UMBC is a founding member and partner of a new consortium of 14 institutions to develop strategies to keep urban water systems healthy and address challenges that threaten them both nationally and internationally. The Urban Water Innovation Network, or UWIN, is led by Colorado State University and will build locally on research by UMBC geography and environmental systems professors Andrew Miller and Christopher Swan, with Claire Welty, a professor of chemical, biochemical and environmental engineering and associate director of research for UWIN, leading UMBC’s participation in the program.

UMBC was recently featured in The Daily Record for its role in the project. “In the Chesapeake Bay region, there’s a lot of interest in how urban development affects water quality, said Professor Andrew Miller…” the article stated.

“Miller says his own work is concerned with how urban development changes the landscape of an area — such as by flattening hills and diverting surface water underground —  and how those changes can affect water quality…Swan, will look at biodiversity and the impact of green infrastructure projects, such as green roofs and pervious pavement, Miller said.

UMBC’s efforts will contribute to the development of an Urban Water Sustainability Blueprint, which the participating universities will produce in connection with government agencies, nonprofits and private-sector partners, Miller said,” according to the article.

Read more about the project on UMBC’s research news website. Read “UMBC faculty join urban water research project” (subscription required) in The Daily Record.

Mathematics Professor and New York Times Contributing Opinion Writer Manil Suri recently published his latest op-ed about abortion politics and legislation in India. In his column, Suri reacted to an amendment proposed last year by the Indian government that would allow abortions to be performed by specially trained registered nurses and licensed practitioners of traditional and alternative medicine systems. Suri analyzed the ongoing debate in India over the proposal, stating that “the real root of the tension is the government’s promotion of alternative medicine as a medically equivalent but cheaper alternative to allopathic (modern) medicine.”

Providing further context, Suri explained that, “There are legitimate concerns against giving equal status to Ayush and allopathic medicine. Although Ayush treatments can be effective in managing chronic conditions, very few are backed by scientifically rigorous evidence…Nevertheless, Ayush doctors provide invaluable services in rural and impoverished urban areas, where allopathic doctors are reluctant to practice. A long-term government goal, consistent with recommendations from the World Health Organization, is to integrate the two systems. This presents ethical and logistical challenges, so progress can be expected to be slow and marked by bouts of friction.”

Read “India’s Inverted Abortion Politics” in The New York Times.

Orianne Smith, associate professor and chair of English, has won the prestigious biennial First Book Prize from the British Association of Romantic Studies (BARS). Smith’s book Romantic Women Writers, Revolution, and Prophecy: Rebellious Daughters, 1786–1826 (Cambridge University Press, 2013) was selected from a strong shortlist of finalists for the inaugural prize.

Professor Smith traveled to Cardiff, Wales to accept the award. In an announcement posted on the BARS blog, the judges stated during the award ceremony that her book “corrects the gender imbalance of previous work on literary enthusiasm by shedding light on the previously obscured role of women writers in apocalyptic discourse…a tremendously fluent and incisive study, making surprising and productive use of speech-act theory to bring out the performative dimension of prophetic writing.”

Dr. Smith participated in a detailed and wide-ranging Q&A posted on the BARS blog about her research process in writing her award-winning book. She said the idea for the project first came to her when writing the conclusion for her final paper on the “wild, wacky and truly wonderful Civil War prophetesses” in her seventeenth-century sectarian writers class during her second year of graduate school.

Orianne Smith with Professor Emma Clery, the Chair of the First Book Prize Committee, giving her acceptance speech.

“It occurred to me that there could be an interesting connection between these seventeenth-century women who claimed the authority of God during a period of revolution and Romantic women writers who also assumed the mantle of the female prophet in the wake of the French Revolution,” she said. “I wrapped up the paper with this thought, but the idea of a British tradition of female prophecy stuck with me.”

Also in the Q&A, Smith discussed how the project evolved, the benefit of placing religious discourses at center of cultural debates and literary studies, and her future research, among other topics.

Dr. Smith’s teaching and research interests include gender and Romanticism, the Gothic, and the connections between religion, superstition, and magic in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and she has published widely in these fields. Read more about her work on the English department website.

The Engineering Deans Council of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) seized the opportunity to outline tangible steps to improve the inclusiveness of engineering education at the first White House Demo Day, hosted by President Barack Obama on Tuesday, August 4, in the White House East Room.

UMBC Dean Julie Ross, College of Engineering and Information Technology (COEIT), is one of more than 100 deans who signed on to the ASEE letter of commitment to diversitypresented at Demo Day, which was designed to highlight “why we need to give every American the opportunity to pursue their bold, game-changing ideas.”

The deans’ powerful statement outlines specific steps to increase the participation and success of women and underrepresented minorities in engineering and IT degree programs.

“The world’s most challenging technological problems demand creative solutions,” Ross shares. “Our best hope is to foster inclusive excellence in our engineering and IT schools and to bring to bear the diverse perspectives, ideas and talents of our nation’s youth.”

Her words echo the spirit of the ASEE letter, which emphasizes that innovation is core to engineering, and “diversity and inclusiveness are essential for the development of creative solutions to the world’s challenges.” The letter continues, “While gains have been made in the participation of women, African-Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans in engineering in recent decades, significant progress is still needed to reach a level where the engineering community fully embraces all segments of our increasingly diverse and vibrant society.”

UMBC and the other signing colleges and universities specifically commit to develop and implement: (1) a diversity plan for engineering programs, including priorities, goals, and assessment plans to ensure accountability; (2) activities partnering with K-12 schools and/or community college to increase the diversity of students in the engineering education pipeline; (3) strong partnerships between research-intensive engineering schools and non-PhD granting engineering schools serving populations underrepresented in engineering; and (4) proactive strategies to increase the representation of women and underrepresented minorities as engineering faculty.

UMBC’s numerous new and longstanding STEM collaborations with K-16 partners form a strong basis for this work. One example is the Transfer Scholars in Information Technology and Engineering (T-SITE), funded by NSF to support the success of students transferring from Maryland community colleges to UMBC to study computer science, computer engineering and information systems.

Ross has received a multi-million NSF grant for the project INSPIRES: Increasing Student Participation, Interest and Recruitment in Engineering and Science. Collaborating with education faculty Jon Singer and Chris Rakes, she is helping Baltimore County high school biology and technology teachers feel prepared to effectively integrate engineering into their teaching.

Ross’s motivation for engaging talented students from all backgrounds in the field of engineering is simple: “We must work to ensure equal opportunity and access to all who seek it if we are to find the creative solutions we need.”

14th International Conference New Directions in the Humanities

University of Illinois at Chicago
Chicago, USA
8-11 June 2016

• Theme 1: Critical Cultural Studies
• Theme 2: Communications and Linguistics Studies
• Theme 3: Civic, Political, and Community Studies
• Theme 4: Literary Humanities
• Theme 5: Humanities Education