We’d like to take a moment to honor all of our wonderful donors from the past fiscal year, which ended on June 30, 2015. Thanks to your generosity, UMBC continues to grow, and to provide all sorts of opportunities for students to succeed!
View our FY2015 Hilltop Society and 1966 Society Donor Honor Roll.
When Professor Emerita of Psychology Dr. Marilyn Demorest started teaching at UMBC in 1972, the university was six years old, and the psychology department had ten faculty members. As her career grew and developed, so did UMBC. By the time she retired in 2010, the school had exponentially increased in size, both in terms of enrollment and faculty hiring.
The latter was one of Demorest’s many responsibilities as Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs from 1998 through her retirement. Her years of experience as both a professor and an administrator showed her the many challenges a university’s faculty may face. To that end, she’s created the Marilyn E. Demorest Faculty Advancement Fund, an endowment set up to support faculty members’ career development.
Dr. Patrice McDermott, current Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs and Dr. Demorest’s successor, says she’s not surprised that Dr. Demorest created an endowment related to faculty advancement. Demorest trained McDermott for the job. “Her devotion to faculty was well-known, and she instilled those values in me as well,” McDermott says.
As a professor, Dr. Demorest sat on several committees related to faculty promotion and tenure, and got a firsthand look at some key issues facing faculty members at such a young university. At that time, she explains, the university usually had to do more with less. Faculty often had to take on substantial service activities, which could hinder their research efforts.
She cites her work with Advance, the National Science Foundation’s initiative for women in STEM fields, as the biggest influence for her gift. Through that project, she says, “we saw how innovative programs” could be effective in advancing all faculty, not just women and not just STEM faculty.
At a university as committed to innovation as UMBC, a faculty advancement grant like this one provides the resources for professors to mentor and connect with each other, and Dr. Shawn Bediako, the inaugural recipient of the award, is committed to those ideals.
As a previous recipient of an NIH career development grant, Dr. Bediako, an associate professor of psychology at UMBC, developed an interest in helping faculty define their professional and scholarly goals beyond just achieving tenure. He has also served as a mentor to junior faculty both at UMBC and at other institutions.
“I am deeply honored to be the first recipient of this award. Dr. Demorest’s generous gift will provide an opportunity for me to collaborate with faculty colleagues across campus and find innovative ways to align our personal and professional goals with the institution’s vision,” he says. He is currently finalizing his plans for the award as the fall semester gets under way.
As the award is announced to the entire campus community, Dr. Demorest says the key word in the delivery is the “advancement” rather than “development” of faculty, and that the award will ideally expand beyond mentoring efforts. When faculty members can define and pursue their goals, whether in research or teaching, the entire university community will benefit.
“The notion is [one of] moving forward,” she says, and adds, “I’m looking forward to the fund growing over time and supporting even broader programs and initiatives.”
Learn more about how you can support UMBC!
Greg Cangialosi ‘96, English, has made a name for himself as a serial entrepreneur with a passion for helping others succeed. Since he graduated from UMBC, he has gone on to run two companies, and made it a personal mission to turn Baltimore into a hub for startup companies. To help support that initiative, the MissionTix CEO and co-founder of the startup incubator Betamore gave a generous gift to UMBC to establish the Cangialosi Business Innovation Competition.
The CBIC launched last year through the Alex. Brown Center for Entrepreneurship to give undergraduate and graduate students an opportunity to develop and present their business plans, and get a head start on establishing their companies. The first competition was held in the spring of 2014.
“His spirit is all about entrepreneurism,” says Susie Lynch, a development officer at UMBC. “[He’s] passionate about others’ success…[and] having a thriving startup community in Baltimore.”
Cangialosi had been involved with the Alex. Brown Center for some time before the competition began, according to the Center’s director, Vivian Armor. Among other initiatives, he was a featured speaker for the Entrepreneurship Speaker Series, developed and taught UMBC’s Entrepreneurial Marketing course, and served as a judge for the university’s annual Idea Competition, upon which the CBIC is based and which still runs every fall.
“As a result of his long term involvement with the Center, [Cangialosi] realized there was a need to provide the next level of competition and support for students who were serious about starting a business,” says Armor. The CBIC, she explains, was intended to connect students with the larger Baltimore business community.
