Meet Nathan Wooddell ’23, computer science. Nathan is a member of UMBC’s CyberCorps: Scholarship for Service cohort, and is getting his master’s in cybersecurity as a graduate researcher at the National Nuclear Security Agency. Nathan attributes much of his success to the connections he’s made with the staff and faculty at UMBC who have helped him to discover his true passions. During his time as an undergraduate at UMBC, Nathan also completed a Russian language certificate, and has found a way to combine his interests of both cybersecurity and the Russian language in the professional world. Take it away, Nathan.  

Q: What’s one thing you’d want someone to know about the support you find at UMBC?

A: In many classes, casual visits to professors during office hours, polite interactions during class, and expressing interest in the subject matter can go a long way. Such interactions help with all aspects of student life. Too many students fail to take proper advantage of the fantastic support that the university faculty can offer. The best way to do this in my experience is simply to speak with your professors after class or outside of class.

Such interactions help with all aspects of student life. The faculty can offer support in the form of academic resources, scholarship recommendations, professional guidance, and even letters of recommendation for work or graduate programs.

Q: Tell us about someone in the community who has inspired you or supported you, and how they did it.

A: I want to give special thanks to Russian instructor Vira Zhdanovych. Since I first transferred to UMBC, I have taken Russian language courses with Professor Zhdanovych. It was through her guidance that I got my first research experience when she advised me on my 2022 Undergraduate Research and Creative Achievement Day presentation Analyzing the Russian Federation’s Impact on Global Cyber Security. This was also the first time that I was able to merge my interest in cybersecurity and Russian language. 

I have worked extensively with Professor Zhdanovych to study and research the impact of the Russian-speaking world on the cybersecurity and intelligence communities—I owe so much of my professional and academic success to her.

Q: Tell us what you love about your academic program or an organization you’re involved in.

A: I am a participant and former officer in UMBC’s Russian Club. The meetings of this club are especially good for learning about contemporary Russian culture, as well as the geopolitical history, which still shapes the diplomacy of the Russo-American relationship.

Q: What is your WHY? What brought you to UMBC?

A:I came to UMBC in my sophomore year as a transfer student. Admittedly when I was accepted I toyed around with the idea of going to a variety of different schools, but eventually decided on UMBC for the price, and the relative vicinity to my home in northern Maryland.

Had I known then what I know now about the university’s programs, rigor, faculty, and opportunities, UMBC would have been a shoo-in. Ultimately, I am so grateful that I applied to, and attended UMBC.

Q: Tell us about the people who are helping you grow at UMBC, and why their HOW made such a difference to you.

A: In addition to Professor Zhdanovych’s support with my Russian language and research, Professor RJ Joyce in computer science encouraged me to become invested in cybersecurity. It’s because of him that I’ve become involved in many of the clubs and organizations I am currently enrolled in. Such interest in security was able to earn me recipient status in UMBC’s Scholarship for Service cohort. 

Q: What clubs, teams, or organizations are you a part of? What do you love about them?

A: First and foremost, I am a member of UMBC’s National Science Foundation-fundedCyberCorps: Scholarship of Service (SFS). This program has allowed me to pursue my interest in security outside of the traditional academic venues. Thanks to SFS, I was able to attend and present at DEFCON 31 in Las Vegas, one of the largest cybersecurity conventions in the world [Photo: Wooddell, left, at DEFCON 31 with a fellow student].

I am also a member of the UMBC Cyberdawgs. I never miss an opportunity to compete in the annual competitions they hold on campus. Beyond this, I attend the bi-weekly Cyber Defense Lab meetings, which allow me to keep up to date with all sorts of security research projects being conducted on campus.

Q: Are you a student leader? Tell us about it! 

A: Through SFS, related organizations, and clubs on campus, I have been lucky enough to meet and work with some of the most amazing and intelligent people I have ever met. From these associated labs, clubs, and programs I have met and been influenced by more people than I could ever hope to list here.

I am incredibly honored to have been able to lead these organizations, as they have provided me with opportunities to give back to my university and community.

* * * * *

UMBC’s greatest strength is its people. When people meet Retrievers and hear about the passion they bring, the relationships they create, the ways they support each other, and the commitment they have to inclusive excellence, they truly get a sense of our community. That’s what “Meet a Retriever” is all about.

Learn more about how UMBC can help you achieve your goals.

The positive environmental and health impacts of work led by Upal Ghosh, professor of chemical, biochemical, and environmental engineering at UMBC, was recently highlighted by the National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS). The agency showcased a low-cost technology that Ghosh and his colleagues developed to clean waterways contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), a group of likely carcinogenic chemicals that were used in insulation, coolants, and electrical equipment for decades before being banned in the U.S. in 1979. 

The chemicals are stable and persist in the environment, often accumulating in fish that live in contaminated waterways and posing a risk to humans who consume those fish. NIEHS funded Ghosh’s research into using activated carbon pellets to bind the chemicals in place at the bottom of the waterways. This prevents the PCBs from circulating through the aquatic food chain. In projects carried out in contaminated lakes, rivers, and harbors in Delaware, Maryland, and elsewhere, Ghosh’s team demonstrated that the technique could significantly reduce the concentration of PCBs in the water and in aquatic lifeforms. Importantly, the technique is also significantly cheaper than standard clean-up approaches, such as dredging and disposing of contaminated sediment. 

In related work performed with Kevin Sowers, from the Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology, Ghosh’s team also developed a way to combine the activated carbon with microbes that break down PCBs, reducing their toxicity.

