Sara “Cheli” Arussy ’16, chemical engineering
Travis Dennis ’16, chemical engineering
Ganesh Mysore ’16, chemical engineering and political science
Maryland Secretary of Commerce Mike Gill visited UMBC on April 7, 2016, for an afternoon focused on UMBC research and entrepreneurship.
While at UMBC, Secretary Gill met with President Freeman Hrabowski and UMBC leaders focused on research and technology commercialization, including Ellen Hemmerly, executive director of the bwtech@UMBC Research & Technology Park. He also toured the lab of Govind Rao, director of the Center for Advanced Sensor Technology (CAST) and professor of chemical, biochemical, and environmental engineering (CBEE).
CAST is known as an international leader in developing revolutionary technologies intended to scale up to impact lives across the globe. One tool currently under development is a portable, briefcase-sized bioreactor that rapidly manufactures medicines, replacing airdrops of pharmaceutical supplies to battlefields with point-of-care technology to manufacture specific drugs as they are needed. Rao’s lab has also developed an affordable incubator for vulnerable newborns in low-resource areas. With co-PI Yodan Kostov, CBEE research professor, and faculty collaborators from the College of Engineering and Information Technology, Rao is also working on a wearable system to track asthma triggers in pediatric patients, supported through a nearly $2 million award from NIH.
“We were proud to share with Secretary Gill the strong record of our faculty in launching new companies and contributing to the Maryland economy,” says Karl Steiner, vice president for research. “UMBC and bwtech have been partnering successfully for a long time on creating and attracting businesses that match our scientific strengths in cybersecurity, life sciences and environmental technologies.”
Secretary Gill began his service in the Maryland Department of Commerce in January 2015, after four decades as an entrepreneur, tech executive, and investment banker. His work with UMBC extends back over a decade, through his service on the University System of Maryland Board of Regents, 2004-2009.
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Kafui Dzirasa ‘01, chemical engineering, has been named a recipient of the prestigious Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). He will be presented with the award during a White House event in spring 2016. This award is the highest honor that the U.S. government presents to science and engineering professionals in the early stages of their research careers.
Dzirasa’s award is funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
While he was a student at UMBC, Dzirasa was a Meyerhoff scholar. He is now an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Duke University, where he received both his MD and his PhD in neurobiology.
Duke’s announcement of this award describes: “Dzirasa’s research uses multiple small electrodes in the brains of mice to measure interactions of genes and environment. Ultimately, he would like to develop a ‘pacemaker’ for the brain to restore neural circuits affecting mood and cognition.”
Learn more about PECASE and this year’s recipients in the White House press release and read about previous PECASE recipient Justin Jacobs ‘14 Ph.D., statistics, who received his award while a graduate student at UMBC.
Three UMBC students in the College of Engineering and Information Technology (COEIT) have been named Barry Goldwater Scholars for the 2016-2017 academic year. The Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Program seeks to provide the United States with “a continuing source of highly qualified scientists, mathematicians, and engineers.”
As Goldwater Scholars, Daniel Ocasio ‘17, Naomi Mburu ‘18, and Andreas Seas ‘17, all chemical engineering majors, will receive substantial scholarship funding.
This highly competitive national scholarship has a major impact on each recipient’s educational path. Ocasio shares, “As a first generation college student, I feel extremely fortunate to be pursuing higher education, let alone a career in scientific research. To me, earning the Goldwater Scholarship is recognition of all those who made it possible for me to further my academic development.”
This year, a new initiative coordinated by Mitsue Wiggs, assistant director of the Meyerhoff Scholars Program, allowed UMBC students interested in applying for a Goldwater Scholarship to receive feedback on their applications before formally submitting the materials. Applicants shared early versions with alumni of the Meyerhoff Scholars Program, who reviewed the draft applications and provided advice before the students submitted their official applications to UMBC’s Goldwater Scholarship Selection Committee.
David Eisenmann, associate professor of biological sciences; Lee Blaney, assistant professor of chemical, biochemical and environmental engineering (CBEE) and Simon Stacey, director of UMBC’s Honors College, served on the UMBC Goldwater Scholarship Selection Committee this year. The committee reviewed applications, and provided advice and feedback to nominees on their essays.
At UMBC, Seas is involved with both the Meyerhoff Scholars Program and MARC U*STAR Program. He has also worked closely with faculty mentors at the University of Nebraska Medical Center’s Collaboration for Advanced Surgical and Engineering Applications. After pursuing a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering, he would like to become a professor and do vascular mechanobiology research. “I am honored that my contributions to science have been recognized by the Goldwater Committee,” he said. “My only hope is that I continue to learn from the world around me and contribute to the advancement of human knowledge.”
Ocasio has worked as a student researcher in Lee Blaney’s lab for over a year, and credits Blaney with helping to push him beyond his expectations for his undergraduate experience, and to pursue research as a career. Ocasio would like to pursue a Ph.D. in environmental engineering with the goal of conducting research related to water treatment and quality.
Mburu began research as a high school student with Lasse Lindahl, professor of biological sciences. She says that early exposure to research sparked her interest and encouraged her to join other labs and explore a variety of research areas. As an undergraduate at UMBC, she has worked with Gymama Slaughter, assistant professor of computer science and electrical engineering, who has inspired Mburu to pursue research on energy sources. Mburu also worked with mechanical engineering faculty at Vanderbilt University, producing research that formed the basis of her Goldwater Scholarship application. Mburu’s goal is to pursue a Ph.D. in nuclear engineering, and then teach physics and do nuclear energy development research.
“Being chosen for this prestigious
scholarship as a sophomore is such an honor,” says Mburu. “I thank God
for this amazing opportunity, and I am incredibly grateful for the
wealth of opportunities UMBC had provided for me to make my goal of
making an important contribution to the scientific world a reality.”
]]>Nicholas Rogers, who graduated in December 2015 and worked in the Blaney Lab, was selected to receive a 2016 National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) Fellowship. Nick's proposal focused on using excitation-emission matrices (EEMs) of dissolved organic matter (DOM) to identify leaking wastewater infrastructure in urban settings. His selection was based on his demonstrated potential to contribute to strengthening the vitality of the U.S. science and engineering enterprise.