Merrimack Valley Magazine

Space Hawk – UML Students Build NASA Satellite

October 28, 2017 by Edwin Aguirre Leave a Comment

If everything goes as planned, a small satellite designed and built by a team of UMass Lowell undergraduates will launch into orbit next year, circling Earth every 90 minutes while traveling about 17,000 mph.

More than 50 of the college’s science, engineering and business students are developing the SPACE HAUC satellite under the direction of physics Professor Supriya Chakrabarti, who leads the university’s Lowell Center for Space Science and Technology (LoCSST). Once the spacecraft is ready, NASA hopes to deploy the device for a yearlong mission to test its ability to collect and transmit research data at faster speeds than ever. The satellite’s name, pronounced “space hawk,” is a tip of the hat to UMass Lowell’s athletic teams, the River Hawks. The acronym stands for Science Program Around Communications Engineering with High Achieving Undergraduate Cadres.

The UMass Lowell team’s proposal to build the satellite received $200,000, the maximum amount of NASA funding available through the agency’s Undergraduate Student Instrument Project. The initiative engages college students across the country to flex their technical, leadership and project-management skills by offering them real-world opportunities relevant to NASA missions.

“SPACE HAUC allows UMass Lowell students to enter the space development field while still in school,” said the team’s project leader Alex Casperson, an electrical engineering major from Burlington. “I’m getting real-world engineering and systems management experience. I never thought I’d have this opportunity.”

SPACE HAUC is what’s known as a cube satellite or “CubeSat,” which is a miniaturized, low-cost alternative to larger models. The finished spacecraft will measure about a foot in length and 4 inches in both width and height — about the size of a large loaf of bread — and will weigh 9 pounds. Once launched, the satellite will reach altitudes of between 99 and 1,200 miles while circling the planet. Four solar panels will supply electricity to power the satellite.

The device’s goal is to transmit data at up to 50 to 100 megabits per second — significantly faster than current models. To test its data-transmission capabilities, it will collect images of the sun and return them to Earth.

“SPACE HAUC will be UMass Lowell’s first mission to actually go around the Earth, and the satellite will do so many, many times during its lifetime,” Chakrabarti said.

UMass Lowell students who began work on Space HAUC last year in the university’s Lowell Center for Space Science and Technology include mechanical engineering graduates, from left, Charles Barbon of Worcester; Jacob Hulme of Methuen; William Mann of Worcester; and the project’s first team leader, Dat Le of Billerica. Here, they examine a full-scale model of the satellite. Photos courtesy UMass Lowell

The team — which includes students from Dracut, Lowell, Tewksbury, North Andover and Westford, along with Londonderry, N.H. — is organized into four subgroups that focus on the electrical and mechanical engineering that’s needed to build the satellite, the computer science that drives its communication capabilities, and SPACE HAUC’s business concerns, including the project’s marketing and budget. The students have been building the satellite for just over a year, working on it even during the summer. NASA wants the finished device by March 2018, but the team hopes to complete SPACE HAUC by this December.

“Every piece of this has to be engineered to the finest detail,” said Jacob Hempel, a computer engineering student from Barnstable.

After SPACE HAUC’s mission is complete, the satellite will gradually fall back to Earth. As it reenters the atmosphere, aerodynamic stress and heating will cause the craft to disintegrate — an outcome that was one of the project’s requirements, as NASA works to avoid space debris, according to the students.

“A project of this magnitude and scope would not have been possible without the help and support of many parties, from writing the proposal to technical consultations,” Chakrabarti said. “SPACE HAUC represents a great collaboration between students and faculty, as well as the university’s administration, research centers and industry partners.”

SPACE HAUC collaborators include the Raytheon-UMass Lowell Research Institute, the Massachusetts Space Grant Consortium and BAE Systems.

SPACE HAUC is one of many UMass Lowell research projects at LoCSST designed to develop communications technologies. This August, faculty members and graduate students were in the Midwest, conducting experiments that allowed them to study the effects of the solar eclipse on the upper atmosphere. Earlier this year, a SpaceX rocket carrying and spectrograph built at UMass Lowell was sent to the International Space Station. There, it is mounted to the outside of the craft and is taking ultraviolet pictures in an effort to learn how the upper atmosphere’s irregularities affect radio signals. The research could help improve how satellites and GPS navigational tools function. Other devices built at UMass Lowell have been launched by NASA as part of astronomers’ efforts to take images of planets around stars other than the sun. LoCSST hopes to launch new missions focused on these endeavors in 2018 and 2019.

