UMBC Presents Roundtable on Environmental Issues, Hosts Former VP Al Gore

This year’s Mosaic Roundtable –“If now what then, if then what now?”– is a timely opportunity to showcase UMBC’s faculty and student research on the environment, an area of emerging focus for the university. “If now�,” a multidisciplinary discussion of former Vice President Al Gore’s Oscar-winning film, “An Inconvenient Truth,” is a prelude to Gore’s upcoming lecture at UMBC on May 8, part of The Maryland Forum lecture series.

The Mosaic Roundtable, sponsored by UMBC’s Interdisciplinary Studies Program, on Monday, April 9 will be held from 4 to 6 p.m. on the 7th Floor of the Albin O. Kuhn Library & Gallery. The week prior to the event, the Interdisciplinary Studies Council of Majors and the Campus Climate Initiative will host free film screenings of “An Inconvenient Truth.” Founded in 2002, the Mosaic Roundtable is an annual discussion of controversial, timely issues. More information about Mosaic and the screenings is available online.

Roundtable participants are:

Scott Farrow, Chair
Department of Economics
Scott Farrow’s current research focuses on risk management and micro-economic performance while his teaching focuses on benefit-cost analysis and the economics of risk management. His work related to global climate change includes academic articles on methods to quantify the precautionary principle and economic approaches to sustainability as well as his authorship of Making the Environment Count on which then-Senator Gore held hearings.

He served twice in the Executive Office of the President, in the Department of the Interior, and carried out domestic and international consulting work for Dames & Moore, Inc. Consulting clients and funding sources have included: the US Environmental Protection Agency, ExxonMobil, Audubon Society of Western Pennsylvania, American Chemistry Council, Harvard Institute for International Development (for the US Agency for International Development) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Jeff Halverson, Associate Director
Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology
Associate Professor
Department of Geography and Environmental Systems
Jeffrey Halverson’s present research and teaching interests focus on the climatology and severe storms of the Mid Atlantic region, including nor’easters, severe thunderstorms and tropical cyclones undergoing extra-tropical transition. Prior to UMBC, Jeffrey Halverson investigated severe storms for NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. He also worked at NASA Headquarters, where he helped manage NASA’s Tropical Cloud Systems and Processes (TCSP) and NASA African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Activities (NAMMA) experiments to study the birth and intensification of hurricanes. He has extensive field experience investigating hurricanes, serving both as an Instrument Scientist for NASA’s ER-2 high altitude research aircraft and as Mission Scientist on NASA’s DC-8 research aircraft.

Halverson writes a regular column for Weatherwise magazine. Most recently, he wrote the scientific content for author Stefan Bechtel’s new release, Roar of the Heavens (Citadel Press), which tells the story of the catastrophic Hurricane Camille flash flood in Nelson County, Virginia.

Robert Neff, Assistant Professor
Department of Geography and Environmental Systems
Robert Neff has been studying human dimensions of global climate change for the past 10 years. He has published findings of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Assessment, which was part of the national assessment of the impacts of climate change in the late 1990s, and more recently has published findings of the Human-Environment Regional Observatories (HERO) project, which was funded by a five-year grant from NSF to enhance infrastructure for studying vulnerability to climate change and variations.

Neff wrote his master’s thesis on the economics of a gasoline tax and his Ph.D. dissertation on greenhouse-gas emissions from transportation in urban places. He is currently working with the Baltimore Ecosystem Study, an NSF-funded Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) study site to analyze energy-consumption patterns in multiple urban places. Neff is the chair of the Human Dimensions of Global Change Specialty Group of the Association of American Geographers (AAG), the national disciplinary organization for geographers in the United States.

Ellen Handler Spitz, Honors College Professor of Visual Arts
Honors College
Department of Visual Arts
Ellen Handler Spitz teaches interdisciplinary seminars in the arts and humanities. She lectures internationally and is the author of numerous articles and five books: Art and Psyche, Image and Insight, Museums of the Mind, Inside Picture Books, and, most recently, The Brightening Glance.

Spitz was recently named a 2007 summer fellow at the Erikson Institute for Education and Research. She held fellowships at the Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities, the Bunting Institute (now the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study), the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, the Camargo Institute in France and the Center for Children and Childhood Studies at Rutgers.

