UMBC researchers are discovering building blocks of hand motions, aiming to improve physical therapy for humans and find better ways to program robots. They’re turning to a novel source material for these gestures: classical Indian dance. 

Fossil records suggest that between four and six million years ago, the hominin ancestors of modern humans first stood up and walked on two legs—thus freeing their hands. Those hands went on to craft humanity’s story arc: cradling babies, carrying food, fashioning and wielding weapons, carving the woodblocks used to print the first paper books, running over the keys of a piano in a Rachmaninoff concerto, and even planting a flag on the surface of the moon. 

“Hands are incredibly important to humans,” says Ramana Vinjamuri, an associate professor of computer science and electrical engineering whose work has focused on understanding how the brain controls complex hand movements. 

Vinjamuri personally witnessed the debilitating impact of loss of hand movement when his mother suffered a stroke in 2014. “The very hand that taught me how to draw, how to write—I saw that hand irrevocably paralyzed. It was really hard for the family.”

The experience motivated Vinjamuri to work on technologies that could help people regain lost motor functions or serve as robotic replacements for injured body parts. As part of the research, the team began searching for and cataloging the building blocks of hand motions.  Further inspiration struck when Vinjamuri attended a scientific conference on the brain, hosted by the Indian Institute of Technology Mandi in the serene foothills of the Himalayas. While brainstorming ideas for a session of the conference focused on ways that ancient Indian traditions might be applied to modern problems, Vinjamuri conceived a novel approach to deriving these building blocks—from the structured hand gestures of Indian classical dance.

Ramana Vinjamuri in the Vinjamuri lab, stands with a Unitree bipedal robot.

A Complex and Versatile Instrument

Mitra, a humanoid robot produced by Invento Robotics, a company founded by UMBC alumnus Balaji Viswanathan, M.S ’06, Ph.D. ’23, computer science. The researchers programmed Mitra to make letters of the American Sign Language alphabet by combining the mudras-derived alphabets of movement, in this case making the letter E.

Take a moment to consider your hands. Including the wrist, each hand has 27 joints. Some of those joints, such as the carpometacarpal joint at the base of the thumb, can move in multiple ways, such as rotating, bending, and moving toward or away from the center of the palm. The full hand encompasses billions of possible unique combinations of movements. 

“To study something as complex as the hand is fascinating,” says Parthan Olikkal, a longtime member of Vinjamuri’s lab who is currently working toward his Ph.D in computer science and is deeply involved in recent research efforts.

To get a grip on the complexities, the team has turned to a concept called kinematic synergies. First extensively explored in the mid-20th century by Russian physiologist Nikolai Bernstein, synergies are essentially building blocks of movement in which the brain simultaneously coordinates multiple joint movements to simplify complex motions.

The concept can be used to deconstruct a dazzling diversity of movements into a limited number of fundamental units, similar to how the hundreds of thousands of different words in the English language can be broken down into only 26 letters.  

Vinjamuri and his students have been on a quest to discover the “alphabets” of human hand movements we’ve collectively learned through hundreds of dropped sippy cups, hours of handwriting practice, and the like. The hope is that the knowledge could then be used as a “hack”—to more effectively train ourselves and our robotic assistants in the future. 

“The way we interact with our surroundings—the way we grasp objects or move through space—feels so natural and effortless. We often forget we stumbled and fell as children while our brains and bodies were learning to coordinate.”

— Ramana Vinjamuri, associate professor of computer science and electrical engineering

Natural Versus Structured Movements

Ashwathi Menon, co-caption of the Adaa Indian fusion dance team, stopped by the lab for a photo shoot in October. Here she appears on the computer screen as the team demonstrates how to use a simple camera and software system to recognize hand movements.

A small statue representing the Hindu god Shiva in the form of Nataraja, the cosmic dancer. Ramana Vinjamuri keeps the statue in his office. (Photo courtesy of Vinjamuri)

As part of their latest research on alphabets of hand movements, Vinjamuri and his students analyzed a dataset of 30 natural hand grasps. The movements are used for picking up objects ranging in size from large water bottles to tiny beads. The researchers found six synergies, akin to an alphabet of six letters, that when combined could account for nearly 99 percent of the variations in movements represented in the full dataset. 

The first two synergies alone—specifically a movement in which all five fingers wrap around an object and a movement in which the index finger and thumb pinch together—could account for more than 90 percent of the variations. Learning (or relearning) those two movements would be essential to training a hand to pick up objects, the researchers say.

However, the team also says that studying natural grasps has limitations.

“Natural grasp is unique to the motor learning history of an individual,” says Olikkal. “So the way I do something might be completely different from another person.” The grasps also represented limited functionality, containing only a small subset of ways that a person might use their hands. 

“Bharatanatyam is an intricate, linear, and structured dance form with a lot of precision,” says Ashwathi Menon, a UMBC junior majoring in bioinformatics and computational biology who is co-captain of the university’s Adaa Indian fusion dance team and who has been performing classical Indian dances since she was four years old. “Hand gestures are part of the storytelling. They are very precise. They can be used to point, to represent an animal, to represent praying—those are just some examples.”

“We noticed dancers tend to age super gracefully: They remain flexible and agile because they have been training,” says Vinjamuri. “That was a huge inspiration for us when we started looking for richer alphabets of movement. With dance, we are looking not just at healthy movement but super healthy. And so the question became, could we find a ‘superhuman’ alphabet from the dance gestures?” 

Mitra’s hands use three types of motors for movement. The strongest motor, located at the shoulder, handles shoulder flexion and extension, while a medium-torque motor at the elbow controls elbow movements, and five servo motors, one for each digit, are used to control the fingers.

Chris Dollo (left), a senior computer science major and undergraduate researcher in the Vinjamuri lab, and Parthan Olikkal (right) work at the computer. Olikkal brought the concept of capturing hand movements using simple camera set-ups into the lab, a key step toward making cost-effective technologies.

Dance-Derived Alphabets of Movement

Ashwathi Menon demonstrates mudras, which are copied by an Inspire robotic hand. From top to bottom the mudras are: Ardhachandra, meaning “half moon;” Chandrakala, meaning “crescent moon;” and Tripataka, meaning “three parts of the flag.” The mudras can demonstrate various elements of a story, including weapons, trees, flowers, or concepts such as balance, unity, and beauty.

Using the same techniques they had deployed to deconstruct the 30 natural hand grasps, the research team also analyzed 30 single-hand mudras. They found six synergies that could account for around 94 percent of the mudras’ variations.

Crucially, the team then tested how well the six natural grasp-derived synergies could combine to construct unrelated hand motions—in this case 15 letters of the American Sign Language alphabet—compared to the mudras-derived synergies. The mudras synergies significantly outperformed the natural hand grasp synergies on that task. 

“When we started this type of research more than 15 years ago, we wondered: Can we find a golden alphabet that can be used to reconstruct anything?” says Vinjamuri. “Now I highly doubt that there is such a thing. But the mudras-derived alphabet is definitely better than the natural grasp alphabet because there is more dexterity and more flexibility.”

Ultimately, Vinjamuri envisions coming up with libraries of task-specific alphabets that can be deployed depending on the needs, be it completing everyday household chores such as cooking or folding laundry, or something more complicated and precise, such as playing an instrument. 

Robotic Helping Hands

Apart from advancing understanding of the fundamental roots of movement, the team has made great strides developing cost-effective and pragmatic methods of testing and implementing their ideas. When Vinjamuri first started the work, his team relied on motion-capture systems that required specialized gloves and other equipment. Now, the team uses a simple camera and software system to recognize, record, and analyze movements.

“Parthan brought the concept of capturing hand movements using cameras into the lab and really developed it,” Vinjamuri said. It’s an important contribution to ultimately making cost-effective technologies that people could use in their homes, he says, such as a virtual system to coach people through physical therapy sessions. 

