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Expectations of Conduct for UMIACS Members
Throughout its 40+ year history, UMIACS has developed a collegial culture that values all members of the Institute equally, irrespective of academic rank or demographic characteristics. In order to promote and maintain this culture, which is a key enabler of the Institute's academic excellence, we hold all members of the Institute to the highest standards for professional and academic conduct.
Allegations of professional or scientific misconduct are addressed according to the relevant University policies, notably:
University of Maryland Policy on Faculty Professional Conduct
USM Policy on Professional Conduct and Workplace Bullying
Other relevant USM and UMD Policies:
Below we list some of the policies relevant to promoting scientific integrity and professional conduct. This list is not exhaustive. Additional policies may apply.
Non-discrimination:
University of Maryland Equal Employment Opportunity and Affirmative Action Statement of Policy
University of Maryland Policy on Non-Discrimination and Equal Opportunity
Professional Conduct:
University of Maryland Policy on Sexual Misconduct
University of Maryland Policy on Faculty Professional Conduct
USM Policy on Professional Conduct and Workplace Bullying
State of Maryland Policy on Bullying in the Workplace
Scientific Conduct:
University of Maryland Policy and Procedures Concerning Scholarly Misconduct
Research Infrastructure
Powerful computational tools are essential to our research enterprise. The computing environment in UMIACS includes more than 1,000 supported computers running a variety of operating systems, including Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Solaris, macOS, and Windows. Our networks service more than 6,000 active ports, and we manage more than four petabytes of data. All faculty, postdocs and graduate students in UMIACS are supported by a dedicated team of computing engineers and technology specialists that can design, build and maintain computing infrastructures that utilize the latest advances in technology. Our staff enables high-speed data transfers and multicast applications through the Mid Atlantic Crossroads (MAX), the Next Generation Internet Exchange (NGIX), and the Internet2 with peers at several remote sites including NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, NOAA, and the San Diego Supercomputer Center. Specific high-end research computing needs are available to UMIACS faculty and students working in data-intensive areas that include machine/deep learning toolkits and the toolchains they require like PyTorch, Caffe, Torch, TensorFlow and CNTK. We also support numerous domain-specific applications for researchers. For example, the systems support applications like OpenCV for computer vision, Gurobi Solver for linear programming in Natural Language Processing, and TecPlot for visualizing fluid dynamics models.
Iribe Center
In 2019, UMIACS moved into the Brendan Iribe Center for Computer Science and Engineering, a stunning 215,000-square-foot state-of-the-art facility that encourages research, collaboration and innovation. The building allows UMIACS faculty from distinct academic disciplines—biologists, linguists and engineers, for example—to easily collaborate with our computer science faculty.
Our Advantageous Location
The University of Maryland is the flagship campus of the state’s higher education system and a top-ranked public research university. Our advantageous location—just outside of Washington, D.C.—is a short commute to numerous federal agencies and research labs, giving our faculty and graduate students the opportunity to interact with government experts in cybersecurity, computer vision, geospatial visualization, big data analytics, high performance computing, and more.
Resources
Diversity and Inclusion
We believe that diversity is a key prerequisite of scientific excellence, and that we can only achieve our full potential if all members of our community—irrespective of seniority and rank—are valued and supported. Learn more about what we do to support diversity and inclusion here.Policies & Procedures
The operation of UMIACS is governed by a plan of organization, comprising a constitution and bylaws, as well as several policies related to the appointment, promotion, and evaluation of our members. The policies, as well as the operational procedures and processes used by UMIACS to implement these policies are described in more detail here.Intranet
The UMIACS intranet page contains information about the computational resources available in the institute, as well as a range of "self service" apps allowing you to manage your computational resources (e.g., requesting accounts for students or collaborators).Business Office
Information about the business processes in the institute, such as new appointments, travel, grant administration, etc., is available on the business office page.Broadening Participation
We believe that expanding the scientific workforce is a key prerequisite of scientific excellence, and that we can only achieve our full potential if all members of our community—irrespective of seniority and rank—are valued and supported. Learn more about the expectations of conduct for UMIACS members.
The institute is committed to broadening participation of those who want careers in computing and technology.
