Home » News Category » Honors and Awards

Honors and Awards

  

 

 

 

As part of ARHU's campaign to address race, equity and justice, Dean Bonnie Thornton Dill added a special purpose fund to award projects that directly contribute to antiracism, equity, and/or social justice efforts. The three awardees include: 

Tamanika Ferguson, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Department of Communication
Awarded a Special Purpose Innovation Grant for her Voices From the Inside: Incarcerated Women Speak book project.


Anita Atwell Seate, Associate Professor, Department of Communication
Awarded a Special Purpose Innovation Grant for her ‘I Can’t Breathe’ and Police Brutality: Expanding Our Understanding of Group-based Conflict through Methodolical Innovation project.  

Siv Lie, Assistant Professor, School of Music
Awarded a Special Purpose Innovation Grant for her Django Generations: Hearing Ethnorace, Citizenship, and Jazz Manouche in France book project

 

2/27/23

Big congratulations to Masato Nakamura, whose dissertation on "Sources of argument role insensitivity in verb processing" has received a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement grant (2240434) from the National Science Foundation, with the support of advisor Colin Phillips. Abstract below, along with links to some of the past awards made to our dissertators.

Sources of argument role insensitivity in verb processing

Humans generally understand utterances quickly and accurately, even in noisy or degraded environments for listening or reading. Many researchers have attributed this success to people’s ability to rapidly predict upcoming words. Previous studies have demonstrated various kinds of evidence for prediction mechanisms, e.g., more predictable words are read more quickly. But less is known about the mechanisms by which predictions are generated. This project investigates these mechanisms, by focusing on situations where people appear to make inappropriate predictions. A useful test case is “role reversed” sentence pairs, such as “the customer that the waitress had served” and “the waitress that the customer served”, in which who did what to whom is reversed. Some psycholinguistic measures of prediction, particularly those involving comprehension, suggest that the verb “served” is equally expected in both sentences, despite being inappropriate in the second. This has been taken as evidence that humans ignore the roles of nouns when generating expectations. However, some other measures of prediction suggest that humans generate appropriate expectations in those same sentences, making full use of role information. This project seeks to resolve this discrepancy.

The project combines computational and experimental methods to investigate why different measures indicate a greater or lesser role for semantic roles in moment-by-moment prediction in language. The project will develop a computational model of linguistic prediction that seeks to capture how a shared set of cognitive processes maps onto different experimental measures. The model will be extended based on results from new experiments. In order to understand the time course of predictions and the contributions of different task elements, the experiments will systematically vary whether or not participants are shown anomalous continuations, and what kind of response participants are required to give. The project also develops and refines a scalable pipeline for semi-automatic analysis of spoken language data in psycholinguistic experiments, which can be used by other researchers.

2/23/23

By Maryland Today Staff 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes students need an instructional pick-me-up between violin lessons. Others can’t afford as many lessons as their talent merits, or they live in a place where violin teachers are in short supply.

A new artificial intelligence-powered system under development by a University of Maryland classical violinist and a computer scientist with expertise in robotics and computer vision could fill in those gaps.

“Our project combines the expertise of traditional violin pedagogy with artificial intelligence and machine learning technology,” said Irina Muresanu, an internationally known concert violinist and an associate professor of violin in the School of Music. “Our aim is to ultimately create software that will be able to provide guidance for all string instruments, and even other instruments.”

The system is not designed to replace human expertise, but to augment it, the researchers say.

“Our system will observe the players using vision and audio, and will analyze the playing in order to give the appropriate feedback, and also to give suggestions on what to practice,” said Cornelia Fermüller, a research scientist with the Institute for Advanced Computer Studies and the Computer Vision Laboratory.

The research is funded by a 2021 Maryland Innovation Initiative Award, as well as a Grand Challenges Team Project grant announced last week.

(Video produced by Maria Herd M.A. '19)

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

Through the support of the Collections Fellowship I was able to spend several days in Paris working at the Institut de France in the Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres (AIBL). There, I studied the unpublished materials of Charles Clermont-Ganneau that are in the Cabinet du Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum (CIS). Access to this collection was granted by the kind permission of Christian Robin, the AIBL’s director. In Paris, I worked with Maria Gorea, the director of the Cabinet du CIS, where I benefited from her knowledge of Clermont-Ganneau and her ability to decipher his difficult handwriting. Dr. Gorea and her student Noémie Carpentier also were of great assistance with French technical terms that I came across in Clermont-Ganneau’s writings.


