Discovery

Seeing Without Eyes – The Unexpected World of Nonvisual Photoreception

/ 6 minutes of reading

Thomas Cronin, University of Maryland, Baltimore County We humans are uncommonly visual creatures. And those of us endowed with normal sight are used to thinking of our eyes as vital to how we experience the world. Vision is an advanced form of photoreception – that is, light sensing. But we also experience other more rudimentary forms of photoreception in our daily lives. We all know, for instance, the delight of perceiving the warm sun on our skin, in this case using heat as a substitute for light. No eyes or even special photoreceptor cells are necessary. But scientists have discovered… Continue Reading Seeing Without Eyes – The Unexpected World of Nonvisual Photoreception

Discovery – Spring 2017

/ 7 minutes of reading

Runaway Black Hole A team of researchers including UMBC’s Eileen Meyer and Markos Georganopoulos have found strong evidence of a striking astrophysical phenomenon: a supermassive black hole traveling away from the center of its galaxy at an incredibly rapid pace. A scenario like this has been predicted for some time. “The theory is great, but we’ve got to have some observations to see if our simulations are correct,” says Meyer, assistant professor of physics. Those observations are now in hand, with copious lines of evidence all supporting the team’s explanation. “There have been previous cases of systems like this,” says… Continue Reading Discovery – Spring 2017

Video: A Trip to Baltimore’s Oldest Markets

/ 1 minute of reading

Want to learn more about how Kate Drabinski’s summer course is exploring food justice in Baltimore? UMBC Magazine’s Jenny O’Grady tagged along for a recent walking tour, exploring local historic food markets and a community garden. Learn more about UMBC’s Summer Session here.

Staking our Claim

/ 11 minutes of reading

UMBC Researchers Explore the New Great Frontier – The Brain By Megan Hanks Illustrations by David Plunkert In the early 1960s, the prospect of being the first nation to plant a flag on the moon stoked America’s collective imagination, leading to a national commitment from scientists, engineers, and researchers – along with their funders – to explore and understand outer space. In similar fashion, researchers today are scrambling to explore a frontier that’s just as vast, though considerably closer to Earth – the human brain. “In some ways, what we have right now is an inner space challenge,” explains Karl… Continue Reading Staking our Claim

Wilderness Warriors

/ 3 minutes of reading

You’re hiking in the woods. A branch snaps…and suddenly you’re on the ground, immobilized by pain. As the sun begins to set, you wonder what you’ll do next, and who might come to your rescue… Wilderness Warriors It takes intense training to rescue and provide excellent medical care to patients under normal, predictable circumstances. To do the same thing in untamed wilderness? Well, that takes an extra layer of grit. That’s why each spring for the last 33 years, UMBC’s Emergency Health Services (EHS) program has sent a group of hardy students deep into the forest to learn the finer… Continue Reading Wilderness Warriors

Practicing What They Preach

/ 2 minutes of reading

Students come to UMBC’s Emergency Health Services program for many reasons. Some already work as EMTs or as physicians, while others hope to get into health policy or disaster relief. What brings them together, says program chair and professor J. Lee Jenkins ’97, biological sciences and EHS, M.S. ’99, EHS, is a shared desire to help people in need. “The students here are very altruistic, and they are the classic ‘Wanna change the world, wanna make it a better place,’ people with big ideas,” she said. “Being able to help people immediately and make a difference at a very stressful… Continue Reading Practicing What They Preach

Visual Arts Golden Ball

/ 1 minute of reading

Creative costumes were all the rage at the Golden Ball hosted by the Visual Arts program and its alumni on October 15, 2016.

Discovery – Summer 2016

/ 5 minutes of reading

Magic Beans Like many students before him who have studied in the Albin O. Kuhn Library, Joseph Hyman ‘11, mechanical engineering, found himself craving a fresh, hot cup of coffee to help the pages fly by. Hyman pondered how to satisfy that immediate need for caffeine: Wouldn’t it be great if a travel mug could brew its own coffee? So he set out on a search for this mug of his dreams. When he discovered that that no one was manufacturing that mug of his dreams, he decided to create it himself – along with a talented team of UMBC engineering students… Continue Reading Discovery – Summer 2016

Bright Futures

/ 11 minutes of reading

UMBC’s growing reputation as a hub for research with powerful impact isn’t founded on the achievements of renowned scholars who have created laboratories or explored the limits of the arts, humanities and social sciences at the university alone. It is also built on a growing number of impressive younger scholars who have found a home for their work at UMBC. The pedigree of the scholars who will propel research and teaching at the university in its next 50 years can be measured in part by the number of early career teaching and research awards these up-and-coming faculty members have received.… Continue Reading Bright Futures

Music To Market

/ 7 minutes of reading

UMBC professors are navigating the startup economy – and finding harmony between research and commerce. By Elizabeth Heubeck ’91 UMBC professor of music Linda Dusman found herself sitting next to UMBC President Freeman A. Hrabowski, III at a UMBC Orchestra concert in 2010. Between movements, she whispered snippets of background information about the music to one of the orchestra’s biggest fans. Because Dusman is a musical composer with a deeply ingrained respect for the traditions of classical concerts, the experience provided a rare “aha” moment. What if there was a way to convey real-time information about the music and its… Continue Reading Music To Market

Making Medicine Mobile

/ 10 minutes of reading

UMBC researcher Govind Rao wants to bring the bounty of the information age to a drugstore near you. By Joab Jackson ’90 “You’re watching history being made.” I am in the basement of UMBC’s Center for Advanced Sensor Technology (CAST), speaking with its director, Govind Rao. The “history” that Rao speaks of is a large metallic suitcase, filled with snaking tubes and strange components, being attended to by a swarm of graduate students. The suitcase is an early prototype of a device that might, one day, be able to produce many medicines the world needs. What’s happening in this basement… Continue Reading Making Medicine Mobile

Discovery – Winter 2016

/ 10 minutes of reading

Safety First It happened at Target. It happened at JPMorgan Chase. It happened at the federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Hackers have relentlessly pilfered millions of social security numbers, financial records, and fingerprints, opening an abyss of anxiety about the future of privacy in a digital age. For Richard Forno, the director of UMBC’s graduate program in cybersecurity, each new computer breach is a testament to human folly. “The OMB hack hit close to home,” he says. “My information was there. My fingerprints were there.” Before arriving at UMBC in 2010, Forno worked for nearly two decades as… Continue Reading Discovery – Winter 2016

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