Research Centers
Center for Biomolecular Science and Engineering (CBSE)
The Center for Biomolecular Science & Engineering fosters new approaches to discovery in human health. An umbrella organization of the Baskin School of Engineering and the Division of Physical and Biological Sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz, the center supports a vast array of biological and engineering research that is fueling biomedical advances and the biotechnology explosion.
CBSE's roots go back to 1985, when UCSC scientists met with a group of international visionaries at a conference hosted by Chancellor Sinsheimer, a meeting that triggered the inception of the Human Genome Project. Fifteen years later in 2000, UCSC scientists helped the Human Genome Project reach a stunning milestone by providing the computational solution that produced the first assembly of the human genome, the map of our genetic make-up. Out of these accomplishments and a growing interest in cross-disciplinary science grew the Center for Biomolecular Science & Engineering, which fosters interdisciplinary research and academic programs that address the scientific questions of the post-genomic era.
Research conducted by center affiliates encompasses traditional fields such as biochemistry and molecular, cell, and developmental biology as well as the more modern disciplines of bioengineering, bioinformatics, and bioelectronics. Much of the research combines cutting-edge computational approaches with laboratory experimentation. In addition, through collaboration with affiliates in philosophy and sociology, the center supports the exploration of the ethical, legal, and social implications of genome research.
Information Technologies Institute (ITI)
ITI's mission is to provide the infrastructure through which its collective members can seek out and attract large scale research dollars, and to advance technology committed to solving grand-challenge national, social, and commercial problems. The institute leverages its industry partners as well as talents and resources from the school in multiple disciplines to conduct collaborative research in a wide range of areas related to the internet, systems, and technologies enabling developments in computers and communications.
The Information Technologies Institute (ITI) is a Focused Research Activity (FRA) and is operationally within the Baskin School of Engineering (SOE). Via its research centers, ITI focuses research in an inter-related set of areas of interest to faculty in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, and Electrical Engineering (as well as some from Physics, Chemistry, and Applied Mathematics).
The Institute promoted the creation of a collaborative effort among four University of California campuses (Berkeley, Davis, Santa Cruz, and Merced) known as CITRIS - Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society. Since CITRIS opened in 2001, our strategy has been to promote major innovative research efforts by incubating and launching new research centers. These centers have created a rich ecosystem of partnerships among academia, industry, government, and infrastructure stakeholders. To date, we have created more than twenty of these centers.
Storage Systems Research Center (SSRC)
The Storage Systems Research Center (SSRC) is part of the Jack Baskin School of Engineering at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Composed of faculty from the Computer Science, Computer Engineering, and Electrical Engineering departments, our research focuses on many aspects of file and storage systems. We have active projects in archival storage, large-scale distributed storage systems, file systems for next-generation storage devices, and scalable distributed metadata management and indexing. Our projects often have particular focus in cross-cutting issues such as security and reliability in file and storage systems.
SSRC research projects involve graduate students and faculty, and often include collaboration with local industry; opportunities for undergraduate research are also available. Since we're only 40 minutes from Silicon Valley, "local industry" includes just about every major storage company - our collaborators include NetApp, IBM, Symantec, LSI Logic, Data Domain, Hewlett Packard, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and many other companies and research organizations. Because of our industry ties and location, many students have summer internships in industry or government laboratories, and our graduates typically have multiple job offers, whether from industry, government, or academia.
The Center for Stock Assessment Research (CSTAR)
CSTAR is a collaboration between the National Marine Fisheries Service laboratories in Santa Cruz and Pacific Grove, with the objective of undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate training in the basic science associated with the problems of assessing the numerical abundance, spatial distribution, size distribution and reproductive status of commercially important fish species. A broad and deep understanding of population processes is critical to the development and management of sustainable fisheries. The work at CSTAR focuses on using mathematical, statistical and computer models to solve important environmental and ecological problems. The work is grounded in data, and also seeks to expand the base of basic knowledge that supports rigorous application of science to real-world problems. Furthermore, research on marine fisheries conducted in CSTAR allows testing theoretical predictions via natural and human experiments on a scale that is appropriate for understanding the dynamics of ecosystems. Such large scale experiments are rarely available to the scientific community. The foci of research at CSTAR are 1) Spatially explicit population dynamics 2) Environmental variability and population processes; 3) Risk analysis; and 4) Fish population and community ecology. Scientists at CSTAR are also involved in ecoinformatics, that sub-field of bioinformatics involving the application of mathematics, statistics and information technologies to the analysis of the large ecological data sets which arise naturally in the study of fisheries. To achieve its goals, CSTAR supports graduate student research and undergraduate internships and senior theses when those students work in partnership with NMFS scientists and UCSC faculty advisors. Graduate students can participate as members of a stock assessment team in their second or third years of graduate school. The research and training of first class fishery scientists at CSTAR is science done in the national interest and moves in the direction outlined by the National Research Council in its report Recruiting Fishery Scientists: Workshop on Stock Assessment and Social Science Careers.