All posts by: Sarah Hansen, M.S. '15

Empowering Baltimore communities toward social change

Humanities scholars, cultural organizers, and community representatives will gather on October 29 for a dynamic discussion about building democracy, fostering social justice, and improving Baltimore’s future.

The Dresher Center for the Humanities is leading “Baltimore Coalition Stories,” a community conversation about the importance of coalitions in the life of Baltimore. The event is part of the ongoing Baltimore Stories project, an initiative that shines a spotlight on collaborations of university, community, and non-profit partners in Baltimore neighborhoods.

The Baltimore Stories project has been made possible in part by a major $225,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and is a partnership among the University of Maryland, College Park; Maryland Humanities; the University of Maryland, Baltimore County; Enoch Pratt Free Library; and the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance. The project includes a series of free, public programs that explore the way Baltimore citizens are thinking about the narratives that influence the life and identity of the city.

UMBC’s Dresher Center for the Humanities is a major partner on the grant and organized an interactive public event earlier this year that highlighted stories of identity, belonging, and activism from several Baltimore communities. On December 3, UMBC will host the project’s culminating event: “Reflecting on Baltimore’s Stories.”

“Now more than ever, it is crucial to consider the role of coalitions, forged across boundaries, in practicing public humanities and supporting the work of active and engaged communities,” said Jessica Berman, director of UMBC’s Dresher Center for the Humanities.

Complete event details can be found below. To register, click here.

“Baltimore Coalition Stories”
October 29 | 1-3 p.m.
Brown Memorial Park Avenue Presbyterian Church
1316 Park Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21217
Light refreshments at 12:30PM

Building Coalitions Between Scholars and the Public: Shrinking Gaps Between Knowledge and Policies
Lee Boot, Director, UMBC Imaging Research Center
Lester Spence, Associate Professor, Political Science, The Johns Hopkins University

Internalized Oppression in the Classroom: Changing the Narrative
Jason Loviglio, Associate Professor and Chair, Media and Communication Studies, UMBC
Daria Baylis, Baltimore Speaks Out Media Instructor, Youth Photography Traveling Exhibit Assistant Coordinator & Instructor and Distribution Coordinator

Sexing the City: Building Conversations about Sexual Violence and Consent
Kate Drabinski, Senior Lecturer, Gender and Women’s Studies, UMBC
Kalima Young, Leadership Team for FORCE: Upsetting Rape Culture; Lecturer, Electronic Media and Film, Towson University

Stories of Environment and Daily Life: Speaking to Science about the Legacy of Segregation
Dawn Biehler, Associate Professor, Geography and Environmental Systems, UMBC
Pauline Linthicum, Harlem Park resident
Yinka Bode-George, UMBC ‘16

Image: Baltimore Stories project logo.

Nature spotlights Summers Lab for showing how science can be for everyone

A recent article in Nature asked, “Is science only for the rich?” In the United States, writer Jane J. Lee concluded, there are steep challenges for students from lower-income backgrounds who want to pursue science, but there are also positive examples of people who are working to create opportunities for these students—people like Michael Summers.

Summers is Robert E. Meyerhoff Chair for Excellence in Research and Mentoring and University Distinguished Professor of chemistry and biochemistry at UMBC. His lab is nationally and internationally known for engaging students from all backgrounds in high-level, hands-on research from day one, and further supporting them through intensive faculty and peer mentorship.

Tina Quasney ’17, biochemistry, who is featured in the article, was close to giving up on a science career when she crossed paths with Summers while working at a restaurant. In a conversation that could have ended at small talk, Summers recommended Quasney email him to learn about lab research opportunities. Rather than waiting tables, he said, “You could be getting paid for what you want to do.”

Quasney jumped at the chance to gain lab experience and is now on a path to graduate school. “I’ve learned so much about how to become a researcher,” she shares. As a student with serious concerns about funding her education, learning that Ph.D. students can earn tuition remission and a stipend has made it possible for her to see an advanced degree as a real option.

Roald Teuben ’16, biochemistry, shares a similar experience of connecting with the Summers Lab. He was in the UMBC chemistry building admiring a piece of equipment from the hallway when Summers greeted him with, “You must be here to do research.” “When I picked my jaw up off the floor, I just said ‘Yeah,’” remembers Teuben, who transferred to UMBC from Montgomery College. After two years working in Summers’ lab, he graduated last spring and is now serving as a lab technician while he applies to M.D./Ph.D. programs.

Aishwarya Iyer ’18 and M26, biochemistry, says the lab’s emphasis on a deep understanding of the research, asking good questions, and positive mentorship “made me more confident in my ability to think for myself,” and “really boosted my ability in science.” Iyer plans to pursue an M.D./Ph.D., with a focus on exercise physiology and metabolic conditions.

