At UMBC, students get a versatile education that Retrievers can draw on to succeed no matter where their career lands them. But sometimes, you hit the home run and end up with your dream job. For Kennedy Lamb ’20, English—who also played softball for UMBC—that meant a role in the storied legacy of National Geographic. But dream jobs don’t land because of random luck or chance. Lamb knew early on that she wanted to lean on her love of science in her English degree and topped off her UMBC education with a graduate degree from Johns Hopkins University’s program in science writing. Ultimately, when she applied for the gig at Nat Geo, she’d loaded her bases and was ready to knock it out of the park.

Seven years ago, I sat in my academic advisor’s office in the Performing Art and Humanities Building mulling over which classes to take next semester. The meeting, like all meetings with English professor Christopher Corbett, mostly consisted of discussing select passages from Phillip Lopate’s Art of the Personal Essay, the Baltimore Orioles’ record, and Babe Ruth. I always looked forward to them. 

“What do you want to do after college?” he asked, chuckling good-naturedly. I smiled politely and fiddled with my earrings. At 19, the prospect of securing a full-time job was daunting. I knew I loved to write. I knew I loved science. I did not know how to combine the two. “I’m not sure,” I said. “Write, I guess.”

Corbett took a sip out of his coffee mug and sat back in his chair. “Well, I can tell you where others have gone on after college, if that would help.” I nodded. In his Maine drawl, he rattled off a few media outlets, some of which I was familiar with. Nothing piqued my interest.

 “And one alumna went to write for National Geographic,” he said, almost as an afterthought. I looked up at him. “Really?” I replied.

Corbett hadn’t heard me and continued recounting the various places alumni from the English Department went on to work. But my mind was stuck: National Geographic. Now that would be something special. I pictured the iconic yellow borders in my head and pondered the pathway from college sophomore to Nat Geo writer. 

At the end of the meeting, I had signed up for a handful of writing seminars, an introductory biology class, and Deborah Rudacille’s science writing class. As semesters turned into years and my time at UMBC came to a close in 2020, the dreams of National Geographic lingered in the back of my mind. What if? I would wonder. And how?

Fast forward to 2025, and that dream has become a reality. I am a communications specialist at the National Geographic Society, the centuries-old nonprofit dedicated to illuminating and protecting the wonders of our world. As a public relations professional, I’m tasked with translating stories of scientific discovery into well-packaged pitches to writers around the world.

Left: Lamb poses with a copy of The Wall Street Journal featuring the “mega coral.” Photo courtesy of Lamb. Right: A diver measures the world’s largest coral in the Solomon Islands. October 2024. Photograph by Manu San Félix, National Geographic Pristine Seas.

No two days are alike. Some days are spent decoding technical science papers about extinct human ancestors or writing a press release about cutting-edge conservation tactics that aim to save a slimy snail. Other days are spent digging through National Geographic’s colossal photo archive to find just the right picture for a reporter or presenting to leaders from Pacific Island countries about how to communicate the benefits of marine protected areas.

Perhaps my proudest moment came when a team of scientists and filmmakers from National Geographic Pristine Seas uncovered the world’s largest piece of coral (dubbed the “mega coral”) while on expedition in the Solomon Islands. After being briefed on the discovery by the expedition team and Solomon Islands scientists, our communications crew began a two-week sprint to craft a press release and press kit, organize a press conference, and pitch the story to reporters across the globe. 

And that work paid off: The story went viral. In three weeks, the story was picked up by over 3,000 outlets in 50 countries. The mega coral graced the front page of The Wall Street Journal, was featured on Germany’s largest television show Tagesschau and even became the butt of a joke on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. (All press is good press, right?)

In moments like this, I’m reminded of the privilege of working for such an iconic brand. It’s easy to trudge to the next assignment and never truly celebrate the amount of work that went into making a piece of coral in the Pacific Ocean a viral sensation. But after the story had run its course, I reflected on what got me to this moment.

