Stephen Smale, a Fields Medalist (an award often likened to a Nobel Prize in mathematics), revolutionized fields like topology and dynamical systems. His groundbreaking work, which Kvalheim uses as a basis for his own research, has shaped modern mathematics.
Kvalheim’s research explores systems that evolve over time. Specifically, he studies “asymptotically stable” systems—those that naturally settle into a predictable state, like a pendulum coming to rest. Kvalheim’s talk at the conference built on Smale’s foundational discoveries, using them to determine whether certain system behaviors are possible or fundamentally unattainable.
Matthew Kvalheim (courtesy of Kvalheim)
“It was a great privilege to speak about Professor Smale’s legacy, and in particular the deep impact his work has had on one of my projects funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research,” Kvalheim says. “The result of this project, which relies heavily on Smale’s breakthrough solution of a mathematical puzzle known as the ‘generalized Poincaré conjecture,’ helps us understand limitations in designing stable real-world systems.”
This work has far-reaching implications, from ensuring the safety of autonomous vehicles to optimizing complex robotics. By developing mathematical tools that apply across diverse applications, Kvalheim’s research offers universal insights into what systems can and cannot do, blending creativity with mathematical rigor to tackle fundamental questions with real-world impact.
Boing! Bouncy balls strike the hallway floor as small groups of students measure bounce heights with a meterstick and record data. They repeat the test in a carpeted classroom, then analyze results in Excel, discussing how surfaces affect energy conversion.
This might sound like a physics laboratory, but it’s actually a math course for high schoolers in Building Science Technology Education Partnerships (STEPs), a college-preparatory program for students from under-resourced high schools in Baltimore City. For two weeks this summer, 21 rising seniors and college-bound students, nine college-student tutors, and instructor Rebecca Kirvan, M.A. ’13, secondary education and teaching, filled the fourth floor of UMBC’s Interdisciplinary Life Sciences Building for intensive, hands-on math instruction each afternoon. In the mornings, the students participated in professional development programming, such as a financial literacy workshop and team-based problem-solving challenges.
This is the fifth year of collaboration between Building STEPS and UMBC, but thanks to a deepening relationship between the organization and the College of Natural and Mathematical Sciences (CNMS), this year the summer program came to UMBC’s campus for the first time. In addition, the math portion shifted from traditional tutoring to an adapted version of MATH 110: Math in Action, a unique laboratory-style math course heading into its third year being taught at UMBC.
UMBC tutor Xavier Cohen (left), a rising senior majoring in math and computer science, has been tutoring math in various capacities since 2021. He says that he sees firsthand how the activity-based curriculum used by Building STEPs improves student learning. (Brad Ziegler/UMBC)
“UMBC and CNMS have been incredible collaborators, providing Building STEPs students with accessible and effective math enrichment in an immersive college experience,” says Debra Hettleman, CEO of Building STEPs.
William R. LaCourse, CNMS dean, believes strongly in making math education engaging and relevant for all students, in support of developing their critical thinking skills. “Teaching math in an interactive format shows the students how it relates to their everyday lives,” he says. “Creating opportunities for them to make those connections is so important.”
Alexis O’Malley ’18, mathematics and psychology, took the lead developing a robust curriculum for the tutors to implement on top of her role as a calculus instructor in CNMS. Until this year, the University of Baltimore hosted the tutoring sessions. For 2025, CNMS hired Kirvan to modify the activities in MATH 110, which O’Malley also originally led with support from math department faculty.
“As a former high school teacher, I’ve enjoyed the opportunity to adapt college labs for a high school audience,” Kirvan says. “It’s great to work with this group of students and help them beef up their math skills and get ready for college.”
UMBC alumna Rebecca Kirvan, right, taught the lab-based math course this summer. (Brad Ziegler/UMBC)
The students see the benefits.
“It’s been good to review concepts and practice my math skills,” shared Benjamin Kima, a participant from Mergenthaler Vocational-Technical High School. Sam Boad, also at Mergenthaler, said, “I’m glad they’re giving us a chance to see the content ahead of the school year.” Zaiqah Pinkney, from City Neighbors High School, added, “I like hands-on activities. It helps me learn better.”
“Students consistently rate math as their favorite part of the day,” shares Sheyna Mikeal, chief program officer at Building STEPs. “It challenges them, but the small-group structure, guided by dedicated tutors, builds confidence and encourages real growth.”
Campus immersion and career prep
Beyond providing math instruction, CNMS funded lunches at UMBC’s True Grit’s dining hall, freeing up Building STEPs’ budget for student transportation and enabling greater participation.
“I’ve enjoyed the opportunity to be on a college campus,” shared Brandon Thomas, a student at Mergenthaler.
And beyond the summer program, a larger cohort of Building STEPs students visited UMBC during the semester. They heard presentations from CNMS departments and took a tour of campus. “We’ve witnessed the power of learning on a college campus shifting the students’ perspective,” Mikeal says. “It reinforces that college is not just a goal, it’s an environment where they belong.”
Other Building STEPs activities include visits to companies like Northrop Grumman and Beckton-Dickinson, workshops on searching for and applying to colleges, and one-on-one feedback with volunteer writing advisors.
Benjamin Kima (standing) runs a trial in a lab activity about potential and kinetic energy. (Brad Ziegler/UMBC)
Strength beyond academics
Students in the program, founded in 2000, are recommended by college counselors and teachers, and must maintain a 3.0 GPA. This past academic year, there were 83 juniors and 83 seniors enrolled, and there are 175 Building STEPs alumni. Nearly 80 percent earn a college degree, and nearly two-thirds earn degrees in STEM. Coming from 15 of Baltimore’s most challenged high schools, 87 percent are first-generation college graduates. Alumni return from college to offer programming to current participants, fostering leadership development.
“Together with UMBC, we’re not only strengthening academic skills—we’re also expanding access to opportunity,” Mikeal says.
LaCourse sees providing space, funds, and effective and engaging math activities to benefit local high schoolers as a natural fit for the college.
“Building STEPs participants are bright, motivated students who just need a little support to reach their potential,” LaCourse says. “It’s a privilege to be able to offer the resources the program needs—from classrooms to curriculum—to enable an enriching summer math and professional development experience. We hope to see some of their faces on campus again soon—this time as UMBC students.”
Building STEPs participant Brandon Thomas relaxes with his group members between experiments. (Brad Ziegler/UMBC)
A new study using data collected by NASA’s Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) satellite established a novel method to determine how productive plants are worldwide. The new remote sensing technique could help us better understand plants’ role in capturing carbon on a global scale and reveal how plants are responding to factors like changing water availability and temperature, with relevance for conservation, agriculture, and more.
The research, led by Karl F. Huemmrich, a UMBC research scientist with the Goddard Earth Sciences Technology and Research (GESTAR) Center II, shows that PACE’s advanced camera can track plant health by analyzing the light leaves reflect. By comparing these satellite observations with measurements taken on the ground, the study confirmed that the new method works across diverse landscapes, opening the door to improved global ecosystem monitoring.
