Assistant Professor of History Kate Brown recently received two significant awards for A Biography of No Place: From Ethnic Borderland to Soviet Heartland (Harvard University Press, 2004). The book received the American Historical Association's prestigious George Louis Beer Prize, given for outstanding historical writing on any phase of European international history since 1895. She previously received the Heldt Prize awarded by the Association for Women in Slavic Studies.

"Kate Brown is already an extraordinarily accomplished scholar, one of the rare historians to win one of the profession's major prizes so early in a career," said John Jeffries, professor and chair of the history department. "She also deserves recognition as an innovative teacher who is committed to enhancing student engagement and learning in her classes."

A Biography of No Place is a travelogue, an unusual genre for a study of archival history. "I wrote this history as a travelogue because it is about marginalized people who did not leave a mark in archives, and so the historian must go in search of the traces they left behind," said Brown.

In her book Brown describes her travels throughout the borderland between Russia and Poland, where people later identified as Poles, Germans, Jews, Ukrainians and Russians lived side by side in 1925. Over the next three decades, these cultures were homogenized out of existence, the result of Soviet and Nazi rule. By the 1950's, this "no place" emerged as an ethnically-pure Ukrainian heartland, because the diversity that defined the region was destroyed. Combined with ethnography and research in recently opened archives, her experiences and oral interviews provide a poignant story of the annihilation of a rich, culturally complex borderland.

"If we widen the scope of history to include people at the margins of society, we can see the destruction that lies in the wake of progress," said Brown. "The deportees are some of the most inspiring people I've ever met in my life. They are amazed that someone cared about their stories, but they're not bitter; despite deportation and a life in exile, they carry on."

(7/05)

A New Look for UMBC’s Homepage

Update: Stepping Back and Looking Forward
(9/8/05)

Okay, we heard you, and here are ways you said the new UMBC homepage and website could be improved:

• Launch both together;
• Improve design to reflect UMBC’s energy and quality;
• Use more campus photos, similar to the new About UMBC;
• Make myUMBC a more prominent homepage link;
• Consider vertical scrolling layout;
• Study peers and competitors;
• Tighten programming to adhere to contemporary web standards.

So, we’re stepping back and will launch a new UMBC web presence in Summer 2006—homepage and all. We’ve turned off comments to the original story below, but if you’d like to learn what we plan to do (and offer new comments) click here. Future updates will appear on the Webteam blog and be linked to About This Site on the current homepage.

---

In late September, UMBC’s homepage will have a brand new design. While the existing navigation and features will not change, the new homepage will have a fresher look and more information about University events and news, as well as photos of the campus. This week, we’re providing a sneak preview of the new homepage at http://www.umbc.edu/index_new.html and an opportunity for the campus community to submit comments at www.umbc.edu/oit/webdev/news.

Designed by Jim Lord ‘99, associate director of creative services, the homepage is the result of conversations between eMedia, the University’s interdepartmental Web team, and the campus community. These conversations were the first phase of discussions with the UMBC community about a redesign of the entire UMBC Web site—including site structure, navigation, consistency and content—that will take place over the next 2005-06 academic year.

The new homepage includes expanded Campus Life and What’s New sections, and photos that promote upcoming events and highlight the campus, in response to comments from the UMBC community that the site should be more welcoming and include more campus images and information that supports the University’s many events and accomplishments. There’s also a new About UMBC site—designed by Michelle Jordan ’93, interactive designer and Jim Lord—with resources for both internal and external audiences, including facts, recent achievements and information on campus governance and administration.

“With the new homepage design and the upcoming site-wide redesign, we hope to improve the quality of content for our users, from facts to features that tell the UMBC story,”said Eleanor Lewis, assistant director of online information, who oversees content development and management for UMBC’s site. “I see my job as a partnership with members of the UMBC community, working closely with them so that I can provide up-to-date information and promote their events and achievements throughout our Web site.”

