Meet Chris Serafin, electric trades supervisor in UMBC’s Facilities Management (FM). Serafin has been at UMBC for 9 years and was recently awarded a USM Board of Regents’ Staff Award for his exceptional work, including a high voltage electrical switch replacement in the Engineering Building that ended up saving the university a half a million dollars in contractor’s fees.

Q: What’s one essential thing you’d want another Retriever to know about you?

A: I enjoy my job as electric supervisor and have a great group of high voltage electricians that work hard every day to ensure the stability of the UMBC power system. I received my management studies degree in 2020 from the University of Maryland Global Campus, taking full advantage of the tuition remission program provided by the State of Maryland. I enjoy building furniture and playing guitar in my free time.

Q: Tell us about someone in the community who has inspired you or supported you, and how they did it.

A: John Zahor [AVP for FM]  has been extremely supportive in my career at UMBC. He has been a hands off boss and has allowed me to make critical changes to how the UMBC electric shop is run, which has greatly improved the efficiency of daily operations.

Q: What part of your job do you enjoy the most and why?

A: Leadership has allowed me to be proactive, creative, and think outside the box when exploring the fascinating world of electrical theory.

Q: Tell us about the people who have helped you at UMBC.

A: Lenn Caron [acting vice president, Administration and Finance], John Zahor, and Valerie RiChard in Facilities Management have allowed me to run the UMBC electric shop the way I think in needs to be run to provide the electrical requirements of administrators, faculty, staff, and students at UMBC.

Collin Sullivan ’19, information systems and economics, M.P.P. ’21, is the program director for digital credential innovation in the Division of Professional Studies. While he started as a student worker in 2015 for the Division of Information Technology (DoIT), working with faculty to leverage the use of clickers in the classroom, he now leads university efforts to offer in-demand microcredentials, such as the Greater Washington Partnership Digital Tech credential. Two things have been constant in Collin’s career: his interest in technology and his love of the UMBC community. 

Q: What led you to your current role? 

A: In many ways, my professional time at UMBC found me. I began as an undergraduate student worker in Instructional Technology with DoIT. I started by supporting classroom clickers in classes all across campus. I’ve always been interested in educational technology, so I was incredibly fortunate and lucky to have had that opportunity during my undergrad. 

When I was about to graduate, like many rising seniors, I was really unsure of where I was going to go. I was feeling uneasy about looking for jobs because I knew the values of UMBC and the community that exists here, and I had a hard time thinking about other places to work that would have the same feeling. My passion for educational technology never waned, and in the end I found an opportunity at UMBC.

Q: How many hats do you wear at UMBC?

A: I have had many roles here at UMBC: undergraduate student, graduate student, alumnus, staff, and adjunct faculty member. I’ve studied information systems, economics, and public policy. I began my career in the Division of Information Technology, and now I am in Extended Studies with the Division of Professional Studies. It is without question that I am who I am, and where I am, because of UMBC. 

Q: Tell us about someone in the community who has inspired you.

A: There are way too many people to name! The first person who comes to mind is Craig Berger, my Student Government Association advisor when I was an undergrad. There is no other way to put it other than Craig is the best. During my first few days at UMBC, I made my way to the Campus Life office, and Craig always made me feel welcomed and, later, truly empowered me to feel like I could make a difference on campus and beyond the loop. He taught me that even during times that feel particularly challenging, the world is still malleable. A different perspective and level-headed, strategic approach often is a meaningful path forward.

Q: What’s the one thing you’d want someone who hasn’t joined the UMBC community to know about the support you find here?

A: In many ways, UMBC is a small town. It feels like a close-knit community where it’s easy to make meaningful connections with people from diverse backgrounds who genuinely care about each other. While we strive for excellence, there’s no sense of competition—everyone supports one another in achieving personal and collective success, whether in academics, work, or relationships.

Q: Tell us about an organization you’re involved in as part of your work.

A: I’ve had the privilege of being involved with 1EdTech, a national education technology organization, where I serve as co-chair of the Digital Credential Innovation Leadership Network. Our goal is to ensure that everyone who earns digital credentials can confidently showcase their verified competencies and achievements, using them in ways that best support whatever is next in life.

Q: What’s your favorite place on campus to relax or meet friends? 

A: My favorite spot has changed over the years—from the tables by the Library pond to the area outside the RAC and the Forum sculpture at the PAHB. But honestly, my go-to answer has to be the coveted comfy chairs at Starbucks! I’ve had so many amazing conversations with friends, mentors, and colleagues there. Plus, you never know who you’ll bump into. There’s just something about the possibilities of chatting over a cup of coffee.

Q: What part of your job do you enjoy the most and why?

A: Working with faculty and staff to create new pathways for learners to reach their goals. It’s easy to get caught up in our own worlds and forget to pause and reflect on the progress we’re all making. I love that I get to collaborate with others to create space for those reflections, where we can really think about what we want learners to achieve. The best part? Seeing the end result—acknowledging all the hard work, both seen and unseen, that helps learners improve their lives and take the next step in their journey.

UMBC’s greatest strength is its people. When people meet Retrievers and hear about the passion they bring, the relationships they create, the ways they support each other, and the commitment they have to inclusive excellence, they truly get a sense of our community. That’s what “Meet a Retriever” is all about.

Learn more about how UMBC can help you achieve your goals.

Anyone trying to soothe a fussy toddler has their work cut out for them under normal circumstances. Add 379 feet of earth above your head and about 30 other tourists to the equation and you’ve got a potential disaster on your hands. But for Jeff Garcia, an interpretive park ranger at Jewel Cave National Monument in South Dakota, it’s just another day on the job. At any point into his hour and thirty minute below ground scenic tour of one of the world’s longest caves, Garcia might need to interrupt his historical and geological discourse (and steady stream of jokes) to address questions, the restroom needs of his party, or someone faced with a sudden bout of claustrophobia. The wonders of the cave make all the accompanying human foibles an afterthought for Garcia, who prior to his two summers at Jewel Cave had never been below the surface before.

Tools of the Trade:
Flashlight
Minimal fears when it comes to the dark or enclosed spaces
A love of history and geology
Convenience baggies (you don’t want to know)
Backup flashlight

Step 1: Know your audience

Garcia didn’t anticipate spending multiple summers guiding people underground in the most complete darkness he’d ever seen, but he took to it quickly. Born and raised in Montgomery County, Maryland, Garcia anticipated he’d do an internship for his historical studies master’s program at UMBC somewhere close by—the nation’s capital, for example. But when he applied to the Latino Heritage Internship Program and they asked if he’d be open to going to South Dakota, he took the plunge. “I just wanted the opportunity to work with the public and teach history,” says Garcia, who knows from experience that learning history in the classroom is not nearly as effective as learning it on-site. “When people go to museums, when they go to archives, when they go to parks, they really absorb the knowledge,” he says.

