Homecoming is around the corner, and the calendar is full of favorite community events—along with some new opportunities and unique Halloween twists.

The festivities start off October 20, with the Student Org Kickball Tournament, an old tradition making a comeback thanks to Campus Life. Teams receive bragging rights (and prize money to spend on their student organizations). That night the Homecoming bonfire returns to light up the night.

Events really kick into high-gear on October 24 with GRIT-X talks by UMBC faculty and alumni, now given their own special night to celebrate research and creative achievements. The following Friday brings the carnival preview and Athletics Hall of Fame banquet with new Athletics Director Tiffany Tucker. Saturday, October 26, has the most activities to offer—featuring the famous puppy and pet parade, 5k and family fun run, Greek alumni day party, Taste of Maryland crab feast, men’s soccer game vs. Vermont, and much more.

“We do try to have something for everyone,” says Bobby Lubaszewski ’10, M.P.S. ’23, director of communications and marketing for the Office of Institutional Advancement and one of the event organizers. “This year’s event is close to Halloween, so we’re leaning into the Halloween theme with pumpkin painting for the kids and other activities.” 

A chance to celebrate and reconnect

Jess Wyatt, associate director of Alumni Engagement and another of the event organizers, says Homecoming offers Retrievers of all ages and backgrounds and their families a chance to connect. Her own kids enjoy the festivities each year and have made friends with colleagues’ children. 

Sara Osman ’09, modern languages and linguistics, and M.A. ’11, TESOL, recently started attending Homecoming as an opportunity to introduce her young kids to the campus where she and her husband, Karim Yergaliyev ’09, business technology administration, met. “We like to show our three-year-old and six-year-old the places around campus from our stories of the early years when we were dating,” Osman says. “It’s also a nice time to meet up with other alumni and their families.”

The Osman-Yergaliyev family not only re-lives old memories at Homecoming, they also create new ones. Last year, they were some of the few people still at the carnival as the rain came down. “We were playing ring toss when Karim won a stuffed unicorn so large we could barely get it home,” Osman says.

Something for everyone

The plethora of events showcase all UMBC has to offer. You can see demos of advanced AI robot technology one night, reconnect with your childhood on a carnival ride the next, and finish the weekend cheering on the UMBC soccer teams.

Homecoming this year also coincides with UMBC’s annual Livewire new music festival, an exploration of new sounds presented in six concerts over the three days from October 24 – 26.

New this year, the Physics Department is offering tours of the UMBC Observatory, including descriptions of telescope operations and the basics of astronomical detection. “Where else can you go to tour an observatory at Homecoming? That’s really cool!” says Wyatt.

UMBC’s GRIT-X event is returning for its eighth year with a lineup of dynamic talks spanning a wide range of subjects, including insight into the university’s contributions to the next Moon landing mission, a look into Baltimore City’s new violence prevention plan, human-robot interaction, and much more. 

GRIT-X, a TED-Talks styled showcase of presentations on compelling aspects of UMBC’s impact in the research and creative achievement space, is one of more than a dozen events happening during UMBC’s Homecoming 2024 celebration. This year’s GRIT-X will take place ahead of Homecoming weekend, returning to the Fine Arts Recital Hall on October 24 from 4 to 6 p.m. 

The annual series spotlights developing research from UMBC faculty experts and alumni who are doing impactful work. This year’s lineup features alum-turned-physics professor Todd Pittman, M.S. ’92, Ph.D. ’96, physics, who’ll be discussing the foundations of classical and quantum physics. 

In his GRIT-X presentation, Pittman will dive deep into quantum entanglement, the major disparity between classical and quantum physics. “Right now, we’re in the era of trying to use quantum physics to do new and more powerful things in information processing,” says Pittman. 

UMBC research and creative achievement in action 

Takashi Yamashita, professor of sociology, anthropology, and public health, will discuss his research in aging and lifelong learning with his talk, “When Does Our Education End? Aging and Life Course Perspectives.” 

“I will explore a range of education benefits across life stages. I’m excited to introduce key ideas from gerontology and how they help us think about important topics in our lives, such as education, work, and leisure,” says Yamashita, who is the co-director of UMBC’s joint gerontology doctoral program with the University of Maryland, Baltimore. 

