Three UMBC Honors College students in the College of Engineering and Information Technology (COEIT) have been named Barry Goldwater Scholars for the 2016-2017 academic year. The Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Program seeks to provide the United States with “a continuing source of highly qualified scientists, mathematicians, and engineers.”

As Goldwater Scholars, Daniel Ocasio ‘17, Naomi Mburu ‘18, and Andreas Seas ‘17, all chemical engineering majors, will receive substantial scholarship funding.

This highly competitive national scholarship has a major impact on each recipient’s educational path. Ocasio shares, “As a first generation college student, I feel extremely fortunate to be pursuing higher education, let alone a career in scientific research. To me, earning the Goldwater Scholarship is recognition of all those who made it possible for me to further my academic development.”

This year, a new initiative coordinated by Mitsue Wiggs, assistant director of the Meyerhoff Scholars Program, allowed UMBC students interested in applying for a Goldwater Scholarship to receive feedback on their applications before formally submitting the materials. Applicants shared early versions with alumni of the Meyerhoff Scholars Program, who reviewed the draft applications and provided advice before the students submitted their official applications to UMBC’s Goldwater Scholarship Selection Committee.

David Eisenmann, associate professor of biological sciences; Lee Blaney, assistant professor of chemical, biochemical and environmental engineering (CBEE) and Simon Stacey, director of UMBC’s Honors College, served on the UMBC Goldwater Scholarship Selection Committee this year. The committee reviewed applications, and provided advice and feedback to nominees on their essays.

At UMBC, Seas is involved with both the Meyerhoff Scholars Program and MARC U*STAR Program. He has also worked closely with faculty mentors at the University of Nebraska Medical Center’s Collaboration for Advanced Surgical and Engineering Applications. After pursuing a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering, he would like to become a professor and do vascular mechanobiology research. “I am honored that my contributions to science have been recognized by the Goldwater Committee,” he said. “My only hope is that I continue to learn from the world around me and contribute to the advancement of human knowledge.”

Ocasio has worked as a student researcher in Lee Blaney’s lab for over a year, and credits Blaney with helping to push him beyond his expectations for his undergraduate experience, and to pursue research as a career. Ocasio would like to pursue a Ph.D. in environmental engineering with the goal of conducting research related to water treatment and quality.

Mburu began research as a high school student with Lasse Lindahl, professor of biological sciences. She says that early exposure to research sparked her interest and encouraged her to join other labs and explore a variety of research areas. As an undergraduate at UMBC, she has worked with Gymama Slaughter, assistant professor of computer science and electrical engineering, who has inspired Mburu to pursue research on energy sources. Mburu also worked with mechanical engineering faculty at Vanderbilt University, producing research that formed the basis of her Goldwater Scholarship application. Mburu’s goal is to pursue a Ph.D. in nuclear engineering, and then teach physics and do nuclear energy development research.

“Being chosen for this prestigious scholarship as a sophomore is such an honor,” says Mburu. “I thank God for this amazing opportunity, and I am incredibly grateful for the wealth of opportunities UMBC had provided for me to make my goal of making an important contribution to the scientific world a reality.”

Image: Andreas Seas, Naomi Mburu and Daniel Ocasio (left-right) have been named Goldwater Scholars for 2016-2017. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

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Four UMBC undergraduates in Kevin Omland’s biological sciences lab have won Youth Activity Fund Grants from the Explorers Club to support team-based field research on the critically endangered, and largely unstudied, Bahama oriole (Icterus northropi). This species only lives on the remote Andros Island in the Bahamas.

The Omland lab is internationally known for expertise on oriole genetics and evolution. A major goal of this new research project is to increase awareness of the rare Bahama oriole and promote conservation of endangered wildlife in the Caribbean broadly. Omland’s hope is to not only help the bird population, but also to support sustainable economic development for the island’s residents.

The project is multifaceted, and the four grant winners reflect the interdisciplinary nature of the research. They include Alexis Scarselletta ’16 and Michael Rowley ’18, biological sciences; Jennifer Christhilf ’18, geography and environmental systems; and Daniel Stonko ’16, chemistry and biochemistry.“Having such a broad range of expertise…will allow us to collect and analyze data from a wider range of resources,” says Rowley. “We all will…learn from each other’s perspectives,” he notes, reflecting that the diverse team-based approach “will really add to the value we take away from the experience as people and as researchers.”

Rowley also shares that having this opportunity for an intensive undergraduate research experience will have many benefits for his science career. “This experience will make me more desirable to graduate programs,” he says, “but more so, it will allow me to narrow down my understanding of what I want to do with my life.”

Explorer Club grants support international fieldwork for students from across the United States in a variety of scientific fields. Previously, students in Omland’s lab have won Explorer Club grants for research in Puerto Rico and Mexico. The Omland lab also has a $12,500 grant from the MBZ Species Conservation Fund dedicated to Bahama oriole research.

Learn more about activities in the Omland lab at its Facebook page and lab page.

Photo: Bahama oriole, by Lisa McGuire (header image), and Michael Rowley ’18 and Alexis Scarselletta ’16 with a Baltimore oriole at Patapsco Valley State Park in Maryland, by Kevin Omland (second image)