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]]>Are you interested in women’s, gender, and social justice issues? Apply to be an intern or staff member at the Women’s Center for the 2020-2021 academic year! Be a part of a dynamic team! To be considered for a 2020-2021 student internship or staff position, complete our google form application: https://forms.gle/FXEuY3RkhEB3Gb3L9 & attach a cover letter, resume, and 2 writing samples no later than Friday, April 24th.
View attached pdf’s for student internship & staff position descriptions.
Autumn is a junior Meyerhoff Scholar (M29), pursuing a BS in Chemistry and a BA in Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies dual degree, and currently a student intern at the Women’s Center.
Content Note: The content of this blog may be triggering. Topics addressed by this blog include transphobia, menstruation, pregnancy, dysphoria, and gender-confirmation surgery.
When I first received an offer to intern at the Women’s Center, I was very excited. Throughout my years at UMBC, the Women’s Center quickly became my home away from home and was a place to feel safe, included, and accepted. I participated in as many events as possible and volunteered whenever I had the time. I even had the privilege of being able to facilitate Spectrum meetings for a semester before formally joining the staff. By working in the Women’s Center, I thought I would be able to help create an even better space for the people I shared the space with and new community members alike.
However, even while writing this blog post, I experience imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is “the idea that you’ve only succeeded due to luck, and not because of your talent or qualifications—was first identified in 1978 by psychologists Pauline Rose Clance and Suzanne Imes.” I think that the sheer complexity of how this imposter syndrome is taking effect for me (and people like me with a pretty fraught, tenuous and ever-changing relationship with womanhood) is demonstrated in the carefulness of the words that I am using in this blog. This is a really multifaceted issue that deals with dysphoria, internalized transphobia, the differences of experiences between marginalized identities and intersectionality.
When I was born, the doctor looked at my genitals and proclaimed to the world and the government that “It’s a boy.” For those who know me, it is somewhat obvious that this label did not stick for the “normal” amount of time (read: the entire lifespan). If you’ve not caught on yet, I’m very much not a boy anymore and I identify as a nonbinary trans woman (I know its a bit of an oxymoron; gender is FUNKY).
I experience marginalization and oppression, but I also have privilege in this identity. I struggle with the privilege I have by being a trans feminine person that was able to come out early on in my life and that I was able to start my medical transition when I still was in high school.
Even so, working in the Women’s Center at UMBC as a nonbinary, transgender woman is peculiar. Because of my experiences with transness and my body, I am not the best equipped to assist with issues that students may come to the Women’s Center to address. For example, I don’t have a vagina (YET!), and I didn’t grow up with one, therefore I don’t have the first-hand knowledge that comes with menstruating, pregnancy, or growing up as an AFAB person in a heterosexist and misogynistic society.
This has made interactions with some community members weird when they ask for help with things I don’t have experience with. I’m deathly afraid of giving the wrong advice or having an interaction that makes someone uncomfortable. If a community member comes into the Center and asks about internal condoms or pregnancy tests (while I’m not uneducated on the subjects) I cannot give as good of an answer as someone with experience. Even when I am pointing out the tampons and pads that the Women’s Center offers to the community for free, I deal with that fear and alienation.
As a transfeminine person, I am acutely aware of how “womanhood,” as the greater society knows it, is defined in bioessentialist definitions. When doing the work that involves vaginas and helping people with vaginas, I am always reminded of the “essential” difference of my body and that I am not fully “them.”
I am wondering how much this anxiety stems from internalized transphobia that I have surrounding transgender women, including myself, not really being “full” women or that I don’t truly belong in a women’s space. Throughout my life, the topic of periods, reproduction and menstrual products have always been a sticking point for me and my experience: a constant trigger for my dysphoria. It’s a common trigger for a lot of trans women, not just because of the consistent TERF bioessentialist dog whistles, but because we as trans women lack the thing that is worshiped as a pillar of western societal femininity: the ability to reproduce. Of course, I want to acknowledge that this is a completely bogus measure of femininity because the ability to reproduce is completely disconnected to femininity. Femininity and reproduction are two distinct aspects of humanity that are conflated in a way that serves to not only enforce exclusion but to oppress those who do not fit the societal standards. To some extent, I believe that I’m invading a space that I really do not have the right to inhabit.