All sorts of people come to ooh and aah over the nailhead spar and dogtooth spar calcite crystals, the so-called jewels of Jewel Cave. At the beginning of his tour, Garcia assesses his group of tourists by warming them up with a history lesson and throwing in some jokes to see how they respond—that gives him a bellwether to know how the next 90 minutes will go. “You have to be mindful of the audience,” says Garcia. “I realized early on that seniors really like the dad jokes. So you kind of lean into those a bit more. When you have a lot of kids, they’re really just going to absorb it. So I’d get out the black light or a UV light onto some of the formations and it looks really cool—purple or greenish. So the kids are just going, ‘Whoa.’” 

Step 2: Leave no trace

As Garcia often reminds his tour groups: In the caves, there are no cell service, food, or bathrooms, so take care of what you need before heading underground. But the persistent drip-drop sound of water—indeed the very substance that influences the formations of stalactites, stalagmites, boxwork, cave popcorn, flowstone, draperies, and a long ribbon drapery called the cave bacon—occasionally reminds visitors to heed the call of nature themselves. What then?

Garcia removes from his ever-present Ranger-issued fanny pack an innocuously named “convenience baggie.” Visitors then thank their unseeable lucky stars for the blackout conditions to ease their human needs. It then becomes their responsibility to tote their convenient baggie along until the lone trash can appears in the middle of the tour. 

Step: 3 Avoid the low points

Originally when Frank and Albert Michaud filed a mining claim for “Jewel Tunnel” in 1900, they were hoping their cave was filled with minable treasure—gold or diamonds. Instead, they found calcite crystals, which Garcia quips to his groups, “Are about as strong as your fingernails and worth the same amount.” Not quite sure how to monetize their claim, the Michaud brothers invited the U.S. Forest Service to the caves, and due to the “objects of scientific interest,” in 1908 President Theodore Roosevelt declared Jewel Cave a National Monument.

At the Dugout, the lowest geographical point of the tour, Garcia reminds the visitors that, “There should be no low points emotionally.” Likewise at the Torture Room stop, the congenial guide walks the group through the naming process, which had nothing to do with torture. “It’s more of a funny story,” says Garcia, who explains that Jan and Herb Conn—the couple who mapped out more than 65 miles of the cave including the entire route of the Scenic Tour—were following the echoey sound of dripping water looking for a drink, but when they discovered the source, it was too high for them to reach.

Step 4: See yourself in history

“It wasn’t part of my family’s lifestyle to go to national parks,” says Garcia. “It wasn’t until Professor Melissa Blair’s History of Baltimore class when I went to Hampton National Historic Site in north Baltimore County that I can remember visiting something like that.” 

In 2023, Garcia went to Jewel Cave through the Latino Heritage Internship Program, which not only introduces young folks to professional roles in the National Park Service, says Garcia, “but also allows visitors to see someone who is of your background and be like, ‘Hey, I can picture myself being in that position!’ Representation matters, and so I thought, ‘I could be that person for someone in the future.’” 

In 2024, he was invited back to South Dakota as summer park ranger, complete with the hat and uniform. Garcia plans to graduate in May 2025, but this January he starts his new position with the National Parks Service a little closer to home—the National Mall in Washington, D.C. “I’ll still get to work with the public and hopefully have them leave me more informed than they were before or have them think a bit differently. That’s all that matters,” says Garcia.

Listening has defined the early years of President Valerie Sheares Ashby’s tenure at UMBC, starting with her series of Bold Conversations to hear the many diverse Retriever voices. She continues to offer office hours for students, setting an example for other campus leaders to create similar opportunities in their own spaces. Meghna Chandrasekaran, Student Government Association (SGA) president, has extended the practice in her role as a programming intern at The Mosaic via “Chai Chats,” an opportunity for South Asian Retrievers to connect over their shared heritage. The biological sciences and political science senior and Sheares Ashby talk about the discomfort that leadership can bring along with the ultimate flourishing that results in finding what you were meant to do.

Meghna Chandrasekaran: As a young SGA officer, I always thought that I would have to talk a lot to make my presence known. But over time, I realized I needed to take a step back and listen. And it wasn’t listening just to listen—but listening to understand, especially lived experiences. After STRiVE [an intensive and engaging leadership for public purpose program at UMBC] and my work with the Center for Democracy and Civic Life, I’m able to assess spaces in a way that I know when I can keep engaging and when I should just take a step back and sit with possible discomfort. I’ve learned a lot about listening with intentionality.

President Sheares Ashby: I am more and more comfortable with discomfort because I have developed a practice for myself. I have decided with intent that whenever I feel anxious, I will just sit up and lean slightly forward, because I do not want to pull back from the conversation. And that is my way of saying, “Just lean in. Everybody is okay.”

Chandrasekaran: I’ve been in this SGA space since middle school. I was always told certain steps and guidelines to follow in order to be a leader. And when I came to UMBC, I thought, again: I’ll follow the guidelines. But then I went to STRiVE, and that shook up my entire worldview, to be totally honest. I learned I needed to be myself, my unapologetic self. Previously in SGA spaces, I would never bring up cultural heritage because I saw that as unprofessional. 

At the same time, I was a Leadership Peer Facilitator, and I started to understand my own personal values. Now it’s become second nature to show up in spaces as myself. That’s where the Chai Chats started—I really wanted to do something to keep me in touch with my cultural heritage, which is extremely important to me as a Tamil American student.

There have been some times when my friends have complained that I’m being “SGA president” with them and not “Meghna,” but that’s not the case anymore. It is now a part of who I am, and I just show up this way everywhere I go.

Sheares Ashby: Leaders continue to grow every day. You have a conversation like, “Ooh, I did not realize I was thinking about it that way,” or “I did not realize I had that bias,” or “I did not realize that I was not communicating clearly.” You learn something about yourself every single day, and you are growing. You show up as yourself every day and try to be the best version you could be. That is actually all anyone is asking you to do. 

It is a beautifully calming thing [to know you] do not have to have all the answers. I do not have to know anything magical. I do not have to be right—and I am probably not going to be right. All I have to do is be me. 

What is next for you, Meghna?

Chandrasekaran: I’m applying for a master’s in public policy, with a concentration in higher ed, in part because I’ve experienced something that feels unique to UMBC, especially with regards to shared governance. I talk to my peers at different institutions, and when I tell them what our SGA does, they’re like, “Whoa, what? You have a seat at the table? You’re managing a $1.1 million budget?” And I’m like, “That’s just the norm here.” I can see how the structures of our institution are set in place to allow for student involvement, and I think the end goal is agency among the entire campus. 

Sheares Ashby: You do not know how much all of that gives me joy. It is so fun to watch you. This is why I have the best job in the world. I get to watch you all become who you were intended to be. In spite of how hard it is to be a leader, I watch you do it with joy. Everyone here is trying to figure out who they actually are and how that aligns with the life that they want. You did it. 

