About the Program: This internship program aims to bolster the public health workforce at the Maryland Department of Health (MDH). This program seeks to introduce students to roles within public health and expose them to different subject areas. This practical experience will enhance the knowledge that students have gained from their studies and prepare them to enter the public health workforce. 

Eligibility: This program is currently open to undergraduate (completion of at least 60 credit hours) and graduate students enrolled at an accredited college or university and in good academic standing.  Recent graduates (from an undergraduate or graduate program) may be accepted.  

Compensation: Students will be paid ($16.50/hr undergraduate; $19.50/hr graduate).​​

Timeline: The program will run for 12 weeks for the Fall term, from September 25 - December 17, 2024. The fall term will be part-time at a rate that averages up to 20 hours per week. Students can work a maximum of 240 hours during the 12 weeks.​

​Application Instructions:  Applications must be submitted online. The available internships are categorized by subject area. Please select the subject areas that interest you on your supplemental questionnaire. You may view descriptions of the openings by category below: ​

• Behavioral Science Internship
• Biostatistics Internship
  
• Community Health Internships
  
• Epidemiology Internships
  
• Health Education Internships
  
• Health Informatics Internships
  
• Health Policy Internships 
  
• Healthcare Administration Internships
  
• Infectious Disease Internships
  
• Preparedness and Response Internships
  
• Public Health Accreditation Internships
  
• Public Health Communications Internships
  

Whether you're preparing your first Ultra course or updating existing content, the latest features released in August are designed to streamline your teaching experience. 

The Ultra Document is the centerpiece of the Ultra course, providing a place for preparing and delivering engaging content including text, lists, tables, links, images and media, or third-party tools. The Content Designer is a significant enhancement to the Ultra Document, providing new and robust options that support mobile friendly and responsive columns. Instructors can still embed files, images, and HTML content. To resize a block or move it on the Ultra Document page, simply drag and drop the block. All content is moveable with a mouse, keyboard or tab.

Image 1: Example of redesigned Ultra Document with new column display

Releasing content for different needs in a course is a critical part of an instructor’s toolkit -- whether that content is distributed by date, performance, or group using different criteria. The latest update to Ultra features advanced release conditions allow faculty to create multiple rules for release conditions using AND and OR criteria. For example, if a course consists of undergraduate and graduate students, each group may have different requirements to access certain content in the course. Rules and criteria will copy from Original adaptive release conditions with the exception for attempts and marked reviewed, which are not yet supported in Ultra.

Image 2: Example of Release Conditions page

The Ultra Assignment is also redesigned for August, removing the underlying engine that powered Tests. Now a separate instructions box is available for instructors to specify expectations for completing a graded activity. There are no options to add questions; if this is essential for an assessment, a Test must be used instead. The settings panel is updated to provide options that are only relevant to Assignments. Most importantly, when students access the Assignment, a blank attempt is no longer created, which helps reduce confusion and frustration for both learners and instructors alike. Students can access the Assignment as often as they need to before submitting their actual attempt. 

Image 3: Example of new Assignment page

Instructors have long desired for the ability to subscribe to discussions in Ultra. In August, this is now possible with the new Follow Discussions setting, which allows any user in a course to re-engage with a discussion as updates occur. The first version of this feature will distribute notifications through the Activity Stream, which users can customize according to personal preference. In October, the follow notifications can be received via email.

Image 4: Example of Discussion with Follow notification enabled

Finally, when an Original course is converted, undeployed tests from the Tests, Surveys, and Question Pools area will now be converted to question banks. This will help to declutter both the course content page and the gradebook, making it easier for instructors to manage their course materials. NOTE: During the conversion process, any random blocks, question sets, and linked questions included in undeployed tests will be removed as Question Banks do not support those features. However, the resulting question banks will preserve original questions without duplication.

Additional updates for August include:

• Instructors can now collect anonymous submissions in Forms.
• Instructors can quickly navigate between submissions using the Next Student and Previous Student buttons in Flexible Grading. 
• Image generation process will leverage DALL-E to produce higher resolution images for learning modules, Documents, announcements, assessment questions, and journal prompts.
• The response time when creating a math formula in the text editor is reduced to help instructors can process formula requests more efficiently.
• Students can send a group message from the members page of a group space, which encourages collaboration on content that they have been assigned.

To learn more about these updates, and other features from the last six months, please join our What's New in Ultra for Teaching & Learning webinar on August 16.

Faculty should see the latest updates in their Ultra courses around August 8-9, 2024. The next update to our Ultra test environment will take place on August 13, 2024; release notes are posted to the What's New in Ultra that same week. Faculty who are interested in test driving new features before they are released to production should open an RT ticket to request early access. Please watch the FAQs, including the What's New with Ultra page, and myUMBC for additional information about Ultra.

Parag Shinde knew that in order to get the most out of his summer as a biotechnology master’s student, he needed to find a way to get full-time, hands-on experience in a laboratory. To that end, in spring 2024 he emailed his résumé to dozens of local companies, whether or not they had formal internships posted. The strategy served him well: Shinde landed a role as an analytical chemist at Vici Health Sciences, a pharmaceutical research and development firm in Elkridge, Maryland.

