Each year, the UMBC Alumni Association presents awards to honor alumni for their professional and personal achievements and service to the University.   Learn more about our past award winners.

Outstanding Alumnus
Social & Behavioral Sciences
Eric A. Carlton ’91, Africana Studies

After becoming the youngest high school principal in the country at age 29, Eric A. Carlton ’91, Africana studies, later launched Banner Schools, a private company that partners with public school districts to provide a successful educational environment for at-risk youth. The company has three schools in Chicago, one in Miami, and will open another in Detroit. Together, the schools serve some 500 middle- and high-school students from the most troubled environments. A former UMBC SGA vice president and president, member of the men’s soccer team and tutor for the Shriver Center’s Choice Program, Carlton has received numerous accolades for his services as an educator.

Distinguished Service Award
Eli Eisenberg ’86, Interdisciplinary Studies

Eli Eisenberg ’86, interdisciplinary studies, is connected to UMBC through both service and philanthropy, as a member of the board of UMBC’s Alex. Brown Entrepreneurship Center, the “Exceptional by Example” Alumni Campaign Committee and the 2016 Alumni Strategic Planning Committee. In addition, he has endowed a scholarship in the name of his parents that supports two students per year.  Eisenberg is founder and principal of VPC, Inc., a company providing multimedia production services, event management and studio and technology systems design. Guests at UMBC’s Commencement ceremonies and the spectacular 40th Anniversary celebration have seen VPC’s technical expertise at work.

Outstanding Alumna
Visual & Performing Arts
Sheila López ’92, Visual and Performing Arts -Theatre

After earning her M.F.A. from the Yale School of Drama, Sheila M. López ’92, visual and performing arts/theatre, founded Antecesores, a non-profit organization in Buffalo, NY, that advances, nurtures and celebrates Latino cultures through theatre. Antecesores (translated as “ancestors”) focuses in particular on programs for children, to allow them to explore and discover their cultural heritage. She also works to bring different generations of Buffalo’s Latino community closer together and to provide a cultural bridge between Latinos and those of non-Latino descent.

Outstanding Alumnus
Engineering and Information Technology
Robert S. Marshall ’88, Mechanical Engineering

Robert S. Marshall ’88, mechanical engineering, is president and CEO of AWS Convergence Technologies, better known as “WeatherBug.” Marshall pioneered the networking of weather instrumentation and cameras using the Internet, and has built this capability into the single largest network of weather stations and Internet cameras in the world.  Since it was launched in 2000, WeatherBug has become one of the top 10 news and information sites on the Internet. It is the leading provider of real-time, local weather for broadcast television and, through a landmark agreement with the National Weather Service, now also provides critical weather data to federal, state, and local government agencies.

Outstanding Alumnus
Natural & Mathematical Sciences
Joseph P. McCloskey ’81 M.S., ’83 Ph.D., Applied Mathematics

Joseph McCloskey, M.S. ’81, Ph.D. ’83, applied mathematics, is a senior cryptologic mathematician for the National Security Agency, where he has worked since 1968. As technical director of the agency’s Mathematics Research Group for the past 11 years, he is responsible for coordinating and supervising the professional training of newly hired mathematicians and statisticians. Throughout his career, Dr. McCloskey has received numerous citations, including the prestigious Presidential Rank Award in 2006 and the President’s Award from the Crypto-Mathematics Institute, the agency’s oldest learned society, in 2001. He is the author of more than 80 professional papers, and he has taught one course each semester at UMBC for 20 years

Outstanding Alumna
Humanities
Patricia A. Smith ’74, Ancient Studies

A distinguished attorney, Patricia A. Smith ’74, ancient studies, has acted as People’s Counsel for the State of Maryland, a special solicitor and chief counsel to the Baltimore Police Department for the City of Baltimore, and has served as an administrative law judge in the Maryland Office of Administrative Hearings, as an assistant United States Attorney for the District of Maryland and an assistant attorney general in the Office of the Attorney General for the State of Maryland. She is also an instructor at the Johns Hopkins University.

Andrew Sears, chair and professor of UMBC's Information Systems department, was recently an in-studio guest for Maryland Public Television's "Business Connection."

Sears discussed how the information technology (IT) job market is doing much better than conventionally thought. According to Sears, trends like decreased outsourcing, increased hiring and even signing bonuses for talented IT grads all add up to a booming IT job market for the Class of 2007.

Sears was invited by the show's producers based on UMBC's growing reputation as a statewide and national leader. According to the January 2007 issue of Computing Research News, UMBC ranks # 2 in IT degrees awarded by major US research universities. UMBC also continues to be the largest producer of information technology graduates in Maryland.

