Learning from New Zealand Public Policy

 

On January 18, leaders in public policy from across the U.S. will convene at UMBC for a one-day forum, “What Did We Learn Over There? Public Policy in New Zealand Through American Eyes.” Hosted by the University’s Center for Health Program Development and Management (CHPDM), the event will bring together for the first time individuals who studied in New Zealand as Ian Axford Fellows in Public Policy. The Axford Fellows program was established by the New Zealand Government in partnership with the private sector to give outstanding American professionals opportunities to study, travel and gain practical knowledge of economic, social and political reforms and management of the government sector.

Eight former Ian Axford Fellows will give presentations, and the program will be placed in context with remarks by Robert Reischauer, President of the Urban Institute and former chair of the Ian Axford Fellowships selection committee; Annette Dixon, the World Bank’s Director of Strategy and Operations for Europe and Central Asia Region; and Peter Watson, CEO of the Dwight Group and current chair of the Axford selection committee. UMBC President Freeman Hrabowski and CHPDM Executive Director Chuck Milligan will speak, and faculty and students will also attend.

John O’Brien, CHPDM’s director of acute care policy and an Ian Axford Fellow in 2005, was inspired to bring former Fellows together to foster an ongoing dialogue about policy issues. “My six months in New Zealand allowed me to think broadly about how health care delivery systems work, and to question my own assumptions of how systems can and should work,” he said.

Though dwarfed by the United States in size and population, New Zealand faces many of the same issues that confront this country. Health care, the environment, taxes, ethnic diversity and education are but a few of the topics that past Axford Fellows have investigated. “One of the benefits of studying New Zealand is that the relationships across seemingly disparate topics are more apparent than in a large country like the United States,” said O’Brien. “Discussion among forum participants is likely to generate fresh insights and novel approaches that otherwise might not be considered.”

CHPDM is dedicated to improving the health and social outcomes of vulnerable populations through research, analysis and evaluations on behalf of government agencies and foundations. Formed in 1994 in a unique collaboration with the Maryland Medicaid program, the Center is actively engaged in the academic and research programs at UMBC, and partners with other University centers and departments on research initiatives, forums and symposia related to federal and state health policy. As a member of the University community, the Center offers research and employment opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students, and currently employs eight UMBC alumni.

For more information on CHPDM, visit www.chpdm.org.

(1/10/06)

 

 

 

 

Each year, the UMBC Alumni Association presents awards to honor alumni for their professional and personal achievements and service to the University.  Learn more about our past award winners.

