This fall, Kimani Reed will enter UMBC as a new student in the pre-nursing program, but she’s already a member of the UMBC community. Through a partnership between UMBC and Cristo Rey Jesuit High School in Baltimore, Reed worked on campus one day a week throughout her high school career, gaining experience in several UMBC offices.

“From freshman year all the way through senior year, I met new people at UMBC who always supported me,” Reed says. When she worked in the UMBC Shriver Center, she shares, “The warm welcome I felt when I walked through the doors on the first day already made UMBC feel like home.”

Reed’s connection to The Shriver Center will continue this fall. She has chosen to participate in the Shriver Living Learning Community, a residential community for students committed to pursuing service-learning and community engagement.

Championing student success

Knowing she had her eye on a medical career, Reed’s UMBC mentors frequently pointed her toward programming that would help her reach her goal. So when her supervisor at the Shriver Center, Lori Hardesty, associate director of applied learning and engagement, found out about a special pilot program in the life sciences, she immediately recommended it to Reed.

Hua Lu, professor of biological sciences, led the pilot, and Reed jumped at the chance to work with her. She and Shaojie Chen ’21, chemistry, made up one of four student teams, each with one UMBC student and one local high school student. 

Each team participated in a weeklong program in the summer of 2019 funded by the National Science Foundation and organized by Lu. The Research Training for Future Science Teachers and High School Students (RTTS) program has two goals: to create early research opportunities for high school students interested in STEM and to better prepare the next generation of STEM educators. 

Transformative experiences

That’s how Reed found herself spending her 17th birthday, on a Friday in June last summer, in Hua Lu’s plant genetics lab at UMBC. She arrived by 8:30 a.m. to add the finishing touches to her presentation with Chen on CDF3, a protein found in arabidopsis plants. 

Chen and the other UMBC participants were Sherman STEM Teacher Scholars. The Sherman program prepares undergraduates to be culturally responsive and compassionate educators, and many scholars work in Baltimore City. Their partners were all high school students, with the other three (beyond Reed) coming from Baltimore City College High School.

When Lu looks at Reed, Chen, and the other program participants, she sees the future of STEM teaching and learning. “I think we need to provide early, discipline-specific training for our future teachers,” she says. And for the high school participants, “It’s a lot of work, but when you see you can provide this many students with a hands-on experience, it’s definitely worth it.”

Lu is learning from these students’ experiences as she prepares for the program’s next iteration. The pandemic prevented her from running the program in person in 2020, but she is excited for it to relaunch in 2021.

Digging deeper

Based on Reed’s recent study of genetics in high school biology, sometimes she mentored Chen, rather than the other way around. The pair spent the week exploring the structure and function of CDF3 through hands-on laboratory work and research in scientific online databases.

“I learned that molecules do so many different things. I knew they were complex, but looking at them up close through the different databases and digging deeper, I learned so much more,” Reed says. “This experience further confirmed my desire to pursue a medical-related career.” Reed has chosen nursing, after giving the biology major her full consideration thanks to her experience with “Mama Lu,” the students’ nickname for Lu based on her supportive attitude.

Whether a student ends up pursuing research or not, Lu says, an experience like this summer program can be a useful eye-opener about what a research career would be like.

Research for teachers

Ben Lockwood ’20, biological sciences, came at the experience from a different angle—he’s long known he wanted to pursue a teaching career. He was initially skeptical of a research experience, but thanks to the program’s team-based approach, he found it rewarding.

“I definitely feel like I gained from this research experience. And I think it was because I got to do it alongside a high school student,” Lockwood says. “It furthered my understanding of the science content, but it also helped grow my teaching skills, and pair them together, which I hadn’t experienced before.”

Working together with his partner, Youssef Maroud, got Lockwood thinking about “how I would approach labs and experimentation in the classroom,” he says. For example, he began to consider how he might partner with local labs and universities “to provide an upper-level lab environment that offers access to things the high school students wouldn’t normally do.”

Both the high school and UMBC students learned quite a bit about how important it is to use equipment correctly and carefully, and to record results thoroughly and accurately. A technique like pipetting is fairly simple, but also essential, they learned, especially when working with expensive or rare chemicals.

As a result, “Practicing professionalism in the lab is something that I hope to teach my students,” Lockwood says. “And I definitely know from this experience that I have to first provide students with a technical foundation. How can they come up with a procedure if they don’t know the capabilities of each piece of equipment? And how can they carry it out if they don’t know how to use the equipment?”

If Lockwood is any example, “This program is developing better teachers for society,” Lu says, “which will have a positive impact on future students and STEM professionals.”

Hua Lu. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

Lasting bonds

The experience in Lu’s lab was a win for everyone in the pilot program. “The high school students brought so much energy to the lab,” Lu says. “They showed a passion for biology, and you’d see those lightbulb moments.”

The relationships the pairs formed were also a meaningful part of the experience. “I still text with my partner from time to time,” Lockwood says. Building their relationship was “easy, natural, and fun,” he adds. One of the reasons Lockwood wants to teach is to mentor students who may be struggling to find their way, so “being able to establish that relationship with Youssef was very affirming. And I look forward to being a mentor to many more students in the future.”

That’s exactly what Lu hopes students get out of the program: an understanding of not just how to do lab research, but also of how important relationships are to learning and discovery in science. 

As Reed begins her UMBC career, she’s excited to extend the relationships she’s already formed at UMBC and to create new ones. “It meant a lot to me to be part of this, because I still got to stay where I felt at home—because I consider UMBC a home away from home—but I also got to make new family with the people I met,” Reed says. “Now I have a really large family and support system through UMBC, and I am so excited to see what I can do with all of them helping me grow.” 

