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ARHU Faculty Awarded Grand Challenges Grants
2/16/23

By ARHU Staff

In support of programs, initiatives and projects designed to impact enduring and emerging societal issues, the University of Maryland’s Grand Challenges Grants Program has awarded $30 million in funding to 50 projects and 185 faculty members across every school and college on campus. Among them, ARHU faculty are the recipients of one Institutional Grant, three Impact Awards, four Team Project Grants and one Individual Project Grant.

ARHU faculty are partnering with colleagues across campus to focus on groundbreaking and impactful research on topics including racial and social justice, education, pandemic preparedness and ethical technologies. Their work will shape the future of our community, state, nation and world.

Grand Challenges Grants with ARHU faculty involvement are outlined below. Please visit each project page for comprehensive details and a full list of participating faculty.

INSTITUTIONAL GRANT (up to $1M per year for 3 years of funding): 

Maryland Initiative for Literacy & Equity (MILE): seeks to transform and integrate practices in education, speech pathology, library sciences, and parent/family engagement through streamlined and cutting-edge models of professional development and community outreach. (Colleges Represented: College of Education (EDUC), ARHU, College of Behavioral and Social Sciences (BSOS), College of Information Studies (INFO), School of Public Policy (SPP))

Principal Investigator (PI): Donald Bolger (EDUC)

ARHU Co-Principal Investigators (Co-PIs): 

Kira Gor, Professor, School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures

Colin Phillips, Professor, Distinguished Scholar-Teacher, Department of Linguistics; Director, Language Science Center

Juan Uriagereka, Professor, School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures; Department of Linguistics

Learn more: research.umd.edu/mile

IMPACT AWARDS (up to $250K per year for 2 years of funding): 

Urban Equity Collaborative: seeks to strengthen community-based institutions and the work of community activists around issues of urban inequality. (Colleges Represented: School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (ARCH), ARHU, School of Public Health (SPHL))

PI: Willow Lung-Amam (ARCH)

ARHU Co-PI: Nancy Raquel Mirabal, Associate Professor, Department of American Studies

Learn more: research.umd.edu/urbanequity

Pandemic Preparedness Institute (PPI): integrates a broad array of social and behavioral sciences to learn from COVID-19 and other disasters to better prepare for future public health emergencies. (Colleges Represented: SPHL, ARHU, BSOS, EDUC, INFO, Philip Merrill College of Journalism (JOUR))

Co-PI: Cynthia Bauer (SPHL) 

ARHU Co-PI and team members: 

Brooke Fisher Liu (Co-PI), Professor, Department of Communication

Anita Atwell Seate, Associate Professor, Department of Communication

Carina Zelaya, Assistant Professor, Department of Communication

Learn more: research.umd.edu/ppi

Values-Centered Artificial Intelligence: aims to promote the development of AI in a way that is not only ethical, but that advances human well-being more generally. (Colleges Represented: College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences (CMNS), ARHU, Robert H. Smith School of Business (BMGT), BSOS, EDUC, INFO, JOUR, SPHL) 

PI: Hal Daumé III (CMNS)

ARHU Co-PI: John Horty, Professor, Department of Philosophy

Learn more: research.umd.edu/vcai

TEAM PROJECT GRANTS (up to $500K per year for 3 years of funding):

Africa Through Language and Area Studies (ATLAS): will establish a central focal point for the study of African languages, history and contemporary issues in the UMD community with the goal of increasing the understanding of the African continent and its growing global influence. (Colleges Represented: ARHU, BSOS) 

ARHU PI: Miranda Abadir, Second Language Acquisition, National Foreign Language Center

Learn more: research.umd.edu/atlas

Music Education for All: aims to develop an Artificial Intelligence (AI) platform, VAIolin, that will democratize music education. (Colleges Represented: ARHU, CMNS) 

ARHU PI: Irina Muresanu, Associate Professor, School of Music

Learn more: research.umd.edu/music-ai

Fostering Inclusivity Through Technology (FIT): will develop a video-calling platform that promotes mutual understanding by highlighting team sentiment, building rapport with strangers, connecting past and current topics in conversations, and unobtrusively identifying and resolving misunderstandings. (Colleges Represented: BSOS, ARHU, BGMT, CMNS, A. James Clark School of Engineering (ENGR), INFO) 

PI: Yi Ting Huang (BSOS)

ARHU Co-PI: Shevaun Lewis, Assistant Research Professor and Assistant Director, Language Science Center

Learn more: research.umd.edu/fit

Anti-Black Racism Initiative: seeks to build upon the state of Maryland’s legacy of racial equity and social justice and will position the University of Maryland as a leading anti-Black racist institution through three strategic and institutional initiatives that will amplify the new anti-Black racism (ABR) minor. (Colleges Represented: BSOS, ARHU, EDUC, SPHL)