On a sunny October afternoon, a faint melody emerges from a stand of trees just beyond the Fine Arts Building and within hearing distance of the Performing Arts and Humanities Building. We leave the paved pathway and follow our ears up the hill to find first-year music education student Luke Heichlinger leaning into the keys of a lone piano, playing what turns out to be “Ein Heldenleben” (“A Hero’s Life”) by Richard Strauss.

“I always look for a practice room with a window, but sometimes I can’t get one,” he says, explaining that he and his friend, Hannah, originally joked that the piano in the woods might be a hallucination. Thankfully, it wasn’t—so they came back the next day prepared with sheet music. 

Installed just days before, “Piano Garden” is the latest “performance” of New Zealand-born composer Annea Lockwood’s ever-growing outdoor series of “Piano Transplants” compositions in which, since 1969, defunct pianos are burned, submerged in water, or—as is the case at UMBC— left to be taken over by trees and plant life. In the days and weeks following the installation at UMBC, the unofficial path to the piano became well-worn as students like Heichlinger brought their best tunes, additional instruments, and voices, and performed—very often—just for themselves. 

Lockwood, later, visited campus as part of the annual Livewire music festival and listened while Linehan Artist Scholar and piano performance major Ida Dierker improvised in the woods for all to enjoy.

“UMBC has all these beautiful outdoor spaces,” says Linda Dusman, Livewire director, professor, and longtime Lockwood fan. “Stumbling upon a piano in the woods…kind of wakes you up to the experience of your environment. And also helps you remember what a piano does: that music can wake you up to the moment, even if you’re not   directly hearing it.”

On the day we found Heichlinger, we learn he purposefully chose a romantic era composition that might fit in well with his surroundings. The dappled shadows flitted across the keyboard as he played.

“This is a really nice setting,” he said. “Nature and music go together so well, and this is the perfect example of that.”

As Kent Malwitz ’92, information systems, moved up through the world of technology leadership, he kept wondering if an MBA was in the cards. But what he found ultimately most useful and fulfilling, as someone already steeped in the CEO-world, was pursuing an M.F.A. in creative writing. Malwitz, who is the director of strategic partnerships at UMBC Training Centers—a nonprofit providing private workforce training in technology, cybersecurity, project management, and leadership development—nurtured this early creative emphasis as an IS student who wanted to explore the empowering and vulnerable world of writing workshops. Now, he corrals his curiosity and storyteller-instincts to become a more empathetic teammate and leader. 

While I knew from a very young age that I loved technology, it wasn’t until my junior year at UMBC that I discovered that I also love to write. Working and playing with technology was natural to me as a kid, and since personal computers, modems, and bulletin boards were all fairly new to the public in the late ’80s, I was drawn to technology for exactly that reason—it was new. There was an element of discovery and creativity in trying to figure out how to do certain things with computers, leading me to pursue a degree in information systems at UMBC and a career in technology.

While at UMBC, I worked at a co-op with IBM, which allowed me to gain technical and business experience. I would drive to Gaithersburg daily from UMBC to provide technical support to IBM’s sales teams, and at certain times, I would take night classes alongside my 40-hour-a-week job at IBM, which gave me a heavy dose of the “real world,” as I tried to balance work, school, a social life, and a lengthy commute. The grind did not leave a lot of space for creativity.

After completing the required technical writing courses for my major, I felt a creative pull in me and acknowledged that my best chance of exploring that would be through writing, as I had shown no promise in the visual arts. I took a creative writing class and fell in love. It felt amazing to be doing something creative alongside my very technical work, and what I loved the most was sharing work with my fellow students and seeing and hearing their work—their thoughts and ideas, their fears. It made me feel extremely vulnerable, as well, but hearing my peers’ feedback was empowering, and I felt inspired by their talent. 

Working to extend the university’s mission

Back then, IBM was known for having an unofficial dress code—blue suit, white shirt, red tie. I conformed. The people were very nice, and it was a great introduction into the work world, but I knew that I wanted to work in an environment with a different kind of energy.

I found myself drawn to smaller, entrepreneurial companies where you got to—and had to—do many things based on the limited resources available. I found these environments to be conducive to learning, problem solving, and creativity. Where there were many challenges, there were equal opportunities to think critically and creatively and to lead through them. I found great joy in creating elegant technical solutions to address our customers’ business needs. I loved trying to figure things out that had not yet been figured out, and as my career grew, I took on bigger and bigger projects and teams.

After 10 years of technology consulting, I learned about a non-profit that UMBC founded focused on the delivery of technical training—the UMBC Computer Certification and Training Center (UMBC CCTC—way too many Cs!). I was recruited by the president of CCTC at the time, Doug Kenzierski, my former instructor who connected me to IBM for my co-op. I got involved in 2003 to help lead business development efforts with organizations and government agencies to train their employees. We renamed UMBC CCTC to UMBC Training Centers and started winning contracts with regional businesses and key agencies in the intelligence community, the military, and civilian government.

In true grit fashion, UMBC was very early to grasp the concept of a research university that provides workforce development programs as well as having a related business entity that extends the mission of the university to new audiences. Today, UMBC Training Centers is a significant provider of workforce training in technology, cybersecurity, project management, and leadership development, serving many individuals and employers in the region through our private training programs and our robust open enrollment schedule that reaches more than 10,000 learners a year.

Nurturing curiosity

Throughout my career, I often thought about pursuing an MBA, and while I know I would have learned a lot, I already had significant hands-on experience from leading business development at UMBC Training Centers and then later becoming the CEO. Instead, I realized what I really needed was to nurture my curiosity and interest in creativity. I thought that tapping into my own personal beliefs and values and becoming a better storyteller would help me become a more empathetic and more effective teammate and leader. 

After hearing from other UMBC staff who had gone this route, including Jenny O’Grady, the editor of this magazine, I applied for the Master’s of Fine Arts creative writing program at the University of Baltimore. In many ways, I was a fish out of water in the program, but I loved it. I was much older than most of the students, and I was working full-time as the CEO of UMBC Training Centers. I was the only one who would show up in a suit on many nights, but my classmates welcomed me. I delved into writing workshop after workshop.

Just like when I was an undergrad, sharing my work with others and having their work shared with me was my favorite part of the program. I loved the feedback and the support—both giving and receiving. While I haven’t completed the M.F.A. program, I intend to and feel that I have already benefited from it greatly as a business person and as a leader. Thinking critically and creatively and being open minded and unafraid of the unknown has been a key factor in the growth of my career.

Full-circle all the way home

After 17 years at UMBC Training Centers, I was recruited to go work again for IBM, despite my concerns from my earlier experience working there as a student. I worried about how I would feel working for such a large, corporate organization after having been in a small, entrepreneurial environment for my entire career. I was there for 4 years and learned a lot—about corporate culture, about scale, and about leadership, and I was reminded about the critical nature of strategic partnerships. 