To enter the competition, students submit their business plans to a panel of qualified experts. Those selected for the next round are paired with a mentor to help them fine-tune their ideas, and in the final round, they present their fully-formed startup plans to a panel of community business leaders and investors. In addition to a cash prize of up to $5,000 for seed funding, competition winners receive free Betamore membership, as well as free legal services, accounting advice, and fundraising and pitch advice.
Andrew Mavronicolas ‘14, information systems, is one such beneficiary. He was one of 10 finalists in last year’s inaugural competition, and his company, Backpack ‘Em, is now located in UMBC’s Cyberhive incubator. The company provides a platform for an intra-campus marketplace, its most popular use being textbook selling and trading. Mavronicolas says the support he received during and after the competition was invaluable in helping him get his business off the ground.
“The greatest gain that we had from the competition was easily the insights given by judges [and] investors, our mentor, students, and the university. This allowed us to improve upon our business idea by expanding our revenue models. It also helped us to perfect our pitch and gain the confidence to go meet with university decision makers and investors,” he says.
According to Armor, the competition will continue every spring semester, and has been a boon to the Brown Center’s visibility on campus. “[…Now] more students are aware of the wide range of initiatives and programming the Center makes available,” she says.
Lynch says Cangialosi is personified by his Twitter hashtag of choice: #neverstop. “That’s him in a nutshell,” she says. As the CBIC enters its third year, one hopes that that tenacious entrepreneurial spirit will be fostered within and passed onto several generations of students.
Cross-posted from the UMBC Alumni Blog.
Our donors are the heartbeat of UMBC. When you give to the university, you are making real change in the world. Your gift could fund a scholarship for the student who goes on to become a leader in the cybersecurity field. Your support could enable a professor to innovate in the classroom and help students succeed. You could make a difference that changes lives and impacts our community and our world.
To all the donors who’ve given in the past, we say thank you! We appreciate you and everything you do to support our students, and we hope you’ll continue to make an impact now.
Editor’s note: Here at UMBC, our students are the heartbeat of campus, and we are committed to providing them the best possible education. So, for the month of March, we will be highlighting our amazing academic departments, some of their recent achievements, and ways that you can help fund their continued excellence.
Your gift is extremely important and many of our students are depending on you. Please show your support and make an impact today. With you we can make a difference.
The Chemical, Biochemical & Environmental Engineering department is proud to share a few testimonials of its undergraduate research program.
“As an undergrad at UMBC, I studied the same curriculum that all of you had: learning to size reactors, heat exchangers, separators, etc. [. . .] In contrast, my research gave me a chance to tackle problems that don’t have an answer yet, and that might not even have a satisfying answer. [. . .] That was an exciting challenge for me so I went to grad school to continue working with that kind of problem.” Sean Kshimetski ’14, chemical engineering
“My experience as an undergraduate researcher gave me the confidence and experience to pursue a Ph.D. Through my UG research experience, I was able to build not only a tool set of research techniques but an understanding of how scientific research is conducted in an academic setting. When I was starting my graduate program, I was able to more easily acclimate to a new laboratory setting because I had gained familiarity with basic laboratory protocols from working in Dr. Marten’s lab.” Colleen Courtney ’12, chemical engineering
With your help, the Chemical, Biochemical & Environmental Engineering department can continue supporting students like these in their achievements. Click here to donate.
The Computer Science and Electrical Engineering department is proud to announce that UMBC will be partnering with MITRE Corporation to found national cybersecurity research center that supports the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence and help businesses secure their data and digital infrastructure. The department would also like to announce that Professor Chintan Patel M.S. ‘01, Ph.D. ‘04, and computer engineering student Gurashish Singh recently demonstrated a prototype system that can detect distracted driving behavior at the ATPA Expo, the largest gathering of industries involved with transportation.
With your help, the Computer Science and Electrical Engineering department can continue supplying new equipment and providing resources to build a sense of community among our students.
Click here to donate.
The Information Systems department is pleased to share that a research team led by Dr. Nirmalya Roy, assistant professor of information systems at UMBC, is exploring how to retrofit homes with sensor networks that monitor a resident’s behavior and activity levels. The team is also exploring ways to modify existing sensors and other smart-home technologies to help health care providers and caregivers remotely monitor seniors in their own homes at a lower cost. The department would also like to congratulate Victoria Lentz ’15, cybersecurity, on receiving one of the Scholarship for Women Studying Information Security program’s HP-backed scholarships. Lentz, one of ten recipients, plans to work in the cybersecurity industry and pursue a master’s degree.
