Research and Scholarship at Viterbi

Strengths in research and scholarship have always been the defining marks of the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. With only a medium-sized engineering faculty, the school is ranked consistently among the top five in the nation in total research volume and in the amount of funded research per faculty member. It also accounts for about a third of all of USC's research. The reasons are simple:

• Excellence in scholarship.
• Mission driven by interdisciplinary research and societal relevance.

The school is one of only three in the nation to boast two concurrent National Science Foundation Engineering Research Centers:

• The Integrated Media Systems Center (IMSC);
• The Biomimetic MicroElectronic Systems (BMES) center.

Working across the disciplines is the hallmark of both centers: Researchers from USC's Annenberg School for Communication and the School of Cinematic Arts are our main partners in IMSC. BMES lies at the intersection between engineering and medicine, namely, our school and the Keck School of Medicine at USC. The excellence in scholarship was evident in the awards of the centers: The IMSC proposal finished first among 117, the proposal for BMES was first among 79 other competing proposals.

Interdisciplinary research and societal relevance is at the core of an important third national center: The Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events (CREATE), the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) very first university Center of Excellence. DHS reviewed more than 70 proposals before choosing USC's. CREATE combines our strengths with those of the USC School of Policy, Planning and Development. The close collaboration between the two schools is evident in yet another center, the U.S. Department of Transportation center METRANS, which focuses on metropolitan transportation problems.

The evolving research landscape is prompting new forms of collaboration: major university-industry research partnerships. The Viterbi School has been at the forefront of this wave, through its Center for Interactive Smart Oilfield Technologies (CiSoft), a partnership with Chevron. The center promotes the integration of information technology with the management of oilfield operations.

Our success in research is fueled by the close interaction with dedicated research institutes: A particularly bright light is the USC Information Sciences Institute (ISI) in Marina del Rey. ISI is engaged in the broad area of information technology and provides the technological lubrication needed to solve a number of societally important problems. With a brilliant history—it is one of the birthplaces of the Internet—ISI is a research powerhouse that addresses timely societal problems.

Advancing research and scholarship at today's breathtaking technological pace cannot be sustained without a robust Ph.D. program. The school is aspiring to support all first-year Ph.D. students with unrestricted scholarships—and to graduate each year as many Ph.D. students as it has tenure-track faculty. Today, more than 100 unrestricted fellowships are available for first-year Ph.D. students, while the last two Ph.D. graduate classes have averaged close to 85 percent of the number of tenure-track faculty.

Technology will relentlessly drive innovation and the solution of complex global problems. Scholarship will be increasingly defined by the ability to work across the fields. The Viterbi School, at the forefront of this emerging paradigm shift, is committed to being a leader. The present issue of Viterbi Engineer gives a brief glimpse of this commitment.

Yannis C. Yortsos
Dean
USC Viterbi School of Engineering