“Their work further reifies UMBC’s commitment to community-engaged scholarship, in particular in often overlooked or ignored communities,” says Dean Kimberly R. Moffitt.
Trees supply a host of benefits for animals and people. However, new research led by Matthew Fagan finds that some trees planted in the tropics may be doing more harm than good. “Ecologists have been sounding the alarm on this for over a decade,” Fagan says. “But no one’s had a hard number about how much this is actually happening.”
“When I arrived in Spain as a teenager, my teachers did not expect me to go to college because I was an immigrant and because I didn’t have the resources to access certain learning opportunities,” says Melisa Argañaraz Gomez, Ph.D. ’22, geography and environmental systems. “Now, as a graduate student in the U.S., remembering my experience as a teenager helps me connect with the students I support and empathize with their lives.”
At UMBC’s 2022 Presidential Faculty and Staff Awards (PFASA), Tamra Mendelson said she loves “getting to the core of a concept” in her research and teaching. As awardee after awardee addressed the audience, both in person and online, it became clear that all shared the same “core concept” of UMBC: community.
In his late 20s, Smith focused his efforts on one goal: getting a college degree. At 32 and after five internships in his field, he has a diploma in hand.
“Our work shows that most areas depicted as ‘untouched,’ ‘wild,’ and ‘natural’ are actually areas with long histories of human inhabitation and use,” Ellis previously shared with UMBC News. They might be interpreted like this, he suggests, because in these areas, “societies used their landscapes in ways that sustained most of their native biodiversity and even increased their biodiversity, productivity, and resilience.”
Eight members of the UMBC community, including faculty and alumni, spoke about their work, providing online and in-person audiences a glimpse of UMBC’s local, national, and global impact.
A new study describes nuances of how trees affect temperature in cities, which could help urban planners reap the greatest benefits from tree planting efforts and protect their most vulnerable residents.
When COVID struck, students, families, and educators nationwide worried about the impact it would have on learning experiences and career opportunities. Throughout summer 2021, UMBC students have proven that with tenacity and support they can still access meaningful internships.
Different disciplines are training up social justice-minded students to do no harm in the communities they work with, one thriving relationship at a time.
“I was able to access excellent research opportunities in the humanities that I never thought would be available at the undergraduate level,” says Emily Rose Paul ‘21, global studies. “UMBC is known as a STEM school, but I have received the most amazing humanities education as a global studies student. You will be surprised at all that you can find here.”
Students from across all three UMBC colleges are graduating this week having taken advantage of the unique undergraduate research opportunities and supportive mentorship UMBC offers. They’re poised to take their research to the next level and move on to new challenges through graduate school and careers.
