The shower was full of mantis shrimp. Bubblers burbled and the cranky crustaceans skulked in their tanks, looking for things to punch with their famously fast strikes. Complicated electronics for measuring brain activity stood sentinel beside the bed in the next room. And out on the balcony, Kathryn Feller, Ph.D. ’14, biological sciences, was wearing a respirator and gloves, working with nasty chemicals.
In other words, it was another day of fieldwork as a behavioral neuroscientist—a career Feller has embraced after a journey of self-exploration that took her to surgical operating theaters, drama summer camps, and a range of research institutions around the world. At UMBC, Feller found a robust research atmosphere, supportive lab mates, and a lifelong mentor. Now, as a professor and mentor herself, she’s able to exercise her natural creativity in a way she might never have predicted and play off her strengths from visual arts to handling sensitive scientific instruments.
Feller was in Malaga, Spain, living and working out of an attic apartment in her collaborator’s mother’s home. She was collecting data for her work at the University of Cambridge, where she was fulfilling a two-year Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellowship focused on a new line of research into mantis shrimp vision.
Mantis shrimp are famous for two things: their powerful punches and their vision. Humans have three types of cones in our eyes for seeing color. Mantis shrimp have 16. They can see UV light and polarized light, and there is still more to learn. Feller’s Ph.D. at UMBC in Thomas Cronin’s lab focused on vision in mantis shrimp larvae. At the time there was almost no work in that area.
“While studying the visual system, a lot of times I kept wondering: ‘There’s all these cool things that mantis shrimp eyes can do, but what are they actually using this for?’” Feller says. “What are the consequences of this in a behavioral context?”
Her Ph.D. opened up the field of larval mantis shrimp vision and took her down rabbit hole after rabbit hole. “If something interests me, I follow it, and—uh-oh—here’s something else I’m interested in,” Feller jokes. In the end, her thesis explored the visual system using umpteen different scientific techniques, each providing its own insights, she says. “It was like the whole package of describing mantis shrimp
visual systems.”
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The broad scientific foundation Feller obtained at UMBC set her up well for postdoctoral experiences that have taken her around the world, including stints studying butterflies in Japan, mouse brains in Minnesota, and insects in England. In fall 2020, she launched her own laboratory as an assistant professor of biology at Union College in Schenectady, New York.
Feller’s research interests now include new projects on the connections between vision and behavior and work on brain-machine interfaces, initially inspired by a student in one of her classes. That work helped spawn a brand-new course on cyborgs that she’s teaching with Union colleagues in English and computer science.
Things are going well.
“Life is awesome. It really is. You know, it has its ups and downs; it’s not like every day is a dreamboat—I live with a two-year-old,” Feller laughs. But “at this point, I’m just really jazzed about the research I’m doing.”
(Left) Feller is the only identifiable person in the mural on the first floor of the Biological Sciences Building at UMBC. Her swim cap covered in bright plastic flowers is unmistakable. (Image; Randianne Leyshon ’09/UMBC) (Right) Kate Feller, left, teaching a new course she co-developed with English and computer science colleagues at Union College on cyborgs. (Image by Paul Buckowski/Union College)
Back in Malaga, Feller was getting lots of great data, “but also psychologically it was a bit difficult,” she says. She didn’t speak Spanish, and her hosts barely spoke English. “For six weeks, I was just alone in someone’s house, doing science.” And then came the email: an invitation to participate in FameLab, an international competition for scientists based out of the United Kingdom. Each participant had three minutes to explain a scientific concept using only their body and any props they could carry on the stage—no slides. Entries were judged on content, clarity, and charisma.
“I got this email, and I wrote my script in one night,” Feller says. The topic? Glittery camouflage structures in the eyes of mantis shrimp larvae. “When you’re in the field, you have a finite number of hours to do what you need to do, so you need to push yourself to the extreme—but you also need to take a break. And that was my break—just to sit down and poke fun at the ridiculousness of my life.”
She won her region in the U.K. and got to spend a weekend in Devonshire, England, with the other county winners, learning about science communication and refining her talk. The final performance was at the London Museum of Science.
“I didn’t win, but it was awesome,” Feller says. After that, she was hooked on science performance. Back in Cambridge, she pursued science stand-up comedy with a group called “The Variables.”
Feller’s affinity for performance didn’t come out of nowhere. As a teenager, she attended Camp Quin, a summer arts camp in the Finger Lakes region of New York. And despite a natural affinity for visual arts, she ended up focusing on drama at the camp. A skit she developed with other campers “was hilarious, and it was a hit, and from that I was like, ‘I really like this,’” Feller remembers.
As an undergraduate at Hobart and William Smith Colleges (HWS), she participated in an improv comedy troupe and in her senior year, the Shakespeare club. In the summers, she served as a counselor at Camp Quin. Performance may have taken a backseat in her life for now, but Feller still finds that her communication skills and natural creative energy are huge benefits in her current role.
