It is back! Summer Scholarship!

Instructions for submitting an application for Summer 2022

• Completely fill out application form(s)
• Send recommendation letter to recommender, see attached form.
  • Those writing the recommendation letter must submit by the due date to edscholarship@umbc.edu
  • Recommendation email subject line should be as follows "Recommendations for [Student's Full Name]"

Applications are due April 4, 2022

Teacher Education Scholarship Program

The UMBC Education Department offers scholarships to undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in the Early Childhood, Elementary, Secondary, and TESOL programs. All students currently enrolled are eligible to apply.

Summer 2022: Click here to complete application form via google forms.

Study Abroad Application Deadline - Thursday!

If you are planning to participate in a study abroad program, UMBC's application deadline for Summer 2022, Fall 2022, and academic year 2022-23 programs is Thursday, March 10! If you have not yet completed the steps indicated in this myUMBC post from the Education Abroad office, be sure to do so as soon as possible. 

Programs that start in or after Spring 2023 have a separate deadline - the Education Abroad team can help with any questions or concerns you may have. 

USAJOBS Info Session and Application Tips - Thursday!

If you're considering a job with the federal government after graduation, you'll need to know how to use USAJOBS. From decoding the sometimes technical and confusing language in the job listings, to tailoring your resume and responding to online questionnaires, Thursday's online session will give attendees a good foundation for their future federal job searches. Learn more, and find out how to sign up, at the Career Center's myUMBC page.

Paid On-Campus Internships with Democracy and Civic Life

Thinking about an internship for the next academic year? Consider one of the three paid opportunities available from UMBC's Center for Democracy and Civic Life! The full-academic-year internships require a 15-20 hour/wk commitment, on average. The deadline to apply is April 4, 2022 - for more information, view the Center for Democracy and Civic Life's myUMBC post. 

Advising is Coming

Though it seems like we just started the Spring 2022 semester, advising for Fall 2022 is on the horizon. Stay tuned for more information! 

Upcoming Dates and Deadlines

• Now: Summer 2022 registration is open! If you're thinking about summer as an opportunity to catch up or get ahead in your studies, you can set up an advising appointment with Dr. Oyen using her Calendly link. 
• Thursday, March 10, 1pm: USAJOBS online info session [see above]
• Thursday, March 10: Study Abroad application deadline [see above]
• March 20-27: Spring break!

[thumbnail image ID: An aerial photograph taken on a misty morning, showing a road snaking along the crest of a series of hills on a tea plantation in Fujian, China. The road is lined with cherry trees, many of which are in brilliant pink bloom. In the distance are additional fog-shrouded mountains.]

UMBC researchers regularly share their work and expertise with the public through The Conversation—a nonprofit news outlet that provides current, informative content to news publications worldwide, free of charge. This week, these authors have hit a milestone: 224 Conversation articles written by 125 different UMBC researchers have earned a cumulative 10 million reads.

The stories offer context to current events, explain natural phenomena, introduce new research in an accessible way, and more. There’s even a Curious Kids section to answer the youngest readers’ questions.

The 10 million reads milestone demonstrates the commitment of UMBC researchers to sharing their expertise with the broader community. It also shows that UMBC researchers are helping meet public demand for high-quality content on timely topics.

“The Conversation helps us contribute to our public service mission as a public university,” says Karl V. Steiner, vice president for research. “This milestone underscores the importance of academic researchers actively participating in the public discourse of complex issues.”

Sebastian Deffner, physics, wrote a piece for The Conversation in 2017 explaining static electricity. Every winter, when dry air and static increase, the article gets a fresh boost of views. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

Career impact

Many readers have likely seen articles from The Conversation without realizing it, due to the free-to-republish model. Top republishers of UMBC’s Conversation content include Quartz, Smithsonian Magazine, Fast Company, Scientific American, Business Insider, andCNN, along with countless local newspapers around the nation. And these articles often inspire additional original news coverage on faculty research as well.

Charissa Cheah’s April 2021 Conversation article on anti-Asian violence and school safety was followed by related coverage on NBC News and WYPR. Photo by Crystal Tseng, courtesy Charissa Cheah.

The Conversation has a global impact. Forty-two percent of readers of UMBC-authored Conversation articles are based outside the U.S. Many of these readers are based in Canada, India, Australia, the United Kingdom, France, the Philippines, and Singapore, among other nations. They access both English-language content and UMBC articles that have been translated into other languages, such as Spanish and French.

The authors benefit, too. “Working with The Conversation taught me the ropes of writing for the general public,” says Zoë McLaren, associate professor of public policy. “It helped me develop a reputation as a respected COVID-19 expert. And it helped develop the skills I needed to be able to write for FiveThirtyEight, WIRED and The New York Times. The editors at The Conversation are knowledgeable and helpful and a real pleasure to work with.” 

McLaren has written nine Conversation articles on topics like the role of rapid tests for COVID-19 and how the clinical trials process works.

Katherine Seley-Radtke, professor of chemistry and biochemistry, has also had success with The Conversation. “The experience of writing several pieces for The Conversation has had a significant impact on my career,” she says. “Since publishing my first piece at the beginning of the pandemic, I have given more than 60 interviews for print, radio, and television.” 

