Meet Michael,

He is a Physics major and current URA Scholar who does research in quantum mechanics. He also helps run SPS (Society of Physics Students), plays music on campus with the UMBC Pep Band and is involved in theatre productions.

A resource round-up provided by Women’s Center staff member, Meagé Clements

In case you missed yesterday’s roundtable on Black Trauma and Mental Health (or if you were there and want to keep the conversation going), I thought it might be useful to share some resources that have helped me, as a Black woman, deal with my own experiences of Black trauma. It’s hard to summarize everything that was discussed; however much of the discussion revolved around the problematic “Strong Black Woman” stereotype. We also discussed the experiences of tokenization, involuntary (or feeling it necessary to have to be the) spokesperson in class, and microagressions. Black trauma isn’t just one kind of experience, and certainly isn’t only what is captured by the media. Rather it is a daily and ongoing experience – much like a death by a 1000 cuts. Below are just a few resources I’ve found helpful in learning that I, too, can be strong AND vulnerable.

The poem Dr. Jasmine Abrams shared: The Strong Black Woman is Dead

Dr. Abrams kicked off the discussion by asking us to close our eyes as she read the poem, “The Strong Black Woman is Dead”

News Outlets and Blogs:

NPR: Codeswitch – Frontiers of Race, Culture, and Ethnicity

“Code Switch is a team of seven NPR journalists who cover race, ethnicity and culture. Our work appears on-air and online, across NPR’s shows and digital outlets. We produce this blog, a Tumblr, a Twitter stream, and a Facebook feed.”

• Coping While Black: A Season of Traumatic News Takes A Psychological Toll
• How Black Reporters Report on Black Death
• Ta-Nehisi Coates Looks At The Physical Toll of Being Black in America

For Harriet – Celebrating the Fullness of Black Womanhood

“For Harriet is an online community for women of African ancestry. We encourage women, through storytelling and journalism, to engage in candid, revelatory dialogue about the beauty and complexity of Black womanhood. We aspire to educate, inspire, and entertain.”

@ForHarriet on Twitter | forharriet on Facebook

• Why We Must Finally Pay Attention to Black Women’s Mental Health
• Facing Black Mental Health

Black Girl Dangerous – Amplifying the Voices of Queer and Trans People of Color

“BGD seeks to, in as many ways as possible, amplify the voices, experiences and expressions of queer and trans people of color… BGD is a place where we can make our voices heard on the issues that interest us and affect us, where we can showcase our literary and artistic talents, where we can cry it out, and where we can explore and express our “dangerous” sides: our biggest, boldest, craziest, weirdest, wildest selves.”

• “We Are Not All Strong Black Women”
• “Got Anxiety or Mental Distress? Me, too. Here’s How We Can All Support Each Other”

Articles and Books on the subject:

Between the World and Me
Black Pain: It Just Looks Like We’re Not Hurting
Racial Bias in Perceptions of Others’ Pain
I Don’t Feel Your Pain – A Failure of Empathy Perpetuates Racial Disparities
‘I Can’t Breath’: African-Americans, Race Trauma, and PTSD
Dark Times Under the Radar: Black Women and Mental Illness
Racism’s Psychological Toll

On-campus resources:

UMBC Counseling Center
Women of Color Coalition
Critical Social Justice (October 2016)

Thanks to our panel members for sharing their experiences related to mental health and black trauma. Pictured left to right: Dr. Jasmine Abrams, Brianna Jackson, Dr. Tammy Henderson, & Donna-Lee Mahabeer

Read More from Other Roundtable Roundups:
White Womanhood + Critical Whiteness Resources Round-Up (September 2015)

 by Shira Devorah, student staff at the Women’s Center (she/her) 

Every student has their personal struggles that make being in college difficult – responsibilities and personal needs to attend to while also working towards a degree. Like many other students, I also face mental illness on top of every other responsibility.

