Higher Ed News

Thursday, March 18, 2010

UMassOnline brings Masson on as CTO
The University of Massachusetts reports it has hired Patrick Jay Masson as chief technology officer of its UMassOnline distance-learning division. Masson replaces outgoing CTO Brian Douglas, who is now associate vice president for budget and administration.
WPI lands grant to study radio wave impact on humans
Worcester Polytechnic Institute reports it has brought in $1.2 million stimulus grant from the National Institute of Standards and Technology to study the effect of radio waves on the human body.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Babson's Rice joins WPI as first-ever academic dean
Worcester Polytechnic Institute has a new dean of business in former Babson College dean Mark P. Rice, who will be succeeding McRae Banks, who has led WPI’s Department of Management for the past 15 years.

Monday, March 15, 2010

UMass doles out $200K in research grants
The University of Massachusetts reports it has granted $200,000 to researchers at its Amherst, Lowell and Worcester campuses. UMass’ Commercial Ventures and Intellectual Property Technology Development Fund distributed the grants to researchers in life sciences, polymer chemistry, computer science and engineering.

Friday, March 12, 2010

MIT Clean Energy Prize semifinalists named
The MIT Clean Energy Prize reports it has chosen its semifinalists, who will compete for the $200,000 grand prize in May. Each team will be matched with an industry mentor and a legal mentor in the run-up to the winner being announced May 3.

Thursday, March 11, 2010

UMass notches record research spending year
The University of Massachusetts has hit a record high in spending $489.1 million on research endeavors in Fiscal Year 2009. The amount represents a single-year increase of 12.4 percent — higher than the national average of 5.2 percent.

Monday, March 8, 2010

MIT touts energy breakthroughs
MIT unveiled research this weekend in advance of its annual Energy Conference that outlined a new discovery in generating electricity directly from carbon nanotubes.

Friday, March 5, 2010

MIT's Koch Institute gets NCI funding and cancer center designation
The National Cancer Institute showed a vote of confidence this week in providing funding to the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT to make it a Center for Cancer Systems Biology.

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Northeastern launches regulatory science degree program
Northeastern University reports it has created a master’s program in regulatory sciences to cover the scientific and technological basis for production, regulatory approval, and subsequent monitoring of biopharmaceutical substances.

Monday, March 1, 2010

Jack Wilson to resign as president of UMass
President of the five-campus University of Massachusetts system Jack Wilson announced today that he will resign at the end of his term, concluding June 30, 2011. Wilson has headed UMass since Sept. 2, 2003.

Thursday, February 25, 2010

MLSC awards $6.6M to WPI life sciences facility
The Massachusetts Life Sciences Center has given Worcester Polytechnic Institute a $6.6 million grant to apply to the school’s development of a life sciences facility at Gateway Park in Worcester.

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

MIT takes lead role in $25M bio research project
MIT and two other schools, along with several minority-focused institutions, plan to establish a research center, based at MIT, that will help engineers create sophisticated, multi-cell systems or machines.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

AOL to sponsor MIT Media Lab Consortium
AOL Inc. reports it has joined the MIT Media Lab Consortium as a sponsor. Under the three-year sponsorship deal, AOL will collaborate on the Media Lab’s research, and have the right to license work developed at the Media Lab during its sponsorship.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

WPI lands funding for new eco-materials research center
Worcester Polytechnic Institute reports it has landed $400,000 from the National Science Foundation to establish a research center focused on recycling building and manufacturing materials in conjunction with the Colorado School of Mines.

Monday, February 8, 2010

Yale researchers ID disease-treating proteins
Yale scientists have developed color-coded proteins, using a mutation-prone virus, that researchers can use to identify proteins to treat diseases.

Friday, February 5, 2010

Northeastern's Torchilin lands $1.4M NIH award
A Northeastern University researcher has won a $1.4 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to develop nanocarrier drug delivery technology.
Babson tops entrepreneurship programs nationally
Babson College’s entrepreneurship programs have placed first in three of the most prestigious national rankings, higher than MIT and Harvard University. At a time when the Obama administration seeks to bolster entrepreneurs as a way to stimulate the floundering economy, Babson’s gold-star rankings could not be timelier.

Monday, February 1, 2010

Pressure BioSciences moves R&D to UMass Boston
South Easton-based Pressure BioSciences Inc., a developer of bench-top instruments using pressure cycling technology, has moved its research and development operations into an incubator at the University of Massachusetts Boston.

Monday, January 25, 2010

Harvard spins out now-independent StopBadware
Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society reports it has spun out its StopBadware group as an independent nonprofit funded by Google Inc., PayPal Inc. and the Mozilla Foundation.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

UMass Lowell picks up broadband adoption funds
The University of Massachusetts Lowell was one of three organizations sharing $63 million in U.S. Department of Commerce grants to expand broadband access and adoption. It won a $780,000 grant to promote broadband use among the Lowell area’s low-income and at-risk youth, the unemployed, residents without college degrees and seniors.