With NIEHS support, Ghosh has co-founded two companies—Sediment Solutions and RemBac—to commercialize the technology and deploy it at full-scale to clean up contaminated sites across the country, such as at Mirror Lake in Delaware.

“The technology brings together innovations in material science and biology,” says Ghosh. It’s an honor, he says, that the NIEHS, the leading agency in the country that funds research on public health and the environment, recognized “the real impact our research is having on improving public health.”

The Aquaculture Research Center (ARC) at the Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology (IMET), led by Yonathan Zohar, professor of marine biotechnology, has been focused for years on advancing sustainable methods of growing fish on land to meet the growing global demand for seafood. In addition to helping develop new, environmentally responsible ways of producing nutritious food for the long term, the ARC is helping to meet immediate needs in the local community. 

Today, the center donated 1,200 pounds of Atlantic salmon to DC Central Kitchen, a food pantry in Southwest Washington, D.C., after donating 1,400 pounds in November 2023. ProFish, located in Washington, DC, processed the salmon for the donations.

The ARC’s seafood donation program launched in 2017, when the Feeding Individuals to Support Health (FISH) initiative was formed in partnership with several local businesses and non-profit organizations. The first major donation distributed thousands of pounds of European sea bass (also known as bronzino) grown in the ARC’s marine tanks to communities in need in the Baltimore area.

“The U.S. is the largest importer of seafood in the world. Currently the oceans are overfished, and IMET is working on innovative aquaculture platforms that will reduce U.S. and global dependence on wild fisheries stocks,” Zohar says. “Through these donations, we can also provide a small level of societal benefit right away and close to home.”

Learn more about groundbreaking work at the Aquaculture Research Center here.

Written by Brian Van Wyck, assistant professor of history, UMBC

For decades, the Turkish government has sent imams to work in mosques across Germany. But the German Ministry of the Interior recently announced that it had reached an agreement with the Turkish government to put an end to the practice.

These imams, approximately 1,000 at present, are Turkish civil servants. Imams are sent to Germany on four- to six-year rotations, based on a long-standing agreement between the two governments. They work with Germany’s more than 2.8 million residents with Turkish citizenship or heritage.

The practice had come under intense criticism in Germany in recent years. German politicians have accused Turkish imams of spying on their flocks or abusing their positions to promote support for Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party.

The German government described plans to replace “imported imams” with imams trained in Germany as an “important milestone for integration.” On the other hand, some observers have questioned whether it will change anything for Germany’s 5 million Muslims.

As part of my ongoing research into the history of migration between Turkey and Germany, I have investigated the origins of this exchange and the goals both governments pursued by bringing Turkish imams to Germany.

Efforts by both states to intervene in the religious lives of Muslims by selecting which imams can preach in German mosques have a long history – although such efforts might not always achieve the goals of governments.

The ‘strategy’ of sending imams

A 1961 agreement led to Turkish “guest workers” being sent to Germany to meet the labor demands of its booming postwar economy. Many recruited workers and their families chose to settle permanently in Germany. By 1974, a year after labor recruitment ended, at least 1 million Turkish citizens were residing in Germany.

It was only in the 1980s that the Turkish government began sending cohorts of imams abroad, after it had become evident that a large Turkish population was in Germany to stay.

This step was motivated by several goals. One was to use state imams to create an alternative to Islamic groups active in Germany who opposed the secular Turkish state. Another was to use imams to foster continued ties to Turkey among the Turkish diaspora in Germany, encouraging them to continue to invest in Turkey.

In the 1980s, conservative governments made increasing use of Islam to encourage national unity in Turkey by, for example, mandating religious education in schools and revising curricula to emphasize Turkey’s Islamic heritage. Sending imams abroad was an example of this strategy being exported to Turkey’s overseas diaspora.

Only Turkish imams for Germany

In the early 1980s, German authorities, like their Turkish counterparts, had become concerned about Islamic institutions in the country. Historian Alexander Konrad has demonstrated that unsubstantiated reports about corporal punishment and political extremism in courses devoted to learning the Quran achieved wide currency in Germany in the 1970s.

When German diplomats and Turkish officials began to discuss their shared concerns in meetings in Ankara in 1980, they quickly found common ground. As diplomatic cables in the archives of the German Federal Foreign Office reporting on these discussions reveal, Turkish and German officials agreed that having the right imams in German mosques would solve the social and political problems they believed were caused by extremist imams. And they believed that imams employed by the Turkish state were guaranteed to be well-trained and moderate.

Accordingly, as I learned from directives preserved in the State Archive of North Rhine-Westphalia, German policymakers had begun by 1982 to issue entry visas directly to the Turkish government to distribute to those imams it selected to serve in Germany. Already by the end of the 1980s, more than 500 Turkish state imams were active in Germany.

At the same time, entry visas for all other imams were more tightly controlled. This meant that imams from Turkey or anywhere else in the world who wanted to work in Germany but were not employed by the Turkish government faced new hurdles. I learned from legal judgments in the German Federal Archives that some imams who were already working in Germany were forced to leave the country as a result of the new policy.

Limits to the influence of Turkish state imams on German mosques

Both governments assumed that Turkish state imams would be able to reshape German mosques, eliminate perceived extremism and ensure secular Islamic practice in Germany. However, this agreement did not achieve the results the Turkish or German government desired.

There were a few reasons for this. For one, imams often arrived with limited knowledge of German and Germany. Because of that, they relied on members of the local Turkish community, as the sociologist Rauf Ceylan has argued.

Contrary to what German and Turkish officials might have assumed, these imams could not simply assume control over the often long-established mosques to which they were assigned. And that meant that whatever control the Turkish government exercised over German mosques through them was partial and depended on local buy-in.

