National Interest

UMBC partners in cybersecurity R&D center bridging government, industry, and higher education.

UMBC will play an exciting role in strengthening our nation�s cybersecurity infrastructure through a new Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC) announced this week. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) awarded a contract to operate the center to the MITRE Corporation, which will partner with the University System of Maryland (USM) to carry out the center�s goals. UMBC and the University of Maryland, College Park are collaborators with MITRE and Anupam Joshi, director of the UMBC Center for Cybersecurity, will serve in a leadership role for UMBC.

The government sponsors fewer than 50 FFRDCs across the country, and all are designed to tackle complex, long-term problems of significant national interest. According to NIST, this is the first center that is �solely dedicated to enhancing the security of the nation�s information systems.� The contract to operate the FFRDC has a maximum amount of $5 billion over 25 years.

�Securing our cyber infrastructure requires government, industry, and higher education to work closely together, and this center makes that powerful collaboration possible,� says UMBC President Freeman Hrabowski. �Further, it solidifies Maryland�s role as the hub of cybersecurity in our nation.�

Maryland hosts a large number of federal agencies and companies on the cutting edge of cybersecurity, and the USM is nationally recognized for its research and education programs in the field. This vital combination means that the State of Maryland is uniquely positioned to successfully nurture this research and development center.

U.S. Senator Barbara A. Mikulski congratulated the USM and MITRE on this opportunity, saying, �This new center unites the knowledge of the government with the know-how of the private sector to develop cyber technology solutions needed to protect dot-com entities and make our cyber infrastructure more resilient.�

UMBC�s Anupam Joshi says, �While national security interests are usually central to the security conversation, this center will also work to meet the cybersecurity needs of individuals and businesses in a variety of sectors, such as healthcare and energy. Individuals and small and medium-size businesses constitute a major part of the nation�s cyberinfrastructure, but can lack the resources and technical expertise to respond effectively to cyber threats.�

This new FFRDC will support the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE), which NIST, the state of Maryland, and Montgomery County, Md., established in 2012 to help businesses secure their data and digital infrastructure by bringing together information security experts from industry, government, and academia. It will further the NCCoE�s goal to foster public-private collaborations to identify and solve today�s most pressing cybersecurity challenges.

�This new FFRDC supporting NIST�s NCCoE will be a major addition to Maryland�s existing strengths in cybersecurity,� says Karl Steiner, Vice President for Research at UMBC. �I am delighted about this new strategic collaboration with our colleagues at College Park and at MITRE, and about the opportunities to further expand and apply our scientific capabilities in an area of such critical importance.�

To learn more about this new collaboration, see the announcement from NIST and the joint announcement from MITRE and the USM.

(10/9/2014)

The Maryland Zoo in Baltimore is looking for volunteers! 

If you love animals and you're interested in helping the zoo contact Allison Schwartz at allison.schwartz@marylandzoo.org! You can also call (443)-552-5266 for more information. 

If you’ve turned on almost any news source, chances are you’ve gotten an earful and a half about the death of Thomas Duncan–the first human life lost to Ebola on American soil. Recent figures suggest the death toll of the savage virus have topped 3,500 in West Africa. 

As if Ebola was not sufficiently catastrophic, the ever-vigilant personnel of the World Health Organization have issued concerns over possible outbreaks of the equally wretched Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus, or MERS for short.

Many West African countries’ emergency resources are being depleted in efforts to contain Ebola. Now experts worry that many in the reason will not be adequately prepared for the seasonal flare-up of MERS in the early half of 2015.

It seems we should be worried too.

On Monday, October 20 at 5 p.m., Kwame Anthony Appiah, a renowned philosopher, cultural theorist and novelist, will present the Humanities Forum, “The Honor Code.” The event is the Daphne Harrison Lecture and will take place in the Performing Arts and Humanities Building Theatre.

Philosophers spend a lot of time thinking about what is right and wrong, and some time thinking about how to get people to see what is right and wrong—but almost no time thinking about how to get them to do what they know is right. Anthony Appiah has spent the last decade thinking about what it takes to turn moral understanding into moral behavior. In this talk, he will explore one of the keys to real moral revolution: mobilizing the social power of honor and shame to change the world for the better.

Named one of Foreign Policy’s Top 100 public intellectuals, Kwame Anthony Appiah teaches at New York University. He previously taught at Princeton, Harvard, Yale, Cornell, Duke, and the University of Ghana. He is the President of the PEN American Center, the world’s oldest human rights organization and is second vice-president of the Modern Languages Association. In 2012, he was awarded the National Humanities Medal by The White House.

The event is sponsored by the Dresher Center for the Humanities and by the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences; the Philosophy Department; the Africana Studies Department; and the Global Studies Program. For more information, click here.

“Towards a Queered Understanding of Critical Social Justice“

A trans* woman of color, hearing Reina Gossett’s lived experience is enough to captivate. Add to this her years of meaningful experience in activism and community organization, in film-making and research, in writing and social justice work, and Gossett’s growing recognition begins to make sense.

Reina offers a unique perspective on the experiences of LGBTQ/GNC (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, gender non-conforming) people, especially those who are also people of color and those of low-income backgrounds.

Sharing this perspective, and with such varied and interdisciplinary experiences, Reina brings new light to social justice activism and challenges even the most critical of us to examine our practices and beliefs, pushing all to embody the change that so many feel our world so desperately needs.

Presented by Student Life’s Mosaic: Cultural & Diversity Center and The Women’s Center.

Check out the myUMBC event page or the Facebook event page, as well!

“Towards a Queered Understanding of Critical Social Justice“

A trans* woman of color, hearing Reina Gossett’s lived experience is enough to captivate. Add to this her years of meaningful experience in activism and community organization, in film-making and research, in writing and social justice work, and Gossett’s growing recognition begins to make sense.

Reina offers a unique perspective on the experiences of LGBTQ/GNC (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, gender non-conforming) people, especially those who are also people of color and those of low-income backgrounds.

Sharing this perspective, and with such varied and interdisciplinary experiences, Reina brings new light to social justice activism and challenges even the most critical of us to examine our practices and beliefs, pushing all to embody the change that so many feel our world so desperately needs.

Presented by Student Life’s Mosaic: Cultural & Diversity Center and The Women’s Center.

Check out the myUMBC event page or the Facebook event page, as well!