Launched in February 2024, PACE’s Ocean Color Instrument (OCI) captures daily images of Earth that show how plants are responding to their environment in real time. While OCI’s primary mission is to study oceans (hence its name), it also collects data over land.
“Although they do not appear to be very active to us, plants are constantly making physiological adjustments to their environment, responding to factors such as changing light, temperature, humidity, water, and nutrient availability,” Huemmrich explains. A plant can change its leaf area, leaf orientation, and the prevalence of different leaf pigments, he says. All of those changes alter the intensity and wavelengths of light the plants reflect, which OCI detects.
“PACE provides almost daily repeat observations,” except for areas blocked by clouds, Huemmrich says. “This time series can be used to describe changes in vegetation productivity related to seasonal change, for example the timing of spring green-up and autumn senescence, or more transient effects, like droughts or cold snaps.”
This gif shows how PACE’s OCI “sees” plant productivity changing throughout the growing season across North America. (Skye Caplan)
One algorithm to track them all
Unlike older satellite methods, such as MODIS Gross Primary Productivity, which needed weather data like temperature and humidity to estimate plant growth, PACE relies solely on the light reflected by plants.
“By using the information from the spectral reflectance alone, we are letting the plants show us their responses to environmental conditions, rather than trying to predict their responses,” Huemmrich explains. This approach makes it easier to accurately capture short-term changes.
The study tested PACE’s data against ground measurements from National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) sites across the U.S., covering everything from arctic tundra to tropical dry forests.
“The NEON sites were chosen to cover all of the major ecoclimate types within the U.S.,” Huemmrich notes, “and frankly, it was surprising that a single algorithm could do as well as it did across all of those very different vegetation types.” This success suggests the method can be used globally, and there are plans to include more sites worldwide in future studies to cover even more ecosystems.
Huemmrich stands 100 feet above the ground on a meteorology tower at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Edgewater, Maryland. (Courtesy of Huemmrich)
“An entirely new view”
This research could transform how scientists track carbon sequestration—how plants absorb and store carbon dioxide, a key greenhouse gas—improving understanding of how different ecosystems influence climate change. The ability to spot stress events early could also help farmers and environmental managers act quickly to improve outcomes for crops and wildlife.
PACE’s global reach is a huge step forward. “I believe this new ability to describe global ecosystem dynamics opens up an entirely new view of the Earth’s ecological functioning that we really have not been able to see before,” Huemmrich says. Unlike earlier methods that relied on labor-intensive ground measurements or expensive airplane flights, PACE offers a cost-effective way to monitor ecosystems worldwide.
Moving into PACE’s second year, Huemmrich is excited to explore how plant responses change over time. “I’m interested in looking at year-to-year differences,” he says. “I want to see how best to use the spectral information for early detection of stress events. Can we learn to diagnose types of stress responses? Do these responses vary among different types of plants?”
These questions will drive future research, aiming to improve how we detect and understand plant stress across diverse ecosystems. PACE’s frequent, detailed satellite data will help scientists, policymakers, and conservationists protect ecosystems and understand how plants are responding to a changing world.
The findings were published in IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing and co-authored by Petya Campbell, a UMBC research scientist with GESTAR II and senior author; Skye Caplan, Goddard Space Flight Center; and John Gamon, University of Nebraska–Lincoln.
Joseph Bennett, assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry, and Mona Layegh, Ph.D. ’25, chemistry, know how hard it can be to teach density functional theory (DFT) to undergraduates. DFT is a computational method for predicting a substances’ properties at the quantum level, such as how they conduct electricity or react with other compounds. Despite its complexity, DFT is a foundational technique that underpins research in fields like renewable energy, pharmaceuticals, and nanotechnology, so it’s critical that students understand it and know how to apply it.
To address the challenge of teaching DFT well, Bennett and Layegh coauthored a tutorial on teaching the technique, which was published in the Journal of Chemical Education. Their paper was the first ever published in the journal’s brand new Tutorial section, which was inspired by their submission and a need to develop more training tools.
The tutorial, refined over five years of training UMBC students in DFT, is paired with open-source resources on GitHub, including ready-to-use files and visualizations. These allow instructors at community colleges or in areas with limited internet to teach the concepts even without advanced computers.
“If you can erase some of the hurdles to make DFT a little bit more accessible, more students can get into it,” Bennett says.
In sharing these teaching tools, UMBC is leveling the playing field, making it possible for students in all kinds of learning environments to master this core technique. As a result, they’ll be better prepared for careers in growing industries like technology and healthcare, where they may go on to design better batteries, solar panels, life-saving drugs, and more.
This summer UMBC is partnering with the Maryland Department of Disabilities to upgrade nine teaching labs in the Meyerhoff Chemistry Building. The updates will allow students with mobility disabilities to fully participate in critical chemistry and biochemistry lab courses.
Sinks, lab benches, cabinets, fume hoods, specialized equipment stations, and more will all be constructed that are accessible for wheelchair users. A research lab will be similarly modified to allow students with disabilities to gain research experience.
“These projects are a part of an ongoing campus-wide effort to remove barriers to access throughout our campus buildings,” Celso Guitian, UMBC’s campus planner, says.
A lecture hall in the Engineering Building is also being renovated this summer. The changes are similar to those made in lecture halls in the Administration, Meyerhoff Chemistry, and Biological Sciences buildings in recent years to create multiple spaces for wheelchair-users with fold-down desk tablets, both at the front and rear of the lecture hall. TV monitors will help students with vision disabilities who may not be able to see the whiteboard or screen at the front of these lecture halls. And seating size variations, including standing-desk options, accommodate students of varied body types and disabilities, including supporting pregnant students and students with orthopedic challenges. Assisted listening technology and an area for sign language interpreters support students who are deaf or hard of hearing.
Other projects under construction this summer include accessibility upgrades in four Biological Sciences Building restrooms and elevator upgrades in several academic buildings.
“The Office of Accessibility & Disability Services greatly values our longstanding partnership with Facilities Management to assist us in the mission of inclusive access and elimination of barriers for all UMBC community members,” says Tawny McManus, assistant vice president for accessibility. “Improving our teaching labs allows increased participation of our students with disabilities and shows them UMBC welcomes everyone here.”
Finding new materials with useful properties is a primary goal for materials scientists, and it’s central to improving technology. One exciting area of current research is 2D materials—super-thin substances made of just a few layers of atoms, which could power the next generation of electronic devices. UMBC researchers have developed a new way to predict 2D materials that might transform electronics, and the results were published in Chemistry of Materials earlier in July.
Picture a sheet of paper so thin that it’s only a few atoms thick, and that’s what 2D materials are like. One might think they would be fragile—but these materials can actually be incredibly strong or conduct electricity in unique ways. They’re held together by weak forces called van der Waals bonds, which allow materials to slightly deform without breaking under stress. Stacked layers of these 2D materials can slide past each other, further reducing brittleness.
