At UMBC “you can get to where you want to go.”

Blake Hipsley ‘19, a dual degree recipient in physics and mathematics, was a McNair Scholar. Since his sophomore year, Hipsley has pursued research through the program with Michael Hayden, professor of physics. “Research helped me open up to what I want to do in the future,” Hipsley says. “I had the chance to see if it was something I wanted to do, and I decided it is.” This fall, he’ll begin a Ph.D. in physics at the University of Michigan.

Hipsley’s parents didn’t graduate from college, but always encouraged him to pursue higher education. “My mom always encouraged us to do our best and work hard,” he shares. “I think that’s why I have this drive to always be doing so much, and I put it on myself to pay for my own school.” By applying for a multitude of scholarships and working as a tutor, Hipsley was able fund his UMBC education on his own.

Without family members who had attended college, “The only people I really could talk to about graduate school were my professors,” he says. “They really helped me a lot with getting funding, writing a personal statement, and preparing for the GRE.”

Hipsley also served as the McNair Scholars Program’s inaugural teaching fellow, a role where he advises other McNair students and provides feedback to program leadership. “McNair has helped me not only get into graduate school,” he says, “but also help others who may be struggling.”

The McNair Scholars also supported Hipsley’s personal growth. “One of the benefits of the program is that you get to meet people from all different backgrounds,” he says. As a result, he tried his first sushi and watched his first Bollywood film.

With such a caring community of support, Hispley says, at UMBC, “If you work hard and keep at it, no matter where you’re from you can get to where you want to go.”

At a hackathon last year, two UMBC students took a stand against online harassment through tech innovation, forming a partnership that would become MindStand Technologies. Founders Michael Ogunsanya ‘20, M28, economics, and Eric Solender ‘20, computer science, believe there is such tremendous potential to make headway on this problem that, as Ogunsanya explains, “We want people to connect with the idea before they connect with the company.”

Together, they’ve developed a tool that can detect troubling online behaviors, like cyberbullying. It provides an interactive dashboard and real-time alerts based on a powerful algorithm that is already gaining attention.

To get to this point, they’ve taken advantage of support from UMBC’s entrepreneurship programs. Last fall, MindStand Technologies earned second place in UMBC’s 2018 Idea Competition, hosted by the Alex. Brown Center for Entrepreneurship, confirming for the team that their idea could really take off and have a positive impact. Now, they’ve won second place at UMBC’s sixth annual Cangialosi Business Innovation Competition (CBIC).

Connecting student entrepreneurs with mentors

The Shark Tank-style CBIC is an annual opportunity for undergraduate and graduate students who are serious about starting a business, and have already begun realizing their ideas, to present to a panel of judges before an audience of community members, including faculty, staff, alumni, and corporate partners. Ahead of the event, each team is paired with an industry mentor who provides guidance and professional advice.

The structure of the event and its focus on mentorship are inspired by the vision of entrepreneur Greg Cangialosi ‘96, English. Throughout the process, the teams have access to support from Cangialosi and Vivian Armor ‘73, American studies, director of UMBC’s Alex. Brown Center for Entrepreneurship.

Using technology to address challenges across industries

First prize in the competition went to Dan Lee ‘19, computer science, for Dentuit Imaging, which he hopes will help dentists diagnose patients with challenging conditions. The technology will identify and annotate possible problems on patients’ dental images.

Lee is working with collaborators, including Joe Weissman, a Virginia Tech Ph.D. student focusing on machine learning, to develop a prototype that he hopes will be available in the summer. One key part of the work will be training the system to identify potential dental issues. “The more labeled images there are, the better,” Lee explains.

Akshay Peshave, M.S. ‘14, Ph.D. ‘19, computer science, earned third place for Karotene, which works to connect researchers in fields from medicine and physics to computing with information and data needed to do their work. The technology, explains Peshave, allows researchers to more easily address pain points as they are conducting research, including challenges related to collaborating with people across the country and around the world.

Peshave will use the funding that he earned through CBIC to finalize the legal paperwork needed to officially launch the company. He is also working to build Karotene’s advisory board, while refining the product for market release.

