This workshop, led by three UMBC CSEE faculty, empowers students from all majors to think critically about data—learning how to interpret, question, and communicate insights without requiring coding or statistical expertise. Through interactive discussions, case studies, and hands-on storytelling, participants explore how numbers can both reveal and obscure truth, how AI shapes interpretation, and how human judgment remains essential in making data meaningful. Free to community college students and students at the University at Shady Grove, $20 registration fee for all others. All participants must be 18 and older.

Get more information and register here.

"One Photon, A Trillion Electrons" -- Fascinating news article on Professor Daniel Suarez-Forero, his quantum research, and his journey to UMBC!  

https://umbc.edu/stories/daniel-suarez-forero-quantum-frontier/

The Black Graduate Student Organization (BGSO) at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) is a dedicated community focused on supporting and empowering Black graduate students across all disciplines. The organization provides a platform for professional development, academic excellence, and social connection, hosting various community events and networking opportunities to foster a strong sense of belonging within the university.

For the 2026-2027 academic year, the BGSO is actively seeking new leadership through its Executive Board nominations. Interested students can explore various e-board roles designed to drive the organization's mission forward and advocate for the graduate student body.

Here is the Google form for the nominations: Nomination Form

Deadline is May 31

The annual COEIT Celebration recognizes the outstanding contributions of COEIT students across all academic programs. The ninth annual event was held on May 3, 2026, in the Retriever Activities Center, and welcomed graduating seniors and their families to celebrate with other students, faculty, and staff members of the COEIT community. The celebration also recognized faculty and staff members for their contributions to student success.

Photo: Dean Jeanne van Briesen shares a moment with 2026 COEIT Celebration participants. Photo by Chris Ferenzi Photography

Awards were presented to honorees in the categories of Outstanding Seniors, Undergraduate Research, and Student Leadership. Information systems students recipients of the Vijay Jose Award, the John B. Schwartz Award, and the Moshope Oyeyemi Memorial Scholarship were announced, as was the Computer Science Manohar Shyam Joshi Memorial Award. The Meritorious Service to the College awards were presented to outstanding seniors who supported introductory computing and engineering courses.The complete program of the event and all award winners is available.

All UMBC graduation candidates from COEIT received a gift and were given the opportunity to be recognized on stage by the college and their home departments. 

Congratulations to all of our COEIT graduating seniors!

The third annual COEIT Research Day on Friday, May 1, 2026, showcased research from across the College of Engineering and Information Technology (COEIT) at UMBC. In its third year, the event drew over 250 presenters and attendees from across the COEIT community. It provided a venue for researchers and potential collaborators to network and foster interdisciplinary innovation.

The keynote speaker for the event was Dr. Susan Gregurick, Associate Director for Data Science and Director of the Office of Data Science Strategy (ODSS) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Other speakers included additional representatives from NIH, the Army Research Laboratory, and the Maryland Department of Commerce and Industry.
Photo: Dr. Susan Gregurick delivers the keynote address at COEIT Research Day 2026 (Photo courtesy of Chloe Evered)

The agenda included a series of parallel sessions, a college-wide poster day, and keynote talks, with a goal to spark new research ideas and partnerships. The research day event is designed to lead into a follow-up seed funding initiative, COEIT Innovations and Interdisciplinary Projects. These COEIT-funded projects support cross-departmental teams designed to stimulate and support the development of new research projects and expand existing projects.

To all chip users,

The DoIT Research Computing & Data (RCD) Team is continuing to work on the storage system performance issues that have been impacting the chip cluster since early February. For some users this is intermittent or even not noticeable, for others the issue is persistent. When present, these issues are manifesting as unusually long file read/write/load times for operations as simple as “ls” or “cd” when navigating the filesystem or as complicated as long slurm job runtimes. The RCD Team has been working with support vendors and other institutions to better understand the problem that is affecting the storage system. We apologize for this interruption to productivity and want users to understand that this is not expected behavior and that we are working to resolve the issues.

The team feels we have a better understanding of the issue at large, and are continuing to work with our support vendor to apply mitigation strategies as well as benchmarking. In the meantime, understand that we have increased the amount of machines handling metadata five fold, effectively spreading the workload more evenly, and helping ensure that when a metadata service fails it doesn’t fail all at once, killing all client connections. Please understand that this does not mean an increase in speed is expected. 

The team continues to encourage all users to send in any issues that seem to arise from an issue with client connections to their data. This will reveal itself in mostly I/O intensive actions such as large package installation or large movement between files in directories (locally or from the internet). 

The team will give weekly updates and give substantive updates as they develop.

Max Breitmeyer

HPC Specialist

UMBC DoIT

Join the Wisdom Weavers Board!

The Wisdom Weavers are accepting nominations for their Executive Board for the 2026-2027 school year!  (Applications due by May 16th)

The Wisdom Weavers are a student interest group with the Erickson School of Aging Studies that are dedicated to building a community that values every stage of life. Our mission is to:

● Promote outreach and service to older adults in our local community. 
● Provide intergenerational opportunities for connection and growth.
● Spread positive messages about aging and dismantle stereotypes.
● Increase awareness of the diverse and rewarding career opportunities in this field.

Submit your board application HERE or via the QR code in the attached flier.

Join the Wisdom Weavers Board!

The Wisdom Weavers are accepting nominations for their Executive Board for the 2026-2027 school year!  (Applications due by May 16th)

The Wisdom Weavers are a student interest group with the Erickson School of Aging Studies that are dedicated to building a community that values every stage of life. Our mission is to:

● Promote outreach and service to older adults in our local community. 
● Provide intergenerational opportunities for connection and growth.
● Spread positive messages about aging and dismantle stereotypes.
● Increase awareness of the diverse and rewarding career opportunities in this field.

Submit your board application HERE or via the QR code in the attached flier.

If you want to join the work ABA does in creating events, uplifting black artists, and putting on the bi-annu Art Symposium and Exhibition, then sign up for the 2026-2027 ABA E-Board!! Application is now open and we will be accepting apps all weekend. We are so excited for you to join the work we do!🤎 Link to the application is provided in this below.

ABA 2026-2027 E-Board Application: https://forms.gle/hCBqWUFtHHhEy3nGA

commonvision Spring Hours

commonvision's spring operating hours will remain in place until Friday, May 22. We are currently open Monday – Friday, 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. and are closed weekends and UMBC Holidays. 

Wednesday, May 13

commonvision, UMBC Student Design and Print Center will close early on Study Day (May 13). commonvision's hours Wednesday, May 13 will be 9 – 11 a.m. We are closing early to recognize our seniors and student staff. All inquiries after close can be emailed to commonvision@umbc.edu and will be addressed on Thursday, May 14!

Saturday, May 23 – Sunday, May 31: CLOSED

commonvision will be closed, along with the UMBC campus for Memorial Day. We will remain closed for the rest of the week following Memorial Day. 

Monday, June 1: commonvision will re-open with our summer operating hours.

Monday – Thursday, 10 a.m. – 4 p.m.
Closed weekends and during UMBC closures. 

Questions? Send us an email at commonvision@umbc.edu – feel free to send in inquiries during our closure and we will address them when we reopen on Monday, June 2.