January 15, 2026 — 2:00 p.m. ET

Media Training for Academics

Don Solomon, Vice President for Communications and Marketing, National Humanities Center

Many academics struggle with the desire to share their expertise with mainstream audiences, worrying about how they and their work will be represented. In this session you'll learn how to work with traditional media, including how to engage reporters and get them interested in your work, how to handle press inquiries, and how to make sure your version of the story gets written.

Don Solomon has over 30 years experience sharing stories about products, people, and organizations of all kinds, and since 2006 he has led communications and marketing at the National Humanities Center. Prior to joining the Center, Don was co-founder and principal of Distill Consulting, and has worked with a wide range of clients that includes Michelin, Hanes, IBM, Rhone Poulenc, CooperTools, and the March of Dimes, among others.

Promotions have begun for the 2026 University System of Maryland (USM) Board of Regents Student Excellence Scholarships, which recognize outstanding undergraduate and graduate students across USM institutions. This is a self-nomination scholarship. While the application portal opens on Tuesday, January 6, students are encouraged to review the requirements and begin preparing materials in advance.

Application Deadline: Friday, February 6

Requirements: Completed application, including a letter of recommendation
Eligibility: Undergraduate and graduate USM students in good academic and disciplinary standing
More Information: Full details and application access are available on the official scholarship website

Students are strongly encouraged to consider applying and to begin preparations early.

Applications are now being accepted for the Center for Social Science Scholarship Summer Fellowship.  The purpose of this fellowship is to support significant social science research by tenure-track or tenured faculty in the UMBC College of Arts, Humanities, & Social Sciences, resulting in a submittable product by December 2026.  Up to two fellows will receive a $6,000 award during the summer of 2026. 

We are excited to share a recent publication by Dr. Matthew E. Fagan, Professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Systems at UMBC, published in Nature Ecology & Evolution.

In "The responsible use of global remote-sensing datasets," Dr. Fagan and co-authors Naomi B. Schwartz and Ruth S. DeFries examine how global remote-sensing data are increasingly used to analyze Earth's systems at unprecedented scales. The article highlights both the power and the limitations of these datasets, emphasizing the importance of transparency, uncertainty awareness, and appropriate application in scientific research and decision making.

The authors outline three key considerations for responsible use of global datasets:

• What we map, including blind spots and sociocultural biases in data coverage
• How we map, focusing on model uncertainty and transferability across regions
• Where we make inferences, particularly the risks of drawing fine-scale conclusions from coarse-resolution data

This work calls for stronger best practices, improved metadata, and clearer communication of uncertainties to ensure global datasets are used responsibly and equitably.

Read the full article: The responsible use of global remote-sensing datasets

The Dresher Center for the Humanities will once again host a writing group during the 2025 Winter Session. This would be a writing accountability group format where we come together and write.

The format is flexible, but the group would ideally work twice a week for 90 minutes in a hybrid format. The Dresher Center conference room (PAHB 216) could be available for those interested in writing together on campus. Additionally, lunch will be offered after one of the writing sessions.

This writing groups open to faculty, graduate students, and staff working on humanities-related projects.

Sign up here