UC San Diego - Organized Research Units

IGCC - Institute on Global Conflict & Cooperation

Susan Shirk

http://igcc.ucsd.edu /

Description:
IGCC builds bridges between the theory and practice of international policy. It brings fresh ideas to the process by establishing the intellectual foundations for effective policy-making, and provides ways for UC faculty and students to interact with policymakers at home and abroad through collaborative, multi-campus projects. IGCC serves as a channel for the labs to access the social science expertise of the campuses and provides opportunities for UC faculty to present policy-related research through its office at the UC Washington Center. Faculty and students conducting cutting-edge  research on nuclear nonproliferation, terrorism, regional security, international security institutions, climate change and security, international health risks, cyberthreats, and other topics related to national security are supported through a faculty-reviewed competitive grant process and brought together to learn from and share their expertise with their peers both from the campuses and the labs.

IGPP - Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics

Catherine Constable

http://www.igpp.ucsd.edu/index.php

Description:
IGPP is recognized internationally as an outstanding research and teaching institution in geophysics. The scientific and service reputation of the faculty is outstanding. It has substantial financial support from a broad range of government agencies. IGPP faculty and staff are open to new ideas and novel approaches. Generally, it has a flexible, can-do approach and can respond to new opportunities. IGGP mission is to promote basic research involved in understanding the structure, origin, and evolution of the solar system and its planets.

WMRS - White Mountain Research Station

Frank Powell

http://www.wmrs.edu/

Description:
The White Mountain Research Station is a statewide organized research unit of the University of California, established for two purposes: (I)to provide laboratory facilities for any qualified  research investigator who wishes to utilize the  high-mountain environment in his work; and (2)  to serve  as a teaching facility for field courses conducted in the region.

BCI - BioCircuits Institute

Jeff Hasty

http://biocircuits.ucsd.edu/

Description:
The BioCircuits Institute (BCI) focuses on understanding the dynamic properties of biological regulatory circuits and pathways that control their homeostasis and signal responsiveness. These circuits span the scales of biology, from intracellular regulatory modules to intercellular and neural networks to organ function and population dynamics. The mission of the BCI is the development and experimental validation of theoretical and computational models which help to understand, predict, and control complex biological functions, as well as implementation of these functions in practical engineering solutions.

Calit2 - California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology-UCSD Division

Ramesh Rao

http://www.calit2.net/ 

Description:
Calit2 is a partnership of UC San Diego and UC Irvine, established by the State of California as one of four Gray Davis Institutes for Science and Innovation. More than 270 UCSD faculty members from 24 departments are affiliated with Calit2, with most coming from engineering, medicine, the physical sciences, social sciences, as well as arts and humanities. They are supported by technical and administrative professionals who made up Calit2's staff of 170 in 2010. In the past decade, the UCSD Division of Calit2 has attracted nearly $600 million for sponsored research, primarily from federal grants. An additional $18 million in gift funds in the past five years helped sustain the institute's research mission -- to explore how emerging information technologies and telecommunications can transform disciplines that are vital to the California economy and our citizens' quality of life. In its second decade, Calit2 is focusing on four sectors – health, energy, the environment, and culture – while continuing to produce the enabling technologies for which it is well known: wireless, photonics, cyberinfrastructure, as well as nanotechnology and micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS).

CASS - Center for Astrophysics & Space Sciences 

George Fuller

http://casswww.ucsd.edu

Description:
CASS researchers (faculty affiliated with the departments of Physics, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Chemistry at UCSD) cover the entire wavelength spectrum from radio to gamma-rays, from the earliest visible times in the Universe, to nearby stellar systems, to the Solar system. CASS contains theoreticians, instrument builders, observers, modelers, and simulation experts. Interests range from the Cosmic Microwave Background, formation of the earliest stars and galaxies, the chemical composition of the filamentary structures in the early Universe, galactic and stellar evolution, accretion onto compact objects be they supermassive or stellar mass black holes or neutron stars with a range of magnetic fields. Solar system interests include the testing of General Relativity with lunar laser ranging, Solar mass ejections and space weather, and the composition of comets and asteroids.

