U.S. Senator Ben Cardin (D-Md.) visited Amethyst Technologies at the bwtech@UMBC Research and Technology Park August 31. He met with Amethyst CEO Kimberly Brown and employees to discuss ongoing projects, the benefits of being part the bwtech@UMBC community, and how policymakers can most effectively support small businesses in the technology sphere.

Amethyst provides program development and compliance software and services to government agencies, private companies, and the U.S. military. Cardin was most impressed with Amethyst’s work in developing African nations, including support for disease prevention and diagnosis, clinical trials, and training programs in Tanzania, Kenya, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Ghana, with a new project on the horizon in Ethiopia.

Brown and Cardin discussed funding opportunities for small businesses like Amethyst, which currently employs 20 people in the U.S. and 20 in Africa, with plans to bring on 20 more as part of an expansion to a new site in Frostburg, MD. The senator was excited to find ways to make receiving government support easier for technical companies through programs like the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), Small Business Administration (SBA), and Small Business Innovation Research program.

“The work you’re doing is critically important,” said Cardin, “and the applications are so diverse. I recognize the importance of the small business community and the creativity you bring.”

Brown credits Amethyst’s success in part to her involvement with UMBC’s ACTiVATE program (Achieving the Commercialization of Technology in Ventures through Applied Training for Entrepreneurs), housed in UMBC’s Alex Brown Center for Entrepreneurship. ACTiVATE supports women who want to start technology companies.

“UMBC was critical to our success,” Brown said. The university offered space in the life sciences incubator at bwtech@UMBC South, connected them with a qualified attorney and a business advisor, and assisted them with accessing high tech equipment.

Brown’s positive experiences with UMBC have led her to put down roots at bwtech@UMBC and continue to develop her relationship with the university. Since the company arrived in 2007, it has established an internship program for UMBC students and hired UMBC alumni.

“We are very pleased to have Amethyst Technologies as part of our bwtech community,” shares Ellen Hemmerly, executive director of bwtech@UMBC. “Dr. Brown is not only a great role model for our other entrepreneurs, but she also creates opportunities for both faculty and students at UMBC.”

Image: CEO Kimberly Brown and Senator Ben Cardin at Amethyst Technologies’ lab in the bwtech@UMBC Research and Technology Park; photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

When a person suffers a severe injury, it is crucial that any bleeding is stopped quickly. While there are many ways to stop external bleeding, current methods for stopping internal bleeding are limited.

Erin Lavik, professor of chemical, biochemical and environmental engineering, developed a nanoparticle that helps the body form blood clots and reduce internal bleeding. During the American Chemical Society’s national meeting, Lavik presented her work and explained how these nanoparticles could save lives.

“Compared to injuries that aren’t treated with the nanoparticles, we can cut the bleeding time in half and reduce total blood loss,” she explained.

Lavik and her team worked to create nanoparticles that attach to activated platelets so that clots can be formed to stop internal bleeding. These nanoparticles were initially developed and tested on rodents, to control bleeding due to brain and spinal cord injuries, but Lavik saw their potential to help people who have suffered a broader range of severe traumas.

After early testing revealed the nanoparticles successfully kept rodents from bleeding out, Lavik wanted to determine how human blood would respond to the presence of the nanoparticles.As a next step, the nanoparticles were tested in pig’s blood, which indicated that the immune system reacted well their presence.

In the future, Lavik and her team will test the nanoparticles in human blood, and will develop tests to fully understand the safety of these nanoparticles. She says they need to understand whether the particles may cause clotting that could lead to stroke before the product can be on the market, although she hopes the nanoparticles will eventually be available for clinical use.

Watch the full video of Lavik’s ACS press conference on YouTube.

The Lavik Lab’s nanoparticle research has been featured on Medgaget, News Atlas, Futurism, and Physics Central.

