UMBC’s Grand Challenge Scholars Program is designed for students from all majors who are interested in solving important societal problems. The program fosters a vibrant interdisciplinary community to help tackle the National Academy of Engineering’s (NAE) Grand Challenges, and gives students experiences and skills to create solutions to some of the most pressing challenges of the 21st century.

Apply to become a UMBC Grand Challenge Scholar!

UMBC will hold a Grand Challenge Symposium 1:00-2:30 on Friday, February 17 on the 7th floor of the UMBC Library. It features 14 speakers who will give two-minute mini-talks on the 14 Grand Challenges. Professor desJardins will talk briefly about the program and current GC Scholars will be there to share their activities and experiences with the program. Light refreshments will be provided.

Make Solar Energy Economical:
Nilanjan Banerjee, Associate Professor, Computer Science & Electrical Engineering

Provide Access to Clean Water:
Lee Blaney, Assistant Professor, Chemical, Biochemical, and Environmental Engineering

Provide Energy from Fusion:
Carlos Romero-Talamas, Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering

Manage the Nitrogen Cycle:
David Lansing, Associate Professor, Geography & Environmental Systems

Develop Carbon Sequestration Methods:
Maggie Holland, Assistant Professor, Geography & Environmental Systems

Engineer Better Medicines:
Erin Lavik, Professor, Chemical, Biochemical & Environmental Engineering

Advance Health Informatics:
Helena Mentis, Assistant Professor, Information Systems

Restore and Improve Urban Infrastructure:
Seung-Jun Kim, Assistant Professor, Computer Science and Electrical Engineering

Secure Cyberspace:
Naghmeh Karini, Assistant Professor, Computer Science and Electrical Engineering

Prevent Nuclear Terror:
Simon Stacey, Interim Vice Provost Dean for Undergraduate Education and

Advance Personalized Learning:
Omar Ka, Associate Professor, Modern Languages, Linguistics & Intercultural Communication

Enhance Virtual Reality:
Lee Boot, Research Associate Professor, Visual Arts, and Director, Imaging Research Center

Reverse-Engineer the Brain:
Tim Oates, Professor, Computer Science and Electrical Engineering

Engineer the Tools of Scientific Discovery:
Gymama Slaughter, Associate Professor, Computer Science and Electrical Engineering

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The charismatic Red-breasted Nuthatch usually makes its home in Canadian forests, but this year it’s been spotted in large numbers as far south as Maryland. This phenomenon, known as an irruption, is well known in ornithology, but not well understood. In The Conversation, UMBC’s Sarah Luttrell and Archer Larned, Ph.D. candidates in biological sciences, describe the factors scientists believe may cause irruptions, and why citizen scientists are so important to learning more.

Irruptions often follow a boom-and-bust cycle of food sources, Luttrell and Larned explain.  In a phenomenon known as masting, a tree species may produce a larger than normal number of seeds across thousands of miles of its range. That abundance increases the prosperity of birds that rely on the tree’s seeds for food. Come winter, “the bird population has doubled, or even tripled, but the available habitat hasn’t,” Luttrell and Larned say, so the “extra” birds travel farther than usual away from their normal winter range, bringing birds like red-breasted nuthatches to the mid-Atlantic.

The cause of masting isn’t well understood, but it appears to be triggered by warm, dry weather in spring. Climate change may affect the frequency of masting events, and tracking irruptions may help scientists understand how climate change is affecting forest health.

While masting events may occur every few years, some food explosions happen on a longer timescale. For example, the spruce budworm emerges approximately every 20 years. “While budworms decimate spruce trees, birds gorge themselves on budworms,” causing a population boom that can lead to irruption. In response to a lemming population boom, Snowy Owls irrupted as far south as the Bahamas in 2013 – 2014.

Masting and irruptions are hard to predict, so the scientific community relies on citizen scientists to collect data about bird numbers and locations. “Citizen scientists are a crucial asset for studying irruptions,” write Luttrell and Larned.

By contributing to online databases such as Project FeederWatch, Christmas Bird Count, eBird, and Great Backyard Bird Count, “Novice and expert bird-watchers across large areas can accurately capture the extent and timing of bird movements.” Larned and Luttrell note that about 150 scientific papers have been written since 1997 based on data available from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s repository of citizen science bird data.

The next Great Backyard Bird Count will be held February 17 – 20, 2017. Anyone who enjoys watching birds, wants to inform scientific research, or would like to help solve the mystery of irruptions is invited to participate.

Read When birds go roaming: The mystery of avian irruptions in The Conversation.

Header image: Red-breasted Nuthatch. Photo by Heather Elaine Ritchie, CC BY-NC-ND.

In the closing seconds of regulation against the America East Conference first-place University of Vermont Catamounts, UMBC Retrievers junior guard K.J. Maura’s three-point attempt served as the perfect metaphor for the Dawg’s comeback attempt: close but just short.

“As soon as I shot it, I thought it was going in,” Maura said. The Retrievers (16-9, 7-5 in AEC) ultimately fell to Vermont (23-5, 13-0 in AEC) in a thriller 77-74. Maura led all scorers with 22 points on 8-12 shooting.

The late season conference tussle could have easily taken place in late March. The 1,219 in attendance fans at the RAC often made their voices heard through vociferous boos, cheers. “It was pretty loud in [the RAC],” said UMBC senior forward Will Darley. “We fed off their energy for sure.”