   
 
 The research is part of my larger project on the Hebrew funerary inscriptions from Silwan, which include the Royal Steward Inscription. That inscription together with a shorter inscription were first documented by Clermont-Ganneau in Silwan in 1870. He eventually purchased them for the British Museum, where they reside today. This summer in London I was able to study Clermont-Ganneau’s correspondence with the British Museum in the museum’s archives. My work in Paris, supported by the ASOR Collections Fellowship, continued my investigation into the acquisition of the artifacts. Clermont-Ganneau’s papers in the Cabinet du CIS shed important light on two aspects involving the Hebrew epigraphic sources. First his papers describe the French diplomat / archaeologist’s efforts to buy the inscriptions from the Arab homeowner in Silwan, including details on how the inscriptions were extracted. Much of this information was left out of his 1899 published account of his discovery. Second, his notes, drawings, squeezes and casts (plaster and papier-mâché) reveal the extent of his work to translate the inscriptions, as well as his plans –ultimately unfilled– plans to publish them.
    

Access to Clermont-Ganneau’s papers was critical for my project, which seeks to publish the first comprehensive edition of the funerary inscriptions from Silwan. My collections study in Paris will allow me to write a chapter on the history of research that provides insight into the events that led to the acquisition of a famous Hebrew artifact from Jerusalem that is today prominently displayed in the British Museum.

 

Interested in applying for a 2023 Study of Collections Fellowship? The deadline is February 28.

Learn more about applying here.

 

Associate Professor of History Antoine Borrut Awarded NEH Fellowship about the role of astrological histories in early Islam.

Date of Publication: 
2023-01-26
1/27/23

By Ted Knight

What links Romania’s music heritage, historical approaches to the Rwandan genocide and politics in the “canal colonies” of Eastern Pakistan? Studies of each of these diverse topics—and 13 others—by University of Maryland faculty researchers will be funded by the Office of the Provost and Office of the Vice President for Research as part of this year’s Independent Scholarship, Research and Creativity Awards.

Launched in 2019, the program supports the professional advancement of faculty engaged in scholarly and creative pursuits that use historical, humanistic, interpretive or ethnographic approaches; explore aesthetic, ethical and cultural values and their roles in society; conduct critical or rhetorical analysis; engage in archival 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 likely academic and societal influence of the project.

“This important program supports a wide variety of scholarly work that demonstrates the creativity, versatility and expertise of our faculty,” said Senior Vice President and Provost Jennifer King Rice. “We are particularly excited about this year’s awardees and the potential impact of these projects.”

In all, 51 proposals were submitted, representing eight schools and colleges across campus. The awards, worth up to $10,000 per project, support faculty and their research expenses.

“It is very exciting to see the high level of interest and engagement in this program from our faculty, as well as the diverse research topics represented in the applications that were submitted,” said Vice President for Research Gregory F. Ball.

This year’s award support the following work:

Analyzing the Content of President Biden’s COVID-19 Twitter Communications,” a qualitative and narrative analysis by Hector Alcala, assistant professor in the Department of Behavioral and Community Health

Eternity Made Tangible,” the fourth and final play of the National Parks Cycle by Jennifer Barclay, associate professor in the Department of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies

Scoping Review of Interventions for African American Boys Who Experience Internalizing Symptoms,” a research study by Rabiatu Barrie, assistant professor in the Department of Family Science

Sometimes the Light,” a hybrid work of fiction and nonfictional archival material by Maud Casey, professor in the Department of English

The Marvelous Illusion: Morton Feldman's ‘The Viola in My Life 1-4,’” a book by Thomas DeLio, professor in the School of Music

Punished in Plain Sight: Women’s Experiences on Probation in Maryland,” a qualitative research study by Rachel Ellis, assistant professor in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice

Nile Nightshade: Tomatoes and the Making of Modern Egypt” a book by Anny Gaul, assistant professor in the School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures

How Can Participatory Budgeting Enhance the Voice of Underrepresented Minorities?”—a research study by Juan Martinez Guzman, assistant professor in the School of Public Policy

A New Kind of Progressive: How Poles, Venezuelans, and Germans Reimagined Latin America,” a book by Piotr Kosicki, associate professor in the Department of History

