The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) has awarded a $2.2 million teaching grant to the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) to further develop the HHMI Scholars Program, a science education initiative that focuses on students from diverse backgrounds.

The HHMI Scholars Program provides a summer “bridge” structure that helps freshmen make a smooth college transition. During their freshman year, Hughes Scholars rotate through several labs and eventually choose a "home" laboratory in which they will do long-term research. The summer before their sophomore year, they start working in that lab. Scholars also complete at least one summer of research with an HHMI investigator elsewhere in the country, usually before their junior year. Each scholar also has the option of spending his or her junior year as an exchange student in the lab of another HHMI investigator.

Hughes Scholars also provide math and science tutoring for elementary and high school students in Baltimore to inspire the next generation of science majors. They might also tutor fellow UMBC undergraduates.

UMBC is one of 50 universities in the nation to receive an HHMI grant in this round of funding. The first UMBC Hughes Scholars supported by an undergraduate science education grant from HHMI graduated from UMBC in 2005. All three students have gone on to Ph.D. or M.D./Ph.D. programs at Stanford University, The Johns Hopkins University, and Case Western Reserve University. Five additional students recently graduated and all have been accepted into a Ph.D., M.D./Ph.D. or M.D. program at Baylor College of Medicine, University of Florida, University of Maryland, University of Michigan, and Cornell University.

"They're not just getting into graduate programs, they’re getting into the very best programs," said Michael Summers, the only HHMI investigator at a Maryland public university and director of the Hughes Scholar Program at UMBC. Of 25 Hughes Scholars so far, 23 are African American. While many Hughes Scholars are from Maryland, students also come to the program from as far away as California, Florida, North Carolina and South Carolina.

Hughes Scholars will interact with students who are in the UMBC Meyerhoff Scholarship Program, a program open to high-achieving high school seniors with an interest in pursuing doctoral study in the sciences or engineering and advancing minorities in the sciences and related fields.

“With this support, some of the brightest young students who are interested in biomedical research and issues of diversity will have the opportunity to focus on their studies and research while undergraduates and work with some of the nation’s best biomedical researchers,” Summers said.

Hughes Scholars are selected as incoming freshmen. An HHMI grant provides funds for summer research and travel to scientific meetings. The grant also covers tuition and room and board for their first two years of college. Tuition, room and board are covered for the students' junior and senior years through a federal grant.

Before classes start, Hughes Scholars attend a summer program to familiarize themselves with the campus and the research being done at UMBC.

“Summer bridge programs—a component of several of the new grants—are particularly important in helping minority students make a successful transition to the world of the research university,” said Peter J. Bruns, HHMI vice president for grants and special programs. “Individualized mentoring and early research experiences with working scientists also are vital components of a university education that prepares undergraduates for graduate school and careers in science. The universities want to offer their students these opportunities, and HHMI is pleased to help them do so.”

In selecting recipients of the new grants, HHMI reviewed 158 applications. A panel composed of leading scientists and educators, including HHMI professors and an invited 214 HHMI investigators, reviewed the applications.

“We believe it is vital to bring fresh perspectives to the teaching of established scientific disciplines and to develop novel courses in emerging areas, such as computational biology, genomics, and bio-imaging, said Thomas R. Cech, HHMI president. “Our grantee universities are providing hands-on research experiences to help prepare undergraduates, including women and minorities underrepresented in the sciences, for graduate studies and for careers in biomedical research, medicine, and science education.”

A nonprofit medical research organization, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute was established in 1953 by the aviator-industrialist. The Institute, headquartered in Chevy Chase, Maryland, is one of the largest philanthropies in the world, with an endowment of $14.8 billion at the close of its 2005 fiscal year. HHMI spent $483 million in support of biomedical research and $80 million for support of a variety of science education and other grants programs in fiscal 2005.

A research effort led by the University of Maryland, Baltimore County has found a comet-like ball of gas over a billion times the mass of the sun hurling through a distant galaxy cluster over 500 miles per second. This colossal "ball of fire" is by far the largest object of this kind ever identified.

