Jonathan Poterjoy and Kayo Ide, both from the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science, will lend their expertise to the new $6.6 million initiative.

The University of Maryland joined a $6.6 million consortium to improve weather predictions and train the next generation of atmospheric scientists.

Recommended for funding by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) through the federal Inflation Reduction Act, the new Consortium for Advanced Data Assimilation Research and Education (CADRE) will focus on improving data assimilation—the science of using observations to improve model predictions of natural systems, like Earth’s atmosphere, over time. The initiative will also bring students up to speed on a complex area of study that few people have mastered, creating a high demand for data assimilation specialists.

“The U.S. has some catching up to do in terms of data assimilation implementations,” said Jonathan Poterjoy, an assistant professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science (AOSC) who studies data assimilation and was named UMD’s principal investigator for this collaboration. “The U.S. has a massive shortage of students coming from grad schools to fill positions at places like NOAA and push the boundaries of what we can do with our current models.”

Although weather forecasts have vastly improved in the last several decades, the computer models used to create them need to be continuously upgraded to reflect new mathematical and technological developments. A recent example underscoring these shortcomings was the sudden onset of Hurricane Otis, which struck Mexico’s southern Pacific coast last fall and caused catastrophic damage.

“We had a very high-profile event this last hurricane season where a major hurricane made landfall right off the coast of Acapulco and there was very little lead time,” Poterjoy said. “The storm went from virtually nothing to a major hurricane in less than a day, and none of the models got it right. That’s something that shouldn’t happen.”

Extreme weather events are also becoming more common, creating an urgent need for more accurate forecasts. 

“The U.S. is experiencing nearly six times more major weather and climate disasters per year than it did 40 years ago, and the Biden-Harris Administration is committed to ensuring we have the most accurate data possible to mitigate the impact of these disasters and fight climate change,” said U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo.

“This investment, made possible thanks to President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, will upgrade and improve NOAA’s technology for numerical weather prediction capabilities to ensure accurate and timely information is available to the public and public safety officials in the face of extreme weather and climate events—making our communities more climate resilient.”

AOSC Associate Professor Kayo Ide, a data assimilation expert who teaches a course on the subject, also joined the UMD team participating in CADRE. Ide has appointments in AOSC, the Department of Mathematics and the Institute for Physical Science and Technology.

In addition to UMD, the CADRE collaboration includes five other universities: Colorado State University, Howard University, Pennsylvania State University, the University of Oklahoma and the University of Utah. Most of these institutions will focus on land surface or atmospheric applications, but Poterjoy and Ide will explore ways to improve data assimilation for two lesser-studied parts of global weather systems: the ocean and cryosphere.

“On the UMD side, we’re focusing primarily on marine applications, so that’s one thing that’s unique to us,” Poterjoy said. “We’re focusing on changes in ocean ice over relatively short timescales—days to weeks—because it’s becoming increasingly important to get a good handle on what sea ice looks like to forecast Arctic weather, which then has an impact on mid-latitude weather.”

Data assimilation can help paint a more accurate picture of what’s happening in a weather system and can lead to more accurate predictions of tropical cyclone intensity, rainfall, snow depth, thunderstorm wind speeds and more. It corrects a weather model in real time by taking new observations into account, and models such as the Global Forecast System—used by NOAA to produce weather forecasts—rely on these constant updates.

By identifying better numerical weather prediction systems and data assimilation methods, CADRE’s collaborators hope to more accurately predict the weather with the Unified Forecast System (UFS), a community-based and comprehensive Earth modeling system.

“The more precisely you can characterize what’s happening in the atmosphere right now, the more accurately you can predict in the future,” Poterjoy explained. “Any improvements you make in data assimilation can lead to better forecasts."

Experts from around the world will be tapped to solve this issue. CADRE will foster collaboration, student training and an exchange of expertise between NOAA, participating universities and the Joint Center for Satellite Data Assimilation.

Support from additional academic partners, including minority-serving institutions and international institutions such as the Met Office in the UK with its Met Office Academic Partnership and the new Transatlantic Data Science Academy, will further support improvements in weather and climate modeling. CADRE will also work closely with NOAA’s Earth Prediction Innovation Center to put new data assimilation science into practice within the UFS.

