UMBC Technology Catalyst Fund

FY21 Request for Proposals 

Background: The UMBC Office of Technology Development (OTD), under the Office of the Vice President for Research, is continually seeking ways to help bridge the funding gap – support that can be difficult to obtain from traditional funding sources. With support provided by the State of Maryland, we are happy to announce a new initiative, the UMBC Technology Catalyst Fund, which is designed to advance innovations originating from UMBC research to more commercially viable technologies. Additional proof-of-concept studies, extending data collection and prototype development are examples of the essential steps needed to demonstrate commercial potential.

A total of $100,000 is available annually for this initiative. UMBC plans to make several awards up to $25,000. Projects will be funded at the level deemed necessary to achieve the goals outlined in the proposal. Awards will be for a six- to twelve- month period and only proposals that can demonstrate achievable milestones within that time period will be selected for funding.  One-time, no-cost extensions may be granted, subject to approval by the review committee. No overhead will apply.

Requirements: All UMBC members with Principal Investigator status are eligible to apply as long as the technology to be developed has been previously disclosed to OTD. We welcome projects from all disciplines and encourage interdisciplinary collaborations.

Criteria:  All proposals will be reviewed by a committee comprised of faculty, administrative research personnel and outside reviewers from the business community, and will be held confidential. PI’s whose proposals are selected to continue onto the final round of evaluation will be notified, and the PI will be invited to give a presentation to the Review Committee.

The evaluation criteria will include factors such as:

·         Significance of the market need and opportunity to impact the public.

·         Competitive advantage the technology presents over current solutions.

·         Probability that the project will result in additional funding or licensing.

·         Probability that the research results will strengthen the patent position.

·         Probability of reaching milestones within the time frame and budget.

Deadlines: OTD must be notified of your intent to submit a proposal by Friday, October 30, 2020.  The final deadline for proposal submissions is Wednesday, November 11, 2020. Please be advised that several preliminary steps must be completed prior to final submission. Finalists must be available to present their proposals to the review committee on Friday, December 11, 2020. Awardees will be notified by the end of the year, with an anticipated starting date of January 18, 2021.

Contact: Interested applicants should contact Wendy Martin, Director, OTD at wmartin@umbc.edu  to request the Proposal Process and Executive Summary Checklist and the Cover Form.

This story was written by Sarah Hansen and first appeared on news.umbc.edu

Salamanders regenerate their tails. Sea stars regenerate their arms. Most species of planaria, a type of flatworm, can regenerate everything from their heads (complete with brain) to their digestive organs. But if you lose part of a finger in a shop class accident, or while chopping vegetables for dinner, you’re out of luck—for now.

“Why can the worm do it, and we cannot?” asks Daniel Lobo, assistant professor of biological sciences. That’s not really the question, though, he explains.

“We were able to generate ourselves when we were embryos. So we have all the information of how to generate a new hand, for example,” Lobo points out. “The genes are there. You have the same information in your cells.” So why can’t humans generate body parts after that early stage of development? 

“Actually, we could,” Lobo argues, if we could somehow reactivate the same genes that enabled us to develop in the womb. So, “Can we reactivate them?” he asks. That’s the real question, which he is working to answer with a five-year, $1.9 million grant from the National Institutes of Health.

Restoring independence

Lobo is tackling this question through a unique combination of techniques: wet lab experiments with planaria, and machine learning approaches that use computers to help deduce genetic regulatory networks. Previous work successfully restored the regeneration capacity of a species of planaria that had lost that ability. While still a long way from growing a human finger back, it’s a sign that the promise of reclaiming regeneration is not so far-fetched.  

This line of research could eventually make it possible for people with limb loss, such as injured veterans, to regrow lost body parts. By increasing understanding of genetic regulation, Lobo’s work might also enhance knowledge of development and developmental diseases, and how cancerous tumors work around regulatory networks to grow unchecked.

The right worm for the job

Lobo uses an approach known as systems biology to tackle these big ideas. “We mix the fields of math, computer science, and biology,” he says. “We use computational techniques to extract knowledge from biological data sets.” The result is mathematical models that can explain observations the team makes in the lab. The models can also make predictions, which researchers can test in the lab.

