Protecting our global food supply through new science and policy? Check. Building a “superbattery” to power cars of the future? Check. Discovering new measures of climate change? We’ve got that covered, too.

YOU'VE HEARD THAT MARYLAND IS TAKING ON SOME OF THE BIGGEST ISSUES FACING THE WORLD. But in every college and school on campus, students and faculty are pursuing new approaches to many other vexing and contemporary problems, whether childhood obesity, urbanization or barriers to information access.

The crew here at Terp decided with this issue to roll out a buffet of the fascinating and important work the university is undertaking right now. Below, peruse our sampling of Maryland’s unique partnerships, outside-the-classroom opportunities and inspiring research.

A. James Clark School of Engineering
Achieving the Impossible

“If somebody says something’s impossible, I just tried to think of a way to make it possible.”

If this statement from Robert Briskman M.S. ’61 seems audacious, he backs it up. For 20 years, he dreamed of a new satellite service that would provide continuous radio programming across the United States. He envisioned legions of subscribers. It would be an entertainment revolution.

Problem was: Nobody thought it would work. First, he was told that no one would ever pay for radio programming, when dozens of stations were readily available for free. And second, the technology didn’t exist.

So Briskman invented that technology. He designed and built three of the most powerful commercial satellites of the time, and launched them into a “figure 8” geosynchronous orbit over the Americas.

The result was Sirius Satellite Radio, the first major development in radio in decades. Today, Sirius XM has more than 20 million paying subscribers and on-air talent that includes Howard Stern, Martha Stewart and Bob Dylan.

“Robert is an inspiration to today’s engineering students,” says Clark School Dean Darryll Pines. “That’s why we have the Innovation Hall of Fame.”

The signature of the Clark School, the Innovation Hall of Fame recognizes pioneers of many of the most significant engineering advances in the past century: Pulse Doppler radar. The Universal Product Code. The automatic parachute.

It’s company Briskman was humbled to join at his induction in October. “I don’t know if I’m an inspiration for the next generation. My advice to them is to find problems that are unsolved and try to think up solutions for them. It’s that simple.” —BU

College of Behavioral and Social Sciences
Tracking Wildfires Worldwide

When wildfires threaten homes in California, power lines in South Africa or farmland in Botswana, technology developed in part by a Maryland geographer comes to the rescue.

Chris Justice, department chair, worked with NASA to develop the Fire Information for Resource Management System, or firms, which measures the extent and impact of fires around the world. The rapid-response mapping system uses remote sensing and data from NASA’s Aqua and Terra satellites to pinpoint fires, information that helps the National Forest Service develop its firefighting strategies and researchers track smoke that can cause health problems or commercial aviation hazards. In 2009, more than 77,000 fires in the U.S. burned a total of 5.9 million acres.

“We can use these nasa satellites for two things: pure science, to understand climate science’s impact on fire. Or we can use them to generate practical applications that allow people to better monitor their natural resources or provide health warnings,” Justice says.

Anyone around the world can view the data online or sign up for e-mail alerts from firms. Traffic to the site spiked dramatically during last summer’s forest fires in Russia. —PK

School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation
Balancing the Built Environment

Tucked among the strip malls, highways and faded industrial parks of Bladensburg, Md., is the city’s rich heritage as a major Revolutionary-era port and site of a pivotal battle in the War of 1812.

A first-of-its-kind project at the school is examining how to preserve the community’s past and revive its present, by bringing together graduate students studying real estate development, historic preservation, urban planning and landscape architecture. They and faculty, working with city officials, residents and preservationists, in December provided two vibrant, realistic redevelopment proposals for Bladensburg. At the same time, they modeled a collaborative solution for communities nationwide facing similar redevelopment challenges.

“We’re at a crisis in terms of suburban and urban development, and we have gone too long in this country letting people work in their silos,” says Assistant Professor B.D. Wortham-Galvin, who in the fall taught one of three courses devoted to the project. “Having these students work in an integrated way is a step toward a more sustainable built environment.”

Supported by the local Aman Memorial Trust, students scoured old records, interviewed current Bladensburg residents, compiled demographic information and conducted a market analysis to produce the plans for the clients to review.

This semester, the students are continuing to work with the trust and city on detailed projects that complement Bladensburg’s assets, says Professor Margaret McFarland, director of the school’s real estate development program. The physical, social and financial hurdles are significant, she says, but students are learning to confront them in a creative and productive way.

