It’s hard to imagine the world of science without trailblazing environmental microbiologist Rita Colwell. An expert in global infectious disease and the first female director of the National Science Foundation, Colwell has conducted seminal research on cholera that transformed our understanding of how the deadly disease behaves and spreads.

At 79, Ed Vilade has a jammed social calendar. Between his choir practice (he’s in two), voice lessons, community theater and overseeing the writer’s guild at his Silver Spring, Md., retirement community, Vilade’s brain was getting a regular workout, critical, he thought, to staying sharp as he aged.

But what wasn’t in shape was his body. So, three years ago, Vilade joined a clinical trial at the University of Maryland’s Exercise for Brain Lab, which used MRI and other diagnostic tools to study how physical exertion affects the neural networks that control memory and cognition.

Even on the roof of the world, climate change is melting the snow. The loss of a third of the ice of Himalayan mountains in the past 30 years has translated into water and food shortages and variable water quality in the villages below.

A University of Maryland team traveled there this month to see how communities there are tackling these insecurities and to apply its expertise in water sampling and analysis to inform solutions to citizens in Namobuddha Municipality.

The Maryland Safe Drinking Water Analysis and Testing for Education and Research (WATER) study examines the quality of public drinking water systems and private wells in Maryland through citizen science, field-based research and laboratory analyses.

Kim shares why she decided to study health policy and management, how she overcame stigma around abortion research and how her research on contraception and abortion access could impact state and national health policies.

Short documentary highlights Sapkota and his research team's efforts to create an early warning system in Nepal for diarrheal diseases tied to extreme weather events.

Prior, associate professor and associate chair for research in the Department of Kinesiology, will receive $150,000 to fund his research on how exercise impacts vascular and functional impairment in older adults.

Epidemiology and biostatistics Associate Professor Thu Nguyen and a research team will develop the Asian Americans & Racism: Individual and Structural Experiences (ARISE) cohort of 500 Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese Americans—groups historically underrepresented in the nation's neurologic research.

Professor Cheryl Knott and University of Connecticut Associate Professor Debarchana Ghosh will develop a measure of county-level structural racism and discrimination as part of a five-year study that aims to fill a gap in preventive cancer-related research in historically underserved communities.