Northrop Grumman Corporation announced an expansion of their cybersecurity work with UMBC to include research on health data analytics in partnership with the UMBC Center for Hybrid Multicore Productivity Research (CHMPR). CHMPR is an NSF-sponsored industry/university cooperative research center and consortium focused on addressing the productivity, performance and scalability issues in meeting the computational demands of its sponsors applications through the continuous evolution of multicore architectures and open source tools.

From the Northrop Grumman press release:

The UMBC-Northrop Grumman collaboration began with a cybersecurity initiative and is now leveraging the big data analytics used in cyber and applying the tools and technologies to health. This has enabled Northrop Grumman to dive into expansive health data on a variety of subjects, such as the impacts of cardiovascular disease as it relates to smoking, obesity and pharmaceutical drug use.

"CHMPR has provided greater clinical access to information, analytic techniques and natural language processing," said Amy Caro, vice president and general manager, health division, Northrop Grumman Information Systems. "Our efforts have yielded real-time results and are driving programs and practices that are helping to improve the health of large populations. As we move forward, our security capabilities and work with CHMPR will allow for continued large scale data mining to help inform breakthrough research and drive better health outcomes."

Northrop Grumman has been a member and supporter of CHMPR, since its inception and chairs the CHMPR Industry Advisory Board. Northrop Grumman and UMBC started their participation with CHMPR focusing on cyber to demonstrate a commitment to that mission and have since expanded that focus to include high performance computing and big data analytics in the health arena. Most recently, Northrop Grumman has provided initial funds to CHMPR's new North Carolina State University planning site.

"Our partnership with Northrop Grumman and our work in cyber and now health are huge steps forward in advancing critical research and driving better business and health results. We couldn't be prouder of these accomplishments and we look forward to continuing this great work," said Yelena Yesha, professor of computer science and CHMPR director, UMBC.

"Working with industry to advance research is a great model and Northrop Grumman and UMBC have been a key leaders and partners in building this industry, government and university consortium to advance issues like cyber security and health analytics," said Rita Rodrigues, program director, National Science Foundation.

Northop Gumman is collaborating with UMBC on several initiatives supporting cybersecurity education, training and technology. These include partnering with the bwtech@UMBC Cyber Incubator to form Cync, a program that nurtures innovative cybersecurity startups and helping UMBC launch its Cyber Scholars Program.

Cynthia Matuszek, computer science and electrical engineering, co-authored a study that found that Google image search results underrepresent female professionals, use stereotypes, and influence gender bias. Matuszek recently came to UMBC from the University of Washington, where her coauthors are based.

The researchers analyzed top Google image search results for over 40 professions and found that women were underrepresented when compared to data from the Bureau of Labor statistics. They also found that the image results affected perceptions of female representation in those occupations. “It’s part of a cycle: How people perceive things affects the search results, which affect how people perceive things,” Matuszek told The Washington Post.

Click here to read “What one simple Google search tells us about how we view working women” in The Washington Post.

Additional Coverage:

Be Careful What You Google (The Atlantic)
Google Image Search Has A Gender Bias Problem (Huffington Post)
Google Search thinks the most important female CEO is Barbie (The Verge)
On Google Images, the most influential woman CEO is Barbie! (The Economic Times)
Why gender bias in the workplace continues to exist (Human Resources Online)
Female CEOs under-represented on Google Image Search: Study (Tech2)
Who’s a CEO? Google image results can shift gender biases (Phys.org)
Barbie is the ‘top women CEO’ on Google Images (Times of India)
Is Google Search Biased Against Female CEOs? (Science 2.0)
Study puts Google image search results to the gender bias test (GeekWire)
On Google Images, the most influential woman CEO is Barbie! (NewKerala.com)
Who’s a CEO? Google image results can shift gender biases (UW Today)