The spirit of the fourth annual Critical Social Justice aims to create space and learning opportunities to consider the ways we can challenge, explore, and redefine the concept of “home” based upon our individual and collective histories as well as our intersecting identities. Take a look back at some of highlights from throughout the week and catch up on anything you missed with the linked videos for the events!

The Women’s Center was bursting with excitement as Critical Social Justice quickly crept around the corner. All of our hard work and extra hours were finally coming to fruition and we were excited to share that with the rest of UMBC!

On Monday, we kicked off CSJ with a panel discussion featuring some of UMBC’s finest faculty. Dr. Kate Drabinski, Dr. Kimberly Moffitt, and Dr. Thania Muñoz Davaslioglu joined us for CSJ 101 to lay down the foundations of our theme.

Dr. Moffitt left us with an amazing message as we ended the event. There is still so much space to grow and become better.

You can watch a recording of the event on our Facebook pageas well as check out our CSJ 101 round-up on Storify!

Before the keynote event on Tuesday, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha sat with a few students to discuss mental health and accessibility issues at UMBC, as well what can be done to create space for more people on campus!

As expected, Leah blew us away with her wisdom and experience as an disabled femme of color. She was real, funny, and painfully relatable. In her multifaceted speech, she spoke a lot about how she’s had to learn to listen to her body, create spaces where she and her community can be present and validated, and how we can celebrate the lives of the community members we’ve lost. If you missed it you can watch the video of the lecture below!

Women’s Center student staff members Michael and Mari shared their favorite moments from the keynote.

On Wednesday, the Women’s Center held a social justice activism workshop where students practiced skills for planning projects and taking action.

Later that afternoon, Student Life’s Mosaic Center hosted Shelter the Storm, a panel discussion focused on LGBTQ homelessness. In case you missed it, you can watch the recording of the event here.

On Thursday, Women’s Center staff shared posters they’d researched and created for an exhibit at our Who Get’s a Home in College? event, which centered on diversity and inclusion in higher education. In recognition of the Women’s Center’s 25th anniversary, student staff did archival research to explore how the Center’s history has shaped its role on campus today. See the posters, zine, and Prezi here!

We were joined by our panelists Dr. Nicole Cousin-Gossett (Sociology), Dr. Danyelle Ireland (CWIT), and Dr. Santiago Solis (Towson University), who spoke about institutional accountability regarding diversity and inclusion.

On the last day of Critical Social Justice, Dr. Kate Drabinski led the Baltimore Walking Tour through downtown Baltimore.

At Research Park, Dr. Kate gave an extensive history of the area.

Thanks again to all of our campus partners and everyone who participated in making the 4th annual Critical Social Justice a success!

Dissertation Defense Announcement

Cross-Layer Techniques for Boosting Base-Station Anonymity in Wireless Sensor Networks

Sami Alsemairi

9:30 Wednesday, 9 November 2016, ITE 346

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) provide an effective solution for surveillance and data gathering applications in hostile environments where human presence is infeasible, risky or very costly. Examples of these applications include military reconnaissance, guarding boarders against human trafficking, security surveillance, etc. A WSN is typically composed of a large number of sensor nodes that probe their surrounding and transmit measurements over multi-hop paths to an in-situ Base-Station (BS). The BS not only acts as a sink of all collected sensor data but also provides network management and serves as a gateway to remote commend centers. Such an important role makes the BS a target of adversary attacks that opt to achieve Denial-of-Service (DoS) and nullify the WSN utility to the application. Even if the WSN applies conventional security mechanisms such as authentication and data encryption, the adversary may apply traffic analysis techniques to locate the BS and target it with attacks. This motivates a significant need for boosting BS anonymity to conceal its location.

In this dissertation, we address the challenges of BS anonymity and develop a library of techniques to counter the threat of traffic analysis. The focus of our work is on the link and network layers. We first exploit packet combining as a means to vary the traffic density throughout the network. We call this technique combining the data payload of multiple packets (CoDa), where a node groups the payload of multiple incoming data packets into a single packet that is forwarded toward the BS. CoDa cuts on the number of transmissions that constitute evidences for implicating the BS as a destination of all traffic and thus degrades the adversary’s ability in conducting effective traffic analysis.

Next we develop a novel technique for increasing BS anonymity by establishing a sleep/active schedule among the nodes that are far away from the BS, and increasing the traffic density in selected parts of the network in order to give the impression that the BS is located in the vicinity of the sleeping nodes. We call this technique Adaptive Sampling Rate for increased Anonymity (ASRA). Moreover, we develop three novel techniques based on a hierarchical routing topology. The first, which we call Hierarchical Anonymity-aware Routing Topology (HART), forms clusters and an inter-cluster-head routing topology so that a high traffic volume can be observed in areas away from the BS. The second is a novel cross-layer technique that forms a mesh topology. We call this technique cluster mesh topology to boost BS’s anonymity (CMBA). CMBA opts to establish a routing topology such that the traffic pattern does not implicate any particular node as a sink.

The third technique creates multiple mesh-based routing topologies among the cluster-heads (CHs). By applying the closed space-filling curves such as the Moore curve, for forming a mesh, the CHs are offered a number of choices for disseminating aggregated data to the BS through inter-CH paths. Then, the BS forwards the aggregated data as well so that it appears as one of the CH. We call this technique boosting the BS anonymity through multiple mesh-based routing topologies (BAMT). We validate the effectiveness of all anonymity-boosting techniques through simulation and highlight the trade-off between anonymity and overhead.