The research team, led by Peng Yan, Ph.D. candidate in chemistry, and Joseph Bennett, assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry, focused on a type of 2D material called van der Waals layered phosphochalcogenides. Some of these materials are ferroelectric, meaning they can hold an electric charge in a particular direction, and then the direction can be reversed on command—sort of like tiny, reversible batteries. Some ferroelectric materials are also magnetic, behaving similarly when a magnetic field is applied. That combination makes them ideal for advanced electronics like memory devices and sensors.
“There’s only two known 2D van der Waals ferroelectric materials with this type of structure,” Bennett said, “so we were asking ourselves, where might others be hiding?” The new publication is their answer to that question.
Figure 1 from the new study shows examples of atomic structures that the research team’s algorithm identified as having features conducive for potential use as 2D materials.
A treasure map to new 2D materials
The researchers used a mix of data mining, computer modeling, and structural analysis (because only materials with certain shapes are conducive to use in electronics) to ferret out new material candidates.
“We developed a set of chemical design rules to predict these materials, which could significantly accelerate the discovery of new functional materials,” Yan, the study’s first author, said.
Joshua Birenzvige ’23, chemistry, played a key role by developing a Python script that helped sort the potential materials based on their properties, speeding up the team’s progress. Mona Layegh, a Ph.D. candidate in Bennett’s group, is also a co-author on the new paper.
Joseph Bennett’s research lab focuses on the discovery and design of new functional materials. (Marlayna Demond ’11/UMBC)
The researchers began by digging into the Inorganic Crystal Structure Database, a huge collection of known crystal structures. Then they used quantum structural diagrams—which map materials on a chart according to how they relate to each other, determined by their atomic traits—to find areas within the diagrams where promising new materials might be hiding.
“By analyzing basic parameters like differences in electronegativity and radius, we were able to separate materials that have the properties we want from those that don’t,” Bennett explained. Electronegativity measures how strongly an atom attracts electrons, and an atom’s radius is the distance from its center to the outer edge of its electron cloud.
“These quantum structural diagrams act like a treasure map,” Bennett said, “guiding us to regions of chemical space where new, stable 2D materials are likely to exist.”
Their results indicated 83 potential new materials that could be made and used in the tech industry, potentially increasing the number of known ferroelectric materials by an incredible margin.
From the computer to the lab bench
After the computer-based analysis, the team took their work a step further. The UMBC researchers collaborated with Ryan Stadel, Peter Zavalij, and Efrain Rodriguez at the University of Maryland, College Park (UMD), who made and tested some of the predicted materials in the lab. Their work proved the UMBC predictions could be used to guide experiments with the predicted materials.
“Being able to predict which compositions are likely to form stable, functional materials gives us a huge head start in the lab,” Bennett said. “It’s like having a recipe book for materials that haven’t been made yet, which saves time and resources.”
These new materials could shine in real-world uses, substantially advancing the electronics industry. For example, they could help build memory devices that can store data after power is shut off, tiny sensors that detect minute amounts of particular substances, or low-power components that make your phone battery last longer. These properties are in high demand across the tech industry and the U.S. government—this work was funded by a substantial grant from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.
Joseph Bennett’s students Peng Yan (top left), Joshua Berinzvige (top right), and Mona Layegh (bottom) are all authors on the new study. (Courtesy of Bennett)
An exciting future of discovery
“I’m excited because the work demonstrates a successful data-guided approach to discovering novel 2D materials with promising functional properties, potentially accelerating the design of next-generation electronic materials,” Yan said.
Next up, the team will use a complex computer simulation, called high-throughput density functional theory modeling, to explore these 83 materials in more depth. They’ll check their ferroic traits and how easily they can be made. Plus, they’ll continue their collaboration with the UMD to synthesize and study the materials in the lab, aiming to confirm their special properties and tweak them for specific applications.
The research is a major step forward, paving the way for materials that could change how engineers build electronics—from sensors for the military to longer-lasting laptops and tablets for students on the go.
For over 20 years, the Chemistry Biology Interface (CBI) program at UMBC has been shaping Ph.D. students into leaders who bridge chemistry and biology. Programs like CBI are critical to help meet the rising demand for researchers with wide-ranging skill sets who can communicate clearly with those outside their specialty. In the joint UMBC-University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) CBI program, participants complete their degrees faster than students in similar labs outside the program, and 97 percent graduate—well above the national average of 63 percent for graduate study in the life sciences.
“Everything now is interdisciplinary research,” saysAaron Smith, associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry at UMBC and CBI director.
CBI supports Ph.D. students at UMBC in chemistry, biochemistry, and biological sciences, and pharmacy students at UMB. Now it has secured five more years of funding to continue building community, creating networking opportunities, and training students in interdisciplinary research and science communication.
Communication for career success
CBI alumni credit the program with positioning them to thrive in a range of careers, from the classroom to corporate laboratories.
“I became more confident with public speaking and attribute the success of my job interview talks to the training I received in CBI,” shares Kathryn Wardrup, Ph.D. ’24, biological sciences. Today, she is a postdoctoral fellow at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, an independent research institute in Seattle.
Lance Dockery (left) completed his Ph.D. with Marie-Christine Daniel, associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry. Here they celebrate his thesis defense in 2022. (Courtesy of Dockery)
“Hearing about other research on campus and learning what techniques are being used was a valuable experience,” Wardrup adds. “I felt confident in my ability to be able to have discussions outside of my scientific expertise.”
Scott Riley, Ph.D. ’20, chemistry, also benefited. “I’ve carried many of the lessons I learned into presentations, whether classroom lectures or at meetings and conferences,” he says. “I know many of my interviews were successful because of things I learned in CBI.”
Currently, Riley coordinates internship placements and teaches courses in the master’s program in pharmaceutical sciences at UMB.
Lance Dockery, Ph.D. ’22, chemistry, parlayed skills gained in CBI into a senior scientist role at biotech company AstraZeneca, and recently transitioned to a leadership role at pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly.
“In industry, projects often require coordination between chemists, biochemists, immunologists, and other specialists, similar to the collaborative environment within the CBI program,” Dockery says. “The experience of presenting research to a diverse audience within CBI strengthened my communication skills—something that has given me a clear advantage when interacting with project teams.”
Building a supportive community
CBI participants attend weekly meetings where they take turns teaching their peers about a range of scientific topics selected by the students. Following the more formal instruction period, students partake in group discussions on graduate student life and professional development topics—like mental health, time management, and creating and updating a CV—over pizza.
All this interaction promotes a strong sense of community. “This program builds a really strong rapport among the students, some of whom are in their first semester of graduate school and some of whom are preparing to defend their theses,” Smith says. “They build connections with one another; they learn how to talk with one another. I really think of it as building a community of support among the students.”
Danielle Schmitt, Ph.D. ’17, biochemistry, concurs. “I really benefited from having a cohort of fellow graduate students to support me during my Ph.D.,” she says. Today, Schmitt is an assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry at UCLA.
CBI’s community feel also fosters shared investment in each participant’s success. “It’s a fun experience to see other students’ data and scientific talks develop as they experience growth during their time in CBI,” Wardrup says.
