Hello SWEethearts! 

We recently just received some scholarship information. We recommend that you apply if you meet their criteria. Below is the information! Best of luck!

We are excited to announce that Girl Develop It is working with online mentoring bootcamp, Bloc to offer scholarships to GDI Members. Each month, two GDI members will be selected to receive a$2500 scholarship towards one of Bloc's Track programs, which are geared toward those looking to work toward a new career as a full stack web developer or Designer.

When Bloc grad Brittany Martin first joined the program, she had just completed an MBA and was working as a Product Marketing Manager at a San Francisco startup. She was able to complete Bloc’s intensive full-stack web development program while working full-time.

Sharing from her own experience, Brittany said, “Bloc gave me a comfortable setting to learn in; I was able to choose a Mentor that shared my values. Bloc encourages diversity, and their flexible scheduling allows any new coder to learn.”

After graduating, she joined a company as a Rails Support Engineer, and recently landed a new job as a software engineer. In her role, she sets up and maintains production environments, fixes bugs, codes in Ruby on Rails, and works on technical documentation.

Girl Develop It is excited to work with Bloc to offer opportunities for more of our students to continue their learning and level up their skills! Bloc is the world's largest online bootcamp and they offer a program that goes beyond just curriculum — GDI Members who attend Bloc will finish the program with projects for their portfolio in addition to a certificate!

Talk to one of Bloc's Student Advisors or apply here.

To visit Girl Develop It Baltimore, go here:
http://www.meetup.com/Girl-Develop-It-Baltimore/

This talk was accepted for DEFCON 2015 in Las Vegas later this month. However, for those interested here in the UMBC community, John will conduct an informal preview of his talk on Friday 7/17 at 3:00PM in ITE 366 (DREAM Lab).

"Quantum" Classification of Malware
John Seymour, UMBC

3:00pm Friday 17 July 2015, ITE 366

Quantum computation has recently become an important area for security research, with its applications to factoring large numbers and secure communication. In practice, only one company (D-Wave) has claimed to create a quantum computer which can solve relatively hard problems, and that claim has been met with much skepticism. Regardless of whether it is using quantum effects for computation or not, the D-Wave architecture cannot run the standard quantum algorithms, such as Grover’s and Shor’s. The D-Wave architecture is instead purported to be useful for machine learning and for heuristically solving NP-Complete problems.

We'll show why the D-Wave and the machine learning problem for malware classification seem especially suited for each other. We also explain how to translate the classification problem for malicious executables into an optimization problem which a D-Wave machine can solve. Specifically, using a 512-qubit D-Wave Two processor, we show that a minimalist malware classifier, with cross-validation accuracy comparable to standard machine learning algorithms, can be created. However, even such a minimalist classifier incurs a surprising level of overhead.

John Seymour is a Ph.D. student at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, where he performs research at the intersection of machine learning and information security. He's mostly interested in avoiding and helping others avoid some of the major pitfalls in machine learning, especially in dataset preparation (seriously, do people still use malware datasets from 1998?) In 2014, he completed his Master’s thesis on the subject of quantum computation applied to malware analysis. He currently works at CyberPoint International, a company which performs network and host-based machine learning, located in Baltimore, MD.

The following post are reflections from rising-sophomore Nitya Kumaran who represented UMBC at this year’s National Conference for College Women Leaders (NCCWSL). When Nitya found herself in my office after attending the conference in May she was full of energy, passion, complex thoughts, and challenges for herself. I asked her to write some of what she was thinking and feeling down so others who didn’t attend the conference could also learn from her leadership journey. Nitya took up this challenge by sharing her thoughts in a conscious-raising way that presents itself as raw and authentic reflection of her journey and growth as a feminist leader. 

-Jess

***********

I Loved You Once

Nitya with Elizabeth Acevedo at the Women of Distinction Awards

At the National Conference for College Women Student Leaders’ Women of Distinction awards, the last award winner was National Slam Poetry Champion — and a woman comfortable with her natural skin and hair — Ms. Elizabeth Acevedo! This Dominican woman had unabashed curls springing from her head like fresh beans from the soil, like flowers in the sun. She had coffee skin and a smile that charmed me to the floor. There were cheers all around and they took on a new volume at the mention of that last phrase. A few black women around me cheered particularly loud and I cheered with them.

Try Fair and Lovely for radiant skin!

The skin-whitening creams, my own dark skin, hate from another place and time struck my mind.  I couldn’t fathom the weight of that last accomplishment.

Easily and graciously, Ms. Acevedo’s whole face smiled and thanked us.

“I was a nina de la casa. A girl of the house. That’s all I was expected to be. Now, there’s nothing wrong with that if you want to do that, but I think everyone should have the choice.”

Her own difficult journey to become “her own woman” was shared with us with both hands. We weren’t supposed to become her, we were supposed to become our own women, find our own destiny. 

The slam poetry began then and phrases still remain in my mind a month later and will remain years later:

“We may not see the fruit but we can be the roots.”

“The moments… Never regret how you spent them or how you meant them.”

As she shared her poetry, I thought of the oppression my mother had faced as a woman.

I thought of the memory of shame I had repressed for months.

I thought of how I had given myself the backseat in the car of my own life at times.

How the girls I grew up with had bowed to their own self-loathing, their own fears.

