UMBC Honors and ACHIEVEMENTS

FACULTY Achievements
In head-to-head comparisons with top scholars across the nation, UMBC faculty compete at the top level of research and scholarship.

UMBC ranks 76th in the nation for prestigious faculty awards, including a Mellon Research Fellow, a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, a Guggenheim Fellow in the humanities and a Woodrow Wilson Career Enhancement Fellow in the social sciences.

Books by faculty members are published by such prestigious presses as Harvard University Press, Oxford University Press, Cornell University Press and Simon & Schuster. Recent faculty books include: The Poker Bride by Christopher Corbett, professor of the practice of English; Charisma and Myth by Raphael Falco, professor of English; A Biography of No Place: From Ethnic Borderland to Soviet Heartland by Kate Brown, assistant professor of history; Never Married: Single Women in Early Modern England by Amy Froide, associate professor of history; and Charles Darwin, Geologist by Sandra Herbert, professor of history; and Whistling Past Dixie: How Democrats Can Win Without the South by Thomas Schaller, associate professor of political science.

College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences

Susan McDonough, assistant professor of history, received a Newberry fellowship for the 2010-2011 academic year. She will spend a year in residence at Chicago adapting her dissertation into a book about standards of behavior in fifteenth century Marseilles. 

Zena Hitz, assistant professor of philosophy, was accepted into Princeton University’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions for the 2010-11 academic year.

Scott Farrow, professor and chair of economics, received a $200,000 MacArthur Foundation grant in 2009 to launch the journal of the new Society of Benefit-Cost Analysis.

James Grubb, professor of history, has been named the Lipitz Professor of the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences for 2010-11. This professorship is supported by an endowment created by Roger C. Lipitz and the Lipitz Family Foundation "to recognize and support innovative and distinguished teaching and research in the arts, humanities and social sciences at the UMBC."

Assistant Professor of Visual Arts Fred Worden was awarded one of three Grand Prix first place jury prizes for his film, “1859” at the 2009 25 Frames Per Second International Festival of Experimental Film and Video. The festival is held each year in Zagreb, Croatia and features experimental film and video work from around the world. In addition, Short experimental films by Worden, were accepted and screened at the Rotterdam International Film Festival and screened January 2009. His film, “1859,” won the Jury’s Choice First Prize in the Black Maria Film and Video Festival.

Associate Professor of Visual Arts Cathy Cook received “Best Film” in the Baltimore City Paper’s annual Best of Baltimore issue in 2009 for her work, “Immortal Cupboard.” Her feature-length film "Immortal Cupboard: In Search of Lorine Niedecker" was one of four winners of this year's Wisconsin Own Jury Prize at the 2009 Wisconsin Film Festival.

Preminda Jacob, associate chair and associate professor of art history, was featured in the Smithsonian Photography Initiatives. The title of her photo is “Photography Changes the Movies We Choose to See.”

Professor of History Constantine Vaporis’ book, “Tour of Duty,” was chosen as a 2009 Choice Outstanding Academic Title by the Association of College and Research Libraries.

Each year Choice Magazine, the official publication of the Association of College and Research Libraries, compiles a distinguished list of Outstanding Academic Titles. Professor of History Constantine Vaporis’ book, “Tour of Duty,” was chosen as a Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2009.

The Parks and People Foundation awarded a Neighborhood Greening Grant to Associate Professor of Visual Arts Tim Nohe and Alex Geiger ‘12, visual arts. The grant will directly support “Gourd Season” at the Baltimore Montessori Public Charter School (BMPCS) and allow Nohe and Geiger to further enhance the green infrastructure at the school by adding capacity for rain harvesting and composting.

Robert Provine, professors of psychology, was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2010.

Assistant Professor of Public Policy Lisa Dickson has been selected as a fellow of the Association for the Study of Higher Education.

In 2010, Ellen Handler Spitz, Honors College professor, was appointed to the Council of Scholars at the Austen Riggs Center in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.   Spitz also served as guest editor for the Journal of Aesthetic Education’s Summer 2009 issue on children’s literature.

Associate Professor Brian J. Maguire won a 2009 Fulbright Scholarship to Australia to study occupational risks among ambulance personnel and teach at three Australian universities.

Associate Professor of History Kate Brown was selected for a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2009.

Several faculty and students received Individual Artist Awards from the Maryland State Arts Council in 2009. Winners include Visual Arts Assistant Professor Calla Thompson, Chair and Professor of Dance Carol Hess and Music Professor Stuart Saunders Smith.

