UMBC’s newest Postdoctoral Fellows for Faculty Diversity will soon begin a two-year experience focused on growing their research and refining their teaching skills through professional development opportunities and working closely with faculty mentors, in preparation for possible tenure-track faculty positions at UMBC.

The fourth cohort of fellows—the largest in program history—includes Lisa Cassell, philosophy; René Esparza, American studies; Christine Hawn, geography and environmental systems; Erika Fountain, psychology; Adanna Jones, dance; Camee Maddox-Wingfield, sociology and anthropology; and Noor Zaidi, history.

“UMBC is fortunate to have been able to attract a group of such outstanding young scholars whom we now welcome as members of our community,” says Philip Rous, provost and senior vice president for academic affairs. “These fellows represent the best of UMBC and our commitment to attracting scholars from diverse backgrounds and perspectives to further advance our shared values of inclusive excellence through world-class scholarship and a distinctive educational experience for all of our students.”

As a Maryland native who earned her Ph.D. at the University of Florida, Maddox-Wingfield knew that she wanted to return to the University System of Maryland for the next step in her career. “This postdoctoral fellowship opportunity will mark a major milestone in my career trajectory,” she shares. “It is my goal to complete a book manuscript based on my dissertation field research, and gain pedagogical skills that will make me a more effective instructor and mentor to students.”

Fountain explained that UMBC’s commitment to diversity is a reason why she chose to join the program for 2017 – 19. “I believe being part of a community that embraces different perspectives is essential to producing top quality research. I look forward to working with the outstanding mentors at UMBC and furthering my research on issues related to juvenile justice,” she said.

Esparza shared in Fountain’s excitement to develop his research in a supportive community that values diversity. “I am enthusiastic about sharing my passion for teaching and commitment to community engaged scholarship through the Postdoctoral Fellowship for Faculty Diversity Program, in hopes of fulfilling UMBC’s mission to prepare students for a multicultural, global society,” he reflected.

Christine Hawn. Photo by Marilu Lopez Fretts.

Hawn agrees, noting, “I’m looking forward to having the time, mentorship, and resources necessary to build my own research program. Because this fellowship is centered around diversity, I’m taking the opportunity to develop sound ecological research that is informed by my identities.”

In addition to continuing to publish and present her research, Cassel is particularly interested in the teaching opportunities the fellowship provides. She says, “I’m looking forward to developing new courses for the philosophy department—courses that I’ve always wanted to teach, and that I’ll finally have the opportunity to teach, at UMBC.”

Jones is looking forward to working with her two mentors Carol Hess, dance, and Kimberly Moffitt, American studies. “Ultimately, this fellowship offers me the time to complete my book proposal, as well as get critical feedback on my research-based choreography,” she says.

Adanna Jones. Photo courtesy of Adanna Jones.

This year, UMBC’s College of Natural and Mathematical Sciences also launched a program designed to fulfill the same needs as the university-wide Postdoctoral Fellows for Faculty Diversity program, but with a specific focus on career trajectories in the natural sciences.

UMBC’s new Natural Sciences Pre-professoriate Fellowship program offers fellows an appointment of up to two years, during which scaffolding is in place to prepare the pre-professoriate fellows for tenure-track assistant professor positions at UMBC. In addition to being strong scholars, the program stipulates that applicants must be committed to diversity in the academy. Fellows receive research and teaching guidance from a faculty mentor, work on a collaborative research project, teach one class per semester, mentor students in the STEM BUILD program, and participate in the Active Learning, Inquiry Teaching Certificate program.

The first two scholars to accept appointments through the program, Fernando Vonhoff and Mercedes Burns, will join UMBC’s biological sciences department this fall. Vonhoff is currently a postdoctoral research associate in molecular, cellular and developmental biology at Yale University, and Burns is a National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellow in biology at San Diego State University.

Phil Farabaugh, professor and chair of biological sciences, is tremendously excited about the high quality of fellowship applications received. He explained that in addition to having strong research credentials, the dozens of candidates who applied have demonstrated a longstanding commitment to diversity in the sciences, including “a lot of work with undergraduates and younger kids in reaching out to underrepresented populations,” work the department hopes the selected fellows will extend at UMBC.

