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Honors and Awards

History Professor Specializing in Russia and Soviet Union Named Andrew Carnegie Fellow
4/26/22

By Jessica Weiss ’05

University of Maryland Professor of History Sarah Cameron, an expert on Russia and the Soviet Union, has been awarded $200,000 as a 2022 Andrew Carnegie Fellow.

The Carnegie Corporation of New York, a philanthropic organization, today announced the 28 fellows, who will use the funding to support significant research and writing in the social sciences and humanities that address important and enduring issues confronting society. Professor of Sociology Rashawn Ray, based in the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences, whose research focuses largely on police reform, is also among this year’s recipients. They are the second and third UMD faculty members to receive the honor since its 2015 launch, following History Professor Richard Bell in 2021.

Cameron’s stipend will support historical research on one of the 20th century’s gravest environmental catastrophes: the shrinking of the Aral Sea. Located between Kazakhstan in the north and Uzbekistan in the south and once one of the world’s largest inland bodies of water, the sea began to decline dramatically in the late 1960s when Soviet officials directed large volumes of water toward cotton production, devastating communities in the region. Today, water levels in some parts of the sea are partially restored.

Cameron plans to publish the first complete book-length account of the causes and effects of the disaster based upon archival materials and oral history interviews.

“I am thrilled and very grateful for the support of the Carnegie Corporation,” Cameron said. “This gives me the time and resources to do justice to a significant, understudied history that offers important lessons both for policymakers and the broader public.”

Cameron also recently received fellowships for the same project at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., and Princeton University's Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies, as well as a grant from the National Council for Eurasian and East European Research.

Her first book, “The Hungry Steppe: Famine, Violence, and the Making of Soviet Kazakhstan,” won four book awards and two honorable mentions. “The Hungry Steppe” told the little-known story of one of the most abominable crimes of the Stalin years—between 1930 and 1933, more than 1.5 million people, a quarter of Kazakhstan's population, perished due to a state-driven campaign that forced a rural, nomadic population into collective farms and factories and confiscated their livestock. The book, which was translated into Russian and Kazakh, was the top-selling history title in Kazakhstan in 2020 and prompted an outpouring of local debate about the country’s Soviet past; Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, now president of Kazakhstan, thanked Cameron for the book on Twitter.

Her research on the Aral Sea is a continuation of efforts to spotlight the stories of nomadic peoples, in their own voices, as many of the people who lived near the sea before the disaster—Turkic-speaking Kazakhs, Karakalpaks and others—were mobile. Cameron speaks Russian and several vernacular languages of the region.

After water levels declined, local populations saw a dramatic increase in health problems due to pesticides and toxins from the exposed seabed. Moscow recognized the scope of the crisis in 1989, declaring an area covering parts of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan with a population of more than 3.5 million people an “ecological disaster zone.”

Chemists, hydrologists, geographers and others have developed a body of scientific literature on the Aral Sea. In addition to sharing an in-depth history, Cameron plans to focus on the present-day implications of the disaster, including the need to find more sustainable methods to produce cotton.

“This is very much a story about climate change, about water use, about our relationship with cotton,” Cameron said. “As droughts and rising temperatures affect the globe, the Aral Sea crisis offers us a warning of what might occur elsewhere and the measures that we urgently need to take to avert that fate.”

Read more about the 2022 Carnegie Fellows in Maryland Today.

Photo courtesy of iStock.

Philosophy Professor Receives Humboldt Research Award
4/1/22

By Jessica Weiss ’05 

John Horty, professor of philosophy and affiliate professor in the Institute for Advanced Computer Studies and the Department of Computer Science at the University of Maryland, has been awarded a Humboldt Research Award by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation of Germany. 

The award, named after the late Prussian naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt, recognizes leading researchers of all disciplines across the world in recognition of their academic record to date. To promote international scientific cooperation, award winners are invited to spend a period of up to one year collaborating on a long-term research project with colleagues at a research institution in Germany. 

Horty is an internationally known expert on several topics that connect philosophy, logic and artificial intelligence (AI) and he was among the first philosophers to apply methods from computer science to philosophical questions concerning legal and moral reasoning. In recent years, his work has focused on the growing field of “machine ethics” or “humane AI,” whose goal is to develop the—conceptual and technical—framework needed to advance AI in a way that is ethical and that promotes human wellbeing. Horty’s work seeks to show ways in which autonomous AI systems can engage in normative reasoning in real time. That work could eventually help to make computational tools that would assist people in their thinking about legal and moral problems. 

