Internal Funding
Maryland Catalyst Fund | Grand Challenges | ISRCA | ICTR | MPower |
UMD’s internal faculty research programs are a key resource in the university’s overall effort to expand its research activity, visibility, volume, and impact. These programs are designed to enable innovative research and scholarship; incentivize the pursuit of large, complex, and high-impact research initiatives; and help UMD faculty to be more competitive for extramural research awards and fellowships.
Internal Funding Calendar
Maryland Catalyst Fund
The Maryland Catalyst Fund program is overseen by the Vice President for Research (VPR) and managed by the Research Development Office, in coordination with UMD academic units and the Sr. Vice President & Provost. All awards are supported by Designated Research Initiative Fund (“DRIF”) contributions from both faculty units (departments, college/schools, center affiliations) and central resources from the VPR and the Provost, and all award decisions are made subject to the availability of funds. You can apply through InfoReady.
- Eligibility:
- Only tenured/tenure-track and professional track faculty (at the rank of assistant research scientist or higher), whose full-time, home position is at UMD, are eligible to be the Principal Investigator of any Maryland Catalyst Fund award. Visiting, adjunct, and affiliate faculty are not eligible to apply; postdoctoral fellows are also ineligible.
- Universal Funding Form (PDF)
- This form is required when applying for any internal funding and/or internal support that requires a cost-share from the Division of Research. When submitting a form, please have all contributions from the faculty units completed and signed. The Research Development Office will coordinate obtaining relevant signatures and approvals for any cost-share request of central resources
Funding Categories
Program Name | In Support of | Available Funds | Unit | VPR | Provost | Deadline |
New Directions Fund |
|
| 50% | 50% | - | Annually March 1st |
Big Opportunity Fund | Large-scale High-impact Opportunities (~$2M/yr) | <$50k | 33.3% | 33.3% | 33.3% | 20th of each month |
Reinforcement Funds | Unfunded Requirements for Large Center Awards | Equivalent of <10% of IDC; 5yr+ option | 50% | 25% | 20th of each month | |
Proposal Reviewer Fund | Honoraria provided to external reviewers of draft proposals developed for submission to large/significant external funding opportunities | Up to $3,000 | 50% | 50% | Rolling |
New Directions Funds
The New Directions Fund enables important new lines of research and creative work with high potential for impact. There are three competition tracks:
- Track A: Proof of Concept awards support researchers pursuing a new line of research or collaborative partnership to help them be competitive for external funding.
- Track B: Limited External Grant Opportunity (LEGO) awards support particularly innovative research, writing, and/or creative work in fields where external funding is scarce.
- Track C: Racial & Social Justice Research awards supports research on the underpinnings of, consequences of, and/or solutions to address systemic, institutional, and structural racism and injustice.
Big Opportunity Funds
The Big Opportunity Fund (BOF) offers proposal preparation support to incentivize faculty to pursue and be more competitive for large, high-visibility, externally-funded research opportunities (typically ≥$2M/year for multiple years). Such awards contribute to the university’s overall research volume, impact, and reputation. If you are unsure if your proposal qualifies for BOF support, please contact Eric Chapman at echapman@umd.edu
Reinforcement Grants
Provide operating support to cover activities critical to the execution of a proposed large-scale externally-funded research award, when grant funding is not available for certain operational expenses. Such operating support is intended to help build infrastructure for new center-level research awards whose establishment improves the university’s overall impact and reputation. Reinforcement Grants aim to make major funded research programs more productive and more competitive for future renewal.
Proposal Reviewer Fund
The Proposal Reviewer Fund is designed to incentivize proposal teams to engage external subject matter and/or agency or program experts as pre-submission reviewers of draft proposals developed for significant external funding opportunities. These reviews are commonly referred to as red team reviews. This funding helps the proposal team receive rigorous feedback to strengthen their proposal's responsiveness and competitiveness before submission. Reviewer honoraria costs are also eligible for Big Opportunity Funds; this Proposal Reviewer Fund is a better option when reviewer honoraria are the only proposal development costs requested.
Tech on the Block: A Community-Centered Approach to AI Learning
Sheena Erete, Associate Professor, INFO
Though recently there have been increased conversations about AI technologies, Black and brown people, especially girls, are often excluded from technology development. This exclusion is despite the fact that minoritized communities are disproportionately impacted by data-driven tools (e.g., surveillance technologies, algorithmic biases). To understand what scaffolds, resources, and supports are needed to engage minoritized youth in AI learning, we will design and pilot a summer program for middle school Black and brown girls and their families that focus on developing technical AI and data science skills (e.g., algorithmic coding), STEM identity development, creative uses of AI tools, and advocacy for leveraging AI tools to address local civic issues. Our program is in partnership with the Metamorphosis Community Project, a local nonprofit community organization focused on holistic development and health for the local community. This is an example of a community-centered, mutual learning program that will allow us to learn about Black and brown communities' perspectives on AI and emerging technologies while they gain technical and literacy skills in AI. Working with Black and brown youth and their families in Prince George’s County, we aim to develop an infrastructure for sustained community-driven approaches to AI learning beyond the classroom.