This is probably one of the more pleasant stock photos I found when searching for “mental illness.” Get on that, photo people….

I struggle with major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and ADHD. These diagnoses do not define me, but they do tend to get in the way of my school day. Sometimes classes have to be skipped, assignments need to be pushed back and plans must be cancelled, all in the name of mental health.

Beyonce from her music video “Flawless,” which inspired the hashtag #wokeuplikethis (screen capture)

As a woman with depression, I can’t always look happy for the sake of making someone else feel good, as stereotypical female empathy demands of me. I will not seem ‘flawless’ because sometimes I can’t remember to eat, let alone put on lipstick. I cannot be around people for an extended period of time without being exhausted. I am no less woman than someone without depression, but I have to work harder to be accepted by a sexist world as worthy of the title “woman.” This pressure is made more difficult when you factor in the fact that I am a full time student. I am expected as a student to do my best and succeed while also fitting into the tiny box of “womanness.”

Society presents a very limited definition for what a woman is “supposed” to be and look like and these strict gender roles rarely fit the dynamic and complex individuals we are, but they are even more inadequate for people of color, LGBTQIA-identified people, and people with mental illness and/or disabilities. Women students who navigate life with a mental illness have to deal with often unachievable standards, including the expectation of “effortless perfection.” 

As a woman with mental illness, I have to work twice as hard to just appear “normal.” Putting on clothes, taking showers, eating enough, getting from point A to point B — these everyday activities can completely consume my time and energy. While the mere concept of normal is problematic, it is further complicated by the fact that I have to conform to the standards of being normal and a woman.  Why do I have to go through the day existing as if I do not have a mental disability while also pretending that being a woman is effortless and easy? I don’t function in the normative ways that society demands of me. If I don’t look a certain way or act a certain way, am I not only less “normal,” but also less “woman?”  Is normal just a synonym for being unobtrusive and invisible in my disabilities?

Are you sick? Tired? Hunover? Nope, just not wearing makeup. (credit: AlexandraDal.deviantart.com)

People often forget that looking the way society demands women to look takes a ton of effort. Being unwilling or unable to meet society’s expectations of femininity and beauty should not be seen as a failure or a sign that something is wrong.

The truth is, no one should have to fit into a category to be valid. You are a woman if you feel like a woman. Period. Amen. You don’t have to be hairless or made up or a certain size or have/not have certain body parts. You don’t need to have a healthy, thriving mind in order to be yourself. You just need to feel like a woman and that alone is enough to make you one.

I feel very lucky to be part of the Gender and Women’s Studies department, where we deconstruct these notions of gendered stereotypes and unfair expectations placed upon certain people. I have been taught in my studies to harness my uniqueness in order to subvert the expectations that a hegemonic world places upon me. 

(Not actually what your RX bottle looks like if you get your meds at Target)

I do not apologize for my mental illnesses, and I am not quiet about them. I will tell anyone who will listen about my depression and anxiety. I will pop my Paxil or Ativan in the middle of class if I need it, and I will not bother to explain why I carry my prescriptions with me always. Personally, I choose to be open about my illnesses in hopes that discussions will cultivate a culture of understanding. I want to make my mental illnesses more visible to counter the idea that mental illnesses are inherently “bad” or not worth discussing.

Still, a lot of women with mental illnesses do not want to be subversive; they just want to be understood and included. These women do not owe the world their stories and still always deserve support. I have linked an article by Jess Myers, the director of the Women’s Center, if you want to read more about supporting people without knowing their story.

I am using this blog post to carve out a space to appreciate women who are also students with mental illnesses. You can have a diagnosis or you can just be realizing your illness. You can be medicated, in therapy, or not doing anything at all, and you are still valid. You can have accommodations, be a straight-A student, or be failing a course, and you still matter as a woman, as a person, and as a student. Mental illness is just one factor that in no way defines you.

