SGA President Joshua Massey (CE ’18) prepares for a technology-focused teaching career

UMBC students have rewritten the record books in 2018. With graduation this week, and our soon-to-be new Retriever alumni preparing for graduate school, careers, and research around the world, we reflect on all they have achieved. Here is a CSEE student profile from the class of 2018.

Joshua Massey
B.S., Computer Engineering
Hometown: Upper Marlboro, Maryland
Plans: Master’s in teaching, UMBC

UMBC’s values and commitments to diversity, education, and social justice allowed me to grow into the interdisciplinary thinker, problem-solver, and leader I am today.

Joshua Massey, president of UMBC’s Student Government Association (SGA), has been recognized across campus and by university partners for his leadership, his enthusiasm for community connections, and his passion for technology in education.

Massey was one of the first recipients of the Northrop Grumman Scholarship for increasing the number of undergraduate and graduate students in the United States pursuing degrees in computer engineering and electrical engineering. Through the program, Massey had the opportunity to connect with industry leaders and attend mentoring events. Massey is a member of the Meyerhoff Scholars Program, and also received the Meyerhoff National Security Administration Scholarship, which enabled him to connect with industry mentors regularly and to participate in monthly seminars.

In addition to receiving mentorship from faculty and professionals in technical fields, Massey also provided support to others as a peer mentor and a teaching fellow for a course in computational thinking and design.

On campus, Massey is known for his enthusiasm for the UMBC community. He served as a “Woolie”—a Welcome Week student leader—in addition to serving as SGA senator and chief of staff, before being elected SGA president.

One of Massey’s most memorable SGA moments was the 2017 SGA summer retreat, which he attended as incoming president. “At our annual summer retreat, new and returning students involved in SGA learn about the history and values of UMBC and the SGA, work cooperatively on plans for an upcoming year of campus change, and build relationships with one another as we continually create the story of SGA at UMBC,” Massey explains. He enjoyed facilitating sessions on the important role of students in UMBC governance.

Massey will continue on at UMBC after graduation, pursuing a master’s degree in teaching, with a focus on educating students in tech fields. “Looking forward to a future career in education and advocacy, I am reminded of the strong sense of community and shared ownership that is present at UMBC,” he says. “I look forward to carrying that forward in life.”

Adapted from a UMBC News article by Megan Hanks. Portrait by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

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CWIT Scholar Katherine Dillon heads to Google as a software engineer

UMBC students have rewritten the record books in 2018. With graduation this week, and our soon-to-be new Retriever alumni preparing for graduate school, careers, and research around the world, we reflect on all they have achieved. Here is a CSEE student profile from the class of 2018.

Katherine Dillon
B.S., Computer Science
Magna Cum Laude
Hometown: Ellicott City, Maryland
Plans: Software Engineer, Google; M.S., computer science, UMBC

“The CWIT program has prepared me to be a professional and take on leadership roles, and ultimately helped me get my jobs and internships. The friends I’ve made in CWIT served as such a great support system, and I couldn’t have done it without them.”

Katherine Dillon came to UMBC with interest, but not much experience, in computer science, but through the Center for Women in Technology (CWIT) was able to rapidly grow her knowledge of the field. Before long, she was conducting computer science research, taking graduate-level courses in artificial intelligence and machine learning, serving as a teaching assistant in computer science and interactive media, and volunteering through outreach opportunities, to inspire and support future computing students.

Dillon says the support she received from the faculty and staff at UMBC, particularly in CWIT and the Honors College, has been instrumental in enabling her to achieve her goals and continuously set the bar higher for what she would achieve next. Dillon conducted data visualization research under Penny Rheingans, professor of computer science and director of CWIT, and attended the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing as an Anita Borg Scholar. After the Grace Hopper Celebration, Dillon was offered an internship opportunity at Google in Boston. The following summer she completed another Google internship, this time in Germany.

After graduation, Dillon will work as a software engineer at Google in San Francisco, while also completing her master’s degree in computer science online through UMBC.

Adapted from a UMBC News article by Megan Hanks. Portrait by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

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It is 1986 and Richard Hollander’s parents, Joseph and Vita Hollander, have died in a car crash. A briefcase that Richard will discover later that fateful day sits in their attic. A briefcase he will open once – to find swastika-marked letters from Poland addressed to his father – and then close again for fifteen years.