Dr. Alexis Finoguenov and Prof. Mark Henriksen of the UMBC Department of Physics and visiting UMBC scientist Dr. Francesco Miniati discovered the gas ball with a European X-ray satellite called XMM-Newton.

The gas ball is about three million light years across, or about five billion times the size of our solar system. It appears from our perspective as a circular X-ray glow with a comet-like tail nearly half the size of the moon. This observation is described in the Astrophysical Journal.

"The size and velocity of this gas ball is truly fantastic," said Finoguenov, who is an adjunct assistant professor of physics at UMBC and an associated scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Extra-Terrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany. "This is likely a massive building block being delivered to one of the largest assembly of galaxies we know."

The gas ball is in a galaxy cluster called Abell 3266, millions of light years from Earth, thus posing absolutely no danger to our solar system. Abell 3266 contains hundreds of galaxies and great amounts of hot gas that is nearly a hundred million degrees. Both the cluster gas and the giant gas ball are held together by the gravitational attraction of unseen dark matter.

"What interests astronomers is not just the size of the gas ball but the role it plays in the formation and evolution of structure in the universe," said Miniati, who worked on this data at UMBC while visiting from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland.

Abell cluster 3266 is part of the Horologium-Reticulum super-cluster and is one of the most massive galaxy clusters in the southern sky. It is still actively growing in size, as indicated by the gas ball, and will become one of the largest mass concentrations in the nearby universe.

Using XMM-Newton data, the science team produced an entropy map, which is a thermodynamical property that allows for the separation of the cold and dense gas of the comet from the hotter and more rarefied gas of the cluster. This is based on X-ray spectra. The data show with remarkable detail the process of gas being stripped from the comet's core and forming a large tail containing lumps of colder and denser gas. The researchers estimate that a sun's worth of mass is lost every hour.

"In Abell 3266 we are seeing structure formation in action," said Henriksen. "Dark matter is the gravitational glue holding the gas ball together. But as it races through the galaxy cluster, a tug-of-war ensues where the galaxy cluster eventually wins, stripping off and dispersing gas that perhaps one day will seed star and galaxy growth within the cluster."

XMM-Newton was built by and is operated by the European Space Agency.

For images and more information about the result, refer to http://www.esa.int/esaSC/SEMWD1AATME_index_0.html.

For a directory of high-resolution images, refer to: http://universe.nasa.gov/press/xmm

Special Thanks to Christopher Wanjek at NASA-Goddard News for this story.

Advanced Research in Mid-Infrared Spectrum Could Yield Sensor Breakthroughs for Medicine, Environment, Military, Homeland Security

UMBC and The Johns Hopkins University are part of a newly announced multimillion-dollar National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering Research Center based at Princeton University that is expected to revolutionize sensor technology, yielding supersensitive devices that can detect minute amounts of chemicals found in the atmosphere, emitted from factories or exhaled in human breath.

The goal of the Center’s research is to produce devices that are so low in cost and easy to use that they transform the way physicians monitor patients, states track air quality, governments guard against terror attacks and scientists understand the evolution of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Other partner institutions with Princeton, Johns Hopkins and UMBC are Rice University, Texas A&M University and City College of New York. NSF and industrial funding for the Center could exceed $40 million over 10 years. NSF funding started May 1 with $2.97 million for the first year.

The center – named MIRTHE, for Mid-Infrared Technologies for Health and the Environment – will combine the work of about 40 faculty members, 30 graduate students and 30 undergraduates from the six universities. The center also is collaborating with dozens of industrial partners on technology commercialization and is partnering with several educational outreach partners to apply MIRTHE research in improving science and engineering education.

“The sensors we are creating will be portable and easy to use,” said Claire Gmachl, associate professor of electrical engineering at Princeton and MIRTHE’s director. “Today’s state-of-the-art sensors are very sensitive, but require an expert to operate and are bulky and expensive. Our vision is to make sensors with the same or better level of sensitivity at a fraction of the size and cost.”