Many UMIACS faculty are actively engaged in activities on campus and beyond in support of this goal. The institute also provides support to a number of organizations and initiatives that promote and support broadening participation in computing, such as:
- The University of Maryland Computing Catalyst
- Technica—the world's largest hackathon celebrating underrepresented genders
- The Rising Stars in Machine Learning program organized by the University of Maryland Center for Machine Learning
- The Institute for Broadening Participation
About Us
The University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS)—pronounced YOU-me-acks—is a flagship multidisciplinary research institute where leading scientists harness the power of computation to tackle some of the most complex challenges facing science and society.
Established in 1984, UMIACS brings together more than 130 faculty members from 16 departments across the University of Maryland campus. These researchers represent a wide range of fields, including computer science, engineering, linguistics, physics, biology, information science.
A hallmark of the institute is its collaborative, team-based approach to research. UMIACS faculty, postdoctoral researchers and graduate students advance knowledge in areas such as trustworthy AI, machine translation, autonomous robotics, microbiome science, quantum information science, computer vision and cybersecurity.
UMIACS researchers secure more than $30 million annually in external funding, much of it from federal agencies and national laboratories across the Washington–Baltimore region. The institute also collaborates closely with physicians and clinicians at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, applying advanced computational techniques to accelerate biomedical research and improve health care.
To help train the next generation of researchers, UMIACS supports more than 200 graduate students pursuing Ph.D.s across multiple disciplines, and provides research opportunities for undergraduates through NSF-funded summer programs. The institute also provides administrative and technical support for interdisciplinary initiatives such as the Immersive Media Design (IMD) program, helping prepare future cohorts of innovators.
In 2019, most of our faculty, staff and graduate students moved into the Brendan Iribe Center for Computer Science and Engineering, a stunning 215,00 square foot facility that encourages innovation and collaboration. We also maintain a powerful data center and auxiliary office space in the nearby A.V. Williams Building (our former home). Faculty and students active in quantum information science have modern, renovated offices and meeting rooms in the Atlantic Building.
The success of UMIACS in catalyzing and excelling in interdisciplinary applications of computing is often attributed to:
- Identification and focus on grand challenge applications of computing with significant societal impact
- Identifying and incentivizing outstanding faculty to excel in their research through rotating appointments, and
- Mediating interaction amongst interdisciplinary researchers through an outstanding computational infrastructure. We have developed the skill set and culture necessary for building strong interdisciplinary research programs, providing advanced computing research infrastructure, and first-rate technical support, which have greatly facilitated our national and international leadership role in multi-disciplinary computing.
The synergistic environment provided by UMIACS is currently enabling innovative collaborations between faculty from:
We also have numerous affiliate and adjunct faculty from Physics, Chemistry and Biochemistry, Philosophy, Entomology, Atmospheric & Oceanic Science, Mathematics, Mechanical Engineering, and the School of Music, as well as a dozen federal scientists embedded full-time on the UMD campus working in areas related to quantum computing.
Who is UMIACS?
UMIACS is comprised of many talented individuals that fall largely into one of the categories listed below. Except for graduate students and affiliate or adjunct members, an individual is a member of UMIACS if they have a payroll appointment in the institute, i.e., if at least part of their salary is paid through the institute.
Business office, technology, and communication staff provide the core services offered to our community.
UMIACS faculty serve as mentors to many graduate students. These students are initially admitted to the campus through one of the graduate programs to which our faculty belong, then join the institute when they join the labs of our faculty. Students with a payroll appointment in UMIACS are paid at UMIACS graduate stipend rates.
Professional track (PTK) faculty is a University of Maryland term/category for faculty who are not eligible for tenure. In UMIACS, such faculty are mostly engaged in research activities, are appointed on a contractual basis, and largely supported through external funding. Professional track faculty appointments are governed by the UMIACS Appointment, Evaluation, and Promotion (APT) policy for professional track faculty.
According to the University of Maryland policies, postdoctoral researchers are classified as professional track faculty (see above). Unlike other professional track titles, postdoctoral appointments are temporary. An individual may hold this title for a maximum of 6 years, and new hires must have completed their Ph.D. within five years of the start of their appointment.
Tenured or tenure-track faculty members who have a payroll appointment in the institute represent the core faculty of the institute and are responsible for staffing the committees that govern our operations, and for leading the scientific activities of the institute. UMIACS is not a tenure-granting unit, thus all core tenure-track faculty have joint appointments in other departments on campus. All joint appointments in the institute are made on a rotating basis and are reviewed by the UMIACS Appointments, Promotion, and Tenure (APT) committee. Appointments at the assistant and associate professor levels are typically renewed every 3 years, while appointments at the full professor level are typically renewed every 5 years.