Director of the Department of Media and Communication Studies and Associate Professor of American Studies Jason Loviglio won the University System of Maryland Board of Regents’ Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching for 2009-10.

Associate Dean of the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Cheryl Miller won the President’s Commission for Women Achievement Award for 2009-10. Miller also teaches in both the political science and public policy departments.

Amy Froide, professor of history, received the 2008 Huntington Library Fellowship Award.

Kate Brown, associate professor of history, received the 2008 Kennan Institute Research Scholarship from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

Brian Grodsky, assistant professor of political science, received a 2008 East European Studies Center Award from the Woodrow Wilson Center.

Zena Hitz, assistant professor of philosophy, received a 2008 Harvard University Center for the Hellenic Studies Fellowship.

Two Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture publications were selected by the American Institute of Graphic Design (AIGA) for its 2008 Fifty Books / Fifty Covers award. The award is the highest honor the AIGA bestows for: book design and production. It is extremely rare for one institution to receive two awards in this category in the same year. The publications are Andrea Robbins and Max Becher: Portraits and The 1980s: A Virtual Discussion. Fifty Books / Fifty Covers is scheduled to travel nationally.

A production directed by Colette Searls, assistant professor of theatre, was nominated for several 2008 Helen Hayes Awards. Vigils, performed at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, was nominated for Outstanding Lead Actress, Outstanding Supporting Actor, Outstanding Sound Design and the Canadian Embassy Award for Outstanding Ensemble.

From the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics, Assistant Professor Isabel Galindo received the Maryland Higher Education Commission’s Henry C. Welcome Fellowship in 2008.

From the visual arts program, Professor John Sturgeon became UMBC’s second Lipitz Professor of the Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences in 2008.

Bruce Walz, professor and chair of emergency health services, was elected president of Advocates for EMS in 2008.

Elena Zlotescu, associate professor of theatre, was named Best Costume Designer by Baltimore City Paper in 2008. Zlotescu has been the resident costume designer for more than 20 years for UMBC’s theatre and dance productions.

College of Engineering and Information Technology

In 2009, Chein-I Chang, professor of engineering, and Gary Carter, professor of computer science and electrical engineering, were elevated to IEEE Fellows for “demonstrating outstanding proficiency and had achieved distinction in their profession.”

In 2009, A UMBC research team led by Anupam Joshi and Tim Finin, both computer science professors, received an award from the National Science Foundation for a four-year project, “Platys: From Position to Place in Next Generation Networks,” that will explore how advances in mobile technology and networking can support systems that understand and adapt their behavior to their user’s context, activities and preferences. Platys is a collaborative research project between UMBC and groups at North Carolina State and Duke Universities. The group will share $1.8 million dollars in research funding from NSF’s Network Science and Engineering program.

Michael Summers, professor of chemistry and principle investigator of Howard Hughes Medical Institute at University of Maryland, was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2010.

Anthony Johnson, director of the Center for Advanced Studies in Photonics Research, was named a Laser Pioneer in 2010 by Laserfest (a collaboration between the American Physical Society, the Optical Society, SPIE and IEEE Photonics Society).

Nagaraj Neerchal, professor and chair of the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, was elected a Fellow of the American Statistical Association in 2010.

Haijun Su, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, received a 2009 National Science Foundation CAREER Award, marking a total of 13 awards since 2000.

Tim Finin, professor of information technology, was one of four recipients of the 2009 IEEE Computer Society’s Technical Achievement Awards. His award was for “pioneering contributions to distributed intelligent systems.”

Professor of the Practice of Chemical Engineering and Undergraduate Program Director Taryn Bayles won the University System of Maryland Board of Regents’ Faculty Award for Excellence in Mentoring for 2009-2010.

Gary Carter, professor of computer science and electrical engineering, has been elevated to a IEEE Fellow for “contributions to understanding nonlinear and polarization effects in optical fiber communication systems,” effective January 2009.

Associate Professor of Computer Science Hillol Kargupta received the 2008 IBM Innovation Award for his work on distributed data stream mining.

Professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering Curtis Menyuk was elected a fellow of the American Physical Society in 2009. His research interests lie at the intersection of engineering, physics, applied mathematics and computational methods.

Anne Spence, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, received the 2008 Outstanding Change Agent Award of Excellence from the Maryland State Department of Education.

Tim Topoleski, professor of mechanical engineering, was recognized as the Presidential Teaching Professor 2008-11.