Machine intelligence accelerated nanomedicine design for women’s health indications
Hannah Zierden-Shininger, Assistant Professor, ENGR-Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering
Po-Yen Chen, Assistant Professor, ENGR-Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering
There is a significant need for improved therapeutics for women’s health indications. To expedite the clinical translation of next generation therapies, our multidisciplinary team combines collaborative robotics, artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) predictions, model interpretation tools, and in vivo experimental validation to develop a model capable of automating the design of efficient vaginally administered therapeutics with programmable characteristics (size, stability, mobility in cervicovaginal mucus, and drug release profile). Our hybrid approach will facilitate the discovery of translational therapeutic products for women’s health by eliminating tedious optimization experiments. This new collaborative effort brings together extensive expertise in drug delivery engineering for gynecologic applications (Zierden) with machine learning and predictive models (Chen). We aim to address disparities in women’s health by accelerating therapeutic innovations for reproductive disease throughout the lifespan. This proof-of-concept work will position the team well for future NIH R-series and foundational awards for bettering women’s health outcomes.
Wood Construction Detailing and U.S. Eastern Woodland Indigenous Traditional Knowledge
Jana VanderGoot, Associate Professor, ARCH-Architecture Program
Shelbi Nahwilet Meissner, Executive Director, Indigenous Futures Lab, Assistant Professor, ARHU:Harriet Tubman Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
The U.S. wood construction industry shifted toward mass timber in 2017 coinciding with first-time U.S. Building Code recognition and in 2021 with authorization for its use in high-rise buildings (<21 stories high). Mass timber, made from prefabricated solid wood panels of stacked standardized lumber, offers advantages that have attracted new investments in fabrication facilities. As mass timber gains traction in the U.S. Northeast, there is a window of opportunity to broaden predominantly Western European cultural narratives around mass timber technology to include Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) —the ecological knowledge, practice, and beliefs of Indigenous cultures that are well suited to sustainable design. This framing is vital for the development of mass timber technologies that honor and preserve North American Indigenous forest management, tree knowledge, and wood construction practices.
Professors Jana VanderGoot and Shelbi Nahwilet Meissner will visit Eastern Woodlands wood objects in the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Archives Center, engage in hands-on mass timber prototyping, and create educational resources that bring Indigenous epistemologies and conceptions of ‘wood relatives’ to contemporary mass timber production. The impact of this project extends beyond technical innovation; it aligns with the strategic goals of the University to promote sustainable, culturally informed practices.
Exploring Systemic Inequities in the Employment and Postsecondary Education Trajectories of Immigrants with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities
Sehrish Shikarpurya, Assistant Professor, EDUC-Counseling, Higher Education, and Special Education
This study aims to understand and improve the post-school outcomes of immigrants with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). Using a qualitative methodology grounded in the intersectional life course framework, we will explore systemic inequities influencing the employment and postsecondary trajectories of immigrants with IDD. We will conduct semi-structured interviews with 40 immigrants with IDD and one of their family members to identify personal, relational, and structural factors contributing to these inequities. By addressing the unique challenges faced by immigrants with IDD, the study seeks to bolster their post-school experiences and expand their employment and educational outcomes. The anticipated impact includes an enhanced understanding of this population’s needs, strengthened community partnerships with immigrant-serving organizations, the development of family training programs focused on future planning and practice, and policy briefs directed at increasing racially and socially just initiatives within adult service systems and educational infrastructures. Our findings will ultimately guide teacher preparation and policy reforms to better support this underserved population, leading to more equitable opportunities for immigrants with IDD.
Toward designing culturally fair test questions to evaluate humans and AI
Rachel Rudinger, Assistant Professor, CMNS-UMIACS/Computer Science
Marine Carpuat, Associate Professor, CMNS-UMIACS/Computer Science
Yi Ting Huang, Associate Professor & Director, MD Language Science Center, BSOS-Hearing and Speech Sciences
In the U.S. and around the world, students of all levels take standardized tests intended to measure skills like reading comprehension and quantitative reasoning. Because of their high stakes, it is important to understand whether these tests accurately and fairly measure the skills they are intended to assess. In particular, test questions with embedded cultural assumptions may inadvertently measure a student’s socioeconomic or cultural background rather than their academic preparedness. Meanwhile, in the field of artificial intelligence, standardized test questions have often been repurposed for benchmarking the capabilities of large language models (LLMs), such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT system, raising a second concern: that culturally biased LLM evaluations could lead to the development of technology that unequally serves different populations of human users. In this interdisciplinary New Directions project, we will investigate the dual challenges of cultural bias in exam questions for student and AI test takers, drawing on insights and methods from the fields of cognitive psychology and artificial intelligence. We aim to (1) develop empirical survey-based methods to detect and measure cultural assumptions in individual test questions, and (2) investigate the potential for LLM-based tools to help detect and even rewrite culturally biased test questions while preserving core test concepts. The project will initially focus on math word problems, where (we hypothesize) it is most straightforward to disaggregate a test question’s core math concepts from its non-core, culturally-specific concepts.
