The University of Maryland - Baltimore County Career Center kindly requests your participation in The WetFeet Career Benchmark. As a key partner to industry, University of Maryland - Baltimore County is one of only a select few of all educational institutions nationwide that were asked to have our students complete the survey.

Your participation helps to increase the visibility and marketability of University of Maryland - Baltimore County students to employers who recruit on campuses and helps the employers to work on a targeted approach when they recruit on our campus. Moreover, our office will be provided with a report detailing your aggregate responses (individual responses remain anonymous). This can help our office better serve you and focus on attracting the companies that better serve your interests.

Finally, you will be compensated for your time with a career toolbox that features two free career guides and a career profile with feedback to measure your aspirations against others among other incentives.

You can access the questionnaire directly here:
http://unisurv.co/312usss14

Many thanks for your participation!

Do you have any questions, something to share, or just difficulties with the link? Please send an email to: careerbenchmark@wetfeet.com

Name:  Randi Williams

Internship, Co-op or Research Site: Jawbone (Code 2040)

Location of the Organization (City, State): San Francisco, CA

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

Expected Graduation Year: 2016

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

During the working day I am at Jawbone, a San Francisco based start-up that makes incredible products and software to support it. My place at Jawbone is to support the web tools team in maintaining Jawbone's high quality website. Lately Jawbone has been undergoing a renovation of some of the older pages on the website and my assignments this summer include working with the design team to update these pages. My largest project involves completely redoing the Careers Page on the site.

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

The San Francisco start-up scene is totally different from the way business is done on the East Coast. Besides the obvious cultural differences working in a start-up is just a totally different experience. The company is doing very well but it is still in the growth stage meaning that everyone who works here is a vital part of the mission. Everyone has a job title and maybe a specific set of assignments to complete but there is so much room for interdisciplinary work. All of the teams get to merge and work together and I've found that my skills in a lot more than computer science are being sharpened this summer.

What have you gained from your experience that you could not have gained from another opportunity?

Unique to the Silicon Valley is the spirit of creativity and self-confidence. Everyone here is a dreamer and that is encouraged and highly rewarded. There are a lot of daily problems that people have and that they want to solve. Everyone is working to get their ideas and solutions out there by taking the initiative to drop everything and build it. I will go home with a piece of that energy in me, the entrepreneurial spirit that I can build things to make the world better. 

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

Come to Silicon Valley! There is so much here for students in every discipline and there is a lot of fun to be had and a lot to learn. I feel pumped up and motivated now to go back to school and be really successful.

How do you see your experience as meaningful? This might involve skills you’ve gained, information you’ve learned, mentors you’ve connected with, or projects you’ve completed.

The most meaningful experience I am getting out of this summer is the amazing opportunity to be a CODE2040 Fellow. This program is all about getting more minorities, Latinos and Blacks in particular, involved in Silicon Valley. As a Fellow I have had the opportunity to talk to all kinds of leaders across the start-up world and ask them advice about how to get my career started when I am finished with school. These people are really busy running things like Facebook, Dropbox, Andreessen Horowitz, Twitter, and Square but they think that what CODE2040 is doing is important enough to have these deep, meaningful conversations about how even as a student I can think about things like how to build the next big app or website that is going to change the world.

Please provide a short quote about what you liked most about your position / earning internship credit / the internship placement process / the Shriver Center:

Having the opportunity to intern this summer has set me on a trajectory to the stars.

The Operating Units of Textron Systems currently have 2014 Internship positions posted on the Textron college recruiting site (collegejobs.textron.com).  These internship roles cover different disciplines such as: Engineering, Finance, Integrated Supply Chain, Information Technology, and general Business roles.  Please make sure you are reviewing these opportunities and applying for those roles in which you are interested and qualified.  The Operating Units of Textron Systems focus on providing both products and services that support our military and

are have locations throughout the United States including the following sites:

Wilmington, MA (Textron Defense Systems)

Baltimore, MD (AAI Corporation)

Charleston, SC  (AAI Corporation)

Huntsville, AL  (AAI Corporation)

Slidell, LA  (Textron Marine & Land)

Austin, TX  (AAI and Overwatch)

Williamsport, PA  (Lycoming)

We have internships at various locations supporting a wide range of functions within our business to include: 

•Business Development 

•Contracts 

•Engineering - Aerospace, Electrical, Test, Software, Systems, and Mechanical 

•Environment, Safety & Health 

•Finance 

•General Business 

•Human Resources 

•Information Assurance/Cyber Security 

•IT 

•Legal 

•Marketing & Communications 

•Network Engineering 

•Procurement 

•Production Planning 

•Project Administration 

•Quality Assurance 

•Research & Development Engineering 

•Security 

•Supply Chain Management 

•Technical Writing 

•Welding Engineering 

Submit your resume in UMBCworks and apply online at http://www.textron.com/careers/undergrads-graduates/index.php today!

