Terp Spring 2021

SPRING 2021

E W E- M D ’S L A M B L E S S O N S 1 0 THE ALMIGHTY COD 28 TERPS, AS SEEN ON TV! 34

CO N N EC T I N G T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F M A RY L A N D CO M M U N I T Y

FACING THE OFFENSIVE LINE H I S G R A N DM O T H E R WA S

A R A C I S T. H E ’ S B L A C K .

A FOR MER NFL SPORTSWR ITER R E F L E C T S ON H OW H I S PA R E N T S P R E PA R E D H I M T O C OV E R COMPLEX TIMES. P G. 2 2

PINES OF THE TIMES

The University of Maryland celebrated the official inauguration of President Darryll J. Pines in April with a week showcasing innovations, accomplishments and big ambitions for the institution. In his investiture speech, Pines announced five bold initiatives to target campus emissions, honor athletics trailblazers, and enhance diversity, research and the role of the arts.

On the lighter side, he posed for photos and rubbed elbows—literally—with students at “Pines on Parade,” an event in which he, wife Sylvia Pines and dog Rocky trekked around campus in a Maryland-themed van to meet Terps sampling the new Maryland Dairy ice cream flavor named for him: TerraPines and Pralines. For more on the festivities, visit today.umd.edu/initiatives/inauguration.

Photo by John T. Consoli

ON THE MALL

ALUMNI NEWS

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$9M Gift Establishes Institute for Performance and Technology in the Arts New Residence Halls to Honor Trailblazers UMCP, UMB Team Up to Climb in National Research Ranking

CAMPUS LIFE

8 A Campus Legacy, by Design 10 Ewe-MD Lamb Lessons 11 Tallying the Toll of COVID-19 11 Mural of a Lifetime 12 Saves in the City 13 Sports Briefs EXPLORATIONS

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This Sucks: How Your Robovac Could Spy on You 14 Fighting Forgetting 16 Apple Appeal 16 Phone Data Could Speed Up Efforts to Slow Down Traffic 17 ‘It’s Not an Error, It’s a Language’ 18 Researchers’ Aim: One Vaccine for Many Viruses 18 Stage Whisperer 19 A Revolution Goes Public 20 Data Farming 21 The Big Question

ALUMNI

40 42 43 44 46 48

CONTENTS 2

T E R P. U M D . E D U

Alumni Association Pandemic Fighter’s Priorities Class Notes Collecting Today’s History Menu on a Mission From the Archives

FEATURES

ONLINE

$300M Project to Reimagine Campus Drive Intersection A sleek development for research, offices, retail and housing will rise at the main gateway to the university.

—

Making Puppy Raising ‘Pawsible’

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Facing the Offensive Line His grandmother was a racist. He’s Black. A former NFL sportswriter reflects on how his parents prepared him to cover complex times.

34 Terps, as Seen on TV! While the pandemic’s had us bingeing like never before, it’s easy to find UMD alums in front of or behind the camera.

BY ANNIE DANKELSON

BY ROBERT KLEMKO ’10

28 The Almighty Cod In the shadow of climate change and overfishing, a UMD researcher looks thousands of years into the past to find lessons for today’s oceans in the bones of the North Atlantic codfish.

BY LIAM FARRELL

D I S C O V E R Y D I S T R I C T R E N D E R I N G C O U R T E S Y O F B R A N D Y W I N E R E A LT Y T R U S T

A former leader of UMD’s Terps Raising Pups chapter is now helping others offset kibble costs and vet bills as founder of an organization that supports volunteers raising future assistance dogs.

— A New Terp’s Guide to the UMD Galaxy A new mentoring program matches volunteer upperclassmen with incoming first-year and transfer students in the spring to help them acclimate to campus life during the pandemic.

Get the latest on the UMD community by visiting TODAY.UMD.EDU.

SPRING 2021

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FROM THE EDITOR

it’s either a fun parlor trick or an annoying habit: When watching a TV show or movie with my family, I’m apt to nod at an actor or credits on the screen and blurt out, “That’s a Terp.”

Karen Allen in “Raiders of the Lost Ark”—a Terp. Mark Ciardi, producer of feel-good flicks “Miracle,” “The Rookie” and “The Way Back?” Ditto.

ESPN “SportsCenter” host Scott Van Pelt: TOTALLY a Terp.

Now imagine how much worse (or as I prefer to think, endearing) I became during the pandemic, when the family was enjoying so, so much time together in front of the screen.

While I didn’t spot any UMD grads in our recent favorites, “The Queen’s Gambit” or “Ted Lasso,” I did start thinking about how many are in front of or behind the camera on other popular series, inspiring staff writer Annie Dankelson’s entertaining romp in this issue of the magazine, “Terps, As Seen on TV!” Pandemic behaviors, or more accurately, eagerness to shed them, also drove our regular feature asking one question to a diverse range of faculty members, in this case: What public spot are you most interested in returning to post-pandemic, and why? Who hasn’t thought about that, and in excruciating depth? For those of you who’ve already been able to safely return to indoor restaurant dining or (swoon) a movie theater, cheers!

We all can’t wait to see COVID-19 banished from our lives, but since that won’t happen anytime soon, Terp will continue to cover its impact on our community. In this issue’s cover story, Washington Post reporter Robert Klemko ’10 reflects on the death of his father from complications of the virus, as well as the strength and integrity of the man who rejected his mother’s brazen bigotry to marry a Black woman and raise Robert to become someone who questioned inequalities in his life and work. His essay will stick with you.

I hope other stories about our students, faculty and alums in the pages ahead do the same.

Lauren Brown University Editor

Publisher BRODIE REMINGTON Vice President, University Relations

Advisers BRIAN ULLMANN Vice President, Marketing and Communications MARGARET HALL Executive Director, Creative Strategies

Magazine Staff LAUREN BROWN University Editor JOHN T. CONSOLI ’86 Creative Director VALERIE MORGAN Art Director CHRIS CARROLL ANNIE DANKELSON LIAM FARRELL SALA LEVIN ’10 Writers LAUREN BIAGINI JASON A. KEISLING Designers STEPHANIE S. CORDLE Photographer GAIL RUPERT M.L.S. ’10 Photography Archivist EMMA J. HOWELLS Photography Assistant JAGU CORNISH Production Manager AADIT TAMBE M.JOUR. ’21 Graduate Assistant

EMAIL terpfeedback@umd.edu ONLINE terp.umd.edu NEWS umdrightnow.umd.edu FACEBOOK.COM/ UnivofMaryland TWITTER.COM /UofMaryland VIMEO.COM /umd YOUTUBE.COM /UMD2101

The University of Maryland, College Park is an equal opportunity institution with respect to both education and employment. University policies, programs and activities are in conformance with pertinent federal and state laws and regulations on non-discrimination regarding race, color, religion, age, national origin, political affiliation, gender, sexual orientation or disability.

COVER Photo by John T. Consoli

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T E R P. U M D . E D U

INTERPLAY

A New Age in Physics

Way to go, and thanks for picking Maryland! Please solve the unified field question!* —KEVIN HORNBEAK ’03, POTOMAC, MD.

Wow - every single initiative is extraordinary. Makes me want to return to campus and take advantage of all of it. All of it. #MarylandPride —JEANNE MARTIN LAY ’90, COLUMBIA, MD.

Women’s Studies Chooses Icon of Freedom as Namesake

Great…hope it’s the beginning of more inclusive actions such as having more African Americans teaching their history. I took an African American course that was taught by a Caucasian (don’t get me wrong…she was good) but she was “limited” at times = she couldn’t go deeper.

*The unified field theory—if ever successfully devised—would wrap up all the fundamental forces of nature and their interactions in one neat package.

—NAIDE OBIANG ’18

WRITE TO US We love to hear from readers.

Send your feedback, insights, compliments—and, yes, complaints—to terpfeedback@ umd.edu or to:

Terp magazine Office of Strategic Communications 7736 Baltimore Ave. College Park, MD 20742

Be a Champion.

UMD Champions are Terp ambassadors who help spread Maryland pride.

When you become a champion, you stand with the University of Maryland and your Alumni Association. Join the cause and be part of the Maryland legacy.

alumni.umd.edu/champions

ON THE MALL

NEWS

$9M Gift Establishes Institute for Performance and Technology in the Arts Michael and Eugenia Brin’s Generosity Pushes Fearless Ideas Campaign Total to $1.4 Billion family with multigenerational ties to the university is giving $9 million to its School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies (TDPS) to boldly reimagine the future of education in the performing arts.

Mathematics Professor Emeritus Michael and Eugenia Brin and the Brin Family Foundation are establishing the Maya Brin Institute for New Performance, which will add courses, expand research and fund new teaching positions, undergraduate scholarships, classroom and studio renovations, and instructional technology.

The gift brought the university’s fundraising total for its Fearless Ideas campaign to $1.4 billion, approaching its record $1.5 billion goal by the end of this year.

Leaders in TDPS and the College of Arts and Humanities, where the school is housed, say the institute will advance TDPS’s role as an innovator in design and performance, and prepare graduates to launch careers in emerging media formats such as webcasts, immersive design technology and virtual reality performance.

“We will be at the forefront of applications and modifications of technology and theater,” says the college’s dean, Bonnie Thornton Dill. “We’ll be able to expand our existing work and really become a

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The new gift will support national leader.” innovative productions The Brins, parents of Google co-founder in the School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Sergey ’93 and Samuel ’09, previously made Studies like November’s several gifts to support the university’s “Ghost Bride,” which combined technology and computer science and math departments and movement to evoke the Russian and dance programs, the latter two characters’ emotional state. to honor Michael’s late mother, Maya. She emigrated with her family from the Soviet Union in 1979 and taught in UMD’s Russian program for nearly a decade. She also loved the performing arts, a passion she tried to instill in her children and grandchildren by taking them to the ballet and theater, says Michael Brin, who retired from UMD in 2011 after 31 years on the faculty.

The idea of combining the arts and technology inspired this new gift. “I want to … open opportunities to the students and faculty in interactions between new media and traditional art,” says Brin.

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, halting most live performances, theaters and concert venues have sought creative ways to present plays, dances and musical performances on a screen. TDPS’s virtual production this spring of “The Revolutionists,” for example, included sending cast members a lighting kit that faculty and student designers controlled during the performance.

TDPS has long served as a pipeline of talent for the thriving Washington, D.C., theater and dance community, including the Kennedy Center, Arena Stage and Dance Place. The Maya Brin Institute will bolster students’ credentials even further, says Maura Keefe, TDPS director and associate professor of dance performance and scholarship. It will allow the school to propel students to the forefront of the field by focusing on what performance is about: creativity and exploration.

“We’re going to see (the influence of this gift) in every performance,” she says.— sl

P H O T O BY J O N AT H A N H S U

“I had no idea when I walked on to the campus of University of Maryland in 1955, that 65 years later, you would still be speaking of me,” she says. “I’m thankful to the university

New Residence Halls to Honor Trailblazers

for honoring me, for letting me know that my journey mattered, and now letting my journey become my legacy.”

Pyon-Chen Hall will honor Pyon Su, who earned a B.S. degree in 1891 as the first Korean student to receive a degree from any American college or university, and Chunjen Constant Chen, who in 1915 became the first Chinese

TWO RESIDENCE HALLS under construction on

student to enroll at the Maryland Agricultural

North Campus will be named after trailblazing

College (now UMD), and who later taught

Terps who played important roles in diversifying

Chinese on campus from 1956 to 1967.

the University of Maryland campus.

Johnson-Whittle Hall will honor Hiram

The decision to name the residence halls after Whittle, Johnson Coates, Chen and Pyon is

Whittle, the first African American man admitted

one of several initiatives and recommendations

to the university, in 1951; and Elaine Johnson

that Darryll J. Pines outlined on July 1, his first

Coates, the first African American woman to

day as university president, to build a more

graduate with an undergraduate degree, in 1959.

diverse and welcoming campus community.

UMD Mourns Victims of Anti-Asian Violence

UMCP, UMB Team Up to Climb in National Research Ranking doctors and engineers from the University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP) and University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) have collaborated for years to develop futuristic medical training, fight human trafficking, advance unmanned flight and much more.

This teamwork has been newly recognized by the preeminent measure of academic research activity—the National Science Foundation’s Higher Education Research and Development survey—which now links the institutions as a single enterprise with research expenditures of $1.1 billion. The University of Maryland claims the No. 7 spot in research and development spending among public institutions and ranks 14th among all U.S. universities in fiscal year 2019. For 2018, UMCP ranked 29th and UMB was listed at 47th.

The societal impact of University of Maryland research has expanded under the MPowering the State (MPower) initiative. Founded in 2012, the strategic partnership paved the way for the universities to combine their research offices under Vice President for Research Laurie E. Locascio.

