Hello everyone!

If you are interested in serving on the Global Brigades E-Board for the upcoming academic year, please be sure to fill out the google form below by Monday, May 4th! Please email s235@umbc.edu if you have any questions about each position. 

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd9DYuP1qRyF3TqET7u6VoemVsCfqfTWxJNnlSgpjxeXOrk-g/viewform?usp=publish-editor

Are you looking for a summer experience that goes beyond "entry-level"? Do you want to lead projects that will be used by thousands of your peers?

The UMBC Career Center is looking for two innovative, driven students to join our Summer Strategy Team. These aren’t just internships — they are opportunities to spearhead the digital and social transformation of how UMBC supports student success.

Whether you are a technical strategist or a creative communicator, we have a seat at the table for you.

Role 1: Graduate Student Career Resources Intern

Perfect for: Graduate students who love copywriting, UX, SEO, and digital architecture.

We are building a brand-new digital hub for graduate programs at UMBC, and we need a technical lead to help us build it right. This role is about more than just "updating a website" — it’s about digital equity and accessibility.

• Audit & Implementation: Conduct a full audit of our web infrastructure and lead the integration of new graduate student resources.
• Content & SEO: Author high-quality web copy and optimize our resources to ensure they are discoverable and user-friendly.
• Accessibility Standards: Provide recommendations to apply Silktide accessibility standards across our pages to ensure inclusive design for all graduate students.

Role 2: Student Engagement Intern

Perfect for: Sophomores, Juniors, or Seniors interested in Marketing, Communications, Data Analytics, or Higher Ed.

How do we reach 14,000+ students in a way that actually matters? That is the puzzle you will solve. You will be the bridge between the Career Center’s resources and the student organizations that need them most.

• Campus Outreach & Advocacy: Research and connect with student organizations — especially underrepresented groups — to build partnerships and strengthen the Career Center Student Advisory Council (CCSAC).
• Newsletter & Multimedia Strategy: Use A/B testing and performance metrics (e.g., open rates, clicks) to optimize our newsletters and integrate multimedia content (e.g., short-form video).
• Resource Design & Accessibility: Audit and refine our workshop materials and "how-to" guides to ensure they are engaging, easy to digest, and ADA-compliant.
• Data-Driven Insights: Track engagement across events and newsletters, synthesizing student feedback into actionable recommendations to improve our overall strategy.

Why Join the Strategy Team?

Working with the Career Center isn’t just about a paycheck; it’s about professional immersion. Members of our Summer Strategy Team will enjoy:

• Hybrid Flexibility: You'll be able to balance your summer schedule with a mix of in-person and remote work.
• Real Responsibility: You will manage content, lead outreach, and influence our official communications. These aren't "shadowing roles."
• Impact: See your work go live and stay live, helping Retrievers for years to come.

How to Apply

Ready to make your mark this summer? We are looking for students who are curious, detail-oriented, and ready to take initiative.

• Graduate Student Career Resources Intern
• Student Engagement Intern

Apply early for best consideration! We look forward to seeing your applications!

Hey Campers! Join us for Open Mic Night! Sing your heart out, tell jokes, read poetry, just have fun! Sign up here to perform!

UMBC has secured $1.5 million in congressional funding to establish the UMBC Center for Precision Aquaculture, an interdisciplinary effort aimed at revolutionizing land-based fish production through real-time monitoring and smart technology.

The new center brings together faculty and students from UMBC’s marine biotechnology, chemistry and biochemistry, and computer science and electrical engineering (CSEE) departments. The interdisciplinary team will strive to make domestic aquaculture more efficient, healthier for fish, and environmentally responsible—while helping reduce America’s massive seafood trade deficit.

“Fish are the last ‘hunt-and-gather’ animal crop,” says Yonathan Zohar, professor and chair of marine biotechnology and the new center’s lead. “To relieve pressure on our oceans, fish—like other animal proteins—must be produced through farming or aquaculture.”

Bringing a “blue revolution”

The U.S. imports over 90 percent of its seafood and nearly all its Atlantic salmon, contributing to American seafood imports exceeding exports by roughly $20 billion, the largest deficit across all agricultural crops. And aquaculture is the fastest-growing sector of global and U.S. agriculture, yet the U.S. ranks only 18th in production. 

To address these challenges, Zohar and his team at the Aquaculture Research Center (ARC) at the Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor have long pioneered recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS)—self-contained, land-based tanks that recycle nearly all their water and discharge nothing into the environment. Compared to the floating, open-ocean pens currently used to farm fish, other perks of land-based operations include preventing commingling of captive fish with wild stocks, limiting disease exposure, the ability to bring fish to market size more quickly and more often throughout the year, and reduced transportation costs and emissions associated with bringing fresh seafood to inland areas. The ARC even converts solid fish waste into biogas that could supply part of the facility’s energy needs. 

The new Center for Precision Aquaculture will add a high-tech layer to this work. Advanced underwater imaging, optical sensors, and artificial intelligence will track fish biomass, behavior, body condition, stress signals, and early disease indicators in real time. Producers can then intervene quickly and optimize tank conditions for better growth, health, and welfare.

Zohar, whose decades of work in sustainable aquaculture recently earned him the Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award from the United States Aquaculture Society, said the project “will contribute to the U.S. and global ‘blue revolution’ by helping develop the next generation of highly efficient and environmentally responsible aquaculture technologies.”

Connecting disciplines, pursuing impact

The center’s strength lies in its cross-department collaboration. Brian Cullum, professor and chair of chemistry and biochemistry and co-investigator on the grant, brings long-standing expertise in multispectral imaging (MSI). His group will use MSI to detect subtle color changes in the visible, infrared, and UV light spectra that are invisible to standard cameras and signal early disease or unwanted sexual maturation, both of which can hurt profitability.

