Technological advancements such as direct deposit, ATMs and cell phone apps have changed the way people bank. A recent news report found that 50% of the population had not visited a bank branch in the last month.

Ant Ozok, associate professor of information systems, visited WAMU’s The Kojo Nnamdi Show to discuss technological innovations that have transformed personal banking. Ozok, who specializes in human computer interaction, emphasized the importance of a positive user experience, saying, “Banks need to take the precautions that are necessary so that users do what they need to do in an efficient way.”

Click here to listen to “Personal Banking Technology” on The Kojo Nnamdi Show.

UMBC’s College of Engineering and Information Technology is using an Energy Education Award from Constellation Energy to provide energy research opportunities for a significant number of undergraduate students.

This semester, students in IS 420: Advanced Database Development received technology to collect the power consumption data of different appliances and devices. They are also working to build a web-portal (GUI), which will capture human actions, energy behavior and footprint over a specific period.

Project involvement encourages the students to think differently about energy systems and promotes advanced study and career preparation in the energy industry. The Constellation project helps students gain a greater sense of social awareness and deeper understanding of energy system technologies, as well as enhance their basic research and development skills through this hands-on experience. By combining their intrinsic research abilities and inspiration, the students will become conscious about the importance of being a responsible energy user in their daily lives and beyond.

Read more about the Energy Education Award here.

Congratulations to UMBC’s Department of Information Systems for being ranked a top online graduate program in information technology by U.S. News & World Report. The UMBC program was ranked #19 in the nation, and is one of just two programs in Maryland to appear on the list.

See the rankings.

Learn how U.S. News & World Report calculated the rankings.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) announced on December 11, 2013 that Gymama Slaughter, an assistant professor of computer science and electrical engineering (CSEE), received an NSF CAREER Award.

NSF notes, “The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program is a Foundation-wide activity that offers the National Science Foundation’s most prestigious awards in support of junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of education and research within the context of the mission of their organizations.”

“We are delighted about this NSF CAREER Award to Dr. Slaughter,” says Dr. Karl Steiner, Vice President for Research at UMBC. “This prestigious award recognizes Dr. Slaughter’s rapidly growing reputation as a productive and promising researcher and teacher and it also reflects well on UMBC’s ability to attract and nurture top faculty talent as embodied by Dr. Slaughter.”

Slaughter will use the $400,000 award to “fabricate and characterize a self-powered biosensing microsystem that simultaneously generates bioelectricity and monitors glucose.”

Read more about Gymama Slaughter.

“Held in the UMBC Skylight Room from 7:00pm Friday to 7:00pm Saturday this past weekend, UMBC’s first-everhackathon was open to all UMBC students of any skill level, from innovators and explorers to designers and hardcore coders. Its purpose was to allow students to mingle and collaborate for 24 continuous hours of community exploration to grow technology projects from scratch while expanding their connections to other students, industry leaders, and faculty. Admission was free and attracted students from across the UMBC campus community, including CS, CE, EE, IS, Biology, Biotechnology, Math, Physics, and Media Studies.”

Read the full story

Amy Hurst, Collaborates on Multi-University Project To Improve Web and Cloud Computing Accessibility

Cleaning up polluted sediments isn’t an easy task. Standard remediation methods include dredging contaminated sediments or capping with clean sand. Both procedures are costly and disruptive to the existing ecosystem.

Enter Upal Ghosh.

Ghosh, who researches the effects of toxic pollutants on the environment, had developed a way of using the charcoal, the same kind found in home water filters, to effectively bottle up the contamination and keep it out of the ecosystem.

Ghosh’s idea had been tried successfully before, but only to a small degree, Greene said. Ghosh did some reconnaissance of Mirror Lake and agreed the procedure could work on a larger scale.

Ghosh’s method is less expensive and less disruptive to the environment. On November 4 the State of Delaware’s Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control started spreading Ghosh’s pellets across Mirror Lake in Dover.

