• InsideSMCM
  • News
  • Events
  • Academic Calendar
  • Contact Directory
  • IT Support
  • Campus Map
  • H.C.L. Library
  • Student Portal
  • Apply
  • Visit
  • Learn More
  • Give
  • Parents
  • Honoring the Enslaved
    St. Mary's College of Maryland, the National Public Honors College
  • LEAD
      • Students working on a problem in our outdoor classroom
    • What is LEAD?
      • LEAD stands for Learning Through Experiential and Applied Discovery. Think of it as an all-encompassing, integrative pathway that will prepare you for whatever your next step is—research, graduate school, or the workforce.
      • LEAD Curriculum
      • Center for Career and Professional Development
      • Job-IQ
      • Beyond St. Mary's
  • Academics
      • Students working on a problem in our outdoor classroom
    • Academics
      • Majors & Minors
      • Academic Departments
      • Study Abroad
      • St. Mary's Projects
      • Internships
      • Undergraduate Research
      • Core Curriculum
      • Faculty
      • Boyden Gallery
    • Student Resources
      • ADA Accessibility & Accommodations
      • Office of Student Success Services
      • Writing Center
      • Portal
      • Course Catalog
      • Registrar's Office
      • DeSousa-Brent Scholars
      • Campus Bookstore
      • Hilda C. Landers Library
      • Phi Beta Kappa
      • Center for Career and Professional Development
  • Admissions & Aid
    • Tuition & Financial Aid
      • Financial Aid
      • Scholarships & Grants
      • Tuition & Fees
      • Tuition Calculator
    • How To Apply
      • First Year
      • Transfer
      • International
      • Graduate Studies
      • Test Optional Policy
    • Resources
      • Resources for New Students
      • I'm in! What's Next?
      • DeSousa-Brent Scholars
      • Beyond St. Mary's
      • Schedule a Visit
      • Request Info
      • Apply
      • Connect with a Counselor
      • Virtual Tour
      • Explore SMCM
  • Alumni
      • Alumni in San Francisco volunteer at one of our Bay to Bay Service Day projects
    • Office of Alumni Relations
      • Get Involved
      • Benefits & Services
      • Alumni Council
      • Alumni Scholarships
    • Signature Events
      • Alumni Weekend
      • Hawktoberfest
      • Bay to Bay Service Days
      • Spring Break-a-Sweat
      • Governor's Cup & Zero Year Reunion
      • Submit News/Updates
      • Find Alumni Chapter
      • Request a Transcript
      • Rent the Alumni Lodge
      • Career Center
      • Facebook
      • Twitter
      • Flickr
  • Athletics
      • Seahawk logo
      • Men's Sports
      • Baseball
      • Basketball
      • Cross Country
      • Lacrosse
      • Rowing
      • Sailing
      • Soccer
      • Swimming
      • Tennis
      • Track and Field
      • Women's Sports
      • Basketball
      • Cross Country
      • Field Hockey
      • Lacrosse
      • Rowing
      • Sailing
      • Soccer
      • Swimming
      • Tennis
      • Track and Field
      • Volleyball
      • Sports Schedules
      • Intramural Sports
      • Club Sports
      • Inside Athletics
      • Facilities
      • Give to Athletics
  • Campus Life
      • Life at SMCM
      • Housing
      • Dining
      • Getting Involved
      • Campus Hangouts
      • Out and About
      • New Student Information
      • Support Services
      • Public Safety Office
      • Wellness Center
      • Inclusive Diversity, Equity, Access, and Accountability (IDEAA)
      • Title IX Compliance &Training
      • ADA Accommodations & Accessibility
      • Make a Difference
      • Waterfront
      • Commuters
      • Human Resources
      • Explore SMCM
      • Female Student Studying Outside on the Lawn
  • About
    • Key Facts
      • Rankings
      • Location
      • History of the College
      • Directions
      • Nearby Accommodations
    • Mission & Values
      • Inclusive Diversity, Equity, Access, and Accountability (IDEAA)
      • Institutional Research
      • The SMCM Foundation
      • The St. Mary's Way
      • The Honors College Promise
    • Board of Trustees Office of the President
      • Meet Dr. Tuajuanda Jordan
      • Executive Council
      • Strategic Plan
      • Ariel View of Campus