UMCP President Darryll J. Pines says the partnership results in a world-class research enterprise—“one with the power, depth and reach to discover knowledge, innovations and technologies. These advances are vital to meeting the challenges facing our world, including the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, and racial, economic and health care injustice.”—CC SCIENTISTS, SCHOLARS,

A student leaves flowers under a photo of one of the eight people killed in the March 16 mass shootings at Atlanta-area spas.

About 200 people attended a campus vigil decrying violence against Asians and Asian Americans and honoring the victims.

P H O T O C O L L A G E B Y VA L E R I E M O R G A N ; A B O V E P H O T O B Y S T E P H A N I E S . C O R D L E

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ON THE MALL

CAMPUS LIFE

A Campus Legacy,

by Design

OAKLAND HALL (2011) Bob Keane ’87 / WDG

As a student, Keane lived in the smallest residence hall, the Georgian-style Howard Hall. Oakland is its antithesis: UMD’s largest, with abundant glass and metal and a focus on sustainability. “Residence halls are typically not really glamorous buildings,” says Keane. “But that doesn’t mean they can’t be elegant and dynamic.”

Architecture Alums Shaped 25+ UMD Buildings—and Counting

NEW RESIDENCE HALL AND DINING COMPLEX (2022) Glenn Birx ’80, Jasmine Shah ’04, Andrew Casavant ’10, M.C.P. ’14, Anne Dutton ’01, M.Arch. ’03, Glenn Neighbors ’82 and Dana Perzynski ’06 / Ayers Saint Gross

FOR THREE DECADES, alums from UMD’s

Architecture Program have revisited the

Shah drew inspiration for the site’s connective spaces between buildings for gathering and studying from the Architecture Building’s Great Space, where she spent untold hours as an undergrad. “It provided a sense of community: a place to gather, share ideas, learn and live at all hours of the night.”

familiar grounds of College Park, lured not by basketball season or Maryland Day, but the rare privilege to make a permanent contribution to campus.

Since Tom Eichbaum ’74 designed Van Munching Hall in the early 1990s, Terps have mapped out over 25 buildings on Maryland’s campus, not including countless additions and renovations, projects throughout Greater College Park and over a dozen master plans.

We get behind the bricks and mortar to learn what drove the design of some of Maryland’s most iconic spaces—and a few on the way. —MAGGIE HASLAM Read the stories behind more of UMD’s Terpdesigned buildings—including one with its own ice cream flavor—at terp.umd.edu.

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KNIGHT HALL (2010) Steve Parker ’72 and Kieran Wilmes ’97 / Grimm + Parker

The glass-filled building deviates from traditional structures on campus to symbolize the transparent nature of journalism. Parker and Wilmes worked with faculty to “steal” square footage from classrooms and labs and carve out a two-story gathering space anchored by an auditorium and obligatory coffee shop—teaching students early what fuels the day’s news.

WASHINGTON QUAD (2008) Tom Zeigenfuss ’94, M.Arch. ’00 / Design Collective

Nestled between six dormitories on South Campus, the redevelopment stitched together existing paths and vistas with an outdoor hub, or “living room,” for socializing. The quad is a favorite among students: “It’s the only space I’ve seen on campus that has a Google rating,” says Zeigenfuss.

I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y VA L E R I E M O R G A N

A. JAMES CLARK HALL (2017) Craig Spangler M.Arch. ‘82, Stephen Bartlett ’82 and Rachel Mihaly ’11, M.Arch. ’14 / Ballinger

XFINITY CENTER (2002) Ed Kohls ’77, Jeffrey Banner ’82 and Eric Wohnsigl ’91, M.Arch. ’00 / Design Collective

The 17,950-seat home of Maryland basketball had to share at least one quality with its beloved predecessor, Cole Field House: an opponent-crushing, 4,000-seat wall of sound, via one of the nation’s largest student sections, flanking each side of the court and looming behind the visitors’ second-half basket.

Named for the late philanthropist, real estate developer and 1950 graduate, UMD’s home for bioengineering features a DNA-inspired solar veil that shades three stories of labs, classrooms and meeting spaces, while a ceiling-mounted track cable ferries giant objects across the massive first-floor makerspace.

COMPUTER SCIENCE INSTRUCTIONAL CENTER (2002) Roger Schwabacher M. Arch. ’99 / HOK

The compact, curved building for the Department of Computer Science joined office and classroom space with an inviting atrium, but it’s the exterior that transformed this pocket of campus by carving out a courtyard with native plantings and seating. The back curvature of the building holds a secret: an intricate pattern in the brick designed

by Schwabacher.

SCHOOL OF PUBLIC POLICY BUILDING (2022) Irena Savakova M.Arch ’95 / Leo E. Daley

The design of the school’s new home was inspired in part by Athens’ ancient Agora, United Nations assembly rooms and Dean Robert Orr’s request for a special space for speakers to engage with students—which came to life as a fourth-floor terrace.

“You have to go back to the roots of how public policy came to be, where this diverse group of people would engage in discussions about how best to orchestrate the public good,” says Savakova.

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ON THE MALL

CAMPUS LIFE

Ewe-MD’s Lamb Lessons

Students in Popular Animal Science Course Help Baby Sheep Spring to Life on Campus Farm

L

ike any anxious relative awaiting newborn news, as soon as Avital Saletsky’s phone rang early one Saturday morning this spring, she dashed out of her Oakland Hall room. But instead of the hospital, she hightailed it to the Campus Farm, where the baby in question was utterly ovine.

Saletsky ’22 was one of 20 Terps who last semester took the hybrid “Sheep Management,” an animal science class featuring the popular “Lamb Watch” experience. Pairs of student “shepherds,” each assigned a pregnant ewe, brought information from virtual lectures to the

barn, where—with COVID safety protocols in place—they helped the sheep give birth to 26 baaing bundles of joy.

“That was part of my decision of coming (to UMD), just having the Campus Farm and being able to participate in a class like that,” says Saletsky.

The course, taught by Principal Lecturer Sarah Balcom and Campus Farm Manager Crystal Caldwell, typically matches 32 Terps to 16 ewes, but those numbers were cut to 20 and 10, respectively, to make physical distancing easier amid COVID-19.

Other safety measures included wearing masks and gloves and lots of handwashing,

Rachel Butler ’22 steadies a lamb born to mama Heart before taking its temperature.

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and nightly lamb watches were switched from one four-person shift to two two-person ones. From 9-10:15 p.m. and from 10:45 p.m. to midnight (or however long was needed), student teams fed the ewes, refilled their water tins, gave them fresh bedding, cleaned and did chores, and checked for early signs of labor. The late hours helped ensure proper nutrition and care during the final stages of gestation.

Caldwell pointed a camera at suspicious sheep’s pens so she could monitor them from home and alert Terps when it was time to spring to action. “(Students) very well may get a text that says, ‘Your ewe didn’t eat grain.’ And that’s a sign that … she’s either feeling sick or she’s going to have a baby—or three,” she says.

“So then they come and help me with the newborn processing.”

That involved drying and weighing the lambs, dipping their umbilical cords and feet in iodine, keeping them warm, making sure they were suckling and, of course, naming the newborns. (Favorite past monikers include the Hogwarts-inspired Harry, Ron and Hermione, and triplets named Snap, Crackle and Pop.) Students then spent the rest of the semester attending sheep management labs and performing physical exams, documenting their experiences in journals.

“It’s one thing to sit in a classroom and read about how things should be done, but it’s quite another thing to have to go try it,” Balcom says. “It’s not always neat and tidy— nothing in life is.”—ad Watch student shepherds in action—and take in the Campus Farm cuteness—at terp.umd.edu.

P H OTO BY ST E P H A N I E S. CO R D L E

THE FEARLESS GENERATION

Tallying the Toll of COVID-19 Art Student’s “Accounting” Makes Toll Visible

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s the numbers of Americans dying of COVID-19 continued to climb, Elizabeth Katt MFA ’22 struggled to visualize the loss. What does 100,000—of anything—look like? What about 200,000?

400,000?

For her ongoing livestreamed project,

“an accounting,” Katt is turning intangible numbers into something plain to see: She sits in a bare-bones studio and tallies one mark on adding machine tape for every American felled by the virus, according to data from Worldometer.

Katt has divided the project into long sessions. “Part of (the project) is the time it takes,” she says. Add to that the discomfort of sitting on an unpadded stool for hours. “I knew I wanted it to be a grind because (living through the pandemic) has been a grind,” Katt says.

A former nurse who served in the U.S. Air Force, Katt knows what it means to keep company with the dying. After leaving the Air Force, Katt “started to consider things I

had always wanted to do and art-making was what was calling me,” she says.

The isolation of her work mirrors what many people have felt while staying at home, says Justin Strom, associate professor of art and Katt’s adviser. “There’s very little opportunity to go out in galleries or museums and show something like this,” he says. “Reflecting that solitude she had to do to perform this was appropriate for the piece in the end.”— sl

Mural of a Lifetime

namesake, the late renowned artist and

2020, Donahue presented him with the

scholar of Black American art and longtime

mural’s design. “He felt like an elder, like a

UMD professor. Designed by the center’s

family member I’d never met before,” says

Collage-style Painting in Cole Honors Giant in African American Art

then-artist-in-residence, Brandon Donahue, the

Donahue.

9-foot-tall, 35-foot-wide mural honors Driskell’s own background and bold, colorful art.

“I thought it would be really cool to retell

Driskell, whose work is on display at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, was an early champion of Black

the story (of his life) through one mural,” says

art as a genre and curated the landmark

A STRIKING RED-LIPPED woman, her arms

Donahue. The woman comes from Driskell’s

1976 exhibition, “Two Centuries of Black Art:

outstretched toward a gray church. Over

painting, “Memories of a Distant Past.” The

1750-1950.”

her shoulder, a branch of ripe peaches. And

church is the one where his father preached,

overlooking it all, a portrait of someone who’s

while the peaches are a nod to a tree Driskell

tance from students, “celebrates Driskell’s

both a young boy and an old man.

owned in adulthood. And the silhouette is

commitment to the creative enterprise and

Driskell himself.

the mentorship of students,” says Curlee R.

A new mural in Cole Field House, home to the David C. Driskell Center, honors its

Before Driskell died of COVID-19 in April

T O P P H O T O C O U R T E SY O F E L I Z A B E T H K AT T; A B O V E P H O T O C O U R T E SY O F B R A N D O N D O N A H U E

The mural, painted by Donahue with assis-

Holton, director of the Driskell Center.—SL

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ON THE MALL

SPORTS

Saves in the City

First Terp to Start in Premier League Reaches New Heights in European Soccer rowing up outside of Philadelphia, Zack Steffen would fill the time between his own soccer games by watching English Premier League matches with his stepfather (and early coach), talking over each score and debating what the goalkeeper could have done differently.

These days, it’s Steffen himself getting the chance to guard the goalposts in the world’s most elite competition as part of first-place Manchester City. In January, he became the first Terp to ever start a Premier League game when he stepped in for his club’s regular starter and helped defeat Chelsea 3-1.

“I feel like I’ve become less nervous and more confident in my abilities,” he says. “It’s surreal, it’s crazy.”

Steffen was one of the most prized soccer prospects in the country when he came to UMD in 2013 and made an immediate impact, leading the Terps to a conference title and the national championship game, and earning Defensive Most Valuable Player at the College Cup. He followed it up with another conference championship and top defensive honors from the Big Ten in 2014 before signing a contract with a team in Germany’s Bundesliga.

“When you first see Zack you immediately know there is something special,” says UMD

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P H O T O BY S I M O N S TA C P O O L E /O F F S I D E /O F F S I D E V I A G E T T Y I M A G E S

SPORTS BRIEFS

men’s soccer coach Sasho Cirovski, who recalled dozens of scouts turning out to see Steffen play when the team toured England in 2014. “He doesn’t overtalk. He knows the game, and he is commanding.”

After stints in the Bundesliga and Major League Soccer, Steffen earned a place at one of the most prestigious clubs in the most watched soccer league in the world, and was brought into Manchester City’s first team at the start of the 2020-21 season. He kept Marseille scoreless in a December 3-0 Champions League victory and temporarily took over the starting role for league competition when Brazilian goalkeeper Ederson tested positive for COVID-19. Steffen earned kudos from manager Pep Guardiola, who said that he “solved all the situations he faced brilliantly.”

Those accomplishments have been dampened by the impact of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, Steffen says, with the lack of fans, family and friends putting pressure on the players to find their own motivation.

“We’ve got to go out there and be professional,” he says. “You got to stay really tuned in and focused.”

