The UMBC Cybersecurity Graduate Program will hold a virtual information session at 6:00pm on June 16. Participate to learn about the  program options and find out how a master’s degree or graduate certificate can help you advance in the cybersecurity industry. During the online information session, graduate program director Richard Forno will discuss courses, credit requirements and prerequisites, and admissions processes.

The session will cover cybersecurity programs at both UMBC's Main Campus and UMBC-Shady Grove in Rockville, MD. It will provide an overview of our innovative curriculum, practice-oriented instruction and flexible class schedules, which are designed for working professionals.  You will also learn about admissions, curriculum, class format and the cybersecurity career outlook.

If you would like to participate in the information session, please RSVP online.

Graduate student Lauren Schoukroun-Barnes and undergraduate Ethan Glaser in the White Group publish their recent findings on heterogeneous sensor surfaces in Langmuir. The students used aptamer-based sensors achieve detection of analytes through a conformation change to develop a general method to predictably tune the sensitivity and linear range of electrochemical sensors using varying length aptamers (small single-stranded nucleic acids that fold into a well-defined three-dimensional structure). They demonstrated that mixtures of modified sequences can be used to tune the affinity, dynamic range, and sensitivity of the resulting sensors.

HAPP 398 – Health, Environment and Armed Conflict

This class explores the interrelationship between health, the natural environment and armed conflict. Using specific case studies, this course will explore the connections between environment, health, security, conflict, poverty and peacemaking.

UMBC CSEE Ph.D. student Kavita Krishnaswamy was featured in an NSF article Balancing life, health and research.

Balancing life, health and research, graduate student perseveres to increase access for persons with severe disabilities.

Kavita Krishnaswamy's doctoral dissertation defense at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), was fairly typical. Dissertation committee, doctoral candidate, explanatory slides, questions from the committee.

When it was over and time to deliberate, Tim Oates, Kavita's advisor, asked her to leave the room. Because Kavita delivered her presentation via a Beam Smart Presence System (BeamPro), she powered down the computer screen beaming her into the meeting.

This was business as usual for the computer science student whose research involves developing robotic prototypes to transfer, reposition and perform personal hygiene tasks for those with severe disabilities. She is also studying how to improve control over robotic interfaces for these individuals. Her tool kit includes elements of machine learning, artificial intelligence, brain-computer interfaces and other communication technologies.

You can read the rest on the NSF Discovery site.

Eileen Meyer and Markos Georganopoulos, physics, published an article in Nature last week detailing their research on black holes. Meyer, the lead author of the paper, is completing a postdoctoral position at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore before beginning her professorship at UMBC.

Using photographs taken with the Hubble Space Telescope over the past 25 years, Meyer and Georganopoulos observed a “shock collision” of plasma jets, indicating that plasma jets run into each other and gain energy in that manner. “Something like this has never been seen before in an extragalactic jet,” Meyer said. “This will allow us a very rare opportunity to see how the kinetic energy of the collision is dissipated into radiation.”

“The collision of outward moving components in jets has long been known, but this is the first time we actually see it happening,” co-author Markos Georganopoulos told Discovery News.

View a time-lapse of shock collision below:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nf7W-WfKxLM]

Their research has received national and international media attention. Read coverage of their study below:
Hubble spots a high-speed collision in an extragalactic jet (L.A. Times)
Watch a Superfast Jet of Gas Burst from a Massive Black Hole (TIME)
Black hole glimpsed playing cosmic billiards (BBC)
Hubble Witness to Relativistic Crash in a Black Hole Jet (Discovery)
UMBC physicists witness black hole history: ‘Something like this has never been seen before’ (Technical.ly)

The Honors College is getting rid of two large 5-drawer lateral file cabinets by HON.  The cabinets are in excellent condition, but we need to make room for a larger desk. 

If your department or you know of another department could use the cabinets, please let me know.  The only catch is the receiving department will have to put in a work order to pick up the cabinets from the Honors College, Albin O. Kuhn Library, 216P.

I really hate to see the file cabinets go to waste.  Please feel free to contact me at your earliest convenience on extension 5-3720.

This class explores the interrelationship between health, the natural environment and armed conflict. Using specific case studies, this course will explore the connections between environment, health, security, conflict, poverty and peacemaking.

 The course will focus on the following dimensions: 1) The impact of environmental degradation and energy source depletion on conflict formation

2) Conflicts arising out of a context of contested resource wealth
3) Environmental impacts of armed conflicts and the war system
4) Opportunities for environmental peacemaking based on a recognition of shared interests and vulnerabilities.

MoWe 6:00PM - 9:10PM
Math & Psychology 010
7/6/2015 - 8/14/2015
Summer Six Week – Second Session