Category: Research
Center for Global Christianity & Mission
The Center for Global Christianity & Mission at the Boston University School of Theology explores the most important development in Christianity during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries: the shift of Christianity’s demographic center to the southern hemisphere and parts of Asia. The total number of Christians worldwide continues to grow, even as the European and North American component of the world church has shrunk to less than one-third of the total.
“The center seeks to address several critical aspects of Christianity’s ‘shift southward’ in the twenty-first century. First, Christianity must be understood as a multi-cultural and global movement, an enduring theological tradition that finds new life in the lived realities of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Second, the dramatic growth of world Christianity begs for analysis of the missionary dimension in all churches, as initiators rather than receptors of mission outreach. Third, growing churches are in need of theologically trained leaders, ranging from seminary professors, to grassroots leaders of indigenous churches. And finally, persons being educated to lead religious communities need to incorporate the understanding of these realities into their ministry and outreach.”—Dana L. Robert and Prof. M. L. Daneel, Co-Directors
Center for Chemical Methodology & Library Development
The Center for Chemical Methodology & Library Development opens at Boston University. It is a new center funded by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) focused on the discovery of new methodologies to produce novel chemical libraries of unprecedented complexity for biological screening.
“The primary goal of CMLD is to build a better library, but ultimately the molecules housed there will be useful in medicine and in answering basic questions in biology. 'We’re not trying to set up a small pharmaceutical company here at BU,' says Schaus [library developer]. 'We’re actually interested in making compounds that you can use to study biological functions.'”—BU Bridge article
Institute for Geriatric Social Work
The Institute for Geriatric Social Work is dedicated to strengthening the workforce for an aging society through educational innovation, workforce change, and research. Located at Boston University School of Social Work, IGSW builds upon the School's historical commitment to the field of aging and current strength in gerontological teaching, research, and training. Through innovative and wide-ranging education and training efforts, IGSW helps practicing BSW and MSW social workers—the large majority of whom have received little or no geriatric training—acquire the knowledge, skills, and tools necessary to meet the needs of older adults and their family members.
Elie Wiesel Center for Judaic Studies
The Center for Judaic Studies (later renamed the Elie Wiesel Center for Judaic Studies) coordinates with and supports all academic programs relating to Jewish studies and sponsors lectures, conferences, publications, and cultural programs featuring the films, theater, and music of Jewish studies. Wiesel (Hon.’74), a 1986 Nobel laureate for peace, BU’s Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities, and a UNI professor of philosophy and religion, has taught at the University since 1976. A recipient of 110 honorary degrees and more than 120 other honors, Wiesel has also received many awards for his writings, which include such nonfiction works as the autobiographical Night (1960), The Jews of Silence (1966), and Souls on Fire: Portraits and Legends of Hasidic Masters (1972).
Center for Memory & Brain
The Boston University Center for Memory & Brain (CMB) is established as a center of excellence in research, training, and teaching in the cognitive neuroscience of memory. The small core group of neuroscientists who compose the CMB complement each other in technical abilities and share the specific interest of characterizing brain mechanisms of memory. The center pursues complementary and collaborative studies aimed at describing the "circuit diagram" for memory in the human brain, teaches at all levels, and trains neuroscientists in this field.
Center for Integrated Space Weather Modeling
The Center for Integrated Space Weather Modeling (CISM) opens as a National Science Foundation (NSF) Science and Technology Center. The center's goal is to understand our dynamic sun-earth system and how it affects life and society
"We will not only do new science, but we will also build a robust and operationally useful forecasting tool for both civilian and military space weather forecasters and create novel education programs that will give students at all levels a better understanding of the geospace environment."—W. Jeffrey Hughes, Director
Center for Information & Systems Engineering
Information and systems engineering research at Boston University is strong and accomplished but also spread across departments, colleges, and schools within the University. The Trustees approve the new CISE in order to foster greater interactions among researchers speaking the same technical language across diverse application domains. CISE provides a home across departments for faculty and students interested in information and systems engineering methodologies and their relevance to application domains encompassing the analysis, design, and management of complex systems.
"As the communications, computing, and information revolution has taken hold, applications encompassing the analysis, design, and management of complex systems have focused research and education on information and systems engineering. Under the leadership of Boston University faculty across multiple departments, this interdisciplinary area has flourished." — David Castanon and Yannis Paschalidis, Co-Directors
Management of Variability Program
The high cost of health care places a great burden on the competitiveness of many major American manufacturing and other businesses. In response to cost-reduction pressures from corporate leaders, health care managers often respond in ways that negatively impact quality of care. Such responses fail to recognize a source of great waste in the health care delivery system: excessive variability in the processes used to provide care. The Management of Variability Program develops, implements, and evaluates methods to reduce this type of artificial management variability and better manage "natural" variability. The premise is that researching the reduction of process variability has as much potential for reducing costs and improving quality as approaches like cost-effectiveness analyses of new technologies, practice guidelines, and provider profiling. Its importance lies in the fact that individual institutions alone cannot support this type of research, even though its results will be of great benefit to individual institutions and the health care system as a whole.
International Center for East Asian Archaeology & Cultural History
The International Center for East Asian Archaeology & Cultural History (ICEAACH) opens to serve an international array of scholars and students pursuing the study of East Asian archaeology, art history, anthropology, history, religion, cultural heritage management, and related fields. An important aspect of ICEAACH's mission is to engage the public; it actively creates outreach and teacher training programs to more broadly promote academic research on East Asia’s cultural heritage to the public.
Institute for the Study of Human Resilience
The Institute for the Study of Human Resilience explores human resilience through research, practical application of our findings, and sharing information with affected people, their families, helping professions, and policy makers.
