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Matt Rutherford and Nicole Trenholm weren’t going to let bad news about a grant for this year’s arctic marine expedition stop them. So they hitched a ride. Friends with boats, right?  “The deal is they will take us into Greenland waters for our research in exchange for me helping them navigate the toughest sections of the Northwest Passage,” Rutherford said. He met the owners of the boat while delivering a boat from Panama to San Diego a few years back.  The couple, who make up the Ocean Research Project using the small platform of a sailboat to perform marine research delving into man’s effect on the world’s oceans, was determined to get back into the Arctic for follow up research from their 2016 mission to northern Greenland.  And they were buoyed after co-publishing a paper with NASA scientists and the Oceans Melting Greenland (OMG) project, published by Oceanography magazine in June, based on their research into ocean temperatures affecting Greenland glacier melt.  And further boosted by the donation of a 65-foot steel-hulled Bruce Roberts sailboat to their cause. It needs some sprucing up, but should prove to be a vessel for the long haul.  They took off from their home base in Annapolis July 23, flying to Reykjavik, Iceland, then to Greenland.  The scientist half of the operation is Trenholm while Rutherford, famous for his 2012 single-handed nonstop voyage around the Americas — the first to ever accomplish the sailing feat — is the captain and spark plug.  Trenholm, who also has a blog and teaching arrangement with Anne Arundel County Public Schools STEM program, posted some details after they made it to Aasiaat, Greenland, a small village about a third of the way up the icy coast.  They boarded Toboggan, the boat they hitched a ride on, and took off up Disko Bay to record water temperatures approaching Jakobshavn Glacier, known to calf off chunks of ice the size of New York City.  “With our CTD instrument, which measures conductivity, temperature and depth, we indeed found that warm water,” Trenholm wrote.  From there they moved north to Upernavik to check ice charts and gear up to cross Baffin Bay into the Northwest Passage, a three-day sail.  By Friday night they were just off Devon Island, the largest uninhabited island on earth, at the eastern end of the passage.

They plan to conduct more research.

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UMBC graduate programs are among the best nationwide, according to the 2019 U.S. News Best Graduate Schools rankings, released today. The rankings recognize a dozen UMBC graduate programs including nine top-100 programs from a broad range of fields, with all three UMBC colleges represented. They are based on a survey of more than 20,500 academics and professionals, plus data on over 2,000 programs, indicating the quality of each school’s faculty, research, and students.

Graduate programs in UMBC’s College of Natural and Mathematical Sciences (CNMS) appear on five separate lists across a broad range of scientific fields: biology, chemistry, math, physics, and statistics.

“Our graduate programs use cutting-edge research led by outstanding faculty to train the next generation of leaders in science and education,” said CNMS Dean Bill LaCourse. “These rankings are a reflection of our commitment to student success through rigor, passion, and inclusive excellence.”

UMBC’s College of Engineering and Information Technology (COEIT) appears on six lists, representing computer science plus five different engineering fields: chemical, computer, electrical, mechanical, and environmental.

“The successes of the academic programs and people from our college are directly connected to the strengths we bring together in computing, information systems and engineering,” says COEIT Dean Keith J. Bowman. “Our education and research programs benefit from being part of a university that fosters leadership, innovation and collaboration across a campus that values excellence that is also inclusive.”

Dean Bowman came to UMBC in August 2017 with strong commitments to advancing research that benefits society and elevating student success, as two core aspects of maintaining high-caliber graduate programs.

UMBC’s School of Public Policy was also again included among the best in the country in this year’s U.S. Newsgraduate rankings. “The UMBC School of Public Policy has a distinguished track record of preparing students for careers in every sector of public life,” says Scott Casper, dean of the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences (CAHSS). “Its faculty are not just outstanding teachers, but also nationally recognized researchers in fields ranging from health and education policy to public management, law, and regulatory economics.”

The UMBC School of Public Policy welcomed Susan Sterettas its new director this past fall. She shares, “We are so excited to be building on our excellent history as we participate in important interdisciplinary initiatives, particularly in the area of health policy. Our faculty and graduate students are partnering with communities to improve our schools, serve the city of Baltimore, and spread understanding concerning cities and the economics of public policy.”

U.S. News also recognized UMBC’s psychology and fine arts graduate programs, both in CAHSS, as leaders in their fields in rankings released last year.

Today’s announcement is just the latest in a long line of U.S. News accolades for UMBC. The 2017-18. U.S. News & World Report college guide ranked UMBC the #7 Most Innovative university in the nation, #13 top national university for Strong Commitment to Undergraduate Teaching, and one of the nation’s top universities overall on its latest Best National Universities list.

Also earlier this year, Times Higher Education recognized UMBC as one of the world’s top universities for the sixth consecutive time. The Center for World Universities honored UMBC as one of the best universities worldwide, in the top two percent of higher education institutions. Highlighting the university’s combination of outstanding academics and affordability, Kiplinger’s Personal Finance named UMBC a Best Value College for the eighth year in a row.