Furthermore, not all mosques in Germany received Turkish state imams. Turkish-origin migrants and their descendants created Islamic institutions and organized religious life for themselves for decades without Turkish state intervention. Those institutions did not disappear when competition in the form of Turkish state imams arrived. Both now and then, many Muslims with Turkish roots choose to attend mosques with Turkish state imams, but many do not.

Imams trained in Germany?

Over the course of the more than 40 years in which Turkish state imams have been sent to Germany, the German and Turkish governments invested their work with high expectations. And now, as the end of these imam exchanges comes into sight, German officials continue to assume that changing who preaches in mosques will dramatically alter religious life for German Muslims.

In the coming years, imams trained in academies in Germany will replace more and more Turkish state imams as they end their rotations in Germany and return home. According to this plan, the eventual result will be that only domestically trained, German-speaking imams will work in German mosques at some point in the near future. German officials described the new model as “an important milestone for the integration and participation of Muslim communities in Germany.”

Ultimately, as history demonstrates, it is German Muslims themselves, and not the imams who lead them in prayer, who will determine if this is the case.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article and see more than 250 UMBC articles available in The Conversation.

Curtis Menyuk, professor of computer science and electrical engineering at UMBC, has won the 2024 SPIE G.G. Stokes Award in Optical Polarization. The award honors Menyuk’s pioneering work in the 1980’s developing equations to describe how light propagates through optical fibers, as well as his ongoing contributions to the fields of optics and photonics.

The fast and reliable internet we enjoy today would not be possible without the fundamental work that Menyuk and his colleagues performed decades ago. Modern global telecommunication systems are built on backbones of optical fiber, and the rate of information flow through the fibers is limited by physical phenomena that affect the way light spreads. Over time and distance, these phenomena can turn a crisp signal into indecipherable garbage, and so optical communication system engineers must account for them in their designs. 

Menyuk developed equations that allow engineers to effectively model optical communication, most importantly by being the first equations to incorporate the effects of a property of light called its polarization. (Light travels as an oscillating electric field coupled to an oscillating magnetic field, and the direction of the electric field determines the polarization.) 

One consequence of the equations was the realization that spinning optical fiber can minimize signal distortion. 

“Curtis is a renowned pioneer in the field of optical communications, and over the years I witnessed the tremendous impact of his group’s work on the telecom industry, photonic technologies, and the field of optics in general,” says DEVCOM Army Research Laboratory physicist Michael Brodsky in a news story from SPIE announcing the award. 

For his part, Menyuk credits much of the impact of his work to his successful collaborations with colleagues and students. “It’s what comes from working with good people,” he says.

By Anne Wainscott-Sargent

The third time’s the charm. Against a calm and crisp dark night sky on Florida’s Cape Canaveral last Thursday, February 8, just after 1:30 a.m., the Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, Ocean Ecosystem (PACE) spacecraft rocketed to orbit carrying on board Hyper-Angular Rainbow Polarimeter (HARP2)―UMBC’s wide-angle imaging polarimeter.  The launch marked the first time NASA deployed a university payload on a large operational Earth science space mission.

Following two scrubbed night launches on Tuesday and Wednesday due to strong winds, Thursday’s successful takeoff was well worth the wait for the core team of UMBC Earth and Space Institute researchers, graduate students, and their family and friends who journeyed from Baltimore to watch the historic launch.

Arriving by bus a little before midnight to the Banana Creek Launch Viewing Area at Kennedy Space Center, just over six miles from Space Launch Complex-40, the close-knit UMBC entourage huddled together waiting for the final countdown.

When it came, they—along with hundreds of other space launch watchers—held their breath and then yelled and clapped as SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket blasted off and propelled PACE 400 miles above Earth into sun-synchronous orbit. Minutes later the Falcon 9’s first stage—SpaceX’s reusable rocket booster—successfully landed at Landing Zone 1. The crowd gasped audibly at the sonic boom, caused when the spacecraft broke the sound barrier.

“It still doesn’t quite feel real,” said Noah Christian Sienkiewicz, a calibration scientist who earned his master’s degree in atmospheric physics from UMBC in 2019 and expects to complete his physics doctorate this summer. “I grew up watching Carl Sagan and dreamed of going into astrophysics. I never thought I’d be the person making the instruments that will go up and do the measurements.”

“It’s so exciting—I’m going to cry,” uttered Margo Young from the upper bleacher. “I don’t always see the pieces and parts put together, so this is really historic.” 

Young serves as UMBC’s HARP program administrator, where she has overseen procurement and other back-end support for HARP since the program’s inception in 2013. “I get to see students come full circle—working in the lab and then graduating and becoming civil servants where they continue to be involved because it’s such an amazing project,” she explained.     

On the path to PACE

The UMBC HARP team’s remarkable journey from idea to mission reality spanned over 15 years, and involved countless hours of design, modeling, testing, and validation. Earlier iterations of HARP flew first on private aircraft over the Maryland countryside and then an award-winning “cubesat” version launched into orbit from the International Space Station (ISS), all stepping stones on the path to PACE.

For the three multidisciplinary HARP2 physics, optics, and research engineering leads, Vanderlei Martins, Roberto Borda, and Dominik Cieslak, HARP2’s launch represents a career-defining moment that at times seemed against all odds for a mid-size public university. UMBC’s strong partnerships with NASA, such as the Goddard Earth Science Technology and Research (GESTAR) Center II that supports Borda’s and Cieslak’s roles, help enable milestones like this.  

“I feel like I’m still dreaming,” said a visibly emotional Cieslak, research engineer, who captured the launch on his long-range camera. 

