Welcome to our new 2018 inductees!  

One of our spring activities is the ordering of Phi Alpha Honor Cords for graduation. If you are graduating in 2018 (May, August or December), please order your cords by Friday, April 27, 2018).    Attached is the order form.  This is only for Phi Alpha members.  

Ke He
Ph.D., Chemical, Biochemical and Environmental Engineering
Hometown: Taizhou, Zhejiang, China
Plans: Postdoctoral Fellowship, University of Maryland School of Medicine

As an international student, the diverse and friendly circumstances in UMBC really helped me to settle down in this completely new environment.

Over the six years that Ke He has been a Ph.D. student at UMBC, he has conducted research alongside many passionate peers and faculty who, like him, are committed to improving water safety.

He explains that his faculty advisor Lee Blaney, associate professor of chemical, biochemical and environmental engineering, has had a profound impact on his research. He studied contaminants of emerging concern, such as antibiotics, hormones, and UV-filters, and their effects on the environment. To understand how these substances impact human and ecological health, He examined crayfish collected from a watershed in Baltimore.

The work that He conducted has been featured in media outlets, including an article in The Conversation (republished by CBS News) about commonly-used personal care products that have been found to impact water sources. He traveled to Hawaii to do research, and this work will likely play a role in regulating sunscreens that have been shown to harm coral reefs.

For three years, He served as a senator in the Graduate Student Association (GSA) at UMBC. The GSA recognized He’s distinguished service to the organization by presenting  him with the 2016 Outstanding Senator Award. He also was the chair of the Chinese Student and Scholar Association at UMBC, and served on the Chemical, Biochemical and Environmental Engineering Graduate Student Association’s executive board.

He has received notable awards supporting and recognizing research papers delivered at academic conferences across the United States. In 2017, He received a Travel Award from the National Environmental Monitoring Conference, in recognition of his distinguished presentation. The American Chemical Society’s (ACS) Division of Environmental Chemistry awarded He a Certificate of Merit Award in 2016, a Best Poster Award in 2014, and a Certificate of Merit Award in 2014.

While He has contributed significantly to the university, GSA, and his field in his six years at UMBC, he shares that he is also grateful for the support he has received from the UMBC community in that time, saying, “The research and travel grant from Graduate Student Association and the support from Graduate School for parental leave offered me more opportunities and balanced my life and doing research.” He plans to continue research in environmental engineering through a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

Portrait by Marlayna Demond ‘11 for UMBC.

Mollye Bendell
M.F.A., Intermedia and Digital Arts
Hometown: Annapolis, Maryland
Plans: Artist residency at Wave Farm in Acra, New York

UMBC provided amazing faculty who really took the time to personally mentor me. I was given the creative freedom and conceptual guidance to learn a lot of new skill sets such as algorithmic modeling, codeable objects, programming for virtual reality environments, electronics production, and many others.

During her time as a graduate student in the department of visual art’s intermedia and digital arts program, Mollye Bendell led the setup of a new fabrication facility, the FabLab, and also worked at the Smithsonian Institution’s design shop as a fabricator for public displays and museum exhibitions. She taught classes on lab equipment, including computer-aided design (CAD) software, laser cutters, and a computer numerical control (CNC) router.

Bendell also served as a student leader, teacher, and mentor on campus. She was a member of the Graduate Student Senate and taught Visual Concepts III: Three-dimensional Form, Space and Interaction.

In 2016, Bendell’s artwork XXchange was exhibited at Area 405 in Baltimore, and in 2017 she participated in UMBC’s Spark II gallery at Light City with Resistant Cells. Also in 2017, her works Artists for Truth and FFPP: Feminism Fights Patriarchal Power, were displayed at Space Camp in Baltimore, and her work FFMM: Feminism Fights Military Morals was displayed at the Ballroom Gallery in Baltimore.

This May, Bendell will present her master’s thesis exhibition, Wander/Wonder, at the conference “Politics of the Machines — Art and After” in Copenhagen, Denmark. She’ll then move on to an artist residency at Wave Farm in Acra, New York.

Portrait by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

Kourtney Rutkowski
B.S., Mechanical Engineering
Minor: Psychology
Cum Laude
Hometown: Bel Air, Maryland
Plans: M.S., mechanical engineering, UMBC

UMBC has also helped to grow my leadership skills, my confidence, and has opened my mind in so many ways.

Kourtney Rutkowski enjoys being the first, particularly when it comes to unique learning experiences. As an engineer with an interest in cross-cultural exchange, she was UMBC’s first student to participate in a semester-long study abroad at the University of Porto in Portugal, and one of the two first students to participate in a winter study abroad at the University of Kassel in Germany, after UMBC initiated research and education partnerships with both institutions.

