Graduate-Level Opportunities
Graduate School research centers and institutes are described under Research Centers and Institutes.
Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation
The Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation, a part of Sargent College, conducts research relevant to the recovery and rehabilitation of persons with psychiatric disabilities and develops and disseminates preservice and in-service training programs. A workshop series occurs each spring and fall along with web broadcasts and web-based training courses for professional development. Jointly funded by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research, the Center for Mental Health Services, and other organizations, the center provides technical assistance, consultation, and evaluation services for professionals and agencies around the world. Further information is available from the Dissemination Manager, Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation, 940 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA 02215; 617-353-3549; Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation website at www.bu.edu/cpr; email: psyrehab@bu.edu.
Health Policy Institute
The Boston University Health Policy Institute (HPI) brings together scholars, policymakers, corporate and health institution managers, and health professionals to address some of the most critical health care challenges of our times. The HPI is made up of the Health Care Entrepreneurship Program, the Center for Educational Development in Health, the Program for the Management of Variability in Health Care Delivery, and the Health Policy Research Program. The Health Policy Institute is linked with the School of Management, the School of Medicine, and the School of Public Health. For more information, write the director, Richard H. Egdahl, MD, 53 Bay State Road, Boston, MA 02215.
Humanities Foundation
The Boston University Humanities Foundation was established in 1981 following the award of a $1 million National Endowment for the Humanities Challenge Grant to the College of Arts & Sciences and the Graduate School. Our mission is to promote and enhance the work of humanities scholars at Boston University. We pursue this goal by granting fellowships to junior and senior faculty, by supporting interdisciplinary programs involving distinguished visitors, by funding library acquisitions that facilitate research in the humanities, and by awarding prizes to undergraduates and graduate students who have distinguished themselves in the study of humanities disciplines.
The director of the Foundation is James A. Winn and the foundation administrator is Christine Loken-Kim. For further information, call or write the Humanities Foundation, 725 Commonwealth Avenue, Room 107, Boston, MA 02215; 617‑353‑6250; email: BUHF@bu.edu; website at: www.bu.edu/hf.
Center for the Study of Communication & the Deaf
The Center for the Study of Communication & the Deaf is directed by Dr. Robert Hoffmeister. It was established in 1982 to conduct research in parent-child interaction, the assessment of American Sign Language (ASL) in Deaf children, and the acquisition and use of ASL by Deaf children. The goal of the center is to assist parents and professionals concerned with the education of the Deaf. Currently, the center has five ongoing projects: 1) an examination of the role of language on the thinking of Deaf children (Theory of Mind), 2) the learning of ASL as a second language in hearing persons, 3) the relationship of ASL to literacy and reading development in Deaf children, 4) the development of an ASL/English curriculum for preschool through grade 8, and 5) the development of a language test to determine stages of ASL acquisition in Deaf children. Further information is available from Dr. Hoffmeister at the School of Education, 605 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA 02215; email: rhoff@bu.edu.
Morin Center for Banking & Financial Law
The Morin Center for Banking & Financial Law was founded in 1978 to develop research and educational programs in the areas of law governing and relating to banking and financial services. The Morin Center’s mission is to provide, within BU School of Law, an organization for encouraging, managing, and recognizing education and research in the field of banking and financial services law. The Morin Center reflects the international aspects of financial services in its work, seeks to marry academic excellence with practical application, and fosters a community of scholarship and dialog on legal issues critical to the financial community. The work of the Morin Center is three-fold: administering the Graduate Program in Banking & Financial Law and contributing to the academic and scholarly life of Boston University School of Law through lectures and other academic activities focusing on banking and financial services law; conducting legal education programs, seminars and symposia open to the public, and conducting research in the dynamic field of financial services law and policy. The center publishes the Review of Banking and Financial Law. Information is available from the director, Professor Cornelius K. Hurley, Morin Center for Banking & Financial Law, 765 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA 02215; 617-353-3023; email: banklaw@bu.edu.
Arthritis Center
The Boston University Arthritis Center coordinates the arthritis-related activities of the professional schools of the University, including the School of Medicine, School of Public Health, and the College of Health & Rehabilitation Sciences: Sargent College. These activities include patient care, basic science research, and health services research. The professional staff of the Arthritis Center includes 13 full-time faculty: 8 physicians, 5 PhD basic science investigators, one nurse investigator, and one statistician. Dr. Maria Trojanowska joined the group in the past year as center director with overall responsibility of directing laboratory-based research programs.
Of the physicians, three (Drs. Lafyatis, York, and Farina) are engaged primarily in basic research, three in epidemiology (Drs. Felson, Neogi, and Vlad), and five (Drs. Merkel, Kissin, Moraci, Wasserman, and Simms) in a variety of clinical research endeavors. In addition, several full-time doctoral-level researchers, 7 research coordinators, and more than 20 support staff contribute to the overall program. Work is supported by NIH, government, and foundation grants.
The Arthritis Center provides continuing consultative and experimental therapeutics programs for a broad range of rheumatic diseases. The unit is responsible for over 10,000 patient visits at various care sites including Boston Medical Center and the Boston VA Medical Center. The population base ranges from inner city Boston to tertiary care referrals coming from a regional and national base. In two diseases, scleroderma and amyloidosis, Boston University is a major referral center attracting patients from throughout the U.S. and abroad.