Horty is the author of three books as well as papers on a variety of topics. He has received three fellowships from the National Endowment for Humanities and several grants from the National Science Foundation. He has also held visiting fellowships at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies and at the Center for Advanced Studies in Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. His forthcoming book will focus on the logic of precedent. He is also working with colleagues across campus to organize a center on “Ethics and AI” at the University of Maryland. 

Horty earned his doctorate in philosophy from the University of Pittsburgh. He holds a bachelor of arts in philosophy and classics from Oberlin College.

Two Professors Named Andrew Carnegie Fellows
4/26/22

By Rachael Grahame ’17 and Jessica Weiss ’05

Two University of Maryland professors are among 28 distinguished scholars and writers today named 2022 Andrew Carnegie Fellows, an honor that comes with a $200,000 award.

The Carnegie Corporation, a philanthropic organization, provides each fellow with the funding to produce major works or studies over the next two years that contribute to the social sciences or humanities. Sociologist Rashawn Ray and historian Sarah Cameron are the second and third UMD faculty members to receive the honor since its 2015 launch, following history Professor Richard Bell last year.

Rashawn Ray headshot

“I am elated and deeply honored,” said Ray, who is also executive director of the Lab for Applied Social Science Research at UMD. “But accordingly, I realize that this is just an additional step to keep doing the work.”

Much of Ray’s recent scholarship—from working with Google to develop virtual reality trainings for police officers to studying the impact of Black Lives Matter protests via a grant from the Russell Sage Foundation—concerns police reform; his research earned him an award earlier this year from the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

With his Carnegie fellowship, he plans to develop a national database that grades states’ progress on introducing and passing police reform legislation in line with the yet-to-be-passed George Floyd Justice in Policing Act.

His database will live on the website of the Brookings Institution, where he is a fellow and which nominated him for the Carnegie fellowship; it will be accompanied by a policy report, book and op-eds.

Sarah Cameron headshot

Cameron’s Carnegie stipend will support historical research on one of the 20th century’s gravest environmental catastrophes: the shrinking of the Aral Sea. Bisected by the border between Kazakhstan in the north and Uzbekistan in the south and once one of the world’s largest inland bodies of water, the sea began to decline dramatically in the late 1960s when Soviet officials directed large volumes of water toward cotton production, devastating communities in the region. Today, water levels in some parts of the sea are partially restored.

Chemists, hydrologists, geographers and others have developed a body of scientific literature on the Aral Sea, but she plans to publish the first complete book-length account of the causes and effects of the disaster based upon archival materials and oral history interviews.

Cameron also recently received fellowships for the same project at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., and Princeton University's Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies, as well as a grant from the National Council for Eurasian and East European Research. Her first book, “The Hungry Steppe: Famine, Violence, and the Making of Soviet Kazakhstan,” won four book awards and two honorable mentions.

“I am thrilled and very grateful for the support of the Carnegie Corporation,” Cameron said. “This gives me the time and resources to do justice to a significant, understudied history that offers important lessons both for policymakers and the broader public.”

 

Hearing Echoes of Battle to Get Seat Belts to ‘Click’
4/18/22

By Jessica Weiss ’05

A deadly public scourge. A fight pitting government safety mandates against personal freedom. And over time, growing popular acceptance of a solution that was a shot in the arm for public health.

If this sounds like the COVID-19 vaccine controversy, think again. Beginning in the 1950s, engineers, drivers, passengers, regulators and politicians in the United States entered into highly charged deliberations over whether seat belts and speed limits should become mandatory. Today most of the country has 90% seat belt use, and a University of Maryland historian is digging into the historical controversy with an eye to its present-day echoes.

“It’s hard now to imagine a time when seat belts would be controversial, but there was a vivid, expensive and passionate debate about road safety and the lack thereof,” said Associate Professor Thomas Zeller, a specialist in environmental history and the history of technology.

Zeller was recently named a 2022–23 Arthur Molella Distinguished Fellow at the Smithsonian Institution’s Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation and will start in September on a project to explore this history. He will have access to the National Museum of American History’s artifacts, archival collections and library resources, including physical seat belts and guidebooks on highway safety.

Airplane pilots had already been using seat belts for decades when the push to make them standard in cars began to take hold in the 1950s. By 1955, some 100 people were dying on the roads each day. Despite increasing public health research showing that seat belts saved lives in crashes, many people argued against them, focusing on their potential to cause internal injuries or to make it more difficult to escape a burning or submerged car. Other opponents said that regardless of safety implications, it should be a personal choice instead of a requirement.