What I realized is that there is no secret to landing a dream job. It is hard work with a healthy serving of serendipity. I took nearly every internship offered to me (including one at UMBC Magazine!) and tried to view even the most mundane task as a chance to learn something new. When it came time to apply to the National Geographic Society, I trusted my skills.

All writers know there is no such thing as perfection. Instead, I try to strive for the asymptote of perfection. It is demanding and, at times, downright exhausting. But because I know the impact of conservancy in action—from coral reefs to slimy snails—I wouldn’t have it any other way.

— Kennedy Lamb ’20

In spring 2022, UMBC softball swept all three tournament games to win their third America East championship. The Retrievers held their opponents scoreless, becoming the first team in conference history to achieve this milestone. And no one cheered louder for their success than Jamie Gurganus, faculty in engineering and computing education and mechanical engineering. Decked out in softball gear (and now with a championship ring necklace gifted from the team engraved with “Prof. G”), Gurganus ’04, M.S. ’11, Ph.D. ’20, mechanical engineering, ended her inaugural semester as honorary faculty coach to the record-breaking team on a high note. (UMBC Softball would go on to nab a fourth consecutive America East championship in 2023.)

But beyond cheering on their successful teams, how do honorary faculty coaches “coach” their teams? Enter Adriana Mason, associate athletic director for academics, who originally envisioned the role of “faculty liaison honorary coaches” lending their expertise to UMBC’s 17 Division 1 teams—maybe not moving magnets around a tactics board and giving game instructions but providing another listening ear and being a loud member of the cheering section.

“The goal is to foster and strengthen the relationships between athletics and academics. Sometimes there can be a disconnect, so we really wanted to try to build that bridge,” explains Mason, who initiated this program alongside Athletic Director Brian Barrio.

Since spring 2022, each UMBC athletic program has had its very own faculty coach. While “coach” may be in the title, squad selection, tactics, and practice plans are still in the hands of professionals. 

When she met the softball team, Gurganus (known as “Prof. G” to many) made it a point to ask each team member. “‘Who are you? Tell me about your major.’ I blocked out time to figure out who every single person was.”

“You have to be the initiator because sometimes they don’t know how to approach you,” says Gurganus. “I came down wearing a softball shirt, and I’m like ‘I’m one of you.’” 

“When we were assigned her, I thought it’d be like the university saying, ‘Hey, professor, you have to be the honorary coach.’ But when she’s coming in so often and actually talking to us, and complimenting us, we can tell she actually wants to be here,” says first-year softball player Mikayla Bryant, chemical engineering.

 It’s not only about the winning moments—Gurganus is no fair weather fan. During a recent tough moment for the team, “she showed up,” shares Bryant. “It wasn’t like she was forced to be there, but she had some words of advice for us and that was really nice. At that moment everyone was like, ‘Wow, she’s really here for us.’”

Coaches have also witnessed the benefits of the initiative. “We have several students who have a close relationship with her and, more as a mentor or a sounding board for different things going on in their own lives,” says UMBC softball Head Coach Chris Kuhlmeyer, who has led the team to four consecutive championships.

Honorary faculty coaches have their own reasons for wanting to participate in the initiative. 

“Honestly, there are research centers that if I wanted to do pure research, I could go do that,” explains Jeff Leips, honorary coach of the UMBC swim and dive team and biological sciences professor. “But when I’m sitting here alone in my office thinking about science, and then I go talk to the team, that’s a great break.”

For Leips, the chance to get out of his office and “doing what I can to promote learning in whatever environment that I can,” is what taking on this role has been all about.

“It definitely changed my thinking about how to facilitate the learning environment for athletic students,” says Gurganus.

Even though the faculty coach initiative is still in its infancy, Leips and Gurganus see the potential for UMBC to continue leading the way in student support. “We can come together to help support these students in a bigger way, and a very non-traditional way, unlike any other university, I think,” says Gurganus.

— Eric Widemann ’21

As two-time reigning America East champions, the UMBC women’s softball team is eagerly awaiting the spring season. Following a promising preseason, teammates and coaches are confident and feel prepared to fight for their third America East Conference championship in a row.