The team is also successfully developing techniques to “teach” robotic hands the alphabets of movements and how to combine them to make new hand gestures. The approach marks a departure from standard techniques of teaching robots to mimic hand gestures, and toward a method rooted in our understanding of how the human body and brain work.

Ashwathi Menon, left, demonstrates the Katakamukha mudra while a robotic hand mimics her gesture. The mudra is often used to represent actions like plucking flowers, holding a necklace, and pulling a bowstring.

“It’s called biomimetic learning,” says Vinjamuri. “We want to watch how a human body moves, how a hand moves and works, and we want to derive those principles and apply them to machines.”

The researchers are testing the techniques on a stand-alone robotic hand and a humanoid robot, each of which operates in a different way and requires a unique approach to translating the mathematical representations of synergies into physical movements.

“Once I learned about synergies, I became so curious to see if we could use them to make a robotic hand respond and perform the same way as a human hand,” says Olikkal. “Adding my own work to the research efforts and seeing the results has been gratifying.”

These moments of satisfaction in finding solutions to knotty problems will continue to propel the team’s voyage of discovery. They may even take a moment to celebrate their successes—perhaps with a fitting high-five. 

Could A Dancing Robot Improve Humans’ Mental Health?

By Catherine Meyers  •  Photography by Kiirstn Pagan ’11

Searching for an alphabet of hand movements from the gestures in classical Indian dance is not the only way that art is inspiring and guiding new research in Ramana Vinjamuri’s lab. In a related project, Vinjamuri has teamed up with Andrea Kleinsmith, an associate professor in information systems who specializes in ways that computers can assess humans’ emotions, and Ann Sofie Clemmensen, an associate professor of dance, to explore whether and how dancing robots might offer humans new tools to improve their mental health. The research piggybacks off established practices of human-to-human dance/movement therapy, which can be used to treat some mental health challenges, such as schizophrenia, anxiety, and depression.

Dancers Sarah McHale ’24 and Juju Ayoub ’25 perform during the AccelNet meeting. The dance was a demonstration of a collaborative research project by UMBC faculty Ramana Vinjamuri, Andrea Kleinsmith, and Ann Sofie Clemmensen exploring stress reducing technology.

The spark for the interdisciplinary venture was struck when the College of Engineering and Information Technology launched a program to encourage faculty to explore collaborations across disciplines to tackle big challenges. 

Together, Vinjamuri, Kleinsmith and Clemmensen developed a proposal to investigate questions such as whether the coordination in a person’s arms and legs could be a proxy measure of mental well-being, how existing dance therapy movements affect brain activity, and how a humanoid robot dance partner compares in effectiveness to a flesh-and-blood one.

“As a healthcare opportunity, dancing with a robot may sound weird at first,” notes Clemmensen. But, she says, people who are socially isolated or struggle with the stressors of human interactions might benefit from robot partners. “As humans, we project emotions on objects, but the objects do not judge back.”

In June, the team creatively demonstrated their progress to brain researchers and artists from around the world when they choreographed a technology-infused dance performance for the Movement, Music, and Brain Health National Science Foundation AccelNet meeting on the UMBC campus. 

Two dancers—one representing a robot and the other a human—took turns moving around each other. Sensors monitored physiological signs of stress on the human dancer. As the dance progressed, the human was at first fearful, then curious, and finally happy—an ending the researchers hope their own project might one day also accomplish.

UMBC students and professors who worked on the project gather on the stage after the dance performance. From left to right are Viraj Janeja, Oritsejolomisan Mebaghanje, Golnaz Moharrer, Sruthi Sundharram, Parthan Olikkal, Ramana Vinjamuri, Juju Ayoub, Andrea Kleinsmith, Sarah McHale, and Ann Sofie Clemmensen.

Photo Credit: Niloufar Sarmast

UMBC’s annual collaborative art exhibition with Towson University, Spark, opened its doors this November at The Peale, Baltimore’s neighborhood museum, and has continued to delight audiences with its captivating installations. This year’s show, titled SPARK VII: Industrial Afterglow, gathers more than 20 artists working across sculpture, installation, sound, photography, video, textiles, and ecological documentation to explore what lingers in the wake of industrial and technological systems.

In addition to those highlighted in photos, participating artists from UMBC include Chelsey Barrera, B.F.A.’27, visual arts; McCoy Chance, M.F.A. ’25, intermedia and digital arts; Danielle d’Amico, M.F.A. ’19, intermedia and digital arts; Gracie Horne, B.F.A.’27, visual arts; Leah Clare Michaels, M.F.A. ’19, intermedia and digital arts; Edgar Reyes, assistant professor of visual arts; Sarah G. Sharp, associate professor of visual arts; Samantha Sethi, adjunct professor of visual arts; and Mariia Usova, M.F.A. ’25, intermedia and digital arts.

“From bioplastic light sculptures and cyanotype archives to rewilded cityscapes and AI-coded sea monsters, the exhibition casts light — literal and symbolic — on the residues of industry, the reconfigurations of ecosystems, and the speculative futures already blooming in the present,” says Liz Faust, who curated the exhibition on behalf of both universities.

”As a former industrial port city undergoing rapid urban transformation, Baltimore provides a vital lens through which to consider the aftermath of extractive systems and the possibilities of repair,” notes Faust. “Spark asks: What remains after infrastructures collapse? How do ecologies adapt and resist? What does it mean to imagine otherwise? By attending to what still glows, hums, or grows through the ruins, this exhibition transforms light from metaphor into method — revealing the unseen, mourning the obsolete, and illuminating paths toward speculative futures.”

Spark continues on display through this weekend, December 7, with free admission. On Saturday, December 6, at 11 a.m., the exhibition will host a panel discussion featuring assistant professor of visual arts Erik Millikin and Alexi Scheiber, M.F.A. ’25, intermedia and digital arts.

Top image: artwork by McCoy Chance.
Photography by Brad Ziegler/UMBC.

“You are a valued and important voice.” “UMBC cares and listens.” “The diversity on UMBC’s campus helps to bring out the best in everyone.” Along with an eye-catching color gradient, these words adorn the walls of the Mezzanine Gallery in The Commons. And while the phrases may sound like something President Valerie Sheares Ashby would (and does) say quite often, they are actually part of an Arts+ initiative, student-sourced art installation that asked students: “Inclusive excellence: What does it mean to you?”

Created by students in the spring 2025 class Professional Practices in Graphic Design, the installation transforms the Mezzanine Gallery and nearby breezeway into spaces that reflect UMBC’s welcoming community. Funded by Student Affairs Communications and Marketing, the project included Petra Janka ’25, graphic design and modern languages and linguistics, and a current human-centered computing master’s student. In this Q&A, Janka and President Sheares Ashby talk about student-led inclusive excellence and the ways that UMBC welcomes people into its community.

President Valerie Sheares Ashby: How did your class approach this project? 

Petra Janka: Our class was asked to help to reimagine and transform two spaces in The Commons: The Mezzanine Gallery and the entrance near the breezeway. We wanted students to interact with something enjoyable and inspirational. So our design approach focused on creating a multi-perspective experience.

There are three specific views you can take in this installation. From one side, you see this colorful gradient representing the diversity of residential life on campus. From the other angle, you can see the black and gold gradient symbolizing academic life at the university. If you look at it straight on, you can see the quotes included in the installation and the digital signage, which highlights additional answers. We sourced these quotes by surveying students about their connections, their advice, their challenges, their experiences on campus, and so on.

Sheares Ashby: This is fantastic. It is a brilliant idea on multiple levels. I talk about inclusive excellence all the time because it is a core value of the institution, but hearing students’ experience lets me know we are doing something right. It also lets me know there is more for us to do, right? These quotes inspire me to keep going—to try to make the place even more inclusive for everyone.

