PROMISE Maryland’s AGEP  and The Graduate School at UMBC present the following event for Spring 2016:

The 2016 Graduate Student Seminar on Leadership

A Discussion with Dr. Freeman Hrabowski, President of UMBC 

Wednesday, March 2, 2016

1:00 – 2:15 PM

Lunch will be served at 1:00

Talk will begin at 1:30 PM. Everyone needs to be seated by 1:25 PM.

LOCATION: The Sports Zone, located on the Mezzanine/2nd floor of  The Commons (Student Center)

UMBC Campus, Directions & Parking – Park in the Commons Drive Garage (map, location F7), Visitor parking is available at metered garages located at Administration Drive, The Commons Drive and Walker Avenue. Please page down to the comments section below for more detailed directions.

REGISTER/RSVP

UMBC Community: Please RSVP on MyUMBC: http://my.umbc.edu/groups/promise/events/38780

Guests: Please RSVP by providing your name and school/organization in the comment section below.

This event is free, but you will need to register.

As part of our PROMISE AGEP-T alliance with the University System of Maryland, graduate students from any school within the USM may attend. Guests from other schools are also invited as part of our commitment to provide graduate students with professional development. Faculty and staff are also invited to attend.

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More about Dr. Hrabowski:

• UMBC page: http://president.umbc.edu/
• TIME: The 10 Best College Presidents        |     TED talk: Four Pillars of College Success in Science
• White House Appoints Hrabowski to Commission
• PBS Tavis Smiley Interview   |    60 Minutes Interview    |     Books on Amazon

University of Maryland President Freeman A. Hrabowski speaks at the Justice Department’s Black History Month celebration March 2, 2010 in the Main Hall of the Justice Department in Washington, DC. AFP PHOTO/Mandel NGAN (Photo credit should read MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images)

Background: The first UMBC graduate student success seminar with President Freeman Hrabowski was held in 2004 as a result of a request from then public policy graduate student, Robert Alexander. Robert graduated soon after that first seminar.  His work and research with the Centers for Disease Control has since reached national attention as Dr. Alexander was a leading contributor to the U.S.’ first federally funded anti-smoking campaign (Journal article in The Lancet, Article on Health Communication, Article in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.) Dr. Alexander’s work with the Tips from Smokers campaign produced “shocking, but effective videos” according to the New York Times.  Dr. Alexander returned to Maryland to be a Mentor-in-Residence for the PROMISE AGEP during the 10th Anniversary Celebration of the PROMISE Summer Success Institute (SSI) in August 2013.   Dr. Alexander was a member of the first cohort of the PROMISE AGEP Peer Mentors for UMBC, 2004. He is currently the Director of Business Development for the Battelle Health and Analytics Business Unit, and still collaborates with the CDC (Read more about Dr. Alexander on Batelle’s website here.) We thank Dr. Alexander, whose request as a PhD candidate, launched the plans for our annual present-day Presidential “Pathways to Leadership” seminar for graduate students.

“Funding Your Graduate Education”

An Annual “Special Saturday Success Seminar”

9:00 AM – 2:00 PM

Saturday, September 12, 2015

UMBC Sherman Hall, Room 003

(First floor Lecture Hall. Sherman Hall is between the Administration Building and the University Center. It is across the walkway from the Sondheim Building.)

Speakers:

Dr. Frances D. Carter-Johnson, AAAS S&T Fellow at the NIH Center for Scientific Review

Dr. Patricia Ordóñez, Department of Computer Science, University of Puerto Rico – Rio Piedras

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Our speakers, UMBC Alumni and former NSF GRFP winners, bring their award winner seminar back to UMBC! This seminar has been presented at the National Science Foundation’s HBCU-UP national conference, the American Association for the Advancement in Science’s  Emerging Researchers Network national Conference, Harvard, MIT, Spelman, Clemson, and at others universities in Puerto Rico, Texas, and DC. Our speakers have been part of MIT’s Tech TV series, and continue to be sought-after speakers on the topic of graduate funding. 

