When LeBron James comes calling, you answer the phone. Philip Knowlton ’03, visual arts, knows this better than most.

The NBA legend doesn’t have the UMBC alum in his contacts because Knowlton is great at one-on-one (probably). Instead, Knowlton has collaborated with James’ media company Uninterrupted on several documentaries as a director, editor, producer, and director of photography. Uninterrupted was founded to empower athletes to tell their stories in their own words. This time, Knowlton was called upon to direct and co-executive produce Redefined: J.R. Smith, a four-part Prime Video documentary series released in April 2023 that follows J.R. Smith, a retired two-time NBA champion, as he navigates a new challenge—college.

“This is the story of him post-NBA as he decides to go to college at North Carolina A&T [State University] to pursue a degree but also to try out for the Aggies golf team,” explains Knowlton.

Student-athlete turned filmmaker

“It was just a really inspiring project to be a part of,” says Knowlton, who made his first sports documentary about UMBC track and field when he was a student-athlete on the team. Having played (and won championships) with James on both the Cleveland Cavaliers and Los Angeles Lakers, Smith became good friends with James. So, when Smith made the decision to pack his book bag, head to college, and try out for the golf team, his team connected with Uninterrupted to see about interest in a possible film project.

“Of course they were on board,” says Knowlton, who received the call from Uninterrupted soon after. “They asked me if I’d be interested in flying to Greensboro to film a sizzle.” In the film world, a sizzle is like a demo—a short trailer used to pitch the story to networks.

Knowlton jumped at the opportunity to once again work with Uninterrupted.

“I think what they really like about me is that I’m able to direct and shoot,” says Knowlton. “It keeps the team smaller and more intimate. So, you’re able to be in places that a big crew may not be able to get into. Or athletes may not want a whole big team following them around.” 

Knowlton worked with the team at Uninterrupted to put together a treatment and map out the story they wanted to tell. Then, he hopped on a plane to Greensboro and filmed the sizzle.

“Next, we took meetings with everyone like HBO Max, ESPN+, Amazon—all of them,” explains Knowlton. “There was interest from quite a few networks, but it ultimately landed on Prime Video.” 

By this point, Smith was just about two or three weeks out from starting school. So, Knowlton had to move quickly. “This production, specifically, was really dictated by Smith’s golf season and his school year,” says Knowlton. The team made it in time to film the first couple days of school and practice. Then, they returned every month or two for different milestones throughout Smith’s first year, like his first tournament and A&T’s homecoming celebration. 

“It was amazing to see J.R., who could have retired and moved to Miami to hang out by the pool, want to go to college for the first time and push himself,” says Knowlton.

Find a place that let’s you do both

Of course, this story starts way before Smith decided to trade basketballs for golf balls. This story starts at a still-burgeoning university in Baltimore County, Maryland.

“I was looking for a school where I could run cross country that also had a good video or digital art program,” explains Knowlton, who now owns and operates Opposit, a creative studio he founded in 2018 specializing in original documentary film content. “A lot of schools have one or the other but not both.” UMBC gave Knowlton the opportunity to explore both.

“It was kind of a no-brainer,” admits Knowlton, who received an athletic scholarship to run on the cross country and track and field teams while pursuing his B.A. in imaging and digital arts. “That program was perfect in that it let me experiment in a lot of different art forms.”

Throughout college, Knowlton was still trying to find his passion. He knew he loved visual arts but was unsure where to focus his energy. He enjoyed photography, graphic design, and film. It wasn’t until Vin Grabill’s video art class that it all started to click.

“I taught students that video could be seen as a kind of ‘painting in time.’ Utilizing video edits as brushstrokes, students created short rhythmic works that brought impact to their source material,” explains Grabill, associate professor emeritus in UMBC’s Department of Visual Arts. “Phil’s exercises exemplified these goals, eventually leading to final projects where narrative content was successfully built around a solid rhythmic structure. I’m very happy to see Phil pushing his work forward 20 years later!”

