Research Centers & Institutes

Academy for Teacher Excellence Research Center

Director: Belinda Flores Co-Director: Lorena Claeys

The Academy for Teacher Excellence Research Center (ATE) is grounded in the “Culturally Efficacious Teacher” model and serves as a center for research, design, evaluation, program implementation, and collaboration for area school districts, community colleges, the private sector, and UTSA. ATE leverages institutional and community resources to better prepare teacher candidates and in-service teachers who work with diverse student populations. ATE guides the preparation and retention of teachers who will demonstrate the attitudes, knowledge, and skills of a Culturally Efficacious Teacher (Flores, Clark, Claeys, & Villarreal, 2007).
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Bank of America Child and Adolescent Policy Research Institute (BACAPRI)

Director: Leslie Neely

The Bank of America – Child & Adolescent Policy Research Institute is a University of Texas at San Antonio research center that supports the study of topics such as:
– Infant Cognition
– Early Language Development
– Early Childhood Literacy
– Juvenile Justice
– Child Abuse Prevention
– Pediatric Obesity Prevention
– School Readiness and Dropout Prevention
– Community Development
– Foster Care Youth and College Access Center
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Brain Health Consortium

Director: Jenny Hsieh

The UTSA Brain Health Consortium is a collaborative, multi-disciplinary team committed to discovering the inner workings of the brain. The Consortium integrates researchers with expertise in neuroscience, regenerative medicine, medicinal chemistry, biomedical engineering, and data analytics, with the common goal of applying those discoveries to prevent and treat neurological disorders.
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Center for Advanced Measurements in Extreme Environments (CAMEE)

Director: Kiran Bhaganagar

The Center for Advanced Measurements in Extreme Environments aims to build a sustainable source of diverse, highly trained researchers to enter the Nation’s workforce in NASA fields of earth system sciences, remote sensing technologies, computational fluid dynamics, and experimental fluid mechanics.
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Center for Advanced Manufacturing & Lean Systems (CAMLS)

Interim Director: Adel Alaeddini

The center was founded in 2007 at the University of Texas at San Antonio to address a growing need for a strong interdisciplinary organization that can conduct research and development as well as provide education and training in lean manufacturing and six-sigma, supply chain and logistics engineering, warehouse systems, automation technologies, and advanced sensors and robotics.
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Center for Archeological Research (CAR)

Interim Director: Raymond Mauldin

Established in 1974 to:
– Conduct archaeological research throughout Texas and the surrounding regions;
– Carry out archaeological surveys and excavations for federal, state, and local agencies as required by legislation and executive order;
– Provide public and private sector assistance and guidance regarding cultural resource management;
– Provide students with training opportunities in archaeological field contexts, laboratory, and technical writing; and
– Disseminate to the general public information about the history and prehistory of Texas and San Antonio.
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Center for Community Based and Applied Health Research (CCBAHR)

Directors: Erica Sosa and Meizi He

The Center for Community-Based and Applied Health Research aims to promote collaborative, interdisciplinary, applied health research that engages, empowers and mobilizes communities in the greater San Antonio metropolitan area, throughout South Texas, and beyond.

About the Center:

The Center for Community-Based and Applied Health Research (CCBAHR) fosters research collaborations among interdisciplinary UTSA research faculty and community partners including, but not limited to health care agencies, community-based organizations, schools, and faith-based organizations. In this endeavor, the Center provides an opportunity to integrate biomedical knowledge, technology, human resources, education, and policies needed for the maintenance and improvement of health, including fighting disease and adverse effects of aging.

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Center for Cultural Sustainability

Director: William A. Dupont

The CCS provides academic research and services to benefit communities, completes large-scale research projects, provides research and educational opportunities for graduate students, and convenes leaders in the field for dialogue on global practices concerning sustainable development and construction.
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Center for Excellence in Engineering Education Research (CE³R)

Director: Mehdi Shadarame

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Cyber Center for Security and Analytics

Director: Elias Bou-Harb

The Cyber Center for Security and Analytics conducts high impact research in information assurance and security and educates the cybersecurity workforce needed now and in the future. The center’s research objective is to offer leading edge solutions that will help to solve cybersecurity problems of national scope and importance.
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Center for Infrastructure Assurance and Security (CIAS)