Danielle Schmitt (front row, yellow shirt) took a group of her UCLA lab members to the 2nd Annual SoCal Metabolism Symposium in 2022, where several of them presented research posters. She completed her Ph.D. with Songon An, associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry. (Courtesy of Schmitt)
Hands-on cross-training
CBI includes about 40 students per year. Most of them are considered “trainees,” who receive a funding allowance to support conference travel and research expenses for cross-training in a lab outside their work with their primary Ph.D. advisor. Students have received training at the NIH, St. Jude’s Research Hospital, biotech giant Genentech, labs at universities such as UNC-Chapel Hill and UT-Austin, and UMBC and UMB labs.
Riley’s cross-training experience “allowed me to discover a new technique (electron microscopy) which played a critical role in my thesis,” he says. Schmitt adds, as a CBI fellow, “I was able to spend time at the NIH working on a collaborative project related to glucose metabolism. Because CBI supported my time at the NIH, I could move the project forward and learn new skills I might not have gained otherwise.”
Scott Riley (front row, third from left) with his first class of graduates from the UMB master’s program in pharmaceutical sciences in 2022. (Courtesy of Riley)
Janae Baptiste Brown, Ph.D. ’18, chemistry, adds that “the cross-disciplinary training gave me the unique opportunity to conduct research at the bench with collaborators both at UMBC and the NIH.”
In addition to the benefits trainees receive, six CBI fellows per year further receive full tuition support, health care benefits, and a living stipend. The fellows serve as peer leaders, planning CBI programming in collaboration with Smith and leading group discussions.
“Beyond the bench, I have referred back to some of the leadership skills that I gained as a fellow to encourage an active learning environment in my classes,” says Baptiste Brown, who is now an assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry at Spelman College.
Janae Baptiste Brown (right) with members of her lab group at Spelman College. Baptiste Brown completed her Ph.D. with Michael Summers, professor of chemistry and biochemistry. (Courtesy of Baptiste Brown)
Expanding horizons through conferences
Support for conference travel is another major benefit of CBI. Conferences offered “an excellent opportunity to engage with scientists outside my realm of expertise and network with scientists in my field, ultimately landing me a job interview through a connection made at a CBI-sponsored conference,” Wardrup says.
Conferences also offer more opportunities to practice communicating one’s work with a range of audiences. “Having experience in interdisciplinary communication is invaluable,” Dockery says. “It facilitates smoother collaborations and ensures that diverse expertise contributes effectively to project success.”
“I can’t overstate the way this program dramatically enhances the graduate training outcomes for individuals,” Smith says, “so I wish we had more of these training grants for cross-disciplinary training in other fields, like chemistry-engineering or chemistry-physics.”
Embracing growth beyond comfort zones
Aaron Smith has led the CBI program since 2022. (Marlayna Demond ’11/UMBC)
Smith took on leading CBI in 2022, after serving as assistant director under previous director Katherine Seley Radtke, professor of chemistry and biochemistry. “It’s a ton of work, but the benefits far outweigh the amount of time and effort that it takes to keep this program running,” he says. “It’s just a fantastic program.”
As Wardrup notes, “It can feel uncomfortable to step outside of your comfort zone to explore something new, but CBI is an extremely supportive environment to take that first step.” Riley echoes this sentiment. “Graduate school is one of the best times in your life to really dig deep and learn as many things as you can,” he says. “You will be surprised how some skills or knowledge will be relevant in your early career.”
The CBI program, with its focus on interdisciplinary training and community building, provides the perfect platform for students to do just that—equipping them with the confidence, skills, and networks to excel.
UMBC recently unveiled a new organic pollinator garden at the Center for Well-Being. The new garden builds on years of work to support wildlife on campus, including pollinator gardens, enhanced habitat at the Library Pond, increasing use of native plants in campus flower beds, a major stream restoration of Herbert Run, and a commitment to long-term conservation of The Knoll, a forest patch on campus that includes trees older than the university.
The new pollinator garden qualifies as a National Wildlife Federation Certified Wildlife Habitat and a Monarch Watch Waystation. The garden includes milkweed plants funded by a grant from Monarch Watch and additional species from Chesapeake Natives, a local nonprofit dedicated to supplying plants native to the coastal and Piedmont regions of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed for home and public landscapes.
The new garden and the UMBC sustainability and grounds teams’ other work to promote ecosystem health on campus also brings UMBC one step closer to achieving the next level in the Green Grounds certification program.
“I am excited that UMBC continues to invest in native habitats on our campus. I’m inspired by the amount of wildlife activity I encounter when I walk around, and it reminds me we can create flourishing habitats even in small spaces,” shares Taylor Smith, assistant director of sustainability. “The new pollinator garden is already filling in, and our pollinators are loving it!”
A monarch butterfly enjoys a swamp milkweed plant in the new pollinator garden. (Nicole Wolf)
There are black holes, and then there are supermassive black holes (SMBH), with masses millions to billions of times as great as the Sun. A small percentage of SMBH are furiously gobbling up matter; these are called active galactic nuclei (AGN). Adi Foord, assistant professor of physics, is co-leading a research project designed to further understanding of how this rare type of black hole forms and changes over time.
The project, recently funded by a National Science Foundation (NSF) Astronomy and Astrophysics Research Grant, also creates prime opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students to contribute to the research and connect with leaders in the field for networking and mentorship—experiences with the potential to shape these students’ futures.
In addition to Foord, the three other co-leads are giants in the field of black hole research at institutions with powerhouse astronomy programs: Meg Urry at Yale University, David Sanders at the University of Hawaii, and Nico Cappelluti at the University of Miami. All four co-leads have collaborated for years as members of a research consortium known as the Accretion History of AGN (AHA) group.
“The goal of the NSF project is to try to map out the growth of AGN across cosmic time using as much data as humanly possible,” Foord says. “We’ll be looking at data collected by observatories in space and on the ground over a really wide range of wavelengths.”
Read Adi Foord’s response to a Curious Kids question in The Conversation: If the James Webb telescope was 10 times more powerful, could we see the beginning of time? – Sam H., age 12, Prosper, Texas
By analyzing data from various sources, the team has a better chance of shedding light on how these black holes grow and evolve, “and how their growth mechanisms connect to things like their environments,” Foord adds, “so getting information about the host galaxies that they’re in will be key.”
Foord is particularly interested in what happens when two galaxies, each with a supermassive black hole at its center, merge, and her part of the new grant zeroes in on exploring these merging AGN. For example, the percentage of galaxies that begin to interact and then go on to complete a merger is an open question.
Adi Foord (left) and Ph.D. students Cassie Daniele (center) and Zack Reeves discuss research data in Foord’s office. (Brad Ziegler/UMBC)
Addressing the bottleneck
Zack Reeves, a UMBC Ph.D. student mentored by Foord, is contributing to the project through his research on dual AGN—pairs of black holes in the early stages of a potential merger. Reeves started with a dataset including 2,684 confirmed AGN, based on data from the X-ray Multi-mirror Mission (XMM) Newton observatory and Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Then he pared down the data further, eventually settling on 38 AGN that met particular data standards.
