From UMBC's Women Involved in Learning and Leadership

There is an AMAZING opportunity to attend a leadership conference specifically designed for dynamic college women with incredible skill-building workshops, empowering speakers, a graduate school fair

 http://www.nccwsl.org/students/graduate-school-fair/

and networking opportunities!

The National Conference for College Women Student Leaders

 (NCCWSL <http://www.nccwsl.org/>) is that opportunity. 

Deadline to apply for a full scholarship : March 15th

Apply at : https://svc.aauw.org/nccwsl/reg/index.cfm

Full Scholarship Covers: Housing, Food, and Registration Fees

When registering : Select the "NCCWSL National Scholarship" option. 

You will be sent further instructions for the remaining part of the scholarship application via email.

Empowering speakers, the ability to share real-life experiences, and learning opportunities around the country. The deadline is fast approaching; don't let this wonderful opportunity pass. Apply soon!

From: Jan Neumann <Sorry, you need javascript to view this email address. >
    Date: Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 4:59 PM
    Subject: 2-3 summer intern positions - Comcast Research Washington, DC
    To: Sorry, you need javascript to view this email address.  
    
    Are you interested in Large-scale Machine Learning? Information
    Retrieval? Working with truly Big Usage Data? Do you currently do
    research in at least one or more of the following areas – Big Data
    Processing, Recommendation Systems, Social Media, Computer Vision,
    Information Retrieval or NLP? Do you want to conduct industry-leading
    research in audio/video information retrieval and content discovery
    technologies, and help millions of households discover video and music
    content on their TV, PC, Phone, and Mobile devices?
    
    Comcast's Washington DC research lab is looking to fill 2-3 graduate
    student intern positions for this summer (minimum of 12 weeks, May
    through September) . Projects can focus on using Social Networks for
    Recommendations and Click-through Prediction, NLP for Voice-based
    Interfaces, and/or Video Search/Segmentation of premium video.
    
    We are an innovative research group within Comcast's Metadata
    Processing and Search Services unit that does groundbreaking research
    to develop the video and TV search & discovery technologies that
    support Comcast’s approximately 40 Million subscriber units. Comcast
    is the largest provider of TV and Broadband Services in North America,
    the largest provider of TV search and discovery applications in North
    America, & the 6th largest provider of search on the web.
    
    The ideal applicant will be currently enrolled in a university PhD
    program and has 2+ years of research experience in one of the relevant
    areas. Applicants should also have good programming and software
    development skills, and be comfortable working in an
    interdisciplinary, team-oriented, applied research environment.
    
    Internships will be on-site in our Washington, DC office. We feature
    an informal, open atmosphere, and a location in downtown Washington
    convenient to several public transit lines and many of the city's
    museums, monuments, and other attractions.  The salary is competitive
    and commensurate with experience.
    
    To apply, please send a CV or resume, along with a brief statement
    explaining why you are interested in the position, to
    Sorry, you need javascript to view this email address.   While there is no fixed deadline for
    applying, we anticipate filling these positions by the end of April.
    
        ML="m.ka>Sorry, you need javascript to view this email address. >

From: Shengbo Guo <Sorry, you need javascript to view this email address. >
    Date: Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 2:07 PM
    Subject: Research Internship for Machine Learning and its Application in
    Recommender Systems at Samsung Media Solution Center America
    
    Samsung Media Solution Center America (MSCA) in San Jose, USA is
    looking for a motivated research intern in the area of machine
    learning and its application in recommender systems. This intern
    position is located in San Jose, and it is between 3 and 6 months. The
    responsibility of the intern is on (1) analyzing the rich mobile data,
    (2) developing/implementing machine learning algorithms, and (3)
    applying these algorithms to personalize services for users of smart
    phones and smart TVs. More specifically, the intern will be working on
    developing learning algorithms, matrix/tensor factorization, topic
    modeling, and recommender systems. Detailed responsibilities include:
    
      * Develop novel machine learning algorithms for personalizing
        services (e.g., recommendations of music, video, social media) in
        the mobile context (e.g., smart phone users).
      * Implement these algorithms and the state-of-the-art methods
        efficiently.
      * Document the work for scientific publication and patenting.
    
