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The President’s Office and the Provost’s Office at UMBC celebrate faculty and staff across all three colleges and administrative units on Wednesday, May 13, 2026. This Presidential Faculty and Staff Awards Celebration brings the campus community together to recognize this year’s Presidential Faculty and Staff Award recipients, University System of Maryland awardees, and other distinguished university honorees.

Below are the COEIT faculty recognized for their outstanding contributions to the mission of the university:

• Weidong Zhu, professor of mechanical engineering – 2025-2029 Presidential Research Professor

• Curtis Menyuk, professor of computer science and electrical engineering – 2026 University System of Maryland Board of Regents Faculty Award for Faculty Award for Excellence in Scholarship or Research

• Ramana Vinjamuri, associate professor of computer science and electrical engineering – 2026 Marilyn E. Demorest Award for Faculty Advancement

Join us in celebrating the achievements of all UMBC faculty and staff.

Photos courtesy of COEIT/UMBC.

From Bryan Casey, Assistant Vice President & Controller

Dear Campus Colleagues:

As summer approaches, the UMBC Community turns its attention to the start of a new fiscal year and the close of fiscal year 2026.

As in years past, we have updated the Year-End Deadline webpage to summarize general operating guidelines and provide the necessary deadlines.  At the top of the webpage is a Google Calendar link containing the schedule of cut-off dates for various transactions which can be incorporated into your personal calendar.  

The Webpage is here:  https://financialservices.umbc.edu/  Find attached a printable version of the webpage.

On May 28th at 11am, we will be holding an open meeting to briefly discuss the close process and deadlines, and also to provide anyone who may have a question or concern regarding the close process an opportunity to ask those questions.  Feel free to forward this information to anyone on your team who may benefit.

Please feel free to join us at our virtual meeting at this link: https://umbc.webex.com/umbc/j.php?MTID=mfa748f1c456d391e912b8bb210c478ba

If you have any questions or concerns pertaining to FY2026 Year-End closing at anytime,
you can email the contact name(s) on the web page for each specific area for the close.
You can also contact John Alfano alfanoj@umbc.edu  or myself bcasey3@umbc.edu

Sincerely,

Bryan

The Office of Sponsored Programs Training Team would like to invite you to join us for a casual yet informative, virtual coffee chat. Bring your coffee and your questions to join us in this short information session. This invitation is for you if you are a faculty, staff, or otherwise active participant in sponsored research at UMBC and would like to learn more from your OSP Team on various topics including: Subawards, Modular vs detailed budgets, and more!

In an effort to create an even more open path to communication and education, and real-time answers, OSP’s virtual coffee chat series will continue Wednesday, May 27th, 11:30 am -12:00 pm.

Present Topic: New Subawards and Modifications to Existing Subawards

Presenters: Jamie Cole and Chelsea Raff

Description: The present topic will go over the Docusign forms to create a new subaward and to modify an existing subaward.

At the end of this session there will be time for some Q&A. Please feel free to comment with questions ahead of time to be answered during the current or future sessions. If you have questions that pertain to a specific grant, please reach out to your Grants Manager individually.

https://umbc.webex.com/umbc/j.php?MTID=m1ec6d27091197ebc4d84fe14fa1bcdd4 

Thank you!

OSP training Team

Good afternoon everyone,

We are continuing our work on deep-level Ceph configuration to improve the cluster’s stability. These ongoing improvements are essential to maintain cluster health and performance as we look toward broader architectural updates and more "Ceph-friendly" user guidance.

Current Work: Configuration & System Health

Our primary focus remains on refining the cluster’s automated responses and monitoring capabilities, to keep the cluster healthy without requiring manual intervention:

• Automatic Stale Client Eviction: We’ve implemented automation for evicting disconnected clients. By ensuring that clients who lose connection don't leave "ghost" file locks open, we are reducing metadata overhead and preventing file-access roadblocks for active users.

• Proactive Monitoring: We have integrated better monitoring hooks to catch hardware overload and ceph performance issues earlier. This allows us to intervene before localized problems ripple out into wider-spread performance dips.