For more info visit https://www.uml.edu/Research/LoCSST/Research/spacehauc/about.aspx.

The Path Ahead – Smart Options for Higher Education

September 18, 2017 by Lane Glenn Leave a Comment

When I was young, I was a pretty smart kid — good grades, reasonably well behaved, and interested in someday going to college. But I was a first-generation college student and my family didn’t have the resources to help me on my way.

Thanks to scholarships and part-time jobs, I was able to start at my local community college and go on to earn bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate degrees at state universities without taking out any loans until grad school.

It’s a lot harder to do that today. Public colleges receive much less funding from the cities and states that support them, and the cost of going to college has risen significantly.

For most people, earning a degree is still worth it since college graduates are much more likely to be employed and earn more — about $1 million over their lifetime than those with just a high school diploma. A college degree, for most people, is the ticket to the middle class in America, and overwhelmingly worth the investment when it’s done right. So how do you do it right?

Here is some practical advice:

Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be

For more than 20 years, I’ve advised students and families that the college they attend is far less important than attending and completing a degree. With very few exceptions, future employers are more interested in reading your resume, noting that you have that degree from an accredited institution of higher learning and seeing that you demonstrate suitable knowledge and skills, than they are in knowing that your sheepskin comes from a selective Ivy League institution.

The Harvards, Stanfords and Yales of the world are wonderful places. If you get in and can afford the experience without putting yourself in debt for much of your adult life, that’s fantastic. If not, don’t despair! There are many other ways to go.

Get a Jump on Early College

Northern Essex Community College, like many colleges around the state, regularly partners with area high schools to offer “Early College” experiences that allow students to earn college credits — even a full associate’s degree — while they are still in high school. Each Early College experience is different, but all offer reduced costs to students and families. Credits earned are usually transferable to both public and private four-year colleges. Check with your local high school or call NECC to learn more.

Start at a Community College

You can start at a community college and transfer anywhere you want, even to those prestigious private colleges mentioned earlier. You end up earning the degree from a four-year school and saving a bundle of money.

As part of the “Commonwealth Commitment,” for example, a student can earn a bachelor’s degree from UMass Lowell for $27,907 (that’s the total cost without financial aid, which may reduce it even further) by starting at Northern Essex. Visit the state’s Department of Higher Education transfer website at Mass.edu/MassTransfer for info.

Get Creative with the “Communiversity”

Recognizing that most students today attend a college not too far from home, NECC and other community colleges have begun partnering with public and private four-year colleges to offer bachelor’s degree completion programs on their campuses, usually at reduced costs. For example, students can complete bachelor’s degrees in public health or nursing with Regis College, or in information technology, graphic design or music business with Vermont’s Lyndon State College, right on our Lawrence campus. This saves time, travel and quite a bit of money.

A college education today is still a valuable investment — most good jobs require it. But there are many ways to get that degree, have a meaningful experience and save a lot along the way.

Lane Glenn is the president of Northern Essex Community College, with campuses in Haverhill and Lawrence, Mass. He writes “Running the Campus,” a blog featuring stories and perspectives on leadership, higher education and going the extra mile at President.necc.mass.edu.

Pronouns and Performance

January 16, 2017 by Doug Sparks Leave a Comment

Innovative Program Uses Theater to Develop Students’ Language Skills

More than two years ago, veteran TV and film character actor and director Tony Plana gave a speech at the Sontag Prize in Urban Education ceremony. The Sontag Prize, created by Lawrence Public Schools Superintendent Jeff Riley during his tenure in the Boston Public Schools, recognizes outstanding teaching in mathematics, English language arts and other disciplines. Plana’s vision was to use theater as a way to help English language learner students, and the program he described was called Language in Play (LIP). Plana had developed LIP over the course of two decades at the East LA Classic Theatre.

