At Summer Undergraduate Research Fest (SURF) on August 9, 132 students presented posters and six gave short oral presentations, called “lightning talks,” about research projects covering topics from “forever” chemicals to prostate cancer to alcohol addiction. The University Center Ballroom buzzed with students, mentors, and guests as students shared their progress, interacted with other student researchers, and received feedback. The annual event, sponsored by the College of Natural and Mathematical Sciences (CNMS) since 2005, gives students who are often in the early stages of their research careers an important opportunity to feel like part of a scholarly community.

“We are proud of all that our students accomplished this summer. Now they are more knowledgeable, experienced, and skilled—they are better scientists,” shares CNMS Dean William R. LaCourse. “Their discoveries, their effort, and their willingness to explore have added to the vault of scientific knowledge, which in the end benefits society through empowerment—an empowerment of understanding, prediction, and invention.”

Undergraduate research boosts confidence, opens doors

Community college students who participated in the BUILD a Bridge to STEM Internship, a component of STEM BUILD at UMBC, presented research they conducted in small groups under the mentorship of Maria Cambraia, assistant director of research and international affairs in CNMS. Each group developed a different research question about the earthworm C. elegans, a common model organism, and then designed and carried out experiments to answer that question. The internship operates as a course-based undergraduate research experience, or CURE, a structure designed to create opportunities for more students to gain authentic research experience.

Emily Paz ’25, biological sciences, studied how high sugar diets affected the worms. It was Paz’s first time conducting quantitative research, and the BUILD internship created opportunities to make mistakes and learn from them, she says. “It expanded my career choices, and made me see I really have an interest in this field,” says Paz, a transfer student from Howard Community College.

In addition to work in the lab, the process of preparing for SURF and completing the Introduction to Research Badge as part of the internship was valuable for BUILD intern Emily Molnar, a Montgomery College student whose project focused on the relationship between stress and alcohol in C. elegans. Interns completed the badge, a sequence of activities designed to help them get ready to find and pursue undergraduate research opportunities, under the guidance of Caitlin Varisco, assistant director of undergraduate initiatives in CNMS.

“The internship gave me experience with abstracts, posters, and skills to get future opportunities, which boosted my confidence,” Molnar says.

Belonging in science

Student research at UMBC is frequently student driven, which was the experience of Samuel Barnett ’25, biochemistry and molecular biology, another Howard Community College transfer. His project looked at how nicotine influenced the appetite of C. elegans. “You have so much freedom in this program, which I love,” he says. “That really made me feel involved in the research process.”

Third- and fourth-year UMBC students, some of them former STEM BUILD Trainees, mentored the interns along with Cambraia. “I found it uplifting,” says mentor Courtney De Leon ’25, biological sciences. “I’m so proud of the students I mentored.” De Leon also presented her own project at SURF on how long-term nicotine consumption affected growth and reproduction in C. elegans.

Cambraia notes that after the eight-week internship, the interns identified much more with being scientists than they had at the outset. “Science identity” is documented to increase the chances that students will complete STEM degrees and then continue in related careers. 

“That’s why mentoring and peer mentoring are so important in this program,” Cambraia says. “We are not just mentoring them in wet lab techniques, experimental design, and data analysis skills. Our main goal is to help them see and feel that they belong in science and that they can be future leaders in this field.”

“A grand scholarly community”

BUILD a Bridge to STEM is just one example of a student research program that participated in SURF. Students in an array of programs supported by the likes of the National Institutes of Health, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and the Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation participated, as well as those who arranged their research projects individually.  

“These projects all depend on mentors supporting undergraduate research with their time, energy, and resources,” LaCourse notes. UMBC faculty have shown time and again that they are happy to work with students to help them reach their goals, as evidenced by the huge number of students presenting original work at SURF. For many students, SURF is their first time presenting research—but LaCourse hopes it won’t be the last.

“This may be the first of many scientific talks you give,” he told the participants at the end of the day. “By practicing and applying the skills of performing research this summer, you are following in the footsteps of great scientists and researchers—making each of you a part of a grand scholarly community.”

In 2018, faculty at UMBC and four of its top-sending community colleges embarked on a project with an ambitious mission: improve students’ quantitative skills in biological contexts, and eliminate the achievement gap between transfer and direct-entry students in courses requiring these skills. The urgent need for students in the life sciences to be proficient in a range of mathematical concepts has been made clear again and again by various national reports. The project, dubbed the NEXUS Institute for Quantitative Biology (NIQB), arose to address that need.

“The world is quantitative,” says William R. LaCourse, dean of the College of Natural and Mathematical Sciences at UMBC. “To do science, and even to make informed decisions in your everyday life, you need to be able to interpret graphs, understand statistics, and more. Having the knowledge to make decisions on your own, and interpret information, empowers you to be successful.”

The NIQB is an arm of the $1.4 million Improving Undergraduate Science Education (IUSE) grant funded by the National Science Foundation that involves UMBC, Howard Community College, Montgomery College, Anne Arundel Community College, and Community College of Baltimore County. At UMBC, the project is led by LaCourse and Jeff Leips, professor of biological sciences. The grant formally concludes in September, and feedback at the group’s fifth annual symposium held in June made clear that it has been a resounding success. Many of its outcomes will continue to benefit students and the partner institutions moving forward.