Planaria are the ideal model organism for lab work, because of their astonishing ability to regenerate. Even a worm in eight pieces will grow back into eight complete worms with proper proportions. Like mammals, the worms also grow when they have enough to eat. However, when hungry, rather than simply getting thinner, their whole bodies shrink to maintain proper proportions. So, beyond regeneration, “The general idea is to understand how gene regulation works to specify shapes and forms in biology,” Lobo says.

Teamwork and flexibility

“This program is too hard to do with just wet lab or just computational approaches,” Lobo says. “You need both.” 

Because the work requires such a range of techniques, it also requires team members with a range of skills. Lobo’s lab includes undergraduate and graduate students in math, computer science, bioinformatics, and biology. The new grant will also allow him to bring on two new postdoctoral fellows, one on the wet lab side and one computational.

“We will be able to create that synergy and get people trained in both fields in the same lab,” says Lobo. He describes the interactions between lab members from different fields as essential to the success of the research.

Rather than fund a specific project, Lobo’s new Outstanding Investigator Grant will fund the lab as a whole. “It gives you a lot of freedom to adapt to whatever discoveries you make,” he says. “You have the flexibility to pursue the details that you need to.”

Teaching computers so they can teach us

The computers the team uses are powerful, but for now, they still benefit from some human guidance. To give the computers a head start on figuring out the genetic regulatory networks, the team inputs certain rules before they add loads of data from their own experiments and other labs’ work. That also ensures the computers don’t come up with a solution that is biologically impossible.  

“We know that genes generally interact in certain fashions, and those interactions can be represented in different ways mathematically,” Lobo explains. “So we can tell the computer what kinds of interactions a gene can have. And then it is free to put those interactions together in ways that make sense.”

Lobo compares it to working with Lego blocks. “How many structures can you make with Legos? Unlimited, right?” he asks. “So the computer also has an unlimited space to search, but only with things that can be put together. You cannot make a perfectly round Lego ball, for example, if you only have square blocks.”

Speeding up the science

Combining wet lab and computational approaches will drastically increase the pace of discovery. A high performance cluster of computers can come up with a probable solution by testing more than a billion possible models of a regulatory network in a few days—a task that would take infinitely long for a team of humans.

Using computers to come up with plausible models, testing the models’ predictions in the lab, and then feeding the new data back into the computers to refine the model will bring researchers ever closer to understanding how different biological systems work. Research teams can apply the same investigative process to any number of biological questions, from regeneration to metastasis.

Some biologists may shy away from programming, but as Lobo says, “Biology is more and more computational. We are reaching a point that without a computer to process the data you cannot do almost any experimental work in biology.” 

He argues that interdisciplinary teams like his are the future—that diverse groups of researchers will increasingly combine multiple approaches to answer the big questions, to speed up scientific progress in ways that will have real, positive impact.

Banner image: Daniel Lobo in front of the Biological Sciences Building mural. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

This story was written by Catalina Sofia Dansberger Duque and first appeared on news.umbc.edu

UMBC’s Taka Yamashita has been awarded a $1.4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences for an innovative three-year research project on how adult literacy impacts success in community college STEM education and job training programs. Yamashita is an associate professor of sociology and faculty member in the UMBC/UMB gerontology Ph.D. program. He will explore how the literacy, numeracy, and problem-solving skills of adults (ages 18 and over), can be indicators of career and academic readiness in community college STEM programs.

Meeting workers’ and STEM industry needs

Many workers with limited academic credentials or skills face the need to expand their skill set to fit a rapidly changing STEM-focused labor market. The wide range of skills needed for STEM jobs creates both challenges and opportunities for workers to begin “middle-skill” positions, which do not require four-year undergraduate or graduate degrees. Career training programs can make a significant difference for these workers.

Yamashita notes that community colleges are uniquely positioned to meet the needs of adults who seek STEM skill training. However, in addition to knowledge and work skills, many workers also need to learn the basic skills to manage college level coursework, he explains.

“While community colleges can offer a path, students’ community college readiness may present a barrier to completing the training and entering the STEM workforce,” shares Yamashita. He explains, “Recent national data clearly showed that many of the adults seeking to aquire new new knowledge and skill sets do not have the sufficient basic reading and math skills needed for higher education coursework in the U.S.”