Banner image: Summer program participants and other members of Hua Lu’s lab enjoy lunch together on campus in summer 2019. From left to right: Ben Lockwood ’20; Malaysia McGinnis ’20; Min Gao, postdocotoral fellow; Hua Lu; Cora Bainum, Baltimore City College High School; Jessica Allison, Ph.D. student; Allen Stallings, Baltimore City College High School; Shaojie Chen ’21; Kimani Reed, Cristo Rey Jesuit High School; Riki Egoshi ’20 (front); Youssef Maroud, Baltimore City College High School. Photo courtesy Hua Lu.

By William Blake, assistant professor, Political Science, UMBC

States can force members of the Electoral College to vote for the winner of the popular vote in their state’s presidential primary, the Supreme Court recently ruled. The July 6 decision removed one of the two reasons why the framers of the U.S. Constitution created this election system: to empower political elites who may know more about the candidates than ordinary voters. Now, the founders’ only remaining justification for the Electoral College is structural racism.

Though the Electoral College has changed since it was first used to elect George Washington to the presidency in 1789, my research shows that the system continues to give more power to states whose populations are whiter and more racially resentful.

Electoral College myths and realities

The Founding Fathers created the Electoral College in large part because they feared voters would not know all the candidates who would be running for president. In that era, most people never left their home states, so they were not likely to know candidates from other states.

The founders did not foresee the development of political parties and campaigns, which help teach voters about their options. Instead, Alexander Hamilton argued that those serving in the Electoral College would be “most likely to possess the information and discernment” needed to choose a president.

With its recent decision, the Supreme Court has abandoned the possibility that electors might vote for people other than the candidate who wins the popular vote in their state.

The other reason for the Electoral College was to bridge a major divide among the states: slavery. As James Madison said at the Constitutional Convention: “[T]he great division of interests in the U. States did not lie between the large & small States; it lay between the Northern & Southern” because of “their having or not having slaves.”

The 13 colonies had competing land claims in the early years of the United States. Kmusser, CC BY

Race in early America

By the time the founders discussed how to pick a president, they had already made the so-called “three-fifths compromise,” counting enslaved people as three-fifths of a person in the census and allotting seats in the House of Representatives accordingly. That gave Southern slave states an advantage over the Northern states in the House.

Slave states – with many people and with fewer – insisted on the Electoral College to preserve this advantage to give them a similar advantage in presidential selection. Ultimately, delegates to the Constitutional Convention decided that each state would receive votes in the Electoral College equal to their representation in both houses of Congress.

As a result, after the 1790 census, Virginia got 21 electoral votes and Pennsylvania got 15, though both were home to just over 110,000 free white male adults, who were then the only Americans allowed to vote. That’s because Virginia had 292,627 enslaved residents, to Pennsylvania’s 3,737, the country’s very first census shows.

Similarly, South Carolina and New Hampshire had nearly identical numbers of free white men – right around 36,000. But South Carolina got two more electoral votes, for a total of eight, because more than 100,000 enslaved people lived there, compared to New Hampshire’s 158 enslaved people.

U.S. Rep. Samuel Thatcher, in 1806. Fevret de Saint Memin/Wikimedia Commons

In 1803, the 1800 census was about to shift the balance even more toward slave states. Representative Samuel Thatcher of Massachusetts complained that counting enslaved people added significant numbers to the slave states’ delegations.

The slavery bonus ensured that the nation’s first 18 presidential elections delivered a slave-owner as either president, vice president or both. Only in 1860, with the victory of Abraham Lincoln from Illinois and his running mate, Hannibal Hamlin of Maine, did a team of Northern politicians manage to beat the Electoral College’s skew toward white Southerners.

After the Civil War

Following the Civil War, the 14th Amendment removed the three-fifths clause, and the 15th Amendment should have protected African Americans’ legal right to vote. But that didn’t fix the Electoral College’s anti-Black bias. It actually made the problem worse, because Southern state governments were happy to get the representation from their large numbers of Black citizens – while keeping them from voting through discriminatory practices like literacy tests and poll taxes.

Judicial decisions at the time upheld Jim Crow restrictions on the right to vote, but those practices are illegal today.

This system benefited the Democratic Party, which was dominant in the South. Republicans tried to counter that power by strategically admitting new states from the Great Plains and Mountain West. In part because of racially disparate postwar settlement policies, these states – such as Nebraska, the Dakotas and Wyoming – were unusually thinly populated, heavily white and reliably Republican.

Staff of the House of Representatives review Illinois’ Electoral College vote report in January 2017. Samuel Corum/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Race and the Electoral College now

Those statehood decisions made a century and a half ago still reverberate today. States with smaller populations have more electoral votes per resident because, no matter how few people they might have, they still get two senators and one House member.

I recently performed a quantitative analysis of race and the allocation of electoral votes. The data indicate that whiter states consistently wield more electoral power partly because of their population.

On average, as a state’s racial composition gets whiter, its electoral power increases. For instance, in 2016, North Dakota was the seventh whitest state and 47th on the list in terms of adult population. It had more than 5.2 electoral votes per million adult residents, when an average state had just 2.2 electoral votes per million adult residents. According to my analysis, a state that is 10% whiter than the average state tends to have one extra electoral vote per million adult residents than the average state.

I also found that states whose people exhibit more intense anti-Black attitudes, based on their answers to a series of survey questions, tend to have more electoral votes per person.

Statistically speaking, if two states’ population numbers indicate each would have 10 electoral votes, but one had substantially more racial resentment, the more intolerant state would likely have 11.

