The University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP) and the University of Maryland School of Medicine at the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) have launched a B.S.- M.D. program to prepare highly motivated undergraduate students majoring in engineering, computer science, or mathematics to succeed in medical school.

Students enrolled in the B.S.-M.D. program will complete their undergraduate degrees while gaining hands-on clinical experience at the School of Medicine. They will also be paired with a faculty member for a one-year research project related to engineering or data science with a clear health care impact and receive advising on pre-med coursework requirements. Designed to help students see the connections between data, innovation, and patient care, the program will encourage them to think critically about how bias and health disparities impact medical outcomes, especially as technologies such as artificial intelligence become more pervasive in health care.

The B.S.-M.D. program aims to recruit more engineers and data scientists into clinical professions, helping to bring new skills and perspectives into the future of medicine. It is supported by a five-year, $12.75 million grant from the University of Maryland Strategic Partnership: MPowering the State, which connects the world-class strengths in education, research, and technology at UMCP and UMB.

Biomedical Advances for Glaucoma

Giuliano Scarcelli — a UMCP professor of bioengineering and co-director of the Edward & Jennifer St. John Center for Translational Engineering and Medicine — has spent his 20-year career building novel microscopes that detect early stages of corneal disease. Now he is using his technology to explore the causes of glaucoma: a progressive, irreversible disease that is the second-leading cause of blindness worldwide.

Debuting earlier this year for patient testing at the School of Medicine, a first-of-its-kind microscope built by Scarcelli relies on Brillouin microscopy, a light-scattering technique that measures the stiffness of tissues and cells.

Dr. Osamah J. Saeedi — an expert in glaucoma and professor of ophthalmology and visual sciences at the School of Medicine who joins Scarcelli as co-director of the St. John Center—is betting that the new microscope can success- fully be applied to his patients: “For glaucoma, there’s been a real need to determine the basic biomechanics of the eye. We want to find a way to do it noninvasively, and with Giuliano’s technique there is vast potential.”

Published in UMB News | January 7, 2026

Baltimore, MD –  The University of Maryland’s expanding investment in high-impact research—work that improves lives in communities across the state, nation, and world—helped propel it to No. 14 among all U.S. institutions and No. 9 among public institutions in the National Science Foundation’s latest Higher Education Research and Development (HERD) survey, up from No. 18 overall and No. 11 among public institutions the previous year.

No. 14 among all U.S. institutions

No. 9 among public institutions

The University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) and University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP) are linked as a single research enterprise in the HERD survey, the most widely recognized national benchmark for sponsored research activity, which ranked research and development spending at U.S. institutions in fiscal year 2024. This represents one of the highest rankings to date for our R1 (Carnegie Classification) research enterprise and record combined research expenditures exceeding $1.5 billion – an increase of more than $154 million from fiscal year 2023.

“The growth of our research enterprise reflects the growing impact of our work together,” said Bruce Jarrell, President of the University of Maryland, Baltimore. “Our researchers do more than advance knowledge in their fields; they work tirelessly to ensure that the discoveries they make improve the health and well-being of people world-wide. In this way, our ranking is much more than scorecard, it is a testament to the critical importance of public higher education and research institutions here in Maryland.”

“This milestone reflects the power of collaboration and a shared commitment to improving lives through research conducted at Maryland’s two premier public universities,” said Darryll J. Pines, President of the University of Maryland, College Park. “By uniting College Park’s leadership in engineering, science and technology with Baltimore’s strengths in medicine, health and human services, we are accelerating the translation of discovery into patient care and community benefit. Our combined success in the HERD rankings affirms that when we work as one enterprise, we deliver outcomes that truly matter.”

The University of Maryland Strategic Partnership Act of 2016 strengthened and formalized the structured relationship between UMB and UMCP under the aegis of University of Maryland Strategic Partnership: MPowering the State (MPower). MPower-sponsored joint research centers include a wide array of scientific collaboration, such as the Maryland Blended Reality Center, The Center for Health-Related Informatics and BioImaging, and the University of Maryland Institute for Health Computing.

The partnership between UMCP and UMB was further strengthened in January of 2025 with the launch of a transformative collaboration to tackle a broad spectrum of health challenges and advance medical innovation: the Edward & Jennifer St. John Center for Translational Engineering and Medicine. Located on the fourth floor of 4MLK, a new state-of-the-art facility in the University of Maryland BioPark in Baltimore, the center is designed to ensure that real-world clinical needs directly inform the development of new devices, diagnostics, and treatments—accelerating the pathway from research to patient care.

