All posts by: UMBC News Staff

Ram Mohan is UMBC’s 2002 Distinguished Alumnus. UMBC’S 2002 Distinguished Alumnus
 
Ram Mohan, who received his Ph.D. in chemistry from UMBC in 1992, has been named UMBC’s Distinguished Alumnus for 2002.
Mohan, an assistant professor at Illinois Wesleyan University, is a recipient of the prestigious Camille and Henry Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award given to talented young faculty in the chemical sciences. His work on bismuth compounds in organic synthesis and their positive impact on the environment is highly regarded and well funded by the American Chemical Society-Petroleum Research Fund and the National Science Foundation.
In addition being an accomplished researcher, Mohan is also a teacher and mentor who “finds great satisfaction in each role.” As a researcher, “to know that the research is meaningful and practical.” As a teacher, “to be able to intrigue students about the subject matter so they seek more knowledge.” And, as a mentor, “to see a spark of joy in a student’s eye when he or she makes a discovery in the lab.”
Since Illinois Wesleyan University does not have a graduate program, Mohan conducts his research with undergraduates “only.” As such his roles of researcher, teacher and mentor are intricately intertwined. “I find this the most rewarding of all, though at times it is frustrating,” he says.
It was another researcher, teacher and mentor at UMBC who inspired Mohan. “I learned all the tricks of the trade from my faculty advisor Dale Whalen,” recalls Mohan. “He was never too busy to come to lab. His research is first-rate, and he is respected in his field.”
Although well established and accomplished in his own right, Mohan looks back on his days at UMBC fondly. “Those were the most enjoyable days,” he says. “Often I wish I could be a grad student again!”
But better to be the researcher, the teacher and the mentor.
At the annual Alumni Awards Reception and Ceremony on April 25, UMBC also honored:
Outstanding Alumnus
Paul Behrens, M.S. ’80 and Ph.D. ’83, Biological Sciences
Co-founder and Director of Physiology, Martek Corporation
Community Leadership Award
Elsa Collins, M.A., Instructional Systems Development ’95
Academic Director, UMBC English Language Center
Alumni Volunteers of the Year
Michael Rowe, B.A. Psychology ’78
Sales Manager, Reliable-Churchill, LLLP
C. Emmerson Small, II, B.A. Economics ’74
Senior Vice President, Morgan Stanley
Special Recognition
Angela Houtz, B.A. English ’96
Victim of the September 11, 2001 Attack on the Pentagon
The UMBC Alumni Association is seeking nominations for the 2003 Alumna/us of the Year Awards, which are presented in the categories of Distinguished, Outstanding and Community Leadership. Please consider recognizing alumni whom you feel are particularly qualified for special recognition due to their accomplishments.
The Alumni Association also presents Service Awards to alumni volunteers “in recognition of their service to UMBC and its alumni through cumulative service, or outstanding effort for an activity or event.” Please nominate alumni who have provided exceptional volunteer service.
Click here for more information and to fill out a nomination form.
 
 
 
 
 

 
 

“Building a Future”
 
