RESEARCH AND GRADUATE STUDIES
William H. Parker, Vice Chancellor for Research and Dean of Graduate Studies
Research and graduate education, two major areas of responsibility of the Office of Research and Graduate Studies, are vital and integral parts of academic life at UCI. Programs leading to doctoral or master's degrees are offered in about 50 academic and professional areas, with an extensive array of concentrations and emphases within these areas. Many of UCI's graduate programs and research activities have achieved national reputations for excellence, and several are internationally recognized as leaders in their respective fields. UCI graduate programs continue to grow and to evolve in directions that are consistent with the University's teaching, research, and public service missions. Graduate study at UCI provides the excitement and satisfaction that spring from the discovery and dissemination of new knowledge, as well as from meeting new challenges.
The Vice Chancellor for Research and Dean of Graduate Studies has general administrative responsibility for research and graduate education. In the area of research, the Vice Chancellor has responsibility for the administration of extramurally funded research and training grants, general research administration, and research policy development and implementation. Graduate education responsibilities include admissions, graduate student services, degree awards, fellowship and assistantship administration, and programs that facilitate student and faculty diversity within graduate education at UCI.
The Office of Research and Graduate Studies also is administratively responsible for Organized Research Units, contract and grant administration, University/industry relations, and other campus research activities.
Additional information is available on the World Wide Web at http://www.rgs.uci.edu/.
A primary mission for UCI is faculty research and scholarship, which plays a valuable role in the education of both graduate and undergraduate students. UCI has established national and worldwide visibility in traditional disciplines such as physics and chemistry, which have earned three Nobel Prizes, along with "new" interdisciplinary pursuits. In the Humanities, UCI has become a center in critical theory. Biological and biomedical investigators conduct both basic science and clinical research in areas such as neuroscience, molecular biology, genetics, and cancer. Engineering specialties include electrical, computer, mechanical, aerospace, civil, and biochemical research.
The Vice Chancellor for Research has responsibility for research policy, research development, animal research administration, UCI-industry relations, and research administration, which includes submission of grant proposals and negotiation and administration of awards. The Vice Chancellor also encourages new research initiatives and administers UCI's organized research programs, interdisciplinary groups of faculty pursuing unique problems that cross departmental and school boundaries.
Office of Technology Alliances
The Office of Technology Alliances (OTA) fosters research partnerships and transfers of technology between UCI and industry that lead to rapid commercialization of research results for the public benefit. OTA makes many of its services available on the World Wide Web at http://www.ota.uci.edu/. Specific services for faculty include assistance with invention disclosures, patentability assessment, technology marketing and licensing, industry-sponsored research collaborations, biological material transfer agreements, and copyrights and trademarks. Specific services for business and industry include access and links to faculty researchers (http://www.faculty.uci.edu/), licensing technology, assistance with research contracts, intellectual property, research materials transfer, and technology information.
California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2)
The California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2) was established in December 2000 by the State of California as a partnership between academia and the business community. Calit2--a joint venture between UCI and UCSD, with dedicated research facilities on both campuses--conducts interdisciplinary, collaborative research that generates novel materials, devices, and information systems, with applications in many fields. The Institute's research in networked systems, the environment, transportation, bioinformatics, policy, education, digital arts, security, and other fields will keep California's industry at the cutting edge of technology, accelerating growth in existing companies and spurring high-technology start-ups that will boost the State's economy.
UCI and UCSD faculty from many academic disciplines collaborate with researchers from more than 130 leading California high-technology corporations. A major objective of the Institute is to educate and prepare students--in the classroom and the laboratory--for successful careers in industry, government, and academia.
University of California Humanities Research Institute
The University of California Humanities Research Institute (UCHRI), located at UCI, was founded in 1987 to coordinate the humanities for the 10 campuses of the University of California. UCHRI's distinctive mission is to foster intellectual community, research, and public programs across campus boundaries; to mobilize the strength of the University of California humanities faculty as a whole; and to promote innovative collaborative and interdisciplinary research among humanities scholars and researchers in other disciplines such as the social sciences, sciences, technology, and medicine. An advisory committee represents each campus and advises the UCHRI director on programs.