“It’s about as big a challenge as you can come up with,” she says. —LB

College of Agriculture and Natural Resources
Understanding Urbanization

Economists who study how, where and why urban areas expand generally don’t look at the effects on nearby waterways. Natural resources scientists who study the degradation of our bays, rivers and lakes in built-up areas don’t typically examine the policies that influence urbanization.

Putting those two groups together just might be the equivalent of a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup.

That’s the idea behind a new partnership of 13 senior scientists, including Maryland environmental economist Charles Towe and hydrologists, ecologists and engineers. In the fall, they received $5 million from the National Science Foundation to study the relationship of land use, climate and ecosystems in the Chesapeake Bay region. The findings could play a role in watershed and development policies at the local, state and regional levels.

Balancing the urban environment with the earth’s natural resources is the mission of the college, and Towe M.S. ’06, Ph.D. ’08 earned his doctorate “reconstructing” the Howard County, Md., of 30 years ago to determine how government policies, such as buying development rights from landowners, affected growth.

For this project, he’s expanding his work into four other Maryland counties in the bay watershed, to create models that can predict how policies and trends may further affect water sustainability.

“We make location decisions based on availability of land or water. Policies are influenced by those factors,” Towe says. “We’re attempting to say something about a messy dynamic environment.” —LB

Robert H. Smith School of Business
Demonstrating Social Responsibility

In India, ambulances are known for ferrying the dead, not saving the living. But for the past five years, a company co-founded by Naresh Jain M.B.A. ’93 has been changing that perception.

Dial 1298 for Ambulance provides ambulance service 24/7 in Mumbai and three other Indian states to anyone dialing that four-digit number. Patients pay on a unique sliding scale based on which hospital they choose: Those going to government hospitals pay less than those headed to the costlier private ones, and charges are waived for the poorest patients. Disaster and emergency patients are transported for free, too. The goal is to spread the socially conscious business model throughout India, which has no centralized emergency services.

“What it’s doing is fantastic,” says Smith School Dean G. “Anand” Anandalingam. “He’s showing you can do more than get a financial return for yourself. You can use business principles to do good for society.”

Jain says the Smith School taught him to think big and innovate. “Nothing is impossible, as long as you get your basics right,” he says. After completing his master’s degree, he was back in India, expanding his family’s plastics business and looking for an opportunity to “do something new and something more” when a friend’s mother faced a medical emergency and couldn’t get an ambulance. He and four friends, all educated in the U.S. or United Kingdom, began studying emergency medical service models at home and abroad, and voila: A business idea was born.

Since Dial 1298’s founding in 2005, the bright-yellow fleet of fully equipped ambulances has grown to 350, each staffed with a driver and emergency medical technician. The company gets approximately 60,000 calls daily and makes 1,200-plus trips per day, Jain says.

Dial 1298 has the capacity to do more, but it faces challenges that are unique to India, such as widespread misperceptions about ambulances. The private white ambulances there are expensive and more like hearses. And Indian drivers don’t traditionally make way for ambulances with sirens blaring; combine that with heavy traffic in Mumbai (population: 16.3 million), and rickshaws can often move faster than ambulances. But long-term social investor Acumen Fund is committed to the company, and last spring put solar panels on 25 of the ambulances to provide backup power. India’s blinding sunlight recharges the defibrillator and other lifesaving devices inside, reducing fuel costs and easing the environmental burden. —LB

School of Public Policy
Strengthening Good Governance, Globally

It seems that Matthew Southerland began preparing for a career as a Foreign Service officer in China when he was 2. The son of a Washington Post East Asia correspondent, he spent ages 2–8 in Beijing. Back in the States, he continued his lessons in Chinese, and he returned to China during his junior year of college, then lived in Taiwan for two years.

Now he’s one of the School of Public Policy’s first four Robertson Fellows, a new program that combines the school’s access to the policymaking process in Washington, D.C., and commitment to preparing students for a diverse scope of careers here and abroad.

The program is designed to provide the federal government with future policy leaders in international relations and foreign affairs by fully funding graduate study and a summer internship in exchange for at least three years of U.S. government service. Maryland was awarded $340,000 to establish the fellowship last fall. Joining Southerland this year are students James Trent, Christopher Vorhis and Kira West.

“I’m excited to learn about ways of being a liaison between the U.S. and other countries, interacting with officials and scholars, or helping people applying for visas,” Southerland says. —PK

Philip Merrill College of Journalism
Fusing Technology and Tradition

How do tweets threaten or enhance journalism? How does media bias influence or reinforce the public’s views? And how can multimedia be used to explain complex topics to general audiences?

