research environment at CSULA

CSULA does not offer Ph.D. degrees; thus, all campus-wide and extramural resources are expended on creating and fostering an environment conducive to research at the undergraduate and master’s level. Our research programs are heavily oriented towards field studies, with the laboratory serving as the test-bed for ideas and for quality control and analysis purposes. All students are provided with extensive practical experience with instrumentation. We are unanimously and enthusiastically committed to the principle that a properly supervised research project is crucial for developing judgment, initiative, independence, and acceptance of greater responsibility in undergraduates, setting a foundation for continued success in graduate studies.

We have one of the most culturally rich and distinctly varied student bodies in the nation. We were 1st in CA in the number of Hispanics who subsequently earned a doctorate. In engineering, we are 7th nationally in the number of Hispanics in graduate school and 10th in the number that obtain a Ph.D. (NSF, 2000). Moreover, of all public universities in CA, we award the highest number of degrees in science and engineering to African Americans and Hispanics. We already have an existing and very successful 12-year REU program in chemistry, which has trained 125 students. Our College of Engineering, Computer Science and Technology (ECST) has recently received over $11 million to establish the NASA S.P.A.C.E. lab (to design and fabricate/assemble testbeds resembling complex space segmented reflector telescopes) and the NASA University Research Center (URC) (to conduct research in intelligent flight control, unmanned air vehicles, autonomous control, and space telescope technology). More significantly, our environmental program has, in the last 8 years, grown steadily from 29 to 108 students, while the number of faculty has tripled (total of 14). CEA-CREST generated most of this growth by providing a successful and innovative model of training M.S. students. All of this has created a research landscape that is nurturing, personal, and invigorating for the students.