Mosaic Center 25Live Reservation Requirements

Important Requester Information: Please note that the Mosaic is only reservable by UMBC student leaders, staff and faculty through 25Live Monday through Friday, from 5pm until the Commons closes and Saturdays and Sundays according to normal Commons building hours.  The center is a "first come, first seated" lounge space Monday through Friday, 10am-5pm except during noted Student Life sponsored events and meetings.

Reservations are for the space only.  AV equipment, tables or chairs cannot be requested for use in our center. Catering and/or food is allowed on a case by case basis.  

​Please limit your functions in the Mosaic Center to no more than 30 people.

​Please see the Commons front desk staff to be let into the Mosaic Center (unless prior arrangements have been made with Mosaic Center staff).

Before submitting a request, please read “Student Life's Mosaic Center Reservation Agreement” listed below. 

Student Life's Mosaic Center Reservation Agreement:

I and/or my group agrees ​to leave the Mosaic Center in good condition. This ​means:​

·  The center will be left generally clean and tidy, ​

·  All tables and ​chairs will be returned to their original locations, 

·  ​All center print materials will be ​straightened and reset,

·  ​A​ll non-food related ​trash will be placed in trash cans ​and all food trash will be disposed of outside the center,

·  The ​whiteboard will be wiped clean (if used),

·  The lights will be turned off,​

·  T​he door will be closed upon exiting the space and, 

·  The Commons Information Desk staff will be notified ​at the end of your event/meeting so they can lock the door.

If you and/or your ​group fail to adhere to this agreement​, your reservation privileges ​may be suspended or revoked for the remainder​of the semester and/or year.​

Name: Katie Swanson

Internship, Co-op or Research Site: Google

Position Title: Engineering Practicum Intern

Major(s)/Minor(s): Computer Science

Expected Graduation Year: May 2017

Briefly describe your internship, co-op, research, or service-learning opportunity, including your day-to-day tasks, responsibilities, and assignments.

I am a software engineering intern at a huge company whose goal is to make all of the world's information more accessible. I was on the Play Analytics team, creating a visualization of the Play Store data for the business analysts and other higher ups to better see where the Play Store stands in different statistics. Day-to-day tasks included programming in java and javascript, lots of meetings to discuss plans for my project, and there were fun things scheduled in, too! I am expected to be responsible for my project, finish my milestones by their deadlines, attend meetings I am expected to attend, and to enjoy my summer by maintaining a healthy work-life balance. I finished about one change-list per week. Change-lists are chunks of code that improve my project. My hosts and other full-timers have to review it and comment on it to make sure what I added is perfect before it can be submitted to the official Google code-base.

Describe the process of obtaining your internship, research, or co-op opportunity.

I was looking for summer internships Freshmen year, and I heard Google had an amazing internship program. I heard both from word of mouth from trustworthy sources, as well as from the movie The Internship. It seemed like a perfect fit, so I Googled "Google Summer Internship 2014" and it took me right to the application page. I applied directly on the Careers@Google site and it was a pretty easy application. I had to submit basic information, my resume, and an optional cover letter. Later on, I received an email from the University Recruiting Team asking me to respond to five essay questions and send in my transcript. I applied in September, I received that follow-up email about a week later, then in November, I received an email asking if they could interview me for a summer intern position. I replied with my availability, and I scheduled an interview right after finals ended in December. I had two technical interviews over the phone using Google Docs. They included algorithms and data structures which I completed it in Python, including a section I had to code myself. I got a call at the end of January from my recruiter saying I got the job! It was a very exciting, rewarding process, and I am proud of myself for not using any connections and working hard to obtain this position on my own.   

What have you enjoyed the most about your position or organization/company?

I love the emphasis the company puts on work-life balance and treating their employees right. You are not going to get a good product if your workers are upset or treated poorly. There are plenty of opportunities to have fun, and taking breaks from work (not for too long) is proven to increase efficiency. There isn't much pressure to succeed and do well here in the sense that our competitors are more like friendly competitors, like "Wow you did that better than us, that's impressive, can we see how?" It's just a big fun relaxed family that wants to make the user experience better and change the world a little.

