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Since its designation as a university in 1947, The Florida State University has built a reputation as a strong center for research in the sciences, the humanities, and in the arts. This year, The Florida State University faculty and administrators will generate in excess of $80 million in external funding to supplement state funds used for research. These external funds, derived through contracts and grants from various private foundations, industries, and government agencies, are used to provide stipends for graduate students, to improve research facilities, and to support the research itself.
Many members of The Florida State University faculty are renowned scholars in their fields. In the natural sciences, The Florida State University is perhaps best known for its basic research programs in physics, nuclear science, chemistry, biology, psychology, meteorology, and oceanography. Its programs in geology, mathematics, computer science, and statistics also have strong research components, both basic and applied. The University also has a joint program in engineering with Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU) in Tallahassee.
In the humanities, the University is a nationally recognized center of excellence in graduate training. A number of humanities faculty members have distinguished themselves through service as heads of national academic organizations in philosophy, English, history, and religion. In recent years, several of these departments have won national acclaim and today are considered among the best in the South.
The arts at The Florida State University have been an important and essential part of the University’s mission since its early development as a premier liberal arts institution in the early 1900s. The schools of Music, Theatre, Visual Arts and Dance, and Motion Picture, Television, and Recording Arts contribute to this mission in several ways. They provide leadership for the cultural development of the state, and they provide state and national service to their professions through research programs, creative activities, and various continuing educational services. The arts schools also contribute a wide spectrum of public service and outreach activities by offering extensive performances and exhibits both on campus and throughout the state, and by bringing leading arts professionals to Florida through special festivals and national and international meetings of professional organizations.
The arts disciplines at The Florida State University are among the most comprehensive of any university in the nation. They provide extensive and varied academic offerings, both for general University students and for students who wish to pursue professional careers in the arts, whether as creative artists, performers, scholars, or educators.
Researchers in many disciplines take advantage of the University’s location in Florida’s capital city. Graduate students in such diverse fields as urban and regional planning, criminology, social work, business, governmental affairs, population studies, public administration, and law have ready access to state government information and to many internships offered within state agencies.
Computing and information technology are widely used at The Florida State University for both research and instruction. A high speed computer network reaches throughout the campus and connects the University to the Internet. Academic Computing and Network Services (ACNS) provides free accounts for computer and internet access to all students, faculty, and staff. ACNS also operates general purpose computing servers and supercomputers that are available to the entire campus, and provides open-access computer laboratories for students.
The Supercomputer Computations Research Institute (SCRI) is designed to support interdisciplinary and inter-institutional collaborations in computational science. SCRI consists of a number of in-house computationally-intensive focus teams conducting research in applications areas that serve as nuclei for significant research collaborations. In this spirit, SCRI promotes computational science as the interlocking foundation to synthesize new disciplines and to foster research activity in a number of existing disciplines.
SCRI emphasizes the importance of the synergism that results from collaborations involving the SCRI research community, other FSU faculty, and off-campus collaborators. Each year, the institute attracts dozens of young scientists and students from around the world seeking opportunities to learn how to apply the power of supercomputing technology to problems within their various disciplines. The mutual benefit of this research to the State of Florida, the U.S. Department of Energy, and other agencies of the U.S. government, is in no small part due to SCRI’s strategic location here at The Florida State University.
A number of The Florida State University’s special programs have won national or international distinction in research. These include the following:
The National High Magnetic Field Laboratory is one of the nations newest research laboratories and the only user facility of its kind in the Western Hemisphere. The laboratory develops and provides a variety of research magnets at the highest fields available in the world. The laboratory plays a major role in the international race to enhance scientific disciplines as diverse as biology, chemistry, engineering, geochemistry, materials science, medicine, and physics.
Under the guidance of the laboratory’s chief scientist, Nobel Laureate Robert Schrieffer, this unique facility supports an extensive in-house research program that advances its scientific and technical capabilities. The in-house research program is built around leading scientists and engineers who concentrate on the study of strongly correlated electron systems, molecular conductors, magnetic materials, magnetic resonance, cryogenics, and new approaches to measuring materials properties in high magnetic fields. Research at the laboratory is opening new frontiers of science at high magnetic fields, which have enormous potential for commercial and industrial applications. The laboratory also has one of the worlds foremost magnet and science technology groups, which designs and builds this new generation of magnets. The National High Magnetic Field Laboratory has many exciting research opportunities for graduate students who wish to pursue research at the edge of parameter space in any area of science utilizing these world-class resources and instrumentations.