It is one thing for me to say it, but to know that your student peer is saying—”Give everyone a chance”—well, that is far more powerful than if I were using my voice. When I read the quotes on the wall, I think, “Oh, that is different. That is more powerful. That is more meaningful.”

Janka: The motto of our group was: “From the students, for the students.” We wanted everyone who passes by to stop, read, and feel seen, heard, and valued, and I think we achieved that.

Sheares Ashby: This is a unique institution. It is a very different thing to be at an institution that has been around for more than 150 years, and one that has been around for 59. Older institutions are pretty hard to change. Students certainly have an impact everywhere they go, but you are not creating that institution anymore, not fundamentally changing the DNA.

But, here, we are still in a space where we are becoming clear about our values, but we are flexible and humble enough to recognize there is still more input to receive, still more growth to experience, still new ideas to include. We can be better and different, and it is our clarity about our core principle of inclusive excellence that enables us to do that.

Janka: Last spring, when we were scouting out the space, we saw how many people pass through because this is a place to eat, study, and meet friends. We wanted to add something that becomes part of that everyday experience at UMBC. And now the colors draw your eyes to it, and then you read the messages, and you feel connected, and you’re like, “Oh, this is nice. I feel inspired to do better, to give everyone a chance.” I hope it stays up for a long time.

Sheares Ashby: We are clearly better because you are here. This is what students do. Each time a new student joins us, UMBC gets better.

The project, part of UMBC’s Arts+ initiative, was completed and installed by commonvision, UMBC Student Design and Print Center students Shomapti Hussein ‘25 and Thomas Hammond ‘25, under the print and installation guidance of Tori Richner ‘22, general associate: print production, and the supervision of SACM staff. The Commons Facilities and Operations team installed the panels and screen in the Mezzanine Gallery, and were integral partners in this project.

Theatre magic isn’t magic at all—it’s the result of months of students conceiving, designing, and constructing the theatre set under the guidance of their mentors. Throughout various stages of the process, UMBC students get to see the world they created come to life—from prologue to final curtain call. All the detailed measuring and crafting to scale pays off, because when the curtain goes up and the lights go down, the audience surrenders to a willing suspension of disbelief.

Prologue

“Attention on stage,” echoed loudly across UMBC’s Proscenium Theatre as Malaak McDonald, a theatre design and production and geography and environmental systems junior, warned the production crew to stop and await safety instructions. 

It was a humid summer day, technically the off-season for UMBC’s theatre shows, but not for the production crew. From mid-May to mid-August, the undergraduate production staff set up construction stations across the Proscenium and the Black Box Theatres.

“Mine’s at 16, second electric, flying in, down stage,” said McDonald. The crew of five, in unison, looked up to ensure they were not underneath the second electric batten descending by a manual counterweight pulley system. The batten is a hollow metal bar, about the length of the stage, with electrical cables threaded inside, and rigged with hooks to hang stage lights and scenery. Fully loaded, it can weigh hundreds of pounds and can be flown in (lowered down) or flown out (raised) for seamless scene changes. Once the bar is at eye level and the line is locked, the crew returns to work.

All were trained by Gregg Schraven ’97, production manager for UMBC’s design shop, and Evan McDougall, assistant technical director, to use onsite industrial woodworking tools, welding machines, and behind-the-scenes stage technology. While McDonald tended to the lights, others were hand-painting a set floor. Another group inspected eight long wooden trellises drying on sawhorses, checking for scratches from their move from the paint booth to the stage through one of two 16-foot-high doors connecting the shop to both theatres.

Malaak McDonald looks up at the electric batten.Photo by Brad Ziegler.

To produce two fall plays and two spring plays annually, the faculty, staff, and students in UMBC’s theatre productions must adhere to a strict cycle that begins in November when the next season’s plays are chosen. Directors develop their script and then share their vision with the set, lighting, sound, and costume design directors. They then pick their student counterparts, all while producing the current season and teaching classes. 

Theatre magic is not magic at all. It is the product of extreme organization, hefty technical skills, and commitment to learn, show up, and do the work. Theatre is a community service, explains Gerrad Alex Taylor, assistant professor of theatre and director of the 2025 – 2026 season opener, Shakespeare in Harlem, in celebration of a hundred years of the Harlem Renaissance and part of UMBC’s Arts+ initiative.

“This phenomenon of watching a play is cathartic and an important community service. It’s healing. It’s a service of the heart,” said Taylor, a classically trained Shakespearean actor. “We have to ask, ‘What do the hearts of people need right now?’ and what stories can we be telling to connect with their hearts?”

Act One: Tools of the Trade

That kind of passion needs precision. Three years after graduation, Tyler Brust, theatre, a scenic designer and technical director, is a staple at the UMBC set design shop, where he is often on contract for the build cycle through tech week while also working in local theatre. “Coming back as an alum, it felt like I did not miss a beat as a result,” said Brust. “I immediately felt like I had the tools I needed to effectively lead small groups of student staff where necessary, all while balancing my own personal task list.”

He remembers his first production team project in 2019, building the floor layout for The Turn of the Screw set in late 1800’s England. The students created an illusion, a forced-perspective floor. Wooden floorboards were designed to be widest near the audience and gradually narrow toward the back of the stage, making the stage appear deeper and longer, creating a railroad-track effect. “This was all done by hand, with a straight edge and a router,” said Brust.  

The forced perspective floor designed for the 2019 The Turn of the Screw. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11.

“Now, for Shakespeare in Harlem, Evan helped us through a multi-step process to modify the hardboard floor from last fall’s play. I now have the skills to completely fake these lines via paint and handle the complex layout of overlapping ovals and forced-perspective bricks,” said Brust.

McDougall calls this “theatre production with training wheels.” Before the drilling and the cutting commence, he has students start with what he calls the boring part—reading the manufacturers’ manuals. He then reminds students of his number one rule: Don’t trust anything—even if it’s in the manual. “The students say I have trust issues.

You can’t make any assumptions about what is true in theatre production,” said McDougall. As UMBC’s master electrician with decades of experience in woodworking, welding, and blacksmithing, he is indispensable for students to understand the mechanical, manual, and technical aspects of set design, growing in expertise over their time at UMBC. 

“I joke with my students that they come in with this preconceived notion of ‘this is parallel, this is plumb or level’—and once we begin installing sets and moving pieces around in the space, those realities don’t exist anymore,” said McDougall. After all, the production director aims to execute the set designer’s vision, while the set designer works to visualize and create the environment the director imagines.

Brust absorbed every lesson alongside McDougall and Schraven, which helped him become a Swiss Army Knife of technical abilities as a carpenter, scenic artist, puppet artist, associate scenic designer, and design and technical coordinator. “The agency and mentorship that Gregg and Evan give students is what makes all the difference,” said Brust. “It allows us to flex our muscles into actual project management, which is otherwise difficult to emulate during a class session.” 

Schraven and McDougall’s mentorship helped Brust branch out of UMBC to local theatre production companies like the Strand Theatre, Submersive, and True Penny Productions as a scenic artist, carpenter, general fabricator, and technical director. It is also why he is highly sought after in the UMBC theatre cycle.

“Tyler is a person I trust. I want to know what he’s thinking and can have dialogue about a problem,” said McDougall. “Here’s what my gut’s telling me. What do you see? We can start riffing off of each other. He’s now a coworker.”

Act Two: Metal, Steel, and Wood

In partnership with the Langston Hughes estate, Taylor adapted Hughes’ collection of monologue poems exploring the rhythms of jazz, the blues, Black love, and the daily struggles and joys of life in Harlem into a full-length play, blending poetry, music, and dance for an immersive journey into the world he so vividly celebrated. The only thing left to do was to construct an equally inspiring home into being. To bring the physical world of the Harlem Renaissance to UMBC, Taylor worked with Nate Sinnott, the scenic designer and faculty properties and paints supervisor.