At the heart of UCHRI's activities are the Residential Research Groups, which bring together both UC and non-UC scholars, postdoctoral fellows, and advanced UC graduate students to work in collaboration on interdisciplinary topics. UCHRI also offers the possibility of multiyear programs of coordinated residential research groups and conferences. Office space is provided for up to 20 resident fellows and modest housing on the UCI campus is made available.
UCHRI sponsors scholarly conferences both at the Institute and on the UC campuses, as well as seminars, workshops, and meetings for a variety of project and planning purposes. In addition, UCHRI works with numerous publishers, including the University of California Press, to publish work from its conferences and residential groups.
Faculty who wish to propose research projects, conferences, workshops, disciplinary forums, or other programs or activities should contact the University of California Humanities Research Institute, 307 Administration Building, Irvine, CA 92697-3350; telephone (949) 824-8179; e-mail: UCHRI@uci.edu.
University of California Institute for Research in the Arts
The University of California Institute for Research in the Arts (UCIRA) supports projects by UC faculty and students working in the visual, performing, and media arts. As a research institute, UCIRA works to develop new approaches to artistic practice and better ways of reaching art audiences. UCIRA seeks projects that are innovative, experimental, and/or multidisciplinary. An endeavor of the UC Office of the President, UCIRA also provides information and advocacy for arts education and research. Applications for support are reviewed by the UCIRA Board. Complete information about UCIRA programs may be found on the World Wide Web at http://ucira.arts.ucla.edu.
Thesaurus Linguae Graecae®
The Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (TLG)® was established in 1972, thanks to a gift by UCI alumna Marianne McDonald. Its goals are to create a comprehensive digital library of Greek literature from antiquity to the present era; to conduct literary research using collected texts; and to apply technological innovation in these endeavors. The TLG® corpus currently contains more than 90 million words of Greek text and essentially all extant texts from Homer to A.D. 600, as well as the majority of texts from the period A.D. 600 to 1453. Work is underway to include later periods of Greek literature.
TLG® research activities combine the traditional concerns and methodologies of philological and literary study with the most advanced features of computer technology. Included among current research foci are the identification of ancient Greek literary and documentary materials from various literary-historical periods; the conversion of these materials into digital form using modern methods of text encoding; the enhancement of automated text-correction routines; and the formulation of criteria for the lexical analysis and categorization of the texts in the corpus. The project also has established procedures to facilitate international access to its textual, bibliographical, and lexical resources either online (http://www.tlg. uci.edu/) or through compact disk.
TLG®'s library holdings enhance those of the University Library, and TLG®-related conferences and scholarly visits afford faculty and students contact with eminent classicists. The Thesaurus Linguae Graecae® has made UCI a major source of Classics research activity.
Organized Research Units
Organized Research Units (ORUs) normally consist of an inter-departmental group of faculty, students, and other researchers engaged in a continuing program of multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary research, supported by both University and extramural funding. The work of some ORUs is directed toward the solution of complex contemporary problems, while others conduct basic research essential to the understanding of natural or social phenomena or of humanistic ideas and expressions. The following ORUs have been established on the Irvine campus.
CANCER RESEARCH INSTITUTE
The Cancer Research Institute provides leadership and support for researchers working toward understanding and controlling cancer. The Institute serves as a means of focusing, coordinating, and directing efforts of scholars in basic and clinical sciences from several departments in the Schools of Biological Sciences and Medicine. It provides a central source of information concerning cancer-related research, as well as a forum in which basic researchers and clinicians can assess advances that may be of immediate value in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer, and in the detection of chemicals or conditions that cause cancer. Ongoing and projected research activities involve the regulation of cell function, viral carcinogenesis, immunology, and basic molecular processes relevant to cancer. The Cancer Research Institute administers Sprague Hall, a research facility in the Biomedical Research Complex dedicated to cancer and genetics. The Cancer Research Institute serves as the basic science arm of UCI's Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, a National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center. Other units of the center include the Chao Family Clinical Cancer Research Center and the Cancer Surveillance Program of Orange County.
