Meet Alan Aymie’94, theatre. After graduating from UMBC, Alan went on to work professionally in D.C., New York City, and Los Angeles. As a playwright, he has been produced across the country and has optioned several screenplays. In 2021, the actor published his first book, Turning Points: Tips, Tales, and Tactics of a Revolutionary Teacher, a memoir of his years teaching in South LA. He currently lives in LA with his wife and family. Take it away, Alan!

Q: What initially brought you to UMBC?

A: I originally moved to Baltimore from Boston following a promotion in my career. Uninspired and unfulfilled in that career, I made the choice to pursue a second degree after seeing a production of the UMBC Theatre Department’s Shakespeare on Wheels (S.O.W.). I had never acted before, but was inspired by what I saw. I applied to the department, met the department chair and some of the professors, and was accepted into the department, where I met so many creative and passionate people. I performed in S.O.W. the following year. 

Q: Can you talk more about the impact of the Theatre Department?

A: Being a part of the UMBC Theatre Department was my first real experience of community. It greatly influenced my life as an artist and as a person. Currently, I am a producer for Rogue Machine Theater’s RANT & RAVE here in LA, and I get to bring those same lessons to this community.

Q: Where did you find support while at UMBC?

A: I was blessed to have many amazing professors who inspired me in various ways, including Sam McCready, Xerxes Mehta, Wendy Salkind, and Alan Kreizenbeck. I was also fortunate to make many great friends during my time at UMBC, who provided support, direction, and guidance, including James Brown-Orleans ’05, theatre. James has directed me in some of my work, acted in others, and has been a constant supportive voice.

Photo right: Alan Aymie ’94 with James Brown-Orleans ’05 before the latter goes onstage with Broadway’s The Lion King.

Q: Can you tell us about your current job and your book?

A: I am an actor (SAG/AFTRA), playwright (Dramatist’s Guild), and author. After graduating from UMBC, I landed a national commercial and a few films, Guarding Tess and Foreign Student, which earned me enough money to move to LA to study with Sanford Meisner. Once in LA, I booked roles on stage and in commercials, film, and TV before being an official selection of the HBO Aspen Comedy Festival, a teacher, and, more importantly, a father. 

When my second child was diagnosed with autism, I wrote about it in the now critically acclaimed solo play, A Child Left Behind, which was seen across the country. For the next 10 years, I performed solo work, did stand-up, starred in a short film that featured Kyle Bornheimer, Wolfgang Bodison, and Scoot McNairy, and wrote the award-winning Best New Play, RAP. In 2021, I published my first book, Turning Points: Tips, Tales, and Tactics of a Revolutionary Teacher, which details my journey from struggling Hollywood actor to a heralded school teacher and the lessons I learned along the way.

* * * * *

UMBC’s greatest strength is its people. When people meet Retrievers and hear about the passion they bring, the relationships they create, the ways they support each other, and the commitment they have to inclusive excellence, they truly get a sense of our community. That’s what “Meet a Retriever” is all about.

Learn more about how UMBC can help you achieve your goals.

There is a bedroom available  for summer break or fall semester   student(lease 9 months or longer)

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In her day job as a vice president at the advanced technology company Booz Allen Hamilton, Catherine Ordun, Ph.D. ’23, information systems, leads teams of engineers working on far-out AI tech. In the evenings, she crafts a different type of futuristic world, putting the finishing touches on a sci-fi trilogy featuring two alien brothers at odds with each other over a plan to invade Earth, which she hopes to publish in early 2026.

Ordun started writing the books in 2022, as a break from her intense computer science Ph.D. research work, which she completed in 2023 under the direction of UMBC assistant professor Sanjay Purushotham. Although fiction writing and coding seem to call for different skill sets, the two pursuits share some defining features, from the mental challenge of connecting ideas to the satisfaction that comes from completing a herculean task. In both, Ordun embraces the thrill of creating—whether an imaginary world where characters grapple with technologically infused questions of identity and purpose, to the seemingly sci-fi, yet very real, AI tools that will shape our own tomorrows.

Tools of the trade

• A thirst for knowledge
• A pen and paper (when you need old fashioned tools)
• Computer (when you need digital assistance)
• Vision and discipline
• Lots of coffee

Step 1: Hit the books

Ordun voraciously consumes knowledge and ideas. Although she earned her bachelor’s degree in biology, not computer science, she became deeply interested in machine learning around 2015, while working as a data scientist for Booz Allen Hamilton. “I became fascinated by the idea, just like really, really obsessed,” she says. “And for five years, I taught myself.”