Poterjoy said he’s most excited to get UMD graduate students and postdocs involved in this collaboration, which he believes will strengthen their scientific expertise and career opportunities in the long-run.

“You’re going to end up with students graduating from our program with a better understanding of data assimilation as well as some of these outstanding issues with modeling,” Poterjoy said. “And if you’re graduating from our program with expertise in data assimilation, you’re going to have excellent job prospects.”

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This article is adapted from text provided by NOAA.

The University of Maryland announced on Thursday a $27.2 million gift to the Department of Mathematics to endow the Brin Mathematics Research Center, establish a new Brin Endowed Chair in Mathematics and pilot the Brin Maryland Mathematics Camp for talented high school students in the state.

The gift is the latest from UMD mathematics Professor Emeritus Michael Brin and his wife Eugenia, a retired NASA scientist, who established the Brin Mathematics Research Center in December 2021 with a $4.75 million gift.

"We are always happy to help support the Department of Mathematics at the University of Maryland,” said Michael Brin.

This is the fourth-largest outright gift to the university from an individual and the largest ever to the department.

“Michael and Eugenia Brin believe in the power of research to expand knowledge and solve grand challenges, and we are grateful for their investment,” said university President Darryll J. Pines. “The research at the Brin Mathematics Research Center expands our mathematics and statistics understanding and showcases excellence here at the University of Maryland.”

Housed in the Computer Science Instructional Center, the Brin Mathematics Research Center is a platform for UMD to expand and spotlight its mathematics and statistics research excellence nationally and internationally. The center brings hundreds of mathematicians to the university every year for workshops, summer schools and distinguished lectures. It also fosters interactions among mathematicians from near and far.

“This generous gift from the Brins ensures that the research and scholarship taking place in the Brin Mathematics Research Center will continue for generations to come,” said Amitabh Varshney, dean of the College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences. “The additional support for an endowed chair is critical for recruiting and retaining the best faculty members in mathematics, and we’re excited that the summer camp will bring young scholars to College Park to explore our programs and campus.”

Michael and Eugenia Brin, parents to Google co-founder Sergey Brin ’93 (mathematics and computer science) and Samuel Brin ’09 (computer science), have made several significant gifts over the years to support the university’s Department of Mathematics; Department of Computer Science; Russian program; and School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies.

The impact of their gifts has been immediate. Since the Brin Mathematics Research Center launched, the University of Maryland rose to become the No. 20 graduate-level math program, and No. 6 among public institutions, according to U.S. News & World Report.

“The Brin Mathematics Research Center makes the University of Maryland a destination for mathematics and statistics research,” said Doron Levy, the center’s director and chair of the Department of Mathematics. “With this transformational gift, we will continue to boost the visibility of our program, attract top faculty and students, and provide our Maryland community with unparalleled educational and research opportunities.”

The new gift includes:

• $25 million to endow the Brin Mathematics Research Center and support activities such as visiting scholars, workshops and research
• $2 million to establish a new Brin Endowed Chair in Mathematics
• $200,000 for the new Brin Maryland Mathematics Camp, a competitive summer camp launching in 2024 for high school students in the state

The Department of Mathematics has over 100 tenured/tenure-track and professional-track faculty members, 650 undergraduate majors and 200 graduate students and teaches over 10,000 students a semester.

Virtual Course, Summer Program Taught by UMD Faculty Give Prince George’s Students Free College Math Experience.

Savannah Grooms ’27 hated math in middle school and stewed over the C she got in her seventh-grade introduction to algebra. But just a few years later, she found herself on the other side of the desk, tutoring students who had similarly struggled with the subject at her alma mater—and a University of Maryland program was a big factor in her turnabout.

As a rising senior at Bowie High School, Grooms enrolled in a virtual summer program and calculus course taught by University of Maryland math professors and coordinated by College of Education faculty. Launched in 2020 and funded by the Office of the President, the collaboration with Prince George’s County Public Schools (PGCPS) has allowed more than 100 students from demographically diverse high schools—some of which don’t consistently offer calculus—to get a leg up on their math education for free.

