SCMNS celebrates the graduation of seven graduate students (four female students and three male students) who earned their M.A. degrees in Mathematics in the December 16, 2016 graduation ceremonies. Six of the students are international students from Saudi Arabia, and one student is local from the city of Baltimore. Their research projects varied across topics and reflected the breadth of study in the department. Their project titles and advisors were as follows:

Ms. Razan Albarqi: Contributions of Non-oil Sector in Economic Growth in KSA: Time Series Analysis, Advisor: Dr. Ashraf Ahmed
Ms. Maha Alkobali: Structural Equation Model of Labor Force Participation in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Advisor: Dr. Ashraf Ahmed
Mr. Khalid Almnesi: Application of Log-log Model in Analyzing of Life Expectancy in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Advisor: Dr. Ashraf Ahmed
Ms. Sarah Alqannas: Application of Poisson Regression Model in Analyzing the Infant and Child Mortality in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Advisor: Dr. Ashraf Ahmed
Mr. Abdullah Alqarni: Mathematical Modeling of Zika Virus in the US, Dr. Najat Ziyadi
Ms. Amal Alshehri: Statistical Analysis of Economic Development and Selection of Its Predictive Model in the KSA, Advisor: Dr. Ashraf Ahmed
Mr. Christopher Gaines: An Efficient Algorithm for Computing the Nearest Correlation Matrix by Using Tony Chan's Preconditioner Advisor: Dr. Mingchao Cai

Dr. Md Rahman of Computer Science won a record two grants totaling nearly $500,000 from the National Science Foundation for Bioinformatics Research.

Three Actuarial Science majors - Rodrigue Djikeuchi, Sika Dzidzonu, and Turayo Tijani - have bee named 2016-17 recipients of the Actuarial Foundation Actuarial Diversity Scholarship. Morgan State was one of the three universities tied for having the most scholarship winners among this year's awardees. Actuarial Science major and Travelers EDGE scholar, Torrance Allen, was selected to participate in a film documenting the 10 years that the EDGE scholarship program has been in existence. The documentary will be shown at the Travelers EDGE 10th Anniversary Symposium in fall 2017.Morgan State University has received a three-year $450,000 award from the U.S. Navy to conduct a research study on the energy capacity of lithium-ion batteries. Dr. Kadir Aslan, an Assistant Dean for Research and Graduate Studies and Professor of Chemistry at Morgan, will serve as principal investigator for the research and will manage a team of undergraduate and graduate students providing assistance with this project.

Associate Professor of Mathematics Jonathan Farley was interviewed for article by GoodCall.com, "HBCUs Take Different Approaches to STEM Partnerships"

SCMNS welcomed 54 transfer students for the 2016-2017 academic year. Students are transferred from both in and out-of-state. The majority, about 85%, came from various counties and cities across the state of Maryland. The other 15% are comprised of international students and those from New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, DC and Virginia. Our International Students were native to countries from within the Caribbean, North Africa, Saudi Arabia and Nepal.

Dr. Seifu of Physics and Engineering Physics won an award of $200,000 grant for 2016/2017 academic year from ARL as part of the 1.2 million CRA he was awarded 2012-2017.

In Spring 2016, the Ph.D. Program in Bioenvironmental Science produced two graduates: Dr. Akinyele Oni (Akers) and Dr. Belygona Barare (Aslan).

In Fall 2015 and Spring 2016, SCMNS MS Programs produced a total of 10 graduates.

Dr. Seifu presented at the IEEE NANO 2016 International Conference on NANOTECHNOLOGY in Sandai, Japan. Research paper to be published in IEEE Xplore.

Fourteen SCMNS students participated in the 19th Undergraduate Research Symposium in the Chemical and Biological Sciences at UMBC on 10/22/16. Eight Biology majors (Afua Adusei, Blessing Akobundu, Kelly Boham, Benjamin Frey, Jamiu Giwa-Otusajo, Dominique Munson, Priscilla Offei, and Joshua Ross) and six Chemistry majors (Jahnn Drigo, Tiara Hinton, Chikaodi Nwanegwo, Pierce Perkins, Kayla Powell, and Treshaun Sutton) presented their research projects as posters along with 268 other undergraduate students from a variety of institutions across the region. All participating students are supported by one of the following STEM support grant programs at Morgan (NIGMS RISE, NSF S-STEM, NSF LSAMP or ASCEND) Six of these students walked away with first prize: Blessing Akobundu, Benjamin Frey, Dominique Munson, and Jahnn Drigo) or second prize: Afua Adusei and Joshua Ross).

