How to Vote

Polling Dates/Locations

In-Person voting 

• Monday, April 11 - Thursday, April 14, daily from 10 a.m. - 7 p.m.
• The Breezeway (located between the Commons and Academic Row)
• The Commons 
• Monday, April 11 - Thursday, April 14, daily from 1 p.m. - 7 p.m
• AOK Library Plaza
• Wednesday, April 13 from 9pm - 1am
• True Grits Dining Hall during Late Night

Candidates

At UMBC’s 2022 Presidential Faculty and Staff Awards (PFASA), Tamra Mendelson, professor of biological sciences and recipient of the 2022 – 2025 Presidential Teaching Professor Award, said she loves “getting to the core of a concept” in her research and teaching. In her large introductory biology courses, which Mendelson has been teaching with humor, creativity, and enthusiasm since her arrival on campus in 2006, the concept might be an idea like natural selection. But as awardee after awardee addressed the audience, both in person and online, it became clear that all shared the same “core concept” of UMBC: community.

“Teaching and research make me want to come to work every day, but it’s the community here, and Dr. Hrabowski in particular, who’ve made me want to come to UMBC every day,” Mendelson said.

Yonathan Zohar, professor and chair of marine biotechnology and the 2022 – 2025 Presidential Research Professor, added, “This recognition is not about me, it’s about us,” adapting the opening quote from President Hrabowski’s book, The Empowered University. Zohar’s work, nurtured diligently over more than three decades, has in the last few years brought in more than $10 million dollars of research funding, earned international awards, and is poised to reimagine the seafood industry as we know it.

And yet, Zohar says, “None of my research accomplishments would have been possible without the ‘about us’ spirit at UMBC—the spirit that together we can make everything and anything happen.”

Supporting each other

Helena Dahlen, executive administrative assistant in the Division of Information Technology and the 2022 – 2023 Presidential Distinguished Staff Award for Non-exempt Staff recipient, recalled becoming an active member of the community when she started at UMBC in 2015. She joined book clubs, participated in wellness events, attended lectures, and more.

“It felt like I had moved into a small community,” she says. “Almost like a village, surrounded by brilliant people of all ages.” The supportive environment has allowed Dahlen to do her best work at UMBC and to give back. She generously contributes her energy to programs like Retriever Essentials and the Maryland Charity Campaign, and she serves as president of the Non-exempt Staff Senate.

Finally, Michael Pound, director of environmental safety and health and the 2022 – 2023 Presidential Distinguished Staff Award recipient, got to the heart of the matter. Recalling the challenges of managing the university’s response to the pandemic with a team of dedicated colleagues, he says, “I just couldn’t be prouder to work with these great folks.”

Beyond imagination

The UMBC community, all of the awardees emphasized, has grown through years of thoughtful care and collaboration. It’s taken decades to cultivate the UMBC ethos of community support and shared leadership.

“It’s hard to express how far we’ve come,” reflected President Hrabowski, as he offered remarks at his final PFASA as UMBC president. “Growing up, I could never have imagined the concept of UMBC—people from all over the world coming to study, to seek the truth, to get to know people different from themselves.” 

UMBC’s newest awardees highlighted how that vision has become a reality, and Pres. Hrabowski honored all that they have contributed. “Leadership isn’t about one person at the top; it’s about what we all do,” Hrabowski said. “When we say we care about UMBC, what we’re saying is we care about each other.”

Honoring excellence

UMBC’s other named awards honor members of the UMBC community who embody the university’s ethos, such as Diane Lee, retired vice provost and dean of undergraduate education; Marilyn E. Demorest, professor emerita of psychology and former vice provost for faculty affairs; and Teresa Lupinek, the late former executive administrative assistant to the president. This year’s recipients include:

Mark Berczynski, M.S. ’17, lecturer, engineering and computing education program
Diane M. Lee Teaching Award

Danyelle Tauryce Ireland, associate director, Center for Women in Technology
Jakubik Family Endowment Staff Award

Nichole Zang Do, M.A. ’15, program management specialist, biological sciences
Karen L. Wensch Endowment Award for Outstanding Non-exempt Staff

