Kaitlynn Lilly, a Sophomore majoring in Physics and Mathematics

What have you enjoyed most about your time at UMBC?

I love how genuine the people are here. Every student and professor wants you to succeed and is willing to take the time and effort to help you achieve your goals.

What challenges have you overcome as a first-generation student?

I overcame the challenge of the unknown. I had no idea what to expect and was incredibly overwhelmed by the college experience. After some time and with the support of my professors, peers, and advisers, I was able to overcome that fear of the unknown.

What's your Why? Why are you pursuing a college degree?

I am pursuing a college degree to be able to attain my dream of being a professor. I am incredibly passionate about both teaching and research and would love to have a career that encompasses both of those things, but I need a college degree to do so.

What advice do you have for other First-Generation Students at UMBC?

My advice to other First-Generation Students at UMBC is to take advantage of all the opportunities that UMBC has to offer because you can get a lot out of this school that will allow you to be the next one to inspire other students just like you.

Who has been especially helpful to you at UMBC?

Dr. Justin Webster has been incredibly helpful to me in guiding me down the right path to be able to achieve all of my short and long term goals. Because we both took similar paths in college, he has been an invaluable part of my college journey thus far.

If you're a first-generation student who is doing great things at UMBC or in the world, you could be the next First Gen Student of the Month.  Complete the nomination here.

Nandi is a Junior, English major, student staff at the Women’s Center, and member of the Retriever Poets slam poetry team

(Still from Girlhood (2014))

  Picture this: It is 7:25AM in your high school. You are a student there again (I know, bare with me). You are barely awake, as is the natural order of things. Then, from the stupor of the morning a voice rings out clear as the lunch bell, “GIRL BYE, YOU PLAY TOO MUCH. SEE YOU, BESTIE”. She strolls into homeroom, late like every day, in pajama pants with an Arizona iced tea firmly in hand. You wonder how she can muster up the will to socialize outside of polite grunts at this hour, and you decide that you’ll just never get it. She is extremely friendly with the teacher while she expertly swoops her baby hairs into little parabolas. Everyone in the room seems on edge. She is so outside of the norm that nobody quite knows how to handle her, so most just settle on annoyance. But really, what makes her so different? Perhaps it is the fact that on a girl who already operates at about a 7-9, darker skin just seems to turn everything up to 11. 

     Navigating the school system as Black and Brown girls is no easy task. Especially at a predominantly white institution (PWI) that seldom gives you the space to express yourself fully. Seizing the little opportunities that you get to be yourself is so crucial to staying afloat in a system that, due to varying forms of segregation in most places, was built specifically to exclude you. For a lot of girls, and women, that may look like having your favorite snack in your bag, doing beauty rituals every day, or laughing as loud as you possibly can whenever the mood strikes. But again, you are at a PWI so how is all of this being filtered through the white gaze? 

     Recently on Tik-Tok, the latest video format social media app, teens have been making a barrage of memes about the “Hot Cheeto Girls” at their schools. The jokes range from harmless self-roasts reliant on the Hot Cheeto Girl as a framing device, to downright racist depictions by white teens. Now, memes are memes, but examining the origins of our humor opens us up to exploring our internal biases and unspoken beliefs. The beliefs presented here are somewhat obvious and representative of known implicit biases in the school system. People feel that Hot Cheeto Girls are extraordinarily loud, which is underscored by the belief that these young women should be quiet. Classmates find them mean and abrasive, and we know that Black and Brown women are consistently seen as far more aggressive than their white counterparts. Hot Cheeto Girls are stereotyped as “ghetto”, which places them right in the cross-hairs of ALL the violent discrimination that the term evokes. 

     Being up against all of this racism, misogyny, and misogynoir and still choosing to be your authentic self takes a lot of confidence. The double-edged sword here is the fact that expressing this confidence daily renders these young women hypervisible. Hypervisibility is the way that people of color are subjected to higher levels of surveillance and judgement, which results in more focus on their shortcomings and failures. Constantly being under the microscope in this way is damaging because it carries over into other areas of life. Being conditioned by the school system and their peers to see themselves as too loud, too disruptive, too aggressive, and deviant just by way of existing in their bodies contributes to lower self-esteem overall. In short, it just isn’t fair to be the butt of everyone’s joke. 

(from @whorati0 on TikTok)

     I think that there should be more jokes in praise of the Hot Cheeto Girl. I think that we should recognize their inherent joy and infectious laughter. I think that working to cultivate more genuine self-expression in schools at every level is something that we should do more. This world, so wrapped up in oppressive, normative fallacies, would be far more equitable and inclusive if people took the time to challenge their biases before making fun of what is strange to them. Recognizing women of color’s voices, especially when they are loud and excitable, as valuable and vibrant is a small step that all of us in academia can take to realize this goal.     

