1992

Kent Malwitz
Information Systems '92
Senior Consultant, ACI Group

As a senior consultant with the Baltimore-based ACI Group, an IT staffing and consulting company, Kent Malwitz uses his computer skills to help others. "When you can show positive benefits and take the hassle of IT away from companies and their employees, you get people back to thinking of IT as the business enabler it is intended to be," he says.

Malwitz's commitment to helping others doesn't end there. He also is a member of the Greater Baltimore Committee (GBC), an organization of business leaders dedicated to strengthening the region's business climate. "It's a way for me to become involved with the various issues that face the business community as well as the community in general," he says.

Malwitz serves on the GBC's Education Committee. He also was a recent participant in the GBC's leadership program, which enables business leaders to learn about and directly experience the issues that affect the region.

Malwitz credits UMBC with much of his career and personal successes. "My experience at UMBC helped shape much of who I am today. It was there that I learned the importance of a highly structured process in the deployment of technology solutions, a key factor in the success of technology-based projects. My experience also helped me to develop my leadership skills," he says. "Personally, I made great friends at UMBC, and it was there that I met my wife Katie!"

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1993

Chester Hedgepeth
Biological Sciences '93
Internal Medicine Resident, Harvard University's Brigham and Women's Hospital

Chester Hedgepeth became fascinated with science and developed a curiosity about diseases during high school. "Medicine seemed a logical choice," he says of his future career intentions.

It was a choice well made. Hedgepeth, now in his second year as a resident in internal medicine at Harvard University's Brigham and Women's Hospital, finds much satisfaction in his role as a physician. "For me, the most rewarding part of medicine is forming long-term bonds with patients and helping them to manage their chronic medical problems," he says.

A Meyerhoff Scholar while at UMBC, Hedgepeth is the first African American to earn both M.D and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Pennsylvania. He plans to pursue a fellowship in cardiology next. "I like the procedural aspect and the fact that there is a lot of cutting-edge research going on," he says.

As a cardiologist, he hopes to participate actively in that research. "I want to identify molecular factors associated with an increased risk for heart attacks and design therapeutics based on that research," he says.

Hedgepeth says UMBC was instrumental in his success. "The Meyerhoff Program was fundamentally important to my development both as a person and as a physician," he says.

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1994

Pamela Smith
Interdisciplinary Studies '94
Staff Attorney, Legal Aid Bureau

After receiving her degree in interdisciplinary studies, Pamela Smith, now a staff attorney for the Legal Aid Bureau in Annapolis, had planned to get her master's in policy sciences. However, she decided instead to take some time off from school to travel and enjoy herself, and eventually she took a job as a counselor for a crisis hotline. It was a job that would change her life.

"The same issues kept coming up--homelessness, lack of medical care," she says. "These problems weren't going away by getting people through the immediate crisis."

Smith decided to return to school, pursuing a joint degree program and obtaining a Master of Social Work and a Juris Doctorate. In 1999, she went to work for the Legal Aid Bureau, which provides free legal services to low-income clients. Smith has focused primarily on helping clients contest denial of medical assistance or social benefits.

"I remember a case where we fought over $60 dollars in food stamps," she says. "That may not be a lot of money to some. But it meant a lot to this client, and it meant a lot to me to help him."

Pam strongly believes that her experience as an interdisciplinary studies (INDS) major gave her the edge she needed to be successful in both the job market and in graduate school. "After I explain to people what an INDS major is, they are impressed that I was able to design my own undergraduate program," she says. "INDS students have to go above and beyond the call of duty to develop a worthy academic proposal. I think that shows a real commitment to and responsibility for your education."

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1995

Jennifer Jewell Corbin
Psychology '95
Program Manager, The Psychotherapeutic Treatment Center

"Working with children is so rewarding, because they look up to you as a role model," says Jennifer Jewell Corbin. Now a program manager for child services at a private mental health clinic, Corbin discovered these rewards early on as a student-athlete at UMBC. While still in school, she developed a small mentoring program.

"It allowed me to use my athletic connections to help children have positive role models," says Corbin, who played volleyball and softball and was the state's NCAA Woman of the Year in 1995.

Today she is in charge of all adolescent services at the Psychotherapeutic Treatment Center in Annapolis, working with children with ADHD, bipolar and conduct disorder. Her work includes directing an after-school program, which helps children with emotional disturbances with their schoolwork and social skills.