“This summer, I’m going through each of the XMM X-ray sources, and looking to see if the AGN have any other significant X-ray sources nearby that could indicate a dual AGN,” Reeves says.
XMM Newton includes tools that allow scientists to filter and analyze the data to answer their specific questions, “but the process can be manual and tedious to do observation by observation,” Reeves says. To address that bottleneck, he’s coding a Python script to streamline data analysis, which he’ll run on UMBC’s High-Performance Computing Facility (HPCF), which can analyze all of the samples in parallel, producing results many times faster than completing the task sequentially by hand.
The results will provide important insights into how galaxies and AGN form. Multiple theoretical simulations describe those processes, and “these simulations disagree on certain predictions, like how the dual AGN population will evolve over the course of cosmic time,” Reeves says. “So the interesting part of this project is that we can actually look in space and observationally constrain how this population evolves, and through that we can identify what strengths and weaknesses these simulations have.”
Weekly lab meetings with Adi Foord, left, allow students to share their progress and ask and answer questions. (Brad Ziegler/UMBC)
Empowering the next generation of astrophysicists
The NSF grant not only creates opportunities for Foord’s students to dive into cutting-edge research—it will also connect them with top scientists and grow their professional networks. For example, Reeves will begin attending regular AHA group meetings this summer and attend the AHA workshop in Miami in December.
Foord considers creating these career-building opportunities for her students a core part of her mission as a faculty member at UMBC.
“It’s really important that we give UMBC students not only great research projects and opportunities, but also visibility to the field and the ability to make connections and network with people,” Foord says.
The grant also funds UMBC undergraduate students to conduct research with the co-leads at their institutions. This summer, funded through the same NSF grant, Katherine Carver, a rising senior physics major, is interning at Yale with Meg Urry.
At Yale, “Networking with so many talented astronomers and physicists and attending unique professional development and astronomy events”—like a workshop on dark matter and a watch party for the reveal of the first Vera Rubin Observatory images—“have been the most beneficial opportunities,” Carver says.
“It’s really important that we give UMBC students not only great research projects and opportunities, but also visibility to the field and the ability to make connections and network with people.”
Adi Foord, assistant professor of physics
“The students are getting an opportunity to learn about what’s going on at these other institutions, how research teams work at these different places, and also to network with scientists there,” Foord says, “and that’s only going to help their careers if they decide to continue in astrophysics.”
“Dr. Foord has been instrumental in my success as an aspiring scientist,” Carver says, “from teaching me how to write scientific proposals to aiding the progression of my research at UMBC.”
Reeves is grateful for Foord’s guidance, too. “She’s teaching me a lot about moves that I should be making right now, and how to network and build connections, and also making those connections for me, which means a lot,” he says.
Katherine Carver stands in front of a model of the Hubble Space Telescope at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. She took a field trip to Goddard in summer 2024 while an intern at the Johns Hopkins Space Telescope Science Institute. (Courtesy of Carver)
Big-picture questions require practical skills
Reeves says that in high school, he romanticized physics; “the lure of figuring out how the universe works” drew him in. Since then, he’s learned that to be successful in the field, big-picture wonder must be backed up with practical skills.
“I consider myself at heart to be an astrophysicist. That’s the dream. That’s what sparks joy in my heart,” he says. Luckily for him, “In practice, I also really enjoy statistics and statistical physics.”
Reeves’ work relies heavily on computer programming, data analysis, and statistics, skills he says are “absolutely critical” for astrophysicists. “I learned quickly in college you have to be really good at problem-solving to succeed in physics,” he notes. Reeves encourages anyone interested in physics to take enough computer science courses to “understand what the code is doing under the hood.” Without that foundation and a solid dose of perseverance, he says, at some point you’ll get stuck.
Thankfully, “Zack is super self-motivated, which is one of the most important aspects to being successful,” Foord says. “I’ve seen so many points in time where he’s hit some sort of wall, and then he comes back the next week and he’s figured out some way to get above that wall.”
At a lab meeting, Zack Reeves shows how his python script generated the same figure that he created manually previously, demonstrating the code’s efficacy. (Brad Ziegler/UMBC)
Staying close to go far
Carver, too, has picked up additional skills that support her physics research. From her work in Foord’s lab and previous internships at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory and Space Telescope Science Institute, she gained key coding and problem-solving skills. Without that, “I would not have been able to contribute to the level I can now to my project at Yale,” she says. “Those experiences also prepared me to secure the internship.”
Foord’s students benefit from a close relationship with her and other research group members. “The energy in the group meetings and our one-to-ones is always just really positive and encouraging, and there’s no stress,” Reeves says. Foord’s guidance has turbocharged his growth, from tackling advanced projects to presenting his work clearly.
“He already has a really good idea of how to tell a story in a way that will help people who aren’t intimately familiar with his research to understand it,” Foord says.
Through Adi Foord’s mentorship, doors to cutting-edge black hole research have swung wide open for Reeves and Carver, equipping them with skills and networks to explore the cosmos as their careers progress. Already, Reeves is paying it forward, using his communication skills to share his fascination with black holes and spark curiosity about one of the universe’s most mysterious phenomena.
A talented trio of students has earned accolades for their innovative work with Deepak Koirala, assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry. Their awards are replicating like the RNA they study, as they unravel the complexities of viral RNA and reveal potential therapeutic targets.
Manju Ojha, Ph.D. candidate in biochemistry, Megan Nguyen, rising senior biochemistry and molecular biology major, and Jason Daniels ’25, biochemistry and psychology, all members of Koirala’s lab, recently received awards for their joint research on RNA.
Ojha received the Robert F. Steiner Award in recognition of her significant research contributions and dedicated mentorship of undergraduate students. The award was established in 1999 by Robert Cotter and Catherine Fenselau, former chair of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at UMBC, in tribute to Steiner, a former UMBC faculty member and pioneer in biophysical chemistry.
“This award highlights the growing impact of our work on understanding RNA structure, RNA-protein interactions, and viral replication mechanisms—an area that remains central to advancing structural virology and therapeutic development,” Ojha says. “The recognition underscores the importance of tackling complex questions in RNA structure and function using integrative biochemical and structural approaches.”
Jason Daniels (right) discusses a research poster with his mentor, Deepak Koirala (center), and lab mate Megan Nguyen, outside the Koirala Lab.
Students at the center of the lab
Koirala’s group focuses on viruses whose genomes are made of RNA, which include those that cause diseases like polio, the common cold, and more. The group is developing novel techniques to determine the 3D structures of RNA, plus running experiments to figure out how RNA structures in the viruses interact with their host cell’s machinery. Students are deeply involved in all of it.
Nguyen has been studying the structure and function of plant RNAs under Ojha’s mentorship since 2023. Plant viruses are a major challenge for some crops. This spring, Nguyen received the Satterfield-Bell Scholarship, established in 2001, which recognizes an outstanding junior in chemistry who has conducted research.
“I have learned so many techniques and so much scientific theory from Manju and other lab members,” Nguyen says. “I’m thankful for this amazing experience and to be recognized for it. However, with the mentorship I’ve received over the past three years, I know this award is not only my own, but everyone’s in the Koirala lab.”