To watch the video online, visit the UMBC Informations Systems department's website.

During the fall semester and winter break, students from the New Media Studio returned to the Charlestown Retirement Community for another round digital storytelling. Following the success of last summer's project, Retirement Living TV agreed to extend the workshop which they hope will form the basis of an ongoing program of viewer-submitted content for the network. This time cameras from RL-TV and the New Media Studio followed the students and residents as they collaborated in the creation of eleven new stories. The documentary footage and stories will be a part of an upcoming series on the project to be aired on RL-TV. You can view a short feature about the project here.

GEST Center's Assaf Anyamba Helps to Slow Deadly Fever in Kenya

Photo Caption: UMBC/NASA scientist Assaf Anyamba.

Update: Feb. 9, 2007. Read more about Dr. Anyamba's work in the Baltimore Sun.

Recently, Assaf Anyamba, a research associate scientist at UMBC’s Goddard Earth Sciences and Technology (GEST) Center, got a first-hand look at how his research helped save lives.

Anyamba, an expert on using earth science satellite data to see the links between weather, disease and famine, was on personal travel in East Africa when an outbreak of Rift Valley Fever -- a deadly hemorrhagic disease -- began in Kenya. A similar outbreak the same time of year in 1997-1998 killed about 400 people.

But this time Anyamba and a team of earth science and public health colleagues from NASA, the Department of Defense and the USDA had seen the outbreak coming. Back in October, Anyamba and other scientists tracked satellite imaging data and weather forecasts predicting warmer ocean temperatures that would result in widespread and heavy rainfall and a spike in the mosquito population -- perfect conditions for Rift Valley Fever.

Photo Caption: Assaf Anyamba (right) surveys a typical breeding environment for Rift Valley Fever-carrying mosquitos northeast of Nairobi, Kenya. He is joined by Kenneth Linthicum (left) director of the USDA Center for Medical, Agricultural and Veterinary Entomology, and Elizabeth Kioko, a research entomologist with the DOD-Walter Reed Project, Kenya.

Thanks to their work, the Kenyan government partnered with international science and public health teams and had time to take preventative steps, such as outlawing the ritual sacrifice of cattle, sheep and goats during the Muslim Eid festival. These and other steps helped reduce human contact with likely animal carriers of the disease. This year's outbreak death toll was limited to 104 people so far.

Anyamba was tapped by the Department of Defense - Global Emerging Infections Surveillance and Response System (DoD-GEIS) and the World Health Organization (WHO) to monitor conditions associated with vector-borne disease outbreaks and provide early warning information to prevent and minimize the impacts of outbreaks such as the one in Kenya.

In recent months, he presented his findings on using earth science to prevent diseases like Rift Valley to various prestigious international health groups, including the WHO, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the U.S. Rift Valley Fever Working Group. In February and March, he will be doing assessment fieldwork in Kenya to monitor the success of the disease prevention efforts.

Image Caption: A map produced by Anyamba's research team predicted the Kenyan outbreak of Rift Valley Fever.

Anyamba's work helping to contain the outbreak received international media attention from the Associated Press, The Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, New York Times and many other major news outlets.

"This is a culmination of 10 years of dedicated work," said Anyamba. "It is a great pleasure to have the opportunity to translate scientific data and analysis results into products that benefit global public health."

Stephen Auvil, of UMBC's Office of Technology Development and the ACTiVATE Program, is invited to speak at the FemStart Conference in Stuttgart, Germany from February 14-15. The ACTiVATE Program will be featured as a best practice for training women to commercialize technology out of universities.

FemStart is an initiative funded by the European Commission’s 6th Framework Programme for Research and Technology within the Science and Society Priority. It will start a public debate on the issue of how female scientists can be motivated to start their own businesses after university.

For more information about FemStart visit the website at www.femstart.eu.

Initiative Seeks to Develop Entrepreneurs Outside of Business, Engineering Schools

UMBC has been awarded a $2 million grant to build entrepreneurship programs across the campus, joining a select group of colleges and universities receiving funding for entrepreneurship endeavors through the Kauffman Campuses Initiative.

The Kauffman Foundation initiated the three-year-old Kauffman Campuses Initiative to catalyze entrepreneurship programs outside of business and engineering schools. The Kauffman Foundation grant complements two substantial commitments already received by UMBC to support its Alex. Brown Center for Entrepreneurship. The first commitment is $1 million from Constellation Energy Group. The second is $1 million from the Herbert Bearman Foundation to establish The Bearman Family Chair in Entrepreneurship at UMBC.

The Kauffman Foundation grant acknowledges the success and potential of the Alex. Brown Center for Entrepreneurship, created six years ago through a gift of $1 million from the Alex. Brown Foundation to develop a leading university entrepreneurship center for the Baltimore region.

