UMass Boston Alumni Magazine - Fall/Winter 2008-2009 - (Page 3)

UNEWS UNEWS UNEWS UNEWS UNEWS UNEWS UNEWS UNEWS John F. Kennedy Award-winner Catherine Reyes ’06 (here with Interim Provost Winston Langley) has won a 2008 Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Graduate Scholarship. Called the “American Rhodes,” the scholarship is highly competitive: about 50 are awarded each year, while over 1,000 students apply. Reyes, who will attend Harvard Medical School, intends to become a primary care physician for members of immigrant and minority communities either in the United States or abroad. Newly launched at UMass Boston’s McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies is the Collins Center for Public Management. the center will focus on improving state and local government effectiveness in Massachusetts and New england, but its work will apply generally. through problem-solving projects, information services, education, research, and analysis, it will help governments tackle tough fiscal problems, speed reforms, strengthen program delivery, and manage intergovernmental and public-private program implementation. the University of Massachusetts system and Genzyme have partnered to create the Genzyme/UMass Scholars Program, through which outstanding juniors pursuing life sciences degrees receive paid summer internships allowing them to see firsthand how biotech products are developed and brought to market. this year’s participants also received $5,000 toward senior-year expenses. UMass Boston students Jamie Webster, alex Bitzer, laura Kibuuka, and afamefuna Nduagba were in the first group selected. Peacemaking in Helsinki and Baghdad “The principle underlying these talks is very simple,” said Padraig O’Malley, the Moakley Professor of Peace and Reconciliation at UMass Boston’s McCormack Graduate School. ”People from divided societies are in the best position to help people from other divided societies.” That opinion is grounded in long experience: O’Malley has played a major part in spurring conflict-resolution in South Africa and Northern Ireland. This summer O’Malley took the lead in bringing political leaders from Iraq together with others from those once-divided, now reconciling societies. After two rounds of talks in Helsinki, Finland, in which principal negotiators of agreements in Northern Ireland and South Africa participated, 37 key members of Shi’ite, Sunni, and Kurdish parties signed an agreement in Baghdad outlining principles for future negotiations between the factions. (In this photo of negotiators in Baghdad, O’Malley is second from the right.) In October, O’Malley and other team members testified before a congressional subcommittee headed by Rep. William Delahunt, arguing for international involvement in further negotiations, with Iraqis taking the central role. In December, O’Malley traveled to Brussels, Belgium, to receive the 2008 Liberal International Freedom Prize. Graduate student Shainaz Moula Landge has won the 2008 M.J. Collins award for outstanding research by a student in microwave chemistry. landge and her sponsor, chemistry professor Bela Torok, share a $10,000 prize. Physics professor D.V.G.L.N. Rao has been granted $30,000 by the University of Massachusetts office of Commercial Ventures and intellectual Property. the award will help rao and researcher Chandra Yelleswarapu develop a Fourier phase contrast microscope that they have invented. another awardee is UMass Boston’s Management of Aging Services Program, named outstanding Credit Program for 2008 by the University Continuing education association. UMass Boston n 3

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of UMass Boston Alumni Magazine - Fall/Winter 2008-2009

UMass Boston Alumni Magazine - Fall/Winter 2008-2009 Contents UNews Oh, the Places They've Gone! "One of Those Rare Leaders" Acknowledging History, Renewing a Commonwealth Heart and Mind Indelible Images About Alumni Investing in UMass Boston A Generous Friend Alumni Calendar

UMass Boston Alumni Magazine - Fall/Winter 2008-2009

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