• Upcoming: Optimized Scrubbing: We are planning to re-enable scrubbing (file integrity checks) on a much less aggressive schedule. The goal here is to maintain data health while ensuring the process no longer "fights" for I/O with active client workloads. We are still finalizing some details, but we expect this will be pushed in the next week or two.

Looking Ahead: Scaling the Strategy

While we still have several configuration steps to complete, we are now beginning to look "up-stack" at how architecture and user interaction impact the cluster’s long-term health:

• Architecture Changes: We will start evaluating structural shifts to our storage layout to better handle current usage and distribute IOPS more efficiently.

• User Behavior Management: Simply put: ceph’s parallel nature makes it a significant paradigm shift compared to our previous storage solutions. Consequently, some workflows that previously worked well before can cause disproportionate load on ceph. We will work to identify these specific cases and will provide guidance on alternative workflows that better align with Ceph’s behavior to maintain system-wide performance.

The team continues to encourage all users to send in any issues that seem to arise from an issue with client connections to their data. This will reveal itself in mostly I/O intensive actions such as large package installation or large movement between files in directories (locally or from the internet). 

We will continue to give weekly updates and provide substantive updates as they develop.

Gregory Ballantine
HPC Specialist
UMBC DoIT

Appropriately, chapter one of UMBC’s inaugural BookFest began at AOK Library Plaza. Hundreds of students gathered at the BookMarkIt to try letterpress printing, stitch pamphlets, create and swap zines, and browse a book arts display and used books.

Lindsay DiCuirci, associate professor of English, envisioned Bookfest ’26 after receiving professional development funds from the Breaking the M.O.L.D. leadership program in the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences in spring 2025. Her proposal for the funds included hosting a book festival that explored both the creative, maker-based aspects of book history and the importance of advocacy and access. BookFest came to fruition this April when UMBC celebrated writers, readers, makers, and advocates during National Library Week.

“My own research is in early American book history, so I am drawn to all aspects of books across time and place,” DiCuirci says. “Given that we are also facing a major resurgence in book banning and censorship, I wanted to draw particular attention to attacks on libraries and the urgency around protecting our rights to read. Books by and about underrepresented people and experiences are being pulled from shelves across the country at the same time that funding for public schools and libraries is being slashed. I wanted BookFest to amplify this dynamic.”

A communal reading experience

One of the first conversations DiCuirci had about her idea was with Aditya Desai ’09, English, a program officer for Maryland Humanities who runs its Center for the Book and the One Maryland, One Book (OMOB) initiative. The pair decided that BookFest would celebrate OMOB—a communal reading experience for the state—by hosting Lawrence Burney, author of the 2026 OMOB selection, No Sense in Wishing. Burney attended BookFest and discussed his essay collection, growing up in Baltimore, and his deep relationship to music with Chris L. Terry, assistant professor of English.

Burney contended that everyone, no matter their age or life stage, can make valuable contributions to their community. “I think that’s one of the easiest ways any critic can kind of stunt their own growth, so I always make it a point to engage with people younger than me,” he said. As he leaned into writing and sharing his passions, he says he realized, “There is a way to amplify something while also having a challenging conversation about it.” 

Desai also introduced DiCuirci to Maryland State Librarian Morgan Miller, who was instrumental in passing Maryland’s Freedom to Read Act. The pair collaborated on a BookFest panel called “Freedom to Read: Libraries and Our Democracy.” 

Miller then brought John Owen into the mix. Owen is the librarian for the Maryland State Library of the Blind and Print Disabled (LBPD), and throughout BookFest, UMBC raised funds for a nonprofit that supports the LBPD in its mission to make reading and all library services accessible to Marylanders. In partnership with Maryland Humanities, BookFest also served as a collection point for the Maryland Commission on African American History and Culture’s annual book drive. 

Stay tuned for the sequel

Craft and care were front and center throughout the festival. Graphic design senior Sonia Pivovarov brought the first iteration of BookFest to life with eye-catching print and digital advertising materials. The BookMarkIt purveyed BookFest-themed original creations and items from the Hilltop Print Shop, an instructional letterpress printing shop and mobile cart. Special Collections librarian Lindsey Loeper and DiCuirci built the shop with support from a Hrabowski Innovation Grant.

