Happy Friday and welcome to the inaugural edition of the Provost Newsletter. We're still workshopping names, so if you have a good idea send it to Aaron Burnett for consideration. 

Each Friday throughout the academic year I'll be highlighting the great work being done by you, our faculty and staff members, sharing important information for you to be aware of, and providing a look ahead at events and opportunities.

The newsletter is a work in progress and will evolve over time through your feedback and direction. If there is something you want to see or hear about, let me know. My goal is to provide a forum that is informative and additive to your experience as a Retriever.

So, without further ado …

'Must-see' Exhibit at AOK Gallery

I want to give a big welcome to UMBC's first vice provost and dean of the Albin O. Kuhn Library & Gallery, Sophia Blessitt-Sotilleo. Sophia joined us this summer and has hit the ground running.   

The AOK Gallery's fall exhibition, Picturing Mobility: Black Leisure and Tourism during the Jim Crow Era, curated by Dr. Elizabeth Patton, is on view until Dec. 19. The curatorial talk and reception on Sept. 19 drew 74 attendees and the exhibition was declared "must-see" in BmoreArt.

I just did see the exhibit last night and highly recommend you check it out.

UMBC Named a Leading Public University

The latest U.S. News & World Report ratings dropped this week and UMBC is on the rise. We climbed 17 places in the ranking of national universities and 11 places on the list of top public schools. While rankings can never capture the full scope of UMBC, it is great to see outside organizations recognize the world class organization I see every day.  

Join Me for Coffee on Thursday, Oct. 2, 10-11 AM

Mark your calendars as I'll be hosting Coffee with the Provost next Thursday from 10-11 a.m. in ITE-456. No RSVP required and all are welcome. Stop by, grab a cup, and say hello!

New Faculty Spotlights

Each week we will feature the newest members of our community. Up first:

Mark E. Woodcock, Assistant Teaching Professor, Computer Science and Electrical Engineering

Area of Research: Formal Methods

Interesting Fact: Mark is an expert in non-inscriptional Carthaginian Literature

Chulwoo "Charles" Park, Assistant Professor, Sociology, Anthropology, and Public Health

Areas of Research: Immigrant and minority health, global health, psychosocial epidemiology, and infectious disease epidemiology

Interesting Fact about Charles: I run a full marathon every year!

Are you a new faculty member? Please take two minutes to fill out the form and submit your bio if you have not already done so. 

Help Make this Newsletter Better

Do you have a great idea? Are you organizing an event everyone should know about? Send an email to Aaron Burnett, director of provost communication, aaronb4@umbc.edu.

Until next week, 
Manfred van Dulmen

Retriever Support Services, in partnership with the Maryland Pro Bono Resource Center, is offering free 30-minute legal consultations for UMBC students and staff who need legal advice regarding their leases.

Event Details:

• October 10: 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

• October 14: 2:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.

• Format: In-person or virtual

To book your slot, please email ocss@umbc.edu.
For questions, contact Dr. Flores at gflores2@umbc.edu.

Climate change is an ever growing concern, and at times it can be confusing to know how we can help make a difference. Sustainability practices are the key to accessible and effective progress in our planet’s health, and UMBC is dedicated to this effort by enhancing campus’s culture of sustainability, engaging and empowering UMBC’s community to get involved, and serving as a sustainability leader within the University System of Maryland and nationwide. 

Check out how faculty, staff, and students—often under the leadership of the Office of Sustainability—are going green through grants, campus installations, research, and community service projects:

Powered by the sun

UMBC received a $1.2 million solar energy grant from the Maryland Energy Administration to support solar power installations and additional sustainability initiatives on campus. The clean, carbon-free energy generated by the solar installations will meet roughly 2.5 percent of the campus’s current annual electricity demand, reducing UMBC’s carbon footprint by roughly 500 tons per year in support of the university’s Campus Clean Energy Master Plan.

Butterflies welcomed

Recently, UMBC revealed a new pollinator garden at the Center for Well-Being. Planted in June 2025, the garden qualifies as a National Wildlife Federation Certified Wildlife Habitat and a Monarch Watch Waystation. In fact, monarch butterflies have already moved in. The pollinator garden will further promote ecosystem health on campus and bring UMBC closer to achieving the next level in the Green Grounds certification program. 

Benefitting the community

PFAS, also called “forever chemicals,” are found throughout the country in water, soil, air, food, cleaning products, clothing, and even our bloodstreams. They are linked to a range of health problems, including decreased fertility, developmental effects in children, reduced immune function, and increased risk of cancer and obesity.

Like in most bodies of water now, PFAS were found close to home in the Baltimore Harbor. Under the leadership of Margaret Siao, M.S. ’25, chemical engineering, UMBC students used PFAS samplers installed around the harbor to measure how much of the chemicals were present and identify possible sources. 

Fruitful campus connections 

As an initiative of Retriever Essentials, a faculty, staff, and student partnership to tackle food insecurity within the UMBC community has been planted. Ariel Barbosa, program coordinator for Retriever Essentials at UMBC and a master’s student in community leadership, worked hard to ready seven garden plots for crop production in an effort to provide the UMBC community essential nutrition they are not receiving from canned food alone. Namely, The Garden remains a student organization that maintains the beds near the UMBC Police Station and works to address problems such as food waste and food insecurity through service opportunities.