The project not only covers the 3.5 acres of the lake and its immediate environs, but stretches down the St. Jones River to just past the Court Street Bridge.

Making the project the largest of its kind in the country.

Tests have shown the charcoal infusion can contain up to 90 percent of PCBs and up to 84 percent of mercury contamination. The result is that a process that could have taken between four and seven decades, if allowed to proceed naturally, could mean a safer Mirror Lake within the decade.

And that is good news for the residents of Dover.

Read the complete article in the Dover Post.

UMBC President Freeman Hrabowski joined U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, former governor of Michigan John Engler and U.S. Manufacturing Council’s Mary Isbister to discuss the role of higher education in preparing the U.S. workforce for global competitiveness in a panel discussion at NBC News’ fourth annual Education Nation Summit.

The segment, What It Takes: Keeping Up with the Competition, Part II – Our Workforce, moderated by NBC News “TODAY” co-anchor Matt Lauer, revolves around the recently released Programme for International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) report, which compares the skills and competencies of the adult workforce in 23 countries. According to the exam, Americans performed below the international average on math, reading and problem-solving.

“Scores will continue to go down until we bridge the gap between the haves and have nots,” said Dr. Hrabowski. “We need a new value system that it’s cool to be smart in America. We need to celebrate academics like we celebrate sports.”

The panel discussion was also covered by WBAL-TV in a story highlighting the disparity in test results between the U.S. and other nations. Dr. Hrabowski agreed with Sec. Arne Duncan that the growing “opportunity gap in our country” needs to be addressed. “We have so many, a large percentage, of our Americans who are from low-income families, who have not had an education and have not had the opportunity to learn to read and think critically,” Hrabowski said.

The Education Nation Summit brings together more than 300 of the country’s top thought leaders and influencers in education, government, business, philanthropy and media to discuss the relationship between education and opportunity – helping to engage the U.S. in an unprecedented discussion about how to improve education and prepare our youth for the jobs of the future.

Govind Rao, a professor of chemical, biochemical, and environmental engineering as well as the director for the Center for Advanced Sensor Technology (CAST) was recently quoted in Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News.

“Advances in DNA biology, particularly those of the past three decades, catalyzed the emergence and expansion of experimental approaches to manipulate gene expression. Subsequently, these advances impacted protein science, a field that found itself increasingly positioned at the juncture of technology, science, and art,” wrote Richard Stein, in the article.

“We are trying to make bioprocessing more intelligent and provide a greater degree of measurement at all stages,” said Govind Rao, Ph.D., professor of chemical, biochemical, and environmental engineering and director of the Center for Advanced Sensor Technology at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). A major effort in Dr. Rao’s lab is focused on developing noninvasive, disposable sensors to actively monitor culture parameters during growth.

“Most biological processes are very complex, and many parameters change during the growth of a culture,” added Dr. Rao. Recently, Dr. Rao and colleagues described the use of triple disposable noninvasive optical sensors that can be positioned inside culture flasks, and revealed that pH, oxygen level, and carbon dioxide level can be dynamically monitored during E. coli fermentation to collect information that would not be routinely available from shake flasks.

According to a paper co-authored by Dr. Rao in Biotechnology Progress in 2012, the sensitive element of the disposable noninvasive optical sensors is a thin, luminescent patch affixed inside the flask. The paper also noted that small electronic devices for excitation and fluorescence detection are positioned outside the shake flask for noninvasive monitoring.”

“New sales figures show slow the decline of the personal computer is accelerating, with consumers abandoning the desktop units in droves in favor of more portable devices.

New figures from the International Data Corp. show 1 million fewer PC shipments than tablets in the third quarter of this year,” wrote Nathan Porter of the Washington Times.

The article, addresses the question, will PC’s soon be a thing of the past with the increasing popularity of tablets?

Not so, says Tim Finin a professor in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, ”

“While I think this trend will continue, there are still going to be many people who will need to use PCs,” said Tim Finin, an engineering professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.”