“As I’ve progressed as a scientist, I’ve learned how much imagination it takes to be a researcher,” Feller says. “And now that I’m a faculty member, I understand how much creativity you need to run an interesting class. I love that aspect—designing a new course is a super fun and creative process, and I find that my students respond quite well to the different ways of communicating I throw at them.”
Feller also applies her visual arts skills to creating research talks and class lectures. “The art of slide design is underrated,” she says. “I think that’s why I’ve been invited to give so many talks—not only do I have that performance element, but I understand the connection between hearing and seeing and information transfer.”
Feller (pink dress) is involved with a robotics laboratory at Union College. Her work has recently expanded into brain-machine interfaces after a student in one of her classes expressed enthusiasm for the topic—just one example of how her teaching continues to inform her research. (Image by Paul Buckowski/Union College) (Lower left) One of Feller’s digital designs. She has been hired to create logos for other labs and continues to make art as a hobby—ranging from using iridescent eye shadow to recreate beetle carapaces to shaping clay sculptures.
Feller has always recognized her artistic side, but she wasn’t always encouraged to integrate it into her career plans. She was a good student, and her kindergarten teacher told her parents she would probably become a doctor. “I got that message my whole life,” Feller says.
It sunk in, and she started at HWS on the pre-med track. As an undergrad, she took an internship as a surgical assistant in a hospital. “There was a major clash with who I was as a person,” Feller says. “Literally, you are in a sterile environment. So while I was good at that job, it crushed me.”
But expectations die hard, and in her junior year, she was still looking at medical school. She decided she should do research to boost her chances. “Literally, it was just for my CV,” she says. Little did she know the experience would permanently shift her trajectory.
For this design, Feller incorporated the organisms studied in the UMBC biological sciences department for its annual, informal graduate student t-shirt.
Feller did some background research and requested a meeting with HWS biology assistant professor Kristy Kenyon, who studies development of the visual system in frogs and fruit flies, to pitch an honors project. As it turned out, her pitch was a little off the mark. “It was at least within the organ system that I worked,” Kenyon says. Yet, Kenyon decided to give her a chance.
Why? “Kate Feller is such a dynamic person,” Kenyon says. “She was such an all-in, live-life-to-the-fullest kind of person, that it was very easy for me to get excited about working on a project with her despite having never had her in a class. The energy, the creativity, the curiosity—those are three words I would use to describe that initial impression of Kate.”
Feller and Kenyon settled on a bat vision project, and it transformed Feller’s future. Kenyon gave her a crash course in what she needed to know, and Feller thrived. The project led to Feller’s first scientific publication, reporting the discovery of a type of UV-sensitive cell in bat eyes that is evolutionarily related to the same cells in mice.
“I loved it,” Feller says. “Just the idea of thinking about how a different creature sees, because I’m so visual—it just fit so well. It took me a while to realize why I found it so exciting, but then I was like, ‘Oh, that makes sense.’”
And yet. After graduating with a double major in biology and environmental science, Feller took a position as an ophthalmology surgical assistant. She quickly soured on that, though, for the same reasons she had struggled with roles in sterile environments before. Her personal life brought her to Baltimore, and looking for new opportunities, she found Tom Cronin on a Google search.
She applied to other Ph.D. programs, but when she visited UMBC, “there was the pond, and all the grass, and meeting Tom, and I was like, ‘Oh, this is where I need to be.’”
Feller’s Ph.D. years spanned a special time in the Cronin lab. “It was an incredible group of people who formed a tight-knit community and helped each other grow into outstanding scientists,” says Megan Porter, a postdoctoral fellow in the lab during that time. Sometimes, that support involved tough love. An intervention conversation Porter had with Feller when she was experiencing a third-year slump helped get Feller’s Ph.D. back on track. The exchange helped Porter as well.
“It has helped me to be a better mentor to my students now, to have had that conversation first with a friend,” says Porter, who now is a professor at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. “It’s an important conversation to have with any graduate student, as it isn’t the right path for everyone. There are many other careers out there for anyone who loves science.”
If Porter was the nurturing mother figure in the lab, Michael Bok, Ph.D. ’14, biological sciences, was the goofy uncle. Feller and Bok started the same year, and both needed to earn an advanced level of scuba certification to conduct fieldwork in Australia. Given the limited diving options in the mid-Atlantic, “we spent a total of 15 hours goofing around in a pretty uninspiring quarry, but it was worth it for the diving we got to do in Australia,” says Bok, who is now a researcher at Lund University in Sweden.
