TED Talks is coming to UMBC! For those who are not familiar with the program, TED Talks are a series of lectures that bring together the world’s leading thinkers and doers to share ideas in a variety of disciplines, including technology, entertainment, humanities, science, design, and development. Later, these talks are available online to watch for free on TED.com.

To reach a broader community and share more ideas, TED Talks has created TEDx, a program of local, self-organized events to share a TED-like experience. Although UMBC’s TED event is not organized by TED Conferences, the university is excited to be a licensee of TEDx to create deep discussions and connections. UMBC is looking for speakers with new and upcoming ideas in their fields of any discipline that correspond with the theme, “Reaching New Heights.”

Alumni, students, faculty members, staff, and community partners who are doing innovative work connected with UMBC are all welcome to partake in the university’s TEDx event.

Do you think you or someone you know would be a good candidate for a speaker at TEDxUMBC? Apply online now or nominate a speaker. The event will take place on September 13, 2014, from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. Contact Niranjani Chidamber at chidamb1@umbc.edu or Rebecca Behnke at behnke1@umbc.edu with any questions.

Mike Adelstein, CEO of Potomac Photonics, discusses his collaborative business model.

Mike Adelstein, CEO of Potomac Photonics, measures his projects by the micrometre, a unit 1,000 times smaller than a meter. The tiny holes, channels and mechanical gears created by Potomac Photonics are often no bigger than a pinprick and custom made for clients from Baltimore to Japan. The company’s business model relies heavily on collaboration and partnerships involving government and academia. From the company’s new facility at bwtech@UMBC Research and Technology Park, it has begun offering free and discounted services throughout Maryland’s manufacturing community.

MDBIZ News spoke recently with Adelstein about his company and plans for growth.

Q. What does Potomac Photonics offer?

A. We’re a high-tech manufacturing company specializing in micro manufacturing, making small things and complex parts using a broad range of technologies, including laser micro machining, 3D printing, hot embossing and micro molding, among other services. We’re really a one-stop-shop. If there’s an engineer or company that wants something small, they can send us a digital drawing and we will then come up with a way to manufacturer it.

Things are getting smaller and we’re in a market right now that doesn’t show the slightest signs of diminishing. We have 20 employees now and we’re hiring.

Drilling tiny holes into glass is a service of Potomac Photonics.

Q. What kinds of projects is Potomac Photonics working on?

A. We are working with a company right now to produce suture materials as fine as a strand of hair. We use laser machining to drill wells into the device. A company then embeds small amounts of radiation into the sutures for very localized treatment of prostate and breast cancer. In the past, when people had cancer, they were given a lot of radiation, which could have negative effects in the future. With this technology, they use much less radiation. We now produce 300-500 of these devices per month, which are already being used in patients. We’re so proud of that because we feel like we’re really making a difference.

We’re also working with a company in Frederick, which is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense. We have developed a micro fluid chip, to which the company adds an antibody marker. If someone gets hit in the head, they will be able to take a blood sample and within five minutes know if someone has had a concussion.

We’ve done so much more. Recently, a company in Japan needed a part for a telescope. We turned around their order within 24 hours and we’re planning to work together more in the future. We’re making an impact here in Maryland, but also around the world.

Potomac Photonics created the tiny steel gears shown on top of a penny.

Q. Why did you choose to move the company to the bwtech@UMBC Research and Technology Park?

A. We’ve been located in Maryland and involved in manufacturing for a while. The company was founded in 1982, but when I joined the company in 1997, I really grew the contract manufacturing part of it. About a year and a half ago, I led a buyout of the company and began planning to move to a new facility.

I graduated from the University of Maryland Baltimore County so I already had a connection there. UMBC is a powerhouse of math, science and engineering. We wanted to be engaged with the university, the professors and the students, to work with them and collaborate with them. Also, it’s beneficial to be in a park where there are other technology companies, especially startup companies who can rely on us for access to high-tech manufacturing they would not otherwise be able to afford.

The Baltimore area is such a great place for technology. We want Potomac Photonics to be a digital fabrication hub in Maryland. 

Q. How is collaboration part of your business model? 

A. This whole technology is about people more than anything else. Our goal is to bring people together from industry, government and academic institutions. It’s important to come together and discuss how to really push the limits of high-tech manufacturing. This will make the State of Maryland more competitive.

