Cameron Walkup will earn his B.A. in Geography and Environmental Studies, with a Legal Policy Minor, in May, 2020. He just returned from spending eight weeks in the Grand Canyon National Park as a Doris Duke Conservation Scholar.

List any Scholars/Honors programs you are a part of: Sondheim Public Affairs Scholars Program, Honors College

Title of your research project: Applying Lessons from Canyon de Chelly and Bears Ears National Monuments to Equitable Co-management of Grand Canyon National Park

Describe your project: Drawing from management policies at Canyon de Chelly and Bears Ears National Monuments, I proposed methods for the National Park Service and the Grand Canyon’s 11 historically associated tribal nations to co-manage Grand Canyon National Park.

Who is your mentor(s) for your project? Why did you choose them? My mentor was Dr. Melissa Mark, Director of the Doris Duke Conservation Scholars Program (DDCSP) at Northern Arizona University. I connected with Dr. Mark after being accepted into the DDCSP, a two-year environmental leadership program which began this summer with an eight-week immersion program in the Southwest. I also worked closely with Dr. Ed Grumbine, Mr. Deon Ben, and Ms. Maria Archibald, staff members at the Grand Canyon Trust.

How did you become interested in this project? This summer I had the opportunity to interact with a variety of experts and stakeholders, including land managers and indigenous people. Learning about the history of public lands and native dispossession (every National Park/Forest/Monument, and indeed all land in the United States, was the land of indigenous people until it was taken by force or farce), led me to investigate current efforts to involve Native Americans in the management of their historic lands. I visited both Canyon De Chelly and Bears Ears National Monument during the DDCSP and learned that they are pioneering examples of federal-tribal co-management. After hearing that the Grand Canyon has similar if not more extensive connections to Native American nations, I decided to examine how Canyon de Chelly and Bears Ears could inform more equitable management of the Grand Canyon.

What has been the hardest part about your research/what was the most unexpected thing about being a researcher?  The hardest part of this research project was synthesizing the information and conducting additional research within a condensed timeframe. After gathering information and meeting with stakeholders for the first seven weeks of the program, the research project had to be completed within just the last week. Despite the time restrictions, I was happy with how quickly it came together and its clarity.

What has been the most rewarding part? The most rewarding part was being able to tie together distinct ideas and propose solutions to a critical issue. Federal-tribal co-management has only been enacted at a few public land units, so it was exciting to look into a new school of thought and suggest how it could be implemented at arguably the most well-known park in the United States.

How will you disseminate your research (URCAD presentation, conference, publication, etc?) At the end of my program I participated in a poster presentation session with the other members of my cohort. I am currently exploring opportunities to refine my research for further dissemination.

What is your advice to other students about getting involved in research?  Take any opportunity you can to do research. Apply for as many programs as you can and reach out to professors on campus for opportunities here at UMBC. Even if a program or internship is not explicitly focused on research, if you take the initiative you can create a research project out of it.

What are your career goals?After graduation, I plan to pursue a dual degree in law and environmental studies. Then I hope to take on a career in environmental law, focusing on equitable public lands management. 

If you are interested in being recognized as a Researcher of the Week, please contact Dr. April Householder: aprilh@umbc.edu

Stephanie Milani will complete her Computer Science (B.S.) and Psychology (B.A.) degrees in 2019. She is a Grand Challenge Scholar, a URA Scholar, and a member of the Honors College.

Title of your research project: Creating a Scalable Framework for Model-Free Reinforcement Learning in Norm-Rich Environments

Describe your project:I developed a scalable framework for robots to incorporate human values and preferences, or norms, with traditional methods for learning how to perform tasks so that these robots can learn how to act in environments where there may be social ramifications to actions.

Who is your mentor for your project? Why did you choose them? My research mentor is Dr. Katia Sycara, Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University.A couple of my friends from the Robotics Institute Summer Scholars program worked with her last summer and only had great things to say about working with her. When she and I met, I liked the research questions that she proposed. Based on that conversation and the research publications I had read from her lab, I decided that I wanted to work with her for the summer and the fall.

How did you become interested in this project?Dr. Sycara's lab is researching the general area of normative reasoning for social robots. While reading papers in this area, I realized that few people have looked into how to incorporate normative reasoning in a reinforcement learning setting. I've been interested in reinforcement learning for a few years now - both from its psychological underpinnings and in the area of machine learning - and I wanted to take the opportunity to explore it in a little-researched area with real-world impact. 

What has been the hardest part about your research/what was the most unexpected thing about being a researcher? The most difficult part about my research is finding a research problem that is both specific enough to make a tangible contribution and plan, but broad enough that it has greater impact outside of its original context.

What has been the most rewarding part?Probably presenting my research and being met with interest!

How will you disseminate your research?I will publish this research in the RISS Working Papers Journal. I plan to incorporate part of this work in my URCAD presentation, as well as other publications. 

What is your advice to other students about getting involved in research? If you find someone's research findings interesting, then contact them about it! They may have opportunities for you to work with them. 

What are your career goals?I plan to obtain a Ph.D. in Computer Science, specifically focusing on the field of reinforcement learning. After that, I plan to continue with research in machine learning in either an academic or industrial setting.

To learn more about becoming a URA Scholar:

https://ur.umbc.edu/ura/

or contact Dr. Householder at : aprilh@umbc.edu