UMES awarded $4.6M for new AI, climate change and healthcare related research

PRINCESS ANNE, Md. – The University of Maryland Eastern (UMES) Shore has been awarded $4.6 million dollars to fuel new research.

UMES will use the funding to investigate artificial intelligence, climate change, and health care. The research will also help move the institution from R-2 status to R-1 status. In other words, the funding helps bring UMES to a higher level of doctorate study. UMES will recruit and hire faculty and doctoral students from R-1 research universities to conduct the study.

“We will have about eight fully funded Ph.D. students who are really well trained and high achievement kind of students who will do particular projects under these teams to do a dissertation and produce new research over the next four years,” said principal investigator of the grant project, Dr. Sandeep Gopalan.

Dr. Gopalan calls this funding a game changer for the university, furthering inclusivity in research.

“As an HBCU, we believe it’s our duty not just to teach students but also to create new knowledge, about these areas such as AI or in the other aspect of climate change. We know that climate change affects African Americans particularly minority populations much worse than it does other populations,” said Gopalan.

Dr. Gopalan also says that African American patients report medical visits more negatively than their counterparts. “There are many reasons for it, but it’s often not well studied as to what causes this and how it might be better changed. So again, I think as an institution that is rooted in African-American history and as a land grant, we believe we have a role to produce that new knowledge which informs better solutions,” said Dr. Gopalan.

The funding will be dispersed over the next four years.

Dr. Gopalan says this means better outcomes for the future and an even more prestigious UMES that will attract people to the region. “That will result in publications, in new grants, potentially patents, all kinds of new IP that is generated, which then leads to potentially better policy outcomes. So it could be regulation in the context of  AI, for instance. It could be new legislation in the area of privacy. It could be better practices in the health care arena,” said Dr. Gopalan.