Internal Medicine Practice in Kensington, Maryland seeking a full-time Medical Assistant to join their team.

Competitive salary, benefits, and great practical experience for recent undergraduates interested in pursuing a career in healthcare. 

Responsibilities include:

·         Triage patients: taking BP, pulse, height, weight, vitals

·         Administer vaccines, EKGs, spirometry and other outpatient procedures 

·         Calling patients with their blood work results, responding to concerns/queries from patients and pharmacies

·         Will work under the direct supervision of physicians

Requirements:

·         BS, Biological Sciences, HAPP, or related field

·         Strong verbal and written communication skills

·         Ability to multi task and prioritize work

UMBCworks Job ID: 9298778

Application Deadline: June 30, 2018

Shiona Wijesekara is an Economics and Mathematics major who will graduate in May, 2019. She is a current URA Scholar.

Title of your research project: Determining the Impact of the REACH Initiative on High School Students. We are evaluating the pre and post impact of the mentoring program by surveying the high school students involved in the program. 

Who is your mentor(s) for your project? Mario Santo Domingo. The previous Research chair of the program found him and he has concentrated his research in behavioral psychology , so the ample knowledge was thought to be helpful for the project. 

How did you become interested in this project? I have been an active mentor on REACH for the last 2 years and very fascinated by the multiple layer contribution of the program. So I wanted to get a statistical reading that shows me the extent of the contribution of the program to college readiness, breaking the gender gap in STEM and exposing the participants to STEM options. 

What has been the hardest part about your research/what was the most unexpected thing about being a researcher? Gathering a consistent amount of data because the programs participation fluctuates every week. 

What has been the most rewarding part? I was planning in walking into pure economics research but working on this project, I realized that I want to explore behavioral research from an interdisciplinary social science perspective. 

How will you disseminate your research? URCAD presentation- April 24, 2019!

What is your advice to other students about getting involved in research? If you have the chance to get involved in research do it! You will come out with ample of knowledge and a very unique experience!

What are your career goals?  To become a researcher in Educational Economics or Environmental Economics.

Have mentor-led research and want to be featured as a UMBC Researcher of the Week? Email: aprilh@umbc.edu

Within the past few weeks, two large American cities learned that their information systems were hacked. First, Atlanta revealed that it had been the victim of a ransomware attack that took many of the city’s services offline for nearly a week, forcing police to revert to taking written case notes, hampering the Atlanta’s court system and preventing residents from paying water bills online. Then, Baltimore’s 311 and 911 dispatch systems were taken offline for more than 17 hours, forcing dispatchers to log and process requests manually. Both attacks could have been prevented. And they are more evidence of the poor, if not appalling, state of local government cybersecurity in the United States.

We know this because in 2016, in partnership with the International City/County Management Association, we conducted the first-ever nationwide survey of local government cybersecurity. Among other things, the survey data showed just how poorly local governments practice cybersecurity.

Under near-constant attack, but not fully aware

Nearly half – 44 percent – of all the respondents told us they experience cyberattacks at least daily. Based on prior research, we are confident that rate is actually much higher.

The volume of attacks isn’t dropping – and in some cases it’s increasing.

But even so, many communities didn’t know how frequently they are attacked, and most didn’t count or catalog initial attacks – though more than half did track more serious incidents and breaches.

More than half weren’t able to determine who was attacking their systems.

Unprepared to respond, and with not enough support

Certainly, there are local governments that do a commendable job with cybersecurity. If previous research into government information technology systems and electronic government can be a guide, they are most likely larger, more well-funded and more well-managed governments. However, the data from our more recent survey strongly suggest that at least some, and perhaps even a large fraction of, local governments may be unable to respond to electronic intrusions.

In part this is because few local officials are aware of the need for cybersecurity. Nearly two-thirds of the respondents to the survey, who were nearly all information technology or cybersecurity officials, said that top managers understood the need. However, among other groups in local governments, awareness dropped considerably. Perhaps as a result, support for cybersecurity efforts was also not as strong as Atlanta’s and Baltimore’s experiences suggest it should be.

With most local government officials and staff unaware and unsupportive, it is not surprising that cybersecurity is so poor among American local governments. Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms admitted that cybersecurity was not a high priority, although “it certainly has gone to the front of the line.”

And yet, crucial barriers remain, largely to do with how much money is allocated to cybersecurity efforts.

Getting more people in the know

If local officials are going to do a better job protecting their information assets, they’ll first need to know a lot more about what’s actually happening. The numbers of survey respondents who answered “Don’t know” to our questions was surprisingly high. No top local officials, whether elected or appointed, should be unaware of basic cybersecurity information, like whether their systems have been attacked or breached, or who’s attacking their systems and why.

Knowing these answers will only become more critical as computing becomes more deeply embedded in systems running “smart” cities. If computers control traffic lights, sewage plants and electrical grids, then the consequence of attacks is more severe than just loss of information or computer services.

Donald Norris, Professor Emeritus of Public Policy, University of Maryland, Baltimore County; Anupam Joshi, Oros Family Professor and Chair, Department of Computer Science & Electrical Engineering, University of Maryland, Baltimore County; Laura Mateczun, Ph.D. Student in Public Policy, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and Tim Finin, Willard and Lillian Hackerman Chair in Engineering and Professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

The American Association of Immunologists has selected Greg Szeto, assistant professor of chemical, biochemical, and environmental engineering, as one of just ten scientists nationwide to participate in its prestigious Public Policy Fellows Program (PPFP). During the 2018-2019 year, Szeto will work to better understand how national policies impact biomedical research, and how he can use this knowledge to inform his future work.

Each year the AAI, selects a small group of junior scientists who are emerging as leaders in biomedical research to take a deep dive into understanding how public policy intersects with their work. Fellows also explore the role of the president of the United States, the president’s administration, the U.S. Congress, and the National Institutes of Health in creating and implementing policies that shape biomedical studies today. The program culminates with a multi-day visit to Capitol Hill in 2019 with AAI public policy committee members, fellows, and legislators.

Szeto’s research focuses on using engineering approaches to discover basic immunology and develop immunotherapy and drug delivery platforms. In 2017, he received funding from the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation to develop experimental tests and computational models that could assist physicians in more accurately predicting how individual patients with multiple myeloma will respond to immunotherapy. The Elsa U. Pardee Foundation currently funds work in Szeto’s lab on rapid cell engineering for cancer immunotherapy.

As a public policy fellow, Szeto looks forward to attending AAI meetings and training sessions, participating in events on Capitol Hill, and meeting with members of Congress to advocate for increased funding to support the advancement of biomedical research.

“It is a core responsibility for all scientists to advocate for science. For those of us who are lucky enough to also be training future scientists, we must have a refined understanding of the broader context that shapes the science and careers of our labs and our trainees,” says Szeto. “The knowledge and experience I acquire from the PPFP will be translated into sustained regional and national advocacy for the rest of my career.”

Several UMBC faculty have taken advantage of the university’s proximity to the nation’s capital to complete policy-oriented fellowship programs in Washington, D.C. Most recently, Christy Ford Chapin, associate professor of history, participated in the prestigious Kluge  Fellowship at the U.S. Library of Congress, and Diana Parr, adjunct instructor for the cybersecurity graduate program, participated in the Brookings Legis Congressional Fellows Program.

Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.