In August of this year I had the opportunity to return to my beloved UMBC and UMBC Training Centers in the capacity of director of strategic partnerships. Here, I intend to work collaboratively—and creatively—with our partners, UMBC being our most strategic partner, to scale up the impact we have on the communities we serve, including finding ways to allow UMBC students to more directly benefit from our offerings, and to make UMBC Training Centers no longer the best kept secret at UMBC.

When you walk into Kupcakes & Co. in Elkridge, Maryland, you are met with the welcoming aroma of fresh baked goods—cookies, cakes, cinnamon rolls, and, of course, cupcakes. Drawn in by the scents and scenes in front of you, you’ll soon meet the proprietor, Michelle Kupiec ’89, interdisciplinary studies. She wasn’t always an award-winning baker though. In 2007, Kupiec was a teacher and a mom, just trying to get her young son to eat food again after a series of difficult surgeries.

Without knowing it, Kupiec was traveling a well-trod path by other UMBC alumni who pivoted their careers to start their own food businesses. “The only thing stopping you is the belief that you can’t,” says Donta Henson ’13, M.P.S. ’17, Navy veteran and co-owner of Los Hermanos 1978 Tequila. This mentality led Henson out of the healthcare industry to start a tequila company with his brother in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. Likewise, John Williams ’04, financial economics, owner of Good Karma Creamery, flipped his life upside down (like a good pineapple cupcake) to follow his passion.

When life gives you lemons… make cupcakes

For seven years,Kupiec taught for Howard County Public Schools while raising her twins, Adam and Allison. Her husband, Bill Kupiec ’89, interdisciplinary studies, worked as an IT manager at the Carnegie Institution for Science. Then, Adam started getting sick. He was in and out of the hospital 15 times over three years with severe pneumonia. Doctors couldn’t figure out what was going on until they noticed that Adam’s spine was curving at a rapid rate, putting pressure on his lungs. In 2007, Adam underwent spinal fusion surgery that left him with two 20-inch rods and 18 screws in his back. Then came the painful recovery.

“Adam wasn’t eating. Nothing was appealing to him,” remembers Kupiec. “So, Adam’s doctors encouraged us to watch shows involving food.”

Kupiec and Adam started watching the Food Network and Adam quickly fell in love with the bakers. As soon as he was physically able, Adam was in the kitchen experimenting, which helped keep his mind off the pain. “He was able to get off his pain meds because of his newfound passion for baking,” says Kupiec.

Throughout his recovery, Kupiec homeschooled Adam and the two continued to bake, sharing their creations with friends and family. It wasn’t long before a food truck entrepreneur approached Kupiec about baking for Curbside Cupcakes.

“I was like, ‘Wow! This could become a small business,’” says Kupiec.

For Donta Henson, a health administration and policy major, the transition from a full-time health IT professional for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to tequila purveyor took a slightly different route. During the COVID-19 pandemic, in lieu of other activities, Henson’s brother William would regularly visit with a bottle of tequila. With nowhere else to go, the brothers started trying different tequila brands to pass the time. 

“We probably tried 20 different tequila brands,” recalls Henson. “We started feeling like we were tequila experts.” Henson noticed that when his brother posted tequila recommendations online, people would regularly respond positively. The brothers not only knew what they were talking about when it came to good tequila, but they had influence.

“I told my brother, ‘You know what? We could probably start our own brand,’” says Henson. “If other people are doing it, then we can figure it out too. We’re doing this!”

The pandemic offered many people the chance to pivot, but John Williams, a vice president at T. Rowe Price, already knew that he wanted more than an office job, especially with a young family.“It was a very good job in a lot of ways,” says Williams, who worked there for 10 years, “intellectually stimulating, financially rewarding, but it was a high-pressure type of job.” Fortunately, Williams learned an important lesson during his time at UMBC. “I figured out the value of saving while I was in college,” he recalls. So he put money away, lived below his means, and put himself in a position to control his future at a very young age.

“The question really became, ‘What do I want to do with my time?’” says Williams. “Buying my time and the freedom to do what I want was more valuable to me than continuing to work at T. Rowe.”

Williams left T. Rowe Price in 2020 to spend more time with his family and figure out his next step. “I stumbled on it a lot faster than I expected,” says Williams. “I was sitting in my driveway one day thinking about ice cream and realized I was kind of getting bored with what was at the grocery store when it just hit me. I should make ice cream.”

When the pivot pays off

To start baking for Curbside Cupcakes, Kupiec and Adam needed a commercial kitchen and to get licensed. That was the easy part. From there, the dynamic duo started baking 800 cupcakes a day, seven days a week—on top of homeschooling. Then, Curbside Cupcakes added a second truck and 800 cupcakes became 1,600. Kupiec quickly realized that she needed a kitchen of her own. In 2011, she hired additional help, and Kupcakes & Co. was born.

Eventually, with her own business growing, Kupiec cut ties with the food truck and focused her attention on Kupcakes & Co. After 14 years, business is strong and Kupiec offers a rotating assortment of 110 different flavors of cupcakes, along with other baked goods. “We turned our passion into a purpose,” says Kupiec.

To prove to his brother William that they too could turn their passion into a legitimate business, Henson started cold-calling other brands to learn more about their relationships with distilleries. That’s when Henson learned that tequila had to be made in Mexico. “I didn’t know that,” says Henson. 

The brothers eventually landed on Casa Maestri, a third-generation, family-owned, full-service distillery. In November 2020, Henson and his brother traveled to Guadalajara to tour the distillery, meet with farmers, and learn what it takes to make tequila. The brothers then began working with the distiller to choose the flavor profiles for their blanco and reposado tequilas, and then it was time to design the bottles and labels. What about a name?

“I wanted a name that captured the whole familial thing,” says Henson. “That’s the whole reason we even got into tequila.” After some research to see what was already taken, Henson and William agreed on “Los Hermanos,” which means “the brothers” in Spanish.

Three years later, Los Hermanos 1978 Tequila can be found in over 300 stores across six states and has won 24 awards. “Everything hinged on the mindset that we could do it,” says Henson. “We didn’t know anything.”

Williams can relate. “I had never made ice cream in my life,” he jokes. So, he ordered a tabletop ice cream maker from Amazon and began experimenting. “While I was watching my young daughter, I was probably spending 10 to 15 hours a week making ice cream,” says Williams. After a year of experimenting, Williams upgraded to a slightly more sophisticated machine and began sharing his ice cream creations with his neighbors, along with anonymous surveys.

“I was getting brutally honest feedback,” says Williams.

Once Williams had a better understanding of what people liked, and his daughter was off to kindergarten, he was ready to churn out his ice cream hobby into a full-fledged business. 

“I make my base from scratch,” says Williams, “which is a lot more work, but allows me to do more things with the flavors.” Williams also makes every chunk and swirl that goes into his ice cream—and there’s a lot. “I really load things up,” says Williams. 

Today, Good Karma Creamery sells ice cream by the pint online, with a drop every two weeks—the pints selling out within minutes. It’s not the grind of a financial job, and he gets to taste-test a lot of delicious flavors. From Williams’ seat, he thinks he made the right decision. “I decided to take my passion for finding the best premium ice cream into my own hands,” says Williams.

