News Highlights

Healey Awarded 2020 Chancellor's Leadership Fellowship

Healey Awarded 2020 Chancellor's Leadership Fellowship

The Office of Faculty Development is pleased to announce that Jenny Adams, Associate Professor of English, Sonya Atalay, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Chrystal George Mwangi, Associate Professor in Higher Education, and Christiane Healey, iCons 1 Instructor and Senior Lecturer of Biology, have been awarded the 2020 Chancellor’s Leadership Fellowships.

iCons Students Receive 2020 Sustainability, Innovation and Engagement Fund Award

We are proud to announce that iCons rising seniors, Hansen Tjo (Chemical Engineering) and Joshua McGee (Chemical Engineering), are the recipients of a 2020 Sustainability, Innovation and Engagement Fund Award.

Summer 2020 Job Opportunity for iCons Students

Summer 2020 Job Opportunity for iCons Students

iCons students who have completed iCons 2 or iCons 3 are eligible to apply for a funded iCons educational internship for summer 2020. The iCons Program is developing new curriculum for the iCons 3 course in the Biomedicine track - one specifically built by and for the iCons students.

iCons Seniors Present Research in Virtual Exposition and Honored with Celebration

Seniors Photo with iCons Certificates

The Integrated Concentration in Science (iCons) program held the Seventh Annual Senior Exposition on Thursday, April 30 from 3:30-6 p.m. via Zoom. This year’s Senior Expo featured the seventh cohort of iCons seniors, with each senior giving a brief online presentation about their research project on today’s pressing problems.

iCons Program Announces Online Innovation Portal

iCons Program Announces Online Innovation Portal

The Integrated Concentration in Science (iCons) Program announced the upcoming unveiling of an online, web-based “innovation portal” to showcase student research projects into real-world problems as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic and as a remote instruction tool, says iCons founder and professor of chemistry Scott Auerbach. He and the program’s faculty researchers and instructors intend the portal to allow iCons student research to enjoy increased impact through online dissemination.

Program Appoints Dunham as Strategic Communications and Program Manager

Wesley J. Dunham | iCons Strategic Communications and Program Manager

iCons has appointed Wesley J. Dunham as its new strategic communications and program manager. “We are delighted to welcome Wesley Dunham to the iCons team. This was a hard position to fill because of its wide range of responsibilities. Wesley’s extensive and impressive background at UMass makes him an outstanding fit—we’re excited to work with Wesley to bring UMass iCons to the next level,” said Scott Auerbach, professor of chemistry and Mahoney Family Sponsored Executive Director of iCons.

The Hannah Frilot Memorial Scholarship Deadline Approaches

The Hannah Frilot Memorial Scholarship supports an undergraduate student, encouraging them to follow in Hannah’s footsteps and pursue their interests in a STEM major.

iCons' Dave and Davis Contribute to Greening of UMass Campus

Passive Intervention poster used in research

Meg Davis and Radha Dave have successfully taken an idea, seeded in their freshman iCons 1 class, "Global Challenges, Scientific Solutions", to fruition; The prototypes developed from this idea, after hours of researching, collecting, and compiling data, are being installed in showers two years later.  Their goal:  to reduce water usage in UMass dorms. 

iCons Alumnus, Eres, Published in Nature for Work Designing Synthetic Proteins

Marco Eres

"Researchers, led by UC Berkeley engineers, have created a synthetic material that is as effective as naturally occurring proteins in transporting molecules through membranes, a major milestone that could transform such fields as medicine, life sciences, alternative energy and environmental science." UC Berkeley Article

Auerbach and Team Discover Tricyclic Bridges

Auerbach and team published in JACS

In an article featured on the Dec 26, 2019 journal cover of the Journal of the American Chemical Society, UMass iCons Executive Director Scott Auerbach and collaborators in the Chemical Engineering departments at UMass and WPI have discovered new building blocks that they call "tricyclic bridges," which help to explain the structures and vibrations of zeolites.