Outstanding Alumna
Natural & Mathematical Sciences
Diane Auer Jones ’88, M.S. Applied Molecular Biology
In addition to a successful career as an entrepreneur, government policy maker and administrator at Princeton University, in November Jones was appointed Deputy Associate Director for the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy. She also has served as an active member of the UMBC Research Park Corporation’s board of directors for the past eleven years.
Outstanding Alumnus
Humanities
Steven Eidelman ’73, American Studies
After serving for three decades as an advocate for people with disabilities – most recently as national executive director of The Arc of the United States – Eidelman last fall was named the University of Delaware’s first Robert Edelsohn Chair in Disabilities Studies, as well as a Senior Fellow at the university’s Center for Disabilities Studies. In his new position, Eidelman also develops leadership training programs for government and not-for-profit managers who support people with disabilities.
Outstanding Alumnus
Visual & Performing Arts
Billy Kemp ’95, Visual and Performing Arts – Music
An accomplished multi-instrumentalist and producer, Kemp received three nominations from the Washington Area Music Association (WAMA) in 2004 including best producer. In 2003 Kemp produced Grammy-nominated and Wammy award-winning singer Debi Smith. He has been the composer for the regional Emmy award-winning Maryland Public Television series, “Outdoors Maryland,” since 1997. He has been adjunct faculty at UMBC since 1996.
Outstanding Alumna
Social & Behavioral Sciences
Lisa L. Dickerson ’78, Political Science
Prior to her appointment as the first African-American female Administrator for the Maryland Transit Administration in 2005, Dickerson served as Assistant Secretary for Equity and Economic Empowerment at the Maryland Department of Transportation, and before that garnered successes working as a congressional fellow in Washington and serving as vice president of a national telecommunications firm. During his time in office, President George H.W. Bush also appointed Dickerson to the prestigious Committee for Small Business and the Republican Council of 100.
Outstanding Alumna
Engineering and Information Technology
Donna Stevenson ’87, Information Systems
As head of Early Morning Software, Stevenson is one of only a few minority women CEOs of an IT company in Maryland and the rest of the United States. She remains an active volunteer at UMBC, most notably as a member of the Center for Women and Information Technology advisory board and a mentor-in-residence for the ACTiVATE program, which promotes entrepreneurship among women.
Distinguished Service Award
Michael L. Oster ’74, Economics
As chairman of the UMBC Economics Advisory Board since its inception in 2001, Oster has helped shape the council’s objectives, facilitate scholarships and internships for students and created many valuable connections for the University. An accomplished banking executive, Oster joined BB&T in 1999 as a regional president and became Maryland Group President in 2001. His time and talents also benefit the boards of a number of worthy organizations, many of them in his home, Carroll County.
Visionary Leadership Award
The Alumni Association Executive Board will present this special award to the Reginald F. Lewis Event Committee in recognition of their achievement in advancing the mission of the Alumni Association. The committee members are:
Kisha Matthews ’03
Yvette Mozie-Ross ’88
Devin Walker ’89
James Wiggins ’75
Gary Brooks ’79
Michael Sterling ’85
Juan Holcomb ’81
Crystal Watkins ’95

Learning from New Zealand Public Policy

 

On January 18, leaders in public policy from across the U.S. will convene at UMBC for a one-day forum, “What Did We Learn Over There? Public Policy in New Zealand Through American Eyes.” Hosted by the University’s Center for Health Program Development and Management (CHPDM), the event will bring together for the first time individuals who studied in New Zealand as Ian Axford Fellows in Public Policy. The Axford Fellows program was established by the New Zealand Government in partnership with the private sector to give outstanding American professionals opportunities to study, travel and gain practical knowledge of economic, social and political reforms and management of the government sector.

Eight former Ian Axford Fellows will give presentations, and the program will be placed in context with remarks by Robert Reischauer, President of the Urban Institute and former chair of the Ian Axford Fellowships selection committee; Annette Dixon, the World Bank’s Director of Strategy and Operations for Europe and Central Asia Region; and Peter Watson, CEO of the Dwight Group and current chair of the Axford selection committee. UMBC President Freeman Hrabowski and CHPDM Executive Director Chuck Milligan will speak, and faculty and students will also attend.

John O’Brien, CHPDM’s director of acute care policy and an Ian Axford Fellow in 2005, was inspired to bring former Fellows together to foster an ongoing dialogue about policy issues. “My six months in New Zealand allowed me to think broadly about how health care delivery systems work, and to question my own assumptions of how systems can and should work,” he said.

Though dwarfed by the United States in size and population, New Zealand faces many of the same issues that confront this country. Health care, the environment, taxes, ethnic diversity and education are but a few of the topics that past Axford Fellows have investigated. “One of the benefits of studying New Zealand is that the relationships across seemingly disparate topics are more apparent than in a large country like the United States,” said O’Brien. “Discussion among forum participants is likely to generate fresh insights and novel approaches that otherwise might not be considered.”

CHPDM is dedicated to improving the health and social outcomes of vulnerable populations through research, analysis and evaluations on behalf of government agencies and foundations. Formed in 1994 in a unique collaboration with the Maryland Medicaid program, the Center is actively engaged in the academic and research programs at UMBC, and partners with other University centers and departments on research initiatives, forums and symposia related to federal and state health policy. As a member of the University community, the Center offers research and employment opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students, and currently employs eight UMBC alumni.