Rural gentrification across the United States in the context of the recent housing boom and projected climate change
Kuishuang Feng, Associate Professor, BSOS-Geographical Sciences
Jie Chen, Professor, SPHL-Health Policy and Management
In the context of promoting the Low-Carbon Transition (LCT) to mitigate climate change, this project will investigate the synergistic benefits of LCT on air quality and public health in California, focusing on the equitable distribution of these benefits across communities with different social determinants of health. This interdisciplinary research, combining environmental science, economics, health services research, and health equity, aims to generate new knowledge for analyzing the co-benefits of air quality and public health resulting from LCT outcomes. Using spatial analysis of pollution and disease data, the project will introduce a novel framework to examine the extent to which LCT policies can improve air quality and public health. Furthermore, the project will identify geographical disparities in LCT’s co-benefits within California. The results of the study are expected to address the research gap in understanding the equitable distribution of LCT outcomes and health benefits in California. The project will offer valuable insights for policymakers in developing systems that ensure the equitable distribution of the co-benefits derived from LCT in the future.
Elucidating craniofacial deficits in Familial Dysautonomia
Lisa Taneyhill, Professor, AGNR-Animal & Avian Sciences
Abstract forthcoming.
DEI Bloat or DEI Compress? An Analysis of the Organizations of DEI Offices
Jeongeun Kim, Associate Professor
EDUC - Counseling, Higher Education, and Special Education
Track: Social Justice
This project addresses the political environment in which conservative states are attacking Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) offices, characterizing them by the use of loaded and misleading language such as the term “DEI bloat.” While the DEI bloat argument lacks credible empirical bases, this view undermines the possibility that these organizations can differ greatly depending on the institutional and state contexts. Moreover, the lack of systematic data on the organization and practices of DEI programs and offices prohibits researchers from empirically testing the effect of DEI offices on various outcomes, particularly how the quality of learning for minoritized students can be improved by addressing systemic inequities.
Filling this gap, this study examines how the DEI offices are organized in terms of the structure, human resources, and use of symbols of the DEI offices. How these organizational elements of DEI offices appear differently at institutions with differing characteristics and environmental contexts will be analyzed by constructing and analyzing a novel dataset on the organization of DEI offices across the US. The study will counter this untenable argument of DEI bloat while presenting a new paradigm that empirically examines how university organizations reinforce or challenge social inequalities through their structures and practices.
Strengthening couple relationships by addressing violence, substance use, and HIV risk among justice-involved people: Pilot testing a community-based intervention
Mona Mittal, Associate Professor
SPH- Family Science
Track: Proof of Concept
Abstract Forthcoming
Minoritized Students’ High School Music Experiences & Postsecondary Music Aspirations
Stephanie Prichard, Associate Professor
ARHU - Music
Track: Proof of Concept/Social Justice
For decades, the population of K-12 students in the United States has grown increasingly diverse, with the proportion of students identifying as white falling consistently below 50% since 2014. Despite changing student demographics, the music teacher population—both those currently teaching and those in preservice preparation programs—remains overwhelmingly white. Concerted research efforts exploring minoritized students’ experiences and goals are key in moving toward recruiting and retaining a more diverse music teacher workforce. The purpose of this study is therefore to explore minoritized students’ high school experiences and postsecondary education and career aspirations in music. Using a convergent mixed methods design I seek to understand a) teachers’ perceptions of Black and Hispanic students’ experiences in high school music, b) Black and Hispanic students’ reasons for enrolling/persisting in high school music, and c) factors influencing Black and Hispanic students’ desire to include or not include music as a postsecondary educational or career option. Results of this study will contribute to a nuanced understanding of the possible barriers impacting minoritized students’ ability or desire to pursue collegiate music study, and purposeful recruitment, admission, and retention practices, particularly for Black and Hispanic students who are often underrepresented both in K-12 and postsecondary music programs.
Gentrification and Residential Displacement in the Purple Line Corridor
Nicholas Finio, Assistant Research Professor
ARCH
Track: Social Justice
The State of Maryland, through a public-private partnership, is currently making its most significant investment in public transportation in decades: the Purple Line light rail. Expected to open by 2027, it will offer an unprecedented ability to quickly travel between dense activity areas including Bethesda, Silver Spring, College Park, and New Carrollton. The University of Maryland College Park will host multiple stations. Investments in public transportation like this can boost land costs and potentially catalyze gentrification and one of its negative consequences: displacement, or the involuntary relocation of existing residents due to rising costs. The Purple Line's Corridor is home to many low-income, disadvantaged communities at risk for displacement. In this project, Dr. Finio will assess how much residential displacement is happening in the Corridor, where residents are moving, and identify drivers of this displacement. These questions will be analyzed with a novel micro-data set on residential location history of Corridor residents. He will identify urban planning and policy solutions that will help keep these transit-dependent residents in place, so they can enjoy the benefits of the new transit system. This research will bolster the Purple Line Corridor Coalition and its community development agreement, to which UMD is a signatory, promising to advance equitable development along the path of the new train.
