Capital Area Women in Computing Celebration, 2/24-25

The Capital Area Women in Computing Celebration, sponsored by ACM-W, will be held at Georgetown University on Friday, February 24th and Saturday, February 25.

The celebration will bring together women at the high school, undergraduate, graduate, and professional levels to promote the recruitment, retention, and progression of women in computing fields.

The cost of student attendance is modest: $50 with shared hotel room, or $25 without hotel. Scholarships are available as well.

To get more information and to register, visit the CAPWIC 2017 Web site.

Reasons to Attend

  • Share your work and ideas with your peers and experts during the poster session, flash talk, or technical short.
  • Be inspired. Meet technical women like you and celebrate your accomplishments together.
  • Hear success stories of technical women who made it this far!
  • Broaden your skills by attending a workshop.
  • Meet recruiters from business, industry, and academia for internships, jobs, or graduate programs.
  • Find a new job or internship. Bring your resume to our career fair to apply for job and internship opportunities.
  • Did we mention that it is FUN!

Six new SFS cybersecurity scholars to join UMBC in 2017

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Six new cybersecurity scholars were inducted into UMBC’s NSF-sponsored Scholarship for Service program in an event held in Germantown on October 20. Three are currently students at Montgomery College and three are from Prince Georges Community College. After they complete their associates degree in spring 2017, they will transfer to UMBC to complete their undergraduate degrees.

This pioneering cooperation between UMBC, Montgomery College, and Prince Georges Community College in cybersecurity is made possible by a grant from the National Science Foundation (Dr. Alan Sherman (UMBC), Joe Roundy (MC), and Casey O’Brien (PGCC), CoPIs). As part of their education, the SFS scholars will solve IT security problems for their county government.

As SFS Scholars, the students receive tuition, fees, annual reimbursement of professional development expenses, a nine-month stipend and assistance with federal cybersecurity internships and career placement.

Undergraduate Research Awards workshop, Noon Wed 10/26

Undergraduate Research and Creative Achievement Day features research, scholarship, and creative work carried out by UMBC undergraduates

UMBC’s Undergraduate Research Awards provide up to $1,500 to undergraduate students to support their research or creative work with a UMBC faculty mentor on an original project. UMBC students of all years and disciplines are invited to apply, as long as they will remain enrolled at UMBC long enough to complete the proposed work.

An informal workshop on the opportunity and how to apply for an award will be held from Noon to 1:00pm on Wednesday, 26 October 2016 in Sondheim Hall 103.

You can hear about the process and doing research as an undergraduate student from current and past URA mentors Dr. Lee Blaney of the Chemical, Biochemical, and Environmental Engineering department, Dr. Carolyn Forestiere of the Political Science department and Dr. Luis Pinet-Peralta of the Health Administration and Public Policy department. At least one or two current or former URA Scholars will also be in attendance to discuss their experience in the program.

Register for the URA Workshop here.

Pick Your Classes Extravaganza, Noon Wed 10/26 UC312

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Registration for the Spring 2017 semester begins on November 1. If you are still unsure what classes you should take, come to the CWIT-sponsored Pick Your Classes event and share your thoughts with other students in your major.

Computing and engineering students are invited to join the Center for Women in Technology (CWIT) for their fall semester Pick Your Classes event on Wednesday, October 26, from 12-12:50pm in UC 312. Bring your plans and thoughts about your classes for the spring semester and get advice from others in your major. Also, be prepared to offer your advice to fellow COEIT students. Feel free to bring friends in computing and engineering majors who you think would benefit from this event. Pizza will be provided.

Career and internship opportunities at Google, 9/29-30

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Interested in learning more about Google?
Come hear it from Googlers and UMBC alumni!

On Thursday Sept. 29 and Friday Sept. 30, Google host hour tech/culture/info talk events on campus for UMBC students to learn more about Google and the internship and career opportunities it offers to students. They will have food, swags and many internship and full time opportunities for students.

Check out the details below and register for the event(s) HERE, if you’re interested in Google opportunites make sure to include a soft copy of your resume.

THE DEETS

Who: Except the first event on Thursday 09/29, at  1pm that is designed for PhD engineering students, all Computer Science and Engineering students regardless of degrees they are pursuing, and anyone else with an interest in software development are welcome!

Why: Learn more about Google’s hiring process, culture, technology, job and/ internship opportunities, and more! – directly from a Googler!

What to do next?: Register for the event HERE! Make sure your resume and LinkedIn profiles are up to date (feel free to link both in the form above) and of course come with lots of good questions!

