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• Save your valuable time by meeting with school representatives in live chat sessions. 
• Have a question or need help with your 2023-2024 OptomCAS application before the launch on June 29, 2023? This would be a great time to ask!
• Register Here! 

Check out our FutureEyeDoc website to get a head start on learning about Optometry! 

Welcome everyone to the FINAL week of the Tabletop Gaming Club!

Join us this Tuesday (5/09) and Thursday (5/11) from 7:00 pm – 10:00 pm in ILSB 118!

Thank you to everyone who showed up to last week trivia event which we hope you all had fun at! Congratulation to team Late Night who won the trivia event!

This week will be the final week of Tabletop Gaming Club for the semester. Sad, we know. But don’t worry, we’ll be back next semester before you know it, bigger and better.

We also send a farewell to everyone that are graduating this semester and hope you the best on your journey ahead and that you are still able to come to club occasionally. We would also like to shout out former President Matt Sachs and Vice President Bryce Witmer who are both graduating. Tabletop Gaming Club would not be the club it is today without either of you, so for that you two will be especially missed.

If you would like to give the new E-Board some feedback on what everyone thought went well and what you all wish could have happened, please fill out the fowling survey: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfX32u0_ydw05bZBfm1hT7r8QxHrixAmqIEvgH6d4Cc9F7T-g/viewform?usp=sf_link. Any feedback would be helpful. Thank you.

If you still want to play on, do not hesitate to reach out to other people in the discord to reach out to the community over the summer! We encourage you to use this space to advertise any games (online or in-person) that you want to run from now until our meetings in the fall! Regardless, best of luck to all of you on finals, and we hope you all have a fantastic summer break, and we see you next fall!

As always, we are bringing games for you to play, but feel free to bring your own! We strongly encourage people to show up with their favorite board games or D&D adventures!

If you want to join our social space and haven't already, the link to the Tabletop Gaming Club Discord is here.
 
See you this week!

Ify Jacob

Degree: B.S., Computer Engineering
Hometown: Gaithersburg, MD
Post-grad plans: Software engineer at Northrop Grumman

Ify Jacob’s mentors describe him as someone who has worked tirelessly to create community among Retrievers in on-campus student housing, particularly as they dealt with the challenges and traumas of COVID-19. Jacob currently serves as vice president of UMBC’s Residential Student Association, but his journey of leadership through service has taken place over the course of years at UMBC.

Jacob has served as a Welcome Week leader (known as a “Woolie”) and as an office assistant in Residential Life. On the academic side, he has been a teaching fellow in engineering and computer science courses. He has also served as captain for UMBC Men’s Club Soccer. 

Jacob also served in several leadership roles as a member of the Pi Kappa Phi fraternity, saying that joining the fraternity helped him to step outside of his comfort zone. “Being a member of Pi Kappa Phi gave me the confidence that I could adapt to any situation. The positions I held gave me firsthand leadership experience, which applies to my other campus roles,” says Jacob. 

Following a systems engineering internship at Northrop Grumman in summer 2022, coordinated with the support of UMBC’s Career Center, the company offered Jacob a full-time position. He will begin that role after graduation. 

Has there been a mentor or fellow student who influenced your time at UMBC?

“Jamie Gurganus ‘20, mechanical engineering, has been a professor, mentor, and advisor to me since my freshman year. I took her Introduction to Engineering course and she later gave me the opportunity to serve as a teaching fellow for the course, which I’ve done for four consecutive semesters. I’m also currently taking a two-semester seminar course that will lead to an associate undergraduate teaching certification through the Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning, facilitated by Dr. Gurganus. She has had a huge impact on my undergraduate experience, and I’m forever grateful for the opportunities she has given me.”

What has been the best part of your UMBC experience?

“The best part of my UMBC experience has been interacting, collaborating, and holding events with several student organizations, such as the Filipino American Student Association, the Vietnamese Student Association, Club Soccer, and my fraternity. UMBC, being as culturally diverse as it is, has given me the opportunity to look at life from different perspectives and have amazing experiences with great people. These organizations that I have been a part of have done big things for the community through their philanthropy events and finding great ways to raise awareness for real-world issues.”

New findings in Science co-authored by UMBC researchers reveal details of the complex relationship between atmospheric dust and vast populations of phytoplankton at the ocean’s surface. These tiny photosynthetic organisms form the foundation of the ocean food chain and play a key role in the global carbon cycle, so the new research will be especially useful as dust patterns shift with climate change.

“Phytoplankton photosynthesis is fundamental to Earth’s carbon cycle,” says Lorraine Remer, an atmospheric scientist with UMBC’s Goddard Earth Sciences Technology and Research (GESTAR) Center II and a co-author on the study. “Change dust patterns, and you change phytoplankton health, which will subsequently affect carbon,” she explains.