GRIT-X 2024 will feature:

• Guenet Abraham, Professor of visual arts
• Mehdi Benna, Research scientist at the Center for Space Sciences and Technology (CSST)
• Aryya Gangopadhyay, Professor of information systems; director of the Center for Real-time Distributed Sensing and Autonomy (CARDS)
• Stefanie Mavronis ’12, political science, media and communication studies, Director of the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement, City of Baltimore
• Tamra Mendelson, Professor of biological sciences
• G. Derek Musgrove ’97, history, Associate professor of history and affiliate professor of Africana studies
• Patricia Ordóñez, M.S. ’10, Ph.D. ’12, computer science, Associate professor of information systems
• Todd Pittman, M.S. ’92, Ph.D. ’96, physics, Professor of physics
• Takashi Yamashita, Professor of sociology, anthropology, and public health

Another alum-turned professor, Patricia Ordóñez, will discuss “Why moms should be the leaders in computing education” with her GRIT-X presentation. 

“I noticed that some women my age who are mothers and grandmothers, their digital skills are not as advanced as they should be because they were taking care of children or working in fields that don’t require the technology to be so advanced,” says Ordóñez. “This becomes a digital determinant of health, education, getting employment, or applying for additional opportunities.”

Ordóñez is working to develop a community computing learning center that assists mothers and others from marginalized and underserved communities to strengthen what she calls their “digital identity.” Her talk will also break down how research can impact change within communities.

“If you can’t see people that look like you in computing, it gets very isolating, and it starts to make you think maybe I’m in the wrong field,” she adds. “I’m trying to model my own experience for my students in seeing teaching and research happening at the same time.”

For the first time, GRIT-X will be followed by a reception and special showcase event held in UMBC’s Engineering Building. The reception showcase will include remarks from several GRIT-X speakers from previous years on updates on their research and recent work. The event is in partnership with the Office of Institutional Advancement and bwtech@UMBC Research and Technology Park.

Learn more about this year’s line up and watch the GRIT-X 2024 presentations. 

In the early hours of the morning, as the windows of Albin O. Kuhn Library begin to reflect the sunrise, UMBC’s faculty and staff are making sure all the campus needs—technology, buildings, streets and sidewalks, lessons, and social media—are ready for students. A close-knit community of over 2,500 faculty and staff is at the heart of UMBC’s vibrant campus, and for the 15th consecutive year, UMBC has garnered the distinction of being on ModernThink’s Great Colleges to Work For list. 

Retriever Nation spoke loud and clear, sharing what makes their work fulfilling on the 2024 Great Colleges to Work For survey. The survey covered 10 categories, including faculty and staff wellbeing, compensation and benefits, and confidence in senior leadership. The resounding feedback secured UMBC a spot on the Honor Roll among the top 10 four-year institutions with an enrollment exceeding 10,000 students out of 75 outstanding workplaces.

“Great workplaces don’t just happen,” says Lynne Adams, UMBC’s chief human resources officer. “They are built through a collaboration of the community, care, connection, and a shared vision. Our culture really does reflect a team working together continuously evolving into an inspiring workplace for everyone.”

Faculty and staff flourish and enjoy sharing their talents and personal journeys, adding to the campus life through events like yoga and other classes at the RAC taught by Joella Lubaszewski ’10, theatre. UMBC gives space for people to be brave and share their whole selves, as executive administrative assistant Melessia Jasper knows. Visit a McNair Scholars information session to see leadership in action with Michael Hunt ’06, computer engineering, and current Ph.D. student leading the pack. The dedication of our faculty and staff allows students to receive support and shine.

“As we nurture an inclusive and welcoming community and support the professional development of our staff and faculty, they see themselves fully in our mission and believe deeply in the transformative power of education,” says President Valerie Sheares Ashby. “Staff and faculty know their work serves both individual students and the public good. They know their work matters and that they are seen and valued.”

UMBC has launched two exciting new Election 2024 resources that affirm the university’s commitment to civic engagement and benefit both our campus community and the greater Maryland region.