Basic research programs in the Arthritis Center are directed at the understanding of the molecular basis of disease. During the past year, this work was supported by NIH grants and grants from the Arthritis Foundation, the Scleroderma Foundation, the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, and other sources. The faculty published over 50 research papers, presented some 50 research seminars, and had 20 visiting professorships or grand rounds presentations. The faculty serve on panels for grants, on editorial boards, and various advisory committees.
Specific areas of investigation include research in molecular biology, immunology, inflammation and repair, mechanisms of autoimmunity and the pathogenesis of scleroderma, rheumatoid arthritis, and amyloidosis. There is a major clinical and basic research program in scleroderma, an autoimmune connective tissue disease. Amyloidosis is an uncommon disorder that has been a focus of both basic and clinical investigation at the Arthritis Center for over 25 years. The Arthritis Center also has a nationally recognized program in epidemiology, health services research, and health economics. Members of this program have carried out important studies in osteoporosis, rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, and the effects of therapeutic agents on outcomes in rheumatic disease.
The Scleroderma Program was established at Boston University in 1994. The program is an interdisciplinary program of basic research, clinical research, and patient care. Since its inception, over 1,000 patients have been referred for evaluation, making it the largest program of its kind in New England. Basic research in scleroderma focuses on molecular mechanisms. Clinical research programs include novel biologic agents for skin disease, evaluation of cyclophosphamide and other agents for treatment of lung disease and pulmonary hypertension.
The amyloid clinical program, directed by Dr. Martha Skinner, is a worldwide referral center for patients with amyloidosis. Pioneering therapeutic programs including bone marrow ablation and stem cell transplant and liver transplantation were developed. The program serves as a valuable patient and physician resource for information. Research in amyloid has focused on identifying genetic defects in hereditary amyloid and on determining why amyloid precursor proteins form amyloid fibrils.
The Clinical Epidemiology Research & Training Unit, led by Dr. David Felson, is a leading center in studies of osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, and rheumatoid arthritis. Important areas of investigation include the potential protective role of nutritional factors in osteoarthritis, and the role of estrogens and mechanical factors in the development of osteoarthritis. The program maintains an important link with the Framingham study and database, which have been important in many of the published studies.
The Vasculitis Center, directed by Peter A. Merkel, MD, MPH, is an established program that integrates the substantial clinical expertise and research projects already present within the Department of Medicine to focus on the various forms of vasculitis. The BU Vasculitis Center is an internationally known referral center for these complex diseases, with BUMC having the largest cohort of patients with vasculitis in the Northeast. The clinical research of the center includes multiple projects ranging from clinical therapeutic trials for Wegener’s granulomatosis, giant cell arteritis, and Takayasu’s arteritis to clinical epidemiology and outcome measure development to translational vascular biology studies. The BU Vasculitis Center is the lead site in the newly formed, NIH-funded, Vasculitis Clinical Research Consortium (VCRC). The VCRC is an international, multicenter clinical research infrastructure established to conduct longitudinal cohort studies and clinical trials in these rare diseases.
The faculty of the section are responsible for a substantial amount of medical student, resident, and postgraduate education. In addition to formal lectures for students, the faculty give many formal teaching conferences at Boston University and dozens of regional and national presentations.
Whitaker Cardiovascular Institute
The Whitaker Cardiovascular Institute of the School of Medicine, founded in 1974, stimulates, conducts, and coordinates research and training related to the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular disease. The institute assists in formulating research projects, developing grant applications, providing information on sources of funding, and critically reviewing grant and contract proposals in the cardiovascular area. Over the past three decades, distinguished research advances in the area of hypertension, heart failure, atherogenesis, endothelial function, thrombosis, nitric oxide and free radical biology, and gene therapy have been carried out by the institute’s researchers, who have been singled out by the National Institutes of Health by the award of notable grant programs, including a Specialized Center of Clinically Oriented Research titled Vascular Consequences in Insulin Resistance and Obesity and a Program Project titled Endothelial Redox State & Phenotype in Health & Disease.
The breadth and depth of programs are exemplified by current research topics: the impact of diabetes and obesity on cardiovascular function; the effect of hypertension on the blood vessel wall; molecular markers for cholesterol transport in the blood; lipoproteins and atherosclerosis; molecular mechanisms involved in arterial injury, cardiac ischemia, and infarction; inhibition of experimental atherosclerosis by antihypertensive drugs; role of thrombotic determinants in atherosclerosis; oxidative stress in atherosclerosis; gene therapy of vascular diseases; gene regulation in megakaryocytes; determinants of vascular function; gene regulation of apoproteins; endothelial function and dysfunction; studies on arterial elasticity in peripheral vascular disease; clinical trials of renin inhibitors and of antiarrhythmic drugs; investigation into the comparative benefits of therapies for coronary artery disease; the role of nitric oxide in vascular disease; the benefit of ACE inhibitors and of inotropic agents in congestive heart failure; and proteomics in cardiovascular biology and pathobiology. Other research areas include the Framingham Heart Study, the most highly regarded epidemiological study of cardiovascular disease in the world.
For further information, write to Administrator, Whitaker Cardiovascular Institute, Boston University School of Medicine, 700 Albany Street, W507, Boston, MA 02118; 617-638-4887.
Affiliated Institutions
Cooperative Agreements Students may receive credit for certain courses at Hebrew College of Brookline, which offers undergraduate and graduate degree programs in Hebrew and Jewish Studies. Consortium arrangements permit cross-registration with Boston College, Brandeis University, and Tufts University.