For the past 10 years, UMBC students from the University’s Habitat for Humanity  chapter and their advisor, Norma Green, have spent their spring break vacation working alongside hundreds of students in high-need areas across the country in a Habitat for Humanity International program called Collegiate Challenge. This year, from March 22 through 30, Green and 20 UMBC students will build houses in Florida.
In addition, on weekends throughout the semester, groups of UMBC students renovate houses in the West Baltimore community of Sandtown. To date, more than 200 UMBC students have helped build or rebuild over 50 houses in 12 communities along the East Coast.
Habitat got its start at UMBC 11 years ago as part of the “Into the Streets” program, a one-day service project meant to introduce students to community service opportunities on campus. Students helped out at Sandtown and come back each year, restoring houses sponsored by groups from Johns Hopkins, Towson and Goucher, among others.
The UMBC chapter began participating in Collegiate Challenge when Green was lobbied by then-Community Outreach Director Ramona Arthur and some students to head to Miami for Spring Break. “I had other plans, but Spring Break in Miami sounded alright,” said Green. “When they told me to bring my sleeping bag and flashlight I wondered what I had gotten myself into.”
Yet giving up her vacation time was not a stretch for Green, who has served without fanfare as a goodwill ambassador and role model both on and off campus, reflecting the community service values the University seeks to instill in its students. By nature, Green is always concerned about the welfare of others, asking insightful questions about the needs of her communities, how those needs can be addressed, and how her energies can best be channeled to improve the lives of others. She seeks always to promote and underscore the value of education, cross-cultural understanding, self-reliance and people’s hope.
As program coordinator for The Commons, Green developed an intercultural center that plays an important role on campus. Members of UMBC’s diverse student body come together to reaffirm their own cultural values by engaging in familiar cultural activities and to interact with and learn from others about different cultures.
In addition to Green’s efforts over her 20-year career at UMBC, her work with the “Gardens of Hope” project in Baltimore City yields produce not only for people living in local shelters but also for the communities that tend the gardens and grow in self-reliance. She is also president of her community association, secretary for the Pennsylvania Avenue Redevelopment Collaborative and a member of its umbrella organization. Green’s dedication has earned her many honors, including a 2001 USM Board of Regents Staff Award, a Governor’s Citation for her work with the Maryland Charity Campaign and a citation from her state delegate for her commitment to Habitat for Humanity.
Although the Habitat for Humanity Collegiate Challenge accommodations are usually sleeping bags on the floor of a church or community center, Green says the results are worth it. “My work with Habitat for Humanity is one of the most rewarding things that I do,” she says. “I see how much we can accomplish to help others, and watch our students develop leadership skills. It’s an incredible experience.”
Current and past participants are invited to contact Norma Green regarding an upcoming UMBC Habitat for Humanity reunion.
 
 

Don Norris, UMBC’s resident expert on Maryland politics, is director of the Maryland Institute for Policy Analysis and Research (MIPAR).
A Passion for Maryland Politics
 
In an election year that featured one of the most spirited gubernatorial races in state history, Don Norris, UMBC’s resident expert on Maryland politics, was in high demand by regional and national media.
As director of the Maryland Institute for Policy Analysis and Research (MIPAR), Norris leads one of the region’s foremost centers for applied social science and public policy research. He also has become more well-known to Baltimore/Washington political observers by lending his expertise to The New York Times, The Baltimore Sun, The Washington Post, The Marc Steiner Show, Maryland Public Television and other media.
Norris has been a “political junkie” almost his entire life. “As a child and teenager I was fascinated by politics and government, which were regular items of discussion among my family,” Norris says. Norris studied both history and political science as an undergrad, and went on to receive both a master’s and Ph. D. in government from the University of Virginia. He began following Maryland politics after moving here in 1986 and started looking closer at state elections when he came to UMBC in 1989.
According to Norris, Maryland has a unique political landscape that makes it intriguing to study. “The governor has incredible power,” he says. “Plus both houses of the legislature have four year terms, and are elected at the same time as the governor. Maryland has also traditionally been a one-party, liberal state, although that may change in the wake of this year’s gubernatorial election.”
On November 7, Norris moderated a post-election panel discussion at UMBC analyzing the 2002 Maryland General Election. The panel members were all political writers for Maryland newspapers and included The Baltimore Sun’s Howard Libit, The Washington Post’s Lori Montgomery, and The Baltimore Times’ Associate Publisher Anthony McCarthy.
Norris thinks it’s too early to gauge the effect of Republican Robert Ehrlich’s historic election as Maryland governor. “It all depends on whom he installs, what his agenda is, how well he and the legislature work together, and the economy, among other factors,” Norris says. “I’m betting it will be pretty different; a more conservative policy and a more open operating style.”
Now that the election has passed, Norris, who is also a professor in UMBC’s Policy Sciences Graduate Program, can focus his attention on leading MIPAR, which continues to bring together UMBC faculty from a variety of social science fields to analyze important national and regional issues. Current MIPAR projects are examining issues like grassroots digital government, electric deregulation, child poverty, land preservation, the economic impact of community colleges, and public school financing.
MIPAR receives over $5 million in external funding annually and has been supported by a variety of organizations, including the National Science Foundation, the U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the U. S. Social Security Administration, the A. S. Abell Foundation, the Morris Goldseker Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the American Library Association and various Maryland state government agencies, just to name a few.
One of Norris’ favorite parts of his job takes place each spring. MIPAR conducts an annual, all-day seminar on Maryland state government for members of the U.S. Congressional Fellows program. The seminar connects the leaders of tomorrow with those of today, bringing 20 to 30 Fellows to the Maryland State House for presentations by state senators, delegates and secretaries of state.
“Giving the Fellows a chance to see how one model of state government operates is an important part of their education,” says Norris. “There’s nothing better for a political scientist than showing future leaders how the structure and processes of government and politics impact their daily lives.”
 
