The National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) has selected Professor Marie desJardins as one of four awardees of the 2014 NCWIT Undergraduate Research Mentoring Award.

The award comes with a gift to UMBC of $5,000, sponsored by AT&T that can be used to further Professor desJardins’s mentoring activities. The award will be presented at the 2014 NCWIT Summit in Newport Beach, California in May 2014.

NCWIT is a non-profit community of more than 500 prominent corporations, academic institutions, government agencies, and non-profits working to increase women’s participation in technology and computing. Their annual NCWIT Undergraduate Research Mentoring Award recognizes U.S. Academic Alliance representatives for their outstanding mentorship, high-quality research opportunities, recruitment of women and minority students, and efforts to encourage and advance undergraduates in computing-related fields.

Lynn Cazabon, Visual Arts, has been invited as the Judd Award Visiting Artist at Oakland University in Rochester Hills, MI and will give a lecture on her work there on March 20, 5:30-7.

Click here to find out more information.

An article published in the politics section of The Daily Beast on March 11 focuses on Maryland State Del. Heather Mizeur and her chances of winning the race for governor. With the Democratic primary nearing in June, the article outlines steps Mizeur and her campaign have taken to spread her message and meet with voters.

Many political experts have said Mizeur has a difficult path towards the nomination because her two opponents in the race, Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown and Attorney General Douglas Gansler have greater name recognition and more campaign cash on hand.

Political Science Professor Thomas Schaller was interviewed for the article and said Mizeur has a bright political future even if she is unsuccessful with this year’s gubernatorial campaign.

“Mizeur is a strong candidate with an even stronger future in the party. I expect her to be a statewide nominee at some point down the line,” Schaller said.

“But she’s at least one cycle ahead of her time: Not because she lacks the skills or a natural constituency among Maryland liberals—she has both, in fact. But because, as is almost always the case, statewide Democratic primaries in blue Maryland are crowded affairs and tough to win. And frankly, the difficulties facing House Delegates in their effort to win a Democratic gubernatorial nomination are similar to those of U.S. House members trying to win presidential nominations: Their platform is too small,” he added.

You can the full article in The Daily Beast here.

A study conducted by researchers at UMBC and the University of Maryland, College Park was featured in a recent Times Educational Supplement article in TES Magazine. The article, titled “To help the little darlings out, let their parents in,” focuses on the study which found that two-thirds of parents think their children are brighter and higher-achieving than their classmates.

The research was conducted by Susan Sonnenschein, an associate professor of psychology, Shari Metzger, a graduate student in the Applied Developmental Psychology program and Laura Stapleton, an associate professor of measurement, statistics and evaluation at the University of Maryland, College Park.

The researchers found that parents who work as classroom assistants develop more of a realistic understanding of their children’s abilities and are able to offer them the specific help they need.

“Ensuring that parents are knowledgeable about their children’s academic skills is important if parents are to effectively assist their children at home with schoolwork,” the researchers said in the report. “Parents who are more knowledgeable about their children’s abilities interact more sensitively with their children, and provide more appropriate learning environments.”

The paper was published in the most recent edition of The Journal of Educational Research. You can read the full article in TES Magazine here.

Evelyn Thomas, a faculty diversity postdoctoral fellow in mathematics and statistics, is featured in a new profile in SIAM News, a widely read newspaper sponsored by the professional organization Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics. The profile was written by Mathematics Professor Manil Suri.

The article illustrates the challenges and opportunities Thomas has encountered over the course of her career and describes her motivation for researching her doctoral dissertation.

In the article, Suri also writes about the work Thomas has begun since arriving at UMBC for her postdoc, including starting a new epidemiological project based on the rise of cholera in Haiti after the devastating earthquake of 2010 and continuing work on projects with social engagement.

“I hope to communicate to everyday people that if there are problems they see in their communities: HIV/AIDS, gun violence, racism, sexism, homophobia—anything—a solution does lie within mathematics,” Thomas said.

To read the full profile in SIAM News, click here. For more on the 2013-2015 UMBC faculty diversity postdoctoral fellows, click here.