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Computing & Society

Our researchers are active on multiple fronts that involve education, transportation, accessibility, equality, ethical AI, and much more. We’re developing powerful machine learning tools to advance K–12 classroom outcomes. We’re focused on building new technology to assist those that are sight impaired or have mobility issues. We use powerful data science tools to improve transportation systems. And we’re at the forefront of research and scholarship involving trustworthy and ethical AI. Much of this activity takes places in the multiple centers and several large interdisciplinary labs that UMIACS supports.

Director's Message to UMIACS November '24

There’s lots to reflect upon as our fall semester is rapidly nearing its end—leaves are turning, a national election has left its imprint, and for those that choose to participate, the U.S. holiday of Thanksgiving is but a few weeks away.

Those are my thoughts, but others may have their own. I believe that diversity of thought—whether it involves science, politics, or personal and professional relationships—can only be beneficial if divergent sides make the effort to reach out and find common ground.

This might include looking outward and asking, “how can I be of service” instead of “what’s in it for me?”

Most, if not all, of our work in UMIACS is meant to help others. Good science begets a better society. And we certainly have good science in our institute.

An excellent example of our innovative research helping others—highlighted by Maryland Today and in this month’s newsletter—has an interesting backstory.

You’ve often heard me say we have the best tech support anywhere. This includes the ability of our technical staff—working closely with our business office—to spec out, order, install and maintain technology associated with large research proposals.

But rarely are technical staff co-PIs for the award itself. Such is not the case in the $10 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education that went to the College of Education, with our director of our computing facilities Derek Yarnell as a co-PI.

Derek has been collaborating with education faculty for several years now, developing a data analytic tool to tie together masses of confidential data—from medical test results to school performance records—administered by multiple stakeholders involved in the school-to-adulthood transition for young people with disabilities.

It is certainly a huge undertaking, with more than a dozen state agencies and Maryland’s 24 school districts involved—with most all of them running on different software and computing platforms.

The College of Education faculty specifically reached out to UMIACS, believing we were best suited to help with this complex and monumental task. We are. And the end result will be more than worth the effort.

Hopefully, when the technology UMIACS is developing is deployed late next year, it will greatly improve vocational and educational opportunities for young adults struggling with cognitive or physical disabilities.

In speaking with Derek, he told me he is proud to assist in this effort. Yes, the funding includes more than $1 million that directly goes to supporting Derek and his team, but the real reward is in knowing that our work can greatly impact people’s lives.

To me, and to many others within our research community, that is the true payoff.

—Mihai Pop, UMIACS Director

Computing & Health

Our researchers are active on multiple fronts to improve the human condition. This includes partnering with physicians and clinicians to build new technologies for diagnostic procedures and medical training, developing new analysis tools to explore the human genome, and emerging research and scholarship involving the microbiome. Much of this activity takes places in the multiple centers and several large interdisciplinary labs that UMIACS supports.

Computing & Security

As computational platforms have advanced to benefit society in myriad ways, so has the need to protect people, finances and property from cyberattacks and other forms of digital malfeasance. Our cybersecurity center is renowned for its interdisciplinary research and scholarship in multiple areas involving privacy and security. UMIACS is also a leader in computer vision, 3D audio, and emerging areas of security research that involve machine learning and quantum cryptography. Much of this activity takes places in the multiple centers and several large interdisciplinary labs that UMIACS supports.

Emerging Technologies

Our researchers are active in emerging areas of scientific discovery—quantum, autonomy, and microbiome sciences, to name but a few—which have the capacity to transform digital communications, pharmaceutical testing, agriculture and the environment, and much more. While AI itself is not new, our work in changing the way AI systems are designed, developed, deployed and governed is expected to reap significant dividends in science and society. Much of this activity takes places in the multiple centers and several large interdisciplinary labs that UMIACS supports.

Director's Message to UMIACS April '24

Whenever I meet with prospective new faculty interested in joining UMIACS, I always discuss the resources available as a member of our institute.

Those resources include assistance with research proposals and post-award management; onboarding of graduate students or postdocs; help in navigating the often-complex procurement process for large-scale equipment purchases; and much more.

At the top of my list is our powerful computing infrastructure and a dedicated tech staff focused on advancing high performance research computing. Those capabilities, and how we’re growing in this area, are featured in this month’s newsletter.

The technical resources we provide—not just in computing power, but in the ability to work with faculty to design, purchase, install and maintain a complex system from the ground up—reminds me of the development of a streamlined rocket ship.

There are multiple individuals involved, all working toward a common goal of providing the best tools needed for our faculty and students to excel in their work. Bravo to our UMIACS tech staff! Your commitment and professionalism does not go unnoticed.

The newsletter also features a story on the five-year anniversary of our move into the Iribe Center. We remain thankful for the private support and state funding that made this building possible.

We also remain committed to growing the vision of the building’s namesake, Brendan Iribe. The 215,000 square foot structure remains a powerhouse in computing education, while also incentivizing interdisciplinary research and innovation that will have an impact on the world.

That idea—research, education and innovation in computing that can change our world—is not exclusive to any one person. There are others that echo that thought, including our valued colleague and friend Rance Cleaveland, who passed away unexpectedly on March 27.

I encourage you to read our remembrance of Rance, who regularly put the mission and success of the organizations he was involved with above his own personal aspirations. His excellent record of teaching, research and service, deep institutional knowledge and positive attitude—no matter how challenging the circumstances—will be deeply missed, but not forgotten.