Senior catcher and utility—a player who is capable of playing multiple positions—Karly Keating ’22, media and communication studies, remembers what it felt like to capture the conference championship in 2019, the program’s first since they joined America East in 2003. The Retrievers were expected to place last in the tournament. Instead, they upset number three Stony Brook in a thrilling championship match.

“UMBC was known for just not being good at softball. We were always ranked last in our conference every single year, like not even close to even be considered,” Keating said. So when they won the conference tournament, went to the NCAA Tournament selection room and saw they were facing Oklahoma—one of the best softball schools in the NCAA—in the first round, it was a total shock. “When you were a little girl, you knew that’s where the number one school is and you wanna go there, and now the fact that I was playing there was really awesome.”

The making of the team

Even though the  team was ultimately defeated by Oklahoma, senior infielder Chloe Obispo ’22, media and communication studies, can’t stop thinking about their surreal win against Stony Brook. Since there was no pressure to win, they just played their game throughout the season and hoped to prove everyone wrong. 

The team celebrating their 2019 win together with Coach Kuhlmeyer. Photo from The Oklahoman.

“We ended up playing in the conference tournament, and we just kept it day by day, every single game,” Obispo said. “We realized, ‘maybe we actually have a chance this season.’ We were supposed to be last, but it didn’t seem like we could be last at that point. [The win] was a surprise to everyone, including ourselves.”

Both players added that their recruiting class, the class of 2018, included players that filled some gaps in previous rosters. “My freshman year, we were close, but we were really just a bunch of good girls coming together,” said Keating. “And then as we went on, we just got a lot more gelled together and I think we just stayed really strong-minded throughout the whole season.”

Winning under pressure 

The team’s new-found confidence fueled a great start to their 2020 season, and they racked up five wins until the season was canceled by COVID. Nonetheless, the team brushed it off, worked hard over the seven months of quarantine, returned for the 2021 season, and defended their title from 2019. 

“We had to keep our heads high because we won the first time. I felt like a lot more people were coming for us since we basically shut out every team in the tournament last time. When we were working out, we kept in mind that we had to keep our crown, keep our ring,” Obispo said. “It was a lot of pressure, but it was definitely something that we could all handle together.”

Keating said that their second championship win felt just as shocking as the first, but the team had something more to prove. “We had to do it for ourselves, and to prove to us that we are what we preach.”

Ohana Means Family

The team culture revolves around the word “Ohana,” the Hawaiian word for family, said Obispo. This feeling of sisterhood and “no girl left behind” is what drew Obispo to the program, and what the team wanted to showcase in the 2021 regional game. They wanted to show their guts, their trust in each other, and feel like they accomplished something as a family rather than a team. 

The softball team with President Freeman Hrabowski at their last regional tournament in Tucson, Arizona. Photo from UMBC Softball’s Twitter.

“Our Ohana is what our culture and program is all about,” said head softball coach Chris Kuhlmeyer.  “We cannot accomplish anything without each other. Choosing love, respect, unselfishness and forgiveness over pride, unforgiveness, and selfishness will lead you to places you never knew you could accomplish together.  At the end of the day, when we say Ohana, we are choosing family over self and everyone else.”  

To prepare for the Spring 2022 season, the team is working tirelessly to be prepared to defend their title. During the fall semester, they condition once a week on top of daily practices on the field and three weight room sessions per week. 

The players are also focusing on accountability: making sure each teammate is using their time wisely, even if that means spending their day off at the cages to improve their hitting, or getting on the mound for a few hours to perfect their pitching. 

Off the field, they also are strengthening their “Ohana” with team bonding exercises. 

“My coach does this thing where he puts us in groups and we have to go out and do something, and he puts us in groups with different people,” said Obispo. “I think that’s something the team really needed because you play with a bunch of girls and it can get a little hectic sometimes, so sometimes we have to learn how to get along and know more about each other.”