Hannah Carter ’17, biochemistry, has similar feelings about her UMBC experience. “The mentorship provided by the graduate students in the lab is remarkable,” she shares. Summers handpicks all of his lab members based on interviews that focus on students’ goals and passions, and their enthusiasm for supporting fellow students, rather than simply past achievements on their résumés.

Amalia Rivera-Oven ’16, biochemistry, found her way to the Summers Lab when she introduced herself to President Freeman Hrabowski as the president of the Hispanic Latino Student Union at an event, hoping to discuss how the organization could grow and contribute to the community. He invited her to a meeting, which turned into a discussion of the importance of Latina leaders in STEM fields. Hrabowski helped her see, “By pursuing STEM, I can help to create a role model effect.”

Prior to her work in the Summers Lab, Rivera-Oven struggled with “impostor syndrome,” the experience of feeling that one doesn’t belong despite performing at a very high level. She says President Hrabowski and Professor Summers initially “saw something in me that I didn’t.” Through mentoring other student researchers in the Summers Lab, she grew her sense of self-confidence. She plans to pursue an M.D./Ph.D. after graduating in December.

Stanley Wang ’18 is also passionate about research, but even more so about service. As a first-generation college student whose parents are both immigrants, “College was never really on the radar,” he shares. But with several of his family members affected by gastrointestinal cancer, he says, “What drew me to research was finding solutions.” Wang earned a scholarship to attend UMBC, and plans to pursue Officer Candidate School in the military as well as a Ph.D., to fulfill what he calls his “first obligation” of serving his community.

Summers’ sense of duty as a scientist and educator has long guided his support of students from diverse backgrounds—particularly women, African American and Hispanic students, and first generation students—in becoming scientific research leaders.

Growing up, Summers says, “I knew little about issues that are differentially faced by people from different backgrounds. I went to high school with some very talented women and African Americans, but had no idea the odds of them obtaining a faculty position were so different from my own.”

“Being at UMBC opened my eyes not only to existing disparities in science research and education, but also to possibilities for effecting change,” he reflects. “The satisfaction that goes with helping our students achieve their dreams, and showing colleagues elsewhere new ways that they can approach and support their own students, is a reward without measure.”

Read the original article in Nature: “Is science only for the rich?”

Image: Summers (right) works with students in the lab; photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

 

 

Alumni Awards highlight profound impact, drive, and commitment of UMBC alumni and faculty

The UMBC community gathered in the Linehan Concert Hall on October 6 for a moving ceremony to honor the profound impacts and achievements of nine outstanding Retrievers at the 2016 UMBC Alumni Awards.

“This year’s awardees truly capture the depth of our community,” said John Becker ’01, president of the alumni association. Irina Vishnevetsky ’99, chair of the alumni awards committee, shared, “Each year the number of submitted nominations grows, and each year I am amazed by the incredible accomplishments of UMBC alumni.”

Tulay Adlai, electrical engineering, introduced awardee Vincent Calhoun ’02, Ph.D. electrical engineering, as an excellent teacher and mentor, cutting-edge brain researcher, and “a truly genuine human being.”

Today, Calhoun serves as one of the youngest distinguished professors at the University of New Mexico. His primary appointment is in electrical and computer engineering, and, known for his interdisciplinary work, he maintains affiliate appointments with biology, computer science, neuroscience, and psychiatry. In accepting the award, Calhoun emphasized the importance of imagination in scientific research and told the students in the audience, “honesty and integrity in your work will make it endure over the long term.”

Award recipient Ian Ralby ’02, modern languages, linguistics, and intercultural communication (MLLI) and M.A. intercultural communication, was a Humanities Scholar and varsity diver at UMBC, and graduated as valedictorian. He went on to earn a law degree at the College of William and Mary and M.Phil. and Ph.D. degrees at the University of Cambridge, before founding I.R. Consilium, a consultancy that advises governments on international law and policy.

Ralby credits his UMBC humanities education for much of his success in international negotiation, remarking, “I learned to pick up on the subtleties of human interaction, in my own culture and across cultures.” He noted that those skills have “frequently been the deciding factor in whether my work has been merely technically proficient or truly successful.” Thomas Field, MLLI, presented Ralby’s remarks, as he was in Finland at an international maritime security conference and unable to return to the U.S. for the ceremony.

Philip Farabaugh, biological sciences, introduced natural sciences awardee Henry Baker ’78, Ph.D. ’84, biological sciences, who serves as Hazel Kitzman Professor of Genetics, professor of surgery, and chair of molecular genetics and microbiology at the University of Florida College of Medicine, and associate director of the University of Florida Genetics Institute. Farabaugh praised Baker for making the “courageous decision” to change the course of his research when “he recognized the clue to understanding human disease lay in determining how people’s genes change during disease.”

Baker, a Catonsville native, has been proud to watch UMBC grow over the years. “UMBC has truly excelled since its beginning in 1966 up to today, and is headed on to an even higher trajectory,” he shared. “From UMBC, you can get anywhere.”

