Center for Hybrid Multicore Productivity Research
Distinguished Computational Science Lecture Series

The White House Climate Data Initiative

Eric Letvin
Director, Disaster and Failure Studies
National Security Council

3:00pm Tuesday, 29 April 2014, ITE 456, UMBC

Delivering on the commitment in the President’s Climate Action Plan, the White House recently launched the Climate Data Initiative — a broad effort to leverage the Federal Government’s extensive, freely- available climate-relevant data resources to advance awareness of and preparedness for climate change impacts. This effort will help give communities across America the information and tools they need to plan for current and future climate impacts. Data from NOAA, NASA, the U.S. Geological Survey, the Department of Defense, and other Federal agencies was recently launched on climate.data.gov. Data and innovation challenges issued by public, private, nonprofit, and other organizations can help catalyze new, data-driven solutions that help communities understand and build resilience to climate change. NOAA and NASA recently announced an innovation challenge calling on researchers and developers to create data-driven simulations to help plan for the future and to educate the public about the vulnerability of their own communities to sea level rise and flood events.

Mr. Eric Letvin PE, Esq, is the Director of Hazard Mitigation and Risk Reduction Policy within the National Security Council in the Executive Office of the President. He coordinates the development and effective delivery of mitigation capabilities identified in the National Preparedness Goal, such as threat and hazard identification, risk and disaster resilience assessment, planning, and long-term vulnerability reduction.

When at NIST, Mr. Letvin is the Disaster and Failure Studies Program Director within NIST’s Engineering Laboratory. Mr. Letvin provides national coordination for conducting field data collection studies. He is also responsible for creating and maintaining a repository related to hazard events (earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, windstorms, community-scale fires in the wildland-urban interface, structural fires, storm surge, flood, tsunami) and human-made hazards (accidental, criminal, or terrorist), the performance of the built environment during hazard events, associated emergency response and evacuation procedures.

Before coming to NIST, Mr. Letvin was Leader of Infrastructure Research and Resiliency in the Homeland Security Group of URS. He has participated in numerous post-disaster studies including the bombing of the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City, and Hurricanes Opal, Ike and Katrina. He has assessed over 200 buildings for risk from terrorist threats and natural disasters.

Mr. Letvin holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree in environmental engineering from Syracuse University and received his Juris Doctor from the University of Maryland. He has taught many courses on risk assessments and protection of infrastructure for FEMA/DHS and made related presentations throughout the world over the last ten years.

Every week we feature a set of comics created exclusively for WDD.

The content revolves around web design, blogging and funny situations that we encounter in our daily lives as designers.

These great cartoons are created by Jerry King, an award-winning cartoonist who’s one of the most published, prolific and versatile cartoonists in the world today.

So for a few moments, take a break from your daily routine, have a laugh and enjoy these funny cartoons.

Feel free to leave your comments and suggestions below as well as any related stories of your own…

In case of emergency, fake glass

Royal imposter

Lego my business model

Can you relate to these situations? Please share your funny stories and comments below…

MacX Video Converter Software for PC or Mac – only $14!

Kevin “KAL” Kallaugher, visiting artist at UMBC, has been named recipient of the 2014 Thomas Nast Award. The Overseas Press Club of America presents this prestigious award for excellence in cartoons about international affairs.

Click here to read the judges’ citation and view KAL’s cartoons.

President Hrabowski and three undergraduate scholars from UMBC kicked off the U.S. News STEM Solutions conference with a keynote panel on April 23. Dalton Hughes ’14, chemical engineering, Lauren Mazzoli ’15, mathematics and computer science, and Mitchel Zavala ’14, mechanical engineering, spoke about their UMBC experiences in a discussion moderated by PBS Newshour co-anchor Judy Woodruff.

Click here to watch the keynote panel (starting at 22 min.).

Name:  Aaron Samuels

Internship, Co-op or Research Site:  BITHGROUP TECHNOLOGIES

Major(s)/Minor(s):   Psychology

Expected Graduation Year: June 2014

Briefly describe your internship, co-op, research, or service-learning opportunity, including your day-to-day tasks, responsibilities, and assignments.

During the fall and part of the summer, I worked under the current Human Resource Manager, Robert H. Greene III, at BITHGROUP TECHNOLOGIES, an IT consulting firm that also provides a wide range of services to the City of Baltimore, MD. The majority of my time was spent shadowing Mr. Greene and observing the various daily activities he undertook, none of which were routine. On several occasions I was tasked with researching new potential employees, reviewing newly submitted resume's, updating employee profiles both on file and online, and organizing certain in office events.

What have you enjoyed the most about your position or organization/company?