UMBC has developed three broad strategies to make entrepreneurship education a common and accessible experience for students in all majors: exposure of students and faculty to entrepreneurs and their expertise, creation of formal education opportunities and development of programs to give students and faculty experience in entrepreneurial settings.

UMBC, recognized for its culture of entrepreneurship education despite the absence of a business school, joins a prestigious group of institutions selected by the Kauffman Foundation for funding. The others are Arizona State University, Brown University, Carnegie Mellon University, Georgetown University, New York University, Purdue University, Syracuse University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

UMBC learned of its selection after a campus delegation, led by President Freeman A. Hrabowski, III, presented its proposal before an independent panel of judges at Kauffman Foundation headquarters in Kansas City, Mo., on December 12.

“This partnership gives UMBC the opportunity to take entrepreneurship programming to the next level,” says Vivian Armor, director of the Alex. Brown Center. “It will allow UMBC to expand course offerings for current undergraduates, graduate students and working professionals. It will improve programming that exposes students and faculty to important entrepreneurial concepts. Finally, the partnership will help develop systems to support individuals as they work to launch successful business ventures or address urgent challenges facing our communities through social entrepreneurship.”

The Alex. Brown Center supports the kind of entrepreneurial creativity and action exemplified by the creation of OpenPosting.com, the first online classified community for college students. Students Wan Hsi Yuan and Jason Servary, members of the Center’s student-run CEO Club, created the site. It has 1,500 registered users and receives roughly 4,000 page views per day.

Entrepreneurship at UMBC also thrives via the Alex. Brown Center’s summer entrepreneurship institute. In summer, 2006, UMBC’s first Faculty Summer Institute was held for eight faculty members representing the departments of music, dance, theater and visual arts. The institute was created to broaden faculty exposure to concepts of entrepreneurship and integrate into their curricula career development skills, internships and mentoring relationships with established entrepreneurs.

Participation by faculty was determined based upon proposals that demonstrated interest in learning more about entrepreneurship. Winning proposals from faculty included the exploration of marketing and audience development initiatives, the development of courses to help students understand professional careers in the arts and arts and non-profit organization management.

The Center also serves as one of the University’s partners in the ACTiVATE program, funded by the National Science Foundation to address the unique needs of accomplished women interested in starting technology companies. Eight women in the ACTiVATE program, established two years ago, now lead their own tech companies.

The Alex. Brown Center’s activities are complemented by such other initiatives as techcenter@UMBC and bwtech@UMBC, which offer specialized support geared specifically toward research and technology businesses. Through UMBC’s Shriver Center, a national leader in promoting community-based service and internship programs, businesses are introduced to undergraduate and graduate students interested in internship experience in career-related fields.

“The Alex. Brown Center augments the excellent education UMBC offers by giving students the proper toolset to interface with business leaders in their field of choice,” said Greg Barnhill,” chair of the Alex. Brown Center Board of Visitors and partner and member of the board of Brown Advisory Securities. “We offer students guidance on how to deal with people on a daily basis, compose quality written communication and verbalize opinions effectively.”

The grant is awarded with the expectation that UMBC will raise an additional $8 million toward entrepreneurship programs during the next five years.

The Kauffman Campuses Initiative began in 2003 with $25 million in funding to eight schools that provided entrepreneurship education within liberal arts, engineering and other non-business programs.

Selection of this latest round of Kauffman Campuses schools was based on a series of criteria, including the ability to generate a partnership with other foundations and funders and the potential to create new representative models.

“Our initiative is creating a cultural change and making the entire university system more entrepreneurial,” said Kauffman CEO Carl Schramm. “We want all students, not just those in business schools, to see the value of thinking like entrepreneurs. We want them to be able to recognize and seize opportunity when it presents itself, no matter what field they find themselves in.”

About the Alex. Brown Center

Established in 2000 through a gift of $1 million from the Alex. Brown Foundation, the Alex. Brown Center for Entrepreneurship is the hub of entrepreneurial-based activity at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). It provides an active link between the academic community and the corporate environment. Since its inception, the Center has worked closely with the Baltimore business community to create one of the leading university centers for entrepreneurship in the country housed at a mid-sized university. Information about the Alex. Brown Center is available at http://www.umbc.edu/entrepreneurship.

About the Kauffman Foundation
The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation of Kansas City is a private, nonpartisan foundation that works with partners to advance entrepreneurship in America and improve the education of children and youth. The Kauffman Foundation was established in the mid-1960s by the late entrepreneur and philanthropist Ewing Marion Kauffman. Information about the Kauffman Foundation is available at www.kauffman.org.