“Today, when I do Q&As about my films, I like to quote [basketball coach] Jim Valvano, who said, ‘Every single day, in every walk of life, ordinary people do extraordinary things,’” says Knowlton. “When I work on documentaries, a lot of the time I am filming everyday people doing amazing things. But J.R.’s story almost feels like the reverse. He’s this extraordinary person doing something more ordinary—going to college. To have been a part of J.R.’s journey and help share with the world has been a great experience.”

UMBC is continuing its commitment to diversifying Maryland’s biomedical and life sciences ecosystem through its latest collaborative effort with the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) to develop a new life sciences accelerator program focused on faculty development and research commercialization efforts. 

UMBC and UMB were jointly awarded a four-year, $4 million Research Evaluation and Commercialization Hubs (REACH) grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to advance the biomedical entrepreneurship and innovation economy in the Baltimore region. This grant will be used to build on the work that began when UMBC and the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) received a $13 million NIH Common Fund Faculty Institutional Recruitment for Sustainable Transformation (FIRST) grant in 2022 to enhance recruitment and training of junior faculty from groups underrepresented in biomedical science.

“We have a long-term commitment to enhance the diversity of the faculty on our two campuses in the biomedical and life sciences,” says Karl V. Steiner, UMBC’s vice president of research and creative achievement and co-principal investigator of the new REACH grant. “We are pleased to further strengthen the close partnership with our colleagues at UMB and beyond with this next initiative.”

Building a life sciences accelerator program

The REACH grant will fund up to 44 early-career faculty and students from UMBC and UMB (11 each year) with up to $100,000 each to develop and test commercially-promising biomedical and life science technologies. Additionally, UMB will use a portion of the grant funding to create the University of Maryland, Baltimore Life Science Discovery (UM-BILD) Accelerator Program’s “proof-of-concept” hub that will be housed at the University of Maryland BioPark and at the bwtech@UMBC Research and Technology Park. The UM-BILD hub, set to launch next year, is one of only five REACH hubs awarded funding across the nation. 

Aaron Miscenich, executive director of bwtech@UMBC, explains that bwtech@UMBC has done extensive work in developing a strong community centered around entrepreneurship and technology commercialization. 

“UMBC’s partnership with UMB to create this technology commercialization hub will [further] enhance our work and bring additional support to UMBC’s research community,” Miscenich says. “It’s a great opportunity to bring together UMBC faculty and students with resources that can help further develop promising technologies and help them to grow into thriving businesses.”

UMSOM’s Jason Rose, principal investigator of the REACH grant, shared how both institutions plan to support the biotech entrepreneurs who take part in the accelerator program. 

“We recognize that to create our own unique cohort of newly trained biotech entrepreneurs here in Baltimore, our accelerator will need to provide them with both research support and funding, as well as guidance through the process of commercialization and technology development,” Rose said in a UMSOM press release. “We will be providing mentoring and educational programs from a diverse set of successful life science innovators and leaders to help distill their broad experiences—from navigating FDA regulatory pathways to financing new companies—to all of those who interact with the hub.” 

This initiative, Steiner adds, aims to increase the number of Black and Latinx entrepreneurs in the biomedical and life sciences.

“As we look at the makeup of entrepreneurs across our communities, it’s obvious that we are under-serving those underserved communities. This will be yet another building block in our joint commitment to ensure that we focus on and benefit from the breadth of entrepreneurial talent in Maryland,” says Steiner. “We’re looking to bring in more individuals from underrepresented communities into the faculty ranks and actively help them develop a strong network of peers and mentors to allow them to successfully build their careers and their businesses in Maryland, with support from UMBC with bwtech and support from UMB.”

UMBC President Valerie Sheares Ashby shares that “we are excited to work together to create opportunities for everyone to benefit from and contribute to this innovation ecosystem, staying true to our long-held commitment to inclusive excellence.” 

Commercialization efforts at UMBC

Wendy Martin, director of UMBC’s Office of Technology Development, will assist in selecting and managing the projects that will be funded through the REACH grant. Martin has worked closely with faculty in all aspects of intellectual property protection and commercialization, including helping faculty to receive internal and external funding to develop new products. Those funding opportunities have included UMBC’s long-standing partnership with TEDCO’s Maryland Innovation Initiative (MII), which will also be a collaborator of the UM-BILD accelerator along with the University of Maryland, College Park, Morgan State University, and Blackbird Laboratories.

