The latest special section on education in The Baltimore Sun highlights several UMBC programs that prepare students to succeed in careers in rapidly growing and already high-demand industries. The Sun highlights how the flexibility of these programs makes them particularly accessible and valuable to students, allowing students to tailor their pathway to match specific areas of interest.

Marc Olano, associate professor of computer science and electrical engineering and director of the game development track in computer science, described UMBC’s multiple pathways for learning game development. “We created two programs, the game development track in computer science and the animation and interactive media concentration in visual arts,” he explained. “In both cases, the students get a degree in the primary discipline, a B.S. in computer science or a B.A. or B.F.A. in visual arts,” he noted. The “track” system helps students focus their electives specifically on skills “that are used in the games industry.”

Jacqueline Wojcik ‘17, visual arts, who completed a concentration in animation and interactive media and a minor in computer science, shared her experience as a member of UMBC’s Game Developers Club. Collaborating with other students in the club helped her apply skills she learned in the classroom to other creative opportunities. For the coming year, Wojcik has received a Fulbright research grant to complete an innovative project in Oslo, Norway. “I will create digital models from two Viking Age ship burials and then place in interactive, game-like environments so that people can see how the artifacts would have used in the lives of their owners,” she told the Sun. “The project will explore the intersection of games, learning and archeological visualization.”

The education section also highlighted UMBC programs in health information technology and cybersecurity.  

The health IT program prepares professionals with backgrounds in computer science, information systems, and health care for growing opportunities in work to prevent medical errors, improve care delivery, and address other major health care challenges through technology. “Not only does it provide students with technical information technology skills, but it also provides a pragmatic understanding of the health care system, which has its own terminology,” explains Krystl Haerian ‘99, biological science, an instructor in the program.

Laura Humber ‘16, health administration and policy, a current student in the health IT master’s program, says that she didn’t think she would end up pursuing an advanced degree in such a technical-sounding field, but she came to realize it could help her take the next steps in a research career focused on addressing opioid addiction. “People think when you say, ‘IT’ that you’re dealing with computers, but it’s making computers work for you and get you the information you need,” Humber explained.

Rick Forno, assistant director of UMBC’s Center for Cybersecurity and director of the graduate cybersecurity program, described in the Sun how UMBC’s cybersecurity graduate programs are also designed work across fields and to connect students with skills that will help them advance their careers. He noted that at UMBC, studying cybersecurity can include courses in economics, public policy, and biotechnology. “Pick a field or major, and cybersecurity applies to it,” he said. “It really is interdisciplinary.”

Students are encouraged to tailor the program to their interests, and gain experience through research and internship opportunities, so they can explore the full range of career opportunities available to them.“You can go to grad school and get a degree and get a job,” Forno reflected. “But we want you to be a professional. You can do more than just your degree. There’s depth to what we offer.”

Read the full education section in The Baltimore Sun. 

Banner image: The game developers club display in House of Grit at UMBC’s 50th Anniversary celebration. Photo by Jay Baker.

Every so often, we’ll chat with an alum about what they do and how they got there. We recently caught up with Charles Mason III ’14, graphic design, an interdisciplinary artist and curator working in Baltimore. His latest exhibition, “Two Lane Stories,” features the work of six black male artists working across Maryland. It opened last Friday at Gallery CA in Greenmount West, and runs through August 31. 

Name: Charles Mason III
Grad Year: 2014
Major: Graphic Design
Current Job Title: Visual Artist and Curator of “Two Lane Stories” at Baltimore’s Gallery CA

Tell me about how this project came about: what made you decide to curate the show? I’ve been working on this exhibition, “Two Lane Stories,” for about a year now. It started in the spring and summer of 2016 […] I was working at Morgan State University, and me and Professor E.L. Briscoe would have conversations about day-to-day life, artists, artists of color, black artists…He gave me this book called 30 Americans to read, and it was about a collection of works from…men, women, all types of people of color. And I was really inspired by that. I was like, “I’m gonna do something talking about the obstacles [facing] black male artists.” […] Originally I did want to do 10 artists. It didn’t work out that way, but I was able to work with and interview six black male artists local to the state of Maryland. […] I felt like it was important, and I felt like telling the side of their story, how they navigate through the systems of being a black artist, and being a black person, and being a black man…how they’re able to convey that in their work…and how it influences them and whether it’s an obstacle.