Alumni_Awards16-4223

Social and behavioral sciences awardee Ruby Lu ’94, economics, traveled from Beijing to attend the awards ceremony. After earning a master’s degree in international economics from Johns Hopkins, she co-founded DCM China, a Beijing-based venture capital firm. She has been named one of the top 50 venture capitalists in China by Forbes magazine, 2011–15. Her approach to venture capital is “to invest in companies she thinks will use technology to bring about positive change to society,” shared her nominator, David Mitch, professor and chair of economics. Lu, who came to study at UMBC from China, was a member of the university’s first class of McNair Scholars and reflected on how faculty profoundly impacted her life as teachers, mentors, and friends, at a time when she was far from home and working hard to learn English while preparing for a career.

LaMar Davis, director of The Choice Program at UMBC, referred to this year’s alumni award winner in social work as “a legend.” “If you don’t know who Joe Jones is,” he said, “you’re likely from out of town.”

Joseph Jones, Jr., ’06, social work, founded the Center for Urban Families in Baltimore City in 1999. The organization has served more than 26,000 Baltimore residents through workforce development and other initiatives, and has placed more than 6,400 in full-time jobs. Jones didn’t intend to get a college degree, but that changed when he met President Hrabowski. At UMBC, Jones shared, he developed “the ability to think about how do we create institutions, how do we move systems forward, how do we agitate in a way that creates change?” That reflection has dramatically benefited the people of Baltimore, shard Davis, noting that through his “steadfast belief and unrelenting drive” Jones has “transformed tens of thousands of lives with impacts that will be felt for generations.”

Tiffany Holmes, MFA ’99, this year’s awardee in visual and performing arts, is now the dean of undergraduate studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Holmes began her career as a middle school art teacher in Baltimore City and brought her students to tour UMBC’s Imaging Research Center. There, she recalled, “I quickly realized that I was interested in using technology to make art.” After over a decade in the field, she has made a “permanent mark on the canon of this once marginalized and little-understood discipline” and she is known for her “commitment to art that poses unique social challenges,” shared her nominator, Lisa Moren, professor of visual arts.

Alumni_Awards16-4378 - Copy

Ellen Hemmerly, executive director of bwtech@UMBC, was thrilled to introduce Tom Sadowski ’89, political science, as the 2016 Distinguished Service awardee. Sadowski, vice chancellor for economic development for the University System of Maryland, “has always valued relationships and supported partnerships, and has a knack for bringing people together and making things happen,” says Hemmerly. “I believe with Tom at the helm, UMBC and other system campuses will lead the nation in supporting innovation and creating knowledge jobs of the future.”

Accepting his award, Sadowski shared that he’s “just a guy who likes to…help solve problems, help people work as a team and achieve collective goals, or simply help people find that better part of themselves and grow.” Sadowski said that he’s particularly valued his relationship with the university over the past three decades because “UMBC leads its students to believe in themselves, and further, to believe there is nothing they cannot accomplish within themselves and within their communities by working together, with passion, and a deep, heartfelt purpose.”

Judah Ronch, dean of the Erickson School, introduced Galina Madjaroff ’08, psychology, M.A. ’11, aging studies, as the Rising Star awardee. Madjaroff serves as undergraduate program director and clinical assistant professor in the Erickson School, whose undergraduate program has grown from almost 400 in 2011 to almost 1,900 today. Ronch noted, “This is really due to the passion, hard work, leadership, and vision that Galina has brought to the program.” In particular, “Her passion is to help society and our students understand the major issues in cybersecurity and tech use for older people,” which has led her to pursue a Ph.D. in human-centered computing at UMBC. Madjaroff says UMBC is special because of the “faculty who are so nurturing, who reach out and take that extra step,” and she is driven to be that supportive mentor to current and future students.

The alumni association honored Kimberly Moffitt, professor of American studies, with the outstanding faculty award for 2016. “Everyone deserves a Dr. Moffitt—someone who shows them the goodness of the world while asking essential follow-up questions to ensure that they never get complacent,” shared her student, Ngeri Nnachi ’11, American studies. “I consider myself blessed to have such a strong, gifted, beautiful woman as my role model.” Accepting her award, Moffit emphasized, “I want to make sure my students know they have voice. And no matter what space they walk into, their voice matters. They matter.”

Alumni_Awards16-4440

This focus on impact, commitment, and connection emerged again and again throughout the evening, and for good reason, shared President Freeman Hrabowski. “One measures the impact of a university by the research it produces, the questions it asks, the people who are graduates, and what they do,” Hrabowski said. “People you see on this stage are not just amazingly talented, they are good people who have done great work. I can’t think of anything an educator would want more than that: People who care about others, who strive for excellence, and who never, never, never give up.”