Julia Ross, professor and chair of chemical and biochemical engineering, and Tulay Adali, professor of computer science and electrical engineering, were elected American Institute for Medical & Biological Engineering Fellows. Ross was also selected to attend the 2009 National Academy of Engineer’s first Frontiers of Engineering Education symposium.

Professor of Mechanical Engineering Shlomo Carmi was honored with a 2008 lifetime achievement award from the District of Columbia Council of Engineering and Architectural Societies. The Council recognized Carmi's distinguished, 38-year academic and research career. He also serves on the Board of Governors of the American Society of Mechanical Engineering.

Govind Rao, professor of chemical and biochemical engineering and director of the Center for Advanced Sensor Technology (CAST), was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2008 for innovative research in the field of optical sensors, which has led to a paradigm shift in bioprocessing applications.

Tulay Adali, professor of computer science and electrical engineering, was elected a Fellow of the Institute of Electronic and Electrical Engineers (IEEE) in 2008 "for contributions to nonlinear and complex-valued statistical signal processing."

In 2009, Haijun Su, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, received a $400,000 five-year National Science Foundation Career Award for his project titled, "A Theoretical Framework for the Conceptual Design of Compliant Systems."

College of Natural and Mathematical Sciences

Theodosia Gougousi, assistant professor of physics, received a 2009 National Science Foundation CAREER Award, marking a total of 13 awards at UMBC since 2000.

Associate Professor of Mathematics Anindya Roy is associate editor for the Journal of American Statistical Association, the flagship publication of the American Statistical Association. The new editorial board’s tenure is 2010-12.

Michael Summers, professor of chemistry and biochemistry, is one of only two Howard Hughes Medical Investigators at Maryland public universities. Summers is conducting groundbreaking AIDS research with both undergraduate and graduate students. He is the recipient of a 2000 Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering.

Professor of Biological Sciences Thomas Cronin won the UMBC Presidential Research Professor Award for 2009-12.

In the Department of Biological Sciences, Tamra Mendelson, assistant professor, and Hua Lu, assistant professor, received 2008 NSF Career Advancement Awards, and Jeff Leips, associate professor, received a 2008 Geneticist-Educator Network of Alliances (GENA) certification from the American Society of Human Genetics.

Marie-Christine Daniel, assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry, received the American Association for Cancer Research-Pancreatic Cancer Action Network’s 2008 Career Development Award.

Thomas Matthew, professor of mathematics and statistics, was recognized as 2008-09 UMBC Presidential Teaching and Research Professor.

In the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Professor Andrew Rukhin received the American Statistical Association’s 2008 W.J. Youden Award in Interlaboratory Testing, Associate Professor Anindya Roy received the 2008 Outstanding Young Statistician Award from the International Indian Statisticians Association and Chair and Professor Nagaraj Neerchal received the 2008 Outstanding Service Recognition Award from the Maryland Chapter of the American Statistical Association.

Dan Fabris, assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry, is one of just 14 researchers nationally to receive a 2006 NIH National Center for Research Resources (NCRR) High-End Instrumentation grant. The $1.5 million grant funded the purchase of a 12 Tesla Q-FTICR, a powerful, high-resolution instrument for analysis of nucleic acids and protein-nucleic acid complexes. UMBC will be one of a handful of U.S. locations to own this type instrument, which supports our research on drug resistance by HIV-1 and other retroviruses, and could lead to the development of new and more effective inhibitor drugs for AIDS therapy.

Ray Hoff, professor of physics and director of the NASA-UMBC research centers JCET and GEST, was named a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society.

Robert Reno, associate professor of physics, was named Presidential Teaching Professor, 2007-2010, for his commitment to promoting and recognizing outstanding teaching. Reno introduced a variant of Eric Mazur’s “Peer Instruction,” which encourages active learning by replacing traditional lectures with pre-class readings and in-class discussions. His work in the teaching and testing of conceptual understanding represents one of the first implementations of group learning at UMBC and the first in the Department of Physics.

School of Social Work

Carolyn Tice, associate dean and program chair, social work, was a 2008 Fulbright senior specialist in Mongolia.

David Eisenberg, instructor of social work at the Universities of Shady Grove, won the 2009 Herman Goldstein Award for Excellence in Problem Oriented Policing. The Herman Goldstein Award is an International Award recognizing innovative and effective problem-oriented policing projects that achieved measureable success in resolving recurring specific crime, disorder or public safety problems faced by law enforcement and the community.

Erickson School

Bill Thomas, a professor in the Erickson School, received the American College of Health Care Administrators’ 2008 Public Service Award.

*Last updated 6/15/2010