CSEE Faculty members Rick Forno and Marie desJardins were mentioned in a recent Baltimore Sun article, in which the Catonsville High School Cyber Club is interviewed as they prepare for the final round of the Maryland Cyber Challenge.

The Maryland Cyber Challenge & Competition, designed by Dr. Rick Forno, was created to encourage more high school students to consider STEM careers. This statewide cyber security competition consists of three competitive divisions: high school, college age, and professional. During the final round of the challenge, which takes place October 29th-30th, teams compete to solve increasingly complex tasks.

The popularity of the Maryland Cyber Challenge, and the recent proliferation of high school cyber clubs both tie into the state of Maryland’s plan to “put more of an emphasis on computer science education.” Professor Marie desJardins and Catonsville High School teacher Christina Morris are both part of CS Matters in Maryland, an NSF-funded project that seeks to “increase the expertise of high school computer science teachers in Maryland.”

The Baltimore Sun article and video can be found here.

UMBC Quantum Computation Seminar

Quantum Probabilistic Logic Programming

Radhakrishnan Balu
Army Research Laboratory

2:30-4:00pm, Tuesday, 28 October 2014, ITE 325B

We describe a logic programming language that supports Horn clauses, random variables, and covariance matrices to express and solve problems in probabilistic logic. The Horn clauses of the language wrap random variables and matrices to express probability distributions and statistical correlations, a powerful way to capture relationship between identical distributions that are not independent. A salient feature of the language is a mechanism to implement statistical ensembles and to solve the underlying SAT instances of probabilistic predicates using quantum mechanical machinery. We exploit the fact that classical random variables have quantum decompositions to build the quantum mechanical observables. We establish the semantics of the language in a rigorous fashion by considering an existing probabilistic logic language called PRISM with classical probability measures defined on the Herbrand base and extend it to the case of quantum probability. In the classical case H-interpretations form the sample space and probability measures defined on them lead to consistent definition of probabilities for well formed formulae. In the quantum analogue probability amplitudes are attached to H-interpretations facilitating the model generations and verifications via quantum mechanical superpositions and entanglements. The well formed formulae of the language can be cast as quantum mechanical observables and thus providing an elegant interpretation for their probabilities. We discuss several examples to combine statistical ensembles and predicates of first order logic to reason with situations involving uncertainty.Further studies include extension of the semantics to temporal logic constructs using quantum dynamic evolutions.

Radhakrishnan Balu is a computational scientist with a research focus on application of quantum mechanics to computation, communications, Chemistry, Physics, and biology. He has been working at the Army Research Lab since 2007 and uses D-wave system, a quantum annealer, and state-of-the-art quantum mechanics based software leveraging the high performance computing infrastructure for research. He has over 20 publications, including peer reviewed journal papers. He has five degrees in science and engineering, with a Ph.D in computational chemistry from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, an M.S in biotechnology from Johns Hopkins University, and a B.S in computer science from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.

Organizer: Prof. Samuel Lomonaco,

If you are interested in going on to graduate school after graduation, either directly or later, and either full-time and part time, you might attend the following workshop on Monday, October 27.

An Inside Look at Graduate School & Summer Research:
How to Prepare, Get Accepted, and Succeed

Evelyn S. Erenrich, PhD
Asst Dean, Rutgers Graduate School-New Brunswick
Rutgers University

12– 1pm, Monday October 27, 2014
Public Policy Bldg 105

In addition to discussing strategies for research success, I will spotlight exciting programs and interdisciplinary opportunities at Rutgers University, including a summer program, RiSE (Research in Science & Engineering). I will be joined by a UMBC alumnus, now a doctoral Fellow at Rutgers, who will give his personal perspective. Several current UMBC undergraduates who participated in our RiSE program last summer will discuss their experiences.

This session is arranged by the Meyerhoff Program, but all UMBC students are welcome. Students can also sign up for individual appointments before or after the presentation by contacting Ms. Alicia Hall, .

For a flyer and more details, see here. Please contact Dr. Erenrich if you have any questions (, 848.932.9286).

October 19-25th is National Chemistry Week (NCW). The theme for this year is “The Sweet Side of Chemistry: Candy.”

In conjunction with this week-long celebration of chemistry, each day the National Science Foundation has been highlighting a different “sweet molecule” in a stop-motion video post. These posts also give mention to the lead scientist(s) working on any relevant NSF research projects.

The video post about glucose mentions CSEE professor and NSF-funded engineer Gymama Slaughter, who has created a new type of sensor that is entirely powered by glucose. This wireless, implantable sensor can be used to monitor the blood sugar level in medical patients. A short video about the glucose sugar molecule can be found below.

You can find out more about National Chemistry Week here.

CSEE Professor Chintan Patel and computer engineering student Gurashish Singh recently demonstrated a prototype system that can detect distracted driving behavior at the ATPA expo, the largest gathering of industries involved with transportation. Their novel wearable proximity sensor-based system alerts drivers who show signs of falling asleep, being distracted or driving dangerously.

