Five professors were awarded distinction by the Board of Trustees at its Friday, Aug. 2 meeting. MCB faculty Barbara A. Osborne (Veterinary and Animal Science) and Sankaran ‘Thai’ Thayumanavan (Chemistry) were appointed as Distinguished Professors. The title Distinguished Professor is conferred on select, highly accomplished faculty who have already achieved the rank of professor and who meet a demanding set of qualifications.

Professor Osborne’s accolades for her research contributions are extensive. Most notably, she has been a pioneer in her research field, where she conducted innovative studies that used cutting- edge technologies and that were published in premier journals, including Nature, Nature Immunology, Blood, and the Journal of Immunology. On campus, she has contributed her extensive expertise in foundational and translational research to the establishment of the Institute of Applied Life Sciences. The impact of her research is reflected in her extensive publication record, which encompasses more than 125 articles that have been cited over 15,000 times, giving her a stellar h-index of 51. She has supported her research through NIH grants continuously since joining UMass, attracting over $39M in external funding. Professor Osborne has taught extensively at the undergraduate and graduate level, and led the creation of undergraduate courses in biotechnology. At the graduate level, she has directed the interdisciplinary graduate program in Molecular and Cellular Biology. She has also trained and mentored a large number of Ph.D., M.S., and Honors students and postdoctoral fellows in her lab. 

Prof. Thayumanavan’s research program is characterized by prolific excellence. Since promotion to Professor in 2008, Prof. Thayumanavan has published over 120 articles, with more than 30 in the top tier of chemistry journals as lead author. In the same time period, he has garnered more than $26 million in external support. He has given more than 100 presentations on his research since 2008, including keynote addresses and prestigious lectures such as the Nanqiang lecture in Xiamen University (2014), and he was elected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2011.” He currently has grants that run several years into the future: an NIH grant with a 1.0 percentile score (amazing), an NSF grant as a CCI, an ARO MURI grant, and several other federal funded applications that are still running (an NIH R01, industrial sponsors) and many previous grants. This alone shows the longevity of his program and argues strongly for continued productivity. Read more

Wednesday, August 21, 2019
1:30 PM
Integrated Sciences Building, Room 221
Dissertation Title:  “TPR-containing proteins control Protein Homeostasis and Organization for the Endoplasmic Reticulum"
Advisor:  Dan Hebert

Thursday, July 25, 2019
1:30 PM
Integrated Sciences Building, Room 221
Dissertation Title:  “Environmental risk factors for inflammatory bowel disease: triclosan and other consumer antimicrobials"
Advisor:  Guodong Zhang

The grant provided funds to purchase four sets of racks with lighting, light meters, and stocks of pots and growth medium to make the experiments possible. The grant will also pay for three teachers to spend eight days this summer to continue to develop curriculum. This project extends work with the Amherst Regional Middle School (ARMS), where the teachers are using the system for the second year, and will continue to develop new inquiry-based classroom activities with this grant support. Professor Vierling explains, "The best way to introduce students to plant biology is to get them growing plants and for them to experience the many different responses plants have to their environment. Students really connect with watching plants grow, and that helps them begin to understand the different parts of plants and how they work." Read more