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University of Massachusetts - Lowell Chapter of Sigma Xi Local Events
2008
Annual Sigma Xi Banquet
Tuesday,
29 April, 2008
Officers of the Local Chapter
Officers of the UMass
Lowell chapter of the Society of Sigma Xi with Banquet speaker, Dr. Mike Morin.
From the left: Dr. Aram Karakashian,
Awards Officer; Dr.
Art Mittler, Treasurer, Dr. Mary Elizabeth
Hooker, At-Large (Health and Environment); Dr. Morin; Dr.
Jim Whitten, Secretary;
Dr. Bob Gamache, Vice
President; Ms Elizabeth
Fortin, Chapter Administrative Assistant; Dr. Gil Brown, At-Large (Engineering);
and Dr. Bob
Tamarin, President. Missing are Dr. Sandy McDonald, At-Large (Chemistry) and
Dr. Rick Hochberg, At-Large (Biology).
The
Venue
The banquet took place
in the MIL Room of the Wannalancit Mill Building, a beautiful old Textile
Mill.
Guests from Andover
High School
Also visiting the Banquet
were UMass Lowell Math Professor, Dr. Raj Prasad (center, back), and his Calculus
III class from Andover High School. The students are, from the left: John
Koo, Shir Lefkowitz, Prasad, Simon Ye, Ken Schumacher, and Amy Xiao.
Graduate
Research Scholar Award
With local chapter President
Bob Tamarin is the Sciences Graduate Research Scholar of the Year, Kate Tsui,
who is working on her PhD in Computer Science. The award, a summer stipend
of $5,000, is given to one doctoral student in each of the four colleges at
UMass Lowell that grant doctoral degrees (Science, Engineering, Education,
Health & Environment). Checks and certificates are presented at the Graduate
Student Banquet in May.
Prof. Charlie Steele Memorial Scholarship
Ursula Steele (right), widow of Professor Charlie Steele, presents the
Professor Charlie Steele Memorial Scholarship to Nguyen L. Nguyen (Electrical
and Computer Engineering), standing next to her. On the left is Chapter President
Bob Tamarin and to his left is Prof. Jie Wang, Chair of Computer Science.
Prof. Steele was the founding member of the Computer Science Department.
LaTorre Family Scholarship
The LaTorre Family Scholarships are $1,000 scholarships
funded generously by Don LaTorre, a 1960 Lowell Tech graduate in Textile Chemistry.
Don is the past Chairman of the Sciences Advisory Board of the College of
Arts and Sciences, an alumni group that helps the Dean of Sciences develop
resources for the Sciences. From the left in the photo above are: chapter
President Bob Tamarin; Robert Romano (Junior, Chemistry); Elliott Moy (Sophomore,
Computer Science); Bryan Crompton (Sophomore, Physics and Math); Thomas Harrington
(Freshman, Physics); Kyle Anderson (Junior, Atmospheric Sciences); Thomas
Cole (Sophomore, Biology); and Christopher Dietsch (Junior, Computer Science).
Kennedy Family Merit Scholarship
The Kennedy Family Merit Scholarships of $1,000 each are supported
from a generous endowment donation by John Kennedy, a 1970 Mathematics graduate
of Lowell Tech. John is also a member of the Sciences Advisory Board of the
College of Arts and Sciences. Shown above with chapter President Bob Tamarin
(left) are (left to right): Bruce Malley (Freshman, Computer Science); Amanda
Patti (Sophomore, Biotechnology); Caitlin Dolan (Junior, Biology); and Marco
Bonett-Matiz (Junior, Physics and Math).
O'Connor Family Scholarship
The O'Connor Family Scholarships of $1,000 each are supported
from a generous endowment donation by Tom O'Connor, 1977 B.S. and 1980 M.S.
Environmental Sciences graduate of the University of Lowell. (In the past,
we have been Lowell Tech, University of Lowell, and UMass Lowell, among
others.) Tom is a founding Co-Chair of the College or Arts and Sciences
Advisory Board. Shown above with local chapter President, Bob Tamarin, is
the winner, Anne Laraia, a Sophomore Atmospheric Sciences major.