As technology redefines how people find and use information, the Merrill College is exploring new ways to prepare students for a rapidly changing field while maintaining journalism’s traditional tenets, like accuracy, ethics and independence.

Part of its strategy is a unique I-Series class called “Information 3.0” that gets students thinking about how society seeks, selects and shares news and information—and gives Assistant Professor Ron Yaros an opportunity to study how students interact with technology.

“We’re learning how they’re learning from the technology, so journalism can respond to the next generation of tech users,” he says.

In the class, undergraduates from all majors conduct online research on technology and its expanding role. Students write and post articles on blogs, Twitter and Blackboard in class and on iPod touches supplied by the university. All the while, they’re learning a healthy skepticism about the information they’re collecting and an appreciation for the challenges of contemporary journalism.

The frequent surveys they take on their tech use help shape the evolving curriculum at the college and increase understanding of the industry.

“We’re only at 3.0. Like software, we’re going to go to 4.0 and 5.0 and 6.0,” says Associate Dean Katherine McAdams, referring to the course title and the field. “iPhones, smartphones and BlackBerrys are now transmitters of news. A headline is morphing into a tweet. All these things are being used in journalism in ways we never imagined.” —LB

College of Information Studies
Providing Equal Access

Closing society’s information gap isn’t as simple as stocking up on more desktop computers for public libraries. Due to lingering disparities regarding socioeconomic background, gender, language, literacy, disability, age and other factors, many people still struggle to access online resources like job listings, educational materials or government services.

A new initiative in the iSchool addresses these challenges by training the next generation of information professionals to design, develop and integrate the wide range of services, resources, technology and outreach needed to serve diverse populations.

“Information penetrates every aspect of our lives—education, employment, entertainment and more. If you don’t have equal access, then you’ll probably be left out of a lot of important things in our society,” says Paul Jaeger, principal investigator of an $800,000 grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services to support the new Information and Diverse Populations concentration in the iSchool’s master of library science program.

Jaeger expects research, classroom instruction and mentoring will allow students to develop the practical and analytical skills needed to serve people from almost any background in places like public libraries, archives, school libraries and government agencies.

He also expects the new courses to attract a range of students. “Information professionals have not necessarily represented the way that society looks,” Jaeger says. “This program is the first that specifically trains diverse information professionals to succeed in varied settings working with diverse patrons.” —TV

University Libraries
Reinventing an Institution

Think a library is only for borrowing books and reading nooks? The University Libraries are kicking that image to the curb, redefining what services, collections and spaces will meet patrons’ evolving needs.

“We’re not doing anything less than transforming libraries,” says Dean Patricia A. Steele. “That’s our goal: to make sure that the library that everyone equates with books is one that people equate with information, doing their work, getting the support they need, the environment they need—physical and virtual—and having the collections and resources they need.”

At Maryland, e-resources now account for 75 percent of the Libraries’ collections budget. In addition, the Libraries are digitizing special collections, making what was formerly available only by visiting a library now available anywhere, anytime via the Internet. They’re archiving Web pages to preserve the record of the university and state. They’re encouraging faculty to publish online and adopt principles of open access. And they’re providing students with greater access to technology and new ways to collaborate in the Terrapin Learning Commons in McKeldin Library.

“We won’t be alive in 20 years if people still think of us as a place for books,” Steele says. “We are putting forth the model of what the library is in the future, and it will be a continual and changing thing.” —LB

Undergraduate and Graduate Education
Remaking the Grade

Sweeping changes to the university’s educational core are expected to make Maryland even more of a draw for the top students in the state and around the world.

At the graduate level, Maryland is streamlining and energizing its 83 doctoral programs by admitting fewer students, boosting financial support through new grants, fellowships and research stipends and increasing mentoring and placement opportunities.

“The doctoral programs at a major research institution are really what define that institution,” says Charles Caramello, dean of the Graduate School. “It’s where great universities produce and disseminate knowledge. And it’s where the next generation of scientists and scholars, particularly in our region, are trained for positions in important federal labs and government agencies where they can have an impact.”

Undergraduates entering Maryland this fall will see an expansion of the I-Series courses launched last spring as part of the university’s revamped general education program. Students taking the courses, such as “The Sustainable City” and “Genetically Modified Humans” investigate significant issues to understand how different disciplines address them.

The new general education program, set to begin in Fall 2012, will strengthen students’ commitment to using knowledge and skills to better themselves and others, says Ira Berlin, a distinguished university professor of history.