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Dr. Carter-Johnson is a graduate of UMBC’s Department of Public Policy and formerly served as a STEM Policy Analyst at Westat.  Dr. Carter-Johnson has degrees in Public Policy, Applied Physics, Pure Physics, and Mechanical Engineering from UMBC, Georgia Tech, and Spelman College. She has received research support and fellowships from NASA, NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP), SREB, The Department of Education, GEM, the American Evaluation Association, NIH, and MIT. Dr. Carter-Johnson completed her postdoctoral training at the Teaching and Learning Laboratory at MIT, and is a Science and Technology Policy Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). She currently designs studies and analyzes data to develop policy solutions to enhance diversity in the biomedical workforce at the Center for Scientific Review at the National Institutes of Health.

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Dr. Ordóñez  is a graduate of UMBC’s Department of Computer Science. She is an Assistant Professor at the University of Puerto Rico Rio Piedras. Dr. Ordóñez has degrees from Johns Hopkins University and UMBC in Hispanic and Italian Studies, and Computer Science respectively.  She has taught several classes at UMBC and was a Technical Trainer for UMBC’s Training Centers, focusing on JAVA Computer Programming Certifications and curriculum development. Dr. Ordóñez  was an NSF Graduate Research Fellow, and has received fellowships and/or recognition from Xerox, Verizon, Google, The Ford Foundation, The Hispanic Scholarship Fund and UMBC. Dr. Ordóñez is the Leader of Biomedical Informatics Function for the Puerto Rico Clinical and Translational Research Consortium, and her research is   focused on applying machine learning, data mining, and data visualization to big time series data for the purpose of improving medicine and on developing assistive technologies for programming. Dr. Ordóñez also presents this workshop on graduate research funding in Puerto Rico in Spanish.

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Our speakers’ work on the topic of graduate funding was presented at the “Understanding Interventions” national conference in 2012, and was published in a paper by the American Association of Engineering Education in 2013. This year, in addition to their annual workshops in Boston, their seminar, “The $10 Million Dollar Plan: Increasing Graduate Funding and Diversity in Computing” was presented at the 2014 Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing, in Seattle, WA. Their list of winners continues to grow, and participants who have taken their workshops have won the prestigious NSF GRFP Fellowship and other awards,  totaling more than $1 million of fellowship money! 

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Learn how to apply for the NSF GRFP Fellowship, learn about the nuances of submitting a fellowship to NSF, have terms deciphered, and start your application on Fastlane – NSF’s computer system.

• Please feel free to take a look at information that was posted for seminars in the past.  Information from the 2012 seminar: https://promiseagep.wordpress.com/2012/08/30/how-to-fund-your-graduate-education-dr-ordonez-rozo-and-dr-carter-johnson-promise-alumni-present-their-award-winning-seminar-on-saturday-sept-15-2012/
• Information from 2013 seminar (take a look at the comments for some great tips on saving money, shared by graduate students): https://promiseagep.wordpress.com/2013/08/21/jobs-fellowships-grad-school-funding-saturday-breakfast-lunch-seminar-sept-7-2013-umbc/

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PLEASE RSVP (Breakfast refreshments and lunch will be served): 

• UMBC’s students: http://my.umbc.edu/groups/promise/events/34284
• If you are not a student at UMBC, RSVP by posting in the comment section at the bottom of this message with your name, school, and discipline (academic department)/major.

Graduate students and undergraduates from all schools in the region are invited to attend this seminar. All current LSAMP Bridge to the Doctorate Fellows are required to attend the workshop, and are required to apply for the NSF GRFP.

Directions and Parking:

http://about.umbc.edu/visitors-guide/directions/

See the “Comments” section below for more details.

You can now purchase a copy on Amazon. The book features PROMISE SSI programs from 2003-2013!

Purchase here: http://www.amazon.com/Promise-AGEP-Professional-Development-Workshops/dp/1503321770/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1428803526&sr=1-1

Warmer weather is arriving and we’d like for you to mark your calendars now for two PROMISE AGEP events that are open to graduate students and postdocs within the University System of Maryland, and our friends and colleagues from other universities. We build community as part of our professional development efforts, so we’ll look forward to having you join us on those dates.

Stay tuned to this website for more information. Both events will utilize the Eventbrite registration system. Here are some details that you can add to your plans.