Sensor technologies developed by MIRTHE team members are expected to have a variety of commercial, military and educational applications. UMBC is home to several NASA-Goddard related atmospheric, environmental and earth science research centers and the Baltimore Ecosystem Study, where MIRTHE technologies should improve monitoring of pollution in the soil, water and air. Another potential application is an “invisible fence” sensor system that can vastly improve detection of chemical and biological hazards for military troops in the battlefield and homeland security first responders.

MIRTHE is a National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center, one of several interdisciplinary centers located at universities across the United States. The centers are among the foundation’s largest and most prestigious grants.

MIRTHE team members’ expertise ranges from fundamental science to applied technology. Work on MIRTHE at UMBC will be led by MIRTHE deputy director Anthony Johnson, a past president of the Optical Society of America and director of UMBC’s Center for Advanced Studies in Photonics Research (CASPR).

“This is an exciting day for engineering research in the Baltimore-Washington region” Johnson said. “With seven faculty researchers each from The Johns Hopkins University and UMBC, this is incredible news for science in the state of Maryland.”

As deputy director of MIRTHE, Johnson brings a wealth of knowledge on the design, workings and manufacture of next-generation sensors based on novel optoelectronic materials. These sensors will be capable of detecting chemical and biological molecular markers in the mid-infrared portion of the spectrum.

Other UMBC researchers on the MIRTHE team include: L. Michael Hayden, chair of physics; Yanhua Shih, professor of physics; Joel Morris, Curtis Menyuk and Fow-Sen Choa, professors of computer science and electrical engineering; and Claire Welty, director of the Center for Urban Environmental Research and Education.

Johns Hopkins researchers involved in MIRTHE include: Terence H. Risby of the Bloomberg School of Public Health; Katalin Szlavecz, a geologist and lecturer at the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences; Robert Brown of the Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine in the School of Medicine; Jacob Khurgin of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in the Whiting School of Engineering; Charles Lowenstein and Steven Solga of the Department of Medicine in the School of Medicine; and Michael Trush of the Department of Environmental Health Sciences in the Bloomberg School of Public Health.

MIRTHE’s other key mission is in education – working to train a new and diverse generation of engineering students in the U.S. The center will incorporate extensive efforts to engage college and K-12 students in hands-on science and engineering projects, with major outreach programs taking place at UMBC, City College of New York and Princeton.

At UMBC, MIRTHE will link with the Meyerhoff Scholars Program, which is recognized nationally as a model for preparing high-achieving undergraduate students, particularly African-Americans, for research careers in science and engineering. Johnson also has extensive experience with K-12 optical science education outreach to under-represented minority students through his work with the Optical Society of America’s Hands-On Optics (HOO) program.

“PROMISE: Maryland’s Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP), which is also sponsored by the NSF, will focus on the cultivation, retention and successful graduation of graduate students from populations that are underrepresented in MIRTHE’s core disciplines,” said UMBC’s PROMISE Director Renetta Tull.

The work of creating the successful proposal to the NSF already has established a sense of community among the participants. “We are delighted to be partnering with Princeton and the other fine institutions in the Engineering Research Center’s critical work,” said Freeman Hrabowski, president of UMBC.

Fashion Designer Cynthia Rowley to Link High-Tech, High Fashion
For 100’s of Middle School Girls Saturday

State Superintendent of Schools Dr. Nancy Grasmick will be honored for her contributions to fighting the gender gap in information technology this Saturday at UMBC’s fourth annual Computer Mania Day event. Fashion designer Cynthia Rowley headlines the day of free, fun, hands-on activities which brings hundreds of middle school girls from across Maryland for tech career path inspiration by women role models from industry and academia.

The Center for Woman and Information Technology (CWIT) at UMBC, which addresses and rectifies women's under-representation in information technology and enhances the understanding of the relationship between gender and IT, will present the Joan Korenman Award to Grasmick during the start of the day’s activities at 10:10 AM in UMBC’s Retriever Activities Center.

