On May 30, Kelley Bell, M.F.A. ’06, associate professor of visual arts, was named one of the six 2024 Baker Artist Awardees, receiving the $10,000 Mary Sawyers Baker Prize. The awardees were selected by an anonymous jury from a field of almost 700 artists from across the greater Baltimore region. Corrie Francis Parks, associate professor of visual arts, and Katie Hileman ’12, theatre, and general associate in the department of theatre, were among the finalists for the prestigious 2024 Baker Artist Award.

Established in 2009, the Baker Artist program was created to support artists and promote greater Baltimore as a strong creative community. Since then, more than 150 artists have been awarded $1.3 million in grant money. The program was established by the William G. Baker, Jr. Memorial Fund and is managed by the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance.

As part of the Baker program, artists across six disciplines—visual arts, film/video, interdisciplinary, literary arts, performance, and music—are invited to establish online portfolios of their work, which are housed on the Baker Artist Awards website. The 2024 portfolios, numbering more than 700, were reviewed by an anonymous jury which selected the 36 finalists. One artist in each of the disciplines was awarded the $10,000 Mary Sawyers Baker prize, and one of those six awardees was selected to receive the additional $30,000 Mary Sawyers Imboden prize.

The work of Bell, Parks, Hileman, and other finalists will be featured in a series of finalist showcases. Kelley Bell’s work (in the interdisciplinary category) will be on display at Current Space from April 20 to June 2; Katie Hileman’s work (in the performance category) will be featured at Theatre Project on April 27 at 7:30 p.m. and on April 28 at 4 p.m. The showcase that will feature the work of Corrie Parks (and others in the film/video category) has yet to be scheduled.

UMBC is no stranger to the Baker Artist Awards. Previous recipients have included:

• 2011—Andrew Liang, M.F.A. ’24 ($1,000 b-grant)
• 2013—Jenny O’Grady, assistant vice president, strategic content ($1,000 b-grant)
• 2015—Eric Dyer ’95, visual arts, and professor, visual arts ($25,000 Mary Sawyers Baker prize); and Dominique Zeltzman, M.F.A. ’14, ($5,000 Nancy Haragan award)
• 2018—Lafayette Gilchrist ’92 ($10,000 Mary Sawyers Baker prize)
• 2021—Rahne Alexander, M.F.A. ’21, ($2,500 Baker Artist award); and Mina Cheon, M.F.A. ’02 ($2,500 Baker Artist award)

“Being counted among the 2024 Mary Sawyers Baker Prize awardees is amazing,” said Bell. “I am fiercely proud to call Baltimore my home and inspirational wellspring—it‘s a city like no other, and there is no other creative community I‘d rather be a part of. My colleagues from CAHSS, Katie Hileman and Corrie Francis Parks, were also included in the finalist‘s circle for this prestigious acknowledgment, and that’s a testament to the wonderful things that can happen when UMBC supports and invests in the arts and culture—our colleagues, our institution, and our city all reap the benefits of an active and vibrant creative community.”

Bell’s work will be featured in an exhibition of works by Baker Award recipients at the Baltimore Museum of Art in spring 2025.

About The Gallery:
For over 35 years, we have been helping our clients create beautiful and unique collections. With three gallery locations, we house the largest collection of art in the Mid-Atlantic region. We are dedicated to providing our clients with the highest standards of service and finest artwork and custom framing available. We are looking for a talented and detailed oriented individual to join our team as an Art Photo Editor/Art Handler!

Responsibilities:

Color correct artwork photographs in Photoshop for accurate representation

Graduate Students, 

We are reaching out to introduce an exciting opportunity for you and your mentor to enhance your mentoring relationship through the Ph.D. Mentoring Workshop from MORE (Mentoring Others Results in Excellence).

The MORE Ph.D. Mentoring Workshop seeks to establish an environment where Ph.D. students and their faculty mentors can gather to improve the depth and productivity of their mentoring relationships through an afternoon of learning and engagement.

