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FSU Main Page > Registrar's Main Page > Graduate 99-01 Table of Contents > Research Facilities and Programs |
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 will generate in excess of $88 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.
For the urgent preservation of Floridas beaches, a combined study of storm surge impact, the history and projected future of hurricanes, and shore characteristics -- and the resultant erosion -- is conducted by the Beaches and Shores Resource Center. The center contracts with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to furnish the scientific underpinnings for the Florida Coastal Construction Control Line, an attempt to contain burgeoning beach development by setting construction projects back from the waters edge.
The Structural Biology Program, a collaboration of the University's Departments of Chemistry and Biological Sciences, is a research program within the Institute of Molecular Biophysics. Research conducted by program faculty focuses on the 3-dimensional structure of biologically important macromolecules and the structural correlates of their functional properties. Grants from the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health and the Markey Charitable Trust enabled the recent acquisition of state-of-the-art facilities including X-ray crystallography, cryoelectron microscopy, computer-based molecular modeling, bioanalytical sequencing/synthesis and NMR, electron paramagnetic resonance, laser and fluorescence spectroscopies. Graduate students associated with structural biology can enroll in either the molecular biophysics (MOB) program or in the graduate programs of chemistry or biological science.
Essential to geological investigation is the preservation of the sediment collected on research expeditions. One of the largest deep-sea sediment cold storage facilities, the Antarctic Research Facility, is located at the University. The facility, holding more than 10 miles of Antarctic core, operates as a worldwide resource for scientists both on campus and throughout the world.
The Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Institute provides a focus for theoretical and experimental studies of dynamical processes in the atmosphere, oceans, and the interior of the Earth and other planets, conducted by faculty and students in applied mathematics, dynamic meteorology, geophysics, and physical oceanography. The institutes experimental facilities include a well equipped fluid mechanics laboratory, an electronics development laboratory, a precision machine shop, a laser laboratory, several precision rotating turntables, and a unique rotating annulus which is used to simulate the general circulation of the atmosphere.
All aspects of child behavior and learning are researched in the Educational Research Center for Child Development. The center, a model for other national early educational research centers, provides a research site and laboratory setting in which faculty and graduate students may observe and work with young children.
The research needs of the state of Florida in the area of health and human service policy are responded to by the Institute for Health and Human Services Research. The center has an open-door interdisciplinary approach with participating faculty from all academic units.
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. The Florida State University also participates in Internet II, which provides access to a special high capacity national network for academic purposes. 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.Research Facilities and Special Programs
A number of special Florida State University programs have won national or international distinction in research. These include the following:The National High Magnetic Field Laboratory is one of the nation's 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 Universitys 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 lab, and equipment for the study of electrical transport and superconducting properties of metallic systems.
The Windover Archaeological Project involves research of a peat-bog burial site, located in Titusville, Florida, of a nomadic race of the Early Archaic period. The project has received national and international acclaim for the rare discovery, and subsequent cloning, of the DNA taken from the brains of the well-preserved, 8,100-year-old skeletons. The multidisciplinary efforts of the project involve anthropologists, geologists, marine biologists, biochemists, and botanists.
The Program in Nuclear Research, with its 9Mev Super FN tandem Van de Graaff accelerator, is ranked in the countrys 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 of Molecular Biophysics is recognized as a national leader in basic, interdisciplinary research in biochemistry and physical chemistry.
The FSU 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-course, sixteen (16) semester hour Computers in Music Certificate Program for music majors and minors.
The FSU 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 FSU Institute of Science and Public Affairs is a multifaceted institute of public service that helps government and private agencies solve problems ranging from hazardous waste disposal to conflict resolution.
Research centers within the institute are designed to respond to public and private sector needs. Specialists in the fields of biology, chemistry, geography, education, planning, public administration, physics, economics, law, and other areas carry out the universitys 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.
The Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Institute is unique in the Southeastern United States and is an internationally recognized leader in the application of experimental, analytical, and computational techniques to the study of flow within the atmosphere, the oceans, and the fluid portions of the Earths interior.
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. ORAU's Office of Partnership Development seeks opportunities for partnerships and alliances among ORAU's 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.