For more information on CHPDM, visit www.chpdm.org.

(1/10/06)

 

 

 

 

Studying South Asia

 

In the past decade, UMBC Associate Professor of Political Science Devin T. Hagerty’s region of expertise, South Asia, has gone from being an understudied corner of the globe to one of the most closely watched.

In 1998, India and Pakistan added nuclear weapon capability to what was already one of the tensest borders in the world. 9-11 made the world focus on Afghanistan, the Taliban, stopping the spread of Al Qaeda and the continuing search for Osama Bin Laden. Then Oct. 7’s devastating earthquake in the disputed Kashmir region added humanitarian disaster to the already volatile sociopolitical mix in this global flashpoint.

“It’s a horrible, horrible situation,” Hagerty said. “Comparisons of disasters are kind of ghoulish, but in terms of lives lost, the suffering of survivors, and the magnitude of the cleanup ahead, the earthquake will dwarf Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.”

According to Hagerty, the earthquake’s aftermath will challenge the resiliency of both Pakistan’s citizens and its leader, President Pervez Musharraf. “ Pakistan is still a very poor country. The literacy rate is low, especially for women, and opportunities for women are scarce. Health care is generally poor. There’s also a big drug addiction problem plus many ethnic divisions and internal rifts.”

“It’s hard to think of a leader in a more precarious position than Musharraf,” said Hagerty. “The West perceives him as not doing enough to fight terror or find Bin Laden. But it’s important to realize that he sent Pakistan Army forces to the lawless border region to fight Al Qaeda and other violent fundamentalists. That’s something unprecedented in Pakistani history. I have more sympathy for him than most Western observers.”

According to Hagerty, while some criticisms of the U.S./Pakistan relationship are valid, national security concerns win out. “We need the Pakistanis’ information and access — something only they can give us right now in the Muslim world. If there were a rupture in our relationship with Pakistan, we would lose our ability to be effective on the ground in southern Afghanistan, where the Taliban is reconstituting itself, for example.”

Hagerty’s writing and research continues to underscore the importance of South Asia. He recently completed two books: co-authoring with Sumit Ganguly Fearful Symmetry: Indo-Pakistani Crises in the Shadow of Nuclear Weapons (Oxford University Press and the University of Washington Press) and editing South Asia in World Politics (Rowman and Littlefield). He is also the editor of Asian Security, a pioneering academic journal that takes a global, interdisciplinary look at security issues in the region.

“From the end of the Cold War to 9-11, we pulled back from the South Asian region and forgot about it, obviously in hindsight a terrible foreign policy mistake,” Hagerty said. “In my opinion, the Bush administration feels it has no choice right now but to ally with Pakistan. It’s a tough situation, but I always tell my students that if you like your answers nice and neat and consistent, then maybe international relations isn’t the field for you.”

Read more about Hagerty at www.umbc.edu/research.

(12/20/05)

 

 

 

Hatching a Fruitful Research Career

 

At a recent research conference on parasitoid wasps, Presidential Fellow Kate Laskowski not only turned heads as the only undergraduate student attending, the poster that she presented on her research won first prize, beating out all other presenters—including graduate students and post-docs.

Laskowski’s field work on the wasps, a fascinating insect that could someday help us better understand human aging, sparked a passion for research that changed her life. “When I started at UMBC, I was pre-vet with an interest in wildlife pathology,” Laskwoski, a biological sciences major with a chemistry minor said. “But Professor Jeff Leips was my academic advisor and at the end of my freshman year he offered me the chance to some fieldwork.” She’s been studying the wasps ever since.

Leips, assistant professor of biological sciences, says that the wasps’ creepy means of reproduction was the inspiration for the Alien series of science fiction thriller films. The wasps literally rob the cradle of other insect species, injecting their eggs into living fruit fly larvae. The tiny time bomb lies dormant for four to five days until the larva pupates, or spins a cocoon around itself. Only then does the baby wasp hatch, killing its host and simultaneously providing itself with a food supply and a comfy, secure home in which to grow.

