The Black Applied Behavior Analyst (BABA) International Conference is set to take place in Baltimore, MD, from July 19th to 21st! The conference offers the perfect opportunity to learn from leaders in the field, connect with peers, and gain valuable insights into behavior analysis. To learn more about this opportunity, please use the QR code provided on the flyer or this link.
UMBC’s strength in environmental research spans all three colleges and the university’s NASA-partnered centers, and Earth Day is always a special time on campus. This year, UMBC partnered with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to host more events than ever before. A committee led at UMBC by Rhonda Plofkin, a Ph.D. student in geography and environmental systems (GES), organized 18 events throughout the month of April.
Volunteers led by enthusiastic students and Office of Sustainability staff removed invasive plants on campus; a panel at the AOK Library & Gallery discussed how various disciplines, including the arts, can engage with environmental conservation; the UMBC community watched a partial solar eclipse on campus; and much more.
The month of festivities culminated with the 8th Annual Earth Day Symposium on April 29, organized by graduate students in atmospheric physics and geography and environmental systems (GES). Nearly 150 attendees from at least six universities and five federal agencies gave talks, participated in panel discussions, presented 26 research posters, and even went on a hike through UMBC’s Conservation and Environmental Research Area on an unseasonably warm day.
“A tradition we are really proud of is that this event is 100 percent planned and implemented by our graduate students,” shared Zhibo Zhang, professor of physics at UMBC. He noted the event not only benefits the attendees, but also the planning team. “I’ve seen their confidence grow every day as the event came together,” Zhang says.
“It has been a great experience for us to invite such a wide range of people with shared enthusiasm for Earth science to UMBC,” shares Kamal Aryal, Ph.D. student in atmospheric physics and the lead organizer for the Earth Day Symposium. “Having students, early career scientists, and university professors from many universities and from NASA’s PACE mission, including the lead project scientist for PACE, attend our symposium creates great opportunities for networking and professional development.”
Planning committee members for the Earth Day Symposium and other Earth Day events with President Valerie Sheares Ashby. Left to right: Sharad Pandey, Adeleke Segun Ademakinwa, Kamal Aryal, Tony La Luna, Roshan Mishra, Rhonda Plofkin, Valerie Sheares Ashby, Tolulope Ale, Erin Hamner, and Maurice Roots. (Image by Zhibo Zhang)
First organized in 2017, the Earth Day Symposium has grown in stature, size, and scope every year. This year’s theme was “monitoring planetary health,” a nod to the recently-launched NASA PACE mission carrying HARP2, a polarimeter designed and built at UMBC. HARP2 will improve our understanding of the roles various particles in the atmosphere—like dust, water vapor, and pollutants—play in climate and health. Previous symposium themes have included the environmental impacts of COVID-19, the synergy of scientific disciplines, and equity and environmental justice.
Vanderlei Martins, professor of physics at UMBC and the HARP2 team lead, gave the first presentation, which was followed later in the morning by a panel discussion including PACE scientists from UMBC, NASA, and Morgan State University.
The three main instruments on PACE have complementary roles. Each sees Earth a little differently, and will provide important data on plankton populations in the ocean, the role of clouds in Earth’s energy balance, and much more. “Each of these instruments is unique, and together, they are amazing,” Martins says. HARP2 “has capabilities we’ve never had before,” he adds. “I cannot even imagine everything we are going to learn.”
Between Martins’ talk and the panel, Vanessa Vargas-Nguyen, a researcher with the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES), discussed her work on monitoring the health of the Chesapeake Bay watershed. UMCES produces one of several report cards for the Chesapeake Bay, collecting data on everything from populations of bottom-dwelling critters to concentrations of elements like phosphorus and nitrogen, which are commonly found in fertilizers. Now Vargas-Nguyen is expanding her group’s work to look at the entire watershed more holistically, including adding social factors like economic activity, governance structures, and population density.
Panelists discussed the PACE mission. From left to right: Ivona Cetinic, senior research scientist with Morgan State University through the Goddard Earth Science and Technology Research Center (GESTAR) II; Susanne Craig, scientist with UMBC through GESTAR II; Kirk Knobelspiesse, researcher at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center; Pengwang Zhai, professor of physics at UMBC; and Jeremy Werdell, project scientist for the PACE mission at NASA. (Photo by Kamal Aryal)
After the post-lunch hike, a poster session featured student and faculty research from UMBC, NASA, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Jing Wei, from the University of Maryland, College Park, discussed remote sensing methods for monitoring air pollution, and Robert Foster, from the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, explained his work on monitoring microplastics in the ocean. Kandis Boyd, from the EPA, emphasized the importance of interdisciplinary and cross-sector partnerships.
Throughout the day, the ballroom buzzed with energy as students, UMBC faculty, and researchers from around the region shared their science and connected with each other. A shared sense of purpose guided the event, grounded in UMBC’s commitment to promoting a sustainable future.
As Charles Ichoku, director of the Goddard Earth Science and Technology Research Center II, one of UMBC’s NASA partnerships, and a professor of GES, put it, “UMBC is a young university that does great things.”
Whether taking immediate action to improve the campus landscape, conducting research on global climate, or training the next generation of Earth scientists, the month of Earth Day events demonstrates how UMBC has positioned itself as a hub for environmental action.
]]>
The American Political Science Review, the leading political science peer-reviewed journal, published “Social Capital, Institutional Rules, and Constitutional Amendment Rates,” a new research article by lead author William Blake, associate professor and associate chair of political science.
The study addressed why some constitutions are amended more frequently than others. The team gathered data from democratic constitutions worldwide and U.S. state constitutions for a cross-sectional and longitudinal analysis of the effect social capital has on how often constitutions are amended. The findings show social capital like group membership, civic activism, and political trust can create a more favorable political environment for amending constitutions.