These initiatives are part of a broader effort by UMBC to build and steward a faculty that reflects and effectively meets the needs of the university’s highly diverse student body. Also included in this effort is the successful ADVANCE program to increase the number of women faculty members.

Read more about the Postdoctoral Fellows for Faculty Diversity program, including information about previous cohorts.

Banner image: Camee Maddox-Wingfield. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

Every day, people interact with large amounts of text online, including legal documents they might quickly skim and sign without full, careful review. In an article recently published in The Conversation, Karuna Joshi, research associate professor of computer science and electrical engineering, and Tim Finin, professor of computer science and electrical engineering, explain how artificial intelligence (AI) is helping to summarize lengthy and complex legalese  so people can more easily understand terms of service and similar agreements before they click “accept” to access a new app or online service.

The legal documents that Joshi and Finin are working to summarize—terms of service, privacy policies, and user agreements—often accompany new online services, contests, apps, and subscriptions. “As computer science researchers, we are working on ways artificial intelligence algorithms could digest these massive texts and extract their meaning, presenting it in terms regular people can understand,” they explain.

Through their research, Joshi and Finin ask computers to break down the terms and conditions that regular users “agree” to or “accept.” To process the text, Joshi and Finin employ a range of AI technologies, including machine learning, knowledge representation, speech recognition, and human language comprehension.

Joshi and Finin have found that in many of the privacy policies people are prompted to review and accept online, there are sections that do not actually apply to the consumer or service provider. These sections of the agreements might, for example,  “include rules for third parties…that people might not even know are involved in data storage or retrieval,” they note.

Tim Finin. Photo from CSEE website.

After examining these documents, the software Joshi and Finin have developed pinpoints specific items that people should be aware of when they are granting their consent or agreement—what they describe as “key information specifying the legal rights, obligations and prohibitions identified in the document.” In other words, the software takes in all that complex legal language, and then  then presents just the most essential information in “clear, direct, human-readable statements,” making it much more feasible for users to understand what they are consenting to before they click “agree.”

Read “Teaching machines to understand — and summarize — text” in The Conversation to learn more about Joshi and Finan’s approach to making online legal documents more accessible through AI.

Banner image: Karuna Joshi. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC. 

Yawning may have the dubious distinction of being the least understood common human behavior,” UMBC’s Bob Provine told NPR’s Morning Edition this spring. Yawns can be triggered by boredom, fatigue, hunger, or stress. Although multiple theories attempt to define yawning’s purpose, researchers have yet to settle on a unified explanation of why we yawn.

Provine, professor emeritus of psychology at UMBC, says, “[Yawning] stirs up our physiology, and it plays an important role in shifting from one state to another.” Another study cited by NPR supports the changing-state theory, finding “that yawning has a similar impact on the brain as a dose of caffeine.” Provine mentions that athletes about to compete, musicians about to perform, and military about to enter combat also yawn at higher rates than expected.

However, other studies have not found yawning to have an arousing effect. Rather, their results suggest yawning is important for social bonding. That theory is strengthened by the fact that yawning is contagious—and not only among humans.

“Until the last few years, the feeling was that contagious yawning was unique to humans,” Provine told NPR, but recent studies have found that dogs and chimpanzees also yawn contagiously. Dogs even yawned more often when humans around them yawned, potentially contributing to the emotional bonds people form with their canine companions.

Provine has also been consulted recently for his expertise on another primal vocalization: laughter. In The Trumpet, he shared that his research has found laughter to be most common in “situations of emotional warmth and in groups,” suggesting laughter, like yawning, may contribute to social bonding.

In The Atlantic, Provine commented on how appropriate it was to include laughter on the “Golden Record,” which was launched into space in 1977 intended for discovery by alien life. “Laughing, like crying, is a human instinct. It’s not under conscious control,” he told The Atlantic. “Whereas crying is a solicitation of caregiving, laughter is the signal of play. It is the sound of play, literally.”

Prior to the most recent Atlantic piece, Provine discussed his two decades of laugher research in depth for a popular video produced by the publication, “Why We Laugh.”

Why do we laugh?

Read more of Provine’s recent media on yawning and laughter:

Yawning may promote social bonding even between dogs and humans (NPR)

Why is yawning contagious? (Mental Floss)

A good laugh (The Trumpet)

Solving the mystery of whose laughter is on the golden record (The Atlantic)

 Image: Dog yawning. Photo by Nate Steiner, via Flickr, public domain.

