Ellie Bare has proven to be an adept field researcher as well as excellent in the laboratory. Her three research trips to Puerto Rico and development of new molecular analysis protocols in the lab contributed significantly to Kevin Omland’s research group. Continue Reading Research excellence, from a tropical field site to the lab
Zinedine Partipilo Cornielles fled Venezuela at age 16 with his family to seek asylum in the U.S., an experience that has fueled his passion for public service, from his research to his Mock Trial experience, to his work with communities. Continue Reading Mock Trial champ pursuing economics for public good
In recent years, large, intense wildfires, known as megafires, have increasingly caused severe damage to forests, homes, and crops. In addition to megafires fatally impacting humans and wildlife alike, they may also be impacting climate change. New research led by UMBC’s Stephen Guimond provides insight into how the large smoke plumes produced by megafires can be more accurately modeled and characterized to improve our understanding of how they might impact the earth. Continue Reading New UMBC/Los Alamos research on megafire smoke plumes clarifies what they contain, how they move, and their potential impacts
In 2020, Renata Taylor-Smith ‘24, theatre, eagerly prepared for her first trip to Munich, Germany to study theatrical lighting design, but a week before she was meant to fly to Germany, her trip was canceled due to COVID-19. She learned that the show she was working on would be postponed indefinitely. Discover how she pivoted to have a valuable research experience, recently shared at UMBC’s annual Undergraduate Research and Creative Achievement Day (URCAD 23023), where hundreds of students presented their work. Continue Reading Lighting design to flu treatment: UMBC students share research and creative work at URCAD 2023
Both recipients have the potential to make a major impact in their fields and in people’s lives through their research. “We are delighted that UMBC has continued its impressive string of Goldwater awards for this year,” says April Householder “This indicates just how strong STEM education at UMBC is—indeed, it’s among the best in the country.” Continue Reading UMBC’s Arjun Kanjarpane and Anya Viswanathan receive prestigious Goldwater Scholarships
In the 1960s, a common routine for elementary school students was to practice hiding under their desks in case of a nuclear blast. Following the Bay of Pigs standoff in 1961, international tensions remained high as the United States and the Soviet Union continued advancing their nuclear weapons. But global armament was only a minor inconvenience to Stanley Czajkowski in those days. As a third grader in Miss Hamill’s class, he was busy falling in love with the riddle of math. Unbeknownst to this future Retriever was how he would eventually use those foundational mathematical skills to develop algorithms designed to… Continue Reading The math (and the man) behind our national security
Why do we have belly buttons? Do our pets have them, too? And does anything collect inside them besides lint? Sarah Leupen answers all your questions about the strange and storied belly button. Continue Reading Innies, outies and omphalophobia: 7 navel-gazing questions about belly buttons answered
Manil Suri believes that the troubled relationship many Americans have with math is ultimately related to the general invisibility of mathematics in popular culture, and has a few ideas for helping to fix that through improving math awareness. Continue Reading Declines in math readiness underscore the urgency of math awareness
A new computational method developed by Ivan Erill and colleagues is simple, fast, and effective at detecting the spread and source of antibiotic resistance genes. “It’s great for studies trying to find insight into what’s happening in bacterial genomes,” Erill says. Continue Reading UMBC’s Ivan Erill demonstrates fast, low-cost method to monitor spread of antibiotic resistance over time
Diseases such as polio, the common cold, and meningitis are all caused by closely related enteroviruses and the way that these viruses multiply in the body is poorly understood. Deepak Koirala hopes to change that by investigating how the RNA structures within these viruses’ genetic material enable them to multiply. The answers could lead to drugs that attack specific mechanisms critical for viral replication, stopping these diseases in their tracks. Continue Reading Deepak Koirala to grow understanding of how enteroviruses replicate with $786K NSF CAREER Award
March 14 is celebrated as Pi Day because the date, when written as 3/14, matches the start of the decimal expansion 3.14159… of the most famous mathematical constant. The true reason to celebrate Pi Day, Manil Suri writes, is that mathematics, which is a purely abstract subject, turns out to describe our universe so well. Continue Reading Pi gets all the fanfare, but other numbers also deserve their own math holidays
“The questions I’m asking in this CAREER grant set the stage,” she says, for discovering how arachnid species that can reproduce both sexually (with a mate) and asexually (without a mate) “control whether it’s going to be one reproductive mode or the other,” Mercedes Burns says. “Ultimately we want to understand what allows for this kind of reproductive strategy in these systems, which we don’t see commonly in animals.” Continue Reading Mercedes Burns to study arachnid evolution in Japan through prestigious NSF CAREER Award