Director: Greg White

The Center for Infrastructure Assurance and Security (CIAS) is developing the world’s foremost center for multidisciplinary education and development of operational capabilities in the areas of infrastructure assurance and security. Our vision is to become the leader in the advancement of state and community cyber security capabilities and collaboration. The CIAS has successfully integrated efforts from academia, government, and private industry. The result has been a dynamic team dedicated to infrastructure assurance, research, and education.
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Center for Innovative Drug Discovery

Director: Stanton McHardy

The Center for Innovative Drug Discovery (CIDD), a joint venture between The University of Texas at San Antonio and UT Health SA, is composed of two facilities: a High-Throughput Screening (HTS) Facility located at UTHSCSA and a Medicinal Chemistry and Synthesis Core Facility at UTSA. The ultimate intent of the CIDD is to provide a diverse array of core facilities and expertise to facilitate the translation of basic scientific discoveries into tangible pre-clinical candidate drugs that can be further developed into clinical therapies for human disease.
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Center for Research and Training in the Sciences (CRTS)

Director: David Silva

The mission of the CRTS is to promote Science, Research, and Education. The Center coordinates and administers programs related to all scientific disciplines under the direction of Dr. Andrew Tsin. Currently, the Center oversees 16 research and training programs with participants from various disciplines within UTSA. These participants include graduate and undergraduate students, faculty, and postdoctoral fellows.
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Center for Urban and Regional Planning Research

Director: Ian Caine

The mission of the UTSA Center for Urban and Regional Planning Research (CURPR) is to generate new knowledge of the forms, processes, and impacts of metropolitan and megaregional growth while advancing the creation of more sustainable, inspiring, and equitable cities.
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Cybersecurity Manufacturing Innovation Institute (CyManII)

Director: Howard Grimes

The Cybersecurity Manufacturing Innovation Institute (CyManII, pronounced sī-man-ē) introduces a cybersecure energy-ROI for energy efficient manufacturing and supply chains that secures and sustains American leadership in global manufacturing competitiveness for decades. Funded by the DOE, CyManII aggregates the most advanced institutions and national laboratories in smart and advanced manufacturing, securing automation and supply chains, workforce development, and cybersecurity.
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Institute for Cyber Security (ICS)

Director: Ravi Sandhu

The center conducts basic and applied research in partnership with academia, government and industry. The Institute’s Executive Director Prof. Ravi Sandhu reports to the Dean, College of Sciences and to the Vice-President of Research.
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Institute for Demographic and Socioeconomic Research (IDSR)

Director: Lloyd Potter

Our mission is to stimulate and support excellent social, demographic and economic science research on significant practice and policy issues.
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Institute for Health Disparities Research (IHDR)

Interim Director: Eric Shattuck

The institute is a newly established Institute at UTSA which advocates the integration of biomedical and socio-behavioral science research in addressing health disparities in South Texas and the nation. The Institute partners with local academic (UTHSCSA, school districts, etc.) and non-academic agencies (SAMHD, UHS, Texas Diabetes, Institute, etc.) to address the unequal distribution and prevalence of adverse health conditions existing in Texas and the nation.
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Open Cloud Institute (OCI)

Interim Director: Bernard Arulanandam

The Open Cloud Institute (OCI) created in 2015 is part of an initiative to develop degree programs in cloud computing and big data and foster collaboration with industry, positioning UTSA and San Antonio as world leaders in open cloud technology. With UTSA already recognized as the top university in the country for cybersecurity, the Open Cloud Institute further distinguishes UTSA as a top tier-research institution. OCI has already received many in-kind donations from industry leaders such as Rackspace, Yahoo, AMD, Intel, Mellanox Technologies and Seagate, and the OpenStack Foundation. OCI is a neutral, third party research and education laboratory that encourages research, the development, and adoption of standards-based open technologies such as open compute, openstack, and openflow by providing infrastructure, platform and software. The OCI has one of the largest Open Clouds in academia utilizing OpenStack software, co-founded by Rackspace and Open Compute hardware, founded by Facebook, to support advanced computing and big-data analytics research.
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San Antonio Cellular Therapeutics Institute (SACTI)

Director: John McCarrey

The institute facilitates research on aspects of cell and molecular biology in nonhuman primates, with particular emphases on research relating to primate embryology, stem cell biology, biogenesis research, regenerative medicine, and basic developmental biology.