In a 1966 speech, former President Lyndon Johnson dubbed the high number of deaths on the nation’s roads “the highway disease.” Laws that began to require seat belts in the 1960s—including a federal law requiring “lap and shoulder belts” in all new cars starting in 1968—were portrayed by some as attacks on personal liberty. Critics of laws that instituted fines for not buckling up in the 1980s likened them to encroaching totalitarianism. At the time, only 14% of Americans used seat belts.

Zeller plans to examine scores of archived letters to the editor commenting on proposed laws and mandates from the 1960s to the 1980s. He’ll also explore the role of several public safety campaigns, such as those featuring famed crash test dummies Vince and Larry. The dummies are part of the National Museum of American History collections, along with seat belts, alcohol detection devices and other objects related to automobile safety.

He said exploring this history will shed light on the present, as Americans are once again divided on how much power the government should have to protect public welfare, even if it means taking away rights.

In recent months, some doctors and public health officials have even compared vaccines to seat belts in their ability to significantly decrease the risk of COVID-19.

“The story of public health is sometimes about doing something for the collective good that requires individuals to change their behavior,” Zeller said. “And that’s the underlying tension.”

Steele Wins ICA Emerging Scholarship Award
2/19/22

Congratulations to Assistant Professor Catherine Knight Steele for receiving the 2022 Helen Award for Emerging Feminist Scholarship, given by the Feminist Scholarship Division of the International Communication Association (ICA). Steele is the author of the recent book Digital Black Feminism, published by NYU Press. Steele will receive the Helen Award at the annual ICA convention in May 2022, scheduled for Paris, France.

Sarah Cameron Receives NCEEER Grant and Princeton Fellowship
2/23/22

Sarah Cameron has been awarded a fellowship at Princeton University's Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies for the next academic year. She has also received a grant from the National Council for Eurasian and East European Research (NCEEER) under their Title VIII National Research Competition.  NCEEER was created in 1978 to develop and sustain long-term, high-quality programs for post-doctoral research on the social, political, economic, environmental, and historical development of Eurasia and Central and Eastern Europe. This award will cover overseas research costs associated with her new book project on the Aral Sea. This project will also be her focus at Princeton.

MPower Partnership Announces $3M in Seed Grants for Collaborative Research
3/2/22

From fighting emerging disease outbreaks to addressing gun violence and seeking solutions to opioid addiction, a slate of newly funded joint projects involving researchers from the University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP) and University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) promises to tackle the grand challenges of our time.

The Joint Steering Council of the University of Maryland Strategic Partnership: MPowering the State (MPower), a formal collaboration between UMB and UMCP to leverage the strengths of both institutions, announced seed funding ranging from $49,000 to $250,000 for 17 targeted, jointly led projects in six key research areas.

The council reviewed and ranked 52 submissions, awarding a total of $3 million to kick-start new research in areas of paramount importance to the state and the nation.

“These seed grant awards highlight the outstanding interdisciplinary and high-impact research faculty in Baltimore and College Park are conducting to address the most complex challenges society is facing,” said Gregory F. Ball, vice president for research at UMB and UMCP. “My hope is that these grants strengthen current collaborations, promote new ones and lead to future funding opportunities to support innovative and transformative research.”

Here’s look at the winning projects:

Artificial Intelligence and Medicine

  • “AI Discovery and Sensing for Biomarkers of Chronic Pain,” Robert Ernst, professor, School of Dentistry, UMB; and Pamela Abshire, professor, A. James Clark School of Engineering, UMCP
     
  • “Applying Natural Language Processing to Electronic Health Records to Prevent Infections with Highly Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria,” Katherine Goodman, assistant professor, School of Medicine, UMB; and Phillip Resnik, professor, College of Arts and Humanities, UMCP
     
  • “AI to Determine Alterations of 4-Dimensional Erythrocyte Flow in the Retina,” Osamah Saeedi, associate professor, School of Medicine, UMB; and Yang Tao, professor, A. James Clark School of Engineering, UMCP
     
  • “Precision Therapy for Neonatal Opioid Withdrawal Syndrome (NOWS),” Amber Beitelshees, associate professor, School of Medicine, UMB; and Ritu Agarwal, Distinguished University Professor, Robert H. Smith School of Business, UMCP
     
  • “Exploring the Hidden Links Between Cannabis and Cardiovascular Health Using Deep Learning,” Jean Jeudy, professor, and Timm-Michael Dickfeld, professor, both from the School of Medicine, UMB; and Eleonora Tubaldi, assistant professor, A. James Clark School of Engineering, UMCP
     