CCB - Center for Chronobiology

Susan Golden

http://ccb.ucsd.edu/

Description:
The Mission of the CCB is to: Foster innovative research that reveals the mechanisms, general principles, and applications of biological rhythms in diverse organisms. Provide support for investigators to incorporate the study of daily rhythmicity into their biological studies, particularly as it relates to behavior, physiology and medicine. Form alliances among scientists working in basic and clinical aspects of chronobiology. Mentor undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral students in cross-disciplinary approaches through chronobiology research. Produce and disseminate materials for education and scientific advocacy on chronobiology, a topic of intrinsic interest and broad societal relevance.

CCIS - Center for Comparative Immigration Studies 

John Skrentny

http://www.ccis-ucsd.org/ 

Description:
CCIS provides a unique institutional home for understanding the challenges and opportunities created by international migration to California, the United States as a whole, and other countries around the world. The CCIS research agenda focuses on Mexican migration to California and comparative, cross-national and cross-regional research on international migratory movements, immigration policy, and citizenship policy. CCIS is the only academic center in the United States specializing in international migration from a broad geographical as well as interdisciplinary perspective, devoting substantial attention to migrant-sending and receiving countries in North America, Europe, Africa, and the Asia-Pacific region. CCIS-affiliated researchers encompass all of the social sciences, history, arts and humanities, and legal studies; no single discipline dominates CCIS programming. The primary missions of CCIS are to conduct policy-oriented research; train academic researchers, students, and practitioners; and disseminate research conducted under its auspices to academics, policymakers, and NGOs through research seminars, conferences, briefings, publications, the Internet, and the mass media. The Center is also committed to actively collaborating with other academic institutions, governmental and non-governmental organizations, and local immigrant communities.

CER - Center for Energy Research 

Farrokh Najmabadi

http://cer.ucsd.edu/ 

Description:
The Center for Energy Research is an organized research unit at UC San Diego aimed at coordinating and promoting energy research and education. The Center provides a venue for interdisciplinary interactions among UCSD faculty, researchers, students and the public. Members of CER perform basic and applied research in the fields of fusion energy, solar energy, combustion, and related disciplines. The center also serves as a focal point for studies of socio-economic and environmental aspects of energy production and use.

CHD - Center for Human Development

Terry Jernigan

http://chd.ucsd.edu/

Description:
The Center for Human Development is constituted as an organized research unit of the University of California, San Diego. The CHD provides core resources for the community of scholars and investigators throughout the university with research interests in human development, broadly defined. Among the resources available are testing and meeting facilities, administrative and research offices, a centralized web-accessible database and participant registry, pre- and post-award support for contracts and grants, and core support for clinical behavioral assessments, neuroimaging and neurophysiological studies, and statistical and computational modeling. In addition to its research activities the CHD sponsors and supports seminars and workshops to promote intellectual exchange among developmental scholars, and it contributes to the education of undergraduates, graduates, and postdoctoral fellows with interests in developmental sciences.

CILAS - Center for Iberian and Latin American Studies

David Mares

http://www.wmrs.edu/

Description:
In addition to offering Latin American curricula at both the undergraduate and graduate level, the Center for Iberian & Latin American Studies at UCSD has distinctive characteristics:

• A unique combination of resources focused on Latin America, including the Center for Iberian and Latin American Studies, the Center for U.S. Mexican Studies, the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies and the Institute of the Americas
• Over eighty full-time Latin American specialists on faculty
• The deliberate integration of teaching, research, and policy analysis
• The promotion of interdisciplinary perspectives
• Active collaboration with colleagues, students, and leaders from Latin America
• We regard diversity at CILAS as a central organizing principle of our academic community.

For nearly twenty years and in conjunction with San Diego State University, UCSD achieved consistent recognition and support from the U.S. Department of Education as one of the nation's leading centers for the study of Latin America.