Banner image: From left to right: Freeman Hrabowski, Joseph Jones, Tiffany Holmes, Ruby Lu, Tom Sadowski, Galina Madjaroff, Vince Calhoun, Henry Baker, Kimberly Moffitt, John Becker; all photos by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

UMBC physicist Sebastian Deffner reimagines the future of computing with biology in mind

“There is no free lunch,” in quantum computing, says Sebastian Deffner, a new assistant professor of physics at UMBC. Every uptick in a computer’s speed, accuracy, or memory comes at the cost of energy. Now, Deffner and a team of colleagues have set out to quantify the trade-offs between the costs and benefits of faster or more powerful computers.

Several studies suggest that quantum computing has the potential to be less energy intensive than classical computing, but no one has demonstrated that yet in a real system. Deffner and his colleagues hope to more clearly define the energy requirements of quantum computing in a new two-year project funded by a National Science Foundation INSPIRE grant.

“Quantum computing is cool because you can do infinitely more complex problems,” Deffner explains, but if the costs associated with that ability are too high compared to the benefits, quantum computers—at least as they are currently conceptualized—just might not be worth it. His team’s foundational research into the costs of quantum computing will inform the design of tomorrow’s computers, whether quantum or classical.

One aspect of their work will be investigating “biological computation,” the calculations completed by living cells. They’ll do so by creating computer simulations of information processing that occurs within cells.

Like human-engineered computers, these biological processes also incur costs with improvements in speed and accuracy. For example, the process of copying DNA rarely makes mistakes, because of complex error-correction methods within the cell. Just as added speed in a computer comes at a cost, “correction mechanisms do not come for free in cells,” says Deffner.

Even with those costs, Deffner explains, the biological system is very efficient. Given a few billion years to optimize DNA replication and other biological computation processes, “It seems likely that evolution would have gotten something right,” he says. In fact, estimates suggests that the biosphere taken as a whole operates significantly more efficiently than the best human-made computers.

“By understanding one side of the coin [biological computation], we will better understand the other [human-made computers],” Deffner says. His grant proposal states that this new research will be the “first to give a formal understanding of biological computation from a thermodynamic point of view.” Biologists should be interested in Deffner’s results, too, as they may inform ideas about how thermodynamic tradeoffs impose constraints on natural selection and evolution on Earth.

Only weeks after Deffner received official notification about this new grant, the New Journal of Physics presented him with the Early Career Award, which comes with a cash prize and a trip to London for an awards ceremony. The NJP described Deffner as “an extremely talented young researcher who in his early career has proven leadership qualities.” The honor came as a wonderful surprise. “This award means so much to me,” he shared. “I am simply overwhelmed.”

Recent advances in physics, the opportunity to shape the direction of his new lab at UMBC, the NSF grant, and the prestige that will come with his new award all make it possible for Deffner to forge his own unique path into a promising new research field. He’s driven by the sense that scientists “don’t understand the thermodynamic resources required in quantum computing yet,” and excited to do “a little bit of everything” on a quest that bridges quantum computing and biology to build a solid foundation for future research.

Image: Sebastian Deffner, courtesy Sebastian Deffner.

 

UMBC faculty discuss state of the presidential campaign in local and national media

With just three weeks to go before Election Day, UMBC faculty have been in the news discussing the state of the presidential campaign.

Kimberly Moffitt, associate professor of American studies, was a guest on The Baltimore Sun‘s “Roughly Speaking” Podcast with Dan Rodricks to analyze the second presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. She joined other local political analysts in a discussion that covered a range of issues, including the candidates’ appeals to undecided voters.

Kimberly Moffitt

“To me, at this point in time three weeks out of an election, I do not believe NPR’s most recent discussion about there still being about 25 percent of American voters who are undecided,” Moffitt said. “These two candidates are so polarizing that there is no gray area.”

Moffitt explained that compared to prior presidential elections, she thinks that partisan politics are playing a significant role in this year’s election.

“This is not Mitt Romney and Barack Obama where you can find something of a commonality or connection with either of those candidates. These are clear candidates that either you like or you do not like.”

In other news, in an October 11 article published in The Week, Thomas Schaller, professor and chair of political science, discussed the relationship between Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress and how it could produce a “roll-off” effect in the election where people vote for president but do not vote for other offices down the ballot.

Schaller told The Week that in this year’s election, it “raises the prospect that some of these Trump voters will show up on election day, vote Trump, and spite some or all downballot Republican candidates by skipping these contests. This would magnify the normal roll-off effect,” he said. At the same time, “a significant number of reliable Republican voters may skip the presidential [ballot] but vote for some or all of the remaining races.” The result could be “lost votes for Trump at the presidential level and lost votes at the sub-presidential level for all other Republicans. That is the disaster scenario for the GOP.”

For complete coverage, see below.

Roughly Speaking podcast: American Agony, the Trump-Clinton town hall debate (The Baltimore Sun’s Roughly Speaking Podcast with Dan Rodricks)
Welcome to the GOP meltdown (The Week) 

Top image: Thomas Schaller presents at GRIT-X during UMBC’s 50th anniversary celebration. Photo by Jim Burger. 