Enter David Lemay, a Lawrence native and rare individual with both the teaching and acting bugs. When he was younger, he worked as an Augustinian Volunteer, honing his teaching skills in the Bronx. He returned to New England to act in a dinner theater group before taking a one-year teaching contract in South Korea 10 years ago. As a performer at the English Village, a South Korean government experiment in which “edutainers” ran a theme park devoted to improving English language skills, he played a lost pirate, an English magician and Wally the Walrus. When his contract was over, he returned to Lawrence and started teaching at the Arlington Middle School. In 2014, he heard Plana’s speech and saw the possibility of merging his own love of teaching with theater.

The 25 or so original students in the LIP program saw an average improvement of 20 to 30 points in their MCAS scores.

In the second year, student enrollment doubled to 50.

Class begins and ends standing. Here, the students unite before leaving for the day. Photo by Kevin Harkins.

Weeks before the start of the current school year, Lemay, 36, learned that not only would his program grow, but the entire school would be involved. In two years, he had gone from working with 25 students to the whole student body of about 565. “It was a whirlwind,” Lemay admits, adding that it would not have been possible without support from the school administration and nearby Merrimack College.

Arlington Middle School Principal Robin Finn, a strong advocate of the program, says that for younger students, it is designed to supplement classroom learning. As planned, the students will work with Lemay over the course of four years beginning in grade 5. The activities become increasingly personal. Participants move from using theater to understand the books they are reading in the classroom, to filming and editing their own news shows. Finn notes that this process develops communication skills and encourages socio-emotional learning, as well.

The Rev. Richard Piatt, director of the Rogers Center for the Arts at Merrimack College, was involved in Arlington Middle School’s adoption of LIP from the outset. Known as Father Rick, he provided logistical support, fostered community involvement and implemented a for-credit internship program for Merrimack College students working in the program.

Piatt says this isn’t simply an amusing program that kids happen to love but one that was developed to address specific issues within a specific community. It is, he notes, “for children who do not have the advantages that many others do. And it’s about giving them the opportunity to become the great citizens I know they can be.”

When students enter the classroom for the first time, there are no chairs. Students are asked to walk around the room and then, standing, announce their names. “It’s their first performance,” Lemay says. And starting with names is important: Even if the students are unfamiliar with English, they begin from a place of comfort and certainty.

Lemay, a seasoned actor and gifted educator, tries to goad a student into losing focus during a theatrical game. Photo by Kevin Harkins.

I visited the classroom to see for myself, entering to the sound of applause as seventh-graders finished performing their scenes. “Bring it in!” Lemay shouted, and the students put their hands together before erupting with a chant of their team name. Many of the groups Lemay teaches have given themselves a team name that’s related to the school’s alligator mascot. As unexpected as this might be, the students, often transplants from sunnier regions, relate to the image of an alligator in New England.

The next class, fifth-graders, entered. They stood in “zero position” — their arms at their sides, feet together. This stance helps students draw their attention inward.

The circle widened while Lemay did his best to break their concentration. He clucked like a chicken. Some students immediately burst into laughter. These students sat and the game continued.

Lemay growled and mimed and stared ghoulishly until six students were left, standing with clenched jaws, trying their best not to laugh at their teacher’s antics. They had won the game, and now it was their turn. The others stood, and the victors began their march around the circle, hoping the participants, including Lemay, would be forced out.

After another warm-up game, this one involving the construction of a human machine — a nod to their studies of the 1912 Bread and Roses Strike — the students were given 30 minutes to finish their scripts, followed by 10 minutes of rehearsal. The class concluded with a performance. Two boys eagerly assumed places behind a camera, documenting the event.

When they were finished, the students circled around for final words from Lemay.

“What you did was not easy. …” he began. The fifth-graders put their hands in the circle and shouted their slogan: “Gators never give up!” before scrambling for the stairs.

New Website Provides Study, Teaching Methods for Success

September 7, 2016 by Digital Manager Leave a Comment

UMass Lowell project aids students, explores the science behind learning concepts.

High school and college students preparing to return to class will find help to perform well on tests and assignments at a new website dedicated to improving their ability to study and learn.

