News

Paluca Wins Student Choice Award

Tami Paluca, the Academic Advisor for Undergraduate Studies and Director of Alumni Affairs in the Chemical Engineering Department, is the recipient of a UMass Amherst Residential First-Year Experience Student Choice Award. The award was announced by Danielle Barone, First-Year Experience Specialist in the Residential Learning Communities for the UMass Amherst campus. Paluca was nominated by first-year students for her positive contributions to their experience at UMass Amherst. First-year students were given the opportunity to nominate a professor or instructor who had a profound influence on them during their first semester. Paluca will accept her award at the Academic Engagement Awards Banquet, held at the Marriott Center (top of the Campus Center) on April 21 at 6:30 pm.

Read more »
23 Engineering Students Present in Research Conference

The College of Engineering was well-represented on April 26 during the 19th Annual Statewide Undergraduate Research Conference at the UMass Amherst Campus Center. Some 23 students from chemical, civil, and mechanical engineering were among more than 830 students from campuses across the Commonwealth of Massachusetts giving poster and oral presentations from a wide range of academic disciplines throughout the day. The faculty sponsor for almost half of those engineering projects was Jessica Schiffman of the Chemical Engineering Department who sponsored nine chemical engineering student presentations. Each year undergraduate students of diverse backgrounds from across the Massachusetts Public System of Higher Education gather to present the results of their original work in oral and poster presentations before their peers, faculty, and the public.

Read more »
ChE Revolutionizes Its Student Hub

For many years the communal student work center in the basement of the Chemical Engineering (ChE) Department was so cramped, dark, and primitive that it was nicknamed “The Cave”; a name and conditions that evoked the famous remark of Thomas Hobbes that life is “nasty, brutish, and short.” Not anymore! In the past year the ChE Department has moved its student work area into a light and commodious space on the first floor of Goessmann Lab and transformed it into a high-tech, student-friendly, cheerful hub known as the CRIB. That’s short for ChE Research & Innovation Base. The transformation is thanks to a group of dedicated donors, the leadership of ChE Department Head Professor T.J. Lakis Mountziaris, and a visionary group of ChE faculty overseers, who planned, designed, decorated, equipped, and modernized the whole area.

Read more »