As a medicinal chemist whose research group focuses on antiviral drug development, Seley-Radtke says, “it is important to have these types of platforms to help educate and inform the public.”

From technical to accessible

Even research areas that aren’t frequently in the news can find an enthusiastic audience on The Conversation. Preminda Jacob, associate professor of visual arts and associate dean of the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, has discovered this first-hand. With her expertise in the history of modern and contemporary art, Jacob’s articles in The Conversation have helped the public better understand artists’ social and political impacts.

Preminda Jacob (l) and Andrea Lorick (r) at at exhibition at UMBC’s Center for Art, Design, and Visual Culture. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

Mercedes Burns, assistant professor of biological sciences, studies the evolution of reproductive systems in arachnids commonly referred to as daddy longlegs. She published an article about the ability of some animal species to reproduce with just one parent’s genetic material. Published just before Christmas with the title “Virgin births from parthenogenesis,” the story garnered a huge readership. It subsequently appeared on CNN, Gizmodo, IFLScience, and more.

“I enjoy the challenge of taking technical writing and making it accessible for a wider audience,” says Burns, who is also very active within the science community on Twitter. She in part credits that public engagement for additional opportunities to comment on stories for The New York Times, The Atlantic, Science News, and Smithsonian Magazine.

Burns’s Conversation editor “gave me clear feedback over just two sessions, so I could easily make the changes she suggested,” she says. “All in all, I was glad to have a broader venue for my research, and the process wasn’t too complicated or time-consuming. I would certainly write a Conversation article again.”

Fostering public understanding

Richard Forno, principal lecturer and director of the cybersecurity graduate program, is one of UMBC’s most frequent contributors to The Conversation, writing on topics from election security to ransomware attacks. Forno views sharing his expertise as a civic duty, given cybersecurity threats facing the public. He sees The Conversation as an excellent way to connect with a broad range of readers.

“To me, what’s refreshing about The Conversation‘s role in the world—and why I appreciate contributing to it—is their commitment to providing easily accessible and jargon-free exploration and objective analysis of often-complex issues, technology, and events,” Forno says.

Richard Forno outside the Information Technology and Engineering Building. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

For example, an article by Priyanka Ranade ’18, M.S. ’19, information systems, a Ph.D. student in computer science, and Anupam Joshi and Tim Finin, professors of computer science and electrical engineering, discusses how artificial intelligence can generate fake reports about medical research, cyberattacks, and more, that fool even cybersecurity experts. Public understanding and vigilance around cybersecurity is critical in today’s world, but the issues can seem opaque to those outside the field unless communicated clearly.

“The Conversation reminds academics, researchers, and other experts that knowledge discovery is just as important as how it’s conveyed to others,” Forno says. “This work is so important to fostering public understanding and supporting a more informed global citizenry.” 

Banner image: Mercedes Burns (right) and Sarah Stellwagen at work in Burns’s laboratory. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

Donovin Acaro Smith ’21, geography and environmental studies, was 11 years old when he did something bold, but not out of the ordinary for him. It was a sunny day. His school was taking a class trip to the local swimming pool, and parents were welcome to join. Smith’s mother Sonia, thought there was a problem. As far as she knew, her son didn’t know how to swim; he however, disagreed. Along with some buddies, he sprinted and leaped into the pool water, as his mom screamed, “Noooooooo, Donovin!” 

But surprisingly, he wasn’t drowning, or even floating. He was swimming. It was a concerning, yet proud moment for his doting mother. 

As he grew older, Smith would find himself surviving other sink and swim moments in life—two gunshot wounds as a teenager left him with anxiety and PTSD that would stop him from leaving his house for a year. And just last year, he overcame another obstacle he previously thought insurmountable: graduating from college.

Smith while interning at the Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology (IMET).

Reimagining his future

In his late 20s, Smith followed in his maternal grandmother’s footsteps and pursued a new life focused around one goal: getting a four-year college degree. By the time he was 32, and after five internships in his field, he had a diploma in his hand and an unstoppable urge to keep moving forward.

Through his internships and connections in the Retriever Learning Center and Student Disability Services, Smith developed invaluable relationships with the people around him.

Matthew Baker, professor of geography and environmental systems, and associate dean of the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, and Smith’s mentor and teacher says, “given the challenges he faced at the outset of his undergraduate program at UMBC, what he’s achieved is probably one of the greatest success stories that I’ve experienced in my 20 years of instruction.”

Growth pains

Even though he grew up just 20 minutes away from UMBC, the institution wasn’t on Smith’s radar as a young man.

At 18, when some kids were moving into their college dorm rooms, Smith told his mom he was heading to a cookout with some friends, just minutes away from his grandmother’s place. Later that same night, he called to say that he was on his way to the hospital. He’d been shot twice, once in his left thigh, and once in his lower ribcage. 

The pain didn’t hit him right away, perhaps because gunshots weren’t new to Smith—when he was a child, he witnessed his father being shot. 

