START and SURFF awards

Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11/UMBC.

UMBC’s Division of Research and Creative Achievement recently announced the recipients of the 2027 Strategic Awards for Research Transitions (START) award, and the 2026 Summer Research Faculty Fellowship (SURFF) award—two of the university’s internal funding opportunities that support faculty research and creative scholarship. Recent UMBC News coverage of the 2026 and 2027 awards for more information about the initiative.

See below for a list of all College of Engineering and Information Technology (COEIT) START and SURFF awards.

  • Alok Ghanekar (Mechanical Engineering): Developing Complex Disordered Nanocomposites for Thermophotovoltaic Energy Conversion
  • Dong Li (Computer Science and Electrical Engineering): Securing Smartphones Against Voice Scams with Real-Time Vocal-Acoustic Watermarking
  • Roberto Yus (Computer Science and Electrical Engineering): Optimizing AI Workflows for Reliable, Low-Cost Agentic Systems
  • Sayantan Bhattacharya (Mechanical Engineering): In-vitro assessment of commissural angle variation on bicuspid aortic valve hydrodynamics
  • Kai Sun (Information Systems): Machine Learning Guided Clinician Well-being Metrics and Scheduling Tools Combining Electronic Health Record (EHR) Data and Surveys
  • Fiona Bell (Information Systems): Developing Baltimore-Based Bioplastics for Sustainable Prototyping
  • David Garcia (Chemical, Biochemical and Environmental Engineering): Proteomic and Machine Learning Based Supplementation of Cell-free Systems for Biological Production
  • Yiwen Hu (Computer Science and Electrical Engineering): Securing Lost/Stolen Device Revocation Systems in 5G/6G Networks via Cross-Domain Evidence Attestation
  • Tera Reynolds (Information Systems): A Human-centered Approach to Leveraging Artificial Intelligence in Research and Design to Support Hypertonic Chronic Pelvic Pain Syndrome Self-management
  • Ankit Goel (Mechanical Engineering): A Novel Learning-based Quantum Control System
  • Tejas Gokhale (Computer Science and Electrical Engineering): A Framework for Quantifying Typicality of AI-Generated Images
  • Soobum Lee (Mechanical Engineering): Stretchable Electronics Design Strategy for Mechanical and Electrical Performance Enhancement
  • Molly Y. Mollica (Mechanical Engineering): Sex and Hormone Effects on Platelet Mechanical Activation and Function
  • Lei Zhang (Information Systems): Fix Flakiness in Quantum Software using Large Language Models
  • Weidong Zhu (Mechanical Engineering): Dynamic Modeling, Analysis, and Testing of Tensegrity Structures
  • Rajasekhar Anguluri (Computer Science and Electrical Engineering): Localizing and controlling sustained oscillations in power systems: A sparsity- and structure-driven approach
  • Yasmine Kotturi (Information Systems): Human-Centered AI for Supporting Small Business Workflows
  • Dong Li (Computer Science and Electrical Engineering): Affordable, Accessible Blood Pressure Monitoring via Smartphones to Reduce Cardiovascular Health Disparities
  • Ravi Kuber (Information Systems): Supporting Entrepreneurship among Individuals with Visual Impairments
  • Helena Mentis (Information Systems): Privacy Approaches of Adaptive Assistive Technologies
  • Sayantan Bhattacharya (Mechanical Engineering): An in-vitro flow loop setup to characterize single-ventricular hydrodynamics
  • Alok Ghanekar (Mechanical Engineering): Understanding Near-field Thermal Interactions in Space-time Modulated Metamaterials
  • Tejas Gokhale (Computer Science and Electrical Engineering): Improving the Continual Learning Ability of Visual Recognition Systems via Targeted Unlearning
  • Foad Hamidi (Information Systems): Co-designing Interactive Living Media Interfaces with Community Participants
  • Lara J. Martin (Computer Science and Electrical Engineering): Reinforcement Learning for Playing Dungeons & Dragons