CENTER FOR EMBEDDED COMPUTER SYSTEMS
The Center for Embedded Computer Systems, established as an informal center in 1998, was recognized as an ORU in 2001. The Center provides the organizational and administrative structure for researchers at UCI, UCR, and UCSD to conduct leading-edge interdisciplinary research in embedded systems, develop innovative design methodologies, and promote technology and knowledge transfer for the benefit of the individual and society. The research program focuses on three application domains: (1) Communications, including infotainment, information appliances, multimedia, personal imaging, and wireless; (2) Automotive, including collision avoidance, control/sensors, entertainment, and emergency services; and (3) Medical, including diagnosis, drug delivery, imaging, implanted devices, and monitoring. Additional information is available online at http://www.cecs.uci.edu/.
CENTER FOR THE NEUROBIOLOGY OF LEARNING AND MEMORY
The Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory (CNLM), founded at UCI in 1983, is a multidisciplinary research institute that fosters and supports collaborative research on the brain processes underlying learning and memory. CNLM's research teams consist of faculty, professional and postgraduate researchers, graduate and undergraduate students, and visiting scholars. They investigate the formation, maintenance, and retrieval of memory at several levels of analysis--from studies of molecular and cellular processes in the brain to studies of memory in animal and human subjects.
Current research projects include investigations of the role of specific genes in memory formation, how neurons organize and communicate to enable learning and memory, the way experience alters the structure and organization of the brain, how we acquire and retrieve short- and long-term memories, and emotional influences on memory formation and retrieval. State-of-the-art techniques, including computer modeling of neural processes and functional neuroimaging, are used. The Center's basic research has important implications for understanding and treating human memory disorders and the diseases that cause them.
CNLM organizes seminars and colloquia throughout the year, as well as periodic workshops and international conferences for the neuroscience community. In addition, the Center organizes and sponsors programs for local schools and the general community, including public lectures focusing on the research of the Center faculty and on health issues related to brain and memory.
CNLM members include faculty from the UCI Departments of Neurobiology and Behavior, Cognitive Sciences, Anatomy and Neurobiology, Pharmacology and Toxicology, and Psychology and Social Behavior, as well as faculty from several other UC campuses, the University of Southern California, the Scripps Research Institute, and the California Institute of Technology. CNLM is located in the Bonney and Qureshey Research Laboratories of the Herklotz Research Facility.
CENTER FOR RESEARCH ON INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND ORGANIZATIONS
The Center for Research on Information Technology and Organizations (CRITO) is a multidisciplinary Organized Research Unit that conducts theoretical and empirical research into the social and economic impacts of information technology (IT) in organizations and society. CRITO focuses on the management, use, and impact of IT in the emerging global, competitive marketplace and on the policy issues raised by its use. CRITO researchers focus on the management of IT, the IT-enabled enterprise, technology-intensive user environments, and the increasingly global nature of IT use and production.
The CRITO Consortium, within CRITO, is the only NSF-supported Industry-University Cooperative Research Center (I/UCRC) on the UCI campus. Corporate sponsors of the Consortium have included, among others: the Boeing Company, the Department of Defense, IBM Corporation, Intel Corporation, International Data Corporation, and Microsoft.
CRITO and Consortium research projects include: nationwide study of computers and the Internet in the home; nationwide study of e-government; the payoffs from investments in IT; outsourcing and offshoring of IT and IT-enabled services; the impacts of IT on firm and industry organization; the impacts of computing on work groups and collaborations; IT structuring for e-commerce; the effects of IT on training, employee performance, and quality of work life; the global spread of production and use of computers; and the globalization of the Internet and e-commerce. For more information, see http://www.crito.uci.edu.
Faculty from The Paul Merage School of Business, the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences, the School of Social Sciences, and the Department of Education conduct research through the unit. There are approximately 15 faculty associates and 20 students involved in CRITO and Consortium research.
CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF DEMOCRACY
The Center for the Study of Democracy (CSD) sponsors research and education to enhance our scientific understanding of both the democratic process in the United States as well as in other established democracies, and expanding democracy around the world. The Center emphasizes five research programs: (1) Democracy21 focuses on the democratic process in established democracies including the United States as we enter the new century. This program examines ways to increase the citizens' ability to express their preferences and have these preferences represented within the democratic process; (2) Democratic Transitions/Consolidation supports research on the development of sustainable democracies in Eastern Europe, East Asia, and other new democracies; (3) Social Movements and Collective Action focuses on new forms of citizen participation and the use of collective action to expand the boundaries of democratic action; (4) Race, Ethnicity, and Democracy focuses on the representation and participation of minorities, and the institutional structures that may encourage democratic equality; and (5) Economics of Governance examines the intersection of economic and political worlds; how economic principles inform or should inform policy making and how economic factors enter into political decision making.
UCI's expertise in this area was recognized by the National Science Foundation, which selected UCI as a national center for the training of graduate students on democracy. The educational activities continue through the CSD's Democracy Fellows program.
CSD hosts an active lecture program, organizes international research conferences, sponsors faculty research, publishes a research paper series, and facilitates research and teaching on democratic themes. The Center has a multidisciplinary faculty from four UC campuses and is one of the leading university-based programs in America devoted explicitly to the study of democracy. Further information is available at the Center's Web site at http://www.democ.uci.edu/.
CENTER FOR VIRUS RESEARCH
The Center for Virus Research (CVR), an interdisciplinary research unit composed of 17 faculty members from 11 departments and five schools at UCI, promotes scholarship, training, and research among faculty. It also seeks the creation of scientific resources which use molecular virology as a foundation. This is accomplished first by stimulating scientific communication among CVR members via seminar series and symposia, as well as among CVR members and non-members from the UCI research community. These interactions can lead to the development of pilot studies and, if successful, into formal grant-supported interdisciplinary research. To further encourage the development of such research, CVR also promotes the creation of common resources to be shared by its membership and the UCI research community. This has led to the development of applied laboratories for BSL3 research, the Viral/Vector laboratory for the construction of recombinant virus, the applied proteome laboratory, an applied immunology laboratory, and most recently, the development of a CVR-sponsored proteomics mass spectrometry facility. The creation of these applied laboratories supports research on molecular virology, viral evolution, viral pathogenesis, viral gene therapy, cancer virology, viral proteomics, and biodefense and emerging disease. These laboratories have also allowed CVR to participate as a subcontractor with industrial researchers, thus enabling University-Industry collaborations.
CRITICAL THEORY INSTITUTE
The Critical Theory Institute (CTI) provides a locus for the conduct and support of collaborative, interdisciplinary research that focuses on the theoretical underpinnings of such fields as history, literature, philosophy, art, anthropology, politics, and cultural studies. CTI's principal function is to create a forum for debate among competing movements in contemporary critical theory. CTI's work encompasses not only the application of theory to data but also a self-reflexive investigation of theoretical presuppositions in order to produce alternative theoretical models, methodologies, and research strategies.
CTI investigates problems according to three- to four-year research projects on announced topics, such as "The Forces of Globalization" (1995-99), "The Futures of Property and Personhood" (1999-2003), and "In Security" (2003-06). Research projects involve collaborations between CTI members and contemporary theorists from around the world. Contributors to each project present lectures in CTI's Irvine Lectures in Critical Theory series. Research programs are concluded with the publication of essay collections in CTI's project series with Columbia University Press. See for example, "Culture" and the Problem of the Disciplines, edited by John Rowe.
CTI additionally hosts the annual René Wellek Library Lectures, inaugurated in 1981. Every year, typically in the spring quarter, a distinguished scholar delivers three public lectures on a topic relevant to the field of critical theory. Recent lecturers have included Gayatri Spivak, Judith Butler, Homi Bhabha, Paul Gilroy, Angela Davis, and Achille Mbembe. The Wellek Lectures also are published with Columbia University Press in CTI's ongoing series. Other activities sponsored by CTI include workshops, conferences, reading and discussion groups, one-time lectures by international scholars, and co-sponsorships of a number of other theory-related events.
