We will be closed July 1- 5th, reopening on July 6th. Please plan accordingly for any poster printing you may need or reach out if you have questions. researchgraphics@umbc.edu

Roberto Yus, an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering (CSEE) at UMBC, has received a National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award to fund his work aiming to make sensor data more accessible. The award is one of the most prestigious for early-career faculty and supports both research and education activities.

Simplifying complex sensor data

Yus’ CAREER award proposal tackles a problem currently limiting the impact of the billions of sensors and smart devices that have been deployed around the world in the so-called “Internet of Things”: Even when sensors are widely distributed, most organizations struggle to use the data because turning raw sensor readings into useful answers often requires deep technical expertise.

Yus’ project aims to solve this challenge by developing a system that allows regular users—such as educators, factory operators, public health officials, or building managers—to ask simple questions. For example, a building manager may want to know how many rooms were underutilized in the last month and how much energy they consumed. The computer system will automatically figure out which sensors and AI models to use to find the answer, while balancing concerns of privacy, efficiency, and accuracy. 

"The prevalence and pervasiveness of sensing and communication devices have the potential to transform our world. Yet, it is necessary to provide a systematic and simple means to filter the massive data that these devices collect,” says Mohamed Younis, chair of the CSEE department. "Roberto's proposed research aims to address this need. Employing AI in the process increases the system’s agility and opens the door to adopting it for a wide range of applications.”

Yus plans to test his approaches with smart home devices in his laboratory, with a smart manufacturing testbed at the Center for Research in Emergent Manufacturing at UMBC, and with sensors deployed on the UMBC campus. 

“The opportunity to work with students to develop sensor applications that will be useful to them, for example remotely checking the wait time at Starbucks, I think that will be amazing,” Yus says.

Supporting research success

Several internal UMBC grants helped Yus build the foundation for his successful CAREER proposal. He received seed funding to explore a multidisciplinary approach to deploying sensors in assisted living communities and also received funding for an undergraduate student researcher to explore the intersection of AI and the Internet of Things. 

UMBC’s College of Engineering and Information Technology (COEIT) also provides active proposal mentorship to faculty, including workshops, one-on-one coaching, and feedback. "This invested format of more directed one-to-one support has emerged in the last few years, and I do believe it helps faculty shape their proposals," says Vandana Janeja, associate dean for research in COEIT. 

Since 1995, when NSF established the CAREER award program, 36 COEIT faculty have received awards. Yus’ award also marks the 51st CAREER award for the university as a whole. 

Integrating education with research is a key characteristic of CAREER award projects. As part of his project Yus will develop new hands-on university courses, high school internships, and a summer camp for Baltimore-area students that will help educate the new generation of researchers. Campus leaders praised Yus' passion for research and community dedication.

"He is a wonderful researcher and at the same time he supports others. He is keenly aware of what matters in research, as evident from his own foundational work and also interdisciplinary work," Janeja says. 

For his part, Yus expressed deep gratitude to his colleagues for their support and to NSF for the funding. “I’m very excited to get started,” he says.

The DoIT Technology Support Center is looking to hire additional student consultants to work during the upcoming semester and beyond. Please see our job description below and visit our job posting on Handshake to apply. (Search for DoIT Technology Support Center Student Consultant.) The application will be open until July 18, 2026.

TSC Student Consultant Job Description

Technology Support Center (TSC) student consultants are the first points of technical contact for the UMBC community and those who do well often go on to work in other areas of the Division of Information Technology (DoIT). Minimally, consultants are expected to provide initial triage and support for a wide range of information technologies including accounts, hardware, instructional technologies, networking, software, telecommunications, and basic web development.

Responsibilities include, but are not limited to the following:

• Provide technical assistance to users by phone and online;
• Answer TSC phones in a professional and courteous manner;
• Create, update and resolve tickets in the Request Tracker (RT) ticketing system;
• Create, update, suggest and recommend relevant FAQ articles to users (www.umbc.edu/faq);
• Provide direct assistance to users on technical issues they cannot easily resolve on their own;
• Respond to all work-related communications in a timely manner;
• Escalate urgent problems to the Full-Time staff, as appropriate.

Required Skills and Experience

• Demonstrated ability to effectively communicate by phone or in writing.
• Demonstrated writing ability.
• Demonstrated ability to achieve successful outcomes in handling difficult situations and customers.
• Demonstrated analytical and troubleshooting skills.
• Ability & willingness to learn coupled with a clear understanding of one’s technical abilities, so as to triage and escalate an issue that leads to an effective solution for the user.