  • Molly Y. Mollica (Mechanical Engineering): Sex and Hormone Effects on Platelet Mechanical Activation and Function
  • Osman Gani (Information Systems): A Causal Inference Framework to Translate COVID-19 Observational Data to New Knowledge
  • Brian Reed (Chemical, Biochemical and Environmental Engineering): Improvements to the PO4-based Acellular Assays to Mitigate Artifacts from Metal Precipitation
  • Manas Gaur (CSEE): SAFEX: Safe and Explainable Question Generation in Depression-related Conversations
  • Ankit Goel (Mechanical Engineering): Time-accelerated Algorithms for Real-time Applications
  • Ye Lu (Mechanical Engineering): A Novel Computational Framework for Digital Image Correlation Analysis
  • Lei Zhang (Information Systems): Automated Detection of Assertion-Related Bugs in Quantum Programs
  • Ronghui Ma (Mechanical Engineering): Experimental and numerical study of freeze casting process towards microstructure optimization and materials design
  • Maryam Rahnemoonfar (Information Systems): Real-time Scene Understanding after Natural Disasters with Drones
  • Ramana Vinjamuri (Computer Science and Electrical Engineeering): An integrated system for real-time detection and management of substance abuse disorder using wearable biosensors
  • Yaxing Yao (Information Systems): Third-Person Privacy: Towards Respectful Privacy Designs for Unmanned Aircraft Systems
  • Sanorita Dey (Computer Science and Electrical Engineeering): Designing and Building a Low-Fidelity Prototype of an Online Supporting Platform for Long-Hauler Communities
  • Naghmeh Karimi (Computer Science and Electrical Engineeering): Security of Integrated Circuits’ Supply Chain: Threats and Countermeasures
  • Shimei Pan (Information Systems): Understanding Racism and Resilience in the Context ofAcute Disease Outbreaks with Social Media Analysis
  • Lujie Karen Chen (Information Systems): Computational Framework for Assistance Dilemma: Supporting Human-AI Collaboration in Education
  • Tyler Josephson (Chemical, Biochemical and Environmental Enginering): Mapping the Equation Space of Adsorption
  • Yaxing Yao (Information Systems): Investigating Privacy Mechanisms in Smart Homes From A Multi-Stakeholder Perspective
  • Meilin Yu (Mechanical Engineering): Data-driven Physics-informed Stochastic Modeling of Biotransport in Tissues with Uncertain Heterogeneous Material Properties
  • Riadul Islam (Computer Science and Electrical Engineeering): Graph-Based Machine Learning in CAN Bus Security
  • Deepa Madan (Mechanical Engineering): Safe and flexible rechargeable Zn batteries (RZB) for wearable medical devices
  • Jianwu Wang (Information Systems): Causality Analytics from Global Spatiotemporal Climate Datasets
  • Cynthia Matuszek (Computer Science and Electrical Engineeering): Language and Use Cases for Robotics in Gerontechnology
  • Curtis Menyuk (Computer Science and Electrical Engineeering): Computational Modeling of Diffusion-Weighted Imaging of Cerebral White Matter
  • Carlos Romero-Talamas (Mechanical Engineering): Flexible Plasma Science Facility
  • Sanjay Purushotham (Information Systems): Multimodal Deep Learning Framework for Medical Data Analysis
  • Peng Xu (Chemical, Biochemical and Environmental Engineering): Optimizing CRISPR-Cas12 based genome-editing tools in oleaginous yeast to biologically synthesize nanoparticle
  • Deepa Madan (Mechanical Engineering): Performance Enhancement of Flexible Thermoelectric Devices for Powering Wireless Sensor Networks
  • Hamed Pirsiavash (Computer Science and Electrical Engineering): Modeling Uncertainty in Predicting the Future in Videos
  • Meilin Yu (Mechanical Engineering): High-Order Hybrid RANS-LES Methods for Turbulence Simulation in Efficient Fish Locomotion

FInd more information on UMBC’s internal funding opportunities and open calls for proposals on the Division of Research and Creative Services website.