 


 
 

 
 

Strengthening the Campus Community
 
Growing up in a family of eight siblings and 80 first cousins has made a profound influence on Patty Perillo. One of the fundamental lessons learned growing up as a child was the value of community, she says. And with most of the family still living within five miles of one another, there is no excuse for missing a Sunday family dinner or Tuesday game night.
Building an engaged community is what drives Perillo, the director of student life at UMBC. When she is not busy organizing Homecoming activities, advising one of 170 student organizations or running a leadership retreat, you will find her out talking one-on-one with UMBC students who greet her affectionately as Patty.
“Students need a place to connect both formally and informally, says Perillo. UMBC students are bright, active, promising, thoughtful, challenging and they have fun in very different ways. We’ve been deliberate in creating experiences for students that they can connect with on their own level. It’s a model that hasn’t been built before.”
Perillo is the chair of the Student Involvement Council Programming Committee, a group developed to address the issues of student life on campus and the university’s need for campus-wide community events. I’ve seen a real institutional change since I’ve started working here, says Perillo. Administration, faculty and staff are personally invested in the co-curricular lives of the students; and students are creating a place they will be proud to come back to as alumni. It’s a collective, synergistic relationship, says Perillo. As a campus, we are all in the midst of building lasting traditions at UMBC. It is a very exciting time.”
Along with her tightly knit staff in the Office of Student Life, Perillo continues to make life-long influences on UMBC students and the community. Programs such as the September 11 Project, LeaderShape, Into the Streets and Welcome Week are designed to foster student success from the developmental level. What I want to do is support and enhance the learning experience of our students to take what they learn in class and help them to apply it to every day situations, says Perillo. We’re all helping to shape the leaders of tomorrow.”
Perillo holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree in college student personnel from the University of Delaware and earned a Ph.D. in Public and Community Health from the University of Maryland, College Park. Her doctoral dissertation focused on the study of college student drinking behaviors.
 
 

 
 

CSEE Professor Penny Rheingans and her colleagues in the Graphics, Animation and Visualization Lab (GAVL) combine art and computer science.

