Yonathan Zohar, professor of marine biotechnology, has received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Society for Fish Endocrinology. Zohar’s work at the Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor has produced fundamental discoveries in fish reproductive biology and applied the findings to the aquaculture industry, resulting in major advances. In 2020, the Binational Agricultural Research Development (BARD) Fund, a partnership program between the U.S. and Israel, also recognized Zohar for the outsize economic impact of his research. 

In addition to  Zohar’s core work in fish reproductive physiology, he has led a decades-long effort to develop land-based aquaculture methods that could bring fresh seafood to inland areas of the United States. Land-based fish production operations avoid pitfalls of open-water aquaculture such as disease, polluted water, and escapes. Land-based aquaculture could also limit the need for long-distance seafood transportation.

Maryland Farm and Harvest on Maryland Public Television (MPT) recently featured Zohar and his colleagues’ work. The aquaculture industry is the world’s fastest growing sector of agriculture, Zohar told MPT. American demand for seafood is rising, and currently, most of it is imported. With a $10 million grant from the USDA, Zohar has been working with team of scientists and government and industry stakeholders from the U.S. and abroad to help move land-based aquaculture toward commercial viability. 

“We here at IMET, at the Aquaculture Research Center [ARC], are trying to address all these challenges, bottlenecks, hurdles to this industry so it can become economically feasible as well as—obviously as much as possible—environmentally responsible,” Zohar told MPT. 

Addressing aquaculture’s hurdles

One of those hurdles is figuring out how to bring salmon to market size year round. Typically, salmon only reproduce once per year, Zohar explained. “We are using environmental manipulation to phase shift—to change the time of the spawning of the fish—so the farmer can get good quality eggs all year round,” he said. The team at the ARC has had success spawning salmon six months after their typical spawning time, Zohar told MPT, as a tray of red-orange salmon eggs spawned at IMET showed on the screen. And “if you can do it six months, you can do it four months, three months, all year round,” he said.

Another challenge to land-based systems is the accumulation of sludge—otherwise known as fish poop—in the tanks. Kevin Sowers, professor of marine biotechnology and a microbiology expert, explained that as the water in the fish tanks passes through a filter to be reused, bacterial colonies living on the surface of what look like pieces of wheel-shaped pasta break down the sludge. One of the products is methane gas.

“The goal here is to get rid of that waste, reduce it, and turn it into a product that can be used,” Sowers said. “And the product we produce, the biogas, will actually help power about 10 percent of the energy costs here in the facility.”

Still swimming along

All of these advances represent years or decades of effort by Zohar, Sowers, and additional colleagues to first understand the fundamentals of fish biology and reproduction, and then to find ways of tweaking it that serve the aquaculture industry and address the rising consumer demand for fish. 

Zohar may have been doing this for a while, but with the industry on what feels like the cusp of a breakthrough, his continued enthusiasm for his work was obvious on Maryland Farm and Harvest.

“For someone who has been working on aquaculture for over 40 years, well, I have a lot of energy still to make sure that we make this happen,” Zohar told MPT—“that we stop overfishing our oceans and we satisfy the increasing demand of seafood in the United States and in the world.”

BEYA STEM Career Fair (FREE --Both In-Person or Virtual)

Friday, February 14, 2025

Saturday, February 15, 2025

Time: 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Registration Deadline: Tuesday, February 11, 2025

Open to ALL Students (undergraduate and graduate)

Jobs--full-time, part-time, internships and graduate admissions

This event is sponsored by Career Communications Group (CCG) and is part of their large annual conference, which will be held at the Baltimore Convention Center. Representatives from major corporations and universities will be available to meet with students pursuing careers in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) fields as well as Business, Finance, and Marketing. Why should you participate?

•       FREE Career Fair (in-person & virtual options)
•       Career seminar options
•       On the spot job offers
•       Networking with recruiters
•       Learn and network with the country's best and brightest STEM minds

Registration is required. Your registration will give you access to the in-person and online Career Fairs. The UMBC Career Center will provide a free shuttle bus to the Career Fair on Friday. If you would like to take the free shuttle bus, you must register with both BEYA and the UMBC Career Center by Tuesday, February 11th.

•      To register, please follow the instructions at: https://careers.umbc.edu/beya 

Please be sure to upload your resume at the time of registration.

