Playwright Kara Lee Corthron ’99, theatre, will co-premiere her newest work, “Holly Down in Heaven,” at the Forum Theatre in Silver Spring and Penumbra Theatre in St. Paul, Minnesota, next month.

Corthron, who was named UMBC Outstanding Alumni of the Year in Visual and Performing Arts in 2008, has won a number of awards for her work, including The Vineyard Theatre’s 3rd Annual Paula Vogel Playwriting Award, the Princess Grace Award, two NEA grants, the Helen Merrill Award, Lincoln Center’s Lecomte du Nouy Prize (three-time recipient), the Theodore Ward Prize, the New Professional Theatre Writers Award, two MacDowell fellowships, residencies at Skriðuklaustur (Iceland), the Millay Colony, and Ledig House.

Her new play is described as such by the Forum:

When Holly, a brilliant fifteen-year-old born-again Christian, becomes pregnant, she banishes herself to the basement and confides only in her dolls — particularly a life-size psychiatrist doll who closely resembles Carol Channing. Her only human contacts are an indulgent father, a clumsy ex-boyfriend, and a new tutor … who just might be able to out-smart her. Hilarious and poignant, this world-premiere comedy explores birth, faith, and life outside of heaven.

Learn more about the showing at the Forum Theatre here.

Read more about Corthron on her website.

Playwright Kara Lee Corthron ’99, theatre, will co-premiere her newest work, “Holly Down in Heaven,” at the Forum Theatre in Silver Spring and Penumbra Theatre in St. Paul, Minnesota, next month.

Corthron, who was named UMBC Outstanding Alumni of the Year in Visual and Performing Arts in 2008, has won a number of awards for her work, including The Vineyard Theatre’s 3rd Annual Paula Vogel Playwriting Award, the Princess Grace Award, two NEA grants, the Helen Merrill Award, Lincoln Center’s Lecomte du Nouy Prize (three-time recipient), the Theodore Ward Prize, the New Professional Theatre Writers Award, two MacDowell fellowships, residencies at Skriðuklaustur (Iceland), the Millay Colony, and Ledig House.

Her new play is described as such by the Forum:

When Holly, a brilliant fifteen-year-old born-again Christian, becomes pregnant, she banishes herself to the basement and confides only in her dolls — particularly a life-size psychiatrist doll who closely resembles Carol Channing. Her only human contacts are an indulgent father, a clumsy ex-boyfriend, and a new tutor … who just might be able to out-smart her. Hilarious and poignant, this world-premiere comedy explores birth, faith, and life outside of heaven.

Learn more about the showing at the Forum Theatre here.

Read more about Corthron on her website.

Congratulations to Xianshu Zhu (CS, Ph.D.), who won the best student paper award at the 13^th IEEE International Conference on Information Reuse and Integration.

The conference, which took place last weekend in Las Vegas, is a forum to discuss how we can maximize the reuse of information with the creation of simple, rich, and reusable knowledge representations.

Xianshu’s paper, “Finding Story Chain in Newswire Articles”, seeks to do just that through a proposed walk based algorithm that can be used to find news story chains on the internet. The algorithm sifts through the huge and hard to navigate database of news articles on the internet, resulting in a simple way to track the evolution of a news story, without redundant articles.

Xianshu’s areas of study include data mining, text mining, information retrieval. The paper is closely tied to the research she’s doing for her Ph.D. thesis (advised by Professor Tim Oates), which she plans on finishing up in May 2013.

PhD Dissertation Preliminary Examination

On Optimizing Contrast Quality and Acquisition Time of
SSFP-Sequence-Based techniques for Structural and Functional
MR Imaging via Extended Phase Graph (EPG) Analysis

Albert Kir

1:00pm Wednesday, 15 August 2012, ITE 325b

The extended phase graph (EPG) formalism provides an excellent description of the magnetization evolution (considering the magnetization as a vector quantity in space and its change through time) for steady-state free precession techniques (sequences). This dissertation demonstrates its accuracy by applying it to analyze/optimize structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging. An optimization framework for a structural imaging technique, Magnetization-Prepared RApid Gradient-Echo (MP-RAGE), based on the EPG algorithm is established for obtaining optimal images with respect to image signal strength, contrast, and acquisition time. In addition, a functional imaging technique, True Fast Imaging with Steady-state Precession (TruFISP) with improved quantitative sensitivity is developed using EPG analysis.

Committee: Drs. Joel M. Morris (chair and co-advisor), Alan McMillan (co-advisor), Rao Gullapalli (co-advosor), Janet Rutledge and Tulay Adali

The IEEE Baltimore Electron Devices Society chapter, in collaboration with ARL, will be hosting a one day Colloquium on Energy Harvesting Devices at the University of Maryland, College Park on Tuesday, September 25, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the Stamp Student Union Building, Benjamin Banneker Room (Room 2212).

Invited speakers include:

Dr. Edward Shaffer, Army Research Laboratory
Prof. Vikram Dalal, Iowa State University
Prof. Santosh Kurinec, Rochester Institute of Technology
Dr. James Horwitz, Dept. of Energy (DOE)
Prof. Edward Yu, University of Texas,Austin
Prof. Rajendra Singh, Univ. of South Carolina
Prof. Agis IliadisUniv. of MD, College Park

Panel discussion on paths to reliable, efficient and low cost solar cell development (Dr. Anu Kaul/NSF, Chair, Dr. Mike Wraback ARL, Mr. Scott Stephens, DOE).

Attendance is free. To register, please contact: Dr. Naresh C. Das (Sorry, you need javascript to view this email address. ) or Dr. Victor Veliadis (Sorry, you need javascript to view this email address. )

For more information, visit the website and download the flyer.

Isaiah 6:1-3 (NIV)

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. 3 And they were calling to one another:
“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty;
the whole earth is full of his glory.”

Reflection:

Most of us have never lived under the rule of a king. We don’t know what it means to have a king, serve a king, and trust a king to rule over us. In some ways, we look at kings as an outdated form of leadership. But to Isaiah and Israel, a great king like Uzziah was directly blessed by God - a strong leader who won many battles, someone they really trusted in. So to see Uzziah die tragically left them feeling confused and helpless. But Isaiah saw the Lord, high and exalted on His throne. Thrones are for those with proper authority and sovereignty. So, as Yahweh sits high and exalted above all things, the vision emphasizes His true kingship. Uzziah had sinned and was banned from the temple. Yahweh, on the other hand, is the Lord whose robe was so great and majestic it filled the temple. Isaiah’s vision opened up his mind and heart to see the true king.

Responding to the Transmission:

Let’s pray for a shift to the true King in our hearts and minds. We worship the Holy Lord Almighty who sits enthroned, whose robe fills the temple. May we see and worship this King and may this King rule over us.