COLLEGE PARK, Md - Three University of Maryland faculty were announced Thursday as 2024 fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’s largest general scientific society.
Professor Xin-Zhong Liang of the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science (AOSC), Professor and Chair Jeffrey Lidz of the Department of Linguistics and Professor Emerita Ann Wylie of the Department of Geology joined a class of 471 scientists, engineers and innovators. The lifetime honor recognizes achievements across multiple fields, from research to teaching, industry and government. The new additions bring UMD’s total to over 110 AAAS fellows.
“These newly elected AAAS Fellows highlight our CMNS faculty members as catalysts for discovery that leads directly to positive impacts on our local, national and global communities,” said Dean Amitabh Varshney of the College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences. “Congratulations to Ann and Xin-Zhong on this tremendous honor.”
This class of fellows embodies both scientific excellence and service to their communities, said Sudip S. Parikh, AAAS chief executive officer and executive publisher of the Science family of journals, in an announcement.
“At a time when the future of the scientific enterprise in the U.S. and around the world is uncertain, their work demonstrates the value of sustained investment in science and engineering,” he said.
Xin-Zhong Liang, who has a joint appointment in the Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center, was honored for “innovative, pioneering leadership in developing regional modeling capabilities for understanding climate change impacts on water resources and various societal sectors.”
His efforts to develop integrated Earth system models span various fields, including atmosphere, ocean and land physics and chemistry; biogeochemistry; terrestrial hydrology; climatology; and agriculture.
“I am deeply honored to be elected as an AAAS fellow, and this recognition truly reflects the collective efforts of my exceptional team and collaborators,” Liang said. “Advancing interdisciplinary research requires broad collaboration, and I am grateful for the opportunity to work with such dedicated colleagues.”
His most recent work focuses on developing the Dashboard for Agricultural Water Use and Nutrient Management (DAWN), a predictive decision-support tool for sustaining food and energy crop production in the U.S. Corn Belt that extends from western Ohio to eastern Nebraska and northeastern Kansas.
The global and regional climate and Earth system models Liang has developed have been used to improve weather forecasting and study climate variability, predictability, impacts and feedback on timescales that range from seasons to decades.
Liang, a fellow of the American Meteorological Society and American Geophysical Union, has been awarded over $26 million in research grants and published over 200 peer-reviewed journal articles. He joined UMD as a professor in 2011 from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and received his Ph.D. in atmospheric dynamics from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and B.S. in meteorology from Zhejiang University in China.
Jeffrey Lidz was honored for his distinguished contributions to linguistics and language science, particularly for innovative approaches to studying child language acquisition and the psychological basis of semantics.
“Jeff Lidz’s scholarship explores how we develop and communicate as people and as a society. This is at the heart of what we do in the College of Arts and Humanities,” said Stephanie Shonekan, dean of the College of Arts and Humanities. “This prestigious fellowship is an apt recognition of his body of work.”
He studies language syntax and semantics through several lenses: infant and children's language acquisition, cross-linguistic comparisons and the interface between language and other systems of mind.
He directs UMD’s Project on Children's Language Learning and the Infant and Child Studies Consortium. Over the course of his career, he has made notable contributions to our understanding of how infants acquire language and understand syntax—or the arrangement of words and phrases to create well-formed sentences—by the time they are 18 months old.
“This is a big honor,” Lidz said. “I’ve tried to do linguistics in a way that speaks to broad questions in psychology and philosophy, using as broad a set of tools as possible. So, I hope this induction will allow me to be a role model for young scientists who want to engage big questions in the study of language and mind.”
Lidz is a fellow of the Linguistics Society of America and was named a Distinguished Scholar-Teacher at UMD. He has authored more than 170 peer-reviewed publications and mentored more than 30 doctoral students. He joined UMD as an associate professor in 2005 from Northwestern University. He earned a Ph.D. and master’s degree in linguistics from the University of Delaware and a B.S. in journalism from Northwestern.
Ann Wylie was honored “for distinguished contributions to both the field of mineralogy and university administration.”
She is a nationally recognized mineralogist and economic geologist whose research focuses on the relationship between mineral properties and human health. During her career, Wylie published over 50 peer-reviewed journal articles and advised more than 40 undergraduate, master’s and Ph.D. students. She is currently co-authoring a book, “Toxicology of elongate mineral particles: Assessing risks for fibers and fragments,” expected to be published later this year.
When she arrived at UMD in 1972 as an assistant professor, Wylie became the first female faculty member in the Department of Agronomy and in the Department of Geology when it was created the following year.
She later took on many campus leadership positions—most recently as vice president and chief financial officer in 2021—and helped propel the university into the ranks of top research and teaching institutions. She served twice as senior vice president and provost, and as vice president for information technology and chief information officer, special adviser to the president for MPower, vice president for administrative affairs, dean of the Graduate School, assistant president and chief of staff, associate provost and associate dean for research in the Graduate School.
“I am deeply honored, and I thank the University of Maryland for the opportunities it has given me to work and thrive, making this recognition possible,” Wylie said.
She is a fellow of the Geological Society of America, was named UMD Distinguished Scholar-Teacher and Outstanding Woman of the Year, and was awarded UMD’s President’s Medal—the highest honor the campus community bestows.
She earned her Ph.D. in economic geology from Columbia University and her bachelor’s degree in geology from Wellesley College.