As a student Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman took notice of something missing in the field of academic economics—people who looked like her. 

Since then, this Forbes 30 under 30 star in Boston has worked to shed light on the harrowing diversity issues in economics while carving out a space for economists of color, specifically Black women, to thrive. But she’s not carrying on this work in a vacuum. Inspired by and connected with other aspiring economists at UMBC through Sloan UMBC, Opoku-Agyeman ’19, mathematics, and others leveraged the resources in that scholars program to uplift underrepresented voices in economics—including their own.

In 2017, UMBC received a $1.3 million grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation in an effort to diversify the field of economics by creating interventions from the undergraduate level through the post-baccalaureate (post-bac) level. The program was originally intended to conclude in five years but has since been extended to support UMBC students in post-bac programs through 2025. 

“The Sloan program is a really good signal to the economics space that UMBC is in the business of producing Black economists,” says Opoku-Agyeman. “It also provided me with community among the next generation of Black folks coming up in the economics field.” 

Program scholar Yetunde Oshagbemi ’23, mathematics, benefited from the material and financial resources from Sloan, but also credits the personal connections she developed. In 2022, Oshagbemi participated in the Exploring Career Pathways conference organized by The Sadie Collective—a nonprofit co-founded by Opoku-Agyeman that addresses the pipeline and pathway problem for Black women in economics and related fields—and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. 

“There are many things I wouldn’t have known without a program like Sloan,” says Oshagbemi, now a first-year research assistant at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. “It introduced me to other students who were on a similar path and people like Anna who can possibly guide me through my research experience.”

Opoku-Agyeman, who is now a third-year Ph.D. student studying public policy and economics at the Harvard Kennedy School, shares the importance of why she stays connected to UMBC and the Sloan program. 

“I want to ensure that those who come after me have a much easier time getting through the economics space. Fellow graduates and I have helped to inform how the program can best serve students,” she says. 

Developing the Next Generation of Academic Economists

“It’s important to do this work at an early stage—it’s often a path that students haven’t thought about when they enter college,” says David Mitch, principal investigator of the Sloan program. 

Mitch, department chair and professor of economics, explains that when it comes to professions in his field, students often think about careers in finance or the stock market. The program educates students about the academic side of economics careers and provides participants with mentoring, scholarships, research experiences, and financial support in research programs specializing in doctoral preparation. To date the program has placed six students in post-baccalaureate programs—one more than the original goal—with a further 17 students participating in various program activities.

“There’s this route that involves graduate work in economics through all sorts of social impact areas such as health, the environment, education, and upward mobility of minority groups,” Mitch shares. Much of this work “deals with policy issues that could benefit from somebody with an underrepresented background.”

With support from the Sloan program to cover travel, lodging, and conference fees, Oshagbemi developed her research skills with internships at the University of Chicago, Brown University, and Howard University. 

Growing up in Lagos, Nigeria, and then emigrating to the U.S. in 2010, keeping in mind the economic potential of her home country helped to influence Oshagbemi’s goal of addressing microeconomic issues of gender inequality and wealth disparities in sub-Saharan Africa. 

Sloan UMBC, says Oshagbemi, “levels out the playing field for us, teaches us how to apply for opportunities, and what to do to be prepared to enter the field.”

Expanding the Economics Pipeline 

Despite growing up with parents working in the field of economics, Sondheim Public Affairs Scholar Brevin Franklin ’22, economics and mathematics, wasn’t familiar with academic economics—teaching and researching—before coming to UMBC.

“The program exposed me to people doing economics research in post-bac programs and those who were in Ph.D. programs,” says Franklin, who is now a second-year economics scholar at Harvard University, supported by the Sloan grant. “It gave me a sense of whether I would like doing any of those things in the future.”

Myles Ellis ’19, mathematics—who was also a post-bac economics scholar at Harvard—says the Sloan program encouraged him to take part in opportunities not initially aware of. 

He’s now a third-year Ph.D. candidate at Brown University with a major concentration in econometrics. Ellis’ research focuses on how mistrust of institutions can shape the financial decision-making of Black households and how that might contribute to the racial wealth gap. 

“Seeing people in this space that look like me is really important,” Ellis explains. “It’s important for this pipeline to be established because we need more Black and brown faces to shed light on what’s going on [in the world] through research, especially in this academic space.”

Oshagbemi, Franklin, and Ellis all referenced the significance of the mentorship they acquired as Sloan program scholars, pointing to guidance from the program’s coordinator, Ivanna Abreu. 

