research

Faculty members are invited to nominate candidates for the 2022-23 Undergraduate Researchers of the Year awards ($1,000 prize), presented annually in conjunction with Maryland’s Undergraduate Research Day (April 26, 2023). Nominations are due by Sunday, March 26, 2023.

PLEASE NOTE: Eligibility is limited to SENIORS (may be graduating in May 2023, Summer 2023, or have graduated in December 2022). A maximum of ONE (1) student nomination per faculty member can be accepted.

This award recognizes individual undergraduates (not teams) who have distinguished themselves exceptionally - **above and beyond expectations** - in research activities over the span of their time at the University. Nominated students should exemplify excellence in undergraduate research and show great promise for further accomplishment. 

Up to 6 awards, with prizes of $1000 each, will be presented in conjunction with Undergraduate Research Day (April 26, 2023).

ELIGIBILITY: Nominees must be SENIORS graduating in May 2023 or Summer 2023, or be alumni who began the 2022 academic year as SENIORS but who graduated in December 2022. Please note: a maximum of ONE (1) student nomination per faculty member can be accepted.

DEADLINE: Nominations should be sent to ugresearch@umd.edu no later than SUNDAY, MARCH 26, 2023 and should include: 

1. student’s name and email address;
2. a statement of nomination highlighting what is especially notable and exciting about the student’s accomplishment(s) – if you have recently written a recommendation letter for this student that effectively describes their research accomplishments, you may submit that as your nomination statement.

We welcome any additional information, hyperlinks, etc., that would help illuminate your nominee’s accomplishments. 

**Nominated students will be asked to provide a research resume or CV, copies of relevant presentations/papers, and a personal reflection on their research activities.**

Questions? Contact Francis DuVinage, Director, National Scholarships Office and Maryland Center for Undergraduate Research (duvinage@umd.edu). 

By: Ashawnta Jackson

In a recently released interactive project—the Timeline of African American Music—Carnegie Hall, in collaboration with ethnomusicologist Portia K. Maultsby, has charted the histories, traditions, sounds, and communities that have made Black music such a vital part of American culture. Charting movements from Afrofuturism to ragtime, funk to work songs, the project doesn’t just represent the history of the music, it also represents a coming together of some of nearly thirty notable scholars in music and cultural studies.

The timeline, according to the project’s website, “​​reveals the unique characteristics of each genre and style, while also offering in-depth studies of pioneering musicians who created some of America’s most timeless artistic expressions.” Those unique characteristics can be as familiar as the sounds of rock or blues or come from genres that reveal Black artists thriving and creating in spaces that, as musicologist Tammy Kernodle writes, “expand the palette for what has come to define sonic Blackness.”

In this series, we explore the work of some of the scholars involved in the project, highlighting their scholarship that can be found in the JSTOR archives.

Tammy Kernodle is a music professor at Miami University in Ohio, where she primarily focuses on African American music, American music, and gender studies. In an essay she contributed to the Timeline, Kernodle explores a genre of music that is often excluded from discussions of Black music—concert or classical music. Though the names of Black classical composers are not always part of the conversation, Kernodle argues that not only should they be, but that Black concert or Afro-classical music has a long tradition spanning from the Colonial Era (1619–1775) to the present day. Composers such as the formerly enslaved Newport Gardner or singer Matilda Sissieretta Jones weren’t just part of the genre; their work was an essential “form of resistance culture to notions of racial inferiority, and the marginalization of Black America,” Kernodle explains.

Continuing the theme of music as resistance is Stephanie Shonekan in an essay that charts the sounds of protest. An ethnomusicologist and Dean of the College of Arts and Humanities at the University of Maryland, Shonekan explores the intersections of music, culture, and identity. Music has shaped Black life from slavery to the Civil Rights movements of the 1960s, Shonekan writes, and “has served as the inspirational soundtrack of these movements, evolving from one era to another, and reflecting their revolutionary response to each new challenge for justice, progress, and equality.” Music, she argues, is a vital part of protest and “it is only when the world truly listens, commits to the work of change, that sustainable resolution is possible.”