Last month, during our ribbon cutting for the new facility at UMBC, we held a Digital Fabrication Summit. I felt like we were at the center of the digital fabrication universe.  3D Systems Corporation CEO Avi Reichental delivered our keynote address. We had Dr. Neil Gershenfeld, Director of the MIT Center for Bits and Atoms and founder of the FabLab concept; and Kegan Fisher, founder of Sols, also spoke. Many companies that could be considered competitors attended and now we’re working on ways to collaborate.

We give tours of our new facility constantly and we’ve begun free workshops open to anyone interested. We’ve also worked with students to offer services at a 30 to 50 percent discount. Already a Boston University student has worked with us for materials related to stem cells and we’ve helped a student at the University of California, Berkley with a micro fluids project.

My feeling is that this is such a growing area and there’s so much to learn, you will benefit far more from collaboration than from competition.

Potomac Photonics cuts the ribbon to its new facility at the
bwtech@UMBC Research and Technology Park.

Cultures of Conflict

Professor Rebecca Adelman traces connections between citizenship and images of the war on terror.

Flying home from New Orleans to Cleveland in August 2003, Rebecca Adelman encountered a faulty metal detector at a security checkpoint. The alarm blared as she passed through once, then again and again, until several federal agents and police officers guided her to a windowless room where she was questioned for nearly an hour. A security agent finally suggested trying a different detector, and she was deemed a non-threat after passing through the new device without triggering the alarm.

Adelman, now an assistant professor of media and communication studies at UMBC, started graduate school just a few weeks later. Her distressing experience seemed like nothing but an interesting dinner party anecdote at the time, but it stayed on her mind. Years later, it provoked a powerful research question.

�I started to think that maybe something more important had happened there,� Adelman reflects. �Maybe in the moment of me having this encounter with these security technologies and the people who were wielding them, something more important happened to me than just this fluke or mistake. I began to think about the ways that experience changed me as a thinker and citizen.�

From this experience, and years of research that followed, emerged Adelman�s new book, Beyond the Checkpoint: Visual Practices in America�s Global War on Terror (University of Massachusetts Press 2014). The book provides a comprehensive overview of the visual culture of the Global War on Terror, including imaging technologies like those at security checkpoints. Adelman contends that since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, American citizenship has been redefined by images of the Global War on Terror.

�The book tries to rethink how we envision the relationship between state and citizen and image,� Adelman observes. �I hope it encourages people to think differently about the role of the visual in wartime and to think more critically, comprehensively and creatively about it.�

Some Global War on Terror images are familiar to most Americans, including footage of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the 2003 �Shock and Awe� campaign in Iraq. However, Adelman argues that by studying images that are frequently overlooked but are part of our everyday experiences, Americans can better understand how they have shaped the country�s thinking as it relates to prosecution of this war domestically and abroad.

�When we�re talking about war and terrorism, we�re talking about phenomena that can�t ever be fully represented because they�re so big and overwhelming. They can�t fit in the frame of a single picture or a three-minute news story, so representations are always limited,� Adelman says.

Adelman�s research traces connections between citizenship and spectatorship, and focuses on institutions that create, monitor and regulate the visual culture of the Global War on Terror. She�s hopeful her work will provide a blueprint for looking beyond common images and thinking more broadly about how visual cultures of conflict will be portrayed in the decades ahead.

�We can all understand now that there is an intimate relationship between war and visual media. It�s been that way since the Civil War,� Adelman says. �It�s going to continue to evolve, and I hope my book provides a way to think about that evolution.�

Adelman discussed her new book as a guest on WYPR�s Maryland Morning. You can listen to the complete interview here.

(06/12/2014)

Dean Warren DeVries of the College of Engineering and Information Technology (COEIT) has been elected an Honorary Member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).

DeVries will be recognized in November for his “distinctive contributions to engineering education and research as a professor, for dedication to advancing the frontiers of discovery and innovation through public service, and for striving to advance the recognition of engineering’s contributions to humankind through leadership in professional societies.” Honorary membership is ASME’s oldest award and just five members are selected annually to receive this special recognition.

DeVries will step down as dean of COEIT on August 1, 2014, after eight years of outstanding service to the UMBC community.

by David Hoffman