Designing the Future of Animation

Shane Lynch,style> a senior computer science major, and Chad Eby ’06,style> MFA, imaging and digital arts, are members of a UMBC research design team responsible for the newest development in editorial cartoons. Led by famed-cartoonist Kevin “KAL” Kallaugher, Lynch, Eby and staff from UMBC’s Imaging Research Center designed a 3-D virtual bust of President George W. Bush.style>

The project’s concept, making a three-dimensional caricature talk, walk and interact with the public in real-time, is considered unprecedented for animation.

The digital bust is the brainchild of Kallaugher, a cartoonist for the Economist and former cartoonist for the Baltimore Sun, who came to UMBC in January 2006 as an artist-in-residence, a position sponsored partly by the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation.

Lynch and Eby each had their own responsibilities for the project. Lynch programmed the coding for the 3-D cartoon, making it work in real-time. The stately figure can move its mouth in various directions, furrow its eyebrows and pop out its ears. Eby arranged the hardware interface, chose the equipment and programmed the software that operates the movements of the virtual puppet.

The project took four months to complete and required the diverse skills of the team members, which also included Dan Bailey,style> the Center’s director, and Eric Smallwood,style> technical director of the IRC.

Lynch and Eby both agree working with KAL and learning about the man behind the satirical cartoons was exciting and rewarding.

“We are pretty far ahead of the curve,” said Eby, who is beginning his first year as an assistant professor in Florida State University’s Art Department. “I have no doubt this is the future of animation.”

To view the design stages and to track the project’s progress, visit http://www.irc.umbc.edu/kal/.

(8/29/2006)

UMBC is an Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action Institution

A Destination for Cultural Life:
UMBC hosts world-renowned speakers

UMBC will host The Maryland Forum, a new speaker series featuring Ehud Barak, former prime minister of Israel; Bob Woodward, Pulitzer-prizewinning journalist; Cal Ripken, Jr., record-breaking former Baltimore Oriole; and former Vice President Al Gore. The series is presented in partnership with the Annapolis and Anne Arundel County Chamber of Commerce, Inc.

“UMBC’s mission as a public research university includes stimulating the intellectual and cultural life of the region,” said President Freeman Hrabowski. “We are pleased that our partnership with The Maryland Forum will continue to build the University as a destination for cultural programming. I am particularly excited that our students will have the opportunity to attend these lectures and learn about the experiences of former leaders of nations and leading figures from other fields who also have shaped our national story.”

Lectures will be presented in the Retriever Activities Center. UMBC students, faculty and staff may purchase discounted tickets for $5 (one ticket per UMBC ID). Tickets will go on sale Monday, October 9 at The Commons Information Desk.

The Maryland Forum 2006-07 schedule:

Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Ehud Barak, former prime minister of Israel, will discuss how national politics, international events, terror and the economy all influence national and international relations. He will also speak about economic development issues facing nations today.

Wednesday, November 8, 2006
Bob Woodward, who, along with Carl Bernstein, received the Pulitzer Prize for reporting on the Watergate scandal, will discuss his latest book, The Secret Man, and his journalism career.

April 2007 (To Be Confirmed)
Former Oriole Cal Ripken, Jr., who broke Lou Gehrig’s streak of 2,131 consecutive games by 500, will speak about leadership, loyalty, patience and perseveranceóqualities that lead to success in baseball and in business.

Tuesday, May 8, 2007
The Honorable Al Gore, former U.S. Vice President, will give a special multimedia presentation of An Inconvenient Truth, which examines environmental issues and their impact on our global civilization. He also will discuss how physical changes in the planet will influence our global economy and key opportunities and challenges for the democratization of technology.

Tickets for the general public can be purchased online or by calling 1-866-49-FORUM. A discount is available to UMBC alumni. For more information about the Maryland Forum, visit www.themarylandforum.com.

(10/2/06)

UMBC is an Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action Institution

UMBC’s New Homepage & Portal

UMBC is launching a new home page on the Web (www.umbc.edu) and (http://my.umbc.edu). The strategy for the August 2006 launch and future phases is to refocus the UMBC homepage on the needs of external users, while making myUMBC more useful to internal users through richer content and self-service options.

The redesign, a collaborative effort between the Offices of Institutional Advancement (OIA) and Information Technology (OIT), reflects input gathered over the last three years during talks with prospective undergraduate and graduate students, and UMBC students, faculty and staff.

UMBC’s enrollment goals play an important role in the homepage design. In order to attract prospective undergraduate and graduate students, it will be important to use the homepage as a marketing tool, promoting campus life and student success stories, for example. Site users and prospective students said that information on both the old homepage and portal was hard to find and the homepage did not give a sense of the campus or what it is like to attend UMBC.

