Noor Shaikh is a junior Biological Sciences major and a URA Scholar. 

Title of your research project: A mechanistic understanding of planarian shape regulation during growth and degrowth behaviors

Describe your project: Planarian worms have the extraordinary ability to grow when fed and degrow when starved over more than one order of magnitude in lengths, during which they maintain their body and organ proportions. The goal of this project is to characterize the genes controlling the maintenance of worm proportions and shape during these growth and degrowth behaviors. The specific aims include the recording and analysis of body proportions and shapes during growth and degrowth and the acquisition of gene expression patterns during these processes with in situ hybridization assays. 

Who is your mentor(s) for your project?  My mentor is Dr. Daniel Lobo in the department of biological sciences at UMBC. I am working under Dr. Lobo's supervision and have been given leadership role to maintain the lab colony of planarian worms and to independently carry out previous pilot-studies of growth and degrowth experiments. I will work together with my mentor’s guidance towards obtaining the final product for my project.   

How did you become interested in this project? I had come across my mentor's lab website and was interested in learning more about the planarian worms ability to regenerate. I am excited to use this project as a way to work with and identify the genes responsible for body shape maintenance in this model organism. Also, this project can shed light into how biological growth and shape is regulated and pave the way for novel biomedical applications to human developmental diseases and cancer.

What has been the hardest part about your research/what was the most unexpected thing about being a researcher?  Planarians can reproduce asexually by fissioning transversally, resulting in each fragment regenerating a new complete worm. One challenge we encountered in the growth and degrowth pilot studies on the planarian worms were that they fissioned after being isolated in the well plates, so this resulted in an error in our calculations of the body proportions. To solve this problem we placed more than one worm in the well plate because population density modulates fission behavior.     

What has been the most rewarding part? The most rewarding part has been the knowledge I have gained and the opportunities to present my research. I was able to present in the 22nd annual Summer Undergraduate Research Fest (SURF) and now with the URA award I will present my further findings at URCAD, in April. 

How will you disseminate your research? I plan on sharing the results of my work through an URCAD presentation, professional conferences, and a journal paper. 

What is your advice to other students about getting involved in research?  My advice to anyone interested in research, is to reach out early to various professors on campus whose work they find interesting. There is always a way to get involved in research that interests you.    

What are your career goals? After graduating from UMBC, I plan to earn a PharmD and masters to further pursue a career in research. 

Join UMBC and the Greater Washington Partnership for the Capital CoLAB Virtual Career Fair. This career fair will give students exclusive access to employers from across the Capital Region and offer opportunities to secure  SUMMER INTERNSHIPS FOR 2021. 

WHEN: Monday, September 21, 2020  

TIME: 11:00 AM to 3:00 PM  Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) 

WHERE: ONLINE 

REGISTER HERE 

About the Event 

This online chat will connect you directly with organizations from the comfort of your home, office, smartphone or tablet. Our online, cloud-based platform makes it easy and fun for you to participate. After signing in, you'll be able to explore the available information and opportunities and participate in 1-on-1 text-based chats with representatives from participating organizations. Share your background and experience and get all your questions answered. This career fair is open to current undergraduate students.  Tune into our live content during the career fair to hear from peers about virtual internship experiences, the impact of COVID-19 on student life, as well as about the Capital CoLAB Digital Tech Credential Program. 

About the Capital CoLAB and Digital Tech Credential Program 

Capital CoLAB is a program launched by the Greater Washington Partnership and its mission to create a more connected and inclusive capital region. 

The Capital CoLAB Digital Tech Credential program is focused on developing talent by connecting students at participating colleges and universities with top businesses across the region to provide them with opportunities and real-world experience. Employers across all industries—from government and healthcare to the arts and energy—hire workers who can couple their diverse educational backgrounds with the top tech skills to succeed in today’s increasingly digital economy.  

You can learn more about the CoLAB Digital Tech Credential on our website. Be sure to opt into the CoLAB Community when you register for this event to receive more information about this program!   

Live Career Fair Content 

Tune into our live content during the career fair to hear from peers about virtual internship experiences, the impact of COVID-19 on our region and student life, as well as about the Capital CoLAB Digital Tech Credential Program. 