Transfixed by the sight of live satellite footage of the PACE spacecraft heading to orbit, he added, “This is the last time we will physically see it [HARP2],” before hugging his long-time colleague, Borda. 

“We’re very proud to have UMBC in space,” added Martins, professor of physics, who watched the big moment from a VIP viewing area three miles from the launch site. “We dreamed big from the beginning. The team persevered and just kept going.” 

“I never despaired of having HARP2 on the PACE satellite,” admitted UMBC’s HARP2 manager, Lorraine Remer, research professor in the Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology. Her bigger worry wasn’t HARP2’s viability, but whether PACE would ever launch. “PACE was canceled four times and reinstated four times,” she recalled, noting that the program “survived a lengthy government shutdown and a global pandemic that destroyed our supply chains.” 

Immediately after launch, Remer had to return to Maryland and the Goddard Space Flight Center to oversee HARP2 being turned on within 36 hours of launch. “It would be nice to bask in the successful launch, but I haven’t had much time to contemplate the success. There is just more work to do all the time,” she said.

An international effort

NASA’s PACE mission clears the path for revolutionary new measurements of Earth’s oceans and atmosphere. HARP2 measures aerosol particles and clouds, as well as properties of land and water surfaces. By analyzing particles like dust, wildfire smoke, or urban pollution, the science community gains deeper insights into air quality as well as global warming and its impacts. Scientists will be able see through things like sun glint to ascertain patterns never before possible.

A second polarimeter on PACE, the Spectro-polarimeter for Planetary Exploration (SPEXone), developed through a Dutch consortium consisting of SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research and Airbus Defence and Space Netherlands, will measure sunlight reflected from Earth’s atmosphere, land surface and ocean.

These two companion polarimeter instruments are important because the interaction between aerosols and clouds is the biggest unknown factor in atmospheric temperature change, according to reports from the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. 

“I have watched Dr. Martins and his team work toward this moment for about a decade, and have been aware of the trials and tribulations along the way. Seeing the smiles on their faces in the control station after the launch made it all worthwhile,” shared UMBC Vice President for Research Karl V. Steiner. “The HARP2 mission as an integral part of PACE is making all of us proud here on the UMBC campus. We cannot wait to see the science that will come from this engineering masterpiece conceptualized and created right here in Maryland.”

Waiting game

In the days leading up to the PACE launch, the HARP2 team knew there might be delays because of the weather so they rented a large Airbnb in neighboring Cocoa Beach for the full week. Earlier in the week, over grilled food at the shared house, the team reflected on their journey.

According to Martins, a key strategy was bringing together engineering and physics students, who typically don’t communicate well across disciplines.  

“We introduced engineering students to the physics students and made them work together very quickly so they spoke the same language,” he said, crediting this multidisciplinary collaboration to the team’s ability to rapidly iterate and problem solve.

Borda, senior research engineer overseeing HARP2’s optical design, said a key technical challenge was determining how to best compensate for the effects of polarized light waves inside the instrument.

“It’s continuous work and you cannot do it alone. We needed a fantastic team with not only the staff but also students working at different levels,” Borda said. “There are undergraduate students and Ph.D.s integrated into the team who put in a lot of effort to make this real. We’re really thankful for the environment at this university—we’re able to work with students who find a career in this industry and field of research.”

Nurturing future career scientists

Martins echoed Borda’s pride in the broad level of participation in the HARP program, from high school students to senior scientists.

“We’ve had people from our team who now work in all levels of industry—at NASA, at NOAA, or in private industry. We’ve even had some students start their own company.”

Young, the program administrator, estimates that the cooperative agreements between UMBC and NASA have resulted in 20 UMBC graduates finding roles with NASA.

UMBC alumna Elissa Ogburn is one such graduate. She began working on HARP2 as a computer science major, tasked with creating a database that supported ground communications so researchers could communicate with the instrument when it was in space.

After graduating from UMBC in 2021, Ogburn joined NASA on the PACE project as a test conductor (TC)―responsible for integrating and testing the instruments onto the PACE spacecraft. During launch, she was one of five TCs in the PACE Control Room in Titusville, Florida, who powered up the spacecraft for the last time and configured it for launch. 

“I never imagined having a job at NASA or working with people who were this smart, helpful, and kind. Every single person I’ve worked with was so fun. It’s also cool to have seen the whole process beginning as a student at UMBC. PACE is my first mission, so I’m learning everything as I go,” Ogburn said.

Close collaboration

The partnership between NASA and UMBC goes back over two decades. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and UMBC are located just up the road from one another.

Jeremy Werdell, PACE project scientist at Goddard, recalled how initial calls to industry and academia for a polarimetry instrument for PACE were not promising due to cost and other factors.

However, Martins immediately suggested to Werdell that his lab develop a polarimeter, given his team’s experience with airborne instruments and the HARP cubesat, and the rest is history. In the end, NASA selected two polarimeters—HARP2 and SPEXone.

Each instrument measures polarization differently: HARP2 is multispectral (measuring only four wavelengths of light) and  hyperangular, so it looks at the same piece of real estate multiple times from dozens of different viewing directions. Its wide swath coverage means HARP2 will cover the globe every two days. SPEXone, on the other hand, is hyperspectral (measuring a continuous spectrum of light from the ultraviolet to near-infrared) but only views Earth at five angles. It has a narrower swath, meaning it will take almost a month to cover the globe. 

“They’re small and mighty and miraculously complement each other very, very well,” said Werdell. “Having multi-band, multi-angle polarimetry is going to open up a lot of really interesting opportunities for discovery, because we can see clouds and aerosols in very different ways.”