Faculty from outside the University of Maryland (adjunct) as well as campus faculty with no-cost appointments in the institute (affiliate) may have an affiliation with the institute to create stronger ties with our faculty. Generally, such affiliations do not make any UMIACS resources available to these affiliate and adjunct faculty other than including them in institute-wide communications. Resources may be provided to affiliate and adjunct faculty only in the context of externally funded research projects that are led by UMIACS faculty and that are routed through the UMIACS business office.
Mission & Vision
The University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies, known by its acronym UMIACS (pronounced YOU-me-acks), is a multidisciplinary computing research institute led by distinguished researchers and supported by a cutting-edge infrastructure. UMIACS pioneers computational science involving national defense, precision medicine, big data, cybersecurity, language and culture, and more.
Mission Statement
The mission of UMIACS is to catalyze, support and sustain collaborative and inter-disciplinary computing-focused research, scholarship and innovation through cross-cutting teamwork and stellar technical and administrative support.
Vision Statement
By deeply engaging researchers with a diversity of perspectives and backgrounds, UMIACS aspires to be a leader in high-impact scientific innovations that expand the boundaries of computing research and benefit our campus, the state of Maryland, and beyond.
Broadening Participation
We believe that expanding the scientific workforce is a key prerequisite of scientific excellence, and that we can only achieve our full potential if all members of our community—irrespective of seniority and rank—are valued and supported.
Director's Message to UMIACS Feb '24
I hope you’re enjoying the new year (both the calendar year and Lunar New Year). Given it’s now 2024, I asked someone on staff to investigate our archives for any milestone markers for UMIACS.
We have several documents showing then-University of Maryland President John S. Toll authorizing the formation of UMIACS in Fall 1984. In speaking with others, we determined our institute hit the ground running—with faculty and staff budget lines and significant work being done—in early 1985.
That means 2025 will mark four decades of forward-looking research, innovation and scholarship by UMIACS faculty—relying heavily on assistance from our talented grad students and support staff. We’ll let you know this fall if we plan to have any special recognition of this milestone next year.
But the look back did get me thinking at just how cutting-edge our institute has been from day one. Early pioneers—Rita Colwell in computational biology, Ben Shneiderman and Catherine Plaisant in human-computer interaction, Hanan Samet in spatial data structures, and Jack Minker in AI and deductive databases—conducted groundbreaking research that, for the public, almost seemed like magic.
But we’re not a community of magicians. We’re hardworking scientists and scholars continuing to push forward with bold new ideas. A quick peek at our newsletter will confirm just that.
We continue to be a leader in AI, using a socio-technical approach to improve the trustworthiness and safety of technologies that are transforming society and changing our way of life. We’re exploring the microbiome, using powerful computational tools to investigate the connectivity between microbes interacting with each other, the environment, agricultural systems, and human and animal health. We’re part of a team using data science and quantum sensors to reduce food insecurity and waste. And we’re continuing our trailblazing work in quantum computing, helping design a novel system that has a record number of qubits.
But we’ve never rested on our laurels before—we’re always pushing forward with new scientific discoveries. I expect we will continue that practice, which will require new talent and new ideas.
I’m pleased the newsletter highlights those topics as well, recognizing the superb early-career work by Christopher Metzler and Sanghamitra Dutta. Bravo to every member of our research community! The work you do is important, meaningful to society, and forward-looking. It’s not magic—it’s cutting-edge science.
—Mihai Pop, UMIACS Director
Director's Message to UMIACS March '24
Technology that is part of everyday life. We’ve been “there” for a while now. But the explosion of AI in the past few years offers food for thought on topics like trustworthiness, empowerment, inclusiveness and accountability as they relate to computing and new technologies.
We’re fortunate to have researchers in UMIACS that are addressing these questions—and more—in a meaningful way. From my view as UMIACS director, I see a common thread that is driving much of this activity: creating technology for the greater good and making scientific discoveries that improve people’s lives.
Those ideas are certainly on display in our featured story this month, an engaging video highlighting a multidisciplinary effort to help new mothers answer questions about maternal and infant health care. Jordan Boyd-Graber, one of our top experts on making machine learning more useful, more interpretable, and able to learn and interact from humans, is handling the computational end of the project.