The Joan Korenman Award is named for the founder of CWIT and honors an individual or group of individuals who have supported, promoted, and encouraged girls and women to strive to achieve personal and professional growth through the use of, employment in, or leadership in information technology or a related field, where women are traditionally underrepresented.

“I’m thrilled to be a recipient of the Joan Korenman Award this year,” said Grasmick. “I continue to encourage women to persevere in their efforts to achieve their objectives. We must strive to have equity in all fields, including those that are technology based. I truly believe that we should continue to create and sustain pathways for all individuals to enter and remain in Information Technology or a related technology field.”

Many Baltimore-Washington area technology firms give financial and volunteer support to Computer Mania Day, which they see as an effective way to increase gender diversity in high-tech industries.

Research shows that the information technology (IT) gender gap opens as early as the middle school years, when girls are most image-conscious and do not want to be labeled as “geeks” or “nerds.” Girls also make up only 14 percent of Advanced Placement students in computer science, a key to success in IT-related fields at the college level.

"We are thrilled to continue our support of CWIT and its goal to encourage students', especially girls', interest and involvement in information technology," said Jennifer Jones, Sales Vice President for AT&T, who will present the award to Grasmick.

"Computer Mania Day demonstrates that science and computer skills not only facilitate our fast-paced, 24/7 connected lives, these skills enhance job performance and improve efficiencies across all industries,” said Jones. “This message is especially important to share with our nation's young people so that the U.S. will not continue to lose its competitive advantage in the global marketplace." The AT&T Foundation is a sponsor of Computer Mania Day.

"There is no greater imperative for protecting the future technological strength and security of our nation than getting today's primary and secondary-school children interested in math, science and engineering-related disciplines,” said James F. Pitts, Corporate Vice President and President of Northrop Grumman’s Electronic Systems sector. “That's why we at Northrop Grumman strongly support activities such as Computer Mania Day at UMBC." Katherine A. Gray, VP of F16 Sensor Systems at Northrop Grumman Electronics Systems, will give the welcoming address to Computer Mania attendees.

Rowley, whose signature designs are found in Cynthia Rowley boutiques, better department stores and specialty stores across the U.S. and globe, has won multiple awards from The Council of Fashion Designers of America. Her creations have been featured in Vogue, Elle, Glamour, Harper’s Bazaar and The New York Times. She is also the co-author of a best-selling series of books on personal and home style and an entrepreneur.

At Computer Mania Day, kids will get the chance to meet Rowley and participate in workshops led by positive female role models from UMBC along with business, government and education leaders. Girls’ events highlights include “Hardware Rocks,” “Google of Opportunities,” digital art and imaging, and the physics of do-it-yourself hot air balloons. Adult workshop highlights include how to prepare your kids for college, “Computers 101,” and “Cyber Safety: Keeping Your Child Protected Online.” All attendees will have the chance to win great giveaways like the HP iPAQ, Dell USB Memory Key and Cisco Routers.

When someone tells Ray Hoff, professor of physics and director of two of UMBC’s NASA-Goddard related collaborative research centers, that he and his graduate students have their heads in the clouds, it’s taken as a compliment.

This spring has seen two big events for Hoff and his team of faculty and graduate student researchers at the Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology (JCET) and Goddard Earth Science and Technology Center (GEST).

On April 28, Hoff and his students celebrated the successful launch
of NASA’s CALIPSO and Cloudsat satellites. Hoff, a member of the NASA science team for CALIPSO, will join JCET/GEST researchers at UMBC for research using spaceborne lidar (an acronym for light detection and ranging -- using laser beams aimed down from space or up from the earth to collect scientific data) analysis from CALIPSO for years to come.

Throughout April, they worked with colleagues at the University of Wisconsin to track some of the biggest dust storms the Asian continent has seen in decades. The dust storms, which sent large clouds of dust as high as 20,000 feet, were tracked on the “Smog Blog” a web journal devoted to tracking manmade and natural pollution events in the atmosphere.

