UMBC’s Division of Research and Creative Achievement recently announced the recipients of the 2025 Strategic Awards for Research Transitions (START) award, and the 2024 Summer Research Faculty Fellowship (SURFF) award—two of the university’s internal funding opportunities that support faculty research and creative scholarship.
For fiscal year 2025, 13 faculty members across all of UMBC’s colleges and researchers with the university’s research centers were individually awarded up to $25,000 in START funding to advance their research and creative achievement endeavors. The award assists recipients in competing more effectively for external support and pursuing new areas of inquiry.
In summer 2024, 14 faculty members received a SURFF award. The SURFF award supports non-tenured, tenure-track faculty members in pursuing research and creative achievement projects during the summer. Recipients are awarded up to $8,000 in funding.
See below for a list of all College of Engineering and Information Technology (COEIT) START and SURFF awards.
Ankit Goel (Department: Mechanical Engineering) for “A Novel Learning-based Quantum Control System”
Lei Zhang (Department: Information Systems) for “Fix Flakiness in Quantum Software using Large Language Models”
Molly Y. Mollica (Department: Mechanical Engineering) for “Sex and Hormone Effects on Platelet Mechanical Activation and Function”
Soobum Lee (Department: Mechanical Engineering) for “Stretchable Electronics Design Strategy for Mechanical and Electrical Performance Enhancement”
Tejas Gokhale (Department: Computer Science and Electrical Engineering) for “A Framework for Quantifying Typicality of AI-Generated Images”
Weidong Zhu (Department: Mechanical Engineering) for “Dynamic Modeling, Analysis, and Testing of Tensegrity Structures”
2024 COEIT SURFF award recipients
Alok Ghanekar (Department: Mechanical Engineering) for “Understanding Near-field Thermal Interactions in Space-time Modulated Metamaterials”
Foad Hamidi (Department: Information Systems) for “Co-Designing Interactive Living Media Interfaces with Community Participants”
Lara Martin (Department: Computer Science and Electrical Engineering) for “Reinforcement Learning for Playing Dungeons & Dragons”
Molly Y. Mollica (Department: Mechanical Engineering) for “Sex and Hormone Effects on Platelet Mechanical Activation and Function”
Sayantan Bhattacharya (Department: Mechanical Engineering) for “An In-Vitro Flow Loop Setup to Characterize Single-Ventricular Hydrodynamics”
Tejas Gokhale (Department: Computer Science and Electrical Engineering) for “Improving the Continual Learning Ability of Visual Recognition Systems via Targeted Unlearning”
Find more information on UMBC’s internal funding opportunities and open calls for proposals here.
