Liz Saloka (UMBC 2017, CompE) is “interning at Innovate Our World, in creating video games." She is a semi-finalist in a Wet Seal model contest. She hopes to impact and inspire young girls in the STEM fields by showing them "smart IS sexy.”

If you haven't submitted a photo for the SWEet Summer Photo, it's not too late we still have a little over a month of Summer left. Simply, take a picture showing us what YOU are doing in the Summer, as a STEM major. Please look at our previous post for the questions. It's SWEet and short, it'll take you only a few minutes!

->Please email all submissions to umbcswe@gmail.com

Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook @umbc_swe

Savannah Steinly (UMBC '18 Chemical Engineering, Environmental Track) This summer, she is "participating in the Doris Duke Conservation Scholars Program in Seattle, WA! For eight weeks, I will explore the city and surrounding areas while learning about conservation, diversity, identity, and about how to become an environmental change-agent. I am so grateful to be able to pursue my passions for both travel and environmental conservation! I am also taking an online Poetry and Fiction course, which will count for my minor in English on the Creative Writing track. I aspire to someday publish my work (and in the ear future, in UMBC’s Bartleby Creative Journal)." She hopes "to combine my interests in technology, sustainability, and creativity by becoming an environmental engineer. I want to devise creative solutions to environmental issues, especially those connected to renewable energy. This program will be a great stepping-stone to do so in terms of gaining knowledge that will alter my perspectives, a network of people with similar passions, and personal and professional mentorship. Moreover, the class will provide me with a structured outlet to develop my creativity and writing skills."

If you haven't submitted a photo for the SWEet Summer Photo, it's not too late we still have a little over a month of Summer left. Simply, take a picture showing us what YOU are doing in the Summer, as a STEM major. Please look at our previous post for the questions. It's SWEet and short, it'll take you only a few minutes!

->Please email all submissions to umbcswe@gmail.com

Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook @umbc_swe

 Tulsi Shukla (UMBC '17, ChemE, Bio Track) is celebrating fourth of July with her family and friends. Other than that, Tulsi "goes straight into building a rope system for aerial practice after her interview with a chemical R&D company and before tutoring a neighbor in math." One tip she gives is "to never give up! Just as the saying goes, 'if you didn't succeed the first time, try try again until you do'".

If you haven't submitted a photo for the SWEet Summer Photo, it's not too late we still have a little over a month of Summer left. Simply, take a picture showing us what YOU are doing in the Summer, as a STEM major. Please look at our previous post for the questions. It's SWEet and short, it'll take you only a few minutes!

->Please email all submissions to umbcswe@gmail.com

Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook @umbc_swe

Gloria Opoku-Boateng (UMBC, PhD Student, IS) is “interning with Google as UX researcher on one of the software engineering for photos. She hopes that her experience will help her better understand that technology affects billions of lives. She dreams to be a UX researcher working on Healthcare technologies.”

If you haven't submitted a photo for the SWEet Summer Photo, it's not too late we still have a little over a month of Summer left. Simply, take a picture showing us what YOU are doing in the Summer, as a STEM major. Please look at our previous post for the questions. It's SWEet and short, it'll take you only a few minutes!

->Please email all inquiries to umbcswe@gmail.com

Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook @umbc_swe

Hello SWEethearts! 

We recently just received some scholarship information. We recommend that you apply if you meet their criteria. Below is the information! Best of luck!

We are excited to announce that Girl Develop It is working with online mentoring bootcamp, Bloc to offer scholarships to GDI Members. Each month, two GDI members will be selected to receive a$2500 scholarship towards one of Bloc's Track programs, which are geared toward those looking to work toward a new career as a full stack web developer or Designer.

When Bloc grad Brittany Martin first joined the program, she had just completed an MBA and was working as a Product Marketing Manager at a San Francisco startup. She was able to complete Bloc’s intensive full-stack web development program while working full-time.

Sharing from her own experience, Brittany said, “Bloc gave me a comfortable setting to learn in; I was able to choose a Mentor that shared my values. Bloc encourages diversity, and their flexible scheduling allows any new coder to learn.”

After graduating, she joined a company as a Rails Support Engineer, and recently landed a new job as a software engineer. In her role, she sets up and maintains production environments, fixes bugs, codes in Ruby on Rails, and works on technical documentation.

Girl Develop It is excited to work with Bloc to offer opportunities for more of our students to continue their learning and level up their skills! Bloc is the world's largest online bootcamp and they offer a program that goes beyond just curriculum — GDI Members who attend Bloc will finish the program with projects for their portfolio in addition to a certificate!

Talk to one of Bloc's Student Advisors or apply here.

To visit Girl Develop It Baltimore, go here:
http://www.meetup.com/Girl-Develop-It-Baltimore/

This talk was accepted for DEFCON 2015 in Las Vegas later this month. However, for those interested here in the UMBC community, John will conduct an informal preview of his talk on Friday 7/17 at 3:00PM in ITE 366 (DREAM Lab).

"Quantum" Classification of Malware
John Seymour, UMBC

3:00pm Friday 17 July 2015, ITE 366

Quantum computation has recently become an important area for security research, with its applications to factoring large numbers and secure communication. In practice, only one company (D-Wave) has claimed to create a quantum computer which can solve relatively hard problems, and that claim has been met with much skepticism. Regardless of whether it is using quantum effects for computation or not, the D-Wave architecture cannot run the standard quantum algorithms, such as Grover’s and Shor’s. The D-Wave architecture is instead purported to be useful for machine learning and for heuristically solving NP-Complete problems.

We'll show why the D-Wave and the machine learning problem for malware classification seem especially suited for each other. We also explain how to translate the classification problem for malicious executables into an optimization problem which a D-Wave machine can solve. Specifically, using a 512-qubit D-Wave Two processor, we show that a minimalist malware classifier, with cross-validation accuracy comparable to standard machine learning algorithms, can be created. However, even such a minimalist classifier incurs a surprising level of overhead.

John Seymour is a Ph.D. student at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, where he performs research at the intersection of machine learning and information security. He's mostly interested in avoiding and helping others avoid some of the major pitfalls in machine learning, especially in dataset preparation (seriously, do people still use malware datasets from 1998?) In 2014, he completed his Master’s thesis on the subject of quantum computation applied to malware analysis. He currently works at CyberPoint International, a company which performs network and host-based machine learning, located in Baltimore, MD.