5,000+

Richard O. Shoge, Ph.D. earned his B.S.
cum laude in Mechanical Engineering from
the University of Maryland, Baltimore
County in 2005. He completed his Ph.D. in
Biomedical Engineering in the University
of North Carolina, Chapel Hill/ North
Carolina State University Joint Program in
2010. He went on to work on a traumatic
brain injury model to better protect U.S. troops in combat as a
Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at Walter Reed Medical
Hospital.
Charles P. Shelton, Ph.D. earned his
B.S. magna cum laude in Computer
Engineering from the University of
Maryland, Baltimore County in 1998.
He went on to earn a master’s degree
in 2000 and a Ph.D. in 2003 from
Carnegie Mellon University, both in
Computer Engineering. Since 2003
he has worked at the Robert Bosch Research and Development
Center in Pittsburgh, PA. developing new tools and
methodologies to improve software engineering for
automotive and building security electronics components.
Currently, he is a senior research engineer at Bosch.
A. Renee Siler, Ph.D. earned her B.S. in
Chemistry from Spelman College in
2006. She was awarded a 2006-08
LSAMP Bridge to the Doctorate
Fellowship at the University of
Maryland, College Park where she
completed her Ph.D. program in
Chemistry in 2011. Her dissertation
research is on interfacial solvation
effects on solutes sensitive to specific and nonspecific
solvation forces at buried interfaces using nonlinear optical
spectroscopy. She also has completed research at Montana
State University where she performed the reconstruction of a
Second Harmonic Generation Spectrometer. Currently, she is
employed at Coherent, Inc. in Santa Clara, California.
Jacqueline A.I. Smith, Ph.D. earned her
B.S. in Chemistry from the University of
Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) in
2006, and she was awarded a 2006-08
LSAMP Bridge to the Doctorate
Fellowship at the University of Maryland,
College Park (UMCP). She completed
her Ph.D. program in Organic Chemistry
at UMD in 2011. Her dissertation is entitled The synthesis of
a diverse library of AI-2 analogs to investigate bacterial
quorum sensing. She has co-authored four published articles.
After completing a post-doc, she plans to pursue an academic
career at a research university.
Taifa Nadine (nee Hibbert) Simpson
attended the University of Maryland,
College Park (UMD) as a Banneker/Key
Scholar where she earned her B.S. in
Chemistry in 1999. She subsequently
earned her M.A. in Higher Education
Policy and Leadership in 2005 also from
UMD, and her focus was retention programs for
underrepresented students in STEM fields. She is currently
the Assistant Director of the MARC U*STAR (Minority
Access to Research Careers Undergraduate Student Training
in Academic Research) Program at the University of
Maryland, Baltimore County. Through her work, she actively
supports undergraduate minority students who plan to pursue
Ph.D. degrees and research careers in the biomedical sciences.
Adjoa Smalls-Mantey earned her B.S.
summa cum laude in Biochemistry and
Molecular Biology from the University
of Maryland, Baltimore County in 2007.
In 2006, she was awarded the coveted
Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship which
honors outstanding STEM students who
are committed to pursuing careers as
research scientists. She was admitted to
the prestigious NIH/Oxford/Cambridge Scholars Program
(OXCAM) Class of 2007. The scholarship provides full
financial support for its students who spend two years at
Oxford and also conduct biomedical science research at NIH
while in pursuit of a Ph.D. Currently, she is a M.D./Ph.D.
student at Columbia University College of Physicians &
Surgeons and the University of Oxford. She expects to
complete her Ph.D. in 2013 and her M.D. in 2015.
Danielle L. Smith, M.D., Ph.D. earned
her B.S. summa cum laude in
Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
from the University of Maryland,
Baltimore County in 1999. She also
graduated with Departmental Honors
and an Honors College Undergraduate
Certificate. As an undergraduate at
UMBC, she co-authored a research paper that was published
in Nature Structural Biology. She completed her M.D./Ph.D.
program in Cell Biology at Yale University in 2008.
Michael B. Sharps earned his B.S.
magna cum laude in Computer Science
with a minor in Applied Mathematics
from the University of Maryland,
Baltimore County in 2000. He
completed his M.S. program in
Computer Science with specialization in
Computer Graphics / Human Computer
Interaction at Stanford University in 2002.
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