Please note students must have a 3.2 and be a US Citizen/National to be considered.

Meet John. He is a Bioinformatics and Computational Biology major and a researcher in the Undergraduate Biology and Mathematics (UBM) training program. His research attempts to document cases of gene flow between closely-related species of birds, particularly the Baltimore Oriole and the Mexican black-backed Oriole.

What research experiences have you had? 
I have been a part of the Undergraduate Biology and Mathematics (UBM) training program since last December. For UBM, I work in Dr. Kevin Omland’s lab and focus on resolving phylogenetic trees using species tree algorithms and parallel computing. Also, within the Omland Lab, I assist other laboratory researchers by going out in the field to record and catch birds.

How did you find the research opportunity? 
I actually found out about UBM through an email that Dr. Omland sent out! He was looking for a computational biology researcher to join the UBM program, and I jumped at the opportunity.

Who did you work with on this project?
I work with Tylynn Pettrey, who is an undergraduate and my partner in the UBM program. I also work with Dr. Omland, Dr. Matthias Gobbert in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, and Dr. Frode Jacobsen in the Omland Lab.

Was this your first independent research project?
Yes it was!

Do you get course credit for this work? Paid? How much time do you put into it?
I do get course credit and I am paid. I put in between 8 and 12 hours a week during the semester.

What academic background did you have before you started?
I had a very diverse scientific background when I started in the lab. As a Bioinformatics major, I took courses in biology, computer science, chemistry, and mathematics - nearly all of the courses have paid off in some way or another.

How did you learn what you needed to know to be successful in this lab?
The biology and computer science courses I took were extraordinarily helpful in learning about my research topic and being able to implement the specific computer programs that I use. Also, the UBM program uses a mentor program in which older students “train” new members during their first semester on the project. My mentor, Leila Kazerooni, helped me learn more about the details of the project and taught me what I needed to know to become independent.

What was the hardest part about your research?
The hardest part is making everything work! I use many computer programs on a daily basis, and sometimes they do not all work the way I want. Solving the problems that subsequently arise is the most challenging part for me.

What was the most unexpected thing?
The most unexpected thing was the amount of traveling I have gotten to do. Within the last 5 months, I have gone to Puerto Rico, Chicago, and the Appalachian Mountains - all for research. When I first began work on my project, I had no idea that I would be able to go to all those places in the name of science. Being able to see and experience them has been the most unexpected reward my research has offered me.

What is your advice to other students about getting involved in research?
Don’t be afraid to put yourself out there! Professors are always looking for students who are interested and engaged, but the only way they can tell if you are interested is for you to make the first move.

What are your career goals?
Right now, I am focused on getting into graduate school and pursuing a doctorate. As of right now, I am unsure of a full-time career path, but I know I do enjoy evolutionary biology in general. I can certainly see myself in a career relating to that field sometime in the future.

What are you doing next for research?
For the next semester, I will be continuing to work in the Omland lab on my UBM project.

What else are you involved in on campus?
I am involved all over the place! I am the Vice President of the Honors College Council (and a member of the Honors College), part of the orientation team as a Woolie, as well as a teaching assistant for Cell Biology and a computer science tutor. I also play the viola in the UMBC Community Symphony Orchestra and swim for the newly founded Swim Club.

Have you shared the results of your work with professionals in the field?
Yes I have! I traveled to the American Ornithological Union Meeting in Chicago, Illinois this August to present my research to professionals in the field of ornithology. I also recently presented at the South Eastern Population, Ecology and Evolutionary Genetic (SEPEEG) Conference in Mountain Lake, Virginia to an audience of evolutionary biologists.

Read his abstract here...

