Research Facilities and Special Programs
Research and Research Facilities
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. In fiscal year 2002, faculty at The Florida State University secured its highest level of external funding in the University’s history: $161.7 million. 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 and biochemistry, 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 integral 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 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.
Special Programs
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,
which opened in 1994, 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.
This unique facility, home to Nobel Laureate Robert Schrieffer, 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 world’s foremost magnet and science technology groups, which designs and builds this new generation of magnets. In 1999, the lab brought on-line a new 45-Tesla hybrid magnet, the most powerful magnet of its kind in the world. 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 Florida State University has established an interdisciplinary
School of
Computational Science and Information Technology (CSIT)
to support graduate education and research, to provide a leading-edge high-performance computational facility, and to contribute to a high level of computational culture beneficial to the nation and the state.
CSIT embraces all of the possible inferences drawn from its name: its scope includes the science and technology of performing, analyzing, and archiving large-scale computations over wide-area networks, and its goal is to employ large-scale computer and network resources in pursuit of scientific and technological research goals. Both the tools and content of computational science are embraced by the educational mission of the school.
The
Computational and Information Science Laboratory (CISL)
provides the infrastructure for the interdisciplinary research and education programs. Through the acquisition and maintenance of the state-of-the-art computing, visualization, and high-bandwidth network connections to other major national centers, the laboratory provides support for The Florida State University’s existing and future user-base of large-scale high-performance computing. A user services staff proactively inculcates a high-performance computing culture through consulting services and short courses.
The
Center for Materials Research and Technology (MARTECH)
is a collaborative program in materials science involving members of the University’s physics, chemistry, biology and engineering departments. The center’s rapidly expanding facilities include several thin-film preparation labs, a light-scattering laboratory, facilities for fabricating nanostructured materials, including a clean room, photo- and electron-beam lithography, extensive surface analysis equipment including XPS, helium-scattering and scanning probe microscopy and equipment for the study of electrical transport and magnetic as well as superconducting properties of complex materials.
The
Program in Nuclear Research
is highly ranked nationally, with emphasis on nuclear structure physics; radioactive beam studies; studies of nuclear reaction mechanisms using polarized Li beams; accelerator based atomic physics; electron scattering; and relativistic heavy ion reactions. A large part of the program in experimental nuclear physics and atomic physics uses The Florida State University’s Superconducting Linear Accelerator Facility, which ran its first experiment in 1987. The facility consists of a Super-FN tandem Van de Graaff electrostatic accelerator which injects into a heavy-ion superconducting linear accelerator. This facility, with state of the art instrumentation, provides forefront nuclear research capability and is unique in the southeast.
The
Institute for Molecular Biophysics
is recognized as a national leader in basic, interdisciplinary research in biochemistry and physical chemistry. A large effort based in the IMB is its Program in Structural Biology, begun in 1990. The primary research focus of this group is the elucidation of the three-dimensional structures, functional properties, and assemblages of biological macromolecules using biophysical techniques (e.g. X-ray crystallography, cryoelectron microscopy, electron diffraction, computational modeling, EPR and NMR spectroscopy).
The
Florida State University Marine Laboratory
is located 45 miles south of Tallahassee on Apalachee Bay. This research facility gives scientists from all over the nation immediate access to the pollution-free marine environment of the north Florida coast. Facilities include a fleet of research vessels, classrooms, saltwater-equipped laboratories, guest housing, and a dive locker. The
Academic Diving Program, which is part of the laboratory and is located on the main campus, provides support for and oversight of all scientific and educational compressed-gas diving conducted under the auspices of The Florida State University. The Academic Diving Program also teaches or co-teaches courses in scientific diving methods for biologists and archaeologists, and teaches courses and workshops in SCUBA, from basic through instructor, as well as a number of diving specialties including dry-suits, underwater photography, full-face mask and helmet diving, and techniques for underwater search and recovery for public safety divers.
The
Cooperative Institute for Tropical Meteorology
was created in 1993 through a partnership between The Florida State University and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the parent agency of the National Weather Service. The Institute brings together faculty at The Florida State University with research and operational meteorologists at forecast offices throughout the southeastern United States and Puerto Rico. Faculty also work with scientists at the National Center for Environmental Prediction in Washington, D.C. and the National Hurricane Center in Miami. Taking advantage of one of the historical strengths of the Department of Meteorology, faculty, students, and researchers outside of The Florida State University benefit from the interactions produced as a result of the Institute.
The
Center for Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies, located at the Don Fuqua Research Complex at Innovation Park, trains oceanographers and meteorologists in research focusing on the impact of tropical and mid-latitude ocean dynamics on global weather patterns. COAPS scientists specialize in climate prediction on scales of months to decades, air-sea interaction and modeling, and predictions of socio-economic consequences of ocean-atmospheric variations.
The
Center for Music Research
(CMR) exists to foster research and publication and provides a support system for graduate education, faculty and student research, post-doctoral study, and occasional workshops, symposia, and visiting scholars. The aims include developing new knowledge about music, music education, music therapy, and related areas through scholarly inquiry. Research programs in all music phenomena are encouraged and include the following: music perception and cognition, music skill acquisition, music listening, music and emotion, music acoustics and psychoacoustics, instructional techniques, music education and therapy applications, pedagogy and other topics.
The
John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art
located in Sarasota, Florida, is the designated State Museum of Florida. Recently the Legislature shifted administration of the museum to The Florida State University in recognition, in part, of the growing trend to maximize the educational value and potential of museums and, in part, to take advantage of the University’s commitment to the arts. That potential is especially evident through this association with the Sarasota community due to mutual strengths in the areas of the fine and performing arts and corrollary interests, such as the American circus. The Ringling Museum, the home of an internationally renowned art collection, occupies sixty acres of beautiful bay front property including the museum of art, the historic Asolo Theatre, Ca’ d’Zan, the Ringling Mansion, and the Circus Museum. Together with The Florida State University Performing Arts Center, which lies adjacent to the art museum, it holds center stage for The Florida State University Ringling Center for the Cultural Arts which was created by the Florida Legislature in the year 2000.
The Florida State University
Institute of Science and Public Affairs
is a multifaceted institute of public service and applied research which 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 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.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. Kirby W. Kemper, 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.
A long-time member of the Southeastern Universities Research Association, Florida State University also is a new member of a seven-university consortium, headed by the University of Tennessee, that serves as an advisory group to the new managers of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). The group’s mission is to work with ORNL’s new not-for-profit management company, UT-Battelle, to set scientific and engineering research priorities for ORNL. The Florida State University joins UT, the University of Virginia, Virginia Tech, Duke University, Georgia Tech and North Carolina State University in this capacity.
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