Feller and Bok conducted fieldwork at Lizard Island Research Station off the northeast coast of Australia for many months across five years. “Some of these stressful and intensive work experiences would probably strain some people’s friendship, but Kate and I seemed to always be quite happy with each other despite having pretty different personalities,” Bok says. “We were definitely kindred in our love for science, appreciation for being out in nature, and senses of humor.”
Feller came to love diving and did so with typical flair. “You could always tell where Kate was in the water,” Cronin says, because she always wore a brightly colored swim cap with plastic flowers stuck all over it. “It was very Kate because it made her look kind of silly but also very distinctive, because even underwater far away you could identify her.”
Alex Kingston, Ph.D. ’15, biological sciences, arrived in the lab after Porter, Bok, and Feller. “I really wouldn’t be where I am today without each of them,” she says.
Kingston, who today is an assistant professor at The University of Tulsa, was always very organized and on top of things, Cronin recalls—“very type A.” She kept the lab running smoothly as lab manager but wasn’t afraid to have fun. Feller and Kingston would have dance parties as a break from drafting scientific manuscripts. “It was hilarious when other people would come into the lab, not expecting us in the middle of the lab blaring music and dancing around,” Kingston remembers.
The group had other shared adventures, like caring for Scott, a box turtle who frequently escaped, necessitating a lab-wide search. And Feller took it as her role to decorate the lab. “In my lab today you can still see Kate stuff,” Cronin says. “She had a tendency of sticking stuff up there that didn’t want to come down again.”
Cronin’s approach to mentorship allowed each of his students to find their own way, with the level of support or independence that worked best for each of them. That means Cronin’s students have complete ownership of both their successes and their struggles and grow the confidence to face both once they leave UMBC.
“Tom was really hands off. However, he was so supportive,” Feller says. “Pretty much any time I came to him with an idea, he was like, ‘Cool, let’s do it.’ So it was that mix of, you’re steering the ship, but you don’t have to worry about resources.”
“Kate was not afraid to try anything— she was particularly inclined to do things her own way,” Cronin recalls. While she may have taken some time to find her footing, in the end, “she did really great work—really original and creative work.”
(Left) Current and former members of Tom Cronin’s research group have made it a tradition to reunite at professional conferences and take a “family photo.” From left to right: Kate Feller, Tom Cronin, Alex Kingston, Megan Porter, and Michael Bok in 2013. (Image courtesy of Tom Cronin) (Right) Feller contributed substantially to decorating Tom Cronin’s lab. One day she came home from a thrift shop with a gift for Cronin: this sketch of a cat, with the inscription, “Tom is tough. But he is your friend.” It was a perfect fit for an advisor who held high expectations along with offering generous support. It still hangs in the Cronin lab today.
Today, Feller is focused on furthering her research, engaging her students, and raising her family—her second child arrived this October. As a faculty member, Feller is maintaining old connections and forging new ones.
“Kate is really doing a fantastic job of creating and maintaining a network across different areas of science and education, in the research that she does but also in the way that she teaches and the way she facilitates those connections across institutions,” Kenyon, her mentor from HWS, says. For example, Kenyon is now collaborating with a colleague at Union because Feller connected them. And Kenyon is using a book in her courses that features the Cronin lab’s research— including some carried out by Feller.
“What I have thoroughly enjoyed is watching Kate progress at each step along the way, and find her passion, and be able to pursue something with such rigor, and excitement and resilience,” says Kenyon.
Whether creating art, performing on stage or in the classroom, working hard in the lab, or collecting specimens underwater, Feller is embracing each stage of her life and career with a zest that is uniquely hers. As Cronin puts it, “She was always Kate. She never started or stopped being Kate.”
“The thing that I love most is just trying to figure out how the world works,” Feller says. “I like to describe myself as an explorer. I am not a Magellan or a person on a ship looking to explore new places—I’m pushing the boundaries of knowledge. Where is the edge, and how can I shed light on the unknown?”
Feller is on the exploration of a lifetime, discovering new things about how brains work, transforming the lives of students, and doing it all in full color. As her research program takes off, her family grows, and her network broadens, her greatest adventures may be ahead of her.
For centuries, media has portrayed Arab culture as misogynistic and homophobic, leaving little room for the possibility that queer Arab communities exist and thrive. Adding to this sense of erasure is the belief some Arab communities have in thinking that homosexuality is not inherently Arab but something the Western world brought to the Arab world. However, the reality queer Arabs and those in the diaspora live is much more positive and complex.
Mejdulene Bernard Shomali, a queer Palestinian poet and associate professor in the department of gender, women’s, and sexuality studies,wrote the first study of desire that addresses the contemporary cultures and lives of queer Arab women in her book, Between Banat: Queer Arab Critique and Transnational Arab Archives (Duke University Press, 2023).
