University Of Massachusetts-Amherst Research Articles

ECR Spotlight – Elizabeth Rogers

ECR Spotlight is a series of interviews with early-career authors from a selection of papers published in Journal of Experimental Biology and aims to promote not only the diversity of early-career researchers (ECRs) working in experimental biology but also the huge variety of animals and physiological systems that are essential for the ‘comparative’ approach. Elizabeth (Beth) Rogers is an author on ‘ Water restriction increases oxidation of endogenous amino acids in house sparrows (Passer domesticus)’, published in JEB. Beth is a PhD candidate in the lab of Alex Gerson at University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA, investigating the physiological and metabolic adaptations that allow animals to contend with ecological challenges such as long-distance migration, disease, environmental change and the confluence of all three.

Disability studies in war and care: How to do work otherwise? A conversation between anthropology‐and‐disability‐studies scholars in relation to Russia's invasion of Ukraine

AbstractThis piece weaves together the voices of four feminist disability studies scholars and anthropologists whose work has been profoundly shaped by Russia's war of aggression. Composed via a dialogic encounter, it is based on a panel presentation on the topic of disability studies in war and care that took place at the University of Massachusetts Amherst just before the 1‐year mark of the full‐scale invasion. We came together to share insights and consider the best ways to practice horizontal solidarity, our approach inspired by recent work on feminist epistemology and methodology and scholarship on care, and disability studies. The text assumes a dialogic form, presenting our reflections as well as the contexts that shape our knowledge production and sharing the process of scaffolding our “Dis‐Fem” conversation. In dialogue with the decolonizing discussions that animate feminist, anthropological, and Slavic Studies, as well as critical disability scholarship, it centers on the work of Ukrainian scholar‐activists associated with the organization of people with disabilities (OPD) Fight For Right. In foregrounding their work, it traces the creative ways they've mobilized data and the experimental and collaborative data practices they've harnessed. Finally, it asks questions about trans‐local solidarities we can enact and ways we might forge novel, “otherwise” ways to collaborate.

Evaluating the Economic Sustainability of Two Selected Urban Centers—A Focus on Amherst and Braintree, MA, USA

While the topic of sustainable development has been extensively explored, there is a lack of quantitative assessment of economic sustainability in the scientific literature; moreover, the term is often interpreted with excessive attention to the environment but not socio-economic inequality. In addition, university cities are often considered the most sustainable, although the higher education system in the United States is often criticized for the inequality of access to it among different racial and other groups of the population. This paper adds to the debate about how the concepts of sustainability and economic development relate. Many researchers have noted that they come into conflict with each other because their ultimate goals are fundamentally different: a voluntary limitation of production and consumption in the interests of future generations and, conversely, the pursuit of well-being during our lives. We would like to explore the issue of economic sustainability, which, at first glance, may become a compromise between the two approaches outlined above. So, our study is devoted to exploring the ambiguous concept of economic sustainability, which can add some new knowledge to the understanding of how social, economic, and ecological factors relate to each other in the broader framework of sustainability. For this objective, we analyzed the economic sustainability of the town of Amherst, MA. The city’s top employer and core enterprise is the University of Massachusetts Amherst, with over 32,000 students and almost 2000 staff members. Based on a literature review, a hypothesis was put forward that a university city should have a high level of economic sustainability. To assess economic sustainability, the original methodology based on the US Cities Economic Sustainability Index (USCESI) was developed. It evaluates sustainability in three groups of parameters: society, economy, and ecology. The first group includes the level of racial diversity, the level of education of the population, and the access to medical services. The second group consists of the Gini coefficient by income level, the median cost of housing, and the unemployment rate. The environmental situation is assessed according to the Air Quality Index developed by the US Environmental Protection Agency. For comparison, the town of Braintree, MA, was chosen. As a result of the study, the USCESI was calculated for both locations. The analysis showed that both Amherst and Braintree have a high degree of economic sustainability. However, it was revealed that proximity to a significant economic center has a more powerful positive impact on economic sustainability than the location of a large university. In our paper, we proposed a new methodology for measuring economic sustainability with a special focus on inequality as a major problem in American society. The findings provide new knowledge about university cities and debunk the myth that they represent an exception to the general logic of urban development in the United States. A similar approach, with clarification of statistical indicators and a different emphasis, can be applied to other countries where inequality may be the main threat to economic sustainability, not in terms of access to higher education but in other areas.