A team of three researchers including UMass Lowell psychology professor Yana Weinstein recently launched www.learningscientists.org, a resource guide and blog for students, their parents and teachers that promotes strategies for academic success.

“I have been doing research on study strategies for years, but a few months ago I realized most of what I was doing was aimed at other academics and did not reach teachers or students,” Weinstein, an expert on memory and cognition, said. “Our blog and presence on social media have already noticeably changed that, and are providing us with new outlets for our work and that of our colleagues.”

Six effective methods in particular are also presented on posters that can be downloaded and printed. These materials can be found at www.learningscientists.org/downloadable-materials.

Articles on education-focused topics – from the best way to study verb conjugations in a foreign language to the value of a good night’s sleep — are featured in the blog and are written by researchers, teachers and students from across the country. Links to resources are also available.

Weinstein, along with two fellow learning scientists, curates the website’s materials and frequently interacts with the public via the project’s Facebook page, www.facebook.com/AceThatTest, and Twitter account, @AceThatTest, at www.twitter.com/AceThatTest.

In the coming months, the team plans to provide study aids and other information on learning techniques to schools around the world.

Weinstein and Smith have received the support of the Association for Psychological Science, which provided a $3,800 grant to create the posters in collaboration with Oliver Caviglioli, a former educator who produces visual guides on teaching techniques. Augmenting that effort, The IDEA Center, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving teaching, learning and leadership in higher education since 1975, awarded Weinstein and Smith nearly $10,000 to create videos that explain the study strategies detailed in the posters. When completed, they will be made available on the website.

This fall, Wooldridge will conduct research in her classes to examine the impact of the resources on academic performance. “We already know these study strategies work; now we need to determine whether the information as presented on the posters and in the videos is effective,” Weinstein said.

For more on the current state of education in the Valley, read the special section inside the September/October issue of Merrimack Valley Magazine. Click here to buy the issue.

Changing The World One Student At A Time

April 17, 2016 by Liz Michalski Leave a Comment

A Visit with UMass Lowell Chancellor Jacqueline Moloney

[Note: This story originally appeared in the May/June 2016 edition of mvm. Minor changes have been made to avoid confusion. -Editor]

The view from Jacqueline Moloney’s fourth-floor office is dramatic. Dark clouds scud above the roiling Merrimack River, creating a scene worthy of a Dutch landscape. But Moloney, the first female chancellor of UMass Lowell, is more intrigued by the students crossing the bridge below her.

“That’s the most interesting part of the view to me,” she says.

Moloney, who in 2015 was appointed to the leadership post by a unanimous vote of the school’s board of trustees, understands firsthand that students often come to class by a circuitous route, one that doesn’t allow for a long view. That’s because it’s the same route she traveled.

“I was very, very lucky,” she says. One of nine children in her family, she was discouraged from taking college-prep classes in high school. Her parents saw it as a waste of time for a girl. But two of her teachers — including Bill Coughlin, who later taught at UMass Lowell — advocated for her. “So you can imagine how strongly I feel about doing the same,” Moloney says.

In a sense, Moloney and UMass Lowell have grown up together. When she started at Lowell State College after high school, it was a commuter school with a tight community and a strong teaching faculty that emphasized interaction between professors and students. In her senior year, Moloney sat on the committee that discussed merging Lowell State College and Lowell Tech. By the time she returned to UMass Lowell — after graduating with a degree in sociology and then continuing at Goddard College in Vermont for a master’s degree in social psychology — things had changed. But Moloney had, too.

By then, she’d successfully headed two social relief organizations, the Lowell Association for Retarded Citizens (today, The Arc of Greater Lowell) and the Indochinese Refugees Foundation. She’d kept a hand in at UMass Lowell, as well, teaching as an adjunct and running a women’s conference. So when the call came to take over UMass Lowell’s college prep program in 1985, Moloney was ready. It was a mission that was close to her heart: Take students who come from tough backgrounds, who weren’t prepared or encouraged academically, and get them ready for college.

changing-world-one-student-cover — As someone who struggled to find support for her own educational ambitions, Moloney understands how important role models, mentors and advisors can be. She strives to attend as many student functions as possible. Her presence serves as both encouragement and, for those who know her history, a reminder of what is possible. ( Photo courtesy UMass Lowell )

“It was one of the high points of my career,” Moloney says. The program matched Lawrence High School students with mentors from UMass Lowell. “We gave the [Lawrence] students a chance to find themselves and to find hope. The program changed lives and set me on the path toward becoming an administrator.”

