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Sophoria N Westmoreland is a
Ph.D. Candidate in Mechanical
Engineering and a 2007 LSAMP
Bridge to the Doctorate Fellowship
Scholar at the University of
Maryland, College Park. She also is
a 2009 Alfred P. Sloan Minority
Fellowship Scholar, the 2010 NSBE Mike Shinn
Distinguished Member of The Year, and the 2010 NSBE
Graduate Student of The Year. She expects to complete her
Ph.D. program in 2012, and she is pursuing a position as a
professor or post-doctoratal researcher. She has published her
research in ASME's Journal of Mechanical Design, ASME's
IDETC Annual Conference, and ASEE's Annual Congress and
Exposition. Her goal is to become an expert in practical
engineering design methodologies and tools that enhance the
engineering design process and have broad applications. She
plans to use quantitative and qualitative interdisciplinary
research methods in engineering design that will help sustain
the future of mechanical engineering design.
Nkenge S. Wheatland earned her B.S. in
Computer Science with minors in both
Mathematics and Theatre from the
University of Maryland, Baltimore County
(UMBC) in 2009. While a student at
UMBC, she conducted summer research at
the University of Southern California in
2007 and at UCLA in 2008. She presented
a paper entitled Performance Capture with Physical
Interaction at a conference hosted by the Symposium for
Computer Animation held in Madrid, Spain in 2010.
Currently, she is a Computer Science Ph.D. student working in
computer graphics, character animation, and motion capture at
the University of California, Riverside.
Jeffrey Williams earned his B.S. in
Mechanical Engineering from the
University of Maryland, College Park
(UMD) in 2010, and he was awarded a
2010-12 LSAMP Bridge to the Doctorate
Fellowship. Currently, he is an M.S.
student in Mechanical Engineering at
UMD. His research focuses on Atomic Force Microscopy
seeking to expand measurement capabilities for microscale
viscoelastic phenomena.
Vanessa M. Williams earned her B.A. in
Cognitive Science from the University of
California, San Diego in 2009. As an
undergraduate, she was both a California
LSAMP (CAMP) Scholar and a McNair
Scholar. She was awarded a 2010-12
LSAMP Bridge to the Doctorate
Fellowship to pursue graduate studies at
the University of Maryland, College Park
where she currently is a Ph.D. student in the interdisciplinary
Neuroscience and Cognitive Science Program.
Olusegun Williams, Ph.D. earned his
B.S. summa cum laude in Biochemistry
and Molecular Biology from the
University of Maryland, Baltimore
County in 2005. Moreover, he graduated
with a perfect 4.0 cumulative grade point
average. He was co-author on a paper in
Cell after less than one year in graduate
school: "A Pharmacological Map of the
PI3-K Family Defines a Role for p110alpha in Insulin
Signaling", (Knight, Z.A., Gonzalez, B., Feldman, M.E.,
Zunder, E.R., Goldenberg, D.D., Williams, O., Loewith, R.,
Stokoe, D., Balla, A., Toth, B., Balla T, Weiss WA, Williams
RL, Shokat KM). He completed his Ph.D. program at the
University of California, San Francisco.
Shelby Wilson earned her B.S. in
Mathematics from Spelman College. She
was awarded the 2006-08 LSAMP Bridge
to the Doctorate Fellowship at the
University of Maryland, College Park
(UMD). She earned her M.S. in Applied
Mathematics and Scientific Computation
(AMSC) at UMD in 2010. Currently, she
is a Ph.D. student in AMSC at UMD, and she plans to
complete her doctorate in 2012.
Tahmar N. Winston, Ph.D. earned his
B.S. in Biology from the University of
Maryland Eastern Shore (UMES) in 2007.
While an undergraduate at UMES, he
conducted summer research guided by his
mentor Dorothy E. Shippen, Ph.D. in the
Department of Biochemistry and
Biophysics at Texas A&M University
entitled The Conservation of Arabidopsis
thaliana Telomerase RNA in other Dicots. He went on to
complete his Ph.D. program in Biomedical Sciences at the
University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.
Brian K. White, Jr. earned his B.S.
in Computer Science from the
University of Maryland Eastern Shore
in 2009. He was awarded the 2009-
11 LSAMP Bridge to the Doctorate
Fellowship at the University of
Maryland, Baltimore County
(UMBC). Currently is a Ph.D.
student in Computer Science at UMBC. He has conducted
and presented research entitled Real-Time Detection of
Stepping-Stones Using Neural Networks.
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