Since launching in 2012, MII has supported 39 UMBC faculty in their commercialization pursuits, including the development of bendable zinc-based batteries and vibration-powered sensor technology for wind turbines. 

“I’m excited that we can bring everyone to the table. UMBC provides a continuum of support for these commercialization projects,” says Martin. “We’re building on enhancing things that we’re already doing. It’s great that we will have these additional resources to keep it going and to do it better.”

They may say the best things come in threes, but that’s not good enough for UMBC volleyball. Over the weekend, the number one-seeded Retrievers captured their fourth-straight America East championship. After outright winning the season title, they went on to topple Bryant University in the America East semifinals, and they sealed their victory with a sweep of third-seeded Binghamton University on Saturday. 

“Winning four straight championships in college sports is really tough, regardless of sport or league,” said head coach Kasey Crider. “More than anything, this past weekend was the standard for what America East volleyball can and should be, in performance and environment.”

More than 110 academic researchers, industry pros, government officials and educators met at the Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology (IMET) for the second annual Sustainable Aquaculture Systems Supporting Atlantic Salmon (SAS²) conference in October. The conference’s nine panel discussions (with more than 50 panelists), local field trips and tours, and social events gave stakeholders the opportunity to share progress and address remaining challenges to move the aquaculture industry forward.

Yonathan Zohar, professor of marine biotechnology at UMBC and IMET, leads the SAS² consortium, which includes 32 co-investigators, 12 research institutions, and 11 industry partners, from around the U.S. and internationally. 

Salmon is consumed more than any other fish in the U.S., but over 90 percent of it is imported at a value of $3.8 billion annually, Zohar shared in introductory remarks. People across sectors are interested in reducing this trade deficit and improving environmental sustainability of salmon aquaculture by eliminating the carbon footprint associated with transporting salmon from overseas. As a result, domestic salmon aquaculture is experiencing an investment boom, Zohar says. The investment is particularly strong for land-based aquaculture, which Zohar and colleagues are advancing at IMET’s Aquaculture Research Center (ARC). 

“This is a stakeholder-driven program,” Zohar says. “Industry and academia are engaged in genuine brainstorming towards enabling salmon aquaculture in the U.S. to be a success story.”  

University System of Maryland Chancellor Jay Perman shared that the SAS² team’s efforts, from biotechnology to market strategies to workforce development and education, “are poised to change the face of food scarcity and food production the world over.”

Research for the public good

The work at IMET has been critical to move the industry forward worldwide. The SAS² initiative, awarded $10 million by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 2021, builds on the Recirculating Aquaculture Salmon Network, also led by Zohar and funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Sea Grant Office.

IMET, and the ARC in particular, are “a showcase of our best ideas, ideas that promise solutions to so many essential challenges—food security, environmental sustainability, economic resilience,” Perman shared. The SAS² consortium is “research for the public good,” Perman added. “That’s our mission and this project is emblematic of that.”

Session topics at the conference included scientific and engineering challenges like waste remediation, water reuse, and managing the salmon life cycle in captivity. Other sessions discussed market research for salmon produced on land and examples of education programs that increase awareness of aquaculture careers. 

Attendees also traveled to The Conservation Fund Freshwater Institute in West Virginia to see collaborative SAS² research, visited Baltimore City Schools that incorporate aquaculture into the curriculum, toured the ARC, and heard from graduate students contributing to the research arm of SAS².

“SAS² is an amazing accomplishment—the best example of public-private partnership to solve problems for industry,” shares Steve Summerfelt, a conference panelist and the chief science officer at Superior Fresh, which raises land-based salmon and recycles the nutrient-rich wastewater to grow greens. “SAS² is providing relevant and groundbreaking research with strong tech transfer to help land-based salmon farmers.”