This is not an ironclad rule, and the inherent bias isn’t always decisive. For instance, Donald Trump owes his presidency to winning Wisconsin, a state that is whiter than the average state, but that has slightly less electoral votes per capita than average.

In addition, the centuries-old racial bias in the Electoral College could disappear with future population changes. Perhaps other states with relatively few people will follow the pattern of Nevada, whose population has recently become larger and more racially diverse. But the Electoral College remains a system born from white supremacy that will likely continue to operate in a racially discriminatory fashion.

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Mantis shrimps have earned wide acclaim in popular culture for their punching limbs, bright colors, and, perhaps most of all, their unusual eyes. “Everybody knows about them now,” says Tom Cronin, professor of biological sciences and a world leader in mantis shrimp vision research. “These things are memes.”

However, despite the increase in public awareness and a wealth of research on this diverse group of crustaceans, it turns out mantis shrimp still have a few tricks up their antennae.

It’s well understood that mantis shrimps’ eyes are extreme. For example, human eyes have three types of color receptors, which detect red, blue, and green light, respectively. Human eyes also have three different proteins called opsins, which are generally involved in light detection. One opsin is at work in each kind of color receptor. Mantis shrimp, on the other hand, have 16 receptor types (the most known in any animal species). The UMBC team, led by postdoctoral researcher Megan Porter, predicted that mantis shrimps would also have a one-to-one ratio of color receptors to opsins. Accordingly, they expected to find 16 opsins in their shrimp.

Instead, the shrimp offered up more surprises. After more than a decade of painstaking experiments, Porter, Cronin and colleagues have found that instead of the expected 16 opsins, mantis shrimp eyes have  at least 33 types of opsins. The relationships between opsins and color receptors were completely different from what they expected, too. They published their findings in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in June.

“One of the reasons I love science is that we took this animal with an exceptional visual system, and it’s become even more complex,” Porter says. “Every level that we look at adds another layer of complexity to how the visual system is working.”

New tech enables new science

The surprising finding in mantis shrimp is part of a trend in vision science. “We thought we understood how animal vision works,” Porter says. “Then people started looking at the molecules involved as techniques became more available, and it turns out we don’t understand as much as we thought we did.”

For example, other teams have reported upwards of 40 opsins in deep-sea fish, who seemingly have little reason to invest in elaborate vision systems. Still other groups have found large numbers of opsins in dragonflies and other insects.

Advances in genetic sequencing technology have enabled this boom in vision science. Partway through Porter’s project, cutting-edge methods for sequencing genetic material came on the market. While the newest techniques were still prohibitively expensive for most labs, the previous generation of sequencing—still much better than standard techniques—suddenly became affordable.

As a result, Porter and teammates Michael Bok, Ph.D. ’13, biological sciences, and former postdoctoral fellow Hiroko Awata were able to sequence essentially all of the RNA found in the mantis shrimp eye. This collection of RNA is called the “transcriptome,” because it represents the DNA that has been transcribed, or converted from DNA to RNA. 

The cell uses these transcripts as instructions to build essentially all the proteins in the cell. From what the team already knew about opsin sequences, they were able to identify the transcripts that gave instructions specifically for opsin proteins.

“Historically, these kinds of studies wouldn’t have been possible,” Porter says. “These techniques have made it possible to investigate a much broader range of animals, and to find out so many amazing things.”

Sticking with it

The transcriptome results were so shocking that it took several more years for the team to gather enough data to confirm them with full confidence. “We just kept amassing data, and the story kept getting more complicated,” Cronin says. Porter adds, “First we had to convince ourselves, then we had to convince the rest of the scientific world.”

Cronin credits Porter for persevering, even when journals rebuffed initial attempts at publishing about the work because it departed so drastically from established knowledge. “Megan is very tough and very able to stick with a problem,” he says. “She kept sticking with it, and she filled in all the little holes in the data set one by one.”

For her part, Porter felt buoyed by Cronin’s guidance. “He pushes you to be a rigorous scientist, challenges you to think deeply about your work, and is really just a wonderful mentor and collaborator,” she says. “And if you look at the up-and-coming people in this field today, a large percentage of them came out of his lab. He’s had a really big influence.”

Enticing clues about what opsins do

Part of the UMBC team’s validation work involved figuring out where in the eye, and in which cell types, different opsins were present. Those experiments resulted in some enticing clues about the function of some of the opsins.

For example, the team found a few opsins toward the top of the eye that they believe are sensitive to blue light. That placement is reminiscent of blue-light-sensitive opsins found in insects. Insects use the opsins to detect patterns of polarized light in the sky, which could be important for navigation. 

“No one has characterized that in a marine organism before,” Porter says. “And because of differences in the way that light behaves in air versus water, no one expected to see that in a marine organism.”

Rickesh Patel, Ph.D. ’21, biological sciences, was thrilled by the findings, but not completely surprised. He recently published research with Cronin that indicated mantis shrimp use polarization patterns for navigation. “I think it’s really cool that we can use molecular tools to give us insight into the function of the eye that we’ve missed,” Porter says.

The golden egg

Next up for this research is looking at the proteins themselves, rather than the transcripts that hold their instructions. “I expect that as we continue to look at every level that we will continue to find unexpected and fascinating complexities,” Porter says. “My joke hypothesis is that opsins are everywhere, doing everything. But I do think their functions are much more diverse than anyone had guessed.”

As Cronin puts it, mantis shrimp “are like the goose with the golden eggs. Just when you think they’ve run out, there’s another one that pops out.”

And on top of the surprises that keep turning up in mantis shrimp vision specifically, Porter wonders what established scientific paradigms might be the next to fall as our ability to examine the natural world continues to advance.