Graduate students rely on internet research and word of mouth to hear about programs that align with their interests. For Hatice Gürsoy, word of mouth led her from the Republic of Türkiye to UMBC’s Culture, Child, and Adolescent Development Lab, when she was looking for developmental psychology doctoral programs that could support her interests in the resiliency of Muslim immigrants. “One of Dr. Charissa Cheah’s doctoral students also happened to be from Türkiye. She connected me with Dr. Cheah, and we bonded from that moment over my research interests,” says Gürsoy.

Gürsoy is not alone in her trajectory to Cheah’s lab. Students worldwide are drawn to lab founder and director Charissa Cheah’s hands-on approach to teaching, mentoring, and research. “I tell students that my lab is a vibrant space where they can build expertise in collaborative public impact research,” says Cheah, a professor of psychology. She studies adolescent social-emotional development and the well-being of families from minoritized backgrounds, emphasizing the experiences of those from Asian, Middle-Eastern, and North African heritage, which are frequently overlooked in psychology research, she says. 

To approach this seemingly broad array of topics, Cheah offers graduate students seven ongoing research projects to choose from, including the latest project—Asian Americans’ Resilience, Identity, and Socialization of Engagement (ARISE), which focuses on the impact of racism and discrimination on Chinese, Korean, and Filipino American families parents’ and adolescents’ relationships, multiple identities, racial-ethnic socialization, civic engagement, and development.

Earlier in 2024, Cheah was invited to the White House to present the latest findings on the ARISE project with the Office of Science and Technology Policy. “It is empowering to represent the voices of marginalized groups, especially early career scholars, and to speak with individuals who aim to use this information to shape policies that decrease bias and hate,” she shared there.

Mentoring through unprecedented changes

Thanks to Cheah’s approach to mentorship, Hyun Su Cho, Ph.D. ’24, applied developmental psychology, had the support she needed to navigate unprecedented changes like COVID-19, in-person and virtual classes, and welcoming a new child. “It can all be very overwhelming,” says Cho. “Charissa is very busy, but she always finds time for you.” 

Cho found her way to Cheah’s lab after reading her research while completing her master’s in developmental psychology at Seoul National University in South Korea. “I had the same master’s advisor as a former doctoral student in the lab and she introduced me to Dr. Cheah during a conference,” says Cho. “I was interested in parenting and world culture. Her lab offered opportunities to study multiple Asian communities.” 

Initially, Cho collaborated with Korean American families on the Immigrant Children’s Successful Transition and Adaptation Research project. Later, she became deeply involved in the ARISE project. This work led to several publications and funding awards to complete her dissertation.

Huiguang Ren, Ph.D. ’24, applied developmental psychology, also found his way to Cheah’s lab through a recommendation. As a master’s student in developmental psychology at East China Normal University, “I wasn’t sure whether to go straight into industry or continue with a Ph.D.,” says Ren. He sought guidance from his mentor, who was researching adolescent development in Shanghai with Cheah. Ren started at UMBC as a visiting scholar before joining the doctoral program. “After working with Dr. Cheah, I decided research is something that intrigues me, and it’s a career that I want to pursue. ” 

Passing on the skillset

Ren also worked on several projects in addition to ARISE. He helped set up the Strengthening Asian American Families’ Excellence and Resilience project, one of the first National Science Foundation grants to explore the influences of the COVID-19 outbreak on racial discrimination, identity development, and socialization. Ren and Cho managed classes, guided students through research methods, helped them develop scientific language, and showed them how to analyze the data they collected and disseminate it to families and scholars. He now has a faculty position at his alma mater but initially struggled with imposter syndrome about guiding undergraduates. “And then I realized I have mentored quite a few students during my time in Dr. Cheah’s lab,” Ren says. “And then I realized I have mentored quite a few students during my time in Dr. Cheah’s lab,” Ren says.

Gursoy is now in the fifth year of her doctoral program focused on the Identities of Muslim American Adolescents and their Growth and Excellence research study. This project explores the impact of identity, interpersonal relationships, racism, and cultural socialization factors on Muslim American development and adjustment. 

Like Cho and Ren, Gürsoy mentors undergraduates, modeling Cheah’s methods and plans on taking those skills with her. “Working with undergraduates is one of the things I love doing best. They are creative, curious, and are not afraid to tell you something that might not work,” says Gürsoy. “Dr. Cheah has been holding my hand throughout my journey. Helping me learn by giving me constructive feedback. I want to give the same kindness to our undergraduates.”

Learn more about UMBC’s psychology department.

Packed and energized sporting arenas. Clinching the closing medal ceremony of the Olympics for the first time. Primetime broadcasts with viewership in the many millions—women’s sports are starting to get the time and attention they’ve deserved all along. 

At UMBC, our women athletes have been gathering championship rings and lifting each other up along the way. You’re invited to join the stands and cheer on these world-class Retrievers.

By Kara Newhouse

The women of the UMBC volleyball team stood at the edge of their home court with eyes toward the rafters. To the right of the American and Maryland flags hung two banners with black cloths draped over them. The home opener match of the 2024 season would start soon, but first, a bit of pomp and circumstance for the Retrievers who won the past four America East Conference tournaments.

A game announcer directed attention to a massive video screen which showed senior Mila Ilieva, economics, blocking a hit and clinching a 3-0 sweep of the Binghamton Bearcats in the 2023 championship. On the floor, current players grinned, reliving their victory as triumphant music kicked on. All eyes returned to the rafters and up went the black cloths to reveal two black and gold banners listing the volleyball team’s three regular season titles and four tournament wins.

On its way up, one cloth got stuck, hanging at an angle as the players turned for a photo and a crew in the rafters fixed it. Not the smoothest of unveilings, but it was perhaps reflective of the trajectory of women’s sports in this country, a path punctuated by moments of great promise—the passage of Title IX, packed crowds at the 1999 Women’s World Cup, Simone Biles and Katie Ledecky’s medal dominance at the Rio Olympics—but often regressing to the status quo as a “niche interest” ignored by investors and corporate broadcasters.

This year, however, the veil keeping women’s sports from mainstream popularity has finally lifted. The final game of 2024 NCAA women’s March Madness netted over 18 million average viewers—4 million more than the men’s final. At the Paris Olympics, the women’s marathon medals were given during the closing ceremony instead of the men’s for the first time. Professional leagues are smashing attendance records and making expansion plans. 

As a recent viral T-shirt declares: Everyone watches women’s sports. And Retriever athletics is full of women worth watching. In addition to volleyball victories, UMBC boasts four consecutive America East championships in softball. Swimming alumna Emily Escobedo ’17, finished third in the 200-meter breaststroke at NCAA championships as a Retriever and later won a world championship in the same event. The lacrosse team is coached by a hall-of-famer. Shot putter Cleopatra Borel ’02, was the college’s first national champion and competed in four Olympics for Trinidad and Tobago. That’s just what’s in the record books. At UMBC, student-athletes are also supported as teammates, scholars, and aspiring leaders. Are you watching with us?