UMBC Poll

As a public university, UMBC takes pride in providing high quality research and analysis that serves the greater good. In August, UMBC launched the Institute of Politics (IoP) to bring more political research and insights into Maryland elections. The inaugural UMBC Poll, released in two parts on October 8 and 9, surveyed residents and voters in the Baltimore metro region and statewide, and gauged the attitudes of Maryland adults and voters on topics critical to the coming election such as candidate preferences for U.S. Senate and Presidential matchups, job approval ratings for Governor Wes Moore, key economic indicators, and issues and reasons driving voter choices.

Featuring the expertise of IoP Director Mileah Kromer, the inaugural UMBC Poll was covered widely in state and national news outlets, including the New York Times,  Baltimore Sun, the Washington Post, and Fox News.

Election Central

Also in October, UMBC launched Election Central, a website that provides visitors with relevant information to participate in the coming election. The site includes links to voter registration, guidelines about exercising free speech on campus, and a civic engagement toolkit where students and others can find voting information, mail-in ballot drop-off locations on campus, and more.

The civic participation information on Election Central is largely the work of UMBC’s Center for Democracy and Civic Life, a student-facing campus organization that helps individuals and groups develop the knowledge, skills, and dispositions needed to contribute to a thriving democracy.

Election Central also contains resources for the news media, with information on UMBC faculty, staff, and students who are ready to speak to reporters about election-related issues.

Students like Vunnathi Ankem, a psychology major, Sondheim Public Affairs Scholar, and vice president of the Honors College Council, says projects like Election Central help students take their rightful seat at the public affairs table.

“College students have access to a wealth of knowledge,” saysAnkem, “It is both our right and responsibility to serve our communities when we can.”

Kaitlyn Sadtler ’11, biological sciences, has been selected for the TIME100 Next list. In its fifth year, the list aims “to recognize rising leaders in health, climate, business, sports, and more—and by doing so, not just show the stories that are capturing headlines in 2024, but also introduce you to the people who we believe will play an important role in leading the future.” 

Since 2019, Sadtler has been a tenure-track researcher and chief of the Section on Immunoengineering at the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering. Her interdisciplinary research straddles bioengineering and immunology.

“I’m super excited and absolutely surprised to be included on the TIME100 Next list. Working in regenerative medicine, our lab gets to look forward to where we could build therapies to help regrow our damaged tissues after traumatic injuries,” Sadlter shared. “I’m also thrilled that there is excitement for bioengineering at the National Institutes of Health. Biomedical engineering is a field that’s able to connect the basic fundamental biology discoveries with clinical translation and application of those discoveries.”

In 2020, Sadtler led a study published in Science Translational Medicinelooking for undiagnosed COVID-19 cases in more than 9,000 blood samples that never-diagnosed participants mailed in. The study found that during the first several months of the pandemic, for every diagnosed case of COVID-19, an estimated 4.8 cases went undiagnosed. That suggested a total of 16.8 million undiagnosed (and therefore mild or asymptomatic) cases by July 2020.

Undiagnosed cases were more likely in certain demographic groups, including younger people, people in urban areas, and people without risk factors for severe disease. The findings provided important insights for the pandemic response by suggesting that immunity acquired from infection among the young and healthy population and in dense areas was higher than previously understood, meaning herd immunity might be reached faster than first anticipated. 

After graduating summa cum laude from UMBC, Sadtler completed her doctorate at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and a postdoctoral fellowship at MIT. Sadlter has received numerous awards, and her 2018 TED Talk was one of the 25 most-viewed TED talks that year. Sadtler also presented at UMBC’s GRIT-X speaker series in 2022. 

The UMBC Cybersecurity Institute and the Division of Research and Creative Achievement, in partnership with the College of Engineering and Information Technology, recently announced the recipients of the 2024 Cybersecurity Leadership Exploratory grant program.

The internal funding opportunity is designed to promote innovative, interdisciplinary research and education focused on enhancing UMBC’s leadership in cybersecurity research. Awardees received up to $45,000 in funding to develop their exploratory projects—an increase compared to its inaugural recipient cohort in 2023. 