“My research looks at how Arab people experience and narrate their queerness in unexpected ways. For example, Arabs may be in same-sex relationships but might not claim gay or lesbian identities,” Shomali explains to Lynn Pasquerella, president of the American Association of Colleges and Universities and host of The Academic Minute, a daily show featuring faculty from colleges and universities worldwide speaking about their cutting-edge research. “Many queer Arabs might not check off Western benchmarks of LGBT identity, like being ‘out.’ Some of the existing Arabic terms for queer people have negative connotations and are also not popular.”
Shomali joined seven other UMBC scholars this fall in UMBC’s first Academic Minute series, featuring the latest research in media and communication studies; modern languages, linguistics, and intercultural communication; language, literacy, and culture; philosophy; gender, women’s, and sexuality studies; sociology, anthropology, and public health; and history. This series is republished on NPR podcasts and Inside Higher Ed.
Learn more about UMBC’s gender, women’s, and sexuality studies.
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For centuries, media has portrayed Arab culture as misogynistic and homophobic, leaving little room for the possibility that queer Arab communities exist and thrive. Adding to this sense of erasure is the belief some Arab communities have in thinking that homosexuality is not inherently Arab but something the Western world brought to the Arab world. However, the reality queer Arabs and those in the diaspora live is much more positive and complex.
Mejdulene Bernard Shomali, a queer Palestinian poet and associate professor in the department of gender, women’s, and sexuality studies,wrote the first study of desire that addresses the contemporary cultures and lives of queer Arab women in her book, Between Banat: Queer Arab Critique and Transnational Arab Archives (Duke University Press, 2023).
“My research looks at how Arab people experience and narrate their queerness in unexpected ways. For example, Arabs may be in same-sex relationships but might not claim gay or lesbian identities,” Shomali explains to Lynn Pasquerella, president of the American Association of Colleges and Universities and host of The Academic Minute, a daily show featuring faculty from colleges and universities worldwide speaking about their cutting-edge research. “Many queer Arabs might not check off Western benchmarks of LGBT identity, like being ‘out.’ Some of the existing Arabic terms for queer people have negative connotations and are also not popular.”
Shomali joined seven other UMBC scholars this fall in UMBC’s first Academic Minute series, featuring the latest research in media and communication studies; modern languages, linguistics, and intercultural communication; language, literacy, and culture; philosophy; gender, women’s, and sexuality studies; sociology, anthropology, and public health; and history. This series is republished on NPR podcasts and Inside Higher Ed.
Learn more about UMBC’s gender, women’s, and sexuality studies.
]]>
For centuries, media has portrayed Arab culture as misogynistic and homophobic, leaving little room for the possibility that queer Arab communities exist and thrive. Adding to this sense of erasure is the belief some Arab communities have in thinking that homosexuality is not inherently Arab but something the Western world brought to the Arab world. However, the reality queer Arabs and those in the diaspora live is much more positive and complex.
Mejdulene Bernard Shomali, a queer Palestinian poet and associate professor in the department of gender, women’s, and sexuality studies,wrote the first study of desire that addresses the contemporary cultures and lives of queer Arab women in her book, Between Banat: Queer Arab Critique and Transnational Arab Archives (Duke University Press, 2023).
“My research looks at how Arab people experience and narrate their queerness in unexpected ways. For example, Arabs may be in same-sex relationships but might not claim gay or lesbian identities,” Shomali explains to Lynn Pasquerella, president of the American Association of Colleges and Universities and host of The Academic Minute, a daily show featuring faculty from colleges and universities worldwide speaking about their cutting-edge research. “Many queer Arabs might not check off Western benchmarks of LGBT identity, like being ‘out.’ Some of the existing Arabic terms for queer people have negative connotations and are also not popular.”
Shomali joined seven other UMBC scholars this fall in UMBC’s first Academic Minute series, featuring the latest research in media and communication studies; modern languages, linguistics, and intercultural communication; language, literacy, and culture; philosophy; gender, women’s, and sexuality studies; sociology, anthropology, and public health; and history. This series is republished on NPR podcasts and Inside Higher Ed.
Learn more about UMBC’s gender, women’s, and sexuality studies.
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A: I am an alumnus who met his wife, who was a fellow RA in another residence hall, at UMBC. (On the right here, we’re posing for Valentine’s Day in 2009 in the Erickson Hall lobby.) We are now the proud parents of three girls and recently moved to Delaware. Our family loves UMBC and we plan to be lifelong engaged alumni!
A: I have had the privilege of serving as president of the UMBC Alumni Association Board of Directors since 2020. Leading this board through the pandemic and historic leadership transition has been the honor of a lifetime and has allowed me to give back to UMBC in more ways than I ever could have imagined. Through this experience, I’ve seen firsthand the dedication, commitment, and contributions that make UMBC the special community it is.
A: The culture of UMBC is very special. Everyone has a place at UMBC. The commitment to inclusive excellence is real, whether you are a student or an alum. There are countless opportunities to get involved and no contribution or commitment is too small!