“You can gain knowledge through books, but then you actually go to a company and start doing something, and you feel like you know nothing. So my plan was to work here and get physical experience, as much as possible,” Shinde shares.

As an undergraduate in India, he always enjoyed working in a biology lab setting. So when Shinde, M.P.S. ’25, biotechnology, wanted to advance his career, he looked for a program that aligned with his interests and would prepare him for a role in quality control at a biotechnology company. UMBC’s master’s of professional studies in biotechnology, offered through the College of Natural and Mathematical Sciences at the Universities at Shady Grove, fit the bill. This summer, after his first year in the program, Shinde is putting his passion and hands-on lab skills to the test at Vici Health Sciences.

A worthwhile challenge

Shinde’s role involves testing drug compounds for purity, shelf-life, and many other attributes before they can be formulated into medications or other medical treatments—a crucial step in the drug development process. The role requires extreme precision and attention, from mixing testing solutions to calibrating equipment and meticulously recording every step in logbooks. It is nonstop action in the lab, managing multiple steps of different testing protocols simultaneously. “Even the smallest piece of glass” must be accounted for, Shinde says. “And at the end of the day, I start preparing for the next day. It’s a lot.”

The work is challenging, but it offers exactly the type of experience Shinde was looking for. “My primary goal from this internship was to be around stuff that happens in an industry laboratory. How do they go about it? How do they use this equipment? How do they maintain good manufacturing practices?” he says.

 Already, Shinde’s confidence and skills continue to increasing. In particular, his ability to keep track of multiple tasks at once and find the most efficient way to carry out a set of steps is improving. “It has even been helpful at home, like with doing chores,” he shares.

In addition to learning new things in the classroom, Shinde is learning to navigate a new city and country as well—he only moved to the United States from Mumbai, India, last summer, to attend UMBC. The transition has gone well, and he’s looking forward to continuing in the biotechnology program this fall. “God has been kind here,” he says.

Shinde is glad he chose Vici, even if it is stressful at times. It’s moving him toward his goals in ways only a role that pushed his limits could. “It’s really challenging,” he says, “which is why I’m learning a lot of things.”

Learn more about UMBC’s biotechnology programs, including undergraduate and graduate level degrees and certificates.

The Maryland State Board of Education has unanimously elected Josh Michael ’10, political science, Ph.D. ’22, public policy, as its new president following his completion of a one-year term as vice president last year. Michael, whose career in education advocacy has been greatly intertwined with UMBC for years, began his interaction with the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE) as a student representative on the board in 2005.

Now, as president, Michael will continue to oversee the administration of MSDE with the 11-member board, which includes public school educators, parents, community leaders, and a student. UMBC alumna Chuen-Chin Bianca Chang ’91, nursing, is also a board member, representing Howard County since 2021. 

Michael will work with the state superintendent to provide oversight of Maryland’s 24 school districts and lead the board’s work in guiding the implementation of MSDE’s Blueprint for Maryland’s Future, an initiative to increase state funding for education over the next 10 years with a focus on historically underserved students.

“Over the last 10 to 15 years, Maryland public schools have slowly declined in achievement, in literacy, and math. Our rankings have dropped in many ways. Taking this head-on has been a focus of our work,” Michael explains. “We seem to have lost sight of what is most important—ensuring our students are learning. Our schools must serve children from all backgrounds at all performance levels and provide opportunities to excel. The board is focused on restoring stability, vision, and direction for the state to support public schools.”

Education policy at work

Michael’s work with public education began as a UMBC Sondheim Public Affairs Scholar, where he learned about education policy. After graduating, he worked as a math teacher at Baltimore City’s Booker T. Washington Middle School and The Commodore John Rodgers School. After six years in the classroom, Michael returned to UMBC in 2016 to work on growing what was then called UMBC’s Sherman STEM Teachers Scholars Program with Rehana Shafi, the inaugural director, and with the support of The Sherman Family Foundation. The program prepared STEM majors to become high-quality K-12 teachers in urban settings through academic and professional coaching. The program has since broadened its scope and is now called the Sherman Teacher Scholars Program.

Shafi and Michael fostered existing partnerships and helped establish the Lakeland Community and STEAM Center, where many Sherman Teacher Scholars continue to hold student-teacher placements and serve as math volunteers. During this six-year period, Michael also earned a doctorate degree at UMBC focused on mathematics achievement and improving outcomes for struggling students. 

Humanizing policy

“Josh’s work at the Sherman Teacher Scholars Program laid the groundwork for lasting partnerships between the university and City Schools. One example of this legacy is the Reach Together Tutoring Project (RTTP), which provides over 400 City Schools students each year with targeted math tutoring by UMBC students,” says Jane Lincove, professor of public policy and Michael’s dissertation chair. “The program is both reducing math achievement gaps and inspiring UMBC students to become math teachers. Josh’s work is a glowing example of how academic research by doctoral students in UMBC’s public policy program can be put to work to improve the lives of Marylanders.”

“My advice to students interested in public policy is to serve in the communities you want to work with,” says Michael, currently the executive director at The Sherman Family Foundation and a board member of the Maryland Family Network, Cherry Hill Strong, and the Teach For America Baltimore Advisory Board. “Direct service in the classroom and communities have humanized the policy process for me.”