Chuck Watson ’12, social work, is a leader in the fight against substance abuse. In addition to co-owning two Riverside Treatment Centers in Maryland, Watson is president of the Maryland Association for the Treatment of Opioid Dependence.

There’s a reason Watson has dedicated his life to helping those struggling with opioid addiction. He knows what his clients are going through because, more than 12 years ago, Watson was going through it himself.

Watson began experimenting with drinking alcohol and smoking pot in middle school and high school. It was recreational, he says, until he lost interest in activities he previously enjoyed.

Soon Watson began going to treatment centers. He would go in, get clean, come out, and use again. By 19, he had been arrested for many DUIs, and in his early 20s, he began using cocaine. “Even at a young age, I understood my substance abuse was a problem,” Watson explains.

Watson got clean on his own in his mid-20s when his then-wife gave birth to their daughter, Dillan. “I wanted to do well,” Watson says. “I wanted to be a good dad.”

As with many addicts, the cycle began again and became worse when Watson got divorced. During the next decade, his life was a spiral of drugs, like pain meds and heroin, treatment centers, and psychiatrists. “Drugs were what I lived for,” says Watson.

While on probation, Watson continued to have dirty tox screens and get arrested. His probation officer gave him the option of going before a judge for probation violation – which would likely mean jail time – or trying an in-patient treatment center in Florida that had shown success with other addicts.

Watson chose treatment, and, this time, it worked.

On September 15, 2005, Watson stopped using. Since then, he has stayed clean. “I realized that I needed to make profound changes in my life,” says Watson. After 10 months in treatment, Watson returned to Baltimore, continued going to Narcotics Anonymous meetings, and got a home group as well as a sponsor. When he noticed the vast number of people struggling with addiction, he knew what he wanted to do – help them.

Watson worked in the field at many health services centers. He earned his bachelor’s degree at UMBC and then a master’s at University of Maryland, Baltimore. In June 2016, he and two co-workers, Crystal Pulsirisaroth and Michael Oliver, opened the first Riverside Treatment Center, a medication-assisted and client-center facility, in Rosedale. They hoped to have 70 clients in the first six months; they had that many in less than three weeks. Today, they help more than 800 clients.

In June 2017, the Edgewood facility opened. Both centers have same-day intake, which is important to Watson, now 50 and remarried with a family.

“When people make a decision to seek treatment, there is a small window of time. If they can’t get treatment immediately, they may change their minds. Once someone makes this decision, we want to be able to instantly provide the service to help them,” says Watson. “We do this because when people stop using, they get their lives back, and it’s rewarding and satisfying.”

— Michele Wojciechowski

Read about UMBC opioid research: Shining a Light

For decades, artist David Hess has assembled life-size sculptures of assault rifles from what he calls “rescued” objects — everything from an old black sneaker and vintage turquoise sewing machine, to a raggedy crutch and pink Barbie bike frame — to foster dialogue about one of the most volatile issues of our time. UMBC’s Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture hosted “Gun Show,” the first-ever display of all 112 sculptures, this fall, as curated by Kathy O’Dell, associate professor of visual arts and special assistant to the dean for education and arts partnerships.

The sun is pouring through the large windows in the Performing Arts & Humanities third floor dance studio. About 20 girls, 7th – 9th graders, are sprawled out on mats following the movements of the yoga instructor at the front of the room. They are learning about flexibility, how to “think outside the box, kind of like there’s no set answer to the question.”

These girls are not at UMBC exclusively to learn yoga, however, but rather to challenge their computing skills. How Girls Code: Mind, Body, and Coding summer camp at UMBC is an extension of the after-school program in Howard County Public Schools co-founded by Lisa Schlossnagle and Katie Egan ’94, history. In its third year, the camp operates with the goal of raising the percentage of women involved in computing work.

“Everything we do these days, everybody uses a computer somehow,” observes Claudia Pearce ’89 M.S., ’94 Ph.D., computer science, following her presentation as one of the guest speakers during the camp. “And understanding how computers work, I think, will help everybody,” said Pearce, now the senior cloud strategist and computer science authority for NSA.