The Center for Materials Research and Technology (MARTECH) is a collaborative program in materials science involving members of the University’s physics, chemistry, and engineering departments. The centers rapidly expanding facilities include a crystal-growing and thin-film preparation lab, an ion-implantation lab, a light-scattering facility, a time-resolved optical microscopy lab, a fast Fourier Transform Far Infrared spectrometer laboratory, and equipment for the study of electrical transport and superconducting properties of metallic systems.
The Program in Nuclear Research, with its 9Mev Super FN tandem Van de Graaff accelerator, is ranked in the country’s top four nuclear research centers by the National Science Foundation. This accelerator has recently undergone a $3.5 million upgrade, with the addition of two superconducting linear accelerators designed to increase particle energy to 30 mv per nucleon.
The Institute for Molecular Biophysics is recognized as a national leader in basic, interdisciplinary research in biochemistry and physical chemistry.
The Florida State University Marine Laboratory, located 45 miles south of Tallahassee on Apalachicola Bay, is the only state-run marine research facility that gives scientists from all over the nation immediate access to a pollution-free environment in Florida. Facilities include a fleet of research vessels, a complete dive locker, classrooms, saltwater-equipped labs, and guest houses.
The Cooperative Institute for Tropical Meteorology was created in 1993, through a partnership between FSU and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which is the parent agency of the National Weather Service. The Institute brings together faculty at FSU with research and operational meteorologists at forecast offices throughout the southeastern United States and Puerto Rico. Faculty also work with scientists at the National Centers of Environmental Prediction in Miami (National Hurricane Center) and in Washington, DC. Taking advantage of one of the historical strengths of the Department of Meteorology, faculty, students, and researchers outside of FSU benefit from the many interactions produced as a result of the Institute.
The Center for Music Research is a leading unit in the application of computers to music psychology and to computer-based instruction in music. CMR also offers a seven (7) course, sixteen (16) semester hour Computers in Music Certificate Program for music majors and minors.
The Florida State University Proton-Induced X-Ray Emission (PIXE) Laboratory is a pioneer developer of PIXE analysis applications in pollution abatement studies. The laboratory is one of the few university-based PIXE centers in the country with exclusive access to a proton accelerator (a 4Mev machine).
The Florida State University Institute of Science and Public Affairs is a multifaceted institute of public service which helps government and private agencies solve problems ranging from hazardous waste disposal to tax assessment.
Research centers within the institute are designed to respond to public and private sector needs. Specialists in the fields of biology, chemistry, geography, land-use planning, public administration, physics, economics, law, and other areas carry out the university’s public service responsibility through programs in education, training, and applied research. The overriding objective is to successfully apply resources human and technical to policy problems within the state of Florida.
The institute provides university students the opportunity to work on specific projects in institute centers under the supervision of experienced faculty and staff. These projects provide training for students in problem-solving environments. Government agencies and private sector organizations benefit from this dynamic source of trained and skilled personnel.
Since 1951, students and faculty of The Florida State University have benefited from its membership in Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU). ORAU is a consortium of eighty-seven colleges and universities and a management and operating contractor for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), located in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. ORAU works with its member institutions to help their students and faculty gain access to federal research facilities throughout the country; to keep its members informed about opportunities for fellowship, scholarship, and research appointments; and to organize research alliances among its members. Through the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education, the DOE facility that ORAU manages, undergraduates, graduates, postgraduates, as well as faculty, enjoy access to a multitude of opportunities for study and research. Students can participate in programs covering a wide variety of disciplines, including business, earth sciences, epidemiology, engineering, physics, pharmacology, ocean sciences, biomedical sciences, nuclear chemistry, and mathematics. Appointment and program length range from one month to four years. Many of these programs are especially designed to increase the numbers of underrepresented minority students pursuing degrees in science- and engineering-related disciplines. A comprehensive listing of these programs and other opportunities, their disciplines, and details on locations and benefits can be found in the Resource Guide, which is available on the World-Wide-Web at http://www.orau.gov/orise/resgd/htm, or by calling either of the contacts below. ORAUs Office of Partnership Development seeks opportunities for partnerships and alliances among ORAUs members, private industry, and major federal facilities. Activities include faculty development programs, such as the Junior Faculty Enhancement Awards and the Visiting Industrial Scientist Program, and various services to chief research officers. For more information about ORAU and its programs, contact Dr. Raymond E. Bye, Jr., ORAU Council member, at 850-644-3347; contact Monnie E. Champion, ORAU Corporate Secretary, at 423-576-3306; or the ORAU Home Page at http://www.orau.gov.