Baltimore, Md. -- A team from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) has won the 2002 National Academic Tech Bowl Championship, sponsored by the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE). The championship was held at NSBE Annual Convention in Orlando, Florida on March 29, 2002. The team received a $1,000 prize and a plaque commemorating their victory.

Team members included senior computer engineering major Jason Dixon, senior biochemistry major Raj Stewart, senior chemical engineering major Jason Sese, and senior computer engineering major Karolyn Babalola, who serves as the president of UMBC's NSBE chapter. In its march to the title, UMBC beat out teams from Tulane, the University of Washington, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

“We worked our way to the championship with strategy and knowledge of the subject matter,” says Babalola. Teams participating in the Tech Bowl answer questions in physics, chemistry, mathematics, engineering and NSBE history. “We were just better prepared than the other teams.”

UMBC's NSBE chapter was founded in 1993 and has a membership of about 45 students.