Jamie Costello from ABC’s Baltimore affiliate WMAR has a short video feature, UMBC is on a mission to crack the code, on UMBC students who are studying and doing research on the cybersecurity of computing hardware, software and systems.

If you walk through your door and notice your home computer in pieces scattered throughout the house, call UMBC.

In the old days, parents wanted their children to grow up to become doctors and lawyers, now its about becoming cyber security experts.

A select group of students at UMBC knew this was for them. Some tore computers apart. Some knocked XBOX players off their game on purpose. And one student, while in high school and with the school’s blessing, hacked into the school’s security camera system.

Jobs are like gnats on a summer night, college graduates are swatting the offers away. And the pay is good, really good.

Students are learning how to hack into systems and then prevent such attacks. They are studying hardware, software and tools in between. The more we invent and tie into the internet, the more cyber security experts are needed.

The post ABC features UMBC cybersecurity student scholars appeared first on Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering.

The Retriever community came together late last week to celebrate UMBC’s final spring commencement in downtown Baltimore’s Royal Farms Arena. Two decades after outgrowing its original campus home, the ceremony will return to Hilltop Circle next year, taking place in the new Retriever Events Center that will open in late 2017.

Both the undergraduate ceremony on May 25, and the graduate ceremony at UMBC on May 24, featured inspiring reflections from accomplished students and thoughtful advice from honored alumni. The festivities embodied a close-knit community feeling even as they invited thousands of family, friends, faculty and staff, both present and tuning in through a live webcast, to join in celebrating the graduates’ achievements.

Valedictorian Daniel Ocasio ‘17, chemical engineering, shared in his moving remarks what made the difference in his college experience.

Ocasio told his fellow undergraduates, “as a first generation college student and Latino in STEM, I sometimes felt out of place and doubtful of my own abilities. The lack of representation of people from backgrounds like my own in my field has made it difficult for me to envision myself succeeding in it.” But through connecting with supportive mentors and fellow students, he was able to counter that self-doubt with a clear vision of his future.

Ocasio reflected:

…the diverse community at UMBC has helped build my personal confidence and given me hope for the future of the global workforce. At UMBC, people from all over the world, every race, every socioeconomic background, cooperate — not just exist together, but really work together — to better themselves and each other through education. Through mutual support and encouragement, my peers and mentors helped me envision myself not only succeeding in my field, but being a leader in it.

Ocasio also described how found his passion for improving access to clean water worldwide, which has set him on a path to pursue a Ph.D. in environmental engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. Speaker Stephanie Hill, who received an honorary doctorate of public service for her deep and longstanding commitment to mentorship, picked up on this idea of identifying your passion in her own remarks.

Hill ‘86, computer science and economics, is now the vice president and general manager of Lockheed Martin’s Cyber, Ships and Advanced Technologies (CSAT) line for Rotary and Missions Systems. Speaking directly to students who may not yet have a clear sense of their career path or intellectual passions, she told graduates:

Focus on infusing purpose into each day of your life, because when you do that you can truly make a difference. […] Remember that purpose does not choose you, you choose it. […] We can all be that beacon of light that helps someone to be better than they are…to do better than they would have done.

Hill also spoke of how proud she was when her own daughter recently graduated from UMBC, a community that embodies the core values of “diversity, excellence, and community.” She shared, “Each time I have the privilege to return to my alma mater, it’s really like coming home.”

UMBC’s graduate commencement ceremony also featured personal, heartfelt advice from another UMBC alumnus who is now a global leader in research and technology. Ralph D. Semmel, ‘92, computer science, director of the internationally-renowned Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), spoke of appreciating what we can each uniquely offer the world after receiving an honorary doctorate of science.

Reflecting on how he came to value his own unique strengths, and even eccentricities, Semmel told graduates, “Keep striving. Keep learning…Keep nurturing your gifts and your uniqueness…for yourselves…your communities and the world.”

Semmel also spoke of his faith in the graduates’ values and motivations, and how those factors directly impact what it is possible to achieve in one’s career. “At the core of doing great things is doing the right thing, which requires unquestionable integrity,” said Semmel. “Reach beyond the good enough answer and aspire to the great.” After all, he told the graduates, “If you wanted it easy, you wouldn’t be here today.”

During each ceremony, President Hrabowski asked for a moment of silence and reflection “for eradicating hatred from humankind,” in recognition of people who have recently lost their lives to acts of violence in Maryland and worldwide.

President Hrabowski also took time to honor graduating students who will pursue careers in social work and teaching, and encouraged guests to view the personal stories of 34 Retrievers from the Class of 2017 highlighted for their academic excellence and for demonstrating a commitment to a greater good through research, scholarship, creativity, and work with underserved communities.