1. The Cookout and Celebration of Graduates will be held on Saturday, May 2, 2015, 1:00 – 4:00 PM. This event acknowledges all master’s and doctoral graduates from any school within the University System of Maryland. This year, we will also acknowledge postdocs who are moving on to other positions. Please send us your good news so that we can acknowledge you: promisestaff@gmail.com, with the subject: “May 2 Cookout Celebration.” This event will be held at the High Ridge Park Pavilion in Laurel, MD.

2. The PROMISE Summer Success Institute (SSI) will be held on Saturday, August 15, 2015, 8:00 AM – 3:00 PM. This conference (business attire) provides professional development for new/incoming graduate students, continuing graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, early-career professors, and professionals in the region. This is an annual event that has been in existence since 2003. All PROMISE alumni are welcome to return! Professionals in the area are welcome to attend to be part of this networking, professional development, and community building event. The 2015 SSI will be held at The Hotel at Arundel Preserve, in Hanover, MD.

Details for the 2015 SSI on August 15th will be posted here: https://promiseagep.wordpress.com/2015/03/31/promise-summer-success-institute-ssi-august-15-2015/

• See more about our SSI History: https://promiseagep.wordpress.com/promise/the-promise-summer-success-institute-ssi/

Please save the dates!

These events are sponsored by the National Science Foundation, 
    PROMISE AGEP: Maryland Transformation (AGEP-T) project. 

Dear Graduate Students,

You are invited to apply for a summer internship at IBM. Our friends from IBM note that these opportunities can be in Africa if you have a request, or in the US. To broaden participation, IBM extends a special invitation to underrepresented groups (Black, Hispanic and Native American students in Computer Science, Math, Statistics, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Material Science and Chemistry.)

• Positions are available for Summer 2015 and Full-time, starting 2015.
• Ph.D students are preferred
• IBM is also looking for Masters students who will complete their education by Spring 2015 and are looking for full-time Research or Development opportunities.
• The internship opportunity is open to continuing students who are looking for Summer 2015 IBM Research or Development opportunities.

INSTRUCTIONS:

1) Send your resume/cv to Terry Davis at davistb@us.ibm.com, and cc Renetta Tull at rtull@umbc.edu
2) Please advise Mr. Davis if you are completing your education by Spring 2015, and looking for full time opportunities, or if you are a continuing student in the Fall of 2015 therefore, looking for a summer internship opportunities in Summer 2015.
3) Specify the Research or Development area of your education that is a match for your interests, http://www.research.ibm.com/. Also specify if you are interested in the special internship opportunities that are available Africa (Nairobi, Kenya).

4) Post your resume/cv to the IBM Applicant portal: http://www-03.ibm.com/employment/.

Please note that you must follow all four steps.

All students are considered for IBM opportunities, this is an outreach for an underrepresented group in the Science and Engineering field. IBM Research and Development groups sponsors Foreign Nationals.

Thank you to Jaye Clark-Nias, Computer Science doctoral candidate at Bowie State University who re-connected PROMISE to representatives at IBM following the 2015 Tapia Conference. Jaye participated in this IBM internships in the past and had a great experience. More about Jaye: http://www.cs.bowiestate.edu/~cturner/Students/Jay_Clark.html

In 2003, the first year of programming for the PROMISE AGEP, a UMBC Public Policy graduate student named Robert Alexander asked if PROMISE could sponsor a “town hall” type of seminar with UMBC’s President, Dr. Freeman Hrabowski. That conversation birthed the concept of an annual seminar for graduate students that would feature the university’s president. Dr. Robert Alexander is now part of the Health & Analytics Business Unit at Battelle, after spending nearly 10 years in his first dream job in Health Communications at the Center for Disease Control (CDC). Similarly, after more than 10 years, Dr. Freeman Hrabowski is the Chair of the U.S. President’s Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for African Americans, and has received numerous recognition from media outlets such as TIME, US News & World Report, PBS (“Charlie Rose,” “Tavis Smiley”), and CBS (“60 Minutes.”). The president continues to make time in his schedule to address graduate students. Dr. Hrabowski has been having his spring semester conversation with graduate students at UMBC since 2004. The 2015 talk will be held on Wednesday.