Date: Wednesday, July 1, 2026 

Time: 3:00PM ET - 4:00PM ET

Location: Virtual

Cost: Free

Click here to register

Event Overview:

Description:

Join this virtual open house to learn about the Individual Career Development (K Award) opportunities supported by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). The event will open with a short presentation on active funding opportunities followed by breakout sessions where you can ask questions about specific activity codes or how to prepare a K award.

For event questions and special requests contact: NINDSKAwards@ninds.nih.gov 

We hope your summer has been going well! If you haven't submitted your semester requests for Summer Session II yet, now is the time to do so. Please log in to Accommodate to submit your requests as soon as possible. Submitting early ensures your accommodation letters are sent to your faculty in advance of classes, providing timely support.

While you're there, we would greatly appreciate it if you could take a few moments to complete our "Student Survey: Spring 2026" in Accommodate. Your feedback is invaluable in helping us improve our services and better meet your needs.

Thank you for your time and for being a part of our SDS community. If you have any questions or need assistance, don't hesitate to reach out to us.

A furnished room is available for a female student in Arbutus starting in August.

The room is on the second floor. It is a 2-minute walk to the shuttle stop and a 20-minute walk to campus. The bathroom will be shared with two other tenants.

Parking is available, in-house laundry is included.

Rent: $500 per month ( Utilities included )

Contact Cindy: (443) 851-0475

As many veteran grant applicants can tell you, it can be tedious (and sometimes confusing) work to keep a CV up to date. But for federal sponsors like the NIH, NSF, and NASA, Biographical Sketches and Current and Pending (Other) Support documents remove the guesswork by streamlining a researcher's CV into a concise and standardized format; these documents help reviewers to determine an investigator's preparedness to undertake their proposed project, as well as to mark potential conflicts of interest. Take a moment to read our tips and tricks about NIH, NSF, and NASA Biosketch formats to make sure your application doesn't stand out for the wrong reasons!

NIH 

NIH proposals require the use of the NIH Biographical Sketch Common Form, which contains three major sections. These include Professional Preparation and Training; Appointments and Positions; and finally, Products Most Closely Related to the Proposed Project. Within the same form, there is also a required Supplement that includes a personal statement; up to 15 honors or awards; and a description of your Contributions to Science.  Use this link for detailed instructions.

The NIH's Current and Pending (Other Support) Common Form will require you to create a list of all proposals and currently active grants, which will give reviewers a comprehensive profile of sources of support, including nonfinancial support. This will include not only your previous proposals and awards from the NIH, but currently pending and active awards/proposals for any source of support. Additionally, you should list any sources of in-kind support with an estimated dollar value of $5,000 or more, and require a commitment of your time. (This could include office or laboratory space; data sets; goods and services; or employee or student resources.)

To create these documents, you must use the online tool ScienCV. UMBC's library has provided instructions about how to use this tool to generate your Biosketch, which you can access here. For more from the NIH, see their FAQ.

Don't forget...

• Unless specified by the NOFO, you will NOT provide your Current and Pending document at the time of application, but rather as part of the Just-In-Time (JIT) process as you are being awarded.
• Tip: to make sure your documents are valid, check the expiration date on the upper right hand corner of the first page.

NSF
The NSF’s Biosketch format is similar to the first half of the NIH common Form. It contains four sections: Professional Preparation; Appointments and Positions; and Products (with up to 5 publications closely related to the proposed project and up to 5 additional publications significant to the applicant.)

Unlike the NIH’s system, NSF requires the Current, Pending, and Other Support form at the time of proposal. It also requires the applicant to list all proposals and currently active grants from any funder; you should also list all in-kind contributions that are estimated at a value of $5,000 or higher and commit the investigator’s time. (This could include office or laboratory space; data sets; goods and services; or employee or student resources.)

Don’t forget…

• For the NSF, Biosketches and CPOS documents are only 2 of the 4 required documents that all Senior/Key Personnel must provide at the time of proposal. (The others are the Collaborators and Other Affiliates and Synergistic Activities documents.)
• While the NSF does not cap salary, it does cap NSF-funded effort at a total of 2 person months across all awards. The NSF uses the CPOS document to check whether investigators are under this threshold, so please be sure to document your effort accurately.
• While Biosketches are likely to remain stable across multiple proposal submissions, your CPOS will change with each proposal. Please ensure that only the current proposal is marked “this proposal” in the Statement of Potential Overlap and that all recent submissions are included as pending.

NASA

Of the three agencies covered in this post, NASA is the only one that requires a Biosketch and Current and Pending format that is generated from a word document template, and signed and certified using Adobe Acrobat, Microsoft Word or a similar signature software, or by providing a wet signature and scanning.