Moncie Wright, President
Campus Climate Initiative
Moncie Wright is the first student to present at a Mosaic event. A senior environmental science major, she is the president of the Campus Climate Initiative, an organization devoted to reducing UMBC’s impact on global warming

As a student at the Community College of Baltimore County (CCBC), Wright was mentored by Chris Fox, head of the CCBC Environment Project, who has studied global warming for 20 years. After receiving her A.A. in Environmental Science Technology, Wright transferred to UMBC in fall 2005. While attending the 4th Annual N.E. Climate Conference in 2006, she learned how hundreds of schools across the country were combating global warming on their campuses and working with administrators to reduce their campuses’ impacts on climate change. When she returned to UMBC, Wright started the Campus Climate Initiative and did independent research under the guidance of geography and environmental systems professor Chris Swan on an invasive species.

The Campus Climate Initiative is completing a greenhouse gas emissions inventory and the group also applied for an EPA grant to investigate student attitudes and perceptions toward energy efficiency. In addition, the Campus Climate Initiative is performing energy efficiency research.

Wright is also a member of the Campus Sustainability Research Group and treasurer for the Geography and Environmental Systems Council of Majors.

(4/2/07)

© 2006-07 University of Maryland, Baltimore County � 1000 Hilltop Circle, Baltimore, MD 21250 � 410-455-1000 �

UMBC Student Named Top U.S. Scholar-Athlete

Meyerhoff Scholar Isaac Matthews, a senior mechanical engineering major and a four-year track and field letterman, was recently named the 2007 Arthur Ashe Jr. Male Sports Scholar of the Year.” The award is given annually by Diverse: Issues in Higher Education magazine to the U.S. female and male athletes who best combine athletic and academic excellence with community activism.

LaMont Toliver, director of the Meyerhoff program, described Matthews in an April 5 Diverse cover story as “the prototype for a scholar-athlete with the potential to be the Paul Robeson of our time. He’s that well rounded.”

Matthews, who has a 3.88 grade point average, will graduate in May with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering. He has been accepted to prestigious engineering graduate programs at MIT, Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, Georgia Tech, Michigan and Illinois.

During his athletic career at UMBC, Matthews finished seventh in the 2005 America East Indoor Championships 800-meter run, placed eighth in the 2004 America East Outdoor Championships and was named a Toyota Athlete of the Week in 2003.

In addition, Matthews is well known on campus as a dedicated mentor and tutor to young African-American middle and high school students and as an accomplished cello player. He serves as treasurer for UMBC’s chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers and gives motivational talks to NASA Sharp students.

In the Diverse cover story, Matthews discussed his lifelong quest to shatter stereotypes about black students and the challenges of mentoring the younger generation. “There are more black doctors than there are basketball players, but you don’t see the image� As the numbers increase, as you have more black engineers, professors, that image can be defeated by the numbers.”

(4/30/07)

© 2006-07 University of Maryland, Baltimore County � 1000 Hilltop Circle, Baltimore, MD 21250 � 410-455-1000 �

Photo Caption:
According to UMBC computer scientists Milt Halem (left) and Yelena Yesha (right), the Multicore Computing Center will give UMBC researchers access to some of the world's most powerful information engines.

UMBC and IBM have announced a new collaboration to create The Multicore Computing Center (MC2), a unique facility that will focus on supercomputing research related to aerospace/defense, financial services, medical imaging and weather/climate change prediction. IBM awarded UMBC a significant gift to support the development of this new center, which researchers describe as an “orchestra” of one of the world’s most powerful supercomputing chips.

The MC2 will bring to UMBC a high-performance computational test laboratory based on the Cell Broadband Engine (Cell/B.E.), jointly developed by IBM, Sony Corp., Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCE) and Toshiba Corp. This ground breaking processor is used in products such as SCE's PlayStation3 and Toshiba's Cell/B.E. Reference Set, a development tool for Cell/B.E. applications, as well as the IBM BladeCenter QS20.

Cells have a wide range of capability – able to serve as engines for image and video-intensive computing tasks like virtual reality, simulations and imaging for aerospace, medicine and defense; high-definition TV and high-speed video for wireless devices; and highly complex physics based computer models to better predict weather, climate change and biochemistry.

The MC2 is the latest development in a strong, long-time partnership between IBM and UMBC. IBM employs over 100 UMBC alumni, and UMBC faculty have received numerous IBM research awards and fellowships over the past decade.

The MC2 at UMBC is expected to focus on supercomputing research related to aerospace/defense, financial services, medical imaging and weather/climate change prediction.

