April 19, 2016 by Megan Hanks

Three UMBC 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.”

Don't miss tomorrow night's annual Cangialosi Business Innovation Competition on the 7th floor of the library. 

Watch UMBC's very own Entrepreneurs each give their live pitch to real Baltimore Investors and network with influential people from the Baltimore community. 

We can't wait to see you there! 

What is the Cangialosi Business Innovation Competition (CBIC)? 

CBIC is an opportunity for UMBC graduate and undergraduate students who aspire to fulfill entrepreneurial pursuits. Participants will experience the process of planning a startup business by submitting a competitive and realistic 3-5 page business plan and qualifiers will present their idea in a final competition. 

NOTE: the CBIC requires that technology (mobile, web, etc), be a focus of your startup idea. 

Who should participate? 

Any UMBC student (full or part time, graduate or undergraduate) with a dream, of launching his or her own business and who plans on actively pursuing that dream. 

Why participate? 

The CBIC is a next level competition designed to give aspiring entrepreneurs a real-life opportunity to experience every aspect of launching a startup. The competition will pair you with business mentors from the community and will give you practice presenting your idea to a panel of experts. It will also provide "real world" experience and helpful feedback. In addition to mentorship from real world experts, the program is also designed to connect students to the local entrepreneurial ecosystem. 

Winners also get seed funding for their businesses, and support from our sponsors including: 

·         Free legal services

·         Accounting advice 

·         Membership at the award winning Betamore campus in Federal Hill 

·         Fundraising advice & pitch practice with member of the Baltimore Angels 

Prizes: 

First Prize = $5,000

Second Prize = $2,000

Third Prize = $1,000

Don't miss tomorrow night's annual Cangialosi Business Innovation Competition on the 7th floor of the library. 

Watch UMBC's very own Entrepreneurs each give their live pitch to real Baltimore Investors and network with influential people from the Baltimore community. 

We can't wait to see you there! 

What is the Cangialosi Business Innovation Competition (CBIC)? 

CBIC is an opportunity for UMBC graduate and undergraduate students who aspire to fulfill entrepreneurial pursuits. Participants will experience the process of planning a startup business by submitting a competitive and realistic 3-5 page business plan and qualifiers will present their idea in a final competition. 

NOTE: the CBIC requires that technology (mobile, web, etc), be a focus of your startup idea. 

Who should participate? 

Any UMBC student (full or part time, graduate or undergraduate) with a dream, of launching his or her own business and who plans on actively pursuing that dream. 

Why participate? 

The CBIC is a next level competition designed to give aspiring entrepreneurs a real-life opportunity to experience every aspect of launching a startup. The competition will pair you with business mentors from the community and will give you practice presenting your idea to a panel of experts. It will also provide "real world" experience and helpful feedback. In addition to mentorship from real world experts, the program is also designed to connect students to the local entrepreneurial ecosystem. 

Winners also get seed funding for their businesses, and support from our sponsors including: 

·         Free legal services

·         Accounting advice 

·         Membership at the award winning Betamore campus in Federal Hill 

·         Fundraising advice & pitch practice with member of the Baltimore Angels 

Prizes: 

First Prize = $5,000

Second Prize = $2,000

Third Prize = $1,000

Kate Brown, a professor of history, has received a prestigious research fellowship from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and is one of just 33 scholars nationwide recognized for their significant scholarship in humanities and social sciences as part of the 2016 Andrew Carnegie Fellows Program.

Brown was selected from a nomination process that entailed three levels of review and began with the Corporation seeking recommendations from more than 600 leaders from universities, think tanks, publishers, and nonprofit organizations nationwide. Fellows were selected based on originality, promise, and impact of their research, and each fellow will receive up to $200,000 in research support.

Brown’s proposal, titled, “Chernobyl’s Pale: Health, Controversy, and Science in Determining the Contours of Nuclear Disaster,” is a two-year study that is a continuation of her American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) fellowship to study the long-term effects of low doses of radiation on human health in the context of the Chernobyl disaster nearly three decades ago. Brown will use the fellowship to conduct a large scale investigation to historically analyze three decades of medical research on Chernobyl.

This year’s Carnegie Fellows class will conduct research aimed at addressing some of the world’s most pressing and urgent challenges, and the program supports established and emerging scholars, journalists, and authors whose work informs leaders in science, law, technology, business, and public policy.

“I’m hopeful that this fellowship will help bring greater visibility and support to the high-level scholarship that exists in the humanities and social sciences not only nationwide, but also here at UMBC,” Brown says. “I’m extremely grateful to my colleagues for their support during this process and to President Hrabowski for his nomination for this fellowship.”

“Our founder, Andrew Carnegie, charged Carnegie Corporation with the task of creating, advancing, and diffusing knowledge in order to enlighten American society and strengthen our democracy,” Carnegie Corporation of New York President Vartan Gregorian said in a news release announcing this year’s fellows. “This outstanding new cohort of 33 Carnegie Fellows is a result of that mandate.”

Brown is an award-winning author of A Biography of No Place: From Ethnic Borderland to Soviet Heartland (Harvard, 2004), Plutopia: Nuclear Families in Atomic Cities and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters (Oxford, 2013), and Dispatches from Dystopia: Histories of Places not yet Forgotten (University of Chicago, 2015). She received the 2015 University System of Maryland Board of Regents’ Faculty Award for Excellence in Scholarship/Research/Creative Activity. Read more about her work on the history department website.

The anticipated result of each Carnegie Fellowship is the publication of a book or major study.

Susan Hockfield, president emerita of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), chaired the panel of jurors responsible for reviewing this year’s proposals, and noted that, “the large number of truly outstanding proposals makes the jury’s task difficult, but it also renews our confidence that social science and humanistic perspectives will- and must- contribute to designing solutions to today’s most complex challenges.”

For news coverage of the announcement, see below:

Announcing the 2016 Andrew Carnegie Fellows (Carnegie Corporation of New York)
Foundation names 33 Andrew Carnegie Fellows winners (New York Times)
Foundation names 33 Andrew Carnegie Fellows winners (ABC News) 
Carnegie fellows (Chronicle of Higher Education- scroll to bottom of page) 

In related news, on April 26, Time published an article by Brown that examined the health effects and attempts to contain radiation after the Chernobyl disaster that happened thirty years ago. Read “Chernobyl at 30: How attempts to contain the radiation failed” in Time. 

Image: Kate Brown. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.