UMBC, which is ranked 16th nationally in NASA research funding, is also home to a third major NASA-related research center, the Joint Center for Astrophysics (JCA).

“Yawning,” an essay for the Nov./Dec. 2005 issue of American Scientist magazine written by Robert Provine, professor of psychology and an internationally renowned expert on the science of laughter and other contagious behavior, has been selected for inclusion in the “Best American Science Writing 2006.” The latest in the series of annual compilations of top scientific writing in the nation will be published on September 1 by Ecco/Harper Perennial.

110,000 Square-Foot Building to be Multi-Tenant Facility

UMBC's on-campus research and technology park, bwtech@UMBC, and Corporate Office Properties Trust (COPT) announced today that COPT will build and own a second building at the park.

The 110,000 square foot, four-story office building will located at 5520 Research Park Drive on ground leased from UMBC Research Park Corporation and will target large and small technology companies as tenants. The total construction cost of the project is projected to be approximately $22 million.

“We are very pleased to further our relationship with UMBC by being given the opportunity to develop a second building for their expanding research and technology park and to create more critical mass for COPT within the park,” said Randall M. Griffin, President and CEO of Corporate Office Properties Trust.

This building will be adjacent to a development project recently announced within bwtech@UMBC which is the 23,500 square foot new home for the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Maryland-Delaware-District of Columbia Water Science Center located at 5522 Research Park Drive. This would bring COPT’s total square foot ownership in the park to 133,900 square feet.

bwtech@UMBC was Maryland's first university research park and is the only research and development park in Baltimore County. The 41-acre park's first building, completed in 2001, is occupied by RWD Technologies. A second building, completed in 2004, is fully leased.

About COPT:
Corporate Office Properties Trust (COPT) is a fully integrated, self-managed real estate investment trust (REIT) that focuses on the ownership, management, leasing, acquisition and development of suburban office properties located primarily in submarkets within the Greater Washington, DC region. As of December 31, 2005, the Company owned 183 office properties totaling 14.6 million rentable square feet, which included 18 properties totaling 885,000 square feet held through joint ventures. The Company has implemented a core customer expansion strategy that is built around meeting, through acquisitions and development, the multi-location requirements of the Company’s existing strategic tenants. The Company’s property management services team provides comprehensive property and asset management to company owned properties and select third party clients.

COPT’s development and construction services team provides a wide range of development and construction management services for company owned properties, as well as land planning, design/build services, consulting, and merchant development to select third party clients. The Company’s shares are traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol OFC. More information on Corporate Office Properties Trust can be found on the Internet at www.copt.com.

About bwtech@UMBC:
bwtech@UMBC is a 41-acre research and technology community at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). bwtech@UMBC has a total development capacity of up to 330,000 square feet of office and laboratory space. The USGS building will be the third of five planned state-of-the-art buildings containing over 300,000 square feet of office and wet lab space. The park’s 62,000 square-foot first building has been leased by the information technology firm RWD Technologies since 2001. The second building, a 60,000-square-foot multi-tenant building, is fully leased with tenants including The NASA Goddard Earth Sciences and Technology Center, software maker BD Metrics Inc., healthcare media and education firm Med-IQ, the Erickson School of Aging Studies at UMBC, the engineering/design firm Edwards & Kelcey, and UMBC’s Alex. Brown Center for Entrepreneurship.

UMBC began planning for a new research and technology park in the early 1990s, based on the success of other U.S. parks and the vision of the late Michael Hooker, UMBC president from 1986-1992. To date, UMBC’s research park and technology incubator have received public and private sector funding from the Maryland Economic Development Corporation (MEDCO), the State of Maryland, the City of Baltimore, Baltimore County, the U.S. Department of Commerce, The Abell Foundation, and the Maryland Technology Development Corporation (TEDCO.) bwtech@UMBC is part of Baltimore County's Southwest Enterprise Zone, making companies moving to the park eligible for credits on real property and income taxes, as well as credits for job creation.

