Over the weekend of April 6-7, the UMBC student chapter of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) will host the 2024 Mid-Atlantic Regional Conference on campus. Continue Reading Hundreds of East Coast chemical engineering students to gather at UMBC for regional conference
“ICARE is a unique training model in which master’s students in the environmental sciences and engineering are co-mentored by UMBC faculty mentors, professional scientists or engineers, and community leaders,” shares Tamra Mendelson. Continue Reading ‘Your work is so important,’ White House environmental justice leader tells UMBC ICARE trainees
The positive environmental and health impacts of work led by Upal Ghosh, professor of chemical, biochemical, and environmental engineering at UMBC, was recently highlighted by the National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS). The agency showcased a low-cost technology that Ghosh and his colleagues developed to clean waterways contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), a group of likely carcinogenic chemicals that were used in insulation, coolants, and electrical equipment for decades before being banned in the U.S. in 1979. The chemicals are stable and persist in the environment, often accumulating in fish that live in contaminated waterways and posing a risk… Continue Reading National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences highlight Professor Upal Ghosh’s work cleaning contaminated waterways
Starting this May, a series of wildfires in Eastern Canada sent enormous smoke clouds wafting into the U.S., triggering air quality warnings in cities from the Midwest to the Northeast. As a resident of the Baltimore area—which was blanketed with particularly bad smoke in both early and late June—UMBC Professor Chris Hennigan looked at the haze with dismay. But as an environmental engineer who studies air pollution, he had an additional thought: “We were looking at the air quality forecasts, and we thought ‘We have to gather data,’” he says. Continue Reading As summer wildfire smoke choked Baltimore, UMBC air pollution researchers leapt into action
The UMBC NSBE team defeated Carnegie Mellon University and North Carolina State University to win the Tech Bowl competition, a Jeopardy-style game that tests teams’ knowledge of fundamental engineering principles. UMBC also claimed first through third place in the research poster presentation contest, which involved a 10-minute technical research talk followed by questions from the judges and audience. “We are so proud of the UMBC NSBE Chapter,” Keith Harmon shares. “They do tremendous work supporting UMBC STEM majors and offering service impacting youth in the Baltimore-Washington corridor.” Continue Reading UMBC chapter of National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) shines at regional conference
Mentorship guides the growth of students studying fungi in UMBC professor Mark Marten’s lab. Continue Reading Students discover the beauty of mold and mentorship in Mark Marten’s UMBC lab
In spring 2022, UMBC softball swept all three tournament games to win their third America East championship. The Retrievers held their opponents scoreless, becoming the first team in conference history to achieve this milestone. And no one cheered louder for their success than Jamie Gurganus, faculty in engineering and computing education and mechanical engineering. Decked out in softball gear (and now with a championship ring necklace gifted from the team engraved with “Prof. G”), Gurganus ’04, M.S. ’11, Ph.D. ’20, mechanical engineering, ended her inaugural semester as honorary faculty coach to the record-breaking team on a high note. (UMBC Softball… Continue Reading Faculty Unleash Their Inner Coach
The AI apocalypse is coming. Or it isn’t. Depending on what you read, you might get confused. One thing is certain: Humans are fired up about smart machines. Much of the attention has focused on ChatGPT, an “artificial intelligence language model designed to generate human-like responses to natural language prompts” (in its own words). ChatGPT gets coy if you ask whether its existence should be cause for human concern. “It’s important to recognize that I am a tool and not inherently good or bad. It’s how people choose to use me that can have positive or negative consequences,” it says. … Continue Reading Building AI We Can Trust
Tyler Josephson’s lab sits off a main corridor in the department of chemical, biochemical and environmental engineering at UMBC. Open the door, though, and you’ll see nary a beaker, chemical closet, or lab coat. Inside, a few computers sit on tables. You might see equations scrawled on the white board or a few students poring over lines of code. Using this modest setup, Josephson has launched an ambitious project to equip computers to make scientific discoveries—starting in the realm of chemistry. This March he won a prestigious NSF CAREER award to advance the project. Continue Reading Creating “AI Scientists”: Tyler Josephson advances a new field of research through $650,000 NSF CAREER award
Max Bobbin may still be an undergraduate, but he’s already made significant research contributions to Tyler Josephson’s chemical engineering team. He believes his additional philosophy major supported his engineering work in important ways. Continue Reading Applying philosophy to excel in chemical engineering
Christopher Slaughter ’23, M31 computer engineering, has won a Gates Cambridge Scholarship to pursue graduate work at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom next fall. “He exemplifies UMBC’s values and the Gates Cambridge vision of preparing leaders who demonstrate not only academic excellence, but also a deep commitment to improving the lives of others,” says UMBC President Valerie Sheares Ashby. Continue Reading UMBC’s Christopher Slaughter, engineering student with health equity focus, wins prestigious Gates Cambridge Scholarship
More than 40 active UMBC researchers are listed among the top 2% of the world’s most-cited scientists and engineers in an analysis recently published by Elsevier. “This analysis shows that our researchers are truly impacting the scientific community in a significant way,” says Karl V. Steiner, vice president for research and creative achievement. Continue Reading UMBC researchers listed among the world’s top 2% of most-cited scientists and engineers