Office of Research and Sponsored Programs (ORSP)

Assisting faculty and staff to engage in research and scholarly & creative endeavors

Office of Research and Sponsored Programs (ORSP) / Archives for awards

Assistant Professor Kohl Awarded Grant from Environmental Data and Governance Initiative

August 25, 2020

Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies Ellen Kohl was recently awarded a $14,117 grant from the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative (EDGI) for her project titled: Implications of Trump Administration policies on Environmental Justice Activists. The award is part of a larger project sponsored by the David and Lucille Packard Foundation.

Kohl will lead a team of EDGI scholars to draw on interview data to research the responses of environmental justice activists to the actions of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the Trump Administration. EDGI researchers have begun and continue to conduct interviews with environmental justice activists across the United States. During the funding period, Kohl will use the time allotted to her by a course release to:

  1. use qualitative research methods to analyze interview data and documents received through an ongoing Freedom of Information Act request, and
  2. spearhead an EDGI white paper and a peer reviewed manuscript.

The EDGI interview and policy project leads have done extensive research, interviews, and writing on the impact that Trump administration policies have on EPA, EPA employees, and how these changes have impacted implementation of environmental policies.  This project complements EDGI’s ongoing research by examining how changes within the EPA impact those on the ground who are most vulnerable to the changes brought about by the Trump administration.  By analyzing interview data from environmental justice activists, this research can contribute to EDGI’s goal of centering justice and equity in environmental, climate, and data governance. The grant began August 1, 2020.

Filed Under: Awards, Current Sponsored Research, Sociology Tagged With: awards, environmental studies, grant, research, smcm

St. Mary’s College of Maryland joins the Maryland State Arts Council as a Regional Folklife Center

August 20, 2020

St. Mary’s College of Maryland was recently awarded a Maryland State Arts Council Folklife Network grant totaling $40,500 to represent Southern Maryland as a Maryland Regional Folklife Center in the Maryland State Arts Council’s Folklife Network. Regional folklife centers serve to continue “programmatic or educational efforts made by an organization to support folklife, or community-based living cultural traditions handed down by example or word of mouth.”

The College will create a Southern Maryland Folklife Summer Institute as the key feature of the Regional Folklife Center. The annual summer institute will be held at St. Mary’s College and will add unique opportunities to the rich and vibrant array of folklife events already operating in the region by celebrating and supporting community-based living cultural traditions of Southern Maryland (St. Mary’s, Calvert and Charles Counties). The institute will achieve this goal by offering a raft of workshops centered around broad folklife activities and their Southern Maryland components. Some proposed workshops will be specific to Southern Maryland (genealogy, cuisines such as stuffed ham and soul food), while others will reflect activities of Marylanders (landscape painting, beekeeping, oral history), while broader workshops will focus on the Mid-Atlantic region (bluegrass folk music, small farm entrepreneurship).

In preparing the grant, the team collaborated with the arts councils and organizations of the tri-county region in a community survey to learn about regional folklife needs and the kind of programming the community would like represented in a folklife institute.

The institute will pilot in June of 2021 with two days of exciting workshops and will close with a public exhibition and celebration event in the SMCM Boyden Gallery (pandemic permitting). The gallery event will allow participants to display their work and efforts learned in the workshops and may include such elements as short readings of oral histories, displays of family genealogies, landscape paintings, live folk music, and samples of culinary dishes. Campus residential housing will be available to participants. The institute will dovetail with the widely popular, community-centered Southern Maryland River Concert Series that draws thousands of people from the region for weekly outdoor summer concerts and the prestigious Chesapeake Writers’ Conference, therefore providing additional visibility and extra-curricular activities for participants.

In addition to the College’s Boyden Gallery, the SlackWater Center will also be a key participant in the folklife center as the institute’s activities will be featured in, and may also produce content for, the SlackWater journal. In addition to the journal, the SlackWater Center also provides students and community members with opportunities to conduct oral histories, hundreds of which are transcribed and available online on the Archive’s website as the SlackWater Oral History Collection. The activities of the institute may produce writing features, images (art and photography), oral history interviews, genealogies, and recordings of lectures that will then be added to the SMCM Archive.