The power of three perspectives

This research project is led by Yamashita, principal investigator; Rita Karam, senior policy researcher at RAND Corporation; and Phyllis Cummins, assistant director of research at Scripps Gerontology Center at Miami University of Ohio. The team will gather quantitative and qualitative data from three community college STEM programs. These include programs at Clover Park Technical College in Washington state, Cuyahoga Community College in Ohio, and Ivy Tech Community College in Indiana. 

The researchers will assess students’ basic math, reading, and technology skills to predict their academic success in STEM skills training programs. They will also analyze national data and create the first national profile of basic skills across different segments of the adult population for a variety of STEM industries.

“We’re seeking to explore relationships between basic skills, college readiness, and academic outcomes,” says Yamashita. “Our goal is to better understand the underlying themes and/or key factors that are linked to enhanced basic skills and academic success in the STEM-related sub-baccalaureate programs.” These findings, Yamashita notes, could have a long-lasting positive impact on current and future workers’ lives as well as the STEM labor market.

Banner image: Yamashita. Photo courtesy of Yamashita.

This story was written by Megan Hanks and first appeared on news.umbc.edu

UMBC’s Tulay Adali, professor of computer science and electrical engineering (CSEE) and distinguished university professor, has received the prestigious Humboldt Research Award. The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation describes the award as presented to scholars “whose fundamental discoveries, new theories, or insights have had a significant impact on their own discipline and who are expected to continue producing cutting-edge achievements in the future.”

Adali is director of UMBC’s Machine Learning for Signal Processing Lab. Her research focuses on developing flexible methods for data fusion. These innovative methods enable researchers to extract powerful features from multi-modal data by letting them fully interact with and inform each other. 

A main application area of her work has been medical image analysis, where these features are used in diagnosis as well as treatment planning and evaluation. Adali and her research collaborators are also exploring applications of these methods in remote sensing, misinformation detection, and gesture and video analysis. 

A years-long research collaboration

Humboldt Award recipients spend up to one year conducting collaborative research at institutions in Germany. Adali plans to continue to work with her longtime collaborator Peter Schreier, who is based in Paderborn University. Through a research connection that has spanned many years, Adali says that her lab and Schreier’s continue to have wonderful synergy. 

Together, Adali and Schreier have worked to address problems such as data-driven discovery of relationships in multi-modal data, and in particular, when the sample sizes are small. “This is a key practical problem in many applications, especially in the medical domain,” Adali shares. She notes that this provides an important starting point for their current work. 

“Things are moving along, even though I could not travel this summer, as we started having weekly research meetings between our groups,” Adali says. “This is a valuable experience for my students. In the past, we had hosted Schreier and his students here at UMBC, some of my students had met Schreier and his students at conferences before, and these initial physical connections matter. I am hoping we will all be able to travel again, soon.”

Receiving the award

As a Humboldt Award recipient, Adali was invited to attend a gathering in June with her fellow awardees, hailing from universities around the world. Due to COVID-19, the event was moved online. Awardees had an opportunity to meet the German president virtually as part of the event. 

While she wishes the event could have been held in person, Adali says that it gave her an exciting opportunity to connect with other Humboldt awardees and learn more about scientist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt.

In 2015, Curtis Menyuk, professor of CSEE, received a Humboldt Award.

Banner image: Tulay Adali, fourth from left, with the members of her lab. Photo courtesy of Adali.

This story was written by Sarah Hansen and first appeared on news.umbc.edu

A revolutionary group of scientists has been rethinking for two decades how we understand bird song, with women leading the way. Several of these scientists are from UMBC, and their latest research has revealed findings not just about birds, but about bird researchers.

Elaborate bird song had been considered mostly a male trait for centuries, famously discussed by Charles Darwin. But Karan Odom, Ph.D. ’16, biological sciences, published a landmark paper on female bird song in 2014 that helped change that viewpoint. Odom’s study found that as many as 70 percent of female birds sing. Her extensive research also established firmly that both sexes almost certainly sang in the common ancestor of all bird species—a radical idea in ornithology.

Odom conducted research at UMBC with Kevin Omland, professor of biological sciences, whose lab has led much of the research in this area. Now, a new paper led by Casey Haines ’19, biological sciences, has documented what the Omland group and others have suspected all along: Women are more likely than men to be authors, and even more likely to be first authors (research leads), on papers about female bird song. Therefore, it is largely women who have reshaped this classical field of study. 

