Show off your Retriever Fever and volunteer! Alumni are invited to share their experiences at UMBC with prospective students and their families. Help future students establish themselves as a fellow dawg! Dates and locations vary, so find the one that is perfect for you:

Rockville/Strathmore Reception
Tuesday, March 24, 7 – 9 p.m.
Strathmore Music Center
Rockville, MD

Reception for Academically Talented African American Students
Thursday, April 2, 7 – 9 p.m.
UMBC

Reception for Academically Talented Hispanic & Latino Students
Tuesday, April 7, 7 – 9 p.m.
UMBC

New Jersey Reception
Tuesday, April 21, 7 – 9 p.m.
Olde Mill Inn & Grain House Restaurant
Basking Ridge, NJ

New York Reception
Wednesday, April 22, 7 – 9 p.m.
The Carltun, Eisenhower Park
East Meadow, NY

Pennsylvania Reception
Thursday, April 23, 7 – 9 p.m.
The Mercer Museum
Doylestown, PA

Click here to volunteer!

In many ways, Kelly Kwedar ’98, visual and performing arts (photography), leads a double life. A clinical practice supervisor at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan, by day, Kwedar manages a staff of forty doctors and twenty other hospital workers who take patients through the cancer treatment process.
By night, she is known to her friends in the Gotham Girls Roller Derby as “Lil Red Terror,” goddess of jamming, blocking, and dishing out pain in the rink.
“Roller derby has been my most amazing experience in New York. I’ve made the most amazing friends. I was never an athlete, but I like to put on some skates and go real fast and knock people over,” said the part-time photographer. “Who woulda thought?”
Artsy Beginnings
As a photography major at UMBC, Kwedar stayed extremely involved during her four years on campus. She worked as a phone operator in the Office of Undergraduate Admissions and was a “huge newspaper nerd,” serving as both the arts and opinions editor for the UMBC newspaper, The Retriever Weekly.
Kwedar was also very involved in the photography department at UMBC. She frequently organized her own photography shows and feminist performance art pieces in the halls of the Fine Arts building, and – like so many UMBC students – took her studies very seriously.
“I did the whole insane college kid thing: taking eighteen credits and staying up until five in the morning way too often.”
After graduation, Kwedar packed up her camera and moved to New York, where she worked as a studio manager of a company that created murals for restaurants and fancy homes. After 9/11 however, the market for her artists’ opulent murals slowed, so Kwedar decided it was time for a more stable career.
“An Amazing Place to Work”
Through a friendly connection, she found her career as a clinical practice supervisor at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, where she now manages several outpatient clinics within the hospital. As a manager, Kwedar works to make these clinics function more efficiently through staff development to improve the overall patient experience.
“I really love it. It’s an amazing place to work,” she said. “It’s like seeing little miracles every day. Cancer touches people in so many ways, like seeing their families, everyone who works here just cares a lot, and it shows in their work. It’s super intense, but it’s really rewarding at the same time.”
The Derby Discovery
Then there’s the “Lil Red Terror” side of Kwedar.
After reading about the Gotham Girls Roller Derby, she debated for a month whether or not to try it out. After she met the founder of the league, and the members of the team, she knew it was the perfect sport for her.
“My roller derby personality is tough and kind of crazy,” said Kwedar, who captains the Brooklyn Bombshells. “I always wear little shorts underneath my skirt that say something funny, so after I score a bunch of points or something, I’ll flash the audience.”
Kwedar was one of the original members of the Gotham Girls Roller Derby, playing in their first game in 2004. Since then, the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association has expanded to almost twenty teams nationally, and other leagues have formed in Canada and Ireland. The New York travel team is composed of players from the four base teams: Bronx Gridlock, Queens of Pain, Manhattan Mayhem, and Brooklyn Bombshells, which Kwedar calls her own. The travel team won the East Coast regionals last year, and headed to Austin, Tex., to play the top four nationally ranked teams.
Kwedar’s injuries are also something for the record books, but she wears them as badges of honor. She has suffered black eyes, countless bruises, and a hemorrhaged retina, which left her literally seeing red. She even had to wear an eye patch for about four months.
NYC Girl
As a Brooklyn resident and roller derby queen, Kwedar stays true to her UMBC roots in her lifestyle and in her hobbies. Kwedar is staying artsy, selling her photography on the popular www.etsy.com.
“There’s art everywhere around here, and I appreciate it a lot, even if I’m not doing it as my day job,” she said. “You think you can move to New York and just become a famous artist. The reality of that is a lot different, especially if you go out to bars and clubs every night, which is really easy to do. You really have to be pretty smooth to make it happen, and that’s just not me. I enjoy doing it for fun.”
As an artist, she finds her current home constantly inspiring.
“There’s such diversity in New York, and I think UMBC was a good starting point for that. There was everything you could ever imagine there. Every race, every ethnicity, every group is here,” she said. “I live in Brooklyn now, and I love it. I don’t think I’m ever going to leave. I just love the feeling of it. Most Tuesday nights I’m just at home goofing off on the internet, but I could be at 10 different bars, a burlesque show, or going to see a band. The same is true for roller derby. It’s the gamut of every kind of woman you could imagine, and they all play roller derby, and it’s so much fun.”
– Melissa Gilden ’10
Originally posted May 2008