Over the coming years, the College aims to incrementally build upon annual institute offerings and community engagement, by soliciting candid assessment and suggestions from all participants of the pilot and subsequent institutes.

Filed Under: Arts, Awards, Current Sponsored Research, Institutional Tagged With: art, awards, folklife, MSAC, smcm

Assistant Professor Gurbisz Awarded Grant from the Ferry Cove Project

August 10, 2020

Cassie Gurbisz, Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies, has received a grant for $19,073 from the Ferry Cove Project, a non-profit organization dedicated to expanding the Chesapeake Bay oyster aquaculture industry. Partnering with Dr. Jeremy Testa from University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science Chesapeake Biological Laboratory, Dr. Gurbisz will collect measurements in the waterways around Tilghman Island, MD to quantify the effects of a new oyster hatchery on the local coastal environment.

The hatchery, to be located on an 80-acre farm with several hundred feet of shoreline, will include a floating oyster conditioning area and a 400-foot oyster reef breakwater. Measurements in and around the conditioning area, which includes floating oyster cages to be installed atop beds of submersed aquatic vegetation (SAV), provide an excellent opportunity to investigate the ways in which oyster aquaculture interacts with SAV. This has recently become a hot topic as both SAV abundance and aquaculture leases expand and therefore compete for space in shallow regions of the Chesapeake Bay. Data collected prior to and after the construction of the oyster breakwater and the adjacent marsh will generate information about the ways in which this increasingly popular but understudied shoreline defense structure modifies physical and ecological processes at the land-water interface. While each of these objectives is valuable individually, together they will constitute a unique case study of how the coastal environment responds to multiple human uses from a holistic, integrated perspective.

The goal of the current project is to collect baseline environmental data before hatchery construction begins. Over the next several years, Gurbisz and Testa hope to continue the project to collect post-construction data and make more detailed measurements. This project complements Gurbisz and Testa’s ongoing work funded by Maryland Sea Grant to study the effects of bottom cage oyster aquaculture on SAV. Ultimately, their goal is to provide scientifically sound information to guide regional environmental policy and management decisions related to SAV-oyster aquaculture interactions.

Filed Under: Awards, Biology, Current Sponsored Research Tagged With: awards, environmental studies, grant, research, smcm

Associate Professor Muchnick Collaborating on NSF Grant to Develop Interdisciplinary Systems Thinking Assessment Tool

August 5, 2020

Barry Muchnick, Associate Professor of Environmental Studies, was recently awarded a three-year, $18,110 subaward as part of a $1.077 million National Science Foundation grant for a project titled: Developing a Next Generation Concept Inventory to Help Environmental Programs Evaluate Student Knowledge of Complex Food-Energy-Water Systems (NSF award number 2013373). The collaborative research project brings together researchers from University of Northern Colorado, St. Mary’s College of Maryland, and nine other higher-education institutions across the country to develop a machine-learning program to assess students’ understanding of the connections among food-energy-water concepts in their classes. Their ultimate goal is to improve teaching in college-level environmental studies courses by helping instructors make evidence-based decisions on how to best shape their students’ understanding of complex systems thinking and sustainability concepts.

The 11 colleges and universities participating in the concept inventory development research. Graphic used with permission from University of Northern Colorado.

“Big data and the power of machine learning drive this project,” Muchnick said, “but ultimately we are interested in how best to reinforce interdisciplinary connections, especially with regard to food, energy, and water systems.” “I’m thrilled that St. Mary’s College of Maryland environmental studies students are part of a national research effort to more effectively train the next generation of environmental leaders.”

Muchnick’s teaching and scholarship is concerned with how natural and cultural systems interact to form our ecosystems, experiences, institutions, and imaginations.