NOAA funds UMBC to train minority students in remote sensing and atmospheric sciences

UMBC’s demonstrated strength in supporting students from underrepresented groups on their path to success in STEM fields has earned the university another round of funding for STEM education. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) just renewed its support for UMBC through the Educational Partnership Program with Minority Serving Institutions (EPP/MSI) for the third time since the program’s inception in 2001.

The EPP/MSI funds four cooperative science centers, each consisting of several institutions and focusing on one of NOAA’s four core research areas. UMBC has been a member of the NOAA Center for Remote Sensing Science and Technologies, led by the City University of New York, since 2001. This year Howard University, which heads the NOAA Center for Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, recruited UMBC to join its team as well.

“Our main goal is to educate and train underrepresented minority students to become the next NOAA workforce,” says Ruben Delgado, the lead on UMBC’s remote sensing EPP/MSI grant since 2011 and research scientist at UMBC’s Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology (JCET).

Delgado is proud of the interdisciplinary nature of the program, which currently supports undergraduate and graduate students in physics, geography and environmental systems, computer science, mechanical engineering, biological sciences, and chemical engineering. The program, he says, bridges the gap between scientists and engineers and promotes a feeling of unity among diverse individuals, “because they’re all talking science and engineering.”

NOAA provides $11.9 million per year across all four cooperative centers, each of which includes several schools. UMBC receives approximately $330,000 per year through the NOAA grant. Almost 70 percent of it goes directly toward student stipends and costs associated with presenting research at conferences, like travel and registration.

NOAA-funded students at UMBC tackle research topics in areas such as weather forecasting, wind energy, and air quality. The cooperative center structure allows students and faculty to collaborate across institutions and share resources such as instrumentation, data, and expertise.

For example, with remote sensing equipment, “We can monitor the long-range transport of pollution,” says Delgado. That includes smoke from fires in Alaska and Canada or dust coming from China or the Sahara Desert. Students learn to interpret the remote sensing data, and those also involved in his group’s Smog Blog project learn how to explain their findings to non-scientists.

“The program allows our students to be at the forefront of what NOAA is doing,” says Delgado, so when they graduate, “they are on the right track for professional careers at places like NOAA.”

But the program goes deeper than that. Delgado works hard to provide his students “opportunities to strengthen their weaknesses and build on their strengths.” He empowers them to make a real difference as researchers, with the goal that they carry that attitude beyond UMBC.

“You don’t come here to do glasswork and clean the lab,” Delgado explains. “From day one you are conducting cutting edge science and engineering.”

Image: Ruben Delgado; photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

Christy Chapin explains the evolution of the U.S. healthcare system

In a new article in The Conversation, Christy Chapin analyzes the history of healthcare in the United States and traces the steps that lead to the insurance company model and the adoption of the Affordable Care Act.

Chapin, an assistant professor of history, is author of Ensuring America’s Health: The Public Creation of the Corporate Health Care System (Cambridge University Press 2015), which explains how private and public interests merged to place insurance companies at the center of the U.S. healthcare system. In her article “Why your insurance companies control your medical care,” Chapin draws on research in her book to illustrate how we arrived at the current healthcare debate heading into the 2016 election next month.

Before insurance companies, Chapin explains that prepaid physician groups, comprised of doctors from different specialties, were the dominant model for healthcare between the 1900s and 1940s.

“Many health care reformers, including those behind President Truman’s failed 1948 universal care proposal, hoped to develop the medical economy around prepaid groups. Progressives believed that by federally funding prepaid groups, they could efficiently supply the entire population with comprehensive care,” she writes in the article.

But Chapin explains that the American Medical Association opposed these measures because it feared it might lead to a “corporate medicine” culture and mode of healthcare, which led the to insurance company model.

“AMA leaders decided that rather than allowing doctors to insure patients, only insurance companies would be permitted to offer medical coverage,” explains Chapin.

When Medicare adopted the insurance company model in the 1960s, Chapin writes that health costs skyrocketed which led to the implementation of cost control measures.

“While the flaws of the insurance company model have become more evident, reforming the system has proven extremely difficult. Just look at the Affordable Care Act.”

Read the full article and additional coverage below.

Why insurance companies control your medical care (The Conversation)
How did health insurance get to be such a mess? (Houston Chronicle) 
Why insurance companies control your medical care (SF Gate)
Christy Chapin on the centrality of insurance companies to American health care (Who Makes Cents Podcast)  

Image: Christy Chapin presents a talk on her book at UMBC. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC. 

NSF provides $5 million to UMBC-led LSAMP program to support students from underrepresented groups in STEM

UMBC is the lead institution on a $5 million National Science Foundation (NSF) grant that provides additional funds for the University System of Maryland Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (USM LSAMP). Universities will use the renewed funding to support students from underrepresented groups in STEM. The funding boost also allows for expanded support for transfer students and new programming focused on performance in mathematics.

