Anthony Amatucci

Before he started his first-year classes in fall 2021, Anthony Amatucci spent a couple of weeks on campus rehearsing with the UML Marching Band, playing trombone and baritone horn.

Walking out of Convocation, where the band had performed, he checked out the booths at the Engagement Fair, looking for a club that involved politics. He found the International Relations Club and its award-winning Model United Nations team.

“I went to every meeting in the fall and just fell in love with it,” says Amatucci, who’s from Wakefield, Massachusetts.

Now a senior, Amatucci is president of the International Relations Club-Model U.N. team and the field conductor for the UML Marching Band. He’s also double-majoring in political science and economics, minoring in Italian Studies, starting on his Honors College thesis and working as a research assistant in UML’s Center for Public Opinion, where he is learning about political polling.

“There have been times when my sleep’s been limited,” he admits with a laugh. “I always try to find fun in every aspect of what I do. Everything I do is because I genuinely enjoy it and because I genuinely enjoy the people around me I’m doing it with, and that’s always given me the energy and the motivation to do it all.”

Amatucci came to UMass Lowell with a Chancellor’s Scholarship for free tuition and a $4,000 Immersive Scholars award that allowed him to take an honors study abroad trip to Madrid as a sophomore. (He has also traveled to Europe every spring for Model U.N. competitions.)

But he probably would have come to UMass Lowell even without the extra scholarships, he says. He turned down offers from more than a half dozen other private and state universities.

“I feel like the students here and the faculty here, they’re not trying to make a name for themselves: They’re trying to teach, research and make an impact,” he says. “I felt I was going to get just as good, if not a better, education here than at any of these other universities – and I hold that belief to an even stronger degree three years after arriving here.”

Amatucci has certainly taken advantage of multiple opportunities.

He interned for his local state representative, Kate Lipper-Garabedian, for two summers, talking with constituents, researching bills before the state Legislature and doing a deeper dive on interesting policy issues.

As a junior, he joined the Emerging Scholars Program to do paid research with faculty on the impact of the recent Massachusetts textile disposal ban.

Now, Amatucci is assisting the Center for Public Opinion’s associate director, Political Science Asst. Prof. Rodrigo Castro Cornejo, with research into the intersection of politics and identity. He’s also outlining some public opinion research ideas of his own, one of which will become his honors thesis.

As for the future? Graduate school is in the mix, but not until he’s gotten some practical experience. “I’m looking to work in local or state government, even just as a bureaucrat doing budgetary work,” Amatucci says. “I love data analysis and public opinion polling. A dream job would be working for You.gov or another polling organization.”