CMRR - Center for Magnetic Recording Research

Eric Fullerton

http://cmrr.ucsd.edu/ 

Description:
CMRR was established at UC San Diego in 1983 to advance the state-of-the-art in information storage technology and to produce highly trained graduate students and postdoctoral professionals for the data storage industry. Pursuing a dynamic, interdisciplinary program of cutting-edge research defined in cooperation with government agencies and industry partners, the Center's faculty, researchers, and students continue to push the frontiers of scientific knowledge and engineering technology to meet society's ever-increasing need for high-performance, reliable, and secure information storage systems.

CNS - Center for Networked Systems

Amin Vahdat

http://cns.ucsd.edu/ 

Description:
CNS fosters research relationships focused on solving critical technical problems and accelerating the rapid growth of networked systems. It serves as a nexus between the departments of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE), Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC), the California Institute for Information Technology and Telecommunications (Calit2), and researchers at some of the most cutting edge national and international corporations currently developing products and services which employ systems and networking technologies. This confluence of talent has resulted in widely recognized and highly regarded research as well as providing high quality interactions and career opportunities to UCSD graduate students.

CRCA - Center for Research in Computing & the Arts

Sheldon Brown

http://crca.ucsd.edu/ 

Description:
CRCA facilitates the creation of vanguard culture via computer science research. Areas of current activity include: next generation digital media, multicore computing, experimental computer games, future cinema, networked multimedia, software studies, cultural visualization, science/art collaborations, virtual reality and computer-spatialized audio. CRCA is also the home of the UCSD branch of the NSF sponsored Center for Hybrid Multicore Productivity Research. As the University of California's oldest arts research center, CRCA pursues speculative cultural activities that draw upon humanistic analysis, engineering innovation and the insights of artistic expression. Faculty members devise new modes of artistic practice through their liaisons with international cultural institutions, technology industries, and interdisciplinary collaborations. CRCA provides the framework for a broad range of approaches to artistic, scholarly, and technological development that is at the basis of our digitally transformed culture. We actively encourage the investigation of what constitutes the potent cultural acts of our time and the viable mechanisms that should be engaged to create them.

CRL - Center for Research in Language

Marta Kutas

http://crl.ucsd.edu/

Description:
Description: The Center for Research in Language emphasizes the combination of theoretical and experimental approaches to language study. The main role of the Center is to coordinate research on language at UCSD. The Center brings together members of various scholarly communities whose work includes language learning (spoken and signed), language disorders, literacy between deaf mothers and children, and neuroimaging of language. The Center builds upon UCSD's strengths in neuroscience, cognitive neuroscience, linguistics, and psychology, with internationally-renowned faculty who interact across their home departments. The Center offers pre- and postdoctoral training opportunities to students and researchers who are interested in language acquisition and decline, psycholinguistics, neuroimaging of language, sign languages and gesture, and computational models of language. The Center's facilities, designed to accommodate laboratory research projects by the faculty and graduate students, include high-performance work stations, a flexible open laboratory, extensive equipment for audio recording and analysis, and equipment for psycholinguistic experimentation. The open-lab design promotes effective training of graduate students and helps researchers acquire new experimental methodologies.

IICAS - Institute for International, Comparative & Area Studies

Gershon Shafir

http://iicas.ucsd.edu/

Description:
The Institute for International, Comparative, and Area Studies (IICAS) was created in 2001 to promote research on international, comparative, and cross regional topics. Building on the substantial existing strengths of UCSD in international studies, IICAS coordinates and supports the research of faculty in departments, area studies programs, and the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies (IR/PS)

IEM - Institute of Engineering in Medicine

Shu Chien

http://iem.ucsd.edu/

Description:
The IEM has over 130 outstanding faculty from UCSD's Schools of Medicine, Skaggs School of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences, and Jacobs School of Engineering, all sharing the objective of translating creative ideas into clinical medicine and novel products that will transform patient care and improve the health and wellbeing of people.

