UMBC’s new Public Research for Public Good site features videos that highlight faculty research that provides real impact on the communities they are working with. In one, CSEE Professors Nilanjan Banerjee and Ryan Robucci discuss their research on developing wearable sensors to help people with limited mobility, allowing them to more easily interact with things in their environment. The sensors are built out of conductive fabric that can be sewn into sheets or clothing. The uniqueness of their project stems from the the team assembled to carry it out, which includes faculty and students who design low-level hardware, implement interactive software systems, rehabilitation specialists and end users.

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Congratulations to CSEE’s 158 new alumni. They include ten Ph.D., 47 M.S., 29 M.P.S. and 72 B.S. graduates.

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UMBC faculty, alumni and corporate partners discuss cybersecurity and industry challenges

Cybersecurity is regularly a headliner in the news, especially when personal information stored online has been compromised, whether through a breach, hack, or threat. On Thursday, December 7, UMBC hosted experts from industry and academia at the National Press Club to discuss the cyber challenges professionals face, and how those groups can work together to prepare future generations of cybersecurity professionals.

Scott Shane, a reporter with The New York Times, led the discussion with five panelists representing industry, small business, and higher education. “I think it’s fair to say the internet was built without adequate attention to security,” stated Shane, who writes about cyber and information attacks regularly. “It’s almost like somebody who starts a bank with branches all over the world, and after it’s up and running and has millions of account holders, suddenly starts to think about safes, locks on the doors and bulletproof glass. I think that’s sort of the stage that we’re at right now.”

UMBC President Freeman Hrabowski and Anupam Joshi, professor and chair of computer science and electrical engineering, and director of the Center for Cybersecurity at UMBC, were joined by alumni and partners who have been working on the challenge of educating the workforce together. Hrabowski explained that there are currently about 350,000 unfilled cybersecurity jobs, and that number is expected to continue to grow. By 2021, it is anticipated that there will be approximately three million job openings in cyber-related fields.

Over the course of his professional career, Nigel Faulkner, chief technology officer at T. Rowe Price, has experienced the emergence of technology and many changes. “As the CTO of a medium-large company, cyber is a defensive investment for us. The best thing that can happen is nothing happens,” Faulkner said, adding that he is always thinking about whether the company is investing enough, doing the right thing, and making the right connections in the industry to keep clients’ information safe.

As president and founder of TCecure, LLC, and cybersecurity academic innovation officer for University System of Maryland (USM), Tina Williams ’02, computer science, shared the importance of building security into technology from the beginning, rather than adding these features on at the “tail end of a development cycle.” Not only does her company handle security, they also monitor threats and risks that can compromise the technology’s health. In her role at USM, Williams represents the system as a whole to integrate academia and academic research, relationships, and resources into what’s taking place nationally, at the Federally Funded Research and Development Centers.

As head of UMBC’s Center for Cybersecurity, Joshi explained that UMBC is combating these national challenges by partnering with industry and government leaders to conduct research that addresses specific real-world needs that benefit both. Collaborative relationships, such as UMBC’s work with Northrop Grumman and T. Rowe Price, is one way that UMBC is working to cultivate the next generation of cybersecurity talent.

As an alumna of UMBC and a current employee at Northrop Grumman, Lauren Mazzoli ’15, computer science and mathematics, M.S. ’17, computer science, a systems engineer in the Future Technical Leaders Program at Northrop Grumman, discussed her experience in the Cyber Scholars Program. The Cyber Scholars Program works to increase the participation of women and underrepresented minorities in the field. Mazzoli explained that her experience at UMBC, in the Cyber Scholars Program, and working alongside mentors on and off-campus led her to be involved with continuing to encourage women to pursue careers in cybersecurity. “For me it’s been a product of the relationship between academia and industry, that have allowed me to find my own career path, and at the same time help others find theirs,” she explained, noting her passion for helping students consider careers in cybersecurity and related fields.