The girls practice a variety of computing skills using a range of softwares and tools. In a WeDo/ EV3 Robots class, for example, the girls were challenged to program their robots to dance to music by using software to code the instructions for each robot’s movements. “We’re making a ballerina,” explains one of the girls.

How does the yoga instruction fit into this program? Yoga “brings all the benefits of stress management, and we know that computing is a difficult field,” says Schlossnagle. The girls learn to slow down and open their minds to new possibilities; they learn to be flexible, both in their physical movements and their computing abilities.

Since its beginning, the camp has grown from about 40 to 140 girls. This growth is promising, but as Tynker instructor Lorene Cannella says, the key is getting the girls “to stay in it.” “We’re just very hopeful that we can continue to raise this awareness and engage more girls and their families into seeking out these types of opportunities,” adds Schlossnagle.

— Allison Cruz ’18

For most in sports media, working for ESPN is a dream, but UMBC has made that dream a reality for several students. Through a partnership with the America East Conference, UMBC’s Department of Athletics streams many athletic events live on the online channel ESPN 3, and students make up a large part of the broadcast team.

Starting in 2016, UMBC’s Director of Athletics Tim Hall and head of athletic communications Steve Levy ’85, interdisciplinary studies, reached out to UMBC alum Eli Eisenberg ’86, interdisciplinary studies, the president of VPC (a video production company based in Owings Mills, Md.), to create a broadcast of events that met the high-standards of ESPN. However, the endeavor became much more than just a way to bring UMBC’s games to a larger audience; it also gives students first-hand experience in the broadcasting field, and at the highest level.

According to Eisenberg, UMBC and VPC’s project started with an 80-percent professional and 20-percent student makeup of workers. Behind the professionals, the students observed and took notes. As the season continued, the students eventually took over the active duties, and the professionals became the guides in the background, “giving direction, critique, and recommendations to the student staff.” A student even produced a game – women’s basketball versus New Hampshire – from the broadcast truck last season.

Meg Giunta ’16, media and communication studies, worked as a video engineer last season. Since graduating she is already a top media coordinator for Global Catholic Network.

“This opportunity we had with ESPN3 helped open a lot of doors,” she said. “To be able to sit on the truck and work every game and have the opportunity to make it my show, it was a good learning experience.”

Senior Kevin Harris worked as an audio technician last year. While working games he connected with a member of the Baltimore Ravens organization and was set to begin an internship with them this fall.

“To get your first experience with a company like ESPN, you can’t get better training than that,” he said. “Combined with VPC, it’s just a great combination to work.”

— Corey Johns ’11 

Images and video by Dustin Roddy ’14, American studies

A white box the size of a refrigerator, called Cosmic Ray Energetics and Mass (CREAM), headed to the International Space Station (ISS) in August, thanks to the work of UMBC astrophysicist Jason Link and colleagues. Inside, four scientific detectors will work together to detect cosmic rays coming from far flung regions of the universe. The instruments will transmit the data from the ISS to Earth, to scientists reckoning with the tantalizing question, “What is the universe made of?”

Link, an astrophysicist with UMBC’s Center for Space Science and Technology, part of the recently-renewed Center for Research and Exploration in Space Science & Technology consortium, is a co-investigator on the project and the technical lead for one of the detectors. Cosmic rays, particles from beyond the solar system, arrive with hundreds of times more energy than the Large Hadron Collider particle accelerator can produce, Link explains. Some of these particles will pass through the detector and interact inside, where they break up into a “shower of subatomic particles.” CREAM’s goal is to measure the composition and energy of individual particles, which will help scientists deduce where the rays came from and what phenomena caused them to accelerate so much.

Link has been working for more than 15 years on hardware to detect cosmic rays, including a version of CREAM that has taken seven balloon flights above Antarctica. Sending instruments to space poses new challenges, and also creates new opportunities.