  • “Blended Reality Immersion for Geriatric Head Trauma: The BRIGHT Study,” Mira Ghneim, assistant professor, School of Medicine, UMB; and Donald Bolger, associate professor, College of Education, UMCP

Cybersecurity and Homeland Security

  • “Tackling Terror in the Homeland: An Empirical and Legal Analysis of the Debate Over a New Domestic Terrorism Law,” Michael Vesely, senior research associate, Francis King Carey School of Law, UMB; and Michael Jensen, senior researcher, National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), UMCP

Neuroscience and Aging

  • “Predicting Clinical Features of Parkinson Disease Using Machine Learning Analysis of Mobility Data from a Wearable Sensor,” F. Rainer von Coelln, assistant professor, School of Medicine, UMB; and Michael P. Cummings, professor, College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences, UMCP
     
  • “A Patient Data-Driven Approach to Improve Counseling and Hearing Health”, Ronna Hertzano, professor, School of Medicine, UMB; and Matthew Goupell, professor, College of Behavioral and Social Sciences, UMCP
     
  • “Ubiquitin-Proteasome System Mechanisms Underlying Abstinence-Dependent Methamphetamine Craving,” Marco Venniro, assistant professor, School of Medicine, UMB; and Xuan (Anna) Li, assistant professor, College of Behavioral and Social Sciences, UMCP
     
  • “Noradrenergic Dysfunction Impairs Olfaction-Mediated Social Interaction in Alzheimer’s Models,” Joseph Kao, professor, and Adam Puche, professor, both from the School of Medicine, UMB; and Ricardo Araneda, professor, College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences, UMCP

Pandemic Readiness, Resilience and Mitigation

  • “Development of Vaccines Against Emerging Avian Influenza Viruses for Use in Humans and Poultry: A One-Health Approach to Prevent Zoonotic Virus Spillover Events and Support Pandemic Preparedness,” Lynda Coughlan, assistant professor, School of Medicine, UMB; and Andrew Broadbent, assistant professor, College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, UMCP
     
  • “Viral and Host Determinants of SARS-CoV-2 Variant Replication,” Matthew Frieman, associate professor, School of Medicine, UMB; and Margaret Scull, assistant professor, College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences, UMCP
     
  • “Scalable Manufacture of mRNA Vaccines for Agile Pandemic Response,” Peter Swaan, professor, School of Pharmacy, UMB; and Don DeVoe, professor, A. James Clark School of Engineering, UMCP

Racial and Social Justice

  • “Investigating Racial and Social Disparities in Health Outcomes Among Maryland Youth in Foster Care Exposed to Cross-State Air Pollution,” Roderick Rose, assistant professor, School of Social Work, UMB, and James Archsmith, assistant professor, College of Agriculture and Natural Resources
     
  • “Disproportionality in Communication Impairments: Leveraging Technology to Provide Individualized Language Assessments of Bilingual Children,” Michael Woolley, professor, School of Social Work, UMB, and Yi Ting Huang, associate professor, College of Behavioral and Social Sciences, UMCP

Violence and Crime Reduction

  • “Comparing Firearm Violence from Trauma Units and Police,” Kyla Liggett-Creel, clinical assistant professor, School of Social Work, UMB, and Gary LaFree, professor, College of Behavioral and Social Sciences, UMCP
Discovering Something New in the Medieval
2/17/22

By Sala Levin ’10 

Feb 17, 2022

She may not have the brown fedora, khaki pants or whip, but even so, University of Maryland School of Music Professor Barbara Haggh-Huglo is in many ways the Indiana Jones of medieval musicology. She’s traveled from Belgium to Italy to Mexico searching archives and libraries for traces of forgotten centuries-old music, and has unearthed revelations that have changed what musicologists know about landmark composers.

Since publishing her first article in 1981, on German radio drama of the 1950s and ’60s, Haggh-Huglo has been exploring unknown corners of music history and theory, uncovering secrets about music and musicians that have rocked the musicology world. This spring, in a talk to the Belgian Academy of Sciences, she’ll present her groundbreaking research on a long-lived chant by a monumental composer, and push for an expansive series of concerts featuring that chant, choral music and pipe organ music across northwest Europe, which she hopes will direct funds toward the renovation of historic churches.

In recognition of the contributions Haggh-Huglo has made to her field, in November she was elected an honorary member of the American Musicological Society, the highest honor bestowed by the preeminent organization for musicologists, who study the history and theory of music.

