U.S.News & World Report Best Colleges rankings mark UMBC as tied for #127 among national universities, up 17 places from 2025, and tied for #63 on the list of top public schools, up 11 places. The rankings are based on a large variety of factors such as graduation rates, faculty resources, and academic reputation.
UMBC was also tied for #86 in top colleges for veterans, evidence that the university’s initiatives to support veteran students’ success are paying off.
“We are excited to see UMBC’s upward trajectory recognized in these rankings,” says Yvette Mozie-Ross ’88, vice provost for enrollment management and planning. “These gains reflect our strong commitment to student success, access, and innovation—hallmarks of a UMBC education that continue to set us apart nationally.”
Veteran services an example of strong student support
Two years ago, Dennis Walker, Jr., was hired as the assistant director for adult learners and veteran student success.
UMBC being recognized by U.S. News for its efforts in serving veteran and military-affiliated students is more than just an institutional achievement, he says, but a celebration of the positive impact that new veteran-focused initiatives are having on campus.
“With the support of UMBC leadership, I take great pride in knowing that our collective commitment is helping to ensure that these students feel supported, valued, and equipped to succeed during such a pivotal stage of their personal, academic, and professional journeys,” says Walker.
Students and staff gather for the UMBC Veterans Day Out event, featuring a trip to a Baltimore Raven’s football game. (Photo courtesy of Dennis Walker, Jr.)
UMBC strives to provide holistic support to veteran and military-affiliated students, Walker says. This includes help navigating their educational benefits, access to mental health resources, professional development such as resume workshops and connections to on-campus job opportunities, and dedicated events, spaces, and student organizations that offer a sense of community.
As part of these efforts, UMBC opened a Veterans Lounge in fall 2024, where veteran students can relax and connect with each other. Each year, UMBC also hosts Veterans Week, a tradition that honors the service and contributions of veteran students and staff with a variety of fun and educational events.
“Supporting our veteran population is not only a responsibility, but also a privilege,” Walker says. “Our veteran and military-affiliated student population bring unique perspectives, experiences, and strengths to our campus community. Their dedication, resilience, and leadership not only enrich the university as a whole, but also inspire us to continually enhance the ways in which we support them.”
Chance and faith: These two forces have shaped the trajectory of Jeanne van Briesen’s life (while also inspiring the names for her two Russian Blue cats). It was by chance that she went down the research path after unexpectedly losing her first job—teaching high school science. Faith later gave her the courage to begin an academic career at an institution (Carnegie Mellon University) that felt like the right fit, even when her Ph.D. in civil engineering could have led to the industrial job she originally planned to take. And chance and faith worked together to bring van Briesen to UMBC, where she took the position of Dean of the College of Engineering and Information Technology (COEIT) this summer.
“I first visited UMBC about 15 years ago to give an invited talk, and I really enjoyed the visit,” she says. “The energy on campus, from the students to the faculty and staff, was exciting. I felt like, ‘I should be watching this place.’”
So when the COEIT deanship opened at a time when van Briesen was ready to make her next career move, she once again felt two familiar forces guiding her. “I do feel like there was a little bit of chance involved in this move—the position opening up just as I was leaving the National Science Foundation and my youngest child was finishing his college journey. A little bit of chance and a little bit of faith brought me here. And, I’m loving it. It feels like home.”
As the campus welcomes new and returning students and faculty for the fall semester, van Briesen shares what she loves about higher ed and how excited she is to start the new school year.
Q: How did you decide on a career in academia?
A: I started my career as a high school chemistry and physics teacher. I thought that was the most fun anybody could have. But after a year, I was laid off because the teacher I had been hired to replace decided unexpectedly to return. So I went to graduate school to get my master’s degree, and I fell in love with research. I loved doing research so much that I stayed to do my Ph.D. When I finished that, I was like, ‘Well, what job can I do where I can do both research and teaching?’ And that’s why I became a professor—because I could do both of the things I loved. And every day I get to engage with students and faculty about teaching and research, I know I made the right choice.
Q: Could you tell us more about your research?
A: My research focuses on water systems, both natural systems, like rivers and lakes and streams, and engineered systems, like drinking water and wastewater systems. I look at how reactions—whether biological, chemical, or geological—affect the transport and transformation of synthetic chemicals in these systems.
I also did a fair amount of work looking at microbial species: bacteria that we either don’t like because they make us sick, or bacteria that we do like because they can transform synthetic chemicals and clean up our environment. Over time, the work in my group changed the way we understand how interactions in natural systems affect interactions in engineered systems. For example, we would look at what’s changing in the river and then how those changes make it more difficult to treat the drinking water for people.
Q: Which of your research findings do you feel has had the most impact so far?
The Monongahela River, photographed as it runs through Pittsburgh. Van Briesen and her colleagues have studied the river to assess the risks associated with bromide in the water. (Ronjamin; CC BY-SA 2.5)
A: Some research I was doing in southwestern Pennsylvania was related to the development of hydraulic fracturing for shale gas development in the region. There was a lot of discussion about whether shale gas development was using too much water or whether it was producing too much wastewater. And in a lot of ways, the answer was no, it wasn’t that different from other industries that used water and produced wastewater. Engineers have been managing those things for a long time to protect the environment while enabling energy production for people.
But one thing that was different was that wastewater from gas development was being discharged into the environment with minimal treatment. The wastewater didn’t have many negative effects on the river. But in the drinking water plant, bromide from the wastewater interacted with naturally-occurring organic matter and the chlorine used to disinfect the water to produce brominated disinfection by-products. These chemicals are carcinogenic and teratogenic, and this can lead to negative health impacts when people use the treated water for drinking and bathing.
The shale gas industry didn’t know that was going to happen, and the drinking water industry wasn’t expecting that outcome either. My research team’s systems-level work—looking at the whole river, including wastewater discharges and drinking water withdrawals—really changed the understanding that the region had about those impacts. It led to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection working with the industry to stop those discharges.
So that was the work I did where I could look back and say, ‘I had an impact in my own community, for people in my hometown. My work saved lives.’
Q: What attracted you most to the COEIT deanship?