Promising results

Over the five years of the NIQB project, faculty teams comprised of math and biology instructors and administrators from multiple institutions developed 21 new curricular modules that teach quantitative skills through exploring biological concepts. For example, students studied exponential change through a “Rat Attack” module about population growth. Other modules covered cell division, natural selection, concentration and saturation, and the immune response.  

An analysis by Tory Williams, assistant director for pedagogical research in UMBC’s Faculty Development Center, found that after participating in the modules, students showed statistically significant improvement on the desired skills, such as working with algorithms and using quantitative language.

“Our students have really gained a lot in their quantitative skills. It not only helped them better understand the math side of things, but it helped them better understand the biology,” shares Hannah Pie, a biology instructor at Howard Community College.

Growing skills, changing minds

Students at all of the institutions performed at the same level on nine of the modules. On four other modules, performance across institutions only differed on a few items. These are promising signs that the performance gap between transfer and direct entry students is likely to shrink as these students transfer to four-year institutions. The remaining modules were implemented later in the project and require additional analysis from spring 2023 to get meaningful results.

In spring 2021, some faculty began teaching the modules in their courses. Each semester, new modules became available, and more faculty adopted the new and existing modules in their curricula. By spring 2023, the modules were being taught at five different institutions. 

A large majority of faculty said that given the choice, they would use the modules again, according to Williams’ analysis. The students also reported changes in their attitudes toward using math in biology after taking courses using the modules. Their ratings of how intriguing, fun, and appealing they found using math for biology increased, and worry and intimidation decreased.

“Math and biology fit really well together—who would have known?” joked Sybille Clayton, a math instructor at Anne Arundel Community College. “The STEM field has so much to offer, and our math students are still starving for applications at their level. I have always been a proponent of that, and now we have wonderful biology examples.”

Rewarding relationships

In addition to introducing the modules, some institutions made larger curriculum modifications as a result of the NIQB faculty teams’ work, such as shifting content between courses or altering course sequencing or prerequisite requirements. All the changes were in service of optimizing student learning and preparing community college students to succeed at UMBC or another four-year institution.

A committee with similar goals was formed in years prior to the NIQB project, “but it was really a one way street,” reflects Stephen Miller, associate professor of biological sciences at UMBC. Rather than community colleges solely adapting to UMBC’s curriculum, “It was much better to make it a two-way conversation with NIQB,” he says.

The faculty teams discussed everything from different class period lengths to different methods of assessment across institutions in their regular meetings. Addressing challenges together helped the team members build rewarding relationships that they plan to continue to nurture.

“I would like to continue to have these rich collaborations, and meet with other faculty teaching the same courses that I am,” Pie says. “It’s really rewarding to bounce ideas off other people and make your course the best that it can be.”

“It was interesting to see what other topics would come up in our team meetings not related directly to this project,” adds Rebecca Thomas, professor of biology at Montgomery College. “It’s opening up those bigger conversations about how we teach and what are our practices,” which benefits students and faculty alike.

Engaging students in the work

Laura Ott, former IUSE director at UMBC and now teaching assistant professor in biology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, gave the keynote address at the annual symposium in June. She has taken module development a step farther: She included curriculum design in one of her undergraduate courses.

Students create modules in Ott’s course and later analyze their success when other courses use them. The process creates independent research opportunities beyond typical lab research. Participating in what Ott calls disciplinary-based education research led to “huge gains in research self-efficacy, even more so than in traditional research experiences,” Ott says.

Faculty at the symposium were intrigued, and some started brainstorming ways to implement similar ideas at their institutions, such as in honors projects.

Spreading the word

Moving forward, the partner institutions are determined to find ways to keep the connections they’ve built alive and to continue to innovate their teaching to support student success. The faculty will also focus on sharing their results and the modules more broadly through publications, presentations, and word of mouth. 

To start, Leips plans to share the modules with Carroll Community College, where he serves as a STEM advisor. Already, the modules are spreading to instructors at the partner institutions who are not directly involved in NIQB. In addition, the NIQB is disseminating their modules worldwide through the Quantitative Undergraduate Biology Education and Synthesis (QUBES) website.

“The faculty involved in this project have really taken this work back and disseminated it at our institution. The modules have become a part of the culture of our teaching,” Thomas says. Given the success of the modules in supporting student learning, “That’s a huge benefit for the faculty and for the students.”

There are some people who you meet, and it’s obvious: They’re natural leaders—seemingly born to the role. Derek Anderson ’03, interdisciplinary studies, is one of those people.

He went right from UMBC to the front of the classroom as a teacher in the highly regarded Howard County Public School System, earning a master’s degree in school administration and supervision from Johns Hopkins University at the same time.

But in talking with Anderson, it becomes apparent that he wasn’t born a leader—he became one. And he says UMBC was a big reason why he did.     

After nearly a decade of classroom leadership, Anderson became an assistant principal, then principal at Longfellow Elementary School in Columbia, Maryland, winning recognition as Howard County’s 2023 Principal of the Year.

