UMass iCons Program Launches 14th Cohort with Focus on Urban Climate Change

The 14th cohort of the UMass iCons Program, 72 diverse students spanning 29 majors across seven colleges, was launched on Saturday, December 2, 2023.

The iCons program, renowned for its commitment to cultivating undergraduate innovation, serves as a creative platform for real-world problem solving, offering students a unique and impactful certificate experience. For the second consecutive year, the program witnessed a surge in applications, marking an increase of over 22% from the previous year. Two-thirds of the students identify as BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) and 63% identify as non-male.

Pic of 14th cohort A member of the new cohort majoring in public health sciences expressed her motivation for applying to the program, stating, “I was drawn to iCons by the prospect of stepping outside of my major and comfort zone, collaborating with students from a diverse range of majors.”

The main objective of the new cohort launch is for iCons students to collectively determine the real-world problem they will address in their upcoming iCons 1 course in Spring 2024. This year’s first case study will center on Urban Climate Change, a complex challenge requiring expertise from various academic disciplines, including but not limited to environmental sciences, urban planning, architecture, engineering, public health, economics, and policy.

The mission of the iCons Program is to inspire a diverse generation of innovators in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and business with the attitudes and skills needed to solve problems facing our world. Building on the disciplinary strength of each student’s major, iCons projects at all levels involve collaborative student teams working on cross-disciplinary communication and integrative problem-solving skills.

Check out photos (Facebook photo album) from the 14th Cohort Launch.

News Highlights

UMass iCons Program Sparks Creative Thinking to Address Student Anxiety

On October 22, 2024, the UMass iCons Program hosted the annual Idea Slam. This event urges students to think creatively and collaboratively to hypothesize potential solutions to real-world issues, with a particular focus this year on addressing the epidemic of student anxiety. Presentations delivered by thought leaders Dr. Melissa Rotkiewicz, the director of the UMass Amherst Center for Counseling and Psychological Health (CCPH), and Brian Pearson, the founder of Adventure East, prepared participants for the issue at hand: the epidemic of student anxiety.

In 2016, Marinna Teixeira graduated from the University of Massachusetts Amherst with a degree in Environmental Sciences and a minor in French. Having emigrated from Brazil at a young age, Marinna was the first woman in her family to graduate from university and has achieved profound accomplishments since. After joining the UMass iCons Program as a freshman, she befriended peers who dreamed of professional accomplishments like hers. As a member of the third iCons cohort, the Third Axis, her participation in the undergraduate program fell under the Renewable Energy track where she pursued her interest in climate change mitigation.

Heather Bortolussi '24 and Fay Paicos '24, both recent graduates of the Environmental Science program and the UMass iCons Program at UMass Amherst, discovered that an iCons classroom is not just the beginning of a professional toolkit but a gateway to enriching experiences beyond academia. Their journey began in an iCons 2 classroom, where their teamwork sparked a friendship that extended far beyond those four walls, taking them all the way to Thailand for a study abroad adventure.

UMass iCons Program Launches 14th Cohort with Focus on Urban Climate Change

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