Steffen has already made his mark in international competition as well, with 19 appearances for the U.S. senior team and back-to-back saves against eventual World Cup champion France in the dying moments of a 2018 draw that he notes as his most prized feat to date (in addition to a penalty shot denial on legend Wayne Rooney).

One of several young Americans building a reputation in European soccer leagues, Steffen is aiming to be the U.S. team’s starting goalkeeper for next year’s World Cup in Qatar. But, not surprisingly for someone who makes a living stopping the next shot, he wants to maintain a day-to-day perspective on building his confidence and leadership abilities on his sport’s brightest stage. “(Goalkeepers) see all 21 other players back there,” Steffen says. “We have to be a leader and a voice.”—lf

P H O T O S C O U R T E SY O F M A R Y L A N D AT H L E T I C S

Two Longtime Coaches Mark Milestones Head women’s basketball coach BRENDA FRESE and head men’s soccer coach SASHO CIROVSKI each added red-letter victories to their UMD highlight reels this year.

Frese won her 500th game at Maryland when she led the Terps to a 95-73 rout of Nebraska on Feb. 14, making her the winningest coach in program history. She surpassed Hall of Famer Chris Weller, who won 499 games in her 27 seasons (1975-2002) at UMD. Frese—whose record at Maryland is now 512131—finished her 19th season at the helm in the 2021 NCAA Tournament, where the No. 2-seed Terps dominated Mount St. Mary’s and Alabama in the first two rounds before falling to Texas, 64-61, in the Sweet 16. She was named National Coach of the Year by the Associated Press, ESPN and The Athletic, as well as Big Ten Coach of the Year.

Cirovski, in his 28th season leading the men’s soccer squad, notched his 400th win with the Terps as they edged Michigan, 2-1, on March 11. (The season, normally played in the fall, was postponed to early spring due to COVID-19.)

The victory made Cirovski, who’s led Maryland to three NCAA titles, the sixth Division I men’s soccer coach to reach the 400-win mark at one school.

Terp Takes Big Ten’s Top Defensive Honor Men’s basketball senior guard DARRYL MORSELL was named the 2021 Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year, as voted upon by the league’s 14 head coaches, making him the first player in program history to earn the conference honor.

“To be recognized by Big Ten coaches shows how much respect he has earned over the last four years,” Head Coach Mark Turgeon says. “Darryl worked incredibly hard to reach this point, and to see it validated is extremely special.”

Morsell also earned an Honorable Mention All-Big Ten nod, as well as UMD’s Big Ten Sportsmanship Award.

Maryland made its 29th appearance in the NCAA Tournament this season, with the No. 10-seeded Terps topping UConn in the first round before falling to Alabama in the Round of 32.

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ON THE MALL

E X P L O R AT I O N S

This Sucks: How Your Robovac Could Spy on You THOSE CUTE LITTLE autonomous floor cleaners

could be sweeping up more than just dust in your house. A team of researchers including a University of Maryland computer scientist has shown how the devices could be remotely hacked.

Assistant Professor Nirupam Roy was part of the

Fighting Forgetting

Journalism Professor Unearths Grim History of Century-old Tulsa Race Massacre

group that collected information from the laserbased navigation system in a popular vacuum robot and applied signal processing and deep learning techniques to recover speech and identify television programs playing in the same room as the device.

In addition, the laser-enabled house maps that the devices construct could give malicious hackers or even marketers insight about what’s in your abode.

“We welcome these devices into our homes, and we don’t think anything about it,” says Roy, who holds a joint appointment in UMD’s Institute for Advanced Computer Studies. “But we have shown that even though these devices don’t have microphones, we can repurpose the systems they use for navigation to spy on conversations and potentially reveal private information.”

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hey marched deneen brown down a street in Tulsa, Oklahoma, hands above her head, in the footsteps of Black people soon to be killed.

But those victims had preceded her by nearly 100 years. At her back that day in the summer of 2018 was not an enraged white mob, but a pair of activists—a Black history-focused local tour guide and a city politician—both determined not to allow the orgy of killing and burning that started here in May 1921 to be forgotten.

Brown, an associate professor of journalism in the Philip Merrill College of Journalism and a longtime Washington Post reporter, teaches her students about a stage in reporting where intense immersion in research, setting and real-life characters all boil over into a profound understanding. Then they’re ready to write. “That point came for me walking with my hands up, like a prisoner, toward a convention hall where some Black men were taken who never came out,” she says.

Brown’s story, which ran on The Post’s front page, went viral, exposing the wider world to the shameful story of the destruction of Greenwood, a thriving African American community wealthy enough to be nicknamed “Black Wall Street.” After a vaguely described encounter between a white female teenager and Black male teenager in an elevator led to a gun battle over a reported lynching attempt, its white neighbors decided to wipe it out, killing perhaps 300 residents, leveling 40 square blocks and leaving 10,000 Black Tulsans homeless.

In addition to continuing her coverage of this topic in The Post and National Geographic, she’ll be featured in a pair of documentaries soon debuting to mark the 100-year anniversary of the massacre: “Tulsa: The Fire and the Forgotten” on PBS on May 31, and National

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I L L U S T R AT I O N BY J A S O N A . K E I S L I N G

Journalism Associate Professor DeNeen Brown looks out over the Arkansas River, a possible dumping site for bodies of victims of the Tulsa race massacre, during filming of a documentary about the 1921 event. It left an African American district of the city in rubble.

Geographic’s “Red Summer” in June. The incident also inspired the plot of the latest revival of the “Watchmen” comics franchise on HBO in 2019; the series featured a shocking, factual scene of a biplane bombing an African American neighborhood—likely the first airborne attack against U.S. citizens within the nation’s borders.

“There was tremendous resentment at the appearance of wealth and the desire for equality in the African American community held by local whites—and this isn’t my analysis, but what they said to newspapers at the time,” says C.R. Gibbs, a Washington, D.C., independent historian featured in “Red Summer” who has studied racial violence after World War I. Following riots and massacres in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Illinois, Florida and elsewhere, he says, a blanket of silence descended, memories faded, witnesses died and perpetrators were never held responsible. Although the nation seems more willing in 2021 to confront such history than in previous decades, Gibbs warns, “It is hard to teach a lesson when the evidence for the lesson is continually wiped out.”

The present-day gentrification of Greenwood, and corresponding loss of history, was what initially drew Brown to the story. She’s a

D E N E E N B R O W N P H O T O B Y J O N A T H A N S I LV E R S / S A Y B R O O K P R O D U C T I O N S LT D . ; A R C H I VA L P H O T O B W I S E / F L I C K R / P U B L I C D O M A I N

native Oklahoman who had lived for a few years as a teen in Tulsa, where her father is a minister. She can’t remember when she first heard of the massacre, but says, “There was a heaviness to that place I felt, and often still feel when I go back.”

In the city, her work has been like a bulldozer scraping away a century of enforced silence about the murders. A copy of The Post was held up at a municipal meeting following her first story’s publication, and the white mayor—whose family has long hailed from Tulsa but who was an adult before he heard of the attack—reopened an abandoned investigation searching for mass graves of victims.

The silence is not unique to white Tulsans either, says Vanessa Hall-Harper, the Tulsa Ward 1 councilwoman who was there when Brown walked with hands up, imagining herself marked for death.

“When I asked my grandmother about it, who was born in 1921 and grew up in the aftermath, she was disturbed I even asked about it—she would only discuss it in a hushed voice,” says Hall-Harper, the city’s first Black female council chair. “Now it’s in the open, and that’s why we’re so thankful for DeNeen.

“She is almost singlehandedly responsible for the national and worldwide attention we are getting now.”—cc

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Apple Appeal Researchers Devise Ways to Make Fruit Red and Delicious id-atlantic apple growers face a dilemma: Leave fruit on the tree to develop a beautiful (and marketable) red color, or harvest early to maximize flavor and texture and prevent spoilage—but be left with a load of ugly apples that don’t meet industry standards.

“The 50% to 60% of red skin color is difficult to achieve in the mid-Atlantic region because of our weather conditions,” says Macarena Farcuh, assistant professor in the Department of Plant Science and Landscape Architecture and a University of Maryland Extension specialist.

Now, thanks to a pair of UMD studies, farmers might not have to choose between looks and taste for much longer. In one, the National Institute of Food and Agriculture recently awarded Farcuh $300,000 to study using UV radiation to enhance beauty and safety for stored apples.

Lengthy refrigeration introduces potential

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Phone Data Could Speed Up Efforts to Slow Down Traffic

hazards, says Rohan Tikekar, associate professor in the Department of Nutrition and Food Science and an Extension specialist.

“UV radiation is already what causes many of the pigments you see in fruits as a mechanism to protect the cellular machinery from the stress of light,” he says. “The idea is that UV radiation will then not only improve color, but will also kill listeria on the surface

Department of Transportation

device data. It could

and Maryland’s State Highway

also garner data from

Administration.

different locations in a flash, rather than require a highway

trians or cyclists? The first slooooow step is

department to dispatch workers to

typically conducting a count—either by a person

monitor intersections, subject to the

sitting roadside or electronic tabulator—of

limitations of personnel availability.

New research by civil and environmental

WATTERS

on anonymized mobile

Want to make an intersection safer for pedes-

everything happening there over days or weeks.

of apples.”

It should also bump up antioxidant content of the fruit, Farcuh adds.

In a second project supported by the Maryland Department of Agriculture, she will examine the effectiveness of a reflective ground to ensure the apples get as much UV light as possible before harvest.—SAMANTHA

The new approach harnesses the analytical

Currently, accidents claim the lives of more than 100 Maryland pedestrians and bicyclists a year on average, comprising nearly one-fourth of all traffic fatalities in 2019.

“That’s a huge loss to society,” Xiong says.

“We believe our tools and methods can help

capabilities of UMD’s Maryland Transportation

Maryland state agencies in determining where

engineering Assistant Research Professor

Institute, where Xiong is assistant director

the problems are and better allocating resources

Chenfeng Xiong could floor the accelerator on

of transportation modeling research, and is

to reduce fatalities and achieve the goal of zero

collecting this information by instead relying

supported in part by funding from the U.S.

deaths.”

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P H O T O I L L U S T R AT I O N BY S T E P H A N I E S . C O R D L E ; A B O V E I L L U S T R AT I O N : S H U T T E R S T O C K

‘It’s Not an Error, It’s a Language’

Researcher Aims to Teach Teachers About African American Language, and Liberate Student Writers hile a master’s student at Eastern Michigan University, Shenika Hankerson was asked to fix her writing errors and turn an assignment back in. The only problem was, what errors?

She couldn’t see them, and when she showed the paper to family members, they couldn’t either. It was almost as if she and the instructor were communicating in different languages—and today, the assistant professor (pictured at right) in the College of Education’s Applied Linguistics and Language Education program knows that they were.

Rather than turning her off to higher education, or causing her to meekly endeavor to stamp out whatever offended the instructor, the incident sparked Hankerson’s research, which explores how writing is taught to African American Language (AAL) speakers in universities and community colleges, and studies whether antiracist approaches can inspire learning.

She’s convinced, based on the work of many scholars, that Black students have a right to their mother tongue. What Hankerson calls AAL, also known as Black English or Ebonics, has structural features that reach back to the languages of enslaved Africans shipped to North America. An

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estimated 80% to 90% of African Americans at times use some form of the language, she says, which evolved—and continues to develop—to suit users’ needs.

“It’s not an error, it’s a language,” she says. “If we’re going to have inclusive, democratic and socially just classrooms, educators must make an effort to educate themselves on what AAL is … to integrate racial and linguistic equity as a core mission in their curriculum.”

Such a curriculum is inclusive, she says, allowing students to stretch their writing wings using their own language, while also using academic language to help students work effectively in the classroom.

Hankerson directs Project RISE (Research Institute for Scholars in Education), which provides underrepresented undergrads from

local universities with paid research and career development training in education.

Such work is vital at the University of Maryland, set in an African Americanmajority county, says Jeff MacSwan, professor and head of the Applied Linguistics and Language Education program.

“It’s the university’s job to relate to and serve the community in which it’s situated,” he says.

Students don’t necessarily have to flip a switch; through “code meshing,” AAL speakers can introduce elements of their language across language barriers, enriching English in general while ensuring mutual comprehension.

“We’re working on equity, which means honoring every language, including AAL,” Hankerson says.—cc

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FA C U LT Y Q & A JARED MEZZOCCHI

Researchers’ Aim: One Vaccine for Many Viruses WHETHER IT’S ONE SHOT to prevent

measles or another to stave off COVID-19, vaccines can add up to an impressive number of jabs in the arm (or elsewhere) over the years. But what if one shot could provide protection against hundreds of viruses at once, from polio to the common cold?