Even as he highlighted several students for particular accomplishments—graduating with a perfect GPA or receiving a Fulbright fellowship—President Hrabowski also reminded the thousands of friends and family members in the audience that, “Each student here has a wonderful story.”

As an example, picked up by The Baltimore Sun, he shared the story of Heather Frank ‘17, biochemistry and molecular biology. The first in her family to receive a bachelor’s degree, Frank has already published her research on the HIV genome and will pursue a Ph.D. in biochemistry at Harvard University. Reflecting on her time at UMBC recently, Frank put it simply, “The environment here provided me all the opportunities so I could become my best self.”

President Hrabowski’s full remarks, as well as those of the honorary degree recipients; valedictorian; Graduate Student Association President Deanna Cerquetti, Ph.D. student in language, literacy, and culture; and others are now available through UMBC’s commencement ceremony videos (full captioning coming soon).

Undergraduate Commencement Ceremony:

Graduate Commencement Ceremony:

Graduates and those cheering them on can share memories, well wishes, and photos through #UMBCgrad, and view UMBC’s Facebook page, Instagram, and Twitter accounts for coverage of the festivities. Media coverage of UMBC’s spring 2017 commencement ceremonies is available in The Baltimore Sun and Catonsville Times.

Header image: Professor Tim Nohe congratulates Melissa Cormier upon receiving her MFA degree. All photos by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

Michelle Starz-Gaiano’s research on fruit flies seeks to uncover biological mechanisms driving embryonic development and is applicable to a variety of contexts. For example, her findings may help scientists and doctors better understand how cancers metastasize, leading to more effective treatments.

Starz-Gaiano, associate professor of biological sciences at UMBC, just received a three-year National Science Foundation grant to pursue research on a step in early fly development when a small cluster of cells migrates from one end of the developing egg to the other. While scientists have long understood that the process is driven by a chemical gradient—a higher concentration of a chemical signal at one end of the egg than the other—Starz-Gaiano thinks migration is more complicated than current models predict. “I don’t think the signaling molecules are where we expect,” she says.

The developing egg is bounded by follicle cells, with polar cells at each end of the egg. During early development, a cluster of these cells migrates, which is critical for normal development. This step is similar to metastasis, the process cancer cells undergo when they detach from a tumor and travel through the bloodstream.

In previous studies, Starz-Gaiano was surprised to find that the cells intended for migration did not form in the egg boundary symmetrically. That suggested that they were not uniformly receiving the protein that signaled migration.

Starz-Gaiano hypothesized that the cells beneath the polar cells were not in fact like dice laid end-to-end, with no spaces, as some scientists presumed. Instead, they were more like marbles, creating clefts between cells where the signal molecule could be trapped, therefore altering the selection of migrating cells and the start of the cell migration process.

Starz-Gaiano and collaborator Brad Peercy, associate professor of mathematics at UMBC, built a computer model to simulate the marble-like arrangement. Sure enough, the model recreated the asymmetrical cell pattern Starz-Gaiano and her students saw in real fruit flies, a result they published in 2015.

To validate the computer simulation, Starz-Gaiano’s new research calls for extensive imaging work with another collaborator, Tagide deCarvalho, director of UMBC’s Keith R. Porter Imaging Facility. Their goal is to identify individual signaling proteins within the egg to see if pools show up in the spaces between cells.

The standard cell migration model also ignores the fact that there are a lot of other cells in the way as the migrating cell cluster travels from one end of the egg to the other. This cellular obstacle course affects the migrating cluster’s path and speed, as well as the location of the signaling molecules throughout the egg. “The tissue landscape may be influencing signaling in ways we’re not appreciating,” says Starz-Gaiano.

The series of chemical reactions that controls cell migration in Starz-Gaiano’s fruit flies is markedly similar to what happens in other animals, including humans, so “it’s the perfect system for exploring this idea,” says Starz-Gaiano.

Starz-Gaiano points out that the passage of drugs through the body is likely also influenced by the structure of surrounding tissue. Understanding how surrounding cells affect the course drug molecules take through the body could lead to drugs that interact more actively with the blood vessels and organs they pass through, possibly increasing the amount of the drug that reaches the target, reducing required dosage and side effects.

Starz-Gaiano is excited to get started on the new project. Though challenging, it has the potential to create a paradigm shift in the cell signaling field. “It was a vote of confidence to be recommended for the grant,” Starz-Gaiano says, “and I can’t wait to get the answers.”

The Retriever community came together late last week to celebrate UMBC’s final spring commencement in downtown Baltimore’s Royal Farms Arena. Two decades after outgrowing its original campus home, the ceremony will return to Hilltop Circle next year, taking place in the new Retriever Events Center that will open in late 2017.

