Dear Colleagues:

A Resumption of Operations at NSF pagehas been developed that includes Important Notice No. 145, Resumption of Operations at the National Science Foundation, dated January 28, 2019, as well as supplemental guidance that addresses grant and cooperative agreement-related policy and systems issues.  This page will be of interest to your membership and we would appreciate your sharing this link as soon as possible. This page will continue to be updated as new information becomes available. 

Policy-related questions regarding resumption of operations at NSF may be addressed to policy@nsf.gov.

Best,

NSF ERA Forum Team

National Science Foundation

nsferaforum@nsf.gov

Maria Koszalka

Staff Associate, Research.gov

Division of Institution and Award Support

Budget, Finance & Award Management

2415 Eisenhower Avenue

More than 130 members of the Retriever community gathered in Annapolis on January 23 to celebrate the many ways UMBC alumni make an impact through careers that serve the State of Maryland, including elected officials, policy analysts, and other advocates working for the public good. In addition to networking, talking with current students, and celebrating UMBC’s recent successes, guests also took part in a “UMBC 101” active learning demonstration, a highlight of the evening.

See more images from the evening at UMBC Alumni Flickr.

Photos by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC Magazine.

UMBC has named Phyllis Robinson, professor of biological sciences, the Robert and Jane Meyerhoff Chair of Biological Sciences. The three-year appointment honors Robinson for her exceptional contributions to her research field, commitment to addressing gender equity issues in STEM fields, and dedication to mentoring students and faculty at all levels.

Robinson is an international leader in the field of vision science. She sees the visual system as “a wonderful way to look at signaling in biological systems and an entrée into the nervous system and neurobiology.”

Robinson examines the visual system from “molecules to behavior,” and her lab incorporates techniques from biochemistry, molecular biology, and physiology. She has published dozens of peer-reviewed papers, presented her work all over the world, and garnered millions of dollars of research support from the NIH and other sources.

Tireless advocate

Robinson is also a tireless advocate for women and other underrepresented people in STEM. In 2000, in response to an MIT report on resource discrepancies between men and women in STEM, she co-founded UMBC’s Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) group. What started as a monthly gathering for women faculty to connect has grown into a rich mentoring network. WISE now offers workshops to faculty members and graduate students on topics from leadership development to eating healthfully on a hectic schedule.

The WISE group tapped into a need on campus and spurred further efforts to support women in STEM. Robinson served as co-PI on the UMBC NSF ADVANCE Grant, which is nationally recognized as a model for institutional transformation programs. Between its inception in 2003 and 2018, the number of tenured and tenure-track women faculty members in STEM disciplines at UMBC increased 60 percent, from 30 to 48, and the number of women who are full professors more than doubled.

Because of Robinson’s efforts, “I am now the proud colleague of five highly-qualified junior women faculty,” says Rachel Brewster, professor of biological sciences. “Their presence in the department is a source of inspiration for our large female undergraduate and graduate population.”

Marie desJardins is now dean of the College of Organizational, Computational, and Information Sciences at Simmons College and was previously a professor of computer science at UMBC. She comments that Robinson’s invitation to join an ADVANCE leadership cohort “helped me to cement my goals as an academic leader.”

“As a university, we’re committed to supporting everybody,” Robinson says. “We’re not perfect, but there is a commitment to underrepresented minorities and women in STEM.”

Robinson was honored by the UMBC President’s Commission on Women in 2012 and recently received the 2018 Marilyn E. Demorest Faculty Advancement Award for her advocacy work at UMBC.

Science and social justice

Robinson is a dedicated mentor to dozens of graduate and undergraduate students from all backgrounds. In 2017, she succeeded Lasse Lindahl, professor of biological sciences, as program director of MARC*USTAR at UMBC—an NIH-funded undergraduate scholars program that connects students from groups underrepresented in the biomedical sciences with valuable research opportunities. UMBC’s program has already supported over 100 UMBC alumni who have earned Ph.D. or M.D./Ph.D. degrees.

