UMass Lowell students have a new place to flex their skills and imagination, thanks to Brooks Automation Inc., which has committed to create a new makerspace at the university. 

The Shah Academy of Innovation and Leadership is helping select engineering students to develop into future industry leaders through scholarships, mentorship and professional skill-building opportunities.

UMass Lowell student teams, including Mock Trial, a cyber security team, Model United Nations (U.N.) and an investment class, are on a winning streak this year.

Nearly 130 seniors and alumni from the Francis College of Engineering were inducted into the Order of the Engineer, a national association that emphasizes pride and responsibility in the engineering profession.

David Laurello ’81, ’88, former CEO of Stratus Technologies, has returned to his alma mater as executive in residence at the Manning School of Business, mentoring students, teaching courses and bridging the gap between academia and industry.

Students showcased innovative solutions to real-world problems at the Rist DifferenceMaker Institute’s annual Engineering Prototyping competition, with winning projects addressing classroom feedback, adjustable prosthetics, blast detection and human rights monitoring.

Philosophy Chair Nicholas Evans and Criminology Assoc. Prof. Neil Shortland are researching the future of artificial intelligence in warfare and policy under a pair of Department of Defense Minerva Grants worth $4.2 million, leading teams that include paid student researchers and other UML and outside faculty.

Prof. Hengyong Yu of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering has been elected a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM).

The Kennedy College of Sciences’ Undergraduate Design Project, which connects students with companies to work on real problems, sets up a pathway for students to get full-time jobs.

Ten students recently completed UMass Lowell’s Innovative Fellows Training (LIFT), a new program supported by a five-year, $1.2 million grant from the National Institute on Aging that is designed to diversify career opportunities for early-career scientists in the field of aging and aging-related diseases.

The Robotics Club is looking to make a difference in people’s lives with its robotic guide dog invention, which the club has entered into the SICK $10K Challenge and the Rist DifferenceMaker Institute’s $50K Idea Challenge.

A $4 million state grant will pay for the university to set up broadband internet access in disadvantaged areas of Lowell, Fitchburg and Haverhill. The grant, part of a state effort to promote digital equity, is also paying UMass Lowell students to teach basic computer skills to older and low-income residents.

The state has awarded UML a $500,000 grant to help establish the Massachusetts Electronics Manufacturing Evolution (MEME) Laboratory to train students and industry workers in the design and fabrication of PCBs.

The National Science Foundation has awarded a three-year, $1 million grant to a team of researchers led by Electrical Engineering Prof. Yan Luo to develop a data analytics platform that uses biosensors to detect harmful organisms such as Vibrio and Pseudomonas in aquaculture farms and coastal waters.

Prof. Hengyong Yu of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering has been awarded a four-year, $2.3 million grant by the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering to help improve the image quality and resolution of photon-counting computed tomography (CT) scans.

UMass Lowell is leading a project to establish a first-of-its-kind advanced manufacturing technologist training program to support the workforce needs of the aerospace and defense industries in Massachusetts.

A team of researchers led by Electrical and Computer Engineering Prof. Hengyong Yu is developing technology that would greatly improve cardiac CT scans, which doctors currently use to diagnose cardiovascular diseases.

Siblings Martin, Justin and Jasmin Marwad will be receiving bachelor’s degrees in computer science and electrical engineering when they cross the Commencement stage.

Assoc. Prof. Neil Shortland and a team of interdisciplinary researchers are looking at using artificial intelligence modeled after human attributes to make decisions in extreme situations.

A team of researchers headed by Electrical and Computer Engineering Prof. Kavitha Chandra is developing interdisciplinary programs that target graduate education and future workforce training in using digital technologies for automotive and manufacturing industries.

ARTritech Digital Health, a startup that is developing a patch for continuous blood pressure monitoring, won UMass Lowell’s inaugural Sensor Challenge at the Innovation Hub.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has named Lara Thompson ’03 as one of three recipients of this year's Alan T. Waterman Award, the nation's highest honor for early-career scientists and engineers.

A team of faculty researchers led by Biomedical Engineering Asst. Teaching Prof. Yanfen Li has been awarded a six-year grant totaling nearly $1.5 million by the National Science Foundation to create a diverse and competitive pool of students who could become future faculty candidates in engineering.

A team of electrical and computer engineering students set out to develop a more user-friendly version, or distribution, of Fedora, a popular open-source software operating system, as part of its senior capstone project.

Asst. Prof. Yuzhang Lin was recently awarded a five-year, $500,000 faculty early-career development grant by the National Science Foundation to conduct a study that will help better predict and visualize power distribution capacity and consumers’ power demand in real time.

The Rist Institute for Sustainability and Energy has awarded 2021-22 fellowships to Assoc. Prof. of Electrical and Computer Engineering Cordula Schmid, Analytical Chemistry Ph.D. candidate Elizabeth Farrell and chemical engineering major Andrew Parker.

Assoc. Prof. Joyita Dutta of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering has been awarded a $2.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for research that could help shed light on the progression of Alzheimer’s disease.

