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Following a successful run on the internationally-ranked UMBC chess team, Ian Harris ’11, psychology, is making a career of the strategic game in his home state of Connecticut, the Norwalk Hour online reports.

Harris, who is ranked a national master by the United States Chess Federation and 7th in Connecticut, is working as an instructor at the Chess Club of Fairfield County, the story says. He has also co-authored a book, “Mastering Chess,” which is set to publish sometime next month.

On the topic of sharing his chess secrets with a new generation, Harris tells the Hour:

“I think a lot of people want to learn [chess] but are intimidated by it. We offer camps for kids to learn chess and a lot of kids love it. They get hooked because it’s fun and educational.”

Read the full story in the Hour here.

"Shafi Goldwasser of MIT and the Weizmann Institute of Science and Silvio Micali of MIT were names as the winners of the 2012 ACM A.M. Turing Award. Working together, they pioneered the field of provable security, which laid the mathematical foundations that made modern cryptography possible. By formalizing the concept that cryptographic security had to be computational rather than absolute, they created mathematical structures that turned cryptography from an art into a science.

Their work addresses important practical problems such as the protection of data from being viewed or modified, providing a secure means of communications and transactions over the Internet. Their advances led to the notion of interactive and probabilistic proofs and had a profound impact on computational complexity, an area that focuses on classifying computational problems according to their inherent difficulty.

The ACM Turing Award, widely considered the "Nobel Prize in Computing," carries a $250,000 prize, with financial support provided by Intel Corporation and Google Inc."

…more…

Netflix now allows frictionless sharing of the movies you watch on Facebook.

Back in 2011, following Facebook’s F8 developers conference, a new phrase began to buzz: “frictionless sharing.” Soon, news-sharing apps proliferated with Facebook, which enabled automatic posting of articles you were reading to your news feed. More famously, Spotify originally required users to register via their Facebook account. Spotify claimed that it was all just to make things simpler for the user: “As most of our users are already social and have already connected to Facebook, it seemed logical to integrate Spotify and Facebook logins,” the company said in a statement. But the move was transparently to create viral buzz in Facebook news feeds. Pretty soon, my feed was full of the unneeded “news” that Joe was listening to Kanye, while Kate was listening to Madonna. My listening habits were likewise broadcast, and though I think I’ve disabled them, I’m not entirely sure (last I checked, the Spotify iPhone app’s privacy settings remained a bit opaque to me).

The New York Times today examined the experiences of older students — in their 60s and beyond — at colleges and universities. The article cites many reasons for retirees taking college courses, including tuition waivers, social connections and an interest in lifelong learning.

“Novelty is something the brain thrives on,” said Erickson School Dean Judah L. Ronch, commenting on the physiological and psychological health benefits that older students experience. “It helps connections between nerve cells form, and that’s the basis of new knowledge and ability. Research now supports the idea that at any age these connections can continue to be made.”

In addition to supporting brain health, the classroom can also be a helpful for adults coping with the death of a spouse and struggling to socialize with friends who are intact couples. Ronch noted that in college fellow students are unlikely to ask, “Is your husband dead or alive?” Read the full article to learn more.

On-Campus Interviews offer students a chance to conveniently interview for professional positions on campus.  Employers travel to our campus for the specific purpose of interviewing preselected students for currently open positions.  This is a great opportunity to interview with employers specifically interested in UMBC students and offers the advantage of a smaller applicant pool.  Interviews take place during the fall and spring. The logistics (viewing positions, applying, signing up for interview time slots, etc.) are all handled via UMBCworks.

Don't miss out on employers coming to UMBC to recruit YOU this fall! The following is a list of employers coming to conduct on-campus interviews with application deadlines in the next month.

** Stanley Black & Decker
Position:  SLP Operations Associate (9256265)
Resume Submission End:  March 13

** CGI Federal Consultant
Position:  Entry Level IT Consultant (9255641)
Resume Submission End:  April 7

** Enterprise Holdings
Position:  Management Trainee (9255896)
Resume Submission End:  April 5

** Target
Position:  Executive Team Leader (9255878)
Resume Submission End:  April 4

A full list of On-Campus Interviews scheduled is available on our website calendar and on UMBCworks, please check regularly for any updates or changes that may occur.

Each semester UMBC sets aside several days for partnering organizations to be showcased on campus. Through our Corporate Visibility Days program, organizations are given the opportunity to highlight themselves to the UMBC student body.  Traditional schedules include information sessions, career-related workshops,networking opportunities and lunch.

Held from 11:00 am - 2:00 pm, you do not need to attend the entire event, please stop by when you are able and stay for as long as you can!

** Next Century Corporation
March 27 ~ 11:00 am - 2:00 pm
University Center 312

** Kennedy Krieger Institute
April 4 ~ 11:00 am - 2:00 pm
Commons 331

** Mitre Corporation
April 10 ~ 11:00 am - 2:00 pm
University Center 312