Enabling aquaculture innovation

Overall, the conference emphasized aquaculture’s important and growing role in worldwide food production.

“Land-based, sustainable production of seafood is critically important technology to meet the rapidly growing need for healthy seafood as a source of protein in diets worldwide,” Russell Hill, director of IMET, said. “A land-based approach has huge advantages for minimizing pollution in the coastal environment and taking pressure off wild fish populations—and all of this can be done through this resilient technology that’s also adaptable in the face of a changing planet.”

By bringing together people from across industries, the event created opportunities that will enable more breakthroughs.

“The lively engagement and productive brainstorming of all relevant sectors led to several innovative ideas and collaborations which will contribute in the short term to making Atlantic salmon farming in the U.S. and globally more environmentally responsible and economically feasible” concluded Zohar. “Everyone left inspired and excited about the opportunities being created by the SAS2 program for innovative and sustainable aquaculture.”  

Joining a new community can be tough sometimes, especially post-pandemic. And with new Retrievers coming from every background imaginable, it’s important to make sure everyone feels welcome when they get here. 

That’s where “Your Story Belongs Here” comes in. Now in its second year, this video storytelling collaboration between Initiatives for Identity, Inclusion, and Belonging (i3b) and the Department of Theatre brings students together to learn how to share—and celebrate—their own stories of belonging. 

“I think it’s pretty common to enter college and be worried that you’re not going to find your people. It’s very different from high school,” said Adam Bayoumi, a public health major, who spoke about the worries he faced about keeping up with school after his father passed away. “I personally thought the transition would kind of knock me out…and it wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t quick, but I did find my people eventually.” 

Guiding students’ steps

The resulting film, which was shown at Welcome Week to incoming students, showcases the experiences of 10 students from a variety of backgrounds. Some explore identity or overcoming imposter syndrome. Others speak from the perspectives of adult learners reentering college or international students settling into a new culture. Some felt comfortable in front of a camera while others had to overcome that fear over time. Thankfully, in this second iteration of the project, students took advantage of a four-week workshop-style internship to perfect their performances with help from their cohort and guidance from faculty and staff co-creators.

“We got to have much, much more time with students this year to develop their storylines and infuse some social justice education around identity…storytelling and monologuing, all that good stuff,” said Ciara Christian, acting director of i3b, and a co-founder of the project. “We also had a really cool opportunity to take students to see some live theatre performances…there was a storytelling event in Washington, D.C., that we took the students to, to help inspire them, and it was a beautiful process.”

Project co-founder Eve Muson, associate professor of theatre, called the workshop experiences “magical.” She also brought in alumna Kiirstn Pagan ’11 to film and edit the work. “Because we had more time, the stories were more complex and students were really talking honestly about the identity that they bring with them when they come to UMBC—their doubts, their fears, their trepidations, all of that,” said Muson. “And then there’s the moment when they discover themselves at UMBC. So, that’s the shape of every story.” 

Finding your “second family”

When Jaya Marshall, a transfer student focusing on cinematic arts, first arrived at UMBC, she, too, worried she wouldn’t fit in, that she might be the lone theatre person in a sea of STEM students—something she realizes now was a misperception. But seeing the inaugural “Your Story Belongs Here” video at her own Welcome Week in 2022 helped change her mind—and also inspired her to take part in the project the following summer.

“When I saw that video I was like, oh, thank you,” said Marshall, who quickly found several clubs to join after arriving at UMBC. “Thank God, I am not the only one. I hope people who are arts and humanities will see that and be like, okay, I’m not alone.” 

Public health major Mashaal Awan chose to share her story of going to UMBC’s STRiVE leadership retreat, which she says had “a huge impact on me in terms of realizing my values” and also helped her make friends she now considers her “second family.” In her video, Awan recalled the first evening of STRiVE, walking outside with friends beneath a beautiful night sky.

“I remember feeling a sense of freedom I had been craving my whole life with these people I instantly felt such a strong connection with,” she recalled in the video.

Bayoumi hopes that the vulnerability students show through their storytelling helps incoming students feel more comfortable and welcome at UMBC.