A new study by George Belov, associate professor of veterinary medicine, is looking to make that reality in the fight

Stage Whisperer

Acclaimed Theater Designer Takes Lead Role in Reimagining Live Performance

against enteroviruses, which cause a number of serious health conditions. He’s

EVEN AS MANY STAGES remain dark, adven-

focusing not on what makes each virus

turous new forms of theater are emerging

unique, as is frequently the case with

from the pandemic—and Jared Mezzocchi is

vaccine research, but what they have in

at the center of it.

common. He compares them to nuts: “You have the shell or husk, and

The associate professor of multimedia design for dance and theater has helmed

then the material inside the husk,”

20 virtual productions since COVID-19 struck, including the School of

he says. “On the outside, the

Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies’ groundbreaking online version

structural proteins look sufficiently

of Qui Nguyen’s fantasy “She Kills Monsters” and Diversionary Theatre’s

different so that that immune

take on the musical “Cancelled,” about a high school’s online scandal.

response developed against one

The New York Times recently named Mezzocchi one of five people or

virus does not work against

entities agitating contemporary theater, and his digital work “Russian

another. But inside, you have

Troll Farm,’’ featuring memes, animation and virtual backgrounds, was

pretty much the same core

honored as a Times Critic’s Pick. He talked with Terp about the thrilling

of proteins the virus uses to

state of theater—and how TikTok musicals might represent one new

replicate.”

frontier.—SL

Using new technology to target that core, the research (conducted with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Office of Vaccines Research and Review) aims to present only those common antigens to our immune

How do you approach all-virtual productions?

My philosophy has been to do as much as possible live. Even if it’s a little messier, our craft as theater-makers is about being live in front of an audience. For “She Kills Monsters,” we rehearsed start to finish; the actors knew what filters to turn on and off, when to turn on and off their cameras. Everything the audience witnessed that night was live.

Everyone was very emotional that we achieved that.

systems—greatly simplifying vaccine development and resulting in fewer trips to see the doc.

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What makes a virtual production successful?

Right now, (success) means being fearless, taking risks. I’d love to see monumental falling on one’s face because even then, at least we’re trying to do something live (rather) than not try at all. Working through something is really exhilarating to me; when you commit to

I L L U S T R A T I O N B Y L A U R E N B I A G I N I ; P H O T O B Y J O H N T. C O N S O L I

A Revolution Goes Public UMD Quantum Computing Spinoff Takes Big Business Step university of maryland-linked startup vying to take quantum computers mainstream recently announced it would become the first publicly traded company dedicated to this game-changing technology.

IonQ, headquartered in the university’s Discovery District, was founded in 2015

by College Park Professor of Physics Christopher Monroe and Jungsang Kim of Duke University, with systems based on foundational research at the two universities.

Still in its infancy, quantum computing leverages counterintuitive features of quantum physics to execute certain tasks, like sorting every possible combination in a cryptographic key, exponentially faster than standard computers can. This promises dramatic advances in cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, drug discovery and other fields.

Last fall, IonQ unveiled its next-generation quantum computer system and opened the Quantum Data Center in College Park—a location that raises UMD’s considerable profile in quantum science and engineering, says President Darryll J. Pines.

“With more than 200 quantum researchers, the University of Maryland boasts one of the greatest concentrations of quantum talent in the world,” Pines says. “Building on (the) announcement of our very own IonQ’s incredible breakthrough and rapid growth, we are establishing ourselves as the Capital of Quantum.”

IonQ is proud of its UMD roots—and plans to benefit further from them—says IonQ President and CEO Peter Chapman.

“Our connection with the University of Maryland gives us access to a pipeline of stellar workforce talent as we bring quantum computing to scale,” he says.—cc

A

risk-taking, unexpected outcomes occur. That has deep impact for an audience member.

How would you describe this period of reshaping performing arts?

Accessibility is a huge part of it. By being online, “She Kills Monsters” had 5,000 viewers in one night from multiple countries. The families of our international students were able to see their performance live for the first time. We’re only scratching at the top of that surface.

How does the lack of live audience affect performance?

What makes live performance so evocative is the give and take of energy between viewer and maker. That’s just not as present (with digital performances) in the way that we were used to, but engagement can still occur—just differently. I think about TikTok’s viral “Ratatouille” musical—that is an audience and a maker exchanging energy in a really exciting way. That’s engagement with the younger generation that theater needs.

What about the future of theater most excites you?

Theater-making always forces new ways of looking at what we’re doing.

I’m excited to not just depend on physical stages, but think outside the box of how and where theater can exist.

P H OTO CO U RT ESY O F J O I N T Q UA N T U M I N ST I T U T E

To see more about UMD’s role in “the Capital of Quantum,” visit quantum.umd.edu.

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Data Farming

Satellites Give Researcher Long View on African Food Security ith little money for modern equipment or the crop data and climate analyses that richer countries widely rely on, farmers in the native Uganda of Catherine Nakalembe Ph.D. ’17 and across the African continent often face the planting and harvest seasons supplied with little more than tradition and personal experience—static expertise that can sometimes betray them in a world where the climate is changing rapidly.

“They are operating in the dark,” says Nakalembe, an assistant research professor in the Department of Geographical Sciences.

“It just stops raining, and that equals complete failure.”

She is working to give growers a heads up on looming problems as Africa program director for NASA Harvest, a group commissioned by NASA and led by the University of Maryland to help governments and development organizations integrate satellite and remote sensing data into food security and

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agricultural decisions. Providing assistance across the continent, from Mali to Kenya, Nakalembe was named a 2020 Africa Food Prize laureate by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa.

“I really like the global perspective with the possibility of looking down,” she says of her research with satellites. “It really can inform large-scale programs.”

By harnessing data such as rainfall, temperature and soil moisture levels along with maps of crop coverage and on-theground observations, governments and farmers can make better decisions on everything from which seeds and fertilizer to use, to where to send emergency aid.

The goal, Nakalembe says, is to preempt disasters with better management instead of spending exponentially more money to recover from them.

She came to UMD in 2010 for her doctorate after completing her undergraduate degree at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda, and earning a master’s in environmental engineering from the Johns Hopkins University. Maryland has turned out to be a “perfect fit,” she says, for its expertise in geographic information systems and opportunities to help Uganda and other African countries.

In addition to agriculture, Nakalembe is also working on ways to use satellite observations for public safety. Her newest project is developing an early warning system for the Mount Elgon region of eastern Uganda, where dozens of people are killed each year by landslides from the slopes of the extinct volcano.

“The data, the tools and the system exist,” she says. “There’s a clear need.”—lf

P H O T O C O U R T E SY O F C AT H E R I N E N A K A L E M B E

THE BIG QUESTION

What public spot are you most interested in returning to post-pandemic, and why?

JOHN CUMINGS ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF MATERIALS SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING, A. JAMES CLARK SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING

—

What I most want is to go out on a date with my wife, which seems crazy, given how much of our time is spent together at home. We’d probably just have dinner and then walk around until we’re tired.

JULIE GABRIELLI CLINICAL ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF ARCHITECTURE, SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, PLANNING AND PRESERVATION

—

I dream of running again in the Baltimore Running Festival. The quirky neighborhood vibe makes for an unforgettable race. Halloween costumes and mimosas in Patterson Park, keg beer in Charles Village, a five-piece bluegrass band on 33rd Street. A woman in rainbow shorts and a Ravens jersey plays the

“Rocky” theme on her trumpet. On this day, the runners own the city, and it puts on a glorious show.

IDIL YAVEROGLU

JIE ZHANG

MARKETING LECTURER, ROBERT H. SMITH SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

HARVEY SANDERS FELLOW OF RETAIL MANAGEMENT AND PROFESSOR OF MARKETING, ROBERT H. SMITH SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

ASHISH KABRA

I am most interested in returning to campus and reuniting with students face to face. Even though online teaching has its benefits, I miss observing their body language, their curious eyes and their nodding heads while teaching.

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF DECISION, OPERATIONS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES, ROBERT H. SMITH SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

—

Museums and board game bars. Where else do you think nerds go to socialize?

ISAAC LEVENTON ADJUNCT LECTURER, FIRE PROTECTION ENGINEERING, A. JAMES CLARK SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING

—

There is a unique energy (and distinct smell) in the frigid locker room of an old ice rink after a long skate. Normally, I coach a pair of hockey teams and skate with two more: I most look forward to being back there together.

—

—

The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Performing artists’ lives and works have been completely upended by the pandemic. I long to see them going back to live performances and to cheer them on with other audience members.

ZEENA ZAKHARIA ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION POLICY, COLLEGE OF EDUCATION

—

The airport—no question. The moments after passing through security, and before boarding that final flight on the long journey home, are marked by anticipation and joy unique to homecoming.

I long to stand in that space and embrace the promise of seeing my family again.

Share your answer and see more faculty responses at terp.umd.edu/BigQ11.

Suggest a future question at terpfeedback.umd.edu.

I L L U S T R AT I O N S BY J A S O N A . K E I S L I N G

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HIS GRANDMOTHER WAS A RACIST. HE’S BLACK. A FORMER NFL SPORTSWRITER REFLECTS ON HOW HIS PARENTS PREPARED HIM TO COVER COMPLEX TIMES.

BY ROBERT KLEMKO ’10 P O R T R A I T S BY J O H N T. C O N S O L I

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Robert Klemko’s family photos include (from left) him playing football for James Hubert Blake High School in Maryland; his father, Alex Klemko, with his grandmother, Antonia McDonald; and him with his dad at their home in Silver Spring, Md.

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T

HE FIRST TIME I talked with a Black NFL coach about overcoming bigotry, he dished out more of the same.

I was a first-year NFL reporter for USA Today in 2012, a young Black journalist interviewing this prominent coach on background, meaning nothing could be attributed to him by name.

Though my job was to cover the X’s and O’s of the game, I asked him over our lunch if he thought there would ever be an openly gay player in the NFL. “No,” he said casually, between bites of beef au jus. “No one wants to shower with a f-----.”

The answer ignited a distinct kind of anger, one that slowly transforms into disappointment and, finally, pity. It was what I had felt as a teenager when I spoke to my grandmother about the Nazis arriving at her Ukrainian village during the summer of 1941 and marching her neighbors to their deaths.

I had asked her then what seemed like the most urgent question: Did she want to help them? “No,” she said, recoiling. Why? “Because they were Jews.”

Now, at age 24, hearing something that offended me just as deeply, I wondered: How will I ever stick to football? I dwelled for weeks on his words and what they meant for my career. It was a reminder there would always be this tension between covering a sport, and covering people, and all of our fears, insecurities and hatreds.

It took nine years, but eventually, the tension forced me to choose the latter. My dad, despite being raised by that angry, sneering woman, shared none of her values. He would have loved to talk to me about my recent career change, but by the time I made the switch, it was too late.

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Clockwise from top left: Robert Klemko shown as a boy; as a baby with his parents, Dr. Lisa Bradley Klemko and Alex Klemko; and with his father. Alex’s mother shunned him for five years after he told her he was dating Lisa, a Black woman.

I had asked her then what seemed like the most urgent question: Did she want to help them? ‘No,’ she said, recoiling. Why? ‘Because they were Jews.’”

—ROBERT KLEMKO

HAT COACH’S COMMENT also wasn’t so different than one my mom had heard a couple of decades earlier.

A fellow veterinary student at UC Davis, a white man, told her there was no way he would be “sharing a locker with a n-----.”

My mother, Dr. Lisa Bradley Klemko, came to the University of Maryland in 1984 as a young veterinarian and retired in 2018 as an assistant dean in the College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences. Aware how difficult life could be for aspiring Black doctors, she fought for inclusion and helped transform UMD into one of the nation’s top universities for sending people of color to medical schools.

In 1987 she met Alex Klemko, a white man, at a bar in Dupont Circle. He showed up to their first date the next week wearing a clown suit in full makeup to take her out to dinner on Halloween. She reluctantly ate

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F A M I LY P H O T O S C O U R T E S Y O F R O B E R T K L E M K O

Korean food with the clown, whose lack of embarrassment won her over.

He was eccentric, hilarious and hardworking. He lived for a good prank. If he’d ever submitted to a sit-down with a shrink, the doctor might’ve said he was compensating for a joyless childhood.

He emigrated from Heidelberg, Germany, to the U.S. as a boy with his mother, Antonia, a Ukrainian World War II refugee. As he grew up with her in Alexandria, Va., her romantic partners often treated my dad like a servant, he said; one of them forced my kindergarten-aged father to spend his free time in the garage brewing beer. He joined the Navy to pay for college and served in Vietnam. He married, divorced and then met a young veterinarian from the Bay Area who had traveled across the country to take a job at the University of Maryland.

