Bus Trip to UMD's Quantum Career Nexus

Inside the dark, swirling chaos of a cell, drama unfolds. A viral molecule, rendered in electric blue and menacing curves, attempts its invasion. A therapeutic compound swoops in to intercept it like a fighter jet defending its home from alien forces. This is not science fiction; it is the meticulously crafted vision brought to life by Cameron Slayden ’99, interdisciplinary studies, founder, CEO, and creative director at Microverse Studios. 

Slayden’s team of animators specializes in creating detailed, stunning visuals for biotech, pharmaceutical, and medical device companies, illustrating how their technologies operate at the most granular level—on a cellular and molecular scale. “We never copy other people,” says Slayden. Instead, his team embraces metaphor—visualizing neurons as jellyfish tentacles or lightning bolts—and superimpose that artistic aesthetic onto the scientific imagery.

It’s not enough for Slayden to just be a 3D animator. He also needs to fully understand the science—satisfying practicing scientists with his two-minute animation while compelling venture capitalists to invest millions. “I have to balance clarity of message to reach multiple levels of audience with enough accuracy so that the underlying message is unimpeachable,” says Slayden. 

This unique balance of artistic flair and scientific rigor is the direct result of a path galvanized over three decades ago. For his pioneering work in scientific visualization, combining the rigorous inquiry of science with the persuasive power of art, Slayden is being recognized with an Outstanding Alumni award at the 2025 UMBC Alumni Awards on Wednesday, October 29. His career exemplifies the interdisciplinary spirit UMBC fosters, proving that to truly understand the world, one must be able to both analyze it like a scientist and appreciate it like an artist.

Illustrations have more value than just beauty

Even as a 16-year-old student at Suitland High School in Prince George’s County, Maryland, Slayden was already balancing his passion for art with his love of science—but he had yet to discover how the two intertwined. At this time, Slayden had won multiple Gold Key awards, the highest regional prize in the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, a competition for students in grades 7-12, which, he admits, had given him a “hugely inflated ego.” Then, during one biology class, inspiration struck while studying chloroplasts, the organelles in plant cells that are responsible for photosynthesis.

“The illustration in the textbook was awful, really ridiculous, extremely simplified,” says Slayden.

Next to the illustration, however, was a cross-section of the cell created from a tunneling electron microscope, which creates images at an extremely small scale, down to resolving individual molecules. Immediately, Slayden began to notice differences between the illustration and the tunneling electron micrograph. That’s when his pencil got to work. He began to sketch a more detailed illustration of the chloroplast that better represented the intricate details of the organelle. 

“When I was done with that drawing, I remember realizing that that illustration had more value than just being pretty,” says Slayden. “It carried real information about the world, and it was valuable to humanity in that way. And at that moment, I realized that was the kind of art that I wanted to do.”

The rest of Slayden’s life would be guided by that moment. From then on, he used every opportunity to hone his craft—to envision how each tiny detail would translate to paper.

“When you’re drawing something, you’re bringing it through your visual cortex and through all of the processing,” explains Slayden. “Your brain is creating a three-dimensional model of the object in your head, and then you’re bringing it out through your motor cortex onto the paper. You come away with a much deeper understanding of the thing that you were just drawing.” 

Fruitful friction

Around the same time Slayden was looking into colleges, something big was happening at UMBC. Earl and Darielle Linehan, with a deeply held belief in the importance of the arts in society, had recently made a generous gift to the university to establish the Linehan Artist Scholars Program. Slayden applied in the program’s inaugural year and was then offered a full ride to UMBC as one of the first cohort of  Linehan Artist Scholars.

Slayden seized the opportunity, working with his advisor, Stephen Bradley, to craft an interdisciplinary course load that seamlessly merged UMBC’s stellar biology program with the visual arts curriculum. While the science courses provided the foundational accuracy, it was the friction in the art program that proved transformative.