HARP2 provides daily views that will help scientists understand how aerosols and clouds interact and their role in warming and cooling in the atmosphere. 

“Understanding where aerosols are, how they’re transported, how they interact with clouds, and whether they absorb or reflect radiation is important to everybody because those characteristics are what drive warming of the atmosphere.” Werdell said.

Better air quality models 

Onsite at the Cape for the first launch attempts, Nirandi Jayasinghe and Rachel Smith, both physics graduate research assistants at UMBC, shared their excitement for the PACE mission and HARP2’s potential to help modelers predict air quality, rain, or if the atmosphere is warming or cooling. 

Jayasinghe is a data modeler who comes up with different methods to retrieve information from HARP2. Originally from Sri Lanka, Jayasinghe notes that her hometown used to be one of her country’s cleanest cities, and now due to development in Sri Lanka’s dominant neighbor, India, the air quality is extremely bad. She said HARP2 can help close the gap that exists in understanding the twilight zone—where a cloud starts and where it stops—by providing more accurate measurements. 

Smith adds that this will go a long way in understanding cloud formation processes, weather patterns, forecasting, and climate modeling—information important for agriculture, transportation, disaster preparedness, and infrastructure planning. 

“Even simple things like weather forecasting are impacted by how much dust is in the air,” said Smith, a 2026 doctoral candidate who earned her M.S. in atmospheric physics from UMBC in 2023. HARP2 will help address whether clouds have a net cooling effect or a net warming effect, which will allow for more accurate models of where Earth’s climate is headed. Smith notes that during events like the Canadian wildfires in 2023 no one could accurately predict rainfall, because the forecasting models were not accounting for the number of airborne aerosols.

“I’m really excited to see what new science questions come out of the instruments that we’re putting up in space,” she concluded.

Bouncing back from disaster 

The HARP2 team has come a long way from initial concept to PACE. What impresses Werdell the most is the UMBC team’s resilience in the face of setbacks.

The most devastating moment came in February 2022, one month before the team was set to deliver HARP2 to NASA for integration on the spacecraft. As the instrument was in the last few seconds of vibration tests, the bonding on one of the prisms loosened and shattered. 

“It tactically put us to point zero,” recalled Cieslak, who was shocked and humbled when so many NASA scientists volunteered their time and expertise to help the HARP2 team get back on track. 

“We got an extension, and within two months we had built a new engineering model and were able to prove the new solution worked. By September, we were back to where we were before the incident,” he added.

First-time NASA launch attendee Yomiyu Fekadu ’20, mechanical engineering, M.S. ’23, engineering management, recalled that time well, as he helped assemble HARP2 as an intern under Benjamin Cramer ’17, M.S. ’20, mechanical engineer on the program.  

“Especially after the failure, and the review board assessment, I helped put everything back together and do the test plans for construction and other documentation so NASA could give us the go-ahead to move on,” Fekadu said. 

The experience was pivotal to his career. “It was everything I could have asked for,” said Fekado, now a systems engineer at Northrop Grumman. “No other place would have let me be involved in the entire process, including making parts for HARP2 in the machine shop. Not only did I get to do hands-on stuff, but I also was part of the design and saw it all come together on a NASA mission.”

As the HARP2 group left the viewing platform to line up for bus rides back to the Space Center, the smiles and easy camaraderie conveyed a collective sense of pride, relief, and excitement. 

“I‘m now just anxious to see the first bytes of data,” said Cieslak, echoing the feeling of his colleagues.

In addition to the HARP team, several additional GESTAR II scientists and engineers were instrumental in their contributions  to the overall PACE mission, including Ivona Cetinić, Andrew Sayer, Violeta Sanjuan Calzado, Bridget Seegers, Susanne Craig, Dirk Aurin, Meng Gao, Inia Soto Ramos, and Ian Carroll.

Update: On February 10, HARP2 successfully connected with instrumentation on the ground and all of its systems appear to be working as intended. 

Follow along with what’s learned from the HARP2 project.

On a perfect 55-degree sunny February day, hundreds of undergraduate and graduate students across all colleges stood in a line that began at the RAC and wrapped its way to Sherman Hall. Instead of exercise gear, Retrievers were dressed to impress with résumés in hand, ready to land a summer internship or a job with one of the 180-plus employers across multiple industry sectors at UMBC’s Spring 2024 Career and Internship Fair.  

“We are excited to help employers develop a strong talent pipeline and diverse future workforce, shaping the leaders and innovators of tomorrow,” said Paige Bauder, associate director of employer relations and recruitment programs at UMBC. 

The leading edge

“Give strong handshakes. Maintain eye contact,” said Leon Tang ’26, information systems, in a booming voice, as he scanned IDs as a volunteer at the event. 

“Some people might come in nervous. It’s over 180 companies, so it can be pretty hard,” said Tang. He currently has two internships, one as a business technology intern at Agile Care Enterprises, based at bwtech@UMBC, and another as a research assistant in the information systems department. “It’s a good way to tell everyone to be calm and be confident. It’s the little things that can go pretty far in obtaining something.” For the nearly 2,200 Retrievers that made it through the door that day, this was sage advice.

A professional headshot is one of those little things. After making it past Tang, Bhargavi Gudapati, a current master’s student in information systems, headed straight back to grab the 10th spot in a line that, over the next four hours, would consistently have dozens of excited and grateful students waiting for their free headshot. Gudapati, an international student from India, has attended every career fair since she arrived in 2022. She wants to get ahead of the steep competition of international students looking to launch the next phase of their career in the U.S. 

“It’s incredibly important to get to know employers in person instead of only on their online portal,” says Gudapati.“You want to know what they require and the current technology they are using.” 