“This funding for expanded programs indicates that we are able to continue the legacy of inclusive excellence that UMBC celebrates,” explains Renetta Tull, associate vice provost for graduate student development and postdoctoral affairs.

Through LSAMP, Tull says, “Programming that prepares students for graduate school in STEM fields will be available to any student at UMBC who wants to participate,” complementing gold-standard cohort-based models like the Meyerhoff Scholars Program and MARC U*STAR Program at UMBC. Some LSAMP funds will also support these well-established programs.

The USM LSAMP program has four key focus areas: participation (supporting students as they transition from high school or community college), performance (reinforcing mathematics knowledge and improving performance in math courses), preparation (getting students ready for research experiences by offering opportunities for training), and presentation (providing opportunities for students to present their work publicly).

Of the $5 million in funding, UMBC will disburse $1 million to University of Maryland, College Park and $750,000 to University of Maryland Eastern Shore, the other two member universities of the Louis Stokes Alliance. Towson University and Frostburg University are associate alliance members, and community college collaborators include Prince George’s Community College, Anne Arundel Community College, and Community College of Baltimore County. Tull explains, “The tiered structure allows current partners to mentor associate members and collaborating community colleges.” 

UMBC has received NSF funding for LSAMP for 20 years. The new boost in funding will make more initiatives possible, including transition seminars for transfer students, a bridging conference for incoming first-year students, and a system-wide Winter Mathematics Institute. The institute, co-sponsored by the Diversity Committee of NSF’s Mathematical Sciences Institutes, is modeled on the successful Meyerhoff Summer Bridge program.  

In addition, LSAMP will develop relationships with other programs on campus, such as STEM BUILD at UMBC, a support program seeking to enhance success of undergraduates in STEM, and the STEM Transfer Student Success Initiative (t-STEM), which supports transfer students from Maryland community colleges, with initial funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

“The success of students at UMBC is underpinned by support initiatives like STEM BUILD and t-STEM,” shares Bill LaCourse, dean of the College of Natural and Mathematical Sciences. “Collaboration with the LSAMP program is a welcome addition, in that it broadens and deepens UMBC’s ability to attract and retain students from underrepresented group in STEM disciplines.”

UMBC is also home to a “Bridge to the Doctorate” program, funding for which is only available to institutions that have had LSAMP programs for at least 10 years. This program financially supports graduate students who participated in LSAMP programs as undergrads at any university in the U.S.

“We are delighted to build on our existing partnership with NSF,” said President Freeman Hrabowski. “UMBC strives to create an environment where students from all backgrounds can succeed in any field, and this funding enables us to expand that critical work.”

Image: Chemistry professor Michael Summers (left), known for his dedicated mentoring of students of all backgrounds in addition to his research, works with students in the lab. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

UMBC faculty win four new Maryland Innovation Initiative grants, bringing total MII awards to $2.4M

Tech transfer is growing rapidly at UMBC, fueled in part by the university’s notable success in securing Maryland Innovation Initiative (MII) grants designed to promote the commercialization of research.

“UMBC’s success in the MII program has been consistently growing over the course of the 3.5 years since the program started,” says Jennifer Hammaker, MII director at Maryland Technology Development Corporation (TEDCO). In that time, UMBC researchers have received $2.38 million to develop their ideas into commercial applications, with an impressive success rate of 50 percent (50 applications yielding 25 awards).

The MII program is a powerful collaboration between the state of Maryland and five Maryland institutions: Johns Hopkins University; University of Maryland, Baltimore; University of Maryland, College Park; Morgan State University and UMBC.  UMBC has one of the highest success rates for MII awards among these institutions. The most recent round of grants for UMBC includes projects in four distinct areas: interactive arts performances, biomedical technology, space weather forecasting, and biofuel production.

The Awards

Linda Dusman, professor of music, and Eric Smallwood, assistant professor of visual arts, will use their phase III award to scale up a prototype of their mobile app, Octava, to make it available to a larger slice of the public. Octava provides real-time program notes during performances such as classical music, dance, and theatre, offering audiences details about the artists and other information that can enrich their experience of the performance and, as Dusman put it, “do real-time education.”

Previous MII grants helped Dusman and Smallwood generate the prototype and conduct a market research study. The phase III grant will enable the team to respond to feedback from phase II, including connecting the app to social media.

Chris Geddes, professor of chemistry and biochemistry and director of the Institute of Fluorescence, won a phase III award in this round for Lyse-it, a company that produces a low-cost portable device that breaks open cells and chops up their DNA to prescribed fragment sizes, a step required in many sample-preparation procedures in the biomedical research and health care industries. The phase III funding will facilitate production of a large inventory of the Lyse-it product and support development of a rapid marketing strategy.

Neel Savani, a researcher at UMBC’s Goddard Planetary Heliophysics Institute (GPHI), is developing a system that can forecast solar storms up to 24 hours in advance, a huge improvement over the current ability to give a one-hour warning. His team’s phase I MII grant will allow them to “get a handle and statistical understanding of how good of an improvement this forecast will be,” Savani explains, “If I can validate how much the improvement will be, then I can convert that into a sales pitch.”