“Balloons have a relatively short mission life” of a few dozen days, Link shares. “But going up on the space station, you’re now talking about years.” Also, “when particles enter Earth’s atmosphere, they start to interact,” Link says. That means data analyses must incorporate a correction factor to account for these interactions, which introduces error. That’s much less of a problem in space.

Research instruments traveling to the ISS must reckon with constraints on size and mass, and be able to withstand extreme vibration. Link’s balloon-based instruments didn’t fit these constraints, so he and colleagues from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Penn State, and Northern Kentucky University undertook the challenge of building a new detector, based on the balloon detectors, that could safely survive the rigors of a rocket launch and deploy on the ISS.

The new detector can also collect additional scientific measurements, and distinguish between negatively charged electrons and positively charged protons, based on the way they interact inside the detector.

“Designing a new detector from scratch on the limited budget for building balloon hardware required creativity, innovation, and a bit of luck,” notes Link. Together with a detector built by colleagues from Kyungpook National University in South Korea, the machines provide a powerful way to distinguish between electrons and protons, and to quickly verify findings, specifically because they use different techniques.

Link looks forward to diving into the data the instruments send from outer space. “If we see an excess of electrons,” he says, “that suggests that there is a local source of cosmic rays. That’s not something we expect.”

Scientists are often heavily involved in designing instruments and analyzing the resulting data, but most of the time the actual construction of space instrumentation is handed over to engineers and technicians with specialized expertise. Not this time. “Yes, I actually tightened bolts and wired sensors on the detector,” Link is proud to report, “and it’s going to fly in space.”

— Sarah Hansen M.S. ’15

Image: Sunrise from the International Space Station. Photo provided by NASA, captured by a member of the Expedition 52 crew

The Lion Brothers Building, part of the southwest Baltimore landscape for over 130 years, was once used for sewing Girl Scout patches and screen printing. Now the former factory space is a physical tie between downtown and UMBC. The exposed brick walls and floor-to-ceiling windows house spaces to learn, create, exhibit, and connect to the culture that is unique to Baltimore.

Academic programs in the arts, humanities, and social sciences now have a designated space to experience civic engagement, service learning, and cultural exploration outside of a traditional campus setting. Located just off MLK Boulevard, the building has provided unique opportunities to UMBC’s dynamic Summer and Winter Programs, using Baltimore City as a classroom in courses focused on topics of urban anthropology, health policy, and Baltimore soundscapes.

Areas within the building, created for studio use and exhibit space, are the new downtown home for Intermedia + Digital Art graduate students. The location places the students in a culturally rich, diverse, and inspired setting, and is especially convenient to visiting artists and critics.

“We are very pleased that our graduate students have the opportunity to work in close proximity to the greater Baltimore arts community, and for that community to come in closer contact with our IMDA graduate students,” says Vin Grabill, associate professor and interim IMDA graduate program director.

The use of the Lion Brothers Building, listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places, continues to strengthen the relationship between UMBC, the city of Baltimore, and University System of Maryland partners who also share a footprint in southwest Baltimore – while providing a unique setting for learning.

— Alice Crogan 

The story of Christos FC and its unlikely ascent into the national U.S. Open soccer tournament in June is truly the stuff of fairy tales – especially considering the fact that the amateur team lacks a home field, and does not practice.

And yet, the team – a third of which played for UMBC as students – not only blasted into the fourth round of the tournament, but gave the professional players of D.C. United quite a scare before ultimately losing 4-1.

“The players were good on the team, but it was a men’s league team that really just got together and plays on Sundays and [has] fun still,” said UMBC assistant coach Pete Caringi III ’15, psychology. “It really was a crazy couple of weeks. We felt like we were professional players when, in reality, we were going to work and then taking off just to play soccer.”

Everything started when Christos scored a 3-0 victory over Fredericksburg FC in their first game in early May in a tournament featuring nearly 99 amateur and professional teams. They next faced the Richmond Kickers from the United Soccer League, a professional team. Former Retriever Geaton Caltabiano ’14, psychology, scored a late goal that gave Christos a 1-0 victory.