It’s electric

For Kennedy Lamb ’20, English, the recent popularity of women’s sports is overdue. “It’s about time these women’s sports teams, especially at UMBC, get that attention,” said Lamb, who won an America East championship with Retriever softball in 2019. 

During her time as a student-athlete, Lamb experienced a similar change in viewership to what’s happening nationally. She remembers looking out from the diamond as a first-year student to see just a few parents. “We love the parents, but you always wish that maybe another sports team or maybe a friend or someone from your math class would show up,” she said. Over the ensuing years, as the softball team turned into a winning one, her wish came true. “By the time I was a senior, the hill was filled.”

Lamb got a reminder of how that felt when she attended a Washington Mystics game against the Indiana Fever, the team on which mega-popular Caitlin Clark plays. Both times the Fever came to Washington, the arena sold out. Lamb said her friends and family who are longtime WNBA fans recalled how they used to get cheap tickets to games with middling attendance. “Now it was this sought after activity. Tickets were expensive. And seeing the electricity in the stadium reminded me of the electricity of being on the UMBC softball team,” Lamb said.

Clark’s celebrity drew large crowds across WNBA cities this year, but it wasn’t only the Clark effect bringing people in. The New York Liberty, for instance, averaged the second highest home attendance in the regular season with 12,700 fans. Five years ago, the Liberty’s home game average was 2,200 fans.

For Tiffany D. Tucker, UMBC’s new director of athletics, physical education, and recreation, the popularity of the WNBA and other women’s sports is payoff from decades of work by athletes, coaches, executives, fans, investors, and allies. It’s not that the product on the floor changed, but “sometimes people need an invitation,” Tucker said. “It’s as if they’ve been peeping in, and it’s like, ‘I want to be a part of it,’ and now everybody feels like they’ve been invited and that they’re a part of the team.”

As she dives into her new role, she plans to extend the same invitation for all to watch UMBC women’s athletics.

Top to bottom: LynaBeraich, Tiara Bellamy,Lexi Tepper.

A relational environment

After the volleyball banner ceremony, Tucker sat at center court with President Valerie Sheares Ashby to watch the contest against Lehigh University.

“Let’s go, Serin! You got it!” the athletics director called as setter Serin Maden, an economics junior, stepped up for a serve.

A former basketball coach who once aspired to be an author and international speaker, Tucker’s voice carried easily over the cacophony of the crowd and thwacks of palms smacking leather.

“Let’s go, Jada!” she called shortly after Maden’s serve. “Let’s go, Aysia!” a few minutes later.

Tucker was less than four weeks into the job. Asked how many names she’d learned in those weeks, she exhaled. “I try to get them all, I try,” she said. Counting both men and women student-athletes, that’s almost 400 names. “I’m going team by team,” Tucker added with a deep laugh.

At once the mark of a good leader, Tucker’s effort is also a benefit of UMBC’s size. “When you’re a student-athlete at a smaller, mid-major institution, you may know the name [of administrators], or you may know where the offices are to certain resources,” Tucker said.

“These are the same people who are here to support our women’s sporting events. These are people who are readily there to help you, not that they’re not there at a larger institution, but because of the size of the institution, I think it’s a little bit more intimate and relational.”

UMBC volleyball celebrated winning the last four America East Conference tournaments. Photo by Luna Siesko for UMBC.

In the grind together

In the stands behind Tucker, a row of preteen girls got into the Retriever spirit, barking loudly to support the home team. Sporting shiny red jerseys, these girls were volleyball players from Shepherdstown Middle School in West Virginia, attending their first college game. Though the Retrievers lost, the match was “really fun” and “cool,” the girls said with big smiles afterward. Their favorite part? “The rallies,” according to one. “Yeah, the rallies!” another girl echoed.

A third player had a different thought. “The way they supported each other,” she said. “They huddled after every point and high fived and cheered for each other.” At this, the rest of the tweens bobbed their heads in agreement and declared that they wanted to take that back to their own matches.

That kind of support cuts across sports at UMBC. “There’s this camaraderie when you’re all together, day in day out, waking up at 5:30 for practice,” said Lamb, who is the godmother to the child of one of her former softball teammates. “It’s one thing to have great friends who you see in your English class, but ultimately you don’t grind with them. Being a DI athlete is a grind. You have no choice but to lean on others. You can’t do it alone. And that’s a type of friendship that isn’t found everywhere.”

Left to right: Katana Nelson, Jada James, Mikayla Bryant.

Aysia Miller ’24, biological sciences, knows something about grinding with teammates. She won four America East championships in volleyball with four different pathways to the trophy. Her first year, the Retrievers were the underdogs facing the heavyweight University of Albany. Her sophomore year, the team blew out everyone in conference play but struggled in the tournament. Her junior year, they started the season strong but hit a losing stretch midway. Her senior year was the magic one.

“It was just like everything was clicking, and it was honestly pretty perfect,” said Miller, who is now a master’s student in applied molecular biology. With an extra year of athletic eligibility because of COVID-19, Miller has the unusual opportunity to achieve a five-peat. But the team struggled at the start of the season, losing nine in a row.

After the Lehigh match, Miller said she and her teammates knew they needed to improve. “Ultimately, I do believe that culturally our team is in a good spot. We have each other’s backs,” she said. “No one is turning on each other, and we’re not blaming one another about losing, about not things not going our way. And it kind of all comes down to what are our values as a team, what’s important, and how we’re able to treat each other.”

Open doors

Shared values can be the difference between a thriving locker room and a toxic one. During the women’s basketball preseason, the team spent an afternoon defining and performing skits about the core values posted in their locker room: service, toughness, family, loyalty, commitment, and consistency.

Team bonding activities like that one, as well as movie nights, a trip to the state fair, and the thrill of competition are what motivated Riley Donahue ’24, political science, to stay for another year as a master’s student in public policy. As a transfer student, Donahue has experienced multiple sets of coaches. From her perspective, positive culture starts at the top, and she loves the tone set by Coach Candice Hill and her staff. “They want to make sure everybody’s OK, and they have an open door policy if you need to come and talk to them,” Donahue said.

While coaches keep doors open for student-athletes to come inward, the rest of the college opens doors to go outward and excel beyond their sports. Players and staff are proud that academics get just as much emphasis as athletics at UMBC. That’s what drew Donahue here from Auburn University as a junior. Right away, Donahue jumped into an internship fair that led to working on Brooke Lierman’s successful campaign for Maryland Comptroller. The following spring, she interned in the Maryland legislature for Delegate Cheryl Pasteur.

“It was a haul to Annapolis,” Donahue said, but she paid for gas with money she earns from NIL (name, image, likeness) deals. “It was really fun to sit in on judicial hearings, to walk through the Senate building …and I enjoyed being around it and helping draft bills, helping make scholarships for students.”