“It’s a way to allow students to get a sneak peek to what studying at Maryland is like,” said Francesca Henderson, a UMD Ph.D. candidate in mathematics education who’s helped coordinate the program for three years. “For a lot of people, getting some college credit while you’re still in high school makes college less of a financial burden.”

Since the partnership began, students at 16 PGCPS schools have accessed the course, including this past year at Charles Herbert Flowers, Northwestern, Chesapeake Math and IT South, and Oxon Hill high schools. Students must have at least a 3.5 GPA to enroll in the three-credit class on Zoom three days a week; UMD teaching assistants hold discussions and office hours during the same time slot on the other two days.

While the program initially taught Calculus I (MATH 140), it now instead eases students into the subject with Elementary Calculus I (MATH 120), which is “more accessible for students at different math levels,” Henderson said. It’s similar to what’s taught in AP Calculus AB, but students taking the UMD-taught course need to pass the class, not a national exam, for college credit.

For the past two years, the program has also incorporated a summer component, where enrollees get a college algebra and precalculus refresher, also taught free of charge by UMD faculty.

“If you’re going into engineering, physics or chemistry, calculus is sort of a gateway. Having some exposure to it before you get to college is very valuable,” said Professor Larry Washington, associate chair for undergraduate studies in the Department of Mathematics, who’s also helping to coordinate the course. “We’re taking the most talented students and trying to keep them going and giving them a push. And maybe some of them find out, ‘This is not what I want,’ but it’s good to find out (in high school).”

For Grooms, the class inspired her to become a tutor and minor in math at UMD, and the skills she learned also translate to her journalism major, she said.

“I learned the rigor of college early on. I know I have to go to office hours, become close with my teacher and ask questions,” she said. “I also built relationships with the people in the class. We all still remain friends. We all had our own study sessions. That really is also what happens in college.”

The program has evolved into a partnership with UMD’s Office of Undergraduate Admissions, Henderson said. Most students who take the course apply to the university, and they receive support throughout the application process.

Partners from both UMD and PGCPS hope to build on the program’s success in helping open doors to college, STEM fields and beyond.

“The constant collaboration and conversation between the university and the school system has really created a model that works,” said Olivia Pearson, PGCPS college readiness supervisor.

Spring Awards 2024 

Congratulations to the faculty, students, and staff on their outstanding achievements and well-deserved awards! Their dedication, hard work, and excellence have not only brought pride to the Math Department but have also set a remarkable example for others to follow. We celebrate their success and look forward to witnessing their continued contributions and accomplishments.

Faculty

• Alfio Quarteroni receives the Blaise Pascal Medal in Mathematics

• Archana Khurana - Donna B Hamilton Award, Provost Do Good Innovator, Deans Outstanding Lecturer Award

• Nirajan Ramachandran - Deans Award for Excellence in Teaching

• Yanir Rubinstien - Do Good Campus Fund

• Maria Cameron 2024 MURI Award

• Tamas Darvas, Adam Langowski, and Yanir Rubinstien named Simons Fellows

• Doron Levy - Class of 2024 It is AMS Fellow

Graduate Students

Summer Research Fellowship (Grad School)

• Aditi Sen

Ann G. Wylie Dissertation Fellowship

• Vlasios Mastrantonis
• Jiaqi Wang

Ivo & Renata Babuska Award

• Lucas Bouck

Monroe Martin Spotlight Award

• Revati Jadhav
• Brandon Kolstoe

Seymour Goldberg Spotlight Award

• Soyoung Park
• Luis Suarez
• Mark E Lachtman
• Vlasios Mastrantonis
• Shuo Yan
• Keith Mills
• Yuxiang Ji

Patrick & Marguerite Sung Fellowship in Mathematics

• Morgan Bryant
• Prakhar Gupta

Ralph P. Pass Award

• Zhiming Li
• Chengze Duan

Aziz/Osborn Gold Medal in Teaching Excellence

• Nicholas Forman
• Isabelle Stepler
• Leah White
• Ben Goldschlager
• Oscar Copploa
• Mohammand Sharifi Kiasari