Daniels has leveraged his experience in the Koirala lab into a competitive summer research program, the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Research Institute Summer Scholars Program. His long-term goal is to pursue an M.D. Daniels received the Faculty Award for Excellence in Biochemistry, given to a graduating biochemistry major who displays excellence in the classroom and the laboratory.
“I can confidently say that the Koirala lab has been transformative in my academic career and future in science,” Daniels says. “This would not have been possible without mentorship from Manju and Dr. Koirala.”
Koirala’s lab group includes many undergraduate and graduate students who support and encourage each other. (Marlayna Demond ’11/UMBC)
A dataset unveiled today more than doubles the documented stream miles in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed, elevating the total from approximately 100,000 to over 200,000 miles. The Hyper-Resolution Hydrography Data used to generate the new stream maps stems from a collaboration between the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), the Environmental Protection Agency’s Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP), and the Chesapeake Conservancy (CC), including UMBC alumni at CBP and CC.
The project lays a robust foundation for sustainable management of one of North America’s most critical ecosystems, which spans six states and supports millions of residents and iconic wildlife, such as blue crabs and migrating shorebirds. The new, high-resolution dataset offers the clearest picture yet of how water moves through both pristine landscapes and altered terrain throughout the watershed.
The novel, AI-supported mapping method the research team used also dramatically reduces costs, time, and labor required for stream mapping, making it easy to update as additional data become available or apply in other watersheds to amplify its impact.
“The landscape is shaped by running water. Stream networks are the primary conduit between the watershed and the Bay, and now we can characterize that connection in ways that we’ve never been able to before,” says Matthew Baker, UMBC professor of geography and environmental systems, and a lead on the mapping project. In addition to locating streams and tracing their flow paths with a high degree of precision, the mapping process also allowed the team to report estimates of each channel’s width and depth along its entire length.
Matthew Baker led the generation of the new hydrography dataset. (Marlayna Demond ’11/UMBC)
A resource for restoration
“When you spend a lot of time looking at hillshade relief maps, you begin to recognize the extent of human manipulation of terrain and how dramatically we have shaped how water flows across the landscape,” Baker adds. The new data will allow individuals and organizations to improve efforts to mitigate any harms from human disruption.
Environmental groups and government agencies, including the CC and CBP, can use the data to prioritize restoration projects, like targeted streamside tree plantings that can mitigate excessive erosion—detected as unusually steep banks or deep channels relative to a stream’s width—and filter pollutants to improve water quality. Farmers and urban planners are likely to find it useful as well, to decrease the detrimental effects of agricultural runoff or wisely manage development to avoid flooding and minimize detrimental effects on wildlife habitat, for example.
“These maps represent over six years of hard work, and I can’t wait to see what people do with this highly anticipated dataset,” says David Saavedra ’14, environmental science. Saavedra’s role as a senior geospatial technical lead at the Chesapeake Conservancy had him intimately involved with the project from brainstorming to implementation.
The project has been personally rewarding for Saavedra, too. “To work alongside Dr. Matt Baker all these years has been a wonderful opportunity,” he says. “I continue to learn from him every day and am proud to consider him a colleague and mentor.”
These streams were all missed by the previous dataset, but the new method picked them up. (David Saavedra)
What to leave in, what to leave out?
This project is the first to harness high-resolution LiDAR data and artificial intelligence for large-scale, automated stream mapping. LiDAR, a laser-based system deployed via aircraft, captured elevation data with centimeter-level accuracy, generating a three-dimensional portrait of the terrain. AI algorithms, leveraging resources at UMBC’s High-Performance Computing Facility (HPCF), then processed the data, employing computer-vision techniques to identify channels.
David Saavedra played a key role in validating the new dataset at the Chesapeake Conservancy. (Courtesy of Saavedra)
The HPCF computers mapped the entire watershed in a mere two weeks—a feat that traditional methods might take years to accomplish. The results achieved 94 percent accuracy for streams represented in existing data, and between 67 and 82 percent accuracy for previously unmapped streams, as validated by Saavedra against two other datasets, aerial imagery and LiDAR-derived topographic maps.
“I led a painstaking process of manually evaluating over 7,000 stream reaches across the watershed to conduct a thorough accuracy assessment on this novel dataset,” Saavedra says. Now that the methodology has been demonstrated effective, that level of manual validation shouldn’t be necessary if the technique is applied elsewhere.
The algorithm needed some tweaks along the way, however. Initially, it included channel-shaped features that made less sense to include on a stream map, like detention ponds, green swales, gutters, and crop furrows. That necessitated modifications to the algorithm to remove those features.
“Part of the challenge in interpreting the terrain was to make distinctions between those features and more natural channels,” Baker says. “So in our model, we had to eliminate some features that were mapped initially. That was unexpected.”
Eye-opening opportunities
Labeeb Ahmed is excited about the research possibilities the new dataset presents. (Courtesy of Ahmed)
The resulting maps offer a tenfold boost in resolution, moving from a 1:24,000 map scale to a 1:2,400 map scale with each pixel representing one square meter. The new stream maps align with recently-developed land cover maps produced at the same resolution, which are being released at the same time.
“I think when people begin using our hyper-resolution hydrography in conjunction with the one-meter land use data, it will be eye-opening to see just how connected the landscape is to our waterways,” Saavedra says. “There are so many opportunities to improve our region’s water quality, many of which may not have been readily apparent with previous data.”
Labeeb Ahmed ’15, environmental science, has been involved in managing the data release through his role as a geographer in the Chesapeake Bay Program at the EPA.
“The lack of consistent high-resolution hydrography data has always been a challenge, as it is critical for numerous outcomes outlined in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement, such as mapping forest buffers, non-tidal wetlands, species habitats for brook trout and black duck, and defining stream health,” he says. “This data release will enable novel and interesting research and scientific inquiries. I’m excited to see how other researchers and stakeholders will use this data in their conservation and restoration efforts.”
The new stream maps (blue) not only show more streams than the old maps (red), but trace their paths in more detail. (Courtesy of Matthew Baker)
In the quantum kingdom, particles flirt with the impossible, defying the tidy laws of Newton’s world. Today’s booming quantum industry, built on understanding this realm, hums with the energy of vibrating atoms. UMBC alumni are riding the quantum wave as they harness the field’s mysteries to unlock a revolution too strange to imagine—and too big to ignore.
Cory Nunn, Ph.D. ’23, physics, conducted astronomy research as an undergraduate, studying enormous objects scattered across the galaxy. But in the end, he fell in love with the physics of a much tinier universe, where you can never quite be sure where the electrons are, and the simple act of observing a system can shift its properties.
That kingdom is quantum, a field that, as it matures, is likely to lead to a revolution in communications, cybersecurity, scientific observations, and more. In Maryland today, political and business leaders are committed to investing in these new technologies and building a hub for quantum research.