A similar redesign is occurring with myUMBC, the campus Web portal, to better serve current students, faculty and staff. Launched in 1999, myUMBC was one of the first generation campus portals in higher education. But the site needs a new technical infrastructure to support current and future needs, so the Office of Information Technology will be releasing a working beta version on or around September 19, and plans to launch a new myUMBC by the spring ’06 semester.

“College and university Web sites are challenging because they have to serve internal members of the community who know their institution better than many prospective, external users who don’t,”said John Fritz, director of New Media Learning & Development, and a member of the original Web teams that launched UMBC’s main site and portal. “We’re trying to redesign how all users experience UMBC’s Web presence.”

To help, Fritz and OIT have hired Jackie Ward as UMBC’s first-ever campus Web architect (and full-time Web employee). Ward will have lead responsibility for managing the top-level organization, navigation, usability and content management policies of the University’s main Web site and portal, informed by Web steering and advisory committees consisting of selected campus departments or stakeholders. She will also serve as the primary support staff member for departmental web developers to provide guidance, training and support to help improve their sites.

If you did not participate in our previous discussions about UMBC’s Web site or portal, there are still opportunities to provide input, and we’d love to hear from you. OIT and OIA are launching a UMBC Webteam blog where you can comment about the redesign of each site throughout the year. Alternately, you can send e-mail to webteam@umbc.edu.

(8/30/05)

 

 

 

 

 

Homeland Security for H20

It’s a post-9-11 scenario that most homeland security experts agree is not a matter of if but when: a “dirty bomb” attack in the United States.

Technically known as radiation dispersal devices or RDDs, dirty bombs combine conventional explosives with radioactive material, most likely cesium or cobalt stolen or scavenged from medical or industrial use. Often confused by the public with nuclear weapons, a dirty bomb’s primary impact is psychological, since while they could render an entire city block uninhabitable for quite some time, overall damage would be limited beyond that area.

Like many scientists since 9/11, Brian E. Reed, William and Lillian Hackerman Chair of Engineering and Chair of UMBC’s Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) Department, has studied how his field can contribute to homeland security. Reed has recently studied a serious side effect of dirty bombs: the toxic trickledown effect on the environment and water supply in the aftermath of an attack.

“If an RDD attack happened in our region, first responders would use water to extinguish fires and control dust at a detonation site, and the contaminants could ultimately end up in the Chesapeake Bay watershed,” said Reed. “The public health and environmental impact would vary depending on the type and potency of the attack, but the mass psychological impact would be significant, requiring a focused and immediate response.”

Reed realized that many available advanced technologies for cleaning up and limiting damage by dirty bombs were too complex and expensive to be practical in an emergency. He found that adsorbents ­ materials that cause the molecules of liquids, gases, and dissolved substances to adhere to the surfaces of solids ­ offered a more robust response and easier disposal of contaminants.

Under a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency grant, Reed and his graduate students are testing adsorbent materials in CEE laboratories located at UMBC’s Technology Research Center (TRC).

The civil and environmental engineering department (CEE) is part of a growing cluster of collaborative environmental research entities headquartered at UMBC, including the Center for Urban Environmental Research and Education (CUERE) (led by CEE colleague Claire Welty) and the Baltimore Ecosystem Study (BES).

A native of Buffalo, NY, Reed came to UMBC in 2002 from the University of Missouri-Columbia to help build on the success of department founder the late Dr. Severino “Bino” Koh and Reed’s CEE colleague Dr. Jack Gwo, a challenge that has him energized.

“It’s a great chance to build a new department that is not constrained by how civil and environmental engineering departments have operated in the past,” Reed said. “Our goal is to produce a different type of environmental engineer – one who is able to work closely with scientists and policy professionals in solving the complex environmental problems facing the nation. Working closely with CUERE, BES and departments such as geography and environmental systems gives our students a much broader outlook on how environmental problems are addressed.”