The slow, steady work of removing invasive species

Over several weeks in fall 2022 and again in spring 2023, Isabel Dastvan ’22, geography and environmental systems, in collaboration with Facilities Management staff, completed on-the-ground surveys, created maps of invasive species, identified the most urgent invasive threats, and determined the best ways to combat their spread. Dastvan’s work revealed that there are at least 100 invasive plant species present in natural and managed spaces on campus, which can threaten native species, reduce ecosystem functions like pollination and water filtration, and increase the chance of fires by thickening vegetation. The end result of her work, completed as a Sustainability Fellow with Climate Corps, is a 187-page, comprehensive Invasive Species Management Plan for UMBC, which continues the school’s legacy of prioritizing sustainability and stewardship of the land the university occupies.

Let’s take a walk

In 2021, a $1 million grant from the Chesapeake and Atlantic Coastal Bays Trust Fund, combined with about $1.4 million of university investment, funded a major stream restoration on campus to address deterioration caused by decades of growth at UMBC and in the surrounding community. The restoration project raised the streambed and added natural features, slowing the stream’s flow and reconnecting it with the floodplain. The project not only created and enhanced wetland and stream habitats and functions, it also provides recreational enhancements such as walking trails with stream access and connection to other existing trails.

UMBC’s commitment to earth-friendly research

Across the world, energy consumption is associated with an increased standard of living—but burning fossil fuels to produce much of that energy increases the concentration of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere. 

Getting more energy from the sun could help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but since the sun doesn’t always shine, we also need ways to store that energy and share it on the power grid. Three recently-hired researchers in the College of Engineering and Information Technology will build on the college’s strength in environmental research and expand faculty expertise in important areas such as energy storage.

Learn more about UMBC’s commitment to sustainability and how you can be involved.

Climate change is an ever growing concern, and at times it can be confusing to know how we can help make a difference. Sustainability practices are the key to accessible and effective progress in our planet’s health, and UMBC is dedicated to this effort by enhancing campus’s culture of sustainability, engaging and empowering UMBC’s community to get involved, and serving as a sustainability leader within the University System of Maryland and nationwide. 

Check out how faculty, staff, and students—often under the leadership of the Office of Sustainability—are going green through grants, campus installations, research, and community service projects:

Powered by the sun

UMBC received a $1.2 million solar energy grant from the Maryland Energy Administration to support solar power installations and additional sustainability initiatives on campus. The clean, carbon-free energy generated by the solar installations will meet roughly 2.5 percent of the campus’s current annual electricity demand, reducing UMBC’s carbon footprint by roughly 500 tons per year in support of the university’s Campus Clean Energy Master Plan.

Butterflies welcomed

Recently, UMBC revealed a new pollinator garden at the Center for Well-Being. Planted in June 2025, the garden qualifies as a National Wildlife Federation Certified Wildlife Habitat and a Monarch Watch Waystation. In fact, monarch butterflies have already moved in. The pollinator garden will further promote ecosystem health on campus and bring UMBC closer to achieving the next level in the Green Grounds certification program. 

Benefiting the community

PFAS, also called “forever chemicals,” are found throughout the country in water, soil, air, food, cleaning products, clothing, and even our bloodstreams. They are linked to a range of health problems, including decreased fertility, developmental effects in children, reduced immune function, and increased risk of cancer and obesity.

Like in most bodies of water now, PFAS were found close to home in the Baltimore Harbor. Under the leadership of Margaret Siao, M.S. ’25, chemical engineering, UMBC students used PFAS samplers installed around the harbor to measure how much of the chemicals were present and identify possible sources. 

Fruitful campus connections 

As an initiative of Retriever Essentials, a faculty, staff, and student partnership to tackle food insecurity within the UMBC community has been planted. Ariel Barbosa, program coordinator for Retriever Essentials at UMBC and a master’s student in community leadership, worked hard to ready seven garden plots for crop production in an effort to provide the UMBC community essential nutrition they are not receiving from canned food alone. Namely, The Garden remains a student organization that maintains the beds near the UMBC Police Station and works to address problems such as food waste and food insecurity through service opportunities.

The slow, steady work of removing invasive species

Over several weeks in fall 2022 and again in spring 2023, Isabel Dastvan ’22, geography and environmental systems, in collaboration with Facilities Management staff, completed on-the-ground surveys, created maps of invasive species, identified the most urgent invasive threats, and determined the best ways to combat their spread. Dastvan’s work revealed that there are at least 100 invasive plant species present in natural and managed spaces on campus, which can threaten native species, reduce ecosystem functions like pollination and water filtration, and increase the chance of fires by thickening vegetation. The end result of her work, completed as a Sustainability Fellow with Climate Corps, is a 187-page, comprehensive Invasive Species Management Plan for UMBC, which continues the school’s legacy of prioritizing sustainability and stewardship of the land the university occupies.

Let’s take a walk

In 2021, a $1 million grant from the Chesapeake and Atlantic Coastal Bays Trust Fund, combined with about $1.4 million of university investment, funded a major stream restoration on campus to address deterioration caused by decades of growth at UMBC and in the surrounding community. The restoration project raised the streambed and added natural features, slowing the stream’s flow and reconnecting it with the floodplain. The project not only created and enhanced wetland and stream habitats and functions, it also provides recreational enhancements such as walking trails with stream access and connection to other existing trails.

UMBC’s commitment to earth-friendly research

Across the world, energy consumption is associated with an increased standard of living—but burning fossil fuels to produce much of that energy increases the concentration of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere. 

Getting more energy from the sun could help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but since the sun doesn’t always shine, we also need ways to store that energy and share it on the power grid. Three recently-hired researchers in the College of Engineering and Information Technology will build on the college’s strength in environmental research and expand faculty expertise in important areas such as energy storage.

Learn more about UMBC’s commitment to sustainability and how you can be involved.