And now he’s been tapped by Maryland’s state superintendent of schools to be the state’s new executive director of community schools, overseeing more than 450 schools with the goal of better connecting schools with the families they serve. 

From imposter syndrome to educator

As improbable as it sounds, this rising star in education leadership remembers that as a first-year student, he wasn’t sure at first that he even belonged in college.

“I struggled mightily in my first semester,” he remembers—in large part because his secondary school hadn’t fully prepared him for college-level academics. “There was a point where I said to myself, ‘Am I cut out for this? This is a lot.’”

Anderson says UMBC’s academic advising and his own inner determination to persevere helped, but what set him firmly on the path to his future was The Shriver Center, an organization at UMBC that connects students with applied learning, civic engagement, and community-based service opportunities. He began volunteering weekly at a local elementary school not too far from campus.

“I really realized how excited the kids were when we came to visit,” Anderson says. “And it was mutual—I would start looking forward to that particular day of the week. That was the first time I really started to consider a career in education.”

Building a major to match his passion

That realization, he says, galvanized him: It not only gave him a career goal to help shape his studies, it motivated him to work toward the day when he could help students prepare better than he had been for postsecondary academics.

“I thought about my own experience, and I questioned: Could I have been better prepared?” Anderson says. “What would have better prepared me so that I did not struggle the way I did in college? So that really reinforced the idea of, ‘I want to go into education so that I can help and support [students] so that they don’t have some of those experiences.’”

Anderson, on the left, with two of his closest UMBC friends, Eddie Freeman ’03, M.S. ’06, and Marc Haskins ’01 at Freeman’s wedding.

UMBC didn’t offer an education major at the time, but Anderson followed his inspiration, juggling a steady load of challenging coursework with his athletic obligations as captain of the track and field team, responsibilities as a dorm resident advisor, and eventually student teaching in Baltimore City schools as he pursued his teaching certificate.

Along with his teacher-certification track, Anderson’s interdisciplinary studies focused on psychology and Africana studies, and one of his professors in the latter field gave him first-hand insight into the power of effective teaching.

He remembers vividly the classes he took with Christel N. Temple, then an assistant professor of Africana studies at UMBC.

“She’s an African American woman, and I believe at the time she was relatively new to the position, but she was very good—not just in disseminating the content, but in the passion she showed for it. That was a big motivator for me,” Anderson says.

Because of that passion for teaching, he remembers: “I really enjoyed her class. I wanted to learn. I wanted to grow. I wanted to enhance my knowledge for no other reason than to become brighter and better.”

Temple, now a full professor of Africana studies at the University of Pittsburgh, isn’t surprised that her former student’s leadership qualities have attracted attention.

“I am so proud of his career,” she says. “His success is a reminder of the contribution that Africana studies makes—not just our field’s orientation to subjects such as culture, communication and sociology, but also to education studies.”

Understanding the personal dimensions of education

Anderson landed a job in Howard County Public Schools soon after graduation by way of his teaching certification and graduation from UMBC. He taught at an elementary school for seven years, then served as an elementary school instructional team leader before becoming an assistant principal. He served in that role for four years before becoming principal at Longfellow Elementary School in 2017.

Kathy Nuemann ’06, American studies, remembers meeting Anderson the year before he became principal. Neumann, a math specialist at Longfellow, was excited to meet another Retriever at her school and struck by his genuine personality. For the next six years, as they worked together, she says, “Derek was always available. Whether I was seeking advice, sharing an idea, or just needed someone to lend an ear. His sincerity extended to students as well.”

She recounts a recent story where her students wrote a proposal to Anderson as part of a social studies project. After identifying a problem (trash on the recess field), the students brainstormed a solution by requesting a recycling bin out on the playground. Neumann invited Anderson to visit her class and the students read the proposal to him. “Not only did Derek listen to the proposal, but he fulfilled the request within a week. My students were thrilled!” 

All told, Anderson served nearly 20 years in Howard County’s elementary schools—long enough to see two of his three his own children pass through Longfellow Elementary while he was principal there. (He met his wife of 16 years, Jonae Anderson ’02, psychology, M.P.P. ’05, at UMBC.) 

Anderson was named 2023 Principal of the Year for Howard County Public Schools. He’s pictured here with his wife and children, and mother and brother.

Indeed, Anderson says, parenthood helped underline the personal dimension of education, and not just for the obvious reasons.

“It makes me that much more passionate about the work” of education, he says. “Parents send us their kids—they send us the best they have, Monday through Friday, with the expectation that they’re going to come back safely, happy and enjoying that [school] experience. That is a responsibility I carry with me every day.”

Bringing energy to the executive position 

In fact, it turned out that that sense of greater responsibility made him the perfect candidate for his new role as executive director of Maryland’s growing portfolio of community schools.

The expansion is part of the state’s 2019 Blueprint for Maryland’s Future legislation, which dedicates almost $4 billion per year in state and local funding over the next decade to a set of reforms aimed at improving public schools in the state.

The intent of community schools is to better connect schools with the families they serve. Particulars of that connection can include addressing daycare deficiencies in schools that educate a disproportionate proportion of teenage mothers, or creating a weekend food pantry with fresh groceries at a school situated in a food desert.

