URAs provide up to $1,500 to undergraduate students to support their research or creative work with a UMBC faculty mentor on an original project. UMBC students of all years and disciplines are invited to apply, as long as they will remain enrolled at UMBC long enough to complete the proposed work.
Apply here:
Applications require a research proposal and mentor statement of support.
Questions: aprilh@umbc.edu
Name:Jessica Kweon
Internship, Co-op or Research Site:Esperanza Center, Catholic Charities in Action
Position Title:Legal Services and Educational Services Intern
Major(s)/Minor(s):Psychology B.A.
Current Class Level:Senior
Work Term: Spring 2021
Tell us about your internship, co-op, or research opportunity, including your day-to-day responsibilities.
I'm currently interning virtually for this position. Because I intern for two different branches, I have two different supervisors that I meet on different days. The majority of my work pertains to my legal role. I work closely with my supervisor to gain legal knowledge and practice skills lawyers use for cases, including preparing documents, briefs, and legal research. With supervision, I can also contact clients with regards to cases. In addition, I meet weekly with the other lawyers in the branch to learn about their cases in the past week. This experience has been super insightful in better understanding the work that lawyers do, especially in immigration law.
As an Educational Services intern, I work with my supervisor on projects pertaining to the adult ESOL tutoring program. As a volunteer, it's provided me a lot of perspective on how to better evaluate and improve the program for both students and volunteers!
Describe the process of obtaining your position. When did you hear of the position and submit your application?
In December, I applied for the Shattuck Family Internship Program for Entrepreneurship Innovation and Social Change. Having been to the Career Center multiple times in my college career, I already had everything I needed, such as my resume, to apply for the program. In January, I was accepted into the program, which graciously provided funding for any nonprofit internship of my choice for the semester. I worked with Christine Routzahn from the Career Center to find and contact local nonprofit organizations that aligned with the kind of professional experience I was seeking for in my senior year. I've volunteered through the Shriver Center as an ESOL teacher for the Esperanza Center since the summer, and I was aware that they offered a number of other services to immigrant populations in the Baltimore area. After contacting and interviewing with the staff, I was able to land an intern position in two different branches, Legal Services and Educational Services, both of which I am very passionate about.
What have you enjoyed the most about your position or organization?
I love the values, mission, and vision that our organization has in truly serving and supporting the immigrant community. As someone whose parents are immigrants, I know that having access to safe and compassionate services is really important when coming to the United States. I've also loved working with my supervisors. They've both been super fun, encouraging, and helpful throughout this experience!
How do you believe you have made an impact through your work?
Through my work, I am helping to improve teaching procedures that will enhance learning for children with developmental disabilities, like Autism-spectrum disorder (ASD). Although there are procedures currently in place to treat children with ASD in Applied Behavior Analysis, much research needs to be done to continue to strengthen ways to teach children using empirical data. Some areas of research are the number of stimuli and order of stimuli concurrently taught within a session.
What advice would you give to another student who is seeking an internship or similar experience?
In any aspect of my work, I am directly and indirectly impacting an immigrant in need of services, whether legal or educational. This purpose makes the work I do so worthwhile and personal knowing that I am helping someone adjust to and build their life here in the United States.
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While the proportion of people infected with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) dying of Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) has decreased significantly over the past four decades as antiretroviral therapy has become more common, the full structure of the HIV-1 genome remains unsolved. The 5′ leader of the RNA sequence is of particular interest to solve, as it is the most highly conserved region of HIV’s genome and plays a key role in the packaging and proliferation of the virus. NMR spectroscopy is our lab’s method of elucidating RNA complexes due to its ability to collect data on dynamic complexes in solution. Our group will be using a U1A reporter protein paramagnetically tagged by M8-DOTA-SPy to induce long-range pseudocontact shifts (PCS) in the NMR spectra of our RNA construct. The goal of this project is to elucidate the tertiary structure of the orientation of the TAR and polyA stems of the 5′ leader in relation to each other to build on the Brown et. al paper published in 2020. We will show binding through electrophoretic mobility shift assays (EMSAs) and show PCS of a TAR polyA construct.
Student support provided by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, National Institutes of Health (NIGMS/NIH) under National Research Service Award T34 GM 136497, NIGMS Initiative for Maximizing Student Development Grant (2R25-GM55036), NIAID grant ##8 R01 AI150498, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is, at once, one of the most common developmental disorders in the world and one of the most debilitating, however, its exact causes remain poorly understood. A preliminary genetic screen has identified the gene CaMKI as a molecular candidate involved in ASD. We hypothesize that mutations in CaMKI would lead to ASD-phenotypes such as sociability deficits and aberrant synaptic refinement. Using Drosophila as a model organism, we genetically ablated CaMKI and used a social assay to measure any resulting social impairment in adult flies, a hallmark of ASD in humans. Additionally, the role of CaMKI in synaptic refinement was tested at the larval neuromuscular junction (NMJ) as well as in the central nervous system. Furthermore, we live-imaged CaMKI-null embryos expressing the genetically encoded calcium indicator GCAMP to examine the activity pattern of the nociceptive class-IV (C4da) sensory cells. Our results suggest that this activity pattern is necessary for the proper development of neuronal networks, so any irregularities provide direct evidence of impeded maturation via synaptic refinement. This study explores the relationship between CaMKI and ASD which casts light on any connection between the disorder and developmental synaptic refinement, as a whole.
This work was funded, in part, through an Undergraduate Research Award from the UMBC Division of Undergraduate Academic Affairs.
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused various parts of our society to move online and in turn served to further amplify the digital divide in that lacking reliable broadband connectivity can have a larger impact now more than ever before. As so many facets of the world have continued to shift into the digital world in recent years, members of our society without access to high-quality internet connectivity are prevented from being able to fully participate in this new world. The arrival of COVID-19 magnified this problem since so many services and social activities have moved online. We explored the impact of not having reliable high-speed home Internet connectivity on families in Baltimore City, with a specific focus on the impact on educational, employment, social activities, and health. We conducted pilot interviews with community participants, stakeholders working to alleviate this issue by setting up community Internet connectivity resources, and informal educators working in this space. To date, we have found that participants value connectivity and also see the importance of developing reputable, safe, and inclusive resources to ease a move online for families who are just receiving broadband Internet.
This work was funded, in part, by the National Science Foundation.
Thank you to everyone who registered to participate in CBLA and i3b’s online Black + Latine/x Graduation Celebration TODAY Tuesday, May 4 at 4:00 p.m. EST You are invited to login here, and you will also receive a calendar invite to the event.
As a Webex Meeting, people will have the option to turn on their cameras during the event. This event will be recorded, so if you would not like to be recorded, please make note of your audio and video settings when you login.
Let us know if you have any questions and we look forward to celebrating with you this evening!
Webex Details
Black and Latine/x Graduation Celebration
Hosted by the Chapter of Black and Latino/e/x Alumni and Initiatives for Identity, Inclusion and Belonging (i3b)
Meeting number: 120 012 0281
Password: CBLAGrad
Join by video system
Dial 1200120281@umbc.webex.com
You can also dial 173.243.2.68 and enter your meeting number.
Join by phone
+1-202-860-2110 United States Toll (Washington D.C.)
Access code: 120 012 0281
Tuesday, May 4, 2021 4:00 pm | 1 hour 30 minutes | (UTC-04:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)
This work was funded, in part, by the Alex Brown Center for Entrepreneurship URA.