—Mihai Pop, UMIACS Director
 

Director's Message to UMIACS July '24

Hot enough for you?

If you’ve been in Maryland for much of the summer as I have, you’re acutely aware of the above-normal-temperatures we’re experiencing.

The science behind predicting extreme weather—including overbearing heat that can harm humans, animals and our environment—continues to progress, due in no small part to scientists having new tools based in computing.

This month’s newsletter touches on that topic, with a video overview of research and scholarship by Maria Molina, an assistant professor of oceanic and atmospheric science who is also a member of UMIACS.

Maria uses powerful data science and machine learning tools—some of which are managed by our institute—to solve pressing questions on predicting the volatility of Earth systems.

Her work is important, and I am particularly pleased that she’s collaborating with our machine learning and computational imaging experts—people like Chris Metzler and others—to improve weather and climate forecasts.

It’s not an outlier that UMIACS is involved the Earth sciences. When I started here 20 years ago, we were still active in land cover and land use research involving satellite imagery.

Some of that research has ended, but other UMIACS-based projects continue to address global challenges brought on by changing climatic conditions and weather-related factors.

Rita Colwell has been actively researching environmental conditions that can lead to outbreaks of waterborne diseases like cholera for decades; others, like Vanessa Frias-Martinez, are continuing their groundbreaking work in data science as it relates to predicting human movement patterns during catastrophes caused by severe weather.

Rita is a computational biologist. Vanessa is a data scientist based in the College of Information. But their work, and the work of many others active in the Earth sciences, relies on cutting-edge computing platforms.

I am proud of the work we do in this area. And I’ll continue to support UMIACS faculty, postdocs and students who are intent on using technology to improve the health and sustainability of our planet.

—Mihai Pop, UMIACS Director
 

Director's Message to UMIACS September '24

Welcome back to a busy Fall 2024 semester. A quick glance at this month’s newsletter shows a lot of activity over the summer—successful undergraduate internships, prestigious faculty awards, outstanding academic work by our graduate students and postdocs, and much more.

It never ceases to amaze me what a vibrant research community we have.

Some of the mechanisms that underlie our success are easily seen. This includes our faculty earning recognition from their peers and from professional organizations, or UMIACS researchers receiving significant external funding as a principal investigator or as part of an interdisciplinary team.

Other reasons for our success are more subdued, yet are equally as important.

As we began the semester, I sent an email out that offered thanks to the numerous UMIACS faculty that have volunteered to serve on our APT, steering and merit pay committees. This is important service work that keeps the institute functioning smoothly and helps immensely as we continue to move forward.

On that note, I want to offer a heartfelt “Thank You” to Joseph JaJa, who has dedicated much of his professional career to helping make UMIACS what it is today.

I encourage you to look at this issue's feature story that highlights Joseph’s successful journey at the University of Maryland, and his unwavering service to UMIACS. While officially retired, he still comes to his office in the Iribe Center on a regular basis, maintaining several longtime research collaborations he’s built while also exploring new ones.

Joseph has been an invaluable resource during my time as director of the institute. And he’s also a beacon of positivity to the many people he talks with—fellow faculty, our tech and business staff, and others—as he makes the trek from his office to our kitchen area several times each day for his beloved coffee.

Joseph’s commitment to service is certainly an inspiration to me. The impact that he’s had during his time here—for his students, fellow faculty members, and our staff—is quite large, and will remain that way for many years to come.

—Mihai Pop, UMIACS Director

Director's Message to UMIACS October '24

As we continue working through a busy fall semester, our newsletter is once again filled to the brim with important news updates.

Several of the stories amplify the interdisciplinary, cross-institutional partnerships that define much of our work. One example is Furong Huang and Tom Goldstein collaborating with researchers at the University of Chicago and the University of Texas at Austin on autonomy in robotics.

Another is Michael Cummings and Ph.D. student Rana Khalil working with Parkinson’s disease experts at the University of Maryland, Baltimore.

And take a look at the work involving stroke assessment in a clinical setting that Amitabh Varshney is doing with the physician’s assistant program at UMB.

These are bold, innovative ideas that can have an impact on clinical care, medical training, safety in autonomous vehicles, and much more.

Less visible, yet vital to the projects described above, are the numerous people in UMIACS that help bring these ideas to fruition.

Like most faculty, I recognize the important contributions that our graduate students make to advancing research and scholarship on our campus. Sometimes this is easily acknowledged—the graduate student may earn a significant honor or be listed as first author on an academic paper.

Other times it's less obvious, although we all realize the untold hours that our grad students spend doing research, preparing for demos and talks, or presenting their work in poster sessions at academic conferences.

To the 200-plus graduate students that UMIACS currently supports, we say “Thank You.” Your contributions are vital to our success.

And while I have stated unequivocally—multiple times—that the staff support we have in UMIACS is second-to-none, it’s worth acknowledging again that the scientific discoveries we make are inextricably linked to the hard work done by our business, tech and communications staff.

All of the research funding managed by UMIACS requires multiple layers of support. This includes pre-and post-award management, assistance with purchasing, installing and maintaining equipment, and strategic communications that encourage internal and external stakeholders to collaborate with our institute.

It’s a team effort across the board. Our faculty researchers identify and execute bold ideas that will have a broad scientific and societal impact; our excellent staff and talented graduate students provide the bedrock of support to make these ideas happen.

Keep up the good work, everyone!

—Mihai Pop, UMIACS Director