“Ms. Abreu helped me practice for my internship interviews before applying and has been a great help with keeping us on track by checking in on what our top [research program] choices are and how we prepare for them,” says Oshagbemi.

Abreu was previously a program coordinator for UMBC’s Meyerhoff Scholars Program and says she admires the “hustle of STEM students” who come from underrepresented backgrounds.

“We make sure students have what they need,” says Abreu. “The program gives students the opportunity to really consider the economics field and to see themselves in it, as opposed to thinking about all of the stereotypes of economics. That’s the biggest thing we teach our students.”

What gets you up and out the door each morning? And what makes a job more than a job—or even more than a career? For so many who make UMBC their professional home, the value goes way beyond a paycheck.

Valuing Our Whole Selves

UMBC is a place that considers the whole person, opening up space for both professional growth and work-life balance. From mentoring programs to embracing our individual stories, when we support each other in our work and lives, we all come out stronger.

Sharing Our Time

Dozens of Retrievers spent time this fall planting 900 new trees around campus, including those pictured here (L-R): Gavin Gilliland, Abby Hart ’18, and Tim Olivella.

Building bridges across campus

They met so many times at Starbucks, they knew each other’s orders.

Damian Doyle (’99, computer science, M.S. ’16, information systems): tea, Earl Grey, hot. Charlotte Keniston (M.F.A. ’14, intermedia and digital arts): coffee, iced.

Over their caffeine of choice, the two UMBC staff, who work in wildly divergent disciplines, forged connections through the Professional Staff Senate mentorship program—a staple of campus connectedness for the last decade.

Doyle, who works in information technology and has been a staff member at the university for almost 24 years, has served as a mentor for more than five years. Keniston, who started at the Shriver Center five years ago, anticipated a year of opportunity and transition and wanted a mentor to guide her toward balance between a demanding career, family, and finishing her Ph.D. in language, literacy, and culture.

“It was a perfect fit because Damian saw the big picture of the university and explained the campus overarching structures that I had never understood and was really great at advising me on critical points I was at in my career,” Keniston said.

As a mentor to a number of staff over the years, Doyle finds the program rewarding.

“One of the things I loved was getting to know different parts of the university. I get exposed to these different areas of the campus at a deeper level. It confirms for me the kind of driven work that people are doing.”

The mentorship program matches staff through a mentee-first pairing system that includes a speed-dating session and goal analysis for a year-long commitment. Keniston said the mentorship was crucial to her path at UMBC.

“I was at the point where I felt like I couldn’t ask questions, like, ‘Who is this person?’” Keniston said with a laugh. “But being in this mentor/mentee relationship gave me an opportunity to say, ‘Help me understand this.’”

Doyle said that hearing Keniston’s questions and seeing the campus organization through new eyes helped him know what is working and what needs improvement at UMBC. “It’s very educational for me, having to think through what is the right answer, what is the honest answer.”

After a year of meeting about once a month, Doyle has a new mentee, and Keniston has now become a mentor. But they’ll be keeping in touch. Maybe over tea and coffee.

Inner Peace

Many of our staff and faculty take advantage of free exercise and wellness classes in the RAC, some of which are taught by Joella Lubaszewski ’10.

Telling her authentic story

Melessia Jasper’s journey to UMBC was not straight. But something kept pointing her toward UMBC. And toward herself.

“My path to UMBC started before I knew about UMBC,” Jasper said, explaining that after high school in Alabama, she arrived in Maryland only to find that the job she had been promised was locked in a hiring freeze. She started at American University, where she worked with two former UMBC staffers. Then she heard UMBC President Emeritus Freeman Hrabowski at a faculty retreat. “I didn’t realize it at the time, but God was laying the groundwork for where I am today.”

When she moved to Baltimore with her new husband, she applied to UMBC and worked in several different divisions, including Student Affairs and Administration and Finance. In each office, Jasper said, she found acceptance and growth. She now works in the Division of Institutional Equity.

“It was the first university I worked for where you’re applauded for your quirkiness,” Jasper said. “I was so empowered by the resources UMBC offered to me that I then could empower others.”

Last year, she stood on stage to tell her story in a Retriever Talk. For weeks, she and a cohort of other UMBC staff labored with Jill Wardell ’99, interdisciplinary studies, and other strategic talent management and storytelling staff to shape their life tales, a commitment of time and effort on the part of both the storytellers and for UMBC. Jasper said she felt like she was stripping naked. She was reluctant but told herself, “Sometimes, you have to be uncomfortable in order to follow your purpose in life.”

