March is Women’s History Month!

This year’s national theme is Women Inspiring Innovation Through Imagination: Celebrating Women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.  This theme is meant to honor generations of women who throughout American history have used their intelligence, imagination, sense of wonder, and tenacity to make extraordinary contributions to the STEM fields.

As part of our Women’s History Month celebrations, the Women's Center and CWIT are partnering to showcase six talented women in engineering and IT fields at UMBC. The future of women’s history is being created as we speak and there is importance in sharing our lived stories now. We invite you to join us throughout the month of March to learn more about these women, their experiences, and their dreams.

Abigail Williams, CWIT Affiliate

Junior Chemical Engineer major & President of Society of Women Engineers 

Describe what sparked your interest STEM and the journey to choosing your major.
I always knew that I would do something STEM related. My father majored in physics and electrical engineering in college and he taught me all my math and science since I was homeschooled kindergarten through 12^th grade. I always took to it more than arts and humanities. I originally was going to major in chemistry. My mother was my guidance counselor and said, "Are you sure you want to do that? Maybe you should try chemical engineering." I took a look at the curriculum was intrigued. The rest is history.

Tell us about an internship, research experience or project that you are proud of. 
I'm currently on the CE21-MD (Computing Education for the 21st Century) project as an undergraduate research assistant for Dr. Susan Martin, Dr. Penny Rheingans, and Dr. Marie desJardins. It has been an eye-opening experience. I've met a lot of people, learned many skills, and developed an interest in computer science. I am now taking CMSC 201 because this research project piqued my interest.

Who are your role models in the engineering or IT field?
Dr. Taryn Bayles in the CBEE department is my academic advisor and my role model. She is such an inspiration in so many ways. She is one of the reasons that I am so glad that I came to UMBC. 

Explain your experience as a woman in a STEM major, including the challenges as well as the rewards.
In the chemical engineering department, I've not experienced a gender disparity quite as severe as the computer engineering and mechanical engineering departments. It's not unusual to have around a third of the class be women. Additionally, the department is headed by Dr. Julia Ross and the director of the undergraduate program is Dr. Bayles, my advisor. I've been fortunate to have these role models. There are still challenges, though. I have to work a bit harder to have my voice heard, particularly in science and math classes outside of my department. Even though the percentage of women in chemical engineering is higher than other engineering and IT disciplines, there is still a relatively small number of people who fully understand my struggles. The rewards, however, are numerous. There is an immense satisfaction when I do well on an assignment. I learn so many things that are absolutely fascinating. The moment of clarity, prompted by understanding of a particular concept, is addicting. Since there are not a large number of women chemical engineering majors, we band together and support each other. I took on a CWIT mentee last semester - a freshman chemical engineering major. Mentoring her has been such a great experience. Connecting with other women in my department is always rewarding and forges friendships that will last beyond graduation. Yes, my major is difficult and it has its struggles. But I wouldn't trade it for anything.

The Center for Women In Technology (CWIT) is dedicated to increasing the representation of women in the creation of technology in the engineering and information technology fields. CWIT efforts begin with nurturing a strong group of Scholars, grow to building community resources for other women in these majors, extend to fostering a healthy gender climate and ITE pedagogy in College of Engineering and Information Technology (COEIT) departments, and finally expand into outreach efforts to increase interest in technical careers. A successful program for female-friendly engineering and information technology education at UMBC will help make UMBC a destination for women (and men) interested in technical careers and serve as a national model for other universities. 

Learn more about our community at http://www.cwit.umbc.edu/ 

For more information about Women’s History events and happenings, visit: http://my.umbc.edu/groups/womenscenter/news/24724 

The Device APIs Working Group has published a Last Call Working Draft of HTML Media Capture. The HTML Media Capture specification defines an HTML form extension that facilitates user access to a device's media capture mechanism, such as a camera, or microphone, from within a file upload control. Comments are welcome through 19 April. Learn more about the Ubiquitous Web Applications Activity.

Many a student has stared blankly at a screen or sheet of paper as they began the frightful process of writing their resume. This statement of all accomplishments, past and present, will to a great extent determine whether or not they get the internship, job or research position.

In recognition of the challenge that writing a resume poses, five senior information systems majors have embarked on an ambitious endeavor. Bethany Cook, Cameron Stalder, Nicole Dawkins, Sabeeh Hameed and Joseph Booth are working to create a virtual resume-writing partner for UMBC students.

As their senior project, they are developing a program called the Resumator3000 (R3K).They plan for R3K to handle the layout, design, and formatting of resumes, thereby enabling students to focus on content instead of trying to make their resumes “look professional.”

The R3K developers believe that students should record everything they do as they progress through their college career, instead of recording it all at once. To this end, they have developed a process called “updataquisition” that will make constructing a resume as user-friendly as Twitter.

In addition to the benefit of contributing a great tool to UMBC’s community, the team hopes that through this senior project they can develop their programming skills and to place in the top three in UMBC’s upcoming idea competition.

This project, sponsored by Dr. George Karabatis, associate professor of information systems at UMBC, promises to be a project unique among resume services. Its developers plan to make it easy to share. Currently, when a jobseeker shares an online resume with a potential employer the employer often has to sign into an account to view the resume. The developers of R3K plan to eliminate the need for a login before viewing a resume.

They hope their project will become the resource for student resumes at UMBC. They want to be able to integrate the data stored in student accounts through PeopleSoft and reduce the need for data entry. To this end, they are currently working with Kate Phelps, assistant director of professional practice, and Mike Oettel, associate director of professional service at the Shriver Center.

The team is confident and willing to put in all the effort and time necessary to accomplish their goals. They plan to have a working R3K beta out by the end of the spring 2013 semester for use by select information system students who will give them feedback towards making its use campus wide. If they are successful they aim to have this program available in campuses around the globe.

Although the R3K project team is currently full of information systems majors, they are eager to collaborate with students in visual arts, marketing and computer science to make their work even more impactful.

In this episode of The Treehouse Show, Nick Pettit (@nickrp) and Jason Seifer (@jseifer) talk about SVGs, Dropdowns, and HTML5 Form Elements.

Here are the links for the week:

SPOILER ALERT!
http://joshbuddy.github.com/spoiler-alert/

svg.js – A lightweight JavaScript library for manipulating and animating svg
http://www.svgjs.com/

Breaking down Amazon’s mega dropdown – Ben Kamens
http://bjk5.com/post/44698559168/breaking-down-amazons-mega-dropdown

How to lose weight (in the browser)
http://browserdiet.com/

Preboot
http://getpreboot.com/

HTML5 forms input types | HTML5 Doctor
http://html5doctor.com/html5-forms-input-types/

Genericons – a free, GPL, flexible icon font for blogs!
http://genericons.com/

devref | HTTP Header Analyzer
http://devref.com/

The post SVGs, Dropdowns, and HTML5 Form Elements | Treehouse Show Ep 32 appeared first on Treehouse Blog.

Latest release of BPA CRM is a major step forward in usability and takes advantage of key SharePoint 2013 features.