One of those employers, Ed Belsinger ’90, M.S. ’93, mechanical engineering, is a newbie to UMBC’s career fairs. He proudly wore his UMBC sweatshirt and a smile that became a beacon of friendliness in a sea of students seeking opportunities. Belsinger is the director of product development at RPM Tech, a company that turns an idea into a prototype and a prototype into a fully manufacturable product. Because RPM does all the engineering and design in-house with a full shop and lab, it can offer students a wide range of expertise. 

Belsinger notes that RPM is currently in a growth mode and has three internships available as well as full-time positions. “As an alum, I said, ‘This is a great school—we have to go there.’ Whether it’s an internship or someone right out of college, we’re looking for students with curiosity, who want to learn, are willing to do new things, to be challenged, and be part of a team.”

Hoping to grab one of the RPM internships is Jonathan Dao, computer science, a first-year student waiting in line to speak with Belsinger. “I saw tech in the name and wanted to learn more. I want to see if I can start early to have a competitive advantage,” said Dao. “I think first-year students should definitely give the career fair a shot. Come in with confidence, try rehearsing how to present yourself, and dress well.”

Part of the team

Sekinat Dosunmu ’24 agrees with Dao’s approach. After spending her first year of college remote, she has made it a point to attend every career fair in person. Toward the end of the day, she lined up at the FBI table, ready to discuss what the FBI had to offer someone like her with a global studies major, an Africana studies minor, and certificates in tech and intercultural communication. As she stepped forward, a recruiter immediately welcomed her.

While waiting to continue talking with Dosunmu, other recruiters shared that the FBI welcomes all majors, including the arts and humanities. They noted that the most important skill the FBI is looking for is how someone approaches and solves a problem in a team environment.

The artists approach

Solving problems creatively is the bread (or blood) and butter of C.C. Smith ’24, theatre, formerly known as Dracula in UMBC’s fall 2023 production of Dracula: a Feminist Revenge Fantasy, Really. That role earned him an audition for a film later on in the day, so Smith is hurrying through the fair.

Later in the spring, UMBC’s Career Center hosts boutique career fairs, one of which is focused on creative careers, and on March 7, it will host the CAHSS Career Connection Social for arts, humanities, and social science majors, but that doesn’t stop Smith from checking things out. As an actor, Smith explains, you never know when someone is looking to do a commercial. “This is my first time here. I would like to see more performing arts employers in this larger career fair, especially with how good the arts programs are here,” says Smith. “As a senior, it’s still important to be poking around this fair.” 

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Luna Siesko ’25, visual arts, and Alexander Schobitz ’22, visual arts, agree with Smith that UMBC students excel in the arts, and would like local employers to know about that. Siesko, a photographer and videographer at commonvision, UMBC’s design shop, used her skillset to bring personally designed business cards and résumés to the fair. Siesko is unsure what she is looking for but hopes that by speaking with some of the employers, like the folks at the Baltimore County Arts Guild, she can get a sense of how to best move forward. 

“We’re a small non-profit five minutes from UMBC. We want to make sure that artists feel seen and heard and know there is a place for them to work,” said Gloria Fajimolu, program and events manager at the Baltimore County Arts Guild, a new employer at the Career Fair. “We’re very welcoming. If a student doesn’t get the internship or the job, they can still be a paid instructor. If they are in animation, we will pay them to teach animation classes to the community.”

As a recent alum, Schobitz has one goal—to get a job in animation. He is grateful UMBC gives alumni access to the career fairs and Handshake, a job listing app. “I apply to about 10 jobs per day. I use sites like Indeed and Handshake to find jobs and apply,” says Schobitz. “While I was a student, I used UMBC’s résumé services and made a lot of appointments. I’m still trying. I won’t give up.”

The end and beginning

Back at the headshot line, Cristian Castro, M.S. ’24, cybersecurity, joined the still-growing line as the last wave of students filed in. Castro is from Colombia and is looking to find a company to sponsor him to work in the U.S. “The Career Fair is a very good opportunity to see what’s out there. A professional photo is important in a LinkedIn profile,” says Castro. He also found some job leads earlier this year while representing UMBC as part of the Society of Advancing Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science. “When it comes to what happens after graduation, every detail helps.”

Follow the Career Center on myUMBC and RSVP to the CAHSS Career Connection Social on Thursday, March 7, to network with alumni and employers in the arts, humanities, and social sciences.

Meet Monique Jones Cephas ‘92, information systems management. Monique is the Deputy Associate Commissioner for the Office of Electronic Services and Systems Integration at the Social Security Administration and the current Scholarship Committee Chair of the UMBC Alumni Association Board of Directors. Monique credits her time at UMBC and participation in the university’s cooperative education program—along with a lot of hard work, perseverance, and dedication—for her career success. “Each one, reach one” is one of Monique’s favorite mantras. This is why she gives back to UMBC as an active member of the Alumni Association. Take it away, Monique!

Q: What’s your favorite part of Retriever Nation?

A. As a member of the UMBC Alumni Association, I enjoy connecting alums with other alums, alums with current students, and enriching our UMBC network. It is imperative to me to help students understand the dynamics of building their network even before graduating from UMBC with hopes of using this network to find a position in their field of study.

In addition to my service on the alumni board, I was also a founder of the Chapter of Black and LatinX Alumni (CBLA). Founded in 2006, CBLA was formed to create multicultural programming and continue intercultural interactions for the UMBC Black and Latinx community. CBLA is open to all UMBC alumni and in alignment with UMBC’s value of Inclusive Excellence, we want alumni members to join us in building our culturally conscious community. 

