This article was originally published in Maryland Today. Written by By Silvana Montañola M.A. ’23
Eleven University of Maryland faculty members have been selected to receive this year’s Independent Scholarship, Research and Creativity Awards (ISRCA), a program that champions bold, original work across disciplines. ISRCA provides grant funding to support projects that range from explorations of migration and artificial intelligence to studies of world literature and urgent environmental challenges.
“The Independent Scholarship, Research and Creativity Awards support faculty whose work pushes the boundaries of knowledge across disciplines,” said Jennifer King Rice, UMD’s senior vice president and provost. “Through rigorous research and creative exploration, these projects deepen public understanding of complex issues in ways that help us navigate persistent and emerging challenges in the world around us."
Established in 2019 and administered by the Office of the Provost and the Division of Research, the ISRCA program supports the professional growth of faculty involved in scholarly and creative work. Eligible proposals may employ historical, humanistic, interpretive or ethnographic methods; examine aesthetic, ethical or cultural values and their societal significance; undertake critical or rhetorical analysis; conduct archival or field research; or create and develop original works.
Recipients are chosen through a peer-review process that evaluates the quality of the proposed project, its contribution to the applicant’s professional development, and its potential impact on academic communities and society at large.
The 2026 awardees, representing four colleges and eight departments across campus, will each receive up to $10,000 to support their research endeavors and associated expenses.
“These projects underscore the essential role of rigorous scholarship and creative work in addressing complex global challenges,” said Patrick O’Shea, vice president and chief research officer. “By investing in our faculty at pivotal moments in their careers, these awards strengthen Maryland’s research enterprise and amplify the impact of their work on academic communities and society at large.”
This year’s awards support the following projects:
- “Serialized Nations: Television and Populist Nationalism in the Arab World” is a book project by Associate Professor of Arabic Valerie Anishchenkova that examines how long-form television dramas shape contemporary forms of popular and populist nationalism across Egypt, the Levant and the Gulf.
- “Challenger” by Associate Professor of English Lillian-Yvonne Bertram is a hybrid work of poetry and literary memoir that explores memory, loss and collective trauma through the dual lenses of the 1986 Challenger shuttle explosion and the cognitive decline caused by Parkinson’s disease.
- “The Only Etude Book You’ll Need—Bassoon Edition” by Assistant Professor of music Joseph Grimmer is a comprehensive, newly edited anthology designed to modernize and unify foundational bassoon study materials while addressing longstanding errors, inconsistencies and incomplete musical markings in widely used etude collections.
- “Impossibility of Black Rescue: Humanitarianism and Unauthorized African Migrants in Niger” by Assistant Professor of anthropology Ampson Hagan is a book project that examines how humanitarian aid and migration control intersect in Niger, a key transit country for African migrants traveling toward North Africa and Europe.
- “Translating the Blazing Continent: Latin American Fiction and Soviet World Literature” by Assistant Professor of Russian Michael Lavery is a book project that examines how Latin American “Boom” literature was selected, translated, and reframed in the Soviet Union during the Cold War to fit a socialist vision of world literature.
- “Latinidad's Racial Bind” by Assistant Professor of communication Raquel Moreira is a book project that examines how ideas of pan-ethnic Latinidad and mestizaje shape racial discourse in the United States by challenging the common assumption that Latinidad exists primarily as a “brown” identity outside the Black–white racial binary.
- “Vernacular Futures: Co-creating New Aesthetics Through Generative AI and 3D-Printed Clay” by Assistant Professor of architecture Andressa Carmo Pena Martinez is a creative research project that reimagines traditional masonry and ceramic building techniques through generative artificial intelligence and 3D printing.
- “Buffalo's Emerald Necklace: How Environmental Racism Devastated a Community and Destroyed an Olmsted Treasure” by Associate Professor of kinesiology Jennifer Roberts is a forthcoming trade book, under contract with Island Press/Princeton University Press, that examines how the construction of the Kensington Expressway destroyed Buffalo’s historic Humboldt Parkway and disrupted a thriving Black community.
- “Insurrection Day” by Associate Professor of English Rion Scott is a novel set in the fictional town of Cross River, Maryland—founded after a successful 1807 slave uprising inspired by the Haitian Revolution. The book weaves together historical and contemporary narratives to explore slavery, rebellion and the inheritance of suppressed histories.
- “How AI Is Reshaping the Epistemic and Narrative Foundations of Governance: A Humanistic Exploration” by College of Information Assistant Professor M.R. Sauter is a book project that examines how artificial intelligence systems—particularly large language models and predictive tools—are increasingly framed as credible stand-ins for public reasoning and democratic deliberation.
- “Leonardo Philaras between Greece, France, and Italy: A Critical Edition of His Venetian Correspondence (1656-1661)” by Professor of history Stefano Villani is a project that produces the first critical edition of the Venetian correspondence of Leonardo Philaras (ca. 1595-1673), a Greek theologian, poet, and diplomat whose life spanned the political and religious upheavals of seventeenth-century Europe.