The College of Natural
and Mathematical Sciences (CNMS) has numerous faculty members
who represent excellence
in their various disciplines and many talented staff members who support the departments and these faculty members. Research and position descriptions with contact information
for the CNMS faculty and staff members are provided for each of the four
departments in the following links:
Biological
Sciences - Dr. Lasse Lindahl, Professor and Chair
Chemistry
and Biochemistry - Dr. William R. LaCourse, Professor
and Chair
Mathematics
and Statistics - Dr. Nagaraj K. Neerchal, Professor and Chair
Physics -
Dr. L. Michael Hayden, Professor and Chair
Two CNMS faculty members and one staff member were honored
at the Presidential Faculty and Staff Awards Ceremony at
UMBC on April 1, 2009 in the UC Ballroom. Ramachandra Hosmane, Professor in the Department of Chemistry
and Biochemistry, was recognized as Presidential Teaching Professor,
2009-2012, and Thomas Cronin, Professor in the Department of Biological
Sciences, was recognized as the Presidential Research Professor,
2009-2012. Dennis P. Cuddy, the Manager of Administration and Facilities for the Department of Chemistry and Biology, was honored as the 2008-2009 University System of Maryland Board of Regents' Award for Exceptional Contribution to the Institution. Dr. Hosmane will make brief remarks at Convocation
2009 on Monday, August 31, from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m.
in the Retriever Activities Center.
Thomas Mathew, Professor of Statistics, was named as the Presidential Research Professor, 2008-2011, and Danita Eichenlaub, Associate Director of GEST and JCET, received the Presidential Distinguished Staff Award, Professional Staff, 2008-2009 at the UMBC Presidential Faculty & Staff Awards Ceremony on April 9, 2008.
Dr. Ray Hoff, Professor of Physics, was selected as a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society. Dr. Hoff directs JCET and GEST, two collaborative NASA-UMBC research centers, and is recognized for his expertise on air pollution, climate and the atmosphere.
Dr.
Manil Suri,
Professor of Mathematics, who was selected to receive one of four
Wilson H. Elkins Professorships awarded for FY 2008 in recognition
of his work to foster interest and learning in mathematics among
K-12 students and the general public. Many outstanding scholars have
received this award,
which represents the first permanent endowed, university-wide professorship.
It was initiated in 1978 in honor
of Wilson H. Elkins, a former University of Maryland president,
and was expanded to include the USM family in 1988.
Dr. Robert
C. Reno, Associate Professor of Physics, was recognized for
his outstanding contributions to the education of graduate and
undergraduate students over his 33-year teaching career at UMBC.
Selected as the UMBC Presidential Teaching Professor, 2007 - 2010,
Dr. Reno was honored at the UMBC
Presidential Faculty & Staff Awards Ceremony on April 11,
2007.
Dr.
Jeff Leips, Assistant Professor of Biology, was
selected to participate in the Geneticist-Educator Network of
Alliances (GENA), a project funded by a grant from the National
Science Foundation to the American
Society of Human Genetics and the Genetics
Society of America. Over the next year, Dr. Leips will work
with Lissa Rotundo, a high school biology teacher at nearby Baltimore
Polytechnic Institute, to develop and assess the success
of inquiry-based teaching modules for Properties of Inheritance.
Ms. Rotundo is an alumna of the 2004-2005 Teacher
Quality in Biology (TQB) Program at UMBC. The Leips/Rotundo
team will attend a three-day GENA workshop this summer in Bethesa,
MD and will then work on a high school curriculum piece for use
throughout the following academic year. Dr. Leips is one of only
12 geneticists, from more than 80 applications, who was selected
for the first cohort.
The conference, Advances
in Control of Partial Differential Equations, was held at
UMBC from October 28 to 29, 2006 in honor of Dr.
Thomas I. Seidman's outstanding scientific contributions
on the occasion of his 70th birthday and 35th year of service
to UMBC. The conference featured a scientific program centered
around plenary sessions by invited speakers, a panel discussion
dedicated to future directions of the field and a poster session.
The conference was supported by NSF and UMBC.
Rachel
M. Brewster, Assistant Professor in the Department of Biological
Sciences at UMBC, was honored on July 26, 2006 with the Presidential
Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), which provides
up to five years of financial support for research and community
outreach. Dr. Brewster will use the award to continue to involve
high school, undergraduate and graduate students in her lab's research,
which is focused on the genetic analysis of zebrafish embryos to
better understand the causes of birth defects of the brain and central
nervous system. She was one of three biologists nominated by the
National Science Foundation for this honor. Overall, former President Bush
honored just 60 young scientists for their leadership, research accomplishments
and educational contributions. (UMBC
News and Events article)
Breakthrough Science by UMBC Physics Faculty in the area
of
Active Galactic Nuclei
Dr. Jane Turner and Dr. Ian George, with collaborator Dr. Lance Miller
(Oxford University, U.K.) were awarded one of the longest observations
(500 ksec exposure) ever undertaken by the XMM-Newton satellite,
to observe an interesting "active" galaxy,
Mkn 766. The data have yielded a long-sought result, a tight correlation between
the strength of an emission line from the K-shell of Fe atoms (the strongest
line visible in the X-ray band) and the X-ray continuum flux that illuminates
the accretion disk. This long-sought correlation offers a breakthrough in understanding
the fundamental process of accretion onto a black hole (and ultimately the
co-evolution of supermassive black holes and their host galaxy.
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