“There was an artistic journey that I had to go through,” says Slayden. “UMBC’s art program forced me to dig deep and crack open my inner reservoirs of creativity and start to actually explore producing an emotional response in my audience.”

Today, that emotional engagement is the key to the success of Microverse Studios, transforming dry scientific information into a memorable, persuasive story. However, the greatest impact UMBC had on Slayden and his career was not a class or a professor, but a fellow student—Olivia Rogers ’99, psychology—now Olivia Slayden, his wife.

Photos above: Slayden and Adam Mueller ’02, M.S. ’03, at the UMBC Jiu-Jitsu club, which he helped found in 1999. Slayden is a black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and a second-degree black belt in Japanese Jiu-Jitsu (left). Slayden and Olivia Rogers, now Olivia Slayden, at Cameron’s graduation (right).

Following graduation, Slayden got a job doing medical illustrations for legal cases, but found the work to be “too dark and draining.” He eventually landed the role of scientific illustrator at Science Magazine, creating medical illustrations for the publication and designing a dozen magazine covers. However, after three years, he realized, “I wasn’t at the top of my game.” At the same time, Olivia was also unhappy with her job. It was time for a change.

After Slayden received his master’s degree in medical illustration from Augusta University in Georgia, he and Olivia founded Microverse Studios in 2005. Cameron serves as CEO and creative director, while Olivia serves as chief commercial officer.

“I had no idea what I was doing running a business,” says Slayden. “And in the intervening 20 years, I think I’ve kind of finally figured it out, at least for the most part.”

Leaning into new tech

Today, Microverse Studios is a full-service scientific and medical animation studio serving high-profile clients like Pfizer, National Geographic, Bausch + Lomb, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) as well as notable startups like Elon Musk’s Neuralink. Slayden and his team specialize in taking an idea and turning it into a deployment-ready video for a wide range of audiences, from research scientists to investors and venture capitalists, as well as healthcare providers. 

Slayden attributes the studio’s success to their commitment to staying on top of science and new animation technology. The shift to cloud rendering means complex, high-quality animation that once took a week to output can now be rendered in “literally an hour.” Slayden also believes artificial intelligence will continue to play a larger role in the studio’s work. Rather than viewing it as a threat, he sees AI as another tool at his disposal—the next evolution in how artists create their work.

Mark your calendars for the 2025 Alumni Awards on Wednesday, October 29, at 6 p.m., and consider joining the UMBC community at the Chesapeake Employers Insurance Arena to celebrate Cameron Slayden and the many remarkable individuals receiving awards. The event will be livestreamed for those unable to join in person. You can learn more at alumni.umbc.edu/alumniawards.

Student Government Association (SGA) senator Abby Etherton ('28) would like to know about student interests in sustainability here at UMBC! Sustainability refers to the management of resource use, such that we fulfill the needs of today without taking away from future needs. This quick survey will guide the creation of sustainable initiative ideas and changes on campus!

Click here to complete the survey:  https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeZiuO3r_x_K3d3O9yywMGtK9_1xCtvuJbgVJMMwWEptoJrjA/viewform?usp=header

Rising Star is a worthy award for alum and Linehan Artist Scholar Courtney Culp ’20. During her time at UMBC, Culp was both an athlete and an artist, playing Division 1 soccer and pursuing a degree in visual arts. Now, this star has continued to rise higher, earning an M.F.A. in arts and entertainment at the Savannah College of Art and Design and working as a graphic designer at Warner Bros. Discovery—combining her degree and athletics experience into a role that creates key art designs for TNT Sports—NBA, NHL, U.S. Soccer, MLB, and more. 

Culp chats below with fellow Linehan Scholar and UCM intern Kayla Logue ’27 about balancing athletics and the arts, her experience as a Linehan Artist Scholar, and how her time at UMBC has led her to a dream career. 

Q: How does it feel to win an alumni award just a few years after graduation?