Home at UMBC, Rutkowski has participated in the Grand Challenge Scholars Program and Center for Women in Technology (CWIT) Scholars Program. She is a member of the Honors College and Tau Beta Pi, the honors society for engineering. She has held leadership positions on the CWIT student council, in Tau Beta Pi, and as a UMBC Eco-Ambassador, and she currently serves as the inaugural student president for the Grand Challenge Scholars Program Student Organization. Additionally, she has worked as a teaching fellow for multiple courses, most recently as a lead teaching fellow for statics.

Rutkowski shares that mentors across campus have provided her with valuable guidance related to research, career options, and pursuing opportunities abroad. She worked most closely with Anne Spence, former professor of practice at UMBC; Jamie Gurganus, associate director for engineering education initiatives; Marc Zupan, associate professor of mechanical engineering; and Neil Rothman, professor of practice in mechanical engineering.

As a student in the integrated B.S./M.S. mechanical engineering program, Rutkowski will remain at UMBC after graduation to complete her graduate degree, before moving on to opportunities in industry and, perhaps, a Ph.D. and mechanical engineering teaching career of her own.

Portrait by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

Greg Huxtable
B.S., Physics and Mathematics
Hometown: Gambrills, Maryland
Plans: Ph.D., University of California, Irvine

UMBC was a great environment for preparing me for graduate school, due to the large number of research opportunities available to undergraduates.

Greg Huxtable is heading to the University of California, Irvine to pursue a Ph.D.  in physics after conducting theoretical physics research at UMBC on the optimization of quantum heat engines (engines consisting of single ions). How did he decide on this particular area of focus? Reflecting on the unique research and learning opportunities he accessed as a UMBC undergraduate, Huxtable says, “I’ve attended dozens of weekly colloquiums in the physics department, which has exposed me to current developments in many fields of physics and has helped shaped my interests.”

Huxtable’s mentor, Sebastian Deffner, assistant professor of physics, has also played a major role in his success. “Sebastian has been a terrific mentor to me,” Huxtable shares. “From explaining to me how to balance research and life, to our talks on what life is like at every stage of academia—from undergrad up to professorship—he exposed me to the academic world in a way that classes could not.”

“Greg is one of the most mature and dedicated undergraduate students that I have met,” says Deffner. “Visiting scientists frequently mistake him for an advanced graduate student.”

With Deffner’s support, Huxtable applied for and received the Donald N. Langenberg Undergraduate Research Award in Physics in 2017. The award honors a prior chancellor of the University System of Maryland and supplies a monetary award to support an undergraduate student’s research in physics. Huxtable will also travel to Telluride, Colorado this summer for a week-long conference co-organized by Deffner on nanoscale statistical physics and thermodynamics.

In addition to his academic success, Huxtable has been a member of the UMBC men’s club lacrosse team for three years and served as the team’s captain and vice president his senior year. “I’ll forever cherish the bonds I’ve made with my teammates and coaches,” he says. “I looked up to my older teammates my first year, and I did my best to build on what they left behind for the next generation of UMBC men’s club lacrosse leaders.”

Portrait by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

Jamshaid Shahir
B.S., Mathematics and Statistics
Magna Cum Laude
Hometown: Woodstock, Maryland
Plans: Ph.D., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

The mentorship and guidance I received from the Meyerhoff Scholars staff and my professors has been invaluable in clarifying my resolve to earn a Ph.D. and has opened many doors for me, such as presenting at conferences around the country, from Harvard to Hawaii.

Jamshaid Shahir, M26, is a Meyerhoff Scholar, MARC U*STAR Scholar, and member of the Honors College at UMBC. With his mentor Hye-Won Kang, assistant professor of mathematics and statistics, Shahir has worked on mathematically modeling the process of cell polarization, a mechanism that enables the cell to move and transmit information. This mechanism is important for a broad range multicellular functions, such as wound healing and embryonic development. Understanding how cells polarize is a fundamental question in cell biology.

Shahir was named a 2018 NSF Graduate Research Fellow, which will fund his graduate work at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for three years. In 2017, he received an honorable mention for the prestigious Goldwater Scholarship. Shahir is also a member of several honor societies, including Pi Mu Epsilon, the national mathematics honor society; Mu Sigma Rho, the national statistics honor society; and the Golden Key International Honour Society, as well as a member of the American Statistical Association.

He has also supported fellow Meyerhoff Scholars by serving as a Meyerhoff Peer Advisor. “My time at UMBC has made me more resilient, learning from failure and overcoming it,” Shahir shares. “I believe UMBC promotes a healthy balance between cooperation and competition that has motivated me to push myself harder, allowing me to grow as an aspiring scientist and a young adult, with a strong and supportive network of peers and mentors that I believe will endure well beyond my time at UMBC.”

Portrait by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.