When UMBC dethroned the University of Vermont, 65 – 62, to win the America East men’s basketball champion ship on March 10, few anticipated the journey ahead. A stunning three-point shot by Jairus Lyles, with less than a second left on the clock, didn’t just catapult UMBC to the NCAA tournament, it set the tone for the nail-biting, heart-pounding, history-making run that would follow.

By Dinah Winnick and Jenny O’Grady

Photos by Marlayna Demond ’11, Ian Feldmann, Gail Burton, Brian Jenkins, and Mitchell Layton

University of a Million Brackets Crushed

Selection Sunday arrived and joyful fans crowded into the Retriever Sports Zone, surrounding the men’s basketball team as the live broadcast announced they would take on no. 1 seed University of Virginia. Cheers erupted as if UMBC “were announcing itself to the world,” wrote Jonas Shaffer in the Baltimore Sun. “It was less ‘Here we are, America’,” said Shaffer, “and more ‘Here we go.’”

That victory-focused mentality held strong. As the team headed off to North Carolina two days later, guard K.J. Maura ’18, sociology, told local press, “We don’t go to the game thinking we’re underdogs … We go [with] the mindset that we’re going to win the game.” And his vision became a reality.

Basketball fans watched in awe that Friday night as UMBC made history. The Retrievers became the first-ever no. 16 seed to defeat a no. 1 seed in an NCAA men’s basketball championship tournament.

And they didn’t just win. As NPR reported, UMBC “beat the stuffing out of Virginia, the best team in the country.” UMBC bested UVA by 20 points, earning a 74-54 victory. In an instant, UMBC became University of a Million Brackets Crushed. Sports reporters took to social media, proclaiming the win the biggest upset in men’s college basketball history.

How Did It Happen?

How did it happen? UMBC “played loose and fearless,” wrote the New York Times. “When most uber-longshots in the NCAA tournament get tight, the Retrievers instead went to the rim with reckless abandon,” USA Today reported. UMBC shot 54.2 percent from the floor, and as their lead over Virginia ballooned, the Cavaliers “played with nervousness while the Retrievers’ confidence grew.”

UMBC star guard Jairus Lyles ’17, sociology, M.A. ’18, education, again helped lead his team to victory, finishing with 28 points (82 percent from the floor). During the TNT broadcast, analyst Bill Raftery commented, “The kid’s on fire.”

Retriever fandom exploded. UMBC became the world’s top trending topic on Twitter. The university website, ready for an influx of visitors, slowed under the weight of millions of clicks. The UMBC Bookstore, closed for Spring Break, received 3,000 online t-shirt orders overnight. NBA star Steph Curry called to congratulate the Retrievers. Oh, and UMBC appeared on the front page of the New York Times, Washington Post, the NPR website, and Sports Illustrated.

The game grabbed the world’s attention, but news coverage and fan messages from around the globe quickly revealed that Retriever Fever was about more than the game alone. As New York Times reporter Erica Green wrote, “the U.M.B.C. Cinderella story transcends athletics, and has been decades in the making.” The Baltimore Sun captured that feeling in a headline: “Never heard of UMBC? MIT has. And Cal Tech. And Harvard. And Stanford …”

“It’s no coincidence that two of our strongest players, Jairus Lyles and Joe Sherburne, earned 4.0 GPAs this fall, or that Joe was just named a First-Team Academic All-American,” President Hrabowski noted in The Atlantic. He wrote that at UMBC, “our magic comes from questioning expectations, putting in the hard work, and staying focused,” from the court to the classroom.

Schooling the Nation

The victory over UVA certainly crushed millions of brackets, but for the UMBC community that success was emblematic of the university’s larger story of grit and greatness, where drive and support yield astounding achievements. “Our men’s basketball team embodies our definition of grit … bringing both passion and preparation to the game,” Hrabowski wrote.

The Retrievers returned to the court to battle Kansas State in a neck-and-neck round-two contest. Even as UMBC lost, 50-43, game announcers highlighted the Retrievers’ perseverance in fighting to the end, as walk-on and former team manager Isaiah Rogers ’18, biological sciences, sank one last shot while the buzzer rang out.

Changing the Landscape

Since UMBC’s NCAA appearance, accolades and congratulations have continued to pour in. UMBC celebrated as Coach Ryan Odom earned the 2018 Hugh Durham Award, which honors the nation’s top mid-major men’s college basketball coach of the year. Odom led the Retrievers to the 2018 America East tournament title, NCAA Championship first-round victory, and a total of 25 victories over the course of the season, a record for the program.

“Ryan Odom has completely changed the landscape at UMBC,” CollegeInsider.com’s Angela Lento said, calling him “one of the best young coaches in America.”

Even prior to the NCAA victory, UMBC Athletic Director Tim Hall shared, “Obviously, Coach Odom is first class — in all facets — and his student athletes bought in from day one.” Indeed, at the end of last season, Odom received the Joe B. Hall Award as the nation’s top first-year head coach.

CollegeInsider.com also named Lyles to the Lou Henson All-America team. This follows Sherburne ’18, financial economics, being named to the Academic All-America Division I Men’s Basketball First Team — the first UMBC player and first America East player to receive this top academic honor in NCAA Division I men’s basketball. Additionally, Maura was named America East Defensive Player of the Year.

Beyond the coach and players, UMBC Director of Multimedia Communications Zach Seidel ’12, media and communication studies, M.S. ’15, human-centered computing, developed a massive fan following during the Retrievers’ NCAA journey. CBS Sports called him a “March Madness hero” for live-tweeting the games through @UMBCAthletics with an exuberant spirit, gracious competitiveness, and self-deprecating humor. Since then, he’s done interviews with media across the U.S., offering tips to other universities on how to make the most of their NCAA appearances and have fun while they’re at it.

Hometown Heroes

The team also received a massive welcome home from elated fans in Maryland. On March 26, they traveled to Annapolis to meet with the state legislature and Governor Larry Hogan, who, heading into the championship, had selected UMBC as #1 in his NCAA bracket. A joyful UMBC community celebration in the university’s new Event Center followed, and when the Baltimore Orioles announced they would honor the team during a pregame ceremony on April 20, UMBC Pride Night tickets sold out in a day.

As the NCAA Championship came to a close on April 2 and the Retrievers had a chance to step back, take a breath, and reflect, it became clear that the echoes of UMBC’s March Madness journey will be heard for years to come.

“Our colleagues knew about us, but this was an opportunity for the world to better know us,” said President Hrabowski. “We prepared for that moment well,” and when the spotlight turned toward UMBC, “They saw substance. They saw values.”

— Dinah Winnick

Becoming an academic superstar doesn’t happen overnight. It takes grit, character, and a community of true believers. Luckily for Naomi Mburu ’18 — UMBC’s very first Rhodes Scholar — she has all three.

by Jenny O’Grady

To read her resume, and to sense the shining future ahead of her, it would be easy to guess that Naomi Mburu was born an academic star. And, to a certain extent that is true.

In her senior year of studying chemical engineering, UMBC’s first Rhodes Scholar is predictably a whiz in the classroom and the lab. She’s also generous and patient, serving as a mentor to fellow engineering students and Meyerhoff Scholars, and a natural leader, exuding a quiet confidence beyond her years.