More importantly to Laskowski is the wasps’ interaction with fruit flies or Drosophila, the standard studied life system for geneticists. A particular fruit fly gene, known as Ddc, seems to be an enzymatic tradeoff between how long the fly lives and how well they can avoid a parasitoid attack. Long-living flies are more likely to get hit, while those better resistant to wasp attacks seem to be shorter-lived. Laskowski and other researchers are interested in what else Ddc can teach about the human aging process.

In addition to her accomplishments in research, Laskowski is also a founding sister of Alpha Sigma Kappa, a sorority for women interested in technical studies that includes majors in computer science and other physical sciences. Laskowski’s career goal now is to become a professor, and she plans to work for a year after commencement and then begin graduate school.

Leips is not surprised at Laskowski’s progress. “Kate is a dedicated, talented student who is going to have a great research career someday,” he said.

More information about UMBC research is available on UMBC’s Research Site.

(12/13/05)

 

 

 

Cross Country Captures America East Title

 

Not surprisingly, Robert Cartwright ’80 felt a bit of déjà vu watching his son, Ryan, cross the finish line at the America East Conference Championship in Binghamton, NY, last month.

Almost exactly 30 years before – as a freshman economics major at UMBC in 1975 – his team also came from behind to win the Mason Dixon cross country conference championship.

“This is such a coincidence, it’s just unbelievable,” said the elder Cartwright, of Perry Hall, an All Conference performer during his years at UMBC. “It sort of choked everybody up.”

The father-son connection was just the icing on the cake for this year’s men’s team. Picked fifth in the pre-season rankings, they placed five runners in the top 16 to take the Division I conference title. The team later finished 21 st overall in the NCAA Mid-Atlantic Regional meet, with the women’s team placing 22 nd.

Runners Izudin Mehmedovic and J.J. Wetzel earned all-conference accolades for their performances in the America East conference, while head coach Murray Davis and staff were selected as men’s coaching staff of the year for the conference.

“It’s really nice to be able to be successful at all levels,” said Davis, who is in his fifth season coaching the team. “So many things have to come together for a season like this.”

UMBC recently honored the 30 th anniversary of the 1975 cross country team’s Division II conference title during Homecoming. Like the current men’s team, their predecessors were not favored to win.

“I was just a freshman. We were a young school and we didn’t have such a good record,” said Cartwright. “Then, all of a sudden we started winning meet after meet, and nobody could really believe it.”

Cartwright’s son, Ryan, a senior information systems major, was UMBC’s sixth finisher during the American East conference and third for UMBC at the Mid-Atlantic Regional meet.

The pair started running together after Ryan was injured playing soccer in middle school. The father gave his son tips, and soon encouraged him to join his high school track team.

“I would run with him for about a year and I couldn’t keep up with him,” said Ryan. “Later on, though, I got better. He would say, ‘I was successful (running at UMBC), maybe you would be, too.’”

Over the years, the pair has accumulated numerous running medals and trophies. And though the elder Cartwright no longer competes, he can always look to the father-son awards wall in his basement for inspiration.

“He has a lot more awards than I ever got,” he said. “I’m really proud of him.”

(11/28/05)

 

 

 

From UMBC to Costa Rica

 

Just a few months after graduating from UMBC, Justine Wagner, Spanish and economics ’04, traveled to Costa Rica on a Fulbright Research Award.

Wagner conducted research for a study on the effects of government social spending on poverty at the Institute of Economic Science Research of the University of Costa Rica with Professor Juan Diego Trejos, who has worked with UMBC Professor of Economics and Wagner’s mentor, Tim Gindling.

As part of her award, Wagner also had the opportunity to attend a Fulbright Enhancement Seminar in Honduras, where Fulbright Scholars studying in Central America presented their research. “The seminar was really the capstone of the whole experience; it was great to meet with other young scholars and discuss our work,” said Wagner.