Here’s information on the four events:

  • What: Info Sharing: Google PhD Info Session for PhD CS/Engineering Students
    When: 9/29, Thursday, 1pm – 3pm
    Where: Commons 318 RSVP: RSVP Form
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  • What: Info Sharing: Resume Tips & Tricks for Technical Opportunities
    When: 9/29, Thursday, 4pm – 5pm
    Where: Commons 331 RSVP: RSVP Form
  •  

  • What: Talk and Workshop: Google Technical Interview Prep Workshop
    When: 9/30, Friday, 1pm – 2:30pm
    Where: Commons 331 RSVP: RSVP Form
  •  

  • What: Tech Talk: Google AppEngine, Simple & Scalable Solution for Startups
    When: 9/30, Friday, 3pm – 4pm
    Where: Commons 329 RSVP: RSVP Form
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CSEE lecturers receive grant to reduce academic integrity violations in CS classes

CSEE lecturers Katherine Gibson and Jeremy Dixon received a Hrabowski Fund for Innovation seed grant to study, develop and evaluate ways in which the campus can reduce academic integrity violations in computer science classes.

Their goal is to improve student support for academic integrity practices with a focus on UMBC’s first and second classes in Computer Science, CMSC 201 and CMSC 202. The team will implement an improved system for educating students on class policies that uses aural and visual resources and a mandatory quiz to test comprehension. The new approach will also include developing and promoting supplemental academic opportunities for students struggling with course material.

Established in 2012, the Hrabowski Fund for Innovation supports initiatives to enhance teaching and learning at UMBC, with specific emphasis on innovative approaches to increase student success. The competition is open to all tenured and tenure-track faculty; clinical instructional faculty; and lecturers, instructors and staff with full-time appointments. Proposals for the next round of Innovation Fund grants are due by October 14, 2016.

Consider pursuing an advanced degree in computing

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The Computing Research Association has published five short videos to explain the benefits of pursuing a PhD in a computing discipline. The videos showcase young researchers with PhDs who are now working in industry as they talk about what compelled them to pursue a doctorate and how they are using their advanced training in their work. The videos illustrate how a PhD is useful in industry as well as in academia.

 


Click to watch all five videos or select one below.
  • Video 1: Adrienne Porter Felt (PhD Berkeley) talks about her work on security at Google.
  • Video 2: Hoda Eldardiry (PhD Purdue) talks about her work on predictive analytics, using machine learning and data mining at Palo Alto Research Center (PARC)
  • Video 3: Susanna Ricco (PhD Duke) and Mac Mason (PhD Duke) at Google talk about their work in robotics and vision.
  • Video 4: Richard Socher (PhD Stanford) talks about his work in artificial intelligence at Salesforce.
  • Video 5: Tiffany Chen (PhD Stanford) talks about her work in bioinformatics at Cytobank.

Travel grants for students to attend 2016 Grace Hopper Conference

Google will fund travel grants to the 2016 Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing Conference (GHC) which takes place in Houston, Oct 19-21, 2016. The GHC is the world’s largest gathering of women technologists and offers many valuable resources to students and academics alike, from a Student Opportunity Lab to tracks specifically designed to educate and inspire faculty. Its career fair, one of the largest in the U.S., earns a 97% satisfaction rate from our student survey respondents.

University students and industry professionals in the US and Canada who are excelling in computing and passionate about supporting women in tech can apply for a travel grant to attend the 2016 Grace Hopper conference. Sponsorship includes: conference registration, round trip flight to Houston, TX, arranged hotel accommodations from October 18-22, $75 USD reimbursement for miscellaneous travel costs and a fun social event with your fellow travel grant recipients on one of the evenings of the conference.

Apply by Sunday, July 10 using this online form. The Grace Hopper Travel Grant recipients will be announced by July 27th.

Microsoft Student Partners program

Microsoft Student Partners (MSPs) are student technology leaders, empowered to build Microsoft communities on their campus and share their deep knowledge and passion for technology with their fellow classmates.  See here for more information. Apply by 15 July 2016.

UMBC students demonstrate smartphone applications, 12:30-2:30 Tue 5/10

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7919_New Faculty 2009 Nilanjan Banerjee Computer Science and Computer Engineering

Student groups drawn from two UMBC classes will demonstrate twelve mobile applications they developed as projects from 12:30 to 2:30 on Tuesday, 10 May 2016 in the UC Ballroom. Pizza will be provided.

The projects are a result of an innovative collaboration between a computer science class lead by Professor Nilanjan Banerjee (CMSC 678 Mobile Computing) and a visual arts class lead by Professor Viviana Chacon (ART 434 Advanced Interface Design).

The two faculty were awarded a grant from the fall 2015 round of the Hrabowski Fund for Innovation competition to develop and evaluate the collaboration between the two courses. The classes held regular joint sessions and each project group comprised students from both Engineering and Visual Arts.

In ART 434 Prof. Cordova concentrated on the visual experience of the interface in mobile and desktop applications, while in CMSC 628 Prof.  Banerjee provided the tools necessary to design and implement mobile applications.  Specific mobile development topics such as user interface design and implementation, accessing and displaying sensor and location data, and mobile visual design were co-­‐taught by both instructors.  Teams comprising Engineering and Visual Arts students designed and built mobile applications for local clients in Baltimore and Washington DC area.

poster describing the event has brief descriptions of the twelve class projects.

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