    Requirements:
    
      * PhD-level education in Computer Science, particularly in machine
        learning, recommender systems, or social computing.
      * Strong background in machine learning, particularly in
        probabilistic graphical models, matrix/tensor factorization, topic
        modeling, and recommender systems.
      * Strong implementation skills in C++/Java.
    
    Application and deadline:
    
    Please email your CV to Sorry, you need javascript to view this email address.  and
    Sorry, you need javascript to view this email address.  and mention Research Internship for the
    subject of the email. Applications will be considered until the
    position is filled.
    
    -- 
    Shengbo Guo, PhD.
    Research Scientist, Media Solution Center America
    Samsung Information Systems America
    2665 North 1st Street, 3F Suite 300, San Jose 95134, USA
    Tel: (408)944-5140
    Fax: (408)944-5214
    E-mail: Sorry, you need javascript to view this email address.  
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My company, Greatist, is the fastest growing health-and-wellness site on the Web. We wouldn't have that label without these tricks for using Pinterest.

Greatist, the website and company I founded, has been the fastest-growing health and wellness site on the Web since November of 2011--and that's thanks in no small part to our presence on Pinterest.

The super-popular pinboard site continues to be our No. 1 traffic referrer (to the tune of a whopping 30 to 40 percent of our total traffic). With more than three million unique visitors per month, we're working to build a trusted brand in our space--and we couldn't have gotten where we are today without Pinterest.

But, as many brands have already discovered, it's not just about sharing photos and waiting. Through much trial and error, we at Greatist have identified 10 Pinterest strategies that yield the best results:

1. Use Pinterest yourself.

Brands on Pinterest are no different from regular users--everything works exactly the same. Getting a sense for how people really use it is key--as with any social platform, familiarity is uber-important before wading into the dangerous waters of self-promotion. Reading articles (like this one) isn't enough!

2. Get great visuals.

Visuals are key because, well, there needs to be something worth pinning (and re-pinning and re-pinning) in the first place. When we decided to go all-in on Pinterest, step one was to go on a "find every awesome contributing photographer and illustrator possible" spree. We wanted not just good visuals, but the best--and now almost all of our content has original photography or illustrations (see our healthy recipes for example). Plus, each article has what we call a "header image" of some sort, one purposefully Pinterest-worthy and unique.

3. Follow small brands.

We'll get to the big brands in a second, but it's the small ones that will collectively move the needle for you. Brands see who is re-pinning, commenting, and liking their pins. So do those things--and they'll pay them back in dividends.

4. Befriend power users.

You don't need celebrities to succeed in social media. You need to re-think how you define "celebrity." On Pinterest, it's owners of Pinterest boards with over 10,000 followers. Making friends with them is easier than you'd think--most have their Twitter handles, blogs and other links readily accessible in their profile. Reach out to them, be friendly, and start cross-promoting.

5. Cozy up to big brands by showing off your content.

Most big, well-known brands suck at Pinterest. They may have a solid following, but they're still trying to figure it out. You can help them. If you're consistently sharing awesome visuals that lead to high-quality content on a topic that's relevant to their audience, they'll re-pin your stuff over and over again. Every major brand in the space has shared Greatist's stuff--because it's good and because, well, they need good stuff to share! Make it easy for them (then grab some of their audience members who are still just figuring out this Pinterest thing, too).

6. Put the article title in the description first.

The toughest challenge on Pinterest is getting a user to click on the pin instead of simply sharing it. It's easy to get frustrated when a lot of sharing is happening, but nobody is clicking through. The question to ask, then, is: "Did they know to click in the first place?" Make sure the description of your pin is crystal clear--and mentions what it's leading to.

7. Put the article title on the image.

Early on in our Pinterest experiments, we came up with a surefire way to make sure the pin descriptions didn't get overlooked: literally add the title into the "header image." (For example: 30 other satisfying 100-calorie snacks.) I'm pretty sure we were among the first on Pinterest to start doing this. Sure, it's difficult to do in a way that's visually appealing, but the truth is, it works. Almost all of our top traffic-driving pieces of content on Pinterest fall into this category.