Hauptman Summer Award

• Maeve Wildes
• Marco Bornstein
• Soyoung Park
• Spencer Durham
• Brandon Kolstoe

Ruth Davis Math & Physics Award

• Ran Tao

Monroe Martin Math & Physics Award

• Yong Cui
• Sanghoon Na
• Shashank Sule

Janine Tucker & Ira Schwartz Endowed Graduate Award

• Meenakshi Krishnan

Hauptman Summer Award

• Qihang Li
• Shenghao Li
• Shaoyang Zhou
• Chenzi Jin
• Valerie Wray
• Charles Dziedzic
• Amandeep Chanda
• Vasanth Pidaparthy
• Philip Charles
• Ian Teixeira
• Shin Eui Song
• Nicholas McConnell
• Zezheng Song
• Zhirui Li
• Sze Hong Kwong
• Wen-Tai Hsu

James C. Alexander Prize for Graduate Research in Mathematics

• Luke Evans
• Rachel Lee

Hauptman Summer Fellowship 2024

• Shitao Fan
• Junaid Aftab
• Yilin Zhang
• Zhangchi Xu

Undergraduate Students

Goldwater Scholar - Yash Anand and Jerry Shen 

2023 Putnam Team - Vincent Trang, Daniel Yuan, Omar Habibullah, and Andrew Parker 

Antman Undergraduate Award

• Maria Nikolaitchik

Aziz Mathematics Scholarship

• Svetlana Semenova

Outstanding Senior Award

• John Brownfield,

Higginbotham Award

• Adam Melrod

Abramowitz Award

• Ezra Ayalaian,
• Emerson Hemley,
• Liron Karpati,
• Daniel Levy,
• George Li,
• Samuel Lidz
• Turner McLaurin
• Karthik Sellakumaran Latha
• Matthew Schneider

Konter Scholarship

• Sydney Gravel
• Lauren Sherr
• Grace Tao

Strauss Scholarship

• Noah Kupinsky
• Dan Shanks Award
• Uma Tikekar

Daniel Sweet Undergraduate Research Fellowship

• David Koralov
• Quentin Ludet

Strauss Teaching Assistant

• Kevin Flanary
• Linsen Liu
• Quentin Ludet
• Dongxing He
• Noelle Mitchell
• Gary Peng
• David Koralov

Honors and High Honors 

• Anh Cao
• John Brownfield
• Daniel Levy
• Ezra Ayalaian
• Turner McLaurin
• Emerson Hemley
• Karthik Sellakumaran Latha
• George Li
• Uma Tikekar

Matthew Tremba

Staff

Dedicated Staff Award

• Trystan Denhard
• Jemma Natanson
• Ayala Nuriely
• Victoria Villafranco

Provost’s Do Good Innovator Award

• Jacqueline Dwyer-Xec

RISE Grant Progressive Terp

• Jessica Sadler

Institute Will Support Interdisciplinary Research and Education That Promote Responsible Use of AI and Prepare Future Workforce for AI-Infused World

The University of Maryland on Tuesday announced the launch of a new institute dedicated to developing the next generation of artificial intelligence (AI) education, technology and leaders.

The Artificial Intelligence Interdisciplinary Institute at Maryland (AIM) will be a collaborative hub for AI, supporting faculty research, offering innovative and experiential learning opportunities, and focusing on responsible and ethical AI technology to advance the public good across industry, government and society.

“Establishing the AI Interdisciplinary Institute at Maryland is a pioneering step in AI research and education,” said University of Maryland President Darryll J. Pines. “Artificial intelligence continues to grow exponentially, creating opportunities to solve the grand challenges of our time. With this institute, our experts will work together to globally lead responsible AI development that spurs economic growth and promotes human well-being. We’re not just adapting to the AI age but shaping its future.”