Obispo feels that these exercises help the team bond and will “help overall chemistry, like there are days where we win really big games, it will feel a lot better internally, like we won this as a team.” 

They also are working to find each girl’s “why.” Each player’s “why” is different, but once they find their own individual reason, it makes the team as a whole stronger because each player will play to their best ability, making each win more meaningful. Keating says that intrinsic motivation is what drives her to play well. She understands that this is her last chance to play softball at a high, competitive level, so she wants to make the most of it and leave it all on the field. 

“After college, I can play in a beer league. People will have fun and it will be a good time, but you don’t care as much,” she said.  “I’ll never get the chance to play with girls that genuinely love the sport again.”

The team after they won their 2021 conference title. Photo by Ian Feldmann/UMBC Athletics.

For Obispo, the people around her are what motivates her to make the most of her opportunities. “I’ve worked so hard for my whole childhood to get to moments like this,” she said. “I really enjoy showing up to practice for the people around me and for the people at home, like my family.”

Looking toward the 2022 Season

The team is eager to defend their crown. Unlike previous seasons, they are no longer underdogs, but the team to beat.

“I’m very confident in this group that at the end, we will be right there with a shot at it,” Kuhlmeyer said of winning the conference championship. “This team is built different than previous years, but with the pieces we have added and the veteran experience we have returning, that gives me the confidence we will be there again at the end.  My belief in this group of women is endless.”  

“I’m so excited for the season. Not only because it’s my last season, but I think we really have the potential to win,” said Obispo. With a talented freshman class, the team can adapt to any situation. Each player works just as hard as the next to play their part and step up to fill in any gaps needed. That shows the team’s versatility, confidence in themselves, and their willingness to take chances in a pinch.

“I think we have a lot of guts and I think we all care a lot, I mean not just for our egos because we won back to back, but because we want to win, we want to play in the conference tournament, we want to go play that regional game,” Keating concluded. “We are very confident and we know our goals.”

— By Jordan Lomax ’22, media and communication studies

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Header image: UMBC Retrievers congratulate each other at the 2021 America East Championships. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11.

With five no hitters under her belt, first-year pitcher Courtney Coppersmith spent the semester picking off batters and picking up accolades—including several firsts for UMBC.

By Zach Seidel ’12, M.S. ’15

Flashback to April, and the UMBC Softball team’s bout against Norfolk State. The crowd roared and then began laughing out of astonishment: Coppersmith ’22, biochemistry and molecular biology, had just hit a tie-breaking (and eventual game-winning), two-out, two-strike grand slam in the bottom of the sixth (out of the seven innings in a collegiate softball game).

This hit was her first career home run, but more impressively, it happened just three days after she pitched the second perfect game in program history.

Her teammates and fans couldn’t stop shaking their heads and smiling because every time the lefthander from York, Pennsylvania, stepped on the field, it seemed like she was either breaking another record or coming up clutch.

Coppersmith helped lead UMBC to its first-ever America East championship and first appearance in the NCAA Tournament since 2002—despite the fact that the Retrievers were picked to finish last in the preseason coaches’ poll. In addition to being named UMBC Softball’s first-ever All-American, she was also the first person in America East history to be named both Pitcher of the Year and Rookie of the Year in the same season. And the list goes on.

The Retrievers entered the America East tournament in Hartford, Connecticut. as the No. 4 seed, and had to face the hosts, No. 5 Hartford, in the first round of the double-elimination tournament. Coppersmith threw an 11-strikeout no-hitter, and then followed that up the following day by throwing another no-hitter, this time against the regular season champion No. 1 UMass Lowell. She then helped lead UMBC to a pair of victories over Stony Brook to clinch the championship. Coppersmith went 4 – 0 while allowing just two runs in 28 innings pitched, a 0.50 ERA on only eight hits, and 33 strikeouts en route to being named the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player.