“I’ve seen firsthand the dedication, commitment, and contributions that make UMBC the special community it is.
Brian Frazee ’11, M.P.P. ’12
A: People who volunteer their time in an effort to better their community inspire me most. With all of the challenges we face in this post-pandemic period, it is inspiring when people step up to do the hard work of making their community better for everyone without expecting anything in return. These unsung heroes give me hope and confidence that our best days are ahead of us.
A: I am the president and CEO of the Delaware Healthcare Association. The privilege and opportunity to advance healthcare policy with the goal of enabling Delawareans to reach optimal health is what I enjoy most about the work. The hospital, health system, and healthcare-related organizations that make up the membership of my organization inspire me with the innovative and dedicated work they do every day to make progress toward this goal.
A: I was attracted to UMBC because of its unique culture of inclusive community that has only gotten stronger since my time as a student. UMBC is not a place; it’s a community. That special and unique culture became evident quickly when I arrived on campus and it’s why I have remained engaged as an alumnus.
The Frazee family with Maryland Comptroller Brooke Lierman at her inaugural celebration. “We took our girls to Annapolis for the ceremony and celebration because it was important to us that they witnessed the historic swearing-in of the first woman independently elected to state-wide office in Maryland,” says Frazee.A: There are so many people who have supported me along my UMBC journey. The individualized attention that is engrained in our culture certainly helped me get to where I am today. Service learning volunteering opportunities through the Shriver Center, internships, campus involvement and leadership, and dedicated professors are specific examples of ways the UMBC community supported me.
A: The special pride we share as members of Retriever Nation is my favorite part of our community. That instant connection and understanding I feel when I meet a fellow member never gets old!
The Frazee family with Maryland Governor Wes Moore during the 2023 inaugural celebrations.
A: We support the UMBC Alumni Endowed Scholarship Fund which is led by the UMBC Alumni Association Board of Directors. While we see the value in giving to all parts of the UMBC community, my wife and I believe that this fund most directly supports future generations of Retrievers. My wife benefited from this fund as an undergraduate and supporting it as alumni is our way of paying it forward!
* * * * *
UMBC’s greatest strength is its people. When people meet Retrievers and hear about the passion they bring, the relationships they create, the ways they support each other, and the commitment they have to inclusive excellence, they truly get a sense of our community. That’s what “Meet a Retriever” is all about.
Learn more about how UMBC can help you achieve your goals.
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A: I am an alumnus who met his wife, who was a fellow RA in another residence hall, at UMBC. (On the right here, we’re posing for Valentine’s Day in 2009 in the Erickson Hall lobby.) We are now the proud parents of three girls and recently moved to Delaware. Our family loves UMBC and we plan to be lifelong engaged alumni!
A: I have had the privilege of serving as president of the UMBC Alumni Association Board of Directors since 2020. Leading this board through the pandemic and historic leadership transition has been the honor of a lifetime and has allowed me to give back to UMBC in more ways than I ever could have imagined. Through this experience, I’ve seen firsthand the dedication, commitment, and contributions that make UMBC the special community it is.
A: The culture of UMBC is very special. Everyone has a place at UMBC. The commitment to inclusive excellence is real, whether you are a student or an alum. There are countless opportunities to get involved and no contribution or commitment is too small!
“I’ve seen firsthand the dedication, commitment, and contributions that make UMBC the special community it is.
Brian Frazee ’11, M.P.P. ’12
A: People who volunteer their time in an effort to better their community inspire me most. With all of the challenges we face in this post-pandemic period, it is inspiring when people step up to do the hard work of making their community better for everyone without expecting anything in return. These unsung heroes give me hope and confidence that our best days are ahead of us.
A: I am the president and CEO of the Delaware Healthcare Association. The privilege and opportunity to advance healthcare policy with the goal of enabling Delawareans to reach optimal health is what I enjoy most about the work. The hospital, health system, and healthcare-related organizations that make up the membership of my organization inspire me with the innovative and dedicated work they do every day to make progress toward this goal.
A: I was attracted to UMBC because of its unique culture of inclusive community that has only gotten stronger since my time as a student. UMBC is not a place; it’s a community. That special and unique culture became evident quickly when I arrived on campus and it’s why I have remained engaged as an alumnus.
The Frazee family with Maryland Comptroller Brooke Lierman at her inaugural celebration. “We took our girls to Annapolis for the ceremony and celebration because it was important to us that they witnessed the historic swearing-in of the first woman independently elected to state-wide office in Maryland,” says Frazee.A: There are so many people who have supported me along my UMBC journey. The individualized attention that is engrained in our culture certainly helped me get to where I am today. Service learning volunteering opportunities through the Shriver Center, internships, campus involvement and leadership, and dedicated professors are specific examples of ways the UMBC community supported me.