The new design by Jim Lord ’99, OIA’s associate director of creative services, features an upgraded navigational scheme that highlights audience-specific resources (prospective students, parents, alumni, etc.), a collage of campus photos and more room for events and feature stories. The new homepage and portal will also highlight our 40th anniversary and upcoming capital campaign.

The new myUMBC was designed by UMBC’s new campus portal architect B. Collier Jones in OIT. The redesign changes the look and feel of the campus’ internal site, which provides access to tools and utilities faculty, staff and students need to do their work and live on campus. For now, most of those functions remain the same; the presentation, however, has changed.

For the fall 2006 launch, the new portal is particularly focused on the needs of students and will be a one-stop shop for news about what’s happening on campus. The Start Page features announcements, information about upcoming events and news of interest to undergraduate and graduate students, such as student government, information about registration and commencement, residential life, arts and athletics.

In the next year, faculty and staff will have their own Start Pages, but the new portal currently features a front-page “dashboard” with access to most popular applications for faculty, staff and students – blackboard, e-mail and Oracle Calendar (for faculty and staff).

This facelift is just the beginning of plans to improve UMBC’s Internet presence. The OIA and OIT Web team, collectively known as “Emedia,” calls it “a down payment” on the future sites. In addition to Jones and Lord, the team includes John Fritz, director of instructional technology and new media and Jackie Ward, campus Web architect from OIT and Eleanor Lewis, associate director of internal and digital communications from OIA.

Read more about the new features on UMBC’s homepage and portal and next steps for a site-wide redesign.

Please send your comments and suggestions on the new homepage and myUMBC to helpdesk@umbc.edu.

UMBC is an Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action Institution

Capturing Distant Sounds: Fulbright Winner Tim Nohe

Tim Nohe,style> associate professor of visual arts, has received a Fulbright Scholars award, one of the nation’s most notable and highly competitive grants. Nohe will use the award in hopes of drawing awareness to the often ignored sounds of Australia’s Botany Bay.

Nohe’s research, entitled, “Sounding Botany Bay,” explores the sonic environment of one of Australia’s richest cultural and natural attractions. Nohe will record sounds from the city of Botany Bay, Sydney Airport and the Botany Bay National Park. He will edit and compose these sounds to create an “immersive surround-sound audio experience.”

“Sonic works challenge us to hear anew what we have chosen to filter out as we move through a noisy world,” said Nohe. “I hope to shape the rich voices and sounds of Botany Bay into an aural tapestry that will heighten and contrast what is and has been there.”

Nohe conducted similar research in 1998 when he participated in the Wendover, USA exhibit, which featured photographs, video and sound installations of the Wendover region. This area includes Wendover, Utah, home to the Bonneville Salt Flats and Wendover Army Air Field, a base that played a key role in the development of atomic weapons during World War II, and West Wendover, Nevada, host to a cluster of gambling casinos. Nohe made numerous samples of the region’s artifacts, including a sound exhibit.

Nohe will present “Sounding Botany Bay” and teach two sound-art courses at the University of Wollongong in New South Wales through June 30, 2007. He hopes to install a sound exhibition at various venues in the city of Botany Bay and create DVDs of the presentation.

Nohe won three Maryland State Arts Council awards and serves as a board member and composer for the performance art group Fluid Movement. His other works have appeared in local venues and international locations such as The Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney and the Inter-Society of Electronic Arts, Paris.

(UMBC’s other Fulbright Scholar, John Stolle-McAllister,style> associate professor of modern languages and linguistics, is currently investigating indigenous political movements in Ecuador. A homepage feature story on his research is forthcoming.)

9/11/2006

UMBC is an Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action Institution

Computer Science Students from UMBC, George Washington, Stanford, Others Hope Contest Yields Ideas for More Secure Electronic Voting

WASHINGTON, D.C. – As worries increase about the reliability and security of electronic voting machines a week away from the General Election, a team of computer science students and professors from UMBC and George Washington University will announce on Thursday at the National Press Club the start of a new national competition aimed at sparking ideas for better electronic voting technology while raising college students’ awareness of the political process.

Organized by UMBC professor of computer science Alan Sherman and funded by the National Science Foundation, the University Voting Systems Competition (www.vocomp.org) will take place throughout the academic year.

The UMBC/GW team will compete against teams from Stanford, Rice, Newcastle (UK), Wroclaw (Poland), and other universities to design and implement innovative voting technologies. Teams must post their voting system designs online in January 2007 for review by peers and a panel of judges including IT experts from Microsoft, the National Institutes of Standards and Technology and MIT.