In addition to revealing lifelong intrusive thoughts of inadequacies and imposter syndrome, Jasper also shared—in front of hundreds of people she didn’t know—that in 2000, doctors discovered she had a rare condition called a Chiari malformation, in which part of her brain had grown down into her spine. Her doctor was amazed at what she had achieved, but Jasper knew she was only getting started.

After her Retriever Talk, many students, colleagues, and even strangers have since contacted her to affirm how her story helped them.

“This is something that I have gone through,” Jasper said. “If I can go through it and possibly help you by telling you my story, I want you to have that same freedom…freedom in understanding who I am and accepting who I am.”

A Community That Builds Together

Through our unique commitment to shared governance and a deep appreciation of community, we collectively build UMBC into what we know it should be.

Sharing the Moment

The annual cookout put on by the Professional Staff Senate and Nonexempt Staff Senate brings folks together from all over campus.

Finding a voice in leadership

There’s a reason the Nonexempt Staff Senate (NESS) carries the name of a democratic body. Alongside other staff and faculty shared governance groups and student government bodies serving their respective constituents, NESS exists to ensure all UMBC nonexempt employees have a voice, the way democracy is supposed to work.

Desiree Stonesifer, serving the second year of her term as president of NESS, and a business services specialist in the financial services department, believes that the shared governance organization builds trust at the university. UMBC offers both staff and faculty shared governance groups, in which all parties work together on the university’s leadership.

“I think it gives people the security of knowing that they’re welcome to speak their mind without it being held against them,” Stonesifer said. “They’re allowed to have thoughts outside the status quo. And a lot of times, those are the kind of thoughts that maybe the administration or other people in the university haven’t thought of. It gives everyone different perspectives and it allows staff the ability to grow more comfortable in their community so that they can be who they are and say what they think.”

NESS helps its members handle issues that are vital to employees: Are job descriptions adequate? Are positions equitably valued? Is professional development available?

Many of the nonexempt senate members aren’t interacting with students as much as other UMBC employees, Stonesifer said, and many of them want to reach out. The NESS, she said, can help members “find ways to get involved in the community.”

Creating Change

Campus offices like the Center for Democracy and Civic Life work alongside students to engage the community and make a difference.

Creating a green space of solace

Charles Hogan, UMBC’s landscape and grounds manager, is comfortable with trees. He grew up climbing them, building forts in them, and “falling out of them,” he said, laughing. For decades, he has run and biked through forests for mile upon mile every week.

As he walks UMBC’s Academic Row in his sturdy boots and cargo pants, Hogan (above, right) admires the trees that have survived years of building renovations, root system compromise by tunnels carrying utilities and water underground, and the hundreds of students who tramp over their soil and tie hammocks to their trunks.

Hogan, who has worked on UMBC’s landscaping for 26 years, likes to construct park-like pockets dotted throughout the campus. Each of those miniature parks is based around trees, whether that’s the pair of oaks in front of the Administration Building that tower over the hydrangeas below or the diminutive weeping redbud that Hogan wanted to top with a tiny hat and sunglasses because it looked so much like Cousin Itt from the Addams Family.

“I’m a tree person,” said Hogan, who is a certified arborist. “Trees should be the focal points. We’re creating a lot of little park environments.”

A campus’ green spaces, Hogan said, make a difference when students and their families are trying to decide where to attend as well as provide succor to everyone making their way through a busy semester. That’s why the grounds staff plants 30,000 summer annuals and 10,000 fall pansies every year. Each area on campus is assigned to a particular gardener, Hogan said, who takes pride in the beauty of the plants under their charge.

Those gardens and the shade of the trees surrounding the buildings offer comfort to the staff, faculty, and students who make the campus their living rooms.

“I never went to college, but I know students are under a lot of stress. They should be able to sit outside, read, study, write a paper,” Hogan said. “Any landscape, whether it’s at your house or on campus, should make you feel good, feel relaxed.”

Living the Mission

At the end of the day, UMBC’s values and mission are what bring us all together. When we work in service of our students and our academic mission of inclusive excellence, it’s hard not to feel connected to the work on another level.

A Student-Centered Community

At the beginning of each school year, our new students are officially welcomed with the Convocation ceremony, where they each receive a special UMBC shield pin.

Lifting students to the next level

When he’s deep into extolling the mission and benefits of the McNair Scholars Program he directs, Michael Hunt ’06, computer engineering, needs only a pulpit to become the preacher he trained to be.

When Hunt sees a student achieve, he feels “that parent feeling, that joy that comes to you. Sometimes I’m more excited than they are when they’re telling me. Sometimes it’s a sense of awe in knowing their story, in knowing all that had to happen to get to that space,” said Hunt, who has a masters in theology. “I feel like we’re the mama bird, teaching them all they need before they fly away.”