Her interest in music and its history began early on. Haggh-Huglo’s father was a composer and music theorist who eventually became director of the University of Nebraska’s School of Music, and her mother was a trained singer. Her sister became a professional cellist, and while Haggh-Huglo played violin, her academic nature steered her toward musicology.

It wasn’t just her birth family that was immersed in music. Her late husband, Michel Huglo, was an esteemed musicologist who began his adult life as a monk in France’s Benedictine Abbey of Solesmes, famed for its study and practice of Gregorian chant. Though separated in age by 34 years, the two found common ground in their passion for the music of the past, and traveled across the globe together in search of the next great find. “We worked in libraries side by side and what I learned from him was of incalculable value,” she said.

Haggh-Huglo made her first game-changing discovery during research for her doctoral dissertation on the history of music in Brussels. After learning Dutch and French in order to read primary sources, she found music by renowned 15th-century choral composer Guillaume Du Fay. He’d written it in the entirely different style of Gregorian chant, the only such chant by a major composer of choral music. It’s this revelation that she now hopes will spur a new series of concerts in Europe.

Other musical discoveries have taken her to major sights around the world—including Buckingham Palace, where she met with Queen Elizabeth’s private secretary to present research on music commissioned for Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, an ancestor of the queen.

Haggh-Huglo uses a contemporary perspective to reflect on a musical world that can feel distant, said Rachel Ruisard Ph.D. ’21, who studied with her at UMD and now teaches musicology at Haverford College. Haggh-Huglo encouraged Ruisard to write her thesis on women’s songs from the 14th century, said Ruisard.

“She was really advocating for how important this topic was to talk about, because in the current discipline for this tradition, perspectives of women and considerations of gender really are not often discussed,” she said.

Still teaching courses on early music, its notation and theory, Haggh-Huglo finds refuge in a variety of music, including her new pipe organ kick. “I’ve learned the organ repertory in the car on the way to work,” she said. “That’s what’s gotten me through the pandemic.”

Two ARHU Faculty Named 2022 HuMetricsHSS Community Fellows
1/31/22

Comprised of individuals working in academic and nonprofit academic–adjacent sectors, the Humane Metrics in the Humanities and Social Sciences (HuMetricsHSS) initiative facilitates the creation of locally relevant values-based frameworks that enable scholars in the humanities and social sciences (HSS), academic departments, and institutions to tell more textured and compelling stories about the impact of their research and the variety of ways it enriches public life.

HuMetricsHSS Community Fellows are individuals who are engaged in transforming academic culture at their own institutions, whether by rethinking what forms of scholarship “count,” considering how indicators and metrics might be informed by values, or engaging their communities in values-inflected ways. Thanks to the support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, HuMeticsHSS is pleased to offer modest grants to help support such work.

Two ARHU Faculty have been annouced as 2022 HuMetricsHSS Community Fellows. Click below to read more about their projects.

Trevor Parry-Giles
University of Maryland

Trevor Parry-Giles
  
Lindsay YotsukuraLindsay Yotsukura
 

TOME@UMD Announces Open Access Publishing Grant Recipients
12/14/21

UMD Libraries is pleased to announce the recipients of the inaugural TOME@UMD grants:

 

 

 

  • Siv B. Lie, Ph.D., of the School of Music and her work, Django Generations: Hearing Ethnorace, Citizenship, and Jazz Manouche in France;  
  • Mauro Resmini, Ph.D., of the School of Languages, Literatures and Cultures and his work, Italian Political Cinema; 
  • Thurka Sangaramoorthy, Ph.D., of the Department of Anthropology and her work, Immigration and the Landscape of Care in Rural America;  
  • Thomas Zeller, Ph.D., from the Department of History and his work, Consuming Landscapes: What We See When We Drive and Why It Matters.

The TOME@UMD (Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem) grant program sponsors the publication of open access, digital monographs of UMD faculty members.

Scholarly monographs are detailed written accounts of research in specialized subjects, and are especially critical in the dissemination of knowledge in the arts, humanities, and social sciences disciplines.Publishing open access monographs removes access barriers and allows for research to be used freely by anyone.

All UMD faculty members were invited to apply and submissions were evaluated on the potential impact of their work both in their field and beyond academia; the benefits of the open access distribution for their work; and the potential to enhance equity, diversity and inclusion in the production and dissemination of knowledge.

TOME is a national initiative to advance open-access (OA) publishing of monographs in the humanities and social sciences. TOME’s goal is to make this important scholarship available to readers across the globe, without cost and access barriers. 

TOME@UMD is led by the University Libraries in partnership with the Office of the Senior Vice President and Provost, and the College of Arts and Humanities.

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