Teams that advance to the next round of competition will be required to demonstrate their systems in a student government or similar real-world campus election in May. Five finalist teams will be chosen to travel to Portland, Oregon, on July 16-18, for the final competition which will include a judged mock election along with academic presentations, critiques, and invited lectures by national experts on voting.

According to Sherman, an expert on cryptology and the security of voting systems, the judging criteria include reliability, security, privacy, ease of use for voters and election officials, and accessibility to the disabled.

“There is a need for better voting technologies that are more secure, reliable, accountable and easy to use.” Sherman said. “This competition will inspire innovation and involvement, and establish the feasibility of competitions as a way to gauge the security of voting systems.”

Biotech, Pharma, NASA, and NSA Execs to Advise College, Build Connections

UMBC announced today the appointment of 12 leaders selected from the Mid-Atlantic region’s business and scientific community to serve on the Dean’s Advisory Board for UMBC’s College of Natural and Mathematical Sciences.

The Board will help expand awareness of the College’s programs, research and resources and strengthen partnerships with public and private research laboratories, key industry leaders and policymakers. Board members, who will serve three-year renewable terms, will advise the Dean on critical issues including workforce education and training; academic program and curriculum development; faculty recruitment; collaborative research funding; and opportunities for students and alumni.

“UMBC is fortunate to have the counsel of such a diverse group of outstanding scientists and businesspeople,” said Geoffrey Summers, Dean of the College of Natural and Mathematical Sciences at UMBC. “The Board will strengthen the College’s connections with top researchers in bioscience, medicine, homeland security and environmental and space science — fields vital to economic growth, innovation and opportunity in Maryland and beyond.”

The Board will be chaired by biotech entrepreneur and UMBC alumnus Sheldon Broedel, Ph.D. Broedel is a co-founder and CEO/CSO of AthenaES, a biotechnology products and services firm located at the University’s on-campus business incubator, techcenter@UMBC. Broedel, who received his doctoral and master's degrees in Microbial and Molecular Genetics from UMBC, has 19 years of industrial experience, holds three issued patents and has designed and launched 68 products. He also serves on the Science Advisor Board for Villa Julie College and is an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University School of Medicine’s department of Microbiology and Immunology.

“It is an honor to serve my alma mater alongside a team of exceptional minds from government and business,” said Broedel. “Like me, they know from experience that UMBC is a place committed to scientific excellence, with talented faculty and students eager to share their skills with industry.”

The other Board members announced today are:

Ron Baker, Manager, Cosmetic Claim Development & Support, Procter & Gamble;

Paul Behrens, Director of Physiology, Martek Biosciences;

April Brys, Manager, Biosciences, Battelle;

Stacey Franklin, Vice President, BioTech Primer;

Peter Hughes, Chief Technologist, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center;

Peter Kiener, Senior Vice President of Research, MedImmune;

Alvin LaVoie, Director, Emerging Technologies, Rohm and Haas;

Jerry Skotnicki, Director, Chemical and Screening Sciences, Wyeth Research;

Terry Turpin, Chief Scientist, Essex Corp;

Nancy Welker, Chief Technical Officer, National Security Agency;

George Young, VP, Business Development, GRACE Davison.

UMBC’S College of Natural and Mathematical Sciences includes the Departments of Biological Sciences, Chemistry and Biochemistry, Mathematics and Statistics, and Physics. The College has more than 100 full time faculty members, and includes approximately 1500 majors in 7 undergraduate programs and 280 graduate students in 13 graduate programs. These four departments administer close to half of the Ph.D. programs at UMBC. Research expenditures currently are nearly $13M per year. More information online at http://www.umbc.edu/CNMS/

Developer Of The “Eden Alternative” And “Green House” Approach To Long-Term Care To Deliver 7 P.M. Lecture

Dr. Bill Thomas, an international authority on later life and eldercare, will deliver a talk, “What Are Old People For?” at The Erickson School on Nov. 9 at 7 p.m.

Thomas has been long recognized as an innovator in formulating approaches to long-term care. Thomas has brought plants, dogs, cats and birds into nursing home facilities to share with patients. This unique approach, known as the Eden Alternative, shifted attention toward enhancing the emotional well-being of residents.

Thomas is focused now on a new endeavor, the Green House Project. With a five-year, $10 million grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, he is developing a plan to replace more than 100 nursing homes in the United States with groups of smaller homes. Each will house eight to ten residents in private rooms. The grant will result in the creation of Green House projects in all 50 states.