Ordun’s favorite book from this time was Deep Learning, by Google AI researcher François Chollet. “It is like dogeared to the max. I went through every page and I typed out every line. I learned so much, from natural language processing to computer vision.”

When Ordun decided she needed a brief break from technical research, she kept right on reading—though she turned to sci-fi books, from the cyberpunk novels of William Gibson to the technically elaborate works of Neal Stephenson. “At the time, I was also very interested in simulation theory, this kind of Matrix-like idea that we could be living in a computer simulation.

And I thought, ‘You know what, I’m going to write my own sci-fi book, so I can explore this idea.’”

Step 2: Get your hands dirty

Once you have some background knowledge, it’s time to dive in. Ordun wrote the first draft of her novel (which she eventually split into three parts and named the Morfyk Trilogy) in under three months. “It was a horrible, horrible first draft. And it was huge, like 600 pages long,” she says. She revised it multiple times herself, and then hired a professional editor. 

Ordun says working on the books has become a nightly ritual. “Every night, even if I’m dead tired, I tell myself to just put five words down, it’s better than zero.” 

In her AI-work, Ordun tackles problems on a similarly compressed timeline. “One team I lead is called AI rapid prototyping, and we basically crank out prototypes for exquisitely hard AI problems in about four weeks.”

Ordun isn’t committed to any one way of transforming ideas from her brain into a tangible object. Sometimes she reaches for pen and paper, other times she is coding and typing on a digital screen. What unites the efforts is the desire to build, be it novel AI-tools for a client or a different universe she can escape to when the work day is over. 

Step 3: Tackle the hard problems

Book authors and scientific researchers share the challenge of birthing something entirely new. When searching for the fertile ground that could yield unique knowledge, tools, or stories, it helps to lean into profound, hard problems. 

Ordun says the most rewarding part of her Ph.D. work was tackling a long-standing challenge in computer science—how to match up differently sized images of the same object, and finding a new way for computers to train themselves to do it. 

She says her book writing also took a more fulfilling turn when she started to reflect on her own traumas and anxieties and the big themes of purpose and identity. She explored morality, the nature of reality, and her characters’ fluctuating sense of themselves. “I found I was pouring a lot of my own self into this book, so it became much more than “What if we live in a simulation?”

Step 4: Assemble your team

The work of creating new worlds is monumental, so it helps to have a solid cast of characters supporting you. Ordun praises the engineers she leads at Booz Allen, who she says are tackling some of the toughest technology challenges out there and pioneering innovative solutions. 

In the writing sphere, she credits editors and volunteer readers for helping her hone her “horrible first draft” into polished prose. 

More recently, Ordun has turned to teaching, in a sense educating future collaborators. She joined UMBC as an adjunct assistant professor in summer of 2024, and she regularly engages with aspiring young computer scientists on TikTok, answering questions and commiserating about coding problems. 

“I learn by imagining having to teach a concept to someone else,” says Ordun. “So now I’m actually teaching and it’s something I really enjoy doing.” 

Step 5: Celebrate your successes

Ordun isn’t shy about admitting setbacks. She talks about her strings of rejected papers, the coffee-fueled problem solving sessions that turned into pure error finding missions, and the red ink-filled drafts that her book editors send her. Sometimes to release stress, she needed to lace up her shoes, grab the dog, and just go for a run.

Obstacles are a natural part of any pursuit where you push into the unknown. And so, when you do have success, it’s important to take a moment and take it in. “The moment I finished my book, I was out on my deck, it was 10 p.m. at night. I don’t want to sound melodramatic, but I almost cried,” Ordun says. “I felt I had created something totally new, a new universe. It was a similar feeling of pride to passing my Ph.D. dissertation defense.”

Meet Brandon Dudley ’04, English. Since graduation, Brandon has pursued his passion for writing and teaching—skills he honed while at UMBC. For almost 20 years, Brandon has been teaching English, the last six years at Brunswick High School in Brunswick, Maine. Within the last 10 years, Brandon has also been writing and publishing. In 2021, he published his first book, Hazards of Nature: Stories, a 2020 Maine Chapbook Series winner. Take it away, Brandon!

