NIH awards UMBC $5.6M to continue support of underrepresented graduate students in STEM. Dr. Jennie Leach is a co-PI on the new grant.
~~ excerpt from "NIH awards UMBC $5.6M to support underrepresented graduate students in STEM" ~~
UMBC’s College of Natural and Mathematical Sciences will receive $5.6 million over five years from the National Institutes of Health to fund the Graduate Research Training Initiative for Student Enhancement (G-RISE). The program will support graduate students from underrepresented groups in STEM with up to three years of funding and an array of training opportunities. The goal is to help participants select and prepare for a range of career paths, in academia, industry, government, entrepreneurship, or beyond.
G-RISE will replace UMBC’s Initiative for Maximizing Student Development (IMSD) Meyerhoff Graduate Fellows program, which the NIH also funded. IMSD, under the direction of Michael Summers, Robert E. Meyerhoff Chair for Excellence in Research and Mentoring and Distinguished University Professor, has proven highly successful at supporting students in completing Ph.D. degrees in STEM.
Mike graduated from Perry Hall High School (Baltimore County) in the Class of 2005, and joined UMBC that Fall on a Baltimore County Chamber of Commerce Full Scholarship. He majored in Chemical Engineering (GPA: 3.75) and graduated from the Honors College in 2009. During his time at UMBC he participated in a variety of activities, including: living on the Honors College Floor for two years, creating the "Biodiesel Project" (a club that made biodiesel at a local farm using waste vegetable oil and did some related research on campus), singing in the Gospel Choir, organizing a Bone Marrow Registration Drive (+475 sign ups, he later donated bone marrow in 2020), performing research/work on campus in the labs of several faculty (Dr. Daniele Fabris, Dr. Brian Reed, Dr. Upal Ghosh, and Dr. Mariajosé Castellanos), presenting at URCAD, volunteering at St. Agnes clinics, and having a fantastic experience overall.
After graduation from UMBC, Mike biked across the United States with two other UMBC alumni and a then current UMBC student, to raise money for safe water. During his gap year, he worked as a research associate at UMB Shared Services Facility.
In Fall 2010, he attended Lehigh University for graduate school, where he earned his master’s and doctorate in environmental engineering. He earned a Fulbright Scholarship while at Lehigh and lived/researched in India from 2012-2014. While in India, he co-founded Drinkwell in 2013 with two other co-founders. Drinkwell is a water solutions company based in India and Bangladesh to solve the arsenic and fluoride crisis that was related to his PhD research on innovative ion exchange nanomaterials. Today, they serve up to 300,000 users per month across the Indian subcontinent. Mike finished his PhD in 2017 from Lehigh University and continued working with Drinkwell - overall he lived in India, Bangladesh, and his suitcase for three years.
Since 2018, he has been primarily based in Brooklyn, NY doing consulting work. Today, he works for Revel and supports their rapid expansion after their recent $126M Series B investment round. Revel's mission is to accelerate EV adoption in cities by providing the infrastructure and services that make it easy to go electric.
LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/mikegerman
Drinkwell: https://drinkwell.com/
Google Scholar: Profile Link
Image credits:
Headshot: Mike German
This list of UMBC Alumni employers should not be construed as sponsorship, affiliation, or approval by the trademark owner.
Rachel Myers was just 3 years old when her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. Already a science-minded kid, watching her mom's resilience in the face of the invasive treatments made her intimately familiar with the symptoms and side effects of cancer treatment. During a high school internship at the National Institutes of Health she fell in love with biomedicine -- "I saw people that looked like me in the field, which wasn't something I was used to before" -- and decided to follow her personal connection with science into a career.
Now a junior at University of Maryland Baltimore County majoring in chemical engineering, Myers is one of seven undergraduates from around the United States to participate in the new Materials Initiative for Comprehensive Research Opportunity (MICRO) program, a fully remote, online research internship from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE). Myers' research interests are focused on using nanoparticles as drug delivery therapeutics for breast cancer and other chronic diseases, and the MICRO program offered an unprecedented opportunity to access expertise, mentorship, and approaches to biomedicine that might otherwise have stayed out of reach for undergraduates.
.....
One semester into her internship, Myers has found the online program both rigorous and uniquely rewarding. The internship has two components: research -- working directly with MIT faculty, and education -- general assignments to give the students a solid understanding of materials science as a field.
Myers is working with Joelle Straehla in Professor Paula Hammond'ss lab to use nanoPRISM to identify the genomic determinants of nanoparticle trafficking in cells. "The biggest challenge comes down to learning new techniques in my lab, being exposed to new coding languages I haven't learned before. Because I don't have a materials science program at home, thinking like a materials scientist has been a new challenge for me," she says.
"Rachel has exceeded my expectations and having her as a remote mentee has been a positive experience for us both," says Straehla. "I am looking forward to continuing to support Rachel on her journey as she applies to graduate schools."
]]>