Dr. Woodson of Mathematics won a grant from the NSA for $125,000.

Dr. Sitther's graduate student Mr. Behnam Tabatabai presented research titled "Identification of a halotolerant mutant via in vitro mutagenesis in the cyanobacterium Fremyella diplosiphon" at the Mid Atlantic Plant Molecular Biology Society meeting in August 2016.

Morgan's Teaching to Increase Diversity and Equity in STEM (MTIDES), organized the FALL 2016 Faculty Professional Development Workshop on "R and Parallel R" on August 18, 2016. Over twenty five faculty members and a few doctoral students from across Morgan State University and other regional universities attended the workshop. Mr. Dave Walling from Texas Advanced Computing Center provided training on the basics of R and running R jobs in High Performance Computing environments. A post-workshop survey indicated a high degree of satisfaction with the workshop. Additional hands-on faculty workshops will be held during 2016-2017 academic year.

Dr. Seifu's students Mr. Dennis Ayree (Graduate student) and Moses Kayondo (undergraduate) presented research results at the 2016 American Physical Society March Meeting.

Dissertation research proposals of the Bioenvironmental Science Ph.D. candidates Mr. Enock Bonyi (Aslan), Mrs. Zainab Boone-Kukoyi (Aslan) and Mr. Behnam Tabatabi (Sitther) have been approved by their respective committees.

Morgan State University Mathematics Ph.D. student Ms. Zeinab Bandpey is in the Frederick newspaper.

Morgan State University, 23rd Annual Undergraduate and Graduate Science Research Symposium
Thursday, April 14, 2016, 8:00 AM - 3:00 PM at Morgan State University Student Center (See you next year)

Dr. Aslan receives a subaward ($89,843 for 1 year) from Juxtopia, LLC (NIH STTR phase 1 award based on the technology described in Morgan's recent patent application, Metal-Assisted and Microwave-Accelerated Evaporative Crystallization (April 2015).

Aslan Research Group's MA-MAEC "Metal-assisted and microwave-accelerated evaporative crystallization" technology was awarded an US Patent No: 9,243,017 (January 26, 2016). This is Morgan's first-ever full patent in its 148-history. iCrystal, Inc., Morgan's first-ever spin off company was established based on the MA-MAEC technology, supported by Maryland Innoation Initiative (MII) administered by TEDCO..

MSU Undergraduate Students and Program Directors Represent Morgan State University at the 2015 Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students (ABRCMS) in Seattle, Washington. A total of 33 undergraduate students from 9 distinct majors (Biology, Chemistry, Civil Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Psychology, Physical Education, Nursing, Sociology, and Medical Technology) at Morgan State University participated in the conference, and 9 of these presented their research in areas that included neuroscience, social and behavioral sciences and public health, chemistry, biochemistry, molecular and computational biology, and cancer biology 2015 ABRCMS conference. was awarded to Mr. Jamiu Giwa-Otusajo, a Biology senior supported by the NSF S-STEM STARS-1 Scholarship Program was awarded a full ABRCMS Student Travel Award, which covered the cost of airfare and hotel accommodations, to attend and present a poster presentations of his research entitled ""Effect of Nitrogen Deprivation on the Photosynthetic Efficacy of Fremyella diplosiphon."

SCMNS Graduate Programs and faculty host several exchange faculty and graduate students from Turkey: Dr. Mustafa Yildiz (Aslan, 2014), Dr. Fatma Aydin (Aslan, 2014), Dr. Ilknur Babacan (Aslan, 2015-2016), Dr. Salih Toker (Aslan, 2015-2016), Dr. Mustafa Avci (Pankov, 2014-2015), Mr. Nuh Alpaslan (Rahman, 2015-2016), Mrs. Zuhal Onuk (Aslan, 2015-2017), Ms. Setenay Akduman (Pankov, 2015) and Qatar (Dr. Sophia Rajini (Sitther, 2015).

Ph.D. Program in Bioenvironmental Science produces three graduates, Congratulations, Dr. Muzaffer Mohammed (Aslan), Dr. Biebele Abel (Aslan) and Dr. Erik Davenport (Fan) (May 2015).