“We know there’s a huge workforce that we need and we can’t fill that pipeline. So yes, we need more women, yes, we need students of all backgrounds, but we need diversity of thought, experience, education, and problem-solving skills,” said Mazzoli, adding that it is important for students to know from a young age that cybersecurity is a field they can pursue.

Adapted from a UMBC News article article written by Megan Hanks Photo by Abnet Shiferaw ’11, visual arts.

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Gain a competitive advantage in your field!

Programming and problem-solving skills are musts for today’s college graduates! 

Enroll in a special section of CMSC 201 Computer Science I that emphasizes programming topics applicable to the social and biological sciences and other majors. Sample topics include statistical analysis, working with large data sets, and data visualization. You will also receive more individual attention in this smaller CMSC 201 section!

This section fulfills any major’s requirement for CMSC 201 and is open to all non-CS, non-engineering majors. 

No programming experience is required. Click here for more details about this unique opportunity.

Volunteer at hackathon for high school and middle school students

Maryland high school and middle school students who are interested in computing will come to UMBC for an all-day hackathon in the UMBC Commons on Saturday, December 9. The organizers are recruiting UMBC students who would like to help with the hackathon between 9:30am and 6:30pm on the third floor of The Commons in rooms 318, 329, 331 and Skylight lounge..

The hackathon event is run by QuHacks with the support os the UMBC Computer Science Education Club.. QuHacks is an organization created by high school students to organize hackathons with the goal of providing friendly environment for computing education.

Hackathon volunteers will spend part of the day helping participants by answering questions and giving debugging guidance and advice.

Two student volunteers will be “on call” in each room, so should have time to work on their own projects or study for upcoming final exams.

This is a great opportunity if you are interested in computing education or just want to help young students learn about and get involved with computing.

Sign up to help with the UMBC QuHacks hackathon event at http://goo.gl/xEVmnT.

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UMBC Cyber Defense Lab

PKI in the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA)

Phil Scheffler

Chief Engineer – Joint Enablers
ID2 – Cyber Development Directorate
Defense Information Systems Agency

12:00–1pm, Dec 1, 2017, ITE 228

As a combat support agency within the Department of Defense, DISA faces unlimited challenges with Public-Key Infrastructure (PKI). Chief Engineer Phil Scheffler will shed some light on DoD PKI at the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), and challenges deploying PKI across such a large enterprise.

Philip Scheffler is the Chief Engineer for the ID2 Joint Enablers Division in DISA’s Cyber Development Directorate. He joined DISA in 2010 as an NSA Information Assurance Scholar on the Public Key Enablement team. Over the past 7 years, Phil has been the technical lead for various PKI initiatives for the DoD. Mr. Scheffler has a B.A. in Economics from Brandeis University and a M.S in Computer Science from Boston University.

Host: Alan T. Sherman, *protected email*

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Voices in AI – Episode 20: A Conversation with Marie desJardins

Byron Reese interviewed UMBC CSEE Professor Marie desJardins as part of his Voices in AI podcast series on Gigaom. In the episode, they talk about the Turing test, Watson, autonomous vehicles, and language processing.  Visit the Voices in AI site to listen to the podcast and read the interview transcript.

Here’s the start of the wide-ranging, hour long interview.

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Distinguished Lecture

An Expanding and Expansive View of Computing

Jim Kurose

Assistant Director, National Science Foundation
Directorate of Computer and Information Science and Engineering

1:00-2:15pm Monday, 20 November 2017, ITE325b, UMBC

Advances in computer and information science and engineering are providing unprecedented opportunities for research and education.  My talk will begin with an overview of CISE activities and programs at the National Science Foundation and include a discussion of current trends that are shaping the future of our discipline.  I will also discuss the opportunities as well as the challenges that lay ahead for our community and for CISE.