A: The special pride we share as members of Retriever Nation is my favorite part of our community. That instant connection and understanding I feel when I meet a fellow member never gets old!
The Frazee family with Maryland Governor Wes Moore during the 2023 inaugural celebrations.
A: We support the UMBC Alumni Endowed Scholarship Fund which is led by the UMBC Alumni Association Board of Directors. While we see the value in giving to all parts of the UMBC community, my wife and I believe that this fund most directly supports future generations of Retrievers. My wife benefited from this fund as an undergraduate and supporting it as alumni is our way of paying it forward!
* * * * *
UMBC’s greatest strength is its people. When people meet Retrievers and hear about the passion they bring, the relationships they create, the ways they support each other, and the commitment they have to inclusive excellence, they truly get a sense of our community. That’s what “Meet a Retriever” is all about.
Learn more about how UMBC can help you achieve your goals.
]]>
These days, it’s tempting to grow numb to the polarization of society and the breakdown in public discourse and to retreat into our silos of solidarity. But a liberal arts education has the potential to offer an antidote to these seemingly inevitable fates—through modeling and practicing empathy. At UMBC, students are invited to the table to share their stories and listen to their peers. These acts of educational hospitality help Retrievers find their why and pursue the public good.
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It’s the first day of class. You’re looking around, bright-eyed and a little nervous, and then your instructor smiles at the class and says, “One day you are all going to die.” Are you offended? Shocked? Titillated? Horrified? Collectively, the class titters. Already social bonds are forming as Christine Armstrong Mair, associate professor of sociology who specializes in gerontology, continues her spiel. “And if we’re all lucky, that won’t be for a long time.”
As sociologists, says Mair, or more broadly as leaders in an educational setting, “it’s not our task to make somebody think a certain way. Our task is to show them what exists in society and help them feel empathy for the human experience.”
At its most pedestrian roots, empathy is putting yourself in someone else’s shoes. How can someone else’s emotional experience inform your own personal perspective?
In the best-case scenario, a college campus is a microcosm of its society: a crosshatch of races, ages, and socio-economic backgrounds. And UMBC holds true to those measures. But something different happens when you step into the Loop—you sit next to someone who didn’t go to your high school. You eat at the same table with someone outside of your cultural background. You take a test side by side with someone who voted differently than you. And even more than sharing space, you start sharing notes and books and stories—even your own story—with these strangers and then suddenly they’re no longer strangers.
When empathy is on the table, students and colleagues expand their capacity for hard work. You might change your thesis to address human trafficking or leave your home island to work toward healthy aging for all populations. So pull up a chair, step into someone else’s shoes, and partake in this grand educational potluck.
“With my background—what I’ve seen with human trafficking and migrant smuggling—what can I do as a person with my knowledge and responsibility?”
– Saydeh Karabatis, Ph.D. candidate
You’re sitting at a beach-side cafe in Greece with your husband. It’s 2015 and Greece’s financial troubles are in the news, but the waves of migrants washing ashore are not yet as publicized. As you enjoy your coffee, you see a group of 40 to 50 people sitting seemingly aimless and distraught nearby. Based on their clothing, you make a guess that they are Muslims and Arabic speakers. What do you do?
If you’re Saydeh Karabatis, originally from Lebanon—and a survivor of the 17-year Lebanon civil war—and fluent in Arabic, you let that immediate moment of empathy guide you and approach the group.
Karabatis and her husband George, a professor of information systems at UMBC and from Greece, changed the plans for their summer in the Mediterranean to volunteer as translators, food finders, and listeners for the refugees, primarily fleeing the war in Syria and arriving in Greece in dire straits. They did so again in 2017.
As Karabatis interacted with these desperate groups and read more about their plight, she realized familiar patterns were emerging in their stories. They were not just migrants fleeing a war, they were trafficked people, paying dearly for not-safe passage, and many others headed toward labor and a life they did not sign up for. Struck by the limits of her actions—and even her emotional capacity for empathy—when Karabatis returned home to Maryland, she found her next step.
Karabatis, who has a master’s in computer science from UMBC and works for the university’s Division of Information Technology, knew she would need to fill her time when her two sons left for college. Karabatis asked herself, “With my background—what I’ve seen with human trafficking and migrant smuggling—what can I do as a person with my knowledge and responsibility?”
She contacted Vandana Janeja, then chair of information systems, and explained the project she wanted to complete for her Ph.D. During her master’s, Karabatis had tried to conduct a research project on human trafficking for a class with Janeja but couldn’t find a robust data set to use for her project and ended up having to leave the work incomplete. This time, she pitched using the stories of trafficked people. “Instead of dealing with numbers, numbers as data, I am now dealing with stories as data—the stories of people being trafficked,” says Karabatis.