SPACE HAUC, UMass Lowell’s first satellite, recently passed a critical test that cleared the way for its upcoming launch into Earth orbit. The satellite was designed and built by more than 100 students from the Kennedy College of Sciences and the Francis College of Engineering over the course of five years.

The UTeach program, which turns science, math and engineering majors into classroom teachers, is now in its 10th year at UMass Lowell. Graduates are in great demand at local high schools, and one was named a finalist for Massachusetts STEM Teacher of the Year.

Mechanical Engineering Prof. and Dept. Chair Christopher Niezrecki has been named the 2020 Distinguished University Professor for exemplary teaching, research and service to the university.

The U.S. Department of Energy has awarded researchers from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering a three-year, $500,000 grant to develop a new, wireless high-temperature sensor network for smart, coal-fired boilers used in industry.

Students who miss being on campus — and incoming freshmen who want to meet fellow River Hawks outside of the remote classroom this fall — can connect virtually on HawkCraft, the university’s official Minecraft server.

Two dozen incoming first-year and transfer students got a jump on their engineering studies — and a preview of college life during the coronavirus pandemic — through the Francis College of Engineering’s Research, Academics and Mentoring Pathways (RAMP) program.

The River Hawk Rising program provides structured support and a personal connection to students of color, transfer students and first-generation students during their time at the university, setting them up for success in college and beyond.

Rover the River Hawk, an Industrial Capstone Senior Design project that Engineering students are building to clean debris from the city’s canals, received a Green Design award from the Lowell Sustainability Council and a Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition from U.S. Rep. Lori Trahan.

To help protect medical information from cyberattacks, the National Science Foundation has awarded a three-year grant totaling nearly $1 million to a team of researchers led by Prof. Yan Luo of UMass Lowell’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering to develop a secure cyberinfrastructure for translational research.

U.S. Rep. Lori Trahan learned about the latest technology used in parachutes and other battlefield innovations while touring the HEROES lab on Feb. 20.

The National Science Foundation has awarded nearly $1 million in grant to a team of researchers led by Prof. Yan Luo to develop a secure and compliant cyberinfrastructure for translational research.

UMass Lowell students have earned more than $24 million over the past five years through the Professional Cooperative Education program, helping them pay for college while gaining valuable real-world work experience. 

A team of researchers from UMass Lowell and the Goddard Space Flight Center has received a two-year, $1.2 million grant from NASA to develop an instrument that would significantly improve the accuracy of the International Terrestrial Reference Frame.

The U.S. Department of Transportation recently awarded a five-year, $14 million grant to a partnership of faculty and student researchers from UMass Lowell and other universities in New England to create a regional Transportation Infrastructure Durability Center.

The Massachusetts Life Sciences Center sponsored nine high school students to do research for eight weeks on campus under its High School Apprenticeship Challenge program.

The new RAMP summer camp for incoming women engineering students aims to build their skills and connect them with future mentors so they stay the course. The first-year students say it’s boosting their confidence – and helping them make friends.

Invitation to Innovation, which was held May 4 at the Tsongas Center, was attended by more than 2,000 schoolchildren, educators and community and corporate partners.

Sixty academic, government and industry leaders and researchers from across the region came together for “The Internet of Things: Enabling Technologies & Emerging Trends,” a forum hosted by the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation and the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative.

E Ink is expanding its partnership with UMass Lowell beyond co-ops and internships, thanks to a $196,000 workforce training grant that the Division of Online and Continuing Education helped the high-tech company obtain from the state and the opening of more innovation labs on campus.

InvisaWear, the brainchild of alum Rajia Abdelaziz, has created smart jewelry with a patent-pending chip that silently signal for help.

UML Professor Sam Mil'shtein and three of his Electrical Engineering students, led by Mukhammaddin Zinaddinov, recently partnered on the project, with the UML contingent visiting the high school on a weekly basis.

UMass Lowell engineers are creating new, cost-effective sensor-laden textiles that can be used to monitor the structural health of vital infrastructures across the country.

Electrical engineering alum Vala Afshar ’94, ’96, chief digital evangelist at Salesforce, shared his insights with students on business trends and the power of social media.

NextFlex has awarded three projects with a total contract value of $4.4 million to researchers from the UMass Lowell Nanomanufacturing Center, defense contractor Raytheon IDS and SI2 Technologies.

NextFlex has awarded three grants of more than $4 million to teams of researchers from the UMass Lowell Nanomanufacturing Center and defense contractor Raytheon IDS.

Michael and Nicholas Forsyth of Acton mirror more than each other’s appearances – the identical twins, after five years sharing the same classes, textbooks, and college commute, recently graduated with master’s degrees from UMass Lowell and with plans to pursue careers in robotics.

The university’s first-ever Invitation to Innovation (i2i) event drew a crowd of more than 1,000 to see student projects, research and products coming out of the university’s labs and classrooms.

The four oldest Forsyth brothers came to UMass Lowell to study engineering — and more of their siblings could follow in other programs.

With the groundbreaking vLabs:Engineering project, students can access the university’s full suite of graphics-intensive engineering software from any internet-connected device, even their phones.