Donahue is president of UMBC’s Student Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) and the America East chair for the NCAA Division 1 SAAC. Eventually, she wants to be president of the United States. “This place challenges you academically, and that’s what I want. Because the career that I want to go into is not going to be easy,” she said.

“Just come and play”

Women’s sports have a long history at UMBC, thanks in large part to Linda “Louie” Sowers ’70, American studies. Sowers, who played volleyball in high school, arrived at UMBC in its inaugural 1966 semester. Looking around campus, she found something missing: women’s sports. So in her second year, she approached athletic director Dick Watts with a request to change that. “I was a little sophomore, and he was an intimidating person…so it took a lot of courage for me just to go in there and ask,” she recalled.

Five years before Title IX mandated equality of athletic opportunities among other things, many male athletic directors might have brushed off Sowers’ request. But according to Sowers, Watts handed her a piece of paper and asked her to get signatures of female students who wanted to play sports. If she gathered enough names, he would hire a volleyball coach.

Sowers took that paper to the cafeteria, located in one of the only campus buildings at the time. “I basically just, in between classes, went up and down all the tables and got as many girls as I could,” Sowers recalled. “I had girls that said ‘I’ve never played before,’ and I would say, ‘I don’t care. It doesn’t matter. Just come and play.’”

She collected 66 signatures, and Watts hired a volleyball coach that spring. The next fall, Watts added a women’s athletic director, plus field hockey and basketball teams. “Because we were such a small school…it was like this little core group of us that wound up playing all three sports,” Sowers said. More than 50 years later, she still attends Ravens games with one of those friends and keeps in touch with others by text and email.

Fill the stands

In Sowers’ day, spectators included just a few parents and male athletes. Even today, crowds tend to follow a team’s success. Teams that have yet to lift trophies said they’re still hoping to see more fans.

One misty September night at Retriever Soccer Park as the women’s team mounted a comeback win over Mount St. Mary’s, parents in slickers and some fellow student-athletes—including Miller—cheered from wet bleachers. One dad rang a cowbell after every Retrievers play. Center fullback Lauren Reid, psychology and visual arts, said she’s grateful for family support but wished more peers would show up.

Reid knows how it feels to put on her cleats for a packed house. Last June she traveled to soccer-mad Brazil as a member of the Jamaican women’s national team. When Brazilian legend Marta took the field, the energy shift was incredible, Reid said. “I think it would give us the same feeling here if our whole student body was showing up,” she continued.

Tucker, too, said she wants to see growth in crowds to mirror what’s happening at a national level: “I want to fill the stands. I want women athletes to really feel their value and know that they are loved.”

Tucker plans to personally visit rotary clubs, local churches, schools, and others to extend the invitation. She wants to saturate the community with her message about Retriever women’s athletics.

“We have some of the best scholars. We have some of the best athletes in the country right here on our campus, and they’re passionate about what they do. They’re very disciplined. And it’s fun. It’s action-packed. It’s right here in your backyard,” Tucker said.

Consider yourself invited.

For almost 70 years, Milt Halem, now a research professor at UMBC after a career at NASA, has deployed the latest computing technology—from vacuum tubes in the ’50s to artificial intelligence today—to tackle some of science’s toughest problems.

Colorful screen prints cover the walls of Milt Halem’s Rockville, Maryland, apartment. One shows a high-altitude view of the Nile River, cutting through desert sands before emptying into a turquoise Mediterranean. In another, the fragile blue marble of the Earth rises above a desolate lunar surface.

One large picture, taking centerplace on the dining room wall, is more enigmatic—filled with alternating red, yellow, and blue patches. “This is what’s known as the quasi-biennial oscillation,” Halem explains.

Tens of thousands of feet up, in Earth’s stratosphere, the winds around the equator regularly shift direction, blowing east for many months, and then west, and then east again. A satellite measured the shifts, and Halem, a former NASA scientist and current UMBC professor, turned six years of that data into art.

Halem’s framed prints, many of which he created himself while taking evening and weekend classes at the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design in Washington, D.C., are a window into his nearly 70-year-long scientific career. For roughly 40 years of that time, he worked for NASA, the famed federal space agency. Halem harnessed NASA’s space-based instrument “eyes” and ever-evolving computer “brains” to advance humanity’s understanding of Earth and our place in the cosmos and, in 1996, was recognized with NASA’s highest award, the Distinguished Service Medal.

In 2003, after retiring from NASA, Halem joined UMBC as a research professor. In his more than two decades at the university, he has nurtured connections with government and industry, brought in research money and equipment, regularly taught a popular graduate course, and mentored more than a dozen Ph.D. students, helping them pursue their passions and propel their careers.

“I think of myself as a computational scientist: I use computers to both discover and explore new territory,” Halem says. “What I love is the computer’s ability to represent, and to explain, the world around us.”

Charting computers’ evolution

Halem began his working life at the dawn of the computing age, and his career trajectory mirrors the steady rise of those digital devices. After earning a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from the City College of New York in 1951, Halem was drafted into the Korean War effort and served on U.S. Army bases for two years, first in New Jersey and then in Arizona. After a stint clearing rocks off the golf course so that the officers could play, Halem’s skills were better put to use on some of the Army’s first attempts to use what at the time were relatively new-fangled devices called computers to improve surveillance of battlefields.

In 1955, Halem received a fellowship to work with an IBM 704 computer installed at New York University. The computer took up significant floor space with its multiple cabinet-sized components, filled with vacuum tubes for logic operations and magnetic tape for memory. It was state-of-the-art in its day, able to execute about 40,000 instructions per second.

“You could say 1955 was my start in high-performance computing,” Halem says. “I’ve been acquiring and managing and programming and doing research on computers ever since.”

In the late 1950s, NASA established the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) and, shortly after, opened a New York campus—the Goddard Institute for Space Studies—focused on theoretical research.

Milt Halem delivers remarks during a conference at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, 1986. Photo by NASA. 

Because of Halem’s experience with computers, he was hired as contract support. In the subsequent years, he worked with some of the most advanced computers of the time, using them to model the Earth’s atmosphere and predict the scientific value of launching new Earth-observing instruments. In 1968, he also earned his Ph.D. in applied mathematics from NYU.

Halem at UMBC in 2024.

In the late ’70s, Halem moved to Goddard’s main facility, GSFC, in Maryland to continue his computing work. In 1983, he became chief of the Space Data and Computing Division and shifted from using supercomputers to being a force in their development. The division had recently developed the Goodyear Massively Parallel Processor (MPP), a trailblazing computer containing 16,384 processors working simultaneously. This degree of parallelism, which lies at the heart of today’s supercomputers, marked a radical departure from traditional computing.