But, what makes Mburu special — and what has made her successful — is not some innate key to knowledge unattainable to others, but a deep desire to question the world around her, and the support system of family, professors, and friends at UMBC and elsewhere who have stoked and nurtured that flame from her earliest years.

As Mburu finishes out her final semester at UMBC, her packed schedule reflects the magnitude of her academic achievements — from an invitation to Washington, D.C., to hear the State of the Union Address, to a standing ovation at UMBC’s first basketball game in its new Event Center.

Amid all of the attention and interviews about the Rhodes, she and her family also continue to mourn the loss of her older brother, Nicholas, who unexpectedly passed away following a car accident just after the winter holiday. The loss shook them all, while also strengthening the bonds of her family and their local Kenyan community.

To handle so much takes strength, poise, and a true sense of self. One of her biggest fans, UMBC President Freeman Hrabowski — who told the Washington Post he cried upon hearing the news of her award in November — has watched her adjust these past months.

“What’s so impressive about Naomi is that she is as grounded as ever,” he said. “One senses her humility and authenticity in that great smile. She talks comfortably about the research that she’s done, about her future in England in nuclear engineering. She shows us the true Renaissance spirit.”

And in so many ways, this is just the beginning.

* * * * *

Over in the student apartments, Naomi Mburu ruins a pot of noodles.

It’s true: UMBC’s very first winner of “the oldest and most celebrated international fellowship awards in the world,” as defined by Rhodes, is still a bit wobbly with her cooking. She’s working on it, though, especially since hearing mixed reactions about the food options in England.

In the fall, she’ll continue her education in the Oxford lab of Dr. Peter Ireland studying heat transfer applications for nuclear fusion reactors. Over the summer, she’ll visit family in Kenya, and travel to Lindau, Germany, for an invitation-only Nobel conference. And in this, her final semester, where in addition to taking a full course load, she’s also TA-ing and coaching Lakeland Elementary students in math, and traveling many weekends for the National Society of Black Engineers, she’s also fielding media interviews, giving speeches — the whole nine yards.

Amid it all, she knows her weaknesses, and works to strengthen herself. Amid it all, she’s figuring out the noodles.

* * * * *

The Early Bird

As a kid, Mburu struggled with math. Like so many, she just “didn’t get it.” But instead of complaining, and instead of letting her studies lag, she got up extra early each day to meet with her teacher Mary Ann Sankey, who was in at 6 a.m. to start setting up for class.

Together, they hashed out the numbers. Even though she had no idea of what she’d be studying five years later, Mburu somehow already knew that math would be the key to so much more. In her teachers at Mount Hebron High School and beyond, she found people who not only believed in her, but pushed her to challenge herself.

“Naomi came in before school started, and she was into it, wholeheartedly,” said Sankey. “She didn’t just want to know what the answer was, but how and why it was working. It’s a wonderful thing to see in a student.”

As a little girl, Mburu had a few jobs in mind for herself: inventor, spy, or pediatrician (although she ditched the last idea when she realized she hated blood). As her teachers broadened her view of what was possible, they also helped her shape her questions and her study habits.

When Douraine Donaldson, Mburu’s AP Calculus teacher recently heard President Hrabowski mention the word “grit” in a speech, she immediately thought of her former student, who she recalls never shied away from asking anything.

“I saw that level of determination as it was starting to emerge…you know, the no-fear attitude, the ability to question and wonder why, and push the boundaries,” said Donaldson, who described Mburu as a center of inquiry, drawing other students in to discuss a range of topics. “I think it really started to emerge in her junior year. And by the time Naomi graduated, she was just ready to take it on and challenge things even more.”

As she began to figure out what types of work she enjoyed, Mburu knew she wanted to get into a lab environment. As a junior in high school, she attended an admissions event at UMBC where she met now-retired professor of biological sciences Lasse Lindahl, who offered her a position in his lab that summer.

“There were a ton of freshmen in the lab and juniors, and they didn’t treat me any differently” as a high schooler, she said. “I had to read a lot for the first couple of weeks to understand what was going on, but after I had my grounding, they let me run experiments.” By the end of the summer, she was invited to present at the Summer Undergraduate Research Festival with her college-level colleagues — an experience that helped her get over a fear of talking about her work, she said.

It wasn’t long before Mburu was a freshman at UMBC, figuring out her next steps with the help of a new cast of teachers.

Unsure of her major choice and looking for more hands-on experience, she approached Gymama Slaughter, associate professor of computer science and electrical engineering, during her freshman year, and left the meeting with a permanent spot on Slaughter’s team. In that role, the lone undergraduate chemical engineer among graduate-level researchers, Mburu learned quickly to stretch herself as a questioner and communicator.

“She’s a go-getter, she always hits the ground running, and she’s never afraid of whatever you’re going to give her…she’s excited and ready to do it,” said Slaughter, who has encouraged Mburu to follow her imagination in terms of what she studies, and has watched her student learn as much from her missteps as her successes.

“We all do fail miserably at times,” laughed Slaughter. “It’s important to allow students to fail rather than give them the answer all time…or they’re not really learning. It’s nice when a student like Naomi comes to you and says, ‘I read this, and I think this will work for us’…and I say: ‘Sure. Let’s try it.’”

Even in college, some old habits die hard. When she had trouble wrapping her head around a concept in Lee Blaney’s class on chemical manufacturing type processes, Mburu showed up early for office hours — and stayed for a full hour and a half, he said.

“I could tell that if I had to call the office hours closed and not get to that closure point with her, that it would drive her crazy,” said Blaney, an associate professor of chemical, biochemical and environmental engineering. “She wouldn’t give up on it.”

Both professors agreed she has the spark to take her work far — both as a researcher and as someone who can change the face of science.

“It’s a wonderful and a fulfilling feeling to see somebody that works with you is able to make such huge leaps in their own academic career, and I think that having the Rhodes and having the opportunity to go to Oxford and work with people from all around the world is wonderful,” said Slaughter. “I am simply overjoyed.”

* * * * *

Last year, Naomi willingly enlisted in a 10-mile race called the Tough Mudder — an obstacle course filled with pits to cross, walls to climb, and mud as far as the eye can see. She and her friends came out of it covered from head to toe in dirt, tired but smiling like crazy.

If life is a race, Naomi is cool with it. She’s one of those people who genuinely loves the rush of air into the lungs. Running clears the mind, and keeps her level.

And if life is an obstacle course, she’s more than prepared for whatever challenges may come.

* * * * *

Keys To Success

The process of applying for the Rhodes Scholarship is nothing close to easy. It involves writing multiple essays, asking for up to eight letters of recommendation, and participating in a series of increasingly pressure-filled interviews spanning a range of knowledge beyond one’s chosen field.

So, last August, when Mburu told April Householder ’95, director of undergraduate research and head of UMBC’s then-brand-new office of prestigious scholarships, she wanted to apply for all three of the UK’s top prizes (the Rhodes, the Gates Cambridge, and the Marshall), Householder admits her first thought was, “You’re crazy.”

But Mburu pushed on, taking Householder’s challenge to think it over seriously. The following week, she returned to the office, paperwork in hand, ever more determined to get it done. In the weeks that followed, Mburu worked with Householder and staff in other campus offices to get her applications ready, practice mock interviews, and — in short — train for the marathon that is prestigious scholarship competition.

