On Saturday, April 12 in Atlanta, Associate Professor of History Kate Brown was awarded the 2014 Ellis W. Hawley Prize from the Organization of American Historians (OAH) for the best book-length historical study of the political economy, politics, or institutions of the United States, in its domestic or international affairs, from the Civil War to the present.
Steve Storck (Doctoral Student) and Chris Paymon (Masters Student) from the MicroMaterials Characterization Lab, directed by Professor Marc Zupan, UMBC Department of Mechanical Engineering, won their divisions in the annual Baltimore/Washington Society for the Advancement of Materials and Process Engineering (SAMPE) student research night. The event was held on February 26, 2014 at UM College Park this year, and brings student researchers from UMBC, University of Maryland College Park, University of Delaware and University of West Virginia together annually to showcase their research and for friendly competition judged by academics and engineering professionals.
For the 2014 event both UMBC students won their divisions: Steve Storck participating in the oral presentation with his talk ‘Multi-Length Scale Characterization of Additively Manufactured Hybrid Nickel-Copper-Fused Deposition Model Sandwich Cores’ and Chris Paymon in the poster presentation with his submission ‘Local Mechanical Behavior Measurements of Friction Stir Welded Titanium’.
These achievements came with an award, as well. Steve and Chris will both go, expenses paid, to the national competition, where further success would move them on to the international competition hosted by SAMPE Europe.
]]>Professor Kevin Sowers, Professor of Marine Biotechnology at the Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology (IMET), and Professor Upal Ghosh, at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, have received a $100,000 grant from the Maryland Innovation Initiative (MII). The grant will fund research to that will ameliorate the environmental harms of PCB’s. The program is an initiative of the Technology Council of Maryland (TEDCO) created in 1998 to spur commercialization of scientific research in Maryland as part of the state’s efforts to foster economic development through academic research.
Sowers is a global leader in environmental science and has pioneered a method that uses activated carbon pellets seeded with microorganisms that degrade the concentration of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in sediments. In recent laboratory experiments, the cultures Sowers created resulted in over 80% reduction in the PCB mass after treatment.
“Our hope is that this method for treating PCB’s will have a tangible impact in restoring previously degraded areas – both on land and in bodies of water,” says Sowers. “PCB’s have long been a harmful and largely intransigent pollutant and our work is intended to address serious health impacts these chemicals have on people, animals and the environment.”
Sowers is collaborating in this work with Upal Ghosh, a professor at the Department of Chemical, Biochemical, and Environmental Engineering at UMBC. “The magnitude of PCB sediment contamination and associated water quality problems in the United States is reflected in more than 3,200 state and local advisories that have warned the public about of the health impacts of consuming contaminated fish. These warnings cover 24% of total river miles throughout the United States,” Ghosh says. “The advisories include 100% of the Great Lakes and 35% of all other lakes nationwide.” PCBs are frequently reported as the leading contaminants at impacted sites. Current remediation technologies are expensive, destructive to environmentally sensitive areas, and difficult to coordinate with local activities. The technology proposed by Sowers and Ghosh addresses existing challenges and is especially suitable for environmentally sensitive sites such as wetlands and difficult-to-reach areas under-pier structures in contaminated harbors. This technology advances an in-situ remediation approach using activated carbon that has been recently developed by Ghosh and commercialized through a startup company Sediment Solutions.
The Maryland Innovation Initiative (MII) was created as a partnership between the State of Maryland and five Maryland academic research institutions (Johns Hopkins University, Morgan State University, University of Maryland College Park, University of Maryland Baltimore and University of Maryland Baltimore County.) The program is designed to promote commercialization of research conducted between and among the partnership universities and it leverages each institution’s unique strengths.
“The MII program is critically important to our partner universities and the citizens of Maryland,” noted Russell Hill, IMET Director, “because it facilitates the transformation of basic science into practical and far-reaching applications. We are grateful for TEDCO’s support and foresight in addressing this important environmental issue and are proud of the excellent research being done by Dr. Sowers and Dr. Ghosh.”
TEDCO
The Maryland State Legislature created TEDCO in 1998 to facilitate the transfer and commercialization of technology from Maryland’s research universities and federal labs into the marketplace and to assist in the creation and growth of technology-based businesses in all regions of the State. TEDCO is an independent organization that strives to be Maryland’s leading source for entrepreneurial business assistance and seed funding for the development of startup companies in Maryland’s innovation economy.
INSTITUTE OF MARINE AND ENVIRONMENTAL TECHNOLOGY
Located in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, the Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology is a strategic alliance involving scientists at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, the University of Maryland Baltimore and the University of Maryland Baltimore County. Scientists are engaged in cutting-edge research in microbiology, molecular genetic analysis and biotechnology, using marine resources to develop new drug therapies, alternative energy and other innovations to improve public health and economic opportunities. IMET also contributes to sustainable marine aquaculture and fisheries in the Chesapeake Bay and other marine ecosystems.
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"Hide and Seek"/ "Chuppan Chupai" is an award-winning documentary directed by Saad Khan that explores the lives of four transgender, or "hijra," people and their daily trials and triumphs while living in the relatively conservative gender constructs of Pakistan, the second most populous Islamic country in the world. The film depicts the secret yet open lives of a group of Pakistani sexual minorities, raising questions about transgender activism, religion, underground gay life, social acceptance and collective familial customs of transgenders in urban Pakistan.
Click here to RSVP: http://my.umbc.edu/groups/gwst/events/24098
A roundup of the most interesting stories from other sites, collected by the staff at MIT Technology Review.
In Space, Pee Is for Power
Could urine be turned into electricity on space stations?
—Colby Wheeler, manager of information technology
Bob Pfeiff ’82, economics, was a quiet, slightly home-sick freshman from rural Southern Maryland. Patti Kattowski ’81, health science and policy and sociology, was a bubbly sophomore from New Jersey. They met and fell in love at UMBC.
Both Bob and Patti lived in the same residence hall on a campus that, in the 70’s, was limited to just three dormitories – which were still called Dorms One, Two, and Three.
“We traveled in the same circles. It was a really tight group of people who lived together in the dorm,” Patti recalls.
In spite of (or perhaps because of) their dramatic personality differences, the two undergraduates were drawn to each other. “Bob was so shy, and I was so out there,” Patti says.
Patti and Bob began to date by the spring of his freshman year. As neither one of them had a car on campus, their social activities were limited to activities on or near campus. “Going home wasn’t an option,” Patti says. “You found your fun.”
That they did. They swam laps together; frequented the ‘party room’ of Dorm Three; watched men’s lacrosse games. (Patti played both field hockey and lacrosse for UMBC.) Occasionally, by bus or borrowed car, they ventured into downtown Baltimore or Georgetown.
“If there was anything happening on campus, a performance of any sort, we went,” Patti says.
In 1981, not long after Bob and Patti graduated from UMBC, they got engaged. For their “honeymoon,” they drove to Pensacola, where Bob reported to Navy flight training after having been commissioned by the U.S. Navy. He then spent ten years as a naval officer, managing weapons and control systems at sea.
After Bob retired from the Navy, the couple settled in Fairfax, VA and raised a son, now 19. Bob has worked for a number of technology companies; currently, he is a senior software architect at Microsoft. Patti has worked in both several industries, including restaurant and real estate. Now, she is employed at a private boys’ school in Bethesda as the headmaster’s executive assistant.
Bob and Patti still recall their undergraduate days as a significant part of their lives together.
“It’s part of our history,” Bob says.
Patti, effervescent as ever, comments: “It’s been a fun ride.”