The Art of Computer Science
UMBC Computer Science and Electrical Engineering assistant professor Penny Rheingans’ research combines the eye of an artist with the mind of a computer scientist to make complex data easier to understand visually.
“90 percent of the human brain responds in some way to visual stimuli,” Rheingans says. From CT scans for doctors to images of the ozone layer for climatologists, Rheingans’ specialty is making information from massive databases clearer and easier to use through colorful and often graceful visual images.
Rheingans, who has been researching and teaching at UMBC for five years, enjoys the interdisciplinary aspect of her work and getting to talk with the people in a wide variety of fields. “If you’re going to build a tool for someone, you must get to know what they’re going to do with it,” she says.
The bookshelves in Rheingans’ office are filled with art and technical illustration books as well as computer programming texts. “It’s interesting to me that anatomy textbooks use illustrations instead of photographs,” she says. “There are a lot of parallels between classic drawing or illustration and what we do with data visualization. I look at how artists use illustration principles and then try to automate them.”
Rheingans is currently involved in three research projects funded by the National Science Foundation (including a CAREER grant). She also collaborates on projects for the Department of Defense along with UMBC colleagues like Tim Oates, Charles Nicholas and Marie desJardins.
She also teaches several undergraduate and graduate courses, including one where students work for real-world clients like the U.S. Air Force, the National Library of Medicine and the techcenter@UMBC company Accelics.
“It’s very important early on for students to team up and try to solve real people’s problems,” Rheingans says.
 
 

Frank Reeves ’86 invented the Rage Cage, a portable regulation lacrosse goal.
Inventing the Rage Cage
 
One might call Frank Reeves’ invention — the Rage Cage— the “laptop” of the lacrosse world. That is, he has taken the heavy and cumbersome standard NCAA lacrosse goal and transformed it into a portable regulation version, which teams easily can set up, break down and transport. In three years, Reeves’ Severn, Md.-based company, First Goal, has sold 500 Official Rage Cages and has pre-orders for 20 Rage Cage Practice goals, a less expensive spin-off of the official version, which is perfect for the backyard.
This former UMBC lacrosse player—a 1986 information systems management alumnus who worked at NASA-Goddard and several high-tech companies as a systems administrator before becoming an inventor—doesn’t plan to stop with lacrosse goals; he sees soccer, street hockey and water polo in his future. Reeves also hopes to apply his patented joint technology (the mechanism that makes the goals collapsible) to other arenas including road signs and M.A.S.H. tents.
Read more alumni profiles at www.umbc.edu/generations.
 
 

 
 

Nurturing Engineering Talent

A few months into her new job as a chemical engineer, Heather Couvillon Rhodes, a May 2002 UMBC graduate, easily sums up her enthusiasm for her new profession: “Engineers have the opportunity to take knowledge and apply it to real-world problems.” Rhodes is employed by the Department of the Army, Aberdeen Proving Ground.

In fact, Rhodes began applying the knowledge she learned in favorite subjects such as math and science to real-world problems long before graduation. As a co-op student at the Indian Head Naval Surface War Center, she worked to design rockets, warheads and rocket launchers for the U.S. Navy.

“In high school I was good in math and science and it was a natural for me to major in engineering,” says Rhodes. She received full-ride scholarships from UMBC, Cornell and Virginia Tech. She chose UMBC for its proximity to co-op and career opportunities in Baltimore and Washington.

When Rhodes came to UMBC she found supportive mentors and female role models in the sciences. Jill Randles, the 2002 recipient of the UMBC President’s Commission for Women Achievement Award, was Rhodes’ engineering advisor her first two years at UMBC. “She supported and challenged me during what was a very challenging first semester academically. She was the rock that held many of us together,” says Rhodes.

Rhodes founded WISE (Women in Science and Engineering) at UMBC to encourage and support other women in science and engineering fields. The organization helps students connect with professionals in the field through talks and networking. “Many women and girls don’t know about engineering,” explains Rhodes. “My advice is to follow your natural interests; connect with successful engineers through groups such as WISE. They can be a resource and source of inspiration for you.”

“Taryn Bayles [chemical and biochemical engineering lecturer] continues to be an inspiration for me,” says Rhodes, “I’m completing my master’s in chemical and biochemical engineering through UMBC’s combined bachelor’s/master’s program, and her door is always open to students.”

Rhodes credits undergraduate research experiences and faculty mentors for nurturing her talent for problem-solving. She conducted an independent research project on an imaging system for pressure-sensitive paints in Assistant Professor Lisa Kelly’s (chemistry and biochemistry) lab. Rhodes presented her findings, which will have applications in aerospace, aviation, automobiles and medicine, at UMBC’s Undergraduate Research and Creative Achievement Day.

