Research Highlights

In Maryland and beyond, the balance of Earth’s life-supporting systems is shifting, driven in large part by the heat-trapping greenhouse gasses we humans send into the atmosphere. The Earth is getting hotter; weather patterns are changing; and ecosystems are under stress. To address these challenges, three recent faculty hires in the College of Engineering and Information Technology (COEIT) who all specialize in different aspects of sustainability and renewable energy-related research launch research projects and expand their labs and offer growing opportunities for interested students to learn about and join their important work.
Read more about how UMBC and COEIT are expanding research in sustainability and renewable energy.

More than 150 people gathered for the inaugural College of Engineering and Information Technology (COEIT) Research Day. The event was an opportunity for faculty and students to showcase their research and forge interdisciplinary collaborations, including with potential industry partners in attendance.

Read more about COEIT Research Day.

UMBC has joined dozens of other founding institutions at the kick-off meeting of a newly launched initiative to ensure sustained resources and opportunities in tech fields for women of color. The Action Collaborative on Transforming Trajectories for Women of Color in Tech, is organized by the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine and guided by the findings and recommendations detailed in a 2022 National Academies report. According to the report, while women of color make up a substantial and growing percentage of the female population in the United States, they earn a small percentage of computing degrees, and remain significantly underrepresented in the tech workforce.

Read more about this collective in UMBC News.

Vandana Janeja, a professor of information systems at UMBC, was recently awarded a nearly $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) that will help further that mission. The grant is part of a larger NSF collaborative award with the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Sciences (UMCES).

Read more about Vandana Janeja’s research in UMBC News.

Ankit Goel, assistant professor of mechanical engineering leads a team of researchers who will research the challenges of hypersonic flight, from the stresses on materials to struggle to control the aircraft. Goel recently received more than $850,000 in funding from the Office of Naval Research to further the investigations. Over the next three years he will partner with Kyle Hanquist at the University of Arizona and researchers from the Naval Air Warfare Center (NAWC) to develop improved engine control strategies and assess their performance in ground experiments conducted at the NAWC facility at China Lake, California.

Read more about Ankit Goel’s research in UMBC News.

The positive environmental and health impacts of work led by Upal Ghosh, professor of chemical, biochemical, and environmental engineering at UMBC, was recently highlighted by the National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS). The agency showcased a low-cost technology that Ghosh and his colleagues developed to clean waterways contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), a group of likely carcinogenic chemicals that were used in insulation, coolants, and electrical equipment for decades before being banned in the U.S. in 1979.

Read more about Upal Ghosh’s research in UMBC News.