"When children graduate from our program and become members of community programs, such as parks and recreation, we know we've helped them succeed," she says.

Corbin says UMBC helped prepare her for her career by offering numerous opportunities to do volunteer work. "I was also able to work with one of my psychology professors on his research regarding parent-child attachment," she says. "I was able to help with home visits and lab visits of the families during his data collections process."

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1996

Matthew Hosford
History '96
Washington Producer for CNBC's News with Brian Williams

As the Washington, D.C., producer of CNBC's News with Brian Williams, Matthew Hosford is a front-row observer to history in the making. "My history degree lends me a sense of perspective," says Hosford. "Once a story stops being breaking news it becomes a part of history."

Hosford began his career working for NBC News in the research library, quickly progressing to the newsroom as a desk assistant. By 2000, he was an associate producer for MSNBC's political program The Mitchell Report, which enabled Hosford to attend the New Hampshire primary and the Republican and Democratic national conventions.

In January 2001, he took on his current job. "The most challenging aspect of my job is trying to stay on top of all the news and deciding what's important and what's not," he says.

Highlights from his career include covering the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, the 2000 presidential election and 9/11. "One of the coolest things I was involved in was a special that aired on NBC called Inside the Real West Wing," he says. "We got to spend about 20 hours inside the White House seeing firsthand how it works."

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1997

Tim Best
Visual Arts '97
Technical Director, Pixar Animation Studios

Tim Best grew up interested in the visual arts--drawing all the time as a child--and had long been a fan of Pixar Animation Studios, the creators of such films as Toy Story and A Bug's Life.

"In addition to teaching tools and terminology and providing access to technology, courses at UMBC challenged me to think about what I was doing as an artist. Internships at the Imaging Research Center offered a great opportunity to gain experience working on a larger project as part of a team," he says.

Best applied for a job at Pixar while attending a computer graphics conference where he was showing his own animated film produced at UMBC's Imaging Research Center. Pixar hired him as a technical director in 2000. His work involves using and writing software to do a variety of tasks such as building the computer models of objects such as characters, sets and props; describing how the surfaces of these objects look, move and react to each other; and composing the images in the film. "It requires a combination of creative and technical skill," he says.

Best's first assignment was working with the lighting team for Monsters, Inc. "I also worked on many of the Monsters, Inc. promotional projects, including television spots, commercials and the DVD short, Mike's New Car," he says.

His current project is the upcoming feature, The Incredibles, an adventure comedy. "I'm really excited about it," he says, adding, "You learn every day on every project."

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1998

Jamie Smith Hopkins
English '98
Reporter, The Baltimore Sun's Howard County Bureau

So many stories. So little time. "It can be frustrating to see all these stories you want to do, but can't get to them," says Jamie Smith Hopkins, a reporter with The Baltimore Sun.

But, she is trying her best.

Hopkins began working for The Sun as an intern while at UMBC. Once she graduated, she briefly worked for a newspaper in Iowa before joining The Sun's Howard County Bureau in 1999. Currently, she covers land development and demographics. "There are so many important issues unfolding in suburbia, and you have this real sense of community," she says.

Looking back on the countless stories she has written, one stands out. "I got a tip from the court reporter that a grandmother had turned in her grandson for drug possession," recalls Smith, who was an intern at the time. "She had told the grandson, who was storing drugs for his friends, that if he ever got into trouble, she would call the police. She was true to her word. Later, I received a note from her saying the grandson was doing well, taking classes and studying for a career. This was an amazing family."

Hopkins continues to keep in touch with UMBC English professor Christopher Corbett, who she says gave her a "tremendous boost" by arranging the internship at The Sun. "Without his stamp of approval I would have been lost in the crowd of people applying for internships. I'm so grateful he was there to guide me--and I hope students pay attention when he offers advice," she says.

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1999

Mark Gabriele
Emergency Health Services '99
Executive Officer to the Superintendent, Maryland State Police

Mark Gabriele's early career goals were two-fold. "I wanted to become a trooper and fly as a paramedic and reach the same rank as my father, a captain with the Maryland State Police," he says.

He has done that and more.