A: It honestly hasn’t hit me just yet, but I’m overjoyed with gratitude and am really looking forward to giving back to the community. I can see the steps that I took to get here and how UMBC played a huge role in my development. I want to pour back into the school, back into the campus, and the faculty and students. That’s what I’m really looking forward to, especially with the Linehan Scholars mentorship group.

Q: What motivated you to apply to the Linehan Artist Scholars Program? What did you find most valuable from this select experience?

A: The program’s mission statement and framework was something that really sparked my interest. I really enjoyed being surrounded by different types of creatives who pushed you to see things from other perspectives and become the best artist you could be. The extracurriculars, in terms of exposing us to the arts in different places, I thought were extremely valuable. Those experiences I believe made me not only a better and more well-rounded artist, but as a person as well.

Q: What was your experience being both an athlete and an artist at UMBC? Did those two parts of your life overlap in any way?

A: I always had two passions growing up: playing sports and the arts. Finding a school where I could excel in both of my passions was extremely important. At UMBC being an athlete and an artist was so much fun. Lots of early mornings at practice and late nights in the studio. Overall, I would say those two parts of my life have overlapped in every way possible. I enjoy using the arts to tell stories about my own and other’s lived experiences. In my senior year at UMBC, I produced A Mile in My Cleats, a documentary about Black women in sports. It explored their stories about having intersectional identities and how that impacted them as Division 1 athletes.

Q: What clicked for you here? Was there a specific time you remember having that realization that UMBC was the right community for you?

 A: I played soccer my whole life, and always wanted to follow in my brother’s footsteps of playing collegiate sports. In high school, my family and I would go to different soccer camps across the country and see different schools that I was interested in. On my way back from one camp, we passed by UMBC’s campus, and we were like, ‘Let’s go drive through there, see what’s going on.’ We loved the campus immediately, my parents and I. Eventually going to soccer camp at UMBC, seeing the breadth of diversity on campus, the emphasis on educational advancement, and the dedicated arts programs, I knew that I would be seen, heard, able to thrive in the space that UMBC had built.

Q: Is there someone from UMBC who inspired you, and how?

A: Then-President Freeman Hrabowski spoke to a group of Linehan Artist Scholars on our orientation day. With the authenticity that he spoke with and the real joy that he felt being among his community, I felt very safe and appreciated being at UMBC. It didn’t matter who you were. Every time you saw him, he greeted you with a smile, a handshake, and asked how you were doing. So, just a really, really great person and that energy trickled down to the entire UMBC community.

Corrie Francis Parks, an associate professor of animation and interactive media, was definitely a big influence on me. Going into UMBC, I thought I wanted to be an animator. I took my first 2D animation class and realized I didn’t love the process of animating frame by frame. But she really showed the breadth of the animation pipeline and all the different things that you can do in the industry. That really sparked my curiosity for learning about different disciplines and mediums, and encouraged me to pursue Intermedia as my degree path. Having a wider foundation of knowledge and skillsets set me up for success in the entertainment industry as the work is extremely collaborative and interdisciplinary.

My two professors from studying abroad, Kimberly Anderson and Lynn Cazabon, were incredible. While in Rome for a month, they made sure that the students were okay and having fun. They were great at translating what we learned in textbooks to seeing it in real life right before our eyes. They really took an interest in the way you viewed the world and the ideas that were important to you.

All of my friends on the soccer team were great. The fitness tests, the early mornings—they’re bonds that have really stuck with me through life. We’re going to each other’s weddings now, which is crazy to think about for me. I still talk to my group of friends that I made in class over papier-mâché making in the Linehan Freshman Seminar. We’ve all stuck together and really support each other through different stages of life.

Q: What is your current role at Warner Bros. Discovery?