“Fast forward to the end of the school year, and I had done stuff that I never thought I would have achieved in college,” he said. “So to me at 17 years old, I would just like to say, ‘Hang in there. Life dealt you some hard cards, and it’s going to be okay.’”

Each week during her student-facing office hours, UMBC President Valerie Sheares Ashby meets with students to chat about their lives and experiences at UMBC. Today, she’s speaking with Okechukwu Tabugbo ’25, computer engineering, president of UMBC’s Black Men’s Society, a group that provides mentorship, skills training, and community to students while trying to eliminate negative narratives and stigma around what it means to be a Black man in America.

Okechukwu Tabugbo: I found out about UMBC’s Black Men’s Society when I was in my first year. I knew Marvin Onwukwe, the club secretary at the time. He was always walking around campus smiling, and I would ask him, “Why are you smiling so much, Marvin?” He would say, “It’s because I have my life together. I have everything going for me. So what reason do I have to frown?” I would say, “Why do you have everything going for you?” He said, “Because I’m on top of my work. I can help you out, too. You should come to Black Men’s Society so that we can all be on top of our work.”

President Sheares Ashby: Oh, that is so good.

Tabugbo: But, in all honesty, I did not go to the first one. Then Amery Thompson…the current advisor, told me that I should come out, and I have to be honest, I did not go at that time either. [Laughs.] Then, finally, our current vice president, Israel Funmilayo…invited me, and he said, “It’s about financial literacy…I just need you to come out.” I looked at my bank account, and I said, “Okay.” 

After getting there, I sat down. Amery was giving the introduction on financial literacy and telling us everything that we need to know. It honestly just made me feel at home and appreciated, the fact that someone took the time out of their day to teach me something that I constantly left on the back burner. I took that for what the club is.

I take it especially as a safe space for Black men on campus—to make them feel appreciated, to give them the time they need to grow in a world that rushes them so often. I appreciate the overall aspect of giving Black people on campus a space for professional development that they may not have had before and giving us a space to talk about issues surrounding the community. The Society allows everyone, despite their views, to be understood and to have time to understand others.

Sheares Ashby: That is amazing. And what is so interesting to me is the mentorship of the more senior students to the younger students because I see it all the time. I see the senior students saying, “Hey, come on over here. This is where we are. This is what we’re doing. This is how we can support you.” They’re really living out the mentorship in ways that are so important. And it is so wonderful to see the younger students come in and then become those mentors to other people. I can see that growth even in a year.

Tabugbo: Exactly. And on that note of mentorship, that’s why we wanted to start moving toward outreach programs, especially to local high schools and middle schools. This effort is spearheaded by our secretary, Daniel Bajulaiye. If we can get to these students early and make them know that they’re appreciated, make them know that they can be heard, that will be important in fostering a good relationship, especially as they come into UMBC. Just letting people know that you’re there for them is so important because a lot of people, especially on this campus, don’t know their potential.

Sheares Ashby: I one hundred percent agree. One of the things I’m really excited about for UMBC is the work that we continue to do in Baltimore. We’re right here, and we know that there are a lot of Black men, young men, in Baltimore who would benefit. I don’t think too many Black men in Baltimore walk around feeling appreciated.

Tabugbo: Even when I did get the role [as president of Black Men’s Society], I still had imposter syndrome. I didn’t truly feel I belonged until actually stepping into the shoes and having to take over. Talking to my brother all summer, the amount of encouragement he had to give me to say just, “You can do this. You are here for a reason.” Hearing it from Amery, hearing it from Israel, it took a lot to be able to have the confidence to come and do this again and again every day.

Sheares Ashby: Mentorship has always been important. Sometimes it just takes somebody to look at you and tell you, “I see you, and I think you’re pretty special,” or, “I see this gift or talent that you have,” and it can change somebody’s life just like that. I don’t know anybody who doesn’t need encouragement.

Social, cultural, and scientific advancements have helped people live longer. Not only are people living longer, but they also have fewer children than at any previous time in human history. This shift will present a unique situation where there will be more older adults outnumbering infants and teenagers in about four decades. How will the world take care of this burgeoning population?

