Since it launched at UMBC in 1997, the MARC U*STAR Program has connected nearly 500 hundred UMBC students with research opportunities and invaluable support. After years of remarkable results, the program is now at an important moment of transition.

MARC U*STAR stands for Maximizing Access to Research Careers Undergraduate Student Training in Academic Research. The NIH program was founded on three key elements that are proven to increase students’ persistence and success in research careers, especially for students from underrepresented groups in biomedical sciences. These elements include recognizing and recruiting outstanding, passionate students; offering excellent research mentorship; and providing strong administrative support and advising.

A striking 95 percent of UMBC’s MARC U*STAR Scholars have graduated with STEM degrees, around double the national rate for students who begin STEM programs. And 91 percent have continued their education in graduate programs, with 80 percent pursuing Ph.D., M.D./Ph.D., or M.D. degrees. UMBC’s MARC U*STAR graduates have been almost five times more likely to attend graduate school than their academically comparable peers.

“If I was not a part of the MARC program, I would not be where I am today,” says Robin Bailey ’20, biological sciences. Today, she is about to graduate from UMBC having presented her research at national conferences and written two academic papers. She spent a summer researching at Harvard, and now has committed to pursuing her Ph.D. in cellular and molecular biology at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine.

Bailey’s experience is a familiar one in UMBC’s MARC U*STAR program. This unequivocal, long-term success is not an accident. 

Growth mindset

As the final year of the current MARC U*STAR grant comes to a close this May, UMBC has received a new five-year grant from the NIH. This new grant is part of the Undergraduate Research Training Initiative for Student Enhancement (U-RISE). It will build on the strong legacy of MARC U*STAR at UMBC, providing $7.7 million over five years to support the same activities offered by MARC U*STAR, plus a few more.

“The MARC grant is 23 years old, and it’s had great success,” says Phyllis Robinson, program director for MARC U*STAR at UMBC and lead on the new U-RISE grant. “So we’re going to take all the good things, and then add a few new things.”

MARC U*STAR provides students intensive academic advising and funding for conference travel and toward tuition. Advising includes traditional guidance on course selection, as well as support in preparing for and obtaining research positions and help with the graduate school application process. Monthly lectures from external STEM professionals connect the scholars with experts in various fields and give them opportunities to network.

Nurturing student passion

Perhaps most importantly, the MARC program helps create a sense of community among the scholars. “Being a part of the MARC family is advantageous not only because you’re getting extra support to go to conferences, but you’re surrounded by all these people that are interested in science and want to improve people’s lives with science,” reflects Andreas Seas ’17, biochemical engineering.

Seas particularly notes the support of Lasse Lindahl, Robinson’s predecessor; Jackie King, assistant director of the MARC U*STAR program at UMBC; and his peers and research mentors. Today, Seas is pursuing an M.D./Ph.D. degree at Duke University.

“The MARC program solidified my love for research and science,” adds Erwin Cabrera ’10, biological sciences. “It provided me with the mentoring and one-on-one advising that was pivotal in my success at UMBC.” Cabrera is paying that mentorship forward in his current role as director of the Research Aligned Mentorship Program at Farmingdale State College in New York.

MARC U*STAR Scholar Erwin Cabrera ’10, biological sciences. Photo courtesy Erwin Cabrera.

 Resilience on the rise

The new U-RISE funding will offer all of the same programming as MARC for up to 35 students per year. On top of that, U-RISE Scholars will participate in two training workshops. One will examine rigor and reproducibility in research. The other will focus on how to work with big data, which has become ubiquitous in so many research fields. U-RISE will also fund training for faculty mentors in how to best support their diverse mentees. 

Current MARC Scholars will be able to continue with the program through graduation.

This is all heartening news for Bailey. “The MARC program has provided me with countless opportunities to improve my skills in the laboratory and develop a scientific mind. The program also pushes MARC Scholars to show proof of these skills at scientific conferences,” she says. “Where I once lacked confidence in my ability to think critically and present publicly, I now have a resilient drive to overcome obstacles.”

Until now, “for students who want to pursue a research career in biomedical sciences, the MARC program has been the place to be,” Bailey says. Now, that place will be U-RISE.