The findings, published this week in Animal Behaviour, suggest that a diverse group of researchers is critical for scientific innovation. Diversity could also help build a more accurate and complete understanding of bird biology and other fields.

A fresh perspective

Haines and Omland completed the research with co-authors Odom and Evangeline Rose, a Ph.D. candidate in Omland’s lab. They examined 59 bird song papers published between 1997 and 2016. 

The researchers found that women made up 56 percent of all authors on female bird song papers, compared with only 40 percent of authors of general bird song papers. Women held 68 percent of first-author positions on female bird song papers, but only 44 percent of first-author positions on general bird song papers. This means men were 24 percentage points less likely than women to lead a study on female bird song, and 16 percent less likely to contribute to a female song study in any way, compared with their contributions to general bird song papers.

“I believe this paper is a great example of how diversity expands the type of research scientists are doing,” Haines says. “Female bird song research has been underrepresented in the literature until only recently. A diverse pool of researchers may result in new questions being asked and new approaches to answering those questions. I would love to see this type of research applied in other areas of STEM.”

Other research cited in the new paper has found that women are more likely to study female animals (including humans), which have been historically understudied, as well as species that have gotten less attention in research. Female authors also publish more often with women co-authors, opening doors to greater funding and opportunities for more women in science. 

More generally, research has shown that diversity among scientists leads to greater creativity in questions, ideas, and methods.

A starting point

Omland acknowledges that this kind of study is outside his lab’s avian evolution wheelhouse, but he hopes it will spark further conversations. “We’re able to add an important data point to these discussions,” he says. And while the new paper has been in the works for some time, “In this moment, this research seems to have gained an increased weight.”

Haines and colleagues acknowledge that their study is imperfect. For example, “Our data represent gender in a binary framework, which is not reflective of society, potentially resulting in mis-gendering authors who are non-binary or gender minorities,” the paper states. “Gender minority authors make important contributions to science and are a vital part of increasing diversity. We recommend that more-detailed future studies provide opportunities for authors to self-identify their gender to avoid the possibility of mis-gendering.”

Even with its limitations, the paper provides an important glimpse into gender dynamics in ornithology. For an emerging researcher like Haines, it was an eye-opening experience. 

“Personally, it was amazing to find that the percentage of women who hold first-author positions on female bird song has increased so much within the last 20 years,” Haines says. “I think it speaks volumes on how far both female bird song and women in science have come.”

Creating space for new leaders

Haines herself is on a path to pursue graduate study in animal behavior based on her experience in the Omland lab. “Working with Dr. Omland, Evangeline, and the rest of the Omland lab was definitely the most memorable and enjoyable part of my time at UMBC,” she says.

Omland has a history of nurturing undergraduate researchers. In fact, Haines’s paper is the tenth peer-reviewed journal article published with an undergraduate first author from his lab. “Undergraduate researchers have really influenced the trajectory of our lab’s research by making consistent, significant contributions,” Omland says.

“It’s essential that we continue to build environments where researchers from all backgrounds are encouraged to explore new ideas and ask new questions,” Omland says. “Not only will this enable them to reach their potential as scientists, but it is also essential to expanding our knowledge of the world around us.”

Banner image: Kevin Omland, rear, goes birdwatching on campus with a few of his students. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

This story was written by Sarah Hansen and first appeared on news.umbc.edu

The 19 members of UMBC’s STEM BUILD Cohort 5 and their instructors had been looking forward to a summer wet lab experience. When that wasn’t possible due to the COVID-19 pandemic, they worked together to convert their eight-week, in-person program into a successful online learning experience unlike anything they’d tried before.

“It was different,” says Maria Cambraia, postdoctoral teaching fellow in the STEM BUILD program and one of the instructors, “but we kept the main goal. We wanted to offer them an authentic research experience, and we did.”

Independent exploration

This year, BUILD Trainees worked in groups to analyze the genomes of bacteriophages, viruses that infect bacterial cells. They also viewed and analyzed phages that previous UMBC students had isolated, including some that were unknown to science before the students discovered them. After some initial analysis, each group came up with its own research question to explore using bioinformatics tools.

“Students gain exposure to research techniques in the Bioanalytical Phage Module, but the larger benefit is their experience in self-directed research without predefined results,” says Steven Caruso, principal lecturer of biological sciences. “Because participants are engaging in real research, the experience is different every year.”