“Professors at UMBC really care about students—how they think and how they solve problems” says Rhodes. It’s this initiative and these problem-solving skills that impress Rhodes’ supervisors in her new job and current undergraduate engineering students. She currently serves as an advisor to Alpha Sigma Alpha sorority members.

What are Rhodes’ future plans? After she completes her master’s degree this December, she is considering applying her knowledge to an M.B.A. program or law school. “I’d like to develop my management skills while staying technical,” adds Rhodes.

Ilse Schweitzer spent a year in Scotland studying Medieval Scottish literature. She will present her research at UMBC’s Undergraduate Research and Creative Achievement Day.

A New Perspective on a Legend
  

Ilse Schweitzer, a Humanities Scholar with a double major in English and history, spent a year in Scotland studying the Scot Gaelic language and Medieval Scottish literature at the University of Aberdeen. “I was fascinated with what I was learning,” says Schweitzer, who is also a student in UMBC’s Honors College. “My study abroad experience sparked my interest for going to graduate school and was the starting point for my research in Scottish literature.”

Schweitzer will present her research project, “King Arthur the Tyrant and the Scottish Call for Freedom,” as part of Undergraduate Research and Creative Achievement Day at UMBC on Wednesday, April 30. Her research looks into the 15th-century portrayal of King Arthur as a largely negative influence, and how this interpretation reflects the historical and political period of the time.

“Dr. Gail Orgelfinger in the English department helped me to develop the idea and suggested other writings, including works from England and France. I bounced my ideas off of her and she helped to direct my research,” says Schweitzer. “There has been so little research done in this area, but many of the writings of the period show strong links to historical legends including King Edward I and King James III. It is amazing to see the connections.”

Schweitzer was one of two UMBC students selected to participate in the National Conference for Undergraduate Research (NCUR) at the University of Utah and is an alternate for the Marshall Scholars program. Outside of the classroom, she has been the president and vice president of the UMBC crew club and an active member of the university’s Maryland Camerata.

She plans to continue her studies and earn a master’s degree in literature from the University of York in England before returning to UMBC for a Ph.D. in order to become a professor of English and Medieval literature.

Undergraduate Research and Creative Achievement Day (URCAD) is an opportunity to recognize outstanding student work through oral presentations, poster sessions and artistic exhibits and performances. This year’s seventh annual event is open to the UMBC community, prospective students, alumni, family, friends and campus supporters. Programs and exhibits will take place in the Albin O. Kuhn Library and Gallery, the University Center Ballroom and the Fine Arts Building.