“Leadership has always been something that I’ve aspired to,” Anderson says. “For a long time, I never thought past the principalship,” and he admits that there’s a special energy to being in a school building that he may well miss in his new job as executive director.

But when he weighed the one school he was leaving against the difference he could make in overseeing more than 450 schools, he says he found himself thinking about his own educational journey. 

“I went from, ‘I’m not confident about being a student in college’ to ‘This is something I want to pursue,’ because along the way people were providing opportunities, providing guidance, providing insight, and it’s led to a very fulfilling career for me,” Anderson says.

And with his new role’s wider scope, he has the opportunity to be just such a helping hand in the lives and education of many more students.

“I still get up excited about coming to work [in education] because I know it’s meaningful work,” Anderson says. “What better way to serve kids?”

See where a degree in education from UMBC might take you.

Written by Tara S. Carpenter, principal lecturer of chemistry and biochemistry, UMBC

If you have curly hair, you know that every day is a new adventure. What will my hair do today? Why does it curl better on some days than others? And even those without naturally curly hair might notice their hair curling – or, let’s be honest, frizzing – a bit on humid summer days.

As a person with curly hair, I’m always looking for the best way to care for and understand my hair. As a chemist, I’m interested in the science behind how my hair behaves at the molecular level. There are different hair types, from straight to curly, and they behave differently depending on their structure. But what hairs are made up of at the molecular level is the same.

Hair structure

Hair begins growing under the skin’s surface, but it’s what happens after it pokes through the skin that determines whether you have a good hair day or a bad one.

Each hair can have three layers – the medulla, the cortex and the cuticle. You can think of each hair like a tiny tree trunk.

The innermost, or core layer, is the medulla. This layer holds moisture, much like the pith in the center of a tree trunk. This layer is also very fragile, but only thick or coarse hairs contain this part – so those with thin or blond hair typically don’t have the medulla layer in their hairs.

Next is the cortex, which makes up most of a hair and is analogous to the wood of a tree. The cortex is made up of spring-shaped protein molecules that lie in parallel rows in a cylindrical bundle. The exact shape of that bundle is determined by the hair follicle, which is a pore on the skin from where the hair grows.

How the hair grows out of the follicle influences the distribution of its proteins. So a straight follicle produces straight hair and a curved follicle produces curly hair. The less evenly distributed the squiggly proteins are, the curlier the hair. Your genetic code also plays a role in the shape of the cortex and, therefore, the shape and thickness of your hair.

Lastly, the outermost layer of a hair is called the cuticle. The cuticle is like the bark of a tree – and it even looks like bark under a microscope.

It’s the cuticle’s job to protect the cortex, but the cuticle is very easily damaged. Imagine lifting or removing the bark from a tree. Doing so would leave the wood inside susceptible to moisture loss, exposure to the environment and damage.

The same is true for each hair. When the cuticle is damaged from brushing, chemicals, wind or heat, the proteins of the cortex have a much more difficult time lying smoothly together. This means they can lose moisture, gain moisture, fray like a rope – this causes split ends – and even break. All these factors can influence how your hair looks at any given moment.

Hair in the summer

So what does all of this have to do with humidity? Well, hair proteins contain many permanent chemical bonds. Only chemical treatments like perms or straightening can change these bonds. But there’s another natural phenomenon that keeps the protein molecules in the cortex in line – something called hydrogen bonding.

The long, stringy protein molecules in the cortex contain tiny positive and negative charges throughout their structure. Because opposite charges attract each other, entire rows of proteins can be attracted to each other like tiny, weak magnets.

Heating or wetting your hair breaks the magnetlike attraction between these rows of proteins. So, heat and water can rearrange the proteins in your hair by breaking the hydrogen bonds that keep their structure together.

Water is one of the best molecules at hydrogen bonding. So when a molecule of water has the opportunity to hydrogen bond with something, it will.

In your hair, water can form hydrogen bonds between the rows of proteins in your hair’s cortex. It is the extent to which this happens that determines your hair’s fate.

When just a little water enters the hair, like it might in lower humidity conditions or when the cuticle is healthy and able to keep too much water out of the cortex, your hair may curl. When humidity is high, or the cuticle is damaged, more water enters the hair. Too much water can swell and crack the cuticle, making hair look frizzy.

Many people consider high humidity to be the problem behind frizzy hair, but styling your hair under high humidity and then entering a less humid environment can also be an issue. Water molecules leaving the hair’s cortex can also lead to a change in hair behavior.

Treating summer hair

A damaged cuticle layer leaves the cortex more susceptible to water molecules creeping in or out and wreaking havoc on your hair. Anytime water molecules travel in or out, your hair’s structure suffers and your hairstyle may be ruined. When the cuticle is healthy, it can protect the cortex, making your hair less susceptible to changes in the weather or environment. The bottom line is that a healthy hair cuticle helps keep proper moisture in the cortex.

Heat from styling tools is the most common culprit behind damaged cuticles, but chemical treatments, brushing, sun and wind can also cause damage. Avoiding these activities can help, but some things, such as exposure to the sun, can’t be avoided.