(9/12/05)

A New Look for UMBC’s Homepage

Update: Stepping Back and Looking Forward
(9/8/05)

Okay, we heard you, and here are ways you said the new UMBC homepage and website could be improved:

• Launch both together;
• Improve design to reflect UMBC’s energy and quality;
• Use more campus photos, similar to the new About UMBC;
• Make myUMBC a more prominent homepage link;
• Consider vertical scrolling layout;
• Study peers and competitors;
• Tighten programming to adhere to contemporary web standards.

So, we’re stepping back and will launch a new UMBC web presence in Summer 2006—homepage and all. We’ve turned off comments to the original story below, but if you’d like to learn what we plan to do (and offer new comments) click here. Future updates will appear on the Webteam blog and be linked to About This Site on the current homepage.

---

In late September, UMBC’s homepage will have a brand new design. While the existing navigation and features will not change, the new homepage will have a fresher look and more information about University events and news, as well as photos of the campus. This week, we’re providing a sneak preview of the new homepage at http://www.umbc.edu/index_new.html and an opportunity for the campus community to submit comments at www.umbc.edu/oit/webdev/news.

Designed by Jim Lord ‘99, associate director of creative services, the homepage is the result of conversations between eMedia, the University’s interdepartmental Web team, and the campus community. These conversations were the first phase of discussions with the UMBC community about a redesign of the entire UMBC Web site—including site structure, navigation, consistency and content—that will take place over the next 2005-06 academic year.

The new homepage includes expanded Campus Life and What’s New sections, and photos that promote upcoming events and highlight the campus, in response to comments from the UMBC community that the site should be more welcoming and include more campus images and information that supports the University’s many events and accomplishments. There’s also a new About UMBC site—designed by Michelle Jordan ’93, interactive designer and Jim Lord—with resources for both internal and external audiences, including facts, recent achievements and information on campus governance and administration.

“With the new homepage design and the upcoming site-wide redesign, we hope to improve the quality of content for our users, from facts to features that tell the UMBC story,”said Eleanor Lewis, assistant director of online information, who oversees content development and management for UMBC’s site. “I see my job as a partnership with members of the UMBC community, working closely with them so that I can provide up-to-date information and promote their events and achievements throughout our Web site.”

A similar redesign is occurring with myUMBC, the campus Web portal, to better serve current students, faculty and staff. Launched in 1999, myUMBC was one of the first generation campus portals in higher education. But the site needs a new technical infrastructure to support current and future needs, so the Office of Information Technology will be releasing a working beta version on or around September 19, and plans to launch a new myUMBC by the spring ’06 semester.

“College and university Web sites are challenging because they have to serve internal members of the community who know their institution better than many prospective, external users who don’t,”said John Fritz, director of New Media Learning & Development, and a member of the original Web teams that launched UMBC’s main site and portal. “We’re trying to redesign how all users experience UMBC’s Web presence.”

To help, Fritz and OIT have hired Jackie Ward as UMBC’s first-ever campus Web architect (and full-time Web employee). Ward will have lead responsibility for managing the top-level organization, navigation, usability and content management policies of the University’s main Web site and portal, informed by Web steering and advisory committees consisting of selected campus departments or stakeholders. She will also serve as the primary support staff member for departmental web developers to provide guidance, training and support to help improve their sites.

If you did not participate in our previous discussions about UMBC’s Web site or portal, there are still opportunities to provide input, and we’d love to hear from you. OIT and OIA are launching a UMBC Webteam blog where you can comment about the redesign of each site throughout the year. Alternately, you can send e-mail to webteam@umbc.edu.

(8/30/05)

 

 

 

 

 

Making the Most of Summer

 

Employers are more interested than ever in hiring UMBC talent: this year, the Shriver Center coordinated and secured nearly 800 internship and co-op placements in over 360 organizations, an increase of over 20 percent in a two-year period, said Christine Routzahn, the Center’s associate director of professional practice.

These programs help students gain professional skills and insight into a specific industry and establish a network of contacts.