ECR Spotlight – David Matthews

ECR Spotlight is a series of interviews with early-career authors from a selection of papers published in Journal of Experimental Biology and aims to promote not only the diversity of early-career researchers (ECRs) working in experimental biology during our centenary year but also the huge variety of animals and physiological systems that are essential for the ‘comparative’ approach. David Matthews is an author on ‘ Locomotor effects of a fibrosis-based immune response in stickleback fish’, published in JEB. David conducted the research described in this article while a Graduate student in Dr George Lauder's lab at the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, USA. He is now a postdoc in the lab of Dr Craig Albertson at the Department of Biology, University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA, investigating the mechanisms by which genetic changes are translated into functional and fitness differences between individuals.

Hiding in Plain Sight: Co-Enacting the Sustainable Worker Schema in a Consulting Firm

This inductive study of 44 consultants in a prominent consulting firm examines how consultants set work-life boundaries without getting stigmatized and how they develop their workplace relationships into sources of help for this process. Within this organization, dominated by the ideal worker norm, we found a hidden, self-sustaining network of consultants who delivered excellent work while violating the ideal worker norm without stigmatization. Their way of working was based on a coherent set of beliefs about work and the work-life interface we named the sustainable worker schema, which contrasted with the ideal worker schema in all ways except in the ultimate goals: high performance and excellent work. Essential to this way of working was not only effective management of boundaries between work and life outside of work (work-life boundaries) but also effective management of boundaries around each work task or project (work boundaries). Consultants who embraced the sustainable worker schema worked fewer hours and achieved higher satisfaction with work-life balance than their counterparts. Together, these findings highlight the importance of embracing the centrality of work in work-life research; underscore the power of invisibility when challenging the ideal worker norm; and paint a rich picture of boundary work as a network-level phenomenon. Funding: This work was supported by Simmons University [Diane K. Trust Chair in Leadership Development, President’s Fund for Faculty Excellence] and University of Massachusetts Amherst [John F. Kennedy Faculty Fellowship].

Weaving on a Radical Loom: History, Epistemology, and Science Activism

The author uses personal narrative to advocate for consciously interweaving intellectual, social, and political work to generate robust and liberatory alternatives to the worlds we inhabit. The narrative focuses especially on the author’s experiences studying the history of the original Science for the People and then participating in its revitalization, but also includes discussions of the anti-war movement, the history of science in Mao-era China, and radical education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, among other topics. The author argues that the tools of history and epistemology, informed by Marxist analysis, can help activists navigate the tensions of generational difference, and that ideas generated through activist discussion enrich scholarship, as evidenced in the benefits she has drawn from conversations about indigenous knowledge with generations of Science for the People members.

RRPE’s Memorial Symposium on Professor Jim Crotty* Some Reflections on Jim Crotty: His Life and Contributions to Economics

Jim Crotty was a beloved teacher and mentor and a treasured colleague at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. In this short essay, we try to convey Jim’s enormous contributions to his students, colleagues, and friends, and to the development and reproduction of heterodox macroeconomic theory and practice. JEL Classification: B4, B5, E

ECR Spotlight – Phoenix Quinlan

ECR Spotlight is a series of interviews with early-career authors from a selection of papers published in Journal of Experimental Biology and aims to promote not only the diversity of early-career researchers (ECRs) working in experimental biology during our centenary year but also the huge variety of animals and physiological systems that are essential for the ‘comparative’ approach. Phoenix Quinlan is an author on ‘State-dependent, visually guided behaviors in the nudibranch Berghia stephanieae’, published in JEB. Phoenix is a PhD candidate in the lab of Paul Katz at University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA, investigating neural mechanisms of sensory guided behaviors.

