UMBC held its 17th annual undergraduate research symposium on October 25. This event was open to students from outside UMBC, with participants coming from Maryland universities and colleges, as well as participants coming from as far away as Massachusetts and Alabama. The conference was by all accounts a tremendous success with 500 participants from 16 states.
Penny Rheingans, a professor in computer science and electrical engineering, talks with the BBC about the benefit that some tech companies are now offering women — paying for female employees to freeze eggs. Rheingans tell the BBC, “my initial reaction is negative.” She says that the companies are suggesting that, “their culture and work expectations might be incompatible with raising a family.” Furthermore, she says, “they’re saying to women that they should wait to have those babies until the company is done with their technically productive years.” Listen to the complete interview
In the Chesapeake Bay Quarterly, published by the Maryland Sea Grant program a recent article discusses seal level rise due to the melting of ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica. Antarctica is, in many ways, the king of the cryosphere. Greenland is melting at a faster rate, but the southern continent holds a lot more ice, says Christopher Shuman, a geoscientist at the Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology, a collaboration between the University of Maryland Baltimore County and the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. In total, there’s enough ice on Antarctica to raise the world’s oceans by more than… Continue Reading From Antarctica to the Chesapeake
A new study from the Sage Policy Group reveals that the bwtech@UMBC research park has grown at a remarkable pace. The park contributes nearly 2,500 jobs to Baltimore County today, an increase of 41 percent since last measured in 2006. Continue Reading Economic Engine: bwtech@UMBC boosts state and local economies through jobs, revenue and vision
Colleges and universities are increasingly searching for better, more cost effective ways to manage large amounts of data. Jack Suess, Chief Information Officer, spoke to EvoLLLution about UMBC’s experiences in becoming a more data-driven campus and shared tips on how to encourage institution-wide improvements. Suess emphasized that becoming a data-driven university requires changing the institution’s culture, calling on IT leaders to highlight how data can support institutional goals. “Whether that’s in building faculty research, in student success, in rethinking teaching and learning through learning analytics, data is going to be essential if you’re going to do things differently,” he said.… Continue Reading Jack Suess, CIO, Discusses Data Management and Efficiency in EvoLLLution
The award from the NASA Administrator Charles F. Bolden, was presented to our team Larrabee Strow, Scott Hannon, Sergio De-Souza Machado, Howard Motteler, and Breno Imbiriba at the AIRS Science Team Meeting last week in Greenbelt, MD. Read more about the award.
A recent editorial in The New York Times examined the lack of diversity at technology companies in Silicon Valley. Technology giants, such as Google, Facebook and Apple, have admitted to having low numbers of women and minority employees and are now working to improve diversity in the workplace. The editorial suggests that one way to address the problem is to recruit employees from universities that focus on helping women and minorities graduate with degrees in technical fields. President Hrabowski discussed how UMBC helps underrepresented groups excel in science and engineering. “[UMBC] produces many women and minority graduates in science and… Continue Reading New York Times Suggests Silicon Valley Recruit Tech Talent From Universities Like UMBC
Brian Frey, UMBC Ph.D. student in information systems, has been collaborating for the past several years with colleagues at Georgia Tech University on a very simple concept: How can one infuse braille communication with the iPhone? Over these past few years the team has been refining their Braille Touch App in support of that concept. Their efforts were validated with the recent release of the Apple’s new mobile operating system, iOS8. Of the millions of apps that Apple has approved for release in the App Store since the release of the first generation iPhone, only a select few have been… Continue Reading Information Systems Ph.D. Student is Co-Developer of an iPhone App in iOS8 Package
For three days beginning September 6 the White House Educational Game Jam invited a select set of professional game developers and academics to create innovative educational game prototypes over single weekend, with the resulting games presented at the White House Executive Office Building. There were 23 teams and about 100 participants. The team sizes ranged from 1 to 9, with most around 4-5. It was a mix of major companies and schools. Examples of large companies were: Ubisoft, Sony and Rovio. Small companies were: BrainPop, GlassLab and RocketMind. Academic teams included the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Carnegie Melon University, American University, University… Continue Reading UMBC Team Participates in White House Game Jam
In a recent story the Washington Post wrote about what animals, specifically octopus, cuttlefish, and squid otherwise known as cephalopods can teach us about camouflage. The ability of humans to camouflage themselves is very important in military applications. UMBC biology professor, Tom Cronin, is quoted as saying: Military applications will come first, predicts Thomas Cronin, a biologist at the University of Maryland Baltimore County who is part of the research community with octopus-to-gadget ambitions. “When a machine or person moves to a different environment or background, these camouflage systems could automatically reduce the level of detectability to any imaging system,”… Continue Reading Tom Cronin, Biology, Washington Post on Camouflage
“What is UMBC’s special sauce?” That’s what Susan Singer, director of the National Science Foundation’s Division of Undergraduate Education, pondered aloud when she took the stage on September 16, 2014, at an education workshop co-hosted by the White House and UMBC. How has UMBC so successfully supported students from all backgrounds, while many other universities struggle with lagging retention rates and achievement gaps, particularly in the sciences, technology, engineering and math (STEM)? Later that morning, Dean Bill LaCourse revealed the UMBC recipe. We’ve succeeded, he shared, through a commitment to inclusion, community of support, stable leadership, recognition of the diverse… Continue Reading UMBC hosts White House College Opportunity Initiative workshop to improve STEM education nationwide
Renetta Tull, Associate Vice Provost of Graduate Student Development and Postdoctoral Affairs, is seeking equity in STEM for all. Tull was recently the lead author on an article for peerReview titled, “The Jessica Effect: Valuing Cultural and Familial Connections to Broaden Success in Academe.” The article begins: Jessica Soto-Pérez, daughter of Antonio Israel Soto and Luz N. Pérez, received her undergraduate degree from the University of Puerto Rico Mayaguez. She was a promising chemical engineering graduate student at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) and peer mentor for its National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded Alliance for Graduate Education and the… Continue Reading Renetta Tull: Equity in STEM