The previous UMBC record for strikeouts in a single game was 13, set over a decade ago. Coppersmith has already reached or surpassed that total in a game seven times this season. She absolutely shattered the record in one of the best performances in the nation this season: a 17 strikeout, no walk, one-hit masterpiece in a 1 – 0 win at UNC Wilmington, in which she scored the only run of the game on offense for UMBC. She then one-upped that with a 17 strikeout no-hitter in a 7 – 0 win over conference rival Maine.

No one has more fun on the diamond than Coppersmith, who can be seen dancing to the music in between pitches. She’s top three in the country in strikeouts (a school single-season record 346) and near the top in strikeouts per game (10.16). We sat down with the thrower of a nasty “rise ball”—and aspiring future pharmacist—for a Q&A.

Zach Seidel: You were obviously recruited to play at multiple schools, so what made UMBC your top choice?

Courtney Coppersmith: They say it’s like a wedding dress, you know it when you see it and then you cry. When I visited campus I knew it was the perfect fit. (I didn’t cry, though.) Academics are very important to me, and it’s a very good academic school. UMBC offered me a sense of community. It offers a lot programs and academic opportunities on top of being an athlete.

Seidel: You want to be a pharmacist, correct? Why is that?

Coppersmith: I like helping people and pharmacists provide medicine to people to help them do that. If I don’t end up doing that, I do want to do research and help create drugs that can cure cancer and help treat various diseases.

Seidel: What feels better for you: acing a chemistry test or striking out a batter?

Coppersmith: Acing a chemistry test. A hundred percent acing a chemistry test!

Seidel: What is the coolest thing about striking someone out?

Coppersmith: The best part is when you fall behind 3-0, and then you throw two strikes that they don’t swing at and then you get them to chase the rise ball anyway. Or, I’ll throw a low rise ball right into the edge of the zone [for a called third strike] and they’ll just look at the umpire; that’s also very amusing to watch.

Seidel: Do you prefer striking batters out swinging or looking?

Coppersmith: Oh, that’s a tough one because I get a lot of my strikeouts swinging, but I guess I like them equally. It’s really funny to watch them when they think it’s not going to be a strike and it’s a strike, but also really funny to watch them swing at a ball that’s over their head, because in no way is that going to be a strike, and they still swing at it anyway!”

Seidel: What’s your walkout song and why?

Coppersmith: For my normal walkout, I use the song “Wild Thing” from the movie Major League for the simple reason that it is one of mine and my dad’s favorite movies, and it is such an important moment in that movie. For my second walkout, it is the Little Einsteins trap remix. While it may sound super childish, I really enjoy the remix and the hype that it brings my teammates, myself, and even the other team.

Seidel:  What’s the Retriever fan support like?

Coppersmith: Retriever fans are one of the major parts to the game; while we still go out and do our jobs, either way, fans only bring even more support to us as we are out there playing our game.

Seidel: If you could strike out anybody in the world, who would it be?

Coppersmith: Heck, I would love to be able to strikeout Coach [Chris] Kuhlmeyer. He always talks a lot of smack, and I know that he doesn’t think I could strike him out, so that would be a cherry on top of the ice cream!

All-Star Stats

Coppersmith helped lead UMBC Softball to its first-ever America East championship. During the same season, she also became:

• UMBC Softball’s first-ever All-American (Softball America Honorable Mention)
• The first person in America East history to be named both Pitcher of the Year and Rookie of the Year in the same season
• UMBC’s first Louisville Slugger/NFCA Division 1 National Pitcher of the Week
• The first in America East Conference history to sweep the weekly awards in the same week as she was named as the Player, Pitcher, and Rookie of the Week (April 9)
• The first member of the America East Conference to be included as a member in the 2019 Schutt Sports/NFCA Freshman of the Year Top 25, an award honoring the top freshmen in the entire nation
• The ECAC (an organization of 87 Division 1 institutions) Rookie of the Year and made the All-ECAC First Team twice, as a pitcher and a designated player (only player to make first team at two separate positions)

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Header image courtesy of Ian Feldmann, The Retriever.