Ms. Warren's rival was seeking to "throw a little more gasoline" on the issue, said Maurice Cunningham, chairman of the political-science department at the University of Massachusetts Boston.

WSJ: Warren Says She Informed Universities of Ancestry

Another experiment, "the Still Face, " conducted by Edward Tronick, now a developmental psychologist at the University of Massachusetts Boston, demonstrates that a child can experience a mother's emotional withdrawal at an early age.

WSJ: Why We Pair Up With Our Emotional Opposites and Relationship Advice for Making It Work

Kadyrbayev first met Tsarnaev in 2011, when they both started at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, south of Boston, near the base of Cape Cod.

NPR: Texts, TV, Then Trouble For Bombing Suspect's Pals

The findings offer a snapshot of the changing landscape of American families, and they also show households beset by financial problems, said Jan Mutchler, who has studied the issue as a professor at the Gerontology Institute at the University of Massachusetts-Boston.

CNN: Economy sends more kids to grandma's house

The daughter of university professors, Ms Berenson broke off her studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston to travel to Central and South America.

BBC: Peru frees US 'rebel' Lori Berenson after 15 years

Susanne du Toit was educated at the University of Pretoria and the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston but is now based in Crowthorne, Berkshire.

BBC: BP Portrait Award showcases family ties

Under the commission's proposal -- which Gore has accepted -- the first debate would take place in Boston on October 3, at the University of Massachusetts' John F.

CNN: Candidates trade jabs over debate schedule