Utilizing networking opportunities at UMBC

MindStand Technologies, the second place winner, has already begun moving forward in significant ways. Ogunsanya and Solender have secured office space in bwtech@UMBC’s North campus. There, they spend time each week working to advance their technology and grow their business.

Ogunsanya and Solender are particularly focused on connecting with experts beyond tech fields who can provide insights essential to making their tool effective and ensuring it is used in thoughtful, ethical ways. Project collaborator Pamela Rakhshan Rouhakhtar Ph.D. ‘22, psychology, describes MindStand Technologies as a “true multidisciplinary team.”

Jason Schiffman, professor of psychology, provides valuable mentorship to help the group keep their mission, ethics, and philosophy at top of mind at all times — asking if each decision is both correct and good. Rouhakhtar and Solendar met while working in Schiffman’s psychology lab. They share that he often talks about the importance of working at the intersection of what you love and what you are good at, and that this is what MindStand Technologies is all about.

Taking advantage of the networking and skills-building opportunities at UMBC has been key to his company’s success, Ogunsanya says. He encourages future student-entrepreneurs to not shy away from “using all of UMBC’s channels” to turn their ideas into a reality.

Banner image: The MindStand Technologies team. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

Job Title: Open Minds Program Assistant
Classification: Part Time, Non-exempt, Temporary
Reports to: Education Director
Date Revised: May 23, 2019
Compensation: The position pays $15/hr at 4 hours a session for 11 sessions
Start Date: June 25, 2019

Job Title: Open Minds Lead Teacher
Classification: Part Time, Non-exempt, Temporary
Reports to: Education Director
Date Revised: May 23, 2019
Compensation: The position pays $35/hr at 4 hours a session for 11 sessions
Start Date: June 25, 2019

Recently, UMBC users have reported the increased receipt of a specific phishing attack stemming from a particular domain. The phishing email content is as follows:

“From: Guthrie, Melinna <Melinna.Guthrie@stonybrookmedicine.edu>

Date: Fri, May 24, 2019 at 8:48 AM

Subject: EARN MORE /PART TIIME JOB OPPORTUNITY

To: 

        Customer Impact Services, secret survey company is currently hiring people from all over USA/CANADA to visit local stores as a shopper and test customer service professionalism while you earn commission of $300 flat on each visit which does not take more than an hour.

You will be given funds to visit a store and pretend as a normal customer while you make purchases and take note of the quality of service as well as environment after which you will give a short report or feed back to the company for business development and customer service improvement decisions via email and earn your commission of $300 per visit.Usually, you will have 2 visits in a week and make $600 or more in a week. I am giving assurance over the legitimacy of this company.

Note:

Only local stores are given, no traveling required

You do not have to pay any money to begin, you'll rather be making money from home

No rigorous process in registering and commencement of assignment(s)

1) Shopper take personal satisfaction in watching service levels rise knowing that they played an instrumental part in that improvement.

2) Shopper know the importance of following directions, they read and follow each client's evaluation criteria to the letter.

**To register

[<hxxps://docs[.]google[.]com/forms/d/1wab3UlNppQepch_ApuXxGYyJWIa6mwCrOthbe0nThnI&gt;]”

This phishing email is a particularly malicious one owing to number of factors; these include the professional format and grammar, the believable content of the email, as well as the presence of apparently legitimate links and source address. The DoIT security group is aware of the phishing scam and is currently investigating the issue.

Due to the fact that the links contained within the email are google docs, we are unable to block or report them to google as malicious content. With that in mind, we ask that if you receive this email, please forward it to security@umbc.edu, and to treat it as a malicious phishing attack. In order to mitigate potential damages, under no circumstances are users encouraged to click on the link or follow any instructions contained within it; upon receipt of the email please delete it immediately. If you have already done so and feel your personal information has been compromised in any way, please contact UMBC Police at (410) 455-5555. 

For more information regarding phishing and spam FAQs, please see the

PHISHING/SPAM FAQS section of itsecurity.umbc.edu.

**This link has been altered so that it is unable to be clicked and directed to a malicious website or download any malicious software to your machine.