Antonia was thrilled my father was dating a doctor. He and his brother

struggled to come up with ways to break it to her that she was Black. Their mother had arrived in the U.S. with few skills, knowing little English, but got by as a live-in maid to wealthy white families, clinging to the desperate notion that she—a white woman—could at least look down on Americans of color.

One day, several months into the relationship, Antonia phoned her son to let him know she’d be dropping by his house to pick something up. That’s great, he told her. And you can meet my girlfriend ... but I have to tell you, she’s Black. She paused for a moment, then said two words: “F--- you.”

She didn’t speak to her son again for five years.

When they married, Antonia gathered most of my father’s childhood pictures— black and white images that served as the only record of his youth—and destroyed them. What few she didn’t burn, she set aside and blacked out my dad’s face with a marker. Then she wrote “N----- LOVER” on each picture, put them in an envelope and mailed them to my parents.

Antonia never apologized. My father saw her privately over the years on weekends. He rejected her racism and built a family, but never fully turned away from her. He never let her forget what she did to his pictures. In high school I was allowed to meet her for the first time. As uncomfortable as my mother was with the idea, she felt we needed to know more about the woman who tried to tear apart our family before it started.

She was kind, gracious and excited.

She made me a Napoleon cake. I didn’t say much. Soon after that, I interviewed Antonia and what she told me about her life in the war sticks with me to this day. “... because they were Jews.”

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She wasn’t necessarily proud of her story, or even confident it would be received well, but it was hers, and no one had ever held out a recorder and asked her to tell her story.”

—ROBERT KLEMKO

N MY FIRST DAY of Blake Morrison’s feature writing class at Maryland, he asked each of us to share one thing about ourselves that nobody knows. To our shock, he followed up each disclosure with a fact he knew about our lives. He asked me to tell the story of an iguana tearing my pinky finger off in third grade. (In case you’re wondering, it was re-attached.) He later told us he had messaged some of our friends on Facebook when he got the class roster, mining for anecdotes about us. It was a lesson in the lengths good reporters go to get information, but it was also a lesson in ego.

It felt good to have this person care enough about my story to go around asking friends I hadn’t talked to in years about me.

It endeared him to me, and it helped me understand Antonia. Until then, I couldn’t understand why she was so eager to talk

O

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about such a deep, personal flaw. Morrison’s simple but profound philosophy of interviewing gave me the answer: “People just want to tell their story.”

That’s why Antonia was willing to tell her Black grandchild that she was still an unapologetic racist, that she had no regrets.

She wasn’t necessarily proud of her story, or even confident it would be received well, but it was hers, and no one had ever held out a recorder and asked her to tell her story.

I learned this over seven years covering the NFL: If you give people the chance to tell their story, their way, they often take it. At my worst, I was access-hungry, still covering the mechanics of the game of football and vying to be close to the people who could make that job easier. At my best, I covered it as a cultural phenomenon, zeroing in on one person’s story and letting it tell me and my readers something about the world. I

wrote about racial disparities in NFL hiring practices. I chronicled the journey of the NFL’s first openly gay player, Michael Sam (two years after my chat with that homophobic coach). I interviewed a woman who’d been repeatedly beaten and harassed by her boyfriend, an NFL player, and what the league had and hadn’t done to stop it.

Then I was dispatched to cover my first trial: the rape allegations against former NFL tight end Kellen Winslow II. According to police and a jury of his peers, this member of NFL athletic royalty—a collegiate national champion and All-American and the son of a pro hall of famer—had brutalized the most vulnerable people in our society: elderly, indigent and homeless women. I watched those women describe what Winslow had At right, Alex done to them on the Klemko aboard a side of the road, in Navy supply ship during the Vietnam hot tubs, in his SUV. I War and Robert talked to doctors and Klemko as a boy. psychologists, and I wrote about what I learned.

Then I went back to covering NFL games. A few weeks later I sat in a stadium press box, laptop and catered meal in front of me, and thought, “What the f--- am I doing here?”

WAS FOUR MONTHS into my new job as an investigative sports reporter at The Washington Post when the pandemic began in the U.S. The national news desk asked for volunteers to cover it. Having no experience covering health, infrastructure, government or anything outside of professional football, I thought there was probably only one thing I can do as well as anyone else: I can be available.

It was something my dad taught me.

As owner and lead salesman at an office moving company, he could eyeball a few floors full of offices and tell you exactly how long it would take to empty it and what it would cost. And then you’d probably find him at the move, from start to finish. He was always there, always available, through recessions, through multiple cancer diagnoses, through a pandemic.

COVID-19 and lewy body dementia finally ended his ironman streak. Unable

I

to drive or hold a coherent conversation, he spent the last year of his life grounded and isolated, all while my world was finally opening up.

My wife became pregnant with our first child, a boy. And a few weeks into the pandemic assignment, the world shifted again.

George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis, face-down in the street, choked under a police officer’s knee. Editors sent me to the city, where I arrived to find a police station in flames and rioters waving stolen handcuffs and batons, screaming into the night.

Black Lives Matter became a coverage priority again. I went to Tulsa, rented a scooter and followed protesters approaching a rally for then-President Donald Trump.

Trump supporters haven’t been easy interview subjects for some time. Introduce yourself to them as a Washington Post reporter, and you can expect to be called “Fake News” nine times out of 10. In this case, they were leaving an indoor rally during a pandemic, maskless, and immediately suspicious of anyone wearing a face covering.

As I saw a little girl among the Trump supporters begin to cry amid the shouting, the demonstrations and counter-demonstrations, and her father kneel down to comfort her, I had an idea for an approach that felt fresh: What are Trump supporters telling their children about their opponents?

I knew what my parents had taught me about people who thought Black women shouldn’t be veterinarians, or that mixedrace families shouldn’t exist. I was told that those people needed to be listened to and learned from, so that we might understand how people learn to hate.

So I asked a bunch of families leaving the rally if they’d share their thoughts with me. I laughed off their taunts to take off my mask.

I declined to shake their hands. I said I

didn’t know about all that “fake news” stuff, because I was a sportswriter (my new, very effective cover).

After all that, they were happy to tell me their story, how the president hadn’t fanned the flames of racism, how Black Lives Matter had been funded by powerful, anti-American Jews, and who the “real racists” were: social justice activists. They were uninterested in the perspectives of their opponents, and they were passing that on to a new generation, illustrating anew the depths of our national divide over race. It was hard to talk about, and equally difficult to write about.

It was a lot like that interview with Antonia, the tape of which I’d stuffed away in a box in the garage.

Alexander Robert Klemko died Jan. 9 at MedStar Montgomery Medical Center. I was able to say goodbye to him, in a way, when a kind overnight nurse held up a phone to his ear while he lay unconscious in the hospital.

I knelt in the lawn in front of the hospital and wept, knowing finally he wouldn’t meet my son, due in May. When he died, I knew there was no keeping Antonia, Alex and Lisa’s story in a box. It was painful, sad, angering, heroic and worth telling and learning from.

After speaking to those parents in Oklahoma, I realized what I want most for my son, after good health and good friends.

I want him to grow up with the confidence, experience and courage it will take to tell me when I’m wrong. terp Robert Klemko is a 2010 graduate of the Philip Merrill College of Journalism and a staff writer at The Washington Post covering criminal justice and the broader movement for police reform. He covered the NFL for Sports Illustrated for six years.

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B Y L I A M FA R R E L L I L L U S T R AT I O N S B Y J A C Q U I O A K L E Y

The

Almighty Cod IT WAS THERE at the tentative beginnings of European voyages

In the shadow of climate change and overfishing, a UMD researcher finds answers for today’s oceans in the centuriesold bones of a North Atlantic fish.

to the New World, traveling alongside the wooden cargo ships and, once caught and dried in the cool salt air, fueling the crews that skirted the edges of the earth.

It was there when Leif Erikson set off more than 1,000 years ago for Greenland. He became lost in the churning waters of the North Atlantic, and when he finally came upon land—somewhere near Canada’s Gulf of St. Lawrence, historians believe—it confounded his expectations. He saw fields of wheat, luscious vines sprouting grapes and maple trees of enormous size.

But while divine providence was assumed to have played a role in the safe return of “Leif the Lucky” from what was thereafter known to his people as Vinland, there was a humbler reason for his survival as well—one that would keep swimming through history’s tides.

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This is a story about a fish.

Not in the sense of, say, a tangerine clownfish swimming into forbidding open ocean to search for his abducted son; nor in the sense of an old man battling for days off the coast of Cuba with a marlin hooked to the end of his line, or the lies of a fabulist friend about an early morning on a lake.

This story is about a fish that has lived in giant schools off North Atlantic shores and, through historical ubiquity and gastronomic utility, supplied ancient explorers, helped build world powers, and lately become a flashpoint between modern science and modern fishermen over how to shepherd its now-struggling population.

And while the importance of the North Atlantic codfish, from its explosive colonial economic impact to its devastation from overfishing in the 20th century, has been explored in academic papers, books and documentaries, a new project led by a University of Maryland researcher aims to see what new lessons can be pried out of bones—specifically, by examining cod bones dug out from places the fish has been eaten, processed or prepared for sale over hundreds of years. George Hambrecht, associate professor and director of undergraduate studies in the Department of Anthropology, is heading a team including researchers from Alaska and Iceland on the initiative, funded by a $1.7 million grant from the National Science Foundation, to use cutting-edge analysis on bones dating from the ninth to the 19th centuries and dug from archaeological sites in Iceland and the Faroe Islands over the last 30 years. In essence, they are making the cod the protagonist of its own environmental story.

“We have the human side, the cod side

30

T E R P. U M D . E D U

and the climate side,” Hambrecht says. “We are putting more emphasis on the cod side.”

Prized for its white flesh, low fat and high protein, Gadus morhua is a voracious, omnivorous eater whose territory stretches from America’s Gulf of Maine to the Grand Banks of Newfoundland and onward past the shores of Iceland into the North and Baltic seas. It can live for 20 years, grow longer than four feet and approach 80 pounds. Living in the cold, close to the ocean floor, the cod have had such a high spawning rate that Alexandre Dumas speculated 150 years ago that “it would take only three years to fill the sea so that you could walk across the Atlantic dryshod on the backs of cod.”

The project’s end result, says Hambrecht, an expert in zooarchaeology, will be an updated 1,000-year history that will not only deepen our understanding of how humans have historically interacted with a critical species, but also provide information that could guide decisions on managing waters and fisheries confronting a rapidly changing environment.

“We’re doing this in part because we’re all sort of history geeks,” Hambrecht says. “But we’re also doing it because there is a good chance historical data can be mobilized to deal with issues coming out of climate change.”

One place where such new knowledge could be put to use is New England, where the fish had near mythical importance for generations of European settlers—it was the source for the name of Massachusetts’ cape, was on the seal of the court that held the Salem witch trials, and formed the basis of a Daniel Webster speech in the U.S. Senate about the benefits of chowder. In

“You are what you eat, drink and breathe. All of us are basically sponges, sampling the environment around us at all times.”

—GEORGE HAMBRECHT, ASSOCIATE ANTHROPOLOGY PROFESSOR

one regional folk telling spun from the Bible story, the fish’s telltale white stripe extending from head to tail came from when Jesus handed it out along with bread loaves to feed the masses.

It wasn’t just “cod;” it was the “sacred cod.”

WHEN JOHN ADAMS TRAVELED to Paris as

part of the team negotiating the end of the Revolutionary War, he carried the interests of fishermen with him.

By the latter half of the 18th century, cod had become one of the most important commodities in the British colonies, particularly for New England and Adams’ native Massachusetts. Dried and salted cod was the fourth-most valuable export, trailing only sugar, tobacco and grain, and New England fisheries processed more than 39 million pounds of it in 1765.

The cod trade also played a significant role in the growing economic—and political—independence of what would become the United States. In addition to sending cod to Britain, a lower-grade product was also shipped to feed enslaved people on sugar plantations in the West Indies in exchange for the molasses needed to manufacture rum. Adam Smith, in his seminal “The Wealth of Nations,” praised the money brought in by American fisheries as an example of the prosperity fostered by untrammeled free trade.

And as the mother country began to wield a stronger hand in both taxation and commerce, Adams thought the restraints put on fishing and fishermen were “sundering this country from (Britain), I think, forever.”

The sometimes literal fights over such fishing laws, he believed, would eventually achieve greater infamy than the Boston Massacre.

Adams’ success in maintaining American access to the fertile cod grounds of Canada as part of the Treaty of Paris was, then, a prime political achievement—particularly after the members of what was essentially the first United States Navy had so successfully shifted those same cod trades from molasses to ammunition.

