Alana Kyriakakis, JD
Acting Vice President and General Counsel

Alana Kyriakakis has served as the University of Maryland, Baltimore’s (UMB) labor and employment attorney since 2014 and was appointed acting vice president and general counsel in 2022. In addition to her administrative leadership role, Kyriakakis advises on all aspects of faculty and staff personnel matters across UMB’s six professional schools, the Graduate School, and central administration. She regularly provides training and education to leaders and professional organizations, and she has provided guest lectures at UMB’s Francis King Carey School of Law on role of in-house employment lawyers.

Before joining UMB, Kyriakakis practiced law for 10 years in Georgia, where she began her career as an employment law litigator in private practice and a special assistant attorney general representing public entities and higher education institutions in complex discrimination and employment litigation. After leaving private practice, she began her career as a university attorney working for institutions in the University System of Georgia. Her experience included representation of the state’s designated health sciences university and its only public medical school and as general counsel for a small undergraduate university.

Kyriakakis received a bachelor’s degree in communication from the University of Oklahoma in 1997 with a minor in classical Greek. She earned her JD degree cum laude in 2004 from the University of South Carolina, where she served on the editorial board of the South Carolina Law Review. 

Irma Robins, MBA, JD
Deputy General Counsel

Irma Robins has served as University Counsel since 2003 and was appointed Deputy General Counsel in 2017. Robins advises on Academic and Student Affairs, Clinical and Basic Research, Intellectual Property, Data Privacy and Security, and other matters.

Prior to her legal career, Robins received an MBA degree from Pace University. Her business experience includes professional positions in publishing, marketing, operations management, and technology innovation, for commercial enterprises and municipal government in New York City. In Maryland, she joined a business consulting firm where she was a project manager with programmer/analyst teams engaged in software development and product implementation for clients in publishing, transportation, insurance, and finance.

Robins’ pro bono service includes work with Charm City Clinic, National Council of University Research Administrators, Care for Your Health, Inc., and Experiential Environmental Education/The Green School of Baltimore. She has been invited to present on topics including Export Control and Trade Embargo for Academic Medical Centers, Responsible Conduct of Research and HIPAA, and was a panelist for the University of Maryland School of Law/Women’s Bar Association’s program, “Rising Stars in Corporate Governance.”

Robins graduated with honors from the University of Maryland, Carey School of Law. She was an Associate Editor of “The Business Lawyer” and received the John S. Strahorn, Jr. Memorial Prize for the student most proficient in the law of Evidence. She served as Law Clerk to the Office of General Counsel and Office of Technology Transfer at Johns Hopkins University; Trademark Attorney Advisor Clerk at the US Patent and Trademark Office; Law Clerk at the State of Maryland Office of Administrative Hearings; and was a Law & Entrepreneurship Fellow at the Baltimore firm of Shapiro & Olander. Post-graduate, Ms. Robins was a legal Research Fellow at the National Institutes of Health, where she advised on inventorship, federal regulation of technology transfer, licensing federal trademarks and public information law.

Arthur “Skip” Rose, JD
University Counsel

Skip Rose came to UMB in 2004. His University work centers on intellectual property licensing and development transactions, real property matters (leasing, acquisitions, and dispositions), procurement matters, complex business contracts, corporate governance, international matters, conflicts of interest, research agreements, and research compliance.

Before joining UMB, Rose spent 20 years in private practice with law firms in Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, including a firm that he founded and managed from 1993 to 2003. Rose’s private practice focused on real estate, business, and corporate matters including mergers and acquisitions. He also served as executive director of a 1,200-plus-student K-12 school in Baltimore.

Rose received his bachelor’s degree magna cum laude from Amherst College in 1978, with a major in American Studies. After serving on the staff of the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Permanent Investigations, Rose received his JD from the University of Michigan in 1982.

Deepa Bhattacharyya, JD
University Counsel

Deepa Bhattacharyya joined the University in 2017 and works primarily with the Office of Research and Development. Her portfolio includes matters related to sponsored research, clinical trials, human research protections, and other types of contracts or business transactional matters.

Before joining the University, Bhattacharyya spent 16 years working for state and local governments as an assistant attorney general with the Maryland Department of Health and as in-house counsel to a health care provider.

Bhattacharyya received her bachelor’s degree from Brandeis University and her JD from the University of Oregon. 

Katherine “Katie” Levy, JD
University Counsel

Katie Levy joined the office in 2022 with more than a decade of experience working as a labor and employment attorney including seven years as an assistant attorney general in the Higher Education Division of the Maryland Office of the Attorney General. Levy also served as a judicial law clerk for the Hon. Robert A. Zarnoch at the Maryland Court of Special Appeals.

Levy’s primary areas of practice at UMB include labor and employment law and University police. She advises on all aspects of faculty and staff personnel matters and provides support for Human Resources, the Office of Accountability and Compliance, and collective bargaining matters across the University.

Levy received a bachelor’s degree in History magna cum laude from Wellesley College and a JD from William and Mary Law School, where she graduated in the top 5 percent of her class.