A: I am a graphic designer for Warner Bros. Discovery, specifically TNT Sports. I help create the key art designs for our entire sports portfolio— NBA, NHL, U.S. Soccer, MLB, and more. Our work is seen across promotional video campaigns, digital ads, and posters and billboards. We work closely with our broadcast teams designing logos for studio shows and building and designing physical sets. We aim to create best-in-class work that allows fans an exciting, quality experience while watching their favorite sports teams. We also work as an in-house creative studio, providing company needs like designing merchandise and redesigning the corporate offices.

Q: What do you find most fulfilling about your profession? 

A: Knowing that you’re a part of someone else’s joy. Knowing that there are such huge sports fandoms and people who look to sports as a way of entertainment or a way of connecting with those they love and their community, it’s really, really fun. It’s also a huge responsibility for me to make sure that we’re doing the best work that we can for the person on the other end. I’m always thinking of “younger me” or people who look for these moments as a source of joy throughout their day. That’s super, super important to me.

Q: Have you done any more projects building off your senior year documentary, A Mile in My Cleats?

A: My whole life has kind of been working through that lens because, while I love soccer, what really draws me to the sport is the connection it brings me to my family over a shared passion, and the growth formed from obstacles and challenges that make you a better person. My heart and my way of expression has always been through the arts and creativity. Being a Black woman in sports (or any other profession), there are a lot of things that we go through that others may not know or understand.

Now, working in the sports industry, the foundation of the work is always storytelling. How do we bring in the audience to connect with the product? The most authentic way is by sharing the experiences of the athletes, the teams, and coaches that allow others to see themselves in someone else’s journey.

Mark your calendars for the 2025 Alumni Awards on Wednesday, October 29, at 6 p.m., and consider joining the UMBC community at the Chesapeake Employers Insurance Arena to celebrate Courtney Culp and the many remarkable individuals receiving awards. The event will be livestreamed for those unable to join in person. You can learn more at alumni.umbc.edu/alumniawards.

“I have been in your shoes.” Erwin Cabrera ’10, biological sciences, often finds himself sharing these words during monthly meetings for Stony Brook University’s Simons STEM Scholars. Some of the bright-eyed students in front of him are the first in their family to attend college. Others may be nervous about upcoming exams or graduate school application deadlines. All are striving toward careers in STEM within the program’s supportive community—and these “family meetings” are one element of that support. 

As the program’s inaugural executive director, Cabrera isn’t just leading a replication of UMBC’s renowned Meyerhoff Scholars Program: He’s channeling the same cohort spirit, rigorous support, and unyielding belief in students’ potential that transformed him from a self-described “rough around the edges” undergrad into a champion for emerging scientists from all backgrounds. On October 29, Cabrera will receive a 2025 Outstanding Alumni Award from UMBC’s Alumni Association Board of Directors. 

Cabrera’s journey began in Prince George’s County, Maryland. Cabrera initially resisted considering UMBC, despite his older brother, Ramon Cabrera ’09, a Meyerhoff Scholar, already thriving there. At Meyerhoff selection weekend, two days of activities for students offered admission, he changed his mind. Amid UMBC’s nerdy reputation, Cabrera saw peers who looked like him, dreamed like him, and supported one another fiercely. “I could see myself there,” he says. 

Achievement grounded in love

Cabrera dove into research with Phyllis Robinson, professor of biological sciences. She “gave me a lot of grace” as he stumbled early on, Cabrera recalls, recognizing his potential before he had smoothed some of his edges. He balanced lab work with the UMBC’s Major Definition hip-hop dance team with mixed success—at his request, an advisor once showed up at rehearsal to remind him of study time. Later in his UMBC career, Cabrera, an M18 (the shorthand Meyerhoffs use to designate their cohort), served as a Meyerhoff Summer Bridge counselor and peer mentor for younger cohorts. “This is a lot of emotional labor, but super fun,” he remembers thinking of those roles, which would anticipate his career.