Internalized Mapping of Racialized Spaces by Youth of Color
Rossina Zamora Liu, Assistant Professor
EDUC - Teaching and Learning, Policy and Leadership
Track: Social Justice
Abstract Forthcoming
Novel Means to Read and Write with Light: Exploring the Optical Properties of Magnetoelectric Materials
Efrain Rodriguez, Professor
CMNS - Chemistry and Biochemistry
Track: Proof of Concept
Abstract Forthcoming
The Incel Phenomenon: A Study of Radicalization and Violence
Jennifer Golbeck, Professor
INFO
Track: Proof of Concept
Incels (involuntary celibate) are an extremist community of misogynistic men that exist primarily in online forums. A number of mass murder events have been perpetrated by self-described incels which they often live streamed or posted about on incel forums. These include Elliott Rodger (2014, 6 killed, 14 injured), Alek Minassian (2018, 11 killed, 15 injured), and Chris Harper-Mercer (2015, 9 killed, 8 injured). How people become radicalized online and when online hate shifts into offline behavior are important open questions. This project seeks to explore this space using incel communities as a case study. We are developing an Incel lexicon which can be used to detect integration with the incel community and building machine learning models to analyze language and identify increasing radicalization as well as the early stages of interest in deradicalization.
Proof of Concept
Identifying Parental Sexual Orientation Socialization Strategies: Conceptual and Measurement Development
Jessica Fisher, Department of Family Science, School of Public Health
Sexual minority (e.g., lesbian, gay, bisexual) youth (SMY) experience poorer mental health and greater substance use than their heterosexual peers; these inequities stem from stigma within youth’s social contexts. Research identifying mechanisms that promote SMY health and resilience remain scarce, as are measures that assess these mechanisms. These gaps impede efforts to develop prevention and health promotion programs for SMY. Adjacent research on parental racial/ethnic socialization – parental practices that communicate positive messages about race and culture to children – provides compelling evidence for the protective influence of identity-based socialization for youth of color. Thus, it stands to reason that parents of SMY who engage in strategies that socialize their children around their sexual minority identity (e.g., celebrate youth’s sexual identity, communicate strategies to address stigma) could provide unique protections for SMY mental health and prevent substance use during adolescence. The study will support a shift in the PI’s research agenda and contribute substantially to advancing research in SMY health through the development of a (1) testable conceptual model of parental sexual orientation socialization and (2) self-report measure of parental sexual orientation socialization practices that can be utilized in future research and intervention. The findings will be used to help the PI competitively vie for approved NIH funding opportunities that are forthcoming.
Data-Driven Deep-Learning-Accelerated Discovery of Atomic Catalysts
Teng Li, Department of Mechanical Engineering, A. James Clark School of Engineering
Catalysts are required for >90% of the chemical processes and there is an ever-surging need for developing high-performance catalysts to secure a sustainable future. Atomic catalysts are surging as a new research frontier in catalysis science, given their maximum atom-utilization efficiency and high activity/selectivity to enable highly efficient chemical reactions toward green energy, net-zero CO2 emission, and access to clean water. Enthusiasm aside, the success of atomic catalysts hinges upon a rational design strategy that remains a grand challenge, largely resulting from the huge design parameter space. Conventional experimental design via trial and error and computational design based on first-principle calculation are both time and cost prohibitive and suffer from low efficiency. Aiming to address this grand challenge, we plan to develop a novel data-driven deep-learning-accelerated design methodology for the discovery of high-performance atomic catalysts, which holds promise to a paradigm shift in the rational design of atomic catalysts. This project will allow us to explore an exciting new direction with fertile opportunities in the field of research of data-driven materials discovery.
Measuring Quantum Energies of Molecules in Extreme Rotational States
Amy Mullin, Department of Chemistry, College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences
The Mullin group will investigate how molecular geometry is distorted by extreme amounts of quantized rotational energy. An optical centrifuge is a strong-field method that is capable of preparing molecules in high energy rotational states that have not been observed, or characterized, previously. This project is designed to measure the extent to which extreme rotational energy affects the vibrational states in centrifuged molecules. We will accomplish this by directly measuring quantum energies in different vibrational states using a spectroscopic method known as combination differences. Inverted rotational distributions of gas-phase molecules will be prepared in our optical centrifuge and the rotational quantum states will be detected using high-resolution transient IR absorption probing. Pairs of IR transitions that share either a lower or upper state are combined to yield the rotational energy ladder for different vibrational states. The ability to measure rotational energies separately from vibrational energy marks an important new direction in research. The outcome of these experiments will inform current models of molecular quantum states, contribute to our understanding of heat transport at the molecular level, and lay the groundwork for understanding the dynamics of gas-phase molecules in extreme energy environments.
Exploring the Impact of an Inclusive Higher Education Program for Students With Intellectual And/or Developmental Disability
PI: Yewon Lee, Assistant Clinical Professor; EDUC-Counseling, Higher Education and Special Education
Individuals with intellectual and/or developmental disability (I/DD) have one of the lowest employment rates in the U.S. This is largely due to a lack of inclusive postsecondary education (PSE) options for people with I/DD. To help address this issue, the Center for Transition & Career Innovation (CTCI), nested in the College of Education, launched the TerpsEXCEED (EXperiencing College for Education and Employment Discovery) Program in 2021. This 2-year inclusive PSE program prepares students with I/DD for competitive employment and independent living. There are very few inclusive higher education programs across the nation and their outcomes and impact are under-researched. Our project explores how an inclusive PSE program impacts students with I/DD, their families, and the campus community through a case study. Our findings will inform the conceptual development of a replicable inclusive PSE model and serve as a seed for future federal funding opportunities and investments (e.g., Transition and Postsecondary Programs for Students with Intellectual Disabilities [TIPSID]). We believe that our work will contribute to disrupting systemic exclusion of people with I/DD by challenging traditional beliefs and practices of higher education.