Quantum theory emerged in the early 20th century when scientists like Albert Einstein and Erwin Schrödinger cracked open a subatomic universe where particles could sometimes behave like waves—common knowledge today, but revolutionary at the time. Their research left Sir Isaac Newton’s straightforward rules behind, replacing them with probabilities and uncertainty.
Cory Nunn, Ph.D. ’23, adjusts an experimental setup at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). He says his advisor, Todd Pittman, prepared him well. “There’ a lot of ambition in Todd’s group; I feel like we were encouraged organically to push ourselves, because we were convinced what we were doing was really cool and worth exploring,” Nunn says. (Photo courtesy of NIST)
By the 1950s, what we would now call “quantum 1.0” hit its stride, turning theory into world-changing tech. Transistors—tiny devices found in everything from PCs to cars to smartphones—are the most ubiquitous example; they power all computer chips. Driven by what are called “quantum effects,” or the perks of quantum over classical systems, transistors shrunk room-sized computers into pocket calculators and sparked the digital age. Then came lasers, which used the quantum effects of excited atoms to beam data across continents, and atomic clocks, which keep time with extreme accuracy based on the vibrations of single atoms. These breakthroughs rewired society, powering the gadgets and networks of today.
Quantum research has come a long way since quantum 1.0, which lasted through the 1970s, says Tom Smith, Ph.D. ’21, physics. “Now we’re in quantum 2.0,” Smith says. “There’s another wave of interesting quantum effects that we can take advantage of, like quantum superposition,” when a particle can temporarily be in two states at the same time, until the particle’s state is measured. Huge improvements in laser technology and optical components have advanced the field and “opened the door for other quantum phenomena to be implemented experimentally. It’s been a gradual development—baby steps over the years,” Smith says.
While quantum 1.0 generated foundational technologies, quantum 2.0 is about harnessing quantum phenomena to build next-level systems. Multiple companies and researchers have made strides in building “qubits,” or “quantum bits,” that can be coaxed to exist long enough to perform useful computations. The first qubits only lasted a few microseconds, but today’s qubits can exist for milliseconds—1,000 times longer—making it possible to scale up quantum computers.
A key quantum effect called “entanglement” has also shifted from being a quirky laboratory phenomenon in quantum 1.0 to a workhorse in newer quantum systems. Researchers who showed that entanglement is real and exploitable received the 2022 Nobel Prize in physics. Their work paved the way for huge advances in quantum communication across long distances and quantum-based encryption methods.
“As our control of very small, isolated systems gets better and better over time, what we’re realizing is that there are new capabilities that come with working with single atom systems or single ions,” Nunn says. “And they have new properties—quantum properties—that let us leverage different kinds of processing power than what we had with classical computers.”
Today, Nunn is a postdoctoral fellow in the Quantum Optics Group within the Quantum Measurement Division at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). His research on quantum networking seeks to harness the power of quantum entanglement at a distance.
“It’s really hard to send these fragile quantum bits of information over a long link. So the solution most of us are pursuing is a quantum repeater, which is basically just a node in the middle that breaks up this longer link into two smaller links that are easier to manage,” Nunn says—or, if the link is long enough, many smaller links. He refers to one end of the link as “Alice” and the other as “Bob,” to talk about how information travels from point A to B.
“So that repeater in the middle is going to have to take a signal from Alice and a signal from Bob, and if they don’t meet at exactly the same time, so the repeater can perform an operation and link the two together, then one or both of the signals is going to have to be stored in a quantum memory.”
That “operation” at the node (which Nunn calls “Charlie”) entangles the photons coming from Alice and Bob, which Nunn says is the “most interesting weird property that quantum particles can have.” In entanglement, the signals become “inherently linked, so that these quantum systems are correlated in a way that’s just stronger than classical physics could explain.”
After the operation at Charlie, Nunn says, “Alice and Bob’s systems, which are at separate labs, that never directly interacted with each other, now share entanglement.”
Nunn’s team at NIST is working to develop a range of technologies to make this long-distance entanglement possible, including sources of entangled photons, quantum memories, and methods of stabilizing links. Nunn is focused on developing specialized sources of single photons that can send synchronized quantum signals across the network.
Quantum systems don’t have to use photons, but they are “the best carriers of quantum information,” according to Nunn. “They can travel at the speed of light, don’t have to be cooled to an extremely low temperature to work (like some other quantum systems), and they can make it out of your lab and travel over fiber, or from satellite to satellite through space and the atmosphere. So these are inherently mobile ‘flying qubits’ that can actually take quantum information and fly from one place to another.”
Tom Smith, left, and Binod Joshi, Ph.D. ’25, physics, at work in Yanhua Shih’s lab at UMBC. Photo by Melissa Penley Cormier, M.F.A. ’17.
In the current wave of quantum 2.0, new materials and fabrication techniques have enhanced researchers’ ability to produce tiny, precise quantum systems, opening the doors for creating quantum networks. Finally, software is starting to catch up to mathematical theories proposed decades ago—but there’s still much work to do.
Although fully capable quantum computers are still years away, researchers, businesses, and governments are already preparing for how they might disrupt current practices. For example, powerful new tools like Shor’s algorithm would leave most modern encryption methods vulnerable to attack. In addition to quantum measurement science, NIST is playing a leading role in standardizing new cryptography techniques, called post-quantum cryptography, that better prepare us for a world with advanced quantum computers.
Quantum 2.0 is about control—taking the weirdness of quantum mechanics and engineering it into tools that outperform classical limits. Unlike quantum 1.0, it’s less about discovering quantum rules and more about exploiting them for computing, secure communications, and ultra-precise sensing. The field is growing rapidly, and governments and tech giants alike are spending billions on developing the next big breakthroughs.
Smith, who is a physicist at the Naval Air Warfare Center, Aircraft Division (NAWCAD), believes quantum sensing is one of the most exciting areas in quantum. It refers to the use of quantum systems, such as atoms or photons, to measure physical parameters with unprecedented precision and sensitivity. While quantum computing deservedly gets a lot of airtime, “I believe quantum sensing is equally far along in its R&D but doesn’t get as much attention, because it’s not the darling of private industry currently,” Smith says.
For example, he says, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) is designed to detect gravitational waves, which Einstein’s general theory of relativity predicts. The LIGO team updated the observatory’s systems to take advantage of quantum effects, specifically squeezed light. Squeezed light helps make the timing or detection rate of photons more predictable, like steadying the flow of raindrops into a cup to produce consistent readings from measurement to measurement, Smith says. After LIGO made the switch, it started detecting a lot more gravitational waves.
Other companies have built quantum sensors that detect exceedingly minute shifts in gravity or magnetic fields, which can be used for anything from detecting underground tunnels to measuring brain activity to improving GPS systems. These advances come from better control of quantum states and miniaturization, which has moved tech from lab benches to the field.
“At the Navy, we’re going to keep an eye on, and in some cases have a hand in, making improvements to various types of sensing. We’re getting to the point now that maybe we can actually make a product out of this and utilize it in the field,” Smith says.
While systems like LIGO are already active, there are only a few instances of the technology around the world. For a technology to truly be “in the field” from Smith’s perspective, it must be produced at scale and put to work on, for example, a large number of aircraft carriers or military planes.
