2018 Mid-Atlantic Student Colloquium on Speech, Language and Learning

The 2018 Mid-Atlantic Student Colloquium on Speech, Language and Learning (MASC-SLL) is a student-run, one-day event on speech, language & machine learning research to be held at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County  (UMBC) from 10:00am to 6:00pm on Saturday May 12.  There is no registration charge and lunch and refreshments will be provided.  Students, postdocs, faculty and researchers from universities & industry are invited to participate and network with other researchers working in related fields.

Students and postdocs are encouraged to submit abstracts describing ongoing, planned, or completed research projects, including previously published results and negative results. Research in any field applying computational methods to any aspect of human language, including speech and learning, from all areas of computer science, linguistics, engineering, neuroscience, information science, and related fields is welcome. Submissions and presentations must be made by students or postdocs. Accepted submissions will be presented as either posters or talks.

Important Dates are:

• Submission deadline (abstracts): April 16 April 20
• Decisions announced: April 21 April 25
• Registration opens: April 10
• Registration closes: May 6
• Colloquium: May 12

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2018 UMBC Digital Entertainment Conference

UMBC’s Game Developers Club will hold its 13th annual Digital Entertainment Conference from 11:00-5:00 on Saturday April 28 in the UMBC Commons. Come learn about the game industry from local game developing companies. High school students, college students, aspiring game developers, and game developers are all welcome.

• Meet professionals in the game industry
• Learn the latest in game art, code and technology
• Network with local game developers

Lunch will be provided. You can park in any A, B, or C lot on UMBC Campus. The closest parking garage is the Commons Parking garage on Commons Drive inside the UMBC Hilltop Circle. If you have any questions, send email to *protected email*

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Prasiddha is a Biological Sciences major, and a member of the Honors College, graduating in May 2018.

List any Scholars/Honors programs you are a part of: President’s and Dean’s list; John W. Jeffries Dean's List Award recipient; Member of PBK; CNMS Awards recepient

Title of your research project: Role of TRPM5-expressing microvillous cells in maintaining the morphology of olfactory epithelium when exposed to chemicals.

Describe your project: Exposing wild type and Skn-1a knockout mice lacking the transient receptor potential channel M5 expressing microvillous cellsto chemicals via inhalation for 1 week, and examining the morphology of the Main Olfactory Epithelium (MOE) by performing immunohistochemistry and quantitative analysis to determine the number of microvillous cells and Olfactory Sensory Neurons in the MOE after exposure.

Who is your mentor(s) for your project? Dr. Weihong Lin, Biology Department. When I went to interview to be a TA for her class, I requested her for a research position. A lot of my volunteering experiences include working alongside people with disabilities and so psychology and neuroscience are the subjects that interest me the most. Hence I chose this lab. Also, I want to be a surgeon and the profusions/ dissections in this lab are preparing me for that.

How did you become interested in this project? Previous experiments showed significant results in behavioral and structural changes between mice that lack and have microvillus cells, when exposed to chemicals for 2-weeks. So, I was curious if there would be any changes in the epithelium when mice are exposed to chemicals for one week, a shorter time period with less recovery time.

What has been the hardest part about your research/what was the most unexpected thing about being a researcher? The hardest part about the research is the dissection of the noses of the mice. Dissections, especially of a very small part of the nose, requires great attention and focus and is time consuming. Dissection of each nose takes about 3 hours. The unexpected part of being a researcher is that experiments don’t always work well and data is always not in favor of the hypothesis formulated.

What has been the most rewarding part? The most rewarding part is that, along this process of success and failure I have learnt a lot about research and I am able to perform research techniques with skill. Also, this hands-on experience has helped me understand a lot more about the nervous system.

How will you disseminate your research? I will present my research poster at URCAD on April 25th in the UC Ballroom from 10-11:30am. You can read my full abstract here: https://urcad.umbc.edu/documents/

What is your advice to other students about getting involved in research?  Definitely something to get your hands dirty with. It will open you up to a great new possibility of learning and understanding science in the real world.

What are your career goals? To become a surgeon.