The Operating Units of Textron Systems currently have 2014 Internship positions posted on the Textron college recruiting site (collegejobs.textron.com).  These internship roles cover different disciplines such as: Engineering, Finance, Integrated Supply Chain, Information Technology, and general Business roles.  Please make sure you are reviewing these opportunities and applying for those roles in which you are interested and qualified.  The Operating Units of Textron Systems focus on providing both products and services that support our military and

are have locations throughout the United States including the following sites:

Wilmington, MA (Textron Defense Systems)

Baltimore, MD (AAI Corporation)

Charleston, SC  (AAI Corporation)

Huntsville, AL  (AAI Corporation)

Slidell, LA  (Textron Marine & Land)

Austin, TX  (AAI and Overwatch)

Williamsport, PA  (Lycoming)

We have internships at various locations supporting a wide range of functions within our business to include: 

•Business Development 

•Contracts 

•Engineering - Aerospace, Electrical, Test, Software, Systems, and Mechanical 

•Environment, Safety & Health 

•Finance 

•General Business 

•Human Resources 

•Information Assurance/Cyber Security 

•IT 

•Legal 

•Marketing & Communications 

•Network Engineering 

•Procurement 

•Production Planning 

•Project Administration 

•Quality Assurance 

•Research & Development Engineering 

•Security 

•Supply Chain Management 

•Technical Writing 

•Welding Engineering 

Submit your resume in UMBCworks and apply online at http://www.textron.com/careers/undergrads-graduates/index.php today!

Please note students must have a 3.2 and be a US Citizen/National to be considered.

Computer Science and Electrical Engineering
Quantum Computing Seminar

Thermal Light N-qubit

Tao Peng (PhD Advisor: Yanhua Shih)
UMBC Physics Department

2:30-3:00 Tuesday, 22 October 2013, ITE 325b

This talk will discuss the equipment and optical elements that required for building the incoherent thermal source, the qubit, and the detection scheme of the intensity fluctuation-fluctuation correlation.

All optical XOR, CNOT gates with initial insight
for quantum computation using linear optics

Omar Shehab (PhD Advisor: Samuel Lomonaco)
UMBC CSEE Department

3:00-3:30 pm, Tuesday, 22 October 2013, ITE 325b

The design for an all-optical XOR gate is proposed. The basic idea is to split the input beams, and let them cancel or strengthen each other selectively, or flip the encoded information based on their polarization properties. The information is encoded in terms of polarization of the beam. Polarization of a light beam is well understood, hence, the design should be feasible to implement. The truth table of the optical circuit is worked out and compared with the expected truth table. Then it is demonstrated that the design complies with the linear behavior of the XOR function.

Next, based on a similar idea, the design of an all-optical CNOT gate is proposed. The truth table for the gate is verified. Then, it is discussed how this approach can be used for Linear Optics Quantum Computation (LOQC). It is shown that a Hadamard gate, a rotation gate, and a CNOT gate make up a universal set of quantum gates based on linear optics. This novel approach requires no additional power supply, extra input beam or ancilla photon to operate. It also does not require an expensive and complex single photon source and detector. Only narrowband laser sources are required to operate these gates.

Organizer: Prof. Samuel Lomonaco, Sorry, you need javascript to view this email address.

The UMBC ACM student chapter will host the second meetup of Baltimore Code Craftsmanship user group at 6:45pm on Thursday, October 24 in the ITE building on the UMBC Campus.

This meetup is for the students and software developers in the Baltimore area that care about the quality of their work and want to practice and improve their programming skills, share what they know and learn new things from others.

Members of the UMBC community can RSVP for the event by completing this form. More details can be found on the form or below. Participants outside of the UMBC community should register on the meetup site. Registration for this meetup is available for a limited number of participants.

This is a hands on coding user group with no presentations. Each meeting will be a dojo where we will go through a challenging software craftsmanship exercise that focuses on clean code, test-driven development, design patterns, and refactoring. We will pair up and practice on a kata in order to learn and apply the values, principles, and disciplines of software craftsmanship. Come with your laptop equipped with your favorite programming and automated unit testing environment. If you don’t have a laptop, come anyway, we will need only one laptop for every two people. Be prepared to pair up, learn, share and have fun!

The event is open to all UMBC students, however programming ability is required. Interested faculty members can join in too! This can also be a good opportunity to network with professionals from various companies and get yourself noticed for any job opportunities that exist.

If you have questions or suggestions, send email to Primal Pappachan (Sorry, you need javascript to view this email address. ) or Vladimir Korolev (Sorry, you need javascript to view this email address. ).