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Research Centers
BIC / BNMC / CACR / CBCD / CCSER / CIMMS / CMI / CNSE / CPI / CSEM / DANSE / IQI / IST / Jacobs Institute / KISS / KNI / Lee Center / Linde Center / MURI / MSC / PEER / PSAAP / SISL / VTP

Caltech engineering faculty research groups, which include undergraduate and graduate students, post-doctoral scholars, research staff, and visitors, constitute one level of organization in the Division. Next, groups of faculty have created multidisciplinary research centers - listed here - which constitute another nexus of creative effort in the Division. These centers involve faculty throughout the Institute and represent some of the most exciting, "bleeding edge" initiatives at Caltech.

Biological Imaging Center

Biological Network Modeling Center

Center for Advanced Computing Research

Caltech Center for Sustainable Energy Research

The Kavli Nanoscience Institute

Materials and Process Simulation Center

Power, Environmental & Energy Research Center

Voting Technology Project

BIC
Biological Imaging Center

The Biological Imaging Center explores the patterning of cell lineages, cell migrations, and axonal connections during vertebrate embryogenesis. The goal is to develop new imaging techniques and experimental strategies that permit single-cell resolution studies of each of these key processes in intact developing embryos.

BNMC
Biological Network Modeling Center

The Biological Network Modeling Center brings together Caltech biologists, bioengineers, mathematicians, and computer scientists to develop and apply state-of-the-art computational tools for modeling and analyzing complex biological systems.

CACR
Center for Advanced Computing Research

CACR exists to ensure that Caltech is at the forefront of computational science and engineering (CS&E). CS&E is the practice of computer-based modeling, simulation, and data analysis for the study of scientific phenomena and engineering designs.

CBCD
Center for Biological Circuit Design

The CBCD is developing new ways to design, build, and analyze biological circuits. Biological circuits control information flow in biological systems, and as such are a core area of Information Science and Technology.

CCSER
Caltech Center for Sustainable Energy Research

CCSER has as its goal to transform the industrialized world from one powered by fossil fuels to one that is powered by sunlight. Initially we are focused on three efforts: (1) solar electric generation, (2) solar-driven fuel synthesis, and (3) fuel cell development.

CIMMS
Center for Integrative Multiscale Modeling and Simulation

CIMMS is a Caltech research center focussed on research activities in a wide range of topics covering multiscale phenomena ranging from physical and mathematical modeling to computational algorithms.

CMI
Center for the Mathematics of Information

CMI is a home in which unfettered development of the mathematical foundations of information and computation can be influenced by, and influence in turn, progress in engineering and science.

CNSE
Center for Neuromorphic Systems Engineering

Vision, olfaction, hearing, touch, learning, decision making, and pattern recognition. These are all things that even simple biological organisms perform far better and more efficiently than the fastest digital computers. The scientists and engineers at CNSE are working to translate our understanding of biologic systems into a new class of electronic devices that imitate the ways animals sense and make sense of the world.

CPI
Center for the Physics of Information

The CPI is dedicated to the proposition that physical science and information science are interdependent and inseparable. Our research aims, on the one hand, to foster physical insights that can pave the way for revolutionary new information technologies, and, on the other hand, to stimulate new ideas about information that can illuminate fundamental issues in physics and chemistry.

CSEM
Center for Science & Engineering of Materials

CSEM addresses both research and educational aspects of polymeric, structural, photonic, and ferroelectric materials that will be necessary to solve critical societal needs of the twenty-first century. The Center pioneers a number of exotic and futuristic materials and applications such as liquid metals, responsive gels, and tiny medical sensors.

DANSE
Distributed Data Analysis for Neutron Scattering Experiments

To develop software for neutron scattering research, DANSE is organized around five scientific subfields. Each subproject is a small team led by a scientist who has identified new opportunities for computing in neutron scattering science. The five subfields are 1) Diffraction, 2) Engineering Diffraction, 3) Small-Angle Scattering, 4) Reflectometry, 5) Inelastic Scattering. The five subfields require different types of data analysis, owing in part to the different physical phenomena under investigation.

IQI
Institute for Quantum Information

The IQI was founded to catalyze and stimulate quantum information science (QIS) research. We sponsor a vigorous visiting scholars program, develop and teach novel QIS-based courses, hold regular interdisciplinary seminars and workshops, mentor Ph.D. thesis research, and support undergraduate research internships.