The federally funded McNair program, with a goal of boosting students from underrepresented segments of society into earning research-based doctoral degrees, has expanded over the six years of Hunt’s directorship.

Every year, the McNair Scholars Program funds 30 slots for students, who meet with mentors, fulfill service obligations, attend cross-cultural events, and receive the help they need to prepare for, apply to, and excel in graduate school.

Hunt, who was a Meyerhoff and McNair scholar, is earning his own interdisciplinary Ph.D. from UMBC. After he became director of the McNair program in 2019, he found himself frustrated when he had to shut some students out of opportunities. So he spearheaded, with the backing of the then-current scholars, staff, and McNair Advisory Council, the creation of the Friends of McNair network, a group of students who reap some of the mentoring, community, and support benefits that McNair Scholars enjoy.

Hunt is exploring ways for the university to expand the support it gives to students not in formal scholar programs. He enthusiastically advocates for the need for holistic critical mentoring (HCM), a network of power-dynamic-flipped, student-centered, reciprocal relationships. HCM is the mentoring framework that uplifts both mentor and mentee while dismantling systems of oppression.

“Because of my heart and because of the work that I do, I don’t want to turn anyone away when I know there are resources to support them. The institution has to rise and say, ‘This is a part of the work of inclusive excellence, and we’re going to fund this to make it happen.’ What I love about my institution is that the more I talk and have these conversations, the more I do see people beginning to question and challenge what we are doing. And so I don’t feel quieted. In other spaces, I know that folks would have been quieted.”

Moments of Joy

There’s simply nothing like the feeling of watching our students cross the stage to get their diplomas.

Shaping success in all sizes

At Commencement, Kyung-Eun Yoon likes to sneak out of her academic division’s seating section to hug students in other majors, she confesses. Of course, she gets to hug all the Korean majors when they rise to receive their diplomas, but other students have taken maybe five or six courses or minored in Korean, and she wants to embrace them, too, to recognize that achievement.

Student success, Yoon says, doesn’t come in one shape or size.

“For some students, yes, excelling in every class and getting double degrees and finishing an honors program with a wonderful thesis, going to Korea’s top university as a graduate student, getting a job—that’s a wonderful, wonderful success story,” Yoon said. “But for some students, completing the semester without withdrawing from too many classes, or without failing one or two courses, completing their degree, finally, in five or six years, that’s a wonderful success story for them too.”

Yoon started at UMBC in 2009 as the coordinator of the new Korean program and has grown the program so that students can now major or minor in Korean within the modern languages, linguistics, and intercultural communication department. Over her 14 years, Yoon’s Korean program graduates have gone on to work at the National Security Agency, to pursue graduate schools in various fields including Korean studies and international relations, to teach English in Korea, and more.

But sometimes, she said, success looks like one student whose achievement she particularly treasures. The student had dropped out, withdrawn from many classes, but after six years and many advising sessions with Yoon, last May, she graduated.

“It was not just a mere graduation for her, it was a really, really huge success for her,” Yoon said, and that student’s achievement made Yoon feel proud. “I did this much,” she says, holding up her finger and thumb an inch apart.
Yoon and her colleagues can help students along the path of hard work, but eventually, she says, “you have to have your ownership. We’ll help you, but without your ownership of this time, success cannot be happening.”

And when success happens, Yoon is sure to find that student to give them a hug.

By Susan Thornton Hobby

Aimee, Jamie, and Gina Joshua have a lot in common. All three went to UMBC as members of the Meyerhoff Scholars Program. And the sisters all have great memories of growing up in a house filled with delicious food and love. So, when their mother’s YouTube channel focusing on Indian cooking techniques started to take off, the trio made it their mission to create a cookbook of family recipes that would honor their beloved parents.

Our parents, Sara and Abraham Joshua, known to us as Mummy and Chacha, immigrated from India in their twenties separately to begin their careers and continued education to help provide for their families back home. Coming to America in the ’70s, they were learning how to navigate a new country and a new culture. After getting married and starting a family, they began raising three daughters in Baltimore, Maryland. The challenge was to figure out how to teach and preserve our Indian culture and traditions when it was over 8,000 miles away.

Growing up as “the Joshua sisters,” we did many things together—singing songs in church at talent shows, Girl Scouts, karate, and even attending UMBC! They wanted the best for us and every day showed us the value and importance of hard work and being and staying humble. Since we were young girls, Mummy and Chacha taught us that everything is possible if you put your mind to it and work hard. Our parents encouraged us to chase our dreams, but as with many parents, they didn’t think about pursuing their own, only providing for their family.