Interaction Detection in Context-Aware Physical Classroom Spaces: Understanding Individual Children’s Classroom Experiences
PI: Jason Chow, Associate Professor; EDUC-Counseling, Higher Education and Special Education
A rich language environment is essential for children to be successful in the preschool classroom and beyond. Adult language input is a fundamental component of the environment and enables the acquisition of these skills. These tenets, recognizing the importance of the environment and the role of adult responsiveness to children, are central components of the transactional theory of language development. This proof-of-concept project aims to pilot the novel application of interaction-detection technology. We will partner with the College of Education's Center for Young Children and use interaction-detection technology to understand the real-time relations between teacher language input, child language development, engagement, and peer interactions. We will test the usability of interaction-detection technology linked with audio data to capture children’s learning experiences and the distribution of teacher’s attention and engagement in real time. This project will extend current research on average experiences and begin to unpack variation in individual learning experiences; findings will lead to data-supported external funding applications to federal agencies that support this line of inquiry.
Racial & Social Justice
Digital North Brentwood Heritage Project
Mark Leone, Department of Anthropology, College of Behavioral and Social Sciences
North Brentwood, Prince George’s County, Maryland was originally known as Randallstown, named after the US Colored Troop Veteran, that purchased the first lots in the 1890s. In 1924, it became the first community incorporated by African Americans in the County, and second in the State. It is located along Route 1, south of the College Park campus and north of the District of Columbia line. The community is currently confronting old challenges related to stormwater management and new impacts of gentrification, including the potential destruction of historic sites.
The participatory heritage framework is designed to empower Town residents and community descendants through digital historic preservation. The project helps to maintain and expand the town’s heritage using state-of-the-art technologies for documentation and dissemination. The cultural and historic values shared by the community will reach a global audience through digital first-person 3-D and virtual reality environments. The stories of the community will be shared in their own words through oral histories and historic images embedded in these digital spaces. The data produced also contributes to the town’s management of gentrification and stormwater related disasters.
Anti-Black Racism Initiative
Rashawn Ray, Department of Sociology, College of Behavioral and Social Sciences
The Anti-Black Racism initiative (ABRI) is designed to promote long-term change on campus and in our community and state through the advancement of research to inform racially-equitable policies. The mission is to create racially-equitable opportunities for African Americans by supporting community-engagement and policy-oriented endeavors. Building on existing coalitions, ABRI leveled up partnerships to increase the number of Black faculty and advanced research portals for scholars focused on dismantling racism. One primary goal of the ABRI is to address racism in our local community and on our campus, produce scholarship that advances a national conversation and policy agenda on social justice, and empower students to envision and create a racially equitable future.
“The System Isn’t Built for Us.” Exploring Black and Latinx Parent Experiences of Educational Exclusion in a Local District to Reduce Inequality
Sophia Rodriguez, Teaching, Learning, Policy, and Leadership, College of Education
This qualitative case study centers on Black and Latino/x parents' experiences of exclusion in a local community and calls for the school district to engage in equitable collaboration as a viable strategy for improving family engagement practices. The project assumes Black and Latino/x families are and ought to be considered educational policy thinkers and makers given the assets and knowledge they bring to educational settings. Using a critical qualitative case study approach, the project will leverage interview and focus group data of 75 parents in a local school district to contribute to research and advocacy efforts to increase racial and social justice for underrepresented parents.
Evaluating Implementation Determinants and Processes of the Montgomery County, Maryland's Racial Equity and Social Justice Act
Kellee White, Health Policy and Management, School of Public Health
Racism is a key determinant of population health that contributes to creating, maintaining, and perpetuating racial/ethnic inequities. Increasingly, local governments are developing and implementing policies that address racism, as a strategy to create healthier and more equitable communities. Recently, the Racial Equity and Social Justice Act, passed in Montgomery County, Maryland mandates legislative committees on racial equity and requires racial equity impact assessments and statements for management, legislative and budgetary priorities. Evaluating policy implementation processes can provide valuable information about the barriers to and facilitators of implementation and identify differences between planned and actual implementation to inform ongoing implementation decisions and improve outcomes. Yet, there is a dearth of evidence assessing implementation determinants and processes, particularly for racial equity policies that address racial equity. Towards this end, this project will: 1) evaluate implementation determinants and processes of the Racial Equity and Social Justice Act; and 2) develop a racial equity and social justice policy evaluation implementation framework. The results of this study have the potential to further our understanding of racial equity policy implementation processes, determinants, and outcomes that can aid stakeholders, decision-makers, and researchers to support evidence-informed policies to improve population health and reduce inequities.