The Retrievers began the game on fire, feeding off the raucous crowd to a 9-2 lead. Vermont then weathered the early storm, going on an impressive 9-0 run of their own to claim their first lead. Most of the opening frame reflected this back and forth nature with six ties and five lead changes. It looked like Vermont would pull away in the second half. The Catamounts outscored UMBC  30-17 in the first 12:13 after intermission.

Over the final six minutes, the Retrievers made a furious comeback, going on a 26-9 run to cut the Vermont lead to one with 50 seconds left in regulation. UMBC looked poised to tie or take the lead in the closing seconds, but could not find the bottom of the net.

Sunday’s game resembled the first meeting between these two teams until the waning minutes of regulation. The Catamounts used their tremendous roster depth and methodical pace to control most of the game. “They do a good job of staying between [players] and the basket,” UMBC head coach Ryan Odom said.

“You’ve gotta credit [Vermont] for the way that they play,” said Odom. Vermont held significant advantages in rebounding (46-24), second chance points (18-4) and bench points (35-17).

With one of the best defenses in the country, Vermont held the Retrievers to just 41 percent from the field. UMBC did shoot 36 percent from three point range, but the aggressive Cats defense held the Retrievers to 14 attempts from downtown. In particular, Vermont stifled leading scorer junior Jairus Lyles. The Cats held the Junior to 14 points on 6-18 shooting. Lyles did not make his first field goal until the 1:26 mark of the first half.

Darley was the other Retriever to score double figures on the day. Darley scored 13 points on 4-13 shooting along with five boards. Darley has now scored in double figures in seven consecutive games.

For Vermont, they showed why they are the class of the AEC. One of the most efficient offenses in the country (12th in field goal percentage), Vermont shot 50 percent from the field. What they lacked in three-point shooting (nine percent, that’s not a typo) they made up for at the foul line (26-39 FT’s).

Senior guard Dre Wills led the Catamounts with 22 points and 13 rebounds on 9-12 shooting. Three other Vermont player finished in double figures as well. Freshman forward Anthony Lamb had 16 points and three boards. Junior guard Trae Bell-Haynes added 15 points with five boards and five assists. Finally, junior forward Payton Henson finished with 11 points and nine rebounds.

The Retrievers now look forward to the final four games of the regular season. Their next game is Wednesday night at the University of Albany Great Danes (16-11, 7-5 AEC) at 7 p.m. and can be watched on ESPN3.

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Recently, the works of UMBC faculty, Doug Hamby and Carol Hess were performed by the Baltimore Dance Project in the Black Box theater. As directors of the Linehan Scholar Program at UMBC, various students across the discipline display their talents and capabilities on stage.

As a modern dance company, one of the most unique aspects of the program is that the performances incorporate visual and technological displays alongside the dancers creating a universal ethereal experience throughout the performance. With influences from everything from modern dance to ballet, the company created edgy yet provocative concepts that drew audiences in for the entire show.

The performance began with “Light Forest.” There were silk screens all across the stage that projected images of a lush forest. At first it seems as if the stage is empty, but as the lights dim from the silk screen you are able to see the dancers camouflaging into the images. Dancers Eric Holmes, Maia Schechter, Franki Trout, Desiree Koontz-Nachtrieb and Kendra Welborn light up the stage with their choreography, mimicking the natural landscapes displayed on the silk screens. For the scene of the lush forest, the dancers opened up their dance to the stage creating a more spatial comparison for the performance.

As the images change to a river to concrete to a pasture, the dancers mimic these natural landscapes through their performance. During the show the dancers seemed so natural in their movements – something that draws viewers into the story that they tell. With the use of multimedia and background music matching the landscape displayed in “Light Forest,” the dancers truly represented each natural background.

In the next performance, “In a Sea of Memories,” the show began to performances straying away from typical modern dance and incorporated ballet. With the classical rendition by Zoe Keating, this performance was both romantic and breathtaking. Both dancers created a story of a relationship and how inevitably discord arises. Interestingly, as the dancers began to stray away from each other on stage, they eventually came back together as one representing how love can be everlasting. The performance was wonderful with the classical background that continued to emphasize the beauty of romance with Valentine’s Day right around the corner.

One of the most memorable performances from the show was “Letting Go.” In this performance, the stage opens up to Maia Schechter holding a paper lantern. She gracefully dances across the stage the paper lantern that she holds illuminating the stage. As she dances throughout the performance, the light illuminates the choreography creating an unreal experience that is hard to find words to describe. It could be said that there was a level of spirituality and beauty incorporated into this modern choreography. This was one of the best performances of the night making it quite difficult to forget the beauty and natural elements to the performance.

The final performance of the night was closed with “Square Breath,” which juxtaposed various sounds from classical to electronic beats. Throughout the performance, issues of mental health are brought to light from the perspective of those that are diagnosed with them. As one dancer sits still at the table staring into the space, the rest of the dancers move about the stage erratically, representing what it is like inside the mind of those with mental illness. With screeching from the cello, this provocative performance brings to life what it is like to have a mental disorder and provides an image of the internal struggle that many face.

As soon as the curtains opened, everything was easily drawn in. The beautiful performances represented everything from  nature to romance to issues of mental health. As a viewer you were able to follow alongside the performance and understand what was occurring. The performances were wonderful as each one figuratively and literally light up on stage. There was not a moment when the audience seemed bored or felt like any aspect of the performance were dragged out. The Baltimore Dance Project created more than just dance, it successfully created true entertainment.

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