“The strength of our unified research enterprise allows us to work across boundaries and turn breakthroughs into real-world solutions,” said Vice President for Research Patrick O’Shea. “Our continued growth is a testament to the talent of our faculty, the dedication of our students and staff, and the state’s strong commitment to research that delivers measurable benefits for Maryland and beyond.”

About the University of Maryland, Baltimore

The University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) was founded in 1807 as the Maryland College of Medicine, which now stands as the nation’s oldest public medical school. In response to growing social and cultural needs, UMB’s mission has evolved and grown tremendously. Widely recognized as a preeminent institution, UMB serves as the academic health, law, and social work university of the University System of Maryland and is guided by a mission to improve the human condition and serve the public good through education, research, clinical care, and service.

UMB is a thriving academic health center combining cutting-edge biomedical research, exceptional patient care, and nationally ranked academic programs. With extramural funding totaling $636 million in Fiscal Year 2025, each tenured/tenure-track faculty member generates an average of $1.46 million in research grants per year. Our 3,108 faculty members conduct leading-edge research and develop solutions and technologies that impact human health locally and around the world. World-class facilities and cores, as well as interprofessional centers and institutes, allow faculty to investigate pressing questions in a highly collaborative fashion. As a result, the more than 6,800 students, postdocs, and trainees directly benefit from working and learning alongside leading experts as they push the boundaries of their fields. For a listing of UMB’s organized research centers and institutes, visit umaryland.edu/research/umb-research-profile/research-centers-and-institutions. 

About the University of Maryland, College Park

The University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP) is the state’s flagship university driven by a community of more than 50,000 fearless Terrapins. As a leading research university and top 20 public institution, UMCP is proud to be part of the Association of American Universities. Dedicated to excellence and impact for the public good, the university is propelled by a $1.4 billion joint research enterprise. UMCP is the nation’s first Do Good campus, and is consistently ranked for its innovation, research and top-tier academic programs. Located in the National Capital Region, the university offers an unparalleled student experience with federal internship opportunities, hundreds of academic programs and study abroad options, and top-ranked living-learning programs. Spurred by a culture of innovation and creativity, UMCP’s faculty are global leaders in their fields and include Nobel laureates, Pulitzer Prize winners and members of the national academies. For more information about the University of Maryland, College Park, visit umd.edu .

Dear Colleagues,

We are tremendously proud to share that our commitment to investing in high-impact research — work that improves lives in communities across the state, nation, and world — helped propel the University of Maryland research enterprise to No. 14 among all U.S. institutions and No. 9 among public institutions in the National Science Foundation’s latest Higher Education Research and Development (HERD) survey, up from No. 18 overall and No. 11 among public institutions the previous year.

The University of Maryland, College Park and the University of Maryland, Baltimore are linked as a single research enterprise in the HERD survey, the most widely recognized national benchmark for sponsored research activity, which ranked research and development spending at U.S. institutions in Fiscal Year 2024. This represents one of our highest rankings to date and record combined research expenditures exceeding $1.5 billion — an increase of more than $154 million from FY23.

This milestone reflects the power of collaboration and a shared commitment to improving lives through research conducted at Maryland’s two premier public universities. By uniting College Park’s leadership in engineering, science, and technology with Baltimore’s strengths in medicine, health, and human services, we are accelerating the translation of discovery into patient care and community benefit. 

Our combined success in the HERD rankings affirms that when we work as one enterprise, we deliver outcomes that truly matter. Our continued growth is a testament to the talent of our faculty, the dedication of our staff and students, and the state’s strong commitment to research that delivers measurable benefits for Maryland and beyond.

Thank you for all you do to support university research and impact lives across the globe.

Sincerely, 

The 2025 Agricultural and Environmental Law Conference, hosted by the Agriculture Law Education Initiative (ALEI), was held on November 10, 2025, at the Graduate Hotel in Annapolis, Maryland. The annual conference brought together a diverse audience of agricultural service providers, attorneys, educators, environmental professionals, producers, landowners, policymakers, and students to explore the evolving legal landscape at the intersection of agriculture and environmental regulation in Maryland.

The day began with welcome remarks from Dr. Stephan Tubene, who set the tone for a full agenda focused on timely and complex legal issues affecting agriculture. Morning sessions examined Maryland’s growing energy demands and their impacts on rural communities, including legal considerations surrounding transmission lines, eminent domain, and agrivoltaics. Attendees also received critical guidance on Maryland’s new Heat Illness Prevention Standard, with perspectives from both regulators and farmers on compliance and worker protection.