The lecture will take place on the 7th floor of the Albin O. Kuhn Library. To RSVP and for further details, please contact The Erickson School toll-free at 1-877-853-0439 or e-mail Kristanna Jones at krista@umbc.edu.

Recently, U.S.News & World Report described Thomas as a “revolutionary” thinker whose “startling common-sense ideas and his ability to persuade others to take a risk” bring critically needed approaches to the science of aging.

“Bill Thomas is a pioneering thinker who inspires legions of people who have committed their study and careers to the business and science of aging,” said Dr. J. Kevin Eckert, dean of The Erickson School. “We know that his lecture will be another inspiring evening and are delighted to present it at The Erickson School.”

Thomas graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1986, and he was selected by the Mead Johnson Foundation as one of the top Family Medicine residents in the country during his three-year residency at the University of Rochester. He earned board certification in Family Medicine in 1992 and added a certificate in Geriatrics in 1994. Thomas also maintains a part-time appointment as Assistant Clinical Professor in Family Medicine for Upstate Medical Center.

Thomas is the recipient of a three-year fellowship from the global nonprofit organization Ashoka, which searches the world for individuals with unprecedented ideas for community change. He won the America's Award, established by Norman Vincent Peale and sometimes called "The Nobel Prize for Goodness" in 1997.

Thomas has published six books, including "What Are Old People For? How Elders Will Save the World." Named 2005 “Book of the Year” by the American Medical Writers Association, it explores the virtues concealed within the necessity of aging. Thomas also recently authored "In the Arms of Elders: A Parable of Wise Leadership and Community Building."

His books "Learning from Hannah" and "LifeWorth Living" explore the concept of the Eden Alternative and its impact on long-term care. Thomas is currently working on a book about the relationship between aging, health and healing.

About The Erickson School:

The Erickson School was established at UMBC in April 2004 with a $5 million commitment from John Erickson, CEO and founder of Erickson. The school focuses on credit and non-credit professional education, research, and policy in aging services and care.

UMBC, an Honors University in Maryland, is a four-year, public research university that is home to leading experts on aging who are active in research, education, and service in the field of gerontology. It is one of a handful of universities in the nation to offer a Ph.D. in Gerontology.

More information online at:
http://www.umbc.edu/erickson

UMBC Researcher Todd Eberly Wins National Dissertation Award

The Maryland Medicaid managed care program has had a positive impact on the receipt of preventive health services by black, white, and Hispanic children and adolescents, as well as black and Hispanic adults, according to a new study from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

Following a nationwide trend, Maryland implemented the HealthChoice managed care program in 1998 as a means to control Medicaid costs. Under managed care, the state contracts with private insurers to provide preventative health care services to Medicaid enrollees, such as well child visits, immunizations, and physicals. However, there had been conflicting research on whether managed care meets the needs of socially vulnerable populations, particularly minorities.

Medicaid currently covers 600,000 Maryland residents, including 30 percent of the state’s children. Studies have shown that a significantly larger percentage of black and Hispanic Americans are covered by Medicaid than white Americans, but these populations make less use of routine health procedures and services. These disparities in the use of health care services are significant because studies have shown that a lack of preventive care puts disadvantaged populations at greater risk of serious health problems later in life.

Todd Eberly, a researcher at the Center for Health Program Development and Management at UMBC, analyzed health care data for Medicaid clients in Maryland before and after the adoption of managed care to determine whether the program has had any impact on the preventive care use.

He found that Maryland’s managed care program has had a positive impact on the receipt of primary preventive care by black, white, and Hispanic children and adolescents, as well as black and Hispanic adults. All children and adolescents experienced increases in the use of preventative health services, but increases for black and Hispanic youths were significantly greater than for their white peers.

“The improvements for minority youth were particularly noteworthy,” said Eberly, “because children are especially vulnerable. Access to preventive care is key to the promotion of good heath and quality of life.”

Eberly, who received his Ph.D. in Public Policy at UMBC in 2006, conducted the research for his dissertation, which has been selected for the 2006 Annual Dissertation Award from the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration (NASPAA). He will receive his award this week in Minneapolis at the NASPAA Annual Conference.

Photo Caption: CRESST, a new NASA center at UMBC, will expand astrophysics research and education on black holes and other high-energy phenomena of the universe.

The team of UMBC, the University of Maryland, College Park and the Universities Space Research Association has been selected by the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center to establish and operate the Center for Research and Exploration in Space Science and Technology (CRESST).