PI: Jeanette Snider (BSOS)

ARHU Co-PIs: 

John Drabinski, Professor, African American Studies and English, Department of English

Psyche Williams-Forson, Professor and Chair, Department of American Studies

Learn more: research.umd.edu/abri

INDIVIDUAL PROJECT GRANT (up to $50,000 per year for 3 years): 

Human Rights Politics and Policies: Lessons from Latin America: two conferences, three articles and an edited volume that provides a definitive history of human rights in Latin America and corrects overly broad criticisms of human rights movements made by scholars who work on the United States and Europe. (College Represented: ARHU) 

Karin Rosemblatt, Professor and Director of the Center for Historical Studies, Department of History

Learn more: research.umd.edu/human-rights-latin-america

ARHU Faculty selected as M.O.L.D (Mellon/Maryland Opportunities for Leadership Development) Fellows for 2022-2023
8/25/22

UMD COLLEGE PARK COHORT

 

 

 

 
DR. GERSHUN AVILEZ, Associate Dean for Diversity, Equality and InclusionDr. GerShun Avilez is a cultural studies scholar who specializes in contemporary African American and Black Diasporic literatures and visual cultures. His scholarship explores how questions of gender and sexuality inform artistic production. In addition, he works in the fields of political radicalism, spatial theory, gender studies, and medical humanities. He has published several books, and is currently working on a third project, which focuses on documenting queer history.

Throughout his work and teaching, Dr. Avilez is committed to studying a wide variety of art forms, including, drama, fiction, non-fiction, film, poetry, visual and performance art among others. He was the recipient of the Poorvu Award for Excellence in Interdisciplinary Teaching in 2011 (Yale University).

GerShun received his PhD in English from the University of Pennsylvania, where he also earned a Graduate Certificate in Africana Studies. Dr. Avilez has held professorships at Yale University, UNC Chapel Hill, and a post-doctorate Fellowship at the University of Rochester.

You can learn more about Prof. Avilez here: https://umcp.academia.edu/GerShunAvilez


Crystal U. Davis, Assistant Professor
Dance, Performance and Scholarship
Head of MFA Dance Program
School of Theater, Dance and Performance Studies

Crystal U. Davis is a dancer, movement analyst, and critical race theorist.  As a performer her work spans an array of genres from modern dance companies including Notes in Motion to East Indian dance companies including Nayikas Dance Theater Company to her own postmodern choreography at the Philadelphia Fringe Festival and Dance New Amsterdam.

Her creative work centers around the incongruities present between our daily behaviors and belief systems. She has conducted ethnographic research in Rajasthan, India on the relationship between religious beliefs and both creative and pedestrian movement. Her current research explores implicit bias in dance through a critical theory lens and how identity politics of privilege manifest in the body. Some of her recent publications include “Tendus and Tenancy: Black Dancers and the White Landscape of Dance Education” in the Palgrave Handbook of Race and Arts in Education and “Laying New Ground: Uprooting White Privilege and Planting Seeds of Equity and Inclusion” in Dance Education and Responsible Citizenship: Promoting Civic Engagement through Effective Dance Pedagogies.

You can learn more about Prof. Davis here: https://tdps.umd.edu/directory/crystal-davis


Dr. Sahar Khamis, Associate Professor
Communication

Dr. Sahar Khamis is an expert on Arab and Muslim media, and the former Head of the Mass Communication and Information Science Department in Qatar University. She is a former Mellon Islamic Studies Initiative Visiting Professor at the University of Chicago.

She is the co-author of the books: Islam Dot Com: Contemporary Islamic Discourses in Cyberspace(Palgrave Macmillan, 2009) and Egyptian Revolution 2.0: Political Blogging, Civic Engagement and Citizen Journalism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), and the co-editor of Arab Women’s Activism and Socio-Political Transformation: Unfinished Gendered Revolutions (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018). Additionally, she authored and co-authored numerous book chapters, journal articles and conference papers, regionally and internationally.

Dr. Khamis is a media commentator and analyst, a public speaker, a human rights commissioner in the Human Rights Commission in Montgomery County, Maryland, and a radio host, who presents a monthly radio show on “U.S. Arab Radio” (the first Arab-American radio station broadcasting in the U.S. and Canada).