Christine A. Mair, associate professor of sociology and gerontology and director of UMBC’s Center for Health, Equity, and Agingin the department of sociology, anthropology, and public health, examines the presence or absence of family and non-family ties. Mair seeks to document how social integration and support (or lack thereof; e.g., “kinlessness”) shape mental health, physical health, end-of-life experiences, and other aspects of well-being especially cross-nationally.

“Many of these older adults will also be unpartnered due to never marrying, divorce, or their eventual widowhood. These three intersecting trends of high longevity, low fertility, and low partnership will culminate to produce a growing population of people who are both unpartnered and childless. This group is sometimes referred to as ‘kinless,’” Mair explains to Lynn Pasquerella, president of the American Association of Colleges and Universities and host of The Academic Minute, a daily show featuring faculty from colleges and universities worldwide speaking about their cutting-edge research.

UMBC’s Academic Minute series

Mair joined six other UMBC scholars this fall in UMBC’s first Academic Minute series, featuring the latest research in media and communication studies; modern languages, linguistics, and intercultural communication; language, literacy, and culture; philosophy; gender, women’s, and sexuality studies; and history. This series is republished on NPR podcasts and Inside Higher Ed.

Learn more about Christine Mair’s research:

• “Less is (Often) More: Number of Children and Health Among Older Adults in 24 Countries.” Journals of Gerontology: Social Sciences
• “End-of-Life Experiences among ‘Kinless’ Older Adults: A Nationwide Register-Based Study.” Journal of Palliative Medicine
• “Widowhood, Social Networks, and Mental Health among Chinese Older Adults: The Moderating Effects of Gender.” Frontiers in Psychology – Psychology of Aging

Learn more about UMBC’s program in sociology, anthropology, and public health.

An “all-in” personality

Feller has always recognized her artistic side, but she wasn’t always encouraged to integrate it into her career plans. She was a good student, and her kindergarten teacher told her parents she would probably become a doctor. “I got that message my whole life,” Feller says.

It sunk in, and she started at HWS on the pre-med track. As an undergrad, she took an internship as a surgical assistant in a hospital. “There was a major clash with who I was as a person,” Feller says. “Literally, you are in a sterile environment. So while I was good at that job, it crushed me.” 

But expectations die hard, and in her junior year, she was still looking at medical school. She decided she should do research to boost her chances. “Literally, it was just for my CV,” she says. Little did she know the experience would permanently shift her trajectory.

For this design, Feller incorporated the organisms studied in the UMBC biological sciences department for its annual, informal graduate student t-shirt.

Today, Feller is focused on furthering her research, engaging her students, and raising her family—her second child arrived this October. As a faculty member, Feller is maintaining old connections and forging new ones.

“Kate is really doing a fantastic job of creating and maintaining a network across different areas of science and education, in the research that she does but also in the way that she teaches and the way she facilitates those connections across institutions,” Kenyon, her mentor from HWS, says. For example, Kenyon is now collaborating with a colleague at Union because Feller connected them. And Kenyon is using a book in her courses that features the Cronin lab’s research— including some carried out by Feller.

“What I have thoroughly enjoyed is watching Kate progress at each step along the way, and find her passion, and be able to pursue something with such rigor, and excitement and resilience,” says Kenyon.

Whether creating art, performing on stage or in the classroom, working hard in the lab, or collecting specimens underwater, Feller is embracing each stage of her life and career with a zest that is uniquely hers. As Cronin puts it, “She was always Kate. She never started or stopped being Kate.”

“The thing that I love most is just trying to figure out how the world works,” Feller says. “I like to describe myself as an explorer. I am not a Magellan or a person on a ship looking to explore new places—I’m pushing the boundaries of knowledge. Where is the edge, and how can I shed light on the unknown?”

Feller is on the exploration of a lifetime, discovering new things about how brains work, transforming the lives of students, and doing it all in full color. As her research program takes off, her family grows, and her network broadens, her greatest adventures may be ahead of her.