Q: What do you love about your academic program or an organization you’re involved in?

A. I am an avid public servant. In 1990, I was initiated as a member of the Lambda Kappa Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., which is the first Greek letter organization on UMBC’s campus. I love the sisterhood, advocating for justice, and helping young people to achieve their dreams by awarding scholarships. My lifetime commitment to public service and the values that were instilled in me as a leader with the Lambda Kappa chapter have carried over to make me a successful president of the Baltimore County Alumnae Chapter with more than 400 members. 

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It is imperative to me to help students understand the dynamics of building their network even before graduating from UMBC with hopes of using this network to find a position in their field of study.

Monique Cephas ‘92

Q: Where did you find support at UMBC?

A. I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to participate in UMBC’s cooperative education program starting in 1991 as this is how I started my career at the Social Security Administration (SSA) as a computer specialist. I have worked at SSA for more than 32 years moving up the career ladder from an IT specialist to a team leader, office director, and now a member of the Senior Executive Service as the Deputy Associate Commissioner for the Office of Electronic Services and Systems Integration.

Q: How have you given back?

A. I love to support the Alumni Endowed Scholarship Fund. As someone who worked their way through college, the mission of that fund is near and dear to my heart. I know that the donations I make will be put to good use by a student in need. This year the board received scholarship applications from 41 qualified students, but we were only able to award $18,000 total to nine students. As chair of the Alumni Association Board of Director’s scholarship committee, I know we can help more deserving students. We hope to award even more scholarships in the future—with your help.

The UMBC Alumni Endowed Scholarship

Through the Alumni Endowed Scholarship, the board of directors strives to make a difference in the lives of deserving students, to help them achieve their dream of receiving a university degree and joining the alumni community.

The board offers a general and legacy scholarship to outstanding undergraduate UMBC students. Eligible students may apply for the general and legacy scholarships each year. The award for the Alumni Association General and Legacy Scholarships for 2023 – 2024 is at least $2,000. These scholarships are partially funded through the generous support of UMBC alumni.

Make a Gift

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UMBC’s greatest strength is its people. When people meet Retrievers and hear about the passion they bring, the relationships they create, the ways they support each other, and the commitment they have to inclusive excellence, they truly get a sense of our community. That’s what “Meet a Retriever” is all about.

Learn more about how UMBC can help you achieve your goals.

Meet Emily Passera, the program coordinator for service-learning and community engagement in the Shriver Center. In her role, Emily coordinates the student leadership development programs for the residential Shriver Living Learning Community and serves as a member of the Exempt Staff Senate. She also facilitates school, nonprofit, and government agency partnerships with UMBC and coordinates implementation of applied learning courses across campus with a focus on career readiness, experiential learning, and storytelling. Her not-so-secret recipe for bringing joy to her job? Saying “yes” as much as possible! Take it away, Emily.

Q: What’s the one thing you’d want someone to know about the support you find here?

A. Collaboration is such a key value of UMBC. I feel well known and supported across academic and student affairs. I connect weekly with the Center for Democracy and Civic Life, The Honors College, Transfer Student Initiatives, and the three colleges because a student-centered approach is fundamental to collaborative work. 

Q: Tell us about someone in the community who has inspired you or supported you, and how they did it.

A. UMBC’s first-year students continue to impress me every year, and it takes a lot of work to help transition these learners into our community. Laila Shishineh and her office (Academic Engagement and Transition Programs) support programming and academic resources to see them succeed. Somehow, Laila also has time to lead my favorite Monday night tradition, Bootcamp in the RAC. As a First-Year Experience instructor and a human who needs exercise for a balanced lifestyle, I feel supported by Laila’s leadership!

Q: Tell us about what you love about your academic program or an organization you’re involved in.

A. I love being a Community Service and Learning Practicum (PRAC 096) instructor. Through the PRAC 096 course, community engagement continues to help UMBC students become more attuned to their local community and interpersonal skills. While serving the Baltimore region weekly, our students reflect on issues such as neighborhood poverty, maternal and mental health, food justice, education access, disability rights, and grassroots social change. I am so impressed how exposure empowers these leaders. They also connect with community members at UMBC from different lived experiences and find similarities and projects to work together on. Our community partners want more UMBC students to engage!

Q: What brought you to UMBC in the first place? 

A. “My UMBC Why” is the proximity to enthusiastic non-profits, school programs, and leadership in the community! The arts, humanities, and sciences are all well-represented and employ experts in creating applied learning experiences for all ages of community. UMBC students can explore their classroom learning outside Hilltop Circle.

Q: Tell us about the people who have helped you at UMBC, and why their HOW made such a difference to you.

A. “My UMBC How” is the staff mentorship program. I’ve connected with staff who put in countless hours running programs, like creating a restorative practices community. Every professional development opportunity I hear about I invite my mentors. Walking the loop around campus and sitting outside Starbucks with my mentors has created the environment to have deep conversations about UMBC culture, personal mission, and collective support.

Q: Are you involved in any campus organizations?

A. Exempt Staff Senate! I really value a shared governance who listens and advocates for staff representation in the holistic care of the workforce here at UMBC. We work to address issues and leadership transitions as a collective unit. 

Q: What part of your job do you enjoy the most and why?

A. Through my role, I support students discovering that it’s safe to explore their interests while at college. While on-boarding students with their campus partners, I ask deep questions about their goals and ideal work environments. I consider their responses and invite them to try something outside their comfort zone. Facilitating reflection on these community engagement experiences better prepares them to put the experience on their résumé, identify leadership skills, and continue to learn in an active environment.

Q: What’s next for you, Emily?