You can also take care of your scalp – a clean, healthy scalp leads to healthy hair cuticles. Using moisturizing products on your hair can help maintain cuticle health as well. Oils and moisturizing treatments can even restore damaged cuticles. The good news is that by understanding your hair and treating it well, you can help prevent the undesired effects of humidity

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.

Artillery booms in the distance as men hurriedly button up their scratchy wool uniforms and grab their muskets. The smell of campfires and horses intertwine with shouts, neighs, and gunfire. 

“It was a sensory overload,” remembers Jim Bailey ’03, M.A. ’07, history, of the recreated battles and camps he saw during 125th anniversary Civil War events. “At the age of eight, it wasn’t that I was reading books and studying history. It was something I could see. Smell. Hear. Feel.”

Exactly what Bailey would do with his early love for immersive history, however, wasn’t clear until a class during his first year at UMBC, when a park ranger from nearby Fort McHenry National Monument & Historic Shrine in Baltimore City gave a guest talk on volunteering for the National Park Service. By December of 1998, 18-year-old Bailey—a Humanities Scholar—was signed up as a Volunteer-in-Parks, the first step in a long career that has led him to his current position as superintendent of both Appomattox Court House National Historical Park and Booker T. Washington National Monument. 

Balancing natural and cultural resources

The United States National Park System (NPS) is 424 units strong, and always expanding. If this number seems large—aren’t there 63 national parks?—it’s because NPS includes everything from national battlefields and lakeshores to historical parks and monuments, as well as marquee parks like Yellowstone. 

Bailey explains that the two parks now under his jurisdiction—although 65 miles apart—tell similar narratives about the end of one story and the beginning of another. Appomattox Courthouse was the site of the April 9, 1865, surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia, marking the beginning of the end of the Civil War and the start of a new era of freedom fraught with uncertainty for newly freed people.

The Booker T. Washington monument tells the story of a nine-year-old boy who had to carry school books for the children of his enslavers, but was not himself allowed to learn to read and write. Washington eventually made the 500-mile trek to Hampton University, becoming an influential early African American leader. (Another influential Black leader would follow in his footsteps to Hampton, President Emeritus Freeman Hrabowski, who received his undergraduate degree there.) 

“As a nation, we for years have been having an open discussion on Civil War memory and monumentation in public places. Who gets remembered? And that is something that as an agency, we’ve always done,” says Bailey.

“We’ve always been expanding the cultural sites that we maintain and the stories that we tell. We recognize that all of these stories make up the tapestry that is our nation. It’s not just for George Washington or Francis Scott Key. It’s also people like Booker T. Washington and Hannah Reynolds.” (Reynolds, an enslaved woman, was mortally wounded during the Battle of Appomattox Court House—and is the only known civilian casualty of the battle—but was free for the three days between the Confederate surrender and her tragic death.)

As superintendent, Bailey leads a team that works on preserving historic structures, keeping up with the latest research on the stories told in those structures, and maintaining natural resources, including water quality, wildlife surveys, wildlife management, and controlled burns.

Conflicts can arise, however, when working to balance both natural and cultural resources.

“How do you do that when you also have to provide access to the public today and you have to do that in a way that doesn’t impact the ability of their children or grandchildren or great grandchildren to come to this park and see all the same things?” asks Bailey. “But that’s the mission of the National Park Service: To preserve and protect these parks for both this generation and future generations.”

Cultural landscapes as classrooms

Unsurprisingly, perhaps, Bailey makes a point of getting out of the office to walk through the parks, greeting staff and talking to visitors. He says that his leadership style is heavily influenced by an early mentor: Hrabowski.

“As an undergraduate, I was shocked to see Dr. Hrabowski out there, talking with students. And you saw it all the time,” explains Bailey. “He said that he can wander through campus and easily be looking down and be thinking about the next meeting or issue, but had to remind himself not to do that. As a young man, hearing that from someone like Dr. Hrabowski was very powerful. And I’ve always tried to emulate that.”

Sometimes, Bailey will seek solitude and hike a trail, maintaining a regular connection to the park—walking where Booker T. Washington spent his childhood, or experiencing the Appomattox River where the Monacan people settled— separate from his administrative role. He describes this as “the power of place.” You can experience history outside of books and classrooms because, “You’re there and you can see it.”

“We call it the cultural landscape,” adds Bailey. “The national parks are hugely important because they show us that as a people, we continue to define freedom, civil rights, and civil liberty. We can’t take that for granted. It’s something that each generation has to define and defend and decide—What do these things mean?”

For current Retrievers, Bailey recommends being willing to step outside of your comfort zone. 

“Listen and open a dialogue with people who think differently. Engage with other disciplines than your own. Consider different perspectives. UMBC provides that space, both literally and figuratively.”

Bailey says his favorite national park is “the next one” he visits. But just in case you need another reason to visit one of the 424 National Parks Service sites: “The value of these national parks is that they are open classrooms where all Americans are welcome to think and to contemplate.” 

Want to see where a degree in history might take you? Explore UMBC’s history program today.

Today, a plethora of technologies, from image recognition tools to chatbots, are powered by machine learning. A key component to the technique’s success is data—and lots of it. For doctors and hospitals who hope to use machine learning to improve healthcare, that need for copious data presents a problem: medical data is protected by privacy laws and often exists in incomplete or diverse forms—from doctor’s notes to medical scans—that make it difficult for machine learning models to use it effectively.