8. Organize your pinboards.

Believe it or not, users may not want to follow every topic or category you cover (celebrity news and horse grooming, really?). Let them pick and choose. Don't have too many of them, either--if a user has to scroll to see more boards, they likely won't. Focus on well-curated boards with defined categories.

9. Name your pinboards wisely.

Don't over-complicate your pinboard names with clever names (e.g. "Happy Hollandaise!"). We made this mistake early--and the good news is it's easy to fix. Pinterest users make a split-second decision to follow or not follow...and then never return. That said, I wouldn't recommend going too generic either (e.g. "Food"). Somewhere in the middle is probably best, like "Snack Smart."

10. Optimize your pin's size.

Pinterest automatically resizes images into its pinboard grid, and rectangular images get it the worst. We've found that, for the most part, the longer the visual, the more re-pins--and it's probably because vertical pins are more prominent in the feed.

Derek Flanzraich is the founder and CEO of Greatist, a health and fitness media startup on a mission to make better choices easier for everyone. He loves theme parks, theme bars, and helping people. Follow him @thederek.

Event: Food Sustainability Panel (2/28)

AASHE’s Presidential Voices interview series features conversations with heads of higher education institutions who are inspiring sustainability leaders. To recommend a president or chancellor for this series, contact Judy Walton, AASHE’s Chief Publications Officer, at judy@aashe.org.

Wim Wiewel, President of Portland State University, is our guest for this interview. Dr. Wiewel serves on the steering committee of the American College & University Presidents’ Climate Commitment. Under his leadership, PSU received the largest gift in its history, the $25 million James F. and Marion L. Miller Foundation challenge grant for sustainability. In 2011, the university was awarded an AASHE STARS Gold rating. Dr. Wiewel’s books include Global Universities and Urban Development and The University as Urban Developer. He holds degrees in sociology and urban planning from the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands and a Ph.D. in sociology from Northwestern University.

Judy Walton: In 2008, soon after arriving at Portland State, you announced that a $25 million, 10-year challenge grant from the James F and Marion L Miller Foundation (at that time the largest single gift for sustainability in higher education) would be put toward sustainability research, engagement, and education. Why was sustainability chosen as the focus, and in what ways has the Miller grant made an impact?

Wim Wiewel: The Miller Foundation wanted to make a long-term catalytic investment in our region, via education. They saw Portland State as a natural partner, because of our mission of community engagement. We convinced them that sustainability was where we could make the biggest impact.

At that time, PSU had been working on various initiatives under the banner of “sustainability” for nearly a decade. Sustainability is something that emerged very organically at the institution, building on strong programs in urban studies and planning, environmental science, interdisciplinary approaches to curricula, and our location in a region that values the sustainability ethos.

With the Miller Foundation investment, we were able to accelerate and amplify those efforts, in part by developing a university-wide infrastructure for sustainability activities that enhance the student experience, expand faculty excellence, and strengthen community engagement. Since then we’ve experienced rapid growth in scope and ambition, and have learned a lot along the way.

When we first put out a request for proposals from faculty, we had nearly 100 responses. That showed the level of excitement around this topic (the funding helped of course).

I’d say that we’re now positioned to effectively implement programming, expand partnerships both within and outside the university, and really position ourselves as a leader in the field.

JW: What is your role in the American College & University Presidents’ Climate Commitment, and what are you working on lately with your ACUPCC colleagues? What are PSU’s own climate targets?

WW: I’m a member of the ACUPCC Steering Committee. This is such an impressive organization: on a totally volunteer basis over 600 colleges and universities have developed detailed plans to cut down on their carbon emissions. It’s in the best spirit of American grassroots efforts, without any governmental directive or regulation. ACUPCC assists universities in reaching their greenhouse goals; educating the public about the threat of climate change; and developing plans to adapt to the climate change that’s already happening.

As an ACUPCC signatory, PSU has committed to reaching net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040. We focus on a number of areas: Buildings and energy are major contributors to our carbon footprint. We’re increasing energy from local and renewable sources, upgrading HVAC systems and a closed loop energy system, and changing how we schedule these buildings to consolidate usage and increase efficiencies.