How do you believe you have made an impact through your work?

I believe I have made a significant impact on the Google Play Store on all Android devices. I have created an internal tool to visualize the data and usage of the Play Store so business analysts and other important people can use it to make important business decisions about the Play Store. For instance, they could see that including the wallet logo next to the purchase button was actually lowering sales, so they would decide to remove the wallet logo, and the sales numbers would go up. What I did impacts Google's business and monetary intake as well as improving the user experience of the Play Store.

What advice would you give to another student who is seeking an internship or similar experience? 

Apply for everything. Put yourself out there by contacting recruiters and being very enthusiastic about wanting to work for their company. I applied to maybe over 60 summer internships, and one had to have accepted me. The odds are high at that point. Create a LinkedIn and add all of your classmates and people who have similar career goals so you can support each other. Message recruiters from companies first on the company recruitment email (aka careers@google.com), then through anyone you may know who works there, then find a good recruiter on LinkedIn and send them a personal message expressing your interest. It is absolutely essential that you make connections and use them. You can help others out as well so it is a huge web of interns helping other interns get internships. If you network enough, you will have connections at companies you want to work for, then getting a contact through them (either a project manager or a recruiter) will be very beneficial. It is having an insider connection/referral and companies take those into more consideration than someone who applies out of the blue with no context. If you make a friend at a Women in Computing Conference who works for Facebook, you could ask her to connect you to her recruiter so you could possibly get an internship there as well. It is very beneficial to network and create as many connections as possible, it will open so many doors and opportunities you otherwise wouldn't have known were there.

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Want to be the next Intern of the Week? Make sure to fill out this form and stay tuned. New interns are announced every Friday!

UMBC Women Who Rock is a blog series I’m working on throughout the 2014-15 academic year (and now perhaps beyond). In my role as Women’s Center director, I have some of the best opportunities to become acquainted with some of UMBC’s best and brightest women on campus. I admire the ways they live authentic lives unapologetically that challenge the stereotypes and assumptions that are often assigned to women. By debunking these stereotypes and forcing us to check our assumptions, they allow us to expand our notion of what a woman is and can be.

-Jess

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UMBC Women Who Rock!
Rehana Shafi, Director of the Sherman STEM Teacher Scholars Program

In the few UMBC Women Who Rock blog posts I’ve written over the past year, I end with the same paragraph every time. I ask my readers about which UMBC women inspire them and how the counter narratives they’re sharing with us allow UMBC and our greater community to be more of exactly who we want to be. I absolutely love the power of counternarratives and their ability to expose assumptions and reveal complexities and depth. And, while it’s so important to emphasize the counternarratives, after connecting with Rehana Shafi earlier this summer, I was reminded of the importance of also simply knowing the narrative of someone’s life.

Rehana speaking at the dedication of the naming of Sherman Hall.

Rehana and I are both a part of the Undergraduate Academic Affairs (UAA) Division and for the past four years have shared time together at leadership team meetings. During these meetings, I have looked to Rehana as a role model as I design my own concept of women’s leadership. I appreciate the time I have to sit with her around the UAA leadership table. She asks important questions, provides important context to discussions, inserts moments of humor and light-heartedness, and exemplifies confidence. I have learned a great deal from Rehana by simply being at the same table with her. And, despite having spent this time with Rehana, I recently was reflecting on the fact that I knew very little about her and who she is. This realization inspired me to set up a time to meet with her under the guise of a UMBC Women Who Rocks interview.

So, I asked her “Who are you?”

But, let me take a step back. This actually wasn’t the first question I asked her. 

Rehana with the graduating class of 2013 Sherman Scholars.