IST
Information Science and Technology

IST is the first integrated research and teaching activity in the country that investigates information from all angles: from the fundamental theoretical underpinnings of information to the science and engineering of novel information substrates, biological circuits, and complex social systems. IST is home to six centers: CPI, CMI, CBCD, SISL, the Lee Center, and CNSE.

Jacobs Institute
Jacobs Institute for Molecular Engineering for Medicine
The Jacobs Institute for Molecular Engineering for Medicine has been established to pursue biomedical research based on molecular engineering to invent the next generation of medicines and medical devices.

KISS
Keck Institute for Space Studies

Established at Caltech in January 2008 with a $24 million grant over 8 years from the W. M. Keck Foundation. The Institute is a "think and do tank," whose primary purpose is to bring together a broad spectrum of scientists and engineers for sustained technical interaction aimed at developing new space mission concepts and technology.

KNI
The Kavli Nanoscience Institute

The KNI special emphasis is upon efforts that transcend traditional disciplinary boundaries, with two principal areas of focus: nanobiotechnology and nanophotonics. Its common methodology in these areas is large-scale integration of nanoscale devices—that is, going beyond the present nanoscience of individual structures to realize interacting systems capable of unprecedented emergent functionality.

Lee Center
Lee Center for Advanced Networking

The purpose of the Lee Center for Advanced Networking is create a global communication system that is reliable and robust. Current wireless communication systems are plagued by static and lost connections. But Lee researchers envision a global system as reliable as a basic utility—like tap water, sewage or natural gas—which consumers will take for granted. The skeleton of this new global communication system will consist of a combination of wireless radio frequencies and high-speed fiber-optic cable.

Linde Center
The Ronald and Maxine Linde Center for Global Environmental Science

Founded in 2008 to address the complex issue of global climate change from a wide range of disciplines. The Center unites faculty from chemistry, engineering, geology, environmental science, and other fields. Many of the faculty members associated with the center teach and research in Caltech's Environmental Science and Engineering Department—a multidivisional program of graduate and undergraduate study.

Multi-University Research Initiative:
Materials on the Brink: Unprecedented Transforming Materials

This ARO-administered MURI projects seeks to exploit principles of crystallographic compatibility and phase coexistence to discover materials that undergo extremely low hysteresis structural transformation between phases with unusual combinations of electromagnetic, optical and mechanical properties.

MSC
Materials and Process Simulation Center

The goal of MSC is to develop methods required for first-principles multiscale-, multi-paradigm-based predictions of the structures and properties of proteins, DNA, polymers, ceramics, metal alloys, semiconductors, and organometallics—and to apply these methods to design new materials for pharma, catalysis, microelectronics, nanotechnology, and superconductors.

PEER
Power, Environmental & Energy Research Center

The PEER mission is to conduct fundamental research in the science and engineering underlying energy and environmental technologies, and to train new scientists and engineers to provide the multidisciplinary knowledge needed to solve these problems.

PSAAP
Predictive Science Academic Alliance Program

The primary goal of the Predictive Science Academic Alliance Program (PSAAP) is to bring about validated, large-scale, multidisciplinary, simulation-based "Predictive Science" as a major academic and applied research program. Caltech's role in the PSAAP is to establish a Multidiscipline Simulation Center (MSC) to develop a multidisciplinary Predictive Science methodology focusing on high-energy-density dynamic response of materials as it arises in hypervelocity impact. PSAAP succeeds ASCI (Center for Simulation of Dynamic Response of Materials).

SISL
Social and Information Sciences Laboratory

SISL studies how markets and other social systems aggregate large amounts of information that is widely distributed.

VTP
Voting Technology Project

The VTP was established by Caltech President David Baltimore and MIT President Charles Vest in December 2000 to prevent a recurrence of the problems that threatened the 2000 U.S. Presidential Election. Specific tasks of the project include: evaluate the current state of reliability and uniformity of U.S. voting systems; establish uniform attributes and quantitative guidelines for performance and reliability of voting systems; propose specific uniform guidelines and requirements for reliable voting systems.

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This page last updated: March 25, 2009