'Preparing Minority Scientists, Engineers' Appears in Science Magazine

President Freeman Hrabowski and Dr. Michael Summers of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), have published an article in the March 31 issue of Science Magazine, "Preparing Minority Scientists and Engineers," that examines successful strategies for educating minority scientists and engineers in college and fostering their pursuit of doctorates and medical degrees.

The authors begin by noting that well-prepared minority students are originally interested in pursuing scientific or engineering careers, but far too few of those students actually graduate with degrees in those subjects. Students who entered UMBC's Meyerhoff Program, for example, were twice as likely to earn a science or engineering bachelor's degree and 5.3 times more likely to enroll in post-graduate study, when compared to those who were accepted to UMBC's Meyerhoff Program but attended other institutions.

Hrabowski and Summers then identify several factors necessary for minority student success, such as involving the students in scientific research projects as early as possible.

The Meyerhoff Program (named after its founders, Baltimore philanthropists Robert and his late wife Jane Meyerhoff), focuses on producing bachelor's degree recipients, particularly African-Americans, who go on to doctoral programs in science and engineering. UMBC is leading the nation as a producer of minority scientists who have gone on to earn Ph.D.s and medical degrees. Meyerhoff students with completed advanced degrees now number 44 with Ph.Ds or M.D.-Ph.Ds, 72 with master's degrees and 32 with medical degrees.

Meyerhoff Program alumni include a clinical fellow in cardiovascular medicine at Harvard Medical School, a post-doctoral fellow in neuroscience at Johns Hopkins Medical School and a research and development scientist at Eastman Kodak.

Dr. Michael Summers, professor of chemistry/biochemistry and investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) at UMBC, has worked closely with Meyerhoff Scholars in the course of his research on the application of nuclear magnetic resonance to studies of the structure and function of proteins.

Hrabowski and Summers identify five elements in achieving positive outcomes in retention and development of minority scientists and engineers. Those elements are recruiting a substantial body of high-achieving minority students with interests in math and science; offering merit-based financial support; providing an orientation program for freshman; recruitment of active research faculty to work with the students; and involvement of students in scientific research projects early in their undergraduate careers.

Award-Winning Designer to Lead Hundreds of Middle School Girls, Parents,
in Day of Hands-on, High-Tech Fun: Computer Mania Day, May 6

If there’s one sure way to get more girls interested in
technology careers, just show them how computers help design some of the
world’s most glamorous clothes.

Cynthia Rowley, one of America’s most honored fashion designers, will
show hundreds of middle school girls, parents and teachers from across
Maryland how high technology helps create high fashion clothes worn by
supermodels as she headlines Computer Mania Day at UMBC on Saturday, May 6.

Rowley, whose signature designs are found in Cynthia Rowley boutiques,
better department stores and specialty stores across the U.S. and globe,
has won multiple awards from The Council of Fashion Designers of
America. Her creations have been featured in Vogue, Elle, Glamour,
Harper’s Bazaar and The New York Times. She is also the co-author of a
best-selling series of books on personal and home style and an entrepreneur.

Computer Mania Day is an annual day of free, hands-on, high-tech, fun
activities for adults and kids sponsored by UMBC’s Center for Women and
Information Technology (CWIT). The half-day event helps to get girls
interested in technology and computing careers while helping parents and
teachers sharpen their own computer skills. While boys are welcome, the
focus is on girls because of their continuing under-representation in
science, technology, engineering and math.

Research shows that the information technology (IT) gender gap opens as
early as the middle school years, when girls are most image-conscious
and do not want to be labeled as “geeks” or “nerds.” Girls also make up
only 14 percent of Advanced Placement students in computer science, a
key to success in IT-related fields at the college level.

At Computer Mania Day, kids will get the chance to meet Rowley and
participate in workshops led by positive female role models from UMBC
along with business, government and education leaders.