Although we now have about 3,000 students living on campus, PSU is still primarily a commuter campus. We’re right downtown, and space is tight, so we’ve worked hard to get students, faculty, and staff out of their cars and onto transit—less than 25 percent drive alone. Our campus is the number one transit destination in the metro system, served by bus, light rail and streetcar. We have partnerships with companies like ZipCar on campus, for those who need a car occasionally, and are constantly installing new bike racks and parking facilities for the growing number of cyclists.

We continue to work on diverting waste from the landfill through improved recycling, expanded composting, and education campaigns. My office is in a nine-story building, and volunteers recently conducted a waste audit—literally digging through two days’ worth of garbage, quantifying the results, and then running an education campaign on how the building occupants performed. We compost and recycle, but we also throw out a lot of empty Starbucks cups. So, there’s room for improvement.

JW: Congratulations on receiving the 2012 inaugural Presidential Leadership Award from the U.S. Green Building Council's Center for Green Schools. What key projects or policies on your campus led to this award?

WW: I had the pleasure of accepting this award at the GreenBuild conference—which is just an incredible event if you’ve never been, with something on the order of 40,000 attendees from all over the world. This award recognizes the hard work and commitment of our campus to sustainability, through operations, capital projects, research, and community outreach.

PSU is home to eight LEED-certified buildings, including the Platinum Lincoln Hall, which I’ll describe later. We’re partners with Oregon Health Sciences University and Oregon State University in a new Collaborative Life Sciences Building now under construction, with a goal of LEED Platinum. When it opens in fall 2013, it will be the largest academic building ever built in Oregon. We’re also assessing some of our current properties for LEED:EB (Existing Buildings) designation.

You can see green design all around campus. The new Shattuck Ecological Learning Plaza is a stormwater and “living wall” demonstration project that was collaboratively designed by architecture and engineering students and faculty. Students can monitor the performance of different commercially available planting systems here, and it’s also just a nice space to walk through.

As an an urban campus, we have 50 blocks comprised primarily of charming, hand-me-down facilities. An example is Lincoln Hall - which I mentioned earlier - a turn-of-the-century high school now home to our performing arts programs. Through a massive renovation, we transformed the run-down building into a LEED Platinum certified facility that’s helping us recruit and retain quality students and faculty while conserving resources.

Another model green building on campus is The Broadway, a mixed-use housing facility, rated LEED Silver. At the time it was built (in 2004) the ecoroof on top was the largest in Portland, at 20,000 square feet. Students and faculty have been monitoring the roof’s performance over time to get a better understanding of how green design functions.

JW: PSU’s motto is “Let Knowledge Serve the City” and it’s located right in downtown Portland. In what ways is PSU advancing sustainability in the city?

WW: One example is Electric Avenue, a research and technology showcase that features several of the latest EV charging stations along one city block on campus. It gives commuters a spot to plug in their hybrid and electric vehicles, and it’s part of a larger research initiative around EV use, adoption, and driver behavior. We’re working with government, utilities, and private companies to help define a roadmap for sustainability mobility, while supporting an industry that’s growing here in Oregon.

Another initiative is the Green Modular Classroom Partnership, which started with a couple of our architecture faculty—Margarette Leite and Sergio Palleroni—who saw portable classrooms as a low-cost, high-impact way to bring green design to schools. Traditional portables are short-term solutions to over-crowding that end up in use for decades. They’re poorly lit, energy inefficient, and loaded with off-gassing chemicals. Working with students, Leite and Palleroni designed an environmentally friendly alternative. Since then, they’ve partnered with schools, industry, and the state to begin manufacturing these. They brought a prototype to GreenBuild this year, and now have a couple dozen on order for schools in Oregon and Washington.

Our School of Business Administration’s Impact Entrepreneurs program helps bring social and environmental change through the power of business. One of their initiatives is the Social Innovation Incubator, which gives local start-ups a crash course in building skills, strategies and networks necessary to bring their ideas to scale. The program supports student learning, local business, and social causes.

Impact Entrepreneurs also helped connect PSU with the Ashoka University program, which has since designated PSU as an official Changemaker Campus.

