at UMass.
UMass is not only world class, with a number of departments consistently ranking in the top 20 in the country and world, according to U.S. News and World Report and the Institute for Scientific Information, among other organizations. Its research efforts cross both state and international borders.
There are UMass geosciences faculty members working in Eurasia on the climate change issue. Researchers are also developing radar that will detect weather and atmospheric events that are occurring at and below 1,000 feet above the ground. Other sensors only look at these factors starting at 1,000 feet. This closer look at our atmosphere and weather patterns could help weather experts predict tornados and other severe weather events.
People are also trying to develop nanotechnology-based detectors, which are microscopic sensors that will sense when a machine is going to break down. Work is also being done on the folding of proteins in the brain, which is the cause of diseases such as Alzheimer's and Mad Cow disease.
Projects are generally determined by funding. An agency will put out a project proposal with a given amount of money, and researchers find the projects that best suit their own skills and those of their laboratories..
Because agencies gear their preferred projects toward issues of national interest, the main effort of recent years is clean energy and the life sciences.
What some students may not know is that while the party rank is declining, UMass is becoming more well-known for another, very different reason. Over the past few years, due to a combination of its research facilities and faculty, UMass has made a respected name for itself in the world of research.
"We are a world-class research intensive university," said Paul T. Kostecki, the Vice Provost for research at UMass.
UMass is not only world class, with a number of departments consistently ranking in the top 20 in the country and world, according to U.S. News and World Report and the Institute for Scientific Information, among other organizations. Its research efforts cross both state and international borders.
There are UMass geosciences faculty members working in Eurasia on the climate change issue. Researchers are also developing radar that will detect weather and atmospheric events that are occurring at and below 1,000 feet above the ground. Other sensors only look at these factors starting at 1,000 feet. This closer look at our atmosphere and weather patterns could help weather experts predict tornados and other severe weather events.
People are also trying to develop nanotechnology-based detectors, which are microscopic sensors that will sense when a machine is going to break down. Work is also being done on the folding of proteins in the brain, which is the cause of diseases such as Alzheimer's and Mad Cow disease.
Projects are generally determined by funding. An agency will put out a project proposal with a given amount of money, and researchers find the projects that best suit their own skills and those of their laboratories..
Because agencies gear their preferred projects toward issues of national interest, the main effort of recent years is clean energy and the life sciences.
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