Research Centers

Center for Computational Science         The CCS at Boston University was chartered in 1989 as an interdisciplinary focal point for computational science research and education. In collaboration with the Office of Information Technology.s Scientific Computing and Visualization Group (SCV), CCS has made leading edge computational resources available to researchers and students on a university wide basis since the installation of its first massively parallel supercomputer in 1988. The recent installation of the SGI/Cray Origin2000 represents the fourth generation parallel supercomputing technology at the University. Facilities also include an SGI Power Challenge Array, advanced graphics workstations, virtual reality stations and very high speed networking. The University's support of computational research has been extended to institutions throughout New England by means of the NSF funded MARINER project, a collaboration between CCS and SCV. MARINER offers education and training programs, access to state-of-the-art computing facilities and opportunities for pilot projects, Internet connectivity and industrial partnerships. The Center is a cooperative venture in which associated members come from a variety of disciplines in the academic and industrial communities to develop and take advantage of leading-edge computer and communications technologies. Under the auspices of MARINER, CCS takes its place as a leader in developing computational applications in collaboration with regional schools and companies. Building on MARINER, the University is extending its programs on a national scale as a partner in the National Computational Science Alliance, one of two national Partnerships for Advanced Computational Infrastructure supported by the NSF.

Center for Information Systems Engineering (CISE)         The Center for Information and Systems Engineering (CISE) provides an interdepartmental home for faculty and students interested in research in information and control systems theory and its relevance to various application domains encompassing the analysis, design, and management of complex systems that have come to prominence as a result of the information, communication, and computation revolution. Information and systems engineering research at BostonUniversity is strong and accomplished, but it is spread across departments, colleges and schools within the University. Approved by the Trustees in 2002, with administrative support added in Fall 2002, CISE has been raising the visibility of that strength and is beginning to foster greater interactions among researchers. As of June 2003, CISE has grown from 13 to 19 affiliated faculty from the Departments of Manufacturing Engineering, Aerospace & Mechanical Engineering, and Electrical & Computer Engineering in the College of Engineering; the Department of Mathematics & Statistics in the College of Arts and Sciences; and the Department of Operations Management in the School of Management. Electrical and Computer Engineering Department faculty affiliated with CISE are Professors Alanyali, Baillieul, Carruthers, Cassandras, Castañón, Karl, Saligrama, Starobinski and Trachtenberg. The application interests of their CISE related research include Automation, Robotics and Control; Communications, Networking and Information Systems; Production and Service Systems and Supply Chain Management; and Signal Processing and Pattern Recognition.

Center for Nanoscience and Nanobiology         Boston University formed the Center for Nanoscience and Nanobiotechnology (CNN) to advance academic and technological research and development by extending discoveries in nanoscale materials and platforms toward applications that examine and seek to understand and manipulate biological systems. The Center serves as a hub for nanoscience researchers from the Charles River and Medical Campuses and builds interdisciplinary research and training. The Center connects scientists and engineers from disparate disciplines with each other in seminars, meetings, joint visitors programs, interdisciplinary courses, industrial collaborations, and seeded projects. CNN has three core functions: First, to develop interdisciplinary research and education in nanoscience and nanobiotechnology; second, to develop and run an industrial liaison program that partners researchers with external companies for mutual benefit; and third, to connect researchers to resources for technological commercialization. CNN and affiliated faculty are also involved in outreach activities, organizing hands-on activities, discussions, and panels around nanoscience for grade school students and working with local organizations and museums.

Center for Space Physics         The Center for Space Physics provides a focus for research and graduate training in space physics. It is a multidisciplinary center within the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences that includes faculty from the College of Engineering and the College of Arts and Sciences. The mission of the Center is to promote and foster space physics research and to provide a central base for that research and for the teaching of space physics, especially at the graduate level. The Center seeks to fulfill this mission by creating an intellectual atmosphere conducive to research and to the exchange and exploration of new ideas. The Center organizes a seminar series in space physics as well as internal research discussion groups, and often hosts visits of scholars from the United States and abroad. Although the Center itself offers no degree program, graduate education is a major component of Center activities. Graduate students from programs in Astronomy, Applied Physics, and Engineering conduct their thesis research at the Center. The Center provides a formal link between research groups in the Colleges of Engineering and Arts and Sciences, allowing them to co-locate research students and post-doctoral associates to allow greater interaction to everyone's benefit. The Center also provides administrative support for research projects, particularly in the areas of grant management and proposal development.