Both the undergraduate ceremony on May 25, and the graduate ceremony at UMBC on May 24, featured inspiring reflections from accomplished students and thoughtful advice from honored alumni. The festivities embodied a close-knit community feeling even as they invited thousands of family, friends, faculty and staff, both present and tuning in through a live webcast, to join in celebrating the graduates’ achievements.

Valedictorian Daniel Ocasio ‘17, chemical engineering, shared in his moving remarks what made the difference in his college experience.

Ocasio told his fellow undergraduates, “as a first generation college student and Latino in STEM, I sometimes felt out of place and doubtful of my own abilities. The lack of representation of people from backgrounds like my own in my field has made it difficult for me to envision myself succeeding in it.” But through connecting with supportive mentors and fellow students, he was able to counter that self-doubt with a clear vision of his future.

Ocasio reflected:

…the diverse community at UMBC has helped build my personal confidence and given me hope for the future of the global workforce. At UMBC, people from all over the world, every race, every socioeconomic background, cooperate — not just exist together, but really work together — to better themselves and each other through education. Through mutual support and encouragement, my peers and mentors helped me envision myself not only succeeding in my field, but being a leader in it.

Ocasio also described how found his passion for improving access to clean water worldwide, which has set him on a path to pursue a Ph.D. in environmental engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. Speaker Stephanie Hill, who received an honorary doctorate of public service for her deep and longstanding commitment to mentorship, picked up on this idea of identifying your passion in her own remarks.

Hill ‘86, computer science and economics, is now the vice president and general manager of Lockheed Martin’s Cyber, Ships and Advanced Technologies (CSAT) line for Rotary and Missions Systems. Speaking directly to students who may not yet have a clear sense of their career path or intellectual passions, she told graduates:

Focus on infusing purpose into each day of your life, because when you do that you can truly make a difference. […] Remember that purpose does not choose you, you choose it. […] We can all be that beacon of light that helps someone to be better than they are…to do better than they would have done.

Hill also spoke of how proud she was when her own daughter recently graduated from UMBC, a community that embodies the core values of “diversity, excellence, and community.” She shared, “Each time I have the privilege to return to my alma mater, it’s really like coming home.”

UMBC’s graduate commencement ceremony also featured personal, heartfelt advice from another UMBC alumnus who is now a global leader in research and technology. Ralph D. Semmel, ‘92, computer science, director of the internationally-renowned Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), spoke of appreciating what we can each uniquely offer the world after receiving an honorary doctorate of science.

Reflecting on how he came to value his own unique strengths, and even eccentricities, Semmel told graduates, “Keep striving. Keep learning…Keep nurturing your gifts and your uniqueness…for yourselves…your communities and the world.”

Semmel also spoke of his faith in the graduates’ values and motivations, and how those factors directly impact what it is possible to achieve in one’s career. “At the core of doing great things is doing the right thing, which requires unquestionable integrity,” said Semmel. “Reach beyond the good enough answer and aspire to the great.” After all, he told the graduates, “If you wanted it easy, you wouldn’t be here today.”

During each ceremony, President Hrabowski asked for a moment of silence and reflection “for eradicating hatred from humankind,” in recognition of people who have recently lost their lives to acts of violence in Maryland and worldwide.

President Hrabowski also took time to honor graduating students who will pursue careers in social work and teaching, and encouraged guests to view the personal stories of 34 Retrievers from the Class of 2017 highlighted for their academic excellence and for demonstrating a commitment to a greater good through research, scholarship, creativity, and work with underserved communities.

Even as he highlighted several students for particular accomplishments—graduating with a perfect GPA or receiving a Fulbright fellowship—President Hrabowski also reminded the thousands of friends and family members in the audience that, “Each student here has a wonderful story.”

As an example, picked up by The Baltimore Sun, he shared the story of Heather Frank ‘17, biochemistry and molecular biology. The first in her family to receive a bachelor’s degree, Frank has already published her research on the HIV genome and will pursue a Ph.D. in biochemistry at Harvard University. Reflecting on her time at UMBC recently, Frank put it simply, “The environment here provided me all the opportunities so I could become my best self.”

President Hrabowski’s full remarks, as well as those of the honorary degree recipients; valedictorian; Graduate Student Association President Deanna Cerquetti, Ph.D. student in language, literacy, and culture; and others are now available through UMBC’s commencement ceremony videos (full captioning coming soon).

Undergraduate Commencement Ceremony:

Graduate Commencement Ceremony:

Graduates and those cheering them on can share memories, well wishes, and photos through #UMBCgrad, and view UMBC’s Facebook page, Instagram, and Twitter accounts for coverage of the festivities. Media coverage of UMBC’s spring 2017 commencement ceremonies is available in The Baltimore Sun and Catonsville Times.