History Department Advising Guidelines

As of Fall 2018 the History Department changed the format for undergraduate major and minor advising for advanced course registration. Instead of meeting with a specific, assigned advisor you can now be advised and get clearance for course registration by coming to open advising hours. Available advisors and advising hours will be posted on the History department website [ https://history.umbc.edu ] and in the History department. Contact Ms. Ison in the History department if you have any questions (410-455-2012) or (ison@umbc.edu).

• For Advanced Registration for FALL 2019 the History Department will hold OPEN ADVISING HOURS:
• TUES MAR 26 9-10am; 12-1pm & WED MAR 27 12-1pm; 3-4pm
• MON APR 1 11-3pm; TUES APR 2 11-3pm; WED APR 3 11-5pm; THURS APRIL 4 11-3pm; & FRI APR 5 10-11am; 1-3pm
• MON APR 8 10-2pm; TUES APR 9, 10-4; WED APR 10 10-3pm;  & THURS APR 11 10-3pm
• MON APR 15 11-1pm; TUES APR 16 11-3pm; WED APR 17 11-1pm & THUS APR 18 11-1; 4-5pm

1. Before your advising meeting with a History department advisor, please follow the Registrar’s Step by Step guide to Registration on your myUMBC page.
2. Check your degree audit to see what courses and requirements you have fulfilled.
3. Download and fill in the “Requirements to Complete the Major” form that can be found on the History department website under Students --Departmental Forms drop down menu [ https://history.umbc.edu/departmental-forms ].
4. Please bring this form with you to your advising session. This will ensure that you have a productive and timely advising session.

Note: If you have already established an advising relationship with a particular History professor, look out for their available advising times to see them during the advising weeks. If your schedules don’t align, you may contact them directly by email to set up an advising appointment. Otherwise, history majors can be advised by any history department advisor available during the open advising hours.

When Kevin Tran ‘12, chemical engineering, was a student at UMBC, he took a course on sensors that made him realize the best high tech solution is sometimes a low tech solution.

Govind Rao, professor of chemical, biochemical, and environmental engineering, and director of the Center for Advanced Sensor Technology (CAST) asked Tran and his classmates to explore a problem that could be solved by sensors, but to not lose sight of factors beyond the technology. The team began work on a low-cost infant incubator. After years of refinement in the lab, the invention has now earned the 2019 Global Health Research Award from the Academic Pediatric Association. Rao and co-authors will be recognized at the Pediatric Academic Societies Meeting in Baltimore, April 27–30.

Rao and his students sought to develop an incubator to support premature babies in communities with limited resources, and in remote areas that do not have access to medical facilities. The incubators they developed are made from cardboard, and can be easily disposed of after each use. The materials used to construct them are fairly easy to find, making them inexpensive and accessible to people in low- and middle-income countries.

Seeing the challenge firsthand

Tran recalls that, from the very beginning, the project stretched his mind and allowed him to think of creative solutions to a significant real-world challenge. “The scope of the project was much broader than just the sensor itself,” and Rao emphasized the need to look at social and economic factors, recalls Tran. “Rather than just trying to make an efficient and low-cost sensor, our design would also be heavily influenced by which target population we were trying to reach.”

After completing the course, Tran joined CAST for the summer to continue working on the project alongside the professor. Tran and several other student researchers joined Rao on a trip to India to see, firsthand, how local medical facilities used incubators for premature infants.

The facilities they visited had some access to incubators, but the situation was far from ideal. “We learned that incubators that broke were not able to be serviced at hospitals or primary health care facilities,” explains Tran. “Since many [incubators] were donated…no one know how to go about repairing them.”

Eventually, the collaboration included funding from the Food and Drug Administration to support collaborations with the Sri Ramachandra Institute of Higher Education and Research and Phoenix Medical Systems to conduct clinical trials, which resulted in the award winning work.

Thinking outside the box

The research project has evolved over time to better account for the particular needs of communities that would use this incubator technology. Heating systems are common for incubators in air conditioned facilities, and a heating system for the incubator is currently in a clinical trial in India. But what about incubators used in warm environments without air conditioning?

In these contexts, a cooling system can be just as important to help infants maintain a steady body temperature. Plus, both the heating and cooling systems must be highly reliable and cost-effective.

Elizabeth Tan ‘19, chemical engineering, has worked in CAST for about two years, and is conducting research to develop a cooling system. She is collaborating with Deepika Sagar ’18, mechanical engineering, to develop the system, and she says that working a student in another major has allowed her to learn new skills, from computer-aided design to soldering.

“It’s great to put what you learned into play,” Tan says. She adds, “It’s nothing like what I expected.”

Tan has enjoyed learning about the broader process of how a product is designed, tested, and launched, and all of the factors that go into making it successful. It’s also opened her eyes to the opportunities she has to make an impact on how medical care is delivered in communities with limited resources. “You realize the need” for these kinds of solutions, says Tan. That’s affected how she understands the project and how she envisions her career.

In the future, the team envisions the device being modified at a local level to fit the needs of people in different areas. After all, says Tran, providing care for premature babies is a problem faced by all communities, “not just one country or certain population.”

“The dream is to be able to shift paradigms” throughout the world, he explains, so all communities can access this life-saving technology.

Banner image: An infant’s hand. Photo by Limor Zellermayer on Unsplash.com.