The University of Maryland and the state of Maryland have long maintained a steadfast commitment to responsible advancement of AI technology. The new institute builds upon the university’s existing AI expertise, research and centers, including the Center for Machine Learning, the National Science Foundation-funded Institute for Trustworthy AI in Law & Society (TRAILS), the Value-Centered AI Initiative and the Social Data Science Center. Centers like these will be an instrumental part of AIM, as will faculty members across campus who teach and study AI.

“From the start, interdisciplinary collaboration across fields will drive our AI institute’s success,” said UMD Senior Vice President and Provost Jennifer King Rice. “We’re fortunate to have AI leaders in fields ranging from computer science and engineering to journalism, education, social sciences, business and the arts—a unique breadth of expertise that Maryland brings to the table. By uniting our efforts under one institute, we will not only become a magnet for ethical AI development and research but a global leader in preparing students and the workforce for an AI-infused world.”

Through AIM, UMD students across all majors will learn the principles of AI and how they apply to their fields of study, preparing them for a technology-rich workforce. The institute will coordinate:

• New AI majors and minors
• AI certificates, graduate degrees and workforce development programs
• Expanded AI undergraduate courses, including an AI4ALL course focused on developing AI literacy and critical thinking skills
• AI government and industry partnerships and community events
• A new high-performance computing cluster tailored for AI’s complex computational challenges
• Financial support to promote interdisciplinary AI research
• Chaired professorships and postdoctoral fellowships

In addition to the existing, 100-plus faculty members who study and teach AI, the university expects to hire additional faculty in foundational and interdisciplinary AI, and staff to work within the institute. Hal Daumé III, a Volpi-Cupal Family Endowed Professor in the Department of Computer Science, will serve as AIM’s inaugural director. The university has also appointed Neda Atanasoski as associate director of education and Sheena Erete as associate director of research.

“AI-infused systems have the potential to enhance human capacity and creativity, mitigate complex society challenges and foster innovation. Achieving this requires a joint effort between those pushing the boundaries of new AI technologies, those who innovate AI applications, and those who study human values and how people and society interact with AI,” said Daumé. “The University of Maryland is drawing together faculty experts, researchers and students from across campus to lead the responsible development and implementation of this world-changing technology.”

The vision for AIM came about through the efforts of a multidisciplinary work group, and was refined through a collaborative process with the deans of all 12 colleges and schools. It aligns with Maryland Gov. Wes Moore’s recent executive order to catalyze responsible and productive use of artificial intelligence by state agencies, and President Joe Biden’s executive order on safe, secure and trustworthy artificial intelligence. It also supports the work of Pines’ AI commission, which examines how AI can be harnessed operationally in teaching, learning, student recruitment, enrollment and more.

The institute will be funded through the university, research grants, philanthropic gifts and industry partnerships.

Topics:

Air Force officer and UMD statistics graduate student Maddie Fischer sees her math skills take flight.

Maddie Fischer has always liked numbers, but she’s especially excited to see where they’ll take her.

“I like how you can go anywhere with math,” said Fischer, who enrolled in the University of Maryland’s graduate statistics program after earning a bachelor’s degree in applied mathematics from the U.S. Air Force Academy in 2023. “You could go to law school or med school or be an engineer with math as a background because it’s the basis of everything.”

As an Air Force 2nd Lieutenant who has been assigned to work as a helicopter pilot after earning her master’s degree, Fischer hopes her math skills will take her to new heights. Her ongoing research with the Alfred Gessow Rotorcraft Center (AGRC) in UMD’s A. James Clark School of Engineering uses human factors engineering and statistical analyses to make helicopter flight safer for future pilots like herself.

Attending grad school at a civilian university—especially to study math—is an unconventional path to pilot training. However, Fischer is excited to expand her educational horizons before earning her wings.

“Most people go straight to pilot training [after the Air Force Academy] because there aren’t that many slots to go to grad school. It’s very competitive,” she said. “Being at UMD is kind of a miracle for me.”

Diving in

Before Fischer knew that she wanted to study statistics or specialize in helicopters, she had another goal in mind.

“First and foremost, I wanted to serve, which is why I started looking at military academies,” she said. “I was most interested in the Air Force Academy because I wanted to fly, and I also wanted to support an important mission with a group of people who felt the same way.”