[…]

In choosing these artists, I was able to reach out to mentors, brothers, uncles, these people that have been influential to my work and my process. [At UMBC] I had a lot of mentors, and a lot of friendships there, but for me, being a black man, I didn’t have a lot of black male artist role models. So when I started to really go after this fine art life and really started to explore creating with painting, photography, design…I started to meet these different artists. When I worked at Morgan State University, I started to meet these really important black men artists who are here in this state, who are very influential.

I went to grad school for a little bit, right after I graduated from UMBC. I went to [the Parsons School of Design], and I was only there for three months, but there I was also introduced to a lot of different artists of color. Going to the Brooklyn Museum, going to the Queens Museum, going to all these different places, I was exposed to so much. And for me personally, it was very important that I did that. Even though I didn’t stay, I got to see fine art through a different lens. For so long, I thought fine art was this very linear thing, when it’s not. I knew abstraction [and expressionism] existed, I knew all these different things existed, but for so long I had not…gone after it. I thought a drawing just had to look like a drawing. Like if I drew a chair, it had to look like that chair. It couldn’t look like anything else, it just had to look like that chair. And that kind of followed me, for so long, but when I was able to go to grad school, it was like…wow. This is what I’ve been missing. This felt like home, like I always should have been doing this.

Could you tell me more about your own art? What motivates you to create? My own work, again, is a mix between different mediums. Depending on the message I’m trying to convey, my medium will change. Some people might look at that as a bad thing, or others might look at it as a good thing. I look at it as just me being interdisciplinary. I love fine art, but I know for a fact that depending on what I’m trying to talk about, a painting may do it more justice than a photograph, or a photograph may do it more justice than a painting, and so on. I think that’s so important to the way I create. I am so influenced by society today, and historical context. I’m influenced by what happened in the ’60s, the ’70s, the ’80s, the ’90s, the early 2000s, whether it’s from music or whether it’s what’s happening politically…I have to express myself, to get something out, because this feeling is so overwhelming [that] if I don’t create, if I don’t do something, I kind of feel stuck. I kind of feel backed up. It keeps me sane, almost, to create. I’ve done watercolors, I’ve done paintings, I’ve done photographs. Everything has its own tone, but it all ties in back to being…socially, politically, historically aware. Context…is so important to me, and these artists that I’ve interviewed are so important to me, because my practice is this one way, but my mindset is completely different than it’s ever been right now because of the conversations that I’ve had and how they’ve pushed me to be aware of what I’m doing. Once you’re aware, you can never go back. At least I can’t go back to what I used to do, or what I’m used to thinking or perceiving. [My] practice is constantly being influenced, because the work will come, but it’s all about the mindset that sets you apart from different artists. You can have 10 different painters, but all of them paint differently because of their experiences, because of their knowledge, because of their history, because of their culture. All these things are so important to their practice, and same with me.

You are headed off to Pennsylvania for grad school in the fall. What will you be studying and what draws you to it? I will be getting my M.F.A. in fine art, which is an interdisciplinary program at Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. I applied to several programs throughout this nation and overseas…and was fortunate enough to get into five out of the six programs that I applied to. […] There were a lot of really good programs, and it was just about having the best scenario for myself. I mentioned that I went to grad school before, but I kind of went up there half-cocked, because once I graduated college, I really didn’t know what I wanted to do. [New York] was one of the greatest experiences of my life, but I left, and now I feel like I’m in a better headspace, a better mindset.

