Best known for training writers in the footsteps of Sophie Kerr, Washington College now aims to broaden its reputation, using its location by the Chester River to build standing in marine science and research.

Researchers at the liberal arts college in Chestertown on the Eastern Shore want to keep a close watch on the health of the river, one of many tributaries feeding harmful fertilizers, animal waste and sediment into the Chesapeake Bay. A team has spent a year developing a buoy system that can track river and bay conditions for a tenth of the cost of traditional monitoring systems.

The project was jump-started by a new state program that helps fund the establishment of endowed professorships at schools across Maryland. While a new chief of entrepreneurial science at Washington College is exploring better ways to analyze the bay environment, the first-ever distinguished professor at Morgan State University will study ways to secure Internet-connected devices, and a new University of Maryland School of Medicine faculty member may conduct research that could improve understanding of disease-causing viruses such as Zika and HIV.

Amid a landscape of increasing competition for scientific research grants from the federal government, the program, known as the Maryland E-Nnovation Initiative, is giving institutions like Washington College a chance to try new things.

“We don't have to funnel or shoehorn what we want to do into what granting agencies might want to do,” said John Seidel, director of the college's Center for Environment and Society. “It gives us the freedom to think and to do what we think needs to be done.”

The program is already spurring new ways of thinking, he said. It is also one of the state's latest efforts to spin Maryland's tradition of scientific research into entrepreneurial activity.

“How do we take these things and not make them a one-off solution but a marketable solution, a solution we can get out there on a large scale?” Seidel said of the buoy research.

It's an unusual challenge for the liberal arts school, he said, because “we've never given much thought to issues like intellectual property.”

While Washington College is one of the nation's oldest colleges, dating to 1782, its reputation has been tied for years to Kerr, whose gift to the school in 1965 established a lucrative student literary prize in her name.

The college's efforts to explore the Chester River go back about eight years, with its geographic information systems program attempting to meticulously map the 43-mile waterway. But researchers at the environmental center still yearned to understand more about the river's dynamics.

They installed weather stations at schools across Kent and Queen Anne's counties, giving students an opportunity to participate and learn as they gathered data on the forces affecting the river. And they worked through several iterations of relatively rudimentary buoys that Doug Levin, the environment center's deputy director and chief scientist, initially developed as part of a larger effort to understand what causes algae blooms.

The buoys monitor water temperature, salinity, oxygen levels and other conditions at a cost of about $10,000 apiece — compared with buoys agencies like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration use that can cost up to $100,000.

Levin and his colleagues launched a prototype buoy last year, and plan to launch several more this month. Eventually, a network of buoys could be used to show in greater detail where and how nutrients and sediments are proliferating in the bay. And the researchers see potential in spreading the technology and methodology beyond their studies of the Chester.

Launched in 2014, the E-Nnovation program was funded with an initial $8.5 million in fiscal year 2016, which began July 1. It matches private donations to colleges and universities to create endowed professorships with an eye toward combining science with entrepreneurship.

Officials made eight such awards this year. Another $8.5 million is budgeted for the next fiscal year, said Roger Venezia, director of operations and special projects for the state Department of Commerce.

Washington College received $1 million from the state and $1 million from philanthropist Louisa Copeland Duemling to establish the position of chief of entrepreneurial science, which Levin will assume. An expected 5 percent annual return on the endowment will provide $100,000 to subsidize Levin's salary and fund his research, which will continue to focus on the Chester and buoy technology.

The state program also is funding a broad array of research at other institutions.

At the University of Maryland School of Medicine's Institute for Human Virology, a new position is being established in the name of Dr. Robert C. Gallo, its founder and leader. The professor selected for the endowed position there could focus on cancer-causing viruses, HIV or even Zika, the mosquito-spread virus that is the focus of a global health emergency, Gallo said.

Kevin Kornegay, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Morgan State, has been named that university's first distinguished professor through the program. His research focuses on securing the hardware of what is known as “the Internet of things,” the growing fleet of devices, vehicles and even buildings that are connected to networks.

Morgan is working to establish its place in the growing hub of cybersecurity research in the region and to become a leader in building devices whose circuits are resistant to attack.

Other E-Nnovation awards established endowments in math and computer science at the University of Maryland, College Park and in public health at the Johns Hopkins University.

Other state efforts to spin products and companies out of scientific research largely focus on one-time research grants or investments in young companies that already have been created. The academics said they hope this program has an enduring impact, fostering the scientific discoveries that lead to the creation of new companies.

“For the state's economy, I think it's critical,” Seidel said. “With our education system, we should shine.”

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