A: When I first visited UMBC, I was so impressed. The students were clearly engaged in their learning. The faculty were really committed to teaching and research, and that combination of research and teaching in higher ed is so important to me. And, the vision—to redefine excellence through an inclusive culture—that really resonated with me.
The deanship was particularly attractive because of the opportunity to expand my impact. A lot of what faculty do is enable the success of students, and I love that role. And as a dean, you enable the success of everyone in the college—faculty, staff, students, and alumni. And so a dean role really takes that faculty role of enabling the success of others to the next level.
Taking on any new role is a leap of faith. And, the chance to lead at UMBC felt worth it.
Q: What have been your strongest impressions since arriving as dean?
A: The thing that’s struck me the most is that everyone’s really committed to the mission of UMBC. When people here talk about inclusive excellence, it’s not a catch phrase, it’s who we are fundamentally at the core of the institution.
And the other thing is that everyone works really hard. Everyone’s invested in student success, and they’re always generating new ideas for how we can help students be successful. That’s very exciting.
Q: What do you love most about being an engineer?
A: I like solving real problems for real people. I mean, I can get lost in the theoretical world, and I love deepening our fundamental understanding, but I always want to tie my research to some real problem, because that’s what engineering is. You don’t hear this often, but engineering and information technology are helping professions.
The other thing I like about being an engineer is that I always feel like we’re needed. The world will always have increasingly complex and interconnected technical problems that have to be solved if we want people to flourish on the planet. The roles for engineers, computer scientists, and information technologists in different industries are always changing, and there are always more problems to solve.
Q: And what do you love most about working in higher ed?
A: Oh, the students, for sure. Every fall, you return to campus, and you get to meet new students. They’re excited to be here, and they bring energy and new ideas every year. They remind me how much I love learning because they love learning. They remind me why I became a teacher. Students arrive with wonderful potential, they grow while they’re here, and they go out into the world and do amazing things. UMBC exists to nurture that potential, help our students grow and learn, and to proudly look on as they change the world.
Dean van Briesen talks with computer engineering student Jake Whitt at a COEIT summer research poster session in August. (Brad Ziegler/UMBC)
Q: What are you most looking forward to in the coming year?
A: Learning! I would probably give that answer every year because I am happiest when I’m learning. In this particular year, I’ve come to a new place and have a new job, so there will be even more learning fun. I’m going to be meeting students, staff, faculty, and alumni, not just from COEIT, but from everywhere at UMBC, and throughout Maryland and beyond. All of these meetings will help me understand who we are and what we aspire to be. That will help me fulfill my goal to enable success in my college, the university, and our communities.
I am really excited to be here. Since arriving, I’ve learned so much from everyone I’ve met, and I’m looking forward to much more of that during this year.
Workers demolish parts of the old Key Bridge in preparation for building a new one. (Brad Ziegler/UMBC)
In the early morning of March 26, 2024, the massive cargo ship Dali lost power as it left the Port of Baltimore. The ship collided with one of the supports holding up the Francis Scott Key Bridge over the Patapsco River and the bridge collapsed, killing six construction workers and severely disrupting the flow of people and goods around Baltimore. In the immediate aftermath of the tragedy, officials began the process of planning for a new bridge, and now UMBC students are getting an up-close look at the massive project.
A year and half later, three Retrievers visited the bridge site, observing as workers demolished parts of the remaining structures in preparation for building a new bridge. Emily DiMarzio, a rising junior studying environmental science and geography, and Cristian Mena and William McConnell, both rising seniors studying mechanical engineering, were all selected to join The Key Bridge Rebuild Internship Program this summer. While their trip to the bridge this August was partly photo-op, it also represented their experiences throughout the summer, which included regular trips to the bridge and surrounding sites to learn about the ongoing work there.
The Key Bridge internship program launched this year as a partnership between the Maryland Transportation Authority (MDTA) and the Maryland Higher Education Commission (MHEC). This summer nine students from four Maryland universities, including Retrievers DiMarzio, Mena, and McConnell, got hands-on experience in project management, environmental analysis, construction oversight, and community outreach.
“It hurt when the bridge went down,” says McConnell, who grew up in Baltimore and now lives with his wife and three kids in Catonsville. “You could practically see it from our neighborhood, and now see that it is missing. So when the opportunity came along to apply for this internship, I jumped on it.”
Bridge building boot camp
At the start of the internship, the students were divided into teams based on their interests. McConnell and Mena were on the structural and geotechnical team, which worked to review, analyze, and visualize data that was collected earlier in the year while boring into the layers of sediment where the structural supports for the new bridge will go. DiMarzio was on the environmental compliance team that performed reviews of permitting documents and requirements and observed how the requirements are met during construction.
A large part of the process was coming up to speed fast on the bridge-building process.
“I’ve learned so much—I feel like a bridge expert after this summer,” laughs Mena.
McConnell noted that all the interns on the structural and geotechnical team came from mechanical engineering backgrounds. “It was nice for us to be exposed to and learn a lot about the civil engineering field,” he says.
The interns went on regular trips outside the office to see the bridge-building process in action. They visited the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, which was being redecked, and visited the Key Bridge site multiple times.
From left to right, McConnell, DiMarzio, and Mena talk near the Key Bridge. (Brad Ziegler/UMBC)
They also visited the Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center in McLean, Virginia, where they saw how researchers were testing a 3D model of the new bridge to better understand how the force of waves will affect the sand around the bridge’s supports.
“I thought that was super cool,” says Mena. “That was one of my favorite project sites.”
“The UMBC students are great to work with,” says Jason Stolicny, the deputy director of project development at MDTA who served as their supervisor this summer. “They show a genuine interest in learning and gaining exposure to new things.”
Community outreach
As part of the internship, DiMarzio, Mena, and McConnell also worked together to develop a hands-on workshop for students at Cherry Hill Middle School in Baltimore as part of the UMBC Summer Math Program through the George and Betsy Sherman Center. They prepared a presentation on different bridge types and the workers who come together to build and maintain them. They also worked with students to design and build model bridges. The workshop was part of a summer enrichment program that UMBC runs in partnership with Baltimore City Public Schools. The interns’ workshop fit into a curriculum about bridges that Malaysia McGinnis ’21, geography and environmental science, and M.A. ’24, secondary education and teaching, a teacher at Cherry Hill and Sherman Scholar, had designed for the summer program.