Sinnott found inspiration in the original New York City Penn Station of the 1920s with 150-foot ceilings, granite columns, steel-vaulted ceilings, and an arching glass roof. Enter Schraven, McDougall, Brust, and the summer student production staff: McDonald, Adam Harper, a theatre and engineering and information systems senior, Ann Davies, a visual arts senior, and Abigail Adams, a media and communication senior.

Together, they built the director’s vision creatively and safely—with a unique twist. Taylor, who is a member of the resident company at Chesapeake Shakespeare Company (CSC) and founder of the company’s Black Classical Acting Ensemble, thought through a project that could “uplift the Black students who are about to graduate and have the acting chops to handle the material, and bring some of the Black Baltimore community to UMBC,” said Taylor. “Then take this Black ensemble and bring it back to Baltimore City’s community.” In brainstorming what all that could look like, UMBC theatre developed a collaboration with CSC.

This means that the technical crew designed the set to work for both UMBC’s Proscenium Theatre and Baltimore City’s CSC’s stage. The production team built a forced-perspective floor and 16 faux steel trellis arches constructed from multiple layers of wood and foam. Each trellis was finely carved with intricate triangular patterns using a computer-controlled machine, then glued together in pairs to form eight lightweight units. The arches had built-in break points, allowing them to be disassembled, packed into a 16-foot truck, and reassembled identically at each theatre—even with performances months apart.

“My job is to teach the students to the point where they can do it all,” said Schraven, associate teaching professor and technical director. For Schraven, UMBC is more than where he began studying theatre in 1989 and more than the place where he has worked, off and on, since the 1990s. It is where he gets to pass down the more than 30 years of theatre tech knowledge to students working in a scene shop he helped design.

“When I was a student, I was easily in the shop six to 10 hours a day. I probably did more welding in a year than they will do in their entire careers. That’s why I keep the shop open to students in the summer. That’s why I have a student labor budget and why 100 percent of all show proceeds are for undergraduate scholarships. I want to use every single penny of it on students,” said Schraven. “The more you’re in the shop, the more you learn. When students learn how to weld, I tell them to give it 80 times. Then they’ll be really comfortable with it.”

Act Three: Dress Rehearsal

It’s two weeks before showtime. At 6:30 p.m. sharp, the unspoken hero of the play, Tatiyana ‘Tati’ Terrelonge, an acting and media and communication studies junior, is poised at center stage on the floor designed to look like brown bricks. Terrelonge, who intrepidly served as the entire cast’s understudy, is holding a binder with the lead’s lines at the ready. Looming behind her is the finalized, floor-to-ceiling vaulted arch. Four costumed students sit in wooden chairs recently stained brown by the production crew, while another peeks out of a window, one of several frosted glass ceiling panes below the arch.

In the audience are four crew members managing lights, sound, props, and character lines. Today, the lines are for a scene where a character, Bruce, is writing a letter to his mother in the South, and another character, Leonard, is reading a letter to his sweetheart, begging her not to return to the South. 

They represent the millions of Black men and women of the Great Migration, who fled the legacy of slavery and the terror of racism of the South between 1910 – 1970 for the North. Hundreds of thousands arrived at NYC’s Penn Station with the artistic talents and skilled labor that birthed the Harlem Renaissance. Their success inspired others to follow, who were ready to reap all the freedom that the Harlem Renaissance promised, only to be met first with the daily grind of work that made Harlem glimmer with the dreams of its people. 

Dario Prioleau, acting senior, as Leonard. Photo by Kiirstn Pagan ’11.

“Langston Hughes was canonizing Black life in America in the same way that William Shakespeare did, of life during England’s Elizabethan era,” said Taylor, who added a personal touch by including some of his grandmother’s stories and kept the show going by stepping in as the character of Simple. “A lot of my research here at the university and as an artist is looking at African American stories and stories of the diaspora that have been forgotten about, misrepresented, and stolen,” said Taylor, “and bringing a new lens and a new perspective of our contemporary consciousness to them.”

Curtain Call

Lauren Davis, as Griot—the play’s storyteller—gives respects to the ancestors that made the play possible. Photo by Kiirstn Pagan ’11.

“You are here!” said Lauren Davis, in the commanding voice of her character, Griot—the play’s storyteller, historian, and cultural guide—to the first audience of the fall season. Davis, a guest artist and member of the CSC’s Black Classical Acting Ensemble, is radiant in golden light. Behind her, the arched glass ceiling transforms with a projection of stained glass in rich royal hues, thanks to McDonald, the show’s head electrician, and the lighting team, who hung the lighting designer’s light plot—a map, essentially—a month early to give lighting design students time to learn the process.

“I want to get the acknowledgment well of the ancestors into the space,” booms Griot, lowering a large basket—the well—onto the floor. “I call so that you remember the grandmothers on whose shoulders we stand. I’m no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept.” 

With that, the set morphs into bedrooms, apartments, and streets, made real by the artistry of UMBC’s theatre students and their mentors. Traveling trunks become an altar, and light posts double as clotheslines. The actors tap in, weaving with the words and sounds—reading, stomping, marching, crying, laughing, inhaling—that syncopate the lives of lovers, friends, entrepreneurs, religious leaders, landlords, family, and a fledgling poet—an homage to Hughes—whose future letters are masterfully projected across the Harlem sky.

Top: The ensemble creates a church with luggage trunks as the altar and chairs as pews. Bottom: The ensemble creates a church with luggage trunks as the altar and chairs as pews. Photos by Kiirstn Pagan ’11.

Learn more about UMBC’s spring 2026 theatre season.

While many know that Charm City is home to the wizard of weird himself, John Waters, along with the quirky American Visionary Art Museum, poodle skirts, and flamingos galore, most probably don’t associate UMBC with the same offbeat reputation. But take a splash in the wacky waters and you’ll find Retrievers all the way down.

By Janelle Erlichman Diamond

It’s a few minutes into her Fluid Movement water ballet scene, and while most of the swimmers have dropped the red cloaks that hid their bathing suits—a nod to The Handmaid’s Tale—and slipped into the pool as Madonna’s “Like a Prayer” plays on the speaker, Delana Gregg stands alone. As the song reaches its crescendo—“let the choir sing”—Gregg, still in her red cape, falls dramatically backward into the water as the audience gasps and cheers.

Gregg, M.S. ’04, Ph.D. ’19, has worked at UMBC for more than 20 years and is currently the assistant vice provost for Undergraduate Academic Affairs, working with the Academic Success Center and with data and analytics supporting student success. But her summers are filled with swimsuits, glitter, and choreography sheets. 

Fluid Movement is a Baltimore-based nonprofit performance art organization that creates joyful, inclusive, quirky, and accessible performances in public spaces, most notably their annual synchronized swimming shows in city pools. “Our art is a love letter to the city of Baltimore and its residents,” says Ashley Ball, Fluid Movement artistic director. “We focus on inclusivity and the empowerment that comes from movement.” 

Baltimore City’s commitment to the quirk is well documented, but you might be more surprised to learn that UMBC may be one of the best breeding grounds for pursuing and creating non-traditional art. (John Waters, the kinky, eccentric, famous Baltimore-based filmmaker, writer, and artist known as the “Pope of Trash,” borrowed UMBC film equipment to make some of his early films.) UMBC, a school with an R1 classification for its high level of research and known by a national audience perhaps for the immensely successful STEM-focused Meyerhoff Scholars Program or the 2018 NCAA men’s basketball upset, has a long history of stirring the artistic pot—and current Retrievers play an active role in the weird and inclusive art world of Charm City. 

Water ballet get STEAM-y

Photos by Erik Whipple

Gregg swam in her very first water ballet in 2014—Star Spangled Swimmer—and has starred in, stage managed, or produced almost every ballet since including her role as a fatberg in Sinkholes, Sewers, & Streams: A Water Infrastructure Ballet. This past summer she added directing to her repertoire with The Handmaid’s Tale scene in the Dive Into Banned Books: A Water Ballet of Resistance and Joy performance. 

