Director's Message to UMIACS May 2026

Graduate students are central to UMIACS. More than 200 contribute to our research enterprise, bringing energy, creativity and intellectual depth to everything we do.

In recent conversations with the directors of our research centers and interdisciplinary labs, we have been exploring new ways to expand cross-disciplinary engagement. UMIACS includes faculty from 16 departments across the University of Maryland, and our graduate students span many of them—from computer science and engineering to physics, biology, linguistics and information science. That breadth of expertise is one of our greatest strengths.

This month’s newsletter highlights several examples of the work our students are contributing to. In our feature story, computer science Ph.D. students Iman Gholami, Arshia Soltani and Danny Mittal are collaborating to develop AI systems designed not just to solve problems, but to reason through them. Julio Poveda is applying AI to improve safety for domestic violence survivors, addressing real-world security threats from abusive partners. Kyungyeon Lee developed a magnetic hand exoskeleton that could transform how people learn motor skills, earning her a Best Paper Honorable Mention at the 2026 ACM Conference on Human Factors. We also profile Steven Shen, who brings the same creative approach to producing electronic music as he does to his research in AI and security.

Graduate students typically enter UMIACS through academic departments and join the institute when they begin working in our faculty labs. Across our centers, they collaborate with researchers from different disciplines—machine learning experts working alongside computational linguists, and data scientists partnering with biologists. This work is supported by advanced computational infrastructure and technical expertise that enable ambitious, collaborative research.

Strong mentorship remains essential to student success. We are pleased to see faculty such as Min Wu recognized for leadership in education. Min was recently honored by the A. James Clark School of Engineering for developing innovative curricula that integrate research, real-world case studies and hands-on learning.

Together, our students and faculty continue to shape a research environment defined by collaboration and impact.

Best,
Andrew Childs
Interim Director, UMIACS