Q: What initially brought you to UMBC?

A: I came to UMBC because I was looking for a place where I could explore my love for literature and journalism. UMBC was a place that immediately felt comfortable to me when I went on an admissions tour, but I was still slightly hesitant. Although UMBC had a great campus newspaper, the school only offered a journalism minor, and journalism was my intended career. Despite that hitch, I really liked my initial experience at UMBC and felt like it would be a solid fit.

My first extensive exposure to the school was when I came for interviews for the Humanities Scholars Program, where I met Tom Field, a professor in modern language and linguistics, who was running the program at the time, as well as other humanities faculty and current scholars. It was a great deal of pressure, these meetings and interviews, but after that day, I knew UMBC was absolutely where I wanted to be, that this was the group of students that I wanted to be a part of, and these were the type of teachers I wanted to learn from. The day that I got the letter accepting me into the Humanities Scholars Program is still one of my best memories. 

Between the English program, the Humanities Scholars Program, and The Retriever Weekly, I was able to spend four years immersed in all of those elements that I was looking for. 

Q: Can you talk more about the impact of the Humanities Scholars Program?

A: That program was life-changing for me. It exposed me to some of the most intelligent students and teachers I’ve had the pleasure to ever work with, and allowed me the opportunity to study abroad, kindling a life-long love of travel and a motivation to urge my own students now to spend time studying abroad. It’s a program that I’m still incredibly proud that I was able to be a part of.

I’ll also fully admit that the gift of full financial support for college wasn’t something an 18-year-old me truly understood the long-term benefits of. I don’t think anyone at that age fully appreciates the value of a gift like that, but since then, I’ve experienced again and again the financial freedom and flexibility that it has helped me and my family attain. 

Q: What did you love most about your time with UMBC’s student newspaper?

A: I found a second home at the offices of The Retriever Weekly. I spent four years there meeting new people who have become lifelong friends, learning how to be (and how not to be) an effective leader, and getting to know the ins and outs of campus life. 

Q: Can you tell us about your current job and your book?

A: For almost 20 years, I have been an English teacher, the last six years at Brunswick High School in Brunswick, Maine. I love connecting with students and helping them hone their voices and their thinking as writers. In 2021, I published my first book, Hazards of Nature: Stories, which won the 2020 Maine Chapbook Series. Hazards of Nature is a collection of short stories about everyday people dealing with difficult situations. A young boy is teased by his father and brothers. A man raises chickens to help himself cope with his wife’s decision not to have children. An elderly widower struggles to connect with other people, but finds solace in his attachment to a peach tree he planted. The first story in the collection, “Coyotes,” won a Maine Literary Award in 2017.

Praise that means a lot to me (and is in the introduction to my book) comes from National Book Award-winner Sigrid Nunez: “What makes the stories in Hazards of Nature so compelling for me is not just the writer’s insightful portraits of his characters’ struggles but his sensitivity in regard to their pain.”

Photo right: Brandon Dudley ’04, English, at his local bookstore, Gulf of Maine Books, seeing his collection of short stories on sale for the first time in 2021.

Q: Who in the UMBC community has inspired you or supported you?

A: English Professor Chris Corbett was a constant supporter during my time at UMBC, and I’m lucky to still be in touch with him over 20 years later. Professor Corbett was instrumental in my growth as a student, a leader, and a writer. He was the advisor of The Retriever Weekly, and I devoured his journalism classes during my time at UMBC, and it wasn’t uncommon for me to show up to his office well before classes started just to hang out and talk. 

During my time at The Retriever, he was always a sounding board and a resource, helping me figure out how, as editor-in-chief, to effectively lead the newspaper and how to implement my vision for it. He helped connect me with internships at The Baltimore Sun, helped me get my first job at Patuxent Publishing as an editorial assistant right out of college, and eventually even helped me get into my M.F.A. program for creative writing. It was through basically copying his journalism lessons to teach new staff at The Retriever how to effectively shape their stories that I first found my love of teaching, which eventually became my career. 

* * * * *

UMBC’s greatest strength is its people. When people meet Retrievers and hear about the passion they bring, the relationships they create, the ways they support each other, and the commitment they have to inclusive excellence, they truly get a sense of our community. That’s what “Meet a Retriever” is all about.

Learn more about how UMBC can help you achieve your goals.