The project is a collaboration between Professors Ryan Robucci, Chintan Patel and Nilanjan Banerjee. The system was built by graduate students Gurashish Singh and Tsu An Chen. This short video shows some of the dangerous behaviors being detected.

UMBC CYBR MPS students Zack Rich and Jeff Scheier (pictured) are interns at the NIST National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) in Rockville, MD.

On October 15, 2014, they presented NCCoE use case projects to leading cybersecurity experts from both the private and public domains at the NCCoE’s fall Open House on education and workforce development.

Zack’s project aims to simplify the risk analysis and standards mapping for the health IT sector to create a bridge between security technologies and government standards recommendations. Jeff’s project focuses on providing a foundation for e-commerce businesses to implement easy and low cost network security systems.

Both students are enrolled in UMBC’s graduate cybersecurity program at the Universities at Shady Grove campus. CSEE lecturer and Assistant CYBR GPD Ben Shariati (also pictured) is the academic advisor for students in the NCCoE internship program.

UMBC will play an exciting role in strengthening our nation’s cybersecurity infrastructure through a new Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC) announced this week. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) awarded a contract to operate the center to the MITRE Corporation, which will partner with the University System of Maryland (USM) to carry out the center’s goals. UMBC and the University of Maryland, College Park are collaborators with MITRE and Anupam Joshi, director of the UMBC Center for Cybersecurity, will serve in a leadership role for UMBC.

The government sponsors fewer than 50 FFRDCs across the country, and all are designed to tackle complex, long-term problems of significant national interest. According to NIST, this is the first center that is “solely dedicated to enhancing the security of the nation’s information systems.” The contract to operate the FFRDC has a maximum amount of $5 billion over 25 years.

“Securing our cyber infrastructure requires government, industry, and higher education to work closely together, and this center makes that powerful collaboration possible,” says UMBC President Freeman Hrabowski. “Further, it solidifies Maryland’s role as the hub of cybersecurity in our nation.”

Maryland hosts a large number of federal agencies and companies on the cutting edge of cybersecurity, and the USM is nationally recognized for its research and education programs in the field. This vital combination means that the State of Maryland is uniquely positioned to successfully nurture this research and development center.

U.S. Senator Barbara A. Mikulski congratulated the USM and MITRE on this opportunity, saying, “This new center unites the knowledge of the government with the know-how of the private sector to develop cyber technology solutions needed to protect dot-com entities and make our cyber infrastructure more resilient.”

UMBC’s Anupam Joshi says, “While national security interests are usually central to the security conversation, this center will also work to meet the cybersecurity needs of individuals and businesses in a variety of sectors, such as healthcare and energy. Individuals and small and medium-size businesses constitute a major part of the nation’s cyberinfrastructure, but can lack the resources and technical expertise to respond effectively to cyber threats.”

This new FFRDC will support the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE), which NIST, the state of Maryland, and Montgomery County, Md., established in 2012 to help businesses secure their data and digital infrastructure by bringing together information security experts from industry, government, and academia. It will further the NCCoE’s goal to foster public-private collaborations to identify and solve today’s most pressing cybersecurity challenges.

“This new FFRDC supporting NIST’s NCCoE will be a major addition to Maryland’s existing strengths in cybersecurity,” says Karl Steiner, Vice President for Research at UMBC. “I am delighted about this new strategic collaboration with our colleagues at College Park and at MITRE, and about the opportunities to further expand and apply our scientific capabilities in an area of such critical importance.”

To learn more about this new collaboration, see the announcement from NIST and the joint announcement from MITRE and the USM.

Embodied Interaction: Systems, Experiments, Models

Rob St. Amant
North Carolina State University

1:00pm Friday, 10 October 2015, ITE 325b

Over the past several years, engineering models for human-computer interaction — models that predict and explain performance in quantitative terms–have received increasing attention. In this talk, I’ll give an overview of experimentation and modeling work in my lab, in the areas of mobile interaction, augmented reality, and accessibility. Our research attempts to provide insight into emerging areas of HCI, where interaction goes beyond conventional desktop user interfaces to encompass the influences of physical body movement and cognitive strategies on performance.

Robert St. Amant is an associate professor in the Computer Science Department at North Carolina State University; his degrees are from Johns Hopkins and the University of Massachusetts. He is on the editorial board of the Oxford Series on Cognitive Models and Architectures, and he is a former member of the steering committee for the ACM Intelligent User Interfaces conference. His current research is on human-computer interaction and cognitive modeling; past topics have included intelligent user interfaces, exploratory data analysis, and animal tool use. In 2012 his popular science book, Computing for Ordinary Mortals, was published by Oxford University Press.