On a Mission to Support Women and Minority Graduate Students
 
On December 5, UMBC was honored by the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) for its efforts to build a comprehensive, supportive environment for women and minority graduate students
“There has been a 50 percent rate of attrition for doctoral students at U.S. graduate schools over the past 20 years—and among minority students, this figure is even higher,” said Scott Bass, dean of the UMBC Graduate School, as he accepted the CGS/Peterson’s Award for Innovation in Promoting an Inclusive Graduate Community at the Council’s annual meeting in Washington, DC.
“We must diversify and support our graduate student population for the nation to remain a world leader in science, engineering, and technology,” Bass said. “I’m receiving this award today on behalf of the entire UMBC community. This is at the core of our academic mission.”
UMBC, one of Newsweek’s hottest schools in America, has earned national acclaim for its comprehensive support for minority science and technology undergrads. The university is best known for its Meyerhoff Scholars Program. Founded in 1988, the program regularly sends large numbers of minorities on to advanced studies in science, technology and engineering at such institutions as Harvard, Stanford, and MIT. The scholars are among the best in the nation, many of whom turn down scholarship offers from Ivy League schools in favor of the personal attention they receive at UMBC.
Now Bass and Janet Rutledge, associate dean of UMBC’s Graduate School, are on a mission to expand that comprehensive approach to graduate students. “UMBC has done a tremendous job at the undergraduate level, so we’re primed to do the same at the graduate level,” Bass says.  
Rutledge, the first African American female to receive a Ph.D. from Georgia Tech’s electrical engineering program, knows firsthand the challenges minority Ph.D. students face. “There’s a feeling of invisibility,” says Rutledge, who concentrated on the scarcity of minority science Ph.D.’s as program director in the Division of Graduate Education at the National Science Foundation prior to coming to UMBC. 
Hrabowski, Bass and Rutledge preach the mantra of better mentorship between faculty and graduate students as the key to getting more minorities and women to excel in science, math, engineering and technology graduate programs. “I’m a product of the national minority engineering education movement of the 1970’s,” says Rutledge. “There was a big emphasis on mentoring. If we’re to achieve the diversity we’re looking for with graduate students, we must mentor.”
Rutledge sees the two-year award from as a big step towards drawing national attention to the problem and hopefully spreading the comprehensive model to other U.S. campuses.
Earlier this year, Rutledge was instrumental in landing a $2.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation to establish the Maryland Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (MAGEP), a consortium of universities led by UMBC that includes the University of Maryland, College Park and the University of Maryland, Baltimore. MAGEP seeks to expand the principles of UMBC’s Meyerhoff Program throughout other disciplines to build graduate student recruitment, mentoring and professional development statewide.
Bass and Rutledge point out that the UMBC faculty is dedicated to the mission as much as they are. Michael Summers, the only Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator in Maryland and winner of the 2000 Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring, recently volunteered to expand the Meyerhoff graduate biomedical program. Summers started with two minority students and has since grown the program to include 31 students across six departments.
“Our faculty sees this opportunity to be unique in the nation, and they have seized it,” Bass says. “At other campuses, often this type of mission is peripheral; you’ll see an office of minority affairs on the side somewhere. But here, as administrators, we’re just responding to faculty who really want to do this. They’re saying ‘Give us the tools and we’ll do it.’ ”
 
 
 
 
 

 
 

/b> to address the longstanding issues surrounding the gender gap in IT.

CWIT Advisory Board Member Anne Spence, a lecturer in the Department of Mechanical Engineering with a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering, understands the challenges of being a woman in a technical field. “One of my college professors told me that women should not be engineers, so I got the highest grade in the class to prove him wrong,” she says. “When I graduated with my degree I had six job offers. I did encounter initial resistance as an engineer at Bell Helicopter, but I was always able to get rid of the resistance by proving myself.”

“Motivating girls to get involved in IT requires that we offer opportunities for them to work with computers in non-threatening environments,” Spence adds. “Computer Mania is one of those environments. It also gives the girls an opportunity to meet role models — from college age women to business leaders and college faculty.”

Spence believes that Computer Mania will help diminish the “geek” stereotype that discourages young girls from IT and will provide resources to help them understand the importance of technology in every aspect of their lives. “Most girls start to lose interest in math and science during middle school. It is crucial that we keep them engaged during those years to make sure that they are taking upper level math, science, computer and engineering courses when they reach high school,” she says.

As a child, Spence says that both she and her brother were “raised to do anything we wanted to do. My father was an engineering professor and my mother an elementary school teacher. Often, we would go to a field near our house to launch the model rockets we had built — I thought that was normal! So it never really occurred to me that I could not succeed.”

Because not every young girl is so lucky, Spence set out to provide mentors for her female students at UMBC. She is advisor for the University’s chapter of Mentor Net, a national program that provides mentors for women studying engineering and computer science. “Some of the young women in my classes are not only the first member of their family to major in engineering but they are often the first member of their family to attend a university,” she explains. “This is a very difficult position since, often, they have very little support from home. That’s where my own role as mentor comes in to play. I can encourage them and show them that women can succeed in the field.”