It’s okay to not be okay all the time. (credit: Gunshow by KC Green)

We as students need to support each other and be mindful of the intersecting issues that our classmates face. Supporting someone with a mental illness can be challenging at times, but it can also be as easy as asking how somebody is. Maybe send a text asking your friend if she is doing alright. Or schedule a dinner with someone you know is going through a hard time. You could even offer to walk your classmate over to the Counseling Center if they need more professional help.

There are so many little things that we as peers and friends can do to help support each other and it can start with creating spaces where we feel like we don’t have to pretend to always be perfect. 

Dr. Rick Forno, Cybersecurity Graduate Program Director and Assistant Director of the UMBC Center for Cybersecurity, offered comments to BBC Radio Five regarding the issue of Apple being compelled by a federal judge to facilitate FBI access to an encrypted iPhone used by one of the San Bernadino attackers.

During the interview, he provided initial reactions to this developing situation and what the longer-term ramifications for Apple, the FBI, and privacy generally. From his perspective, Forno thinks it is possible for Apple to update one specific device so that the Department of Justice can access the content on that device, which would allow Apple to comply with the order. However, Forno explains that the real issue involved is the question of the future. “What is to stop the FBI or law enforcement—state, local, global—from contacting Apple asking for the same consideration on other devices,” he says.

(The story’s lead-in starts at 1:05:30 followed by his comments via Skype a few minutes later.)

TODAY is the PRIORITY REVIEW DEADLINE for Undergraduate Research Award (URA) Applications

If you would like to receive individual review and feedback in time to do revisions for the final deadline (Thursday | February 25), email the Word document to mcglynn@umbc.edu by 11:59PM TODAY (Thursday | February 18)

This Friday, Feb 19^th, you will have another awesome opportunity to meet tons of great employers! UMBC is co-sponsoring a Maryland Career Consortium Fair, hosted at Loyola University at the Reitz Arena from 10am to 2:30pm. Unfortunately the shuttle from UMBC to take you to the fair is full, but you can find directions on how to get to the area here, and you can RSVP here.

This fair will have over 150 employers! I would check out the list here. There is a wide variety of great employers to talk to, including the CIA, Baltimore County Public Schools, Americorps, Space Telescope Science Institute, Daniel Morgan Academy, and even the Baltimore Orioles Stadium! This fair will be great for anyone looking to get an internship nearby, a summer job, or a full-time job after college! Most of these organizations are right in the Maryland, DC, and Virginia area. Even if you don’t plan on staying in Baltimore after college, a lot of these companies and organizations have sites in various locations.

I highly recommend attending this fair to make some awesome connections. In addition to employers, there will be a ton of students from the Baltimore area to connect with! It can be really inspiring to discuss what your interests, frustrations, experiences, and goals are regarding school, and life in general. It can even give you some new ideas about what you can do with your major or program, or they could even refer you to a place they’ve worked/interned before! Connections are a wonderful thing.  A career fair is meant for interacting, so don’t feel reluctant to do so!

In case you missed my post on our Summer Career Fair last week, I wanted to remind you of some resources in order to make the most out of a career fair. Since there are so many employers, you’re really going to want to look through the directory, which has listed the positions they’re offering and what majors they’re looking for. This way you can get a better idea of which employers you want to visit and stand out at.

You can look at the MCC Career Fair page here, as well as our Career Center website on navigating career fairs, for tips on how to have a successful time. But here are a few important reminders:

1.     Make sure your resume looks strong before you hand it out to employers. You can look at our resume writing page on the Career Center website, or you can come get your resume reviewed beforehand! You can make an appointment at the Career Center or you can come into our drop-in hours between 2-4 Monday-Friday.

2.    Dress professionally! If you need some help, check out our helpful guide here.

3.    Network with recruiters! Talk with them, e-mail them after the fair, and consider connecting to them on LinkedIn. There will be a lot of students at the fair, so you want to be sure you stand out.