Midday discussions highlighted farmer-centered approaches to strengthening local food security through community partnerships and policy solutions, followed by an agricultural and environmental law update covering key 2025 developments and a look ahead to 2026. A pre-lunch address from Renée Hutchins Laurent, JD, Dean of the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law, underscored the importance of continued collaboration between legal, academic, and agricultural communities.

Afternoon sessions focused on the effectiveness of economic incentives for riparian buffer adoption and the environmental benefits they provide, as well as an in-depth discussion of federal agricultural appropriations and USDA grant programs. Maryland Secretary of Agriculture Kevin Atticks offered remarks emphasizing the state’s commitment to supporting farmers and conservation efforts. The conference concluded with closing remarks from Darren H. Jarboe, reflecting on the day’s insights and the value of ongoing education and dialogue.

ALEI thanks our sponsors for their generous support and all of our attendees and speakers for contributing their time, expertise, and engagement. Your participation continues to make this conference a valuable forum for education, collaboration, and thoughtful discussion on agricultural and environmental law in Maryland. We look forward to welcoming you back next year for another engaging and informative Agricultural and Environmental Law Conference.

The University of Maryland’s expanding investment in high-impact research—work that improves lives in communities across the state, nation and world—helped propel it to No. 14 among all U.S. institutions and No. 9 among public institutions in the most widely recognized benchmark for sponsored research activity. That’s a one-year jump from No. 18 overall and No. 11 among public institutions in the National Science Foundation’s latest Higher Education Research and Development (HERD) survey.

No. 14 among all U.S. institutions

No. 9 among public institutions

The University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP) and the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) are linked as a single research enterprise in the HERD survey. Together, they reported more than $1.5 billion in combined research expenditures in fiscal 2024, one of the enterprise’s highest rankings to date and an increase of more than $154 million from the previous fiscal year.

“This milestone reflects the power of collaboration and a shared commitment to improving lives through research conducted at Maryland’s two premier public universities,” said Darryll J. Pines, UMCP president. “By uniting College Park’s leadership in engineering, science and technology with Baltimore’s strengths in medicine, health and human services, we are accelerating the translation of discovery into patient care and community benefit. Our combined success in the HERD rankings affirms that when we work as one enterprise, we deliver outcomes that truly matter.”

The growth of the research enterprise reflects the growing impact of the two institutions’ combined work, said Bruce Jarrell, UMB president. 

“Our researchers do more than advance knowledge in their fields; they work tirelessly to ensure that the discoveries they make improve the health and well-being of people worldwide,” he said. “In this way, our ranking is much more than a scorecard, it is a testament to the critical importance of public higher education and research institutions here in Maryland.”

That partnership was further strengthened in January with the launch of a transformative collaboration to tackle a broad spectrum of health challenges and advance medical innovation: the Edward & Jennifer St. John Center for Translational Engineering and Medicine. Located at 4MLK, a new state-of-the-art facility in the University of Maryland BioPark in Baltimore, the center is designed to ensure that real-world clinical needs directly influence the development of new devices, diagnostics and treatments—accelerating the pathway from research to patient care.

“The strength of our unified research enterprise allows us to work across boundaries and turn breakthroughs into real-world solutions,” said Vice President for Research Patrick O’Shea. “Our continued growth is a testament to the talent of our faculty, the dedication of our students and staff, and the state’s strong commitment to research that delivers measurable benefits for Maryland and beyond.”

Published on UMB’s website, Adapted for the MPower website | December 17, 2025

Farmers, legal scholars, environmentalists, and state officials gathered in Annapolis on Nov. 10 for the 2025 Agricultural and Environmental Law Conference, where discussions centered on building resilient local food systems.

During a pre-lunch address at the conference hosted by the University of Maryland Agriculture Law Education Initiative (ALEI), Renée Laurent, JD, dean of the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law in Baltimore, acknowledged the challenges farmers face as they scramble to keep up with policy shifts affecting everything from global trade to SNAP benefits to climate-smart agriculture grants.

“It’s dizzying imagining how hard it would be to keep up with changes,” Laurent said. “That highlights just how really critically important the work of ALEI is.”

