Maryland approved $8.2M to support STEM, innovation professorships at these 8 universities

Thanks to the Maryland Department of Commerce, an octet of the state’s public and private universities can now commit a collective $16.4 million toward professorships in STEM, health and adjacent fields.

Half of that sum, or $8.2 million, comes from matching grants that the stage agency endowed via its Maryland E-Novation Initiative Fund (MEIF), which it administers to match private fundraising for endowed professorships and chair positions. The other half, per the MEIF’s mandate, came from private fundraising that the beneficiary universities and colleges raised.

The MEIF’s contribution falls slightly short of the $8.5 million that the Department of Commerce’s website said is appropriated by the governor every year. It supports what Maryland Commerce Secretary Mike Gill described in a statement as ” groundbreaking and forward-thinking work being led by our higher education institutions.”

“Maryland is consistently one of the top-ranked states for innovation, and our colleges and universities are critical drivers of cutting-edge research and bold new ideas,” Gill added in Tuesday’s statement.

Here are the eight public and private institutions benefitting from this funding, along with what the state awarded them and what the funds will support:

• Hood College (Frederick), which received $500,000 to fund a new director for its Biomedical Research and Training Center
• Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing (Baltimore), which got $1.8 million for a new Endowed Professorship of Disability Health and Justice
• Morgan State University (Baltimore), to which the MEIF earmarked $1 million for a new Endowed Chair for the Center for Urban Health Equity
• Mount St. Mary’s University (Emmitsburg, Frederick), which was granted $200,000 to support its Applied Behavior Analysis grad program’s endowed chair
• Notre Dame of Maryland University (Baltimore), which earned $1.5 million to support STEM innovation via its Dr. Mary Kay Shartle Galotto ’64 Endowed Chair in the Biological Sciences 
• University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB), which nabbed $500,000 to set up its Leslie S. Robinson, MD Endowed Professorship in Health Professions Education
• University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP), to which the MEIF granted $1 million for a new professorship in its College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences
• Washington College (Chestertown), which earned $1 million for its new Chair of Ethical Data Science 

Several of these universities matched the state’s funds with contributions from single benefactors. Morgan State’s award was matched by noted philanthropist and writer MacKenzie Scott, while UMB received $500,000 from former graduate dean Bruce Jarrell and UMCP got $1 million from local quantum computing success story IonQ.