“In high-density RAS tanks, disease can spread rapidly, so early detection is critical,” Cullum says. “This project combines multispectral imaging with AI to identify stressed or maturing fish early, allowing growers to remove them from the tank.”

“With global demand for protein rising, improving aquaculture systems means contributing to a more stable and responsible food supply,” says Emmanuella Duruye, a Ph.D. candidate in Cullum’s lab. “I am excited about the multidisciplinary aspect, and being part of a team whose goal is to improve systems that make real-world and long-term impacts.” She is focused on improving non-invasive monitoring of hidden stress signals via multispectral imaging.

Rebecca Williams, assistant professor of CSEE, is a co-investigator on the project, as is Don Engel, associate professor of CSEE. Beamlak Bekele, a master’s student in Williams’s group, is developing computer vision tools tailored to underwater environments. “I am excited about this project because it connects computer science with aquaculture, allowing me to apply computer vision to a real-world problem,” Bekele said. “As the project progresses, it can contribute methods that improve the application of underwater vision data to other scenarios as well.”

Ph.D. students Sean Ravel and Max Prager; postdoctoral fellow Matthew Stromberg, Ph.D. ’26, environmental engineering; and John Stubblefield, ARC laboratory director, are all working with Zohar at IMET. Undergraduates are contributing, too: Krish Bakshi, a junior biochemistry and molecular biology major, and Mason Chialastri, junior biological sciences major, are currently doing research internships with the Zohar lab.

“Early maturation is one of the biggest challenges in salmon aquaculture, and I’m excited to be part of the cutting-edge research to better understand and manage it,” Ravel shares. “We are building tools that let us understand fish in ways that are only possible because we combine biology, engineering, and AI into a single, integrated system.” 

Piloting the future of aquaculture

The new funding will support a pilot RAS system that integrates the new precision technologies. ARC will serve as a demonstration site for industry, hands-on student training, and public outreach. It builds directly on UMBC’s existing strengths, including ongoing USDA- and NOAA-funded salmon research and a popular Sustainable Aquaculture course. The center will also help train the next generation of skilled workers through internships and research opportunities for high school, undergraduate, and graduate students.

By combining UMBC’s deep foundation in RAS technology with state-of-the-art imaging and AI, the Center for Precision Aquaculture positions Maryland as an emerging hub for innovative, sustainable seafood production—reducing reliance on imports, easing pressure on wild fisheries, and delivering healthy food to American tables.

Meeting today from 4 to 6 pm at the Harbor MPR!

To all users:
We will be taking an emergency downtime to patch a critical vulnerability that was announced this morning. During this time users will not be able to login. You should also expect your job to be killed during this time. We understand that this can be frustrating and thank you for your understanding. 

Voting for ESS and CUSS representatives ends at 11:59 p.m. tonight.

Click Here to Vote! 🎉

Note: only exempt staff are eligible to vote.  

We only have a couple of tickets left for our Topgolf bus trip!! Enjoy a fun day with your friends and learn how to golf over yummy food and a good time! You'll be getting around 2 hours of play time if not more so you're not going to want to miss this!

Remember: NO TICKET= NO ENTRY!! 

GET TICKETS HERE!

Our 2025/2026 Accessibility Trailblazers are here!

We invited the UMBC community to nominate a faculty member and/or an academic department for the annual UMBC Accessibility Trailblazer Awards. Our goal is to recognize and celebrate the individuals and departments who are true allies in advancing accessibility and inclusion across campus.

Trailblazers are pioneers in ensuring that course materials and content are accessible to all students. They embody inclusive teaching practices and demonstrate a strong commitment to Universal Design for Learning (UDL), creating learning environments where every student feels welcomed and supported.

As nominations officially closed this week, the Department of Accessibility & Disability Services (ADS), home to the Office of Student Disability Services (SDS), carefully reviewed submissions and selected this year’s awardees. We are proud to announce our 2025/2026 Accessibility Trailblazer Award recipients:

Award Recipients:

• Dr. Tiffany Banks, School of Social Work
• Paul Coakley (adjunct), Sociology, Anthropology, and Public Health Department 
• Kristen Anchor, Department of Media & Communication Studies
• Interlibrary Loan (ILL) & Course Reserves Department at Albin O. Kuhn Library

Honorable Mentions:

• Dr. Kate Drabinski, Department of Gender, Women's, and Sexuality Studies
• Dr. Lara Martin, Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering
• Dr. Tania Lizarazo, Department of Modern Languages, Linguistics & Intercultural Communication

ADS and the entire UMBC community are incredibly proud of your dedication to making accessibility a priority in all that you do. Your efforts continue to create a more inclusive and equitable learning environment for all students.

Award recipients will be formally recognized with certificates, shared with their Deans and senior leadership, and featured in our office bulletin boards, and quarterly newsletter.

Nominations will reopen in January 2027, so be sure to keep an eye out and take the opportunity to recognize others who are making a difference in accessibility and inclusion. Please join us in celebrating these outstanding individuals and departments!

UMBC's Center for Social Science Scholarship will hold its last seminar in its series on generative AI, LLMs, and computational social science methods from 12-1:30 pm ET, on Wednesday, May 5, 2026, in person in room 438 of the Public Policy building.

The session will cover machine learning models for causal inference and the use of UMBC's high-performance computing systems to run these and similar models.

Dr. Eric Stokan, CS3 Director and Associate Professor of Political Science; Roy Prouty, DoIT Assistant Director for Research Computing, and Sai Vikas Amaraneni, Information Systems PhD student, will present material and give demonstrations.

Register here