February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
The gathering took place at the Lowell campus where former Congressman Marty Meehan now serves as chancellor.
Professor Frank Talty of UMass Lowell, who forged the tripartite alliance, said the conference marked another step forward for the relationship born out of the Irish Echo’s Golden Bridges luncheon of October 2008 in Boston when Chancellor Meehan was honored.
“The conference was a terrific first venture of its kind in New England, bringing together the foremost experts in several cutting edge technologies from the U.S., Northern Ireland and the Republic while sharing some groundbreaking research with the business leaders who bring such innovations to the market,” Talty told the Irish Echo.
“This is a model that we hope to replicate next year in Ireland. UMass Lowell is committed to an enhanced relationship with our Irish partners in the sciences and engineering, but also in advancing our understanding of the social and cultural dimension of our people,” he said.
Talty added the partnership had made great progress in its first year but would achieve even more in the time ahead.
“In a very short time, we have seen tremendous excitement and substantive programmatic development in this new relationship and we look forward to continued growth and success of the Lowell Irish partnership,” he said.
Chancellor Meehan signed a memorandum of understanding with Queen’s in October 2008 and followed up with a visit – accompanied by a sizeable college delegation – in February of this year.
The Emerging Technologies conference, held on October 19 and 20, is being regarded by leaders of the three universities as a major step forward in combining American and Irish know-how, this to boost the prospects of academic and business teams on both sides of the Atlantic.