“What is the next thing that’s going to totally revolutionize our understanding of things we thought we had figured out?” she asks. Technology can’t do the research by itself, though. It will take creative and determined scientists like Porter, Bok, and Awata, and supportive mentors like Cronin, to change the way we understand the world.

Banner image: Co-authors Porter, Cronin, and Bok with other former and current Cronin lab members at the 2019 International Congress on Invertebrate Vision at Backaskog Castle, Kristianstad, Sweden. From left to right: Alice Chou, current Ph.D. student; Kate Feller, Ph.D. ’14; Alex Kingston, Ph.D. ’15; Tom Cronin; Megan Porter; Michael Bok, Ph.D. ’13; Rickesh Patel, current Ph.D. student; and Chan Lin, current postdoctoral fellow. Photo courtesy Tom Cronin.

President Freeman Hrabowski’s powerful personal story is well known in the UMBC community. At the age of 12, seeking equal access to a quality education, he marched with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in his home state of Alabama. He and other Black children were then jailed for five days. He has held steadfast to commitment to educational equity in the years since. 

Under President Hrabowski’s leadership for nearly three decades, UMBC has grown into a national and global leader in undergraduate and graduate education, innovation, and social impact. He has also fostered UMBC’s unique campus culture of shared, collaborative leadership and community support.

On July 10, President Hrabowski was awarded a 2020 UCSF Medal, the University of California San Francisco’s highest honor. He was one of three national leaders recognized for a career advancing diversity and inclusion, specifically through mentorship programs that support underrepresented people in the sciences. For example, UMBC now produces more Black students who go on to complete M.D.-Ph.D. degrees than any other institution in the country, and UMBC is one of the top institutions for producing Black students who go on to complete Ph.D. degrees in any STEM fields.

“What we’ve been doing for decades now,” Hrabowski shares, “is identifying students from a range of backgrounds, of every race and different income levels, and saying, ‘We want to work with you to help you reach your goals, and reaching your goals should not be about simply surviving.’”

Thank you for all you do for the UMBC community, President Hrabowski! Congratulations.

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Header image: President Hrabowski celebrates the Meyerhoff Scholars Program’s 30th anniversary with philanthropist Robert Meyerhoff in May 2019. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11.

UMBC researchers will collaborate with the Chicago-based MxD to develop a curriculum and online platform for manufacturing professionals to increase their cybersecurity skills and to protect manufacturing plants from cyber breaches. The work is funded by a $650,000 grant from the Office of Economic Adjustment, under the U.S. Department of Defense. 

MxD is one of 14 federally-supported institutes known collectively as Manufacturing USA. It has awarded millions of dollars to research and development projects across 35 states to advance U.S. manufacturing practices and increase global competitiveness. This UMBC collaboration will be the first initiative focused on increasing manufacturing workers’ knowledge of cybersecurity.

The content of this program is completely new, as there are no existing platforms that focus on the intersection of cybersecurity and manufacturing, says Nilanjan Banerjee, principal investigator on the grant. 

Banerjee, professor of computer science and electrical engineering (CSEE) at UMBC, shares, “The program will accelerate training of practitioners in the manufacturing industry in cybersecurity. It will also expand UMBC’s impact on cybersecurity education in the manufacturing sector.”

Intersection of cyber and manufacturing

Banerjee will collaborate with a number of colleagues at UMBC to develop a curriculum tailored for people who already work in the manufacturing industry. Project co-PIs include Donna Ruginski, executive director of cybersecurity initiatives at UMBC, and Keith J Bowman, dean of UMBC’s College of Engineering and Information Technology. Alan Sherman, professor of CSEE; Linda Olivia, assistant professor of education; and Megean Garvin, director of research and assessment for the Maryland Center for Computing Education, will assess the curriculum developed to ensure it meets program goals.

Bowman helped establish the connections between UMBC and MxD, and is eager to watch the work develop. “This project fully leverages MxD, UMBC Training Centers, and UMBC assets in cybersecurity, manufacturing, and training,” says Bowman. “I have known MxD team members, including Federico Sciammarella, president and chief technology officer of MxD, ever since its origins, and I look forward to building on this collaboration.”

The first step of the multi-phased project will identify the skills most needed to protect manufacturing facilities from cyberattacks on their computer systems and machinery. UMBC and MxD will create a short-term training program for manufacturing professionals to develop these skills. 

“People will come out of this program with a certification that shows they have the tools to be successful in a cybersecurity role in manufacturing,” said Lizabeth Stuck, senior director of MxD Learn, the institute’s workforce development arm. “This has the dual benefit of upskilling workers who may be sidelined during the COVID-19 crisis and increasing the security of U.S. manufacturers from cyber-attacks.”

Addressing current needs

Banerjee explains that the recent COVID-19 pandemic has led to increased unemployment and a need for more opportunities for workers to quickly expand their skill sets. With this in mind, the program will be designed for workers to complete in less than a year and through a web-based format.

For maximum flexibility, the platform will offer both synchronous and asynchronous material. It will be launched and led by UMBC Training Centers, a not-for-profit owned by UMBC that offers professional and technical training in areas such as cybersecurity, project management, and leadership and innovation. The platform will likely launch in late January 2021. 

“This program will have a direct impact on the Defense Industrial Base Supply Chain,” says Ruginski. “It will create a robust workforce that has the cybersecurity skills required to assist companies in staying secure in the fast-paced cybersecurity manufacturing industry.”