Caruso has been teaching the Phage Hunters lab to UMBC students since 2008, and he adapted the full-length course for STEM BUILD five years ago. “This experience prepares them for their next step, working with an individual mentor in their own lab,” he says. “It also allows them additional opportunity for productive collaboration with their peers, and for scientific communication during lab meetings and poster presentations.”   

Feedback for success

At the end of the eight weeks, the students presented their findings at UMBC’s virtual Summer Undergraduate Research Fest (SURF). The VoiceThread platform allowed students to give and receive feedback in written, audio, and video format, all in real time.

“Leading up to SURF we practiced using VoiceThread and got tons of helpful feedback from our instructors,” shares Caroline Moore ’23, biological sciences. Even though the online format made some things more difficult, she adds, “I think having such a supportive cohort and instructors helped me push through and end up creating an amazing presentation.”

In addition to practicing with the platform, students presented updates on their work every week throughout the summer and got support with designing their posters. “Dr. Cambraia gave detailed feedback, which allowed us to develop skills for creating the abstracts and posters,” shares Angela Kim ’23, chemical engineering.

“We needed to teach them not just how to present, but instead, ‘This is how you present, and this is how you make it effective online,’” Cambraia says.

The students also received helpful feedback at SURF itself. “The questions our group received made me think about what can be improved in our research and gave me some ideas for future research as well,” Kim says. Sharath Velliyamattam ‘23, biological sciences, adds, “I learned from this experience to give visual cues, how to engage my audience, and I learned to interact with different types of people, from faculty to students.”

A new field and new confidence

The Bioanalytical Phage Module introduced many of the students to bioinformatics—and bioinformatics tools—for the first time. “The online bioinformatic work with our phage genomes was really interesting,” says Kevin Gibbons ’23, biological sciences. “I never thought I’d be interested in computational or bioinformatic work, but I feel like I gained a lot of skills that will be helpful no matter what type of research I do in the future.”

For Grace Tugado ’23, chemical engineering, the experience sparked a powerful interest in phages. “Whenever I went out with my family on hikes, I brought up phages and what we learned in lecture,” she says.

Overall, “I think this research opportunity has helped me become more confident in my ability to communicate in a research group and has made me better prepared to work collaboratively,” Moore says.

Building connections

In addition to collaborating with their groups, Cohort 5 students had the opportunity to interact with previous BUILD classes. Cohorts 4 and 5 spent more than two hours discussing their experiences in a virtual meeting. Cohort 6, entering as first-year students this fall, also commented substantially on Cohort 5’s SURF posters.

Through those exchanges, “We really got a behind-the-scenes view of undergraduate research at UMBC,” Velliyamattam says. Throughout the summer, they also became part of it. 

These students faced an unusual challenge: conducting independent research, in groups, all online. By the end of the summer, the students improved their presentation skills, learned about a new area of life science, and conquered new online analytical tools. They also bonded more closely as a group—strengthening relationships that will see them through challenges long after the pandemic is over.   

Banner image: UMBC’s Biological Sciences Building along Academic Row, where STEM BUILD students would have traditionally completed their summer research experience. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

This story was written by Sarah Hansen and first appeared on news.umbc.edu

There is an essential resource constantly flowing beneath our feet: groundwater. Urban denizens may not think about it often, or at all, because they don’t rely on wells, “but it’s still there,” says hydrologist Claire Welty, and it’s critical to understanding the health of urban ecosystems. 

Welty is director of UMBC’s Center for Urban Environmental Research and Education (CUERE) and a professor of chemical, biochemical, and environmental engineering. Groundwater is just one piece of a complicated puzzle that she and her team will work to put together over the next five years. A $4.8 million Critical Zone Collaborative Network grant from the National Science Foundation will make the large-scale project possible. The grant will support researchers at UMBC and eight other institutions that are part of the UMBC-led Urban Critical Zone Cluster.

Welty’s team will explore Earth’s critical zone, which extends from the tops of trees to the base of weathered bedrock, in urban centers along the Eastern Seaboard. In particular, they’re interested in how natural, geological processes occurring below the Earth’s surface and human-driven processes interact. Human influences include road salt application, polluted stormwater runoff, and soil-disturbing construction. These factors can all significantly influence urban water quality, water chemistry, and weathering processes. 

