U.S. News & World Report has again named UMBC one of the best universities worldwide, with UMBC appearing as one of the top 150 U.S. institutions on the 2020 global list. Thirteen areas of achievement are used to determine this ranking, including global research reputation, regional research reputation, journal citations, and books published. Full methodology can be found here. UMBC performed particularly well in international collaboration and faculty research impact.

The ranking highlights UMBC’s international leadership in geosciences and space science. Recently, the NASA-funded satellite that UMBC’s Vanderlei Martins, physics, developed in collaboration with the Space Dynamics Laboratory launched from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility to the International Space Station. From there it will be released into Earth orbit.

Banner image: Exterior of UMBC’s new Interdisciplinary Life Sciences Building. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

Applications have opened for non-UMBC faculty to apply for the Inclusion Imperative's 2020-2021 Visiting Faculty Fellowship! Please share with your colleagues at other institutions. If you are a full-time UMBC faculty member interested in becoming a collaborator to the 2020-2021 fellows, please contact us at inclusionimperative@umbc.edu

Accepting Applications for 2020-2021 Visiting Faculty Fellows

Apply Here

The Dresher Center for the Humanities at UMBC invites applications for Visiting Faculty Fellowships as part of its Inclusion Imperative Program. Funded by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Inclusion Imperative is a five-year initiative to support diversity and inclusion in humanities scholarship and curriculum. Applications are welcome from full-time faculty pursuing humanities research at four-year colleges and universities in Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia.

Fellowships will be awarded to scholars who are committed to diversity in the academy and to the advancement of groups historically underrepresented in the professoriate. Fellows will spend one semester or one academic year advancing their research while in residence at the Dresher Center. The Dresher Center provides research support and collegial conversation in a robust humanities center environment that includes public events and symposia, grants workshops, works-in-progress talks, internal residential faculty research fellowships, and graduate student fellowships.

Faculty will be in residence at the Dresher Center for the Humanities at UMBC for a period of either one semester or one academic year and will receive a salary support stipend of up to $50,000 (one year) or $25,000 (one semester). They will have access to an office and to administrative and research development services in the Dresher Center, as well as to the Albin O. Kuhn Library and other UMBC events and facilities. This regional program does not provide funds for housing and transportation; however, each fellow will receive funding support of up to $2,500 for research and travel-related expenses.

For more information on the fellowship and the application process please visit our FAQ.

Applications are due by January 15, 2020. Nomination and recommendation letters are due by February 1, 2020 (please review and follow the application instructions for these letters).

Questions: email inclusionimperative@umbc.edu

The Baltimore Colleges and Universities for a Sustainable Environment (B’CaUSE) is excited to share the FIRST ANNUAL STUDENT ECOLOGICAL DESIGN COMPETITION open to all undergraduate and graduate students from Baltimore Area Universities. 

The competition is hosted by the Hopkins Ecological Design Initiative (HEDI).  For the 2019-2020 academic year, this funded competition focuses on the ecological problematic of “Food Systems.”

HEDI invites teams of undergraduate and graduate students from Baltimore-area universities to design and prototype new devices, conceptual systems, platforms, spaces, flows, or other creative designs that address problems in local or regional food systems.

Five finalist teams will each receive $500 to develop their designs for display in a Spring 2020 public exhibition in Gallery Q in the Milton S. Eisenhower Library on the JHU Homewood Campus. The winning team will receive $2,000 in seed funds to carry the project forward.

Teams may submit proposals on topics such as:

• Food waste: packaging waste, recycling, organic waste, composting, Baltimore city food waste management
• Food access: food insecurity, distribution, choice architecture, policy
• Food literacy: education, cooking, civic engagement
• Food environments: service, urban food production
• Food and health: undernourishment, obesity, disease
• Other food-related problems amenable to design intervention

Competition teams are encouraged to participate from any Baltimore college or university. Teams are encouraged to have at least 3-5 members, ideally from multiple academic disciplines, and composed of undergraduates, graduates, or both.

Individuals interested in participating in the competition are invited to attend HEDI’s Food Systems Design Incubator on Friday, November 8, in HEDI’s mobile geodesic dome studio (location TBA). There, groups will be organized around the submission categories in order to brainstorm, pitch ideas, and form teams for the competition, if partners with a common interest have not already been identified.

Following a public “pitch” competition and judging on Friday, December 6, five winning teams will be given funding to develop a prototype of their designs. These finalists’ projects will be displayed publicly as a month-long JHU Homewood campus exhibition in Gallery Q. The exhibit will launch in April 2020. A final judging event and reception will be held in May to announce the overall contest winners, who will receive $2000 in seed funds for further implementation.

For more information and more specific instructions on proposal submission, please get in touch with the organizers ecodesign@jhu.edu.

Welcome to the first edition of UMBC Eats, our wellness-inspired cookbook! We are excited to be launching this faculty/staff community cookbook in the hopes that it will inspire us to make healthier choices every day.