The Creative Alliance, a community-based art center, seeks to fill a part-time position of bookkeeper. Located at The Patterson, a former 1930s movie theater, the Creative Alliance is among the region's leading presenting venues, with two galleries, a 200 seat theater, classrooms, media lab, studio residencies and lounge/restaurant. We're committed to connecting the great and diverse artists of Baltimore to its great and diverse audiences, and having fun doing so.

Every so often, we’ll chat with an alum about what they do and how they got there. Today we’re talking with research assistant Allison Kelly ‘12, Chemistry, about her current research project. 

Name: Allison Kelly
Job Title: Research Assistant, PhD Candidate
Major/Minor: Chemistry, Writing
Grad year: 2012

Q: What drew you to UMBC for your studies?

When I stumbled onto the UMBC website I was greeted by the words: “The school where it’s cool to be smart.”  I wanted a local college that valued academics, and UMBC seemed to fit that bill. During the course of my studies, I grew to love the focus on scholarship and the acceptance of nerd culture I found on campus.

Q: Can you recall any professors or advisors at UMBC who inspired you?

I am very grateful for my time in the UMBC chemistry department. In particular, I got to work closely with Dr. Tara Carpenter and Dr. Stephen Mang in various classes and as an American Chemical Society student member. Their commitment to undergraduate education and enthusiasm for science outreach is something I hope to emulate after finishing my PhD.  And all of the folks in the Honors College were incredibly supportive. Especially Dr. Shields, who always managed to blend professionalism and empathy.

Q: Can you explain a little about your current sustainability project?

My project focuses on polymer solar cells. The silicon solar cells available on the market can be heavy and expensive. Polymer solar cells are light weight, flexible, printable, and less expensive, but currently are not as great at converting sunlight to electricity.  Our goal is to improve the efficiencies with the goal of making polymer solar cells commercially viable. Specifically, I’m focusing on increasing the amount of sunlight the cells can absorb by adding more absorbing components to the system. But making additions to an already complex system creates complications, which I am working towards understanding.

Q: What has been your greatest achievement throughout your project? Your greatest challenge?

Daily troubleshooting, especially at the beginning, is the most challenging part of research: doing experiments that worked yesterday but not today; using established, “easy” techniques and failing; determining which step(s) of a ten step process is causing the problem. I spent two months simply trying to get my controls up to par.

But after almost two years, I’m finding my feet, playing a bigger role in directing my project, and finally getting significant results.

Q: Is there any advice you’d like to give to students at UMBC?

Give a smile and a “thank you” to the Chartwells folks.

Q: Do you have a favorite memory from your time at UMBC? 

It’s impossible to pick just one! There was a lovely Friday evening when I had the opportunity to serve dinner at a homeless shelter, played capture the flag on campus, and camped out in a dorm lobby to watch the Lord of the Rings with some friends. We paused in the middle to walk out to Pig Pen Pond and “watch” a foggy sunrise. It’s certainly not my only good memory, but one that encompasses many of my favorite things about the UMBC community.

Critical Social Justice week is fast approaching (this February from the 16th to the 20th) and the theme this year is “Creating Brave Spaces”. To unpack and explore this idea, we had the Critical Social Justice Student Alliance tell us what the theme meant to them and how we can use it in our social justice work. Emily Eaglin, incoming president of this new student organization, created this helpful video that documents our conversation and expands upon what brave spaces can be. Check it out below!

We were inspired by Brian Arao and Kristi Clemens’ article, “From Safe Spaces to Brave Spaces,” and for some highly recommended further reading, you can access it here.

If you’re interested in learning more about the Critical Social Justice campaign, check out our WordPress, like our Facebook page, and/or follow us on Twitter!

Jeff Shager’s Genealogy of Eliza project has added an 1100-line Perl emulator written by James Markevitch for the 1966 version of BBN-LISP for the PDP-1 computer that can run Bernie Cosell’s original LISP version of doctor.

Markevitch writes in the comments

This is a Perl hack to implement the 1966 version of BBN-LISP for the PDP-1 computer. This was written primarily to run the 1966 LISP version of the “doctor” program (aka Eliza) written by Bernie Cosell. The intent is to be compatible with the version of LISP described in The BBN-LISP System, Daniel G. Bobrow et al, February, 1966, AFCRL-66-180 [BBN66]. However, because many of the quirks of that version of LISP are not documented, The BBN-LISP System Reference Manual April 1969, D. G. Bobrow et al [BBN69] was used as a reference. Finally, LISP 1.5 Programmer’s Manual, John McCarthy et al [LISP1.5] was also used as a reference. N.B. The 1966 version of BBN-LISP has differences from later versions and this interpreter will not properly execute programs written for those later versions.

You can download the Perl Lisp emulator, the doctor lisp code and the script file from the elizagen github repository.