In recent years, CTI has established broad connections to distinguished institutions and scholars around the world and has been planning collaborative international projects on a regular basis. The inaugural event, a conference entitled "The States of Theory: China and the West," took place in Beijing in the summer of 2000, and was co-organized by CTI and Beijing Language and Culture University. In April of 2002, CTI hosted another major conference, "Derrida/Deleuze: Psychoanalysis, Territoriality, Politics." The two-day event on connections between Derrida and Deleuze featured keynote lectures by Catherine Malabou and Jacques Derrida, and screenings of "D'Ailleurs Derrida" (Fathy, 2001) and "L'Abécédaire de Gilles Deleuze" (Boutang, 1996). In association with the Postcolonial Institute, CTI participated in another international conference in September 2003 in Melbourne, Australia.
Further information on CTI, including a calendar of events, is available at http://www.humanities.uci.edu/critical.
DEVELOPMENTAL BIOLOGY CENTER
The Developmental Biology Center (DBC) is an Organized Research Unit supporting multi-investigator research and training projects in developmental biology. DBC scientists are investigating how cells cooperate during development to control the growth and development of the body. This involves study of the processes of cell division, migration, and differentiation at the molecular, genetic, and cellular levels using a variety of experimental organisms, as well as human material. In support of these research programs, DBC manages shared facilities for confocal microscopy, computer-based image processing and analysis, cell sorting and analysis, and single-cell microinjection. These facilities are part of the Optical Biology Shared Resource of the Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center. DBC also administers training grants to support both graduate students and postdoctoral investigators, and Program Project grants supporting research in multiple laboratories. The unit sponsors seminars; organizes local, national, and international conferences; and hosts visiting scientists for collaborative research. The results of the work will contribute to understanding normal development and growth control as well as abnormalities that lead to birth defects, cancer, and nervous-system malfunction in the human body. New research programs are helping to identify chemicals in the environment that pose hazards for human development, to develop methods to stimulate the regrowth of tissues and organs, and to produce tissues for reconstructive surgery. Additional information is available on the World Wide Web at http://mamba.bio.uci.edu/~pjbryant/ dbc/index.htm.
GENETIC EPIDEMIOLOGY RESEARCH INSTITUTE
The Genetic Epidemiology Research Institute (GERI) was established in 2004 and brings together scientists from epidemiology, developmental and cell biology, molecular biology and biochemistry, evolutionary biology, genetics, immunology, statistics, bioinformatics, and environmental and behavioral sciences to answer complex questions that can best be explored though an interdisciplinary approach. GERI will (1) combine epidemiologic approaches with basic science methods to test hypotheses related to genetic bases of the etiology and progression of disease; (2) facilitate research to apply newly discovered molecular biological processes and genetic characteristics in health and disease in well-characterized human populations; (3) provide epidemiological information that will influence the understanding of the basic processes leading to disease, such as environmental and lifestyle factors, and to test their effect as modifiers of genetic predisposition, thus providing the foundation for disease prevention; and (4) use advances in information sciences and communication technology to allow for efficient data mining and pattern recognition for genetic epidemiological data.
INSTITUTE FOR BRAIN AGING AND DEMENTIA
The goal of the Institute is to mobilize and unify University resources to discover meaningful ways to prevent decline in brain function with aging prior to its inception and to reverse loss of function once it has occurred. The elusive, yet attainable goal of "successful aging," maintaining functionality in one's later years, is one of the great challenges facing the nation. While many individuals continue to maintain and even improve their intellectual and cognitive skills, others suffer a serious and seemingly irreversible loss of cognitive function and develop dementias, most commonly Alzheimer's disease. The Institute is a fully integrated basic science/clinical research program that operates a Dementia Assessment and Treatment Clinic; a Brain Imaging Acquisition/Analysis Unit; a Tissue Repository for cellular and molecular analysis of the aged and Alzheimer's brain; and a comprehensive database of clinical and research data. Research is multidisciplinary, employing the latest techniques in computer science, artificial intelligence, molecular biology, and neuroscience. The Institute also sponsors a specialized educational track in brain aging and dementia for advanced students who wish to develop a career opportunity in an exciting and expanding field. The Institute is the site of a National Institute on Aging Alzheimer's Disease Research Center and a State of California Department of Health Alzheimer's Disease Research Center.