INC - Institute for Neural Computation

Terrence Sejnowski/Gert Cauwenberghs

http://inc2.ucsd.edu/

Description:
The mission of INC is to bring together the diverse research community in the basic sciences, medical, and engineering disciplines at UCSD in advancing and promoting a new science of computation and learning, based on the multiscale, parallel, and highly adaptive architectures found in biological neural systems. INC is committed to worldwide leadership in its research and to work with industrial/clinical partners and the broader community in applying research advances to the benefit of society.

KIBM - Kavli Institute for Brain and Mind

Jeff Elman/Nick Spitzer

http://kibm.ucsd.edu/ 

Description:
KIBM is a virtual environment unhampered by disciplinary boundaries, providing scientists with opportunities for effective interdisciplinary integration of research and knowledge. KIBM transcends traditional disciplinary barriers to foster new discourse among top scientists, accelerating discoveries about the connections between mechanism and behavior. KIBM's mission is to support research that furthers understanding of the origins, evolution and mechanisms of human cognition, from the brain's physical and biochemical machinery to the experiences and behaviors called the mind. KIBM leverages UC San Diego's preeminence in such fields as neuroscience, biology, cognitive science, psychology and medicine, along with the extensive resources of the broader La Jolla scientific community, to extend its position as the pacesetter in brain-mind research and education, and as a vibrant hub for dissemination of its discoveries to advance science and benefit humankind.

SDSC - San Diego Supercomputer Center

Michael Norman

http://www.sdsc.edu/ 

Description:
SDSC is considered a leader in data-intensive computing and cyberscience research, providing resources, services and expertise to the local, state and national research community including industry and academia. The mission of SDSC is to extend the reach of scientific accomplishments by providing tools such as high-performance hardware technologies, integrative software technologies, and deep interdisciplinary expertise to these communities.

ORU NAME

Douglas Richman

http://ari.ucsd.edu 

Description:
In 1996, the AIDS Research Institute was established by the Regents of the University of California to coordinate the diverse AIDS research and clinical activities on the UCSD campus. The Institute is housed within the School of Medicine at UCSD. By coordinating and promoting scientific research and exchange within the academic community, as well as providing clinical resources and education to the community at large, our members strive to halt the spread of HIV and AIDS through cutting-edge research, innovative clinical trials, and public education.

CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny

Ajit Varki/Fred H. Gage/Margaret Schoeninger

http://carta.anthropogeny.org/

Description:
The goals of CARTA are essentially scholarly, with an emphasis on minimization of unnecessary organizational structures, hierarchies, paperwork and bureaucracy. The major interests of the group are: • Identifying and explaining structural and molecular differences between humans and members of the genetically-related hominid family of "great apes". • Defining and explaining the evolutionary origins of humans (e.g., understanding the events of the last 15 million years of great ape and human evolution). • Identifying human functional specializations relative to other hominids and explaining genetic and biological mechanisms involved in generating these specializations. • Identifying and explaining the external mechanisms (environmental, cultural, etc.) affecting the expression of these human functional specializations. • Based on all of the above, generating testable hypotheses and new research agendas. The broad topic areas of interest are: • Human and Primate Genetics and Evolution • Paleoanthropology and Hominid Origins • Mammalian and Primate Neurosciences • Primate Biology and Medicine • Language, Communication and Cognition • Nature-Nurture interactions in Explaining Language and Cognition • Human and Primate Society and Culture • Comparative Developmental Biology of Primates • General Theories for Explaining Humans