Desert dust impacts ocean ecosystems

While most nutrition for phytoplankton rises up from the deep ocean, a meaningful portion comes from dust that’s traveled through the atmosphere from the world’s deserts. That dust delivers vital nutrients when it’s deposited in the ocean, but scientists lacked specifics about how dust affects phytoplankton health and abundance.

With their new Science paper, the research team, led by Toby Westberry, an oceanographer at Oregon State University, became the first to find a phytoplankton response to dust deposition across the global oceans.

“This is really the first time it has been shown, using the modern observational record and at the global scale, that the nutrients carried by dust being deposited on the ocean are creating a response in the surface ocean biology,” Westberry said.

The team analyzed their model’s results in conjunction with satellite observations of phytoplankton around the world, revealing how dust is affecting ocean ecosystems. By developing a baseline understanding, scientists now have a better chance at predicting how phytoplankton will change when patterns of dust deposition change, which will have cascading effects throughout the ocean and beyond.

Models fill the gaps

For the new study, the Oregon State contributors focused on using the satellite data, which measures color changes in the ocean’s surface, to determine phytoplankton health and abundance across time and space.

Remer and UMBC researchers Yingxi Shi and Huisheng Bian focused on the dust model. “Determining how much dust is deposited into the ocean is hard, because much of the deposition occurs during rainstorms when satellites cannot see the dust. That is why we turned to a model,” Remer says. Remer and colleagues used observations to verify an existing NASA model before incorporating the model’s results into the study.

Combining their efforts, the research team found that dust’s effects on phytoplankton vary by region. Nearer the poles, more dust contributed to greater overall abundance of phytoplankton and improved health. Nearer the equator, dust primarily affected phytoplankton health and physiology, but not abundance.

Joining forces across scientific fields

The research team plans to continue to work together to better understand the relationship between dust and phytoplankton—and how it may change over time. They are particularly anticipating more advanced satellite data from NASA’s Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) satellite mission, some of which will be collected by the HARP2 instrument designed and built by UMBC.

There are many questions still to answer. “We still don’t understand how the specific nutrients in the dust become available to the phytoplankton in the water,” Remer says, “nor do we understand the role of individual dust sources providing specific nutrients to different regions of the ocean.”

Part of what made this work possible was collaboration between researchers in different fields. “One exciting aspect of this study was working with the oceanographers, who brought an entirely different perspective,” Remer says. “The scientific advances became possible only after the atmospheric scientists and oceanographers joined forces.”

It’s that interdisciplinary collaboration that will enable the team to continue asking and answering important questions about our global ecosystems.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) is hiring for its fall analyst internship program. Internships are paid and have the potential to be converted to a permanent position. In addition, the internship can be completed on either a full-time or part-time basis. The application will either close on Thursday, May 18 or when the first 250 applications have been submitted. For more information about GAO and its mission teams, see https://www.gao.gov/about/careers/our-teams. Below are the links to the applications.

 

Undergraduate Application: https://www.usajobs.gov/job/723633700

Connor McPherson

Degree: B.A., History; Minor in Naval Science
Hometown: Bel Air, MD
Post-grad plans: Surface Warfare Officer (Intel option), stationed in Yokosuka, Japan

As a student in the Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps (NROTC), Connor McPherson understands the implications of relationships—both friendly and hostile—between the United States and other countries. As a history major, he brings a historical perspective to how those complex relationships evolved.

He focused his studies on post-Cold War developments in Europe and East Asia, while also taking classes in Korean. His favorite class was a course on the U.S. intelligence community’s origins, operations, and management. Taught by Mary Laurents, Ph.D. ‘18, language, literacy, and culture, adjunct associate professor, the course gave him a historically-rooted understanding of the intelligence community he will ultimately join after graduation. 

McPherson’s choice of a history major was unusual for the NROTC program. “He speaks very eloquently about his passion for history and the value of his degree,” says Denise Meringolo, associate professor of history. McPherson says his studies have given him a better understanding of the culture and past of the regions of the world where he will work as a Navy officer. 

After graduation, McPherson will sail to Yokosuka, Japan, where he will serve as a surface warfare officer (intel option). He was awarded the fourth choice in the nation for his after-graduation Naval appointment, a recognition of his achievements.

Has there been a mentor or fellow student who influenced your time at UMBC?

“Prof. Van Wyck has been an inspiration to me because of the way he teaches his history classes. He truly cares about his students and gives feedback that helps their continued growth. It is that type of mentality that I hope to adopt and apply to the sailors I will lead in the near future.”

What has been the best part of your UMBC experience?

“Finding a sense of community and like-minded people as part of UMBC’s NROTC program has been an important aspect of my college experience. All the members of this organization are bound to one another through a commitment to serve our nation. NROTC members value the principles of honor, courage, and commitment, which in turn results in a group of highly motivated students who always strive for academic excellence. ”