This summer, 210 UMBC students participated in internships or co-ops through the Shriver Center. In their own words, here are just a few of the students who made the most of their summer:

Henrietta Akintoye, biochemistry, Meyerhoff Scholar

Internship: Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, Collegeville, Pennsylvania

“Wyeth is truly amazing! I am working on a project related to osteoporosis in the Women’s Health Research Institute. In addition to learning a variety of new skills, I am also gaining a fresh perspective and appreciation for research. Every time a drug gets placed on the market, I can see firsthand how research provides for many, new and innovative health solutions.

“I am also learning a great deal outside of the laboratory scene. I have been able to connect with many Wyeth employees, hear of how they have worked to succeed in the pharmaceutical industry, and also receive pertinent advice as to how I can reach and fulfill my personal goals.”

Jonathan Bratt and Eleanor Pittinger, emergency health services

Internship: London Ambulance Service (LAS), London, England

Bratt and Pittinger worked with the LAS about a month before the London bombings. “We were able to study and experience first-hand the deployment of LAS’ Emergency Medical Services System throughout London,” said Bratt. “We were also given the rare opportunity to ride with London’s Multi-Agency Initial Assessment Team (MAIAT), a specialized team of firefighters, paramedics and police officers that have been trained—around the world—in all types of disaster, WMD and rescue situations. It was an experience like no other, and was definitely one of the most interesting aspects of our trip.

“When we graduate, we will have an excellent resource in our toolbox: the ability to describe and possibly implement another way of organizing emergency services in the U.S,” Bratt added.

“Jon and I have a lot to take back to UMBC and to our respective emergency organizations,” said Pittinger. “The similarities between patients and providers in the U.S. and the U.K. are so hard to ignore that it makes sense for our countries to exchange ideas, theories and methods.”

Cora Morrison, political science, and Edward Warner, M.A. program in intercultural communication

Internship: Maryland Department of Agriculture, Maryland Agriculture Land Preservation Foundation, Annapolis, Maryland

“As a political science major, working with a government agency gives me a valuable experience for future employment,” said Morrison. “I learned several new skills, including cartography and oracle databases, which may also prove helpful. I know that this experience has prepared me for future opportunities in my career and even graduate school.”

“My future academic plans are to attend law school,” said Warner. “In addition, my professional goal is to use my foreign language skills and understanding of intercultural and legal issues to help the needy. In my summer internship I’ve seen how statutes, leadership and security are all connected….I’ve learned the importance of the agricultural industry for societal, political and economic success.”

(8/15/05)

 

Researching a Cure for Alzheimer’s

 

In UMBC’s recently renovated Chemistry Building, Jesse Karr, a chemistry and biochemistry Ph.D. student, is standing over a brand-new electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectrometer, one of the more recent research acquisitions at UMBC and the ‘pride and joy’ of his mentor, Assistant Professor Veronika A. Szalai.

Karr is researching copper-metal ions and the influence they have on the neurodegenerative factor of Alzheimer’s disease. Copper plays a more important role in our bodies than most people realize, he said.

“Copper is actually biologically relevant; we all have a lot more copper in our bodies then most people know,” he says. “It has been implicated in A-beta fibril formation, the possible neurotoxic species and hallmark characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease. If you can figure out how copper is binding to these fibrils in an AD patient, you can hopefully figure out a way to take the copper out. In other words, if you can prevent copper from binding, you can potentially stop Alzheimer’s disease.”

Karr said he feels drawn to the study of chemistry, a bond that only grows stronger as his research at UMBC progresses. “People ask me, ‘Why are you involved in chemistry?’ And I realize that I’ve met really motivating, inspirational people in chemistry … it started in high school chemistry all the way up to my current advisor, Dr. Szalai. I think she’s a great mentor.”

Originally from New York, Karr received a B.S. in Chemistry from Plattsburgh State, one of the SUNY schools in the New York State University System. While he was hesitant to move, the outstanding faculty and the research opportunities at UMBC won him over.