Were there any particular professors or courses at UMBC that had an impact on you? Tell us a little more about those. There were quite a few professors who challenged me in ways I hadn’t been challenged, who saw something, who were very approachable. [IRC director] Lee Boot was my mentor, a friend of mine, a really good friend who’s introduced me to these really phenomenal artists. I didn’t meet him until I became a McNair Scholar, and Cynthia Hill [and] Dr. April Householder were very influential to me as well, just pushing me. [Kwame Ansah-Brew taught] an African-American music class, but he was just so fun to listen to and to hear talk. […]

I was at UMBC longer than I should have been, honestly, but I figured, since I was here, I would learn different things that I’d always wanted to learn. I always wanted to learn the piano, and I had to literally, like, ask. Because I’m not a music major! I wasn’t a music major, so I had to ask, I had to talk to somebody and express to them that I really wanted to learn. And I did. I learned it, I had fun. I wish piano classes were a little more affordable, or I’d still be learning now. It was very influential to me. All these different people have been important to my growth overall, from undergrad to now. [A] professor by the name of Vin Grabill in the visual arts department, he was very influential. He was my mentor when I became an Undergraduate Research Award recipient. I had a lot of fun at UMBC, mostly because…I found people, and I found things and subject matter that I could get into. That was really important to me.

What’s your number one piece of advice for an incoming UMBC student? Have fun, and don’t rush the process. We get so caught up in wanting to graduate at a certain time, or just do something at a certain time…[You’re] going to learn so much from the classes that you really care about. You may be a biology major, but learn an important life lesson from an art teacher, you know? [We’re] so worried about graduating and finding that job that we forget to actually enjoy our undergraduate [experience]. I’m not even talking about partying and stuff like that…I’m talking about really having fun in the classes that you take. Even if you’re taking all math classes…you may not want to be an artist, but if you love art, take that class! If you love history, take that class. Because you’ll never get this time again, really, to be an undergraduate, to be that young person, just having that experience and being able to fail. And not everyone is looking at you to succeed all the time, because you’re still figuring it out. Even when you’re 30, you’re still trying to figure things out. […]

Creating a diamond takes a lot of pressure, and that pressure that you get from undergraduate or graduate school…is important to your development and you should have fun doing it. Take that time. Enjoy the process.

At UMBC, we create new pathways and transform lives every day. Learn more here.

UMBC’s Margaret Re will develop the exhibition and catalog for A Designed Life: American Textiles, Wallpapers, Containers and Packaging (1951-52) through support from a new $30,000 Art Works grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Re, an associate professor of visual arts who teaches design, is both the exhibition curator and principal investigator of A Designed Life, which is based on three historically significant traveling exhibitions of contemporary mass-produced, American-designed consumer goods that were commissioned by the U.S. Department of State in the early 1950s. It recreates and interprets those early Cold War exhibitions—including American textiles, wallpapers, containers, and packaging—restating and interpreting part of each display as it might have appeared in the early 1950s.

The three historical exhibitions—Contemporary American Textiles designed by Florence Knoll; Contemporary American Wallpapers designed by Tom Lee, and Containers and Packaging designed by Will Burtin—were each developed as collections of industry-specific consumer goods, designed and manufactured in the spirit of American modernism. The Traveling Exhibition Service (TES), an organization later known as the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service, organized these exhibitions for display in post-WWII Germany and France on behalf of the U.S. Department of State in order to help promote the grown of democratic governments within postwar Europe.

UMBC’s Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture (CADVC) will exhibit A Designed Life September 13 – December 8, 2018. Symmes Gardner, executive director of the CADVC, notes that the exhibition “will be a first for the CADVC investigating decorative arts. The exhibition will foster a unique and timely interdisciplinary dialogue encompassing design, history and political science that is in keeping with the CADVC’s mission to build connections between visual culture and the society at large.”

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This new NEA-supported exhibition project is the result of extensive research by Re, who first came across a drawing of the Knoll-designed textile exhibit at the Archives of American Art in Washington D.C., before rediscovering the other two design exhibits. Over several years she continued her research through the National Archives and Records Administration, Smithsonian Institution Archives, Carey Graphic Arts Collection at the Rochester Institute of Technology, Berlin’s Bauhaus Archives, and the Document Library in Kassel, Germany. Re received support from a $30,000 Coby Foundation grant, UMBC’s START fund for new directions in faculty research, the Dresher Center for the Humanities scholars program, a CIRCA Summer Faculty Research Fellowship, and a grant from the Kunststiftung des Landes Sachsen-Anhalt to complete the work of developing the project.