At UMBC, Wagner took advantage of the many opportunities available to support research by undergraduates. As a sophomore, she spent a semester at the University of Granada. In her junior year, she began working with Gindling on his research on minimum wages in Costa Rica and received a Provost’s Undergraduate Research Award, which she used to travel to Costa Rica in order to collect data, talk with government policy makers and meet Costa Rica researchers. It was on this visit that she first met Trejos. Wagner then presented her work at Undergraduate Research and Creative Achievement Day in her senior year, and published in an article in the 2005 UMBC Review.

Wagner said that her experiences at UMBC were invaluable and that she received a great deal of support. “The community of faculty and staff at UMBC want to see the best for every student,” she added.

“Justine was an excellent research partner,” said Gindling, who has received two Fulbright Fellowships to conduct research and teach in Costa Rica. “She has the ability to both work well with others and also the initiative to take a research problem and solve it on her own. The combination of fluent Spanish and knowledge of economics was especially valuable for our research project and for her ability to obtain the Fulbright Fellowship.”

Wagner is now using her skills and experience in economics at the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division, where she is a research analyst, but she is also interested in applying her interest in language and international affairs in a graduate program.

(11/14/05)

 

 

 

Light for All

 

The science of light – photonics – is as ubiquitous as oxygen in today’s technology driven world. Go to the grocery store, make a phone call, listen to a CD or watch a movie on DVD and odds are photonics made it possible.

Anthony Johnson , director of UMBC’s Center for Advanced Studies in Photonics Research (CASPR) is not only focused on pushing the boundaries of research in his field, but is also determined to increase the number of underrepresented minorities in the sciences.

CASPR, which began with a 2002 NASA grant, is an interdisciplinary center, partnering with UMBC’s Departments of Physics; Computer Science and Electrical Engineering; Mathematics and Statistics; and Chemical and Biochemical Engineering. A current CASPR goal is to partner with photonics faculty in Mechanical Engineering, Chemistry and Biological Sciences.

Johnson, one of the most respected researchers in his field and a past president of the Optical Society of America, has longtime connections to UMBC that helped bring him to campus. Johnson got his start at the famous Bell Laboratories, where he was in the same Cooperative Research Fellowship Program as UMBC Graduate School Associate Dean Janet Rutledge.

Soon after CASPR’s funding was announced, Rutledge, along with Curtis Menyuk and Gary Carter—UMBC photonics experts and longtime colleagues of Johnson—encouraged him to consider leading the new center.

“I really liked what I saw at UMBC,” said Johnson. “There was a strong photonics effort, plus the opportunity to do things I enjoy most—working with students and mentoring while doing industrial collaboration in an academic setting.”

He also liked UMBC’s track record of increasing the number of minorities and women in the sciences. “I wanted to translate the model of the Meyerhoff Program’s success in biomedical sciences to the physical sciences and engineering,” said Johnson. “In addition to world-class research, I really would like to foster that kind of environment in the physical sciences and engineering and spearhead it through CASPR.”

Johnson knows firsthand the uphill battle minorities in the sciences face. “In 1981 when I received my Ph.D. in physics, there were roughly 1,000 physics doctorates granted in the country,” he said. “Of those, only four went to African-Americans and I was one of the four.”

According to Johnson, those paltry numbers have not changed much in the decades since. Out of about 1,000 physics Ph.D.’s awarded annually in the U.S., an average of just 10 to 15 go to African Americans, and only about 20 to Hispanic Americans.

The numbers don’t improve at the faculty level. “Out of the nearly 5000 full-time physics faculty at 186 U.S. Ph.D. producing institutions, there are only about 38 African American physics faculty in the nation right now. I just couldn’t believe it was that low.” [Source: 2000 Physics Academic Workforce – American Institute of Physics]

Under Johnson’s leadership, CASPR is already becoming a magnet for talented women and minority researchers. Elaine Lalanne, Ph.D., an assistant research scientist at CASPR, received her doctorate in 2003 from NJIT and was very likely the only African American female to receive a physics PhD in the country that year.