“Unlike previous studies, we demonstrate how these factors affect constitutional reform over time and across the stages of the amendment process,” the authors write. “We also build upon prior research that finds social capital facilitates social movement organization and elite coalition formation.”
The research was inspired by Blake’s Contemporary Constitutional Conflict honors seminar. “The students read and critiqued a flawed article looking at the effect of constitutional culture on amendment frequency, which led me to think that I could conduct a better study,” says Blake. He also assigned a draft of the article the next time he taught the seminar. The students of the Honors College received an acknowledgment in the article.
Blake’s “Women and Employment Laws in the Early 20th Century” class on laws regulating minimum wages and maximum hours for female workers on C-SPAN’s “Lectures in History” series. (Marlayna Demond ’11/UMBC)
Blake is the only UMBC faculty to publish in The American Political Science Review since Nicolas Miller, professor emeritus of political science, published “Pluralism and Social Choice” in 1983.
Blake’s co-authors for the journal article are Joseph Francesco Cozza, assistant teaching professor of political science and associate director of the Politics, Law, and Social Thought program at Rice University; David A. Armstrong II, associate professor of political science at The University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee; and Amanda Friesen, Canada research chair in political psychology at Western University in Canada.
Watch Blake’s “Women and Employment Laws in the Early 20th Century” class on laws regulating minimum wages and maximum hours for female workers on C-SPAN’s “Lectures in History” series. Enroll in his POLI 220: The Constitution and American Democracy summer course.
]]>By: Jake Jackson
Photo Credit: Obi Mukhopadhyay
What is your name, year, and expected graduation? Are you a member of any clubs or organizations in or outside of UMBC?
Daniel Lee, 25 Fall 2024. I used to be an active member of the Smash club and the occasional KSA and JSA. I work at Starbucks, but I guess that’s not really being a part of an organization.
When you were finishing up high school and looking into colleges was MCS your first choice for studies? If so what drew you in to studying MCS and If not what was your original major and what made you switch over to MCS?
MCS was not my first choice. I saw that UMBC had a great comp sci program so I thought I’d go ahead and take advantage of that. But as I had to do projects, I realized that I didn’t have the patience to trial and error every single step or have to scrutinize every micro detail to see if that broke my entire code. So I thought I’d move to sociology since I was more interested in why people operate the way they do. But that also made me realize that I wanted to interact with groups of people instead of looking at society as a whole. I also wanted to be more hands-on instead of being more focused on research. After a while, I looked at MCS and found that there are some core classes that I found a lot of interest in. I might have switched yet again, but ever since the pandemic, I really saw the importance of social media and how it’s going to overtake traditional media. MCS, to me, is the perfect degree to study this phenomenon and even participate in it.
What is your desired career path post graduation and how have you felt the MCS program has prepared you for this line of work?
My first goal is to be a social media manager. After that, I’d have to see what parts of managing a company’s social media would take me. Because of the amount of skills you’d have to learn to fill in the gaps of a company’s weakness, I could either push for something more creative by becoming a more prolific video editor or I could focus more on becoming an event planner or something else I didn’t foresee.
I’d say MCS 355 was probably the most important part that prepared me for it because it introduced to me the process of proposing a social media campaign to a company that doesn’t have a strong social media presence. It also taught me how there’s so many little things to take note of when building your platform.
Have you been able to do any MCS related work or internships while you have been a student at UMBC?
I’ve only been able to be a part of the MCS Campaign team or MCS 480. Since I also have to pay for my rent and bills, I’ve had to work alongside being a full-time student even before I had enough experience to start applying.
What has been impactful thus far in your learning? Favorite class or a class that you felt taught you valuable skills?
I’d say MCS 377 (Making Visual Culture) with Professor Anchor. Learning the basics of a variety of Adobe programs gives me an idea of how to make a variety of content and what aspects I need to pay attention to. I’ve had vague ideas of what makes some content go viral so seeing the little details and getting some practice has been pretty helpful.
How has the MCS program shaped how you view and understand media?
Starting off with understanding communication at its rudimentary was probably what helped me shape my understanding of media. Learning the fundamentals will let you better understand how the landscape of media changes and what you should do to account for it. History is always boring, but MCS managed to leverage it in a way that made the theories that have been developed over time applicable to important moments.
Have you felt that the MCS program has prepared you for a job in the ever changing landscape of social media?
I’d say so because the classes I’ve taken in the 300+ levels feel relevant to what we’re taking today. Things like learning how to use modern creative software like Adobe Photoshop and Audition or what an employer would potentially search for and how to set up your portfolio to best display your skills. Although, I’d attribute the preparation more to talking to the professors since they’ve talked about their experience with what it’s like looking for work and how that landscape has changed ever since they first started their search. Even if a topic may be loosely related to what they’ve experienced, they will always have something more to expand upon if you asked.
What is some advice you might have for incoming MCS Students or students who might be undecided but are considering MCS?
For incoming MCS students, my advice is to look at what creative software UMBC has. Find where you can experiment with Adobe Premiere Pro or Photoshop. That stuff isn’t cheap and you have access to it for free. Another piece of advice is to REALLY connect with your professors. I know it’s generic advice, but for MCS, it’s a communication based degree. If you graduate and you haven’t made any connections with people who’ve been in the field, you’re going to struggle a lot, not only professionally, but creatively as well. The MCS professors have years of their own experience separate from UMBC and are actively working on their own projects and collaborations along with being a professor. They, at the very least, have a lot of insight for something you would work on.
For those undecided, MCS will at least give you things to think about for things we do every day. Learning how communication is carried out, what gives a group of words such importance.
