NSF EAGER Grant Awarded to BSO/UMBC Partnership

UMBC Professor Linda Baker (Co-PI, Psychology Dept.), and Professors Linda Dusman and Eric Smallwood (as Co-founders, Octava LLC) have been awarded an NSF EAGER grant in partnership with the Education Department of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra for their proposal: "Orchestra Innovations in Science Education (OISE): An Experiment in Informal STEAM Learning."

The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra will be testing the possibility of advancing informal science learning presented and assessed via the Octava system during symphony orchestra concerts in a study designed by Dr. Baker. This is the first time that a professional orchestra has received an EAGER grant, and constitutes another institutional milestone as a research partnership between UMBC and a major Baltimore cultural institution. 

The complete grant personnel include Dr. Linda Baker (Co-PI), UMBC Professor of Psychology; Dr. Linda Dusman UMBC Professor of Music; Eric Smallwood, UMBC Assistant Professor of Visual Arts; Carol Bogash (Co-PI), BSO VP for Education and Community Engagement; Annemarie Guzy, BSO Director of Education; Jessica Abel (Co-PI), BSO Associate Director of Institutional Giving; Dr. Mario Livio, JHU Professor of Astrophysics; Jim O'Leary, Maryland Science Center Senior Scientist. 

Preliminary testing will commence June 9 and 10 at the BSO performance of Copland's Appalachian Spring and Thomas Ades' Polaris at Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, and will continue in September at performances of Beethoven's Symphony #5 and Villa Lobos' Bachianas Brasileiras.

Congrats to our outstanding UMBC professors on this fantastic award!