Gabriele, who is currently the executive officer to the superintendent and runs the administrative side of the office, joined the state police in 1979. In 1982, he transferred to the Aviation Division, where he served as a flight paramedic for 15 years and was promoted to corporal, sergeant and first sergeant. During this time, he designed the medical interior of the division's new Dauphin helicopters, was assigned to protect the Pope during his visit to Maryland, and was involved in the medical aspects of the "death by lethal injection" program for the Department of Safety and Corrections.

Gabriele transferred to the Human Resources Division in 1997, where he recruited, screened and hired state troopers and was promoted to lieutenant. He then went on to the superintendent's staff in 1999 as collective bargaining coordinator and was promoted to captain in 2000 before taking his current job.

"I'm proud to be a second-generation Maryland State Trooper," he says.

Gabriele was satisfied with his academic experience at UMBC and says, "I feel that my undergraduate degree at UMBC fully prepared me for my graduate program at Johns Hopkins University--an M.S. in management in 2001."

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2000

Megan Knight
Geography & Environmental Systems and Chemistry '00
Ph.D. Candidate, California Institute of Technology

Megan Knight, who was the recipient of the prestigious Goldwater Scholarship while at UMBC, is now a third-year student in Cal Tech's Ph.D. program in environmental science and engineering. Her research uses titanium dioxide (TiO2) to photocatalyze the oxidation of arsenite--a project that could have real-world applications in removing arsenic from groundwater.

"Arsenic in groundwater is found in two main forms, As(III) and As(V)," she explains. "The first form is removed from drinking water relatively easily by using common water treatment products. But the second form is very poorly removed by such treatment methods."

To address this problem, As(III) can be oxidized to As(V) prior to water treatment so that both can be removed quantitatively. "I'm working on using TiO2 and light to achieve this oxidation step," she says. "I am looking at how efficient this oxidation process is, what controls it and whether it would be feasible be apply it in a groundwater treatment system.

"Environmental issues are very important to me. So, while I enjoy doing science for science's sake, I want that science to have some 'green' application."

Knight says that her UMBC studies prepared her well for graduate work. "While I use my chemistry background on a daily basis, having a geography background has been extremely useful in understanding the origins of groundwater arsenic problems and placing my work into a larger picture," she says.

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2001

Yoon-Ho Kim
Ph.D., Physics '01
Eugene P. Wigner Fellow, Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Yoon-Ho Kim was drawn to science because of its preciseness. "In other fields, such as law," says Kim, "people make up their own rules and interpret them. The rules and their interpretations therefore change depending on the situations." Not so with science, he says. "Science is the only discipline in which everyone has to agree to one thing, if experimentally proven."

Kim is currently a Eugene P. Wigner Fellow at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory where he is a member of the lab's Center for Engineering Science Advance Research. Within the center, Kim and a colleague have established a laboratory focusing on quantum optics. Their research on experimental quantum optics and quantum information could have future applications in securing communications for military or private use and improving sensitivity in measuring time, positions, rotation, etc. Such sensing capability is important for air travel and airplane design.

"I did similar research when I was at Dr. Yanhua Shih's lab at UMBC," Kim says. "More specifically, experimental studies on entangled states and quantum teleportation. I have known many good colleagues with whom I still try to collaborate. I was also able to attend many international conferences."

Looking to the future, Kim says he would like to broaden his research into other areas such as laser physics and condensed matter study, and he hopes that he can make important contributions to the field of quantum optics.

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2002

Vince Calhoun
Ph.D., Electrical Engineering '02
Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Yale University

Vince Calhoun became interested in the biomedical applications of engineering while taking a biology class. "I noticed how one could think about the human body from an engineering perspective with electrical currents, impedance, blood flow, etc.," he says. He became especially intrigued by the brain and how it functions.

Today Calhoun is an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at the Yale University School of Medicine and serves as director of the Medical Image Analysis Laboratory at the Olin Neuropsychiatry Research Center. He uses functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study brain function in mental illness and recently received a $1-million grant from the National Institutes of Health.

fMRI has only been around for about 10 years, so it's a relatively young field. But it provides unprecedented access to brain function and has great potential.

"Though we've made great strides in learning about the brain and how it works, it is still in many ways a black box to us. If we can learn more about how the brain functions, we can potentially learn how to better treat patients and help improve the lives of people," Calhoun says.

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