You can learn more about Dr. Khamis at: https://communication.umd.edu/directory/sahar-khamis
https://saharkhamis.wordpress.com/

 
Dr. Nancy Mirabal, Associate Professor
American Studies

Nancy Raquel Mirabal is Associate Professor in the Department of American Studies and Director of the U.S. Latina/o Studies Program. Mirabal is an historian who has published widely in the fields of  Afro-diasporic, gentrification, and spatial studies. She is the author of Suspect Freedoms: The Racial and Sexual Politics of Cubanidad in New York, 1823-1957 (NYU Press, 2017) and co-editor of Keywords for Latina/o Studies (NYU Press, 2017), winner of a Choice Outstanding Academic Title. She is currently working on two projects: Whiteness as Gentrification and a Radical Lens: Visual Culture and the Racial Politics of Place in Washington DC, 1973-1999.

She is a recipient of several grants and awards, including a Scholar in Residence Fellowship, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, University Chancellor Postdoctoral Fellowship, U.C. Berkeley; Social Science Research Council International Migration Fellowship, National Endowment for the Humanities Grant, and Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of American Historians. In 2021 Mirabal was named a University of Maryland Graduate Faculty Mentor of the Year.

You can learn more about Dr. Mirabal here: https://amst.umd.edu/directory/nancy-mirabal

 
Dr. Catherine Steele, Associate Professor
Communication

Dr. Catherine Knight Steele is an Associate Professor of Communication at the University of Maryland – College Park and was the Founding Director of the African American Digital Humanities Initiative (AADHum). She now directs the Black Communication and Technology lab as a part of the Digital Inquiry, Speculation, Collaboration, & Optimism Network. Dr. Steele also serves as the Director of the Graduate Certificate in Digital Studies in the Arts and Humanities.

Her research focuses on race, gender, and media, with a specific emphasis on African American culture and discourse and new media. Dr. Steele’s research on the Black blogosphere, digital discourses of resistance and joy, and digital Black feminism has been published in such journals as Social Media + Society, Feminist Media Studies, and Television and New Media. Her book Digital Black Feminism (NYU Press), examines the relationship between Black women and technology, and was the 2022 recipient of the Association of Internet Research 2022 Nancy Baym Book Award.

You can learn more about Dr. Steele here: http://www.catherineknightsteele.com

 

UMD Announces Recipients of Independent Scholarship, Research and Creativity Awards
1/13/22

The University of Maryland Office of the Provost and Office of the Vice President for Research have announced ten recipients of this year’s Independent Scholarship, Research and Creativity Awards (ISRCA). The grant funding will support a variety of research studies and scholarly explorations ranging from poetry and literature to the immigrant experience.

“We are excited to support these projects, which embody faculty creativity and demonstrate the versatility and broad expertise of our researchers,” said Senior Vice President and Provost Jennifer King Rice.

The ISRCA program, launched in 2019, is designed to support the professional advancement of faculty engaged in scholarly and creative pursuits that use historical, humanistic, interpretive, or ethnographic approaches; explore aesthetic, ethical, and/or cultural values and their roles in society; conduct critical or rhetorical analysis; engage in archival and/or field research; and develop or produce creative works. Awardees are selected based on peer review of the quality of the proposed project, the degree to which the project will lead to the applicant’s professional advancement, and the potential academic and societal impact of the project.

In all, 44 eligible proposals were submitted, representing 9 colleges and 29 departments across campus. The awards, worth up to $10K, support faculty and their research expenses.  

“We were greatly pleased to see the strong faculty interest and engagement in this program, and the robust and diverse research areas explored by our faculty,” said Interim Vice President for Research Amitabh Varshney. 

This year’s award recipients are:

In References We Trust? A History of Peer Review in the Sciences  
Melinda Baldwin, Associate Professor (ARHU-History)

Landscape Memories, Migration, and Commons Management in Forest Systems
Madeline Brown, Assistant Professor (BSOS-Anthropology)

Radical Lens: The Photographs of Nancy Shia 
Nancy Mirabal, Associate Professor (ARHU-American Studies)

 Navigating Prolonged Legal Limbo: Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Recipients in the D.C. Metro Region
Christina Getrich, Associate Professor (BSOS-Anthropology)

Kippax Colonoware Sourcing and Trade Study
Donald Linebaugh, Professor (ARCH-Historic Preservation)

Embodied Afterlives: Performing Love Suicide in Early Modern Japan
Jyana Browne, Assistant Professor (ARHU-SLLC)

Selective: Data, Power, and the Fight over Fit in Organizational Life
Daniel Greene, Assistant Professor (INFO)

Sensing God: Embodied Poetics and Somatic Epistemology in Medieval Persian Sufi Literature
Matthew Miller, Assistant Professor (ARHU-Persian/SLLC)

Korean Immigrant Pioneers and Intergenerational Mobility Prospects in the DC Region 
Julie Park, Associate Professor (BSOS-Sociology and Asian American Studies)

Cool Fratricide: Murder and Metaphysics in Black and Indigenous U.S. Literature 
Chad Infante, Assistant Professor (ARHU-English)

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