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Maryland Moments, July 2008 (New Programs, Awards, Grants) Baltimore Sun: "City Council President Stephanie Rawlings-Blake announced yesterday that Baltimore will for the first time contribute to a nine-year-old University of Maryland, College Park scholarship program aimed at public high school graduates. The $10,000 financial commitment to the Suzanne G. and Murray A. Valenstein Baltimore Incentive Awards Program marks the beginning of a long-term partnership between the city and the state's flagship university, Rawlings-Blake said. 'I certainly wish it could have been more, but considering it's been eight years with nothing, I'm glad we can celebrate the start of this partnership.' Established in 2000, the program awards a full-ride scholarship every year to one graduate from each of nine city high schools. ... 'More important than the $10,000 is the recognition of the City Council of the importance of this program to Baltimore,' said UM President C.D. 'Dan' Mote Jr. 'This is the first time we've been invited to meet the City Council. ... This is symbolically very important to us.' " A new optical method for detecting individual neutrons developed by the University of Maryland and the National Institute for Standards and Technology and a Wildfire tracking and management software tool developed by the University of Maryland and NASA have each been recognized by R&D Magazine as among the "100 most technologically significant products introduced into the marketplace" over the past year. CapWIN, the nation's first multi-state transportation and public safety wireless information network continues to grow rapidly in membership and capabilities, supported in part by $6.1 million in new Congressional earmarked funding. On July 28, this growth was showcased at a CapWIN briefing and demonstration on the campus of the University of Maryland that featured Congressman Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), CapWIN officials, first responders from Maryland, Virginia and the District, and university officials. Associated Press: "A University of Maryland center has received federal funding to study homegrown terrorist groups. The researchers will also study the effectiveness of counterterrorism strategies and efforts to build community resilience to attacks. University officials say the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, established in 2005, will receive nearly $12 million over three years from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The center, known as START, is developing what it says will be the world's largest and most comprehensive database of terror incidents. START hopes to have the database, covering all incidents since 1970, complete by the end of the year." NASA: "NASA's Constellation Program has selected 11 companies and one university to independently develop concepts that contribute to how astronauts will live and work on the moon. Each organization will conduct a 180-day study focused on a topic relevant to lunar surface systems. Selected organizations and topics are ... 'Minimum Habitation Functions': The Boeing Company of Huntington Beach, Calif., ILC Dover of Frederica, Del., and University of Maryland, College Park." Annapolis Capital: "Just blocks away from the State House, the Banneker-Douglass Museum offers visitors a unique look into Maryland's African-American history. Its latest exhibit, Seeking Liberty: Annapolis, An Imagined Community, runs through November 29th and commemorates the city's 300th anniversary. ... The museum is hosting the exhibit along with Archeology in Annapolis, the University of Maryland and the Historic Annapolis Foundation. Together the groups uncovered historical pieces belonging to some of Maryland's first European and African-American residents." A $100,000 grant from the Ford Foundation will help UM's David C. Driskell Center for the Study of the Visual Arts and Culture of African Americans and the African Diaspora take its publication and educational programs to new heights. "The Ford Foundation grant will help the Driskell Center's work to advance the field of African American art," says the Center's Executive Director Robert Steele. "The two-year grant will provide the resources we need to not only inspire the next generation of African American artists and scholars, but also help us reach new and diverse audiences around the country." Scholarship America announced that UM will receive $50,000 to execute its Dreamkeepers Emergency Financial Assistance program. The grant provided by the Wal-Mart Foundation will address the high dropout rates of college students who are faced with an unexpected crisis, such as medical expenses, job loss and other emergencies. ... The financial contribution from this program will help increase the graduation rate by providing emergency assistance to students who otherwise may be forced to drop out of school. Since its inception, the Dreamkeepers program has increased the retention rate of participating colleges to an average of 85 percent. Maryland Daily Record: "The Maryland Industrial Partnerships program (Clark School of Engineering) announced the approval of 22 research projects partnering Maryland companies with university researchers to develop high-tech products. Worth $3.6 million, the projects combine $1.8 million from participating companies and $1.8 million from MIPS, an initiative of the Maryland Technology Enterprise Institute at the University of Maryland. All funding goes to the university researchers. Eleven approved projects are in the field of biotechnology, three are in the area of homeland security and four are related to energy." MIPS matches University System of Maryland researchers with private companies. Nine of the 22 projects receiving awards are affiliated with College Park. Science & Technology As part of its new mission, the Deep Impact spacecraft has created a video of the moon passing in front of Earth as seen from the spacecraft's point of view 31 million miles away. Scientists involved in the UM-led mission are using the video to develop techniques to study alien worlds. "Making a video of Earth from so far away helps the search for other life-bearing planets in the Universe by giving insights into how a distant, Earth-like alien world would appear to us," said UM astronomer Michael A'Hearn, principal investigator for the Deep Impact extended mission called EPOXI. On July 4 2005, NASA's original Deep Impact mission, also led by the University of Maryland, made history and world-wide headlines, when it smashed a probe from the spacecraft into comet Tempel 1. Red Orbit: "Asteroids with moons, which scientists call binary asteroids, are common in the solar system. A longstanding question has been how the majority of such moons are formed. In ... the journal Nature, a trio of astronomers from Maryland and France say the surprising answer is sunlight, which can increase or decrease the spin rate of an asteroid. Derek Richardson, of the University of Maryland, his former student Kevin Walsh, now Poincaré Fellow in the Planetology Group in the Cassiopée Laboratory of CNRS at the Cõte d'Azur Observatory, France, and that group's leader, co-author Patrick Michel outline a model showing that when solar energy 'spins up' a 'rubble pile' asteroid to a sufficiently fast rate, material is slung off from around the asteroid's equator. This process also exposes fresh material at the poles of the asteroid." Society & Culture Army Times: "Every service member needs some minimum foreign language skills before deploying -- but that capability could require an extensive change in language and cultural training that would have to start long before they enter the military, a House subcommittee was told Wednesday. The House Armed Services oversight and investigations subcommittee, which has been looking at military programs for current and future operations, is now focused on language and cultural awareness training. The Defense Department has been working for years to expand language capabilities, both by training people already in the service and recruiting people who are proficient in another language. Richard Brecht, who heads a University of Maryland Center for Advanced Study of Language, said the military needs to do more. The Defense Department 'must have better recruitment, better educated recruits with communication skills and cultural knowledge,' he said. One big hurdle: Having a strong base of people with language skills requires training that should begin in elementary school -- outside the Pentagon's control, unless it starts subsidizing training. 'The Pentagon must lead language integration. You don't have to pay for it, but you can lead it,' said Brecht." Washington Post: "Brewing biodiesel, once a quaint hobby for green-minded citizens and budding chemists, is becoming more mainstream. The spike in gas prices is making fryer oil, the messy aftermath of super spuds and mozzarella sticks, a hot commodity... . In this region, two biodiesel co-ops have recently formed: Baltimore Biodiesel and the Green Guild Biodiesel Co-op, which was co-founded by two University of Maryland graduates.... Lately, Dan Goodman, a senior fellow for renewable energy at the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business and head of Biodiesel University, has fielded calls daily from people seeking information on making biodiesel. (Despite its name, Biodiesel University isn't a school to teach people how to make biodiesel; it's a mobile education lab aimed at getting students interested in science.)"
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 Information provided by the Office of University CommunicationsEmail University Communications at emailum@umd.edu |
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