For “how could we restrain our fishermen, the boldest men alive,” Adams once asked, “from fishing in prohibited places?”

George Hambrecht doesn’t mind

harsh weather. For him, the North Atlantic, with its sharp winds, dramatic waves and rocky shores, feels less like the end of the world than the start of an entirely different one to explore.

He grew up in San Francisco (“I love fog,” he says) and earned a degree in history from Bard College in 1995 but didn’t take a single anthropology or archaeology course while at the Hudson River school. He speculates now that a bout with what was likely cholera on a high school trip to Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula partially soured him on the prospect. Hambrecht also didn’t immediately go to graduate school after completing his bachelor’s degree; he returned to California

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Hambrecht says. “All of us are basically sponges, sampling the environment around us at all times.”

But he also sees animal bones as an artifact like a sword hilt, statue or stone foundation, a clue to the framework of past human life and how our ancient ancestors coexisted with animals.

“There’s a huge amount we can tell about subsistence, diet, way of life,” he says, “everything from what (people) ate to ideas of the afterlife.”

And in the places that the cod trade built, people soaked up more than just traces of chemicals from food, water and air. In the intertwined relationship between human and animal, they also built an entire culture wrapped around the fortunes of a fish.

ABOUT 30 MILES NORTHEAST from a cod

and worked in the wine business until he came around to the notion of combining his enjoyment of the natural world with his interest in studying the past.

“I loved working outside and being in dirt.

I didn’t want to be stuck in an archive or a library,” he says. “Dirt plus history equals archaeology.”

So Hambrecht went to the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and embarked on a career that has included excavations on everything from an 18th-century colonial estate in Barbuda to the hidden yellow fever burial grounds of Washington Square Park in New York City, before coming to the University of Maryland in 2011.

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T E R P. U M D . E D U

One of his longest-running professional fascinations has focused on Iceland. For almost 20 years, Hambrecht’s been working amid a landscape of volcanoes and glaciers, one of the last places on Earth colonized by humans. In particular, he’s been digging at a bishop’s farm at Skálholt for centuries-old bones of sheep, cattle and—yes—cod.

With isotope analysis, Hambrecht says, researchers can glean incredible amounts of scientific detail from a bone. By cataloguing levels of chemical elements like carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and sulfur, it’s possible to figure out where an animal was born, what kind of environment it lived in, and where it died.

“You are what you eat, drink and breathe,”

sculpture hanging in the Boston statehouse, Gloucester fisherman Al Cottone does his best not to catch any of the fish that once created his state’s foundational merchant class and strengthened a burgeoning independent spirit.

The son of Sicilian immigrants, Cottone started regularly working on the water with his father as a teenager and is still a full-time fisherman in addition to holding side duties as executive director of the city’s fisheries commission. While even 10 years ago his seasonal cod quota was 35,000 pounds, it’s now down to 1,800—a result of restrictions meant to revive the fish population after its collapse in the 1990s. Now when he sets off in his 40-foot boat, he’s looking for haddock or flounder.

“We call it the Cod Avoidance Program,” he

“We need to keep what we have going. Every boat we lose, every captain we lose, we’re losing the heritage and experience that could be passed on.”

—AL COTTONE, FISHERMAN

says. “I’ve caught more than that (cod quota) in five minutes.”

Cottone and his fellow fishermen are frustrated by the limits; they are convinced the stock assessment surveys and methods used by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration underestimate the amount of cod they see every day in the water, but NOAA has already declared that a decade-long plan to rebuild the New England cod stocks won’t meet its 2024 target.

And even if cod quotas were voluminously increased overnight, it’s questionable whether Gloucester, a town with an 8-foot-tall dockside bronze statue memorializing fishermen who died at sea, still has the infrastructure to bounce back to its storied past. Hemmed in by catch limits and a flood of imported fish, Cottone estimates, Gloucester has lost as much as 90% of the boats that were there in the 1980s, creating a domino effect on everyone from dock workers to ice sellers. At age 55, he believes he’s probably the average for a graying workforce, and is trying to brainstorm ways to pass on fishing skills to younger generations before it’s too late.

“We need to keep what we have going,” Cottone says. “Every boat we lose, every captain we lose, we’re losing the heritage and experience that could be passed on.”

The spark for the Atlantic cod proj-

ect was research conducted in the Pacific Ocean.

Through a grapevine of professional organizations, Hambrecht came across the work of Nicole Misarti, a research associate professor and director of the Water and Environmental Research Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Misarti had been combing through everything from isotopes to hormones in bones and trace elements in teeth to examine the Pacific walrus over several thousand years.

It’s been a productive exercise. In walrus teeth, Misarti’s team discovered multiple spikes of elements associated with petroleum exploration, air pollution and sea ice melt during the latter half of the 20th century. The group also found that walrus have a more varied diet during periods of low sea ice, likely due to difficulty in accessing preferred hunting grounds; the modern walrus, however, has become more reliant on invertebrates than its ancestors, and less likely to eat seals or birds. And similar levels of cortisol—the so-called “stress hormone”— between modern and ancient walruses may indicate physiological resilience in the face of increasing pressure from climate change.

The pair thought that turning those techniques to an animal with a much more extensively documented historical tie to humans—“(We) look at both species as a

partnership,” Hambrecht says—would be fruitful.

So using samples that have already been excavated and are held in labs from Maryland to Norway by members of a scholarly cooperative called the North Atlantic Biocultural Organisation, the researchers will analyze bone slices and powder not just for details on a particular fish itself, but for clues they can provide about population-level genetic changes and ecological shifts over time such as ocean temperature and acidification, as well as how the species fit into the wider food web.

“What changes occurred in this fish stock in particular, and how did that affect the humans that were relying on them?” says Misarti, who is also a principal investigator on the project. “There’s not a lot of other fish stocks that have the written history to go along with the archaeological history that can give us a 1,000-year picture of what’s going on.”

Their ambition is to create a new starting point for proposed solutions to climate change and overfishing. Maybe more answers can be found, Hambrecht says, if our idea of what is “normal” shifts from taking into account just the past century or so and instead moves “that baseline back.”

Archaeology is ultimately not predictive, but gathering centuries of data on the cod and its fluctuating relationship to humanity and the environment may provide clues on how to better support a species that has played a crucial role in geographical, economic and cultural development, and is now facing unprecedented ecological change.

“We’re never going to find an exact parallel to what is happening now,” Hambrecht says. “But we at least think we can broaden our ideas of what is possible.” TERP

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“ T H E B O O N D O C KS” CO U RT ESY S O N Y P I CT U R ES T E L EV I S I O N ; “ M R S . A M E R I C A” : P I C T O R I A L P R E S S LT D /A L A M Y ; “ S E I N F E L D ” : N B C /A L A M Y ; “ T H E S I M P S O N S ” : P I C T U R E L U X / T H E H O L LY W O O D A R C H I V E /A L A M Y

Even in the dullest,

traditional TV viewing increased for the first

producers and writers of some bona fide

time since 2012, according to eMarketer,

favorites, promising pilots and cult classics.

darkest, most depressing days of the pan-

and a Wall Street Journal analysis esti-

Some are stage-trained actors from the

demic, we could always slide into the usual

mated that streaming services saw a 50%

School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance

booth at Monk’s Café with Jerry Seinfeld.

jump in subscribers. (So if your screen time

Studies, while others studied journalism,

has spiked, you’re right on trend!)

government and politics, and marketing.

We formed never-spreader pods of sorts with old friends, whether we hit the streets

What TV-bingeing Terps might not realize,

So whether you’re diving into a new show

of West Baltimore with Omar Little or

though, is just how many fellow University

knocked back Duffs with Homer.

of Marylanders they’ve virtually invited

the ultimate Terp TV guide for future

into their living rooms—as actors, directors,

viewing.

As the pandemic surged in 2020,

or revisiting an old standby, we’ve created

THE UNDENIABLE CLASSICS SEINFELD As LARRY DAVID ’70 and his

entitled “The Contest.” If nine seasons

THE SIMPSONS With around 700 episodes

comedian pal chatted about products on the

aren’t enough, see “Curb Your Enthusiasm,”

shelves while grocery shopping in 1988, they

created by and starring David as himself. It’s

featuring a donut-downing oaf and his

realized they never heard such mundane

pretty, pretty, pretty good, too.

Springfield-based family and neighbors is

conversations on TV. That idea for a “show

and counting, the animated comedy

the longest-running scripted series in TV

about nothing” turned into 180 beloved

THE WIRE Widely considered one of the

history. Former Terp DAVID SILVERMAN

episodes, giving us gems like “yada, yada,”

best TV series of all time, the crime drama

produced, animated and/or directed

“a Festivus for the rest of us” and “No soup

created in 2002 by former Diamondback

hundreds of those, helping to create Lisa’s

editor and Baltimore Sun police reporter

pointy hair, Mr. Burns’ sneers and Bart’s

wrote and/or produced more than 100 of

DAVID SIMON ’83 chronicles the drug

seminal Gen-X wisdom: “Don’t have a cow,

those.) David, who also wrote and produced

scene in Baltimore, exploring the role of

man.” But the show was more than just a

for the hit sitcom, last year revealed his

law enforcement, schools, the media and

silly cartoon, with a revolutionary take on

favorite episode, a “master”ful half-hour

other institutions in a major American

animated satire for adults that lampooned

city. “We knew we had to make the story

everything from politics to Live Aid-style

for you!” (Fellow Terp PETER MEHLMAN ’77

entertaining,” Simon told Vanity Fair in April

benefits. “The Simpsons” even eerily

2020. “But our reasons for doing it were

seemed to predict the future on multiple

so that we could sustain a sociopolitical

occasions, including Donald Trump’s

argument. That was why we got up in the

presidency, the Ebola outbreak and most

morning.” The story had staying power:

recently, the election of Joe Biden and

When COVID-19 lockdowns began last year,

Kamala Harris. “The secret is that we travel

viewership of the series nearly tripled on

through time,”

HBO Now, according to parent company

Silverman

WarnerMedia. But if you’re looking for

joked in a 2020

something new, try Simon’s latest HBO

roundtable.

miniseries, “The Plot Against America,” or “Treme,” “Show Me a Hero” or “The Deuce.”

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THE CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED NEXT GENERATION THE GOOD PLACE Ever wonder how exactly

earthlings make it into heaven (or get sentenced to hell)? This forking fresh comedy offers its take, with Kristen Bell starring as Eleanor Shellstrop, who navigates the afterlife and what it means to be a truly good person. BETH INSECURE Searching for a witty, stereotype-

MRS. AMERICA Between working on the

of the four-season hit, which racked up two

MCCARTHY-MILLER ’85 directed six episodes

busting comedy? This look at the awkward

irreverent “Reno 911!” and the upcoming thriller

Golden Globe and 13 Emmy nominations during

experiences of 20-something Black women in

its 2016-20 run. “A show like this, every script

Los Angeles delivers. NATASHA ROTHWELL ’03

was producing the mini-series “Mrs. America,”

is a blessing,” she said on “The Good Place: The

plays Kelli, a college friend of main character

released on FX on Hulu last year. The 10-time

Podcast.” McCarthy-Miller has been behind the

Issa (played by co-creator Issa Rae), who never

Emmy-nominated drama stars Cate Blanchett

camera for a slew of other successful shows,

shies away from speaking her mind. The show,

as conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly, a fierce

including “30 Rock,” “Modern Family,” “The

which has earned 11 Emmy nominations and

opponent of modern feminism and the Equal

Kominsky Method” and over 200 episodes of

one win since its 2016 debut, mixes laughs

“Saturday Night Live.”

and raunchiness even as it delves

“The Devil in the White City,” STACEY SHER ’83

Rights Amendment in the 1970s. “I thought it would be really interesting to tell the story about

into social and racial issues, such

the ERA and the fight about the ERA from the

as mental health and workplace

point of view (of) the spoiler,” Sher said in an

racism. “It’s been really cool to see

interview with Deadline.

audiences be so provoked by the show and engage in conversation,” Rothwell told Essence last year.

When she wasn’t busy side-eyeing as Kelli, the former “Saturday Night Live” writer stepped in as a story editor.