A: I am starting to expand my interests in learning analytics. I think the Ed.D. in Educational Leadership at Frostburg State University will help support my career growth.

Q: What would you tell someone who is considering a career at UMBC?

A. Arbutus is a close neighbor, and OCA Mocha is a great work environment!

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UMBC’s greatest strength is its people. When people meet Retrievers and hear about the passion they bring, the relationships they create, the ways they support each other, and the commitment they have to inclusive excellence, they truly get a sense of our community. That’s what “Meet a Retriever” is all about.

Learn more about how UMBC can help you achieve your goals.

Within just a few months of living in Piątek, a small town in central Poland, Leah Michaels, M.F.A ’19, intermedia and digital arts, has already traveled to Romania, where many recipients of the Fulbright U.S. Student award placed throughout Europe gathered at a media literacy conference. She has also had an opportunity to research Polish film at Poland’s Film Archive and connect with a local genealogist who helped her find details about her Polish roots for a short documentary she is producing about her ancestry.

Michaels and nine other UMBC Fulbright student recipients researching and teaching English abroad this year helped propel UMBC, once again, to the elite ranks of a Fulbright Top Producing Institution, as reported today in The Chronicle of Higher Education. The designation recognizes colleges and universities with the highest number of students selected for the Fulbright U.S. Student Program, the U.S. government’s flagship international academic exchange program. UMBC first received this designation from the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs in 2019 – 2020 and again in 2020 – 2021. 

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UMBC is one of 57 doctoral universities nationwide and three in Maryland to receive a Fulbright Top Producing Institution designation for Fulbright U.S. Students in 2023 – 2024.

More than 2,200 U.S. students from hundreds of colleges and universities are awarded Fulbright grants annually. However, only a few of these institutions are designated top producers yearly. In the last decade, UMBC students and recent graduates have received over 60 Fulbright U.S. Student Program awards in Africa, Asia and the Pacific, the Middle East, South America, and Europe.

“This achievement is a testament to your institution’s deep commitment to international exchange,” wrote Secretary of State Antony Blinken in a letter to President Valerie Sheares Ashby, congratulating her on UMBC’s Fulbright Top Producer designation, “and to building lasting connections between the people of the United States and the people of other countries.”

Mutual understanding

In partnership with more than 140 countries worldwide, the Fulbright U.S. Student Program offers unparalleled opportunities in all academic disciplines to graduating college seniors, graduate students, and young professionals from all backgrounds. Fulbright recipients play a critical role in U.S. public diplomacy, establishing long-term relationships between people and nations through graduate study, research, or teaching as English Teaching Assistants (ETAs). ETAs develop their own language skills and knowledge of the host country while teaching English to elementary, middle school, or college students.

“As a public research university, it is imperative that we provide students with opportunities for global engagement,” says David Di Maria, associate vice provost for international education. “Fulbright is among the most prestigious of these opportunities.”

While Michaels has flourished in Poland, her 2023 – 2024 Fulbright class peers have also settled into their placements, which generally start in September with the new school year. Paul Ocone ’22, individualized study, is conducting research at the Meiji University School of Global Japanese Studies in Japan, and eight ETAs are teaching English across Europe and Asia: 

• North Macedonia: David Bullman ’22, ancient studies
• Romania: Tiffany Powell, M.A.’23, teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL)
• Slovak Republic: Sianna Serio ’23, computer science
• South Korea: Tasneem Mansour ’20, modern languages, linguistics, and intercultural communication
• Taiwan: Nailah-Benā Chambers ’23, global studies; Kara Gavin ’20, English; and Milan Richardson ’23, bioinformatics
• Turkey: Grant Clifton, M.A. ’23, TESOL

“Being named a Top Producing Fulbright Institution is a tremendous honor—it not only shows the world what we already know about our amazing students, but it also lets our current students know that the Fulbright is a realistic opportunity for them,” says Brian Souders, Ph.D. ’09, language, literacy, and culture, M.A.’19, TESOL, and associate director of global learning at the Center for Global Engagement (CGE). Souders has led students through the Fulbright application process as UMBC’s Fulbright Program advisor for the last decade.

For Michaels, the experience has been life-changing. “My home city has been incredibly welcoming. I learned Polish folk dances, made Old Bay pierogi from scratch with some of my students, and joined a school trip to an art gallery,” says Michaels.

The Fulbright family

The Fulbright experience also includes college and university faculty and staff, as well as artists and professionals from a wide range of fields, who can join over 400,000 Fulbright alumni. 

In October 2023,Renique Kersh, vice president of student affairs, and Souders traveled to Germany after receiving Fulbright International Education Administrator awards. Katherine Heird, director of education abroad and global learning, received the same award to travel to Taiwan in spring 2024. The award is geared to provide staff who support Fulbright applicants with a greater understanding of higher education worldwide. 

Many UMBC faculty members and staff have received a Fulbright U.S. Scholar award over the years. This year, Lynn Cazabon, professor of visual arts and director of the Center for Innovation, Research, and Creativity in the Arts, received a Fulbright U.S. Scholar award to work at Queensland University, Australia, to create a public artwork based on local communities’ responses to climate change. Cazabon received her first Fulbright award in 2015 to the University of Liepāja, Latvia.

Fulbright Scholars globally are also drawn to UMBC’s welcoming community. Shannon Sauro, associate professor of education, hosted Jules Buendgens-Kosten, a research assistant at the Institute of English and American Studies at Goethe-Universität Frankfurt, Germany. Buendgens-Kosten joined UMBC as the institution’s first Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence to teach and share their research on inclusive education in teaching English as a foreign language to students in UMBC’s TESOL master’s program.