Pathways to Leadership

A Discussion with President Freeman Hrabowski

UMBC President, Dr. Freeman A. Hrabowski, III

Wednesday, March 11, 2015

1:00 – 2:15 PM

Lunch will be served at 1:00

Talk will begin at 1:30 PM. Everyone needs to be seated by 1:25 PM.

Library Gallery (first floor), AOK Library, UMBC Campus, Directions & Parking

REGISTER/RSVP

UMBC Community, Please RSVP on MyUMBC: http://my.umbc.edu/groups/promise/events/29312

Guests, please RSVP by providing your name and school/organization in the comment section below.

This event is free, but you will need to register.

As part of our PROMISE AGEP-T alliance with the University System of Maryland, graduate students from any school within the USM may attend. Guests from other schools are also invited as part of our commitment to provide graduate students with professional development. Faculty and staff are also invited to attend.

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More about Dr. Hrabowski’s White House Appointment: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/07/26/president-obama-announces-more-key-administration-posts

Hrabowski Photos courtesy of baltimore.cbslocal.com, blog.ted.com, amazon.com, and umbc.edu

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More about Dr. Robert Alexander’s work on the U.S.’ first federally funded anti-smoking campaign: Journal article in The Lancet. Dr. Alexander returned to be a Mentor-in-Residence for the PROMISE AGEP during the 10th Anniversary Celebration of the PROMISE Summer Success Institute (SSI), August 2013.   Dr. Alexander was a member of the first cohort of the PROMISE AGEP Peer Mentors for UMBC, 2004. We thank Dr. Alexander, whose request as a PhD candidate, launched the plans for our annual present-day Presidential “Pathways to Leadership” seminar for graduate students.

The PROMISE AGEP, The Graduate School at UMBC, and The UMBC Office of Postdoctoral Affairs are co-sponsoring the “Advanced Statistics” seminar series with Dr. Christopher Rakes. Dr. Rakes is presenting series on structural equation modeling and meta-analysis. The next lunch seminar is on Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2015. A live webcast will be available on our PROMISE YouTube channel for those who aren’t available to have lunch with us, to learn in person.

Session 4: Feb. 11, 2015
Structural Equation Modeling
Testing the Validity of a Causal Structure

Lunch and learn: 

Lunch will be served at the beginning of the seminar. You may eat during the session.

Live Webcast

NASA OSSI Online Career Week, a virtual career fair for students pursuing degrees in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM). This exciting initiative is sponsored by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and it will take place February 10-12.

The NASA OSSI Online Career Week will allow students to connect and engage live with NASA, top STEM employers and graduate programs across the country. Participants will learn about internship, fellowship and job opportunities in the public and private sectors. They will also be able to interact with representatives from highly ranked graduate programs and network with admissions officers.  There is no cost or travel associated with their participation in this event.

Is this for graduate students? YES! 

From the website: Who Should Attend?

• Undergraduate and graduate students looking for internship, scholarship, and fellowship opportunities at NASA.
• Undergraduate and graduate students looking for internships and jobs in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics at companies across the country.

To register, students should visit the following link: http://nasaossi.brazenconnect.com/

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This information has been brought to UMBC and all schools within the PROMISE AGEP by the Institute for Broadening Participation, http://pathwaystoscience.org/. This opportunity is open to students nationwide. Please participate!

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UMBC participates in the Council of Graduate Schools’ initiative for pathways into careers.

The Meyerhoff Graduate Fellows Program at UMBC, and PROMISE: Maryland’s AGEP (the National Science Foundation’s PROMISE AGEP – Maryland Transformation, AGEP-T) for the State of Maryland, proudly present Dr. Hélène Hodak, Scientific Editor, Journal of Molecular Biology, Elsevier Inc. on Friday, Feb. 6, 2015.

