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Dr. Bruk T. Berhane received his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Maryland in 2003. He then completed a master’s degree in engineering management at George Washington University in 2007. In 2016, he earned a Ph.D. in the Minority and Urban Education Unit of the College of Education at the University of Maryland.
Bruk worked at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, where he focused on nanotechnology, from 2003 to 2005. In 2005 he left JHU/APL for a fellowship with the National Academies where he conducted research on methods of increasing the number of women in engineering. After a brief stint teaching mathematics in Baltimore City following his departure from the National Academies, he began working for the Center for Minorities in Science and Engineering (CMSE) in the Clark School of Engineering at the University of Maryland.
In 2011, he began working directly under the Office of the Dean in the Clark School, coordinating outreach and recruitment programs for the college. In 2016, he assumed the role of director of the Office of Undergraduate Recruitment and Scholarship Programs. His duties entailed working with prospective freshmen and transfer engineering students.
In 2018, he transitioned to the role of Assistant Research Professor in the Department of Bioengineering at the Clark School. His research interests transfer students who first enroll in community colleges, as well as developing broader and more nuanced engineering performance indicators.

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Shannon Hayes currently serves as the Assistant Director of Transfer Student Advising & Admissions in the A. James Clark School of Engineering. Prior to working in the Clark School, Ms. Hayes served as an Academic Advisor in the College of Education at UMD, where she worked with pre-service teachers. In addition to her professional role, Ms. Hayes is also a doctoral candidate in the Higher Education Program at the University of Maryland. Her research focuses on community college students and transfer student success.

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Danielle is a 3rd year PhD Student in the Department of Sociology at the University of Maryland studying race and social movements. Danielle is primarily a qualitative researcher and has worked extensively on survey data and conducting interviews for several projects including a campus climate survey, the Women's Resistance marches as well as Black Lives Matter.

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Christin Salley is a senior Fire Protection Engineering student from Flossmoor, Illinois. She is a Resident Assistant and a College Park Scholar. She is a member of the Ronald E. McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement Program, the National Science Foundation Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation (LSAMP) Program, Black Engineers Society, and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. She currently is an Undergraduate Researcher here on campus with Dr. Bruk Berhane in the Bioengineering department, and also at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) through the Professional Research Experience Program (PREP). She is a volunteer and mentor for a STEM after school program she co-founded with a fellow engineering Terp. She has been accepted to Johns Hopkins University to begin her studies towards a PhD in Civil Engineering this fall.

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Sharon Fries-Britt is a Professor of Higher Education at the University of Maryland, College Park in the Department of Counseling, Higher Education and Special Education (CHSE). Her research examines the experiences of high achieving Blacks in higher education and underrepresented minorities (URMs) in STEM fields. Dr. Fries-Britt has published widely within peer-reviewed journals and she has served on the editorial boards of The Journal of College Student Development, The Journal of Diversity in Higher Education and the College Student Affairs Journal. Recent work examines within group experiences of native and non-native Blacks in higher education as well as issues of campus racial climate. Dr. Fries-Britt is one of the faculty co-leads and authors of the recently published ACE report Speaking Truth and Acting With Integrity Confronting Challenges of Campus Racial Climate. Her research has been funded and supported by the Lumina Foundation, National Society of Black Physicists and the National Science Foundation.

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Darryll Pines became Dean and Nariman Farvardin Professor of Engineering at the Clark School on January 5,
2009, having come to the school in 1995 as an assistant professor and served as chair of the school's
Department of Aerospace Engineering from 2006 to 2009.
As dean, Pines has led the development of the Clark School's current strategic plan and achieved notable
successes in key areas such as improving teaching in fundamental undergraduate courses and raising student
retention; achieving success in national and international student competitions; giving new emphasis to
sustainability engineering and service learning; promoting STEM education among high school students;
increasing the impact of research programs; and expanding philanthropic contributions to the school. Today,
the school's one-year undergraduate retention rate is 90%, the university's Solar Decathlon team placed first
worldwide in the most recent competition against other leading universities, our Engineers Without Borders
chapter is considered one of the nation's best, and the Engineering Sustainability Workshop launched by
Pines has become a key campus event. Pines has testified before Congress on STEM education and created
the Top 25 Source Schools program for Maryland high schools. He is also leading a national effort to develop
an AP course in Engineering Design in partnership with the College Board. At $144 million, the school's
research expenditures are at a record high, and the school is ranked 11th worldwide by the Academic
Ranking of World Universities, which focuses on research citations. The Clark School has led the university in
achieving and surpassing its $185 million Great Expectations campaign goal, going on to reach $240 million as
of the most recent accounting. Pines also served on the university's strategic planning steering committee.
During Pines' leadership of aerospace engineering, the department was ranked 8th overall among U.S.
universities and 5th among public schools in the U.S. News and World Report graduate school rankings. Pines
has been director of the Sloan Scholars Program since 1996 and director of the GEM Program from 1999-
2011, and served as chair of the Engineering Council, director of the NASA CUIP Program, and director of the
SAMPEX flight experiment.
During a leave of absence from the University (2003-2006), Pines served as Program Manager for the Tactical
Technology Office and Defense Sciences Office of DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency).
While at DARPA, Pines initiated five new programs primarily related to the development of aerospace
technologies, for which he received a Distinguished Service Medal. He also held positions at the Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Chevron Corporation, and Space Tethers Inc. At LLNL, Pines worked on
the Clementine Spacecraft program, which discovered water near the south pole of the moon. A replica of
the spacecraft now sits in the National Air and Space Museum.
Pines's current research focuses on structural dynamics, including structural health monitoring and
prognosis, smart sensors, and adaptive, morphing and biologically-inspired structures, as well as the
guidance, navigation, and control of aerospace vehicles. He is a fellow of the Institute of Physics, the
American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and
has received an NSF CAREER Award.
Pines received a B.S. in mechanical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. He earned M.S.
and Ph.D. degrees in mechanical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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