President Hrabowski Speaks at NCSU Convocation
President Freeman Hrabowski was a guest speaker at North Carolina State University's Convocation ceremony.

Lou Cantori, Political Science, to Give Keynote Address
Professor of Political Science Lou Cantrori was invited to give the keynote address to the fall faculty assembly at Metropolitan State University (St. Paul, MN) on September 18. The topic of the assembly is "Student Centered Teaching and Learning."

Undergraduate Allison Buckley Wins Taking It Global Photo Contest
UMBC junior Allison Buckley won TakingITGlobal Gallery's July photo contest. The gallery is one of the world's largest and most diverse online collections of youth artwork. Thousands of pieces of artwork have been submitted by youth from more than 50 countries. TakingITGlobal (TIG) is an international organization helping youth find inspiration, access information, get involved, and take action to improve their local and global communities. It is the most popular online community for young people interested in connecting across cultures and making a difference, with hundreds of thousands of visitors each month. TIG also works with global partners--from UN agencies, to major companies, and especially youth organizations--in order to build the capacity of youth for development, support youth artistic and media expression, make education more engaging and involve young people in global decision-making.

UMBC Alumna to Serve as Peace Corps Volunteer in East TimorEunice Eun Hae Ban, biological sciences and psychology '03, has been accepted into the Peace Corps. She will be departing for East Timor on August 13 to train and serve as a community development volunteer. Ban will focus on enhancing the development of community-based organizations while increasing participation of rural communities in their own development.

"I've always had a strong desire and will to help others in need and help, somehow, to promote peace in our world today," says Ban. "The Peace Corps has found a very realistic and genuine approach to fulfill these dreams: integrating our lives by living and working with communities in developing countries."

Ban joins the 107 UMBC graduates who have served in the Peace Corps since the agency was established in 1961. Today 10 UMBC alumni are working in places such as Niger, Ecuador, Kazakstan, Costa Rica and Madagascar.

Lauren Traber '03 Named Assistant Women's Lacrosse Coach at UMBC
A standout on the field during her four-year tenure for the Retrievers, Lauren Traber information systems '03, has been named assistant women's lacrosse coach at UMBC after serving as a volunteer assistant coach during the 2004 campaign.

Traber tallied 83 goals and 105 points as a midfielder for UMBC. She recorded her best season in her senior year, tallying 35 goals, 42 points and 60 ground balls. She earned First Team All Northeast Conference honors in both 2002 and 2003 and served as one of the team's captains in both seasons.

UMBC Student Honored by the Computing Research Association as an Outstanding Undergraduate
UMBC undergraduate Katherine Hirsch received honorable mention in the Computing Research Association's tenth annual CRA Outstanding Undergraduate Awards competition, which recognizes undergraduate students who show outstanding research potential in an area of importance to computing research. The awards were presented on July 28 at the 2004 National Conference of the American Association of Artificial Intelligence in San Jose, California.

The candidates, nominated by their departments, had to be majoring in computer science, computer engineering, or an equivalent program and possess outstanding research potential, academic talent and achievements. The 2004 awards were made possible by the generous support of Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs. Microsoft Research and Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs sponsor the awards in alternate years.

Katherine will graduate from UMBC in December 2004 with a BS in computer science and a BA in imaging and digital arts with a concentration on animation. Her emphasis has been on the intersection of these two fields, encompassing computer graphics from two sides--the technical details of algorithms and current research, as well as the artistic aspect of the content. She has worked with Professors Mark Olano and Penny Rheingans in the CSEE Department and is a student fellow in the UMBC Imaging Research Center. In addition to her strong academic work in two majors, she has been very active with the Center for Women and Information Technology and is a varsity pole vaulter.

CSEE Student Team Wins Second Place in Supply Chain Contest
A team of three graduate students from the UMBC Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering developed a software agent that won second place in the finals of the 2004 Trading Agent Competition for Supply Chain Management held in New York City on July 22, 2004.

Guang Huang, Yang Yu, and Xu Fei developed an agent that competed in a field of 30 entries implemented by teams from universities, research labs and companies from around the world. Each agent acted as a virtual computer manufacturer that interacted over the Internet with other software agents representing virtual suppliers of computer components and customers for the completed PCs.

The agents participated in rounds in which they competed for customer orders and for procurement of a variety of components over a period of several months. Each day customers issued requests for quotes and selected from quotes submitted by the agents, based on delivery dates and prices. The agents are limited by the capacity of their simulated assembly lines and have to procure components from a set of eight suppliers. Four types of components are represented in the game: CPUs, motherboards, memory, and hard drives with several varieties of each type. Customer demand comes in the form of requests for quotes for different types of PCs, each requiring a different combination of components.

The UMBC agent competed in a series of qualifying and seeding rounds during June and July and, based on its performance, was invited to participate in the final contest held at Columbia University as part of the Third International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi Agent Systems. The final showdown involved six agents that bought and sold for eight hours, simulating over eight years of business. The UMBC agent ended the contest with a simulated profit of over $120 million.

Derek McElligott, Men's Soccer, Honored by College Soccer News
UMBC senior forward Derek McElligott was recently named Third Team Pre-Season All America by College Soccer News.

McElligott is a three-time First Team all conference standout and earned Second Team All South Atlantic region honors in his last two years. He enters the 2004 season with 38 career goals, already third on UMBC's all-time scoring list and within range of school record-holder Ray Ford's (1977-18) 51 career goals. McElligott needs just four goals to surpass current Baltimore Blast standout Giuliano Celenza (1999-2000) and become UMBC's Division I all-time leading scorer.

In addition, UMBC was ranked #38 in the 2004 College Soccer News Top 30 National Poll. The Retrievers were among 20 teams cited as those "To Keep An Eye On" by the Web site.