The project includes several important partners. Morgan State University’s School of Architecture and Urban Planning will build the recreated traveling exhibition components, led by Adam Bridge. A team from The Johns Hopkins Graduate Program in Museum Studies led by Karen Wizevich and Deborah Howes will help develop visitor knowledge of, interest in, and reaction to the topics found within this exhibition, as well as public outreach.

Re is excited for the potential of the exhibit to help audiences explore the U.S. Department of State’s decision in the early 1950s “to connect consumer choice with political choice as well as the reception of European audiences to such cultural diplomacy in the post WWII years.”

Some scholarship exists chronicling the outcome of Department of State-sponsored art exhibits used in a similar capacity as soft power to promote American culture, such as exhibits of Abstract Expressionist painting. However, Re notes, “design exhibitions sent abroad that presented examples of consumer goods billed as readily available to American citizens are largely undocumented, especially those coordinated by the Smithsonian Institution and the Department of State.”

A Designed Life, Re explains, “makes evident the political potential of design to connect people, their activities, experiences, needs and desires, and shape attitudes as it broadens insight into design’s relevance as a tool for diplomacy.”

Public programming, including lectures and the publication of a catalog, will accompany the exhibition at UMBC in the fall of 2018.

Images: Margaret Re; photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC. Concept drawings for the exhibition A Designed Life; courtesy of Margaret Re.

Seven recent UMBC graduates will travel around the globe to teach and conduct research as Fulbright fellows for the 2017 – 18 academic year, setting a new record for the university. The UMBC fellowships range from teaching English in Colombia to using animation to recreate Viking Age artifacts in Norway. All will provide the graduates opportunities for transformative cultural exchanges.

More than 11,000 applicants across the United States apply to the program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, each year. The Fulbright U.S. Student Program recommends recipients based on academic or professional achievement and demonstrated leadership potential.

“A record number of UMBC students have been given a life-changing year of research or teaching as part of the Fulbright U.S. Student Program this year,” says Brian Souders, interim director of International Education Services and UMBC’s Fulbright Program advisor. The students “started their journey to the award a year ago, attending information meetings and Fulbright Boot Camps,” he explains. They also worked closely with Souders and faculty advisors to hone their research proposals and participated in on-campus interviews as part of the application process.

Kirsten Clark ’17, Spanish, is looking forward to teaching English at EAN University in Bogotá, Colombia. “I have been dreaming of Fulbright since before I transferred to UMBC,” Clark says, “so I am beyond excited to finally take this next step in my career.”

Clark’s work with UMBC’s Shriver Center and English Language Institute have prepared her to take this next step. “I have not only vastly increased my Spanish proficiency, but I have been challenged to question my own assumptions about language and culture,” she says, “ultimately broadening my perspective to the diversity and complexity of the Spanish-speaking world.”

After returning from Colombia, Clark plans to pursue a master’s in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages so she can effectively “teach in a bilingual program and advocate for language and education access for immigrant youth in the D.C./Maryland area.”

Michael Wolfe ’17, physics, expects his research experience at RWTH Aachen University in Germany to bring out the best in his work as a scientist. “In my opinion, science thrives when faced with a multitude of interpretations and explanations,” he says. “Effectively exchanging ideas with scientists on an international scale is an essential skill the Fulbright Program will equip me with as a future physicist.”

Wolfe also shares, “The diversity of UMBC’s student body and faculty provided me with a unique perspective on the importance of intercultural exchange in the scientific community.”

William Klotz ’14, MLLI (Spanish/German), M.A.T. ’17, will teach English at the Secretaría de Educación Pública in Mexico during his Fulbright experience. “I plan on working in education as a language teacher,” Klotz says, “and the Fulbright will further prepare me in my own language education and give me valuable classroom experience outside of the U.S.”

