UMBC physicists Eileen Meyer and Adi Foord are on the leadership team for AXIS, a proposed x-ray satellite with the potential to revolutionize our understanding of the universe’s ancient past. Continue Reading Advanced X-ray Imaging Satellite science team hits major milestone
UMBC is continuing its commitment to diversifying Maryland’s biomedical and life sciences ecosystem through its latest collaborative effort with the University of Maryland, Baltimore to develop a new life sciences accelerator program focused on faculty development and research commercialization efforts. Continue Reading UMBC, UMB receive $4 million NIH REACH grant to create new biomedical and life sciences accelerator program
More than 110 attendees met for the second annual Sustainable Aquaculture Systems Supporting Atlantic Salmon conference in October. The conference gave stakeholders the opportunity to share progress and address remaining challenges to move the aquaculture industry forward. USM Chancellor Jay Perman said the project is “poised to change the face of food scarcity and food production the world over.” Continue Reading UMBC-led aquaculture conference brings together academics, business and government leaders, educators to move the industry forward
The shower was full of mantis shrimp. Bubblers burbled and the cranky crustaceans skulked in their tanks, looking for things to punch with their famously fast strikes. Complicated electronics for measuring brain activity stood sentinel beside the bed in the next room. And out on the balcony, Kathryn Feller, Ph.D. ’14, biological sciences, was wearing a respirator and gloves, working with nasty chemicals. In other words, it was another day of fieldwork as a behavioral neuroscientist—a career Feller has embraced after a journey of self-exploration that took her to surgical operating theaters, drama summer camps, and a range of research… Continue Reading Living in vivid color—Kate Feller, Ph.D., is pushing boundaries in biology research and teaching
Adi Foord explains how wormholes, relativity, telescopes, and more play into the potential for time travel in this Curious Kids piece. Continue Reading Is time travel even possible? An astrophysicist explains the science behind the science fiction
Before you let your imagination run wild, we’re going to go ahead and temper whatever expectations you may have upon hearing the phrase “biology band.” Nobody is banging on a centrifuge in lieu of drums. Test tubes aren’t lined up as a makeshift xylophone. The final rock flourish is not a shattering of beakers. In fact, when the band members of Fever Dream get together, they leave biology in the lab and concentrate on what matters—the music. “We are incredibly lucky to be able to do important research on the topics that we are interested in while at the same… Continue Reading Biology department members create an experiment of note—a band called Fever Dream
Spiders, robots, climate change, Vaudevillian history, and more—this year’s GRIT-X event had something for inquiring minds of all kinds, with explorations into elements of the past, our collective present, and possibilities for the future. Continue Reading GRIT-X 2023 explores wide range of UMBC’s research and creative achievement around campus and beyond
Meet Aysia Miller, a senior on the America East championship women’s volleyball team at UMBC. Originally from Mililani, Hawaii, Aysia is majoring in biology and minoring in bioinformatics. As a student-athlete and scholarship recipient, Aysia says she’s found a community at UMBC that lets her dive deep into the STEM fields that interest her while supporting her on and off the volleyball court. Q: What’s the one thing you’d want someone who hasn’t joined the UMBC community to know about the support you find here? A: UMBC has people that can fit you perfectly. There will always be someone that… Continue Reading Meet a Retriever—Aysia Miller ’24, volleyball player and biology major
Ivan Erill and colleagues discovered a new kind of relationship between viruses, where a satellite virus that needs its “helper” virus to replicate attaches to the helper’s neck to make sure they enter the host cell at the same time. Continue Reading Vampire viruses prey on other viruses to replicate themselves − and may hold the key to new antiviral therapies
On the stage of the 35th annual Alumni Awards, awardees and their nominators repeated a shared theme: the freedom and flexibility to grow at UMBC—not alone—but in community. Presented by the Alumni Association Board of Directors, the event recognizes inspiring alumni in a range of fields, as well as a rising star and an outstanding faculty and staff member. Rehana Shafi, recipient of the inaugural staff award, emphasized that she was only able to do so much “with so many.” Shafi, director emerita of the Sherman Teacher Scholars Program, said: “This work, this way, isn’t an individual endeavor….Impact happens inside… Continue Reading Alumni Awards 2023—Making impact through relationships
Pairs of viruses where one needs the other to reproduce are well documented, but no one has ever see one virus directly attached to another. “I can’t believe this,” Tagide deCarvalho remembers thinking when she first saw it under the microscope. The work opens up the possibility of finding more examples of this kind of interaction. Continue Reading UMBC team makes first-ever observation of a virus attaching to another virus
A new study finds that species from amoebas to humans demonstrate similar patterns of movement. These results have implications for robotics development, because robots must be programmed to make the same kinds of decisions animals do to move safely and efficiently through unpredictable environments. Continue Reading UMBC mathematician Kathleen Hoffman contributes to research on animal decision-making, with robotics applications