“One of the things that made her successful in this whole process is that she took every opportunity that UMBC had on offer and she followed through on it,” said Householder. And she did it so well that she actually won all three awards (though she could accept only one).

“She knows her worth, she knows herself, she’s taken the time to really get to know what she’s capable of,” said Jackie King, associate director of the MARC*U*STAR Program, in which Mburu participates. “So I was not surprised when she said, ‘I won the Rhodes.’ I said, ‘Of course you did.’”

Outside of the Rhodes, and despite the newness of UMBC’s specialized office, the university has a solid history of success with prestigious scholarships. In previous years, staff in the Honors College and elsewhere have coached applicants, many of whom have gone on to win the top UK prizes, as well as Fulbrights, Goldwaters, and others. (See “Serious Scholarship”.)

Simon Stacy, director of the Honors College, who has worked with a number of them over the years says that while many applicants to these top scholarships nationwide come from the Ivies — and with years of grooming for just such situations — UMBC students come to the table with grit and the willingness to quickly learn how to play the game.

“Naomi is open and self-confident, which I think is absolutely crucial for the Rhodes process because everybody is accomplished by the time they get to an interview, and an awful lot depends on the ability of an applicant to connect with the interviewers and to represent themselves as effective leaders — as someone like Naomi can,” he said. “Her ability to make herself known in a way that does her credit without seeming self-aggrandizing is such a striking thing.”

Add to that the four years of support and fellowship she’s received as part of the acclaimed Meyerhoff Scholars Program — which stands at the forefront of efforts to increase diversity among future leaders in science, technology, engineering, and related fields — and you can see how the community has truly stood behind her efforts. It’s a place where “we are all looking out for each other,” Mburu says.

“We always tell students there’s no limit to what they can do if they work hard, as long as they do their part to hold up a high personal standard of excellence,” said Keith Harmon, director of the Meyerhoff program. “The talent is here.”

* * * * *

Where do you find your strength?

For Naomi, it’s a combination of things: It’s her family and friends, who keep her grounded, who bring her joy. It’s the Kenyan community in and around her neighborhood experiencing the highs and lows of life together. And — above all — it’s her spirituality, her faith in God, that pushes her through the tough times.

“It’s a big part of who I am,” she says of her Christianity, her parents nodding beside her.

* * * * *

Those Most Dear

At the very beginning of Mburu’s journey are Joseph and Joyce Mburu, her parents, who emigrated from Kenya in the 1980s. Kind and hardworking, they fell in love while students at the University of Baltimore, both earning multiple graduate degrees as they built a family with Naomi and her older brother, Nicholas, a 2016 financial economics alumnus.

In their comfortable home, mother and daughter wear matching bracelets woven to spell the word “Kenya.” As the parents have infused a love of their heritage and spirituality in their daughter, so have they nurtured a deep desire to learn.

Joyce’s parents were both teachers, and her father was a pastor; Joseph’s father was a businessman who wasn’t able to go to college, so “going to college was very important to him, and he did the best he could to send us to the best schools,” he said.

They try to be supportive without babying her, they laugh. When she started exploring prestigious scholarship options, they stood by her — even giving her a subscription to The Economist for Christmas to expand her world view — knowing full well a win would take their daughter to the other side of the Atlantic.

“You have to step away, but keep a watchful eye,” said Joseph. “You let her find her way — because that’s how they grow. That’s how they develop.”

“We are so proud of her,” agreed Joyce, who for years worked in the business office at UMBC and was able to be close to both of her children as they attended school.

When her brother, Nicholas, passed away in January, the family was comforted by the close-knit Kenyan community, both in Maryland and afar. But Naomi found herself dealing with an uncomfortable imbalance between the best and worst pieces of news of her life.

“I was flipping between those two emotions all the time — the extreme happiness about winning the scholarship, and then the sadness of him not being here,” she said, adding that he had looked forward to being interviewed for this article.

Through it all, Mburu’s friends have also proven a powerful positive force in her life, offering emotional support, laughter, late night snacks, and unflinching love. Her friend Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman, a math and econ major, uses the words of King Solomon to describe their friendship: “As iron sharpens iron, so does one sharpen another.”

The night Mburu found out she won the Rhodes, Anna and friends scooped her up and took her for her favorite meal — Kabab Hut — and some delicious Korean bakery treats. As they chowed down, her roommates and neighbors in the Hillside Apartments pulled together a surprise party for when she returned, complete with confetti, cake, and about a thousand hugs.

“They have all been just super, super, super supportive of everything I’ve done,” Mburu said of her friends. “We’re not competing necessarily against each other; we’re more so trying to make sure we’re getting better together.”

In fact, many of them played key roles in her Rhodes journey, providing serious feedback on her essays, and tossing potential interview questions back and forth between them. One of those people was Adrian Davey, who befriended Mburu the summer before their freshman year.

“I jumped with joy and yelled in my room,” he said, out of joy for his friend.

“The icing on the cake is that through it all, she remains humble,” said Olanike Awotunde, another friend from the Meyerhoff program.

* * * * *

The night UMBC opened its new Event Center, the seats were packed with fans. On the sidelines, behind the video cameras, Naomi stood waiting for her cue, decked out in a black t-shirt with gold paws across the front.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, UMBC Athletics would like to offer a special welcome to Naomi Mburu, the first Rhodes Scholar in UMBC History!” As she walks to the center of the court, the crowd erupts in applause and a full-on standing ovation, cheering wildly.

This is a very UMBC moment, and Naomi is very much a UMBC star.

* * * * *

The Big Picture

Speaking to a group of high schoolers from Baltimore City this spring, Mburu fields a common question: “Have you ever felt like you couldn’t do something?

“I guess sometimes it seems like, ‘Oh, this person’s never failed at anything, but I fail at things all the time,’” she reflects. “I really enjoy talking to them at their level and explaining that I struggle with things all the time. I’ve failed tests before…I still fail tests.”

This one-on-one is a huge part of who Mburu is, and who she hopes to be for others. Besides studying nuclear fission and trying to solve the energy crisis for future generations — no biggie, right? — she’s also hoping to act as a positive role model, just as so many of her teachers have for her.

“There are so many people who have helped me along the way,” she says. “I think it’s really important for people who aren’t in science to understand what’s going on in the scientific world — especially young people who are deciding what they want to do, because sometimes it can seem like a hurdle that they can’t surpass if they’ve never even had anyone to talk to about science in a way that they understood.”

Speaking of relatability, Mburu found out some exciting news about her new lab at Oxford: She’ll actually be the second Kenyan woman Rhodes there.

“I sent her an email and she emailed me back instantly,” she said, smiling. “I’m so excited.”

Soon she will be packing for her summer travels, and figuring out a new life in England. As she reflects on the last half a year, and thinks about all that lies ahead, she feels good. She’s on the right track.

“Sometimes it’s been exhausting having to go from thing to thing to thing, but I really enjoy what I’m doing,” she says. “I get excited to think that someone would think that my story is inspirational, and they could do the same thing, it it makes it all worth it.”

Every day, UMBC researchers work tirelessly to make and build upon discoveries in their fields. For many, these successes lead to scientific publications, opportunities for further funding, or both. For some, however, a discovery is also the first step in a long and often winding pathway to entrepreneurship.