Banner image: Nilanjan Banerjee. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

Kathleen Hoffman, professor of mathematics and statistics, thrives on solving puzzles. She has spent her career working to create and refine mathematical models of notoriously complex biological systems. For the last decade, she and colleague Katharine Gurski at Howard University have been working together to model the spread of HIV. Now, the pair has received two new grants to support their work.

Funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) will support their efforts to improve the model of how HIV spreads between people. A grant from the Center for Undergraduate Research in Mathematics (CURM) will support work to model how HIV infects cells in the body and develops resistance to drug treatments.

Pieces of the puzzle

The CURM grant will support undergraduates in Hoffman and Gurski’s labs to model how HIV behaves inside the body. In particular, they want to know how it responds to a common treatment known as highly-active anti-retroviral treatment (HAART). 

“Some strains of HIV are less likely to respond to treatment,” Hoffman says, “and when patients don’t follow the treatment regimen carefully, that can also lead to resistance.” If a person’s HIV becomes resistant to their current treatment, they can more easily pass the infection to others. So a better understanding of the presence of drug resistance in the population is critical to building accurate population-based models of HIV spread. 

Hoffman enjoys working with undergraduates to give them exposure to research. Rebecca Laws ’21, mathematics, and Michael Klos ’21, mathematics, will work with her on this project. 

“How can you expect people to enjoy research, if they don’t know what it is?” Hoffman asks. She says being accountable to students and their projects also helps keep her own research on track. “It accomplishes small but meaningful things toward my research that I might not do if I wasn’t working with a student,” she says. “They each contribute their own piece of the puzzle.”

Refining the model

Hoffman and Gurski’s previous collaboration on an HIV-transmission model included factors like demographic information and sexual behavior. Through their new NSF grant they will make the model more precise by incorporating two more major factors. They will account for the role of long-term relationships and usage of PrEP, a drug that reduces one’s risk of contracting HIV when taken every day. Hoffman’s Ph.D. student, Sylvia Gutowska, is taking the lead on the PrEP modeling.

Classical models of disease spread treat people “basically like molecules in a gas, where they’re moving all over the place, and there’s some probability that they will touch each other. And then, if they touch each other, there’s some probability that one will pass the infection to the other,” Hoffman says. “That’s the underlying assumption of all of these models.”

But the analogy between people and molecules breaks down when you start looking at complex human behaviors. For example, long-term partnerships dramatically reduce the likelihood of risky encounters between individuals. 

Using PrEP adds more complexity. When taken regularly, PrEP reduces the likelihood of a person passing the disease to someone else. But research shows that if someone is taking PrEP, they are also more likely to behave in riskier ways. And if they forget to take their daily dose, they’re at higher risk again temporarily.

These factors “make the modeling way more complicated from a mathematical perspective,” Hoffman says. Incorporating those two parameters will be the primary work of the NSF grant.

Hoffman and Gurski also want to validate the new model they develop. To do that, they’ll give the model real data from 2005 on disease rates, and then see how well it is able to predict disease rates a few years later (e.g. 2010 and 2015). Because these data already exist, they’ll be able to compare the real data to the model’s predictions.

Informing disease prevention

Once they have an upgraded model, the researchers can test individual parameters in the model to see which would have the biggest effects on the level of disease in a population. This can then inform public health decisions.

“By measuring the sensitivity of the parameters, it’s kind of like looking for the biggest bang for your buck in terms of resource allocation,” Hoffman explains. “For instance, if you have money to put toward an education campaign, should you put it toward making sure people take PrEP diligently? Or will it have more of an impact if you put it toward promoting condom use? Which will have a bigger impact on decreasing the amount of disease in society? That’s the kind of question this kind of work can usually answer, if the model is accurate.”

But even figuring out what the parameters are to begin with can be very difficult. The work goes way beyond math into HIV biology and even the sociology and psychology behind people’s behavior and relationships.

It’s hard, “but what I like about science and research is the fact that I’m not constrained by siloes. Sometimes I have to go read literature in the psychology and sociology fields, and I have to read biology papers that I struggle through,” Hoffman says. “That’s why I like it, because I never know what I’m going to need to learn next.”

Banner image: UMBC Biological Sciences Building. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

UMBC alumni businesses are doing what they can to stay strong and build community during these troubled times. UMBC Magazine will be publishing occasional interviews with alumni business owners to show their resilience in the face of this global pandemic.

Find more alumni businesses at the UMBC Alumni Business Directory.

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Founded by alumnus Zhensen Huang, M.S. ’00, Ph.D. ’04, information systems, Precise Software Solutions “helps their customers capitalize on the efficiencies offered by technological advancements and ensures the integrity of their IT systems and programs so they can perform their public mission more effectively.” Today, Huang reflects on the challenges of the last few months, and why he continues to be filled with gratitude and hope.

Can you tell us a little bit about what you do? What’s your favorite part of the work?

My background is in IT/technology, and this is my first time serving as the CEO of a company. So, the experience of starting up and leading a new company has involved a big learning curve for me. But I love learning and finding solutions to complex problems, and there have been endless opportunities for me to learn and grow along with the company. As for my favorite part, I love working with people. I have been blessed with an amazing team of extremely smart, dedicated, and innovative people. I also love working with our growing customer base, which has included developing productive, trusting relationships, serving as a problem solver in helping them achieve their mission, and driving organic growth for the company with the help of the successes and accolades of our customers.

Image courtesy of Huang.

How do you connect your work back to your experience at UMBC? 

I am eternally grateful for the excellent education, support, and mentorship I received as a UMBC student, and I attribute much of my success in my career and this Precise business venture to the solid launch I achieved with the help of the school. I went back to teach some courses at UMBC, and I remain in regular contact with the school through the Development Office. I continue to look for ways to reinforce the connection between myself, Precise, and UMBC, ensuring that the mutual benefits we’ve enjoyed are nurtured and expanded.