Johnson is a firm believer in taking his dedication on the road and into the community. Each year he logs thousands of miles traveling cross country and across the globe to locations like Italy and Ghana to connect with fellow researchers, educators and most importantly, to demonstrate science to young people.

He is the principal investigator of “Hands-On Optics: Making an Impact with Light,” a K-12 educational outreach partnership that includes the Optical Society of America and the National Science Foundation. This past summer, he hosted an optics and laser demonstration for middle school girls from ESTEEM, a UMBC Center for Women and Information Technology-affiliated program.

Johnson is on the road a lot in his personal life as well, as he still lives in New Jersey and drives home for the weekends to be with his wife, Adrienne Johnson, Ph.D. The Johnsons have three children, one of whom, Brandon, is a sophomore mechanical engineering major and Meyerhoff Scholar at UMBC.

A portion of the NASA funds were used to build a CASPR Ultrafast Optics & Optoelectronics Research & Teaching Facility for Johnson’s research group. His group is doing research on a variety of future-looking technologies, including the interesting optical properties of carbon nanotubes, high-speed optical switching for telecommunications, improving quality control for fiber optic manufacturers and research in optical limiting for proposed experimental eyewear for the U.S. Department of Defense.

But the project that Johnson and CASPR are most eagerly awaiting news about is UMBC’s participation in Mid-Infrared Technology for Health and the Environment (MIRTHE). The $17 million NSF Engineering Research Center proposal teams CASPR and UMBC with co-investigators at Princeton University (lead institution), The Johns Hopkins University, Rice University, Texas A&M University and the City University of New York.

“Of 110 pre-proposals submitted to NSF, our team has made it to the final nine proposals and is a strong competitor to make the final cut to four funded proposals,” Johnson said. “This would be a major engineering center at UMBC if we are selected. We are incredibly excited about the future of CASPR.”

(11/1/05)

 

 

 

Helping Women Achieve Their Potential

 

UMBC’s array of programs that empower women to be both successful students and successful professionals has been recognized for the second year in a row by CosmoGIRL! magazine’s guide to the 50 best colleges for girls. Featured in the magazine’s October 2005 issue, the guide also includes such institutions as Amherst College; Brown University; Duke University; MIT; Stanford University; the University of California, Berkeley; and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

“We’re confident that the girls who go [to UMBC] are given the opportunity to see other women being innovative thinkers and successful leaders, and that these students will, in turn, follow in their footsteps and become the powerhouses of tomorrow,” said CosmoGIRL!’s Editor-in-Chief, Susan Schulz.

In compiling the list for its readership of young women ages 12 through 17, editors at CosmoGIRL! consulted admissions officers and guidance counselors across the country to determine the kind of environment that gives girls the best chance of success in school and after graduation. These key factors include prominent female role models on campus, strong women’s sports programs, outstanding technology and entrepreneurship programs, excellence in internship and job placements and effective alumni networks.

UMBC impressed the magazine’s editors with a variety of programs that empower women. UMBC’s Women’s Studies Program, which emphasizes the importance of historical, cross-cultural and international perspectives, recently added certificate programs for undergraduate and graduate students. The Women’s Studies Coordinating Committee worked with the Office of Student Affairs to develop Women Involved in Learning and Leadership (WILL) , which engages the campus in a learning community that promotes academic excellence, leadership development, career exploration and civic engagement on women’s issues. The University’s Women’s Center provides programs that support women’s academic and intellectual growth, professional development and personal empowerment.

