Charles LaBerge, computer science and electrical engineering, has been selected to be recognized at the Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics (RTCA) 2015 annual Symposium Awards Luncheon in Washington, D.C. on June 3. RTCA is a not-for-profit association that wroks to develop recommendations about air transportation for the Federal government.

LaBerge was chosen to be honored by RTCA for his work on the “Minimum Operational Performance Standards for Avionics Supporting Next Generation Satellite Systems.” His research focuses on aeronautical navigation and communication applications, as well as digital signal processing, coding theory, and radio frequency interference.

CUERE Seminar Series presents Dr. Chris Hennigan with UMBC’s Department of Chemical, Biochemical, and Environmental Engineering Department and his talk on “Sources and Processes Affecting Particulate Matter in Denver, CO during DISCOVER-AQ.” Friday, April 24, 2015 at 2:00 pm in the TRC Building room 206.

Upal Ghosh, chemical, biochemical, and environmental engineering, has been named as an editor for Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry is a journal from the Society for Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, which takes a multidisciplinary approach to analyzing and solving environmental problems.

Ghosh will be one of several editors and will focus on papers relating to environmental remediation and pollutant bioavailability.

On Friday, April 10, the College of Engineering and Information Technology and College of Natural and Mathematical Sciences hosted a “Communicating Science” workshop for STEM faculty, organized through UMBC’s Office of Institutional Advancement. Over 40 faculty registered for the day-long event.

Speaker Linda Hosler from the Center for Public Engagement with Science and Technology at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) presented strategies for communicating scientific research to public audiences and media. Faculty honed concise, accessible messages about their scientific research and practiced presentations on camera and in an interview setting. The workshop also helped researchers identify pathways and opportunities to communicate about scientific research with a range of audiences, from policy makers and funding agencies, to news media, to students and colleagues in other fields.

Curtis Menyuk, computer science and electrical engineering, won the prestigiuos Humboldt Research Award. The award is granted by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation to scholars who have made a significant contributions to their discipline and plan to continue cutting-edge research.

Menyuk’s research concentrates on optical and photonic systems, including optical fiber communications and switching, solid state device simulations, and nonlinear optics. In 2013, he received the IEEE Photonics Society Streifer AWard, another major international award. Menyuk said, “I was delighted and very honored receive this award.  It is really a tribute to UMBC and the members of my research group, past and present, since the award recognizes the 30 years of work that my group has carried out at UMBC.  The link that this award will create between UMBC and the Max-Planck Institute for Light in Erlangen, Germany — one of the world’s leading institutes in optics and photonics — will be of great benefit to UMBC’s students and other researchers.”

CUERE Seminar presents Dr. Stephanie Lansing with the Environmental Science and Technology Department at University of Maryland College Park.

Her talk will be on “Turning our Waste into Energy: Anaerobic Digestion and Microbial Fuel Cells.” Friday, April 17, 2015 at 2:00 pm in TRC Building room 206.

UMBC is among more than 120 U.S. engineering programs leading a transformative movement in engineering education announced at the White House today.

In a letter presented to President Barack Obama, UMBC and peer institutions committed to establish special educational programs designed to prepare undergraduates to solve “Grand Challenges.” These challenges are complex yet achievable goals to improve national and international health, security (including cybersecurity), sustainability, and quality of life in the 21st century.

Together, the schools plan to graduate more than 20,000 formally recognized “Grand Challenge Engineers” over the next decade.

Dean Julia Ross, of UMBC’s College of Engineering and Information Technology (pictured below), will represent UMBC at a special meeting of the White House and National Academy of Engineering to discuss this commitment on March 24, 2015.

For more information, see NAE.edu.

Richard Forno, assistant director for UMBC’s Center for Cybersecurity, addressed the Southwest Baltimore Economic Forum on February 24, 2015.

He considered such questions as: What is cybersecurity? How safe is your network? What threats are there to our government?

Richard Forno was interviewed by the Associated Press about cyber attacks on the rise in Utah.

“Utah state officials have seen what they describe as a sharp uptick in attempts to hack into state computers in the last two years, and they think it related to the NSA data center south of Salt Lake City,”

wrote the Associated Press.

“Maybe these hackers are thinking: ‘If we can attack state systems, we can get info that NSA isn’t releasing,”

said Richard Forno.

Where does this leave Utah? Forno and Tim Junio, a cybersecurity researcher at Stanford University, say that the NSA data center may interest hackers who think they can get to the NSA by targeting state-run facilities that power the center.

Richard Forno, assistant director for UMBC’s Center for Cybersecurity, made an
appearance on All Sides With Ann Fisher, a public radio program broadcast out of
Columbus, Ohio to discuss cybersecurity and corporate accountability. Mandy Trimble was sitting in for Fisher. Guests along with Forno were: Joseph Marks, a cybersecurity reporter for Politico Pro, and Dakota Rudesill, an assistant professor of law at the Moritz College of Law, The Ohio State University.

Trimble posed the question to Forno, should we implement corporate accountability in the event of cybersecurity breaches. Forno said, there is the “practicality of accountability,” because “problems like this [cybersecurity breaches] are quite likely to occur.”

“Would we “hold someone accountable for a traffic jam on the way to work?”

“It happens,” he said.

Listen to the program