The 2024 recipients are:

• Alan Sherman and Enis Golaszewski for “Modeling and Formal-Methods Analysis of the Secure DNA Protocol”
• Manas Gaur for “Cybersecurity Research: MetamorphicLLM: Robust Understanding of Metamorphic Malware Through Attacks and Defenses Using Neurosymbolic Large Language Models”
• Meilin Yu and Zhiyuan Chen for “Detecting Stealthy Long-Term Cyber Attacks on Wind Energy Assets with Physics-Informed Neural Network Technologies”
• Naghmeh Karim for “Artificial Intelligence and Hardware Security: From Research to Classroom (Educational Proposal)”
• Nilanjan Banerjee and Mohamed Younis for “Implementing Endpoint Security for Cyber-Physical Systems”
• Tera Reynolds for “Swiss Cheese Please: Analyzing Cybersecurity Risks in the Digital Health Ecosystem with Patients with Complex Care Needs”

Learn more about UMBC’s internal funding opportunities. 

“Sweaty Eyeballs” was born out of a Baltimore summer. The humid words hung in the air when animator Phil Davis, M.F.A. ’07, imaging and digital arts, was putting his plans into place in summer 2012 for the first edition of the animated film festival that now bears the moniker.

“I liked how they sounded, they felt like a memorable name,” Davis says. “And after watching 92 animated shorts in a weekend, your eyes will feel like they’ve been through a workout!”

Davis, now a professor at Towson University’s Department of Art + Design, is an animator whose own hand-drawn, stop motion and digital animations have screened around the world. “Animation has the ability to tap into so many human emotions, it’s part of why I love it so much—its expressive potential is boundless,” he says. 

The 13^th edition of Sweaty Eyeballs runs October 18 – 20 at several Baltimore venues, including MICA’s Falvey Hall and Towson’s Van Bokkelen Hall Theatre. The festival showcases 92 short films from around the world, featuring four international competition blocks, as well as a Baltimore showcase that runs on the opening night, which will feature numerous works from UMBC creators.

From its inception through 2018, the Sweaty Eyeballs Animation Festival existed as a one-night-only invitational offering a diverse array of animated narrative, documentary, music video, and experimental work that pushed the boundaries of art, craft, and technology. Over the years, the festival partnered with theaters across Baltimore, including the Creative Alliance, The Charles and The Parkway, as well as theaters run by local Baltimore universities. In 2019, Sweaty Eyeballs emerged as a full-fledged film festival in its own right, and its steady growth continues.

A platform for world-class programming

While submissions to the festival span the continents, many of them originate close to home. From UMBC’s visual arts program, recent graduate Carter Gray ’24 and senior Mariel Chavez are featured in the Baltimore Showcase Competition, among many other faculty and staff. “Carter Gray’s film Tempus is a really cool short animation that has an environmental bent, and it’s basically the history of the world and how humans are kind of destroying the earth,” says Davis. “Mariel Chavez’s The Beautiful Pain of Trichotillomania is very short, beautifully animated drawings on paper.”

Left: a still from Carter Gray’s animated “Tempus.” Right: a still from Mariel Chavez’s “The Beautiful Pain of Trichotillomania.”

UMBC faculty and staff with work featured in the 2024 Sweaty Eyeballs lineup include Tima Aflitunov (Earthlings), Jim Doran (Magus Incognito), Eric Millikin (The Dance of the Nain Rouge), and SKRFF by Corrie Francis Parks and Daniel Nuderscher. (Parks, an associate professor of visual arts, also serves this year as curator of a concurrent gallery exhibition, Sweaty Eyeballs: Animation Adjacent).

“Corrie’s new film is amazing,” says Davis, “It’s sort of deconstructing graffiti art on this wall that’s had graffiti on it for years and years and years. And Eric Milliken’s is a really mesmerizing piece utilizing these custom-made AI training sets to create imagery.”

Expanding animation

Festival programming will also include a young audiences program featuring kid-appropriate animation, as well as an animation workshop for kids.

Los Angeles-based animator and production designer Miguel Jiron, who worked as head-of-story on the Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse movies, will give an industry talk at the festival on October 19. Jiron will also offer a Story Development Masterclass at UMBC on October 18.

In addition to the more traditional theatrical screenings presented, this year Sweaty Eyeballs has expanded to include a cornucopia of free events and exhibitions.

Sweaty Eyeballs: Animation Adjacent, the exhibition curated by Corrie Francis Parks, opened September 13 and runs through October 20, features artists from the Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C., metropolitan areas, spanning aspects of animation from the earliest forms of animation such as praxinoscopes and zoetropes—mechanical devices that created the illusion of motion—through modern digital techniques.