Written by Sarah Hansen M.S. ’15
Illustrated by Ruth Chan

Jumping into business can be a risk, but at UMBC, budding faculty entrepreneurs have a support system that includes the Technology Development Corporation (TEDCO) at the state level, which offers Maryland Innovation Initiative (MII) grants to support budding entrepreneurs. UMBC has a remarkable 50 percent acceptance rate for MII proposals. On campus, the Office of Technology Development and bwtech@UMBC research park provide great resources, including “Entrepreneurs in residence” who seek out research that could be a good fit for commercial development and support faculty from start to finish.

“You set the tone,” says Tom Sadowski ’89, political science, and current vice chancellor for economic development for the University System of Maryland, of UMBC’s efforts to support its faculty entrepreneurs. “You set up the model that other institutions are now following.”

From start-up funding sources to access to experienced entrepreneurs and more, the available support lowers the entry barrier to entrepreneurship and creates opportunities for faculty to impact the world in positive ways. “We focus here on innovation that matters,” says Karl Steiner, UMBC vice president for research, “whether it be in the classroom, working with our communities, or creating new solutions to some of today’s most pressing societal challenges.”

Read on to see how professors and their collaborators are using research and new-found entrepreneurial know-how to bring their inventions to life.

3-D Printed Solutions

Jeffrey Gardner, associate professor of biological sciences and one of two Up-and-Coming UMBC Inventor awardees, had a problem. Gardner’s research focuses on “how bacteria eat dead plants,” which has applications from renewable fuels to removing plastics from the ocean to improved composting methods. But the technique for measuring how efficiently different bacteria could digest plant materials was lengthy and labor-intensive.

So, Gardner created a tiny solution — a plastic widget similar to a tea-strainer — that makes his research on bacteria-driven decomposition faster and lower-cost while increasing the accuracy of the results. Gardner collaborated with Tagide deCarvalho, manager of UMBC’s Keith Porter Imaging Facility, to solve the problem “with a little bit of engineering and 3D printing.”

Gardner received a Maryland Innovation Initiative (MII) grant through TEDCO to complete prototype development on the widget and do a market assessment. Now his newly-created company, Gardner Industries, LLC, exists on paper, and a patent is pending on the product. He’s waiting to find out if he’ll receive phase-three funding from MII, which would enable the company to pursue increased production of the widgets and send them to labs around the country for feedback.

Gardner suggests that academics who may be curious about entering the entrepreneurial space simply “find someone who’s done it successfully and talk to them about it. If you try to do it in a vacuum or try to guess, you could end up with a lot of misconceptions or think it’s going to be too hard or too easy.”

For Gardner, that person was Chuck Bieberich, professor of biological sciences and the Herbert Bearman Foundation Chair in Entrepreneurship. Gardner encourages adventurous faculty to take the leap because the available support lowers the barriers to entry.

Saving the Bay — With Bacteria?

Kevin Sowers, professor of marine biotechnology, has been studying anaerobic bacteria (bacteria that don’t require oxygen) for more than 20 years. In that time, he’s discovered a bacterium that can break down polycyclic biphenyls (PCBs) very efficiently. PCBs were considered a “miracle chemical” when they came out in the 1930s, but since then, researchers have identified some potentially hazardous forms as neurotoxins, carcinogens, endocrine disruptors, and more.

Although banned today, because of their ubiquity in their first several decades of existence, PCBs are now common in wetland sediments around the world. Sedimentary invertebrates ingest them, and they make their way up the food chain from there. Now people are searching for ways to get rid of them safely. Current techniques include dredging and “capping” (piling a thick layer of sand on top of the sediment), but, both techniques are devastating to wetland ecosystems.

Sowers and Upal Gosh, professor of chemical, biochemical, and environmental engineering at UMBC, joined forces to come up with an alternative. Funding from an MII phase-one grant allowed them to develop a carbon pellet as a delivery mechanism for the PCB-degrading bacteria. After bonding the bacteria to the pellets, the researchers spray the pellets out over a wetland or under a pier. The pellets are one to two centimeters in diameter, and they spray 25 kg per cubic meter. The pellets sink, and the bacteria do their work in the sediment. Carbon and this bacterium are both found naturally in sediments, but the low bacterial concentration present would take many, many years to remove the unnaturally high level of PCBs.

A new UMBC Catalyst Fund grant supports the duo’s efforts to develop a method to measure the effectiveness of the treatment by comparing the predicted amount of time it would take for the PCBs to degrade naturally versus with treatment.

Sowers and Gosh have patented the product, and in 2017 they formed a company, Rembac. While it’s still somewhat of an experimental procedure, “we’re hoping that we’ll build up a reputation and we’ll be able to show that this is working well in different environments, and it will become more of a mainstream application,” says Sowers.

Bio-Batteries for Green Medicine

Gymama Slaughter’s invention is an outgrowth of her work to develop glucose-based power sources for use in implantable devices, such as pacemakers. By using the body’s own supply of sugars to power the devices, these “bio-batteries” would remove the need for repeat surgeries to replace failing traditional batteries.

“This project is important to me because of all the issues that human beings face. I give a lot of thought to that, and how we as researchers can really touch people in the community,” says Slaughter, professor of chemical engineering and a UMBC Up-and- Coming Inventor.

“Our primary activities are transforming diagnostic tools, reinventing the manufacturing of these tools — and creating the next generation of scientists and engineers. We now get approached by students all over the world who are interested in what we’re doing.”

“This is not just about chemistry, it’s about vision and bringing the right people together to solve a problem,” Slaughter says. The goal is to “benefit the maximum number of people in the world, not just people in our community.”

Classical Music for the Masses

Linda Dusman, professor of music and the UMBC Entrepreneur of the Year, is helping more people make positive connections with classical music via a mobile app called EnCue. The app provides customized information in real time during a performance, which could include facts about the composer, quotes from the performers or conductor, or historical context for the piece. World-class orchestras like the London Symphony are already using EnCue.

Dusman has MII phase-three funding to pursue further business development and fine-tuning of the product, such as allowing orchestras to design their own presentations rather than drawing from a library generated by Dusman and her business partner, Eric Smallwood ’08, interdisciplinary studies, former assistant professor of visual arts at UMBC.

You don’t need a certain kind of education to appreciate classical music, Dusman says. “What kills me is when I see newcomers in the audience and they’re embarrassed about not knowing when to clap, or they leave feeling stupid — that is a tragedy, a tragedy. And EnCue helps make me feel like I’m doing my best so that doesn’t happen. People leave concerts using EnCue excited about what they learned.”

Asked if she would recommend taking the plunge into the business world, she says, “If you believe in what you’re doing, then yes. In a way, I had to do it, if I really believed in this idea of real-time education.” But the process has not been without its challenges and frustrations.

“Anything worth doing, if you had known what it was going to take to get it to work before you did it, you’d probably never do it,” she says. “But if you believe in something, you do what it takes to make it happen. The value is worth the effort.”

Better Sleep With Engineering

Ever wake up feeling groggy and wonder why, because you’re sure you slept through the night? Nilanjan Banerjee, associate professor, and Ryan Robucci ’02, computer engineering, assistant professor of computer science and electrical engineering, have invented a device that may help you answer that question. In collaboration with researchers at Johns Hopkins University, Banerjee and Robucci have developed an anklet users wear at night to monitor “sleep texture” by measuring leg movements in a way that wrist monitors currently can’t.