Filed Under: Awards, Current Sponsored Research, Social Sciences & Educational Studies Tagged With: awards, environmental studies, nsf, research, smcm

Professor of Anthropology Julia King and Collaborators Continue Archaeological Research Along Rappahannock River

July 28, 2020

Professor of Anthropology Julia King, Instructor of Anthropology Scott Strickland and SMCM students Caitlin Hall, Sarah Kifer and Danielle Harris-Burnett are featured in a July 25, 2020 Fredericksburg.com article focusing on their Rappahannock Tribe project called “Indigenous Borderlands of the Chesapeake.” The team is doing historical archaeology in Virginia to find spots where Native American villages existed along the Rappahannock River.

King and her crew have been working recently at a land tract above the Rappahannock River called Fones Cliffs. The site had been considered for development but was acquired instead in 2019 by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Rappahannock River Valley National Wildlife Refuge. Fones Cliffs has a rich cultural history, as well as important ecological habitat and a beautiful white cliff landscape.

The team of archaeologists has found clues of Native Americans at Fones Cliffs and King said the main objective will continue to be finding evidence of the three large villages that exist in both the Rappahannock Tribe’s oral histories and in Captain John Smith’s journals, describing his journey up the river in 1608. King notes that an earlier round of exploration on the Fones Cliffs site was funded by The Conservation Fund, while this year’s two weeks of digging and exploration were paid for by the refuge.

Tagged With: anthropology, archaeology, awards, research, smcm, undergraduate research

Assistant Professor of Psychology Gili Freedman Receives Collaborative Grant from the National Science Foundation

July 27, 2020

Assistant Professor of Psychology at St. Mary’s College of Maryland Gili Freedman and colleague Jennifer Beer (University of Texas at Austin) recently received a collaborative, three-year grant from the National Science Foundation for a total of $465,222 ($75,102 of which will go to SMCM).

In the project titled “Collaborative Research: Lessening the Blow of Social Rejection,” Freedman and Beer will investigate the language of social rejection and how power and concern for one’s reputation shape the way that individuals reject others. A central aim of the project is to develop empirically supported training that teaches individuals how to be less hurtful when they engage in social rejection. Starting this fall, Freedman will be working with SMCM collaborative research students on the first stages of the grant.

Read the award abstract (Award Number 2017043) on NSF’s website.

Filed Under: Awards, Current Sponsored Research, Psychology Tagged With: awards, psychology, research, smcm, undergraduate research

Assistant Professor Daniel Chase Receives Grant from American Chemical Society

July 22, 2020

Daniel (Dan) Chase, Assistant Professor of Chemistry, was recently awarded a three-year, $70,000 grant from the American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund. The project begins September 1, 2020 and is titled: Synthesis and Catalytic Exploration of Transition Metal Aza-Dipyrromethene Chelates. The approved budget includes stipends for Chase and two SMCM undergraduate students per year, along with laboratory supplies, and travel to attend local and national chemistry conferences.

Chase’s research avenues involve the synthesis of organic and inorganic molecules to explore applications that are advantageous to industry such as the development of transition metal catalysts that can be used in selective oxidation reactions. Chase has already had success in synthesizing several molecule variants and with this funding will continue working with iron and manganese complexes that he hopes will help increase industrial process efficiencies and reduce waste.

Chase regularly works with undergraduates in his lab, as he appreciates the simultaneous progress of challenging students intellectually to grow as scientists while actively contributing together to the scientific community.

Acknowledgment is gratefully made to the donors of The American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund for support of this research.

Filed Under: Awards, Biochemistry & Chemistry, Current Sponsored Research Tagged With: awards, chemistry, research, smcm, undergraduate research

Assistant Professor Gurbisz Awarded Contract to Collaborate on Chesapeake Bay Restoration Manual

June 22, 2020

Cassie Gurbisz, Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies, was recently awarded an $8,431 contract with Green Fin Studio, to provide technical expertise in the development of a Chesapeake Bay submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) restoration manual for the Chesapeake Bay Trust. Gurbisz will conduct a review of SAV and seagrass restoration literature, work with Green Fin Studio to collaboratively develop restoration protocols for the four salinity zones of Chesapeake Bay, and review the final manual and education and outreach materials. In addition to the literature review, the group will interview current SAV restoration practitioners in the Chesapeake Bay watershed to glean best available knowledge and practices. A summary of these interviews will help inform restoration manual recommendations. The full title of the project is: Development of Technical Guidance Manual and Outreach Materials for Small-scale Submerged Aquatic Vegetation Restoration in Chesapeake Bay and its Tidal Tributaries. The contract was executed on June 1, 2020 and work may continue until January 31, 2022 if needed.