The CARE Youth Internship Program at the University of Maryland
PI: Ariana Gard, Assistant Professor; BSOS-Psychology
Youth participatory action research (YPAR) is an innovative equity-focused form of Community Based Participatory Research in which youth are trained to identify and analyze social issues relevant to their lives (Ginwright, 2007). With support from the 2022 Maryland Catalyst New Directions Funds, the Community And Resilient Environments (CARE) Youth Internship Program will empower youth of marginalized identities to conduct qualitative and quantitative research in their own communities. Youth participants will assess social and physical features of neighborhood blocks in NE Washington DC, collect physiological and air pollution data using wearable sensors, describe the implications of environmental quality on health and wellbeing, and receive training in research principles and ethics, basic research methods, and how to present study findings to local community leaders and members. This project represents a new research direction for Dr. Arianna Gard, whose work thus far has focused on examining the impacts of environmental adversity on youth neurobehavioral development using more traditional researcher-driven quantitative methods. By training and empowering youth to become researchers in their own communities, the Growth And Resilience across Development (GARD) Lab is working towards advocating for community-driven methods in developmental science.
Slavery, Law, and Power: Debating Justice and Democracy in Early America and the British Empire
PI: Holly Brewer, Associate Professor; ARHU-History
The Slavery, Law, & Power project sets up a system for sharing manuscript materials that connect slavery with processes of law and power, with a focus on the early British empire and the mainland that would become the United States. We now live in an era where it is not enough for experts in any given field to weigh in and pronounce truths that everyone can believe. To understand issues such as those surrounding the emergence of slavery, of empire, and of theories and practices of absolute monarchy, at the same time as theories and practices of human rights, democracy and supposed enlightenment–raises many questions about the connections between them. This project tries to fill a gap in existing collaborative projects related to slavery (e.g. those on the slave trade such as Slave Voyages, and on individual lives such as Enslaved.org) to focus on the connections between the emergence of slavery and the way it was supported by larger power structures, including judicial decisions and laws, in the midst of complex debates about justice. By making the evidence accessible, it enables users whether scholars, students, or interested members of the public– to not only understand the past but also the legacies of that past in the present.
Proof of Concept
- Supporting Frontend Programming for People with Visual Impairments
Huaishu Peng,CMNS-Computer Science - Engineering an in vitro system to simultaneously study transport across mucus, mucosal epithelium, and into lymphatics of the gastrointestinal tract
Katharina Maisel,ENGR-Bioengineering - Bringing Local Community Benefits to Prince Georges County, Maryland Through Demand Response Modeling for Electricity Usage in Buildings
Steven Gabriel, ENGR-Mechanical;
Qingbin Cui, ENGR-Civil & Environmental;
Andrew Fellos, INFO-Community Outreach Program - A Missing Link in Understanding Disproportionality in Special Education: Assessing Implicit Racial Bias in Academic Decision Making
Kelli Cummings, EDUC-Counseling, Higher Education, and Special Education;
Richard Shin, EDUC-Counseling, Higher Education, and Special Education
LEGO
- Digital Survey of Monumental Tombs on Jerusalem’s Mount of Olives
Matthew J. Suriano, ARHU - Joseph and Rebecca Meyerhoff Center for Jewish Studies
Ming Hu, ARCH-Architecture
Proof of Concept
- The Next Chapter Project: Exploring Parenting + Mental Health Intervention among Trauma-Affected Young Families
Elizabeth Aparicio,SPHL-Behavioral & Community Health - Metasurfaces as a Replacement for Gems: New Strategies to Nonlinear Optics Materials
Oded Rabin, ENGR-Materials Science & Engineering - An Investigation of Perinatal Stress in Low-Income African American Women and Their Young Infants
Brenda Jones Harden,EDUC-Human Development and Quantitative Methodology - Smart Machine Translation with Social Sensitivity: Facilitating Workplace Inclusion Through Socio-technical Solutions
Marine Carpuat, CMNS-Computer Science
Ge Gao, INFO-Information Studies - Glacial Now
Cy Keener,ARHU-Art - Environmental Inequalities in Neurocognitive Development
Richard Prather,EDUC-Human Development and Quantitative Methodology
Devon Payne-Sturges, SPHL-Maryland Institute for Applied Environmental Health (MIAEH) - Improving measures of marriage in sub-Saharan Africa to address women’s and children’s health outcomes
Kirsten Stoebenau,SPHL-Behavioral & Community Health
Sangeetha Madhavan, BSOS-African American Studies
Gregory R. Hancock, EDUC-Human Development and Quantitative Methodology
LEGO
- The Search for German Uranium
Timothy Koeth, CMNS-Institute for Research in Electronics & Applied Physics (IREAP)
Miriam Hiebert, ENGR-Materials Science & Engineering - Arctic Circle Residency
John Ruppert, ARHU-Art - Justice, Friendship, and Happiness: the Argument of Plato's Republic
Rachel Singpurwalla, ARHU-Philosophy - Exploring the Psychology of Environmental Senescence through fMRI
Jeremy Wells, ARCH-Historic Preservation Program
Erica Molinario, BSOS-Psychology
Stephanie Preston, University of Michigan - Psychology, Cognition and Cognitive Neuroscience Area - Digital Urban History in Colonial Mexico
Juan Burke, ARCH-Architecture Program
Other Awards Internal to UMD
Grand Challenges
The Grand Challenges Grants Program is the largest and most comprehensive internal funding mechanism ever introduced at the University of Maryland, supporting projects that address emerging societal issues, including climate change, social injustice, global health, and education disparities.