Like her advocacy for diverse STEM faculty, Robinson’s work as a mentor for students goes back decades. She was previously honored for excellence in mentoring by the University System of Maryland Board of Regents in 2002 and by the Leadership Alliance in 2006.

At UMBC, “I’ve been able to do my science and also put energy into the social justice aspects of the world that are important to me,” Robinson says. “One doesn’t exclude the other.”

Dean of the College of Natural and Mathematical Sciences William LaCourse is grateful for Robinson’s efforts over the course of her career at UMBC. “Professor Robinson’s professionalism is equally matched by her passion for research, her gift for mentoring, and her compassion for others,” he says. “Over the past 26 years, she has provided exceptional service to the university through her tireless leadership and advocacy for others.”

Robinson reflects that the UMBC environment helped make it all possible. “I’ve enjoyed working at UMBC,” she says, “because as a fairly young university, if you put energy into something you can really have an effect here.” Robinson certainly has.

Banner image: Phyllis Robinson speaks at the 2018 Presidential Faculty Staff Awards, where she received the Marilyn E. Demorest Faculty Advancement Award. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC. 

Riding high on a string of recent wins, UMBC’s men’s and women’s basketball teams will greet the spring semester with hotly anticipated games against major rivals at the Retrievers’ home court, the UMBC Event Center. The first is this Wednesday, as the men take on second-place Stony Brook at their annual “Blackout Night.” On Saturday, February 9, the women will take the court against Maine.

Both teams drew victories against the University of New Hampshire over the weekend, and the men are enjoying a four-game conference streak, putting them in third place overall. With this kind of momentum – building since last year’s historic NCAA run – it’s a great time to be a Retriever fan, says Academic All-American graduate student Joe Sherburne, a forward on the men’s team.

“Students and fans in the crowd can be direct participants in the game,” said Sherburne, who has started more games than any other player in school history. “Their presence can shift momentum and help us play better.”

The Event Center opened on February 3 of last year, with 4,700 fans streaming into the arena to celebrate the big day. The sea of supporters, wearing black and gold, and waving signs and pom poms, joined together to sing the alma mater with unbridled joy.

Fast forward one year and that same enthusiasm is bubbling once again.

During Alumni Day on their home court this past Saturday, the women’s basketball team won a thrilling 64-62 decision over visiting New Hampshire. Junior guard Te’yJah Oliver, business management, hit the game-winning layup with 4.5 seconds left after the Wildcats rallied to tie the score in the final minute. Teammate junior Tyler Moore, psychology, netted a career high 27 points, including 16 in the first ten minutes of play.

“For me, it is extremely exciting to have a large crowd at our games,” Moore said. “Basketball is something that I love doing and it is so much more fun being able to showcase what we work so hard on in front of our fellow students. I would love to see more people at our games because the energy a solid home crowd brings can make a difference in winning and losing a close game.”

The men visited New Hampshire that same afternoon and also emerged victorious. Just three days after defeating league favorite and unbeaten Vermont, 74-61, in Burlington, the Retrievers shook off fatigue and injuries to defeat UNH, 59-51. Junior guard K.J. Jackson scored 21 points and Sherburne, data science, tallied 14 points and added nine rebounds to pace the Dawgs.

UMBC recorded its fourth consecutive win and took over third place in the conference with a 5-2 record.

The men host second-place Stony Brook at the UEC on Wednesday evening at 7 p.m. It’s the annual “Blackout Night”, so all of #RetrieverNation is encouraged to wear black. The first 300 students in attendance will receive a black “Sharpie” t-shirt, referencing a now infamous comment made by college hoops reporter Seth Davis heading into the men’s historic 16 over 1 win against top-ranked University of Virginia during NCAA play last March.

One week later, on Wednesday, February 6, the men will look to avenge a two-point overtime loss when Hartford visits UMBC. The women compete in their first home game of the spring semester on Saturday, February 9 when defending champion Maine ventures south for a 1 p.m. contest.