C. Jill Randles, assistant vice provost and assistant dean, Academic Engagement and Transition Programs
Teresa Lupinek Endowment Award

Tamara Bhalla, associate professor, American studies
Marilyn E. Demorest Award for Faculty Advancement

Margaret Holland, associate professor, geography and environmental systems
Marilyn E. Demorest Award for Faculty Advancement

Narsingh B. Singh, research professor, chemistry and biochemistry, and affiliate faculty, computer science and electrical engineering
UMBC Research Faculty Excellence Award

USM Board of Regents awardees

This year, UMBC also had two University System of Maryland (USM) Board of Regents Award recipients. These awards represent the highest honor bestowed on faculty and staff across the USM by the Board of Regents. Awardees are selected by the Council of University System Staff and approved by the Board. The awards recognize faculty and staff for excellence in teaching; research, scholarship, and creative activity; public service; mentoring; or innovation. 

UMBC has received an outsize share of these awards over the years, demonstrating the strength of our faculty and staff across all areas of achievement. This year, Marjoleine Kars, professor of history, received the 2022 USM Board of Regents Award for Excellence in Scholarship. Her latest book, Blood on the River: A Chronicle of Mutiny and Freedom on the Wild Coast, has received widespread acclaim for its discussion of a nearly successful rebellion of enslaved African and Indigenous people in the Dutch colony of Berbice in the 1860s.   

Lee Blaney, associate professor of chemical, biochemical, and environmental engineering, received the 2022 USM Board of Regents Award for Excellence in Teaching. Blaney has received awards previously for exceptional mentoring and for engaging his students in high-impact research. His laboratory focuses on contaminants of emerging concern, such as compounds found in pharmaceuticals and personal care products, in waterways such as Chesapeake Bay.

Celebrating together

This year’s ceremony was the first in-person PFASA event since 2019. With that in mind, the ceremony also honored awardees from 2020 and 2021.

Victor Fulda, engineering technician, chemical, biochemical, and environmental engineering
2021 University System of Maryland Board of Regents Award for Exceptional Contribution to the Institution or Unit to which the Person Belongs

Jamie Gurganus ‘04, M.S. ‘11, Ph.D. ‘20; faculty, mechanical engineering; associate director, engineering education initiatives; and director, Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning
2020 – 2021 Diane M. Lee Teaching Award

Jonathan Zwi, instructor and affiliate artist, music
2020 – 2021 Diane M. Lee Teaching Award

Header image: Recipients of awards who accepted them in person at this year’s PFASA. From left to right: Marjoleine Kars, Michael Pound, Jamie Gurganus, Maggie Holland, Nichole Zang Do, Jill Randles, Danyelle Ireland, Tamra Mendelson, Yonathan Zohar, Helena Dahlen, Freeman Hrabowski, Tamara Bhalla, Victor Fulda, Jonanthan Zwi, Narsingh Singh, Lee Blaney, Philip Rous.

All photos by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

A new study published in Genes may eventually give doctors the ability to make better-informed decisions about which medications to prescribe for older adults. The research, led by Mariann Gabrawy, Ph.D. ’18, biological sciences, in the lab of UMBC Prof. Jeff Leips, found associations between particular genes and individuals’ responses to a common blood pressure medication, Lisinopril. The drug also sometimes improves mobility and physical performance in older adults—but sometimes it makes things worse.

Better understanding the relationship between genetics and drug responses would help doctors prescribe drugs they know are likely to help, rather than relying on trial and error. Moving forward, researchers could employ the same experimental process Gabrawy used for other drugs.

“Our genetics matters,” says Gabrawy, who completed the research at UMBC as part of her Ph.D. dissertation as a Meyerhoff Graduate Fellow, with a UMBC-Johns Hopkins research team. “Humans don’t all react the same to various prescription medications. So it’s really important to be able to look at an individual patient and figure out if some particular medication is going to work for them or not.”

