The Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internship (SULI) program encourages undergraduate students to pursue science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) careers by providing research experiences at the Department of Energy (DOE) laboratories. Selected students participate as interns appointed at one of 15 participating DOE laboratories. They perform research, under the guidance of laboratory staff scientists or engineers, on projects supporting the DOE mission.

The SULI program is sponsored and managed by the DOE Office of Science’s, Office of Workforce Development for Teachers and Scientists (WDTS) in collaboration with the DOE laboratories.

Applications for the SULI program are solicited annually for three separate internship terms. Internship appointments are 10 weeks in duration for the Summer Term (May through August) or 16 weeks in duration for the Fall (August through December) and Spring (January through May) Terms. Each DOE laboratory offers different research opportunities; not all DOE laboratories offer internships during the Fall and Spring Terms.

Read more about Talmo's research by clicking the link below...

Incoming INDS major and transfer student Sophia Venero Shimabukuro was one of two undergraduate students selected to speak at the August 22 Fall Opening Meeting. Ms. Venero is a transfer student from Montgomery College where she graduated with honors as an Associates of Art, as a Phi Theta Kappa member and Vice- President and as a Montgomery Scholar. She will be majoring in Interdisciplinary Studies with a minor in Biological Sciences.  Ms. Venero has been awarded the UMBC Presidential Scholarship which will cover her full- time tuition for two years. She plans to volunteer at the Shriver Center with the Success Program.  Ms. Venero has also been working as the Program Manager for KEEN Greater DC, which is a non-profit dedicated to providing exercise and recreational activities to persons with disabilities. Ms. Venero aims to become either a Physician or Physician's Assistant.  She is pleased to be joining INDS, and we are pleased to have her!

After their successful Artscape concert in July, Straight Up Tribal has been invited by the Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts to perform on the Main Stage at the Baltimore Book Festival on Sunday September 29th at 3pm. 

The world music group, co-founded in 2008 by Interdisciplinary Studies Assistant Director Steven McAlpine and UMBC alumni Trey Kulp, Abhik Saha, Bryan Lee, Asif Majid, and Eddie Chen, has recently released an album of original songs available in the UMBC bookstore.

Two days after starting work as the new director of INDS, Stephen Freeland traveled to Washington DC to present a public lecture on the emerging science surrounding the possibility of other life in the universe. This lecture was invited by the Dialogue on Science, Ethics and Religion (DoSER) program of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), which welcomed a diverse group of politicians, scientists and members of the general public to a Q&A about the implications of this work.

The research about which Dr. Freeland spoke falls under the emerging science of astrobiology (https://astrobiology.nasa.gov/about-astrobiology/) which, by placing together insights from the traditional scientific disciplines, is rapidly forming a consensus picture that life should not be as rare as was once thought. In fact the focal point of the lecture were "three clues consistent with extraterrestrial life."

A full description of this event, together with a video of the event, can be found here:

www.aaas.org/spp/dser/events/archives/lectures/2013/Exoplanets/Exoplanets6_19_2013.html

Since Spring 2012, students of Jill Wrigley’s INDS 430 Food Systems Seminar learn about the intersecting benefits, problems and challenges generated by modern food systems. Now, thanks to a BreakingGround grant (umbcbreakingground.wordpress.com),  students in Spring 2014 will get their hands dirty while challenging their minds and forging new relationships beyond the classroom.

Two thirds of the new course will be spent in small group work devoted to various projects on and off campus. Each project asks students to propose or enact some improvement of the food system at UMBC or in a neighboring community or schools. Examples include (but are not limited to):

Growing Microgreens at UMBC:  What are the nutritional advantages of microgreens and how can we deliver them to plates of fellow UMBC students?  This project will integrate horticulture, entrepreneurship, marketing/communications and policy.

Edible Campus: The K-12 community is creating edible schoolyards in schools across the country, and globe.  Why not edible campuses? Students selecting this option will research how and where UMBC might develop this idea.

Garden Pals with Neighboring schools and communities:  Students will utilize the UMBC Biology Greenhouse to grow vegetable seedlings for transplant into container or in-ground gardens at various partner sites within the K-12 community.

What’s on Our Plate at UMBC?: Students selecting this option would undertake a “community food assessment” of the food provided to them at UMBC using an adapted version of the Real Food Calculator created by Real Food Challenge, or using an instrument of the students’ own design.

Food waste and food recovery at UMBC:  How can UMBC             reduce food waste and alleviate hunger and promote health in the           Baltimore region?