In terms of my transition, I am exceptionally privileged. I was born to an accepting family who supported me when I came out after my freshman (literally “man”) year of high school. Me coming out to them was a bit of an accident even, but it went well. I was able to access hormones soon after and I just scheduled bottom surgery for after I graduate from UMBC. I’m white and I pass as a cis woman reasonably well, and I have the resources to access my endocrinologist regularly and I am able to afford my medical treatment. I also have the privilege of growing up as someone who was assigned male at birth in a society that greatly values maleness, especially in science and in leadership. Because of my socialization, I am allowed a higher level of confidence and ownership in science and leadership than someone who was reared as a woman in the same fields.
All of these compounding areas of privilege greatly influence how I can exist in a space, and how much space I take up, especially at a women’s center. As someone who was reared as a male in our society, it sometimes feels really weird to go to events that specifically cater to women.
I also see my own experience paralleled in a previous Women’s Center staff member Daniel, as they had to grapple with the realities of being a trans man when working in the Women’s Center. In their blog post about male privilege, Daniel discusses how they strive to be cognizant of the space they take up within the Women’s Center because Dan’s privilege is not as cut and dry as one might see between a cis man and a cis woman. Their blog posts detailed how they saw themselves within the Women’s Center as a “white, medically transitioning, ‘passing’ man,” and how that influenced Dan’s participation. Even though they have the privileges afforded to white men, because of their transness, Daniel is precariously perched on the Glass Elevator and experiences marginalization at the hands of a heterocissexist society. Although the experiences of all trans people are not the same, I can deeply relate to Dan’s experiences as a student staff member at the Women’s Center.
Privilege aside, there is a level of marginalization that I experience in entering and being a part of the Women’s Center. Cis women come into this space and feel entitled to it. Me? I do… and I also pause. I enter the space tentatively because my sense of belonging is not always assured.
Throughout my transition, my dysphoria, anxiety, and depression has been pretty intensely triggered by the topics of menstruation, reproduction, and topics around cis-women bodies.
I was really, really worried about this when I started at the Women’s Center because I imagined that it would be very hard for me to remove myself from potentially triggering situations when I’m working (such as a community member needing assistance with something). I still really struggle with this even as I am halfway through my internship. However, I’ve been a lot less triggered by these situations than I thought I would initially.
I am not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, but I feel like this ease comes in part from the ability to put boundaries between my own sense of self and my sense of representing the Women’s Center. Regardless of what this means about my self-esteem and coping, boundaries allow me to exist and operate in this work.
Ultimately, I think that it is okay and normal to be uncomfortable in some spaces. This discomfort is good. The oppressive nature of the gender binary and the heterocissexist society is diametrically opposed to the reality that trans people live so discomfort is inevitable. But when dealing with big, overarching systems of power that influence our lives, sometimes identifying that there even is a problem is the first step of trying to challenge the norms. In other words, without identifying the problem, it is impossible to generate a solution. It may seem like the big, overall problem is the Gender Binary
, but I think there is a smaller, more pervasive issue when thinking and talking about how transgender people fit within the model of a women’s center.
I think that the problem isn’t that transgender people do not fit into the current framework of mainstream feminism. The real problem is with those who either knowingly or unknowingly perpetuate systems of oppression (read: most everyone), and don’t use their power or privilege toward the radical but simple process of affirming transgender identities. In spaces like the Women’s Center, trans people should not only feel welcome but also a sense of home and belonging–and it’s cis people’s prerogative to either build those bridges with intentionality and care or continue a system that oppresses everyone: the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.