The device is currently in the FDA approval process as a diagnostic tool for sleep-related disorders such as restless leg syndrome, attention deficit disorder, or iron deficiency. “People usually do this in a sleep lab, with EEG electrodes, and it’s very expensive,” says Banerjee. “We’ve been trying to see if we can move it to the home.”

The research team has received MII phases one through three funding, and is currently seeking larger grants from NIH — but none of this might have happened without the support of entrepreneurs in residence (also known as “site miners”) at bwtech@UMBC. Banerjee and Robucci originally sought to use their motion-sensing technology in assistive devices for people with limited mobility, but Dave Fink, one of UMBC’s site miners, knew a counterpart from Hopkins who had a researcher in need of motion-sensing for sleep monitoring. “They took the steps to help us form the company by understanding what our technology was and pairing it with exactly what the medical need was,” says Robucci.

Enterpreneur in Residence Spotlight: Dave Fink

In conversations with entrepreneurs at UMBC, one name keeps popping up: Dave Fink. He’s an entrepreneur in residence (also known as a “site miner”) at UMBC’s bwtech@UMBC Research and Technology Park. His task? Identify UMBC faculty research projects that have commercialization potential, and then steward the researchers through the entrepreneurship process, from brainstorming initial ideas to applying for start-up funding to seeking patents. Fink and other entrepreneurs in residence are critical to the success of fledgling ideas, but their work goes largely unseen.

For example, it’s not always easy for academic faculty to tell if an invention would be relevant to a wide range of potential customers or if it solves a problem unique to their research. Only in the former case is commercialization worth pursuing. “The site miners are really good at sussing out whether something will work or not,” says Jeffrey Gardner (see “3D-printing solutions”).

Like Gardner, Gymama Slaughter (“Bio-batteries”) has benefited from the support system in place for inventors at UMBC and in Maryland. “I was able to establish a wonderful relationship with David Fink at UMBC and Ken Malone at BioHealth Innovation,” she says. “They did such an amazing job with the logistics of the product and just helping out any way they could.”

Fink also guided Kevin Sowers and Upal Gosh (“Saving the Bay — with bacteria?”) in their entrepreneurship journey. “Dave was very supportive with our MII and with the Catalyst Fund grant. He advised on what to write and what the evaluators would be looking for,” Sowers says. “He’s been very supportive all along the way.”

In an industry that rewards ingenuity and thrives on comradery, hard working UMBC alums are making their alma mater proud — one pint at a time.

by Seth Sawyers ’99

On a cold night in a converted Pigtown theater, Josey Schwartz ’11, interdisciplinary studies — one of two owners, brewers, bartenders, marketing managers, painters, and drywall hangers behind Suspended Brewing Company — wasn’t doing any of those jobs.

It was the end of a long day — one of many, many long days to come until they finally sold their first beer in their new home. With a low-key indie-rock mix as his only company, he was sweeping up.

“We’re everything,” Schwartz says, of the roles he and co-owner Yasmin Karimian ’11, political science, fill at their shop. “We’re the brewers, the bartenders, janitors, the taxmen. We don’t stop working. I’ve slept in the lab, voluntarily and involuntarily.”

Many of us enjoy beer; some would even say we love it. But for a remarkable group of UMBC graduates who consider beer more of a calling are devoting their professional lives to beer, and specifically to craft beer — complex, interesting, sometimes far-out beer.

They brew it, yes, but that’s just the start. They also research it, and study it, and market it, and sell it, and package it, and obsess about it. All of which means that, increasingly, that next six pack you take home or pint you sip just may have been made by someone who’s spent some time in, say, Patapsco Hall.

Oh, and they love it, too. These UMBC graduates love beer. They really, really love beer. “Beer is incredible,” says Schwartz. “I could go on and on forever about ‘why beer.’”

“You should be a professor,” says Karimian, half-joking, herself by day a contracts attorney with Amazon. As if either of them needed even one more thing to do.

Not Your Dad’s Beer

This writer is old enough to remember the days, not so long ago, when restaurants divided their beers into two categories: “domestic” or “imported.” Domestic meant Budweiser, Bud Light, Miller Light, maybe Michelob. Imported, slightly more expensive, meant Heineken, Amstel Light, maybe a Molson.

Those days are long over. Now, as anyone who’s drank a beer in the past 15 years knows, the types and brands of beer available are as head-spinningly diverse as the UMBC campus itself. There are clean, light Kolsch styles and, on the other end, dark stouts fortified with coffee or chocolate. In between are lightly bitter pale ales, medium-bitter India pale ales, very bitter double India pale ales, beers brewed with cherries or watermelon or raspberries, beer brewed with Old Bay.

And while macro beer isn’t going anywhere — two huge companies, Anheuser-Busch InBev and MillerCoors, still produce 90 percent of the beer for the western market — the number of craft breweries increased by 600 percent between 2008 and 2016. Today, there are about 7,000 breweries nationwide, the vast majority of which are small operations, each run by a handful of people, putting out a keg here or a six-pack there of beer that might be called Snow Pants or Trolley Problem or Mistakes Were Made, and which are as alike to a National Bohemian as Camden Yards is to the grassy field behind your parents’ house.

The Right Recipe

Some people know at freshman orientation what they want to do with their lives. UMBC’s beer-brewing contingent is the other way around: young, high performers who tried this, tried that, and ultimately figured out they could throw everything they’d learned into beer.

Twenty minutes southwest of Pigtown, in a Columbia industrial park, Zachary Michel ’09, spends his days figuring out how to let people know about another fledgling brewery. As Hysteria Brewing Company’s marketing manager, the Harford County native finds he’s able to draw upon his innate curiosity, a trait he feels was fostered by UMBC.

“I started out undeclared, then [studied] music for a bit, and I looked into journalism,” Michel says from Hysteria’s front room, a cozy space lined with shelves crammed with books and curated, antique gadgets. Eventually, a course called Environmental Science/Conservation with Professor Sandy Parker got him excited about geography. “He was so passionate and so knowledgeable that it just opened my eyes. UMBC totally opened my eyes to a lot of things. It allowed me to experience a little bit of everything.”

Michel, who one day might organize a cycling night, and the next work on can designs, among many other things, wound up a geography and environmental science major with an economics minor. “A direct line to brewing,” he jokes.

Listening to Michel is Jordan Baney, a partner at Hysteria, who has UMBC in his blood although a call to serve in the Army cut his days as an economics major short. He grew up in part in Arbutus, within earshot of Retriever lacrosse games. As a kid, he swam in the campus’s indoor pool and his uncle Tony makes and maintains glass instruments for the chemistry department to this day. Baney says that anyone getting into something like beer, which encompasses both business and culture, would benefit from a wide-ranging college experience.

“There’s this idea out there that [students] should be focusing more on one thing and doing less general education,” he says. “And I totally disagree. Unless we’re robots meant to work in one thing for the rest of our lives, which I don’t think we are. All of us benefit from knowing a little bit of history. All of us benefit from knowing a little bit of calculus.”

You can’t help but notice that it’s a group interested in things beyond beer. Karimian, of Suspended Brewing, was an SGA President who is deeply committed to community engagement, the environment, and social justice. She helped write a history of UMBC, went to law school, became a lawyer, and now co-owns a brewpub. Schwartz, Karimian’s partner in life and an Interdisciplinary Studies major, wrestled for UMBC’s club team and went on to business school at Stanford before deciding he wanted to make beer. A writer and theatre buff, Michel is a founder of the Charm City Fringe Festival. Baney served in Afghanistan as a staff sergeant in charge of logistics, getting food and ammunition and gear to where it needed to be.