In many ways, Kelly Kwedar ’98, visual and performing arts (photography), leads a double life. A clinical practice supervisor at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan, by day, Kwedar manages a staff of forty doctors and twenty other hospital workers who take patients through the cancer treatment process.

By night, she is known to her friends in the Gotham Girls Roller Derby as “Lil Red Terror,” goddess of jamming, blocking, and dishing out pain in the rink.

“Roller derby has been my most amazing experience in New York. I’ve made the most amazing friends. I was never an athlete, but I like to put on some skates and go real fast and knock people over,” said the part-time photographer. “Who woulda thought?”

Artsy Beginnings

As a photography major at UMBC, Kwedar stayed extremely involved during her four years on campus. She worked as a phone operator in the Office of Undergraduate Admissions and was a “huge newspaper nerd,” serving as both the arts and opinions editor for the UMBC newspaper, The Retriever Weekly.

Kwedar was also very involved in the photography department at UMBC. She frequently organized her own photography shows and feminist performance art pieces in the halls of the Fine Arts building, and – like so many UMBC students – took her studies very seriously.

“I did the whole insane college kid thing: taking eighteen credits and staying up until five in the morning way too often.”

After graduation, Kwedar packed up her camera and moved to New York, where she worked as a studio manager of a company that created murals for restaurants and fancy homes. After 9/11 however, the market for her artists’ opulent murals slowed, so Kwedar decided it was time for a more stable career.

“An Amazing Place to Work”

Through a friendly connection, she found her career as a clinical practice supervisor at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, where she now manages several outpatient clinics within the hospital. As a manager, Kwedar works to make these clinics function more efficiently through staff development to improve the overall patient experience.

“I really love it. It’s an amazing place to work,” she said. “It’s like seeing little miracles every day. Cancer touches people in so many ways, like seeing their families, everyone who works here just cares a lot, and it shows in their work. It’s super intense, but it’s really rewarding at the same time.”

The Derby Discovery

Then there’s the “Lil Red Terror” side of Kwedar.

After reading about the Gotham Girls Roller Derby, she debated for a month whether or not to try it out. After she met the founder of the league, and the members of the team, she knew it was the perfect sport for her.

“My roller derby personality is tough and kind of crazy,” said Kwedar, who captains the Brooklyn Bombshells. “I always wear little shorts underneath my skirt that say something funny, so after I score a bunch of points or something, I’ll flash the audience.”

Kwedar was one of the original members of the Gotham Girls Roller Derby, playing in their first game in 2004. Since then, the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association has expanded to almost twenty teams nationally, and other leagues have formed in Canada and Ireland. The New York travel team is composed of players from the four base teams: Bronx Gridlock, Queens of Pain, Manhattan Mayhem, and Brooklyn Bombshells, which Kwedar calls her own. The travel team won the East Coast regionals last year, and headed to Austin, Tex., to play the top four nationally ranked teams.

Kwedar’s injuries are also something for the record books, but she wears them as badges of honor. She has suffered black eyes, countless bruises, and a hemorrhaged retina, which left her literally seeing red. She even had to wear an eye patch for about four months.

NYC Girl

As a Brooklyn resident and roller derby queen, Kwedar stays true to her UMBC roots in her lifestyle and in her hobbies. Kwedar is staying artsy, selling her photography on the popular www.etsy.com.