Sustainable Pervasive Urban Resilience (SPUR)

Director: Adolfo Matamoros

To create a data science and distributed sensor framework founded on new discoveries to enhance performance, eliminate inefficiencies, and allow agencies and the private sector to make decisions that yield the most benefit to urban residents, particularly during strenuous circumstances.
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South Texas Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases

Director: Karl Klose

The center was established to focus state and national attention on UTSA in the fields of molecular microbiology, immunology, medical mycology, virology, microbial genomics, vaccine development and biodefense. One of the major areas of emphasis at STCEID is on the pathogenic mechanisms of emerging infectious diseases.
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Texas Sustainable Energy Research Institute (Tseri)

Director: Krystel Castillo

The University of Texas at San Antonio created the Texas Sustainable Energy Research Institute to partner with our community and contribute to a new energy future that builds on a diverse resource base to position? San Antonio as a significant contributor to the 21st century global energy economy.
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Urban Education Institute

Director: Michael Villarreal

UTSA is establishing an Urban Education Institute to serve as a hub to prepare future educators, strengthen community partnerships and raise the educational attainment levels and earnings of economically disadvantaged students. Based on the UTSA Downtown Campus within the College of Education and Human Development, the institute will produce applied and conceptual research connecting theory to practice. The Raise Your Hand Texas Foundation has committed to providing $1.1 million in seed funding to support the institute.
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UTSA Mexico Center

Director: Jerry González

The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) Mexico Center was officially established in October 2005 to promote greater knowledge and understanding of Mexico and U.S.-Mexico relations. The Mexico Center is an umbrella organization that connects Mexico-related expertise within UTSA through cross-disciplinary collaboration on research projects and activities.
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UTSA Neurosciences Institute

Director: Charles Wilson

The institute is the multidisciplinary research organization for the Neurosciences at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Our mission is to foster a collaborative community of scientists committed to studying the biological basis of human experience and behavior, and the origin and treatment of nervous system diseases.
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Women’s Studies Institute (WSI)

Director: Jackie Cuevas

The Women’s Studies Institute provides access to interdisciplinary knowledge on women, gender, sexuality, and race through collaboration among researchers, students, community and through public programming to make research accessible.
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Policy Studies Center (PSC)

Director: Roger Enriquez

The Policy Studies Center (PSC) will be a resource to any person or entity that shares the goal of enhancing the quality of life of historically underserved populations. We will accomplish this by; 1) serving as a forum for civic engagement and policy dialogue; 2) facilitating collaborative research and grant activity across the university and within the region; 3) disseminating knowledge through extended education, policy briefs, editorials, and media coverage; informing policy decision-making through evidence-based research and dialogue.

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Institute of Regenerative Medicine (IRM)

Directors: John McCarrey and Eric Brey

The IRM advances fundamental knowledge toward developing transformative technologies and therapeutics in Regenerative Medicine while training future biomedical leaders and innovators to serve the health-related needs of civilian and military communities.
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Institute for Water Research, Sustainability and Policy (IWRSP)

Director: Saugata Datta

The IWRSP serves as an entity that draws faculty within UTSA, as well as water professionals from around the San Antonio area and South Texas region, to identify water-related problems, to facilitate areas of common research interests, to address water resources for individuals, communities, agriculture, and industry, and to build an excellent research, teaching, and service center.
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The Ames Laboratory

The Ames Laboratory is a government-owned, contractor-operated national laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), operated by and located on the campus of Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa. The Ames Laboratory leads the Critical Materials Institute where researchers develop solutions to domestic shortages of rare-earth materials and other materials critical to U.S. energy security.

Key areas of research:
Materials design, synthesis and processing; analytical instrumentation design and development; materials characterization; catalysis; computational chemistry; condensed matter theory; and computational materials science and materials theory.

