Internship Highlights

Application Deadline: February 15, 2021

Apply here!

Undergraduate Research and Creative Achievement Day (URCAD) is celebrating its 25th anniversary! Due to the COVID-related campus closure, URCAD XXV will be held online again this spring. You will be able to view presentations, watch films, see video of dance and music performances, view artwork, and interact with presenters during the asynchronous event.

Last April, 251 students presented their research and creative work, and thousands of visitors logged on the URCAD online via an interactive platform called VoiceThread. Nothing can compare to being together to be able to celebrate all of the research, scholarship, and creative work of our talented UMBC undergraduate students. Experiencing the live dance performances, being able to talk face to face with students about their research, or being able to take a ride on a kinetic sculpture are things that are meant to be experienced in person, and the energy of hosting URCAD on campus is irreplaceable. But last year’s online event provided a unique experience for visitors to explore the presentations and to interact with presenters in really meaningful ways. The online format also expanded URCAD to a global event- visitors logged on from as far away as Korea and the U.K. 

Mark your calendars for the week of April 19-23, 2021 for URCAD XXV Online!

You can still view the presentations form 2020 here: https://urcad.umbc.edu/departments/

Undergraduate Research and Creative Achievement Day (URCAD) features research, scholarship, and creative work carried out by UMBC undergraduates. Student work is shared through oral presentations, posters, artistic exhibits, performances, and film. Over 300 presenters participate annually. Researchers work with faculty mentors on independent research, or research that is part of the mentor’s on-going projects.  They are from all disciplines, and can be working on a thesis, capstone project, part of a scholars or honors program, or they can be unaffiliated.This campus-wide celebration of achievement affirms UMBC’s commitment to the twin goals of research and a distinctive undergraduate experience.

All current undergraduates who have conducted research, scholarship or creative work in the last year may apply to present their results at URCAD. Mentors, fellow students, friends, family members, high school teachers and students, graduate school recruiters, and the general public are invited to attend.

As advocates for the Joseph Beuys Sculpture Park, part of our mission is to promote inspirational outdoor community environments,  where passersby pause to sit with nature or gather to be with friends. While we love it when the park is buzzing with community workshops or performances, we also know that there is much beauty to be found in the quiet, serene moments in this unique UMBC space.  

Stephen Bradley, Associate Professor of Visual Arts, Director of the Linehan Artist Scholar Program, and UMBC community member recently captured one of these moments on August 30 at the beginning of this semester when he was researching sonic environments right on campus at the Beuys Park. 

Listen to his 11-minute recording of this lively cicada chorus in the park here! 

About the artist

Stephen Bradley is an interdisciplinary artist, engaged in acoustic ecology and material culture.   He maps and traces our relationship to place through ecology, sound and sculptural objects, including recorded narratives juxtaposed with artifacts discarded or lost in the landscape.

 To learn more about Stephen Bradley’s work, visit his website and check out his sonic research and his land mapping research.

 Whether urban or rural, the sounds of our home environments give us - often unconsciously - a strong "sense of place".  

-Hildegard Westerkamp, The Local and Global “Language” of Environmental Sound