Image: Erin Lavik at TEDxBroadway. Photo by TEDxBroadway, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Baltimore Magazine recently released its “Best of 2016” edition, which highlighted leaders in arts and culture from across the city over the past year. Lia Purpura, writer in residence in UMBC’s Department of English, was named Baltimore’s top poet.

The magazine states: “In It Shouldn’t Have Been Beautiful, her latest collection published this year, Purpura impressively delivers poignant insight into our existence without pomp and circumstance. Her verses are little gems with short stanzas and an absence of flowery language, but that doesn’t make them any less profound. Instead, Purpura…proves how meaningful simplicity can be.”

Purpura has also been awarded a Pushcart Prize for her essay “Scream, or, Never Minding,” which was originally published in The Georgia Review. Also receiving recognition last month was Purpura’s poem “Resolution” which was featured on The Academy of American Poets website as the national “Poem-a-Day” on August 8.

Lia Purpura’s work frequently appears in The New Yorker, Orion, The Paris Review, Best American Essays, The Iowa Review, and other national journals. Among her numerous honors are a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts and Fulbright Fellowships, and four Pushcart prizes. Her collection of essays, “On Looking” was a finalist for the National Books Critics Award.

Read more about Purpura’s work on the English department website.

AGEPs nationwide are learning about the $75,000 postdoc through the NSF SBIR Diversity Postdoctoral Fellowship Program.

Find a research match here: https://nsfsbir.asee.org/jobs, and apply. This opportunity was discussed with the AGEP national office at NSF this week. (PROMISE is Maryland’s AGEP.) You are encouraged to apply for this “best kept secret.”

AGEPs nationwide are learning about the $75,000 postdoc through the NSF SBIR Diversity Postdoctoral Fellowship Program.

Find a research match here: https://nsfsbir.asee.org/jobs, and apply. This opportunity was discussed with the AGEP national office at NSF this week. (PROMISE is Maryland’s AGEP.) You are encouraged to apply for this “best kept secret.”

AGEPs nationwide are learning about the $75,000 postdoc through the NSF SBIR Diversity Postdoctoral Fellowship Program.

Find a research match here: https://nsfsbir.asee.org/jobs, and apply. This opportunity was discussed with the AGEP national office at NSF this week. (PROMISE is Maryland’s AGEP.) You are encouraged to apply for this “best kept secret.”

The Lavik Lab’s nanoparticle research has been featured on Medgaget, News Atlas, Futurism, and Physics Central.

In a new article published in The Conversation, Ian Anson explains how biased economic perceptions can be shaped by news media coverage. Anson, an assistant professor of political science, argues that in such a partisan presidential election year, Republicans and Democrats are more likely to have different interpretations of the economy.

Anson’s article, titled “A tale of two GDPs: Why Republicans and Democrats live in different economic realities,” focuses on two recent research papers in which he investigates why the political parties can’t agree on even basic, straightforward economic facts.

“I take up this question by investigating how biased economic perceptions are formed and maintained. The results do not paint a particularly rosy picture of the future of economic accountability, for two reasons,” Anson writes.

“One is that contemporary partisan media play a subtle yet powerful role in forming these biases. Another is the discovery that partisans perform Simone Biles-esque mental gymnastics to maintain biases in their economic beliefs – even when they know things about the economy that go against their favorite partisan talking points.”

Anson has research interests in the study of American voting behavior, public opinion, media and politics, inequality, quantitative methods, and the scholarship of teaching and learning. He teaches courses on American politics, media, and political behavior.

His article was also picked up by other media outlets. For a complete list, see below.

Why Republicans and Democrats live in different economic realities (Newsweek) 
The next president needs the support of all to rebalance the economy (U.S. News and World Report)
The different economic realities of Democrats and Republicans (BYU Radio) 
Why Republicans and Democrats can’t agree on basic economic facts (New Republic)
A tale of two GDPs: Why Republicans and Democrats live in different economic realities (Observer Politics) 

Image: Ian Anson presents his research at a Dresher Center event. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.