With your help, the Information Systems department can continue sponsoring speakers through our Council of Majors and providing travel fellowships for International Field Research.
Click here to donate.
The Mechanical Engineering department is thrilled to announce that Dr. Carlos Romero-Talamas, assistant professor in the UMBC Department of Mechanical Engineering, has been recognized with a DARPA Young Faculty Award for his research in computational models of nuclear fusion technology. The department would also like to share that Anne Spence, ME professor of the practice, participated in a roundtable discussion hosted by Congressman Elijah Cummings. The panel was part of a congressional initiative to learn about issues women educators encounter in building and sustaining economic security and focused on strategies to increase the number of women pursuing STEM fields.
With your help, the Mechanical Engineering department can continue developing a prototyping space to brainstorm ideas and assemble preliminary models and supporting our Baja team — $500 sends a Baja team member to national competition.
Click here to donate.
Editor’s note: Here at UMBC, our students are the heartbeat of campus, and we are committed to providing them the best possible education. So, for the month of March, we will be highlighting our amazing academic departments, some of their recent achievements, and ways that you can help fund their continued excellence.
Your gift is extremely important and many of our students are depending on you. Please show your support and make an impact today. With you we can make a difference.
The Chemical, Biochemical & Environmental Engineering department is proud to share a few testimonials of its undergraduate research program.
“As an undergrad at UMBC, I studied the same curriculum that all of you had: learning to size reactors, heat exchangers, separators, etc. [. . .] In contrast, my research gave me a chance to tackle problems that don’t have an answer yet, and that might not even have a satisfying answer. [. . .] That was an exciting challenge for me so I went to grad school to continue working with that kind of problem.” Sean Kshimetski ’14, chemical engineering
“My experience as an undergraduate researcher gave me the confidence and experience to pursue a Ph.D. Through my UG research experience, I was able to build not only a tool set of research techniques but an understanding of how scientific research is conducted in an academic setting. When I was starting my graduate program, I was able to more easily acclimate to a new laboratory setting because I had gained familiarity with basic laboratory protocols from working in Dr. Marten’s lab.” Colleen Courtney ’12, chemical engineering
With your help, the Chemical, Biochemical & Environmental Engineering department can continue supporting students like these in their achievements. Click here to donate.
The Computer Science and Electrical Engineering department is proud to announce that UMBC will be partnering with MITRE Corporation to found national cybersecurity research center that supports the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence and help businesses secure their data and digital infrastructure. The department would also like to announce that Professor Chintan Patel M.S. ‘01, Ph.D. ‘04, and computer engineering student Gurashish Singh recently demonstrated a prototype system that can detect distracted driving behavior at the ATPA Expo, the largest gathering of industries involved with transportation.
With your help, the Computer Science and Electrical Engineering department can continue supplying new equipment and providing resources to build a sense of community among our students.
Click here to donate.
The Information Systems department is pleased to share that a research team led by Dr. Nirmalya Roy, assistant professor of information systems at UMBC, is exploring how to retrofit homes with sensor networks that monitor a resident’s behavior and activity levels. The team is also exploring ways to modify existing sensors and other smart-home technologies to help health care providers and caregivers remotely monitor seniors in their own homes at a lower cost. The department would also like to congratulate Victoria Lentz ’15, cybersecurity, on receiving one of the Scholarship for Women Studying Information Security program’s HP-backed scholarships. Lentz, one of ten recipients, plans to work in the cybersecurity industry and pursue a master’s degree.
With your help, the Information Systems department can continue sponsoring speakers through our Council of Majors and providing travel fellowships for International Field Research.
Click here to donate.
The Mechanical Engineering department is thrilled to announce that Dr. Carlos Romero-Talamas, assistant professor in the UMBC Department of Mechanical Engineering, has been recognized with a DARPA Young Faculty Award for his research in computational models of nuclear fusion technology. The department would also like to share that Anne Spence, ME professor of the practice, participated in a roundtable discussion hosted by Congressman Elijah Cummings. The panel was part of a congressional initiative to learn about issues women educators encounter in building and sustaining economic security and focused on strategies to increase the number of women pursuing STEM fields.
With your help, the Mechanical Engineering department can continue developing a prototyping space to brainstorm ideas and assemble preliminary models and supporting our Baja team — $500 sends a Baja team member to national competition.
Click here to donate.
