Arts & Sciences Week

All Arts & Sciences staff are cordially invited to stop by Salisbury Lounge for coffee, light breakfast and to reconnect with colleagues.  We will be celebrating all that you do to support our community and make it stronger.

Step into the recreated haven of Dr. Adler’s grandmother’s apartment in Queens, NY, circa 1986, where Dr. Adler—or Julie, as she was then—spent her summer before leaving for college. Indulge in the warmth of nostalgia as you sip on a steaming cup of tea amidst the meticulously crafted surroundings. Every detail has been carefully chosen to evoke the essence of Julie’s past—before she became a professor, before she started experimenting with memory technology, back when everything was beautiful and perfect. It was perfect. It really was.

Unlike traditional escape rooms, here you won’t be rushing to escape. Instead, you can immerse yourself in the space, let your curiosity guide you, and notice the narrative unfold. Allow yourself to be curious, to play around to savor. Through this gentle exploration, the narrative will reveal itself, layer by layer.

Go back to an era of endless Snake games and Rubik’s Cubes and comic books. Remember how it felt to be happy, to be nothing but happy? Come on back.

Rashida Richardson is an Assistant Professor of Political Science and Adjunct Professor of Law at Northeastern University, and she serves as Senior Counsel, Artificial Intelligence at Mastercard. Rashida is a nationally recognized expert in the civil rights and social implications of artificial intelligence and legal practitioner of emerging technology policy issues. She has previously served as an Attorney Advisor to the Chair of the Federal Trade Commission and as a Senior Policy Advisor for Data and Democracy at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Biden Administration. Rashida has worked on a range of civil rights and technology policy issues at the German Marshall Fund, Rutgers Law School, AI Now Institute, the American Civil Liberties Union of New York (NYCLU), and the Center for HIV Law and Policy. Her work has been featured in the Emmy-Award Winning Documentary, The Social Dilemma, and in major publications like the New York Times, Wired, MIT Technology Review, and NPR (national and local member stations). She received her BA with honors in the College of Social Studies at Wesleyan University and her JD from Northeastern University School of Law.

Join us as the Arts & Sciences undergraduate summer research students present their projects. There will also be a keynote in the beginning Dr. Silvia Corvera, Professor of Molecular Medicine and Endowed Chair in Diabetes Research at UMass Chan Medical School. 

Silvia Corvera is Professor of Molecular Medicine, and holds the Endowed Chair in Diabetes Research at UMass Chan Medical School.

She received her M.D. and MSc in Molecular Biology at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, and was awarded an NIH Fogarty International Fellowship to conduct postdoctoral research studies in the USA. She was on the Faculty at the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania before moving to the University of Massachusetts Medical School to the newly formed Program in Molecular Medicine.

The goal of her lab is to understand the relationship between obesity, insulin resistance and Type 2 diabetes. Her studies center on understanding mechanisms of human adipose tissue development and function. Current efforts are focused on elucidating the mechanisms by which mesenchymal progenitor cells develop into different types of adipocytes, including white, and beige, with the goal of identifying potential therapeutic strategies in Type 2 diabetes and gestational diabetes.

She has served on numerous national advisory committees, including the NIH BMDM study section, Chair of the Mentor Advisory Group for the new “Pathway to Stop Diabetes” of the American Diabetes Association, and was a member of the NIH Diabetes Research Strategic Plan Working Group for the Diabetes Mellitus Interagency Coordinating Committee (DMICC) of NIDDK (2010). She has served as organizatizer for national meetings including for the Keystone Symposia, and the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) and has been a member of the Scientific Sessions Meeting Planning Committee of the American Diabetes Association. She has served on the editorial boards of FASEB J., Diabetes and the Journal of Biological Chemistry. She is also committed to developing the next generation of biomedical scientists, having served as the director of the MD/PhD program at UMass Chan from 2019 to 2021.

We invite all Arts & Sciences faculty to join us as we celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Social Science & Policy Studies Department and the 20th Anniversary of the Interactive Media and Game Development Program. We will also welcome new faculty and recognize promotions, tenure and other achievements.