First, visit NASA’s Grant Operations Management website and scroll to the Regulations, Guidance, and Forms section. Under Grant Forms, you can download the NASA templates for the Biosketch and Current and Pending Support (CPS). Once you have finished filling out the appropriate entries on each of these forms, you must digitally sign each of these forms to fulfill the certification and signature requirement. NASA has provided these instructions about using digital signature software to sign the forms.

Don’t forget…

• Some programs may only accept certain types of signatures, so check the RFP carefully to ensure that your documents meet the program’s specific requirements, if any.
• You MUST include your ORCID or other Persistent Digital Identifier.
• Although these documents are formatted as word documents, modifying the standard language on the templates is not allowed.

We are looking for two faculty members willing to serve on the Academic Affairs Compliance Workgroup. The charge is attached below. This group typically meets on the last Monday of each month, with the flexibility to adjust the meeting time to accommodate schedules. Please email me at jmatamcm@umbc.edu if you are able and willing to serve.

Each plant, whether a small wild buttercup or a massive oak tree, starts out as seed—packed with potential to grow well beyond its original size. By this logic, The Garden’s new Little Seed Library—co-sponsored by Retriever Essentials and the Office of Sustainability and installed by Facilities Management—is seeded with infinite potential. 

Based on the now-familiar concept of Little Free Libraries that spread access to the love of reading, the Little Seed Library, down the sidewalk from UMBC Police, is set up for people to donate seeds (perhaps harvested from the adjacent garden) and those who want to put their green thumb to the test can take what they need to get started.

The idea stemmed from conversations Michael Berardi, assistant director of Retriever Essentials, was having with folks on campus about tangible ways to grow interest in the community garden while wanting to grow awareness of where our food actually comes from. “We want to help campus engage with our food in a more deep and meaningful way,” says Berardi ’19, M.P.S. ’25, who was also a co-founder of the campus-adjacent coffee shop, OCA Mocha. 

Andrew Eisenhardt ’21 was one of the people talking to Berardi. He remembers: “We were hiking in the woods of Patapsco State Park brainstorming some ideas for Retriever Essentials. I had recently seen a YouTube video where a community put up seed libraries and people could go to get new seeds and donate their excess. I figured it could be cool to have something like that at UMBC.” Eisenhardt, who already graduated with a double major in geography and environmental systems and media and communication studies and is currently pursuing another bachelor’s in computer engineering, started working in The Garden during his first time at UMBC when he needed a break from doing homework and wanted to see what opportunities were on-campus to get outside and work with nature. “The Little Seed Library serves as a great starting point for community members to participate in and learn about this work,” he says. “Just get a seed, throw it in some soil and see what happens! Worst case scenario, your seed never germinates. Either way you’ll learn something about plants and you might even make some friends along the way who are trying to grow a better future.”

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Jessica Graziano, who has been tending a plot in The Garden for several years, only foresees fruitful outcomes for the Little Seed Library. Eventually, in addition to seeds and instructions for planting, Graziano would like to see folks donate gardening tools and horticultural resources. Graziano, the current president of The Garden club, says her favorite thing to grow is perennials. “My current favorite is False Indigo, which I’ve had growing in my plot at The Garden for about two and a half years,” she shares. Recently recognized with a UMBC Community Impact award at SGA’s 2025 – 2026 CelebratingOrgs event, The Garden is lush with promise. 

Nicole Wolf, UMBC’s sustainability coordinator, says that the Office of Sustainability has some nutrient rich ideas coming up in connection with the other organizations that help support The Garden. But in the meantime, “access to free seeds and gardening space removes the barrier of not knowing where to start, or even having to leave campus if they choose to use the community plots,” says Wolf. “We will continue to foster this culture by hosting regular ‘seed save collection’ events on our campus to keep the library stocked while teaching attendees about native plants and how to harvest ethically as we go.” 

If you are a Division of Student Affairs professional or student staff member that does any type of assessment work, you are expected to review the DoSA Student and Professional Staff Employees Assessment Training Guide. This is a brand new onboarding resource that will be updated annually. 

As you go through the guide, please let Mary Ellen Wade, Director of Assessment and Planning, know if anything is unclear. There is a short, two question evaluation at the end to provide feedback. Page 12 of the guide has details on two CITI Trainings staff must complete (if you have not already done so within the past three years). 

Professional staff conducting assessment this year are expected to review this guide and complete the CITI Trainings by September 30, 2026. New members to the division conducting assessment will be expected to complete this on a rolling basis. Thanks for your understanding, reach out to Mary Ellen if you have any questions.