Imagine having the chance to put down your books and computers and hit the open road. For a growing number of UMBC students, summer study abroad offers the opportunity to explore new cultures, meet interesting people, and see the beauties of the world first-hand.

This summer, UMBC’s Office of Study Abroad sent groups of eager students to four amazing locations — Italy, Colombia, Spain, and the Netherlands — and lucky for us, they captured photos and special moments all along the way!

Siena, Italy

Student: Tenzin Yangchen, global studies
Course: Italian Politics
Read Tenzin’s full blog from Italy

“My favorite things about my host location so far is definitely the number of designated stores for wine, pizza, and gelato that the place has to offer… Siena is famous for its magnificent art and architecture that are reminders of the renaissance period. So naturally, we had a couple guided tours of cathedrals around the town. One of the best schools in the country, University of Siena, is also located here and luckily our program allows us access the library and cafeteria amongst other Italian students.”

“The farewell dinner last night officially marked the last agenda of our program with the group leaving next day alongside the professor. My bus however leaves in the evening towards Rome, so I’m exploring Siena for one last time in the morning. I have formed a special bond towards this place and have scribbled ample memories into my journal that will last a long time.”

We bid Florence goodbye and headed back to Sienna. The bus ride was a peaceful one since everyone was exhausted and was busy catching up on some

This summer, students and faculty from UMBC and three additional universities teamed up with NASA researchers and Maryland’s Department of the Environment to collect huge amounts of data that will provide a snapshot of air quality in the Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area and over the Chesapeake Bay. The study measures factors ranging from wind speed to ozone concentration.

“In trying to understand air quality near the coast, it’s critical to obtain measurements over the water and over the land simultaneously with as wide of a variety of instruments as possible,” says John Sullivan, Ph.D. ’15, atmospheric physics, and the lead NASA researcher on the project.

UMBC serves as the primary land-based site, and equipment placed on remote Hart Miller Island in the Bay collects data over water. “With two sites, you can begin to really answer questions pertaining to differences in air pollution and understand the mechanisms driving these differences,” Sullivan explains.

Ozone in the forecast

This summer’s work is an extension of the Ozone Water-Land Environmental Transition Study (OWLETS), dubbed OWLETS-2, and it is particularly focused on tracking the presence of ozone in coastal cities. Ozone in the upper atmosphere helps maintain Earth’s temperature and absorbs harmful UV rays.

However, near ground level, breathing in ozone causes inflammation in the respiratory system, which can be dangerous for young children, the elderly, and those with asthma or other respiratory conditions. Plants also take up ozone, which can reduce crop yields.

Chemical reactions between sunlight and emissions from vehicles and industry generate smog-like ozone episodes, so one would expect the highest concentrations at midday, when the sun is at its brightest. However, wind over the Bay changes that.

“The Bay breeze is like a wall that doesn’t allow normal west to east airflow to happen,” explains Ruben Delgado, assistant professor at the Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology (a UMBC-NASA partnership) and the lead UMBC OWLETS-2 researcher. That means the midday ozone heading out to sea comes back in during the late afternoon, causing a spike just as local residents are heading home from work and school. Other factors, such as smoke blowing over the city from wildfires in the West, can also have a real impact.

Better understanding how these issues influence the presence of ozone in Baltimore can help improve air quality forecasts and protect sensitive populations from ozone’s ill effects. “The National Weather Service is interested in this kind of data, because it allows them to push their models to a new frontier,” Delgado explains.

Students step up

Working with Delgado are students from UMBC, Howard University, City University of New York, and Hampton University. The students and their home-institution faculty mentors are all members of the NOAA-funded Center for Earth System Sciences and Remote Sensing Technologies and Center for Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology.

Delgado finds mentoring these emerging researchers to be both personally rewarding and essential to the success of the project. “My favorite part of this project is giving the students hands-on experience,” Delgado says. “They get to contribute to the process from start to finish.”

Kat Ball ’21, chemical engineering, is one of those student researchers, and her experience has been transformative. “I feel so fortunate to have had the opportunity to participate in meaningful scientific research so early on in my academic career,” she shares. “I’ve only just completed my freshman year, and will be one of the authors on the publications that result from all the data we received, which is something I thought I would only be dreaming about for quite some time.”

Ball learned that field and lab research differ in important ways. “Not everything is easy to deal with when you’re miles away from an actual lab where you have all of the necessary parts, chemicals, and even just clean water that you need to deal with problems that arise,” she says.

Working with much more experienced team members, Ball was intimidated at first, but soon felt at home on Hart Miller Island. “Hearing from people with such impressive qualifications that your input on the situation truly matters expanded the confidence I had in myself as a researcher,” she shares.

Paying it forward

John Sullivan, the lead NASA researcher, was once in Ball’s shoes, and now he’s paying it forward. “As I moved toward planning larger-scale campaigns, I knew that I wanted to involve UMBC any way I could,” he says. “It wasn’t until I got to NASA that I realized how much of a leg up I had coming from UMBC, as some of my classes were taught by leading researchers in the atmospheric physics community.”

Under Sullivan and Delgado’s leadership, the participating students all took a very active role in the research. “They have been busy taking LiDAR measurements, launching weather balloons, taking mobile samples of pollution, and outfitting research vessels,” Sullivan says. He adds, “There is something very rewarding about bringing together active and engaged researchers to make a difference in public health, and training the next generation of scientists along the way.”

Join us for yoga in the Joseph Beuys Sculpture Park on Tuesdays and Thursdays in September and October from 12-1 p.m. starting September 4th. 

This restorative flow yoga style is especially appropriate for beginners as well as seasoned yoga practitioners.  

You will need to register for each session separately.  Please sign up for our first session on 9/4 here. 

Remember to bring your yoga mat and red card and meet us in the park!

Sept. 5, Noon – 12:50 p.m.
Sherman Hall-A 113

Afro House is seeking a qualified Stage Manager for our upcoming production of Afro Punk Ballet.

ABOUT AFRO PUNK BALLET

Afro Punk Ballet is an afro-futuristic opera-ballet. Set years into the future, the story delves into the world of two sisters unable to agree on how to handle the catastrophic consequences of a decision made by their late father.