Hoping for a sequel to BookFest? The next iteration is already in the works, DiCuirci says, along with ideas for smaller pop-up events throughout the year to amplify the creative work of UMBC students. 

By Kayla Logue ’27

The Leadership Alliance’s Virtual Professional Development Series (VPD) is designed for undergraduate students who are interested in exploring a research career. The VPD is designed for all students - from those who are just beginning to understand what research is to those with multiple research experiences. The VPD will:

• Improve your understanding of the overall research process
• Provide a better understanding of research opportunities across disciplines and subject areas
• Introduce you to professionals in industry, academia, and government who are affecting social change through their research
• Give you increased confidence for future research opportunities and graduate school application processes
• Improve your networking skills and expand your network at multiple career levels
• Understand the careers that are available to research professionals
• Inspire hope, ignite curiosity, and help propel you to the next phase of your academic career

This program is FREE and runs from June 1 through July 17, 2026, and will feature:

• Weekly "Conversations with a Doctoral Scholar" (Leadership Alliance alumni who have received their PhDs or MD-PhDs) on Mondays at 4 pm EDT
• Professional Development Workshops on Wednesdays at 4 pm EDT
• Graduate School Recruitment and Info Sessions on Thursdays from 3 - 4 pm EDT and 4 - 5 pm EDT, and on Fridays 2 - 3 pm EDT, and 3 - 4 pm EDT.
• The opportunity to connect with peers, mentors, and future colleagues

Participation in most events can happen synchronously (live - strongly encouraged if the option is available to you) or asynchronously (through recordings and related follow-up activities). All registered participants will be enrolled in a Google Classroom where all workshop and program materials will be stored.

The Leadership Alliance will present a digital badge/certificate of completion to students who:

• Attend (or asynchronously view) at least 5 of the 7 Wednesday Workshops
• Visit at least 4 Graduate School Recruitment and info sessions
• Submit a question for at least 2 of the 7 "Conversations with a Doctoral Scholar" sessions
• Follow The Leadership Alliance on LinkedIn
• Complete a post-survey

Participants will be able to upload their digital badge to various platforms (LinkedIn, Facebook, etc) and share with prospective employers and graduate institutions via email.

Program information and the link to register can be found on The Leadership Alliance's website here: https://theleadershipalliance.org/virtual-professional-development

Outstanding faculty and staff across the College of Engineering and Information Technology (COEIT) were recognized at the recent State of the College presentation, held on May 11, 2026.

The Faculty and Staff Excellence awards celebrate the contributions of COEIT community members who strengthen teaching, research, and leadership in their home departments and across campus, exemplifying the college’s commitment to inclusive excellence, innovation, and service.

Congratulations to the 2026 COEIT awards recipients!

2026 UMBC Faculty Awards

• Adjunct Faculty Excellence Award – Faisal Quader, Information Systems
• Early Career Faculty Excellence Award – Lei Zhang, Information Systems
• Early Career Faculty Excellence Award – Tyler Josephson, Chemical, Biochemical, and Environmental Engineering
• Mid-Career Faculty Excellence Award – Naghmeh Karimi, Computer Science and Electrical Engineering
• Teaching Excellence Award – Jamie Gurganus, Engineering and Computing Education Program
• Teaching Excellence Award – Sidas Saulynas, Information Systems

2026 COEIT Staff Awards

• Staff Award for Superior Service – Jenifer Bowers, Center for Women in Technology

• Staff Award for Superior Service – Keara Fliggins, Computer Science and Electrical Engineering

• Staff Award for Superior Service – Tiffany Shorter, Information Systems

2026 Outstanding Partner Awards

• Outstanding Partner Award – Jeff Cullen, Student Conduct and Community Standards, Division of Student Affairs

• Outstanding Partner Award – Tagide deCarvalho, Biological Sciences 

FREE FOOD IN COMMONS 331 HURRY WHILE SUPPLIES LAST

Mike Andrews

Associate Professor, Department of Economics
"The Meritocracy Shock and the Changing Geography of Talent"

Jé St. Sume

Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science
"Red, White, and Black: What Black Participation Teaches Us about American Democracy"

Visit our website for more information on their research.