Mummy, affectionately known as “Ammini Aunty,” was a nurse at the University of Maryland Medical System and Chacha, affectionately known as “Bejoy Uncle,” was a realtor. They both kept busy outside of work hours with community and church activities.

If you wanted to find our parents in the house, it was usually in the kitchen—and the garden was a close second. Mummy loved to cook our traditional South Indian dishes and prepare food for others and Chacha enjoyed being her sous chef. Food was their love language and we had so many conversations around the kitchen table. 

During our years at UMBC, we often brought Mummy’s home-cooked food when we returned to campus, always willing to share some chicken biriyani or beans mezhukkupuratti with our friends. Mummy didn’t often have time to do more than cooking for her family or special events because of her nursing career and her focus on our education. This meant she didn’t get to cook and experiment as much as she would have liked. It was only once we were in college that we began to understand the joy being in the kitchen would bring her.

Once we were older, some of our favorite memories were when we gathered in the kitchen to catch up on how everyone’s day had been. When we came home with our friends, Mummy would recruit them to help prepare whatever was on the menu, even if they had never cooked before. We did our best and Mummy would walk us through the recipe and cooking techniques with a lot of patience. Mummy always said “If you put your mind to it, you can do it. It’s a passion, and it takes hard work. But at the end of it all, you get something great.”

Whether we were peeling ginger, grating coconut, or chopping vegetables, we knew we were not just creating a meal, we were also building and creating something better: loving memories and an appreciation for our Kerala food. Because that’s what it’s about.

Food is meant to be shared, and while Mummy was teaching us to cook, she was also teaching us to curate and nurture relationships and be proud of our culture. Cooking together is creating together, which involves trust and building a connection between each person helping create the meal. In addition, we are Indian American and are so proud of what it means to be both Indian and American.

We learned an important lesson during our time at UMBC, taught to us by the late great Lamont Toliver, “Mr. T,” former director of the Meyerhoff Scholarship Program. In a moment of vulnerability, Aimee shared with Mr. T that she had been rejected by all of the Ph.D. programs she had applied to but had gotten into a master’s program.

In all his wisdom, Mr. T comforted Aimee with these wise words: “Not all paths from point A to point B are a straight line. Sometimes you have to take the long way to get where you want to go.” That’s a lesson that has stayed with us for some time and that, we soon realized during the pandemic, applied to Mummy.

By this time, Gina had started a family and we welcomed our next generation of children. The pandemic taught us how precious life is and that making every moment count is important. As sisters, we decided that we would work together to make Mummy’s dream of teaching our generation and future generations how to cook Kerala food come true.

After the pandemic began, Mummy retired from an over 40-year nursing career to help care for Chacha and avoid any risk due to COVID-19. With more time as a retiree, Mummy began experimenting with recipes and sharing them with close by family, who would pick up the care packages she would leave on the porch. They would then text or call her with feedback, helping perfect the recipes.

In April 2020, Mummy came into our room and asked if we wanted to take a picture of what she was cooking in the kitchen. So Jamie and Aimee, armed only with their iPhones and short notice to their friends online, began to livestream Mummy making Mango curry. Then the unexpected happened.

Thousands of people watched it within the first three days, and a flame was lit. Instead of waiting for perfection, we continued to dive into video after video, each an improvement on the one before. What started as a fun project became a thriving YouTube channel, Ammini Aunty’s A Pinch of Kerala, and a full-blown community of “Pinchers.” People were excited to learn from Mummy, and we were all thrilled to share her love for cooking with everyone.

Fast forward to today, our first cookbook, Ammini Aunty’s A Pinch of Kerala: A South Indian Inspired Cookbook, is being published. Thanks to the power of Kickstarter and Pinchers worldwide, what was just once a dream is now becoming a reality. As Mummy reminds her Pinchers, “If you put your mind to it, you can do it.” Don’t let your dreams stay a dream. Work toward making it a reality.

Jamie Joshua ’02, biological sciences, is the diversity, equity, and inclusion manager for Giant Food. Aimee Joshua ’03, M.S. ’05, computer science, is the senior manager, IT contracts, at PBS Distribution. Gina Wright ’05, biological sciences, is a dentist at a Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

One of the most influential sets of historical photos in UMBC’s Special Collections is an archive of more than 5,400 images documenting the harsh conditions of child laborers in early 20th-century America. Recently the team in Special Collections—which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year—undertook a massive project to digitize and rehouse the photos in more protective sheaths to help safeguard the images and the hand-written details on them.

