Summer 2011 - University of Massachusetts Lowell

C A M P U S N E W S
Giles was named UMass Lowell’s University Professor
in May 2010. He was recognized, in particular,
for his work as director and principal investigator at
UMass Lowell’s Submillimeter-Wave Technology Laboratory.
The lab, which recently received a five-year, $27
million renewal grant from the U.S. Army’s National
Ground Intelligence Center, is leading the way in developing
transmitter and receiver technologies in the areas
of military surveillance, homeland security and medical
diagnostics.
His latest research involves the use of high-frequency
microwaves to “see through” clothing to reveal any
hidden weapons or explosives; a portable radar system
that allows soldiers in the field to tell whether an activity
is friendly or hostile; and a safe, non-invasive technique
for detecting different types of human skin cancers.
Prof. Robert Giles climbs
to the roof of a building in
the Haitian rural town of
Sukeri Anri to upgrade
the building’s solar panels.
Electricity is rare in the outlying
regions of the country.
PROFESSOR ON HAITI:
‘A FOURTH-WORLD COUNTRY
WITH FIRST-WORLD POSSIBILITIES’
University Professor Robert Giles, chair of the Physics and Applied Physics Department,
is walking the walk when it comes to promoting science education and cutting-edge
research both here at UMass Lowell and abroad.
Giles has been leading an effort to initiate a development studies research team in
Haiti since 2001, and visited Port-au-Prince in January, a year after the devastating
earthquake there.
“The pictures depict a distressed, impoverished country beyond self-repair,” he says.
“But it’s a society, culture and people that I have grown to love. I travel to Haiti to
develop a first-hand relationship and understanding of the country. A fourth-world
country by International Banking System standards, I believe Haiti has first-world
possibilities by virtue of its geographical location in the Caribbean.”
Giles has been encouraging Haitian high-school students to explore their academic
abilities and opportunities in higher education through the use of introductory collegelevel
science curricula. He has also been submitting proposals to funding agencies in an
effort to establish this project team as a research center at UMass Lowell.
“Once I was told by a missionary that ‘you must stand where they stand and sit where
they sit to understand the poor in this world,’” he says. “Now having the privilege of
many 10-day visits to Haiti, my Haitian friends, journeys and stories create a foundation
of experience that has changed my life to its core.”
Prof. David Lewis, right, and daughter Brittany
PROFESSOR SPENDS WINTER BREAK
HELPING IN HAITI
David Lewis, a professor in the College of Management,
spent a week in January engaged in tasks like stripping
metal from shattered concrete, comforting babies in an
orphanage and building giant filters to create potable
water.
Lewis and his 22-year-old daughter, Brittany, were
volunteers with All Hands, a grassroots relief organization
whose members have spent the last year working to
help Haiti recover from the destruction left behind by a
7.0-magnitude earthquake that struck on Jan. 12, 2010.
That quake and the more than 50 aftershocks that followed
over the next two weeks killed an estimated
300,000 citizens, injuring hundreds of thousands of others
and leaving more than 1 million people homeless.
The Lewises traveled through the heart of Port-au-
Prince en route to Leogane, seeing in person some of the
most dramatic images of the damage they had seen on
TV: the National Palace, the Port-au-Prince Cathedral
and the National Assembly, all in ruins. “It was just like
you were in the news,” says Lewis. “It was shocking.”
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