JW: Last spring I taught a class at PSU on “Sustainable Cities,” and you graciously accepted an invitation to give a guest lecture. Students were not only inspired by your talk, but were touched that you made time for them (thank you again!). What are some other ways you get involved with students and faculty on sustainability?

WW: This past year we established the Sustainable Drinking Water Task Force with students in PSU's Take Back the Tap campaign, which includes students, staff, and faculty. The goals are simple: increase the availability of clean and free water while decreasing consumption of bottled water. As president, I don’t have a magic wand that says, “Let there be sustainability,” but I can say, “If you’re hosting a meeting on campus, serve tap water.” Portland has one of the nation’s cleanest municipal water supplies, and it costs about three cents per gallon.

Initiatives that lack support from leadership don’t go very far—that’s true of large organizations in academia, business, or government. I didn’t bring sustainability to PSU, but it’s one of the primary reasons I took the position of president, and I’ve tried to create and maintain a space for it to flourish, so I talk about it all the time. Having $25 million in seed funding has helped create that space as well.

JW: What would you say are the biggest challenges to advancing sustainability in higher education?

WW: In short: the chronic instability of funding from the state of Oregon.

With no sales tax, and capped property taxes, the state relies on income taxes for biennial budget planning. So, economists make their best guesses on how much money we’ll have in the next two years. In a declining economy, we may be forced to make cuts 18 months into our two-year budget. But if they underestimate revenues by more than 2 percent, the state sends that surplus back to taxpayers.

These ongoing revisions are a challenge to long-term investment commitments. But the general trend is a public divestment in higher education. We now get about 12 percent of our funding from the state. That has shifted the burden to students, who make up for it by working and taking fewer classes, and going into debt.

Another challenge is, we’re victims of our own (modest) success—as a university and as a community here in Portland. We’ve accomplished some of the “easy” stuff, and now we’re having to reach a little higher to pick the fruit.

There are also limits to how broadly we define (and fund) “sustainability”— it’s not a fit for everyone’s teaching or research agenda. Sustainability is an important perspective, but it’s a means to our mission, not the meaning of the mission.

JW: What would you like to see accomplished next in terms of sustainability at PSU?

WW: We’ve put a lot of effort into building an infrastructure of support for these key initiatives, with our Institute for Sustainable Solutions serving as the hub and heart of sustainability on campus. We’ve identified three focal areas for research—urban sustainability, ecosystem services, and social determinants of health—that best leverage our location and expertise.

We’re also looking at ways to scale sustainability ideas and efforts. PSU is part of a group of public, private, and nonprofit organizations working toward a regional economic “greenprint” that will position the Portland-Vancouver metro area as a leader in clean technology.

For our students, these economic concerns are more personal—will I find a job after graduating? Can I afford these loans? Part of the Miller Foundation money has gone to support career pathways to green careers, with advising and internship opportunities that help students land jobs in their fields of interest.

We’ll continue to integrate operations, research, and scholarships in ways that improve the campus and enhance the student experience. Our Climate Action Plan gives us a number of opportunities for that.

On the teaching side, we’re concerned with delivery and financial models for how we continue to grow and meet statewide education objectives while limiting our carbon footprint. To that end, we’ve launched a major initiative, ReTHINK PSU, that’s exploring new ideas and approaches to education delivery. We’re seeing disruptive innovation in higher education—such as Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) that offer content for free from the Harvards and MITs to anyone with an Internet connection. In an approach similar to the way we launched our sustainability initiatives, we’ve asked faculty to put forth their best ideas on adapting to and capitalizing on this changing environment. We’ll fund the most promising of the more than 160 proposals, and see where they take us.

I’d say we’re enjoying the blessing and the curse of living in interesting times.

JW: What do you do in your free time?

WW: One of the most wonderful things about Oregon is its amazing natural beauty. Over the last four-and-a-half years my wife Alice and I have traveled all across the state, rafted, and camped in the mountains and along the coast - and we often spend weekends (if we can get away) in a cottage on the coast. But we also attend lots of performances and games in town, and like any president I have lots of receptions and dinners with friends and donors. Portland is one of the most liveable cities in the world, and PSU’s commitment to sustainability is helping to keep it that way.