Jordan and the rest of the team are relying heavily on Neha Srikanth, a Ph.D. student in our Computational Linguistics and Information Processing (CLIP) Lab, to manage tech-related tasks like optimizing the AI-powered question and answer software and determining best practices for hosting the platform.
Bravo to Jordan and Neha for their innovative AI work that will have a real impact in on the everyday lives of people in our community.
Nirupam Roy and his students are on that same track, developing AI software called TalkLock that can help identify deepfake videos and stop the spread of disinformation. The project has received a lot of media attention, including this feature from a Baltimore television station.
I also encourage you to read the Q&A with Hal Daumé III in Roadmap magazine. Hal lays out, in a thoughtful and precise way, the importance of ongoing work involving trustworthy AI and why new technologies being developed should help humans, not replace them.
All the projects I just mentioned benefit immensely from the support they receive from UMIACS. As AI research and scholarship continues to expand on this campus and beyond, it will take experienced technical support to ensure that the large computational infrastructures required are built and maintained with the utmost efficiency.
That’s exactly what we do in UMIACS. We have almost 40 years of experience designing, installing and maintaining high-performance platforms for research computing.
I hope you enjoy the upcoming Spring Break and look forward to seeing many of you in person afterward.
—Mihai Pop, UMIACS Director
Director's Message to UMIACS May '24
UMIACS recently hosted a trio of visitors tasked with conducting an external review of our institute. The reviewers came from academic units that somewhat mirror UMIACS—high-level, computing-focused groups at universities that require a team effort from faculty, students and staff to excel.
While a written report from our external reviewers has not yet been delivered, I was offered some anecdotal evidence through brief conversations with the committee members and those they spoke with.
UMIACS is doing very well. From our research endeavors to our computational infrastructure to the quality of our business operations and more, we set the bar high for how a top-tier research enterprise should operate.
This should be of little surprise to many members of our community. We collectively work hard, prodding each other in a focused yet professional way to improve our daily operations.
All the reviewers spoke of how impressed they were by our support staff. I may have even sensed a bit of envy from several of their comments!
Is there room for improvement? There is always room for improvement. That’s the purpose of a comprehensive external review—to highlight the good and identify areas that need attention.
But overall, I believe we came through the review process with flying colors. I cannot say enough how proud I am of the work done by each of you.
Thank you. Enjoy a break to recharge when the semester ends. We’ll see some of you over the summer and the rest of you this fall.
—Mihai Pop, UMIACS Director
Director's Message to UMIACS June '24
While the summer months offer a time to rest and recharge for many of us, the ongoing work in UMIACS continues unabated.
We continue to push forward together—making new discoveries, developing novel technologies, building interdisciplinary partnerships, garnering professional accolades, and welcoming new employees.
These topics, and more, are covered in this month’s newsletter. A common theme is that all our success stories involve teamwork.
Even individual awards and accolades—such as our adjunct faculty member and QuICS Fellow Alexey Gorshkov receiving an IEEE award for his groundbreaking work in quantum electronics—recognizes that success is rarely a solitary effort.
To quote Alexey from the article: “I am profoundly grateful to my numerous fantastic collaborators, including students and postdocs, and to my colleagues—all of these people were instrumental to completing the research that led to this award.”
This idea is echoed by Rachel Rudinger in response to her receiving the prestigious NSF CAREER award. “I am fortunate to work with a group of outstanding Ph.D. students here at the University of Maryland, and it is gratifying to be able to support them through an award that could not have materialized without their hard work.”
And Laxman Dhulipala, who was just honored by the ACM with its prestigious Kanellakis award, is quick to point out that the work he was recognized for would not have happened without his teammates. "It’s an incredible honor to have this collaborative work with Guy [Blelloch] and Julian [Shun] recognized by the ACM. They both have taught me a lot through the years,” he said.
I encourage all of you to reflect on the high level of professional camaraderie and collaboration we have in UMIACS. From pooling resources to purchase computing equipment to sharing a cup of coffee to brainstorm new ideas, the age-old concept of “the whole is greater than the sum of the parts” has worked well in UMIACS for decades.
I expect that we will continue our success—as a team—for years to come.
—Mihai Pop, UMIACS Director