That her love for theatrics and performance might be nurtured at a school that has earned a national reputation for excellence in STEM education is not a surprise to Gregg. “Art and design are in everything, and you can’t have theatre without science and technology,” she says. Anyone who has ever built a set or mixed music can attest to that. “Performance is the ultimate interdisciplinary project, and community performance allows for all the different talents to find expression. You know how to sculpt, sew, run cable, create a program, design a logo, write a script, plan a budget, figure out how to create a waterproof, lightweight, affordable set design that can fit in a storage pod—so much geometry and engineering—we need all of those talents, along with sparkle.”

Ball, the artistic director, comes from a STEM background and has her master’s degree in environmental engineering. “People in STEM need art just as much as anyone else, and a Fluid Movement show is nothing short of an engineering marvel,” she says. 

And it’s clear that this is a draw for Retrievers. “I’ve met so many UMBC people via Fluid Movement: former board members like visual arts professor Timothy Nohe and Kelly Quinn—people who are committed to creating art in Baltimore with people in our communities. UMBC alumni who live in the area, like Amelia Meman ’15; Maria Blanca, M.A. ’15; and Charlotte Keniston, M.F.A. ’14, Ph.D. ’24—it was so great to work with them at UMBC and to create art with them in Baltimore City. Other amazing artists, like Ann Tabor ’03 of the Mercury Theater, I met through Fluid Movement and realized the UMBC connection later,” says Gregg. 

“I think there is something about working at a university committed to excellence that makes space for people to be excellent in many aspects of their lives,” says Quinn, managing director of The Choice Program at UMBC and a longtime Fluid Movement participant. “I’m really grateful that I have a boss who’s challenged me as part of my performance plan for this year to incorporate more of my artistic work with Fluid Movement into my leadership of our organization,” says Quinn. This next year she’s going to add “whimsy and creativity” to her storytelling. “I think that’s a testament both to Fluid Movement and my boss’s understanding of the value of arts in everyday life. People at UMBC—including our leadership—really take seriously our artistic and civic lives beyond our position descriptions.”

There’s a place in the pool for everyone

These artistic endeavors may hit the UMBC sweet spot because of the recognition that STEM and art go hand in hand, but the accessibility and inclusiveness of the programming also aligns with the Retriever spirit. “I first became acquainted with Fluid Movement while lifeguarding for Baltimore City Aquatics,” says Judith “Judi” Reynolds-Stokes ’87, M.A. ’02, who works as an instructor, advisor, and career counselor at the Caroline Center, a workforce development program for adult women. “I guarded many of their water ballet shows and loved their creativity and inclusivity. I decided that I wanted to be a swimmer in one of their shows.” Her Fluid Movement debut was in the 2019 show Fluid Movement: The Water Ballet in honor of the nonprofit’s 20th anniversary. 

“I think the pull of Fluid Movement for UMBC folks is that you can be a big kid having fun dancing, swimming, and acting. You get to wear pretty costumes and outrageous makeup, and the best part is you get to bring others joy and laughter,” says Reynolds-Stokes.

Like Gregg, she loves that the quirky—in the best way possible—group brings her so much joy and affirmation. “People are validated by seeing people of all shapes and sizes and ages and ethnicities performing. My performing at age 60-plus as a full-figured, African American woman is affirming to many people in our audiences. It lets others know that they too can be in a Fluid Movement show and will be accepted just as they are,” says Reynolds-Stokes, who swims with Stephanie Johnson ’86, her aunt and a fellow UMBC alum. “I love to swim and dance and put on pretty things, so Fluid Movement is a perfect fit for me.”  

Release the Kraken

The American Visionary Art Museum, adjacent to the Inner Harbor, is another incubator of Baltimore quirk. The distinctive landmark and home to Fifi, a 15-foot pink poodle on wheels, is dedicated to the preservation and display of outside art and features the work of self-taught artists. (Retriever Jess Owens-Young ’08, political science, recently showed her sports-inspired work in the museum’s galleries.) That includes the Kinetic Sculpture Race, for which teams build and pedal works of art for eight hours on Baltimore City streets, including a foray into the Baltimore Harbor.

In 2011, Steven McAlpine, assistant teaching professor in the Individualized Study Program (INDS), was at the race, as a casual observer with his son. “Dad, can we build one of these?” he asked in awe. McAlpine had also been blown away by both the artistry of the floats and the physical effort of the 15-mile human-powered, all-terrain race for custom-built amphibious sculptures. McAlpine was trying to figure out how he could construct a 12-foot high and 30-foot-long creature at his house when he had a lightbulb moment—the answer was UMBC. 

In 2014, McAlpine started the Kinetic Sculpture Project, an interdisciplinary applied learning experience funded by the Alex. Brown Center for Entrepreneurship and UMBC community engagement organization BreakingGround. Students from INDS, mechanical engineering, computer engineering, visual art, psychology, geography and environmental systems, and mathematics all came together to design, build, and race the Kraken Upcycle in the 2015 race. “You need all those perspectives and disciplines to be that innovative,” says McAlpine.

In the 400-level class, students studied sustainable design methods and use of recycled materials (including plastic bottles and barrels as well as reclaimed metal and wood) that would often involve McAlpine dumpster diving—especially after the theatre department broke down a set.

“I wanted to explore something less traditional, where I could express new, wacky ideas and merge creativity with engineering.” 

—Michael Webb, computer engineering student

Top and bottom photos courtesy of Steve McAlpine; Middle photo by Poulomi Banerjee ’16, M.P.P. ’21

That very first year UMBC’s team was awarded the “Grand Mediocre East Coast Champion,” and in the 10 years since, more than 100 students have passed through the class. Last year UMBC teamed up with a disability advocacy organization and took home the “Best Art Award” for IMAGE Man—in which a larger-than-life teal superhero sits in a wheelchair with a football in hand, flying over some of Baltimore’s iconic buildings, such as the Bromo Seltzer Arts Tower and the Baltimore World Trade Center. 

Of all the years UMBC has participated, McAlpine was especially proud of this one since it showed “the beauty of an infusion of a new partnership,” that, like the water ballet, also underscored UMBC’s commitment to accessibility for all. 

“It’s a lot of work—but unconventional art that leans a little offbeat and weird is never all work because it’s playful too,” says McAlpine. “I think it’s absolutely essential for education to feel thrilling and full of discovery and adventure.”

An Out-of-the-Ordinary Spectacle

Dulcey Comeau, a sophomore computer engineering student, participated in the 2025 race with IMAGE Man. “The race day was super cool; we woke up early to get our capes and our helmets, and we spent some of the morning talking to people who wanted to know more about the float,” says Comeau. “It was a cool experience to have people cheering you along all throughout Baltimore,” she says. The race started a bit rocky—they were having some issues with the brakes—but once they were fixed, it was smooth sailing. 

“Part of the race is to ride through the mud and I remember getting stuck, and it was so fun to be pushed up the hill through the rest of it,” she says. “Usually as engineers, we create something for a very specific reason with specific standards for the customer, so it was cool to create something for ourselves and really see the full engineering cycle. The opportunity to have creative freedom with such little specifications made the project that much more enjoyable, and I was able to find the fun in being an engineer again.”

Michael Webb had a similar experience. “As a computer engineering student, I was initially drawn to STEM-related clubs and activities like Baja SAE and UMBC’s chapter of American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Those organizations are incredible for hands-on experience, but they tend to be more formulaic, focused on refining and improving designs from past generations,” the sophomore says. He wanted something a little more left-field and subversive. “I wanted to explore something less traditional, where I could express new, wacky ideas and merge creativity with engineering.”