Klotz thanks his UMBC mentors for pushing him to pursue this opportunity, saying they “are the ones who helped me get to where I am today.” Klotz is also featured in among UMBC’s exceptional graduates in the Class of 2017.

Jacqueline Wojcik ’17, visual arts, will combine her interests in digital animation and history in a unique research project in Oslo, Norway, creating 3D digital models of Viking Age ship burials. “This project aims to connect people with history through technology, and will explore the intersection of games, learning, and archaeological visualization,” Wojcik shares.

“UMBC fostered an interdisciplinary approach to learning, allowing me to develop the skill set to combine my love of animation, history, and programming,” says Wojcik, who was also highlighted in UMBC’s Class of 2017 feature. She anticipates her Fulbright experience will nurture these passions and support her future goal of developing a game exploring gender roles in Viking society.

Aaron Kennet ’16, political science, returned to the U.S. from a year of teaching in Russia driven to learn more, and through his Fulbright will travel back to Eastern Europe to teach English in Ukraine. He is thankful for the opportunity “to explore the territories of the Former Soviet Union, and enhance mutual understanding between the United States and Ukraine.”

Kennet is also grateful for the encouragement of UMBC mentors. Without these mentors, he explains, “I wouldn’t have had the support or confidence to move forward with my ambition of exploring and understanding the cultural nuances of Eurasia.”

Jacob Hippert ’17, cultural anthropology, will teach English in Malaysia, and Brian Shouse ’17, political science, will teach English in Bulgaria for their Fulbright fellowships. Kritika Chugh ’17, biological sciences, was selected for a fellowship in the Czech Republic, but was unable to accept the invitation. Justine Lottermoser ’17, biochemistry; Laura Riddering, Ph.D. candidate in geography and environmental systems; and Christina Smith ’15, global studies, were selected as alternates for the program.

The Fulbright Program is the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government and is designed to increase mutual understanding among people of different nations. The program operates in more than 160 nations and receives support from governments, host institutions, corporations, and foundations across the globe. Participating in Fulbright fellowships will extend these emerging scholars’ interdisciplinary, culturally diverse experiences and allow them, as Souders says, to “go on to serve as cultural ambassadors of the United States.”

Banner image: Jacqueline Wojcik ’17; photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

Kelley Bell, associate professor and associate chair of visual arts, will display a new work, Babel, from Friday, May 19 through Sunday, May 21 at the David M. Brown Planetarium in Arlington, Virginia. The commission of the work was supported by the Friends of the David M. Brown Planetarium.

Utilizing archival imagery and animation, Babel takes advantage of the planetarium’s concave ceiling to present a projected 5-minute tour of iconic domes from around the world. Visitors find themselves beneath the oculus of Rome’s Pantheon, gaze up at the rotunda of the United States Capitol, scan the gorgeous lattices of Tilla Kari Madrasa in Uzbekistan, and take in other historic locations.

Bell ’06 M.F.A., intermedia and digital arts, stacks the different rings of these domes like children’s toys, aspiring to build a towering edifice, one atop the other. As seen in the video excerpt below, the domes spin in consecutive circles, and each level erodes and supplants the next in a futile architectural battle royale spanning centuries, geography and ideologies.

“As the Tower of Babel presents an allegorical origin of cultural difference,” explains Bell, “Babel suggests that an ideal monument is one that brings together all ideals—faith, pleasure, beauty, industry—that the balance and tension of these paradigmatic forces allows them to coexist while supporting one another naturally, like tiers of stones stacked to form a domed ceiling.”

Admission to Babel is free, but tickets are required and can be obtained through Eventbrite here. Bell will discuss her artwork after the viewings on Friday, May 19 at 6:30 and 7:30 p.m., and on Saturday, May 20, at 7:00 p.m. She will also talk about Babel on WERA radio (96.7, Arlington, Virginia) on Thursday, May 18, at 8 a.m.