Dr. Freeman Hrabowski hosted the fourth annual 1966 Society dinner on September 15 in the University Center Ballroom Lounge at UMBC. The 1966 Society celebrates those individual members who have identified the UMBC Foundation in their estate plans.
Before dinner, guests walked over to the Meyerhoff Building and toured the labs with Dr. William LaCourse, Dean of CNMS, and Zeev Rosenzweig, Chair of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, where they learned about the exciting research being done by UMBC faculty.
Some of the faculty — Dr. Marie-Christine Onuta, Dr. Marcin Ptaszek, and Dr. Ryan White — then joined 1966 Society members for dinner.
Please contact Kim Robinson at kim.robinson@umbc.edu if you would like information about estate planning.
Click to view slideshow.Dr. Freeman Hrabowski hosted the fourth annual 1966 Society dinner on September 15 in the University Center Ballroom Lounge at UMBC. The 1966 Society celebrates those individual members who have identified the UMBC Foundation in their estate plans.
Before dinner, guests walked over to the Meyerhoff Building and toured the labs with Dr. William LaCourse, Dean of CNMS, and Zeev Rosenzweig, Chair of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, where they learned about the exciting research being done by UMBC faculty.
Some of the faculty — Dr. Marie-Christine Onuta, Dr. Marcin Ptaszek, and Dr. Ryan White — then joined 1966 Society members for dinner.
Please contact Kim Robinson at kim.robinson@umbc.edu if you would like information about estate planning.
Click to view slideshow.Here in the Office of Alumni Relations, we spend a lot of time telling stories about and talking with our wonderfully supportive alums. However, we’ve decided to turn the tables and take time to get to know the people behind the scenes – the advancement and alumni relations staff members who are hard at work on behalf of our alumni. Today we’ll be hearing from Leslie Waters, the Executive Administrative Assistant for the Development Staff.
Name: Leslie Waters
Job Title: Executive Administrative Assistant
Focus Area: I assist in the Corporate Relations and Alumni Relations areas. Additionally, I assist at events such as the Alumni Awards and A Look Ahead.
Years at UMBC: 2 years
Q: Where are you from originally?
Cincinnati, Ohio
Q: What do you love most about UMBC?
I like the collaborative environment in which the staff members work together toward common goals.
Q: What is your favorite thing about your job?
I like communicating with staff, faculty, alumni, and corporate guests. I also appreciate the teamwork among the colleagues and the sense of community on campus.
Q: Why do you think it’s important to support UMBC?
It is important to support UMBC because scholarships help UMBC students meet their financial needs. I enjoyed hearing a UMBC student during her senior year describe how helpful her scholarship from the Alumni Association was in reducing her parents’ financial burden.
Q: When you were a child, what/who did you aspire to be?
As a young child, I aspired to become a teacher.
Q: If you could be a celebrity for a day, who would you choose?
If I could be a celebrity for a day, I would choose to be Diane Sawyer because she interviews interesting people who frequently inform and inspire us.
Here in the Office of Alumni Relations, we spend a lot of time telling stories about and talking with our wonderfully supportive alums. However, we’ve decided to turn the tables and take time to get to know the people behind the scenes – the advancement and alumni relations staff members who are hard at work on behalf of our alumni. Today we’ll be hearing from Leslie Waters, the Executive Administrative Assistant for the Development Staff.
Name: Leslie Waters
Job Title: Executive Administrative Assistant
Focus Area: I assist in the Corporate Relations and Alumni Relations areas. Additionally, I assist at events such as the Alumni Awards and A Look Ahead.
Years at UMBC: 2 years
Q: Where are you from originally?
Cincinnati, Ohio
Q: What do you love most about UMBC?
I like the collaborative environment in which the staff members work together toward common goals.
Q: What is your favorite thing about your job?
I like communicating with staff, faculty, alumni, and corporate guests. I also appreciate the teamwork among the colleagues and the sense of community on campus.
Q: Why do you think it’s important to support UMBC?
It is important to support UMBC because scholarships help UMBC students meet their financial needs. I enjoyed hearing a UMBC student during her senior year describe how helpful her scholarship from the Alumni Association was in reducing her parents’ financial burden.
Q: When you were a child, what/who did you aspire to be?
As a young child, I aspired to become a teacher.
Q: If you could be a celebrity for a day, who would you choose?
If I could be a celebrity for a day, I would choose to be Diane Sawyer because she interviews interesting people who frequently inform and inspire us.