Dr. Hodak will be talking about writing for high impact journals. We’ve often heard the term “publish or perish.” Many people are afraid of that term, and many are nervous about the idea of needing to publish in order to have their work deemed worthy. The Elsevier journals are known for being high-impact, and they have a global reputation for showcasing the best work in science. They have offices in NY, Amsterdam, and London. People from all disciplines are invited to come to the workshop and use the content of this talk to learn more about how to think about publishing, and how to dismiss fear of the process. Dr. Hodak’s background and training hail from the following institutions: Yale University, Institut Pasteur de Lille, Regional Hospital Center of Lille, France, Université Lille 2 – Droit et Santé; France. You can read more about Dr. Hodak’s scientific contributions on ResearchGate: http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Helene_Hodak2/citations

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Details for the talk:

• Friday, February 6, 2015
• 4:30 – 6:00 PM
• UMBC Campus, Public Policy Building, Room 206
• Afternoon refreshments will be served.

To RSVP/Register:  

• UMBC students/postdocs/faculty/staff: Login to your MyUMBC account. Click the green “I can attend” button at the bottom of the MyUMBC website for this event: http://my.umbc.edu/groups/promise/events/29770. If you have logged into MyUMBC, and you don’t see the green “I can attend button,” then please be sure that “join” the PROMISE group.
• Visitors (Visitors from any school within the University System of Maryland and the region are welcome to attend.): Use the comment section below to let us know that you are coming. Please add your name, school/organization, and discipline, as applicable.

Photo Credit: http://www.chimit09.org/images/PUP01.jpg

Public Policy Building, UMBC, atrium hallway. Photo credit: http://www.appam.org/assets/1/7/publicPolicy.jpg

Directions, parking, and other information will be posted in the comments below.

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Why is Elsevier so important? Here are some of the latest stats from 2014:

Journal Impact Factor Highlights

Amsterdam, 14 August, 2014

Elsevier, a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services, today announced the highlights of its journal Impact Factor performance in 2013. According to the 2013 Journal Citation Reports® (JCR) published by Thomson Reuters, Elsevier saw 61% of its journal Impact Factors increase from 2012 to 2013, well ahead of the aggregate across all other journals at 55%. Furthermore, 21% of Elsevier journals are in the top 10% of their subject category.

In 2013 Elsevier journals occupied the top position by Impact Factor in 61 subject categories, up from 58 in 2012. In addition, 14 Elsevier journals have risen to the top of their subject category and 40 journals have received an impact factor for the first time. Among these is Nano Energy, which published its first issue in 2012 and received an impressive first impact factor of 10.211.

- See more at: http://www.elsevier.com/about/press-releases/research-and-journals/elsevier-announces-2013-journal-impact-factor-highlights#sthash.NtkiXGPK.dpuf

More about Elsevier: Elsevier Inc., 600 Technology Square, Cambridge, MA 02139, U.S.A.  ElsevierConnect,  http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00222836.  Contact Dr. Hodak: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-molecular-biology/editorial-board/helene-hodak/

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Acknowledgements:

This workshop comes to UMBC through Dr. Michael Summers, and Ms. Justine Johnson of the Meyerhoff Graduate Fellows Program. http://my.umbc.edu/groups/meyerhoffgrad/events/28224. Additional sponsors include: PROMISE AGEP, The Graduate School at UMBC, and the UMBC Office of Postdoctoral Affairs.

About the Meyerhoff Graduate Fellows Program

Funded by an NIH-MBRS Initiative to Maximize Student Development (IMSD) grant, the Meyerhoff Fellows Program focuses on promoting cultural diversity in the biomedical sciences at the graduate level. Now in its 18th year, the program attracts students from such institutions as Duke, Emory, Stanford and the University of Delaware.
Read more>

At 9:00 AM EST, we opened the Winter 2015 Dissertation House at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC: An Honors University in Maryland). We have a wonderful group of students from UMBC and UMB in house, and we invite you to join us. Our Dissertation Coach is Dr. Wendy Carter-Veale. Dr. Carter-Veale is challenging the group to post “measurable” goals, and she urges everyone to be realistic so that each can accomplish an actual goal by the end of the week. Some people think that they will be able to accomplish huge tasks in a short period of time, and while you will be productive, we want to be sure that you are setting yourselves up for success. Therefore, it is not necessarily prudent to try to finish such a large task within a few days.

Graduate students who are participating in the Dissertation House here at UMBC had to apply to participate. If you are not participating in person, we invite you to join us online:

https://dissertationhouse.wordpress.com/blog-online-challenge/winter-2015-challenge/

Post your goals and join others in the challenge to “get it done!”