Still, if beer itself is part chemistry and part biology, then some UMBC alumni are nothing if not ringers. Halethorpe-based Heavy Seas Beer and Baltimore-based Union Craft Brewing are two of the region’s bigger craft beer makers and it’s for the latter that Lynn Pronobis ’13, chemistry, has graduated from intern (she was the first hire by Union’s three founders) to brewer, to head of brewing operations, which means she oversees all things involving the actual brewing of the beer.

“It’s mentally and physically challenging, and you’re a part of the team, and I don’t have to walk into a cubicle every day,” says the former outfielder for UMBC’s softball team. “And we’re all fighting against the big guys.”

Small Batch, Small World

Brewing’s a small world, especially in a city nicknamed “Smalltimore.” Though UMBC’s brewing alumni didn’t all know each other while at UMBC, they certainly know each other now. That’s partly due to the growing Baltimore-DC-Maryland alumni network of a school that’s now 50 years old, but partly due to people like Brian Arnold ’05, English.

Arnold taught high school English in Baltimore City Public Schools for several years before he realized he needed a career change. Like many who wind up in craft beer, he began by brewing at home, which led to the 2013 opening of Nepenthe Homebrew, a kind of spiritual base for the region’s serious amateurs and professionals alike. Currently based in the Woodberry neighborhood of Baltimore, but set to move to a former meatpacking facility in Hampden, Nepenthe sells the raw goods of brewing: tanks, tubes, grains, hops.

“It’s awesome,” Arnold says of Baltimore’s brewing community. “I think we know, more or less, everybody in it. Quite a few stop in when they need something. We all know each other and help each other out.”

None seem concerned about having too many craft breweries — and there’s little in the way of the type of competition you might find with other types of business. “What’s there to fight about?” asks Schwartz. “We’re all drinking each other’s beer. We’re asking, how’d you work with dried fruit to extract this much color? Do you do a slurry or just drop in dry hops through the port?”

Flavor Innovators

For young people with such varied interests, such deep-seated curiosity, it’s no wonder they found themselves in an industry that rewards, and demands, near constant tinkering. Consider the kinds of beers they’re making, just at Hysteria alone: at least three kinds of IPAs, a barleywine that’s 11 percent alcohol, a “sour cherry Belgian Tripel” called Monasterium.

“Our mission is to push the boundaries,” says Hysteria’s Michel. “There’s no reason you can’t do an IPA in a gin barrel. Or a porter in a red wine barrel.”

Schwartz says he’s been thinking of “an American kettle sour using the same bacteria that’s in yogurt and then fruit added from Iran. Barberries. We get to talk about barberries, which are a staple of western Asia, in Iranian kitchens. We’re working on one beer but made seven different ways, with seven different yeast strains. There are so many variables. It’s not arithmetical, it’s logarithmic.”

While newer brewpubs like Hysteria and Suspended are focused on making new beers, more established breweries such as Union and DC’s Atlas Brew Works are at a slightly different place, business-wise. For Atlas, Sean Palmateer ’16, biochemistry and molecular biology, shows up to work at 4 a.m. and spends a lot of his time as a brewer on perfecting established, flagship beers.

Palmateer, who lives in Mount Vernon, has often helped out at Suspended, stopping by after work or on days off to help as they’ve worked to build their business. His enthusiasm for the nuts-andbolts of the industry, the actual brewing of beer, is sharp, as is Schwartz’s. These are two people who think about beer often, and deeply.

“I think about Sixpoint Brewery, whose motto is ‘Beer is culture,’” Palmateer says. “You look back at history and that’s how people delineate who they are. I’m interested in a lot of beer history. It encompasses history and science and philosophy in really interesting ways. And you can kind of get into it and take it any way you want to.”

And as long as the interest is there from the brewers — and their eventual customers — the sky seems to be the limit.

“I just saw there was a broker selling soy-sauce barrels,” Schwartz says, before sipping one of his sours. “And some brewer’s gonna figure out how to make a delicious beer out of it.”

[nivoslider slug=”how-to-make-beer”]

In a first-of-its-kind survey released in April, researchers at the Wisconsin HOPE Lab at Temple University found that at 66 colleges and universities, 36 percent of students do not get enough to eat.

This comes as no surprise to Julie Rosenthal, program management specialist for Asian studies and the doctoral program in gerontology, who helped spearhead the launch of UMBC’s Retriever Essentials — an on-campus food pantry run by students, for students — in September 2017.

“If you stop and think about it … it makes sense,” Rosenthal said. “These students age out of the public school system where they are getting food assistance. Then somehow they have the wherewithal to get themselves to college, but they don’t always have enough to eat.”

According to Feeding America — a national nonprofit network of food banks that provide food to 46.5 million individuals — 49.3 percent of its clients in college have had to choose between educational expenses and food annually, and 21 percent did so for a year.

From the Ground Up

“I heard from others in the central Maryland area who were helping this vulnerable population, that there was a real issue of hunger on college campuses,” Rosenthal said. “I spoke with my supervisor and told her I was interested in starting a food pantry at UMBC. She connected me to Deveraux Smith, a grad student, who was also interested in this issue.”

From there the newly forged partnership started to grow connecting with campus offices, student groups, campus religious leaders, and other like-minded individuals to make their vision a reality.

“It has gone from a very organic movement of a few individuals, both student and staff, to a much larger team that developed into a comprehensive program to address the problem of food insecurity,” said Katrina Grusell, UMBC Episcopal chaplain.

For Retriever Essentials, partnerships with campus organizations and the student body are vital to its success. The program relies on student volunteers to meet the day-to-day needs of the organization, and most importantly to help spread the word about Retriever Essentials.

“I’ve rarely seen initiatives where so many people come together so quickly for the benefit of others in our community,” said Zain Abidin ’18, biology, who has helped recruit volunteers from groups he’s involved with, like the Muslim Student Association and the Golden Key National Honor Society, in addition to collecting food from the different boxes (Food Zones) on campus to bring back to the pantry.

Building these relationships helped the Retriever Essentials team find different avenues to combat student food-scarcity issues. Through their partnership with Chartwells — which manages Dining Services and True Grit’s dining hall — they’ve started the Save-A-Swipe program that allows students to donate up to one meal a week from their meal plan to a shared pool. In less than four months, more than 30 students donated more than 150 meals.

“Chartwells has been amazing,” Rosenthal said. “They came up with the Save-A-Swipe program. Now students in need can get a card for five free meals from True Grit’s at the Counseling Center.”

Growing the Program

These partnerships also led to the creation of six Campus Food Zones where students can conveniently pick up a free bag of non-perishable food on campus. Four Donations Stations were created where contributions can easily be made as well. While building the program, the team even created another essential service by starting a clothing closet.

Last semester Retriever Essentials gave out more than 50 bags of non-perishable groceries to students in need with the help of more than 15 student volunteers, and they are on target to provide even more during the spring semester. It’s a great start to combat a growing issue, and the team is already hard at work to make Retriever Essentials even better, including more variety and healthy food options.

