The Information Systems Security Association is looking for new officers for Fall 2018 - Spring 2019. We are looking for the following positions:

Vice President of Communications – Attend SGA and related organization meetings/ activities,
social media, marketing ideas, flyers and introductory networking.

Secretary - Keep notes for all meetings, send monthly emails on updates, manage the shared calendar, and help reserve rooms.

Benefits of becoming an officer:

·         Leadership experience

·         Looks great on a resume

·         Networking opportunities

·         Professional connections with ISSA

Please email amin4@umbc.edu with what position you are running for and why (resume preferred ).

Priority Deadline is April 30th, 2018 by 11:59PM
Deadline is May 13th, 2018 by 11:59 pm

On April 12th 2017, UMBC hosted Take Back the Night. The night began with an introduction by the emcees and march leaders, Morgan, Ellie, and Autumn, and Women’s Center staff member, Samiksha.

Photo credit: Jaedon Huie

After the introduction was the survivor speak-out. The speak-out is the heart and soul of Take Back the Night. Survivors are encouraged to come up and share their story with the crowd before the march throughout campus. As a survivor, sharing your story at TBTN allows you to acknowledge your experience with others who believe and support you.

Photo credit: Jaedon Huie

We then moved on to the march portion of the night, where we got loud and chanted in support of victims of sexual violence. We Believe You, an activist group dedicated to ending sexual violence, led the march, the survivor circle of care, and a private discussion in the Women’s Center following the march.

The survival circle is a new addition to Take Back the Night. At the peak of the march, everyone formed a circle around True Grit. Survivors were invited to the middle of the circle, while supporters chanted the refrain, “We see you. We believe you. You matter.” After the survival circle, the march back to Main Street commenced.

 Photo credit: Jaedon Huie

After the march, community members got back together for some craftivism! This part of the night is intended to provide space for reflection, creative expression, and community-building between survivors and supporters alike. 

Photo credit: Jaedon Huie

Thank you so much to everyone for a powerful and moving evening. Thank you to every survivor for sharing their story, to every ally who supported the survivors, and a special thank you to all the volunteers and We Believe You members who made TBTN possible!

If you weren’t able to make it, here are some resources:

• Women’s Center at UMBC
• UMBC Counseling Center
• Title IX and UMBC’s Interim Policy on Prohibited Sexual Misconduct and Other Related Misconduct

Sexual Assault Awareness Month is all of April and we still have many events happening throughout the month. Check out the SAAM calendar for other upcoming events you can attend!

Joy Roy will graduate in May, 2019 with a B.S. in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology and a B.A. in Mathematics, with a Chemistry Minor. He is a URA Scholar for 2018-19 with his research partner, Eric Cheung, and a member of the Dean's and President's Lists.

Title of your research project: A software tool for the curation of planarian gene expression patterns

Describe your project: Planarian worms are amazing at regeneration so scientists study them all the time.We are creating a software for someone to use to curate information about the gene expression patterns of planarian worms, and we’re organizing this information into a mathematical database for anyone to access online so that they can see the expression patterns on the website rather than having to sift through a million papers.

Who is your mentor(s) for your project? Why did you choose them? I work forDr. Daniel Lobo in the Biological Science department. Dr. Leips used to be my advisor and when he found out that I liked math and biology, he told me to talk to Dr. Lobo and see if I was interested in Computational Biology. When I scheduled to meet with Dr. Lobo, he seemed like a really nice guy who was insightful and interested in teaching me. I didn’t know much about the work he did so he offered me a few of his papers and a spot in his lab to get some work done and see if I liked it. I couldn’t ask for a better mentor. You hear stories about undergrad researchers who don’t even get to see their PI’s and basically just work under the grad student, but Dr. Lobo has a much more active role in the development of our project and offers guidance when needed.

How did you become interested in this project? I recently learned how to code and I love it, it’s like solving a puzzle and making your own pieces. The planarian worm project was only beginning when I entered the lab and needed another coder, so I came to help out. Since then, I’ve become very invested into the program and love developing it and continuously making it better.

What has been the hardest part about your research/what was the most unexpected thing about being a researcher? The hardest part is definitely those moments when you’re stuck. You have to solve an issue and either don’t understand what’s causing it or don’t know how to solve it. You don’t want to run for help every time this happens however, so you have to persevere and try picking the problem to pieces. It can be frustrating and sometimes tedious, but that’s science. You have to have a lot of grit.

What has been the most rewarding part? The most satisfying feeling is when you just fixed a bug that’s been pestering you for weeks on end. The moment you scratch it off your to-do list makes you feel like a functioning member of society again. I also really enjoy working with the people in my lab, we’re all more like friends than work-mates.

How will you disseminate your research? My research partner and I, Eric Cheung, will be presenting our research at URCAD next year, as well as disseminating it through a publication in a scientific journal. The database will also be accessible online through our website.

What is your advice to other students about getting involved in research?   Get involved early!! My biggest regret is not getting into research earlier. Learning things in class and actually doing them feel like completely different things and getting hands on experience is so much more rewarding.

What are your career goals? After graduating, I want to go on to get my Ph.D. and enter into industry and eventually into academia.

The UMBC Cyber Defense Lab presents

Classifying Malware using Data Compression

Charles Nicholas, UMBC

12:00–1:00pm Friday, 20 April 2018, ITE 229

Comparing large binary objects can be tricky and expensive. We describe a method for comparing such strings, using ideas form data compression, that is both fast and effective. We present results from experiments applying this method, which we refer to as LZJD, to the areas of malware classification and digital forensics.

Charles Nicholas (*protected email*) earned his B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Michigan – Flint in 1979, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science from Ohio State University in 1982 and 1988, respectively. He joined the Computer Science Department at UMBC in 1988. His research interests include electronic document processing, intelligent information systems, and software engineering. In recent years he has focused on the problems of storing and retrieving information from large collections of documents. Intelligent software agents are an important aspect of this work. Host: Alan T. Sherman, *protected email*

The UMBC Cyber Defense Lab meets biweekly Fridays. All meetings are open to the public.

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