CTRI - Clinical and Translational Research Institute

Gary Firestein

http://ctri.ucsd.edu/

Description:
CTRI helps researchers obtain the education, resources, and collaborations necessary to translate discoveries into practice. It is a partnership among institutions dedicated to improving human health: UC San Diego, local academic institutions, industry, non-profit agencies, government, and most importantly, the community. The CTRI is partially funded by a Clinical and Translational Research Award (CTSA) from the National Institutes of Health. The CTRI advances health care through interactions between basic scientists, clinical investigators, trainees, community physicians, trainees, and patients. It intends to decrease the barriers that inhibit productivity, and to increase the rapid translation of research progress into new therapies by: • Fostering innovative research and research partnerships (at UCSD, Salk, Sanford-Burnham, LIAI, and other institutional partners, local biotech organizations, community hospitals, and also with other CTSA-funded UC campuses and national academic institutions) • Creating and sustaining research resources and infrastructure (including cores, services, and training for translational research and information technology) • Ensuring a translational research pipeline through education and career development programs (for junior faculty, medical and graduate doctoral candidates, community physicians, high school students, and other learners). Offerings include pilot research grants • Developing new outreach and strengthening existing relationships with patients and health advocacy groups

CRBS - Center for Research in Biological Systems

Mark Ellisman

http://crbs.ucsd.edu/ 

Description:
CRBS exists to provide human resources, high technology equipment, and administrative services to scientists researching cell structure and function relationships in central nervous system processes, cardiovascular networking, and muscular contraction through multiple scales and modalities. CRBS facilitates an interdisciplinary infrastructure in which people from biology, medicine, chemistry, and physics can work with those from computer science and information technologies in collaborative research. Researchers share interests in the study of complex biological systems at many scales, from the structures of enzymes, proteins, and the body's chemical communications network at atomic and molecular levels, to an organism's physiology, strength, and support at cellular and tissue levels.

GRTC - Glycobiology Research and Training Center

Ajit Varki/Jeffrey Esko

http://grtc.ucsd.edu/

Description:
In the last few decades, a field called "Glycobiology" emerged, which is essentially the study of the molecular and cellular biology of glycans (known to be intimately involved in many aspects of physiology, biology, pathology and biotechnology) and their biological roles in health and disease. UCSD and the La Jolla area developed major programs in glycobiology. These developments resulted in the formation of the Glycobiology Research and Training Center at UCSD about 10 years ago, which brought together a wide range of faculty interested in glycans. The Center focuses both on research and training and obtained extramural support and recognition rapidly

IGM - Institute for Genomic Medicine

Kang Zhang

http://igm.ucsd.edu/

Description:
IGM is a center of excellence for organizing the multi-disciplinary resources necessary to effectively translate the discoveries of genetic and genomic research from "bench to bedside". The IGM aims to link clinical and genomic information to facilitate personalized health care. By combining UCSD's expertise in Genetics, Disease Biology, and Clinical Practice with its strengths in Computer Science, Bioinformatics, and Systems Biology, the IGM is uniquely positioned to support all activities along the continuum of genomic medicine.

Dennis Carson

http://cancer.ucsd.edu/

Description:
Established in 1979, the UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center is one of just 40 National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers in the United States, and the only one in the San Diego region. The Cancer Center's mission is to translate promising scientific discoveries into new and better options for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer, and for the amelioration of pain. From research in molecular genetics to the most advanced treatments, the Moores Cancer Center is at the forefront of the fight against cancer, developing promising new therapies and making them available to cancer patients throughout the region.

SIRA - Stein Institute for Research on Aging

Dilip Jeste

http://sira.ucsd.edu

Description:
Over the past 25 years, the Stein Institute has brought together a critical mass of scientific talent, encouraged and funded age-related research (including over 85 pilot grants), purchased needed scientific equipment, supported the education of over 150 students, and provided over 275 public lectures on aging as part of its general community outreach. Today, the Stein Institute for Research on Aging is advancing aging research at the UCSD School of Medicine by conducting basic and clinical research, enhancing collaboration among UCSD's world-renowned scientists, and attracting new researchers to the field - all with the ultimate objective of helping more people age successfully.