Launched in partnership between the Office of the Provost and the Division of Research, this Fearlessly Forward strategic initiative is designed to accelerate solutions to humanity’s grand challenges within our communities and around the globe through education, research, scholarship, creative activities, and service. In Spring 2023, 50 projects across multiple disciplines and colleges began their work, thanks to the $30 million in institutional investment launched by the Grand Challenges Grants Program. Half of these projects are interdepartmental with multiple colleges working together to tackle each project: three Institutional Awards, six Impact Awards, and 16 Team Awards. Additionally, 25 Individual awards are targeted toward a specific component of a grand challenge.
ISRCA
The Provost and the Vice President for Research invite applications for the Independent Scholarship, Research, and Creativity Awards (ISRCA) for faculty pursuing independent scholarly and/or creative projects. Funds of up to $10,000 per award support semester teaching release, summer salary, and/or research related expenses.
This program is designed to support the professional advancement of faculty engaged in scholarly and creative pursuits that use historical, humanistic, interpretive, or ethnographic approaches; explore aesthetic, ethical, and/or cultural values and their roles in society; conduct critical or rhetorical analysis; engage in archival and/or field research; or develop or produce creative works.
ISRCA by the numbers:
- Program Funding Rate: 24%
- Average number of applications received annually: 50
- Average number of awards made annually: 12
Upcoming Cycle:
- Deadline: 5pm on Monday, October 21, 2024
- FY25 Solicitation
- Applications will be accepted through the UMD InfoReady Portal
- ISRCA - Letter of Support Template (DOCX)
- Please direct any questions about the program to Eric Chapman, Associate Vice President for Research.
Act Like You Know: Affirming Techné in Marginality
Cecilia Shelton, Assistant Professor
ARHU-English
Signs of Life
Krishnan Vasudevan, Associate Professor
JOUR
Contract Spirit: Asian American Literature after the Coolie Trade
Rebecca Liu, Assistant Professor
ARHU-English
Sovereign Archives, Sovereign Stories: Unearthing Feminist Narratives Of Family Resilience from the Carlisle Indian School
Shelbi Nahwilet Meissner, Assistant Professor
ARHU- Harriet Tubman Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Developing an Intercultural Storybook Intervention for Kids
Nick Joyce, Associate Professor
ARHU- Communication
Challenging Monuments: Sculptural Bodies and the Body Public in 1930s America
Tess Korobkin, Assistant Professor
ARHU- Art History and Archaeology
Making Korea Global: The US Military-Industrial Complex and the Creation of a Capitalist World Economy
Patrick Chung, Assistant Professor
ARHU- History
Putting the Pieces Together: the Wall Paintings of Petsas House, Mycenae
Emily Egan, Assistant Professor
ARHU - Art History & Archaeology
HPV, HOMOPHOBIA, AND BODY MAPPING IN NAIROBI, KENYA
Matthew Thomann, Assistant Professor
BSOS - Anthropology
Caring for the Precariat: State Responsibility in an Age of Uncertainty
Zachary Dorner, Assistant Professor
ARHU - History
Inside Negotiations that Launched Japan’s Modern Automobile Industry, 1945-1949
Lindsay Yotsukura, Associate Professor
ARHU - School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures
Songs of Struggle, Freedom, and Solidaridad!: Activist Musicians and the US-Central America Solidarity Movement
Fernando Rios, Associate Professor
ARHU - Music
Punished in Plain Sight: Women’s Experiences on Probation in Maryland
Rachel Ellis, Assistant Professor, Criminology & Criminal Justice (BSOS)
Eternity Made Tangible
Jennifer Barclay, Associate Professor, Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies (ARHU)
Slash: M/M Fan Fiction and the Politics of Fantasy
Alexis Lothian, Associate Professor, Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (ARHU)
Visualizing the Royal Steward's Inscriptions: From Jerusalem to London
Matthew Suriano, Associate Professor, The Meyerhoff Center for Jewish Studies (ARHU)
The Future of Rwanda's Past: History and Historians After Genocide
Erin Mosely, Assistant Professor, History (ARHU)
Nile Nightshade: Tomatoes and the Making of Modern Egypt
Anny Gaul, Assistant Professor School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures (ARHU)
How Can Participatory Budgeting Enhance the Voice of Underrepresented Minorities?