First, I asked her about her role as the director of the Sherman’s Scholars Program and what journey did she take to get there. She shared her journey starting out an exercise science major in college, which led her to a brief stint working as personal trainer. Through this experience she learned that she really liked educating people, which led her to the experience of teaching ESL to middle school students, which eventually led her to working in the Choice Program in an alternative school in East Baltimore County. Of course, the Choice Program led her to the Shriver Center at UMBC and she worked there for several years coordinating service-learning and K-12 outreach. Finally, she found the perfect opportunity in the Sherman STEM Teacher Scholars Program to apply everything she loved and was important to her about education, and she’s been working as the director ever since. We also talked about what it looks like for her to be a woman of color in a leadership position and the responsibility she feels to reach and support the few others on campus who look like her.

While this is a very condensed version of our conversation and her journey, through the simple act of storytelling, I realized how much Rehana and I had in common. We no longer just worked in the same division at UMBC but also had these neat little connections. We both have social work in our background and found our way into higher education as a way to find balance in self-care and still wanting to make a difference. We’ve both experienced first-hand the inequities of education and the ways in which children are pushed through systems. We both see ourselves as educators and that doesn’t have to include being in the classroom. We also both feel constrained by 5 and 10-year plans and would rather just be open to the possibilities.

When there was a pause in the conversation, I took a step back and looked at the questions I had prepared related to why she as a UMBC woman indeed rocks. I had scribbled down a note that asked “life outside of UMBC?” and that’s when I asked the big question, “Who are you… Who is Rehana outside of UMBC?”

Up until this point, I had been jotting facts down and was heading onto a third page to ensure an accurate portrayal of this UMBC Women Who Rocks. But, this is where the note taking took a pause and I just listened. As she attempted to answer this question, Rehana vulnerably explained to me, “I’m still searching for what that is.” In this part of our conversation she shared the deep impact the passing of loved ones has had on her recent journey. She spoke to the time she spent needing and wanting to take care of others around her but how that also impacted her ability to practice self-care. She’s beginning to figure out what self-care looks like for her and what that means to who she is. It includes eating well and exercising and maybe learning to swim or pick up sewing again. It includes what’s around her and not letting life happen while she isn’t watching. Through this simple question, I learned more about who Rehana really is and wants to be – and it’s way more than what exists on her resume or within her job title. It made me think about how often leadership and excellence is defined by doing, but the real challenge is really in the being.

This has me thinking a lot about a recent post another Women’s Center staff member wrote in the aftermath of the Baltimore Uprisings. She began her post with the question, “How are you?” and reflected on the deep importance this simple question holds in providing critical care to others. After my conversation with Rehana, I believe the similar meaning can be given to the question, “Who are you?” Asking the questions of “Who are you?” and “How are you?” is integral to practicing feminist leadership. I’m grateful for the time Rehana and I carved out during our busy days for her to share her story of not just doing but being. As I head into what I’m sure will be another busy fall semester, this experience has encouraged me to challenge myself to take the time to ask that short and immensely powerful question – “Who are you?”

Rehana with the Shermans and Dr. Hrabowski at the Sherman Hall dedication ceremony.

Who are the UMBC women in your life that inspire you to think outside your expectations and assumptions? What are the counter narrative stories they’re sharing with us allowing UMBC and our greater community to be more of exactly who we want to be? Comment below and maybe you’ll just find them featured in a future UMBC Women Who Rock post.

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Check out other UMBC Women Who Rock:

Amanda Knapp (featured August 2014)
Susan Dumont (featured October 2014)
Jahia Knobloch (featured January 2015)
A Reflection on Encouragement and Accountability (February 2015)
Amelia Meman (March 2015)
Ashley Sweet (May 2015)

Dr. Rick Forno, Graduate Cybersecurity Program Director and Assistant Director of UMBC's Center for Cybersecurity, has received a $45,000 grant from the National Security Agency (NSA) to fund the prizes for student winners at the 2015 Maryland Cyber Challenge (MDC3) finals taking place at the CyberMaryland 2015 conference in Baltimore on October 28-29.   