The preservation effort gave UMBC student workers hands-on practice with handling the delicate photographs and allowed staff to dive deep into these historical records in order to comment on timely issues around current child labor conditions in the U.S. Their work will allow future students, faculty, and visiting scholars to access this important material for many years to come.

Preserving the photography of Lewis Hine

In the first article in this three-part feature, Rahne Alexander, M.F.A. ’21, writes about how photographer Lewis Hine secured a place in history as an investigative documentarian by observing and sharing the conditions for child laborers. From 1908 through 1930, Hine worked closely with the National Child Labor Committee (NCLC), an organization devoted to preventing the exploitation of children in the workplace. Hine crisscrossed the U.S. creating portraits of a diverse array of children working in fields and factories.

Handle with care

Uncovering the work UMBC students put into the project of preserving these historical photos, Catalina Sofia Dansberger Duque interview Special Collections interns Meredith Power ’21, history, a public history graduate student, and Gabe Morrison ’23, anthropology. Along with library staff members, these two worked diligently to ensure that the images of the families and children who lived through these harrowing work conditions are accessible to the public for research and learning.

7-year old Rosie. Regular shucker. Her second year at it. Illiterate. Works all day. Shucks only a few pots a day. Varn & Platt Canning Co. in Bluffton, South Carolina, 1911 – 1913.

Elwood Palmer Cooper, helper on miller’s wagon, 7 years of age. Carries bags of flour, weighing 25 pounds, from wagon to stores. Receives 25 cents per week. Money not needed at home. Wants money to spend. Wilmington, Delaware, 1910.

The U.S. has a child labor problem

Lastly, in a piece originally published in The Conversation, Curator of Special Collections Beth Saunders, writes, “As I’ve worked with this collection over the last two years, the social and political implications of Hine’s photographs have been very much on my mind. The patina of these black-and-white photographs suggests a bygone era—an embarrassing past that many Americans might imagine they’ve left behind. But with numerous reports of child labor violations, many involving immigrants, occurring in the U.S., along with an uptick in state legislation rolling back the legal working age, it’s clear that Hine’s work is as relevant today as it was a century ago.”

A nine-year-old stands at the mouth of a coal mine covered in coal dust, wearing a small headlamp. A woman holds her baby on her lap as she packs boxes in a warehouse along with her 5-, 8-, and 12-year-olds. These are just two of thousands of evocative black-and white historical photographs handled by Special Collections interns Meredith Power ’21, history, a public history graduate student, and Gabe Morrison ’23, anthropology. Along with library staff members, these two worked diligently to ensure that the images of the families and children who lived through these harrowing work conditions are accessible to the public for research and learning.

Fine motor skills

“Photos from the early 1900s were developed on fine photographic paper that is prone to crinkling around the edges, ripping, and fading,” Power says. Wearing blue nitrile medical gloves, they rehouse photos from their cellophane sleeves to museum-grade mylar sleeves, keeping them from further discoloration, tears, wrinkles, and sticking to the sleeves.

“They’re very delicate,” Power says. “You need good eye-hand coordination to pick up the photos from the corners, remove them from whatever packaging they are in, and slide them into the mylar sleeve.”

This process is second nature for Morrison, who has been working at Special Collections for over a year. He has worked with securing the Lewis Hine photos as part of his public humanities minor, as well as the Maryland Folklife Program Collection, the Coslet-Sapienza Fantasy and Science Fiction Fanzine Collection, and the George Cruikshank illustrations and papers.

“I had to learn how to properly handle photographs and manuscripts and how to catalog them according to the Library of Congress classification system,” Morrison says. For both Power and Morrison, developing greater patience and manual dexterity and embracing working through hundreds of documents alone in a quiet space surrounded by stacks of materials was well worth the effort to broaden access to these historic documents.

“The value of this project is ensuring people understand that this resource exists,” says Power, “to help these photos live beyond a heavily controlled and restricted space on campus into a digital space where more people are able to access the information.”

Digital accessibility

Protecting delicate, historic documents includes digitizing them. The digitizing process is another lesson in precision and patience. Power begins the process by taking a photo out of the mylar sleeve—making sure to only touch the corners—along with a small rectangular white piece of paper describing the photo. They gently place the photo underneath a camera, delicately straightening the image before the camera snaps the picture and sends it to a computer where Power edits it using Adobe Lightroom.