36

“ T H E G O O D P L A C E ” : U N I V E R S A L T E L E V I S I O N /A L A M Y ; “ I N S ECU R E ” : P H OTO CO U RT ESY O F H B O

THE MARATHON-WORTHY MYSTERIES LAW AND ORDER When you hear that

BLUE BLOODS This hit crime drama

MONK For a bit of lighter

iconic “Dun DUN,” you know you’re about

centered around a family of New York cops

material, comedy-drama

to witness one of the more than 450 crime

allows ABIGAIL HAWK ’04 to transform

investigations featured on “Law & Order.”

into Detective Abigail Baker. The School of

the USA Network from

DIANNE WIEST ’69 , who you might know

Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies

2002-09, features a former detective turned

“Monk,” which ran on

from movies like “Bullets Over Broadway”

alum was a struggling actor working retail in

and “Hannah and Her Sisters,” stepped onto

New York City before landing a guest starring-

private eye who’s battling

the small screen in 2000 to portray interim

role in 2010. Around 200 episodes later, she’s

obsessive-compulsive

district attorney Nora Lewin in 48 episodes.

still assisting Commissioner Frank Reagan

disorder. By Monk’s side for three seasons is

She replaced Steve Hill, who had played the

(Tom Selleck). “Baker and I have led quite

nurse and assistant Sharona Fleming, played

show’s D.A. for 10 years. “The first woman

parallel lives,” she told the website Showbiz

by BITTY SCHRAM ’90 , who’s not afraid

at the top of the list was Dianne,” producer

Cheat Sheet last year. “She has matured and

to show her boss some tough love. While

Dick Wolf told Variety at the time. “Quite

flourished under Frank’s mentorship.” The

you might remember Schram as the teary

luckily she was intrigued. Not in your wildest

series returned for season 11 in December

imagination could you pick up not only a

with an interesting approach: skipping over

“There’s no crying in baseball!” in “A League

the pandemic to depict a post-COVID world

of Their Own,” this role earned her a 2004

even as it confronted the timely topic of

Golden Globe nomination.

single but a double-Oscar winner.”

baseball player at whom Tom Hanks yells,

police brutality.

UMD Shows Strong Character Beyond the fourth wall, even fictional Terps have made their mark in the TV universe.

“30 Rock” protagonist Liz Lemon, the hardworking yet awkward comedy sketch show writer—played by and loosely based on Tina Fey—attended UMD on a “partial competitive jazz dance scholarship,” as revealed in season 4 episode “Lee Martin vs.

Derek Jeter.” A quick Lemon flashback gives viewers a glimpse of her leotard-donning days on Maryland’s campus.

Another strong female lead, FBI agent Dana Scully of “The X-Files,” also counts herself as a Terp. The scientist, dedicated to an evidence-based approach to her work, got her start as a physics major at Maryland. Season 4 episode “Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man” offers a look at her 1986 senior thesis, impressively titled “Einstein’s Twin Paradox: A New Interpretation.”

“ M O N K ” : A F A R C H I V E /A L A M Y S T O C K P H O T O ; T I N A F E Y : A L L S T A R P I C T U R E L I B R A R Y LT D . /A L A M Y

SPRING 2021

37

THE TEEN HITS (THAT ADULTS CAN ENJOY, TOO) NEVER HAVE I EVER In what critics

While a high schooler hunting down

story, this 2020 Netflix comedy follows

vampires and other mystical evils might

the angst and antics of an Indian

not seem like the formula for a classic

American teen, who’s navigating high

“Buffy’s” combination of horror, comedy

with her father’s death. POORNA

and drama—with a strong female lead—

JAGANNATHAN ’96 plays Nalini, the

helped transform TV for good. Producer

well-meaning mother of main character

GAIL BERMAN ’78 , who owned the

Devi; the show earned praise for

rights to the movie by the same name,

“It’s certainly the most empowered I’ve

T E R P. U M D . E D U

teen show, critics have suggested that

school while still coming to terms

developing complex, diverse characters.

38

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER

call a “fresh take” on a coming-of-age

helped turn the supernatural story into the popular television show, which ran

ever been on a set,” Jagannathan, an

from 1997-2003. “There weren’t a lot of

immigrant herself whose father was an

empowered young women on TV at the

Indian diplomat, told UMD in June. “The

time,” she told The Hollywood Reporter

show was set within my cultural context,

in 2017. “This show was important

so anything from props, to costume, to

for female storytelling, for genres

food—my opinion helped shape how

like ‘Twilight’ and anything that came

things came together.” Bonus for Terp

after ‘Buffy.’ It changed storytelling.”

fans: Alums ADAM SHAPIRO ’02 and

Berman went on to produce 110

ADRIYAH MARIE YOUNG ’13 also appear.

episodes of the spin-off show, “Angel.”

“ N E V E R H AV E I E V E R ” : P H O T O C O U R T E S Y O F N E T F L I X ; “ B U F F Y T H E V A M P I R E S L A Y E R ” : © 2 0 T H C E N T U R Y F O X F I L M C O R P. , CO U RT ESY: EV E R E T T CO L L ECT I O N

Also Seen on Screen: UMD’s Campus Terps watching CBS comedy “Young Sheldon” this spring might’ve noticed some familiar scenery as the kid genius started classes at East Texas Tech—even if they’d never been to the Lone Star State.

These episodes featured an aerial view of McKeldin Mall, with a few adjustments: The crisscrossing sidewalks vanished, the ODK Fountain

shrank to make room for a flagpole and a giant faux logo was mowed into the lawn.

It’s not the first star turn for UMD’s campus, which has also made appearances in the TV series “Veep” and “Savage U,” as well as movies including “St. Elmo’s Fire,” “National Treasure II: Book of Secrets” and “Species II.” Read more at today.umd.edu today.umd.edu..

COMING SOON TO A TV NEAR YOU HOW TO BE SUCCESSFUL WITHOUT

THE BOONDOCKS AARON

HURTING MEN’S FEELINGS Inspired

MCGRUDER ’98 created and produced

by the book by SARAH COOPER ’98 ,

a version of the satirical comedy, which

this single-camera comedy, being

ran for four seasons and was based

developed by CBS, will follow three

on his former nationally syndicated

women as they tackle gender politics

comic strip—early versions of which

at a male-dominated company. Cooper

appeared in The Diamondback.

rose to TikTok fame last year with her

The show provided more biting,

viral lip-sync impressions of former

incisive perspective on Black

President Donald Trump.

culture as it followed a family from the city to the suburbs,

CLAP WHEN YOU LAND In another

touching on topics like

book-to-TV adaptation, production

Barack Obama’s election,

company Made Up Stories in December

white people using racial

acquired the rights to the bestselling

slurs and America’s

novel by ELIZABETH ACEVEDO MFA

progress (or lack

’15 . In the young adult book, Acevedo,

thereof) toward civil

the daughter of Dominican immigrants,

rights. A reimagined series is

writes about two fictional sisters who

set to premiere next year on HBO Max.

don’t know about each other until their father dies on American Airlines Flight 587, which crashed and killed 265 people on its way to the Dominican Republic in 2001.

“ YO U N G S H E L D O N ” P H OTO V I A YO U T U B E

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ALUMNI

A S S O C I AT I O N

Letter From the Executive Director THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND Alumni

Association is your association. It’s here to not only support the university, but also enrich your life socially, personally and professionally.

Therefore, we take your input seriously. Recently, nearly 5,000 Terps responded to our survey asking about everything from your experience as students to impressions of the association to what types of programs and events you most crave.

Alumni like you resoundingly shared a positive opinion of the university and that your No. 1 priority for the Alumni Association is to help improve your career. (See more on the facing page.)

Thanks to this revealing feedback, the Alumni Association has taken the following steps to serve you better: • Launching our first-ever Career Week, when more than 2,000 Terps registered for 21 events designed to help you gain skills, network with Terps in their industry and connect with career-boosting resources at the Alumni Association.

• Expanding our investment in Terrapins Connect, our online networking and mentoring platform exclusively for the Terp community.

• Increasing our programming during Black History Month earlier this year, as a kickoff to our inaugural Black Alumni Weekend, coming in Spring 2022.

• Amplifying alumni-owned businesses through the #TerpBusiness

A Celebration of Terps:

Featuring The Maryland Awards The Alumni Association’s annual gala was reimagined this year, with guests attending a virtual awards ceremony on April 23 during the week of events celebrating the inauguration of UMD President Darryll J. Pines. Thank you to all who joined us in honoring the achievements of six outstanding Terps: PRESIDENT’S AWARD: Jody K. Olsen Ph.D. ’79, former

Peace Corps director

initiative to encourage Terps to do business with other Terps.

• Enhancing the content in our Alumni Blog, which is already reaching more than 4,000 Terps a month.

• Revamping our website to help you more easily find the resources you want.

Your Alumni Association is fearlessly committed to your success. Stay tuned for more valuable programs and experiences.

Go Terps!

OUTSTANDING YOUNG ALUMNUS AWARD: Jazz Lewis ’11,

MPP ’14, Maryland state delegate, Democratic House Caucus chair DO GOOD AWARD: L. Seth Statler MBA ’87, director of

government affairs, National Fire Protection Association TYSER GOTTWALS AWARD: Wanda Alexis Alexander ’81,

president and CEO, WAA-LLC ELAINE JOHNSON COATES AWARD: Joseph Kunkel M.Arch.

’09, principal, MASS Design Group, and director, SNC DL SPIRIT OF MARYLAND AWARD: Johnny Holliday, the

Amy Eichhorst

Executive Director University of Maryland Alumni Association

“Voice of Maryland Basketball and Football” Learn more about these distinguished Terps at celebrateterps.umd.edu.

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The Results Are In

1 Help alumni find jobs 2 Provide industry-based networking opportunities 3 Help alumni gain new skills to advance their careers 4 Provide regional alumni networks 5 Provide an outlet for mentoring and advising current students

We asked, and you answered. Thank you to all of our alumni who participated in our 2020 Alumni Survey.

With your input we gleaned valuable insights about

6 Provide opportunities to support alumni-owned businesses 7 Elevate underrepresented communities

what you want from us during and after the COVID-19

8 Share news about what’s happening on campus and in College Park

pandemic. Here are your top eight priorities:

For more survey insights, visit go.umd.edu/surveyresults.

Here are just three of the ways the Alumni Association has expanded programming to meet your needs.

TERRAPINS CONNECT JOB BOARD

TERP TRIPS

ENTERPRENEUR CONFERENCE

While we’re all

JUNE 2-4, 2021

The newest feature of our

awaiting a full

What do Google, Beyond Meat, Under

mentorship platform, a job

return to normalcy, there are plenty

Armour, Fortnite and Oculus have in

board, is a great place to

of ways to reinvigorate your senses

common? They were all founded by Terps! Join

search for open positions, or share a

right in your own backyard. Terp Trips

us for the second annual EnTERPreneur Conference

hiring opportunity at your organization

are returning with Maryland-themed,

with keynote speaker Ethan Brown MPM ’97, founder

with fellow Terps. The board is a one-stop

safe, family-friendly, on-your-own

and CEO of Beyond Meat. Connect with resources

shop for your career needs, allowing you

day excursions in the DMV or

at UMD to help start or grow your business venture.

to network with alumni at a particular

wherever you live. You’ll find many

Network with other Terp entrepreneurs, investors

organization, including connecting directly

opportunities to support Terp-owned

and advisers and form relationships that will

with the Terp referral or hiring manager.

businesses along the way. Plan your

prepare your startup for success. Learn more at

Get started at terrapinsconnect.umd.edu.

itinerary at alumni.umd.edu/travel.

alumni.umd.edu/EnTERPreneur-Conference-2021.

SPRING 2021

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ALUMNI

PROFILES

Pandemic Fighter’s Priorities

Lifelong Terp Helps Lead Nation’s Vaccine Trials

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T E R P. U M D . E D U

D R . K AT H L E E N N E U Z I L ’ 8 3

ne of the nation’s leading scientists in the desperate campaign to develop coronavirus vaccines—and in the Hollywood-esque triumph of succeeding within a year—grew up just across the street from the University of Maryland. Underlying all that work is her hope of returning to campus.

“I’m fighting the pandemic partly so I can get back to my Terps season tickets,” says Dr. Kathleen Neuzil ’83, lamenting a men’s basketball season played in a mostly empty Xfinity Center.

The director of the Center for Vaccine Development and Global Health at the

O

University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM), Neuzil pivoted at the pandemic’s outset in early 2020 to take on COVID-19, and has been inside a whirlwind ever since.

She’s one of two researchers leading the COVID-19 Prevention Trials Network for the National Institutes of Health, responsible for design and oversight of clinical trials of the vaccines now available stateside as well as those in the pipeline.

Neuzil’s friends and tight-knit family have watched her often round-the-clock effort without surprise; they say it’s in keeping with her seemingly boundless energy and drive.

P H O T O B Y J O H N T. C O N S O L I

CLASS NOTES FABIAN DONATE MHA ’20 was

appointed in January to fill a vacancy in the Nevada State Senate, where he hopes to use his public health education to inform policymaking during the

“A typical thing for Kathy would be that she’s working on vaccines in Vietnam for a week, gets off the plane after flying around the world and is calling from the Uber asking, ‘How do I get to the kids’ games?’” says her sister, Sue O’Connell ’76.

Neuzil’s priorities beyond medicine and public health were formed as a child, when the family lived on the flanks of the UMD Golf Course. Her father was a Terrapin Club member and infused the household with Maryland sports fervor, and even took a preteen Kathleen to the ACC tournament.

But then, over a tragic two years, Neuzil’s father died of cancer when she was 12, followed by her mother’s death from a cerebral hemorrhage when she was 14. The potentially ruinous effect on her future, however, was averted when the four siblings—the oldest of whom had just reached adulthood—drew together and stayed on in their parents’ house, where they dealt with grief by carrying on almost as if their parents were still alive.

“I honestly didn’t feel that I had time to let it derail me in any way,” Neuzil says. “I had my studies. I was playing sports in high school. I was always working part-time because money was a problem.”

A combination of smarts and financial need resulted in a full scholarship at UMD, her dream school. She majored in zoology and played club softball in the days before the university had an NCAA team.

After graduating summa cum laude, she attended Johns Hopkins School of

I L L U S T R AT I O N S BY J A S O N A . K E I S L I N G

Medicine, followed by a residency in internal medicine at Vanderbilt University, and then a fellowship in infectious diseases and Master of Public Health degree at the same institution.

Among her major research breakthroughs was a demonstration that childhood pneumonia was often linked to influenza, a finding that surprised health authorities and led to flu vaccinations before age 1.

Her longtime research collaborator and friend, Dr. Kathryn Edwards, a professor of pediatrics and an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt, says Neuzil has rare instincts as a researcher.

“She has a gift of seeing what the real question is—a laser vision to focus on that, and not be diverted by side issues,” Edwards says.

Neuzil’s focus broadened to global vaccine issues when she moved to PATH, a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation-funded international public health nonprofit in Seattle where, as director of vaccine access and delivery, she was instrumental in rolling out a number of vaccines around the world, including those for HPV, rotovirus and Japanese encephalitis.

She returned to Maryland in 2015 as a professor of vaccinology at UMSOM. (Her husband is a vascular surgeon at the University of Maryland Medical Center, and one of their three children is now in medical school.) In addition to serving here as one of the world’s leading voices on vaccine research and policy, she’s rejoined another important group, too.

“When she came back, the family was together again,” O’Connell says.—cc

pandemic. He most recently served on President Biden’s Health Policy Committee.

AMANDA NACHMAN ’07 , CEO and

publisher of College Magazine, wrote “#Qualified: You Are More Impressive Than You Realize.” She appeared on “Good Morning America” to share tips for young job-seekers to boost confidence and connections.

LYDIA HU ’06 joined FOX Business

Network as a New York-based correspondent. Since January 2018, Hu had been a general assignment reporter and enterprise storyteller for NY1 in New York.

Former Olympic gold-medalist gymnast DOMINIQUE DAWES ’02 joined Chelsea

Clinton and Jenna Bush Hager in a high-profile group from sports, business and politics that bought an ownership stake in the Washington Spirit, the National Women’s Soccer League club.

KATHLEEN H. HICKS M.P.M. ’93 was

sworn in as U.S. deputy secretary of defense, making her the first woman to hold the No. 2 position in the Pentagon.

She most recently served as senior vice president and Henry A. Kissinger Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.

Submit your class notes and read many more at terp.umd.edu.

SPRING 2021

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ALUMNI

PROFILES

A A R O N B R YA N T P H . D . ’ 1 8

Collecting Today’s History

Alum Documents Events in Real Time for Smithsonian Museum tanding in the streets of Baltimore after Freddie Gray’s death, and again in Washington, D.C., after the killing of George Floyd, two Black men felled by police, Aaron Bryant Ph.D. ’18 took in the scenes through an uncommon set of lenses: He was a historian, witnessing and experiencing history, and a curator, thinking about how to preserve the moment for those not there.

As curator of photography, visual culture and contemporary history at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, Bryant’s job includes gathering artifacts of social change as it’s happening. As protests persisted last summer, Bryant spoke with people on sidewalks, browsed images on social media, and visited demonstration sites in their aftermath, collecting objects that encapsulated the event.

“I’m a part of the community as well as someone who wants to collect to represent the voices and the experiences,” says Bryant.

S

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T E R P. U M D . E D U

It’s not only the “No Justice, No Peace” signs that Bryant hopes to find. Items in the museum’s collection representing protests against racial inequality also include a Black Lives Matter T-shirt worn by Baltimore Councilwoman Sharon Green Middleton and a rake used to clean up after the unrest that followed Gray’s fatal injuries in 2015; and a suit worn by a pastor in Ferguson, Mo., during the unrest sparked in 2014 by the police killing of another unarmed Black man, Michael Brown.

Championing the unsung is nothing new for Bryant; his dissertation at UMD on the Poor People’s Campaign, the 1968 movement for economic justice led by the Rev. Martin Luther King and the Rev. Ralph Abernathy, included research on then-little-known photographer Robert Houston. Bryant, “a very talented archives rat,” according to doctoral adviser and Associate Professor of American studies Mary Corbin Sies, unearthed the photos, which showed a

human side to the political demonstrations and tent-building on the National Mall that few people had ever seen.

Bryant’s work, which eventually became the museum’s 2018 exhibit “City of Hope,” “completely made me rethink the Poor People’s Campaign,” says Sies.

Growing up in Baltimore, Bryant’s love of visual culture started with PBS documentaries, in which photographs and documents came to life through research and interpretation. His goal as a curator, he says, is for so-called regular folks to know that their belongings are valuable for what they reveal about each individual’s story.

“History happens every single day,” says Bryant. “We have to understand that our lives are part of a much broader narrative.”— sl

P H OTOS CO U RT ESY O F JAS O N S P E A R/ N M A A H C ; P O RT RA I T BY M A RV I N J OS E P H / T H E WAS H I N GTO N P OST V I A N M A A H C

GIVE THE GIFT OF

EDUCATION

The Clark Challenge for the Maryland Promise is building a $100 million endowment that is providing needbased scholarships to undergraduate students from the state of Maryland and the District of Columbia.

For more information, contact Susan Smith in University Development at 301.405.0196 or ssmith86@umd.edu.

FOLLOW THEIR JOURNEY ON INSTAGRAM @MARYLANDPROMISE PROMISE.UMD.EDU

SUPPORT THE MARYLAND PROMISE PROGRAM TODAY! 1 With a pledge commitment

of $50,000 or more, you can support the lifetime success of talented students in any school or program of your choice.

2 Establish a named and endowed fund or make a gift to the Maryland Promise General Endowment Fund (contact us for program details).

3 Receive a dollar-for-dollar

match from the university and the A. James & Alice B. Clark Foundation.

4 See your scholarship awarded, enhancing the success of UMD students—in perpetuity.

ALUMNI

PROFILES

BRETT SCHULMAN ’95

Menu on a Mission

Cava CEO Dishes on Dining in a Pandemic World RESTAURANTS VYING TO SURVIVE the pandemic

had to do more than stock up on to-go boxes and hand sanitizer.

As the noontime stampede from office workers seeking a salad or sandwich nearly vanished, fast-casual eateries instead needed to serve up bigger changes—and attractions.

In this uniquely competitive environment, Cava, the Washington, D.C.-based Mediterranean restaurant chain now with locations in 12 states, has thrived. CEO Brett Schulman ’95 says the COVID-19 pandemic “has allowed us to reflect on future plans and quickly accelerate certain initiatives that were planned for months or even years down the line.”

Here are some of the pandemic-prompted updates that he says helped Cava avoid fallen competitors’ fates and adapt to customers’ changing lifestyles and tastes.—SL STRAPPING SUPPERS:

Early on in the pandemic, the Cava team noticed

that check sizes were growing, as families stocked up on meals for coming days or simply needed more food for children and other relatives who may have returned home. “Family meals” now offer platters for bigger groups.

CHEF-Y CHOICES:

Harissa, spicy lamb meatballs, lentil tabbouleh, yogurt

dill dressing—a new customer discovering Cava online might have trouble knowing what components taste best together. Cava introduced chef-curated bowls from its culinary team “to quickly meet heightened demand for flavorful and convenient meals that eliminated any guesswork,” says Schulman.

AN APPEALING APP:

Cava launched its new app “to further bridge the gap

between the in-store and digital experience,” says Schulman. The app is visual and linear to clarify the ordering process.

SUPERMARKET SPECIALS:

Sales of Cava’s grocery store products grew by

double-digit percentages; its line of dips, sauces and spreads—available in Whole Foods and other grocers before the pandemic—met a demand for more exciting dining-at-home flourishes.

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T E R P. U M D . E D U

I L L U S T R AT I O N S B Y VA L E R I E M O R G A N

A GREAT ESCAPE IN A FAMILIAR PLACE. A relaxing getaway has never been so well-deserved. There’s no better location than the city of College Park, within the beautiful campus of the University of Maryland. Enjoy the many area attractions and savor the comfort of your guest room and hotel amenities.

We’ve thought of everything, and we look forward to welcoming you to The Hotel at the University of Maryland.

EVENTS & CONFERENCES

◆

WEDDINGS & OCCASIONS

◆

RESTAURANTS

◆

SPA

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ALUMNI

FROM THE ARCHIVES

Flipping Out for 75 Years

Gymkana Troupe Has Taken a Healthy Message to New Heights or three-quarters of a century, Gymkana has jumped through hoops—and balanced on beams, twirled on ladders and leapt through fire—to share its message.

The team of tumbling Terps, formed in 1946 to promote gymnastics and acrobatics, has performed hundreds of soaring shows for UMD, the USO and even “America’s Got Talent.” Amid the synchronized spins and feats of flexibility, Gymkana’s mission has evolved: The group took an antidrug stance in the ’80s, with members today encouraging overall healthy lifestyles as School of Public Health ambassadors.

To honor its anniversary, we backflipped into the past with University Archives and troupe leaders to show some of its high-flying highlights. Following COVID-caused cancellations this season, members raised over $46,000 in February during a LaunchUMD crowdfunding campaign, and gymnasts past and present joined together in April for a virtual show.

“Gymkana is an incredibly unique program that has a long legacy,” says Assistant Director and Coach Ben Prescott.—ad

F

Flip through more photos of twisting, turning and tumbling troupe members through the years at terp.umd.edu.

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T E R P. U M D . E D U

TO P R I G H T CO LO R P H OTO BY T Y L E R EC K E R ; OT H E R P H OTOS CO U RT ESY O F U N I V E R S I T Y A RC H I V ES

THANK YOU! The University of Maryland thanks the generous individual donors and corporate sponsors who helped make possible the inauguration celebration of Darryll J. Pines as president.

DONORS Wanda Alexis Alexander Anonymous Donor Al Carey Mr. Teguh J. Haryanto and Ms. Marguerita M. Cheng Mrs. Rose Horan Cohen and Mr. Robert L. Cohen UMD Engineering Alumni Network The Honorable Gordon R. England Marlene and Philip Feldman Mr. Emilio A. Fernandez and Mrs. Ofelia Fernandez Mr. V. Raymond Ferrara and Mrs. Kim Ferrara Mr. Richard M. Finkelstein and Mrs. Susan Finkelstein Eric S. Francis, Esq. and Frann G. Francis, Esq. The Honorable Joseph B. Gildenhorn and Mrs. Alma G. Gildenhorn Mr. Stanley H. Goldstein and Mrs. Sara F. Goldstein Dr. Christopher T. Jones and Ms. Vernice B. Jones

Mr. Paul S. Mandell and Mrs. Lisa Mandell Mr. Amit T. Mehta and Dr. Ruchi Mehta Mr. Michael J. Mellor and Mrs. Pamela A. Mellor Mr. Daniel I. Millman Nicole R. Pollard, Esq. Ms. Sapienza Barone and Mr. Brodie Remington Dr. Philip R. Rever and Mrs. Brenda Brown Rever Mr. Jeffrey A. Rivest and Mrs. Michelle M. Rivest Mr. Harvey L. Sanders and Mrs. Ellen Sanders Mr. Robert R. Satterfield Mr. Michael J. Schwab and Mrs. Debbie L. Schwab Mrs. Jennifer B. Spencer and Mr. James G. Spencer Mr. Craig A. Thompson, Esq. and Mrs. Deborah K. St. LawrenceThompson, Esq. Mr. Pedro E. Wasmer and Mrs. Ann G. Wasmer

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Plugging into the sun TO

STAY ONLINE ALEX ONUFRAK ’21 / INFORMATION SCIENCE

Alex invented a kit to retrofit patio umbrellas with an electricity-generating solar panel for off-grid device charging, making it easy for users to stay cool, connected and committed to sustainability.