While the name will be new after 2020, the work and commitment of faculty mentors and advising staff will hold steady. Under Robinson’s leadership, they’ll continue to help UMBC students see themselves as future leading scientists and find their paths to research careers.

[Article by Sarah Hansen originally posted on UMBC News website]

This story was written by Megan Hanks and first appeared on news.umbc.edu

Jianwu Wang, assistant professor of information systems, is the most recent UMBC faculty member to receive a prestigious CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Wang’s NSF grant totals more than $500,000 over five years. It will support his work to develop more efficient and reproducible causality analytics for use in climate science.

Understanding cause and effect is fundamental to research in many disciplines. There are some unique challenges in using climate data to discover cause-effect relationships. Wang explains that Earth changes so rapidly that climate scientists studying it must continuously capture a huge volume of data. Each point in time yields distinct information about the planet’s environment, and there is no way to retest the climate to confirm causal relationships. 

Rapidly available climate data can be challenging for researchers to keep up with, explains Wang. “Computation and data techniques have become the third and fourth paradigm for science in many disciplines,” he says. “The novel computational and data science techniques we will study through this award could help climate or Earth scientists to quickly find interesting patterns from data and use data to conduct hypothesis testing.” 

Using big data to study Earth

Wang is exploring new ways of applying artificial intelligence and data science to studying Earth and its climate system. He has collaborated with faculty across UMBC, including in the physics department and the Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology, where he is an affiliated faculty member. These connections have helped him better understand the needs of climate scientists. 

Recent advances in artificial intelligence and data science give hope to studying Earth from a data-driven perspective. Yet climate scientists are challenged by the need to process terabytes of data collected about Earth, Wang has learned. The data’s volume and complexity can make it very difficult to examine, which could mean missed opportunities for insights.

Wang hopes that his work will help climate scientists better understand the data they have already collected, and find better ways to test their causality-related hypotheses. The end goal of the research is to develop a climate causality analytics platform that is scalable and reproducible. 

Research opportunities for students

As he plans next steps, Wang is particularly looking forward to providing students with research opportunities. He will connect with graduate and undergraduate students through UMBC’s Center for Women in Technology, McNair Scholars program, and Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation (LSAMP) program. He will also connect with local high school students through UMBC’s Shriver Center.

The range of perspectives these students bring will help Wang address the challenges posed by climate data, ultimately making it more useful and accessible. “We expect our research will help climate scientists efficiently discover causal relationships from complex climate datasets and easily share their findings with others,” he explains. 

“These findings could help us better understand how Earth’s climate system works,” Wang says. “Eventually, they could help us better predict and adapt to many specific climate-related events, such as extreme heatwaves, droughts, and floods.”  

Banner image: The California Current System. Photo by: NASA/Goddard/Suomin-NPP/VIIRS, used under CC 2.0.

This story was written by Sarah Hansen and first appeared on news.umbc.edu

Since it launched at UMBC in 1997, the MARC U*STAR Program has connected nearly 500 hundred UMBC students with research opportunities and invaluable support. After years of remarkable results, the program is now at an important moment of transition.

MARC U*STAR stands for Maximizing Access to Research Careers Undergraduate Student Training in Academic Research. The NIH program was founded on three key elements that are proven to increase students’ persistence and success in research careers, especially for students from underrepresented groups in biomedical sciences. These elements include recognizing and recruiting outstanding, passionate students; offering excellent research mentorship; and providing strong administrative support and advising.

A striking 95 percent of UMBC’s MARC U*STAR Scholars have graduated with STEM degrees, around double the national rate for students who begin STEM programs. And 91 percent have continued their education in graduate programs, with 80 percent pursuing Ph.D., M.D./Ph.D., or M.D. degrees. UMBC’s MARC U*STAR graduates have been almost five times more likely to attend graduate school than their academically comparable peers.

“If I was not a part of the MARC program, I would not be where I am today,” says Robin Bailey ’20, biological sciences. Today, she is about to graduate from UMBC having presented her research at national conferences and written two academic papers. She spent a summer researching at Harvard, and now has committed to pursuing her Ph.D. in cellular and molecular biology at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine.

Bailey’s experience is a familiar one in UMBC’s MARC U*STAR program. This unequivocal, long-term success is not an accident. 

