A great website showing lots of cool and practical uses for fonts and typography. Great inspiration if you’re having a artistic block!

A new Quinnipiac poll does not bear good news for presidential hopeful and “Hair apparent” Donald Trump.

Not only does he have devastatingly high unfavorables (58% of likely voters say they would not vote for him) a vast majority of the population don’t even take his intentions seriously. Only 15% of voters think Trump is actually running for the White House.

This does not say good things about the GOP presidential field in 2012. So far, early polling suggests Trump is the Republican front runner. However, it is always smart to take early polls (the election is 18 months away) with a gigantic grain of salt.

We find it hard to think anyone would vote for ‘The Donald”.  How can you take a candidate seriously who plugs his reality TV show during his political speeches?

Still, since Trump burst on to the scene a few months ago we have heard very little from Sarah Palin. Thank goodness for small mercies.

A Meeting of the Minds

While cleaning out his closet on a recent visit home, Phillip Fitzgerald found a box of old awards. Flipping through certificates and plaques for various achievements, he noticed a trend: Almost every award was related to science, dating all the way back to his third grade science fair. He realized science has been his life since he was a child.

“It was in the books from the beginning,”he said matter-of-factly.

This summer, Fitzgerald will continue on that path as he travels to Lindau, Germany, to participate in the 61st Meeting of Nobel Laureates. This annual gathering of leading scientists brings together about 20 Nobel prize winners and other internationally recognized scientists with 500 “young researchers” selected from a global pool of the brightest collegiate scholars.

Fitzgerald is the second UMBC student in a row to be accepted; Benyam Kinde ’10 attended the meeting last year.
A senior completing a major in biochemistry and molecular biology, Fitzgerald is also a first-generation college student from Prince George’s County, where he was valedictorian at Suitland High School.

He has flourished at UMBC from the day he was accepted into the Meyerhoff Scholars Program. The Meyerhoff program was founded to increase diversity among young leaders in science, technology and engineering fields. Fitzgerald said the program has had a big influence on him.

Fitzgerald finds a spirit of collaboration through the Meyerhoff program and throughout campus. He said UMBC offers a “safe zone,” which contrasts with the “cut-throat” environments he has seen elsewhere.

At UMBC, Fitzgerald has worked with Suzanne Ostrand-Rosenberg, professor of biological sciences and Robert and Jane Meyerhoff Chair of Biochemistry. Together they are researching tumor immunology, focusing on how inflammation and a specific type of suppressor cells can promote cancer by inhibiting the body’s immune system. Fitzgerald has also interned at the New York University School of Medicine under Dan Littman, professor of molecular immunology and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigator. There he studied how certain immune cells, called dendritic cells, can shuttle HIV to target T cells, greatly increasing HIV infection rate. Fitzgerald received this internship through HHMI on recommendation from Michael Summers, HHMI Investigator and UMBC professor of chemistry and biochemistry.  

One key influence in Fitzgerald’s life was his high school biology teacher, who encouraged him to do a summer research project at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

“It turned my love of studying science, into a love of researching science,” he said, explaining that he believes this appreciation for science should be shared.

Fitzgerald is a tutor in the chemistry tutorial center, and he has been a teaching assistant for introductory biology. He also volunteers at Prince George’s Tennis and Education Foundation, a non-profit that provides opportunities for young people to excel academically, athletically and socially through tennis. Fitzgerald said he has more to offer with Bunsen burners and Erlenmeyer flasks than he does with a racket.  

With all this on his plate, Fitzgerald still finds time for himself to unwind with his other talents. Fitzgerald is learning to play the piano and guitar, while also taking singing lessons. He says this is a treat to himself for his last semester at UMBC.  It is an artistic release that he hopes will benefit him as he pursues a joint M.D./Ph.D.  at Johns Hopkins University.

“Success is when you reach a point in life where with whatever you’re doing you find happiness in doing it, whether that is career based or not,” Fitzgerald said. “It is not in correlation with income or number of degrees; a successful person is someone who can wake up and be excited for what they are going to do that day.”

He has big plans for his career in biochemistry, and he said UMBC has been just the place to put him on this path.
“UMBC has supported my passion for scientific research so much through its emphasis on research and giving hands-on training,” he said.  

He remembers the overwhelming feeling of getting accepted into the Nobel Laureate meeting in Lindau.

“It means,” he said, “there are people out there that are seeing potential in me.”

 (4/29/11)

1 Peter 1:3-9 (NIV 2011)

³ Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, ⁴ and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, ⁵ who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. ⁶ In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. ⁷ These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. ⁸ Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, ⁹ for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

Reflection:

Trials can bring grief, frustration, and discouragement. Yet they can also serve as a purification process where our faith is proven to be genuine. The testing process reveals what is truly precious and what will last, and everything else is left behind.

As our faith is proven genuine through trials, this passage affirms that we love Jesus more though we have not seen Him. We believe in and trust Christ the risen Lord, and we are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy.

Response:

Let’s thank God that our hearts and our faith can be purified through hardship. We can believe even more in His promises and trust in the power of His Spirit in our lives. Let’s ask the Lord to strengthen our faith even more in difficult times so we would respond with greater praise throughout and after the process.

Contact:
Dinah Winnick
Communications Manager
University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC)
410-455-8117
dwinnick@umbc.edu

UMBC associate professor of anthropology Seth Messinger has partnered with University of Washington visual arts professor Ellen Garvens in arts-based research exploring the everyday lived experiences of people who wear prosthetics. Through artwork, particularly photography, they seek to challenge cultural assumptions about limb loss, prosthetics and how technologies redefine the physical body.

The researchers argue that although prosthetic technologies capture people’s imaginations, the everyday physical and psychological experiences of prosthetics wearers are underexplored. These include the processes of adjusting to limb loss and adapting to a prosthetic limb. This new collaboration enables Messinger and Garvens to use systematic data collection and analysis, along with non-documentary creative exploration, to examine the prosthetics wearing experience from multiple points of view.

Although they have different research processes, the scholars share similar goals. Messinger reflects, “Meaning formation is a deeply personal process and there are many ways to try to access it. Art offers a provocative way to extend the anthropological encounter with bodies and technology.” Messinger and Garvens hope to expand on initial work at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, finding new ways to visualize prosthetic limbs and connect with both soldiers who have experienced limb loss and prosthetics-makers.

This research builds on Messinger’s previous work with American servicemembers returning from deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, as described in his recent interview on North Carolina Public Radio’s “The State of Things.” Messinger contributed to the seminal volume "Psychoprosthetics" (2008) and his research findings have appeared in American Anthropologist, Medical Anthropology Quarterly, Disability and Rehabilitation, and Qualitative Health Research, among other journals.

Garvens is known for her photography, sculpture and drawing, and for working at the intersections of art, social sciences and healthcare. Her artwork has been reviewed in the New York Times, Village Voice, Arts Magazine, Art on Paper, Sculpture Magazine, New Art Examiner, Creative Camera London and SF Camerawork.

Photo by Ellen Garvins, all rights reserved.