The Center for Social Science Scholarship

09/03/2026

Coming up on our first Social Science Forum of the semester:

Constitution Day Lecture

with State Delegate Lily Qi, District 15

Thursday, September 17, 2026 · 12 - 1 PM

Learn more and register: https://my3.my.umbc.edu/groups/csss/events/156677

08/05/2026

Publication alert!

Why do some democracies amend their constitutions with ease while others remain frozen in time? Drawing on global data and an experiment on the Equal Rights Amendment in America, William D. Blake, Joseph Francesco C***a, and Dave A. Armstrong II show that the missing ingredient is social capital — the trust in political institutions and civic engagement that let political entrepreneurs clear the hurdles put up by the amendment process.

Check out the book, available now: https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/abs/social-foundations-of-constitutional-innovation/0A6185CCAD9166F46B67B0458E7322CA

Stay tuned for Dr. Blake's discussion of the new book in October!

07/10/2026

CAP’s Accessible Democracy Tracker identifies barriers to accessible voting across U.S. states as well as opportunities to strengthen election accessibility for disabled Americans.

07/02/2026

"My story has a lot of twists and turns. I came to Baltimore in 2018 for treatment for opioid use disorder after experiencing homelessness, incarceration, hospitalizations, and treatment programs.

06/30/2026

Register Today!

Baltimore Data Day is Friday, July 17, 2026

University of Baltimore’s Thumel Business Center
11 W. Mount Royal Avenue
Baltimore, MD 21201
8:30am-4:15pm

"For the 17th annual Baltimore Data Day, held July 17, 2026, at the University of Baltimore, BNIA-JFI will convene eight topic-driven panels that bring together voices from the city, the state, and the local community to discuss emerging gaps and new opportunities for collaboration. We will once again conclude the day with workshops that move panel discussions from a place of knowledge to one of action and strategy."

Learn more and register:

BNIA - Baltimore Neighborhood Indicators Alliance, Providing reliable, actionable quality of life indicators for Baltimore’s neighborhoods

06/25/2026

Check out this great piece on the 2025 and 2026 Bernard L. Berkowitz Memorial Award for public service winners!

Administered by the Center for Social Science Scholarship, the Berkowitz award gives students the financial freedom to invest in themselves and their education.

Erika Bucciantini, a doctoral student of public policy, is the 2026 recipient of the UMBC Bernard L. Berkowitz Memorial Award for public service.

05/27/2026

CS3 Summer Faculty Writing Group - Collaboration and Innovation

Join us throughout the summer months for a faculty writing group. Faculty from all disciplines are welcome! Our theme this summer is collaboration and innovation, emphasizing our shared commitment to fostering a community of friendship, the pursuit of new research agendas, and ways to move forward our important work.

At the start of each writing session we will share our session goals, provide updates on work in progress, and then write in silence for the remainder of our time. Upon completion of the session we will share our successes, challenges, and detours from the session, and then set our agenda for the upcoming week.

To join, please RSVP here:

Join us throughout the summer months for a faculty writing group. Faculty from all disciplines are welcome! Our theme this summer is collaboration and innovation, emphasizing our shared commitment...

04/28/2026

Next Thursday, May 7, the last Spring 2026 Social Science Forum:

The Lipitz Lecture

Thursday, May 7, 2026
4pm - UMBC's AOK Library Gallery

Featuring Erle Ellis, PhD.

Professor, UMBC Department of Geography and Environmental Systems

How People Make Nature Better: Measuring Progress Toward a World Where People and Nature Thrive Together using the Nature Relationship Index (NRI)

The endless drumbeat of planetary doom isn’t working – it’s even getting in the way. We can indeed make a better future for all life on this planet, but only by more effectively engaging our growing capabilities to shape and sustain nature for the better, from nature kinship to environmental protection, nature conservation, clean energy, and so much more. Erle Ellis will present his work contributing to the United Nations Development Programme’s Human Development Report for 2026 that is building an aspirational approach to motivate progress towards a world where people and nature thrive together through a new measure of progress that includes nature – the Nature Relationship Index (NRI).

View the full SSF series here: https://socialscience.umbc.edu/spring-2026-ssfs/

04/28/2026

This Friday, May 1:
University of Maryland Baltimore County hosts its annual
CoEIT Research Day event

9am-4pm, University Center 3rd Floor

Including:
- two AI-related talk sessions
- keynote by former UMBC Prof. Susan Gregurick, Director of the NIH Office of Data Science Strategy.

See the full agenda for details:

The COEIT Research Day 2026 agenda is also available as a printable PDF. COEIT Research Day 2026 — Agenda Schedule at a glance Friday, May 1, 2026 8:30 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. Parallel Session Program Organized by Time (Schedule version)   Panel Session Program Organized by Time (Text Version) COEIT R...

04/24/2026

Congratulations to the EIGHT (!!) UMBC alumni and students who received the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship this year!

This includes Peter Allen Wilschke '24, economics and political science, representing the Social Sciences!

"Peter is heading to graduate school after completing a two-year research assistant position at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in Washington, DC. His research at UMBC on the complex relationships between political factors and fiscal policy garnered national attention."

Eight Retrievers awarded prestigious NSF Graduate Research Fellowships