Interested in study abroad, but not sure how to fund your travel? If you are a U.S. citizen and receive a Pell grant, you may be eligible for the Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship!  

The Education Abroad office is hosting several information sessions - some online, some in-person - to help students learn more about this exceptional program. Information about the Thursday, Sept 19 in-person session is available on myUMBC; if you're not able to attend in-person, online information sessions will also be held at noon on Wednesday, Sept 18 and Monday, Sept 23. 

Visit the Education Abroad office's myUMBC page for information about these and other helpful study abroad-related opportunities on campus this fall! 

The Department of Mathematics and Statistics along with Dr. William LaCourse, Dean of the College of Natural and Mathematical Sciences, join the entire UMBC community in mourning the passing of Professor Emeritus Thomas Seidman on August 14, 2024.

A native of New York, Dr. Seidman earned a B.A. from the University of Chicago, an M.A. from Columbia University Teachers College, and an M.S. and Ph.D. from New York University. He worked at Boeing Scientific Research Laboratories and Lawrence Livermore Lab in the 1960s, and held positions at UCLA, the University of Wisconsin, Wayne State University, and Carnegie Mellon University. He joined the UMBC faculty as an associate professor in 1972. In January 2017, he retired after 45 years of distinguished scholarship and service to UMBC, with wide-ranging contributions to the mathematics community.

During his time at UMBC, Tom was an esteemed and omnipresent entity in the department. In addition to his extensive contributions to the intellectual life of the department, Tom also played a strong role in the department. He wrote the departmental bylaws on the chair election procedure and was the promotion and tenure (P&T) committee chair for a long time. In 1992, he served as the acting Chair of the Department of Mathematics and Statistics. 

He was a prolific mathematician with well over a hundred publications (169 with 69 co-authors from MathSciNet) and a Google Scholar citation count of over 4000. His area of research was “all things applied analysis,” which included partial differential equations, control theory and semigroup theory, and was often applied to various mathematical modeling problems. He also contributed to the field of operations research. It was almost customary for him to kick off the math colloquium series, as well as the differential equations seminar series every semester, by being the first person to volunteer to speak. There was a special seat reserved for him in the front row of MP401 from where he would dim and brighten the room lights during seminars and colloquia. His colleagues remarked that they could always count on Tom to pose insightful questions to the speaker after the talk. 

Despite his mathematical stature, Tom was a very friendly and unassuming colleague. Conversations with him always wound up centering around an interesting mathematical problem, whether from first year calculus or advanced functional analysis. Tom was also an enthusiastic mentor to many junior faculty. He collaborated with multiple colleagues in the department and also with many others from North America, Europe, Australia, and South America. He spent the 1980-81 school year as a visiting professor at the University of Nice, and during one sabbatical, he visited seven countries on five continents. Tom had an Erdős number of three. 

Tom married his late wife, Dr. Marjorie Shriro, in 1969. He is survived by his son, Gregory, daughter-in-law, Carrie, and grandchildren, Ren and Avery. He will be greatly missed. Services for Dr. Seidman will be held at the Owen Brown Interfaith Center in Columbia, MD on Saturday, January 11, 2025. 

You will learn from study abroad opportunities at UMBC and scholarships ($5,000) as well as the experiences of other students who studied in Morocco, Spain, and Japan and international students at ILE.

We will have snacks and light refreshments. 
See you all there.  

Visit CAHSS for Study Abroad Scholarships: https://my3.my.umbc.edu/groups/studyabroad/posts/143610

The Residential Life office (RL) and the Division of Information Technology (DoIT) have partnered to implement a brand-new wireless system for on-campus residents. 
Providing technology solutions that enhance the student experience is among DoIT’s core values and through this collaborative project we have:

• Improved wireless access for students by enhancing wireless coverage in key areas.
• Increased network speeds by installing over 2,500 new wireless access points with Wi-Fi 6 capabilities. 
• Reduced connectivity challenges by adopting a cloud-native architecture.
• Created a personal, home-like experience through the new Retriever Home wireless network. 

This project started more than 18 months ago when DoIT began working closely with the Office of Residential Life to test, pilot, and redesign the wireless system throughout the residential complexes. This project is the culmination of that collaboration and has been driven by the experience of student residents through Residential Student Association Townhalls, surveys, and other means of soliciting feedback from student residents. This project would not have been possible without the tremendous effort of our student employees in the Network and Telecommunications teams of DoIT. 
If you have any questions regarding this project, please click here to submit a request to the Network Team.
Thank you to our Network and Telecommunications Teams!Top Row: Zachary Ervin, Anthony McKinzie, Kidus Solomon, Jacob ThompsonBottom Row: Yumi Yee, Abir Samad, Erin Shields, Alina Aler, Alexis GarciaNot Pictured: Daeun Oh, Ryan Cather, Joshua Garofalo, Jay Gepilano, Wardan Kazzalbach

UMBC has been selected to participate in the Quantum Photonics Integrated Design Center (QuPIDC), which is led by Purdue University and also includes Los Alamos National Laboratory, Stanford University, Northwestern University, the University of Chicago, the University of Oklahoma, and Virginia Tech. The collaboration is one of 10 new Frontiers in Energy Research Centers recently funded by the U.S. Department of Energy. The centers support top-tier interdisciplinary teams as they pursue transformative basic research that will advance energy technologies. The quantum optics center will receive $13.9 million overall, and UMBC will receive $570,000.

QuPIDC aims to develop ways to generate states of light and matter with the property of “entanglement,” a unique phenomenon that was the subject of the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics. The goal is to simultaneously entangle many photons and/or many electrons, which enables technologies like extremely precise measurement, faster-than-ever communication and computing, and much more. 

UMBC’s partnership in the center leverages the university’s longstanding strength in quantum photonics and quantum information. In particular, Matthew Pelton, professor of physics and UMBC lead for the center, has expertise in developing quantum light sources and integrating them into photonic structures at the nanometer scale. 

In addition, UMBC is well known for including many undergraduates from a wide range of backgrounds in hands-on research. The new center will only increase the number of students who can participate in the groundbreaking field of quantum technology. 

“I’m very excited to have this opportunity to work with some of the world-leading researchers in quantum photonics,” Pelton says, “and I’m especially excited about the collaboration and networking opportunities that the center will provide for UMBC students.”