Judge rules against university

Case name: Brown v. University of Massachusetts Amherst, No. 22‐30068 (D. Mass. 03/06/23).

Judge rules against university

Case name: Brown v. University of Massachusetts Amherst, No. 22‐30068 (D. Mass. 03/06/23).

Potential pension fund losses should not deter high-income countries from bold climate action

Gregor Semieniuk (PhD, Economics, New School for Social Research) is Assistant Research Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He researches the political economy of rapid, policy-induced structural change required for the transition to a low-carbon economy. Gregor has published widely on this topic, won grants to study it, and regularly speaks to policy and academic audiences, most recently testifying on stranded fossil-fuel assets before the US Senate Committee on the Budget. Previously, Gregor was on the faculty at SOAS University of London and University of Sussex, and he is an Honorary Professor at University College London. Lucas Chancel is an Associate Professor of Economics at Sciences Po and co-director of the World Inequality Lab at the Paris School of Economics, as well as a Visiting Associate Professor at Harvard. He is the author of dozens of research articles and book chapters on global inequality and environmental issues. He coordinates and edits the World Inequality Reports, which present the latest data on global economic and environmental inequality. His work has attracted media and policy attention worldwide and his book, “Unsustainable inequalities” (Harvard University Press, 2020), featured in the Financial Times and Nature’s best books of the year. Eulalie Saïsset is a specialist in environmental public policies and resulting inequalities. She is a graduate engineer from Mines Paris where she focused on the sociological and political dimensions of the environmental transition. She also holds a master’s degree in public policy and development economics from the Paris School of Economics, where her dissertation focused on the redistributive aspects of stranding fossil fuel assets. Eulalie previously worked at the World Bank in Washington DC as a transport consultant for the Africa region. She also carried out the analysis of European industrial decarbonization policies at the think-tank La Fabrique de l’Industrie. Philip B. Holden completed his DPhil in computational modeling of X-ray lasers in 1991, after which he held research positions in the University of York, Université Paris-Sud, and the Czech Institute of Physics. He then spent 10 years in the finance sector, designing and modeling approximately $2 billion of “big ticket” asset financings. He returned to academia via an MSc in Quaternary Science from the University of London (RHUL/UCL) and joined the Open University in 2007. Phil’s main focus now is the development of computationally efficient Earth system models, with particular focus on interdisciplinary applications and integrated assessment. Dr. Jean-Francois Mercure is Senior Climate Economist at the World Bank and Associate Professor in Climate Policy at the Global Systems Institute, University of Exeter, UK. His research focuses on developing theory, models, and methods for public policy appraisal in climate policy, and for assessing the effectiveness and socio-economic impacts of diverse types of low-carbon, energy, and other climate policies. He also develops methods to understand and assess climate-related financial risks. He co-leads two major programs at the World Bank on analytical tool development and capacity development for finance ministries. Neil R. Edwards is Professor of Earth System Science and University Lead for Sustainability Research at The Open University, UK. After studying mathematics at Cambridge and Leeds Universities, Neil became deeply involved with the early development of comprehensive Earth system models in the 1990s, playing a key role in developing the grid-enabled integrated Earth system (GENIE) framework and related models. Through GENIE, he contributed to the multi-millennial climate projections of the fourth and fifth IPCC assessment reports and has published extensively on climate dynamics, integrated assessment and climate impact modeling, and uncertainty quantification. He has published over 100 refereed papers.

The Magic in Reading to Another.

Author Affiliation: College of Nursing, University of Massachusetts Amherst. The author has no funding or conflicts of interest to disclose. Correspondence: Jeanine Young-Mason, EdD, RN, CS, FAAN, arts4health, 9 Seaview Lane, Newbury, MA 01951 ([email protected]).

Judge rules against university

Case name: Brown v. University of Massachusetts Amherst, No. 22‐30068 (D. Mass. 03/06/23).

