Daniela Mujica-Martorell
B.A., Asian Studies; B.A., Global Studies; B.F.A., Design
Magna Cum Laude, Certificate: Honors College
Hometown: Arequipa, Peru
Plans: Applying for a Fulbright scholarship to South Korea

My professors and mentors at UMBC have never told me to curb my ambitions or endeavors, and have thus helped me find my best self. I am convinced that UMBC has given me unique opportunities no other university would have, and for that I am incredibly grateful.

A passionate undergraduate researcher, Daniela Mujica-Martorell is interested in how the concept of “design” can shift and change in different cultural contexts. As a U.S. immigrant who frequently transferred between schools growing up, Mujica-Martorell is no stranger to change, and says UMBC has given her a strong sense of belonging and community not felt anywhere else. She is thankful for the campus’ inclusive culture, which she says has provided her many opportunities to explore what it means to be a global citizen.

This past year, she worked with Kyung-Eun Yoon, modern languages and linguistics, on an URCAD project that explored the impact of globalization on design processes in South Korea, and in 2015 she studied abroad at Sophia University in Tokyo, Japan. During her time at UMBC, she has also been involved with the campus Korean Dance Club and the Japanese Student Association. Already fluent in Spanish, English, French, and Japanese, she is working on adding Korean to her repertoire. More recently, she has performed translation work on a research project for the psychology department.

Mujica-Martorell is a member of several honors societies, including Phi Beta Kappa, Omicron Delta Kappa, and Golden Key. She has served as senior managing editor for Bartleby, UMBC’s literary arts journal; an architecture and engineering assistant for Facilities Management; a student reviewer for the visual arts department promotion and tenure committee; and as a teaching assistant for an undergraduate course in international law. She has also participated in UMBC’s Camerata.

Mujica-Martorell plans to apply for a Fulbright scholarship, where she hopes to travel to South Korea to continue her research on the role of design in shaping national and cultural identities.

Portrait by Alison Kreckmann.

As a freshman Sondheim Scholar living in UMBC’s service-focused Shriver Living-Learning Community, Isabel Geisler had big plans. Geisler ’17, global studies, wanted to create a support program for local high school girls in STEM, and after two years of intensive research, planning, and partnership-building, she launched a pilot in 2015-16, all to prepare for the program’s official kick-off this year. Today, Geisler’s Reach Initiative includes 20 mentors serving 20 mentees, with a robust program structure to manage everything from fundraising to evaluating efficacy.

The Reach Initiative has three pillars: mentorship, research, and empowerment. Geisler observes that despite evidence of ongoing gender inequality, Americans often don’t like to admit that gender bias remains a major issue. She suggests that this can leave women unprepared to deal with discrimination, particularly in male-dominated areas like STEM. By “tackling these challenges head on” and giving young women training and information, she hopes to positively influence their education and career paths.

In their first semester of the year-long program, participating teens meet weekly with their mentors on campus, to “make them feel like they belong here,” at a major research university, says Geisler. Workshops teach the girls ways to advocate for themselves and respond to harassment. They also address core aspects of the college application process, like taking standardized tests and completing financial aid paperwork. Guest speakers, including current students in UMBC’s scholars programs, help the high schoolers imagine what their futures could look like.

In the second semester, participants tackle service-oriented independent research projects. Just like professional scientists, participants must create a project proposal and budget before getting to work. Geisler says at least half of the initiative’s overall budget funds the students’ research. A new grant the American Association of University Women just awarded to the Reach Initiative will primarily support these projects.

The initiative has partnered with a number of schools in Baltimore City, including Green Street Academy, Digital Harbor High School, Baltimore Leadership School for Young Women, and Patterson High School to recruit participants.

As Geisler prepares to graduate from UMBC this May and likely head to a Ph.D. program in sociology, she is taking steps to make sure the program is well-situated to continue after her departure. One group of initiative volunteers is already seeking approval to complete a long-term study of the girls’ success and retention rates in STEM, with an eye toward the future and a sense of long-term commitment.

Banner image: Students in the 2015-16 Reach Initiative pilot cohort. Photo provided by Isabel Geisler ’17.

Opening on January 30 and continuing until March 26, the Albin O. Kuhn Library Gallery will present Altered State: Painting Myanmar in a Time of Transition, an exhibition of paintings by 36 contemporary artists from Myanmar, the Southeast Asian nation formerly known as Burma.