Most Critical Zone grants are for work in more pristine wilderness areas, because the added effects of urban processes make the research more complicated. But, Welty says, “that’s the most interesting part.”

Focus on the Fall Zone

The research will take place in four East Coast cities: Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, and Raleigh. The researchers strategically selected these urban centers because they align in a north-to-south corridor along what geologists call the “Fall Zone.” The Fall Zone exists at the transition from the Piedmont to the Coastal Plain, and is an area of intense interest for geologists.

“We think of this landscape as ancient, but recent research has led to a different understanding about how the Fall Zone in our region has evolved,” says geomorphologist Andrew Miller, UMBCprofessor of geography and environmental systems and a collaborator on the new grant. Glaciers to the region’s north played a role, and “human activity has also caused profound changes,” Miller says. “All of this forms the background for the work we are planning to do on this project.”

Philadelphia to Raleigh: An urban corridor

The Fall Zone’s unique topography made it a natural place for some of the first American cities to emerge. Dramatic elevation changes characterize the Fall Zone, “so that’s where waterfalls formed, providing hydropower, so mills were set up,” Welty explains. Population centers grew up around the mills. Elevation changes at the Fall Zone boundary also limited water transport further inland, making it the natural place to build port cities. Today’s I-95 corridor links these urban centers.

The north-south corridor also gives the researchers an opportunity to examine how climate affects the movement of substances, such as sediment and dissolved materials, through the natural and built environments. Natural and human-introduced substances can affect everything from water quality to how quickly the bedrock wears away over time.  

Of the four cities, Raleigh is distinct in ways that offer unique opportunities. As a younger city, it’s laid out differently. It may also have newer water, sewer, and other systems that could affect its underground properties in ways that differ from older, industrial cities like Baltimore and Philadelphia.

Long-term legacy

Baltimore, in particular, is well-suited to host this research, because scientists have collected environmental data on the region for over twenty years through the Baltimore Ecosystem Study Long-Term Ecological Research Project (BES). The BES team has installed scientific instruments all over the region. Students, faculty, and sensors have been recording data consistently for decades, painting a picture of Baltimore’s watershed, ecology, and social issues related to the environment.  

However, “the subsurface has for the most part been ignored,” Welty says. With funding from other sources, she and her field assistants have drilled 35 monitoring  wells—but there’s more to be learned. 

“We’ve got all this incredible science that’s been going on for 20 years of the BES,” Welty says. With the Critical Zone grant, “Now we want to look at the subsurface to complement all the data and information and instrumentation—you name it, we have it,” Welty says. “We think it’s really important to marry these two together.”

In addition to adding more and different data to an already huge archive, the Baltimore-based team also plans to leverage their existing data in new ways. “We’re going to use stream chemistry as a window into the subsurface,” Welty says. The researchers will also examine land use patterns and analyze bedrock and soil cores. Tools that act like an x-ray or MRI will enable them to visualize the structure and properties of the subsurface that are impossible to observe directly.

Putting science into practice

Urban groundwater processes fascinate Welty. She’s driven by a fundamental desire to better understand what’s going on underneath cities in the Fall Zone. And there are practical reasons why this work is important, too.  

“At UMBC, we’re always interested in informing policy with the scientific projects we do,” she says. “We have strong relationships with partners in Baltimore, and folks in the other cities do as well. They pay attention to what we do.” 

Those relationships work in both directions. Sometimes the research informs new policies around development, water treatment, or salt use. Other times, questions from regional leaders inspire additional research, including student projects.

Some public concerns have involved hazards to the urban drinking water supply and salinization of streams, which could be detrimental to wildlife. “We’re making connections and providing a foundation of knowledge,” Welty says, so policymakers can make decisions grounded in science.   

In addition, Alan Berkowitz from the Cary Institute is on the team to help bring these important ideas to K-12 students. Berkowitz will work with the researchers to develop an Earth science module for local schools, which will eventually be available to educators nationwide. Berkowitz will also work with the team to develop a citizen science program focused on the urban critical zone theme. 

“Alan has his ear to the ground on what the schools are interested in, and he knows how to make that translation from the scientific project to this kind of outreach,” Welty says. This work will bring the project full circle, inspiring another generation of minds to explore the world beneath their feet.