Gurbisz is a coastal ecosystem ecologist who investigates how human stressors, like climate change and nutrient pollution, affect coastal foundation species, such as seagrass (also known as SAV) and salt marshes. She also studies how changes in marsh and SAV abundance, in turn, affect coastal ecosystem processes.

Filed Under: Awards, Current Sponsored Research, Natural Sciences & Math Tagged With: awards, biology, environmental studies, research, smcm

Professor Christine Adams Receives Two Prestigious Fellowships

May 22, 2020

Christine Adams, professor of history, received two prestigious fellowships:  one through the American Council on Learned Societies (ACLS) and the other from the Newberry Library, both long-standing, preeminent pillars of American scholarship in the humanities. Competition for these long-term fellowships was especially steep last year, with a success rate of about 7 percent and 9 percent, respectively. Adams will be an ACLS fellow for the 2020-2021 academic year, and a fellow-in-residence at the Newberry Library in Chicago from January-June of 2021. Both fellowship programs support outstanding scholars conducting innovative and ground-breaking research. ACLS fellows pursue their scholarship anywhere in the world whereas Newberry residential fellows become part of an interdisciplinary community of researchers, curators, and librarians at the Newberry Library where they will have access to wide-ranging and rare archival materials.

During the fellowship year, Adams will conduct research on her newest project, entitled “The Merveilleuses and their Impact on the French Social Imaginary, 1795-1799 and Beyond,” which she describes as follows:“The Merveilleuses (“Marvelous Ones”), a group of approximately 100 stylish and politically-connected young Parisian women, came to define the era of the Directory (1794–1799). Following the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror, these chic young women set the tone in French society until Napoleon’s coup in 1799. This project considers the Merveilleuses as a cultural phenomenon as well as their function in the historical imaginary and illuminates how the fixation on their beauty, style, and sexuality has obscured their political and cultural significance.”

Adams is the author or coeditor of five books including her new book with co-author (and sister) Tracy Adams entitled, “The Creation of the French Royal Mistress: From Agnès Sorel to Madame Du Barry,” (2020, Penn State University Press).

Filed Under: Awards, Current Sponsored Research, History Tagged With: awards, history, research, smcm

Rie Moore and David Froom Win Individual Artist Awards from the State of Maryland

May 17, 2020

St. Mary’s College alumna Rie Moore ’19 and Professor of Music David Froom have each been awarded Maryland Individual Artist Awards. They were among the 50 award winners (the only two from St. Mary’s County) chosen from more than 250 applicants. Moore was awarded for “promise and innovation” in piano performance, Froom for “notable artistic achievement” in musical composition.

The full press release from the Maryland State Arts Council can be found here.

The full list of this year’s awardees can be found here.

Filed Under: Awards, Current Sponsored Research, Music Tagged With: awards, MSAC, music, smcm

  • « Previous Page
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • …
  • 8
  • Next Page »

RSS From the SMCM Newsroom

  • St. Mary’s College Environmental Studies to Receive Grant to Spur Civic Learning in Major Design June 1, 2018
  • St. Mary’s College Alumna Heather Husk Named Finalist in Washington Post 2018 Teacher of the Year May 31, 2018
  • Tristan Cai to present solo exhibition and performance lecture at CICA Museum May 29, 2018
  • Public Safety Officer Gerald Sellers Named Officer of the Year May 22, 2018
  • St. Mary’s College of Maryland Announces New Scholarship Program May 22, 2018

Recent Posts

  • Professor of Art Sue Johnson Awarded Catwalk Institute Fellowship March 22, 2022
  • SMCM Southern Maryland Folklife Center Receives Grant from Maryland State Arts Council March 8, 2022
  • Jennifer Cognard-Black Named a 2022 Independent Artist Award Recipient by Maryland State Arts Council February 18, 2022

