Get excited for Career Crush Month!

Career Crush is an entire month (April) dedicated to undergraduates at all stages, graduate students, international students, commuters, alumni, faculty, and community members.

The topics you’ll see this month include professional development, networking, building career skills, and discovering career options. We help you through events like workshops, one-on-one mentoring with alumni and employers, and even a Spring Career Fair to help you win this challenge!

Why should you play? Build your skills to prepare for the next level (in life). The Career Center is bringing experts from various fields to connect with you. Whether you’re a freshman in your undergraduate career or you’re pursuing your PhD, it’s crucial to learn more about your career options and to connect with people in your field. We’ll help you to gain the skills and opportunities to do so!

Win “Career Crush Loot” for participation in different types of events. The “loot” comes in the form of buttons and if you collect one of each of them you will win a free Career Crush t-shirt. There are also “Bonus Loots” for certain events, including head shots for your LinkedIn page!

Think of UMBC as an RPG game of your life. Each semester is a different level. There are hidden bonuses all throughout the University that you just have to be open enough to find. Career Crush is a hidden bonus. You don’t need it to graduate (beat the game) – but if you do, you will be far more prepared for the sequel: life after graduation. 

As a graduate student, I can’t wait to check out all of the great opportunities this month to have some fun while learning some great insight for my career. I highly recommend you do the same! See you out there!

Braxton Dubin, Samantha McDonald, Niara Comrie, and Nicholas Carter have been researching an alternative use for 3-D printing- creating technology to help therapy patients!

Their goal is to create customized and inexpensive materials and familiarize the professionals with the equipment for creating their own 3-D models. Find out more about their research techniques and findings at this year's URCAD!

A playlist brought to you by Women’s Center staff member, MJ Jalloh Jamboria

As we approach the end of Women’s History Month, I wanted to share a playlist I made for a Women’s History Month Empowerment Program. The playlist features some throwbacks, a few current jams, Beyoncé (more than once) and I throw in Kelis’ “Milkshake” just for fun!

Get up and dance like this kid

Check it out on Spotify or YouTube below!

DJ Rekha: Ambassador of Bhangra

I will present DJ Rekha’s “Basement Bhangra Anthem” and discuss the various influences this piece reflects. DJ Rekha is a New York-based DJ, producer, educator, and curator. The New York Times called her the “Ambassador of Bhangra.” Bhangra is a style of folk music and dance from the Indian state Punjab. DJ Rekha is known for being one of the first DJs to merge the classic sounds of Bhangra and Bollywood with contemporary hip-hop and dance-hall beats. One of her notable songs is “Basement Bhangra Anthem.” Musician and composer Wendy Carlos can be seen as an influence. Carlos popularized the Moog synthesizer with the release of her 1968 album Switched-On Bach, which featured Bach compositions played on a Moog synthesizer as well as film scores in a more popular musical language. Carlos combined classical music with electronic music. DJ Rekha is also a musical pioneer. She was raised in an Indian family and faced criticism for being passionate about hip-hop. She took her passion for music and made a career out of it by fusing different musical styles to create a new musical genre. I am investigating the cultural melting pot of her music.

Probing the Secondary Structure of the Monomeric Conformation in the HIV-1 5`-Leader RNA by NMR Spectroscopy

Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), the AIDS pathogen, proliferates within infected human helper T cells, compromising an otherwise healthy and responsive immune system. Viral replication is mediated by the 5`Leader (5`L) element in viral genomic RNA. This 5`-L RNA exists in an equilibrium of two structural conformers – monomer and dimer, by which it directs and mediates viral assembly and replication. Here, we demonstrate an approach to probe for and characterize secondary structure in the 5`-L monomeric conformer by high-field nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, a technique used for high-resolution biomolecular structural studies. Signal assignment and validation of characteristic peaks in NMR experiments designed to explore the through-space interactions of base-paired residues provide evidence to support the formation of distinct secondary structures in our proposed model. Our study of the HIV-1 5`-L monomeric conformer structure and the processes that this highly conserved RNA sequence mediates in retroviral replication not only provide further insight into our current understanding of the functional and dynamic nature of three-dimensional RNA structure, but also highlight potential therapeutic value in the monomer as a drug target in clinical medicine.

Information Session - Both Internship/Co-op & Full-Time Recruitment

Session Start:  April 27, 2016, 11:00 am

Session End:  April 27, 2016, 2:00 pm

This is your chance to get up close and personal to hiring managers/advisers from the CIA to learn about the many career opportunities within the agency.  Particularly interested in speaking with students interested in pursuing careers as auditors, contracting officers, computer scientists, app developers, IT engineers, and data scientists. Learn more about the Central Intelligence Agency's directly from the source! Open to students of all majors; freshman through graduate students.  Come when you are able, there is no need to stay for the entire event.

Majors Recruiting: All Majors, Information Systems, Mathematics, Statistics, Computing - Human Centered Computing, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Economics, Financial Economics, Accounting Please rsvp through MyUMBC Career Center.

Using DNA Sequences to Determine the Geographic Origins of Agriculturally Important Invasive Leafmining Flies

The increased global movement of people and goods has resulted in introduction of agricultural pests into new areas. Understanding the patterns and processes of colonization by introduced species is crucial in planning interventions and management strategies. However, determining the origin and colonization patterns of invasive species can be difficult. Molecular markers such as DNA sequence data can help determine the history of movement by an invasive species. Liriomyza huidobrensis is a leafmining fly that feeds within leaf tissue of crops, including potatoes and beans. Although native to South America, it has spread throughout the world and is of great concern. Understanding the origin and pathways of dispersion can determine the means of spread, possibly leading to the development of interception and control programs. We analyzed 2125 base pairs of mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase genes (COI & COII) in a phylogeographic approach to uncover distribution of genetic variation of L. huidobrensis. Our phylogeographic analysis of mitochondrial COI and COII found substantial geographic structure within L. huidobrensis in its native range, but almost none within and between invasive populations around the world.The data suggest that the invasive populations trace to the Peru/Ecuador region. We are collecting additional data to test this hypothesis.

Nicholas Rogers, who graduated in December 2015 and worked in the Blaney Lab, was selected to receive a 2016 National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) Fellowship. Nick's proposal focused on using excitation-emission matrices (EEMs) of dissolved organic matter (DOM) to identify leaking wastewater infrastructure in urban settings.  His selection was based on his demonstrated potential to contribute to strengthening the vitality of the U.S. science and engineering enterprise.