It’s a role she’s never stopped embracing. “We have students who have overcome every odd to get here. We want them when they graduate to have the confidence to go out and make a difference in the world. We have hundreds of ways to do that,” she says.

A View to the Future

Moloney and UMass Lowell are working to increase student aid and scholarships so students can work less and study more. They are hoping to increase the number of students who live on campus, so they can immerse themselves in “living-learning communities” — houses where students with similar academic interests and goals can support each other — and to expand opportunities for students to take on leadership roles through the more than 200 clubs and organizations the college offers.

Perhaps the most important step is reducing class size, Moloney says. “We used to have freshmen come in with three [large] lecture classes. I saw over and over again early in my career what a negative impact that has. So we’ve reduced class size, and students aren’t just surviving, they’re thriving, and connecting with faculty in a way they never could have before,” she says.

For UMass Lowell Chancellor Jacqueline Moloney, it’s not the view that makes her office space a prime location. It’s the fact that it is at University Crossing, the heart of student services and organizations. Being here offers her regular interaction with students, some of whom have overcome steep odds to attend college.

The changes are anything but serendipitous. Under Moloney’s predecessor, former Chancellor Marty Meehan, the school put together a 10-year plan designed to make UMass Lowell an academic powerhouse and to boost the success of its students’ college experience. The plan, which was developed in 2010, covers everything from class size to new buildings, including University Crossing, which in 2014 became the 10th building opened in five years by the school, and is where Moloney has her office. It’s also, not coincidentally, a center for student services and a place where student clubs meet. The location gives Moloney plenty of student contact.

“We’re telling our students: You will graduate knowing how to make a difference in an innovative way,” she says. She points to a program called “DifferenceMaker,” in which students are taught how to identify a problem, examine it and come up with a creative solution, with teams competing across UMass Lowell for cash prizes.

A few years ago, a team of sophomores in the program decided to study ways to create affordable, flexible prosthetics for children in developing nations. Today they are graduate students with a team in India distributing their prototypes. Moloney says, “One of them recently told me: ‘We thought this was a good idea, but when I went to India, and the first person came into my office after spending six hours getting there, it changes you forever.’ ”

Partners in Success

The changes at UMass Lowell wouldn’t be possible without Meehan’s work, Moloney says, and his devotion to both the school and the city. “He had great passion for both of them, and always encouraged everyone to be brave and take risks, to set ambitious goals and do what is needed to reach them,” Moloney says.

Today, the two players — the city of Lowell and the university — are lifting each other above the tide. Symbiotic strategies, such as the school’s “Innovation Hub,” bring business ideas to life and jobs to Lowell. Booking more events at the Tsongas Center provides business for downtown shops and restaurants, and marketing organizations designed to expand local economic activity are responding to an increasing number of parents, tourists and other visitors coming to the city.

Moloney makes it a point to visit many of Lowell’s events and locations, including the new Mill No. 5 shopping arcade and Western Avenue Studios. But the best place to spot her is on campus, even on her days off.

On a recent Sunday, she’d planned to spend the day with her husband, two daughters and four grandchildren. But the school’s gospel choir, which had sung at her inauguration, invited her to a sing-off.

“I knew they wanted me to go to it,” she says. So she convinced her family to come into the city, where they did a tour of the mills and rode a trolley before having dinner at the UMass Lowell Inn & Conference Center.

Then Moloney went to the sing-off as a grandmother, not as chancellor, standing in the background with her granddaughter so she wouldn’t be noticed and steal attention from the performers.

“About two weeks later I got an email from one of the singers, a student I didn’t know very well, who thanked me for coming to the event. She said, ‘I saw you in the audience, and now I know you’re not like everyone else, you really do care.’ ”

The chancellor pauses. “So yes, I do go to a lot of events, as many as I can physically get to. Because in the end, it’s all about them — they are the future.”