Categories

  • Anthropology (19)
  • Art & Art History (5)
  • Arts (14)
  • Awards (87)
  • Biochemistry & Chemistry (20)
  • Biology (16)
  • Current Sponsored Research (107)
  • Economics (3)
  • English (2)
  • Funding Opportunities (21)
  • GRC Bulletin (10)
  • GRC GrantWeek (7)
  • History (5)
  • Humanities (19)
  • Institutional (21)
  • Int. Languages & Cultures (4)
  • Math & Computer Science (10)
  • Music (3)
  • Natural Sciences & Math (23)
  • Philosophy & Religious Studies (5)
  • Physics (12)
  • PND RFP Bulletin (1)
  • Political Science (1)
  • Psychology (16)
  • Social Sciences & Educational Studies (24)
  • Sociology (3)
  • Uncategorized (27)

Archives

  • March 2022 (2)
  • February 2022 (1)
  • January 2022 (1)
  • December 2021 (1)
  • October 2021 (1)
  • September 2021 (1)
  • August 2021 (4)
  • July 2021 (1)
  • June 2021 (1)
  • April 2021 (2)
  • March 2021 (1)
  • February 2021 (2)
  • January 2021 (1)
  • December 2020 (1)
  • September 2020 (3)
  • August 2020 (6)
  • July 2020 (3)
  • June 2020 (1)
  • May 2020 (2)
  • April 2020 (5)
  • March 2020 (3)
  • February 2020 (8)
  • January 2020 (1)
  • November 2019 (2)
  • October 2019 (2)
  • September 2019 (2)
  • August 2019 (1)
  • July 2019 (2)
  • May 2019 (1)
  • April 2019 (5)
  • March 2019 (4)
  • February 2019 (2)
  • January 2019 (4)
  • December 2018 (1)
  • November 2018 (2)
  • August 2018 (2)
  • June 2018 (2)
  • May 2018 (3)
  • April 2018 (1)
  • March 2018 (4)
  • February 2018 (4)
  • January 2018 (1)
  • October 2017 (1)
  • September 2017 (1)
  • August 2017 (2)
  • June 2017 (3)
  • May 2017 (3)
  • April 2017 (4)
  • February 2017 (1)
  • January 2017 (1)
  • November 2016 (1)
  • August 2016 (3)
  • July 2016 (2)
  • November 2015 (8)
  • October 2015 (14)
  • August 2015 (1)

Contact Us

Office of Sponsored Research
Monday-Friday
8:00am-5:00pm

Calvert Hall 201
(240) 895-4192

St. Mary's College of Maryland, the Public Honors College
St. Mary's College of Maryland
47645 College Drive
St. Mary's City, MD, 20686-3001

(240) 895-2000
Give Today

Next Steps

  • Request Information
  • Visit Campus
  • How to Apply
  • Discover Our Value
  • Virtual Tour
  • Explore SMCM

Just For You

  • Current Students
  • New Students
  • Parents
  • Faculty | Staff
  • Employment

Resources

  • InsideSMCM
  • Directory
  • Events | Newsroom
  • Hilda C. Landers Library
  • College Rankings
  • Brand Resources

St. Mary’s College of Maryland reserves the right to provide some or all of the course content through alternative methods of course delivery, including remote methods of delivery, and it reserves the right to change the method of delivery at any time before or during the academic term, in the event of a health or safety emergency or similar situation when it determines, in its sole discretion, that such change is necessary and in the best interests of the College and the campus community.

  • © 2022 St. Mary's College of Maryland
  • Consumer Information
  • Copyright
  • Privacy Policy
  • Title IX Compliance &Training
  • Non-discrimination Policy
  • Reporting Suspected Child Abuse and Neglect
  • OLA Fraud Hotline
  • Help Desk
  • Website Feedback
  • National Human Trafficking Hotline
  • 1-888-373-7888
  • BeFree Textline
  • Text HELP to 233733 (BEFREE)
  • More resources on human trafficking in Maryland
This site uses cookies to provide you with a great user experience. By continuing to use this site, you agree to our cookie policy.