Tickets for all games are available at tickets.umbc.edu.

* * * * *

Header image by Josh Sinn ’13.

With antibiotic resistance on the rise, it’s critical that researchers develop new ways to stop bacteria that cause diseases like food poisoning, sepsis, pneumonia, or tuberculosis. “We have to think about more strategic and clever ways of attacking bugs,” says Aaron Smith, assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry at UMBC. “One way is to work on identifying and characterizing additional targets that we can consider for antibiotic development.”

Potential new targets include the systems that allow bacteria to grow and to reproduce. This includes systems bacteria use regularly to take up essential nutrients from their surroundings, such as the soil or an animal host.

Smith’s lab focuses on how biological systems take up and process iron, and he’s just received a two-year grant from the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, a division of the National Institutes of Health, to explore how the bacterium Porphyromonas gingivalis takes up reduced iron, a specific form of the element. P. gingivalis is responsible for gingivitis, a gum disease and one of the most common infections worldwide.

Virtually no living thing can survive without iron: It’s critical for DNA synthesis and other metabolic processes that “help drive the chemistry and survival on our planet,” Smith says. Plus, the way bacteria take up reduced iron is very similar across all species—unravel the way one species does it, and you’re much closer to understanding them all.

Bound for discovery

Virtually all bacteria use something called the Feo system to take up iron. In many bacteria, it consists of three proteins: FeoA, FeoB, and FeoC. FeoA and FeoC play supporting roles, while FeoB is the “gatekeeper that sits in the cell membrane and transports reduced iron to the inside of the cell,” explains Smith. However, there is evidence that without FeoA, FeoB can’t do its job nearly as well.

“Despite the fact that it’s a small protein, FeoA appears to have a really big role in iron uptake,” Smith says. “We’re interested in understanding how FeoA and FeoB are interplaying with one another, and how that might drive or regulate the reduced iron uptake process. If we can understand how that process works, then we can think about ways to disrupt that process.” That could lead the way to new antibiotics.

In the last six months, the lab made a breakthrough by solving the atomic structure of the FeoA protein in a different bacterium. The structure reveals a strong candidate for the exact site on the FeoA protein where it binds to FeoB. Previous research has indicated where the binding site is on FeoB. One of the goals of the new grant is to confirm these binding sites in P. gingivalis.  

Creative techniques

Smith and his team will use crystallography, a technique that freezes compounds in time, allowing researchers to determine and examine their unique molecular structure. Through this technique, they’ll  examine FeoA and FeoB at different stages of their reaction with one another. “We think that will reveal the atomic level interactions,” Smith explains. “Ideally, we’d like to see the entire process at atomic-level resolution.”

Smith is hoping the crystallography work will identify which amino acids (the building blocks of proteins) in FeoA are critical for its proper interaction with FeoB. To further test those ideas, they’ll genetically modify the bacterium at the indicated amino acids and see if it can still survive on reduced iron. “Those results could give us a really strong insight as to whether iron uptake might be a viable target for disruption,” Smith says.

The lab also plans to collaborate with Robert Ernst, professor of microbial pathogenesis at the Maryland School of Dentistry in Baltimore. The grant will support training for graduate students in the Chemistry-Biology Interface program, a joint venture between UMBC and the University of Maryland, Baltimore funded by the NIH.

Smith’s students will spend time in Ernst’s lab to learn techniques for the genetic modification experiments. “It really expands the scope of what we can test,” Smith says. “Instead of it just being of intellectual interest to biochemists, it adds in a level of biology that’s really essential.”

The results of the work will be broadly applicable to a wide range of bacteria, but studying P. gingivalis specifically has opened Smith’s eyes to the importance of oral health.“When you look at how your oral health is linked to lifelong health,” and conditions from stomach ulcers to cardiovascular disease, “it’s quite incredible,” Smith says. “Oral health really trickles down into every aspect of your life.”

Banner image: Aaron Smith in his lab. All photos by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.