One of the challenges for researchers at the MC2 will be making clusters consisting of hundreds of the powerful information engines run effectively together. “Cell processors are groups of eight very fast, independent but simple PC’s with their own tiny memory all on a single chip each with its own leader,” said Milt Halem, director of the MC2 and professor of computer science at UMBC.

“The challenge is choreographing all the chips to work efficiently in parallel. It’s like a distributed orchestra with 224 musicians and 28 conductors connected with head phones trying to play Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony together,” said Halem, who retired in 2002 from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, where he served as Assistant Director for Information Sciences and Chief Information Officer.

"The Multicore Computing Center highlights UMBC's role as a national leader in information technology research and education, and will contribute to Maryland's economic growth and national security," said Freeman Hrabowski, president of UMBC.

“We are so pleased to become an early adopter of this revolutionary shift in semi-conductor chip design,” Halem said. “UMBC is committed to growing its computational science expertise and hopes this collaboration with IBM will allow the university to become a national leader in the applications of future multicore computers as they grow more massive.”

UMBC is a member of IBM’s Academic Initiative, a program sponsored by IBM to upgrade IT skills for a more competitive workforce. Through the Academic Initiative, IBM works with more than 2,200 institutions, 11,000 faculty members and 650,000 students worldwide to build integrated business, science and technology skills to be applied in today’s global economy.

"The opening of the UMBC Multicore Computer Center is yet another example of how IBM innovations are being used to help further the advancement of research and science that benefits business and our communities," said Rod Adkins, senior vice president of development & manufacturing, IBM Systems & Technology Group. "We are convinced of the endless possibilities that can, and will, emerge from this type of collaborative relationship, and are proud to play a role in the launch of the new information technology research center."

In the future, UMBC and IBM officials plan to collaborate on new interdisciplinary research possibilities in chemistry, mathematics and other fields of engineering and information technology.

The Multicore Computing Center is expected to be installed and operational by fall 2007.

This summer, nine UMBC faculty members participated in a three-day digital storytelling workshop at UMBC. For the second time in two years, OIT and the New Media Studio brought experts from the Center for Digital Storytelling in Berkely to campus, giving faculty members an opportunity to learn the basics of creating digital stories while exploring possibilities for integrating new media into their teaching.

Joe Lambert and Stephany Sesse led the group through the writing and production process as each participant created a digital movie relating a short personal story. Faculty members included: Beverly Bickel, ELC; Steve Bradley, Visual Arts; Jason Loviglio, Media & Communication Studies; Nicole King, American Studies; Doug Hamby, Dance; Pat Scully, Education; Jody Shipka, English; Joan Shin, LLC; and Joby Taylor, Shriver Center. The workshop was conducted in the International Media Center with assistance from New Media's Bill Shewbridge. Several of the stories produced in the workshop can be viewed here:

For more information visit Digital Storytelling @ UMBC.

The final project of the class was a production of individual digital stories on which the students worked during the eight weeks of class. In this process, the students chose the topics of their stories, wrote their narratives, collected photographic images, and chose the music to accompany their verbal narration. The students also discussed their stories in class, peer-reviewed their narratives, and made online journal entries twice a week which allowed them to reflect on their progress and express their doubts and concerns to their instructor. The students also intensively worked in the computer lab putting their stories together under their instructor's guidance. Several digital stories that were produced in this class can be viewed here.

Michael Summers, Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator and professor of chemistry and biochemistry, was part of a recent panel discussion sponsored by Science magazine on improving science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education in the U.S. “Straight Talk About STEM Education” appeared in the July 6 issue of Science.

Columbia Natives Patricia Ordóñez, Jason Reid to Pursue Ph.D.s at UMBC, MIT

Note to Readers: Click on photos below to view high-resolution version.

Patricia Ordóñez, a UMBC second year graduate student, and Jason Reid, a UMBC class of 2007 graduate, both from Columbia, MD, have received National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships (NSFGRF), which are among the most competitive and prestigious academic awards for American college students as they begin graduate studies. Both students are products of UMBC’s College of Engineering and Information Technology.

The NSFGRF is a three-year award that funds tuition and an annual stipend to support graduate studies for students showing the potential to contribute significantly to research, teaching and innovations in science and engineering. About 1,000 were awarded across the U.S. this year.