Super flies

Gabrawy’s study tested the effects of Lisinopril on more than 10,000 individuals’ ability to walk and climb. What made a study of such massive scale possible? The individuals were fruit flies. Gabrawy and a team of UMBC undergraduates used a unique experimental technique to test each individual fly’s walking and climbing ability multiple times. Gabrawy developed the technique and debuted it in a previous paper.

Why is it useful to study drug responses in fruit flies? Humans and fruit flies share about 75 percent of the genes involved in disease, Gabrawy says. And the genes that she and colleagues identified as relevant to the drug response all have parallel genes in humans. 

Flies also have a short lifespan, they’re inexpensive, and they’re easy to take care of, making them ideal for laboratory work. Plus, as a workhorse model species, there are hundreds of well-defined genetic lines of fruit flies that are easy to acquire, and genetic tools are readily available to apply to the fly genome.

However, of course, “You can’t just jump from a fly study to a human study,” Gabrawy says. The likely next step for studying the relationships between Lisinopril and different genes would be a mouse study, to eventually be followed by human studies. But by looking at so many flies, and identifying important gene candidates, this study “lays down a necessary foundation,” Gabrawy says.

Breaking down silos

The project also deepened ties between UMBC and Johns Hopkins University. Gabrawy was co-advised by Leips at UMBC and Peter Abadir, associate professor of geriatric medicine at Hopkins, during her Ph.D. Both are authors on the new paper.

“Research now is never one person or one research group working in a silo,” Abadir says. “I love how this research allowed us to break down the silos between UMBC and Hopkins and see the great things that each of us is doing on our campuses and what we can learn from each other.”

For example, “Mariann was able to take measures that we carry out in humans and create an analogous measure in fruit flies,” Abadir says. “That’s the beauty of working together.”

From left to right: Jeff Leips, Mariann Gabrawy, and Peter Abadir celebrate with Gabrawy at her UMBC graduation. Photo courtesy Mariann Gabrawy.

A close-knit team

Abadir was also impressed by the strength of the undergraduate researchers at UMBC, several of whom are authors on the new paper. 

Leips has supported undergraduates in his research group for decades. “Kudos to them for not just doing the day-to-day work, but also contributing intellectually to the research,” Leips says of the undergraduate authors. “That’s one of the strengths of UMBC and the student population here—they really engage with the research and become real researchers.”

Gabrawy trained all 17 undergraduates who supported the work herself. Because of their efforts, collecting data took only one year, when it otherwise would have taken at least three. She still keeps in touch with her students; a few even followed her to Johns Hopkins as volunteer research assistants when she completed a postdoctoral fellowship there. Today, most of the 17 are pursuing medical or graduate school.

“It’s a beautiful thing to see that they have also found their own successes within and beyond UMBC,” Gabrawy says, “and to know that I’ve been a part of that in some small way. Mentoring has always been very important to me.”

Gabrawy has taken that spirit to her current role as a lecturer at St. Paul College in Minnesota. She is currently applying for funding to grow the college’s undergraduate research program.

Mariann Gabrawy, second from left, with four of the 17 undergraduates who contributed to the current paper. Photo courtesy Mariann Gabrawy.

Limitless possibilities

Gabrawy is focused on teaching for now, but there are plenty of opportunities to extend the work in her new paper. “One avenue of future work is to look at the mechanism,” Leips says. “We have this tie between genes and traits, but how exactly does that work at the molecular level?”

Whether or not Gabrawy and Leips pursue that question themselves, they’ve set the stage for others to do so. “The coolest part is the ability to share our findings and our data,” Gabrawy says. “We’ve provided really very important fundamental information to other scientists out there. ­The possibilities for future work are truly limitless.”

Header image: A student in Jeff Leips’s laboratory observes fruit flies under a microscope. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

Description: Hello All! As some of you may know, the University System of Maryland Student Council's President and Vice President of Undergraduate Affairs would like to recognize 2 undergraduates at UMBC for their leadership, civic engagement, and general contributions to the UMBC community and system. We have been kindly asked to participate in the selection process. So, if you know one or up to two people who would fit this criterion use this form to nominate them. The deadline for nominations is April 15th at 11:59 pm.