Two faculty researchers in the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS) were just named MPower Professors, a prestigious honor that recognizes, incentivizes and fosters collaborations between faculty at the University of Maryland, College Park and the University of Maryland, Baltimore.
Michael Cummings, a professor of biology, and Mihai Pop, a professor of computer science, are part of a cohort of seven faculty named as MPower Professors this year.
To be considered for the MPower Professorship, faculty must demonstrate collaboration on strategic research that would be unattainable or difficult to achieve acting independently of one another and must embrace the mission of MPower—to collectively strengthen and serve the state of Maryland and its citizens.
Each MPower Professor receives $150,000, allocated over three years, to apply to their salary or to support supplemental research activities.
“I’m deeply inspired by this incredible group of MPower Professors, who are not only dedicating themselves to solving some of the most complex problems facing society, but also embracing the power of cross-disciplinary and cross-institutional collaboration,” said UMD President Darryll J. Pines. “By working together, we unlock new creative potential and develop innovative solutions that we couldn’t achieve alone.”
In addition to his appointment in UMIACS, Cummings also serves as director of the Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology (CBCB). His research involves bioinformatics and computational biology with a focus on data analysis that spans a broad range of biomedical problems. He takes a broadly data science approach to research with objectives including description, hypothesis generation, hypothesis testing, and prediction, and uses machine learning, statistical, and other methods.
Pop is the current director of UMIACS and is a core faculty member in CBCB. His research focuses on the development of sequence assembly algorithms and analysis of genomic data sets. His lab developed widely used computational tools for the analysis of genomic and metagenomic data. A trailblazer in the human microbiome field—he currently is director of the University of Maryland Center of Excellence in Microbiome Sciences—Pop is globally recognized for his efforts to diversify the computer science and computational biology communities.