“The changes are designed to inspire and challenge both faculty and students,” he says. —TV

College of Arts and Humanities
Extending Lines of Communication

China, Russia and India are among the 22 nations that require students to learn a second language. Most mandate that instruction start at age 7 or 8. Many students in the United States, however, can graduate from high school having studied only English.

Study after study from the U.S. government sounds the alarm about this “world language gap,” and how it puts the nation’s security and economic competitiveness at risk.

The National Foreign Language Center, housed in the college, has for 25 years been dedicated to closing this gap by providing opportunities to help Americans communicate in languages other than English.

The center administers the Startalk program, which offers summer programs nationally in nine critical languages that attracted nearly 7,000 participants, including 1,500 teachers, in 2010 alone. Its e-learning department has developed 9,000 modules in more than 60 languages, available to any American learning institution or government agency. Its research arm helps inform policymakers, as in an October report recommending expanded world language instruction for younger U.S. students as well as an increased teacher supply.

“It’s become more and more apparent that world language education (in the U.S.) has not changed, but the world has, and the demands have,” says Shuhan Wang, the center’s deputy director, who wrote the report with Director Catherine Ingold. “We have been sleeping.” The college also houses the School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, which offers all levels of language instruction to UMD students.

Wang says global firms and the government are hiring people who are multilingual, and the college has been in the forefront of offering Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Persian and other world languages. The federal government, in fact, provided Startalk with $15 million in funding last year.

The center’s new frontier: producing Web-based courses in map reading, critical thinking and signals analysis.

“We’re a one-stop shop,” says David P. Ellis, head of e-learning program, “so when the government has a need, they know we can draw on the resources of the university to meet it.” —LB

School of Public Health
Shrinking Childhood Obesity

Getting schoolchildren to choose fruit over French fries in the lunch line may be as simple as marketing the healthier choices more effectively.

Research Associate Stephanie Grutzmacher M.S. ’04, Ph.D. ’07 is testing that theory with the Maryland State Department of Education and the University of Maryland Extension by training cafeteria workers and school administrators in lowcost ideas and offering classroom programs to be used in 60 schools starting in August.

Examples of “nudging” children include placing a pretty basket of apples near the cash register, where students may be tempted to grab one while waiting to pay. Or putting the cookies and pudding out of sight, so students have to specifically request them. Or having food-service workers ask their young customers to choose between a banana or orange, rather than if they want either one.

“Maybe we can make the carrots look cooler, and we can change behavior without reducing choices, being paternalistic or spending much money,” says Grutzmacher, who’s affiliated with the Department of Family Science.

The latest figures on childhood obesity demonstrate the urgency and importance of her research. An estimated 17 percent of children in the U.S. are severely overweight, triple the rate 30 years ago. And many children get a large portion of their calories at school, highlighting the value of eating smart there.

Grutzmacher’s work also ties into the School of Public Health’s commitment to health equity and health literacy, since the school meals program has the potential to increase access to nutritious food for low-income children. In the classroom component of the project, children might not only learn about the importance of healthy eating, but also develop a preference for healthy foods.

“The problem we have in reforming school meals is that people think reforms won’t matter,” she says. “We want to show it’s easy and cheap.” —LB

College of Education
Overcoming Learning Disabilities

College of Computer, Mathematical and Natural Sciences
Treating Disease Through Math

Biologists and physicians have an increasingly important partner in fighting disease: mathematicians.

Associate Professor Doron Levy, working with hematologist Peter Lee at Stanford Medical School, has been combining mathematical models with biological data to predict when and how individual leukemia patients should be treated for maximum effectiveness.

They found that the protocol for chronic myelgenous leukemia, or CML, patients who are already receiving the drug inmatinib could improve if the natural immune response is stimulated with accurately timed cancer vaccines.

The discovery on targeted therapy, which was widely published, is expected to go to clinical trials. In the meantime, Levy has been creating models with Christian Tomasetti Ph.D. ’10 to determine how drug resistance propagates in CML stem cells. The researchers ultimately hope to expand their results to other cancer cells.

“A mathematical model can provide a tool to extend the reach of current lab experiments,” he says.

Levy’s interest in such interdisciplinary research, increasingly the focus at the newly integrated College of Mathematical, Physical and Natural Sciences, doesn’t end there. He’s recently teamed up with Jakub Simon at the University of Maryland School of Medicine to produce mathematical models on the Shigella bacteria. It causes severe diarrhea and kills 1 million people a year, mostly in developing countries. There is no vaccine to protect against it.

“My goal is never to just develop a mathematical model, but to use mathematics to improve the treatment to patients,” he says. —LB

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