“Using data better to aid medical decisions is a grand challenge of the 21st century,” says Sanjay Purushotham, an assistant professor in information systems at UMBC. “We need innovations in existing techniques to take full advantage of artificial intelligence in healthcare.”

Together with his students, Purushotham is tackling that challenge. He recently received a prestigious NSF CAREER award to support his team’s efforts to develop new ways to train health-focused machine learning models. 

Purushotham has been contributing his expertise in computer science to collaborations with doctors and hospitals for almost ten years. The NSF CAREER award will help Purushotham further that research in a new direction, and ultimately, his team hopes their work will improve medical treatments and reduce costs, benefiting patients around the world.

The need for data-driven healthcare

Sanjay Purushotham (Marlayna Demond ’11/UMBC)

When you visit the doctor, you may be asked about your general health, your family medical history, and your current symptoms. The doctor may order a series of tests and scans. All of this data could yield valuable insights into your health and the best course of medical treatment.

Bringing the data together in ways that make it accessible and illuminating is an ongoing challenge in health care. Synthesizing and presenting health information in new ways could improve individual medical care. Computer systems could ensure busy doctors see the most relevant information at the right time, aiding their decision making. It could also prove valuable for addressing public health challenges, such as the spread of infectious diseases.

“During the COVID pandemic, the health community realized the importance of having access to good data,” says Purushotham. Better data could help public officials make better decisions about when to take precautions, such as closing schools. It could also help individuals better understand the risks when choosing to partake in activities like attending large social gatherings or traveling.

Over the next five years, the award will support Purushotham and his students as they investigate ways to advance a technique called federated learning, which could allow hospitals and doctors to jointly build and evaluate a machine learning model without sharing sensitive medical data.

A new way to collaborate

Most machine learning models are trained centrally, on vast quantities of data that are often scrapped from the internet. However, a lot of data exists that cannot be sent to a central processing facility, for cost or privacy reasons. The term ‘federated learning’ was coined in 2016 to describe a decentralized machine learning technique that could train on data that never leaves users’ mobile phones. Instead, individual devices would take turns downloading the model, training it on their own data, and then sending the updated model parameters back to a central location.

Students Sultan Ahmed (left) and Zahid Hassan Tushar (center) work in the lab with Sanjay Purushotham (right). (Marlayna Demond ’11/UMBC)

The general approach could be beneficial in many industries, from finance to manufacturing. In health care, federated learning has clear appeal because privacy laws strictly limit how health data can be shared.

For example, federated learning could allow hospitals to train a joint model on their medical data, such as CT scans, without sharing the scans with each other. The jointly trained model  might reveal new ways to detect disease.

Yet, many hurdles remain to successfully deploying the technique, including the non-uniformity and limited nature of some patient data, the varying computational resources available to different medical practitioners, and the threat of bad actors seeking access to private information.

Advancing federated learning

In the coming years, Purushotham and his team will pursue three main avenues of research to address the obstacles of deploying federated learning in healthcare. The project will develop new algorithms, methodologies, and software to make data-driven federated learning for healthcare more robust and trustworthy.

The first focus of the team will be to develop new ways to handle the diversity of health data. The  team will then study potential methods of attacks on the federated learning systems, and develop defenses against such attacks. The researchers will also investigate ways that the system can “un-learn” in situations where users request the influence of their data be removed from the model. In all cases, the researchers will focus on developing fair and interpretable algorithms. Finally, the researchers will study ways to generate synthetic health data, which can be used to augment or replace real data to improve the AI models.

The scope of the work is ambitious, but Purushotham is confident in his team.

“I have great students and collaborators,” he says. “I’m really excited to make federated learning in healthcare work.”

Sanjay Purushotham (third from left) with members of his research team (from left to right): Shaswati Shah, Catherine Ordun, Sultan Ahmed, Md Mahmudur Rahman, and Zahid Hassan Tushar. (Marlayna Demond ’11/UMBC)

Meet Anna Jones, a first-generation psychology major on the pre-med track at UMBC. What started as a “nudge” by one of her professors wound up leading Anna to becoming a peer tutor with UMBC’s SI (supplemental instruction) PASS (peer-assisted study sessions) program—an experience that has changed her life and defined her experience as a Retriever. We can’t wait to hear all about it!

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

A: Hello! I am a psychology B.S. major with a minor in biological sciences on the pre-med track. I transferred to UMBC after my first year of college and fell in love with what UMBC had to offer.
I came from a very small honors college and wanted to be a part of a more diverse, larger, student body. At UMBC, I quickly learned that I was surrounded by goal-oriented, like-minded, and well-rounded students, and I was met by supportive professors who connected me to my higher self through opportunity and encouragement.

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

A: Academic support is within arms-length here. Resources are offered tailored to anyone’s needs as a student and it is not challenging to access.