The story in this briefcase would not be told until 2007 when Richard, a former Baltimore TV journalist, published “Every Day Lasts a Year: A Jewish Family’s Correspondence from Poland.” The story continued when, at Everyman Theatre, where “The Book of Joseph,” a play about the Hollander family and based on Richard’s book, made its East Coast premiere.

The play opens with Richard Hollander (Bruce Randolph Nelson) introducing the audience to his family through his book. Act one is structured as if it is a book talk, which also serves to set Richard up as an unreliable narrator just in time for his son Craig’s (Elliott Kashner) entrance before intermission.

We are introduced to Joseph Hollander (Danny Gavigan) through Richard’s eyes. Joseph leaves Poland with his wife just before the Nazis invade. He leaves without his family, who does not believe his apprehension for staying in Poland. Richard does not have any of Joseph’s letters, except for the love letters he exchanged with his second wife, Vita (Megan Anderson), at the end of the war, so the story is told exclusively in letters from the rest of the Hollander family.

Joseph’s parts are taken from his file at the National Archives and then extrapolated from the contents of his family’s letters, almost all of which are intact. This is particularly incredible since they would have had to make it through censors before being sent out of the country. As a result, there is much that goes unsaid or is drastically downplayed.

Act one shapes the Hollander family dynamic, framing Joseph as a hero, a sentiment reiterated numerous times throughout the piece by different people. In spite of his heroism and the larger-than-life picture Richard tries to make of him, Gavigan gives Joseph a vulnerability and a quiet rage that still manages to ground him in humanity as he listens to the letters his family sends him.

He has a soft spot for his niece, Genka, played by Hannah Kelly, a UMBC alum, and most identifies with Dola (Megan Anderson), his sister who is also struggling in an unhappy marriage. His mother, Berta (Helen Hedman) just wants to hear from him, and his two other sisters, Klara (Beth Hylton, who also plays Joseph’s first wife, Felicja) and Mania (Bari Hochwald), as well as his brother-in-law, Salo (Wil Love), are at first the most hesitant to leave Poland, but also the first to adapt, and in some cases even open their homes, to the changing times.

Unfortunately their stories remain unfinished, a point Craig argues his father on for the duration of act two, where the focus dramatically switches from Joseph’s life during World War II to Richard’s own life in 2008. Richard battles with the rose-tinted view he has of his father, a view challenged by Craig, who believes Richard is an unreliable narrator.

Nelson does an amazing job walking the line of intricacies within this warped view Richard has of his father, while also translating that fear into his relationship with his son, who he has neglected on his journey to further know his father.

While the second act feels unnecessary at times and Richard’s relationship with Craig exaggerates the ‘typical’ millennial-parent relationship, it is nice to see the Hollander family get some sort of closure and for Richard and Craig to really begin to understand each other.

At the end of the play, Craig introduces his own children to Joseph and his great-aunts, asking them to remember their names. Their portraits are projected onto the set alongside a video of his children. Caite Hevner’s stunning projection design and Daniel Ettinger’s minimalistic set design come together to showcase the next generation of people who will continue to remember those who have come before.

“The Book of Joseph” will run until June 10 at Everyman Theatre, with Cast Conversations after every Thursday performance.

UMBC SFS Cybersecurity Spring Meeting

Student Project Reports and

Cybersecurity from the view of NSA’s Cybersecurity Threat Operations Center
Dave Hogue, Technical Director of NSA’s Cybersecurity Threat Operations Center (NCTOC)

11am-3pm, Friday, 25 May 2018, ITE 456, UMBC

Open to the public

Scholarship for Service (SFS) students will present their cybersecurity research from spring 2018. Eight SFS students from Montgomery College (MC) and Prince George’s Community College (PGCC) will present their results solving IT security problems for their universities and county governments. In spring 2018, these students worked collaboratively in a special applied research course at their school to help their schools and county governments. In fall 2018, these students will transfer to UMBC to complete their four-year degrees. This activity is part of a pioneering program centered at UMBC to extend SFS scholarships to community college students. In January 2018, all SFS scholars at UMBC, PGCC, and MC worked collaboratively to analyze the security of UMBC’s WebAdmin system.