Created following the transition period of 2011, when a military-backed civilian government replaced oppressive rule by military junta and the country once famous for its seclusion re-entered the world stage, the paintings illustrate current artistic practice in Myanmar and present a series of creative viewpoints on a rapidly changing society. Paintings included in Altered State: Painting Myanmar in a Time of Transition are from the collection of contemporary Myanmar paintings of Ian Holliday, vice president and pro-vice-chancellor (teaching and learning) at the University of Hong Kong.

“The exhibition is important because it highlights the work of a large group of contemporary artists from Myanmar (Burma), many of whom experienced censorship of their work in the past. Myanmar is a country that is gradually transitioning from a long postwar history of military rule to a more democratic form of government,” says Constantine Vaporis, founding director of the Asian Studies Program and professor of history. “Barack Obama was the first U.S. president to visit the country, and his efforts to promote the peaceful democratic transformation of the country were important to the U.S.’s strategic rebalance to Asia.”

On February 1 at 4 p.m., the Humanities Forum and Social Sciences Forum will present a lecture by Christina Fink, professor of the practice in international affairs at The George Washington University, who will speak on “Myanmar: Perspectives on a Society in Transition.”

Professor Fink is a cultural anthropologist who has combined teaching, research, and development work throughout her career. Her areas of expertise are Burma/Myanmar in particular and Southeast Asia more broadly, equitable development, gender and development, civil society in ethnically diverse states. She received her B.A. in international relations from Stanford University and her M.A. and Ph.D. in social/cultural anthropology from the University of California at Berkeley. She has taught at the Elliot School for International Affairs at George Washington University since 2011. She served as a visiting lecturer at the Pacific and Asian studies department at the University of Victoria in 1995, and, from 2001 to 2010, she was a lecturer and program associate at the International Sustainable Development Studies Institute in Thailand.

Presentation of the exhibition at UMBC is supported in part by an arts program grant from the Maryland State Arts Council, an agency funded by the State of Maryland and the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional support comes from the Friends of the Library & Gallery, the Libby Kuhn Endowment, and individual contributions. Professor Fink’s lecture is sponsored by the Asian Studies Program, the Dresher Center for the Humanities, the Albin O. Kuhn Library and Gallery, the Global Studies Program, the Department of Visual Arts, and the Social Sciences Forum.

Exhibition hours will be 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday, with extended hours on Thursday until 8 p.m., and on Saturday and Sunday from 12 to 5 p.m. Admission to both the exhibition and lecture is free. Complete information is available on the UMBC Arts & Culture calendar here (exhibition) and here (lecture).

It’s not often that college students have the opportunity to present policy recommendations directly to senior level government officials, but students throughout Maryland recently shared research papers on significant issues impacting the state as part of The Shriver Center’s Governor’s Summer Internship Program (GSIP). The 2016 program ended with a celebration at the Maryland State House in Annapolis last month.

The Governor’s Summer Internship Program introduces Maryland college students to the unique challenges and rewards of working within state government. Interns work for ten weeks during the summer in state government agencies doing substantive tasks ranging from drafting speeches and correspondence to researching policy options and assisting with constituent case work. The program is led by the Shriver Center in partnership with the Office of the Governor.

During this year’s program, students studied topics such as addressing the achievement gap for English language learners, reducing recidivism, preventing opioid abuse, and affordable housing. Several UMBC students participated in the 2016 GSIP, including: Vanessa Barksdale ’17, social work; Nathan O’Toole ’17, economics; Aidan Delisle ’17, political science and philosophy; Patrick DuBoyce ’17, political science and history; and Manisha Vepa ’18, economics, global studies, and music.

At the closing ceremony, the GSIP interns presented their policy papers and fielded follow-up questions from senior cabinet officials in Maryland state government. The students offered thoughtful policy solutions including further development of transitional housing and continuing education for ex-offenders re-entering society, developing and passing a housing anti-discrimination law, and further development of local programs and magnet schools to address the achievement gap for non-English students.

UMBC Political Science Associate Professor Laura Hussey worked closely with the students throughout the summer to develop their policy papers, and Lieutenant Governor Boyd Rutherford opened the closing event by congratulating the students and thanking them for their service.

Other Shriver Center Public Service Scholars Programs came to a close at the beginning of August, including the Walter Sondheim Jr. Maryland Nonprofit Leadership Program, which offers summer internship opportunities in the nonprofit sector to college juniors, seniors and graduate students attending Maryland institutions, and the Maryland Department of Transportation Fellows Program. Read more about The Shriver Center’s Public Service Scholars Programs.

