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Forward For

Bold and Brave Solutions

UMD is making real progress for real people by pushing frontiers in emerging fields, making groundbreaking discoveries and spinning out innovations that tackle our world’s most pressing problems. 

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Unprecedented Transformation

We helped lay the groundwork for the AI revolution. We’re building the Capital of Quantum. Our Grand Challenges Grants have shifted the landscape of interdisciplinary work on our campus. And we’re just getting started.

Forward for the University of Maryland

We call upon the strength of our Terrapin community to move Maryland forward. Join us in building a better future for all.

Multi-Unit Priorities

Capitalizing on our expertise in artificial intelligence, quantum and interdisciplinary research, we are taking on the grand challenges of our time that cross all sectors of industry, government and society.

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UMD is harnessing the power of artificial intelligence to boost human potential, promoting its trustworthy and responsible use in industry, government and society. In doing so, we are preparing students from all majors to thrive in an AI-integrated workforce. 

Artificial Intelligence

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Long a leader in quantum science, UMD is accelerating a statewide effort to amp up discovery and economic growth in a field that holds the potential to revolutionize education, health care and commerce. We are building the Capital of Quantum.

Capital of Quantum

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Combining research methods and practice in education, speech pathology, library sciences and family engagement, UMD is invested in expanding and improving literacy to inspire curiosity in the youngest minds across our state.

Literacy

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UMD researchers are taking on humanity’s grand challenges by launching interdisciplinary collaborations and forging new approaches to address vexing issues in global health, energy, data security and online privacy, sustainability and more. 

Grand Challenges

Excellence & Impact

Students standing over a work table engaging in research, with computers and equipment in front of them. The text reads, "The Climate Resilience Network is a University of Maryland Grand Challenges Grants Project."

UMD Researchers Prepare Marylanders for Extreme Weather, Air Quality Problems

Grand Challenges: The Climate Resilience Network

Emilio A. Fernandez '69 is framed by the monumental window of the building that bears his name, the E.A. Fernandez IDEA Factory.

Emilio A. Fernandez Adds UMD to Network of Schools Supporting Unconventional Learners

$2.1M Gift to Unlock Students’ Overlooked Potential in Engineering

AI Library Illustration: books, clouds, computers and graphs in front of a blue background, circling the acronym "AI"

Across departments, staff and librarians are engaging with artificial intelligence as both a tool and a topic and exploring what it means to use AI tools with care, curiosity and responsibility.

AI @ the Libraries

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Longtime supporter pledges new $1 million investment to directly support interdisciplinary research and initiatives across Smith’s programs and centers.

Why I Give: Bill Longbrake, DBA '76

AI powered hand.

New advances in soft robotics and wearable devices have established a need for stretchable electronic components that can withstand mechanical deformation while sustaining their optimal performance.

Automating Wearable Electronics Design: How Next-Generation Devices Could Be Engineered by AI

Students posing with a massive check on a stage.

A student-led initiative providing first aid and CPR education in Ghana and an organization working to ensure surplus food doesn’t go to waste took the $10,000 top prizes at the University of Maryland’s 13th annual Do Good Challenge.

Medical Training Initiative, Food Recovery Network Take Top Prizes at Do Good Challenge

Vanessa Frias-Martinez (left) speaks with Louiqa Raschid, a professor in the Robert H. Smith School of Business with an appointment in UMIACS.

INFO Professor Vanessa Frías-Martínez helps build trustworthy AI systems that deliver guidance in high-stakes situations.

UMIACS: Building AI That Keeps Users Safe Across Cultures and Crises (ft. Vanessa Frias-Martinez)

An elderly man and woman walking along a road, surrounded by beautiful green grass, bushes, and trees.

University of Maryland participates in launching SPARC, the Southern Population Research Center, to advance research on aging.

UMD Leads Partnership to Strengthen Aging Research in the South

A man wearing a hazmat suit surrounded by trees, collecting water from a pipe in a white water bottle to place in the open blue cooler to the left of him.

UMD research team works with homeowners across the state to clarify if contaminants are in tap water

Testing the (drinking) waters in Maryland

UMD's new graduate housing buildings set to open in Summer 2026.

New Graduate Student Housing Will Accelerate Interdisciplinary Research, Mentorship and Professional Impact

UMD to Launch Grand Challenges Graduate Communities

Illustration of amyloid plaques forming between neurons in the brain.

UMD computer scientist Heng Huang leads the project’s artificial intelligence and machine learning efforts and plans to build an innovative large genomic language model for Alzheimer’s that will drive drug discovery for the disease.

NIH Awards $12.5M for Alzheimer’s Researchers to Use AI to Scour Biobank Data

Gabriela Arp working in Brantley Hall's lab.

Gabriela Arp, a Ph.D. candidate in UMD’s Biological Sciences Graduate Program, says our gut microbiomes house hormone transformers with the power to change our bodies and brains.

A Gutsy Approach to Human Hormones

Through the use of statistical physics and Generative AI, RNAnneal (patent pending) enables the emergence of diverse three-dimensional RNA structures starting only from the sequence of letters A, U, G, and C that comprise the RNA.

Emergente’s patented RNAnneal platform predicts shapeshifting RNA structures, addressing a foundational bottleneck across the therapeutics, agriculture and biotechnology manufacturing industries.

New UMD Startup Builds the ‘Picks and Shovels’ for the RNA Revolution

Terp Magazine Award Winners

This award recognizes alums who are advancing knowledge, driving innovation and creating real-world solutions to society’s most urgent challenges.

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Samudrala invented a pioneering technique to predict disease treatments, analyzing how every drug interacts with every protein in the human body.

Ram Samudrala PhD '97

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Koper is a pioneer in evidence-based crime policy, creating the globally used Koper Curve Principle to help police departments organize patrols in crime “hot spots.”

Jennifer Jenkins '16

A person wearing commencement cap and gown in front of the Xfinity Center building at the University of Maryland.

Working to galvanize a “wellness revolution,” Kues founded True Community, which provides first aid and CPR certification in 20 American cities, and in Africa.

Luke T. Kues '25