It’s not been easy going. Many trafficked people are not open about their stories, for fear of retribution or simply because of how horrific the experience was. Additionally, it’s hard for Karabatis to take in their trauma. “I’m reading about all these abuses,” says Karabatis. “I’m reading about sex trafficking, labor trafficking, organ trafficking, human smuggling. I can’t imagine—how can a human being do something like that to another human?”
Eventually though, with the end goal of combating the network of smuggling routes, Karabatis says, you need to reach a level where you can try to put your emotions aside: “You need to detach yourself from these emotions if you want to do something to help these people. If your emotions are the only thing driving you, you wouldn’t be able to produce the research. Use these emotions as a spark and then put them on the side.”
You’re a teenager riding the bus for fun in Puerto Rico, killing time by people watching. You’re struck by the number of older adults on the bus, noticing their many bags stuffed with x-rays and other apparent medical paperwork. Unthinkingly, you just assume they’re enjoying the ride like yourself, but this older generation seems eager to talk.
If you’re Jaminette Nazario, a curious if bored high schooler, you strike up a conversation.
What she heard from her fellow travelers shook her: “‘We don’t have people to help….’ ‘My wife just died of cancer….’ ‘I need to use this bus to get to my medical appointments.’” It wasn’t until she was pursuing her bachelor’s degree in social sciences that Nazario was hit by the realization that those conversations might have been the only time those older bus riders had talked to someone that day. “So I started thinking about the many barriers older adults have in order to achieve healthy aging,” she says. “When older adults don’t have resources or people, they miss out on social networks that are vital to healthy aging.”
This aha moment would propel Nazario to a master’s degree in public health with a focus on gerontology, but in order to study further, she’d have to leave her island for the next academic step.
Now in her second year of UMBC’s Ph.D. program in gerontology—a joint program with the University of Maryland, Baltimore—Nazario is beginning to research aging Hispanic immigrants and their increasing challenges accessing medical care.
And unlike her fellow bus riders, she’s not doing this alone. “Even though it’s really hard to be far from family, I feel like I’m home here. And I love how Dr. Mair teaches.” Like most classes, says Nazario, there are readings and discussion, but Mair brings a “specific dynamic” to the setting. Each class starts with questions prepared by the students, which is really empowering, says Nazario. It might end up that the class all resonates with one question and they stay on that topic, guiding the trajectory of the discussion.
In summer 2022, Nazario joined Mair and others from the gerontology program at a conference in Japan. She presented a poster on her research and walked away from her talk with a new level of confidence. “There were professionals from Japan and China and they’re asking me about something in the United States…it was kind of cool. People came up and treated me with so much respect.”
Students in Mair’s gerontology classes are finding their drive to solve crises in aging care not only because they might have loved ones suffering, but because aging (if we’re lucky) and death are unifying elements. “It’s something that really applies to all of us,” says Mair, “to make sure that we’re taking care and setting up a good system so that when we all arrive there, that us and all of our people that we care about are okay.”
You walk to the front of the media and communications class you’re teaching. Students are sitting in traditional desks in rows, facing the whiteboard where you’ll teach. They’re silent, spaced out or on their phones. They seem to breathe a sigh of relief when you walk in, grateful to know where to put their attention. Later, in a different section of that class, you meet in a newly designed lecture hall filled with round tables and no clear lectern space. In this format, the students are already grouped together and chatting.
If you’re Donald Snyder, principal lecturer in media and communication studies, you know there is science behind what forms good class cohesion and participation. He learned it from the experts in UMBC’s Faculty Development Center (FDC).
In addition to learning about and playing around with classroom set-up to facilitate more natural conversations (and to rid the learning experience from a “perceived hierarchy” as FDC Director Linda Hodges calls it), Snyder and others who use the FDC are supported in using inclusive and culturally responsive teaching.
While culturally responsive pedagogy isn’t a new concept—it centers and nurtures students’ unique cultural strengths—Hodges says that recent world events have brought the teaching style more into focus. Citing the death of George Floyd and the nation’s response—especially young people—and the COVID-19 pandemic as two significant flashpoints, Hodges says inclusive pedagogy and empathetic practices have become more imperative than ever. Room design is just one tool in the FDC toolbelt that can work to democratize students’ experience. It can erase the divide between the front row handraiser and the back row hider, giving equal footing to all types of students and their stories.
“Instructors are recognizing that they need to try to connect with and hear their students’ voices,” says Hodges. “This will create a sense of belonging. It’s become quite clear in the research that one of the key factors in whether students succeed and persist in education is the feeling of belonging.”