Judge rules against university

Case name: Brown v. University of Massachusetts Amherst, No. 22‐30068 (D. Mass. 03/06/23).

Judge rules against university

Case name: Brown v. University of Massachusetts Amherst, No. 22‐30068 (D. Mass. 03/06/23).

Judge rules against university

Case name: Brown v. University of Massachusetts Amherst, No. 22‐30068 (D. Mass. 03/06/23).

Judge rules against university

Case name: Brown v. University of Massachusetts Amherst, No. 22‐30068 (D. Mass. 03/06/23).

Researching Workplace Violence: Challenges for Emergency Nursing Researchers

Workplace violence (WPV) in health care settings can create long-term sequelae for nurses, including anxiety, poor sleep patterns, work-related stress disorders, depressive disorders, and psychological distress. 1 Alsharari A.F. Abu-Snieneh H.M. Abuadas F.H. et al. Workplace violence towards emergency nurses: a cross-sectional multicenter study. Australas Emerg Care. 2022; 25: 48-54https://doi.org/10.1016/j.auec.2021.01.004 Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF Scopus (14) Google Scholar Study findings suggest that WPV also may be associated with higher risk of interpersonal violence, psychoactive substance abuse, burnout, suicidal ideation, and suicide. 2 Nielsen M.B. Nielsen G.H. Notelaers G. Einarsen S. Workplace bullying and Suicidal Ideation: a 3-wave longitudinal Norwegian study. Am J Public Health. 2015; 105: e23-e28https://doi.org/10.2105/ajph.2015.302855 Crossref PubMed Scopus (0) Google Scholar Identifying interventions that can reduce both the prevalence and effects of WPV is a critically important line of research; emergency department–focused researchers examining elements of WPV must account for significant challenges in conducting meaningful research, including the lack of an accepted definition, challenges in data collection, unclear metrics or outcome measures, and methodological limitations. In this paper, we aim to describe these challenges and offer suggestions to help researchers and others to better define the phenomenon of WPV, the necessary data required, ways to collect data, and outcome measures that can be used to guide intervention development or selection. Lisa A. Wolf, is Director, Emergency Nursing Research, Emergency Nurses Association, Schaumburg, IL. Twitter: @LisaWol97737411. ORCID identifier: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7065-470X; Associate Professor, Elaine Marieb College of Nursing, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA. ORCID identifier: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7065-470X; and ENA Member, Pioneer Valley Chapter. Christian N. Burchill is Director of Nursing Research and Science, Penn Medicine Lancaster General Health, Lancaster, PA. ORCID identifier: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4310-9615.

Children's Letters to God: Words of Praise, Sorrow, Joy, and Consternation.

Author Affiliation: Distinguished Professor Emerita, College of Nursing, University of Massachusetts Amherst. The author reports no conflicts of interest. Correspondence: Jeanine Young-Mason, EdD, RN, CS, FAAN, College of Nursing, University of Massachusetts Amherst, 30 Mill St, # 201, Arlington, MA 02476 ([email protected]; www.arts4health.org).

Richard “Dick” Field

Richard “Dick” Field, 81, died Dec. 3, 2022, in Missoula, Montana. “Dick and his wife Judith journeyed from the east coast to the University of Oregon and an opportunity to work with Richard Noyes in 1968. A fortunate introduction to the Belousov–Zhabotinsky reaction in 1969 helped him become a pioneer in the area of nonlinear dynamics in chemistry. Moving to the University of Montana in 1975, Dick focused the rest of his life on his family and professing chemistry while developing an internationally visible research program. His personal and professional influence on family, friends, and colleagues will be missed.”—Eli Field, son Most recent title: Professor of chemistry, University of Montana Education: BS, chemistry, University of Massachusetts Amherst, 1963; MS, chemistry, College of the Holy Cross, 1964; PhD, physical chemistry, University of Rhode Island, 1968 Survivors: Son, Eli; daughter, Sara Carlson; five grandchildren To recognize your late loved one or colleague,