“It’s an elaborate setup with lights at 45-degree angles, and the camera pointed straight down at a small white stand where I place the image,” explains Power, who would work on digitizing for six to eight hours at a time. “Once I take the image, I edit the size and angle of the photo. The metadata is then added into an Excel spreadsheet, which includes noting if there was a corner missing or if the photo had adhesive stuck to it.”

Digitizing rare books, something Morrison has spent months working on, requires using a special book scanning machine with raised sides, like hands cradling the book open, and small snakelike bean bag weights to keep the pages flat without using his fingers. “I make sure I’m not blocking any text or any important image. And then I press a button, flip a page, press a button, flip a page for hours on end until I finish digitizing that book,” Morrison says, smiling. “So, it’s not the most exciting work, but I find digitization specifically important because it’s a process that helps preserve documents too fragile to be in public circulation. Digitally, you can share it with a broader audience.”

Workforce skills

Both Power and Morrison brought many special collections skills to their public humanities internships. Archaeology camp inspired Morrison to learn about how to study and take care of important and fragile objects. He worked at the Montgomery Parks Archeology Program throughout high school, where he met a friend who introduced him to UMBC’s Special Collections. “I’ve always had an interest in historic things, in the preservation of artifacts,” Morrison says, who plans to apply to a master’s program in library and museum studies after graduation. “I think Special Collections has helped me realize I want to do archival work.”

Power found their footing working full time in the conservation rooms at Baltimore’s Walters Art Museum. “I was the administrative assistant in the Conservation Division and was around a lot of conversations on handling art objects and special collections materials, but I did not work with the materials directly,” says Power. “Working with the Hine Collection was a great opportunity for hands-on experience working with physical items and digitization.” These skills have also come in handy for Power, whose master’s degree focuses on 14th-century religious women hermits in Yorkshire, England. In 2022, Power had the opportunity to visit parish archives in Yorkshire to read through medieval-primary source documents. 

For Power, history isn’t just books, dates, and lists of events. They say that there are a lot of living materials out there, whether that’s parish churches or photographs from the early 20th century, like the Hine collection. There is a connection between public history work and the people who lived before us. “It’s important to continue to help students remember that history is not dead and dusty. It’s alive,” says Power. They feel that the connection element is essential, and sometimes it gets lost. “Special Collections prove that these events really happened. They can inspire students to visit those places. To stand in that space where it happened and say, ‘Yeah, I was here too.’ I love that.”

Starting this May, a series of wildfires in Eastern Canada sent enormous smoke clouds wafting into the U.S., triggering air quality warnings in cities from the Midwest to the Northeast. For days, orange skies backdropped landscapes clouded by acrid air. People who could hunkered inside with the doors and windows shut. Those who had to go out faced itchy eyes, burning throats, and worse.

As a resident of the Baltimore area—which was blanketed with particularly bad smoke in both early and late June—UMBC Professor Chris Hennigan looked at the haze with dismay. But as an environmental engineer who studies air pollution, he had an additional thought: “We were looking at the air quality forecasts, and we thought ‘We have to gather data,’” he says.

The public found many colorful words to describe the summer’s unwanted smoke: brutal, eerie, dystopian.

Hennigan and his team have been working to put numbers to the adjectives. On the roof of the engineering building, the researchers installed a squat, white sensor that monitors the levels of tiny particles in the air, particularly those measuring 2.5 micrometers in diameter or less—smaller than most bacteria. Called PM_2.5, these particles are released in large numbers during fires. They are dangerous to human health because they can work their way into the deepest parts of the lungs and even enter the bloodstream.

The sensor showed huge spikes in PM_2.5 when the smoke blew through, on some days reaching levels considered unhealthy for anyone to breathe.

The researchers also set up equipment to filter particles out of the air. After 24 hours, they collected the filters, which they are storing, neatly labeled, in a refrigerator in Hennigan’s lab.

The filtered samples will advance at least two ongoing investigations, Hennigan says. In one avenue of inquiry, Joel Tyson, Ph.D. ’23, biochemical engineering, is studying how tiny particles can harm human lung cells. Before this year’s smoky summer, Tyson had been studying the toxic effects of particulate matter normally found in the Baltimore air. With the new smoke samples, he will start to investigate whether wildfire smoke particles, per unit, are more toxic than regular urban particulate matter, which comes from sources such as cars and power plants. Some studies have indicated that wildfire particulate matter is indeed more toxic, but more research is needed before any definitive conclusions can be reached.

In another line of research, Hennigan is also studying how particles in the air, including from smoke, may affect the climate. Undergraduate chemical engineering students Danielle Larios ’25 and Luis Rodriguez ’25 are assisting in the investigations.