My transness is an integral part of my identity, and I’m exceptionally proud of it. However, I know that my belonging in the Women’s Center is not just tied to my identity as a nonbinary trans woman. In the Women’s Center, I am surrounded by people who support and care for me and it is in that where the promise of real and actionable liberatory justice resides.
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To investigate the neural representations of kinematic synergies, scalp electroencephalographic (EEG) signals and hand kinematics are recorded during representative types of hand grasping.
Human-machine interfaces (HMIs) have not only become popular technologies but have become the hope of many individuals for restoring their lost limb function. Any HMI has two important intrinsic design components—(i) decode the human commands and (ii) controlling the machine to convert that command into action. Decades of research went into making the interface between the human and the machine seamless but were unable to effectively address the inherent challenges, namely, complexity, adaptability, and variability. To overcome the above challenges, it is critical to computationally understand and quantitatively characterize the human sensorimotor control. Emerging areas in HMIs critically depend on the ability to build bioinspired models, experimentally validate them and utilize them in adaptive and intuitive control. The human hand with high dimensionality encompasses the three inherent challenges and may serve as an ideal validation paradigm. How the central nervous system (CNS) controls this high dimensional human hand effortlessly is still an unsolved mystery. To address this high dimensional control problem, many bioinspired motor control models have been proposed, one of which is based on synergies. According to this model, instead of controlling individual motor units, CNS simplifies the control using coordinated control of groups of motor units called synergies. However, there are several unanswered questions today— Where are synergies present in CNS? What is their role in motor control and motor learning? By combining the concepts of human motor control, computational neuroscience, machine learning and validation with noninvasive human experiments, can we answer these fundamental questions? The goal of this research is to develop efficient, seamless and near-natural human-machine interfaces based on biomimetically inspired models.
Ramana Vinjamuri received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering in 2008 specialized in dimensionality reduction in control and coordination of human hand from the University of Pittsburgh. He worked as a postdoctoral research associate (2008-2012) in the field of Brain Machine Interfaces (BMI) to control prosthesis in the School of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh where he received Mary E Switzer Merit Fellowship from NIDILRR in 2010. He worked as a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the Johns Hopkins University (2012-2013) in the area of neuroprosthetics. He is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Stevens Institute of Technology (2013-Present). In 2018, he received Harvey N Davis Distinguished Teaching Award for excellence in undergraduate and graduate teaching. He received the NSF CAREER Award in 2019. His other notable research awards are from USISTEF and New Jersey Health Foundation. He also holds a secondary appointment as an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad, India.
The post Online talk: Synergy-based human-machine interfaces, 1-2 3/23, Webex appeared first on Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering.
]]>Hello COEIT Community,
Please forward this email to your graduate and undergraduate students and research faculty that may have items left in labs or offices. At this time, the campus buildings are closed and no one should be on campus. One-time campus access, to pick up personal items and items needed to work remotely from your lab or office, is being authorized by the college on a case-by-case basis. This is intended only to retrieve books, notes, computer chargers, etc. that may remain in offices or labs.
We are currently monitoring who is visiting our buildings, and limiting visits to a one-time, short (20 minutes or less) visit to allow faculty, staff and students to pick up any items needed. Further, visits may need to be spaced out to limit social interactions. Please follow the steps below if you need to come on campus:
Email me, Amy Heckhaus, at heckhaus@umbc.edu with your preferred day and time of your one-time visit. Please include which rooms you plan to enter.
If you are a student, please cc your advisor on this email.
I will email you back approval (or deferment, if necessary) of your visit.
When you are on your way to campus, please alert the campus police at 410-455-5555 that you are coming, where you are going, and that the college has approved your one-time visit.
While on campus, please limit your time, social distance from anyone you see, and practice good hygiene procedures.
Anyone found in violation of these guidelines may have their authorizations to buildings revoked. Remember, there is no work that should be taking place in laboratories. Should you have questions regarding your research program, please refer to https://research.umbc.edu/covid19/. These are unusual times we are in right now, and we are all trying our best! Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Thank you,
Amy
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