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

A: I’ve been inspired by a countless number of individuals here on campus. The highlighted person(s) would be my physics professor Dr. Lili Cui, my SI PASS supervisor Deborah Webb, the ASC (Academic Success Center) director Dr. Delana Gregg (Ph.D. ’19, language, literacy, and culture), and simply all of my peers in the SI PASS organization for the past three semesters. Dr. Lili was the professor I worked alongside as I supported her course through being an SI Pass leader. Dr. Lili has uplifted me by giving me honest academic advice and suggesting opportunities to further my leadership skills. She saw the leadership in me before I recognized it within myself.

Deb Webb and Dr. Gregg supported me extensively by being present through all of my success as an SI PASS leader. Deb Webb has provided me with skill building tasks and granted me access to resources that have been helpful to both my personal and academic self and career. Through her coordination of SI PASS, she has supported me through mentorship, organization, and communication. Dr. Gregg also supported me through words of encouragement and helping me become a part of a network that made it possible for me to help other students and faculty beyond our campus.

Jones, second from right, stands next to Delana Gregg, third from right, and other members of the SI PASS team.

Q: Tell us about what you love about being a peer mentor and SI PASS tutor.

A: I wanted to give back to my community but didn’t know how, so I became an SI PASS leader and mentor. Through these roles, I was able to achieve my wish to not only give back, but connect with many elements this campus had to offer. I admire UMBC’s priority of peer education and wanted to extend that principle to others through my role as a student.

SI PASS is a free support resource for traditionally difficult courses which tend to be STEM or language related. SI PASS leaders are responsible for hosting regularly-scheduled study sessions throughout the week to help facilitate active learning among students enrolled in their designated course. We engage students in various learning strategies to support students in knowing what to learn and how to learn it.

As an SI PASS mentor, I serve as a role model to assigned new leaders, provide guidance on specific administrative and SI PASS skills such as completing planning sheets and logging data, offer support (motivational/emotional), and assist new leaders with setting goals and identifying resources.

What I love about being an SI PASS leader and mentor is the ability to give back to my community at such a large school. It helps me connect with my peers and professors in ways that I never imagined possible. I feel like a thread, sewing different bits of the campus together. I am grateful for the new skills I’ve developed through my experience and the meaningful connections I’ve made and have helped other students make during my time here.

Q: Since you’ve been a part of the UMBC community, how have you found support of your WHY?

A: I was suggested to be an SI PASS Leader by my former physics professor Dr. Lili Cui. This referral started as a nudge in the right direction but later turned into a life-changing experience for me. Becoming a part of this organization led to me presenting at my very first conference for the MDCLCA (Maryland College Learning Center Association) organization, which then led me to becoming a student representative. My professor, my supervisor, and my peer educators all aid equally in my evolution as a student. They have all done nothing but encourage me to be my best self, providing challenges for me to overcome and grow through.

Q: What would you tell other transfer students about what it’s like becoming a part of the UMBC community?

A: Being a transfer student as such a large university (compared to my previous school) can be very intimidating. It may require some elbow grease to build up the courage to become more involved on campus but you will come to find that the inclusivity of this community eases the tension. Becoming involved is easier than you may think and there’s countless options of helpful resources to point you in the right direction.

* * * * *

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.

It’s summer, the ideal season to catch up on “to-be-read” lists and a time to discover new reads. Ever wanted to dig into a feminist critique of the classic horror film Carrie? Or how about a breezy beach read filled with romance and wild ponies set on Chincoteague Island? Maybe you’re a lover of historical nonfiction or math—either way, we’ve got you covered. 

Across the UMBC community are engaged scholars who tackle a breadth of topics spanning a wide range of disciplines and writing mediums. From books, to more than 260 The Conversation articles, to several hundred peer-reviewed journal publications, the UMBC community creates an extensive collection of reading materials for bibliophiles of all interests. 

This summer is a great opportunity to dive into recently-published books with bylines from UMBC’s faculty, staff, students, and alumni. Here’s a list of suggestions to add to your summer reading list:

This Belongs to Us: Stories from UMBC’s Founding Four Classes, collected by Diane Tichnell, Dale Gough, Mimi Dietrich, and Bob Dietrich (Class of 1970) 

This Belongs to Us is a kaleidoscopic retelling of the colorful and authentic story of UMBC. The book chronicles the collective memories of members of the first four graduating classes of the university. The authors sent newsletters, emails, mail, and even knocked on doors to capture the voices of as many UMBC graduates as possible. In the end, 84 authors contributed more than 100 stories to This Belongs to Us. Proceeds from the book go to several scholarships supported by the Founding Four. 

The Big Bang of Numbers: How to Build the Universe Using Only Math, by Manil Suri

In this approachable mathematical origin story, Manil Suri, professor of mathematics, creates a natural progression of ideas needed to design our world, starting with numbers and continuing through geometry, algebra, and beyond. He reveals the secret lives of real and imaginary numbers, teaches them to play abstract games with real-world applications, discovers unexpected patterns that connect humble lifeforms to enormous galaxies, and explores mathematical underpinnings for randomness and beauty. 

In Every Mirror She’s Black, by Lọlá Ákínmádé Åkerström

In her debut novel, Lọlá Ákínmádé Åkerström ’98, M.S. ’02, information systems, tells the story of three Black women who are linked in unexpected ways to the same influential white man in Stockholm as they build their new lives in the most open society run by the most private people.