Meet Sigfredo,

He is a Physics major and an URA Scholar. Sigfredo transferred from Anne Arundel Community College with an Associates of Arts in Communications. He is an advocate for undergraduate research. "Take the opportunity if you can find it. It is eye opening and satisfying when you reach personal milestones. Find a mentor that you feel comfortable with. Take it as seriously as you would school work."

His research explores the skies above and is trying to understand the current mismatch between our observational and theoretical capabilities in the effort to understand the gamma-ray variable emission of blazars coming from the vicinity of a black hole. The goal of his research is to develop realistic numerical simulations to model the variable gamma-ray emission of luminous blazars, powerful relativistic jets emanating from the vicinity of the supermassive black holes found in the centers of active galaxies.  

Read more about his research here…

Name: Chip Rittenhouse

Internship, Co-op or Research Site: Renegade Productions

Position Title: Production Assistant/Intern

Major(s)/Minor(s): Media and Communications/ Anthropology

Expected Graduation Year: Spring 2017

Briefly describe your internship, co-op,  or research opportunity, including your day-to-day tasks, responsibilities, and assignments.

At Renegade, I enter a workplace that is full of eccentric creators where an atmosphere of collaboration and creativity are contagious! Not only do I enter each day at Renegade with excitement at what the day ahead may hold, but I also know that I will learn something new each time I am there. Whenever filming a project for a client I am on set as a supportive member of the production team who has input in terms of how something looks on screen but also I gain first hand experience with set design and handling professional level equipment which has been an immeasurable opportunity. Whenever not on set with a client filming, I can be found in the production department seeking out future clients for the company; or taking part in pre-production, where I'm working on sound tracks or stock footage that fit a genre of projects we are working on. On top of that, having the chance to work with directors and producers at Renegade on a day-to-day basis and having the opportunity to ask them questions about the industry firsthand is something I am incredibly thankful for.   

Describe the process of obtaining your internship, research, or co-op opportunity.

I attended a social event in Baltimore city through the Maryland Film Industry Coalition. I also utilized UMBC Career Center to learn how to approach the internship professionally.

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

I am working in the field with professionals in the industry of commercial and cinematic production and so having the opportunity to learn from them first hand is what I enjoy most. At times I feel as though I should  pinch myself because all the new things I am learning at such a rapid pace seems unreal.

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

Keeping a client's project on schedule making sure it doesn't go over and cost them more money than what was projected is a major goal of mine each time I'm on a live set. However, moments that stick out to me the most is when I am thanked by the others on set for doing my job well; it makes all the hard work that I am doing pay off and it is in that moment where I feel as though I've made a true impact and have represented myself as a valuable member of the production.

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

This is a dream internship that I feel incredibly thankful to have gotten. With that said,  I attained this internship through a very unique circumstance. It was complete happenstance that the last person to leave the Maryland Film Industry Coalition event was a director with the Renegade Productions department. Moreover, little did I know this person who I struck a random conversation with would help me in attaining an intern position with Renegade. So I suppose my bit of advice to any other student struggling to find their ideal internship, or an internship in general, perhaps taking a step outside of their comfort zone and thinking outside of the box in terms of reaching out to prospective internships will garner the dream internship they are seeking. Put yourself out there, whether it's in person or having a strong social media presence, and I can almost guarantee that your your name will come across someone’s desk along the way.

P.S. Sending a wide expanse of self introduction emails doesn't hurt your chances either!

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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!

Practical Engineering of Plaintext Private Information Retrieval Systems

Dr. Russell Fink

Chief Engineer, Cyber Operations Branch
Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory

1-2pm Friday, 4 November 2016, ITE 229

A weekly round-up curated by Women’s Center staff member, Michael Jalloh Jamboria

In the spirit of my friend, who gave us the glorious name ‘Slaying on the Weekly’, every week I will be bringing you some interesting, funny or thought-provoking content from the internet! Be sure to join us next week for more and continue to slay!

Things you should know:

Believe it or not, voting happens in a few very short weeks. Early voting begins November 3rd. The presidential election is important, but so are the 469 Congressional seats up for re-election! That’s a lot! Stay informed and get there to vote!

As we continue to track the water protectors in North Dakota, there are other ways to support them in their endeavors to save our planet! Check out 5 Ways to Support Water Protectors in Standing Rock.

Article of the Week:

Even though Critical Social Justice is over, I’m still thinking about how we can make our activist spaces more accessible. This week I read 6 Ways Your Social Justice Activism Might Be Ableist on Everyday Feminism.

My good friend Dan, and Women’s Center student staff member wanted to share what he was reading this week. Check out ‘What They Really Mean When They Say They’re Not Voting‘.

UMBC Happenings:

The Fatness in Focus November Roundtable is coming up. Be sure to check out the event flyer and join us on November 30th in the Women’s Center.

Song of the Week:

I’ve been listening to really great music recently, and I want to share that with all of you! I know it’s Friday but I have to post a throwback. This week’s song is by Ingrid Michaelson. Check out ‘The Way I Am’! 

Until next week! Stay safe!