Edwin C. Sherburne Memorial Scholarship in Chemistry
This is the inaugural year of this scholarship, created
by Betty Sherburne to honor her late husband, a Chemistry major with degrees
at Lowell Tech in 1952 (B.A.) and 1954 (M.S.) From the left are local
chapter President, Bob Tamarin; Betty Sherburne; Prof. Gene Barry, Chair
of the Chemistry Department; and this year's award winner, Hank Kells.
Betty traveled up from Pennsylvania to present the inaugural award.
High School Teacher of the Year
The UMass Lowell chapter initiated the High School Teacher of the Year Award
in 2004 to honor an outstanding high school science or math teacher, one responsible
for instilling in students an excitement about the sciences and technology.
Shown above (left) is Jesus Hernandez, a physics teacher at the Math, Sciences,
and Technology High School in Lawrence, our 2008 winner. Also pictured, at right,
is Art Mittler, local chapter Treasurer.
Shown with Jesus Hernandez (center), our High School Math and Science Teacher
of the Year, are colleagues, friends, and family. From the left: Alex Cruz and
his wife Dianne, who is the Principal of the Math, Sciences, and Technology
High School in Lawrence; Galadriel Hernandez and her father, Jesus; and Meghan,
Mary Ellen, and Jordan Janiero. Mary Ellen is Jesus' friend and Meghan and Jordan
are her daughters.
2008 C. Daniel Cole Undergraduate Research Award
Students competing for the C. Daniel Cole Undergraduate Research prizes must
participate in the annual Undergraduate Research Symposium at UMass Lowell.
The winner is also inducted into Sigma Xi as an Associate Member. Shown are
Dr. Aram Karakashian (left), Cole Award Officer of the local chapter and Marco
Bonett-Matiz, First Prize Winner (Physics and Math majors).
Faculty Award for the Advancement of Teaching
and Learning in the Sciences
This is the inaugural year of this award, created by Sciences
Advisory Board member Susan Pasquale and her husband, Ron Boudreau. This award
is designed to reward the scholarship of teaching. This year the award was jointly
given to Dr. Jesse Heines of Computer Science and Dr. Jim Whitten of Chemistry.
In the photo, from left to right: Jim Whitten, award winner and chapter Secretary,
Susan Pasquale, Ron Boudreau, and Bob Tamarin, local chapter President.
Induction
of New Full
Members
New full members of Sigma
Xi are shown above. From the left: Dr. Jim Whitten, Secretary of the local
chapter, Mr. Berke Gur (Mechanical Engineering); Mr. Vijayendra Kumar (Chemistry),
Mr. Lei Shi (Neurobiology, UMass Worcester), Mr. Marco Bonett-Matiz (Physics
and Math), and Dr. Zhiyong Gu (Chemical Engineering), who recently transferred
his membership to the UMass Lowell Chapter.
Guest
Lecture
Our
Banquet Speaker this year was Dr. Mike Morin, who received his B.S. in Biology
from UMass Lowell, and his Ph.D. in Cancer Pharmacology from SUNY Buffalo. He
did an NIH postdoctoral fellowship at Yale and then joined the faculty in the
Department of Pharmacology at Northwestern University. He joined Pfizer in 1991,
eventually becoming the Vice President in Pfizer Global Drug Discovery. In his
time at Pfizer, over 40 drugs were targeted for development as anticancer agents.
Mike is an early member of the UMass Lowell Sciences Advisory Board. Currently
he is leading a startup company, Oncovia Therapeutics, which will seek to bring
effective therapeutics to childhood and adult cancers currently under-served
by the drug discovery innovations of the past 10 years. His talk, giving career
advice to both new and seasoned professionals, was entitled:
Lessons
from Lowell (Musings of an Unemployed Alum)
Special
thanks to our Secretary, Ms Elizabeth Fortin, for making all the arrangements
for our Banquet.
Check back in the fall
for information about the 2008-2009 awards competitions and the 2009 Banquet.
Remember that 2009 is the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth and the
150th anniversary of the publication of "The Origin of Species."
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