New fish Sterilization method ready for trials

Don Engel, UMBC’s assistant vice president for research, has been selected as one of just eight participants nationwide in the new Research Leader Fellows program sponsored by the Council on Research within the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU). The 18-month program focuses on helping emerging research leaders to develop knowledge and skills in new areas related to supporting university research today and into the future. Participants attend conferences, participate in facilitated meetings as a group, and receive direct mentorship from experienced higher education research leaders.

“I think the most valuable thing about this program will be that it will expose me to things that we can do that haven’t been on our horizon, because we haven’t yet thought to look creatively in those directions,” says Engel.

In his fellowship proposal, Engel outlined plans for two projects in which he’s already deeply invested. First, Engel is working with the UMBC community to develop makerspaces on campus. While many makerspaces in academic settings create opportunities for students to “learn about tech through tinkering,” Engel says, he would also like to see these spaces “conceived as…tools to advance faculty-led research.” That research could be in any field that “depends on rapid fabrication and prototyping,” such as robotics, or into fabrication techniques themselves, he explains.

Don Engel (third from right) with the inaugural cohort of APLU Research Leader Fellows. Photo by Sarah Rovito.

During the fellowship, Engel will attend the International Symposium of Academic Makerspaces at Case Western Reserve University. Case Western is the site of the world’s largest academic makerspace, and Engel intends to take advantage of the symposium’s location to learn how the university developed and now manages the facility. Engel will also travel to the 2018 World Maker Faire in California. Both trips, along with conversations with other academic institutions that house makerspaces, will inform ideas about best practices for building impactful, sustainable makerspaces at UMBC that serve a wide range of people across the university.

Engel also intends to expand his current work with the National Cybersecurity FFRDC (Federally Funded Research and Development Center) during the fellowship. UMBC is a founding partner of the center with the MITRE Corporation and the University of Maryland, College Park. “All parties have been navigating uncharted territory in determining how to leverage each other’s strengths and resources toward the critical cybersecurity of our national commercial sector,” Engel says, and one of his goals is to explore “what the university system can do to better enhance academic engagement in the FFRDC.”

His trip to California will facilitate visits with University of California schools—especially useful because they operate similarly to the University System of Maryland and already sustain robust relationships with several national laboratories, a subset of FFRDCs. In the case of both makerspaces and the FFRDC, Engel says, “My time as a fellow will allow me to leverage immediate questions facing UMBC as an opportunity to deeply explore what other institutions have done in the face of similar opportunities.”

Broadly, Engel hopes to gain skills that will serve him and UMBC long into the future. He sees the Research Leader Fellows program as an opportunity to learn more about the expansive, cross-disciplinary areas that research leaders are expected to supervise, from research compliance to extramural partnerships. He also anticipates the program will help him, and his fellow participants, develop skills to facilitate campus-wide conversations on research issues across disciplines.

“I’m very interested in finding ways to use this as an opportunity to take on new challenges and to think of ways to discover new partnerships or other sorts of resources that will allow us to do things we haven’t done before,” he says. “I want to get people excited to work together on interesting, ambitious projects that will advance human knowledge and education, at UMBC and in collaboration with other universities.”

Image: Don Engel speaks at a UMBC research event. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

Kavita Krishnaswamy ’07, computer science and mathematics, Ph.D. ’18, computer science, has been named both a 2017 Microsoft Fellow and recipient of the Google Lime Scholarship. These prestigious honors recognize emerging scholars in computing who are dedicated to increasing diversity in the field, and Krishnawamy’s awards will support her Ph.D. research on “Smart Algorithms via Knowledge Management of Safe Physical Human-Robotic Care.”

“I am very humbled, honored, and grateful to Google Lime and Microsoft for providing me with this enriching experience and lifetime opportunity to serve society by advancing the field of human-robot interaction,” Krishnaswamy says.

The Google Lime Scholarship seeks to promote greater access to knowledge for people with visible and invisible disabilities. It was established through a partnership between Google and Lime Connect, a nonprofit focused on breaking stereotypes about disability and encouraging companies to recognize the importance and value of employing people with disabilities.