The Kinetic Sculpture Race, like Fluid Movement, is a perfect blend of the new iteration of STEM—one that includes art with an emphasis on off-the-wall—and it’s in that combination that UMBC excels. The UMBC team and faculty Webb ended up working alongside helped challenge some of his established systems and beliefs and consider alternative perspectives. 

“The Kinetic Sculpture Race is unlike anything I had ever seen before,” says Webb. “It was fun, quirky, and completely different from the structured world of engineering I’m used to. The whole event is just for fun, and the sculptures people bring in are absolutely wild: a giant poodle, giant alligators, even a platypus with a differential axle. The rules are just as wacky—you can even bribe the judges.”

It was the wake-up he needed. “In engineering, the goal is usually performance and efficiency,” he says. But in the Kinetic Sculpture Race, the goal is simply to make something imaginative and have fun trying to race it. “It’s messy, unpredictable, and just laughs; a reminder that engineering and art can come together and be creative, ridiculous, and fun at once.” 

It was polymath Leonardo da Vinci who declared, “Learning never exhausts the mind,” a credo that propelled a rebirth of education with people seeking to master art, science, and invention in pursuit of human potential. At UMBC today, this same spirit thrives among our many “Renaissance Retrievers”—students, faculty, and staff who blend disciplines into a symphony of diverse talents and whose stories reveal a community where interdisciplinary curiosity isn’t an exception, but rather the engine of innovation.

Jazz harmonies and rhythms emanating from a grand piano echo through The Commons, mingled with the smell of coffee and student conversations. At the bench sits Elia Mascolo, who has just completed his Ph.D. in biological sciences, with a focus on bioinformatics and information science. He’s a math, biology, and computer science whiz who once thought he’d rather be a professional musician—and had a real shot at it.

Across the Quad, on the fourth floor of the Math and Psychology Building, Manil Suri, professor of mathematics, scrawls partial differential equations on his office whiteboard. In the evening, he pores over the manuscript of his forthcoming memoir, A Room in Bombay. It’s the latest of his non-academic publications—a list that includes a trio of bestselling novels and regular New York Times columns.

Meanwhile, Bonnie Lander, production coordinator for the Performing Arts and Humanities Building (PAHB), is speaking with urgency into her headset, quickly resolving a catering glitch before guests arrive for a performance of Shakespeare in Harlem. The following night, she’s onstage, lending her soprano to an experimental music festival put on by High Zero Foundation, a Baltimore-based group Lander also supports as a board member and volunteer.

While Lander sings, Mareisha Banga, a senior double majoring in information systems and design, is coding on her laptop, and Mahrukh Eijaz, a senior studying information systems and media and communication studies, is analyzing how media consumption affects our worldviews.

Mascolo, Suri, Lander, Banga, and Eijaz merge scientific rigor and technical analysis with artistic and literary expression. In a world of specialization and targeted career goals, these community members might sound like rare exceptions. But at UMBC, they’re far from alone. The university’s interdisciplinary ethos invites students, faculty, and staff to forge paths that cultivate the full spectrum of their interests and potential.

Nearly half of UMBC students are pursuing either a second major, a minor, an undergraduate certificate, or a combination of these. Looking at the most popular majors across UMBC’s three colleges, 58 percent of psychology majors are taking on an additional area of study, including dance, chemistry, and creative writing; 55 percent of biological sciences majors are working toward additional credentials, such as in music, finance, and Arabic; and 30 percent of information systems majors are pursuing something else, from entrepreneurship to Japanese. 

And for students whose interests don’t fit within an established major, there is the Individualized Study Program (INDS). Launched in 1969—only three years after the university’s founding—INDS is one of the longest-standing individualized degree programs in the country. It affords motivated, intellectually mature students the opportunity to construct their own academic sequence, limited only by their ingenuity.

Employers see the value in a diversified education. A 2013 survey commissioned by the Association of American Colleges and Universities revealed that 80 percent of employers believe all college students, regardless of major, should gain broad knowledge in the liberal arts and sciences to succeed in today’s workforce. Skills like critical thinking, communication, and adaptability don’t just fill résumés, though; they build lives resilient to shifting workforce winds and position UMBC alumni to impact the world for good.

Speaking from an apartment in Vienna, Austria, where he’s about to launch a postdoctoral fellowship in theoretical biology at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria, Mascolo describes how overhearing his older sister’s piano lessons as a child inspired him to sit down at the bench. “It felt just like a big toy. But a super interesting one,” he recalls.

Eventually, he took his own lessons. “When I was studying classical music, I didn’t see the point of jazz music at all. I was like, ‘I don’t know what that is,’” he admits with a laugh. But curiosity won: Hearing a modern jazz piece, “I had to admit I had no idea what I was hearing. I didn’t like it yet, but there was structure; it was something different from random.” He found the genre’s improvisational chaos a puzzle demanding a solution. What started as an academic mission evolved into joy and appreciation. “I wanted to defeat jazz, and the opposite happened,” he says.

Poised to pursue music full time after high school, Mascolo’s parents urged him to take a detour at university. “They said, ‘You have always had this super strong interest for science. Why don’t you do one year of something scientific? If you still say after that, “I just want to do music,” we’ll support you.’”

He chose biology, thinking it would leave more room for piano gigs. But “after one year, I was like, ‘Actually, I like science a lot. I want to keep doing both.’” He was drawn to UMBC to work with computational biologist Ivan Erill, but when classmates learned he played piano, they recruited him for the department band, Fever Dream. “They said, ‘Hey, we figured out that you were a piano player,’ and I could not say ‘no.’”

Mascolo’s two passions might seem completely different, but there are surprising and profound parallels. Both biology and jazz resist tidy reduction. “Music and biology share complex structures that invite analytical exploration, despite differing contexts,” he notes. In bioinformatics, he applies information theory to gene regulation, much like decoding harmonic progressions.

“You start with these simple rules, and then something is built on those in a way that is too complex to completely figure out,” he reflects. “Biology and music demand a leap of wonder. It’s like a color; can you describe a color with words to a blind person and have them know exactly what the color looks like? It’s not clear that you can actually reduce that to language.”

This duality guards against tunnel vision. Having once obsessed over jazz stardom, imagining that “that was the only important thing in the world,” and then coming to experience just as much passion for scientific research, has taught Mascolo, “It doesn’t do justice to a person to equate fulfillment with a specific career.”

Suri, too, has found ways to meld his disparate skills. His novels, like The Death of Vishnu, long-listed for the 2001 Booker Prize and short-listed for the 2002 PEN/Faulkner Award, have graced The New York Times-bestseller list, his math-related columns have helped demystify the discipline for lay audiences, and he has contributed to progress in the mathematical field of numerical analysis. Yet his dual life as novelist and mathematician started as a lark. “Everyone has hobbies,” Suri says. “I know people in the department who act in plays, for example. My hobby was writing.”

Not until he was tenured did Suri join writing groups and classes at The Writer’s Center in Bethesda. He broke onto the literary stage when an agent excerpted his debut novel in The New Yorker. 

Suri’s writing and math worlds merged with his 2022 book The Big Bang of Numbers, which traces how to “build the universe with only math.” The book was inspired in part by a math-humanities mash-up UMBC honors seminar, which he co-taught with English faculty and Folger Theatre resident dramaturg Michele Osherow. That course also led to a play, ‘The Mathematics of Being Human,’ co-written by Suri and Osherow that premiered at UMBC and then ran at the National Museum of Mathematics in New York City and other sites in the U.S. and Canada.

This fusion sharpens his teaching, too. In a writing-intensive history of math course, Suri grades students’ writing like a novelist. “They got a shock. ‘Hey! This guy is really serious about essay writing,’” Suri laughs. “Writing is so essential when you’re trying to articulate technical things.” Employers echo this claim: Broad liberal arts skills like communication boost employability across fields. Suri’s students—many future STEM teachers—emerge equipped to bridge disciplines.