When: May 3, 2024, noon to 3:45 p.m.

Where: bwTech@UMBC South Campus, 1450 South Rolling Road, Baltimore, MD 21227

Here's how you can get involved:

Talk to Your Mentor:

We encourage you to initiate a conversation with your mentor about the MORE Ph.D. Mentoring Workshop. Below is a sample email message that you can use as a template:

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Subject: Opportunity to grow mentoring skills

Dear [Mentor's Name],

I hope this email finds you well. I wanted to bring to your attention an opportunity I'd like to explore with you. The Ph.D. Mentoring Workshop from MORE (Mentoring Others Results in Excellence) is a new program available to PhD students and their mentors at UMBC, and I believe it could greatly benefit my graduate studies. I am particularly interested in learning how to be a good mentor and learn how you have established (and evolved) your mentoring philosophy.

According to the announcement about this workshop, the MORE Ph.D. Mentoring Workshop seeks to establish an environment where Ph.D. students and their faculty mentors can gather to improve the depth and productivity of their mentoring relationships through an afternoon of learning and engagement. It will take place on May 3rd, 12-3:45pm.

Would you be open to exploring this opportunity with me?  You can learn more about it and fill out the application form here.The process requires the faculty mentor (not the graduate student) to enroll by April 19. I am eager to hear your thoughts.

Thank you for considering this, and I look forward to discussing it further.

Best regards,

[Your Name]

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Seek Assistance from the Graduate School CARE Team:

If you feel nervous about initiating this conversation with your mentor but are still interested in participating in the training together, you can reach out to a member of the Graduate School CARE team at gscare@umbc.edu. They can make a kind suggestion to your mentor on your behalf, encouraging them to consider participating in the training with you.

Interested? Click here for more details. Participation is limited, so please be sure to inform your mentors to apply by Friday, April 19, 2024, to be considered.

Resume to CV Workshop

Ramana Vinjamuri, associate professor in computer science and electrical engineering, recently received funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to support UMBC’s participation in a industry-university cooperative research center aiming to improve how we diagnose and treat people with conditions such as neurological disorders, brain injury, mental illness, limb loss, and paralysis. The center, called BRAIN (Building Reliable Advances and Innovations in Neurotechnology), brings together partners from academia, industry, and the regulatory and clinical communities to develop safe, effective, and affordable personalized neurotechnologies.

The need for such technologies is driven by an increase in survivable trauma and an aging population, Vinjamuri says. However, several challenges are holding back progress, including costly equipment, lagging standards for verifying the safety, efficacy, and reliability of devices, and an undersupply of physicians and engineers trained in emerging technologies.  

The BRAIN Center aims to tackle these challenges by bringing together experts in a wide range of topics, from neural, cognitive, and rehabilitation engineering to neurorobotics, neuromodulation, and ethical artificial intelligence. As an Industry–University Cooperative Research Center (I/UCRC), it emphasizes academic research conducted jointly with innovative industry partners, and UMBC’s location will facilitate cooperation with northeast-based biomedical companies.

“BRAIN will become a neurotechnology hub by creating a pipeline from discoveries to solutions, while helping students, scientists, and engineers solve one of the greatest unmet medical and healthcare needs of our time,” Vinjamuri says. 

UMBC’s participation will expand the center’s research into new areas such as artificial intelligence, neural signal processing, cyber-human systems, human-centered computing, neural imaging and stimulation, and virtual/augmented/mixed reality. Other UMBC researchers who will contribute to the center’s activities include Tulay Adali, Nilanjan Banerjee, Fow-sen Choa, Don Engel, Seung-Jun Kim, and Charles Nicholas. BRAIN is the second I/UCRC at UMBC, joining the Center for Accelerated Real Time Analytics (CARTA), which recently received a second round of funding.

SUBMIT YOUR NOMINATION HERE!