Each member of the workforce brings unique skills, background, and experience vital to the successful organization. A diverse workforce is a rich source of creativity and problem-solving.

Join Inova EAP for this FREE Webinar on December 19th! 

Visit:  www.inova.org/eap 
Member Login User Name:  UMBCEAP
Password: 360231

Once logged in, click on 'Online Seminars' - click on 'View All' - title ‘Diversity in the Workplace: Maintaining an Inclusive Environment’.

This is a qualifying event for WIN Rewards – Emotional! 

2 Corinthians 12:9-10 – “Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my weakness, that the strength of Christ may rest upon me. Wherefore I take pleasure in weaknesses: for when I am weak, then am I strong.”

“Lest Paul should exalt himself because of the exceeding greatness of revelations given him, a thorn in the flesh was sent him to keep him humble. Paul’s first desire was to have it removed, and he besought the Lord thrice that it might depart. The answer came that the trial was a blessing, that in the weakness and humiliation it brought, the grace and strength of the Lord could be better manifested. Paul at once entered upon a new stage in his relation to the trial. Instead of simply enduring it, he most gladly gloried in it. Instead of asking for deliverance, he took pleasure in it. He had learned that the place of humiliation is the place of blessing, of power, of joy.

“Every Christian passes through these two stages in his pursuit of humility. In the first he fears and flees and seeks deliverance from all that can humble him. He has not yet learned to seek humility at any cost. He has accepted the command to be humble, and seeks to obey it, though only to find how utterly he fails. He prays for humility, at times very earnestly, but in his secret heart he prays more, if not in word then in wish, to be kept from the very things that will make him humble. He is not yet so in love with humility as the beauty of the Lamb of God and the joy of heaven, that he would sell all to procure it.

“But can we hope to reach the stage in which this will be the case? Undoubtedly. And what will it be that brings us there? That which brought Paul there–a new revelation of the Lord Jesus. Nothing but the presence of God can reveal and expel self.

“It appears as if this were the highest lesson that he had to learn, full conformity to his Lord in that self-emptying where he gloried in weakness that God might be all.”  (Andrew Murray)

Prayer: Lord, help me to become nothing, undone before you, so that I may experience the blessing of not only enduring my trials and pains but also delight and glory in all so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

– JK

Members of UMBC’s Student Alumni Association (SAA) hit Main Street in the Commons Tuesday to share their love of philanthropy with the passing campus community. Thanks to every Retriever, near and far, who supported UMBC on this day of giving.

“Giving Tuesday really makes you think about the people who have helped you at this point whether it is at home, in school, at work, etc. It really makes you appreciate what others do for you and what actions you can take to pay that service forward to others,” said SAA member Karndeep Singh, a senior biochemistry and molecular biology major.

“Here at UMBC, we have a strong community built on providing service to others. Even though we are a young university, we have great support from our alumni who devote a lot of time and effort to supporting the current student body by offering scholarships, internship opportunities, and career opportunities!”

Did you miss #GivingTuesday? It’s never too late to support the great things happening here at UMBC.

Throughout his career, Philip Graff ’08, mathematics and physics, has conducted research at Cambridge University on a prestigious Gates Cambridge Scholarship, developed an algorithm that enabled experiments confirming the existence of gravitational waves, and worked to improve cybersecurity measures for the U.S. armed forces and Department of Homeland Security.

This fall, the Maryland Science Center named Graff their 2017 Outstanding Young Scientist – Non-academic Track. At a ceremony held November 15, the center honored two scientists and two engineers, including UMBC’s Lee Blaney, associate professor of chemical, biochemical, and environmental engineering. Researchers younger than 35 in academia and younger than 40 in other sectors who have distinguished themselves with accomplishments in science and engineering are eligible for the awards.

Graff’s research career began at UMBC in the lab of Markos Georganopoulos, associate professor of physics, who noted his potential early on. “Once I gave Philip a suggestion on how to solve a key issue with the stability of our code, but my suggestion was wrong in a subtle way,” Georganopoulos remembers. “Philip found my error by himself, modified my suggestion, and fixed the code in two days.”

Yet, Graff maintained his humility as a new researcher. “When you’re starting out in research, there’s a lot to learn in the beginning,” he says, “and [Georganopoulos] definitely put in the time to help me work through that,” especially pertaining to scientific writing. Graff and Georganopoulos published a paper with Graff as first author—a rare accomplishment for an undergraduate—and Graff presented the findings at an academic conference. The paper dealt with modeling blazars, a variety of quasar that Graff describes as “bright and energetic beams of radiation coming from black holes at the centers of galaxies.”

“As an undergrad, Philip took on and completed a computational astrophysics project that was practically at the level of a heavy Ph.D. thesis,” shared Georganopoulos. “Many astrophysicists at conferences had a hard time believing that the problem we worked on was solved by an undergraduate student.”

Graff’s research experience at UMBC catapulted him to a summer internship at CalTech’s Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) Lab, a leading center for gravitational wave research. After that, he received the Gates Cambridge Scholarship, a younger version of the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship, to pursue a Ph.D. at Cambridge University. Nancy Lloyd Miller ’74, political science, M.P.R. ’85, policy sciences, and the recently-retired associate director of academic and pre-professional advising, provided significant support throughout Graff’s application process, he says.

Graff’s work at Cambridge continued to focus on LIGO, this time developing software tools to analyze data from LIGO and beyond. “We were very focused on making sure any new software we developed for data analysis would be generally applicable,” Graff says, “and that other people would be able to take it and use it to solve their problems as well.”

After completing a Ph.D. in physics at Cambridge, Graff continued his LIGO work at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. In 2015, he transitioned to the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, where he is working primarily on projects for the U.S. government.

Graff’s years at UMBC, which also included involvement in student government and Greek life, provided the foundation for his success. “UMBC prepared me for the Gates [Scholarship] to get me to Cambridge, and […] set me on the path that I’m on now,” he shares. “It was one of the important steps on the way.”

The award, Graff says, “is a real honor. I hadn’t expected it. Now I just hope I can continue to live up to it, so that I’m not just an outstanding young scientist, but can continue to do good work in the future.”