Banner image: Claire Welty (left) and Andrew Miller at a field research site in Catonsville. The site is a buried stream that doubles as a storm drain and is part of a restoration project. Photo by Victor Fulda, an engineering technician in UMBC’s chemical, biochemical, and environmental engineering department.

This story was written by Megan Hanks and first appeared on news.umbc.edu

UMBC’s Carlos Romero-Talamas is leading a group of researchers in designing and building a machine to produce nuclear fusion energy. The project is one of just 16 new initiatives selected for support through the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy program. The researchers will use the $4 million grant to develop and build a centrifugal mirror that can conduct electricity and will generate energy from fusion reactions.

The team’s goal is to use what is essentially a rotating magnetic mirror machine to produce energy from nuclear fusion, explains Romero-Talamas, associate professor of mechanical engineering. “This type of nuclear energy is considered the ‘holy grail’ of energy sources because of its inexpensive and abundant fuel supply,” he says. He adds that fusion energy does not emit greenhouse gases. 

Design and fabrication

The research team includes researchers from both UMBC and the University of Maryland, College Park (UMD). The device they will design and build will fill a large laboratory at UMD’s Energy Research Facility.

Romero-Talamas explains that the power system will consist of hundreds of large, high-voltage capacitors and electromagnets. It will also include active controls to prevent the magnets from overheating. There will also be a separate space for machine controls, because researchers will not be in the equipment room while conducting experimental runs, as a safety precaution.

The research team will design the vacuum chamber and coils, which will be fabricated by experienced suppliers. The vacuum chamber will be approximately the length of two midsize cars. However, it will weigh a lot more than that, Romero-Talamas explains. The entire structure will be more than seven feet tall. 

Solving long-standing questions

Romero-Talamas will collaborate with Adil Hassam, Tim Koeth, Brian Beaoduin, and Ian Abel, all UMD faculty serving as co-PIs. He and the team will also work with undergraduate and graduate students from both universities. 

As the PI, Romero-Talamas will direct the research project, and will play a significant role in the engineering design and construction of the technology. UMD faculty and students will take the lead on equipment safety and certification. 

“Our efforts are aimed at not only solving long-standing physics questions regarding the possibility of confining thermonuclear plasmas with centrifugal mirrors, but to help in the technology transfer to market and make fusion energy a commercial reality,” Romero-Talamas says.

The researchers will measure the density of the particles, specifically how many particles the team is able to make rotate at a high speed inside the vacuum chamber. They will also measure the temperature and speed of the particles. 

Impact in fusion energy field 

Romero-Talamas says that he has been interested in fusion energy since he was a graduate student at Caltech. “Initially, I wanted to work in plasma rocket engines, but when I took a plasma physics class, fusion energy seemed very exciting, important, and urgent to me,” he recalls. “Since then, the study of plasma physics aimed toward helping fusion energy become a reality has been central to my research.” 

In nuclear fusion, energy is released when two nuclei collide at high speeds. Romero-Talamas points out that the act of fusing nuclei is difficult to accomplish. Like magnets, when ions are brought close to one another they begin to repel, which makes the high-speed collision important to overcome the repulsion and make fusion energy a success, he says.

Fusion energy can be generated from water and lithium, and doesn’t require many additional resources. It requires a small amount of material compared to traditional energy extraction methods, like burning fossil fuels, says Romero-Talamas. When a fusion reactor launches particles at each other at a high speed, their collisions can generate temperatures that are nearly 10 times hotter than the center of the sun.

Romero-Talamas and his research team will also work with experts at Virginia Tech and the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory on simulations needed for this work. And students will be involved in every step of the research, from design and construction to presenting findings at conferences and in peer-reviewed journal articles. 

This effort, which we call the Centrifugal Mirror Fusion Experiment, is an important step towards the realization of commercial fusion energy, Romero-Talamas explains. “A commercial reactor based on our concept would be relatively compact with respect to other fusion contenders, lowering the cost and time to market,” he says. “While there will be important materials and engineering questions that will need to be addressed before scaling up to a commercial reactor, we will address the most important physics questions that could put us in a path to a demo reactor in years, not decades. We are very excited to be working on a truly transformational technology that will enable a virtually inexhaustible energy source with very small impact to our planet.”