Growth mindset

As the final year of the current MARC U*STAR grant comes to a close this May, UMBC has received a new five-year grant from the NIH. This new grant is part of the Undergraduate Research Training Initiative for Student Enhancement (U-RISE). It will build on the strong legacy of MARC U*STAR at UMBC, providing $7.7 million over five years to support the same activities offered by MARC U*STAR, plus a few more.

“The MARC grant is 23 years old, and it’s had great success,” says Phyllis Robinson, program director for MARC U*STAR at UMBC and lead on the new U-RISE grant. “So we’re going to take all the good things, and then add a few new things.”

MARC U*STAR provides students intensive academic advising and funding for conference travel and toward tuition. Advising includes traditional guidance on course selection, as well as support in preparing for and obtaining research positions and help with the graduate school application process. Monthly lectures from external STEM professionals connect the scholars with experts in various fields and give them opportunities to network.

Nurturing student passion

Perhaps most importantly, the MARC program helps create a sense of community among the scholars. “Being a part of the MARC family is advantageous not only because you’re getting extra support to go to conferences, but you’re surrounded by all these people that are interested in science and want to improve people’s lives with science,” reflects Andreas Seas ’17, biochemical engineering.

Seas particularly notes the support of Lasse Lindahl, Robinson’s predecessor; Jackie King, assistant director of the MARC U*STAR program at UMBC; and his peers and research mentors. Today, Seas is pursuing an M.D./Ph.D. degree at Duke University.

“The MARC program solidified my love for research and science,” adds Erwin Cabrera ’10, biological sciences. “It provided me with the mentoring and one-on-one advising that was pivotal in my success at UMBC.” Cabrera is paying that mentorship forward in his current role as director of the Research Aligned Mentorship Program at Farmingdale State College in New York.

 Resilience on the rise

The new U-RISE funding will offer all of the same programming as MARC for up to 35 students per year. On top of that, U-RISE Scholars will participate in two training workshops. One will examine rigor and reproducibility in research. The other will focus on how to work with big data, which has become ubiquitous in so many research fields. U-RISE will also fund training for faculty mentors in how to best support their diverse mentees. 

Current MARC Scholars will be able to continue with the program through graduation.

This is all heartening news for Bailey. “The MARC program has provided me with countless opportunities to improve my skills in the laboratory and develop a scientific mind. The program also pushes MARC Scholars to show proof of these skills at scientific conferences,” she says. “Where I once lacked confidence in my ability to think critically and present publicly, I now have a resilient drive to overcome obstacles.”

Until now, “for students who want to pursue a research career in biomedical sciences, the MARC program has been the place to be,” Bailey says. Now, that place will be U-RISE.

While the name will be new after 2020, the work and commitment of faculty mentors and advising staff will hold steady. Under Robinson’s leadership, they’ll continue to help UMBC students see themselves as future leading scientists and find their paths to research careers.

Banner image: Academic Row at UMBC in springtime. All photos by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC unless otherwise noted.

Students currently enrolled in a course under the regular grading method (A, B, C, D, or F) may request to have their final grade changed from an A, B, C, or D to a Pass (P) by submitting a request to the Registrar’s Office.

Merit scholars opting to change any Spring 2020 course grades from an A, B, C, or D to a Pass (P) will not be penalized in failure to complete the minimum enrollment requirements indicated on their official merit scholarship agreement.

However, it is imperative that scholars keep in mind that changing a course grade to (P) Pass will not positively or negatively impact their term and/or cumulative GPA.  Merit scholars' required cumulative grade point average (GPA) indicated in their merit scholarship agreement will remain as is. 

Failure to meet the minimum cumulative GPA requirements may result in a Scholarship Discontinuation at the end of the Spring 2020 semester.

Information on the Scholarship Discontinuation Appeal Process may be found at: Scholarship Discontinuation Appeals

Other Important Links:

Academic and Enrollment Policies (COVID-19)

Scholarship Deferral Requests - Now Accepting for Fall 2020 & Spring 2021

Important Deadlines:

June 10, 2020 - Last Day to Withdrawal with a "W" Grade

June 10, 2020 - Scholarship Withdrawal Request - Spring 2020

• Share a quick “welcome to UMBC” message for incoming students
• What advice would you give a brand new UMBC student? 
  
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• What do you/your team have to offer new students that will help them as they start their time at UMBC?
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