“I did online searches for graduate schools and UMBC just kept coming up, so I started asking questions about it … I just kept looking into it and decided it was the best fit for me,” he says. “The equipment seemed a lot more advanced, the faculty was nice, I just got an overall better impression from UMBC.”

(7/25/05)

 

 

Inside the New York Times

Last semester, UMBC Retriever Weekly editors were invited to go “Inside the New York Times” to learn about day-to-day operations and to develop their journalistic skills. Joe Howley and Doug Miller, who recently became Retriever editor-in-chief and news editor, respectively, attended the Times’ annual symposium along with editors from over two dozen student newspapers across the country.

Students met with Times’ managing editors and correspondents to discuss how they cover the news and make decisions about editorial content, participated in a workshop on the editing process and exchanged ideas with other student editors.

“To be invited to attend the symposium was an honor,” said Howley. “And to be able to get insight into how such a major organization operates was invaluable.”

Miller added that he and Howley will apply some of that insight to the Retriever. “Visiting the Times was an informative and inspirational opportunity that will help us in our goal to continue improving our product and address the needs of the campus with increasing accuracy and efficiency,” said Miller.

“Joe and Doug have both worked very hard to improve the Retriever,” said Christopher Corbett, Retriever Weekly faculty advisor and English faculty member. “Going to the New York Times conference gave them exposure to serious journalism. They also got to meet and hear from their contemporaries at college and university newspapers—large and small—all over the U.S. We hope to do this again next year.”

Both Howley and Miller credit Corbett for helping Retriever editors and writers get real-world exposure at events like “Inside the Times” and at local and regional papers.

“Christopher Corbett is an invaluable asset to our paper because of his many years of experience working for the Associated Press and other large news organizations,” said Miller. “Thanks in large part to his guidance, members of our staff have been offered exciting internships at the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun and Patuxent Publishing, among other news organizations. A good percentage of the Retriever’s staff gain employment with local papers immediately after graduation.”

(7/5/05)

 

 

UMBC Astrophysicist Leads International Team of Scientists, Satellites

Contact: Chip Rose
UMBC News
410-455-5793
crose@umbc.edu
View/download High Resolution Images & Animation Online

An international team of scientists led by a UMBC astrophysicist has uncovered a rare type of neutron star so elusive that it took three satellites to identify it. The discovery highlights the complementary nature of European and U.S. satellites to reveal new insights about star birth and death in our galaxy.

The neutron star, an ultradense ember of an exploded star, was first seen by the European Space Agency's INTEGRAL satellite. The neutron star is in a "double hiding place," the scientists said: deep in a spiral arm of our Milky Way galaxy, obscured by dust; and buried in a two-star system enshrouded by dense gas.

The scientists couldn't immediately decipher the nature of the object, so they enlisted NASA's Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer and the newly launched Swift satellite to observe it in different wavelengths.

"Our Galaxy's spiral arms are loaded with neutron stars, black holes and other exotic objects," said Volker Beckmann of NASA and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County’s Joint Center for Astrophysics, lead author on a paper appearing in the Astrophysical Journal. "The problem is, the spiral arms are too dusty to see through. The right combination of X-ray and gamma-ray telescopes can reveal what's hiding there. And this provides new clues about the true star formation rate in our Galaxy."

Neutron stars are the core remains of supernovas, exploded stars once about ten times as massive as the Sun. Neutron stars contain about a sun's worth of mass compacted into a sphere about 15 miles across. The subject of today's announcement is a neutron star called IGR J16283-4838 in the direction of the spiral arm Norma, about 20,000 light years away.

IGR J16283-4838 is the seventh so-called "highly absorbed," or hidden, neutron star identified. Neutron stars, born of fast-burning massive stars, are intrinsically tied to star formation rates. They are also energetic beacons from a region too dusty to study in detail otherwise. As more and more are discovered, new insights about what is happening in the Galaxy's spiral arms begin to emerge, Beckmann said.