Kavita Krishnaswamy. Photo by Sarah Safir for Google

The program encourages students with disabilities to pursue their passions in computing and technology, and to become leaders in those fields. As part of the fellowship program, Krishnaswamy will receive scholarship funding and will participate in the 2017 Google Scholars’ Retreat.

Through the Microsoft Fellowship, Krishnaswamy will receive funding to support her Ph.D. research and will participate in the Microsoft Research workshop held in fall 2017. Her research currently focuses on building a teleoperated mobile robotic prototype, in addition to creating an accessible robotic interface, that seniors and people with disabilities will be able to control by repositioning their arms and legs. Tim Oates, professor of computer science and electrical engineering, is Krishnaswamy’s Ph.D. advisor.

“Our goal is to explore the intersection between providing physical care and robotics, and how it is possible to translate safe patient handling and mobility guidelines into smart human-robotic interaction algorithms,” Krishnaswamy explains. “As assistive robotics become more mainstream, these best practices can improve safety in direct physical care in the process of repositioning the human body with a mobile robotic arm.”

Krishnaswamy is excited about the possible new directions her research can now explore, thanks to support from these awards. “The resources will provide me with a solid and steady foundation to cultivate new technical expertise and professional skills to successfully continue my dissertation research in robotics, and to broaden my knowledge in the field,” she says.

Krishnaswamy has been recognized internationally as an emerging leader in robotics and accessibility design throughout her graduate studies. She is a former Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellow, and a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow. In 2015, she was named to Robohub’s “25 Women in Robotics You Need to Know About” list.

Banner image: Photo of Kavita Krishnaswamy, exploring UMBC via robot, by Britney Clause ’11.

UMBC biologist Erin Green has received a five-year, nearly $1 million grant from the National institutes of Health to examine how cells respond to environmental signals at the molecular level. Her work could provide clues to understanding processes as broad as how cancers take hold, the causes of autism, and aging.

“Any cell, in any species, is constantly bombarded with different signals from its environment,” says Green, assistant professor of biological sciences. Those signals, she explains, “have consequences for how the cell grows, whether it lives or dies, or if it stays as it is or turns into something else, like a cancer cell.”

Green studies epigenetic modifications—changes to DNA that do not involve a change in the sequence of bases (A, T, G, and C). Inside cells, long strands of DNA are wound tightly around proteins called histones. The modifications Green studies involve adding or removing small groups of atoms to the histones, influencing which sections of DNA are “unwound” and eventually translated into protein.

Erin Green conducts an experiment in her lab.

Epigenetic modifications can impact how genes are expressed within minutes, making them one of the fastest ways a cell can respond to environmental signals. “One challenge in the field, though, is directly linking specific modifications to environmental changes,” Green notes. There are many studies that correlate certain epigenetic changes with diseases or environmental conditions—from air pollution to in utero alcohol exposure—but figuring out exactly how the changes lead to complex health conditions has been much trickier.

Green’s work will explore the mechanism of a particular enzyme that adds methyl groups to histones, one of the most common epigenetic changes, using budding yeast as a model organism. Her enzyme is within a class of proteins that is also found in humans, and so far, she says, “many of the things that we know about them in humans started out in yeast research.” The human version of the enzyme Green is studying, a gene called MLL5, is already known to be expressed differently in some cancers, mutated in some cases of autism, and required for male fertility.

Why use yeast in her research? With yeast, Green explains, “we can test many conditions and look at the direct biochemical and molecular outcomes, which is much harder to do in other systems.” She’ll start by looking at how exposure to certain toxic oxygen compounds, a situation known as oxidative stress, affects the enzyme’s activity.

Erin Green and graduate student Khoa Tran work in Green’s lab.

Green’s earlier work, supported by a UMBC START award, looked much more narrowly at a specific enzyme activity, but this new grant will allow her lab to paint with a broader brush. “We’ve been looking in a very targeted way,” she says. “By doing this bigger, more open-ended experiment we might uncover other things that would be good to look at. Are there other stress response pathways that this enzyme might be controlling?”

“I think having a system where we can directly answer these questions in a more controlled and easily manipulated environment is really powerful,” Green says. “If we’re able to…learn more about the function of this enzyme in yeast, that’s likely to give us a handle on what it might be doing in humans.”

Banner image: Erin Green. All photos by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.