The conference is an annual highlight for ALEI, a University of Maryland Strategic Partnership: MPowering the State (MPower) initiative that is a collaboration of Maryland Carey Law; the College of Agriculture & Natural Resources (AGNR) at the University of Maryland, College Park; and the School of Agricultural and Natural Sciences at the University of Maryland, Eastern Shore. Launched in 2013, ALEI’s mission is to educate and serve Maryland family farmers by providing expert information and training on complex legal issues such as estates and trusts, regulatory compliance, and farm food safety.

Maryland’s Agricultural Priorities

In his keynote speech, Maryland Secretary of Agriculture Kevin Atticks outlined three priorities for Maryland agriculture. Conservation is paramount, he said, adding that the state’s Department of Agriculture will launch the Leaders in Environmentally Engaged Farming Program in 2026 to encourage farmers to increase conservation practices.

Agricultural literacy and food system resiliency round out the priorities, particularly relevant given recent SNAP benefit disruptions that caused payment delays and uncertainty for the 42 million Americans relying on nutrition assistance. Atticks pointed to lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic, when supply chain failures left grocery stores empty while local farmers had abundant food.

Atticks noted improvements require changing the law. “It’s changing our food system, little tweaks here and there, like 20 percent buying local here, or one more school system decides to buy local there. It’s decoding what they need.”

Farmers and Food Security

Megan Todd, JD, senior research associate and managing director of ALEI at Maryland Carey Law, moderated a food security panel that explored the impact of federal policy changes as well as state and local solutions. She noted that over 600,000 Maryland residents who receive SNAP benefits were thrown into a period of nutritional uncertainty when benefits were disrupted during the federal government shutdown.

“This is a very timely topic, not just because of the work that we’ve been doing, but for many other unfortunate reasons,” Todd said. “This situation that we have is truly unprecedented.”

The panel featured Erin Duru, assistant director of Maryland’s SNAP-Ed program; Nancy Nunn, assistant director of the AGNR Harry R. Hughes Center for Agro-Ecology; and Del. Lorig Charkoudian, District 20, Montgomery County, a longtime advocate for local food access and farm-to-school programs.

Through a Sustainable Agriculture and Education grant, Todd’s team has provided technical assistance to help 26 Maryland farmers navigate the complex process of becoming authorized SNAP vendors. The work addresses both market access for farmers and food security for low-income residents.

“Farmers that I work with are truly invested in their communities,” Todd said. “They’re truly invested in the idea of helping to make the people in their community healthier, and that also comes with the benefit of supporting their business.”

Charkoudian asked attendees how many were familiar with the Certified Local Farm and Fish Program enacted in 2022. A few raised their hands. “It seems like such an obvious idea that’s taken years and years,” she said of the program she described as a “work in progress.”

The program is designed to increase economic participation of Maryland farms and seafood processors by requiring state agencies to purchase 20 percent of food from farms meeting Maryland nutrient management standards. If they don’t use Maryland farmers, agencies must provide justification.

“We’re forcing the conversation,” she said, noting that Maryland farmers have been boxed out of state procurement because they weren’t part of international distribution chains. “Now we’re able to talk to a farmer who didn’t get the contract, and it was because the sizes of the eggs didn’t work for the prison system. So now we can start to look at the prison system rules about egg size and say, ‘Do we really need that rule?’ ”

A Farmer’s Perspective

VK Holtzendorf, owner of Red Top Farm and an 11-year conference attendee, emphasized the connection between food assistance programs and farm viability. Her 13-acre farm in southern Anne Arundel County specializes in winter greens.

During the pandemic, when her restaurant clients were shuttered, Holtzendorf provided produce to a local church food pantry. Police directed traffic as cars lined up for the distribution.

“They were gone in an hour, and we just had no idea the demand,” she said.

Holtzendorf noted that SNAP program disruptions create a ripple effect throughout the agricultural community.

“When you threaten cuts, not only do you hurt the people who are using the SNAP benefits, but the farmers, too,” she said.

Other panels addressed pressing farming and environmental issues including transmission line development across agricultural land, riparian buffers, solar energy expansion, Maryland’s new heat illness prevention standard and federal appropriations for USDA programs.

Paul Goeringer, JD, MS, LLM, AGNR principal faculty specialist and extension specialist, provided a comprehensive 2025 agricultural and environmental law update with an eye on changes coming in 2026. He discussed recent state right-to-farm rulings, evolving PFAS (so-called “forever chemicals” that build up in the environment and may be linked to certain health issues) litigation and regulation, and key legislative changes impacting agriculture.