IGR J16283-4838 revealed itself during an outburst on or near its surface. Neutron stars such as IGR J16283-4838 are often part of binary systems, orbiting a normal star. Occasionally, gas from the normal star, lured by gravity, crashes onto the surface of the neutron star and releases a great amount of energy. Outbursts can last for weeks before the system returns to dormancy for months or years.

INTEGRAL, the Rossi Explorer and Swift each detect X rays and gamma rays, which are far more energetic than the visible light our eyes can detect. Yet each satellite has different capabilities. INTEGRAL has a large field of view, enabling it to scan the Milky Way galaxy for neutron star and black hole activity.

Swift contains a high-resolution X-ray telescope, which allowed scientists to zero in on IGR J16283-4838. The Rossi Explorer has a timing spectrometer, a device used to uncover properties of the light source, such as speed and rapid variations on the order of a millisecond. The Galaxy's spiral arms block visible light from reaching us, but not energetic X rays and gamma rays.

Simona Soldi, a doctoral candidate at INTEGRAL Science Data Centre in Geneva discovered the new, bright source with INTEGRAL on April 7, 2005. "We are always hunting for new sources," she said. "It's exciting when we find something so elusive. How many more like this are out there?"

Because gamma rays are hard to focus into sharp images, the science team used the X-ray Telescope on Swift on April 13 and 15 to determine a precise location. Swift confirmed that the light was "highly absorbed," which means the binary system was filled with dense gas from the stellar wind of the companion star. Starting on April 14, the scientists used the Rossi Explorer to observe the source as it faded away. This observation revealed a familiar light signature clinching the case for a fading "high-mass X-ray binary" with a neutron star.

"Piece by piece we solved this puzzle," said Dr. Jamie Kennea of the Swift science team at Penn State. "Swift was built primarily to detect gamma-ray bursts, so it was thrill to use the X-ray Telescope to do something quite different, to discover a neutron star."

INTEGRAL, the International Gamma Ray Astrophysics Laboratory, was launched in 2002. The Rossi Explorer and Swift launched in 1995 and 2004, respectively.

Thanks to NASA Goddard News for sharing this story.

Ph.D. Students Analyze Baltimore’s Inner Suburbs

“In scholarly literature, there is a lot of interest about inner suburbs, those older suburban communities near the central city. We found that these areas suffer from increasing poverty and declining incomes. Therefore, we set off to better understand these urban dynamics,” said Bernadette Hanlon, a public policy Ph.D. candidate at UMBC and one of two authors of “The State of the Inner Suburbs,” an analysis of the urban decline surrounding Baltimore.

“There is room for public policy to intervene, to stop this decline, to process and revitalize the suburban communities,” said co-author Thomas J. Vicino, public policy Ph.D. candidate. “We’re at a crossroads, where the suburbs haven’t declined as far as old Baltimore, and there is hope.”

Both Hanlon and Vicino are researchers at UMBC’s Center for Urban and Environmental Research and Education (CUERE). After a year of compiling massive amounts of data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Vicino and Hanlon developed a new system for classifying the suburbs that ring Baltimore’s beltway.

“Because the inner suburbs are juxtaposed by outer suburbs, there’s a lot of talk in Maryland of ‘smart growth,’ and where to direct new development,” said Vicino.

“The State of the Inner Suburbs” is currently under consideration for publication in the Journal of Urban Affairs. The data was presented at the national Urban Affairs Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah, and to a group of state legislators, politicians and other academics. It was also a front page story in the Baltimore Sun.

The report is potentially useful to legislators, from the migration of work and the composition of the work force to the deflation of property values. “I’d like to see the community and policy makers look to our research as a way to target investment in the communities,” said Vicino, while Hanlon added, “We’ve done analysis on Baltimore, and we hope to continue our research in a comparative context in other urban areas throughout the country.”

“The State of the Inner Suburbs” is available for download at: www.umbc.edu/cuere/inner_ring.

(6/20/05)