Spence hopes to continue inspiring both girls and boys alike to learn more about engineering at an earlier age. She recently received a grant from the National Science Foundation to develop a program that will introduce engineering in middle and high school algebra classes across Maryland. “The students will see how algebra is used to solve engineering problems, not just how many apples and oranges you can buy for one dollar,” she says. When she’s not at UMBC, Spence is incorporating practical hands-on projects and engineering challenges at Oak Hill Elementary in her hometown of Severna Park, Maryland.

A New Target in the Fight Against HIV
 
A team of researchers from academia and industry led by Dr. Michael Summers, UMBC professor of chemistry/biochemistry and Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Investigator, have discovered a new target on the HIV molecule that could potentially lead to a new class of drugs to fight the virus that causes AIDS. The discovery is the cover article of the April 11, 2003 Journal of Molecular Biology.
Summers and his team of undergraduate and graduate student researchers in his UMBC HHMI lab collaborated with Achillion Pharmaceuticals, a privately held drug firm based in New Haven, CT, and a group of researchers from Oregon Health and Science University on the discovery.
“The greatest challenge in treating HIV today is drug resistance brought on when the virus mutates and renders existing drugs ineffective at stopping viral replication,” said Summers. “Our research has led to the identification of a new class of compounds that inhibit a novel target in HIV. These compounds disrupt the assembly of the HIV-1 capsid protein, which is a vital step in changing immature, non-infectious HIV into its mature, infectious form.”
The discovery is all the more remarkable considering its origin – a group of two graduate and two undergraduate students working with Summers. The team includes biochemistry graduate student Chun Tang; sixteen-year-old college sophomore and Presidential Fellow Erin Loeliger; Meyerhoff Scholar and HHMI Undergraduate Scholar Isaac Kinde; and former Meyerhoff Scholar Samson Kyere, now an MD/PhD student at the University of Maryland, Baltimore.
According to Summers, “Investigators around the world have been looking at the HIV-1 capsid protein as a potential anti-viral drug target for more than a decade, and we are therefore particularly pleased to finally have solid leads to guide these efforts. While we are encouraged by the laboratory tests of the compounds we’ve identified so far, additional testing needs to be undertaken before this approach can be tested in humans.”
“This work is yet another pivotal achievement for Dr. Summers and his students,” says Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). “The fact that undergraduate students played pivotal roles in this research makes it even more impressive.”
The UMBC team’s research is funded in part by NIAID, a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), along with the National Institute of General Medical Sciences and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
 
 

Tom Rabenhorst’s research blends his love of nature with modern technology to provide a valuable service to the community.

Rabenhorst, Director of Instructional Cartography in UMBC’s Department of Geography and Environmental Systems, is also an avid outdoorsman. As Spring draws nearer, the hikers from UMBC and all over Maryland who flock to nearby Patapsco Valley State Park will navigate park trails using new maps developed thanks to Rabenhorst’s dedication.

Rabenhorst combined global positioning satellite (GPS) technology and sweat equity to give the park the most detailed maps in its history. Rabenhorst spent months hiking the trails on his own or with his wife while logging points on a handheld GPS device to plot out the trail maps. GPS triangulates to rapidly and accurately locate geographic positions anywhere on the face of the earth.

“There had been no comprehensive map of Patapsco, and I thought that this would be a real benefit to the community as well as a self-serving thing for myself because I really enjoy getting out in the parks,” Rabenhorst says.

“It’s a good partnership because we’re basically neighbors,” says Lt. Christopher Bushman, the park’s manager. When you are walking on the trails and when you get up on the hills, you can see the UMBC campus. The guides are one of the best things that has ever happened to the park,” Bushman says.

Each year Rabenhorst gets students in his Advanced Cartography Class involved with a local mapping project. The class has worked with many local cyclists and the Baltimore Community Foundation to produce a handy map of bike trails in the city and county, with routes color-coded based on hill steepness. Rabenhorst’s students have also worked on a CD-ROM atlas of Maryland for elementary education.