In the third round of tournament play, Christos headed to Chicago to play Chicago FC United, a team that competes in the top amateur level. Christos won that game 1-0 and earned a $15,000 prize for being the final amateur team left in the tournament.

D.C. United – the professional team from Washington – came next, along with tons of publicity. The game took place at Maryland SoccerPlex where another former UMBC player, Mamadou Kansaye ’15, psychology, scored to give UMBC an early 1-0 lead, sending many of the 5,286 fans (according to the Washington Post) into a frenzy.

“That was some of the most fun soccer I’ve ever played.” – Goalie Phil Saunders ’13

The game stayed close, but D.C. United took charge with two late goals for a 4-1 victory. Even with the loss, the Christos team enjoyed more attention than they ever would have expected. Named for the local liquor store that sponsors the team, Christos gained worldwide coverage during the tournament, including the Baltimore Sun, the Washington Post, ESPN, USA TODAY, and more. The team scored an Adidas apparel deal, and its bright green uniforms caught the eye of many more.

By the time Christos took on D.C. United, even people who did not follow soccer regularly knew about the team and its 15 minutes of fame. Seemingly anyone who loved soccer, and many who didn’t, wanted to know the story of this unlikely team.

Goalie Phil Saunders, who played for UMBC until 2013 and is the new men’s soccer coach at CCBC-Catonsville, laughed when talking about the publicity, saying he received more in this run than during his professional playing days (one season with the Baltimore Blast and two years in Iceland).

More than anything, he enjoyed playing with his buddies.

“Going to those away trips and hanging out with friends; that was pretty much as ideal as it gets,” he said. “It was perfect. That was some of the most fun soccer I’ve ever played.”

“It was the amateurs versus the pros. We felt that attachment. We felt this was sort of a UMBC story, too,” said Retriever coach Pete Caringi, Jr. “This is a group of players that… liked playing with one another. It’s a great reflection on the players that went through the [Retriever] program. It made us all proud.”

— Jeff Seidel ’85

Image: Permission from The Baltimore Sun. Top Row, farthest L-R: Joseph Glos ’15, Phil Saunders ’13, Pete Caringi III ’15; Bottom, second from left, Levi Houapeu ’15; far right: Mamadou Kansaye ’15

UMBC Athletics Director Tim Hall has been named the new president of the Division I-AAA Athletics Directors Association (ADA) for the 2017–18 academic year. Hall, who recently entered his fifth year as the Retrievers’ athletics director, previously served as ADA 1st vice president in 2016 – 17. The organization serves more than 1,600 institutions.

“There are so many critical issues that athletic directors face in today’s climate and this group has always put the studentathlete in the center of its bulls-eye,” said Hall. “I am anxious to get started guiding this committed group of leaders.”

Hall currently serves on the NCAA volleyball rules committee and previously served on the national Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics Division I-AAA Executive Committee. He also chaired the NCAA Committee on Women’s Athletics (CWA) for fall 2014, after serving on that committee since 2011, and previously chaired the Disability Subcommittee of the CWA Minority Opportunities and Interests Committee, 2012 – 14.

Under Hall, the Retrievers have experienced unparalleled success in women’s and men’s soccer, multiple consecutive conference titles in men’s and women’s swimming and diving, and America East titles in men’s cross country (2013) and baseball (2017). He has hired new head coaches in men’s basketball and men’s lacrosse, Ryan Odom and Ryan Moran, who have led their teams through strong initial campaigns.

— Dinah Winnick

Several alumni have recently taken top government positions, bringing their expertise to national groups overseeing health and justice, as well as Maryland’s top office.

The U.S. Senate has formally confirmed Jerome Adams ’97, M4, biochemistry and molecular biology, for the position of U.S. surgeon general. He replaces Rear Admiral Sylvia Trent-Adams Ph.D. ’06, public policy, who served as acting U.S. surgeon general beginning in late April. Both alumni have prioritized serving vulnerable populations and maintaining connections with local communities throughout their careers.