After UMBC, Cabrera earned a Ph.D. in neurobiology and neuroscience at the New York University Grossman School of Medicine, followed by a postdoc. Yet his heart was in administration. “I love science, but what I loved the most was teaching people in the lab and the impact it could have on folks’ lives,” he says. In 2019, he became director of the Research Aligned Mentorship (RAM) Program at Farmingdale State College, which is loosely inspired by Meyerhoff principles. It integrates research as an undergraduate retention tool, drawing economics and business students alongside STEM majors. 

In October 2022, Cabrera made his next big career move, becoming the first Meyerhoff alumnus to helm a full replication. A $2.5 million Simons Foundation grant to UMBC seeded the adaptation at Stony Brook, located on Long Island, and later Stony Brook received its own major grant from Simons to fully develop its program. Now in its third year, the program mirrors Meyerhoff’s core—cohort-based community, intensive mentoring, Summer Bridge, and research immersion—while adapting for the local context. 

“New York students are very different. They’re highly independent; some of them are regularly traveling three hours on the subway,” Cabrera notes. Early challenges included combating “hyper independence,” where some scholars struggled to trust that program leaders had their best interests at heart. His solution? “I just upped that love factor,” Cabrera says. He gets to know students “through and through,” offering tough love rooted in consent: “Do you need me to show up?” he asks, while also encouraging ownership. “This is yours at the end of the day,” he reminds students.

From UMBC to New York and beyond

At Stony Brook, Cabrera wears two hats: He’s a research professor in neurobiology and behavior, teaching honors courses and advising juniors through grad school applications. He also interfaces with program funders, manages the budget and staff, and more. Somehow he also travels to Kenya and Switzerland to support study abroad partnerships. 

“It’s all-encompassing,” he admits. Yet the success of the program keeps him going. Last summer, three Simons Scholars interned at Harvard and two at Stanford. “As a Meyerhoff from UMBC, I know the legacy of the program,” Cabrera says. “It’s my job to provide that vision here at Stony Brook, when this program did not exist three years ago. To see it coming to fruition is overwhelming in the best way possible.” 

“Everyone’s watching. It’s pressure because I’m the first,” Cabrera confesses. But amplifying UMBC’s ripple effect feels like a privilege. Since 1988, the Meyerhoff Scholars Program has supported over 1,800 undergraduates. Alumni have earned 488 Ph.D.s—including 80 M.D./Ph.D.s—making UMBC the nation’s top baccalaureate origin for African American M.D./Ph.D. recipients. Over 70 Meyerhoff alumni hold faculty posts at elite institutions like Harvard and Duke; more than 200 are in grad programs. Meyerhoff participants are 5.3 times more likely to pursue STEM Ph.D.s than students offered admission who decline.

This success has sparked over a dozen replications nationwide. HHMI’s 2013 – 2018 Meyerhoff Adaptation Project tailored the model for Penn State and UNC Chapel Hill. Howard University’s Karsh STEM Scholars and Stony Brook’s Simons initiative build on key elements like research engagement. International efforts at the University of Toronto Mississauga and University of the Philippines Los Baños adapt for local contexts, and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative founded programs at UC Berkeley and UC San Diego. Collectively, these efforts have empowered thousands of students, turning UMBC’s vision into a movement. “I am guided by the quote, ‘To whom much is given, much is required,'” Cabrera says, highlighting his passion for his work.

Cabrera has kept in touch with Meyerhoff staff Keith Harmon and Mitsue Wiggs, who occasionally connect him with current UMBC students for mentoring, and remembers the influence of the late LaMont Toliver, an early director of the Meyerhoff program, fondly. He also stays connected through UMBC’s Filipino American Student Association and Alumni Advisory Board. 

In the midst of the demands of his role, Cabrera preaches and models balance. This fall, he vacationed in Japan with his spouse. “You need to see me take a break—we’re not robots,” he says, reminding his students not to obsess over performance. “You don’t have to be perfect; I want you to be a college student, and learn about who you are,” he tells them. In doing so, Cabrera serves his scholars as whole people—ensuring UMBC’s legacy of inclusive excellence endures, one resilient scholar at a time.