News

EWB Raises $18,800 for Projects in Developing Countries

On April 21, the UMass Amherst student chapter of Engineers Without Borders (EWB) hosted its fifth annual Auction & Social, the high point of the seven-year-old organization’s best year of fundraising to support sustainable engineering projects in Kenya and the Amazon. “We surpassed our goal, raising $22,500, $16,000 from sponsorships and $6,500 from the auction,” explained Elaine Palmer, fundraising advisor for the EWB chapter. “The auction yielded 62 percent of retail value. After expenses and overhead we estimate our net income to be $18,800! With these funds, those traveling on a project will be able to participate regardless of their individual ability to pay for travel.”

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Zhao Wins Best Paper Award

The paper of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) graduate student Jia Zhao was selected for the Best Paper Award at the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Great Lakes Symposium on Very-Large-Scale Integration (VLSI), which took place in Salt Lake City, Utah from May 3 to 4. Zhao’s faculty advisor, ECE Professor Russell Tessier, and ECE Professor Wayne Burleson were co-authors of the paper, entitled “Distributed Sensor Data Processing for Many-cores.” As Tessier noted, “Jia's paper focuses on the on-chip monitoring of many-core processor chips which contain thousands of processor cores. His approach collects on-chip voltage and temperature information and uses the information to control processor performance. Significant performance and energy benefits result from this technique.”

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Russell Receives Honorary Doctorate at Commencement

Alumnus Mark E. Russell, who earned his M.S. degree from the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department in 1985, received an Honorary Doctorate of Engineering Degree from the University of Massachusetts Amherst at its 2012 Commencement ceremonies. Russell is the Raytheon Corporate Vice President of Engineering, Technology, and Mission Assurance. Russell was recently elevated to the honorary status of Fellow by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). The prestigious distinction of AIAA Fellow is conferred upon those members of the institute who have made notable and valuable contributions to the arts, sciences, or the technology of aeronautics and astronautics.

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