The researchers study how particles of brown-colored carbon-containing material absorb light. Burning vegetation sends large amounts of this brown carbon into the atmosphere. It’s possible that the particles are trapping significant heat from the sun, accelerating the pace of planetary warming. Such effects are not normally included in global climate models, and better understanding of the process could improve humanity’s ability to predict, and manage, the coming years of climate upheaval.

Climate change and wildfires are intimately linked. This summer was not only smoky, but also scorching. July marked the hottest month ever recorded, and scientists predict that as the world continues to warm, wildfires will continue to increase in quantity and intensity. “Smokeageddon,” as headlines put it, may become the new normal.

Hennigan says recent research illuminates how much wildfire smoke has contributed to air pollution trends. He points to a paper published in September in the scientific journal Nature that estimated that since 2016, wildfire smoke in the contiguous United States has undone around 25% of the progress in air quality made between 2000 and 2016.

For the researchers in Hennigan’s lab, those effects have been felt personally. 

Rodriguez recalled how in June he had to go out to buy a fresh pack of N95 masks. “The smoke was just awful,” he says. Larios says she felt a burning at the back of her throat in just 15 minutes walking to her car.

For Tyson, the effects of the smoke were so bad that at one point he struggled to breathe and had to visit the doctor. The episode, he says, drove home the importance of his toxicology research.

All three note both the complexity of the systems they are studying and the importance of discovering new knowledge that might help society handle the environmental challenges it faces.

“Our work can have real-world impact, and that’s exciting,” says Larios.

Sebastian Deffner, associate professor of physics, attended “Quantum Science and Technology: Recent Advances and New Perspectives,” a workshop hosted by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in Vatican City from November 30 to December 2. Deffner was among only about 70 global experts invited to the workshop, and the guest list included numerous Nobel laureates.  

“The leading experts in quantum science met in a unique place for a unique workshop to discuss the past, present, and future of quantum technologies,” Deffner says of the workshop.

For Deffner, it was an exciting and rare opportunity. The invitation recognizes his leadership role in developing the young field of quantum thermodynamics on an international scale. In 2019, he co-authored the first textbook focused on the subject, and his research group consistently contributes to the research literature.

Recordings of talks from the workshop are available here.

Members of UMBC’s chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) traveled to Norfolk, Virginia for their annual regional conference in November and came home with numerous awards. 

The UMBC team defeated Carnegie Mellon University and North Carolina State University to win the Tech Bowl competition, a Jeopardy-style game that tests teams’ knowledge of fundamental engineering principles. UMBC also claimed first through third place in the research poster presentation contest, which involved a 10-minute technical research talk followed by questions from the judges and audience.

The team relied on prior knowledge to excel in the Tech Bowl, only having decided to participate upon arriving at the conference. “It was really exciting getting so many questions right with our only practice being from our coursework,” shares UMBC NSBE chapter president Nelanne Bolima ’24, chemical engineering. “That just goes to show how well UMBC’s College of Engineering and IT prepares students to succeed.”

In addition to Bolima, the Tech Bowl team members included Kayla Magruder ’26, chemical engineering; Saleem Lawal ’25, computer science; and Daniel Williams ’24, computer science. Presentation winners were Williams (first), Bolima (second), and Christopher Appiah ’24, mechanical engineering (third). Keith Harmon, director of the UMBC Meyerhoff Scholars Program, serves as the chapter advisor.

“We are so proud of the UMBC NSBE Chapter,” Harmon shares. “They do tremendous work supporting UMBC STEM majors and offering service impacting youth in the Baltimore-Washington corridor.”

Students supporting students

NSBE is a completely student-run organization, creating leadership opportunities for hundreds of students across the country. UMBC’s NSBE chapter supports members through activities such as mentoring initiatives, conference preparation, networking opportunities, and leadership development programming. The chapter also focuses on community outreach, such as visiting high schools, collaborating with non-profits, and welcoming younger students to shadow the chapter’s board meetings.  

“I have benefitted from being a member of this team by gaining invaluable public speaking and collaboration skills,” Appiah shares. “I learned how to effectively present, detailing the broader impact of research I have done.” Appiah conducts research with Ankit Goel, assistant professor of mechanical engineering. Goel’s group works on complex applications of control theory in robotics and autonomous systems. 

For Jaden Somerville ’25, mechanical engineering, “the competition not only improved my technical skills, but also taught me teamwork, problem-solving, and effective time management.”

In March 2024, the chapter will take its talents to the 50th annual NSBE convention in Atlanta, Georgia.