“There’s art everywhere around here, and I appreciate it a lot, even if I’m not doing it as my day job,” she said. “You think you can move to New York and just become a famous artist. The reality of that is a lot different, especially if you go out to bars and clubs every night, which is really easy to do. You really have to be pretty smooth to make it happen, and that’s just not me. I enjoy doing it for fun.”

As an artist, she finds her current home constantly inspiring.

“There’s such diversity in New York, and I think UMBC was a good starting point for that. There was everything you could ever imagine there. Every race, every ethnicity, every group is here,” she said. “I live in Brooklyn now, and I love it. I don’t think I’m ever going to leave. I just love the feeling of it. Most Tuesday nights I’m just at home goofing off on the internet, but I could be at 10 different bars, a burlesque show, or going to see a band. The same is true for roller derby. It’s the gamut of every kind of woman you could imagine, and they all play roller derby, and it’s so much fun.”

– Melissa Gilden ’10
Originally posted May 2008

Even as a student at UMBC, Kara Lee Corthron ’99, theatre, looked to the intricacies of human emotion to drive her writing.
Now established as one of theatre’s most promising playwrights, Corthron recently returned to UMBC from the stages of New York, Chicago and D.C. to share her love of theater with current students as they performed her new play, Wild Black-Eyed Susans, during UMBC’s Homecoming & Family Celebration weekend.
Early Recognition
Over the last few years, Corthron has racked up an impressive list of honors for her work. Her new play, Wild Black-Eyed Susans, received the 2007 Helen Merrill Award for Emerging Playwrights. In addition, her play Like a Cow or an Elephant was awarded the 2007 Theodore Ward Prize for African-American Playwrights and was produced at the DePaul Theatre School in Chicago.
Corthron was also the winner of the 2006 New Professional Theatre Writer’s Award, is a three-time recipient of Lincoln Center’s Lecomte du Nouy Foundation Award and was a semi-finalist for the 2007 Sundance Theatre Lab and Princess Grace Award. Corthron’s plays have been developed with the Ensemble Studio Theatre, Center Stage (Baltimore), African Continuum Theatre (D.C.) and at the Julliard School.
A Strong Start at UMBC
Corthron says UMBC’s theatre department helped to prepare her for the challenges of a career in theatre, encouraging her to understand the business of theatre as well as the research and work that goes into a production. Classes in script analysis gave her an appreciation for dramatic literature and helped to inspire her passion for writing.
She also believes that taking classes in theatre will benefit non-majors.
“Even takng a class in dramatic literature can help you to learn about the human experience,” says Corthron. “You read about people who have to make decisions and work through problems. Or, if you choose to get involved in a production, when you are in character you have to figure out how you will work with that person is going through. In theatre, you learn to understand other perspectives, empathy and compassion.”
Sharing the Love of Theatre
Lynn Watson, chair of the theatre department, says that current students benefited from working with Corthron’s play.
“As I watched the actors in rehearsal and worked with them on the text of Wild Black-Eyed Susans, I was particularly struck by the sophistication of Kara’s writing,” she said. “She has a keen ear for the emotional underpinning of a casual comment. Her characters are believable and identifiable — working class people living in a region where jobs are drying up — yet she imbues their speech with poetic imagery and lyricism. Her ability to intermingle lyricism and rough urgency in the speech of contemporary characters is exceptional.
“For our students, the opportunity to play these roles has made for marvelous acting lessons,” adds Watson.
“As actors dig into it, the play constantly yields up more and deeper layers. It’s exciting to see Kara’s talents passed on through her play to the development of another generation of UMBC theatre students.”
– Melissa Gilden ’10
Originally posted October 2007

Even as a student at UMBC, Kara Lee Corthron ’99, theatre, looked to the intricacies of human emotion to drive her writing.

Now established as one of theatre’s most promising playwrights, Corthron recently returned to UMBC from the stages of New York, Chicago and D.C. to share her love of theater with current students as they performed her new play, Wild Black-Eyed Susans, during UMBC’s Homecoming & Family Celebration weekend.

Early Recognition

Over the last few years, Corthron has racked up an impressive list of honors for her work. Her new play, Wild Black-Eyed Susans, received the 2007 Helen Merrill Award for Emerging Playwrights. In addition, her play Like a Cow or an Elephant was awarded the 2007 Theodore Ward Prize for African-American Playwrights and was produced at the DePaul Theatre School in Chicago.

