Name: Aren Warner

Internship, Co-op or Research Site: AECOM

Position Title: GIS Intern

Major(s)/Minor(s): Geography and Environmental Systems

Current Class Level: Senior

Work Term: Spring 2020

Tell us about your internship, co-op, or research opportunity, including your day-to-day responsibilities.

As a GIS intern in the water division of AECOM, my main roles consist of collecting, editing, and mapping geospatial data for ongoing water infrastructure projects with clients in both the private and public sectors. These projects can be on the scale of a local city, county or across several states under a large corporation. This variety of work creates a diverse day-to-day workflow for me. I have been able to learn the submission process for data edits or newly created/updated maps to the client and how to receive and respond to any incoming feedback from these submissions. With newly edited or received data, I have also been able to use my skills in cartography to create maps for later use in online GIS services such as ArcGIS Enterprise. I also get the opportunity to go into the field for data collection using Collector for ArcGIS, a new and valuable tool for real-time geospatial data entry directly from a worksite.

Describe the process of obtaining your position. When did you hear of the position and submit your application?

I first heard about this internship from my advisor last fall. As my graduation is expected in May of 2020, I informed them that I was actively searching for upcoming job opportunities or internships that could extend into a full-time position after graduation. They connected me with a UMBC alum who would later become my supervisor. I filled out an application and was fortunate enough to be brought in for an interview where I was offered employment soon thereafter.

What have you enjoyed the most about your position or organization? 

The work environment at AECOM Baltimore is incredibly friendly and tight knit. The team I work with relies on cooperation, so help is always available from other team members. I also feel incredibly valued as an intern for I have responsibilities that I never thought that I would be given. The fast-paced nature of my job and the ability to directly contribute to projects has been incredible.

How do you believe you have made an impact through your work?

One of the most rewarding parts of the job is seeing my work making a difference in a project and watching it all come together. My impact is clear when my team thanks me for my input in a discussion or thoughts on a workflow. As we all submit our individual components to an ongoing task and mark it complete, I get a sense for just how important my work really is.

What advice would you give to another student who is seeking an internship or similar experience? 

Connections are very important, but of those connections, the most important are those that know you the best. Someone who has detailed knowledge of your professional ambitions can personally find job opportunities in an environment of overwhelming possibilities. Before talking to my advisor, I felt like I had too many options to choose from and didn't know what the right choice would be. After they connected me to this internship, I have never been more positive on knowing what I want to do for a career. 

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Want to be the next Intern of the Week? Make sure to fill out this form and stay tuned. New interns are announced every Friday!

International Student Career Conference

Learn how to compete as a job/intern candidate in the U.S.!

Beginning Sunday, March 1, 2020 the following route names, configuration, and scheduling changes will go into effect at UMBC Transit:

Arbutus - Route Map (Weekdays & Weekends) — The existing Arbutus/MARC route will be renamed to Arbutus. The new route will increase service to downtown Arbutus - East Dr. (OCA Mocha), and shorten the time it takes to get to the Satellite Lot. 

BWI MARC - Route Map (Weekdays - See Arundel for weekend BWI MARC service) — The current Arbutus/MARC route will be split into two routes with BWI MARC being an entirely new route. The new route color will be black and service will be closely aligned to the MTA 201 and MARC train schedules. This route will provide access with a bus stop at the RAC circle on the outbound trips, and will service the loop on the inbound trips.

Arundel - Route Map (Weekends) — The existing Arundel route will now service BWI MARC/Amtrak Station / MTA 201 Commuter bus, on both outbound and inbound trips to Arundel Mills Mall. 

Downtown - Route Map (Weekdays & Weekends) — This route will now provide access with a bus stop at the RAC circle on the outbound trips. Stop #5. Greene St. & Fayette St. (UMB) is officially changed and moved to stop #5. Baltimore St. & Greene St. (UMB)

For further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact our office. 410.455.2454

VITA

Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) is an IRS sponsored program that provides free, on-campus tax return assistance to eligible individuals and families each Spring semester. Currently, to be eligible your household income must be $55,000 or less, you must be filing a US resident tax return and you must be able to show appropriate identification for all members of your household.

If you are interested in having your taxes prepared for free, go to http://cashmd.org/free-tax-preparationresources/ to make an appointment.  

If you select UMBC’s VITA site, your appointment will take place on the UMBC campus in the Apartment Community Center on Walker Avenue.

Attention International Students: If you would like to have tax return assistance, please contact Diane Zeenny Ghorayeb by email or go to the ME office in ENG 210. One special meeting will be set up for a group, date TBD. Let her know if you are interested by Friday 02/07.

Lockheed Martin Distinguished Speaker Series

Designing Secure Hardware Systems

Shawn Blanton

Trustee Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering
Carnegie Mellon University

1:00-2:00pm Friday 7 Feb. 2020

Commons 329, UMBC
University Center Ballroom

On October 29, 2018, DARPA issued an RFI that stated: “This Request for Information (RFI) from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) Microsystems Technology Office (MTO) seeks information on technology, concepts, and approaches to support the integration of security capabilities directly into System on Chip (SoC) system design and to enable the autonomous integration and assembly of SoCs.

This RFI and the tens of millions of dollars that the US government has already invested in hardware security research and development is based on the fact that the fabrication of state-of-the-art electronics is now mostly overseas. With the recent announcement that GLOBALFOUNDRIES is going to stop all 7nm development, there is now only one company in the US that continues to pursue advanced semiconductors (Intel). Unfortunately, Intel does not have the same experience of making chips for third parties as does Samsung and (most importantly) TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation). As a result, the US government believes it will be forced to fabricate advanced, sensitive electronics overseas in untrusted fabrication facilities. As a result, there is keen interest in design methodologies that mitigate reverse engineering, tampering, counterfeiting, etc.

In this talk, an overview of hardware security will be presented followed by a discussion on a concept called logic locking. This approach will be described and the “back and forth” that is now occurring in the research community involving: (i) vulnerability discovery and (ii) logic locking improvement.

Shawn Blanton is a professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Carnegie Mellon University and Associate Director of the SYSU-CMU Joint Institute of Engineering (JIE). In 1995 he received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His research interests include various aspects of integrated system tests, testable design, and test methodology development. He has consulted for various companies and is the founder of TestWorks, a Carnegie Mellon University spinout focused on information extraction from IC test data. He is a Fellow of the IEEE and Senior Member of the ACM and served as the program chair for the 2011 International Test Conference.

The post 🔴 talk: Shawn Blanton (CMU); Designing Secure Hardware Systems, 1pm Fri 2/7; Commons 329 appeared first on Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering.

- Carter G. Woodson