Lander’s voice soars through experimental operas at night, but by day, she orchestrates UMBC’s performing arts venues. As operations and production coordinator for the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, she books events, manages staff, and troubleshoots the rare crisis—like the time fog from a theater rehearsal triggered fire alarms mid-concert. “Everybody had to evacuate. After we all returned to the hall, the pianist sat down, picked up where she left off, and finished the last 10 minutes of a 70-minute piece. It was incredible.”

In 2007, Lander co-founded Rhymes With Opera, which premiered more than 22 chamber operas over its 15-year run. In 2018, she began working with 2640 Space, a nonprofit event venue in Baltimore. During the pandemic, “I wrote out the entire handbook and operations manual for 2640 Space. It was a big labor of love,” she says. In that role, her love of events management grew. 

Lander joined UMBC in January 2023, blending her worlds. Her role in the PAHB “pays the bills and comes with a wonderful community,” she says, and “I still have plenty of time outside of work to continue pursuing performance.” On top of her production role, she teaches voice lessons and led an improv workshop for UMBC’s Linehan Artist Scholars.

The contrast in the skills required for logistics management versus performance keep her on her toes. During a performance, “Your primary role is to exist solely in the present moment,” while coordinating events requires tracking many elements on a strict timeline. “When is the caterer showing up? When is furniture being delivered?” Lander says. “But, as with a musical performance, if you’ve prepared well, you can usually just press play, enjoy the event, and go home having made an impact.”

In Lander’s experience, UMBC’s venues aren’t just stages—they’re launchpads for lives lived in 360 stereo.

Mareisha Banga fuses aesthetics and algorithms as a senior double-majoring in design and information systems. Banga is drawn to user experience and user interface (UX/UI) projects, where the visual and functional worlds collide. “I didn’t want to just make something beautiful. I wanted to make it work,” she says.

“Having both perspectives made me a more well-rounded thinker and creative,” Banga says. “The more I learned about systems and how people interact with technology, the better I became at designing visually. Similarly, design helped me understand the human element behind the technical problems I was trying to solve. They push and inform each other in ways I didn’t expect when I first declared both majors.”

Those connections have created unique opportunities for Banga, including as a designer for the UMBC Student Events Board. “Not only do I get to design and plan events, which I love, but the fast-paced environment and tight turnaround times have helped me grow as a professional in ways I didn’t expect. It’s taught me how to work under pressure, communicate with people, and what it really means to be a student leader on campus.” 

Her unique skillset is attractive to prospective employers, too. “My interviewers have consistently been fascinated by my background, wanting to dig deeper into how I think about problems from both perspectives,” Banga says. “I genuinely believe I wouldn’t have the same prospects if I’d only focused on one major.”

Senior Mahrukh Eijaz has similarly merged two fields that initially might seem unrelated. “I’ve always been interested in how people and technology interact. My information systems major gives me the tools to understand how systems and data work, while my media and communication studies major helps me think critically about how messages and meaning shape those systems,” Eijaz says. “I wanted to bridge the gap between tech and storytelling, because I believe the most impactful innovations come from people who can speak both languages.” 

Like Banga, Eijaz has found that her unusual double major has opened doors. “Having both degrees has made me more confident in my ability to adapt and collaborate,” she shares. “I feel more prepared to work in interdisciplinary environments, whether it’s in UX design, digital marketing, or tech policy, because I can translate ideas between technical and creative teams as well as with consumers.”

Support she found at UMBC has enhanced her ability to blend her two majors. “Professors in both departments encouraged me to find connections between the fields, instead of treating them as separate paths,” Eijaz says.

That encouragement is no accident. The way Eijaz is making connections, like the way Mascolo dissects jazz chords with the same analytical eye he brings to gene regulation, is exactly the inclination UMBC seeks to cultivate. The role of a liberal arts institution is not to slot students into pre-grooved tracks, but to offer fertile terrain where seemingly disconnected gen-eds become scaffolding for unexpected connections. In this environment, every Retriever forges a personal mosaic of ideas, methods, and passions no single major could contain. 

It is here, in this complex intermingling, that Renaissance Retrievers emerge—adaptable, inspired, and whole.

We are nearing the end of the semester, and closing out the fall means celebrating with the season of giving and gratitude. UMBC feels the love of its community all year round, and that support is what inspires our Retrievers to give back. 

UMBC Retrievers are acting on their gratitude for community members in various ways. ‘Tis the season, so let’s take a look at how our Retrievers are giving back.

Save-a-Swipe Program

Thanks to generous UMBC community donations, the Save-a-Swipe program reached a record 1,050 meal swipes this fall. This partnership between Retriever Essentials, Retriever Card Center, and Dining Services enables members to donate meal swipes to students facing food insecurity. 

Assistant director of Retriever Essentials, Michael Berardi ’19, media and communication studies, shares insight on just how important the donations received are and what it means to the community, saying, “Donations are what help nourish our community. Now more than ever, Retriever Essentials is a critical resource for thousands of Retrievers facing food insecurity. Nearly everything we distribute is either directly donated or purchased with donated funds and grants. We’ve seen incredible generosity from folks all around campus, and are so grateful for the consistent support for our students, staff, and faculty in need.”

Food for Fines

Food for Fines is a clever way to turn parking citation fines into charity donations to those in need. Partnering with Retriever Essentials, UMBC Parking Services reduces one citation to a warning in return for five toiletry or non-perishable food items. Food for Fines previously collected 388 pounds of donations, and they set a goal for 500 pounds this semester to help those in need. Thanks to the outpouring of generosity from UMBC students, they collected 879 pounds of food, making this likely the single largest physical donation in program history. 

Athletics fundraiser

The highly anticipated women’s basketball beltway battle is not only an exciting game between UMBC and Towson, but it also served up a canned food drive! For every can donated, each person received $1 off concessions for the game.

10 for 10

For the past 10 years, Retriever Essentials has been dedicated to nourishing our ever-growing UMBC community by fighting food insecurity and providing essential resources to students, staff, and faculty. To celebrate a decade of service, Retriever Essentials is holding a 10 for 10 campaign, which encourages individuals to donate a recurring $10 per month (or as much as you are able) in honor of 10 years.

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Learn more about how you can support Retriever Essentials and give back to our UMBC community.

On November 15, more than 120 engineering and computer science professionals and students convened on the UMBC campus for the 2025 IEEE Baltimore Technical Colloquium, co-sponsored this year by the Department of Information Systems. It was the second IEEE Baltimore Technical Colloquium, and saw approximately 20 percent growth in attendance compared to the inaugural event.

The colloquium focused on innovation and leadership in cutting edge areas such as artificial intelligence, data analytics, quantum computing, computational medicine, trustworthy computing, and more. The event, held in the Interdisciplinary Life Sciences Building, was a chance for academic experts, industry leaders, and students from around Baltimore to share their research, network, and find new inspiration.

Chinonso Ezeobi, M.S. ’22, electrical engineering, and a current Ph.D. student, served as conference vice chair. “Curating programs for our IEEE professional community has been incredibly rewarding,” he said. “Serving as chair has provided invaluable opportunities to expand my network and develop my leadership capabilities.”

The event attracted major area universities, companies, and organizations including the Army Research Lab, Northrop Grumman, JP Morgan Chase, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Ezeobi delivered opening remarks and, along with several other UMBC students and faculty, presented research. Student and alumni volunteers helped keep the program running smoothly. 

Jeanne van Briesen, dean of the College of Engineering and Information Technology, delivered keynote remarks on how engineers and scientists can tackle complex, modern problems, such as reverse engineering the human brain and preventing nuclear terror. In these so-called “wicked problems,” engineered, natural, and data systems interact with human and social systems, creating situations where there is no clear, single solution and oftentimes attempts to fix the original issue create new problems. 