Center for Subsurface Sensing and Imaging Systems (CenSSIS)         The Center for Subsurface Sensing and Imaging Systems (CenSSIS) is a National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center (ERC) established in 2000. It seeks to revolutionize the ability to detect and image objects that lie underground or underwater, or are embedded within cells, inside the human body, or within manmade structures. CenSSIS is a collaborative effort of 4 academic institutions: Northeastern University, Boston University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez; and 4 strategic affiliates: Massachusetts General Hospital, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Together, the CenSSIS partnership works with industrial partners who provide their insight into research challenges. The Center's primary focus is on detecting, locating, and identifying objects obscured beneath the covering media, such as underground plumes, tumors under the skin or developmental defects in an embryo. Utilizing electromagnetic, photonic, or acoustic probes, CenSSIS will engage biomedical and environmental problems, developing techniques for sensing subsurface conditions. Projects integrate new methods of subsurface sensing and modeling, physics-based signal processing and image-understanding algorithms, and image and data information management methods. Research topics being addressed include: humanitarian de-mining, multilayer hyperspectral oceanography, 3-D subretinal visualization, nonlinear ultrasound medical imaging, subcellular biological imaging, electrical impedance tomography, acoustic diffraction tomography, and multi-sensor civil infrastructure assessment. Overall, the CenSSIS program is a vehicle enabling substantial leverage of industrial investments because of the substantial level of funding available for basic research. In addition to research, the Center has established programs for education, industry collaboration, and technology transfer.

Photonics Center         To help industry bridge the gap between basic research and practical application, Boston University launched the Photonics Center in 1994 with $29 million in seed funding from the federal government. The Center is now forging true business partnerships in which companies draw on the University.s exceptional expertise and resources in engineering, science, medicine, and management to build actual product prototypes and spawn a growing stream of new companies. The Photonics Center at Boston University is a bold new model for university-industry collaboration. It has been established to work directly with investors and industrial partners to turn emerging concepts in photonics technology into commercial products. The Center is staffed and equipped to help industry partners reduce the technical and financial risk involved in developing new ideas, refining them in the laboratory, building working prototypes, and starting up companies. To date the Center has forged joint ventures with nearly a dozen companies to develop new products in data storage, environmental monitoring, opto-electronics, and biotechnology. In 1997, the University completed the nine-story, 235,000 square-foot Photonics Building to house this ambitious initiative. The $80 million facility includes a full complement of state-of-the-art laboratories as well as meeting rooms, lecture halls, and an entire floor devoted to incubator space for startup companies that complements its existing incubator at 1106 Commonwealth Avenue. Faculty affiliated with the Center have in-depth expertise in all aspects of photonics technology, including the core areas of opto-electronics, photonic materials, data storage, imaging systems, medical applications, and sensors. Resources available to industry partners, government, faculty, and students through the Photonics Center support development and testing of ideas and products. These resources include several research and development laboratories: Scanning Infrared Near-Field Microscopy Laboratory, Optoelectronic Device Characterization Laboratory, Femtosecond Laser Facility, Photochemical Processes Laboratory, Photonic Systems Engineering Laboratory, Liquid Crystal Display Laboratory, Quantum Imaging Laboratory, Precision Optics Laboratory, Optoelectronic Materials Laboratory, Precison Measurement Laboratory, Optoelectronic Processing Facility, Laser Measurement and Fiber Optic Sensors Laboratory, Magnetic and Optical Devices Laboratory, Near-Field Scanning Optical Microscopy Laboratory, Picosecond Spectroscopy Laboratory, and the Advanced Electronic Materials and Devices Processing Research Laboratory.

Smart Lighting Engineering Resource Center         Advances in photonic device technologies are expected to completely replace lighting systems as we know them within the next 15 years. Less obvious is the unique opportunity this transformation presents to enable ubiquitous data networking of a vast array of physical objects. This networking is feasible because LEDs in these future lighting systems can be digitally modulated. From people, their personal communicators (PDAs), automobiles, motors, pallets, and boxes - to sensor systems (e.g., surveillance, ecological monitoring), biometric clothing, property tracking, and smart spaces (e.g., rooms that adapt to occupants’ preferences), this new connectivity, and it's improved throughput, latency, and functionality, will be nothing short of revolutionary. We are excited to explore opportunities in the use of LED-based communications, both independently or in hybrid models with radio frequency (RF) techniques, in several settings. The Smart Lighting ERC is supported by Hatice Altug's Laboratory of Integrated Nanophotonics and Biosensing Systems (LINBS) and two testbeds – an Outdoor Communications and Transportation Testbed and an Indoor Communciations Testbed. The Smart Lighting ERC is also associated with a wide variety of related research labs and centers.