Snyder has made the most of the FDC’s offerings, including inviting Hodges’ team to observe his teaching and offer feedback. He starts many of his classes with some tools for students to learn about self-regulation, basically how to use available resources to make the most of education. He introduces them to Bloom’s Taxonomy, which places rote memorization at the bottom of the pyramid and evaluating and creating a unique argument at top. “I want the students to know, I’m not asking to memorize anything,” says Snyder, “but we need to learn to be critical when we’re thinking about media and communication texts and how these things operate.”
Giving students tools to succeed in college—go to office hours, block out time for studying, get enough sleep—may seem basic and far afield from teaching and practicing empathy, but in the taxonomy of educational success, says Snyder, this foundation leads to the heavy-lifting tools at the top of the pyramid.
Snyder helps them harness existing interests, in tech or media, and then run with it, academically. He wants them to ask, “‘How can I turn that switch? What is the thing that I can grab onto? What do I really want to know about?’”
He also listens to them, and attempts to model vulnerability in the classroom. “Yes, these are students and they need to understand content, but they’re also humans who are struggling and we’re all struggling and there’s a human condition aspect we can’t ignore as instructors.”
You’re driving your car on tour in Texas when you’re hit by a criminally intoxicated drunk driver. You survive, but a host of physical and psychological repercussions are still taking their toll 10 years later. As a musician, you fuel your art with your resiliency and work through the healing process by creating music. But when the pandemic hits, and live, in-person music disappears, you look for a pivot point—and the community you’re missing.
If you’re Kristin Putchinski, a student in UMBC’s M.F.A. program for intermedia and digital arts, you lean into the concept of “platonic intimacy.”
Putchinski coined the term to sum up her goal of “trying to strengthen neighborly bonds. What I’m looking for is an intimate experience between two people. And when people hear intimacy, they tend to think that it’s about a romantic or sexual component. But how do I frame that intimacy—and how important intimacy is—in terms of friendship and neighborliness?”
Through a graduate assistantship jointly funded by jointly funded by UMBC and the University of Maryland, Baltimore’s Community Engagement Center (CEC), Putchinski was given the opportunity to shadow CEC’s then-director Tyrone Roper and learn about the center’s mission, which includes strengthening neighborly bonds. Roper told Putchinski they were looking for ways to engage the 18- to 24-year-old demographic. When Putchinski was tasked with creating an art project for CEC the following semester, she kept this age goal in mind.
As a student in UMBC’s intermedia program, Putchinski “explores the textures between mediums,” she says. As a musical artist who performed under the stage name ellen cherry, “I have 25 years of experience as a performing songwriter and storyteller, creating my own and interpreting other people’s stories.” So she began to imagine a strange game of telephone that would give participants the opportunity to swap stories, with the end result of creating instances of platonic intimacy.
This multifaceted project connected post-high-school-aged individuals with older generations through curated, facilitated sessions. The participant-pairs met four different times and talked about a song, a photograph, and a memory—and at the last session, the neighbors “swapped” their stories. A recording of the swap was sent to local artists who interpreted the stories into their own mediums—painting, poetry, and a video soundscape. Then, at an event open to the public in the CEC, the storytellers took the stage, retelling their neighbor’s story. For example, a Latinx college graduate took to the stage to reshare her stranger-turned-partner’s tale of being raised in foster care in 1970s Baltimore.
Putchinski was eager to find out “when you talk to somebody that’s 40 years different from you…did your perceptions change about yourself, about them, and what were those changes and the answers?”
It makes sense she’s asking these questions based on her ongoing empathy toward the man who altered her life in an accident 10 years ago. “It was very conflicting for me to be the victim of a crime that I really feel like was committed not by a criminal but by a person who abuses alcohol. At the base level, he’s a human being. How can we think about his human potential after this experience and mine?”
One of the greatest assertions of the liberal arts comes from Percy Bysshe Shelley’s essay “A Defence of Poetry.” The short-lived husband of Frankenstein’s creator writes, “A man, to be greatly good, must imagine intensely and comprehensively; he must put himself in the place of another and of many others; the pains and pleasures of his species must become his own.”
On college campuses, and at UMBC in particular, through thoughtful classroom instruction and intentional commitment to community, students trade their stories—pains and pleasures alike. Less of a transaction and more of a gift, these stories are invitations to grow in understanding, change your opinion, or shape your research.
But walking in someone else’s shoes doesn’t mean you misplace your own shoes along the way—in fact professors hope it helps you find your footing at UMBC. “That open-mindedness and appreciation and empathy does not necessarily mean that you lose other parts of yourself,” says Anne Brodsky, professor and chair of the psychology department. “It shouldn’t be a zero-sum game.”
You’re walking down Academic Row. You’re a first-generation college student with a lot of questions. You’re a returning student giving college a second (or third) chance. You’re a first-year who misses the familiar halls of high school. You see other Retrievers walking in groups, heading into classrooms, rubbing True Grit’s bronze nose, making conversation with their peers. What do you do?