Precise also has several alumni on staff, including Kaustav Lahiri, M.S. ’14, computer science; Fan Ping, M.S. ’15, computer science; and Edison Trickett ’13, business technology administration.

In these tough times, how do you keep going? What inspires you?

It’s true, we’ve been experiencing some very tough times. The pandemic has been a real test to our resilience, as individuals, as a community, and as a company. It has been difficult to witness the terrible suffering that the virus has caused, not to mention the more recent unrest following the killing of George Floyd. In the midst of these crises, my overwhelming feeling has been one of gratitude—for the health and safety of my family and the ability of Precise to continue our work. These feelings of gratitude have inspired in me a great sense of responsibility. I am constantly looking for ways to give back, to offer support and assistance to those who have not been as fortunate as I have been.

Are there specific ways you’re giving back to the community right now?

In general, our company has actively engaged in community service events. We regularly organize company service events such as coordinating groups of Precise employee volunteers to support the work of the Manna Food Center, an wonderful organization that collects, purchases, and distributes food to the needy in our community. More recently, at the outset of the coronavirus epidemic, Precise organized a donation challenge in which we raised over $22,000 dollars for Manna. We also purchase company gift cards from some of our local food vendors as a way to infuse some cash flow into their businesses which were suffering huge losses due to the lockdown.

Image courtesy of Precise website.

As part of our response to the protests following the killing of George Floyd, Precise organized internal discussions and listening sessions to ensure we are identifying and addressing any racial inequities that may exist within the company. In addition to donating $20,000 to the ACLU in support of social justice in our community and across the country, we also gave to UMBC’s Stay Black and Gold Emergency Fund. Supporting UMBC students during this time seemed to be a logical step, to help these students stay on track for their academic careers.

What advice would you give to others looking to start their own business?

I recommend following one’s passion, as that is the surest way to develop and sustain inspiration and resilience in what is a very difficult endeavor. Seek out mentors who have blazed the trail before you. I am constantly seeking out guides to help me navigate this business terrain. Again, this is my first experience building a business and being a CEO, so I am painfully aware of how much I still don’t know and need to learn. I have had many generous people who have more experience in this domain who have been willing to offer useful advice and guidance as I’ve worked to grow the company.

Another piece of advice I would offer is to practice humility and always work to keep your ego in check. You can’t learn and grow—and can’t succeed in business or any professional endeavor—if you don’t actively seek out your blind spots.

*****

Header image: Zhensen Huang and Julia Zhuhui Chen, M.S. ’02, information systems, at an SBA (Small Business Administration) event in 2019. Photo courtesy of Chen.

In mid-March, UMBC faculty members converted from in-person classes to remote instruction in a matter of days. With virtually zero lead time and, for many, little experience with online teaching, the switch took a heroic effort. However, instructors are well aware that students will be expecting more come fall.

Faculty members are also expecting much more of themselves, and they have demonstrated it by showing up in droves for a variety of programs offered through UMBC’s Faculty Development Center (FDC), Division of Information Technology (DoIT), and the colleges and academic departments. Since May, more than half of all faculty have participated in training activities associated with online teaching, not including the faculty members serving as mentors and instructors for these trainings. 

Each of the three UMBC colleges has taken its own approach to getting faculty members ready, but common threads run through all of their initiatives. 

“I think anybody’s goal, in any sort of class, is to provide the highest-quality, most optimal experience to our students,” says Jamie Gurganus, associate director of engineering education initiatives in the College of Engineering and IT (COEIT).

Translating teaching instincts online

Of course, providing a high-quality educational experience in an online environment looks different than it does in an in-person class. That means reimagining class activities, assignments, and assessments. Perhaps especially, it means thinking deliberately about how to build community across space and time.

“These are all things that our faculty are good at face-to-face, because that’s what they’re experienced with,” says John Stolle-McAllister, associate dean for student success and curricular affairs in the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (CAHSS), “but they’re trying to take their good teaching instincts and experience and put that into a new format, which is more than just learning some tech tools. It’s thinking about what makes sense online.”

The challenges to effective online teaching also differ drastically from discipline to discipline. Kathleen Hoffman is associate dean for faculty advancement in the College of Natural and Mathematical Sciences (CNMS). “Recognizing that every course has different needs, I wanted to create a flexible program so that the faculty could take advantage of it from many different perspectives,” she shares.  

A quick PIVOT

These three college leads—Gurganus, Stolle-McAllister, and Hoffman—have collaborated with colleagues in their own units, DoIT, and the FDC to create summer training that will help faculty give their students “safe, thriving online environments” for their courses in the fall, as Gurganus describes it.  

All of the colleges’ efforts hinge on the Planning Instructional Variety for Online Teaching (PIVOT) program developed by DoIT staff. This program comes in several flavors. A starter pack of five, one-hour webinars focuses on the basics of how to design an online course and the tools available at UMBC. It has already been offered twice and will be offered once more before the semester begins. Two different two-week PIVOT+ programs, one tailored for CAHSS faculty (offered twice) and another for COEIT and CNMS, are more comprehensive. By the end of the PIVOT+ program, faculty members will already have done much of the work to prepare an online course.

“All of these initiatives focus on teaching faculty effective practices for teaching online and showing them how to create student-centered learning experiences,” says Sherri Braxton, senior director of instructional technology, and one of the leads organizing the offerings. “Through a program like PIVOT, faculty contribute to a growing community in which they can share their experiences designing courses and teaching online,” she adds. In addition to PIVOT, DoIT is also offering a number of tool-specific trainings this summer. 