Images: The 2016 Governor’s Summer Internship Program closing ceremony at the Maryland State House, August 11, 2016. Photos courtesy Maryland Governor’s Office Photos.

A new college access mentoring program for refugees in Baltimore has demonstrated tremendous success in its first year, with all of the graduating seniors in the program accepted into college.

College JUMP (Journey Upward Mentoring Program) started last year through the Baltimore City Community College (BCCC) Refugee Youth Project (RYP) in partnership with The Shriver Center at UMBC. RYP operates a series of programs that work with refugee youth in Baltimore City and County.

Christina Smith ’15, global studies, Sondheim Public Affairs Scholar and Honors College member, serves as the coordinator for the program as UMBC’s Maryland-DC Campus Compact (MDCCC) AmeriCorps VISTA. She says the goal is to work with 11^th and 12^th grade refugee students to provide a near-peer college access mentoring program.

College JUMP has three areas of focus: college exploration, applying to college, and college preparation. Each refugee student in the program is paired with an undergraduate college student who works closely with them to provide resources and assistance throughout the college application process. College JUMP has a team of four undergraduate students who serve as mentor leaders.

“We want to make sure students start that first day of college feeling prepared for success,” explains Smith.

Francine Mukobwajana graduated from Western High School earlier this year and is starting at UMBC in the fall as a biochemistry major. She participated in the program last year and was mentored by Asma Qaiyumi ’17, biology and psychology.

“UMBC was my first choice,” shares Mukobwajana. “Asma helped me a lot. I moved here in 2014, so everything was new to me, but I really appreciated working with Asma.”

Mukobwajana says Qaiyumi helped her by identifying scholarships, senior year activities, and navigating the college application process. Part of College JUMP also included a campus visit to UMBC.

“A big part of the preparation is seeing a campus and seeing students going to class, events, and leading tours,” says Qaiyumi. “All of that is important for students like Francine to know.”

The origins of College JUMP are traced back to when Jodi Kelber-Kaye, associate director of the Honors College, received a BreakingGround grant to partner with community organizations for her race, poverty, and gender in Baltimore seminar. In 2013, her class worked with the International Rescue Committee (IRC) to create a proposal for encouraging refugee families to remain residents of Baltimore City past their initial resettlement period. After the director of the IRC asked about creating a college mentoring program for refugee youth, her 2014 seminar students partnered with Brittany DeNovellis at RYP to design such a program.

Eloise Grose, Shriver Center program coordinator for service-learning, partnered with Kelber-Kaye and others on campus to get the College JUMP funded and started through a MDCCC AmeriCorps VISTA grant.

DeNovellis, RYP volunteer specialist, was instrumental in the creation and implementation of the project and worked closely with Grose to create the grant proposal to receive funding and also serves as a co-supervisor for the program. Kursten Pickup, RYP coordinator, also assisted in the grant writing process.

Three years later, College JUMP was a tremendous success in its first year and has provided opportunities for refugees to continue their education and remain in the Baltimore region.

“If you think about what a refugee family endures, they leave their home country for reasons that are traumatizing for them, and are eventually relocated to the U.S.,” says Kelber-Kaye. “So it’s important for UMBC students to provide welcoming and supportive environments for refugee youth and families as they navigate this complicated aspect of US culture.”

Building off of incredible results this year including a 100 percent college acceptance rate and FAFSA completion rate, Christina Smith says there are plans to expand the number of students served and add more activities to the program for next year. Thirteen students completed a full year of programming, and an additional 31 students attended events and workshops focused on college access.

“UMBC values diversity among students and open mindedness and acceptance of a wide range of cultures and backgrounds,” says Smith. “The refugee community in Baltimore can be such an asset not just to the university but to the city and the state of Maryland.”

Any UMBC student who is interested in serving as a mentor for the program should contact Christina Smith at csmith24@umbc.edu.

For more information about service-learning at UMBC, contact The Shriver Center.

For more information about the Refugee Youth Project, visit www.refugeeyouthproject.org.

Image: Photo by Brittany DeNovellis. A group of mentors, students, and a Chesapeake Hall resident pose at the College JUMP kickoff event. 

As post-industrial cities in the United States across the Northeast and Midwest have experienced population decline and economic challenges in recent decades, many local governments are implementing policies to socially integrate immigrants in those cities to promote local economic development.

Felipe Filomeno, an assistant professor of political science and global studies, worked with students in his “Immigration Politics” course last year to conduct research on the impact of these policies, and they published an article in the National League of Cities blog CitiesSpeak summarizing their findings.