The interns agree it was rewarding to make connections with kids in the Baltimore community.
Cristian Mena (left) works with students from Cherry Hill Middle School in Baltimore on a model bridge building activity. (Photo courtesy of Sara Krauss)
“There was one kid that stood out to me because during the whole presentation, he looked like he was asleep and so he kind of reminded me of myself,” says Mena. “So after the presentation I partnered up with him in the activity. He was super bright and answered all the questions I asked him. Hopefully, I inspired him to see his career choices and to continue learning and growing.”
MDTA plans to continue the Key Bridge internship program until the bridge has been rebuilt, which is currently anticipated to be in fall 2028.
“It was an honor to be part of the first group of interns,” says McConnell. “I hope we helped set the stage for future interns to have really great experiences too.”
Mena contemplates what it will feel like to see the new bridge spanning the river: “That’s going to be quite a sight. I think it’ll be pretty meaningful because even though I contributed in a very small way, it’ll stand in our community as something bigger than ourselves and a symbol of what we can do when we put our minds together.”
Gabriel Farmer outside the T. Rowe Price headquarters in Baltimore. (Brad Ziegler/UMBC)
When students think of working in technology, they may dream of moving to Silicon Valley and landing jobs at companies such as Google or Meta. But the traditional tech giants aren’t the only employers offering careers to computer science grads.
“When I first started applying for summer internships, I was like, ‘Let me apply to Google. Let me apply to Apple. Let me apply to Uber,’” says Wonder Akpabio, a rising junior in computer science. But she also took a look at companies outside the stereotypical tech world—and found an internship that felt just right in UMBC’s own backyard. This summer Akpabio worked as a global technology intern at the Baltimore-headquartered investment management firm T. Rowe Price.
Akpabio was one of four UMBC students who interned at the company this summer. She worked on testing and updating software the company uses to report the daily value of a type of investment instrument called an exchange-traded fund. Gabriel Farmer, another rising junior computer science major who interned at T. Rowe Price this summer, worked on a team supporting the internal email and text message communications software at the company.
“Once we leave, they’ll continue to use and build on what we did, so it’s definitely been fulfilling,” Farmer says.
A company with Baltimore roots
T. Rowe Price was founded in 1937 in Baltimore and in the subsequent decades grew to include clients, staff, and locations throughout the U.S. and the world. In 2025, the company moved its global headquarters into newly built office space in Harbor Point in downtown Baltimore. They also operate a 72-acre suburban campus in Owings Mill, Maryland.
“T. Rowe Price has strong connections with UMBC and Maryland,” says Farmer. He appreciated the large network of Retriever alumni working there and the outreach the company did with the school, for example sending recruiters to HackUMBC.
In the spring, T. Rowe Price hosted an online program, called “Launching Your Legacy,” designed to introduce undergraduate students to career paths within T. Rowe Price, and the asset management industry in general. Farmer applied for and attended the two evening sessions. “I was able to meet people who worked there, and it gave me a better idea of the company. Since I participated in the program, they offered a lot of help throughout the summer internship application process.”
Akpabio also made a personal connection to the company when she met a recruiter at the UMBC Career Fair who guided her through the interview process.
Once arriving for their summer jobs, Akpabio and Farmer were each assigned two mentors within the company and given many opportunities to network with other interns and with more senior colleagues.
“Anytime you ask a question, people are ready to help,” Farmer says. “It’s been a very good experience, and T. Rowe Price is definitely a place I could see myself continuing to work at.”
On left, Wonder Akpabio and Bintu Jalloh at the T. Rowe Price intern orientation. On right, a group of interns attends an Orioles baseball game together. (l-r): Bintu Jalloh, Roselyn Ojo, Sarah Floyd, Wonder Akpabio, Aracely Saenz, and Kate Martinez Palmero. (Photos courtesy of Akpabio)
Learning on the job
Both Farmer and Akpabio say they learned valuable lessons during the internship.
“The main thing I took away was the value of allowing yourself to make mistakes,” says Akpabio. “At the beginning, I was afraid I might break something, so I quickly asked for guidance. Now, I try to rule out possible problems myself first. I find I retain information better when I let myself struggle a bit longer.”
Farmer says his most important take-away from the internship is the importance of networking. “Many people I met had experienced a point in their career where they felt lost. And it was the people they made the effort to build a connection with who helped them out of it.”
Farmer and Akpabio are still exploring career possibilities. Akpabio says she could see herself eventually transitioning to the business or trading side of a company like T. Rowe Price.
“There is a lot of uncertainty in the tech world right now,” Farmer says. “Looking beyond the big tech firms and trying the T. Rowe Price internship was a great experience.”
In 2024, information systems Ph.D. student Ommo Clark penned an opinion piece for BusinessDay Nigeria exploring why many Nigerians diagnose and treat their medical conditions themselves, often turning to unreliable online information.
While the essay was inspired by firsthand experiences in her native country, the impulse to consult “Dr. Google” is a worrying global trend, Clark says, and one that has motivated her Ph.D. work. It’s unlikely that people will stop going online with health questions, so Clark is researching ways that AI could help patients, healthcare providers, public health officials, and content platforms better understand and evaluate the sea of medically related content on the internet.
Clark and Joshi combined a large language model (LLM), which excels at understanding nuanced language, with knowledge graphs, which provide structured factual verification—in this case of medical knowledge. They found the combined approach significantly outperformed either approach by itself.
“The most significant takeaway is that effective health misinformation detection requires both linguistic understanding and structured medical knowledge. Neither alone is sufficient for the complexity of health discourse online,” Clark says.
Equally important, the researchers built robust privacy protections into the system, a critical piece that is missing from many current misinformation detection systems, Clark says.
Informing, not dictating
Going forward, the team is working to further improve their system by giving it the ability to understand the emotional undertones, cultural cues, stance, and persuasive structures of online health stories, in which people may describe personal experience with health treatments. This “narrative” information is important, Clark says, because it illuminates how some stories can be particularly compelling. The researchers are also working to build a system that can evaluate the clinical risk of misinformation, sorting potentially harmless claims from those that could risk your health.
