For students, it’s the launchpad. For alumni, it’s the foundation. For the world, it’s the proof.
It all starts here — with top-ranked teaching, unmatched value, and a location that connects ambition to opportunity.
…and take you where you want to go.
Faculty connections at UMBC helped me get involved in internships and professional roles off campus that ultimately led to a full-time position after graduation.
More than just a degree, it provided a foundation of resilience and leadership that guides me every day. I leave with not just a set of skills, but a lifelong drive to innovate and contribute meaningfully to the world.
UMBC prepared me for my future by giving me strong hands-on experience through my field placement, and helping me build confidence in working with diverse individuals and communities.
UMBC’s key research themes focus on
Physicist Priyarshini Ghosh is conducting the world’s first experiment measuring how chromium-52 breaks apart under cosmic-ray-like conditions, sharpening our understanding of the Milky Way’s chemical evolution and powering the 2027 TIGERISS space mission.
Cosmic RaysUMBC landed $1.5 million to build an AI-powered fish-farming center, tackling America’s staggering $20 billion seafood trade deficit with smart, land-based tanks that recycle nearly all their water.
Precision AquacultureEight UMBC students and alumni earned the highly competitive 2026 NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. The recipients are already making waves with their work, developing affordable prosthetic limbs, studying HIV replication, and continuing their studies in prestigious Ph.D programs.
Graduate Research FellowshipUMBC researchers are mining the ancient hand gestures of classical Indian dance to discover the fundamental "alphabets" of human hand movement, and found that dance-derived synergies significantly outperform natural grasp patterns at reconstructing new motions, with implications for stroke rehabilitation and teaching robots to move more like humans.
Strange Dance PartnersUMBC researchers are building a "cybergut", a network of millimeter-sized implants in the stomach paired with a virtual stomach model and machine learning, to monitor and treat gastroparesis, a chronic condition affecting over 1.5 million Americans, with real-time, personalized electrical stimulation.
CybergutYou make it possible for big ideas to take flight.
Generous donations from individuals, families, foundations, and corporations sustain the excellence of UMBC’s colleges and programs and help keep education accessible to all. Contributions of all sizes empower talented students from all backgrounds to pursue their passions and prepare UMBC graduates to make an impact in the world.
Explore giving opportunitiesThe association is a non-dues-paying organization, open to all alumni — undergraduate and graduate — working to keep alumni connected and engaged with one another, current students, and the University as a whole, through programs and events that advance and support UMBC.
Join the communityHome to 17 varsity sports competing at the NCAA Division I level in the America East Conference.
Wearing black and gold and guided by the relentless spirit of our mascot, True Grit, UMBC’s student-athletes compete with tenacity, intelligence, and heart.
View schedules, tickets & newsEmily came to UMBC from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, to study mechanical engineering while playing for UMBC’s championship-level softball team. In her first year she was named to the America East All-Rookie team and helped the Retrievers win their fourth-straight conference championship. In the following NCAA Tournament game against Nebraska, Riggs hit UMBC’s first home run in an NCAA Tournament game in 21 years.
Read Emily's Story