“I wanted to highlight the ways that animation can stand outside the picture and in different formats, and show the approaches of different artists who incorporate animation into their practice,” Parks says. ”There are a lot of artists practicing ‘expanded animation,’ that expands outward in different modes and mediums, work that necessarily needs to be in a different space.”

An animator who has exhibited her work around the globe, Parks notes that Sweaty Eyeballs stands out as a unique event in U.S. film programming. “I’ve really been thankful for Sweaty Eyeballs,” she says. “There are few other cities in the United States where you would get such good animation programming in an actual festival devoted to animation.”

Numerous UMBC-affiliated artists are featured in Animation Adjacent’s programming, including Jim Doran, an AOK Library staff member who presents an assemblage of fragmental stories contained in small containers, and Kelley Bell, associate professor of visual arts, whose installation Enchanted Jangle is the epic cardboard fort your five-year-old self dreamed of. Adjunct professor Kat Navarro taps family history and diasporic longing to present The view from my childhood window.

The show includes two interactive, generative installations by Timothy Nohe, visual arts professor, and McCoy Chance ’19, music technology and media and communication studies. “Both artists use sound translated into electronic signals as the catalyst for animation,” says Parks, “and invite the viewer to be the ‘animator’ by activating the works with their voice.”

On October 11, Area 405 will host a free Animation Adjacent Variety Show and Film Screening, featuring eclectic performances and short animations by exhibition artists pushing the boundaries of animation as an artform. One featured act will include Baltimore musicians Bonnie Lander and Shelly Purdy interacting with Nohe’s Entr’acte-Interact.

Closing the festival on October 20, UMBC visual arts professor Eric Dyer—named by Creative Capital as “The Modern Master of the Zoetrope”—will offer a live performance with Jiayin Shen as Duo Kinetica, combining zoetropes with a live piano score.

Some organisms are better than others at surviving without oxygen. “Humans don’t do very well without oxygen, but even humans have adaptive mechanisms,” says Rachel Brewster, professor of biological sciences. Zebrafish, however—the model organism Brewster studies—are champs at surviving with little or no oxygen. In fact, zebrafish embryos can last up to 50 hours under anoxia—that is, no oxygen at all. 

Brewster’s lab includes wall-to-wall freshwater fish tanks, where two-inch zebrafish with blue and gold horizontal stripes swirl. Her team has been working with zebrafish for years, painstakingly figuring out just how they mitigate the effects of reduced oxygen (“hypoxia”) at a molecular level. “What we’re really interested in discovering is what adaptive molecules we might share in common with some of these highly hypoxia-tolerant organisms like zebrafish,” Brewster says. “And if we share those molecules, how can we control or modify their activity to improve outcomes?”

Solving the zebrafish puzzle

Being able to keep human tissues alive and undamaged under hypoxia for longer stretches of time has a range of potential benefits. Notably, it would expand the ability to deliver donated organs to transplant recipients most in need, in less developed geographic areas, or even in war zones—which is the reason the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) previously funded Brewster’s work. 

Over the last several years, her DoD-funded work and subsequent research supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have led Brewster’s group on a swimmingly successful journey of discovery. Twists and turns, creative thinking, and challenging lab work have allowed them to place one puzzle piece after another to reveal the bigger picture of how zebrafish survive so long without oxygen. Brewster hopes other researchers will take her group’s work a step further, translating the fundamental knowledge they’ve brought forth into treatments that save human lives. In recognition of her group’s contributions, Brewster has just secured a five-year, more than $1.9 million grant from the NIH to continue solving the puzzle.

Equally important to Brewster, her research program creates opportunities for emerging scientists to learn the practical skills and habits of mind that will enable them to pursue their own scientific questions in the future. Her current team includes graduate students and several undergraduates, all of whom have contributed to creating new knowledge. “Research and training go together for me,” Brewster says.  

The journey begins

Some organisms, including animals that fly at high altitudes, dive deep in the ocean, or live underground, excel at adapting to low oxygen. They typically reduce their metabolic activity when oxygen drops, therefore reducing demand as supply dwindles. “They reach a new status quo,” Brewster says. 

