Welcome to the Department of Information Systems at UMBC. Our interdisciplinary program helps students develop in demand skills, preparing them for careers in IT and IS. Located near technology hubs, our suburban campus is an exciting place to be for students in tech. With a variety of degree programs to choose from, we offer programs designed to give you options for applying information systems to your career. To learn more, please contact us with any questions.
Student Opportunities
Visit our Current Opportunities webpage for complete information and details.
The department now uses a central form to collect research interests from our undergraduate and graduate students to help match students with projects (or opportunities) supervised by IS faculty.
Assistantship Opportunities for Graduate Students can be found on the graduate webpage.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) is hiring fall interns – Undergraduate and Graduate Student Paid Opportunities.
Student Spotlights and News
Leonard Traeger, Ph.D. ’25, information systems, recently won the Best Paper Award at the International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (ICEIS). The title of his paper is “Scoping: Towards Streamlined Entity Collections for Multi-Sourced Entity Resolution with Self-Supervised Agents.” Read more about this achievement and his research.
COEIT Students Win Info Challenge 2024 – Leon Tang, Oluwatimilehin Olayinka, Dale Neumeister, and Christopher Humbert recently won the University of Maryland’s Info Challenge 2024 award for Outstanding Cybersecurity Project. In this Q&A, the team took the time to talk to us about how they first became interested in cybersecurity and share details on what they worked on during their Info Challenge project. They leave us with advice for undergraduate students looking to get involved in the field and share their upcoming plans for the student organization Information Systems Security Association, UMBC Chapter.
Monday, April 29, 12-1pm, Rachael M. Kang will give a virtual presentation titled, “ChatGPT & AI in Research, Education, and the Classroom” as part of the Albin O. Kuhn Library’s AI, Privacy, and Ethics Symposium. Kang shares why she chose UMBC, what she will discuss in her upcoming talk, and how ChatGPT and AI have raised new questions for her research.
Iverson Scarlett was the featured Intern of the Week for the UMBC Career Center. Visit myUMBC to read about Iverson’s experience working with the SONG Lab conducting an extensive literature review on explainable AI techniques and digital forensics.
From Iverson: “Make good connections. Engage in on-campus clubs and activities that focus on your major and your own career goals. Try to reach out to faculty who have engaged in research projects or even one of your peers and create connections there as well. I feel like there are a lot of opportunities to engage in research on campus which could help you gain experience for future internships and full time positions.”
Chris Fortney is currently enrolled in our Online MS program. He graduated from the Maryland Institute College of Art with a BFA in 2014 concentrating in graphic design and painting. Fortney is currently the Project/Lab Manager for the Immersive Simulation Program (ISP) at the National Human Genome Research Institute where he develops custom virtual reality simulations for conducting experimental human trials. He takes the time to talk about his work at NHGRI, his interest in the cross section of technology, research, and design and why it is important to value and nourish your creative process.
Alumni Spotlights and News
Chris-Anne Correa ’13, M.S. ’16, our newest Advisory Board Member, is a Senior User Experience Designer at Amazon Prime Video. She focuses on creating experiences using customer input and measures impact every step of the way to iteratively improve the product. She takes time to share her experiences as a student, why UMBC is so important to her, and offers advice for those interested in pursuing UX Design as a career.
Kara Freeman ’91, engineering and information technology and advisory board member talks with President Emeritus Freeman A. Hrabowski III and Vice President Emerita for Administration and Finance Lynne Schaefer about their book, The Resilient University: How Purpose and Inclusion Drive Student Success.
Devin Price ’14, information systems, is an information security professional, writer, educator, and thought leader with over 9 years of experience in the tech industry. Price took the time to answer some questions about his time as a student and why it is important to never stop learning.
Mihir Patel, M.S. ’22, information systems, earned his Bachelor of Engineering in Information Technology from K.J Somaiya Institute of Engineering and Information Technology (Mumbai, India) and is a recent graduate of our M.S. in Information Systems program, data science track. Patel took the time to tell us about his passion for technology and how his internship at VITG turned into a full-time DevOps Engineer position. He also offers advice to students as they prepare for a new semester at UMBC.
Chuck Miller ’11, musical composition, M.S. ’23, information systems is recent graduate of our Online MS program and is active in the InfoSec community. He recently presented at DEFCON31 and mentions how all the televisions in the hotel were hacked during the event. Miller also talks about how he transitioned from a musical career to cybersecurity and how he got involved with fundraising for the American Cancer Society.
Faculty and Research News
Dr. Tera Reynolds is an Assistant Professor in the department and leads the Consumer heAlth infoRmatics for Engagement (CARE) research lab on campus.
Read our interview with Dr. Reynolds as she talks with us about her courses in the Online MS program, how students can get involved with her research, and the similarities between the online and on campus MS programs.
Monday, April 15, 12-1pm, Dr. Chen will give a virtual presentation titled, “The GPT Dilemma: Navigating the Pros, Cons, and Impacts on Learning.” Chen talks about what to expect from the presentation, how this work came about and how to leverage GPT as a productive tool in the classroom. The presentation is part of the AI, Privacy, and Ethics Symposium sponsored by the Albin O. Kuhn Library.
Recently, we were honored to host Professors B. S. Murthy and Tarun K. Panda of the Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad at UMBC. After tours of COEIT, Murthy and Panda visited with several faculty in person and online. They provided an overview of IIT Hyderabad, discussed the possibilities of research collaborations between our two institutions and ways to strengthen existing academic collaborations with UMBC and India. Aditi Walunj, First Secretary, Embassy of India joined the tours, presentations and meetings.
Led by Dr. Karuna Joshi. UMBC expands its next-generation tech analytics research with Phase II of the Center for Accelerated Real Time Analytics. “In Phase II, we are focusing more on collaborative projects with our university partners and building on those collaborations and making them stronger,” says Joshi.
October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month, a collaboration between government and private industry to raise awareness about digital security and empower everyone to protect their personal data from digital forms of crime. We are recognizing several faculty and alumni who work in the cybersecurity field. Augusto Casas is a Senior Lecturer in our Online MS program and has over two decades of higher education teaching experience in the fields of information systems and computer science.