Explore the work of both Tammy Kernodle and Stephanie Shonekan:

Tammy Kernodle

• Arias, Communists, and Conspiracies: The History of Still’s “Troubled Island”
• This Is My Story, This Is My Song: The Historiography of Vatican II, Black Catholic Identity, Jazz, and the Religious Compositions of Mary Lou Williams
• Diggin’ You Like Those Ol’ Soul Records: Meshell Ndegeocello and the Expanding Definition of Funk in Postsoul America
• Black Women Working Together: Jazz, Gender, and the Politics of Validation

Stephanie Shonekan

• Fela’s Foundation: Examining the Revolutionary Songs of Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti and the Abeokuta Market Women’s Movement in 1940s Western Nigeria
• Epilogue: “We People Who Are Darker than Blue”: Black Studies and the Mizzou Movement

Resources

JSTOR is a digital library for scholars, researchers, and students. JSTOR Daily readers can access the original research behind our articles for free on JSTOR.

Arias, Communists, and Conspiracies: The History of Still’s “Troubled Island”By: Tammy L. KernodleThe Musical Quarterly, Vol. 83, No. 4 (Winter 1999), pp. 487–508Oxford University Press

 This Is My Story, This Is My Song: The Historiography of Vatican II, Black Catholic Identity, Jazz, and the Religious Compositions of Mary Lou WilliamsBy: Tammy Lynn KernodleU.S. Catholic Historian, Vol. 19, No. 2, African American Spirituality and Liturgical Renewal (Spring 2001), pp. 83–94Catholic University of America Press

 Diggin’ You Like Those Ol’ Soul Records: Meshell Ndegeocello and the Expanding Definition of Funk in Postsoul AmericaBy: Tammy L. KernodleAmerican Studies, Vol. 52, No. 4, THE FUNK ISSUE (2013), pp. 181–204Mid-America American Studies Association

 Black Women Working Together: Jazz, Gender, and the Politics of ValidationBy: Tammy L. KernodleBlack Music Research Journal, Vol. 34, No. 1 (Spring), pp. 27–55Center for Black Music Research - Columbia College Chicago and University of Illinois Press

 Fela’s Foundation: Examining the Revolutionary Songs of Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti and the Abeokuta Market Women’s Movement in 1940s Western NigeriaBy: Stephanie ShonekanBlack Music Research Journal, Vol. 29, No. 1 (Spring 2009), pp. 127–144Center for Black Music Research - Columbia College Chicago and University of Illinois Press

 Epilogue: “We People Who Are Darker than Blue”: Black Studies and the Mizzou MovementBy: Stephanie ShonekanThe Journal of Negro Education, Vol. 86, No. 3, Special Issue—When Voices Rise: Race, Resistance, and Campus Uprisings in the Information Age (Summer 2017), pp. 399–404Journal of Negro Education

Click above to view the video of Creative Placemaking in the Community.

Idyllic scenes of nature and towering, colorful hands communicating in American Sign Language are more than a pretty backdrop for al fresco diners at The Hall CP in the University of Maryland’s Discovery District. The sweeping mural project led by Assistant Professor of Art Brandon J. Donahue is an example of how a community—in this case, that of the campus—can come together to beautify a place and begin fertile conversations about a shared future.

Donahue is one of the faculty members involved with UMD’s new creative placemaking minor, which started this fall as a collaboration between the School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation and the College of Arts and Humanities and is part of the university's Arts for All initiative. It will imbue students with expertise that allows them to support a community’s vision and nurture vibrant, socially responsive and just places.

Student artists creating with Donahue’s guidance are the focus of the latest installment of the new video series, “Enterprise: University of Maryland Research Stories,” which gives a window into how placemaking research translates into enhanced spaces for all.

Video by Bethany Swain

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.

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)