Karuna Joshi accepts the best student paper award for her Ph.D. student Ommo Clark at the IEEE International Conference on Digital Health. (Photo courtesy of Joshi)
The upgrades will produce a tool that gives users critical information and meaningful risk assessments without presenting a “true/false” judgement, Clark says. “This nuanced approach respects user autonomy,” she says. “Rather than censoring content, we are giving people the tools to make informed decisions about the health information they encounter. In this era of declining institutional trust, transparency about methodology and risk assessment rather than authoritative declarations may be more effective in protecting public health while preserving democratic discourse.”
Clark has already received positive feedback from potential users of such tools. A nurse practitioner at Retriever Integrated Health whom she talked to about her work immediately asked if the system could be integrated into Google. Healthcare practitioners consult evidence-based medical sources before diagnosing or prescribing, the nurse said, “but patients go to Google!”
Yasmine Kotturi, an assistant professor of human-centered computing, was selected by the Computing Research Association (CRA) to be part of the inaugural cohort of Trustworthy AI Research Fellows. The fellowship program, sponsored by Microsoft, supports researchers working to integrate ethical and societal considerations into computing research, particularly in the field of AI. The nine inaugural fellows hail from institutions across the U.S. and bring expertise in the social sciences together with computing knowledge.
“I’m most excited about building connections with fellow scholars who are reimagining what trustworthy AI looks like—especially across institutions and disciplines—to fundamentally shift how we teach and practice computing,” says Kotturi, whose research focuses on designing and building sociotechnical systems that support worker resilience, especially among those navigating precarious employment and entrepreneurship. “At a time when civic participation feels increasingly urgent, I see this work as essential to preparing technologists to engage with both the technical and social realities of their practice,” she says.
The researchers began their work with a virtual kick-off meeting in July and will attend a four-day, in-person field school in August. Over the course of the 15-month fellowship, they will engage in collaborative research, contribute to the development of a national trustworthy AI lexicon and framework, and help lead initiatives at CRA partner institutions.
“This inaugural cohort brings a remarkable range of expertise, insight, and passion to the challenges of building more trustworthy AI,” says Mary L. Gray, senior principal researcher at Microsoft Research and the chair of the CRA Trustworthy AI Fellowship Advisory Committee, in an announcement of the cohort selection. “I can’t wait to get started and see what they accomplish together.”
Four UMBC faculty and staff members have received highly competitive Fulbright U.S. Scholar awards to teach, conduct research, and forge cross-cultural connections around the world in the coming year. The recipients span all three UMBC colleges and comprise three faculty members and one staff member. Augusto Casas, an associate teaching professor in information systems, will travel to Colombia; Cynthia Wagner, a teaching professor in biological sciences, will travel to Kyrgyzstan; Irene Chan, a professor in visual arts, will travel to Romania; and Tom Penniston, M.A. ’09, TESOL, Ph.D. ’14, language, literacy, and culture, the coordinator of learning analytics in the Division of Information Technology (DoIT), will travel to Croatia.
“Fulbright Scholar awards are not just a globally prestigious academic award; they are also a centerpiece of public diplomacy,” says Brian Souders, Ph.D. ’09, language, literacy, and culture, M.A. ’19, TESOL, the associate director for global learning in UMBC’s Center for Global Engagement.
The Fulbright Program was founded in 1946 with the goal of increasing mutual understanding and supporting friendly relations between people in the United States and other countries. It is the flagship international academic exchange program sponsored by the United States government. UMBC has had 18 Fulbright Scholars over the past 10 years, not including the upcoming year’s four recipients. Past awardees have taught or conducted research throughout the world, including in Ethiopia, Kosovo, Colombia, Germany, Australia, the United Kingdom, Denmark, and China.
Sharing a passion with international partners
The new UMBC awardees will connect with international partners in areas of shared interest.
Augusto Casas (Photo courtesy of Casas)
“My primary responsibility at UMBC is to support data-informed pedagogy, and my Fulbright grant aligns directly with this work,” says Penniston, who will be working with colleagues at the University of Zagreb in Croatia on projects such as AI-assisted course redesigns and mapping how learning analytics tools are adopted within and between universities. “I am most excited to dive headfirst into work and be a data wonk,” he says.
Casas, who is an associate teaching professor in the online M.S. in information systems program at UMBC, will assist the Universidad del Atlántico in Barranquilla, Colombia, in creating an online software engineering degree program to reach beyond the university’s physical campus. He will support creating the curriculum, help select the most appropriate technology, and train their faculty.
Cynthia Wagner (Photo courtesy of Wagner)
Wagner, who recently retired from UMBC after decades of inspiring students in her popular biology courses, will teach biology classes in English to students at Kyrgyz-Turkish Manas University in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. She’ll also conduct research searching for novel antimicrobial agents in the soil of Kyrgyzstan.
Lastly, Chan, a multidisciplinary artist engaged in conceptual work across print media, papermaking, installation art, and storytelling performance, will instruct both undergraduate and graduate students at the University of Art and Design in Cluj Napoca, Romania, utilizing concepts and methodologies she has developed during her tenure at UMBC. Additionally, she will produce a new collection of artist books, focusing on research into fiber art techniques and Romanian folk tales. These books, intended for display in both Romanian and international art collections, will also subtly reference corresponding motifs found within Chan’s own Chinese and American cultural heritage. This recognition of folk art traditions provides a foundation for cultural exchange, Chan says.
Chan printing in August 2024 at ‘ace Proyecto, Buenos Aires, Argentina. (Photo courtesy of Chan)
Finding support at home and abroad
Souders, who serves as the Fulbright Scholar Liaison, says most UMBC faculty and staff work with him to hone their application. Casas shares that while he had been interested in the Fulbright awards since he started his academic career in the early 2000s, it wasn’t until he attended an informational webinar by Souders that he realized he was ready to apply. He met with Souders for advice, reached out to colleagues at the Universidad del Atlántico to assess where their needs and his interests overlapped, submitted his application, and “Here I am,” he says.
Penniston credits his supervisors and colleagues in DoIT with supporting his application and the opportunity for him to work remotely from Croatia following his six-month residency at the University of Zagreb. He hopes his time abroad will deepen his understanding of European Union education policy and seed partnerships that will ultimately benefit UMBC students and faculty.