MPowering the State

Laurent praised ALEI’s ability to support Maryland agriculture through uncertain times.

“By working together, our impact is so much larger than any of us working alone,” she said. “This partnership helps us to do that.”

MPower specifically has enabled the law school to expand clinical programs, host specialized events, and offer courses on agricultural law. Laurent noted particular success with the Brinsfield internship program, now in its seventh year, which assisted the Maryland Farm Bureau with local food procurement research during summer 2025.

“It is very important for us that we create that next generation of ag lawyers who will spend their careers helping farmers,” she said.

Published on the CMNS website, Adapted for the MPower website | December 10, 2025

Cervical cancer is the fourth most common cancer for women in the world, with more than 660,000 new cases and nearly 350,000 deaths per year. Now, University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP) mathematicians have developed effective strategies to help contain and potentially eliminate the disease. The research, published last week in the journal Bulletin of Mathematical Biology, offers a new mathematical model that can help public health officials design effective vaccination and cancer screening policies.

“The study provides a clear way of showing how science is influencing policy,” said study senior author Abba Gumel, a Distinguished University Professor of Mathematics at UMCP who holds joint appointments in the University of Maryland Institute for Health Computing and the Institute for Physical Science and Technology. 

Nearly all cervical cancer cases are caused by human papillomavirus (HPV), which is considered the most common sexually transmitted infection in the world. HPV, a vaccine-preventable disease, is often asymptomatic and resolves naturally within two years in 90% of cases, but persistent infection in the remainder can lead to cancer.

HPV vaccines, which are already offered and recommended in 147 countries, can minimize disease spread and cancer risk. UMCP researchers developed a new mathematical model to assess the efficacy of various vaccination strategies, which they tested with a case study on South Korea. 

“Cervical cancer is one of the few cancers effectively prevented by vaccines,” said study lead author Soyoung Park, a Ph.D. candidate in applied mathematics & statistics, and scientific computation at UMCP. “It was important to check if the recent government program for offering vaccines is going to be enough to effectively control the disease in Korea.”

Building a case study for South Korea

The model presented in the study incorporates previously published demographic and epidemiological data to predict how HPV transmits across a population. It stratifies people by sex, vaccination status, HPV infection and cancer progression, and it was calibrated using South Korean cancer data from 1999 to 2020. The model can be used to test how different vaccination strategies fare over time.

Simulations of the model revealed that current South Korean policies are insufficient to eliminate HPV and related cancers in the country. South Korea’s National Immunization Program (NIP), which started in 2016, currently vaccinates roughly 80% of the nation’s girls aged 12-17. Another 30,000 women aged 18-26 receive “catch-up vaccinations” annually. Additionally, the National Cancer Screening Program provides regular Pap tests to detect cancerous lesions for roughly 61% of Korean women older than 20. These existing efforts will reduce HPV-associated cancer burden over time, the authors found, but they will not eliminate the virus. 

“It’s achieving the objective of reducing cases of cervical cancer, but it’s not going to eliminate it,” said Gumel, who has collaborated with the modeling team of Merck Inc., the company that originally developed the HPV vaccine. “The objective is elimination.” 

South Korea could eliminate HPV by expanding vaccine access, the researchers found. The authors explored two scenarios where NIP could be improved. The first involved expanding vaccine access to cover 99% of females. Additionally, because the authors found that immunizing boys has a strong spillover effect of protecting females, the second scenario involved maintaining the current 80% female vaccination coverage while vaccinating 65% of boys aged 12-17. Model simulations suggest that these efforts would eliminate HPV-related cancers in South Korea within 60 and 70 years, respectively. 

Both vaccination strategies for expanded coverage are feasible in Korea given that national coverage for infant immunizations, such as measles, under NIP approaches 98%, Park said. She added that public buy-in for vaccination campaigns is high in South Korea. 

“There’s very low vaccine hesitancy,” she said. 

“Vaccinating boys reduces the pressure of having to vaccinate a large proportion of females,” added Gumel, who also holds the Michael and Eugenia Brin Endowed E-Nnovate Chair in Mathematics. “It makes elimination more realistically achievable.”

Applying the model around the world

The two solutions the researchers propose would achieve herd immunity, meaning that people who cannot be vaccinated—for example, the elderly or those allergic to the vaccine—would be protected against HPV and related cancers. 

“The way to protect them is to surround them with a sea of immunity,” Gumel said. 

The authors showed that while expanding Pap test coverage may only offer marginal benefits, strategies that promote safer sex practices, like condom use, would be very effective in curtailing the burden of HPV and related cancers in communities. 