Ordóñez, who received a B.A. in Hispanic and Italian Studies in 1989 from Johns Hopkins University, began to pursue her career in computer science attending UMBC part-time in the fall of 2001. She was admitted to the graduate school full-time in the fall of 2005 and will remain at UMBC to pursue a Ph.D. in her field as well as continue research developing medical applications using pervasive computing to help personalize operating rooms for patients and surgeons.

“I would be crazy to leave such an encouraging and supportive environment,” she said. “I love being somewhere where the president of the university greets you as he walks by and takes a personal interest in the students.”

Reid, who received a B.S. in mechanical engineering, will attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to pursue an M.S./Ph.D. in mechanical engineering and conduct research in the use of robotics to accelerate rehabilitation in stroke and spinal cord injury patients.

“The NSF award is great because you can work on pretty much anything that interests you,” said Reid. “While I look forward to embarking on the new experiences and challenges of the future, I will always appreciate my time spent at UMBC.”

A Meyerhoff Scholar, Reid also received a Society of Automotive Engineers Scholarship, the UMBC Mechanical Engineering Alumni Award and the Hillel of Greater Baltimore President’s Award. Reid’s winning research proposal for the NSFGRF came from his work in the lab of UMBC mechanical engineering professor Dwayne Arola, with whom he studied ways to improve dental tools and practices for senior citizen patients as the enamel of their teeth grows brittle with age.

For Ordóñez, the award makes her doctoral dreams obtainable. “Without it I think I would have settled for the masters rather than the PhD because I am 40 years old and have the financial responsibilities of a 40-year-old,” she said. “Now I have the financial support I need to focus solely on my research.”

Ordóñez, part of the UMBC computer science and electrical engineering department’s eBiquity Research Group, thanked UMBC faculty members Anupam Joshi, Marie desJardins, Renetta Tull, Tim Finin, Penny Rheingans, Janet Rutledge, Charles Nicholas, Krishna Sivalingam, and Marc Olano for supporting her in her graduate studies and Shon Vick in her undergraduate studies.

New Area the Size of Maryland Starts to Melt Each Year; Long-term Satellite Data Showed First-Ever High Altitude Melting in 2002

Some sobering findings on the extent of Greenland's melting ice sheets were published today as part of a long-term study of earth observing satellites’ data by researchers with the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) and NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center.

Marco Tedesco, a scientist at the Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology (JCET) of UMBC and NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center, was lead author of a study published in the American Geophysical Union's journal Eos. By using a new method for detecting melting snow from satellites, Tedesco found that in 2006 Greenland experienced more days of melting snow and at higher altitudes than the previous trends from the past 18 years.

Tedesco used a new method for detecting melting snow based on readings from the Special Sensor Microwave Imaging radiometer (SSM/I), an instrument aboard the U.S. Air Force’s Defense Meteorological Satellite Program spacecraft. The SSM/I can see through clouds and can measure data without sunlight. Tedesco has tracked the data annually since 1988, allowing him to study big-picture trends in the duration and extent of Greenland's snowmelt.

Certain areas of Greenland were melting over 10 days longer than average in 2006. Greenland’s 2006 melt index, or the number of melting days times the melting area, continued on an upward trend seen in data from 1988 to 2005.

Results from another study by Tedesco published on Geophysical Research Letters on January 2007 show that the year 2002 showed signs of extreme melting. “We identified an extreme melting event in June 2002 that showed for the first time in 18 years snow melting in inner Greenland at high altitudes,” said Tedesco.

“During the same year, over 80 percent of the entire Greenland ice sheet surface experienced at least one day of melting. This corresponds to an area the size of France, Spain and Italy put together,” he said. The area experiencing at least one day of melting has been increasing since 1992 at a rate of 35,000 square kilometers per year, or about two percent of the entire Greenland surface. “That means that, on the average, every year since 1992 an area equivalent to the state of Maryland has been subject to new melting,” Tedesco said.

Left: UMBC JCET Researcher Marco Tedesco

According to Tedesco, tracking melting snow in Greenland, which contains enough water to raise global sea level by approximately 7 meters, is important for several reasons. “Although wet and dry snow look similar, they absorb sun’s radiation in a different way, with melting snow absorbing three to four times as much energy as dry snow, greatly affecting Earth’s energy budget,” said Tedesco.

“Also, melting snow produces liquid water that will seep down to the interface of ice and bedrock, lubricating the ice sheet and increasing the speed with which ice moves,” Tedesco said. “This means that ice might react to a warm climate faster than thought, contributing more rapidly to sea level than previously thought.”