After graduating from high school near Philadelphia, Fischer moved to Colorado in 2019 to start her Air Force training and education. She rose through the ranks and became a squadron commander, overseeing 120 cadets and helping freshmen integrate into the academy. This leadership role helped her thrive in predominantly male spaces.

“That for me was a really impactful experience because it was the first time where I had the authority to influence all of these people’s experiences,” she said. “As a woman in the Air Force, you kind of have to be loud and strong-minded. I think that learning to be a leader in that environment gave me the tools to speak up and to value voicing my opinion and my thoughts.”

Her Air Force training also empowered her to face her fears. During her sophomore year at the academy, she landed one of 22 spots on the Air Force Parachute Team, the Wings of Blue, after completing a cadet-led skydiving course. 

Fischer specialized in four-way formation skydiving as a member of the competition team, which involved syncing up with her teammates to form a rapid series of numbers and letters in the sky during their roughly 35 seconds of free fall.

She ultimately became a commander of the very course that launched her love of skydiving. In that role, she oversaw dozens of instructors and roughly 600 students and discovered a passion for instructing.

“For me, the team wasn’t ever about skydiving or competing,” she said. “It was about conquering fears, learning to stay calm in stressful environments and teaching others to do the same.”

While jumping out of a plane is undeniably scary, Fischer said it gets easier with practice.
“I think 80 jumps was the point where I stopped being debilitatingly afraid,” Fischer said. “After that, I was able to focus more on the objective of the jump.”
She has now jumped out of a plane 486 times—and she’s just getting started.
‘Excited to get started’
After graduating from the Air Force Academy, Fischer applied to several graduate programs but was ultimately swayed by an invitation to join UMD Aerospace Engineering Assistant Professor Umberto Saetti’s lab in AGRC, an award-winning rotorcraft center that partly specializes in helicopter development. 

“I reached out to Dr. Saetti in the rotary lab because I wanted to fly helicopters,” Fischer said. “I said, ‘I want to go to the University of Maryland for statistics, but I also want to fly helicopters—can we do anything together?’ And it ended up being a great fit. The aerospace engineering department and math department supplement each other in a really interesting way.”

For her master’s thesis, Fischer is testing different methods of informing helicopter pilots about their surroundings, including sound and haptic alerts to supplement vision. This is particularly important when navigating environments with snow, sand and other low-visibility conditions, which helicopter pilots are often tasked with.

“We’re investigating localization, which is how you perceive a signal in the immediate area around your body,” Fischer said. “There’s basically a radius around your body that you encode as meaningful, so if you feel something on your body or hear something in that area, we’re seeing how that corresponds to a visual target. We’re going to do a statistical analysis to see how precise and how accurate these metrics are and use them to develop an optimal multisensory integration model.”

Fischer even worked on the project alongside her father, Doug Fischer, an associate technical fellow at Boeing who specializes in human factors engineering—how people interact with aircraft systems.

“My dad and I have been able to collaborate on this project, and he is also coming to guest lecture at Maryland later this semester, so it’s been a really special experience for me,” Fischer said. “With his credentials, he is advising as a subject matter expert on the human factors-related concepts involved in our project, such as the applications and implementation of haptic cueing.”

While Fischer is interested in the engineering aspects of aviation, she ultimately prefers flying planes over designing them. After she graduates from UMD later this year, she will attend Air Force pilot training at Fort Novosel, Alabama, where she hopes to specialize in search and rescue operations. This could involve everything from saving soldiers in combat zones to providing aid during natural disasters or plucking lost hikers from national parks. 

“I’ve always wanted to support that mission,” Fischer said. “I’ve been passionate about volunteering and community service all my life and I knew that I wanted my career to be something that makes a difference or helps others in some way.”

Fischer is enjoying her time at UMD but is equally ecstatic to start pilot training, bringing her one step closer to seeing her dreams take flight.

“I’m excited. A lot of my friends are [at training] now, so I’m watching them go through it,” Fischer said. “It’s the career that I’ve worked so hard for, and I’m just so excited to get started on it.”