Faculty from the Departments of Neurobiology and Behavior, Neurology, Radiology, Anatomy and Neurobiology, Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, Cognitive Sciences, and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences; and the School of Social Ecology comprise the Institute's core group of investigators.
INSTITUTE FOR GENOMICS AND BIOINFORMATICS
The Institute for Genomics and Bioinformatics (IGB) provides an organizational structure for interdisciplinary research and training in genomics, proteomics, bioinformatics, and computational biology--emerging scientific disciplines that are revolutionizing biology, medicine, and society. IGB computational and life scientists are working together to pioneer fundamental processes for reverse engineering gene and protein networks to understand complex biological systems. Through these interdisciplinary collaborations, IGB scientists are creating new theoretical, algorithmic, and software advances in storing, retrieving, networking, processing, modeling, analyzing, navigating, and visualizing biological information. In turn, their computational and computer science accomplishments are providing methods, predictions, and new hypotheses that are driving biological research in previously unanticipated ways. This scientific cross-fertilization is enriching both fields and will continue to do so in the coming decades. More complete descriptions of the Institute's research and training programs are available on the World Wide Web at http://www.igb.uci.edu/.
INSTITUTE OF GEOPHYSICS AND PLANETARY PHYSICS
The Irvine branch of the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics (IGPP) was established in 2001. IGPP is a University of California Multicampus Research Unit (MRU) established in 1946, with existing branches at UCLA, UCSD, UCR, UCSC, and the Los Alamos and Livermore National Laboratories. The Institute's mission is to promote and coordinate basic research on the understanding of the origin, structure, and evolution of the Earth, the Solar System, and the Universe, and on the prediction of future changes, as they affect human life. The UCI branch's research goals complement the MRU in that the understanding of the Earth as a coupled system of atmosphere, land, and ocean is required to plausibly predict future changes in the Earth System. In order to assess the role of human activities on present and future changes in the global environment, as well as the consequent effects on human life, the UCI branch intends to forge links to other UC campuses as well as the national laboratories. The core of the UCI branch is the Center for Global Environmental Change Research (CGECR), which was established in 1999.
IGPP promotes research at UCI by (1) supporting major research initiatives and facilities jointly with the School of Physical Sciences and the Department of Earth System Science; (2) by supporting research by graduate students; and (3) by supporting visiting scientists, seminars, and workshops that promote collaborative research. Facilities that receive IGPP support include: the W. M. Keck Carbon Cycle Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Facility, the Stable Isotope in Atmospheric Trace Gas Facility, the Earth System Modeling Facility, and the Earth System Science (ESS) Analytical Mass Spectronomy Facility.
INSTITUTE FOR MATHEMATICAL BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
The Institute for Mathematical Behavioral Sciences fosters research in the application of mathematical models and methods to describe and to better understand human behavior, both individual and social. Mimicking the successful interaction between mathematics and the physical sciences, a goal of the Institute is to generate successful interactions between mathematics and the behavioral and social sciences. The Institute sponsors specialized seminars and colloquia, a visiting scholars program, workshops, and focused research groups of faculty, students, and visitors, and it maintains a Technical Report Series. Participants include faculty from the Departments of Anthropology, Cognitive Sciences, Economics, Logic and Philosophy of Science, Political Science, and Sociology in the School of Social Sciences; the Department of Mathematics in the School of Physical Sciences; the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in The Henry Samueli School of Engineering; the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences; and The Paul Merage School of Business. Additional information is available at http://www.imbs.uci.edu.
INSTITUTE FOR SOFTWARE RESEARCH
The mission of the Institute for Software Research (ISR) is to advance software and information technology through research partnerships. ISR is dedicated to fostering innovative basic and applied research in software and information technologies. To achieve this goal, ISR works with established companies, start-ups, government agencies, and standards bodies to develop and transition technologies to widespread and practical application. The Institute also focuses on educating the next generation of software researchers and practitioners in advanced software technologies. It supports the public service mission of the University of California in developing the economic basis of the State of California.