Filomeno and the students looked at a range of issues in post-industrial cities, including economic development policies, multicultural policies, law enforcement policies, collaboration with the civil society, and policy advocacy.

Focusing on Baltimore, the researchers found that the city has moved forward with several initiatives, including seed funding and technical assistance to the Latino Economic Development Center, which provides training and consultation for immigrant entrepreneurs, disseminating public information in Spanish and support for an annual Latino festival, and collaboration among the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant and Multicultural Affairs and hundreds of community leaders and representatives from city agencies, social service providers and philanthropic organizations.

“A development-oriented inclusionary approach for immigration governance is consolidating in the rust belt. The task now is to monitor the implementation of those policies. In Baltimore, the number of immigrants increased 50 percent between 2000 and 2013, contributing to the first population growth the city experienced in decades. If other cities in the region share similar experiences, the ‘rust belt model’ might start to inspire higher levels of government and cities in other areas,” Filomeno and the students concluded.

The article “Immigrants and Urban Revival in Post-Industrial America” received widespread circulation and it was published in The Weekly, The National League of Cities’ official newsletter, which reaches more than 15,000 local elected officials and their staff, and the Illinois Municipal League magazine, as part of its issue on cultural diversity. The article was co-authored by Filomeno and undergraduate students Arielle Erenrich ’15, global studies and English; Edward Sauer ’16, political science; Emily Wigfield ’16, social work; Estelle Bol ’15, biology and political science; Danielle McGrogan ’17, global studies; Samuel Damesa ’16, global studies and political science; Charles Brother ’15, history and political science; Ghislain Tapsoba ’16, global studies; and Richard Coaxum ’15, political science.

Image: Baltimore Skyline from I-95 south. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11. 

The Latin American Studies Association (LASA) is the largest professional association in the world for individuals and institutions engaged in the study of Latin America. This year, several UMBC faculty across disciplines will present their research at the 2016 LASA Conference.

The conference, which takes place in New York City from May 27 to May 30, celebrates the 50th anniversary of the association and will feature guest speakers Ricardo Lagos, former president of Chile, and Fernando Henrique Cardoso, the former president of Brazil.

UMBC faculty from modern languages, linguistics, and intercultural communication (MLLI), political science and global studies, and gender and women’s studies, are organizing panels and presenting papers at the conference.

Sara Poggio, associate professor, MLLI, is chair of the International Migrations Section of LASA and organizer of the section’s pre-conference “New York as a Global City: A Critical Perspective.” She will also present her paper “The experience of immigrant children in the United States: theoretical and methodological challenges” as part of the panel “Retos metodológicos en la etnografía de la infancia/juventud en contextos migratorios.” In addition, Poggio will be the discussant of the panel “Three Challenges to Brain Drain Theory from a Latin American Perspective: Feminization of Skilled Migration, Medical Migration and Methodological Nationalism” and chair of the panel “Understanding immigration and immigrants through the lens of time.”

Tania Lizarazo, assistant professor, MLLI and global studies, is organizer of the panel “Manufacturing violence and its aftermath: militarization and memorialization in Latin America.” As part of the panel, she will be presenting her paper “Digital Utopias: Post-Conflict Archives in Colombia.”

Thania Muñoz Díaz, assistant professor of Spanish, Latin American and Latino studies, MLLI, will present a paper titled, “Zombies, Immigrants, Detectives, and the Latin American writer in the United States: memoria narrativa in Norte (2011) by Edmundo Paz Soldán” in the panel “Siglo nuevo, ficciones nuevas.” She will also participate in the pre-conference of the International Migrations Section of LASA with the paper: “Narrative Memory and Latin American Migration in New York.”

Felipe Filomeno, assistant professor, political science and global studies, is organizer and chair of the panel “Globalizing cities, migration and the state in Latin America.” As part of this panel, he will be presenting his paper “Global Cities and Local Immigration Policy in Latin America.”

Viviana MacManus, assistant professor, gender and women’s studies, will present a paper titled “Disposable Bodies of Neoliberalism: Immigration, Gender and The Politics of Representation in Transnational Documentary.”

For more information, visit the Latin American Studies Association website.

Header image: Tania Lizarazo presents at a Dresher Center event. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.  

Ashby Henningsen
B.A., Political Science; B.A., Global Studies
Summa Cum Laude
Hometown: Parkville, Maryland
Plans: Intern, International Justice Mission

My friends in the Sondheim Scholars program represent the many individuals who have helped me grow, both intellectually and personally. They embody the best that this community has given me and taught me over the course of these past four years.