Research Opportunities:

Faculty (Visiting Faculty Program)
Application

Students (Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internship)
Application

Postdoctoral Fellowships in Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency
Application

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Army Research Office (ARO)

The U.S. Army Research Laboratory’s Army Research Office (ARO) mission is to serve as the Army’s premier extramural basic research agency in the engineering, physical, information and life sciences; developing and exploiting innovative advances to insure the Nation’s technological superiority. The ARO research program consists principally of extramural academic research efforts consisting of single investigator efforts, university-affiliated research centers, and specially tailored outreach programs.
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Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR)

AFOSR continues to expand the horizon of scientific knowledge through its leadership and management of the Air Force’s basic research program. As a vital component of the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), AFOSR’s mission is to support Air Force goals of control and maximum utilization of air, space, and cyberspace.
AFOSR accomplishes its mission by investing in basic research efforts for the Air Force in relevant scientific areas. Central to AFOSR’s strategy is the transfer of the fruits of basic research to industry, the supplier of Air Force acquisitions; to the academic community which can lead the way to still more accomplishment; and to the other directorates of AFRL that carry the responsibility for applied and development research leading to acquisition.
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Office of Naval Research (ONR)

As an executive branch agency within the Department of Defense, the Office of Naval Research (ONR) supports the President’s budget. ONR provides technical advice to the Chief of Naval Operations and the Secretary of the Navy. The 2011 Naval Science and Technology Strategic Plan describes ONR’s investments in 13 technology focus areas that will enable the future operational concepts of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. Additionally, ONR supports technologies for the U.S. Marine Corps.
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Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)

Creating breakthrough technologies for national security is the mission of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). By making pivotal investments in new technology-driven ideas for the United States, DARPA imagines and makes possible new capabilities for overcoming the multifaceted threats and challenges that lie ahead. This makes a better, more secure future possible. In an uncertain world, with constrained budgets, providing these new capabilities is more important than ever. DARPA has helped build a future where we can fully control the electromagnetic spectrum for communications, sensing, and imaging. Provide precise and accurate position and timing that isn’t dangerously reliant on GPS. Wield cyber as a military capability with confidence in our own cybersecurity. Increase access to and through space by lowering its cost. Open new operational regimes with advanced platforms and weapons. To build a strong foundation for tomorrow’s military systems, we are catalyzing an advanced technology base in new areas of information technology, electronics, and materials science, as well as new technologies emerging from the biological sciences.
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Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DFRA)

DTRA is the U.S. Department of Defense’s official Combat Support Agency for countering weapons of mass destruction. Our people are Subject Matter Experts on WMD, and we address the entire spectrum of chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and high yield explosive threats. DTRA’s programs include basic science research and development, operational support to U.S. warfighters on the front line, and an in-house WMD think tank that aims to anticipate and mitigate future threats long before they have a chance to harm the United States and our allies. SCC-WMD, the U.S. Strategic Command Center for Combating Weapons of Mass Destruction, synchronizes Combating Weapons of Mass Destruction efforts across our military’s geographic commands and leverages the people, programs and interagency relationships of DTRA at a strategic level. We work with the military services, other elements of the United States government, and countries across the planet on counterproliferation, nonproliferation and WMD reduction issues with one goal in mind: Making the World Safer.
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The Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical and Biological Defense (JPEO-CBD)

The Joint Program Executive Office is the Joint Services single focal point for research, development, acquisition, fielding and life-cycle support of chemical and biological defense equipment and medical countermeasures. Within the Joint Program Executive Office, eight Joint Project Managers lead, manage and direct the acquisition and fielding of chemical and biological detection and reconnaissance systems, individual and collective protection systems, decontamination systems, information management systems, medical devices, drugs and vaccines, and installation and force protection systems. Located throughout the United States, each Joint Project Management Office leverages talent and expertise from across the services under a single chain of command, providing the best chemical and biological defense technology, equipment and medical countermeasures at the right cost, at the right time and at the right place.
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Defense Medical Research & Development Program (DMRDP)

The DMRDP is focused on advancing the state of medical science in areas of the most pressing needs. The current emphasis is on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), traumatic brain injury (TBI), prosthetics, restoration of eye sight and advancing eye care, and other conditions directly relevant to battlefield injuries and other ailments that affect both Service members and their families.
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The Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (ASD(R&E)

The Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (ASD(R&E)) provides S&T leadership throughout the Department of Defense; shaping strategic direction and strengthening the research and engineering coordination efforts to meet tomorrow’s challenges.
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