Juan Martinez Guzman, Assistant Professor, Public Policy (SPP)
Scoping Review of Interventions for African American Boys Who Experience Internalizing Symptoms
Rabiatu Barrie, Assistant Professor, Family Science (SPH)
Political Centralization in Pakistan’s Canal Colonies
Cory Smith, Assistant Professor, Agricultural and Resource Economics (AGNR)
Sometimes the Light
Maud Casey, Professor, English (ARHU)
Innovative Modeling to Preserve Architectural Heritage
Joseph Williams, Assistant Professor, Architecture (ARCH)
A New Kind of Progressive: How Poles, Venezuelans, and Germans Reimagined Latin America
Piotr Kosicki, Associate Professor, History (ARHU)
The Marvelous Illusion: Morton Feldman's The Viola in My Life 1-4
Thomas DeLio, Professor, Music (ARHU)
Analyzing the Content of President Biden’s COVID-19 Twitter Communications
Hector Alcala, Assistant Professor, Behavioral and Community Health (SPH)
Romanian Roots - A Digital Platform to Promote Romanian Music
Irina Muresanu, Associate Professor, Music (ARHU)
In References We Trust? A History of Peer Review in the Sciences
Melinda Baldwin, Associate Professor, ARHU-History
Landscape Memories, migration, and commons management in forest systems
Madeline Brown, Assistant Professor, BSOS-Anthropology
Radical Lens: The Photographs of Nancy Shia
Nancy Mirabal, Associate Professor, ARHU-American Studies
Navigating Prolonged Legal Limbo: Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Recipients in the D.C. Metro Region
Christina Getrich, Associate Professor, BSOS-Anthropology
Kippax Colonoware Sourcing and Trade Study
Donald Linebaugh, Professor, ARCH-Historic Preservation
Embodied Afterlives: Performing Love Suicide in Early Modern Japan
Jyana Browne, Assistant Professor, ARHU-SLLC
Selective: Data, Power, and the Fight over Fit in Organizational Life
Daniel Greene, Assistant Professor, INFO
Sensing God: Embodied Poetics and Somatic Epistemology in Medieval Persian Sufi Literature
Matthew Miller, Assistant Professor, ARHU-Persian/SLLC
Korean Immigrant Pioneers and Intergenerational Mobility Prospects in the DC Region
Julie Park, Associate Professor, BSOS-Sociology and Asian Amer Studies
Cool Fratricide: Murder and Metaphysics in Black and Indigenous U.S. Literature
Chad Infante, Assistant Professor, ARHU-English
Moroccan Jews between Morocco and Israel, 1948-1962
Shay Hazkani, ARHU-History and Jewish Studies
The Politics of Outbreak Response: The Evolution and Effectiveness of WHO’s International Health Regulations
Catherine Worsnop, SPP-School of Public Policy
Nativism and the New Immigrant in Coal Country, USA
Paul Shackel, BSOS-Anthropology
Wars R Us: Violence and Identity in the U.S., the Middle East, and Russia After the Cold War
Valerie Anishchenkova, ARHU-Arabic/Film Studies/SLLC
Afterlives of AIDS: Oral histories of Black women living and aging with HIV
Thurka Sangaramoorthy, BSOS-Anthropology
‘Relatable Meets Remarkable’: Crafting Race in the Reality Television Industry
Eva Hageman, ARHU- American Studies and Harriet Tubman Department of Women Gender and Sexuality studies
The First Freedom Riders: Streetcars and Street Fights in Jim Crow New York
Richard Bell, ARHU-History
Picturing Resilience: A Photo-Elicitation Study of High-Achieving Black Undergraduate Students’ Community Cultural Wealth in the COVID-19 Era
Jennifer Turner, EDUC-Teaching and Learning, Policy and Leadership
Game On: Boxing, Race, and Masculinity
Jordana Saggese, ARHU-Art History and Archaeology
Teaching Slavery and Settlement: Plantation Pedagogy in Currents of Conquest
Bayley Marquez, ARHU-American Studies
Conundrum of Loyalty: Dynasty, Governance, and Political Allegiance in Imperial Russia, 1850-1900
Mikhai Dolbilovl, ARHU-History
Django Generations: Ethnorace, Citizenship, and Jazz Manouche in France
Siv Lie, ARHU-School of Music
Funding Black Power: Race, Philanthropy and the Politics of Social Impact
Claire Dunning, SPP-School of Public Policy
One Driver, One Mic: How Immigrant Taxi Drivers Formed a Coop to Take on Uber, Lyft and the Taxi Industry
Krishnan Vasudevan, JOUR-Philip Merrill College of Journalism
Bureaucracy at the Border: The Fragmentation of Foreign Policy
Shannon Carcelli, BSOS-Government and Politics
Identifying Crime Hot Spots: A Multi-source Investigation of Crime Distribution in Peterborough, England
Lauren Porter, BSOS-Criminology & Criminal Justice
Understanding the Social Reception of Proposed Energy Infrastructure in the Developing World
Jennifer Hadden, BSOS-Government and Politics
The Twitter Presidency: Who Trump Talks About, How He Talks About Them, and Why It Matters
Sarah Croco, BSOS-Government and Politics
Anthropogenic: The Cultural Heritage of Climate Change
Kathryn Lafrenz Samuels, BSOS-Anthropology
Deportation's Aftermath: Little LA and Making a Life in Exile
Perla Guerrero, ARHU-American Studies
Hannes Meyer, Post-Revolutionary Mexico, and the Poetics of Place and Displacement
Ryan Long, ARHU-School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures
Empire and the Black Pacific: A Record of the Darker Races
Edlie Wong, ARHU-English
Fabricating Catullus: Catullus' Reception by Postmodern Women
Katherine Wasdin, ARHU-Classics
UMB Institute for Clinical and Translational Research (ICTR)
The University of Maryland, College Park has established a partnership with the Institute for Clinical and Translational Research (ICTR) at the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) to help UMD researchers access resources for clinical training and reduce barriers to patient recruitment.
MPower
The University of Maryland Strategic Partnership: MPowering the State (MPower) is a collaboration between the state of Maryland’s two most powerful public research engines: the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) and the University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP) — to strengthen and serve the state of Maryland and its citizens.