CRESST will bring together NASA Goddard researchers and scientists from the Maryland campuses and USRA to build upon the many capabilities and strengths in space science of the participating organizations. CRESST research will initially focus on the study of neutron stars, black holes, and extremely hot gas throughout the universe. The Center also will work to increase the involvement of minority and women scientists in space science research and to facilitate university student participation in such research.

The Center will be supported through a five-year cooperative agreement from NASA with funding anticipated to be $7.5 million per year. A five-year extension is possible. The university partnership group will operate and provide funding for a management/scientist support office.

"This is a great day for Maryland,” said Maryland Senator Barbara A. Mikulski. “The creation of CRESST is the kind of collaboration between our universities and government laboratories that fosters discovery, innovation, creates new technologies, new ideas and helps Maryland remain a world class center for space science and exploration. As the Senator that funds NASA and our other great federal science agencies, I applaud the creation of this institute and hope to expand cooperation among our universities and government laboratories to keep Maryland competitive."

"This is a fitting reward for UMBC's investment in astrophysics, and a great opportunity to expand the research and educational activities performed here,” said Ian George, director of the Joint Center for Astrophysics and associate professor of physics at UMBC. “This award further bolsters UMBC's position in only its 40th year as one of the leading research universities in the mid-Atlantic region,” George said.

In support of NASA strategic science mission objectives, CRESST will carry out observational, experimental, and theoretical research in three general areas:

-- The Sun and Solar System, stars, galaxies, and the universe at large;

-- The informational and computational sciences related to the unique needs of data systems required to interpret space science data;

-- The development of technology required to achieve these scientific challenges.

CRESST is the latest addition to UMBC’s relationship with NASA. UMBC is ranked 13th nationally among all universities in research funding received from NASA. UMBC is already home to several other multimillion-dollar NASA research centers in collaboration with the Goddard Space Flight Center, including the Goddard Earth Sciences and Technology (GEST) Center, the Joint Center for Earth Systems and Technology (JCET), the Center for the Advanced Study of Photonics Research (CASPR) and the JCA.

According to George, NASA partnerships like CRESST will help bring more internationally-recognized space scientists to UMBC. “UMBC scientists are making major contributions to currently flying NASA high-energy astrophysics missions like the International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory (INTEGRAL), and the forthcoming Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) mission, scheduled to launch in August 2007,” George said.

Photo Caption: CRESST will help UMBC attract more world-class faculty like Joint Center for Astrophysics researchers Jane Turner (left) and Ian George.

George noted that UMBC scientists were also involved in the NASA Swift and Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) missions. “What’s really exciting is the impact CRESST will have on students, “said George. “UMBC has recently started both undergraduate and graduate-level astrophysics courses, so CRESST will help us to expand astrophysics education and research.”

Capturing Distant Sounds: Fulbright Winner Tim Nohe

Tim Nohe,style> associate professor of visual arts, has received a Fulbright Scholars award, one of the nation’s most notable and highly competitive grants. Nohe will use the award in hopes of drawing awareness to the often ignored sounds of Australia’s Botany Bay.

Nohe’s research, entitled, “Sounding Botany Bay,” explores the sonic environment of one of Australia’s richest cultural and natural attractions. Nohe will record sounds from the city of Botany Bay, Sydney Airport and the Botany Bay National Park. He will edit and compose these sounds to create an “immersive surround-sound audio experience.”

“Sonic works challenge us to hear anew what we have chosen to filter out as we move through a noisy world,” said Nohe. “I hope to shape the rich voices and sounds of Botany Bay into an aural tapestry that will heighten and contrast what is and has been there.”

Nohe conducted similar research in 1998 when he participated in the Wendover, USA exhibit, which featured photographs, video and sound installations of the Wendover region. This area includes Wendover, Utah, home to the Bonneville Salt Flats and Wendover Army Air Field, a base that played a key role in the development of atomic weapons during World War II, and West Wendover, Nevada, host to a cluster of gambling casinos. Nohe made numerous samples of the region’s artifacts, including a sound exhibit.

Nohe will present “Sounding Botany Bay” and teach two sound-art courses at the University of Wollongong in New South Wales through June 30, 2007. He hopes to install a sound exhibition at various venues in the city of Botany Bay and create DVDs of the presentation.

Nohe won three Maryland State Arts Council awards and serves as a board member and composer for the performance art group Fluid Movement. His other works have appeared in local venues and international locations such as The Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney and the Inter-Society of Electronic Arts, Paris.

(UMBC’s other Fulbright Scholar, John Stolle-McAllister,style> associate professor of modern languages and linguistics, is currently investigating indigenous political movements in Ecuador. A homepage feature story on his research is forthcoming.)

9/11/2006

UMBC is an Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action Institution