Tom Penniston with students at a school in Moldova, where he served as a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer. (Photo courtesy of Penniston)
Different scholars find different ways to bring bits of the world back with them when they return to the UMBC community, Souders says. For example, the College of Engineering and Information Technology’s award-winning Global Engineering course, co-taught with faculty at the University of Porto in Portugal, originated with the Fulbright project of Marc Zupan, an associate professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering.
Wagner says it would be amazing to make a discovery that might one day help alleviate the antibiotic resistance crisis in the world. “A good majority of our current antibiotics come from soil microbes,” she says. “Kyrgyzstan has several different ecological niches in which the soil could vary and so could the microbes.”
Across the board, UMBC’s newest crop of Fulbright Scholars is excited to connect internationally and advance projects of shared interest.
“My Croatian hosts have already gone out of their way to make me feel welcome,” says Penniston. “I am thrilled to embark on this immersive intercultural experience, and to share it with my wife and our children.”
Wagner echoes the sense of excitement at a new, horizon-broadening opportunity: “It will be an adventure!” she says.
It wasn’t your usual scientific research presentation. Two dancers—one representing a robot and the other a human—take turns moving around each other. As the dance progresses the human is at first fearful, then curious, and finally happy.
The performance in June during the Movement, Music, and Brain Health National Science Foundation (NSF) AccelNet meeting on the UMBC campus was the brainchild of three UMBC faculty who have joined forces to explore whether and how dancing robots might offer humans new tools to improve their mental health. The research piggybacks off established practices of human-to-human dance/movement therapy, which can be used to treat some mental health challenges, such as schizophrenia, anxiety and depression.
The exact form that robotic dance therapy might take, and the range of mental health conditions it could treat, are still large open-ended questions for the team, which is led by Ramana Vinjamuri, an associate professor in computer science and electrical engineering, who has done extensive work in brain-computer interfaces, and Andrea Kleinsmith, an associate professor in information systems, who specializes in ways that computers can assess humans’ emotions.
“As a healthcare opportunity, dancing with a robot may sound weird at first,” says Ann Sofie Clemmensen, an associate professor of dance, who is also part of the interdisciplinary team. “Why not just dance with a human?” But, she says, people who are socially isolated or struggle with the stressors of human interactions might benefit from robot partners. “As humans we project emotions on objects, but the objects do not judge back,” she says.
(l-r): Ramana Vinjamuri, Andrea Kleinsmith, and Ann Sofie Clemmensen are collaborating on a project to explore a possible role for robots in dance therapy. (Photos courtesy of Vinjamuri, Kleinsmith, and Clemmensen)
“The most exciting thing about this project for me is the collaboration,” says Vinjamuri. “I’ve never done something like this, and so the possibility to bring these fields together to tackle an important issue like mental health is super exciting.”
First steps
The groundwork for the research was laid as part of over a decade of work in Vinjamuri’s lab searching for “alphabets” or “synergies” of hand movements and associated brain activity that combine to build the variety of our everyday movements. Vinjamuri’s Ph.D. student Parthan Olikkal had recently developed contactless human motion tracking methods, which he applied when teaching humanoid robots these alphabets to form new movements.
Against this backdrop, the spark for the interdisciplinary venture was struck when the College of Engineering and Information Technology (COEIT) launched a “COEIT Interdisciplinary Projects” program to encourage faculty to explore collaborations across disciplines to tackle big challenges. Vinjamuri reached out to Kleinsmith and Clemmensen to discuss the possibility of teaming up.
Together, the researchers developed a project proposal to study key questions surrounding the idea of robot-assisted dance therapy. They named the proposal SIVAM after the Indian mythological god of dance (also short for “Synergy-based, Intuitive, Virtual and Augmented therapy for Mental health”). The research would look into questions such as whether the coordination in a person’s arms and legs could be a proxy measure of mental well-being, how existing dance therapy movements affect brain activity, and how a humanoid robot dance partner compares in effectiveness to a flesh-and-blood one.
Creative solutions at the technological frontiers
Like any big endeavor, the project encountered unexpected hurdles. An existing robot that the team had couldn’t move fast enough or with the full range of motion needed for a dance partner. (A new robot will soon be ordered.) The team also had to wait for delivery of a special EEG cap that could measure a dancer’s brain activity without the typical gel and wires that would get in the way. The cap was also equipped to filter out the signal noise that comes from a person moving around.
When the team realized they would have to wait for the humanoid robot, they pivoted to developing a digital avatar. They designed a camera and software system to track a person’s motions and then created a digital representation of a person to mirror the movements back, a technique in dance/movement therapy.
Developing the motion tracking system was a big part of the project to date. “Even just a few years ago, it was so much more difficult to digitally capture a person’s movements without them wearing reflective markers that a camera can easily track,” says Kleinsmith. Now, the team is using the latest in computer vision and machine learning tools to implement a markerless tracking system. Eliminating the need for specialized attire should make the system more accessible and useful.
The team also laid the groundwork for the next stages of the project by testing sensors, including the new cap and wireless sensors that can measure physiological signals such as heart rate, skin conductance, and body temperature. All the equipment will help the team test novel ways of assessing, and perhaps ultimately altering, human subjects’ emotional states.
“If you tighten your body, that may mean anger or fright, if you are more loose, you are more relaxed,” says Clemmensen. “And it’s possible that you could then guide a person through movement into that emotional state. The next part of this research is to get the data on that, and I’m quite excited about it.”
A technology-infused stage debut
The June performance was a chance for the team to creatively demonstrate their progress to brain researchers and artists from around the world.
In the first half of the performance, the human dancer, performed by UMBC graduate Juju Ayoub ’25, dance, and a “robot” dancer, performed by Sarah McHale ’24, dance, sit opposite one another and take turns moving. Their movements are captured and displayed on a large screen by digital avatars. In the second half, the human and robot meet on the dance floor, while the human cycles through the emotions of fear, curiosity, and happiness. Sensors on Ayoub measured her brain activity, heart rate, and other signals that capture emotions, and displayed them on the screen. The second half of the performance was improvised by the dancers, within an accumulative structure provided by Clemmensen.