Slash: M/M Fan Fiction and the Politics of Fantasy,” a book by Alexis Lothian, associate professor in the Harriet Tubman Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

The Future of Rwanda's Past: History and Historians After Genocide,” a book by Erin Mosely, assistant professor in the Department of History

Romanian Roots - A Digital Platform to Promote Romanian Music,” a multimedia research project by Irina Muresanu, associate professor in the School of Music

Political Centralization in Pakistan’s Canal Colonies,” a research study by Cory Smith, assistant professor in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics

Visualizing the Royal Steward's Inscriptions: From Jerusalem to London,” a laser scanning and photography project by Matthew Suriano, associate professor in the Meyerhoff Center for Jewish Studies

Innovative Modeling to Preserve Architectural Heritage,” a restoration research project by Joseph Williams, assistant professor in the Architecture Program

The Independent Scholarship, Research, and Creativity Awards (ISRCA) is a funding opportunity to support faculty pursuing independent scholarly and/or creative projects. Funds of up to $10,000 per award support semester teaching release, summer salary, and/or research related expenses.

This program 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 analyses; engage in archival and/or field research; or 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. 

2023 ISRCA Awardees:

  • Punished in Plain Sight: Women’s Experiences on Probation in Maryland
    Rachel Ellis, Assistant Professor, Criminology & Criminal Justice (BSOS)
  • Eternity Made Tangible
    Jennifer Barclay, Associate Professor, Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies (ARHU)
  • Slash: M/M Fan Fiction and the Politics of Fantasy
    Alexis Lothian, Associate Professor, Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (ARHU)
  • Visualizing the Royal Steward's Inscriptions: From Jerusalem to London
    Matthew Suriano, Associate Professor, The Meyerhoff Center for Jewish Studies (ARHU)
  • The Future of Rwanda's Past: History and Historians After Genocide
    Erin Mosely, Assistant Professor, History (ARHU)
  • Nile Nightshade: Tomatoes and the Making of Modern Egypt
    Anny Gaul, Assistant Professor School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures (ARHU)
  • How Can Participatory Budgeting Enhance the Voice of Underrepresented Minorities?
    Juan Martinez Guzman, Assistant Professor, Public Policy (SPP)
  • Scoping Review of Interventions for African American Boys Who Experience Internalizing Symptoms
    Rabiatu Barrie, Assistant Professor, Family Science (SPH)
  • Political Centralization in Pakistan’s Canal Colonies
    Cory Smith, Assistant Professor, Agricultural and Resource Economics (AGNR)
  • Sometimes the Light
    Maud Casey, Professor, English (ARHU)
  • Innovative Modeling to Preserve Architectural Heritage
    Joseph Williams, Assistant Professor, Architecture (ARCH)
  • A New Kind of Progressive: How Poles, Venezuelans, and Germans Reimagined Latin America
    Piotr Kosicki, Associate Professor, History (ARHU)
  • The Marvelous Illusion: Morton Feldman's The Viola in My Life 1-4
    Thomas DeLio, Professor, Music (ARHU)
  • Analyzing the Content of President Biden’s COVID-19 Twitter Communications
    Hector Alcala, Assistant Professor, Behavioral and Community Health (SPH)
  • Romanian Roots - A Digital Platform to Promote Romanian Music
    Irina Muresanu, Associate Professor, Music (ARHU)
12/18/22

The Department of Art is pleased to announce that Prof. Shannon Collis, Prof. Jowita Wyszomirska, Prof. Matthew McLaughlin and MFA candidate Dan Ortiz-Leizman are the recipients of the 2023 Clarvit Research Fellowships. This award - the result of generous support from the Clarvit Family provides critical support for our faculty and graduate students to engage in new methods and modalities of research, giving them the time and resources to undertake ambitious new trajectories within their respective fields of creative research.

In its second year, the Clarvit Faculty and Graduate Student Research Fellowship aims to foster new uses of creative technology within the University of Maryland and to aid in the professional development of faculty and graduate students within the Department of Art, as described in the mission statement of the fellowship:

"The creation of new knowledge in the arts does not usually come from commonly sourced techniques; this is doubly so where technology intersects with the arts. Oftentimes, works of creative technology involve the invention of entirely new and novel visual media, which can create a significant barrier to entry for artists. This fund will provide opportunities for faculty and students in need of time and resources to create new works of creative technology in the arts and design and will help recruit graduate students to the Department of Art MFA program.”