David Hogue will talk about cybersecurity from the view of NSA’s Cybersecurity Threat Operations Center, including the key threats, techniques, and challenges posed by the sophisticated threat actors that NCTOC is charged to defend against.

11:00am Introductions

Alan T. Sherman (UMBC)
Casey W. O’Brien (PGCC)
David Kuijt (MC)

11:30am-1:00pm Student Project Reports

PGCC students
MC students
UMBC – Mohammad Khan, UMBC parking system
UMBC – Enis Golaszewski, winter research study on UMBC’s WebAdmin

1:00pm-2:00pm Lunch

2:00pm-3:00pm Dave Hogue, Technical Director, NSA Cybersecurity Threat Operations Center (NCTOC)

Cybersecurity from the view of NSA’s Cybersecurity Threat Operations Center: Key threats, techniques, and challenges posed by the sophisticated threat actors that NCTOC is charged to defend against.

3:00pm Adjourn

Host: Alan T. Sherman, *protected email*

Alan T. Sherman is a professor of computer science and Director of the UMBC Center for Information Security and Assurance (CISA), which center is responsible for UMBC’s designation as a National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense Education and Cyber Defense Research.

Casey W. O’Brien is Executive Director and Principal Investigator of the National CyberWatch Center, Prince George’s Community College.

David Kuijt is an associate professor at Montgomery College, Rockville.

Joe Roundy is the Cybersecurity Program Manager at Montgomery College, Germantown.

Support for this event is provided in part by the National Science Foundation under SFS Grant 1241576.

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UMBC SFS Cybersecurity Spring Meeting

Student Project Reports and

Cybersecurity from the view of NSA’s Cybersecurity Threat Operations Center
Dave Hogue, Technical Director of NSA’s Cybersecurity Threat Operations Center (NCTOC)

11am-3pm, Friday, 25 May 2018, ITE 456, UMBC

Open to the public

Scholarship for Service (SFS) students will present their cybersecurity research from spring 2018. Eight SFS students from Montgomery College (MC) and Prince George’s Community College (PGCC) will present their results solving IT security problems for their universities and county governments. In spring 2018, these students worked collaboratively in a special applied research course at their school to help their schools and county governments. In fall 2018, these students will transfer to UMBC to complete their four-year degrees. This activity is part of a pioneering program centered at UMBC to extend SFS scholarships to community college students. In January 2018, all SFS scholars at UMBC, PGCC, and MC worked collaboratively to analyze the security of UMBC’s WebAdmin system.

David Hogue will talk about cybersecurity from the view of NSA’s Cybersecurity Threat Operations Center, including the key threats, techniques, and challenges posed by the sophisticated threat actors that NCTOC is charged to defend against.

11:00am Introductions

Alan T. Sherman (UMBC)
Casey W. O’Brien (PGCC)
David Kuijt (MC)

11:30am-1:00pm Student Project Reports

PGCC students
MC students
UMBC – Mohammad Khan, UMBC parking system
UMBC – Enis Golaszewski, winter research study on UMBC’s WebAdmin

1:00pm-2:00pm Lunch

2:00pm-3:00pm Dave Hogue, Technical Director, NSA Cybersecurity Threat Operations Center (NCTOC)

Cybersecurity from the view of NSA’s Cybersecurity Threat Operations Center: Key threats, techniques, and challenges posed by the sophisticated threat actors that NCTOC is charged to defend against.

3:00pm Adjourn

Host: Alan T. Sherman, *protected email*

Alan T. Sherman is a professor of computer science and Director of the UMBC Center for Information Security and Assurance (CISA), which center is responsible for UMBC’s designation as a National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense Education and Cyber Defense Research.

Casey W. O’Brien is Executive Director and Principal Investigator of the National CyberWatch Center, Prince George’s Community College.

David Kuijt is an associate professor at Montgomery College, Rockville.

Joe Roundy is the Cybersecurity Program Manager at Montgomery College, Germantown.

Support for this event is provided in part by the National Science Foundation under SFS Grant 1241576.

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