“It’s great to see the state of MD take the lead in supporting space technology,” Savani adds, “I’m seeing venture capitalists looking to invest in the space industry.”

Jeffrey Gardner, assistant professor of biological sciences, received a phase I award for a technology that will support the biofuels industry. His group “will develop a set of small porous filters that enables real-time measurement of microbial growth during biofuel production,” he explains. Bacterial cells used for biofuel production break down large molecules to obtain nutrients, and then use those nutrients to either grow more cells or produce biofuel. By measuring how many cells are growing in real time, researchers can tell if the bacterial cells are “spending more energy than they should making more cells instead of making biofuel.”

Learning Curve

The MII grant process can be a huge learning opportunity for research faculty, many of whom have never tackled a business venture. David Fink, a “site miner” at UMBC, seeks out faculty research that could lead to successful commercial products and supports faculty through the process from start to finish. Don Engel, assistant vice president for research, also encourages faculty to pursue commercialization when he thinks their work is a good fit.

Smallwood shares, “Dave [Fink] has been indispensable, helping us understand the program and shape our ideas.” As UMBC’s first MII team in the arts, and only the second team of artists to receive an MII grant, he says, “We were coming from a different field than most of the applicants, so we had to reorient our brains to how we navigate this new world.”

For Dusman, a business venture “is like an octopus.” She often finds herself asking, “What do you mean there’s one more leg?”

UMBC resources also aided Savani as he grew his business skills. “As somebody who comes from a very research-centric background, I don’t necessarily know the correct lingo for commercialization,” he admits, “That was a tricky component for me to learn, with a steep learning curve.” He thanks Fink and Engel, as well as Paola Buitron and Wendy Martin in UMBC’s Office of Technology Development and Margo Young at GPHI, for his success with the MII program. “They were an absolute tremendous help. They were very patient and supportive.”

“This program is asking questions of faculty that most of them have never been asked,” says Hammaker. “It’s forcing them to think differently.”

She credits UMBC’s success receiving a particularly large number of grants to a combination of support from high-level administrators as well as site miners like Fink. She cites Dusman and Smallwood as an example of what that kind of support makes possible. “They’re closing sales all over the country,” Hammaker says, “That doesn’t happen without a support system.”

Some companies formed by UMBC faculty, as well as alumni and university partners, choose to create a home base at bwtech@UMBC, adjacent to campus. Ellen Hemmerly, executive director of bwtech@UMBC, explains that the research and technology park “provides a range of incubator services to help the companies grow and be successful.”

Geddes, one of the phase III grant recipients, is a veteran entrepreneur attuned to the business landscape. “We are seeing an increased amount of funding available to faculty to explore their ideas and inventions with regard to commercialization,” he says, “With more funding and opportunities materializing, we should expect to see many more companies being spun out from UMBC in the coming years.”

That fits with the culture of UMBC, says Karl V. Steiner, vice president for research. “When we talk about research at UMBC, we frequently use the phrase ‘Innovation that Matters’ to reflect the fact that many of our faculty and students are working on our current, most pressing issues,” he shares. “Our success with the TEDCO MII program is rooted deeply in this research culture of making a difference.”

Hammaker sees UMBC as an exemplar in this regard: “Exactly what’s happening at UMBC is what we’re looking for. UMBC is doing a great job of working with the faculty and getting them prepared to come through the program.” She says, “UMBC has a lot to be excited about.”

Image: Colleagues gather to sign UMBC technology patents into the new Lyse-it company. From left to right: Paola Buitron, Mildred Homa, Wendy Martin, Chris Geddes, Russell Hill, Dean Drake, Rosemary Jagus, David Fink. Photo by Mary Larkin.

Sarah Shin publishes new book on English language teaching as a second career

After conducting in-depth interviews and observations of students in a teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL) graduate program, Sarah Shin, professor of education and special assistant to the provost for academic initiatives, has published a new book that examines TESOL as a second career.

The book, titled English Language Teaching as a Second Career (Multilingual Matters 2016), explores the challenges and successes that professionals ages 45-73 go through as they develop as teachers and launch their second careers.

Sarah Shin bookIn the book, Shin explains that many adults are transitioning into new professions and working later into what has traditionally been retirement age. She explains how the students she interviewed think of TESOL as it relates to their overall life goals and achievements and how they want to improve the quality of life in their communities through education.

“A welcome addition to the growing literature on teacher development, this book will be an important resource for teacher trainers and anyone working in TESOL,” the publisher states on the book’s back cover.

The text has received many favorable reviews for its ethnographic approach to reflecting on teacher experiences as they begin second careers in the context of growing demand for K-12 English language teachers in the United States.

