While manure is often used as fertilizer for crops, regulations designed to protect the environment do not allow farmers to use untreated manure on fields that already saturated with elements like phosphorus. Lee Blaney, assistant professor in the department of chemical, biochemical and environmental engineering, is developing new technologies in his lab to remove phosphorus from agricultural waste, such as chicken litter, to transform it into two highly valuable products: processed animal litter that can be used as fertilizer and chemicals that can be sold to farmers with land that is deficient in rather than saturated with particular nutrients. Blaney… Continue Reading Lee Blaney explains how technology can transform pollutants in chicken manure into a valuable product
Renetta Tull, associate vice provost for graduate student development and postdoctoral affairs, presented at the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Learning for All forum supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) on November 9, 2015. She discussed the University System of Maryland’s Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP) program at the forum, which kicked off a week of events aimed at improving STEM education, particularly at the high school level. In her speech, Tull discussed mentoring models and messaging that have been successfully implemented in UMBC’s Meyerhoff Scholars Program. This nationally recognized program provides holistic support to academically… Continue Reading Renetta Tull presents LSAMP program as model for improving STEM education in high schools
Anthony Johnson, professor of physics and computer science and electrical engineering, has been named chair of the American Physical Society (APS) Bridge Program’s National Advisory Board (NAB). Johnson was involved with the Bell Labs Cooperative Research Fellowship Program for Minorities, a precursor to the APS Bridge Program, in the 1970s. “The Bridge Program had its genesis with the Bell Labs Diversity Program, which I participated in, and thus it was quite an honor to be nominated Chair or the APS Bridge Program’s NAB,” he shares. The Bridge Program was created in 2013, funded by the National Science Foundation and the… Continue Reading Anthony Johnson to chair national advisory board promoting diversity in physics
Computer Science and Electrical Engineering (CSEE) is piloting a new advising website, supporting students in computer engineering, computer science, chemical engineering, and mechanical engineering. The new site was developed by students through the spring 2015 course “Principles of Programming Languages,” taught by CSEE lecturer Shawn Lupoli. Searching for a real-world project to focus on, the students identified a need to update the CSEE department’s advising sign-up process. Lupoli oversaw the development of the project and coordinated the implementation of the new advising sign-up system. Joe Popoloski of Next Century, a technology development company in Baltimore, provided feedback throughout the course… Continue Reading UMBC partnership inspires new CSEE advising website
Soldiers on the battlefield and first-responders in conflict zones will soon be able to save lives by using a portable, briefcase-sized tool that rapidly manufactures medicines. Govind Rao, professor of chemical and biochemical engineering and director of the Center for Advanced Sensor Technology (CAST) at UMBC, leads the research team behind this innovation. At the recent Bioprocess International conference, he called the system “beyond revolutionary,” reports BioPharma. “Welcome to the Betty Crocker world of bioprocessing,” said Rao. “Within a few hours you are expressing a high quality protein.” The product emerged from concerns that current methods for getting pharmaceutical supplies… Continue Reading Govind Rao discusses portable bioreactors developed to save lives on battlefields
In 2011, just 18% of undergraduate computer science degrees were received by women, according to data from the National Center for Education. In 1985, less than 30 years earlier, women received 37% of computer science degrees. This lack of diversity is particularly evident in the field of artificial intelligence (AI), UMBC’s Marie desJardins points out in Quartz. desJardins is associate dean in UMBC’s College of Engineering and Information Technology and a professor of computer science. She argues that outdated gender stereotypes in science are rooted in a lack of diverse perspectives contributing to scientific research, and the gender imbalance among… Continue Reading Marie desJardins discusses underrepresentation of women in artificial intelligence research
As more banks use social media platforms, they are encouraging consumers to view social media as a way to access resources and to have their questions answered quickly. Banks and retailers alike use social media to connect with consumers. However, they use it in different ways and have varying degrees of success, says Ant Ozok, associate professor of information systems, in The Daily Record. Ozok notes that mortgage services and credit cards are difficult to effectively promote on social media due to their complexity, including the regulations surrounding them. Consumers are also more likely to have a negative reaction to… Continue Reading Ant Ozok explains challenges banks face in using social media to connect with customers
Since 2007, student enrollment in computer science (CS) at the university level has increased by about 120%. However, despite this level of interest, there are major gaps in CS education that result in fewer girls and students from underrepresented minority groups entering the field, argues Marie desJardins, associate dean in UMBC’s College of Engineering and Information Technology and professor of computer science, in The Conversation. desJardins has worked to improve CS education at the K-12, undergraduate and graduate levels. She particularly sees boosting the availability of K-12 CS education, and the skills of teachers teaching CS at that level, as… Continue Reading Marie desJardins explains what’s needed to bring computer science to K-12 nationwide
Robohub has named CSEE Ph.D. student Kavita Krishnaswamy ’07, computer science and mathematics, to their new “25 Women in Robotics You Need to Know About” list, along with other emerging innovators from around the globe, including MIT and Stanford. Krishnaswamy focuses her work on developing robotic systems and interfaces that increase the independence of people with disabilities. She has worked at the National Science Foundation’s Engineering Research Center—Quality of Life Technology Center (QoLT) at Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Pittsburgh, and IBM Business consulting services. Krishnaswamy is also a Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellow and a National Science Foundation Graduate… Continue Reading Kavita Krishnaswamy, CSEE Ph.D. student, named an emerging leader in robotics
Jianwu Wang, assistant professor of information systems, is the most recent UMBC faculty member to receive a prestigious CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Wang’s NSF grant totals more than $500,000 over five years. It will support his work to develop more efficient and reproducible causality analytics for use in climate science. Cause and effect is a fundamental research question in many disciplines and there are some unique challenges in discovering cause-effect relationships from climate data. Wang explains that Earth changes so rapidly that climate scientists studying it must continuously capture a huge volume of data. For the… Continue Reading UMBC’s Jianwu Wang receives NSF CAREER Award to help climate scientists discover causal relationships from massive amounts of data