“Not to sound like a tough guy, but I guess those experiences from my dad numbed me—he was set up when I was four. Somebody came in and shot him and he fell off the balcony and ever since then he’s been a parapelegic. So when it happened to me,” says Smith, “it didn’t really hurt. I was just trying to control my breathing so I could make it to the hospital.”

Even after surviving his gunshot wounds, Smith says he struggled to find purpose and meaning in his life. Smith’s mother recalls, “after Donovin got shot, for like a year he wouldn’t go out. He stayed in so much he ended up having a vitamin D deficiency.”

“Whatever lifestyle [my father] indulged in at the time, I saw those things firsthand,” says Smith of his teenage years. “I guess once you keep seeing the same things over and over, it just sorta keeps resonating in you, so when I got to that age, I wanted to do the same thing,” even though his father frequently warned him away from it.

“Some things I was doing I didn’t feel right about, or I felt bad about. Maybe because of those circumstances, I was confused about what it means to be a human being,” he says.

But he kept the right people around him from the start. His mother’s positive influence, and the love and support of other family members helped Smith through his most turbulent years. 

A new mindset for a new environment

Smith wishes his interest in academics had started in high school. “I remember I used to walk into class, only thinking about getting through the day, I didn’t care what I learned about,” he says. “When I finally got to college, and I was in chemistry class, I could see how excited those students were to be in there. I just thought to myself, ‘Wow man, this is foreign to me.’ I wish I developed that attitude way earlier.” 

At first, he only saw higher education as a way to please his family, but eventually it became Smith’s own passion. When he graduated from high school, Smith enrolled in the Community College of Baltimore County (CCBC), eventually earning an associate’s degree. He then applied to a few four year institutions. When he got into UMBC, he recalls his mother saying, “Wow Donovin! You gotta do it.”

“At first, I was just [going to college] to keep my mother and grandmother off my back, and to try and make my father happy, to make sure he knew that I’m grateful for some of the mistakes he made for me to be where I’m at. Then, when I started believing this was real, and not some kind of unrealistic reach or a joke, I knew I was doing it for myself, too,” says Smith.

A humble approach to learning

But before he got to that stage, he had to work to adapt to a new atmosphere and new environment. “The biggest obstacle to be honest, for me, was building up my self-esteem and feeling comfortable in my own skin. My first couple of years were rough. Like I might get a B or a C and then maybe like two D’s or an E,” shares Smith. “I was going to tutoring, I was trying. But I noticed when my self-esteem went up, my grades improved and I skyrocketed and I never looked back.”

The moment he started believing he could succeed at UMBC inversely began after failing GES 286, a mapping class. He retook the class a second time with a friend, and “I felt way more comfortable,” says Smith. “When I started excelling in that class, that’s when I started feeling like I could do it,” he says.

Smith says he regularly reached out to friends for help studying and found a private tutor through Student Disability Services (SDS). “The Retriever Learning Center is where I did the majority of my tutoring and it was really helpful. But having anxiety and PTSD, I had to get my questions off. I was trying to survive,” Smith says. 

“But sometimes with so many students attending, there wasn’t enough time for me to get as much help as I wanted. Thankfully I was able to get accommodation from SDS who granted me an individual tutor which made a big difference.”

“One of the things that has impressed me about Donovin the entire time that he was here was his resilience,” says Baker in GES, “his ability to bounce back from challenges, his perseverance and his absolute, unwavering dedication towards reaching his goals and because of those things it was really easy to support him, and it became an obligation to see that he did well.”

Also helpful was Smith’s fearlessness in regards to asking questions. 

“He was always really clear about why he was asking what he was asking, and what he was trying to understand,” says Baker. “I think he was also willing to be humble about what he was learning so that he didn’t let embarrassment get in the way of his learning. As a result he made remarkable progress.”

Interning his way up

Smith, who is currently looking for a position in the conservation and environmental management field, began mastering these skills in a series of five internships.

In his first, under the wing of Baker, he researched sediment pollution in the Patapsco River. He also worked as a lab technician at the Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology. His most recent internship before graduation was at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, looking at the environmental influences on barnacles. 

“The most rewarding part for me was working next to and being close to doctors and biologists every day, asking them as many questions as I wanted so I could really learn from them,” says Smith. “It taught me that you have to keep building your skills, learning how to compile fragments of information that might coincide with one another,” he continues. 

Today, Smith sees his graduation from UMBC as his life’s crowning achievement. He describes his educational experience as a microcosm of his life as a whole. “There was a point at UMBC where my grades were looking so bad that I was about to switch to community college and try to come back. One of my highlights was being able to turn that around and just survive the tough academic atmosphere,” says Smith, who credits his mom, Baker, his friends, and some of UMBC’s organizations who helped him succeed. 

To anyone that finds themselves in a similar position to the one he was in before attending UMBC, Smith recommends perseverance: “Give yourself a chance, and time to grow on your own. Separate yourself from your friends and environment and try to look at life from as many positive angles as possible.”

Looking at her son’s achievements today, Smith’s mother Sonia says, “He’s on his way, he is on his way.”

*****

Header image: Baker and Smith meet up on campus in 2022. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11.