Other innovative programs that help women achieve their potential include the Center for Women and Information Technology (CWIT), dedicated to achieving women’s full participation in all aspects of information technology (IT), while the Imaging Research Center (IRC), specializing in high-end computer animation and visualization, offers both undergraduate and graduate students the opportunity to work on professional projects with clients such as the Baltimore Museum of Art, PBS and the Discovery Channel. Through UMBC’s Alex. Brown Center for Entrepreneurship, students can gain targeted expertise through internships, test their skills through competitions, accelerate a business concept through the Idea Lab, and attend courses and lectures tailored to spark their entrepreneurial spirit.

In addition, UMBC is one of only 16 schools in the country chosen by the National Science Foundation to sponsor an ADVANCE program designed to support the recruitment and advancement of women faculty in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).

Programs that help women prepare for success after graduation include the UMBC Alumni Association’s popular “Backpack to Briefcase” program, which offers students the opportunity to network with the University’s alumni. UMBC’s Career Services Center and Shriver Center offer internship and coop placement, as well as other programs that help students make a successful transition from UMBC to the workforce.

(10/24/05)

 

 

 

Celebrating an Innovative Environment for Learning & Research

 

The Robert and Jane Meyerhoff Chemistry Building dedication will take place at 2 p.m. on Friday, October 21. The entire campus community is invited to the event, which will begin in the University Center Plaza and includes a ribbon-cutting, plaque dedication and reception.

When UMBC renames its newly renovated chemistry and biochemistry building as the Robert and Jane Meyerhoff Chemistry Building on October 21, the campus will celebrate both a transforming philanthropy and an innovative training center for the next generation of chemists and biochemists.

The chemistry building renovations benefit all UMBC chemistry and biochemistry students and faculty. “The renovations bring world class, state-of-the-art instructional and research laboratories to undergraduate and graduate students,” said Ralph Pollack, chair and professor of UMBC’s chemistry and biochemistry department. “We’re especially pleased that the new laboratories’ layouts allow for improved safety and increased interaction between students and faculty.”

The building design encourages communication, mentoring and shared research through flexible, interconnected laboratory spaces for research, clustered faculty offices, a tutorial center, space for small discussion and problem solving groups and a bridge connecting students and faculty with life sciences colleagues in the Department of Biological Sciences. The facility houses state-of-the-art teaching laboratories and outstanding research and teaching instrumentation, such as a new mass spectrometry facility, a laser laboratory and a suite of nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometers.

With the renaming of the chemistry building, the University honors the Meyerhoffs for founding the Meyerhoff Scholarship Program at UMBC in 1988 to address the under-representation of African American men in the sciences and engineering.

Since then the program has produced nearly 600 graduates who are minorities or are dedicated to advancing representation of minorities in the sciences, literally changing the face of science in America. Program graduates go on in large numbers to the country’s most prestigious graduate and professional schools, placing UMBC among the top predominantly white institutions nationally in producing minority bachelor’s degree recipients who go on to earn a Ph.D.

Similar achievements have been made among chemistry and biochemistry students and alumni broadly. The department has been ranked among the top 25 producers of chemistry undergraduates of all backgrounds. Paula Grabowski ’76, now a biology professor at University of Pittsburgh, is a Howard Hughes Medical Investigator, and her husband, Joe Grabowski ‘78, heads Pitt’s National Science Foundation Research Program for Undergraduates. More than 50 of UMBC’s chemistry and biochemistry graduates and postdocs have gone onto faculty positions at institutions including Harvard, Yale, Penn, UC-Davis, Virginia Tech and the Universities of Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts and Tennessee.

These achievements would not be possible without the University’s outstanding chemistry and biochemistry faculty, who are devoted to both teaching and research. Their scientific and scholarly achievements attract almost $5 million in funding per year, resulting in many opportunities for students to participate in undergraduate research in their labs and to gain exposure to cutting-edge science in their classrooms.

The Robert and Jane Meyerhoff Chemistry Building dedication will take place at 2 p.m. on Friday, October 21. The entire campus community is invited to the event, which will begin in the University Center Plaza and includes a ribbon-cutting, plaque dedication and reception.