REGISTER HERE 

 
Social Channels  

FOLLOW GREATER WASHINGTON PARTNERSHIP 

Hashtag: #CapitalCoLAB 

Twitter: @GW_Partnership 

Facebook: facebook.com/GreaterWashingtonPartnership/ 

LinkedIn: Greater Washington Partnership 

Instagram: instagram.com/gw_partnership

New U.S. News rankings honor UMBC strengths in teaching, innovation, and inclusion

The 2021 U.S. News and World Report Best Colleges rankings affirm that UMBC remains one of the top universities in the nation, with a uniquely distinguished profile. 

UMBC has advanced to #11 for undergraduate teaching and holds the #9 position on the list of most innovative schools in the nation, among other prominent rankings. UMBC is the only Maryland school represented in the top ten in innovation, standing alongside such universities as Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, MIT, and Caltech. 

Read more about this in this UMBC News article.

The post New U.S. News rankings honor UMBC strengths in teaching, innovation, and inclusion appeared first on Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering.

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The UMBC Cyber Defense Lab presents

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Psychometric Evaluation of the Cybersecurity Concept Inventory

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Seth Poulsen

Computer Science
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

12:00noon–1pm, Friday, September 18, 2020

https://umbc.webex.com/meet/sherman

Joint work with Geoffrey Herman, Alan Sherman, Linda Oliva, Peter Peterson, Enis Golaszewski, Travis Scheponik, and Akshita Gorti.

We present a psychometric evaluation of a revised version of the Cybersecurity Concept Inventory (CCI) completed by 355 students from 29 colleges and universities. The CCI is a conceptual test of understanding created to enable research on instruction quality in cybersecurity education. This work extends previous expert review and small-scale pilot testing of the CCI. Results show that the CCI aligns with a curriculum many instructors expect from an introductory cybersecurity course, and that it is a valid and reliable tool for assessing what cybersecurity conceptual knowledge students learned.

Seth Poulsen is a PhD candidate in computer science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. I’m interested in Computing Education, Programming Language design and implementation, Math Education, and any interesting intersections of the above. Previously, he was a Software Engineer at Amazon.com, working on Kindle Web Rendering and the Kindle Lite Android app. email: *protected email*,

Support for this research was provided in part by the U.S. Department of Defense under CAE-R grants H98230-15-1-0294, H98230-15-1-0273, H98230-17-1-0349, H98230-17-1-0347; and by the National Science Foundation under UMBC SFS grants DGE-1241576, 1753681, and SFS Capacity Grants DGE-1819521, 1820531. For more on the educational Cybersecurity Assessment Tools (CATS) Project: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2004.05248.pdf

Host: Alan T. Sherman, *protected email*

The UMBC Cyber Defense Lab meets biweekly Fridays 12-1pm. All meetings are open to the public. Upcoming CDL Meetings:

• Oct. 2, TBA [possibly: security of payment infrastructure]
• Oct. 16, TBA [possibly: Jonathan Katz (GMU)]
• Oct. 30, TBA
• Nov. 13, TBA, [possibly: David R Imbordino (NSA), Security of the 2020 presidential election]
• Dec. 11, TBA, [possibly: Peter A. H. Peterson (Univ. of Minnesota Duluth), Adversarial Thinking]

The post talk: Psychometric Evaluation of the Cybersecurity Concept Inventory, 12-1 Fri 9/18 appeared first on Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering.

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Workshop on the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program

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1:00 – 2:00 pm Friday, 18 September 2020

Google Meet or call +1 929-287-3119‬ PIN: ‪979 220 386‬#

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Find out about the NSF GRFP, a prestigious 3-year graduate research fellowship program providing $34,000/year stipend and other benefits.

This workshop is open to anyone in the College. We especially encourage eligible PhD-interested juniors, seniors, and junior grad students to attend, though any undergraduate with an interest in grad school would benefit. Topics will include, among others, eligibility requirements, the application process, and short+long term career benefits.

Graduating seniors who receive awards can use them at any school for which they have been accepted.

The post NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program Workshop, 1pm Fri. 9/18 appeared first on Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering.