Terp Winter 2024 Contents: News - With $20M Investment, UMD Becomes HQ for Clark Scholars Program - An Xceptional Challenge - Commanders’ Offices to “Touchdown” in Discovery District Campus Life - How to Succeed in Business Without Really Dying - An Out-of-This-World Mentor - Harmony Between AI and Violin Instruction? - Back in Full Swing - Sports Briefs Explorations - AI Offers Hope on Dangerous Ground - Ask an Expert - What the Bio-Nose Knows - The FEWTure of Food Forests - In the Shadow of History - A Soaring Success - Towering Ambitions for Forecasts - PROGRESS on Gun Violence Post-Grad - Alumni Association - Capital-area Chronicler Turns the Page - Ahead of the Game - Alum’s Photo to Live “Forever” on Stamp - Cheese the Day - A Match Made in Lot 1 - Underexposed - Parting Shot Features - Standing the Testudo of Time From turtlenappings to TikTok shenanigans, an unassuming reptile has evolved to represent Terp spirit. By Terp Staff - Tribal Loyalties American Indians have long been denied fair access to homes, health care, schooling and jobs. For Joseph Kunkel M.Arch. ’09, the mission to change that is personal. By Sala Levin ’10 - Out of the Shell Twenty-five years ago, the LGBTQ+ Equity Center opened to support queer Terps who felt invisible, isolated and harassed. Some of the founders recount its humble start and hard-won victories. By Karen Shih ’09 Letter from the Editor: In 15 years at UMD, I’ve seen a lot of Testudos: Bobbleheads. Plushies. Stick pins. Printed on bowties, socks and baby onesies. Sketched on commencement posters and wine bottles. Even strapped atop the Terrapin Club president’s tailgate canopy as a giant inflatable, towering over pregame parties. Improbably, a diamondback terrapin has made a marvelous mascot for UMD. He’s part of some of the university’s best traditions, helping to unfurl the Maryland flag at basketball and football games, stoically accepting nose rubs or dancing with the annual flash mob. As a bronze statue, he’s dignified and immune to the affronts of half-eaten food or stolen traffic cones left with him as “sacrifices” by worried students facing final exams. As a walking (but not talking) symbol of Maryland pride, he’s a cuddly clown in a furry suit. He dresses up as a granny or Spider-Man, hugs kids and poses for selfies. For this issue, the Terp team dug up our favorite iterations of and tales about Testudo since he first appeared just over 90 years ago—some of which may be new to his most ardent fans. Flip to page 18 for our cover feature about him and be on the lookout for nuggets about life in the mascot costume and the surprising number of times the (heavy!) statue was stolen. You’ll find another fun story in writer Maggie Haslam’s first-person account of a “survival class” in the woods, hosted by a business professor teaching undergrads how to collaborate and improvise to solve problems with little more than a garbage bag and a rope. Our other features take on weightier topics. Writer Karen Shih compiled an oral history from nearly a dozen interviews with faculty, staff and students who helped launch the LGBTQ+ Equity Center 25 years ago and details the discrimination they fought to overcome. Writer Sala Levin and photographer John Consoli traveled to New Mexico to meet an alum, an architect and citizen of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe who’s devoted his career to empowering historically under-resourced Indigenous communities. And from saving the bald eagle to creating “food forests” to feed the hungry or using AI to find unexploded munitions in Ukraine, we spotlight in this issue just a few of the other societal challenges our faculty are tackling. Where there is conflict, injustice or a seemingly intractable problem, there are Terps stepping in to find a solution. “Look for the helpers,” Mr. Rogers gently suggested to children stressed by scary things in the news. A grown-up version is to look for the Terps. And if things still seem scary, you can always look for a furry, giant Testudo. Lauren Brown University Editor Publisher Brian Ullmann ’92 Vice President, Marketing and Communications Adviser Margaret Hall Executive Director, Creative Strategies Magazine Staff Lauren Brown, University Editor John T. Consoli ’86, Creative Director Valerie Morgan, Art Director Writers Chris Carroll Maggie Haslam Annie Krakower Sala Levin ’10 Karen Shih ’09 Lucy Hubbard ’24, Editorial Intern Designers Kolin Behrens Lauren Biagini Charlene Prosser Castillo Stephanie S. Cordle, Photographer Gail Rupert M.L.S. ’10, Photography Archivist Hong H. Huynh, Photography Assistant Jagu Cornish, Production Manager Email terpfeedback@umd.edu Online terp.umd.edu News today.umd.edu Facebook.com/UnivofMaryland Twitter.com/UofMaryland Instagram.com/univofmaryland 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 Typography by Valerie Morgan; photo by Ruth Black, Stocksy. Letters to the Editor: -“Get Listening, Kids” Your article struck a chord (pun intended) and a trip down memory lane!  In my graduating year of civil engineering, I decided to round out my education and volunteer at what was then WMUC AM 65 for the graveyard shift once per week. There was a call-in line, and my friends would ask for 1960s retro tunes—none of which was on the contemporary playlist (“Gloria” by Laura Branigan, “Abracadabra” by the Steve Miller Band and “Eye of the Tiger” by Survivor). Being a DJ was better than attending Toastmasters in learning to minimize dead airtime, training oneself to minimize or eliminate “uh”s and “ah”s as you gather your thoughts, talking in cohesive sentences and organizing. I used those skills in my career with the U.S. Secret Service and Department of Homeland Security in presentations and at international forums. In retrospect, I’m not sure if I fit your article’s “loners, punks and weirdos.” Hmm, maybe I do! Bob Baer ’82, College Park, Md. We were the first station in the country to have the Hall and Oates single “Maneater” and drop it! I think I was chosen to do the honors because my shift was 10-2, and most students eat during that time and would hear it either in the cafeteria or in the student union. I also had a fan club who chose to keep their identities secret. They would always call in and ask me to play “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard” by Paul Simon. Around the time of my last shift, they revealed who they were and gave me a houseplant that they had named Julio! Dominique (Yambrick) Gallo ’85, Ocean Pines, Md. Your article brought back many memories of my undergraduate years and continuing education during the 1980s. I worked various student jobs, many in the Stamp Student Union. I will always remember WMUC playing in the background, no matter what the hour of the day or night. Thank you for the history lesson. (I’m now an educator.) Go Terps! Dale R. Steinfort ’78, Shippensburg, Pa. -Blast From the Past—and Into the Future The Wind Tunnel! My favorite campus building. In 1985, I had a writing internship at the Engineering Research Center on the second floor. One day, Director Jewel Barlow gave a few of us a full tour.  I was able to visit the tunnel again during Maryland Day 2023 and let the mere 30-mph air flow through my meager hair. And Professor Barlow was still there! (See photo above.) I was able to thank him for the tour four decades ago. Stuart Goldman ’85, Towson, Md. Corrections: The caption to a photo accompanying the article “The Sweetest Connection” in the Fall 2023 issue incorrectly identified Elkton Hall in the background. The photo was taken in the Cambridge Community. Also, Marty Rosenstock ‘81 was misidentified as “Weinstock” on page 22 of “Get Listening, Kids.” We regret the errors. On the Mall: With $20.6M Investment,UMD Becomes HQ for Clark Scholars Program UMD will become the permanent home of a multi-university program that recruits and supports outstanding undergrads with financial need, thanks to a new $20.6 million investment from the A. James & Alice B. Clark Foundation. Active at 11 of the nation’s top engineering institutions, including the University of Maryland, the A. James Clark Scholars Program provides scholarships to students who share the foundation’s commitments to leadership, innovation and community service in engineering and other disciplines. Reintroduced as the Clark Scholars Program Network, it will encourage collaboration and innovation across participating institutions and with alums. “Jim Clark believed that if you gave a person a chance, they would create greatness,” says UMD President Darryll J. Pines. “The Clark Scholars Program has given hundreds of students a chance, and the greatness they are creating will shape the world for decades to come. We are excited and honored to carry forward Mr. Clark’s legacy of impact.” Launched in 2016, the Clark Scholars Program combines engineering, business, leadership and community service. It has supported 591 students across its partner institutions, consistently exceeding national averages for female representation, underrepresented minorities in STEM and Pell Grant-eligible students enrolled in undergraduate engineering degree programs. During the 2022–23 academic year, 71% of Clark Scholars didn’t need to take out private student loans, thanks to the program’s financial support. The new scholars network will facilitate forums for sharing best practices and novel ideas, establish a robust alumni network and host an annual Clark Scholars Summit at partner institutions: Duke University, the George Washington University, Georgia Tech, Johns Hopkins University, Penn State, Stevens Institute of Technology, University of Pennsylvania, University of Virginia, Vanderbilt University and Virginia Tech. “The sense of community between program staff across all 11 university partners is part of what makes this program so unique,” says Joel Del Guercio, president and CEO of the foundation. Including this new investment, the Clark Foundation and Clark family have invested more than $300 million to build infrastructure and support students, faculty and research at UMD. An Xceptional Challenge Initiative to Award Up to $2M for Student Solutions to Grand Challenges niversity of maryland students with bold answers to some of the world’s biggest problems could soon graduate with not just a degree, but also a startup company with up to $2 million in investments. The university is launching an XPRIZE-inspired initiative incentivizing students’ technology innovations—led by one of the original funders of the competition series that generously rewards radical approaches to global challenges, ranging from rising atmospheric carbon to the growing threat of wildfires. The xFoundry@UMD will recruit students committed to doing good on a large scale, then train them over 15 months to work across disciplines while gaining valuable knowledge and experience as they build their projects. Student teams will then face off at an annual competition to have their solution win funding and support from a group of seasoned executives to form a new venture. “Terps harness their creativity, energy and talent to create tangible, meaningful change in the world,” says university President Darryll J. Pines. “This experimental program will offer students a one-of-a-kind competition that will take on the grand challenges of our time.” Amir Ansari, an engineer, serial entrepreneur and inventor with 60-plus patents, will oversee the xFoundry in his new role as co-founder and inaugural executive director of the university’s E.A. Fernandez IDEA Factory, a high-tech workshop designed to foster collaboration across engineering, the arts and humanities, science and business. Ansari and his family were title sponsors of the 2004 Ansari XPRIZE that awarded $10 million to the creators of the first reusable manned commercial spacecraft (which went on to become the basis for Virgin Galactic). He remains on the board of the XPRIZE Foundation as it sponsors other contests aimed at sparking solutions in domains such as energy, climate, equity, health and education. The shared mission of the foundation and the university to tackle grand challenges grabbed his attention, and the robust entrepreneurial ecosystem on campus and the intellect and enthusiasm of the students won him over. “I love this strategic mission of the community coming together to solve problems,” Ansari says. “I’m hoping what will happen now is a new way of introducing a value proposition for spending time at a university: to graduate students armed with the ability to do something significant that can also become very successful for them.” Students in the xFoundry@UMD program, called Xperience, can earn credits toward their degrees as they participate in its four components: Xplore, Xperiment, Xcelerate and Xecute. They take students on a journey from picking a topic, to learning about the mindset of entrepreneurship, to forming teams and developing their idea into a prototype. The winner of the competition receives a venture with at least $250,000 and up to $2 million in investors’ funds to launch the company, with experienced corporate executives to guide them through their first year. Upon graduation, winning team members become co-founders working on the venture’s product team, complete with a salary and equity stake. “These are smart students,” Ansari says. “With a little exposure to the right elements and some light guidance, they can be solving real problems facing our society, and creating a better world for everyone.”—LB UMD climbed to No.5 for undergraduate entrepreneurship among all U.S. universities in 2024 rankings from The Princeton Review and Entrepreneur magazine Commanders’ Offices to “Touchdown” in Discovery District The Washington Commanders will move business operations from FedExField to Greater College Park early this year, freeing up space for suites at the stadium while expanding the franchise’s footprint in Maryland. “Moving our headquarters will provide exciting new spaces to take in home games and will provide for greater collaboration for our business staff and partnership with the University of Maryland,” Commanders President Jason Wright said in announcing the move in December. The new offices will be in the Discovery District, UMD’s 150-acre hub of research and innovation that houses tenants including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Capital One, Adobe and Raytheon, as well as amenities like The Hotel at the University of Maryland and the Hall CP. “The proximity to this new home for the Commanders is an incredible opportunity for our students pursuing invaluable internships and our emerging sports management program,” says Ken Ulman, chief strategy officer for economic development at UMD. How to Succeed in Business Without Really Dying In Wilderness Survival Class, Students Rely on Wits, Not a Whiteboard My car is on fire. I stand stunned on the shoulder of a lonesome wooded road west of Baltimore. What started as a ping of the check engine light had quickly escalated to a Volkswagen inferno that now illuminates the darkening sky. With no sign of civilization, the temperature plummeting and my cell phone—left on the passenger seat—burned to an iCrisp, I realize I could be stranded for the night. In the glow of my car’s torched carcass, I spot a garbage bag tossed to the side of the road. Inside, I find a hodgepodge of items: a wire hanger, an unused tampon, an empty water bottle and a long-expired can of sardines. None seems useful, but I’ll soon learn that surviving—in life and in business—requires a little improvisation. This didn’t actually happen. It’s the scenario Clinical Professor Oliver Schlake lays out on a balmy October morning to me and nearly 100 freshmen in Patapsco Valley State Park near Ellicott City, Md. The objective: Survive a hypothetical night in the frigid woods making do with only the items found in a discarded trash bag. It’s all part of Schlake’s “Creative Problem Solving” class in the Business, Society and the Economy (BSE) program of College Park Scholars, where students are charged to think creatively and quickly, and adapt through unconventional exercises. (The week before our jaunt in the woods, Schlake assigned students to recreate a famous piece of art using only objects found in their dorm rooms.) “We never really know what’s going to happen in class,” says business major Jack Campbell ’27. Aside from a handful of Eagle Scouts and die-hard fans of “Naked and Afraid,” the majority of students enter the woods unsure what to expect. “I want to engage them to get their hands dirty, get involved,” says Schlake. “This is about moving them from being an observer to being in charge. It’s a critical skill for the world we live in.” Stop the bleeding on the left leg. Build a shelter. Make a fire. Boil water. Furnish a weapon. Peering into the garbage bag, my team assessed our random supplies, which ranged from a birthday candle to a surgical mask. Anything we could find in the woods is fair game; for us, that includes rocks, branches and a dented Blue Moon beer can. With just one hour to accomplish all of the tasks, we split up. Four of us spend 20 precious minutes manipulating a tarp into a snappy-looking shelter, using vines pulled from the ground to secure it taut between three trees. Schlake praises us for employing the vines—not that it would matter when the sun went down. He notes that the tarp’s lack of coverage along the sides means we would freeze to death within hours. “You want the tarp to be low to the ground and completely surrounding you,” he coaches us. “It should be almost like a cocoon.” Schlake, an entrepreneur and consultant who’s been at the Robert H. Smith School of Business since 2006, is a faculty favorite among students for his hands-on, out-of-the-box courses, including a product prototyping class that partners with big names like Bass Pro Shops, Under Armour and Children’s National Hospital. A seasoned outdoorsman, he began incorporating survival skills into his teaching—as well as in exercises with business leaders around the world. Schlake debuted “Creative Problem Solving” in 2014 for Smith’s MBA orientation, and when he was named BSE director in 2022, it became the inaugural class. Surviving in the woods is a lot like surviving in the business world: One must quickly adapt, improvise and prioritize. The same basic principles can be applied in other professions when facing uncertain or volatile scenarios, where employees have just a day or two to pivot operations. Schlake says people tend to suffer from functional fixedness bias: limiting yourself to an object’s intended use. In resource-strapped business settings, this can lead to paralysis. The cure is improvisation. “The better you are, the more you’ve done this, you’ll revert to it as a solid skill set,” he says. “And Mother Nature offers a beautiful feedback system.” “Why is she going to be dead in 30 minutes?” schlake asks. We gathered around the Green Team’s site, 85 stupefied people trying to answer his riddle. The students had built a decent shelter, fashioned a medieval-style flail with a rope and rock, and created a signal by banging two cans together, a tactic our team couldn’t believe eluded us. “She’s got the tourniquet on her right leg, not her left,” he says. In the end, my team squeaks out sixth place among 10 teams, soothing our egos with a civilized barbecue of burgers and s’mores. We survived—and will never look at a Sharpie the same again. (Spoiler: You can blow across the cap to create an ear-piercing whistle.) “This helped me understand that while I might have limitations, I can take the things around me and use them in entirely new ways,” says Brianna Prempeh ’27, a neuroscience and business double major. “It’s taught me look at look at things from a different perspective.”—MH An Out-of-This-World Mentor Adviser for Decades of Space, Robot Competitions Isn’t Powering Down When engineering students sought an adviser to help them enter an international robotic sub showdown, aerospace engineering Professor David Akin had what it took to blow the competition out of the water: enthusiasm, expertise and a 367,000-gallon tank. For 40 years (including 35 at Maryland), Akin has guided student teams to design, test and showcase spacesuits, space stations, rovers and more, helping Maryland build to compete—and win big. “Dave jumps into these things with both feet, and that’s a sign of his commitment to students,” says aerospace engineering Professor Christopher Cadou. “He gets their attention and engages them early; what Dave does in one year is a microcosm of what we’re trying to do as a college.” An expert in space systems who has collaborated with NASA, other government agencies and academic institutions to develop robotic systems for efficient and safe space exploration, he oversees a laboratory that substitutes as a hands-on, intergalactic playground for students. Because of Akin, Maryland has been a fixture at NASA’s national competition scene in contests like RASC-AL, where Maryland has competed (and often won) since 2003, X-Hab, which challenges students to design and build lunar habitats, and the Robo-Ops challenge, where students must navigate a rover through rock-strewn obstacle courses in Houston remotely from College Park. Akin is also a Maryland mentor for the Association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International’s RoboSub Competition. In it, students design, build and test an autonomous underwater vehicle in the university’s neutral buoyancy tank, which Akin had built with a NASA grant in 1990; it remains one of only two in the country. “Professor Akin provides the resources to do the work and the freedom to just run with it,” says Natalie Condzal ’22, now an operation systems engineer for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “He’s there to talk things through, but he’s not going to help you solve the problem, and that’s helped me find success in my career.” Beyond the dozens of victories—plaques displaying the wins adorn the walls of Akin’s Space Systems Laboratory—he relishes in students’ success post-graduation; they’ve gone on to work for NASA, SpaceX, Northrup Grumman and more. But it’s the learning value of the small moments, when students are building and tinkering, trying and failing, that motivates him to volunteer his time year after year. “One of the great things about getting students involved is you can take someone who may be limping by and get their hands into a project—and all of the sudden it makes sense,” he says. At 70, his career might seem ready for a splashdown—but not with NASA’s Big Ideas competition, which offers a $150,000 purse, on the horizon. Selected to compete last year, Maryland sent a four-legged robot into the California desert. A student team will be going for the win this year, with Akin giving them plenty of space to succeed.—MH Harmony Between AI and Violin Instruction? Researchers Develop Online Platform to Improve, Expand Instrumental Education When much of the world moved online during the pandemic, so did the lessons taught by concert violinist Irina Muresanu—and it didn’t play out beautifully. The violin and strings associate professor could easily assess bow technique and pose in person, but her ability to guide a student declined across a glitchy video chat connection. Now, with a team of UMD experts, Muresanu seeks to bridge instructional gaps by creating a platform that combines violin teaching with advanced computing and artificial intelligence, all based on 350 years of violin tradition. While a student plays, their phone or other device “watches” them and provides feedback on form and sound while suggesting appropriate practice materials. “As a teacher you really learn to become an expert at figuring out what teaching materials a particular student might need,” Muresanu says. “The idea of developing a platform that would actually offer this personalized feedback really resonates with me.” Muresanu teamed up in 2021 with Cornelia Fermüller, a research scientist at the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies with expertise in computer vision and signal processing. Later, electrical and computer engineering Professor Shihab Shamma, a computational neuroscientist who specializes in sound perception, joined the team as well. To help the app “see,” researchers analyzed violinists’ movements, recording video of participants ages 5 through 23; all played the same song on the same violin to ensure consistency. The project received $900,000 from the National Science Foundation in August, along with funding from UMD’s $30 million Grand Challenges Grants program last year. After developing the app’s user interface, the group hopes to release it in the next two years to expand opportunities for people who can’t afford private lessons or connect with an expert instructor—at least a human one. “This project aims to make instrumental music education available for all,” Fermüller says.—LH Back in Full Swing Former UMD All-Star Steps Up to the Plate as Head Coach or former terps star Matt Swope ’02, watching catcher Luke Shliger break his record for runs scored from the dugout of Penn State’s Medlar Field felt almost as sweet as when he set it 20 years earlier. As assistant head coach for Maryland Baseball, he helped Shliger deliver an all-star season that led to his selection in the MLB draft—one of seven Terps to earn that honor in 2023. The full-circle moment was just one highlight of the team’s second consecutive Big Ten championship. Now Swope is swinging for a threepeat, but from another position: head coach. Swope in June replaced Rob Vaughn, who headed to Alabama. He spent the offseason bolstering Maryland’s staff and refilling his roster with promising recruits, but what won’t change is how the team works. “When we had our first practice a couple of weeks ago, all I wanted to see was: Did it look the same? Did it feel the same? And it did,” Swope says from the dugout on a fall afternoon. “For me, it was about the energy, the processes, helping these players be the best they can be. And if you feel that same spirit, you’re in good shape.” Swope is the first Maryland baseball alum to coach at his alma mater since Tom Bradley ’72, who recruited Swope from nearby DeMatha High School. He has more than 15 years of experience with the Terps, where he played outfield and set seven all-time offensive records including career home runs and RBIs. He played for the Montreal Expos’ farm system and then for an independent Frontier League team before returning to UMD in 2013. As part of the coaching staff, he revolutionized how Maryland recruited athletes, looking beyond skill to passion and commitment; Swope’s strategy brought in players like Nick Lorusso and Matt Shaw—the No. 13 overall pick in last summer’s MLB draft, the highest ever for a Maryland player—and cultivating some of the best hitters in the program’s history. “My job isn’t to be the same coach to everyone,” he says. “It’s to get the best out of each of them.” In his new role, Swope will focus on what has helped Maryland garner the reputation of a “hitter’s school,” including the use of a unique physical analysis to evaluate and coach players individually, a tactic no other team in the world is using. Based in neuroscience, the process developed in Switzerland looks at an athlete’s balance, coordination and other natural tendencies (like how they cross their arms or what part of their foot hits the ground first) to pinpoint one of 13,000 possible profiles. In addition to his own players, Swope and his coaches have evaluated dozens of major league clients. (He also has a book in the works on this approach.) “When I tell you it is a complete and utter game changer, you just look at what we’ve done,” he says. The team’s offense has exploded over the last three years, setting records for runs scored, home runs, hits, RBI, slugging percentage and walks. Swope expects the construction of a new practice facility to enhance his efforts, a place where he’ll be working his players daily in preparation for opening day. In the meantime, the DJ will still crank up the “Star Wars” theme when the Terps are introduced, the lights still will flicker dramatically when they score a home run, and fans will still spill their popcorn when they cheer. But Swope says it’s a new era for Maryland baseball. “It’s a dream come true,” he says. “I tell people, this is it.”—MH Tagovailoa Named Big Ten’s All-Time Passing Leader Quarterback Taulia Tagovailoa became the Big Ten’s all-time leader in passing yardage as Maryland defeated Rutgers 42-24 to end the regular season. Tagovailoa threw for a season-high 361 yards on Nov. 25 for a total of 11,256, surpassing Purdue’s Curtis Painter (11,163), Purdue’s Drew Brees (10,909) and Minnesota’s Adam Weber (10,917). With a 7-5 record, the Terps qualified for their third consecutive bowl game for the first time since 2006-08. The team went on to play in the TransPerfect Music City Bowl at Nissan Stadium in Nashville, Tenn., which took place after press time. “For our seniors to be able to leave with the type of resume they have, they can leave here knowing they played a major part in the vision of what we wanted our program to look like coming to fruition,” says head coach Michael Locksley. “Really proud of the leaders in that locker room. Third straight seven-win season. You can’t take winning lightly. Winning is hard, especially in the Big Ten.” Expanded Field Hockey and Lacrosse Complex Opens UMD’s national championship-winning women’s lacrosse and field hockey teams now have an upgraded and much larger home. The 18,000-square-foot complex that opened in December tripled in size, featuring larger, separated locker rooms for each team’s student-athletes; a sports medicine room with rehabilitative and recovery equipment, as well as a hydrotherapy space; the Tricia & Caitlin Green Hall of Champions celebrating the success of both programs (including a combined 23 national titles); a relocated fan entrance to ease access to seating areas; and a second-floor addition with coaching offices and meeting spaces. “We’re here to celebrate the past, live in the present and build and prepare for the future,” said women’s lacrosse Head Coach Cathy Reese. “This facility does that.” AI Offers Hope on Dangerous Ground Researchers Pinpoint Unexploded Shells, Rockets in Ukraine’s Agricultural Regions Indiscriminate shelling along the front lines of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has seeded farm fields and towns with untold numbers of unexploded munitions. Now University of Maryland geographical sciences researchers are combining satellite imagery with deep learning, a form of artificial intelligence (AI), to prevent a deadly harvest. Their system has mapped about 2.5 million artillery strike craters in a 500-mile arc across the country’s agricultural south and east—data that Ukrainian and international demining organizations can use to prioritize the most dangerous areas for cleanup. An estimated 10 to 30% of Soviet-era artillery shells that both sides have used fail to explode, says Associate Professor Sergii Skakun, who co-authored a paper on the system in the journal Science of Remote Sensing—meaning nearly 1 million unexploded shells might be lying across the region they surveyed. A Ukrainian scientist with expertise in satellite operations to monitor agriculture and environmental conditions, Skakun says that farmers in the region face a particularly frightening choice between bankruptcy and injury or death. “You can’t wait until it’s safe (to plant),” he says. “But you are in danger of being blown up in your tractor.” Anecdotal evidence suggests incidents involving unexploded ordnance (UXO) occur on an almost daily basis, says co-author Erik Duncan, a faculty specialist who studied unexploded artillery on the ground in Ukraine. From the Balkans to the Middle East to Southeast Asia, global estimates of yearly civilian deaths from UXO range from 10,000 to 20,000, including many children, according to UNICEF, the United Nations’ child welfare division. It had already classified Eastern Ukraine as one of the most mine-plagued spots on Earth as early as 2017, years before the full-scale invasion that Russian President Vladimir Putin launched in early 2022. Duncan trained the deep learning AI system (which mimics certain human cognitive functions) to find artillery craters in high-resolution commercial satellite imagery. “You can certainly see the craters and label them manually if you want, but it’s a pretty big ask if you wanted to zoom out and cover 40,000 square kilometers and determine what’s been hit and what hasn’t been hit,” he says. The researchers are now planning a finished platform that agencies can use, Skakun says. “We can provide this valuable information to the (demining) operators and the government they couldn’t get by themselves, and help save lives.”—CC Talking Politics—Without Getting the Silent Treatment Regardless of your political leanings or the company you keep, the road to the 2024 presidential polls will likely be studded with conversational potholes. So how do you keep insults (or rolls) from flying at the Sunday dinner table? According to Tiara Fennell, a licensed family therapist and director of UMD’s Center for Healthy Families, conversations with friends and family don’t have to be fraught when opinions don’t align. She offers four tips for keeping a cool head during a heated debate: -Be prepared. Before the next social gathering, set realistic expectations about what you might encounter and limits on what you’re willing to engage in. “We all know our families,” says Fennell. “These are relationships we really want to maintain, so figure out your boundaries up front.” -Take a beat. Knee-jerk reactions—whether at the office water cooler or on social media—often do more harm than good. “Maybe don’t use your first thought,” she says. “Go with your third or fourth.” - Know when to pump the brakes. When a debate with a loved one turns ugly, says Fennell, it’s time to walk it back and regain good footing: Acknowledge your role in the disagreement and more importantly, be willing to apologize. -Listen. People don’t always agree, but it’s important to shift conversations away from “me against them,” says Fennell. Apply good communication, with an emphasis on listening. “Empathy and a willingness to listen will make these conversations more approachable,” she says. “Because frankly, they’re needed.”—MH What the Bio-Nose Knows Futuristic Smeller Uses Talents of Living Cells The toddler game “got your nose!” brings gales of laughter as we pretend to snatch the facial feature. But a real-life ability to relocate the sense of smell—and even enhance it beyond normal human limits—could assist activities as disparate as cooking and sniffing out chemical hazards. A UMD research team’s ambitious “bio-nose” project aims to create a portable, biologically based device able to identify complex odors, backed by a four-year, $2 million National Science Foundation grant. “There are applications in food, wine, perfumes, medical diagnostics, homeland security, agriculture, mold detection and more,” says project leader Elizabeth Smela, a professor of mechanical engineering. The interdisciplinary team includes faculty from biology, electrical and computer engineering, College Park Scholars, computer science and the Institute for Advanced Computer Studies. To take advantage of nature’s amazing olfactory talents, it’s in the early stages of developing a sensor based on living cells. While mammalian cells need to be fed and held at body temperature to be kept alive, collaborators at the National Agriculture and Food Research Organization in Japan created a hardier insect-based cell line. The cells can be desiccated, or dried like yeast, and then re-animated with the addition of fluid at room temperature, rendering them ready to smell.—Joanna Avery The FEWture of Food Forests Persimmons, Pawpaws and Beach Plums Thrive in Edible Ecosystems On a former gravel parking lot in Hyattsville, Md., next to the old freight rail line and across from an auto repair shop, the hazelnuts have gone nuts. Pawpaws, figs, persimmons, kale and lemony sorrel are among two dozen varieties of fruits, nuts, greens and legumes thriving in the Emerson Street Food Forest, one of the city’s two edible landscapes, which double as outdoor gathering spaces. Now University of Maryland researchers and students from the Global FEWture Alliance are teaming up with the community’s leaders to improve their water and energy efficiency. Their goal: to increase food security, make the environment more resilient to drought, and improve the community’s sense of cohesion and even the mental health of its residents—and then to seed this model elsewhere. “We are thrilled to be partnering with the city of Hyattsville, bringing innovative water and waste reuse solutions that can enhance the sustainability of these flourishing food forests,” says Amy Sapkota, MPower Professor of environmental health and director of the CONSERVE Center of Excellence. She’s also head of the Global FEWture Alliance, which was launched through a $3 million UMD Grand Challenges Institutional Grant last year to develop solutions at the food-energy-water (FEW) nexus—whether in Israel, Nepal, Tanzania, or just down the street from UMD in Hyattsville.—Heidi Scott ’09 - 1 BEACH PLUM Decimated by coastal development, this mid-Atlantic native offers showy white flowers and tart, deep purple fruits. - 2 CURRANT Two varieties, the sweet purple clove and the tart cherry red, are delicious in pies or wine. - 3 ELDERBERRY This hardy shrub’s flowers can be steeped as tea, and its tart purple berries should be cooked to reduce their mild toxicity. - 4 PAWPAW The “hipster banana” offers a mango-sized fruit that tastes like a fruity custard. ​​- 5 PERSIMMON These pastel orange fruits have a honey-sweet flesh and a firm texture, amenable to fresh or cooked recipes. - 6 SERVICEBERRY The native tree produces blueberry-like fruits rich in antioxidants in midsummer. - 7 WEEPING MULBERRY The tree offers a sweet-tart fruit that can be eaten fresh, but is especially rich in jams and pies. - 8 YAUPON HOLLY Dry the leaves of the caffeine-producing shrub for tea, but avoid the poisonous berries. In the Shadow of History At Robert E. Lee’s Former Residence, Researcher Opens Door to Overlooked Legacies The view from Arlington House, Robert E. Lee’s former home perched atop Arlington National Cemetery, is both majestic and mournful: D.C.’s monumental skyline stands in the distance, while a sea of Union and Confederate Army gravestones just steps from the Southern general’s front door serves as a reckoning and reminder of the Civil War’s human cost. But it’s what’s hidden from view that occupies Associate Research Professor Cheryl LaRoche Ph.D. ’04. The archaeologist and historic preservationist is piecing together the stories of the enslaved men, women and children who lived and worked at the mansion, people whose contributions to the wealth of a nation are often overlooked. “You can’t talk about this house without talking about enslavement,” she says. “There is not a space among this mansion that an enslaved person did not touch.” Arlington House was built on Virginia’s side of the Potomac River in 1802 to memorialize George Washington and house a collection of his artifacts. The first example of Greek Revival architecture in America, it was passed down to Lee’s wife, Mary, four years before Virginia seceded from the United States. After the war, the U.S. government took ownership of Arlington House; the National Park Service (NPS) received jurisdiction in 1933. NPS and Arlington House descendants hired LaRoche and her team in 2022 to lead an ethnographic history of the mansion. Uncovering the lives of the enslaved is a fraught process, says LaRoche, who has consulted on dozens of projects around the 19th century Black experience. In the chaos of the Civil War, records were often burned or scattered across multiple repositories, if they existed at all. Some enslaved bore no last names, and families were frequently broken up as owners died, acquired more land or sold the individuals as chattel. “It’s the perfect crime scene because they’ve wiped the murder weapon clean,” she says. “There’s no pathway for what we’re doing here.” LaRoche and her team are tenacious, though, using oral histories, tombstones, photographs, written documentation and landscape mapping—a protocol for ethnography she developed during her dissertation at UMD—to tell a broader, more inclusive story. That story might help spur major changes at the house. In recent years, descendants of Robert E. Lee, as well as the Parks, Grays and Syphaxes—enslaved people who worked there—have come together to petition a name change from “Arlington House, The Robert E. Lee Memorial” to simply Arlington House. “I think when you call it the Arlington House, you’re just opening it up to more of the families who lived there,” Rob Lee, Robert E. Lee’s great-great-grandson, told NPR last year.—MH A Soaring Success Bald Eagle Expert Joins Legendary Explorers Club Honorees Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin. Everest conqueror Edmund Hillary. Titanic discoverer Bob Ballard. Now, environmental science and technology Professor Bill Bowerman joins their ranks as a 2023 recipient of the Lowell Thomas Award from the Explorers Club, founded more than a century ago to honor groundbreaking scientific field work. Since 1986, Bowerman has kayaked down rivers, flown in helicopters and climbed trees—some more than 10 stories tall—to find bald eagle nests and collect data on population health and environmental contaminants. Thanks in part to his work, the bird has soared back from the brink of extinction and now inhabits 49 states. He’s also lent his expertise to raptor researchers worldwide. He spoke to Terp about the first time he encountered America’s national bird, why they’re a “canary in a coal mine” for environmental health and the new threat of avian influenza.—KS - Why bald eagles? I grew up in a very small town on Lake Superior, surrounded by forests. I’d hunt with my uncles for ruffed grouse each fall. When I was 16, we were out in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and I saw a bald eagle perched on a tree. That was it. I wanted to understand: Why was this the first time I had seen one? Where I grew up, there should have been lots of them. - What was the state of the population in 1986? We didn’t know if there were going to be bald eagles in 2000. Since the 1950s, chemicals like DDT and PCBs had caused thin shells and deformed chicks. DDT was banned in 1974 but lingered in the ecosystem. Even after a decade, the population hadn’t rebounded. - What’s a day in the field like for you? Bald eagles primarily eat fish, so I’ll trudge through gnarly swamps to get to the nesting sites, which we find by aerial surveys. A team member will climb the tree, then carefully hook the nestling by its legs to put it into an eagle bag. We bring it down to band it and take samples of blood and feathers to test for mercury and other contaminants—eagles, as top predators, are good indicators of the health of the environment—then put it back and repeat. - How is climate change affecting bald eagles? They’re nesting earlier. In the 1960s, researchers banded chicks in mid-June. Now, we go out on May 1. Warming temperatures may also be causing them to shrink, because traditionally, they’re bigger where it’s colder, like in Alaska. Eagles have adjusted so far, but continuing climate change could burn their forest habitats, change the available prey or cause heat stress. - What’s happening with avian influenza? In 2022, 37% of the bald eagle mortalities in Michigan were from avian influenza. It’s a grave impact. I’m working with a population modeler to understand how much. Did we lose a year? Five years? A decade? That’s the only thing in 39 years in the field that’s scared me. Towering Ambitions for Forecasts Maryland Mesonet to Provide Early Weather Warning in a Changing Climate With little warning, the derecho of June 2012 roared out of the Midwest to topple trees, damage buildings, claim lives and knock out power to millions across the mid-Atlantic. University of Maryland faculty and students gathered with emergency management and meteorology professionals on a blustery October day west of Ellicott City, Md., to make sure the state of Maryland never suffers a surprise like that again. They built the first of 75 towers in the Maryland Mesonet, which will dot the state at approximately 10-mile intervals as one of the nation’s most sophisticated weather monitoring systems. “Having one of these towers in western Maryland could have caught the derecho coming from West Virginia and given us extra lead time to warn people to get inside and get ready,” says Matt Miziorko of the Montgomery County Office of Emergency Management and Homeland Security. He helped construct the 30-foot tower studded with instruments to measure wind, precipitation, soil moisture and more. Each minute, it will provide data to state and federal forecasters, emergency planners and farmers deciding when to plant, says Professor Sumant Nigam, chair of the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences and leader of the $4 million collaboration between the state and UMD. “The capabilities of this system are truly unique compared to anywhere in the country.”—CC PROGRESS on Gun Violence Initiative to Offer Research, Solutions to National Crisis In Baltimore, the number of young people who were shot last year was up fourfold in a decade. Homicides in Washington, D.C., spiked 33% last year. In 2023, the nation endured nearly 650 mass shootings, according to the Gun Violence Archive. Those chilling statistics underscore the urgency of a new UMD initiative: PROGRESS (Prevent Gun Violence: Research, Empowerment, Strategies and Solutions) will study gun violence, offer educational programs on gun safety and issue policy recommendations. The enterprise is led by Joseph Richardson, the MPower professor of African American studies, medical anthropology and epidemiology, and Woodie Kessel, a pediatrician and professor of the practice of family science. Partners across campus and at the University of Maryland, Baltimore will contribute. “Gun violence is a disease for which we know, ultimately, we will have a cure,” says Richardson. The project will address suicide, domestic violence, safe gun storage, gun trafficking and other issues related to firearms. The team will collect and analyze data, offer a speaker series and engage community members to create solutions for gun violence. Kessel noted that violence affects more people than just those killed or injured: “You can feel the pain in a community when violence is there and shouldn’t be.”—SL _____ Standing the Testudo of Time From Turtlenappings to TikTok Shenanigans, How an Unassuming Reptile Evolved to Represent Terp Spirit Let’s be honest. A turtle’s an odd choice for a college mascot, up there with Syracuse’s Otto the Orange, UC Santa Cruz’s Sammy the Slug and Stanford’s Tree. Turtles are slow. Most aren’t big, strong or intimidating. They can’t leap, mountain lion-like, out of a tree to maul you, or crack you one across the noggin with a shillelagh—and really, is that a bad thing? Instead, these can-do reptiles impress with their positive attributes: They’re persistent and tough. Diamondback terrapins scream (as if turtles make a lot of noise) “Maryland pride” in a state where residents don scarves, overalls and even suits in the flag’s colors. The University of Maryland loves its Testudo, in every form the mascot takes. He’s the gravitas-heavy, inspirational bronze sculpture that students make offerings to during finals. He’s the furry goofball that dances in the student section at football games, that wears a yellow rain hat and poncho with adorable panache. He’s the logo on our hoodies, the pin on our lapels. He’s at the center of UMD’s most treasured traditions. And he might have originally been a she. Testudo has evolved in more ways than one. With the help of University Archivist Emerita Anne Turkos, we delve into our mascot’s muddy origin story, his role in an outrageous, yearslong prank war and his wackiest iterations. “There are few things I enjoy talking about more than Testudo,” she says. “There’s no mascot quite like him, and he’s had quite a history.” -A Symbol Emerges Millennia before “Terp” became a Maryland moniker, it was on the region’s menu. Bountiful and easy to catch, the terrapin provided sustenance to Native Americans; once it made the Colonial culinary cut, you could find it roasted, poached and stewed with cream and sherry. By the early 20th century, the hero of these dishes was so popular that the species faced extinction. In 1932, 11 years after he christened the student newspaper The Diamondback, then-Vice President Harry Clifton “Curley” Byrd lobbied for the reptile (scientific name: Testudines) to serve as the university’s mascot—and replace student-athletes’ identity as the Old Liners. When the Class of 1933 proposed a terrapin statue for its class gift, Byrd arranged for a diamondback to be plucked from the waters of Crisfield, Md., to serve as a model. Named the “Archbishop” by students (and assumed to be male—although a 2018 analysis suggests it may indeed have been female), the 13-inch terrapin traveled by train to Gorham Manufacturing Co. in Rhode Island with the student government association president. There, sculptor Aristide Cianfarani designed a giant replica in bronze, which Gorham cast. Archie returned to campus, but her—or his?—fame was short-lived. The terrapin died days after two holes were drilled into its shell to fashion a ribbon pull for the elaborate (and slow) unveiling of the 5-foot-long likeness at a ceremony in front of Ritchie Coliseum. The likely cause: stress and the hot weather. (Drilling the holes, it was determined, did not hurt the terrapin.) -Terrapin Travails Who would have guessed a 300-pound bronze statue was so portable? And yet, the shiny new mascot was pulled from his pedestal just before the first anniversary of its installation. The turtlenappers brazenly painted “J.H.U.” in green on the now-empty perch, the first in a trail of “clues” that led UMD to the sculpture outside a Johns Hopkins University dorm the very day it went missing. It was just the first of Testudo’s 12 disappearances in 15 years, The Diamondback reported in 1958. Some pranks were linked to the UMD-Hopkins lacrosse rivalry, but Georgetown, George Washington and even Loyola University of Maryland students pitched in as well; at their most ambitious, the thieves took the turtle on unsanctioned trips to the University of Virginia and, according to rumor, as far away as Florida. A 1947 caper, in which Hopkins students buried Testudo in Baltimore, ended with a riot and arrests (and reportedly, an eventual party) after UMD partisans stormed a residence hall at the Homewood campus. Fed-up UMD administrators packed the statue away in storage for a few years after that. He was then installed outside the new football stadium in 1951—far from getaway-friendly Route 1 and now filled with hundreds of pounds of concrete to prevent further attempts. Then, in 1965, Testudo moved to its permanent (and most visible, theft-deterring) home outside McKeldin Library. -7 bronze Testudos on campus The newest, which debuted in 2018 outside of Van Munching Hall, is the only one not made from a mold of the original. -Final Offer(ings) Besides rubbing Testudo’s nose for good luck, students have left offerings to the statue outside McKeldin during finals week in hope of earning good grades since the 1990s. Like turtles themselves, the tradition has evolved, as gifts of pocket change, notes and flowers turned to beer cans and coffee cups. In more recent years, Terps’ offerings looked more like pranks, including a life-size cutout of Pope Francis, a toilet and stolen traffic cones; a fire even broke out in the pile in 2013. Last semester, a coalition of student associations appealed to Terps’ goodwill, encouraging students to instead drop off donations of nonperishable foods for the Campus Pantry at his pedestal. -Reptile Roundup If you hit the Aberdeen, Md., rest stop off I-95 in the summer of 2006, chances are that a 4-foot-tall painted Testudo greeted you. Same at Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, Arundel Mills mall and other popular destinations across the state. For UMD’s 150th anniversary, 50 formidable fiberglass Testudos were transformed into a variety of personas—from a tribute to the Chesapeake Bay and a Mighty Sound of Maryland drum major to a Mutant Ninja Turtle and a spangly disco ball. The Fear the Turtle statues returned to College Park that fall to be auctioned off, raising nearly $300,000 for scholarships. Several ended up in private homes, but 10 remain on campus. Visit terp.umd.edu/testudooftime to find out where. -Suited for the Role The furry, funny Testudo mascot is the Terps’ top cheerleader. He cartwheels on the sidelines, shakes his turtle tush on viral TikTok dances and poses for selfies with fans. But he didn’t always look this way (and definitely didn’t have these moves). Since then, dozens of men and women have donned the costume, including Grant Handley ’22, M.P.P. ’23. He shells out what it takes to be Maryland’s mascot: -Be everywhere (but no overlaps!) Testudo’s a busy turtle, greeting families during move-in, high-fiving kids during Maryland Day, hobnobbing with the governor during announcements and, of course, attending sports games. But he’ll never be in two places at the same time. -Think on your feet “A mascot should never be standing around—they should always be miming or reacting to something,” says Handley, who uses props and improv to perform at all times. That includes dealing with difficult opposing fans: “You have to figure out how to defuse that situation.” -Keep it moving “We joke that you have to be in ‘mascot shape,’” says Handley. The suit weighs at least 30 pounds—the head is the heaviest part—so the four or five students on the team each year always have to hit the gym. -Don’t spill the beans Team members have to keep their identity a secret from everyone, and they can’t speak or show any skin. (The Oregon Duck’s head falling off at a game last fall was “nightmare fuel,” says Handley). -Be confident—not cocky Testudo’s known for his one-handed chest pound, but he’s not an in-your-face mascot. “He might grab someone’s hat and dangle it in their face. And when children come, he’ll get low so he’s not intimidating,” says Handley. “He’s a friendly, lovable turtle.” -Testudo … Now in 3D! Beyond the bronze Testudos, thousands more in their likeness have been produced in materials ranging from everyday plastics to exotic metals by 3D printers at Terrapin Works, a unit of the A. James Clark School of Engineering. “Whenever we’re trying out new technology, Testudo gives us a uniform basis for comparison—and it’s uniquely Maryland on top of that,” says Jim Zahniser, Clark School assistant dean for strategic operations and IT. -$613.40 Material cost for the most expensive 3D-printed Testudo, made of Inconel, a nickel-chromium superalloy used in rocket engines -100+ Kinds of Testudos made with different printing technologies -50 microns Size of the teensiest Testudo ever created, about the thickness of a human hair -$6.48 Cost to print your very own plastic Testudo at Terrapin Works (or to pick up a premade one) Neat as Pins Former UMD President C.D. “Dan” Mote, Jr. (1998-2010) began handing out golden lapel pins to VIPs and other outstanding Terps to show off Maryland spirit. The design was tweaked for successor Wallace D. Loh (2010-20), who began distributing them more widely. President Darryll J. Pines is sticking with the practice, sharing his version with everyone he meets. _____ Tribal Loyalties American Indians have long been denied fair access to homes, health care, schooling and jobs. For Joseph Kunkel M.Arch. ’09, the mission to change that is personal. By sala levin ’10 photos by john t. consoli In a vast ochre and beige vista, the Wa-Di Housing Development almost disappears into its surroundings. This eight-acre cluster of adobe-style homes between Albuquerque and Santa Fe sits in the center of a triangle formed by the Sandia, Jemez and Sangre de Cristo Mountain ranges, a circular hamlet braced against the tumbleweed-dotted desert. Inside Chaslyn Crespin’s small studio, a more colorful scene unfolds. Trained by her parents in the art of jewelry making, Crespin grinds blue-green turquoise, reddish pipestone and purple sugilite to fashion them into necklaces, earrings, bracelets. Her mother and father, she says with pride, were once invited to Harvard to give a presentation on their traditional jewelry and the thunderbird motif that represents the Kewa Pueblo, the federally recognized tribe also known as the Santo Domingo to which the family belongs. Crafts are vital to the Kewa; pottery, silverwork and jewelry are major contributors to the tribe’s income. But the work is messy. Grinding stones sends fine particulate matter flying. Firing clay pots requires dangerous heat. In the central village of the pueblo—a historic, Indigenous town that predates European settlement—multiple generations of families typically live in small houses; with no dedicated workspaces, artisans can’t help but expose elderly grandparents and toddlers alike to the hazards of their labor. For years, everyone in the village shared the same cough. When Joseph Kunkel M.Arch. ’09 started work on Wa-Di, a few miles from the village, in 2013, he understood the importance of providing a well-ventilated space for each of its 41 single-family homes. That’s why every house has an individual accessory unit, a space where artists can safely pursue their craft. Roomy homes for rent have one, two, three or four bedrooms and a large communal living room for hosting feasts and other events. The space allows for the multi-generational living arrangements common to the Kewa Pueblo; the housing imposed by the government, typically mobile homes, wasn’t conducive to the practice, causing loss of language and disruption of other traditions often passed from grandparent to grandchild, or absorbed by living with aunts, uncles and cousins. For Kunkel, who’s now a principal at international architecture firm MASS Design Group, the affordable housing at Wa-Di is one example of his work around the country to provide Native people with the resources they have long been denied: high-quality homes, health clinics, child care centers, marketplaces. Kunkel knows about these needs intimately. A citizen of the Northern Cheyenne Nation, he spent childhood summers on the tribe’s reservation in southeastern Montana, where he saw the effects of shoddy housing and poor infrastructure. “Whenever I got there, my aunties and uncles would say, ‘Welcome home. This is your home. This is where your people are from,’” Kunkel recalls. “But the architecture and the community didn’t reflect that strong sense of identity.” He works alongside tribal housing authorities, members of tribes, community development financial institutions, architects and other partners to create places that take into account the aesthetic and cultural values of specific Native groups. “I always wanted to try and figure out how I could be working in Indian country,” says Kunkel. “I always knew I wanted to be working for my own tribe.” As a kid, the damp, salty air off the Atlantic Ocean smelled like home to Kunkel, who grew up in Point Pleasant, N.J., just one Bruce Springsteen song away from the shore. He and his two younger siblings decorated a Christmas tree every winter, and his mom learned how to make spaghetti sauce and sausage and peppers from her Italian in-laws. But home was also the dry mountain air of the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation, where he’d been given the name Spotted Hawk. Every summer, he’d spend time at St. Labre Indian School in Ashland, Mont., put up teepees with his family and hang out at the tribal museum. He ate traditional Native foods like sweet-tart chokecherry jam and the commodity items that his relatives were used to—blocks of cheese or hot dogs his cousins called “tube steaks.” Kunkel’s mother, Carol, was a full-blooded member of the Northern Cheyenne Nation. Born on the reservation, she was adopted at a young age after her mother died by Father Emmett Hoffmann, a Capuchin priest assigned by the Catholic Church in 1954 to serve at the local school. There, he became a beloved part of the community and one of only two white men ever to earn the title of honorary chief. He also fell in love with his secretary, Mary McGarvey, who’d joined the mission from New Jersey. Forbidden from marrying Mary and having a biological child, Hoffmann adopted Carol and the pair raised her together, splitting time between Montana and New Jersey, where Mary eventually returned. Hoffman died in 2013; Carol, who died in 2016, met Joe, Joseph’s father, in Jersey City while she was in nursing school and he was in college. Like his mother, Kunkel was of two worlds—and noticed the differences. “In New Jersey, you had a warm house to go to at the end of the day, had food in the refrigerator and cupboards, and air conditioning worked on the hottest days of summer,” he says. On the reservation, houses had leaky roofs and broken windows; the toilets often backed up or the faucets didn’t work. In New Jersey, Kunkel’s parents dropped him off at school in the morning and he made the easy walk home alone in the afternoon. In Montana, his cousins had to board a bus two hours before classes started. Still, Kunkel didn’t think much of his dual identity until 2002, when he arrived at the University of Hartford. “College students are inquisitive,” he says. “They were like, ‘You don’t look white. What are you? You must be Hispanic. No, maybe you’re Asian. No, neither of those.’’” Kunkel earned a degree in architectural engineering, then came to the University of Maryland for a master’s in architecture and urban design. In College Park, he developed a seminar called “Community, Culture and Place,” in which he took 12 fellow graduate students to the Northern Cheyenne reservation to learn about the roles that architects, designers, artists and community members play in shaping a physical space. “He was doing so much more than the typical student,” says Madlen Simon, a professor in the School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. “Starting a summer program is an enormous undertaking, and the way he was able to build relationships and make it happen, both on the tribal side and on the bureaucratic UMD side, was super impressive.” After graduating, Kunkel worked in corporate architecture firms before eventually receiving an Enterprise Rose Architectural Fellowship, which matches young architects with leaders in community development to design and build sustainable, high-quality, affordable homes. Kunkel went to southwest New Mexico to work with the Santo Domingo Tribal Housing Authority. Along the way, he and two other Rose Fellows, Jamie Blosser and Nathaniel Corum, developed the nonprofit Sustainable Native Communities Collaborative (SNCC), which focuses on building culturally and environmentally responsive housing for Native people. “He’s got this marvelously entrepreneurial attitude,” says Simon. “He knows what he wants to see in the world, he knows what change he wants to see happen, and if there’s no mechanism for enacting that change, he’ll build the mechanism.” Kewa Pueblo looks like a town that America forgot. Residents drive rough dirt roads to leave the pueblo, and they can’t count on internet access. Other than crafts, a gas station just off I-25 is the pueblo’s main source of income; inclined toward a traditional lifestyle, the Santo Domingo have resisted building lucrative casinos on their land. The Santo Domingo are just one example of the disenfranchisement and disillusionment that haunt many Native peoples. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Minority Health reports that, as of 2019, 20% of Native people lived at poverty level, compared to 9% of non-Hispanic white Americans. Studies have indicated that poverty is even higher for those living on tribal lands than those in cities. Native populations consistently have higher unemployment levels and less schooling than any other racial or ethnic group in the U.S. Moreover, Native people still lack access to the financial institutions that allow other Americans to build wealth. “I always say, English common law was used as a weapon to dispossess Native people, and Western-style finance was withheld as a tool that could help to rebuild tribal economies,” says Dave Castillo, who is of Nahua Indian descent and is CEO of Native Community Capital, a community development financial institution that offers home and small business loans to American Indians. A 2022 report by the U.S. Senate Joint Economic Committee confirms this, adding that Native entrepreneurs are more reliant on informal financing, like credit cards, for business expenses. Kunkel intends to rectify some other historic wrongs. He helped design the Caddo Nation Child Care Center in Hinton, Okla., and the All Nations Health Center in Missoula, Mont. He’s also worked on projects like the Big Valley Rancheria in Lakeport, Calif., a housing complex for elders of the Pomo Indian tribe, and has led the team working with the Willamette Falls Trust in Oregon to ensure access to the falls for the five tribal communities with ancient connections to the site. In 2019, Kunkel expanded his influence by merging SNCC with MASS (Model of Architecture Serving Society), a global firm that focuses on socially conscious projects: hospitals in Rwanda, a Japanese American internment camp memorial in North Dakota, the Gun Violence Memorial Project in Chicago. “I’m so inspired by him and what he’s been able to do with MASS in the last four years and with the Sustainable Native Communities Collaborative before that in terms of reframing what architects do and how we can be in service to community,” says Shawn Evans, a principal at MASS. “I was Joseph’s mentor for the architectural exam process, but I’ve learned so much more from him than he learned from me.” In Albuquerque’s Barelas neighborhood, Kunkel walks through the cavernous wood frame of the future Barelas Community Kitchen, designed by MASS. Just over 11,000 square feet, the unfinished building is hidden behind a series of worn-out strip malls, easy to overlook until you see it, after which you can’t believe you didn’t see it before. Early on this September morning, Barelas is quiet. Located between the Rio Grande and freight railroad tracks, the district’s main artery, 4th Street SW, is home to auto repair shops, churches and local restaurants. Once Tewa land, Barelas became a stopping point on the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, the historic highway connecting Mexico City to Santa Fe. Its position at a natural ford across the Rio Grande also made it a landing place for many people who crossed the river. A village sprung up, aided by the presence of a railyard, which primarily repaired steam locomotives. By the late 19th century, Barelas grew to have a strong commercial district and bilingual business owners. Advances in transportation technology weren’t kind to Barelas. By the middle of the 20th century, diesel had largely supplanted steam power, and the railyard floundered, mostly turning into storage until it closed in the 1990s. Businesses buoyed by the railyard’s workers shuttered, and poverty rates soared. Nearly a third of Barelas’ residents moved out. The Barelas Community Kitchen is an effort to kick-start the neighborhood’s revival. A 2020 survey found that job training and educational opportunities were top priorities for residents, so the main tenant, the nonprofit Street Food Institute, will offer classes on how to start food trucks and pop-up eateries, as well as on healthy cooking. Outside, a garden will sustain native corn, squash, beans and other produce to use in demonstrations. Upstairs, individual studio space will be available for artisans and creators to rent. “The idea is to impart this notion of density,” says Kunkel. “We’re in the West—there’s a lot of space, seemingly. But historically, the dense, kind of urban form is really important to lift up (neighborhoods).” On the second floor, Kunkel looks out one of the massive windows that frame the Sandia Mountains, visible from nearly anywhere in Albuquerque. The sky is a piercing blue as the sun crests the mountains. He’s facing east, ready for a new day. terp _____ Out of the Shell Twenty-five years ago, the LGBTQ+ Equity Center opened to support queer Terps who felt invisible, isolated and harassed. Some of the founders recount its humble start and hard-won victories. By Karen Shih ’09 Nadra Wass ’99, ’00 remembers the hecklers. On a cool spring evening, she marched with more than a hundred female students across the University of Maryland during the annual “Take Back the Night” rally to end sexual and domestic violence. As they wound their way around McKeldin Mall and up toward North Hill, male students stuck their heads out of their dorm windows and hurled the worst insults they could think of: lesbians, f---ing d----s. “It wasn’t a huge surprise,” says Wass, who is pansexual and had heard disparaging—if less crude—sentiments about queer people in her engineering classes. “I didn’t necessarily feel unsafe because we were a sizeable group, but anytime you’re out walking at night and someone is yelling, there is the feeling of, ‘What’s going to happen now?’” Rather than intimidate her, the experience fueled her desire to create a safer and more welcoming campus for fellow lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students at a time when “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was the dominant ethos, Congress overwhelmingly passed the Defense of Marriage Act, and the tragedy and pain of the AIDS crisis lingered. Wass joined forces with dozens of determined students, faculty and staff members to expose discrimination and fight for rights and resources for the queer community on campus, culminating in the establishment of a small LGBT resource office in the Computer and Space Sciences Building off Regents Drive. Twenty-five years later, the LGBTQ+ Equity Center, now in a cozy, welcoming space just off McKeldin Mall, is at the heart of queer organizing and support at UMD. The center hosts events throughout the year like trivia night and Lavender Graduation; offers training and education for Terps seeking to become better allies; and advocates for inclusive health care, housing, bathrooms and more. Those efforts have paid off: In fall 2023, UMD was named the top college in the nation for LGBTQ+ students by Campus Pride and BestColleges. “We celebrate this accomplishment,” says new center Director Kristopher Oliveira, but “we are eager to continue enacting policies and practices where all Terrapins feel—and are—fully embraced.” As the LGBTQ+ Equity Center celebrates its milestone anniversary, the faculty, staff and students who made it possible and helped shape its evolution tell its story. • Luke Jensen founding director of the LGBTQ+ Equity Center I was hired at UMD as the associate director of the Center for Studies in Nineteenth-Century Music in 1988. But my partner had contracted AIDS, so we had to continue to travel back to New York, where we previously lived, for health care. He died in January of 1990. It was very, very hard. I saw colleagues getting all kinds of benefits for their partners and children. And I couldn’t provide that kind of support for the person I loved. In the spring of 1991, I said to myself, “Luke, if you’re going to be here, you need to make ‘here’ better than what it is.” Then, a friend from a grief support group had told me about an ad in the Washington Blade (the gay and lesbian newspaper) for a faculty and staff group forming at UMD. • Marilee Lindemann professor of English, executive director of College Park Scholars, director of the LGBT Studies Program (2002-14) When I arrived in 1992, there was no official place on campus or entity on campus that advocated for LGBT people, to make them feel welcome, like they belonged and were supported. There was an invisibility from an institutional standpoint. In the early days, I heard about people meeting in basement rooms and keeping it on the down-low. But not long after I arrived, we established a Lesbian and Gay Staff and Faculty Association. Our first major issue was domestic partner benefits. • Kevin Fries ’96, M.L.S. ’05 One of the things that has stuck with me all my life was watching very respected, elderly, accomplished professors testify before the University Senate, really, in tears. They were saying, “Please treat us equally. We give our lives to our work. We love and live like everybody else. This is not right.” • Lindemann: It wasn’t fully resolved until gay marriage was made legal in Maryland (in 2013). We think of Maryland as a very blue state, so I was surprised by the resistance we encountered. I was in a position of great privilege as a tenured faculty member in a supportive department that hired both me and my partner (Martha Nell Smith). But others were harassed. • Nadra Wass ’99, ’00: In the engineering school, they would discuss domestic partnerships in front of me without knowing I was pansexual. They’d say things about how these relationships weren’t valid. That informed how safe I felt about telling them about my identity, even though I was out to other people on campus. • Fries: I remember there were these “safe space” cards. Faculty and staff were supposed to put them on their desk or door so people could feel comfortable more quickly. That was important because one of the biggest challenges at the time was visibility—you didn’t know who was who and what was what. But I know some people who were supportive still didn’t want to hang something up that they thought would send the wrong message. • Jensen: A group of us said “OK, we’re going to study how to gain domestic partner benefits and improve the situation for LGBT people on campus.” We worked very closely with students because they needed to have the courage to stand up for themselves. If they were being mistreated, they didn’t have to just take it. Lindemann, Fries and Wass were also part of that group. Its 1996 “Embracing Diversity” report documented heartbreaking examples of harassment and erasure of LGBTQ+ students and employees, such as a female professor called “mentally unstable” for having a female partner, and the lack of institutional support, contrasting with what the report called UMD’s “vigorous response” to addressing discrimination against people of color or women. • Jensen: We came up with three recommendations: 1. a presidential commission on LGBT issues, 2. the creation of a resource center and 3. the creation of a LGBT studies program. Luckily, Provost Greg Geoffroy arrived in 1997, and he had come from Penn State, where they had a coordinator for LGBT equity in his office, so he supported creating one here. It started with just me overseeing a couple of undergrads in Fall 1998. • Joey DeSanto Jones ’02 You couldn’t go to an LGBT event on campus and not see Luke Jensen. He’s quirky and intelligent and clearly so passionate. It was my introduction to university life. For me, the Office (of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Equity) provided constant support and validation, because of that visibility. • Jensen: One of the first things we did was start holding a welcome reception at the beginning of the year, now known as Quelcome. Hardly any LGBTQ students came out the first year. But we started a listserv, put information in first-year student packets and worked hard to get the word out. Now, it’s like a resource fair and a big party. Our goal was making connections: If you were an LGBTQ student in engineering, how would you meet one in English? Part of that was publishing the “out” list in The Diamondback every year for National Coming Out Day. Initially (in 1993) it was almost all faculty and staff, then more students joined. I knew students who would keep it taped up in their dorm. There was some pushback. One year, a staff member—who had actively campaigned to have my job eliminated and the office closed—took the list and called and emailed everyone, telling them that being gay was wrong. It really frightened some of our kids. • Lindemann: My name was on it every year. I always felt a great responsibility to be as visible as I comfortably could be. I still mention that I’m gay in my opening speech for College Park Scholars each fall. It’s important for students to see people in positions of power who share something in common with them. • Adriana Falco ’03 former president of the Pride Alliance I would have felt really isolated in college without the Pride Alliance and the LGBT Office. My mother at first was not particularly supportive of my identity. But at Maryland, I made close friends. We went to the Millennium March, created a float for Homecoming—it all changed how I looked at the world and interacted with people. In the 1970s, well before formal LGBTQ+ resources were offered at Maryland, gay and lesbian students created the Speakers Bureau, which sent queer students to classes to speak about their experiences. Jensen in the 1990s pushed for speakers, now known as peer educators, to get credit for their work. It’s now offered as LGBT350, “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender People and Communication.” • Falco: It was a great experience. We opened people’s eyes to the types of struggles that LGBTQ+ people had with mental health. That opened the door for a lot of people to talk to us, whether students were identifying that way or thinking about it. • Jensen: Classes about lesbian and gay topics had existed since the 1970s, but nothing cohesive. When we submitted the request for an LGBT Studies Program to the Faculty Senate, we had some absolutely horrific and silly things said by senior faculty in a couple committees. One of them actually said, “What’s next, bestiality studies? Man on dog?” • Lindemann: Universities are seen as a hotbed of leftist radical activism, chasing trends and all that. But in trying to establish the program, we encountered resistance at every step. • Jensen: When it came for the full Senate vote, this guy raised his hand again. Ruth Fassinger, a counseling psychology professor, put him in his place. Then nobody else had anything else to say. I started panicking, thinking that was a bad sign. But it passed almost unanimously. It was understood: We needed the program. • Lindemann: I was delighted that from the moment the program formally started in 2002, we had lots of allies sign up. That speaks well of Maryland’s students. The same couldn’t be said of the tailgaters in Lot 1. The program used to be in Tawes, and the main restroom they’d use was down the hall from our office. On Mondays, we would find posters or our bulletin board defaced. We started coming in on game days and sitting outside the office. It felt important to me to put names and faces: This is who you are attacking when you’re writing crude and nasty things. I gave out bumper stickers that said “Real Terps Support LGBT Studies.” • Jensen: A lot of people needed education, even allies. We developed the Rainbow Terrapin Network to train units like housing, finance and health. Because for students, if your parents cut you off and you needed financial aid, would you feel comfortable coming out to people in that office? We gave pins and a card to everyone who participated so they could visibly show their support. That training helped open the eyes of faculty and staff across campus, including at the University Health Center. • Penny Jacobs nurse practitioner at the University Health Center In 2009, a student coming from California contacted me because they needed gender- affirming care. I asked for and received permission to extend this person’s hormone prescriptions here at the University Health Center. I had never done that before—it wasn’t something they even covered in nurse practitioner or medical school. As I monitored them, I started reading as much as I could get my hands on and went to conferences. We started initiating hormone care here in 2011, and now, 60-80 students are enrolled. We’ve been really on the forefront, sharing knowledge and experiences with universities across the country. A decade later, the office had three full-time staff members and moved again, this time from the basement of Cole Field House to its current space in Marie Mount Hall, featuring a library full of LGBTQ+ books and space for student groups to meet. • Shige Sakurai acting director, associate director and director of leadership initiatives for the LGBTQ+ Equity Center (2010-22) When I arrived, Luke focused on training and advocacy. I tried to bring more programming and helped change it from an “office” to “center,” so more people would see it as a place to go. One thing I’m proud of is starting the Trans Terps Project, launched in 2017. There weren’t a lot of publications telling us what had been tried and tested, so we created an informal coalition to develop good practices. We talked to trans people, who said, “I don’t want people to use the wrong name or wrong pronouns for me. But I don’t need them to know the difference between bisexual and pansexual.” With information like this, we asked departments to do a self-audit with questions like, “Do you provide information about the nearest gender-neutral bathroom? Do you include pronouns?” We made it pretty actionable. That got a wave of change happening. • Madeleine Moore ’15 former president of the Pride Alliance and vice president of Out in Science, Tech, Engineering and Math You can’t be a queer student leader on campus and not be involved with the Equity Center. I was part of the inaugural class of the Lavender Leadership Honor Society. It felt really empowering to be recognized not just as a queer student who was in college, but someone whose queerness positively impacted the college. At the induction ceremony, students were asked to align themselves with one of the eight original colors of the Pride flag and what it meant to them and their time at UMD. It was so celebratory and queer and probably the most impactful Equity Center experience for me. • Sakurai: When we created the honor society, we considered including GPA as a component, but for us, it was more about alignment with a set of values: inclusion, kindness and authenticity. We looked for folks who had put those values into action on and off campus. All kinds of people came out of the woodwork that we had no idea even existed. That was one of the ways we built capacity, so others could lead and work on their own in different segments of the institution. With just three full-time staff, how do you impact 50,000 people? We didn’t want people to just rely on this one center to do all the things. We wanted them to see us as a useful partner and supporter and convener, but remind people that everyone has a role being engaged as LGBTQ+ advocates and allies. Today, UMD community members can change their primary name on university ID cards, class rosters and directories; find gender-neutral bathrooms in most buildings; access LGBTQ+-specific Counseling Center services; live in queer-friendly campus housing; and are protected by a nondiscrimination policy. Queer affinity groups abound, including ones for Jewish, Black and disabled students, and the LGBTQ+ Equity Center hosts events such as Queer Recess, featuring Pride chalking, collaging and video and board games. • Jensen: Lavender Graduation wraps up our year, celebrating the students who persevered. We held our first one in 1999. What’s unique is every graduate gets a chance to talk. It gets me choked up even now. A lot of these students didn’t have particularly good relationships with their parents, so they thank the parents who are there. • Fries: Coming back as a graduate student, almost a decade later, I was so pleased I could walk at graduation (in 2005) with the rainbow tassel. • Sakurai: Looking forward, I would like to see more structural responses—policies, best practices, staffing and resources—to intersectionality. Throughout my time at the equity center, the majority of people who interacted with it were in the BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) community, and a large percentage were also trans and nonbinary. That’s often because folks who are not in more heavily marginalized identities don’t feel the need to come to an identity-based program and can go to more mainstream spaces. • Jensen: I’d also like to see more support and advocacy for employees, as well as more consistent gatherings and programming for Lambda Pride, the alum group. • Kristopher Oliveira Director of the LGBTQ+ Equity Center Since I arrived over the summer, I’ve felt the love for this center and its history. Coming out of the pandemic, community-building is so important. We’re collaborating with MICA (Multicultural Involvement Community Advocacy), the Pride Alliance and other campus organizations host programs, and to understand what our students, faculty and staff need. I also want to interrogate our approach to the Campus Pride Index, where we’ve been named the No. 1 college for LGBTQ+ students. That’s great. But rather than saying, yes, we have gender-inclusive housing on campus, I want to work with Student Affairs colleagues to enhance housing options for our students. There’s always work to do. TERP Alumni Association Letter from the Executive director: Our New Year’s resolution remains the same every year: Stay Fearless. It’s simple yet profound, and it encapsulates the very essence of what it means to be a Terp. Our alum community is a force to be reckoned with, connected by an unyielding spirit. What can’t you do with a community like ours to back you up? Earn that promotion. Start your own business. Build new relationships. Reconnect with old friends. Learn a new trick. See more of the world. Get back in the gym. As you jot down goals for the year, I encourage you to engage your fellow Terps. Use Terrapins Connect for mentoring and networking opportunities, or become a mentor yourself. If you want some inspiration, join our Terps Thrive 30-day women empowerment series, or plan a much-needed getaway and join a traveling group of Terps. My resolution for 2024 is to give my time to uplift my local community. I hope you’ll join me as a volunteer at one of our many events this year; we’d love your support. Together, we can unleash the full potential of our high-powered community. As your Alumni Association, we’re committed to providing you with the tools and resources to stay fearless in your pursuits, forever. Stand tall, stay bold and stay driven. We’ve got your back. Go Terps! PS: Share your New Year’s resolutions with us. Go Terps! Amy Eichhorst Executive Director, University of Maryland Alumni Association Associate Vice President, Alumni and Donor Relations The Alumni Excellence Awards university of maryland graduates are among the best and brightest in their fields. From scholars and innovators to entrepreneurs, teachers and researchers, our alums are leaving their mark in our state, nation and the world. The Alumni Excellence Awards recognize the accomplishments of select Terps and honor these recipients with distinction. Careful consideration was made in selecting the following standout alums, our 2023 recipients of the Alumni Excellence Awards. Learn more at alumni.umd.edu/excellence. Rising Terp Award The following alums are an inspiration to the next generation of Terp leaders. All under the age of 30, they have already made significant professional accomplishments. • Khalil Pettus ’15 Vice President, Ardea Partners Pettus has harnessed his expertise in finance and global investments to help students at the Robert H. Smith School of Business, serving on the Young Alumni Council and establishing a scholarship fund. • Oneyda Hernandez ’23 Operations Director, Audelia Community Response Team Hernandez co-created the Latinx-centered nonprofit with the mission “El pueblo takes care of el pueblo,” delivering food and services to the most marginalized families and individuals in Prince George’s and Montgomery counties. • Parinaz Fathi ’15 Independent Research Scholar, National Institutes of Health Fathi builds tools to understand why immune systems sometimes attack healthy tissues, which can then help to develop therapies that treat autoimmune diseases and cancer, with a particular focus on the thyroid. EnTERPreneur Award These Terps are fearlessly disrupting their industries as successful entrepreneurs who have notably contributed to their respective fields. • Steve Krein ’92 Cofounder and CEO, Startup Health A health care entrepreneur, Krein has created a worldwide network of 200,000 innovators, industry leaders and investors who are committed to reinventing the future of health. • Pallavi Agarwal ’05 CEO and Founder, Kander As founder of an award-winning woman- and minority-founded Salesforce global consulting firm, Agarwal has brought customer-centric approaches to some of the nation’s largest firms. • Richard “Rick” Rudman ’84 President and CEO, Curbio Under Rudman, Curbio helps Realtors market and sell homes quickly by offering sellers “pay-at-closing” home improvements that result in a 28% average increase in price. Research Award The University of Maryland is one of the world’s premier research institutions. This award recognizes four alums for their transformational research and its impact. • Charles L. Fefferman ’66 Herbert Jones Professor of Math, Princeton University Considered one of the world’s most versatile mathematicians, Fefferman has brought new insights into fluid dynamics and quantum mechanics while working to solve long-standing math problems. • Jonathan W. White M.A. ’03, Ph.D. ’08 Professor of American Studies, Christopher Newport University White is a nationally recognized historian who has written or edited 13 books and more than 100 articles, essays and reviews about the Civil War, slavery and emancipation, African American history, Abraham Lincoln and the U.S. Constitution. • Bryan Dickinson ’05 Professor, University of Chicago Dickinson has made high-impact contributions to chemical biology by combining small molecule chemistry with protein and RNA design and evolution. His work helps us better understand human disease. • Simon A. Levin Ph.D. ’64 James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University Levin is one of the most influential ecologists and evolutionary biologists of our time, an expert in ecosystems, the dynamics of disease, and the coupling of ecological and socioeconomic systems. Legacy Award This distinguished award honors alums who left a positive legacy in their community, celebrating their personal and professional lifetime achievements. • Chip Sollins ’82 President and CEO, Gardens Home Management Services A former president of the Alumni Association Board of Governors and trustee of the University of Maryland, College Park Foundation, Sollins provides home management services to Florida residents. • Margaret Moose Swallow ’75 Cofounder, International Women’s Coffee Alliance The former Folgers Coffee brand assistant for Procter & Gamble has worked with farmers around the world to improve and receive higher prices for their product. • Maurice Dorsey ’70, Ph.D. ’83 National Program Leader for Public Policy, National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture (Retired) The author of five books, Dorsey has been a leader in promoting diversity and social justice while promoting the competitiveness of U.S. agriculture through policy analysis, education and support for state university-operated economic ventures. Underexposed Can You Make Sense of This Horseplay? Kathy Steffens and Kathy Davis ’75 hop in the saddle and strike a pose as they perform some “equestrian gymnastics”—but that’s all the info the 1975 Diamondback article offers on this flexible, fearless feat. Why did they bring a four-legged friend to the mane event? And who’s that cross-legged fellow in the Stetson? Send any intel to terpfeedback@umd.edu and check back next issue, where we’ll publish the responses we receive along with another eye-catching archival photo.—AK From the Last Issue … Terp reader Michael Heitt ’89 recognized his former UMD roommate, Bryan Gordon ’90, “skanking” (center, back facing camera) to the Checkered Cabs’ ska-punk tunes at the 1995 Art Attack. “Bryan’s a great guy and can still be found at music festivals from New England to Georgia.” Ska fan Bridgett Bobowiec ’03 wrote that the dance moves “required some coordination of alternating arms and kicking either leg forward with a kind of skip back,” adding, “I was fond of the double time on one side.” She shared fond memories of rocking to the Checkered Cabs at the former Phantasmagoria club in Wheaton, Md., in 1998. Class Notes: -Former NFL star Vernon Davis ’08 released his debut rap album, “Showtime,” under the stage name “Vern.” The D.C. native filmed the music video for his single, “Bounce Like Dis,” at FedEx Field, one of the many stadiums where he played as a tight end. Davis also co-starred in the recent movie, “The Ritual Killer,” with Morgan Freeman. -Joe Palazzolo M.Jour. ’06 co-bylined multiple stories as part of The Wall Street Journal team that uncovered financial conflicts of interest among officials at 50 federal agencies, winning this year’s Pulitzer Prize in Investigative Reporting. -New York City radio personality Peter Rosenberg ’02 wed photographer Natalie Amrossi on July 8 in Manhattan. Their story of meeting via Twitter was featured in The New York Times. -“Silenced,” a #MeToo fairy tale and second novel by Ann Claycomb ’01, was published by Titan Books. “Fans of feminist fairy tales will find plenty to enjoy,” according to Publishers Weekly. She is director of faculty recognition at Colorado State University’s College of Liberal Arts. -Myriam Yarbrough ’96, M.A.T. ’99, Ph.D. ’13 was named superintendent of Baltimore County Public Schools. She had been deputy superintendent since December 2021 after joining the system in 2020.