Host: Tim Oates,

Last weekend, over 170 college and high school students converged upon UMBC for the second hackUMBC hackathon. This free event, spanning 24 continuous hours, brought students together to create, make, or otherwise “hack” together new technology projects, either individually or as a team. As with many hackathons, there was no limit to the type of technology students could work on — hackUMBC 2014 projects ranged from developing mobile apps and assistive/wearable technologies to applied virtual reality representations of cyberspace, a ‘smart’ autonomous tank, and reverse-engineering (and then porting to Linux) the Myo command protocol. The sky was the limit in terms of ideas and skill levels — indeed, many attendees were first-time “hackers” looking to learn programming or engineering concepts in an inclusive and fun environment.

Following opening ceremonies and brief remarks by the sponsors and UMBC President Freeman Hrabowski, participants took over the second floor ITE classrooms Saturday-into-Sunday before moving into the UC Ballroom to showcase their products before a panel of judges. Prizes were awarded for the most innovative, polished, complex, and useful ideas/technologies.

hackUMBC 2014 was well-supported by corporate sponsors, including Raytheon, Microsoft, Northrop Grumman, MITRE, and ClearEdge Solutions, among others. Campus partners included the Alex Brown Center for Enterpreneurship and the Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering. Additional support, participant encouragement, and round-the-clock motivational energy was provided by Mike Swift, chairman of Major League Hacking.

hackUMBC was organized and run by Michael Bishoff (Junior, CMPE), Randi Williams (Junior, CMPE), and Minhaz Mahmud (Senior, CMSC). CSEE’s Dr. Rick Forno serves as faculty advisor.

Special thanks to the UMBC volunteer judges Dr. Charles Nicholas, Shawn Lupoli, Geoff Weiss, and the many student volunteers who assisted in making the event a success.

Opening Ceremonies…

UMBC’s Sekar Kulandaivel (Junior, CMPE) talks about his summer internship at Northrop Grumman and what his team was able to “hack” together for the company…

UMBC President Hrabowski…

Hard at work through the day, night, and following morning…

Many attendees came prepared…

Showcase & Judging on Sunday …

For more information on hackUMBC visit the club’s website or contact the club at .

(photos by MLH and/or Rick Forno)

Each year, the UMBC Alumni Association presents awards to honor alumni for their professional and personal achievements and service to the University. The 2014 awards will be presented on Thursday, October 9, 2014, at an awards ceremony in the Performing Arts and Humanities Building on the UMBC campus.

This year’s Alumna of the Year for Engineering and Information Technology is Claudia Pearce (’89 M.S. in Computer Science and ’94 Ph.D. in Computer Science) who is currently the Senior Computer Science Authority at the NSA. In her time at the NSA, Pearce has created development programs for computer science and information technology new-hires to NSA, a short-course series on high-end topics in CS and IT, a summer intern program and organized a distinguished lecture series. In addition, she has created a computer science grants program with the National Science Foundation, for computer science education and outreach. She has also served on the Advisory Board of the Anita Borg Institute for Women in Technology.

Prior to becoming the NSA’s Senior Computer Science Authority, Pearce served as the Chief of Knowledge Discovery Sciences, where she directed a research team that created Knowledge Discovery applications.

From 2000-2003, Pearce was part of the Senior Technical Development Program. While involved with this program, Pearce collaborated with organizations such as the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab and Magnify Research, Inc., on topics such as “applications of data mining techniques to natural language processing.” As a Senior Computer Scientist from 1985-2000, Pearce conducted research in the area of databases and information retrieval systems.

Pearce received a B.S. in Mathematics from the University of Florida in 1973, graduating with High Honors and a Phi Beta Kappa distinction. She received an M.S. in Industrial and Systems Engineering from the University of Florida in 1974. In 1989 she received an M.S. in Computer Science from UMBC.  She also received a Ph.D. in Computer Science from UMBC in 1994.

Pearce has described UMBC’s campus atmosphere as “very collegial.” She goes on to describe her decision to attend UMBC vs. College Park, explaining that, “[When] I came to UMBC…it seemed like a really friendly place. It was very small at the time, so it seemed like it was accessible…whereas College Park was this really big, almost overwhelming kind of environment. And I liked the small environment, the close-knit environment that you get at UMBC.”

Pearce is currently involved in research at UMBC. Earlier this year, she helped to organize a workshop sponsored by the NSF and the Department of Defense, titled “Beyond Watson: Predictive Analytics and Big Data.”

The research that inspired the Beyond Watson workshop ties into questions that are relevant to information retrieval systems. Questions such as “how do you find the right documents out of very large collections of text?” and “what are the kinds of languages, tools, techniques, infrastructure [needed]…to build our own Watson?” Pearce notes that she’s “always been interested in databases, and in particular text and natural language databases, and this notion of answering questions.” Furthermore, information retrieval systems was the topic of her Ph.D. dissertation.

Claudia lives with her husband Jonathan Cohen in Glenwood, MD. She is “an avid snow skier, quilt maker and trumpet player.”