In the opening statement for his nomination hearing, Adams, who has served as a practicing anesthesiologist, associate professor at the Indiana University School of Medicine, and state health commissioner under then-Indiana Governor Mike Pence, shared, “In this dual role as both clinician and educator, I see the impact of health policy decisions on both providers and the patients we serve.”

Adams plans to emphasize active engagement with communities as surgeon general, focusing on a need to “learn about their obstacles and successes, share best practices, and help empower them to implement local solutions to their toughest problems.” He intends to focus on the opioid crisis in particular – a problem he’s familiar with from his work in Indiana.

Reflecting on his undergraduate years at UMBC as a Meyerhoff scholar, Adams shared with UMBC, “one of my biggest mentors was Dr. Hrabowski, and I still stay in touch with many of my Meyerhoff colleagues and rely on them as a professional support network.” He also pays that support forward, according to Joey Fox, who worked as his legislative director in Indiana. Fox described Adams as a “compassionate leader” and told the Indy Star, “He was always willing to have his door open.”

In July, President Donald Trump announced the appointment of David Muhlhausen M.P.R. ’99, Ph.D. ’04, public policy, a veteran analyst in The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis, as Director of the National Institute of Justice, Department of Justice. In that role, he will work with that agency to improve knowledge and understanding of crime and justice issues through science, and provide objective, independent knowledge and tools to inform the decision-making of the criminal justice community.

In Maryland, Matthew Clark ’00, history, former communications director for Governor Larry Hogan, will return to the state’s capitol to serve as chief of staff. He spent the previous year as managing director with D.C.-based FTI Consulting.

— Dinah Winnick and Jenny O’Grady

The Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) has selected UMBC as one of 10 institutions nationwide to participate in a bold, new initiative designed to “educate, prepare, and inspire the next generation of leaders to advance justice and build equitable communities.”

Participating colleges and universities will establish Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation (TRHT) Campus Centers to engage campus and community stakeholders around issues impacting racial equity, such as conscious and unconscious bias. AAC&U President Lynn Pasquerella shares that this is the first piece of a broader vision “to ensure that higher education is playing a leadership role in promoting racial and social justice” through a future national network of 150 such centers.

Frank Anderson, assistant director of The Choice Program at UMBC, coordinated UMBC’s TRHT proposal, with support from Zeevelle Nottingham-Lemon, associate director. The Choice Program has served more than 25,000 youth from Maryland’s most underserved communities for nearly 30 years, providing 24/7 wrap-around support. The program is based in UMBC’s Shriver Center, which works to realize the vision of Eunice Kennedy Shriver and Sargent Shriver to mobilize higher education to confront and solve major challenges facing urban America today.

“The Shriver Center’s Choice Program at UMBC recognizes that now, more than ever, there exists a need to create platforms for Baltimore City youth, UMBC service-learners, and our communities to voice their truth about systemic racism, and to seek opportunities for transformation,” says Anderson.

UMBC’s proposal focuses on the Shriver Center’s service-learning and community engagement work with youth, artists, advocates, and community-serving organizations in and around Baltimore. It also incorporates plans for youth-led community conversations, at UMBC and in Baltimore, around racial equality and transformation. The $30,000 AAC&U grant will support The Choice Program’s Youth in Action group, which unites students and service-learners at UMBC with youth in Baltimore through art and social justice, and college night programming for Baltimore City school students, among other activities.

The UMBC TRHT Campus Center team includes Eric Ford, associate director of the Choice Program; Beverly Bickel M.A. ’94 IDS, Ph.D. ’05, LLC, clinical associate professor of language literacy and culture; Keisha Allen, assistant professor of education; Charlotte Keniston M.F.A. ’14 IMDA, associate director of the Peaceworker Program; and Eloise Grose, program coordinator for service-learning in the Shriver Center, in addition to Anderson and Nottingham-Lemon.

— Dinah Winnick