“Sarah Shin makes a compelling case for the demographic changes in education and the accompanying challenges and opportunities for training a new breed of ESL teachers who bring profound real world experiences to their classrooms. A ‘must read’ for teacher trainers and for baby boomers contemplating how the next chapter in their life story will be written,” shared G. Richard Tucker, Carnegie Mellon University, in a review.

Shin is an expert in bilingualism, heritage language education, and TESOL teacher training. She is the author of two previous books Bilingualism in Schools and Society (Routledge) and Developing in Two Languages (Multilingual Matters). Earlier this year, Shin was selected for inaugural class of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) emerging leaders program. Read more about her work and research on the education department website.

Image: Sarah Shin. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.  

Kimberly Moffitt analyzes the first presidential debate on WYPR and WEAA

Following the first presidential debate on September 26, Kimberly Moffitt was a guest on WYPR’s Midday program and WEAA’s The Marc Steiner Show to provide analysis and outline what the candidates need to do going forward to sway voters.

On WYPR, Moffitt, an associate professor of American studies, joined Liz Copeland, founder of the Urban Conservative project, and talked about how the tone and content of the debate changed after the first thirty minutes and offered her perspective on the strategy behind Hillary Clinton’s approach.

“This was not hands down a clear win for Hillary Clinton, but I do believe that she performed better than Donald Trump when I look at the entire 90 minutes,” explained Moffitt. “What I do think was different and savvy for her to do this time versus what I’ve seen her do in other settings…is that she decided not to play Trump’s game.”

Moffitt also said she thinks at this stage in the campaign, the candidates didn’t do much to sway voters’ opinions during the first debate. “I think folks are exactly where they were when they started this debate,” she explained.

On The Marc Steiner Show, Moffitt joined Richard Vatz, professor of rhetoric and communication at Towson University, and Mark Green, host of the nationally syndicated radio show Both Sides Now, to cover a range of issues during the debate. Among them, Moffitt commented on the moderating style of Lester Holt and the strategies that both candidates used to attempt to appeal to undecided voters.

To listen to the complete segments, click below.

Big takeaways from the presidential debate (WYPR’s Midday) 
Election roundtable: First debate (The Marc Steiner Show) 

Image: Kimberly Moffitt in her office. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

UMBC community gathers to reflect on campus culture over the last 50 years

During UMBC’s 50th anniversary celebration weekend, alumni, faculty, staff, and students gathered for a lighthearted event to reflect on the student experience over the years at the university. The panel discussion, led by George Derek Musgove ’97, history, associate professor of history, looked at how campus culture has evolved since UMBC was founded in 1966.

The event, titled “An Unofficial, Totally Tongue-in-Cheek, Slightly Zany History of Campus Culture at UMBC,” featured alumni Steven Fedder ‘72, American studies; Shari Elliker ‘83, interdisciplinary studies; and Oliver Myers (M1) ‘94, M.S. ‘96, Ph.D. ‘07, mechanical engineering, who all shared memories of their time as students.

“UMBC students, faculty, and administrators have exercised creativity, intelligence, and often a good deal of reckless abandon in their efforts to fashion the campus culture here out of whole cloth,” shared Musgrove at the beginning of the event, setting the stage for the discussion. “The story of their efforts is inspiring.”

Campus culture panel 2

Steven Fedder talked about his experience being part of one of the first classes at UMBC when he arrived on campus in 1969 and reflected on how students in the late sixties and early seventies helped lay the foundation and shape the campus culture at the university.

Shari Elliker explained how she became involved with the campus radio station, eventually becoming the station manager, which helped sparked her interest in her career.

Campus culture panel 3

As a member of the first cohort of the Meyerhoff Scholars Program, Oliver Myers talked about his moving experience when he met President Hrabowski for the first time and how it inspired him to work even harder as a student.

“[Dr. Hrabowski] has some form of connection with just about all of us that relates to us on an individual level,” explained Myers.

Myers explained how the Meyerhoff Scholars would frequently gather for study sessions to talk through homework assignments and described how the students would always engage with scientists and other professors when doing site visits at laboratories.

“We were asking serious questions about developing cures for cancer and how we use composite materials in the mechanical engineering lab. We were asking questions to national laboratories about rocket development and robotics,” shared Myers.

As a Meyerhoff Scholar, Myers said he frequently had the opportunity to meet with top officials when they visited campus, which offered him unparalleled opportunities to connect with world leaders in science and government.

Following the panel presentation, several alumni in the audience engaged with the panelists in a lighthearted discussion about their student experiences over the years at UMBC. To watch the complete event, click below.

Images: Top: Oliver Myers speaks during the event; Middle: Steven Fedder talks about his experience as a student. All photos by Jay Baker.  

UMBC UMBC
University of Maryland, Baltimore County
1000 Hilltop Circle, Baltimore, MD 21250 Directions & Parking

Resources

Important Contacts

Emergency Info

Contact Us

Apply

Top Stories of the Week

© UMBC: A University System of Maryland Member Institution