“I would like to think that certain quantum sensors could be used in the field within the next decade,” Smith says.
Nunn was a junior at the University of Delaware when LIGO upgraded. During his astronomy research, he attended conferences for quantum optics, because the first quantum optics experiments were designed to observe starlight. “All the signals that LIGO uses rely on the same type of physics that I’m studying now,” he says.
Today at NIST, his work builds directly on his Ph.D. research with Todd Pittman, Ph.D. ’96, professor of physics and director of UMBC’s Quantum Science Institute. “There was a lot going on in Todd’s lab that I was able to directly transfer to my research at NIST,” Nunn says. “Now I am directly applying the same skills, the same systems, that I was used to working with as a member of the quantum information group at UMBC.”
Some of Nunn’s current quantum networking projects involve work with the Washington Metropolitan Quantum Network, or DC-QNet. Quantum networking involves connecting quantum devices to increase their capabilities, just as classical devices are connected today to create systems like the world wide web. The DC-QNet “is a bonafide networking application,” that relies on the research he did with Pittman, Nunn says.
The DC-QNet links four federal agencies plus the University of Maryland via fiber optic cables that travel belowground and high in the air.
“As a photon travels along the link, it might get lost along the way, because it’s just one itty bitty photon against the whole world, traveling across kilometers of fiber,” Nunn says. The fiber “is basically a kilometer of glass that it has to see through.”
Today, researchers are still investigating what’s possible and building prototype quantum networks. Once full-fledged quantum computers exist, we’ll connect them and enhance their capabilities with networking, Nunn explains. Eventually, he hopes, “we’ll have the next, futuristic, Star-Trek-level internet that relies on quantum physics.”
One big goal of quantum 2.0 is to minimize the amount of light required to send a usable signal—even down to single photons, Smith says. In the context of quantum communication, “You send this train of individual photons with independent polarizations, and if you can control those polarizations—the direction the lightwaves are vibrating—you can transmit information that way,” he explains.
Both Nunn and Smith emphasized that information sent via quantum versus classical communication signals is more secure. When information travels via a classical laser pulse from Alice to Bob, an eavesdropper, typically referred to as Eve, could take away or analyze some of the light, and the recipient would still receive a pulse, not realizing their signal had been tapped.
“But at the single photon level, if an eavesdropper takes away one photon, or even obtains information about the photon, the intended receiver registers an error, so it’s easier to detect eavesdroppers,” Smith explains. That’s a huge advantage for sending confidential information—whether it’s an everyday banking transaction or a matter of global diplomacy.
Today, Smith still does work in the lab at the NAWCAD, but spends much of his time keeping tabs on what’s happening in quantum technology across academia, industry, and government, so he can recommend research NAWCAD ought to support elsewhere or pursue in-house.
“We have a lot of support right now from our chain of command to do the research that we think is best, that we think will be the most impactful, which is always a great place to be in, to have that type of freedom,” Smith says.
Smith has also continued to collaborate with his Ph.D. advisor, UMBC physics professor Yanhua Shih. Shih is a first-generation quantum optics researcher, having done pioneering work in interferometry, one of the technologies LIGO relies on. His current work on quantum sensing is complementary to active NAWCAD research.
“By collaborating directly with academia, it feels like we’re having a bit more of an impact,” Smith says. In fact, the UMBC physics department partnered with NAWCAD through a program that supports NAWCAD staff to complete their doctoral degrees. A new Ph.D. candidate is joining UMBC through the program in fall 2025.
Nunn, too, is thriving. He loves what he does at NIST and would like to stay on after his fellowship concludes.
“There’s just a lot of good research that goes on at NIST, and the people I’m working with are amazing sources of information. I’ve grown a lot as a postdoc here,” Nunn says. “It’s really inspiring to work with hard-working and clever people on new solutions for quantum networking.”
Pittman isn’t surprised by Nunn’s success.
“Cory had a knack for experimental work and really took advantage of every opportunity to become a top-notch independent researcher at UMBC,” Pittman says. “By the end of his time in my lab, working with Cory was more like collaborating with a senior colleague than mentoring a student. In his final year, our one-on-one meetings usually started with me asking, ‘OK, Cory—what are you going to teach me today?’”
“Todd was supportive and eager to give guidance early on, and then also eager to step back when he felt I was able to tackle a problem on my own,” Nunn says. “Getting to a point where he could tell me, ‘Oh, I’m learning something from you,’ was really encouraging, and the fact that he was so open to that really helped me to grow.”
Smith connected with Shih via a research rotation, and “it was a perfect match,” he says. “I learned a lot from him, but he was also hands-off in a way that allowed me to learn on my own.”
All new graduate students in the UMBC physics department share office space, an arrangement that Nunn and Smith praised for the way it organically built community among the students.
“We had a great camaraderie. That was a key aspect that allowed me to achieve as much as I did in grad school,” Smith says. But at bedrock, the thing that excites them both is the science itself and the autonomy to pursue it.
Nunn has always been intrigued by questions like, “How does light really work?”—even discussing them at high school sleepovers. It wasn’t until he arrived at UMBC that he learned that “this is an active field of research, where we’re trying to understand what quantum mechanics tells us about the way nature really works.”
Part of the excitement, he says about working in Pittman’s lab, was research into quantum memories and quantum sources that have exciting, real-world applications. “But at the core, our excitement is really investigating the way the world works on different scales that we’re not used to thinking about in our day-to-day life.”
And even as Nunn learns more and more, the mysteries of how the quantum scale operates feel limitless. He takes the attitude of a true scientist, recognizing that while “I understand more, I also understand that there’s more than ever that I don’t understand.”
The original “UMBC” ghost image from 1995 is taped inside Pittman’s journal from the time. Photo courtesy of Pittman.
In 1995, a UMBC research team led by Yanhua Shih, professor of physics, pioneered a quantum technology called “ghost imaging,” which leverages quantum entanglement to reconstruct an image of an object without actually shining any light on it. The 30th anniversary of this quantum feat was marked in a Nature Communications Physics article this spring. The UMBC team originally demonstrated the technology by rendering the letters “UMBC” in a first-of-its-kind experiment. Since then, ghost imaging has enabled revolutionary applications in secure communication, medical imaging, and remote sensing.
Todd Pittman recalls the excitement of the original breakthrough, telling Nature: “Seeing the ‘UMBC’ image emerge from the data for the first time was super exciting and very rewarding; I remember it like it was yesterday!”
Thirty years ago, UMBC was already making a name for itself in the quantum research space, including early work by Shih. His experiments showed that photons can instantly affect each other regardless of distance, laying the groundwork for the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics, awarded for proving quantum entanglement. That research and other early advances like ghost imaging have led to more recent contributions in quantum optics, computing, and thermodynamics that are shaping the quantum research landscape.
By now, Shih has trained a second, and now a third, generation of quantum researchers, including people like Pittman, Cory Nunn, and Tom Smith, who will lead UMBC quantum research into its next era.
