Public Health, Policy, and Education

Associate Professor Toby Egan developed a collaborative ‘research-to-practice’ team of medical doctors, healthcare consultants, and university researchers to work with hospitals to design, develop, and disseminate a unique approach to preventing the spread of COVID-19 in their facilities. Each hospital defined zones—gray, yellow or red—that represented escalating prevention practices and increasing levels of protection for patients and healthcare workers.

UMBC’s Sherman STEM Teacher Scholars Program has launched an intensive virtual math incubator for students at Lakeland Elementary/Middle School in Baltimore City this summer. The program seeks to prevent summer learning loss, which could increase this year, intensified by COVID-19’s impact on student learning during the school year.

Assistant Professor Foad Hamidi received a collaborative National Science Foundation RAPID grant to increase high-speed wireless internet access in Baltimore. He will collaborate with the Digital Harbor Foundation, Project Waves, and other groups to assist residents who want to set up internet access in their homes, as well as amplify free internet in accessible spaces, such as libraries and community centers.

Government and Politics Professor Stella Rouse and her team completed a study to examine attitudes about COVID-19 among Generation Z (individuals those born between 1995 and 2010). They discovered a gender gap in Gen Z attitudes, with women expressing greater health and economic concerns and more support for stay-at-home orders.

Psychology Professor Michele Gelfand is analyzing how the tightness or looseness of a culture’s social norms determines its response to the COVID-19. Using tightness-looseness theory as a framework, she is examining whether a country’s social norms and tolerance for violations influences its ability to effectively respond to and mitigate the effects of the pandemic.

A team led by two economics professors, John Haltiwanger and Erkut Ozbay, has received a National Science Foundation grant to fund a study of how the pandemic is restructuring jobs and businesses. The team will analyze real-time GPS data from cell phone users to compare work mobility before and after the coronavirus crisis and assess changes in employment.

Professor Stella Tomasi is initiating research to study company messages that are disseminated on websites about the COVID-19 pandemic. She will examine messages that companies are sharing with employees and customers about company operations and review how state response to social distancing played a role in these messages.

Professor Donn Worgs is conducting a survey of Black churches to find out what challenges they are facing during the coronavirus crisis, and what adaptations they are making to sustain their mission, maintain their institutions, and continue their community outreach and service activities.

Professor Paul Evitts is exploring research on the beneficial effects of the inclusion of visual information (audio + visual) on the intelligibility of speech across numerous populations. Due to the coronavirus, masks are now required in many places. The proposed study will investigate the effects of facial masks on the speech intelligibility of speakers.

Professor Lucy Wilson, an infectious disease physician and graduate program director of emergency health services at UMBC, served on an interdisciplinary team that developed the National Governor's Association's "Roadmap to Recovery: A Public Health Guide for Governors." Using the science of infection control and disease transmission, she helped develop criteria to maintain the safety of settings such as schools, hospitals, prisons, and nursing homes.

The study will examine why governments flout WHO guidance, and whether their actions—or overreactions—do more harm than good. The two-year project aims to create a decision tool for governments and companies so they can properly respond in high-pressure, uncertain situations like the current COVID-19 pandemic.

Since the COVID-19 lockdown began in March, a research team have been working with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to measure, from the air, how changing habits due to the coronavirus have impacted air pollution in the D.C. metro area. The team conducts missions in a research aircraft equipped to gather real-time information on pollutants and analyzes the data from each flight.

Professor of Computer Science Sharad Sharma is the principal investigator on a National Science Foundation grant-funded project using data visualization, analysis and prediction of COVID-19 to determine reasons why the black community is disproportionately impacted during the coronavirus pandemic.

A team of researchers led by Charissa Cheah, professor of psychology at UMBC, has found that a high percentage of Chinese American parents and children have witnessed and experienced an increase in racial discrimination since the outbreak of COVID-19. The team suggests that public health strategies are urgently needed to decrease fear, stigmatization, and discrimination.

Working closely with the Maryland Department of Health, the Hilltop Institute is providing data analysis and operational support to the Maryland Medicaid program in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Their analysis will identify Medicaid participants most at risk due to underlying health conditions or interruptions in support services.

Researchers at the two institutions are partnering to study COVID transmission pathways and develop strategies to limit the virus' spread. They are studying exhaled breath aerosols in order to screen critical staff for COVID-19 to see if they are shedding the virus.