Bouboulina and the Greek Revolution: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Heroine of 1821, edited by April Kalogeropoulos Householder

This collection of essays, edited by April Householder ’95, visual and performing arts, director of UMBC’s undergraduate research and prestigious scholarships, presents an in-depth analysis of the life and times of Laskarina Bouboulina, the legendary heroine of the Greek Revolution. At the age of fifty and mother to 10 children, Bouboulina commanded a fleet of ships from the island of Spetses and became the first female admiral in world naval history.

Where the Lilacs Bloom Once Again, by Aharona (Roni) Rosenthal

Roni Rosenthal, director of Judaic Studies at UMBC, tells the story of her Romanian-Jewish family’s hardships and survival during World War II and beyond. Where the Lilacs Bloom Once Again centers the experiences of Rosenthal’s great-aunt Friddie, who was kept for 13 years in secret prisons and labor camps in Romania during World War II and then under the Communist rule, where she was tortured and forced to dig the canal from the Danube River to the Black Sea. 

A Galaxy of Things: The Power of Puppets and Masks in Star Wars and Beyond, by Colette Searls

Colette Searls, associate professor of theatre, explores the ways in which all puppets, masks, and makeup-prosthetic figures are “material characters,” using iconic Star Wars characters like Yoda and R2-D2 to illustrate what makes them so compelling. In A Galaxy of Things, Searls—an expert in puppetry studies—uncovers how non-humans like Chewbacca, semi-humans like Darth Maul, and even concealed humans like Boba Fett tell meaningful stories that conventional human characters cannot. 

T.O.B.A. Time: Black Vaudeville and the Theater Owners’ Booking Association in Jazz Age America, by Michelle R. Scott

Michelle R. Scott, professor of history, details the institutional history of the Theater Owners’ Booking Association’s (T.O.B.A.) origins and practices while telling the little-known stories of the managers, producers, performers, and audience members involved in the circuit. Looking at the organization over its 11-year existence (1920–1931), T.O.B.A. Time recounts the origins of artists and entrepreneurs like S.H. Dudley, Bessie Smith, Butterbeans & Susie, and Cab Calloway, and the theater circuit that made them famous in segregated America.

In 14 Secrets to a Done Dissertation: A Guide to Navigating the Dissertation Process and Finishing in Record Time, by Ramon Goings

Ramon Goings, associate professor in UMBC’s Language, Literacy, and Culture doctoral program, shares 14 strategies that will help current and prospective Ph.D. students navigate the dissertation process and finish in record time. 

Fearless Summer: Return to Chincoteague, by Mary K. Tilghman 

Set among the beaches and wild ponies that have made Chincoteague Island famous, Fearless Summer, the latest romance novel from Mary K. Tilghman ’79, English, tells the story of Charlotte, who comes home to Chincoteague to help her sisters run a new shop in town. She hasn’t been home since her breakup with Henry eight years before. The possibility of meeting him almost makes her say no, but sisterly love convinces her she can handle a return to Chincoteague.

Well of Souls: Uncovering the Banjo’s Hidden History, by Kristina R. Gaddy

In an extraordinary story unfolding across two hundred years, Kristina R. Gaddy ’09, modern languages and linguistics, history, uncovers the banjo’s key role in Black spirituality, ritual, and rebellion. Through meticulous research in diaries, letters, archives, and art, she traces the banjo’s beginnings from the 17th century, when enslaved people of African descent created it from gourds or calabashes and wood. Gaddy shows how the enslaved carried this unique instrument as they were transported and sold by slave owners throughout the Americas, to Suriname, the Caribbean, and the colonies that became U.S. states, including Louisiana, South Carolina, Maryland, and New York.

UMBC Publications 

Looking for more extracurricular reading? Check out other UMBC publications featuring a variety of staff, alumni, student, and faculty voices.

UMBC Magazine, Spring 2023 edition

Read the latest edition of UMBC Magazine, which includes highlights of President Valerie Sheares Ashby’s inauguration, a breakdown on ChatGPT and the “AI apocalypse,” a step-by-step guide on how to make a pinhole camera, and more.  

Inquiring Minds: UMBC Research and Creative Achievement 

Inquiring Minds shares a selection of recent innovative and impactful work by UMBC’s researchers and scholars. The inaugural publication highlights a broad range of UMBC’s research and creative achievement in seven key areas. 

UMBC Review: Journal of Undergraduate Research, 2023 Vol. 24

The UMBC Review, now into its third decade of publication, offers an opportunity for undergraduate students to showcase the results of their academic journey. UMBC Review, Vol. 24 includes undergraduate research on topics such as: the current state of mathematics and machine learning, a feminist critique of the 1976 film Carrie, and the history of the Ku Klux Klan in small town Maryland. 

“Retrievers Read” Summer Reading Challenge

For more summer reading fun, join the UMBC Alumni Association’s “Retrievers Read” summer reading bingo challenge, happening now until August 30, 2023. Get a ‘bingo’ to receive free UMBC swag, and participants who fill out the entire bingo card will be entered into a drawing for a UMBC gift bag. Click here for more information.