“The next big goal is to have a full pantry on campus that has not only ample space for food, but also for refrigerated food storage,” Grusell said. “We’d like to have that set up in a way that allows students to come and choose the food for themselves instead of the preassembled bags we currently give out. The variety of the food we could distribute would also increase.”

As for now the Retriever Essentials team is constantly working to get the message out about their program so no student at UMBC goes hungry.

“UMBC does an awesome job educating our students,” Rosenthal said. “We want to make sure all students facing food insufficiency have enough to eat so that they can work at top capacity. It’s all multiple pieces that go together. We’re launching people out into the world.”

— Eddie Jenkins

Photos by Marlayna Demond ’11

The fall of 2017 was marked by wildfires that burned most of Napa, Sonoma, and Mendocino counties in Northern California, and a hurricane season with 17 tropical storms — 10 of which became hurricanes and six that reached a category three or stronger. Millions of people dealt with and continue to face loss of power, as well as shortages in water, medical care, and food, through the fall and winter.

While media coverage of these events often focuses on the initial impact, rarely do we get to see what happens behind the scenes as first responders prepare or during the civilian disaster relief and the long haul to recovery that follows. Among these helpers were UMBC faculty, staff, and students who joined the relief efforts as first responders, fundraisers, and aids in navigating the social, legal, and political complexities of disaster relief and recovery.

Helping the Most Vulnerable

As Hurricane Harvey wreaked havoc in Texas in late August, Brian Grodsky, assistant professor of political science and a health technician with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, enlisted as a volunteer with the federal MD-1 Disaster Medical Assistance Team. Days later, when Irma, a Category 4 hurricane, roared towards Florida, he began working in emergency rooms to triage less critical patients so the hospital could focus on higher-risk patients.

“Being able to directly help people in the most vulnerable situations helps satisfy a need for more tangible outcomes that sometimes is hard to come by from research, teaching, and speaking,” says Grodsky. “There is always a way to give and to connect your professional skills to the many needs a disaster presents.”

He hesitantly returned to civilian life two weeks later while part of his team headed to Puerto Rico, where Maria, a Category 5 hurricane, shut down the entire power grid. Meanwhile, on campus, several of UMBC’s Puerto Rican volleyball players waited to hear from their families and figure out how they could help from afar.

Hometown Heroes

Claudia Lopez ’18, biology and psychology, a native of Puerto Rico, used a crowdfunding platform to raise more than $10,000 from friends in the UMBC community and beyond, which was split between two major foundations that focus on aid for Puerto Rico. Lopez also collected donations of water, toiletries, and clothing, which she delivered in person at the end of the fall semester.

“I felt helpless being here, but in Puerto Rico we always help each other. I knew I could do something,” says Lopez. “The response on campus was amazing. There was a staff member that donated every day. Student athletes and coaches donated the most in the first three days. I hope people remember the need even after the media leaves.”

Emergency services students like Charniece Johnson ’18, and Ian Hamilton M.S. ’20, served as FEMA reserve workers for more than a month and a half at the beginning of fall semester

“It was very emotional. I helped people feel heard and understood, and explain what they could expect from FEMA,” recalls Hamilton, who helped connect affected residents with financial and other services in Florida. “There are a lot of people that after you finish listening and talking with them, they give you a hug. I feel like I am making a difference and getting paid for it, more than just financially, in hundreds of ways.”

Johnson worked with Disaster Survival Assistance, helping people from the Virgin Islands with critical health care needs get the care they need. “I want to do something for people. I don’t want to be behind a desk,” said Johnson, who said she enjoys working in the field.

Examining Inequity

Susan Sterett, director of the School of Public Policy and a native of Sonoma County, California, used her personal blog to explore the social and political inequities that limit disaster response efforts as she saw her own hometown burn. Sonoma was and is a vacation spot for the wealthy that is surrounded by homelessness, poverty, and working class people, many immigrants.

“We need to build in equity before disaster strikes since disaster often makes already existing inequalities worse,” says Sterett, who analyzed the social, environmental, and psychological impact of what it means to be in a natural disaster when there already exists so much inequality, and how relief efforts that are often driven by policy — but removed from the everyday reality — can deepen trust issues between the lawmakers and the people they aim to protect.

Sterett added: “As we have seen, inequality is a complex, multi-dimensional problem and one that becomes more evident during the long aftermath of natural disasters.”

— Catalina Sofia Dansberger-Duque

U.S. Coast Guard photo by Senior Chief Petty Officer Kyle Niemi

With John Klausmeier ’04, mechanical engineering

As a boy, John Klausmeier ’04, mechanical engineering, dreamed of working in the racing industry. He began working toward his current role as crew chief at Stewart-Haas when he was a student at UMBC, where he was able to take classes that would allow him to develop the skills needed to succeed in the motorsports industry. Shortly after graduating he began a full-time position at Dale Earnhardt Incorporated, and since then, Klausmeier has ascended the ranks from intern to crew chief. Today, he is responsible for a whole team and making sure that race day runs smoothly.

Each Sunday during the racing season, you can find Klausmeier behind the pit wall, on top of what is called the pit box. There, Klausmeier and his team have the best view of the racetrack and race car so they can work on race strategy and plan for necessary adjustments as the race cars whiz by at speeds well over 190 miles per hour.

With so much at stake with each race, how does Klausmeier keep himself cool? The answer: When you’re under pressure, remember your training and rely on your plan.

Step 1: DEVELOP A PLAN.

About one month before any given competition, Klausmeier and his team begin drafting a rough plan for the race, including logistics and strategies. Between then and race day, the plan undergoes many edits and changes. “Every track is different,” he says, explaining that it is important to pay attention to details when developing scenarios. “Different race cars go to different tracks. Different tracks require different things. We race at tracks where the handling is most important so we emphasize the shocks, springs, and increasing the aerodynamic downforce on the car. Other tracks require the least amount of aerodynamic drag, so we focus on streamlining the body and engine horsepower.”

One week before the race, Klausmeier and his team meet with each of the departments to get briefed on the latest developments for the upcoming event. Klausmeier, a crew chief at Stewart-Haas, is in charge of bringing each element of the race together and putting the best car on the racetrack.

“I’m basically like the head coach in football — bringing all of the hard work of the team together and making sure we’re putting the best product on the track in order to win races and championships,” he says.

Step 2: PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE.

Klausmeier explains that the team spends Tuesday and Wednesday of race week “populating a play book,” which outlines scenarios that the driver and team may encounter during the race. During the practice phase, each specialty department, such as fabrication, aerodynamics, and engine, runs through the demands of the race from their perspective, and the team interfaces with the driver to make sure their need in the race car are met.

There are many hours of practicing pit stops at the Stewart-Haas pit training facility. This is a practice area that mimics the pit stall layout at the track. The team performs mock pit stop scenarios four days a week prior to the event giving the pit crew repetitions to execute tire changes in seconds.

The team typically travels to the race location the Thursday before race day and completes qualifying sessions on Friday. Saturday is primarily reserved for practice sessions and preparing for the competition the following day. The practice sessions give Klausmeier and his team the opportunity to run through the race strategy, compare notes with the driver, and address any challenges that came up during the practice sessions.

Step 3: STAY FLEXIBLE ON RACE DAY.