Banner image: Carlos Romero-Talamas. Photo by Marlanya Demond ‘11 for UMBC.

This story was written by Sarah Hansen and first appeared on news.umbc.edu

UMBC’s Hyper-Angular Rainbow Polarimeter (HARP) Satellite, which began in Vanderlei Martins’s imagination more than a decade ago, has been flying in low-Earth orbit since February 19. It contains new technology that can collect detailed information about tiny particles in the atmosphere—previously unmeasurable data that will inform climate studies for years to come. The HARP team, including a large number of students, overcame obstacles at every step of the satellite’s journey to space, and its success is already being recognized.

On August 6, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) named HARP the Small Satellite Mission of the Year. To qualify as a “smallsat,” satellites must weigh less than 150 kg (330 lbs.). To win, a smallsat must demonstrate significant improvement in the capability of small satellites. That could mean advances in their structural design, scientific instrumentation, communications ability, or other factors.  

A popular vote informed the AAIA SmallSat Technical Committee’s final decision. After voters selected HARP as a finalist, the smallsat went up against nine other finalists, including teams from the U.S., Guatemala, Singapore, and France. Votes for HARP poured in from all over the world, including ballots from 40 states and countries on six continents. In the end, HARP emerged as the winner.

A moment of joy

“I would like to thank the HARP team as a whole, because HARP is really the result of the perseverance of the team over many years,” said Martins, director of UMBC’s Earth and Space Institute, as he accepted the award. “There has been no shortage of problems, but we have always worked together to overcome them.”

HARP’s innovative design and ability to collect new kinds of data that will be crucial for future research sealed the win. The HARP instrument, designed and built by a UMBC team and funded by the NASA Earth Science Technology Office, is smaller than a loaf of bread. Yet, its pioneering polarimeter (the first ever in orbit) can measure certain properties of particles in the atmosphere for the first time, offering a new look at the properties of clouds and tiny particles in the atmosphere called aerosols. The first observation from HARP arrived back on Earth on April 16, and it’s been collecting data continuously since. 

The small spacecraft developed by UMBC’s partners at Space Dynamics Lab (SDL) carried HARP to space, and the SDL team manages the satellite while it is in orbit. The whole satellite (instrument plus spacecraft) is the size of a large loaf of bread and only weighs about 6 kg (13 lbs.). UMBC shares the award with Space Dynamics Lab, which is affiliated with Utah State University.

“All of us at UMBC are so very proud of the efforts and the impact of Vanderlei Martins and the Earth & Space Institute,” says Karl Steiner, UMBC’s vice president for research. “Looking back at the launch of the HARP satellite at Wallops Island this past November, I know that today’s recognition as SmallSat Mission of the Year brings a much-needed moment of joy and encouragement to our campus community during a very different time.”

Student-driven success

The AIAA also gave out a People’s Choice Award (PCA) at the ceremony. The awards committee selects a PCA when a project has made substantial, unique contributions, but doesn’t necessarily meet the requirements for Mission of the Year. This year, Quetzal 1, Guatemala’s first-ever satellite, received the People’s Choice Award. Quetzal 1 has “opened the whole field of space science and technology in Guatemala,” shared Emily Clemens, awards committee chair.

Guatemala currently has no engineering graduate school programs and no space agency, noted Luis Zea, one of Quetzal 1’s co-directors, “but the students here accomplished something that I think is a good example of what young people can do when they set their minds to solving problems.”

Students are at the root of HARP, as well. The team has included scientists and engineers at every level. High school students, undergraduates, and graduate students all made important contributions in collaboration with faculty researchers.

“HARP is a small satellite, but we always had very big ambitions,” Martins says. At long last, those ambitions are bearing fruit. Some of the students who worked on HARP, and some new ones, are now at work on HARP2, which will build on technology developed for HARP. HARP2 will travel on the major NASA PACE mission, scheduled to launch in 2023. HARP2 will collect data that will inform studies of air quality, clouds, precipitation, and climate.  

With only a tinge of disbelief, and a big smile, Martins says, “And that’s all due to this small satellite.”  

Banner image: Core HARP team members Vanderlei Martins (left); Roberto Borda, assistant research scientist with UMBC’s Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology (JCET); and Dominik Cieslak, assistant research scientist with JCET. Photo by Marlaynd Demond ’11 for UMBC.