Now, Park is tweaking the model to explicitly account for the contact dynamics of men who have sex with men, as well as other high-risk groups, such as female sex workers. 

At a conference talk last year in South Korea, Park connected with researchers who work closely with Korean public health agencies. They showed strong interest in sharing data and potentially using the study to improve NIP. She added that the findings are applicable around the world—including in the U.S. 

“We could use different data to compare the lessons learned about HPV to the U.S.,” Park said. “Can we do the same thing? Will the same set of intervention strategies work effectively here?” 

Gumel sees reason to try. He reckons that with the 95% effective Gardisil-9 vaccine offered in the U.S., around 70% coverage would be sufficient to achieve herd immunity.

“We do not have to be losing 350,000 people globally to cervical cancer each year,” Gumel said. “We can see an end to HPV and HPV-related cancers if we improve the vaccination coverage.”

Nancy Nunn was appointed the Interim Director of the Harry R. Hughes Center for Agro-Ecology. The announcement comes following the retirement of Executive Director Dr. Kate Everts in October. Nunn previously served as Interim Director prior to the hiring of Dr. Everts.

Nunn has played a key leadership role at the Hughes Center since 2007, having first served as the Center’s part-time development coordinator before moving on to serving as the communications and outreach coordinator and then assistant director in 2017. She was especially influential in shaping the Center’s engagement with state and local governments as they created Watershed Implementation Plans (WIPs) for the Chesapeake Bay clean-up, and has led the Center’s work in Maryland’s food system and food security areas. Since that time, she has served as the President of the Maryland Agriculture Council, as an Executive Committee member of the Delmarva Land and Litter Collaborative, and is a former co-chair of the state’s Food System Resiliency Council. She currently serves on the Governor’s Intergovernmental Commission for Agriculture. 

Nunn has also served as the lead on several recent grant initiatives, including work funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture and led by Penn State University in partnership with several other universities, including University of Maryland, on evaluating how to achieve a thriving agricultural system over the next several decades in a regional landscape that continues to urbanize. She also leads the Hughes Center’s Northeast SARE grant collaboration with the Agriculture Law Education Initiative (ALEI), which aims to increase the number of farmers in Maryland who accept payments via government supplemental food programs like SNAP and WIC. This both expands food access in vulnerable communities and also opens new direct markets for farmers.

Nunn also leads the Russell Brinsfield Internship Program for the Hughes Center, an internship conducted in partnership with the ALEI and is funded by the University of Maryland: Strategic Partnership: MPowering the State. Held each summer, the internship program engages students from UMCP’s College of Agriculture and Natural Resources and the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law in Baltimore who work on projects addressing issues and research questions in Maryland’s agriculture and natural resources sectors.

A video about the Brinsfield Internship Program is available here:

The following letter was sent by University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) Provost and Executive Vice President Roger J. Ward, EdD, JD, MSL, MPA, and University of Maryland, College Park Senior Vice President and Provost Jennifer King Rice, PhD, MS, on Nov. 19. UMB faculty can find information about eligibility, how to apply, and deadlines on the UMB website.

Dear UMB,

The missions of both the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) and the University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP) are grounded in research, scholarship, education, and creative endeavors. Even in times of uncertainty, these pursuits remain essential to our shared commitment to advancing knowledge and working for the greater good. 

As part of a broader strategy to sustain and strengthen these activities in the years ahead, we are pleased to announce the establishment of the MPower Early Scholars Investment Fund. 

The University of Maryland Strategic Partnership: MPowering the State (MPower) has committed $7.5 million to this program, split between both institutions over three years. Both UMB and UMCP PhD students, postdocs, and junior faculty who have felt the direct impact of recent cuts to research funding will be eligible for support. Further, this short-term, high-impact initiative is designed to sustain the scholar pipeline and protect our joint research enterprise.

Recognizing that each university has distinct needs and faces unique challenges, there will be separate application processes for UMB and UMCP. In the coming days, faculty will receive additional details about the program and how to apply from their respective leadership. We anticipate that the first round of awards will be announced in January 2026.

The MPower Early Scholars Investment Fund reflects our shared belief that investing in early scholars today will yield discoveries, innovations, and creative breakthroughs that will benefit society for years to come. 

On behalf of the MPower Joint Steering Council, we are grateful for this opportunity to support the future of research, and we look forward to seeing the transformative impact of this program.