Have you heard about The UMBC Financial Literacy Enthusiast Contest? 

Prizes you can win:

• 1st – $250 campus card deposit
• 2nd – $100 campus card deposit

Hurry before time runs out!

Click on the link to learn more about this great opportunity!

SGA Elections

Apply to Run for 2020 SGA Elections

This story was written by Megan Hanks and first appeared on news.umbc.edu

The annual Higher Education Research and Development (HERD) survey from the National Science Foundation again includes UMBC as a top recipient of federal research support. 

The most recent survey aggregates federal research and development expenditures for fiscal year 2018. The survey data combines total funding from all federal agencies and also provides information on research funding from non-federal and non-governmental sources. 

Overall, UMBC is ranked #148 in federal research funding for the 2018 fiscal year, and #173 in total research funding from all sources. The federal investment figures include funding from sources such as the Department of Defense, Department of Health and Human Services, and NASA, among others. 

“The annual HERD Rankings represent a widely reviewed national comparison of institutional scholarly and research activities,” says Karl V. Steiner, vice president for research at UMBC. “The most recently released 2018 data represents the fourth consecutive year of growth in research expenditures for UMBC.”

A leader in studying Earth’s atmosphere 

UMBC is now ranked #13 nationally in NASA funding and #27 in federal funding for geosciences, atmospheric sciences, and ocean research more broadly. Among the projects included in that funding was UMBC’s Hyper-Angular Rainbow Polarimeter (HARP) cubesat. 

Vanderlei Martins, Roberto Borda, and Dominik Cieslak with HARP at UMBC. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

This small satellite, the size of a loaf of bread, was developed by a team of UMBC scientists, led by Vanderlei Martins, director of UMBC’s Earth and Space Institute. It was recently launched into space aboard a NASA rocket heading for the International Space Station. The satellite contains sensors that will collect information about Earth’s atmosphere, informing our understanding of pollution and climate.

Computing hardware to address infrastructure challenges

In computer and information sciences, UMBC ranked #69 in federal research support. Among awards in this area was NSF support for UMBC to lead a new $3 million research partnership to solve major infrastructure challenges with next-generation computing hardware. 

Yelena Yesha, right, alongside faculty and students who conduct research through CARTA. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

Yelena Yesha, computer science and electrical engineering, serves as principal investigator for the five-year grant from the NSF Industry-University Cooperative Research Centers. UMBC launched the Center for Accelerated Real Time Analytics (CARTA) to complete computing hardware research supported by this grant. A portion of the NSF funds are also furthering collaborative research with partner institutions North Carolina State University; Rutgers University, Newark; Rutgers University, New Brunswick; and Tel Aviv University. UC San Diego and the University of Utah are also collaborating, and industry partners like Seagate and Morgan Stanley are engaged in this work as well.

Yesha explains, “CARTA will usher in the era of accelerated real-time analytics by effectively utilizing innovative technologies such as cognitive computing, machine learning, and quantum computing to address our nation’s global competitive challenges in health security, disaster mitigation, and the emerging artificial intelligence revolution.”

Social science research to address health disparities

In the social sciences, UMBC ranks #27 in federal research dollars among universities nationwide. UMBC psychology faculty received a particularly high number of federal grants in 2018, including Danielle Beatty Moody (NIH funding), Shawn Bediako (NSF funding), Chris Murphy (DHHS-NIH funding), and Shari Waldenstein  ( DHHS-NIH funding, as well as support from the VA Medical Center in Baltimore). Additionally, Christine Yee, economics, received a research grant from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. 

Danielle Beatty Moody. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

Beatty Moody is director of UMBC’s Social Determinants of Health Lab. In 2018 she was the PI on three NIH grants, funded through the National Institute of Aging. They all focused on the HANDLES study, which stands for Health Aging in Neighborhoods of Diversity across the Life Span. Beatty Moody’s team examined health disparities among middle-aged and older residents of Baltimore. This includes the relationship between factors like structural discrimination and early life experiences with cognitive decline and cardiometabolic measures.

“We are proud of the broad impact of our work, from the social sciences, to computing, to our close relationship with NASA Goddard,” says Steiner. “I am pleased with the continued efforts and growing success of our entire research community.”

Banner image: Research team of Vanderlei Martins, professor of physics, with a model of the HARP satellite. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC

FALL 2020 Scholarships Now Open – Due Monday May 4, 2020 Friday May 15, 2020 (deadline updated)

Please DO NOT MAIL in applications. Due to COVID-19 no one is in the physical office and able to monitor postal mail. 

Please email applications to the email address provided on the application. 

Department Scholarship Opportunities for Students Enrolled in Early Childhood, Elementary, Secondary and TESOL Program(s)