 Contact Diane Crump-Fogle (crump@umbc.edu) or Chrisi Giannakaris (chrisig@umbc.edu) at the UMBC Career Center for additional information.

When Patricia Mengue Bindjeme, a junior majoring in mechanical engineering, went to classes, her professors would sometimes point out how engineers’ decisions can have life-or-death consequences. But the message really hit home this past summer when Mengue Bindjeme interned at the Maryland Transit Administration (MTA), working on the Baltimore Red Line Project, a recently revived transportation project to create faster and more convenient links between the eastern and western parts of the city. 

“I saw people talking about the journeys they had to make coming from West Baltimore to work at someplace like Johns Hopkins,” she says. “That’s a lot of travel.” Mengue Bindjeme realized how engineers working to ensure the safety, availability, and reliability of transportation could make huge differences to people’s everyday lives. “Having another person’s life in my hands is nerve-racking,” she says. “But the change I can make for someone else is really beautiful and impactful.”

Real tasks and real things

Mengue Bindjeme secured her internship at MTA through the Maryland Public Service Scholars (MPSS) program, a 12-week summer fellowship program funded by the state of Maryland and administered by the Shriver Center at UMBC. The goal of the program is to provide students across Maryland the opportunity to develop as future leaders in the state’s public and social sectors.

Mengue Bindjeme was one of five UMBC students who completed the program this past summer. The others were Tasnim Rushdan, a senior global studies major; Aziza Mattaka, a junior global studies major; Dionne Cole, a senior biology and social work major; and Samantha Fu, a junior psychology and public policy major.

The students wrapped up the fellowship with real-world experience on their résumés. “From day one, I was having real tasks and learning real things,” says Rushdan, who worked as an international affairs fellow at the Maryland Office of the Secretary of State. The international division of the office was small—with just two full-time employees—so as an intern Rushdan was immediately involved in important work such as reviewing agreements, organizing meetings, and writing memos for Maryland Secretary of State Susan C. Lee and Governor Wes Moore. 

Rushdan helped organize the Pan African City Exposition to facilitate discussions with international delegates around ideas for improving economic development and making housing affordable. She also met with embassy officials, business leaders, and students from around the world. 

Mattaka worked in the Governor’s Office of Crime Prevention and Policy, working with victims of crime on their compensation claims. “Sometimes when I’d call people, they would go into their stories,” she says. “It really put into perspective my privilege, but it was also rewarding to be in a place to assist.”

Pursuing the same mission

The students faced challenges throughout their fellowships, from the sometimes heavy nature of the work, to the pressures to balance their schedules, produce deliverables, and present in front of the leaders of Maryland government.

They found support from program staff, the mentors they were matched with in their workplaces, and from each other. Each Friday, all the program participants met together and attended workshops to talk through their experiences and learn new skills for success. 

“We realized that, even though we come from diverse backgrounds, we were there for the same mission. We’re facing many of the same challenges, and we’re all in it together,” Rushdan says. 

Clockwise from top left: Samantha Fu, Patricia Mengue Bindjeme, Aziza Mattaka, Dionne Cole, and Tasnim Rushdan.

“I made lifelong friends who are supporting me, and really wanting me to succeed,” says Fu,  who worked at LET’S GO Boys and Girls, a nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering economic success in underserved communities through STEM education and workforce development. 

Throughout the summer, the MPSS scholars pushed themselves out of their comfort zones and discovered how much they had to contribute. 

“Before the program, I was afraid of public speaking,” says Fu. “By the end of the program, I was able to confidently present a grant proposal in front of a panel of nonprofit leaders. My group and I even won the grant proposal competition.”

Confident and capable

Cole, who worked at the Maryland Department of Health drafting policy recommendations for behavioral health care access for prison populations and others in the criminal justice system, says she feels much more confident after the summer. “Fear paralyzes us. But it’s like, no, we’re actually capable. You just have to look through the fear and realize, ‘Oh, snap, I could actually do this.’”

The group also ended the summer more confident of their commitment to public service.

“The public service sector truly is limitless and it affords any individual the opportunity to make a difference in their own way,” Cole says. 

“Public service calls everyone,” Mattaka adds. “We are a collective, and society works better if we have people willing to develop the skills of leadership and empathy to do these jobs. Those are the skills we cultivated a lot this summer.”

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