Van Briesen described how “convergence research,” which integrates knowledge, methods, and expertise from different disciplines to form novel frameworks that catalyze new discoveries and innovations, can help humanity tackle its most intractable problems. She gave examples of convergence research at UMBC addressing challenges such as improving mental health, increasing the safety of first responders and soldiers, and making medicine cheaply and on-demand. 

“A wicked problem is sometimes described as a problem that cannot be fixed—but never tell an engineer something can’t be done,” she said.

Tyler Josephson, an assistant professor in the Department of Chemical, Biochemical, and Environmental Engineering, was selected as a 2025 Pivot Fellow by the Simons Foundation. The fellowships support top researchers as they pivot to making contributions to a new discipline.

At UMBC, Josephson leads the AI & Theory-Oriented Molecular Science Lab, which develops computational methods to simulate the behavior of molecules and, potentially, to automate the discovery of new scientific theories. His current research includes National Science Foundation-funded projects to digitize chemical theories using a programming language developed by researchers at Microsoft called the Lean theorem prover and a DARPA-funded project to develop AI tools that can check the feasibility of scientific claims.

During his Pivot fellowship, Josephson will join the research group of Jeremy Avigad, a professor of philosophy, computer science, and mathematics at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, where he’ll study advanced topics at the intersection of formal mathematics and computer science. He plans to formalize statistical thermodynamics derivations in Lean, develop computational workflows for auto-formalizing science using AI, and build molecular simulation software integrated with formal proofs of mathematical correctness.

The skills, knowledge, and connections Josephson develops will strengthen his ongoing work with his UMBC students and colleagues.

“As an engineer, I didn’t formally study these topics in school. I’m really excited by the opportunity to dive deeper and learn new things,” he says.

As International Education Week 2025 comes to a close, we’ve rounded up a few of the many ways Retrievers engage globally through their work and studies. Even though it has been a particularly trying time for international students, “…more UMBC students studied abroad in Academic Year 2024 – 25 than ever before. Our students are discovering new perspectives, building global connections, and transforming their futures through these life-changing experiences,” says Katie Heird, director of education abroad and global learning at UMBC. Here are a few ways international students and Retrievers who have gone abroad play a role in the lifeblood of UMBC.

1. Who is Fulbright material?

UMBC’s six 2025 – 2026 Fulbright U.S. Student Program recipients share their not-so-secret recipe for success. Deciding to apply for a Fulbright is just the first step, and with the support of UMBC’s Center for Global Engagement, which hosts Fulbright information sessions in the spring for undergraduate, graduate, and recent alumni. Retrievers can apply to earn a master’s, conduct research, or be an English Teaching Assistant in more than 160 countries. With the UMBC 2025 – 2026 Fulbrights already settled in Taiwan, Norway, and Indonesia, Belgium, Israel, and Germany, these alumni are eager to share tips to inspire and prepare the next generations of Fulbright Retrievers.

Additionally, this year, four UMBC faculty and staff members received highly competitive Fulbright U.S. Scholar awards to teach, conduct research, and foster cross-cultural connections globally. The recipients span all three UMBC colleges and comprise three faculty members and one staff member. The UMBC awardees are connecting with international partners in areas of shared interest. Augusto Casas, an associate teaching professor of information systems, is working in Colombia; Cynthia Wagner, a teaching professor of biological sciences, went to Kyrgyzstan; Irene Chan, a professor of visual arts, is in Romania; and Tom Penniston, M.A. ’09, TESOL, Ph.D. ’14, language, literacy, and culture, the coordinator of learning analytics in the Division of Information Technology, is working in Croatia.

2. Building intentional international connections

A six-person UMBC team built international connections at the “PIWOT – World of Technology” conference, held in early 2025 in Mumbai, India. The science and technology conference is organized by the alumni association for graduates of the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), and attracts many of the leaders in science and technology in India and around the world. The CEO of Alphabet, Inc. (Google’s parent company), the co-founder of Sun Microsystems, and the CEO of IBM are all graduates of IITs. 

This year’s PIWOT conference focused on the impact of technology across multiple dimensions of life, from the professional to the personal. UMBC’s Anupam Joshi, acting dean of the College of Engineering and Information Technology, took part as a speaker on a panel about the impact of technology on education, and the UMBC booth also displayed the low-cost infant incubator developed by Professor Govind Rao.

3. International research collaboration challenges assumptions

Thanks to funding from the German Academic Exchange Service, Lorenz Kopp and Björn Michelmann, mechanical engineering students from Germany’s Regensburg University of Applied Sciences, came to UMBC to conduct research with UMBC’s mechanical engineering professor, Paris von Lockette. The project was part of a bigger assumption-questioning enterprise—in particular, probing the behavior of materials called soft magnets. Kopp’s and Michelmann’s advisor at Regensburg University of Applied Sciences knew von Lockette through the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and together they arranged the details of the two-month visit with the help of the Office of International Students and Scholars at UMBC. 

While Kopp and Michelmann spent plenty of time in the lab during their visit, they also had chances to explore the areas surrounding UMBC on weekends. They visited the National Aquarium in Baltimore, took in a Baltimore Ravens football game, and drove to Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. They also enjoyed campus life, attending Homecoming weekend, and regularly visiting the Retriever Activity Center to work out.

4. Exploring politics in a global context, virtually

Professor Filomeno’s 2024 Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) Brazil project on climate change equips students with the technical and interpersonal skills to thrive in professional online international and intercultural environments. COIL makes international scholarship and intercultural learning accessible by removing barriers of cost and travel while preparing students with essential skills for future in-person exchanges. COIL Brazil was part of Filomeno’s Global Citizenship class in collaboration with former colleague Clarissa Dri, a professor of international relations at his alma mater, the Federal University of Santa Catarina, in southern Brazil.

The ongoing Virtual Tandem Conversation project was created by Susanne Sutton, a teaching professor of German, and Talke Macfarland, a visiting lecturer of German in UMBC’s Department of Modern Languages, Linguistics, and Intercultural Communication. They established the program during COVID-19 to help UMBC students learning German and German students learning English socialize while continuing to improve their language skills.

The actual tandem meetings are entirely student-driven and take place outside of the classroom—each tandem pair arranges virtual meetings according to their schedule. Tandem participants have gone beyond the virtual classroom, such as UMBC Golden ID Program student Rebecca Smith, who, while on a recent trip to France, hopped over to Germany to visit Gertrud Krause-Traudes, her partner in UMBC’s Virtual Tandem Conversation project. After three semesters of virtual conversations in German and English, Smith was happy to meet Krause-Traudes in person.

5. Science that bridges two worlds

In 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted lives worldwide, Greema Regmi began her Ph.D. in UMBC’s atmospheric physics program. Studying remotely from her home in Nepal, she navigated a grueling schedule due to the time difference. Now in her fifth year, Regmi’s perseverance has earned her NASA’s prestigious Future Investigators in NASA Earth and Space Science and Technology (FINESST) fellowship, which will provide up to $50,000 annually for up to three years to fuel her research on atmospheric dust.

Regmi has been able to accomplish so much in part because of the supportive community she found at UMBC, after finally arriving on campus in fall 2021. Regmi’s journey bridges her unique perspectives as a student in Nepal and the U.S. At UMBC, she’s embraced broader opportunities. “I think here you can push the limit. I don’t even know what the limit is in the U.S. Here you can dream more and be more experimental,” she observes.

Grounded in the UMBC physics department’s community of support, Regmi’s confidence has only grown since her arrival in Maryland. “There’s always a place for my opinion, which is very nice. Because of that, and all of the experiences I’ve had, now I have the confidence to start my own project,” she explains. “And that’s why I think now I’m confident to go back home, lead something there, and be helpful in some small way.”

Learn more about UMBC’s international opportunities.