“The MPP was a relatively simple concept, but it took us more than a decade to develop it,” says Jim Fischer, who managed the MPP’s fabrication contract and applications programs. “Milt found people to help and money to support the machine. And then he offered it to the U.S. science community to try it out, and they recognized its architecture as a solution. Milt pumped us to world class by force of will.”

In the ensuing years, Halem and Fischer pursued making the power of MPPs more accessible and less expensive. In 1994, their staff demonstrated the “Beowulf” computing cluster, composed entirely of mass market personal computers networked with Ethernet and running the Linux open source operating system.

Now 30 years later, the Beowulf approach sits at the core of most of the world’s supercomputers and much of the cloud infrastructure, putting vast amounts of affordable computing resources at the fingertips of scientists, engineers, and even social media users.

After Halem arrived at UMBC in his 70s, he continued to engage with the latest computing technology. He was instrumental in securing the donation of high-performance IBM computing equipment from NASA to the university, and he helped run a new computing research center. With his students, he has explored the frontiers of quantum computing and AI.

“I’ve followed the evolution of high-performance computing my entire career,” Halem says.

Computing for science

Computers can do many things—from recommending videos you might like to rendering life-like graphics—but Halem is most interested in what they can do for science.

“Science is based on the notion of observations and then explaining the observations by some theoretical process,” says Halem. “That was the way science evolved until the mid-20th century. Then computers came along and became the third pillar of science.”

Halem’s passion fit with NASA’s mission. Though the agency was born out of the Cold War and the space race with the Soviets, it has concentrated its efforts on the peaceful use of space to advance science.

NASA launches satellites that observe Earth from space with a suite of scientific instruments (including some designed at UMBC), and a large part of Halem’s research has been using computers to understand how that data can improve our understanding of the Earth’s air, water, and land and the physical processes that link them. Halem has also advanced weather forecasting through, among other techniques, finding new ways to incorporate observations into the weather models.

As an administrator at NASA, Halem always put the science first, according to his colleagues. “I believe that Milt left a legacy of making decisions that are in the best interest of science,” says Dan Duffy, the chief of the Computational and Information Sciences and Technology Office at GSFC, who sits in Halem’s old NASA office and has continued to work with him on special projects since Halem joined UMBC.

“His motivation was always driven by the scientific community’s needs,” Fischer adds. “It was very high-minded.”

Shaping students’ lives

At UMBC, Halem has continued his devotion to computing for science’s sake. In doing so, he has supported the research community and shaped his students’ lives.

Jennifer Sleeman, Ph.D. ’17, computer science, was co-mentored by Halem on her Ph.D. thesis, which involved mapping topics from past climate reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and trying to predict the contents of future reports.

Jim Fischer, Milt Halem, and Sophia Hamer (left to right) in Halem’s UMBC office. One of Halem’s screen prints hangs in the upper right.

“Milt and I would have discussions about my thesis, and I always like to describe it as: Milt decided to adopt me. I was close to the end of my Ph.D., and I changed my focus based on working with him,” she said. “It really changed the trajectory of my career.” After graduating, she became a research assistant professor at UMBC. She currently studies weather and climate-related topics as a senior AI research scientist at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory while she continues to work part-time with Halem and his students.

Sophia Hamer ’22, mathematics and computer science, who is currently working with Halem as a master’s student, also credits Halem with helping her find her career footing. She first met him to discuss a research project when she was an undergraduate and just emerging from a time when she struggled with her grades and with choosing a major.

“Dr. Halem took a chance on me,” she says. “I honestly think that was the turning point for me. Before I was thinking, ‘I’m just gonna squeak out of here with a degree and hopefully my GPA isn’t too bad to get a job.’ But now, my entire perspective has shifted: I’m about to graduate with a master’s, and I’m doing impactful research in a field I really like. I never thought that would be possible.”

“Milt is tough—he pushes you—but he also works closely with you,” Sleeman adds. “I really grew from that relationship.”

AI for weather and climate forecasting

Both Sleeman and Hamer are working with Halem on a project to be the first to use AI to make regional weather predictions, one of a couple AI projects Halem is currently pursuing.

In his embrace of AI, Halem is yet again advancing alongside the technology that has defined his career. Gone are the days of mere 40,000 instructions per second. Now advanced computer chips power computationally hungry “neural networks” originally inspired by the workings of the human brain. Neural networks are behind celebrity chatbots such as ChatGPT—and forecasters are increasingly turning to them to predict the weather too.

While traditional weather models simulate the physics of the Earth and its atmosphere to make predictions about the future, AI forecasting models simply examine vast datasets of past weather and learn how to spot patterns.

So far, the main advantage of AI forecasting is speed. What can take days for a physics-based model can be done in only minutes or seconds with AI. AI weather models offer great promise for distributed, real-time weather forecasting, for example as natural disasters unfold. Halem and his students are looking in particular to predict wildfires.

While much AI weather forecasting research is undertaken by leading tech companies such as Google and Microsoft, Halem thinks his students are more than holding their own.

“I’ve got a new generation of computer scientists making breakthroughs,” says Halem. “Two students who are writing up their master’s theses are doing leading AI computations to rival what some big tech companies are doing.”

The work of weather and climate modeling is growing in importance as global warming unfolds and the Earth’s natural patterns shift. “Applying what I know to a real-world problem has been an amazing experience,” Hamer says.

The projects are also yet one more demonstration of Halem’s constant intellectual evolution.

“Milt has an amazing ability to learn new things,” says Anupam Joshi, the acting dean of the College of Engineering and Information Technology. “He was trained as a mathematician who then specialized in high-performance computing and in the last few years has become an expert in using AI systems to model weather and climate phenomena. It speaks to his intellectual capabilities but also his perseverance and his grit.”

Halem (far right) poses with (from left to right) NASA’s Jim Fischer and John Dorband, and Microsoft Fellow Jim Gray next to the first Beowulf computing cluster. Photo by NASA.

Into the future

Now in his tenth decade of life, Halem shows few signs of slowing down. When not spending time with his large family, he’s still tackling some of science’s thorniest problems, such as how to predict weather patterns months to years in advance.

“He’s like the energizer bunny,” says Fischer, his former NASA colleague.

Duffy agrees. “He has an amazing amount of energy; he never seems to stop. He has a willingness to listen, learn, and ask questions and is an amazing role model for his students.”

Halem says it’s the computation challenges that drive him. “I have to keep moving because the computational instrument continues to evolve,” he says. He continues to be on the lookout for new ideas—the latest he’s come across being an AI research scientist. “The AI agent can use large language models to read the literature; it can write computer code and conduct experiments by itself. It can write the paper on what it discovered. So that’s probably the ultimate research goal that I would like to see if I can make an impact on,” Halem explains.

“Milt is probably one of the most dedicated people I know to the research,” Sleeman says. “He’s so tenacious, and it’s just so impressive. It’s a privilege to continue to work with him.”

“Milt is incredible,” adds Joshi. “If we could replicate him, we would.” And maybe, in some sense, Halem’s AI scientist would do just that.