Brewster initially expected that the molecules inducing that new status quo must be quick-acting metabolites—small molecules already present in cells—rather than large proteins that are energy-intensive to produce. So in 2016 she teamed up with Johns Hopkins scientist Young-Sam Lee, who has expertise in metabolites. She asked Lee, who is now at the Kentucky University School of Medicine, to identify which metabolites were more or less abundant in zebrafish embryos raised without oxygen compared to embryos that developed under normal conditions. Austin Gabel ’17, biological sciences, worked closely with Lee in summer 2016 to uncover the relevant metabolites. 

The results showed that embryos raised without oxygen had, among other metabolites, more lactate. Lactate is a byproduct of glycolysis—the energy-producing process cells must rely on when oxygen isn’t available. That was “kind of a ‘duh’ moment,” Brewster says, but there was more to the story: Around the same time, other researchers were showing that high lactate levels in cancer cells triggered cell growth and blood vessel development via a protein called NDRG3. Brewster was surprised to see such energy-intensive processes triggered by low oxygen—but she wondered if members of the NDRG protein family functioned differently in healthy cells. 

A surprising connection

Curious, Brewster and Jong Park, Ph.D. ’21, biological sciences, searched a database for NDRG genes in zebrafish, and found six. (There are four in mammals.) NDRG1a caught their attention, because it is involved in a process that requires an enzyme called a sodium potassium ATPase. That enzyme is one of the most energy-intensive enzymes in the cell, and organisms frequently reduce its production when oxygen is low. Interesting, Brewster thought. 

Also, the ATPase and NDRG1a were expressed in exactly the same areas of the fish’s body—the kidney and skin cells called ionocytes, which are arrayed in a polka dot pattern on the surface of zebrafish embryos. Could NDRG1a be regulating the ATPase? Sure enough, a database of protein-protein interactions revealed that NDRG1a could interact with the ATPase. Now they were getting somewhere! 

A long and winding road

To check whether NDRG1a actually did regulate this ATPase, her team tested how normal zebrafish and zebrafish without functional NDRG1a performed with normal oxygen and no oxygen. Under normal conditions, they both behaved normally. But the zebrafish without NDRG1a died at much higher rates without oxygen, providing compelling evidence that NDRG1a is required for the fish to adapt to low oxygen.

That was exciting, because at that time, “NDRG had no distinctive regions that could help researchers infer its function,” Brewster says—in fact, its molecular function was hardly understood. “But the fact that it can bind to a lot of different proteins suggests that it can function as an “adapter protein.” Just like an adapter that allows you to connect a USB to a wall outlet, adapter proteins connect molecules that otherwise wouldn’t interact. In this case, NDRG1a connects the ATPase with proteins that carry it off either to be stored in the cell for later use or destroyed—both outcomes that stop its activity and eliminate its demand for energy.  

Brewster’s lab then showed that NDRG1a can, indeed, bind directly to the ATPase. Plus, the interaction increases when there is more lactate present, independent of how much oxygen is available. “That was really exciting for us,” Brewster says, “because it suggests that the rise in lactate is functioning via NDRG to promote the downregulation of ATPase.”

An important implication of this finding is that lactate or a similarly-shaped molecule could potentially be used to alter NDRG1a’s activity, and therefore artificially induce an energy-conserving state, Brewster explains. That could potentially help retain organs in viable condition for longer between collection and transplant—and that could save lives.    

To further demonstrate that point, Brewster’s lab showed that if cells don’t have functional NDRG1a, ATPase activity does not decrease even with high levels of lactate. That means lactate doesn’t regulate ATPase on its own, but requires NDRG1a as an intermediary. 

Joy in the process

Based on all the evidence they’ve collected—in their own lab via experiments and through research in the literature and genetic databases—the Brewster lab’s current model of the system is this: When oxygen is low, lactate and NDRG1a increase. Lactate binds to NDRG1a in such a way that allows it to interact with the ATPase, guiding it either to storage or to the cell’s “garbage can,” which improves the organism’s ability to survive low oxygen by reducing demand from the ATPase for energy. 