Girls’ events highlights include “Hardware Rocks,” “Google of Opportunities,” digital art and imaging, and the physics of do-it-yourself hot air balloons. Adult workshop highlights include how to prepare your kids for college, “Computers 101,” and “Cyber Safety: Keeping Your Child Protected Online.” All attendees will have the chance to win great giveaways like the HP iPAQ, Dell USB Memory Key and Cisco Routers.

EVENT DETAILS:
Saturday, May 6, 2006.
9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

Check-in at
UC Ballroom, UMBC. FREE lunch included for students. All adult and student attendees MUST register ahead of time online at www.computer-mania.info. To sign up or for more information, visit www.computer-mania.info or call 410-455-8433.

COPT to Develop Tech Park’s 3rd Building; Research Collaboration Drives Move of 60 Experts on Region’s Water, Environment

The University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) announced today that it has signed an agreement with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) that will relocate the USGS Maryland-Delaware-DC Water Science Center to a new facility at bwtech@UMBC, the University’s on-campus research and technology park. Ground breaking is slated for summer, and the completed facility is expected to open in spring 2007 to more than 60 USGS scientists and support staff. The move is intended to strengthen collaborative work with UMBC and U.S. Forest Service scientists who monitor the ecosystems of the Chesapeake Bay watershed and the health of the region’s water supply, rivers and streams.

Corporate Office Properties Trust (COPT), one of the region’s largest suburban office companies, is partnering with the UMBC Research Park Corporation to deliver the park’s next building. The one-story, 23,500 square-foot facility will be located at 5522 Research Park Drive. The total construction cost of the project is projected to be approximately $4,236,000. COPT’s plans include the opportunity to develop a second building of 110,000 square feet in a four-story multi-tenanted facility with specialized space for technology companies.

Research collaboration with UMBC’s core of water and environmental science expertise was the key factor in the USGS decision to move its Center to bwtech@UMBC from its previous location in White Marsh. The USGS has a longtime research partnership with UMBC’s Department of Geography and Environmental Systems, Center for Urban and Environmental Research and Education (CUERE), Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, the U.S. Forest Service and the Baltimore Ecosystem Study.

James M. Gerhart, Director of the USGS MD-DE-DC Water Science Center, said, "By co-locating on the UMBC campus and becoming part of the university research community, we expect to strengthen our existing collaboration with UMBC on water-related science. We’ll have easier access to student employees, labs, scientific instruments, and university researchers. The university will benefit from having USGS water science experts nearby to teach classes, work with student interns and lead field trips. All in all, I am confident that the move of USGS to UMBC will be a win-win situation.”

For UMBC environmental researchers, the move strengthens an already close relationship. “Like many of my colleagues, I have worked with USGS or used their data for decades,” said Andy Miller, professor of Geography and Environmental Systems at UMBC. “In my view they are the premier science agency in the federal government.”

“This move gives the citizens of Maryland a unique, new resource in higher education as USGS scientists will work shoulder-to-shoulder with UMBC professors,” said Claire Welty, director of CUERE at UMBC. “UMBC science and engineering students will receive an outstanding education that combines classroom training with hands-on research experience by simply walking across the street,” said Welty.

UMBC’s formal connection with USGS goes back to 1997, the beginning of the Baltimore Ecosystem Study (BES), a National Science Foundation-funded Long-Term Ecological Research Project whose field headquarters are located on the UMBC campus. BES, which was renewed for another 6-year term in 2004, makes Baltimore’s streams, rivers and water quality among the most highly monitored in the country thanks in large part to an extensive network of USGS equipment and personnel.

bwtech@UMBC was Maryland's first university research park and is the only research and development park in Baltimore County. The 41-acre park's first building, completed in 2001, is occupied by RWD Technologies. A second building, completed in 2004, is fully leased.

“We are very pleased to be selected as the developer to assist UMBC with their plans to expand the research park, but more importantly to have the opportunity to create a relationship with one of our local institutions.” said Randall M. Griffin, President and CEO of COPT.