I enjoyed the "hands-on" experience I obtained throughout my time there. I spent the first half of my summer researching what an H.R. Generalist does but I could never get a full picture until I started working there. I also enjoyed sitting in on personal conversation involving employee disputes and personal issues, it was there that I found exactly what roll psychology played in this occupation. My manager was especially outstanding in these types of situations as well. It was almost as if he could read minds! That's how great he was at reading people. Not only that, but he always seemed to know the right way to approach delicate situations and how to acknowledge the employee's difficulties without compromising his own feelings on the issue.

What have you gained from your experience that you could not have gained from another opportunity?

I don't think I would have obtained the intrapersonal social skills here at my old job. For example, I have always had trouble remembering names because I was never really motivated too until I came to the company. I've noticed a huge difference in how people react when you use their name versus a general pronoun. I know that sounds arbitrary and just a bit cheesy but it really is something I've come to value.

What advice would you give to another student who is seeking an internship or similar experience?

Never assume anything and always double check yourself: If there is something you don’t know or not sure of, FIND IT OUT! If you only feel like an employee remembers an important date or you believe that they may have completed a task, you should still follow up on it personally if it’s possible.

How do you see your experience as meaningful? This might involve skills you’ve gained, information you’ve learned, mentors you’ve connected with, or projects you’ve completed.

I know now what I'm getting into, that was my main goal in doing this internship. I know now the person I have to become in order perform this kind of work. Now it's just a matter of getting certified.

Please provide a short quote about what you liked most about your position / earning internship credit / the internship placement process.

If you get an opportunity, take it! If you have the connections and resources, use them! Do not wait! What I loved most about this entire experience is that I could make mistakes and not be fired. And you will make mistakes. Better to do it as an intern than when you have a career on the line. This is the rationale behind an internship, so you can say on your resume. "Yes! I have experience!" Because as I've experienced with a lot of jobs I've applied for and from working here, most employer's today won't even look at you without this experience.

With the primary election in Maryland’s race for governor approaching in June, a new poll out shows that more than half of Maryland voters are still undecided. WJZ 13 interviewed Public Policy Professor and Chair Donald Norris about the new poll and what it could mean for voter turnout in June.

Norris said timing could have a significant impact because the candidates were restricted from campaigning during the legislative session, which just ended, leaving just a few short months to win over undecided voters. “If the numbers remain anywhere near like that on June 24, turnout will be abysmally low,” Norris said.

Earlier in the week, Norris was interviewed by The Baltimore Sun about the first negative advertisements in the Democratic primary for governor that have hit the airwaves. With the primary just a short time away, the negative ads could increase, especially with candidates with enough money to pay for them. “It’s a surprise that it didn’t happen earlier,” Norris said.

To read the full article in The Baltimore Sun, click here. To watch the full interview on WJZ 13, click here.

In the March 2014 issue of World Future Review (WFR), Public Policy Professor John Rennie Short was interviewed about his book Stress Testing the USA. WFR is a quarterly publication that explores trends and alternatives for society and regularly features interviews with leading experts in policy analysis, operations research and issues management.

Short was interviewed by the associate editor of WFR as a “featured futurist.” The interview opens with Short outlining one of the main arguments in his book.

“What I did in the book was to look at the whole range of events—four in particular, namely, the Iraq war, Hurricane Katrina, the financial crisis, and Hurricane Sandy. In a sense, I wanted to shift the debate toward looking at systemic failures and away from blaming any one particular individual or group. Often we’ll look for one person to blame—’the botched Hurricane Katrina response was Michael Brown’s fault,’ for example, or ‘the Wall Street meltdown happened because of greedy bankers,’” Short says.

To read the complete four-page interview in WFR, click here.

On Thursday, May 1 and Friday, May 2, The Fletcher School at Tufts University and The MasterCard Center for Inclusive Growth are hosting “The Inclusive City,” a conference to study the economic growth of city populations.

Mathematics Professor Manil Suri is giving a lecture at the conference and will also participate in a problem-solving session on creating affordable housing in India.

The conference aims to answer such questions as: How can we develop and plan cities so that they respond to the unique needs of the urban poor while ensuring that opportunities are open to people of all socioeconomic strata? And what is the state of urban experience, particularly for the poor?

For more information on the conference and on Suri’s participation, click here.

On Thursday, April 24, Deborah Trautman ’04, PhD, Public Policy, was named Chief Executive Officer of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN). AACN represents 750 member schools of nursing at public and private institutions nationwide, and its educational, research, governmental advocacy, data collection, publications, and other programs work to establish quality standards for bachelor’s and graduate degree nursing education.

“I’m honored and excited to take the helm of this important and respected organization,” Trautman said in an AACN press release announcing her appointment. “My goal is to bolster AACN’s longtime mission of finding new ways to improve the quality of nursing care by re-envisioning traditional nursing roles, strengthening nursing education programs, and striving to create a more highly educated nursing workforce.”

Dr. Trautman received her BSN from West Virginia Wesleyan College, an MSN from the University of Pittsburgh, and a PhD in health policy from the UMBC’s Department of Public Policy. For more on her appointment, click here.