While it might sound complicated (and sometimes it is!), this process is the joy of a biologist—untangling how molecules interact, using logic to define long chains of reactions, and designing laboratory experiments to fill in knowledge gaps. It’s incremental work like Brewster’s that takes science to new heights step by step. Brewster’s research group has already meaningfully moved the needle on understanding how organisms adapt to oxygen deprivation, but there is still so much more to do—and Brewster is wasting no time.

Filling in the picture

“While hypoxia is damaging, what is even more damaging is the return to normal oxygen,” she says. “You cannot be hypoxia tolerant if you are not also tolerant to reoxygenation. That had us wondering if NDRG is also involved in the reoxygenation phase.”

Brewster’s group has determined that as oxygen returns, NDRG1a continues to interact with the ATPase. That suggests NDRG1a is also important for the transition to reoxygenated conditions. The next experiment the team needs to do to determine whether NDRG1a is indeed critical for reoxygenation is complicated: They need to allow zebrafish to experience hypoxia with normal NDRG1a, and then remove functional NDRG1a just prior to reoxygenation.

“And that is not a trivial experiment,” Brewster says. “So that is one big aim of the new NIH proposal—to try to address the undoing of the hypoxia response.”

Another big goal of Brewster’s upcoming work is to look at other proteins that NDRG1a interacts with and explore their potential roles in hypoxia response. She also wants to investigate other members of the NDRG family. For example, muscle cells produce more NDRG1b under hypoxia, which occurs during intense exercise along with an increase in lactate. Ph.D. candidate Prableen Chowdhary is investigating NDRG1b’s role now. And other NDRG family members are known to be abundant in tissues that require a lot of energy, like the heart.

“It takes energy to save energy”

Curiously, Brewster also noticed that in the research literature, hypoxia is associated with hearing loss: Pilots, people who live at high altitudes, and people with oxygen-depleting diseases like sickle cell anemia or chronic sleep apnea all suffer from hearing loss at higher-than-average rates. Even more intriguingly, NDRG1 is expressed in the inner ear during hypoxia, and Ph.D. candidate Lilian Gonzalez is currently studying its role.

“NDRG seems to be protective, so it may be protective in the inner ear just like it is in the kidney and ionocytes,” Brewster says. “It might be down-regulating ATPase somehow to preserve those cells.”

Beyond NDRG, one of Brewster’s former students, Tim Hufford, Ph.D. ’23, biological sciences, discovered that cells begin producing larger quantities of many different proteins when oxygen drops. That finding officially sunk Brewster’s original hypothesis that metabolites, rather than new proteins, must be the first responders when reduced oxygen strikes. It also demonstrated that “it takes energy to save energy,” she says. 

Hufford’s work “opened up a huge area of research, as we now know of hundreds of additional molecules that may play a critical role in hypoxia adaptation in addition to NDRGs,” Brewster says. “It’s more research than my lab could pursue in a lifetime,” she adds, encouraging the next generation to pick up the torch.

Finding purpose in student mentoring

Much fascinating research is in Brewster’s future—but she is far from alone in the endeavor. Brewster’s students are the drivers of the research, she says, and with the new grant, she might add a postdoctoral fellow as well. 

“I am deeply committed to the students’ success,” Brewster says. More and more undergraduates in her laboratory are authoring academic papers, which will give them a leg up as they apply to graduate school or seek careers.

As a full professor, Brewster plans to dedicate her time at UMBC to “doing more of what I passionately care about,” she says. “And providing opportunities for people to truly excel in science is completely linked to the research. Because they are the people doing the research. And the students in my lab have done great things.”

She’s not exaggerating. Gabriel Otubu, a senior biochemistry major in Brewster’s lab, received the prestigious Goldwater Scholarship earlier this year. Last year, Soujanya “Anya” Viswanathan ’24, biological sciences, was also named a Goldwater scholar as was Dominique Brooks ’21, biological sciences, in 2019. Brewster also mentors graduate students as director of the G-RISE Program, an NIH-funded initiative that offers mentorship and training for STEM careers in academia, industry, or government to graduate students from a wide range of backgrounds.

It’s this commitment to mentoring that underpins Brewster’s research success, and she also sees it as one of her fundamental roles as a faculty member. “I want to be very intentional with the time I have left, and student training is something I care deeply about,” she says. “Anyone can be excellent in science. And that is what I strive for in my lab—to support every student to reach their potential, no matter where they’re coming from.”