On race day, Klausmeier can be found on the “pit box,” which sits behind the pit wall. His team works through race strategies, makes adjustments, and coordinates what will be modified during pit stops. “After two days of practice, the morning before the race you are bolting in what you think is the ultimate set up,” he explains. “You present the car for the final race inspection and that’s when we’ll start the race. That’s where all of the strategy planning and the handling adjustments take over to keep the driver in position to win.”

Race cars do not have fuel gauges, which means that the race engineers perform the calculations by hand to determine how much fuel the car has left and how many more laps can be completed on that amount of fuel. “When winning the race comes down to a few ounces of fuel, it definitely adds another element of excitement,” says Klausmeier. “It’s definitely an adrenaline rush because every decision that you make affects so many things.”

Step 4: LEARN FROM YOUR MISTAKES.

Klausmeier and his team are responsible for preventing and addressing mistakes during the race. They rely on checks and balances to make sure that mistakes are not a frequent occurrence on the racetrack. “Sometimes there’s going to be a parts failure, there’s going to be an engine failure or something that you can’t control. So, you really have to make a lot of on-the-fly decisions depending on what happens to get the best possible outcome,” he explains.

The day after the race, the entire team meets to discuss and debrief with the driver. Klausmeier says that the team reviews a lengthy checklist of items and addresses any issues that came up during the race. “There are a lot of things that go into it. But at the end, obviously, the goal is to win races and championships,” he says. “When it’s all said and done, we are going for the best aerodynamics, the best horsepower, the fastest pit crews, and that’s what wins races with a good driver.”

— Megan Hanks

Photos courtesy of Stewart-Haas

Dear Retrievers,

The day after the men’s basketball team made history with their surprise win over UVA, I unglued myself from my laptop and headed to the grocery store to pick up an ice cream cake for my five-year-old’s birthday party. Like so many staff members working behind the scenes that weekend, I was a bit of a sleep-deprived mess. (A happy mess, but a mess nonetheless.) I hadn’t showered, so I covered my hair with my trusty UMBC ballcap and ventured into town as I had a million times before, hoping to get in and out of the store without anyone noticing me.

Well, that didn’t happen.

On that particular Saturday, as I walked through the aisles, folks noticed that hat. Strangers carrying jugs of milk said, “Hey, UMBC!” and high fived me, as if I had anything to do with the win. A lady in line behind me mentioned that her husband, a UVA alumnus, was devastated by the upset — before confiding softly that she was really excited for us. And that was just day one.

I’m so glad they’re noticing, and that what they’re seeing goes so far beyond basketball. The nation is seeing a school that earnestly and playfully celebrates its wins — both athletic and academic, as we have on this issue’s cover. They’re seeing a community of people who know who they are, and who know what UMBC stands for beyond all the clever acronyms the “madness” gave us. And they’re understanding that using a hashtag like #RetrieverNation isn’t just a rallying cry for a few extra points on the scoreboard, but a show of solidarity between scholars and friends across the globe.

I’m glad the guys won; they deserve every bit of attention they’re getting. But, what excites me most is that the world is finally coming to understand the special place that is our University of a Million Brackets Crushed — er, home sweet home. It’s a win for us all.

— Jenny O’Grady
Editor, UMBC Magazine

Monday through Thursday, rising sophomore Devin Meek is your average media & communication studies student. But once Friday rolls around, he packs his bags and does a forward 180, traveling the world for his part-time job: professional jump roper. Here are five things we learned while exploring the rapidly growing world of competitive jump rope.

Jump rope can open some pretty exciting doors for an entertainer:
“I’ve been on Nickelodeon, jumped in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade twice and the Chinese New Year Parade in Macau, and even performed on a Disney Cruise.”

The jump rope community is an extremely supportive one:

“We don’t look at competitions as a way to beat someone. It’s more so that you’re there to show off what you’ve learned and, in turn, learn from someone else. It’s a sport that’s still developing, so there’s a ton of room for creativity.”

Jump ropers are starting to get noticed. In a BIG way:

“Flight Crew Jump Rope competed on season nine of America’s Got Talent. They were huge inspirations to me, so it was amazing when they asked me to join their group in 2016. Since then I’ve been traveling and performing with their team, as well as starting my own local group.”

Just like every other sport, yes, you can get injured jumping rope:

“I’m actually recovering from my first injury right now. I hurt a disc in my back because I didn’t warm up and stretch properly before a performance. Pretty lame injury, but it taught me a lesson!”

Professional jump roper might be the coolest part-time job in the world:

“I have tried out other jobs before. I’ve flipped burgers and even worked as a mascot for a while and, although they were fun, none of it beats jump rope.”

— Kait McCaffrey

Videos of Devin’s Jump Rope Styles

Jennifer Sleeman, Ph.D ’17, computer science, loves programming. So, when she was asked to coach the Einstein Narwhals, her son’s FIRST LEGO League team, the visiting assistant professor was excited to be able to share her passion and spend more time with her 10-year-old all at once.

The team competed in the Maryland FIRST LEGO League competition, held at UMBC, in February, taking first place for Robot Strategies and Innovation. With that win, the team of eight elementary and middle schoolers participated in the FIRST LEGO League World Championship, held in Detroit in late April. Among 104 teams, they won the Judge’s Award trophy, and walked away with lots of new ideas.

LEGO Learning

“FIRST LEGO League inspires young children to work as scientists and engineers. It requires them to program a robot and complete missions that are built with Legos,” says Sleeman. “It also allows them to discover a real problem, research possible solutions, meet with experts in the field to understand the problem better, and to get feedback on their proposed solution and present their solution to others.”

There are three components of the competition: project, robot design, and core values. During the robot design portion of the event, the team must build the attachments and robot completely out of LEGOs, according to themed challenges.

At the beginning of the season, the team took some field trips to local businesses, including a fire station in Clarksville, MD, to choose a grassroots issue that they would work to address over the course of the season. The firefighters told the students that one challenge they face in the colder months is fire hoses freezing when the water is not flowing. To prevent the hoses from freezing, the firefighters resort to letting the water run, which poses dangers and is wasteful.

The Einstein Narwhals decided to come up with a way to prevent fire hoses from freezing by developing a hose heater that generates energy that can be used to keep the hoses warm enough. Sleeman’s son and his teammates developed a water wheel that stores energy generated by the wheels in a battery and uses it to heat the hoses. The team has applied for a provisional patent for one of the ideas that they developed during the season.

“The Team Loves Working Together”

Throughout the season, the team met once or twice each week for a couple of hours to work on their project. Students wind up helping out with every aspect of the project, from programming to engineering, so that they have a broad range of skills. “It’s great because the team loves working together,” says Sleeman, adding that it allows the students to have more time with their friends during the week.

For Sleeman, the most rewarding part about being a coach has been getting to mentor the students, particularly the girls on the team, because she says it’s important for the girls to have role models in STEM who are women.

Damian Doyle ‘99, computer science, senior director of enterprise infrastructure at UMBC, has been involved with FIRST LEGO League because his son Leo has been a participant for several years.

“I’ve watched him become invested in his team, engaging with teammates, and truly partnering to accomplish more than any of them could accomplish individually,” he explained, adding that his son loves working with his team on robots, and that he learns new things each year. “Leo found he really enjoys the programming aspect, developing that skill and sharing that knowledge has really helped to boost his confidence in himself, which is wonderful.”

— Megan Hanks