After the showing of Babel at the David M. Brown Planetarium, Bell will fly to Zagreb, Croatia, for Animafest Zagreb, which will feature her forthcoming work Carnival Love Wall.

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.

Emily Eaglin
B.F.A., Visual Arts (Cinematic arts)
Summa Cum Laude
Hometown: Silver Spring, Maryland
Plans: Several film, television, and photography projects

UMBC has offered me a supportive, energetic, and diverse environment where I’ve been able to thrive independently on every creative, community, or academic project undertaken… I’ve learned the importance of critical feedback, community, and making my films an “us” effort versus a “me” effort.

Entering UMBC as a Linehan Artist Scholar, Emily Eaglin has combined creative scholarship with passionate engagement on social issues to develop several projects capturing the attention of local and national audiences alike.

Eaglin has worked to hone her approach and techniques in film and video to realize cinema’s powerful potential to communicate about the complex intersections of class, gender, and race with a mass audience. She has created several film projects and a web series, Marylandia (2016), while at UMBC —receiving two competitive student awards to support the research and production of that series.

Eaglin has also been very engaged in campus life as president of the student groups People United, Black Critical Direct Action Student Union (intercollegiate), and the Critical Social Justice Student Alliance. She is a member of the Honors College, Phi Kappa Phi Honors Society, Black Student Union, and UMBC Women of Color Coalition, and taught film through the Shriver Center’s SUCCESS program. She also took the stage to welcome incoming students and their families as a New Student Visit Day featured speaker during her junior and senior years.

Connecting with a range of departments across UMBC, Eaglin assisted Bill Shewbridge, media and communication studies professor of the practice, on a film collaboration with the U.S. Forest Service, served as Kate Drabinski’s teaching assistant for the “Studies in Feminist Activism” course in gender and women’s studies, and worked as a social media intern for the Imaging Research Center, UMBC Visual Arts Production Center, and UMBC Student Life.

Off campus, Eaglin worked as a production assistant and director’s assistant on Shots Fired, a FOX TV show that deals with police brutality and misconduct. This past March, she began work on an independent documentary film project in collaboration with the newly opened Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington D.C. The project will include Emily’s documentation of five workshop sessions she is leading at an Anacostia high school, focused on examining systemic violence. It will continue through October 2017, when Eaglin will film a major student march in Washington D.C.

Eaglin is also pursuing several other creative projects through the summer and fall. She’ll create a television series on local artists of color for NBC4 in Washington D.C., help to develop a film program at the Baltimore School for the Arts and teach a master class at the acclaimed school, and raise funds for Sankofa, an art museum in Baltimore that showcases art of the African diaspora.

Portrait by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

Jacqueline Wojcik
B.F.A., Visual Arts (animation/interactive media)
Summa Cum Laude, Certificate: Honors College
Hometown: Hollywood, Maryland
Plans: Fulbright researcher, Viking Ship Museum, Norway

UMBC fostered an interdisciplinary environment that let me pursue my interest in animation, computer science, and history, ultimately combining the three into my Fulbright project.

Jacqueline Wojcik has applied an inquisitive mind to understanding animation in all its diverse aspects, including expertise in three-dimensional and two-dimensional techniques, game design, computer science (her minor), and the social context that informs animated work.

With her imagination sparked by a study abroad experience in Scotland, she applied to the U.S. Fulbright Student Program, winning a research award for 2017-18. Wojcik will spend the next academic year as a Fulbright researcher at the Viking Ship Museum in Oslo, Norway. Her project, “The Gokstad and Oseberg Burials in Digital Space,” will recreate artifacts from two Viking Age ship burials as they would have been used in the lives of their owners. The three-dimensional digital artifacts she creates will exist in a virtual reality game-like environment for visitors to explore.

During her time at UMBC, Wojcik was very active in the award-winning UMBC Game Developers Club, presenting for the club at UMBC’s Undergraduate Research and Creative Achievement Day for two consecutive years. She also presented at Gamescape 2016 and MAGFEST 2017, and participated in the 2016 Baltimore Student Film Showcase with “Beware Bad Footing.” Her entry into UMBC’s 2015 Art Week Motion Challenge Competition won first place, and, on a regular basis, her animations reached wide audiences through work with CommonVision’s iNet display screens found across campus.