On left, dancers Juju Ayoub and Sarah McHale get ready to perform while Ph.D. student Parthan Olikkal sets up equipment. On right, Sarah McHale dances in front of the digital avatars. (Photos by Kiirstn Pagan ’11)
“Philosophically speaking, the first part of the performance represents humans and robots working in their own spaces. Part two is where they’re trying to work together, going through these phases of fear, curiosity, and then finally collaboration—and hopefully a happy collaboration,” says Vinjamuri.
The human researchers on the project have certainly found their own happy collaboration.
Clemmensen said she appreciated how the group’s focus could zoom out and in, transitioning from discussions of big ideas to tackling tricky troubleshooting for one piece of equipment.
“I would like to see if I can take that verbal process into the creative space of dance choreography too,” she says.
The students involved in the project—Olikkal, fellow Ph.D. students Sruthi Sundharram and Golnaz Moharrer, and undergraduates Oritsejolomisan Mebaghanje ’25, computer science, and first-year computer science student Viraj Janeja—agree it was a mind-stretching and rewarding experience.
“I was very excited to be involved in the performance, which was an unusual and creative experience,” says Sundharram, who is a first-year Ph.D. student in computer science in Vinjamuri’s lab and who helped set up and connect the cap and sensors before the dance. “It was nerve-racking right before the start, fearing that something wouldn’t work,” Sundharram laughed. But the dancers helped ease her jitters and the performance went well.
“The best part of the experience for me was seeing the virtual environment for the project come alive,” says Mebaghanje, who worked as the lead software developer on the project. “I also really enjoyed working with my team and debugging issues together.”
Olikkal, who has been involved in the project from the beginning, and who worked primarily on the motion capture system, says he’s been able to hone his career aspirations in a meaningful way after joining Vinjamuri’s lab in 2019 as a master’s student.
“Once I started really putting my heart into the research and seeing how these systems can help people, maybe not always immediately but certainly down the line, I felt like I had found my calling,” he says.
After the dancers exited the stage of the Fine Arts Recital Hall, Vinjamuri took the microphone to thank the whole team. And he hinted at the exciting work that lies ahead: “Maybe next time there will be a real robot on stage.”
Diane Alonso, a teaching professor and director of UMBC’s psychology program at the Universities at Shady Grove, has been named one of two senior fellows for generative AI pedagogy at the William E. Kirwan Center for Academic Innovation. The center was established in 2013 by the University System of Maryland (USM) Board of Regents and aims to be a focal point for advancing academic innovation both within Maryland and across higher education nationally.
Alonso will work alongside the other senior fellow—Tracy Tomlinson of the University of Maryland, College Park—and Jennifer Potter, the associate director at the Kirwan Center, to lead the development of the Kirwan Center’s generative AI programming in the 2025 – 2026 academic year. This includes the development of a curriculum to train and collaborate with select faculty from across the USM system in best practices for classroom use of generative AI, a type of AI that can create new content, including text, images, audio, and video, in response to prompts. These faculty will then convey the lessons from the sessions to their respective campus colleagues in spring 2026.
Bringing generative AI into the classroom
Diane Alonso (Marlayna Demond ’11/UMBC)
Alonso has actively experimented with the integration of AI in her psychology courses over the past two years, sharing her insights with colleagues across the USM system. For example, she has asked students to compare their own handwritten ideas with ChatGPT-generated output on a similar topic and to evaluate the differences. Students learn about effective AI prompting and about ethical considerations such as biases and hallucinations. “We always follow these hands-on activities with debriefs and open discussions, and I make a point to model transparent and responsible AI usage,” Alonso says.
This year Alonso also worked with Neha Raikar, chemical, biochemical, and environmental engineering, to bring together a small group of UMBC faculty to engage in a year-long exploration of how to enhance teaching with AI. Participants shared ideas for using AI in the classroom, such as brainstorming discussion topics, generating podcasts from textbooks, and crafting and revising syllabi. They also shared concerns about the technology.
Alonso says she has been interested in technology’s role in education for decades. As early as the mid-1980s, she dabbled with basic AI programs and during her graduate education in the ’90s, she focused on how technology could transform the classroom. As a post-graduate, she worked in industry as a usability specialist, deepening her understanding of how people interact with complex systems.
“This role feels like the culmination of a lifetime fascination with technology, psychology, and education,” Alonso says. “I feel that things have now come full-circle.”
How can we make the world a better place? It’s a question that Nathaniel Glover ’25, chemical engineering, Jacob Lombardo ‘25, mechanical engineering, and August Phelps ’25, mechanical engineering, have spent a lot of time thinking about. And each has concluded that advancing science is a powerful way to advance humanity.
The three promising researchers were each recently recognized and rewarded by the National Science Foundation’s Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP), which provides financial support to U.S. graduate students who have shown the potential to be high-achieving scientists and engineers.
“The NSF GRFP award is a very prestigious and competitive award,” says Deepa Madan, associate professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, who has worked with both Glover and Lombardo on research projects in her lab. So far this year the program has awarded 1,000 fellowships across the U.S., about half of the typical number, making the process even more competitive. This fall, Glover, Lombardo, and Phelps will all head to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore to begin their graduate education and research.
The thrill of research
Glover, Lombardo, and Phelps knew early in their college careers that they wanted to become researchers. The three are part of the Meyerhoff Scholars Program at UMBC, which is at the forefront of efforts to increase diversity among future leaders in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics by supporting students who intend to pursue a Ph.D. or combined M.D./Ph.D. in these fields. Throughout their time at UMBC, they engaged in a variety of research projects with different faculty mentors.
Nathaniel Glover stands next to the research poster he presented at the end of his internship at Argonne National Laboratory in summer 2024. (Photo courtesy of Glover)
“I really enjoy the quest to answer unanswered questions,” Glover says, explaining what attracts him to research. Most recently, he worked in Madan’s lab on a project to develop rechargeable, safe, and flexible zinc alkaline batteries, which could revolutionize how consumers power devices such as wearable health monitors.