Technical emphases of the Institute include software architecture, decentralized development and applications, event-based systems, requirements engineering, open-source software development, software processes, computer-supported cooperative work, human-computer interaction, user interface software, information visualization, privacy and security, ubiquitous computing, software understanding, analysis and testing, extensible systems, configuration management, configurable distributed systems, Internet protocols and standards, and software engineering education.
Faculty members are drawn from throughout the University of California. Graduate research assistants, professional research staff, and visiting researchers complete the Institute's research body.
ISR supports research projects, sponsors professional meetings, and develops technology. To further its research agenda, the Institute sponsors a distinguished speaker series, technical roundtables, workshops, symposia, and special events. Effective partnerships with industry are essential for ISR to achieve its goals of technology development and transition. Corporate and institutional sponsorships support ISR's research, activities, and professional meetings.
Additional information is available at http://www.isr.uci.edu/.
INSTITUTE FOR SURFACE AND INTERFACE SCIENCE
The Institute of Surface and Interface Science (ISIS) brings together faculty and researchers in chemistry, physics, engineering, and biological sciences by stimulating collaborative projects of an interdisciplinary nature. The common unifying theme is the prominent role played by surfaces and interfaces between media in controlling processes central to many disciplines. The physicists find new and fundamental issues when the outermost atomic layer or two of matter are explored, the chemist encounters the new forms of bonding and energy transfer which make the catalysts central to the chemical and automotive industry possible, and the materials scientist learns to grow unique new artificial materials with properties not found in nature by bonding to surfaces, and exploiting unique properties of atoms which reside in interfaces. The new field of nanoscience is made possible by the experimental and the conceptual advances made by scientists such as those in the ISIS community. Indeed, ISIS is now a major world center of nanoscience and related matters, exploiting and expanding such advances.
INSTITUTE OF TRANSPORTATION STUDIES
The Institute of Transportation Studies (ITS), a University of California multi-campus organized research unit with branches at Irvine, Davis, and Berkeley, was established by act of the State Legislature in 1947 to foster interdisciplinary research on contemporary transportation issues. ITS research at UCI involves faculty and students from The Henry Samueli School of Engineering, the School of Social Sciences, the School of Social Ecology, The Paul Merage School of Business, and the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences.
ITS has a long and rich history of providing both direct and indirect support to the UCI transportation graduate programs. It provides office and research space to virtually all of the students enrolled in UCI's four graduate transportation programs--the interdisciplinary Program in Transportation Science; the graduate concentration in Transportation Economics; the Transportation Planning option in the Department of Planning, Policy, and Design; and the Transportation Systems Engineering graduate focus in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. ITS provides extensive computing resources to all of these students, together with state-of-the art simulation and laboratory facilities. ITS subscribes to the major transportation research journals and offers a variety of computer-based information retrieval services.
Research at ITS covers a broad spectrum of transportation issues. Much of the research conducted by the Institute is organized around centers. The Institute is part of the University of California Transportation Center (UCTC), a federally designated center for transportation research that focuses on research in transportations systems and policy. The ITS Center for Activity Systems Analysis (CASA) supports research directed toward the development of activity-based approaches to travel behavior analysis. For more than 25 years, CASA research associates have been on the leading edge of research in travel demand analysis, establishing an international reputation in the study of complex travel behavior, activity-based approaches, agent-based models, microsimulation approaches, data collection technologies, and empirical modeling. The ITS Center for Advanced Transportation Management Systems Research, which is part of the Universitywide PATH (Partners for Advanced Transit and Highways) program, supports research directed toward the development of intelligent transportation systems. The ITS Advanced Transportation Management Systems (ATMS) Laboratories provide facilities for the teaching, research, and development of intelligent transportation systems. This major effort is complemented by the ITS Center for Traffic Simulation Studies (CTSS), which features prototype systems for modeling and evaluating intelligent transportation systems and telematics. The Center for Logistical Innovations in Freight Systems (CLIFS) focuses on the development of optimization techniques for dynamic and stochastic freight and fleet management and investigation of the impacts of information technology on logistics operations. The Center for Urban Infrastructure (CUI) organizes and conducts research into the role of transportation in achieving and promoting sustainable community development. The Institute also plays a major role in the intelligent transportation and telematics research component of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology, one of the Institutes for Science and Innovation created by the Governor of California.
