Brian Frey, UMBC Ph.D. student in information systems, has been collaborating for the past several years with colleagues at Georgia Tech University on a very simple concept: How can one infuse braille communication with the iPhone? Over these past few years the team has been refining their Braille Touch App in support of that concept. Their efforts were validated with the recent release of the Apple’s new mobile operating system, iOS8. Of the millions of apps that Apple has approved for release in the App Store since the release of the first generation iPhone, only a select few have been tapped for inclusion as a “native” app, included in the iOS software package itself. Braille Touch provides a familiar braille layout for the vision impaired user as well as audio feedback to give the user instant feedback that they are typing the message as they intended.

For three days beginning September 6 the White House Educational Game Jam invited a select set of professional game developers and academics to create innovative educational game prototypes over single weekend, with the resulting games presented at the White House Executive Office Building.

There were 23 teams and about 100 participants. The team sizes ranged from 1 to 9, with most around 4-5. It was a mix of major companies and schools. Examples of large companies were: Ubisoft, Sony and Rovio. Small companies were: BrainPop, GlassLab and RocketMind. Academic teams included the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Carnegie Melon University, American University, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, the Smithsonian and UMBC.

“Our game came out quite well, and we got a bunch of great comments,” says Marc Olano, faculty advisor and associate professor of computer science and engineering.

• Eliot Carney-Seim, BS, Computer Science, Junior
• Paul Tschirgi, BA, Visual Arts, Senior
• Calvin Kumagai, BA, Visual Arts, Senior
• Alex Grube, BS, Computer Science, 2012

As guest editor of the spring 2014 issue of Peer Review, Patrice McDermott, vice provost for faculty affairs, coauthored an introductory essay that calls for greater inclusivity in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

While the United States seeks to increase the number of STEM workers, the number of women STEM graduates decreased by 39% from 2001 to 2010. In order to reverse this trend, McDermott and co-author Kelly Mack advocate for growing the number of female faculty members, which has been shown to have positive effects on retaining female students. The article states, “We need a fundamental reconsideration of women faculty as a powerful and untapped resource for meeting our goal of achieving a well-prepared and highly diversified STEM workforce, now and in the future.”

Click here to read “The Twenty-First-Century Case for Inclusive Excellence in STEM.” Renetta Tull, associate vice provost for graduate student development and postdoctoral affairs, also contributed to this issue of Peer Review. Click here to learn more.

Julia Ross, Dean of the College of Engineering and Information and Technology along with her colleagues: Jon Singer and Chris Rakes from the Department of Education at UMBC and Richard Weisenhoff from Baltimore County Public Schools, received an NSF $3 million grant for engineering education.

In this study UMBC will partner with the Baltimore County Public School System to implement a professional development model that incorporates engineering curriculum in high school biology and technology classrooms.

Anne Spence, mechanical engineering, will participate in a roundtable discussion hosted by Congressman Elijah Cummings.

The panel is part of a Congressional initiative to learn about issues women educators encounter in building and sustaining economic security. The discussion will also focus on strategies to increase the number of women pursuing STEM fields. Spence has conducted extensive research on engineering education and seeks to identify best practices for educating teachers and engaging students.

The discussion will take place on August 13 from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the University of Maryland Biotech Park Conference Center. Click here to learn more about Spence’s research.

Delece Smith-Barrow of U.S. News & World Report, recently wrote about the importance of engaging women and minorities in STEM fields. Smith-Barrow interviewed UMBC’s Penny Rheingans, director for the Center of Women in Technology (CWIT).

Smith Barrow wrote: “If students struggle in class and have few peers and faculty that look like them, it’s easy for them to think, “maybe I’m not supposed to be here, either,” says Penny Rheingans, director for the Center for Women in Technology at the University of Maryland—Baltimore County.

Prospective college students who are women or underrepresented minorities can determine if a school can help them in their STEM endeavors by finding out what resources colleges offer these kinds of students.

The Center for Women in Technology at UMBC​ provides mentoring services, ​seminars that discuss topics such as networking and time management and a number of other resources, Rheingans says. A living and learning residence community provided through the program caters to women and men in STEM, but the former group dominates.

“Eighty-five percent of students who live on our floor are women,” she says.

Rheingan encourages prospective students to keep an eye out for school environments that have structures in place that support women. “You’re looking for a community,” she says. Visiting the college and talking to current students is one way to find out about the community, she says.”

Dean Warren DeVries of the College of Engineering and Information Technology (COEIT) has been elected an Honorary Member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).

DeVries will be recognized in November for his “distinctive contributions to engineering education and research as a professor, for dedication to advancing the frontiers of discovery and innovation through public service, and for striving to advance the recognition of engineering’s contributions to humankind through leadership in professional societies.” Honorary membership is ASME’s oldest award and just five members are selected annually to receive this special recognition.

DeVries will step down as dean of COEIT on August 1, 2014, after eight years of outstanding service to the UMBC community.

Upal Ghosh, professor in chemical and biochemical engineering, has partnered with Newcastle University in the project:

Development of Sustainable Technologies to Investigate, Restore and Protect the Urban Water Environment. Newcastle University, University of Maryland Baltimore County (US), Federal University of Minas Gerais (Brazil), Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (India) and CSIR-National Environmental Engineering Research Institute Nagpur (India)

The grant instituted through Newcastle University will support student and faculty research exchanges among the partnering institutions.

The project will examine urban water quality and was summarized by the researchers:

Urban water quality is under enormous pressure around the world because of increasing population density and economic activity in cities. Pollution disturbs the ecosystem functioning of urban streams, rivers, ponds and lakes; poses a risk to public health; decreases the value of surface waters for public recreation; and makes water more costly to treat for use. While faecal and industrial chemical pollution remain substantial challenges, new threats to urban water quality are emerging in highly populated areas from chemicals in widely used consumer and household products such as pharmaceuticals, personal care products, and biocides. At the same time, existing water pollution control infrastructure is costly and very energy-intensive (i.e. consumes 1.4% of national electricity in the UK) and should be replaced with more energy-efficient or net energy producing alternatives. In their infrastructure expansion, emerging economies like India and Brazil are presented with golden opportunities to leapfrog beyond the traditional wastewater treatment models and install more sustainable technologies that also address emerging challenges. The proposed global partnership between environmental engineers from Newcastle University (NCL), UK, the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), USA, the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), Brazil, the CSIR-National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (CSIR-NEERI) in Nagpur, India, and the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IITD), India, will pool knowledge, skills, technology testing and analytical facilities, and access to field sites and the facilities of industrial partners for the development of innovative methods to detect and monitor existing and emerging threats to the urban water environment, and sustainable technologies to reduce identified pollution releases and to remediate existing pollution deposits. This initiative will seek to recover urban water resources and their recreational and health values for the people living in cities, thus creating more desirable urban neighborhoods and providing new business opportunities.

President Hrabowski and three undergraduate scholars from UMBC kicked off the U.S. News STEM Solutions conference with a keynote panel on April 23. Dalton Hughes ’14, chemical engineering, Lauren Mazzoli ’15, mathematics and computer science, and Mitchel Zavala ’14, mechanical engineering, spoke about their UMBC experiences in a discussion moderated by PBS Newshour co-anchor Judy Woodruff.

Click here to watch the keynote panel (starting at 22 min.).