Sherri Braxton, senior director of instructional technology, leads the instructional technology team at UMBC that conceived of and implemented the PIVOT program.

In addition to DoIT programs, the FDC has also been busy this summer. Their programming is usually concentrated during the academic year, but not anymore. FDC staff, led by associate vice provost for faculty affairs and director Linda Hodges, have been offering at least weekly programs through the Center. Their workshops create opportunities for faculty to discuss best pedagogical practices for online instruction, including ideas for building community and motivating students online.

Boot camp

In addition to PIVOT and PIVOT+, CNMS has created affinity groups for instructors of large classes, one for lab classes, and one for adjunct faculty members, who may have different concerns. “The affinity groups facilitate a grassroots effort to support the faculty in these particularly challenging aspects of online teaching,” Hoffman says. “And they’re off and running.” Faculty peer mentors who are already well-versed in online teaching lead the affinity groups.

CNMS full-time faculty who participate in 10 hours of UMBC-offered training for online instruction will be considered CNMS Fellows in Online Instruction and receive a Hrabowski Award, which comes with a small stipend.

Rather than group faculty by class format, CAHSS faculty expressed the desire to be grouped by subject area. These cohorts will meet outside the formal PIVOT+ programming to provide additional support and accountability. All CAHSS faculty can earn a Hrabowski Award by participating in PIVOT+ and developing a blueprint for an online class.

“Some of the departments got really excited about supporting each other in this and doing it as a boot camp,” Stolle-McAllister says. “The demand was tremendous. They really wanted to get into, ‘How do I apply and practice this? What does it mean for my class?’”

COEIT is offering a menu of discipline-specific workshops in addition to PIVOT+. Gurganus’s committee selected the topics based on a survey of faculty members’ needs. In order to earn the Hrabowski Award, COEIT faculty must participate in PIVOT+, attend three additional workshops of their choice, and upload an online lesson to a forum for feedback.

An interesting COEIT twist is that Undergraduate Teaching Fellows will also be involved in the work. These rising UMBC juniors and seniors will participate in the workshops and offer feedback on the uploaded lessons. “Students bring a really important perspective,” Gurganus says. “In the end, we’re doing all of this for them.”

By the numbers

Offering tons of programming is one thing. Faculty members must also participate with the sincere desire to improve their teaching practice. The good news is that the UMBC community is rising to the occasion, from the most experienced online educators offering their willing support to colleagues, to the uninitiated dipping their toes in the online teaching world for the first time—and working hard to swim in the deep end.

Based on data from PIVOT sessions that have already occurred, “Conservatively, I’d estimate about 400 participants in various iterations of PIVOT to date,” says John Fritz, associate vice president for instructional technology and new media. “Given that UMBC has 538 full-time and 292 part-time faculty, I am so impressed by how many faculty are investing their time and energy in re-thinking and re-designing their courses for this upcoming year.”

The FDC has seen similar participation levels for their programs: 277 faculty participated in programs focused on strategies for effective online instruction, and nearly one-third of those faculty members attended three or more sessions.

Opening minds

And all this is happening during the summer, when faculty members typically focus on making strong progress in their research programs. “They want to do a good job for our students, so a lot of them are just putting that aside for this summer,” Stolle-McAllister says. “I’m not surprised, but so impressed that so many of our faculty are taking advantage of this. It just reminds me how many people we have here who care a lot about what they’re doing.”

Gurganus agrees. “We really are coming together as a community from all of the disciplines,” she says. “The instructors truly care. They want the students to succeed.”

It’s a challenging, but also exciting, time. Beyond reconsidering lessons and online tools, faculty are also thinking about how to be deliberate and thoughtful about helping students learn the best they can. They’re also learning themselves how to be even more open, flexible, and compassionate, in order to support students who are experiencing a wide range of realities during the pandemic. These shifts in mindset and approach could reverberate long after the pandemic, Gurganus argues.

“I think that this process is going to lead to more open-mindedness. Even when we get back to in-person, face-to-face classes, faculty are going to say, you know what? These issues are important in any context, and I should keep them at the forefront of my thoughts.”

Learn more about how UMBC is preparing for the unique fall semester ahead by deliberately creating community in online spaces and planning for a hybrid model of course delivery.

Banner image: A student studies at a picnic table above the UMBC Library Pond. All photos by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC unless otherwise noted.

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As the nation confronts generations-worth of structural racism, UMBC’s community is digging deep to learn, reflect, and take action for long-term change.

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When Jasmine Lee describes the challenges of the last few months, she talks about them in terms of “multiple pandemics at once.” The first was COVID-19, which continues to wreak public health and economic destruction, and leaves many questions ahead unanswered. 

The second, says Lee, director of Inclusive Excellence in the Division of Student Affairs at UMBC, was the swell of despair and outrage surrounding not only the death of George Floyd in late spring, but the ongoing deaths of Black people, and the rise of a collective desire for action. While so much of what needs to be done is systemic in nature, the impact has felt incredibly personal for many, including Lee.

“I’ve heard some use the term ‘intergenerationally tired’…and I think, particularly for Black folks, that is very real,” says Lee. 

In the wake of nationwide protests and a pronounced desire to make lasting change, UMBC’s communities have harnessed distance learning tools in recent weeks to host workshops, trainings, and discussion circles on everything from how to become better allies and disrupt systemic racism, to smaller specific meet-ups meant to offer support during these difficult times. Further action from UMBC’s Office of Equity and Inclusion, with partnership from many other groups on campus, is also in the works.

