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Yogesh_Vohra_storyAssociate Dean Yogesh Vohra, Ph.D. As Associate Dean for Interdisciplinary and Creative Innovation I want to welcome you to the home page of College of Arts and Science (CAS) Centers.

The College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) is home to several interdisciplinary research, education, and community outreach centers. CAS faculty is involved in collaborative projects with other faculty in the School of Business, School of Engineering, School of Health Professions, School of Medicine, School of Optometry, and School of Public Health. Several of these centers are involved in multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research projects with active participation of undergraduates, graduate students, and postdoctoral scholars. Some of the centers have industrial partners and engage in commercialization activities. Centers also support seeding of pilot research projects in emerging areas of research and education. Several Centers also maintain core facilities that are pertinent to their research portfolio and these core facilities are available for collaborative projects with outside entities.    

Two of the CAS based centers are designated as full University Wide Interdisciplinary Research Centers (UWIRCS’s).

http://www.uab.edu/opa/uwircs

In addition, CAS faculty also participates in other Centers on UAB campus.

http://www.uab.edu/opa/centers/

CAS Centers exemplify UAB’s entrepreneurial spirit and contribute to Innovation, Transformation, and Excellence in research, education, and outreach to the community.

Center for Ethics and Values in the Sciences
The Center for Ethics and Values in the Sciences focuses on the broad value questions in the sciences in general, not just bioethics. The Center seeks to be a focal point both on campus and nationally for discussion of value issues in science. The main activities of the Center are a yearly national conference and ongoing research ethics training at UAB.


The Center for Information Assurance and Joint Forensics Research (The Center)
The Center is a multidisciplinary research center with members from the UAB College of Arts and Sciences departments of Computer and Information Sciences, Justice Sciences, and Chemistry; the UAB School of Business; the UAB School of Health Professions; the UAB and UAB Health Systems Information Technology departments, and external partners.  Since information has long been and will continue to be at the heart of virtually every human enterprise, The Center has a broad focus on Information Assurance and cyber impacts on information.  From a Center perspective, Information Assurance involves not only methods and procedures to protect the storage and use of information, but also the hardware and cyber infrastructure, and software that is the storage, transmission, and use environment of information.  The Center’s Forensics Research encompasses computer forensics, classical “wet” forensics, and forensics based on image processing and Natural Language Processing (NLP).   Research in these areas ultimately involves Information Assurance, whether it is the integrity of evidence gained from criminals’ hard drives, HIPAA information, data provenance, information chain of custody, defense against phishing and malware attacks, assurance of small devices and cloud-based information, or ant other aspect of Information Assurance. UAB provides research, products and services to business, industry, and law enforcement to aid them in their efforts to protect their systems and information from being stolen or compromised.  UAB partners/clients include business, industry, law enforcement, government agencies, and other research institutions.


COSS is a multi-institutional center consisting of researchers and facilities from UAB, UA, and UAH working to improve sensor techniques using recently developed revolutionary laser and spectroscopic technologies for detecting of biological, chemical, environmental, and explosive agents with high sensitivity. Laser-enabled optical sensor and spectroscopic technologies had a significant impact all over the world on the major institutions in health care, biomedicine, communications, materials characterization and processing, defense, aerospace, and national security, and this trend can only be expected to accelerate in the future. 

Center for Social Medicine
The mission of the UAB Center for Social Medicine and Sexually Transmitted Diseases is to foster intellectual creativity and promote the growth of interdisciplinary research on the social determinants of health and disease, including social factors that influence health care delivery. The Center consists of two divisions: (1) social medicine in the Department of Sociology and (2) sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) in the Department of Medicine. The overall research agenda is broad and features non-clinical research in the social sciences on health-related topics, while the clinical focus is on STDs. Recent non-clinical projects include:
  • Survey to identify special needs of households in the Alabama Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness Program area, funded by Argonne National Laboratory, 1999-2001.
  • Participant in the Living Conditions, Lifestyles and Health (LLH) Study in the former Soviet Union, funded by the European Union, 2002-2005.
The Center for Nanoscale Materials and Biointegration has identified several Grand Materials Challenges that can be most effectively addressed through interdisciplinary efforts by involving the expertise of faculty members from six different academic disciplines:
  • To create the next generation of polymeric and ceramic biomaterials that mimic natural extracellular matrix and hierarchical architectures of bone and blood vessels.
  • To design nanostructured functionally graded metalloceramic and super-lattice ceramic thin film materials that can provide ultra smooth wear resistance surfaces in biomedical implants and double the life expectancy of these implants.
  • To understand the basic mechanisms of cell/biomaterial interaction and integration at different length scales and develop new techniques and methodologies for the characterization of the cellular response to biomaterials and biomaterial behavior in a bioenvironment.
  • To provide a new paradigm for research training at the interfaces of physics, chemistry, cell biology, materials, mechanical, and biomedical engineering to undergraduates, graduate students, postdoctoral scholars and high school teachers.
  • To accelerate the deployment of promising biomaterials, bioimaging and biosensor technologies through collaborative partnerships with leading manufacturers of biomedical implants and devices.
The focus of the UAB Center for Research on Applied Gerontology is to develop and evaluate interventions which will allow older individuals to remain independent and to experience a high quality of life. Specifically, our program seeks to improve those visual, attentional and cognitive functions which decline at varying rates among older adults, and which are particularly relevant to maintaining functional abilities such as mobility and driving skills.

English Language Institute
The English Language and Culture Institute (ELCI) exists to serve the needs of non-native English speakers in the central Alabama region through superior English language training. The ELCI also exists to serve as a cross-cultural training resource for Americans and internationals in the Birmingham area. Part-time and full-time English language courses are offered through our institute. As a special service to local companies, classes and training are available on site.

Center for Educational Accountability
The center's mission is to promote the improvement of educational outcomes of students, schools, and agencies through responsive and valid data-based decisions focused on reform.

Center for Urban Education
The Center for Urban Education is an alliance of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, the Birmingham City Schools, other school districts in the Birmingham metropolitan area, and local and national partners.  It was approved by the Board of Trustees in the fall of 2008.  The mission of the Center for Urban Education is to promote quality education for socially and economically disenfranchised groups residing in urban areas.  The Center for Urban Education supports UAB’s instructional, research, and service programs.

Center for Community Outreach Development
The Center for Community OutReach Development (CORD) was established by UAB in 1998 to advance the outreach efforts of UAB in the Birmingham community. CORD's primary focus is on advancing K-12 science education in the area and throughout the state and nation.

Other University Centers
UAB encourages collaborative, interdiciplinary efforts through its research centers. The University has over 80 interdisciplinary reseacrh centers on campus. Besides the Center for Social Medicine, faculty in Sociology work closely with a number of other centers, including: Center for Aging, Center for Geriatric Education, AIDS Research Center, Center for Women's Reproductive Health, Minority Health and Research Center, Center for Labor Education and Research, and Lister Hill Center for Policy Research.