Dr. Kurose is on leave from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he is a  Distinguished Professor in the College of Information and Computer Sciences.  He has served in a number of administrative roles at UMass and has been a Visiting Scientist at IBM Research; INRIA; Institut EURECOM; the University of Paris; the Laboratory for Information, Network and Communication Sciences; and Technicolor Research Labs.

His research interests include network protocols and architecture, network measurement, sensor networks, multimedia communication, and modeling and performance evaluation.  Dr. Kurose has served on many national and international advisory boards and panels and has received numerous awards for his research and teaching.  With Keith Ross, he is the co-author of the textbook, Computer Networking, a top down approach (6th edition) published by Addison-Wesley/Pearson.

Dr. Kurose received his Ph.D. in computer science from Columbia University and a Bachelor of Arts degree in physics from Wesleyan University.  He is a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE).

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The UMBC Cyber Defense Lab presents

An Introduction to Quantum Cryptography:
Or, How Alice Outwits Eve

Sam Lomonaco, CSEE, UMBC
12:00–1:00pm, Friday, 17 November 2017, ITE 231, UMBC

Alice and Bob wish to communicate without the archvillainess Eve eavesdropping on their conversation. Alice decides to take two college courses, one in cryptography, the other in quantum mechanics. During the courses, she discovers she can use what she has learned to devise a cryptographic communication system that automatically detects whether or not Eve is up to her villainous eavesdropping. Some of the topics discussed are Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, the Vernam cipher, the BB84 and B92 cryptographic protocols. The talk ends with a discussion of some of Eve’s possible eavesdropping strategies, i.e., opaque eavesdropping, translucent eavesdropping, and translucent eavesdropping with entanglement.

Samuel J. Lomonaco Jr. received his PhD in mathematics from Princeton University. He has been a full professor of computer science and electrical engineering at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) since 1985, serving as founding chair of the CS Department from 1985 to 1991. Representative Awards, Accomplishments, and Honors include: (1) He was a visiting key research scientist at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI) at the University of California at Berkley in 2004. (2) He was a senior LaGrange fellow at the Institute for Scientific Exchange in Torino, Italy in 2005. (3) For contributions made to the development of the programming language Ada, he received an award from the United States Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, Dr. Richard DeLauer. (4) He was the first to introduce quantum information science to the American Mathematical Society (AMS) by organizing and giving a two-day AMS short course on quantum computation at the Annual Meeting of the AMS in Washington, DC, in January 2000. (5) He published four books on quantum computation and information science. (6) He accepted an invitation to be a guest editor of the Journal of Quantum Information Processing for a special issue on topological quantum computation.

Host: Alan T. Sherman, *protected email*

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ACM Tech Talk Series

​A Practitioner’s Introduction to Deep Learning

​Ashwin Kumar Ganesan, PhD student

1:00-2:00pm Friday, 17 November 2017​, ITE325, UMBC

In recent years, Deep Neural Networks have been highly successful at performing a number of tasks in computer vision, natural language processing and artificial intelligence in general. The remarkable performance gains have led to universities and industries investing heavily in this space. This investment creates a thriving open source ecosystem of tools & libraries that aid the design of new architectures, algorithm research as well as data collection.

This talk (and hands-on session) introduce people to some of the basics of machine learning, neural networks and discusses some of the popular neural network architectures. We take a dive into one of the popular libraries, Tensorflow, and an associated abstraction library Keras.

To participate in the hands-on aspects of the workshop, bring a laptop computer with Python installed and install the following libraries using pip.  For windows or (any other OS) consider doing an installation of anaconda that has all the necessary libraries.

• numpy, scipy & scikit-learn
• tensorflow / tensoflow-gpu (The first one is the GPU version)
• matplotlib for visualizations (if necessary)
• jupyter & ipython (We will use python2.7 in our experiments)

Following are helpful links:

• https://www.tensorflow.org/install/
• https://www.scipy.org/install.html

Contact Nisha Pillai (NPillai1 at umbc.edu) with any questions regarding this event.

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