Samariah (Sammy) Jacobs, a UMass Lowell Mechanical Engineering junior, is doing amazing work getting inner city Boston youth creatively engaged in technology and engineering, as a mentor in the 14 year old Learn 2 Teach, Teach 2 Learn program at the South End Technology Center @ Tent City.
Sammy, fellow L2T/T2L college mentors and youth teachers just won an international Google RISE award for their work and the National Science Foundation is studying their work as national best practices in a Digital Literacies research project.
Each year, 36 teenage youth teachers, who are selected to represent Boston, learn 6 different technology and engineering modules, build projects that solve community issues, then offer free 3-4 week STEAM camps for 700+ Boston elementary and middle school youth at 25 community organizations who would not otherwise offer STEM enrichment.
Sammy was a youth teacher when she was in high school and now is in her second year of working as a college mentor in the program. Last year, Sammy developed a solar energy activity where youth soldered up solar circuits to power the propeller on their own lasercut wood airplane. She just developed two activities and began teaching them to new youth teachers: Teh Squish-ay (using conductive dough to teach electricity and circuits with LEDs, motors, tilt switches, photocells) and Blinkie Paper (uses linkages with circuit stickers to create light up cards).
My sincere appreciation to Dr. Susan Klimczak, L2T Director of Special Programs, for calling attention to Sammy’s inspiring community contributions. She is a shining example of just one of the many reasons why I am so proud to be Dean of the College of Engineering. Look for more information on Sammy and her work at Tent City in future posts.
E-Week Alumni Night draws record breaking crowd!
Many of you participated in the culmination of Engineering Week with our celebration at the hockey game — attended by over 
450 alumni! I sincerely thank you all for showing your support of our college.
Team “UnCIVILized” took home the crown by winning the sled race, just ahead of our faculty team comprised of Drs. Sukesh Aghara, Meg Sobkowicz-Kline, Juan Pablo Trelles and Jay Weitzen. Thank you to the faculty for being good sports and participating in the sled race!
Team “The Today Show” pleased the crowd with their winning T-shirt launcher. And yes, if you were present, you saw my hair turn a royal shade of blue — fulfilling my promise to dye it at the game if we received donations from 500 new donors, including spring graduates, to the College. While it took four washes to get out, I’m thrilled that we have increased our donor base! 
Tremendous thanks to Nancy Ficarra, Erin Caples and Sally Washburn, for pulling off a great event (and week). It was fitting that our hockey team beat BC to clinch a bye week in starting our bid for a Hockey East title.
More photos from E-Week and the UML vs. BC game to come! Be sure to follow us on twitter at @umlengineering and on Facebook: www.facebook.com/umasslowellengineering.
E-Week, Leadership Colloquium and Faculty Tech Venture Competition, OH MY!
We are full swing into the spring semester and I am happy to report we have LOTS going on! I swear I can hear the office humming some days.
Beginning Monday, we celebrate annual Engineering Week. Six student teams will vie for the coveted Dean’s Cup through five days of challenges and contests. Tuesday, we welcome alumna Robin Antonucci ’79 back to campus as our Dean’s Leadership Colloquium speaker and we will induct over 100 seniors into the Order of the Engineer.
Finally, on Saturday the 27th, we welcome our Engineering Alumni (all of you!) back to the Tsongas to watch the River Hawks take on the BC Eagles (takes a breath). Tickets are still available for the reception in the Talon Club and the game. Click Here to purchase.
If that’s not enough, TONIGHT we are kicking off a new Faculty Tech Venture Program and Competition!
The program will feature six interactive sessions covering various topics that are core to commercializing university technologies using start-up mechanisms. Topics include customer discovery, market research and validation techniques, concept feasibility testing, technology roadmapping and pricing and revenue model development. Sessions are hands-on and interactive, and will be facilitated by the New Venture Development staff and Manning School of Business faculty.
The goal of the program and competition is to help interested faculty (and their research teams) move an idea, invention, or start-up company forward. The winner will be awarded a two-course release in the fall along with additional resources to pursue their project.
The competition will culminate with a Tech Venture Pitch on May 5th. I truly look forward to learning more about faculty projects and supporting their commercialization efforts.Stay tuned for photos of tonight’s event and more information on our faculty projects.
-Joe
Giving Tuesday and the #francis500
I must say, I am pretty excited to announce our plans for #GivingTuesday 2015! US News and World Report defines alumni engagement as a core metric in its university ranking system. To that end, we are determined to recruit 500 NEW alumni donors IN THE MONTH OF DECEMBER.
GIFTS OF ANY VALUE, IN SUPPORT OF ANY FUND in the Francis College of Engineering count towards our goal. I am confident we can make this happen – but we need help from you, our alumni. Here is how you can help:
WEF Board President to Speak Tonight
It’s a busy day on campus! We love it when the office is buzzing with activity!
We also want to welcome Mr. Ed McCormick, President of the Board of Trustees of the Water Environment Federation, the largest water quality professional association in the world, back to campus. Mr. McCormick will deliver a talk on sustainability entitled, “Utilities of the Future,” TONIGHT, beginning at 5:00PM in Alumni Hall (North Campus). Mr. McCormick’s visit is part of a combined Civil and Environmental Engineering Colloquium and ASCE Guest Lecture.
Mr. McCormick graduated in 1977 from the University of Lowell/LTI with a BS in Civil Engineering. In 1979, he received his MS in Sanitary Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley.
For more information on alumni engagement/speaking opportunities, please contact the Dean’s Office at 978-934-2572, or email erin_caples@uml.edu. For more information on our Civil and Environmental Engineering Program, click here.
UMass Lowell Welcomes Alumna Cynthia Conde ’87, ’91
Today we are honored to welcome alumna Cynthia (Cindy) Conde ’87, ’91 back to campus as our November Leadership Colloquium speaker!
Cindy will meet with a small group of student leaders and chemical/biomedical engineering faculty for a working lunch, and then host a seminar open to University faculty, staff and students at 3:00 PM in the Perry Atrium (Saab ETIC).
Ms. Conde is currently serving as the Chief Information Officer and Head of Information Solutions for North America at Sanofi, a global healthcare leader with core competencies in Diabetes, Vaccines, Oncology, Animal Health, Rare Diseases and Multiple Sclerosis, and Consumer Healthcare.
Prior to assuming her current position at Sanofi in October 2012, Conde ascended the ranks at Genzyme Corporation, serving in a number of roles with increasing responsibilities over the course of her 16+ year career with the company.
She has held such roles as: Director of Operations for Genzyme’s Diagnostics Products Division. ERP Program Director and IT Business Partner for Corporate Operations. VP of Information Technology for Genzyme Genetics, VP of Information Technology – Enterprise IT; and VP of Information Technology and Genzyme IS Business Partner for Sanofi’s Global Services Division.
In addition, Ms. Conde served as a self-employed project management, IT, and professional training & coaching consultant for a number of years; and was a Principal of Hawkeye Software Systems, a small, privately owned company that provided case/client management software solutions for law offices.
Prior to that, Cindy was employed as the Director of Manufacturing at CR Bard from 1992-1995 and as a Manufacturing Engineer at Polaroid Corporation’s Camera Division from 1987-1992.
Ms. Conde, a member of the College’s Industrial Advisory Board, earned a Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Technology and a Master’s degree in Manufacturing from the University of Lowell in 1987 and 1991, respectively.
We look forward to your time with us today!
Please join us for our Leadership Colloquium – all are welcome!