During his time at UMBC, Ashby Henningsen has developed lasting friendships with fellow Sondheim Public Affairs Scholars thanks to a shared commitment to personal growth and public service. For Henningsen, UMBC’s Class of 2016 salutatorian, that commitment focuses on human rights issues.

Henningsen has volunteered with the Refugee Youth Project and The Choice Program at UMBC’s Shriver Center. He has also interned for two nonprofit organizations in Baltimore, Advocates for Survivors of Torture and Trauma and the Next One Up Foundation, and served as assistant news editor for The Retriever Weekly.

In 2015, Henningsen participated in the Public Policy and International Affairs Junior Summer Institute at Princeton University, a seven-week program structured to introduce and strengthen skills in economics, statistics, policy analysis, writing, and public speaking. Through experiences inside and outside the classroom, he’s also further developed the critical analysis, professional writing, and speaking skills he’ll need to pursue a career in international affairs and public administration.

Henningsen graduates with a 4.0 GPA and Outstanding Scholar accolades from both political science and global studies. He will complete an internship with the International Justice Mission in Washington, D.C. in summer 2016, during the review period for his application to the Peace Corps.

Images: Ashby Henningsen poses with other UMBC Sondheim Public Affairs Scholar; photo courtesy of Ashby Henningsen. Portrait by Marlayna Demond ‘11 for UMBC.

Congressman Elijah Cummings visited UMBC this month to speak with faculty, staff, and students from across the university about UMBC’s national leadership as a research university and commitment to growing Baltimore through long-term partnerships in local communities.

The morning focused on several major UMBC research centers and labs. Joining Congressman Cummings were Belay Demoz, director of the Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology (JCET); Jan Merka, director of the Goddard Planetary Heliophysics Institute (GPHI); Jane Turner, associate director of the Center for Research and Exploration in Space Science and Technology (CRESST); Gymama Slaughter, assistant professor of computer science and electrical engineering and director of the Bioelectronics Laboratory; and Lee Boot, associate director of the Imaging Research Center (IRC).

Tyson King-Meadows, incoming associate dean of the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences and Karl V. Steiner, vice president for research, also offered their perspectives on UMBC’s well-rounded research portfolio, beyond the conversation’s focus on research strengths in physics, geosciences, space science, and bioengineering.

After a brief campus tour, Congressman Cummings met with several leaders among UMBC staff whose work focuses on students’ academic success, including Renetta Tull, associate vice provost for graduate student development; Keith Harmon, director of the Meyerhoff Scholars Program, and others.

The congressman also spoke at length with scholars from UMBC’s three colleges: Sheniqua Brown ’15, M.S. chemical engineering; Marina Congedo ’17, physics and ancient studies; Ciara Davis ’17, mechanical engineering; Joseph Hunter ’16, biological sciences; Da’Kuawn Johnson ’17, biochemistry; Naomi Mburu ’17, chemical engineering; Larry Morton ’16, biological sciences; Alexis O’Malley ’16, psychology and mathematical sciences; Andreas Seas ’16, mechanical engineering; and Manisha Vepa ’18, economics and global studies.

These students represented the Sherman STEM Teacher Scholars Program, Meyerhoff Scholars Program, and UMBC Honors College. They are pursuing a range of PhD and MD/PhD programs and the most prestigious national and internships and fellowships available. They also spoke of their experiences with and deep personal commitments to community engagement in Baltimore, supporting local groups from refugee communities to elementary school students.

Images: Congressman Elijah Cummings visits UMBC on March 10, 2016. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

Social Sciences Forum
Guadalupe Moshan Álvarez, principal attorney, Fray Bartolomé Human Rights Center, San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico
Bárbara Suárez Galeano, Interpreter, Autonomous University of Social Movements, Centro Autónomo de Albany Park, Chicago

Thursday, September 24 | 4:30 p.m.
Albin O. Kuhn Library Gallery  

Mexico is at a critical moment: the forced disappearance of 43 Ayotzinapa rural teachers and college students set off a tidal wave of indignation and massive protests. In the context of a war on drugs that has left more than 25,000 disappeared, Guadalupe Moshan Álvarez will speak on the human rights situation in Chiapas, Mexico, FrayBa’s work, and the role of international solidarity.

Co-sponsored by the Department of Modern Languages, Linguistics, and Intercultural Communication; the Department Sociology and Anthropology; the Language, Literacy & Culture Program; the Global Studies Program and the Department of Political Science.