“There’s a very clear sense of exhaustion in many forms due to historical and generational trauma that continues to be seen today,” says Lee, one of a handful of faculty, staff, and students to have spearheaded workshops in recent weeks. “But in the midst of it all, I’m seeing people who are taking up the mantle in ways that they haven’t before.”

Banding Together Through Learning

With the university closed to most in-person interaction, one might assume it would be difficult to implement weighty discussions of this sort. However, within days of the first nationwide protests in early June, the myUMBC network lit up with opportunities for online training and learning, and ways of expressing frustration and hope.

Amelia Meman ’15, gender and women’s studies, assistant director of the Women’s Center, wrote an early post on the center’s blog about “calling in white people and non-Black people of color” and providing resources to help allies move from being performative to authentic. The center, along with UMBC’s Mosaic Center and other campus groups, have also offered a variety of learning and self-care programs for students, staff, and faculty.

Mid-way through June, staff from the Division of Student Affairs led more than 70 members of the community in a “Virtual Circle for (Aspiring) Anti-Racist White Allies.” Co-facilitators Jeff Cullen, director, Student Conduct and Community Standards, and Lauren Mauriello, assistant director for Residential Life, shared information about White privilege and discussed the span of behaviors that encompass both overt and covert White supremacy. 

“We thought we would create space for 50, and we quickly rocketed past that,” says Cullen, who along with colleagues has helped to ramp up Restorative Practices initiatives on campus over the last five years. The June discussion group now intends to break off into smaller groups to tackle questions that came up in the circle, many of them centered around ways of dismantling racism on the individual and system levels.

“These are the questions that people have, so let’s start there…so maybe in the coming weeks and months folks can get together and begin tackling those problems and questions” in a grounded and purposeful way, Cullen says.

More than 600 community members tuned in for “The Many Faces of Structural Racism,” a panel including Black professors of psychology, education, and political science, as well as staff working in Student Affairs and the Office of Equity and Inclusion. Led by Kimberly Moffitt, director and professor, Language, Literacy, and Culture and affiliate professor, Department of Africana Studies, the conversation covered everything from the histories of structural racism in education and voting, to ways of breaking down these persistent barriers.

UMBC Student Government Association President Mehrshad Devin ’22, biology and physics, attended the panel knowing that students were interested in getting and staying involved in between semesters, and hoping to find routes for his own work within the SGA.

“The panel answered a myriad of questions regarding how UMBC is dealing with these concerns and helped ease students’ minds a lot,” says Devin, who found what he heard aligning with his own plans. “It was heartwarming to see that the university was actively listening to the members of the community and making the changes they saw fit, and doing so in such a quick manner.”

Lee also held a very well-attended two-day workshop on “Cultivating Skills While Disrupting Racial Injustice,” which invited community members of all backgrounds to examine steps they might take to disrupt structural racism, explore options for active allyship, and more. As a university, it is important to understand what needs fixing so action can happen, says Lee, from standard implicit bias training, to expectations for hiring.

“Part of action is acknowledging that it’s okay for people to be in different spaces and at different levels in this progress, and providing the appropriate scaffolding in education and training and accountability that meets every single person wherever they might be,” says Lee.

Steps to Structural Change

Without action, talk does little to change things. And, as Keisha Allen, assistant professor, Education, noted during the “Many Faces of Structural Racism” panel, now is the “time to get to work!”

In late June, UMBC’s Office of Equity and Inclusion (OEI) rolled out a new Inclusion Council, made up of faculty, staff, students, and alumni. With a promise of “living out our UMBC values and…taking action,” the group will meet monthly to create and enact a plan for the university based on feedback acquired from the entire community.

Candace Dodson-Reed ’96, English, chief of staff and executive director of OEI, is ready to look at this time as an opportunity to continue to make lasting change. As an alumna of color, she says she has deeply felt the frustration and trauma shared by so many.

“I think the question for many of us here is how are we at UMBC going to look in the mirror and make incremental changes—both short-term and long-term—to get at the challenges that we have on our campus,” and beyond, she says. Among the goals of the new Inclusion Council will be to develop a specific roadmap of change.

“These challenges have been going on for a long time in our country, so it’s acknowledging that this is traumatic, and then also a sense of what we can do to make things better on our campus” she says. “I’m feeling that from our Black community, but also from all kinds of people who want to be allies, and who want to show up in this work.”

Updates about the Inclusion Council’s work will be made regularly on the OEI website. The group will meet once a month and build out work groups and subcommittees including folks from across UMBC.

Devin, one of several students to sit on the Inclusion Council, is encouraging students to stay engaged. He is also seeking new students to serve on Council work groups and subcommittees.

“My biggest advice to students is to reach out and voice your opinions. Your voice matters,” he says.  “Admin, faculty, and student leaders at UMBC will listen to you and will help you achieve the change you want….It is more crucial now than ever for students to stay engaged with everything that is happening at UMBC and around the world.”

UMBC President Freeman Hrabowski mirrored this sentiment in his closing remarks at the “Many Faces of Structural Racism” panel, urging the community to listen, to vote, and to be willing to look at oneself—and one’s everyday actions—with an honest eye.

“I would challenge us all to look in the mirror. This is not a time to be defensive, it is a time to realize that we can be much better,” he told the group. “There is much to do on every level…it’s not enough to say what we have done. The question is what has not been done. To listen to the voices of our faculty and our staff, and most importantly our students….There are many ways to be involved. UMBC is a special place and we can be even better.”

* * * * *

Learn more about ongoing programming and Inclusion Council activity on the Office of Equity and Inclusion website.

Header image by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC Magazine.