Lombardo has also worked in Madan’s lab, studying materials that can convert wasted heat into electricity, while Phelps recently worked with mechanical engineering assistant professor Ankit Goel to develop methods for improving control over the flight trajectory of multicopters. Multicopters, which use multiple rotors for lift and maneuvering, are inherently unstable and underactuated, meaning the craft is limited in the ways it can move and must actively stabilize itself at all times. The researchers developed a method to guide the aircraft along a desired trajectory as precisely as possible despite variations in operating conditions and physical properties of the multicopter.
The problems the students and their mentors study—such as how to power and control machines—transcend any particular application, and the solutions the researchers develop could have profound effects on a variety of technologies.
For example, in graduate school, Phelps will join a lab that develops control systems for medical robots. There, he will study electrocauterization, a medical procedure that uses heat generated by an electric current to perform tasks such as removing harmful tissue and controlling bleeding during surgery. Phelps said the speed of the process needs to be carefully controlled to avoid excess damage to healthy tissue, and the lab he is joining is working on ways to automate this control. He notes that both his father and girlfriend have undergone medical procedures with long recovery times. Making the process better is personal to him.
August Phelps speaks at the 2023 Tau Beta Pi National Convention in Atlanta, Georgia, as UMBC’s chapter delegate to the engineering honor society. (Photo by Kiffer Creveling)
Glover and Lombardo agree that what keeps them going, even through late-night problem solving and failed prototypes, is the desire to improve the way things get done. “I love how engineering research takes fundamental science principles and applies it to making a difference in the world,” says Lombardo.
“My real passion is figuring out how to progress as a species,” echoes Glover. “Science is one of our most powerful tools for that.”
A launch pad for big dreams
Jacob Lombardo (left) and labmates Jiyuan Huang and Srushti Kulkarni attend the 2024 Consumer Electronics Showcase, as part of the Southwest I-Corp program. The program guides engineers to engage with stakeholders outside the lab to better understand market needs and consumer requirements. (Photo courtesy of Lombardo)
These Retrievers say UMBC offered the tools and the mentorship to progress toward their biggest ambitions.
“So many people took their time to sit with me, to push me forward,” says Lombardo. “I had the opportunity to go to scientific conferences, engage in world-class research, and find a community that embraced me.”
Lombardo notes that with support from programs such as the National Institute of Health’s Undergraduate Research Training Initiative for Student Enhancement (U-RISE) program and the Southwest Regional National Science Foundation Innovation Corps (I-Corps) program, he was able to network with researchers outside of his discipline, as well as with industry experts who understand the consumer market. The interactions honed his career goals and reinforced his passion for translating fundamental science principles into practical and impactful engineering, he says.
Glover, Lombardo and Phelps agree being awarded NSF GRFP fellowships is both a validation of the work they have done so far and an obligation to make a positive difference with research going forward. “It does make me feel that what we do is seen and appreciated,” Glover says. “I have this feeling that I will be able to have the impact that I am hoping to have on the world, which is inspiring and humbling.”
Phelps says he is excited to take the next steps: “I’m looking forward to exploring new topics, pushing the boundaries, and creating new things.”
From June 5 – 8, UMBC hosted leading scientific researchers for a series of meetings on the science of the brain—often said to be the least understood organ in the human body. The proceedings began with a meeting of the industry advisory board for the Building Reliable Advances and Innovations in Neurotechnology (BRAIN) Center, of which UMBC is a site. Ramana Vinjamuri, associate professor of computer science and electrical engineering, directs UMBC’s participation in the center and played a key role in organizing the meeting, which brought industry, government, and academic researchers together to discuss the latest advancements in developing safe, effective and affordable personalized neurotechnologies to diagnose, restore or enhance brain and nervous system functions. Immediately following, the Movement, Music, and Brain Health National Science Foundation (NSF) AccelNet Meeting showcased how tools such as AI, mobile brain-body imaging and brain-computer interfaces could advance investigations into how music and dance promote cognitive function and well-being.
On the Friday evening of June 6, visually compelling performances in the UMBC Fine Arts Recital Hall merged science and art. Musicians and dancers wearing sensors to monitor their brain waves and vital signs such as heartbeat treated the audience to performances of flamenco dancing, mariachi music, interpretive dance, and classical piano. A UMBC team presented the imagined interactions of a human and a humanoid robot—exploring how the two could move together and expressing the emotions that might arise from the interaction. The team comprised faculty members Vinjamuri; Andrea Kleinsmith, information systems, and Ann Sofie Clemmensen, dance; computer science and human-centered computing students Parthan Olikkal, Oritsejolomisan Mebaghanje, Viraj Janeja, Sruthi Sundharram, and Golnaz Moharrer; and UMBC graduates Sarah McHale ’24, dance, and Juju Ayoub ’25, dance.
June 6 art-science research performances, from left to right: Dr. Mei Rui on the piano, interdisciplinary artist Gabriela Estrada performs a one-woman dance “No more Carmens!” and a member of the group Mariachi Sana Sana plays the violin. Below, UMBC graduates Juju Ayoub ’25, dance, and Sarah McHale ’24, dance, get ready to perform a demo of a VR dance experience, while computer science Ph.D. student Parthan Olikkal sets up equipment. (Photos by Kiirstn Pagan ’11)
Fostering collaboration to accelerate innovation
UMBC joined the BRAIN Center in 2024. As an Industry–University Cooperative Research Center (IUCRC), it brings academic researchers across multiple institutions together with industry partners to conduct research of interest to those partners. Vinjamuri’s lab has partnered with industry and other research centers on projects such as detecting deception in brain waves, developing new tools for managing and treating substance abuse, and reducing stress through interaction with robots and virtual tools.
This was the first time that the BRAIN Center meeting was held in conjunction with an AccelNet meeting, part of the NSF’s efforts to tackle grand research challenges through coordinated international efforts. This meeting focused on better understanding how music and movement are linked to brain health.
Attendees of the BRAIN Center IAB meeting pose for a group photo (left) and mingle at a poster session. (Photos by Catherine Meyers and Ramana Vinjamuri)
The twin meetings were an extra draw, and brought in close to 300 attendees, says Vinjamuri, including program directors from the NSF and FDA.
“We brought some of the world’s top researchers to UMBC, where we could showcase our labs and discuss opportunities to collaborate,” he says. “There was lots of shared interest and fruitful discussions.”
