Science & Tech

Robert Wardlow, a senior majoring in biochemistry and molecular biology, has received a Gilliam Fellowship from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). The goal of the Gilliam program, according to HHMI, is to increase the diversity of college and university faculty by supporting the scientists of tomorrow. Students receive $46,500 per year towards Ph.D. study for up to five years at the graduate school of their choice. While at UMBC Wardlow worked in the lab of Terry Rogers at the University of Maryland Medical School. His research focused on heart cells and a type of stem cell called a mesenchymal… Continue Reading UMBC Student Receives Howard Hughes Medical Institute Gilliam Fellowship

Today the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) announced that UMBC is one of 21 graduate schools selected to participate in a study to examine completion and attrition among underrepresented minorities in STEM doctoral programs. The project, is funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF.) and will compare data across a diverse set of institutions, including some that have been funded by NSF’s Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP) program. The purpose of this research is to better understand the factors that promote successful completion and the policies and practices that hold promise for increasing completion… Continue Reading UMBC Selected to Participate in Study on Underrepresented Minorities in STEM Doctoral Programs

UMBC earned an Honorable Mention on the Princeton Review’s list, “Top Undergraduate Schools to Study Video Game Design for 2012.” The list salutes 32 undergraduate schools and 18 graduate schools for their outstanding game design education programs. The Princeton Review chose the schools based on a survey it conducted in 2011-12 academic year of administrators at 150 institutions offering video game design coursework and/or degrees in the United States and Canada. The survey which included more than 50 questions, covered a wide range of topics from academics, curriculum, and faculty credentials to graduates’ employment and career achievements. School selections were… Continue Reading UMBC One of Top Undergraduate Schools for Video Game Design

In August 2011, hundreds of Environment Canada scientists and staff working on environmental monitoring received notice their positions were targeted for elimination. Ray Hoff, Professor of Physics, at UMBC and his colleagues published a commentary this week in the American Geophysical Union’s publication Eos criticizing Environment Canada’s cuts, the first such criticism from U.S. scientists. Hoff and his colleagues say that research conducted by scientists in Canada has been instrumental in the success of international agreements such as the Montreal Protocol, international legislation that has successfully reduced atmospheric levels of ozone depleting substances. Other international agreements that may be endangered… Continue Reading U.S. Scientists Say Environment Canada’s Cuts Threaten the Future of Science and International Agreements

Is there water on Vespa? Timothy Stubbs and his colleague, Yongli Wang think so.  In a NASA special Web feature Stubbs talks about their findings. “”Near the north and south poles, the conditions appear to be favorable for water ice to exist beneath the surface,” says Timothy Stubbs of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Stubbs and Yongli Wang of the Goddard Planetary Heliophysics Institute at the University of Maryland published the models in the January 2012 issue of the journal Icarus. The models are based on information from telescopes including… Continue Reading Giant Asteroid Vespa as Cold as Ice

All is not lost, at least when it comes to plant species richness, the number of different plants, in an ecosystem.  Erle Ellis and his colleagues suggest in their recent paper, All is Not Loss: Plant Biodiversity in the Anthropocene, published in PLoSone, that rather than human interventions decreasing species richness they’ve increased it. “The evidence is quite strong,” says Ellis, “that we are increasing plant species richness overall in most regional landscapes.” Ellis says increased species richness is due largely to human-facilitated introduction of exotic species. But what does that mean for biodiversity?  Ellis says that, “if you want… Continue Reading Paradise is Not Lost, It’s Just Different

Saturday, October 22, over 350 students, faculty members, and guests gathered at UMBC for the 14th Annual Undergraduate Research Symposium in the Chemical and Biological Sciences. Fourteen UMBC students took home awards — five in biochemistry and molecular biology and nine in the biological sciences. The symposium included more than 200 posters. Forty-five faculty and graduate student volunteers selected 70 posters as first or second place winners in 37 categories. The winning students were presented with framed certificates and will receive gift cards to an online bookstore. The daylong event has become a major annual symposium on the East Coast… Continue Reading UMBC Students’ Research Makes the Grade