I willed it all to leave me now and forever.

Ms. Acevedo was the kind of woman who wouldn’t be quiet if she knew the answer.

She was the kind of woman who saw the miracle and victory of her existence.

She was the kind of woman who wouldn’t take up less air or space than what she fully deserved.

And she knew what she deserved.

The urgency in her voice made me shake inside and my tight self-control left me as tears found their way onto my cheeks. She was a speaker for the unspoken, for the silent and injured, for the ones who were shunned from the podium she gracefully occupied. I had witnessed a living free spirit, I had witnessed a woman who loved herself.

***********

“They tell us fat women can’t be loved, that we’re not attractive.”

I cannot believe she said that. The silent rule.

I thought of how I had picked the loosest shirt I could find before the conference, scared of exposing the flaws of my flawed body. My flawed mind. My flawed speech. I needed to cover my whole self because god forbid if anyone ever found out that I was never a perfect child.

I looked at the attractive lady in front of me and realized that I wanted to hug her. She was an attractive woman — period.

You are beautiful. You are god’s child. You’re my child. You’re so beautiful. Don’t say that. Don’t do it. Please, my dear.

I have been a real hypocrite. I know that “fat” only refers to someone’s weight, and has nothing to do with beauty. Why is “fat” ugly, huh? If I gained weight, would I stop being beautiful? My mother and some of the most beautiful women I know are not skinny, and don’t look exactly or are exactly what the world says we must be to be worthy of love. And yet, if I put on weight, I am embarrassed of my body… how will anyone love me now? It’s a similar narrative that runs through my mind when people put me down because of my dark skin in the past. I thought I wasn’t enough to receive anyone’s love.

I realized then that every flaw of mine that I hate might be someone else’s flaw that they hate. My flaw is the same flaw that my sister might be hating in herself or my mother or my father or my future children or my friends. How can I look someone in the eye and tell them I love and accept them anyway, when they might have the same flaw of mine that I absolutely cannot stand?

I realized then that my life is going by and I’m only here to be happy and to make other people happy. Each person is someone’s child, is someone’s baby, is a beautiful creature who is learning and growing. And all children are beautiful, vulnerable, magical and valuable in their own unique existence.

Every time I hate on my flaw, I am also hating on someone else with that same flaw. When I tell myself that I am unworthy of love, I am telling someone else that, as well. And I would never want to do that. I love people. I want them to be happy. I mean we each started out as a single cell — we are walking miracles and we have so much to give to each other and the world.

So I’m trying to accept where I am right now. I’m trying to love myself so that I can share better love with other people — the kind of unconditional love we deserve. I’m trying to be brave. I’m trying to speak with confidence in silent classrooms. I’m trying to raise my hand. I’m trying to listen to my inner voice even when no one else believes in me. Because I have something to give to the world and my own hatred is not going to stand in the way of that. I am a leader.

I loved myself once. I loved everyone. I will love everyone again. I’ll love myself again.

Nitya and some of her newest NCCWSL friends!

Program Management Specialist (Job 034)

Gender and Women’s Studies 

The University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) seeks an individual to provide administrative support to the Gender and Women’s Studies Department, its diverse faculty, students, and courses.  Gender and Women’s Studies is an interdisciplinary academic department that offers an undergraduate major, two undergraduate minors, and both an undergraduate and graduate certificate. It also is a participating member of the Language, Literacy and Culture PhD Program. Specific duties include: greeting visitors; answering phones and email; preparing correspondence and materials for department meetings, annual reports, and recruitment maintaining financial, curricular, student, personnel records, and Department web resources; processing payroll; scheduling courses, updating course catalogs, assisting the Chair and other faculty with course scheduling, recruitment, advising, enrollment activities, lectures, meetings and special events; and performing other duties as assigned.    

Requires:a Bachelor’s Degree (preferably in women’s studies or a related social justice field) and at least two years experience in administrative staff work.  Must have knowledge of Microsoft Office, PeopleSoft and Adobe applications, excellent customer service, organizational, written, communication, interpersonal and cultural competency skills, including the ability to work both independently and collaboratively.  Note: Additional related experience and formal education in which one has gained the knowledge, skills, and abilities required for full performance of the work of the job class may be substituted for the education or experience requirement on a year-for-year basis with 30 college credits being equivalent to one year of experience.  Starting salary is $36,178.  Position is full-time and includes a full university benefits package. 

Applications are available for download on our website at: http://hr.umbc.edu/employment/employment-application/ or by calling 410-455-2337 (a resume and cover letter may be attached in addition to the application form). Interested and qualified candidates must submit a UMBC application (indicate position title and Job #034 on the application) no later than July 24, 2015 to:  UMBC Department of Human Resources, 532 Administration Bldg., 1000 Hilltop Circle, Baltimore, Maryland   21250.

UMBC is an EOE/AA

CSEE Ph.D. student Kavita Krishnaswamy is interviewed by Dr. Renetta Tull, UMBC Associate Vice Provost for Graduate Student Development and Postdoctoral Affairs. The taped interview includes several graduate students from UMBC, UMBC's Graduate Dean, Dr. Janet G. Rutledge and Kavita’s parents. Kavita discussed her research and answered questions from the audience regarding graduate school tips, information about research by and for people with disabilities, and motivation to work toward the goal of the PhD. A transcript is available.