The news from bwtech@UMBC comes as technology transfer and workforce development connections between UMBC, the research park and its nearby business incubator, techcenter@UMBC, are on the rise. Thirty-six UMBC faculty members collaborate on research and development with tenant companies. One hundred students are employed part-time or as interns and 54 alumni work or partner with the UMBC family of on-campus companies.

According to Ellen Hemmerly, executive director of the UMBC Research Park Corporation, the University is just as excited about the growth in human capital as it is about bricks and mortar. “The entire UMBC community is buying into the value of the park, which makes us much more attractive to the market,” said Hemmerly.

The COPT investment follows on the heels of the Dec. 23, 2005 sale of bwtech@UMBC’s first two buildings for $22.5 million to Merritt Properties, another top player in the Baltimore/Washington commercial real estate market. Merritt’s purchase from former developer Grosvenor included 123,000 square feet occupied by tenants including RWD Technologies, Invoke Systems, BD Metrics Inc. and the NASA Goddard Earth Sciences and Technology Center.

About The U.S. Geological Survey:
The U. S. Geological Survey (USGS) is the nation's largest natural-science agency and has served the U.S. and the world for 126 years. The USGS provides reliable scientific information to describe and understand the Earth; minimize loss of life and property from natural disasters; manage water, biological, energy, and mineral resources; and enhance and protect the nation’s quality of life. The USGS Maryland-Delaware-District of Columbia Water Science Center is one of many regional USGS science centers across the country.

About the USGS Maryland-Delaware-District of Columbia Water Science Center:
The USGS Maryland-Delaware-District of Columbia Water Science Center collects basic data and conducts scientific investigations on the region’s streams, springs, lakes, coastal bays and underground aquifer systems. USGS data on streamflow, ground-water levels, and water chemistry are used to define the quantity and quality of the region's water resources. Data on water use and consumption are also collected to determine human impact on the resource. Hydrologic research studies use these and other data to understand the vulnerability of water resources to over-use and contamination, and to learn how to preserve the resources in a sustainable manner for aquatic life and future human generations. Most of this work is done in cooperation with other federal, state and local government agencies, universities, and research centers.

About COPT:
Corporate Office Properties Trust (COPT) is a fully integrated, self-managed real estate investment trust (REIT) that focuses on the ownership, management, leasing, acquisition and development of suburban office properties primarily in select Mid-Atlantic submarkets. The Company is among the largest owners of suburban office properties in the Greater Washington, DC region. COPT currently owns 182 office properties totaling 14.6 million rentable square feet, which includes 18 properties totaling 885,000 square feet held through joint ventures. The Company’s shares are traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol OFC. More information on Corporate Office Properties Trust can be found at www.copt.com.

About bwtech@UMBC:
bwtech@UMBC is a 41-acre research and technology community at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). bwtech@UMBC has a total development capacity of up to 330,000 square feet of office and laboratory space. The USGS building will be the third of five planned state-of-the-art buildings containing over 300,000 square feet of office and wet lab space. The park’s 62,000 square-foot first building has been leased by the information technology firm RWD Technologies since 2001. The second building, a 60,000-square-foot multi-tenant building, is fully leased with tenants including The NASA Goddard Earth Sciences and Technology Center, software maker BD Metrics Inc., healthcare communications and technology firm Physicians Practice, Inc., the Erickson School of Aging Studies at UMBC, the engineering/design firm Edwards & Kelcey, and UMBC’s Alex. Brown Center for Entrepreneurship.

UMBC began planning for a new research and technology park in the early 1990s, based on the success of other U.S. parks and the vision of the late Michael Hooker, UMBC president from 1986-1992. To date, UMBC’s research park and technology incubator have received public and private sector funding from the Maryland Economic Development Corporation (MEDCO), the State of Maryland, the City of Baltimore, Baltimore County, the U.S. Department of Commerce, The Abell Foundation, and the Maryland Technology Development Corporation (TEDCO.) bwtech@UMBC is part of Baltimore County's Southwest Enterprise Zone, making companies moving to the park eligible for credits on real property and income taxes, as well as credits for job creation.