The conferences were an interdisciplinary affair, with experts in fields such as computer science, mechanical engineering, dance, music and the arts all mingling.
“These event would not be possible without the support and participation of UMBC leadership, the BRAIN Center, and fellow site directors,” said Vinjamuri. “So many people, from across UMBC and our collaborating institutions, in the U.S. and around the world, came together to make the events a success and I am deeply grateful to them all.”
“For a conference like this, I get to wear both of my hats, advocating for both research and creative achievement,” said Karl Steiner, UMBC’s vice president for research and creative achievement, in opening remarks. “We entered these partnerships to improve human life. It’s truly a privilege and a motivation to focus on that joint mission.”
These events were sponsored by the NSF IUCRC Program, the BRAIN Center, UMBC College of Engineering and Information Technology, and bwtech.
In her day job as a vice president at the advanced technology company Booz Allen Hamilton, Catherine Ordun, Ph.D. ’23, information systems, leads teams of engineers working on far-out AI tech. In the evenings, she crafts a different type of futuristic world, putting the finishing touches on a sci-fi trilogy featuring two alien brothers at odds with each other over a plan to invade Earth, which she hopes to publish in early 2026.
Ordun started writing the books in 2022, as a break from her intense computer science Ph.D. research work, which she completed in 2023 under the direction of UMBC assistant professor Sanjay Purushotham. Although fiction writing and coding seem to call for different skill sets, the two pursuits share some defining features, from the mental challenge of connecting ideas to the satisfaction that comes from completing a herculean task. In both, Ordun embraces the thrill of creating—whether an imaginary world where characters grapple with technologically infused questions of identity and purpose, to the seemingly sci-fi, yet very real, AI tools that will shape our own tomorrows.
Tools of the trade
A thirst for knowledge
A pen and paper (when you need old fashioned tools)
Computer (when you need digital assistance)
Vision and discipline
Lots of coffee
Step 1: Hit the books
Ordun voraciously consumes knowledge and ideas. Although she earned her bachelor’s degree in biology, not computer science, she became deeply interested in machine learning around 2015, while working as a data scientist for Booz Allen Hamilton. “I became fascinated by the idea, just like really, really obsessed,” she says. “And for five years, I taught myself.”
Ordun’s favorite book from this time was Deep Learning, by Google AI researcher François Chollet. “It is like dogeared to the max. I went through every page and I typed out every line. I learned so much, from natural language processing to computer vision.”
When Ordun decided she needed a brief break from technical research, she kept right on reading—though she turned to sci-fi books, from the cyberpunk novels of William Gibson to the technically elaborate works of Neal Stephenson. “At the time, I was also very interested in simulation theory, this kind of Matrix-like idea that we could be living in a computer simulation.
And I thought, ‘You know what, I’m going to write my own sci-fi book, so I can explore this idea.’”
Step 2: Get your hands dirty
Ordun works in her home office. (Image courtesy of Ordun)
Once you have some background knowledge, it’s time to dive in. Ordun wrote the first draft of her novel (which she eventually split into three parts and named the Morfyk Trilogy) in under three months. “It was a horrible, horrible first draft. And it was huge, like 600 pages long,” she says. She revised it multiple times herself, and then hired a professional editor.
Ordun says working on the books has become a nightly ritual. “Every night, even if I’m dead tired, I tell myself to just put five words down, it’s better than zero.”
In her AI-work, Ordun tackles problems on a similarly compressed timeline. “One team I lead is called AI rapid prototyping, and we basically crank out prototypes for exquisitely hard AI problems in about four weeks.”
Ordun isn’t committed to any one way of transforming ideas from her brain into a tangible object. Sometimes she reaches for pen and paper, other times she is coding and typing on a digital screen. What unites the efforts is the desire to build, be it novel AI-tools for a client or a different universe she can escape to when the work day is over.
Step 3: Tackle the hard problems
Book authors and scientific researchers share the challenge of birthing something entirely new. When searching for the fertile ground that could yield unique knowledge, tools, or stories, it helps to lean into profound, hard problems.
Ordun says the most rewarding part of her Ph.D. work was tackling a long-standing challenge in computer science—how to match up differently sized images of the same object, and finding a new way for computers to train themselves to do it.
She says her book writing also took a more fulfilling turn when she started to reflect on her own traumas and anxieties and the big themes of purpose and identity. She explored morality, the nature of reality, and her characters’ fluctuating sense of themselves. “I found I was pouring a lot of my own self into this book, so it became much more than “What if we live in a simulation?”
Ordun discusses machine learning with her Ph.D. advisor Sanjay Purushotham (seated center) and other members of his research group at UMBC. (Marlayna Demond ’11/UMBC)
Step 4: Assemble your team
The work of creating new worlds is monumental, so it helps to have a solid cast of characters supporting you. Ordun praises the engineers she leads at Booz Allen, who she says are tackling some of the toughest technology challenges out there and pioneering innovative solutions.
In the writing sphere, she credits editors and volunteer readers for helping her hone her “horrible first draft” into polished prose.
More recently, Ordun has turned to teaching, in a sense educating future collaborators. She joined UMBC as an adjunct assistant professor in summer of 2024, and she regularly engages with aspiring young computer scientists on TikTok, answering questions and commiserating about coding problems.
“I learn by imagining having to teach a concept to someone else,” says Ordun. “So now I’m actually teaching and it’s something I really enjoy doing.”
Step 5: Celebrate your successes
Ordun with the family dog. (Image courtesy of Ordun)
Ordun isn’t shy about admitting setbacks. She talks about her strings of rejected papers, the coffee-fueled problem solving sessions that turned into pure error finding missions, and the red ink-filled drafts that her book editors send her. Sometimes to release stress, she needed to lace up her shoes, grab the dog, and just go for a run.
Obstacles are a natural part of any pursuit where you push into the unknown. And so, when you do have success, it’s important to take a moment and take it in. “The moment I finished my book, I was out on my deck, it was 10 p.m. at night. I don’t want to sound melodramatic, but I almost cried,” Ordun says. “I felt I had created something totally new, a new universe. It was a similar feeling of pride to passing my Ph.D. dissertation defense.”