Feel free to get in touch with the Career Center via careers@umbc.edu, 410.455.2216, or stopping by Math/Psych 212. 

Leveraging Human Insights into
Problem Structure for Scientific Discovery

Ronan Le Bras, Cornell University

12:00pm 1:00pm Tuesday, 23 February 2016, ITE325b, UMBC

Most problems, from theoretical problems in combinatorics to real-world applications, comprise hidden structural properties not directly captured by the problem definition. A key to the recent progress in automated reasoning and combinatorial optimization has been to automatically uncover and exploit this hidden problem structure, resulting in a dramatic increase in the scale and complexity of the problems within our reach. The most complex tasks, however, still require human abilities and ingenuity. In this talk, I will show how we can leverage human insights to effectively complement and dramatically boost state-of-the-art optimization techniques. I will demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach with a series of scientific discoveries, from experimental designs to materials discovery.

Ronan Le Bras is a Ph.D. candidate in computer science at Cornell University. He received his M.S. and B.S. from Ecole Polytechnique Montreal in computer engineering and in software engineering. His research interests include computational methods for large-scale combinatorial optimization, reasoning, learning and human computation. His work is motivated by a range of applications, especially in the emerging field of computational sustainability. It has led to a series of scientific discoveries in areas such as graph theory, combinatorics, and discrepancy theory as well as materials science, experimental design and conservation biology. His work appears in the proceedings of AAAI, IJCAI, HCOMP, SAT, CP and VLDB.

Host:  Tim Finin, Sorry, you need javascript to view this email address.

From Forensics to Security: Securing Complex
Systems through Data-driven Investigation

Dr. Robert Walls
Pennsylvania State University

1:00pm Friday, 19 February 2016, ITE 325b, UMBC

The cornerstone of modern security is understanding when and how systems are abused and exploited. Gathering such knowledge is essential as decades of experience demonstrate the infeasibility of building perfectly secure systems. Yet, the systems with the greatest need of securing—such as those underpinning critical Internet services—are often the most difficult to study.

In this talk, I will focus on my research efforts in digital forensics and security to study the abuse of complex and inter-connected systems. My work has focused on multiple aspects of this endeavor, including the analysis of partially structured data, the use of semantic relationships and investigator feedback to identify relevant information, and the transition of research results into practical tools and techniques.

Robert Walls is a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at The Pennsylvania State University. His research interests include systems security and digital forensics. He is currently studying the abuse of Internet infrastructure, including advertising networks and the Domain Name System (DNS). Previously, he worked with law enforcement to develop novel forensic techniques for investigating crimes. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2014. He is also a recipient of the Yahoo! Key Scientific Challenges Award.

Host: Tim Finin, Sorry, you need javascript to view this email address.

From Forensics to Security: Securing Complex
Systems through Data-driven Investigation

Dr. Robert Walls
Pennsylvania State University

1:00pm Friday, 19 February 2016, ITE 325b, UMBC

The cornerstone of modern security is understanding when and how systems are abused and exploited. Gathering such knowledge is essential as decades of experience demonstrate the infeasibility of building perfectly secure systems. Yet, the systems with the greatest need of securing—such as those underpinning critical Internet services—are often the most difficult to study.

In this talk, I will focus on my research efforts in digital forensics and security to study the abuse of complex and inter-connected systems. My work has focused on multiple aspects of this endeavor, including the analysis of partially structured data, the use of semantic relationships and investigator feedback to identify relevant information, and the transition of research results into practical tools and techniques.

Robert Walls is a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at The Pennsylvania State University. His research interests include systems security and digital forensics. He is currently studying the abuse of Internet infrastructure, including advertising networks and the Domain Name System (DNS). Previously, he worked with law enforcement to develop novel forensic techniques for investigating crimes. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2014. He is also a recipient of the Yahoo! Key Scientific Challenges Award.

Host: Tim Finin, Sorry, you need javascript to view this email address.