Wojcik has also excelled academically, as a member of the Honors College who has been recognized on the President’s List for every semester of her time at UMBC.

Portrait by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

Ghazaleh Keshavarz
M.F.A., Intermedia and Digital Arts
Magna Cum Laude
Hometown: Isfahan, Iran
Plans: Continuing to work as an artist in the U.S. for an additional year

As a student coming from abroad to study at UMBC, I have had a great time in the multidisciplinary environment. The knowledgeable and experienced faculty in the visual arts department have helped me adjust to life and study in America. Great facilities of the department and the wonderful archives and media sources in the library, particularly the Special Collections, gave me the chance to broaden my artistic knowledge and view.

Ghazaleh Keshavarz was invited to the United States from Iran in 2014 for UMBC’s Intermedia and Digital Arts (IMDA) master of fine arts program after receiving a B.A. in photography from Tehran University of Art in Iran. Keshavarz receives her degree as the 2016-17 recipient of the Intermedia and Digital Arts RTKL award. She received this competitive award through a unanimous nomination by visual arts faculty for the tremendous potential of her long-term career success as an artist.

Keshavarz’s research and artistic work during the three years in the IMDA program has centered on the conception and expression of her own identity as an immigrant and her experience in unknown surroundings. In relation to her RTKL Award project Dispersed Moments, she explains that “reproducing the vulnerability and fragility of body and mind, as well as the lasting effects of moving from one place to another, I am exploring physical displacement and its psychological consequences in conjunction with the role and perception of others.”

She exhibited her thesis project Naftoon—an installation related to the profound impact of oil on culture and history in Iran in the last century—at UMBC’s Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture in April. As the RTKL Award Recipient, she also had the opportunity to present a public lecture on that work.

Portrait by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

Amy Berbert
B.F.A., Visual Arts (graphic design); B.A., Visual Arts (photography)
Summa Cum Laude
Hometown: Gaithersburg, Maryland
Plans: Media coordinator, Zinnia Films

UMBC has encouraged me to meet professionals who are already working in my fields of interest, to build relationships and gain insight and experience early in my career.

A freshman year spring break service trip through the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship planted a seed in Amy Berbert’s mind. She volunteered with non-profit organizations working in the Baltimore’s Mt. Clare neighborhood, and, though limited in time and scope, the experience gave her a clearer sense of how poverty and racism can impact communities. She reflects, “That trip is what inspired me to create the social justice work I am doing now, three years later.”

Berbert is referring to Remembering the Stains on the Sidewalk, an evocative photography project that  memorializes each of the 318 victims of homicide in Baltimore in 2016. The project’s Instagram feed @stainsonthesidewalk describes it as, “An Exploration of Homicide in Baltimore City. Same Day. Same Time. Same Place. One Year Later.” Each victim is remembered through a picture taken precisely one year later at the location of the homicide, with the goal of bringing visibility to the value of lives cut short by violence and structural inequalities.

The project immediately captured the media’s attention for its powerful impact on audiences and has been featured by SPIN, The Baltimore Sun, and ABC2 News. As Berbert’s undergraduate thesis project, Remembering the Stains on the Sidewalk will also be displayed in the 2017 Visual Arts Senior Exhibition at the Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture from May 23 through June 9. Berbert is dedicated to continuing the rigorous project after graduation, through the end of the year, planning her life in 2017 around the lives that were lost in Baltimore in 2016.

In addition to this major project, Berber has worked as student design manager at CommonVision. She has exhibited her work at VisArts Gallery in Rockville and Single Carrot Theater in Baltimore, and was the winner of the University System of Maryland 2013 Foundation Art Contest. Following graduation, she will work full time at the local media company Zinnia Films.

Portrait by Malayan Demond ’11 for UMBC.