The Maryland Cyber Challenge builds excitement around cybersecurity education and careers by bringing together teams of students and cybersecurity professionals to compete in a series of increasingly complex cybersecurity challenges. Now in its 5th year, over 800 student competitors have participated in this regional cybersecurity competition, with NSA providing more than $330,000 in prize money.

For 2015, each member of the first-place student team will receive $2,500 and each member of the second-place team will receive $1,250 to contribute toward their higher education and training in the cybersecurity and computer science fields. Identical prizes are awarded both in the high school and college divisions.

Dr. Forno and UMBC are co-founders of MDC3, along with Leidos and the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development (DBED). For the first four years of the event, Dr. Forno served as the competition coordinator and GameMaster, but transitioned into an advisory role for 2015 and beyond.

Interested? Register a team for MDC3 or join the CyberDawgs to train and compete – they've got two teams already registered!

Ph.D. Proposal Defense

Data, Energy, and Privacy Management
Techniques for Sustainable Microgrids

Zhichuan Huang

11:00am Tuesday, 11 August 2015, ITE 325b

Sustainable microgrids have gained increasing attention recently, because they can provide the power supply to places i) where the traditional power grid does not exist due to the poor economy or limited number of residences (e.g., islands); and ii) when the traditional power grid is temporally not functioning due to severe weather conditions (e.g., storms). However, in order to achieve sustainability, there are a lot of challenges to be addressed. In this thesis, we propose to investigate three key techniques in sustainable microgrids. First, we investigate the big energy data management problem and present E-Sketch, a middleware for utility companies to gather data from smart meters with much less storage and communication overhead. E-Sketch utilizes adaptive sampling to compress power consumption changes in time domain. Then frequency compression is applied to further compress the sampled data.

The second key technique is the energy management in microgrids. Because energy generation and demand in each individual home and microgrid is not matching, the key challenge of the energy management is to model the existing energy demand and propose novel energy management to reduce the overall energy usage and cost in microgrids. In this technique, we study the theoretical, technical, and economic feasibility of sustainable microgrids. To enable distributed energy management, energy consumption data of different homes needs to be shared in the microgrid. Thus an important problem is how we guarantee that the shared data can only be used for energy management but not revealing the privacy of individual homes in the microgrid. To address this problem, we leverage the unique feature of hybrid AC-DC microgrids and propose the third technique — Shepherd, a privacy protection framework to effectively protect occupants’ privacy. In Shepherd, we provide a generic model for energy consumption hiding from different types of detection techniques.

Committee: Drs. Ting Zhu (chair), Nilanjan Banerjee, Chintan Patel, and David Irwin (UMass Amherst)

Ph.D. Proposal Defense

Holistic Home Energy Management:
From Sensing to Data Analytics

David Lachut

2:00pm Tuesday, 11 August 2015, ITE 325b

As home automation tools become more prevalent, they provide great potential to assist energy conservation and promote sustainable energy use in a way that increases users’ quality of life. This paper proposes the Greenhome System: a software system for using off-the-shelf home automation components and back-end data analytics to provide intelligent home energy management capabilities primarily targeted to renewable powered homes. The system will take input from various sensors and user input to detect user activities, predict home energy consumption, and make energy consumption recommendations to users. To accomplish the project goals, the Greenhome system requires in-home hardware and software components, a mobile component for user interaction, and a server component to tie them together. These components will accomplish tasks of data collection and analysis, activity and anomaly detection, prediction, planning, and recommendation.

This project builds on prior research in several areas, combining such diverse fields as predictive analytics, data visualization and annotation, planning, and recommender systems into a holistic approach. Combining these fields will result in new adaptations and make the overall Greenhome System a novel contribution. Work has begun on the Greenhome System preliminary to this proposal, with published work on residential sensor system design and implementation, data annotation collection, and energy demand prediction. It remains to incorporate automated self-maintenance, user activity detection, and personalized recommendations into a holistic system for home energy management.

Committee: Drs. Nilanjan Banerjee (chair), Ting Zhu, Charles Nicholas, Nirmalya Roy