Corthron was also the winner of the 2006 New Professional Theatre Writer’s Award, is a three-time recipient of Lincoln Center’s Lecomte du Nouy Foundation Award and was a semi-finalist for the 2007 Sundance Theatre Lab and Princess Grace Award. Corthron’s plays have been developed with the Ensemble Studio Theatre, Center Stage (Baltimore), African Continuum Theatre (D.C.) and at the Julliard School.

A Strong Start at UMBC

Corthron says UMBC’s theatre department helped to prepare her for the challenges of a career in theatre, encouraging her to understand the business of theatre as well as the research and work that goes into a production. Classes in script analysis gave her an appreciation for dramatic literature and helped to inspire her passion for writing.

She also believes that taking classes in theatre will benefit non-majors.

“Even takng a class in dramatic literature can help you to learn about the human experience,” says Corthron. “You read about people who have to make decisions and work through problems. Or, if you choose to get involved in a production, when you are in character you have to figure out how you will work with that person is going through. In theatre, you learn to understand other perspectives, empathy and compassion.”

Sharing the Love of Theatre

Lynn Watson, chair of the theatre department, says that current students benefited from working with Corthron’s play.

“As I watched the actors in rehearsal and worked with them on the text of Wild Black-Eyed Susans, I was particularly struck by the sophistication of Kara’s writing,” she said. “She has a keen ear for the emotional underpinning of a casual comment. Her characters are believable and identifiable — working class people living in a region where jobs are drying up — yet she imbues their speech with poetic imagery and lyricism. Her ability to intermingle lyricism and rough urgency in the speech of contemporary characters is exceptional.

“For our students, the opportunity to play these roles has made for marvelous acting lessons,” adds Watson.

“As actors dig into it, the play constantly yields up more and deeper layers. It’s exciting to see Kara’s talents passed on through her play to the development of another generation of UMBC theatre students.”

– Melissa Gilden ’10
Originally posted October 2007

What’s it like being a pioneer?
Ask Dr. Adam Freeman ’95, chemistry, an innovator in the chemistry of paper and one of the first generations of UMBC’s Meyerhoff Scholars. He’ll tell you the secret – keeping your eyes open for opportunity.
“You know, when I look at where I am and what I wound up doing, most of it was unplanned,” said Dr. Freeman, Senior Research Scientist for the Eastman Kodak Company in New York.
“But over time, I realized everything I was learning was part of a flow that wove together over time.”
A native of Silver Spring, Dr. Freeman knew he was interested in the sciences in high school, but he wasn’t sure what he wanted to study in college. One day, during his AP history class, the vice principal of his high school called him into a meeting to discuss the Meyerhoff Scholars program, which was still in its infancy at UMBC.
Though many of his friends planned to attend nearby College Park, he found his niche at UMBC. He also praised the “support structure” of the Meyerhoff program.
“UMBC seemed more digestible and more tangible (than College Park),” said Dr. Freeman, an “M3,” or third generation graduate of the Meyerhoff program. “It wasn’t like this big beast. It was small and I saw that I would get individual attention.”
Though he started off studying chemical engineering because it seemed to offer the most money as a career, Dr. Freeman quickly figured out his priorities lay elsewhere.
“I quickly learned that money wasn’t the driver…and I switched over to pure chemistry right away,” he said.
Following graduation from UMBC, Dr. Freeman went on to do graduate work in materials science/polymer chemistry at Cornell University and later earned his Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley.
Today, at Eastman Kodak, he uses chemistry on a daily basis to create technologies that support current and future imaging technologies, such as fade-resistant papers for printing photographs. His wife, Thuy Pham ’95, biochemistry and molecular biology, also uses the knowledge she learned at UMBC on a daily basis as a researcher at Bausch & Lomb.
As a researcher and innovator, Dr. Freeman urges current students to keep their options open. One never knows where or when opportunities to use one’s knowledge will arise.
“I really do think chemistry is so central to everyday life,” he said. “It’s in the things we eat, it’s in the computers we use and the plastic that’s used to make the computers…it’s all chemistry.”
– Jenny O’Grady
Originally posted November 2005