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Institutes and Centers

Institute for Biomedical Engineering

The Institute is a uniquely integrated endeavor dedicated to providing students with access to a diverse faculty, unique research opportunities, and encouragement to pursue graduate studies in biomedical engineering. It is part of the New York Center for Biomedical Engineering, NYCBE, a consortium of researchers in the Grove School of Engineering at City College, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, the Cardiovascular Research Foundation, Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons, the Hospital for Special Surgery/Weill Medical College of Cornell University, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Since its founding in 1994, faculty and staff from more than a dozen health care institutions in the New York area have either taught courses in the center or have served as research advisors for student projects.

Benjamin Levich Institute for Physicochemical Hydrodynamics

The Benjamin Levich Institute is an internationally recognized research center for the study of fundamental problems of flow and transport in complex fluid, fluid-like media and interface systems. Faculty members participating in the Institute are from Chemical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Physics. With the Institute’s excellent laboratory and computational facilities, their current scope of research is in five major areas: granular flows, low Reynolds number hydrodynamics, non-Newtonian fluid mechanics, computational fluid mechanics, and transport along interfaces.

Institute for Municipal Waste Research

The principal objective of the Institute is to mobilize the excellent intellectual resources of the CUNY faculty to assist in solving the urgent problem of effective, economical, and efficient disposal of municipal waste in New York City. The research program entails development of innovative technologies to treat municipal wastewaters in order to safeguard the quality of the surrounding natural waters and new disinfection methods that will protect the quality of drinking water. The Institute’s research is funded in part by New York City and State agencies.

Institute for Ultrafast Spectroscopy and Lasers (IUSL)

The IUSL is a multidisciplinary research laboratory devoted to conducting basic and applied research in the frontiers of photonic science and technology; to help develop a skilled workforce for academic and industrial sectors by providing unique educational and training opportunities for students and scholars; to provide a core for major photonic initiatives, as well as to identify and participate in the development of emerging technology areas. Faculty members, researchers and students from the Physics, Electrical Engineering, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Departments of CCNY, and visiting scholars from abroad participate in various IUSL research projects.

CUNY Environmental Crossroads Initiative

Created in 2008, the CUNY Environmental Crossroads Initiative is an internationally recognized research center dedicated to the analysis of strategic local, regional, and global environmental challenges. As climate change and environmental problems gain a new sense of urgency around the globe, the collaboration of experts from various disciplines is the key to managing such diverse challenges as coping with climate extremes, feeding a population that continues to grow, establishing energy security while preserving ecosystem services and biodiversity, protecting human health, and sustaining economic development. For more information visit: http://environment.asrc.cuny.edu/.

CUNY Institute for Transportation Systems

The CUNY Institute for Transportation Systems has been established at The City College in cooperation with other units of the City University of New York. The mission of the Institute is to carry out interdisciplinary research on all modes of transportation and to train transportation professionals.

CUNY Institute for Urban Systems (CIUS)

CIUS is a multi-campus CUNY institute that investigates urban infrastructure using the themes of new technology, infrastructure, institutions and finance. The Institute combines engineering and social science research in addressing major problems of urban areas.

Center for Advanced Engineering Design and Development (CAEDD)

The primary mission of CAEDD is to conduct, coordinate, and promote design-oriented, applied research and development for industry. It also encourages and fosters interdisciplinary engineering design and manufacturing education by the academic departments in the School of Engineering. CAEDD is an interdepartmental unit which transfers faculty research and expertise in the Grove School of Engineering into advanced technology needed in industry. It also serves as an outreach and referral service for small and large industrial firms seeking assistance with technical problems.

CUNY Energy Institute

The Energy Institute was formed in 2008 to consider new approaches to large scale energy production and storage. It serves and comprises of researchers from all campuses of the City University of New York, with a mission to create, evaluate, and provide a seed for the implementation of advanced energy technologies. These technologies would provide low cost, sustainable energy solutions tailored for the various environs that make up New York State, from preserving the serenity of the Adirondack region to meeting challenges of powering New York City. The Energy Institute takes a comprehensive approach to this problem, combining fundamental studies of emission-free energy production and energy storage through new materials and mechanisms.

NOAA-Cooperative Remote Sensing Science and Technology Center (NOAA-CREST)

CUNY Remote Sensing of the Earth (CREST) Institute is a CUNY wide institute dedicated to conducting cutting edge research and education in monitoring and predicting the environmental condition of the Earth and help in protecting the Earth’s eco-system. NOAA CREST Center is housed within the CUNY CREST Institute. Established in 2001, the NOAA-CREST Center is led by the City University of New York and brings together Hampton University, University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez, Bowie State University, University of Maryland Baltimore County, and Columbia University and industrial partners like Raytheon & Northrop Grumman. The CREST vision is to contribute to the development of a world-class cadre of faculty, students, and researchers that will gain knowledge and expertise in cutting-edge research in science, engineering, and technology with special emphasis on satellites and remote sensing of the Earth. For more information visit: http://crest.ccny.cuny.edu/.

International Center for Environmental Resources and Development (ICERD)

This Center was established to bring together multidisciplinary teams of scientists and engineers to help tackle the diverse problems of water resources and environmental issues. It focuses on water resources and environmental research; air and water pollution crisis management; remote sensing and global change impact; environmental technology; and research, education and training programs.

University Transportation Research Center (UTRC)

UTRC is a federally supported center that conducts research, training and technology transfer on issues of surface transportation, including road systems, public transportation and multi-modal systems. It is a consortium of twelve major universities, with the lead at CCNY.

Center for Algorithms and Interactive Scientific Software (CAISS)

CAISS is a research center where mathematicians and computer scientists come together to collaborate on different projects. It grew out of work on a graphically driven, easy to use, software package called MAGNUS, designed to answer questions about and to carry out experiments with finitely presented groups. This work has led to the development of a general platform, which can house a host of zero learning curve software packages. The first of these packages, one for statistics called Caiss-Stat, is now nearing completion. This is only one of the many projects being undertaken by CAISS which include continued work on MAGNUS, new cryptographic protocols to ensure electronic security, work on a universal password, all of which make use of the complexity of finitely presented groups. In addition, CAISS is developing new games or puzzles, based on group theory. CAISS also manages the New York Group Theory Cooperative, which organizes the NY Group Theory Seminar at the Graduate Center. The facilities of CAISS include a 132 node Beowulf cluster, which is being used for work in computational biology and group theory and a small computer lab equipped with CAISS developed software.

Center for Water Resources and Environmental Research

The Center for Water Resources and Environmental Research (CWRER) was established in 1993 in order to meet the needs for interdisciplinary study and education in the area of the natural resources, waste, and environment. The Center’s main objectives are: to conduct multi-disciplinary research on protection of the environment and minimization of pollution hazards to the water resources, hydrological, and ecological systems; to develop and demonstrate new technologies for the treatment and disposal of natural water supplies and wastewater; to cooperate on the global scale to protect the precious resources that sustain human life; to educate and train personnel for management, supervision, and operation of environmental and water resources management systems. For more information visit: http://crest.ccny.cuny.edu/.