Climate, Atmospheric Science, and Physical Oceanography (CASPO) Research Division

Art Miller

http://pord.ucsd.edu/ 

Description:
Scientists in the Physical Oceanography Research Division (PORD) investigate the physics of the ocean. Some PORD researchers study the large-scale circulation of the world's oceans or the specifics of smaller environments such as the continental shelf, marginal seas, straits, estuaries, or the surf zone of open shorelines. Others examine the interaction between the ocean and the atmosphere and the role of the ocean in the global climate system. Theoretical studies range from classical fluid dynamics problems to models of large-scale ocean circulation or the atmospheric marine boundary layer. PORD scientists also develop new sensors and measurement technologies for ocean studies--such as autonomous drifters and bottom-pressure and electromagnetic sensors--and new versions of acoustic Doppler current profilers. Many PORD investigators hold joint appointments in other areas at Scripps, which provide for cross-disciplinary research and communication.

Center for Marine Biotechnology and Biomedicine 

William Fenical

http://cmbb.ucsd.edu/

Description:
The goal of CMBB is to mobilize diverse scientific disciplines into a coordinated effort to explore new biotechnologies inspired by marine life. The program, centered at Scripps, invites participation from the relevant science departments, and from the Schools of Medicine and Engineering at UCSD. Those that participate have a history of successful interactions. New pharmaceutical companies focusing on developing new drugs from marine resources now require trained personnel with experience across the disciplines of marine biology, microbiology, chemistry, genomics, bioinformatics and more. The enhanced focus on aquaculture will generate thousands of jobs for trained marine biotechnologists with training in marine microbiology, pathology, nutrition, genomics, proteomics and more. The growing use of marine products in the food, cosmetic, and agriculture industries has created a current demand we can barely meet.

Geosciences Research Division 

Jeffrey Gee

http://grd.ucsd.edu/

Description:
Scientists with the Geosciences Research Division (GRD) address a wide range of topics in the earth, ocean and atmospheric sciences, including studies of physical, chemical, and geobiological processes of Earth's mantle, crust, ocean and atmosphere. They carry out detailed investigations in marine geology, petrology, paleomagnetism, tectonics, geophysics, isotope geology, geochemistry, mantle and crustal evolution, and paleontology.

Integrative Oceanography Division 

Peter Franks

http://iod.ucsd.edu/

Description:
The organizing principle of the Integrative Oceanography Division (IOD) resides in a shared commitment to collaborative, interdisciplinary science. "Integrative" denotes our philosophy that multiple approaches are important in creating a better understanding of the ocean system. We take great pride in our membership of physical, biological, chemical and geological oceanographers, climate and information scientists, data and information managers, engineers, technicians, education specialist, administrative and management professionals. IOD distinguishes itself as scientific home for researchers working at the boundaries of traditional academic spheres, and generating growing programs in the integration of research with informatics as well as with education and public outreach. From pelagic to benthic ecology, shoreline to open ocean dynamics, data to information systems, our research encompasses field work, laboratory experimentation and computer modeling to acquire, integrate, synthesize and understand diverse data sets to elucidate the underlying dynamics of complex, multidimensional ocean systems.

Marine Biology Research Division 

Ron Burton

http://mbrd.ucsd.edu/

Description:
The Marine Biology Research Division at Scripps Institution of Oceanography consists of specialist marine research laboratories in the fields of cell and developmental biology, ecology and evolutionary biology, microbiology and physiology

Marine Physical Laboratory 

William Kuperman

http://www-mpl.ucsd.edu/

Description:
The Laboratory consists of individual research groups headed by Principal Investigators with a common interest in Observational Ocean Science with emphasis on developing state-of-the-art instrumentation for studying ocean acoustic and seismic propagation, air-sea interaction, ocean volume dynamics and ocean bottom geophysics. A common administrative staff and industrial machine shop facility support the MPL research groups. The MPL Principal Investigators are UCSD Research and Faculty members, some holding joint appointments outside SIO. This results in a strong academic link enabling graduate students to benefit from the multi-disciplinary resources of the University and provides an environment to address real-world research issues. In addition to research and teaching activities, MPL academics participate in the long-range planning of special interest to the Navy and other government agency research programs, the research community of UCSD and other public service activities.