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Millions of people worldwide were thrilled on February 18 when the robotic rover Perseverance touched down on Mars, 126 million miles from Earth. They held their breath as the complicated landing system, involving a parachute and a skycrane, deployed, and the rover settled gently on the Martian surface. For UMass Amherst College of Engineering graduate Dragana Perkovic-Martin ’08PhD, watching the landing from her home office was a nerve-wracking experience. She and her team at the Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) in Pasadena, California, were in charge of the landing radar for this NASA mission. “The whole sequence is executed fully automatically,” Dragana says, “And it takes 14 minutes for the radio signals from Mars to reach Earth. So there was nothing we could do at that point. You can only hope!” In fact, Dragana says, the seven years she spent working on the landing radar were more stressful than the seven minutes it took the landing gear to function. As she worked, she ....
UMass Amherst student blazes an impressive, nontraditional path in cybersecurity As a white-hat hacker, cybersecurity student Thao Trinh ’21 catches criminals and finds bugs When she arrived as an international student at UMass Amherst, Thao Trinh ’21 recalls her excitement, anxiety, and deep desire to excel. As a first-year student from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, in 2017, she aspired to study ethical computer hacking, known as white-hat hacking. Four years later, supported in so many ways by the UMass community, she is in her final semester, having just completed the highly selective Cybersecurity Mentorship Pilot Program sponsored by the MassCyberCenter. This state program supports diversity and resiliency in the cybersecurity sector, and matched Trinh with a research expert at MIT’s elite Lincoln Laboratory. ....
HAMILTON, NJ - Total construction starts lost 5% in December, falling to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $784.3 billion. Nonresidential building starts fell 11% during the month, while nonbuilding starts were 5% lower. Residential starts were essentially flat over the month. Starts were lower in three of the four regions in December; the South Central was the only region to post an increase. For the full year, total construction starts fell 10% to $766.3 billion. Nonresidential building starts saw the steepest drop, losing 24%, while nonbuilding starts fell 14%. Residential construction starts ended 2020 up 4% thanks to strong single-family activity. In December, the Dodge Index fell 5% to 166 (2000=100) from the 174 reading in November. For the full year, the Dodge Index averaged 163, a 10% decline from 2019’s average. ....