In addition to projects connected to these centers, ITS researchers are involved in many individual projects across several disciplines. ITS also hosts visiting scholars from the U.S. and abroad to facilitate cooperative research and information exchange, and sponsors conferences and colloquia to disseminate research results.
Irvine Research Units
Irvine Research Units (IRU) provide an organizational structure for the conduct of research that is difficult or infeasible to be carried out within the normal school or departmental structure. IRUs normally are established for a period of five years, and may provide the basis for establishment of extramurally supported research centers or Organized Research Units.
HEALTH POLICY AND RESEARCH
The IRU in Health Policy and Research (HPR) is a multidisciplinary unit that provides an environment for collaboration among health policy researchers at UCI. Its shared research space, seminars, and workshops create an atmosphere of synergistic creativity for faculty, staff, and students from diverse academic backgrounds. Interaction among the members results in innovative multidisciplinary research proposals. HPR's staff assists in the development and submission of the proposals and administration of the contracts and grants that result from them.
HPR has 22 members from four units: The Paul Merage School of Business and the Schools of Medicine, Social Ecology, and Social Sciences. Their areas of expertise include anthropology, biostatistics, community health, epidemiology, family medicine, general internal medicine, geriatrics, psychology, marketing, medical economics, medical education, medical ethics, sociology, pediatrics, and public health. HPR also provides an educational environment for undergraduate and graduate students to learn how to conduct health policy research.
The goals of the IRU are: (1) to facilitate collaboration among UCI faculty participating in health policy research; (2) to disseminate research findings; (3) to provide education and training opportunities to undergraduate and graduate students regarding health policy research; and (4) to support the research efforts through extramural support. Research programs emphasize investigations on health disparities, injury prevention, and health care economics. These programs are multidisciplinary, involving faculty associates from more than one department and/or school.
HEARING AND SPEECH SCIENCES
The IRU in Hearing and Speech Sciences was established in 2000 and consists of a multidisciplinary group of scientists interested in processes underlying hearing and speech. The range of expertise represented in the IRU includes the molecular determinants of neuronal function in the auditory system, the processing of acoustic stimuli by the auditory system, the plasticity of the auditory system, the perception of simple and complex acoustic stimuli, the perception of speech and the neural mechanisms that underlie speech perception, and the perception of speech by hearing-impaired listeners. The clinical populations consist of people who either suffer from an auditory neuropathy or are aided by a cochlear prosthesis.
The IRU consists of 10 faculty members, their graduate students, and postdoctoral scholars. The faculty are from the School of Biological Sciences, the Department of Cognitive Sciences in the School of Social Sciences, and basic science and clinical departments of the School of Medicine. The goals of the IRU in Hearing and Speech Sciences are: (1) to foster interdisciplinary research in these areas; (2) to train graduate students and postdoctoral scholars; and (3) to share information in these areas by inviting notable scientists to lecture at UCI and by hosting an annual workshop consisting of IRU members and scientists from other institutions.
The research conducted under the auspices of the IRU is multidisciplinary. It includes examining physiological mechanisms of hearing impairment, assessing manifestations in the human brain of findings obtained in basic science research, relating speech perception to the plasticity of the auditory system, and examining the physiological mechanisms of the perception of simple and complex acoustic signals.
MACROMOLECULAR STRUCTURE
The IRU in Macromolecular Structure ties together UCI investigators who utilize modern methods of macromolecular structure determination as a critical part of their research program. The IRU serves as the focal point for further development of Structural Biology at UCI. An essential function of the IRU is to coordinate multi-investigator research proposals, graduate student recruitment, seminar programs, and course development. Most recently the IRU has helped to establish and support a new Protein Expression Facility for UCI. The purpose of this facility is to aid UCI investigators in the development of recombinant expression systems in order to produce enzymes and proteins for structural work and other applications.