In the early 20th century, as physicists explored the tiny world of atoms, they noticed some perplexing things: Energy transferred only in chunks; particles that also acted like waves; mysterious links between physically separate systems. Their observations and theories marked the start of the first quantum revolution, which rocked the philosophical world of scientists (Albert Einstein was famously disturbed by some of its implications), but ultimately helped birth the technology of today by enabling the development of physical devices such as computer chips and lasers.

Many scientists believe we are now on the cusp of a second quantum revolution, as quantum concepts are poised to transform the world of information science and technology too. The new revolution offers the promise, among other things, of a new type of computer called a quantum computer. Quantum computers could quickly solve some problems that are extremely difficult for traditional machines—they might also unleash some chaos we’ll have to find ways to prevent. 

Lei Zhang, an assistant professor in the department of information systems, is working hard to prepare students for this quantum information future. In 2023 and 2024, with support from a Hrabowski Innovation Fund Grant, he developed new learning modules on quantum information concepts and integrated them into existing graduate and undergraduate courses in information systems. 

Based partly on the success of that pilot project, Zhang recently received funding from the National Science Foundation to develop a 14-week summer program in quantum information science and technology. The program, which will launch in the summer of 2025, will be open to students from UMBC and nearby Montgomery College. 

“Quantum computing is the next industrial revolution, and there will be an urgent need for skilled professionals in quantum information science and technology,” says Zhang. “This project aims to equip students with the skills and networks to meet that need and advance their careers.”

Quantum’s encryption-breaking challenge

The quantum information revolution is already smashing into our everyday world in the area of internet security. Most internet traffic is kept safe from prying eyes using a technique that works well against hackers using traditional computers but could be broken by a sophisticated enough quantum computer. No quantum computer has reached that point yet, but scientists are making steady progress in that direction, and experts are worried enough to start mandating security changes. 

In 2022, the White House released a National Security Memorandum coordinating the actions of various federal agencies in a move toward quantum-resistant forms of encryption for their computer systems. 

“The government will be one of the leaders in the change, but the whole private sector will need to follow,” Zhang says. “Everyone will need to update their systems.”

Zhang is focusing the summer program on this challenge. Students will learn about quantum computers and how they could break traditional encryption, and will also learn about new security algorithms, called post-quantum encryption algorithms, that are not as vulnerable to quantum attacks.

After six weeks of active and immersive learning activities, the students will engage in eight-week-long internships at local tech companies or in Zhang’s UMBC lab, where they will put their newfound knowledge and skills to use. At the completion of the summer program, the students will earn a MicroBachelors certificate from the online education company edX. 

Partnerships advance outreach and teaching

Zhang is partnering with individuals and programs across UMBC to make his summer program successful. Zhang’s main collaborator on the project, assistant information systems professor Karen Chen, specializes in the study of how technology can improve learning. The team also includes information systems faculty Aryya Gangopadhyay, Michael Brown, and C. Augusto Casas. 

Zhang is partnering with UMBC’s Center for Women in Technology, UMBC’s Cybersecurity Institute, and Montgomery College to recruit a diverse range of students for the summer program. 

The project will be guided by the expertise of local leaders from government and private industry and its effectiveness will be evaluated by UMBC’s Chris Rakes, a professor of mathematics education.

Going forward, Zhang plans to continue scaling up his quantum education efforts. The coursework from the summer program will be made freely available for other educational institutions to use. It could also be incorporated into programs for adult learners. 

In collaboration with the National Institute of Standards and Technology, headquartered in Gaithersburg, Maryland, Zhang also plans to use knowledge generated from the summer program to organize professional development workshops for instructors in four-year and community colleges. 

The impact of Zhang’s efforts can already be seen on the individual level. Khushdeep Kaur, a master’s student in information systems, first heard about quantum computing from Zhang. “I felt amazed and eager to learn more about the technology,” she says. She is now part of Zhang’s research group, studying quantum computing topics. 

Dongchan Kim, a senior majoring in information systems, also joined the lab after taking one of Zhang’s classes in spring 2024.

“I really enjoyed learning about technology that could become the ‘next big thing,’” he says. “Like AI, I think quantum computing has the power to transform industries. I look forward to contributing to its development in the future.”