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Register now for UMass Amherst’s online wind energy course Engineering Windpower Systems.  This course draws on the experiences of professors James Manwell and Jon McGowan -- authors of the authoritative engineering textbook Wind Energy Explained: Theory, Design and Application.

Alumna Alaina Hanlon, the president and CEO of the PhenotypeIT company that provides health and wellness software solutions to help individuals and organizations better identify and manage chronic health issues, took home the second-place $3,000 prize at the National Health Promotion Summit, where the Healthy People 2020 Leading Health Indicators App Challenge was staged. Team Community Commons won the $10,000 first prize. PhenotypeIT guides individuals gradually to change behaviors that are putting their health at risk. The company also addresses the need for a better set of behavior modification tools for clinicians and dieticians to use with patients at risk for obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and metabolic syndrome. 

On May 1, two projects that created a more powerful clutch for John Deere harvesters and an improved method for removing toxic lead paint shared first place after judges presided over the end-of-semester poster presentation for the Mechanical and Industrial Engineering (MIE) Department’s crowning course, MIE 415: Senior Design Project. The winning projects, entitled the “Innovative Clutch Design” and the “Autonomous Lead Paint Entrapment and Filtration System,” were chosen after 14 student teams of seniors demonstrated the prototypes of their useful, inventive, and brilliant designs for all to see. The event was the peak experience during the MIE course for seniors, as taught by MIE Professor Sundar Krishnamurty.