More information about each recipient is below:

Professor Shannon Collis:video by Shannon Collis

Shannon Collis investigates relationships among multiple sensory modalities and
between visual and acoustic phenomena in perception. She creates audiovisual
installations and interactive environments that highlight the situated, embodied
experience of hearing and seeing.
Her work has been widely exhibited across North America and abroad, including solo
exhibitions at The Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art (Ursinus College, PA), The
Dalton Gallery (Agnes Scott College, GA), Grizzly Grizzly (Philadelphia, PA), and Open
Studio Contemporary Printmaking Centre (Toronto, Canada). Other collaborations and
screenings include projects at the Murray Art Museum (Albury, Australia), the Walters
Art Museum, the Institute of Contemporary Art (Baltimore, MD), and the Currents New
Media Festival (Santa Fe, NM). She has been awarded the Robert W. Deutsch
Foundation’s Rubys Artist Grant and was a finalist for the Janet and Walter Sondheim
Artscape Prize. She has received numerous individual and project grants from the
Canada Council for the Arts and the Maryland State Arts Council. Collis is a 2005
graduate of the Master of Fine Art program at the University of Alberta, Canada.

Professor Matthew Mclaughlin:Printmaking by Matthew Mclaughlin

Matthew McLaughlin is a mixed media artist and curator whose work explores the human
relationship with their environments and spaces, both physically and psychologically. He
received his BFA degree in Fine Arts from Ringling College of Art and Design and his MFA
degree in Printmaking from Arizona State University. Matthew has had solo exhibitions in
Washington, DC and Phoenix, among other areas. His work has been included in group
exhibitions, both nationally and internationally, in commercial galleries, artist-run spaces and
museums. He has received numerous awards including the Maryland State Art Council
Individual Artist Award 2016 in Works on Paper. His work is in the collections of the Library of
Congress, the Zuckerman Museum of Art and various universities, along with private collectors.
He has curated for numerous national exhibition spaces including the American University
Museum in Washington, DC.

Professor Jowita Wyszomirska:Installation by Jowita Wyszomirska

Jowita Wyszomirska is an interdisciplinary artist working in drawing and large-scale installations. Her work has been exhibited nationally in solo and two-person exhibitions. Some of her honors and awards include the Good Hart artist residency, MI; Andy Warhol Preserve Artist in Residence program, Long Island, NY; Wrangell Artist Residency in McCarthy, Alaska; Jentel Foundation, Wyoming; Soaring Gardens artist in residence program, PA; Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, Nebraska;  Maryland State Art Council Individual Artist Award, and Board of Governors Award (b grant), William G. Baker Jr. Memorial Fund, Baltimore, MD . Wyszomirska's work, represented by a DC-based gallery, Neptune & Brown, has been included in many private, corporate, and institutional collections, with a recent acquisition by the Baltimore Museum of Art. 

MFA Student Dan Ortiz-Leizman:Artwork by Danielle Ortiz-Liezemann

Dan Ortiz Leizman is an artist, writer, and educator currently working towards an MFA at the University of Maryland. They received a BA in Philosophy and Studio Art from Goucher College in 2020. Ortiz Leizman’s work approaches mark-making as an embodied practice that sometimes leads to communication but often actively resists legibility. Their practice is utterly interdisciplinary, rejecting false divisions between art, performance, theory, science, and technology.  Themes in their work can be distilled into the endlessly repeating and very queer phrase “words and bodies and words and bodies and words.”

ArtsAMP Collaborative Grants are designed to support collaboration between faculty in the arts and faculty in other disciplines as they move to advance the goals of Arts for All by creating new artistic work, new scholarship on the arts, and new classes that further the creative experience of students.

Three interdisciplinary teams received funding to support their projects and presented them at the first annual ArtsAMP Symposium

 

  • “Dance2: Interactive Dance Performance through On-body Wearable Robot and Crowd Participation”

  • “Rooting Our Shared Stories in Shared Places: Community-Centered African American Heritage Interpretation”

  • “STEAM Rising: Exploring the Fusion of Art and Technology to Build a More Equitable Society”

Pages

Subscribe to RSS - Honors and Awards